pancakeswitch
patreon
OP Sister Chapter 426: The Forgotten Future
🕑 Added 2025-04-16 19:21:57 +0000 UTC-----
The single aberration controlling and dominating this layer emerged out of nowhere. Over several meters in length and composed primarily of corrupted data and data-corrupting crystals, this thing—a high-level virus—emerged from the caves, tearing through the data crystals and shattering them with its furious steps.
It mostly resembled a giant black and red spider made of these colored crystals, but it was also covered with several other insectoid bodies. It had scythes, claws, scorpion tails, and many more eyes across its entire aberrant body.
“I-It’s coming!”
Zero Two panicked as she saw the creepy, gigantic aberration approaching them and began to realize that this wasn’t going to be simple.
It’ll become a long, drawn-out battle again!
“Zero One!”
“Can we really do it?!”
The Zero Three twins were also panicking as Zero One’s eyes remained closed, even as the thing was right in front of them now.
“SHYAAAAGGH!”
The monstrous virus roared angrily, swinging its massive scythes against the sisters.
And at that moment, Zero One’s eyes opened.
FLASH!
A radiant golden light emerged from their combined auras, clashing against the scythes.
An explosive shockwave of golden light engulfed both scythes, blowing them into pieces and then ashes.
BOOOM! BOOOM!
The two scythes disintegrated as the monstrosity groaned in agony and instantly stepped back, looking at Zero One in utter horror and disbelief.
She recalled these little memories of Raven she now gained—of the last human, of the girl she was modeled after, of the girl that her Mother cared for and perhaps loved…
Her Aura only grew stronger as her Digital Soul overflowed with golden and white-colored anti-corruption data.
It was a powerful Anti-Virus Aura!
“Did you think you could do this to Mother? That you could toy around with her memories?! That you could create this giant nest and control her?! That you could corrupt her data like this?!”
And then, Zero One roared angrily, her eyebrows furrowing in utter fury. Her sisters felt her anger as their auras combined into a giantess made of golden light.
“SHYAAAARRGGHH!”
The Virus was intimidated at first but didn’t escape, quickly charging toward the giantess made of golden light, the Anti-Virus Zero One created.
CLASH!
The Virus Monstrosity was pushed back as the two slender, giant hands of the golden giantess pierced through its crystalline body, leaving behind several holes.
CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!
“GRYYAAASSSHHH!”
The monstrosity roared as it opened its jaws and released a downpour of muddy, black, miasma-like corrupted data, trying to destroy the giantess with it.
SPLAAASH!
However, the giantess’ golden fists pierced through the miasma itself, making it disappear into particles of light instantly.
As the monster was shocked, the Anti-Virus rushed forward, kicking the giant arachnid creature in the face and flattening its head with it.
BAAAM!
At the same time, her fists rushed down, tearing apart more and more of the Virus’ entire body, piece by piece. The monster was being reduced to mere shreds.
“GRRHHH!”
The Virus roared back as it suddenly summoned thousands of smaller versions of itself out of all its fragments, which swarmed the giantess, covering her entire body.
“HAAAAH!”
FLASH!
However, the giantess didn’t give up so easily. With a mighty roar, she released a shockwave of light and made the entire swarm of smaller arachnids disappear in an instant.
“GRRRGHH?!”
The virus panicked, stepping back as it began to consider escaping the giantess, whose power was much more than it ever thought possible for a mere antivirus created by an invading pocket of data.
“Don’t worry, your end will be swift.”
With all her resentment and frustration, Zero One moved forward with her sisters within the giantess made of their golden digital aura.
And then, she grabbed the escaping beast, pulverizing it with a beam of light coming from the giantess’ chest.
BOOOM!
As the Virus disappeared into nothing but cleansed data, the beam continued destroying everything else as the giantess sent shockwaves through the layer.
The shockwaves of light spread rapidly around the entire layer as the crystallized corrupted data started to disappear rapidly.
FLUOSH!
Until finally, the fourth layer was almost completely cleansed, except for a small area.
The giantess disappeared, leaving the android sisters looking around in awe at the situation.
“W-We beat it fairly quickly?! I thought it was going to take an eternity…” Zero Two said.
“We clearly don’t have time for that. Didn’t I tell you, sister?” Zero One asked. “And we also grew stronger, as I said before… Try to remember what I talk about, please.”
“A-Ah! Okay, okay, don’t be so tense, Zero One…” Zero Two sighed, looking into the distance. “Huh? This place is… completely clean?”
They realized the surroundings had changed into a view similar to how the first layer looked—completely white, with digital clouds above the skies and a glass-like floor.
“Yeah, the data was cleansed, but it was too damaged, so it was probably restructured…” Zero One sighed. “There’s nothing else I can do about it… This is all we could do. Let’s hope the fifth and last layer is different, even if a little bit.”
“Yeah, then let’s go.”
“No time to waste.”
The Zero Three twins nodded as Zero One agreed.
The four sisters walked through the endless horizon of light and crystalline purity and reached the hole.
It was still corrupt.
Zero One had decided not to clean it because it was their only way to the fifth layer.
“We’ll clean it as we go down. Let’s go!”
Zero One grabbed her sisters with her Aura and then leaped down, slashing the “wound” with her sword of light at the same time, cleansing all impurities within the corrupted data and making the “wound” regenerate.
Until, at long last, they reached the last layer, the fifth layer.
(Listen While Reading: 遺サレタ場所/斜光 )
The girls dropped onto the cold, metallic floor, which looked rather rusty without maintenance.
The ceiling, walls, and everything surrounding them, however, were fairly recognizable.
“Huh? We’re back here?” Zero Two wondered, standing back up. “But this place… Isn’t it a bit too rusty now?”
“It is…” Zero One nodded. “Looks like we’re back in the lab…”
“But why? I thought it would be different again…” said Zero Three A.
“It seems that Mother has the most memories about this laboratory. It was where she was born, after all, and also… where she and Raven met, right?” Zero Three B asked.
“I think so, yeah,” Zero One nodded, walking around. “It’s… it looks ancient.”
She looked around, noticing there were many mushrooms and grass growing in some areas. The metal had decayed, revealing concrete that had been pierced by the roots of trees above.
As they walked around, looking for the Core of the Digital Mind of Mother, the girls noticed something—a humanoid silhouette sitting in the next corridor.
“Is that a person?”
Zero One slowly walked toward them, curious, her sisters right behind her.
It was so desolate here that she thought about asking them what happened, at least.
And yet…
“Um, hello?”
As she talked to them, they didn’t respond.
And when she tapped their shoulder…
CLANK!
The person collapsed onto the ground as Zero One gasped, seeing the skull of a man with brown hair collapse onto the floor, its lower jawbone falling and breaking into pieces.
“I-It’s a skeleton?”
Zero One’s eyes widened as she recognized the clothes of the skeleton. Her sisters looked at one another.
The glasses also gave it away…
And as Zero One grabbed the card in the pocket of his white shirt, she read his name and saw his face.
“Chief Professor… Charles…?”
Her sisters quickly patted her shoulders as Zero One slowly placed the card in her dress’ pocket, looking at the skeleton with eyes filled with sadness.
She had never known this man, never talked with him, never even interacted with him or known him for longer than a minute.
And yet, why did she feel so sad?
“Zero One, let’s go…”
Zero Two patted her shoulders, and Zero One nodded, leaving the corpse there.
She wanted to bury him somehow, even though it was just data…
They walked around as Zero One guided her sisters toward their destiny, Mother’s Digital Mind Core.
The corridors were the same; the places were the same as well. They had already memorized this as androids, so it was easy to move around.
The core, indeed, was right where Zero Three and Zero Two guessed—within the hall where Mother was being created…
Now, however, it was sealed shut, and in front of the sealed gate, there was another corpse, a skeleton too, of someone who had died there.
The skeleton still had some pieces of skin over its body and looked to have died much more recently than the professor, perhaps years apart, as it was mummified and had yet to fully decay into clean bone.
“T-That’s…” Zero One ran toward the corpse, falling to her knees.
For some reason, as she saw the corpse of this woman with long, silvery-white hair tied into a ponytail, she felt an indescribable feeling of sorrow.
“…”
She looked at her ID Card…
“Engineer and Doctor… Karelin Franklin…”
-----
