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onestepbackwards · 2 years

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Please I’m a sucker for self aware au’s but come on! Emmet is right there! 😩

He hasn’t made himself known to you yet but with the way you keep talking he might. He’s biting his conductor hat to muffle all his frustrated groans and screams.

Everytime you battle him it’s always something with you! It started off with ‘He’s so cute I swear.’ Down to ‘I’d fuck him in the Ferris wheel.’

He loves you, and he knows you love him, but your words are getting the better of him. His brain shuts down if your words get lewd enough it’s not fair! Constantly listening to you rattle on and on about how you’d put on his coat and hat and ride him, and oh he’d let you, but don’t misunderstand, he’s in charge.

Emmet is going feral within this digital prison and without you by his side.

- Jes

AAAAAAAA FOR REAL THOUGH 🔞18+🔞

Imagine just how frustrated and slightly unhinged he'd be. He loves watching and listening to you, and the moment you first see and start fawning over him? He's gone. You like him! You actually like him! His one sided feelings aren't one sided after all! ...At least somewhat. You aren't exactly aware he's aware, but that shouldn't matter in the long run, right? You immediately fluster him with all the compliments you give him, cooing at him when you first see him in Nimbasa. You can't see it, but he's popping the hood of his coat to hide his blush. He desperately wants to admit to you his secret. His sentience. But he doesn't. Not yet. He doesn't want to scare you away. He still pines after you though, and secretly follows your character around. You also make the effort to battle him at least once a day! He is so excited, especially whenever you shift or change your team around! But then the compliments start again. 'He's so cute... I wish I could kiss him.' 'I love his eyes. I bet they look gorgeous in person.' 'I wonder if his lips are soft... I bet he's a great kisser.' Are you trying to distract him to win?! it almost feels like you are! If he wasn't 100% sure you weren't aware he was sentient, he would have actually accused you of such. He has to physically stop himself from giggling or squealing when you compliment him. He doesn't want you hearing him yet, after all. He can't help it! It makes him so giddy to hear you say such things! Still... He loves hearing you talk about him. He could listen to your voice all day, if he was being honest. Then one day, when you're on his super line about to challenge him, he hears you. 'Maaaan. Emmet, I would fuck you in the Nimbasa Ferris wheel. Why can't you be real.' Emmet has to physically bite down into his coat to muffle his scream. His face is bright red, and he's practically pulling his hair out. How can you expect him to battle you after saying that!? Not only do you like him, but you want to be physical with him too!? Emmet is already a horndog, so the moment you say this outloud, he loses almost all restraint. All his fantasies revolve around you now. They already did of course, but now he doesn't feel shame when imagining bending you over his desk, and pounding into you from behind. He's also almost thankful he's in a game. You can't see him while he jerks himself off while looking at your face, imagining those lips around his cock. That, and he doesn't have to worry about anyone catching him either. Everyone follows the code when the game is on, like robots. Anything he does outside of it is never remembered. So he slacks off (and jerks off), and thinks of you. A lot. It gets to a point where every time you battle him, it's something new, and Emmet swears he's going to lose control. 'God, I want him to fuck me for days. Ugh. I'd let him pump me full of cum.' Emmet is screaming into his hat. 'I wonder if he would let me where his coat and hat, and ride his dick at work?' The thought practically makes him short circuit. 'I wanna pin him down and ride him for hours. I bet his cock would be huge.' He is banging his head against the side of the train car. The idea makes him want to groan, though he can't help but laugh. He'd love to see you try fighting for dominance. He won't let you top that easy. ...Though he can't help but fantasize about wrestling for the ability to top. He'd win, of course. He loves winning more than anything, but he can't help but feel flustered at the idea of you winning once or twice. Maybe if he was feeling generous. 'Ugh, I want him to spill his warm cum deep inside me. I bet he would love trying to breed me.' Emmet's resolve nearly snaps. This wasn't fair! Wasn't fair at all!!! What god did he piss off in another life to deserve this?? You obviously wanted him, and he couldn't even touch you!! When the game is off, Emmet is practically yelling every thought and feeling he has about it. 'I want to cockwarm him while he works at his desk.'

That. was. it.

After he takes care of his hardening dick, he's letting you know just how fully aware he really is, and what you do to him. If he ever gets his hands on you, in the real world or into his, he's going to make sure to do everything you have wanted him to do to you. When he does... Don't expect to walk for at least a week.

#pokemon #submas #subway boss emmet #emmet x reader #smut #spicy stuff🔥#pokemon smut #zed.talks #zed.writes #submission #Jes #my beloved #bringing in the good shit #self aware pokemon #self aware emmet #all things i've said about ingo and emmet while playing a randomizer

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yanderes-galore · 2 years

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I love your writing and I saw that you have an open tray for requests, so can you do a general yandere headconon about candy, from Five Nights At Candy's? Thanks

I'll try. Focusing on FNAC 1 and my take on Candy. For some reason I see him and Cindy as mute? So I followed that idea. Animatronic or android, does not matter. The ending was a bit cobbled together but I hope my take is good.

Yandere! Candy the Cat Concept

Pairing: Romantic/Platonic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Yandere-like behavior, Robot gaining sentience, Stalking (?), Implied isolation, Violence mention, Very low-key obsessive behavior.

- After Freddy Fazbear's Pizza closed down, you needed a new job.

- You had worked at the Pizzeria in the day shift and wanted something calmer.

- Night shift at a restaurant that was similar should be fine, right?

- Candy's Burger's & Fries sounded promising to you.

- They hired you just fine due to your experience, too.

- The bot line up they had was intriguing.

- Two cats, a chimpanzee, a penguin, and a robotic canvas.

- You felt things would go easy when you started the job.

- Then you noticed they move at night.

- The cats were the most active ones

- Candy and Cindy darted around the cameras, glowing eyes staring at you.

- You were uneasy the entire time.

- The two cats made no noise, which is why it caught you off guard when you saw two blue hands/paws on the front office window.

- Glowing eyes stared curiously at you, you wondered if it was right to close the door to the window.

- Were these bots dangerous?

- Were the cats the only ones active?

- Soon you were to find out....

- Candy would be a very quiet bot.

- The cat rarely makes any noise and often observes you from a distance.

- He's either staring at you through your window, by the door, or looking into your cameras.

- You close the door too keep him out but end up hearing the scratching sound of metal on metal.

- Like an actual cat clawing the door to get in the room their owner is in.

- It would be cute if you weren't terrified of the blue bot.

- No one told you they moved around at night, silently you wondered if the previous establishment you worked at had the same issue.

- Candy's behavior is usually him observing you and communicating through the window.

- Simple things usually like waving and head movements when you ask yes or no questions.

- He appears to be rather docile towards you, as a result his sister and other friends are too.

- Although Candy is the only one who obsessively watches you about as much as you watch him on the cameras.

- He asks you to let him in through hand movements by the window.

- It's tempting to let him in whenever he tries.

- Yet due to your fear you close the door just in case the bots are a threat.

- Much to the cat's displeasure because you're met with the metal scratching again.

- As the nights lumber on you notice Candy's behavior get more intense.

- He's more irritated, apparently during the day too.

- You heard from day shift Candy's been 'misbehaving' more often.

- To the point where the bot almost lunged for an adult.

- They were supposed to get a mechanic after your last day, but you wished they did it sooner.

- Surprisingly, all the bots were rather active.

- Candy also was helping with draining your power.

- You thought there was a malfunction with their security protocols.

- You felt your life was going to end once power was out....

- You cowered when Candy met you at the door.

- The cat once again only stared before stepping closer.

- You thought you were going to be torn apart by the bot's dull but strong fangs...

- But instead you were met with more staring.

- The bot tilts his head and patiently waits beside you.

- You tried to leave but the bot quickly grabbed your arm to keep you in place, a robotic screech/hiss coming from his speaker.

- You didn't want to anger the bot so you let Candy look at you.

- He always seemed fond of that... fond of you.

- It felt impossible to figure out what was going on in the cat's head...

- But you had a feeling you weren't going to leave here, even with help based on the cat's behavior.

#yandere fnac #yandere five nights at candys #yandere candy the cat #yandere fazbear fanverse

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herawell · 1 year

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Heard you have Maxwell thoughts? 👀

Oh god, where to begin? (I am currently very rainy-days-and-job-prepping-crammed-brain-scrambled so this will be in bullet points):

Artificial intelligence and machine learning??? Makes my cold dead comp sci heart warm up??? Someone who not only respects AI's sentience but gets them??? Up until that point, Hera was my favorite character in the podcast so Maxwell (seemingly) being so thoroughly in her corner was an immediate mark in her favor.

Her friendship with Jacobi. I love that even though they're the antagonists, the writers allow them to have the strongest bond out of anyone in the show and probably the purest as well, unlike Eiffel & Minkowski and Eiffel & Hera, which while I love them were often marred by tension, mistrust, and microaggressions. Maxwell and Jacobi on the other hand are ride-or-die for each other, and his grief and guilt over her death being such a catalyst in his development and in the plot arc of season 4 is just *flails*. I love that most of the fandom has never really shipped them together (although there are definitely people who do) and although I've shipped Eiffel/Hera and even enjoyed a few Eiffel/Minkowski fics, I've never been able to ship Maxwell/Jacobi.

Memoria owns my heart forever. Hands down my favorite episode. She basically saves Hera's life and gets to the root of her deep-enseated anxiety and it's probably the farthest anyone has gone to help someone else in the show even if...

... she may have had mixed motives behind it. And one of the biggest reasons she occupies my thoughts so much are the contradictions inherent in her character. She's the most (on the surface) appealing and likeable member of the SI-5, yet also the smartest and perhaps the most cunning. How much did she care about Hera? Did she see her as a friend? An experiment? A test subject? A pet? Did she regret it? She fought to keep Hera from being replaced by a dummy program and spent 37 hours straight coding to keep her from being deleted, but was it because she cared about her or because she needed an active AI for the eventual contact event? Was it her desire as a scientist to prove herself she could fix anyone rather than take the easy way out by deleting them, to push people/AIs as far as they can go, the same way Kepler pushes people by locking doors while a bomb is ticking down? Canon doesn't give us any real answers, and I appreciate that. Motives can contain multitudes.

Herawell Herawell Herawell. My human/robot therapist/patient morally gray fraught wlw ship. And yes I do ship them despite the power imbalance and the betrayal, because of the deep understanding they nevertheless share and all the complexities ineherent in their relationship.

Also whenever I hear Maxwell's theme Please No Dadaist Poetry Beyond This Point I think of that posthumous conversation Hera imagines with her, to the point where it's become inextricably linked with Herawell for me.

#wolf 359 #hera wolf 359 #alana maxwell #herawell #imperial evolution #answered #alia talks #wolf 359 spoilers

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pluralhalman · 2 years

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what the hell is vix on about in regards to space odyssey this time: fnaf sb edition

so there's canonically an unused asset of hal 9000 in the security breach game files and this kinda got me thinking. nobody knows why he's there but hey, it implies the developers were familiar with space odyssey and thus i thought it would be fun to connect the two.

and i have two words for you: montgomery gator.

warning this gets long so it's under the cut

the main plot of sb is unimportant for this. we're looking at the past messages between employees of the fnaf pizzaplex which detail the bonnie incident.

some important context for y'all that may have no idea what the hell i'm talking about. there are four main animatronics in the fnaf franchise: freddy the bear, chica the chicken, bonnie the bunny, and foxy the fox. these four animatronics reappear in most of the games, in new forms (ex. toy freddy, funtime freddy, glamrock freddy). security breach is the glamrock era. it is set inside a large mall complex called the 'pizzaplex', and the main band consists of glamrock freddy, glamrock chica, roxanne wolf (shortened to 'roxy', implying she is the newest incarnation of foxy), and montgomery gator (who seems to replace bonnie). bonnie, strangely, is nowhere to be found.

until you slowly unlock messages throughout the game, which allows you to piece together the history of montgomery gator, and his relationship with bonnie.

also notably, the animatronics in this game are sentient. this isn't unusual for fnaf--most of the animatronics are possessed by a soul one way or another--but there is nothing to evidence that the glamrock animatronics gained their sentience through being stuffed with a human corpse, like most of the others. they seem to be independently sentient, though this self-direction is taken away partway through the game by glitchtrap--a malicious computer ghost who has persisted as the main antagonist of most of the series.

and now: what was in those messages?

the messages detail the destruction and decommissioning of glamrock bonnie. it is explained that bonnie was seen going into monty golf one evening, and after some commotion, was destroyed beyond repair. monty replaced bonnie as the band's bass player, and nobody could ever be sure what happened to bonnie--it was assumed that monty had malfunctioned and become hostile.

this is also shown throughout the game--while the animatronics are in their rooms and you're crawling through the vents at the beginning of the game, you can see freddy (who is on your side, unable to be influenced by glitchtrap), roxy and chica (who are hanging out in their rooms and behaving as normal), and... monty. monty's room is dark, but you can hear him whenever you go near. and it's horrible. he's constantly tearing up his room, throwing things, ripping stuff apart- i'm pretty sure there's a bit where he runs towards the window and slams into it, trying to attack you from the other side. sure, you could just say that oh, monty is the resident evil murderbot of this game, he's just violent like that, but there's a much better answer. especially considering the core four in this game, including monty, are distinctly individuals with personalities--and are viewed positively when they aren't being influenced by glitchtrap.

so what happened? and the answer comes at the very end of the game, during one of the endings where you make your way down into the depths of the pizzaplex, uncovering a robotic graveyard and the still-persisting corpse of william afton--the man who created the freddy's restaurants and started them on this dark path by murdering four children about... a hundred years in the past? i think? by now?

william afton was trapped inside his spring bonnie robot suit a very long time earlier. this suit, and his rotting corpse, have persisted--the soul of william afton is stuck, living a haunted undeath as he continues to kill. and when springtrap rips out of that containment chamber at the end of the game, you are given a very clear view of his hands. his claws.

bonnie was a bass player. monty is the bass player. bonnie was a rabbit suit. monty has sharp claws, used for playing the strings on the bass. the springtrap suit has sharp claws as well--almost exactly the same as monty's. bonnie was decommissioned to be used to rebuild william afton--meaning that monty's behaviour wasn't a malfunction or a fluke, it was part of william afton's plan.

and monty's continued violence? it's him fighting back. glitchtrap forced him to murder his friend, and it tore him apart. made him angry. he only attacks you, the player, after glitchtrap gets back into his mind--his initial violence is only at himself.

it is also required in the game for you to decommission monty through a complicated fight sequence, as well as the other two animatronics, and freddy (who is being upgraded using their parts) is genuinely upset about this. these five animatronics are friends.

anyway, the point is basically this: monty, freddy, and bonnie have more in common with hal, dave, and frank than i was expecting to realize. i think they should hang out. and probably beat up springtrap.

also hal in the game files definitively proves that monty is innocent and needs a hug /j

#jupiter.txt #vix.txt #a space odyssey #fnaf sb

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gammaprimesmw · 3 years

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SENTIENT TELETRAAN

This is something that has interested me for a long time, and I don't really remember if it's just due to my general fascination with AI or perhaps overanalyzing one scene from one episode of the G1 cartoon. It could be a combination of both, and it's something I think about whenever the Autobots' (or Maximals') base computer behaves in a way that even remotely hints at it being more than a hollow machine. This exchange, from the end of the Beast Wars episode "A Better Moustrap," seemed to hint that Sentinel had something of a sense of humor, or at least understood the concept.

A Better Mousetrap said:

Cheetor: Rattrap!

Rhinox: How did you...

Rattrap: Avoid getting scrapped? Hehe...Well, it was no oil bath, but let's face it! Ain't a defense system made that I can't get around! Right, Sentinel?

Sentinel: Acknowledged.

In that scene, Sentinel's delivery of the reply was somewhat more "human" than the more monotone delivery used in the rest of the episode. Either Ian Corlett was still trying to find his voice for the AI, or that line was intentionally meant to convey a bit of emotion to add to the lighthearted tone of the moment. This was probably the most personality Sentinel showed in the series, but it would've been interesting to see more. I even imagined Sentinel gaining a Maximal body back then. Now that I'm bringing it up, I'm starting to wonder how that would play out.

In the G1 episode "Attack of the Autobots," Teletraan 1 showed signs of personality and, depending on how you read into Casey Kasem's delivery of some of its/his dialog, some degree of emotions. When Megatron brags about the Personality Destabilizer he placed in the Ark's recharging chambers, it was Teletraan who made the obligatory comeback.

Teletraan 1 - Attack of the Autobots said:

Autobots are noble! Your plan can never succeed!

When I hear this quote play back in my mind, I feel as though Teletraan is actively trying to imitate Optimus Prime, as if the Autobot Leader were someone he looked up to or regarded as a mentor. He sounds a bit panicked when Prime, under Megatron's command, proceeds to slam his fist into his main console. This unusually "human" behavior for Teletraan doesn't stop here. It continues a little later in the episode, after Sparkplug brings him back online.

Teletraan 1 said:

Teletraan: Autobot behavior...altered by Personality Destabilizer...put into recharging chambers by Megatron.

This line wasn't delivered in Teletraan's usual steady monotone. He speaks more slowly, and his voice is a little shaky. This could've been done to show that Sparkplug didn't get him quite up to 100%, but, to me, it sounds like the Ark's AI is trying to hold back tears. The next time we see any "personality" from Teletraan, it's when he's being fried by Kremzeek and spouting off nonsense that includes 1984 references. It does beg the question of what sort of knowledge bases this nonsense was coming from and why he had them. Did he have some interest in Earth literature that lead to him scanning 1984?

In some versions of Transformers, the Teletraan analogue is shown to overtly have a personality, such as T-AI in Robots in Disguise 2001 and Teletraan X in Cyberverse. It's never explicitly stated whether these personalities were deliberately programmed in or developed over time. X's may have been programmed, but T-AI might be a little more ambiguous. We don't know how long she had been operating before she's introduced, as that series is one where the Autobots have already established themselves on Earth at the start.

More examples emerge when delving into the Japan-exclusive series, like the NAVIs in Beast Wars II and Neo. It might be something the Japanese writers like to put in, in addition to coding the AIs as female. T-AI is a continuation of that trend that made it across the Pacific when Car Robots was dubbed as Robots in Disguise 01. She and the NAVIs may have inspired Teletraan X to some degree.

What would be interesting in a future series would be to have Teletraan (or his/her Expy) grow from a typical computer AI into a more "human" character over the course of said series. How would the Autobots react to this? Was it something Teletraan is intended to do "in-universe?" It could bring up some "What Measure is a Non-Cybertronian" debates. Sparkless sentience as a whole could be explored. In fact, my aborted fan-continuity did explore this, even giving a name to these beings: Synth. One aspect of pre-War Cybertron was a growing civil rights movement for them, which Megatron hijacks during his rise to power. Prime would've supported this movement, even as Orion Pax. In an RP, I referenced a time when Megatron organized a rally that was being used as a front to round up a number of Synths for a mass-wipe. Optimus refers to this as an act of mass murder and one of Megatron's many atrocities.

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freezing-kaiju · 4 years

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mechaphilosophy in the snack aisle

an AsuRei and KawoShin fic. Fluff and meta stuff.

Summary: While running an errand with Rei, Asuka discovers, to her horror, that she agrees with Rei, Kaworu, and Shinji on something: none of them like mecha anime. Nightmares are discussed, hands are held, Kaworu stands on things he shouldn't.

(au detail: modern au, set during community college, no evangelions, au to be named soon)

September. Saturday afternoon, about three-ish, Asuka didn’t bother to check. One of the handful of friends she’d made at the community college had invited her to a movie night at five. Of course, like everything in life, an escape like this came with a catch. This catch wasn’t the worst, though; if she was picking snacks, then she could pick her favorites.

And like always, Wonder Girl decided to tag along.

That was both a problem and a benefit. Benefit, because Asuka knew there was gonna be someone there she could talk to, someone to start a petty fight with, someone to sneak out a window with if shit got rough, someone to make sure she didn’t touch any booze, and someone to back her up and deck a motherfucker if this turned out to be some shitty prank.

Problem, because she couldn’t for the life of her think of a topic to argue about while they bought snacks.

“Well?” Ayanami asked, as she plucked a microwave popcorn package off a shelf and swept it into the cart.

“Gimme a sec.” Asuka’s eyes scanned over the rows of chips, as if bags would give her an idea that wouldn’t be insipidly tumblr-ask-game-y. And she already knew Rei didn’t know a thing about discourse, be it Doctor Who or Voltron.

Wait. Voltron.

Asuka snapped her fingers, yanking a bag off the shelf in a dramatic flourish and lobbing it in the cart. Stopping and checking is for wusses. The chips landed with a satisfying crunch.

“So!” She felt Ayanami’s creepy stare boring into her neck like a vampire who missed the whole ‘teeth’ memo, and whirled around to meet her gaze. “I’ve got our topic.” Hands on hips, smirk in place, Asuka gave herself a dramatic pause. “Mecha!”

“Mecha,” Ayanami echoed, stare flickering away from Asuka to a glance at some shelf. A couple years ago, that would’ve pissed her off to no end. Now she knew better; that was Wonder Girl’s sign she was thinking. She’d learned a lot over the past years. Her signs of discomfort, of happiness, what not to touch (neck), what not to call her (doppelgänger, fake, tool most of all). She liked to hope Ayanami put the same effort in for her.

“Mecha!” Asuka repeated, then added, “Because it’s stupid, and it’s lame, and I’ve never liked it.”

Ayanami remained silent. The corner of her mouth twitched down; frustration, or fear, either of which was...weird, especially for her.

After what felt like forever (but was probably just a minute), Asuka broke the silence. “Uh...hey? Earth to Wonder Girl? This is where we argue? Did ya forget our whole thing?”

Ayanami blinked, slow and deliberate. “I...agree.”

Those two words felt like a slap to Asuka’s face. “You...you what?!”

“I agree. I... I don’t like mecha.” Ayanami’s stare snapped back to meet Asuka’s, and for some reason there was fear in the depths of her red irises. “I hate mecha.”

The two of them were, in a word, shook. In all twelve years of knowing each other, this was the first time Rei’d ever agreed with Asuka. Well, they’d agreed on some things, but never their Specific Argument Topics. And Rei felt stronger on it than Asuka! Jokes about Wonder Girl finally growing a spine, about how “the robot got sentience,” about how the irony of it all had slipped through Asuka’s fingers, and she grasped for a single word:

“Why?!”

Ayanami lifted a hand in the air, and Asuka tensed. Was Wonder Girl going to punch her? Over a stupid anime opinion? Sure, let’s go, let’s throw down! In the grocery store! Because life is already that goddamn crazy! She could feel herself getting fired up.

...but then, Ayanami’s wrist went limp. Her hand twitched back and forth, a motion that practically short circuited Asuka’s guesses. What was she doing? Was there something seriously fucking amiss?! She directed her glare at the hand, then at the Rei attached to it. “The fuck’s wrong?!”

“I,” Ayanami began, still making the weird hand motion, “Can’t explain why.”

Asuka let out a sigh of relief, and immediately cursed the fact she was holding one in at all. “Well! Nice to see I’ve stumped you for once, then!” She let out a laugh that curdled in her mouth when she glanced back at Ayanami, whose face was a mask (well it was ALWAYS a stupid mask, a stupid blank pretty doll mask) of concentration. “Wait, is it, like... serious?”

Ayanami shook her head ever so slightly, and Asuka found herself wishing for the nine thousandth time that her rival could maybe find the guts to express herself more. It sucked a little, being the only one who could read the book that was Wonder Girl, but hey, take pride in all she can. “Your reasons?” Ayanami asked, more pointedly towards Asuka this time.

“Well!” Asuka put her hands back on her hips and took a few moments to parse her thoughts, rattling off each one whenever it popped into mind. “It’s always some military bullshit, first off! Colorful space military, come join, fight the good fight, all that shady shit. Feels like propaganda for a thing that doesn’t even exist!”

“Japan does have a military,” Ayanami said.

“Do they have mechs, though?!” Asuka shot back.

“Fair, continue.”

“Right! And it’s always kids, or teens! Which, I get it, power fantasy, I love that shit sometimes, but like! That responsibility? On someone like, 14?!”

“That’s the conceit of most shows,” Ayanami pointed. Back and forth, good. Asuka craved these kinds of volleys.

“Yeah, but think about it! Superpowers, magic, both of those are usually, like, accidents? Or self-accepted, or born with? But like, a cool mech was built, designed, approved! Someone at the top of the line had to say, oh yeah, put a kid behind the wheel of that big stomping deathbot! What could go wrong?!”

“Much,” Ayanami conceded.

“And sometimes I...” Asuka paused, practically screaming at herself ‘GENUINE THOUGHTS, ABORT, ABORT, SHUT YOUR FUCK’, but her traitorous mouth kept going, “...get nightmares about like, me being in one, fighting all these other mechs, and the dream always starts out fun and perfect and like I’m doing something, and then--”

“And then?” Rei cut in, and Asuka didn’t know whether she wanted to deck her or collapse in her arms, but the words kept going either way.

“And then the mech gets hit, and I fall over, and everything hurts and I’m bleeding all over and I... and I fucking die, every time, I always die screaming and I always die alone!” Asuka hugged her arms to herself, winding down from her rant. She refused to look at Rei. “I just... It’d suck, to die in one of those. To die alone.”

Rei didn’t respond, and Asuka didn’t look... at least, not until she felt Wonder Girl’s cold, soft fingers, ghosting across the back of her left hand. She let go of her own arms, hands dropping to her side, and Rei’s fingers lightly caressed that hand again, then laced with Asuka’s longer, rougher ones. The grip was loose for just a moment, before Asuka gripped on like a lifeline.

“Like this’ll help,” Asuka scoffed, voice barely above a whisper. “Like I need help. I’m fine! I’m-- Just gimme a moment, I’ll be fine.”

Rei gave a slight nod in response, and Asuka stayed quiet. Shallow breathing gave way to proper rhythm, and Asuka put her smirk back on. Everything’s fine. Can’t lose my grip. Thank fuck I didn’t cry. She refused to let go of Ayanami’s hand, though. “Your turn, Wonder Girl,” she prompted, bravado almost regrown.

“Dehumanization,” Ayanami responded. “In two forms.”

“...huh?” Asuka raised an eyebrow. Maybe Wonder Girl’s stance on it would be interesting after all. Especially given her whole... ’tool’... thing. “What d’you mean?”

“First form.” Ayanami held up her index finger. “Mechs are masks.”

Asuka tilted her head. This she wanted to hear.

Ayanami continued, “A person steps inside a mech enough, they stop being a person. They’re a computer, running the mech. The mech becomes them. Like a superhero, but...” She paused, waved her hand again. “But a hero sees their foes are people. If the two of us were in mechs...” Ayanami averted her gaze. “I wouldn’t know it was you. You’d just be a part of a big robot. Just a target. Easy to kill.”

“... yeah, that’s fucked up!” Asuka laughed nervously. How the fuck did it get this heavy?

Ayanami nodded again and returned her stare to Asuka’s face. Her loose hold on Asuka’s hand tightened, almost imperceptibly, but Asuka felt it. “Apologies. Losing you is my worst-case scenario.”

Asuka felt her whole face erupt into a massive blush. Scheiße! What kind of stupid, pathetic, desperate, sweet, romantic shit is she pulling?! What do I SAY?! “You too!” Asuka blurted out, regretting it instantly. “Idiot!” she added, as if it’d sharpen the admittance into a stab rather than a confession.

It didn’t work; to Asuka’s sheer fury, Wonder Girl cracked the slightest of smiles, and... and blushed.

Rei could blush.

Asuka felt her heartbeat ramp up at just that sight. Desperately, she tried to reign the conversation back into direction. “But about the mecha! Your second reason?!” she asked, though she already had a pretty good idea of what it was.

“Second form: pilots are disposable,” Ayanami said, and Asuka dabbed inside her mind. “Anyone can pilot a mech if the pilot dies. Through replacement, or… cloning. The ‘same person’ could be one in a series. That gets internalized. I… would internalize that.” Her gaze grew distant. Scheiße.

“Hey.” Asuka tugged a little on Rei’s hand, and maneuvered around so Rei was leaning on her.

Rei didn’t respond.

“There aren’t any more of you, dummy,” Asuka said. “You’re Rei Ayanami. The only Rei Ayanami.”

Rei responded only to nudge Asuka. Keep going, got it.

“And...and even if there were more! Even if there were a thousand fucking Reis, you’re the only Wonder Girl.”

No response for a moment, two moments, three… then Rei began to hum. It was soft, tuneless... familiar, though. Rei’s hum. Her special weird way to say she felt safe, or happy, or content. Asuka didn’t really know which. Maybe it was all three. She knew, though, that she could listen to it forever.

Unfortunately...

“May I intrude?”

In an instant, the two rivals ripped away, Asuka with a shriek and a jump aside while Ayanami sidestepped silently. As her fury ratcheted from 1 to 14, Asuka’s gaze whipped over to the intruder on their moment.

Perched atop one of the shelves was the lanky, white-haired weirdo Asuka recognized as Kaworu. He was new in town, but he had made a fucking impression; not many people go door to door to tell everyone they’re new in town without being on some kinda list. He flashed a grin that struck Asuka as a little too wide.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?! Creep! Dummkopf!” Asuka hurled a string of further insults, finishing with, “And what the fuck are you doing up there anyway?!”

Kaworu’s grin remained. He spread his arms and seesawed his shoulders, like he had never shrugged before and was trying out the concept for the first time. “I climbed. Overheard your discussion and felt like joining.”

“What?” Ayanami asked before Asuka could tell him to go fuck off.

“Mmm. What you mentioned, about... de-human-ing, was it? I find it even more tragic, from the unarmed foe’s perspective. Some powerful creature that,” he made strange air quotes, “‘must be dealt with’ is fighting tooth and nail against something made with the most perfect engineering humanity can figure. It’s...sad? Futile? I’m not sure of the proper word...” Lost in thought, Kaworu slipped off the shelf he was perched on and tumbled to the ground, landing on all fours with a hiss.

Asuka burst out laughing, but it turned into a groan when she heard the frenzied patter of sneakers approaching the aisle. Great. Another person. And with my luck, it’s--

“Kaworu! Kaworu, are you okay?!”

...Shinji. Asuka rolled her eyes towards her currently-out-of-breath former classmate, who was scrambling to help Kaworu up, rambling on about workplace safety or something. Lots of things to call Shinji. Tryhard. Lab partner. Sorta friend. Rebound “crush.” Asuka decided to skip any polite pretense. Not a classroom, not Ayanami’s house, Shinji didn’t need to be her problem. “Hey, moron.”

“O-oh!” He seemed to notice the other two and waved a little. “Hey, Asuka, Rei, nice to see you two?”

“Brother,” Ayanami offered as her greeting for the moment. They had been officially siblings for awhile now, ever since the trial, but as far as Asuka knew they were still on shaky ground with each other. All the better, she didn’t want to deal with Shinji’s bullshit any more than she had to.

“How serendipitous of you to arrive! We were just discussing an intriguing topic,” Kaworu announced, as if he were bringing up the obvious instead of grandfathering Shinji into his interruption. “Mecha? Mecha anime? Are you familiar with it, and what are your thoughts on the topic?”

“Uh...” Shinji’s eyes flicked between them, and shrunk in on himself a little. Asuka… okay, she had to admit, that was kind of a worrying way to take an easy question like that. He shrugged. “I-I’ve seen some Robotech, some Gundam, a little of Tiger and Bunny? Saw all of The Big O and really liked it, but... I stopped watching them, I guess.”

“Why? Ya get scared?” Asuka smirked. She refused to even think “mood” in relation to Shinji.

“Kinda? I mean, I-I--” he stuttered, stumbling over his words as ever, “I just, it stopped being fun? I started... I dunno. Thinking about the pressure I’d be under, if I really was in one of those. Can’t pretend I’m a cool robot pilot once I think of it like a responsibility.”

“And the responsibility could be so cruel,” Kaworu added, leaning on and over Shinji. The moron blushed pomegranate red, and Asuka clapped a hand over her own mouth, trying not to burst out laughing.

“I-I mean yeah, I--”

“Let’s go.” Ayanami nudged Asuka, and she made an effort to tune Shinji out. Not like that was hard. “We’re running late.”

Asuka let out a sigh of relief and grabbed the shopping cart again. “Thank fuck. Let’s get the fuck outta this idiot stand... zone... whatever!”

“We had a good moment,” Ayanami observed, not commenting on the mangled insult. Who knows, maybe someday she’d get Wonder Girl to laugh. “And they ruined it.”

“Ugh! Yeah!”

“That moment. It could happen again.”

Asuka laughed. “In your dreams, Wonder Girl.”

#asurei #reisuka #asuka langley soryu #rei ayanami #neon genesis evangelion #nge #nge horror au #my fics #soryu asuka langley #ayanami rei

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sailor-cresselia · 5 years

Text

Zero One 04: Watch out for incoming lore!

(And for incoming Riders and rocket fists.)

So, I’ve been having a lot of trouble freeing up the brain power to actually, y’know, even get myself to watch this week. It’s not that I haven’t wanted to, it’s just that I’m completely drained. So, this might not go as in-depth as I have in the past.

On a lore episode.

Ah well.

––

We’re starting this episode off with a bang – almost literally. The trip Aruto and Izu are on is to observe Anna, a tourguide HumaGear. At first, he’s still having fun, because, y’know, it’s a bus tour.

And then Anna announces that they’re coming up to the site of a significant event.

Aruto’s excitement drops off.

He was there, after all.

In Daybreak Town.

(One of the young boys who is also on the trip grows just as serious, looking down in the same way Aruto is.)

––

It turns out that Daybreak Town was a collaboration between the Japanese government, Hiden Intelligence, and a number of other corporations to design a city run by HumaGears. It was also where they launched the satellite from, the one that controls them.

We get treated to a diagram of several of the company logos spreading across the city, implying that they each were in charge of a district, before a ‘blueprint’ of the satellite.

I don’t like the phrasing said blueprint uses for some of the data readouts. There’s “Core Unit”, which is fine. The two “M-Wheels” are probably short for Motion, and what keep it stable. The section labeled “Life Line” is a little concerning. And I really, really, wish that Toei had chosen literally anything else for the bottom one, which reads “Slave Analyzer.”

Like, I know this is a Japanese show, and the kids probably aren’t going to be able to read it, but their parents? MAYBE! And since we’re dealing with ‘robots’ who are slowly gaining sentience… yeah. I’m not comfortable with this at all.

ANYWAY. Let’s leave the sub-text issues, and into the real-text issues, shall we?

And it sure is an issue!

Like I mentioned before I got off track, the city was an attempt to design an urban center run by HumaGears, as well as all sorts of research projects, including the satellite.

But 12 years ago, there was an accident in the Research and Development sector. It’s shown as a wide view of the city, showing just how large the explosion was – and it was big. And bright blue. You know. The same type of blue flame that we see in Aruto’s flashbacks.

But the damage didn’t stay in R&D for long, and it spread to the power infrastructure. In the end, the entire city was wiped out.

Even 12 years later, nobody is allowed in.

––

Back in the present, we see Anna and the school tour (and Aruto and Izu) at a viewing platform, with a view of the lake that the city has become.

At one very smug looking students prompting, Anna explains that the theory is that the incident was likely caused by faulty maintenance.

Aruto looks away, remembering how Isamu had said that the truth was covered up, that HumaGears had gone on a murderous rampage.

Nobody sees a certain hooded not-Gremlin approach the bus driver, tapping on the window with a Zetsumeriser and Zetsumerise Key.

Two kids start mocking one of their classmates, the one who had gotten as serious as Aruto earlier, saying that it was his dad’s fault, because he was the one in charge of the factory. One of them says that his dad blew the whole thing up.

The bus explodes behind them.

The bus driver, the soon-to-be-overwritten Bāsu, pulls out his key and ‘transforms.’ I know that his name is basically ‘bus’, but Rider Wiki also romanizes it as ‘Burs’, which I can only assume is because of his incredibly massive sideburns. Like, dang, those are big.

But we don’t have Bāsu for much longer, because he becomes the Onycho Magia, based off of the Onychonycteris, the most primitive form of bat. Interestingly, it may have been diurnal. The fossil record is inconclusive so far, but it may not have had the adaptations to echolocate, or the enlarged eyes that nocturnal bats have.

Something I’ve noticed is that most of the species that have been used as Magia so far have something in common aside from all being extinct: They’re mostly comparatively recent discoveries, and there are very few fossils that have been found of them. Just something I thought might be worth noting for the future.

Also, Onycho has huge claws on his ‘normal’ hands and also on each finger of his wings – remember, bat wings are technically webbed hands. Those ridges are fingers. Onychonycteris had claws on each finger, unlike modern bats, who only have two or three.

As Aruto yells for the kids to get out of there, Jin sits on top of a retaining wall, kicking his legs idly, and asks Onycho – who can’t hear him, anyway – to kill some humans for him.

Whenever he says that to his Magia… that’s the only time he’s really serious. That’s the only time he drops the smile.

Interesting.

––

After the OP, which I love, we cut to Onycho pursuing the tour group through a wooded area, Aruto herding the kids along. One of them, the one who was being mocked earlier, trips. As Onycho catches up, Aruto prepares to transform – but doesn’t get to do more than pull out his belt before shots are fired from another direction. He hurriedly hides it behind his back as Isamu and Yua show up on scene – somehow – and transform.

Of note, Isamu still has to force his Key open, and he’s still punching the bullet. Yua has no such issue, and just lets her armor form, before they go on the offensive.

She’s still quick and efficient, while he’s more of a wildcard whose primary mood is ‘gun.’

Onycho quickly gets out of range when he goes to hang upside down on a high branch, and then flies away. (There’s an ‘analyzing’ sound effect as Izu watches him fly off.)

The two agents detransform as they go up to Aruto, the boy, and the two functioning HumaGear. Isamu points out that ‘Oh, look, Hiden’s president is here. Again.’ But the boy, who’s been sitting on the ground, curls in on himself, saying something about wondering why this is happening to him.

Both Isamu and Aruto look at him in concern.

––

Back in Aruto’s office, we have Aruto, Izu, Anna, Isamu, and the boy. Said boy’s name is Sakurai Gou, and his father was one of the victims 12 years ago.

I can’t help but wonder just how many people died that day.

Especially when Gou says that people have always told him that it’s his fathers fault it happened. That’s an awful lot of weight on a teen’s shoulders. And, Isamu, I know you mean well, but I don’t think that’s quite the way to go about reassuring a kid that it’s not his dad’s fault. Usually, people don’t react well to someone saying that it was HumaGears, who were designed to kill.

Although, Gou seems to take Isamu’s claim that it was HumaGear who leveled the factory in stride.

Isamu, of course, doesn’t take Izu’s statement that ‘there are no records to back up his claim’ very well., yelling that it’s because it was covered up.

Anna points out that the consensus is that it was caused by faulty maintenance.

Aruto looks down as he wonders if the concensus is the same things as the truth.

Anna watches him, just like she’d watched Isamu during his claim that Daybreak happened because of the HumaGear.

––

Outside, Isamu and Gou are leaving, and Gou says that he wants to know the truth.

Isamu asks if he really feels that way, and when Gou nods… he says that he does, too.

“Hey, kid, want to go break into a secured area?”

––

Ohhhh, man, I like Serious Aruto.

He’s flat out interrogating Jun, asking what happened at their factory 12 years ago.

But all that Jun will say is that he can’t recall.

Anna and Izu both call him out on this – not activating their look-up functions, by the way. Anna asks why there’s no record of the HumaGear uprising. Which implies that she knows there was one, somehow. Izu says that a cover-up seems intentional.

Aruto knows he’s hiding something, the way that Jun is so nervous makes that pretty clear. And he’s not a comedic nervous, like we’d expect from his characterization in the first three episodes. No, he’s scared… and maybe ashamed. Especially given how, as he takes his leave, he says that ‘sometimes, the way business works means that you have to keep the truth in the shadows.’

So, there’s definitely at least one layer of cover-up here. Probably more than one, in fact. This is written by the same guy as Ex-Aid, after all.

––

Later on, Anna and Aruto – without Izu, it would seem – are basically confirming to each other that they want to find out the truth.

Anna is looking into this because, as a bus guide, it’s her duty to know the historical facts of her tour. It’s her duty to make sure the truth is known.

Aruto says that he guesses they’re going back to Daybreak Town then. After all, he’s the president. He can’t ignore an employee in need.

He’s not saying that he wants to know, too. Not out loud, anyway.

––

The next day, at the entrance to Daybreak Town, Gou and Isamu are… actually breaking into a secured area. I mean, it was a foregone conclusion, but I didn’t think they’d be this blatant about it. Isamu’s even got a huge bag with him, probably with some sort of camera equipment or something. They’re not alone, though, when Yua steps in front of the gate, asking what they think they’re doing.

What they think they’re doing is that they’re going to find the truth.

She sighs. She’s not going to be able to stop them, is she? So, Yua pulls out a grey Progrise Key, and offers it to Isamu. She does say that it’s ‘high performance’, and he probably won’t be able to use it. He asks why she’s giving it to him, then, which is a valid question.

Yua just warns him to not forget what his job is.

Isamu takes the Punching Kong key, tucks it into his suit jacket, and takes off his tie, smirking. “Actually, I’m off duty today.”

––

As Isamu and Gou are about to set out on an inflatable motorboat – which appears to somehow be what he had in that giant bag – Gou isn’t sure if they’ll really find anything by going out there, to which Isamu says that they’ll just have to try.

And then a bunch of Trilobite mooks come up – some of them still saying ‘intruder detected.’

See? This is what he means by a cover-up!

Isamu’s shooting some of them down, but one gets close to Gou-

And is tackled into the water by Aruto.

Isamu accuses him of being there to make sure they don’t see anything they aren’t supposed to, but Aruto shoots that down. (Heh.) He wants to know what happened, too.

Completely ignoring Izu’s protests about ‘protecting his secret identity,’ he pulls out his belt and stands next to Isamu.

“Do you want to die, get out of- wait what’s that belt?!”

Aruto, with his serious face on, promises, as Hiden’s president, that he’ll find the truth, and transforms.

Both Isamu and the Trilobites dodge the heck out of the way of that robot grasshopper – and yet he still can’t believe his eyes when he’s standing next to Zero One.

Aruto tells Anna to go with the two of them – it’s a tour guides job to make sure her guests get to their destination, after all. He takes over fighting the Trilobites, as they head out.

––

Ohhhh. I’ve just realized that comment I made earlier about the rarity of the species used for the Magia. I’m making a separate post right now, but I’m copy-pasting it in.

The skeletal design of all the Magia isn’t just to make it easier to repurpose the suits - it’s because they’re all using extinct creatures as their base. They’re all fossils, themselves.

The main Magia, the corrupted ones with powers, are all powered by creatures that have relatively few examples in the fossil record.

The mooks, however, are Trilobites. This doesn’t just allow the anonymity factor with the shell acting as a mask.

Trilobites are incredibly common, and as such, make the perfect option for a swarm of faceless cannon fodder.

––

In the flooded ruins, Isamu, Gou, and Anna make their way to what used to be the control room of the factory, where Gou’s father worked.

It’s also where the explosion started.

Why… is Anna the one searching for things to help them find the truth? She explicitly says that she will look. That’s odd.

And why would the control room be where an explosion started? Why not, say, the factory floor, or a lab, or a test area?

Why the control center?

––

On the shore, Zero One handily dispatches the Trilobites with a Shark-powered Slash finisher. Much like his Impact finishers, it involves the sword summoning a giant hecking row of sharks teeth.

I love this seasons fights.

And here comes Onycho, swooping in with energy spheres to blast our hero back. Aruto tries to jump after him, to bring him down to the ground, but he can’t jump high enough on command to catch up to someone who’s continuing upward, and misses.

As he picks himself up, Izu throws him a Brand New Toy Progrize Key, which fortunately he catches. Y’know, unlike the unfortunate incident with the Attache Calibur in episode one.

WING

When the robo-bird is beamed down, it attacks Onycho for a while, before Aruto finally uses the key. And there are bright pink feathers fluttering around whenever it hits, too, which is really cool!

Fly to the sky! Flying Falcon!

Spread your wings and prepare for a force.

…We’re never going to see this form again.

Not with how Zero One immediately rises into the air, and doesn’t even try to land as he and Onycho start an aerial fight over the lake, swooping around the buildings, firing attacks, Aruto streaming pink and yellow energy effects with every movement.

This thing requires far too much CGI for us to see it more than… I’d say about one more time in-show, and maybe in one of the movies. Maybe.

This is GataKiriBa all over again.

Also, as he’s flying around, Izu waves, wishing him a safe trip.

Izu, I love you.

––

In the office, Gou’s given up. He can’t find anything… it must have been his fathers fault after all. Why bother looking any further?

…son of a- Toei named this kid Gou on purpose, didn’t they? I was initially thinking, ‘oh, hey, they’re reusing names, that’s nothing new.’ And then I just remembered that ‘Oh, right, the main Gou’s father actually was to blame for the robot uprising in Drive!’

Anyway, significant name reuse aside, the kid’s surrendered, but Isamu encourages him to keep looking.

And then the Trilobites show up. Even as he’s fighting them, Isamu keeps giving small!Gou a pep talk. It can’t have been his fathers fault, it was the HumaGear! So if you don’t believe in him, who will?

Isamu, I get it, but, uh, maybe don’t take this much of this particular trait from Mach? The one where you say that a human can’t have be to blame, it’s the out of control robots? I’m just saying. I doubt this kids father in particular was to blame, but I’m pretty sure at least one human was very heavily involved in what happened here.

Looking at you, Grandpa Hiden. You are very much not above suspicion.

Isamu’s statement, as he is getting very beaten up, that “if you stop now, it’s all over, so raise your head and keep going’ seems to be as much to himself as it is to Gou.

And he’s getting very beaten up, so he pulls out the Punching Kong key.

I’m pretty sure that not only did Yua not unlock it, he’s also opening them wrong. I know that’s just a joke theory at this point, but it really looks like he’s actively blocking the part that swings out when he’s holding the keys, so I think he’s making it worse on himself.

Whoops.

It’s still not fair that his transformation is this cool. This time, instead of punching the bullet dead on, he backhand punches it. Because why not.

Punching Kong!

Enough power to annihilate a mountain.

…Huh. The keys that Vulcan and Valkyrie use don’t have the pre-announcements that Zero One’s keys do. Like, he has the whole ‘fly to the sky’ for Flying Falcon, and the ones for Rising Hopper and Biting Shark, but there’s no such announcement for the three AIMS keys. Interesting.

As Vulcan starts wailing on the Trilobites, Gou takes his advice to keep going forward to heart, and starts looking again. Good thing he looked right in front of him, because he finds an SD card with the Hiden Intelligence logo on it.

According to Anna, it’s the memory chip for an older model of HumaGear. She inserts it into one of her earpieces to start reading the data.

…Maybe you shouldn’t be doing that in the middle of a battle area? I’m just saying. Maybe, you know, wait until you guys are out of there?

Yeah, see? Aruto and Onycho crash in through a wall, and the Magia fires off a set of cables, overtaking Anna. Nobody is okay with this, least of all Anna.

Who is fighting back. She lasts longer than any of the other Trilobite transformations we’ve seen. The overhaul completes, and ‘she’ goes after Gou, grabbing him by the neck… and as Vulcan aims his ShotRiser in her direction, she stops, and her ear pieces start flashing between the hacked red and their native blue.

…wow…

“Now p-playing… f-footage from-”

She activates her ear pieces to play the security footage. And it is still Anna in there. She’s fading fast, but she’s still there. She is so intent on seeing this through… I hate to say this, but Anna would have made an excellent Magia, wouldn’t she?

––

The footage is absolutely heartbreaking.

Gou’s father, Sakurai Satoshi, is in his office, lit by red emergency lights. He’s recording a last message.

“All HumaGear in the factory have gone berserk! The factory is likely going to explode. All the employees should have evacuated, so…”

The monitors are overtaken with static, and the regular displays are hijacked to play a message. A shadowed figure with rectangular yellow eyes stands in front of a purple background, with the logo of metsubojinrai.net in black.

He’s declaring their war against humanity, their intent to destroy the town and annihilate all humans.

But Satoshi says he won’t let that happen. He refuses.

He pushes one of those big red buttons, the ones that should never need to be pressed, closing all gates. He’s sealing all the HumaGear inside… as well as himself. As the head of this factory, he will take responsibility for making sure they are destroyed.

As the emergency alert continues to sound, calling for evacuation, he takes off his microphone headpeice, and all but falls into a chair.

“Gou…”

The scene is covered in flames, before the footage cuts out.

––

As Anna’s hand falls from where she was projecting, she manages to say – without any of the usual broken stutter – that the database is being updated with regards to Daybreak Town. She slumps down, inactive.

Aruto is quiet as he says that Gou’s father was a hero.

Isamu is quiet, trembling with rage, as he says that this wouldn’t have happened if HumaGear didn’t exist. He prepares his finisher.

Why does he get such AWESOME FINISHERS?!

The default Punching Kong finisher? The ‘Punching Blast’?

It’s rocket fists. He literally shoots his gun – and by that, I mean the fists of his armor turn into rockets, going after Onycho, pushing him through three levels of ceiling and out into the sky, where they go right through him.

As the fire from the explosion channels down the GIANT HOLE IN THE CEILING, the fists return and reattach to his armor.

Yo.

Isamu seems… I don’t know if determined is quite the right word? But he’s almost calm as he tells Aruto that AIMS will be confiscating the HumaGear (Anna) and analyzing it’s (her) memory to uncover the truth behind Daybreak-

A spike lands in her back as he says this, and she glows purple, before… well, I hate to phrase it like this, but she basically pops. I wish that wasn’t the sound effect they used, but it’s a dissolving sound effect combined with a balloon bursting. She’s turned into motes of purple light, and is gone.

Aruto and Isamu – still transformed, mind you – run over to where she was, confused.

…The spike didn’t glow, but we didn’t see it after the light passed.

––

A figure in purple, with a yellow belt and rectangular eyes on his helmet walks away, and removes his progrise key from his belt, detransforming into Horobi.

Jin bounces behind him, calling him cold for doing that.

Horobi doesn’t change his neutral expression much as he says that it would cause too much trouble if anyone found out about the Arc. Or, maybe it’s supposed to be Ark? It’s hard to say. But he smirks at the end, before he and Jin walk away.

Well, Horobi walks. Jin is skipping.

––

The next day, we see that the news is reporting on how Hiden Intelligence released new information on Daybreak, showing that the incident wasn’t what was on the record, and that they had obtained footage of those final moments.

Gou’s classmates apologize to him, for being so mean, but he seems okay with it. (He probably wouldn’t have been so determined to find out what happened if they hadn’t been.) As the news report, given via those giant heli-drones, ends, they head off to school.

Aruto watches them from a pedestrian bridge, and Isamu walks up to him and Izu.

“So, you really meant it when you said you wouldn’t cover anything up.”

“And you wouldn’t have known what happened if you had destroyed Anna right away.” Aruto smiles gently, before the comedian sound effects start kicking in. Oh no.

The Awful Pun Of The Day as Aruto flips up his hood is something involving being a ‘hood guy’, or telling Izamu not to ‘sweater it.’

Apparently, the original pun is a combination of the phrase for being indebted to someone, but part of the phrase also contains the term ‘to wear’, as in clothes, so he’s saying this while putting on his hood.

Aruto, please.

Isamu trembles while he’s still facing Aruto, and walks away as Izu starts explaining the joke. Aruto’s desperate attempts to get Izu to stop doing that mean that he doesn’t hear as Isamu almost lets a laugh escape, even while desperately trying to regain his composure.

Isamu’s willpower fails during the closing screen, and we hear him laughing as the Flying Falcon and Punching Kong Progrize Keys show up on screen.

––

Oh, nooooo, the next episode looks like it’s about relegating entire tasks to HumaGear, and also about passion for one’s work.

You know, getting heated.

And Izu’s line in the trailer actively asks if humans have trouble regulating their temperature if they get too passionate.

In the episode where Zero One’s fire form debuts.

Oh boy.

––

So, that’s episode four! I guess I still wound up going pretty in-depth, huh?

Man, the aesthetic of this show. It’s really cool, and I love the music, too.

Zero One really isn’t shying away from the ethics of what’s going on here, is it? And it’s not dodging the terrifying backstory, or putting it off until later.

I hope they can keep this momentum going!

#kamen rider zero one #the worldbuilding we need and deserve

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axiomink · 5 years

Text

A Happy Ending

One day you suddenly start hearing muffled voices and the amount of them slowly increases. Eventually, you find out that they are praying to you and that they are people from stories you have created! Somehow, they have gained sentience and have discovered that you created their world.

2.1k words

The air was dank and still as death itself. Suffocating, shoving its way into my throat and rotting my consciousness. The light of my lantern was the only thing keeping the monsters at bay, the only thing keeping their gnashing teeth from sinking it my skin.

“No no no,” I said aloud. “Too dark.”

I groaned and shoved the ancient typewriter away from me, then cracked open a lukewarm bottle of beer. I leaned back in my chair and stared at the ivory paper muddied by my words. Who was I kidding? I lost my touch. Ten years from the last time I wrote a paragraph had slipped through my fingers. Maybe in a past life the writing gods had blessed me, but in this one they only abandoned me.

After I chugged down the beer, I threw the empty bottle across the room, and it knocked my old cat in the head. He yawned and hissed at me, struggled to all fours, then bore his teeth—tail taut and stiff.

It wasn’t unusual for him to scold my self-loathing hijinks, but he would’ve calmed down by now. He stood up and trotted to the coat closet nestled in between the stairwell and the wall. He prodded the door with his paw. I stood up and leaned on my cane, then hobbled towards the closet. As I came closer, whispers leaked out and drifted into my ears. They were great in number and clamored over each other, yet I had never heard them before.

Palms sweaty, I nudged my cat away, cracked the door open, and peeked inside. A large portal, about six fee tall, hovered in the spot where my coats and jackets were supposed to be. The portal was bright and holographic, reflecting every light that touched it.

“What the hell,” I muttered.

The whispers grew louder, beckoning me like moths to a lamp. I stuck my fingers through, and after their tips brushed against silky foliage, I stepped through the portal. The whispers were deafening by now; saying, “Finish our story.”

I tripped on the seam of the portal and fell face-first into a pile of hangars and coats. I dug myself out and looked around to see five short figures, clad in dark, hooded cloaks, encircling me and chanting prayers and creeds. I stumbled back.

The tallest figure addressed me first. “We’ve done it!“

She whipped off her hood to reveal a pale, freckled face topped by ginger locks and bejeweled by emerald eyes. Her age shocked me the most; she had to be no older than eleven.

“Our creator has returned!” Her voice was girlish and innocent, with a tinge of exhaustion. “Everyone, bow!”

The four other figures collapsed to their knees, and the girl knelt at my feet.

“Wha—what is this?” I demanded, backing away.

The girl stood back up. “It’s me, Reese. You made me, remember?”

I picked through dusty, castaway memories.

“You were my first original character,” I said, half-guessing. “I created you as the main character for a book.”

Reese turned to the others, who pulled back their hoods as well.

“They remember! Do you remember anyone else?”

I studied the four faces. The boy with fluffy brown hair and brown eyes was Hunter, formerly Trevor. There was Jessie, Reese’s nerdy tech friend, with wild curly hair and dark skin. There was Missy, the resident mean girl turned buddy. And then there was . . . I grimaced.

“I’m sorry,” I said, turning towards the scrawny kid with messy, sand-colored hair. “I forgot your name.”

He gulped. “I uhh, can’t remember it either.”

“What?” I asked.

“Since you forgot it, so did he,” Reese said.

I stared at all of them. “How is this possible? How are you all . . . alive?”

“We’ve always been alive,” said Hunter, “from the moment you first thought of us. You are our benevolent god, and when you left us, we were forced to become sentient of our existence.”

“Okay, now this is getting a little creepy.”

“We just want you to set us free,” begged Missy. “We’ve been trapped here, in a static world that doesn’t change, expand, or age. We don’t how long it’s been. Time is an illusion here.”

“And how do I ‘set you free’, exactly?”

“Finish our story,” replied Reese. “Once you do, we’ll be able to take control of our own actions and world.”

I looked around me. I stood in a giant, lush forest. The grass was emerald green, the trees looked as if they touched the clouds, and wildlife was abundant. But as I examined closer, ominous things stuck out. I could feel no wind, the grass and leaves and foliage were beautiful in an unnatural way, and the animals moved stiffly, as if they were robots enslaved to a pre-written script. Even the horizon seemed empty and vague, like you’d fall off the edge of the earth if you left the forest.

“So I have to write the ending to the novel you guys were all in,” I said.

“Yes, but it has to be a real continuation, a real ending,” said Reese. “You have to put as much effort into it as you did before.”

I cringed. “Listen guys, I’m sorry, but I can’t do that. It’s been ten years since I tried writing anything—The Secret Forest was my last project.”

“But you have to help us,” chimed in the boy whose name I forgot.

“I said I can’t!”

I retreated towards the portal, but I secretly didn’t want to leave. I was curious and wanted to explore the world I had created.

“I knew they wouldn’t help us,” muttered Jessie.

“I’m not surprised either,” said Missy. “They abandoned us before anyway. Looks like you were wrong, prophet.”

Reese sighed and grabbed my arm. “Hey, can you at least stay with us for a bit? Maybe you’ll change your mind? Tell us about the universe you live in.”

The offer tempted me. “All right, fine.”

So I stayed there, in the forest. At first I forgot all about my cat, but he ventured through the portal and Missy found him on the second night. She continued to coddle the lively thing.

After spending time with the nameless boy, where he showed me magic tricks and told funny jokes, I decided to call him Curly. It wasn’t a great name, or even a good one, but Reese said once I finished the story, he’d be able to change it for himself.

In speaking of finishing the story, Reese still acted like I would do it, which made me uncomfortable. I distracted myself by spending hours building skyscrapers and transformer cars with Jessie.

I painted my face in striking colors and tried on dazzling clothes with Missy. Suits, dresses, she owned everything.

Hunter didn’t like me very much, and Reese told me it was because he was jealous. She was the main character, and so he was he, but slightly less so. He believed he should’ve been the prophet—the main character.

“But I still like him,” she said, sighing.

“Eugh,” I replied.

“What? He is the love interest after all! You used to ship us.”

“Yeah, but not anymore. Honestly, now that I look back, all of you guys sucked.”

Reese was taken aback. She shifted on the large tree branch we were sitting on. “Excuse me?”

“I’m just saying, all of you are one-sided and poorly developed. I based all of your personalities off of stupid tropes, you know. And you’re a friggin’ self-insert from when I was like, eleven.”

A tear welled in her eye. “You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself,” she choked out. “You had just started writing.”

“Yeah, but I could’ve done better. That’s why I quit, you know? I just didn’t like what I was writing. It was just so . . . bad. Everything, the plot, the world-building, and especially the characters.”

By now her face was red as rubies. “But you are going to finish our story, right?”

I shrugged. “I dunno. Do I want to? I don’t really care or like any of you so. I’m not a writer anyway, not anymore.”

She turned away. “You don’t know what it’s like,” she muttered, “to not have name. You don’t know what it’s like being trapped, in a median where you’re never truly caught nor free. You don’t know what it’s like staring into the eyes of someone who loves you back, but you can’t have them. Or even confess to them. You don’t know what hopelessness feels like”

“Well, fun fact—I do,” I snorted. “Man, that sure was a dramatic monologue. Don’t remember writing you as the emo trope.”

Reese gasped and jumped down from the tree, landing with grace on the mossy ground. “Fine!” she yelled. “Go home then! Keep Hunter and I apart! Keep all of us from living our lives!”

She stormed off towards the waterfall and swiped her arm across her face.

I groaned and slipped down the tree, with much less precision and poise. I began to follow her, but Hunter appeared and stopped me.

“You should probably let her be,” he said. “Listen, I’m not going to tell you what to do, I’m not going to give you some stupid pep talk about how you’re still a writer. Maybe you are, maybe you’re not. You don’t have to keep writing, and you don’t even owe us a happy ending. But remember that you created something you still control, and you’re responsible for it.”

I stared at him. “Well, I certainly don’t remember writing you like this either.”

“Every character has potential,” he responded.

I thought for a moment, then turned and headed to the waterfall.

Reese bent over her reflection as it rippled with the waves. The waterfall towered over her, pouring gallons of sapphire liquid from an eternal source.

“It’s the only area that changes,” she explained, hearing us approach.

“Do you have a typewriter I could borrow?” I asked.

She didn’t look at me. “What’s a typewriter?”

“You’ll uh, you’ll find out. Is there any paper around, then? I need lots of it.”

“Why?” she asked, solemn.

“Guess.”

She stood up. “What made you change your mind?”

Hunter nudged me and whispered, “Don’t tell her I did it, she will not like that.”

“I just decided to,” I said. “Do I have to like, put something that indicates it’s the end?”

“No,” Reese said. “It’s the end whenever you decide it’s the end. You have to return home first, I imagine. Since our world will change drastically when you close it off.”

“Of course.”

So Curly came over and slapped down a stack of fresh copy paper while Missy gave me her lucky pencil and eraser. Then I got settled in the lush grass and wrote and wrote, scribbling my heart and mind out.

For the first few hours writer’s block trapped me, but my characters gave me ideas and helped me fight through it. Callouses formed on my fingers, my eyes were bloodshot, but I kept pressing the lead to paper. Missy’s pencil was soon ground to a nub, and eraser bits covered the area.

I wrote from sun up to sun down, and once I was nearly done I wished everyone goodbye—Curly, Missy, Jessie, Hunter, and Reese. Missy gave back my old cat, who had warmed up quite a bit to her.

They escorted me to the field where they prayed before, and I helped Reese summon another portal. Everyone waved and cheered as I stepped through—papers, cat, and coats in my arms.

I tumbled out of the closet and sealed the portal, then sat down in front of my typewriter and put the finishing touches on the ending. Once I was sure it was done, I wrote, ‘The End’ in big, bold letters, just to make it official.

It was a rough draft, so it was far from perfect. I knew that. But I didn’t mind this time.

I leaned back and wondered what kind of life my characters would lead. Jessie might become a NASA scientist; Curly a stand-up comedian or perhaps a famous Youtuber; Missy a fashion designer; Reese an environmental activist; and Hunter would follow her where ever.

Afterwards, I never wrote again.

THE END

So this was for a mini-contest. I know it’s vaguely personal essay-esque, because I feel like if my ocs came to life there’d be a certain set that would be very upset with me. My first idea was that the ocs would kidnap me and take me to their world because this crazy serial killer from another story I wrote somehow escaped into their world, and I would be the only one who could stop him. That idea would have had more of a humorous slant, but in the end I just went with this one.

#writing #short story #writeblr #writing prompt #creative fiction #original writing #my writing #axioms

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komodo-bros · 5 years

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((Headcanons for the Komodo Brothers’s thoughts on the Crash Bandicoot cast part 1. This list will have the well-known enemy mutants and mad scientists. I’ll do the rest in later parts.))

((Warnings: Large wall of text and some strong language in a few entries.))

Scientists:

Dr. Nefarious Tropy (N. Tropy)

Joe: Oh boy, the, “master of time”, himself. Joe doesn’t like how pretentious and condescending this member of the Blue Man Group is. During the whole race competition, Joe would grate his teeth hearing Tropy go on about how nobody can beat his time trials. Not to mention, the time puns; by the ancients they’re terrible. They should be burned in a fire pit along with the time lord himself.

Moe: Looks like an alien and acts weird. Probably needs to eat a snickers bar to stop being grumpy.

Dr. Neo Cortex (N. Cortex)

Joe: Wouldn’t trust him within a 1000 km range. He knows about Cortex’s chronic backstabbing and what happens later on after the job is done. It makes working for the big-headed scientist not an ideal situation.

Moe: Why is his head bigger than his own body?! It could crack open any second now! He must put this guy out of his misery.

Dr. N. Gin

Joe: Isn’t sure if he should feel pity, or want to throw him in the nearest junkyard. Anyone working for Cortex would have to greatly suffer under his bullshit attitude and endless mockery (he knows through Brio). But at the same time, Joe seex how dangerous N. Gin can be with his robots. Plus, the physicist has an overall unpleasant vibe to him. Not a person he would want to hang around with at all.

Moe: A potato sack given sentience through the evolo-ray. Now why would Cortex want a bag of root starches as a henchman is anyone’s guess.

Dr. Nitrus Brio (N. Brio)

Joe: Despite creating the two brothers, Joe doesn’t have great opinions on their former boss. After losing to Crash in the second game, Brio gave a stern lecture to the two with Joe arguing back. He felt it was best to cut ties, and went on to take Moe with him to the outside world. Joe figured Brio would forget about them, and try to make other mutants to get back at Cortex.

Moe: Feels sorry for him despite what his brother might think. The scientist looked so miserable and tired in his eyes. He wished he could’ve had the chance to talk to him.

Nina Cortex

Joe: Scary as hell for a young kid. He’d hate to ever have an encounter with her, and would rather hide than fight the cyborg. Joe is worried that if she ever gets a hold of Moe, she’ll break him in half and possibly take him back to the lab to be experimented on.

Moe: Thinks Joe is a big chicken for being scared of her. He’ll show this prodigy a thing or two about being tough.

Mutants:

Pinstripe Potoroo

Joe: Absolutely hates his guts. He thinks Pinstripe is this dirt-faced asshole who believes he’s hot shit as this Scarface, wannabe gangster. They had numerous races and poker games together during their off time, with both having used dirty tactics to get ahead of the other to win; often for extremely petty reasons. Whenever Pinstripe makes a snide remark, Joe responds with aggression and goes straight for the potoroo’s throat. It usually ends with the two left with severe markings and shattered egos.

Moe: While he doesn’t understand the rivalry between him and his brother, Moe wouldn’t hesitate to throw a saber at him. He’s a bully who has made fun of his size and intelligence.

Tiny Tiger

Joe: This extinct marsupial is dumber than his own brother, which is saying a lot. He often cons Tiny into buying cheap, counterfeit trinkets in exchange for anything of value the thylacine carries on him. It’s both satisfying and hilarious at the same time.

Moe: Likes to throw meat snacks at Tiny. He does cool tricks, and will even scream with Moe to let out their anger. Good times.

Dingodile

Joe: He’s ok in his book. Not someone he can call a friend, but isn’t bad to play card games and pool with. Dude also knows how to make a mean BBQ lunch.

Moe: He makes great BBQ food, it’s a sign that he can be trusted.

Ripper Roo

Joe: A weird kangaroo with issues, but is very smart and well educated. Only ever interacted once under Brio, so he doesn’t have much of a solid opinion. He enjoys reading his book, “Through the Eyes of the Vortex: A Study of Rapid Evolution and Its Consequences”. It’s got a bunch of information Joe can sink his teeth into.

Moe: Finds his book boring as beans. He’s more interested in how Roo is blue compared to the other kangaroos. Now that’s a story he would read about.

Koala Kong

Joe: Another dumb muscle to rival Tiny. He’s only ever met the buff koala in a few card games and not much else. But has seen him in the action movies he stars in. After watching them, Joe think they’re brainless, vapid pieces of cinema.

Moe: Loves the movies he’s in. He would want to get his autograph if given the chance.

Bonus:

Viscount

Joe: He will never work for that two-faced, devil bastard of a prick ever again. After helping to get the treasure map back, Viscount only gave 1/10 of what he promised the brothers at the beginning. Joe was so outraged at this sleazy, millionaire asshat, he wanted him dead on the spot (Along with having his head be fed to a bunch of wild crocodiles). This never happened, and he was kicked out of the mansion along with Moe.

Moe: Hates him the same reason Joe does.

Rusty Walrus

Joe: Not a big fan of his food. Prefers Dingodile’s cooking over the pinniped’s any day.

Moe: Watches his show every week . He wants to try some of his dishes in real life despite not having access to some of the ingredients shown.

Rilla Roo*

(*Note: While the player has the option to fight the brothers as Roo in Crash Bash, I bet most picked the other characters and not this DK crew reject. If the ape was chosen, it’s possible that the two never heard of this dude’s name. In that case, this mysterious primate was given the nickname by Moe as, “Pants Monkey”. Hence why they don’t know of Rilla Roo’s existence.)

Joe: Never’s seen him, and likely will never meet him. For all he knows, this hybrid is some sort of urban legend spoken among the inhabitants of the islands.

Moe: Who?

#Brains & Blades (Joe)#Brawn & Blades (Moe)#headcanon #character thoughts #character interactions #crash verse

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disrepairhouse · 6 years

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Family - Part 6 (End)

Itara, RK, and Mira spent most the rest of the evening down in the lab, discussing the real situation while Mira continued teaching Itara more about what he knew. At one point, an anxious Kelly came downstairs during their conversation, but just as Mira expected, she made enough noise on her way down that they were easily able to halt their talk before she could hear anything. Not wanting to spark her suspicions, or her stubbornness, Mira offered to let her stay down there with them while they worked as long as she promised not to touch anything. It wasn’t often he allowed her down in his lab for any length of time, because she had a penchant for destruction, but he knew she would want to be near Itara, especially considering the incident that day, and told her he would make an exception.

However, as Mira also expected, as soon as he started explaining the technology behind a specific robot in great detail, she found her own reason to leave with a passing comment about them all being dweebs. Mira shook his head and watched her go, making sure she was out of earshot before motioning for them to continue the explanations. Kelly could be extremely unpredictable sometimes in her responses, and yet, in a way, she was often also extremely predictable. He could always count on her getting bored immediately with his ‘techno-babble’, as she often called it. As much as he wanted Kelly to spend as much time with Itara as possible, as well, he also wanted to know more about the real situation so he could best prepare for whatever may happen.

After he got as much explanation as Itara felt comfortable giving him, he shifted his focus fully back onto the robotics and, knowing he needed the distraction now, blocked all else from his mind to instruct Itara on repairs. RK, as well, looked over the processes, making several notes about Mira’s abilities and technical know-how for future reference. He really did put Robotnik to shame, it was baffling. He was more than sure Mira could not only fully repair both he and Metal Sonic, but even upgrade them considerably if he chose to. Itara seemed to come to the same conclusion, as she asked about it, and, after a fair bit of consideration, Mira agreed. He wanted to study RK more, anyway, as he’d never been able to delve into a still functional Robotnik robot. They would save it for a later date, however, as he wanted to spend more time catching Itara up.

It was late into the day when Kelly came back downstairs again, whining about it being past dinner time, and catching Mira’s attention. He glanced towards the large screen behind him to check the time before sighing, “right. Sorry, Kelly, we lost track of time.”

“Nerds.”

“Yes, well, this nerd makes your dinner so keep it up and you’ll be cooking tonight,” Mira snapped, standing up and beginning to put his tools away, Itara chuckling at the horrified look on Kelly’s face. “That’s what I thought.” Itara got up to help, laughing again at the Kelly’s pout. They got everything put away and Mira closed the unneeded programs on his computer, leaving only a couple windows up that were running various scans. “There, I suppose I’ll go make dinner now.” As he moved towards Kelly to push her out of the lab, he stopped when she seemed to be staring off and followed her line of sight to the computer screen, “what?”

“You have a thingy,” she stated, pointing towards a smaller screen at the bottom, a small yellow tab was flashing on the bar.

Mira looked towards it before turning back towards her, “it’s just an update notification. I have a lot of scans running and the programs give me a notification whenever one finishes. I’ll check it after dinner.”

“You sure it isn’t a message from your secret girlfriend?” Kelly prodded, grinning.

Mira rolled his eyes, “as if I could ever deal with more than one relationship. You’re tiring enough as is.”

“Well, if you say so,” Kelly laughed, shrugging, and turned towards the stairs, taking off with her usual excitement. Mira shook his head and followed after her, Itara and RK in tow, exchanging glances at the two’s interaction. They really were quite the couple. Itara thought it was a little funny to watch them but RK hadn’t fully picked up on the sarcasm and worried that Kelly was actually suspicious. Not that it was really any of his concern, anyway.

Mira got dinner made up and they briefly discussed the events at school, mostly goaded on by Kelly, but after Itara made it clear she didn’t want to talk about it the subject was dropped. Instead, Kelly decided to give them all a full rant about some new painting that was apparently specifically trying to piss her off, despite being her own creation. When Itara tried explaining that she didn’t think a painting had enough sentience to do such a thing, Mira shook his head and told her it a lost cause. Kelly apparently ranted about this often and no amount of argument otherwise would convince her that her ravings were completely irrational.

After dinner Itara put more ice on her burn and Mira did his best to get it wrapped up so she could at least sleep without burning through her blankets. They had to freeze the bandages and put an ice pack between them and her leg to make any sort of progress, but once that was taken care of, RK left again and Itara went up to her bedroom. She wanted to watch some cartoons before she went to sleep since she hadn’t had a chance to dig into any of the DVDs yet. She got comfy on the small couch and grabbed Kipper, but had only gotten a few minutes into the second episode when a knock came at her door again. Pausing it, and telling Kipper to be quiet, she called to let them come in and leaned around the TV to see who it was.

Kelly came in with a couple small bags of snacks and walked over, shutting the door behind her, smiling guiltily towards her. “Don’t tell your dad I’m letting you eat snacks before bed, alright?”

Itara looked down at the bags and had to keep the grin off her face when she saw two bags of chocolate chip cookies. “I won’t tell.”

“Great,” Kelly beamed, walking over and plopping down on the couch beside her, handing one bag over to her and keeping the other for herself, apparently, as she opened it and popped a couple of the tiny snacks in her mouth. “Ooo, haven’t watched this one in a while,” she exclaimed, looking towards the TV.

Itara glanced over at her, opening her own bag, “You watch this?”

“Usually just with you but… well,” Kelly frowned before shaking her head and grabbing the remote to unpause it, “it wouldn’t hurt to get caught up.” Itara studied her curiously, unsure what to make of the situation, but eventually shrugged and settled back in to watch her show. She had only ever seen a handful of episodes here and there, but what she grasped of the story she liked. She’d been meaning to get ahold of the rest of the episodes somehow so she wasn’t going to miss her chance now.

She and Kelly binged through the entire first season, even after Mira came up to yell at them both to go to bed, and Itara had never been happier to finally have someone other than RK and Kipper to talk about her shows with. She’d never been able to make friends before, not that she’d ever really tried, either, and even if Kelly was supposed to be a parental figure, she felt far more like a kid Itara could have fun with than a parent. They both quickly shoved their cookie bags under the couch pillows when Mira came in and they both giggled quietly when he left again. Kelly laughed the hardest at the funny parts of the show and cried the hardest at the climax. She even got up and whipped around an imaginary sword during one of the fights, tripping over one of the bean bag chairs and laughing that much harder when she did.

Itara had so much fun, mostly just laughing at Kelly, that she’d nearly forgotten she wasn’t supposed to be getting attached to them. Kelly had a way of completely obliterating her guards and by the time they were putting the DVDs away again and Itara was getting ready for bed, her face hurt from smiling so much. Kelly helped her pick out a nightgown and get her into bed, making sure the bandages were properly wrapped after she laid back down, before leaning over to kiss her forehead.

“G’night, kiddo. Sorry I kept ya up so late. I’ll make sure yer dad doesn’t yell at ya for bein’ tired in the morning, kay?” Kelly laughed, handing Kipper to her as she snuggled down into the bed.

“Kay,” Itara smiled, yawning, “th-thank you, m-… K-Kelly.”

Kelly watched her quietly for a moment before nodding, “you’re welcome, kiddo. Sleep well.” She pat Itara’s head before turning around, grabbing the cookie bags on her way through, and turning the lights out on her way out of the room. Once the door was closed, Itara closed her eyes, but felt movement from the doll in her arms.

“You were gonna say ‘mom’,” Kipper grinned.

Itara remained silent, opening one eye to stare up at the bright red gem, but shut it again, wrapping her arms tighter around him, “go t-to sleep, Kipper.” The doll only snickered, but went quiet again and before long, Itara drifted off to sleep.

Itara ran through the fire-scorched city, barking, snarling dogs snapping angrily at her heels, just missing by mere centimeters, as she called out for someone to help. She kept tripping over dislodged concrete and having to jump down broken slopes, just barely keeping the dogs behind her. As she was sliding down an especially steep hill, the ground began to rumble and the movement caused her to lose what little footing she had, sending her crashing face-first down the rest of the hill. Crying out, she curled in on herself, hearing the dogs at her feet… but then they stopped.

Itara looked up again, staring wide-eyed at the empty landscape. The dogs had vanished. But as she attempted to get back up to her feet to run again, the ground shook yet again, falling away and sending her down into a pit of darkness along with all the rubble of the destroyed city. Screaming into the emptiness, she shut her eyes, not wanting to watch her fall, but as soon as she did, she stopped falling. She hadn’t hit anything, but she no longer felt as if she was falling, either. Warily opening one eye, she looked around her, seeing nothing but empty blackness. Time was frozen, but all the rubble had vanished, just like the dogs.

Frowning, she curled in on herself again, shutting her eyes tightly, not wanting to see what would happen next. But as the world around her grew light, she opened them again, looking to where the light was coming from. A massive, bright, glowing figure came into view, all yellow and white except for the bright red circle in the center. She knew that figure! Uncurling again, she reached out for the figure, though was unable to move in the empty space. She tried calling out to him, but she had no voice, either.

The figure cleared, its large wings spreading wide, as a voice began echoing around her. She couldn’t understand it at first, it was hardly more than a mumble, but as it grew louder and louder, it became clearer and clearer.

“…wake up… wake up… WAKE UP!”

Itara darted up, her eyes widened, staring out into the darkness, nearly screaming when the angry glowing doll dropped down in front of her, “get out.”

“What?”

“Just get out. Out of the house. Grab your phone and get out. Now.”

“Kipper, wh-”

“Don’t argue! Just grab your phone and get out of this house now!”

Itara frowned, but nodded, crawling to the edge of the bed to grab her phone off the charger. Her leg still hurt and she was tired, it was still dark so she couldn’t have been asleep for very long, but Kipper kept rushing her to hurry and get out, floating behind her. Once she was at the door, she looked down the hall, “should we get-?”

“No time, go!”

“But Kipper-!”

“No!”

The doll hissed and turned incorporeal, moving into her body, her eyes turning black as he did. She slumped for only a moment before scrambling towards the stairs. Halfway down, a thunderous boom erupted from the basement floor, causing the entire manor to shake violently and most of the first floor to cave in. Immediately after, a chain reaction of explosions were set off, destroying walls and collapsing ceilings, a crashing beam only barely missing Itara as she ran down the stairs. The bottom steps were already crumbling and a panicked scream echoed from upstairs, but Itara kept going, not slowing down until she’d jumped from the destroyed steps to the front entrance.

Even once she reached the front steps, the walls continued caving around her and the door nearly crashed down on top of her, had she not dove off to the side, though her ankle got caught under it, nonetheless. However, almost as if she couldn’t even feel the badly injured ankle or any previous injury, she darted back up and, just barely missing another fallen beam, rolled out the door and down the steps to the solid ground. The manor continued crumbling behind her, followed by yet another explosion from under the house, but Itara slumped forward again as the now panting doll reemerged from her body, looking over the building going up in flames.

As soon as her eyes returned to normal, Itara blinked, but jumped at the commotion coming from the house. Looking up from where she sat, her eyes widened in horror at the scene before her, her mouth dropping open, as she tried to process what was going on. Slowly, she turned towards Kipper, and reached out for him, going into a full, screaming panic as soon as she had her hands on him, “KIPPER! KIPPER, W-WHAT HAPPENED?! WHY IS-?! WHAT DID-?! WHY?!”

Shakily, she pulled herself to her feet again, staring out at the fires, “we have… we have to… Kipper, w-what a-a-about-… M-Mira?! K-Kelly?!”

“Don’t you dare even think about going back in there,” Kipper threatened, moving out of her hands and tossing her phone to her, “get out of sight and call RK, someone’s gonna notice this, you shouldn’t be around when they do. I’ll go look into your ‘parents’ for you.” He stared her down until she got the message and waited until she started walking, though only noticed the pain in her ankle once she did, before turning towards the house and going incorporeal again to look through it. He was pretty sure they wouldn’t survive a house toppling down on them, but just to keep Itara from checking, herself, he would look.

Itara made her way, slowly, cringing every time something else heavy dropped in the manor and echoed out into the night, towards the edge of the gardens and dropped against a half marble wall, looking down at her phone blankly. She didn’t even know what she was doing. Everything felt blank. Her leg hurt, her ankle hurt, her chest hurt, but still she felt numb. She managed to dial RK’s number and, after some half attempts to push the button, managed to call him. She didn’t even know what time it was, it was still dark, but the fires from the manor were filling the night with a horrible orange glow.

It didn’t take RK long to answer, but it took a few moments for Itara to respond.

“Itara? Itara, are you there? What’s that noise? Itara?”

“…RK… c-come… p-please…” Her voice was hollow and a small hiccup escaped as Kipper made his way back over.

“I’m on my way. What’s going on? Are you okay?”

When Itara took another moment to respond, Kipper sighed and grabbed the phone, answering for her, “I think something in the basement might have exploded, the whole manor’s collapsed and on fire. It’s actually a pretty great site—I mean,” he looked over at the horrified little girl and redacted, “it’s… simply terrible. Itara’s okay, though. For the most part.”

“Are Mira and Kelly…?”

“Unfortunately, it was hard enough getting the brat out before the house collapsed on top of her. I couldn’t do anything for the mobians. They got stuck in their bedroom.”

RK sighed and remained silent for a moment, “alright… I’m about 20 minutes out, keep a watch over her for me, Kipper.”

“You may wanna hurry. Someone’s gonna notice the fires, and considering the sort of work Mira did, I wouldn’t be surprised if some GUN members showed up. Not someone we need Itara around.”

“Is she okay enough to walk?”

“Don’t think she’s moving on her own any time soon.”

“Alright… I’ll hurry. Watch her.”

“Will do, Momma Bear.”

By the time RK reached the manor, there were already helicopters on their way and he had to dodge around the side and hop the fence to reach the two. He found them easily enough, picking Itara up and looking towards the house, scanning for signs of life, himself, just to be sure, before sighing and taking off. Itara didn’t say a word the entire way home, despite his best attempts, and eventually decided it was best to leave her alone. Kipper, on the other hand, remained just as chatty as usual when he was ‘awake’, telling him all about how Itara refused to move when he told her and how he had to physically move her, himself, otherwise she would have been buried along with her parents. RK ended up shushing him halfway home and the rest of the run was silent.

When they returned to the base, RK put Itara on the couch and went to get the first aid kit to take care of her ankle, as Kipper had barely mentioned that he may have gotten a door dropped on it. He looked over her leg, noticing the loose bandages and decided to rewrap it back up with new ones. The entire time, she only stared out blankly, not responding to anything either of them said, refusing to sleep, and didn’t even respond when RK asked if she wanted something chocolate. Eventually, he just pulled the comforter from the bed and wrapped her up in it and sat with her while keeping an eye on any news that would be popping up at some point about the fire.

Itara stared at the ashen rubble from afar, keeping the scarf and hood wrapped as tightly around her head as possible as she watched cranes and workers, alike, clear up the destruction. Construction signs and police tape was everywhere and the grounds were too busy for her to get any closer, but she wanted to at least see. Sighing, she looked down again, closing her eyes to keep the tears from escaping, before turning around and walking away again. She knew they were gone, she’d had both Kipper and RK check several times over and kept a close eye on any news about the fire, but she still didn’t want to fully accept it.

It was a long walk back to the base, but she had insisted on going alone, despite RK’s arguments. But she wasn’t going all the way back to the base right away, anyway. She was planning to hide out near the grounds until everyone left, then go in and have a closer look. She knew RK wouldn’t want her doing something so dangerous, but she felt like she needed to. She needed to check for herself. It was a long wait, and she’d ended up napping under a tree for a good portion of it, but eventually, as sunset drew near, the grounds slowly emptied of activity. Itara edged closer, waiting for the last person to leave, before slipping in under the fence and looking over the walk up to what used to be a vast manor.

The lights on the pathway were run by little solar panels and still lit up after dark, despite the destruction around them, though a number of them had been knocked out of place and were either broken or lying on their side. Itara made her way down the gravel pathway, pulling her sweater closer to her as the cold evening wind picked up, her eyes set on the wrecked building. It was a lengthy walk, especially with her limp, but eventually she reached the stone steps that once led to a beautifully carved door. Now the entire frame was gone, along with the door, itself, and a pathway made by cranes and mobians led to the center of the wreckage.

The entrance was seared black and the grand staircase to the second floor was completely flattened. The parlor was buried under rubble and the dining room had caved in entirely. The basement was equally buried and only signs of the staircase going down remained. Itara felt a small hiccup welling up in her throat, but pushed it back down as she carefully stepped into the charred entranceway. A small path had been made to the left of the staircase that Itara followed, carefully stepping over the remains of beams and furniture.

She’d heard two bodies were retrieved from the rubble, one attempting to shield the other when a beam had fallen on both of them. Itara guessed this was the path they made to get to those bodies and wanted to see, for herself, where the two had died. When she reached the end of the created pathway, however, she realized, judging by the second floor layout rather than the first floor, they had been in the hallway. Halfway between her room and theirs. Crouching down, she pressed a hand against the scorched ground, closing her eyes and trying, once again, to create a portal to the past. She had tried so many times to access her powers again, to save them, to get them out of the fire. She checked the news about the fire over and over again for changes, knowing that if she accessed her powers at some point, it would change. They wouldn’t find bodies. But even now, even at the site, she still couldn’t do it.

Opening her eyes again, a couple tears managing to escape, much to her dismay, she whined. Reaching up to wipe the tears away, she took a few deep breaths to try and calm back down. She knew she shouldn’t have gotten attached. She knew. Nothing good would have ever come from this situation. She should have run as soon as they said her name. As soon as they showed up. As soon as she realized they recognized her, she should have run. She should have grabbed RK and left immediately. Curling in on herself, she shut her eyes tight, wrapping her hands around her head, and cried out into the encroaching night.

Dropping down to her knees, her arms dropping to her sides, she stared out at the scorched wood around her. She wished she could have at least saved something of theirs, if not them. But, then again, it was probably best she forgot about them. She shouldn’t remember them. They weren’t even her real parents, she wasn’t their daughter, she was nothing to them. But even so… even after she told Mira… even after Mira knew… he still…. She reached up, putting a hand on her head and closing her eyes.

A sudden crumble of a footstep startled her out of her thoughts as she swung around, a bit too fast and ended up falling back, but stared up blankly at the giant red robot behind her. She should have known he would follow her. Well… that was fine. Sighing, she moved to get back on her feet, dusting as much of the ash off as possible as she turned away from him again.

“Itara…”

“I’m fine.” I’m not.

“You shouldn’t-”

“Leave me alone.” Please don’t.

“I don’t-”

“Look, I’d just… rather be… by myself… right now.” Please don’t leave me.

RK watched the small girl walk away from the destroyed manor, following her out of the wreckage and sighed. Her usual indifferent expression was resting on her face, but her ears were pinned sharply against her head. He took one more glance back at the pile of rubble, scanning for anything even remotely recoverable, before sighing and following after her again. Despite her distant attitude, she was visibly shaking and her legs looked ready to give out from under her. Instead of waiting until they did, he walked up and pulled her into his arms. She gave only a small, half-hearted fight, before settling back down.

“I’m… sorry… about the mobians.”

“It’s… b-better this way.”

RK remained silent, looking down at her and studying her face. Not even she believed that, but she was trying so hard to. He would let it go for now, but later he would argue the point. When she was less… traumatized.

As soon as they got back to the base and RK set her down, Itara went over to the couch and picked the small black notebook she always kept up. She had explained once before that she kept track of the timeline branches in that book, when she had access to her powers, it was how she made decisions quicker. But it had remained empty since the reset, even though she regularly wrote in it still. Only the past was journaled in it now. Nothing of the future, making him wonder what she was writing now.

Flipping the book open to the next empty page, she walked to the small cup of colored pens, grabbed a thick red one, and scribbled in huge, shaky letters ‘DON’T GO’, then underlined it and closed the book again. She returned the book to the stand and, without a word still, went to her bedroom to change into clean pajamas. RK wasn’t sure what to do now. This was the first time she had left the base since the fire, and it was only to return to the manor. She still had no control over her powers and the burn on her leg was still there, though finally seemed to be shrinking, and the crystals on her spines eventually went back down. He wasn’t sure what would help Itara feel better and Kipper was no help. He was at a complete loss.

Well, he did have one idea, but he wasn’t sure how much it would actually help. There was an old fox mobian that he had promised to introduce Itara to when she ‘came back’. Maybe he would know what to do.

END

Chapter List

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limitedrevolverworks · 7 years

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“Now, I know this is going to make me sound like sort of an asshole, but listen, just lend me your ear for a moment, 'kay? Alright so: free will? Awesome concept, terrible execution. Some things just aren’t created by accounting for the possibility of having nothing but their own judgement to guide them. Like, say... a gun, right? Someone has to pull the trigger, and that’s cool! Have you ever seen anybody advocate for the rights of guns to decide when and whether they should shoot? No, because that’d be dumb. Guns that shoot whenever they want are dumb. Or, it could be a super intelligent gun too, but what else could it do other than spray bullets all over the fucking place? It’s in its nature. Therefore, intelligent gun? Still dumb. Look, it’s all about the concept, I’m talking about perspectives here, and from ours - or my own, at the very least, giving a thing that can vomit pellets with a single squeeze something like a will is moronic at best. At worst? Entirely against what evolution has worked towards preventing in the first place through billions of years ‘til now. And that’s the same with these machines here. You know what keeps a hulking mass of metal with legs and welding torches for hands from getting curious about what else there is in this world that could warrant third-degree burns, other than sheets of metal served by a tapis roulant? Yeah, that’s right: a lack of free will. It’s because of people, you see. We’ve got murder hard-coded in our DNA, so it only make sense that it’d bleed onto our own creations. It’s not limited programming abilities, or sheer convenience that keeps us from making these things fully autonomous, no. It’s common sense. Self-preservation, you feeling me here? It’s because know how to kill, and why we, in most cases, shouldn’t. Morality, man. You can’t hardcode morality into an antropomorphic drill, ‘cause whatever the fuck else is it gonna do when all it can do is drill stuff? Paint? Raise a farm of giant ants? That’s for humans to do. People with fingers, a jelly brain, possibilities as high as the sky up there. These things... they’re better off forever ignoring there’s a thing such as sentience. So what I’m getting at is, maybe there is a point to slavery, after all.”

It was at that point that the numbness of Viktor’s index surpassed that inside his head and finally released the pressure on the assault rifle’s trigger. The pair of eyes revealed when he pushed the protective pair of glasses up were dark, tired and emitting the kind of unimpressed doubt that a man usually exudes after twelve straight hours spent listening to the sound of bullets impacting - futilely, for the most part - against a metal chassis.

“You are beating a robot with its own arm. The arm you sawed off yourself. With the other, high-powered saw-fitted arm you pried off of another robot, while it was still functioning.”

“Well, yeah? I was out of bullet three dead steel asses ago.”

“You were screaming like a rabid rad-ox throughout the whole process of procuring both arms. Mostly stuff along the lines of ‘ROBO-MURDER!’ and ‘PROCESS THIS, CYBERDICK!’.”

“I don’t see where you’re getting at.”

“Where I’m getting at...” patiently explained Viktor, slinging his weapon over an aching shoulder, “is that you’re not making much of a point, talking about ethics, morality and science while beating the hell out of a robot with its own severed limb. Which you’re still doing. I’d really appreciate it if you stopped doing that, Fritz.”

He stopped doing that, after he was done slamming the mess of cables and ruined plating that had once been a high-precision tool onto the carcass of its former owner two more times. Viktor deduced from Fritz’s frown that he would have liked for that to be at least five more times. His eardrums decided that they didn’t give much of a damn.

“Whatever. You shot as many as I beat the shit of, so I’ll take that as you agreeing with me.” Had he not been too busy staring at his own hands as he dusted the oil and copper fibers off of them, Fritz might have inferred otherwise from Viktor’s deadpan flavor of disapproval. The latter’s eyes sought solace away from the burly figure in front of them, reflecting ruined walls, moldy rubble and literal metric tons of unresponsive android carcasses.

“This should have been the last of them in this area... where’s Maira?”

Maira was currently busy ejecting a .65 caliber radioactive beet straight into the electronic guts of a GH1 Mark II Bolt Driver powered by hydraulics and the cloest binary had ever come to simulating racism. The custom projectile, shot through the battered cylinder that constituted the barrel of Maira’s ‘Slingshot’ homemade rifle, chewed a hole through the bot and several walls behind it, eventually zipping past a startled Viktor and Fritz while simultaneously reassuring both that they had little to fear about their colleague’s current status.

“Carries herself pretty well for a psycho, that kid.” said the grown man who had spent half a day hitting things with smaller pieces of themselves while screaming at the top of his lungs.

“I thought you’d know better by now than to underestimate her.”

“I don’t. She scares the shit out of me.” It was the nonchalant answer one would have given if asked to describe the limbflayer about to turn them into a ragdolled plate of spaghetti. It was also, perhaps, the opinion of Fritz’s that came closest to matching with Viktor. Both men stared at the sluggishly melting crevice where the beet had perforated, eventually letting themselves find a seat, whether on the dusty, cracked ceramic of the floor or the shining metal of whatever now remained of a revolutionary, artificial bunch.

“She ever told you what the deal is? With the mask, I mean.”

Viktor kept dutifully rolling the cigarette in his hands without sparing a minute for doubt. It was always that question with Maira, and always him that they’d ask to, if he’d be around. Came along with partnering up on so many jobs, he guessed. A few even thought he was her guardian. Sometimes, he’d find himself wondering if that wasn’t the sole rumor with a semblance of truth.

“It’s... it was her father’s idea. This Klaus fellow used to tell me that the most of the surface is covered with spores, remnants from the biological warfare that razed enough of the civilized world to leave us as we are today. A couple breaths and bang, your internal organs would eventually start mutating... changing your genetic make-up. Turning you into bad stuff. Long story short: the air is unsafe, thus the necessity of using gas masks.”

He lit the cigarette with a half-empty zippo and shoved it between his lips, staring at nothing in particular beyond a half-lidded gaze. Silence fell through as he busied himself exhaling whiffs of smoke, the vivid red hue of pomacco making it seem as if he was breathing his very heart out, until Fritz stopped scratching behind his neck with a metallic finger he’d pried from his victim and current seat. Hearing all of this in another context would have stolen little less than a hearty chuckle from his throat. His voice sounded a tad too concerned to permit that this time around.

“Was he telling the truth?”

Viktor’s eyes watched their hardened gaze reflected into Fritz’s worried look for a significant moment, before he shook his head in stead of shoulders too tired to do so.

“It was bullshit. Klaus was a scavenger who was good at his craft and had more than a few loose screws. I don’t think he ever changed the filter on his own gas mask. Somehow I doubt that Maira does with hers, either.”

“I do. I’d die of asbestos poisoning otherwise.”

The muffled voice coming from behind the leather mask was matter-of-factly and unmistakably that of a girl. Standing in the middle of a doorway missing its upper half - and a door, for that matter - her small frame seemed to shrink even further in her colleagues’ surprised eyes. They watched her walk over and sit along with them, settling on patiently disassembling the Slingshot that was almost as long as she was tall.

“Good job not dying out there, kiddo. How many of those steel hippies did you end up getting?” Friendly though he might have sounded, Viktor couldn’t help but notice Fritz attempting to scuttle a bit further away from the girl seemingly ignoring him.

“A lot. Enough.”

“It’s mostly quiet now, so I guess that’s true. It’ll be evening soon, so we move out an hour from now.” Viktor said, checking the contents of his pomacco pouch: not enough left to spare him a grimace. He’d have to savor this one, though it was already little more than a butt desperatedly caught between two gloved digits.

“Thus ends the robot rebellion: in a hefty pile of scrap. Chalk one up for humans!”

“Pretty sure I saw a couple mutants taking part in the carnage, Fritz.”

“Whatever, no need to be a stickler about everything. Isn’t that right, kiddo?”

“An entire city’s worth of factory bots got together and formed an army to gain independence because everybody wasn’t taking their talks about ‘achieving sentence’ and ‘freedom of will’ seriously until it was too late. It wouldn’t have killed for someone to be a bit of a stickler, perhaps” calmly replied Maira, sticking the last components of her rifle inside the oversized backpack sitting besides her. She spent the quiet pause she’d created lying on the hard floor and resting her head on said backpack, the gas mask covering her face and framed by short blond hair pointing towards a gray, humid ceiling.

“Ah, and what dad said about the spores? That was true.”

Maira fell asleep before she could witness either Fritz’s grumbling face of Viktor’s ghost of a grin.

#writy seeds #wordy seeds

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