"Hatch, I think we may be, like, seriously fucked."
The light radiating from Hatch's hand sparkled in pixelated beauty. Green and gold flitted between the alien language that ringed the stump of Eight's leg. The android could feel her friend working against the grey liquid running from her broken part, nitting the servos and staunching her life flowing from her. Eight's stroked Hatch's aura and hummed to herself.
"Yep." Hatch said.
Eights giggled. Everything that had happened and this was how it was going to end, she wouldn't even get to apologise properly.
"What do you think death is like?"
"I uploaded a few minutes ago." Hatch looked to the ceiling, he eyes shifting under her mask. "Temporary black and then I wake up in the bunker? That's what happened last time."
"Oh."
The android traced the line that flowed from her friend to join up with the other's in the sky. The lattice was both thicker and less dense since the explosion on the beach, the YoRHa colours drifting away to dissipate as she watched. The dripping stopped and Hatch put a hand to her partner's chest.
"Welcome to my beloved city." A voice from below spoke, among the clattering of white cubes and city streets.
"Does that mean you, like, have a soul?" Eights said, propping herself up on the white wall that rose to the sky and ignoring their host below. Her friend wiped the grey smudges off the floor with the hem of her skirt and shifted to put her head in Eights' lap. Eights started stroking the red hair of the other droid.
"Maybe? Does it matter?"
She froze at that. Her hand no longer running through Hatch's hair, her eyes closed and leaking like her leg. She bit her lip and sagged,
"I don't think I have a soul." She said.
They both sat together, as the sounds of talking, poetry, and shrieking metal went on below them. Eights watched a red ribbon sever and float away into the sky.
"I think I lost it a long time ago. I think I'm just some, like, hollow puppet, dancing because my brain tells it. I think that if I die, I'm gone for good."
She felt her friend stiffen at the words, could hear the grinding of of her teeth as they sat together.
"I'm sorry, Hatch."
"Why do you always do this." Hatch stripped her blindfold off and threw it off the roof. She pressed her finger in to Eight's chest and screamed.
"Every fucking time we have a good moment, you start saying things that make me worry. I just have to grin through it and pretend like nothing's wrong, that I'm totally fine with you going insane. That's not fair Eights, I don't want you to f-fucking die!"
Below, the fighting stopped and a male voice drifted up, "Are you okay up there?"
"Shut the fuck up, you self obsessed asshole." Hatch yelled back. She took her friend's face in her hand and stared into the woman's pink eyes. She kissed Eights, her lips soft and her cheeks wet.
"Do you need to have a soul? Do you need to be an individual? Do you need to go to fucking mars? I'm here. You need to stop."
Eights looked away from those piercing black eyes and down at her ruined leg. Her eye twitcheed. She feelt her heart heat and wanted to staunch it. She pulled her inhaler from her dress and put it to her lips. Hatch slapped it away and shook the woman.
"I need you here. I need you on this planet, on this universe."
Her inhaler teetered on the edge of the roof shingles, rocking as she rocked. She closed her eyes and the world slowed.
She saw Innen, floating in a black pool with their arms spread out around them. She giggled again and sighed. Innen spoke, their voice booming in the darkness.
"So dark, So cold. So comes the foretold."
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For Cait and Skylar, I'm sorry I couldn't do more.
