DISCLAIMER: Not quite.
—s—t—a—r—t—f—i—c—t—i —o—n—
It was no good.
That stupid, annoying, crying, battered, baby-faced blonde boy with the idiotic striped shirt had hit him in the face with his Mystical Stick, damaging his mechanical eye as well as all the additional, sense-accentuating programs built into it. The Masked Man stumbled back, holding the left side of his face with his good hand. His vision was suddenly going haywire, gray static surrounding the images flashing through his optical nerves. He was seeing things, things that were completely out of context, things that appeared to be sequences of a far-off memory, or maybe a scattered dream. He swung his lightning saber in front of himself once, twice, three times for good measure, but with a pang of realization he noticed he couldn't see himself nor the blonde boy at all anymore. He wasn't even in the deep cave anymore, next to the final, Locria's needle. He was...well, where was he, exactly?
He saw the sun, glaring down at him with a fierce intensity, the sky clear and harsh above him. Below the horizon line lay the plain, dry brown of dirt, going on as far as the eye could see. There was a great cliff not too far off beside him, a cliff which he regarded with somber contempt, for some reason. His point of view was oddly close to the ground, almost like he was lying down.
Suddenly, a shaky arm raised itself to the sky from beside him. Was that his arm? It looked worse for wear, completely shredded and bloody on one side, and one of the fingers, the ring finger, was missing from the hand. The arm was only held up for a few seconds before it fell down again, and it did not come back up. The Masked Man felt a curious emotion rise up within him, an emotion he'd never felt before. The doctor named Andonuts had described it once, despair. The ultimate sadness or regretfulness, usually as a result of an extensive emotional loss of some kind. He wondered what had happened to this person.
The crimson-stained sunshine seems to touch everything.
Suddenly the image whited out, and static overrode his vision for a moment, blinding him and resetting his emotions until a moment later it was replaced by much darker scene. The vision was shaking, like the person from whose point of view he was seeing was shivering. It appeared to be a forest of some kind in the background, at night, and there was a bonfire going, which was right next to him. The Masked Man didn't know why, but somehow this scene felt familiar...as had the last. Maybe it really was him?
He heard a whimper to his right. The vision swiveled just as he wondered what it was, revealing...that blonde boy? The same on he had been fighting before, the same one that could pull needles just as he did, though he looked younger. He stared into the bonfire, silently sobbing, grieving over something. The Masked Man pondered this for a moment.
I cannot see the future...
If this really was his point of view, one of his memories that he was suddenly remembering, then how was that blonde boy related to him in any way? Were they acquaintances? Though, there was one thing. The Masked Man felt the same despair he had felt in the last little vision of his, only much more raw, like it was something he was feeling for the very first time. He wracked his brains, trying to remember why he felt such sadness, who he was, and what had happened.
Then, it came to him.
Death. Someone had died.
His mother. His mother had died.
Mechanical Drago. His mother had died to a mechanical Drago.
...but the past is so frightening.
Before he could truly process this information, this newfound (or again-remembered) memory, he was suddenly whisked from it again, sight lost and replaced with that static one again. The Masked Man was rather shocked at the revelation. He had had a family before? And his mother had perished? Who else was in his family? What had his life been like before?
He found himself standing in the middle of a crossroad, between two paths' intersection. He face a rather intimidating rise in the earth, a mountain or a plateau of sorts. The sun was again above him, the sky was again clear. Was this somehow related to the first flashback, vision thing?
I see that the present is just as I imagined.
He started down the path that would take him to said mountainous region, power-walking his way forward. Something told him he was on a mission, determined to do something. But what?
A voice cut through his thoughts. He recognized the voice, like it was his own, and something in the back of the Masked Man's mind told him that turning around would be a bad idea but the vision did it anyway, gaze rotating until it settled on that blonde boy from before, standing just where he had not twenty seconds earlier, tears running down his cheeks and an angry, disappointed, almost fearful look on his face. He couldn't make out what he was saying, and was almost surprised when his field of sight returned to the mountain and he began to run, away from the blonde boy and toward his destination. The boy continued to scream at him, desperately begging for something, but the Masked Man couldn't hear him over the pounding of blood in his ears, the rush of adrenaline in his veins. He was off to do something great, something he knew he had to, something he had a feeling would not turn out well.
He was off to murder that Drago, that mechanical Drago that had slain his mother.
But is it for me anymore?
And abruptly, he was hurled back into reality when he could see both his lightning saber and cannon arm again, hanging limply at his side as he stared down at the ground. He raised his head quickly, to asses the situation. How long had he been out? Was that blonde boy still trying to attack him? But his good eye widened when he saw a ghastly figure, an apparition of sorts floating in the air above them, above both him and that blonde boy. It was a woman, a young woman, with long brown hair and a pretty red dress on. There was a gaping hole where her heart was supposed to be, and her hair obscured most of her face. Even so, the Masked Man knew this woman before she even began to speak to him.
His mother.
His mother named Hinawa.
I just do not think I can go on.
And just like that, akin to a dam of huge proportions breaking and flooding his mind mercilessly, he remembered. He remembered everything. That was his mother, those had been his memories, he had had a life prior to this existence as nothing more than a cold, emotionless commander. But did that mean...
"My son," the woman called to him, voice soft and smooth as silk. "My son, my Claus."
The Masked Man blinked. His name was Claus, wasn't it?
"Oh, my Claus," she went on, "how strong you've been, how strong you've become. Do you not remember me, my son? Do you not remember your mother?"
Oh, but the Masked Man did.
"I am your mother, Claus, and my name is Hinawa." She paused, gazing at him with an expression the Masked Man couldn't make out. "Do you remember him, Claus? Do you remember your brother? His name is Lucas. He's your twin brother."
The Masked Man's green eye swiveled toward the only other (conscious) person present, that blonde boy. He was battered, shirt torn in places and cuts upon his face and arms, and he was silently crying as he watched this exchange between dead mother and long lost twin brother. Was he really related to such a crybaby? But the Masked Man supposed that wasn't quite fair. He had been left all alone, hadn't he? All alone.
Then again, so had the Masked Man.
Please reach inside me...
"You're so grown up now, Claus," the woman, his mother, interrupted his thoughts, and the Masked Man's eye focused on her once more. "You've been doing horrible things, my son, horrible things for that bad man. But it's okay, because I know you didn't mean to. You didn't mean to do those horrible things, did you?" she smiled faintly. "My Claus is a good boy."
That...was right. Master. Master had been defeated, hadn't he? That blonde boy must have defeat him, in order to get here. Master...the Masked man shook his head furiously, eye squeezed shut. No, that man was not his master. That man had brainwashed him. Brainwashed him into killing people, doing horrible things, corrupting the world. Everything he had known, everything he had been taught by Mas—that man, everything was wrong. The Masked Man was a killer. The Masked Man was a bad man.
He was the Masked Man.
He was a bad man.
He was a killer.
...where my heart is weeping...
The Masked Man felt something run down his right cheek. He wiped at it, discovering nothing but water. Where did it come from? Above? ...was he...crying? No, it couldn't be. Not him. The Masked Man didn't cry.
But the Masked Man was a killer, a bad man, a cold, emotionless commander. Did he even want to be the Masked Man anymore?
"It's okay, Claus," his mother, the woman spoke to him soothingly, watching as her son, the eldest, the Masked Man broke in front of her. "You've been forgiven. Isn't that right, Lucas? You forgive you brother, don't you?"
That blonde boy nodded fiercely, still frozen in place, not daring to move an inch.
The Masked Man—no, Claus. Claus found that he was shaking, green eye suddenly turning itself to the floor. He couldn't bear to look at them anymore, either of them. Why were they forgiving him? He who had done such horrible things? The memories of his commandeering days were all too fresh in his mind; bloody corpses mangled by his own lightening saber, torture of those captives who failed to cooperate, heartlessly pulling those needles with intent to destroy the world. Brainwashed or not, he was the one responsible, the one at fault. His eye widened as he realized all this. He didn't deserve to be here anymore. He wasn't meant to be here. Shouldn't he have died that day, the day the mechanical Drago mauled him?
I am so numb that I think I am dying.
"You remember everything now, don't you? Please tell me you remember." Hinawa smiled at him. "You'll stop doing these bad things now, won't you, my son?"
Claus looked at her, wondering why she even bothered. He didn't deserve to be here. He had done such horrible things...he needed to be condemned for it, not forgiven for it. He didn't deserve such a nice mother.
I need you to taint me—I need to be taught how to feel.
The woman, his mother, the figment of his imagination began to hum a tune, a melancholy tune that he realized he recognized from somewhere, from his past. That blonde boy looked like he recognized it too; his eyes widened and he looked up at her with the saddest expression. This was the song she'd hum when she tucked them in to bed, Claus recalled. He couldn't remember the words.
I know you will find me, when my soul is bleeding...
There were bodies, Claus was jolted by the abrupt observation. A cowboy-looking man with a bald head—his father, he remembered with a painful pang to the chest—a pink-haired woman, a brown-haired man and a brown dog...Boney, his old dog. And he had been the one to strike them down with his lightening saber. They weren't dead, but they were still unconscious. He had still attacked them. Claus couldn't believe himself. It was his fault. He was such a bad person, a bad boy. A bad Claus. He never should have gone on living. He should have died. He should have done the world a favor and stayed dead.
"Claus," his mother, the woman called out to him once again, having stopped humming the song. Claus could still hear it, though, swirling around in his thoughts, ebbing into his soul. "I love you, my son, my Claus. I think it's about time we leave this Earth, my son. Come to me. Come to your mother, Claus."
Claus blinked.
To 'come to her'...
...required his death.
Claus looked at that blonde boy.
If my life crumbles I'll have you to guide me.
He seemed to have realized the insinuation of that statement, too. He finally moved, jutting his upper body out and staring straight at him with wide, teary blue eyes. "No! You can't! We just found you, Claus!" he opposed violently, screaming at the top of his lungs. "Don't leave me! He's been searching for so long...you can't! Please! I can't lose you again!"
Claus' heart ached, because he believed those words. They had been searching for him for a long time, hadn't they? They had missed him. They had missed Claus. They had missed the Claus they had known back then.
Claus was not that Claus anymore.
Claus was a monster, a chimera, a killer, a bad boy, a cold, emotionless commander who didn't deserve to be alive.
He would go with his mother and leave this world. It was in everyone's best interests.
With this thought liberating him, he raised his lightening saber high into the air, charging it up with every last ounce of his psionic power, green eye that still leaked tears narrowing with a determined, suicidal sense of finality. He wouldn't hurt anyone else.
That blonde boy—Lucas, he remembered—began to run at him, howling in vain. "Claus, no!"
Claus let the vast congregation of energy loose, straight at his brother, watching in somber resignation as it was reflected by his Franklin Badge and sent straight back at him with a lethal-sounding BZZZZT resounding throughout the cavern. When the millions upon millions of volts of electricity coursed through his body and overloaded every last one of his nerves, he closed his eyes soundlessly, the song his mother had hummed to him time and time again echoing in his mind.
I know the Song of Truth will be there to remind me I'm real.
—e—n—d—f—i—c—t—i—o—n—