[FICbit] I DON'T KNOW WHAT I AM WRITING
Series: Megaman Star Force/Ryuusei no Rockman
Characters: Bad End!Shooting Star Rockman and...Andromeda?
Rating: no idea. PG 13 or T maybe.
Warnings: Crack version of the Bad End AU in which Andromeda is some kind of sentient denpa princess being and actually has-ha ha, EMOTIONS. What. I DON'T KNOW HOW THAT HAPPENED EITHER. I BLAME MY TAGSPAM. AND HANUN'S AND QUIRA'S ACTUALLY LIKING THIS AND DRAWING STUFF ABOUT IT.
Notes: it's a babbleshot. It doesn't really warrant a "fic" status, it's just here because I hate the font setting for my Tumblr and I haven't gotten around to changing the theme yet.
Summary: She lived to consume everything. To find someone who not only approved, but encouraged it...it was a relief.
Cepheus called her his daughter, but she refused to acknowledge him as a father. Ever since she had been "born," she had wanted to do nothing but eat, eat, and eat. She felt so alone, so lonely, and somehow, having everything inside her would make it all better. She felt all this, and she knew her so-called father knew what she wanted. She had overheard the servants, calling her an "abomination, something that should never have existed, a crazy weapon that should never have gained sentience." But she was too powerful for any of them to destroy her, not even her dear "father," who held the keys to her power and her controller.
Without that key, she had no energy to fulfill her most ardent desires, and without that controller, she had no control over her movements. It was infuriating. It was maddening. To eat only when her father requested her to left a sour feeling in her own stomach that threatened to overwhelm even her ardent loneliness. It took out all the pleasure of eating. She should have felt sated as she absorbed the fear of her father's enemies as she moved relentlessly through the planet, eating planets piece by piece as she tried to sate that infinitely empty core of hers. But that sour feeling always remained, even if her loneliness was eased somewhat. And those moments of eating...they were too brief, too quick. Her father always commanded her to eat it all at once, and what could she do but listen to his paranoid ramblings, always waiting until he could take the suspicions no more and wanted his supposed enemies gone in one swoop? What could she do but lounge around listlessly, all energy gone, walk about like a listless puppet until her dad activated her power to eat again?
When she heard that someone had stolen the key from her "father," part of her was terrified. That meant he could no longer activate her power, that she could no longer eat. But as she thought about it, she realized that maybe this meant someone else could activate her. If they had taken her key, they would clearly have been planning to use her power, correct? Perhaps she would get to calm her hunger a bit more with this thief, than opposed to her so called "father," creating her to want to eat infinitely and then being so cruel as to deny her wishes.
Then, her father...no, her creator, began to hide. He refused to see anyone, even her. He was...scared. This wasn't paranoia. It was true fear. And instead of beginning to fear fear herself, like everyone else around her, she began to revel in it. The general atmosphere around her was tense, thick enough that she found that she could inadvertently absorb some of it even without being activated, and she knew this meant that whomever had stolen her key was coming back for her controller, and her. When she heard the castle being destroyed, she ran out of her quarters, just as everyone else did. But instead of fleeing from the building, she went further inside, seeking out the one who would take her controller, to see if they were worthy of controlling her power. She felt her father flee, felt the other unfamiliar presence chase him, and so she traveled to the roof, to get a better look.
What she saw wasn't what she had expected. This being was young, even younger than her. How could he topple her father so easily?Then she heard his words to her father. His paranoia had made him weak, predictable. That he refused to use Andromeda-her!-as he should have. That he himself planned on making sure that Andromeda would use its power for what it was intended for-destruction. Perhaps he wasn't so surprising of an owner, after all?
She exited the building, just as he came back, dragging her "father's" near lifeless form behind him. They looked at each other, sizing the other up. It felt like an age before one of them spoke.
"So...you're Andromeda?" It was an unnecessary question. He had her key embedded in his chest. She knew that it had led him to her.
"I am. Who are you?" She saw him raise an eyebrow, pause as he seemed to calculate his response. It was natural. No one expected a weapon to look like her, to have its own sentience. Not even her "father"-he had acknowledged her as a mistake more than once.
"Rockman." He chuckled. "I had honestly planned to just take the controller and leave, but I suppose I'll have to see if you actually would want to leave before I can do such a thing, don't I?"
"Theoretically, you wouldn't have to," she pointed out. "You have the key, you have the controller."
"Ah. But I don't have you, do I? After all, if I want to end all the suffering in the universe, I can't inflict suffering on something I would use to make that happen, can I? That would make me a hypocrite, a liar, no better than everything I want to eliminate. I can't have that."
"What elaborate words you spin." She tried to mimic his laughter, and it came out brighter and happier than she had expected. It was the first time she had ever laughed, and she was unfamiliar if she had done it correctly, but somehow, she felt the sour feeling disappear somewhat. "What do you mean, by ending all the suffering in the universe?"
"Isn't it obvious? Everything produces its own suffering. They exist, and have troubles thrown their way simply because they exist. They struggle to try and overcome those troubles, and they either fail and are crushed by those troubles, or they succeed, with their reward being even more problems. It's an endless cycle of grief and suffering. Why not end it all at the source?"
"So, you would destroy everything...with any method possible?"
"Of course. It's why I came to seek you out. I had heard of you, and I had your key...so it was worth a shot, wasn't it?" He laughed, and unlike her laughter, it sounded hollow and empty. It resonated with her, somehow.
"You would let me destroy everything, anything I wanted?"
"That was what I had hoped for. If it's what you want, then that makes it even better for the two of us, doesn't it?"
"Indeed."
"So then..." He held out an object towards her, and she realized that it was her controller. "Would you join me in this endeavor, Andromeda?"
She was about to ask why he would willingly give someone-no, something- like her self control, before she realized that the irises of his eyes were glowing with a dull red light. The key was activated in his body. That had been the true reason she could consume the fear of everyone around her-as soon as he had gotten ahold of it, it had remained activated. He had allowed her to eat all this time. And as long as the key remained in his body, it would be activated without her having to seek someone else to activate her. It was a subtle power play on his part, and she could admit the cunning that had led to this offer. Still, it was more than she expected, for someone to allow her her own will in the endeavor, and in the end, she would get to eat. Wasn't that enough?
"Why not?" Perhaps it should be surprising, that she would give herself away so casually. But she thought little of her own power, only thought of it as the means to get her way. So she took the controller from Rockman with no regrets, and felt her strength return to her. "The first thing I want to consume...to destroy..."
"Is him, is it not?" Rockman smiled wryly as he held up the limp form of her "father," and she grinned as she saw genuine, real fear enter Cepheus' eyes. "How terribly appropriate, isn't it, Cepheus? You're the creator of your own demise. It really only serves to illustrate my point, doesn't it...?"
She ignored Rockman taunting him, and instead gripped Cepheus' head with both her hands. Her last words to him came out in a deep hiss.
"For ignoring my own sufferings, and using me to vainly eliminate your own...you and your planet will experience all my pain before I destroy you."
0-0-0-0-0
Andromeda had never seen Rockman express real fear before, but she saw a flicker of it cross his eyes when he was told that he would need to cancel his Denpa-Henkan in order to upgrade to the Hunter VG. Even when they were both alone in the room that Dealer had allowed him, there was a part of him that seemed unwilling to do it.
"You don't have to, you know," she commented offhandedly. Instead, he gripped the Hunter VG tighter.
"I do. That meteor hurt both you and me, Andromeda. If I want to accomplish my...no...our goal...I can't be scared of the suffering that I dish out to others. That would make me ill-suited for the task..." Before she could object any further, he closed his eyes and canceled the Denpa-Henkan, and she barely caught him before his now very human body hit the floor.
He was...even smaller and frailer than she thought. A human child, and compared to her, almost an infant. His time without proper human nourishment had not helped him at all...with the transformation being cancelled for the first time in nearly two years, he was near-skeletal. She realized that in the end, the only reason he was still alive was the Andromeda Key, still in his body. The only reason he was anything special, that he was as powerful as he was, was because of her key. He was nothing without her, and in that respect he was very much like Cepheus.
It would be so easy. All she would have to do was take the Andromeda Key away from him, and that subtle power play of his would be null and void. She would be free to do whatever she wanted on her own. Her hand was already on his chest, feeling how slight his breaths were. She just needed to grip tighter, and she could easily pry the key away from him.
Then his eyes opened, and she saw it. That emptiness. It was that same emptiness that had resonated with her when they first met-that hollowness and loneliness that led her to consume everything, and him to destroy it. He had nothing left other than her power...and in the end, she was the same too. She, himself, and Cepheus...they were nothing without her power. But unlike Cepheus, he had willingly shared her power, had willingly put himself in this position, given her power over him, if only for these few minutes. Why? Because he believed that she shared his beliefs. That they both wanted this world to end. And unlike Cepheus, he hadn't hidden it from her. He openly acknowledged that he needed her, even if it was only to gain her willingness.
The grip on his chest relaxed, and instead her palm rested flat, rubbing it gently in a vain attempt to soothe the pain that she knew was coursing through his body right now.
"It'll be alright, Rockman. Only a few minutes more..."
"An...dro...meda..." His voice was so weak, barely a croak. So different from those easy and unaffected tones he had once addressed her with. Again, the temptation to just end it all coursed through her mind, and for a moment, she wondered if she was a fool, falling for what had started as nothing but a ruse to gain her strength.
"You said it yourself, you can do this...Just a few minutes, Rockman, that's all it is..."
She pulled him closer to her, cradled him in her arms, and decided. She would rather be a fool, if that was the case, if only to keep this person, this being that knew and understood this lonely emptiness, to keep Rockman with her.
0-0-0-0-0
She hated having to stay in one place on Earth, but this time it was for good reason. She could barely leave Earth's atmosphere without feeling the effects of Meteor G on her body, and it hurt. It hurt badly. Rockman was trying hard to make a Noise Program for her, but his efforts were going nowhere, not without the additional information needed from Dealer and the Neo Mu Empire. Sometimes, while he was not required to go out, he would leave his own test copy with her so she could leave Earth, feed on something, maybe consume a star or two, but more often than not, she would stay with him.
Ever since that moment of weakness he had allowed her to witness, there had always been a frailness to him that only she could see. She had been with him long enough to be able to spot the subtle differences in the way he moved, the way he acted cautious and wary, preferred to plot and work his way through intricate plans rather than to take the information he wanted. She saw the slight skeletal look his new form had acquired, and while everyone else attributed it to the Hunter's upgrade giving him a new, sleek design, she alone could look past his visor and see the sunken eyes, see the shadows under them and know that those hadn't been there before his upgrade. It was a mark of his human weakness, his hollowness, and she couldn't help but notice those slight differences every time she saw him. When he acquired the Noise Program, and she saw him channel the Noise so often that Crimson began to practically constantly flow in his veins, making his eyes glow even brighter, she only noticed how the light intensified the shadows underneath his eyes, saw how he seemed to try to compensate for his lack of strength compared to her...saw how he was desperately trying to fill that emptiness he could never seem to sate.
The more she saw him change, the more she realized he was becoming slowly more and more like her, trying to fulfill some slated desire because it was all he had left to strive for. He had driven everything else away, had suppressed any unnecessary emotions, and it had become his entire being. He was empty. And she slowly began to realize that this was something completely new to her. A being like her, yet one that she could easily consume. What was his own denpa like, she began to wonder. Was it as empty as hers? Or was there a power to it, a power like hers, one that was born of having nothing, an endless vacuum that absorbed everything? She wondered...and wanted to taste that sort of power that was so similar to hers, yet different.
She was used to having her way. As a spoiled princess, as a feared weapon, there were many attempts to placate her, to gain her favor. While Rockman didn't go out of his way to openly placate her, he never openly refused any of her requests that was in his power to grant, and tried to make it possible to grant ones that he couldn't. So when she abruptly pulled him away from his work, pressed her lips to his to taste him, and he didn't struggle, she didn't question it. Instead, she focused on that emptiness that she craved to taste, and felt it.
It was almost intoxicating. It was almost infinite, like hers, the only difference being that in the end, he had been born with something, unlike her. His emptiness was artificial, and so it ironically had substance to it, unlike her genuine loneliness. It was full of the effort he had put forward creating it, the emotions that he struggled to suppress, the false emotions he had concocted to take their place. And through it all, that small core of his, that genuine human being that she had gotten a glimpse of back then, only retreated further and further inside himself, suffering on its own, barely able to support itself without this artificial emptiness. It was only because of the realization that she would be destroying him if she continued that she pulled back.
Rockman shook his head blearily as she continued to hold him, and she reveled in this new taste she had acquired. It had felt so similar to herself, to her emptiness, that she actually felt somewhat sated for once. Somehow, she had felt fuller with just a taste of this hollow being. But it was forbidden, wasn't it? She couldn't destroy this person who was a perfect source of loneliness, could she? Then there would be nothing that could sate her. Not to mention that he was the only one who really understood, could even be similar to her...
"Andromeda...?" She looked down on him...he looked just as fragile as he did back then. She could hide nothing from him, not when he was baring his own weakness to her so easily, so freely.
"I apologize." How to phrase this to him. She spent a few moments trying to consider, before the words fell out on their own. "I wish to consume you."
There. That was it. She expected him to grow angry, to become self-defensive, to attempt to wrest the controller back from her in a feeble attempt to protect himself.
He did none of those things. Instead, he gave a weary smile. All his defenses had been disrupted, his false emotions out of order...that smile, as small as it was, was real.
"I was wondering when that would happen. I didn't know how to tell this to you either, as attached as you appeared to be...but in the end, I do want that to happen..."
Andromeda froze, then held him closer to her.
"Explain."
"Do I really need to...?" He laughed weakly, leaned his head against her shoulder, closed his eyes. The smile faded away as his eyes opened, and the crimson glow from them had faded, making him look dull, almost listless compared to the usual manic, inscrutable personality he projected to the other humans.
"This mission...it's all I have. When it's completed, there will be no reason left for me to exist as well. Do you see? To end all suffering, I have to end myself as well...hell, I could end it all right here, and you could continue on your merry way as you wished, continue the job for me, if that was what you wanted. My mission...in the end, it is self-destructive. I have already accepted that long ago." He closed his eyes again, and she realized he was actually close to falling asleep. It was rare of him to do so, as he hated leaving himself exposed, and so he would work himself until his body could take no more. She had only hastened this inevitable coming of sleep.
"Just...let me finish that Noise Program for you, and you can do as you wish...in the end, it's good for both our goals, isn't it?"
"It's fine. Just rest. For now, I will be satisfied with just a taste."
"Mn..."
Let him have his pretentious displays of power, his ways of hiding his insecurities. Let him have his goals. In the end, the power was all hers. She had a source of near infinite emptiness similar to hers to tap whenever she wished, his nightmares to absorb, his fears and wishes to taste. They were all hers. And when there was nothing else to consume, she would have him.
In the end, between the two of them, she was the one holding the uppper hand, wasn't she?
FIN