Author's Note

Sorry, this chapter took so long I got hit some writer's block. When it hits, it hits. I decided to split this into a 2 parter hell maybe even 3 if it is needed. So here it is. I hope you enjoy it I had to rewrite it like 5 times because it wasn't going the way I needed it to. so with that again I say I hope you enjoy this little story.

Chapter 10: A Change in Perspective Part 1

As Aloy walked along the beach, She found herself admiring the beauty that covered this place. wherever she was that is. As she stared at some of the flora that was spread out she was surprised when her focus activated and showed a beacon was nearby. When she tried to search for it she could find no visual indicator of its presence within the nearby area. As if to confirm her suspicions, the map appeared as if it had a line connecting two points. Her current location and the other end were connected to the source of the beacon. instead of a small indicator, it was much bigger and shaded which meant only one thing. With a sigh, she would have to search a large area until she could find whatever was making the beacon. it was about a day's walk from her current location. After double-checking that all of her gear was secured, she started to walk, but she stopped and looked to her back and saw the pair of wings that were on her back.

She extended them and noticed that they weren't natural, rather they were made of metal with no feathers. They remind her of the shield wings or a bat’s wings, minus the webbing. Any way of keeping her in the air. which meant it was a bunch of walking. She let out a groan of frustration and started her trek to the beacon's location. Which required a trek through another forested area.

"It can never be easy can it?" Aloy said to herself out loud as she continued her walk.

She decided to look for a place to set up camp and started looking for a clearing of some kind. A place she could make camp for the night. As the sky grew dark she hurried her search. A few moments later she found a small ravine she dug through her things and found the shield wing. She flicked it on and off again to make sure it still worked. Satisfied, she jumped off the edge and activated the shield wing and she slowly glided down to the bottom of the ravine. However, she forgot to figure out how to land in this body. When she hit the ground, it turned into a tumble as she rolled and crashed into a rock.

“Yup, that hurt. A lot.” Aloy said as she got up with a groan.

As she got up she noticed that something was strange about the ravine. She looked around until her focus lit up and the beacon was now at eye level with her. The signal was coming from deep within the cave. She continued forward into the cave turning on the flashlight on her focus as she descended deeper. She continued to walk for a while finding nothing and decided it could be nothing or it was just buried. Until she noticed a blue light emanating from in front of her. She readied herself and made a ready to activate her shields if need be. She slowly and cautiously got closer to the source as she saw it was bright and it was around a corner. Approaching the corner she pressed herself against the wall and placed a talon on her spear. Taking a deep breath before she jumped out from cover with her spear at the ready standing on her back legs using her forelegs to hold the spear. Only to find no one. Except a door with a blue circle in front of it. She didn’t have too long to ponder this as she soon face-planted into the ground. Grumbling she got back up grabbed her spear and placed it on her side. Putting away her over-shields to let it recharge, she approached the door placed a talon over it, and turned it clockwise. With a beep, the circle spun around once before disappearing allowing the door to open.

Aloy continued further curious about what was inside. When she fully entered the door closed leaving only Aloy in the pitch black with her focus being the only thing that enabled sight. That was until lights flicked on and slowly one by one the ceiling lights flickered on. With most of them not turning on, it was enough. Aloy turned off the flashlight and walked forward for a while until she came upon a four-way intersection. She looked left, then right, and then forward. She then looked up and saw the signs. ‘Research and development’, ‘Living area and cafeteria’, and finally the last one interested her ‘control room and data center’. She decided to head straight to the research and development section of the underground facility. She assumed that she might get a better idea of what this place was rather than learning what it did.

Continuing down the hallway there wasn’t much besides the occasional office room or supply closet. Eventually, she reached her destination and she was met with another door, luckily it was unlocked. Placing her talon on the circle and turning it, she was met with something she expected as was the norm for the bunkers she came across. A skeleton lay a top of a control panel, but it wasn’t a normal skeleton it was pony-shaped. Aloy noticed something sticking out from the back of its head and then noticed an object hanging around its neck and saw a badge. She carefully grabbed it and got a look at the name. ‘Dr. Alex lvl 5 access clearance’.

Aloy decided to take the badge because she may need it to access certain data points if they were restricted behind clearance levels. She used her focus to scan the room and found a data point. Unsurprisingly it was locked behind a clearance level. Using the badge, the data point unlocked as she read its contents.

”I am logging this under protocol Delta Charlie Alpha Bravo Gamma 9-0441-A

It has been a few months since the portal closed without warning. With no way back I fear that the rest will become….restless. And want to venture outside of our confines. I have expressed my disagreements with this. Due to mostly the fact that we are far more intelligent than the ones in the outside world. They are primitive and live in a small community of huts and it reminds me of the medieval or Dark Age era. Our knowledge would probably speed up the process of self-destruction….*sigh*….I grow tired of the constant in and out of our lives. The Eden project was supposed to be our last hope and now if my hunch is correct…no one will ever get to see it. Maybe that’s for the best.”

As she finished reading she hummed in thought. Before looking around even more. She looked through the window and saw something strange. She noticed a button on the console that said lights. She walked over and pushed it as the lights for the room she was in and the room behind the window lit up. What she saw both confused and worried her. It was a machine, although not like any she had ever seen. The machines she knew resembled animals, but this one was more human-looking. Its legs were shaped strangely with the legs being bent backward almost like that of an animal’s as well noticed the human-shaped hands and saw that it was missing one of its arms and the bottom part of its jaw was missing. She activated her focus and saw a data point on the strange-looking machine. She noticed a door to her left and pushed the button that was next to it. When the door opened, Aloy carefully walked closer to it making sure that it wouldn’t wake up. If it was even online at all.

As she approached the machine and scanned it she was surprised it had data on it. She brought up the data entry on the machine.

Machine Name: Sentinel

Machine type: Support

Description: This machine was designed to sustain cognitive transplantation to allow the function of consciousness awareness in an individual. With upgraded weapons, shields, and armor. These machines were the ideal fighting force when the….[Data Corrupted]

Making her eyes widen and look back at the machine. She tensed and made ready to strike the machine but quickly hopped on its back and pulled out the data chip. After hopping down back to the ground she slowly walked out of the room keeping an eye on the machine. As she exited she closed the door behind her and breathed a sigh of relief. She then thought over the data point. The rest of the data was corrupted but it said that these sentinels were an Ideal fighting force. For what, she could only assume the Faro Plague, but the Robots never made their way to Eden if the data she had so far found were correct. They only found it, the portal, according to the logs, closed at least 2 months before the facility was discovered and the bunker was nothing but a crater then like it was when she found it. What happened here was a big question on her mind, but it would have to wait for later.

As she arrived back at the four-way stop again, she looked at the signs and saw the armory and decided it was best to see if anything of use could be salvaged. As she headed down the hallway to the armory and noticed that it was quite a long walk. While it didn't take that long to get there, the off-putting part was the fact that it was just a hallway to the armory. There were no other entrances indicating possible power rooms or living quarters of any sort. The walk itself only took her about 15 minutes to get there, which made her wonder why it was so far from the starting point. Why not just a door instead of a long hallway that leads to said door? It seemed odd to have it so far away in case of an attack. Then again, no one probably knew of this place was her guess.

When she opened the door she saw why it was such a small distance off to the side, and Aloy didn't like it. In the room, Towering over her, was the body of a Horus. Something then caught her eye about the slumbering Titan. What immediately stood out to her was that it was missing its limbs and beneath it was a platform directly under the fabricator. After a moment of thought she asked aloud her thoughts to no one in particular.

"Were they using the Horus for its Fabricators?" Aloy asked aloud to herself. She saw a spot where she could repel down. backing up a bit and getting a running start she jumped and threw her grapple behind her and slowly approached to ground where she gathered said grapple and stowed it back into her stash.

Activating her focus she looked around and saw a terminal that was still functional. Approaching it she saw it was already on and tapped the screen with a talon. As something appeared she had to wipe away the dust and dirt that gathered on the glassy surface of the terminal and read it.

Good morning Overseer.

Would you like me to initiate power cycling protocols?

Y/N

Thinking for a moment Aloy decided to push yes as at first nothing happened. Until the room began to shake and a feeling of slight fear came over her she heard a huming noise come from the titan. She noticed that the head of the titan flickered on and off and quickly rushed to stop the sequence, but simply there wasn't enough time. After a moment every suddenly stopped shaking. Confused Aloy stood up and looked up at the Horus. She noticed its eyes were glowing blue. She looked at the screen as a stream of notifications started pouring onto it.

Boot-up sequence complete...

Recharger: online...

Battery station: Online...

Horus Titan Fabricator: Online...

All Systems working at maximum efficiency...

R3D-0811 walked through the hallways of the cauldron and approached a door that opened as he got closer, his metallic tail twitching as he saw the notification on the display before him. He had lost track of the savior when she had entered the sentinel testing bunker. He needed her here as soon as possible. Waving his hands in a horizontal motion he swapped to different views that had some of his Crows keeping an eye on key ponies of interest to him. He kept going until he came upon a view of the concern in question. His robotic eyes narrowed on him as his presence could spell countless problems. If he discovered the artifact. If the subject ever discovered the artifact, then this world would be doomed. He always took caution in his actions to not make the subject curious as to why he was there. He had an Idea but until the savoir returned he could not execute the idea he had in mind. He scrolled through the data bank of her focus. He thanked his creators that the uplink was designed to last for decades if anything were to happen. However, to say that he needed the savior to access certain facilities that he was restricted from would be an understatement. His creators didn't think they would die off as soon as they did. so they never gave him proper access to everything that would be required to operate at maximum effectiveness. Nevertheless, R3D-0811 still performed his usual duties that were within his boundaries. Even still he had to find a workaround for certain things.

While the artifact was on his mind he checked its status. As he saw the holographic model appear he saw all tags were green meaning it was still active. His main concern was the city that sat atop it that concerned him.

As he finished a sudden alert appeared in front of him. A sudden data stream was turned on and it was where he lost track of the Savoir. Typing a few commands into the display he managed to get a view of her. He decided to check to see if a clear connection could be made. Discovering one could in fact be made, R3d quickly attempted one but found that many of the uplinks subsystems were having errors. So after checking and skimming through multiple errors and subsystem boot-ups later, he managed to get a somewhat stable connection. That's when he spoke his first words in nearly half a century. His voice is like metal scraping on metal with some static between his words.

"Hello, Savior."