Season 3: Chapter 91: Fren?
Friend. Friend. Friend. Friend. Friend. Friendfriendfriendfrie-
“Hiro? Is this a trick? What manner of sorcery is this?!” The robot demanded, its red eyes glowing hot as my consciousness returned to my rubber form.
All around my party the red optical orbs of the machines flared, the automatons readying their attack to disintegrate me and my group with their laser guns.
In a panic I reached out, trying to speak, yet all that left my rubber shell was “QUACK! QUACK! QUACK! QUACK!”
Ah. Right.
“Wait! Hold your assault!” Slimey let out, her consciousness shifting to create a quick copy of myself. A rapid ploy to communicate with the lead machine.
“Monster…” The voice of Virgil hissed, the one-eyed yellow automaton spinning up what appeared to be a Gatling gun to eviscerate me.
Oh. Lovely. I had to think of something quick, if this machine was Virgil then there was only one thing I could do to stop his attack, one thing I could do to save my companions and I.
Forgive me, my friend.
“You kissed your cousin!” Slimey shouted, hardening her body to tank the soon to be oncoming flurry of blows.
The machine froze, its red eye flaring before the cylinders of its machine gun began to pick speed.
“And not your hot second cousin, but your ugly first cous-”
“Enough creature of the night! You shall not-”
“And you secretly like being tied up and-”
“I TOLD YOU THAT IN CONFIDENCE! YOU BASTARD!” The automaton shrieked as it fired multiple rounds wildly around me and my party.
Fortunately, the thing's rage made his aim go wide, allowing my precious yellow rubber hide to be unharmed.
Steam flared from the machine, the automaton shaking visibly in anger as its machine gun died down.
“Hiro? Is that you?” The voice of an old friend asked with a tone mixed with tiredness and disbelief.
“Yes and no. I will have to explain,” Slimey relayed as Lhikan let out a sigh and my party relaxed.
****
“You're kiddin,” Virgil said, the humanoid machine sitting on a crate as Slimey held me outstretched so I could see the automaton. “At least you and Alexios are safe.”
“My Lord does not kid,” Slimey replied.
Before me was Virgil, or, a thing that sounded like the Lemoidian dwarf I had known hundreds of years ago.
Gone was his bushy blonde beard, his spiky hair with frosted tips, and biceps that had tattoos that read ForgeTown. Instead, what replaced the young dwarf was a six-foot-tall bipedal machine with slick black plates colored with chipped yellow paint with flame decals.
An upgrade? Hardly, but how the hell did he merge his consciousness into a machine?! Was this even Virgil? Or was I merely conversing with an AI? Was his fate the same that had transpired with the rest of the species?
Questions hounded my mind, but be that as it may, even if it was an AI, it was… good to see an old friend. Or, at least something familiar and… alive?
Please don't be a robot.
“All this time… and you were…”
“Trapped, yes, my lord wishes to know how it is you became what you are,” Slimy asked.
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The square head on the machine dipped a bit, it’s robotic arms seeming to sag albeit slightly as if to imitate a humanoid slouching.
The quadrupedal hunter from earlier knelt beside Virgil, lowering itself until its head lay on the machine’s lap like a door seeking affection from its master.
“Gisellneia happened,” The robot’s red eye seemed to dim.
“The new Demon Lord?”
“So you are aware of her?”
“Yes, my lord is very knowledgable.” Slimey replied as her skin tone shifted to red, perhaps in response to the seething rage welling up within my rubber body.
“Well dat solves me alot of trouble then,” Virgil grunted, patting it’s giant hunter on the head, “That witch put a pox upon us Lemodians. Punishment for crimes against the Demon royalty and our involvement with the Hiro.”
Wait…
“She unleashed a plague, one that targeted us and us alone. A measure to wipe out half of our population to serve as an example to those that would oppose the Demon Lords,” Virgil explained, lifting a metal appendage. “It was a sickly disease, one that made our hands unsteady. Made us unable to work our craft before losing our beards and ability to eat. Slowly, we would wither away, husks of our old proud bodies unable to practice the craft we were once so proudly lauded for. Of course the insidious part wasn’t that it was instantaneous, but rather slow, decrepit, a disease that aged us quickly and demanded we search for other means of survival.”
That explained the machines… Damn witch!
“So you turned to augmentations? Consciousness transfer? How did you bind your soul to a machine?” Slimey asked, my desire for more knowledge at an all time high.
“We didn’t… I…”
No… Please… NO!
“I am merely a construct of Dominous Virgil’s mind, one of the few brilliant Lemodian minds chosen to receive the Gift of Steel,” The automaton said, almost as if it were sad it had to tell me this.
Of course this wasn’t the real Virgil…
“What happened to the real Virgil?” A question Slimey was reluctant to ask, mostly because she knew the answer would pain me. Still, I had to know, NEEDED to know.
“My matrix is built off of the full mind scan of Dominous Virgil. Every memory, every trait, every thought, and want was transferred to my timeless shell. In order to accomplish this, the donor was humanely euthanized before being dissected and scanned fully into the codex to create an immortal mind.”
“So he was killed?”
“I-he, volunteered. For all intents and purposes, I AM Virgil. His last memory is my awakening. However, unlike a mind of flesh, my neuro-matrix does not degrade, preserving the Lemodian that was Dominous Virgil.”
Yeah… volunteering for a dangerous procedure did sound like Virgil.
Somehow, talking to this memory eased my soul a bit and while I had expected this, it still it didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.
“My lord wishes to know what happened to the other Lemodians.”
A heavy silence fell upon the chamber, the machine’s response unnaturally delayed.
“I… am not sure…”
“Not sure? Elaborate.”
“When I awoke, I was the only Lemodian around,” Virgil replied, turning his robotic head, “The facility was dark, the forges cold, and on lockdown. After taking control of this highway, I attempted to contact the other facilities, but so far, no one has returned my calls.”
Of course there wouldn’t be any easy answer.
“Did you not try to visit them? To walk outside?”
“Unfortunately I can’t. Despite being a 1 to 1 copy of Virgil’s mind, I am bound to this facility. Security protocols has me activated and charged as the steward of this highway.”
So he's stuck too huh…
Something inside me felt a mutual understanding between me and Virgil, a sense of a kindred spirit despite my friend being merely a copy.
All these years alone. I could empathize with that.
“Pardon my intrusion my lords,” Lhikan interjected. “As steward of this facility, may I ask where my Lord’s subjects were taken?”
Oh. Right, I had nearly forgotten. Jesse, Simone, Ayaka, and Tipsy were missing. The four members of my party taken by Virgil's machines.
“They are alive and perfectly preserved,” Virgil replied. “You need not worry about their well-being. ”
Preserved… for some reason that word was giving me red flags.
Oh please don't be evil, please PLEASE don't be evil.
“My Lord Hiro wishes to see his subjects,” Slimey asked.
Subjects? Really… -_-
“Oh, don't worry, you'll have plenty of time to see each other. It's not like you're going anywhere,” Virgil said as his eye flashed red.
Aaaaaand there it is.
Why is life such a pain?
Lhikan and Gobledo stepped forward, the twin guards ready to rally to my defense as the machines began to surround us once more.
“My Lord deeply wishes not to come to blows with his companion of old,” Slimey hissed as her skin began to boil.
“I concur,” Virgil said, “However, my feelings aside, my security protocols dictate I not allow you to leave. Sorry my old friend, but why don't you stay here with me? I can take good care of you.”
“Take care?” Slimey giggled.
Oh. Oh no.
At Virgil's words Slimeys form began to decompress, the Queen Slime rising to tower over the automatons as a mound of boiling liquid rage.
“TAKE CARE?!!!?”