The cheerleading championship was close to reaching a fever pitch. The Sherman High team was nearing the conclusion of its performance and the crowd was fired up. They had come to dominate and, in the supercomputational mind of Octus, they most certainly would. Cloaked in his unassuming Newton persona, Octus cheered with the rest of his classmates attending the State Cheer Finals in Chicago. While most of the performers had graduated, the extraneous circumstances of alien invasions postponed the competition, and cheerleaders who had graduated were allowed to participate.

Newton was intently focused on his girlfriend, Kimmy, and she was catapulted into the air and performed defy-defying spins until landing firmly on both feet on the ground below. The moves themselves had little appeal to Newton, but the physics involved in their execution kept his mind racing from one move to the next. Sherman High was the final performance of the day yet the deafening cheers from all around the stadium made it feel they saved the best for last. The judges would require about an hour to deliberate, so once they made their exit everybody else departed the seating area for the intermission.

It did not take long for Newton and Kimmy to find each other and embrace. His disappearance and subsequent temporary deactivation after investigating an attack on a G3 science station near Jupiter had estranged their relationship for months upon his return. He had never told her the truth but merely made up a convincing story about his family relocating briefly to escape the monster attacks of Sherman. Kimmy took a while to come around, but through long talks, and sometimes longer silences, they decided to resume their relationship.

“You did great, Kimmy,” Newton said.

Kimmy beamed. “Thanks, babe. I thought for sure I was going to botch that final spin though.”

“Mathematically impossible.”

She laughed, amused at his eccentricities and gave him a peck on the cheek. “Well, we have some time to kill before the judges decide on the winner, wanna grab a bite to eat?”

Before he could answer, a massive force collided with Newton’s body and wrapped a gargantuan arm around his shoulder.

“Boy, I could eat!” the voice of Meat, a former jock and close friend of Newton’s, blurted out. Other former Sherman High students congregated around the two echoing similar agreements. It was then, however, that a communications channel with Lance and Ilana was opened. Newton could see their faces in front of him in holographic display, but to the outside world nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He didn’t even need to talk aloud to converse with the two.

“Lance? Ilana? What’s up?”

“Octus, we need you to come to G3’s mobile fortress right away.” Lance answered, “They say something big is happening.”

“Like what?” asked Newton.

“We’re still en route,” Ilana added, “But Solomon made it sound urgent.”

To Lance and Ilana, only a second seemed to pass before Newton offered an affirmative and clicked off the comms. However, what passed was an excruciatingly long processing period for a computerized mind in that second. While his Octus mind was prioritizing his duty to the Galalunan princess and corporal, over time a new presence began influencing his decision-making.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Within his mind’s eye, two forces were at odds. In the recesses of his very being, representations of Octus and Newton stared one another down. Ever since his revival, Octus was shocked to discover that Newton had become a distinct personality within his systems. Assuming the Newton persona put the sub-routine in charge, which Octus was content to allow as it had posed no problems until now.

“I promised I'd stay with her!” Newton.

“But our orders from the King come first,” Octus countered.

The two could not be more opposite. Octus, with his circuits and hardlight outer-casing, responded with the cold logic of a machine. Newton, for his part, argued with the passion of a human feeling a great wrong being committed against them.

“If you leave now then she will never forgive me!”

“We are the same person, this behavior is most illogical.”

“It’s been a year since any Mutraddi activity was last reported, why would they attack now of all days?”

“It was never said that there was an attack, but simply that G3 has an urgent development unfolding that requires our attention. That ranks far higher in terms of importance than a sports event.”

“To a machine, maybe, but I’m more than that. I am Newton!”

“Again, we are one and the same. Newton is just a sub-routine used to blend into human society.”

“Yet here we are talking to each other.”

“That is anomalous. It might be time to reboot my systems.”

“I can’t let you do that.”

“It is not your call to make.”

Suddenly, Newton struck Octus with punch at his central eye. The robot staggered back before increasing his body size to near Titan scale.

“Your behavior is most illogical. You fight a battle you cannot win.”

“Wanna bet?”

Soon Newton increased in size as well and the two minds circled each other waiting for an opportunity to strike. For Octus, it never came, as the robot quickly found itself being grabbed and restrained by the persona of Mr. Lunis, the father figure disguise also utilized by Octus. Newton delivered a palm strike that opened a cavity into Octus’ chest area, leaving what was effectively its brain, exposed.

“Destroying me would be the biggest mistake you could possibly make.”

“I’m not trying to destroy you.”

Newton hovered his hand over Octus’ brain and a transparent keypad blipped into existence. He pressed a series of commands on the keypad before it winked out of existence.

“What was that?”

“Just something I picked up after coming back from the dead. I’ll be the one in the main driver's seat now, you ride shotgun.”

With that, Newton snapped back into reality as Kimmy snapped her fingers in his face. “Earth to Newton, you still there?”

Newton smiled sheepishly, “Yeah, sorry, just spaced out for a minute. Excuse me for a minute, I have to head to the bath-“

He stopped when he saw the look of concern arc across Kimmy’s face. Rushing off to the bathroom had been his, Lance's, and Ilana’s excuse to leave any situation when danger presented itself. Hearing that probably made Kimmy feel he was going into old habits again, a point that came up often in their reconciliatory conversations.

Newton placed a reassuring hand on Kimmy’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, I have to actually go this time. I will be back.”

He left her and went into the first available stall in the men’s room. He outstretched his right palm and a 3D image of Octus’ processor appeared. Newton cracked open the stall door, saw nobody, and walked to a nearby window. The image of Octus was released and formed into his full-machine body.

“You can go in my stead, I’m staying with Kimmy. You can relay what G3 wants later when we re-integrate.”

While without a face to convey any sort of emotion, Octus seemed hesitant at first. However, it assumed the form of an orb and launched into the air towards the coordinates of the G3 mobile command fortress. Newton left the bathroom and returned to a waiting Kimmy, relieved to see him actually come back.

Taking her by the arm, Newton smiled and asked, “What are you hungry for?"