Chapter 1: Chapter 0: A Horse with No Name

Across the broken-down man-made structures, overgrown roots and vines tangling across every single building, asphalt roads covered in foliage and military type armored vehicles that as well is filled with overgrown roots, a man dressed in ragged military clothes, a balaclava mask that covers half of his lower face, and a scarf that covers his neck, revealing his brown medium-length hair and brown eyes, walks across the open grassy field of what was once called, a city.

The dried leaves and other brittle foliages crunch every step he take as he gets closer to the debris of a run-down structure. He holds an assault rifle with slight enhancements made. Its barrel is slightly bigger than the average Colt M4A1 Carbines, and its magazines have a slight difference in both size and bullets.

With every step he takes, he makes sure that it makes the least bit of noise as he enters the building.

Food...

I must find food...

The man utters as he vaults over the window with a few remaining broken glasses. 

As he lands on his feet, the broken glasses on the floor tinkle as the weight of his boots crushes on the tiny pieces.

He scans the area across the dark and echoing hallway of the building.

Approaching the hall of rooms, he carefully scans the first room. He cautiously walks towards the door with his gun pointing to the door while checking across the corners. 

The unknown dweller pushes the door slightly as the barrel points out of the side. He watches carefully the room for any sudden movements as he checks the area. 

The room he entered looks somehow similar to an apartment room. There are scattered books, magazines, and a few notes. 

He investigated the room and saw an extension room leading to the kitchen. The masked soldier dashed towards the room and searched every cabinet, as he searches for any canned food available. 

He pushes aside the kitchen utensils, wine glasses, spoon and forks that are slightly covered in rust, only to find none. He goes to the next drawer and found a few canned meat, and vegetables.

He hurriedly removed his backpack and pulled out a can opener as he is utterly consumed by hunger. 

The man was shaking as he inserted the can opener into the canned meat and squeezed the thing until a slight smell of stagnant meat lingered on his nose.

He takes off his mask and gulped down the canned meat like it was the only food he had ever eaten for days, even to the point that he scooped the remaining food at the bottom with his bare dirty hands.

After being slightly satiated by the meat, he crushed the tin can then placed it in his bag, then grabbed the rest of the canned food, and inserted them in his backpack.

He continues scanning across the room and picked up a note with a burnt mark on the bottom:

Dear mom, I'll be heading to your refugee camp when I get everything. Please wait for me. The army will be coming to save me from those monsters. I hope I get to see dad and little sister, J-------

He crumpled the paper as he leaves the room.

Looking at the other rooms, he searches each and every room. Knowing that this is an apartment, there may be more stored food in each room.

As each and every doorstep he takes, he proceeded with caution. One after another, he brings a few more canned food and a few tools that look like screwdrivers, screws, hammers, and scissors.

As the man opens the door, an extremely strong odor emits as the door is left wide open, to the point that he starts coughing and gagging as he looks away from the room.

He gazes back to the direction of the room trying to figure out where it came from as he can't make out what it looks like from the dark room.

He enters the room as the door slightly creaks. The stench is too strong that the smell starts sticking to his clothes. 

Turning on the flashlight, the dweller looked around finding the source of that stench as it grow stronger and stronger as he walks further from the door. He approaches a certain room that looks like a bedroom, and lightly pushes the door.

As he walks in closer to the bed, he sees a pair of pants and a hoodie laying on the bed. He can't get any closer due to the nauseating odor coming from it. It's obviously no other than a corpse rotting on the bed, laying on the side slightly curled up. The white sheets are completely dirtied to the point that the bed is completely covered in black rotten flesh. The only thing left on that corpse is a few more tendons and bones. It's been dead for way too long.

He moves the corpse aside as he found a pistol in its right hand. He picks it up and inspects the weapon. The entire pistol is unusable since it was covered by rotten flesh and tendons, corroding the metal from the outside all the way to its inner parts. Looking back at the corpse, there is a tiny hole in the hood of the jacket.

There are white scribbles from the dark walls, and its handwriting looks like it was written using a fingernail, barely readable until the dweller shines the flashlight at a slanted angle.

SORRY MOM

The writing looks too dark and peeled off for the old paint to reveal the second layer of the wall.

Inspecting the rusty pistol is a standard-issued military pistol given to the army. From the looks of it, they didn't make it.

He runs back outside the room as the foul-smelling odor whiffs up to his nostrils and regurgitates the canned meat that he just ate not long ago, but had the entire food exit from his esophagus again.

The stench sticks to his clothes as he tried to wave away the smell by flapping his arms like a bird. 

A silhouette of an unknown object glides across the window of the building. The metallic footsteps slightly move across back and forth, alarming the man who just recently threw up.

He scattered to find cover behind a table as a metallic-looking spider enters the building through the broken glass door. It scans across the hallway and inspects a few scattered objects, and clothes as it sees a few rustling near the table.

Tick thunk tick thunk...

Its spider-like legs approach the table as the poor man quickly holds his breath. The spider-like robot observes as the rustles get more violent. 

It peeks behind the table and observes every nook and cranny from where the sound was recently located.

The human dweller keeps holding his breath but his heart thumps louder. So loud that the robot can pick it up.

He finds a nearby stone and grabs it, then threw it blindly away from his position.

A loud thunk emits on the far edge of the building, quickly distracting the undecipherable hostile robot, immediately leaving the area near the man.

As it moves to another location, he quickly, and quietly gets up and brings his backpack, though encumbering him from the amount of food and a few more tools he looted from the building.

He reaches the exit away from the sight of the robot, as he threw his backpack out the window to a nearby pile of garbages, cushioning it, but loud enough to be heard.

He looks behind.

The same spider-like robot wasn't in the same corner it was investigating.

He looks around hurriedly, finding where it most likely is located.

He didn't bother looking at the entire area, and gazed back to the window as he planted his hands to vault over the window, as he steps over the broken glasses, lowered his body to pick up the bag, then stood straight and looked ahead.

It was in front of him.

The AI monster looked at him, dead in the eye with its red, camera-like lens, as it continues creating mechanical arms as if analyzing the target. 

A high-pitch frequency emits as it quickly switches its gears to short barrels.

He runs behind the broken-down HMMWV covered in overgrown roots and foliage as bullets rain over to him.

The man crouched down behind as he turned his rifle's safety off. Weaving around the vehicle, he tried his best to stay away from the sight of the hostile threat.

He leans back in the vehicle as the blasts of loud automatic gunshots suppress his position.

He waits as the gunshots slowly died down. Peeking forward, he couldn't find the spider-like rapture from its previous position.

He scanned around and found that it was on top of his vehicle as it finishes reloading its ammunition.

Pointing his rifle to the target, he pierced the metallic being at point blank range, destroying its core immediately, shutting the robot down as it slumps down from the vehicle to the ground.

He picked up the rapture's wrecked parts and quickly ran back.

He ran towards a clean military vehicle, the same model as the overgrown HMMWV but in slight dark green camo.

Upon entering the vehicle, he immediately starts the engine and pushes the accelerator leaving the grassy urban district.

The vehicle zooms across the lifeless roads scattered with wrecked vehicles as the surrounding buildings start being covered by red flashing lights and shiny dark metallic creatures crawling across every building.

A few giant wasp-like machines hover with tiny jet wings planted in the middle as it scans the previous location of the gunfight.

------

The military vehicle revs as the driver watch the road on the lonely dark road.

The man taps to the beat on his steering wheel while trying to recall any music he had listened to before the entire war happened.

A spider-like machine the size of a golden retriever appears beside him as it moves its position to the front seat

"Beep beep beeep.....?" The AI robot emitted sounds though in a questioning tone.

The man was slightly startled.

"Taranty, don't scare me like that. I'm driving this thing," He said as he patted the machine.

Its appearance does not look like the other raptures. Its surface color is dark gray from the prolonged dirt and dust, but its main distinction from the other is its light blue line emitting to its head. Though it may look like a spider, it has only four thin legs. Its body structure is a simple triangular prism with a rotating disk as its lower body connects to the leg.

Another distinction of this is a few stickers on the side of its head such as a few anime stickers of a mecha figure in purple and green color, a man in office clothes with a chainsaw in his head and chainsaws sticking out of its hands, though over time the stickers slightly peel off.

"Taranty..."

"Beep beep...?"

"I'm so glad that you're with me this whole time. Ever since this so-called raptures thing, I don't know hell even if you are one of them,"

"Beep beep bep..." It nods in affection as it emits a ^_^ face beside him.

He grabbed a piece of torn note, regarding reports of alien machine-like robots invading the world, called Raptures.

"I don't know how long has it been. But I sure as hell wish I can wake up from this nightmare,"

Taranty made a soft beeping noise.

"At least I have someone with me ever since I woke up from that Cryostasis," he smiled as he looked at Taranty as he stares at a small slightly dark text under its side barely readable in a distance but can be seen when close enough:

Hephaestus Industry

He stopped the vehicle in the middle of a road between two forests as he takes out his other bag.

As he rummages through his bag he grabbed a picture frame. It shows a picture of himself together with his parents and his brother.

He pulled out the picture frame and reveals a small microchip. He placed it on his phone. The phone looks run-down since the apocalypse, and its aging appearance shows, however it is decent enough to be useful at least even after this whole nightmare.

A video plays out:

"Mom, when are we going to Ghillie's graduation!"

"Don't worry sweetie, just finishing up my make-up!"

"Please, mom. I haven't seen him since he went to college!"

"Hold up, sweetie, just a few more"

He swipes the phone with his thumb as the picture reveals a cleaner, looking self, in his graduation outfit with a diploma.

"We're so proud of you!"

As he continues to swipe, it reveals a picture of himself in front of a company building. Hephaestus Industry with his father standing beside him in his work outfit.

Rustlings is heard across the bushes near the forest.

Taranty actively looks out where the sound comes from like an alert dog looking out for intruders.

Activating its radio wave and heat signals, it scans the surrounding forests.

Ghillie unslings his rifle as he switched off its safety and placed the rifle on the window.

His eyes are fixated to the bush as it constantly moves back and forth while the leaves rustle.

Taranty climbs over Ghillie's lap as it looked at the side window where the rifle is pointed at.

The spider-like companion emitted a question mark face and a beeping noise on a low to a high note.

"Beep...?"

Reactivating its infrared vision, it scans a red figure at the center with mechanical parts.

On a high-frequency note, it alerted Ghillie.

"Rapture?"

"Beep beep beep!!!" It nodded at fear like a dog barking as if agreeing with him.

BANG!

A figure comes out as it reveals itself as a hovering rapture, though it is unfazed, it alerted the rest of the herd in a loud alarming tone.

"BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!!!" Taranty's face made a !!! mark and crawled down to Ghillie's as it keeps tapping him on the accelerator pedal as if signifying to leave.

He pushed the pedal immediately as Taranty quickly gets out of the foot's way from the pedals.

VROOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Ghillie accelerated really quick as he shifted the gear increasingly from one to third.

The forest is a trap.

It was a set-up.

A flock of raptures rise up like a horde of drones as it chases down the vehicle. A group of hostile alien machines between twenty to thirty accelerating like a nest of bees flying to a target that disturbs them.

"Damn it! I shouldn't have shot that rifle!" Ghillie grumbled as he steadies the steering wheel.

A few tried to hook to the vehicle's side window, as it readies up its weapons.

A few short barrels reveal in one of the raptures as it pulls its own mechanical body part.

Ghillie shakes off the raptures as they lose their stability.

It gave them time, but they came back again.

He pushes the vehicle to its fourth gear gradually speeding themselves up.

It did not help since a few of them are still able to catch up.

A large road sign is seen from far from the road.

You are reading story Goddess of Victory: NIKKE – The Surface Wanderer at novel35.com

Metro City - 5 km

Using the road sign he positioned the military vehicle to the side near the post.

The raptures sticking their claws beside the vehicle are scraped by the posts and a few are temporarily blocked by the large sign.

It did not shake them off as the bloodthirsty machines hover to its side.

A group of them pulls out their loaded ammunitions from their exoskeletal parts as the lasers point both him and the mechanical companion.

"GET DOWN TARANTY!" 

A flurry of bullets are released on both sides of the vehicles.

The right side bulletproof glasses did not help as the second rain of bullets are now surrounding both sides.

The deafening roar of gunfire gave the post-apocalyptic semi-futuristic M998 side doors a big load of tiny holes.

There is no way that anyone in that side will ever survive that amount of bullets blasting through both sides of the door.

As Ghillie ducks, he swerves the vehicle left and right as the gunfires hit the raptures themselves.

Taranty quickly climbs to Ghillie's leg as it pulls out a frag grenade from his pouch.

Ghillie quickly picked up the pace and it handed the grenade to him.

He pulls out the grenade as he cooks the grenade then swiftly throws over the window without looking, clearing the left side.

The right side is still being covered by those human-killing machines.

As he closes in the next road, an intersection revealed itself and a lot of wrecked vehicles appeared.

A truck with an angled ramp is spotted across the sea of vehicles.

"Get your seatbelts! We're going to jump," Ghillie ordered as the little spider robot curls itself under the seat.

He gains enough momentum as he takes a deep breath.

If I don't make this jump, I will die. It's over.

He mumbled to himself as his heartbeat gets faster.

The vehicle reaches the distance towards the ramp and they scream as the Humvee launches itself at 120km/hr to the ramp truck.

"WE'RE GOING TO MAKE IIIIIIIIT!" He screamed at the top of his lungs while Taranty makes a high-pitched frequency.

As the car flies for five seconds straight, the intersection has a broken road showing unimaginable height to a drop point. It was a highway bridging to a broken road that is hundreds of meters deep into death.

The vehicle is somehow able to make it on the other side of the road as it lands flat on the asphalt.

As they landed, the adrenaline surging up to Ghillie's body gave him no time to think as he immediately plunges his foot to the pedal, accelerating the beast as they reach to the inner city. 

The high-rise buildings help shake them off and lose those raptures in pursuit.

---

The vehicle is positioned inside an alley, between two high-rise buildings as Ghillie shuts off the engine.

His relaxes his shoulders and his grip on the wheel slightly loosens as mental exhaustion hits him.

He breathes heavily as he looks at Taranty with a sigh of relief.

The little robot tilts its head to the side as it looks at its owner in a curious expression.

The lone dweller hugs it tightly as the robot tries to struggle itself away from the big arms of the soldier.

"We survived another day, Taranty. That entire thing was my fault. I should have understood you better,"

"Beep beep beep," It beeps in disappointment as it looks away from the owner.

"Hey... Don't look at me like that. If we are the only ones here and we separate, who else are we going to find? No one's here. Just us. Everyone else are long gone. How long can we survive?" He asked.

It hesitantly looked back as it positioned its head back away from Ghillie.

"Tsk... You remember how we first met? I can't remember how long maybe months, years, I don't know. But that day... It was vivid. Like it came out of my nightmare. I wake up, feeling cold... Naked. I walk out of confusion and I see the entire place in ruins,"

"Beep?" It beeps in curiosity.

"There were machines. A few of them spotted me. I could have died where I stand... You... You saved me that day. You were there, calling me one way or another so I leaned my head forward. They were aiming their weapons right at my head, If I didn't do that I'd be dead right there," 

Its thin legs holds the lap of Ghillie as it points out a bullet wound across his lap. A bullet wound pierced through the outer layer of the right thigh.

With the adrenaline slowly subsiding, the nerve receptors are hit with an astonishing amount of signals from the right thigh and his right shoulder.

With that amount of bullets wheezing inside the vehicle, the only part that hits him are two bullets. He was too lucky.

He cringed in agony as the pain receptors increase.

"Sh-shiit... It hurts so much," He holds his wounds as he quickly grabs a pair of bandages, tweezers, and a bottle of wine from his backpack.

He takes a certain amount of analgesic drugs from his medical kit to relieve the pain and waits as it takes effect.

  

He bites his brown-camo scarf and grits his teeth as he tries to perform a quick removal of the bullets from his thigh and his shoulder.

Taranty watches as its owner grits in agony as it holds his arm with its tiny legs.

The amount of blood would have been lost more if he waited longer.

The size of the bullet is small enough but at least it did not fracture the bone. The shoulder's bullet came out clean on the other side leaving two holes. It does not require immediate surgery so he poured a bottle of wine on his right shoulder and bandaged the shoulder immediately. The right thigh was a bit tricky. Surprisingly it did not hit the artery but it takes a while to remove the bullet from the thigh since it was a bit deep but not deep enough to fracture the bone. Successfully removing the bullet from the wound, he immediately bandaged the thigh after applying a bottle of wine..

Ghillie looked at his concerned-looking robot companion as it looks back at him with its head tilted.

"Don't worry. They're just flesh wounds. If those bullets went in a different angle I would have died of blood loss. I'm telling this to you. We're just lucky. We came out of there alive. You're fine as well, right?"

Taranty smiles as it makes a beep of relief, but in slight hesitation about what information he said.

The alley gets a bit dark as it seems that night starts to rise.

"It's best to hide here for the night. We'll get through this night by hiding behind the seat,"

He takes his backpack as he takes another canned food. As he picks it up, there is a small amount of food oil seeping out of the hole from the recent gunfire. He takes a can opener and opens the can and pours the entire food into his mouth.

The food might go bad if there are other exposed cans...

He thought.

After finishing his meal, he gave a few to Taranty. Though it does not have a mouth it can turn any sort of food into convertible energy as it opens its lower body and its tiny mechanical parts grind a small portion of food.

Ghillie inspects the rest of the cans and the backpack, revealing more holes to patch up. 

They stayed in the backseat as they stay for the night.

---

Morning

Ghillie readied his gear as he leaves the vehicle together with Taranty. He limps outside the vehicle. The vehicle runs out of fuel as the indicator points to the E mark.

"This time Taranty, you're helping me. This is an urban area. So there's food around here. We'd be luckier if we can find gas as well," He says as Taranty jumps in excitement like an excited puppy.

They walk across the sidewalk outside the alley.

Ghillie limps to the nearest wall as he supports himself on the wall.

Taranty shows an expression of concern as he looks at Ghillie with a slightly pale skin color.

He pants a bit as they continue walking and searching through the nearby buildings.

They come across a small grocery store filled with torn-down advertisements, scattered rotten food, and other things. Ghillie picks up the necessary food that is good enough to be considered edible. He picks up other packaged food, water, and other resources.

Searching at the backdoor on the Employees only door, they find more packaged food enough to hold for at least a month. He swiftly finds a shopping cart and pushes it along as he places the pack of food on it.

One by one, he picked each while the little spider robot picks up the small ones and drops on the cart.

They leave the grocery store as Ghillie pushes the cart while Taranty rides on it with a happy expression on its screen.

"Taranty, play my dad's playlist,"

A musical note is displayed on Taranty's screen.

Now Playing: A Horse with No Name - America

It plays the song at a soft volume, loud enough to be audible but not loud to be heard from across the urban district.

Who would blast this when there might be a rapture lurking around? 

Ghillie thought that in his mind. 

It's not like I would be surviving anymore after this, but at least give myself some time to enjoy the song before I die.

He thought as he continues limping.

Taranty observes his owner as he sways slightly from the cart. His expression from under his eyebrows shows a slight hint of tiredness and fatigue.

Ghillie ignores this as he continues to push the cart.

They continued scavenging the surrounding buildings for more food and materials.

---

Meanwhile,

Three pairs of footprints point towards three humans geared with semi-futuristic weapons with a bit of modern design. The footprint marks looked like they seem to wear high heels.

They all appear female as they wear some slightly unusual outfits. 

One wears a red and dark gray patterned military uniform with high heels and thigh-length stockings strapped on nothing with a red long tie that heavily emphasizes her slightly large breasts. She wears a beret with a few red patterns and a red mark on the other side. Her hair is caramel bright as it sways on the dusty wind. She holds some type of a distinct futuristic heavy assault rifle attached with a large grenade launcher under it. 

The other wears a dark gray and yellow patterned jacket and a few more pouches and underclothing that heavily emphasizes her large chest. She also wears very short shorts and modified knee-length socks with a few straps that heavily emphasize the thighs. Her hair color is golden, and holds a futuristic and semi-modern modified grenade launcher similar to that of a Milkor MGL Grenade Launcher,

The third one has silver long hair with a pair of glasses. She wears a white sailor uniform in a white and light-blue pattern, paired with a short skirt, white knee-length socks, and three blue stripes on top of her socks. 

"Wahhh... Why did the commander order us to go around this area? I'm going to miss my favorite show in the Ark," She signed in frustration.

"Anis, it is Commander's order to scout out the surface before we proceed to perform our next upcoming operation. If we didn't scout the area out, we would be dead ahead from any intruding Raptures,"

"My... Calm down, Rapi, Commander wouldn't be putting us at a risk without him present. Besides, you wouldn't want to see him upset when we look a bit banged up, do we?"

"Hmph... I guess so..."

"If we did find raptures, I got this under control. I've modified my ammunition to have firepower strong enough to destroy the entire side of the street. I don't mind putting it into action right now!" 

"Tch... Neon... You should hold off on those weapons for now. We're not engaging anyone. We're scouting the area, not make a big explosion on a place with barely enough information," Rapi, the girl in dark gray and red uniform held her fist up as she finds unnatural markings on the ground. Slightly burned rubber stuck to the hot asphalt road.

"E-eh? What's interesting, Rapi?"

"Something, or someone has been here recently," Rapi claimed.

"What is it? Raptures?"

"No. Nikke activity,"

"There's someone here not too long ago. Must have arrived from somewhere,"

"How are you able to decipher just from tracks?"

"It's been stuck to the ground for awhile, and it's not too long since a vehicle is used,"

"Not even my spy skills can decipher that information,"

"Shifty. Are there any other Nikkes or commanders patrolling around our area?" Rapi placed her hand on her ear as she focused her hearing on the communication device.

"Negative. The Counters are the only ones in this area. No missions or reports are given to the other commanders as of this moment,"

"Copy that. Thank you for the information, Shifty,"

"Glad to be of help!" Shifty responded in a happy tone.

"Counters, we're hot on track on something,"

"Woah! Someone has been living on the surface in the urban cities?" Neon's eyes sparkle.

"Ehhh... Aren't they just Pilgrims that wander the surface, and we're able to find the closest one with this, just like Snow White?" Anis asked as she rests her chin on her grenade launcher.

"I highly doubt that a Pilgrim would ever be this careless and use a vehicle as their transportation, not if they are trying to really cover their tracks like ghosts,"

"So it's not a Pilgrim?"

"A Pilgrim such as this would already be caught by intelligent Raptures. Who knows if there's another Chatterbox or a Heretic in sight,"

"They wouldn't be walking around urban areas like they own this place. We know they're intelligent enough to go to isolated areas to perform rapture things," Neon thought.

 "If there is a Rapture that can perform human speech, or a threat big enough, there would be a Pilgrim around and soon to contact them,"

"Shouldn't we report that we might be onto something to the commander? He might know a thing or two,"

"Tsk... Search for more clues after this. It's around here not too long,"

Team Counters investigated the area close to the rubberized tracks on the road.

There were no other clues left aside from burned rubber near a few streets near the edge of the broken highway where the vehicle took flight the previous night.

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