* Vicetone – Nevada (ft. Cozi Zuehlsdorff) *

***

“Agh…” moaned Camilla as she woke up, “Eh? What’s goi-”

“Morning, Princess!” chimed in Maria with bloodshot eyes, and a sadistic smile on her face.

“Eh? What are-”

“Shush there prin-”

“Hey! Don’t shush me! I’ve-”

PUCHI!

The Wingman in Maria’s hand ‘gently’ made contact with Camilla’s forehead.

“Now, would you please tell us who the f*ck are you and where’s Draven?” Maria hissed at her.

“Eh? Wait! You don’t-”

“No! I do!” she insisted, pressing the gun harder onto the forehead of the panicking Camilla.

“Yo, also, who’s this little girl? As much as I know, Draven has no sisters. But why does she look exactly like him?” Maya said as she stood up from her spot next to the unconscious and injured poor girl.

Her expression quickly took a dark turn.

“AND WHY IN THE F*CKING WORLD WOULD YOU LET HER GET HURT?” Maya was gritting her teeth pointing at the kid’s messed up state.

Pieces of cloth had been used as bandages to prevent the girl from bleeding out, yet to no avail.

Many bandages were full of blood, her face and what Maya could see from her sickly pale body was full of scratches and wounds.

Her forehead was practically steaming hot because of the fever she has.

Hurting girls, and younger ones at that was as awful as it reminded her of her past.

She knew the lady in front of her had tried to fix the kid’s poor state, but she couldn’t forgive her.

What formed a black point on Camilla’s files was that she had absolutely no injuries herself, so Maya could only think that she had used the little kid as a bait to fend off whatever had attacked them.

Meanwhile, Camilla was considering fighting her oppressors since she knew they won’t believe her no matter what she says.

Heck she’d have a hard time believing it herself, and she’d been there watching the whole thing.

‘Aya, a little 7 year old looking kid saved our a*ses and fought against hordes of monsters! Oh by the way, she told me to save my powers so I can carry you idiots, but she then did it herself!’ Yea like hell anyone would believe that. Camilla cursed her weakness.

Even as an S ranker she was absolutely useless to the little girl.

What prevented her from jumping off a cliff right now, aside from the gun on her head of course, was the fact that she had blasted that b*stard of a monster, which obviously helped the little girl.

“B*TCH, YOU HEARD MY QUESTION, NO?” Yelled little Maya. Doubting that even her loud voice was enough to wake up the little kid as she was deep in her feverish slumber, made her a little uncaring.

Camilla started to panick for real since she was sure she was doomed.

Although she was weak in close quarters, she was still an S ranker. She could easily take the two girl’s down. ‘But that robo girl would destroy every last trace if my existence! F*CK my life…’

“Please, listen to what I have to stay! And hey don’t point that at me! It’s like a plasma gun, goddamn it!” She spoke fast so that the two girls don’t interrupt her.

“”We’re listening!”” Both Maya and Maria said in unison.

“Alright, so what happened is…” As she went through who she is and what had happened after they’ve lost consciousness, she could see mixed feelings and gestures here and there.

The most dominant was Maya’s double middle finger, as she crossed her small arms in a plus sign, and extended both her middle fingers.

Paired with her enraged expression, little Maya was terrifying.

“YOU WANT US TO BELIEVE THAT DRAVEN IS A ROBOTGIRL? A MACHINE? AND YOU’RE SAYING YOU’RE A F*CKING S RANKER? F*CK ME TILL SUNRISE IF-UGHEGH”

Blocking Maya’s mouth with one hand, as the other still pointed the Wingman at Camilla, she urged Maya to quiet down as the little kid started mumbling something.

Shutting up quickly, Maya crouched down to hear what the injured girl was saying.

“Euoyha”

Hearing the little kid’s pained moan made Maya flinch.

She could see her little frame shaking like an alarm clock which made her expression soften quite a bit.

Taking off her white hoodie, she covered the shaking frame with it.

Noticing something that was so obvious, made Maya feel so bad and so dumb at the same time.

“Maria, stop pointing that at her, please. She wasn’t lying…” her voice turned sincere and sad.

She instantly hugged little Draven.

“Wha-”

“Her clothes” Maya cut Maria off.

“Her clothes? They’re dirty, bloody, too tattered and too baggy t- Wait! Is that the soccer unifo-?” Maria stopped mid sentence, seeing number 11 that was barely visible on the bloody shorts that now reached almost three quarters of the way to Draven’s little foot, compared to above the knee, previously.

Retracting her gun made Camilla sigh in relief.

“It must’ve been really bad…” Muttered Maya.

She knew Draven can be cold, but to act like a robot, he would’ve been in such a pinch that he had to only speak keywords.

‘Even if the uniform was a trick, why does she look like Draven? But that doesn’t make any sense! How’s Draven a girl?’ Maya’s mind kept bouncing from one thought to the other.

All of a sudden a small wing flapping sound could be heard.

Looking at the way to the entrance of the cave, the group could see a small drone floating closer and closer to them.

Maria quickly pointed the Wingman and started charging it up with blue energy.

“STOP!” Yelled Camilla. “The girl made it!”

Maria hesitated for a second before lowering the gun.

“Oh for God’s sake, stop treating the gun as a flower basket!” Followed up Camilla.

The drone couldn’t speak so it used a hologram to write to the group.

– Hello, ally and friendly targets. This is Als04 of the Scout Drone series. Created by unit: Kayla, known across the galactic alliance as Lord Machina Ex Daemon –

Those words made absolutely no sense to anyone in the room, even though Camilla knew the girl had made the drone, she didn’t know her identity.

– As per instructions, Als04 is to show friendly targets and ally the previous events –

Waiting a moment for everyone to finish reading, the drone kept hovering in the air with it’s insect like wings.

Not too long after, where words used to be, a video started to play.

Maya, still hugging the girl and laying down besides her, pivoted herself so she can see everything clearly.

—————–

“…”

“…”

“…”

Whereas the two girls were surprised and shocked seeing the battle and all that’s happened, Camilla was surprised the girl’s eyes were filming everything.

‘Is “privacy” a joke around these parts?’ she thought as she shook her head in disappointment.

As the video was literally what Draven, or unit Kayla at that time, was viewing, they couldn’t see anything at the moment of his transformation into a girl.

All they could observe was that a blinding light had enveloped everything. And shortly after, the owner of the ‘camera’ had dropped a few inches lower.

They believed that Draven’s body had shrank down to the point where it resembled that of the injured girl.

After sometime, they could even see her tiny hands as she was touching their faces as she treated their injuries, and at that point they couldn’t help but glance between the video and the little girl.

Maya our her hand over her left cheek, where Draven had touched her, almost as if indirectly feeling his warm touch.

Maya started sobbing after realising what Draven had done and what he’d sacrificed in order to make sure that they were safe.

Maria was more shocked by the fact the she almost died, and that if it wasn’t for Draven, she would’ve been a lost cause.

‘Heck, even the best doctor would’ve given up on me, an any same healing mage would have focused on healing Maya fully instead of wasting their time on me!’ she thought sadly, yet with so much appreciation for Draven.

That was the second time he’d saved her life.

As the drone had no sound, they couldn’t hear any voices or sounds, yet everyone could hear the bone cracking sounds in their head when the monster king had punched Draven’s little face.

Maya’s aura flared for a brief second after which it had disappeared completely, like a glitch that wasn’t supposed to happen.

Almost everyone at that moment, had forgotten that Maya was never able to control or show her aura.

But she couldn’t care about anything in the world.

Someone had hurt her Draven. And even if they’re dead, many of their kind are still alive.

Maya had made it her goal to exterminate every last one of them.

“Eeoihhya…”

Another pained moan from little Draven knocked Maya out of her thoughts.

She unconsciously kissed her burning forehead before starting to undress.

“Hey what ar-”

“Doing the best I can, to make sure her brain doesn’t get fried from the fever” Maya cut Camilla off.

“What are you looking at?” At that, Camilla turned beet red and looked the other way.

“You too, Al-whatever, drone!” The drone hovered to the other side.

Taking off every piece of clothes she had on, except for her underwear of course, Maya started to do the same for the feverish Draven.

“Mar- Mom… Please, help me.”

Not too long after, Maya’s almost naked body was tightly hugging that of Draven. Covering their tiny bodies was a big pile of clothes.

“Isn’t body-to-body rewarming used for hypothermia?” Asked Camilla while trying to avoid eye contact.

“Normally, but in nature, temperature moves from high to low. Since Draven’s body is way warmer than Maya’s, the temperature would transfer from his to hers” Maria explained.

“Hers,” corrected Maya.

“Huh?”

“Hers! Draven is a ‘she’ now!” Maya turned beet red and avoided any eye contact, she even buried her face deeper into Draven’s body.

“Oho~, I can see that Body-to-body rewarming works wonders, huh?” teased Camilla with a chuckle, ” I can see your blush even if you hide your face, you know.”

“I’m not blushing! It’s the warm temperature!”

“Aya~, sure sure.”

“What should we call her then? I bet Draven isn’t a girl’s name,” said Maria trying to change the subject.

“Umm, good question-” pondered Camilla.

‘What makes you think you have a say in this?’ is what Maya had wanted to say, but way too many emotions were swirling inside of her head at the moment.

“Raven.” was what she actually said.

“Where?”

“Not an actual raven. She means let’s name her Raven.” Maria corrected the misconception.

“Isn’t that just lazy writing? You basically removed the first letter… Wait! You removed the only-

“Shhhhhhh!” interrupted Maria. “It’s not time for stupid puns!”.

“sorry”

“You better be!”

After a while, Maya had already closed her eyes and lost herself in her dream world.

Maria and Camilla stayed awake. It was some time after noon, so they weren’t really tired or sleepy in particular.

“Say…” Maria broke the silence, “What Dra- I mean Raven did back then, to me I mean, is it true?”

Maria meant about Raven transforming her into something other than human… a Soul Weaver.

Camilla didn’t actually reply, but she only made the “hell-if-I-know” gesture, while shrugging her shoulders.

“Have you been feeling weird?” Said Camilla, realising the opportunity to get back on Maria because of little “gun-kiss-forhead” incident.

She followed with what she thought was a good joke at the time, “you feeling weird and fuzzy in some places?” She said as she chuckled.

“Yes”

“Eh?” Camilla had the dumbest expression on her face.

“I feel… hungry….”