(Hey guys! This is a 'Vampire of Veldin' one-shot I did to celebrate hitting 20 reviews, and you guys deserve a little backstory . . . or maybe a few-years-later story, depending on which part you consider the beginning. If you've not read The Vampire of Veldin before, relax — this piece still stands on its own. Just sit back and enjoy! - J)
The door slid open with a pop and hiss, as polished heels clicked on the surface and the atmosphere in the area quickly switched to one of tension.
"What's this?" Gleeman spoke up as he walked into Ace Hardlight's containment suite, where Ace was sitting at a table with a small collection of packages and letters.
"Just the weekly shipment." Ace remarked, looking over his small mail pile. "You know I'm allowed to get those."
Vox held up a slip, a perturbed look on his face. "You know those parcels got picked up before the Mail department had a chance to scan it. You could get yourself vaporized opening one of those if they haven't been checked!"
"Oh, yeah, like I don't risk life and limb as is on your show. Opening this little hologram disc is going to send an Arbiter round into my face and- WOAH!"
"DAMMIT!" Gleeman hissed, running as the hologram flashed to life, startling Ace and causing him to drop it. Ace backed away from the table as Gleeman caught up with him. "See? Don't fool yourself for a minute, boy, we've got enemies out there — there's more people after your head than Captain Starshield!"
The hologram calmed down, showing two lanky, slinky robot girls, one short with humongous pigtails, and the other with a too-tall build to her form, her hand wrapped around a microphone stand. Both of the girls looked to be wearing clothing entirely too tight and transparent for their own good, with making-love-to-the-camera looks in their eyes.
The girls waved, blowing kisses, and Ace grinned. "Aw, look . . . fan mail!"
"Yeah, well, you're not supposed to receive holographic communiqués." Vox hissed. "That circuitry is the same stuff they use on C4 explosives."
Ace shrugged. "This one looks safe enough."
"Hey there, Ace-baby!" The little one cooed, giggling. "My friend and I were just reviewing this season so far, and we couldn't help but notice just how much you were s-s-smokin'!"
"Oh, Goddess, I could spring a leak right here just thinking about it!" the tall robot moaned, pressing herself against the microphone stand. "I mean, Ace, we've got to get you out here sometime . . . you don't know just what we could do with you . . ."
"Shame I'm not that much into robots . . ." Ace chuckled, stroking his goatee.
Vox rolled his eyes. "For what it's worth, at this point I'm just here waiting to see if they start showing motherboards."
"Oh, girl, be careful what you say, now . . ." The little one remarked. "He might have company!"
"Aw, he knows I've got his best interests at heart . . ." The tall one giggled. "Speaking of which, Ace, I just have to do this for you. I realize it's an old song, and I realize you're a bit more into that whole heavy-metal set, but this one went with my voice just right, and I think you'll agree . . ."
The robot started testing her microphone stand, and Gleeman rolled his eyes. "Disgusting, she's one of those fans . . . enjoy your amateur hour, Ace. I'm out of here."
"Suit yourself." Ace shook his head, leaning back to enjoy his little taste of fan service.
Vox was halfway out of the containment suite when the recording started singing. "No . . . don't just walk away . . . pretending everything's okay . . . and you don't care about me . . ."
Gleeman stopped in his tracks, blinking. That voice . . . there was no way . . . he saw her die, damn it!
"And I know, it's just no use . . ." The tall robot continued singing as Gleeman turned around, watching in disbelief. "When all your lies become your truths and I don't care . . . yeah . . . yeah . . . yea-ah . . ."
"Kill it!" Vox hissed, enraged.
"Chill, it's just some fans." Ace remarked.
The recording continued unabated, the holographic robots moving in time as they performed. "Could you look me in the eye . . . and tell me that you're happy now . . . would you tell it to my face, or have I been erased . . .?" The tall robot continued singing, her torso against the microphone stand, cradling it like a lover.
Gleeman blinked again as he watched the tall robot flick her head back, in a move that struck him as entirely too familiar. "Are you happy now? . . . are you happy now?"
"STOP!" Gleeman barked, running over to pause the scene. "I'm not listening to any more of this!"
"What's gotten into you?" Ace queried, slightly offended after being snapped out of the momentary groove of the song.
Gleeman snarled, his face contorted. "This . . . this is an obvious affront . . . a slap in the face of everything I have worked for! That little bitch and my-!"
"Woah . . . Vox, calm down." Ace replied. "You're not thinking straight here."
"What? You can tell as well as I can! She's gone and-!"
Ace held up a hand in front of Vox's face, trying to calm him down. "Shh . . . now relax. You're clearly too stressed out."
Gleeman seethed, then dropped his shoulders and took a seat in a nearby sofa. "It can't be . . . it just can't . . ."
Ace Hardlight walked over to sit by him, placing an arm behind Vox. "You're absolutely right. It can't be her. Or either of those girls, for that matter. You know it as well as I do."
"But the voice, the neck . . . the chords!" Vox spat.
"It's a pair of robots." Ace shot back.
"It's a hologram! They could have made themselves look like Tyrranhoids for all it matters!" Gleeman growled. "It all fits, it all matches!"
"It doesn't matter." Ace replied. "It can't matter, because they're dead. We know they're dead. We saw them die."
Vox snorted. "You can't trust that."
"Sure you can." Ace spoke, leaning in. "Look, we saw it in high detail. She died in front of a live audience of a hundred thousand, with millions if not billions watching on holovision. The only thing even surrounding her were the cameras. You can't just 'fake' disintegration like that."
"Maybe . . ." Vox muttered, still not buying this.
Ace rolled his eyes just a bit. "And the other one . . . hell, HER, you killed her yourself! Just like that. No mercy. No quarter. If she was still alive at the end of that, you of all people would have known it." Ace smirked. "And I don't think any of us needed to question that, even if we wanted to. You remember it well yourself still, I bet . . ."
"Yeah . . ." Vox remarked. "It felt good watching her bleed out . . . seeing how her little eyes glossed over . . ."
Ace nodded but winced, not willing to dwell on that mental image much longer. "See? You know they're dead just as well as I do. So there's no way they could be behind this."
"But the recording-!" Gleeman exclaimed as he stood up, looking at the frozen scene. "How do you explain that?"
"I'm sure it's just a coincidence of some kind." Ace picked himself up as well, examining the hologram. "At worst, some fan recorded her actually singing this a few years ago, decided to use it in their message to me, and spliced it in."
"Why would anyone do that?" Vox retorted.
"Lip-synching." Ace shrugged. "Come on, a good voice is hard to come by. You know fans do some crazy stuff sometimes, but they mean well."
Vox had this look on his face like he wasn't swallowing all of it. "I suppose . . . you sure about this?"
"Yeah, sure . . . But that's just speculation. I bet she doesn't even sound right once you pay attention. You probably just got stressed out and made that leap yourself." Ace smirked, unpausing the hologram.
"You took all there was to take . . . and left me with an empty plate, and you don't care about it . . ." The singer continued, unabated, still singing in that voice that seemed to hit Vox's ears in all the wrong ways. "I am giving up this game . . . and leaving you with all the blame 'cause I don't care . . . yeah, yea-ah . . ."
Vox just gritted with the teeth as she went on, singing her chorus again, becoming less convinced with each second. "I just can't shake it . . ."
"You're just too focused on her right now." Ace remarked off-handedly.
"How come you're not hearing it? I thought you, of all people . . ."
"It's been a while. It could be. It might not. There's not a great way to tell with audio. And even if it is, that hardly means they sent it or that they're even still alive." He replied. "Besides, I'm not about to be able to recognize them as well as you would her."
"That doesn't make me feel better." Vox hissed. "I won't stand for this."
Ace shook his head. "It's nothing, I keep telling you."
"Then I've wasted enough time here listening to nothing!" Gleeman erupted, storming off. "Mark my words, Ace, there better not be any more 'nothings' or else next time I won't chalk it up to coincidence!"
The music continued, unabated, as Gleeman left the suite. Ace sighed, before turning back to his fan recording, just shaking his head. Whether Gleeman believed his own reasoning or not, allowing him to think that this was anything more than a little bit of 'fan service' could easily set off more trouble than Ace wanted to deal with, personally. At best, Vox would waste all his resources on this rather than the show if he went on a wild goose chase after some girls who no longer even existed, grasping at mere wisps of ghosts.
At worst . . .
"Could you look me in the eye, and tell me that you're happy now . . . come on, tell it to my face, or have I been replaced?" She sang on, keeping her voice up, her body still moving with her friend's as their performance went on, oblivious and unaware to any changes in their 'audience'.
Ace swayed to it a little, letting the thoughts sink in. Even if they were still out there — that by some chance they had somehow managed not to die after all, or had themselves resurrected, or some other strange explanation — they clearly weren't looking to come back here. What if Vox was right? What if he actually tracked them down and found them? Would they even be the same girls they were when they supposedly died? Granted, it felt more like a mutual suicide than a true 'Extermination', but even so . . . what would Vox do to them? Would he demand they return to action? Clap the collars back on, lock them down, force them to start all over? Would he ask Ace to finish them off, properly, permanently, for all the galaxy to see?
Would he consider allowing them to compete 'too good' for them?
"I've had all that I can take . . . I'm not about to break . . . 'cause I'm happy now . . . are you happy now?" She sang on, finishing her song, the little robot hologram smiling at Ace, waving her fingers at him.
The shorter robot in the hologram spoke up. "Hope you enjoyed that, Ace; we know we did!"
"Later!" The girls giggled as their hologram disappeared, leaving Ace to stare at the disk, and wonder. It had to mean nothing. It'd been years since their deaths; what good would it do them, him, or Vox to dreg out that memory? Was it meant to be a sign, or was it just Vox reading entirely too much into the song?
Ace shook his head clear, tossing the disk across the room. As it landed, however, the hologram triggered itself open again, and Ace heard it click and whirr to life behind him. He chuckled, rolling his eyes as he turned it around to pick it up, when he noticed that only the shorter of the robots was standing there this time, looking at him.
"Hope you enjoyed the song again, Ace." She spoke up, wringing her hands a bit. "I know my girl and I got a little bit carried away at the beginning, but we figured you would get a kick out of it, and maybe could use it to get a little bit of an extra edge over that Captain Starshield fellow — he actually sounds like he might do you in."
Ace smirked a bit, moving a little closer, almost touched by that remark.
"Oh, and Ace?" She spoke again, causing him to stand still for a moment. "About that night . . . I just wanted to say . . . I'm sorry."
Ace picked up the disk as it shut off, and a look of anger ran over his face as it all dawned on him. He didn't realize how . . . but he knew it. He knew it, and if Vox had enough time to think about it and re-examine the recording, he might come to the same conclusion as well.
Ace grinned as he snapped the disc in half, breaking it, losing the recording. He walked over to a corner of his suite, dropping it into a nearby trash bin. He couldn't let Vox get a chance to analyze the disk now. No way he would give Vox the chance to trace its coordinate path on the way to DreadZone station. No way he could, or even should, give him a chance to come to the same conclusion, a chance to let his mind wander, a chance to actually do something diabolical.
About time he did those two a favor anyway.
(The song used in here is "Are You Happy Now?" by Michelle Branch.)