The Two Sisters

Stormheart Castle, Lothar Golden, Aria's World
9:02 PM

As I walked back through the stone corridors of the dungeon, this time I was accompanied by my former deadly enemy, a dangerous Imperial combat DOLL leading the way. I trusted that she wouldn't betray me by leading me directly to the guards, but the night had been chaotic enough, so I was open to new ideas. Besides, no matter how much we walked, that moment never really arrived. Instead, I saw security doors open as we passed, bypassing the security systems, or saw her dismantle an old iron-barred door with the strength of just one hand, suggesting that she was at least trying to appear to be on my side.

After a few minutes, the android ran and positioned herself next to a certain wooden door. She stood aside and pointed out that the other unit was in this room. Remembering what she had told me about a guard on the other side, I took out my pistol and placed it next to the wood. Knowing that all hell would break loose as soon as I pulled the trigger, I took a deep breath, one last moment of calm, and fired three times. With a kick, I forcefully opened the door to see inside. Inside were three people looking in my direction - one in a white lab coat, the others armed guards, and another person lying on the floor convulsing as he died. Their shocked companions stood with their mouths agape, so I took advantage of the situation to continue firing inside. I managed to hit one of them in the head with my second shot, while the scientist and the other soldier ran out of my sight towards another corridor on the right. Shortly after, a new group of soldiers came out of the same corridor and began firing without hesitation, forcing me to take cover behind a pillar. My weapon was out of ammunition, so as bullets flew by and landed barely centimeters from me, I had to stay calm and reload the weapon, especially with a weapon I had never used before, like the C96. I took a clip of bullets from my apron and carefully inserted it into the weapon to avoid dropping any. Just before I finished reloading, I heard most of them stop firing to reload, so it was my moment to take the offensive. I stepped out from behind the pillar and aimed down the hall toward the door. It took less than two seconds for the pistol to be empty again, and its victims were two more men.

"She is reloading the gun!"
"Finish her now!" Said a soldier a little far away

It made me so angry that he was bothering me even in the state he was in, that just I finished reloading the gun I shot him in the head to finish him off. I could hear the footsteps of the last guard do so quickly, I knew that he was not going to turn to point and shoot, he was going to fire blindly from the side of the pillar. So to try to gain a small advantage I jumped up and grabbed the pillar to climb a little higher than a person would normally be. My technique worked because when the guard fired all his shots passed under me. When his submachine gun ran out of ammunition, I threw myself on top of him, and when we fell to the ground I was finally able to make a Contact shot, so his helment didn't matter, since without a doubt the three shots I fired at him had killed him. 

Once the room was empty, I ran as fast as I could to close the door and block it with a nearby table and cabinet to buy time. The android, on the other hand, ran to a large, strange machine in the middle of the room. The heat it emitted could be felt even from a distance, but the doll didn't hesitate to open the hatch with her own hands, revealing the contents of the machine inside. Inside was another girl just like her, with white hair, orange eyes, a mechanical body, articulated wrists, and an expressionless face. Despite the glowing red metal next to her and the similarly hot cables attached to her back, the poor girl was suspended in mid-air by the cables on her back, unable to free herself. But I managed to find a lever to release her from the side of the furnace. When the poor girl fell, I wanted to help her get up, but the doll that had accompanied me stopped me immediately.

"Don't touch her!"
"AR-37's body is still at a high temperature of over 1600 degrees Celsius. It's impossible to touch her without suffering severe burns," she said, standing between us.

"Although it's not ideal, there's a water tank in corridor 23-B with enough capacity to speed up the cooling process."
"The ballistic titanium composition can easily withstand the tempering," the other twin doll said as the stone floor near her began to deform from the heat.

"Okay, good, no problem."
"Well, actually, there is a problem: I'm human, and I have no idea where Corridor 23-B is," I replied as I searched the dead soldiers for a better weapon, like a submachine gun and its ammunition.

"Corridor 23-B is to the left of the previous corridor," the two androids said in unison and without emotion, in a cold way.

"Alright, I got it."
"So the plan is to go through there, cool off Little Sun here, go back up the stairs, reach the garden, and then run as fast as we can."
"There's a car waiting on the west side to get us out of here and take us someplace safe."
"Any questions about the escape, little Wi-Fi Skynet?"

"Collaborator profile updated."
"It is important to note how someone is able to quickly adapt to unfamiliar environments and complex problems by drawing parallels to previous knowledge, as well as making comparisons to simplify complex terms by relating them to easier to understand ideas," said the still overheated doll.

"Girl, strange things are my specialty."
"Especially in the last three weeks, I've had to adjust to a lot of nonsense nonstop."
"Just three weeks ago, I was a whole year in the past."
"It sounds strange, but I assure you it makes sense in context."

Without wasting any more time, we set off with the cold DOLL leading the way while I followed closely behind, and her sister walking behind us as her body was literally a torch capable of leaving marks of her footsteps on the stone floor. After reaching the pool of water she mentioned, she jumped into the water, which immediately began to emit steam upon contact with her boiling body. After a few seconds, she emerged, still quite hot, but not hot enough to cook you with a hug. We continued our way through the corridors, looking for the stairs, until we reached a security door that didn't open automatically for us, which made me think for a moment that the trap would be revealed now, but it was just unfounded fear when the android spoke in response.

"Door security system manually overridden"
"Video security systems disconnected from power source"
"I can no longer provide support on the information and electronic warfare level; the guards have already activated the contingency plan and switched the entire castle to its old medieval security methods.
"Soldiers should be on their way by now; chance of being behind the door ahead of us: 85%."

But by the time she finished speaking, the door opened by itself, revealing three soldiers on the other side with their weapons already raised. Both the sisters and I moved to the side of the door to avoid the shots, then I drew only my weapon and fired without looking outside the cover to see if I had hit anything by accident, but only received more shots in response.

"You have 26 rounds left in the magazine," said Sister #1.

"I don't need to know that right now."

"Your heart rate is rising alarmingly," said Sister 2 now.
"I recommend that you try to relax by breathing slowly.

"Right now they are shooting me.
"It's obvious that this is going to happen!"
"I don't need to know that."

"The three guards are probably hiding as well"
"You have to find a way to get them out of there," Sister 1 adds.

"I already know that!"

"Probability that reinforcements will arrive: 67%"
"Tactical reassessment completed; adjustments to plan necessary"
"A tactical retreat to the previous room is advisable, and an alternate route through corridor 19-A is suggested."

"There is no time for bullshit like taking an alternate route!"
"Every moment we waste will make our situation worse; we have no choice but to make it or break it."
"If you want to help me, just shut up and let me concentrate for now!"

The two androids, who were supposed to be mere emotionless machines, were obviously very worried about escaping from here. I think you could see a little bit of their inner nervousness despite their outwardly calm demeanor. But they were right; our current situation wasn't ideal for our escape. 

There was a moment when nobody shot and that little silence heard something, a metallic sound was heard bouncing off the ground. It fell close to my feet, it was a stun grenade!

I immediately closed my eyes, trying to look away and cover my ears from the huge explosion that was about to come. The grenade exploded right after that. A terrible pain hit my head. I opened my eyes again and noticed that my vision was blurry, but I still took my gun and fired through the door until the magazine was empty. It was then that I noticed my dizziness and the lack of sound - I couldn't hear anything at all, so I couldn't know the status of my enemies. The sisters watching me seemed to notice my altered state, and one of them looked at me and started making hand gestures: three, medium square fist, palm down. They told me to hold my position near the door and lie down on the floor. I then reloaded my gun to be ready for the next shooting. As soon as I pulled the trigger of the submachine gun, two soldiers appeared and entered through the door. They didn't expect me to be on the ground waiting for them, so it was easy to eliminate them. The DOLL started making more hand gestures: enemy, rifle, fire order, door, now. Instead of reloading the submachine gun, I picked up my pistol and fired again. A soldier turned around in the hallway and immediately took several shots. Then came the signal to move out.

This time the DOLLS ran ahead of me while I reloaded my weapons. I had no choice but to trust them while I recovered or everyone would be dead. After only a few minutes, which felt like hours, I managed to regain full vision and no longer felt dizzy or unbalanced. However, my hearing was still nonexistent. I still heard a horrible, irritating beeping that prevented me from hearing anything around me despite the loud gunfire inside. Normally, stun grenades make an extremely loud noise in addition to a huge flash. Although I covered my ears in time, I had completely forgotten that I now had two pairs of ears. While I was protecting my human ears, I had left my large, fox ears exposed, which were much more sensitive and delicate. Therefore, the effect of the grenade probably lasted much longer than usual. The sound of guns in this interior was too much for me, but that grenade so close was devastating to my poor ears.

Returning to the stairs leading up to the mansion, one of the dolls lightly touched my back. She went back to sign language one more time: Five, enemies, right, rifle, two, left, shotgun. The answer was easy, I had to go left, although I did not know the inside of the house yet, so I had a great chance of getting lost. I can only trust my eyesight, so I'll have to be extra careful, I moved quickly through the room and down the following corridor, where I came face to face with the two guards carrying shotguns. I immediately threw down a large statue that was near me and used it to cover myself, I could feel the shots hitting the statue, but none of them managed to hit me. The next thing now was to wait for my time to go out and attack, which was easy to do, I looked back hoping to see the sisters so they could tell me when to go, but I saw that they were hiding in the previous room and they couldn't know when to tell me to attack. I'm getting ready to take a chance and get out, if they still have ammunition left, . But suddenly the sisters came out a bit and gestured again for me to check the hall. I cautiously stepped out of cover and saw the two guards lying on the ground, one dead and the other dying, behind them stood Stella with a revolver, aiming and shooting in cold blood to end the misery of the guard who was still alive.

When the fight was over, I saw her move her mouth, but my deafness had not improved, so I had no idea what she was talking about.

"I'm sorry I can't hear you."
"My fox ears hurt a lot from a stun grenade," I told her.

The angel's eyes widened in surprise. Then Stella put her gun between her dress and approached me. She took off my hat, and I could feel her hands touching my fox ears, checking their condition. When she finished, she looked at me with a calm expression and raised her thumb, indicating that it was nothing serious and that my hearing would probably return in time, unfortunately after such a crucial moment as this. The DOLLs, noticing that the new girl was not a threat and seemed to be my ally, approached her and tried to talk to her a little. Unfortunately, I couldn't make out exactly what they were saying, especially with their imperturbably serious faces. But for some reason, Stella looked at me after speaking, then took out a piece of paper with something written on it and looked at it. It seemed to be a to-do list. Then she took out two large metal chokers from her apron and placed them around the androids' necks. While she continued to read the sheet of paper, she took my hand and made me touch the collars, which glowed for a second after being touched. Only then did I understand what had really happened: these were magical slave collars.

"What do you think you're doing?" I asked the angel.

But just as I finished speaking, the androids approached me and took my hand, seemingly indicating that I should put that aside. I was about to ask what had just happened, but suddenly Stella drew her weapon again and reloaded as fast as she could. The androids took cover at the same time; it seemed that more enemies were nearby. The break was over. More soldiers appeared in the corridor of the mansion, this time really equipped with modern gear like bulletproof vests along with their helmets and assault rifles. Their equipment, along with the flag on their uniforms, showed exactly what I had been thinking for a while: these were the same soldiers from the Balkan Empire I had fought during the Continental War. There was a big firefight going on in the room as they tried to gain ground while we tried to prevent it. In the midst of our desperation to get out of there, Stella pointed to a nearby glass window, indicating that escaping through it would take us outside the mansion.

Stella reloaded her revolver and walked far into the hallway. Seeing that the options were not many, I took a chair in the living room and threw it against the window, destroying the glass and wood that protected it, and jumped through it right after, I checked that there were no enemies nearby and then yelled at the girls to jump as well. Once outside I could see exactly where he was and where he had to run to get to the extraction point, it was at the other end of the house and we would have to run about three hundred meters between the garden and the fence. I told the girls to run as fast as they could to where the car was waiting for us.

The three of us ran as fast as we could, first the sisters and then me, looking back frequently to see if any of the Empire soldiers were following them, which happened when we were halfway through, I could see them leaving the house and starting to shoot in our direction. I called Avalon and yelled at the dolls to protect themselves behind me, I replied they fired back but they were much further away than my weapon was designed for, I think I only hit one of them but the soldier kept walking as if nothing had happened. From behind them I saw a girl now with white armor and wings come out of the entrance by surprise and start attacking them, she was using a blue light sword and a pistol that seemed to shoot beams of light, it was Stella, now with the combat suit that some of the angels of the assault teams used, it was quite similar to the arksuits that the Alliance used, but of higher quality and power. She did her best to keep them entertained while we escaped, which was quite effective considering the savage way she fought.

When we finally made it to the fence, my father saw us coming and threw us a rope to help us escape. I told the sisters to hold on as tight as they could and try to climb, but the top of the fence made it quite difficult to climb, so I helped them by levering them from underneath, which they were quite light for robot in theory. My dad also pulled the rope to help. When they managed to get to the other side, they came back to throw the rope for my turn, I grabbed it as best I could and started climbing as fast as I could. Suddenly the pain in my ears, which would not let me hear, quickly disappeared and I was able to discern what was happening. But just as I reached the top of the fence to jump to the other side, I heard a shot louder than the others. And almost immediately I felt a terrible wound on the side of my abdomen, it was a shot, I had been shot. The pain made me fall from the top of the fence to the ground, where I hit my head and lost consciousness.