Chapter 25:Intermisson

Author's Note:Figured I'd play around with some other POVs for a little while. I'm sure there's absolutely nothing important anywhere in this chapter.

Seriously, just click to go to chapter 26(if it's out.) It's not like you'll miss any plot points that'll ever become relevant or anything, right?

…No? Okay…

Dear Diary-August 23rd (year unnoted)

Salutations! My name is Penny Polendina. One of the guards that helps keep this place safe suggested I start writing a diary and gave me some basic guidelines on how to do it.

The General said I need to be combat ready by the Festival, but that otherwise I should get used to spending time out in public. So today I went to a bookstore, but I must admit nothing there particularly interested me. My escort says that tomorrow he'll take me somewhere a little more fun. I can hardly wait!

Dear Diary-August 25th

Salutations! Mr. Clem brought me to a game shop today. It was actually kind of fun, but I don't know ll ever says that tomorrow he'll take me somewhere a little more fun. I can hardly wait!

Which is rather odd, actually, I would think that the last legend wouldn't have any sequels? Regardless, Clem very enthusiastically recommended it, and so I decided to check it out.

Dear Diary-August 28th

Salutations! I finally beat Last Legend 7. While not quite as good as Mr Clem said, it was still quite sensational. I've stayed up for the last 60 hours in order to beat it and I'm feeling a bit funny...

((Author's Note: The dots represents the pen sliding on the paper because there's no other real good way to represent that...

The following entry is in shaky handwriting.))

Dear Diary August 29th

Cold…so cold. The last thing I remember before that cold was writing in my diary, and then…..nothing. Not nothing as in I remember nothing but…. Literally remembering ***nothing***.

Miss Blanc says that most humans start to see things after a short time without sight or sound.

While I was in that nothing, I… I couldn't see anything. I couldn't hear anything. I couldn't even feel where my body was.

I heard Doctor Blanc arguing with the General today, saying that until she could figure out the issue that caused me to stay conscious during my shutdown that she could not possibly continue working on creating more androids like me.

I….I'm scared. Is that going to happen to me again? What exactly happened?

I'm still so cold. This body isn't made with any facilities for sensing temperatures, but I know instinctively that this is what cold feels like despite that.

I…I don't want to go back to that Void.

…The whole time I was there, I only actually felt one sensation I could describe as being genuinely, guaranteed a hundred percent real.

Something *reached for me*. Touched me. Recoiled, and then dismissed me out of hand.

When I mentioned this to Clem he mumbled something about 'not going towards the light' or something.

…

According to my clock, it's been about 12 hours since I shut down. Apparently, I forgot to recharge myself. While since I wasn't in combat, I shouldn't have run down within 60 hours, there was also a small short circuit in my body.

I… I just want to feel warm.

Doctor Elaine Blanc's Records

August 29th

Penny's black box indicates a large amount of semblance use during what I have, for lack of a better term, deemed her 'blackout phase'.

What is unusual is that her semblance has always been on, and up until now we had assumed it was a fully passive one. It doesn't seem that her semblance has any connection to her Aura level.

The question is, what happened to her to make her NEED to use her semblance more when she blacked out?

I went over some of what we colloquially call the 'Dumb Pennies'-The first attempts at the android that didn't quite work out. Apparently, a few of them also exhibit a passive semblance. Don't know how we skimmed over that, but perhaps we can do something with that?

My personal theory is that Penny's semblance is responsible for her state of consciousness, while the other androids are simply echoing the personality of whoever's Aura was used for the first sparks of their life. Their semblances not matching is because personality shifts over time, while semblances rarely actually change. Develop, yes, but only in cases of severe mental illness have they ever changed. This would also explain why, unlike Penny, the rest of the androids are incapable of recovering Aura.

If my theory's right, we had best hope that Penny is not mentally imbalanced by her experiences last night.

Oh, hey, I rhymed!

Anyway, we will have to wait for the return of Doctor Polendina for any further analyses.