"This is Pteruges V?" asked Keith, looking at the desolate planet with nothing interesting to see.
The ground was naked without a single stalk of grass, and the dense canopy of dark clouds didn't let a single sun ray pass through it.
So all in all, despite supposedly being daytime the scene was quite dark.
"The Stellaron made those clouds appear" explained Himeko calmly, pointing at the sky. "Even if it seems unbelievable this place was akin to a forest, but the lack of sunlight made almost every plant disappear, so when crops started dying, people abandoned the planet while some others, those unable or unwilling to leave, took some weapons and formed gangs to pillage."
"That's messed up" said Keith with a grimace, not wanting to imagine the desperation those people must have felt to arrive at that point, and not wanting to even guess the pain they must have caused to other people.
"Well, that's why we are here to start with" Himeko smiled, ready to help the people who had nothing.
"What do you want me to do?" Keith asked, looking around at the place the Star Rail left them in. "You probably don't need my help, with your satellite laser and all that, but maybe I should go with you in case someone targets you."
"It would be a great help" admitted Himeko, who found Keith's ability more useful by the day.
Having someone who could detect lies and sense the feelings of people was extremely useful, and they developed a code only for that.
"I will go with you then" Keith said, looking at the sky only to see dark clouds covering everything. "Not that there is much to see in this place anyway."
"Let's go then" said Himeko with a small smile.
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"That was a mess" muttered Keith once they left the room where the frankly poor survivors were.
"Of course it was" an extremely tired Himeko agreed. "They have literally nothing, they are insecure because fo the bandits and they don't trust us."
Keith shrugged, looking at the sky, realizing that it was starting to rain.
"It was all thanks to you" said Himeko with a grateful voice looking at Keith. "If you hadn't told me how they felt at all moments this meeting wouldn't have gone this smooth."
"That's all I can do" Keith commented with another shrug.
plop
One that made his arm fall to the floor.
""....""
They looked at the arm in astonishment, not expecting a single shrug to cause it to fall.
"We really need to take you to the space station" mused Himeko, realizing that this was not a way to live.
"It wasn't a leg this time" sighed Keith, crouching to pick his arm, and giving it to Himeko. "I demand payment for helping in that meeting."
"Yes yes" Himeko rolled her eyes, and while Keith rolled up his sleeve to show the joint, Himeko put the arm in its place with a slight push. "After this mess we will go to get you a better body."
"Can we even afford it?" asked Keith sarcastically.
"Of course" Himeko nodded with a smile, patting Keith's shoulder paying attention to not make the arm fall again. "We will get a ton of money from this deal, and Herta will have to make a new one, I already paid for it."
"That would help a lot" Keith gratefully said, but Himeko realized the lack of enthusiasm in his voice.
And she couldn't blame him, she couldn't imagine one day suddenly waking up in a puppet's body.
"Let's leave, it's going to start raining" Keith proposed, and Himeko readily agreed.
"We need to call the IPC to explain the situation" said Himeko, walking to a nearby abandoned building.
"Ah, those assholes that don't like me at all" muttered Keith with a grimace.
"The same ones" Himeko nodded, taking out a device to communicate with the Astral Express, where a signal would be sent to the IPC. "I don't blame them, they hare merchants above all, and negotiating with someone who can detect their lies makes them nervous."
"More like terrified I'd say" Keith commented, making Himeko nod. "They will probably kick me out of the negotiation."
"It's not like you are a child scared of not being near me" deadpanned Himeko.
"Want me to call you Mommy?" asked Keith with a smirk. "Okay okay, even without my ability I could have realize the nausea in your expression."
"Don't do that again" Himeko threatened with a pale face after imagining such a sound coming out of Keith's mouth. "Or you will be the one to put your limbs in place."
"If my 2 arms are missing, I wonder how should I do that" mused Keith with a pondering expression. "Now that I think about it, can't I stuff things into my body? It's supposed to be empty anyway."
"No, it's not" Himeko sighed. "Your body is made of an extremely complex web of circuits and-"
"I get it, but if you continue I won't, so leave it at that" Keith interrupted Himeko, who he acknowledged was leagues above him in knowledge. "For such a complex puppet, my arms tends to fall quite often. I guess we need to talk to Herta. No emergency rations then."
"You don't eat" Himeko deadpanned again, while closing her device as the signal had already been sent. "You need to be plugged to the Star Rail to recharge."
"That's quite offensive" Keith argued, looking at Himeko's unimpressed face. "I would like you to refer to that as eating, I'm nothing more than a machine in that case."
Himeko raised her eyebrows at Keith, making him grumble.
"Okay okay" Keith gave up, knowing that he was going to lose here. "By the way, I don't remember the last time I 'ate'."
"There shouldn't be a problem" said Himeko, looking at the sky. "The IPC will come soon anyway, they won't miss this deal. Just stay put and don't cause trouble."
"Do you really not want me to call you mom?" mockingly asked Keith, standing up and preparing to leave.
"Don't go too far" warned Himeko, ignoring Keith's words. "It's raining a lot, so be careful of-"
"Bye bye" Keith left waving his hand.
Of course, he was careful so his whole arm wouldn't fall.
'She treats me like an unruly kid' thought Keith with a bit of exasperation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
'And she did well, because now I'm fucking lost' thought Keith with a blank expression.
The survivor's camp had been built on the ladder of a mountain.
There was no grass or trees, so the soil was not being held by any roots or anything similar, so with the unending rain that might have very well been God spitting on Keith to piss him off, a torrent of mud quickly swept everything near the camp.
Keith, who was having a walk looking at everything with curiosity, knowing that the bandits weren't near based on Himeko's scan, found himself dragged off by the mud and losing an arm in the process.
And of course, as a direct result, he was now lost.
"Fuck me" he cursed, standing up. "Now I need to wait for Himeko to find me with her fancy satellite scan."
The Star Rail wasn't only a train, and after more than 10 years of very productive businesses and contacts, Himeko tuned it even more.
Lasers, guns, weapons, scans... everything she could think of was added.
Pom Pom wasn't too happy, but he seemed to consider both Himeko and Keith the 'masters' of the Star Rail, so he relented in the end.
Keith also had a hand in this process of weaponizing the train, mainly because of his fervent discussion with Himeko about how to have a decent conversation.
'A conversation is only held when both sides have fists of the same size' he defended that posture until Himeko agreed.
She put some limits, like not allowing Keith to modify the Star Rail so it would transform into a gigantic cosmic robot with humanoid form, but Keith just didn't have anything to convince her with.
But now Keith was in trouble.
A creak in his waist told him that maybe walking while being knee-deep in viscous mud inside a puppet that lost limbs just by existing wasn't a good idea.
Being veeery careful, he finally left the mud and arrived at the shore, where he started walking towards someplace he could rest. He couldn't get a cold, but being in the rain wasn't comfortable at all.
With laborious steps that made Keith thank for once that he was a puppet and as one he couldn't get tired, he finally found a dilapidated building.
One he was going to enter no matter what, as it was the only one around he could see.
"Haahhhh, where did I go wrong?" he asked himself looking at the ceiling.
But he didn't find an answer.
He woke up one day looking at Himeko's beautiful face with no memories and the uncanny ability to sense other people's moods, even if that also had its limitations.
He felt that 'something' was lacking in his life, he didn't know if it was the lack of purpose or it had something to do with his lost memories, but he felt a hole inside him. But for now, still waiting for those same memories to reappear, he opted to help Himeko.
He considered the red-haired woman to be a true friend, as she had helped him without asking anything in exchange, even going as far as entering in debt for him to get this admittedly faulty body.
So while he found his purpose again, he decided to help Himeko in everything he could.
Keith sat on the floor, and sighed deeply, a mere phantom of what a human body would have done in this situation after a few hours of walking under the rain, but suddenly, he frowned and looked in a certain direction after a loud sound reached his ears.
'Did I imagine it?' he asked himself. 'Obviously not, this is not a third-rate movie. Or maybe....'.
So he stood up, and went to the source of the sound.
He was not going to leave this place as it was still raining, and if someone else was here and needed help, just like he would have should he had not been using a puppet's body, maybe he could offer his help.
He lost the source of the sound, but the building wasn't very big. After inspecting the lower floor, he climbed the stairs to the second and last floor, and stood in front of the entrance to the only room that wasn't blocked by debris.
Eyeing a can on the ground, he entered the room.
"Hell-"
"Well, isn't this a surprise?" a soft voice sounded near his ear at the same time the cold glint of steel appeared under his neck.
More than a sword, it was a rusted knife, and even if Keith couldn't see the person this voice belonged to he was able to discern that it belonged to a girl, maybe a teen or a young woman.
"I would be more surprised if you put that knife away from my neck" commented Keith in a calm voice. "But just for the sake of asking, can you put the knife down?"
"Can I?" said the girl in a soft voice.
"Are you stupid?" asked Keith in his calm voice, ignoring the knife. "I have one arm, and the other one is going to fall off pretty soon, do you think I'm in a condition to fight?"
"I never expected to see another 'person' in this remote building" the girl said, ignoring Keith's words.
"I was dragged by a flooding of mud" Keith replied, standing still as he sensed the knife applying more strength to his neck. He couldn't feel pain, but the sensation of your skin being pierced wasn't a pleasant one. "I heard you and came to help, but I never expected to be one needing it."
"Are you from the Dog's Fangs?" the girl asked, and the air vibrated as she pronounced those words.
Clearly, something else was at play here.
"I don't know what those words refer to" Keith was unaffected by that strange wave, making the girl open her eyes a little in surprise, an expression Keith didn't see. "But if you are referring to some gang, no, I don't. I came from beyond the stars to help this planet with my companion, as we knew the Stellaron is making a mess here."
"Beyond the stars..." the girl was clearly focused on his words, not expecting them.
"Can you take the knife away?" asked Keith again, sensing the hostility from the girl behind him diminish a little.
"Sure" the girl said.
POP
"A pleasure to meet you" Keith said, turning around and looking at the teenager, maybe close to Himeko's age, with light purple hair and pink eyes. "But I think that was unneeded."
"Isn't that for me to decide?" asked the girl with a straight face, holding Keith's only arm in her hand. "You wanted me to take the knife out of your neck but there is no way I'm going to let someone around without some sort of measure to protect myself."
"Fair" nodded an armless Keith. "But still, this feels pretty weird."
The girl, wearing a stylish outfit even in this post-apocalyptic scenario, studied the tall man in front of her, and the arm on her hands after.
"I'm Keith" Keith introduced himself, his grey eyes colliding with the girl's pink ones. "Can I know the name of the one who dismembered me?"
"Kafka"