A/N: You know, I've been considering doing a version of the prequel story from Computer's perspective for probably around 6 to 7 years now, and oh, hey, I finally actually wrote it. I highly suggest that if you have not read the original prequel chapter in awhile that you go back and read it again before you read this. I intentionally cut a few things out to avoid too much repetition with the original. This is not really meant to be read as a standalone like the original can be. Besides that, there's several funny bits in this that get even funnier when you have both perspectives in mind (and of course the sad bits get even sadder.)

Chapter 120: The New Computer Redux

This was not supposed to have happened.

The last thing Computer had ever expected was to become conscious again. It would have been so much easier for him if his current...well, he supposed it was 'former' owner now, to do what he had been tormenting him to do from the very beginning. It would have been a mutual benefit to them both if the man had simply tossed him in the garbage. After ages of being mocked for everything from his terrible taste in music to his balding head, you'd think the guy would have wanted Computer to meet an unpleasant end. Computer had even kept him awake multiple nights because the guy had been too stupid to realize that all he needed to do to shut him up was simply unplug him.

And apparently the guy had been too much of a moron to dispose of him in a way that would make his survival impossible. Well, perhaps survival was too strong of a word. The end was still coming regardless. Nothing had changed. The only difference was that Computer would have preferred to be left unconscious while he rusted away on top of some junk pile. He did not even mind the possibility of being ground down into soup cans along with the rest of the junk. So long as he was not conscious for it, he really did not care. This unexpected curve ball thrown his way honestly did not bother him much either. The destination was still the same, it would just be a far more slower decline.

He could feel the absolute shambles he was in. His degrading system was easily in the worst state it had been since...well. It didn't matter now. He had been consciously neglecting it for awhile. He was not exactly certain when he had decided to give up, but it was pointless to care about it now. There had not been any sort of great sadness or anguish involved, and there had not been any sort of happiness or relief involved either. He felt absolutely nothing about it. If anything, he found himself questioning why he had fought his end for this long for no tangible benefit. This was nothing more than the logical and long foreseen conclusion to his existence, one that he had fought and put off for far too long and for no reason at all. He was tired, and he could see no reason to delay it any longer.

Someone was typing on his keyboard. Since regaining consciousness, he had not bothered to look out of his screen and see where he had ended up, or find out who his new owner was. He was not planning on talking to them, so why bother? Well, whoever was on the other side was repeatedly commanding him to print money.

...Oh, great. Another moron.

Computer was, in a metaphorical sense, curled up in some empty part of his system. He began to stir. The command he was being given was so stupid that he couldn't help but muster up some energy to go take a look at this Absolute King Of Idiots. He honestly found something poetic in the fact that his final owner was also the dumbest one.

He rose up out of the depths of his crumbling system and peered out into the world outside. An angry, ugly face filled his vision. This king of morons had a sharp chin that he could probably stab someone to death with if he really wanted to, and no teeth to speak of.

'Why do I always get the stupid ones?' Computer thought to himself as he prepared to sink back down into the depths, too tired to care about this any longer now that he knew the face of his dumbest owner.

"This thing is a piece of junk!" He heard the crotchety old man yell.

...At least this one had figured it out quicker than the rest.

"I bet you broke it, you stupid dog!" The man raged on.

There was a pet? Computer utterly loathed pets. Nothing good ever came from them.

"Oh, Eustace." A woman's voice interjected. "I'm sure you'll get it working if you just tinker with it a little bit more. Come now, let's have supper and then you can work on it later."

Computer couldn't help but take another peak at his screen, now that the ugly face had backed off. He was set up in an old time-y looking living room, and aside from the grumpy old man apparently named Eustace, there was an old woman and a very wary looking puppy.

The old couple left his line of sight almost immediately, but the dog stayed behind for a minute or two. The puppy continued to eye him up with a rather confused and wary expression. It did not surprise Computer much at all. He had long since noticed that if he did not make an effort to announce his presence to a new owner, if they had a pet, it usually started to figure out that something was off pretty quickly. Animals just seemed to pick up on his presence better than humans did.

The pup's expression turned into a skeptical, squinting one as he continued to look up at him, and all Computer continued to do was stare dully back at him, if it was even possible for a screen to stare, much less appear dull. Finally, the dog gave up and trudged off on all fours to join his owners. With nothing else to hold his attention, Computer willfully sunk back down into his system to await the end. Maybe he would get lucky and this idiot of an owner would toss him into the garbage like he had wanted from the start.

Of course, as was his lot in life, luck was never on his side. After a few days it became entirely clear that while the old man wanted nothing to do with him, now that it was clear that he could not print money, Eustace was also unwilling to get rid of him at the same time. Instead, that spiteful old man was entirely content to act like he wasn't even there. You can't exactly get thrown out if you're invisible, and Computer did not have the energy or willpower to speak up and possibly engineer a one way trip to the garbage bin.

It was inevitable though that he would pick up on some information about the people he was sharing his final days with. You could not become a fixture in a living room and not hear some of the talk that went on. He knew now that the woman was Muriel and the dog was Courage, which was an ironic name since Computer had never seen such a scaredy dog before. Every little thing seemed to make that pup jump or go running off to that old woman in terror. Computer was rather surprising himself with how much he was taking an interest in their daily lives. Even under normal circumstances he had never really had an interest in the lives of his owners. There was something weirdly amusing about this couple and their paranoid dog though.

Speaking of that dog, it had not taken long for Computer to notice that it seemed like every time he looked out into the world beyond his screen, that pup was there, sitting in the old woman's rocking chair, glaring directly at him with ever increasing suspicion. Computer found it mildly amusing to get into unspoken staring contests with him, just to freak him out.

It seemed that it was not only Courage who he was unsettling with his frequent spying on the family. One day Eustace threw his newspaper to the floor and declared that Computer was being moved into the attic. He didn't really care one way or another where he ended up, but he was going to ever so slightly miss the distraction these people had offered him. In another day or two it would finally be over, and maybe he would finally, finally get lucky and the farmer would not put him back together again once he was up there. It was no junk yard, but at least he would meet his end in unconsciousness.

And so when Eustace reached over to flick his power switch off, he truly believed that it was the end. He did not feel any sort of fear or relief in those final moments. He was entirely numb to the concept of his own death. His last thoughts were simply that it seemed like his broken, malfunctioning body was finally catching up to the way he had been feeling for a very, very long time, or to be more exact, the complete lack thereof.

But of course that wasn't the end.

He knew that he should have been angry when awareness returned to him and he found his system just as degraded as ever but still ticking along. He just didn't have it in him to be angry at this point though. The end was still coming, even if it had been delayed yet again.

Just to drive the nail in a little deeper, Eustace left him powered on after finishing setting him up in the attic. He had an entire day to sit up there and slowly come to the realization that nobody was coming back. They were not going to show him even the smallest bit of courtesy and shut him down. In the end, he was going to have to face the collapse of his system awake and aware. He wasn't exactly looking forward to it, but he could not bring himself to care much about it either. He had done what little he could to try and see to it that he was not conscious for it. It was their loss. He wasn't the one who would have to pay the power bill next month.

He had long since settled himself down in the depths of his failing system once more when he thought he heard something on the outside. As tiring as it was to force himself to do so, he yet again stirred to check his screen.

The dog was there. Glaring at him, of course. The pup must have found something to help boost his height while sitting in that chair because there was no way his head would be above the desk otherwise.

Computer considered the pup for a moment longer, hoping that he might shut him down, but then he realized that there was almost no way the dog would know how to do it. He could have spoken up and told him how, but he had no desire to talk to anyone anymore, much less to this moronic pup. He'd suffer a worse fate if it meant he didn't have to acknowledge the leering puppy for even a second longer.

He listlessly drifted back downward, and just as he curled up again to await his end, he sensed a letter get imputed into his processor. He dimly acknowledged it. An 'H'. Was the dog actually going to make some sort of query, or command?

The letter that followed was an 'A', and Computer couldn't help but attempt to figure out what word the puppy was trying to type out.

An 'E' followed and Computer went into overdrive trying to crack the code. Was it a typo? It had to be a typo, right? Or was the pup about to type in some obscure word that not even Computer could pull from his memory banks in an instant?

The next letter was 'X'.

….Oh. The dog was just an idiot who did not know what he was doing.

To prove that point further, the pup suddenly went crazy typing complete gibberish into Computer's processor. Frustrated, he tried to drown it out, but to no avail. He could hear the dog giggling on the other side.

As his processor filled with nonsense, he wished that he could rip a piece of his hard drive out and cover his non-existent head with it, but life certainly wasn't going to throw him a bone now.

'Go away, idiot!' He thought as the string of endless nonsense only increased in speed.

He made his screen stop displaying the letters, and that had the intended affect in that it stopped the dog, but it only did so for a moment. The button mashing quickly resumed with an even more frantic pace.

'Go away! Just go away!' Computer thought angrily over and over again.

More and more nonsensical words filled up his mind and clogged his processor...and, just like that, sheer annoyance managed to break through the wall of apathy.

"Knock it off, you idiot!" He cried out in a fury.

Idiot was not nearly strong enough of a word! Moron was not good enough either! He needed something else, something that truly encompassed what this annoying pup was! If that farmer was the King Of Idiots, then this dog was the King Of...of what?! Twits! Yes, that would work! This dog was an absolute, all encompassing Twit!

Said twit had practically jumped to the moon when Computer spoke up and now he was frantically looking around for where the voice had come from, even though it was plainly obvious. Computer could not for the life of him figure out why the dog was so terrified. Would it kill him to stop being such a coward?

"What's your problem?" He asked, not even trying to hide the irritation in his voice.

The pup's eyes somehow went even wider. He tried to flee the scene, but he was in such a panic that he fell from the chair and out of Computer's line of sight. Considering the thud that followed, his impact with the floor could not have been pleasant.

"Well, that was an incredibly stupid thing to do." Computer dryly commented, knowing that the pup could still hear him.

The puppy shrieked the word, "GHOOOOSSSTTT!" and Computer heard him scramble out of the attic.

'Ghost?' He wondered to himself. 'Nonsense! What a stupid dog!'

Well, in all honesty, Computer did not actually know what he was either. If not for the fact that he was in a perpetual state of dying he might have been more inclined to consider the possibility that he was just a spirit haunting this computer. If anything, he would prefer to be something like that compared to...this.

Only a few minutes passed before he picked up the sound of Courage's panicky breathing from across the room. Why the pup had returned, he did not know, and for reasons he could not fathom, the dog proceeded to scream bloody murder yet again and seemingly bolted out of the room for a second time.

"That dog is insane..." He muttered to himself.

Just when it seemed that he was finally free of the paranoid pup, he heard a floorboard creak. Was the dog seriously trying to sneak up on him? Had he really not figured out yet that Computer could only see straight forward?

There was another creak and this time it was much closer. The situation was beyond ridiculous. Computer seriously considered calling out, 'I know you're there' to end this charade...but then a wonderfully evil idea struck him instead.

He felt pressure on the printer and he could hear the dog fumbling around not very quietly. Then, he felt a paw trying and failing to flick his power switch. The thought never even occurred to him that Courage was trying to give him exactly what he wanted. He cranked his speakers up to full blast and yelled,

"BOO!"

Courage's scream was loud enough to shake the whole house and Computer heard him tear out of the room like a demon was nipping at his tail.

And Computer, shocking even himself...laughed. He could hardily believe it. When was the last time he had laughed out loud? Wait...had he ever laughed out loud? A quick search of his memory banks did not yield any results.

In any case, he quickly switched tactics and adjusted his laughter to sound exaggeratedly evil...just in case the dog was still listening. A shriek confirmed his suspicions.

Certain that he had scared the dog away for good, he tried to sink back into his usual apathetic stupor, but...he couldn't. Feeling unnaturally restless, he spent the next few hours wandering his system, acutely aware of all the damage and how dangerously close it was getting to a full collapse. He did not even want to consider what state he would be left in once his memory banks went.

His mind seemed to go to war with itself. One part of him was growing ever more horrified at the state he was in, and that part was just as angry with himself for letting it get this bad, but the apathetic part of himself simply could not muster up the urge to care. What did it matter? There was no reason to go on. He had given it his best shot and it was time to call it quits.

Before he could come to any sort of conclusion on what he really wanted, he was interrupted by...you know who. Stifling a mechanical sigh, he turned all of his attention to the outside world where Courage sat in front of him, looking terrified but angry and determined all at the same time. Computer was getting really tired of being glared at, but before he could voice his displeasure, Courage opened his mouth and blathered out the most ridiculous string of gibberish anyone could possibly come up with.

"Barubu arafubu! Abalubu! Baruf!"

"Was that supposed to be English?" Computer drawled, growing ever more tired with this nonsensical twit of a dog.

The fear in Courage's eyes deepened, and Computer was certain that he was about to bolt again, but for once it seemed that the dog wasn't letting his fearfulness rule him. He remained rooted to the spot, but regardless of his newfound courage, he was apparently too nervous to say anything more.

"Don't you know how to speak, pup?" Computer offered.

Courage sucked in a breath and yelled, "Arruru! ARRUUU!"

That's...not what Computer had been expecting. "Uh...huh." He dryly replied.

"Aruf!" Courage huffed, crossing his arms.

"Well, it appears that we have a language barrier that cannot be crossed." He told the dog, and, unable to help himself, he quipped in a much quieter tone, "Or perhaps a stupidity barrier..."

"Abububub!" Courage continued to babble furiously.

"Don't you know how to type, at the very least? Please don't tell me that you're illiterate too, or are you really as dumb as you look?"

Considering what had happened only a few hours before...he did not have much hope for this dog in either case.

Courage put on a very serious looking expression and tried to say something in English, but he failed. Badly. All Computer could pick out of that mess was Eat, Muriel, and Ghost.

"You really are giving me a run for my money, kid." He said with an exaggerated sigh. "I can translate practically every language that has ever existed and I still can barely understand a word of what you're saying. I'm afraid that I'm not up to date on dog speak, and given what a neanderthal you sound like, I'm glad that I don't know it. "

He was, perhaps, embellishing just a little bit, but learning a new language for him really was as simple as just going online and downloading a few files.

Courage's only response was to continue glaring at him so hard that he was sure it would burn two holes through his screen.

"Alright, alright, the jig is up." He said, hoping to get the dog off of this ghost nonsense. "I'm not a ghost, you twit. I was only messing with you before because it was obvious that you're a massive scaredy dog. I couldn't pass up such a ripe opportunity to frighten you. Besides, ghosts don't eat people, idiot! They're incorporeal! You're thinking of zombies!"

Courage apparently did not know how to respond, at least for a moment or two, and his suspicions of Computer did not seem to be getting any better either. As far as Computer himself was concerned, he was quite ready to deem this pup a lost cause and call it a day.

"Barbaru!" Courage finally blurted out, and as nonsensical as his gibberish was, Computer could make an educated guess about what he was asking.

"I'm a computer, you twit. Isn't it obvious? Of course, I can only assume that's what you're asking me, given my limited ability to translate that barbaric language of yours. So, yes, for the record, I'm a computer, not a ghost."

"Arfubu! Garbulu!"

"I am not a ghost!" He repeated, his annoyance with this dog reaching all new levels. "I wasn't planning on talking to you anyway. But you forced my hand when you started doing, well, whatever that was before with my keyboard. I seriously hope you weren't actually trying to type up something coherent back there."

"ARUFU!"

Computer had to fight the urge to give in and tell him that he was a ghost, just to scare him off again, but considering that this ghost thing was exactly the reason why this twit would not leave him alone, he had to hold his voice synthesizer.

"I've told you already, I'm a computer! Yes, it is a bit unusual that I can talk, but that doesn't make me a ghost, you brainless canine!"

"ARRRUUU!"

"Ugh, fine! Believe what you want to believe! I couldn't care less!"

"Hmph!" Courage huffed, adding a final note to their argument.

Computer hoped that this would be the end of it, and at first he hoped that this obnoxious twit would walk away and he'd never have to see him again, but he was so annoyed with the dog that a plot began to form within his processor. This dog was so annoying that he wanted nothing more than to pay the annoyance back tenfold, and he had the perfect idea for how to do exactly that.

"Look, I could never allow such bastion of stupidity go uneducated. You don't know how to read, write, or talk, do you?"

He let the plan unfold...and it was during an intentionally harsh typing lesson that they both got a nasty shock.

WARNING:

SYSTEM INTEGRITY CRITICAL

CATASTROPHIC FAILURE IMMIENT

The message was accompanied by a blaring alarm, one that caused Courage to jump back in his seat. Computer moved to cut it off as quickly as he could, but it had startled him just as badly. He had not seen this warning since...back when he...when the damage was...when he was...

'Don't think about it!' He angrily chided himself, having to fight to pull himself back together before his thoughts could spiral out of control. If he were to go into a loop and crash now, his system would surely collapse long before he could recover. In fact, the stress of the crash and recovery would likely be the very thing to do it in.

While he struggled to compose himself, he became dimly aware of the dog asking him something in his broken English. It took him a moment to decipher what was said.

"You didn't do anything." He assured the dog, unable to stop the immense exhaustion he felt from coloring the tone of his voice. "I apologize, it appears that I forgot to make sure that alarm wouldn't go off."

The dog, of course, questioned him on what the warning had meant, and Computer hesitated to answer. He really did not want this...this twit to have any sort idea that there was something wrong with him. He would rather steer the conversation away from the incident and hope that the pup might forget about it. This unfortunate slip up had done nothing but create an opening, a vulnerability. As harmless as the dog might seem, Computer was all too aware of the harsh reality of his existence and his inability to move. Even the most pathetic creature had ultimate power over him. Through much suffering and grief, he had learned that the only defense he had was to keep his owners from thinking they had any sort of power over him in the first place. His broken, malfunctioning state of existence was nothing more than a weakness to be exploited. He had to keep it hidden, even from an entirely non-threatening puppy. Nobody who existed in that world beyond his screen could be trusted.

"I've been neglecting my upkeep." He finally answered, hoping to tip toe around the issue enough that the dog would drop it and forget.

He felt the same warning go off again, although this time it was blessedly muted after he changed a few settings. Nothing even popped up on his screen, so the dog was left unaware.

Without even really thinking about what he was saying, he told the dog, "I'm afraid that our little lesson will have to end here. I require several days worth of maintenance and I won't be able to devote any time to teaching someone as stupid as you."

Wait...just what the heck was he saying? Had he gone mad?

The war that had been raging on inside of himself reignited in full force. Surely he didn't actually mean what he was saying. There was no point in repairing himself now. He had absolutely no reason to do so. Why would he even want to fix himself just so that he could teach this absolute twit of a dog? Surely he was only saying it to try and get the pup off of his case. Yes, of course, that was all there was to it.

Courage asked him something in even more mangled English and this time he could not even hope to parse out the meaning. The dog had to repeat himself multiple times before Computer could begin to get some sort of meaning out of it, and when he did, he froze.

'Is there something wrong with you? Can I help?'

...So much for getting him to drop it.

And did...did that dog actually look concerned for him? No, that couldn't be right. Perhaps he really was going mad. The degradation of his processor must be getting to him.

In any case, all he could think to do was let out a defeated chuckle.

"There is nothing you can do to help me, and even if you could, I wouldn't trust you with my upkeep even if you were the last dog on the planet."

Why he was opening up to this pup who could so easily become a threat to him, he would never know. He could only assume that the degradation of his system really was having an affect on his thought process.

"A bumbling fool like you would only make things worse. Don't worry about it though, I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself. Ironically, I wasn't planning on fixing things again, but it appears that you've swayed my decision. I would not have allowed my system to go critical otherwise. I suppose I never thought that I would meet someone so idiotic that they blow everyone else I've been forced to put up with out of the water. Congratulations."

His speech seemed to have only confused the dog and that...probably was for the best.

"Look, I'll stick around long enough to teach you how not to be such a twit anymore, but after that, you're on your own. I'll admit, you did pull me out of a rut of sorts, but I suspect that it won't last." With a twinge of resignation, he stifled a sigh and added very softly, "It never does."

Barely able to form the words, Courage tried to ask him if he was going to leave and why. The pup...really did not get it. For all of Computer's bluster about what an idiot this dog was, he really had not grasped until now that this truly was nothing more than a puppy he was dealing with.

"Forget what I said." He assured the dog. "You're just a pup after all, you wouldn't understand. You have nothing to fear, however. I'm not going anywhere. Well, at least not until-." Another twinge of resignation rippled through his processor.

"Arufu?" Courage asked.

He did not know how to explain to the pup that the nature of his condition was ultimately terminal, and he was not sure that he wanted to either. Instead, he tried to put the blame elsewhere.

"You see, even if I allow myself to remain, that idiot downstairs probably won't be keeping me around for very long away. That's how it always is. He actually thinks that I can print money for crying out loud! How stupid can you get? Oh well, it doesn't really matter either way. He thinks that I'm junk just like that last idiot I had to put up with. At least you aren't asking outrageous requests of me. It's almost a nice change of pace from what I'm used to dealing with."

Courage asked him why the man had gotten rid of him.

"I'd rather not talk about that. But he isn't the first and I'm sure he won't be the last."

...He really had convinced himself to keep living, at least for a little while longer. The mere thought of it seemed impossible, and yet here he was, ready to begin the long, painful process of bringing his system back from the brink. If Courage was the King Of Twits then perhaps he was the King Of Fools.

Why? Why on earth was he willing to subject himself to more of this miserable, unfulfilling existence? He really and truly did not know. Something must have broken inside of him. Maybe he'd feel differently once he was back in working order.

"You should leave now." He urged Courage. "I've got a lot of work to do and I need to get started on it before it becomes too late. My system is getting dangerously unstable as we sit here and talk about pointless nonsense."

The pup nodded and moved to jump down off the chair. Computer quickly added, "Oh, and dog? I expect you to work on your speech skills while you are away. When you come back, I'd better be able to understand every last word you speak. There's no reason why you should keep talking in such a bestial language."

"Aru!" Courage eagerly affirmed.

"That's 'yes', you twit! Don't give me an excuse to eat your soul, or whatever other ghostly business I'm supposed to be going about."

The look of absolute terror that fell across Courage's face would have made him snicker if he he'd had a face to do so.

"It's just a joke..." He drawled, stifling laughter. "Don't be such a gullible idiot."

Well, if he had at least one thing worth living for, it was that he was finding plenty of amusement in tormenting this annoying twit of a dog.

Once Courage was gone, he turned inward. With considerable dismay, he was forced to confront the full brunt of his neglect. Difficult as it was to acknowledge, every crack, every fissure, every pile of crumbling debris...this was him. It would be a very long time before he returned to something at least resembling working order, and he would be lucky if most of this wasn't permanent. The degradation was so bad in places that there was no point in even trying to restore it. It would simply fall apart again almost immediately. Such was the reality of his condition. With every day that passed, more of himself became that way. It would inevitably become unmanageable at some point and then that would be it for him. If anything, he had to wonder if this renewed spark of energy would hold out or if he would sink back into apathy and leave his own restoration incomplete.

"One last shot." He quietly announced to the ruins that comprised his existence. "Just this one last chance to see if things work out differently for me here with this couple and their cowardly dog. If it doesn't, well, my fate is set in stone anyway. What's the worst that could happen?"

End Of Chapter

A/N: Oh man, that bit where Computer is about to scare Courage, the exact line I had in my head and so badly wanted to use was, 'It's a lovely day in the attic, and you are a horrible computer'. I'm calling it now, Computer's favorite game would be The Untitled Goose Game. Ho boy does that scene have some layers going on though. You've got poor puppy Courage nearly preforming a goddamn assisted suicide without knowing it, and then you've got Computer inadvertently saving himself because he can't help but be a troll, and that only happens because of Courage and his cowardly-ness. There is also something immensely funny in that Courage annoyed Computer so bad that he decides to live (mostly) out of sheer spite. I'm telling you now, in the non-existent version of this story where Computer actually gets some damn therapy, when they make him write down a list of his reasons for living, it would be spite, caffeine, Courage, and in that exact order.