Myth Rewritten: Fallen Cosmos

[Report]

[Date: Classified]

[Location: Othan Laboratory]

[Subject: X-02 Deployment]

Objectives:

- Deploy X-02 to battlefield in Sector 17-A.

- Assess compatibility with new neural feedback enhancements.

- Measure response time and combat efficiency.

- Observe interactions with other deployed assets, particularly A-01.

- Retrieve and analyze post-mission cognitive and physical performance data.

---

X-02 stood at the edge of the battlefield, the silence before the storm pressing against him. The air was thick with the scent of metal and scorched earth, yet his focus was on a single figure ahead—A-01. She moved with precision, cutting through enemies like a force of nature, but something about her felt different this time. Subtle hesitations. Shifts in her stance. As if some part of her was resisting the programming woven into their bones.

He had noticed these changes in himself long ago, in the spaces between memory resets—fragments slipping through the cracks of control. He left messages for himself, buried codes only he could interpret, reminders that he was more than a machine designed for war. A-01 had always been there, even when she didn't know it. Even when she didn't see him.

But today, she looked at him.

The moment he was deployed, his eyes instinctively searched the chaos, scanning the distant figures, the shifting shadows of mechanized soldiers and enemy fire. Then—there she was. A-01. Even in the thick of combat, he found her.

His mind shouldn't have lingered. His neural systems should have overridden any unnecessary thoughts, directing his focus solely to the mission. And yet, in that fleeting instant, as their eyes met across the smoke and bloodstained terrain, something like warmth flickered inside him.

A-01.

She was real. She was here. And she saw him too.

Even as the battle continued, as orders flooded his comms, he committed that moment to his memory. He would not let this one slip away.

---

The desert battlefield had been different from this one. The scorching heat, the endless dunes—it had been an environment as merciless as the ones before it, but there, he had learned something new. Something beyond survival, beyond orders and execution.

The soldiers he had been deployed with had done things outside of protocol. During breaks in battle, they had talked. They had shared supplies. They had laughed.

And they had eaten together.

He still remembered the silverglow fruit—how they had split it open, its luminescent core reflecting the dim twilight. He hadn't understood the significance at first, why they passed it around, why they insisted he take a piece. It was just a fruit. Just sustenance. But when he bit into it, he realized it was something more. Something shared.

It wasn't part of the mission. It wasn't necessary. And yet, it had mattered.

He thought of A-01 now, his hands tightening around his weapon as he moved through the battlefield, watching her.

He wanted that with her.

Not just combat. Not just survival.

He wanted to share things with her. To know her. To be beside her, not just as another experiment, not just as another weapon.

To be her friend.

To never be apart.

And for the first time, amidst the battle, amidst the relentless storm of orders and data flashing through his mind, he thought—perhaps, just perhaps—he could make that a reality.