"...Somewhere I can be important," Bellona Three says. "And learn new things and all, but - I want to do things no one else could do." She's quiet for a moment, before: "I want to be unique - actually unique, not just someone that everyone merely thinks is probably unique." (She's been the most bothered by having other versions of Bellona.) "And... I don't think I want to get dropped on another version of El?"

Bellona One just hums. "I'd like to be important too, but - it's not as big a deal? And I want somewhere with a lot of options, I think - I... I want to date around, kinda." Separating from El felt very awkwardly like a breakup, for all that they weren't dating. "Somewhere with way more advanced science than our own home, too - I want to see what happens when everyone knows all the stuff Bellona Two traded Truth for." Also so she can learn it herself. 

"Actually unique, huh. How do you feel... about being the only living human?"

To Bellona One, "High tech, lots of cute girls. I think I know just the place."

"Huh. ...Positive, so long as there's a few nonhuman people around," Bellona Three says. "Though maybe not too many?"

Bellona One just giggles at Zera's description of her world desires. 

"All right. Hang on." She banks into a dive and they emerge into a ruined city, cracked concrete towers and bent steel ribs, fading into the tangle of an old-growth forest that is slowly but surely marching to the city center.

Zera sets them down in what was once an atrium for some more expansive building near the edge of the city, the long-since shattered glass dome roof allowing easy access. Some small group of animals bolts further into the underbrush.

Woah.

- It's weirdly beautiful, actually. Bellona Three hops off Zera and looks around in fascination.

There are the remains of a second story to the building around what's left of the perimeter shell, and a few half-collapsed stairs going up. Faint rushing water in the distance.

"The natives do exist, I promise. They can be a little touchy, though, and I don't have any pre-existing relationships here."

"I'm fine wandering until I find someone," Bellona Three promises. 

"All right. Call my name loudly if you ever want to leave. I won't be watching, but my ana-self can pick up on something like that."

She nods. "Will do."

"Good luck!" Unless Bellona One has any goodbyes left to make, they'll be leaving now.

The two wave at each other, but that's it. 

Then dragon and other girl disappear.

Leaving Bellona apparently all alone.

She's going to explore the ground level in the atrium first - she already saw the area from above when flying in, so she doesn't feel an immediate need to climb to the second floor - before looking for an exit. 

Based on the layout, this may have been a market or shopping center of some kind when it was still inhabited.

She sees two easy exits: one deeper into the forest and one closer to the sound of water.

She got a good look at the open area across the ravine when they were flying in, but the forest was more impenetrable to her - she'll go that way first. 

The forest is deep, dark, and slowly coming back to life in the wake of the dragon's departure. She can hear birdsong starting back up, and the chirruping of miscellaneous insects. There's a suggestion of a path leading from the mall into the verdant depths.

Standing nonchalantly in the shade of a thick oak by the side of said path is a dilapidated vending machine.

- That's very weird and out of place, going by the degredation of other structures - she walks up to it and touches it to analyze its contents. What exactly is this thing made of, if it's lasted when the building didn't - ?

It is made of thin shell of rusting steel over a highly advanced nanofiber composite weave, and an internal reservoir filled with various alloys and plastics and odd tools that she can only liken to those used in automail surgery, only they're not designed for anything external to manipulate.

Some kind of commerce thing associated with the mall - ? If you could extend automail concepts to automated construction, something like this could be used to create customized items on demand perhaps... The exterior of the weird box does seem to have some kind of interface - she can't really tell if it's meant directly for consumers or for the backend of some kind of manufacturing shop...

The interior doesn't seem to have degraded at all, which is fascinating - why have the exterior be more reactive steel, though, if they were capable of this kind of material science...

No helpful explanatory placards, unfortunately. No sign of any other supporting infrastructure in the immediate area either, come to think of it.

Officially weird!

She touches her hands together and then the box, aiming to alchemize the front open without damaging the contents. 

As the sparks from her reaction zap through the casing, an exclamation mark inside a triangle appears on the interface panel and a mechanical voice says "Alert: unauthorized access detected" and a quickly ballooning yellowy-orange field of some kind pushes her hands back and then her away entirely.

!!!

Unfortunately, she was in the early phases of deconstruction, immediately before instituting a controlled reaction - so as she's pushed back, her nascent reaction flares blindingly bright, loops in on itself, and kind of just. Minorly distintegrates the front of the box. 

Bellona very intelligently drops to the ground, rapidly throwing up a wall of hardened earth between herself and the runaway deconstruction, just on the off chance it explodes. 

No explosion, but yes toxic-smelling sort of burn-y odor.

...Oops.

She'll stand so she can evaluate the damage, and also start moving away from the odor - probably not great to breathe in. 

Looks like some of the compounds in that reservoir don't especially like to be exposed to oxygen. The whole thing's kind of melting into a sad waxy lump.

...She should not get close enough to the toxic-smelling lump to analyze it, at least not without creating and testing some kind of breathing aparatus - actually, she can make a basic gas mask very quickly, to enable such poking before it finishes melting. 

She can get a sense of some of the interesting chemistry going on there! Maybe even without losing the tips of her fingers!

It's going to be no good for the local ecosystem, that much is for sure.

She'll create a protective glove for her flesh hand - the automail should be fine - and after a quick analysis she'll alchemize the lot into something harmless - hydrogen and oxygen naturally can be clumped into water, the excess hydrogen can pretty much just react with oxygen in the air, it's fine, it'll do that on its own if she purifies it and sets it on fire - metals she sorts out by potential danger, uses the numerous carbon atoms to wrap anything deeply iffy in layers of diamond, any radioactive atoms will be a pain in the ass but she can manage those fine with a casing of alternating layers of diamond and water - most metals can just be turned into rocks by attaching them to carbonate or carbonate hydroxide - which she has the atoms for in abundance, though heavy metals will have to be prevented from just leeching out later -

If she gets into the chemistry enough, she may not notice someone else showing up to the scene of the crime.

"Yo, what the fuck are you doing," comes a voice from above.

She looks up - blinks - one of the natives, clearly, is her entire body automail - she's got a few missing skin panels so possibly - 

"Uh, I kind of accidentally destroyed it, and then I didn't want it damaging the local environment so I'm neutralizing the more dangerous compounds."

"Fuckin' prodigy of destruction, huh. Didn't they tell you not to mess with the YoRHa shit, kid?"

"YoRHa???"

Bellona's interlocutor descends from her perch in the tree (by doing a completely unnecessary frontflip down) and stalks closer. The underbody below the missing panels of skin is the same black as the remnants of cloth that cling to her torso. Combined, the effect looks something like tattered lingerie. A wickedly sharp sword hovers just behind her back, a ring of the same yellowy-gold circling around a weirdly complicated-looking hilt.

"Yeah, YoRHa, the self-important space commandos. I thought you were Resistance. Who the hell are you?"

"Bellona Elric - I'm not from this universe actually, and I got dropped here with, uh, kind of minimal explanation."

"What the fuck. I do not get paid enough for this shit."

"You're- human?"

She pulls her gas mask away - she's neutralized the toxins anyways - and smiles a bit sheepishly. "Yeah."

"Aw, hell."

"What's wrong?"

"People are going to flip their shit when they find out and it'll be a huge pain in the ass."

She probably should've guessed it'd be something like this when Zera said she'd be the 'only living human,' oops. 

"I'm not really... Politics." Being the Herald of Andraste sucked enough, especially after the Truth took her hand and her ability to close the stupid Fade tears with it, meaning she was both a figure of tremendous religious focus and an abject failure who'd given up on even trying to save her timeline in favor of saving a girl she hadn't even met for the sake of a timeline she'd never see - 

Annnd now she's sad. 

"Well, I'm not about to tell anyone. You don't either, problem solved."

"Thanks." Might not work for long, but hopefully she'll have enough time to get adjusted to this world. 

"...Gonna keep wandering around breaking stuff, then?"

She laughs a bit. "I just wanted to know what it was! But I'll try to be more careful, especially if poking things will get attention."

Okay great now just walk away walk away walk away walk away-

"Got a plan for where to go?" FUCK

"...I was just going to wander."

"That can be dangerous. What with the machine lifeforms."

"Machine lifeforms?"

"Full metal assholes. Aliens sent 'em to take over the world and kill all the humans."

"Do you know why?"

"Nope."

Nod. "War doesn't usually make much sense." Especially when it's actually an excuse to build a giant nationwide array in order to obtain ultimate power - probably not relevant here. 

"Just have to kill them before they kill you."

"Sometimes! I've been in some weirder fights, though."

"Then you need to hit harder."

"Not always quite that simple. Gotta figure out who to even hit first, some of the time."

"Whoever you don't like the look of to start, then go from there."

Giggle! "Works, except for when you initially liked someone..." (She'd always been bothered by the Fuhrer, sure, but Dante had struck her as trustworthy and likeable.)

"Hit them harder to make up for it."

"A plan I can get behind."

"Yeah. So."

"I'll go with you, if you want."

"Just wandering? You don't have anywhere specific to be?"

"I kill machines on a freelance basis these days."

"Then you accompanying me sounds good."

Why does she do these things to herself.

"Great."

She straightens. "Anything interesting in this immediate area?"

"Depends what you mean by interesting. There's usually one the big fuckers standing around the other side of the building by the bridge. Those are fun to kill. Heard about some kind of machine kingdom cult deeper in the forest, too."

"Cult? Like, do they worship something - ?"

"Their king, or something."

"So they're intelligent, separately from the aliens?"

"If you can call it that. Independent action, sure."

"Huh."

"Is it possible to talk to them?"

"Why the fuck would you want to?"

"Curiosity?"

"Pf. Whatever. Usually they only make sense by accident."

"As a scientist, it's important to verify things for myself!"

"Uh huh."

"If I'm going to pin one of them down... It'd be easier to start with one that's on its own, probably."

"Smaller ones travel in packs, mostly."

"The one on the other side of the building doesn't, though?"

Shrug. "It's like fifteen feet tall."

"I've fought bigger! But if it's inclined to attack first, ask questions later, that would be more difficult to disable carefully..."

"It's aggressive, yeah."

Hum. "Honestly I could handle a crowd fine, so long as they aren't flying or holding guns... Just like, sink them into the ground. Talking to them's most annoying if they're shooting at me." Nowadays. Being friendly was so much easier when she wasn't squishy.

"Flyer and gun models do exist. And flyers with guns."

Thoughtful hum. "Can scout out a group before deciding if I'm going to open with negotiations, then?"

"It's so much easier to just jump in and kill them."

"But then where's the sense of adventure?"

"What do you need that for?"

"Driving scientific discoveries! And, of secondary importance, having fun."

"That shit sounds like it's outside my programming."

"Sapient beings are defined by the existence of free will, and you seem pretty sapient to me."

"That is also outside my programming."

"Then what's in your programming?"

"Killing shit."

"Nothing else?"

"Pretty much all I need."

"Yet you're helping me."

"Don't- make a big deal out of it."

"...I won't. I promise."

"You want to go look at the big fucker?"

"Might as well start there!"

Back through the ruined mall and to the other exit. Bellona's companion seems to know the way pretty well, at least.

Helpful! 

Bellona falls into an alert silence as they move, given the fact they're going into a potential combat. 

There's a short grassy sward before the land dips a little to a ravine with a wood and rope bridge spanning it. The big machine is standing on the grass ahead and to their left, apparently idle, staring upwards and occasionally shrugging its massive arms.

Does it seem to have any kind of guns? 

It does not. This model tries to smash, squash, or squish you directly.

"I'm going to try trapping its legs," she whispers to A2.

"Go for it."

She touches her hands together, touches the ground - very carefully controls the depth of the reaction, a tiny sliver reaching out, using alkahestric principles to then unfold the full reaction right under the machine's legs, the stone surging up to grab it even as the ground right under its feet vanishes. 

It seems to startle, and tries to use its arms to push itself up and out, hydraulic pistons straining mightily. The little head on top twists itself around to try to find an attacker, eye sockets flashing angry red as it emits a harsh screeching groan.

She grabs its arms, too, then cuts off the reaction and steps out into its field of view. "Hi! Sorry about that, I just wanted to talk without risking getting hit."

"Talk... Not talk... Kill... android... kill... human..."

"Why?"

"Must... kill..."

The machine tries to break free of the rock trap, wiggling and vibrating as much as it can.

"Why must you kill?"

The rock trap isn't, exactly, rock anymore - it firms up when wiggled against, flows in like mud and sticks to everything when not pushed firmly on. 

"Enemy... enemy... enemy..."

"Why are androids and humans your enemy?"

"Must... kill..."

"I don't think it's making sense solely by accident," she calls back to A2, "But I'm not sure how to evaluate its cognition when it's obsessed like this... Some kind of blocking, maybe..."

"Can I kill it yet?"

"Does me having it pinned down take the fun out of things?"

"It's dead either way and that's good enough for me."

She won't stand in A2's way, then. 

With the giant so thoroughly restrained, it doesn't take her long to break through its head covering with a series of quick and acrobatic strikes, make one final stab, and backflip to a safe distance to watch it explode into fire and some small amount of component detritus.

Very impressive. 

That ain't shit, really. Two at once, with smaller models supporting? That's a fight.

Bellona would like to see that! 

They'll find something like that sooner or later.

It'll be interesting! 

Back into the forest, next? Bellona wants to try interviewing (or 'interviewing') some of the machines there...

If she wants.

Deeper into the forest, past the remaining evidence of Bellona's experimental crimes, it is cooler in the shade, the ever-present light dimming to a dull twilight. There are no wide and trodden paths, but there are game trails. And indeed, the first grouping they come across is not a collection of machines but a sounder of wild boar in a clearing next to a stream.

...Probably best to avoid those. She isn't hungry yet, and 'wild boar' are a particularly stupid game to hunt. 

Not as satisfying to kill as machines, anyway. And they're not aggressive unless you provoke them.

What all is aggressive?

Mm, pretty much just the machines.

Convenient enough, then.

Fuckin' yep.

The forest is large, so it's another couple hours of walking before they hear a distant sound of rhythmic clanking.

Bellona needs to stop for food and water at some point in that particular trek.

So soon? Well, whatever. Not like they're on a schedule.

She can go without for short times - but ideally she should eat two times a day, more given the demands of her automail...

Damn, okay. Call out when she needs a break then because that's wayyyy more often than she's used to stopping.

It's incredibly inconvenient!!! Bellona didn't used to need to stop at all; she's still very grouchy about stuff like 'humans need to sleep and eat in order to function'...

Rough shit.

She likes having a human body over the alternative - at least the alternative she's experienced herself - but, yeah, it's annoying...

How did she experience an alternative? Aren't humans supposed to have to stick with just a single body?

...So, the thing she used to investigate the YoRHa thing and to trap the machine lifeform is called 'alchemy'; usually you can only manipulate stuff made of conventional matter with it, but if you know what you're doing you can affect souls (among other things).

When Bellona was a kid her body - it became inoperable. Her sister bound her soul to an old suit of armor with alchemy so she wouldn't die; she could move it, see out of it, but... Well.

It took a while to get her back into a human body. 

Sounds like shit got fucked. She's been there. At least you're still around to bitch about it, right?

...Yeah.

She's never swapped chassis herself. The kind of missions she used to have, there wouldn't be anything left to recover if you failed. And since she quit, well. Not really an option without YoRHa resources.

There's advantages and disadvantages, she guesses - the body she was in really wasn't designed for that, was probably the biggest issue... Plus the system they used was kinda unstable over time.

That sucks. She's heard some horror stories about the early attempts. And it's still only YoRHa that has the tech, the Resistance stick with a single body.

Yeah. Luckily automail - what she's got for her arm - works a lot better, though it's still way less sensitive than normal skin even with nervous system integration - which gets really annoying for detail work, though it wasn't a huge adjustment for her at least since she was previously used to zero feedback except basic hearing and seeing...

That's something.

...Though at some point she should sit down and work on her automail - that's a long term project though. It's... Kind of handmade...

That's impressive. Or it seems so to her, anyway.

"I've got a bit of a reputation for genius."

"So it is hard to make."

"Pretty hard, yeah - little bit easier with alchemy, though there's still a lot of fiddly detail work."

"Maybe I should get you to do my repairs while you're at it."

"Sounds fun." She says this without any trace of sarcasm.

"Fuck yeah."

"Do that whenever we stop for the night?" Or if Bellona gets physically tired of walking, she guesses, but it's really hard to tire her out.

"If you want to. Not like it's an urgent thing or anything."

"Best to get an idea of what I'm going to be doing before it's urgent."

"Suppose so."

"Can play it by ear, though." Speaking of, she's ready to keep moving. (Onwards to the machines?)

Onwards.

The first sign is a distant rhythmic clanking ahead. Approaching, there are a scattering of crumbled stone structures, half a foundation here, a length of wall covered by vines there.

Bellona starts walking very quietly. (While still observing the ruins and her general surroundings, of course.)

It's not too hard to maintain stealth, judging by the way the noises don't falter or change. They come to a practice yard of sorts, where a group of machines, perhaps twenty or so, slightly smaller than person-sized, bipedal, wearing what seems to be some type of lamellar armor, all doing unified drills with the spears they wield. One machine, standing on a dais of sorts, directs them with waves of its arms.

Any strategy A2 wants to use going into this?

Is Bellona gonna try to talk to them again?

...Might be kinda a large group to pre-disable, though she's fine stepping out and shouting hello from a distance. None of them look like they have guns.

She can smash them from behind if Bellona wants to be a distraction.

Only if they don't agree to friendlier negotiations.

They're still machines.

If that's all they are, then they should attack her anyways, shouldn't they?

Just don't get caught by surprise when it happens.

She won't! She's done a lot of this kind of iffy negotiation - she's technically in her home country's army (plus or minus the recent unscheduled leave of absence), usually up against other alchemists. 

Give her ten minutes to get around to the other side, then.

Will do.

The android ghosts off into the forest, footsteps light, swift, and sure.

The machine lifeforms in the courtyard continue their soldierly drills.

She gives A2 that ten minutes - then steps into clear view of the machine leader, at the farthest distance she can while still being in sight. She has her hands raised before her, clearly empty.

The machine in charge throws up both hands and points at her. All the others stop what they're doing and turn to look in her direction.

"An intruder!" the leader shouts. Its voice is modulated, obviously synthesized, higher pitched than the larger one she trapped earlier but not really high pitched. "An intruder in our Forest Kingdom!"

"An envoy," she calls out loudly. "I want to talk - representatives of one kingdom to another."

"We will protect our Forest King from invaders!

"I'm friendly, not an invader."

"You have invaded our Forest Kingdom!"

"I'm here to talk. I'll leave if you want, though."

"We are the Forest Kingdom! We do not need outsiders!"

"You don't have to need someone in order to talk to them."

"The Forest Kingdom stands alone!"

"Why?"

"None can be trusted! All are outsiders!"

"How did your kingdom form, if it wasn't by people who were once strangers coming together?"

"Our great Forest King led us here! We will be safe in our great Forest Kingdom!"

"Could you bring a message from me to your Forest King, then?"

"Outsiders can not talk to the Forest King!"

"Does that count if you're the one doing the talking?"

The spokesmachine emits a series of beeps and its spherical head twists in its socket. "Processing..."

"Outsiders can not contact the Forest King!"

"Can I contact you, and you give a report about me contacting you?"

More beeping. Also its head is beginning to emit steam.

"Cause I mean, if you relaying my words - or even just the general topic - to your king counts as a prohibited act of an outsider contacting your king, then that would imply it's prohibited for you to report on this conversation at all, which seems to run contrary to a soldier's basic obligations with regards to reporting critical intelligence - "

The beeping transitions to a high-pitched whistling and the steam grows more intense. Its head rolls faster and faster until-

-it explodes! And the machine lifeform's body slumps to the ground, now a machine deathform.

The other machines take this as an act of aggression on Bellona's part, by the way they level their spears and get set to charge.

OOPS.

Yeah she's not talking her way out of this one. Instead she claps her hands together and slams them on the ground in front of her, quickly raising an earthen wall.

"For the Forest Kingdom!" they cry in chorus, accompanied by the pitterpatter of metal feet on the ground.

Also accompanied by the sound of machines being reduced to scrap by A2's blade in the background.

Bellona vaults to the top of her wall, quickly forming spears spiking out from it and the ground, impaling any unwary enemies.

The machines do seem to have a problem with jumping, so provided she's out of reach of the spear tips, gaining height is an effective tactic.

Yep! She's well out of reach.

And between her focus and A2's blade, they mop up the group easily enough.

She hops down from the wall. "That was interesting."

"Really?"

"I actually got a chance to evaluate the machine's cognition!"

"Cognition is an optimistic word for it."

"It wasn't just randomly making noise, though. I kinda wanna talk to this king now..."

"And then kill it too?"

"Only if it attacks us first."

"So, yes."

"Don't know for sure until we try!"

"Should scout around and see if there's a trail deeper, then."

She can help - though if her companion could do that faster, this might be a good opportunity for Bellona to take a break...

They'll only be walking more after, so yeah.

The machines here seem pretty bad at climbing - she can set up a little camp, hide it more with alchemy, at the top of that outcropping over there? And then eat something more substantial than random foraged berries, maybe take a nap.

Fine by her.

"I promise I won't get into any trouble while you're gone."

"Don't blow up the fuckin' forest, yeah?"

"I won't set it on fire, either."

"Even better."

Giggle!

"See you later, then."

"See ya." And she takes off into the woods.

Bellona takes some time to gather food that'll benefit from processing (rather than being eaten on the go), then clambers up the rock face. She makes a nice little cave/ depression with alchemy and starts a minimum-smoke fire to roast her assorted root vegetables. 

She takes a little cat nap while it's running, and if nothing interrupts her by the time she finishes eating, another longer nap - pretty much until something catches her attention, or A2 returns.

She'll manage about a night's worth of sleep by the time A2 vaults up to her cozy little cave, then.

Plenty for her!

She wakes up as A2 approaches, snapping pretty quickly to full awakeness. "How'd exploring go?" (She wastes no time starting on breakfast.)

"There's more outposts scattered around. Center of the ring is maybe a couple days away at your pace."

"That's pretty far... How far is it at your pace?"

Shrug. "A few hours."

Hmmm... "There's gotta be a more efficient way to do this..." She gets her notebook and pencil out - "The transdimensional array should be generalizable, though we still haven't solved the need for anchors - but that should be minimized with intra-world transit - especially since the real-space is traversable and appropriately designed anchors can be dropped - hmmm, given Two's work with general relativity - don't want to fuck with the time dimension or cause any exciting relativistic effects, so I'd need to account for at minimum a lightspeed delay, but..." Mumble mumble math. "There's that soul anchor..." More mumbling. 

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

" - Uh. Do you want the executive summary, the explanation, or the scientific explanation?"

"How about we keep it short."

"So - I can more or less teleport, but I've only solved that for moving between universes - and I need an anchor at the other side first. Solving it for within-universe movement should be relatively easy? The issues are mostly with the anchor."

"Fuckin' incredible."

Giggle! And teeny tiny blush. "The anchor issue is a pretty big one - it pretty much has to be either a person or a very specific type of item, and if the item kind gets damaged there's a high risk for alchemical backlash - and I'm not sure I can replicate anchoring on a person, my sister managed to anchor on me but that was a special case... Plus I wouldn't know automatically when to activate the array, if it's safe to do so at a predetermined time, etcetera. There's another option that's differently risky, might be a lot smoother - I can, uh, basically teleport just my body to a specific slightly offset universe? Attach my soul to something real-side, ideally something I can use as a body though 'a small doll' would probably be ideal for just transport, since you could carry me - and then use myself as my anchor when I activate the array to summon my body."

It was one of Two's many dead ends for rescuing herself - it would've worked great, if any of them had gotten desperate enough to attach their soul to an anchor and throw it through the Gate and hope they survived the trip with their minds intact (Two thought that should have spat them back out of the Gate into a non-looped timeline - hopefully Bellona Final's, but there'd been a really high risk of coming out at a random other time their Gate was opened, and timetraveling into their own past would've been significantly worse - after which they could've summoned their body; temporarily attaching their souls to appropriately prepared objects is at least already solved, and the transit is a simplified and genericized version of the dimensional transit array).

" - Though there'd be other options if you could use alchemy..." 

"Uh huh. So go back to the part where this is somehow more efficient than just using your own damn legs?"

"It's both quicker and uses less energy."

"Teleporting your body to another universe uses less energy than walking in a straight line."

"If I'm walking for several days, it does!"

"That's fucked up."

"Human bodies are pretty expensive to run, energy-wise, even if they're efficient for an organic system - so putting my body in the alternate universe also reduces the base running cost, since it isn't moving or thinking, and it's in a sterile environment and the immune system is on pause."

"Okay, but- how the fuck do you know that, if it's an alternate universe. What if you try to get your body back and it's been gored by a fucking moose, or whatever."

" - Oh, it's empty. Like, literally featureless white void, except for some stuff relevant to alchemy. It's specific to a given alchemist, too, and under normal circumstances other people can't get at it - mine used to be linked to my sister, during the time span when my body was... Inoperable, it was actually in that universe, which is why we know the ongoing power draw since my sister was having to fuel it."

She shakes her head. "What the shit."

"Esoteric alchemy's weird like that!"

"You know what's not weird like that? Walking places. With your feet."

"But it's slow! And it's a bit weird in my home universe, if you're going that far most people use trains or general vehicles."

"Carrying you wouldn't slow me down much."

"Would carrying me bother you - ?"

"Why would it?"

" - Lots of humans get touchy about personal space." 

"Well, I'm not a human."

"And I'm unusually fond of touch! So don't mind being carried." Or, possibly, draping herself over her companion like a large cat.

"So no fucking around with alternate universe whatevers needed."

"Only fucking around for fun, got it."

Sigh.

She laughs.

"Ready to go, then?"

"Sure."

Best way is if she gets up on A2's back, then.

She clambers up! (She loops her left automail arm around A2's front, locking it to reduce the chance she falls off.)

Her sword obligingly resets its position out of her way. She'll hook her arms under Bellona's legs, and then-

Away they go. She starts off with a leap off and away from the rock face, flexing her knees to absorb the impact of landing and using the position to push off into a fast sprint. She hits her stride quickly, the wind and trees whipping past.

That gets some delighted laughter out of Bellona!

"Having fun back there?"

"I like going fast!"

"So do I."

"Works out perfectly, then."

"At least until you get bored and trip us into another dimension."

"How about I warn you if I'm getting bored, then?"

"Sounds only fair."

"Then I will - but I'm nowhere near bored yet."

Then A2 keeps running.

Bellona might find some entertainment in watching the forest flash past, her android companion's stride remaining as swift and surefooted even as time presses onwards, minutes into hours, uphill and down, brush and bramble presenting no more obstacle than a broad paved road.

She does! She also starts chattering at her companion - at one point saying, "I just realized I forgot to ask your name - ?"

"A2."

"Nice to meet you, A2."

"Same to you, or however that goes."

"Went much more smoothly than my last major interdimensional introduction."

"How's that?"

"...I kiiinda landed in a really suspicious circumstance, did not know about dimensional travel yet 'cause I'd traveled accidentally, and then got taken prisoner."

"Starting with explosions and destruction of military property is much fuckin' better, yeah."

"...Okay so maybe you just reacted better."

She laughs. "Yeah, well, YoRHa doesn't like me much either, these days. Solidarity, or some shit."

"Probably wouldn't have been all that good if I got caught by the local military, true... I've got a fig leaf of diplomacy going for me back home, but it's not too helpful elsewhere."

"What with the alternate universe and all, right."

"Yyyep. Gotta rely on being my charming self instead."

"Better you than me. I'd just have to kill people."

"I think you're charming! In your own way."

"Tch."

"Well, I like you."

"Thanks, I guess."

"No problem."

She continues running in silence for a while.

"There's more machine outposts. You wanna dodge them or take them out?"

"Probably better to dodge them for now, until I've had a chance to talk to the king... If we need to, we can hit them on the way out - and if they're at all rational about security, the king's gonna be toughest, so it's best for me to be fresh for that."

"Boring way it is."

"That's one way to put it."

"I call it like I see it."

"A good trait to have."

A2 smirks as she jukes up the trunk of a fallen tree to jump over a muddy puddle.

The jump gets another little giggle out of her.

"Feel like you want me to be more acrobatic."

"Wouldn't object!"

"Make sure you're holding on, yeah?"

She can lock her automail arm in place around A2's torso! And wrap her legs a bit better.

A2 begins practically bouncing through the forest, ricocheting off tree trunks and flipping over hillocks, sliding beneath branches and gliding through patches of dense brush.

They seem to be covering ground more quickly, if anything, with all these extra flourishes.

This gets shrieks of laughter out of her passenger!

Fuck yeah we're having fun.

She keeps this up for about fifteen minutes before slowing back to the relatively sedate pace she was keeping previously (which is still a breakneck sprint by any human standard).

Fifteen minutes is about right for a duration - Bellona takes the opportunity to stretch out a building cramp in her flesh hand. 

"Still back there?"

"Yep - just not made to sit still very long."

"Shoulda asked to stop to beat up some machines, then."

"Gentle stretching's fine."

"That sounds boring."

"How close are we to the castle, anyways?"

"Uh, maybe half an hour?"

"I'm good to keep riding, then."

A2 keeps running, then.

At least until an explosion carves out a massive crater in front of their path!

"What the shiiiiiiiiiit-" She skids to a halt at the edge.

Bellona peers over her shoulder! And does not jump off A2's back quite yet because she isn't actually stupid.

It looks like someone took an ice cream scoop to the ground, an almost perfectly spherical section blasted clean.

A pair of strange flying contraptions, almost but not quite humanoid in shape, swoop past overhead with a high-pitched whining sound, turning quickly and beginning a vertical descent.

"Oh, fuuuuuuuuck me," A2 groans.

Those look faster than A2, and that power output -

Also, they either tried to fucking kill her and A2 just now, or somehow thought that was an appropriate warning shot.

She learned not to fuck around with flying enemies capable of ranged attacks after the fucking dragons - but they're moving too fast to tag with an alkahestric anchor - but they aren't currently moving to attack again -

Her hands are already nearly together. It takes barely a thought to carve a modified version of Kimblee's arrays - taking into account what she knows of flame alchemy and alkahestry - into her hands, her thumb and forefinger and the flesh between them containing the central circle, elaborations to the side - and she can frame them in the circle created by her thumbs and forefingers touching without much trouble - 

She doesn't blow them up, though, not yet - just verifies briefly that she can track them even at these speeds, then properly clasps her hands together again, synthesizes a mild stimulant into her bloodstream, creates a durable carbon shield under her skin (leaving some circulation on the outside so she can sweat), reinforces her bones and important organs, and starts mentally putting together equations for a proper armored hiding spot - with that power output she doesn't have the material in this soil - but according to Bellona Two atoms are divisible, the other version of her already created and shared an array for true freeform transmutation - the calculations for highly exotic materials are probably too complicated for active combat, but she can pull off something with improved durability - or at least she could figure out how to non-explosively disable the flyers - 

...Relatedly, are her and A2 getting shot at again?

They are not, as it happens. The flyers touch down in the center of the crater on pointed limbs and the fronts open to allow the pilots to disembark. Or perhaps hop out would be the more apposite phrasing, as the flyers seem to only have enough internal space to exactly fit a single android. A metal brick-looking thing with grippy arms coming out the bottom detaches from the back of each flyer to hover above and behind each pilot's shoulder. Both of the figures are in dark, velvety-seeming dresses, with considerable amounts of poof and fashionable swoosh. Seems kind of like the intact version of what A2 only has the tatters of.

One of the pilots also looks familiar to Bellona, despite the blindfold on her face. She waves cheerily up at the pair standing by the crater edge. "Hello there! Can we talk?"

"You just tried to kill them," the other says. "Why are we asking to talk?"

"Kill them? Pf, no. I didn't hit them, did I?"

"So you intentionally violated the mission? You realize this will be going in the report."

"I'm creatively interpreting the mission. Field operatives have discretion. And anyway, you'll be fine, your operator loves you. It's me who's got to worry. Hey, do you think we could swing by that castle before we send the flight units back? If I get a scan of something neat and old-world, maybe she'll be distracted and forget to yell at me."

"9S..." she sighs.

"Hey, fuckfaces! You gonna come up here and try to kill me again or what?"

She throws her hands up. "I just said we weren't trying to kill you! Look, 2B isn't even leaping into battle swords drawn or anything!"

"I was this close to returning fire, you know," she calls from A2's back. She still has her hands near each other, ready to start up Kimblee's arrays at a moment's notice - though she shifts her hands so her current circle is passing through A2, starts analyzing her body as subtly as possible to build up a mental map on ways to transmute an android. "What do you want, and what possessed you to think shooting at us was a good idea?"

Alt of Zera or not, she isn't letting her guard down. And this delay gives her a chance to work on an alkahestric anchor...

"You blew up a way station, so fair's fair. That was you, right?"

"...That was an accident."

"Pretty lucky accident. Or unlucky. Those things are practically indestructible."

"I'm a prodigy of destruction." ...Probably they have also noticed the way she neutralized all the compounds. "So - that explains why you've got orders to kill me, but not why you've violated them to stop to chat." She is very unimpressed by their military's discipline in several ways - that, or Zera's alt is intentionally leaking things, in which case she's very unimpressed by their military's ability to keep its soldiers in line.

"Technically the phrasing was more along the lines of 'figure out how this happened, find whoever did it, ensure it doesn't happen again'. Which, obviously, yes, Command wants you dead, but I went over the site with a fine-toothed comb and I still have no idea what you did!" She looks unreasonably happy about this. "So when we tracked you down and you turned out not to be some new kind of rampaging machine lifeform burning all in your path, I made an executive decision."

Hum. "For your third point - I can promise not to do it again. It was a very specific kind of accident." Anyways she has other things to unwisely poke now. "For your first..."

"Can't tell you, sorry - for some reason, I don't think you're on A2's side."

"We could-"

"No," 2B interrupts. "She is a fugitive. You will not."

Pout!!

"You gonna try for that standin' fuckin' kill order instead?"

"That is outside our current mission parameters. Interaction with you would be best minimized."