"Where in JC. Jenson's underpants did it go?" C complained. The hunter drones had been flying around the area for almost half an hour and hadn't found even a single trace of their prey. The snow-covered ground should have been perfect for finding a stray drone's tracks, but neither of them had even seen a single footprint since they started looking. C was considering that the drone may have leapt from tree to tree.

"It's a slippery one. I'll give it that." E sighed as she scanned the ground for what felt like the millionth time. It had been the weirdest fight either of them had ever had. The drone seemed to know where they were at all times, even if it shouldn't have been able to.

C swooped lower through the evergreens looking for anything he could find, "You couldn't have hit it, could you. It was standing right there, it couldn't see you, and you were lined up perfectly. But noooooo, you had to hit me out of the sky."

"Hey! It's not my fault I have a glitch. It's not like I wanted to hit you," E yelled flying up beside him, "It's not like you did much good either. You couldn't even hit it with the laser cannon."

"It moved very erratically, how was I supposed to know where it would be?" C questioned back, though in all reality he was lying. The drone had moved very smoothly, almost liquid like as many would say one day, "How could you lose sight of it anyways, it was right in front of you."

"Not like I saw you seeing where it went," E said as trees whipped past them, "Don't blame me for losing it this time C. You're just as much at fault as I am here. H is going to—"

A green dot appeared on C's chest for a brief moment, then the hottest, most blinding light E had ever experienced bloomed outwards from C. It disoriented her, burned out all her optic sensors, and immediately had overheating warnings pop up on her visor. They plummeted towards the ground, E pulling up just in time to avoid an all-out crash landing. She still took a few rolls to stop completely.

When she could see again the view was not a pretty one. That light, most likely a laser, had meted through C's chest. His core was gone, vaporized, a hole cut so perfectly clean and round that if she hadn't known she would have thought it had taken hours to do. His head was taken out in the crash, there would be no regeneration for him. But her head snapped up towards the tree line before she could register that C was really gone.

There. There it was, that stupid little drone, that humiliation of a tin can. E was livid. She would tear that thing apart before it could blink. She saw its eyes hollow out, she heard its joints shake, she could smell its fear. She was done playing with her food.

E leapt forwards, her hands slipping into the wide openings of her wrists and then back out as swords. She was sure she was on target until it moved slightly to the left of her swords just before she could connect to the recycling bin's body. The fear was gone, a cold indifference had replaced it in the way the drone acted. In a move a thousand times practiced it pulled a sword from a sheath on its hip. One motion was all it took, and the fight was on.

E didn't let the missed strike hit the ground, instead she redirected the energy into an overhead strike at the drone. It kept moving to the left, and deflected the attack away with its… Katana… Saber? E was no expert on swords, just what they could do, and the drone had taken the opening caused by her attack to lash out. E blocked the drone's rebuff just before it could draw first blood (oil? Whatever). The drone disengaged from the parry and took a step back. E attacked using an uppercut swing with her left hand, trying to feel out the defenses of the drone. It moved to the right and pushed her blade away from itself.

The drone stepped in slashing at her middle. E blocked with her right sword. The drone disengaged again. E lunged with her right; the drone moved left parrying her. E scissored the drone with her swords, it leapt back. Then leapt forwards once her blades had crossed, locking its sword at the cross point. E pushed back; the drone pushed forward. E used her better leverage to shove the Drone back and uncross her swords. She changed her left hand into an AK and bullets went flying. She didn't care if she was wasting nanites, she wanted that thing dead and sucked dry.

What met her eyes was unbelievable, terrifying, and absolutely beautiful. Even with her ability to take in information at an absurd rate the Drone seemed to be moving incredibly fast. It dodged and weaved through the bullets like it was dancing, and the ones it couldn't dodge were blocked and cut by the sword it had. It was almost hypnotic how smooth and fluid it was.

'What is this thing?' she thought, feeling her panic starting to rise, 'How does it keep doing this?'

In less than a second the Drone had closed the gap and taken her lapsed guard as an opportunity to slice her arm. The strike went home cutting cleanly through her gun hand. The pain jerked E back into the fight. Her sword lunged at the Drone; it parried again. E pulled in her left hand and made it into her missile launcher. She jumped back to get better aim, lifted her arm, and—.

"Error: action does not conform to PTC"

Her arm swung to the side as she fired the missile. That god ugly symbol took up her visor for a second. That cursed triangle with diamonds coming off the points. Why now, of all times, couldn't it have chosen a less important hunt. Always at the worst of times, never when she needed it.

The Drone bashed the pommel of its sword into her head. E jumped back again knowing that she had lost the upper hand in the fight. The Drone pushed its advantage and lunged into another attack. E blocked with her right sword locking them in place. Then, faster than E could realize, the Drone pulled a pistol from a holster on its hip and fired.

The world went white.

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Why did they have to be so heavy? Hunter drones were the most dense amalgamation of metal and bio-horror that had ever been conceived, and not to mention their cooling system. That was atrocious in the most illogical ways. But Jacob had to admit he admired their design, a marvel of engineering, but heck were they heavy.

Jacob looked down at his own design, he was taller than the worker drones, but not quite as tall as the hunter drones. He also had a more square body than the workers, and arms and legs that were disturbingly similar to some of the hunter drones. He couldn't turn his hands into weapons, but still... Thinking about how he looked brought out the ever-present JC Jenson coding nagging at the back of every drone's head. The old advertisements for his kind came to the fore.

We are Scout Drone: autonomous robots made and designed to help you explore the far reaches of spaaaaaaaaaaace. We are the most intelligent model ever produced by JC Jenson. The biggest bonus though is that the buyer has the final say in how their order is designed. Almost any upgrade or feature you can imagine is possible because of the fine engineers at JC Jenson. We can fill almost any role the buyer wishes, from the cook halls of an exploration ship to the first wave in an attack force, anything is possible.

The only limit is how far you're willing to go. Forever Improving.

Jacob chuckled to himself at the irony of the last statement. If only they had known.

The hunter drone that he had been dragging along started to stir. Jacob rolled his eyes; they would go at it again in a few seconds once her systems rebooted. Her head had regenerated a few minutes ago and her system had remained dark for the rest of the time he had been pulling, but now text had appeared on her visor. Jacob dropped her on to the snow before pulling out his 9mm pistol.

Well, it wasn't a 9mm pistol per say, in reality it was a very small plasma cannon that shot globs of high velocity, plasmatic iron. He did have to lengthen and widen the barrel somewhat, and he had to bulk up the firing chamber with heating mechanisms, but hey it worked. The thing shot out a wide, short cone of iron plasma that ripped through just about anything it could touch, anything it could touch being the hard part to execute.

The eyes on the hunter drone had barely opened before he shot her head off again. Jacob picked her back up and began dragging her back to the outpost. Sure, he would have to do this a few times on his way there, but anything for a live test. It wasn't like he didn't know what was going to happen if he let her regenerate and boot up. That was the most of his worries.

Her head had regenerated again, and she began to boot up. Jacob just shot her again. He was going to run out of iron at this rate: he should have remembered to bring more. This was going to be a long night, wasn't it?

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E started to reboot for the twelfth time since that tin can had captured her. Her optics had come online this time, maybe it was running out of ammunition. Blam, her world went white then black again. Nope, it had not ran out of ammunition. Pain, love it.

She had to think of something soon or else, at the rate this drone was going, she would burn in the sun before they got to wherever it was going. Blam! Maybe if she kept her eyes shut the next time she rebooted. Blam! This was getting old really fast, her head hurt. Ya, she would try keeping her visor dark next time. Blam! As soon as she rebooted E set her visor's preset to off and shut it down. Blam! The drone had seen her eyes for a brief second, it wouldn't this next time though.

E rebooted and waited for the screen of death again. Nothing happened. Her optics came online and she could see the outside world. The drone was dragging her along, though it was at a faster pace than she had expected. Where was it taking her? It didn't matter, she would just kill it anyway.

The drone dropped her again, it reached for its pistol to try and shoot her again. She made her move. Leaping up she spun around bringing her swords out to find…nothing. Snow swirled in the distance, pine trees moved in the slight breeze, and the stars shone down brightly without the moon in the sky. There was nothing but footprints leading up to where the drone should have been.

What.

The.

Freaking.

Hell.