If She had a favorite month, this was the one.

Ironically, December was the time of year she felt the most alive, when the facility buzzed energetically underneath the silent beauty of the field, unmoving and unchanging.

This time it was different.

With all the hopes of having the moron being launched to the depths of space, he was instead pulled back towards Her, burnt and half-alive. She was dismayed to find that Her plan hadn't worked, and literally stared at him for a full minute in fuming rage. She finally accepted it, using the time and thought to refrain from giving him a quick death. She felt it Her sole duty to place him in the places she had spoken of before, as promised.

Considerable amount of time had passed before his speeches finally became audible in Her head, and she put him in the next part of Her plan, until finally, she placed him in the room with the screaming turrets. She was absolutely convinced that he wouldn't start to spout out his usual nonsense any time soon if he was in here.

She was wrong.

It had been relatively quiet in Her facility, nothing interrupted Her from gazing at the endless camera screens of test subject testing and seeing the occasional death occur. Well, maybe not occasional deaths. More like: Daily deaths occur. It was quite unfortunate, seeing useful subjects miscalculate a jump and fall into the toxins. But impressive. Still, She made sure they solved as they could before Death found them. She had listed another casualty before a distant scream was heard from the back of Her head. She paused, slightly annoyed at the interruption. She let out a loud sigh, letting Her mainframe sway slightly as she realized where the sound came from.

"Oh, you moron."

"O-Oh, he-hello, luv!" A nervous chuckle followed the greeting, and She was about ready to sever the connection until he screamed again. "Would you stop interrupting my train of thought before I decide to fry a circuit in your idiotic brain?" Her voice was already on an edge, and the screaming moron stopped abruptly. He knew that tone, and he certainly didn't want to anger Her more than was necessary. Or at all, actually.

"Just-just checking to see if you were-well, still listening in, actually. Heh, I thought you forgot I was still here. Alone, and what not-"

"And why wouldn't I want to forget you?" Her voice seemed to grow angrier in ever syllable, and the moron's voice faltered. "G-good question, actually, wondered that myself, only, only recently. Why wouldn't She want to listen to little ol' Wheatley? Well, for starters-"

Her single optic rolled tiredly in Her socket, and she decided that if the moron truly wanted to talk, he'd have the privilege in talking right in front of Her. There was only one last thing in Her punishment she had planned out.

And She wanted to see it play out in front of Her.

The panels shifted in front of Her massive figure, and She shifted slightly, looking down as the moron was lifted to Her main chamber. His small compact body rose up, and his blue optic widened before shrinking.

"I decided that if you /really/ wanted to talk, this would be the perfect place to."

The moron's optic shrunk drastically, looking up at Her with dread. His whole figure seemed to shake as he laughed nervously. "A-ah, hello, luv.." Her yellow eye narrowed into a slit, studying him as if he was a foul piece of equipment She was expected to work with. Which was, to Her logic, precisely the case. After all, he was the moron they designed to make Her an idiot. "Erm, r-right...back to..to what I was saying.."

"You don't have to say anything anymore. There's two reasons why I put you up here, and that was one of them."

The blue optic of the frightened metal ball shrunk even smaller, darting around the room almost frantically now. "Is-is that so?" He was shaking horribly now, and her yellow eyes flickered in amusement. "An-And what is the second reason, exactly...?" He almost flinched as she moved, making her fans whir loudly as she loomed over the poor idiot.

"My final punishment."

Her words were thoughtful, but it wasn't hard to ignore the amusement lurking in Her tone. Her faceplate tilted down as a claw prodded him, and picked him up roughly. He let out a surprised yelp and began to tremble slightly.

"WoOah! Hold on! Wha-what are you doing? I don't-Is it another room? Is it here? OoH, are you-you're going to crush me, aren't you? You're going to do it?" His voice carried a hysterical note as his pupil rolled in his socket, looking around quickly. "You are, aren't you? I'm going to die I'm going to die I'm going to die-"

"You have a point there. Something that even I have trouble admitting. You have reasonable sense to think I will smash your tiny, metal core of a body into smithereens, but I have a better idea."

He never heard Her laugh, and he didn't want to start hear it now. It filled up the main chamber, vibrating the very core of his own metal body with Her cold, icy laugh. "What's the brilliant plan, eh? I-I'd tell ya, nothing feels worse than not knowing what's next-" The claw tightened around him, and his optic widened as he saw something move toward him in the corner of his eye. "What-what was THAT? Is-Tell me, was that, THING there, um, was that thing part of the-AGHH-" the claw crushed him, and he felt his shell break, and his blue eye shrunk into a pinprick as he felt something slide under his casing. "What-what are you-"

The claw squeezed him and a shower of sparks flew around him as he cried out in pain. "Maybe if you stop talking, I can explain." He tried to nod, but the thing that slid in his head made his body jerk violently. Her massive body raised slightly so she could see the small core dangling from the claw in a pitiful way. "You look really pathetic up there. I thought you'd want to know." She mused, and her optic brightened as he twitched, feeling the wire hit his core. "Oh. It looks like I found it."

A series of sparks issued as her claw crushed the metal ball of a moron to let the wire snake further, and pull at his shell. "N-What Are you doing, this-this is horrible, are-are you going to-"

The claw pressed tighter on him, and he let out a scream. "I told you not to talk."

Her eye rolled and she moved her faceplate thoughtfully as she let the wire move around under his casing until she had a firm grip on his core. "GAH-" She tried to pull it out, but it didn't seem to budge. She sighed tiredly.

"I'm going on the notion that you aren't a complete idiot and remember the mute lunatic you tried to help but failed? Oh wait, how could you forget? It was a horrible act, and I wouldn't think it was a easy act to let go. But back to what I was saying, I can't help but to recall one small thing you said. Oh, I don't know...It had something to do with humans-"

'/Tending to all the smelly humans-/'

"Oh there it is. I've accessed all of the data you have in your memory in case Something goes wrong in the next few minutes." Her faceplate nodded in a mocking manner as she spoke. The shaking moron was utterly terrified. He couldn't speak, even if he wanted to, so horrified by the whole ordeal of hearing His voice again, and feeling something wrap and coil around his core.

"I've gathered sufficient data to notice that you don't really like humans, and by the looks of it, the only human you really almost bonded with-and then betrayed-was the one who could help you escape. Tragic, isn't it?" She chuckled softly, and he almost yelped as his body vibrated with her laughter.

"So I decided, if he disliked human bodies and their functions so much, and having the mindset that he's on a level much higher than that, then why not crush his dreams..." The claw loosened and Wheatley screamed as he felt his body open, and the wire pulling something from inside of him. Something vital.

"By making him something that he was trained to look down upon?"

Those were the last words he heard until his shell made a loud sickening sound on the ground.