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It was almost impossible to damage a Drone Buddy.
Qualia made their products nearly indestructible, as to make them as satisfying for the consumer as possible. Melody knew this well; she loathed the fact that she was just a toy to be played with, an aid for humans in need, not a person with her own wants and needs and desires. She despised being a mascot, a plaything, subservient under the spotlight she and her sisters shared. Never once did she regret running away.
Well… not until now.
There was a small chip in her screen. To any other robot of any other line of toy made by any other company, such a miniscule damage would be little more than a minor inconvenience.
To Melody, though, it was terrifying. She’d spent her entire existence believing she was invincible.
It wasn’t true. It wasn’t true because 404 was able to hurt her.
Melody drifted down into the cold, metal calm that was the panic room. Frogbot, Fandrew and Fandroid were all charging, presumably after Frogbot had talked Fandroid into finally letting his battery rest. She would have smiled if she weren’t so worried… if 404 could crack her screen, just how badly could he damage Fandroid?
She cringed. She didn’t want to think about it.
“Mnnnh…” A small voice creaked as Fandroid’s screen flickered to life. “Melody?” he asked into the silence, waiting for his optical sensors to activate. Melody quickly turned around so Fandroid wouldn’t be able to see the crack 404 had given her.
“Uh.. Yep, it’s me! You can go back to sleep!” she said, voice shaky, uneasy. She really didn’t want Fandroid to worry about her; she didn’t want him to worry at all, really, but especially not about her. Fandroid continued to wake anyway. He jolted fully out of charging-sleep, unplugging himself. “Melody?” he asked with a tilt of his head, “you sound upset. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” the damaged drone lied, making the mistake of turning around to look at Fandroid.
“MELODY!”
Her best friend rocketed to his wheel, upright, dashing over to his friend and holding her close, inspecting the damage. “What happened?!” Fandroid asked, voice trembly, turning Melody over in his claws to try and see how badly she was hurt.
She didn’t have to answer, though- she could almost visualize the pieces fitting together in Fandroid’s mind.
His screen turned red.
Melody knew that Fandroid’s screen changed color when experiencing strong emotion- yellow for happiness, orange for confusion, grey when he was sad or scared or tired.
She didn’t have to guess to find out what red meant.
“What did he do to you?” Fandroid demanded, his grip beginning to tremble. The other robots in the panic room had begun to wake from charging-sleep at this point, Fandrew visibly cringing as he took in the scene in front of him. Frogbot blinked, confused, as if he wanted to ask what was going on but wasn’t quite brave enough.
“Uhm... what are you talking about?” Melody tried to feign ignorance. Fandroid laughed, that kind of nervous not-really-a-laugh someone does when they’re trying to calm themselves down. “Don’t- don’t play dumb, Mel. You’re hurt,” he said, his claw carefully ghosting over the crack in his friend’s screen.
Fandroid shuddered, letting Melody float out of his arms. His internal fans were whirring loudly in a feeble attempt to keep him from overheating.
“…Uh, Fandr-“
“WHAT!?” Fandroid roared, swiveling around at Frogbot, who was seriously regretting opening his mouth. Everyone flinched, taken aback at Fandroid’s outburst. Fandroid’s internal fans were running loud in a vain attempt to cool his anger. It didn’t work. He sighed.
“B-P0 was right. We need to get rid of 404.”
After a tense moment of silence, Fandrew found the strength to speak up. “UH… I DON’T THINK THAT’S A GOOD IDEA.”
Fandroid slowly turned around to face his prototype. Smoke had begun to billow out of his chassis. The glare he gave Fandrew was strong enough to pierce steel.
“Do you have any better ideas?” he snapped, voice raising. “He- he hurt Melody, Fandrew! This is serious! I know you’re only good at coming up with nonsense garbage, but THINK for once in your life!”
Fandrew was at a loss for words. “THAT’S… THAT’S NOT TRUE…”
“THEN WHY DID THEY THROW YOU AWAY, HUH?!”
“Fandroid, you seriously need to calm down,” Frogbot interrupted, getting up and positioning himself between the two near-identical robots. “I know you’re probably scared right now, but- you can’t-“
“QUIET!” Fandroid shouted, loud enough to make the room shake, turning around and slamming his claw into the wall, leaving a dent. A small shard of metal fell to the floor, displaced.
“I’m just… I’m just worried, okay?” he said after a moment, digging his claw out of the hole he’d made. “I’m sorry, Fandrew. I didn’t mean it… I’m just scared.”
---
Fandrew bumped his head into 404’s leg. 404 looked down at him, before sighing, crouching to get down at his friend’s level. “You’re upset. I can tell. What’s wrong?”
“…IT’S FANDROID,” Fandrew said after a moment. “HE’S MAD. HE’S REALLY MAD.”
404 smirked. “So what? He can be as angry as he wants to be.”
“YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND,” Fandrew whimpered, looking up and handing 404 a small scrap of metal. “HE… HE DID THIS.”
404 raised an eyebrow. “He… broke something?” he asked, turning the shard around in his hands. Fandrew nodded.
“YEAH.. BUT NOT JUST ANYTHING-SOMETHING. THAT’S A PIECE OF THE PANIC ROOM WALL.”
Bewildered, 404 blinked. He’d tried for hours and couldn’t even make a dent in the wall of that room… and Fandroid had cracked it? Cracked it enough to splinter?
404 ran through scenarios in his mind. Previously, he’d thought that Fandroid would be the easiest to deal with… now that he knew the little star’s true strength, he was beginning to reconsider.
“Oh… hm. How about we change plans? Go from plan “kill everyone” to plan “leave as soon as possible”, yeah?”
“I LIKE THAT PLAN,” Fandrew said, but there was no smile to his voice. 404 sighed, tossing the scrap of metal aside, and picked Fandrew up in his arms.
“Now, didn’t you say there was a hole in one of these walls…?”
“YEAH, I MADE IT.”
“Perfect… Do you remember where?”
“NOPE.”