Doomsday Unit AJ-001 (II)

The group was now a distance away from the plaza. They ducked through alleyways barely lit by dim neon signs street cats on trash cans on railings were frozen in place. They crossed buildings from overhangs and bridges that connected many of them together. 

"Miss RL, I firmly believe that it would be in your best interest to make your way towards the City Command Center posthaste. It appears that following Mister AJ has led you in the opposite direction, hindering our current objective"

This damn bot doesn't know when to shut up.

Owen had expressed his dissatisfaction with the current situation for the fourth time. The two had been following AJ for the past half hour, tailing behind him by a few meters. 

AJ said it traveling by rooftop, would reduce the amount of D-Buggs come across. And from the looks of it he's right.

"Owen, shush. He's going to the Command Center as well. It's just a detour."

Owen's eye turned red, "That's what he tells you but his true intentions could be vile. He could plan wear you down by you dragging halfway across the city only to bring about your demise in some abandoned building."

RL Raised her eyebrows, "Why would he do that? Isn't he a Doomsday Unit as well. With the same objective?"

"Well, it is possible he is off the mission." Owen seemed to by grasping at straws trying to convince even himself of the notion.

She ignored his fatuous attempts to change her mind. Noticing his words were falling on deaf ears, he buzzed away from her and hovered over to AJ's Orbital Warden, ready to argue with it instead.

"You! As his Orbital Warden, it is imperative that you stay on task. Why are you going along with his inane antics? The Command Center should be your course."

The Warden's eye transitioned to green, "Certainly, but is it not our role as warden to aid the Doomsday Units in whatever endeavors they undertake?"

Their back and forth continued in circular arguments. Ever since they joined forces with AJ RL grew more suspicious of Owen. His overzealous desire to arrive at the Command Center and his hesitation to answer certain questions she posed, especially about anything that pertains to her past, was a bit concerning.

I thought after seeing that D-Bugg, that safety was the reason he was in such a rush. But now that we're with someone who can handle them, his motives seem to be something else entirely. No matter how helpful he has been so far, I must keep that In mind.

"I think you forget that despite our stronger bodies, we're still human, Orbital Warden." AJ chimed.

"I fail to see your logic." Owen said, his sides turning slowly. "What do you—"

AJ rose a finger up to Owen as he crouched down in his defensive stance.

"You don't control me–"

"Shut the hell up. We're at our destination. Do you hear that?" The unchanging inflection in AJ's voice and the attentive stare toward the building in front of him immediately quieted Owen. 

RL followed his eyes. The building he observed at was a convenience store named Highlander's General Store as indicated by a giant LED billboard that hung just above the entrance. Looking inside through the windows, RL could see people frozen in place, searching for items down the aisles. Compared to many other buildings, especially those that rise into the sky, this convenience store seemed relatively intact.

It's funny. We're in Paris, but the name of the store is in a language I can understand. Actually mostly everything I've seen has been readable.

Something was moving around inside the store.

RL looked at AJ, "I heard something moving around in there."

He nodded to himself. Affirming the situation.

"Another D-Bugg, most likely. Warden, check what's inside the store."

AJ's Warden's eye went yellow and its sides started to twirl, hovering side to side in the air. After a couple of seconds, its movements stopped.

RL gave Owen a look that clearly expressed how AJ's warden was outplaying him in almost every way. Owen's eye turned pink.

"There's a scanner type in there." The Warden said, "It's marking the frozen humans."

AJ kneeled, resting his elbow on his knee. "Scanner type. That's new. By the name, it could be a problem if it marks us. We'll need to drag it out somehow."

"...Somehow. Without it noticing us...." AJ scanned his surroundings, looking at the buildings and floating debris and sucked his teeth when realizing it wouldn't be of any use. He rested his eyes on RL.

"I can help." She said.

"Sure, once your waist is fully healed."

RL looked down and touched her side, It was still bruised and hurt a lot. However, compared to the amount of force she took from the hit, the damage felt minuscule and healing rather swiftly. 

Another benefit of being a Doomsday Unit. I guess.

He turned toward Owen and his warden, his eyes lighting up. 

"Of Course. My Warden, head over to the entrance and make enough noise to draw the D-Bugg's attention."

"Are you sure? It may mark me."

He shook his head, his yellow hair waving delayed behind him, "It won't come to that. And even if it did. I have a sneaking suspicion that it won't consider you a 'bug'."

His warden agreed to his demands and floated over to the sliding doors of the convenience store. Suddenly a high pitched noise encapsulated the area, ringing in the back of RL's ears.

Damn. That's loud.

"You sure this is a good idea, AJ? You might attract other D-Buggs." RL said anxiously.

"It's fine, we would have already had some company if there were any given how loud your Warden was arguing with us."

Owen's eyes turned red.

Sound erupted from inside the store. Some of the rows of items tumbled off their perches, falling, only to be stopped in their flow midway through the air. Crashing through the door, the D-Bugg appeared.

A grenade of glass sprayed in every direction. Some of it raced down toward AJ and RL's position. She ducked behind AJ, hiding herself from the sharp fragments. Her quick movement reminded her that her waist was heavily bruised, wincing.

AJ was hit. A thin piece of glass sliced through skin on his cheek and blood immediately spilled down. 

"AJ!" RL said. 

AJ didn't wince from the impact of the glass shards. His face remained unchanged despite the harm done.

Peering over his shoulder, she was able to get a good look at the metal machine. It floated through the air as easily as the Orbital Wardens did, able to move omnidirectionally whenever it wanted. Whatever anti-gravity system it boasted, it had to be very elaborate. In fact the similarities did not end there, like the D-Bugg AJ killed earlier, this one had one eye, except it wasn't protected by any outer shell. What was similar to the Orbital Wardens was the way its eye constantly shifted in hue and exposure, shining it brightly and dulling it in rapid succession.

Protruding behind this D-Bugg was a flexible tail that swayed in the air. They hosted a number of cylindrical parts that had fin-like extensions. It grew smaller as it approached the end of the tail and rotated in a circular manner as though detecting something.

AJ turned to Owen who's steely form protected him from the onslaught. "RL's Warden! Use the flash from earlier to blind the target! Now!"

"Like I said, you don't control me!" Even though he expressed his reluctance, Owen still complied and rushed the flying D-Bugg, spinning his ends as fast as possible. 

The D-Bugg turned toward Owen, trying to process the speeding towards it.

"Flash activated." 

Owen ignited into a ball of searing light, washing away the shadow of The Falling Sky and letting hints of the sun that poked around the corner of the building that smothered it. After a few seconds, the shadow returned and the sky darkened, but Owen's flash had done its part. The D-Bugg reeled back, its eye shifting to a different collar every half second trying to recalibrate its visual inputs.

AJ made no hesitation and rose from his position. Inhaling as much still air as possible, he expanded his chest to its maximum. He dug his right foot deep into the gravel, and dragged his leg back in half a circle. Extending his arm just before his limit, he pulled his machete behind his head, the sharp edge facing the D-Bugg. With a snap of extreme motion, AJ pitched the blade out of his hand. It cut through the air without pause, whizzing just by Owen and landing with perfect aim right into the D-Bugg's eye. 

"BUG. LOCA-" The- D-Bugg's auditory inputs shut down before it could complete the scan..

There was so much force in the impact that the blade cut cleanly through the machine before it lost all momentum and twirled into the pavement, kicking up a light amount of dust to freeze in the air.

The D-Bugg had been felled.

"Holy shit… You just did that." RL said, her eyes as wide as they could ever be staring at the twitching D-Bugg.

She chuckled at the sight.

Despite calling us the bugs, in death, they look more like insects. 

AJ let his breath go, pushing the air he held back out into the atmosphere to be halted by time once more.

"It was a hurried and risky plan, but the only way I could think of killing that thing was with one precise move. We're lucky it wasn't as heavily armored as the last one." He reached his arm down toward RL.

"Still," she took his arm and pulled herself up to her feet, "That was mighty impressive."

The two walked over to the shut down D-Bugg. Its eye still flickered on and off. AJ kicked the now hunk of metal parts over to reveal the designation.

[CSSX8]

AJ frowned, "C-tier again. But the second S must mean Scanner. The one before was an R… Ranger maybe?" 

Immediately AJ started picking apart the D-Bugg. A few minutes pass of RL simply watching AJ scour the machine for parts and then putting those parts into his Warden's storage. 

"It's unfortunate that I ruined the eye, that seemed to be a nice part. But the tail might be useful for something."

"Say AJ…" RL spoke up, her curiosity getting the best of her, "Why do you scavenge the D-Bugg for parts?"

"Oh. Didn't your Warden tell you? I'll tell you anyway."

RL mentally sent a thousand daggers towards Owen. 

"D-Buggs are very similar to Orbital Wardens in their technological make-up. They probably have some kind of artificial intelligence as well, given the way they function. Which means their like AD's and their parts can be synthesized together to make an Auxiliary Device."

"Huh," She thought aloud, "...so it's like a "create your character" kind of thing."

AJ paused and laughed a little.

Its odd seeing him laugh like that.

"I guess you're right." He placed the tail in front of his Warden who began the storage process, "Though I couldn't tell you how you actually synthesize them. That's still unknown. But I'm gathering the parts now so that when we know how, I can easily make a weapon at an okay LvL from the get go."

"That's a lot of information to know. How long have you been awake?"

"Judging only with my internal clock, I woke up from that lab almost a day ago. I was told by my Orbital Warden that I was the second one awake. Another was up long before even me."

I wonder what they're up to... Probably at the Command Center by now.

RL was surprised by how much AJ already had learned… or known. He might still have his memories unlike her. It made her feel a bit left out. This entire time since her awakening, she had done nothing but ask questions the whole time. And while she needed to learn more about the situation she was in with time being nonexistent and giant mechanized abominations roaming around killing people, she wanted to contribute more.

In that same thought, AJ's somewhat extensive knowledge started to make RL cautious of his Intentions. Owen was starting to rub off on her and was at the very least keeping it in the back of her head that he might have strayed from the task of saving the world.

Something to keep in mind as I stay in close proximity to him.

"Is that why you came here? To search for parts from these scanner bots?"

"No," he said, a sound rumbled in his stomach area that made him blush slightly, "I came here for something to eat."

The sound of his stomach made her rest a hand on her own, laughing shyly. "Good idea, so much has happened that I forgot that we need that to survive."

AJ looked at Owen, "Despite everything, we're still human."

With that, RL walks into the convenience store with AJ and the Wardens.