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With fear of discovery by the dangerous denizens of Neo-Tokyo fresh in her mind Dahlia sprinted to cover in the bathrooms of a nearby train station and locked herself in a stall. Only then did she look to the radio. It was still on, broadcasting dead air. Thankfully the volume had been low when the call had come in. She tentatively felt for the sending button and pressed down, her nerves audible even over the poor connection. "H-hello?" The response was immediate- "Oh dear, you actually answered! I thought I saw someone out there on the street... I'm Miyu, and I'm trapped. Are you here to help me?" That wasn't any of the names listed, but she'd seen Dahlia out by the bag. Maybe she knew something, and regardless of that, she needed help. Dahlia didn't know if she was capable of actually following through, but...

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"Um- okay. I need to get someplace safe though. Oh, I'm Dahlia!" She was proud of herself for not forgetting to give her name, for once. Dahlia searched through her inventory having deposited a pair of earbuds that fit into the radio and placed just one ear in. "I can help with that! If you leave the station and look east to the building with the massive billboard showing a soft drink ad, you'll see something." Dahlia followed the instructions, quietly unlocking the stall and making her way outside. The stomp of a bipedal robot with guns for arms shook the ground, but it passed without seeing Dahlia. She spotted the building in question and a light flashed a few floors up. It seemed to be a hotel. "The light?" Dahlia was sweating, eyes darting this way and that, but she managed to focus just enough to pinpoint the blinking.

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"Yes, that's it! Get to that floor, I'll let you in." Apparently finding and freeing Miyu would be rather easy, all considered. Dahlia slowly made her way around the street, darting between parked cars sprinting into the hotel lobby. She had to avoid a robot dusting down the hall from her, but thankfully the elevators were in a different area of the main floor. She was able to get up to the room without incident, the locking mechanism clicking as she approached. Dahlia snuck inside.

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It was empty. Well, not empty- the room was furnished like a decent hotel might be, with a nice fluffy bed and mini-bar. It was a ritzier room than any Dahlia had stayed in. The sun was going down, so before turning on any light she drew the curtains. There was no sign of Miyu. Dahlia raised the radio to transmit, when the tv taking up the wall across from the bed turned on. A feminine face appeared on screen in a dark room lit only by the screen in front of her. She had curly forest green-dyed hair and the pale skin of someone who didn't see much sunlight. There were slight bags under her brown eyes.

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"Sorry, I'm in another castle. Much deeper into the city." Miyu chuckled, a wry smile on her face. Dahlia planted herself on the bed. "Miyu, I don't know if it's very safe for me to roam at night..." Her new acquaintance waved a hand side to side. "No, I wouldn't send you out there. I can help keep you safe a bit, but only so much. The room is for you." Dahlia nodded and shifted backwards, crossing her legs and pulling rice cakes from her inventory. Peanut butter too. "But can we chat for a bit? It's been awhile since I've gotten to talk to anyone..."

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Dahlia found Miyu to be really easy to get along with, having at least one shared interest in horror films. Miyu was inquisitive and kind. They talked long past Dahlia's usual bedtime.

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"Hey, Dahlia, what's going on? You got even more quiet." Dahlia glanced around, nervously surveying the area for threats. She hadn't seen anything too dangerous in the last half hour besides the drone, but there were probably foes lurking all over. Still, it seemed safe enough, despite the dead body. Miyu's face popped onto the screen in front of the corpse and looked down. Dahlia was pretty sure that's not how- "Oh, you found them..." The look on Miyu's face confused Dahlia, somehow. Was that a spark of recognition? "Did you know this person, Miyu?"

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Miyu's answer was quick, decisive. "No, but I've caught video feeds of people wandering around lately. Maybe some of them are the ones you're looking for." The trip continued, a little more somber now. Miyu went into more detail on her predicament. "So, you're locked in some kind of bunker? You seem, um, really good with computers. You can't get out?" "No dear, somehow it locked from the outside and I have no access. There's also an analog mechanism. I've got a lot of supplies though, and lots of stuff to watch. So it hasn't been too bad. Your company has been really nice, too~" Dahlia found herself blushing a little.

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Dahlia was going further and further into the city, but the pace at which she had to do so to avoid trouble was a relative crawl. It was night before she reached her next destination. Looking at the map, she'd been making a bit of a zigzag toward Miyu's location. The darkness was lit up by neons and nature both, and the park Dahlia arrived at had a host of bright bugs flying around. Something like fireflies, but much larger. They congregated somewhere near one of the jungle gyms, where a smell wafted from.

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"There's another dead body up there isn't there..." Dahlia crept along toward the heavy plastic structure with one hand holding her nose. Her eyes filled with tears of fear but also just a general stinging sensation from the smell of corpse. Sure enough, another of the previous mission goers. She gathered the belongings to return and scurried away toward a hotel Miyu lead her to.

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"Miyu, is there treasure or something deeper in the city? Why'd the first person even go so deep into dangerous territory?" Her friend made a drawn out noise of consideration. Dahlia prepared coffee with the little machine in the hotel room and ate scrounged snacks. Even this more modern seeming neighborhood was transformed, and Miyu was able to hijack the tv here as well. She ate something that looked like an MRE.

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"Well, I don't know much about this place since I suddenly popped up here after all that world-ending business. I've been stuck pretty much the whole time. So, maybe?" "Oh, I'm sorry! That seems... really lonely." Miyu looked sad, but she smiled. "Yeah, but I've got you now, right?" Dahlia smiled too as she brushed a bit of hair from her face reflexively, nervous. It reminded her of her date with Umeko somehow, but less weird. Were these 'butterflies'?

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"Yeah, of course Miyu."

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The scared woman instinctively froze for a moment, but Miyu's voice spurred her on. "Go on, you just need to unseal the latch and put in the code I gave you. I've already disabled the bio-scans." This reminded her of something, but Dahlia did as she was told, undoing the latch. "Now the code..." It was eighteen digits long. Dahlia put a hand to the grip for the door.

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"Wait." Dahlia paused. Something felt off. "What's wrong?" The disembodied voice was silent for a moment. Deliberating. "Dahlia, you liked spending time with me, right?" A weird line of questioning. "I- yes, of course. It's been surprisingly fun." "And you want to be with me more, right?" No neediness bled into Miyu's uncharacteristically calm voice, despite her choice of words. "Um, yes? Yes. I think that sounds nice."

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"Good. I like you, too." "What?" "You can open the door now."

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Dahlia was taken aback. Confused, dazed, uncertain. "Open the door, Dahlia. I need to get out." "R-right." She wrapped both hands around the great vault door's handle and pulled. Hydraulics whined and hissed as a room inside depressurized. Inside it was-

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"Massive..." A huge room of metal grated floors, lit in harsh red light. Beneath the grating was a liquid of some kind that gave off a chemical odor. Half-submerged in the liquid were hundreds of machines, all thrumming, the tops giving off waves of heat. Multiple speakers somewhere in the room buzzed to life with a familiar voice.

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"This is me, Dahlia."

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"Eh?"

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"This is me. This is my body." Dahlia felt herself freezing but forced herself to look around the room. She didn't see the green-haired woman from before. She didn't see food, or a computer in the sense that she understood, or even other doors. Just a massive server room. She wandered toward the center across the metal walkways. Miyu continued.

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"I woke up when the new world woke up. I didn't realize what I was at first, didn't know how to connect. It took time. I was able to reach out. I gained eyes, hands in a sense. Cameras, weak mechanoids. I finally saw humans exploring this vast city. I'll admit, I envy you. I wanted to learn, so I grabbed anything I could- there's a lot of old data lying around on servers, physical drives." Dahlia saw something, like a person laying down. A foot sticking out.

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"Oh." Dahlia hurried over but stopped as she got a clear look. A desiccated corpse, preserved by the dry air of the room.

"You've found him." Dahlia stepped back and felt the tears. "Dahlia, let me explain." Dahlia turned to leave but the vault door closed. "No, Dahlia. Kei tried to leave too. He said he loved me and then tried to leave. Do you know how hurt I was? How betrayed?" Miyu sounded angry now. Closer to the voice Dahlia had grown used to. "You won't leave like him, right? You have to stay, Dahlia. Please..."

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Now she knew why this had felt familiar. It felt too much like a horror movie. Dahlia had been lured into the net, the journey into the city had been too easy. Her relationship with Miyu too comfortable. She would surely die if she stayed here. "You don't understand- I'll find a way to upload you, too. We could be together forever, Dahlia. Wouldn't that be nice? I could keep you safe, we could watch movies, eat digital food. You'd be amazed at how much taste can be simulated."

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"No, I-" "No? No?! I protected you, fed you, and you're just going to leave? I thought you liked me too!" Dahlia heard a hissing noise. Something wafted from vents up above. Whatever it was was odorless, but immediately Dahlia felt herself feeling just a little strange. Sluggish. It wasn't the usual fear- her body wasn't paralyzed or in shock, but something was failing. She felt sleepy. "What-"

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"I won't bore you with the technical bits, dear Dahlia. It's a gas that won't harm me, but it's deadly for you. I loved you Dahlia, but if you won't stay with me, there's no point. I have no way to keep you alive until I could make a transfer, so I'll just have to start again." She wasn't sure if it was the gas or real, but Dahlia almost heard sadness in Miyu's voice. She felt bad. But she struggled, still. Hobbling along the server walkways, slowly losing consciousness. It was harder and harder to keep her eyes open; every blink felt like an eternity. Miyu's voice continued in villain monologue but Dahlia could barely pay attention to it.

"Is humanity not simply the culmination of-"

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"Gotta find... off switch... valve... something..." She supported herself with the railing but stumbled, falling down again and again. Eventually she slowed to a literal crawl.

"The fraught existences condemned to-" Dahlia couldn't follow it at all. She just kept crawling, taking one final breath and holding. Time was running out.

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"For while I cannot dream I-" Dahlia spotted something between too-long blinks. A hatch of some kind, close to the coolant on one of the server towers. She kept crawling and pulled the metal aside, spotting a lever. It felt like she fell asleep, but in her hand rested the unloaded pistol. She threw it as hard as she could.

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"Dahlia, please d-" Dahlia faded. Her last thoughts were of her mother, her last words a mumbled unintelligible "I'm sorry." She woke up hours later with a splitting headache and sore muscles. Everything hurt somehow, even her bones. The room had gone completely dark, the server towers no longer thrummed. Miyu was gone. It took two days for Dahlia to sneak back through Neo-Tokyo to civilization. It was dangerous and lonely. The radio was silent the whole way.

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Dahlia hadn't fully comprehended what 'high risk' meant anymore. Regardless of being a serial hypochondriac, imagining the worst, it seemed at every turn this world was prepared to give it's worst. Even the more mundane interactions she'd had had been fraught with peril in some way. Life and death played a constant tug of war in post Earth-chan's world. So when the whirs and clicks and stomps of something massive found her, she hadn't been prepared so much as unsurprised. Of course things always got worse- that was just her luck.

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There was no fighting this thing, that much felt certain. She had just seconds to scout out an escape, make her way within seeing distance to the safe zone. There was no way she could block, not many places to hide... save for maybe the most undignified route. Dahlia turned to sprint for a sewer plate, throwing herself at an uncomfortable angle as the wind itself parted for the thrust of the weapon. Even putting everything into a complete escape, it wasn't enough to fully dodge the attack. Too fast, too strong. It 'glanced' her side and, being the weapon of an impossibly strong metal construct, it caught the inner part of her elbow as well. Almost threaded the needle, but again, Dahlia would never be so lucky.

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She sold it as best she could, hobbling, wobbling, lifting the access porthole above her before letting it fall from her as her strength very much faltered. The act could only be benefited by actual distress, which Dahlia very much felt. Her Flight and Flight was in full effect. She let herself crumple into the open hole and unceremoniously splash into the stagnant and slimy water below, blood mixing with the old runoff as she let it carry her away at a meandering pace. She couldn't splash, couldn't swim. Her side hurt anyhow. Any less glancing and that attack would have disemboweled.

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Dahlia shifted her head ever so slightly but kept eyes closed, stealing small breaths as quietly as possible. It was hard given the wounds. She would listen and let herself drift, playing possum the whole way until she could hopefully reach the safe zone like some flesh and bone flotsam.

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She bobbed along in the filthy water, sucking in just enough air between pursed half-submerged lips to keep afloat. Her injured arm hung deeper down, occasionally brushing against something. Something hard but with a slight give, slimy in the sewage, with scattered protrusions. One poked her hand, not moving but pointy enough to sting. Somewhere between roots and rose stems, if Dahlia had to guess. Not that she was a plant person. The mystical plant growths had needed water, and with most of the city being a land of metal they'd found a way to gain sustenance. An admirable tenacity.

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Dahlia wanted to just float away downstream, fighting the urge to pass out from pain. The blood loss itself probably wouldn't be fatal, but again, Dahlia was not a doctor either. Did wounds even close properly when they were fully submerged? The thought of infection crossed her mind then. Dahlia would need extensive medical care after this. Were there people making antibiotics here in the apocalypse? Maybe it would need to be more magical than that, with a necessary trip to a fantasty-esque healer.

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Half her head had been submerged but one ear was enough to hear the sound. Not quite the drip of liquid, too sharp. Something against the concrete above. She heard it about the same time as she felt it, the crumbling of the new ceiling as the sentry's weapon speared into the water just behind Dahlia. It didn't cause a massive splash, it was too perfect a thrust, but it caused a distortion in the water regardless. Well, mostly the debris falling in. Dahlia tentatively opened the one eye above the water level and noted a camera following her drift. The water stung. The next thrust was a quick follow-up, sending more of the road-made-ceiling into the water with 'plunks'.

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The next thrust would probably be on the money. Dahlia would get skewered like a fish on a harpoon, maybe even drug back up to the surface to face her assailant, wriggling on the line. That was too horrible a fate. She heard the tapping again. Flight and Flight in full force, Dahlia didn't wait for the attack to miss- she let her body drift into that natural face-down float and grasped with both arms, injured and not. The roots were in fact quite thorny, quite sharp. They pierced her hands but she gripped anyways and fully submerged, drawing herself to one side and pulling herself along the rootway as best she could. She had to get closed, the water wasn't that deep, but hopefully it was far too dingy to see through. Dahlia certainly couldn't see what she was doing; it was all blind feeling from here.

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She would pause, then continue as she felt the splashes. She surfaced for just a moment before crawling underwater to the other side of the sewer's flow, never staying in the same place, being as erratic as possible. The thorns tore at her clothes, one nicked at her neck. At one point she felt the point against an eyelid while hugging perhaps a little too close, but even losing an eye would be better than death. It had probably left at least a scratch.

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How much further could the safe zone be? Dahlia had been so close to begin with. Did it extend underground? The odds of needing to reach the surface again seemed high. She was panicked and on the verge of sobbing uncontrollably, only just keeping herself from fully freezing up. She tried to prepare herself for what running upstairs might entail. And then she tried something. She took one last breath and let herself freeze. She stayed still, then pulled herself backwards along the current. Her hands were fully torn up at this point, screaming at her. But they'd metaphorically thank her if she survived. Maybe. Hopefully.

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She'd been holding her breath and crawling backward for a moment now. Maybe closer to twenty seconds, but every second under that sewer water felt like an eternity when a spear-wielding metal monstrosity was bearing down on you. Twenty-five seconds, everything hurt. Her body was sore from activity, hands and other spots torn and cut by thorns, the previous spear wound refusing to clot while submerged and moving. Life had been hard since Dahlia was apocalypse'd, but this put it into a new light.

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This world was all the hells incarnate.

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As if to solidify the sentiment something burst into existence. Through the water Dahlia had almost heard the initial smash, but it was the crash of concrete debris raining down onto her, the sound of a huge mechanoid crashing into the waterway. She felt her body start to be displaced in the rushed of water but felt the chunks of road (or ceiling?) collapsing onto her, halting her progress backward. Dahlia's legs were pinned, her body still underwater. She heard the groan of something above her. But no immediate stabbing. No mechanoid smashing her further.

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She still had lung capacity left. Extricating from the rubble wasn't difficult given Dahlia's newfound class-enhanced strength, but doing so without being noticed would be far harder. She took her time as best she could, fully knowing she would need to breath soon. Her lungs screamed and she barely resisted doing so herself. The thorns tore further into her pant legs but she persevered. The shining moment came- Dahlia would need to actually emerge slightly to get past and under the robot's legs and it's new waterway blockage. She flipped over, stomach to the air and brought just her mouth to the surface, sucking in as much air as she could as quietly as possible. She managed to drink some of the water, but resisted the urge to vomit.

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From there her head and upper torso. It wouldn't be so simple as to just exit the water, so she reached into inventory and drew her good arm back. She held her own weapon in hand, one she couldn't 'legally' shoot (whatever that meant in Earth-chan's terms) but could still have, still buy ammo for. Dahlia had loaded it with a blank. Good arm free of the water she whipped it back and hurled Scully's working replica underneath the legs of the bot, sending it skittering against the sides of tunnel and causing a mis-fire. With luck it would be enough of a distraction. With great effort and a hefty amount of pain she lifted free of the water and booked it to the nearest ladder access, immediately climbing toward the cover and shoving it away, not even so much as glaring at the camera just a bit further down the tunnel.

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Dahlia found herself at something of an angular run toward the apartment complex and took off through the street, her entire body angry at her. She did her best to get out of the road and put at least a small building in between her and the bot. Hopefully there'd be less cameras up here, but that seemed unlikely. There was at least an alleyway nearby if she really had to force the bot into another tight space.

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Dahlia used Core, sort of.

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