2745 A.D., 10 years before L-Day
10-year-old Yasha Yama and his twin brother, Rasetsu, was looking forward to watching Whip It, the latest fad of Director Lyla Mokona, one who made her debut in the movie industry by directing the 2712 movie "The Avengers", a nth reboot of the beloved 2012 classic, and had been revered as "the modern Steven Spielberg" since then. The Yama brothers always loved a decent Mokona movie, and recently, the experienced director had decided to take on Green Lantern, based on a fanfiction written by the infamous Chancellor Leyenar herself. Yasha had once read "Fight For Your Life, Thaal Sinestro" on fanfiction. net, and he thought it wasn't bad, but he'd never thought it would be made into a movie and was fairly surprised when he saw the trailer for Whip It on TV. And, eee-oh-boy, it had a huge cast:
Gassy Behemoth Studios Presents:
Whip It
Directed By:Lyla Mokona
Starring:
Seishiro Sakurazuka as Thaal Sinestro
Subaru Sumeragi as Hal Jordan
Emeraude Kelly as Nancy "Shank" O'Malley
Karen Kasumi as Carol Ferris
Clow Reed as Saint Walker
Shashi Coleman as Lyssa Drak
Kurogane Richardson as Guy Gardner
Fai Valeria as Kyle Rayner
Samson J. Johnson as John Stewart
Kahra Coleman as Yrra Cynril
Aizen Mikoto as the voice of Parallax
And the cast of thousands
Yeah, Yasha had seen the actress Aizen Mikoto once, when he was at the movie Ice Castle's premiere. Miss Mikoto had starred in that movie as an evil fairy who lured people into her ice castle and then turned them into ice sculptures to decorate her garden, but in real life, she was, in fact, a nice lady who loved children. Miss Shashi Coleman was known to be quite wicked and selfish, and all she cared about was the fame and fortune she had, so unlike her sister. Nice job in casting her as Lyssa, Director Mokona, he thought. Mr. Sakurazuka and Mr. Sumeragi, on the other hand, was in an ACTUAL relationship, which had been went through a lot o' tests like Sinestro and Hal, so they were the perfect couple. As he and Rasetsu joined Syaoran, Sakura and Sarah in front of the movie theater, he got a text from his mothers. (Since I'm suspecting Yasha's mom and Rasetsu's mom were in love...) He quickly texted back, "Mom, Mama, don't worry about us. After all, we've got ACTUAL Lanterns here in Red Lanternville!" He then heard something from the direction of his friends, and added another:"By the way...Rasetsu said he's gonna marry Sarah when he grows up!" The fivesome hurried into the theater, got some popcorn, and quickly settled into their seats. It was a great movie, it had a lot of action in it, and it was two hours long. Halfway during the "Angel With A Shotgun" musical number, Yasha wished he had his special someone too, to get out on a date with.
Now
Waking up was like drifting up from the depths of a warm, dark ocean. It was gradual, requiring no effort on his part, proceeding at its own rate. Time passed, or maybe it didn't, or it stopped and then started again. After a while—an hour or a week or a century—he opened his eyes. The ceiling above him was blank, and there was nothing distinctive about it or even familiar...it could've been any ceiling anywhere. He was certain, however, that it wasn't, in anyway, the same ceiling he had gone to sleep under. If there'd been a ceiling at all. He yawned, enormously and deeply, his eyes squeezing shut as his lungs expanded to their limit. He had half a second to think his chest felt a little strange before he opened his eyes again, and saw the hand he had reflexively covered his mouth with. The hand wasn't his. It wasn't even human. Like that, he was awake, looking at the hand, turning it this way and that, wiggling the fingers. This wasn't just a hand. Somebody had envisioned this hand, then brought it into existence, made it something that could move, that could touch and be touched. And it was beautiful, decorated with designs of flowers and leaves and curlicues rendered in perfect delicate lines. The metal inlay in the center of his palm was etched with similar designs, only much smaller. He closed his hand, then slowly, opened it again; watching the way all the sections worked:it had the same range movement as a flesh and blood hand. Where there would have been pads at the base of each finger, he had small rounded sections, each one decorated with an exquisitely intricate sunburst. The metal shining in his finger joints was the same as that inlaid in his palm. He even had fingerprints—but, oh, what fingerprints! The curved lines etched into the top two joints of each finger were a glorious riot of crashing waves that morphed into impossible flowers, clouds, arcs and spirals, dancing and swirling in a way that was exultant, even defiant. On the back of his hand was a flower so complex he would have to study it at length to see all of its details, it almost looked like the metaphorical blue flower, a characterization given to the Avengers—one of the few things that he could remember right now. The thought that somebody would give him something so beautiful was a surge of light and warmth inside him. His wrist was mechanical, its articulation and segments even more complex than his hand. Past that, more flowers blossomed in symmetry along his outer forearm, the lines delicate and perfect, some of them spilling onto his inner arm, right up to his mechanical elbow. The design resumed all the way up his bicep to a gold inlay etched with lines much like his fingerprints. The segments that made up his shoulder were outlined in silver and gold. He'd never seen anything like this. If he had, he would have wanted it immediately. And his left arm? He pulled it out from under the covers and was relieved to see that, yes, he had the set. He stretched his arms out so he could admire them both. With arms this beautiful, he might never wear long sleeves again.
The rest of him—what was that like? Nervously he pulled the covers back. For a long moment, he could only stare at himself in wonder. The whole body, his whole body, every bit of it, was a work of art. He stared at the—his—creamy pinkish "skin" and the beautifully etched silver and gold inlays. How long had he been asleep? And while he was at it, where had he woken up?
He heard familiar music coming from the vintage radio by his side, and then, he heard a woman's voice.
Tell me somethin', boy,
Are you happy in this modern world?
Or do you need more?
Is there somethin' else you're searchin' for?
I'm falling,
In all the good times I find myself,
Longin' for change,
And in the bad times I fear myself...
As if triggered by something, he sang along.
Tell me somethin', girl,
Aren't you tired tryin' to fill that void?
Or do you need more?
Ain't it hard keeping it so hardcore?
I'm falling,
In all the good times I find myself,
Longing for change,
And in the bad times I fear myself,
I'm off the deep end, watch as I dive in,
I'll never meet the ground,
Crash through the surface, where they can't hurt us,
We're far from the shallow now,
In the shallow, shallow,
In the shallow, shallow,
In the shallow, shallow,
We're far from the shallow now,
Oh, oh, oh, oh,
Whoah!
I'm off the deep end, watch as I dive in,
I'll never meet the ground,
Crash through the surface, where they can't hurt us,
We're far from the shallow now,
In the shallow, shallow,
In the shallow, shallow,
In the shallow, shallow,
We're far from the shallow now...
The bedroom was no place he knew, but he got the impression from the Avengers on the shelves, the pictures on the walls and the plastic sword on his pillow that it belonged to a young girl. A smart young girl who loved to be a hero and to read—there were shelves and shelves of hard-copy books, MARVEL comic books(especially Avengers-related ones), and two Green Lantern comic books. But other things in the room didn't seem to belong—a shabby briefcase bundled with a stack of old file folders. for instance. Young girls did NOT go for briefcases, not even smart young girls. A sword fit for wee lady hands, maybe—he picked up the sword and ran a finger along its blade. He could practically feel the pattern of how the little-girl hands had twirled it countless times while doing a little dance to impress her relatives. The sword was old, too, just like pretty much everything else he could see. The very smart young girl who'd lived here must have been long gone by the time he had been tucked into his bed. Who had brought him here and how had they done it without waking him? Because he had the strong feeling that he had gone to sleep in a place far away. He couldn't remember where that had been, or what he had been doing there, or, now that he thought of it, anything at all. But even if he didn't know where he was now, he knew one thing:he was safe. The place seemed like somewhere in a quite large mansion, and he saw no sign of any weapons stashed in convenient spots where they'd be easy to grab in emergency, not even under the bed(he checked). He didn't wonder why that last thought had crossed his mind. It seemed only natural to think about safety after waking up in a strange place, not to mention in an unfamiliar body. Yes, the body was pretty, but was it useful? Was it able enough, fast enough, tough enough?
His gaze fell on the full-length mirror across the room. He walked over to it on his unfamiliar but very beautiful legs and stood holding his arms slightly away from his body so he could see everything:the silver and gold inlays at his collarbone and the ornate but delicate artwork just below them and in the center of his chest; the complexity of his segmented torso; the etched gold inlays at the tops of his thighs and the designs that curled along the fronts and sides of his legs above his complicated knees; the perfect symmetry of the fantasy flowers on his calves, mirror images of each other. He could actually imagine the work in progress, somebody bending over each part in turn, working under a bright light, never looking up 'till it was perfect. The person in question was a dark blurry shadow with an impossibly steady hand and eyes that didn't see only surfaces—they saw all the way through the world, into its essence. But the beauty he was admiring was a doll's beauty. The realization brought him back down to earth with a thump. He was a toy boy, lacking the crucial anatomical features of a real person. There were pretty flowers along the line of collarbone, and gold and silver inlays just above the place on his chest where his breast-plate began, and more inlays below them. But his breast-plate was blank, featureless. He pressed a finger to it, expecting it to be as hard as the rest of him, and was surprised to feel it give. His body wasn't completely hard metal; there were some soft places. Moving closer to the mirror, he touched his face. That was soft, too, but he was certain it was his own, not something that had come with the body. He looked down at himself and made a slow turn, looking over one shoulder and then the other. He was pretty soft in back, too; his behind also had some give, though it wasn't as soft as his breast-plate. But like his breast-plate, it wasn't real. He moved closer to the mirror, looking into his own eyes, but the toy boy in the mirror didn't seem to know anything more than he did. Some impulse made him tap the mirror with his fingers. He heard a quiet tick, metal on glass. "Well, hell." he said, just to hear his own voice. It sounded more feminine than before, but it didn't sound strange to him. Whoever had given him this work-of-art doll body hadn't messed with anything above his neck. Or so he hoped. As he turned away from the mirror, his gaze fell on some clothing folded up on a chair. He picked them up—a light, white tunic, nothing more.
The door of his room wasn't locked, he discovered, and it was an immense relief to know he wasn't a prisoner. Of course, a young girl's room made a very unlikely prison cell, but as he didn't know where he was, he couldn't be sure of what was unlikely and what wasn't. Careful to move soundlessly, he stepped into a short hallway, where he saw a flight of stairs. This was a private home. Did it come with his new body? No, not likely. As he moved to the top of the stairs, he heard voices from below. Listening for a few seconds, he determined there was one woman and at least two men down there, although he could't make out the conversation. The voices didn't sound hostile, though. Time to see which place he had landed in, he thought, and crept down the stairs, still moving silently, listening as the voices grew clearer. When he got to the bottom, he found himself looking into a room that seemed to be some kinda clinic or laboratory. Was this place actually a hospital? "Well, that's the best I can do for now." a handsome, raven-haired man said. He was bending over something on a tray in front of him while a tall, purple-haired man in blue scrubs stood nearby; a nurse. "They don't make parts for this model anymore." The man moved back and he saw he'd been working on an artificial arm.
"I'm really grateful, sir." the woman said, lifting the arm of the tray and testing its movements. "I'll be getting some overtime next week." She got to her feet and pulled up the top half of a greasy coverall, zipping it with her machine arm.
"Pay me when you can." The raven-haired man said in a kind voice.
The woman picked up a sack lying on the floor beside the chair. "Here, I got these for ya. My husband works out at Farm 22."
The purple-haired man chuckled. "Keep getting paid in fruit and we'll be pickin' these ourselves."
Just as he was thinking he should look for a way out, Purple spotted him. "Well, hello, sleepyhead." Purple smiled at him and he automatically smiled back. You couldn't assume somebody was OK just because they smiled at you, but something told him this guy meant no harm. The woman with the mechanical arm also smiled at him, but the maybe-doctor was startled. Maybe he thought he'd still be asleep. Purple—the nurse—ushered the woman with the mechanical arm to a door across the room while the boy and the raven-haired man stared at each other. This was the man responsible for his beautiful work-of-art body, he realized. He had long fingers that seemed to move in a precise way even when they were just fidgeting with his lab coat and the small parts and tools in the pockets. Now that the surprise of his appearance had worn off, he was looking him over with the sharp, alert eyes of somebody who knew so many things, far more than most people. Unsure of what to do or say, he took a step forward and was briefly blinded by a beam of sunlight coming in from a high window. The warmth felt good on his face.
"How do you feel?" The raven-haired man asked him.
He sat down in the chair where the woman had been. "OK."
Abruptly he reverted to his role as a doctor, grabbing a small flashlight so he could look into his eyes, then his mouth. He felt the area around his jawline and then the length of his neck, his long fingers expert and gentle. "Any pain anywhere?" he asked, feeling his hands and bending each finger. "Numbness? Motor dysfunction?"
When he went into doctor mode, he went all the way, he thought, "Well, I'm a little...hungry."
He ushered him out of the laboratory or whutever it was and went into a rather large kitchen. Seating him at the table, he reached into the bag his patient had given him and pulled out a round orange thing. "Eat this." he said. "It gets your sugar levels up." He took it from him and examined it. The color was pretty but he didn't think it looked terribly promising as food. A doctor wouldn't give him anything bad, he reasoned. He took a bite and immediately spat it out on the table. "Taste receptors are working." Now he was an amused doctor. "You'll like that a lot better with the peel off." He took it from him and began to remove the outer covering.
He watched him for a few moments, then decided it was as good as a time as any to ask questions. "Um, I don't mean to be rude," he said, "Am I supposed to know you?"
As if somebody had flipped a switch, the doctor was gone and he was staring at him again, like he didn't know what to do. Finally, he said, "Actually, we've never met. I'm Ashura Fluorite, CEO of Celes Inc. and the local cyber-surgeon around here." He nodded at the purple-haired man, who had just come in from the lab. "This is Kujaku Stewart, my assistant." Kujaku's warm smile made him feel a bit less anxious about asking his next question.
"OK, I don't quite know how to say this—" He took a steadying breath. "Do you happen to know who I am?"
The doctor and nurse looked at each other, taken aback by the question. His heart sank a little.
"I was hoping you'd fill in that part. Since you're a Total Replacement cyborg, and most of your cyber body was destroyed, I can't find any records." They looked at each other again, and this time he had the distinct impression that Kujaku was displeased about something. "But your very human brain was miraculously intact." Ashura-oh went on after a moment. "Theoretically, you should remember something."
"Oh." he said, "Well, uh..." He thought for a moment. "It's pretty blank." They were looking at him expectantly. His heart, or whatever he had as a Total Replacement cyborg, sank a little more. "I remember some things, such as the Avengers, or..." He didn't have to be a doctor himself to know that wasn't right at all. There should have been something, even if it was only a vague image:something he knew or a place where he'd been, or a few words somebody had spoken to him—whoever that was, or had been, aside from popular stuff. All at once he felt like the universe was becoming less solid, like he was about to fall through it into nothing. "I don't even know my name!" Tears welled up in his eyes and spilled down his face.
"I know this is all very new and strange." Ashura-oh said in the warm, kindly voice he was already growing to love, "But you're not alone, I'm here with you. I'm going to protect you and all will be well. And let's look on the bright side." The CEO/doctor dabbed at his face with a napkin as he handed him the thing he had finished peeling. "Your tear ducts are working." He couldn't help but smile a little. That was just the sort of thing a very kind doctor would say. Although how he could know that but not his own name made no sense at all. He bit into the thing he had given him. This time, there was an explosion of taste in his mouth; the feel of the pulp between his teeth and a flood of liquid that overflowed and ran down his chin was delightful. Suddenly he no longer felt like crying, about anything.
"This is GOOD!" he said, looking from Ashura-oh to Kujaku and back again. "What do you call this?"
"An orange." said Kujaku, then gave Ashura-oh a wry half-smile. "It's our fee, you tell him. And make sure he knows it ain't money anywhere else in town."