Bloodstained Amber

Summary: Seconds from impending death can shake even the most hardened Conquerors, while Dib is haunted by the sound of his own laughter. What separates hatred from fear and a Destroyer from a Defender? One-shot. Drabble.

Timeframe: Soon After "Ten Minutes Til Doom"

Have you ever felt your life, your very essence draining away?

Have you ever felt what it was like to have your memories, thoughts, your very persona degenerating into an indistinguishable puddle of mush while you were practically helpless to stop it?

No, human scum could never know. Never even comprehend the feeling of losing something so substantial. Even when you are lying in a pool of your own blood and feeling your brain slowing down as the body gives up...it still can't possibly compare to the nature of this horror.

I am NOT the inferior one! Never! You hear me, you filthy hyuman pigs?! Never...

That's why it's so abhorrent to even consider. Because I am above you, greater, and always will be. I can't drain away...helpless, forced to rely on others to retrieve the very thing that makes me, ME! My existence, enclosed and encapsulated in a shell of metal, and without it I am...weak.

I will not be defeated by anything this world and mission has to offer. I have defeated the acid rain, germs, and even fools coming to steal MY mission! I do not fear them. I will not fear them!

But...

I do fear this.

I fear wasting away...becoming nothing. It is because I am the greatest and cannot be nothing. I cannot wait through the agonizing process of having every piece of who I am crushed into smithereens while slowly waiting to die. I hate being helpless and I hate to admit it but...

This kind of defeat terrifies me.

I can still hear the laughter pounding in my skull.

It's painful to listen to, horribly gut-wrenching and oh-so real, and it's mine.

Everything I risk my life for and believe in with every fiber of my being...replaced with this horrific thing, even for a short while, and the feeling it causes almost makes me want to vomit in disgust.

I only realized it much later, breathing hard next to the deactivated robot and a swath of destruction surrounding me, that I understood what I had almost done. I heard it...that echo of a voice tainted with madness and an overwhelming desire to rip and destroy, and it refused to go away.

I swear I am not a monster and I would NEVER act on those thoughts! I wouldn't! Please believe me...

I give everything in my heart and soul to protecting this world from HIM and I would never dare to turn my back on those beliefs and take on his role, no matter how badly I'm treated by everyone. No matter what I fight, even if in the end, I can still admit that humanity has repeatedly disappointed me...

I will not give in to anything the universe throws at me to break me down. I have braved ghouls of the night, the alien sent to destroy us and even my own peers who despise me. I will continue to prevail!

But...

This does tempt me.

Trod upon countless of times by everyone I know and meet, I can't help but feel the creeping need to make them regret every moment of it. I am a protector, not a destroyer, and can only squash these emotions down into the pit of my soul and don't want to admit...

How I think I would enjoy it.

(A/N): Twisted in a strange little way, but I loved the way this turned out.

R&R~