Mad parody of everyone else's fanfics. I'm sorry.
R&R or bad things will happen.
Tee hee hee.
I mean, Trinity Blood does not belong to me.
Tres Iqus, the AX's friendly resident cyborg, was attempting to hold as still as his mechanical body would allow, while manoeuvring to peer over the top of the large, rigid, and in his opinion completely pointless 1 red hat in his arms. It was something he'd puzzled over for the past six years of reporting in Cardinal Caterina Sforza's office: was the Vatican too poor to buy her a hat-stand?
"So, Tres, I hear William's updated your operating system! How has it been, hm, these few days? I suppose you've spent the past few days getting accustomed to the new.. program?"
Tres' internal virtual hourglass icon flipped over in midair slowly. He felt so much more uncertain nowadays, with the new system. Professor William Wordsworth, with a slightly manic grin, had informed him after the upgrade had been performed that it had included his newly developed patch for Simulated Emotions, which would have helped if Tres Iqus had actual facial muscles.
Also, Cardinal Caterina Sforza was unusually self-conscious today. In the six or so years he had been acquainted with her, she had so far only performed actions like Blushing and Looking Coy in the presence of Father Abel Nightroad, until Father Abel Nightroad had made it clear that, to quote Father Abel Nightroad 2 precisely, had "No interest in her. At all, Whatsoever. Will my sugar cube allowance be docked for this?"
Tres blinked.
"Positive. I have reprocessed collated information to reach new conclusions about the past and potential actions of some of the prominent terrorist group the Rozen Kreuz Orden, as well as –"
"Oh, no, you silly!" Cardinal Caterina Sforza giggled uncharacteristically. Tres considered requesting a status report, as she seemed to be suffering from some dangerous and unprecedented disease that might be a ploy by one of the members of the Rozen Kreuz Orden to undermine the AX's actions. Or at least drunk. He decided against it.
"I'm talking about, well, I heard William's new patch included some programming for, well, Love."
"..Positive," said Tres, to fill the expectant pause.
"And, hm, I expect you need some guidance on the subject! Considering this is your first time, er.. experiencing it? Well," she went on without waiting for an answer, "Generally when you're together with someone for long periods of time, you begin to feel a sort of dedication to them, yes? Well, I advise you to confess your feelings for them once you find out that this is so. Hesitation will only bring frustration and pain, no? So, Tres, after almost seven years of being under my leadership, is there anything you'd like to tell me?"
Tres leaned backward and raised the hat defensively. Cardinal Caterina was almost falling off her chair leaning toward him.
"That I do, Cardinal Caterina Sforza. I suspect that I –" The grin on her face was most unsettling, and there was a small smear of lipstick on her upper teeth.
"Go, on, Tres," she breathed.
"Um. I suspect that I have developed an infatuation with Father Abel Nightroad, and by the advice you just provided, I will inform him of this occurrence immediately." He stood, noting that Caterina's eyes were still fixed on the spot he had been, though the pupils had suddenly contracted to an alarmingly small diameter. In fact, he doubted that she were even breathing. How strange.
"If you do not take action immediately, Cardinal Caterina Sforza, you will slide off the armchair in three minutes and twenty five seconds, and the subsequent reapplication of your makeup will cause you to arrive for the meeting of Vatican authorities late."
She didn't move. Tres decided, upon consideration, to wedge her hat under her chin, which would increase the time taken for her to fall off the chair by at least sixty seconds, and possibly prevent her face hitting the carpeted floor, leaving a Cardinal-Caterina-face-coloured stain.
The door shut with a click behind him. Caterina's right eye twitched.
In a café somewhere in the city of Rome, Ion Fortuna huddled in an oversized black cloak under a large black umbrella on the roof, wondering if the water in the gutter running past his left foot was toxic and watching Queen Esther Blanchett hit Abel Nightroad with her sceptre, while yelling "That was my brand-new skirt with real Smurovski crystals, you moron, and you HAD to sneeze and now there's a huge tea stain on it! And even SMELLING it is giving me diabetes, you're a more effective assassin than anyone who actually TRIES to be –"
Ion grinned. And inched away from the drainage.
1 Pointless having several meanings, all of them applying. 'Humour function active at 55,' Tres noted under the new Emotions patch, and also initiated a calculation for the probability of Cardinal Caterina Sforza's hat, while completely blunt, being able to replace her tongue or stares as a potential weapon injurious to the general populace. In fact, there had been an incident where Cardinal Caterina had knocked out an assistant sent to help her down from the podium after making a speech representing the Catholic Church, though other witnesses claimed he'd been smacked unconscious by her heavy-duty, money-back-guaranteed curls.
2 Unfortunately, to everyone's frustration, Professor William Wordsworth had neglected to install a system by which Tres was forced to refrain from repeating everyone's full name when he referred to them. They were now completely convinced that the man was a complete masochist.
