Journey of Robotics Chp. 1.1

Hey Guys! First chapter of my side novel. Name still pending! I hope you enjoy!

Azra POV~~~~

The wind cut through my hair as we speed down the barely made road. Once I had gotten the hang of driving the bike, I found that my mind started to wander as I watched the surroundings pass by almost too quickly for me to catch. I thought back to when I first came to the dungeon that I had called home for the last few months. I had been a slave meant to die to a monster’s blade.

My master was a prick that just bought a bunch of slaves, with no combat experience to speak of and had wanted to conquer the dungeon with sheer numbers. I found I had a good aptitude with the shield and once I had a mace in my hand I was able to dish out the damage just as well as I could take it. Of course, all the slaves were low tier people that had mostly never fought a day in their lives, so we lost quite a few in the first day or so. 

After a few battles, everyone was required to harden themselves to fight the weird monsters of the dungeon we were in. For hours upon hours sometimes with what felt like barely any rest we were forced to fight the bizarre puppet monsters. They moved in strange ways and were equal to most men in strength even though they looked like pieces of wood stuck together. After a few days of this, we finally made it to the boss room. 

I felt like we entered with no plan at all. How could we have? No one had ever made it that far down before. The boss decimated our group. At least the piece of shit slave master got smashed to a paste. I was pinned to a wall by a spear and watched as the giant figure of the boss approached me to finish me off. When I thought all was over and that I would be reunited with my parents, the boss stopped walking and turned around to walk back to its original position. 

That’s when I heard the voice of my current master. He asked me if I wanted to live. I accepted his proposal and became what I am today. Neither mortal nor what my new master calls machine, I was some hybrid of the two. I could go weeks without eating as long as I absorbed mana daily. I was incredibly strong, easily able to smash boulders now. I glanced behind me at the shield, my new master made for me. It was easily the same size as myself. I used it to protect my new family.

I looked next to me at the person that rode a bike similar to mine, her name was Z2. She had blue hair and wore a sleek black coat. With a rifle at her waist, along with a sword that seemed to be made out of ice. Normally, there would be two mechanical wings, as my master calls them that had two tubes each that were filled with her liquid nitrogen, or her personal mana supply. They were hidden under her coat right now so as not to cause a panic if someone were to see us. 

Next, I looked to the front of the group, a man named Puppet, that was the leader of the party was guiding us through the forest. He had something had a drone, it was like a bound familiar that was directing us towards our first destination. He was what my Master called a ninja, everything about him was sleek and let him move with ease. I could see two blades strapped to the back of his waist Nbut I knew he had more weapons than that at his disposal. 

Lastly, I glanced back and looked at the two newest members of our group, Natsuko and Natsuo. They were riding on the same bike, and they reminded me of a pair of kids. Both were short at barely a 140 or so centimeters, and they were almost like twins. The girl had twin tails and the boy had short hair that went to his ears. The girl had a giant weapon on her back, that Master said could take down most enemies if given a chance. The boy had no weapons, but he was able to fix anything that might happen to us, while on this trip.

As I thought about weapons, I looked to the new mace, the Master had given me. It looked normal right now, but it had something called a shotgun built into it. If I got close to an enemy, I could pull a trigger, and the mace would release a blast of some type that most things wouldn’t be able to block, according to Master anyways. I felt my shield shudder and glanced at it, but still, nothing happened. It had been doing that since shortly after the necromancer battle, and I was worried it was damaged in some way, but the Master said it was fine. 

Puppet raised his hand and called for a stop. I hit the brakes, and the bike slowed in a matter of seconds. I still wasn’t used to the sudden stopping power this thing had. We moved over to a clearing on the forest path so that we weren’t in the way of anyone making their way to the dungeon. We weren’t on the main path, but we still ran into random people every now and then.

“Let’s take a moment to let the bikes recharge, my drones are still trying to pinpoint the correct direction anyways,” Puppet said when gathered.

“Understood,” I said stretching to pop my back. I may be part machine, but parts of me were still flesh and blood so they can get sore. 

Natsuo moved over to me, and his hand glowed a silver-blue, and he slid his hand across my back. The pain vanished like it was never even there. I moved my arms in various ways but still felt no pain. 

“Thanks, Natsuo,” I said with a smile. All I got was a nod in reply, it seemed he didn’t like to speak much.

“Natsuo! You’re such a caring younger brother!” Natsuko said grabbing hold of Natsuo’s hand and not letting go. They moved over and sat down on a log. Natsuko grabbed her rifle and seemed to inspect it to make sure the travel hadn’t messed with it. 

“Could a few hours on the road really cause it any problems?” I asked curiously.

“Hm-m, Father gave me a very delicate piece of weaponry, so I have to be careful with it. While it can knock a hole through about four people easily, a little bit of dirt can cause the thing to backfire,” she explained for me. I was glad she wasn’t talking like she was when she was first borne, but I think Natsuo had something to do with that.

“Hey, Babe!” I heard a voice. 

“Huh, who’s there,” I called.

“Azra, Something wrong?” Puppet asked looking over to me. 

“I heard a voice,” I said honestly. Puppet threw one of his drones into the air and let it scan the area. 

“Nothing detected.”

“Huh, that’s weird.”

“Hey! Hey! I’m on your back Babe!” The voice said with a laugh, and I felt my shield shudder

“Ah!” I screamed and tossed my shield away from me, I had forgotten my strength and the shield ended up lodged in a tree on the other side of the clearing. 

“Ouch! Ehh, not really… Hey! Why you throwing me! I'm basically your partner!” The voice said in what I realized was my head. 

“My shield! My shield is talking!” I said to the group. Puppet walked over and looked it over. He tapped it a few times, and I saw one of his eyes shift through a few different colors. 

“It seems to be a spirit has taken to living in your shield,” Puppet said after a moment. 

“What?!” I shouted in shock.

“It should be fine, I think it was there when Father inspected it,” Puppet continued. 

“Yeah! The Boss told me to watch over you, and he would let me stay,” The shield said in response to Puppet.

“Ok, I’ll believe you for now. What’s your name?” I asked the shield. 

“Can’t remember…” He replied. 

“Ok, then… I’ll call you Skjold, I think I read somewhere it went shield in another language,” I said after thinking for a bit.

“Skjold, ok sounds good,” Skjold said with a shake.

I went and pulled the shield from the tree and check it over. Of course, there were not even any scratches on the surface. I threw it back on and made my way back to the group. 

“Any news?” I asked Puppet when I was next to him. 

“I have three possible leads, but the forest is throwing out some serious mana waves from multiple locations I’m not sure how accurate I can be,” Puppet said shaking his head. 

“We’ll just have to check all three, until we find the automata that somehow got out here,” I said patting him on the shoulder, “Which one is closest?” 

“The one to the north, but it’s still two days out even on bike.”

“Well, let's go already, I want to get back to Father before he creates someone to replace me!” Z2 said from the side of the clearing. 

Puppet and I looked at each other and chuckled. Z2 was a father’s girl, not sure about the full story but they seemed to be from a place called Earth, and she followed him when he came here. I moved over to my bike and mounted it. 

“Hey, Babe! You need to get Puppet or Natsuo to add a mount to the front of your bike, so I can block the front for you,” Skjold said from behind me.

“And the real reason?” I asked feeling like that wasn’t really the reason.

“It’s boring looking backward,” he replied honestly.

“Fair enough, I’ll have one of them do it when we stop for tonight,” I said with a chuckle. 

“That’s going to get weird, you seemingly talking to no one,” Puppet said from in front of me. 

I sighed and just nodded. Puppet revved his engine and took off. We quickly followed behind him. We were moving into even less traveled parts of the forest.