Be Not Proud
First: Discovery
by Lady Virgo
"Do not let
fear
Control
your life."
///
So. He was the only one to mourn the passing. Oh well, how could you expect anything else? The world feared him, hated him for the fear he induced. And he fed off it, like some sort of parasite or psychotic maniac.
Not saying that he /wasn't/- no. Stop it. That's your friend, you're not supposed to think that about your friends.
Than again, friends don't try to attack you or kidnap your daughter.
Cossack sighed at his old friend's grave. It was hardly a proper burial. Just sort of shoved the body- and its bits -into an iron... crate (didn't much resemble a coffin from the pictures in the news). The people dug a large hole in the ground, threw in the crate and without any pause for formalities- with the exception of a couple jesters singing "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead- Old Coot Mix" -filled the hole with cement. There was no marker on the paved ellipse, just flat nothing.
That wasn't how Alfred wanted to be buried, Cossack thought. He didn't want to be forgotten or ignored, he hated that. He came from nothing, he refused to return to nothing. So many years of neglect and then suddenly plunged into the center of attention for his genius made him eccentric, vigorous, craving for attention as if to make up all that he had never received.
Maybe he'd get someone to make a small statue for the cold grave. Just something to remind everyone of the history they had lived through, the history he had created and the legacy Cossack refused to forget- refused to let /them/ forget. So Wily /could/ live on as an infamous memory.
He turned to walk back to the car, Kalinka waiting patiently, but irritably for her father. She loathed the idea of anyone paying respects to the man who threatened both her and her father's lives and stole away her childhood playmates to use as tools of war.
But... what Cossack couldn't understand was: where was Thomas? What was he doing to keep him from saying farewell to his best friend and only enemy?
///
Dive roared uselessly against his bonds. Tiny automatons merely whirled as they reigned him. It had been easy bringing him in- easier than some of the Robot Master's contemporaries. Dr. Light had traced his signal to an alley where the large bioroid rested, still soaked in the blood of the neighborhood. After that, it was just a matter of stunning him and opening up circuits that allowed the automatons to forcibly drag him to Light's lab.
Using reverse polarization on the live circuits created an electrical field and- with little tweaks –could form a sort of 'lasso', connecting the Robot Master to the tiny droids, as well as rendering the limbs the electronics controlled useless. The beauty, Thomas had found soon after the restraint's discovery, was not only did it bind the Robot Master quite nicely, the more they struggled, the stronger the bind became and the more energy the bioroid lost.
Calmly, as if he wasn't being followed by a screaming, murderous robot, he led the way to an open, circular base. The automatons manipulated the unco-operating robot to the center as Dr. Light tapped on a nearby control panel. Hissing from the ceiling, a clear capsule descended around the Robot Master, cutting off the connection between him and the droids. With a snarl, Dive lunged at the sides, trying to burst his way out, the only things in his mind was destruction and the feel of blood between his fingers.
The top of the capsule- a good meter above Dive's head –opened, a thick liquid pouring down the side, cascading around him and distorting his panicked form. It had a copper-esque hue to it, rich in nitrous oxide. Once it filled the tank, the Robot Master would be forced to inhale it, or wait until it seeped through his pores. Either way, it would counteract the Surge and sedate him. Even if the liquid didn't knock him out- as it did most bioroids that inhaled it straight –it would make him docile enough to allow the doctor to insert sedative carrying cables into his body and place a breathing mask on him. Though it would allow him to breath and talk normally without the liquid getting into his lungs, it would also regulate the level of adrenaline inside of him.
The sounds of thrashing subsided in the capsule, Dive resting heavily against the side, unconscious, feet a bare presence on the base. Dr. Light let out an aged sigh. He turned to look at the other Robot Masters- six all together, he thought sadly –and walked out. The automatons whirled back to their corners until they were further needed. He sighed again, leaving the lab amongst the muffled jeering, curses and insults from the other capsules.
///
She wasn't there, but she could still hear it. She thought it was unfair in a way.
This happened on almost a daily basis, ever since her father had gotten that strange e-mail. She could still remember it, the strange look in his eyes as he called them to his office. There were plans on the screen, she could see, but couldn't make them out.
He had told them that the government wanted them to be destroyed. Rock, Roll, Rush, Auto, Beat, Tango. All of them. Roll tried not to gasp, tried not to tremble at the thought of being killed, just because of some madman's obsession with vengeance- or something of the like, she never understood. Rock though, he just hung his head and said nothing.
The humans that he had fought so valiantly for, risked his life for, wanted him dead.
He tried to hide his misted eyes from his father and sister, but she didn't need to see them. She knew they were there. She wondered if she could hate people for that pain they cased him. Hate them because they didn't care that he felt that pain.
"But," Dr. Light said, putting a hand on Roll's shoulder, "there's another way."
And he told them. Told them about the plans he had gotten, told them about Wily's last robot- a reploid, it was called –that was buried somewhere in the wreckage of his fortress. He told him about the creature he was creating, basing off those plans. Told them what would happen to Rock, that he would no longer be the same robot. He told them he would move Roll back to her first body (less advanced and smaller than the upgrade she had grown fond of- she didn't like the idea of being in the body of what looked like a ten year-old) and he would destroy the two shells and hand over the remains as 'proof of their demise'.
"But.... The others....." Rock looked as if he were about to cry.
Dr. Light shook his head. "I don't have a place to hide them. I don't have anywhere to put their minds."
"Y-You're going to kill them?" Roll was aghast, mind unable to wrap around the idea.
"I have to. There's no other way."
Roll wanted to flee the room, but her legs didn't have the strength. Instead, she folded to the floor, crying at the thought of loosing her family and Rock bowed his head, weeping quietly.
She didn't say anything after she was moved back into the smaller body. She didn't say anything when Rock was moved to his new brain, didn't say anything when their old bodies were destroyed along with their family's. She didn't say anything when Dr. Light began constructing the new body, seeing a skeleton of what was to be her brother.
She didn't think she could ever think of him as 'Rock'. Her father seemed to agree, calling this his last creation, calling it 'Project X'. He had already gotten into the habit of calling the wire-frame body that. Roll didn't even want to think about it. She didn't want it to live. She just wanted her family back.
Three days later, the first Robot Master came in. The next day, two more, then one for each day following. She didn't ask how he got them, or what he was going to do with them. She didn't want to get near them unless she had to, but she could still hear them and that was probably the worst part.
Their cries would still ring in her ears and she couldn't get the screaming to stop. Barely two weeks- two /weeks/ passed Wily's death and the Robot Masters' sudden, vicious drop to an uncontrollable madness and Roll wished she was dead already. Not murdered or killed, or even really dead. Just... not here to hear those screams and echoes in her head. Just not there, like Rock wasn't.
Slowly- because it was the only thing she had –she cleaned, sweeping the already immaculate floor. She couldn't go to the main house for fear of being seen and she wouldn't go near the labs. All she had was her room and the halls.
It hurt too much. It was far too sad. But her tears were dried out, she told herself.
But the tears always came back and she never tried to stop them.
///
The lights dimmed, then flickered. Scowling from his desk, Dr. Light looked around. "What the....?"
There was a hum. Pleasant, mechanical and entirely too pleased with himself.
"[Hello, doctor.]" The walls echoed at him. Light jumped.
"Who.....?"
"[Surprised? You weren't the only one.]" The voice chuckled at him, sounding painfully familiar. "[Still don't get it?]"
"Elec...." The old man's eyes darted about, trying to pinpoint the robot.
"[You can't see me so don't even try to.]"
"Where are you?"
"[Guess.]" His voice held the same odd-set humor the blonde bioroid was beginning to develop before he was stolen. "[You're a smart man. Where could I be that I can talk to you and see you in an enclosed room with no surveillance gear?]"
It was then he noticed the echo. "In the wall?"
"[Close. My voice is coming through the intercom. I can see you from your computer screen. I live in the very wires, where I truly rule.]"
The wires? He's part of the data flow? "And how did you get there?"
There was a chuckle from a mounted speaker. "[I don't really know, myself. One minute I was reading a book, the next I was tearing out someone's throat. And now I'm here. I'd like to see where I end up next, but I'm surprisingly more coherent now than I was two days ago.]" There was a grin in his voice. "[So I decided to see what your reaction to your dear friend's parting gift would be.]"
Light frowned, not certain where this conversation was going.
"[So this is your plan, is it? Sit around, gathering Robot Masters like collectibles?]"
"What else am I supposed to do? Let them go around killing people? Have them kill each other until none of them are left?"
"[You let your own creations die.]"
Dr. Light frowned. "I had no choice."
"[You did. You just didn't want to take it.]"
"If I disobeyed, they would've been taken from me! They would've killed all of them!"
He had the impression that Elec was twirling in his microcosm. "[And you wouldn't be able to steal Dr. Wily's ideas.]"
"I am not stealing them!"
"[You're dissecting them. The ones you've captured. You're trying to figure out how they tick because they're far more advanced than any of your designs.]" There was a light note in Elec's voice. "[And you're using the plans for that reploid. It's a good thing you can't get to any of his other ideas.]"
Dim eyes narrowed at that. "What do you know of his ideas?"
"[Because I have all his plans~!]" He practically sang. "[I've gathered all his blueprints, all his plans and I'm keeping them for myself, locked away in my 'head'. There's no other place that has them, no other person that knows them.]"
"What are they?"
"[As if I'd give them to you.]"
"Why not? Are you that loyal to Wily? After everything he's done to you."
"[And I should be loyal to you, is that it?]" There was an audible scowl in his voice. "[After all, you did so much more for us. You sent Rock out to kill us, after all.]"
"It was for the best."
"[Bullshit!]" Elec snapped. Several bulbs exploded somewhere. "[You didn't do anything for us! You didn't help us, you didn't save us; you let Rock fight and that was all! You condemned us to a monster- whose only thought was to create more monsters. You're no better than Wily, with all his thoughts for the 'bettering of the human race'. Thinking that the ones to make those decisions should sit back and let those that won't even have a part in a future they'd slave for take your abuse willingly. /That's/ why Wily was killed by his own creations! That's why you took Rock's mind apart and put only the bits /you/ cared about inside that new creature! No, I'll keep these secrets locked away. Until someone will use them with an honest purpose in mind. I don't care, so long as there's no more lies or double-edged words.]"
Light narrowed his eyes. "I don't think you're in the best frame of mind to make that decision."
"[And what frame of mind would you prefer me to be in? Yours?]"
"So if someone said they wanted those plans for world domination, straight off the bat.....?"
"[At least they're honest. You can trust someone that says things so straightforward, you know where you stand with people like that. If someone tried to claim some moral obligation to rule the world without saying they'd rule it- those are the ones you have to look out for. After all]," the voice grinned, "[look at Albert.]"
"You....!"
"[You don't need to worry. All of his most advanced ideas have never been created. The Stardroids and their fusions have been destroyed. The reploids are securely hidden. And the prototype beast and its brethren have been disposed of. That's all you need to worry about.]"
"And I don't need to worry about you?"
"[I exist only in these cables now. I have no need for anything material and commanding others was never one of the high points in my life. I don't need them, but I need a false-faced ruler even less.]"
"Even if you do keep that as a promise, even something like you can't exist like that forever."
"[I'll deteriorate, I know. I'm hoping I will, but I can keep these until someone appropriate comes along. And then, I'll die- a mindless stream of electricity, lost and merged with all the rest. But that's fine. Because, by all rights, the one thing I lived for had already been killed.]" The lights dimmed and Elec's voice was moving far away. "[And by extension, I'm already dead.]"
///
He should have known something was wrong from the very beginning. From the moment he was capture, Light should have known that he was planning something.
It was far too easy. Being jumped by the automatons, being rendered defenseless, walking quietly to the lab. Barely a struggle, not more than a snarl at the beginning.
Slash was designed to be as much a killing machine as anything else, it was the only thing he was programmed to do. No secondary purpose, just claws and fangs and the want to rip into something. And yet, he was obediently following the tiny robots with scarcely a frown.
Dr. Light couldn't help a cold shiver, standing by the panel as the automatons maneuvered the compliant Robot Master into place. Gold-brown eyes flickered upward briefly at the sound of the capsule beginning its descent around him. The tinted sides lowered around his face and he gave Light a grin of teeth. The sides cut off the restraints between him and the little robots.
The old man barely had time to widen his eyes before he realized Slash was no longer under the capsule.
One of the automatons screeched like a taunt violin string, nails running up the strains and squealing and dying and violently being plucked until it broke. Even without the use of his arms, Slash howled in pleasure, smashing the thing with his feet and knees and tearing at the vulnerable wiring with his teeth. Fluids splashed against him, lighting up his eyes and turning his dark skin darker and coating his hair in thick liquid.
He cut off the descending capsule with one hand, the other frantically indicating for the other robot to hold Slash off. Whirling, no concern for itself, the thing obliged. Slash made a face at the thing somewhere between distaste and wrinkling his nose. That thing wanted to ruin his fun and he hadn't had enough.
The bioroid's eyes twisted at the sound of an opening door, settling with sadistic glee on Roll. She stood, trembling, feeling irreparably small under his gaze, unable to move. The dying scream pulled her inside the lab and the predator's smile held her hostage. She couldn't even make a sound as he bolted toward her, a roaring stream of points and blood.
Air rushed around her face as Slash came to a stop a mere centimeter from her, maniacal grin on his face, madness in his eyes. Playfully, he snapped, teeth barely grazing the tip of her nose and Roll jerked back, falling over unstable knees and watching him standing over her as she trembled in his dominance. He just smiled that same deadly smile and let the automaton reign him once more.
Slash walked back to his capsule, ducking beneath it and allowed the fluid to swirl around his ankles. He didn't fight the chemicals filling his body, didn't gag when the liquid filled his throat and the pressured built against his nostrils, ears and eyes. He just stood there, giving Dr. Light that maddening smile and the man knew that he was only keeping the Robot Master until he decided he wanted to leave.
Shuddering, Light went to help his little daughter to her feet, hustling her quickly out of the room and away from those fiery gold eyes. Only dimly he realized that not one of the other Robot Masters had made a sound the entire time.
by Lady Virgo
"Do not let
fear
Control
your life."
///
So. He was the only one to mourn the passing. Oh well, how could you expect anything else? The world feared him, hated him for the fear he induced. And he fed off it, like some sort of parasite or psychotic maniac.
Not saying that he /wasn't/- no. Stop it. That's your friend, you're not supposed to think that about your friends.
Than again, friends don't try to attack you or kidnap your daughter.
Cossack sighed at his old friend's grave. It was hardly a proper burial. Just sort of shoved the body- and its bits -into an iron... crate (didn't much resemble a coffin from the pictures in the news). The people dug a large hole in the ground, threw in the crate and without any pause for formalities- with the exception of a couple jesters singing "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead- Old Coot Mix" -filled the hole with cement. There was no marker on the paved ellipse, just flat nothing.
That wasn't how Alfred wanted to be buried, Cossack thought. He didn't want to be forgotten or ignored, he hated that. He came from nothing, he refused to return to nothing. So many years of neglect and then suddenly plunged into the center of attention for his genius made him eccentric, vigorous, craving for attention as if to make up all that he had never received.
Maybe he'd get someone to make a small statue for the cold grave. Just something to remind everyone of the history they had lived through, the history he had created and the legacy Cossack refused to forget- refused to let /them/ forget. So Wily /could/ live on as an infamous memory.
He turned to walk back to the car, Kalinka waiting patiently, but irritably for her father. She loathed the idea of anyone paying respects to the man who threatened both her and her father's lives and stole away her childhood playmates to use as tools of war.
But... what Cossack couldn't understand was: where was Thomas? What was he doing to keep him from saying farewell to his best friend and only enemy?
///
Dive roared uselessly against his bonds. Tiny automatons merely whirled as they reigned him. It had been easy bringing him in- easier than some of the Robot Master's contemporaries. Dr. Light had traced his signal to an alley where the large bioroid rested, still soaked in the blood of the neighborhood. After that, it was just a matter of stunning him and opening up circuits that allowed the automatons to forcibly drag him to Light's lab.
Using reverse polarization on the live circuits created an electrical field and- with little tweaks –could form a sort of 'lasso', connecting the Robot Master to the tiny droids, as well as rendering the limbs the electronics controlled useless. The beauty, Thomas had found soon after the restraint's discovery, was not only did it bind the Robot Master quite nicely, the more they struggled, the stronger the bind became and the more energy the bioroid lost.
Calmly, as if he wasn't being followed by a screaming, murderous robot, he led the way to an open, circular base. The automatons manipulated the unco-operating robot to the center as Dr. Light tapped on a nearby control panel. Hissing from the ceiling, a clear capsule descended around the Robot Master, cutting off the connection between him and the droids. With a snarl, Dive lunged at the sides, trying to burst his way out, the only things in his mind was destruction and the feel of blood between his fingers.
The top of the capsule- a good meter above Dive's head –opened, a thick liquid pouring down the side, cascading around him and distorting his panicked form. It had a copper-esque hue to it, rich in nitrous oxide. Once it filled the tank, the Robot Master would be forced to inhale it, or wait until it seeped through his pores. Either way, it would counteract the Surge and sedate him. Even if the liquid didn't knock him out- as it did most bioroids that inhaled it straight –it would make him docile enough to allow the doctor to insert sedative carrying cables into his body and place a breathing mask on him. Though it would allow him to breath and talk normally without the liquid getting into his lungs, it would also regulate the level of adrenaline inside of him.
The sounds of thrashing subsided in the capsule, Dive resting heavily against the side, unconscious, feet a bare presence on the base. Dr. Light let out an aged sigh. He turned to look at the other Robot Masters- six all together, he thought sadly –and walked out. The automatons whirled back to their corners until they were further needed. He sighed again, leaving the lab amongst the muffled jeering, curses and insults from the other capsules.
///
She wasn't there, but she could still hear it. She thought it was unfair in a way.
This happened on almost a daily basis, ever since her father had gotten that strange e-mail. She could still remember it, the strange look in his eyes as he called them to his office. There were plans on the screen, she could see, but couldn't make them out.
He had told them that the government wanted them to be destroyed. Rock, Roll, Rush, Auto, Beat, Tango. All of them. Roll tried not to gasp, tried not to tremble at the thought of being killed, just because of some madman's obsession with vengeance- or something of the like, she never understood. Rock though, he just hung his head and said nothing.
The humans that he had fought so valiantly for, risked his life for, wanted him dead.
He tried to hide his misted eyes from his father and sister, but she didn't need to see them. She knew they were there. She wondered if she could hate people for that pain they cased him. Hate them because they didn't care that he felt that pain.
"But," Dr. Light said, putting a hand on Roll's shoulder, "there's another way."
And he told them. Told them about the plans he had gotten, told them about Wily's last robot- a reploid, it was called –that was buried somewhere in the wreckage of his fortress. He told him about the creature he was creating, basing off those plans. Told them what would happen to Rock, that he would no longer be the same robot. He told them he would move Roll back to her first body (less advanced and smaller than the upgrade she had grown fond of- she didn't like the idea of being in the body of what looked like a ten year-old) and he would destroy the two shells and hand over the remains as 'proof of their demise'.
"But.... The others....." Rock looked as if he were about to cry.
Dr. Light shook his head. "I don't have a place to hide them. I don't have anywhere to put their minds."
"Y-You're going to kill them?" Roll was aghast, mind unable to wrap around the idea.
"I have to. There's no other way."
Roll wanted to flee the room, but her legs didn't have the strength. Instead, she folded to the floor, crying at the thought of loosing her family and Rock bowed his head, weeping quietly.
She didn't say anything after she was moved back into the smaller body. She didn't say anything when Rock was moved to his new brain, didn't say anything when their old bodies were destroyed along with their family's. She didn't say anything when Dr. Light began constructing the new body, seeing a skeleton of what was to be her brother.
She didn't think she could ever think of him as 'Rock'. Her father seemed to agree, calling this his last creation, calling it 'Project X'. He had already gotten into the habit of calling the wire-frame body that. Roll didn't even want to think about it. She didn't want it to live. She just wanted her family back.
Three days later, the first Robot Master came in. The next day, two more, then one for each day following. She didn't ask how he got them, or what he was going to do with them. She didn't want to get near them unless she had to, but she could still hear them and that was probably the worst part.
Their cries would still ring in her ears and she couldn't get the screaming to stop. Barely two weeks- two /weeks/ passed Wily's death and the Robot Masters' sudden, vicious drop to an uncontrollable madness and Roll wished she was dead already. Not murdered or killed, or even really dead. Just... not here to hear those screams and echoes in her head. Just not there, like Rock wasn't.
Slowly- because it was the only thing she had –she cleaned, sweeping the already immaculate floor. She couldn't go to the main house for fear of being seen and she wouldn't go near the labs. All she had was her room and the halls.
It hurt too much. It was far too sad. But her tears were dried out, she told herself.
But the tears always came back and she never tried to stop them.
///
The lights dimmed, then flickered. Scowling from his desk, Dr. Light looked around. "What the....?"
There was a hum. Pleasant, mechanical and entirely too pleased with himself.
"[Hello, doctor.]" The walls echoed at him. Light jumped.
"Who.....?"
"[Surprised? You weren't the only one.]" The voice chuckled at him, sounding painfully familiar. "[Still don't get it?]"
"Elec...." The old man's eyes darted about, trying to pinpoint the robot.
"[You can't see me so don't even try to.]"
"Where are you?"
"[Guess.]" His voice held the same odd-set humor the blonde bioroid was beginning to develop before he was stolen. "[You're a smart man. Where could I be that I can talk to you and see you in an enclosed room with no surveillance gear?]"
It was then he noticed the echo. "In the wall?"
"[Close. My voice is coming through the intercom. I can see you from your computer screen. I live in the very wires, where I truly rule.]"
The wires? He's part of the data flow? "And how did you get there?"
There was a chuckle from a mounted speaker. "[I don't really know, myself. One minute I was reading a book, the next I was tearing out someone's throat. And now I'm here. I'd like to see where I end up next, but I'm surprisingly more coherent now than I was two days ago.]" There was a grin in his voice. "[So I decided to see what your reaction to your dear friend's parting gift would be.]"
Light frowned, not certain where this conversation was going.
"[So this is your plan, is it? Sit around, gathering Robot Masters like collectibles?]"
"What else am I supposed to do? Let them go around killing people? Have them kill each other until none of them are left?"
"[You let your own creations die.]"
Dr. Light frowned. "I had no choice."
"[You did. You just didn't want to take it.]"
"If I disobeyed, they would've been taken from me! They would've killed all of them!"
He had the impression that Elec was twirling in his microcosm. "[And you wouldn't be able to steal Dr. Wily's ideas.]"
"I am not stealing them!"
"[You're dissecting them. The ones you've captured. You're trying to figure out how they tick because they're far more advanced than any of your designs.]" There was a light note in Elec's voice. "[And you're using the plans for that reploid. It's a good thing you can't get to any of his other ideas.]"
Dim eyes narrowed at that. "What do you know of his ideas?"
"[Because I have all his plans~!]" He practically sang. "[I've gathered all his blueprints, all his plans and I'm keeping them for myself, locked away in my 'head'. There's no other place that has them, no other person that knows them.]"
"What are they?"
"[As if I'd give them to you.]"
"Why not? Are you that loyal to Wily? After everything he's done to you."
"[And I should be loyal to you, is that it?]" There was an audible scowl in his voice. "[After all, you did so much more for us. You sent Rock out to kill us, after all.]"
"It was for the best."
"[Bullshit!]" Elec snapped. Several bulbs exploded somewhere. "[You didn't do anything for us! You didn't help us, you didn't save us; you let Rock fight and that was all! You condemned us to a monster- whose only thought was to create more monsters. You're no better than Wily, with all his thoughts for the 'bettering of the human race'. Thinking that the ones to make those decisions should sit back and let those that won't even have a part in a future they'd slave for take your abuse willingly. /That's/ why Wily was killed by his own creations! That's why you took Rock's mind apart and put only the bits /you/ cared about inside that new creature! No, I'll keep these secrets locked away. Until someone will use them with an honest purpose in mind. I don't care, so long as there's no more lies or double-edged words.]"
Light narrowed his eyes. "I don't think you're in the best frame of mind to make that decision."
"[And what frame of mind would you prefer me to be in? Yours?]"
"So if someone said they wanted those plans for world domination, straight off the bat.....?"
"[At least they're honest. You can trust someone that says things so straightforward, you know where you stand with people like that. If someone tried to claim some moral obligation to rule the world without saying they'd rule it- those are the ones you have to look out for. After all]," the voice grinned, "[look at Albert.]"
"You....!"
"[You don't need to worry. All of his most advanced ideas have never been created. The Stardroids and their fusions have been destroyed. The reploids are securely hidden. And the prototype beast and its brethren have been disposed of. That's all you need to worry about.]"
"And I don't need to worry about you?"
"[I exist only in these cables now. I have no need for anything material and commanding others was never one of the high points in my life. I don't need them, but I need a false-faced ruler even less.]"
"Even if you do keep that as a promise, even something like you can't exist like that forever."
"[I'll deteriorate, I know. I'm hoping I will, but I can keep these until someone appropriate comes along. And then, I'll die- a mindless stream of electricity, lost and merged with all the rest. But that's fine. Because, by all rights, the one thing I lived for had already been killed.]" The lights dimmed and Elec's voice was moving far away. "[And by extension, I'm already dead.]"
///
He should have known something was wrong from the very beginning. From the moment he was capture, Light should have known that he was planning something.
It was far too easy. Being jumped by the automatons, being rendered defenseless, walking quietly to the lab. Barely a struggle, not more than a snarl at the beginning.
Slash was designed to be as much a killing machine as anything else, it was the only thing he was programmed to do. No secondary purpose, just claws and fangs and the want to rip into something. And yet, he was obediently following the tiny robots with scarcely a frown.
Dr. Light couldn't help a cold shiver, standing by the panel as the automatons maneuvered the compliant Robot Master into place. Gold-brown eyes flickered upward briefly at the sound of the capsule beginning its descent around him. The tinted sides lowered around his face and he gave Light a grin of teeth. The sides cut off the restraints between him and the little robots.
The old man barely had time to widen his eyes before he realized Slash was no longer under the capsule.
One of the automatons screeched like a taunt violin string, nails running up the strains and squealing and dying and violently being plucked until it broke. Even without the use of his arms, Slash howled in pleasure, smashing the thing with his feet and knees and tearing at the vulnerable wiring with his teeth. Fluids splashed against him, lighting up his eyes and turning his dark skin darker and coating his hair in thick liquid.
He cut off the descending capsule with one hand, the other frantically indicating for the other robot to hold Slash off. Whirling, no concern for itself, the thing obliged. Slash made a face at the thing somewhere between distaste and wrinkling his nose. That thing wanted to ruin his fun and he hadn't had enough.
The bioroid's eyes twisted at the sound of an opening door, settling with sadistic glee on Roll. She stood, trembling, feeling irreparably small under his gaze, unable to move. The dying scream pulled her inside the lab and the predator's smile held her hostage. She couldn't even make a sound as he bolted toward her, a roaring stream of points and blood.
Air rushed around her face as Slash came to a stop a mere centimeter from her, maniacal grin on his face, madness in his eyes. Playfully, he snapped, teeth barely grazing the tip of her nose and Roll jerked back, falling over unstable knees and watching him standing over her as she trembled in his dominance. He just smiled that same deadly smile and let the automaton reign him once more.
Slash walked back to his capsule, ducking beneath it and allowed the fluid to swirl around his ankles. He didn't fight the chemicals filling his body, didn't gag when the liquid filled his throat and the pressured built against his nostrils, ears and eyes. He just stood there, giving Dr. Light that maddening smile and the man knew that he was only keeping the Robot Master until he decided he wanted to leave.
Shuddering, Light went to help his little daughter to her feet, hustling her quickly out of the room and away from those fiery gold eyes. Only dimly he realized that not one of the other Robot Masters had made a sound the entire time.