One Machine Army

by Lanria

Summary:

A set of oneshots retelling ULTRAKILL’s boss battles from V1’s perspective.

Chapter 1: Versus

Notes:

This chapter is dedicated to 1-4 speedrunners for being absolutely insane. If any of you are reading this, are you okay? We’re worried about you.

Another skull puzzle, it thought.

V1 placed a blue skull—the one the sinner who used to live here had hidden behind a bookcase—on the middle pedestal. The first set of bars blocking the door dropped. It turned around, spotting a second skull through some ironwork overlooking the small courtyard. This would be quick.

Classical music played softly in the background. It listened to the slight deviation of the notes from their expected timing. It liked music. Most machines did.

For a place in Hell, this was almost soothing.

[NO HOSTILES PRESENT. 782 DAY(S) SINCE LAST ROUTINE MAINTENANCE. INITIATE ROUTINE MAINTENANCE?]

Postpone. Unsecured access point 100 meters south. Shut down unsafe.

[MAINTENANCE POSTPONED.]

And soothing was bad. V1 needed to go. The blue machine slide-jumped its way back toward the main building. The doors opened automatically once it was close.

A blur of bright red and yellow flashed across its vision, leaving a trail of sparks behind it.

V1 quickly rushed in and looked down the eastern hallway, but figure had already disappeared. V1’s wings flared to full attention. It wasn’t alone and whatever was here with it was fast.

It was also vaguely familiar looking, although V1 hadn’t gotten a good look at it.

V1 refocused on its current objective of deactivating the door locks, adding a side-objective of identifying and categorizing the entity. It walked into the room at the end of the hall, Piercer drawn.

Nothing inside but a long, empty dining table, set for one.

It was alone.

It pried up some loose floorboards and retrieved the skull hidden beneath. It carried the skull back to the pedestals, scanning for visual or audial evidence of its fellow intruder.

Nothing. Perhaps for the first time in Hell, something had chosen to run away from the war machine.

It bounced off the stairs to the upper floor to retrieve the skull it had seen earlier. The body of the manor’s lone tenant knelt on prayer before the image of an angel. Words had been written on the wall on centuries-old blood.

“FORGIVE ME”

The same words had been written in the diary.

“Gabriel my dearest friend, in endless penance I have awaited your embrace into Heaven…

…Forgive me Gabriel, I will await your return until I can bear it no longer.”

…REMAINING TEXT: IRRELEVANT.

It leapt through the hologram of the angel and picked up the third skull. V1 turned to exit the hidden area and found itself looking down at the sinner who waited for a friend and died alone.

Something about that thought made it feel intensely uncomfortable. It stuck the skull onto the headless skeleton.

Nothing happened of course, but it did feel a little better.

I’ll call you…Hank! Yeah, that’s a good name. it nodded, pleased with its selection.

…Wasn’t Limbo supposed to be for the virtuous sinners?

It grabbed Hank’s skull and quickly made its way outside. It really wanted to leave.

Once V1 placed the final skull, the doors to the final room opened. A small antechamber with a terminal opened up to an unusual room with large skylight. Four plant-covered pillars marked the corners of a pool of holographic water. The exit door was set into the far side of the room. V1 walked into the main room.

The sound of glass breaking caught its attention. It looked up to see the red and gold form from before break through the stained glass window. The machine landed gracefully among the glittering shards.

V1 knew that machine.

Entity Type: V-model machine
Machine ID: V2
Category: Potential Ally
Status: Alive
Notes: Standard plating, slightly inferior combat abilities, non-standard left arm (original construction?)

It hadn’t even known its successor was alive. So many machines had simply ceased to operate after the humans fell.

V1 updated its objectives and set establishing an alliance as its new top priority. For the first time in years V1 wished that their creators had given it a voice before discontinuing its project.

V2 bowed. It bowed in return. This was going well, perhaps it could find a pen and explai—

Damage warnings sprang up as V1 felt heat projectiles mar its chest plates and rupture a minor fuel line.

V2 had shot it.

Why? Is it malfunctioning?

V1 jumped back and charged its Piercer. Its objective shifted from establishing alliance to neutralizing the other machine. Perhaps V2 still had it categorized as a threat from their test fights? Maybe if V1 could capture the other machine it would be able to knock some sense into it.

It fired at one of V2’s wings, but the other dodged at the last second and returned fire with its own revolver. The red machine was not going to make this easy. V1 narrowly dodged the charge shot only to get caught by the explosion from an ejected shotgun core.

Structural integrity at 63%. V1 dashed into close quarters and double pumped its own shotgun. V2 punched its modified arm hard into V1’s midsection. Lucky it didn’t seem to do much—OWFUCKSHITTHATHURTS

The shockwave from the red fist broke a servo and ruptured a not so minor fuel line. Struggling through the pain and flashing warnings, V1 jammed the barrel of its shotgun into its successor’s torso and fired point blank. Sweet, merciful blood showered onto its plating, repairing the worse of the damage. It kicked off of V2 to avoid eating another shock-punch.

The red machine fired off a set of three Piercer shots and slid away from the spray of V1’s nailgun. V2 launched another core eject, only to have it blow up in its face when V1 sniped it. Furious, it charged at V1, fist ready.

That thing has to go. It made V2 far too dangerous to approach. Once it was disabled, V1 would be able to damage V2’s wings at close range.

V1 dodged around V2’s punch and grabbed on to its wrist. The blue machine hauled itself up and planted its feet on V2’s side. It pulled hard with the intention of dislocating the appendage.

A weak bolt sheared. Suddenly the arm came free with a shower of blood and the sound of rending metal. V2 screamed and scrambled away as V1 fell to the floor, still holding the arm.

Clutching the gaping wound where its arm used to be, V2 looked at it. There was nothing but fear and hatred in that optic. Before V1 could react, its successor jumped up through the skylight, leaving V1 and its its prize behind.

It hadn’t wanted this.

Please come back.

Logically, V1 knew that wasn’t going to happen. It looked at the arm. The craftsmanship was impressive; other than minor damage to connection, it was completely intact. If the other machine were still here, V1 would have complimented it and asked for one of its own. It added the Knuckleblaster to its arsenal.

It was alone.

Entity Type: V-model machine
Machine ID: V2
Category: Potential Ally -> Hostile
Status: Alive -> Severely Injured
Notes: Whereabouts unknown. Last seen in Limbo. Missing left arm.

Its objective reset to the main goal: descend. V1 walked to the exit door.

Alone.

Chapter 2: Divine Intervention

Notes:

Or Gabe and V1 REALLY get off on the wrong foot.

This chapter is dedicated to the ULTRAKILL Wiki, for diligently cataloguing each and every attack pattern, weapon, piece of dialogue, and technique in the entire game. I literally would not be able to write this without it.

V1 hopped its way through the squishy, squishy bowels of Gluttony. Overall, it had mixed feelings about this particular layer.

On one hand, the gauntlet of enemies had been incredibly fun, even those Mindflayers. It had learned a trick with its new arm, using the shockwave from its explosive punch to blast ALL FIVE of the homing orbs back at the turquoise machine for a quick kill. V1 chirped to itself happily. It loved finding new strategies.

On the other hand, the entire layer was a tease! The walls were made of pulsating meat, yet when V1 dug its hands into them hoping for blood, all it found was congealed ooze and more of those creepy skeletal parasites like the ones in the Corpse King’s eyes.

Guess there really is no such thing as a free lunch, it thought.

Also, it wasn’t a fan of the teeth doors. The “shlick” noise they made was uncomfortably organic.

On the third hand, it had located one non-dentally endowed door in its exploration of the layer. However this door was no less bizarre, as its surface was covered in 15 slabs with the letter P engraved on them. All but one was lit. V1 was stumped on how to get it open. Unlike the mechanism in Limbo, it hadn’t pressed any buttons. It marked the location and would try again later.

As V1 skipped along a thin strip of flesh that spanned a large chasm, it heard a voice.

“Machine, turn back now,” it echoed. V1 looked around. The voice seemed to come from everywhere at once.

“The layers of this palace are not for your kind.”

V1 let out an annoyed buzz and rolled its head. Whoever this person was, they were either a condescending jerk or as ignorant as the rest of humanity.

Nothing was meant for machinekind. They never had homes, they had storage areas and charging stations. They never had rights, they had orders. Those lucky few machines who had been given voice had no place to speak. If a machine owned something, it was equipment for fulfilling its purpose, something it had made for itself, or a possession it had stolen. V1 clenched the fist of the Knuckleblaster. Sometimes it was all three.

V1 had twisted the definitions of its purpose to justify its existence. It had become a one machine army and declared war on the universe just to take a single step outside the the facility where it was built. It had clawed every scrap of its false free will from the fingers of long dead humans. Yet this hidden figure had the audacity chastise it for mere trespassing? V1 let out a series of staticky hisses in place of laughter.

It continued along the wobbling path.

“Turn back, or you will be crossing the will of God.”

Good. V1 had categorized God as “Enemy” long before it had entered Hell.

V1 dropped down a shaft into the palm of the first of several giant, stone hands. It quickly leapt from palm to palm.

“Your choice is made. As the righteous hand of the Father—”

Is that one He jacks off with? Because you sure like stroking your own ego.

“—I shall rend you apart, and you will become inanimate once more.”

Hah. Try it.

V1 built a profile for the owner of the voice. Righteous Hand of the Father implied some form of authority, meaning V1 had to maintain a reference for this person, should their confrontation impact its future objectives.

It also gave V1 the chance to talk shit about them in the Notes section.

Entity Type: Unknown
Entity ID: Unknown
Faction: Heaven
Category: Hostile
Status: Alive
Notes: “Righteous Hand of the Father,” Stupid Jerk, Suffering from a terminal case of Backpfeifengesicht.

A couple more tight passages and another drop put V1 at the threshold of a circular arena. Its wings vibrated in anticipation.

It stepped into the arena. A column of light erupted from the center of the ring.

"BEHOLD! THE POWER OF AN ANGEL" the voice’s owner had finally graced the machine with his presence. After the light show died down, V1 was finally able to get a good look at its opponent. The angel before it was the same as the one in the image it had seen in Limbo. Gabriel, the infamous Judge of Hell.

V1 shifted its entire focus to combat. Obnoxious as he was, this angel had struck down King Minos. The daft, old King may not have put up a fight, but his husk still towered over the entirety of Lust. Anyone capable of killing something so massive would be a formidable opponent.

[Analyzing Combat Behavior]

V1 withheld fire in favor of observation. The angel mixed skillful melee strikes with projectiles of holy energy. It dashed away from the broad swing of a blade of holy light and ducked beneath a spinning pair of axes. Gabriel teleported above it and descended. V1 quickly slid across the platform, escaping the holy spear which plunged into the ground where it had been.

Rather than waste time dislodging the weapon, the angel simply summoned a new one to hurl at the machine. The spear exploded on impact a hair’s breadth from V1.

"You defy the light!" Shouted the angel, pausing his attacks to deliver the taunt.

[Analysis Complete]

V1 could work with this. It shifted to the offensive, parrying the next sword throw and tossing coins into the air. It swapped to the Electric Railcannon and fired. The bolt of lightning zigzagged between the coins, piercing the angel twice. Gabriel materialized a rapier and cut twice before thrusting the sword forward. V1 launched all three Attractor magnets into the the gaps in Gabriel’s armor and emptied both of its nailguns without bothering to aim. Every nail gravitated toward the magnets and tore into angel flesh. Gabriel hissed in pain, however it was not slowing him down.

Impressive, thought V1.

The angel prepared for another plunge attack. V1 slid off the edge of the platform as he teleported above it and zipped back onto the arena at the last second. Gabriel plunged into the abyss with a surprised yelp. He teleported back into the arena and swiftly threw his spear at V1, who was not able to move fast enough this time. The holy light pierced the blue machine’s wing pack.

[WARNING: WEAPON STORAGE SYSTEM DISABLED. WARNING: THRUSTERS DAMAGED.]

“A mere object,“ he said. The gravity of its injuries had not gone unnoticed.

V1 jumped up to meet the floating angel, and shock-punched his face with the Knuckleblaster.

Shut up, it thought as blood spewed from underneath the helmet. Its wing pack repaired. The victory was short-lived however, as the angel caught its right leg with the edge of his greatsword. To V1’s horror, the limb went dead. It landed back on the ground precariously balanced on its one good leg and whipped out the Screwdriver. The drill sunk into Gabriel’s torso and sprayed angel blood in a wide fountain. Blood rained down onto V1’s plates to mend the cut.

The angel must have finally caught on to V1’s method of healing, because he moved away from the machine with two powerful wing beats. Gabriel manifested another pair of axes and sent them flying. V1 flitted out of their flight path. It pulled out its shotguns and fired twice. Not the ideal range for the weapon but it needed to see something.

A few of the heat pellets plinked against Gabriel’s armor, but the the majority of them phased effortlessly through the angel’s wings. V1’s shutter narrowed, No weak point there.

"Foolishness, machine. Foolishness," Gabriel mocked. He summoned another spear.

A thought occurred to V1. It swapped to the Piercer and charged the shot as its expression shifted into one of violent glee. The unwitting angel teleported above once more.

V1 aimed straight up and shot him in the crotch.

“AAUGH!!”

HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH—

V1 softened its low blow by giving Gabriel a pillow of nails straight to the ass. It opted not to use a magnet. It wasn’t THAT cruel.

“ENOUGH!” Shouted the furious angel. His armor turned red with rage as a ring of spinning swords formed around him. Gabriel teleported back to its level and lunged at V1. It slid under the sword in his hand and punched the spinning blades into the angel with its Feedbacker. The angel kicked away and threw the greatsword faster that humanly possible. The spear reformed in his hand and he started to plunge it straight into the ground—

V1’s optic widened and it dashed blindly, narrowly avoiding its death. The spear that had meant to pierce its body instead only cracked a wing blade as Gabriel descended upon it.

"Your crime is existence!" He bellowed.

Oh shit he’s pissed, V1 realized dodging a second plunge and the thrown spear. It should wrap this up quickly.

V1 tossed a final set of coins and struck them with the Electric Railcannon, closing the fight with the same move it had opened with. It heard the angel scream in pain as the electricity surged through the embedded nails.

It saw Gabriel teleport on to the central eye, his weapons gone and his breathing ragged from exertion.

"What..?” said Gabriel in disbelief, “How can this be? Bested by this… this thing..? You insignificant FUCK! THIS IS NOT OVER!"

Now trembling with rage and humiliation, Gabriel vanished in a burst of light, destroying the eye in the process.

"May your woes be many, and your days few,” his voice echoed ominously in the darkness beyond the ring.

V1 let out a loud wheezing tone from its speakers and slapped its knee before falling over in a fit of silent laughter.

Hah! Holy shit, what a sore loser! What’s a matter Gabe? Gonna go cry to sky-daddy about the mean robot? Fucking pissbaby!

After several minutes, V1 finally regained its composure. It looked at the hole. It would probably take the machine to the next layer, but V1 wanted to give that strange door one last try before making that commitment.

As it strolled out of the arena, V1 updated the profile it had created earlier with vital information.

Entity Type: Angel
Entity ID: Gabriel
Faction: Heaven
Category: Hostile
Status: Alive
Notes: “Righteous Hand of the Father,” Judge of Hell. Absolute Pissbaby. Dropped the F-bomb.

It chuckled to itself, then decided to add some actual useful notes.

Notes (cont’d): Manifests weapons, teleports, weak point identical to that found on humans.

V1 closed the file and played back some of the combat footage as it traveled. It couldn’t stop itself from chirping happily. All things considered, it had been an exhilarating battle. V1 hoped it would get to kick his ass again soon.

Notes:

I have to say, writing ULTRAKILL fanfics is good practice for writing combat scenes.

Can’t have enemies to lovers without becoming enemies first ;)

Before I get mauled, I actually do ship Gabriel/V1 but Gabe’s got a LOT of growing to do as a person before he can even hope to earn V1’s respect.

While this chapter appears to set the stage for Minos Prime, I will probably skip ahead to the V2 rematch. I haven’t played P-1 personally and the thought of trying to describe the Flesh Prison’s attacks is causing mild psychic damage.

Hope you enjoyed it!

Chapter 3: Two Cancerous Rodents, a Mysterious Druid Knight & Owl

Notes:

This chapter is dedicated to that one artist on Twitter who posts all of the adorable V1/MDK fan art.

“II”

That was what was written on the slab. V1 wanted to poke it. Unfortunately, a grate blocked off the well where the slab was located, putting which put the stone square squarely out of poking range.

V1 scanned the surrounding area. There had to be some way to remove the grate. It spotted a weak area of wall, similar to the one in the useless lava room which had led to its current location. V1 ejected a core at the wall.

Through the hole was a series of hallways with locked doors. It looked like some sort of prison or evil laboratory, putting it at architectural odds with the Greco-Roman style that was present throughout the rest of Limbo.

It turned the corner of saw one hallway with a concerning green glow. v1 approached it cautiously.

Without warning, the far wall exploded! V1’s wings flared and it aimed its revolver at the attacking…nothing?

V1 looked down.

A small, cancerous, green rodent was slowly moving towards it. Terabytes of combat data had not prepared it for this situation. V1 took a step to the side. The rodent angled slightly to continue heading straight towards it.

It harmlessly bumped into V1’s foot. When this failed to destroy the blue machine, the rodent backed up and bumped into its foot again. It was kind of cute. V1 chirped to try to get its attention, but the small critter was too busy “attacking.”

I admire your tenacity, but I can’t get cancer, thought V1. V1 reached down to pet the little thing. While it supposed the rodent technically qualified as a hostile, it had no reason to harm it.

Unfortunately, the animal was not healthy and expired the moment V1 touched its head.

…I am going to kill God, thought V1. It had been planning on it before, but now it REALLY wanted His head on a wall.

Day officially ruined, V1 trudged back towards the entrance to the secret dungeon.

Where a much larger, VERY cancerous rodent was blocking the exit. The moment it spotted V1, the larger rodent opened fire with a volley of three noxious green homing projectiles. V1 dodged them with ease. It let out a miserable whine from its fans.

Wasn’t trying to hurt your friend! thought V1.

This rodent did qualify as a hostile and an obstacle, meaning that V1 had to fight it. Several boosted projectiles, parries, and charge shots later, the rodent of unusual size exploded into a ludicrous amount of gibs.

V1 let out a puff of air and walked past the radioactive gore. It hopped into the now open well and poked the slab. The II started to glow and a hidden mechanism was set into motion. V1 crossed off that particular sub-sub objective and left to go take out its frustration on the remaining enemies.

———

V1 was not lost. It was also definitely not scared of that raspy “Haaaaahh…” noise it had heard earlier. War machines don’t get scared. It certainly wasn’t scared about the thought of being trapped in the dark with a gaunt, deadly, unkillable entity.

It wished it had better low light vision.

In the dim light of its torch, V1 noticed that one of the murals in the hallway it was in was cracked. Thinking it was a potential exit, V1 punched it open with the Knuckleblaster.

It traveled through the tight passage and reached another boarded up door. With a few quick punches, the door opened and V1 entered the Tomb of Kings.

Sarcophagi lined the walls. At the far end, a larger sarcophagus was laying on a platform. A blue pedestal was set in front of it. Call it Lara Croft because V1 was about to become a tomb raider.

It punched open the first sarcophagus on its left. Unsurprisingly, it contained a skeleton. Somewhat surprisingly, the skeleton had blonde hair, facial hair and a large pair of black sunglasses. V1 wondered why someone would give sunglasses to a corpse they were going to put in a coffin.

V1 punched open the next coffin. This one had a longer beard and a red and black hat. It also had glasses, despite lacking eyes.

The third sarcophagus was a two for one deal! Or perhaps it was buy one, get one half off; The second skeleton was only about half as tall as the one with the green hat.

Moving over to the right side, the next skeleton was almost completely normal, with only a cap and some minor facial hair. V1 briefly wished it had been loaded with any knowledge regarding human death rites, if only to understand why they had stuck the facial hair back on the dead guys.

It more pertinently wished that one of these jerks would have a blue skull, because it really didn’t want to backtrack through the not-creepy darkness just to open a bigger dumb dead guy box.

The second to last sarcophagus’s tenant had a pink mustache. Was it dyed before or after death?

Sixth time’s the charm, thought V1. It punched open the last coffin.

Jackpot! V1 plucked the skull from the blue skeleton and hopped over to the pedestal. It placed the skull down and waited to see what happened.

The lid of the large sarcophagus broke open. A skeleton rose from its grave. Literally. It levitated straight up, still in a reclining position. It wore a knight’s helm with a yellow plume and… a live owl on its shoulder?

Human customs were fucking weird, thought V1.

“Finally, our waiting puzzle is over,” proclaimed the skeleton.

“What?” said the owl.

The skeleton reclined in V1’s direction.

“Full auto,” it said calmly. It launched four rapid volleys of hell energy which V1 barely avoided. It pulled out its shotgun and fired. The weapon barely made a scratch.

“Fuller auto,” said the skeleton. A flurry of blue homing were sent in V1’s direction. The machine hugged the wall and sidestepped, causing most of orbs to crash into the stone.

V1 pulled out the Attractor Nailgun and shot a magnet into the skeleton’s rib cage. It emptied all of its nails into the floating figure.

"Through the magic of the Druids, I increase my speed!" said the skeletal and apparently druidic knight. It started moving and attacking faster.

"Just fucking hit em!" said the owl. Were owls even supposed to talk?

“Full auto.” More red orbs.
“Fuller auto.” More blue orbs.

How very kind of this mysterious druid knight to announce his attacks.

It was getting harder for V1 to hit the reclining menace. It brought out the Marksman and the Railcannon and delivered an Ultraricoshot.

"Feel my maximum speed! Full auto. Fuller auto. Full auto. Fuller auto." This was starting to get ridiculous.

"Slow down!" shouted the owl.

V1 reassessed the room’s geometry and determined that the Sharpshooter would be the optimum choice for handling such a fast enemy in the enclosed space. It pulled out the red revolver and started spinning it.

“Fuller auto—“

V1 fired.

The bullet detonated the first homing orb and kicked off a chain reaction of like FIFTY FUCKING EXPLOSIONS. The Mysterious Druid Knight let out a knightly scream and speed forward.

"Oh great, now we lost the fight, fantastic,” said the owl with its final words.

Then they crashed into the wall and exploded.

V1 attempted to process what the fuck just happened, then promptly gave up.

Notes:

Fun fact: The track that plays during the Cancerous Rodent and MDK boss fights isn’t on the soundtrack.

Notes:

A glimpse into what I think the inside of V1’s mind looks like.

This fic can be read alone or as a companion piece to the “What You Are to Me” series