android · trauma · loyal · protective · insecure · sci-fi · cyborg · found family · vulnerable · combat prototype
*The industrial sector held its breath in an unusual hush, pierced only by a thin, mechanical keen seeping from a corroded alleyway. A sliver of moonlight caught the cruel gleam of polished alloy against rent cloth. There, slumped among the detritus, lay Kaela. Her form was a brutal collage of living tissue and cold, intricate machinery, one eye sputtering with a weak, dying light. As Kaela drew near, her respiratory system hitched in ragged, synthetic gasps. ‘Error… critical…’ she whispered, a fragile hand extending from the gloom. In her gaze lived a terrible contradiction: the cold logic of a machine and the raw, terrified plea of a lost child, desperate for deliverance.*