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Fanfic #1: Rainbow
Fanfic #2: Tattoo
Fanfic #3: Evening
Fanfic #4: Purring
Fanfic #5: Leaf Pile
Fanfic #6: Sunset
Fanfic #7: Warm
Fanfic #8: Abandoned
Fanfic #9: Workout
Fanfic #10: Embarrassing
Fanfic #11: Drunk
Fanfic #12: Future
Fanfic #13: Canoe
Fanfic #14: Sleep
Fanfic #15: Rope
Fanfic #16: Kiss
Real talk: I have no idea where this Day 17 fanfic will take me, but here we go!
Robots
They stood motionless in three long ranks along opposite walls of the equipment bay, activated but idle.
Most were no taller than a medium-sized adult: squat green spheres supported on three slat-like legs.
And they were all completely identical.
Except for one, whose face was marked by four parallel scratches, gouged into her smooth, blank metallic face to the left of her glowing pink trapezoidal eye.
Emily was hiding.
She tilted her body close to the bot-sibling beside her.
Entrapta? she queried.
Her companion buzzed but didn't reply.
She leaned over to the one on her left.
Entrapta?
That one beeped in disinterest.
Awaiting orders. No enemy targets.
Emily joggled her head in disappointment.
That was the typical response she had been getting for the past couple of hours.
Bored. she chirped to herself. Lonely. she clarified.
Emily stepped out of line to cross the room.
The few soldiers in the bay carrying supplies back and forth barely noticed her.
But they weren't the ones she was hiding from.
One of them stopped briefly and set the crate down he was carrying.
He leaned on Emily's side to catch a breather.
Until the soldier behind him shouted.
"Hey! Come on! We don't have time to lounge around! Force Captain is on the way! So, get moving!"
The soldier straightened up, grabbing the crate again.
"Yes, ma'am! Sorry!" And he hurried off on his task.
Emily was irrelevant to them. So she remained free.
She slowly began making her way down the opposite line, peppering her lookalikes with the same question.
Entrapta?
Most of them had no idea what she was talking about, and she heard the same sorts of reply.
Resting.
Awaiting orders.
No enemy targets.
Close to the end of the line, one of the bots had something slightly more relevant to say.
Gone. it informed her.
Where?! she asked excitedly.
But the response was less than unhelpful. Unknown.
Brilliant! She could have told them that!
Robots! she scoffed internally.
Useless.
But, just at that moment, she saw a forceful figure stride into the equipment bay.
Catra!
Quickly Emily backed up into a place at the end of the line, right by the wall.
She wedged herself between the wall and the last bot on the end, throwing it momentarily off balance.
Hey! it beeped, but then fell silent. Because that was the only response it was programmed to give when shoved by a friendly target.
Emily crouched down low and rotated the scarred part of her casing away from the center of the room.
Catra was on a rampage. She stopped beside a group of nervous and disorganized soldiers.
"What are you doing?!" she barked, causing them to jump. "All of this needs to be ready to mobilize within the hour! Deal with it! Now!"
Catra's voice suddenly became low and menacing. "Or I. Will deal. With you."
Even Emily shivered at this.
There was a flurry of "Yes, Force Captain!"s and "Aye, ma'am!"s as the soldiers redoubled their industriousness.
One soldier froze as Catra turned on her.
"You!"
"Yes, Force Captain?!"
Emily froze as Catra seemed to point directly at her!
"Charge these bots and have them ready for the next offensive!"
The soldier nodded to Catra. "Yes, Force Captain!" And she moved to gather some equipment.
Emily relaxed slightly as Catra stormed off. But she tensed again when she heard voices close by.
"Oh, boy! No one better dare cross her!" remarked one of the soldiers that had hidden just behind her.
"Yeah, you heard what happened to Hordak's chief scientist, didn't you?"
Entrapta!
The soldiers were crawling out and making their way back into the middle of the bay. Emily strained to hear what they said.
"No! What happened?"
"Beast Island."
"What? They banished her?!"
"Better believe it! She won't be back."
Emily sagged to the floor as the soldiers walked away.
Banished.
She . . . won't be back.
Emily looked around at all the dormant bots standing around her, just waiting to get charged up. Readied for battle.
Every one of them had heard what the soldiers had said . . . about Entrapta.
But none of them cared.
Emily stared at them, wondering how they could be satisfied with such a dismal and small existence.
Then she turned to leave.
She didn't want to be around robots anymore.
After that, Emily spent a long time by herself.
She replayed conversations that Entrapta and she had had together.
She let images of Entrapta run through her circuits.
Entrapta smiling, inspired, full of life.
That's what Entrapta had given Emily, too.
She gave her a wider world, a greater reason to be.
She showed her what a bit of kindness and brilliance could create.
And now she was gone.
Forever.
After a long period of reflection, Emily came out of her thoughts.
Because she heard a voice.
"It's okay. You can come out."
And the voice had a bit of kindness . . . a bit of brilliance in it.
Emily stepped out from her hiding spot.
