Blood Red

I am R-2034

R sat in his room, awaiting A-1964. Suddenly, he was startled when little compartment in his wall opened, and there was a bowl of food in it. R did not care what it was, but his mechanical mind identified it as nutri-pellets while he ate. He did not care about the taste.

Right after he finished, the door opened, revealing 1964 at the door. R immediately stood up for attention.

"I have come to escort you to the training grounds, please follow me."

When they arrived, 1964 said, "You are our most important and successful experiment so far, 2034. We expect the best from you. Right now, A-1963 will be teaching the basics of combat. We will be developing technology for directly inputting information soon, but for now, you will have to start from scratch." She pointed to a creature similar to herself, but instead of the horn that she had, he had a pair of majestic storm-grey wings along with a pair of glowing amber eyes. He was standing in front of a group of combatting felines, instructing them on techniques and movement. As the two aapproached him, he stopped and turned around, facing them.

"Greetings, A-1964. What may I do for you?" He asked. A pointed at R, who looked back up.

"A new recruit, I see. The first of the newest combat models. Come into line, next to the others." Redford nodded and followed as instructed, standing next to a tiny feline, whose chest was embedded with metal and pulsating with glowing violet power.

"I see you looking at this strange cat next to you. This is P-1680, one of our much earlier successful models. Don't judge this one by his size, he is much more powerful than you think." The winged cat turned back to all of the recruits. "You shall now be paired with an opponent, and you shall fight until one yields. W-1245, pair with L-1832. R-2034, pair with P-1680." The winged cat allowed himself a tiny smile, waiting to see the newest recruit get beaten to pieces.

Redford turned to face the glowing cat. They circled each other tensely, waiting for one to strike first move. After only a few moments, Redford could not wait anymore. In a flash, he was up in the air, metal claws unsheathed, ready to slash the opponent from ears to paws. Suddenly, he slammed into a strange violet orb that completely encased the small feline. He could even hear some metal plates on his chest crack from the impact. He gritted his teeth in pain and launched himself at it again.

After a few more rounds of failing to penetrate the shield the feline had cast around himself, he had to come up with a different plan. If he was built to be the ultimate combat machine, wouldn't he have something on his body that could defeat this thing? He reached into his  brain and found the files embedded into his mind, written out crystal clear. He mentally looked through all of them, skimming through them at lightning speed, like a virtual book. Suddenly, a word caught his eye- electricity. He focused on that mental page in the book, and found that his horn could generate electricity strong enough even to kill a human. Since he knew that magic definitely wasn't real, the only way the shield could be generated was by technology. The electricity should be enough to overload the technology and break the shield.

He focused on his horn and could hear the electricity crackling. He suddenly charged toward the shield one last time, horn lowered. He ran so fast that he could hear the shield crack, and as his horn passed through and hit the feline directly in the chest. It flew backwards, shield flickering and eventually fading out. R stood over the feline triumphantly, and that earned a nod of approval from A-1963. He had absolute confidence in himself as he smelt the fear of the other recruits.