Ai looks down at himself. Then around. Far away, in the distance, the ruins of the Cyberse World lie, the data twisting and breaking down in ways it was never meant – in ways the others had never meant it to. Well, except perhaps for Lightning, who set the whole thing in motion.
Still. The flickering trails of data rearrange themselves, stabilise, as Ai stretches out an arm and rewrites a few programs, looping them back into a more structured format. It's the best he can do without five other ignis' by his side, and briefly a flicker of guilt runs through him. When this…land, for lack of a better word, their land was lush and colourful, the data flowing like a bubbling stream and going exactly where it was supposed to, he had had never reached out to offer his help with its management. Sure, it's not like he didn't do anything; Linkuriboh would never have existed if not for him, and regardless of what Revolver states, he did do a few more things, offering up a few tweaks and designs of his own, interspersed by the many, many, many hours of playtime and goofing off. Naturally.
But seeing the craters and the rock-torn rumble that smoothes itself out into a landscape that resembles the moon more than it does the earthly paradise on which the Cyberse World was based…Ai feels a twist in his gut. And not the same twist he felt when he stared down, at the black pit that was his domain, before shrugging and sneaking off into Aqua's or Windy's. Not today, he had thought. Or it's fiiiiine, it's not like the others care, they never visit me anyways, the heartless cretins!
But 'today', the others are gone. And maybe, maybe if he had been more involved in the day-to-day side of running things, his instincts would have nagged at him, would have picked up on the fact that there was something off about Lightning. Maybe Aqua would not have had to confront him alone and gotten captured, maybe, maybe, maybe…
It's now too late for maybes.
Ai glances out at what was once home. And though his eyes do not have pupils, do not possess that same liquid shine that he's seen reflected in that of human ones, both in and outside of the data world, that wet gleam, that shake and tremble of conflicting colours, of a pupil surrounded by an iris that can dilate, widen, thin in fear and surprise and shock and horror…his still waver.
But is it, he thinks, easier for humans like Queen and Revolver, to write me off, to write all of us off as things that can be recycled and cut down into non-sentient data, if my eyes remain this same, block of colour, if they can't emote the exact same way as a human's? If I look like them, speak like them, without a digital resonance to my voice, will it shock them? Anger them? If I'm the same height as them, if they can no longer look down on me and see me as the small pet on Yusaku's arm… if I stop being me, someone who can't do anything without a human partner, someone who's more than a joke, how will our future conversations change?
And really, is there much need for any? They never wanted to just talk in the first place…
Bohman got a lot wrong, that much is true. But Lightning's decision to model him in likeness to a human, to give him height, and a face that could express the way Yusaku's could ('could' being a key word there!) didn't feel like a mistake. Because it had helped to give him the power to duel without reliance on a human, or any other sort of avatar.
Ai needs power like that. He drifts away from the torn remnants of his home, away to a few new designs he's made. One small, very small section to the south east, still retains traces of Windy's and Aqua's handiwork, an experiment they had worked on together to produce thin, reed-like blades of grass, which they used to coat the forest floor. Ai has picked up and mended their programs as best he can, enough to cause the wavering forms of glitching grass to stabilise and shift their way over a small mound of dirt. Just enough to produce a suitable resting place for the rest of his kind.
There's a thin trill and the ball of data, vibrating into a frequency unfit for human ears, bumps against his head.
'Be patient,' Ai murmurs, carefully patting the complex web of data that is Roboppi's mind. 'This is important.'
And he works hard. They deserve proper monuments, because no matter what anybody human thinks, they were people, in the sense that they thought and felt and wanted to live – maybe not in a way or a format that a human mind would be happy with, or readily understand, but they lived. And if any human feels offended, or would wrinkle their nose at the very human sort of memorial Ai is holding for them, erecting blocks of stone in the shapes of traditional graves, with firewalls, and re-routing programs to keep the decay of the rest of the Cyberse World at bay, then to hell with them.
Then he pauses. Glances at Roboppi. They're no ignis, but his prodding and poking at their new trails of data, and the way they nibble at him in return with their quick-fire relay of codes and ignis-like communication in a way they couldn't before, speaks to the face, that quite by accident, he's kept his promise to make them smarter. Better even. He's made them into a proper person.
A person Revolver will be all too happy to tear apart. And Ai's eyes narrow at the thought.
'Now,' he asks, using numbers instead of words, a binary language no human can ever hope to translate. 'Who do you want to be?'
The response is instantaneous. Roboppi chirps, rushing to show him all their downloaded clips and images from shows they've watched together. But Ai notes, with some wry amusement, that the ones that have caught their attention are filled with humans going on adventures, wading through rivers, catching frogs, eating chocolate, playing on swings, in short, all the innocent activities children seek.
'Aw,' he communicates to them. 'You just want to have fun, don't you?' And he can't grin, at least not yet, but already his hands are parting, and he's swiftly pulling their data apart, rearranging them to be bigger and better than before. But not too much bigger. He doesn't want Roboppi getting any awkward ideas, the way Bohman did.
'Have fun!' he declares excitedly, this time with human words, mapping out the limbs, the clothes, the frumpy look he thinks would best suit the other – because he needs to be the cooler-looking one out of the two of them, for sure. 'And don't let any human hold you down! No more cleaning! No more drudgery! Go wild!'
Because he sure is. And when he's done, he feels pride well up at the wet shimmer and shine in Roboppi's new eyes, as they blink and glisten in the exact same fashion a human's would.
Roboppi glances down. And Ai sees the flow of data behind the gold gleam of their eyes, sees the excitement spill out and shine there, the way it never did when they were just a robot, stuck to using emoticons on a visor to get across their viewpoint. They glance down. Uncurl their fingers, with a rich, soft gasp – the way a child would do, and yeeees, Ai has totally got this! Those months of being stuck with Yusaku, of reading the movement of human bodies around them, analysing the way Yusaku moved and spoke, learning to read him and others, listening when Yusaku told him, in his clear cut and no-nonsense tone, how Ghost Girl was deceiving them, and the physical clues behind that…it has all paid off.
'Aniki…' Roboppi's voice drifts up, just a tiny bit unsure, and they glance at him with their wide, wide eyes. And Ai is a little disheartened to see that the pupil, for all his hard work remains a resolutely squareish shape, more pixualised that the round edge of a human's. Any human who gets close enough, close enough to see them blink, may be put off…and then Ai shakes himself. What is he still doing worrying about human comfort levels? There's no room for that now!
'Aniki…' Roboppi says again, taking a step, their mouth opening wide as their foot lands successfully on the grass. They glance down. Lift their foot up. Wiggle it. 'Wow,' they say. They launch themselves back suddenly, eerily managing to keep their balance in a way a toddler learning to stumble forwards never could. 'Wow!'
They jump. Clap their hands together. Sway from side to side. Even successfully perform a convoluted sort of hop-scotch that Ai can't make heads or tails out of – there don't seem to be any real rules, aside from not allowing Roboppi's foot to glance against the odd stray stone.
'This is so much more fun than being stuck on wheels!' Roboppi spins, and then bounces forward again. 'Thank you, Aniki! Thank you, thank you, thank you!' With a grin, their arms fly up, helplessly clawing at empty space.
They stop. Frown. Then up they leap again.
And the next second, Ai is yanked out of the sky from his safe hovering position by the unruly strength of his own creation.
'Whee!' Roboppi sings, spinning round on their toes and hugging Ai fiercely into their rumpled hoodie. 'Thank you, thank you, thank you!'
Great, Ai thinks moodily. Now I'm their new favourite toy. He pushes against the chest he is being shoved against, taking the time to admire the soft bend and sway of the data he has put into it – the whole thing has turned out rather nicely, not that any other result could have been expected from him, of course – and to his horror finds himself losing the fight.
'Oi, is this any way to treat your benefactor!' he screeches. 'Show a more reasonable sort of gratitude, damn it!'
Roboppi spins to a halt, completely oblivious to the way the abrupt stop forces a 'urk' sound from Ai. 'Ah, you swore, Aniki!'
Ai tilts his head. 'You know, you don't have to keep hold of those censoring pre-sets logged in your programming anymore.'
Roboppi blinks. 'I can just…delete them?'
'Yep,' Ai says, with a grunt, as he carefully slides himself free of Roboppi's arms as they fall lax. 'That's free will for you.'
Roboppi blinks and starts running an internal scan of their system. And Ai breathes an internal sigh of relief and starts focusing on own programming. Like Roboppi he has his own images of what he wants to be.
First; the shape. He pulls himself up. And unlike a scene he's watched in the past, involving a man grunting and screaming, as every bone is broken and reformed before fur sprouts from his shoulders and cascades down his back until he's stuck as a slathering werewolf, there's no real pain involved. A strange shift in perspective, certainly, as the world around him narrows and straightens, the graves before him suddenly appearing so much smaller than before. How...how unsettling...
He reaches out, fingers unbending, now with more rigid, more defined joints controlling their function. No bones beneath that pale fleshing covering he's given them of course; and for the first time Ai wonders how it feels, to have so many parts of you buried within your body, solid, almost immovable parts, that can't be easily rewritten or fixed, that miss the buzz and spark of data. The only real vibrancy he can see, beingstuck inside all of that, is the thrum of blood, the spark of nerves and their signals as the neurons above fire, all reliant on the sloppy rhythm of a pulse to hold it all together.
Just a patchwork quilt of poorly thought-out cells, that's what the human body amounts to. Still. It has its uses.
He runs multiple diagnostics, checks everything moves and shifts according to the simulations he's runs and then works on the colours, on the sweep of hair from his new, much rounder head, pushing our curls and partings from it that remind him of the way Yusaku's bunches and divides across his forehead, but better, slightly smaller, with more of them, as benefitting of himself. And curls, down the back, a little like Kusanagi's, but again: better.
And the eyes…he's keeping them yellow, he shouldn't be forced to change too much of himself after all. He may be throwing his past self away, the hopeless, lazy ignis who in the end couldn't do a thing to help the others, but that doesn't mean his old shape is bad. As a stray afterthought, he takes the data that makes up the shape of his old head, copies it and shrinks the two fragments down into something more plastic looking, those things that can hang from ears, ear-rings. For if Revolver does it, why shouldn't he?
The clothes…well. Given Yusaku's appalling taste in fashion, Ai has every reason in the world to splurge out now. He'll show everyone how it should be done! And besides, capes are always cool. Soulburner, at least, has had the right idea when designing the flow of that rich red scarf attached to his avatar.
'Oooooooh.' Roboppi claps their hands excitedly when he's done. 'You look like that vampire in 'Three Bites before Sunrise.''
Ai feels the twist of his new face as it shifts into a disgruntle expression. Weird. He wonders if he looks like Yusaku. And then rapidly banishes the thought. He doesn't really want to think about Yusaku at all anymore. Things will be easier this way.
'Be quiet,' he says, savouring the way his new voice rolls out in a deeper tone. In short, more like the voice of someone you should take seriously. 'We need to plan.' He smiles, not happily, but it's a smile none the less. One that feels strange, as it ripples and divides his face in a way it's never been parted before. But he'll get used to it. He has to.
'I don't intend to let humans rob me of anything else.'
He tries not to spare any final thoughts for Yusaku. But can't help the dim, fervent hope, that somehow, someway, Playmaker won't turn into another one of those thieves.
The water beside the cruise ship should carry the scent of salt. The processor within his android body informs him of the rise of it within the air, and were he human, he could sense it, the tang of it riding high and string through his nostrils. But Ai doesn't have those.
Instead he lets his hand pat the rail. And his sensors tell him the exact temperature, and he can feel the pressure of it as his hand forms a ring around its contours, riding into his skin. Or well, what passes for skin anyway.
But...ahead of him he sees a woman brush a finger against another railing, then jerk her hand back as though she's been slapped.
His hand tightens slightly in response. But he feels…not nothing, not exactly. Pressure. A sort of chill, that blends in with the data readings he's getting. But nothing as razor sharp as what that woman has presumably experienced.
How easily humans are hurt, he thinks. Then spares a smile at the thought of what he's preparing for Queen.
He drifts past the woman and sees a shiver shake her body as she reaches for the thin cardigan her partner hands her. She gives him a strange look as he walks past her, hand easily gliding over the railing that seems to have physically repelled her, and he gives her one of those sullen looks he's seen Yusaku flash people in return; not outright unfriendly, but just standoffish enough to force their eyes away as quickly as possible.
It works; her eyes drop away in seconds, before they become distracted by the glare of lights inside the ship.
She doesn't know how lucky she is; he's certainly not going to allow Queen that same luxury.
He looks down at the woman, at Queen, a few minutes later, sees the way her hair spills out onto her pillow and feels disgust curl in his gut. Not at the way her body is messy, has no choice but to be in comparison to his and Roboppi's, but just at the way she is laying there. Alive. Relaxed. Sunk into sleep as though she doesn't have the stain of Earth's murder resting in her soul.
Well. Time to unbury it and let it pave the way for a new kind of sleep for her. One that isn't quite so restful.
'Revenge for Earth,' he tells her a few moments later, as part of his reason for waking her, and the spike of anger he feels when the woman in front of him repeats the name back to him in confusion is hard and fierce.
He doesn't let it show though; Yusaku has taught him that much.
But he indulges himself a little in the duel against her. He mocks her, he lets his smile spread jubilant and with a snug, sneering kind of warmth behind it, all over his face. He's never duelled primarily for himself before, always been the damsel, well, dude in distress, waiting on the Duel-Disk, placing his life in Playmaker's hands. Now he creates his own fate.
And Queen's as well. He sends her flying back with a scream, and then strolls over to her as she struggles upright, huffing at him from beneath brows that look a little sweat-streaked, despite the fact that this is a world he has created, one free from such signs of bodily functions.
Well. Okay, this is just him being petty. Queen doesn't deserve to look her best, even in defeat. Not when she strung Earth out like he was a prisoner being crucified and just stared at him, not a hair out of place as he begged for his life.
'Oh?' he purrs, as Queen glares up at him, hair thoroughly ruffled, the blue and green strands meshing into other unpleasantly from outside their usually slicked-back boundaries. 'Aren't you getting to beg?'
Her nose wrinkles. 'To you? A mere AI?' she barks out an unpleasant laugh that shakes at the end, turns into a startled, strangled coughing scream as in one fluid movement, Ai's arm snakes out and his fingers dig into the skin of her head.
She's trying to be brave, he knows. In another time, a time before he lost everything, he may have admired that. Not anymore though.
'Goodnight,' he tells her faux-sweetly, and rips everything away from her, ruthlessly hunting for the information he needs.
Still. He leaves her enough data to breathe, enough muscle memory to keep those lungs working. Everything else? Well. He may give it back one day. Maybe.
He doesn't want to sink to her level after all. Even if they all call him a demon afterwards, at least they can never say he took a human life.
Just everything else that makes it worth living.
Still. It's more than she ever gave Earth.
It's strange afterwards, that he feels a faint tug at his gut, a nice pull that tells him to visit the hot-dog truck just for old times' sake. If he were anything like that fictional vampire Roboppi foolishly compared him to, he would; maybe take a small, see-through glass vase, one of those thin ones that billow out at the edges, and drop a rose into it, let it lean out like a flag, next to the closed door. Just a little sign that can't or won't say anything in particular.
But all of Ai's flowery gifts are now for the dead. So he ignores his instincts. Carries on in his new normal life. And retreats into the net to plan.