The Voice in Your Heart
Page 7: Memory of the Past - 3
Axl did nothing as Epsilon watched the progression of his relationship with Bris after she discovered her power. Even though she can never shape-shift or utilize other reploids' DNA data, she got more and more weapons: Busters and sabers are among other things Anteator would make for her to test her "unlimited potential". After the know-hows and muscle memories were transferred to her electronic brain, she mastered the weapon skills almost instantly.
Axl stood by her as a friend, sharing her happiness as she grew stronger and stronger, not jealous in spite of being stuck with his ability: Stealth fighting, shape-shifting, gun-fighting and sniping. That's all he had, that's all he got to have, and it's fine with him, even if he's constantly right next to someone who gets new powers about every week.
And of course, this led to scenes like her being surrounded by other Red Alert members wanting to affiliate with her, eventually leaving next to no time for her to spend with Axl—her first ever friend.
"Eventually she just kind of faded away. Ghosted, if you will." Axl narrated. "One day she told me we can't spar because she's going with Warfly and Gungaroo. I didn't mind Gungaroo, at least at the time. But Warfly…well, you know exactly what happened. Yet, she said…"
"It's fine, Axl! I'm sure Warfly's not as bad as you think he was. Sure, he may be a coward, but he was panicking! At least he gets to live until today." was what Bris said to Axl when he warned her not to get too close to Warfly.
"I couldn't argue with her," Axl continued to narrate. "Because let's face it, she had a point. And my innocent naïve self just…agreed, because I believed that every single person is good to the core." he sighed. "She continued to disappear away from me, popping up only now and then. I was lonely, but I didn't really mind because I had faith in her, but…"
"Axl, I think you should start training with me and the other guys. You have to drop those guns, you know." Bris said to Axl one day when she approached him.
"Wh-what? Why this, all of a sudden?" Axl questioned, shocked.
"It's just…let's face it, you're weak like this. You're just fighting from afar. You can't do anything when your guns are taken away. And your guns, without any DNA data, are unbearably weak. You're way too dependent on DNA data, it's not your own powers you're using." Bris explained, watching as Axl's facial expression was contorted in bewilderment. "If I'm to be honest, you're nothing. You're fodder, you're a coward, and I don't want you to stay that way."
"B-Bris?" Axl blurted out, shocked. "I don't understand…what's WRONG with me? Why is it so wrong for me to be like this? All forms of fighting are an art, including mine!"
"What, you want someone to brutalize you when you don't have your guns ready?" Bris scoffed, irritated that he didn't seem to get her memo. Axl tensed. She was never this short-tempered or condescending before.
"It'll never come to tha—" Axl tried to counter, only for Bris to interrupt him by quickly grabbing his neck hard. Axl reflexively yelped loudly in reaction, prompting Bris to smirk.
"See? You even scream like a little girl." Bris mocked, letting go of Axl's neck. "And you just proved me right. Look, you can't stay like this if you wanna live. If you have a brain, you're going to meet me in the training grounds at 6 AM."
"Why are you doing this to me, Bris?" Axl questioned, holding back his tears, his voice distorted by the sobs he held back. "I don't understand."
"To be honest, our old friendship is the only thing preventing me from treating you more like the living trash you actually are, so be grateful I still remember." Bris said as she walked away from Axl.
Axl gritted his teeth as his tears fell, as he watched Bris walk away from him, her gait proud. "NO!" he yelled at her. "I'm not going to meet you tomorrow. I don't accept you treating me like this! How dare you trash me around, when I had been looking forward to meet you again after so long! You're not the friend I knew anymore!"
Bris stopped walking and clicked her tongue before speaking, not even turning her back to face him. "I had hoped that as my old friend, you'd understand. You'd understand what it means to be tough, what it means to be strong. You'd understand to stop being a crybaby and a coward. But it turns out there was a reason we stopped talking after all."
Axl tensed. Not even the threat of losing him as a friend was enough to make her think that maybe, she was too rude to him after all. Either she's stopped valuing friendship as she used to be, or she's stopped valuing him as she used to be. Maybe it's both, considering how many people actually ASK to be her friend.
"We were enemies from that point on. She would put me down numerous times and, at first, I didn't shoot back. I just stayed with the few friends I had: Hyenard, who loves ninjas, and always appreciated my stealthy fighting style. Crowrang, Tonion, Stonekong and Boarski, who didn't like how Bris treated me and helped me with my self-esteem. Anteator, who always worked closely with me and also in disbelief over how she transformed into such a hellspawn.
But eventually, I couldn't take it and started hurling insults back at her, called her a brainless boisterous barbarian. But when I did that for the first time…everyone left me. All of those guys? They started staying away from me. They ghosted away, disappeared like Bris did. Granted, they always told me not to retaliate and I probably let them down, but…I wish they understood a little more." Axl narrated, his mental voice distorted as his teardrops flowed down his cheeks, his real body gently sobbing under the blanket.
"But that wasn't even the worst part."
"You know what? I'm sick of this shit. Not even my words can make you realize, not even your loneliness can make you realize. So I'm going to teach you the ONLY lesson I'm going to teach a piece of shit like you: 'Never mess with me!'" Bris declared to Axl, who was standing in front of her, after a heated insult war. A few Red Alert members were gathered around the scene, watching quietly and intently.
Before Axl could respond, Bris choked Axl the same way she did on the day they officially became enemies, pressed her index finger on the bridge of his nose hard, and dug into the skin, drawing blood.
"Wait…Bris, wha-what are—" Axl blurted out, as if expecting her to listen or stop.
"An X on your face, for defective!" Bris cried out as she started scarring his face with her bare hands.
"Wait, Bris, stop…stop, it hurts!" Axl urged her and started struggling futilely, as if expecting she would stop, and his struggling would work against her. As if expecting she'd realize what she's doing in the middle of it, as if expecting she'd realize how much pain she's causing him; not only on the outside, but on the inside as well.
"I guess deep down, back then, I wanted her back more than anything." Axl narrated as Epsilon watched the memory flash in horror.
As his tears left his eye sockets in reaction to the immense pain she is inflicting on him, as he felt the feeling of his warm blood flowing from the bridge of his nose and the pressure of Bris' index finger as he scarred her, Axl could only scream.
"STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!"
AUTHOR'S NOTES: How are your hearts? Shattered? Ripped apart? This is when you remember that TViYH is made by the same girl who wrote PMGR. Bris is a Mary Sue deconstruction character-I stuffed her full of Mary Sue tropes, especially relationship-with-canon-character tropes and deconstructed the hell out of them. I've seen a few OCs (From another fandom, back when I was young) who were rivals with a canon character, or overpowered him (Most of the time it's girl OC + male canon character) in this way. Or, the OC and the canon character has a *bad history* (Not just a bad one encounter, especially if they didn't recognize each other in that bad encounter) but eventually they stopped being enemies and started kissing instead.
I'm not against those tropes. I'm against those tropes being unexplored and not taken seriously when they ARE used. There are consequences to everything, including rough phases of a relationship, and I'd like to make that clear.
