Haunting Melodies

"Hey stupid, look out behind you, idiot!" yelled Max. Ross turned around just in time to see Max pull back the hammer on his pistol. Leaping out of the way, he narrowly dodged the shot that ricocheted off Crimebot's armoured exoskeleton.
"What the hell?" yelled Ross, launching a jump kick at Max, knocking his gun out of his hand. Max leapt ten feet in the air and swung his leg around, hitting Ross in the head. Stumbling back, Ross threw a deadly punch, but it was deflected by Max's lightning-fast reflexes. His reflexes were fast even for Max. Too fast, Ross thought. He threw a couple more deadly punches at Max, but each hit was blocked. With a massive jump kick Max knocked Ross down onto the ground and winded him. Then he leapt over to Ross and prepared to crush his sternum with a huge body blow from both his feet.

But then, seemingly out of nowhere, a laser blast smashed into Max's face and killed him instantly. Ross crawled over to his friend, who's face was a mess of servos and gears, with some wires shooting electricity in every direction. "A... robot?" said Ross, "Max was a robot?"
"NOT A ROBOT YOU BUFFOON BUT AN ANDROID. LOOKS PRETTY ACCURATE TOO, YOU JERK," yelled Crimebot.
Ross gave Crimebot a quizzical look. There were a couple moments of silence, which wasn't awkward because Ross pretended to catch his breath. Otherwise it probably would have been pretty awkward, though. "Why did he shout out at the end there?"
Crimebot raises both his eyes in a look of surprise. He wasn't surprised, he just looked it. "I DON'T KNOW UGLY, I GUESS- WAIT A SECOND MORON!" he said, reaching into his pocket. Pulling out the small device known as an AED-RAC, he switched it off. "Oh, that makes sense!" Crimebot whirred.
"I thought you crushed it!" exclaimed Ross.
"No, I just turned it off and put it in my pocket. I figured it could come in handy later. It must have accidentaly been switched on when I bent over to check for tracks. Sorry I called you all those names, before," said Crimebot, apologetically.
"It's ok," said Ross, who came over and hugged Crimebot. "That little AED-RAC saved my life!"
After a few moments of hugging, Crimebot said "Max wasn't a robot when I scanned him back at Harry's Bar, so that guy must have made the switch sometime before then and now," he finished.
"Hm..." Ross said, trailing off.

Crimebot walked over to the fake Max and looked at his head. His neurocortex was smashed to bits. Crimebot cursed himself for being such a dead shot with his laser beams, if he had been a bit lower he could have salvaged Max's android brain.

Ross patted him on the back. "I owe you one, too, Crimebot. Without you, even that AED-RAC wouldn't have helped," he said, hugging him again. Crimebot smiled a little and a singly oily tear rolled down his cheek. Though Ross would never know, Crimebot was worried sick over how close he had come to losing his only real friend.

Ending their strictly platonic embrace, our two heroes went through Max's person and took all his useful belongings, and some sort of useless ones, like a ball of coiled up wires and a button that said "#1 Dad" on it.

Then they continued on deeper in the forest. After a few hours following the tracks, Crimebot began to hear something. As they followed the tracks further and further into the forest, the sound became louder and louder. Eventually, Crimebot could make out the song. It was the saddest, most haunting melody he had ever heard, and he had technically heard every song every made, as he had access to them all via his cyberdatabase. It was a song about lost love and tragic romance, and it gripped Crimebot's cold metal heart. As they got a little closer, Ross began to hear it, and he burst out into tears. His tears were as much from the beauty of the voice that was singing the song as it was from the sad lyrics of this mysterious euphony.

Rounding a bend... in the trees, I guess, they came upon a muscular man with semi-pointy ears who was offhandly materialising an ice sculpture of a beautiful woman. It appeared that it was he who was behind this beautiful song. Watching him sing and form the ice sculpture for awhile, finally Crimebot stepped forward. The handsome man glanced over at them. "So, finally decided to say hello, eh?" he asked, in a voice that was not as beautiful as his singing voice, but still pretty good as far as voices go.
"I'm Crimebot," Crimebot said.
"And I'm Ross Campbell," said Ross, stepping forward.

The man smirked. "I know who you are, I've travelled half the world to find you. My name... is Zero Caspian!"