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No. Just the opposite. We'd be left with memories we don't want, with no chance to replace with them with newer, better ones. That's not how we'd want to remember you, Kagerou, wondering where you are and if you're okay. Knowing that you probably aren't.

Think of it this way. You have retained the other robot's memories, right? So you have his memories of another me, too? [He doesn't know details, nor does he need to. He doesn't /want/ to. But he feels he learned enough to make this point, at least.] Is that the last thing you'd want to know of me? Or of McCrane, or Power Joe? Are those the experiences you want to hold in your heart? You'll never forget them completely, but if you don't let go of them, if you don't combat them with new memories, then you'll never heal from them either.

You don't want that. And we don't want that for you. Or for ourselves. Yuuta told me once that one of the hardest things to do is to keep going, to get back up when we've been knocked down so hard we don't think we can bear it. But we have to. And we can get back up. Even if it means accepting a little bit of a hand to get us started again.

I'm fine. I'm... secure. Everything is safer here.

[There's a sudden, sharp "inhalation". He's shaking his head rapidly. Even though it can't be seen.]

Please don't. Talk about those memories. They aren't mine. They aren't me. I... I don't want them! I don't want to think about them!

[He trails off into silence.]

...

I can't do anything right now. I can't... I don't want to move right now. I don't know how to make any of this make sense. How to make it right.

How can I accept any help, after all of that!

[Deckard has never hurt as much as he can guess Kagerou is hurting right now. He's BEEN hurt, make no mistake, but he won't pretend to think he's been as deeply hurt as this. He can't even begin to compare, and he knows it. That doesn't mean he won't try to empathize, or to help.]

That's my point. They're not you. That. Wasn't. You. And that is why I can say that you... are still part of the team.

[He pauses for a second. This is the point he'd be pulling a deep breath, if he breathed at all.]

Better question . . . how can you not?

I want to help, Kagerou. I don't know how - I wish I did - but I want to. If you'll have me.

[And he'd understand if you won't. He really would. But he needs to know that you'll turn to /someone/ at least. Then he'd know you're at least in good hands.]

[There's nothing for a while. Just soft, almost whimpering sounds. He's trying to hold them back, but they tear their way out of him.]

[How can anyone want to be around him. Let alone want to help him. After what happened...]

[What if that's really part of him? What if... what if that's some kind of awful future?]

...

I don't know how anyone can help. Or... how anyone can help.

If there's a way, let's find out together.

Coordinates, Kagerou?

[There's no command, just a quiet question. He won't force the robot, but he can at least try one more time.]

[There's a long silence. A long hesitation. He's so sure he can't make this right again. Especially not to someone once charged with hunting him down...]

[The coordinates finally come. In silence.]

[Maybe once this has blown over and they've gotten past it - WAY past - they can joke about being even now...]

[Deckard waits tensely for an answer, any answer. The silence is worrisome, but the coordinates are enough.]

Thank you. I'll be there shortly.

[And he races out, getting into the area in vehicle form, then changing back and looking around.]

Kagerou?

[There's no answer. There's only the side of Trion's temple. For a while, there's... just silence. No movement, no words.]

[A wing flicks, overhead, from one of the window ledges, where Kagerou has literally wedged himself into the smallest space possible.]

[It's still damaged.]

[And he's still silent. But he's there.]

Kagerou?

[Has the ninjabot moved on? Changed his mind, not willing to see Deckard after all? He moves around, searching the entire area as best he can. He knows when Shadowmaru's upset, he likes to get up high –rooftops, bridges, things like that. If Kagerou's anything like his "brother" . . . ]

[Deckard nearly misses the twitch, but then he focuses closer. Thank goodness, there he is. The Brave offers a small grin, hands spread.]

Without J-Decker, I'm afraid I can't fly to meet you up there. What room is that behind you?

[So long as the wounded bot promises not to bolt as soon as Deckard goes inside, now that he's been found.]

[There's a silence. And then a shrug. He doesn't know. Part of him recognizes he needs to grow up, get down there, and get this over with.]

[So after another silence, he raises his voice.]

I don't know. I... will come down.

[In just a second. He has to inch out from the ledge he's wedged himself into. But he will, eventually, come down off it.]

[And stand with his back to the wall of the temple, his optics downcast, though his chin is lifted.]

[The ninjabot is silent for long enough that Deckard starts looking for a way to climb up to the window ledge, more willing to scale the wall and risk falling than "abandon" the other robot to try to find his way up there from the inside. Then the soft words, and he nods, waiting patiently.]

[It's painful to watch the other robot work himself free and drop down, beyond the sight of the obvious injuries. Deckard wants to pull Kagerou into a hug, but . . . he remembers how the robot had tensed before and doesn't want to alarm or offend him. He's afraid of saying the wrong thing and driving him away so, for the moment, he just settles for a hand lightly gripping the ninjabot's shoulder. He hopes it's taken for the attempt at support that it's meant to be as he tries to come up with something to say, something to do…some /way/ to help.]

[He keeps his optics averted. He can hold his head up, he can keep his wings from flattening down. He can make his stance as calm and confident as possible. But he can't bring himself to meet the BP leader's stare.]

[His expression is closed, withdrawn.]

[And it only shifts into something else when his shoulder is touched. Surprise.]

What...?

[He offers a small smile, shaking his head.]

Just glad to see you. Thank you for having me.

[He lets his hand drop as he shifts a step away, motioning at the ground and wall between them.]

Sit with me?

[And he'll take the initiative, settling with his back to the wall. The view here is actually rather nice - they can see the lake from here. It's peaceful, and he's hoping it will help put the other at a little more ease.]

Glad to see me.

[He repeats it quietly, like he's having a hard time processing how it could be possible.]

[He doesn't say much of anything, as the other sits, and hesitates, for a long, silent moment, before making his move.]

[Which is to sit, slowly, carefully. A few feet away from him.]

Yes. Very.

[The words come without hesitation, spoken softly but firm with sincerity.]

I don't turn my back on anyone easily, if at all. Especially if it's a teammate.

[He waits for Kagerou to settle, watching him almost more by periphery than directly, so as not to seem to "make" him do anything by expectation. He waits a few before speaking again to see if Kagerou will first, to let him lead the conversation if he wants or is able, though he'll speak up in a moment if the other doesn't.]

Mm. I see.

[It's a noncommittal answer. He knows it. He knows he should say more. But the words just don't come. So he draws his knees to his chest, resting his chin on top of them, arms looped around them.]

[Huddled. As if chilled.]

[His gaze remains fixed forward. What does he even say to this?]

[Deckard wants to reach out to his shoulder again, making that supportive contact, but Kagerou sat just far enough away that for him to do so, he'd have to shift closer, moving into the space the other left between them. He won't do that, at least not yet, for now honoring the fact that Kagerou's let him here at all.]

[After another beat, he asks quietly.]

Will you share with me some of what's been going through your mind?

[He doesn't know how to help if he doesn't know for sure what he's combating. He's not willing to guess or make assumptions at this point.]

[The noise he makes isn't really a laugh. It's too weak to be one. Too weak and too bitter. A low, damaged sound.]

[He shakes his head slowly.]

[His wings shiver, almost folding around him.]

I don't know how to even begin.

[Deckard thinks for a moment.]

...you asked me earlier how I know that wasn't you before. You you, this you. [He catches himself from saying "the real you" - if barely - as he understands the other versions of everyone were just as real...like it or not...] You started to say "what if"?

[Even if it's upset and rambly at first, scared, even angry, he's hoping that if he can help Kagerou /voice/ the fears and doubts, maybe they can start to work through and past them.]

[His arms tighten around himself.]

But it's the same. That... person. They wanted to be more than just a prototype. And I... [There's a crackle of static. His voice breaks.] ... I wanted that. I wanted it too.

[So what does that mean for him? Does that mean he's going to end up like... is that his future?]

[He shudders to think of it. Literally. He never wants to hurt the one who mattered most to him. Never. The thought makes his AI spark with something like sickness.]

[What if I end up that way, because of what I wanted.]

[Deckard feels himself stiffen, hands clenching into fists.]

You should have been.

[The words come out roughly, almost unbidden. A quiet, offended anger that's NOT. AT. ALL. directed /at/ Kagerou but rather experienced for his sake.]

[Deckard was the first of their kind. Everyone else was programmed from him, be it directly or indirectly. Because of that, he feels responsible for everyone to some extent or other. Not just the other Brave Police but all Super AI's. Yes, even the Chieftains to a point. And certainly those much closer to home. Maybe the engineers had never meant for Kagerou to be a member of the main team, but he'd been designed and built as part of the Brave Police Project. That made him a teammate - that made him "family" - in Deckard's eyes. And it always angered him when he thought about what had happened.]

You were given a really short stick, Kagerou, and it wasn't right. I've never liked how any of that was handled, not since I learned the truth. [He looks over at the ninjabot.] I'm sorry for going after you like I did back then. The information we'd been given was that we were to arrest what they "thought may have been" a battle drone smuggled in from another country and gone berserk. They . . . they lied to us. [To an extent, he understands why Saejima had done it - understands, but very much doesn't agree. The whole thing could have - should have - been handled some other way. He shakes his head and gazes out across the lake again.] Prototype or not, you're a Super AI, Kagerou. You're a person the same as the rest of us and should have been afforded the same treatment and opportunities. Dammit, if nothing else, they should have at the least learned with me what a reformat really means for us and never intended to do it again...

[And with that thought, he has to pause a moment, suppressing a faint shudder of his own. He's been reformatted, twice in fact - the second time at his own request, granted (though in his defense, he'd not been fully himself to begin with) - and it's a horrific process, one he doesn't like to remember. He drags a hand down his face and pulls his mind back to the original point he was going to make. He glances sidelong at Kagerou again, hazarding a guess.]

You and he share a desire to be more than your superiors had allotted you. In that at least, you can relate to him. You're worried you may be more like him in other ways than you want to be?

[But he was happy. He'd been happy, in Shadowmaru's wake. Even while wanting more -- wanting to be more. He'd never wanted it at his partner's expense. He doesn't know how to explain that -- how he'd wanted to be more and yet remain a shadow at the same time.]

... Being his shadow was never the issue. Never the... stick. I liked that. I was happy with that.

[That much at least, he knows he has to say. If only because of how that Other had handled things. The rest is too muddled for even himself to understand. And it's his own feelings.]

There are none like me, though. Are there. No prototypes. I'm different than all of you, aren't I.

[Because no matter how much he's felt he's been accepted, no matter how many times Power Joe shakes him or how often he remembers what Gunmax did for him... it won't ever change that. Maybe he'd begun to accept it, before. To actually find a new purpose among them, and beside Kay, but now...]

[Now everything is different. And maybe wrong.]

I don't want to relate to that one. I don't want to feel like he did! All his memories... they're twisted! They're wrong! He hated him so much -- He k...

[His voice breaks into static and he can't finish the word.]

Never in my life have I ever wanted to forget my memories. And now I have these... now they're part of me...

[And he doesn't know what to do.]

Edited 2013-11-24 03:06 (UTC)

[Deckard hears him out, and it confirms what Shadowmaru had always said as well.]

I know you were happy, and I'm glad. I am. I meant after that, since that hadn't been intended to last. Once Shadowmaru's development was finished.

[The prototype comment gets a look of confusion, though.]

...I was a prototype. Not directly for a single other person, but . . . [He shrugs.] I don't think that makes you different. You were built to test systems that were finalized in Shadowmaru, and you trained him, but I don't believe that separates you from him or the rest of us. I was built on a number of ideas that hadn't been employed that way before, if at all, though not everything about me had never been seen before at all. The Build Team was designed on some of the same ideas and some different ones. Drill Boy was designed on the other Build Team members but with a twist or two. Shadowmaru was designed on your engineering, which threw some new ideas into the basic design that went into me and the original Build Team. Gunmax is another who was built on new ideas not incorporated into the rest of us. In some ways, he's as different from us as you. He doesn't even have another mode he can change into, instead having to rely even more heavily on his support vehicle than I ever have mine or Duke his. And Duke? We were all prototypes for him in some respects. He was engineered with elements drawn from all of us.

There are far too few of our kind yet. I can count every Super A.I. in existence past or present to date. There have been barely more than a dozen of us. We're all different, we have elements that make us unique from one another . . . but I don't believe that you are so far removed from the group of us. Not anymore than Shadowmaru, or Gunmax, or me. The difference isn't you, it's in how they treated you, I think. We were built for a single intended purpose and left in that. You were built for one purpose, then were going to be moved to something else. That doesn't make you different.

[He's not discarding or belittling Kagerou's belief on the matter or about himself. It's just that he disagrees and is quietly explaining why. He doesn't intend to argue the matter, just stating his view and hoping it will help ease an apparent concern.]

[He tilts his head down at the last. He wishes he has answers. He doesn't.]

I don't fully know how to answer that. I'm sorry. The only thing I can liken it too - poorly, I know - is like . . . like having been raped, I think. Something violent and deeply personal and violating and leaves scars. Honestly, I'd say to . . . well, ah, see a therapist . . . except that I don't know that there are any in this place.

What I can offer . . . I can help you built more memories, better ones. They won't replace what you have now, in that they won't erase them . . . but with time, they'll help crowd them out, I think. They'll lose their strength and their hold, and they'll start to hurt less. Don't dwell in those memories, don't live in them. Get out and about. With me, with McCrane, with Power Joe, with any other friends you have here.

I know about Gunmax.

[His voice sharpens, but the words remain steady and flat. He doesn't mean to cut in. But... it feels like more assumptions. It's not the same thing. Maybe they had prototypes or something like that, but. No. He's pretty sure Gunmax wouldn't have liked being compared to the "shinewbie".]

[Even if the memory flickers a vague smirk at the corners of his mouth, briefly.]

[He shakes his head again.]

None of that is the same. None of you were like us. There was nothing, beyond him. Beyond where we lived. He was all I had -- my entire life. I l...

[Another hitch in his voice. He forces himself to calm, to say the words as if reciting them.]

I wanted to live. For him. Because of him. Which... was more than I was meant to be.

I'm different than all of you. It was... fine. For a while. It was all right. Now it's... now it's changed.

[He falls silent again. Rung was here. Rung tried to help. And he'd trusted the Autobot so much... With so much. If another showed up, he's not even sure if he could start over.]

[His head tilts back, staring up at the sky.]

My memories... can't fade. Not that way.

[Not after the deal he made with Trion.]

[He didn't mean it in a negative way at all. Though, yes, he'd probably have gotten an earful, at best, had the biker cop been here to hear that. The rest? It's a difference of experience, it's situational, the experiences were nothing the same, but that doesn't separate the individuals themselves so much in his mind. But . . . it's not worth it to him to continue to discuss that point and risk alienating Kagerou over it. The ninjabot believes it as strongly as Deckard believes otherwise. Just so long as he doesn't separate himself and cut people off here and now. Deckard silently agrees to disagree and moves on.]

Will you tell me what's changed? And why the memories can't fade?

[He's not questioning the validity. It's just that, with no background, with no story behind them, the statements are essentially meaningless to him. He wants to understand.]

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