The robotic scream wrenching itself from Metal suddenly skrees into the highest frequency it can manage, almost as if he were reacting to Bubble’s touch. It is rather unclear if it is coincidental or related, but nevertheless, it abruptly cuts itself off as soon as it happens. His chest is still heaving rapidly, as if he were hyperventilating.
He does not look at his brothers, fingers clenching and unclenching, but he does seem to respond— head shaking from side to side, slipping in his own fluids and falling clumsily into his brothers arms, his shoulders rotating back in a grotesque manner as he leans against Bubble’s chest, apparently exhausted. His breathing starts to slow, but it is an awfully messy scene. He’s trying to do what Crash told him to do— trying to reduce his processors, but it’s difficult to think.
Metal’s head lolls to the side, focusing in on Crash. His eyes are no longer the wide-eyed, mad gaze he was wearing when he’d come in, but that of their brother.
But what was that even, anymore?Bubbles wasn’t expecting Metal to just collapse into his arms, let alone not fight at all. He ran his fingers through Metal’s hair in what he hoped would be a soothing motion while he tried to think. No one knew them better inside and out that Wily, but this was such a grotesque scene, Bubbles didn’t want to shock the old man into death. But he had no idea where Flash was. He was on the moon, or something. Flash was becoming more and more like that Cheshire Cat, everywhere and no where all at once.
“I-I would say Flash, but I have no idea where he is,” Bubbles finally said. He looked back down at Metal and grimaced. He stood up slowly, adjusting his weight to make sure Metal didn’t fall, but boy was that difficult. Now he was absolutely covered in robo-gore and that makes some slippery work. But he was able to shuffle Metal clumsily into Crash’s arms. “It’ll have to be Wily, I guess. He should be easier to find. I hope.”
A strange calm had come over Bubbles. Maybe he had just fried a couple of his programs, maybe he was going through what humans called shock, but he was calm. He could almost think clearly. Bubbles almost wanted to ask what just happened? Did this really just happen? A glance at his room and at himself was a unreassuring ‘yes, this just happened. And you are very lucky to have survived.’ This was going to be a lot of work he was thinking. A lot of things are going to need to be replaced, much like chocolate, oil does not come out.But why was he thinking about that? He looked back up to Crash and Metal and he felt his eyes water. Oh. Right. His calm was starting to dissolve, but he had to keep that in, at least wait until Metal wasn’t in pieces and bleeding over everything.
“Finding either of them isn’t a problem.” Crash replies quickly, when Bubbles tries to figure out who’d be repairing their brother. Wily was predictably in his labs, and he could get ahold of Flash… in a flash. The more he thought about it, the better idea it seemed to be to take Metal to their brother, it was about damn time he did something for their family anyway.
Crash watches as Bubbles loads Metal into his arms, and he clutches him as tightly as he can, his arms not really shaped for it. Really, it was a little less like ‘clutched’ and more like ‘locked in’, Crash’s drills framing his own face.
Metal…
He’d warned him.
This is reflected pretty clearly in his eyes, red and unsympathetic. That was something though- Crash didn’t look angry. Frustrated, disappointed, but not angry, not surprised, not horrified. Even if his eyes were hard and his jaw was set, he doesn’t say “I told you so” or “You deserve this.” He was taking him to be repaired, after all.
That’s what brothers did for each other.
>Flash, I need you.
>I need you in your main lab on the island, ASAP. Don’t keep me waiting, bring skin glue.
There’s a pause.
>Bring whatever you need to reskin a face. Meet you there.
“Bubbles, he’s going to be fine.” Crash reassures sharply, trying to snap him out of it…. but there was that shared worry.
“We’re all going to be fine.” he adds, voice softer.
((this picture is dedicated to chloe
NOW HIS GOGGLES ARE ON HIS EYES
WHAT NOW?????????????
OOC: this is the most glorious thing in the history of glorious things
((Can't tell if IC or OOC))
Flash: 911-Twilight-Sparkle favorited my grits picture.
Crash: Nothing you say makes sense anymore.
dwn020 replied to your post: flashistheman liked your post: Are you a virgin? …
I wouldn’t be surprized if he was the one sending these.
I’d normally agree with you, except I’m sure he already knows which DWNS still have their V-card. In fact, he made a chart.
elecman replied to your post: flashistheman liked your post: Are you a virgin? …
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Anonymous
No. They were lying, he hisses, maybe out loud. He doesn’t know.
They had to be lying! There was no way he was allowed to be flawed, he says to himself. The laughter bubbles up again. It was always them; it was always someone else. He was perfect. He was built to be a leader. He was built to be listened to. Of course they would want him out of the picture, now that they were all conspiring with Rock Man. He was alone, again. He would complete his mission. He was right. He had to be right. He was…
Lord, he was crazy.
“SHUT UP!” He screams. It’s pitiful to watch, now that he no longer has the upper hand. “SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!!” He almost seems to gurgle, and it’s chilling how his lack of mouth does not move when he speaks. The oil rains down from his manic, gaping maw as he wildly attempts to regain proper motor control. “SHUT—”
Metal falls to his knees, and his head crashes solidly against the ground. Another scream is torn from his voicebox, and his chest heaves uncontrollably as his incoherent shouts suddenly spiral into sobs. Crash had warned him about this. Even with a warning he had been powerless to stop it. But what could he do? What other action could he have been expected to execute when the burning desire for Rock’s head still pumped through his veins? He felt so helpless. He knew nothing, anymore, relying on others to tell him what to do, or how to act, it was revolting.
He had no other purpose. How had his brothers ever dealt with this for so long? How had he? He was going madder within a few months than he seemed to have throughout the rest of his recorded data. Metal twists in anguish. How could he have ever allowed himself to attempt to harm his brothers as he had today? It was shameful.
The raw emotions explode through his sensors. He’s effectively overwhelmed and can do nothing but try and suppress the sudden keening noise erupting from his sound output, his fingers digging into the skin of his face and most practically tearing away at the seams.“Oh fuck,” Bubbles skittered past Crash and knelt in front of Metal, tearing his hands away from his face. “Stop it. Stop it!!” he practically screams into his older brother’s face. Fear of bodily harm was gone after Metal collapsed and started tearing at his own face. With all of the oil it was difficult to get a grasp on Metal’s wrists and tear them away from his face, but he does it. “Don’t do this to yourself, don’t hurt yourself more than this!”
He looks up at Crash, and can’t find words. He’s more than grateful that he had come to his rescue, but now Metal was damaged beyond anything he could repair and he didn’t know what to do. This was beyond him. He hadn’t been in a serious fight since, well, since Mega Man. He always would find a way out, or something would solve the fight for him. “Crash, we have to… We have to get somebody,” he was crying again. “He’ll run out of oil soon and he’ll stop functioning again. Crash, what – what do we do?”
Crash watches in horror as Metal seems to fall apart in front of them, his anger dissolving instantly at the shock of it all. He’d expected… what, violence? Then Bubbles turning to him, tears running down his cheeks… watching his family implode in real-time was overwhelming, enough so that when he was addressed his drills stopped quite suddenly with a loud CLACK.
His first instinct was… less than admirable. He was still angry enough to almost say “So?”, but it’s gone as soon as it comes. Metal, crazy or not, was their family and their brother. He’d shifted when Bubbles had moved, wanting to remain between them, still in Crash mode and ready to fight.
“Flash or Wily?” is his quick reply, only looking marginally guilty about what he’d been thinking of. His eyes dart up to Metal, not sure if he should bother trying to address him. “He’ll stop ‘bleeding’ if he powers down, but-” but it seemed unlikely. The ‘oil’, really more of a greasy mix of lubricants and coolants, was everywhere now. If he powered down, his systems wouldn’t be attempting to circulate it clean out of him. Hopefully he wasn’t getting air in his circulatory tubing. That was never pleasant. Crash pauses, frowning, pursing his lips.
“Help get him in my arms.” he says, kneeling next to Bubbles.
A while ago we drew some of the shotabots if they were older looking and I redid my doodle of that. …In MSPaint because I’m really cool.
((*A* YOUR ART IS SO PRETTY))
“DON’T LIE TO M—” he starts again, turning back to snap at Bubble, but it’s cut off as Crash’s drill easily splinters through his helmet, slicing itself straight through his skin. Oil spurts everywhere as his mouth is literally torn to pieces, shredded into a gaping hole across the lower half of his face.
Bubbles doesn’t know what is going on for a moment. Crash was in his (now destroyed) doorway. Then Bubble was on the ground laying awkwardly over his over turned chair with Crash standing between him and a profusely bleeding Metal.
“Metal, no!” his voice was still small, barely audible. He was flabbergasted by all the blood then he saw Crash’s drill. “Human Jesus…!” he breathed. He looked between Crash and Metal. “Metal, no, never. You’re our eldest brother, why would we want you gone? You mean so much to us, please, none of this was to – to get rid of you! We-” he cut himself off at Metal’s last statement.
This was terrible. This was worst than when they had grabbed him in July. Something was truly, deeply wrong and a hard reset couldn’t fix it. That fear he buried after that incident was back. Would he become like this too? Paranoid and violent to the point of insanity?
“Metal,” he got up on shaky legs. “Metal, there’s nothing we want more than for you to be with us.”
Crash continues carefully to put himself between Metal and Bubble, making sure their older brother would never get another clean shot at him again. He hadn’t meant to damage Metal’s skin, but then again, he’d cut Bubbles and maker only knew what had been in store for him if he hadn’t let himself in.
“FUCK YOU TOO!” he shouts right back at Metal, his core burning, ready to keep fighting. For a moment though he turns his head sharply- mechanically- staring at Bubbles out of the corner of his eye.
Befriending Rockman? Was that what had Metal so up in arms?
When Bubble speaks, his words soothe at least a little, they distract. They defuse Crash’s anger some- they DID love Metal- their brother. Hitting him wasn’t the only way to help, even if it was the most satisfying.
“I warned you about this!” he shouts through gritted teeth, drills spinning fast and noisy. Crash is spattered with Metal’s blood- when it coated his drill, it had flung everywhere, almost like a mist. “I warned you that this paranoia BULLSHIT always happens, but you didn’t listen to me! Rockman might be a self-righteous little douchebag but Bubbles is free to befriend with whoever the fuck he wants! You might be his brother, but you’re not his maker! BACK OFF!”
Okay, maybe he was working himself back up.
“This is NOT how you treat your family! You need to disarm or get the hell out!”
“Well- well-” Crash stammers over the low whine of his drills, face scrunched up a little. “You know, I really don’t mind filling you in on stuff and, and no one’s really holding that whole uh, jumbled up thing against you. I mean, they haven’t so far and uh, you know, you’ve BEEN getting better. Do your logs reflect that?” he wonders, fighting the urge to pace.
“Heck, that last one you were was just mostly confused and uh… okay, yeah, a little zany but um… I forgot what I was talking about. Anyway, I know you didn’t ask for my opinion or anything but uh, I’ve been watching you.” he relates with a little frown. “I’ve always been watching you. Each different you. You all do the same thing eventually, and that’s about where it all goes to shit and… and you’re already there much faster than the others, it’d seem.”
“I do?” It wasn’t a very far stretch, he figured. Crash was easy to read— he didn’t need any back-up data or logs to tell him that, but he was also observant. Normally he would not trust that thought alone, but he trusted himself, and his past selves… had all respected Crash’s integrity, whether grudgingly or openly. “I,” Metal pauses.
Something in him violently rejects the idea that Crash had to tell him what to do, though. There was no reason to. He was the leader, he was perfect. He would figure it out. He was the master of war, wasn’t he?
But this wasn’t war. This was trying to keep himself from hurting his brothers like he had before. In a way, maybe it was even more important than withholding his position as the Big Brother. But he would never admit that to himself.
He finally accepted the idea of asking Crash for advice. It was important to listen to your squad’s wishes and input, after all. Metal turns further to face his brother, tilting his head in what he remembered was an acceptable expression of puzzlement.
“What would I do, Crash?”
Crash watches him quietly, thinking. No, thinking was what a human would do- Crash was processing. Taking all the memory data he had of the Metal reincarnations and comparing them for the commonality he saw.
“You become obsessive. Sometimes over people, sometimes over ideas. Lately it was about losing your memories. It just started casually but over time turned into an obsession, and you started getting… well, paranoid.” he says with a little frown, shifting uncomfortably.
“But I’ve seen you do it with people too- you were dating Blues earlier this year and just… you became so obsessed with him and paranoid that you just…. fell apart when he couldn’t deal with it anymore.” oh, that had been so messy. “Then you were obsessed with Rock, and that’s normal- we all seem to lose that urge once we’ve been defeated once or twice, and in your programming, you haven’t faced him yet. Unfortunately…”
Well, he’d hoped the rumor hadn’t been true, but…
“I heard you uh, would go over to his house and watch him sleep with your face pressed against the window? So… again, obsessing. And then… and then it turns into paranoia. You were heading down that track quickly but then uh Strike Man whacked you pretty hard, right, but it just seemed to reset again. Then you were obsessed with your lost memories and starting to get paranoid about what you lost and…”
Crash wants to take Metal’s hand in his, but even though he was relaxed, for some reason he couldn’t coax his drills into hands. It practically seemed like an omen, that unconsciously, he couldn’t relax around his brother. He hoped that Metal didn’t understand the significance of it.
“I don’t want you to keep doing these cycles, brother. I love you- we all love you- and we don’t want to see you in pain any more, but… but sometimes we don’t know how to help you.”
nitroman replied to your post: So can I expect that sandwich sometime around Christmas? Jeez.
Fine fine, be mean to the guy who brought you your laptop. See if /I/ care. >8(
>Oh whatever. Gonna go get a burger or somethin’, I can’t deal with this bar-less island for any longer anyway .
YOU CAN SIT YOUR ASS DOWN FOR FIVE MINUTES WHILE I PUNCH MY BROTHER’S HEAD IN, NITRO
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nitroman replied to your post: So can I expect that sandwich sometime around Christmas? Jeez.
Fine fine, be mean to the guy who brought you your laptop. See if /I/ care. >8(
