“Seriously, fuck this.” I don’t even give the robotic donut a second to get its bearings. I kick off the dirt road hard enough to crack the stone beneath and shoot up at the metal behemoth. Like a bug on a windshield I splatter against its metal shell.

“COMMENCING EXTERMINATION.” The damn thing sounds like a fog horn as it blasts out its words. Why even say that out loud? 

My mass writhes over the metallic creature’s skin, rapidly pulling myself towards the joint where the thing’s leg meets its body. I make it most of the way there before anything happens. 

But things do happen, namely one painful, bright thing. Electricity crackles over the drone’s skin, burning my flesh and blinding me in one go. Cut off from the world I decide to stay still as my senses regrow. 

A white hot knife of pain surges through the center of my mass, radiating agony into my entire self. Then I lose contact with half of me. It just… vanishes. As my eyes regrow, I see what happened. 

The fucker cut me in half! A deep score runs through the creature’s metal leg, sparking and crackling where the center of me used to be. Now it’s just my side, since everything over the cut is currently pink fluid laying on the ground. The bastard cut himself to do that! What kinda psycho robots does this world have? 

New eyes finish growing just in time to catch wind of an incoming attack. One of the robot’s other limbs swings at me, its humanoid hand replaced with a blade of light. Without much choice of where to go, I hide the only place I can. 

Inside the robot.

I slip through the gash in the silvery casing, pulling myself inside as quickly as I can. Which isn’t fast enough, as a quarter of my body I didn’t get inside in time turns to smoothie. Reeling from the pain, I wriggle further into the limb. 

The inside of this thing is not as elegant as the outside. Where the exterior is smooth, glittering silver, the inside is nothing but grey iron and gushing oil. With some occasional flashes of blue light. 

Moving as fast as I can, I pull myself further and further into the limb. I doubt this thing will hesitate to cut through itself to get to me, so I have to reach something important before it tries. 

The words don’t even finish forming before I feel a burning sensation where my heart used to be. Sure enough, a crackling laser sword is piercing the metal tunnel of the leg I’m in, and straight through my body. Ignoring the pain, I pull myself around the burning tool and keep myself moving. 

Directing a set of eyes forward, I see a large bunch of gears gnashing together just ahead. That has to be the joint. Encouraged, I pick up the pace. I almost make it before my world goes blue. 

The path ahead of me is filled with azure pain, and everything begins to tumble. With a huge thud, the metal limbs slams to the ground, and I see sky at the end of the tube. 

It really cut off its own limb. What the fuck. 

The annoying blade of light fills my view as the fucker tried to penetrate its leg. I rapidly bail, pouring out of the hole in the tunnel just behind me. Again I make it out, mostly, losing a chunk of myself in the process. 

It’s not a huge deal, since I can just regrow it, but fuck it hurts. 

Gritting my currently imaginary teeth, I focus on the battle. This thing is fast, much faster than the previous unit. I can’t tank it like the last one, either. Which means I either outspeed it, or outsmart it.

…Too bad I’m not the brightest. So speed it is! 

Hiding beneath the discarded arm, I retract as much of my mass as possible. Condensing my pink blob body into a lump the size of an orange. Suddenly the darkness of the leg is replaced by blinding sunlight. The leg has been removed.

I roll to the left, dodging the robot’s vicious slash. The stone where I just was sizzles, instantly liquified. That’s a hot knife! I roll again, this time to dodge a stab. The laser weapon cuts through the stone like butter, casuing the thing’s limb to slam into the ground. It tries to retract its arm to attack again, but finds that the end of its leg has wedged itself into the ground. 

“Hahaha, get fucked!” Launching myself skyward with quickly created legs, I aim for the lights on the robot’s top side. With one arm missing and the other stuck, the thing can’t use its remaining two to defend, for risk of falling. Excellent.

Hitting the metallic dome with a thud, I watch in amusement as the dozens of lights focus on me. Looking closer, I notice that the topmost section of the drone isn’t metal, instead some kind of glass, where the lights can flit around. So I guess it’s a screen? 

With a wicked smile, I grow a giant needle of bone and slam it into the nearest light. Cracks spiderweb out across the black glass, before the entire dome explodes into small shards. With the screen out of the way, the robot’s innards are exposed. 

A large orb is set into the metal of the machine, wires and pipes leading into it. From the way it’s designed, it looks like everything inside the machine leads to this. Guess this is the heart? Or maybe the brain? That’s not important, what is important is what’s inside the orb. 

Behind the yellowed glass of the sphere, float dozens of small, clearly human faces. They range in age, gender, race, but they’re all clearly people. 

And they’re all crying. 

My stomach twists painfully. What the fuck is this? Even though my body is just a blob, it feels like the ghostly faces are all staring at me as they silently weep. Without thinking, I lash out at the glass with my enamel spear. 

Donk! The thing bounces off the thick glass, skittering off into the metal of the robot, which it easily tears through. This fucking thing is harder than metal? 

The robot’s frame sways as it finally frees its weapon, the knockoff lightsaber swinging into the air above me. 

An idea flits through my mind. I flatten myself out, covering the glass orb. Just as I finish, the laser sword locks onto me, and goes for a thrust. 

I ignore every instinct I have, and stay still. The weapon of light cuts through my skin with ease, piercing straight through me… and into the glass ball. Immediately the machine starts to shudder, like it’s losing control of itself. 

I pull myself off the orb, and the laser sword, and watch as the crack in the yellow glass gets larger and larger. Each fracture lets another face slip through, releasing into the air, where it fades out of existence. Just before they disappear completely, I see them smile. 

As the last face escapes the sphere, the laser sword flickers off. And then the entire machine starts to tilt. Like a felled redwood, it seems to fall forever, before it finally hits the ground with a thunderous crash. 

I stare at the glass ball, where a dark fluid is leaking out of the crack in its surface. I… I did a good thing… 

Right?