Thou shalt survive.
Kazuma woke to the low rumbling snore, and the distinctive smell of a dragon. He raised his head from the bright green belly that he had been using as a pillow and looked about groggily, seeing only the steel-riveted outer wall and the wide expanse of air beyond. Heights didn't bother him, in fact, he loved them to death, and so any rush of vertigo that he should have felt fell upon an unfeeling body. The young biologist rose from the mass of green dragon that he had been sleeping on and yawned, spreading his arms wide and stretching.
By the angle of the sun in the sky, or more accurately, by Kazuma's wristwatch, it was roughly about ten 'o clock in the morning. He had risen late, practically everybody else on the island must have been up by now. His new pet sky dragon opened one lazy eye and peered at him as the young man climbed over its body, half curious on what was going on. When the human's movements didn't suggest that a meal was rapidly going to appear, it shut its eye again and sighed deeply, trying to find sleep once more.
"I'm sorry Puff, I don't have any breakfast for you right now." Kazuma murmured, rubbing a little at his eyes and stepping carefully towards the edge of the outer wall. He blinked a little as he looked up, wondering what was going on. It was common for Sue to leave him out of her big plans for the future, and half the time Kazuma had to figure out what the heck she was up to by himself, but he had expected some kind of big change to have come over the island by now. Today seemed to be no different from yesterday, but his robotic friend had already left for the plantation above his head.
He sunk to the floor and stretched his legs out over the edge, dangling them thousands of feet above the surface of the planet. It was cold around the outer wall and the areas above it, where oxygen was a touch lighter than usual, practically impossible for one to notice unless they were a human being. Kazuma still felt it, the empty sensation of the air around him not being rich enough for his lungs, but he had learnt to ignore it by now. Apparently the mimigas and the other creatures on the island didn't realise it at all. Whether Kazuma was evolved for it or not, he still felt cold.
Puff crept up to Kazuma and sniffed at his neck, blowing a warm dragon breath over his body. It felt so wonderful. The dragon lay down again, resting its head against the biologist's side. He fondly scratched it behind the ear. The frequent rushes of hot air were making it a lot easier to think.
No contacts, no messages, not even a word from his family and his friends. It worried him a little, but he knew that in the long run he'd have to take care of himself, first and foremost. He had Puff, his magic dragon, so he already had his ticket off the island and his route to freedom. If anything changed for the worse, even slightly, he knew it would be time to go. He hated doing it, but if that happened, his sister, his mother and his friends were on their own. He knew he was being terribly selfish, but he had to do what he had to do.
He estimated that he could wait for another hour, maybe two, and at the very latest, three. Then he would be gone.
xxx
The Doctor had once had a marvelous scientific laboratory hidden deeply within the heart of the island, accessible only by the teleportation magic of the demon crown. It had been a reliable safe house for all the former owners of the crown, and now him too. He had turned it into an amazing inner sanctum of research and knowledge. The only light available to him was from candle and torchlight, as there was no windows or a door. Solid bedrock was all around him, except for the useful volcanic bubble that had become this room. Empty cages were lined along the walls, only recently vacated. The Doctor had wanted to study the physiology of the Mimiga, and he had done so invasively, with the probe and the scalpel.
The remains had been fed to the ones that had already been tempered with the red flower solution, and it pleased him greatly to see the creatures chew and gnaw on the bones of their own brethren, their parents, their children, perhaps even their mates. If this was not true power, then nothing else was. Chemistry sets and boxes of mechanical tools were placed upon and around his main work bench, here and there scattered about the organised chaos were notebooks and manuals, dictating where and how each tool and chemical should be used.
He had used to write up these guides himself using his own pen, but he was working to a definite deadline now and each fleeting moment to him was astoundingly precious. A published guide written by another would suffice for now. Alfred Lanning's primer of robot biology was becoming a godsend to him, detailing all the many functions of the robot body and its systems. It was like relearning basic anatomy all over again.
Quote's intellectual receptors made complicated reading a breeze. All he had to do was flip a page of the book and stare at it for only a second, then his robotic neural matrix would absorb the information like a sponge, words, diagrams and all. It was not just a photographic memory, it was a vampiric memory. By the time he was finished with browsing through the yellowed manual, he was almost completely confident that he could build a fully automated robot for himself if he wanted to, nearly from absolute scratch. Remarkable!
In his haste he had also grabbed a copy of Susan Calvin's 'Robopsychology', a science he hadn't known existed until he had seen it printed upon the cover of the book. As he opened it, he had seen the lightly pencilled name; Jin Sakamoto written carefully in the corner of the blank opening page. That woman, the rocket-scientist's late husband. This was the trinket of a dead man. Quote flipped through it briefly, found nothing in particular that would help in his little experiment, then cast it to the side. It was a useless piece of junk, merely examples on how robots had loopholed their way around the Three Laws over and over again. Neither he, nor the robot that was still lying unconscious in his mind obeyed those little piddling laws anyway.
Speaking of that robot, it seemed like wearing the demon crown upon his head was keeping it in an exhausted coma-like state. Perhaps the thought of wearing the object he had been ordered to destroy was forcing him to overload. Quote wouldn't have been surprised, and besides, only one mind could utilize the power of the demon crown, not two.
He sort of liked the empty presence that the crown was delivering him, but he would no doubt take it off again when the female robot came, just so his little friend would be able to watch her die. After that, the robot could look forward to a lifetime of long comas under the power of the demon crown, and then helplessness and violations whenever Quote felt like it, or whenever he wanted to be amused and satisfied. Eternity was a very long time.
He had been repairing himself as best as he could without a second pair of hands to do so. It was difficult, but manageable. Using a thin pair of pliers and taking the very greatest of care, Quote tied off all the severed wiring and circuitry that had been damaged by the intrusion and was leaking away unnecessary amounts of power. They were mostly superfluous, not vital now that evil magics were his new source of power.
He sealed the breaks and the large hole that had been made in his chest with a fast-setting liquid rubber, sealing the ruby sparkle of the red crystal firmly into his artificial flesh. It was an effective repair, he thumped himself softly on the front gently a few times to test it out, and when he was satisfied with that he painted over the rubber with a shade that matched Quote's skin colour as well as he could. Now he looked nearly brand new. Seamless.
Quote pulled his ripped dark shirt back on over his head and smiled, clearing away a new empty space for his secondary project and modification. Now that he had read that book on robotics and the relationships they shared with other machines and tools, the rest was absolute child's play. He pulled from his belt the Polar Spur that the hermit gunsmith had kindly entrusted him with and began to take it apart methodically, piece by piece. He laid the strewn parts out upon the table, except for the Polar energy cylinders that he trashed straight away. This weapon was not going to be a Polar anything, it was going to be unique and completely new. Not just an accessory, but an actual extension of himself.
Deftly, the dark-haired robot picked up a sharp knife from his toolbox and calmly gutted the flesh that was his lower right arm, from the wrist directly to the joint of his elbow. He opened up a fold of his skin that revealed tendons made of steel wire and the thin colourful cables that were like his veins, powering him with electricity. He could install an extendable port in the wrist that would be connected to his electrical system and positronic brain, and then, and then…
With a definite blueprint in his mind, Quote eagerly got to work.
xxx
The path that led to the balcony was a confusing maze of acid-tipped spikes and pools of toxic waste, the dangerous bloody solutions that came forth after the Doctor had sown the seeds of red deep into the ground. It was an aqueous red weed, of which the local wildlife had thirstily partaken of and had been warped into a shape similar to that of the frenzied mimigas, their skins lightening to a violent crimson and their demeanors shifting from laid-back to positively rabid. It was a long hard road, one that would definitely test the very mettle of a man.
Luckily, Curly Brace was no man. She evaded the spike traps and pools of red poison with dexterous ease, avoiding all dangers with an athletic ability equal to and surpassing any acrobat. Her mind was focussed on a single mission objective; Find Quote, repair him, kill the doctor, destroy the crown, and escape to somewhere else. Somewhere safer. Everything else around that simple directive had dwindled down into mere details, she would process them when she had the spare time to do so. For now, she had to keep her vision clear. Curly shoved away a bewildered-looking critter as she used the impressive length of her gun as a pole vault, lifting her towards a higher and safer platform. The only thing that mattered now was that she stayed alive long enough to make sure that everything was okay.
She was amazed to find that she had made her way to the presses while remaining relatively unharmed. Small bite marks had been scored across her skin by the bats that inhabited the cavern, nibbling and sucking for the blood that she did not have. They were easy enough to ignore. The side of one of her pant legs had been burnt away however, due to an uncalculated slip towards the red poison. Curly had been immensely lucky that it was only her clothes that had been singed. Right now, her map system told her there was a long series of presses lining the roof of a relatively harmless corridor, presses that Curly didn't think she could outrun, even if she was moving at top speed.
It seemed like she was trapped here, but she didn't want the kindness of Momorin Sakamoto and Itoh to go to waste. The robotic girl backtracked a bit, searching for debris on the ground. Holding her machine gun with only one hand, she scooped up a couple of small rocks and walked back towards the presses, intent on trying out a plan.
Concentrating hard, Curly rolled a moderately sized stone roughly about the size of her hand towards the floor below the press, waiting to see what would happen. The press came down hard and fast and bore upon the stone like it was a delicious morsel of food, causing Curly to flinch from its sudden and unexpected speed. She only wasted a second though and heaved up her machine gun, letting the rest of her stones fall to the floor. She struck the fallen press again and again with rapid fire until the dangerous contraption disintegrated, leaving only a pile of pebbles and dust.
She double-checked her map system again just in case she missed anything, before moving forward and standing where the fallen press had been. Her shoulders were tense, expecting to be struck from above. Nothing happened. Smiling, albeit a little bit nervously, Curly Brace picked up a rather sizable chunk of the broken press and continued the process all over again, slowly moving forwards step by unsure step. It took a very long time for her to reach the end of the corridor, too long it seemed, but at least she was whole and unhurt as she turned the doorknob at the end of the cavern and stepped out into empty space. The very pinnacle of the island, a place with no ceiling above her head. The balcony.
It had been ten years since Curly had last seen the unhindered sky.
Wandering away from the door that she had left carelessly ajar, she twirled around a bit, trying to see the world from every angle that she could. The wind was tugging pleasantly at her hair, and it felt wonderful. Fresh air and sunlight was so much better than the dank dreariness of the caves. The balcony was made of marble blocks with rills of slate, many centuries of isolation causing a thin layer of verdant grass to grow in-between the cracks and partially blanket the area in green. With no ceiling it must have rained here often, hence the healthy growth. Above the doorway into the caverns was a statue of a winged angel, staring blankly out into the horizon.
Quote was around here, somewhere. There was nowhere else for him to be, unless he had fallen off the island. Curly felt her breathing apparatus clench at that idea, disliking where it went. That could not be possible. He was probably nearby, lying in a broken heap. A frenzied mimiga who got in a lucky shot before he could act might have rendered him inactive. Curly knew it was a sad day in her life when she had to count that as part of the optimistic side of things. She walked further on, looking for any telltale signs of red. His red hat, his red pants, his darkly crimson gloves. It'd stand out easily against the faded greys and greens.
She started to call out his name in the hopes that he would be able to answer her and she could follow the sound of his voice. It sounded loud and alone upon the top of the island, a pioneer hearing the echoes of her own voice. Curly came upon an abandoned helicopter and entered it, searching it from top to bottom. It had come from the surface only a short time ago, she knew this because the forsaken food in the ration packs had not spoilt yet. There was still personal belongings and research equipment in the holding area, but still not sign of Quote, or any indicator that he had been here before.
Discouraged, she abandoned it as well. There was a large edifice in front of her, something of a Greek temple that had been the pride of an ancient civilization a millennia ago, but something in her CPU told her that it would be a bad idea to go inside. A very bad idea indeed. Her map system did not extend that far. She would be relying on her eyes alone. Curly looked up at the tall temple with a sinking feeling in the back of her mind. Just looking at the place seemed to exhaust her. No, that was wrong. She was a robot, her body never got tired. If anything it was her mind that was feeling the strain.
Please Quote… you're not hiding from me, are you? Why? What did I ever do to you?
Curly stepped in something shallow, wet and red. She drew back and raised her foot a little but, some slick droplets of the liquid dripping to the stone patch of the floor. A puddle of blood. If it had been spilled on one of the grassier areas of the balcony she wouldn't have seen it at all, because it would have sunken into the earth by then. It was nearly black by now and still retained some of its reddish tints, but most of it had already coagulated, except for the part that she had stepped in. Curly crouched down a little and looked around, seeing more smears of dried blood around the area and slightly darker patches of grass. A battle had been fought here, and somebody had definitely lost. At least it had not been Quote. When he was wounded he didn't bleed.
There were footprints and skid marks, highlighted by the blood. Curly followed them like a tracker hound, trying to picture how the fight had played out judging from the marks on the floor. Quote had been walking towards the temple with just a little bit of caution in his step, something had ambushed him from the side and there had been a brief scuffle. Quote had drawn a knife, or some other sharp-bladed weapon. If he had used one of his guns there wouldn't have been so much blood. Curly found the body of a mutilated and mutated mimiga further along, lying supine on the grass.
Curly inspected its wounds. The cuts along its body were defensive and non-fatal, but at some point Quote must have realised that the mimiga wasn't going to back down until he was destroyed. The death blow had been a horrible stab through its heart, breaking several of its ribs in the process. Oblivion would have come to it in mere seconds, feeling only a brief amount of pain. He had given it a humane death. She smiled sadly. That kind of behavior was just like him. Quote had always been a gentle soul, before and after the battles that had rendered him an amnesiac. Killing would never come easily, even if he had been programmed to embrace it.
At least she knew that he had gotten this far. She could call out to him some more, but Curly felt confident enough to bet the farm that Quote had entered the temple up ahead. If frenzied mimigas were the toughest foes outside in the balcony, then he had already proven that he was tough enough to survive out here. There were more dangers yet to be seen. This made her feel a little anxious on the inside as she rose again and stepped over the body of the dead creature carefully. Quote, though quiet and reserved, was far stronger than she ever knew she could be. He probably thought differently about it, but she knew it to be true. Whatever had hurt Quote would surely eat her alive for breakfast, and nobody would be around to hear her screams.
She passed by an empty house. She didn't even check to see if he was in there. She was fixed on that temple ahead of her, utterly convinced on what it contained. Curly was, and always would be a combat robot. Battle was no stranger to her. If the island was to fall and all lives on Earth were to be plunged into the Doctor's darkness, she wanted to die knowing that she had done her very best. Before her processor died out for good, she could be proud of that one tiny fact. It'd be a pride that not even the Doctor would be able to take away from her. Quote and Curly Brace had been brought into the world together, she could only hope that they would be able to leave it in kind. For a lifetime of loyal service, didn't they deserve that one little blessing?
This next mimiga was by far a giant when compared to the one that had come before. It had either been augmented by the Doctor's twisted experiments, or had eaten a whole field of red flowers as opposed to just one. It was slumped against a rise in the balcony's terrain, sitting down with its large head bowed. Its jaw was open and slack. Its skull was split open, because buried to the hilt in its forehead was Quote's sword, pinning it against the wall. If Curly had been human she would have hurled. Instead, she frowned and walked up to it, biting her lip a little. Wrapping her hands around the hilt of the sword she pulled it free, hearing it withdraw from the body with a sickening meaty slurp. No longer being held up like a gruesome display, the mimiga tumbled forward and fell on its face, bleeding into the ground.
Curly wiped the bloody sword on the grass briefly to clear away the sticky gunk, then slung the professionally crafted blade upon her belt, the pommel of the weapon catching gently against it and her hip. It might come in useful sometime if her machine gun turned out to be of no effect. It always paid to have a second weapon handy. Quote's unintentional charity could prove to save her life.
Swiftly and gracefully, Curly used the body of the dead mimiga as a stepping stone to the higher platform above. She touched down effortlessly and began to run, the entrance of the temple right in front of her eyes. The giant mimiga had been the guard. No wonder Quote had had to pin it down so ruthlessly. It had a job to do.
Shrugging off her machine gun and holding it in her hands, the female robot stepped inside the temple, where she was about to meet with her destiny.
xxx
Red Rose Vertigo.
It was just as lovely as he had imagined it to be.
Quote rubbed his hand subconsciously across his brow and put down the steaming soldering iron, his work complete on both the tool and his own body. If he had thought that working by himself was difficult, working with only one available hand was the worst. He had the vague thought that he could summon a servant and force them to act as his assistant, but he hated the idea of bringing another soul into his secret laboratory, and even more, to poke around within his own insides. No thank you. He could manage.
Besides, it had all worked out beautifully. Quote stepped away from his workbench and held up his new weapon, turning it this way and that to observe the way it glinted evilly in the low light. He had made a mould of the replaceable pieces of the Polar Spur and had cast them in a strong metal that he had tempered a crimson red, while altering the pieces that he could not replace, namely the innards and the empty energy chambers. They would remain empty, because they were useless now. This gun didn't require ammunition at all. It was better than that.
He was a particularly vain person when it came to his work, so he had also taken the time to skillfully chisel an insignia on the side of its butt, a simple engraving of a rose in mid-bloom. Red flowers. It all came back to the red flowers. Quote turned his arm over, looking at the faint scar-line of a recent modification, then unlatched a small panel at the base of his wrist, revealing an empty installation port. The port was connected to his electrical system, so it was a physical outlet for his energy. He could power small pieces of machinery if he wanted to, provided the energy cost was not too high. At the same time he removed the metal cap at the bottom of the gun's butt, which contained a similar port. The two ports had been created for one another.
Unraveling the small plug that was hidden within his wrist, Quote pulled out about a foot of black insulated cable and plugged it into the bottom of the newly-created weapon, easing the gun carefully into his modified hand. It was important that the cable extended and retracted smoothly with his movements without it getting tangled or jammed up. The robot took a few steps away from the table and switched the gun from hand to hand a few times, observing the extension cord with a watchful eye. There were no problems with it.
Evil came from the red flowers. The crystal in his chest had come from the red flowers as well. Quote's power came from the crystal, and therefore, Red Rose Vertigo came from Quote. It was like a timeline, a parentage, no, a refinement of the evil within. He had refined the weapon and the power source too. The only way the Vertigo would misfire was if Quote himself was dead. That wasn't going to happen. And if he was dead, why would he want to fire it in the first place? It was the perfect weapon.
All that was left was for him to try it out. Quote took the safety off and depressed the trigger, feeling a slight tugging in his chest as the crystal within him lit up strongly, reacting to the call for power. The empty energy cylinders filled up with red light as his right arm began to grow hot, a conduit between the weapon and his crystal. Oh god, the power! He could feel it within every fiber of his being! He had expelled it so easily before with his hands when he had been a human man, but now it was tight and focussed, strong. It was like comparing a light bulb to a concentrated laser.
It was only now he realized that he didn't have a target. Shrugging within his mind, Quote simply pointed the gun at the wall and released the trigger, wanting to see what would happen. There was only a tiny amount of spare time left to him, but all his time in the laboratory would have been wasted if his new gun didn't work. He wasn't about to walk into battle unless his weapon was tried and tested, first.
Everything went red. The dim room lit up as a burst of crimson laser scorched through the wall and ate into the hard bedrock like it was made of butter, a thick rod of power about three feet wide and twenty feet long boring into it with an efficiency unmatched by any pneumatic drill. Quote was shoved away roughly by the fierce backfire, but stood his ground firmly enough for it not to be an inconvenience. His eyes were wide with rapture as he actually saw the sides of the decimated wall melting from the heat of the Vertigo, rock that had been tough and solid since the formation of the Earth.
Dark magenta smoke was rising from the barrel of the Vertigo as Quote lowered the gun, feeling his chest throb painlessly and his right arm a numb heat in his side. This weapon was sweet nectar from the gods themselves, but he estimated that each fully-charged burst would require a cool-down period of about one minute before it would be fit to fire again. That was alright. He could limit himself to light spitting bursts with just the quick press and release of the trigger whenever he was in combat. Anything that he could strike with that laser would certainly not be living long enough to bother him after the damage was done.
"It's time." Quote whispered mysteriously, blowing away the dark red smoke from the end of his gun. The robot inside of him was still sleeping peacefully, like a baby, but that was not going to last for long. When he awoke he would stare right into the beautiful blue eyes of his friend, at the same time Quote would have his hands around her neck. He flicked dark hair away from his brow, taking a sick kind of pleasure in being so cool. He had waited so many years for it, they wouldn't call him a nerdy geek now. When he smiled, it was shark-like. "Time to dance the last dance."
His form shifted to vapor, then dispersed in the partially decimated room.
xxx
The temple was set on the very edge of the island, so that further beyond it lay nothing but air. He was here alright, there was nowhere else for him to be, and Curly had a gut feeling that she had come to the end of the road. This was all that was left. Stepping through the threshold she must have entered some kind of undetectable field, because her map system immediately malfunctioned, not that it had anything left to show her anyway.
So this was the place where the lords of the demon crown were honored. It was so quiet, like walking through a mausoleum. Curly was almost afraid to raise her voice above a whisper, yet she did so regardless. Unearthly breezes kept on filtering through the temple, making it feel like there were many worshippers here, but they were invisible and unheard. "Quote?" She called out hesitantly, looking around for any sign of him. "Are you in here? Say something if you can hear me, because I've come to help you."
The demon crown was placed in the seat of the throne, unbroken and free to whoever would walk by and take. The wicked red eye in the middle of the crown seemed to be watching her, gauging her every move. Curly knew that all she had to do was creep to the throne, lift the crown up and smash it into a million pieces, then her original mission would have been completed. But it probably was not as easy as it seemed. If that was all it took to wipe out the source of evil on the island, Quote would have come back to her with a triumphant smile on his face a long time ago. No, this felt far too much like a trap.
She started forwards anyway, caution in every step. Trap or no, nothing would happen if she stayed where she was. Curly approached the foot of the throne, lowering her machine gun just a little. She was so close now, she could reach her hand out and-
"A subject should always kneel at the throne of their new blessed king."
Somebody walked out from behind the back of the throne, somebody familiar, that she knew well. Quote held a hand to the side of the throne as he stepped out from its cover, leering at her in a way in which Quote had never done so before. His shirt was torn but roughly stitched back together, and he was leaning forwards a little as he moved, carrying the slight stumbling gait of a drunk. He had a sinister, tired and nearly dead look in his eyes, a corruption that did not belong there at all. He approached Curly but then stopped a short distance away from her, checking to see what she would do next.
Curly should have seen all of this and made a quick judgement about it on the spot, but her design and thought processes had been modeled on humans, so she was subject to all the flaws that they had, emotion-wise. "Quote!" She exclaimed, breaking out into a huge smile. "I was so worried about you! I thought you had been broken, but it looks like you haven't even been damaged. Thank goodness for that! Are you alright?" She reached out to touch Quote's shoulder, but the male robot unexpectedly drew away, denying himself of her touch.
He smiled wearily, looking at the demon crown that had been placed aside. "I didn't expect that taking the crown off for only a couple of minutes would make my mind feel so… dizzy and swimmy. The both of us are reeling. But that matters not, for we are still alive. Curly is your name, isn't it? Curly Brace. I can see why he locked your memory up nice and tight, like a secret diary. It's a shame he didn't hold out for longer."
She backed away from him. The first traces of uncertainty were beginning to show up on her face, and it was now that she noticed the self-assured, darkly humorous look that was written all over his face. It didn't suit him at all. She was happy that Quote was here and whole, but she was worried for the strange things that he had said. His body looked perfectly fine, but had there been any damages within? "Hold on a minute, did you just say that you were wearing the demon crown? We came here to destroy it! Has something come over you?" She paused, thinking of her priorities. "The Doctor." She added. "Did you manage to kill him?"
When Curly took a step backwards Quote obligingly took a step forwards, keeping the distance between them level. The discomfort he had felt when he had taken off the demon crown was only a temporary thing, and already he could feel the inhuman strength and magic returning to his body. The crown was still acting as an umbilicus, securing him to power both unimaginable and vast. He stood up straight, attaining his full height. "Oh, I killed the Doctor alright," he soothed, low and musical, "his body is dead upstairs if you wish to check for yourself. But there was something strange about him, something, I'm afraid, that has managed to grow on me. Can you feel it?"
If he was referring to the palpable feeling of dread all around her, then yes, Curly felt it too. Her eyes dropped down to the sewn-up gash across Quote's dark shirt, and the vague suggestion that something beneath it was slightly out of shape. Quote didn't know how to sew, but somebody had fixed it up for him. It must have been the same person who had changed him as well, into somebody who she felt a tiny twinge of fear for. "What exactly has grown on you, Quote?" She asked in a grave tone, playing along to his little game. He didn't feel right, and she wanted to know why, from his own lips.
Quote looked pleased that she was willing to dance to his tune. He advanced on her again, in the process of pressing the female robot up against one of the many stone pillars that were supporting the temple. He knew all the memories that the robot had still been familiar with, he had looked over them several times in his spare moments, both the ones he had made himself and the ones that Curly had eagerly told him about. He was going to play with the cybernetic heartstrings of the girl in front of him, because he assumed that if the little robot felt so strongly about her, she would naturally feel the same way. What a mockery of human emotion. Whoever had built them should have been ashamed.
He leant forward slightly to address her. "The idea that I don't have to be the puppet of a government that has probably long since passed away. It has been ten years, and they have forgotten about me, about us. What is the point of fulfilling a mission that nobody cares about anymore? I am free to do whatever I want now, and maybe the demon crown is a tool I want to use in order to reach those means. I don't need a human master to tell me how to live my life." Quote looked at Curly appraisingly, trying to predict her reaction. At the same time he took both of her hands with his own, both the free one and the one holding onto the machine gun. "Don't you agree, Curly? Don't we have that right to freedom now?"
She tore her hands away from his violently. "Not at the expense of innocent lives!" She snapped, angry with him for what he was saying. It was like Quote was a completely different person now, somebody that she hated. He was telling her dirty rotten lies. "Have you completely forgotten about the mimigas and the other people on this island, or are you just not functioning correctly? Whether we destroy the demon crown or not doesn't matter, it pales in the light of that we need to protect the people here at any cost! We were created with the ability to adapt to any change in the environment and our orders change as well, through the passage of time and events. Whether you like it or not, Quote, humans haven't been ordering you around for the past ten years. You've been ordering yourself. You already are free, and so am I!"
The female robot was smarter than she looked. He leant forward, bending at the hip in order to violate her personal space. "You call this freedom?" He purred, slamming one hand hard against the surface of the pillar, above her head. Curly flinched. "Hiding in a dank dreary cave for ten years without the light of day, fighting to survive day in and day out for every moment of our lives, thinking of everybody else except for yourself? Do you call that freedom? Huh? Do you, Curly?"
His hand that was hanging by his side snaked up craftily, resting against the side of her hip. Her sword was hanging loosely there, ready for use. If he really wanted to hurt her, all he had to do was pull it free and swing upwards, decapitating her in one stroke. The animosity she could feel from him was as strong as a rushing river, and she wondered what on the face on the planet could have happened to him in order to make him hate her so. In her innocence she had completely missed a secondary emotion that was coming from Quote, an emotion that was impossible for a mere robot to feel. Lust. It was the sentiments of the Doctor, and the Doctor was the only one who understood them.
"I don't call it freedom, not at all." Quote continued, trailing his hand up the gentle curve of her hip and soft stomach. He had only been planning to kill her, but maybe he could have some other kinds of fun as well. Playing with the little robot in his head was one thing, but that had its limitations. This would be far more interesting. "I call it being made a fool of. The people of this island would fix their various stigmas to us and use us as a sacrificial lamb. Do you think they would have cared if either of us had been killed at the hands of the Doctor? In their eyes, we are not even alive."
"Stop it." Curly said angrily, but softly as well. "You're spreading lies. They do care about us, enough to entrust us, to entrust you with all their faith and hopes for the future. It is all they have left, and all they could give, but they gave it to you. Doesn't that mean anything to you anymore? And I swear, Quote…" Her eyes narrowed menacingly. "If you don't move your hand from there I'm going to rip it off."
An empty threat. She wouldn't do that to her very best friend. Still, she was armed and he needed to take precautions. As quickly as he could, his hand moved from her stomach and grasped her right wrist, the one that contained the ludicrously large machine gun, bending it backwards hard enough to completely shatter the bone had she been a human girl. Reflexively the fingers loosened their grip, causing the gun to clatter to the ground. It made a dull, heavy sound as it struck the stone. She cried out, too surprised by what he had done to stop him from drawing the sword from her belt and then casting it to the side.
He was still gripping her wrist as he forced her gun arm high above her head, pressing it down against the stone where it could not escape. But she was not completely helpless just yet. Curly struck him hard with her left hand, swatting him across the face. His head tilted away from hers by the strength of the blow, and Quote held himself there for just a moment, processing what she had done to him. She hadn't left a mark on his face, but still he glared at her with accusing eyes. "That was a mistake." He said in a grave tone. "A deadly mistake. A horrible, regretful mistake."
She could slap him all day if she wanted to, but in her current predicament she wouldn't have been able to even scratch him. Curly was superhumanly strong, but Quote, modeled after a man, was far stronger. It wasn't the slap that really infuriated him, but the principle behind it. She wasn't going to bend to his whims and that angered him. She was a robot, she was meant to obey! Did that mean he had to break her, just as he had broken his host? A doctor's work was never done…
His hand slipped up under her high-cut red top and Curly could not stop him. She tried to pull away from him but Quote was still pinning her against the pillar so that she could not escape. He was smirking lecherously, looking like he was searching for lost treasure. His thumb and forefinger pressed against the frame of her brassiere and slid it away, discovering one shapely breast. "Oh my…" He breathed, looking into the robotic girl's face. He squeezed gently, trying to make a judgement. "Whoever made you must have been a genius. This hardly feels like plastic or rubber at all. It almost feels so real…"
Her eyes widened and the answer came to her swiftly. This could not be Quote. It was a doppelganger or some other kind of fabrication, because she had known Quote all his artificial life and he had never acted in this manner before. He was acting like a disgustingly perverted human! She could feel her colour rising, the anger in the midst of her neural matrix beginning to gather. How dare he touch her in this way! No one was supposed to touch her there, not ever! This knowledge was as basic to her as the programming it took to breathe and walk. She would make him pay.
"Get off!" She cried and whipped her head forward, bashing her forehead against his. Curly had been prepared for it and had braced her systems hard against the impact that rattled the machinery around in her head violently, but Quote had not been privy to that information. She managed to surprise him, the male robot thrown back by the impact and grunting, letting go of both parts of her body. She smiled briefly, nastily. Looks like her hard-headedness had come in useful after all.
She darted to the side and grabbed the first thing that came in contact with her hands, Quote's old sword. The other robot had only been distracted for a second and came at her again, both his hands outstretched with his fingers hooked like claws. He looked positively furious. The only thing she could do now was swing, forget about the past and attack her former ally. She could hate herself for it later but for now she had to survive. The sword cut through the air, making a sound like a scream.
Clothing was hewn but not the flesh. The rough stitching that Quote had made upon his dark shirt fell open again, revealing the red crystal that was pulsing and acting as his evil heart. It was glowing a bright red and radiating heat, reacting to the robot's radiant anger. It was just as furious as he was. Curly held her sword out in front of her with both her hands wrapped around the leather grip, trying to make sense of this latest revelation.
Quote ran his hand down his chest to make sure that he had not been wounded. There was a faint little seam that ran diagonally across his modified chest on both sides of the gem, caused by the tip of Curly's blade. He was not hurt, but she had still managed to scratch him. The flaxen-haired girl gritted her teeth and stood her ground. "Who are you!" She cried. "What have you done with Quote!"
The dark-haired robot thought that she had been kept in the dark long enough. It was time for her to know the truth and weep for her loss. "Your little friend has lost his body, Curly Brace. He is as immaterial as a wish or a prayer. He has willingly become my devoted servant, and as a boon, he granted his own body to me, for my personal usage. He has whispered everything in my ear, everything that he once knew and everything that you ever told him. He is up here," he tapped the side of his head, mindful of not disturbing his audio sensor, "performing his role as my prisoner, my slave, my toy."
He was lying. Quote would have never given in willingly to him. If he had been defeated, she knew he would have gone down after putting up one hell of a fight. Humming quietly, her CPU managed to put two-and-two together. "Quote killed you, didn't he?" She intoned, stepping away, trying to carefully creep towards the sky staircase that was to her left. "And you were so weak that the only way for you to win was to take away his body and bury his mind. You might think that all this seems strange to me but it doesn't. You've hacked his mind. I can understand that easily enough. Doctor, I won't let you get away with this."
"By all means, try and stop me." Quote smiled, pulling a foreign-looking weapon from his belt. It looked like the Polar Spur, but it was decidedly different. It was dark red and longer, a handgun by name only. "Every time you hurt me you will hurt your friend as well, and when the time comes that you send me to Hell I will drag him kicking and screaming along with me!"
He beckoned to her, coaxing carefully. "Come here, Curly Brace. Let me break your neck."