This day was supposed to be perfect
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Vinyl knew she would never get used to the sound her hooves now made on metal floors. That fourth sound would always echo in her mind, reminding her of her failure...of how everything went wrong. Such a simple possibility, so obvious, so perfect as a way to counteract everything she'd built up...and she had missed it. Whoever was behind this, they had planned well. And now there was nothing.
That day two months prior - had it only been that long? - the wedding of the century became the end of an era. The one who'd burst in to object had been a human...with a bomb strapped to his chest. The human guests of the wedding weren't physically fit enough to deal with someone like that, being part of the robotics community and used to letting robots do most of the heavy lifting. The robotic guests and security faced a massive logic error as the First Law clashed with the First Law, as any action or inaction risked major harm to many humans, leaving nearly everyone unable to act. Prometheus could have acted, but his buster was too powerful. Had he fired, the bomb would have gone off anyway, and he wasn't quite fast enough to stop the bomber from triggering his device.
He'd shouted something in the middle of the chamber - Vinyl would never know what, too many others were shouting and she never bothered learning Latin - and had triggered his device. The blast had been blinding, searing Vinyl's eyes even before the explosion could reach anyone. She wore her shades now to protect her eyes from light towards the red end of the spectrum, the longer wavelengths painful to look at. It also muted brightness, leaving her gazing at a world of muted blues and violets.
Rock had moved as fast as he could, shielding both Kalinka and Vinyl herself with his body. An instinctive action, but perhaps a mistake. The blast had torn his body apart, along with Vinyl's right foreleg. And then the shrapnel from Rock's body had torn into Kalinka. Both of them were gone now, and Vinyl was left broken inside. On the day she was to marry her two best friends, she had lost them...and she could only blame herself.
And that wasn't the worst of it. When an article came out about the event a day later - while Vinyl was still in recovery from the event - someone had managed to shape the article in the worst possible way. The human dead and injured were listed under casualties, but the robots - no matter how loved, no matter what their status - were listed as part of the collateral damage, their deaths and pain valued only in coin. And the world had torn itself apart.
Down on the surface, war waged. Robots were once more the weapons of war, leading and linking the armies as the world fought, divided between those who saw the event and article as proof that robots never should have been treated as equal, and those who unwittingly overturned the very equality they claimed to fight for.
Vinyl's prosthetic was made out of Rock's own leg, the only part of his body that had survived. His newer circuitry as he'd been upgraded closer and closer to human proved perfect for interfacing with her nervous system, and she now wore the blue armored limb as a reminder of Rock, of Mega Man, the friend she'd both destroyed and lost...carrying him with her always.
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This was the sound of a broken soul, who had lost faith in the world she had tried to save. She would try no more. She was ending this story.
The kind of day they'd dreamed since they were small
Mikhail oversaw the settlement of Mars, and the work making it a viable world. Humans and robots, everyone who wanted nothing to do with the war that was consuming the Earth had evacuated, first to Sky Lagoon and from there to Mars. The evacuation was almost complete, and once it was, he would follow his directive to sever the communications network between Earth and Mars. He'd been concerned about doing that, but Vinyl had told him she would take care of it. When she was done, Mars and its people would be safe from the war...and on their own.
Mikhail stared out over the terraformed landscape, and up at the holo-domes that made Mars look as red as ever from the outside. Unless a ship actually came in for a landing on the red planet, there would never be a sign the world was inhabited. They would be safe, safe to build a world where humans and robots were equals, and live as they had always wanted.
And yet...
He turned his gaze back towards the blue star in the sky, the world that had once been home. At this distance, even with telescopes, very little was visible. They'd never see the scars of war unless they looked...and yet he felt he could see with his own eyes how the world tore itself apart. He thought about the friends he would never see again...
Wily would not leave Vinyl now, not for anything. Skull Man was staying, helping Vinyl with a special project, along with Prometheus. And Light would not leave X. He was going to stay by that capsule as long as he lived, just to ensure that he was safe, and would awaken safely. They could all only hope that the world he would awaken to would be one that would let him live a life of peace...
But no one could stay for cake
Skull Man shifted slightly as he adapted to his upgraded body. It had been patterned after Prometheus, making him much better at blending in with humans visually, which would be important to the mission he and Prometheus were going to have. It was their job to watch over the world after Vinyl played her last card. Watch, wait...and hope that humanity would overcome their hate, and learn to become something new. If they did, Anton's capsule - labeled A.X.L-C - was programmed to reveal itself, in the hopes that a good scientist would complete him, so he could live in the world his parents died believing in.
If they did not...Project Revelation had been completed. A binary etheric core, fully charged with Justice and Evil Energy, ready to generate Ether Energy in massive quantities. A body capable of wielding that power, a power that could devastate the world many times over. And a mind left blank, free to shape itself, and decide for itself...to save or destroy. Doc Robot...Secret...The-Robot-Formerly-Known-As-Secret...and now left to choose his own name. Only two AI programs - one based off Vinyl, one based off Albert - would remain to guide the technology left behind to maintain and restore him, should he need it.
Prometheus and Skull Man had said their goodbyes, and taken up their posts. Now only one thing was left for either of them to do. Nodding to each other, they disconnected from the world wide web, becoming alone in their own minds.
And two special guests were very late
Vinyl had prepared. At long last, she'd found the source of her magical energy. A portal device was prepared. Originally, it was going to be a bridge, letting her pass back and forth at will. Now, it was a warp device, meant to take the entirety of Wily Castle through to the other world, and seal the rift behind them.
She looked over those that would be coming with her. Her father, her brother Forte, his girlfriend Mizuki, her four Elemental Guardians, and every worker bot - from Mettaurs on up - that worked within the castle. And when the castle had gone, the program in Sky Lagoon's central computer would broadcast, and it would all end.
The ones who did this - who killed her friends, tried to paint her a villain to the world, and tore the world apart - wanted to turn back the clock of progress? Felt all the technology that had advanced was so wrong? Let them live without their technology then. Let them live without it then. She'd give them the greatest punishment she could conceive of.
She would leave them to reap the consequences of their actions, and face the truth of their desires. "Drop this place."
With that command given, Wily Castle disconnected from Sky Lagoon, floated up into the air...and vanished in a blaze of light.
In Light's Lab, Dr. Light was stunned as a flare of light appeared between him and X's capsule. A tiny pony - grey with a black mane and tail, purple eyes, and a purple treble cleft mark on her flanks - appeared, barely breathing. Checking her vitals with his scanners, Dr. Light was able to determine that she was over-exposed to chronitons and other high energy particles, greatly straining her physiological functions to the point it would take at least thirty years for her systems to adjust to the new world enough just to survive. Glancing from her to the capsule, Dr. Light got an idea. Working feverishly, he jury-rigged a bio-stasis field into the capsule's systems. Opening the capsule, he placed the tiny filly against X's chest, closing the capsule to keep both safe.
To his surprise, as the stasis kicked in, X's arms wrapped protectively around the tiny filly, and she nuzzled against his chest. Plainly, he'd made the right choice.
Feeling his body - injured and weakened from that incident two months ago - voicing its protestations of the effort it had taken, he realized it would be his last. Still, the Light Hologram Network - shielded against what Vinyl was about to do - would watch over them. In sorrow and hope, Tom closed his eyes.
Across the world, every machine hooked to any network with any connection - through robot or computer - to the World Wide Web displayed the long dreaded Blue Screen of Death. However, as every machine in the world - from military hardware that could launch nukes down to the toaster in a smart house - froze, each screen displayed two words. Two words the world would never forget.
The End
Their wedding bells would never ring at all.
And everything stopped.