reality_crossroads | Happy Halloween!

"Blaine had a degenerative condition called 'going insane'," Little Blaine says. And the very observant might note he didn't specify Big Blaine that time. The insanity had started first, after all. "Big Blaine was very dangerous," he adds. And that's a difference. He nods when going anywhere is mentioned. "Some of Quint's family want to teach me other games, like soccer. And how to climb trees." The last he speaks of as an especially surreal concept. Monorails do not run up trees.

Quint rubs the back of his neck and looks sheepish as he realizes he's going to have to explain Rock's issues after all. Though two of them come something close to right. "He wasn't designed that way. Rock was just a lab-tech, like Roll was a cook and housekeeper. Noncombatants. Even the Alphas were just industrial work designs until Wily's first attempt at taking over the world..." He sighs and picks up a decently large candy bar. "Remember I said he died because of a First Law issue? It's... more complicated than that." He looks over the candy bar with an odd expression, as if it's something sad and bitter, and yet something he's almost managed to view as nostalgic in a twisted sort of way. "This is your brain," he says, mocking an ancient anti-drug commercial. And then he snaps the candy bar in half. "This is your brain when First Law insists you have to go fight, and probably kill, your younger siblings because they got reprogrammed into killing humans."

"Sometimes AI can learn and adapt to a situation a little too much. Mega exists to do what Rock couldn't. At first, he wasn't much more than... a kind of mental state where Rock would suppress the parts of himself that hated fighting. But by the time he got to the first of the Alphas... They aren't the same person any more than Castor and Pollux - the two halves of Gemini - are. But since he wasn't designed to be that way, it's dangerous if they argue too much. If they fight over who's active. It causes parts to overheat that can't be replaced. It's not usually a problem, since they don't deal with the same things. But at the first end... Mega caught the virus. Rock didn't. And he fought him all the way. They froze up and got blown up by the explosives Mega was going to set."

Their recognition of the name thing helps distract him from bad memories, and he smirks a bit as he nods in confirmation. "The American games never mentioned Rock's name, just calling him Mega, so most people out of Japan missed the joke. We have a shared older brother named Blues... who they called Proto in the American games, and who we call Proto only if we want to get smacked. And on the Wily side, it continued in the RKNs. Like I said, my name's short for Quintet. The two younger RKNs are Punk and Ballade. And I have an older brother named Enker... Enka is a type of Japanese music. And then there's Forte, and his wolf Gospel..."

That amusement keeps him from getting too down when the topic's back to the complexity of the paradox. He nods. "And he can't get infected now. We wiped out the virus. Even if something else killed him, the memories wouldn't be the same as the ones I had." But the rest, he nods. "That's what worries me. I mean... I don't think I could have done anything differently even if I had known. I couldn't have just let everyone die. Maybe I would have tried to find a way to fake it all so it would still make sense... But I thought it was all just precognitive nightmares up until the day Zero went on an Omega-induced rampage. Even then... I wasn't sure until Wily's little surprise unlocked." Which hadn't stopped the whole thing being creepy, even thinking back... watching Rock do and say the same things he'd been doing in his dreams, and realizing it was all from the persoective of his family's worst enemy.

"Sometimes, I still expect I'll disappear... or everything else will. But nothing's happened. Sometimes I think that's because of the Nexus. The most rational possibility would be that the Timeskimmer actually jumped timelines instead of doing actual time travel. The last parts of it were in the same closet that the first portal to the Nexus opened up in... But... I don't like that answer any more than I like thinking we're all supposed to vanish from existance. Because... if that was true, everyone still died." And there was enough of the hero left in the Wilybot to find that unacceptable.

It was a lot easier for him to just avoid thinking about it... And that's shielded him from knowing that the reason the broken time-loop hasn't collapsed is that they aren't at the end of it. They have until the point the Timeskimmer would have gone to to find a way to fake what would have been found and possibly repair the damage. Even then, there will be a minor time hiccup in the whole 'but where did it come from to start' sort, but at least the loop would be closed.

Edited 2018-06-16 10:00 (UTC)

Dee does note that sudden exclusion of "Big" or "Little" from the first sentence. She's pretty sure she can work out what happened with the whole "going insane" business from there. "He sounds like he was dangerous," she says with a little nod. "Too bad." But let's not dwell on that, not when there are games to talk about. "Soccer's fun -- or, well, kicking around a ball is. And Victor could give you climbing lessons. He's really good." As in, 'how on earth did you scale that cliff?!' good.

Quint's explanation of the whole Mega/Rock thing is met with a few sympathetic winces and grimaces. "Oh. So a more genuine split personality," Doc murmurs. "Created to deal with something he simply couldn't do on his own. That does help explain a lot, yes."

"Yeah," Marty says, shaking his head. "Shit, that sucks. I don't even want to think about what it must have been like for Rock when Mega was infected. . ." Having to fight for control of your own body, hurting yourself so you won't do something terrible -- that's a new and interesting level of hell.

"Sounds like a twisted version of me versus the Queen," Alice mumbles. "Glad I didn't have anything in me that could overheat."

Fortunately, Quint going down the roster of musical bots helps boost the mood a little again. "You see, that's no fair to us Americans," Marty complains, though he does so with a smile. "I would have thought it the coolest thing ever to play a robot called Rock after rock-n-roll."

"Take it up with the people who translated the game, not him," Doc says, chuckling. He sobers as they go back to talking about the paradox. "Yes, I get that. I don't think I could have acted any differently in your place. Letting people die to keep the timeline in order, particularly friends and loved ones. . .even if it's logical, it doesn't sit right with me. Better to find a way to trick the timestream -- or just do it and deal with the consequences."

"The Nexus could very well have something to do with it," Doc agrees. "It's a meeting place of all possible times and places. It might very well have affected those parts. . .though, again, I get how you feel. I don't like thoughts like those either." Mostly because they get him thinking about timelines where he might not have escaped from faerie. That's just depressing. "If you haven't faded from existence yet, perhaps paradoxes aren't the same threat level in your universe."

"Either that, or it's taking its sweet-ass time catching up with you," Marty shrugs. "I mean, in the movie, I had a week to get my parents back together before I faded out entirely. As long as they met, and kissed at the 'Enchantment Under The Sea' dance, everything was pretty much fine."

Little Blaine is silent for a moment before he moves a little closer and admitting, quietly, "I know it shouldn't damage me, but... I think I'm afraid of falling."

Quint nods. "Yes... but like I said, this time Mega didn't get infected. And I'm... I'm not really that other Rock. I'm a Wilybot." There's something in this that sounds like he says it to convince himself as well. It's hard having those memories, and sometimes it's easier to consider them an 'inheritance' from the dead rather than part of his past.

Getting back to the name thing lets him push those thoughts aside. "Yeah, though... Roll's the one who started saying it's a red herring, and she was named for something you put in an oven while Rock was named for the contents of his head."

He nods to the rest and just says, "It's been a lot longer than a week. And a lot has changed from that point. If we go by the games as what should have happened, we're pretty far from it now."

Dee nods. "It's okay. Lots of people are. I don't like falling myself." Reminds her too much of what might have happened during certain parts of her past if things had gone wrong. "You don't have to climb if you don't want to. But if you do, Victor really is that good."

"And I'm sure everybody's super-thankful," Marty says, finally giving up on the proton pack trying to compress his spine and slipping it off his shoulders. "Oof. . ." Onto the ground it goes. "That's better. But yeah -- you're you, and he's him. Great that you were able to use some of his memories to stop what sounds like the damn apocalypse, but. . ." He shrugs.

"Exactly -- you're your own person," Doc agrees. "With your own musical name."

Marty nods, then laughs as Quint tells them about Roll's thoughts on her brother. "Sounds like how me and Linda used to get along. She never missed a chance to snark about me or Dave. Guess it was tough being the girl in the middle, but I seriously wondered if we could adopt her out to another family sometimes."

"Yeah, well, what they put in 'canon' isn't always the best," Marty says, expression turning sour. "Like that damn Animated Series Back To The Future got."

"I'm not strictly sure that's canon, Marty," Doc admits.

"It's still a piece of shit."

"It's still strange to not just go back and forth on the same path," Little Blaine admits, "without adding going up. Or in water." Though they tell him swimming is fun.

Quint can't help a snerk, and then feels he has to explain it. "Yeah, the apocalypse also known as my baby brother." He shakes his head. "Though it was really Omega - the virus - that caused all those problems... Zero, well... newly activated Wilybots can sometimes be, um, unintentionally destructive? He wasn't as bad as some, but his being a lot stronger than the rest of us made up for that." There were quite a lot of funny stories regarding 'baby' Zero.

He'll nod at the rest. "It's tough being the only girl, period." While he isn't now, he has enough bits of Roll's memories to know that more than most guys would. "Most of the older ones were designed male. Until around when Wily died, Roll was pretty much it... unless you count Blues' cat Tango. Turned out Magic was just passing as male for... safety reasons, and Plant-chan identifies as female but wasn't actually designed with a gender."

Another nod. "Yeah, we weren't too happy about some of the games, either. But at least they gave enough clues about what Weil was up to for him to be stopped, even with all the differences between timelines by then. I doubt anything else from them will match up at all."

Cripes -- sounds like being a train isn't any more fun than being hit by one. "Well, I don't think anybody's gonna make you up and down and in water before you're ready," Dee assures him. "But it's nice being able to go around anywhere you wanna go, right?"

Marty is indeed a bit confused by the snerk -- then laughs himself as Quint explains a little more. "Oh boy. . .yeah, I can imagine he caused some chaos."

"Indeed," Doc agrees, also rather amused. "It's hard enough for an organic being to get used to its body after being born. A mechanical one, who has a lot more strength and ability to move. . .I suspect a fair few things were broken in those first few -- weeks? Months?" He doesn't know how long a robot "childhood" lasts.

"Eh, fair," Marty admits. "Though Linda had Mom, at least. Roll must have been thrilled when more girls started showing up. Or started admitting they were girls."

"Well, good," Marty says. "All the Animated Series gave me was a headache. Seriously, I have a hard time believe one of the guys who was like head writer on the movies also worked on that thing."

"Don't get him started," Alice warns Quint, twirling her tail. "He'll go on for ages about how bad it was."

Little Blaine thinks on it, and nods. "It is a lot better than having to stay on the tracks. Maybe... I think Patricia and Blaine might not have gone insane if they could have left Lud. But even if they used the tracks they would still be there, because we were the trains and we were under the city too. I like that I'm not there any more."

Quint makes a slight not in response to Alice's warning and decides to shift things back to the exploits of Baby Zero as a distraction. "Yeah, plus... he was the first new one after we found out about the Nexus. And one of the first of us that were upgraded to be able to eat human food." Though it hadn't been an 'upgrade' in Zero's case as he was designed with the ability. "And he really likes food..." Given the most common cause of LOLs back in the day, that had made for some difficulties.

"I can bet," Dee nods. "Being stuck in one place is sucky pretty much all the time. Me, I'm glad I can drive around myself when I'm a car. And throw people out I don't want in me," she adds, making a face as she recalls the trips she made with Biff Tannen behind the wheel. Her bum hurts just thinking about it.

"Oooooh no," Marty says, facepalming. "That must have been fun. He ever get a hold of that watermelon soda that lets you walk on walls?" He can only imagine the chaos a baby robot would do with that ability.

Big salmon pink eyes blink at Dee from bedsheet holes. "When are you a car?"

Quint chuckles and shakes his head. "No, thankfully. But he got gender-switched at least once, turned chibi, turned into a baby... um, that one was an LOL that made someone look their actual age.... But one of the worst wasn't even an LOL. He ran into someone here who fed him some fried grubs that were part of their local cuisine. And gave him some more of them later... and he tried to feed Dr. Wily a chocolate and minca-grub milkshake."

"Oh, didn't I say? Dee's short for DeLorean. Uh, here. . ." Dee runs ahead a bit, indicates for Little Blaine to wait, then -- well, there's a moment where the world warps, just a tiny bit, and then in front of him is a shiny silver DeLorean DMC-12. One that's been heavily modified, though -- there's two large exhaust vents on the back, and what looks like a coffee grinder attached to the engine between them. All sorts of lights and cables wind around and through the car's workings -- and if he looks inside the window, he'll see what looks like a giant readout of three digital clocks, labeled (from top to bottom) "Destination Time," "Present Time," and "Last Time Departed." There's also a strange box containing a glowing yellow Y in the back. It's clear to see that Dee is no ordinary vehicle, even beyond the ability to turn human.

The entire group shudders at that last ancedote. "Ewwww," Marty says, making a face. "That's nasty."

"Not to the person who was eating them in the first place," Alice says, wrinkling her nose. "But I wouldn't want one."

"Me either," Victor agrees, one hand over his mouth. "I hope someone stopped him before he gave it to Dr. Wily!"

Little Blaine does, indeed, try to peek in a window... though he has to stand on tip-toe to do so and then ends up falling on his rear, with what is likely a surprised expression under the bedsheet to judge from the blinking.

"He still insists they're nutty and good with chocolate," Quint deadpans, before nodding. "Bubble told Enker what was in the milkshake and Enker wouldn't let Zero take it in the lab. So he ended up bringing it to the Nexus and trying to find a human that would drink it to counter the argument that humans don't eat bugs..."

Dee honks her horn in a way that suggests a giggle, then warps back to her little girl self. "Neat, huh?" she says, offering him a hand back up. "You okay there?"

"Well, that's good." Victor touches his stomach. "I wonder if anyone did end up drinking it. I know some cultures do eat insects. . .though I don't think in milkshakes."

"Tequila's got something going on with worms?" Marty says, chewing his lower lip. "I dunno what, exactly -- never touched the stuff."

Little Blaine nods as he's helped up, looking a bit confused about the whole falling down thing. "Yes. I'm okay. I'm not used to being in this shape yet. And I don't change like you do."

"Someone did," Quint said, with a headshake. "And they knew what was in it first, too. We had a hard time after that convincing him that even if some people would eat bugs Dr. Wily would not want to." He shakes his head no at the mention of tequila. "Actually, tequila doesn't have the worm. Tequila is a type of mezcal, which is a liquor made from agave, and the worm is a kind of larva that lives on the plant. Mezcal can be made from any kind of agave, but tequila is only made with blue agave. Lower grade mezcal has the worm so that you can tell it apart from the tequila. So if anyone ever tries to give you 'tequila' with a worm in it, they're trying to rip you off." He rubs the back of his head and looks a bit sheepish at knowing so much about liquor. "Dr. Wily preferred a good scotch, but, well... we all had to know which were the right bottles for what he wanted or he'd get angry."

Edited 2018-11-24 19:07 (UTC)

"Yeah, legs are weird after wheels," Dee agrees, looking down at her own. "I'm just lucky that whatever gave me a human form also made sure I could walk around in it from the start." She pats his shoulder. "You'll get it down. Eventually."

"All it takes is one person willing to chow down. . ." Marty listens with interest as Quint explains about tequila and the worm. "Huh! And here's me thinking everybody who likes tequila just got over the worm thing. . .don't really drink, but good to know, I guess."

There's a sympathetic wince all around as Quint explains how he knows so much about alcohol. "He sounds like he was a wonderful man," Alice says, rolling her eyes.

Little Blaine nods agreement. "There is basic coding, driver software that all Reploids get... but it still takes practice. I've only been like this for a few hours."

"He... was, once. But that was a long time before he died," Quint says, looking sad... and then a trace angry, though not at his current company. "Those old platformer games never tell anyone he went crazy because of brain damage. And he got that because some anti-robot extremist sabotaged the experimental teleporter he and Blues were working on." He shrugs, and the anger fades. "When bad things happen, people always need someone to blame. They blame us instead of him, even though we had to follow his orders. But it wasn't really his fault either... not the person he was before, anyway. The person he turned into, yeah, but... I like to think he couldn't help that."

"A few hours? And you're already out in the Nexus?" Dee is impressed -- it took her a couple of days of running around Chicago in confusion before she ventured through the scary door into this mess of conflicting timelines. "Well, good place to practice, I suppose. Plenty of room to walk!"

"Yeah -- the video games I was into before shit went down weren't big on plot," Marty says sympathetically. "That all came later. . . That's pretty horrible, though. Must have been tough on those of you who knew the old Wily."

"You'd think someone at some point would have blamed the fellow who sabotaged the teleporter," Alice says, frowning. "He's the one who sounds like he could use blaming."

Edited 2018-11-27 04:56 (UTC)

Little Blaine nods again under the bedsheet. "There is Trick or Treat. Quint didn't want me to miss it, even though I am new to this and new to them. I don think I'm really new, though... but I don't remember how old I am. Big Blaine took most of the memories with him. I have always been smaller than Big Blaine - or Patricia, before she was gone - so now I am smaller than the other Wilybots like Quint. I think this makes sense." And he hasn't been left alone in all of the time since the left Lud.

Quint nods. "Just Blues, and me, really... and I only know what he was like because I met a sane alternate here. He... took care of me when I first showed up here. Then one day the pocket reality he stayed in didn't connect to the Nexus any more."

"I'm not sure the exact person was ever identified, just the group that claimed credit for the explosion. Blues might know, or maybe not. I know he's not saying... except that right after Ragnarok, he told us the last of them had been, um... that they were gone." Had a dinner party to attend, with hungry dinosaurs, to be exact.

"Well, that was nice of him," Dee says, with a glance back at Quint. "And yeah, age is tough when you're not a human. I'm pretty sure I'm older than a little kid, but I kinda like this body." She sweeps her hand up and down her flesh. "So if what you got makes sense to you, go with it."

The group shares a sad look as Quint explains about the Wily alternate. "We've had that happen too," Marty says. "It sucks."

"Never pleasant to have to give up a friend," Doc agrees. "Hopefully our realities will remain connected for a long time to come."

There's a bit of side-eyeing at that last statement. They may not know what exactly Blues did, but the way Quint backtracked just a little there. . .they can take a few guesses. "Well, sounds like they're certainly no threat anymore," Alice says diplomatically. "Which is the important part."

"Yes, it was. I think he is a nice person. And they tell me candy is nice. I haven't eaten any of it yet. I haven't eaten anything yet..." He's a little worried about the details of it, all that chewing and so on. If it's as complicated as walking, and picking things like eggs up without breaking them...

Quint nods, face serious. He wouldn't have censored it if not for the children present - though, all things considered, he knows Little Blaine has experienced far worse than most of what he could ever mention. "Yeah. At least it's over now. For Dr. Wily, too. And maybe, someday, there will be more good stuff than bad for people to remember."

"He seems that way," Dee confirms, then grins. "And candy is awesome! Unless it's a gross kind like licorice. Though I guess somebody must like it if they keep making it." She shrugs. "Wanna try a piece? There's plenty here thanks to the candy storm."

Dee's gone through her fair share of shit as well, honestly -- being stolen by Biff, struck by lightning multiple times, that extremely close call with the train. . .but nobody in this group really wants to hear about somebody getting torn apart by dinosaurs, so all for the best he not get into the details. "Someday," Alice agrees. "It just -- takes time."

"Yeah, we're living proof," Marty says with a slight, sad smile. "We've all got our share of bad stuff in our past, but these days. . .I think I've got more good memories than bad."

Little Blaine considers that, and nods slowly. "But not licorice." Because he will believe her that it's gross.

Quint nods. "It's already better for my family. A lot better. But it'll take other people from our world longer than that to see us as something other than... semi-retired weapons of mass destruction." He can't help a chuckle, some of his siblings introduced themselves as such, and it really was reasonably accurate.

"Good idea," Dee says. She'll start rooting through the available candy for something she thinks Blaine might like. "How about a Kit-Kat?" she says, holding up one of those mini two-bar ones. "They're crunchy."

"Yeaaah, that's not something you shake overnight," Marty says, with a quirk of his eyebrow. "But hopefully things'll keep getting better for you guys. Always gotta look to the future, right?"

Little Blaine nods. "Crunchy... That means it needs to be chewed?" He hopes he gets this right.

Quint nods. "Doing that is what got us where we are, in a way. Not just me knowing some future things that I wanted to make sure didn't happen, but...there used to be alternates here, back when things were busy, from futures we didn't like. And even after that, there were the games... some of those had events that hadn't happened yet for us, even if our own world had changed so most of it couldn't be exactly the same any more."

"I don't know if... Weil might have won if the games hadn't been enough of a clue to prepare for what he was planning. He was just one of those people who... you always feel like they're playing chess ten moves ahead of you." Which is bad, when they're the enemy.

"Yeah, some," Dee confirms. "There's not a lot of stuff you can eat without chewing. It's not like a Tootsie Roll or Milk Dud, though -- those need a lot of chewing, and they can get stuck to your teeth."

"Yikes -- people like that are scary," Marty admits, grimacing. The Fae had felt like that, a bit -- with the added "bonus" of being able to change the rules of the game whenever they felt like it. "I guess it's really lucky you guys got all that future knowledge to outsmart him."

"Indeed -- my own movie counterpart might panic about that sort of thing, but it seems to have done you nothing but good," Doc nods. "That version of me seemed to be a little overly anxious about changes to the timeline in general. Though I guess having some teenager from thirty years in the future show up on your doorstep after accidentally having prevented his parents from meeting would do that. . ."

That sounded a bit scary. "I don't want anything to be stuck." Learning to chew will be tricky enough.

Quint nods. Enker had made sure he was one of the few let in on the whole content of the games, and Zero had let a few others know when it was all over... "And not just to win. If Zero hadn't known he'd need to have a way to survive a fall out of orbit after dealing with Weil..."

And the mention of the films makes Quint briefly look embarrassed. "I, um, I've seen those, but I know how different things can be. But... I spent most of the third film wanting to smack your alternate," he admits, rubbing the back of his neck and looking very sheepish. "Leaving that woman there was the one thing they couldn't do, because she wasn't supposed to be there any more. They had to take her with them because she couldn't be anywhere in their relative past, because she already wasn't. But the movie kept playing it as completely the other way around."

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