Thunder Child
Third: Unreal
by Lady Virgo
"Be true of heart
Be fair of soul
Do not become lost
engulfed in dark"
///
He landed with a roar and a mighty crash, dirt and crushed rocks filling the air and blinding them both. But he didn't stop, throwing blind punches into the cloud where Elec had flipped through. Because of their reckless aiming it was no problem in trying to avoid the attack, but it was just as dangerous for their randomness.
Elec's smaller size and weaker build was a handicap in this fight, but he had a better sense of his skill, he knew just how fast and how agile he really was. And, better yet, he knew just how much of it he would need in this fight.
The only key, Elec thought to himself, side stepping a stray punch through the dust, is to keep him from hitting me. The moment he lands a hand on me, it's over.
But that didn't mean that he couldn't touch Guts.
His control was that born of a martial artist or a gymnast. A physical prowess and muscles that obeyed any command he gave it, it showed that he was the last created, all obvious flaws of his predecessors weeded out so that he may excel. He flipped over Guts' outstretched arm, bounding up it like a beam to spring upon the flat surface of the giant robot's great brow. Elec braced his knees against the crevice of Guts' neck and shoulders and cupped his hands focusing his attack between his palms.
Guts could feel the air around his ears pop as the air became tense and excited, awaiting the final mark of their game. With a grunt of exertion, Elec pushed one hand down, forcing the sizzling electrons, bright with activity, into the back of Guts' head.
It wasn't much of an attack, but then Guts' blood wasn't something Elec wanted on his hands. But it was strong enough to put him out of commission. The electricity was concentrated just enough to spill over Guts' armor, seeping in between the seams and into his body, disrupting the flow around his positronic brain, temporarily shorting it out. With a stifled groan, Guts went down to his knees before falling flat on the practice grounds, Elec easily tumbling off and onto his feet.
From where he observed the fight, Wily clapped. "Good! Very good, Elec!" He appeared to jot down some notes. "Next, Cut and Bomb."
Somewhere inside of him, something wanted to object. He didn't know what it was, railing against everything and himself, and he wanted so badly to... question? Understand? Elec took a spot along the side of the large training court, shaking his head.
The fortress, which the five bioroids had spent their time building no more than a month prior, had come to be known as Skull Fortress. Its long corridors stretched and turned in on itself in the form of a giant crescent. In the middle was the training field, formed in a circle fashion much like a coliseum, thrice its size and divided into sections. Lines like cross hairs divided it into quarters, each one having a rectangular field marked off 200 yards long and 50 yards around the circumference of the entire area dug into a ditch that went about knee high to an average sized human so the non-combatants could stand out of the way. Along the walls of the arena, high above the field and jutting out from the building like a pillar, molding into the metal, was Dr. Wily's seat. The top half nearly completely encased in a tinted glass, it overlooked the field, speakers lined up so he may direct the bioroids in their deadly play as he analyzed their performance.
For three weeks the six bioroids stayed at the fortress, fighting most of the day, spending the rest of their time building. No that Wily no longer had to hide his true intentions from robots, willing to do what they were told, but always curious, they began to create the meat of Wily's plans. The entire fortress that had already been built would sit upon an extensive lab, all underground and encompassing the entire area: a complete, giant circle, built around several powerful generators and a massive, central core that was built directly into the epicenter. Towards the rear of the fortress, the only outside opening to the combat arena, was a thick, lush forest. Over several hundred meters behind that, they were beginning construction on another, smaller building filled with other highly sensitive equipment for- as Dr. Wily had said -experiments that would be potentially hazardous or destructive.
The fortress, Wily's plans, even the change that he and the other Robot Masters had undergone all screamed 'WRONG' in a muted part of his mind. But then, it was always drowned out by feelings of undying loyalty, unable to force an original thought through the swarm of allegiance and it was burying him alive without him knowing.
Elec tilted his head back, to look all the way into the swirling blue of the sky and see nothing else. Because, with all the hidden turmoil inside, there was nothing else.
~*~*~*~
He lay in is room, watching something invisible behind the ceiling, eyes glazed and inwardly tired. From the back of his senses, he could hear something that faded in his ears, rattling with his slow, deep breathing. It was running, a sort of easy laughter that rung, echoing louder as it played off the walls.
Slowly, almost as if he were dreaming, Elec's head fell to the side, his unfocused gaze turned to the door. The happy specter leapt outside in the halls, playfully trying to coax something from Elec, trying to get his mind to grasp the form that his eyes refused to see.
It glimmered around the edges, incomplete lines that tried to contour their way to something that belonged, something important that was missing, that he was unaware of even losing.
~*~*~*~
His eyes snapped opened upon sudden command. The world was overlaid with green and blue and yellow, swirled together and pockets of air that bubbled and struggled out of his sight. His vision didn't so much as ripple as he moved as it did swell, too thick to swim, too fluid to hold.
With one slow, deliberate movement, he tilted down his head, eyes focusing on the person that stood patiently in front of him.
His mouth formed words, tongue and teeth moving around the thick liquid he knew was there, but didn't. He could feel the pressure as he moved, how the capsule's gel pressed against him, but had grown used it during his suspension.
"...Wily-sama..."
The old man smiled at him in showy contentment. "Elec. I trust you're feeling well?"
He nodded.
"Good, good." He reached over with a long, thin arm and pressed a button on the console besides the capsule, letting the fluid drain out.
It was an odd moment, part floating, part placed with no weight pressed on any part of you, just buoyed up, then to have your feet touched on something you couldn't really feel and then feel gravity pushing you down, heavier and heavier.
For a moment, he almost believed that he couldn't bare the weight.
The door to the capsule hitched out with a hiss before sliding up, allowing Elec to step out, greenish fluids running off his body and pooling around his feet.
"We've come across a problem in your memory databanks, Elec." Wily said, holding an electronic notebook to his face. "It seems that the integral overhaul I did on your system caused some odd cross-signaling. You've been having odd visions and 'memories' because of it. Right now I've just done a temporary patching. It'll be fine in a while, but I wouldn't doubt the visions come back within three weeks. If you start feeling disoriented or they start coming back before then, come see me. I'll be looking at your schematics, figure out a way to fix it all up, okay?" He gave Elec a bright smile and a fatherly pat on the shoulder. "Now, you just go and join the rest of your brothers."
"Yes, Wily-sama."
~*~*~*~
He was more aggressive this time. Wily-sama had said that he was being too slow and kind, that he needed to dominate more. He was the most advanced and greatest built so far, so it was only fitting that he did dominate over the others. In some cases Elec was the unannounced leader of the six. The only one whose presence rivaled his, whose voice would stop everyone in its tracks and demanded to be obeyed was Fire, but he didn't care enough to take the position of power. Power to Fire was just a show and leading had no real position in the rung of the hierarchy. It was rumored, for a while, that Fire only obeyed him because it was convenient and that he could overthrow Elec if he so wanted to. But years passed and Fire obeyed just as he always had, and the rumor was soon forgotten.
And so Elec became more aggressive in his stance and his training because he was told to. He flipped backward as the ground shook and clouded over with dirt and tossed earth. He could feel the great displacement of air as it pushed against him, not even a second before a giant fist came hurtling from some random direction to hit at random spots of emptiness. It wasn't a problem to avoid the strikes as most of them were no where near his position, but they were close, and if he was caught by any of them by chance, he was done.
He was much smaller and weaker in build, but he knew his skills and limitations, and he knew how exactly to use it in such a fight.
The control he had over his body was that of which any serious athlete would love to have. His body would bend to his every whim and could move in ways the other bioroids would never be able to. It was this control that made him superior to the others.
He sprung upon Guts' arm as it stretched out in the minute pause between extension and recoil. Elec ran up the limb lightly, leaping from the rectangular joint of the armor of his shoulder to the broad-backed shoulders and focused in on his attack. The air became alive with bouncing electrons, hyper active and ready to execute the command given to them.
It wasn't as strong an attack as Elec would've normally used, but this was merely training and, as he punched the dancing electricity into the back of Gut's head, he diffused it enough only to temporarily stop the energy flow to his brain, causing him to black out. Elec jumped off, landing nimbly on his feet a few yards off.
The arena echoed with Dr. Wily's clapping from his booth above the ground. "Good! Very good, Elec! Next, Cut and Bomb."
With a nod, Elec acknowledged his dismissal and turned on his heel, ready to leave the arena when something tickled at the back of his brain. Something was bothering him, the world all too familiar to have just happened. It was like... it was like...
~*~*~*~
Elec stepped out of the lab, blinking at the bright lights of the hall. Even with all the lights illuminating the computers in the lab, spending so much time in suspension made his eyes sensitive to the light. Dr. Wily had said that there was only a slight problem when his system was overhauled, but it should be better for a while. Temporary, maybe experiencing some odd memories, but nothing too overwhelming.
But... he couldn't help it. Something felt wrong inside of him, as if something was missing, or he was just empty where he wasn't supposed to be. A pang went off within his head, like a raging desperate river that was pressing against a dam stressed and ready to give at any moment.
There was something off...
He looked around and saw someone, someone that shouldn't have been there. He just smiled from the shadows, red-armored, face half hidden by a mirror-tinted visor.
~*~*~*~
He vaulted over Guts' outstretched punch, running up the arm to leap onto his broad shoulders. Elec was pressing, for once, against his opponent, almost reckless and wild with some seething emotion. His lightning blue eyes glowed as he snarled, arms brought back and he could feel the fine hairs on his body stand on end under his armor as electricity crackled between his hands mercilessly.
He was going to let it loose, he would've killed Guts if he did. But he stopped. No reason, no indication that he would, he just let the electrons stop suddenly in his hands, face masked with surprise, as if he didn't even realize that he stopped himself. And, really, he wasn't even aware of what he was doing.
It all seemed so foreign to him, yet so familiar. It was something that he seemed to know like a dream that wanted to be remembered, but he couldn't even remember ever having to dream before.
Guts' great hand suddenly appeared in his vision and clamped around his smaller built body before he could react.
The match was over.
~*~*~*~
It was searing into his brain and it refused to be stopped. Elec curled against the corner, the sheets of his bed were torn and tossed across the room, everything breakable was broken, anything moveable was tossed aside. And still the pain moved Elec to need to hurt something in response, hoping that another in pain, or another broken object would ease his own suffering.
The red hot lines seared behind his clenched eyelids, trying to forms words that Elec's brain refused to allow.
No... that wasn't Elec that was trying to stop it, it felt... more like...
He screamed as the pain increased. He couldn't take it, the war going on in his head. One side had to lose and he wasn't sure if the survivor would be him.
The door to his quarters swished open and he looked up fearfully. There stood Fire and Bomb, fully armored and looking at him with unsympathetic eyes.
In all rights, Elec shouldn't have known what they were going to do, but he feared because the thing in his mind told him to. "No..." he whimpered, "please..."
They approached him, not paying any attention to his pleads.
"Please... don't! NO!"
~*~*~*~
He was on the table, this time.
He didn't even know why he took note of it. Or even what 'this time' was in reference to. Elec knew he wasn't supposed to be aware, but he was and something inside told him that he should remain so, take in as much information as he could.
He could hear Dr. Wily moving out of sight. He clattered thin fingers across an unseen computer. "Why is this happening... What keeps doing this to him? Stupid, how can he keep accessing..."
They both heard it, but Elec- whose consciousness seemed to be drifting -barely heard it. A low sound, like the beginning of a song- whistling.
"Damn you!" Wily shouted, yelling at the computer screen as if it were the cause of all the problems in the world. Perhaps, in Wily's world, it was, in a way. "How dare you defile my creation! How dare you even /show yourself/ in my fortress! Goddamn you, Blues! I'll tear you apart, you useless scrap heap!"
But, at the time, it didn't process in Elec's mind. He just lay on the table, staring sightlessly up, the bloody light of the laser scalpel shining into his eyes. And he forgot.
Third: Unreal
by Lady Virgo
"Be true of heart
Be fair of soul
Do not become lost
engulfed in dark"
///
He landed with a roar and a mighty crash, dirt and crushed rocks filling the air and blinding them both. But he didn't stop, throwing blind punches into the cloud where Elec had flipped through. Because of their reckless aiming it was no problem in trying to avoid the attack, but it was just as dangerous for their randomness.
Elec's smaller size and weaker build was a handicap in this fight, but he had a better sense of his skill, he knew just how fast and how agile he really was. And, better yet, he knew just how much of it he would need in this fight.
The only key, Elec thought to himself, side stepping a stray punch through the dust, is to keep him from hitting me. The moment he lands a hand on me, it's over.
But that didn't mean that he couldn't touch Guts.
His control was that born of a martial artist or a gymnast. A physical prowess and muscles that obeyed any command he gave it, it showed that he was the last created, all obvious flaws of his predecessors weeded out so that he may excel. He flipped over Guts' outstretched arm, bounding up it like a beam to spring upon the flat surface of the giant robot's great brow. Elec braced his knees against the crevice of Guts' neck and shoulders and cupped his hands focusing his attack between his palms.
Guts could feel the air around his ears pop as the air became tense and excited, awaiting the final mark of their game. With a grunt of exertion, Elec pushed one hand down, forcing the sizzling electrons, bright with activity, into the back of Guts' head.
It wasn't much of an attack, but then Guts' blood wasn't something Elec wanted on his hands. But it was strong enough to put him out of commission. The electricity was concentrated just enough to spill over Guts' armor, seeping in between the seams and into his body, disrupting the flow around his positronic brain, temporarily shorting it out. With a stifled groan, Guts went down to his knees before falling flat on the practice grounds, Elec easily tumbling off and onto his feet.
From where he observed the fight, Wily clapped. "Good! Very good, Elec!" He appeared to jot down some notes. "Next, Cut and Bomb."
Somewhere inside of him, something wanted to object. He didn't know what it was, railing against everything and himself, and he wanted so badly to... question? Understand? Elec took a spot along the side of the large training court, shaking his head.
The fortress, which the five bioroids had spent their time building no more than a month prior, had come to be known as Skull Fortress. Its long corridors stretched and turned in on itself in the form of a giant crescent. In the middle was the training field, formed in a circle fashion much like a coliseum, thrice its size and divided into sections. Lines like cross hairs divided it into quarters, each one having a rectangular field marked off 200 yards long and 50 yards around the circumference of the entire area dug into a ditch that went about knee high to an average sized human so the non-combatants could stand out of the way. Along the walls of the arena, high above the field and jutting out from the building like a pillar, molding into the metal, was Dr. Wily's seat. The top half nearly completely encased in a tinted glass, it overlooked the field, speakers lined up so he may direct the bioroids in their deadly play as he analyzed their performance.
For three weeks the six bioroids stayed at the fortress, fighting most of the day, spending the rest of their time building. No that Wily no longer had to hide his true intentions from robots, willing to do what they were told, but always curious, they began to create the meat of Wily's plans. The entire fortress that had already been built would sit upon an extensive lab, all underground and encompassing the entire area: a complete, giant circle, built around several powerful generators and a massive, central core that was built directly into the epicenter. Towards the rear of the fortress, the only outside opening to the combat arena, was a thick, lush forest. Over several hundred meters behind that, they were beginning construction on another, smaller building filled with other highly sensitive equipment for- as Dr. Wily had said -experiments that would be potentially hazardous or destructive.
The fortress, Wily's plans, even the change that he and the other Robot Masters had undergone all screamed 'WRONG' in a muted part of his mind. But then, it was always drowned out by feelings of undying loyalty, unable to force an original thought through the swarm of allegiance and it was burying him alive without him knowing.
Elec tilted his head back, to look all the way into the swirling blue of the sky and see nothing else. Because, with all the hidden turmoil inside, there was nothing else.
~*~*~*~
He lay in is room, watching something invisible behind the ceiling, eyes glazed and inwardly tired. From the back of his senses, he could hear something that faded in his ears, rattling with his slow, deep breathing. It was running, a sort of easy laughter that rung, echoing louder as it played off the walls.
Slowly, almost as if he were dreaming, Elec's head fell to the side, his unfocused gaze turned to the door. The happy specter leapt outside in the halls, playfully trying to coax something from Elec, trying to get his mind to grasp the form that his eyes refused to see.
It glimmered around the edges, incomplete lines that tried to contour their way to something that belonged, something important that was missing, that he was unaware of even losing.
~*~*~*~
His eyes snapped opened upon sudden command. The world was overlaid with green and blue and yellow, swirled together and pockets of air that bubbled and struggled out of his sight. His vision didn't so much as ripple as he moved as it did swell, too thick to swim, too fluid to hold.
With one slow, deliberate movement, he tilted down his head, eyes focusing on the person that stood patiently in front of him.
His mouth formed words, tongue and teeth moving around the thick liquid he knew was there, but didn't. He could feel the pressure as he moved, how the capsule's gel pressed against him, but had grown used it during his suspension.
"...Wily-sama..."
The old man smiled at him in showy contentment. "Elec. I trust you're feeling well?"
He nodded.
"Good, good." He reached over with a long, thin arm and pressed a button on the console besides the capsule, letting the fluid drain out.
It was an odd moment, part floating, part placed with no weight pressed on any part of you, just buoyed up, then to have your feet touched on something you couldn't really feel and then feel gravity pushing you down, heavier and heavier.
For a moment, he almost believed that he couldn't bare the weight.
The door to the capsule hitched out with a hiss before sliding up, allowing Elec to step out, greenish fluids running off his body and pooling around his feet.
"We've come across a problem in your memory databanks, Elec." Wily said, holding an electronic notebook to his face. "It seems that the integral overhaul I did on your system caused some odd cross-signaling. You've been having odd visions and 'memories' because of it. Right now I've just done a temporary patching. It'll be fine in a while, but I wouldn't doubt the visions come back within three weeks. If you start feeling disoriented or they start coming back before then, come see me. I'll be looking at your schematics, figure out a way to fix it all up, okay?" He gave Elec a bright smile and a fatherly pat on the shoulder. "Now, you just go and join the rest of your brothers."
"Yes, Wily-sama."
~*~*~*~
He was more aggressive this time. Wily-sama had said that he was being too slow and kind, that he needed to dominate more. He was the most advanced and greatest built so far, so it was only fitting that he did dominate over the others. In some cases Elec was the unannounced leader of the six. The only one whose presence rivaled his, whose voice would stop everyone in its tracks and demanded to be obeyed was Fire, but he didn't care enough to take the position of power. Power to Fire was just a show and leading had no real position in the rung of the hierarchy. It was rumored, for a while, that Fire only obeyed him because it was convenient and that he could overthrow Elec if he so wanted to. But years passed and Fire obeyed just as he always had, and the rumor was soon forgotten.
And so Elec became more aggressive in his stance and his training because he was told to. He flipped backward as the ground shook and clouded over with dirt and tossed earth. He could feel the great displacement of air as it pushed against him, not even a second before a giant fist came hurtling from some random direction to hit at random spots of emptiness. It wasn't a problem to avoid the strikes as most of them were no where near his position, but they were close, and if he was caught by any of them by chance, he was done.
He was much smaller and weaker in build, but he knew his skills and limitations, and he knew how exactly to use it in such a fight.
The control he had over his body was that of which any serious athlete would love to have. His body would bend to his every whim and could move in ways the other bioroids would never be able to. It was this control that made him superior to the others.
He sprung upon Guts' arm as it stretched out in the minute pause between extension and recoil. Elec ran up the limb lightly, leaping from the rectangular joint of the armor of his shoulder to the broad-backed shoulders and focused in on his attack. The air became alive with bouncing electrons, hyper active and ready to execute the command given to them.
It wasn't as strong an attack as Elec would've normally used, but this was merely training and, as he punched the dancing electricity into the back of Gut's head, he diffused it enough only to temporarily stop the energy flow to his brain, causing him to black out. Elec jumped off, landing nimbly on his feet a few yards off.
The arena echoed with Dr. Wily's clapping from his booth above the ground. "Good! Very good, Elec! Next, Cut and Bomb."
With a nod, Elec acknowledged his dismissal and turned on his heel, ready to leave the arena when something tickled at the back of his brain. Something was bothering him, the world all too familiar to have just happened. It was like... it was like...
~*~*~*~
Elec stepped out of the lab, blinking at the bright lights of the hall. Even with all the lights illuminating the computers in the lab, spending so much time in suspension made his eyes sensitive to the light. Dr. Wily had said that there was only a slight problem when his system was overhauled, but it should be better for a while. Temporary, maybe experiencing some odd memories, but nothing too overwhelming.
But... he couldn't help it. Something felt wrong inside of him, as if something was missing, or he was just empty where he wasn't supposed to be. A pang went off within his head, like a raging desperate river that was pressing against a dam stressed and ready to give at any moment.
There was something off...
He looked around and saw someone, someone that shouldn't have been there. He just smiled from the shadows, red-armored, face half hidden by a mirror-tinted visor.
~*~*~*~
He vaulted over Guts' outstretched punch, running up the arm to leap onto his broad shoulders. Elec was pressing, for once, against his opponent, almost reckless and wild with some seething emotion. His lightning blue eyes glowed as he snarled, arms brought back and he could feel the fine hairs on his body stand on end under his armor as electricity crackled between his hands mercilessly.
He was going to let it loose, he would've killed Guts if he did. But he stopped. No reason, no indication that he would, he just let the electrons stop suddenly in his hands, face masked with surprise, as if he didn't even realize that he stopped himself. And, really, he wasn't even aware of what he was doing.
It all seemed so foreign to him, yet so familiar. It was something that he seemed to know like a dream that wanted to be remembered, but he couldn't even remember ever having to dream before.
Guts' great hand suddenly appeared in his vision and clamped around his smaller built body before he could react.
The match was over.
~*~*~*~
It was searing into his brain and it refused to be stopped. Elec curled against the corner, the sheets of his bed were torn and tossed across the room, everything breakable was broken, anything moveable was tossed aside. And still the pain moved Elec to need to hurt something in response, hoping that another in pain, or another broken object would ease his own suffering.
The red hot lines seared behind his clenched eyelids, trying to forms words that Elec's brain refused to allow.
No... that wasn't Elec that was trying to stop it, it felt... more like...
He screamed as the pain increased. He couldn't take it, the war going on in his head. One side had to lose and he wasn't sure if the survivor would be him.
The door to his quarters swished open and he looked up fearfully. There stood Fire and Bomb, fully armored and looking at him with unsympathetic eyes.
In all rights, Elec shouldn't have known what they were going to do, but he feared because the thing in his mind told him to. "No..." he whimpered, "please..."
They approached him, not paying any attention to his pleads.
"Please... don't! NO!"
~*~*~*~
He was on the table, this time.
He didn't even know why he took note of it. Or even what 'this time' was in reference to. Elec knew he wasn't supposed to be aware, but he was and something inside told him that he should remain so, take in as much information as he could.
He could hear Dr. Wily moving out of sight. He clattered thin fingers across an unseen computer. "Why is this happening... What keeps doing this to him? Stupid, how can he keep accessing..."
They both heard it, but Elec- whose consciousness seemed to be drifting -barely heard it. A low sound, like the beginning of a song- whistling.
"Damn you!" Wily shouted, yelling at the computer screen as if it were the cause of all the problems in the world. Perhaps, in Wily's world, it was, in a way. "How dare you defile my creation! How dare you even /show yourself/ in my fortress! Goddamn you, Blues! I'll tear you apart, you useless scrap heap!"
But, at the time, it didn't process in Elec's mind. He just lay on the table, staring sightlessly up, the bloody light of the laser scalpel shining into his eyes. And he forgot.