Authors Note: Wow, this is strange... for you fellow Megaman fanfic fans who have been here a long time, you might remember my original first attempt on this back when I tried to be a full-on fanfic writer before I got hit by life, and I only claim that as it had over 1495 view holy damn. Honestly, the original project has haunted me for a long time, and now I am finally in a calm spot in life. I realize I want to take another stab at this.

(Also posted on AO3 Under same Username.)

Of course, being a Reboot, I am uncertain if this will stay the course of the "original me" that attempted it, but I, strangely enough, have all my original notes for this idea. I can pull this off, I believe. So, without much else to say for now, let's see if we can make some magic happen, and I hope you enjoy this. So, as a heads up, I think I will post twice a month between this project and my Persona project. Now, onto the revitalization of:

(Art Cover made in Dream Weembo App by me)

Megaman Soul: We Stand Alone / Reboot

By: Kingdomkeylight J.A.K

Inspired by my younger journey into writing.

Megaman Soul: We Stand Alone / Reboot

Start-Up Arc

Chapter 1: Ignite Protocol

The year is 20XX, the world has advanced more than anyone could have ever expected really. Flying magnetic cars, clean energy, a cleaner environment rich with habitats for all manner of life, solar railways, and advancements in medicine far beyond anyone's wildest dreams. A stability of peace and prosperity imagined up and made real by Sigma Corp. the lifestream of the world, and all of its continued advancing splendors. Helmed by the eighth generation of the Sigma family of geniuses, each known for a marvel or three, have regained what humanities has lost in its earlier violent ways. Whether that be the cleansing of the oceans from long-thought permanent pollution, tech that could calculate to burrow out volcanic pressure to avoid natural disasters, or even just the implementation of the OG Founders Nanodrome Peace project... the world has only bettered itself since the corporation's construction in a small lab room.

Mr. Copy Sigma is a well-loved maverick in the realm of progression, and the eighth head to take the reigns of Sigma Corp. To this day he currently pioneers the world's medical field as of late. The world holds abated breath on what wonders he will make along with the rest of Sigma Corp. As everyone knows, Sigma Corp had a very humble beginning in the country of Arcadia. Once a minor third-world power, it now owes all of its first-world status to Sigma Corp., who called it home.

Thanks to them along with other forward-thinking individuals most military powers have been allowed to place down their arms against thy neighbor, and now all are well braced together in unity. However, there are always troubled hands like well-known terrorist cells MAGnet, Dark Elf, and Gospel who would aim to shake up the foundation of society. Things have never been calmer in human history all thanks to the most acclaimed accomplishment that started Sigma Corp's rise... the NanoDrome. A powerful AI-obsessed peace bringing super computer driving... no pushing the field past the modern people's way of thinking to keep all safe.

As numerous words, and images continued on the now-in-focusing frame of the slide show screen, its praise about the history of Sigma Corp. caused a young aloof eighteen-year-old watching to be plagued with only one thought in mind it all:

Boring.

Everyone knew all this stuff straight from kindergarten. So why the hell did they need a refresher on the most well-known element to date in the world that even a three-year-old would know about? The question bothered Erik Mar to no end as his blank gaze made it clear he was starting to bleed out the words from his very soul. Short messy red hair shifted as he fought to not just head bash himself against his chrome-colored school desk. His only escape was where his green eyes could zoom out from the boring session... a single window with an equally dull blue sky... nothing ever happened here did it... he was cursed to a dull life after.

Ding Dong...

"Never has the bell saved me from such a cruel fate," Erik muttered under his breath for a moment before he turned from the window. Within a moment a sudden flash of colors almost painted like wisps in the sky caused him to sit up in confusion. What had that been? For a moment, he could have sworn he had seen a bright set of red and black waves of visual sensation interrupting the blue sky. Yet no shadow had been cast... and he had not seen anything solid blocking the sunlight either. Along with no one else even seeming to take notice, he found himself rubbing his eyes, believing his stupor to have played a trick on his mind. As Erik stood up about a good five feet point ten inches tall, he gently fixed his white and grey color schemed school uniform, uncertain as to what visual tricks had just been played on him.

Rubbing his eyes again to make sure the gates of hellish sleep hadn't yet taken him, he saw no other signs of what he had thought had taken place. Instead, all that came to view was the mind-boggling chrome aesthetic of the classroom, meant to ensure there were no distractions when playing a video for the class.

Unbeknownst to Erik as he left for his next class on the roof of the building next to the 7-story school building a lone intangible red silhouette seemed to watch looking for the other silhouette of black it had been chasing. Ironclad in its position, it never moved, only waiting for something, anything to happen to give it a reason to move again... as it stood fluidly in solitude, a voice reverberated off it.

"He came this way... we only have, at best, one shot before someone realizes what we are doing. Find him now, and end it," A very viscous growling yet feminine voice commanded the red-waved entity as it took flight with a single jump, the entity impressively cleared three stories' worth of distance in the air as it responded with a calm, and collective voice landing on top of the school with nary a physical strain. Hunching upon the landing before looking for its target again.

"He won't get away like he did that night Rosa... I promise that."

...

"Maaaaaan, you're lucky Ms. Greta is really into that video. Cause one look at that thousand-yard stare into the window would have got you bushwhacked out of existence straight into the principal's office," a charming voice sang as Erik's best friend, Nath Gate jumped him from behind, slinging an arm around the boy. This caused both teens to fumble forward a bit until, together, they got upright, walking ahead like a merry band of brothers.

"You just can't help pushing your luck, can you," a more hush-wispy voice spoke from Erik's left, causing both boys to flinch in reaction as a wave of spine-tingling chills shot up their back as, just like usual, Shilo Graves snuck up on them. Surprisingly, just as tall as Erik and a good foot taller than Nath, Shilo was the school Goth girl representative of a dying breed in today's technology era. Well, that's what Nath, the school star of the Track & Field Team, loved to remind her of her bizarre pale makeup complexion with hazel eyes that could pierce the blackest of souls. Erik had known both of these contrasting individuals since he was in diapers and was the very glue that kept them both as friends rather than the stereotypical alignment of enemies... though they had no problem insulting each other once one triggered the other.

"Look out, Erik. It's a vampire's soul gaze. Before you know it, she'll suck your soul upon reminding you why guys with common sense should always say no to the bloodletting on the first date. Revel in the good word and accept Van Helsing as your savior from her mudded-faced kind," Nath hissed before comically offering Erik a copy of Bram Stocker: Dracula.

"Oh, you leveled up to reading? Good on you, Nath. Do they still use those color codes to let you know what's above your skill tree," Shilo hissed back.

As Erik looked to Nath he was quickly reminded why most sometimes were conflicted by Nath's existence on how to approach. Nath was someone very akin to the descriptive term of androgyny. A slime figure with the lean muscular build from running, and lifting weights to keep a toned body was not helped on the matter. Especially when it was followed by curly waves of long brown silk-like hair. Staple that with Nath's impeccable pearly white smile and blue eyes mixed with a masculine yet feminine facial feature, and you were given a grand confusion cocktail on the first approach. What made it worse was Nath loved to play on it and torture new people to guess what they were.

On the other hand, though Shilo had numerous amounts of potshots from the athlete stereotype insult handbook she wasn't above taking a knee shot at Nath's narcissistic near-god complex habits. Though in turn, Nath wasn't wrong as Shilo's massive complex with burying her facial features in products half the school population probably couldn't even pronounce with years of practice sung stories of attacks Nath could launch back. Though in her defense Shilo's black lips and heavy eyeliner made her look like an undead Cleopatra who had an otherworldly charm that caught people's attention. Having a taller-than-average height for a girl gave her an intimidating presence. Her hair black strands of hair were always kept in a new hairstyle every day, today's flavor of choice was Egyptian braids.

In full earnest, Erik was as simple as could be between the two, yet they were all the best of friends—dysfunctional but loyal. At least he had that right? As the trio made their way to the fourth period, Erik immediately felt a gut feeling of regret for remembering today's topic in Advanced Living Etiquette: "Your Future Career."

"No, I don't want to," Erik groaned as before he could escape, both Nath and Shilo latched onto his arms, pulling him forward, knowing well enough what he would do in advance once the fog of distractions of the day faded away. The pure disdain that grimaced his own face was a sign of how much he was uncomfortable with the topic.

"You got to man. Can't make a career out of doing nothing but tinkering the day away on oddities," Nath teases, shaking a finger at Erik as Shilo added.

"Besides, you have the most stable grades in the class anyway, so you have various options. As your Motherborg would tell you, your future is important," she reminded him.

"Ya, but everything is so boringly dull. I can't be expected to pick one crime against the other. They all equal cases of manslaughter on my sanity," Erik pleaded, fighting weakly back as he knew he was already in their clutches as they entered the despair of chrome-colored rooms once more, just like any other in the school, the dredge of everything being the same a reminder of why Erik found himself driven insane with school life. Everything had to be peaceful, and perfect... why couldn't things just be a mess, complicated, and needing of action?

Unfortunately, no act of divine intervention saved him as the duo placed him in his seat plopping him down like a dead fish. His eyes, in defeat, skimmed the rest of what the board had to say on the topic as the teacher started a long-winded lecture about the importance of going into the field best suited for your skills. Just like the video in the first class, Erik tuned the teacher out. Eventually, he surrendered as needed and got out a pen, begrudgingly starting to write out whatever notes might be needed for the lesson later as the topic went into "Approaching A Potential Employer: Sell yourself, make them want to hire you with a positive attitude...

BOOOOOMMMMM!

Erik and many others felt their seats move as the whole building shook. A massive cloud of dust and a chorus of screams could be experienced from the classroom doorway as students started to run in panic. Emergency alarms kicked off, telling everyone to evacuate the building over a significant threat to the builds structural integrity. The classroom was full-on rioting, bolting as Nath tried to reach out for Erik before being tugged away by the tightening crowd. Erik was swung backward by another violent shake and ended up on his ass. He was quickly overwhelmed and blitzed through and tackled by much more panicked bodies. As another violent shake tossed everything around, Erik could swear he heard Shilo scream his name before everything went deaf upon a much closer explosion as the walls of the classroom were shattered by a thrown red wispy entity slamming so hard into another wall that it ended up embedded into it.

As shock and vertigo took over, Erik fought to stand up but felt resistance from the desks now on top of him. Only able to turn his neck the teen turned to what he now could for sure see. It was so bizarre it was there in the wall, but no matter how hard Erik concentrated on it, it was also like it wasn't there as well. His sense of sight was losing its ability to identify the wispy red thing in and out. As Erik's lungs filled with the dust from the debris, he felt panic enter for only a moment as all the weight on his back was suddenly gone. The desks were suddenly swatted away with little effort as that future the boy had been idly avoiding suddenly found itself irrevocably changed as sparks flew from broken wires from the failing ceiling.

"Oye. Time to leave don'tcha think? School is important, and all... but being alive, I think, pays off better for your future... or maybe that is just me," a somewhat aloof but chill voice expressed to Erik's unmoving status. As clear as day, another wisp, one of black, stood next to Erik in a hunch, almost as if looking him dead in the face, having just spoken to him. Yet unlike the red one, there was something strange happening to this wisp... other colors were starting to come into focus... purple... yellow... it was like the more he stared at the blur, the more defined it became. A firm pat from the wisp suddenly rebooted Erik's senses as self-preservation finally kicked in, and without further question, took to a bolt right out the door. Once Erik was gone, the black blur turned to red, and it dismounted from the wall before producing a pure blade of energy, pointing it directly at the black blur.

"This area is rather outside your scope of operation, Kaz," the black blur nonchalantly chimed, seeming surprised by something for a moment before turning to the coming fight ahead and casually strolling in a half circle towards the red wisp.

"Like you would say back then, prior boss man, every step you take goes towards the mission's goal. Even if it sees you at the world's end," the red blur dove right for the black blur as multiple miniature black blurs formed behind the black blur in response.

Erik rammed into the chromatic hallway as another massive shockwave jutted through the building. This time, the shockwave took out the power as Erik cursed his inability to run before the situation. He had been running to the seventh-floor emergency chute entrance, yet with the new wave of destruction, was utterly shattered by the walling caving in on itself. Turning left, he booked it, running away as numerous cracks chased after him, as parts of the floor started to fall behind him. He didn't dare turn around, hearing the falling debris well enough to build his adrenaline to run for his life. He needed to make it to another emergency before...

As he took another left, he suddenly found himself without any platform left to run on. He was met with a massive hole where the flooring had already caved into the next floor. He turned back in a panic as the chasing failure of the rest of the floor came for him. With no other options left, he would...

Emergency Evacuation Drone R.U.5.H at your rescue

Two seat belt-like tethers shot out from behind Erik, pulling him right into the underbelly of a sideways flying drone. Two more tethers tied him to its body, and Erik watched what was left of the flooring collapse as he dangled in the air. Two handlebars jutted out from each side, giving him something to hold onto as the boy quickly found himself sideways as the drone corrected itself.

Escape Route Found... Please Hold On To Avoid Limb Severing

"Wait, what?" Without any further warnings, the drone dropped down two floors of destruction before flying straight. Erik held on tightly to his grip, and his teeth clenched for dear life as the drone shot off fast, moving in a zigzagging pattern. The green dot on top of it repeatedly flashed, scanning its surroundings and updating to threats as they came via flying formation input to dodge debris and scratch off routes as they become unusable.

Escape Route Lost... Escape Route Lost... Cannot Find New Escape Route...

The Drone chimed, causing fear to drive a wedge into Erik's head. He looked around as the drone took a sideway turn, flying chaotically down the stairs to reach floor four. Yet as it entered the main hallway of the new floor, jutting quickly out of the walls was a pure green wispy light.

EMERGENCY EVASION UNKNOWN ANOMLY DETECTED DEPLOY COUNTER MEASURES...

The drone suddenly turned sideways, pulling Erik away from the danger as all four of its propellers produced a red orb-like protrusion before projecting an energy shield around its dome top, taking all measures to protect the human it was rescuing. Yet upon contact the green wispy blade sliced through the energy shield like butter as the Drone started to spark wildly as the blade sliced through its upper dome. The drone became erratic, still flying, turning back to its upright position as it dodged a wall cave-in from the left, opening a route to the outside.

Risk...jfklhgkgh... Assessment...fefjwvea...Calculation...ERROR... 30%... Survival... SHUTDOWN CORE FAILURE IN PROCESS... Acceptable Parameters.

"WAIT THIRTY PERCENT WHAT. WHAT ARE WE DOING? HOLY HELL," Erik was so caught off guard by the green wispy attack that when his brain finally caught up with what the drone was saying, the two were already flying towards the hole in the wall. The only problem was that the drone was dropping fast, quickly threatening to slam Erik into the ground before it would exit.

Deploying... Landing Ge... ar...

The droning voice drolled into a whisper as it died, but not before the area underneath the propellers shot out the telescope-like landing gear, pushing off the ground up two feet and saving Erik from the slam dunk of a lifetime with enough air to send them both hurdling out into the open away from the building... still four stories high in the air. At first, it seemed the drone had aimed an attempted save by sending them outside in calculation that the school's falling safety measures would catch them. However, fate seemed to be a pissed mistress as the drone was hit hard by a piece of falling debris, causing both it and Erik to spin rapidly right back towards the building, crashing through a window on the second floor. Luckily for Erik, the drone fell on its back as the tethers gave out, letting him go as both he and the drone skid across the flooring, slamming into an emergency exit chute. Erik could feel his ribs threaten to break from the impact alone.

In grip with pure pain, Erik got up coughing as a bit of blood passed his lips and stained his fingertips. He got up pulling the level to open the emergency chute as a footstool extended out along with a bar to help him swing in. Yet as the green light flashed for use, he was only able to take one step before pausing with a hiss at himself, and upon an aggressively left turn, he quickly found himself trying to pull up the somewhat freaking heavy emergency drone. With big huffs and puffs, he fought to lift it, breathing in and out, trying to use the tightening of his muscles between the breaths to accomplish the insane task of saving the robot. At best, Erik barely got the half-human-sized drone to the entrance of the chute as he felt extreme pain in his chest, and his eyes started to feel weird again, like when he was looking at those wispy entities. Something was wrong his vision was experiencing some sort of telescope-zooming effect as the floor seemed suddenly in his face before appearing twenty feet away. His stomach churned as it felt like bones were cracking. His breath became extremely erratic as he dropped to a knee.. was this how he was going to die.. trying to save a robot? For what reason? It did do its job, didn't it? Its mission was complete, right? No, that's precisely why Erik knew the answer.

"You freaking idiot, you have a death wish," a sudden military booted leg came swinging in, kicking into the drone, sending it down the chute as it temporarily closed until it was safe for the next person to dive. With that small window of opportunity, Erik was able to turn to the rather vicious growl of the woman who had just kicked in the drone. She was dressed in a black full swat-like suit one would see from the old movies, with long, strawberry blonde hair tied up in a ponytail. She looked like someone who had quite a few fights in her day, carrying the presence of a warrior... Erik had never seen a cop, let alone a military person, in his life... with how little the world needed of such people, she was an explosion of a visual in his face experience as her purple eyes demanded an air of authority. Though it was short-lived, as soon as the chute reopened, her hands shot out, grabbing him by the collar before throwing him with little effort into the orange tunnel of the chute. As the chute closed off again, the white-skinned woman pulled out a walkie-talkie, ignoring the violent shakes as the building neared its end.

"Mark, Kaz where is the target?"

...

Numerous hues of orange invaded Erik's peripherals. As he slid down the chute, the build-up of speed was intense, and he could hear the sirens from outside. As the speed made its apex, Erik was shot out of the orange tunnel straight into an Energy Net that stuck to him the moment he made contact as the sudden return to a bright atmosphere blinded him. A slight rattle signaled the net lowering, and he felt his feet touch the ground, followed by a relatively solid clatter of the drone hitting the ground as well. With no energy left in him, Erik fell backward, hitting the soft padding of the school grounds. Opening his eyes to the sight of the very school about to fall over him. His eyes went wide before numerous massive sprinklers shot up all around the building, immediately launching a mass collective of snow-like foam. The building moment was halted dead in its tracks as the school grounds emergency systems fully kicked in, solidifying the whole structure with expanding foam, creating a tower of it as a shell around the destroyed school. As his breathing subsided, he felt adrenaline like never before, leaving him drained and glued to the floor.

Without warning, a beautiful face entered his view as it mouthed the words, "Are you okay, Erik?" Erik, however, simply found comfort in the sight of the glowing entity as he raised a hand to its face before saying.

"Is this heaven... OW," Erik was quickly slapped by an annoyed and seriously worried Nath, who stood back up just as quickly as they had kneeled.

"Ass is just fine," Nath scowled, not taking kindly to Erik's humor given all that had just happened as Shilo reached a hand out to the downed boy. Though not wanting to move, Erik took his friend's hand, pulling himself up as an Ambulance neared him with a group of excited responders.

"Oh man, this is like a once-in-a-lifetime experience being called in," one of the medics proclaimed, rushing up to Erik. They immediately elevated him into the back of the ambulance via stretcher. Nath and Shilo watched on, worry clearly in their eyes as to what may have happened, though Erik's concerns were more so the lack of any sightings of a police unit. How had that Swat lady arrived... why weren't there other law enforcers around? No, instead, the other responders were techies looking over the data near the secured building, going over what had happened. Erik could somewhat hear them at this distance.

"Man, you don't get to witness on-field data like this. It will be a treasure trove to go over everything that transpired."

"Ya. I mean, even though it's a simple system failure from the building's old age. Fourth-generation Sigma Corp tech still holds up."

"Heck, look at these response times, just one injury and no fatalities. As Sigma Corp says, the future is the most important thing to protect. Thank heavens, this school was a Sigma Corp model. It will be exciting to see what the Eighth Generation model will be able to do once they gut this all apart."

No, that wasn't right. The whole situation hadn't been caused by a system failure. The school had been attacked. Erik had seen it with his own eyes. What the hell were they talking about? Before Erik could correct the techies, the medic chimed a happy tune as the computer going over his vitals played a happy tune.

"Good news, you're just fine, young man," Erik turned to the man, confused. That couldn't be right. He felt his ribs go through the wringer, and the blood he coughed... the blood that had initially stained his fingers? It was gone... outright nonexistent. Suddenly, he started to pat himself, and he felt just fine... had he imagined all his wounds, no, no, that wasn't possible. The Drone had been just as damaged. Erik's mind froze as he turned to the drone, where a slash wound should have been visibly apparent, but no such damage existed. Erik had seen it, though. It was what caused the drone to go on the fritz. Erik immediately stood up as the medics around him seemed confused, as did Shilo and Nath.

"Do you need us to call any fam... oh? You're an Orph? Do you want us to send a report to your parental unit?" the medic asked, at first about to grab his phone, until Erik's information popped up on his screen, instantly changing his approach to the matter. Nath noticed a small wince in reaction to Erik's face as Shilo scowled at the medic for labeling him like that. Yet Erik just waved the idea away calmly.

"That's good. I was really worried in all the chaos that I had broken something," he said with a fake smile across his lips. The medical staff nodded in understanding, happy the boy understood he was okay as they closed shop with no one else to check. In the distance, Erik could see some baffled techs looking over the Drone, prepping to load it into a collector unit marked for dismantlement.

"You sure, "your okay, Erik," Shilo asked, looking the boy over. The boy didn't act okay but was highly distracted—differently than usual.

"Ya... no... I mean, yes... give me a second," Erik asked as he ran to the techies collecting the drone.

"Huh, weird, I can't connect to the thing. Neither its haptic feed nor its wireless interface is reacting to any of the command signals from the database," the first techie mulled as the gruffer of the two gave it a light kick.

"Not shocking. Fourth Gen Sigma Emergency Drones were built to take a hit. Hell, I heard they were even built with more advanced reaction thinking, but they weren't meant to do much else after the first deployment. Best to just send it to recycling," the gruff tech expressed, with the first one nodding in agreement.

"Wait, can I take it," the two techies turned with surprised expressions as Erik ran up to them.

"Son, it's Sigma Corp property, and on top of that, it's junked," the gruff gentleman exclaimed.

"It saved me though... I mean, things like this never happen. Think about it you guys get to see the aftermath of a building falling apart when has anything fallen apart here? This is history, and being so integral to it now, I feel like I should have something to remember it by, you know. Also, if you report it as destroyed, that's a whole day's worth of paperwork saved, right," Erik at first deployed a sense of historic importance, but it was clear on both their faces that wasn't cutting it. Yet when he mentioned saving them work?

"I mean, the Net Bowl Championship is tonight," the first techie hummed.

"We give him the dolly, too, and write it up as damaged during the cleanup. Maybe we will get one of those new eighth-gen gravity dollies," the gruff one smiled as the two techies high-fived.

"All your boys enjoy," they chimed together. As the two techies walked away as if nothing had been seen here to collect, Erik suddenly felt... weird. All this sudden danger and everyone was just acting like it hadn't happened already, and worse, those who were still concentrating on it happening... were excited by it. Replacement, data, no one was concentrating on the alarming why it had happened. He just wrote it with a reason he knew wasn't valid. Why was everyone so complacent in returning to the pattern? Erik felt the whole scenario hit simultaneously as he felt spent from it all. He grabbed the dolly handle, conflicted about how he should feel with all this... lack of concern. A building had almost killed a bunch of kids... and everyone was excited about what it would bring about to the town. Well, almost everyone.

"Erik, seriously, you're starting to worry me," Shilo's nails dug into Erik's skin, causing him to flinch. Interestingly enough, he turned to both her and Nath, who was watching the building like a hawk, apparently looking for some sort of sign of something, before the brown-haired teen realized both Erik and Shilo were watching him now instead.

"Oh, I already dismissed him for the day when he tried to hit on me," Nath smiled, causing Erik to laugh and wave his hand in the air.

"I swear I am okay, Shilo. Seriously, it was just a lot, and my head was playing tricks on me, that's all. Just too much stress at once, I think," He expressed playing the part like everyone else and acting like it never happened as he eyed the students about being informed by the teachers that school would be delayed until further notice and that all assignments would be sent to their NAVI Drives. As the students dispersed, Erik followed suit, pulling the dolly with the Drone to the sidewalk. Shilo and Nath followed, crossing over as well, and the town's rather cyber feel took over from the scene of chrome. Things were a bit more lively in the neighborhood. Colors of all kinds glowed, and the paint on the house gave evident signs of who lived where.

Trees lined up with the street are tall and healthy, surrounded by trimmer tech fencing designed to respond to the trees' trimming and nutritional needs. Condor drones circled the air while mecha cats passed by, looking for any unwanted pests in the area. The town was as clean and polished as ever, with that shiny black magnetic road helping electronic hover cars save on the pedal to their destinations. Everything was... expected. Not too far out along the street, a particular blue neon house with a red furnished roof was coming into view.

"Hey guys, I think if it's okay, I am going to just crash today," Erik paused, turning to his friends, who gave him a concerned look. Neither found the words to counter his request.

"Oh, come on, let us help you up the steps with this... OH BOY, THIS THINGS A SOLID BRICK," Nath tried to weasel a reason instead to get into Erik's house by taking the handle of the dolly from him, yet as Nath pulled, they were fought by heavy force as they barely were able to pull the drone. Shilo raised an eye at Nath's weird reaction, coming to mock the athletics boy, yet as she pulled, she also found herself fighting for any forward movement. They both joined forces, getting it about halfway up the steps before a blue mitten-wearing hand reached out, grabbed the handle, and, with little effort, pulled the dolly with ease up the front porch.

"Oh, hey, mom," Erik smiled as he turned to the robotic entity that was his mother. The unit was a bit strange based on a robot design from a cartoon called Invader Zim. Appearance-wise, it held a human design: Arms, legs, synthetic skin, and blue metallic hair help give it a human feel, but once you look at its face, you notice the robotic elements pretty quickly. The joints were more like spheres all around, and the face was quickly a giveaway to a robot... yet Motherborg was as much a mom as a real mom.

The title of Orph stood for Orphaned children, though in a world where advancement was made just about everywhere, the constant problems of orphanages were gutted out and instead given over to a more family unit purpose. Orphs like Erik would be given robotic pairings based on algorithmic patterns studied on the child and then assigned units that would match. Apparently, for Erik, that resulted in a one-parent household. Erik's smile upon the sight of his motherly figure gave a sorrowful reaction from Nath and Shilo. Motherborg was part of the reason Erik dodged things like talks about the future, for once an Orph got into the workforce, the parental unit was dismantled for recycling into a new one... recycled... that word plagued Erik more than usual today, oddly enough.

"Erik, may I ask what this device's purpose is? " Motherborg asked, turning to her designated child.

"It was gifted to me after a small issue at the school," Erik hesitantly answered.

"I see well one should never turn away a gift I shall take it to your room for you as the weight classified is dangerous for solo handling. Shilo, Nath, will you be joining us for Dinner? Do I need to request a nightly stay from your parents," the mother unit asked, making no further questions to the oddity as it directed itself to Shilo and Nath's presence. Upon that note, Shilo and Nath suddenly felt the realm of the danger zone fast in approach.

"No, we're not little kids anymore, Motherborg. We don't do sleepovers," Shilo sighed strangely, taking a step back almost as if prepared to bolt.

"True, maybe we should start a dating parameter for matchmaking. Erik is a solid candidate for pairing, wouldn't you agree, Nath?" Motherborg threw that out there, causing both Nath and Shilo to go wide-eyed, with a notable layer of rosy tint from Nath in embarrassment at the new topic at hand.

"Nope, nope, nope, we're not having this conversation today. Goodbye, Erik. Don't forget we have a rematch at the Shooter Arcade tomorrow night." Shilo spoke up immediately about facing right back the way she came, not planning to enter this realm of conversation at all with the mother unit. Nath, in turn, had hilariously already run a good mile away by the time Erik and Motherborg had turned to where he once had been.

"Heh, thanks, Mom," Erik chuckled, knowing full well that his mother had read Erik's facial expression and knew he wanted to be alone. He followed his mom into the house with the drone as Nath stopped running, turning around with a hawk-like gaze as the boy closed his door.

"What did you really see today, Erik?"