The Death of ME(O-9)

William stared up at the top of the building from the street through the rain. Damian was up there. Damian was up there and he was going to beat Simon ass. He was sure of it. It could go no other way, he had made sure of it. The thousands of calculations he had managed to make in his head showed there was nothing but success for them.

They were going to win.

“William!” A voice screamed from his left, just as a robot hit him on the same side, bashing into his arm as hard as the enemy possibly could, a devastating blow that almost certainly would have broken his arm. His face melted away as the nanomachines refocused on healing him rather than protecting the mechanics beneath his screen. Although it would only take seconds, he had to back off while he repaired himself, simulated pain coursing through his body. He crashed into a building, the robot shoving him through the thick, brick wall he had just hit.

William grasped the arm holding him down with his left, the nanomachines crawled up the robot and began to split wires and disconnect panels, disassembling the very arm holding William down. The elbow joint gave out just as William’s thrusts activated, throwing him up and singeing his shirt on his back. He hadn’t hoped to use it this early, the temporary boost he was allowed had quite the cooldown and took up a lot more of his energy than he would like.

His synthetic heart was barely allowed to beat once before the enemy robot had short circuited and remained motionless in the pouring rain. He stared down at it, holding his left arm over the mass of metal as he collected the nanomachines again, his face’s display completed as he turned back to the battlegrounds of the streets they had destroyed within the past four hours. He was surprised he was able to function the way he had for so long, but genuinely considered joining Damian on the ascent to the top of the tower. He knew he was capable of performing the task at hand, but William couldn’t help but be worried. That and he wanted to get a punch out with Simon as well. The man who damned him from the beginning. This was Damian’s mission though, and William had been instructed several times that he was back-up and was to remain with Collie and Flint. Despite this, William thought it inevitable that he would join Damian at the top.

Collie shouted out, once again grounding William and forcing him to rejoin the fight. His thrusters went off again as he barrelled into the robot attacking her. She quickly threw up the crowbar she had just been using to bash in another robots head towards him, and he slammed it into the others chest and pulled down as hard as he could, ripping the back panel off and shoving the straight-end in ripping and tearing at anything there, throwing the crowbar back at Collie and ripping into the robot with his claws and tearing out the central battery, the nanomachines tore into it, siphoning and completely absorbing the energy. He paid attention to his energy levels as he sent off another burst from his thrusters, kicking off of the robot and landing on the shoulders of another while Collie tore its circuits out. He maneuvered his clawed fingers under the plate and started tearing, scrambling to find another fuel source. He grasped onto it and ripped it out, absorbing its energy as it fell down, crashing onto the floor loudly and disassembling into hundreds of pieces.

And then there was silence.

Collie’s crowbar clanked to the floor, the only sound for several miles. She looked around, the many bodies of the attacking robots piled up against the walls of the surrounding buildings, remnants of the battle that had occurred. There were none left, at least none left outside, it was just unknown how many of these warmachines Simon had just stored behind those glass doors. William hoped it wasn’t many more, or if so that Damian had already stopped them by now.

He jumped off of the robot and joined Collie, standing behind her, back to back, to make sure that if anything were to come, they wouldn’t be surprised.

“Do you think they’re done?” William’s mangled voice echoed several times as the repairs commenced, fixing his speaker to clear up his words.

Collie waited a second before responding, staring down at her crowbar on the floor as it lied innocently, as if just moments before it hadn’t been used to tear through robots sent to do nothing but kill them. “Yes.” She spoke quietly, sighing loudly as she finally caught up with her breath, releasing the one she had held for what she felt to be the entire four hours.

William walked forward and once again stared up at the top floor, directly at the balcony that jutted out to stare out into the rest of the city. He finally noticed the pit of despair that he had been collecting in him since the car ride here. This was it, the final battle.

And they had won.

A scream pierced the air, assaulting William and Collie’s ears as William finally understood what was happening and Collie’s head snapped up towards the same balcony he had been staring at just as a shadow was thrown off the edge, unidentifiable as they plummeted towards the earth.

The two of them watched as the shape fell, down, down, down, until they hit the road, the rock cratering around them. William sped over, staring over the lip of the edge, hoping to see Simon’s body.

What he saw was skin. Dark, muscled skin and black, salted hair.

William’s face contorted as he finally registered what he was seeing. He couldn’t think, he couldn’t do anything. He was dead and he couldn’t move. The pit in his stomach felt like it exploded in a fit of dread and anxiety, consuming him entirely in his whole being and spitting him out directly onto the same pavement that he now stood on. He fell to his knees, shaking. He couldn’t look away and they couldn’t think of anything to do, as there was nothing to do. He was dead. He was dead and they killed him. The long cracks in the concrete would be fixed eventually, but they could never repair him.

He was dead.

Damian’s corpse lay in the center of the hole, a large Z-bar stabbed through his still heart. Collie and Flint joined William by either of his sides, each putting a hand on his shoulder. They stared down at him silently for a minute before Collie and Flint approached Damian and huddled, conversing secretly with each other as William attempted to once again perceive what was before him.

The two of them separated and grasped the metal bisecting him and began to pull, as gently as they could, tearing it free from Damian’s abdomen. They placed the bloodied bar off the side, gently letting it collide with the floor, as if any noise would be confirmation of what happened, that Damian was truly gone.

The sound of whistling wind told the group that there was another person falling from the balcony, although it was quickly stopped for the sound of tearing metal that was being split by a sharp weapon. Through his dissociative state, William slowly turned towards the source of the horrendous ripping sound.

The last thing he had hoped to see descended in front of him, white fur that he knew, even though he wanted to deny it, belonged to Simon Felis. The founder and CEO of Felis Robotics.

William got up just as Simon hit the ground, his glowing blue talons that tore into the building the only reason he hadn’t suffered the same fate as Damian. Just as he landed, he began to speak.

“You all have no idea what happened up there, he’s gone INS-.”

Without a thought in its head to sway its actions, William’s thrusters activated and it sped towards Simon, readying its fist, giving Simon less than a second to react as the robot took its anger out on him, its fist colliding with his jaw.

Simon fell backwards, almost collapsing to the floor and having to take a moment to ground himself before realizing the pain coursing through his face.

“What the FUCK did you do to him?” William screamed at Simon, readying itself for another strike before hitting him again. Simon attempted to strike back, but it moved out of the way before Simon's slow movements could catch up.

Everything in William was begging it to back down and set up to charge again, but it didn’t want to wait to see Simon stand up fully again. It beat Simon once more, slamming its fist into his chest.

“Why did you fucking KILL HIM?!” It hit him again.

“Why did he have to DIE because of YOU?!” Another blow to Simon's chest.

“WHY?” William couldn’t hit hard, but Simon was already in a critical condition, no doubt from Damian’s involvement.

Damian.

William backed up, collapsing to its knees again.

Damian’s dead.

The robot's head snapped left and right, it had to leave, it had to get out of here. This wasn’t real and it had to prove it, it had to stop whatever was going on. Simon couldn’t have done this. Not when he was like this, torn down so easily by William itself. Its facial LEDs shut off and it stared down the street. Before it could think, it ran off, its thrusters propelling it as it disappeared several blocks down as it turned a corner.

Simon slowly got up from the floor, dirt and blood caked into his white fur. “C-Collie.” He cried out weakly, reaching towards her. “I promise there’s an explanation for this...” He slowly got up, standing on his knees.

Collie stared down at him, having picked her crowbar back up, she held it at the nape of his neck, and spoke coldly. “Start explaining.”