Disclaimer: Shotaro Ishinomori's, not mine
Notes: Part five of my one hundred Cyborg 009 fics. The prompts was 'beginnings'. Spoilers for 'Man or Machine?'. Enjoy!
There were times when Albert Heinrich felt like the Black Ghost had defeated him a long time ago.
They had stolen him from the wreckage and his wife, kept him from dying to turn him into their weapon. Flesh had been replaced with steel, his hand with a gun, and his humanity with a machine that was built to kill people.
Oh yes, he had escaped with the rebel doctor and fought alongside the other eight experiments, kept claiming that no matter what, he was still human (enough times to almost believe it)... but then light would glint off the machine gun hand, and he was reminded of what he could never get back again from Black Ghost.
So there had to be some irony somewhere in the fact that it took a brutal duel with a robotic duplicate of himself to make him finally see the truth. The robot had had all of his abilities and none of his weaknesses but had been destroyed... because Albert suddenly decided the lives of a few baby birds were more important than his own. It had been a silly, foolish, dangerous thing to do.
And very human.
Human.
He knew the burn marks and bruises would turn some heads, but he was more interested in seeing Joe, Francoise, and Doctor Gilmore again than a few odd stares. And after everything that had happened, he could use a happy ending.
Not an ending, he told himself as he stretched his arms, enjoying the sunshine. It's a beginning.