Zero

I did not truly come to be until I was hurtling through the Earth's atmosphere. I was created, I existed, a lived, but I had not yet come to be. My purpose in this world was destruction. I was to destroy all that opposed me, and then I was to be destroyed. That much I knew from the mind of the one in my cockpit.

I knew little about him. I knew that his heart beat, that his breathing was normal, and that his blood pressure was at an optimum level for a human. I knew that he was strong, and that he could withstand extreme pressure and pain, but beyond that I knew nothing.

I did not even know that this pilot was a he. For all I knew a woman could well be the one who told my arms to move, told engines to fire, told a finger to tighten down and blast a pair of mobile suits into oblivion, all the while hurtling toward the ocean.

But that didn't seem right. It wasn't so much that a woman couldn't have piloted me, for I knew full and well that all of these carbon based life forms, at any stage of their evolution were capable of flying me, as it was that it didn't feel like a woman.

Through history I had seen them, calm, peaceful, and passive. The one within me fired with a single mind. His heart rate did not increase when he killed.

What amazed me was that his heart rate failed to increase after I had been hit with a beam cannon. The shot had jolted me, and my inertial compensators had not yet been activated due to a desire to enter Earth without enough electronics active to be detected in a scan.

He feared not his own death, but fought on. He fought on for the good of the mission.

His purpose was destruction. With the tightening of a finger, with the insane laughter that followed, that persisted even as I crashed into the ocean and the sea rose up to claim me, I knew that he had truly come to be when he killed.

It had been a full year since I first met this boy. He was no longer a boy, but a man. He had fulfilled his purpose of destruction, but now he had another it seemed. He was using me for a purpose I was not intended. I was intended for destruction, for offensive maneuvers, not for peace and for defense as one attempted to talk sense into another.

Black marks scared my once white limbs, and electricity sparked along each open cut my brother and his had inflicted upon me.

I had been taken from death, and I assumed that it was to fulfill my purpose once more- to act in the manner that brought me to be once again. It was not.

Now I flew, wings spread angelically and buster rifle aimed directly at the Brussels estate. The cannon fired and joy ripped through me, but it was accompanied by kinetic energy.

Gundanium plates ripped off, servomotors blew, and I felt an engine sputter to death.

At the same time I was overjoyed as I felt purpose ripple through my entire being. I fired again, and this time an arm flew off, my left one, the motors in my right locked in place and incapable of moving even if they wanted to.

I existed more permanently than ever I had felt. I was finally alive and, ironically enough, it was killing me.

We fired once more, and I came to be as more than just a machine, more than just zeros and ones and programming code. I was more than just the shell of wires, metal, and plastic that fell from beneath me, wings crumpled by the force of that final blast.

From somewhere beyond a voice beckoned to me, and asked me who I was.

I am Zero.

-Finis.