Throughout the top floor of MetalBody headquarters, intense sounds of tireless combat filled the air. At the end of a long hallway lay the source: the sparring room. Two androids, looking unfathomably determined, occupied the space. They lunged at each other with an inhuman ferocity, confirming their identities no matter how human they appeared to look. If one was to approach the doorway, they would be getting a free showcase of the androids’ innate power and the adaptations made to accommodate this. The room was deceptively large, constantly having to be remodeled as the androids continued to find new ways to improve upon their already superhuman skill. At the back wall of the room hung a screen displaying the statistics of the current fight, including basic information on and pictures of the duo. Vanitas, a tall male android, shot forward with his grip almost painfully tightened around a vibrantly colored scythe. It tore through the air with a shocking amount of speed and efficiency, though not with any remarkable strength. Counteracting this was Vivienne, a comparatively smaller but muscular female android. Her weapon of choice was a large hammer which moved slowly and clumsily yet struck with a strength that shook the building on impact. This matchup frequently sparred together as they considered their strengths and weaknesses as aspects that constantly forced them to think of better strategies.
If one was to stay in the doorway for extended periods of time (something no one tended to do) they would also notice a faint bit of noise leaking out from the corner of the room. This noise was distinctly different from the rhythmic clashing of the two sparring partners. In fact, it had about as little to do with fighting as possible. In the corner of the room, a well-hidden closet door seemed to be diligently protecting a third android.
The android named Viktor was indeed not staring intently at an opponent, instead opting to put all of his focus onto a small CRT television screen no more than a foot away from his face. The screen did not show any battle strategies or tactics for dealing with enemies. In actuality, it was displaying a particularly emotional episode of the once-popular sitcom “Boy Meets World”. Curiously, his eyes seemed the most determined of all.
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Darkness fell in the city surrounding the headquarters. An odd place, Aes City tended to be at its most bright and full during the day, with nighttime more accurately bringing about imagery of a ghost town. Almost every building turned its lights off after around 7:30, citing mass complaints of extreme light pollution as their reasoning. MetalBody, as a matter of fact, was the only building that didn’t turn its lights off. The building utilized state-of-the-art cloaking devices to make sure that both it and the light it gave off were completely invisible. The cloaking was some of the only technology to be purely and indisputably state-of-the-art, because at the time of its use it was the first invisibility tech to be created on Earth. Through this camouflage–and under the cover of the dead of night–the organization did its most important work.
Viktor also did some of his most important introspection in those instances, as the rooftop of the building was a fantastic vantage point for observing the sky. The moon was full that night, and its imposing glow thrust the automaton into endless thoughts of what he’d viewed during the earlier “training” sessions. Particularly, the human emotion of love was a concept Viktor could not help being extremely interested in. Living things being able to express some sort of intense longing for kinship was a very captivating subject to him. But as he thought about it more and more, he began to realize the abnormality of his fixation. It made no sense for an android to want to observe human love. It was especially so because he knew he didn’t actually feel love–not for his creators, not for his teammates, not even for fighting. He couldn’t. It was technologically impossible. His eyes drifted from the moon to his sword, which lay flat on the roof to his right. It was an amazing weapon, said to have been forged in an ancient submerged city. If he could just stay focused, he could use it well and become a serious threat to his enemies. If he could just stay focused. Some more time passed by. Love just wouldn’t leave his thoughts, no matter how hard he tried.
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As Viktor kept his eyes trained on his sword–hoping to look so intensely that it forced the unusual thoughts out of him–the bottom of the grip began to flash a repeated flurry of neon colors. It was how the two heads of MetalBody called him, Vanitas, and Vivienne to let them know of any day to day responsibilities. Normal calls were usually varying combinations of red and white. This one, however, was different. The pattern went: green, orange, purple. He leapt to his feet, grabbing his sword and sprinting back through the roof doors. It wasn’t an arrangement of colors he saw often. It meant that the three androids were due for an extremely important briefing. He wondered if they were going to chew him out for being so oddly distracted as of late. To calm his own nerves, he figured it was safe to say that they most likely wouldn’t be that upset.
Viktor skidded to a halt and pushed through the double doors of his creators’ office. It became immediately clear to him that someone was mid-conversation, as he was only able to pick up a piece of a seemingly preceding sentence when entering the room.
“...discussed this so many times before. The invasion is supposed to–AH! Viktor? You’re a bit late…”
The aforementioned android, who in his haste had forgotten about the concept of room-entering etiquette, stumbled into the room and identified the source of the voice to be creator Maria Powell. She sat on a white and purple throne, her jet black hair thrown into disarray by a crown that looked as though it was put on quite haphazardly. The throne looked as if it couldn’t have been designed by a human, which always threw people off before they knew the context surrounding it. It was apparently designed by Viktor’s 2nd creator, Jane Dorset, as a long-awaited and much delayed anniversary gift. Viktor would sometimes be in the room when the two would get asked for specifics of the anniversary, and they always tended to give the same answer. Usually, all they would do was rush through some synchronized explanation of their relationship as if it was something they had rehearsed many times before. The android would from then on begin to wonder about the significance of that observation, as to him that made it seem like they were just trying to assuage the curiosity of whoever was inquiring in order to prevent having to explain an additional something that was more…complicated. In any case, that line of thought wouldn’t and couldn’t get anywhere anytime soon because it warranted a series of questions Viktor was currently much too intimidated to ask the pair. He snapped out of his mental processing state and looked around some more. Jane was also in the room, but she wasn’t sitting at all. She seemed quite stressed–her hair was in disarray without even wearing a crown–as she quietly paced in a small circle around Maria and stared intently at the floor. There were papers strewn about a desk that faced opposite the two, displaying a dizzying amount of data. Maria looked worried as well, though Viktor could tell she was trying her best to look professional and even slightly militant as she took in his presence. The cyborg then suddenly remembered about his distraction-related worries and that he was a decent bit late, but became confused upon seeing that neither of the other two androids were there at all.
“Apologies for bursting in. I thought me being late would have had a much larger impact on the meeting, so I was in a bit of a rush. Where are the others?”
“We have visuals on them right now. They’re still in the training room,” Maria said.
Jane stopped pacing, but kept her head down.
“We figured if we just let them keep sparring, we could relay some extremely important info to each other and to you as a preliminary debriefing and bring them in after for the rest of the discussion.”
Viktor nodded slowly, taking in the stakes at hand. There was a feeling of impending doom permeating the area that was so tangible it was almost like he could see it, a thick cloud of fear hanging low over the pair like unwanted fog. Whatever it was that had to be said, it was certainly about something more serious than anything the android had dealt with before. Maria motioned for Viktor to sit in a chair opposite her and the desk, and began to speak when he did so.
“Viktor, I think it’s time we talked about the past.”