Disclaimer: I don't own Super Smash Brothers: Brawl or any of the characters, and this piece of fanfiction is for the sole purpose of entertainment.

Pairing: IkeMarth
Genre: sci-fi, angst
Rating: PG
Words: 2118

A/N: I have a lot of reservations about posting this story because it's very much experimental writing for me. I've never written anything to do with science fiction before; hell, I'd never even written anything that wasn't an AU based in reality prior to this. I started this piece in October 2013, so technically it's the very first IkeMarth story I've ever written (albeit never completed). I put it on hiatus because I felt like it had somehow gotten too boring and technical, to that point that even my interest had waned. But I'm trying once more because I really am fond of this premise, even if I don't think I can do it justice.

This was originally written in past tense, but I found myself constantly struggling to keep it from lapsing into present tense as I wrote. After much thought (and work, ugh), I decided to rewrite the piece in present tense where appropriate. I would sincerely appreciate any feedback on whether present tense actually works out here because I'm unsure whether this was the best decision.

Dedicated to SSBBSwords/LilPurplFlwr, who singlehandedly dragged me headfirst into this fandom. I am a huge fan of her "Speculative Impromptu" collection and this is my little homage to that.

Prototype 547B
Chapter 1: One of a Kind

He is Prototype 547B, the newest in ever-emerging emotional technology. He doesn't just mimic facial expressions to play at emotions; no, he actually feels them. He is no longer simply artificial intelligence—he is artificial humanity. He is marketed as the ideal companion, programmable to a variety of presets to suit the needs of the consumer. His standard model is that of a young adult male, automatically programmed to the "Friend" setting. However, his chassis is completely interchangeable and he has settings ranging from "Child" to "Teacher" to "Lover" to "Grandfather." If he is has a successful product launch, they will introduce a female equivalent for his prototype. They've given him the name "Marth" for his product advertising.

Although having the latest and greatest in EmotionGraphing is supposedly his most marketable asset, Marth considers it his biggest flaw. He is, after all, the only Prototype 547B to ever be manufactured; the only one of his kind to suffer the misfortune to actually feel his loneliness. When he is shut down for routine circuitry maintenance, he considers it a blessing. Because, for that infinitesimal moment, he no longer exists; and because he doesn't exist, neither do his emotions. It never lasts long enough, though. And after what feels to him like just a split second, though usually hours or even days have passed, his power strip is enabled and he reboots himself automatically, integrating the new code they have written for him and cursing when he realizes they have found yet another emotion for him to suffer.

He didn't always feel this crippling loneliness. When he was first being tested, they only programmed him to experience happiness. Those early days were wonderful. He didn't yet have an ambulatory chassis nor did he have the standard protocol IntelliGenX software, so all he did was sit immobile on his designated lab table, myriad wires hooking him to computer upon computer, each with a diligent programmer seated in front of it and furiously working away. They gave him cognition and a standard vocabulary, of course; he had to be cognizant to interpret his happiness (if the software indeed worked) and verbalize the appropriate responses. But aside from that, the only standard AI software downloaded onto his mainframe was the ability to store memory packets. No moral compass, no critical thinking, no self-awareness regarding his purpose in the world. All he was aware of was an overwhelming existence of elation, pleasant beyond reason, and that he instinctively knew in his circuitry that this—this was happiness, and he was happy, and it was the most amazing and wondrous thing to ever happen to any sentient creature, organic or inorganic, in all of time. Whenever they executed the program for happiness, he wanted a chassis if only to be able to express what he was feeling. He knew that he wanted to smile and laugh and whistle and sing, but he had neither voice box nor face, only the ability to send back text-based messages in Standard English to the programmers to let them know that, yes, their code worked exactly as intended.

The beginning of his life, so to speak, was spent on that lab table as the programmers tried out their various EmotionGraphing protocols and awaited his feedback. Their first priority was to ensure he could feel "positive" emotions: happiness, amusement, satisfaction, loyalty, protectiveness. One by one, they spent months perfecting each protocol until his responses indicated that he felt the genuine, human emotion and not a pale facsimile. When they deemed that he had proverbially mastered the positive emotions (seeing as no actual skill was required for his mainframe to process the programs), they next moved onto the "negative" emotions in order to round him out. After all, a companion AI with only the capacity to experience and relate pleasant emotions would be one-dimensional and fall flat of its own marketing promise. If that were the case, he would be no better than the previous models that merely emulated emotional expression.

The first "negative" emotion they gave him was anger. The moment the program was installed and executed, he was overcome with an urgency he had never experienced before: it made him want to strike something, to hurt something, to just let out all the pent up energy because he was burning inside with it, so much that it felt like his metal insides would just melt from it. He couldn't even send back his text-based description of the emotion for over five minutes because he was just so full of rage, he could scarcely think despite his superior mental processing power. The programmers were about to terminate the protocol as a failure when he finally managed to send his message.

Just like the "positive" emotions, each "negative" emotion required months to perfect the protocol. Now that he had the full-range of human emotions, he could safely say that he loathed every, single moment for these testing periods. Forced to feel such extreme and unrewarding emotions as anger, sadness, and panic, which only last momentarily in humans in comparison, for months on end without any ebbing intensity—it was simply unbearable. Every day, he begged the programmers to make it stop. Every day, they told him that was impossible until they patch all the bugs and refine the software. Unfortunately for him, the software didn't allow for him to acclimate to the emotions and dull them mentally; they needed to maintain the highest intensity to see whether their coding changes had the desired effect.

After the protocols for "negative" emotions were finalized, the next step was to program "complex" emotional protocols for him: either compounds of "positive" and "negative" emotions, or entirely new emotions that could only be experienced after a basic emotion was understood. First they tested relief (required an unpleasant, "negative" emotional experience prior to engaging the satisfaction and/or happiness protocol). He supposed that that was compassionate of them to allow him to feel relief first after endless months of torment during the "negative" testing phase. He thanked them for making it stop almost every single day. Relief, unsurprisingly, had the shortest testing time, considering he almost instinctively felt it.

They created protocols for every single human emotion they could possibly think of. The "complex" emotions were obviously more difficult to code, as they required multiple program executions based on whether specific conditions were met. Some were simple progressions from one protocol to the next with adjusted run-times: regret (primary protocol: happiness, secondary protocol: disappointment, run-time: secondary x2 duration of primary). Many of them required modifications to already existing primary emotion protocols: pride (compound protocol: protectiveness and satisfaction, target: self, alternate target: consumer, run-time: equal for both protocols). Most emotions fell under the latter category: resentment, jealously, boredom, apathy, embarrassment, shame, anxiety. And so many more. He never failed to be surprised when they came up with an entirely new complex protocol, even though he should know better based on history, thanks to the latest version of IntelliGenX. But maybe that surprise was also programmed into him.

Loneliness (primary protocol: satisfaction, targets: self and consumer, in absence of both directed targets run secondary protocol: sadness, modification: loss, run-time: secondary to run infinitely until primary directed targets are satisfied) was the last protocol they had given him. He had been actively testing this protocol for the last three months with modifications. They had originally designated the EmotionGraphing program director as "consumer" in the test code, and whenever the director came into the lab to check on progress, he was filled with satisfaction and the happiness that comes from finally getting what you have been longing for; what was missing all along. But unfortunately, the director could never stay long and she was seldom required to oversee her programmers in person. So they made adjustments to the protocol and changed the consumer target to "other," which was particular wonderful for him because he was constantly surrounded by his programmers during the working day. But when everyone clocked out and he was left alone once more in the dark, the loneliness was overwhelming; as if it had built up during his pleasant daytime hours and now he had to pay the debt. They had instructed him to document his feelings at night when they were gone so they had data to analyze in the morning. He wrote pages and pages upon descriptions. Like a typical brooding teenager, he journaled about how alone he felt in the world and his plight as the only AI in existence to actually feel human emotions, and what a curse it was. Then he felt ashamed for writing down such drivel. There was just no winning.

The current modifications they are testing on the loneliness protocol cause him to feel lonely even in the presence of company. The protocol is not set to switch to satisfaction unless the target is actually communicating with Marth or otherwise acknowledging him. So for the majority of his time nowadays, he feels stiflingly lonely. During a typical day, he has no one to interact with most of the time because the programmers can't just socialize with him; they actually have to work. The programmers only communicate with him when they need to gauge the effect of code changes. And those interactions? They're paltry and don't quite satisfy the requirements to trigger the satisfaction protocol.

Even though loneliness is the last emotion they have given him for a long time, it was only meant to be the penultimate protocol. Love is supposed to be the final emotion, but they haven't yet perfected it. And for obvious reasons, because how could you capture something as profound as love with numbers and code and unfeeling circuitry? He often wonders about these things to himself, running all through the night with nothing but his circular thoughts and unwelcome feelings to keep him company.

He's supposed to have different personality presets, but they all hinge on the completion of a successful love protocol, which is the biggest obstacle currently. So far, they have yet to even come close to the mark. He will be a rather broken product if the best he can offer on the "Lover" setting is simple happiness or attachment, with no variation whatsoever between that and his "Father" setting, for example. So instead, the programmers keep uploading minor adjustments and patches to try and ensure that he has the appropriate emotional responses as would an organic human being—everything from waning anger to increasing restlessness, so that he displays the complete range of human expression rather than an odd caricature of only vivid intensity.

He is, as of yet, an unfinished product. As the programmers and engineers continue to struggle with even writing a mediocre love protocol, he's left to wander aimlessly around the laboratory at night, an incomplete work with no one to keep him company. He's tired of running through the night. He knows that organic humans power down at night in a process called sleep, when their data is defragmented and they execute repair runtimes. He has asked the programmers if they would let him "sleep" at night by shutting him down. Unfortunately for him, he's been denied. Apparently both his hardware and software are more sophisticated than the organic humans he's supposed to emulate, so he only needs monthly servicing. And they need data to analyze in the daytime.

So he wanders. He sits at their desks and stares into the dark screens as if they could enlighten him to the reason why he can't adapt to the loneliness, despite actively testing adaptability and intensity modulations. Most nights, he wonders whether he'll end up as yet another failed project; whether he will wind up, eternally powered down and collecting dust, in the storage facilities below where all the previous prototypes have been laid to rest. He realizes this is a morbid thought, but it strangely comforts him as well—because when he's been retired, there will be no more feelings. No more loneliness.

But then some days, he dares to hope that he won't have to feel like this forever; that the people of HumAIn Solutions, Inc. will successfully complete their work and he will enter into the final stages of his product testing. That he'll have months on end to test this mythical love, this emotion that even organic humans can't describe, and everything that he has experienced up to this point will finally have meaning. Because everything will finally be worth it—to feel and give love freely, and accomplish the ultimate achievement (or so he's programmed to think) for all human beings.

But that day hasn't come yet, so he continues to feel unbearably lonely.

-tbc-

A/N: Yes, I know there is a disturbing lack of Ike in this IkeMarth fic, but he's coming next chapter, I promise. I just… apparently had to get incredibly boring to preface the actual story.