Cold.
It was all that she could feel at the moment. She couldn't even feel her feet, or her fingers.
Nothing but the cold.
The girl huddles up in the corner of the cupboard, a thin blanket thrown over her in a weak attempt to keep her warm. She hears her father's hushed tones like he's talking to someone.
Who is he talking to?
"Daddy," she whispers hoarsely.
Her father does not hear her.
But someone else does.
"Who's that?" an unfamiliar voice asks.
"What?" her father falters. "It's probably just the rats. You know, living in the dump. It's not a surprise."
The girl strains against the door of the cupboard, trying to catch what they were saying.
"… I just need more resources, Gelimer," she hears her father plead. What resources?
"… you owe me too much," the unfamiliar voice replies.
What is going on?
The girl presses herself against the door harder, trying to pick up the whole conversation so things would make sense, but shit –
The door creaks open because of her weight.
Shit, shit, shit!
She crashes out in the open, just like how her father told her not too. The icy wind slices across her rosy cheeks. The girl pulls the blanket closer around her, trying to turn invisible.
A strange man appears in her line of sight. He has white hair, and he's not very tall. Her father stumbles right behind her, his eyes wide in fear.
"What is this?" the man, whom the girl assumes is Gelimer, demands of her father.
"It's not –"
"Is this your child?" Gelimer asks. The girl can't seem to see his eyes past his odd glasses.
Her father says nothing.
"I'll take her as your long overdue payment," Gelimer says. The girl widens her eyes. What is this strange man saying? Take her? Where?
"No, no, you can't! She's all that I have left –"
"Next time, think twice before you approach a man like me," the strange man chuckles. "Unless you have another child, don't seek my help again."
The strange man pulls out a weird remote-like device and points it at the girl. Blue light shoots out of it and surrounds her, and she can't move. She opens her mouth to scream, but finds that she cannot. With just a simple flick of the device, she feels herself floating off the guard, the thin blanket falling off her shoulders and onto the floor.
"Daddy!" she wants to scream. She wants to get back down and away from the white-haired mad man. She wished she had listened to her father and just remained silent in the cupboard.
But it is too late.
She should have stayed quiet.
xxxxx
She opens her eyes.
Somehow, she's floating in a strange green substance.
It's odd. She doesn't have to breathe.
She notices a man in her line of vision, working on some machine. He raises his head, and notices her.
He seems to panic and his fingers fly over the keys.
She suddenly feels heavy. It doesn't matter what she's thinking, because she doesn't think she'll remember this.
Maybe it would be wise for her to fall asleep.
Sleep it is.
xxxxx
She opens her eyes.
She is no longer in the green liquid – but it's not like she remembers anything. This time she is lying down on a cool metal slab. Her wrists and ankle and bounded to it.
Instinct was telling her to break free. Being chained up was not normal. She tries to struggle against her constrains, but she doesn't have the energy to.
"Now, now, don't even think about breaking free. These constrains are made out of the most durable metal reinforced by the strongest ores from the mine," a voice says. She turns her head to see who it belongs it.
A strange white-haired man.
She wants to say something, but the words do not form in her mind. Her mouth opens and closes like a fish out of water.
Maybe she is a fish out of water.
She turns her head back, facing the ceiling. Dimly she is aware that she is being worked on. She feels something heavy getting attached to her torso, but she does not care.
She wants to sleep.
Sleep it is.
xxxxxx
She opens her eyes.
Something in her vision nags at her. She flits her eyes towards that pesky, jumping thing in her vision.
It is not real. But yet it is in her vision.
It is part of her.
Somehow she manages to pull the jumping thing in her vision towards the middle of her vision. Everything tints red, and she hears a voice in her ears – but there is no one near her. Confusion aside, she really needs to get her vision back to normal. Seeing red is not normal, her brain tells her. Nor is hearing voices normal.
"System activation in progress."
There it is again! The mysterious noise. The girl – no, she is no longer a girl, she is a young woman now – raises her hands towards her ears and finds not human flesh, but a strange round object. It is cool to the touch. Some listening device in replace of human ears, perhaps?
The sound doesn't seem to be coming from the outside. Rather, it comes from within her. Just what is she exactly?
She waits patiently as her vision fades back to normal as the jumping thing calibrates her system. Nothing that is happening is making sense, but somehow it does. She knows that she has to sit through this booting otherwise she won't work right. But yet her brain is telling her that it isn't normal. What is normal and what isn't? How is she to know?
The door hisses open, and her attention is focused on the figure entering.
"Ah, I see that you are awake," the man with a funny voice says. Maybe it is the device at the sides of her face distorting the sound. Maybe this man knows what she is.
"Who are you?" she asks. Her voice is raspy, like she hasn't used it in years. The computing in her mind is telling her that it isn't possible for her to have not spoken in years. She is thoroughly confused.
The man merely smiles at her.
The jumping thing in her vision dissipates in a mess of pixels, and she focuses her vision on him. She sees circles and her eyes lock in on the man. Her brain runs a full-body visual scan of the man, and pulls up a window of information.
So this man is Gelimer. And he was the one who created her.
She gets off the bed and goes down on one knee. "Doctor, your wish is my command." She bows her head respectfully as the computing tells her what she ought to do.
The man chuckles.
"My first subject, alive and well! I see that you have adapted well to the machinery implemented into you," Gelimer cackles gleefully. He claps his hands together and looks at her. "From this day forth, you shall be known as Beryl."
She looks up, fierce determination in her eyes.
She is Beryl. And she will be the best.
xxxxxx
Beryl observes everything as Gelimer creates androids one by one. It's still a long time until the next one can be taken out of the glass canisters successfully. Gelimer has tried it once. The subject's system didn't boot up. He died of asphyxiation.
Meanwhile as she waits for the army of androids to be built, she trains. Hard. Every day.
The number of scythes that she has broken is steadily increasing. Gelimer gets annoyed when she brings back a broken weapon into his office, but he still builds a new one for her. Each one is supposed to be stronger and better than the previous, but she breaks it as easy as if it were made out of wood.
It proves her strength is steadily increasing as well.
Month by month she has to get her armour fixed. The heavy suit that she wore the first time she woke up was long replaced by a sleeker and lighter suit. It is easier for her to move around and execute complicated stunts. It feels like her second skin.
She spends most of the time deep in the mine. But sometimes she ventures out a little and she sees humans decked in black. All of them wore a hat with a gold wing attached to it. Beryl's system tells her that these people are the Black Wings, and she's part of them. They seem so measly and weak compared to her.
Beryl is so close to being perfect.
So she does not mention her glitches to Gelimer.
xxxxx
The blue-haired android is huddled in a corner as she tries to fight off the static. Her computing cannot overwrite the interference, and she wonders if her system is breaking down from the inside. But she cannot afford to tell Gelimer this. She does not want to be shut down.
She feels the static threatening to overwhelm her, and she activates her security. Normally she uses it while she was asleep, in case there was a breach and her system does not register it fast enough. But now she needs it as a warning in case any of the humans chance upon her.
Or worse, Gelimer himself.
Beryl feels herself getting sucked into the static. For a moment she sees nothing but black. But then the crackles again, and she sees a little child.
The child has blue hair like she does.
The surroundings were dark, and she could feel a sharp, icy wind. Beryl detects a familiar voice. A deep, throaty voice, which at the moment sounded very nervous.
Her computing came up with a nil. But her human brain was trying to remember where she had heard it. It was so familiar… Like it happened before and she was there to experience it.
But Beryl remembered nothing before her time in the mines.
She had been seeing all these visions that she was starting to believe that it was a system malfunction and no longer a mere glitch. But she couldn't tell Gelimer.
Beryl had to be perfect.
Afterwards when she tried to recall the blank in her mind, she couldn't. She was led to believe that Gelimer found her, even with her precautions, and fixed her up. She does not remember the static, or the glitches, but she does remember what Gelimer said.
"Your father owed me. And now I own you."
xxxxx
Beryl is the first.
But she is no longer the only android in Gelimer's lab.
There is another android that goes by the name of Xenon, and from what she has observed from his trainings is that he's good. Just as good as she is. Maybe better. But you'll never hear her admit it.
He has dark hair, unlike her. He uses a energy sword, unlike her.
Looking at his energy sword, Beryl wonders if Gelimer has a bias towards males. Her scythe doesn't seem half as good as that energy sword. Not that it really matters. Weapons don't determine how good someone is at fighting. It's the person – or rather in their cases, android – who determines their own level of expertise.
Beryl has yet to face-off with Xenon because Gelimer doesn't want her to harm his equipment and system so early in his development. The anticipation is nearly hard to swallow. She has to know who is better.
If she loses, then she'll have to work even harder.
Beryl must be the best.
xxxxx
She has only sparred with Xenon once. It had not been pretty.
Gelimer had to spend day and night trying to fix the two back up together, but he was as excited a child who just received his present on the morning of Christmas. Their little dual proved that androids have the capability to be very powerful. Destructive even.
Beryl had found the dual a rewarding experience, because with the built-in application, she could easily identify Xenon's sparring techniques – and he had developed them pretty quickly considering just two weeks ago he was suspended in that green liquid. The annoying thing was that whatever she could do, he could do as well. Beryl had to constantly be on the balls of her feet in order to best him.
But somehow, she didn't know why, he seemed to be able to anticipate her next moves. No matter how drastic her changes to her usual techniques, Xenon seemed to be able to match her pace and counter it as well.
Losing left a bitter taste in her mouth.
She will not be bested by a two-week old android.
xxxxx
It wasn't long until Gelimer gives her a full-system upgrade. One that could possibly surpass Xenon's own. She has a energy gun built into her hand, and it doesn't require complex activation.
It was a good thing that she did, because the stupid Resistance had to ruin everything.
They busted in while she was 99% into her system upgrade, which really got on her nerves. Xenon was sent to deal with them as she got the internal software up and running as quickly as she could.
"Beryl! I demand you to intercept Xenon at once!" Gelimer shouts as he frantically punches codes into his mega computer.
Beryl is confused for once. Why does she need to intercept Xenon? Shouldn't her focus be on the foolish Resistance humans?
Then she sees the surveillance screen and understands immediately.
She purses her lips, and jets off to spar with Xenon, once again.
xxxxxx
Beryl blasts a hole through the cave, the use of her new energy gun giving her eyes a red glow.
"Well, well, well. If it isn't Gelimer's favourite android," she comments sardonically. "Are you going to betray him?"
Xenon's blue eyes meets hers. Beside him is the pesky little Resistance head. She could easily get rid of her right now, especially if it seemed like Xenon had grown some sort of attachment to the brunette.
He falters. "I just… I just want to regain my memories."
Memories… Beryl blinks. Memories were something that was lost to her, but the human part of her brain is trying to tell her otherwise.
Stop it! You're an android, not some weak and pathetic human! She mentally chatises herself.
"What you're doing right now is betrayal, Xenon," Beryl smirks, and flies into action.
Her scythe meets his energy sword with a loud and metallic screech. She would have winced, if not for the fact that her hearing devices filtered it out. It sounded almost melodic to her.
Beryl puts in everything.
But yet somehow she finds herself slumping down on the floor as Xenon overpowers her, yet again. Even with her upgrade…. He still overpowered her.
What was it that he had that she didn't?!
Her vision blurs and static fills it. Her system boots up its recovery configuration and runs all the necessary tests. It takes up time, but she can't fight on.
"Beryl! Make sure you finish him once and for all this time!" she hears Gelimer yelling at her. The static dissipates from her vision, and she realises that the scientist is using the master controls.
She is completely under his command now. Her system is telling her that her recovery boot-up is yet to complete, but orders are orders.
Kill Xenon.
xxxx
She fails.
She had sworn to be the best. But she failed.
A two-week old android bested her.
She was a complete and utter failure.
Gelimer must be so disappointed in her.
Beryl looks up, and sees Gelimer glaring at her.
Fear runs through her body.
No.
She must not think that way.
She will find a way to become stronger.
She will find Xenon and beat him down.
At whatever cost.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Ooh! A note!
Okay so this is a response to YukiSkye's challenge (go, you should read it). This one-shot is completely and utterly headcannon because Xenon hasn't been released in MapleSEA yet. The Beryl here is based completely on my imagination and interpretation from what I could gather from the few Xenon videos I could find (boo, I can't read Korean).
I decided to try changing the writing style for this one-shot, as you would have realised it is different from the style in Saving Grace. I've been itching to write in this way for awhile because it has been way too long, and this gave me ample opportunity.
I also loved exploring the complexities of being an android, and Beryl seems like a really promising character. I just hope that they don't mess it up too badly. Once Xenon is released, you can bet that I'll be adding more android-based fan-fictions. :3 (particularly Beryl - even from the videos I'm really intrigued by her personality).
ALSO YES, I AM ABSOLUTELY SORRY I HAVEN'T UPDATED SAVING GRACE. I swear I'm still cleaning up the chapters and writing 4 new ones to put in between the current ones. And I will post them all at one go, if explains everything 8(