Ito Ai: A New Dawn

Ai's scream caused Seiji and Mai to be startled as they quickly retreated back. "I need you two to search the desk for more ammo. I only have two shots." Ai was hoping she could hit whatever was making that sound with the two shots she had. She just hoped the thing making such a familiar sound to her was not what she thought it was.

Using her flashlight to light up the darkness, Ai scanned the room with her eyes. It was only when the sound became crystal clear that Ai finally saw the source of her nightmares for ten years. It was also at that time that her eyes dimmed as she gripped her shotgun. Her entire person seemed to have changed. She tucked her shotgun under one arm and used her left hand to wield her crowbar. Although the aiming would be somewhat off, this was her normal stance in her previous life when dealing with first type machina. They were quick and they were agile. Aiming would only put you at a disadvantage.

*Clink, clink!* *Clink, clink!* *Clink, clink!*

Narrowing her eyes she did not even hear her father calling out to her. She was one hundred percent concentrated on the first type machina in front of her. Her lips suddenly curled up into a cruel smile. "I do not know why you are already showing up since it has only been a few days since the apocalypse has happened, but since you presented yourself in front of me I will do you a favor and send you back to the fucking scrap yard!"

As if on cue the two figures suddenly shot towards each other. The first type machina was very quick, using its front scythe-like claws it struck out at Ai with incredible speed. But Ai was very used to fighting these things as she quickly dropped down and slid underneath the first type machina mashing it with her crowbar sending it flying to the side and into a wall. Seeing that it was still moving made Ai frown as she got back up to her feet and fired her first shot at the first type machina.

Her shot barley missed it as the first type machina charged at her again. This time using the boxes as cover as it shot in and out only to come up behind Ai striking out once again. This tactic surprised Ai as she quickly turned to smack the first type machina away. Unfortunately, she was not quick enough as its claw slashed her shoulder causing blood to quickly flow out.

"Ai!" Seiji saw his daughter getting hurt and yelled out in panic. But to his surprise, Ai not only ignored the wound on her shoulder she retaliated, smashing the first type machina to the ground and pushing the tip of her shotgun right up against its metal shell and pulling the trigger. The limbs went out of control for a few seconds before finally, it stopped moving altogether.

Breathing out a sigh of relief Ai looked at the broken piece of scrap on the ground kicking it far away from her. "As you can see these things are quite dangerous… Ah!" Ai touched her shoulder pressing against her wound as she slumped down to the floor.

Seiji and Mai both ran over to her to check on her. "Ai, hold on I will bandage it up now."

"Mai do it like I showed you before. Use duct tape to close the wound and then wrap it tightly with a cloth after cleaning it." Ai had taught Mai emergency first aid with non-medical items. Mai nodded her head and quickly went to work.

Seiji looked at his daughter and finally understood that not a single word she had said was a lie. "Ai, I'm sorry."

"Dad, why are you apologizing? It's not like you did anything wrong." Ai said with a smile. Though at the same time her brow was furrowed due to the pain of having her wound disinfected.

"It's because I did not believe everything you had said so far. A lot of it was too far fetched but now after seeing this robot with my own eyes, I no longer doubt a single word you have said. We will continue as we have by following your command, there will be no second-guessing it. But I must ask you to teach me how to fight properly otherwise if I came face to face with one of these machines, I would probably have died or at least have been seriously wounded. " Seiji now looked at the world in a different light. He no longer had misgivings about stealing or breaking into places. He now knew that their world no longer had the same rules as it did before.

"That's fine. I will begin teaching you starting today. But for now, go take what we can. Oh, did you find more shotgun shells?" Ai asked.

"Yeah, three boxes worth I already put them in my bag and took two out just in case you needed them, here." Seiji reached into his pocket and handed the shells out to Ai.

"No, you will take the shotgun for now. Until you learn basic hand-to-hand combat and melee combat it would be best for you to take the gun. Plus right now my arm is a little unusable." Ai frowned. During the fight, she didn't feel the pain as much but now she did.

"Alright, I will take it." Seiji said as he stood up and picked up the shogun. He unloaded the spent shells and reloaded it with new shells. He then stuffed it in his duffle bag before picking up Ai's backpack and Mai's backpack. "I will go fill these up. Ai, are we going back after this?"

"Yeah, we will drop off what we got here, and then we will go back out after. With the machina showing up already, we need to gather more supplies quickly. Unfortunately, we may need to kill people in the process if someone stands in our way. Dad, are you going to be fine doing this?" Ai asked.

"From the looks of things I will have no choice. Just yesterday you killed a cop and no one came looking for us. So I can only guess that it would not matter if I did the same." Seiji said with a worried smile.

"We only need to kill if they try to harm us. Otherwise knocking them out is just fine." Ai explained.

"Then that's good. Alright You rest up I will fill these up and we get out of here. Mai, look after Ai for me." Seiji said before leaving to go finish the task at hand.

After Seji walked away Mai looked down at Ai with a worried expression. "Ai, are you really okay?"

"Yeah, this is just a flesh wound. Luckily it is on the front side of my upper arm shoulder area or it would be a pain. " Ai sighed as she looked at her shoulder. Sadly no matter how prepared you are or how much you train for it. When fighting machina getting hurt was inevitable. If the surroundings were a bit more open she would have been fine but with all the boxes and other odds and ends in this area, the first type machina had more places to use as a means to attack from. Their quick movements already make them hard to track when they start using obstacles to their advantage, it turns them into an even more frightening weapon.

"We will take that scrap heap back with us. We need to show your parents and my mother that the things I have been saying are all real." Ai said as she got up front the ground. But when she looked up and saw Mai walking over to the first type machina, Ai no longer cared about the pain in her arm as she dashed forward and yelled out. "Don't touch it!"

"Huh!?�� Mai had no time to react as she was pulled back by Ai and a splatter of blood splashed her face. "Wha… Ai!"

*Bam!*

Ai slammed the first type machina down to the ground before reaching her hand into the hole and pulling out a small round object. Blood dripped down her cheek and onto the floor. She turned and looked at Mai whose face was white as a sheet and bitterly smiled. "You can't just go near them like that. Although it had stopped, there is a few second delay on the last stand program that will activate as soon as something gets near it. That is why I quickly kicked it away from me earlier. Mai are you okay? Did you get hit?"

"Ai… Your eye! Why are you worried about me when your eye is all messed up!" Mai looked up at Ai, tears flooding her eyes. She had really messed up and now it looks like Ai had lost her left eye!

"It's fine, it's just an eye. Plus this is not your fault. I never said anything about the last stand program." Ai reached up and firmly pressed her hand on her eye. "Looks like I will need your help patching this up."

"Ai, what happened!?" Seiji came running over after hearing all the screaming. His steps paused when he saw his daughter's eye. "How did this happen?"

"It's fine dad, it's mainly my fault for not mentioning some important information. Luckily I was able to pull Mai out of the way in time or we would have lost more than just an eye." Ai had no time to put up a proper guard. The last stand function would activate and would burn out the last of its power source to push itself to move to try to land a final killing blow at whatever it targets. If Ai did not react as quickly as she did, Mai would have been stabbed in the face all the way to her brain, killing her instantly. Unfortunately, Ai was not able to move her head fast enough and caught the very tip of the first type machina's claw from the top of her eyebrow all the way to just under her eye.

"Is your eye damaged?" Seiji quickly came over and lifted Ai's chin to take a good look at her eye.

"Mmm… It was sliced through. Nothing can be done about it and dad, don't blame Mai. This was my fault for not saying things sooner." Ai said calmly. On the inside, she couldn't help but bitterly laugh at the karma of things. In her past life, she had lost an eye as well. The same eye and almost in the same fashion.

Letting out a sigh Seiji did not know what to say. he looked over at Mai who was in tears and knew it was no one's fault. "Alright… Mai, help Ai out by cleaning the wound and sealing it up so it will at least stop bleeding. I still have one more bag to fill then we can leave."

"Dad, stick the machina in the duffle bag and don't worry it will not move again. I took its power core out." Ai made sure to emphasize that it would not move anymore. She wanted to assure him that it was no longer able to do any more surprise attacks. Normally one would have a weapon ready to smack down the first type machina when they jumped up as this one did. Then they could take its core out after.

"Okay then, give me another ten minutes and we should be ready to go." Seiji said as he picked up the heap of metal on the floor and shoved it in the green duffle bag.