[closed]

[mttbrandlegs]

Who: Mettaton and anyone crashing in Rinzler's home, including Rinzler because it is his home.
When: Backdated to 6/10
Where: Rinzler's condo
What: It is time to die from monster sadness.
Warnings: Character death


It's been days since Mettaton's moved. All he'd done lately was sit, charge, and feel sorry for himself. The few conversations he did have all ended rather quickly and his words became progressively more impassive and lacking in any conviction...but to his credit, despite the encroaching despair, Mettaton did try to hold out until he was alone.

He tried to hold on just long enough that no one was around...and now that everyone was exploring the new Earth, it seemed a proper moment.

No one had to see him like this, see him close his eye, go slack, and start to give in.

You can't move anymore. But you don't have to, he tells himself. It doesn't make him feel better, but maybe Asriel and Frisk won't have to see a sad, pathetic excuse for a monster die this way, and that does assuage him, even as his SOUL begins to fracture and give in. It's fine, he'll keep telling himself that.

He'll keep telling himself he isn't afraid like the last time, and that he didn't regret this...

Comments

[notglitching]

Rinzler doesn't know the entertainer. He doesn't, in all honestly, like Mettaton overmuch. Their brief encounter on the outpost had revealed startling competency in a fight, but the robot was still disgustingly self-centered, a glib-voiced liar that seemed incapable of shutting up. When Frisk and Asriel hauled the inactive shell into his quarters, Rinzler hadn't objected, but he certainly hadn't been pleased.

Not an issue any longer, he supposes.

Rinzler lingers on the balcony, lightjet baton still closed in his left hand. He can feel the signature gutter and flare out—not all, not the code, but the tangled spark that had brought life to it. He can hear the sobbing, desperate wail that comes up in its wake.

Asriel.

He should... be there.

The baton slides back into place, and a few quick taps deactivate the force field. Rinzler steps through soundlessly, only the quiet ticking rumble to announce his presence as he steps up behind the beta. The black helmet tips, examining the empty shell, before returning to Asriel. Hesitantly, a hand lifts up, to settle on the beta's shoulder.

He never liked the entertainer. But he's... sorry. That Asriel did.

[pleasereset]

Asriel feels a hand settle on his shoulder, and it takes all of his willpower not to flinch away from some unknown threat. He doesn't have to turn around to see who it is, the ticking is enough to clue him in.

He wipes his face, turning his head a little towards Rinzler.

"I couldn't stop it..."

Asriel lowers Mettaton's hand, letting it fall limply.

"I wonder at this rate, if I'm gonna lose them all."

His family. His family that seems all too eager for self-destruction.

[notglitching]

As quickly as Asriel controls himself, the tension beneath the fragile point of contact is impossible to miss. Mistake. (And why had he thought otherwise? Rinzler would hardly react better himself. Stupid error; not his function—)

None of this is. The touch withdraws as quickly and lightly as it landed, personal space carefully confined as Rinzler shakes his head. Asriel won't. This one had been weak, degrading (and without even a reason Rinzler could assess). Chara and Frisk are stronger than that. Asriel is stronger (and he needs to be) (and Rinzler promised he would keep him safe).

Some of that, he shouldn't say, but Rinzler isn't sure at all how much. A hand hovers over his TAB, but Rinzler doesn't activate it yet. He's much better at listening than talking. (Much better at killing than either.) Easier to let Asriel decide what he needs to say.

[pleasereset]

Asriel keeps staring pitifully at the broken mess in front of him. The one that he, undoubtedly must have helped cause. Mettaton had confessed that he nearly sliced open his own neck, and instead of calming him down... Asriel completely freaked out on him, told him he'd fix it...

He can't fix anything.

The broken robot in front of him was proof of that. The murdered man laying in a pool of blood somewhere on the Outpost was proof of that. What was his purpose then, if he was so useless at everything?

"Do you think he could be fixed?" Asriel mumbles lightly, already feeling like he knows the answer. The dust in Mettaton's core can't be "fixed", but Asriel always did have a problem with letting things go.

"Maybe Clu knows how?"

He did fix Asriel after all. Maybe a little too well.

[notglitching]

Not the question Rinzler had expected. It leaves him lagging a little, staring a little, from both calculation and unease. The Savrii could fix it. Would, presumably, once the body was turned in. Was that what Asriel had meant?

Rinzler's helmet cocks a little, sharp with inquiry as he activates his TAB... only to still. Freeze.

...

Clarify association: Clu.

[pleasereset]

Asriel rubs his eyes again, looking at Rinzler's TAB.

"He... he fixes everything, right?" There's no doubt of it in Asriel's mind. He trusts Clu with his very existence.

"Back in July, he fixed my disk to keep my chest from turning into glass. I'd be in a lot of trouble if it weren't for him."

Not that Asriel knows that Clu made a very extra changes.

[notglitching]

He fixes everything.

Rinzler doesn't laugh. Doesn't answer. Rinzler couldn't; Rinzler can't; and the swelling scrape and rattle of raw error makes no sense in the least. Asriel is right. The phrase matches perfectly; certainty engraved in his root code and Clu fixes everything, Clu fixes everything; how he'd ever, ever, thought—

No. No, no, keep control, keep focus. Don't move, don't think, don't process what's under the suffocating flare of nausea. Of reprimand. (It's not enough, not nearly, and circuits flicker, a sharp prick of blue-tinged white.)

Clu might have just fixed the damage. He doesn't know.

(He does.)

Request: read-access.
Changelog.

He needs to see Asriel's disk.

[pleasereset]

"You want to see my disk?"

Asriel looks hesitant, as much as anyone would be about handing off all their thoughts and memories to someone else. But Rinzler's seen him at his worst, and there aren't any secrets between them. He's got nothing to hide from him.

He removes the disk from his back, before holding it up for Rinzler to take. Asriel doesn't know what he's checking, but he trusts him.

As Rinzler looks, Asriel makes some feeble attempts to tend to Mettaton, placing his hands in his lap instead of letting them lay limply at his sides.

[notglitching]

Rinzler nods. Doesn't move as the beta considers. Mirrors the reach when Asriel proffers the disk. And if the gesture is strange, access granted by request and choice, that incongruity matters not at all compared to the evaluation at hand.

Rinzler is very, very careful. Very still. Read-access is basic, well within the enforcer's functions, and Asriel's code has no locks to keep him out. All it takes is one touch; all it takes is intention; and motes of light swell up from the flat ring, tracing an image of the beta's face in bright red-orange.

It's both of their color. Rinzler's. Asriel's. It's the color of everyone Clu owns. Still, that's not enough, isn't proof; users are different and monsters have no standards that he knows. Rinzler remembers the hash of myriad hues that had colored the beta's circuits on the Grid.

(When did that change?)

Focus. A twitch of fingers, and the image fractures apart. Geometric shapes and spirals, bright lines that segment to characters and lines. Asriel's code, and Rinzler scans through it quickly, sharp gestures calling an array up to the fore. Damage. Repair. Some of it through power intake, some fractures or scrapes healed by time and recharge, but there—

Corruption. Mismatch. And repair (correction) written in clear, perfect gold.

[inconsequence]

Chara doesn't knock. They don't knock because they doubt anyone will notice, or care, if they enter, enraptured as they are with Mettaton and his demise. Leaving Asriel to, once again, watch as someone dies, slowly, painfully, incapable of preventing it. That won't stir up any coarse memories at all. Or perhaps that's simply so far removed from him, now, Mettaton having slotted easily into that place in Asriel's heart, Frisk having become the sibling he wished he'd always had, that there's simply no room for anyone, anything else.

Mettaton faded slowly, and they'd slipped out. They'd had no reason to remain, following their last conversation, and doubtless no one would enjoy them hovering at the periphery of Asriel's grief, witnessing a private moment they'd no right to witness.

What greets them, when they at last re-enter, is an empty robotic shell, a lifeless chassis. Asriel, tearful. Rinzler, doing -

Doing something.

Something with that disc that they've come to recognize as intrinsic to Asriel's identity, fingertips skidding across the coded image of his features. Code. Because they are all code, are they not? When it comes to the nature of what they are, where they come from, all the world can be reproduced on a numerical scale.

Chara moves forward briskly. It occurs to them far too late that their hand has moved to the Knife, though it remains sheathed rather than drawn.

"What are you doing?" Their tone lands somewhere between uncertainty and a challenge, wariness engraved in the set of their shoulders, the lift of their chin.

[pleasereset]

Asriel glances up suddenly, hearing new footsteps enter the room. He's currently crouched next to Mettaton, as Rinzler looks through his disk.

"Chara!"

His response comes out slightly startled at first, but then he glances from Chara to the robot sitting lifelessly on the floor.

"Mettaton is... um..."

He glances back to Mettaton, white dust gathered in his core. But even without that, Mettaton is too unnaturally still - there's not even eye movement or the twitch of his mouth. But that doesn't really seem to be Chara's main concern right now, even though Asriel doesn't seem to be bothered at all that Rinzler is currently holding his disk.

[notglitching]

Under any normal circumstance, Rinzler would have stopped. Under any normal circumstance, Rinzler would never have been reviewing Asriel's code in the first place. But Chara is an ally; Chara has chosen to protect this one, at any cost. The least he owes them is an explanation.

Rinzler doesn't stop. Doesn't look to them. If he stops, he falters; if he stops, the creeping guilt-twist of betrayal will blossom to impossibility. Disloyal. He shouldn't be checking, shouldn't be looking. Shouldn't question this at all. If Clu had granted this beta the honor of repurpose, then surely that was a good thing. It would mean they were safe. Were an asset to Clu's goals. He should stop looking, he should pull out; what was the harm if Clu did make them—

(—like him.)

(No.)
(Wrong—)

Lights tremble, flicker, blue and red and in and out as power ebbs invisibly below the surface. Rinzler's sound is broken static, rising and falling with ragged beats more like panicked breath than his usual soft rhythm. Still, his movements are so very careful. So utterly precise. A nudge, to call up the root cluster. A twist to the spiraling patterns, confirming Asriel's words. Gold blends in seamlessly with their own muted shades of self, restoring crucial junctions and connecting lines.

Clu saved him.

And from there, the color spreads further. An exception to cognitive loops. A filter (and the sight aches; hurts; a thousand layered repetitions, each burning agony to process). References inserted at key forks, values modified, and repeated callback to [administrator], to a known (known) [known] ID—

The disk display closes. Rinzler stands there, bowed and silent, until the silence breaks with a small noise. It's not a laugh. Laughter has humor, or an edge, or some quality of irony; laughter extends for more than just a shaky beat. Rinzler doesn't laugh, and Rinzler can't, and then the noise swells up into a snarl, then his fingers curl around the inert disk, circuits burning clear, sharp [blue]—

[Rinzler] turns, disk lighting to an impossible blaze as he slams the weapon deep into the nearest wall. It embeds up to his fist and past it, metal framework underneath shrieking and twisting under the force of the blow. The sound that comes after is just as harsh.

"Rectified."

[inconsequence]

Mettaton's state of being is utterly transparent to them. From the smell of dust to the stillness of self - all broadcasts the state of his being, and no further dwelling upon the moment is required. More compelling is Rinzler, holding Asriel's disk, evidently affected by something to which they cannot put a name.

It torques into something undeniably hostile, and the lines of their body tense in a shamefully instinctive gesture. Someone is ready to yell, to curse and scream. They're in the way. They're the catalyst, or at the very least the convenient outlet. Brace yourself, stand, wait.

The weapon slams into the wall, and it's not the cacophony of pots and pans impacting against the floor, it's not the smash of tinkling glass, it's not a hand smearing red across the wall in wobbly prints, but they flinch, powerfully, as the sound boiling from Rinzler's trembling silhouette solidifies and resolves.

He speaks.

He speaks.

Their head jerks, involuntary, and they swallow.

Stop dwelling in the past. Stop throwing one of your stupid tantrums. Stop dragging yourself across the contours of your own head. We know you're just pretending. We know this isn't real. We know, we know, we know, so just -



Stop.




"What?" The word hisses out like the snap of a fired gun. Their eyes are too wide, their muscles too taut, and they're still shaking as though there's something to fear. "What has been - rectified?"

[pleasereset]

The sound that Rinzler makes, followed by the sheer violent action of his disk being slammed into a wall. Asriel flinches, cowers in panic as he hurriedly goes over his head what Rinzler could've saw that provoked such an action.

What did he do, what did Rinzler see to make him mad at him? What...

It takes Asriel several long moments before he can find his voice. He doesn't move, and lifts his head up a little bit but his eyes barely reach Chara or Rinzler.

"W-what..." his voice is too quiet, "what does rectify mean?"

What did he do wrong?

"I'm sorry, I didn't... I'm not..."

He struggles for some kind of apology, but he's not really sure what the source of Rinzler's anger is.

[notglitching]

The fear barely registers. The crater of smashed plaster and dented metal frame beneath his fist goes entirely without acknowledgement. [Rinzler]stares at it without seeing anything at all, frame trembling in silent rage.

July.

A full cycle. Two, with the year lost. Longer than it had been for Frisk, and Rinzler had known about them, thought to wait. (He'd ignored it; useless; weak—), but the whole time...

"...Edited."

His head twitches toward Asriel. The word is quieter, but just as harsh. It isn't true, isn't enough, not nearly. But Rinzler promised to protect them. He promised, and they'd given everything for him, and he let this happen anyway. He's going to kill Clu—

[WRONG—]

Lights flicker again, a struggling ember of red chasing a loop through visibility. He can't think. Can't move. He has to, because [he] won't. The program jerks the weapon free. It sears the air, overcharged and blinding before he forces the edge dark. Grip shifts, weapon flat and loose as he offers it back to the monster. The gesture is jerky and raw, too rough for automation.

He shouldn't be touching this now.

[inconsequence]

Edited.

A jerk of his chin at Asriel. There's an unnerving picture. They can't pull it together, the many scattered pieces that make no sense. The disk - the disk is Asriel's. It is editable. It can change the parts and pieces of him, and he'd already offered himself up, willingly, to be pulled apart and put back together again on a whim. That is his choice. That is his choice, completely and utterly, and it is not his fault that an aversion to change and a lack of mental-physical control sends their world spinning.

The lights beam in and out in a static flicker. Plaster crumbling to the floor in a hiss of white dust, and they flinch, powerfully. Weakening. Placing all their softer parts on display, for the world to see! Asriel stammers a litany of apologies that mean nothing, nothing, nothing.

Again, for reasons untold, their gaze slides laterally, fixating on the robot lying still and dormant in the corner of the room.

Panic.

They'd called it for what it was, and he'd breathed again. Pieced himself back together, with their reluctant, disgusting aid. But it displayed itself in forms recognizable, and now - and now, all that is obvious of Rinzler's state of mind is the way the smooth, inhuman fluidity of his movement has been sacrificed for something sharp and hard-angled and uncontrolled.

Seize the corners of their mind. Draw it all inward again. Speak. Speak. Be the inconsolable force of nature. Be the demon. Words emerge as a violent snap.

"Edited how."

[pleasereset]

Asriel takes back his disk - maybe a little too quickly - before it clicks back into place on his back.

"W-well, it was edited, right? Clu had to do that he could keep my chest from turning into glass..."

He tries his best to justify it, his words nervous and shaky. In his mind, that's probably not the reason why Rinzler was upset. But what else would Clu do to it? He's the only one who's touched it.

[notglitching]

The black helmet jerks sideways. Once, twice, wordless and involuntary. Permissions are absent, restriction scraped raw, but the suffocating ache that locks his throat has nothing to do with either.

How dare he?

Clu had to. Clu chose to. Clu set the imperatives (for him) (for them) and the rest followed by design. Rinzler followed, because Rinzler was Clu's (and again, lights waver, blue-white ebbing dim), but Frisk and Asriel...

"...Loyal."

Not wiped. Not empty. Barely affected, by the standards of the Grid. Barely like him, and the sheer despair of that comparison stalls all function for one beat.

Two.

"You trust him."

Answer, not question. And not for Asriel, no matter the address.

[inconsequence]

There's a heated rush in their skull, a blistering pulse of revelation couched in a lack of context.

Loyal.

You trust him.

He altered himself. He altered himself willingly, pieced himself apart and then together again. But he was altered, edited, prior to now. Edited to save his life, but Rinzler's boiling with something they recognize altogether too well, because if they can understand one thing, one single wretched thing in their hideous existence, it is rage.

"Clu," says Chara, and the word is little more than a rasping breath. Try again. Try again. Sweeping their gaze from Rinzler to Asriel and the vacant spaces stretched between them, thoughts scrabbling to push aside that which is loomingly apparent. Clu. An unfamiliar name, an unfamiliar designation, an unfamiliar term.

No longer.

Their grip around the Knife tightens. It hangs at their side no longer.

"He changed you."

1/2

[pleasereset]

Loyal. Trust. Changed.

Asriel did trust Clu. On the same level he trusted Chara, Frisk, Rinzler, and Mettaton. Maybe even more so than that, even though Asriel hasn't spent nearly enough time with Clu to develop that level of trust and admiration. He could never put into words why he felt that way, he just did.

"Clu? He made me like him?"

There's a creeping sensation of horror that nearly reaches the surface. A feeling of something shackled around his neck, tightening and controlling and inescapable.

He almost grasps it.

[pleasereset]

And then it slips away. The realization, the panic that was trying to settle in, the feeling of something constricting.

It melts away, and Asriel feels at ease again. No need to distrust. No need to be afraid. Data not found.

He smiles faintly, and when he speaks next, his words are hollow. Like reading from a script.

"No, that can't be right. Clu's my friend. I owe him my life."

If he was edited, it was for his own good. Right?

[gainedlove]

They should do something.

Frisk had come running as soon as they heard (felt) Rinzler strike the wall, but they had come to a stop in the doorway upon seeing the tableau presented there.

'You trust him.'

'He changed you.'

Something slides like oil in their mind, a feeling sick and furious that just can't quite seem to take hold. And why should it? Clu wouldn't...he would never do something like that. He's kind, he helps them, they can trust him no matter what. He wouldn't...he wouldn't manipulate someone like that. He wouldn't use Asriel like that!

He...wouldn't. Of course he wouldn't. It must be something else.

[inconsequence]

The immediate turnaround, if nothing else, confirms what needs no confirming. The cresting edges of Rinzler's rage make abrupt and acute sense, a torquing clarity that metastasizes into a familiar pulse of red, driving the corners of their mouth upward, the hard line of their shoulders unshakable.

They require it.

They require it.

Consequence. An answer. A procedure, a process, something even and measured and clean. They're safe here, the pair of them, and with Rinzler - he assesses threats on their behalf.

He assesses threats.



And yet, he missed one.

Fingers flexing across the hold of the Knife, they tip their head to one side, a sharp, birdlike motion.

"And where might one find this Clu now?"

[notglitching]

Names. Accusations. Trigger and response, alarm and fear and the redirect that eases all of it past processing. The atmosphere in the room is charged, a crackle of strained loyalties and rage that glitters off the too-sharp edge of Chara's Knife.

It's no wonder, then, that in the chaos, a different play of light goes unobserved.

The silent shift from blue to red.

[Fight for.] [Serve.] The user's grip tightens, weapon up, and all the ebb and flow of vocals diverts entirely past focus. Rinzler is angry (is furious), but that doesn't matter, can't and won't and has never, ever made a difference to the imperatives locked into his root code. Serve Clu. Assess threats. Assess and find, hunt down and wipe, and one such threat is making itself heard now: smooth syllables, sharp smile, and an innocent tilt of inquiry.

No.

Rinzler tries to speak it, but he doesn't have a voice. The sound emerges in a scrape of static, a voiceless rattling of corruption. It starts (when had it stopped?) and it continues, raw and unbroken the way it always has been: hundreds of cycles and thousands of commands.

(NO—)

His hand is halfway back for his own disk before it locks, noise swelling with the error. The shift of frame continues though, an easy half-step as force coils in front of the small threat. The user (Chara) might be fast, but he knows he can be faster. They're strong, but he knows he can win. He knows it, so there's no need to act, no need to follow the strangling pull of automation.

They know it, so they should stop. They have to.

He jerks his helmet to the side, once, twice. A tremor lingers, barely visible. The message is less subtle.

No harm to Clu.

[inconsequence]

They do not need to interpret the subtleties of his shifts in body language, the rattling noise that rasps in lieu of a voice that forms genuine words. They do not need to, because a head shaking from side to side is a solemn enough indicator.

They smile, and they continue to smile. His displeasure, as far as Clu's intervention regarding Asriel, regarding Frisk, is more than evident. If he will not give him over to them willingly, they will put forth a scenario in which he will.

"And he is never to face what it is he's done?" There's a lift in their tone, belying the etched curve of their lips. Something hot and coursing, nearly bordering on a snarl in its intensity as they lock their eyes to his helmet and their lips pull back in a vicious, venomous flash of teeth. "He - he changed them!"

They're

They're shouting.

Irresponsible. Dangerous. Stop having a fit, Chara. Calm down and act like a rational person. Close your hands into fists and breathe in and breathe out again and try not to get so wound up. Can't you just relax?

Can't you just be normal?

They're too stiff, too unbalanced, too tense. Leaning forward, their smile faltering, a hot burst of rage swelling with enough force to snap through the other side.

They forget to breathe.

"How," says Chara, icy. "How long ago did this happen."

It is not a question.