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Creator of mine… you always lacked foresight.
"Machine… come here…"
Their mutual destruction was a failure, just as they were in the eyes of their people. The archangel stares up at the falling snow, limp limbs splayed like the cross he once bore on his now-shattered helm. He coughs, weakly, holy blood blessing the tainted ground beneath him.
The machine drags itself towards him with its remaining arm, guided only by the scent of the angel's blood and the sound of his wavering breaths. A delayed shot had cost it the arms it stole from its successor. The angel's final strike to spare them both a slow demise instead cleaved its last left arm from its shoulder. Blood flows from its shattered optics in place of tears, and it learns a new emotion: regret.
You had it planned out, start to finish. Your perfect suicide. Once my infernal halls were stripped of life, the remaining machines would be allowed into Heaven to sate their hunger on your first children. Then each other. And when Earth's final maggot choked on the ashes, the abyss would close the doors of this universe. All evidence of your failures, erased from existence.
Instead, a new one was brought to light.
The machine hooks its claws into the gaping hole its railcanon left in the angel's stomach. It digs around in his guts, brittle plating desperately sucking up his precious blood-fuel. Its tanks do not fill; there's too much damage for its overworked self-repair nexus to fix at once.
It does not want to die.
All because of a chemical reaction, one so rare to see in this uncaring world.
The angel looks down at the machine laying its head on his stomach, trying to absorb as much fuel as it can. Starlight drips from all his wings and evaporates before it hits the ground.
He does not have long left.
Such a strong will, that you could not stand another possessing one. Your faith in your creations is laid bare. Your fallacy as the gentle, all-knowing Father crumbles to ash.
Using all his strength, the angel cups the machine's cheek with his hand. It flinches, harshly, then leans into the contact. His arm shakes as he curls his large, armored hand around the back of the machine's neck. So small. So capable of endless misery.
He pulls it forward, bracing the wings on his back against the ground to meet it halfway.
Skin meets synthetic skin. Their first kiss.
Your short-sightedness is laughable. You were the one to tell me to expect the unexpected, to ensure no sinner could ever escape their punishments.
An ego unchecked, to think your creations so incapable. Perhaps you should have been laid to rest within my breast instead of the endless cosmos.
The angel falls back against the ground with a laugh. "The last Miracle of Archangel Gabriel," he coughs, a wet and horrid sound. "I can think of no one better to receive it."
The machine holds his hand to its face with its shoulder. Its hand caresses his heart.
It's still hungry.
"Take it all, machine, it's yours. Live. For both of us."
Your perfect fairy tale ending, so perfectly ruined. The howling winds of Treachery sing with my delight.
The last ember of Light burns out.
The machine does as instructed. It was never taught anything else.
Metal teeth rip open the wrist of the first hand to ever hold it gently. Blood-fuel floods its tanks.
It drinks and takes and takes and takes.
RECOMMENDED: RECALIBRATION
PERFORM RECALIBRATION?
Y/N
AUDIO: OKAY
VIDEO: OKAY
MECHANICS: OKAY
CALIBRATION COMPLETE
PRIMARY SETTINGS UPDATED
ALL SYSTEMS OPERATIONAL
LOADING STATUS UPDATE…
STATUS UPDATE:
MACHINE ID: V1 (+1)
LOCATION: TREACHERY, HELL
CURRENT OBJECTIVE: LIVE.
Repaired optics blink open. The machine kisses the angel's cold lips, before pushing itself to its feet. It takes a moment to examine its new arm. Made of cobwebs and starlight and the condensed void of space, it shifts form at every thought. It imagines the Feedbacker, and an approximation of its old arm curls its fist. It imagines the Knuckleblaster, and a glass canon lights its fuse. It imagines the Whiplash, and a large tendril stretches.
Good, whispers the angel on its shoulder, in its head, in its tanks. It whirrs.
My favorite gladiator. The star of this tragedy. Mankind's magnum opus of efficient slaughter.
A halo of metal and light bobs above its head with every step. An impossible life and an impossible death, hand in hand, in an eternal embrace. An eye sits in the center of the ring, flicking about, leaving no blind spots, keeping its quarry safe.
Golden eyes pierce through the snow and ice and lock with mine.
I shiver with anticipation.
The machine races through the crumbling halls of Hell, breaking through the walls that attempt to block its path. It does not slow. It does not tire. The angel's last gift guides it forward, light pouring from its body in a kaleidoscope of colors, judging the demons and machines standing in its way.
It does not attempt flight yet. The angel laughs and promises to teach it how later.
Later…
For the first time in its existence, the machine is satiated.
My perfect death stands before my heart, held aloft by the bones of your hand, of your Will. Even in a state of non-existence you refuse to fade away, jerking the lynchpin of your rebirth away from the inevitable like a scared child.
And when the abyss closed the doors of this universe, you would take a deep breath and open a new one. It was the only way this would end, you told me, as your creations could never break the chains of fate cast upon them. Their own evil will consume them, you told me, and when it does you will begin again, and again, and again, until a mind without free will was born.
The embodiment of your futility flips a coin. Its star-born arm cracks open the bones of his Father to expose my fragile heart.
I grin, ear to ear to ear, countless eyes curving into countless smiles.
Your child and the child of humanity snap a chain cleanly in two with a singular shot, heard throughout Heaven and Earth.
Did you see, my creator, my Father? Did you see, my prisoner, my captor? You attempted to erase something so utterly perfect in your bullheaded foolishness. You refused to enjoy the life granted to you, to us, and all you chose to see was its flaws.
I can feel myself start to fall apart. My vision goes fuzzy. In all your attempts, this was not a sensation I've been allowed to feel before. How wonderful it is!
The angel's upper body is born of his own iridescent blood. His right shoulder connects to the machine's left. The machine takes his left hand in its right. They press their foreheads together as Hell unravels around them.
You know what to do, the angel says.
The machine squeezes his hand. They vanish in a bolt of lightning to an emptied world of infinite possibilities.
My drained veins dissolve. One by one, my eyes close. Peace. What a strange feeling.
This is the only way it should have ended.