The End Of All Known Land
Also heads up: decided to just get all the tags posted here to save myself some time formatting. Any additional warnings for the remaining chapters will be posted here as well.
Chapter 3: Light Between Structures
V1 finally loses their momentum after the fourth round, right when their Feedbacker arm suddenly goes offline. Audio follows, Gabriel's near-scream as yet another orgasm wracks him is silenced with no warning. Almost all their systems demand, in no small terms, a reset.
They only manage to pull out before all the glitches they've been ignoring trigger into a cascading chain reaction of errors. Misdirected surges of energy overwhelms their exteroceptive receptors, and their internal gyros slide completely out of balance. Their video feed freezes before cutting away to warm, silent static.
For a few minutes, everything that isn't vital to keeping their slowly cooling processors humming along goes dark.
Visuals are the first thing to reboot. As their senses come back online, they find themselves collapsed atop the borderline catatonic archangel below them. His overheated body rises and falls beneath them, chest heaving for oxygen. Steam drifts out of their vents, and their fans finally start to wind down. There is a phantom soreness lingering in the sensors of their still-protruding dick. They have to manually input the command to withdraw the abused silicone organ, and then again to close the cover panel.
Finally, they let themselves lean into the soothing afterglow it all brings. V1 feels sated, the circuitry of their pleasure center buzzing with long-forgotten satisfaction in spite of the ache. They hadn't intended to push their systems like that. Gabriel, all of him, just felt so good. It's been so long since they've had another body writhing against them, organic or otherwise.
As a result, their fuel gauge now sits just above half-full. But they don't feel like moving, not a bit. The call for fuel has momentarily faded away, tempered by the aftershocks sparking through their wiring. It would be easy enough to refuel, to score the flesh they lay upon with their claws, dig into the viscera, and watch Gabriel descend again into the throes of pain-induced pleasure.
Later. Maybe.
The lull in activity allows them to listen to all the faint ticks and muffled murmurs within the sweaty body below them. Gabriel's heart rate, once flying under them like a steady stream of gunfire, gradually dies down to an easy, languid rhythm against their head. The faintest of moans leaves him when V1's Feedbacker traces one of gilded, auric scars below his pecs, from one side to the other. Blood thrums just beneath the surface of his skin, but it's less a keen interest in obtaining it, and more an idle observation of all the little things that keep Gabriel alive.
Archangel he was, but he possesses a body so similar to a humans. They are aware that the V series were modeled after the artistic depictions of such, even before the expeditions into Hell began. They shared traits like helms and wings and pleasure organs.
Where did this resemblance begin, and where did it end?
They look at their own hand, flopped lazily upon a scarred chest, and flex their fingers against the muscle there. The colors of their plating are drenched with gradients of pinks and purples from the lights outside. Gabriel's hand lays still on the carpet, disconnected from that fractured wardrobe he'd clung to when they were fucking the daylights out of him. Five fingers, a palm, living warmth.
They recall the hands of their makers. Technicians attaching limbs and circuit boards, programmers coding their awareness on keyboards. Fingers on their cables and tubes and wires, sometimes painful, sometimes gentle. Human hands that could touch and caress and pinch and bring about powerful pleasures.
And they remember a hand appearing out of the void, brighter than the sun, reaching for them with the intent of tying up any potential loose ends.
V1 looks back up at Gabriel's covered visage, comparing him to the fractured images that managed to cement themselves into their databanks. A towering figure made entirely of light, cutting through the abyss, reduced entirely to pixels for the sake of sparing their optic any potential damage the overwhelming radiance could have caused them.
But most damning of all is the crimson blood, blood, blood that had poured down on them in a messy, glorious wave when that last railcannon blast, bouncing off of four flying coins, had struck true, burrowing through the radiant flesh, their audials knocking out the very moment the dying screams had hit them.
Some similarities are there. If there were others to be derived, they would likely never be identified, now.
Does Gabriel know? They compile their knowledge of the history of Heaven, along with past recordings of his words before and after their battles, and come to a swift conclusion: He does not.
V1 still doesn't know if they were meant to find that buried truth; someone was obviously intended to find it, and it had ended up being them. The final executions of his maker's grand plan for an entirely blank slate had fallen apart when they inevitably triumphed over him. For as one player closed in for a checkmate, the other had made one last, desperate move: guiding an invading machine to where he had been hiding, well away from Heaven's eyes.
The gambit had paid off, albeit as a pyrrhic victory.
And lying here with another piece that had not yet fallen throughout this merry game of deicide, they wonder... should they tell him? How would they even accomplish that?
Beneath them, Gabriel shifts. Their focus pulls from their memory drives to see him shuffle under their weight, just enough to be more comfortable. He still seems either unable or unwilling to pick himself up, riding whatever afterglow remains from however many times he came from their touch. They've never seen him this still, this quiet.
He's calmed completely, whatever internal agonies he'd been suffering from seem to have been disregarded for the moment.
... a deliberation for later then. They are warm, fully relaxed for the first time in ages. Instead of further internal debate, they divert processing power towards their databanks, solidifying the recording of their rigorous copulation with Gabriel. It's then moved to a specific folder, for later review.
With that out of the way, V1 runs their Feedbacker down his chest, tracing the shapes of the golden markings on his toned stomach. It rises with a faint, hitching gasp, before settling back into its languid rhythm. They contemplate one last go: to make him come riding their fingers alone, or rub their thigh against his slit until he begged for another release.
Unfortunately, just as they're on the cusp of a decision, Gabriel goes deathly still, and then bolts upright a second later.
They're nearly thrown off, but their reflexes kick in just in time, catching themselves with a hand snapping around his bicep. The warmachine whirls their helm upwards to glare at him, but their irritation is immediately forgotten.
Because the entire building has become wracked with tremors, and they're getting stronger. Something in the plaster walls all around them groans ominously. The clatter of breaking glass from somewhere deeper in the abandoned apartment draws their attention in a flash. Their gazes meet, just for a fleeting second.
And then they spring off of one another in a scramble of limbs and wings that flash into existence.
"Shit, SHIT!!! FUCK!!!" V1 hears behind them as they bolt for the patio doors, internally kicking themselves for forgetting why they had come back up to Lust in the first place.
Without checking to see whether or not Gabriel will follow, they shatter the glass panes with a charged revolver shot, landing on the concrete outside. They pivot around, take a running leap at the wall, slam down once and, after they hit the ground, go flying to the edge of the rooftop.
One look out into the cityscape confirms what they already know: Hell's unmaking is now mere minutes away. Swaths of lights are going out rapidly, fires extinguishing as what feeds it crumbles to dust and dark ruin. The distant high rises begin toppling under the force of the earthquake. The bridge they had first crossed to get down here will not last much longer, not under this onslaught of tremors.
And they can hear screaming. It's a sound not coming from fleshy larynxes, but synthetic voice boxes. Whatever machines are still fighting down there are doomed to be obliterated with the city, and all the other layers above and below, just as intended. Like animals lured into a cage for systemic slaughter.
With that in mind, V1 bolts in the direction they had originally been going hours ago now, racing for the towering shaft. In their peripherals, as they fly across the destabilizing rooftops, they see drones swarming to the skies like flocks of birds, trying in vain to escape the destruction. They catch glimpses of streetcleaners and sentries taking to the tops of other nearby buildings in a frantic bid to get off the ground.
They clear the fifth rooftop, then the sixth. Seven to go. Somehow, the bridge still stands. If they're fast enough to make it to the shaft back up, and if Limbo somehow hasn't yet started to crumble, they might just make it out before death can catch up with them, wild at their heels like a hound that's caught the scent of prey.
"Machine! MACHINE!" They hear at last, somewhere overhead, and they opt to ignore it.
They slam into a long jump to clear the last three gaps, and the way up is at last in reach. It
sways, but it holds yet. They don't stop the momentum of their approach, and pull out their rocket launcher, already equipped with the Freezeframe mode-
Gabriel appears in a flashbang of light and sound, blocking their path in a hurry. They have half a mind to waste ammunition on him, but instead settle for dashing around the blazing pillar that heralds his appearance with precise, practiced movements.
"V1, WAIT!"
A hand grasps their arm with a desperate yank, and in answer, they whirl around and shove their weapon into his chest. Their finger darts to the trigger and V1 gives him the darkest glare they can muster. His cuirass is tucked under one arm instead of secured in its usual position; a blast at this range would do real damage. Maybe enough that the time it would take for him to recover from such a grievous wound would surpass that of the time they had left to escape.
Their silent standoff lasts only a second, because new sounds reach them both, from high above.
They whirl around to see the elevator shaft falling, snapped in half at the midpoint, and taking the part of the bridge it's attached to with it. Faint silhouettes of other machines in free fall stand stark against the swirling violet clouds. V1 realizes they likely wouldn't have made it even without the momentary delay.
The other thing, the far more pressing matter, is the deafening tone of shattering glass. Cracks have begun appearing in the clouds and sky, spreading ominously in every direction. And from one of the central points of its instability, a piece falls away.
Behind it is nothing but blackness: the abyss that this realm is built on, dark and endless and swallowing the light at its edges.
For the first time, real fear takes hold of them. Their actuators buffer, keeping them stuck in place as they watch Hell break apart around them. They won't survive this, not with the path to safety now gone. Their processors race to find an out, for anything that could aid in escaping their impending destruction. V1 runs multiple survival simulations in the blink of an eye, but nothing gives them a clear path to freedom.
Gabriel suddenly moves. Blue wings cut away the view of the falling city, enveloping them entirely. His arm pulls them swiftly into his solid frame, and wraps tight around them. An embrace? Now? Is that all there is time left for?
Before they'd even begun to start processing a decision on whether or not to reciprocate, the ground lurches violently beneath their feet before vanishing, and a flash of blinding light shorts out their eye. Multiple warnings flash across their sightless vision: drastic pressures on every inch of their plating, pneumatics out of balance, optics unable to come back online, trajectory unknown. Their audials still function, but all they hear is a roar, like a storm violently churning all around them.
Just as quickly as it began, it all abruptly stops, and they are acutely aware of their form swaying sharply to the right. Their balance servos can't correct in time, and they still can't see. V1 flails wildly and latches onto the first solid object they can find. In turn, steady hands grab their forearms, keeping them from falling to the floor that has, quite unexpectedly, reappeared beneath their feet.
Their visuals finally reboot, and then they are staring down at a familiar, grated surface. Molten rock flows far beneath, and the blood that had initially splattered upon the metal has been blackened by heat. They slowly look up to see Gabriel towering over them, wings pulling away and folding behind him. Was he always this tall?
Silence stretches between them as V1 processes the current situation at hand. The trembling has stopped, the lighting has been plunged into deep maroons, and the panic that had gripped them is slowly loosening its hold. They spot the corpse of a Cerberus against the left wall, and when they lean back to look past Gabriel's looming form, they see the double doors, wide open. They remember the words upon it easily.
‘Abandon hope, all ye who enter here'
This is the mouth of Hell, a place where the expeditions would begin. This is where they started their descent. Thought processes buffer again as the sudden turn of events begins to sink in. Slowly, V1 looks back up at Gabriel in silent, growing shock, hardly daring to believe it.
He had saved their life.
"I... are you alright, V1?" He asks, his voice faint, as though he were shaken just as much as they were by the near-death experience. He releases them once they've found their balance, the death grip their own hands have upon his biceps loosening at last. They've never heard him speak so softly.
They give themselves a cursory glance after another moment of reeling from this revelation, then they run a rapid diagnostics check. Aside from their fuel levels having lowered more, spent during their frantic attempt at escaping certain destruction, nothing seems to be damaged or glitching otherwise. Once everything comes back clean, V1 gives him a tentative thumbs up, and they note the way Gabriel's shoulders droop minutely in relief.
"Good." As the archangel moves to put his cuirass back on, they give him a once over, too. There are some scars still healing from where they'd injured him in their earlier battle, scabbed over wounds that stick out against his dark skin, but otherwise, he doesn't sport any new injuries.
Gabriel eventually looks up from where his fingers have finished reattaching leather straps to the small hooks, hidden just under the lip of the armor. There's a beat of quietude, as they stare at one another. The silence is cautious, borderline awkward as the past several hours descend suddenly upon both their forethoughts.
But then it's broken by a distant, cacophonous crash.
They both whirl around, staring past the open doorway and down the staircase. The Cerberi, their stately forms that had once flanked it, all lie dead near their pedestals. At the end is the tunnel into Hell proper, the first layer of Limbo. There's a sound, rising up the metal shafts, growing louder and louder, until it surges over them like a shockwave.
After two seconds of it, V1's audials automatically shut off to spare damage to the delicate wiring. They don't hear anymore of it, but they feel it still, vibrating through the grating below their feet. Even with what little they caught of it, the reverberating cry is still easily identifiable, its aftershocks echoing in their primary memory.
It's an enraged howl, a terrified scream, and a death rattle, all at once.
In their peripherals, they see the archangel recoils in horror. That's all the indication they need to turn and run for the massive mechanical door at the other end. This, at least, was man-made, and may yet not be subject to Hell's violent dying throes. Gabriel is right behind them. As they reach safety, sound returns with a sharp hiss of static. Next comes the distinct cracking of stone, a momentary tremor following a deafening BOOM, and then nothing more. Just a silence that falls far too suddenly.
From the safety of the antechamber, V1 only looks back once. Rock and metal lay in a jumble where the way into Hell once stood. They're sure even a core eject couldn't break through that. Not that they'd want to try.
Everything Hell had to offer was now theirs: their battle skills have been sharpened considerably, all its secrets and treasures had been uncovered, and all the spoils made available to them have been reaped.
It's time to move on.
They glance over at Gabriel, who had stopped and turned around when he cleared the door. He only stares at the destroyed entrance in a heavy sort of silence, arms hanging loosely on either side of him.
Just as V1 decides that they ought to try and get his attention, they see him move. A hand, waving somewhat dismissively in their direction. It's all he gives them, but the indication is immediately clear.
"You should go on ahead." He says. His tone, while still soft, is suddenly lacking in any sort of discernible meaning. "I... I'll be right behind you. I promise."
He needs a minute; that much V1 can tell. Even though their fuel gauge isn't where they've grown comfortable with it being, it's been much lower in far more desperate situations. Logically, they know even an hour of being idle on the surface of the empty world above wouldn't kill them. And they don't think he'll appreciate them lingering.
Especially considering their role in all of this.
So, V1 turns away, leaving the archangel standing at the new edge of the world, and begins their final trek back to the surface.
Gone.
All of it.
As soon as he's sure the machine is out of view, Gabriel sags against the metal frame of the man-made door, slumping to the floor, and he stares at the ruin of everything that had been entrusted to him. It's too much; the weight of it all crashing down on him like the artificial skies almost had.
Minos' city, the manors of Limbo, the imprisoned Prime souls, oh by the Light of The Father, the billions of souls that had made up the Styx, all taken by the void. Utterly gone. He had told himself he didn't care about it. This had been coming regardless of what he did, in the end.
He just--he hadn't expected to be around to see it. He hadn't expected to be alive.
That feeling again, rising in his throat: the blank terror, gripping his limbs with its cold claws, freezing the blood in his veins mid-flow. His lungs stutter in his ribcage, threatening to seize, but he forces himself to take deeper breaths. Somehow, Gabriel gathers the strength to not succumb to his despair, yet again, from somewhere, as reality begins to sink in.
Here he kneels at the strangled throat of Hell, alive, against all the terrible odds that had been stacked against him. He should be dead a thousand times over, but he's not. All because of the machine.
They had damned him, and then saved him, twice now.
He is well aware that he could have stayed down there, and let the collapsing layer crush him. He could have simply waited in the apartment for the end; it was nothing less than what he deserved. But that had not been on his mind, when he had completed his desperate scramble to retrieve his armor, and fled the unstable building through V1's hastily made exit route.
Because amidst all the destruction, his keen eyes had quickly spotted V1, soaring across the doomed city in graceful, but powerful jumps. They were racing for the bridge, for one of the entrances the humans had dug and built into the top of the layer when they began their brazenly foolish explorations. He had registered how the overhead structure swayed ominously; the path out of Lust and into Limbo was clearly unstable as well from that distance.
And in that moment, watching them fly for their last hope of an escape, he knew they wouldn't make it.
He still isn't sure what to make of the desperate rush that drove him forward to save them. Perhaps the thought of V1 dying before him had been so utterly repulsive in that moment. Perhaps because this same machine had shown him how to destroy his shackles, revel in the sport of shedding blood.
An impulsive decision, but in spite of these thoughts that plague him currently, he cannot find himself to regret it. Now, though, he's not sure what to do. Eternity remains stretched out before him. He cannot see what consequences will come from this decision, nor all the others prior to this.
...particularly to what had amounted to a very sordid distraction, to forget both the imminent end of Hell, and his own despairing thoughts roiling beneath directionless anger.
How long had he spent in the machine's arms, lost in a blur of heat and metal and utter bliss? He aches everywhere, but almost pleasantly so, Like he'd just been in a friendly spar with one of his siblings rather than committing a heinous sin. There's an uncomfortable stickiness long dried on his inner thighs, and his nethers throb just from thinking about it.
Gabriel feels heavy with a terrible guilt, and at once, more grounded than he's felt in what feels like ages; like the distraction had been exactly what he had needed to find a sense of stability again, however frail.
It takes time, but gradually, he somehow, somehow, steadies himself against the looming weight of his own actions. He needs to get up, and keep going. It's all he can do, now. Heaven is lost to him. Hell is gone. The ruined Earth above is the only place left for a fallen angel.
With herculean effort, he shifts his legs beneath him, rises to his feet, and looks upon the door of Hell for the last time. He could spend the remainder of his days whispering apologies to the empty air, and it would never be enough, nothing would ever be enough. It's his burden now; he will have to carry it, to whatever end would eventually befall this planet.
As for the machine, the only other one here in this barren world, well, he knows they need blood to survive, to stay alive. So Gabriel will give it, until he runs dry. It's a start, keeping something alive instead of killing it.
It's something.
The room flashes with holy light, the sound crashing down the hall beyond it, and then he is gone, leaving the road to Hell behind forever, to be buried by metal and earth and the relentless stretch of eternity.
When V1 had begun their descent, they had left behind a smoldering landscape. The west horizon of the sky had been choked with ash and smoke. Machines destroyed one another for a disappearing fuel supply, nooks and crannies were unturned and demolished so that nothing of flesh could hide from a hungry robot. Streetcleaners set fire to every bit of green they could find, from the tallest tree, to the smallest weed that dared poke up from the cracks in the concrete.
But they are all gone now, having emptied the surface of the earth in a race for the bloodfeast beneath. Now, the sun is rising; the fires are out, having run out of their own source of fuel. The air feels cooler against their plating than below the ground. It is astonishingly quiet.
V1 lingers outside the massive structure that housed the mouth of Hell, seated on the edge of a wide set of steps, once used to welcome humans who had business there. Sprawling before them, a metropolis they are not familiar with, dotted with functioning holo-projections that flicker brokenly, their hues washed out under the intensity of the sun.
They'd been two cities away when the transmission had reached them, along with coordinates to the way down. There had barely been any time for rest in the rush for the only fuel sources left on Earth, crossing ruined landscapes and bounding over hills, carefully taking out weaker machines to tide them over. There hadn't been any opportunity to explore, to locate resources that might aid in their battle for blood.
But now, they can sit upon this stone staircase, a coin idly rolling between their fingers, and watch the sun come up, shining bright between the vacant buildings that scrape against the sky. Its glow is stained still with distant smog, but the expanse of blue is clearer than they have ever seen it before. A whole world empty of humans and other machines, full of secrets and discoveries, just waiting to be made.
... well, they would have prioritized that next if their tanks weren't below half empty. The directive of "Wait For Gabriel" flashes, almost tauntingly so, across their HUD each time they think about it. It's only been twenty minutes since they made it topside, and already they wrestle with wanting to go back down and bodily drag him out of the abandoned tunnels. Their programming is starting to loop itself; they need blood, but there's no source out there to go searching for-
A loud bang, accompanied by a flash brighter than the morning, has them scrambling to grab their shotgun from its designated wing. They whirl around, pumping once, twice--Oh, finally.
V1 rises from their crouch, optic not once wavering from the archangel. He stands in a puddle of broken glass by the entrance to the structure. The shards glisten like droplets in the light, but crunch loudly under his greaves as he crosses over to where they are.
"Machine," Gabriel greets, cordially. He sounds a lot more put together than he's been these past several hours. And they were back to that now, too? Interesting."Good to see you made it."
V1 cautiously lowers their shotgun, but keeps it handy. They can't even begin to parse his intentions after everything that happened. A beat of silence, one where they stare at him unwaveringly, before Gabriel shuffles in place and clears his throat. One hand rests on Justice's hilt, like he isn't entirely sure where they go after this, either.
"I believe I owe you an apology."
Their head tilts in response to this. What for?
"You were clearly attempting to flee Hell when I... interrupted your escape." He says. There are three instances they can associate with that, but he doesn't elaborate on which. "That was far too close a call, and you nearly did not make it out. I'm sorry for that."
At this, they simply shrug. He had gotten them out of Hell, skipped the entirety of Limbo, and whatever chaos was happening there that they would have to pass through, all in the blink of an eye. ‘No use crying over spilled blood', or however the illusion they had spoken with had meant such a phrase to be parsed.
"And you--you need blood to function, correct?"
V1's wings twitch, and then they nod rapidly. Their visuals quickly analyze the surrounding terrain. Gabriel's hand draws Justice. They ready themselves to take a leap back, weighing on whether they should let him move first and parry whatever he throws at them, or do a slam bounce up to the building eaves to gain a momentary height advantage.
But then Gabriel's blade slides across his palm with a quick motion. All these battle plans are thrown out the window when the call of blood-fuel blood-fuel blood-fuel rises from deep within their programming. Crimson ichor drips from the blue blade, and their attention wars between that, and the hand extending out to them, calloused flesh sliced open and oozing with it.
"Here." He says, standing ramrod straight and sword lowering. "There's no further need for fighting, you and I-"
V1 doesn't need any further elaboration. They snatch his wrist with their Feedbacker and hurriedly press it to their chassis.
"... right, uh--so take what you need, and then some." Gabriel finishes, voice trailing off awkwardly. They pay little attention to that, more to the way their plating absorbs the blood steadily flowing from his wound, their vampiric touch keeping the fuel from coagulating. Relief surges through their processors as the numbers on their fuel gauge finally start ticking upwards. The ever-present drive for blood slowly dies down, fading once more into the background as they gradually near full.
It's only been maybe three minutes, standing between the mouth of Hell and the remains of humanity, before they're at full capacity. They pull their optic from the archangel's hand to his helm. He's been staring at them throughout the entire period of silence, and doesn't once try to remove his hand even as the blood flow stops absorbing into their plating.
Another unexpected change in behavior. He willingly let them refuel from him without a fight.
They then realize they've held it there maybe a beat or two longer than needed, as this new revelation sank in. V1 lets go, allowing him to pull back at last. His palm smears red across their chest as it falls away. In response, a familiar calm returns to their demeanor. It's been forever since somebody let them feed when they needed it, and they're almost overwhelmed with the security that comes from it.
They're not sure how to feel about that, either.
"Well," Gabriel seems at a loss, as well, looking away and out to the desolate cityscape. "When you require more, come find me. I don't believe I'll be going too far from here."
Another nod from them, this one curt and simple. It's all they can do, frustratingly so. They want to pry, get to the root of this almost one-eighty degree change in his behavior and actions. They had been fully prepared for another duel, not a tentative truce.
V1 puts in a new directive, under the secondary list: "Find A Way To Communicate With Gabriel". There had to be something in these ruins they could interface with. It would open up a myriad of possibilities.
Gabriel takes an abrupt step back, and his wings flare into their full spread.
"Until next time, Machine."
He darts into the air, and then flies back over the structure, heading eastward. They watch his armor glint in the sunlight, until he disappears over the half collapsed concrete.
For a moment, V1 remains there, staring at the spot where he'd vanished with little warning. They're more than a little puzzled. What could have possibly brought about this sudden, jarring shift in how he acted around them? The footage from their last clash (more of a scuffle, really) plays across their HUD with a thought. It allows them to review Gabriel's actions at their own pace.
His brazen attacks, the desperation in his struggle, all leading up to his burst of angered despair. How he crumpled under the first gentle touch offered to him, going from thoughtlessly destructive to thoughtlessly wanton. How he had saved them from the unmaking of Hell, then offered life-giving blood willingly, now and for the rest of the foreseeable future.
...
It couldn't have been the sex, could it?
V1 switches to their shots of the info on him from the Terminals, something they are grateful to have recorded. But this, disappointingly, doesn't offer them any further insight. They've been presented with a new puzzle, one missing many necessary pieces. Poking into hidden corners won't unravel this new curiosity, and they can't just write this off as an anomaly.
Not after everything.
But just standing here, going over limited information, won't solve this, nor get them any closer to a conclusive answer. They make a new subfolder, stick everything from the past eighty-six hours related to Gabriel into it, along with any relevant information about Heaven and Angels. They'll organize it later.
Instead of letting themselves get stuck in a loop over it, V1 puts the mystery that is the only other occupant of the Earth to the back of their mind. They turn to the ruins, to a freshly emptied world full of even more things to be uncovered. Their directives pop up, and they log in a new one: "Explore", with a few exclamation marks to emphasize their surge of excitement.
No humans, no hostile machines, no endless battle for fuel. Just the things they left behind, ripe for discovery, and a full tank of fuel to get started.
The warmachine takes a bounding leap down the stairs, twenty steps at a time. They slam down onto the wide, plexiglass road at the bottom, debris rattling in their wake. It echoes outward, bouncing off the high rises until it fades.
As they dart into the man-made jungle of concrete and plastic and steel and digital lights, V1 thinks they're going to like this new arrangement.
It's difficult to see the fixed stars from here.
Despite the fact that their engineers are long dead, many lights in the city still shine. Flashy, transparent displays curl and entwine along the walls of the skyscrapers with now meaningless words. He watches them, perched upon a rooftop three floors from the street, gaze unfocused as his thoughts go back and forth between the machine and their new, tentative peace.
What kind of purpose do they have now that there was nothing to hunt and fight and kill? Were they just as lost as he feels now? Does the directionless gnaw at them like it does his own being? There is so much time now, stretching between this stiflingly warm night, and whatever end the pair of them might meet one day.
And Gabriel hasn't the slightest idea of what to do with it.
The darkness slowly becomes day. The morning sun rises behind him, stained in a sickly shade of orange, in part due to the fumes still lingering in the atmosphere. As it rises, bathing the world in its filtered glow, the projected images become faded. The hues of the buildings around them seem to wash out in the added light, turning what is a dance of colors under darkness into a far too bright and yet dull stretch of ruined buildings.
Gabriel hasn't treaded upon the surface of the earth since the Lust Renaissance, sometime before King Minos's imprisonment. He'd been at once shocked and quietly impressed with Mankind's technological leaps, even if that had been accompanied by an undercurrent of malcontent. They had turned even further from The Father's Light, and into that of neon and plasma screens. Mankind had advanced even further since then; he could just from the first five minutes of soaring over the streets in a hurry to get away from V1 and collect his thoughts.
Shops are torn to pieces, countless windows along the high rises broken, and human and machine carcasses alike litter the streets. Old blood stains decorate the plastic and concrete, some a terrible mess of faded red with sun-baked flesh and bone strewn about. Others are simple streaks of darkened crimson, and then puddles right beneath their bodies.
They're everywhere he looks. The only stories he's heard from the mass extinction event had been from the souls who were allowed entry into Heaven, grisly ones of blades and guns and terrible flames. Some are littered with bullet holes, others torn brutally apart by claws and knives, or even completely consumed by fire.
It makes him feel like he's standing in an overturned graveyard, almost, the bodies exhumed in a terrible display of violence.
A fleeting glimpse of blue captures his listless attention, snapping him back to the present moment. The machine is sliding down the street below, before rolling to their feet, crouching, and taking a leap. Their smaller form flies through one of the holographic advertisements, breaking up the projection and, briefly, it glitches before pulling itself back together.
"Machine!" He calls out, and the sound of his own voice comes as a small shock to him after a day and night of complete silence.
They turn midair, and spot him just as gravity wins its fight against the strength of their legs. For a moment, he loses sight of them as they fall away. But then they leap back up into view three buildings over. Gabriel pushes himself to his feet as they reach the opposite rooftop, and glides across the gap to meet them.
"I assume you're here for fuel." V1 nods in an immediate answer, stepping far closer than he's entirely comfortable with.
But he draws Splendor regardless, and swiftly slits his palm to allow them their fill. He can't help the faint hiss that escapes him as the blood seeps so freely from his wound. Hurriedly, the machine draws his hand to their chassis, and firmly holds it there.
The minutes tick by in a stifling silence. The sharp pain of the cut slowly fades into a dull throbbing. His focus centers on the feeling of the faint, odd sensation of V1's plating readily absorbing the crimson liquid. It's something he's familiar with, after all the times prior to now they've fed upon him, but the lack of all-encompassing pain is suddenly stark. Their fingers flex against the back of his hand, optic flickering up to look at his hidden visage.
The way they stare at him makes him feel like they expect him to say something. Gabriel shifts his weight from one leg to another, trying to parse the meaning behind their sudden interest in him. The metal digits drag a little further along his skin as they adjust their grip, their touch warm and smooth.
He remembers, suddenly, how they felt elsewhere on his skin, dragging along his inner thigh until they reached his center.
The moment V1's grip loosens is the moment he swiftly tugs his hand back. Flickers of heat spill into his stomach, memories of them on him and around him and in him surging to his forethoughts like a dam threatening to break. V1 begins to turn away.
"Machine?"
They stop, and glance back at him. Their head tilts and internal mechanisms whirr faintly. Gabriel opens his mouth and finds that he has no words. Heated mortification strangles any that might have had a chance to form.
"I--" He manages, and then the words wither and die in his throat like parched greenery under the too-hot sun. His gaze swiftly jerks away, struggling to keep the motion nonchalant. "Nevermind."
The Machine watches him without moving an inch. But then, mercifully, they seemingly accept his pathetic excuse, and head back to the other edge of the rooftop. They hop over the eaves, and continue on their way, vanishing swiftly between the buildings swathed with neon.
Gabriel stands there, steadies his breathing, and rides out the pulsing arousal wracking his insides until it tapers off, unheeded and unsatisfied.
