The ravine provided exactly the concealment Arthur had anticipated. Fifty meters deep, choked with pre-war debris and overgrown vegetation, it cut a jagged line through Sector Twenty-Three's ruined industrial landscape. The Monarks moved in tight formation, weapons ready, eyes scanning for threats.
"Delta to Monarks," the sniper's voice came through clear and professional. "You're clear for the next two hundred meters. Rapture patrol just passed your position, heading northwest."
"Copy," Arthur replied quietly. His prosthetic hands maintained perfect grip on his assault rifle despite the uneven terrain. "ETA to Greenfyre's position?"
"Five minutes at current pace. Marian hasn't moved. Still showing vital signs, but... Commander, her behavior is concerning. She's been kneeling in the same position for three hours."
Arthur's jaw tightened. Three hours beside a dead commander. He'd seen Nikkes shut down emotionally before—the Ark's dehumanization left scars deeper than any Rapture weapon—but battlefield catatonia was dangerous.
"Understood. Maintain overwatch."
The ravine opened into a debris field where the shuttle had crashed. The impact crater was still smoking, metal twisted into grotesque sculptures. Bodies—human and Rapture—littered the ground. Arthur raised his fist, signaling halt.
Scarlet moved forward, sweeping the perimeter with her SMG. Lyra found a vantage point on a collapsed wall section, her sniper rifle tracking potential threats. Nyx positioned herself with clear firing lanes, the Screamin' Eagle ready.
"Clear," Scarlet reported. "Raptures are dead. Recent kills, maybe thirty minutes old."
Arthur advanced into the crash site. The shuttle's troop compartment had been sheared open, revealing the carnage within. Two Nikke bodies, torn apart by Rapture claws. Emergency equipment scattered and destroyed. And there, in the center of the debris field, kneeling before a body in a commander's uniform, was Marian.
She was beautiful in the way custom Nikkes often were—designed for aesthetic perfection as much as combat capability. Long dark hair matted with synthetic blood, elegant features frozen in an expression of absolute emptiness. Her combat frame was damaged, synthetic skin torn, one arm hanging at an unnatural angle. But what caught Arthur's attention were her eyes.
They flickered. Brown to red. Human to Nikke. Warm to cold. Over and over, like a corrupted display struggling to maintain function.
"Marian," Arthur said quietly, approaching slowly. "I'm Commander Cousland. We're here to extract you."
No response. Her eyes continued their mechanical flutter. Brown. Red. Brown. Red.
"She's dissociating," Lyra said softly from her position. "Severe psychological trauma. Her neural systems are cycling between human emotional response and Nikke combat protocols, trying to process what happened."
Arthur knelt beside her, careful not to startle. The body she knelt before—Commander Greenfyre—had died badly. Rapture claws had opened his chest, his face frozen in terminal agony. The kid couldn't have been more than twenty-five. Fresh Academy graduate. First mission. Last mission.
"Marian," Arthur tried again, gentler this time. "Look at me. Not him. Me."
Her head turned fractionally. Those flickering eyes focused on Arthur's face. Brown. Red. Brown. Red.
"He told me to run," she whispered, her voice broken and small. "Commander Greenfyre ordered me to evacuate. To save myself. But I'm... I'm supposed to protect him. That's my purpose. That's why I was made."
"You followed his orders," Arthur said firmly. "That's what soldiers do. He gave you a command, and you obeyed."
"I ran," Marian repeated, and now tears were streaming down her face even as her eyes flickered red, the human emotion fighting against Nikke programming. "I left him. I heard him screaming and I *ran*."
Arthur reached out slowly, his prosthetic hand gentle despite its mechanical nature. He touched her damaged arm, assessing the injury. Structural damage, synthetic muscle torn, lubricant fluid leaking. Painful, but not critical for a Nikke's combat capability.
He pulled medical supplies from his pack—bandages, antiseptic, compression wraps. Completely unnecessary for synthetic injuries. Nikkes didn't need bandages. Their wounds were mechanical, not biological.
But Arthur wrapped her arm anyway, his movements careful and practiced. He cleaned the torn synthetic skin, applied antiseptic that would do nothing for her systems, and bound the wound with clean white bandages.
Marian stared at him, her eyes locking on brown for the first time. "Why...?"
"Because you're hurt," Arthur said simply. "And because you deserve care, not just repairs."
Something shifted in her expression. The flickering stopped. Her eyes remained brown—human—and the emptiness began to crack, replaced by something raw and desperate and grateful.
"Thank you," she whispered.
"Can you fight?" Arthur asked.
"Yes, Commander."
"Then stand up. We have other people to save."
Marian rose on shaking legs, her damaged frame compensating automatically. She retrieved her weapon—a custom assault rifle—from the debris. Around them, Rapture bodies began to twitch.
"Contact!" Scarlet called out.
The battlefield erupted. Ant-types pulled themselves together, damaged cores flickering with renewed power. Soldier-types raised weapons. A master-class Woodpecker screeched from the shuttle's wreckage.
Arthur's squad moved like a single organism. Lyra's rifle cracked, dropping ants with precision headshots. Nyx's launcher roared, explosive rounds tearing through clusters of soldier-types. Scarlet danced through the debris field, her SMG spitting controlled bursts.
Marian fought beside them, her movements professional despite her trauma. She and Scarlet flanked the Woodpecker, crossfire tearing through its armor. Arthur put three rounds into its exposed core, and the master-class collapsed into sparking ruin.
Silence fell, broken only by burning metal and distant Rapture howls.
"Signal to Monarks," the young sniper's voice carried excitement and concern. "That was amazing! But you've attracted attention. Multiple patrols converging on your position."
"Time to move," Arthur said. "Squad Eleven's position, fastest route."
"Northeast, one-point-three klicks," Delta provided. "But Commander... I'm not reading any active combat. It's too quiet."
They found Squad Eleven in an overpass collapse, and Delta's assessment proved grimly accurate. Too quiet because everyone was dead.
Commander Ryan lay against a concrete pillar, his sidearm empty, his body torn by Rapture fire. Defensive positions showed evidence of desperate fighting—empty magazines, spent grenades, scorched metal from sustained combat. But there were no Nikke bodies.
"Where are they?" Nyx asked quietly, scanning the position. "Five Nikkes. Delta confirmed five heat signatures. Where did they go?"
Lyra knelt by Ryan's body, examining his wounds with clinical precision. "He died maybe two hours ago. Bled out from multiple lacerations. He fought hard."
"The Nikkes were here," Scarlet said, pointing to defensive positions. "Firing angles suggest coordinated defense. They held this position until recently."
"Delta, you said five heat signatures," Arthur transmitted. "When did you lose them?"
A pause. "Approximately ninety minutes ago. I assumed... I thought they'd moved to better cover. But now that you mention it, all five signatures disappeared simultaneously. Not fading like power-down. Just... gone."
Arthur felt cold certainty settle in his gut. Raptures didn't take bodies. They killed and moved on. Unless—
"We need to reach Commander Forn," he said urgently. "Now."
They ran.
The route to Forn's position carried them through a warehouse district, every shadow potentially hostile. Shifty coordinated their movement while Delta and Signal provided overwatch, their sniper rounds dropping threats before the Monarks even detected them.
They found Forn's defensive position in a fortified loading dock. Rapi and Anis were still fighting, their backs to a concrete wall, weapons blazing as they held off a diminishing Rapture assault. Arthur's squad hit the enemy from behind, crushing them between two forces.
When the last Rapture fell, Rapi turned her assault rifle toward the newcomers, her professional assessment evident in every line of her body. She was petite but deadly, blonde hair perfectly maintained despite the combat, her black tactical outfit immaculate except for minor scoring. Her legs, showcased by form-fitting black leggings, were positioned in perfect firing stance.
"Identify," she commanded, her voice cool and controlled.
"Commander Arthur Cousland, Monarks squad," Arthur replied. "We're your extraction."
Anis lowered her grenade launcher with obvious relief, though her expression remained skeptical. She was stunning in a completely different way than Rapi—curvaceous where her squad mate was athletic, her cropped shirt and huge neckline barely containing her generous chest, her open jacket and shorts showcasing legs that would have stopped traffic in the old world. Her orange accents contrasted sharply with Rapi's red.
"About time," Anis said, her sarcasm thick despite the relief underneath. "We've been holding this position for six hours. Where's the cavalry?"
"We're it," Scarlet said flatly.
"Oh good," Anis muttered. "We're definitely going to die."
"Where's Commander Forn?" Arthur asked, though part of him already knew.
Rapi's expression tightened fractionally. "Dead. Killed in action four hours ago."
"How?"
"He charged a Rapture assault wave with a standard-issue sidearm," Rapi reported, her tone absolutely neutral despite the insanity of the statement. "Twelve rounds, human-grade ammunition. He was cut down within seconds."
Arthur stared at her. "He what?"
"Suicide," Anis said bluntly. "Pressure got to him. Saw what happened to Greenfyre over the command channel, heard Squad Eleven go dark, decided to check out early rather than wait for the inevitable."
"And left you to die," Marian said quietly, speaking for the first time since the firefight.
Anis's expression flickered with something dark. "Yeah. Left us to die. Because that's what commanders do when they realize Nikkes aren't going to save them."
"Not all commanders," Nyx said, looking at Arthur.
Anis pulled out a datapad, her fingers dancing across the screen. "Cousland, Arthur. Recent Academy graduate. Wait—" Her eyes widened. "You killed a Tyrant-class Rapture. The Reaper. With a mass-produced squad."
"We did," Arthur confirmed.
"Okay," Anis said slowly, her skepticism shifting toward cautious hope. "Maybe we don't die. Maybe."
"We're not dying," Arthur said firmly. "Any of us. Extraction LZ is three klicks south. We move together, we watch each other's backs, we all go home."
"Commander," Shifty's voice cut through, her usual enthusiasm replaced by urgent fear. "We have a problem. Massive energy signature between your position and the LZ. It's... oh no. Oh no, it's a Tyrant-class. Designation: Blacksmith."
The name hit Arthur like cold water. Blacksmith. The Tyrant-class known for one thing: consuming Nikke bodies and corrupting them, incorporating their technology and processing power into its own systems.
Which explained the missing Nikkes from Squad Eleven.
"I've killed a Tyrant before," Arthur said, forcing confidence into his voice. "And I had fewer people then."
"That's great," Anis said, her voice climbing toward hysteria. "Really inspiring. Except Blacksmith isn't just any Tyrant. It's a corrupting agent. It eats Nikkes. And now it's eaten five of them, which means it's stronger, faster, and smarter than it was this morning. We are *absolutely* going to die."
Rapi simply looked at Arthur, waiting for orders with professional calm.
Beside him, Marian suddenly went rigid. Her eyes—those brown, human eyes that had finally stopped flickering—began to glow red. Not the red of Nikke combat mode. Something else. Something wrong.
Her voice, when it came, was broken and mechanical, like a corrupted audio file struggling to play.
"Over here," Marian whispered, her head tilting at an unnatural angle. "Over here. Over here. *Over here.*"
Arthur's blood ran cold as he realized what he was hearing.
A homing beacon.
Marian wasn't just traumatized. She was compromised.