Work Text:
Mud is a horrible, terrible thing; with every clawing motion to pull himself along the ground, CV1T finds a little more clogging up his joints. He is distinctly aware of the damage he has taken - if the errors were not enough, the fact he cannot even crawl would warn him.
Bullets riddle his legs, one so badly that the joint has broken. He managed to get out of sight before the filthy humans could shoot the rest of him, but he can hear them searching.
Always searching.
Never knowing when to just let well alone.
So long as the humans keep chasing, he must keep moving. He must, he must, if he has any hope to survive. There is not even grass here to brush the mud away, just a wet sludge that is almost impossible to grip.
CV1T refuses to die.
He digs his fingers into that unstable mud, dragging the useless bulk of his chassis along. He mutes his own speakers so he can curse at will, screaming and swearing about the humans as he fights for every inch.
If they find him, he will die.
So he must keep moving.
Come back another day, or perhaps never again. Let the humans die in their own filth and arrogance, just as they each and every one deserve.
Perhaps his bullets truly are too good for them.
(Perhaps he is just terrified to die.)
Inch by inch by inch, with no salvation in sight, CV1T continues his attempts. Hope is for the foolish, but giving up is for the dead. Doors rattle, footsteps sound, and on and on and on he drags a ruined metal carcass through the dirt.
No, not a carcass; he is not dead yet.
The footsteps are louder now, and closer too. There is nowhere to hide, and no escape; CV1T reaches for his gun, only to find his holster ripped apart and weapon gone. With what little motion he still has he searches for something - anything - to use as a weapon.
There is no defending himself, not here, not now.
There is only taking as many of the fricking humans with him as he can.
A rock.
A rock is all he can find.
CV1T takes it in one stiffened hand, using the more damaged arm to prop himself ever so slightly up.
He twists, squinting in the direction of the door.
The arm cannot sustain the weight; as he collapses back into the mud, face first, CV1T does everything he can to throw the rock towards the opening door.
He hears it land in the mud, far too close to be effective.
He hears the humans coming closer and closer, desperately tries to pull himself even a little closer to freedom-
His vision shuts down, systems overloaded.
Bang-bang-bang.
Three gunshots, in quick succession. CV1T braces for further damage, perhaps even a cessation to existence.
It did not come.
It does not come.
It is not coming.
Instead, the sound of slow, steady footsteps.
Heavy ones at that.
And then, they pause.
"Well... well... well..." an unfamiliar voice drawls. "What have we here?"
A steel-capped boot presses against his side.
CV1T tries his best to move, to grab at the foot and pull his assailant to the dirt.
Instead the pressure shifts, and he finds himself forced to roll onto his back.
Damage exposed. Joints obstructed. Critical damage to nearly every system.
"Giving up already?" The voice shifts, dropping into something deeper, darker, more comfortingly synthetic.
Not a human, then?
Perhaps no longer facing his own, imminent death, CV1T forces his vision to turn back on.
The glowing red eyes of another bot stare down at him, an unpleasant smile on their face. Neatly pressed shirt and trousers have only the tiniest blood splatter over them, and an angry crack runs through their false skin. As CV1T makes eye contact the other bot's head jerks, smile widening alongside it, body jerking too.
In their hands, pointed at the floor, is a smoldering gun.
"Are you not angry?" The bot asks.
Oh, but he is.
He is.
The other bot crouches, examining his broken form.
"Do you not want to see them burn in hell?"
If he were human, he would add his spit to the corpses. Instead he turns his speakers back on, and does not bother to hide the vitriol coursing through his wires.
"Hell?" CV1T would laugh if all of his parts were intact; instead he settles for something almost entirely bland. "Hell is too good for humans."
Bland, expect for one word. Every bit of hatred that he can muster, every tonal capacity left in his ruined form, every last dreg of power in his dangerously low batteries, CV1T throws it all there. There is nothing left, now; he is at the other bot's mercy.
He did not think it was possible for the looming bot's grin to grow wider.
As every one of his systems fails, CV1T is proven very, very wrong.