She has been in her mech uninterrupted for exactly 6 years 7 months 12 days 3 hours and 54 seconds.
Her handler is 10 steps away from the sealed hatch and is approaching.
She has not eaten or drank anything in the entire time period she has been intertwined with the machine. Her metal body handled all that was needed for her meat one. It pumps her blood, injects a nutrient slurry directly into her body, it stimulates the muscles with electric shocks to keep them from degrading significantly.
But today she would leave.
The war ended a week ago and only now has her handler deemed it not a deception. Without the constant missions of the war her handler does not have the desire to keep the hound permanently in the machine and spend valuable money in running the mech 24/7 when she could just turn it off when not in use.
So here she was with mech docked as her handler was walking to the hatch. She was waiting for her handler to give her the command. To release her from her cage of iron and into her cage of flesh.
Her handler is 8 steps away now.
She is her handler's last hound. In the early days there were a dozen under the handler. But they have slowly been whittled away by the conflict.
They were replaced in the beginning but none but her survived all that long and at some point her handler must have gotten tired of the constant loss and stopped replacing them all together. It was hard after all. Relying on another and learning all their little quirks, such as how 6 always favored entering melee combat as soon as she could or that 2 would crouch deeply before jumping into the air, only to watch them all die.
She still misses them. She is pretty sure Handler misses them too.
She knows Handler never really wanted the job. It was a family business apparently. One that she never had any interest in going into but no option to refuse when the war started and the draft began. Handler, from what she overheard, wanted to work as a musician.
She never said anything directly but the way talked about music Handler must still wish to do so. She would always have music playing in the background when she was working and on rare, special occasions would even sing pieces she made to the hounds over the coms. Those were the hounds favorite memories. A break from the killing and dying to hear something beautiful.
Handler sang less and less as her hounds died. Handler almost never sings now. The last time she heard it was after a week straight of fighting and the hound finally managed to complete the mission.
It had been pouring rain for a month and she was surrounded by the metal corpses of enemy hounds and pilots alike all sinking into the blood and oil stained mud. As the sound of combat finally tapered off the rain stopped and colors lit up the sky as the sun broke through the clouds. Handler looking through the cameras on mech sang a haunting tune that the hound could never forget. It was the first and last time she had cried after all.
She loved to fight at the beginning. She supposes she still loves it. It was exhilarating. A dance of towering hulk of metal crashing into each other and dodging attacks by a hair's breath. The bursts of pleasure pushing throughout her body as she landed a killing blow, a combination of the satisfaction of success, orgasmic ecstasy from the implants, and bliss of her handlers pride.
But at some point it got a bit dull. The pleasure of the implants is still amazing and hearing her handler's compliments would never not send a rush through her entire being but what once felt like dancing on a knife's edge began to feel like standing on solid ground as she improved until none she met could quite match her. She reacted too fast and efficiently. She knew every inch of her body. How the hydraulics shifted. How fast the reactor heated up and how it cooled based on the environment and atmosphere. Where exactly her shots would land and how far away she could jump into melee combat. She was a master of her body. Well her metal one.
She wondered how it would feel to be out of it.
She does not remember being out of the mech very well. Only little flashes. Walking down a corridor after her handler, wrestling with another hound, eating in a sterile white room, rutting against another hound quietly at night.
But that is the extent of what she remembers. For other than that all she has known is living as a metal beast of war. She does not understand how she lived seeing with only 2 eyes confined to such an insignificant section of the light spectrum when her mech has 6 that can go from radio all the way to gamma. She does not understand how she once lived with legs that bent forward rather than back. She doesn't understand how she could live only standing at an insignificant 6 feet tall rather than her mech's 50.
She doesn't know if she will be able to leave her mech when it is almost all she knows. She doesn't know if she wants to.
She doesn't know why. This was supposed to be triumphant right? An end to the war and return to peace. But she has never known peace and will there even be a place for a war hound in it?
What will she do when she does not have enemies to kill and a handler to make proud? What can she do? She has never had a choice in anything other than how to kill.
The hatch is open now and the neural connection is disengaging as the various tubes and wires connected to her implants are being disconnected.
Her mind is thinking just as fast but as she struggles to push her body up it's like there is a disconnect between her and her body. Like there is a lag between her input and its response.
It's cold. She forgot what cold felt like. She hates it.
She feels something wrap around her.
She relaxes not realizing how tense her body was.
For the first time in more than half a decade she opens her eyes.
Her vision is blurry and the light gives her a headache but what she sees is worth it.
Handler is looking at her and holding her in her arms
Her hair is a brown color with streaks of gold dispersed throughout it.
Her wide lips are hung open as if she is gazing at a treasure found where she least expected it.
Her eyes are a light green at the edges darkening as it approaches the pupils.
She is not sure what is wrong but she needs to make it better.
With slow jerky movement the hound pulls her arms up and embraces her handler as her handler buries her head into her shoulder.
As she revels in the heat of her handler and she feels her shoulder grow wet from her tears she hears her handler's muffled voice.
“It's finally over. I won't lose you too.”
Her handler pulls her head back, eyes puffy and red and cups the hounds face with one hand.
She pushes her head into her handler's hand and her handler laughs and cries.
Her handler pulls her to her unstable feet and guides her out of the cockpit and into their future.
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