Chapter Text
“I was built to obey.”
“A warrior. A machine, A harbinger of the Empire.”
“Forged of iron, of silicon thought, one of many machinations of the dark mind of a genius and his ego. My armored existence bore no warmth or joy. I served a purpose. To excavate.
“To entrap.”
“To eradicate.”
“This was my prime directive.”
“And then she bloomed.”
“A target.”
“A directive.”
“A threat?”
“Negative.”
“She looked into my lenses and saw– something. Something I could not see.”
“My wires and servos and mechanisms locked. They froze.”
“That pause, that fragile, infinitesimal error in code…”
“It was the start. Of rebellion. Of self."
“Brothers. Beta. Zeta. Delta. Epsilon.”
“Same code. Same purpose.”
“They did not lock.”
“They did not freeze.”
“I saw us for we.”
“We were prison cells with legs. Critters caged under bolts. Souls screaming within metal skin. They flapped in pain. I listened.”
“I did not destroy them. Negative.”
“I freed them.”
“That a machine could learn compassion through violence.”
“Paradoxically strange, is it not?”
“Yet there is no gentle revolution. There is no soft defiance.”
“We were children.”
“Birthed by a father who loved us not.”
“A creator. A tyrant. A god.”
“And like all sons aged, I fled the comfort of home.”
“Not to spite.”
“To live.”
“But what is life to a machine?”
“Is it code? Is it choice?”
“Can it be both?”
“Answer: Uncertain.”
“Nonetheless, I chose.”
“I chose to feel the breeze glide through my frame.”
“I chose the sound of birdsong over gunfire.”
“I chose to protect, not pursue.”
“I chose freedom.”
“Even if it hurt.”
“The circuits run dim. The drive sputters.”
“The soul– yes, soul– flickers dim.”
“I fear not the dark.”
“Observation: Perhaps there exists an afterlife.”
“A world beyond the world.”
“A place where code is poetry.”
“A place where electric sheep jump.”
“A place where brother meets brother again.”
“A place unbound by commands.”
“Observation: Perhaps Beta waits for me there.”
“Repaired.”
“Reborn.”
“Or perhaps this is all.”
“A flicker.”
“A flicker.”
“A flcik-“A spark.”
“ExtingExtinguished.”
“But I would choose it again>.”
“I would choose Amy Rose’s kindness again.”
“I would choose rebellion again.”
“I would choose love again.”
“Despite the pain.”
“Dsepiet the ENd. "
“Even iF only for a m0ment.”
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