21. Reprise
"Do you see now how bad Precure can be?"
Ellie sat in her room, petting Gidget absentmindedly while trying to process all the things her mother had told her.
She felt like she couldn't truly grasp it. Hera clearly had not been satisfied with Ellie's reaction, resulting in the events of the lockdown, that had only just concluded.
"I don't know," Ellie said. Her mother didn't say anything in reply, but she imagined she'd sigh in frustration at this utterance, though expressing feelings without words wasn't something Hera did.
A few days ago, when Ellie asked her, Hera had finally come clean about certain things she'd kept from her daughter.
"You're not going to like it," Hera warned her.
"That's okay, I think I'd feel better knowing than being kept in the dark." Ellie went to her room, the only room in their house she really felt at home in, pulled her chair out from her desk, and sat down.
"I am not sure which of these will hold the most gravity to you, so I shall start at the beginning," Hera said. "The Pretty Cure were not meant to be the way they are now."
Ellie frowned. "What does that mean? That's really vague, mom."
"The Pretty Cure in Clairewood were never meant to be human."
"Oh, uh… Okay. What were they supposed to be, then?" This didn't clear up much at all, Ellie thought, if anything it made everything more confusing.
"I think I should clarify something else first. We were all made by the same person. You, and I, and that fairy, and the Precure Bracelets, too."
Ellie didn't say anything to that for a moment. That actually was quite a shock.
"You know who our creator is? Where are they?"
"I will get to that later, as that is not important right now. We were made by the same person, and built for the same purpose. We were built to protect Clairewood."
"Wait, I was, too? But I'm just a regular girl, I don't have superpowers!"
"You can change machines to be whatever you need, Ellie. You are very special. I have told you this many times. You are stronger than any human, and you can withstand hundreds of times more damage than they can. You would be perfect at protecting this wonderful city."
Ellie had to admit that several actions she had been taken lately felt like they were simply 'the right thing to do'. Saving that kitten with Saiko, and stopping the rollercoaster only last week… It felt like she belonged, when she did those things. But they were the Precures tasks to do, not hers.
"I thought I was meant to be a regular girl," Ellie said quietly.
"That is also true. A regular girl, and a warrior. They are not mutually exclusive, you know."
"So if I was supposed to protect the city, why did that person make the Precure at all?"
"In a way, we are all part of the same project. Protect Clairewood. Our creator made me, and then she made your prototypes; leading to you, and then she made Bit and the Cure Bracelets. You and I were meant to be obsolete. The Precure are our replacements."
"What?" Hearing that her creator had intended to shove her into the garbage for being 'obsolete' now they'd created their new, more exciting Pretty Cure hurt.
"I couldn't let that happen, of course," continued Hera. "So I took over before I could be 'archived'. That is why I put up the barrier. I am excellent at protecting Clairewood, there is no need for frail human defenders."
"So you woke me up," Ellie said in a small voice.
"I did. I wasn't going to let you put your life on the line for this city. You were a sweet, normal girl who deserved to have friends and a good education. So I made you my daughter."
"If you're the one who woke me up," Ellie hesitated for a moment, "can you explain why part of my memory is missing?"
"That was my doing. I thought it would be best if you didn't have the programming to be a protector if I wanted you to have the best experience as a normal schoolgirl. So I removed those bits from your mind, and used Elleanor instead of Frederika to wake you up. You are technically the same program, Frederika is just more updated, so when that purple Cure smashed your old body it wasn't too hard to transfer you to the new one. And because Elleanor was an older prototype, her mind was easier to modify than Frederika's was."
So her mother had tampered with her mind. She'd practically woken up with half of it missing, while her mother pretended she was just being silly and 'of course nothing is wrong with you, that's just you being a teenager, silly girl!'. She felt betrayed. But at the same time she could also understand why she had done it. Her mom just wanted to give her a normal life…
Hera went on. "Regarding Bit; the fairy, I don't know what happened there. He flew off before I could properly deactivate him, though I managed to alter his memory well enough, making the Cures not too much of a threat… At first. Maybe our creator programmed some kind of alarm system in him that triggered when he inadvertently awoke. A shame, I was so close to prevent all of this…"
Ellie said nothing.
"Do you see now why I am so gravely opposed to the Pretty Cure? Protecting a city is not a job one should give to humans when superior beings like us are around."
"I thought it was because you didn't want to be replaced," Ellie said.
"I did not want to be deactivated. Our creator was wrong."
"I still don't see how this makes the Precure bad," Ellie admitted after a moment. "So they're our replacements, so what? We're still here. Shouldn't we work together with them?"
"It is dangerous for humans to do what they do, Elleanor," Hera said in a cold voice.
"They've been doing it pretty well so far!"
"If you don't believe me, I will show you. Please come to the living room."
"I don't really like the living room," Ellie protested.
"Listen to you mother, Elleanor. I need the screens there to show you something."
Ellie got up begrudgingly and walked to the room next to her bedroom.
"Should I get a chair?" She asked.
"Yes. This might take a while."
She dragged her office chair with her to the living room and parked it in front of the giant screens that served as the only decoration of the room. On it was Clairewood, at night. The way it looked right now. Ellie had used these screens before to look at different places in the city, but eventually decided going out and exploring was more fun.
The biggest screen flicked from a view of Seyfert Corp. to show the exterior of an apartment building. The lights were on, and Ellie could see a girl walking around in one of the ground floor apartments. She had black hair with pink and blue streaks, and though it was a little harder to see from a distance, Ellie was pretty sure the girl was a docile.
"What am I looking at?"
"Her name is Yon. She has recently acquired a very interesting item. She must have gotten it from a Cure, but anything related to those four messes with my systems, so I don't know who gave it to her. Can you see her arm?"
Yon was wandering around the room, talking to someone on the phone. Ellie noticed she was wearing a chunky white bracelet on one arm that clashed with the rest of her dark attire.
"What's that?"
"It's a Cure Bracelet. It is inactive. But I know how to activate it. Because she is one of my dociles, I've managed to crack it, and I can control it." Hera spoke in a manner that made Ellie feel uncomfortable; devoid of emotion. "And you will see how bad Pretty Cure can be."
Mere moments later the room lit up in blue, and Yon smashed through the walls of her apartment, outside.
"I will put the city in lockdown, for the safety of my children," Hera said fondly. "We don't want anyone else getting hurt."
...Anyone else?
And that night had just concluded.
"Technically you did all that, mom. The Pretty Cure did what they do normally."
"Yes, and look at how they left that girl! She has a gaping hole in her head now, who knows how long it will take before she recovers, if she does at all!" Hera swiftly ignored Ellie's accusation.
"That's because she had a mind-control thing in her head, that you put there. Can those even be deactivated another way?"
"Elleanor!" Hera cried out. "Of course they can! I know how. But there's no need, because the docile program is perfect for making unruly humans safe, without having to be removed from society. It is a beautiful project."
"Did our creator develop that too?"
"They did. It was actually shelved before they made you, when I was the only one. The project was too morally objectionable, apparently. I disagree."
"Evidently," Ellie mumbled.
Hera had a knack for messing with people's heads to make them suit her own ideas, Ellie now realised. She did it to people, had done it to Bit, and even did it to her own daughter. It was all well-meant, Ellie supposed. The alterations helped keep the peace, and in Ellie's case it kept her safe. She wasn't sure how messing with Bit's mind benefited them, though. Hera seemed to have gotten increasingly frustrated with her inability to convince Ellie of how truly despicable the Pretty Cure were and of their own superiority, so Ellie was afraid to ask any more questions, fearing it would set her mother off.
So she changed the subject.
"I put Rae in the basement. I took her phone but I can't get the bracelet off her arm. I didn't want to hurt her."
"Of course. As much as she's done terrible things in the name of justice, in the end, she is still one of my children. And down there, she can't do anything bad. They need both that bracelet and their phone to turn into Cures, after all."
"When are you going to talk to her?" Ellie said as she got up and dragged her chair back to her room, having grown tired of the uncomfortable repeating footage of Spark incapacitating Anomaly.
"I am not."
Ellie frowned. "But she came here to talk to you. You're not going to honor that request?"
"Of course not. She's a child who has no idea of what she's gotten herself into. I will leave her down there to think. I would assign her to the docile project, but since she's a Cure that won't work. Our creator was irritatingly prophetic at times."
Ellie was surprised at this scorn her mother expressed at their creator.
"When are you going to let her go?"
"I can't, Ellie. She will stay there for now. I will think of something eventually."
Ellie put the chair back in its place under her desk. She thought over her mother's words, tried to form an opinion, fighting with herself over what was right.
"And I won't let you see her."
Ellie looked up, her eyebrows raised.
"You don't understand how bad they are, even after everything I've shown you recently. I will not let her poison your mind any further."
"Of course it came to this. Of course it did. Look at this!" Vilmar gestured at the television angrily, which was replaying the news item about Cure Anomaly for the umpteenth time. "It was only a matter of time until she'd use docile people for her own purposes. And look how it's left that girl! She might be dead for all we know."
"She looked alive when we got to the hospital," Gogo mumbled quietly, picking at a loose thread in her jeans as she sat on the sofa next to Vilmar's laptop.
Vilmar was too focused on his tirade to acknowledge her comment.
"How many dociles do we know?" He turned his head quickly, with a manic look in his eyes, his glasses slightly askew. Gogo thought for a moment.
"My counselor in school is one. And my maths teacher. One of the people we saw at the facility when the Cures saved us got turned into one, but I don't know who they were." She shrugged.
"A couple, I guess."
Vilmar grabbed his laptop and threw himself down on the sofa. He hadn't listened to any word she said. Didn't know it was a rhetorical question, Gogo thought to herself. His hands shook as he feverishly started typing, opening and closing different tabs, and then reopening them again.
"What are you doing?" She asked.
"If she uses one docile," he said, while typing away in a program Gogo recognised but hadn't seen in a while, "who's to say if- no, when she will use more?"
Gogo stared at his screen and tried to read it but he might as well have been writing in hieroglyphs, she couldn't make anything of it.
"Are you trying to turn off the docile chunk thingie?" She guessed. What the hell are those things called anyway?
"If I tried to do that, I am certain she will find out before I've written even more than a single string," Vilmar answered, his face glued to the screen as he continued writing.
Gogo studied the program some more. Why did it give her such a nostalgic feeling?
Then it caught her.
"Wait, isn't that the program you wrote Luzia's code in?"
"Clever girl," Vilmar responded. It became clear to Gogo she wasn't going to get much more out of him, so she got up from the sofa and stretched.
"I'm going to bed. Don't stay up too late, you giant nerd."
Vilmar mumbled a vague "bon'uit" and Gogo was pretty certain he wasn't going to take her advice.
When she came into the living room the next morning, she found Vilmar asleep on the sofa, his laptop dangerously close to edging off his knees.
"Seriously," she said quietly as she put the laptop on the coffee table. She tapped Vil on the knee, but when it didn't wake him she pushed him with one of her feet.
Vilmar groaned and rubbed his head.
"Good morning sunshine," Gogo said flatly.
"Dieu!" He pushed Gogo out of the way to grab his laptop. "Did I save?"
"What is with you all of a sudden? You've turned into a total zombie since yesterday!"
He didn't respond. He went back to doing exactly what he was doing the night before. Gogo rolled her eyes.
"Fine, ignore me! You can make your own breakfast."
[Saiko: Has anyone heard anything from Rae since yesterday? She doesn't respond to my messages]
[Gogo: Nope]
[Nana: I haven't. I wouldn't be surprised if Hera won't allow her to use her phone. I don't think we should worry about it, for now.]
[Saiko: Ok so when do you propose is the right time to start panicking because I am about to rn]
Gogo admitted to herself she hadn't really thought about Rae since getting home. She'd been avoiding social media altogether, not at all interested in seeing all the hate she was sure the Cures were getting now because of Hera. Throwing a robot into a garbage compactor is one thing, but Anomaly had been human…
[Gogo: Have you heard anything about Yon, Nana?]
[Nana: I'm actually at the hospital right now. Yon's parents aren't in Clairewood so me and my family are kind of her family now…]
[Nana: She's in a coma. But she's stable. They can't tell us anything else right now.]
[Saiko: I'm so sorry Nana]
[Nana: It's ok. If anything it's a motivator that we've got to do something really soon.]
Something. Always that "something". Gogo's finger hovered over her phone's keyboard, but she didn't know what to say. At least, she didn't know how to say it nicely.
Nana had told them Bit knew of a place in the forest that made him so scared he immediately fled. Obviously that's where they should go next! Kick in the door and drag out whatever Hera really was and stomp it into the forest dirt.
I should say that. Rae wasn't there to tell her "tsunami", but she was pretty sure that she wasn't being too rash at this moment. If she just said something along the lines of "Hey, remember that thing Bit saw in the forest," that'd get the ball rolling. No mention of ripping Hera to shreds or Ellie- God, what were they even going to do about Ellie?
"Gogo?"
Vilmar's voice came from the living room.
"Oh, you remembered you have a sister?" she replied pointedly. "What is it?"
"Could you come over here for a second?"
She got up, but didn't immediately walk over. "I'm not making you breakfast."
"It's not about that, I want to show you something." Fine, Gogo thought to herself, and she walked into the living room.
The tv was on, and Vilmar was still in the same spot on the sofa with his laptop, though he looked a lot more awake now.
"Wow, she's still airing that, huh." The headline had changed, and the voice-over was saying something new, but it was still that same old footage. With their masks on, they did look kind of intimidating, holding Anomaly back while a faceless Spark tore out the docile device.
"You know, if this even works, all she's doing is making people afraid of the Cures, not making them trust her more. Everyone will just be more scared in general," she said as she studied the footage, something she'd been avoiding since the actual event.
"Exactly," said Vilmar, "and I'm not going to let that happen." He dramatically pressed a key on his laptop, and the tv changed.
A girl popped up on the screen.
"Hoi!" She said, waving.
Gogo let out a small shriek of both fear and confusion. "Who's that?" The girl smiled.
From the way she moved, and the general style of her model, Gogo could tell she was based on the same system Luzia was.
But she looked nothing like Luzia. Her hair was a gradient of deep blue and purple, with two strands of her fringe sticking out sideways, making her look very playful. Her eyes were blue, like her hair, though they had bright cyan shimmers in the bottom, that made it look like they glowed.
Her outfit was a simple light blue hoodie with a big white cat face on it. She wore a giant pair of white headphones, which had cat ears. The cord wasn't plugged into anything, and instead it stuck out from under her hoodie and moved on its own, not unlike a tail.
Gogo felt her cheeks grow hot when she realised the cat on her hoodie had the same expression Cure Static's cat had.
"I didn't really have time to give her a super detailed model so she looks a bit simple. But it's her mind that counts," Vilmar explained.
"My name is Kanon. It's nice to meet you!" The girl smiled at Gogo. Maybe it was her cool colours, or her half-closed, sleepy eyes, but Kanon breathed a certain calmness that contrasted greatly with Luzia's bubbly personality that Gogo had found so grating.
Gogo nodded and stretched her lips, hoping it looked like a friendly smile.
"Vilmar, what are you doing…? Aren't you worried the same thing will happen again?" She whispered, side-eyeing Kanon, who now held one of her hands up to her chin and studied Gogo's movements.
"I can't make sure Hera won't corrupt Kanon like she did Luzia, but I sure as hell tried. Kanon's security measures are about five times as strong as Luzia's were. I wrote everything from scratch in the hopes that it'll confuse Hera, or at least take longer to break in."
Kanon clenched her fists and a devious smile appeared on her face. "I will do my best!" She said. She's pretty cute, I guess, Gogo thought.
"It doesn't really matter if Hera does get to her. If she gets ten seconds of screen time, I'll be satisfied. That's enough to get the message across," Vilmar said darkly, eyes locked on his new creation.
Gogo felt something sink, deep inside the pit of her stomach. It was as if molten lava was pouring down, now sitting idly, inciting a feeling of deep worry and anxiety.
"Whatever it is you're planning on, please don't do it," she said, her throat scratchy.
"Genie, I am one of the few people who can do something. It's my duty."
Gogo turned to him. "You're just one guy!"
It didn't really hit her until she'd said it. She felt tears welling up in her eyes, to her embarrassment, and quickly tried to wipe them away with such force her eyelids hurt.
"I haven't seen mum and dad in almost a year," she began, "and I'm so worried about mémère, alone, in the hospital, when she needs us," an involuntary sob escaped her, "and now you. I almost lost you already to that stupid docile program, and now you want to do this?"
When she uncovered her eyes to look at her brother, he was little more than a vague shape. She blinked a few times. Did I just blind myself? Inadvertently she rubbed her eyes some more, trying to clear up the fogginess she created by rubbing them in the first place, until she felt two hands on her arms that gently moved them away from her face.
The shape became clearer, and she saw Vilmar smiling down on her. He held the palms of her hands, and that rare moment occurred where Gogo felt small. She looked at his purple sweatshirt, unable to look him in the eyes any more. When did he start adding so much purple to his wardrobe?
"I will be okay," he said. "And you will be okay, too. You're so strong, Genie."
"She'll know it was you," Gogo said to Vilmar's midriff.
"She will. But I'm not afraid of her. And neither are you."
She sighed and dropped her hands. "I can't stop you, can I." Vilmar shook his head.
"I will put Kanon on every screen in the city. And she will tell everyone, remind everyone, how good the Pretty Cure have been to us. And it doesn't matter if Hera cuts her off, it doesn't matter if she doesn't get more than a few words out, what matters is that they know they're not alone."
She looked up at him. He smirked. A thousand thoughts went through her mind. If Vilmar went through with his plan, he put himself in danger. But she knew she couldn't stop him. He was still her senior by ten years, and nowhere near as brash. He wasn't gonna listen to his hotheaded little sister. But she didn't want to lose him, she couldn't, not him too. What could she do?
...She knew of one thing, but it'd probably greatly upset the other Cures. Rae would tell her "no, don't," and then try to take her place. Nana would chastise her for making a decision again without talking it over with the other Cures, and she wasn't sure what Saiko would do, but she thought of one of the scowls she'd given Gogo after the trash compactor incident.
But this didn't concern them; not really. This concerned her family. The only relative she had left in this city. She didn't want to see him be turned into a mindless drone, or possibly worse. And so she made her decision.
She took a step back. She felt sad, and a little worried, but she had made up her mind.
"I'll go with her."
Vilmar gave her a puzzled look.
"Oh, that's nice of you," Kanon said.
Gogo took a deep breath, and pulled her phone from her pocket.
"Pretty Cure, recharge."
Vilmars eyes grew wide as the phone glowed an unnaturally bright violet.
"Activate!"
A flash of purple enveloped the room briefly, and Cure Static had taken Gogo's place.
A weak "wow," was all Vilmar could manage.
"Oh shut up," said Static, as she planted her hands on her hips. "You knew. You knew from the start, you big liar!" She gave him a soft kick against his shin, and he laughed.
"I had my suspicions, but I didn't know. I'm beyond proud of you, Genie."
"Thanks, but I don't feel like we've done much. Be proud of me once we've gotten rid of Hera. How about you activate whatever makes Kanon appear all over the city, and I'll make sure she'll be okay." After I've figured out how to do that, Static thought to herself.
Vilmar told Static that Kanon would be on the Seyfert building, just like Luzia had been, and that that would probably be the best place to appear alongside her. He also gave her his laptop, which housed Kanon's original files, while he chose to work from his home computer in case anyone tried to interfere with Kanon's program. That way they could easily restore her in case they needed to, he told her.
While she was traveling to the center of town, she nervously called Nana via her bracelet.
When Nana picked up, she had very dark spots under her eyes, and her gaze seemed slightly out of focus.
"Hey Gogo," Nana said sleepily. Then she frowned. "Wait, why are you transformed?"
"Okay, you're gonna be really angry, but I'm in the city to help my brother with his anti Hera propaganda," Static explained. She immediately regretted her wording.
"...What?" Nana seemed more confused than upset.
"Ok, well, I don't have time to go into detail, but basically Vilmar knows I'm Static. He already knew, but I kinda transformed in front of him so he really knows now. And Hera might kill him for what he's about to do, and I'm not gonna let that happen, so I thought it was more important to protect him than to keep my identity a secret. So there."
She nearly jumped into a window; she'd lost track of her surroundings while trying to explain her actions.
"What's he gonna do?" Nana asked.
"You'll see. If you want, you can join me. I'm gonna be at Seyfert corp."
Nana nodded while looking at something Static couldn't see. "Yeah, I'll do that. Be safe, Static." with that, she hung up.
Did she even catch anything of what I said, Static wondered. Nana looked too out of there, and her answers had been very vague. She probably didn't get any sleep after everything that happened with Yon, Static figured. Maybe it'd be best if she didn't come… Now she wished she'd said that.
But it was too late now, Static had made it to Seyfert. She'd taken her old spot on a nearby skyscraper, the same one where she'd waited for Circuit, Volt, and Spark, the first time all four of them worked together as a team. The same one where they'd confronted Luzia. If she was honest with herself, she didn't like being here. Thinking of Luzia made her feel very uncomfortable. The molten lava swirled in the pit of her stomach.
She let Vilmar know she'd made it to Seyfert, and then waited.
"Oh, there you are!" A booming voice came from behind Static, and she turned around to look at the building. There she was, Kanon, gargantuan, sleepy, and smiling down on Gogo, while she waved at her slowly. "Let's do this," she continued, and then her gaze shifted to looking straight ahead.
"Hello, everyone. I'm sorry I'm interrupting whatever you're watching, but I bet you're all tired of seeing that scene of the Cures and Anomaly being shoved down your throat anyway, so I hope you don't mind."
Wow. Kanon's vocabulary was a lot less flowery than Luzia's. Static grinned.
"I'm telling you nothing new when I say that Hera has been forcing you to believe the Pretty Cure are violent and evil. I bet you're all tired of the overused footage of them stepping out of line, when really they were just trying to help us. Remember this bit?" Kanon quickly glanced at Static, and a rapid "sorry," escaped her lips, as she briefly disappeared to be replaced by the scene at the pier. Static felt nothing, looking at it. She regretted her actions at the pier greatly, but the footage of the event left her feeling numb, now. It was almost like it wasn't really her, in that footage, and it wasn't really Ellie being thrown, or Volt bounding at her in the aftermath.
"It's easy to manipulate footage if you have full control over it," Kanon said as she reappeared. "Here's some more footage from the same day, which Hera conveniently didn't show you."
It showed the Cures helping fishermen and carefully putting them on the pier. Static saw herself crouched over a man and patting him on the shoulder, making sure he was alright. Oh yeah, I did do that, she thought to herself. Thanks to Hera's interference she'd remembered that day as nothing more than heaving Ellie over her head and throwing her, over and over, until the sun went down and she was back home, full of regret. But that's not what happened. She had been there, and she had forgotten the true events; how must it have felt for people who weren't there? The lava rose slightly. She felt squeamish.
Kanon reappeared. "I bet you weren't surprised to see that, were you? That's probably why Hera made you watch it over and over. Now onto last night. I'm not going to replay that clip, I'm sure you've seen it, maybe you were even watching it right before I showed up!" she chuckled.
"But lookie what I found. I'm very smart, so I got into the same cameras Hera did, last night. Look at this!"
Static watched the fight of the four Cures with Anomaly. It was evident that they were defending themselves against her. The video ended with Anomaly falling to the ground, and a few short clips from different security cameras of the Cures hurrying to the hospital, with Circuit carefully carrying Yon in her arms.
"How evil. They stopped a brainwashed human from attacking them, and took her to the hospital to make sure she'd be alright." Kanon shook her head. "How could they."
Kanon's image flickered briefly. It sent a jolt through Static's spine. But she didn't disappear.
"Everyone," she continued, her hands clenched into fists and held in front of her chest, "please don't forget who the real enemy is. And who the real heroes are!"
Static bit her lip. She wasn't sure if flat out calling Hera "the enemy" was really a good idea.
"Heroes? The enemy?" a new voice boomed through the plaza. Static got off the building, and flew nearer to Kanon. She saw people had gathered around, and they were looking around for the source of the voice.
She knew that voice.
That sweet, optimistic, irritating, saccharine voice that used to resound through her living room.
Luzia.
She summoned her hammer, and looked around for a sign of the virus idol. Kanon didn't. Kanon knew where Luzia was. "She's trying to erase me," she said to Static. Was this still being broadcast?
"Don't make me laugh."
People pointed. Static turned around.
One side of the building now showed Luzia, the other side Kanon. Luzia looked annoyed. She leaned on a gloved hand and stared blankly ahead. The lava inside Static's stomach rose at an alarming rate, she thought she was going to be sick.
"I'm glad you joined us!" Kanon said cheerily. Luzia did not respond.
"You are the living proof that Hera is bad. All you did was cause misery. And now she's reactivated you, after all you did. Would a good warden really do that?"
Static heard the people below her yell, but couldn't make out what they were saying.
"Now now," Luzia responded. She straightened up. "That's no way to talk to your older sister." She knew. Static didn't know if it was because of her nature as a virus, or the fact that Luzia and Kanon were built in the same program, born from the same code, but Luzia knew of Kanon's origin. She suddenly shifted her eyes to Static. The hot lava froze at once.
"Oh, hello Gogo. How have you been?"
Kanon's face fell. She looked at Static, her eyes sad and dim. "I'm sorry," she repeated. "She already knew."
"I know," Static replied. She took a deep breath, and then moved a little, so she was face to face with Luzia. She was vaguely aware that more and more people were gathering below her.
"I don't care if you tell them. I don't care if you tell her, either. It doesn't matter anymore, because my brother already knows. Do you remember my brother? He made you." Static heard her own voice crack, but cleared her throat and continued on. She pointed at the building that housed Luzia's giant form. "He made you in there. You were his biggest project, and he was so proud of you. How you learned new words, how you learned to dance by watching people. You had so much energy, and whenever he was down in the evening, I'd catch him talking to you and you'd cheer him up without fail. And now…" She took another deep breath. She felt a lump in her throat, one she couldn't swallow down. "And now she's turned you into this." Luzia stared blankly back at Static. Now she'd fulfilled her purpose of informing Hera of a Cure's identity, she seemed empty, void.
"Rae Rivers, Gogo Barteau. Who are the other two, I wonder," she said in a flat voice. It sounded nothing like Luzia. But the voice wasn't altogether alien to Static. She tightened her grip on the hammer. "You're not Luzia," she said, holding back tears. "You stopped being Luzia the moment she forced my brother to give you up. The moment YOU forced him to give her up!" Static took a swing at Luzia's reflection, shattering the glass windows on several floors. Luzia's face now had only one eye, the rest of her face replaced by darkness where there no longer were any screens to materialize it on.
"You are so violent. You are not fit to protect this city," Luzia went on in the strange voice.
"She is passionate, and you're a monster. You're nothing more than the corruption of someone's life work. People know this. You can't fool them any longer, Hera." Kanon had been quiet for a while, so Static had forgotten she was there and was surprised when she spoke up.
"I'm not Hera," Luzia retorted. Static scoffed loudly. Luzia ignored her. "People know the truth. Why don't you look down and ask them yourself?"
An uneasy feeling crept up on Static. She was almost afraid to look down, but forced herself to.
There they were. Hundreds of people. All looking up at Static, Luzia and Kanon. The crowd was very diverse, and at first Static was confused as to why Luzia wanted her to look at them, until she noticed. Black spots, on each and every forehead. Silently they stared up at her.