Chapter 14: Karma
Me and Noire wake up at the same time, we're still in the same position as before. Initially we were scared, frightened and sweating, but now we're more relaxed as we see each other and appear to be in one piece. Noire has her playful smile back again, as if she wants to hug and kiss me, maybe make more love with me. I'm relieved to know I have no demons telling me to kill Noire this time, there are no numbers, no flash backs of the so called "evidence" to suggest that Noire is evil.
"I'm real pleased this has worked, too bad the dream was so horrible though, I mean why do some people think I'm so bad? Why do they want me dead? But we were together that's the main thing, thing is, was the last dream supposed to be in Lastation?" Noire asks while flirting with me, but at the same time sounding concerned, quite frustrated with knowing that there are people out to get her.
I'm unsure but could this mean the brain washing has gone….
Uh oh, I can now see my HUD telling me a message.
"You have been brain washed, you need to prove that Noire is innocent or you will be forced to kill her against your own free will. You have 3 days to prove Noire is innocent, but as each day passes the symptoms will get worse and worse. Be advised your Karma Rank is now inFamous." I read the message on my HUD only to be shocked by what this says.
3 days, that time length certainly sounds familiar. I must have shown signs of shock from my facial expressions, but Noire shows similar symptoms as well, and she turns to face me to explain something.
"Oh my goddess. I have to prove you're innocent in 3 days otherwise I will be…. Forced to kill you…." She says to me panicking, hating the words she's saying to me.
She now looks so glum and she sighs, she must have the same thing I have. I can tell how the idea of killing each other bothers her as much as it does me. It's very terrible and I can only hope that we can prove each other's innocence.
"I don't get why 1. I have a karma and 2. Why is it inFamous? What have I done that was evil? What evil deeds have you done?" I reply to her sounding deeply shocked, asking her a question of my own.
Not to mention we don't look and feel any different, I don't think either of us have any bad thoughts, I mean we have no desire to harm any innocent people. I just don't get it.
"I know someone who may be able to help." Noire says as she gets her phone out, she presses a few buttons.
As if on cue a man enters the room. I recognise him to be Cole McGrath from inFamous. He is in his inFamous 2 Hero attire. He is a Caucasian with very short brown hair and blue eyes. He has tattoos on his arm that appear heroic, as he has eagles on them. He wears a white t shirt with green and grey arms, as well as denim blue jeans with light blue stripes on his right leg, which looks like a star. He also wears black trainers. He has a strap over his shoulder which is where he holds his amp, which is a useful melee weapon for him.
I remember him now and he was someone I liked. I also remember how he chose whether to be good and bad, and how those choices that he had to make were really significant and affected quite a lot of people. He also had to face disasters of various sorts. I wouldn't be surprised if I had to make some difficult choices soon, and it is not easy having to deal with that amount of responsibility.
With that said I preferred him to be good, though that's down to what I believe. I don't believe in doing bad things just to be a badass, or to cause harm to honest people. I believe in doing what needs to be done for the greater good, though I will admit that is itself debatable. I also believe in helping people, as well as to try and make the world a better place, though again that is debatable.
The more I think about it the more I wonder how does one define good and bad. I like to think I consider myself and Lastation to be good and Neptune to be bad, but is that not down to perspective? After all I remember the series trying to shove down my throat who was good and who was bad, but I just didn't buy their nonsense. I must admit that my apparent "bad karma" bothers me, as I don't even know what I did to warrant it. But all I can do is keep being good, especially with a little help from my friends.
"Hi Cole thanks for coming, this is Black. I'm unsure of his origin but I know he can be trusted, and I believe he could be my brother. So do you have any idea how to get our karma rank back to hero? Because as you know I'm not evil at all, I mean no one in Lastation thinks I'm evil. They consider me to be the most benevolent CPU to ever exist." Noire asks with much concern.
"Pleased to meet you Black. That's rather strange, I would have thought I would be affected of all people but my karma rank is still hero. Like you I have used my powers to help the people of Lastation and saved lives. But it's just unfortunate that for some reason my powers were not enough to beat back Leanbox." Cole explains sounding disappointed that he can't give a better answer.
That's odd, I thought Cole was powerful. How come not even he managed to keep Leanbox at bay?
"Don't feel so bad Cole, I don't blame anyone for struggling with Leanbox. In fact you all fight very well. But it does bewilder me as to why it's the case. This is odd as I have helped out a lot of people in Lastation, they all look up to me. It makes no sense at all, I should be a heroine." Noire replies showing a mixture of emotions from comfort for Cole, to frustration with the lack of sense this all makes.
"What I can say is that the both of you look clean, and I sense an aura that you both are good not evil. I don't think your people will hate you Lady Black Heart, ever. You will always have their love that I am sure." The conduit Cole McGrath explains.
"Do you believe that this so called infamous rank that we have obtained, is just cosmetic then?" I ask Cole with a baffled expression.
"I think so, when did you get this?" He asks me.
"While we were sleeping last night, the thing is we have reason to believe that we must prove we're both innocent in 3 days, or we'll be forced to kill each other. We're also convinced that we've both been brain washed." My CPU explains.
"Last night I dreamt I was arrested by some unknown police force. I was apparently charged with stealing PS3s and distributing fakes, along with selling pirated games and countless illegal downloads, which is pretty bad stuff. But I have no idea if I ever did that.
Then I dreamt that Neptune and Nepgear informed me of how evil Noire is, that was when the brainwashing as I knew it started. I was shown footage of Noire's so called evil deeds, and what concerns me is that I remember them happening, yet my gut says Noire is actually innocent. I'm completely confused.
Finally we both dreamt that we were taken into a car, and driven round to a certain area full of soldiers that took joy in our demise, where we were to be executed." I explain to him.
He nodded, digesting what I said to him. He then replies to me.
"I believe the dreams are trying to tell you both that you're evil, and must be and will be defeated. But I believe the evil is all in your head, however unless you two can cure it, it will take over your mind and you will end up killing each other." Cole explains sounding deeply concerned.
How does he know all this? My only guess is that with him being good or bad affected himself more than others, he would be more of an expert from past experience.
"Do you have any advice that can help us?" Noire asks with a lack of morale in her voice, concerned about what they can do, hoping he can give an answer.
"Doing good things won't work because my gut believes you two do good things all the time. You're benevolent, selfless, kind and fair. In short you're the ideal people to lead this nation. Lastation won't turn against you, they won't see you two become evil.
All you can do is prove to your demons, convince them that neither of you are evil. I'll admit it's easier said than done, but that's all I can say to you. Good luck, I have faith you can succeed." Cole explains trying to sound as optimistic as possible.
"Thanks for the help." Me and Noire both say in unison, appreciative of his support.
I knew Cole got his powers due to some bomb, but I wonder how he got them this time. I'd like to find out.
"Would you mind explaining to me how you got your powers, along with how you became an expert in karma?" I ask him.
"Sure. I was born in Planeptune, and I was kidnapped as a child and forced to work as slave labour, and was forced to commit such horrific acts. I among a few others attempted to escape to Lastation. While we ran away I got struck by lightning, for some strange reason I gained super powers. I got confronted by some of the criminals from Planeptune, I was the only survivor of that confrontation and I then moved to Lastation.
I then realised that for some reason my karma was very evil, my clothes were ripped, my skin was very pale. But I learned I needed to do good things to get rid of the evil karma, and that's what I did. Sometime along the way Lady Black Heart took me under her wing, and I used my powers to help Lastation in any way I could. Which included healing the injured and help taking out enemy troops. I'll see you two later." Cole explains before he exits the room.
"Thanks for the help Cole. It's much appreciated." Noire says while smiling to him.
We then turn to face each other.
"I think if we are to analyse the evidence, we can see if we can explain the claims made by Neptune and Nepgear. Do you have the means of observing someone else's dreams?" I ask Noire.
"I believe Coco would be able to do it, but I think she would need to develop such a machine to perform such I task. Yeah I don't think she's built something like that before." She answers sounding quite glum, due to the answer being negative.
She gets out her phone again, this time to make a phone call.
"Hello Uni, I take it there has been no attack at all last night….. Nope? Just as I thought, listen have you had a nightmare or something?…OK have you encountered Neptune and Nepgear?...OK, you have, did they tell you about how evil Black was?...OK, Do you think you're brainwashed?...Yep, OK, we'll head back and meet you back in PS3 City…..OK Bye." Noire speaks to Uni calmly.
She then hangs up and turns to talk to me.
"Yeah this was definitely from that incident yesterday, they must have only wanted us both to be brainwashed and have us both kill each other. The thing is this was not the first time, they tried to turn me and Uni against each other, as well as Lastation numerous times. They tried to plant evidence, broadcast speeches, basically any dirty tactic to try to make out that we were evil.
But it didn't work because me and Uni are squeaky clean and Lastation knows it. Everything we have done was for them, we have also managed to find those responsible. The ones in Lastation we captured, but they committed suicide. There were those that broadcasted but we managed to stop all of their transmissions. Though all of this was before we fought Planeptune.
The irony is, some of the Planeptune civilians fled to Lastation, and told stories about how Compa used her so called medical expertise, to perform deadly experiments on the civilians. This was in an attempt to make them more efficient, but she also killed quite a lot via lethal injection.
Other people said that IF tried to send out spies from Planeptune to Lastation, in an attempt to steal our technology, she's behind all the propaganda attacks. Fortunately IF's plans have failed.
I have no idea of Compa and IF's whereabouts right now, I reckon they must be responsible for so much horrible stuff in Planeptune. It's no wonder we fought against them, to bring their tyranny to an end." Noire explains to me.
I now remember Compa and IF, I never liked them though. Though Compa was nice she was incompetent and though IF was competent she wasn't nice. What made it worse was how IF was disrespectful towards my CPUs, and how they were both Neptune's goons and assisted her in defeating Noire and Blanc loads of times. It does intrigue to find that apparently they have been evil here. Is there a reason for this, or is it a coincidence?
"Purple Heart, Compa Heart, IF, these girls must die." Noire says this with emotion in her voice as if she means this.
After hearing what the 3 of them have done, I understand why she said that although I reckon Noire will be merciful. Her phrase does remind me of something, oddly enough.
It's interesting that she does say this, is she familiar with the video I watched? I mean I have told her the video, but did she see it for herself? I say this as Neptune, Compa and IF were the main people in the video who fought and defeated Noire all those times. Maybe it could be that Noire knows what Compa and IF have done. It's rather ironic as Noire said that they try to make out we're evil, when it's them that is really evil.
Why are they doing this though? I never remember them being like this, but then again I never liked them, and the stuff in the series was still terrible and awful. What if this world has it so that the characters I like are good, and the ones I don't are evil?
"That gives me an idea. What if we could reprogram our brainwashing so that instead of us killing each other, we kill Neptune and Nepgear." I suggest to her.
It may sound drastic but they want us dead so…..
"It's worth a try, though I'm unsure if it will work because for one thing can it be done? Also when the brain washing had its effect on us it altered our personality, my concern is we won't care so much about Lastation, and we may end up becoming the very people we wish to take down. I'd prefer to break the brain washing because as soon as this war with Leanbox and Lowee is over…." Noire says while thinking about my idea.
It's interesting how for some reason we haven't really encountered Lowee. It makes me wonder when I'll encounter it in some form.
"…..I intend to find Neptune and her goons and teach her discipline Lastation style. That being said if we can't break the brain washing, then we could try reprogramming it or we could fake our deaths. Though that could be very demoralising for our people, unless we have some way of them knowing we're not dead, but the demons don't know any better." Noire thought out loud.
"I agree with what you say." I say with enthusiasm.
"Great minds think alike." Noire smiles at me again even chuckling.
"But proving your innocence, that will be easier said than done. Despite the fact that I believe you to be innocent as well as seeing all the evidence myself, the demons don't buy it…." I sigh, I hate how I have to prove her innocence despite fully believing it to be true.
"…I'll do my best though, but I'm unsure what I can do." I continue.
"We'll think of something, after all we're the smartest." She grins while reassuring me.
We then have a hug afterwards before uncoiling each other and getting some breakfast, after which we'll drive back to PS3 City. I hope we can fight this brainwashing because it would be horrible to lose now, especially how apparently I won the first battle in the 7th generation against Leanbox. But I feel this may be more difficult to do than a battle. I'll need to think of a way to combat this brainwashing. I will not let Neptune take my mind, like I'm sure she's brainwashed everyone else with her nonsense.