A/N: First chapter of 2022, and, more likely than not, this will be the year where ATE is finally finished. As I've said many times before, there will be a fourth shorter story once this one is finished, but the main storyline of ATE will be completed in this one. It's been a long time coming.
Continuing with the theme from the last chapter, you're going to want to have the image of the colossus Avion in your head. It'll make sense in a minute, if it's not already obvious LOL. I've actually seen a fan art piece of Avion re-imagined as a robot, so if you can find that, there you go.
As for music, for this chapter you're going to want to be ready to use 'We Can Fly' from Two Steps From Hell and 'Over Paper Skies (Hysteria! Remix)' by Eco.
Chapter 15: Taking Wing
-'We Can Fly' by Two Steps From Hell-
You just know things are getting bad when screaming while falling to your doom has somehow reached a point of getting boring. Regardless though, for as much as Courage had become sick of screaming in mortal terror, his prolonged fall was quickly coming to an end. He did not consider it a good sign that he could now pick out individual objects below...
Nearly deafened by the constant whistle of the wind, he cried out, "Ooooh, if Atticus is planning on saving my butt, now would be a great time to get it over with!"
He really, really, really did not like how quickly the tops of those trees were rushing toward him...
And a terrible thought struck him then. What if, in his attempt to slow the amalgamation down, something had happened to Atticus? What if he did not even know that the amalgamation had sent Courage flying into the stratosphere?
All of a sudden Courage found it much easier to scream again.
He braced himself, now able to make out individual branches of the trees. As he moved his arms to cover his vulnerable face, he caught a strange glint out of the corner of his eye. Something was approaching. Something big and slightly reflective.
Was it a bird? A Plane? Both? At first Courage was sure that it had to be a plane, but then he watched the strange metallic contraption flap its wings like a bird. As it neared with steadily increasing speed, there was no mistaking its bird-like shape, and there was no mistaking those glowing blue eyes either.
Turning his attention back onto the trees, Courage went right back to screaming. Atticus was too late! There was no way he'd-
The bird machine went into a dangerously low but lightning fast glide. Its wings sliced through the tops of the trees, and just as Courage was about to become well acquainted with one of those very trees, it reached out with scrap metal talons to catch him.
The next thing Courage knew was cold metal pressing in all around him and the harsh scream of wind as the bird machine angled upward and began a steep climb to avoid crashing. Courage's cheeks flapped in the wind and the metal all around him vibrated to such a harsh degree that he worried Atticus's machine might break apart right then and there.
After a few moments, the machine leveled off with a mighty flap of its wings. Now moving at a much slower speed, Courage could get a better look at the strange scrap 'eagle' without his own cheeks slapping him in the eyes. What he did not expect to happen next was for the makeshift talons he was encircled in to open up. All of a sudden he was in free fall again, and with that, he returned to his greatest talent, screaming.
The bird machine tucked its wings against its sides and went into a shallow dive. Only once it was positioned under Courage did it flare them open again to bring a halt to its dive and this allow for Courage to land neatly atop its back.
Completing the bird-like look, an eagle shaped head glanced over its own shoulder, fixating an LED eye on Courage.
"I swear I can't leave you alone for five minutes." Atticus huffed. His voice emanated from somewhere within the machine and not from the eagle head itself. "I just hope you realize how close you came to being turned into a fine paste. Could you maybe stop 'almost' dying for a little bit? You're going to give me a mechanical heart attack."
Courage responded by laughing like a maniac, leaning over the side of the machine...and emptying everything he had ever eaten ever into the sky.
"Eugh, couldn't you have waited until we are back on the ground to do that?" Atticus groaned. "Well, actually," He amended, shifting the machine's head back into its original position. "You might as well get that out of your system now because I, erm-" He took a moment to chuckle, sounding ever so slightly nervous. "-don't actually know how to land this thing."
Courage, having turned into a pale ghost at Atticus's words, asked, "Wait, so you just did that big, dangerous looking maneuver to save me...but you somehow can't land?"
"In all honesty, I fully expected that we'd crash and die in a huge, fiery explosion back there."
"Y-you didn't know what you were doing?"
"What makes you think that I know anything about aerodynamics?"
"...Uh, Atty, how is this giant hunk of metal even staying in the sky?"
"I've been asking myself the same question ever since I got it into the air."
Courage stared, mouth hanging open. "C-could you make me a parachute?"
The bird machine gave a jovial flap of its wings as Atticus laughed, "I guess you could say I've been 'winging it'."
Courage groaned long and hard at the pun. "You'd better make me that parachute before I decide I'm just going to take my chances and jump."
"So what you're saying is that you're about to 'wing it' too?"
Courage rolled himself off the side of the machine, heard several panicked flaps of those huge, metal wings, and was rescued by a beak plucking him out of the air.
"Okay, okay! No more puns!" Atticus relented. "But do that again and I 'will' let you take your chances with the ground."
The bird machine swung its head completely around in a maneuver that would not have been possible for a flesh and blood creature, aside from maybe an owl, and deposited Courage onto its back once more.
-Over Paper Skies (Hysteria! Remix) by Eco-
"I don't know if you've noticed-" Atticus began, gaining altitude and speed with several wing strokes. "But we have a bit of a problem. Erm, well, its more like a rather big problem."
Courage looked out across the land that sprawled out before him. If the situation had not been so dire, he might have been able to enjoy this view from the top of the world. It was awe inspiring, to say the least. Ahead of them stood a sparkling city, but it was painfully obvious even at this height that it was abuzz with activity. Every last road out of it was clogged with cars trying to escape. Quickly closing in on it was a different sparkling city, this one warped and uncannily mobile.
Courage swallowed nervously. "Did you have any luck at slowing them down?"
The eagle machine shook its head, producing a sound like the rusty hinges of a door being opened and closed. "I'm afraid not. You've got to remember that it's just me up against all of them. If they lash out, I have no other choice but to flee or else they will nullify my powers with their own. While they cannot take direct control of any robot I'm in control of, if they manage to get their hands on it, they can still pull it apart as easily as if it were a toy."
Staring out at the stalled evacuation of the city, Courage shook his head. "They'll never get everyone out of the way in time."
While the amalgamation was not large enough to wipe the entire city off the map, they were going to cut right through the middle of it and what would remain afterwards would not exactly be much of a city.
Thinking for a moment, Courage said to Atticus, "Let's go down there and see if we can talk them into changing direction."
If Atticus had any misgivings about this, he did not voice them. The machine went into a slow and somewhat shallow dive, mostly for Courage's sake it seemed. After they were more at level with the top of the amalgamation's writhing, screaming mass, the bird machine put on a burst of speed to get them closer to it faster.
Courage grit his teeth as the horrible sound of the Constructs collective screaming began to mix in with the rushing noise of the wind whipping past him. Atticus soon slowed his speed to match that of the amalgamation's own movement, and when he did, that wind buffer left Courage and he was forced to bear the full brunt of the amalgamation's agony once more.
Atticus hovered just above the top of the expansive mass that had once been a city. Courage could even see the spot where the amalgamation had all but launched him into space. Flapping his wings occasionally to keep himself moving at the same speed as the amalgamation, Atticus looked around as if considering a place to land, but then seemed to think better of it.
Instead, he called out to his siblings using something within his mechanical body that amplified his voice so that it was loud enough to cut through the hellish screaming. "I don't suppose you all could do us a favor and stop moving for a little while? Or at least move a little to the left or right so that you don't squash that city flat?"
The screaming took on an enraged tone and Atticus had no other choice but to make a quick ascent to avoid a growing field of sharp implements that were rising up out of the amalgamation to try and bring him down.
"Well, asking nicely didn't work." He huffed, still keeping pace but at a safer distance.
Courage leaned over the side of the machine, and with his pair of lungs he didn't need a way to amplify his voice. "If you can't stop or change directions, try slowing down so that it will give everyone more of a chance to get out of the way!"
Amazingly, they both watched the amalgamation begin to slow down ever so slightly. Courage sighed with relief. It was proof that even now some of them were fighting to limit the harm they were doing.
"Oh, right, of course. They'll listen if it's 'you' who asks nicely. Excuse me for ever thinking otherwise." Atticus complained, rolling his massive eyes as he leered over his shoulder at Courage.
"I don't think it's like that." Courage mused, looking out ahead of them.
Beyond the city stood mostly uninhabited land for some miles before reaching the ocean. Moonlight glittered out across that dark expanse of rippling waves. There was a small seaside town that the amalgamation would just miss if they remained on their current course. Atop a hill stood a lighthouse in full operation.
Courage shook his head. "I'm pretty sure they can't stop or change directions because they're dead set on driving themselves into the ocean. Not enough of them are against doing it to stop themselves, but at least they were able to slow down and buy us some time."
"Well, they're certainly connected to enough machinery that submerging themselves in water would take out even a being as powerful as them. No amount of electrical resistance will save them from the kind of electrical surge that would cause."
Courage winced. "What do we do?"
Atticus did not speak for a long moment and then, sounding rather regretful, said, "I'm not sure we can stop them. As it always is with them, they can only stop if they decide on their own terms that they want to stop. I think the best thing that we can do right now is try and reduce the amount of collateral damage."
He picked up speed, clearly intending to help the people of that city.
"I just wish..." Courage began, unable to find the right words. "This isn't right. As dangerous as they are, they deserve better. I felt how content and less chaotic they were when they had some happy memories to hold on to, even if they weren't their own. They weren't even trying to hurt me, at least most of them weren't. They couldn't help what happened with me breaking apart like that. If only there was a way to break them apart in the same way!"
"As it stands right now, we can't separate them and we can't get them to stop moving toward self-destruction. However, give me some time to think on this and I'll see if I can come up with a way to stop them long enough for 'you' to talk them down off the metaphorical ledge. Just don't get your hopes up, and we need to focus on saving those people they're about to bulldoze first."
"Maybe you should do some talking too. They'll listen to you, I think. You've been through just as much as they have and survived against all odds. You all have so much in common, so start telling them in your own words that it can get better even when it seems like there's nothing but pain in the future."
The mechanical bird gave a furious flap of its wings. "Ha! Nothing I say or do will get through to them. I don't know if you've noticed, but they don't exactly like me much. Some of them are willing to work with me when our goals align, but that's about it. I want to help them, and I've forgiven them in some aspects, in spite of all that they've done to me, but I'm not sure we could ever truly reconcile. Don't forget that what they did to Thirty-Two happened long before they became the amalgamation. I understand why those who took part in that did what they did, but it's not something I can so easily forgive. I'm going to try and help them, because goodness knows we all deserve better, but I'm most certainly not the one who will convince them 'not' to barbecue their collective hardware."
"At least try to talk with them." Courage argued. "Or else you'll never even get a chance to reconcile with them."
"For now we should just worry about that city." Atticus pivoted with a note in his tone of voice that made it very clear that he did not want to discuss this further.
They were nearly upon the city now, and it was even easier to see all of the highways packed with cars. Those who were stuck in the traffic jam outside of the city were mostly in the clear, but those who could not get out of the city thanks to all of the roads being clogged were very much in the danger zone of being crushed. Courage could see plenty of people trying to flee the city on foot, and even those who had cleared the city in their cars and were now stuck on the highways were starting to abandon their vehicles too.
Thinking for a moment, Courage asked, "Do you think you could build a big dome over the city?"
It was the only thing he could think of that would save everyone stuck in the danger zone while also saving the city itself from destruction.
The bird machine shook its head, generating that metallic, squeaky hinge noise again. "Not even close. Although-" He stopped and pointed his beak. "Look there. I might be able to work with that."
They were now sailing into the city itself, and from Courage's vantage point, he could see that Atticus was pointing toward a roofed sports stadium.
Atticus quickly explained, "We'll have everyone who cannot get out gather there. I should be able to reinforce the outside with enough steel to withstand a direct hit."
Courage had a more than a few misgivings about this, as he could not imagine anything would be able to withstand being bulldozed by the amalgamation's frantic flight toward the ocean, but it wasn't as if there was time to consider more options.
"Wait, where are you going?" Courage asked when Atticus winged his way right past the stadium.
"There's one other thing that I want to see if I can do first." Was all the answer his companion gave.
He slowed his flight speed and began to circle a high rise building with a huge antenna atop its roof. Courage immediately picked up on what it was he wanted to do...if he could actually land without taking the antenna out in the process.
Atticus slowed to a crawl, and hovering over the roof, began to flap his wings like a mad robot as he tried to come in for a gentle landing. Try as he might though, he just could not seem to lower himself correctly, and so, giving up, he tucked his wings in and let himself drop so heavily down onto the roof that Courage spent the next few moments certain that they were about to crash through the ceiling and into the room below.
"Perfect landing!" Atticus joked. He seemed to be intentionally ignoring the cracks in the concrete that he had created...
He shifted around toward the antenna and several wires snaked their way out of his torso to connect with it.
"I'll have a much easier time brute forcing this by interfacing directly with the system rather than using my powers to do it remotely." He explained to Courage, and then went very quiet as he concentrated.
As he worked, Courage looked out at the approaching mountain of machinery. Icy dread froze in his chest. Even at their slower pace, the amalgamation was nearly upon the city. Over the endless honking of cars and the panicking voices of the people below, he was certain that he could hear that awful screaming of theirs starting to become audible.
"There!" Atticus announced, becoming animated again after having sat there more like a giant robotic statue for those few minutes that had felt like an eternity. "I've hijacked their emergency alert system and now every TV and cellphone within range should display a message telling everyone who cannot get out of the city to come to the stadium."
"Your idea was a good one, but-" Courage pointed toward the amalgamation.
Atticus unfurled his robot wings. "Right, it's time to get to work."
He dropped off the side of the building and Courage once again had to keep himself from losing his lunch as he was made to feel like he was on a roller coaster. They very nearly smashed into the pavement below where so many people were watching the giant robot eagle struggling to get airborne again. Once Atticus had proper control, he sailed over their heads, amplifying his voice to tell them to make their way to the stadium.
Courage sucked in a breath as Atticus made a sharp turn to go down another street, and with his wingspan already struggling to fit between the buildings, his left wingtip sliced through a corner building so thoroughly that it was amazing the front end didn't collapse into the street.
"Can't you be a little more careful?" Courage yelped, all too aware of how dangerous it would be for that building to collapse with so many people on the street.
Atticus glared at him over his shoulder. "Stop backseat driving!"
He pumped his wings to gain altitude until he was sailing above the buildings just high enough to avoid causing more damage. Upon reaching the stadium once more, its roof began to open, Atticus having activated the mechanism remotely. He circled the stadium several times, looking this way and that, trying to take in as much of his surroundings as possible. Then, making one last circle, clouds of dust exploded into being below him and trailed along with him as he circled. What he was doing exactly, Courage could not see.
Once that was done, he angled himself to come in for a landing on the field. If him trying to land atop that building had been a mess, this attempt to land more like a plane might as well have been called an airshow disaster. He flapped his wings frantically as he tried to level out properly. The field was coming in fast, and Courage suddenly found himself feeling way more religious.
Atticus reached his talons out in front of him and at first seemed to gently glide across the grass...but then something about him became unbalanced, and with a panicky flap of his wings, his talons were suddenly digging deep gouges into the dirt. He slid across the playing field, digging his wingtips into the dirt to keep himself from flipping over and accidentally squishing Courage flat. This seem to go on forever until finally he started to slow to a stop just when he was about to run out of field and go crashing into the stands ahead of him.
A moment passed where neither dog nor robot moved, then Courage somehow managed to release his death grip on the hunk of metal he'd been holding on to and allowed himself to fall down onto the field.
Atticus's bird face loomed overhead. "Well, I'd certainly say that I'm getting a hang of this flying thing!"
Courage raised a shaky paw into the air and gave him a thumbs up before letting his arm drop back into the grass, unable to hold it up for any longer than that. He was very glad that his stomach was already empty...
By the time he managed to recompose himself, Atticus had already deconstructed most of his robot to use its metal in the construction of the dome over the stadium. Along with that, Courage could see one of the skyscrapers nearby slowly beginning to deconstruct itself from the top downward. Even if it was not visible yet, the reinforcement of the stadium was well under way. Courage was pretty sure now that what those clouds of debris Atticus had been making while circling this place had been him creating the initial foundation for the dome. People were slowly starting to trickle in. No doubt Atticus had left a few openings in the dome so that people could actually get inside, until it would be time to close it all up upon the amalgamation's arrival.
Courage remained standing upon the torn up field. Some people were making their way onto it as well, while others were making their way up into the stands. A nervous atmosphere was quickly filling up the place, and the rising sound of the amalgamation's screaming did not help. Courage could sense static in the air, another tell-tale sign that the amalgamation was approaching, although he also suspected that Atticus's heavy use of his powers was generating it as well.
He felt a tap on his shoulder and whirled around. He was amazed to find not a person but several wires carrying a small but exceptionally angry looking cat with its arms crossed.
"Found this in one of the buildings I'm dismantling." Atticus said in a tone like he was expecting Courage to take the cat. His voice was coming from a loudspeaker overhead.
"I-I am not taking that." Courage replied. The cat looked ready to slit the throat of the next person who got anywhere near its claws.
"Suit yourself then." Atticus relented, allowing the cat to drop lightly onto the field. It hissed and bit into a wire hard enough to snap it in two. "You know what?" Atticus grumbled. "I regret saving you."
The cat hissed again and bounded away on all fours, a length of wire still dangling from its mouth. Courage watched it jump up into the stands and take shelter under one of the chairs. This whole event gave him an idea.
"I should really go out there and see what I can do to help."
In response, a wire came to rest on his shoulder. "That's not a good idea, Courage. If you have an attack out there, I'll be too busy with this to go off and rescue you."
Courage let his ear droop, suddenly feeling very useless. "But..."
Much to his surprise, he felt the wire swirl around him and tighten into an odd sort of hug. He smiled, hearten by it.
With a slight tinge of laughter in his voice, Atticus said, "You've done more than enough for me and my siblings. Let me take care of the rest. If anyone needs a break after having their mind shattered into a million pieces, its you."
"Okay," Courage relented, laughing. "I'll let you handle this." He suddenly felt himself lifted off the ground. "W-what are you-"
"I've got a bad feeling that it's going to get very crowded in here soon and I do not want to have to worry about you being trampled when I have so much else that I need to focus on."
He lifted Courage up toward the announcer box, but rather than putting him inside, he left him on top of its roof.
"There!" He exclaimed. "Now I can focus on this without having to worry about you 'almost' dying again!"
Courage chuckled sheepishly. "Sorry! At least I haven't 'all the way' died yet."
"And I intend to keep it that way." Atticus huffed, and while there was no visual cue that he had turned his attention back onto the construction of the dome, Courage got a sense of it from the shifting of the static electricity in the air.
The stadium continued to fill, and Atticus began ordering the growing mass of people to fill out certain parts of the stadium over the loudspeakers. From Courage's vantage point, he could see that Atticus was trying to keep the already panicky city folk from getting too packed into one area, thus panicking even further and possibly causing casualties from a crowd crush situation.
Overhead, massive beams of steel were starting to come together, followed by great sheets of metal to cover the gaps between the beams. The night sky slowly began to disappear as the dome came together bit by bit. Finally, Atticus had the existing stadium roof begin to close, and while the screaming of the amalgamation was muted thanks to the extra layers, there was no blocking out the steadily growing rumble that sounded all too much like the roar of an approaching tornado.
Courage was struck by how quiet the stadium itself was. The people were too afraid to talk in more than a harsh whisper, and thus the only sounds were that of the clanging outside as Atticus continued to reinforce the dome further.
The rumbling grew in strength and the entire stadium began to shake. Only now did a few screams rise up from the crowd. Atticus yelled out over the loudspeakers to stay calm, because if panic where to break out now, these people would surely do as much harm to each other as the amalgamation might. Even now people were still rushing in, filling an already packed stadium.
The next few minutes went by like a blur. The rumbling became so loud and shook the stadium so hard that Courage dropped down onto the cool, metal roof to keep himself from vibrating off of it and into the stands below. He griped at his ear and ear stump, his heart beating a mile a minute. Now it was impossible to ignore the muted screaming of the amalgamation outside. Somehow he was too scared to keep his eyes open but also too scared to close them at the same time, so all he could do was watch.
Would Atticus's plan actually work, or were they about to be ground down into nothing? Very little seemed to escape the amalgamation's path of destruction unscathed, so maybe they had been foolish to think that they could save these people by hunkering down.
Just like that, the power went out, likely due to the amalgamation crashing into something crucial in keeping the city's power on. The stadium plunged into pitch blackness, and all sense of nervous calm left the cowering people. Screams as loud as the amalgamation's own broke out. Just as Courage started to worry that Atticus had been knocked out along with the power, dim emergency lights flickered on and Atticus's voice rang out demanding calm from the panicking people below. His command had been spoken not a moment too soon, because the rumble became a vicious crashing and rending sound so loud that no voice could hope to yell over it.
A sound like a bomb going off ripped through the stadium, along with the ear piercing screech of metal on metal. Courage held on to the edge of the roof for dear life. The whole stadium felt like it was seconds away from shaking apart. An unheard gasp escaped Courage's throat as he watched through the dim lights a massive piece of the roof break free and fall toward the field below, where it would kill and injure hundreds. Thick cables ripped themselves free of the roof and shot out toward the chuck of roof, wrapping around and catching it moments before it could crush the cringing people below. Courage barely had time to register the entire event because in nearly the same instant the roof let off a horrible screeching sound and was ripped away, taking the cables and hanging chunk of roof along with it.
Unlike being hit by a tornado, where even after the tornado had made a direct hit there would still be dangerous winds and flying debris to contend with for a little while longer after it had passed, and despite the continued rumbling and screaming of the amalgamation, once they had passed over, the danger was gone.
An eerie calm fell over the stadium. The reinforced roof had not held and been dragged along with the amalgamation as it passed, but the rest remained in place. The only danger had been that one chunk of roof, and it had been taken care of before it could harm anyone. Miraculously, they had all made it out alive and unscathed.
Courage blinked dumbly up into the night sky shining overhead. He let out the breath that he had been holding in for far too long.
"Atticus?" He gently called out.
"I'm here." He answered, his voice sounding muffled and somewhat distant.
It took Courage a moment to realize that Atticus was speaking through something within the announcer box itself. The damage done to the roof must have taken out the speaker system.
"Are you okay?" Courage asked, looking around for a safe place to jump down so that he could get into the announcer box.
"Of course." Was the reply, suddenly sounding much clearer.
Courage heard the various sounds of metal coming together and looked upward at the rim of the sheered off roof over his head. The same eagle-like machine was being reconstructed overhead, with its talons digging into the rim to keep it in place as it was finished being put together.
The blue eye lights blazed back into being. "We've still got work to do." Atticus said, sounding grave. "And I've come up with a plan to stop them, even if it's a rather hopeless one that has perhaps less than a five percent chance of working."
"We've got to try something, even if it's unlikely to work." Courage said with a nod.
"Well, you see-" Atticus began only to stop abruptly. He was focusing on something beyond Courage.
Confused, Courage turned around to find probably the entire packed stadium staring up at them.
Atticus made a motion that looked remarkably like an actual bird fluffing its feathers. "You're welcome!" He grumpily called out, although Courage very much got the sense that he was actually embarrassed to have that many people looking at him after having saved their lives.
End Of Chapter
A/N: I don't know how it took me this long to figure out the exact name for the type of asexuality I've been trying to depict in this story, but its called biromantic (probably, 'cause sexuality is confusing lmao). AKA Bi romantic attraction without sexual attraction. The flag colors are pink, purple, and dark blue...which is very fitting for these doggo idiots. Back when I decided that I was going to take their relationship in a romantic direction, I was feeling especially frustrated about a lot of the usual misconceptions about asexuality. That asexuality means a total lack of interest in romantic relationships and sexual relationships. Asexuality being a spectrum is way more commonly known these days, but back then it was still much less understood by people in general. You gotta remember that when I started this story, LGBT acceptance was nowhere near where it is now and even things like gay marriage in the US was still years away from being legalized. I really wanted to write about and give some representation to this particular type of asexuality, no matter how small this representation is in the grand scheme of things.
It sucks that it still falls into some of the usual stereotypes that aces tend to get depicted through, AKA robot characters being the ones to be ace to enhance their 'otherness', but it is what it is. In the end though, I love the idea of and wanted to depict a relationship where one half is very aware of the other half's steep boundaries around physical intimacy and that they are willing to accept those boundaries and do not consider it a deal breaker toward having a relationship with them. As I've always said, we all need a Courage in our lives lol. Now that they're finally out and open with each other, I'm very much looking forward to finally writing their relationship without them both dancing around it constantly. The next handful of upcoming chapters could easily be named 'Computer Stop Fearing Emotional Intimacy Challenge', as if that couldn't already be the name of All Things End to begin with LOL.
So, yeah, Courage is the bi half of the team since he very much was catching feelings from the girl doggo way back at the start of the forest arc no matter how much he wanted to deny it, and there's been a few other small things here and there throughout the story that hint he can be into the opposite gender. Computer's asexuality is probably somewhere between demiromantic, panromantic, biromantic, or all three at once lmao. For a long time I was just going to slap a 'THIS IS THE GAYEST MACHINE EVER CONSTRUCTED. ALAN TURING WOULD BE PROUD.' sticker on him and call it a day buuut here's the thing, there's intentionally been a lot of not-so-subtly hinting and joking about him possibly not being all that secure about his gender. I have considered the idea a couple of times of having him embrace his genderlessness as a big F you to all of the people in the story who tried to use his lack of gender to dehumanize him. Unfortunately since I have always felt like I have been pushing it with the gay stuff when I did not originally bill the story as that for the first four or so years, well, having the sexless robot decide they are okay with not needing to present as a certain gender is just a step too far lol. Ironically though, something I've noticed through the years is that this story attracts non-binary and trans readers like nobody's business, so there seems to have always been something there, even back in Volume I before I decided to go full on gay as shit with this story. I'm someone who has definitely spent a lot of time going back and forth wondering if I am non-binary, soooo some of that has probably always been subconsciously bleeding into the story.
It kinda sucks that it would be yet another cliche to have a robot character be the one to embrace a lack of gender, but since it's probably not going to actually become a thing within the story, it doesn't matter too much either way. I feel like Computer would need a lot more time than he has to really work through the fact that he heavily internalized seeing himself as and presenting himself as male in an effort to validate himself and legitimatize his humanity, when that never should have been needed in the first place. The best place he could possibly get to is where instead of getting frustrated by someone calling him an 'it' to dehumanize him, he would instead be all, 'hell yeah I'm an 'it', and what are you going to do about it, loser?'