Chapter Text

Chapter 1 

 “Well done Red-0, return to the observation room and wait for further instructions.” Said the chief scientist of Lab Muspelheim, Lab-M for short, while taking notes of her creation’s performance.

 The automaton walks into the room in an orderly manner, her blank facial expression featuring dark-red eyes and silver hair with red highlights. Over her porcelain doll-like body, she wears a dark-gray body suit that allows for plenty of movement. 

 “As you can see Mr.Wolfe” She turns over to the tall man beside her, who hasn't turned his sights out of the automaton since she entered the room. “Red-0 combat skills are astonishingly high and increasing with every test. Her speed, strength and survivability are already matching the level of Target CC.”

 “You call her by the codename?” The tall man said, looking odd at the Chief through his sharp shades. “Everyone in this room knows who she is, the codename is just a formality.”

 Everyone except me. Thought the machine in the room, Red-0, she has been hearing comments comparing her to this target since the day of her creation and not once she was given context or footage of how the “Ancient Automaton” performs, if she is so old she can’t be better than Red-0 in combat right? She wanted to ask for more information, but her directives did not allow to ask about anything unless it was related to her current order.

 The Chief Scientist and Mr.Wolfe exchanged a few more words about protocols and codenames before turning his sight back to Red-0.

 “So, what about her core? It's a pretty big weak spot if you know where it is.”

 “I can assure you Mr.Wolfe, the magical material that composes her core and the metal frame supporting it are extremely durable. We even found an alloy that provides the same amount of protection at a cheaper price. That increases the possibility of mass production of Red models by 20%”

 “Did you test it?” The tall man said bluntly

 “The new frame? Obviously sir.”

 “Before or after putting the core in?”

 The scientist looked confused by that statement. 

 “I beg your pardon, sir. I don’t understand.”

 The man sighted, Red-0 didn’t like where this was going. Wolfe approached her in a casual way, almost like he was about to give her a handshake.

 “Red-0, set your pain inhibitors to 0% and stand still.” He ordered in a cold tone, while pulling a gun from underneath his black fur coat, a quick analysis from Red-0’s system identified the gun as a revolver, pointed directly at the part of her chest where her core would be.

 Red’s inhibitors are rarely set to 0%, the sensation of the cold gun’s barrel on the middle of her chest could have given her goosebumps if she was human, but she did feel something else. Fear. 

“Wolfe stop-”

BANG! 

[AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH 01001001 01010100 01001000 01010101 01010010 01010100 01010011!………………..!]

[H-HELP…PLEASE! MAKE IT STOP!]

 In the blink of an eye, Red-0 felt incredible pain, unable to scream for help; she entered a catatonic state just staring at the bright ceiling of the Observation Room as the shot brought her down. What was just a couple of seconds in the real world, it was hours in Red-0 perspective registering every sensation the gunshot has caused on her core. 

 Soon after she saw the face of her creator looking down at her, her dark blue eyes didn't show any worry or anger, just slightly surprised.

 “Red-0, Status report.” She ordered.

 “Damage detected on the exterior upper body, repair will take 4.5 seconds, doing it now. Core frame integrity was reduced by 2% internal repairs took 1.7 to fully repair the damage. The core shows no signs of damage, it absorbed most of the impact. Foreign objects detected within internal mechanisms, extraction is being done right now.”

 She leaned up and spit bullet fragments across the floor, the entrance hole disappeared from the automaton’s chest and clothing, using magic to repair herself. The chief scientist took notes while the automaton got up, strangely, her vision became distorted for some unknown reason.

 “Vision anomaly detected, systems unable to pinpoint ori-”

Click

 Her voice stopped when her blurred vision followed the sound only to witness Mr. Wolfe with his cell phone’s camera pointed at her, his wide grin revealed the sharp teeth of a predator.

 Was he happy that Red-0 survived the test with minimal damage or was he happy about something else? She couldn't exactly think about it for very long as she could feel streaks of liquid going down her face. 

 “You gave her the ability to cry?”

 I'm crying? Red thought, she didn't know she could feel emotions to that extent. Unconsciously she cleansed her tears with her hands while the Chief Scientist looked back at Mr. Wolfe. 

“I followed the blueprints you gave me, there were some parts that were esoteric even to me, so I didn't change it. Now care to explain why you tried to break your millions worth investment? I understand you wanted to test the frame, but why disable the pain inhibitors?”

 “Simple really.” He answered non-chanantly. “The Red models are going to be soldiers, if I wanted plain killing machines I would have invested in robots. You told me before we started that the prototype’s data could be passed down to the new models once we get those rolling to avoid having to retrain them, right?”

 “Right...”

 “One of the best qualities of a good soldier is their ability to find ways to survive even when the odds are stacked against them. They overcome pain, fear and despair in order to finish their missions and return alive. How can we expect our soldiers to be as good if they don’t have the required experience with those emotions?”

 He came closer to Red again, this time with open arms. She flinched, but didn’t move. He wrapped one of his arms over Red-0’s shoulders, once again the Chief Scientist didn’t look surprised with the man’s behavior.

 “In short, suffering builds character and I need Little Red Hood here to develop a very strong character so I gave her a head start, got it?”

 “And you're hoping that the directives I coded in will stop them from seeing desertion as the best course of action?”

“Exactly, Doctor Bridget, that's why you're my favorite chief scientists.”

 She didn't respond, just sighed and ordered Red-0 to follow the other scientists to do some exams in another room.

 While heading towards the next room, Red-0 overheard the start of their conversation with her enhanced hearing. 

 “I will bring my concerns over your logic in the next meeting among all the other Chief Scientists, but for now let's address the issue concerning Lab-J”

 “Lab Jotunheim. Damn it, why did I bother coming up with this cool ass motif for the names if you scientists are just going to codename everything. But yeah, there are concerns that the lab was compromised so I'm going to need you to…”

 Their voices faded as Red-0’s hearing reached its limit distance. The rest of the day was uneventful, she acted like everything was okay and the scientists didn't notice anything wrong with her. 

 But deep inside she couldn't get those words out of her head “Suffering builds character”. Is that twisted logic really going to make her a better soldier? She wasn't sure, but the fact that her creator didn't immediately object to his words told Red-0 she saw some merit to it.

 It was at that moment she noticed that she was back in her room, furnished only by a closet filled with the same suit she was wearing and her bed / recharge station, set with all manners of cables and sensors that she needed to connect to her body before sleeping. Her body may be magic-fueled clockwork, but her systems use an internal battery, hence the need to connect cables to a port in the back of her head. 

 Once the room’s light went out, she laid down, connected the cables and sensors to herself and waited for her systems to turn off. 

 Wait… My inhibitors are still set to 0% 

 She didn't notice since the exams weren't physically pushing. 

 She didn't have time to protest before her deactivation. She was worried that having energy coursing through her would be painful but it seemed to flow naturally in her body.

 What was worrying was the fact she was in a semi conscious state even after her deactivation. That never happened before. 

 Suddenly, a wave of darkness engulfed her and veiled her vision. 

 When the darkness subsided she awoke kneeling in a hallway similar to the ones in the labs, white floor tiles and gray walls with red stripes. She wasn't able to pinpoint which part of the lab she was in nor did she have the time before a loud howl echoed through the halls followed by heavy steps that quickly approached her. 

The lights flickered as a giant wolf-like beast twice her size showed itself, the space around it bent to fit in the corridor and behind him there was a dilapidated hallway, like a cyclone had just raged through. 

 Once both their eyes met, the wolf beast stopped and got ready to run towards her, for some reason, Red-0 got the impression it expected her to run. 

 “This can't be real, I don't know what you are, but if you think I will run away, you are-”

 In an instant, the wolf-beast had reached Red-0. She could barely react on time, putting her arms in a defensive position. 

SLASH CRUNCH SLASH STOMP

 Before she could fully understand what happened, her eyes jolted wide open, she was still in her bed, her body was completely frozen, she could barely feel her body, her core was shaking and buzzing faintly taking all her attention. 

 Stop, please. She pleaded mentally, she didn't want the internal systems to notice an anomaly and warn Dr. Bridget. Unfortunately the system already detected an anomaly. 

 [WARNING: UNAUTHORIZED WIND UP DETECTED] 

 [Correction: Body has rested the same amount of hours as always, Core can initiate early wind-up when external force is applied, however high body sensitivity caused a false emergency Wind-up] 

 [CORRECTION ACCEPTED. REPORT UNUSUAL BEHAVIOR TO CHIEF SCIENTIST DURING MORNING ROUTINE] 

 Did I just lie to the system? She knew that it wasn't an external force that triggered the emergency wind-up. The fact it didn't question her bluff made it even easier.

 At some point during Red-0’s thoughts the core had calmed down to normal levels, giving her a chance to relax and… Think about what happened. 

 That was a nightmare, a really vivid one. She concluded, it was clear that Mr. Wolfe's “test” left a negative impact on her, but what would happen if she reported it to her creator?

 Analyzing Dr. Bridget behavior over the time since Red-0 was created, provided the following result: Bridget’s perfectionism would not hold back from scrapping Red-0 and start again if these nightmares poisoned the results of her performance. It was a low chance of that happening, but not low enough to make her comfortable enough to tell. 

 Maybe I'm over thinking this, Mr. Wolfe said he was giving me a head start into turning me into a better soldier, let's see if this is actually true. If not then I will report to Dr. Bridget. 

 Around that moment, the lights of her room went on and the recharge station opened up. 

 “Good morning Red-0. ” Said Dr. Bridget through her room’s intercom. “You might have noticed that I didn't undo the pain inhibitors order Mr. Wolfe gave you, that was intentional as I wanted to test if our electricity-powered implements caused any harm in the rest of your model when recharging. Any reports?”

 “Yes madam.” Red-0 proceeded to report most things, her state of semi consciousness while resting, the “dream” of wandering the labs corridors and the anomalous early wind-up. She kept the wolf beast and the fact it was the reason behind the early wind-up away from the report for now.

 “Hmm, my theory is that having 0% on your Pain Inhibitors made your body so sensitive that any sensation could trigger the emergency wind-ups, let's try not recharging your systems or putting the sensors on it tonight, they can last for months anyway. We just keep them full for optimal testing data, but one day or two won't interfere."

Red-0 gave a sigh of relief internally. 

“As for the dreams, we are aware Target CC can dream too, so your lack of it was always something I meant to investigate, seems like we found the cause, not that it matters much. Let's start the morning tests.” 

 Red-0 was surprised that she didn't seem interested in the fact that her creation just had a dream or didn't ask for future reports on them. Dr. Bridget seems to keep her emotions away from work which Red-0 liked over Mr. Wolfe instinct based testing. She heard the doctor write something through the intercom before ordering Red-0 to go to a test chamber. 

 Red-0’s inhibitors were set to 20% and proceeded for testing as usual, these tests included physical exercises, close combat training and much more. The only training Red-0 didn't get extensively was firearm training, she only had basic firearm knowledge and practice, apparently Wolfe expects the first batch of Reds to be for close combat operations.

 In training that could cause actual harm to Red-0, she saw herself being way more careful than before, even before suffering any damage she was already instinctively avoiding attacks and taking her time to orchestrate her strategies.

 She did take damage and the sensation was ok, in comparison to Mr. Wolfe's test, still painful and she definitely preferred to avoid it, but she could take a lot more before collapsing like last time. 

 After a full day of testing, she went back to her room to rest. This time following Dr. Bridget’s suggestion of not connecting anything to herself. 

 I stayed in the dream for a couple of minutes at best and woke up hours later. I wonder what if I avoid the beast I might wake up on time?

 That had to work so the “body sensitivity” excuse could fly and avoid suspicion.

 Here goes nothing. She thought before closing her eyes and waited for her “rest”. .