[Nikke × ARC Raiders] Goddess and ARC

Ten years after The First Wave.

The war against the mechanical legion known as ARC-machines that descended from the sky without warning-ended in neither victory nor defeat. Instead, it froze in a prolonged stalemate, a fragile balance maintained by exhaustion rather than peace.

That balance collapsed with the beginning of The Second Wave.

The ARC returned, far more refined than before. Having learned from the first invasion, they adapted-stronger, smarter, and relentlessly efficient. Human defensive lines were overwhelmed, and the tide of war steadily turned in ARC's favor.

Then, catastrophe arrived from an entirely different direction.

A new enemy emerged: the Raptures-a force that made no distinction between human and machine, eroding, assimilating, and destroying everything in its path.

The Raptures shattered the established order of war.

Even the fearsome ARC were reduced to nothing more than raw material before them. Humanity retreated deeper into the Ark, losing its remaining connections to the surface. To survive, humans and ARC were forced into an unthinkable choice: to abandon mutual annihilation and form an uneasy alliance against a common enemy.

Allied ARC units were deployed to the front lines, and the NIKKE squads began fighting alongside them.

Yet this alliance was never equal.
ARC treated human commands as calculations, not orders-and humanity knew all too well that ARC could turn on them at any moment.

Meanwhile, a third faction of ARC rejected the alliance entirely. Known officially as Rebels, and derisively as Clankers, these machines attacked both humans and Raptures alike, plunging the battlefield into even greater chaos.

As the war escalates, a single question echoes through the ruins:

"Can we win the war against Rapture with this unstable alliance?"

Warning: All lore featured in this fanfiction is copyrighted by Embark Studios and Shift Up, and I do not own the copyright to any of the images included.