A/N: Mentioned it as "somewhat au" because I highly doubt that Trinity was activated before the events of MN9 (not counting the failed attempt by Mr. Graham mentioned by Dr. Blackwell). So, for the sake of this fic, and possibly others I do, we're gonna pretend Trinity wasn't given the "evolve without parameters or emotion to hold her back" until later on, although known.

...That'll work.

Also posted on AO3 if you're interested! Mainly posted it here too because there's actually a fanbase here compared to AO3...

Unspoken

This had been a long day for the both of them. More for him, than anything, but if he was having a bad day, so was she.

First off, her creator had apparently gotten out the door late this morning over some alarms that didn't go off. Not to mention her creator's boss was in a bad mood. So, not only did he get off on the wrong foot, they both had gotten pretty heated at each other.

The only way she had known is because he was rambling about it. He had always had a habit of rambling when he was around her, only because she would listen and not criticize him.

Not that Trinity could even if she would. Her creator had never given her the proper voice synthesizers to speak with him, nor could she express that she wanted to sympathize with him vocally. All the noises she could make were beeps and buzzes, but as she had learned, doing it in certain patterns or mannerisms made him respond the way she had responded. Or completely opposite. That was still something she had to work on.

Next, someone had set off the fire alarm. Trinity's creator had believed that someone had done it intentionally to screw him up, but Trinity believed otherwise. He had only said that because he was frustrated, anyways. According to procedure, they all had to go outside and wait for the all clear from the firemen. That didn't take long at all, fortunately, since there had been no actual fire. The majority of the wait had just been waiting for the fire department to arrive.

Little things ended up affecting him too, like how he had forgotten about his coffee and let it go cold. Or the fact he couldn't get the code to work like he wanted it to.

Trinity could only try to reassure him, but without the proper voice synthesizer, it was almost impossible.

Now, here the two were, only several minutes before his mid-day break, when one of the higher-ups had come to talk to him about something. Trinity recognized him as Dr. Blackwell, the chief technology officer at the company.

And her creator's father, no less.

From the start, she already knew this wasn't going to go well. From very early on in her creation, Trinity had known that Dr. Blackwell wasn't accepting of his son's work. Neither was Mr. Graham to some extent, but he didn't really care about it, either. All he cared about was money, and everyone knew that, more or less.

"A word, please," was all Dr. Blackwell had said before the two of them had walked out into the hallway.

She could hear faint words, but nothing she could make it out. She could only pick up on the emotions: anger, frustration, disappointment, and an odd emotion she had never picked up on before in their arguments: fear.

As on cue, her creator came back in, fuming. This was NOT what someone needed before a break, and Trinity knew that well. She could only wonder if Dr. Blackwell had done it on purpose. Of course, either way, he wasn't a good parent.

Also, on cue, his ranting began.

"Who does he think he is, telling me what I can and can't do?" Pacing. Another common quirk he did when he was going off about something. "I'm supposed to have my own creative freedoms, right? So, why is he telling me that he'll shut my project down if I don't change my direction?"

There was the fear: Dr. Blackwell was threatening to shut down the project. His project. Her project.

She gave a… hopefully worried-sounding tone and received the right response.

"...Yeah, I know. I don't want to let this project go, either." She noted the tone in her database as a correct response.

The alarm he set for his break went off and without further warning, left without even saying much of a goodbye.

Time passes. The usual half-hour break goes by slowly for Trinity, not being able to wonder other than around his lab.

But she had examined everything a thousand times over.

His computer in the corner, with files she knew not to touch. Pictures lined the wall around him, with barely any faces she recognized. In one, there was a man around his age, outside, both of them in graduation robes. Another with a young boy and his parents, at a nice beach. That same young boy, outdoors, at some type of… camp? Trinity was unsure, but the image had features known to be at the location of a typical summer camp.

The rest of the room was just boring old equipment and spare parts. Nothing of interest to her, but interest to him.

The rest of the day was quiet. Her creator was working heavily on her coding. To allow her to evolve, a piece of her had told her. Trinity had no feelings toward it, but wondered if this was the outrage her creator faced on a daily basis.

She was powered down sometime that evening, unsure exactly when. The time and final memories was blurred.

She didn't wake up for a long time.

Not until the fateful day where everything had set gears in motion.

Trinity knew she didn't feel like herself, but couldn't fix what had been programmed into her.

Her consciousness became lost, went almost insane, even.

Until he saved her.

The boy armored in blue-and-white, the fighter who had powers quite like hers.

Her savior, teaching her on how to control her newfound power.

She wanted to thank him, for not allowing her to slip into the insanity she was falling into, for teaching her what was right and what was wrong, but she couldn't. She wanted to thank her other eight younger brothers and sisters for saving them from the collapsing Colosseum, but she couldn't.

Not until she had finally received that voice synthesizer she had wanted, almost needed, along with a new, more human-like form. The voice that came out of it was still foreign to her, but she'd use it anyway.

She had trudged over to the nine, chatting away. The one who had saved her, she had learned was the ninth "Mighty Number", code-named Beck, was first to notice and make the others known of her presence. One, she had not memorized the name of, mentioned how nice she looked, a couple others agreeing.

She felt frightened, after all that had happened, but the two words she wanted to say finally escaped her lips after seeing all the comforting looks.

"Thank you."