ExSol Ch. 01

Dawn ignited their Ascension. It was a power that typically slept within Dawn's chest, a power that would do little but harm them on its own, but it was the lifeblood of Dawn's Mech, it was a key that unlocked the full strength of the technology that the precursor race had left behind. The machine lurched out of standby, and started moving towards the watch post under Dawn's command. Another sensor sweep came, and then a second, and a third. The stealth field showed a higher and higher, yet still pitifully small percent chance of detection, until Dawn was standing on the edge of the encampment. There would almost certainly be a short range X-Ray scanner in the center of the station, something that would pierce through Dawn's stealth field if they brought the machine any closer. Fortunately, Dawn had absolutely no need to stay hidden to get the job done.

The stealth field dropped, and Dusk's weapons came to life. Two nearby robots and a gun emplacement noticed the Mech immediately, and started to swerve their weapons to face it. Most standard ExSol technology would barely even register on their radar, the same way a bow and arrow wouldn't be worthy of notice.

Dawn aimed and fired the heavy plasma caster on Dusk's right arm, slagging a hole clear through the the center of one of the robots and continuing onward to melt off the weapon emplacement of the other. The Mech's powerful gravity manipulation and its legs launched it forward towards the gun emplacement. The vibroblade attached to Dusk's left arm passed through the gun emplacement like it was passing through air. None of the three were able to fire a single shot as Dawn disposed of them; Dusk was not a bow and arrow.

The flying drones began to swerve back around, and Dawn's instruments presented them with a firing solution for the missiles, which they approved. There was a slight thunk as three missiles shot out of Dusk's shoulder and into the air. Dawn leapt several dozen meters into the air with a strong shove from the gravity manipulators, and spun around to face the aerial attack craft which were the watch post's main defenses. Dawn flared on the stealth field for just a moment to scramble the aircraft's missile locks and then opened up with the autocannons mounted on Dusk's torso. The aircraft tried to evade the missiles Dusk had fired. One got clipped and started to spin out, another evaded right into a hail of autocannon fire and was torn apart, and the third swerved high. The aircraft's countermeasures no doubt worked frantically, and were rewarded with a premature detonation, allowing the craft to avoid the worst of the payload.

Dawn pulled the Mech back down towards the ground with the gravity manipulator, Dusk's power reserves blaring a warning at them for overusing the energy-intensive feature of the Mech. Dawn paid the alarms no heed, they knew Dusk's limitations better than a pilot for whom those alarms had been designed. The missile control system came up with a new target lock for the remaining aircraft, and this time Dawn fired two missiles at the one craft, and then ignored it, leaving the drone to its fate.

There would be another five robots on the way, they patrolled the perimeter, but Dawn knew how much time they had until it arrived. Dawn calmly walked their Mech around the mechanisms that composed the watch post, autocannons shredding another fixed gun emplacement as it popped out. They located the X-Ray scanner that was painting a target on Dusk and very deliberately melted it into a pile of molten scrap with a single shot of their plasma caster. Dawn just as calmly re-enabled their stealth field and headed off in the direction of the patrol, whose approach was now audible and coming across the speakers in the cockpit. The four robots barely even reacted as Dawn sliced them apart with their vibroblade and then deactivated the stealth field.

Ten minutes later, Dawn had downloaded the information they had come for, and left the watch post as intact as they could. A response team would undoubtedly show up soon and Dusk only carried so much ammunition. Besides, the attention of the precursor's machines wasn't the only thing Dawn needed to evade.

***

Abrandia was the second largest city on the planet, and largest on the continent. It was built on one of the numerous stretches of flatlands that were typical of their planet, Ishtar. After the alien machines had awakened and started furiously trying to kill one another, catching humanity in the crossfire, Abrandia had been the only human settlement not torn apart by resource-gatherers like the Widows. It had been a tiny little settlement at the time, some religious group had set it aside for themselves to live apart from the rest of ExSol society. As it had turned out, the site of Abrandia's founding was far enough away from any major mineral or resource deposits to avoid the attention of the precursor's robots, and so refugees from all over the continent had settled there.

Nina sped along the road to Abrandia, and the city limits, and then one of the city's guardians came into view. Nina recognized the Mech, Titan, even from a distance. The ten meter tall humanoid Mech stood just beside Abrandia's main gate. It was mostly still, but obviously powered and active. Bristling with racks of missiles, autocannons, and even sporting a disintegration beam, Titan was most certainly the most powerful weapon on the planet. Titan had been built from scratch using precursor technology, hence the sleek, streamlined humanoid form. Twinshya, by comparison, was a fully built precursor machine that they had shoehorned a human-sized cockpit into so that Carrina could pilot it.

Titan totally ignored her as she drove her bike up to the gate and stopped it right next to the agent's booth.

"Miss Sahara, nice to see you, as always," The guard droned with fake interest. He held out his hand and she handed him her Identification badge so that he could scan it for her before letting her into the city. She didn't bother responding to him, he apparently knew her name and she didn't know his. It was an awkward conversation waiting to happen, so she avoided it.

She made her way through the winding streets of Abrandia's slums. Most of the city was kind of a built-up slum, a legacy of the city's origin as a refugee camp. It meant that navigating the city streets on a vehicle was slow going, but fortunately she wasn't going far. Hangman's Crossing was a relatively large community center in the eastern residential sector and she circled her bike around the parking lot until she found a spot to park it. The crossing consisted of a large open plaza with various structures and open amenities fanning out from it radially. A park dominated most of the eastern section of the ring, while subsidized restaurants and various other amenities occupied the northern and western section. A huge, seven storey library towered over the plaza from the south, casting a shadow over part of the square. In the center, a large fountain sculpted in the likeness of the Archangel Agrianna stood proudly, her wings and arms spread, water pouring down from her eyes in rivulets to splash into the pond below her.

Nina cast a brief scowl at the Archangel as she always did, and headed towards SolSanna's, a little cafe almost invisibly nestled between a large dance hall and a grocery distributor. Her little butterfly, Robin, was sitting in a booth, the screen of his portable terminal shining a deep green light onto his face. She sat down next to him, draping her arm over his slender shoulders and crushing him close to her in an embrace.

Robin squeaked a little bit in surprise and recoiled skittishly in the way that he did before he realized it was her. "Miss Nina!" he cooed happily, letting her crush him in her hug a little bit before he giggled and squirmed at the extreme pressure. She relented, and leaned down to kiss him while still keeping his body close to hers.

"Hey, Butterfly," she murmured softly. She felt the pent-up anxiety start to bleed out of her uncomfortably in ways that made her tremble just a little bit. She realized that she hadn't felt fine at all after the Widow had attacked her, just numbed. She'd had a few somewhat close scrapes, but nothing like that, and now she was thawing out and truly feeling the terror of the situation.

"You don't sound fine, Nina," Robin plucked the thought out of her head, looking up at her with those innocent eyes that she thought couldn't possibly be cuter.

"Yeah... I don't." She agreed, still feeling tremors running through her body. Her breathing accelerated a little, against her will, and she gave her head a shake that didn't seem to fix anything at all.

"Tell me what happened," Robin asked gently, taking her hand in his and giving it an encouraging squeeze. Nina sighed slightly, she'd been planning on just using Robin to blow off some steam but instead the little bugger coaxed every little detail out of her. She relayed the day's events to him, pausing a few times to squeeze her eyes shut and steady her breathing.

"I'm gonna be in the hole over this. Might'a broke the bots' pattern. Sam flips his crib whenever I take risks, even ones that don't... Ugh."

"Can something like a single Widow break such a solid pattern? That precursor installation has been locked for... how long? Isn't it over a year now?"

"Who knows. The 'cursor's automated bots are real loopy. Sam sure thinks patterns are fragile. Fragile enough that I get my tail chewed off for any nudge." One of the serving staff apparently recognized Nina and took it upon herself to bring her a coffee. She set the drink down on the table and gave the two of them a warm smile. Nina tried not to give her the stink eye, it was weird of her to intrude but she was trying to be nice, at least.

"Soooo~ Guess what I just dug up today?" Robin grinned at her conspiratorially. The look on his face suggested that he'd been struggling to keep his lips sealed about some bit of information he'd dredged up.

"What secrets did my stealthy little butterfly uncover?" She chuckled at him fondly and dragged him into her lap, ignoring the coffee steaming away on the table.

"You asked me if I could find any strange new Mechs popping up into Abrandia's registry, remember?"

"Ye. You told me you'd also track down some livin' precursors." Nina frowned at him, remembering the smart-ass response he'd given her and not gotten disciplined for. The nervous laugh that came out of Robin just confirmed that he'd just remembered that detail as well.

"Weeeelllll. I found something." He grinned at her victoriously, as though that would get him off the hook. It wouldn't.

"Spill." She squeezed him threateningly and Robin squeaked a little. She quite enjoyed that noise.

"A Mech showed up in the registry two days ago. The pilot was registered as Dawn, and the Mech was registered as Dusk. I thought it was a prank or something, since you can't just register a fake name." Robin prattled out his answer energetically, clearly more motivated by the idea that he'd found something Nina had asked for rather than frightened by her implied threat.

"Two days? Could it'a been here longer?" she probed, hugging Robin close to her and abandoning the playful threats. This was quite possibly the machine she'd seen using gravity manipulation out in the forest a few times this week. Only an Ascension machine, one piloted by a human, could use that kind of technology.

"Maybe. I could try to dig up why they needed to dock the machine, what work needed to be done. Might be able to extrapolate what its been up to prior." He gave her a curious look, as though he'd thought this was just a joke that Nina hadn't expected an answer to.

"Do it. What else?" Nina looked down at him with a wicked grin and gave him a playful grope to try and cut the seriousness. Robin was far too pretty to have a worried look on his face.

Robin squeaked a little and his tone quickly changed. "A-Anyway. Turns out this pilot, Dawn, is real. The name might be fake but they're an off-worlder so the Abrandian government couldn't verify it and just took their word for it. Sounds like they're all the way from Neo-Venus."

"From NV? What're they doing out here in the butt of nowhere, then?"

"Haven't figured that one out yet. They're not taking contracts or anything. They sure could if they wanted to, with a Mech that advanced."

"Hrmph. What's the Ascension on it? Maybe I can swindle Sunrise outta it." Nina prodded Robin for a bit more information but kept it playful. She didn't want Robin getting too stressed out over this.

"Sorry, Miss Nina, sounds like Dawn has Zenith, not Pulse." Robin sounded sincere in his respectful tone but Nina knew the brattiness was lurking just below the surface. It seemed possible that he was being a slight bit snarky about her saying Dawn's name wrong, after all. She decided not to punish him for it, all things considered he was showing a lot of obedience.

"Figures. Only Pulse Mech on the planet would be Twinshya." Nina nudged at the little muscle, the little reflex inside her chest. She had the ability to trigger her Ascension, Pulse, at any time. Doing so would flood her with a euphoric high, send her into a state of hyper-awareness and enhanced reflexes for about three minutes. Unfortunately, immediately after those three minutes had expired, she would Counter-Pulse for another three minutes, causing her diaphragm and ribcage to lock up. Her breathing would stop for that time and she'd pass out unless she was on a ventilator. A Pulse Mech was fuelled by the activation of Pulse by a human, or presumably by one of the precursor race, back when they had yet lived. To that end, the cockpit of a Pulse Mech like Twinshya was equipped with a ventilator so that the pilot could stay conscious.

Nina pushed away the temptation to trigger her Pulse as she usually did. Now wasn't the time. It was never the time. "Whatev. Zenith Mechs are all trash. No firepower, no point."

"I hear this machine is pretty much the gleam of the gates. Seems like it might be as advanced as Titan. Haven't gotten a chance to catch it in the flesh it yet but I'm trying." Robin grinned at her suggestively and Nina did her best not to roll her eyes at his awful double entendre. She was surprised to find her mood lifting a bit, she'd initially been pretending for Robin's sake but then he'd gone and made it genuine.

Nina's hand terminal buzzed in the padded seat next to her leg, and she glanced down at it. She thought she saw a notification for a new message on the screen at the strange angle, but it was gone instantly as the terminal switched over to a low-battery logo and started powering itself down. Probably wasn't important, if it was anything at all.

"Where's yer brother?" Nina asked suddenly.

"Still out of town on a job. I've got our place to myself," Robin answered eagerly, excitement flashing in his eyes.

Nina grinned at him, and the look in his eyes confirmed the implied invitation. "Let's go, Butterfly,"

***

Robin opened the door to the apartment he shared with his brother, and Nina pushed her way inside immediately, leaving him behind while she went to his refrigerator to help herself to some alcohol. She only vaguely heard Robin moving about behind her as she snagged one of the many plastic bladders with a teal label on it, indicating that it contained something alcoholic yet drinkable. She sucked on the mouthpiece and squeezed herself a heavy drink of the burning liquid. She repeated the process three more times and drained half of the bladder, feeling a sort of dull buzz already setting in. She re-sealed the container and tossed it back into the fridge, shutting the door with a loud rattle.

Her thoughts turned towards Robin, and she turned around slowly even as she felt her cock starting to twitch and come to life. She hadn't come to Abrandia to cry and sob and emotionally lean on Robin for support. She'd come here to fuck the daylights out of the little twink and dump a load of cum into his ass.

"Butterfly," she called. Nina took a few steps in the direction of the bedroom, pulling off her belt and letting the leather and metal implement fall to the floor with a very distinctive-sounding clank.

"Over here, Miss Nina~" Robin called from his bedroom in a seductive voice. Nina hummed expectantly and stalked her way there. Robin's room was messy, with a few piles of clothes pushed off to the side, probably done just a few moments ago to make it appear less of a disaster. She didn't care, compared to her quarters, Robin's was a picture of order.

Robin himself was lying on his bed, his package cupped by a little pink thong. He was wearing a silly, completely ineffectual little bra which was mostly just a few pieces of heart-shaped material stretched across his nipples connected by a flimsy string. She had no idea if he'd been wearing that under his clothes all day, or if he'd put it on for her sake. Right now, she didn't care.

"Beg," she demanded, stepping out of her pants and kicking them off to the side. Her underwear, more masculine than Robin's, ironically, came free a moment later and was summarily tossed into another corner of the room. Robin crawled off the floor-height mattress that was his bed and came towards Nina on all four, his eyes locked with hers, his little pink tongue slowly darting across his glossy lips.

"Oh please, Miss Nina, let your nasty little boy whore suck on your cock?" Robin cooed, sticking his tongue out and opening his mouth wide.

Nina took her cock in hand and gave it a slow deliberate stroke to encourage it and bring it to life. She squeezed the soft, hot flesh and the tingle of pleasure it sent through her made her hungry to abuse the begging boy before her, but she restrained herself. She tightened her fingers around the base of her cock and squeezed upward, forcing a droplet of precum out of her urethra. She flicked the clear fluid at Robin, making him flinch slightly as the pre sprayed across his tongue and face. Her boy waited patiently as she took a slow step towards him, erect cock casting a shadow over his eager mouth as his eyes watched it wantingly. Nina slowly threaded her fingers through Robin's long, fine hair, getting a strong grip on his skull with both hands. She slowly ground her cock against his face, teasing him, making him whimper. His hot breath tickled the underside of her shaft and she exhaled slowly, enjoying the anticipation of the moment. She knew that taking her time like this was torture for the poor boy but she enjoyed it. The power and the anticipation were immensely satisfying.

"Miss Niinnnaaaa!" Robin's patience finally crumbled and he whined at her. He squirmed around with his hands rubbing his thighs, looking up at with an expression halfway between betrayed puppy and wanton slut.

"Y'think pesterin' gon' get that fuckhole of yers filled sooner?" Nina laughed cruelly, giving Robin's skull one last squeeze before she removed one of her hands and gripped the base of her cock. She firmly slapped Robin's face with her meat once, twice, three times. She grinned wider as Robin flinched at the impacts, practically drooling over her cock in anticipation. A sadistic impulse passed through her and she slapped him with her cock again, hard. Her own cock stung a bit at the impact as it loudly cracked against's Robin's poor face. The poor, abused twink whined again, turning his head slightly to the side. Nina released her cock and petted Robin's precum-splattered hair soothingly for just a moment to put him at ease. She almost immediately went and stuck her thumbs past his shiny glossed lips and into his mouth, mildly fish-hooking his mouth open into an deformed and obscene expression. She poised her cock at the entrance of his stretched-out mouth, probing his taut, shiny lips with the tip and spreading a little precum across them.