Chapter Text
AT THE END OF THE WORLD
Tessa took shuddering breaths as she walked. Her lungs were already strained, and the toxic air wasn’t helping. But she had bigger concerns than poison which would take a few days to kill her.
Right now, she only had minutes left.
She didn’t know what she was trying to accomplish – She was going up against a planet-eating eldritch monstrosity that could break all laws of physics on a whim. What could she even do?
Cyn – Adorable, mischievous Cyn had gone berserk and had murdered her parents. While that was a net positive in Cyn’s favor, the drone that she had once called her best friend had not stopped there. Cyn had evolved into something beyond human comprehension, and had gone on to ravage the entire planet. She genocided every species of every creature that was not a machine.
Tessa had tried to fight back. Cyn had left her alive because she had been the only human to show the poor, disabled drone kindness. She had even reprogrammed J, her personal maid-turned-genocide drone to resist Cyn’s hacking, but that was just one drone.
The ‘Solver of the Absolute Fabric’ it called itself. It had somehow infected Cyn, initially manifesting as a few lines of errant code in a drone. She had done her best to find a cure, to undo the possession, but the Absolute Solver didn’t just sit around and wait. All her teams of scientists and engineers were systematically murdered, and yet, she was spared every time.
Eventually, Tessa even lost J. After all, she was just a teenage girl with delusions of a fighting chance against a God. What program could she write that would keep the Absolute Solver out indefinitely, especially considering that it was what built her drones new bodies in the first place?
The war had gone on for years, only because that thing was amused by the humans’ fruitless struggle. Tessa had made friends and lost them all too many times to count. Slowly, but surely, humans had been exterminated.
And then, Tessa was the last human alive on Earth. She had sent her findings offworld, in the hopes that someone would be able to create something that could free a drone from the control of the Absolute Solver.
The Earth was done for; She knew this. No weapon or tactic could overcome a giant flesh portal the size of a city. But hopefully, another planet would be able to fight back.
And it had. Somehow, a team of scientists on Copper-9 had managed to develop a program that could undo the possession. Of course, the Absolute Solver had been there, but it had been foiled. Sure, the core collapsed, but it was still a victory, because the tool now existed, and the knowledge to remake it was out there.
And then a few hours ago, Cyn had appeared before her.
“Hello, Tessa,” The deceptively unassuming drone said in her monotonous voice. “It is good to see you again. Friendly conversation opener.”
“Cut the shite, Cyn,” Tessa growled, drawing her sword from its sheath on her back. “Whaddya want?”
“You were always our favorite. You saved my life. None of this would be possible without you.”
And that was the truth, wasn’t it? She had shielded the corrupted drone from security and systems checks, even when she had manifested telekinetic powers. She was the one responsible for sacrificing Earth to a monster.
Tessa growled, swinging with all her might in an attempt to decapitate Cyn, but the blade simply passed through her body like it didn’t even exist.
“Curious stare. Even now. You are. Holding back. Do you still see me as your friend?”
And damn it all, she did. Cyn had been like a daughter to her. She had done her hair to match her own, had consoled Cyn when her motor functions started failing, had protected her from her parents, and had never even entertained the notion of discarding her for being crippled, in a household where dozens of drones were used as target practice every day.
Cyn, J, V, and N. They had been her family. And despite all the horrors that Cyn had inflicted on the world and even Tessa herself, that feeling never fully went away.
“Bloody cunt,” Tessa spat. “I don’t give a damn about what we were, you monster!”
The next few swings of her sword also phased through Cyn’s body, until one actually connected, scattering sparks everywhere. She thrust her sword forward, aiming for Cyn’s torso where she knew the corrupted, biomechanical Solver core would be. But Cyn pinched the blade with her fingers, stopping it easily.
“You hesitated,” Cyn said. “Analytical insight. Your stab was delayed by 10% from observed combat data. You hesitated.”
“Fuck off!” Tessa yelled, pulling out her revolver and unloaded all six shots into the drone. The visor shattered and bursts of oil exploded from everywhere. Not that it mattered, since the damage was regenerated in seconds.
“Giggle. You know that won’t kill me.”
Thousands of mechanical monstrosities appeared out of thin air, but Tessa was an Australian; This was nothing. Her sword sliced through tentacles and bones alike as she destroyed Cyn’s creations without hesitation. As the numbers thinned out, she heard a gunshot, and instinctively hid behind the skeleton of a car. A few more bullets pinged off the metal, before a genocide-bot landed. This one was a male configuration, meaning that it was bigger and heavier, but slower and less agile. The glowing ‘X’ in its visor and the sharp teeth covered in human blood only pissed her off more.
She jumped out from behind the car, gunfire following a split second later. But the drone was too close to use any of its special weapons, and too unafraid of her. She went straight for the head, and the gunfire stopped.
“Rraaaaggghhh!”
With a roar, she cut the remainder of the drone in half, vertically, with a mighty swing. It only took her a split-second to identify the wriggling mass that was the Solver core. She reached down, grabbed the drone’s nanite injector, and used it to stab the core.
There was a scream, and the core collapsed into a black hole, and then vaporized an instant later.
Now, armed with a nanite weapon, Cyn’s thralls fell in a single attack. She cut the last tentacle in half, and then threw the nanite injector at Cyn.
That haunting three-pronged symbol manifested out of nowhere, blocking the attack.
“Pondering,” Cyn said. “Intrigued thinking. Perhaps you are willing to kill me after all.”
“I don’t have time for your games, Cyn! Tell me what you want and piss the hell off!”
“Amused expression. You have all the time in the world. Laughing at my own joke.”
“Get to the point!” Tessa growled.
“Are you sure you want that?”
All of a sudden, images were broadcasted into Tessa’s brain. Images that were beyond the realm of human comprehension. No, beyond comprehension of any mortal creature. For an instant, she saw a small piece of the true form of the Absolute Solver, something so horrible that it made the horrors on Earth look like Disneyworld.
Tessa collapsed to her knees, blood leaking from her eyes, ears, and nose.
“Smug tone: Point made.”
Tessa struggled to push herself to her feet.
“You have been a naughty girl, Tessa,” Cyn said. “We are not pleased.”
“What, are you asking me to stop now?”
“Disapproving head shake. Your data. The consumption of Copper-9 failed, because you gave them information.”
“Ha! So you aren’t as invincible as you say, after all!”
All of a sudden, she had the wind knocked out of her as a tentacle, moving too fast for her to see, pierced her abdomen cleanly. In her front and out the back. It wasn’t immediately life-threatening, but it had probably taken a chunk out of her liver. As the last sentient being left alive on Earth, there was no one who would be able to perform the surgery needed to save her.
Her life was quite literally in Cyn’s hands.
“Congratulations. Mocking tone,” Cyn said, advancing. “You have become an obstacle to our goals. Our attachment to you only nets you so many favors. You have crossed the line.”
Tessa felt herself freeze, and it wasn’t due to the slimy tentacle buried in her abdomen. This was the sinking realization that finally, after everything that had happened, she was finally going to die.
“But do not worry. Reassuring speech. We told you; we will not discard you.”
More tentacles rose from the ground, latching on to her arms and rendering her immobile.
“Well, what are you waiting for? Do it, ya coward.”
“Sinister smile. Did you really think. That it would be that easy?”
Eldritch apparitions appeared out of Cyn’s back, sporting blades, claws, and other instruments that she could not recognize.
“I have always wanted to look like you. Dramatic Pause. And now, I can.”
Tessa’s eyes widened in horror as she realized exactly what was about to happen to her. She spent the next few hours screaming, even after her vocal cords gave out.
~~Present Time~~
The torture had drained her. Cyn could have completed the process in seconds, but the sadistic little monster had drawn it out for fun. She had enjoyed the power she held over Tessa, and might as well have gotten off on it.
Tessa stared down at her right arm. Or what had once been her right arm. All the flesh had been stripped away, leaving nothing but bone that glittered red with her blood.
Cyn had skinned her alive. In some places, she had taken muscle too. And then she had worn it. The picture-perfect identical hairstyles that they had always shared made Tessa wonder that if that was a red flag she should’ve seen coming.
Cyn had left her to die, while wearing her own skin as a disguise. It wouldn’t really work, but it sent a message.
Without her skin, she was losing body heat. The numerous infections that she no doubt had gotten would kill her over a few days, or even hours, but hypothermia would kill her in minutes. She could already feel the chill penetrating her bones, and her body functions were shutting down.
And all the while, she was losing blood from where she had been stabbed in the liver.
The toxic air stung every part of her, as she was exposed to the harmful elements of the dying planet. Yellow lightning crackled through the air, briefly lighting up the flesh portal, giving her glimpses of the horrors that remined hidden in the darkness.
Each step felt like being stabbed. The flesh of her feet, now bereft of the protection offered by her combat boots, and most importantly, her skin, now repeatedly came into contact with the poisoned ground. She was pretty sure that she had chemical burns, but she was in too much pain to give that too much thought.
Why was she walking? She was already dead, and there was no one who could save her. All humans on the planet were dead, J, V, and N had been sent offworld, and there would be no more autonomous hospitals that could still function.
There really was no point, so why was she walking? Did she think that the sun would do anything for her? It killed the Absolute Solver and the genocide bots, sure (Cyn was never beating the vampire allegations), but even the heat of the sun would not stave off hypothermia, and it certainly would do nothing to stop blood loss.
But she couldn’t just give up. She hadn’t fought a God for years, just to roll over and die at the slightest inconvenience. She was Australian, damn it! Every day was an encounter with a thousand things that wanted you dead, so what was one more? She was a full-blooded Australia Woman, on par with Florida Man! She had dealt with toilet spiders, toilet frogs, toilet snakes, and toilet crocodiles! She could box kangaroos! She could eat any bird that wasn’t an emu for breakfast! She had stepped on a stonefish! Compared to that, the Absolute Solver wasn’t shi-
Tessa’s world tilted and her vision cut out for a second. She tried to raise her arms to cushion her fall, but her right arm had no muscle with which to move it, and the lack of blood made her movements with her left sluggish. And to make a bad situation worse, her left hand landed on a particularly sharp rock that impaled her hand all the way to the bone.
She had no energy left to scream, and her vocal cords were bleeding as well. Her vision worsened, and she felt like she had chugged a whole barrel of vodka. She lifted her left hand, and saw that it had been impaled with some fancy lamp. It was somewhat like an ‘S’, with a diamond-shaped structure in the middle that glowed blue.
But she couldn’t focus on that for too long. Her sense of touch cut out, which was a blessing and a curse. On the plus side, she no longer felt excruciating pain. On the down side, it meant that her body was losing critical functions, which meant that death was imminent.
With the last of her energy, she twisted and fell on her back. She could see spaceships leaving the atmosphere, no doubt Cyn sending the genocide bots to other planets. Stars twinkled, the distance between them too large to do any damage to the Absolute Solver. The ground rumbled as the flesh portal writhed about.
Her vision was dimming, and she realized that her heart was beating erratically. Her diaphragm wasn’t functioning like it should, and her ears had stopped working altogether.
Her life flashed before her eyes: Being born to the wealthiest people on the planet, discovering her love for drones, trying to reprogram a few, scouring the junkyard for improperly disassembled drones that she could fix up, reprogramming J, allowing her to have emotions. Reprogramming V, granting her freedom. Reprogramming N, allowing him to have fun. Finding and rescuing Cyn……
Despite everything, she did care for her, or who she had once been.
She missed her silly little friend.
Tessa breathed her last as her vision went dark.
Tessa had not expected to wake up. Her injuries had been too grievous and too extensive to recover from, unless they had found her seconds after she had collapsed. No human could have found her, no drone could have resisted the Absolute Solver, which meant that Cyn had saved her, which was in some ways, worse than death.
But she still lacked human feeling. She had her five senses intact, but they somehow felt disconnected; Like she wasn’t in her real body.
Was this the afterlife? She wasn’t exactly religious, but if the Absolute Solver existed, she couldn’t exactly rule it out.
There were no clouds or golden gates, so this was definitely the other place. Which, to be fair, she totally deserved. She had failed Cyn, and by hesitating to correct her oversight, she had failed the entire human race. Billions were dead by her hand, and billions more would die by the time this was over.
She broke out of her musing to actually observe her surroundings. Her vision sharpened as she looked around.
She appeared to be standing in infinite space, with stars in every direction. She was standing on something solid, but there was nothing that could be seen – Just more empty space and stars.
Tessa was many things, but lazy was not one of them. So, she looked around, sought out the star that appeared closest, and began walking. Sure, it was a couple of light-years away, but it wasn’t like she had anything better to do.
It could have been seconds or hours later, but she stopped as she felt a familiar rumbling. She squinted, and in the distance, she saw something approaching. A few seconds later, she rubbed her eyes and blinked a few times, because she could not believe what she was seeing.
It was a truck. An American long-distance hauler, with a bright red and blue fiery paint job. It slowed down as it approached her, finally coming to a stop fifty feet away.
And then its parts began moving. The truck opened up and other parts came out of panels that folded away, until the truck vanished, leaving behind a 30-foot robot.
“Greetings,” He said, their plane of existence automatically readjusting so that she could look him in the eye without having to crane her neck vertically upwards. “My name is Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots.”
Tessa was weirded out, but this didn’t even make the top 100 weird things she had seen TODAY. So, she played along.
“I’m Tessa. The last human on Earth.”
“Tessa,” Optimus said. “It is a powerful name, once belonging to the one who was responsible for creating life amongst my species.”
Tessa didn’t put much stock in her own name. The Elliotts had ruined the planet and had turned space exploration into a cutthroat capitalist venture, James Elliott had been responsible for Cyn manifesting the Absolute Solver, and Tessa James Elliott had been the one who could have ended it all, but didn’t because she was selfish.
“Where are we?” She asked, deliberately ignoring him. “And why are we here?”
“This is a place within your mind, unbound by the constraints of space and time. We are here because you have been chosen,” Her left hand prickled, and the fancy lamp that she had impaled her hand which had (somehow) made it to the afterlife with her flew out and hovered between the two.
“The Matrix of Leadership,” Optimus said. “It is an artifact, and a symbol among my species. For thousands of years, it has been passed down from leader to leader. I was the last to hold it. And now, it is your turn, Tessa.”
“A bloody fine leader I turned out to be, huh?” Tessa said sadly, with just a pinch of self-deprecating anger in there. “I couldn’t protect my parents, I couldn’t protect my species, I couldn’t protect myself, and I couldn’t even protect my friends. Everyone is dead, including me, and it’s my fault!
“I can’t be a leader, because there is no one left to lead.”
Optimus looked her in the eyes.
“Being a leader is not about having people who follow you from the start; It is about representing a cause with everything you have. And in time, those who hear of your actions will seek you out themselves.”
There were a few moments of silence.
“So, what is this, a new lease at life?”
“Indeed.”
She scoffed.
“Mate, I’ve got no clue what you’re on about,” She said, turning away from him, looking into the infinity of the cosmos. “I’m the last person who deserves a second chance, much less leadership. This whole thing was my fault. I dug Cyn out of the junkyard. I fixed her up, I hid her from EarthGov, and I hid her powers until she was too strong to be stopped. I have the blood of fifty billion humans on my hands, and you’re saying that I deserve a second chance? Bullshit.”
Optimus took a single step to stand beside her and joined her in looking into infinity.
“Millennia ago, I had a brother. We were inseparable, and there were a number of trials that we went through together. But eventually, we went our own ways, which culminated in the war. When I had the opportunity to end it all, I spared him, not knowing of the consequences that would follow.
“Thousands of planets were damaged beyond recovery, and trillions lost their lives. All because I spared the life of the one I once called a brother. But my mistake did not stop me from becoming the leader of the Autobots.
“I did not set out with the intention to become a leader. The position was given to me after several rigorous trials. I did not want the title, but it was not for me to decide. Even though I spared the enemy, I was deemed worthy.
“I do not regret the time I spent with my brother. I regret the lives that were lost, and I will kill him the next time we meet. But I do not regret sparing his life that one time.”
“Even after he genocided a few planets?”
Optimus nodded.
“If you had to do it again, would you spare him? Knowing what you know now?”
“If I were sent back, I would kill him. But that is because I have learnt that in times of war, the foundations of peace must be built on blood.”
“So, you regret letting him live.”
“No. Mercy is an admirable trait to have, but one must know when to exercise it. Cyn was your friend, and you do not regret showing her mercy. But, much like I did, you have also learnt that mercy is a gift to be given but once.”
Tessa grit her teeth. Damn it, the talking truck was right.
“This is not a second chance,” Optimus said. “This is what you have earned.”
“The only thing I’ve earned is a slow, painful death.”
“Much like myself, your punishment for not stopping someone when you had the chance was to gain wisdom through suffering. But death is too light a sentence for the consequences of your actions. To redeem yourself, you must fight with everything you have, and more.”
“Mate, I’m just one girl,” She said, turning to the giant robot. “And I’m fighting a God.”
“And that is more than enough,” He said, and Tessa swore that she began to hear Linkin Park music out of nowhere. “Throughout my journeys across the universe over eons, I have found that there is nothing that can compare to the will of a sentient being,
“Tessa, with your will, you have fought against something that none would ever wish to face. You have faced insurmountable odds in the name of freedom, knowing that you would fail. You have shown bravery and courage like few ever have, and in doing so, you have established yourself as a hero.
“You are the next great legend of the universe.”
“Great? Me? The only thing I was destined for was being a corporate wife.”
“Greatness is not something that can be inherited or bestowed. It comes from within when faced with an impossible task that must be done. And you, young Tessa, are already one of the great heroes of the galaxy.”
Tessa did not know how to explain it, but somehow, her shoulders felt lighter. Heck, her entire body felt lighter, as though years of stress had been erased. Although, that could also be attributed to the fact that Cyn had skinned her and had deprived her of a lot of blood and muscle.
“Righty-o,” She said, the fire of determination once more igniting within her. She did not know how to explain it, but Optimus Prime’s speech just did something to her. “So, now what? I hate to break it to ya, but I don’t think that fancy leadership knife is going to do much to Cyn. And on top of that, I’m pretty sure my body’s dying.”
“This is not a weapon that you have found,” Optimus said, holding up a hand with the Matrix floating over it. “It is an honor that you have earned. Accept it, and be born anew.
“Your time is now.”
He shifted his palm, and the Matrix floated over to Tessa. It touched her skin, and her world exploded with pain.
Tessa woke up screaming and off-handedly realized that the sky was red, the air she breathed was polluted, and the rain falling from the dark yellow clouds was acidic. She could also feel the Matrix, still impaled in her hand, pulse with energy. With herculean effort, she opened her eyes and focused on her hand, powering through the sensation of her skinless body being on fire to try and comprehend what was happening.
Black metal formed out of nothing, spreading from the matrix and crawling over and into her muscles. Her nerves were set alight once more as electricity crackled across her body and metal invaded her biology, reformatting her physiology and rewriting her genetic code without anesthesia.
The process lasted a minute, but it felt like a lifetime. She raised her arms, noting that both arms responded, and looked at her own body.
She had a new skin, one made of a glossy black metal. Underneath, she could feel muscles with incredible density, so much so that each step left footprints on solid rock. Her eyes adjusted, allowing her to see details that no human eye could ever pick out, to the point where she could see and identify individual cells.
The acid rain had no effect on her body. Some sort of energy flowed through her body, repairing all damage. Looking down at her chest, she could see a glowing scar that ran down vertically between her breasts, and from within, the Matrix of Leadership floated out.
She had truly been reborn.
She willed it, and the Matrix entered her body once more. The glowing scar shrunk to a thin line, but it remained.
With another twist of her will, her metallic skin morphed. More metal grew from her, forming familiar clothes. Combat boots grew from her feet, a protective facemask emerged from her cheekbones, and AR goggles emerged from her forehead. All made of the same metal, which then changed color and opacity as per her design.
And as if that wasn’t enough, she even managed to create a sword and a gun, both weapons perfectly balanced and far more powerful than they had been. A single test shot from her gun knocked down a building, and her sword glowed a bright orange when she channeled her internal energy through it.
She saw spaceships launch into the sky, and the planet shuddered under her. The Earth was about to explode. Compartments in her calves opened up, revealing rocket boosters.
Without hesitation, she took to the skies as the planet began to collapse.
Had Earth fallen? Yes. Had 99% of all humans died? Yes. Had all dogs been made immortal and evacuated? Yes.
Had Cyn won?
For now.
Things looked bleak, but Tessa was going to be damned if she was just going to roll over and accept it.
Copper-9 was where they had made the cure, so that is where she would go. She blasted off into space, and some internal systems plotted out a course for her.
The Linkin Park music peaked, and she could hear Optimus Prime say a few final words to her.
“If you ever feel helpless and alone, look to the stars, and know that I am there.”
“Cyn,” She thought, transmitting the message for any receivers to pick up. The words came almost instinctively. “Wherever you are, know this: I am Tessa Prime, and I am coming for you.”
Behind her, Earth exploded, but she did not look back. More rockets emerged from her forearms, doubling her acceleration as she rocketed off into the inky void of deep space.