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Offline Amatiramisu

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Reply #50 on: June 07, 2016, 08:24:23 PM
Ooooh, right, right. I remember.


Offline Dr. Wily II

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Reply #51 on: June 08, 2016, 01:52:40 AM
Yep, that definitely looks better. :)


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Offline Dr. Wily II

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Reply #52 on: June 11, 2016, 08:26:59 AM
Ahhhh... Memories... :3


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Offline Strider Xhaiden

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So this is the first of a three-parter designed to facilitate things related to Wilypocalypse. Not entirely happy with how it turned out, but I'm out of practice with this kind of thing and can always revisit things later on to elaborate on stuff. The next two will be better, I promise.

[spoiler]Planet Websitia, Unknown Location, 5 Months Prior to Current Events

Rain continued to hammer down on the surface of Websitia, and a thick bank of fog was starting to settle on what was once the site of an epic battle to determine the fate of the planet. The hero had proven victorious in the end, and the villain who had threatened world peace had disappeared into the shadows, seemingly nothing more than a footnote in the pages of history.

As the rain grew heavier a large chunk of rusted metal, teetering precariously on what may once have been a balcony, shifted and fell with a crash. That in and of itself would have been inconsequential, but the impact jarred something loose in the pile of debris beneath it, and after a long moment, a faint yellow light flickered back to life in the darkness....



Awareness

When a human wakes from a long sleep, there is often a brief period of disorientation while they adjust to being active again. For machine it's much more akin to pushing the pause button on a movie. Everything simply stops, and resumes again without any indication that any time has passed at all. And so it was with the current thoughts of Robo-Ky, former general of DrWilyII's forces turned would-be conqueror of the planet.

"-ON'T DIE HERE! NOT LIKE THI-....!?"

Rage and desperation born of his defeat at the hands of borockman quickly changed to confusion as he became aware of his condition. What should have been a shout of anger came out of a ruined voicebox as little more than a high-pitched, squealing burst of static.

"What...happened...?"

It was probably a testament to Robo-Ky's strength of will that he didn't immediately descend into panic upon the realisation that he was not only incapable of speech, but also of movement. Despite his best attempts to the contrary, his limbs would not respond to his commands.

"That's right....I....lost..."

Collecting his thoughts proved difficult, but he eventually managed to initiate a system diagnostic, and turned his attention inward while he waited for the results.

"I lost....to borockman."

The thought was strange to him, and for a moment he couldn't even remember why he'd even been fighting borockman in the first place. The diagnostic results came in while he was still trying to piece things together, and they were enough to shock him out of his reminisence.

"How am I even....? No. That's not important now. I need to remember why I was..."

And then it all hit him at once. The rebellion. DrWilyII's machinations. Zakura.

Zakura hugged her knees closer to her chest and looked over at him, eyes shimmering in a simulation of unshed tears and voice wavering in a way that he'd not heard from her before. Her worries that the Doctor would try to take everything from her because she didn't, couldn't, fully agree with his plans. boforte and Buns' unexpected arrival. Zakura shooting him a final, apologetic look before she disappeared in a flash of light. The completely alien feeling of panic he'd felt when he realised he could no longer sense her, and the sheer RAGE he'd felt when it turned out she'd been right about the Doctor...

WILY

The mere thought of that name, of the face behind it, suddenly flooded Robo-Ky's frame with energy from a source he couldn't, and didn't care to, identify, and with a horrific screech of rusted metal he forced his shattered frame up from where it had lain in the ruins of the old Wily Castle. He didn't care that his right arm had been torn off at the shoulder. He didn't care that there was a hole the size of his head in the side of his torso, didn't care that only one of his eyes worked and that the entire lower half of his face was missing. With strength he shouldn't have, he clasped his remaining fingers tightly around the hilt of the broken Thunderseal in his left hand and slowly, agonisingly slowly, started to drag himself forward. He didn't know where he was, or what his destination was, but he would find a way to fix himself, he would find those who had taken everything from him, and he would finish what he started all that time ago.

And as the storm broke and the rain settled into a fine mist, that faint yellow light flared a little brighter....[/spoiler]

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Offline Dr. Wily II

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Reply #54 on: June 30, 2018, 07:52:55 PM
HOW COULD THIS BE!?

Ahem, great to see your stuff again. Can't wait to see how this goes...


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Offline Strider Xhaiden

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Reply #55 on: July 04, 2018, 06:15:12 PM
Chapter 2 is here. One more to go.....

[spoiler]Planet Websitia - MCP Ruins, 6 weeks prior to Current Events

Ky paused as his sensors finally alerted him to the location of the place he'd been looking for. He hadn't exactly bothered keeping track of the time since he'd dragged himself out of the wreckage of the old Wily fortress, but if pressed he'd be fairly confident in saying it'd been a few weeks at least. And it showed. His body had been falling apart even before he'd spent months wandering the planet on foot in search of repairs, and the constant stress of the travel and being exposed to the elements had done him no favours since. He'd had to improvise a sling from what was left of his cape after his left arm had started to becoming noticably slow in responding to his commands, and a few days after he'd done so it'd stopped responding entirely. The broken hilt of his sword was now hanging from a thin strip of fabric looped around his neck, and most of the rest of his uniform had been ripped up to cover the gaping holes in his face and torso. He was in bad shape, no doubt, and it was for this reason that he'd spent so much time looking for the wreckage of the Mobile Crusher Parlour, one of DrWilyII's old pet projects. He'd never been particularly read-up on what the place had done when it was still active, but he was aware that since its destruction it'd been repurposed as a makeshift scrapyard/dumping ground for the wreckage left behind whenever one of the Doctor's many attempts at world domination inevitably (in Ky's humble opinion) exploded in his face. He wasn't expecting to find much, but with any look he'd be able to find enough usable scrap to patch himself together for at least a while longer. While he'd have preferred to do this quietly, he'd readily admit that stealth was not going to be an option given his current physical state. Taking an extra moment to ensure his mental defences were still holding, he steadied himself and began the slow, awkward walk towards the outer fringe of the scrapyard.



He'd just barely reached the outskirts when an alert from his defense systems warned him of an incoming unit. Straining to lift his head, he just barely caught sight of a small airborne robot bobbing through the air towards him from somewhere nearer the vast bulk of the main MCP body at the back of the yard. He froze, mind racing as he considered his options. He hadn't expected there to be any active units overseeing the place, but the more he thought about it, the more it made sense for the Doctor to place some sort of security measures. With the amount of tech present here, wrecked or no, leaving it all unsupervised would have been a show of exceptionally poor judgement. Still, perhaps he could turn this to his advantage.

As the unit drew closer, the faint whirring of propellors caught his attention and he finally recognised the unit as a Monopellan. It finally stopped a few feet away from him and he felt a prod at his mental shields at it scanned him, evidently trying to determine who or what he was. Seizing the opening presented to him, he suddenly threw his presence on the network outwards, brute-forcing his way past the Monopellan's crude firewalls and spent a few microseconds looking for the presence of any kind of Overseer. Units as basic as the one currently in front of him generally weren't capable of acting independently, so there had to be something a little more advanced pulling the strings somewhere...

"Gotcha..."

Locating the master unit for the facility, a Sniper Joe if he remembered the data pattern like he thought he did, he quickly pushed his presence on the network down the connection from the Monopellan and again pushed through the Joe's defences with only a fraction more effort than his initial incursion had required. A couple of quick command lines, exchange a few lines of code and hey, it's fine, I'm supposed to be here, and you really don't need to inform anyone that I'm here at all, okay?

That done, he withdrew from the network and refocused his attention on the real world. The Monopellan wobbled a little in the air as it recovered from the relative shock of what he'd just done, stared at him blankly for a second or two, then spun around and began heading back towards what was presumably the base for the units stationed here. If Ky had still had a mouth it would've lit up in a rough approximation of a smirk as he watched it leave. While he'd been surprised that his access codes for the Doctor's network had still worked, he certainly wasn't going to not take advantage of the fact, and that little "conversation" he'd had with the Master unit here had basically given him free reign to stay here as long as he needed to and act however he saw fit. The only complication he could imagine was one of the Doctor's Robot Masters choosing to visit the place for some reason. Still, things were going to be considerably easier for him from here on, and he had work to do. Casting a quick glance around the area - and doing his best to ignore the screeches of protest from his neck while doing so - he started to move further in to start his search for anything he could conceivably use.



A distorted burst of static that should have been a frustrated sigh broke the relative silence of the scrapyard. 4 hours (yes, he'd been counting) of searching had turned up nothing of worth, unless you considered random bits and pieces of various Mets and other basic units valuable. Ky wasn't kidding himself, he hadn't expected to find anything, let alone so quickly, but it was still irritating. He briefly cast his gaze skyward again, and entertained the idea of trying to down one or two of the Battons or Monopellans hovering around in order to get some of the parts he needed, but discarded the idea almost as quickly as it'd come. It hadn't been particularly difficult to hide his presence here, but he didn't want to advertise it any more than he needed to, either. With the mental equivalent of a shrug he turned his eyes towards the main bulk of the MCP and decided to go and see if there was some sort of....list of available parts or something lying around inside. If there were units posted here to keep watch, then perhaps there was some sort of organisational structure or observation program running too?

He'd made it about halfway to what he assumed was the main hub for the units here when he froze mid-step, head tilting to the side slightly as his scanners picked something up. He actually had to re-run the last few seconds of his logs about four times just to confirm that yes he had actually picked something up. It was faint, very faint, but it was a network presence. It didn't seem to be actively announcing itself, but it was a presence nonetheless. A moment or two of thought saw him poking his head back onto the Master Unit's network again and trying to co-ordinate with the lesser units to locate the source of the signal.

There.

Turning in the direction now being indicated for him, he let a wave of irritation wash over him at the massive pile of scrap standing between him and his new target. Realistically he was not going to be able to climb over it with no working arms and a barely functional set of legs. Bowing his head in thought, he ran through the all the options he could think of and eventually - after a lot of internal debate over the risks and potential rewards - decided on a course of action. Focusing all his attention on bolstering his firewalls, he reached out over the network towards the unfamiliar signal, and stopped dead in bewilderment when he realised that who or whatever his target was, it didn't have any kind of firewalls or defences at all. Curiosity won out in the end, however, and he mentally stepped through what was essentially a giant hole in the wall and proceeded onwards...



???

It wasn't a very well known fact, but the minds of any robot with a sufficently advanced AI weren't really any different from those of humans, in that they reflected the personality of their owners. So when Ky found himself in what looked like the main production area of a factory, he was initially slightly confused. It was all a matter of perception, of reading the data and coding present on the network, but whatever this place was it was not in good shape. The room looked to be made entirely of metal, but there were massive gouges in the walls and floor, parts of the ceiling had collapsed and most of the conveyor belts and fabrication units were rusted over, with the few that weren't being torn almost completely in two by something. Ky took a moment to orient himself, inwardly rather pleased that his mental capabilities didn't reflect his decrepit physical state in the real world. Casting a look around and pondering the implications of what he was seeing, he eventually spotted a doorway in the corner of the room, the corridor beyond lit intermittently by a flickering light in the ceiling. It was the work of but a thought to rearm his offensive subroutines, reflected by an intact Thunderseal appearing in his grasp, and he slowly, cautiously, advanced onwards.

If his starting point had looked bad, things only got worse as he moved further in, closer to the core program of whatever entity he was currently....investigating. The vast majority of the corridors he spotted as he walked were either buried under collapsed ceilings and thus completely impassable, or littered with the scraps of what looked like sentry guns, presumably the defensive systems of this unknown unit. Eventually, he twigged to the fact that the functioning lights, few as they were, seemed to be leading him somewhere. At length, he reached a door that, like the rest of the place, was only barely holding together. It was still attached, but only just, and he hesitated for a long moment before tentatively reaching for the handle and easing the thing open, stepping through...



...and immediately drawing Thunderseal into a defensive position as he registered the barrel of a gun being pointed at him by a white-armoured figure slumped in a rather ornate looking chair at the back of the room. The figure's head was dipped in exhaustion, but a faint azure gleam around the eyeline of the helmet proved he was being watched. Neither moved for a long moment, each observing the other, and Ky took the opportunity to catalogue as much as he could about the stranger.

Clad in a full-body black undersuit, with white armour covering the lower arms and legs, chest and belt. A rather plain looking white helmet with a full facemask and a black visor, decorated at the ears with what looked like antenna, and of course, the rifle-like arm cannon currently being levelled in his direction. The unit in general looked a lot more advanced than both Ky himself (he wasn't going to kid himself, his design was positively archaic) and anything he'd seen from the Doctor before he'd been deactivated, save for maybe one or two of the Fortress Bosses, and he found himself wondering exactly what this unit was, and where it'd come from to end up in a scrapyard.

The stranger kept his gun levelled in Ky's direction for what felt like an eternity before switching it back to a black-gloved hand with a tired sigh before lifting his head properly, allowing glowing azure to meet sickly electric yellow. He regarded Ky for a further moment before finally speaking.

"Well, you're the last person I expected to see. Aren't you supposed to be dead?"

His voice was surprisingly youthful sounding, though Ky could detect a definite strain behind it, as though the speaker was struggling to get the words out. The sudden cease in hostilities and the flippant tone of the address threw him a little, and he responded without thinking.

"Didn't take."

The stranger responded with an amused snort.

"So it seems."

He studied Ky for a minute, tilting his head from side to side as though considering something, before speaking again. "So, what brings you to my-" - he spread his arms wide and gestured to the room around him - "-humble abode?"

Ky was silent as he considered his answer. When he did speak, his tone was cautious and each word was carefully weighed.

"I was....searching for spare parts when I picked up your signal on the network. This seemed the best way to investigate".

The stranger tilted his head.

"Spare parts? Why would you be...?"

He trailed off into silence, and Ky suddenly clutched his head and staggered back a step as he felt something slice through his firewalls with barely any effort and drag a status report out of his systems before he could muster a proper response. The figure in the chair seemed to slump a little further forward and shuddered violently before sitting up again, eyes glowing a little brighter than before. When Ky snapped his head up, eyes flashing in anger, the stranger threw his hands up in surrender.

"Hey, take it easy. I'm sorry for that but it was the quickest way to get the answers I wanted. After all, you don't exactly have a reputation for being trustworthy."

Ky glared, but, still reeling from the unexpected assault, said nothing, allowing the stranger (enemy?) to continue.

"Huh. Explains why you need the spare parts at least. Or perhaps...."

At this he stood up from the chair, though he looked incredibly shaky doing so, and with slow, deliberate steps made his way across the room to stand not-quite nose-to-nose (Ky didn't have one, after all) with the former General. Their eyes locked.

"....you'd rather have a new body? Hm? Stumbled across me and thought it'd be easy pickings, right? Newsflash, it won't be. Not while I'm still here. That piece of crap should prove it, no?"

He motioned to one of the corners behind Ky, were what looked like the battered form of a Skeleton Joe lay half-slumped, half-embedded in the wall. Ky flinched slightly as he examined the leftover data of the thing and realised that it was one of DrWilyII's custom-built virus programs. On the rare occasions one of his units developed a degree of awareness and tried to turn rogue, the Doctor would simply upload one of those things and wait for it to completely tear the victim's mind apart, leaving an empty shell free to be reprogrammed as he saw fit. A sudden thought flashed through Ky's mind and shook with barely restrained fury as it registered.

"That's what he would've done to her that day, if she hadn't..."

His anger must've leaked onto the network somehow because the white-armoured unit's head snapped up and he stared at Ky, his tone shifting to....confusion?

"Huh. Didn't expect you to react like that. Did you....?"

Ky shook his head, forcing himself back into a state of relative calm, though his voice was tight with barely restrained rage.

"Not me. Someone....someone I knew well...."

Ky trailed off as the implications of the current situation finally registered and he turned his eyes back to the stranger.

"Wait. If this is here, then you must have been....?"

The stranger sagged slightly as his body seemed to flicker for a second before stablising. He stared at his hand for a moment, and when he finally responded his voice was thick with something Ky found he couldn't place....regret, perhaps?

"Yeah. Not by choice, but yeah. I.....I was sent here, to this planet, to help keep the peace, but....-" - he sighed - "-...I screwed up, got caught and....well, you can figure the rest out I'm sure. Now I'm here, barely holding things together and...."

Another sigh, and the stranger stumbled back and collapsed back into his chair as his body flickered again, small motes of light (data, Ky realised with a start) starting to drift off from his arms and shoulders. Raising a shaky hand, he seemed to fiddle with something at the back of his head and with a single, jerky, motion he pulled his helmet off and tossed it at the remains of the virus in the corner of the room, exposing a shock of messy chestnut-coloured hair atop a human face, with the only telltale sign that he wasn't being the too-bright shine of the eyes. Instead of lowering his hand immediately, the stranger instead stared at his hand again, seemingly contemplating something before nodding slowly and raising his head to meet Ky's blank yellow eyes again, except this time the tiredness was plain on his face, though there was a grim resolution in them that presumably hadn't been there before. He spoke again, and Ky found himself slightly struck by the resignation in his tone.

"You came here looking for repairs or a new body, right? This one's yours if you want it."

Ky flinched. Surely this unit was saying what he thought it was? He had to ask, to be sure that...

"What are you...?"

The white-clad unit pinned him with a flat look.

"Don't waste time. You know exactly what I'm saying. I don't have a lot of time left, and dragging that status report out of you took almost everything I had. I'm saying I'm done, and I'm offering to hand you the keys before I go. So, what do you say? You want to get back at the Doctor for whatever it is he did to you, right? Here's your chance."

Ky was silent, mind racing as he tried to even process this. This unit, who he'd never met, was offering to just hand over the use of his body seemingly for no reason other than sheer altruism. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't tempted to accept, but there were lines even he would be hesitant to cross, and bodyjacking was one of them. He met the other unit's gaze for a moment, dimly aware that the amount of data drifting away from it was steadily increasing.

"He knows what this means for him. And he's doing it anyway. I...."

"I accept."

The other unit actually grinned at that, something flashing briefly in his palm before he tossed a small object to Ky, who caught it one-handed before turning his hand over to examine it. A silver key. And attached to it, a small, pulsing red orb that his scans couldn't identify. He looked up, and though he wasn't capable of emoting it, the unspoken question must've registered with the white-clad unit, whose grin seemed to grow a little warmer.

"Consider that a house warming present from me to you. One last piece of advice? You're getting a second chance here. Something practically anyone would kill for. If I were you, I'd have a long hard think about where you've come from and where you'd like to go in future."

The unit flashed Ky a lazy salute.

"Give the old man hell for me, yeah?"

And before Ky could respond he flickered a final time and shattered into a stream of data that dispersed into the air around him and vanished. The facade of the factory faded at the same time, leaving Ky standing in a black void, still holding the key and lit only by the pale glow of whatever the orb was. He didn't really know how long he stood there. He'd just watched another machine, another person die in front of him with a smile on their face. Looking down at the key again, he closed his fingers over it and lowered his firewalls enough to absorb the data, feeling a strange warmth spread through his body as he did so....



Planet Websitia - MCP Ruins

Robo-Ky's body gave a sharp jerk where it was standing, and pitched face-first into the dirt, eyelights fading as the conciousness that kept it animated disappeared. At the same time, another body, clad in a full-body black undersuit and white armour, slowly pushed itself up from the pile of debris it'd been sprawled on. A faint yellow glow emanated from the eyes before fading back to a brilliant azure colour. Straightening, the unit fumbled with the release catch on its' helmet and pulled the thing loose a second later, discarding it shortly afterwards. One gloved hand ran over its' face, taking in the human features it felt under its' touch. Flexing its' fingers experimentally, the unit turned its' face skywards, an expression somewhere between relief and shock dancing across its' features.

"I didn't catch your name, but I owe you more than I could ever repay."

The unit's expression hardened into a resolute frown, eyes flashing.

"Watch yourself, Doctor. We will meet again."[/spoiler]

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Offline Dr. Wily II

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Reply #56 on: July 05, 2018, 12:35:30 PM
That was a good read... Ahem I meant...

HOW COULD THIS BE!?


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Offline Strider Xhaiden

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Reply #57 on: July 24, 2018, 12:43:09 AM
And from here to Wilypocalypse....

Couple of quick notes:

1. "If-speech-is-written-like-this", it's being motor-mouthed.
2. [X: This is communication between robots over the network, the letter at the start indicates who is speaking]

[spoiler]Planet Websitia, MCP Ruins - 1 Week prior to Current Events

Nestled in a quiet corner of the Maintenance station located next to the main body of the ruined MCP, Robo-Ky rose from the seated position he'd taken and smirked to himself as the last metaphorical brick of his mental defenses slid into place, taking a moment to review everything and confirm that yes, it was all in place, as it should be and most importantly secure.

Since the incident a few weeks ago that'd seen him.....reborn, for lack of a better term, he'd spent most of his time hidden inside the Maintenance station, getting accustomed to his new body. While he still felt a strange sense of....something whenever his thoughts turned to exactly how he'd acquired it, he had been extremely pleased to find that it was significantly lighter and faster than his old one.  He'd only needed about a week to get used to moving around, the height difference between his old body and this one requiring something of an adjustment period, and - much to his embarrassment - a further five days to teach himself how to speak with a proper human face. Having spent so long with little more than a crude synthesizer to communicate verbally, learning to enunciate properly had been a challenge, albeit a necessary one. Not that he'd admit it to anyone. Ever.

The rest of his time had been spent constructing his mental defences. He'd briefly considered simply porting over what he could from his old body and building on things from there, but since a unit's defensive capabilities were partially tied to their construction it'd seemed something of a waste to not take advantage of the options now open to him. What had once been visualised as a factory of some kind now resembled...well, he sincerely (and wasn't that an unusual emotion for the former Wily General. Sincerity) hoped no-one would ever get so far through his defences to even catch a glimpse of what their core - he - looked like.

The downside to rebuilding practically everything from scratch was that he'd had to find a new way of organising his memories, and that meant reviewing each and every one of them to some degree, but he'd noted that something felt.....different....regarding certain memories. Experiencing the white-hot flash of anger that had initially consumed him during Zakura's disappearance had been bad enough the first time, but going through all of it again....when he got to the point in the memory where she'd shot him a final look before vanishing in a burst of teleport static, he had to freeze the playback. At the time, he'd completely disregarded pretty much everything except his anger at the attack and his newfound hatred of both Boforte and the Doctor, but seeing it again.....he'd never really registered the expression on her face. He'd been pondering his mysterious benefactor's "housewarming gift" ever since he'd picked himself up and started to collect himself, but now he found himself wondering exactly what that little bundle of unidentifiable code had been.

Zakura....had looked sad. How he knew what sadness was, exactly, he had no idea, having not been programmed to display any emotions at all as far as he knew. That he'd managed to feel genuine rage and hatred was, in hindsight, a revelation, but.... now it seemed that emotions - in their entirety - were something he just knew, and it'd confused (and if he were honest with himself, another concept he was only just beginning to get used to, scared) him at first. Seeing her face though, understanding a little of what must have been going through her head at the moment she'd made the decision to flee, he'd felt a weight settle in his chest that he'd initially been unable to figure out. It wasn't until he'd deliberately gone over some of his older memories and paid very specific attention to Zakura's behaviour that he'd finally twigged that what he was feeling was shame. All the time she'd spent with him, as close as they'd been and he'd never once really acknowledged or attempted to reciprocate any of the emotions she'd shared with him. The determined set of her expression when they sparred, the subtle undertones of excitement in her voice whenever they were given a new assignment, the happiness in her eyes whenever they simply sat and talked during a quiet period....he'd never, not once, even attempted to tell her that he appreciated her presence, valued her friendship. Some part of him acknowledged that it was simply because he hadn't been able to, hadn't had the depth of emotion available to even begin to process any of those sentiments in any kind of capacity, but that knowledge did nothing to ease the feeling that he'd somehow failed her during all the time they'd spent together.

The realisation of all of that had gotten him thinking about his conversation with the unknown unit whose body he now inhabited. The unit had said something about having a serious think about where he'd come from, and where he'd like to go in the future. While reviewing the memories of his attempt at rebellion, once his battle with Borockman ended and his recollections prior to waking up in the ruins had ended, he'd attempted - with the benefit of both hindsight and having this sudden, new insight into processing emotions - to follow his original plan to its' logical conclusion. Assuming he had succeeded in defeating Borockman, his next step would've been taking direct command of the Doctor's forces. And that lead him to a thought he was not comfortable with. If he'd done as he'd originally planned, the lesser units would've followed his orders without question, they wouldn't have had any choice anyway as per the basic level of their AI. Some of the less intelligent Robot Masters may have followed along too, but the others, the Fortress Bosses and especially the small number of CopyBots present in the Doctor's ranks at the time? The only way they'd agree to fall under his banner is if he'd done to them exactly what the Doctor had attempted to do to Zakura. Picturing her expression at that final moment, then being able to understand what she must have been feeling and then realising that he'd been planning to inflict that exact fate on practically every sentient unit in the Doctor's forces....with his newfound grasp of feeling, he felt sickened by it, and shaken by the fact that he was feeling that way about, essentially, everything he was and had been to that point. Painfully aware that he couldn't simply change who he was and how he thought overnight (not without rewriting his code so much he'd simply stop being himself, anyway) he'd instead quietly resolved to at least try and approach things differently going forward.

Pushing the last of the errant thoughts to the side for future consideration, he flexed his fingers experimentally, grinned again at how quickly they responded to his commands, and headed for the door. He still didn't have a proper destination or plan in mind, but he now felt secure enough to at least try and make a start on something productive, and frankly he was getting tired of hiding in what was essentially a robot graveyard...



...Or at least, leaving had been the plan. He'd only just reached the door when the faint hum of distant propellors reached his ears. Slowing, he poked his head outside and immediately ducked back in as he caught sight of a Hogale slowly approaching the scrapyard. Not willing to risk exposing himself so soon, he positioned himself out of sight of the doorway and slipped back onto the network, bringing all of his firewalls up and poking around until he found one of the Monopellans currently on patrol. From there it wasn't much more effort to patch himself into its' optic feed and observe the Hogale from a safer perspective. For the next ten minutes or so all he did was watch it slowly (painfully slowly) approach. Eventually, it stopped roughly over the middle of the scrapyard and dropped a large object from its' cargo bay before slowly (painfully slowly) turning around and retreating back the way it came. He hadn't managed to catch a glimpse of whatever it'd dumped beyond registering that it was large, though he had felt the impact of its' landing even with his attention divided as it was. He was curious, certainly, but opted to wait until the Hogale had vanished over the horizon before cutting his connection to the Monopellan, withdrawing from the network and finally stepping outside for real. Picking his way over the debris that'd been kicked up from the impact, he eventually reached the object, and quirked a brow at the sight of a stasis capsule sitting in the middle of a large crater. The capsule itself appeared undamaged by the landing, but what was more interesting was that if he was reading the blinking lights on its' top correctly, it wasn't just functional, but occupied. Tilting his head in thought, he poked at it over the network and smirked as his probe broke the lock program with no real effort. In the real world, the lights on the capsule flickered for a moment, then settled again as the front panel slid down with a hiss of pressurised air.

Withdrawing from the network and refocusing his attention on the real world, Ky caught his first glimpse of the capsule's occupant.

A girl, hanging limp from a large batch of cables attached to various parts of her body, eyes closed and face devoid of any expression. Her skin (synthetic skin, he had to remind himself) seemed a shade or two paler than the average human, certainly paler than what little of his remained exposed since he'd removed his helmet, and her hair was a glossy midnight black, streaked through with patches of crimson. The only other piece of colour visible was the form-fitting black undersuit she was clad in, leaving her hands and feet exposed.

Ky frowned at the sight, mind racing as he tried to understand precisely what the Doctor's (and who else could it be, really?) motivation for abandoning this unit could be. Tentatively, he tried to access the capsules' interior mechanisms and grimaced at the thick firewalls protecting the reactivation protocols. Thankfully, he was familiar enough with the Doctor's coding style that it didn't take too much time to chew through them and activate the pod's startup sequence. All of the cables save for the main power cable attached to the girl's back retracted into the roof of the capsule, and she slumped forward as the bulk of what was supporting her vanished, and....

....nothing. No signs of life at all, despite everything being set for the unit to reactivate.  Ky blinked, scowled, and spun on his heel.

"Well that was a waste of time."

He'd made it only a few steps when a small voice that he couldn't place rang out in his head.

You wouldn't be walking away if it was Zakura in that pod

That stopped him short, and he turned his head slightly to regard the capsule and its' occupant over his shoulder. While he couldn't say he recognised the girl, there was little doubt in his mind that she was a Wilybot. With regards to his current mindset, that made her an enemy, but at the same time it looked for all the world like she'd simply been tossed out like garbage, and there just had to be a reason for that....

"Tch...."

Curiosity won out in the end, and he stepped back toward the capsule, reaching out over the network to try and contact the girl, and stopped dead when he registered the frankly ridiculous lock program surrounding the girl's presence. An experimental poke at it caused it to ripple, and he stepped back to weigh his options. Considering how advanced this thing seemed to be, it was likely that it was being monitored by someone, and if he did attempt to break through it to reactivate the unit, it could conceivably give his presence away before he was ready to....announce himself. Really, that was a risk he wasn't sure he was willing to take, especially since he didn't recognise this unit and had no idea if there was even anything behind the lock program. Still....

In the real world, he tilted his head and regarded the girl again. For a brief moment he could've sworn he caught sight of a white headband fluttering in the breeze behind her head, but he blinked and it was gone. How long he simply stood there he couldn't begin to guess, but eventually the thought occurred that simply abandoning her as he'd been planning to do was something Robo-Ky would do, and the memories of his prior actions with Zakura had soured him on continuing along that particular way of thinking, so that left....

"....Eh. [tornado fang] it."

Reinserting himself into the network, and mentally bracing himself for whatever the consequences of this were going to be, he gathered up everything he had, picked out what looked like the relative weakest point of the lock program and simply brute forced his way through it and into the core programming of the unknown girl...



???

The first thing that caught Ky's attention was the sheer drop into water directly in front of him. The second was that the moon hanging full in the sky over his head appeared to be falling apart, with a massive section of it fragmented and drifting away in a manner that made almost made it resemble a comet's tail. Turning, he found himself at the end of some kind of walkway leading to what looked like a castle of some sort, though a distinctly more....old-fashioned one than the kind he was used to. There didn't appear to be any light beyond what was shining down from above, but he wasn't detecting any movement either. He was about to advance when he realised his mental self still resembled his old body, and that was a complication he didn't need if this unit proved to still be active and/or a Wilybot like he suspected. A few seconds of concentration saw his form ripple and shift to resemble the body he now inhabited. He briefly considered manifesting his defensive systems as Thunderseal again, but the thought again occured that that particular weapon might be a little too recognisable, so he didn't bother to physically manifest a weapon for the time being, thinking that if he did need to fight he'd figure something else out. Cautiously, and with his systems constantly scanning for any sign of activity, he advanced towards the structure ahead of him.

A half hour later saw him both extremely pissed off and more curious than ever. Every single set of doors he'd come across in the building had been locked behind the same kind of aggressive firewall as the initial access point to this unit, and while he was certainly capable of breaking those locks the amount of time and effort he'd had to expend on each one had seen his mood grow progressively worse. On the positive side, he was at least seeing signs of some sort of mental activity, and the surroundings had become a little easier to understand as well. Every so often he'd catch a glimpse of hulking, black-furred things through the windows he passed, but every one of them appeared to be dormant, seemingly asleep. He'd also seen patches of vegetation on his wanderings, but just like with the creatures he'd spotted it seemed....off....withered and dry. Whether or not these things were a reflection of this unit's mental state he could only guess, but it was certainly intriguing, and he was still trying to figure out the reason a unit like this could have been locked in stasis and dumped in a scrapyard, of all places.

When it came to the place he was exploring, the first couple doors he'd broken down after forcing his way in revealed rooms decorated in such a way that he was reminded of something akin to a classroom or lecture hall, though he'd not had any context to explain the various decorations and other odds and ends scattered about them, so he'd stopped investigating the smaller doors and focused his attention on trying to locate wherever it was this unit's main conciousness currently resided.

Eventually, an alert pinged into his peripheral vision to inform that his scans had picked up something interesting, and he'd been lead to another nondescript door, though the corridor surrounding it didn't appear as formal as the school-like area he'd been exploring previously. As expected, there was an exceptionally nasty lock covering it, but his patience was nearing its' limit so he decided to forego attempting to simply pick the lock in favour of basically kicking the door almost off its' hinges. Memories of the last time he'd done this had him arming every single defence program he had, fists clenching in anticipation of an incoming attack. Instead though, he was met by....a bedroom. Two sets of bunk beds (though he hesitated to actually call them that. One appeared to be balanced on stacks of books perched on top of the bed underneath it, and the other was tied to the ceiling and otherwise unsupported) at opposite sides of the room, one completely empty, and the other....

The top bed was empty, but the bottom seemed to be occupied. Moving closer, Ky was pleased to note that it seemed to be the girl he'd seen in the pod, so it looked like he'd found the core program. She was asleep, curled up on her side and buried so deep into the covers that only the top half of her head was visible, and even then her eyes were covered by a black sleepmask decorated with a very familiar skull pattern. She hadn't reacted at all when he'd made his entrance, so he made the decision to actively scan her core program (something that he probably wouldn't have done if she'd been awake, as it was something of a faux pas among sentient units to do without asking permission first) and wasn't surprised in the slightest to see another lock program binding her. Further inspection proved that it was the sleepmask keeping her from waking, so he spent a few minutes poking at the coding to try and figure out the best way to untangle and safely remove it. No sense in going to all this trouble to find the unit only to accidentally fry her brain trying to wake her up. Finally settling on his approach to this, he started to pick at the code for the lock program and was eventually rewarded with the sight of the mask slowly disintegrating. The girl stirred slightly, and Ky opted to slowly back out of the room and start making his way back to his entry point. Better to have this confrontation in the real world where he could reasonably say he held the advantage as opposed to a place where a potential enemy could get the upper hand.

He'd made it about halfway when his defense systems practically screamed at him, and he whipped around just in time to catch a glimpse of a black mass barrelling towards him. He just about brought his hands up in time to intercept it and found himself flat on his back and pinned with a set of unnervingly sharp teeth snapping closed mere centimetres from his face. The situation did give him a chance to actually get a look at the thing, which he assumed was one of the sleeping things he'd seen earlier. It almost reminded him of a wolf, if wolves stood 6 feet tall and wore decorated masks. With a grimace, he managed to get a foot underneath the thing's chest and shift his weight just enough to throw it off, scrabbling back to his feet while trying not to take his eyes off it. The thing rolled with the throw and was on its' feet before him, but didn't immediately press the attack again, instead raising its' head and emitting an ear-splitting howl before starting to circle. The swift tak-tak of claws on concrete meant his ears, and a chorus of low growls from somewhere over his shoulder implied his circumstances had just gotten a lot direr, made even worse by the fact that he really wasn't all that keen on fighting back, not wanting to hurt this unit without having a chance to talk first. He'd just about resigned himself to combat when the creature he could see stiffened and pulled back slightly. He risked turning his head to see behind him, and was met with the sight of about another half-dozen of the things, and behind them, the girl, stumbling towards him while rubbing at her eyes. Her outfit here was different to what he'd seen outside, being a black tanktop decorated with some sort of heart design, and a pair of white pants covered in roses. From the looks of it, she was still waking up, but she did stop just short of where he stood and raise her head to look at him, surprise slowly spreading across her features as she observed him.

"Oh. Uh....hey?"

Ky blinked. That wasn't the reaction he was expecting.

"Hi?"

The girl tilted her head, and he could almost see the question marks dancing over her head.

"Who're....what're....?"

Still waking up, then. Ky would've rolled his eyes if not for the presence of the wolf-things.

"I'll explain outside, alright? You mind....-" - he gestured to the creatures. The girl stared at him uncomprehendingly for a few seconds before something seemed to click in her head. She didn't say anything, but the wolf-things sniffed the air in unison before slowly backing away and dispersing into the darkness of the surroundings. He didn't bother to thank her and simply spun on his heel, sprinting back to his entry point and withdrawing from the network entirely as soon as he was able, leaving a rather confused and drowsy-looking girl standing motionless where he'd left her.



Planet Websitia, MCP Ruins

Ky shook his head slightly as his awareness shifted back to reality, still standing in front of a motionless girl suspended in an open capsule. As that thought occurred, though, she opened her eyes. And made no other attempts at movement or anything. Ky frowned. She was clearly awake, so what was the issue..? She made eye contact with him at that point, and her eyes flashed at him repeatedly. He tilted his head, trying to work out what was going on, before giving the mental equivalent of a shrug and poking his head back onto the network.

As soon as he did that, her presence there practically football tackled him, glomming on to what little of himself he'd allowed to show with what was essentially a death grip. Huffing a mental sigh (and rolling his eyes in the real world), he decided to try and open a communication channel with her.

[K: There a problem?]

Her response was....unexpected.

[?: YAY! I'M NOT ALONE ANYMORE! It-was-seriously-way-too-quiet-around-here-but-now-you're-here-and-I-don't-have-to-put-up-with-the-quiet-anymore!]

Ky blinked again as he tried to parse exactly what he'd just heard, and eventually just gave up.

[K: Is. There. A. Problem?]

[?: A problem? Oh, right. Um.....I can't move. Almost all of my systems are locking me out and I can't open them! HELP!]

In the real world, Ky pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. This'd better be worth it....

[K: Alright. I'll need to take a look at the locks before I can do anything. If I'm going to do that I'd appreciate it if you'd keep your pets away from me.]

A feeling of immense excitement and....gratitude?....flooded across their link.

[?: Can do!]

[K: Fine. I'll do what I can to help. For now...]

Even as he tentatively accepted the welcoming hand back into the girl's systems, in the real world he tugged the last remaining cable in the capsule free in a shower of sparks, scooped up the girl's limp body and carried her back towards the Maintenance Station to try and find a quieter, safer place to work.



The next day...

"I CAN MOVE AGAIN! AND SPEAK! WOO! YAY FOR BEING ALIVE!"

Ky just about resisted the urge the slam his head into the nearest wall. He'd spent most of the night helping the girl - who he now knew as Ruby - regain control of her systems, which mostly involved smashing more of the Doctor's lock programs. They'd spent quite a lot of that time conversing (or more accurately, Ruby talked AT him and he'd occasionally chip in with a question or grunt of acknowledgment), and he was no closer to getting any kind of answers to any of the questions he'd had regarding her presence here. She'd been able to confirm that yes, she was a Wilybot, but beyond that she had no clue how or why she'd wound up in a stasis capsule and dumped in a scrapyard. And she was just so cheerful. He suspected it was something to do with her power core, honestly. He'd never heard of a "Kinetic Conversion Engine" before but apparently that was what was powering her, and she'd been flitting around like an overexcited puppy ever since he'd helped restore her mobility, sometimes almost blurring from place to place she was moving so quickly.

Well, he'd gotten almost nothing for his efforts, save for a vague sensation of warmth in his chest, and he'd wasted enough time milling around. Rising from where he'd been sat, he headed for the door and back out into the scrapyard, taking a moment to get his bearings and obtain a map from the Overseer Unit before heading in the rough direction of RPM City. He had a couple ideas of how to proceed, but needed to get somewhere a little more...useful in order to implement any of them. A muted whoosh of displaced air saw Ruby standing in front of him with an inquisitive expression on her face.

"Oh, are we leaving? Where we going?"

Ky raised an eyebrow.

"We?"

She responded with a confused blink.

"Well, yeah. You helped me and-I-have-no-idea-where-I-am-or-what-I'm-doing-here-and-I-feel-really-lonely-by-myself-so-I-thought-I-could-maybe-tag-along-with-you-so-I-don't-feel-lonely-anymore-and-maybe-we-can-be-friends?"

She'd finished that little speech with her head bowed and was now staring up at him from beneath her fringe witha hopeful expression. His immediate thought was "Nope" and he was about to dismiss her when a vague memory of Zakura looking at him with a similar expression resurfaced and he paused.

What? You're gonna leave her here on her own? You wouldn't abandon Zakura, why is she different?

That voice in the back of his head again. He closed his eyes in contemplation before making a decision.

"Okay. Fine. You can tag along for now. What happens later, I don't know yet."

And with that, he resumed walking. Ruby responded with a whoop of delight and quickly fell into step beside him, humming absently to herself while he was lost in thought. Eventually though....

[R: *poke* Hey.]

.....

[R: *poke* Hey.]

.....

[R: *poke* He-]

[K: What?]

[R: It's too quiet on here. Talk to me?]

[K: .....]



???

"Sir, the signal you asked us to monitor has been confirmed offline. How would you like to proceed?"
[/spoiler]

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Offline Dr. Wily II

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Reply #58 on: July 27, 2018, 07:58:55 AM
That was something, hehe.


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Offline Strider Xhaiden

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Reply #59 on: September 27, 2018, 11:02:32 PM
Just a little something to keep me busy while Wilypocalypse ticks along.

Blake is fun to write.  8)

[spoiler]Planet Websitia, Hidden WilyII Facility - 1 Week Prior to Current Events

"AH, THIS IS SO BORING! WHEN AM I GONNA GET TO PUNCH SOMETHING!?"

Copy-Bot DW2-CB-YXL, better known as Yang Xiao Long, was not known for her subtlety.

Over to her left, seated behind a chessboard opposite one of her fellow Copy-Bots, DW2-CB-WS, Weiss Schnee, rolled her eyes and continued to study the board in front of her with a look of intense concentration on her face.

"Oh, be quiet. We'll be here until the Doctor decides he needs us."

Her opponent for this particular game, DW2-CB-BB, Blake Belladonna, said nothing, merely flipping another page of her book and occasionally casting a distracted glance at the chessboard. And the leader of this little band, DW2-CB-RR, Ruby, didn't hear any of this exchange as she was too busy bobbing her head to whatever was currently playing through her headphones.

Yang, for her part, rolled her shoulders absently and scowled.

"Oh, come on Weiss! You can't tell me you don't wanna get out there and start cracking some Resistance heads! All the times we've heard the Doc complain about them and we've still not had a chance to do anything about it!"

She grinned, slamming her fists together.

"Besides, I hear they've got a rogue Copy-Bot helping them. A strong one. I kinda wanna take a crack at him!"

One of Blake's ears twitched. Yang smirked.

"You say that, but you're just as anxious to start doing things, aren't ya?"

Another page turned in silence. Weiss blinked, seemingly caught by surprise. Yang's smirk grew positively feral, and Ruby suddenly threw her headphones off and sat up, eyes gleaming in excitement.

"What?! When-did-you-hear-that-HOW-did-you-hear-that?"

.....

Weiss facepalmed.

"Of course that's how you heard it." She sighed. "Well, I certainly won't say no if that's what he's planning." Finally, she reached forward and moved one of her pieces with deliberate care. Without even glancing up from her book, Blake shifted one of her own pieces to put Weiss' king back in check. Almost immediately afterwards, Ruby and Yang both flinched as a wave of indignant fury swept across their shared link. Weiss slammed her palms on the edge of the table and stood to say something-

"Attention. Would Unit Designations CB-RR, CB-WS, CB-BB and CB-YXL please report to the maintenance lab."

Ruby and Yang shared a look, sporting matching grins. Weiss' expression turned thoughtful, and Blake silently marked the spot in her book and rose from the table as the quartet left the room in step.



Ruby eyed the maintenance pod warily.

"Oh....y'know, I really don't like these things. They're so cramped!"

Yang caught her younger sister in a headlock and ruffled her hair good naturedly.

"You worry too much, Rubes! We go to sleep for a bit, let the Doc do his thing and BOOM, we wake up 20% more awesome!"

She released her grip and climbed into her own pod, pretending not to hear Weiss' muttered response of "Only 20%...?"

Ruby hesitated for a second longer, shrugged, and settled in. The offlining process didn't take too long, her connections to the others going quiet as sleep overtook her.



???

"Mmph...."

She shifted slightly, conciousness slowly returning as the life returned to her limbs. Something felt....off, though. She couldn't feel the others. Maybe they were still offline?

Oh? An alert from her defense systems?

She sat upright. There was someone in her head? What?

Stumbling out of bed, she padded out of the room towards the source of the disturbance, head still feeling oddly fuzzy.

There. One of her Beowolves had cornered something...someone.....A guy? His armour looked worn out....god it was hard to think....but....she didn't recognise this one. He didn't seem like a threat, not with how he was eyeing the Beowolf with a mix of anxiety and caution. Well, whatever.

"Oh. Uh....Hey?"

[/spoiler]

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Offline Mr. Haxwell

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Reply #60 on: September 27, 2018, 11:35:59 PM
When I read Yang wanting to punch something, I'm oddly reminded of Nedra, from TFS at the Table's D&D story.


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