"You sure you don't want to wait, 2B?" 9S asked through the communication channel, looking down on the Earth from the YoRHa space station headquarters. "I'm busy now, but if you wait a bit I can finish here and get reassigned to-"

"That will be unnecessary." 2B said, walking through the thick grass of the overgrown ruined city, her support pod floating behind her shoulder as she hopped over some rubble on her way to her designated mission zone.

"Two units went missing there, you know." 9S said. "No distress signals, no signs of a conflict as far as we can tell via satellite footage, and none of the resistance members in the area noticed anything when we asked them. They just fell off the radar all of a sudden! Sure, they were a lot less capable than you, but still..."

"Don't forget she's got me too!" Operator 6O cheerfully pitched in, "So she won't feel lonely without you!"

"Support is unlikely to be necessary on this mission." 2B said sternly, feeling that if she let 6O get wound up she'd be hearing her chattering into her ear about it for the entire mission. Besides, she wouldn't feel lonely from being without him for such a short period. She wasn't even capable of feeling lonely in the first place. "Few machines have been detected in the area, nor any jamming that indicates hidden forces."

"Yep, it's another boring day for me." 6O sighed. "Say, 2B, did I ever tell you about-"

2B cut off the transmission, uninterested in her operator's gossip. Her icy exterior could be felt even through an audio-only channel, causing 9S's joking remark about asking if she really was going to feel lonely to die in his processor.

"I guess you'd know best." 9S smiled and said instead, returning to the task at hand before closing the channel himself. He and 2B had been on plenty of search-and-rescue and investigatory missions around the ruined city and she had hardly needed his help on most of them, it was unlikely that this would be any different. And if it was, it would probably work out fine. What was the worst that could happen?

It wasn't long before 2B arrived at the building where the two androids had vanished, an abandoned and decrepit mall, one of the many that littered the city and most of which barely resembled their original form save for rusted escalators and vague signs of accomodating large quantities of humans in a semi-open space in the past. 2B didn't have much curiosity about the building and hardly acknowledged its historical purpose: merely being another ruin and potential battleground for a combat android like her. This was where the missing pair's signals had last been detected, and so she wandered the desolate rooms that were once stores, cafes, and restaurants with her sensors tuned and her pod scanning constantly for any potential threats.

Eventually and inevitably, she was drawn to the most notable room in the building: a surprisingly clean storefront that had its windows long shattered and its shelves long rendered barren by the ravages of time, but yet there were two humanoid figures standing in it, emitting no electrical signals that would mark them as androids. 2B stepped up to the two figures with cautious curiosity, one sword in her hand at the ready while the other floated by her back ready to be summoned at the first sign of danger. While they resembled androids, they were dressed bizarrely and appeared to be made out of plastic, painted in the colour of pale skin and with white wigs that looked like the signatures of YoRHa androids, but yet these were totally inanimate, no signs of life on their moulded faces.

Rather than wearing the elegant monochrome uniforms of YoRHa or the ragged survival gear of the redheaded resistance androids, one was wearing a thin white dress that a human thousands of years earlier might have recognised as as a sundress, a white hat on her head while her female partner was wearing blue denim jeans, a t-shirt, and a fashionable jacket. The former wore sandals, while the other wore sneakers that no respectable YoRHa unit would have been caught dead wearing. 2B was utterly puzzled by the two, her lack of data on human culture causing her to have to guess the purpose of these two mannequins. Her data told her that this was once a mall, a place where humans gathered to spend currency to acquire goods and services. Perhaps these models were intended to show off human fashions before they were purchased? It seemed like a reasonable assumption, but 2B was no expert on the dead culture of the ancient humans.

However, she had more important questions than what these meant in the context of humanity, like why these mannequins seemed to be in perfect condition wearing clothes that must have been thousands of years old yet seemed only slightly worn, miraculously stored in conditions that allowed them to survive the ages. Or perhaps they were painstakingly replicated by someone or something? The two being placed here was clearly deliberate, but their purpose seemed entirely aesthetic, some sort of replication of human culture. She wouldn't have been surprised to see something like this in the machine village, the eccentric occupants imitating humanity in many ways, and perhaps they had used YoRHa units as a reference for these plastic models. However, 2B had no time to ponder the quaint display: where exactly could the missing units be?

2B paused, using every sensor she had at her disposal to check the store for traps, contraptions, machines in hiding, or sophisticated electronic tools designed to take her by surprise and obscure perhaps weapons powerful enough to get an advantage over her if taken by surprise. Her pod floated in, slowly scanning the place and coming back with nothing. No machines, no traps, no electronics. Just an empty store. 2B stepped into the store to examine the two a little more closely, feeling there was some sort of hint to be found from them, but as she approached the one in the sundress, there was a click, or perhaps more accurately a crack beneath her high heeled foot, and even if 2B hadn't been naturally cautious, it was immediately clear that she had made a misstep.

2B glanced downward at the loose floor tile she had stepped on where a cloud of what seemed to be gas was rapidly escaping underneath the tile, or at least that was what it appeared to the naked, organic eye. If it had been mere gas the most 2B would have had to worry about was that it might have been corrosive, but 2B's highly sophisticated optics were able to identity it on a microscopic level as a swarm of nanobots, and even more alarmingly, ones identified as weapon-class YoRHa equipment made specifically for use against machines, although their exact purpose couldn't be ascertained by just a glance. Reacting in fractions of a second, 2B stepped out of the cloud, but it was too late. The nanobots had made contact with her synthetic skin and were already hard at work at whatever their purpose was, and the remaining nanobots homed in on the nearest available target; namely her.

With escape impossible and herself thoroughly covered and infected, 2B kicked over the tile with the tip of her boot, revealing a canister that had instantly cracked under the weight of her hundred and forty-eight kilogram metal chassis and released its contents on the unsuspecting android. 2B cursed her unpreparedness; she had been so preoccupied looking for electronic traps and possible ambushes that she had overlooked one of the most primitive traps possible, only matched in lack of complexity by some sort of tripwire. It was suitable for the primitive machine lifeforms, and it had been foolish of her to overestimate them. Her sensors and OS were blaring warnings at her as some unknown change was being forced upon her, unable to tell just what was happening to her, only that it was catastrophically bad.

Without hesitation 2B went to contact her operator, only to find out that her communications equipment seemed to have been damaged and disabled, her lips curling in a rare show of visible frustration. Her lips quickly uncurled back into place, as she reminded herself that emotions were merely a nuisance when in a crisis. But to make matters worse her leg motors seemed to be malfunctioning, and when she tried to take a step forward to follow her natural instincts to sprint to safety, her right leg refused to bend, causing her to nearly lurch over when she came down on that leg. Her high heels, typically merely cosmetic flair when paired with the perfect balance of a machine, suddenly became as impractical as they would have been on a human, and she struggled to remain upright with each clumsy step. The nanobots must have been designed to disable her joints, to immobilise her as well as stop her from sending for help, she realised as she struggled to keep her cool.

2B settled for dragging her immobile leg along the ground, her heel grinding against the tiles as she staggered forward, but to where exactly was she meant to go? 2B hesitated and froze in place, long enough for her left leg to also cease to bend at the knee, her ankle turning seemingly solid as well. With her free hand she tried to push it out of sheer desperation, but it was too late, and she stood in a slightly awkward position with one foot placed in front of the other in a catwalk-esque pose. Her balancers failing her, she propped herself up with her sword, able to move her hips but little else.  Not only were her systems fading but her legs were starting to feel figuratively and literally solid, her legs up to her knees having turned to a rigid material that would not bend no matter what.

"Pod-" 2B began, intending to use the backup equipment on it to send a distress signal, only to hear a clatter as her reliable pod crashed to the ground, having also been enveloped by the nanobots and affected more rapidly than her. Bizarrely, rather than a metallic crunch on the tiles it made a plastic clunk, and the pod had taken on a strange sheen unbefitting of its metal construction. Still 2B tried to keep calm, carefully examining all of the options her CPU calculated, which was rapidly becoming precious few with the seeming fact that she was about to become an inanimate doll.

She could feel the nanobots swarming around her, eating away at her synthetic skin as they toiled to convert it into what she guessed was pure plastic, the less resistant parts of her elegant outfit starting to fray and disintegrate as they were caught in the crossfire. While her outer outfit was mostly unscathed, her leotard was starting to come apart at the seams, and her blindfold visor’s HUD was starting to flicker as the sensitive electronics were destroyed. Still 2B kept up a stoic exterior, her lips refusing to indulge her unavoidable sense of panic and expose her.

2B's sword fell from her stiff fingertips with a clatter as she became unable to clench her fist and maintain her grip, while her enormous sword she had floating behind her's flotation system failed, immediately following in its smaller brother's footsteps. She tried to flex her fingers as if keeping them moving would delay the inevitable, but even her wrists refused to budge, and she was left with hands good for little more than prodding things. But the loss of articulation and the feeling of rigidity as she was transformed into plastic from the ends of her toes and the ends of her fingertips up her limbs wasn’t the only sensation she was feeling.

The sensors on 2B’s skin that were rapidly trying to adapt to a new material that they weren’t programmed for were going wild, unsure of what sensations they should transmit to her electronic brain. It settled on pleasure, and 2B bit her lip to avoid letting out a gasp as the transformation crept up her left leg and blasted her with pleasure in the process, as if given an erogenous massage all the way up her plump thigh   As the stiffening reached her groin she couldn’t suppress a deep yet feminine moan, long and drawn out as her exposed eyes showed the overwhelming lust that temporarily drowned out her panic. Her sensors readjusted and the orgasmic pleasure faded as quickly as it came, leaving 2B unsteady and almost scatter-brained as her human-like AI was still too busy recovering from the sensations it had just been subjected to to focus on any sort of plan.

In the time 2B had been distracted, things had gotten worse. She had been able to wriggle her hips before but those too began to creak and groan to a halt, and she tried to direct all of her computational power to a solution, some escape from her fate. Yet no matter how many computations she made, she couldn't avoid reality: she had lost the function of her legs, she would soon lose the ability to use her arms, and 6O and 9S, only seconds before being available to chat on a whim, had suddenly become very, very far away.

The nanobots finally finished destroying just enough of her blindfold to loosen it, sending it falling to the floor as 2B’s expression was revealed to the world, exposing the emotions she had desperately tried to keep hidden out of pride. Her eyes were widened, her eyebrows perched high as her expressions rapidly changed, full of panic, dismay, and frustration at her own helplessness. The cool, stoic android 2B presented herself as was gone, a panicking, desperate woman in her place. Her arms fell to her sides as her shoulder joints locked up and her elbows turned to plastic to keep her position that way, 2B realised that only her chest and head were unscathed, and even then she could almost no longer move her neck. Struggling and failing to keep her face controlled and her emotions from causing her to make a poor decision in this critical remaining time, 2B did the only thing she was capable of: calling for help.

"Requesting support!" 2B yelled as loudly as she could, not caring if she attracted any enemies in the process, as they would surely be upon her soon anyway. She forced her face back into one of stoic inexpressiveness, as if to convince herself that she was somehow still in control of the situation. "I am disabled and in need of assistance! Requesting supp..."

2B's cries were cut off as her lips were sealed shut, closing momentarily to form their next movement and instead fusing, 2B feeling the rest of her face freeze up as she was left with the calm, emotionless expression she had forced herself to take on. 2B's final pose had her stepping forward, arms floating by her side, and staring straight ahead with a totally blank expression, even her eyes frozen in place, at least appearing so from the outside. She could still look around to a limited extent, but that seemed to be the only ability left to her. 2B was able to see her cleavage and one of her hips through the gap in her skirt, the few bare patches of skin on her body, and to her shock realised that they didn't have the soft appearance of synthetic skin, but instead a plastic sheen that resembled the two mannequins before her.

As she had thought her skin had been transformed into rigid plastic, her face now appearing to be moulded, her hair looking more like a wig that had been glued to her scalp. Even if she had retained the use of her motor functions, she likely would have either been still unable to move or torn herself apart. As one final insult, it turned out that 2B's position lacked the balance required to keep herself naturally upright, and after a minute she teetered over and fell to the ground with a thunk, left to stare at the floor from her embarrassing face-down position.

All in all, 2B wasn't happy. In fact, she was downright furious at herself for falling for this trap, but was unable to show it, and didn't have 9S there to laugh that she had lost her cool, or 6O there to babble that she was going to send help and get her out of this jam. With her link to YoRHa lost she couldn't even abandon this body and transfer herself to a new one, leaving her figuratively and literally out of options.

And so, 2B laid there. Unable to move, unable to speak, unable to communicate electronically. She was a black box, her thoughts well and truly belonging only to her, and her helplessness was agonizing. Eventually, after thankfully only an hour of waiting, she heard metal shuffling in the distance, and it wasn't long before two common mechanical lifeforms wandered into the store, turning 2B over and staring at her with their simple eyes. The tube-like machines were cannon fodder, unable to pose even the slightest threat to her normally, but 2B began to panic as she realised that she could be easily torn apart by them, these two weaklings just as dangerous as an entire legion to her. But instead, the two began to pick her up with their primitive arms, turning her upright only for her to fall right back over, 2B feeling extremely humiliated by the undignified display.

The two seemed to consider her for a second, then one left for a moment before returning with what appeared to be a simple metal stand that they affixed to her, the base allowing her to finally stand upright. The two seemed pleased and one wandered off again while the other set her up next to the other two similarly doomed YoRHa units, who had likely been silently yelling warnings at her as soon as she had arrived, and were likely thinking to themselves that they had told her so, if only she could have heard them. Once it seemed to be satisfied with where it wanted to put her, 2B was pulled back over again, and began to silently protest as it slid one of her gloves off, then the other, then tugged at her blindfold until it came loose and was removed, revealing her dull stare to the world, unpainted and lacking even eyebrows or eyelashes. It thoroughly stripped her until she was nude, showing off her plastic body as 2B suddenly realised that she really, really didn't want 9S to see her like this.

The other returned with a crate, pulling out a number of remarkably well preserved articles of human fashion, the machines happily placing shirts, dresses, and pants over her body as they seemed to be planning on playing dress-up with her. Eventually the two seemed to come to a consensus: rather than dressing her up fully, they would cater to a new niche in their display, and chose to put a matching lacy black bra and panties on her, scandalously sexy and extremely undignified compared to the other. Content with their outfit, or lack of one, they put 2B back upright, leaving her to pose for anything that might pass. She watched helplessly as they replaced the trap before her feet, dooming another poor android or two to a similar fate in one poorly chosen step. 2B had been scouring her databanks for an explanation for this, before she came across a tiny off-handed mention of a prototype nanobot weapon that had been sent out for field tests but deemed too dangerous for the agents themselves to handle without being caught in it themselves, but not before one shipment of it had gone missing in a miscalculated supply drop.

The two wandered off as 2B wondered just how much of this stuff they had, and what was next for her. Posing, it seemed. YoRHa androids were designed to be beautiful, but this wasn't the way she wanted that to be expressed!  She briefly considered activating her self-destruct, but just as quickly decided that was an incredibly stupid decision. She'd merely be destroying herself without the opportunity to back herself up to a new body, dooming herself for no gain and leaving 9S with no clue as to what had really happened to her.

Yes, that was right, 9S! 9S would come and rescue her! He'd see that she had gone missing, come down here in a flash, and with his more advanced sensors and careful personality he'd avoid those traps, pick her up and take her away along with the other two, and maybe even figure out how to communicate with her through this plastic husk in the meantime. He'd finally get one over her again, and he'd never let her hear the end of it as long as the two were assigned together, and she'd begrudgingly indulge him and promise to not go running off solo again if she could avoid it, even for a seemingly trivial mission.

Forced to stand there staring stationary as the time slowly ticked past, the only thing she could do being to wait for rescue or for the machines to come back and play dress-up with her again, even knowing that there were two wide awake androids stuck next to her wishing they could talk to her too, 2B had to admit one thing: she really was starting to feel a bit lonely.