Kite of the Azure Flame (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
triedged) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
mutantsgohome2011-12-27 04:08 am
triedged) wrote in mutantsgohome2011-12-27 04:08 am
Entry tags:
One point six four
It had been over a year since Azure Kite had last stepped foot in ‘The World’. 1.64 years spent in the chaotic and unpredictable Wonderland, interacting with humans and machines and all other forms of intelligence, experiencing the joys of living and the sorrows of death, and for once in his short lifespan, being truly free and alive. In those fourteen months, he had learned more about the world and himself than he ever could have had he stayed in his own ‘World’. Despite being held against his will, losing memories and facing countless dangers, in the end, Kite’s time in Wonderland had truly been a wonderful experience.
And as suddenly as it had began, it was over. Waking on the virtual hills of Δ Smiling Forbidden Priestess, the young AI found himself thrust back into his home. No warning, no time for goodbyes, just the quiet green island surrounded by the endless blues of sky and sea.
He could only stare, shocked, too busy checking all of his systems for errors before the AI would allow himself to believe what he was seeing: ‘The World’, in all its beauty. It was just as his programming remembered it. The same graphics and sounds as it had always had, even the internal workings were the same as he scanned through them. Not a 1 or a 0 out of place.
Home, he wanted to say, but all he could make out was a raspy “Haaaa.”
The AI blinked, reaching up to his throat in confusion. Wait, what? Hadn’t he fixed his voice almost a year ago?
He tried again. “Haaaaa,” Kite moaned. “Hhhhaaaaaauuuhhhgh.”
He didn’t even cough, as he might have before when he was repairing the damaged files. He couldn’t. The AI ran a full scan of his vocals—major files were missing. All those repairs and fine tuning he had performed were completely reversed, as if they had never been altered. Even his program’s history had no record of any repairs to his vocals. In fact, the last recorded update was from moments before he appeared in Wonderland. His programming held no record of his time spent in Wonderland at all.
The AI was silent. His mind remembered Wonderland, but his programming did not. He expected many things upon his return, but this disagreement was not one of them. Had he even left ‘The World’? Was all that time he thought he spent in another world just some anomaly in his code he had overlooked?
It wasn’t until a flash mail was sent to his PC that the AI snapped back to reality. He hastily opened the flashing blue envelope. The text was scrambled, but the Azure Knight could easily understand the underlying message.
“S^@t(s +ep6r_,” it read. He recognised the sending address as Balmung’s.
Kite couldn’t even think of a proper response. He immediately gated out of the field and directly to his ‘brother’s’ location, throwing all protocol out the window and latching onto the startled knight’s side, moaning something he hoped sounded like “I’ve been gone for so long, I missed you so much.”
Not that Azure Balmung would have understood even if Kite could speak. All he could do was stand there awkwardly, trying to pry the Twin Blade off him while firing out messages like “&s s0&et#ing %r^ng?”, “L3+ 9o 0f -y ar&” and “Wh8& is yo7r #@lfu*c(&on?”
Kite couldn’t care less. Finally being home again, seeing his brothers again, he didn’t care if they had no idea why he was acting so irregularly. He was just happy to be home again.
It wasn’t until later that the reality began to sink in. The overall response when he tried to explain how he had been gone for almost a year and a half only no one remembered it was concern—or to put it bluntly, they thought he was suffering a malfunction, a viral infection, or was just plain crazy. Even Aura could only give him a confused look and request a full system check when he told her she had been there, too.
Azure Orca suggested his system was stressed by the heavy workload and he should take a few days to recuperate. Azure Balmung was certain it had something to do with the dangerous virus they were fighting.
‘The virus’. He made a conscious effort not to say the virus’ name, mainly because he realized he couldn’t. He quickly figured out why; Wonderland must have taken the memory from him. But saying that would only make things worse. If a nonexistent world he had travelled to during a timeframe that didn’t actually occur was already making his siblings concerned, what would they think if he also told them the event caused permanent damage to his memory?
Kite stayed quiet. He let Orca and Balmung watch the servers for a few days, then he’d put all this behind him.
And so ended those 1.64 years, and ‘The World’ didn’t even know they happened.
Going back to his old routine was harder than Kite thought it would be. He could handle scanning and reports, but resting was the hardest. Before, he could stand in an empty room for days on standby, but now he was used to having free time. He wanted to go out and do things, but he had to follow protocol now. He was supposed to stay put, by Aura’s direct orders.
Kite was bored out of his mind.
He missed Beast Boy. More than anything else, he wanted to see Beast Boy again. They had their quarrels, and the shape shifter wasn’t the sharpest of minds, but he had that illogical humanity that no AI could ever replicate. He was one of Kite’s first real friends, his first real lover. He taught Kite how to have fun. He taught him what it was like to be loved, how to feel joy and fear and anger and a whole range of emotions the AI used to only know the words for. He missed Linda’s bubbly antics, her obliviously cheerful optimism that never seemed to sway no matter how bad things got. He missed her unshakable will that could somehow force an AI who could reprogram entire fields at a time to sing karaoke with her in front of the whole mansion. He missed Saïx and his objective views and wisdom that Kite couldn’t help but look up to. He even missed Haseo a little, after they established a sort of unspoken truce, but the AI already knew the Haseo in ‘The World’ now wouldn’t remember any of that. And the more time Kite spent alone with his thoughts, the more he realized how much he missed his other ‘home’.
If it even happened. Wonderland seemed so distant now. There was no physical or recorded evidence of his visit, aside from a barely noticeable nanosecond delay in his logs. His personal memories were inaccessible to everyone but himself, and even if he attempted to share them he could tell the programming was irregular. Either they wouldn’t read or they would be assumed planted by a virus.
And what if he could prove it? Would anyone believe him? What difference would it make? He would still be in ‘The World’ and not Wonderland. He was exactly the same as he was when he left. The only change was in his mind, the lessons the AI had learned and the data he had processed in that distant world. That data wouldn’t help him fight infection, it couldn’t stop ‘Tri-Edge’ or save the ‘Lost Ones’. It was worthless now. Everything he gained that could have helped—restoring his voice, upgrading his targeting system, fine tuning on his Bracelet—was gone.
Nothing had changed.
1.64 years, and he had nothing to show for it.
After looking over his files a few times, Aura finally deemed Azure Kite ready to return to service. Those were the longest three days he had ever experienced. The mansion seemed like nothing but a dream now, but he tried not to think about it. He had a job to do.
His first day back was uneventful. He couldn’t be sure if it was intentional or not, but it was Orca and Balmung that got assigned the infected fields. Of course, checking for regular errors in fields was an important task, too, and Kite wouldn’t blame them if they doubted his abilities right now. Having some time to himself outside of standby mode wasn’t so bad, either. He just needed time to adjust.
Kite gated into his next field, checking the area for users before dispatching his PC body. Another grassy field, with a boss off on a western island and a few mid-level monsters. The bright yellow moon, always full, hung up in the night sky. Five chests, ten monster parties, and no anomalies.
He let his feet drop to the ground, his footsteps muffled by the sand as he stared off into the sea. Maybe if he closed his eyes, he could imagine the Destiny Islands in the distance, the mansion at his back...
But the only thing in the distance was the Aurora Cannon, and even that was just rendered pixels.
The AI grumbled, turning back toward the grassy field. Damnit, not thinking about this was harder than he thought it would be.
It was a few more days before Kite got any real action. A routine scan in a dungeon revealed several weak viral signals. His wrist burned eagerly with the Bracelet’s power. Orca and Balmung were busy with their own scans, so he was on his own.
He was a little nervous at first, but it didn’t take long for the Azure Knight to get cocky.
The bubbling black mass drifted aimlessly just a few passages in, though the AI could see the strange white creature beneath. Codename ‘Anna’, his program reminded him as he skimmed over the virus’ actual name. The most basic form of the virus. He could handle this.
Kite raised his arm, the glowing red plates of the Twilight Bracelet unfolding around his wrist. The first virus barely stood a chance as it was ripped apart by Data Drain, the malignant strings of code torn out of its programming and written right out. The black dots dispersed and ‘Anna’ was no more. The second signal was just a few more rooms in—the same signature as the last, and it went down just as easily.
The third signal was at the bottom of the dungeon, just before the Beast Statue. Same virus, same classification, but this time it anticipated his arrival. As Azure Kite entered the room, the virus flared to life, black dots shooting across the floor. Kite hissed angrily, rolling off to the side to avoid contact. ‘Anna’ appeared before him, prepared to fight for its right to exist. Kite called on his own defences, blue flames crackling around him as he summoned his avatar.
This ‘Anna’ was quick, but still no match for the Azure Flame God. His flames burned into the virus’ body, depleting its protection while he evaded its own attacks. Kobold Bullets shot past his face as he swayed across the Avatar field, bringing up his claws for when the attacks drew too close. After spending so long thinking on his other ‘home’, he finally felt like he was in his element again. He could do this. Everything could be just like before—
Suddenly, the virus made an unexpected move. It charged straight at him, catching the AI off guard. It struck his Avatar with a burst of black bubbles. His emotional files hit a crescendo, memories flashing across his vision—the friends he would never see again, the life he could never have, the holes and blanks that could never be filled and tore him apart from his old life, his old family—
The virus burned at his skin, somehow hotter than the flames of his namesake. The vibrant blues recoiled at the advancing blackness—
He didn’t belong here anymore. What was once salvation was now a curse, his life stayed the same but he had changed. He couldn’t act like everything was the same as before.
—pushing back the flames, smothering them, filling his hollow body with the swirling dark blotches—
He didn’t belong.
—destroying him—
Why go on...?
The AI Roared, snapping back to attention. The flames erupted around him, lighting up the darkness of Avatar Space as he forced the virus back with a thrust of his blades, slicing its defences cleanly in two. Without hesitation, he armed his Bracelet. The fight was a blur to him now. Within seconds, the signal was gone, destroyed by his Data Drain.
He called back his Avatar, and the AI collapsed to the floor. His chest ached—the infection didn’t set in. He double checked to be sure. But it wasn’t the virus that hurt, it was what it had shown him.
He couldn’t go back. Not to Wonderland, and not to ‘The World’.
Why go on when you have nothing to live for?
Why was he here?
The AI’s body shook, with fear or sadness or anger. He couldn’t tell anymore. Maybe it was all of them.
Maybe he would know if he could still cry.
He didn’t tell anyone about the incident. It was unlike Kite to withhold information, but he couldn’t let them know he had almost lost himself to a virus he couldn’t name.
Days turned to weeks. By the end of the month, it was as if Kite had never left. He put Wonderland behind him. He moved on. Maybe things wouldn’t be exactly the same, but he had to make due. He scanned, he tracked, he eradicated, he waited. It was a simple routine, one that didn’t take long to readjust to. He had stayed vigilant even in Wonderland, after all.
Sometimes, when he had time to himself, the AI would warp down to Δ Smiling Forbidden Priestess and sit down along the hills. He would look out to the sea, and close his eyes, pretending he could still see the Destiny Islands just beyond the horizon with the towering Mansion at his back, the silent forest but a short walk away, his friends waiting for him down by the beach so he could stop Beast Boy from trying another ridiculous stunt…
He sighed, and slowly rose to his feet. There was nothing beyond the horizon but pixels, and no mansion or forest within the small islands of the field. Reality was far more bitter than his sweetened fantasies.
He went down to the beach anyway. The water lapped at his feet, never reaching a pixel too far or too short than before. The perfection seemed unnatural now.
But something blue caught his eye, and Kite turned slowly to see a Leviathan wandering peacefully along the water. He froze. A Leviathan? Strange, that something like that would be in this place. He watched it for awhile, then sat down on the sand. It stayed away from him, but he didn’t mind. It wouldn’t be the same Leviathan, anyway.
It still made him feel a bit better, though. A symbol of his friendship, his bond to Beast Boy…
A light went on in the AI’s mind. He reached for his glove—then hesitated. Maybe it wouldn’t be there. He had no reason to believe it was still there… but he had to know.
Slowly, he pulled down his glove. If it wasn’t there, he had nothing… but if there was something…
The glove came off. Woven blue and red strings slid out from under his sleeve.
Kite smiled.
1.64 years, remembered.
The lasers burned against his skin, tearing at his data, unravelling the very fabric of his Avatar. He underestimated his opponent. He was faster, stronger… Haseo had improved. Kite hadn’t. Or, at least, he hadn’t improved enough.
His flames were being blown away. He couldn’t hold his powerful form, and the holes ripped from his program were starting to affect him. It was like a crack in glass. His Avatar was shattering. His body was, too.
He was going to die.
The AI could only wail in pain. He had died before, but it was far more painful this time. Water silenced his programming, the pain quickly vanished as his files all shut down at once. Can’t feel if the file for that is gone. Data Drain worked differently. It ripped out something only vital enough to damage him, and then it caused a ripple effect that tore apart what remained of his program. Like being ripped to pieces while still living.
He was breaking apart. He could see his eyes falling off, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
He felt his defences kick in. The one file he couldn’t risk losing—emergency procedure. His body lit up with flames as it prepared to shut down. Explosively. He would destroy his body in order to isolate the damage. It would hurt like hell, but he would live, presumably. The damage was extensive, but he had to have hope.
Kite looked down, shakily lifting his glitches arm as Haseo shouted something he couldn’t care less about. The bracelet. Where was Beast Boy’s bracelet?
Flames exploded from all around him. His thought process was abruptly cut off. His mind was made of static, torn into so many scattered pieces he could barely think straight.
Was this the end? It didn’t feel like it mattered anymore.
Maybe, if he could just open his eyes, he would see a quiet mansion by the seaside…
And as suddenly as it had began, it was over. Waking on the virtual hills of Δ Smiling Forbidden Priestess, the young AI found himself thrust back into his home. No warning, no time for goodbyes, just the quiet green island surrounded by the endless blues of sky and sea.
He could only stare, shocked, too busy checking all of his systems for errors before the AI would allow himself to believe what he was seeing: ‘The World’, in all its beauty. It was just as his programming remembered it. The same graphics and sounds as it had always had, even the internal workings were the same as he scanned through them. Not a 1 or a 0 out of place.
Home, he wanted to say, but all he could make out was a raspy “Haaaa.”
The AI blinked, reaching up to his throat in confusion. Wait, what? Hadn’t he fixed his voice almost a year ago?
He tried again. “Haaaaa,” Kite moaned. “Hhhhaaaaaauuuhhhgh.”
He didn’t even cough, as he might have before when he was repairing the damaged files. He couldn’t. The AI ran a full scan of his vocals—major files were missing. All those repairs and fine tuning he had performed were completely reversed, as if they had never been altered. Even his program’s history had no record of any repairs to his vocals. In fact, the last recorded update was from moments before he appeared in Wonderland. His programming held no record of his time spent in Wonderland at all.
The AI was silent. His mind remembered Wonderland, but his programming did not. He expected many things upon his return, but this disagreement was not one of them. Had he even left ‘The World’? Was all that time he thought he spent in another world just some anomaly in his code he had overlooked?
It wasn’t until a flash mail was sent to his PC that the AI snapped back to reality. He hastily opened the flashing blue envelope. The text was scrambled, but the Azure Knight could easily understand the underlying message.
“S^@t(s +ep6r_,” it read. He recognised the sending address as Balmung’s.
Kite couldn’t even think of a proper response. He immediately gated out of the field and directly to his ‘brother’s’ location, throwing all protocol out the window and latching onto the startled knight’s side, moaning something he hoped sounded like “I’ve been gone for so long, I missed you so much.”
Not that Azure Balmung would have understood even if Kite could speak. All he could do was stand there awkwardly, trying to pry the Twin Blade off him while firing out messages like “&s s0&et#ing %r^ng?”, “L3+ 9o 0f -y ar&” and “Wh8& is yo7r #@lfu*c(&on?”
Kite couldn’t care less. Finally being home again, seeing his brothers again, he didn’t care if they had no idea why he was acting so irregularly. He was just happy to be home again.
It wasn’t until later that the reality began to sink in. The overall response when he tried to explain how he had been gone for almost a year and a half only no one remembered it was concern—or to put it bluntly, they thought he was suffering a malfunction, a viral infection, or was just plain crazy. Even Aura could only give him a confused look and request a full system check when he told her she had been there, too.
Azure Orca suggested his system was stressed by the heavy workload and he should take a few days to recuperate. Azure Balmung was certain it had something to do with the dangerous virus they were fighting.
‘The virus’. He made a conscious effort not to say the virus’ name, mainly because he realized he couldn’t. He quickly figured out why; Wonderland must have taken the memory from him. But saying that would only make things worse. If a nonexistent world he had travelled to during a timeframe that didn’t actually occur was already making his siblings concerned, what would they think if he also told them the event caused permanent damage to his memory?
Kite stayed quiet. He let Orca and Balmung watch the servers for a few days, then he’d put all this behind him.
And so ended those 1.64 years, and ‘The World’ didn’t even know they happened.
Going back to his old routine was harder than Kite thought it would be. He could handle scanning and reports, but resting was the hardest. Before, he could stand in an empty room for days on standby, but now he was used to having free time. He wanted to go out and do things, but he had to follow protocol now. He was supposed to stay put, by Aura’s direct orders.
Kite was bored out of his mind.
He missed Beast Boy. More than anything else, he wanted to see Beast Boy again. They had their quarrels, and the shape shifter wasn’t the sharpest of minds, but he had that illogical humanity that no AI could ever replicate. He was one of Kite’s first real friends, his first real lover. He taught Kite how to have fun. He taught him what it was like to be loved, how to feel joy and fear and anger and a whole range of emotions the AI used to only know the words for. He missed Linda’s bubbly antics, her obliviously cheerful optimism that never seemed to sway no matter how bad things got. He missed her unshakable will that could somehow force an AI who could reprogram entire fields at a time to sing karaoke with her in front of the whole mansion. He missed Saïx and his objective views and wisdom that Kite couldn’t help but look up to. He even missed Haseo a little, after they established a sort of unspoken truce, but the AI already knew the Haseo in ‘The World’ now wouldn’t remember any of that. And the more time Kite spent alone with his thoughts, the more he realized how much he missed his other ‘home’.
If it even happened. Wonderland seemed so distant now. There was no physical or recorded evidence of his visit, aside from a barely noticeable nanosecond delay in his logs. His personal memories were inaccessible to everyone but himself, and even if he attempted to share them he could tell the programming was irregular. Either they wouldn’t read or they would be assumed planted by a virus.
And what if he could prove it? Would anyone believe him? What difference would it make? He would still be in ‘The World’ and not Wonderland. He was exactly the same as he was when he left. The only change was in his mind, the lessons the AI had learned and the data he had processed in that distant world. That data wouldn’t help him fight infection, it couldn’t stop ‘Tri-Edge’ or save the ‘Lost Ones’. It was worthless now. Everything he gained that could have helped—restoring his voice, upgrading his targeting system, fine tuning on his Bracelet—was gone.
Nothing had changed.
1.64 years, and he had nothing to show for it.
After looking over his files a few times, Aura finally deemed Azure Kite ready to return to service. Those were the longest three days he had ever experienced. The mansion seemed like nothing but a dream now, but he tried not to think about it. He had a job to do.
His first day back was uneventful. He couldn’t be sure if it was intentional or not, but it was Orca and Balmung that got assigned the infected fields. Of course, checking for regular errors in fields was an important task, too, and Kite wouldn’t blame them if they doubted his abilities right now. Having some time to himself outside of standby mode wasn’t so bad, either. He just needed time to adjust.
Kite gated into his next field, checking the area for users before dispatching his PC body. Another grassy field, with a boss off on a western island and a few mid-level monsters. The bright yellow moon, always full, hung up in the night sky. Five chests, ten monster parties, and no anomalies.
He let his feet drop to the ground, his footsteps muffled by the sand as he stared off into the sea. Maybe if he closed his eyes, he could imagine the Destiny Islands in the distance, the mansion at his back...
But the only thing in the distance was the Aurora Cannon, and even that was just rendered pixels.
The AI grumbled, turning back toward the grassy field. Damnit, not thinking about this was harder than he thought it would be.
It was a few more days before Kite got any real action. A routine scan in a dungeon revealed several weak viral signals. His wrist burned eagerly with the Bracelet’s power. Orca and Balmung were busy with their own scans, so he was on his own.
He was a little nervous at first, but it didn’t take long for the Azure Knight to get cocky.
The bubbling black mass drifted aimlessly just a few passages in, though the AI could see the strange white creature beneath. Codename ‘Anna’, his program reminded him as he skimmed over the virus’ actual name. The most basic form of the virus. He could handle this.
Kite raised his arm, the glowing red plates of the Twilight Bracelet unfolding around his wrist. The first virus barely stood a chance as it was ripped apart by Data Drain, the malignant strings of code torn out of its programming and written right out. The black dots dispersed and ‘Anna’ was no more. The second signal was just a few more rooms in—the same signature as the last, and it went down just as easily.
The third signal was at the bottom of the dungeon, just before the Beast Statue. Same virus, same classification, but this time it anticipated his arrival. As Azure Kite entered the room, the virus flared to life, black dots shooting across the floor. Kite hissed angrily, rolling off to the side to avoid contact. ‘Anna’ appeared before him, prepared to fight for its right to exist. Kite called on his own defences, blue flames crackling around him as he summoned his avatar.
This ‘Anna’ was quick, but still no match for the Azure Flame God. His flames burned into the virus’ body, depleting its protection while he evaded its own attacks. Kobold Bullets shot past his face as he swayed across the Avatar field, bringing up his claws for when the attacks drew too close. After spending so long thinking on his other ‘home’, he finally felt like he was in his element again. He could do this. Everything could be just like before—
Suddenly, the virus made an unexpected move. It charged straight at him, catching the AI off guard. It struck his Avatar with a burst of black bubbles. His emotional files hit a crescendo, memories flashing across his vision—the friends he would never see again, the life he could never have, the holes and blanks that could never be filled and tore him apart from his old life, his old family—
The virus burned at his skin, somehow hotter than the flames of his namesake. The vibrant blues recoiled at the advancing blackness—
He didn’t belong here anymore. What was once salvation was now a curse, his life stayed the same but he had changed. He couldn’t act like everything was the same as before.
—pushing back the flames, smothering them, filling his hollow body with the swirling dark blotches—
He didn’t belong.
—destroying him—
Why go on...?
The AI Roared, snapping back to attention. The flames erupted around him, lighting up the darkness of Avatar Space as he forced the virus back with a thrust of his blades, slicing its defences cleanly in two. Without hesitation, he armed his Bracelet. The fight was a blur to him now. Within seconds, the signal was gone, destroyed by his Data Drain.
He called back his Avatar, and the AI collapsed to the floor. His chest ached—the infection didn’t set in. He double checked to be sure. But it wasn’t the virus that hurt, it was what it had shown him.
He couldn’t go back. Not to Wonderland, and not to ‘The World’.
Why go on when you have nothing to live for?
Why was he here?
The AI’s body shook, with fear or sadness or anger. He couldn’t tell anymore. Maybe it was all of them.
Maybe he would know if he could still cry.
He didn’t tell anyone about the incident. It was unlike Kite to withhold information, but he couldn’t let them know he had almost lost himself to a virus he couldn’t name.
Days turned to weeks. By the end of the month, it was as if Kite had never left. He put Wonderland behind him. He moved on. Maybe things wouldn’t be exactly the same, but he had to make due. He scanned, he tracked, he eradicated, he waited. It was a simple routine, one that didn’t take long to readjust to. He had stayed vigilant even in Wonderland, after all.
Sometimes, when he had time to himself, the AI would warp down to Δ Smiling Forbidden Priestess and sit down along the hills. He would look out to the sea, and close his eyes, pretending he could still see the Destiny Islands just beyond the horizon with the towering Mansion at his back, the silent forest but a short walk away, his friends waiting for him down by the beach so he could stop Beast Boy from trying another ridiculous stunt…
He sighed, and slowly rose to his feet. There was nothing beyond the horizon but pixels, and no mansion or forest within the small islands of the field. Reality was far more bitter than his sweetened fantasies.
He went down to the beach anyway. The water lapped at his feet, never reaching a pixel too far or too short than before. The perfection seemed unnatural now.
But something blue caught his eye, and Kite turned slowly to see a Leviathan wandering peacefully along the water. He froze. A Leviathan? Strange, that something like that would be in this place. He watched it for awhile, then sat down on the sand. It stayed away from him, but he didn’t mind. It wouldn’t be the same Leviathan, anyway.
It still made him feel a bit better, though. A symbol of his friendship, his bond to Beast Boy…
A light went on in the AI’s mind. He reached for his glove—then hesitated. Maybe it wouldn’t be there. He had no reason to believe it was still there… but he had to know.
Slowly, he pulled down his glove. If it wasn’t there, he had nothing… but if there was something…
The glove came off. Woven blue and red strings slid out from under his sleeve.
Kite smiled.
1.64 years, remembered.
The lasers burned against his skin, tearing at his data, unravelling the very fabric of his Avatar. He underestimated his opponent. He was faster, stronger… Haseo had improved. Kite hadn’t. Or, at least, he hadn’t improved enough.
His flames were being blown away. He couldn’t hold his powerful form, and the holes ripped from his program were starting to affect him. It was like a crack in glass. His Avatar was shattering. His body was, too.
He was going to die.
The AI could only wail in pain. He had died before, but it was far more painful this time. Water silenced his programming, the pain quickly vanished as his files all shut down at once. Can’t feel if the file for that is gone. Data Drain worked differently. It ripped out something only vital enough to damage him, and then it caused a ripple effect that tore apart what remained of his program. Like being ripped to pieces while still living.
He was breaking apart. He could see his eyes falling off, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
He felt his defences kick in. The one file he couldn’t risk losing—emergency procedure. His body lit up with flames as it prepared to shut down. Explosively. He would destroy his body in order to isolate the damage. It would hurt like hell, but he would live, presumably. The damage was extensive, but he had to have hope.
Kite looked down, shakily lifting his glitches arm as Haseo shouted something he couldn’t care less about. The bracelet. Where was Beast Boy’s bracelet?
Flames exploded from all around him. His thought process was abruptly cut off. His mind was made of static, torn into so many scattered pieces he could barely think straight.
Was this the end? It didn’t feel like it mattered anymore.
Maybe, if he could just open his eyes, he would see a quiet mansion by the seaside…