(Honestly, this is a bologna fan fiction made purely for my own pleasure and happiness. I own nothing and I hope you enjoy. God bless you all.)
Nea was no stranger to being called "Genius" or "Incredibly Intelligent", even when he was very small. He always got an 'A' on any test he received in school and he developed an interest in college level subjects at a very young age. He had a very bright future ahead of him so those two words were like every other word to him.
But, despite this, perhaps he, somehow managed to misjudge the situation.
Perhaps, just maybe, all those compliments made their way to his head.
It was possible that, just maybe, he trusted in his own mind a bit too much.
That being said, when the unknown factor in one of the many experiments he thought foolproof came crashing in and messed up all the results and all the expectations he had for the results, he became quite a bit flustered.
It happened. People made mistakes. It was a part of life.
The only problem was that Nea, someone who relied purely on his own strengths and intelligence, had no idea what on earth he was to do when that happened.
Some might call it close mindedness or the inability to improvise, but Nea liked to simply say that when life decided to pull it's little pranks or take a full U turn on a path to a predetermined course, he just never saw it coming.
That's right. Go on, laugh. The great intelligent genius Nea Campbell was caught off guard, staggered with no ability recover, knocked on his rear when his legs were broken.
What was he supposed to say?
It wasn't as though he lost all hope of ever succeeding in this battle, he simply just didn't know whether or not the battle was even there anymore or if he ever understood it to begin with.
That's right.
At last, upon confronting the Millennium Earl, his brother, his other half, he addressed him with familiarity, he embraced him warmly and called him by name.
He did all this with a bitter heart, knowing that, no matter how much he wished it to be otherwise, his brother was far too distant to ever hear his voice.
The suit had bonded with his being, inseparable like they once were. There was no telling the mad puppet from the boy he once knew.
He was gone. Dead. Deleted. Call it what you will
Nea knew this to be a fact.
So, imagine the look on Nea's face when the suit and its many layers were pulled back like a peeled orange, separating till there were two beings, one being the hollow suit like a June bug's caste on trees in the summer, the second being that very brother he was absolutely positive remained irretrievable, looking not a day older since he last saw him, right in front of him like it was nobody's business.
Yes. Not united to form an all too familiar facade but separated into two beings.
One, a hollow abomination of cruel mechanical flesh baring the hideous form of a goblin.
Two, the familiar face identical to his own displaying vivid emotions that no mechanical monstrosity would ever be capable of faking.
If it was just that, he would have been fine. He could have just hidden that fact under layers of cynical thinking and pessimistic attitudes, but it wasn't.
Those eyes of gold. Those eyes could never be faked.
All it took was one glance to see that they were genuine, the same eyes he had seen so many times back when things were innocent, clear, better.
It was really him. It was really Mana.
So imagine it. Imagine the dramatic frown, the eyes the size of dinner plates, and every ounce of color draining from Nea's face.
Imagine how the perfecting functional cogs and coils being thrown into turmoil and entropy at a single glance.
Imagine the confliction, the confusion, the sudden muteness that overtook him, the paralysis, the absolute panic because he genuinely had no idea what to do in that one moment.
Only one word came to mind.
It was the only one he dared to say.
"What?".
You see, when an intelligent genius like him says they had prepared for "Every possibility", they are not being truthful. Preparing for the best possibility would set a person up for disappointment when the worst possibility comes about. Plus, it's a common assumption that if the best thing happens, you'll know exactly what to do and that you haven't bogged down your every logic machine with repeated patterns from times past of disappointment and heartache so that you never expect the best thing.
Honestly, Nea had seen the worst of humanity, angels and the demons. He learned that all disappoint just as easily as batting an eyelash.
It wasn't as though the world had a record of making dreams come true. It wasn't as though Nea was silly for seeing the glass half empty.
How was he supposed to know this would happen? This defied every fact and piece of logic he picked up along the way of life and he truly thought he knew everything. He genuinely believed that he had all his facts together in order, alphabeticalized and color coded like a usual boring folder door.
But then, of course, the life that seemed to hate him oh so very much thought it proper to turn hiss whole world upside down and scatter those notes he worked so hard on all across the four corners of the earth, pulling a stunt like this as though it were as easy and logical as long division.
How was he supposed to know? Really?
How was he supposed to mathematically predict that Mana, the one who needed an explosion to wake him up, suddenly became a light sleeper and came running when he was called?
How was Nea supposed to find through scientific experiments that Nea's own voice, the mere fact that he was here, alive, and talking to his brother would suddenly restart his heart and send him fleeing from the grave that bound him.
That it would be enough to show him how little he really knew.
To show him how young he was.
So much for straight A's and a fancy college. So much for being an intelligent genius.
Look where it got him. Lost, confused, all scrambled with tears in his eyes, holding the brother he thought he had lost forever in his arms.
He was like a child again.
But honestly.
Perhaps that's the worst thing about the best thing; You never see it coming.