There is Always Light...
Deckerd stood with Yuuta's two sisters next to his casket on the cold and dark day of the funeral. He had seen so much death in his police career, but the end of his closest comrad's life was just too heavy for his heart to handle. Yuuta Tomonaga had only been 21 when a shot to the chest ended the great future he had ahead of him, and Deckerd felt guilty and responsible for what happened. The other Brave Police robots could feel that Deckerd wasn't himself anymore. Some tried to cheer him up, but most knew all Deckerd wanted was to be left alone. They all were saddened by the loss of their close friend, but none of them had a relationship like Deckerd had with him.
As the day passed by, the others who attended the funeral slowly left the grounds. First it was the human officers, then Yuuta's friends from school and such, and finally the other Brave Police and the deceased's sisters. By dark, only Deckerd was left.
"Yuuta... I'm sorry for not being there. I should've taken you to the station with me, and if I had known this would happen... I would've. You were, and always will be, my best friend, Yuuta. I will never forget you." With that, the large robot placed his hand gently onto the lid of Yuuta's casket.
"Farewell, Boss..."
"Man, Deck's been out of it lately," Gunmax whispered to Duke as they sat in their new base... that Yuuta had picked for relocation. He never understood how the blue and red robo-cop could be so...depressed for so long.
"Max, he's lost his boss, best friend, and partner, okay?, so cut 'im some slack. The bot is depressed."
"Which is why we should try to cheer him up! I don't wanna find out this 'depression' led to our pal being suicidal!" Duke stared at him for a very brief second, then whapped the side of his head, leaving behind a slight scratch.
"Are you mentally STUPID, Gunmax? Deckerd isn't suicidal, he just copes differently than you, which is, he ACTUALLY copes. You just don't seem to care!" The sight of him more concerned about a scratch than Deckerd's current somewhat-solitary mood got Duke in a real mood.
"What the crap, Gunmax? You're so freaking narcissistic, and it drives me up the frickin' wall. You are soooo beyond help, Max, so ship up or shape out!"
"Dude... you watch way too much Storage Wars. Team Tanktop sucks..." was all Gunmax had to say. Duke's eyes widened in anger, and, going against what he really wanted to do, walked away, slamming the green cop's quarters door behind him.
"Man, he didn't let me say that Brandi was hot," Max said to himself, then shrugged off the walking tower of 'you're so narcissistic' to focus on those scratch marks his arm left behind.
Deckerd sat in front of the vacant Tomonaga home; Azuki and Kurumi couldn't stand living in that house anymore since what happened to their brother. They had decided to leave Japan with the Brave Police when they found out they were going to be transferred to America, hoping it would help Yuuta adjust to the new enviorment, but nobody knew Yuuta would never see his homeland again.
"Six years," Deckerd said to himself after changing from a police cruiser to a huge robot. "Six years is what we had here in California, a year longer than what we were told. But, you fit in here, so we went with the change. We all thought this was better for you, Yuuta, for us to be here, but because of my agreement, I no longer have a partner...or a close friend. I will never replace you in my heart, or on the force. I promise; I'll never forget you." He peered through the raindrop-covered window into what was Yuuta's old room. Something familiar had caught his eye, something on the wall.
His favorite picture of him and his partner; the one Yuuta drew when he was in fourth grade.
It was dark, cold, late, and raining. She was late for dinner, and Ms. Makoto would not be happy with her. Again. Aaryn-Jamie, or AJ to her friends, was one of the many kids unwanted in San Diego, and always in trouble with her orphanage parent-figure. Usually AJ was purposely late, just so maybe, just maybe, Ms. Makoto would transfer her to a differen orphanage in the city. The only result that arose was the absence of the next three meals.
Most days like this one, AJ could manage and find her way 'home', but today was just too windy and rainy to make out one building from another, or one street name from the other. She ran through the field that she thought was the courtyard behind the orphanage. Next thing she saw was grey, metallic tunneling or something. Light was coming from the end of it, so that had to be good, AJ thought. Suddenly the grill of a vent tunnel was shoved into her face, and when she managed to remove herself from it, a glint caught her brown Asian eyes. The glint was on the surface of her favorite thing in the universe.
Deckerd returned from the house once the rain started to fall harder and it got gusty. From top to bottom, he had water all over him. The only thing that managed to stay perfectly dry was the drawing from so many years ago. The oldest Brave Police officer silently walked past his comrads that were making their way through the corridors as well until he reached his room. As he opened the door, something appeared out of place. Extremely out of place...
"You, how did you get in here?" the huge robot asked the human invader, putting a bit too much agression in his voice. The soaking wet girl, who appeared to be older than Yuuta had been when they first met, jumped at the sound of his voice. She turned to explain herself, but found herself speechless. Her eyes went from their normal almond shape to almost perfect circles.
"Um.. uh.. you're a... holy chizznips..." was all that managed to escape her mouth as she tried to escape into the vents. Deckerd could tell she was no harm and was completely petrified; he kneeled down and picked her up by the back of her thin, soaked baseball jacket. As he did so, the girl was afraid the robot was going to try and kill her; she screamed, but nobody could hear it other than the one who was picking her up. "Please don't hurt me. I didn't mean to invade or anything, just don't hurt me, please. I'm too young to die." Her words struck the bot's heart like a knife.
"I won't hurt you, young one. My name is Deckerd of the Brave Police. How'd you end up here in my quarters?"
"Well, um, my name's A-AJ, and I was on my way back home for d-dinner when I got lost in the rain outside. I f-fell through the ground, into the vent shaft up t-there. On the w-wall. The nice Ruger Vaquero single-action caught my eye." Deckerd seemed surprised that AJ knew what six-shot he had, and was about to ask her how she did, when she suddenly fell out of her jacket; it ripped where he was gripping it. His cold black hands instantly sat waiting right under AJ, catching her just as she was about to scream.
"It's okay, I gotcha, AJ. You know, I met my best friend because he fell down a vent system as well." Deckerd tried to smile, but the fact she fell down into a vent system as well made his heart ache even more for his lost friend. He placed a hand over his chest as if trying to hold his insides in, and AJ could see the pain in hs face.
"Are you okay... Deckerd? You look like someone just died..." AJ said, trying to make the robot smile. Instead, he gently placed her on the ground with a saddened expression on his face.
"You don't know how accurate your words are, AJ... my partner died. I wasn't there to protect him, and becasue of my actions... Yuuta is gone."
The color from AJ's tan skin disappeared as she processed his words. The front page of the paper last week, the long line of cars that were on their way to the cemetery early that morning. That must've been this Yuuta's funeral...
"Ako ... Sorry, ko alam." AJ looked him in the eye as she boldly spoke her native tongue. She didn't expect him to understand.
"Salamat sa iyo para sa iyong pakikiramay, AJ." The look on AJ's face was enough to let a small half-grin appear. Being multi-lingual was part of being a cop. "Is Filipino your native language?"
"Y-yeah, it's all I have left of my parents. Of who I am," she said, still quite surprised by the fact she wasn't a loner in the Filipino speaking category anymore. For so long, she had been the only one who could get away with cussing at people without them knowing what they were to AJ. Now she had someone to share her thoughts with without anyone else knowing.
"It's quite late, AJ. I should take you home. Where do you live?" Deckerd asked, changing into a police cruiser, when AJ answered him.
"No, don't take me back to that place! Let me stay here! Please, Deckerd, I can't stand Ms. Makoto anymore! She wouldn't care if I never came back!" Deckerd stopped in mid-transformation, then resumed his bipedal mode.
"You're... an orphan?"
"Well, yeah. I said that all I have left of my family's my native tongue, and I assumed that it imply me- being without a family."
Deckerd thought about how he could help AJ, and came up with an probably unpopular-but still possible-idea.
This is all the plot bunnies' faults... and the person (cough, cough, Autobotschic, cough, cough) who got me hooked on Brave Police.