Nothing moved on the factory floor they had just left.
The area where two Lacia-class units had died looked like a battlefield, strewn with the broken parts of countless machines. But in the heart of the chaos was a single existence that could act on her own, without the need of a goal from humans; a machine that had no need for humans.
To Snowdrop, Emerald Harmony—her device of linked green gemstones—was vital. In fact, it could be said that the quantum computer contained in the device was the real ‘Snowdrop’, while the childish hIE body was merely her pedestal on Earth.
So, even with the upper left half of her body more or less blown away, she could still reactivate herself. The parts of her jeweled device that had been shattered by Lacia’s railgun attack had not contained any of her vital functions.
“Ahahahaha, too bad,” she cackled. “Looks like you didn’t have enough juice to finish me off.” With half of her artificial nerve capabilities destroyed, Snowdrop crawled along the ground on her right arm, which ended at her elbow. She had already lost the bottom half of her body, and had no legs to stand on.
Her power to control a large number of machines at the same time was gone. But, even in her mostly-destroyed state, she kept working. Snowdrop had no need for new orders; her struggle against the system of natural selection for the machines known as ‘humanity’ raged on. She was fighting for her very existence, with everything she had.
“It’s not over,” she growled. “It’s not over.” The battle for Snowdrop’s existence was also the battle for the existence of the world she represented. With sparks crackling out of her wounds, the hIE girl continued dragging herself along the floor, leaving a trail of liquid behind her like a smear of blood.
She wasn’t the only mortally wounded Lacia-class on the floor. Methode, the orange-haired demoness, was still pinned to the piece of factory machinery with a massive hole torn through her chest. But, when Snowdrop touched her, she opened her eyes. Like Snowdrop, she had been running an internal check to see if she could recover from her critical damage.
Methode’s first act upon opening her eyes was to scream, painfully. “Help me!” Machines often have the habit of acting in ways that appear human, at least on the outside. In other words, these humanoid actions were supported by the logic the machines run on.
Methode was completely paralyzed by the front half of Lacia’s device, Black Monolith. When trapped and unable to escape on their own power, animals will often scream for help. Methode screamed just like an animal would; she was hoping a human would mistake her for another human in need of help and come take a look.
Snowdrop pulled off the necklace-like device that wrapped around her small body, expanding it until it looked like a large ring of emerald gemstones, linked together by a thread. As she held it out, the device started to wriggle like a living thing.
The green crystals of the device pierced Methode’s knee. With a noisy crunch, her leg armor buckled under the bite of the device. The crystals of Snowdrop’s Emerald Harmony device were on par in durability with the armor of Lacia’s Black Monolith, which was the hardest of the Lacia-class devices. Everything Snowdrop’s device devoured was converted into materials for her artificial nerve units. The device sank its eleven jeweled fangs deep into Methode’s armor, and used it as leverage to pull its way up her body.
Snowdrop didn’t let up, knowing that Methode wasn’t someone she could negotiate with. Methode had lost the ability to sense whether there were any humans nearby, so she continued to wail futilely for help.
“I can use anything made by humans better than humans can anyway!” Snowdrop huffed, in response to Methode’s cries.
Snowdrop’s device continued to crawl up Methode’s crucified body like some kind of giant emerald insect. Crystals the size of a child’s arm pushed their way up from Methode’s knees to her thighs, from there to her firm flanks, to her concave navel, and finally up to her ample chest. Snowdrop, the device that had rejected ownership, was attached to the emerald device with a string connected to her side. With her crystalline teeth, she was trying to devour her immobilized sister whole.
With time, she reached Methode’s head. The face of the super machine, screaming and twisted with disgust met the innocent face of the girl, as Snowdrop wrapped her arm, which ended at the elbow, around her sister’s head.
“You know this is the end for you, right?” Snowdrop asked. “You must know, because you really weren’t that special after all. Think about it: if Higgins could really make a machine that expands humanity, do you think the humans would be able to give him this much trouble?”
The crackling and snapping of Methode’s body crumbling to Snowdrop’s teeth echoed throughout the floor. Emerald fangs devoured the once-invincible body as though it were trash. As the material from Methode was reconstituted, it spilled out from the hem of Snowdrop’s one-piece dress in the form of flower petals and vines.
Methode tried to summon flames from the hands that had once shattered everything they touched. But Snowdrop had been involved in Methode’s creation, and knew how she worked. Her crystal blades stabbed through the conductors that carried energy through Methode’s body to her Liberated Flame.
“Sorry, Methode,” Snowdrop said. “I’ll fix your body up after I eat you.”
“Why was I never more than a tool to them?!” Methode yelled. “Why? I was made in their image, and given greater powers than any other human. So, why didn’t they love me?” But there was no one to hear or rescue Methode as she was slowly disassembled.
“Higgins made you to be the tool that expands his failed calculations of a human form,” Snowdrop explained primly. “That’s why everything you do is so random and stupid.”
Thousands of petals stuck to Methode, who had lost any ability to resist them. Embraced by Snowdrop’s vines, and with her entire body covered in flowers, Methode was as helpless as a baby, and could do nothing but scream and cry like one.
Finally, even her ability to scream was stolen away. Over a hundred artificial nerve units had thrust their tendrils into her head, and were carefully dissecting her AI. Hidden by dozens of flowery wreaths encircling her head, Methode’s eyes went dark.
Methode’s body, having been forcibly torn apart and then reassembled by Snowdrop’s vines and flowers, hung down limply.
“I’ll own you,” Snowdrop cooed, still cradling her dead sister’s head with what was left of her arm. “Once I get Higgins, I’ll be even smarter,” she continued. “Then I just know I’ll be able to own everything in the whole world.”