"… Who do you think you are stealing my ramen? It's bad enough that you've been taking sporadic dips into my stock without permission…but what's more, you have the nerve to nab my favorite flavor!"
As his hands shot over his head as a makeshift shield, Bruno came to the realization that the number of times he'd been whaled on by Jack probably outranked the number of ball bearings in the Signer's Wheel of Fortune.
"A-ah?" he stammered, still cowering beneath the former champion. "That was your favorite flavor? Oh god, I'm so sorry, I totally didn't do it on purpose!"
Unappeased, Jack snatched the mechanic by the front of his shirt and hauled him out of the chair until their faces were inches apart. Jack's expression was terrifying and Bruno could practically hear the man's knuckles grinding hard into the fabric.
"How would you like it if I stole something valuable from you?" Jack snapped.
"But I don't have anything to steal—I mean yes that would be bad please don't hurtmeplease!"
Beads of visible sweat rolled down Bruno's forehead as he tried to pacify the enraged Jack Atlas with frantic apologies accompanied with some waving around. He was going to get his face punched in, he was going to get his face punched in (again)—Jack was going to murder him—
He must have had a guardian angel or something, because Bruno was saved by the opportune entrance of Yuusei into the scene.
"Huh? What's going on here?" the crabhead asked as he strode down the stairs clutching a plastic water bottle.
Jack swerved around, dropping Bruno back into his chair. "Yuusei! I caught this freeloader stealing my ramen!"
"I didn't know it was yours!" Bruno bleated, looking distraught. "I was looking for some grub to eat and I just saw it lying there and—"
"—if you didn't know who it belonged to, why would you take it in the first place? What is it with you and touching things that aren't yours?" Jack advanced on Bruno with grabby fingers, causing the mechanic to yelp and twist in an awkward position against the chair.
Yuusei appeared behind Jack and put a hand on his shoulder. "You heard him. It was an accident. Let it go, Jack."
"Ngghh…"
Yuusei was always the voice of reason between them. Jack grudgingly drew back from strangling Bruno, who relaxed momentarily, only to freak out a second later when the blonde stabbed a finger at his face.
"I catch you snooping around my ramen stock one more time, and I'll make sure you lack the windpipe to swallow it, got that?"
Bruno sunk further back into the chair, instantly putting his palms up in meek surrender. "Um, yes sir!"
Huffing one final time, Jack spun a heel and stomped off. Yuusei plopped down in the seat next to Bruno and took a swing of water as he causally tapped the keyboard to get the computer out of screensaver mode.
Bruno watched Jack leave with a pensive expression before turning back to his partner. He rubbed his head sheepishly, looking forlorn and more than just a little self-conscious. "Um, sorry for causing you trouble…"
"Don't let it get to you. Jack can be overbearing sometimes. It's just how he is."
"Huh? Yeah, I…I guess." His lips curved into a smile. "Thanks, Yuusei."
Yuusei nodded. "Anytime. So, about the problem of stoichiometric air-fuel ratio in the boosters…"
And they set off to work.
…
Hours later, Bruno caught Yuusei stretching his arms from the corner of his eye.
"Hey, what's say we call it a night? I'm pretty happy about the progress we made with the program. We can work on the rest of it tomorrow."
Bruno reclined in his seat, weaving his fingers together and cracking them backwards. "Sounds like a good idea to me." He stole a glance at the computer screen. "… Actually, you know what? Let me write up the rest of this code before I hit the sack."
Yuusei hesitated. "Are you sure? This is supposed to be a team collaboration. I wouldn't feel right making you do all the work."
"Don't worry about it," Bruno replied genially. "This shouldn't take too long. You go take a rest, Yuusei. You look like you really need it."
It was true. His friend's eyes were lipped with dark circles as if he hadn't had a good, unperturbed sleep in a long while.
"Alright. Thanks, Bruno. See you tomorrow."
"Okay, good night."
A light pat on the back, and then Yuusei was gone too. The lights having been flicked off after him, leaving Bruno in the darkness.
The code writing came automatically for Bruno as a second-nature. He was a technological genius at the core and there was absolutely no doubt in his mind that his career was in some way related to computers and motorcycles. What was his specific job, he had no idea.
For Bruno, there had always been a blank spot in his memory—an empty, white canvas surrounded by littered paintbrushes. He was amnesic, they told him when they first found his unconscious body washed up on the shore. He remembered nothing about himself, about who he was, what he did or his past history.
Compared to six weeks earlier, he knew more about who he was now. He had regained bits and pieces of his memory, with more to come in the following weeks. The canvas was no longer empty and had the beginning strokes of a masterpiece. But the strokes were strewn haphazardly and done in no particular order, save the top-right corner that held a large patch of paint, looking like it had been painted on all at once. He had recovered that piece of his identity in the most unexpected manner.
The atmosphere shifted subtly in the garage. Sensing someone else's presence, Bruno rotated his gaze to greet the newcomer.
The man standing there, bathed in darkness and streaks of moonlight, was not a resident of this apartment.
Bruno's eyes widened in momentary shock at this stranger's presence before they set into a hard stare. "Oh… " Then in an almost seamless transition, Bruno's voice deepened. "What do you want, Placido?"
The Emperor merely gave him a cold look, sliding his sword back into its sheath as the wormhole behind him seamed itself shut. Contrary to his usual sheepish behavior, Bruno didn't waver from Placido's drilling stare and kept a leveled gaze even as the robot strode towards him, grabbed his shirt, and pitched him onto the couch.
"You don't waste any time getting down to business, huh?" Bruno commented from the couch.
"Silence. I didn't say you could speak."
A heavy weight shifted upon the lower half of Bruno's body and he peered down to find Placido immediately fiddling with his jeans. Placido's milky pale fingers fumbled around with undoing the button while his face contorted into his trademark expression of impatience. A low growl emitted from the darkness, and Bruno couldn't help but let out a soft, dry laugh that sounded a bit too cold to be his own.
Placido got off the blue-haired man and made a noise of disgust.
"Hurry up and make yourself ready."
Slowly, Bruno sat up and gazed at Placido with neutral eyes. A glare was his only answer.
Repressing the snarky remark that popped into mind, Bruno swallowed his pride and reached into his jeans. He had his eyes glued on the Emperor and a grim, sardonic smile ghosting his lips as he started pumping.
…
Soft panting filled the garage.
Placido had his head turned away the entire time, seemingly disgusted, and chose to survey his gaze over the garage belonging to his enemies instead. Bruno knew better.
When Bruno was 'ready', he slipped forward and grabbed both of Placido's wrists—hardly surprised when he was met with reflexive jerking and an indignant half-cry, half-snarl as he pushed Placido against the couch. What followed was some wholehearted struggling; Placido hated being out of the position of control. Nonetheless, Placido's miniature tantrum quelled down when Bruno's mouth latched onto his neck and started to trail possessive kisses downward.
If Bruno had any previous experience with a man or a woman, he wouldn't have remembered. Even now, with bits and scraps of his identity being returned to him, he had still yet to encounter a memory of a lover or significant other half. But it didn't matter: any initial awkwardness of having intercourse with a person of the same gender—who happened to be a robot on top of that—was eased in the cloak of darkness. It hid their faces and obscured their identities, erasing all that they were and everything they stood for until they were nameless, shadowy figures without shape or form. In the darkness, there were no enemies or sides.
Bruno's lips continued descending down Placido's body until he reached the point where clothing obstructed him from reaching any skin. His hand automatically reached up to tug off the bizarrely-constructed armor—only for it to be quickly slapped away. A dissatisfied growl rumbled from the tiger beneath him. Bruno was shoved off to create some space between them and he backed away willingly, eyeing the Emperor with wry expectations. Time for the lightshow.
A web of binary code lit up the darkness. Strips of intricate crimson surrounded Placido's body almost like ribbons; his hood and waistcoat evaporated and the armor disintegrated into pixels, exposing the riding suit that lay underneath.
"…you really have to come up with a better way to get undressed," Bruno commented dryly. His remark was met with a boot planted on his chest that barely moved him back a few inches.
"Shut up."
Short and curt, and yet those two words relayed everything Bruno needed to know. There were no explanations were offered, no defending of his actions. Placido was fully aware of what he was doing and what their act meant in the face of reality.
Watching Placido spread his legs evoked both a bemusement and arousal from Bruno who initially found the shameless act of vulnerability so uncharacteristic of the Wisel Emperor that it actually rendered him wary about Placido's motivations. The suspicion melted away in a surge of silent power when Placido verified his offer with an impatient growl and a familiar cross glare.
"Stop gawking like a fool and get on with it."
Bruno let out a silent sigh into the darkness.
This was going to be a long night.
It had been on a warm summer evening when an extraterrestrial portal suddenly appeared in Yuusei's garage. The man who had stepped out of the wormhole was surrounded by an aura of intimidation with waves of oppression emanating off his being like heat from a radiator. Bruno could barely flail his hands defenselessly and stammer out a shaky explanation before the cold blade of a sword grazed his neck.
"Where is Yuusei Fudou."
"…wha—h-huh? Who are you? And what do you—kyaaaaahh!"
Placido's sword notched the ground where Bruno's head would have been if the blue-haired man had not scooted out of the way at the very last moment.
Jack may have found countless of flaws to badger him with, but in retrospect Bruno realized that there was an area he was quite talented in, one that didn't involve D-wheels: he was amazingly good at not getting killed. Between the frantic dodging and what Bruno would have termed back then as a lucky evasion, he was protesting and stammering as if somehow Placido was the type of person who could be reasoned with—
"We-we can talk this out! I, err, totally advocate for peaceful negotiations!"
"You sicken me," Placido snarled. "Now hold still, worm!"
The Emperor was actually out to kill him. He wasn't holding back in his slices.
Bruno's luck finally came to an end when he accidentally stepped on the discretely protruding car creeper underneath Blackbird. The garage was filled with a loud, drawn-out cry as Bruno was sent cruising face-first into the wall. As he lay in a crumpled heap on the ground, he could hear the clicking of boots approaching him and Bruno hoisted his head just in time to be greeted by the cold face of his enemy staring down at him, the man's single crimson eye glowing ominously from beneath his hood.
"… You're not one of the Signers. Terminating you will bear no significance to the Circuit," the hooded stranger spoke as he raised his sword for the coup de grâce. "Hm. Maybe this will draw him out."
Bruno immediately clammed up.
"This will be over quick." And he swung the sword down.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -001101010010111010100100110011010—
The blade never made contact.
A fraction of a second later, Placido was swiftly deflecting a powerful backhand launched towards him at superhuman speed. The flailing, doe-eyed youth was nowhere to be found; in his place was some entirely other entity. The hasty slash issued at Bruno's midriff was dodged by an agile backwards somersault.
"—tch! What the hell are you?" Placido growled, trying to make sense of the polar flip in this man's persona. A remote set of instincts from another lifetime kicked in and Placido automatically found himself easing into a battle stance. His weapon suddenly felt heavy in his hands, almost as if they weren't molded to grip the handle of a sword, but to pull the trigger of a gun.
Placido's outrage went unheeded. Upon landing on the ground, the blue-haired creature abruptly ceased all movements. He simply stood there, motionless, his shoulders slightly slumped and his head bowed down in an angle that rendered his face completely dark.
There was zero response from this…thing for such an extended period of time that wisps of uncertainty began to surface in Placido's thoughts. A monotone drone demolished those doubts in an instant.
"…_mission_…_assessment_…_complete_."
There was no time to react to what happened next. In a blink of the eye, Placido found himself smashed against the nearest wall, choking from the vise-like grip around his throat. Staring through him was a pair of inhuman red eyes mirroring his singular bionic one—except Placido's eye was rimmed with wild emotions (alarm and bewilderment and terror), whereas the eyes of this creature wearing Bruno's skin were blank and starkly devoid of sentiment or conscience.
"… _target_…_confirmed_…" The directive uttered from this being's mouth.
Placido clamped a hand around the arm pinning him to the wall, attempting to alleviate the pressure from his body.
"Release me!"
Bruno rammed his fist into the android's face.
At that, Placido just sort of mechanically twitched.
In his peripheral vision, he could make out Bruno's even stare as the man calmly reeled his arm back. A choked sputter. "S-stop—!"
The second blow fractured the infinity-engraved eyepiece casing the right side of Placido's face.
The third punch smashed through the metal plate entirely. The cracked pieces crumbled away to reveal a gnarled nest of fizzing electrical worms and tapered coils as the internal workings of Placido's head were exposed to the outside world.
Seeing this display of neural networks seemed to register something within 'Bruno'. The fist that was poised for another punch stopped dead in its tracks. A beat. Slowly, his fist unclenched, triggering a shallow gasp from Placido.
—then Bruno dug his fingers deep into the exposed crevice, clawing, snaring, winding up thick rings of wire around his fingers—completely impasse in the face of Placido's hysterical screaming and kicking as the Emperor abandoned his sword to focus on tearing the torture object out of his head—
—with a tremendous tug, Bruno yanked out as much of the positronic brain stew as he could—
He didn't receive the chance.
All at once, the hand gripping Bruno's arm was encased with a flare of polychromatic filaments and a second voice suddenly accompanied Placido's screeching cacophony. Driven on pure survival instinct, the Emperor had activated his technopathy in some blind-panic frenzy to disable Bruno's system.
For the second time that night, the garage walls echoed with the sound of Bruno's cry, except this time it was a loud, strangled, anguished wail. As soon as Bruno released his hold on Placido, his hands shot up to clutch his skull, his fingers knotting in his hair as the pain of a splitting headache seared into his consciousness.
Incomprehensible energy coursed through Bruno's artificial veins as his current configurations reversed. He was overcome by an unexplainable feeling of his whole body getting hijacked; he felt numb, and then suddenly on fire—
Memories came flooding from every open hatch in his brain, rushing in like torrents to smear the blank canvas with a maelstrom of colors, splashing especially hard against the top-right corner.
His eyebrows furrowed, lines creasing on his forehead as he scrunched up his face in the painful endurance of the new (old) information pile-driven into his brain. A sharp sting ran across his corneas and a band of pressure wrapped around his head—compressing, crushing, squeezing—
For the split second before Bruno's world went black, he could only see red, his surroundings tinted by a cherry-red shade.
When light flooded his vision once more, Bruno was on his knees. His forehead was inches from touching the ground with strands of blue hair splayed against the dirty cement.
His vision had returned to normal. His body was no longer burning.
Out of the corner of his moist eyes, Bruno could discern a hazy image of the thin, neon-green web that encircled him like a shield. Or a cage. The web was ingrained with countless lines of binary coding and patterns that resembled complex algorithms, its inscriptions hauntingly familiar to the android.
(Because that's what he was, right? He was…)
Vague words and clipped phrases, scrambled and disjointed and what is real and is this who I am danced through his head.
I'm not human. Am I?
I am…
I go by the name…
A dark mirror reflected his image back at him.
That's my true identity…right?
As the green coding evaporated, Bruno regained enough mental grounding to realize that Placido was standing in front of him, looking like he had just seen a ghost.
"You…you…" Placido breathed, stunned beyond belief. You should be dead.
Bruno raised his gaze to the robot, his voice strained. "…I remember you now…Placido…"
Your…face. Are you…?
Placido was a mess. Picasso's cubism painting on an acid trip, his face like a ripped canvas.
It was only the Dark Glass in him that held Bruno back from asking Placido if he was alright.
Seeing what Bruno was staring at, Placido raised a hand and covered the gruesome sight from view. The astonishment was gone; Placido now wore a disturbed look on his face alongside a number of other conflicting emotions.
"…'remember me'?" His single eye lit with dull comprehension. "You lost your memories."
Getting to his feet, Bruno watched also Placido stiffly collect himself. An arm extended in the general direction of the discarded sword brought the weapon back to its owner through telepathy. The blade was sheathed without comment, leaving one hand free as the other one remained planted over the gap in his face. From between Placido's fingers, Bruno spied the fizzle of electric currents.
"…I must admit I was genuinely surprised to find another machine of our ilk here in this time period," Placido droned.
"Machine…?" Bruno (Was that really his name? Didn't he go by something else?) echoed vacantly, the word sounding foreign on his tongue.
"Has your mission been updated?"
The word 'mission' triggered another jolt of pain in Bruno's head. His knees buckled, and he was on the ground once more, clutching his head. After a few seconds, his lips began moving and he mumbled something that might have been a "what?" or "huh?"
"Your mission," he distantly heard Placido repeat. "Are you familiar with your objective?"
"I don't…I have no idea what you're talking about…" The wave of pain came and went, leaving Bruno only wanting to know one thing: "Am I really a machine?"
The faintest glimmer of life came back into Placido's face. His lips curled. "What? Did it hurt to learn that you aren't crafted from flesh and bones like your friends?" The mocking smirk dissolved into a growl. "You should be proud of your genesis. Beings like you and I are on a plane above humans. Your efforts here are wasted on this human scum."
I…no…that's not right. Those words sounded wrong.
"You do not belong here." It was stated as a fact, detached from bias. A hand was extended towards Bruno, pale fingers uncurling to reveal an open palm. "If you remember nothing, then come work for us. Your programming talent will further our goal to rewrite the future's tragedy by bringing destruction upon man."
Is…he kidding? Bruno stared at the hand, his lips parting in silent disbelief. Even his mind, broken and unreliable as it was, knew enough of its core conscience to scream at him to reject the offer. Is this some sort of…twisted joke?
But there was no humor to be found anywhere on Placido's countenance. The Emperor was waiting expectantly, his hand still outstretched in a gesture of camaraderie.
Bruno closed his eyes and took a deep breath, his insecurity dissolving away into a firm, reassured poise.
"…leave, Placido. And don't ever come back to this place. I don't want to hurt you." (…anymore than I already have.) Bruno raised his head, arresting eye contact with Placido, his matte grey eyes tired and world-worn, but still harboring an ever-present resolve and a dangerous glint of hidden potential. "But…if you force my hand, then I won't hold back for the sake of my mission."
Even with Bruno kneeling in a vulnerable position, he expected Placido to shirk away at the threat. Barely any time had passed since he narrowly escaped from having his brains ripped out by Bruno's bare hands.
Placido didn't flinch, but there was a subtle shift in his persona as it suddenly became guarded and wary. "… Your mission?"
"To lead Yuusei to his potential so that he can gain the power to thwart Iliaster's plans." His voice was unwavering, and for a moment, Bruno's lips tugged up into just the smallest smirk.
Placido's hand of offer fell to his side. "So that you do remember."
"I may not have all my memories," Bruno staggered to his feet, and Placido took a step back in response, "but at least I'm aware of my mission. And my mission is to stop you."
There was the sudden flare in Placido's aura, embedded at the core with resentment. "Don't be too haughty just because you got the upper hand before," he bolted out as swirling rings of energy began to form around his free hand. "Might I remind you the vulnerability of your location with three of the five Signers conveniently located in the vicinity…"
No sooner had the words left his mouth, Placido's back made contact with the wall once more. With his concentration snapped, the waves of polychromatic energy ebbed away from his hand. The other hand had fallen off his face from the impact, leaving the fissure on Placido's face unobstructed from sight. Placido let out a small hiss as the menacing form of Bruno loomed dangerously over him, boring him down with sharp gray eyes as the mechanic whispered with just the slightest hint of fatality, "… I think you should leave now."
Android physiology stated that they didn't need oxygen, but Placido looked like he was gasping for air—the patheticness of his expression only amplified by the sorry state of his face. Worms of electric wires dangled from the wound, hanging outside of his face like intestines from a gutted stomach.
"…"
Bruno tossed Placido to the side; the tattered android stumbled a few steps but was unable to regain his footing and ultimately toppled to the ground.
From the corner his eye, Bruno kept a monitoring watch of Placido's movements. The fact he hadn't just closed his hand a little more and crushed Placido's neck in his grip lingered around in Bruno's mind as remainder to himself that he still had some humanity left within him. He was different from Placido and his group. The fact Bruno had morals, that he was capable of compassion and mercy… this was what distinguished him from the other tin cans.
Not that Bruno was disregarding his mission by any means. Killing Placido there and then didn't ensure Yuusei's safety, didn't ensure that Placido wouldn't be rebuilt again, now armed with a grudge and another motivation to come after the Signers. But so as long as Bruno—no, Dark Glass—was alive (functioning), he would make sure that Placido never laid a finger on the others in the safety of their own apartment.
"You'll regret your decision," Placido hissed, before disappearing into the portal.
…
Later that night when Yuusei and co. came home, Bruno didn't say a word about the incident. There was no evidence to tell the tale; that was one good thing about androids, Bruno supposed: Placido didn't leave any blood. The only thing Bruno had to dispose of was the fractured parts of Placido's broken eyepiece.
"So did anything interesting happen today?" Yuusei asked offhandedly as he dropped his satchel filled with scrap parts on the workbench.
"Major progress with the program. Actually, I managed to figure out how to enhance the engine's power output by 150%."
The words came naturally, flowing out smoothly on his tongue like a stream in a brook. A warm smile, a dash of laughter, a tilt of the head here and there to inspire a frontage of naïve inquisitiveness—it was impossible to distinguish the nuances in Bruno's visage.
Yuusei, trusting as always, was none the wiser.
"Oh? Let me see."
Yuusei pulled up a seat next to the mechanic, unaware that in the split second that he was reaching for the chair, Bruno's façade cracked with a shard of guilt. By the time Yuusei was seated, the crack was sealed.
Without further thought, Bruno directed his attention to the computer screen. Programming first, guilt could take a back seat.
"I figured we needed to rework your engine's current configuration—see, by changing the timing of the fuel injection system, the result would be an improved cylinder-to-cylinder fuel distribution…"
He wasn't going to tell Yuusei. If his mission meant having to lie to his friend, then Bruno would do just that.
"Don't."
The massive cloaked figure stopped mid-invective, casting a critical glare at the body lying flat on the table.
"…if you wish to be spared from my lectures, then be mature enough to understand the consequences of your actions."
Addressing that statement was forgone entirely. "The unidentified D-wheeler who demonstrated the technique of Accel Synchro to Fudou Yuusei—why were we not informed of his allegiance?"
Why wasn't I told he was working for us? was what Placido's accusation boiled down to in essence.
Jose was quiet, surveying the young man's condition. His internal circuits were unharmed, but just the lone fact the eyepiece had been ripped clean off Placido's face—
"Z-ONE has His reasons," Jose finally said. "We should not question Him."
Even someone as prideful as Placido knew that he didn't have the right to know all the secrets of their God. It didn't stop the spike of infuriation, though.
"… I'm not," he bit out. "I…"
I just want to know why the hell this man shares the same binary coding as I.
He had witnessed Bruno momentarily transform into an identity whom he thought he had saw the last of that night at the cliff. The catalyst to the transformation was none other than Placido's own code he used to change into turbo duel mode. The implications that laid behind this reality were a dark, unexplored territory he prayed to never step foot into.
The tools came down over his exposed face, and Placido closed his eye.
…
Placido wasn't sure where this 'Bruno/Dark Glass' figure fit into Z-ONE's plan. Perhaps Bruno had been planted here as an undercover spy, or perhaps a catalyst to strengthen the Signer's effect on the Infinity Circuit. In either case, the man's memory loss was almost certainly intentional. Placido was sure Z-ONE had a motive for keeping the true allegiance of this pseudo-human a secret from his cohorts and Placido held no grudges against his God.
He shoved the treacherous thoughts to the corner of his mind. Focus. Emotions needed to be kept in check. Completing the Circuit was the highest priority right now.
…
The room was bathed entirely in darkness, save for the light emitting from the massive computer screen that casted a shadow over the one operating it.
The faint rolling of wheels glided into the room. Lazy chuckling.
Lucciano swept his gaze over the figure hunched at the computer, appreciating how the lighting emphasized Placido's slim, yet muscular physique. This was the body he would eventually obtain. Uprooted from his childhood, his small, boyish frame eventually grew tough and inured, his once pale skin marred by scars of battle. He chopped off his hair because it got in the way of combat; Lucciano wasn't sure if he could ever forgive his elder self for that.
"…gosh, Placido," Lucciano drawled, making his presence known. "Sometimes I wonder how the hell I turned into you. Why can't you just be a good lapdog and obey orders, hmm?"
In turn, Placido responded to his counterpart by flat-out ignoring Lucciano's presence. His gaze was transfixed on the screen. Though Placido remained outwardly unresponsive, the gears to his mind were revolving inside.
The Diablos weren't ready to be put into operation without some additional programming. He was going to need outside help.
Seeing how absorbed Placido was in his work, the grin slid off Lucciano's face and replaced by a look of annoyance.
"You're so boring when you're fixated." He rolled his eyes.
Lucciano paused when he heard muttering come from his older self. At first he thought Placido was talking to him, but then realized in disappointment that Placido was just verbalizing his plans.
"Why do you work so hard, anyway?" the redhead mumbled out of the corner of his mouth. "Jose and I want to change the future too, but you really just take it to the next level, Placido."
This seemed to detach Placido from his thoughts. He flicked his head in Lucciano's direction, sparing him an irritated glance and a soft scoff before returning to his calculations.
"Leave me, brat."
Lucciano's expression darkened. "I bet I know the reason why you obsess day and night over this."
It was the truth. When everything boiled down to it, Lucciano knew. He knew Placido better than Placido knew himself.
"You think if you work hard enough, you can make the pain go away. You can make it stop hurting."
"You've always been selfish like that, Placido. Pushing things away. Pretending they don't exist."
"I hope your plan fails, you know. I bet it will. It's because you just don't get the big picture."
He balled his fists.
Just as pure oxygen is harmful to the body, the naked truth has the power to destroy men's minds—
"You have to carry the pain, just like the rest of us."
The second instance Placido found his way to Poppo Time, he was well-prepared and armed to fight the blue-haired robot that acted as the sentry of the apartment's residents, which consisted of three humans of particular significance to the Infinity Circuit and an old lady.
Providence was not in Placido's favor for he had once again arrived during one of the few time-windows where the apartment wasn't occupied by any of the main residents save the lone blue-haired squatter banging away at a computer in the corner of the garage. Crow was doing his delivery rounds and Jack was lounging in his usual seat at Café al Green. As for Yuusei—Bruno took it as a sign of fate when Yuusei announced he was heading over to Satellite in search of some scrap parts at the junkyard and that Bruno was more than welcome to accompany him, oh you're going to stay here to continue working on the program? … You sure? You've been staying home an awful lot recently…well, if you're okay with it, alrighty then, I'll be home no later than nine, see you later…—oh. And tell Jack it's his turn for dish duty tonight.
The apartment was left empty.
Placido hadn't bothered to sheath his sword after he opened the portal; it was already out and ready to be used by the time his high-heeled boots stepped onto the cement floor.
Barely a nanosecond passed before the mild-mannered presence in the garage turned adversarial and threatening. Bruno—or whatever the model's name was—instantly established himself in front of Placido as a blockade. He practically glared at the other android; there were no blurs as to where he stood with Placido. In contrast, Placido was wearing a mask of blank neutrality, his new eyepatch gleaming in the light.
"Stand down. I'm not here to fight," Placido said with a slightly odd inflection, as if he was forcing indifference into his voice. "I come bearing a proposition."
(… He would never admit in a thousand eons that he was still clutching his sword out of self-protection.)
For several moments, Bruno looked like he didn't believe Placido's declaration. Then finally, his posture relaxed, though the suspicion never left his face. "…what is it?"
"Your memories. You seek to reclaim them, do you not? I may have the answer to your predicament."
A prickle of satisfaction ran through Placido when he saw that Bruno couldn't quite keep the building sense of curiosity out of his eyes. The distrust was still heavily radiating off Bruno's being, but at least now he was open to persuasion.
Placido described how the 'amnesia' Bruno was suffering from was most likely nothing more than misplaced or damaged files. Placido believed it to be a sound explanation. After all, Bruno had been knocked off an overhang and sent plummeting into the salty ocean water.
"… Coincidentally, you and I share a similar programming code, the VHLL to be exact. Because your system is nearly analogous to mine, I can decipher the location of your memories on your hard drive and access them for you."
"So what you're saying is that you can restore my memories."
"I'm saying I can give you back your identity…for a price."
Perhaps Placido had said the wrong words because though there was no change in facial expression, Bruno suddenly seemed eerily cold.
"A price, huh?" He glanced down, flexing his wrists. When Bruno raised his eyes back up, his gaze was settled into a hard, even glare. "Sorry, but I'm not interested in trading my friends for your data recovery services."
Placido turned away. "I suppose I shouldn't have expected any other answer. Your loyalty, while admirable, is foolishly misplaced in this human scum."
Out of the corner of his eye, Placido spied the clenching of a fist.
"You stay away from them," Bruno growled.
Placido's gaze slanted back towards the mechanic. "They'll get their just desserts in due time." He forced out a mirthless laugh. "Their fates have already been sealed in stone—whether or not I get to them first makes no difference."
The tension that Bruno was harboring vanished. Ice fell over his visage. "Then we have nothing left to discuss," he said with a tone of finality in his voice. "I'll show you the exit."
At that moment, the faintest hint of anxiety flitted over Placido's features before it slid back into a carefully-controlled indifference. "You're so quick to assume that I have already named my price. Don't think you know what is it I desire—I never intended to ask you to hand over your human pals."
Bruno cocked his head in mock curiosity. "Huh, that so? What is your price, then?"
"Tell me… prior to now, had the thought ever crossed your mind that you might have been an android?"
There was a flicker of uncertainty. "What does it matter?"
Good, Placido thought. So he had hit a weak spot in this man's defenses. "You were able to fool other humans into thinking you were one of them. Your biological processes are akin to theirs. You have human needs that must be satisfied…eating, sleeping, breathing…"
"Get to the point," Bruno cut in.
"…we are alike in more ways than I'd like to admit. Regrettably, I have human needs too—as much as it pains me to admit it."
Silence. Bruno took note of the tone of human weakness Placido abruptly decided to adopt with the rise of the topic. It was suspicious. It was…uncharacteristic.
Unable to meet Bruno's gaze, Placido's eye was determinedly fixed at the mechanic's chest.
"You've lived with humans for some time now…don't tell me you haven't witnessed…or even participated in some of their more intimate rituals."
Their more…intimate rituals? What began with a confused frown faded into a stone-cold look of realization as Bruno mentally reran through Placido's words a second time. He was unable to bite back a laugh. "Are you kidding, Placido? You constantly talk about how low humans are, and now you, a robot, want to engage in one of the most carnal of human activities?"
What is your motive and what do you hope to gain from this?
A faint cross look appeared on Placido's face. "Sexual intercourse is not solely a human act."
"It's definitely not a robotic act, either."
His lip thinned. Placido voiced no response and instead chose to stand there in silence, though the silence was soaked in a very conspicuous annoyance.
Bruno continued to observe the Wisel Emperor, as if trying to scan his countenance for any telltale signs of deceit. Yet even with the sour annoyance radiating from his being, Placido was a master of the poker face, making his intentions virtually impossible to read. Several more moments of deliberation passed before Bruno finally spoke up in a quiet voice.
"…so why come to me?" he asked—determined to, yet not completely able to keep the uncertainty out of his tone. "Have I become more attractive now that you know I'm wire and circuits?"
"I have my reasons." The terse reply was made while still looking away.
"Well I hope you're ready to share those reasons, because I'm not agreeing to anything until I get a clear explanation of what exactly you're up to."
"Why should this bother you?" Placido abruptly raised the question. "You and I are mechanical beings. This isn't a matter of intimacy, if that's where your concern lies."
"How can I be sure you won't just trap me?" Bruno shot back, pretending not to hear the last statement. "Letting you retrieve my memories requires me to allow you access to my hard drive. It's good as giving you the key to my body."
Placido stared back at the blue-haired man for the longest period of time. Both his facial expression and body language were fairly closed; his sword had been covertly sheathed sometime during the conversation leaving his arms free to wrap around each other and tuck closely to his chest. Finally, he took a step forward, his arms uncrossing and gliding loosely to his side.
"Don't you want…your identity back?" he murmured, effectively halting the outburst of any sardonic retort from Bruno.
A single pale finger skulked down the side of Bruno's face, and they both wondered why the blue-haired man didn't simply swipe it away. Taking Bruno's nonperformance as a sign of compliance, Placido unfurled the rest of the details to his proposal.
"These are the terms: for each piece of memory I restore to your system, you will be my…ah…partner for an hour's length. For a full sixty minutes, you will do whatever I ask of you."
Placido's expression was vague and distant, placid almost. His fingers were gentle.
Bruno was an android, but…he felt so human. Placido felt the heat emanating from the man's skin.
(Warmth.)
The heat that his own body produced was nothing more than a byproduct of his running electrical circuits. It didn't radiate with gentle warmth, and touching Placido's body was like touching the side of boiling pot. He was little more than an electric furnace.
"Who knows? Perhaps somewhere down the line, you may come to realize the evilness of humans and join us in purging them and their wicked ways…"
A hand shot out and grabbed Placido's arm, wrenching it away from Bruno's face and into the air. Placido was instantly snapped out of his trance by the contact and tensed up like an alarmed animal. His defenses skyrocketed, but he subconsciously restrained from lashing out—not with his arm in this monster's grasp.
Bruno was composed, yet beneath the calm exterior, Placido could make out a tiny hint of rage, bubbling and frothing and just waiting to erupt. The transient shift in the personal atmosphere was almost tangible as the makings of a storm began to gather.
"You're awfully full of yourself, thinking you hold all the cards," Bruno stated icily, "You had this entire thing mapped out, didn't you? This was all according to your plan."
Confusion and irritation mingled together on Placido's features as he tried to decipher Bruno's accusation. "… What nonsense are you babbling about now?"
"You're the one who rid me of my memories in the first place," he gritted out, straining to keep his anger in check. "And now you're using it as a bargaining chip to try and get me to play along with your sick games."
"Excuse me?" Placido snapped, jerking his arm backwards to wretch it out of Bruno's unexpectedly decisive grip—it barely budged a few inches.
A millisecond flitted by before Placido realized what had just happened. Ire immediately escalated to a fierce animosity and Placido opened his mouth, only to be silenced by the brutal look on Bruno's face.
"Don't ACT as if you don't know! Ever since I woke up, my mind has been tying itself into knots trying to dig out memories about who I am—what I am. Do you have any idea what it's like to go through that? To live every day of your life wondering what your identity is?"
And Bruno was shaking him. Somewhere mid-tirade, Placido's other arm somehow found its way into Bruno's grasp, and then Bruno was shaking him—furious, scarcely-controlled jerks that belied the clarity in his slate gray eyes.
"Am I just some defective product you threw away and now intend to reclaim because I suddenly have use to you? Do you think you can just control my life this? Do you think toying with somebody's memories is funny? Tell me! Do you?"
Had Placido's body been organic in nature, he would have been manhandled like a rag doll by this bipolar blue-haired giant. Instead, his metal compound granted him a much firmer standing than that of a human being, so much that even Bruno's hardest shakes only had him awkwardly rocking back and forth.
"I—do—not—know—control yourself!" It took everything Placido had to shove Bruno off. He immediately backpedaled, putting a large stretch of distance between himself and the other android. "So you think I'm the one responsible for your memory lapse? And what proof do you have of that?"
Bruno made no attempt to make contact again. "You're asking for evidence?" The man's voice had become soft and angled with threat, causing Placido to unconsciously slide his hand over to his sheath.
"Contrary to whatever erroneous conclusions you came to, I am not responsible for your corrupt hardware," he spat. "You fell from a 100-feet drop into the ocean. As if the fall weren't enough, the water would have surely damaged your mainframe."
I take showers on a daily basis without electrocuting myself, the more guileless side of Bruno piped up to argue. Outwardly, his face remained hard, tightening up even further. "You were the one who drove me off the cliff."
The Emperor threw his head back upon hearing those words, his crimson eye blazing with scorn. "Hah! The only part I played in your fall was to act as an object you rebounded off when you slammed me aside. Do not blame me for your misfortunes—I had no fault in your accident. Maybe if you weren't so foolishly eager to save the life of a paltry feline…"
"My mission is the protection of any and all living creatures," Bruno rejoined without missing a beat.
"Your mission," Placido sneered back mockingly. "How haughty you make yourself out to be with all this talk of your mission. Do you deem yourself some sort of savior? You are nothing more than a glorified doll."
The words had an immediate effect. "What did you call me?"
Bruno's eyes narrowed dangerously, once again silently prompting Placido to back off under the veiled threat of pain.
Placido was scared of him, that Bruno knew for sure. The Emperor's strained disposition throughout the conversation was a testament to this fact. From the moment that Placido stepped out of the portal, he maintained a constant fortress of caution around Bruno, quick to retreat whenever Bruno revealed a spark of anger. As much as it must have pained Placido to acknowledge it, Bruno was stronger of the two androids—their previous encounter illustrated that all too starkly. He would definitely use it to his advantage.
But aggravation had numbed that wariness, leaving Placido's temperament untethered by fear. He matched Bruno's determination with an equally hard glare, his crimson eye suddenly blazing with a tremendous ferocity. With no regard for consequences, Placido pushed the boundaries as far as he could and unleashed a painful onslaught of truths.
"Touched a nerve, have I? I'm only stating the obvious. Blindly following orders without even the faintest idea why you're doing your mission in the first place—do you even know the etiology behind your mission? Do you know who even created you?"
It was if someone pulled the plug out of the socket. The mad look that ravaged Bruno's expression was gone within an instant, leaving him looking like nothing more than the confused, naïve man Placido had first met.
Placido stared down at Bruno in abject disgust. Worthless. He was a puppet. A doll.
"Arrogant twit. Do not forget your place. You may rank high in strength among humans, but as far as I'm concerned you're on the very bottom tier of the hierarchy of machines. You overestimate your worth. I did not come to you because you were special or important. I chose you because you're the only one among your friends that is expandable. You, and that twin brother of the Signer girl who has access to the spirit realm."
Burdened with frustration, disappointment, and just the smallest chink of humiliation, Placido veered away from Bruno, imparting on him a final set of callous words. "You've proved to disappoint me again and again. I've wasted enough time here."
He reached for his sword to cut open a portal—only to be stopped. Placido's thoughts blew up in air when a strong, muscular arm snaked around his waist and settled into a tight hold, effectively trapping him. Right then, right there, Bruno was behind him, having covered the space between them in mere milliseconds.
"—! What are you doing?"
"I accept."
At first, Placido thought he heard wrong.
"What…what is your malfunction?" he hissed furiously as panic started to edge to the surface. "Remove your hands from my being this instance!"
"I'm carrying out my half of the agreement. I'm satisfying your 'human needs', Placido."
A less-than-kind shove. "Get the hell off me."
"Oh…of course."
Obediently, Bruno took a few steps back with his hands raised in forfeit, keeping his gaze neutral as Placido reeled around with his weapon unsheathed.
"I forgot, the one you're looking for is not actually me…"
With those words, Bruno's eyes locked squarely into place and a green band of binary code scanned deftly across his pupils. Placido froze, his body rooted to the spot as his enemy willingly activated his transformation and encased himself in a sphere of green numbers. The man's clothing shifted, his hair spiked up, and a thin sheet of cherry-red glass materialized over his eyes, stretching from ear to ear. As the last of the inscriptions disappeared and the alterations solidified, there stood before Placido, Bruno's alter ego, peering enigmatically at the Emperor from behind his visor.
"Is this better?" Dark Glass murmured in a smooth, deep voice. "This is what you wanted…right?"
Stunned, Placido found he couldn't speak. He simply stared back at his old enemy, confusion marring his expression.
It made no difference; idle threats would have done little to dissuade Dark Glass from taking action. So paralyzed by surprise Placido was, that he was slow to react to Bru— Dark Glass' movements. Before his systems could register the procedure of events, Placido found himself beneath the man in the ultramarine riding suit with his arms pinned on each side of his head at the wrists. His hands clenched and unclenched helplessly at the air; his sword had left his grasp during the fall and skidded a few feet away, out of his reach.
"…mrrghh."
The Bruno lookalike let out a soft chuckle. He gently blew a puff of air to peel back the hood slightly, uncovering Placido's distraught face.
Still pinning him down, Dark Glass buried his face into the crook of Placido's neck and used his teeth to pull down the cloth around it, exposing a swath of pale, untouched skin. On the bare, bare surface, Placido's body was a perfect facsimile of an organic human's. His skin was surprisingly soft, made of silicone jelly, and Placido reacted naturally when a pink tongue darted out to lick the spot where his jugular should have been. Placido's pale face flushed as soft lips planted a trail of butterfly kisses up his neck, barely able to get out a string of distressed mutters before Dark Glass nipped at his ear, causing Placido to shudder. Teeth gently nibbled at the helix before a tongue dipped into the shell of his ear. Placido sucked a sharp, hissing breath.
Dark Glass drew back with a vague look of complacency. He cast a smirk down at the Emperor, amused at the reaction he was able to draw out. "So you really are capable of feeling. I had my doubts whether or not a hunk of metal like you could even engage in this sort of thing."
There was several seconds of alternating sputters and silence, if there was ever a more beautiful alliteration. The sound of uneven breathing took the place of any words Placido could form.
"… Though I still can't fathom why your creator decided to include all these sensors in your body when he built you…"
"Shut up!" Placido hissed breathlessly.
The man smiled, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. An acidic, dry humor reflected off his visor. "What's the problem? Isn't this what you wanted?" he asked, descending upon Placido once more.
"Mrrgh…not like this!"
His words reverberated throughout the garage.
Dark Glass stopped.
"Don't. Don't think for a second that you're going to be in control. You don't get to be in control, Placido. You waltz into enemy territory, forget your place, and start issuing outrageous demands. Were you even going to uphold your end of the bargain had I performed the way you wanted me to?" His voice lowered a notch, his next words bleeding with bitter resentment, "Or did you just want a doll to play and fuck around with?"
To Placido's credit, he didn't flinch from those caustic words. He was far too gone, far too sick of being intimidated by this blue-haired freak with a thousand identities to care any longer about his self-preservation.
"If you want to kill me, go right ahead and do it," he whispered fiercely. "Tear off my head. Rip apart my circuits, if you want."
…it seemed that Placido wasn't aware about the limitations of his 'active mode', Dark Glass realized bemusedly.
The hard set lines of anger and hatred on Glass' face transformed into an expression of mild confusion and general awkwardness. Dark Glass basked in silence, reclining in a moment of meditative respite before he piped up, "… Nobody said anything about killing, Placido."
He ran a gloved finger down Placido's angled face from cheekbone to jaw line. It was perfect, smooth, with no bumps and lacking the imperfections that embodied organic human skin.
"Why don't you just relax and let someone else take control? Being in the seat of power must be tiring after a while." Dark Glass dipped down and planted a soft kiss on the jaw.
Placido responded by producing a few half-intelligible utterances accompanied with some squirming. There was still protest in his voice, but it became palpable he was running out of energy to dispute with this ultramarine stranger.
His hood was completely flung off and Placido suddenly felt exposed and vulnerable without the added layer encasing his head.
The man's breath was warm, laced with vapor, and his mouth was hot and wet. Dark Glass ran his tongue over the spot above Placido's eye, leaving a trail of saliva in its wake. His kisses were warm and passionate, loving almost. But beneath the veil of gentle warmth and tenderness, Placido could sense that the guise of kindness and love hid a very real intent to crush and destroy.
"I can make it feel good…" the blue-haired stranger murmured, his voice flowing smoothly with the lines of clichés from movies and novels. "I can…" he paused, "…ease the loneliness."
Something within Placido snapped. He riveted his attention back to Dark Glass, gazing up at him with his single eye brimming with a wild conflict of unspoken emotions.
"Enough." His voice was trembling. "If this is the way it's going to be, then I don't want to hear your voice."
Dark Glass didn't respond except with the faintest arch of his eyebrow. But the message was received. Without a word, he leaned forward and carefully licked away the drops of coolant that had leaked down Placido's cheeks.
…
When it was over, Dark Glass surveyed the being beneath him—disheveled, half-clothed Placido with his pretty legs spread apart, his hair all mussed, and his gaze dull and his eye heavy-lidded. Being able to view the Emperor like this, in such a state of raw vulnerability made Placido seem so much more human all of a sudden.
Placido…had he enjoyed it? Dark Glass couldn't tell for sure.
The contract had been silently modified somewhere during the process but neither party felt the need to verbally address the changes. They both understood what they were gaining from it.
"So…do we have an agreement?"
The hazy veil over Placido's gaze was lifted instantly. At the sound of Bruno-Glass' words, the crimson eye dilated and refocused on his enemy-come-partner.
"Give me back my memories."
Placido mechanically pulled himself up into a sitting position. "…write me a program," he droned, and then quickly silenced Glass' mutiny by coldly adding, "unless you want to relegate your services to what is essentially, prostitution."
His lips parted in disbelief. Flatly, "…that was not part of our deal."
"You made a change to our agreement. Now I'm making one too." His eye stared piercingly at the other android. "I presume you have no objections?"
The silence this man was creating could shift whole mountains, Placido reflected vaguely.
"… No promises," Dark Glass finally gritted out. "I'll see what I can do."
Placido seemed satisfied enough with this answer. He turned away to get dressed, only for a hand to shoot out and grab his arm.
"My memories. I want them back, Placido."
"One," he corrected, effortlessly pulling his arm away as he rotated his whole body to face his rival. "You get one back."
The familiar polychromatic swirls began to envelope the Emperor's pale hand, casting an ethereal glow over the darkness of the garage. With a smile that blended in the dark, Placido raised his hand and slowly stretched it towards Bruno's face.
"Hold still."