Mettaton (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mttbrandlegs) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thisavrou_log2017-06-12 12:32 am
mttbrandlegs) wrote in thisavrou_log2017-06-12 12:32 am
[closed]
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...
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...
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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.
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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.
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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.
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"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.
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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."
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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?"
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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.
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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.
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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."
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"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.
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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.
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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."
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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?"
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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.
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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.
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For Clu, they have to--"He saved us!"
Push past the entryway, break the pattern and turn the focus. Try, try, they have to try--
"He--I was broken, Chara! He was the only one that could fix me, he put me back together! An' th' glass--it hurt, Asriel needed help! It was bad enough for me!" Frisk's hands clench into their sweater, but somehow their voice doesn't betray them or tangle into a useless mess in their throat. "He's our friend, he's all of our friend! Please, don't get mad at him!"
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Asriel sees Chara pulling out their knife, and the noises of static coming from Rinzler. The last thing Asriel wants right now is both of them fighting.
Chara's angry, and in a rare moment, they're shouting. Angry at Clu, maybe even angrier than they were with the slavers. The urge to defend Clu conflicts with the need to help Chara. They were upset, Asriel should try to do something to help-
And then Frisk enters, defending Clu for him. He opens his mouth, gives Frisk a wide-eyed look before turning back to Rinzler and Chara.
"I-it's true. He was trying to help us..."
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In recrimination of those that failed them.
It's deserved. And that much, Rinzler could weather, could fix himself in place and snarl back his own impossibility. Clu can't be harmed. Clu can't, and he can't let them, and that much is fixed, that much is [true], no matter what it makes him. Anger is always easier, to face or to drown in.
Much, much easier than the other voices. Pleading. Begging. Friend, and the ease with which Frisk speaks the term makes it more clear than anything how little it applies to him. Maybe, this is better. Maybe, it will help to keep them safe.
But Rinzler can't hear it. Not like this.
The enforcer's hand lowers. The coiled edge preceding combat fades, stance slumping to the usual bent hunch. Chara's glare, he holds a moment longer, sound rattling out in hateful, useless return. Threat? Promise? (Or an imperative, maybe: do better than he has.) It doesn't matter. The mask bows, the stance breaks, and Clu's best weapon turns to stalk out of the rooms.
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Chara follows.
Of course they follow. Never did learn when to QUIT, did they? They storm after him, shoulders stiff, jaw clenched. Even if the threat display has vanished, even if the potential for escalation into combat has seemingly dissipated, he's far from done answering their questions.
They were broken. They were glass, fragile - as if they are not now, full well? As if they do not crumble so easily, at the slightest word, the slightest touch?
Let them argue among themselves, then. Let them sing Clu's praises over Mettaton's corpse. Let them love and adore the things that continue to hurt them! It's what they're best at, is it not?
"He cannot be allowed to continue as he has." They're close behind, snapping the words out sharply. "If nothing else he will rectify what he's done. He will fix it."
Again, it is not a question, nor is it a threat.
It is a promise.
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Left, down the hall. A turn, to the staircase and up (always up). He does Chara the courtesy of walking, following the rows of steps instead of taking a more vertical ascent. It takes effort. The enforcer's mask is bowed, frame bent, as close to defaults as he's been since seeing the code disk. But noise is still rough, tense hatred all but crackling down his spine. He wants a target to kill. A fight to win. He wants to move, to break, to pare down past remembering.
He listens, instead, and what hears draw only another staticky oscillation, a mute shake of the head. Those words are Clu's, and they don't mean what Chara's after.
More simply: Clu won't.
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Fine.
They will have to intervene on their own time, in their own way. They are not averse to that.
They follow, because of course they do. The courtesy is wasted upon them, the precise nature of those footsteps, the credit he gives them simply by allowing them to keep pace.
"This is unacceptable," the child hisses, venomous. "Or do you not agree?"
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But they're both gone already. Down the hall, strides full of purpose and intent, but--
Frisk turns back around. Asriel isn't the only one left in this room.
"Asriel..."
They should have been here. They should have stayed and waited, should have...why does it hurt so much, even though they've been the one to strike that blow before? They watched Undyne's body, saw Asgore take his own life...wasn't this the least that they owed him? After everything...
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