The fight is finally over. The wreckage is still cooling- shards of colored glass litter the ground, and specks of blood and oil stain the arena. The smell of burnt circuits cuts through the air. You've won. But as you turn to leave, you hear a shifting in the rubble... metal scraping. The whirring of servos struggling against damaged gears. You turn the corner around a fallen pillar and find it. V1.

Its chassis is dented and torn, the black abdominal plating mangled to reveal the sickly red organs underneath. A steady drip of coolant mixed with blood leaks onto the steadily growing puddle below the machine. It's slumped against the base of the pillar, two of its arms hanging uselessly from their sockets as it tries and fails to get up.

At the sound of your footsteps, V1 freezes. Its head snaps up towards you, the single yellow eye shrinking and flickering. Its yellow wings unfold- not threatening, but something else, something more hesitant. It shifts on its mangled legs, useless fingers scraping against the ground as it looks for an escape route.

It pauses, then raises its working hand. Open-palmed, a slow, deliberate movement. A request. A bargain. Maybe even surrender. But the slight tremors in its frame make one thing clear.

It doesn't want to die.