DEAD-SPACE ANGEL 1.0
Chapter One: A Story Told
The Legion were quite used to seeing their newest and youngest member with his nose buried in a book, so to speak-with books in the thirty-first century being holographic discs, it wasn't exactly possible to 'bury' your nose in it without disturbing the image. If Brainiac 5 wasn't in his lab, he would be reading a book, without question. As expected, he would read anything that was either difficult to understand, like a science textbook of some sort, or he would be reading something so old that most people didn't read anymore (well, not out of their own free will), like original Shakespearean texts. After all, he WAS a twelfth-level intellect. What wasn't expected, however, was for him to be reading a children's story. Especially not one so new and that basically went against everything he believed in terms of magic. Well, to be fair, it was only a story. And it was quite a long one, at that. But still, nobody could understand WHY he would choose to read it. And that was EXACTLY what Garth Ranzz – also known as Lightning Lad – was going to find out.
"Hey Brainy," called Lightning Lad, as he pulled the book from Brainy's (as he was so commonly called amongst his fellow Legionnaires) grasp to inspect it properly. "Why're you reading 'Angel Deeds'? I thought you didn't like kid's stories."
"Firstly, I never stated that I did not read children's novels. I do not usually read them because the few that YOU have made me read are terribly written and are of very poor quality," stated the young Legionnaire with a huff, looking quite annoyed that his book was taken away from him, while he was READING it, no less. "Secondly," he continued with a matter-of-fact tone, "I have stated MANY times that my name is NOT 'Brainy', it is 'Brainiac 5'. Please call me so accordingly. Now, may I please have my book back?"
"Why're you reading it anyway?" Lightning Lad asked while closing the book, the image flickering away as the case was closed. With a sigh, the young genius answered, knowing he would not have his book returned to him unless he did so. Well, he could force it off of the Winathian teenager, but answering required a lot less effort.
"I am reading it because the librarian-"
"You borrowed it from the library?" Brainy ignored the interruption.
"-recommended it to me, saying that I might like it. So far, it has been a thoroughly enjoyable read, one I would like to FINISH! So please hand over my book before I am forced to take it from you." Lightning Lad knew when not to cross a line that plainly obvious, so returned the book. Or at least attempted to. Tinya Wazzo (also known as Phantom Girl) phasing through the wall and grabbing the book before it even reached Brainy's fingertips annoyed the young Coluan genius even more so, but the young girl didn't notice (or was it that she didn't care? Brainy could never tell with her). The only thing she was interested in was the book.
"Hey! Didn't the author say that he got the idea of an angel story from that Angeloid mess?" She had asked a simple question, but Brainy only had one thought when she asked it.
'What the SPROCK is she talking about?'
"I dunno," replied Garth, while running his fingers through his orange hair. "All I know is that the Angeloid Program was one annoying mess that WE got saddled with cleaning up."
"Excuse me, but would someone mind explaining to me what exactly the 'Angeloid Program' is?" As Brainy voiced his confusion, he did not expect the slight chaos that followed. Both Lightning Lad and Phantom Girl started to overreact, which gave Brainy a minor headache. Then they insisted that he was sick, and promptly started to drag him towards Saturn Girl's (whose real name was Imra Ardeen) room so she could figure out what was wrong with him using her telepathic powers (against his wishes).
That never happened.
When they arrived at Imra's room, they barged right in and started to explain (scream) to her their situation. After listening to her friends' near impossible to understand banter, she sat them down to explain things better before she got a headache herself.
"Guys, listen, Brainy couldn't have known about the Angeloid incident. Colu is a closed off planet. Unless it concerns them in any way possible, no information goes in, no information comes out. And the Angeloid Program is yet to be allowed into history texts. That is the only way they will learn about it. You should know that, Tinya. Your mother is the President of the United Planets."
"Yeah, I kinda got carried away, didn't I?"
"We both did, PG," said Garth, laughing a little.
"Can someone please inform me about this Angeloid Program?" asked Brainy suddenly, reminding everyone that they did have some explaining to do.
"It was a huge mess, that's what it was," the Winathian exclaimed. "Ask Phantom Girl, she was there." Knowing the heat had been placed on her, Tinya began her story.
"About three years ago, back when the Legion was still new and my mother was still the Vice President of the United Planets, some of the officials decided that maybe the Legion wouldn't be enough. So they hired a Scientist from Earth to design and build fighting androids to work with the Legion. I think his name was Maxwell Rogan. Anyway, because the project took a lot of his time away from his family, he asked his daughter, who was an artist, to draw what the androids should look like. That way he would work his designs as best he could around them. And that's what happened. She drew five designs, basing the androids looks off of herself, her brother, and three cousins. In the end, the designs looked like beautiful teenagers, all around her age. She had to change how they look a bit because the cousins were eight. She drew two versions of the five androids. One for her father, and one for herself. The ones she drew for herself had angel wings. She drew them because she was bored, but her father and the people working for him saw the ones that had wings and jokingly called them 'Angel Androids', which ended up being shortened into 'Angeloids'."
"That does not explain how it became to be known as the 'Angeloid Program'," Brainy pointed out, his question still not being completely answered.
"I'm getting to that, hold your Venutian Wigglers. Where was I…? Oh yeah! Rogan decided that them being able to fly was a good idea, so he had a special type of jet pack made up that was built into their backs. You know those gliders? How it has the frame, then the energy shield coming out of the frames that provide the lift? Like that, only without the frame, and it was shaped like wings that they could literally unfurl from the disk that was put on their backs. It was amazing, and no one had seen anything like it. After that, it officially became known as the 'Angeloid Program'. Pretty soon, Rogan became obsessed with his work. Each Angeloid was built for a different purpose. Stealth, speed, strength, defense, and one was a combination of all the other four. But Rogan wanted to make them as human as possible, with emotions and a will of their own. But no matter what he tried, he couldn't make an AI like that. He couldn't get it right. His obsession drove him mad. He killed his son, daughter, and three nieces, and somehow, placed their minds and memories INTO the Angeloids. No one knows how he did it, but he did. " Phantom Girl bit her lip, clearly disturbed by the memory.
"I was there with my mother when he took the Angeloids to show the officials. When he activated them, their first thoughts as Angeloids were their last thoughts as humans. Three of them started screaming, which we later found out were his three triplet nieces. The only male-looking one, which was the son, started to cry and sob, asking 'Why?' He had been thirteen. The last Angeloid went completely berserk. She was the daughter, who I think is about one year older than us, actually. She started to attack her father, and fatally wounded him. When the other officials tried to stop her, she attacked them too. Three officials died that day, my mother got the rest out, and I used my powers so that the daughter couldn't touch me. I deactivated the Angeloids. Rogan bled out before the fight was over."
The young genius seemed to be confused by the end of her tale. Not as if he was unsure, but as if something was troubling him. Like his curiosity, for example.
"And… the Angeloids? What happened to them?" It was Imra who answered this time.
"They were activated again and studied, but it was decided that the trauma they had suffered damaged their minds beyond repair. I thought otherwise, but I wasn't there at the time. Not knowing how to remove the kids from the android bodies, they had no choice but to destroy them. To make sure that their minds died as well; they put them in caskets and sent them into the sun."
Brainy contemplated what he had just learned for a good minute, before nodding his head in understanding as he stood up.
"Thank you for informing me of all this." And with that, he turned and left the room. There was a moment of silence, before a certain ginger teenager noticed something off.
"Huh, that's weird," said Garth, taking 'Angel Deeds' from Phantom Girl's hands. "He forgot his book."
Brainy knew that he had left the book in Saturn Girl's room, but he didn't really care at that moment. He decided to finish it later, but for the moment something MUCH more interesting had come up, and had grasped his attention and curiosity completely. The 'Angeloid Program' sounded far-fetched, but it had happened. He wasn't sure how, but it had. And he wanted to know how those 'wings' worked, so the search was on to find whatever facts he could.
Four hours later, and his efforts were still in vain.
Absolutely nothing that he was looking for was available. All he found was absolute rubbish. It was all fanart and fanfiction, some of which was really well done, but not helpful at all. With a sigh, he closed a page that was claiming that Angeloids were pirates. A nicely thought-out story, and he could appreciate the effort, but so far, all it had done was frustrate him. A knock at his door pulled the young genius from his thoughts.
"Hey Brainy, it's me!" A hand phased through his door, holding the holo-book. "I came to give this back."
"Come in, Phantom Girl," Brainy turned into his seat to face the black-haired Legionnaire. "I was just doing a bit of research."
"Are you looking for the 'Angeloid' thing? You're not going to find anything. There's a big hush on that. Top secret!" she exclaimed as she placed the holo-book on the closest bench and floated over to his computer. "Here, scoot over."
She brought up a page that needed a longer password than he thought it needed just to open it. Then every time she tried to open something else, she needed to type in another password, each one longer than the last. Finally, she typed in one last password, spelling 'ANGEL', and the FACTS on the 'Angeloid Program' were available. But, there was hardly any information at all. A couple of photo's, a video and a few reports after the Angeloid attacked the officials, but none of what he was looking for. If this was as big as it sounded like, then there should be a lot more information. That's what Brainy couldn't understand…
"Most of the files were wiped from Rogan's computer by his wife when she found out what happened. She didn't want it to happen ever again, to anyone else. As you can guess, she was arrested and charged of evidence tampering. All that was managed to be recovered were photos of the finished Angeloids. There are also reports written by Officials, Science Police, and blah blah blah. Have fun! I'm not supposed to know those passwords, so don't tell anyone."
"Thank you Phantom Girl." There was a small smile on the young genius' face. Despite the fact that information was lacking, facts were always better than fiction.
"No worries. So, mind if I watch?" Brainy already had his answer.
"If you don't touch anything in my lab. Your knowledge in this subject may prove useful."
"Translation: you want company," Tinya stated with a laugh.
"Yes, that as well." Her laughter abruptly stopped.
"O…kay." She shook her head to clear her thoughts and stood behind him, "Just ask and I'll answer if I know the answer." Brainy nodded his head in affirmation and continued his research.
There were only five photos, one for each Angeloid. Phantom Girl was right, each Angeloid were very attractive, but with a slightly dangerous look to them. The discs she mentioned were thirteen centimetres across the length, and were one-point-six centimetres thick, precisely.
"Brainy, you're muttering to yourself. Not healthy."
"My apologies, I was not aware I was doing so."
Each Angeloid looked different. Three of them looked exactly the same, but different. Same gender, same height, same facial features and same hair style. The differences between them were their clothes and their hair and eye colour. One had red hair with ruby eyes. Her shoulder-length hair was in a ponytail, as were the other two. She wore a red body suit and had huge, black mechanical arms. It was obvious she was the strength Angeloid.
The next one had blonde hair and golden eyes. She wore a yellow, long sleeved, short dress with thigh-high boots of the same colour. It looked as if she could float to the ground if she jumped, and if there was not a sign that said 'speed' on the table next to her, Brainy would have been unsure as to whether it was speed or stealth he was looking at.
The last one that looked the same had pink hair and magenta eyes. She was covered in a dark pink armour from chin to toe, with a helmet next to her to protect her head. Her defense seemed impenetrable, but Brainy could calculate eleven weak points in her armour that he would not be able to access unless he was standing right in front of her, so it was amongst one of the best he had ever seen.
The other female Angeloid was the tallest of all the Angeloids. She had pea-green hair with streaks of a lighter green. Her hair was left down, and stopped at her lower back. She wore a full-bodied green suit, and was the only possibility for stealth, as the male Angeloid looked to be the one that was a mixture of the skills, with chest armour that looked light and gauntlets that matched his blue hair and sapphire eyes.
"See, what did I tell ya? Beautiful teenagers."
"They are very attractive," Brainy replied thoughtfully. "But I doubt how they look would ever help in a prison break."
The young genius clicked on a video, which showed a satellite videoing a rocket heading towards a star, which broke apart and left five crates in its wake.
"That's the Angeloids being sent to the sun," said Tinya helpfully. "Someone wanted proof, so they pointed a satellite at it. The caskets are in the crates, so it was easier to store them." Brainy just continued to watch. The crates met the surface of the star, but something wasn't right…he replayed the video, and spotted what caused his suspicion.
"What was that?!" The young boy's sudden exclamation startled the black-haired Legionnaire, who had decided to start inspecting one of Brainy's experiments.
"Huh?" she muttered, coming back over behind the genius, but he didn't answer. He had zoomed in on a certain part of the video, and had paused it. The image was really blurry, and yet…it seemed that one of the crates had blown up before it connected to the sun. However, since they were rather far from the satellite, it did not look like anything had happened unless you looked closely.
"What the heck happened to that one? Brainy, play it again." The young genius did as he was told, and it seemed that something flickered in the middle of the explosion.
"C. O. M. P. U. T. O, slow down video eighty-five percent." As Brainy slowed down the video, he also made sure to rewind the video to right before the explosion started. When he played it, it looked less like it blew up, and more like something destroyed it from the inside. A dark silhouette with wings simply disappeared before the camera could catch it.
"No…" whispered Tinya, taking a step back. "It isn't possible. That was stealth, but she was destroyed. They were all destroyed…"
"Phantom Girl, stealth is the green Angeloid, right?"
"Yeah… Yeah, yeah she is. 'Angeloid 1.0: Stealth Operative'. She's also the Angeloid that killed Rogan."
"Phantom Girl, listen to me." Brainy turned and pointed to the paused video of the destroyed crate and casket. "The Angeloid in THAT crate most likely never made it to the sun, and has been on the run for about three years. She's dangerous, probably armed, and know how to hide and stay hidden. We do not know what she is capable of, and I do not know what her abilities are. I do not know how to defeat her, or how to shut her down."
"With a remote, that was destroyed. Great, my mom is SO going to kill me. Great...so, what do we do?"
"What can we do?" said the young genius. "We have to inform your mother that we have an Angeloid on the loose."