Machine Observation

Five units were dispatched to an empty location. There was no android presence or noteworthy signs of human life and civilization. Only thing of note was the maso readings explorer unit picked up after being lost travelling north. Two more explorers were given the direction to investigate with 3 golden units dispatched with them for protection and to neutralize hostile resistance. They were all given adjustments and upgrades to handle the subzero temperatures.

There were no comparisons or reference points to determine strength, distance, or even factors of interference in regards to the signal. All the preliminary group had was a direction from a coordinate. Once the machines entered the cryosphere, connection to the Network ceased. Units not on ice visually confirm that they were not destroyed nor ejected voluntarily. Communications were cut off due to some type of interference. Relay points could not be established so the other machine units followed, being removed from the machine network as well.

None of them have returned.


Icy jolted as it was forcibly ejected from the network. Icy knew it was released from the network because it was allowed to refer to itself as Icy. Great! It couldn't communicate with data packages and felt so alone. Not so great.

Oh well, Icy had four more buddies with it, everyone could just stick to linguistic communication.

"Icy ready to investigate the energy readings!" it declared.

"Duh, we already knew that," one of the golden brothers said.

"Please let us begin our mission, I'm worried about the ice by the shore cracking if I don't get inland enough," the golden giant said.

Well, looked like conversation was a bust. Back to work. Icy and the other explorer unit each picked their patrol route and set off. Their golden bodyguards walked/ jumped a slow pace behind them. Icy and its partner used the extra time waiting for them to double check and do superfluous searching and scanning. Icy however was also considering its existence.

Icy considered if it wanted to return to the machine network. It quickly discovered it did not. It then contemplated what it wanted to be, what type of person it wanted to resemble or imitate. It didn't really care for being male or female, didn't seem like much of a point to Icy. Maybe Icy could be a "they." Yeah, that sounded nice. Heh, "n-ice." Icy decided they liked puns. Maybe they could stay here, exploring this cryosphere, and incorporating their discoveries in the form of wordplay.

Let's see, this would be "snow" problem.

Icy was a genius.

The other explorer stopped up ahead. "I can see a building," it said.

"Where?" Icy zipped up next to it. Putting all processors to focus on interpreting visual data, Icy could just barely see the signs of artificial structure up ahead. A line of grey poking out of a blanket of white and a sky of snow. After a little bit of processing Icy asked, "Do you think we should wait for the others?"

"Yes, we don't know how dangerous it is."

Icy understood the words. " . . . I'm going on ahead." But they did not really care.

The other explorer unit tried to protest, but the wind from the blizzard drowned out the sound. And Icy turned off their audio processors. No, they meant they spontaneously failed, and then came back online when Icy was out of range. A real shame.

As Icy got closer, they realized that the building wasn't entirely covered in snow. In fact, the front half was uncovered. It reminded Icy of those urban environments with the buildings, except there were no openings in the walls or busted down door frames. This was new, how the hell was Icy supposed to get in if the building was still intact?

Well, preliminary scans confirmed that the signal was coming from the building and at a lower elevation. The symbol on the side was still legible with the letters "Atlas: Chaldea Preservation Division."

Hmm . . . Icy knew that wasn't standard Android or Machine organization. So it was either an independent machine colony or something from the old world. Icy decided to take an experimental swing at the doors.

BZZT

Okay, apparently it still had security. Good to know. Now Icy just had to figure out how to get in.

They did another circle of the perimeter, and with some scanning discovered an air vent. Using a ramp of snow, Icy was able to run up said ramp with their wheels and make it inside the air vent. It was a good thing they got in too, Icy heard the snow ramp collapse after the jump, they wouldn't have been able to try again.

Icy checked their new surroundings. Unfortunately, it wasn't as easy to get in as Icy was hoping, almost immediately they were blocked by a grate. Remembering the door out front, and not wanting to risk it, Icy took out one of their built-in maintenance tools. They used it to cut into the bottom of the vent, allowing Icy to drop down inside the building.

Scooting along on their wheels, Icy examined the building. Again, this building construction was much different than the type they've seen. Smooth concrete with symbols and designs. Icy saw some words it recognized: "Infirmary, Research room, Weapon Locker, Storage." However, all of them were on the wall representing some type of map or index, Icy wasn't sure if it was supposed to be a vertical or horizontal representation.

Once Icy looked over the floor (or at least all it could, all the doors were locked), they went down to the second floor. Luckily, the steps also had a ramp by it, so it wasn't as hazardous as it could be.

As Icy turned the corner, properly putting their wheels onto the second floor tiles, they froze.

They could see the source of the energy in front of them. In the middle of four support pillars and two concrete walls, and a wall of steel behind it, was a pulsing warbling ball of red and purple energy. It made Icy think of spilled android oil, of energy projectiles, and pain.

Icy had no idea what it was, but did know not to touch it. It cautiously wheeled to the steel panels on the other side of the floor, behind one of the walls.

They tried to get a sense of the readings but had no idea what the gauges measured or how the buttons underneath the gauges changed what was being measured. However, there was one thing of note. One of the gauges' needles was oscillating between the normal white background and red. Now, Icy didn't know much of humanity, but did know that for them red was a bad color. So, it probably wouldn't get worse if they played with those buttons, right?

Icy started fiddling with one of the dials and pressing buttons. After doing it for a little bit, Icy realized that a certain combination of actions were causing the needle to oscillate higher and higher, but still consistently going back down to the red. Icy felt the energy signal change and looked behind them to see the sphere of energy was smoothing out and less . . . volatile.

Icy was a genius! They kept on repeating the action until eventually, the needle got all the way to the other side of the gauge, maximum percent.

"Mana supply at 100%," a voice announced.

Icy froze.

"Temporal Container Unlocking."

And suddenly, all the dials on all the panels turned off in sync. The energy signal Icy was picking up mere feet from them spiked up, and it started washing over them in powerful, trembling waves.

Icy whipped around, desperate to, if nothing else, witness what was about to surely tear them apart.

The sphere pulsed and grew slowly, until it got to the size of a goliath. It stayed like that for a moment, its top and bottom brushing against the ceiling and floor, made of more energy than what Icy could produce in a year.

And then, the bubble became less opaque and spread out like a fog. As the fog passed over Icy, they took some damage, but nothing comparable to a bomb or fast moving forcefield like what they were expecting. Once Icy could use their sensory processors, they found that they were on the ground, looking at the wall. It had gained a shiny metal look, as opposed to the dull grey concrete from before the energy surge.

"Ugh, how long was all that? I swear, if I had to stay with you guys in temporal compressed stasis for another week I would've snapped," a male voice said. An android male voice.

"Fuck!" Icy thought for the first time in their very short independent life.

"Blegh, can you guys taste the mana here?! I thought we were supposed to be released when the leylines were fixed. It's terrible!" a female android voice said.

Okay, that sounded like they were attuned with Old World magic, which meant Icy was doomed no matter what. No machine had any defense against that kind of stuff.

"Hmm," another new voice said. "Perhaps the area by the receptors it's better? I don't know, I think we should focus on getting our bearings rather than complaining."

Okay, the androids weren't immediately looking to hunt down machines, or blow up a factory, or eat them or something like that. Icy, as quietly as possible, pushed themselves up and wheeled the long way around the room back towards the ramp.

As they moved down the hall, Icy noticed that the building temperature was rising and the lights were flickering on. They could still hear the conversation if they strained their audio processors.

"So we sticking to protocol, Rider? We're sending Archer and Assassin to scout first before we start figuring out what to do?"

"I don't see why not. But be careful out there you two, we can't get anything done if you over exert yourselves"

"And if neither of you can, I will tie you both down in the infirmary."

"That goes double for you Shirou, I don't want to have you be just as reckless as you were when we first met.

"I'll do my best, Saber. But remember, I'm kind of a Servant like you, so we should stick to classes for now."

"Ah, right, my apologies."

And then, right as Icy was about to turn the corner and get on the ramp, they heard, "I believe we can get started by figuring out what that thing is that tried to sneak up to the first floor."

Icy froze and looked behind themselves. All seven of the androids that appeared from the magic energy were staring at them. They did the only thing they could. Icy threw up their arms and bolted up the stairs.

"Please don't kill me!" Icy shouted while going as fast as possible.

"Wait!" one of the androids shouted. But Icy did not fall for the trick and put their rotors into overdrive to try and get away.

They didn't hear footsteps immediately pursuing until they got halfway through the first floor. Icy was able to burst through the doors (hey, weren't they locked or something?) and beat feet, well, if they had any.

"We gotta get outta here!" Icy shouted, hoping the other machines could hear. "Old Magic androids! We've got Old Magic-" and then one of the rotors in their treads blew out and Icy collapsed into the snow.

"Hold on, wait! We're not androids! I don't know what-" The man shouted.

The other explorer unit interrupted him. "Die android!" it shouted. As it ran up to Icy's chaser, the android's leg glowed with blue lines and he struck out with a kick that knocked it back.

"Hey, stop! I swear I'm not an android!" the android shouted again.

As the explorer unit leapt at the android again, instead of kicking it again, the android summoned a pair of swords which cleaved through the other explorer like aluminum. The other explorer probably didn't even have enough time to feel pain before it was dead. It didn't even have the chance to self-destruct. Icy could only watch in shock.

"Well, at least it'll be quick," they thought.

The android sighed. "Now then," he began to say before he was interrupted.

"Glory to machine lifeforms!"

"Enemy detected! Show no mercy!"

Well, at least the protectors got here before Icy died.

"Hm, show no mercy? Very well," a different android said.

The red haired man with a ponytail leapt forward from the building doors into the snow. He struck one of the golden brothers in the neck with his knee, Icy could see the head was almost dislodged from his shoulders, but the magnets lodged the head back into place. It wasn't without a dent however.

The android's lips quirked up. "You should be proud, you just made me strike twice." And after retracting his knee downward he dropped into a squat and hit the golden brother in the opposite spot with his elbow, completely disconnecting the head from the body. He fell down in the snow, dead.

And before the other brother could grieve the loss of his brother, a flurry of sword strikes came down on it from the other android. Not as devastating as the first kill, but this android treated the golden brother as if it were a common foot soldier.

Icy's terrified gaze returned to the two monstrous androids standing above them.

The unarmed one quirked his lips. "Hey Archer, what do you think we should do about the tall one over there?"

Archer turned his gaze to meet Icy's. "Small robot," he said. "What are the chances that tall one is going to try to be violent as well?"

"I . . . I . . ." was all Icy could get out.

"What are you going on about?" the other android asked. "I was asking if you wanted to aim for the head or the center of mass. I'm not sure which is more lethal with these things. Now hurry up, I'm getting cold out here."

Archer sighed. "Assassin . . ." he said.

Before anyone could respond, the Golden Goliath shouted out, "Die android!" off in the distance.

Archer sighed before he dismissed his swords into motes of light. In their place was summoned large curved staff of some kind, the two ends connected by a string. Before Icy could even theorize what the heck kind of weapon was that, another item manifested out of light. Archer pulled back the pointed steel rod against the string, and used his other hand to keep the curved beam in place. He held it there for a moment before he let go of the string. Next thing Icy knew, the steel rod was gone, the string was back into place, and they could hear the sound of metal breaking against metal and an explosion behind them.

Archer turned back to Icy. "I will ask you to let us take you back to our base so we can ask you some questions."

Icy didn't even have to hear the sound of the golden goliath's pieces hitting the ground before they agreed. And Icy had the relief to see a small smile on Archer's tanned face. "Ah, good," they thought. "A smile means he's less likely to kill me."


If there were any other surviving machines in the entire north pole who could hear what was shouted, they would've immediately turned around and booked it off the ice to report to the machine network.

"YOU'RE HUMANS?!"

But luckily, there was no one except for the seals and penguins. And they didn't care.


And there's the prologue to a possible story idea. Fair warning for expectations: I will be modifying some elements on both the side of Fate and Nier: Automata to fit the type of story I want to tell with this crossover.

In terms of character focus: Shirou and the main Nier characters are going to be the focus for a while, but that will change as the plot diverges from Nier Automata.

Please tell me what you think and are expecting from this. I honestly don't know how much time I'll be able to focus on this with all the other projects I want to do and college coming up, but I did want to at least get this out there while I could.