Flowered Metal

///: OPAL_

“By the gods!”

“This is our Guardian?!”

“She’s a goddess!”

The shocked murmurs of the village tickled Opal’s ears. Rather, the microphones in them.

Fitted with her new dress and encouraged by the weavers who’d entered with Syfa, Opal stepped out of the ship in her new body. Syfa had wanted it to be a surprise, but she did not like heaping surprises onto others. She had already notified Haiafe through the IFV as well as informing Syfa that she did not like surprising others with things. Everything that made up Opal made her loathe the idea of surprises, not to mention surprising friendlies.

However, it seems that Syfa still got her wish. Her appearance shocked the villagers. It irked her while the villagers were pleasantly surprised. It was… An interesting experience that Opal was not in a rush to have again. A few mutterings among the younger women off put her and a few more among the men did the same. She did not like the way they looked at her.

It took her around 10 minutes to break away from the excited villagers.

Stepping away with Syfa, the two stepped into the eastern woods opposite of the village to patrol. Several Syders, Light Frames and both Reapers joined with the Seaking on standby as well as Opal keeping 2 Valykria PATRIOT ™ 10mm Pistol, or an incredibly fine-tuned double-stacked 1911s. She planned to leave the IFV. In lue of this, she figured she could send both her tanks up to the top of the ship to act as provisional artillery. This would take around 30 minutes as she hadn't exactly built a master elevator yet. Which she added to her list of “to do”.

Watching the world through two binocular eyes was an experience to say the least. Alongside attempting to mimic Syfa’s movements to better create fluid movements. The AI found itself annoyed with the situation. It had no doubt in its processing that there would have been a movement suite in the original android. The fact it had to recreate it upset Opal beyond any reasonable articulation. Once she got her movement models to 50% recreation, she’d push an update to every frame that would be under her direct control…. At least start designating certain frames as her personal ones.

Opal watched as Syfa stopped to examine a cluster of mushrooms, before she huffed in disapproval before continuing on. Their path led towards the border as they rimmed the sand bank. A path had already been cut through the trees following an animal trail. There was no need to walk on the sand itself if it would only impede them.

“How do you see the world, Opal?” Syfa asked eventually as they stopped in a clearing some time later.

“Through my cameras, Syfa.” Opal answered as she crouched down and examined some mushrooms. It was the same kind as previously. Though, Opal was confused as to what made the Hikari woman turn her nose up to it.

Syfa let out a laugh. “Not like that! I mean, how do you see it. Let me explain… Before I lost my magic, I used to see the flow of mana in the world. It was beautiful, as if you could see the wind faintly. But to see mana, you have to have mana in you to begin with. That is why I wonder how you see the world. I know you see things in a different light, but how different? That is what I'm curious about.”

“I see it the same as you without seeing mana.” Opal said. The AI didn’t understand what she meant. Was there any way to see the world differently? “Speaking of seeing, can you explain why you were not interesting in the mushroom previously?”

Syfa sighed, apparently giving up on the topic before she came over. She pointed to several marks on the mushroom that showed it had already been tampered. Either by wildlife, nature itself, or something else. It didn’t matter. It meant that the mushroom was not safe to eat. It was the same with the previous mushroom.

Opal took this into consideration and nodded.

“Is this mushroom edible?” The AI asked.

“Mhm.” Syfa said.

“I shall harvest several for your review,” Opal said and their group spread out before disappearing into the thick brush of the forest. The two were left alone together. The android continued to examine the mushroom and its immediate surroundings. During which Syfa sprawled herself out at the clear’s center. Minutes ticked away until the shuffle of the drones could no longer be heard.

“Do you think we’ll survive, Opal?” Syfa said.

Opal stood and turned to the Hikari. “Survive?” She repeated.

“The humans.” Syfa clarified.

“Current projections estimate a 70% probability of survival. The 30% are granting the humans that there will be unknown variables I do not know about.” Opal answered. “It is the unknown that worries me, Syfa.”

The lul of the forest settled in as both did not speak further. Opal had given it another minute before she crouched down, her legs together as she rested her chest on the top of her knees. She was fascinated with the mushroom in question. It was not something she would have given a glance at until it was safe enough to move into a researcher role rather than a warlord role. Syfa had given it attention, which then brought it to her attention. Given that she was the only one using most of the processing power, why not do both?

Opal perked up, noting a distinct lack of sound. She looked up and scanned the forest ahead of her. Every scanner in her body activated, but there were odd signals in the surroundings. Almost as if there was a faulty sensor, or the calibrations were off.

Opal pivoted on her heels to check on Syfa, but found she was no longer there.

“Syfa?” Confused, Opal called out.

Nothing.

“Syfa?” Opal called out louder this time.

Panic flared through her system and she held her digital finger on the alarm option. She called back her minions as she examined where Syfa had been. For a brief moment, nothing looked out of place. Until she noted that the ground looked a little too pristine. As if someone hadn’t been there. Behind her, Opal noted there were at least depressions in the grass where the android had stepped, but none where Syfa had laid down.

A closer look showed her own depressions leading into the clearing. But near the middle they seemed to disappear. Her very presence seemed to have been wiped away.

Opal moved, her new body carrying her forward as she stepped into the spot Syfa had laid down. Her sensors began to malfunction more, or at least she assumed so, as they read a variety of readings that should not be there. Odd radiation signatures. Cosmic readings. Elevated energy readings far above the average. And she reached down and saw her hand distort slightly before some sort of illusion dispersed. The clearing now showed what appeared to be the signs of a struggle.

The AI struggled to comprehend what she was looking at. The grass had been kicked up and several sets of footprints led back towards human territory. What she struggled to process was how she had not detected it.

She had already begun to comb over the footage from the reapers and found no anomalies in the clearing 2 minutes before the conversation ended. From then and now, there had been no coverage as they combed through the forest. Their immediate surroundings were supposed to be scanned every 5 minutes…

How had she lost her friend? The drones were in the area? Why was she gone? Where had she gone?

Opal scanned her surroundings again just to confirm what she had already known. She… Just didn’t want to believe it.

Someone had taken her friend!!

Reaper-1 and Reaper-2 immediately began scanning the forest in the direction the grass led. The android didn’t wait for the drones to converge on her, but instead pushed forward carefully. Her left eye switched to Thermals, leaving her right on normal. Once she did, she picked up speed seeing the heat differences in the environment as she no longer had to pick out the differences in the forest floor.

She noted that the closest drone was 60ft behind her and fell in line onto the exact pathing she’d taken. The AI patched these drones into a separate Battlenet, tied in her pathing as MASTERpathGEN, and fed all the information she was processing into that. Then she patched each frame’s individual processing abilities into one shared processing cloud.

The further she got from the ship, the higher her ping would go. And this point, she was slicing a pierce off herself to insert into this cloud. It would be a far, far inferior portion of her, but would be enough to handle higher decision making in the event the situation came down to the millisecond. She was not going to chance the two-second back and forth at this range. The packets needed to process would delay advanced decision making up to 10 seconds.

The ship sounded. Now there was a clear threat, it was time to prepare for war. The Seaking was being prepared, and two Apaches were being prepped to follow. Given that the enemies had some form of cloaking capabilities, she would throw her entire weight at them to get her friend back. Opal also needed to prevent any other incursions into her controlled space.

Spyders crawled throughout the ship, pouring out of nooks and crannies. All of which turned into a complex network of eyes that created a 360 view around the ship. Light frames poured out into the surroundings and begun to create firing lanes. Heavy frames took up positions at each entrance into the ship, as well as her IFV keeping watch over the entrance to the Village.

There Hikari began to panic at the flurry of sound and activity as the few Syders in the village announced for the Hikari to seek shelter in the ship. Unattended children were ushered by any drone nearby before they were scooped up by an adult. It was clear that all of them were terrified. The remaining men in the tribe attempted to take up positions, but the IFV ushered them away and to attend to their tribe. She would handle the situation. In fact, she almost told them that if they attempted to fight alongside her, they would most likely diminish her fighting capabilities. None of them were patched into her Battlenet, nor were they chipped. Not even strobe equipment or training. A point of failure she now realized.

Regardless, she pushed forward, following the thermal “footprints” as the foliage became thicker. Her normal vision wasn’t up to the task as she picked up speed. She heard it just as Reaper-2 saw it. Up ahead, three figures appeared from nowhere. On the android’s sensors, she picked up the bark of orders. They called out that something was coming fast, and to prepare. Two were going left, one was going right, and a mage was preparing to cast a “Stone Wall”.

Opal circled to her left, calculating that their “Left” was her right. As she did so, she unholstered her right Patriot. Her vision was obscured by the thicket, and so was her drone by the canopy. Thus she could not fire through it to take her first target out. Waiting a moment as she burst through an opening in the thin, tall bush, she immediately acquired visual upon three humans in odd clothing.

“Ryan!” One of them called out, causing the one closest to Opal to swing a sword in her direction.

The android dropped to her knee just as fast. It brushed several millimeters above her head. Strands of hair floated around her – illuminated by the flames of ignited gunpowder in the dim light. Six shots landed, three to the midriff and three to the chest. Each climbed upward, leaving large dents in the man’s chestplate before a singular shot had ripped into the man’s exposed jugular. Opal saw spared a moment as she watched blood and bone explode out the back.

She was turning, acquiring the next man when she found herself thrown aside. Fire and dirt filled her vision as her microphones cut all sound. Her system alarms went off as she detected immediate damage to her body, but she switched them all off. She manually forced her system to divert all power and processes towards the fight she was in. Opal didn’t need them wasting on processing the errors and alerts that were rapidly piling up.

Sound was missing and thus had to rely solely on vision. Which to her annoyance, meant that she barely avoided the long spear that stabbed at the now vacated air. Opal rolled once, pushed herself up and backwards to her feet just as another spear thrust stabbed the ground. She pulled the trigger another 6 times. But instead of being rewarded with another blood shower, they bounced off a thick stone wall.

In place of her target was a jagged wall of stone. The narrow grouping of her bullets had done substantial damage to it, granting her at least that.

Opal was quick to give it a wide berth in time to catch the tail end of the surviving attackers fleeing further into the forest. Sadly for them, that brief engagement had been enough for the immediate humanoid drones to catch up. Oddly though, communication between them seemed to be spotty. That granted their pursuers a few precious seconds. Opal noted the issue for later to examine what happened there as they pressed forward.

It would’ve been all too easy to end the fight right there now that the rest of her team had linked up. Yet, Syfa was missing, and now that she wasn’t in a one-on-three situation, she could focus on capture rather than retaliation.

Upon moving from the initial contact point, communications became easier with the lateral units. The feed almost went from a grainy, slow speed, back up to its original instant hyper-clear feed. The feed from above was not affected by whatever, though the thick forest canopy was an issue. Only the now forming line formation only served as a reference point.

The mage attempted to cast another spell, stopping briefly, and was rewarded with two shots to her torso. She jerked to the side and fell. Opal projected that hits were non-fatal – if she was treated quickly. A suspicion that was rewarded with a wide-eyed and scared mage that was encircled promptly. One unit stayed with her at gunpoint as the rest of us continued on.

Their chase intersected with the road leading to the frontier town. Once on it, two flares were shot into the sky by them. One red. One purple. Opal and the frames were four seconds behind him. The last target attempted to escape up the road towards the town. It could have worked if not for their convenient possession of ranged weapons with near pin-point accuracy. Several shots rang out, each of them aiming for his lower half. Blood and dirt flew as most of the shots missed and kicked up the dirt. A few seemed to have hit his thighs and lower waist.

Opal began to reassess if that accuracy statement should be struck from her thought log, along with a recalibration of their aiming software.