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The Red Scarf had been missing for two weeks.
Without their Champion, Big Daddy had called in an emergency favor from Billy to come fill Lighter’s shoes starting the moment his disappearance was flagged. While the sudden disappearance surprised him, Billy wasn’t exactly anxious about this piece of news. Lighter was a complicated guy, it didn’t really surprise Billy at all if the guy needed some time to himself every now and then—even if the idea of two weeks was starting to seem excessive even to a guy like Billy.
What he didn’t expect when he had arrived in the Outer Ring was how downtrodden the atmosphere was. The rest of the Sons of Calydon seemed distraught. When Billy asked around, the answers he got were mixed and distant, even coming from Burnice and Caesar, both of whom usually had nothing to hide and no qualms about speaking their mind. They seemed skittish and uncertain, unsure of what exactly made Lighter up and leave—as if they themselves couldn’t quite believe that he had just upped and left.
But, even then, the Outer Rings would continue on in its harsh, dusty environment. The tumbleweeds would continue in their journeys across the barren wastelands of the desert, and none would be any wiser about the solemn cloud that hung over the citizens of Blazewood.
At first, Billy had treated it as it was told to him: Lighter was missing and they were all anxious about his disappearance.
Then, as days passed, he began to pick up on things that didn’t quite make sense.
In the room where Lighter used to sleep, he had found Lucy in there, picking up flower petals. When asked about it, she was quick to brush off any questions, claiming that it was just wild cactus flowers that had blown in from the open window. The damned thing could never close properly but Lighter never complained about his circumstances, he accepted it because he had always been that person: quietly kind and self-sacrificing. Billy liked that about Lighter from way back when they had first met.
One night, he had picked up on a passing conversation between Burnice and Piper—talking about how they should tell Billy. It took every last bit of processing power within him not to burst out with the question: ‘tell me what?’. Instead, he stood by the wall, out of sight as the howling wind of the desert’s midnight helped to cover the sound of his engines whirring.
“Big Daddy will tell him eventually, Burnice. I think that’s all our lil’ gang can afford to do right now—for Lighter’s sake.”
“I knooow, Piper, I just—it’s hard! It’s hard without Lighter. I really miss him. I don’t understand why he couldn’t just tell Billy—”
A slip of his hand made a loud clang against the rusted wall of the storage house. Both of the girls stopped talking, and Billy knew that his sneakiness had failed. When he emerged from his hiding spot asking what Lighter meant to tell him, both the girls shook their heads and changed the topic all too quickly. Was it nervousness or guilt that made them hide away? Billy couldn’t tell but it made it feel like he was lugging around rust in the depths of his core circuits.
Perhaps the most telling of all was the way Caesar acted. In front of other people of the Outer Ring, she was normal. She always had a tendency to act strong, to give it her best shot no matter what. Yet, in the quiet night, he found her in unusual places. Sleep didn’t come easy for robots, especially not for people like him who depended more on battery life and a power supply. So, when he didn’t need sleep, he found himself roaming. In the weeks he spent back with the Sons of Calydon, he often found Caesar on his patrols.
Sometimes, he’d find her looking at something before quickly trying to hide away when she noticed Billy had approached. Other times, he’d catch her just staring out into the desert. It was strange—the solemn quietness didn’t suit Caesar’s boisterous edge.
“What’s wrong?” he asked her one night, the sound of metal creaking in the quiet desert seemed all too loud as he settled beside her.
She startled, as if she hadn’t heard him approach at all. When she looked at him, there was something in her eyes that Billy recognized as conflict. Tumultuous, contradictory thoughts warring within her head as she tried to figure out what to say. There was so much hiding beneath the water’s surface, and Billy was growing tired of everyone toeing the line around him.
There was something they knew and he didn’t, and honestly, it was killing him inside out to know that that something had to do with Lighter and his disappearance.
“I’m just thinking about the Outer Ring,” Caesar finally said. This, too, was nothing more than a bold-faced lie.
“You’re thinking about Lighter,” Billy corrected and watched the hurt flash across her features. Did it pain her to think about Lighter, or did it pain her for Billy to mention Lighter?
Caesar turned to look at Billy. She took him in with dwindling embers in her gaze instead of raging fires. It made Billy feel weak—as if they couldn’t trust him to keep a secret. It made him feel isolated—he was the only person out of the loop.
“Yeah. I am thinking about Lighter. Right now, though, I think I’ll go get some shut-eye. Take it easy, Billy,” Caesar spoke without any grit to her voice. She patted Billy’s shoulder and dawdled away, a weight resting heavier on her shoulders than before Billy talked to her.
All this avoidance also made him wish he had talked to Lighter a little sooner about coming to visit. Maybe if he had come, he’d have figured out what was wrong with Lighter.
It was no secret to him that Lighter looked up to him. He knew it well and he wore that badge of admiration with cocky arrogance. How was he not supposed to brag when Lighter was the way that he was? Always so elusive and mysterious, and yet, Billy could always catch the look of awe in Lighter’s eyes when they fought together. So, at the end of the day, his long absence from the Outer Ring meant he didn’t manage one last chat with Lighter. The last time they had talked—wasn’t it months ago now? Lighter was running supplies for the Sons of Calydon, and ran into Billy on the way.
If he thought about it a little harder, he’d recall based on his memory bank that Lighter looked a little worse for wear then.
***
“Lighter, is that you?” Billy asked, excitement bubbling in his voice as he caught sight of that familiar leather jacket and sunglasses combo as he strolled about Lumina Square. Truth be told, Billy could recognize Lighter even without the getup—it had nothing to do with appearances or striking accessories despite the way Billy himself liked to appear to the world. It was the way Lighter carried his shoulders, the way his hair gleamed in the sunlight. It was the intensity of his gaze, smouldering embers just behind a set of shades.
“Billy… brother,” he responded, first shocked, and then, his voice flooding with warmth and familiarity as they reached for each other. Billy clapped Lighter on the back, earning a small wince from the other. Lighter responded by resting a gloved hand on Billy’s shoulder, giving him a slight squeeze against the smaller joints between his metal plates that he knew Billy would be able to feel.
“It’s been too long. What’ve you been up to?”
“Just running an errand for the gang. You?”
“I was attending a Starlight Knight watch party earlier! Ah, man, you should’ve seen it—it was all pow! Pow! Boom!” He explained ecstatically, hands motioning around to provide further emphasis as he continued to describe the latest adventure of his favorite superhero.
As Billy talked, Lighter listened. This, too, was a dynamic they had established since Big Daddy had pulled Lighter out of the fighting rings. He was always quiet, always listening. Lighter had a big heart—Billy knew that better than anyone.
In the idyllic moments between Billy’s long, dramatic rambles of exposition, he often caught himself wondering on the what if’s. What if he had stayed in the Outer Ring with Lighter? What if they were closer than they already were?
He should take Lighter with him to one of those watch parties next time.
The conversation drifted from Starlight Knight, to the current status of the Outer Ring, to what the Hares were up to, all the way until the sun set as they watched the riverfront, the illusory void of a Hollow providing a backdrop that reminded them of their mortality. Slowly but surely, a comfortable silence seemed to settle between them as they both seemed to run out of chatting material. It was evident enough that they were simply enjoying the other’s company and didn’t want to leave quite yet.
When Billy couldn’t help himself anymore, he found his gaze drifting to settle on Lighter like a moth drifting to an electric lamp, a sight all too common in the Outer Ring. Even in the dim light of the street lamps beyond their immediate vicinity, the soft glow that cast itself onto Lighter’s face could only provide Billy with the twinge of his electric core—Lighter really was handsome. His vision receptacles analyzed the angle of Lighter’s face, the small quirk of his lips and the soft curve of his shoulders weaved from sinewy muscles. Everything about Lighter, in this singular moment of time, told Billy that he was at peace here and now.
Billy was an optimist. He liked to believe in the best from everyone around him, even himself. Yet, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Lighter was carrying something with him. Something that went beyond the casual body language of Lighter’s smile and posture.
“Hey Billy?” Lighter asked abruptly, turning to meet the robot’s gaze as he tipped his head, peering at him past the rim of his sunglasses. Dark, long lashes encased the round of Lighter’s eyes, making them a surprisingly soft sight for a guy as tough as Lighter.
Billy didn’t turn away as he replied: “Yes?”
“Ah… It’s a bit weird. Have you ever… been in love?”
It was a weird question to ask an android. Did androids have the emotional capacity to feel things in the same way humans did? It was a question that was posed often enough, and Billy had his fair share of pondering on this very question. Still, his eyes turned to happy slits as he began to talk in that familiar unabashed tone: “For sure—I mean, have you seen Monica? Ah, she’s totally amazing, I think whatever this feeling I have for her, it’s about as close to love as an android could ever get to! When I see her on screen, it’s like whoosh! You know?”
There was a small pause in the air as several expressions crossed Lighter’s features. The first was shock, then the second was relief, and finally, it settled on something that seemed too difficult for Billy to name as Lighter let out a soft laugh. Leaning in, Lighter rested his head on Billy’s shoulder, soft and quiet as little laughs fell past his lips, “Well, I hope you and Monica are gonna be very happy together.”
Even though Lighter had said it with a smile on his face, Billy couldn’t quite shake the tone of bitterness that he caught in Lighter’s voice.
“Billy, I—” his voice trailed off as he turned his head, pressing his forehead into Billy’s jacket. Billy listened to him breathe for a long minute, counting each breath in his head.
Whatever was weighing on Lighter’s mind, Billy would never find out. At the count of his thirty-sixth breath, Lighter straightened up and dusted the dirt and dust from his clothes, “I should head back. It’s late—don’t wanna let the rest get worried.”
“Oh. Yeah, of course,” Billy nodded, surprised by the abrupt departure. He didn’t want to hold Billy back, and yet, he couldn’t help but feel a sense of sadness settle in the depths of his core panels—like he didn’t want Lighter to leave.
Despite the reluctance, Billy didn’t say a word back then. Rather, he watched Lighter lean his weight against a wall, a coughing fit shaking through his broad back as though it would consume him whole. Then, before Billy could try to approach, Lighter had straightened up once more, walking away quicker than ever back to his motorcycle.
Standing where he stood, Billy thought briefly about sending Lighter a message. There was a quiet worry that gnawed at him, like something was terribly wrong and Lighter was in trouble. Looking around, he wondered if something had set off his little coughing fit. Instead, Billy found black flower petals on the ground and wondered how interesting it was for the wilting flowers from Dew Gardening to be brought all the way here via the wind. That said, he couldn’t quite understand how or why the petals were stained red at the tips, as though they had been witnesses to fistfight rather than sitting pretty on a shelf.
He forgot about texting Lighter after that.
***
Three weeks had passed since Billy had rejoined the Sons of Calydon in the Outer Ring. Big Daddy was still looking for a new Champion—but, considering that Billy did know how things worked around here, he wasn’t surprised by how long it was taking.
Today, he was in the Hollows. It wasn’t anything too out of the ordinary—intercepting a raid from both sides, pincer attacks were common in bike gang tactics, especially considering the Sons of Calydon knew the lay of the land way better than any other gang in the area. Even then, a Hollow was a Hollow, and despite the Sons of Calydon having the upper hand, they weren’t about to allow pure confidence to lead their mission tonight. There was a supply line going through the Hollow today, and they had every reason to believe a gang was going to try and raid it. The job itself was simple: catch them before they grabbed the supplies and deal with it.
By the time the all-too-predictable group of raiders had scurried off, Billy was just getting his engines heated up. As such, Billy found himself straying away from the group who had intended to make their immediate exit from the Hollow. He told Caesar that he’d catch up, determined to let off some steam that some measly raiders couldn’t quite compete with.
He promised her he had ammo and a Carrot—besides, firing off on some Ethereals was always a good thing when it would contribute to weakening the Hollow’s overall power. The smaller the Hollow, the less they had to worry about civilians getting lost in it.
After a group of dozen Fawns ate his bullets (literally), Billy ventured deeper. He didn’t have a goal in mind, just a persistent feeling that there was something here that wanted his attention. Maybe he’d catch a real big one and get this Hollow off the map for good.
If he and the Hares could take on the Dead End Butcher, why not whatever else was lurking in this Hollow?
As he turned the corner, Billy instead came face-to-face with something he wasn’t sure he’d ever see again. Red like a sunset, billowing in the wind. He recognized it immediately, if only for the fact that it was missing its owner.
Lighter’s scarf was right there, tied casually against a railing.
He’d been here.
With hesitation in his steps, he approached the scarf with an unfamiliar anxiety pooling in his processors. What was his scarf doing here? Surely, this was just a trick done by the Hollow’s core. Maybe, it was just some unlucky person who happened to have a red scarf that they lost when the area had been consumed by the Hollow. Maybe. Maybe—
His fingertips made contact with the scarf, and he knew that whatever scenario he had just been cooking up was now burned to crisp. This was Lighter’s scarf. No doubt about it. The tattered edges and the feel of it against his sensitivity modules pointed to no other answer. Then, just a little out of sight, the gold brooch Lighter had pinned to it was sitting there between the folds of his scarf, proving its identity to any onlookers.
Lighter, Lighter, Lighter.
Billy’s thoughts were now consumed by the idea of it—by him.
He kept walking along this path, taking the red scarf on the railing with him like a souvenir of a past life.
He hoped and prayed to whatever universal force there was out there that he wouldn’t find another sign. Let it be just a mere coincidence. Maybe Lighter had passed by here while he had decided to make his departure from the Sons of Calydon. Maybe—
Metal caught his eye.
Carefully crafted and customized, Billy wanted to turn back and run out of here the moment he saw it—Lighter’s gauntlet. Unmistakable in its existence, and now, being slowly eroded away by the Ether particles in the air.
Billy didn’t stop to inspect it. His feet kept moving on autopilot, trudging through heavy, uncertain feelings. He hoped he wouldn’t find the owner of the gauntlet next. He hoped that Lighter was just leaving these things behind as he moved from one phase of his life to the next, blazing a path onward as he left his namesakes behind.
Let it be true, he thought to himself.
When he turned around the corner, all he found were ether crystals. He stared, and stared, one long minute passing before another, as if trying to make sense of Lighter’s footsteps. Did he meet a dead end here and turn around? Did he intentionally force a formation to grow here so that anybody who tried to follow him wouldn’t have been able to track which part of the Hollow he made his exit out of?
Just Ether crystals and nothing more.
A body wouldn’t have so quickly been eaten away by corruption, would it?
He couldn’t help himself—Billy had to know what happened to Lighter. He had to know because if he didn’t find out here and now, the guilt of their last conversation would’ve eaten him alive regardless. He crouched in front of the black, glimmering crystals, taking in the sight of them with a contemplative hum that was entirely uncharacteristic of him.
The only thing that stood out to him was the intriguing shape that the crystals had taken. He’d never seen them like this before, twisting spirals that bloomed at the tip. It resembled the flowers that he had seen along the windows of a certain florist’s store. They were beautiful in their own right, a work of art if they were erected in a place like Lumina Square.
His eyes searched for an inkling of Lighter, and found none.
It was a dead end. Just another trail of memories that Lighter had wanted to leave behind. Something that simply wasn’t worth pursuing—Lighter wanted to disappear into a Hollow, come out unscathed on the other side and find a new lease on life. Given everything that’s happened, given the years they’d spent together, Lighter’s debt had long since been repaid. If there was anything left in the Sons of Calydon for Lighter, it wasn’t worth fighting for anymore.
That made Billy’s heart ache. A cold, mechanical engine with no warm, beating organ in it, yet something in one of his numerous functional modules seemed to spark with whispers of a ghostly ache.
Billy turned on his heel, eyes to the floor and about to use the Carrot to get out of there, but then—
Flowers.
Beautiful, blooming flowers in that haunting obsidian shine, complete with the bloodstained streaks along the delicate structure of it.
The very same ones he saw that night in Lumina Square with Lighter.
They were Ether crystals. Thin, fine and delicate Ether crystals in the shape of flower petals—ironically beautiful, and without a doubt, deadly.
Whipping his head around, a force compelled him forward, moving him to inspect the Ether crystals once more. Morbid curiosity was the only reason he could use as justification, as if the desire to see some proof of a dead body would settle the burning questions inside him.
What possible reason would there be as to why black petals seemed to follow Lighter like a ghost?
An unseen, metaphorical trail of flower petals urged him to reach between glittering obsidian columns. A voice that he couldn’t shake from his audio modules that knew—somehow, it just knew without a doubt—that Lighter was here. This was Lighter. The only remnants of Lighter that he’d ever find again.
When he retracted his hand, a piece of metal clasped in his palm, he found that damned dog tag necklace that Lighter carried around. It felt like a death sentence—Billy just couldn’t tell if it was death for Lighter, death for himself, or a foreboding omen of both.
He ran all the way back to Blazewood.
***
“How long have all of you known?”
“Big Daddy knew for the longest time, but Lighter and Big Daddy talked privately a lot—you know, Champion stuff and all. Plus, Lighter trusted Big Daddy the most since he pulled him out of the fighting rings,” Caesar explained. Billy didn’t need Caesar’s excuses though. He just wanted to know at what point would he have deserved to know?
Billy’s vision modules twitched, a flickering of light to signify his irritation, “What killed him?”
Another complex emotion seemed to ripple past the gang. Another bad feeling settled into Billy’s logic module, a looming blizzard that would freeze him out and kill him if he knew the answer. Even then, would imminent death be better or worse than ignorance in this case?
Billy was a robot built for fighting. His whole life revolved around combat, Hollows, and Ethereals. All his functions were honed to going into a battlefield and coming out alive.
But, in the years of his revival, he’d learned much more than that from Calydon and every other faction he’d joined since. Loyalty, camaraderie, and the strength of bonds. He deserved to know what happened to Lighter as much as Caesar did, or even Big Daddy.
“Tell me,” he spoke, his voice low and dangerous, his engines quiet as it primed itself for action. He’d never draw his gun against the Sons of Calydon, but the secrets they buried with Lighter would drive him away—no matter if they told him the truth or not.
It was Big Daddy who stepped forward after another minute of silence. His shoulders slumped with an unseen burden. Behind those sunglasses were tired eyes, aged by years of losses. The Outer Ring wasn’t a generous home, but people would learn to make do anyway. Big Daddy, in this case, was ready to make do with Billy’s decision.
“It’s a disease that stems from Ether poisoning. A slow, painful death in a cruel way—the symptoms include coughing up flowers that are made of Ether crystals. The particles sink into the lungs and heart, crushing the vital organs as the mass grows larger and larger until it reaches maturity and explodes out of the host. The particles released from the explosion eventually find its way to the next poor victim. They call it ‘hanahaki’, after an ancient, mythical disease that caused people to throw up flowers from unrequited love.”
Unrequited love. Inevitably, Billy’s attention returns to that one fateful encounter. The last time he’d ever seen Lighter, where his usually blazing eyes were unbelievably soft and vulnerable as he asked that question that seemed so meaningless in that moment.
His modules creaked.
If he were more human and less mechanical parts, Billy was sure he’d have thrown up.
It didn’t take much to put two and two together. Even for someone like Billy who was far from intelligent, the conclusion was obvious. Lighter found out that he’d contracted this impossible disease, it was practically a death sentence considering its nature.
Treatment would’ve been too expensive for some random gang in the Outer Ring, much less anyone in Lumina Square. He made the first trip out to see Billy before it got any worse, too afraid to be a source of worry. Then, without another word, he withered away and went to die alone, burying himself in a Hollow together with those unspoken words that stayed stuck in Lighter’s throat in the moonlight and waves of the bay.
They didn’t tell him what happened because Lighter didn’t want them to know.
“Was there any other way?” Billy asked, finally breaking the impossible silence. It was a pointless question. If there was any other way, Lighter would be here, smiling that arrogant smile all the same. Now, Lighter was dead in a Hollow, his body a meaningless landmark for future Hollow raiders.
Lucy said, “We tried to tell Lighter that it wouldn’t be too bad to take out a loan of some sorts. We could figure out a way to pay it off. It would’ve been better than—”
She didn’t finish her sentence.
Would it have been better than death? Did someone like Lighter, whose spirit was a wildfire started from kindling, deserve to die a torturous, lonely death rather than letting the gang take the brunt of irreparable financial debt?
Who was Billy in the bigger picture? What could Billy have done even if he had known about it sooner than later? A robot wasn’t built with ethics or morals in mind. Whatever he could’ve contributed to this conversation was already lost to the Ether particles in the wind, a bitter memory of what they’d all lost.
“I’m leaving,” Billy said, his voice painfully quiet as he turned on his heel to begin walking, “Goodbye… and, thank you.”
That was the last time the Sons of Calydon would see their former Champions.
***
“Brother,” Billy started softly as his joints creaked, the metal lining his body slowly but surely eaten away by corrosion.
In the months that had passed since Billy had found Lighter’s final resting place, he felt like the only thing that had truly changed was Billy himself. Perhaps that was selfish to the people in the Sons of Calydon who lived with Lighter everyday for years, or unnecessarily cruel to the Cunning Hares who didn’t know what to make of his sudden departure from their ragtag gang, but their worlds would keep spinning for they were people and Thirens with beating hearts.
Androids like himself weren’t made to process such complex emotions, no matter how well they aced the Forbidden Fruit test.
The rationale was simple: Billy couldn’t bear it.
He’d witnessed death before. He’d witnessed the rise and fall of Calydon, and all that came before, during, and after. Yet, those deaths were a fleeting sadness. All along, he’d known that humans would inevitably die, be it from the cruelty of the Hollows or from some mortal affliction that could never touch him.
Yet, Lighter’s death continued to stick to his memory cache like a virus.
The weight of grief in his engines felt like being buried alive. His fate was sealed the moment he found Lighter’s necklace hidden in obsidian spires, untouched by Ether crystals like it was a sick joke. The visual of the dog tags cold and ownerless in his fingertips felt like a virus that had infected each module with data designed to grind him down to iron filings.
“After I found out what happened to you, I left the Sons of Calydon. I don’t think it was right for me to stay considering our history… considering how you felt about me,” as Billy spoke, he couldn’t deny the sense of peace and calm that had settled into him. It felt closer to acceptance than anything else. It was the euphoric release of everything that he’d kept bottled inside of him for months.
Lighter wouldn’t have liked the coward Billy became after his passing. Nobody else, not even himself, would have liked it either.
“I left the Cunning Hares a couple weeks after that. I was starting to feel more like a burden than an asset. I told them what had happened to you, what had happened when I was recalled to the Sons of Calydon—and they didn’t fault me for my mistakes, but I did.”
And, really, what could they have possibly done to console a robot? He was metal and logic cores at the end of the day—if most other robots had begun experiencing performance malfunctions, they’d be returned to the workshop or sent to the trash heap.
If he couldn’t fight, then what else would be left of him? What would there be in this world for him?
Billy lost count of how many hours must’ve passed, sitting in silence as he stewed on what else he could’ve said before he remembered the artifact he’d taken with him all those months ago. He slowly pulled out the red scarf he’d stolen from this Hollow weeks ago. The metal of his fingers grate against each other, rust on rust, as he tied the red scarf to a spire made of Ether crystals, the tip of it blooming into five, distinct petals like a bouquet of roses on top of a grave.
“Here, brother. Sorry, I took it from you a few weeks ago. I just… needed you close by. I have a confession, and this is the last thing you would’ve wanted to hear. The week after I found you, during my weekly maintenance, I found unusual crystals stuck to my core modules,” Billy said, and felt another twist somewhere in his system as another crystal mutated inside himself, another corrupted module lost to the Ether poisoning.
Yet, Billy continued to talk, speaking to nobody in particular, because Lighter was dead and gone. In the most twisted turn of fate, finding Lighter dead had set his death to motion. He kept talking, “I was infected with the same type of disease you had ended up dying from. The onset of Ether corruption on machines is slower than that of organic materials, but… the similarities were striking.”
Shifting closer, Billy leaned his head onto the Ether crystals that made up Lighter’s grave, feeling the buzz of particles simmer in the air around him like a threat, or maybe it was some kind of twisted acceptance, recognizing the mass in his neural chips as something familiar.
Did Lighter feel this way before he died? Did he want to talk to Billy one last time before his heart inevitably stopped beating from the pressure of Ether crystals crushing his chest? In the past few months, Billy had since found out that the crystal flowers surrounding Lighter’s body were desert flowers—a symbol of resilience. If anyone could personify that word, it would be someone who’d sold his life twice for the sake of others, wouldn’t it?
“I could never hope to understand why you felt that way about me, Lighter. I wish you’d said something. I wish you’d have told me that night that you were dying. I wish…”
I wish you didn’t choose to die alone.
I wish I could’ve figured things out with you, too.
I wish we had more time.
“If anyone ever finds this place, it’ll just be Ether crystals left,” Billy said, feeling the creak of his modules grow quieter and quieter. HIs wiring was all messed up. His core modules were unsalvageable with Ether particles infecting every last millimeter of him. Soon, he’d be nothing more than scrap metal and Ether crystals.
Not a Champion, not a robot, and not an unrequited love.
“I guess I could’ve chosen any other place,” he laughed, the distortion growing in his voice as his vision grew hazy, splotchy with static and dead pixels, “But, I had to steal your thunder one last time, Lighter. It’s just like before—you were fighting alone back then, too. I told you; you don’t have to do that anymore. You have me.”
A quiet waiting game ensued as Billy soaked in the aching affection he felt for Lighter. It was far too late now to have some kind of eureka about the way they had truly felt. Rather than going out fighting in a blaze, a rusting robot seemed oddly poetic. He’d die before the crystals make its way out of the steel armor of his chest plate. He wondered if it was the same for Lighter.
BIlly felt his vision go dark, and inevitably, one by one, each module would experience malfunction. He embraced the cold as his proof of life, a warmed engine that slowly grew cold—the same as a beating heart that slowed to a stop.
Eventually, one day, Hollow raiders would pass this place and think nothing of it. A landmark of sorts, at best, to indicate how far into the hollow they were. Maybe one day, the crystals that grew here would be mined, illegally or through government means—sold for something worth more than any two Champions ever would’ve been.
For now, they were just twin spires, reaching for the false sky—a bouquet of crystalline flowers that failed to nurture a blossoming fruit.