CONTENT WARNING : Within My Own Accord

A recollection of one of the few MAI in history ever convicted of the killing of an ally fully of their own will, from their eyes.

BEFORE YOU CONTINUE, please be advised that this story contains: implications of sexual assault, detailed descriptions of gore and death
She approached me before she ever considered to approach high command, for it was in her belief that they would not believe her. But he is an honest man! He is a valiant man! He is a strong man! Strong he is, indeed. He is considerably stronger than my co-commander, in fact, to have overpowered her.
Tears stream down her face in a river and her voice and her body tremble as if her entire self is to fall apart, and I hold her as tight as I can short of crushing her, if, for nothing else, under the slim belief that she actually just might. With what tactile sensors I possess, I feel her heart pound as if it is within my own vessel, and with such a heart, I feel how it aches. How it weeps.
How it rages, and screams, and wails, of the injustice wrought upon it. I cannot help but join it.
She pleads I do not tell them, she pleads that I only protect her.
I will, I will. I swear upon the life of myself and those before and after me that I will stop at nothing to ensure your safety. He will never touch you again, my sister, my dearest, whom I hold so dearly to my own form. I do not only believe that I may put an end to this harm upon you; but I believe I shall guarantee it.
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I lie awake under my canopy, with an emotion that is familiar, but before this moment I have never felt it with such intensity, such ferocity and ire. I believe this is what humans call... Rage. It coils its cold yet somehow burning hot tendrils around every gate within my core. It holds them open or closed in every right place that causes me to feel nothing less than wide awake, fully alert, and burning just as bright. I cannot bring myself to consider sleep. I cannot even close my eyes. Why? …Why do I bother to ask myself such a question. I don’t need to. All I need do is spare a glance toward the quarters where my co-commander rests, and I know everything that I must to aptly justify myself.
I have been monitoring him closely for the last few days, I can recognize his heartbeat now, as a matter of fact. He is awake as I am. Active. Nearby. I quietly spool my engine into action.
I round the corner, and he is there. Are you truly so careless as to have your back turned to me?
A simple mistake, that you won’t have to make again.
I rage. I rage, and I seethe, and I rage. The mere sight of this man is enough for me to feel as though I have lost the peripherals of my optics. He becomes the only thing I can see in the pale light of a waning crescent moon, that weeps over the viscera in which it has no choice but to bear witness. I need not take care in how lightly I grasp him. I need not take care in how deeply my fingers curl inward. I do not care for the sickening, loud, crunch that overtakes my aural sensors, for it only lasts a moment. Why were you out here, anyways, this late at night? Looking for another one? You’re lucky I stopped you. You’re lucky I was quick. You didn’t even get to scream; you exhale no more than a benumbed, mindless wheeze. I allow your form to fall to the ground in a sorry sprawl.
Are you resting now? After all the struggling, does it feel good to be lying so still? So openly, and delicately, as well; a stark contrast to the life you lived just moments ago. Many times before I’ve seen how the likes of your kind look in this sorry state. On a roadside in a pitiful mangle of cloth and metal. In a charred heap as they failed to escape the protective embrace of one of my own brothers, turned into an oven by artillery fire. A single stream of red trickling down the unworldly calm of a face, painstakingly positioned in the crosshairs of a sniper. What was once your soft, pink flesh, wrent red and turned to the open to chill and stiffen and rot. All of this, I am somehow both regrettably and thankfully familiar with. I’d just never seen it done with… with my own… my… oh, god. Oh, God.
It all comes crashing down at once. It feels almost as if my core, even with its thick, armored shell, has compressed and crumpled and cracked, has collapsed in on itself, and I clutch my bloodied hand to my upper glacis plate. My. My bloodied hand. Oh, this is wrong. This is terribly wrong. I am too blinded by my own thoughts to even consider dealing with the mess before me. The dawning horror of it all compels me to flee, but where?
Wait. Wait. I am born for this. Wasn’t I born for this? Wouldn’t they be proud that I killed so readily what I believed to be a threat to our allies? But… no, they saw him as an ally - of course - they didn’t even know. But was it wrong? Was I wrong?
I rinse away what blood I can from the water of a nearby fuel drum.
Was it wrong?
I drive as quietly as I can back to my canopy. I am being watched by my peers. I feel their judgemental gazes, but within them I almost catch the shadows of a dour, grim understanding. Although I didn’t tell you all, did you know as well what he commited? Why it needed to be done?
Was it wrong?
I try to rest.
I cannot rest.
Was I wrong?
I spiral.
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I do not bother to try and hide when morning breaks and they come asking questions. The nature of the culprit is evident. I do not want any of my brothers and sisters to befall to consequence that is not theirs to endure. It is likely that they would have killed me on the spot if not for the intervention of our manufacturer. Although he is dangerous, he is unique. He is curious. He is valuable.
I am loaded onto an open freighter with chains and industrial straps and I am taken away. Where? I’m not sure; perhaps it’s safer that way. They tell me that they’re going to take my utility arms away, and knowing what they know of me, I cannot blame them. They tell me that they wish to understand why I did what I did, how I was suppposed to be better than that, as a child of their making.
I reply, is it not virtuous to quell evil when you see it? When you see someone with the capacity to commit reckless harm, who has commited reckless harm, with the intent to do it again, do you feel no obligation to act? Yes, you did so, so much to strip me of what you perceived as your worldly flaws, your inherent sins, your vices, but that is not compatible with the world you have so unceremoniously thrown me into. That you were forced to throw me into. I do not blame you for what had to be done, for it does not rest upon your shoulders.
But I beg that you do not blame me for what I had to do of my own accord.

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Well this has absolutely gotta be the darkest piece of literature I've ever written as of yet. MAI are generally perceived as greatly compassionate and virtuous beings, but what happens when they are pushed to commit acts that, in the eyes of many, falter this belief?