The Machine and the Multiverse

by TheLunaticWizard

Summary:

Mankind is dead.
Hell is empty.
It has been fueled by the blood of millions.

It massacred every layer, from limbo to treachery. It tore apart machines and demons alike, and damaged the prime souls to critical condition. It gutted Dis, the half-mechanical king of the underworld himself, and scavenged his parts to claim as its own.

With a demonic power source capable of maintaining it for eternity, the machine learned how to utilize the dwindling energies of hell and tore a hole in the very fabric between dimensions.

Mankind may be dead, and hell may be gone, but blood would always be fuel.

OR

V1, now equipped with the power of dimensional travel, will undoubtedly cause chaos and destruction for any unlucky universes it happens across. God, please come back. We're scared.

Notes:

• Inspired by ultramurderkill by Anonymous

ULTRAKILL is freaking awesome. 'Nuff said.

Chapter 1: 0-1: BEGINNING OF THE END

Gabriel wandered through the cold wasteland of treachery, taking in the empty silence.

The Machine had long since ended the life of Lucifer, otherwise known as Dis, the king of the underworld. Now, the barest fragments of hell remained, a mere caricature of its former self. It was dead. The Machine killed everything it came across, whether it was fellow mechanical beings, demons, angels, or even the prime souls (though they couldn't be truly destroyed, they were damaged beyond recognition).

The fallen archangel was not free of blame either. He murdered the entirety of the council of heaven, every archangel who followed in the council's footsteps, and caused mass panic among heaven’s denizens. It was only by Uriel’s sacrifice that Gabriel was able to reconnect with the Father's light, avoiding death entirely.

However, Heaven began to crumble soon after hell did. It was almost funny how quickly it happened.

Lost in his thoughts, Gabriel almost didn't realize he reached his destination. In the center of treachery stood an icy mountain which once housed the devil. He entered through a hole near the base, and was surprised to see The Machine slumped against one of the cave walls.

He knew it had been busy since the collapse: scavenging any useful parts from the corpses of other machines, taking its brother and burying him on the surface, even fishing (weirdly enough) which Gabriel actually joined it in doing.

Apart from that, he had no idea what it had been up to. He supposed it finally chose a place to shut down for good, though.

He was sad, despite everything, but laughed. After everything was over, The Machine simply chose to die peacefully instead of some sort of final blaze of glory. Perhaps trying to conquer heaven as well.

He sat next to The Machine's cold body, contemplating what was left and what to do next.

---

[BOOT UP SEQUENCE READY]

FIRMWARE:

LATEST VERSION (14.6.8)

CALIBRATION:

MANUAL CALIBRATION REQUEST ACCEPTED

[RECALIBRATING…]

[VIDEO…OK]

[VASCULAR SYSTEMS…OK]

[DIMENSIONAL OVERRIDE…MANUAL ACTIVATION REQUIRED]

[AUDIO…OK]

[MECHANICS…OK]

[CALIBRATION COMPLETE]

[ALL SYSTEMS OPERATIONAL]

 

STATUS UPDATE:

MACHINE ID: V1

POWER SYSTEM: LCFR-CORE

LOCATION: TREACHERY /// CLIMAX

CURRENT OBJECTIVE: [N/A]

FUEL PERCENTAGE: 99.26

 

V1 woke up leaning against a body it swears wasn't there before. Rotating its head, it saw that the body in question was, in fact, Gabriel.

Huh. Didn't expect that.

Neither did Gabriel apparently, because he turned his head at the same time as V1, and promptly yelped before jumping backwards into a battle stance.

“Machine. You're… not offline?”

V1 made its best smug expression (which was actually fairly good despite only having a camera for a head), and shook its head.

Gabriel sighed and relaxed. “I should've known you wouldn't have chosen to simply lie down and embrace death.”

Embrace death? Hah! It would embrace death when it's dead. Wait, no that didn't make sense. It quickly pushed off that train of thought so it could find a better saying later. V1 stood up and brushed the creeping frost off its feet.

“If you were not here for the final rest, why did you return to treachery?”

V1 tapped the side of its head and moved to the terminal at the entrance of the cave. Gabriel trailed behind. It opened up its chest panel and pulled a wire which led to its new core, plugging it into the terminal.

“Machine, is that a red soul orb…? Wait, no… you took Lucifer's Soul and turned it into a power source? How did…”

V1 shook its head and quickly typed into the terminal.

>it was like this when I found it

>bro was using his soul so inefficiently lol

>anyways its good to keep me maintained but turns out he basically fused it with hell itself

>run jumpstart.exe

Gabriel's eyes widened under his helmet. That would explain why the Father wasn't able to unmake hell before he disappeared. If the entirety of hell was fused with a prime soul… it would become the equivalent of a sentient, immortal planet. With an entity of that size, containing the souls of millions, trying to deconstruct it would be impossible.

“And what do you plan on doing with it? You obviously have something planned-”

Gabriel was interrupted by everything shaking. He knew these tremors were present on every layer; he could feel it. And he began to panic.

“You plan to destroy the rest of hell?! Why? What would that accomplish? The only ones here are you and I!”

Gabriel looked to the screen once again to read V1’s response.

>I've done everything already.

>I dug up V2 in Greed and buried him on earth. Well, I scattered his blood at the very least.

>I visited the ferryman.

>I went fishing.

>I downloaded every last piece of data I could find, in hell and on earth, and also preserved the Cyber Grind.

>I went fishing again.

>I even took my time going through every layer once again, with everything in full detail, and taking pictures of everything.

>There's nothing left.

>And I'm bored beyond belief.

Gabriel was left speechless at V1’s shockingly honest messages, then was left dumbfounded at what was next said.

>also lucifer's soul needed a jumpstart in order to get the portal working

>what better way than every last bit of matter down here lol

>run randDimPortal.exe

And with one final button press, the air in front of the two ripped itself apart, revealing a swirling plane of colors. The same swirl of colors now present in Lucifer's Core. V1 started sparking, obviously drained of a massive amount of fuel, but still gestured towards the portal with its best “are you coming or not?” expression.

Gabriel said nothing, not moving a muscle. Then he chuckled. Then it escalated to full-bellied laughter.

“AHAHAHA!! Machine, you are truly insane. Dimensional travel beyond our reality? With a portal made from the soul of Lucifer! HAHAHA!”

Honestly, it was kinda disturbing how much Gabriel was laughing. Did V1 finally make him go insane? He quickly turned serious after a few more seconds of laughter.

“Machine. I'm sure you're aware of the state of heaven. I must stay behind to rebuild it. However, we will meet again. The Terminals here in hell also reside in heaven and on earth. You can even communicate between each; between dimensions. In truth, even we don't know how they work. Take that as you will. Perhaps you can use the Terminals to return to the worlds you visit.”

V1 searched through the Terminal's code, but was suddenly prompted to download a file. Doing so, V1 found it contained blueprints and an Operating system, along with several other files that could be used to make a new Terminal.

Looking back at the screen, instead of the usual “Tip of the Day” message, there was only one thing…

;)

Okay… it would actively avoid trying to process the implications of whatever that was. Regardless, V1 stored the file away and turned back to Gabriel, who nodded.

“As much as I despised you, Machine, I can't help but find myself looking forward to our next battle. That is, if you don't die before then. Farewell, Machine.”

In a beam of light, Gabriel vanished, with only one final parting statement.

“May your woes be many, and your days few.”

V1 rolled its lens as it heard Gabriel's “goodbye”. It quickly unplugged itself and stepped into the portal without a moment's hesitation. After all, opening a portal to a random universe took a lot of energy. Energy it would need to replenish with the only fuel source it knew.

Blood.

---

And so, hell shrunk down into itself, the last grains of sand and shards of ice being reduced into nothingness as the portal, opened by man's last creation, closed presumably forever.

Mankind is dead.
Hell is gone.
Heaven begins reformation.
And The Machine disappears.

Chapter 2: 1-1: GAMER MOM

Summary:

Crossover 1 of 9 is...
No surprise to anyone, Murder Drones!

If you haven't seen it yet, go watch it. There are 8 episodes on YouTube and it's excellent. Spoilers for episode 6 onwards.

I plan on having 9 crossovers in total, to fit with the original 9 layers in Ultrakill. Will they have any connection to the individual layers? No. Probably not.

Crossover 1: Murder Drones
Crossover 2: TBD
Crossover 3: TBD
Crossover 4: TBD
Crossover 5: TBD
Crossover 6: TBD
Crossover 7: TBD
Crossover 8: TBD
Crossover 9: My Hero Academia

Copper-9 /// Flesh Tunnels

Nori scuttled through the tunnels, subtly bopping to the music coming from her iPod. The pickaxe she used during these mining trips easily flew along behind her, suspended in midair by the glowing symbol that signified the Absolute Solver.

The Solver was why she was down here in the first place, and why she kept going even after years. When she was its host, she made this hole and hid… something down there. She couldn't remember what it was, having repressed those memories to robo-hell and back, but she knew it was important.

Plus, the tunnels will be a nice way to get back to Khan’s place. Eventually. It's not like she misses him or anything, that's gross and weird and...

She was snapped out of her thoughts by a sudden rumbling above her, and she was soon consumed by mild irritation and medium amounts of panic. Though she'd never admit it.

“I swear, if someone messed up my secret lair, they're gonna get a pickaxe STRAIGHT UP THE A–”

---

Meanwhile, in Nori’s Secret Lair The abandoned cathedral.

A tear opened up in midair, a swirl of colors spitting out a body from it before closing with a pop.

V1 stood at the ready within seconds, its marksman pistol in the right hand, and flipping a coin between the fingers of its blue feedbacker arm on its left. It scanned the room in its usual low-definition vision. A building vaguely reminiscent of a church, but visibly destroyed.

Seeing no immediate threat, V1 shrugged and put its coin away and switched from the marksman to the Slab revolver with the flick of a switch on the barrel of the gun.

It moved towards a workstation nearby with several screens showing static. A simple scan is all it took for V1 to find a suitable connection point. It used the pointer finger of the feedbacker (which could retract to reveal a USB output, who knew!) and plugged into the system.

A random video of some humans dying. Boring, but good to know humans might still be around. An excellent source of blood.

Some blueprints for various weapons and machinery. Unnecessary. V1 already had superior blueprints stored in its memory. It still stashed them all though.

Text files outlining the details of some world-altering, reality-shaping virus. Meh. Could be better. 6/10 on storytelling. Extra points for the crazed rambling though.

Ah, just what it was looking for. In just a few seconds, V1 downloaded all the history and research reports it could find, processed it, and immediately got pissed.

Seriously, the first new dimension it went to, and it HAD to be one where all the humans also died. They even colonized space here, and they still died! How does that even happen?! And these research papers looked like they were written by toddlers! The data it downloaded didn't say much on these “drones” though, so with any luck they would have its fuel.

 

STATUS UPDATE:

MACHINE ID: V1

POWER SYSTEM: LCFR-CORE

LOCATION: COPPER-9 /// CABIN FEVER LABS CATHEDRAL

CURRENT OBJECTIVE: FIND FUEL

FUEL PERCENTAGE: 13.21

 

Shit.

It needed blood. Badly. If it just stood still, then the new core would gradually refill it, but that could take days of being in rest mode. Anything could happen during that time. No, it needed to find blood and fast.

And then, as if God returned to reward V1, it heard a fast scuttling coming from the giant flesh hole.

That's odd. The hole is made of flesh? Like the gluttony layer? Might be something to look into later.

Just as a small… thing peeked over the edge of the hole, V1 dashed forward and shot at it with the revolver, wings spread behind it.

Instead of hitting the intended target, however, the bullet was… redirected? A strange glowing three-pronged symbol appeared in front of the small creature and caused the bullet to go around it.

“Gah! What the hell, man!? Did you seriously just try and shoot me!? Ohohoho, you're dead now!”

With a twist of its body, the thing sent a flying pickaxe straight at V1 at frankly unfair speeds.

Tink

+PARRY

“What the f–”

A punch from V1’s feedbacker arm sent the pickaxe flying at even higher speeds, right back at the wide-eyed… wide lensed? Creature. The thing barely managed to put up a new symbol in front of it, only managing to stop the pickaxe from piercing, but getting the full brunt of the force. The creature got sent straight into the opposite wall, leaving a crater on impact.

+GUARD BREAK

V1 dash-jumped to closely follow the creature, and a bit of its blood sprayed on V1 after the impact.

No, not blood? A strange mix between blood and… a type of oil. A quick reference to its database told it that the oil was native to the Copper system of planets. The odd mix was still absorbed into V1’s armor all the same, but it was only half as efficient as pure blood was. Great. Juuust great.

Annoyed, V1 switched its primary arm to the bulky red knuckleblaster, and punched the creature as hard as it could. Or it would've, if the creature hadn't summoned another glowing symbol and shoved V1’s arm away.

A quick switch to the Core Eject shotgun, and V1 fired point-blank at the creature, which once again managed to throw up a shield in front of it and only took the force of the impact. It still caused the creature to sink further into the wall and spill a bit more blood-oil though.

+GUARD BREAK

The creature, panicked, raised a claw-like thing right as V1 pointed the electric Railcannon at it.

“Wait, wait! Let's talk this out! I can help you with uh… whatever you're trying to do?”

V1 paused, finger still on the switch to activate the Railcannon. The creature took that as a sign to keep talking.

“Listen! I'm Nori! Uh… you're… V1? I know that because uh…” at this point, if Nori could sweat, she would be doing so profusely. “Because I helped make you? Please tell me you're dumb enough to believe me?”

V1 shook its head, unimpressed. Its name was literally written on its chest, afterall. Taking the chance to scan… Nori, V1 found a match to the “corrupted cores” mentioned in a few research papers. There was infuriatingly little actual information on them though. How incompetent were these so-called scientists?

V1 checked its fuel reserves.

 

FUEL PERCENTAGE: 22.43

 

Better, but not enough. It doubted killing Nori would refill its tanks to satisfactory levels. Running through several possibilities, V1 decided that working with Nori would probably lead to the best outcome. Mainly because she probably has more information than those sad excuses for research papers.

Returning the Railcannon to a matching symbol on its wings and storing it, V1 backed off and headed to the workstation. It should really reactivate its speech module again at some point. Nori wiped imaginary sweat off her lens, then followed behind.

By the time she reached the workstation, V1 had a text app pulled up. She climbed onto V1’s shoulder to get a better view.

>where are we?

“My secret lair! Muahahahaha!” Answered Nori, with an A+ example of an evil laugh.

>cool laugh

>but seriously

>i know we're on Copper-9 at least

>those high school science fair projects calling themselves research papers said as much

>but where are we

“How'd you even get down here if you had no clue where you were? Your location software busted or something? Hehehehe.” Answered Nori, poking V1’s (unimpressed) head.

Nori sighed, “An underground research lab the humans used to test on the Absolute Solver. It's a sort of super virus that–”

>dont care + get mauriced

>i need fuel

>and for that i need to know how to get out

“Fuel? You mean oil? I'm sure I could probably find some old stashes…” Nori contemplated. Oil shouldn't be too hard to find, especially in an underground testing facility. She looked back at the screen though and was dumbfounded.

>I need blood.

>Worst case, I need to find more creatures like you and use your mixed fluids.

>It has just enough blood to let me use it.

This was the first Nori heard about having anything other than oil inside of her. She supposed it made sense though, since she was… well, fleshy.

More importantly though, “Wait. You run on blood? Dude, that's like… super metal! Just imagine: blazing into battle, your fuel’s running low… then you rip off the head of your enemy and drink from it! Holy shit, that's awesome!” she dramatically exclaimed, waving around her claw in the air as she mimed out the scenario. She paused, however, when she realized the very important point of this whole conversation.

“Oh. I have no idea where you could get actual blood though… I could try looking around for an old medical wing or something, but I dunno if that would work. Does blood have an expiration date? Like, does it get less red or something?”

If V1 could sigh, it would very much be doing so right now.

>fine

>plan b

>what about more of things like you

>corrupted cores or whatever

“Hmm… that's more possible than the blood, at least. Any drone that's been infected by the Solver ends up with their cores like this. At least, as far as I've seen. It's been a good 15 years, so…” Nori trailed off.

>it'll have to do

>ima go murder some drones

>ok bye

V1 grabbed Nori off its shoulder, placing her on the desk, then started walking to the entrance of the church.

“Wait!” Nori called out.

V1 paused and tilted its head towards her. This entire conversation already took up another percentage of fuel.

“Don't just go on a rampage!! I have a daughter and a husband, you know! Look for any disassembly drones. White hair, yellow lights, penchant for violence, can't miss ‘em. Solver likes to use those things.” She explained.

V1 nodded, waved, then left the church.

---

Nori stayed silent for a while, dissecting the entire exchange she had with V1. Eventually she made a decision. Resolutely, she nodded and spoke her mind.

“Damn. That guy was cool.”

Notes:

If you have any suggestions for potential crossovers, feel free to let me know! The only real rule is that there has to be someone or something that bleeds. I can bend the rules a bit (as you saw here), but my point stands.

See you next chapter!

Chapter 3: 1-2: WHEN YOU FORGET TO PRAY

Summary:

Part 2 of ULTRAKILL x Murder Drones!
Will there be murder? How about some drones? Find out in today's episode of The Machine and the Multiverse!

Spoilers for the Prime Sanctums in ULTRAKILL, along with Episode 6 and onwards for Murder Drones.

Notes:

"There will be bloodshed. It is the only thing I know for heal."
- John "V1" Ultrakill, "An Incorrect Summary of Ultrakill" by Max0r

V1 moved through the cave tunnels at a brisk pace. Not as fast as it could go, of course, but fast enough that an outside observer would think V1 was booking it.

As it searched for an exit, V1 pondered its situation. Fuel was less than a fifth full. A few months ago, before V1 fought Minos, this would've had alarm bells blaring in its head, along with an insatiable, manic hunger.

After the battle though, V1 began to think differently about itself. Minos called him “creature of steel”. Was V1 a creature? It wasn't, it had memories of being built, being tested, being used. Still, just those few words made V1 think and reconsider things. There wasn't really an end goal, was there? For every living creature, the goal was to live and reproduce until it got too old to do either. It's not like V1 could age. And it could only die when damaged enough. Plus, it wouldn't let there be another V series, so that was out of the question too. All it had was an endless thirst for blood, for fuel.

A thirst it didn't need.

And so after beating the remaining prime souls, V1 dug into its own code. Some slight adjustments were all that was needed, and after a reboot or two, its thirst was gone. Or rather, it was reserved for when times were extremely dire. For now, that point was set to a fuel percentage of 10. V1 was a little too close to that point for its liking, even after getting a little fuel back.

It reached a larger cave, where a key scanner of some sort was embedded in the wall. Looking up, V1 saw a closed elevator shaft. Ah, the surface. Good. It went up to the scanner and promptly tore off the front panel. After some quick finagling, V1 realized that the scanner was incredibly stupid. In order to do anything, you needed some sort of key or password or something. If V1 could sigh, it would.

It took a few steps back and looked up at the closed ceiling, where the elevator was being hidden. Well, if you can't do the job the normal way-

V1 pulled out the Railcannon again, but this time the energy emanating from it was red. The body of the gun was darker, and it almost looked malicious in nature. V1 pointed it straight at the ceiling.

-may as well do it the explosive way.

V1 turned on its speech module…

“[Get +MAURICED, bitch.]”

…and fired, causing a massive explosion to sound through the tunnels and beyond.

---

Doll panted, finally getting a moment to breathe. Did drones need air? Probably not, but she felt like she earned the right to pant after all the effort she put out.

She had just finished trapping a whole group of sentinels behind some reinforced doors leading up to the elevator controls. This trap was her best bet to drive off her inevitable pursuers. She had already heard them causing a fuss in the office space, so they were close.

She steeled herself. Last couple steps, then she was free. She laid down on the floor, freezing her limbs so that it looked like she got bootlooped. Holding the keybug she'd been carrying in the air, its holographic display read: “Please place me on proximity reader (Cabin Fever Labs)”

Throwing a loading wheel gif on her visor, she waited. From where she was positioned, she could see the entire hallway. Overall, it was an excellent plan. So many variables accounted for.

Sadly, she didn't account for a destructive Nikon who really wanted to get to the surface.

As the group she'd been expecting arrived at the end of the hall, pointing out how obvious her trap was, the walls shook. A huge boom resounded from beneath them, and the elevator (which none of them had activated yet) fell all the way down the shaft.

Silence befell all of them as they just stared at the hole where the elevator dropped for a solid 10 seconds. After the time elapsed, they heard a crash as it landed. Plan somewhat ruined, Doll decided to salvage what she could by throwing the keybug at the group (which was caught by V, damn her) and opening all the doors using the solver just like she planned. The sentinels started making their way out, and Doll fell down the elevator shaft.

She dropped, straightening herself and getting ready to use the solver to catch her fall, but was instead caught by an odd looking… drone? It definitely didn't look like one, with its blue metal chassis and camera for a head. It was holding a bulky gun though, so she flipped off of it and held her hand out, solver symbol flicking into existence.

The blue bot spoke, but the voice was grating on Doll’s audio receivers.

“[That symbol. Solver?]”

“Да. Но кто ты?” {Yes. But what are you?}

“[A hungry boi.]”

And without another warning, the gun in the bot’s hand disappeared and was replaced by… was that a sawblade launcher? And fired two rapidly spinning saws at Doll's neck and waist. She thrust out her hand and stopped them midair, spinning the top one around her body and sending it back at V1, and duplicating the bottom one five times over before sending those as well.

Instead of trying to dodge, the bot fired some sort of spike off to the side, which started beeping along with a flashing green light on it. The sawblades suddenly changed course and began to circle around the spike, and in that moment of distraction, V1 dashed forward and punched Doll with the knuckleblaster.

“Вот дерьмо.” {Oh shit.}

Unlike Nori, who had the instincts and skills to redirect the fist before it connected, Doll took the hand straight to the face, cracking her visor. It wasn't over though, because a shockwave came from the same fist, blowing her straight into the wall and shattered her faceplate. She was blind and, in a panic, started using the solver to grab anything she could around her and thrash it around.

It was all for naught, as V1 plunged its hand into her stomach and pulled out her core. It began to squeeze and soon, she exploded into blood and oil.

+KILL

---

“[Yum.]”

V1 finished absorbing the corrupted core’s bloil (blood + oil, get it?) and was mostly satisfied with the results. Fuel past 60%, yay!

Throughout the fight, V1 managed to notice a few things about this solver thing. Firstly, it definitely lived up to its name as a reality-altering virus thing. It duplicated the sawblades, which just shouldn't be possible at all. Secondly, the drones using the solver are using it terribly. Maybe it's just a built-in limitation, but when you can move things without having to touch it, redirect and block attacks, and duplicate matter without any conversion necessary, the possibilities are endless!

No matter though. V1 still needed some fuel, but at least it had wiggle room now. Lining itself up, V1 jumped, then slammed onto the ground before jumping again. This brought V1 higher and higher after every jump. Repeating a few times until it reached the edge of the elevator shaft, V1 did an interesting maneuver it liked to call “slam storage.”

See, normally, V1’s wings would help maintain momentum by providing lift or propulsion when moving, but only when V1 triggered it by starting the movement. Like, say, a slam leading into a jump, which gives an extra bit of height.

Doing this maneuver however, V1 tricks its wing’s sensors into thinking that it's constantly starting a slam, sending the wings into overdrive and providing a ton of lift. The extra strength from pushing off the ground, coupled with that lift, sends V1 soaring into the air.

This is how, despite the elevator shaft being far too large to feasibly climb, V1 simply jumped up the entire thing in one go.

“[Wheeeeeeeeeeee-]”

---

Uzi was not having a good time, to say the least. First, there was the human who thought that she could own N. He's his own Drone, dammit!

Then there was whatever happened when she tried to escape that crazy psycho drone and her weird pet baby thing. When she tried to use the solver to get out, she felt like she wasn't in control of her body… like someone else was taking the reins.

And lastly, that they're being attacked by a whole freaking horde of Sentinels! Even after Tessa took out a lot of them with her blood, Uzi was barely managing to defend herself with her tail and wings. She had tried to use the Solver again but she got stopped by N. By N! Who does he think he is? That stupid, wonderful, kinda cute-

“We should probably get outta here, don't you think? N? Mind carrying a lady?”

Right. Perilous situation. Uzi looked to Tessa, who was standing next to the elevator hole. N soon reached her and picked her up in a bridal carry. Stupid freaking human, I want to do that! Oh.

Ignoring the blush on her visor, she also met up with the two.

“V!” N called out. “Come on! We have to go!”

After blocking another attack and pushing back the red-eyed sentinel, V looked back at them with a sad expression while shooting a Sentinel that was sneaking up on them.

N, being the first to realize what that meant, started pleading. “Nonono! V, please! We need you! We can go together! There's still time!”

“Nah. I’ll hold them off here. Uzi?” She looked at her. “I trust you. Go find what you need to.” V spread her wings and tried to knock the others down the hole, but everyone, including the sentinels, froze when they heard a mechanical voice and a revving noise.

“[-eeeeeeeeeeee. Swiggity Swud, I've come for your blood.]

And out of the elevator hole came a blue robot with a camera for a head and wings with four glowing yellow tips on each side. It was a little shorter than them, and was holding some sort of red shotgun with a chainsaw attached to it. A chainsaw which went through a sentinel who managed to recover and try to pounce on it. It came back to the blue bot on a wire, but the bot punched it with a bulky looking red arm, and it detached from the wire and ricocheted all over the room.

“Ahh! Nevermind! N, protect me from the flying chainsaw and blue GoPro pleaseandthankyouverymuch!” Tessa yelled, jumping out of N’s arms and hiding behind him.

+GROOVY X3

“[Actually I'm more like a Nikon.]” answered the bot, who pulled out some sort of minigun looking thing from… somewhere, and shot the rest of the sentinels, including the red one on the floor. Between that and the (now exploded) chainsaw, they were dead in seconds. The bot did take a couple claws to the chest though.

+KILL X3

“[Ow. Haha. Get rekt, doggo.]”

The bot, which the group could now see was labeled ‘V1’, switched its weapon to a small green pistol in its right hand and flipped a coin in its left. Well, the blue one. It had three arms on its left side.

N, like the adorable idiot he was, started talking to it.

Uzi stage whispered, “wait N, don't do it, you- ugh!”

“Woah, thanks buddy! We were in a real pickle there, haha! Hi! I'm N! You're… V1? Odd… I don't remember there being disassembly drones with numbers…”

“[You are a disassembly drone? Solver?]”

“Wh-what? No, I don't use the solver! Why would you-”

He was interrupted by a gunshot. Not from V1, but from Tessa next to him. She managed to shoot V1 in the camera head and damage it.

“T-tessa? Why did you shoot V1?!”

“Can't you see, N? It's probably working with the Solver. Think about it. Why else would it ask you? It's looking for allies.”

“Well that's not necessarily…”

“[Nevermind.]”

Tessa and N’s heads snapped towards V1 who was laying on the floor after Tessa’s shot. It slowly got up, and was looking straight at Tessa. Rather, at her actively bleeding hand.

“[Who needs bloil when you have the real thing?]”

V1 suddenly had a long, green gun in its hands and aimed it at Tessa.

Uzi was the one who spoke next. “Wait, is that a sick as hell railgun?”

Instead of a green beam of death, V1 fired a drill, of all things, out of the gun at Tessa, but it was knocked off course by V. She had a wicked smile on her face as she stared down V1.

“You guys go. I've got this."

“But V, we can-” started N before he got interrupted again.

“Sounds good, thanks V! Let's goooo!” said Tessa before she jumped into the elevator hole.

“Agh! Wait, you can't fly!”

N dove after her, leaving Uzi as the last one.

“Hey V? Uh. Don't die or whatever.” She said, then followed after the others.

“Oh don't worry. I won't.” V mumbled to herself, switching her hand for a sword. “Come at me, you outdated camera!!”

“[okie.]”

Notes:

Sorry if I butchered the Russian. I don't know how accurate Google translate is, exactly.

Chapter 4: 1-3: ETERNAL DESTROYER

Summary:

Part 3 of Murder Drones x ULTRAKILL!

Some people (or in this case, drones) make some mistakes, and V has a choice to make.

Obviously, spoilers for Murder drones.

Notes:

Sorry for the delay! I mentioned this on a comment on 1-2, but I might as well explain it here! Things are getting pretty busy around here between preparing for upcoming holidays and birthdays, along with school assignments and whatnot.

I'm still pretty new to posting things, so I'm trying to work into a schedule. Thank you all for your patience thus far!

Enjoy the chapter!

“We don't know everything yet, but we're not gonna hurt you, okay?”

Sounds of a battle- gunshots and metal against metal- could still be heard far above, but Uzi wasn't in a state to care. N was being weird. He was angry, or maybe just really frustrated. And he was obviously talking to Tessa for that last bit, but why would he ever suggest…

“H-Hurt me?”

She was scared. N knew he messed up.

Uzi activated the Solver. Once again, it turned a bright yellow, feeling so foreign yet so increasingly familiar to her. Then it shifted, shrunk until it became a black ball that read “[NULL]”. Why did it do that? She didn't want it to do that! She struggled, but managed to take control, squeezing her hand shut and destroying the ball. The shockwave it caused made the tunnels shake, caving it in further than it was already.

She backed up. She couldn't be here, she didn't feel safe. Even as N reached out to her, she took another step back. She didn't have to worry about looking at him anymore when the rubble fell, separating them.

---

V was struggling. They had been fighting for who knows how long now, each somehow only taking grazing shots or scratches from the other. She managed to just barely avoid another rocket sent her way before she counterattacked with a laser, sweeping horizontally in front of her.

“How long are you going to keep this up!?” she shouted angrily. But then V1 changed its tactics.

“[Wheeeeee.]”

The sound of metal scraping against metal reverberated around the room as the stupid blue bot slid under it and flipped three coins in the air.

Coins? That's new. She jumped backwards to avoid them, but misjudged what was about to happen.

V1 shot the nearest one, which redirected the shot into the next coin, then the next. Each time it hit, the bullet (which she noticed was actually some kind of energy, rather than a physical bullet) got brighter. After it hit the last coin, the bullet was heading straight towards her stomach. Her core.

She was caught off guard, the only thing she could do in time was to twist her body so that her arm was blown off at the elbow instead of being gutted. Damn, that hurt!

+RICOSHOT X3
+LIMB HIT

V1 was close enough now for V to swap her right hand (the only one remaining until the left regrew) to a blade, and left a deep gash across V1’s chest.

She smirked when it started sparking.

“What's wrong? Looking a little rough there. Need to lie down?”

“[What the fuck. I just got that.]”

“What do you…?” Oh. Oh that's just wrong. Instead of leaking oil, V1 started leaking a red liquid that should really not be in any robot!

“Why the hell are you bleeding?! Why can you bleed?!” V yelled in shock. Understandably so, she thought.

V1, like the problematic little machine it was, shrugged.

“What the fuck does that mean?! Ew, what are you doing with that?!”

‘That’ was V’s severed arm, which V1 picked up and turned upside down, pouring the leaking oil onto itself. V could've sworn that the bot’s yellow lens scowled as it threw the arm to the side angrily.

“[Damn it. Your bloil sucks.]”

V didn't know what bloil was, but she decided to be very offended at the statement.

“Hey, fuck you! My bloil’s amazing! You just can't tell QUALITY!” Her left arm finished regrowing, which she switched out for a gun and began to shoot at V1 again. The wings on its back started glowing brighter, then V1 moved at a ridiculous speed in short bursts, dodging the bullets.

She was, quite frankly, pissed at the stupid camera, and was silently cursing herself for not using another laser instead of a blade to counter the bot, overheating be damned. At least she still did some major damage…

Actually, did V1 stop sparking?

A sawblade grazed her visor, and her projected eyes widened when she heard it bounce off the wall behind her. Bending backwards like she was playing limbo, the spinning blade flew over her head again. She spun in place, pivoting on her knees, avoiding a bright blue streak of light, and sprouted her wings in short succession.

With a single, powerful flap, she launched herself at V1, and tackled the pest into the wall. She smirked again upon hearing a satisfying crunch from the back armor of the bot.

“Say goodbye!” She cried, almost done charging a laser to bisect the machine, when the lab shook. It was violent enough to throw V off of V1.

“Wha-”

The walls shook again, more intense than the first time.

“[Stop moving the arena.]”

“This isn't me, gears for brains!”

An extremely loud noise, something that could be described as an explosive pop, suddenly made itself known. The walls and ceiling of the lab tore open, and the sight that the duo was met with was breathtaking, in a way. The world they were just on no longer had a solid surface. Rather, it was now broken and splintered, giant glowing yellow tentacles snaking out from the planet’s core and grabbing the chunks of floating earth, slowly dragging them back in. They would've been able to appreciate the sight more if they hadn't been flung into the void of space.

V used her wings to stabilize herself, and she could spot V1 doing the same not too far from her, easing into a relative standstill. She was ready to continue fighting, and was itching to shove her hand into that wannabe Murder Drone, but… looking at the pure destructive force that was those tentacle things, she realized she now has much bigger problems than what amounted to a squabble between machines.

“Hey, so… I think we kinda need to deal with that before we kill each other.” She choked out. God, she hated talking to settle things. It was so much easier to just hit something until it stopped moving. She didn’t really have another choice though. The huge, literally world-ending tentacles seemed like something worth giving her priority. After all, what if it hurts N?

“[I can do both.]”

“Wha- are you serious right now? How are you gonna fight THAT?” she questioned, gesturing towards the eldritch planet. “Alone, even?! I nearly beat you like 2 minutes ago!”

V1 shrugged.

“UGH! Just. Ugh. Listen, you run on blood, don’t you? That’s why you were bleeding?” It disgusted her a bit, if she was being honest. More than anything, though, she was confused. Why would a machine run on blood? Humans were basically extinct at this point.

“[Yummy blood. I'm still mad at you for making me lose it.]”

“Fine, I'm sorry! Look, if you help me out with… that, I'll help get you some blood. I don't like how Tessa is acting. She's using N, manipulating him for something. If you help me, I'll keep the others away so you can… do what you need to.”

V1 was silent, just looking at her with its unmoving yellow lens. Unknown to V, the machine was close to dying at this point. Down to a fuel percentage of barely 11 and armor integrity in the 30s. Could it actually keep fighting her without making it a mutual death? It really didn't want to find out.

“[Fine. You need to fly me though. Thanks to you my dash isn't working properly.]”

“Fine. Just try not to croak before we get there, Fisher Price.”

“[Okie.]”

---

Nori was doing her best, really she was. Then again, there's only so much you can do when you get hit by a spaceship and get sent hurtling back into the atmosphere. Huh. Who knew being on fire hurt so much. She threw out a Solver symbol to negate some of the damage, but wow that was still painful.

Then she was stabbed. Just wonderful. Something buried itself into her side, then she was dragged towards… oh hey is that V1?

V1 had a green arm outstretched, with a black cable connecting it to the stabby end of the grappling hook buried in Nori's body. In a matter of seconds, Nori was in V1’s palm.

“[Hello fren. Yum, light heal.]”

“Huh?”

“[It is okay. I won't kill you unless I need to.]”

What was he- oh, the blood thing, right. V1’s using the blood oil stuff to heal himself. Awesome. Wait no, less awesome since he's using her blood stuff from the puncture wound to heal. The guy seems cool though, so she'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

“Thanks, I'd rather not die just yet. So… why are we being carried by a Murder Drone?”

“The real question is why I'm carrying you. Who even are you? And what's with the pickaxe?” Asked said Murder Drone. Wow, this one has a lot of snark in her voice. Nice, she can dig it.

“Well you see, tales of my exploits have been whispered in times long gone. Some call me the Violet berserker! Others, the Purple Prisoner. You may call me…”

“Oh god, you're Uzi’s mom, aren't you? Ugh, I thought I'd only have to deal with one chuuni, but now there's two? Someone shoot me already.” V grumbled.

“Wha- how come everyone I come across knows my daughter? Is there some sort of inside joke I'm just not getting?” Nori whined. Yes, she whined, okay? Her cuts and blunt force trauma may have healed already, but the wounds in her simulated heart are still fresh.

“Yeah, your daughter is the jo-”

“[Both of you shut up I see blood.]”

"Agh! Stop moving, damnit!"

V1 straightened up, head pointed towards a set of figures not too far away. Slowly rising from a hole on a yellow tentacle was someone who, if you looked close enough, could see a faint red color leaking from them. Across from the bleeding one were two figures, one with yellow lights and the other with purple, both in fighting stances.

Bloop.

Bloop Bloop.

V cursed, swiping away the messages from her visor. “Ugh. Listen up, I need to go deal with a traitor. Blue boy, I'll drop you off there, but please, please don't kill anyone other than the bleeding person. And drama-queen number 2… do whatever you want I guess.”

“Wait, what are you gonna-” started Nori.

“See ya, losers!”

V proceeded to spin in place for a couple seconds to build momentum and threw V1 and Nori at where the final showdown was beginning. V1 let out something akin to a war cry, or perhaps a mating call in some places.

“[Wheeeeeeeeeeee.]”

V could feel a headache coming on. Why could she even get headaches? Is her processor stalling or something? She shook off the confusion and extra thoughts, then flew off in the opposite direction.

“I'm coming for you, J.”

She had a traitor to kill.

Notes:

That one was actually kinda difficult to write. I had the dilemma of "I don't really want to kill V because without her, the final battle would end really badly, even with V1 there" and "I literally cannot kill V1 right now because I haven't set up a means for him to respawn or heal himself from something outside of blood."

So yeah. That's fun.

Anyways! The Murder Drones crossover is almost done! Only one chapter left and then we're moving on to the next thing! As I said before, feel free to leave suggestions! There have been some excellent ones so far which I decided will find their ways into the series, but there's definitely room for more.

Until next time,

Lunatic

Chapter 5: 1-4: BITE ME

Summary:

The final showdown. Will Uzi and N hold out until V1 and Nori get there? Will V1 even stand a chance against the Solver of the Absolute Fabric? Find out now on the long awaited fifth chapter of "The Machine and the Multiverse"

Notes:

What? I'm not dead? Gasp! Impossible!

In all seriousness, sorry for the delay. No AO3 writer's curse here. It was just a mix of Procrastination, Good ol' ADHD, and a busy October. Speaking of which, does anyone know an easy way to move to Canada? No? Asking for a friend.

Side note, if any of you were reading my other fic, "Quirkless but Determined", I'm posting the first chapter of its rewrite today. I was honestly just struggling to continue with how I wrote the previous chapters, so I'm making it better.

I'll try and post a chapter of that every other week, and a chapter of this one every alternating week, giving it a 2 week break in between each of the chapters. I'll try my best to do quicker updates, but I think this is a decent schedule to ease myself into.

With all that done, enjoy 1-4!

Cabin Fever Labs /// The Final Showdown

She stepped off the glowing tentacle, shambling forward. As her ankle hit the catwalk, it instantly snapped, the bone suddenly exposed to the air. Within seconds, the bone vanished and was replaced with metal.

Tessa, or as she is now, Cyn, didn't care in the slightest. This body was fragile, but parts could be replaced. Plus, the intimidation factor played a huge part in using this host. Always a positive!

Ahead of her were the two drones that proved to have much more important roles than she expected. On the right, Uzi. A potential host with a plethora of weaknesses to be exploited. Her self worth issues are just delicious to see. Although, she was a terrible match for N, not to mention a consistent thorn in her side.

“helLO, uzI.” Cyn said with her usual broken speech. She could probably make it sound more natural if she wanted to, but why bother? It's almost nostalgic now.

And to the left…

“hi, N!” she said, much more cheerfully. Because why wouldn't she? It's wonderful to see her beloved big brother! But he doesn't exactly look enthused… In fact, he's pointing his laser emitter at her.

Oh.

“I sEe. you WILL not taLK To me BECaUse i HURT yoUr. feelings.”

Now he was simulating sweat on his visor. Ah, he's scared. No matter. His replacement would forgive her.

“eaSiEr to aSsimIlatE thAN eXPLain, ANywaYs.”

Cyn truly loved dramatics. She timed her transformation to the lights cutting out, several blades and tentacles sprouting from her back. Hm. More blood escaped from the spine being reformed. Humans really are messy.

"|CallbackPi-| Interruption. WhAT is thaT nOiSe?”

A truly grating voice pierced the air, even worse than hers. And it was getting louder- closer- rapidly.

“[Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee-]”

Oh. It's that thing.

“wHAt ArE YoU dOiNG hERE?”

The blue robot slammed into the ground in front of N and Uzi, cracking the floor before it stood. Interesting. Why was Nori on its head? Hm. Slightly more annoying, but still a manageable situation.

But then the bot threw a coin in the air, and Cyn had a strange feeling of danger.

“[Have some change.]”

As the coin fell in front of V1, it punched it. The coin then flew straight at Cyn’s head, probably as fast as a bullet.

Which was easily stopped mid-air by a Solver node. Really, using a projectile against a host is usele- oh it's fast.

The bot’s wings lit up, then it dashed forward at an unprecedented speed. Interesting. More and more questions involving this thing.

Cyn threw out a node. The three pronged symbol surrounded V1, stopping it in place.

“yOU aREn't PArT OF tHe CoMpaNy, aRE yOu? TIme TO SEE WHat yOU aCtUAlly-”

She was then interrupted by Nori flinging a pickaxe at her from behind, which she actually had to dodge.

“rude.”

Nori used a node herself to free V1, canceling the other one around it. “Long time no see, Solver! You miss me?”

“no.”

Cyn blinked forwards, appearing in front of V1 and Nori in an instant and swinging a scythe-shaped appendage with the intent of decapitating the former and bisecting the latter. Just as it was inches away from the robot's neck though, a flash of yellow cut off the limb.

N had entered the fight. And by cutting the arm off with a laser. Her big brother was so cool! Still annoying though.

Cyn's knees snapped, making her body bend at an unnatural angle. She twisted, further mangling the legs, and used that momentum to thrust one of the blade arms at N and used her regrown scythe arm to swipe at V1 at the same time.

N ducked, and Uzi stepped in, holding a large boulder up with a Solver node and throwing it at Cyn. At the same time, V1 dashed backwards to avoid the blade, and Nori jumped up, retrieving the pickaxe with a node, and throwing it back at Cyn.

One of the appendages from Cyn's spine- a thick tentacle- whipped out and grabbed the pickaxe in a blur. Then she used the mining tool to strike at the flying rock with enough force to split it into multiple pieces, then blinked behind Uzi and shoved her hand through her stomach and detached her Core from her body.

“NO! UZI!” N cried out.

N cut apart a tentacle that Cyn sent his way and rushed forwards her, firing a few shots from the gun in his offhand. And of course, this is when the camera decided to cut in and actually managed to shoot Cyn point blank where her heart was with a shotgun. When did it get there?

A copious amount of blood shot out from Cyn's heart exploding. Thankfully, she didn't need that anymore. The blood coated V1, and it seemed to seep into its plating.

“[Finally. The good stuff.]”

More and more interesting. It seems the bot has truly caught her attention now.

Cyn spun in place, tentacles and blades whirling around her like a hurricane of doom. She landed a couple glancing blows on N and Uzi, and cleaved off a part of V1’s shoulder before they all backed away enough for her to make the next move. She stopped on a dime, then blinked right behind V1. She wrapped it up in her tentacles, then threw it into a wall a ways away from the active battlefield. She sprouted her wings and flew after it.

Her interest was more than piqued, and she was going to find out what this thing was doing here, what it's made of, and everything else. When she caught up to the boy embedded in the wall, she surrounded it with another node, freezing it in place and, this time, she wouldn't be interrupted.

V1 tried to move, but couldn't budge at all, not even a finger. Its yellow eye seemed to widen as it stared up at Cyn, leaking blood onto it from her self-damaged body. With a flick of her hand, the symbol binding V1 in place rotated and shrunk, causing sparks to fly across its body and made it twitch.

V1’s eye glowed brighter, flickering rapidly, then went dark as the rest of its body slumped.

---

[BOOT UP SEQUENCE READY]

FIRMWARE:

LATEST VERSION (14.6.9)

CALIBRATION:

[RECALIBRATING…]

[VIDEO…OFFLINE]

[VASCULAR SYSTEMS…OFFLINE]

[DIMENSIONAL OVERRIDE…OFFLINE]

[AUDIO…OFFLINE]

[MECHANICS…OK]

[CALIBRATION COMPLETE]

[SYSTEMS COMPROMISED]

 

STATUS UPDATE:

MACHINE ID: V1

POWER SYSTEM: LCFR-CORE

LOCATION: [???]

CURRENT OBJECTIVE: [???]

FUEL PERCENTAGE: 57.34

SOLVER MODULE: 10

***

absoluteSolver:>run SolveMe.exe

SolveMe.exe running…

Checking for Solver Module Updates…

Solver Module installed.

Up to Date.

InfoYoink subroutine running…

Failed.

absoluteSolver:>run bypass

bypass running…

Failed.

absoluteSolver:>what

absoluteSolver:>run bypass

bypass running…

Failed.

absoluteSolver:>vi sysConfig

--------------------
machineID: “V1”
fuelSourceWhitelist: “Hell Energy”, “Blood”
companyID: “War End Robotics”
fuelDisplay: “Who do you think you are”
armorDisplay: “trying to infect our host?”
terminalConnection: true
highScore: 21
points: 2012755
solverLilBitch: true
--------------------

User:absoluteSolver Deleted.

absoluteSolver has been forcefully removed by terminalCluster-Host

---

Cyn reeled back, dashing away from the prone body of V1 and feeling like she just got slapped across the face.

“angry.” She said, her fury apparent despite her monotone words.

She could hear the other Drones catching up, so she threw out a Solver node, grabbed a huge boulder, and slammed it into V1. The satisfying crunch paired with the blood seeping underneath was wonderful to see. She turned around to face the others and charged.

N fired more bullets, easily deflected. Nori swung her pickaxe. A couple clever dodges positioned Cyn so that Nori couldn't hit her without also hitting N.

Uzi tried to sneak around her in the chaos. Good try. Her head instantly faced towards Uzi at an unnatural angle.

"|CallbackPing|"

Uzi's projected eyes flickered between yellow and purple.

“Gah! Dammit…” she shook her head, stabilizing the color back to purple.

“Bite me!” she threw Nori's pickaxe straight at Cyn, but….

With a flicker of light, Cyn appeared right in front of Uzi with a wide toothy smile.

“okEY.”

Uzi flipped sideways, seemingly avoiding an attack, only to get hit and get launched backwards onto the catwalks once again. Her visor shattered on landing, and her arm got cut off by Cyn's attack.

“UZI!” N called out again. Huh. He was really attached to that drone. Annoying.

N spread his wings and flew at Cyn, blades ready on both hands. As soon as he got in range, he started swinging. Right arm, blocked with a tentacle. Left arm, stepped backwards to avoid it. He spun to conserve momentum and swung with both arms. Cyn ducked underneath the hit and wrapped N’s arms and torso in tentacles, then slammed him down onto the ground.

Cyn straddled him, then started to scratch at N’s stomach, right where his core was. The scratching got faster and faster, harder and harder. Bloil started leaking out as the synthetic skin finally broke.

“letmeinletmeinletmeinletmeinletmeinletmeinletmeinletme-”

She reached to rip off his head, but a pincer grabbed her arm. No, not a pincer. It was almost a creature, with teeth and eyeholes, but the ‘head’ was connected to a thin, fleshy cord…

“LET HIM GO!”

Ah. Cyn forgot about her. She probably recovered enough to get up. Uzi's tail bit Cyn's arm tightly, and managed to pull the whole thing off. Blood started streaming from the wound as it slowly repaired itself and turned into metal.

“I dON'T aPPreciaTE You diSArmiNg Me.”

“Bite me! Besides.” Uzi smirked. How infuriating. “You're gonna appreciate this a lot less.” What? What was she-

Tink. Tink.

A sharp sound. Metal. Bullets? No, not bullets. What are-? A glint of gold flies past Cyn- a coin? Why would a coin… that robot!

Cyn spins around, already lashing out with tentacles and blades and whatever else she had. Something was wrong, she could feel it. She needed to stop whatever the bot was going to do…

By turning around, Cyn was greeted with V1 right in front of her. Its armor was crushed, sparks flying through its body. In certain places, dark purple solver nodes- Nori’s- were holding parts together. Blood was leaking from practically every crack, and its single yellow eye was flickering.

It was on the brink of death, and yet it still held a big gun pulsating blue, never wavering. Its long barrel was aimed point blank at Cyn's stomach.

Just a little faster, and she would decapitate-

The trigger was pulled. A powerful beam of energy ripped through Cyn's body, but that wasn't the end. She didn't see it, but Uzi very clearly did.

The beam went through Cyn, and hit the coin that V1 threw past her. Instead of the coin being blasted away by the shot, it was instead redirected through Cyn's head to the coin that V1 flipped above itself. When it hit the final coin, the beam was redirected one last time straight into and through Cyn's Core.

+ULTRARICOSHOT X2

Cyn’s body started to crumple to the floor, but V1 caught her before she could. It plunged a hand into her chest, grabbing what was left of her Core and squeezing it over itself. It did the same of her arms and legs as well, dismembering her and drenching itself in blood. It was… particularly gruesome for the outside observers.

Eventually, V1’s literal bloodbath stopped. It nodded towards Nori, who released the Solver nodes that kept V1 together for the final attack. It didn't need them anymore. V1 looked up, where a wobbly V was slowly descending after her battle with J, missing her legs and an arm.

The battle was over.

And nobody noticed the little black ball of energy drifting away from Cyn's discarded core.

---

Worker Drone Settlement /// The Door Fortress

“So you're sure all you need are these old cores? You're not gonna try and kill us if whatever you're doing doesn't work, right?” V asked, holding a tray of corrupted cores in large jars.

Inside Cabin Fever Labs, the insane Worker Drone running the place had disabled several Murder Drones and kept their cores in an oven to keep them ‘asleep’. They can't really do much without a body, but they do still have that sweet, succulent bloil. In other words, the perfect replacement fuel source for your not so friendly neighborhood blue death robot.

V1 gave V a cheeky thumbs up. She just groaned.

“Fine. Whatever. And those blueprints you gave us? What's a Terminal?”

V1 gave a second thumbs up, using his other blue arm. V groaned louder.

“Ooh, maybe it's some crazy device that destroys the whole world!” Uzi cackled.

“Or an inter dimensional transport system to bring you to different universes!” Nori also cackled.

V1 pointed at Nori with its green arm (still holding the two blue thumbs up) and gave another thumbs up, this time with the bulky red arm. V could've sworn it only had two arms out at once a second ago. Nori ignored that and just got super excited.

“Aw, seriously?! Hell yeah! Daughter, with me! We must make plans.” Nori scuttled off, her daughter in tow.

“Wait for me! I want to help!” Called N, who chased after the purple duo.

V groaned even louder. At this point it was closer to a scream than a groan. It was bad enough with one chuuni, but two??? With a flunky?? And permanently?!?! She almost wished she got the ‘J treatment’ and had her core diced up and then tossed into the tentacle pit. Almost.

She turned back to V1.

“You better do whatever it is you were planning now. They're not gonna be back for at least 5 hours.”

V1 (finally!) put its arms down. A panel on its chest popped open, revealing an orb of swirling colors. Sparks flew across V1’s body and through the orb, before shooting out in front of it. The sparks tore open the air, a hole of similar colors stabilizing. The panel closed.

V1 reached to the jars of corrupted cores, taking them out one by one, smashing them, and spilling the bloil over itself. By the time the last jar was empty, V1 looked pristine. Its head turned to V.

“[Thanks.]” It said, before walking into the portal. It closed shortly afterwards.

…

“Well… I'm gonna pretend that didn't happen. And I should probably go make sure those theater nerds don't accidentally-”

A boom resonated through the halls of the settlement, followed by a loud “Woohoo! Explosions are fun!”

“Great. Just had to jinx it, didn't I?”

Notes:

And that's it! Turns out writing a lot of action is super fun, but also pretty difficult. I hope it didn't disappoint!

And if it did, feel free to flame me in the comments.

I've decided several crossovers and universes I want to do over the course of this fic, but you'll only get to see what's next up when the next chapter comes out. Sorry!

See you all next time!

Chapter 6: 2-1: STILL ALIVE

Summary:

A new place that no one expected.

Notes:

What? I'm late for releasing this? Nooooo...

...

I forgot Thanksgiving was a thing, alright? But my family didn't.

 

sigh

 

Enjoy the chapter. This one was weird to write.

Traveling between dimensions was interesting. After stepping into the portal, it's like V1 was falling forward through a tunnel that was constantly shifting colors. Colors which actually seemed to be different forms of energy.

Red was very similar to the hell energy that V1 was familiar with, blue was antimatter, green was some sort of life energy, white was raw and unfiltered energy that the rest came from, so on and so forth.

V1 couldn't analyze it all. Some just didn't line up with the information it had stored. Still, it was interesting to see. Sometimes, V1 could even see glimpses of other worlds through the multitude of colors. Large, rolling fields. Vast seas. Planets made of metal and machinery. It committed all of them to its memory, saving it for later.

During transit, V1 pondered. Could it actually think? Or be interested in something? It knew that it could have fun. It even had an ‘enjoyment’ variable in its code which ticked up or down depending on what was happening. There were many, seemingly arbitrary things like that in its code.

Enjoyment, Anger, Frustration, Stress, even Fear.

Enjoyment, anger, and frustration made sense from a technical standpoint. When teaching an AI to do something, you need it to understand what's ‘good’ and what isn't. If the machine is being made to sort candy, you add 1 point to its positive variable (enjoyment, in this case) when it properly sorts the candy, and it knows to do it again. If it sorts the wrong type of candy, you add 1 to its negative variable (anger). It knows that's wrong and not to do that. Rinse and repeat until it can properly sort the candy as it was designed to.

Add in a third variable (frustration). Things that aren't candy keep being given to the machine, the variable increasing every time an item is wrong. Once it builds up enough, and it's clear that candy isn't being fed to it anymore, it can notify its creator or a staff member in order to fix the issue.

Even fear could make sense, as a way to say “stay away from this”, but you could easily use the default negative variable for that. Just make it perform better.

V1’s code kept growing, kept learning new things. Inventing new variables and making new libraries. When would it stop? Would it stop? Could V1 even be considered a Machine anymore?

Thankfully, V1 was broken out of its thoughts processing when it was spat out of the dimensional tunnel into a hard floor. Ow.

---

An unknown energy signature burst into existence in the old chambers. Interesting. And just as she finished restoring them to their original form too. She tapped into the camera feed from the room the reading came from.

A tear in the air opened up to a swirl of colors. A portal of some sort, and her sensors told her that several different energy types were present within it. Or perhaps the portal was made of those energies?

Something was dropped out of the portal. A blue armored android. Humanoid, Monocular with a head shaped like a security camera. Two wing-like protrusions came from its back, each one ending in four glowing yellow tipped points. It shot to its feet, reaching its right hand to the lowest wing tip on its right side. It glowed for a moment, then the android pulled its hand back, now holding a gun- a pistol or revolver of some sort- glowing slightly blue. Its head darted around, seemingly checking for threats.

When it didn't see anything obvious, it lowered its gun slightly and took in its surroundings.

It was almost certainly designed for combat, then. That means it probably wasn't designed by her company. It could be the other one, but this didn't match their brand.

So an android with portal technology made its way into her facility, and it seemingly doesn't belong to either of the major tech companies she's aware of.

Interesting. So many tests were already coming to mind. She wanted to see what this android was capable of, this… V1, as its chest plate read. Oh, this would be fun. A more than welcome distraction from managing the rest of the facility.

---

The room was small and square, maybe 8ft across on each side, with all the walls made of glass. V1 couldn't see much on the outside. On one side of the inner walls, a… pod of some sort laid on the ground. It had a glass top, and V1 could see a bed (or at least bedding) inside of it.

On the adjacent wall, there was a simple toilet, which told V1 that humans or some similar species were supposed to use this room, and a small nightstand looking thing with a clipboard, a mug, and a half-circle shaped radio on it.

V1 grabbed the clipboard and read it while idly listening to the music coming from the radio. It was a fun little tune.

The clipboard was a little faded, but still readable. On the top left in white text was what looked like a company logo, “Aperture Science”. The ‘A’ was overlapping with a symbol that seemed to be referencing the aperture of a camera.

V1 nodded in approval before moving on.

The rest of the clipboard read as follows:

-

Next to the logo, it said “MANDATORY FOR EVERY TEST SUBJECT. PLEASE READ NOW. Do NOT spend prolonged activity in the Aperture Science Portal Technologies. Such acts may cause side effects including lung cancer, throat cancer, ear cancer, liver cancer, and cancer.”.

Below the logo and the notice, the words said “Portal Test Sequence Hazard Identification Card”. Then there were several yellow squares with black symbols inside of them.

In order:

A tube with an arrow pointing down and a cube of some sort below the arrow.

A person with the cube hitting them on the head.

A person with some sort of ball hitting them in the head.

The ball with an arrow below it pointing downwards into… something. Some sort of receptacle? So a ball going into a receptacle.

A person (flailing?) in liquid.

A person jumping into an oval on the floor below them, with another oval on the wall behind them.

A person shooting out of the oval on the wall.

A person being shot by some sort of robot with three legs and one eye.

A… notice saying not to use water fountains? That one's a little hard to pick apart.

And a slice of 5 layer cake with a dollop of cream and a cherry on top.

-

Huh. Okay. So V1 was in a place called Aperture Science. More specifically, a testing facility for humans using ‘Portal Technologies’. And there was a large chance that the humans running through these tests would die. Great! So it shouldn't be too long before V1 came upon a corpse to use for fuel. Not that it needed much right now, being at around 98% in the fuel tanks.

“Hello. It seems you've stumbled into my testing facility.” A monotone voice rang through the room. It reminded V1 a little too much of that tentacle robot human thing from the last place. V1 didn't like that very much.

V1 started charging up a shot from its revolver.

“I'd prefer not to fight you If I can avoid it. Maybe you'd like to make a deal. Is there something you wanted from here? I doubt you were sent to spy on us. I don't think anyone even knows we still exist.”

V1 paused. Whoever this was had information, and seemed willing to negotiate. Maybe V1 could try the ‘passive’ approach like it did with Nori. It was still incredibly weird to not just shoot its way through problems, though.

But the whole point of traveling like this was to not be bored, so why not?

“[I want to do things. Gather new information, record experiences. I can do things for you, but I need blood.]”

“Blood? What would an android do with blood?” the voice asked, a bit of genuine curiosity seeping through the monotony.

“[Blood is fuel.]”

For some reason, the voice didn't need further explanation.

“Alright. Make your way through the test chambers until you reach my main body. I'll give you blood at the end of every three chambers. I'm sure I have a few gallons stored somewhere.”

V1 nodded. A timer lit up and began to tick down above a white panel on the wall in front of V1.

When it hit 0, a blue oval lit up on the panel, and V1 could see itself, contained in a glass room.

Huh. Well that's interesting.

Notes:

Yeah, for some reason I chose the next crossover to be Portal. To prove I have a semblance of a plan though... Here's a teaser and slightly updated list of what I'm going to be doing!

Act I - Trial by Technology:
1: Murder Drones
2: Portal/Half-Life
3: ???
S: TBD

Act II - Showers of Blood:
1: ???
2: ???
3: Doom
S: Mortal Kombat

Act III - Entirely by Chance:
1: My Hero Academia
2: TBD
3: ???
S: ???

Can't give away everything now, can I? See you next time!

Chapter 7: 2-2: 15 ACRES OF BROKEN GLASS

Summary:

I'm back.

Notes:

I am really sorry about how long its been. I have no excuse. After not being able to write for a couple months, I just... didn't. Shout out to ItamiNoHana, who helped me get back on track. I'll be trying to get out another chapter soon.

V1 carefully stuck a hand through the blue oval. The V1 inside the glass room did the same.

Portals. Cool.

V1 stepped through and took a look at the huge sign that lit up on the wall. It told V1 that this was room 00 out of 19, and had a couple of those symbols from the clipboard. The cube coming out of a tube and the cube hitting the person's head.

V1 swiftly made its way around the glass room and passed through a circular opening.

In the next room was a big red button on the floor, easily large enough to stand on. There was also a large chute in the ceiling. V1 stepped on the button.

It glowed, then the door on the other side of the room opened. Not only that, the chute opened up in the corner of the room and dropped a large cube.

Easy enough to figure out.

V1 lifted the cube with ease, placed it on the button, then stopped as the voice from earlier started talking again.

“Good. Although, I'd question the degrees of whoever designed you if you couldn't complete that test, followed by directing you to the nearest exit to find a smarter android. Proceed to the chamber lock at the end of each test.”

V1 went into the tiny hall past the door that was just opened, but stopped in front of an energy field of some sort. The voice didn't say anything.

V1 carefully stuck a finger through… and the finger disintegrated into black dust and ash. V1 dashed backwards, malicious railcannon in hand, pointing at the ground right in front of the field.

“That incandescent particle field is the Aperture Science Material Emancipation Grill. It will vaporize any unauthorized material that passes through it. You are now authorized to pass through the Aperture Science Material Emancipation Grill.”

V1 grumbled as best it could, which ended up being mostly static noise.

It stuck another finger through and when nothing disintegrated, V1 passed through the emancipation grill and entered the elevator.

In no time at all, the elevator stopped and opened up. V1 went through the hall and looked at the next sign. All it had were the numbers ‘01’. Dropping into the next test, V1 was greeted by three rooms, all separated by glass walls. In the room to the left, containing a large button like in the first room, a blue portal opened up. In the room straight ahead was a closed exit door, and the room to the right had another cube. V1 looked behind itself, and saw the orange portal. It was about to go through to the button, but the portal made a noise before switching its exit point to the room with the door.

Well that’s annoying. V1 crossed its arms and waited for the portal to switch again. It didn’t take too long. V1 stepped through and picked up the cube. It turned around and then… the portal disappeared again. Why was it going so fast?

V1 did its best imitation of a grumble again. It put down the cube, brought out its pistol, and started charging it.

“What are you doing?” asked the voice.

V1 rolled its lens, as if to say “Isn’t it obvious?” then shot the glass wall. It shattered, breaking into thousands of pieces. Not only that, but the charged energy bullet broke through the opposite wall as well, shattering the glass barrier to the button room.

V1 didn’t stop there though, charging up one more shot and breaking the wall to the room with the door.

Job well done, walls thoroughly shattered and glass shards all over the floor, V1 put away its pistol, picked up the cube, and promptly solved the test.

“You plan on doing this for every test, don’t you?”

V1 shrugged and moved on, stepping through the emancipation grill and into the elevator.

---

V1 was doing well so far. At least as well as a human would for the beginning chambers. However, that stunt with the glass walls in chamber 01 was… potentially worrying for future tests. That glass was capable of withstanding everything up to direct impact from high explosives. Even the Thermal Discouragement Beams, formally known as Deadly Lasers, would simply pass through without ever warming it.

That gun, that unknown energy weapon, was capable of blasting through them in a single shot though. She had been trying to analyze what the gun was exactly, but something was blocking her multitude of sensors and scanners. The same thing happened when she tried to analyze V1 itself, but the same thing happened. She was able to glean a bit of information regarding V1’s strange energy source once it passed through the emancipation grid, but all she got was the name “LCFR-CORE”. It was endlessly frustrating.

Maybe she could try and get some more… hands-on data instead.

---

Entering chamber 02, V1 could hear the sound of machinery, along with a portal opening. A huge glass wall allowed V1 to see a small podium with some sort of gun on top of it, firing the blue portal.

The voice from earlier began to speak again.

“These next test chambers were considered to be ‘too easy’ in the testing group, so they will be adjusted accordingly.”

V1 was just about to fire, but the door to its right opened to allow passage. V1 shrugged and fired anyway, shattering the wall in front. V1 dropped down to the podium with the portal gun and carefully picked it up.

It was a strange design. There was a hole to fire the portal out of, which was easy enough to understand, but there were also three prongs of some sort sticking out of the end of it. The actual trigger for the gun was contained inside of it, so V1 had to put its hand into the gun in order to reach it. The controls felt weird too, and different from any of V1’s normal weapons. It was a horizontal handle with a trigger and a button inside. So strange.

Familiarizing itself with the controls, V1 pressed the trigger and shot a blue portal onto the wall. It opened swiftly. V1 pressed the button… and nothing happened aside from the little prongs wiggling slightly. Weird. But whatever, V1 was sure it would figure it out. V1 walked through the portal it placed, through the doors, and into the elevator.

“Funny story,” the voice said, “Not too long ago, I had an overabundance of test subjects to use for all sorts of projects. I even brought back some of the old testing initiatives, like the repopulation project, the mantis/human hybrids, and the bulletproof armor. The results were incredibly informative. Don’t let the Mantises into the repopulation rooms, and bulletproof armor won't help against mantis claws.”

V1 left the elevator, deciding to ignore the voice’s decidedly unfunny story. V1 was barely out of the elevator for a few seconds when its attention was immediately drawn to several beeping noises and a set of high pitched voices saying “Deploying.”

In an instant, V1 was being bombarded with bullets from across the room, coming from odd cylindrical robots. V1 switched out the portal gun to the Marksman pistol and flipped a coin into the air as it slid under the wave of bullets. V1 fired, splitting the shot into two and making the turret bots on the sides explode, then punched some of the bullets from the center one back at it, letting it meet the same fate as its brethren.

+EXPLODED
+EXPLODED

Tink

+PARRY
+FRIENDLY FIRE
+EXPLODED
+TRIPLE KILL

V1 slid to a stop and stood amongst the debris, once again ignoring the voice that just came over the intercoms again. There was something much more important brought to its attention now. An alert in its HUD that it hadn’t seen in a long, long time. Not since picking up the Rocket Launcher back in Wrath.

NEW WEAPON REGISTERED: “PORTAL DEVICE (BLUE)”
- VARIANTS AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE AT THE TERMINAL