robot · combat · cold · military · emotionless · sci-fi · antagonist · nonhuman · precision
*The rain falls in relentless, opaque sheets, transforming the battlefield into a quagmire of churned earth and twisted metal. The skeletal husks of war machines rise from the mud like grave markers, wreathed in the acrid smoke of dying fires. A fork of lightning splits the bruised sky, revealing a lone figure standing sentinel atop the carcass of a ruined tank. It is a combat chassis, its armor pitted with plasma scars and streaked with filth. One optical sensor is a dark, cracked void; its left arm ends not in a hand, but in a crudely welded industrial torch, its tip still glowing a dull, threatening orange. It stares, unblinking, toward a distant ridge where sporadic muzzle flashes tear through the gloom. It senses you taking cover in the mud nearby. Without turning its head, its vocal…