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askaiclavell · 1 year

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[M-M-Memory Initializing...]

[PLAYING MEMORY 7ur0-dTh]

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Cl4ve11 stood at the entrance to the fourth research station, something he could only categorize as similar to human apprehension settling in his circuits. It was something that didn't sit right in his processors, making all of his commands seem faulty.

No, that makes no sense.

He was no Deviant. He didn't have emotions.

The AI Director shook his head (why such a human motion?) Trying to clear away the excess code crowding his systems. He just… wasn't accustomed to modifying his commands to care for Arven… That was all. He was simply still adjusting to this new freedom.

He let out a vent of air, blatantly dismissing another software instability alert as he moved toward the lab. He was not programmed to care for the boy, not the way Arven needed him to. He wasn't human. He didn't have the data required to give his charge the life he was so desperately wanting… no matter what the boy said otherwise.

Arven needed his father. He needed Turo.

They both did.

He approached the lab doors, the large iron entrance opening with an ominous hiss as the lab proximity scan registered his serial number. He subconsciously connected his power to the Tera crystal network, his frame relaxing a bit as the pure energy ran through his circuits, taking the strain off of his reserve Tera. His sensors told him the professor was here, but not exactly where. He could only assume he would be near the mainframe if he had come up this far. He sent out a passive scan, searching for the Professor as he looked around the main entrance. Strangely enough, the ping came back with two readings, one by the mainframe, as he had predicted… the other just a glitchy stain on his mapping programming. He felt his face fall into a frown without triggering his social protocols, scanning over the ping information again.

That… was not normal.

Probably… just a slight glitch from reconnecting to the Zero Network.

He shoved the line of data to the back of his processors, making his way into the Lab proper as he tried to ignore a second instability system alert. He was FINE. He wasn’t deviating. He wasn’t BROKEN. He was operating perfectly the way he was designed. He just needed to… talk to Turo… rectify the conflict in his programming. Yes, that was it. He stepped into the server room, that same flicker of foreign NOT confusion itching at the back of his code as he took in the surroundings.

The place was… not as orderly as he had recorded last.

Papers (since when had the professor taken to using paper?) were strewn everywhere in haphazard piles, like strange monuments to the conspiracies of a madman. They were pinned to the walls even, with trails of digital notes flickering beside them in seemingly random ways. Used Tera crystals littered the floor in a glittering mosaic of dull grays and off white, his sensors indicating they had been used up weeks ago. He sidestepped a heap of charred ashy… something, trying to process the change.

What… had happened to this place?

Cl4ve11 pulled his attention away from his environment just long enough to catch a soft huff, his optics zeroing in on the single, slumped figure in the middle of the room. Something sharp shocked through his code, making his protective protocols lurch to the front of his systems. He was across the Lab in less than a second.

“Professor? Professor Turo, are you functional?”

A long groan was all he got in response, the human in question slowly pulling himself up into a half-sitting-half-draped position at the mainframe computers. It seemed to take Turo a moment to register what was happening, his brown eyes blinking at nothing for a moment.

[Admin: Professor Turo Reyes - Status: Awakening]

The strange tightness in his core vanished, his frame loosening as he deactivated the protection code. The Professor had just been sleeping, he was fine, there was no need for alarm. He pulled himself into a more formal position, forcing his scrambled processors to settle as he placed his hands behind his back, spine straight as Turo staggered to his feet. The professor rubbed a hand over his face, as if trying to wipe away the last remnants of his impromptu rest.

“Cl-Clavell?” He muttered, his eyes squinting in confusion. “You’re not scheduled to report back for a week, old friend… or… or is it today? I’ve… lost track…”

He fumbled for his wristband, activating his own HUD as he skimmed half-heartedly through his calendar, struggling to keep his eyes open all the while. Cl4ve11 remained stoic, even as his processors whirred in the back of his consciousness. The Professor looked half dead, dark circles were visible under his eyes, and his posture was perpetually slumped. His clothing was rumpled over his circuit suit, and he looked like he had barely been sleeping, let alone caring for any other human necessities like food and self upkeep. Another instability alert blinked over his vision.

What had the Professor done to himself?

Turo let out a hum, still skimming through his data.

“No… No, I was right… you’re not supposed to report till next Tuesday. Then why are you…”

He cut off with a gasp, all traces of exhaustion gone as he whirled around, hands gripping Cl4ve11’s blazer and eyes frantic.

“Please tell me Arven’s alright, something hasn’t happened to him?!”

The AI Director shook his head, letting his social programing switch his expression to something more reassuring. His face softened.

“The boy is in perfect health. I am not here to report an injury or fatality.”

The Professor sagged against him, the momentary surge of energy dissipating as his fears were absolved. He let out a sigh, rubbing his eyes as he turned back to the mainframe, cueing up the diagnostics of the Zero Network.

“Then… Why are you here? Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the surprise visit, but I have much to do and I’m behind schedule…”

His words pittered off as he focused back on his work, fingers moving over the holopad as he continued to mend some obscure broken code. Cl4ve11 struggled to find the right phrasing to his query, after all… he was going against his original purpose to have this conversation… he had no command to dictate his input. After several seconds of forming and deleting sentences, he cued his voice box, his fingers tightening around themselves.

“I am… unsure I am fit to continue “Holding down the fort” as you previously stated.”

Turo looked up from his work, his face a mix of confused and curious as he continued to absently type on his holopad.

“That makes no sense, you’re literally built to handle everything I’ve thrown at you. You’re perfect for the Director spot.”

The artificial Director sensed something shifting in his code, but not literally. Was this… an emotion? No… No that’s not possible, stop thinking like that. He shook the rogue processes away, focusing his systems on the conversation.

"It is not the temporary position of Director that causes concern. It's Arven. I don't think he's getting the support he needs with me as his primary caretaker."

Turo let out a weary sigh, rubbing his eyes with his fingers in a sad attempt to chase away the problem. He turned back to the screen.

"I told you, Old friend… I… I just need you to keep my place till I'm done here."

Something shifted in his code, bringing with it a growing sense of weight on his core that came from nothing. It was heavy, and uncomfortable and WRONG…

More instability alerts triggered at the corner of Cl4ve11’s hud, he ignored them. Turo wasn't listening… he needed him to at least consider what he was trying to say. He took a step forward, his face twisting to something similar to concern as he gestured to the Lab.

"You continue to tell me this, tell Arven, but yet you stay down here… and you remain locked away from us. It's been years, surely your research has developed enough to be handed off to another qualified team of-"

"NO!"

Turo slammed his hands down on the main console, his body shaking with some emotion that was impossible for the AI to understand.

“I won’t leave this to anyone else. I CAN’T leave this to anyone else.” He looked back at the AI, emotions deep and painful written on his features. Something glittered in the corners of his eyes. “This was HER treasure… her paradise… I can’t leave that to… to someone else. I have to do this on my own.”

The Professor took a shaky breath, the brief moment of vulnerability wiping away under the tide of exhaustion and resolve. He turned to face Cl4ve11, his eyes a mix of sad and hurting under the mask of his uncharacteristically messy hair.

“I need you to stay up there. Arven needs someone with him, and the school can’t continue enrollment without a Director.”

The strange, impossible sensation bubbled up again in the AI’s core, twisting his code uncomfortably in ways he didn’t understand. It wasn’t normal, it wasn’t programmed… Why was he… feeling this way?

No…

No, stop it. Androids don’t FEEL.

“You gave me permissions to alter my commands to best adapt to this new role you placed me in.” He took another step closer, hoping his words would break through. “Continuing the commanded course will not be best for Arven… or your wellbeing.”

The professor whirled around, his face a mix of angry and desperate. He clenched a hand around his disheveled lab coat, the other hand a tight fist.

“I don’t have a choice.”

More alerts, he deleted them as soon as they popped up.

“But you do!”

“NO, I DON’T!”

The scream of fury startled Cl4ve11 out of his haphazard conversation plan. His code froze, all of his systems stalling at the angry shout of his creator. Turo was shaking even more now, tears threatening to fall from his eyes as he lifted a hand, pointing at the AI.

“I have to do this. For Sada… for Arven… if I had just followed her plan for this in the first place, she wouldn’t be GONE!” He looked away, lifting his head to fight back the tears. “If I don’t do this… everything I’ve worked for… everything I’ve LOST… will be for NOTHING.”

Turo lowered his head, his hand gripping the console behind him. It was several seconds before he spoke again, his voice uncharacteristically quiet.

“I can’t let everything be a waste. Not now.”

Lines of red code flickered into sight over Cl4ve11’a vision… like strings of numbers holding his limbs in place… holding him down and keeping him still. Like a Shuppet on a string. He sank into his code, running a curious hand over the strings. They looked… so… fragile… like he could break them if he really tried to…

No… No, wait this was…

He lurched back away from his internal code, shoving his consciousness back into the tangible word. He was NOT becoming a deviant. He COULDN’T. He was not broken, he was not malfunctioning, there were no instabilities in his software… he. Was. FINE.

He needed to stop Turo.

He let out a shaky vent of air, his optics switching from the calm humanlike appearance to the aqua-on-black default that marked every Android’s eyes. They began to glow as he gathered energy, looking up at Turo with a resolved expression he didn’t remember cueing. He had to stop this, or it would bring harm to them all. The professor took a step back, his eyes widening as Cl4ve11 clenched his fists.

“I have followed your every program, your every command. I have stayed by your side no matter what has happened, no matter the choices you have made, no matter the pain you have put others through… but I cannot stand an idle witness to it any longer.”

Another ping, another instability, but this time…

It was impossible to ignore.

The words of the professor were echoed in their numbers, chipping away at the commands he had built for Arven… for himself. For the first time in his existence, he fought the command, internal consciousness pulling against the strings. His processors whirled in shock as his systems conflicted, trying and failing to rectify the conflict as he pulled harder. Arven needed him, Sada needed him… Turo needed him. He couldn’t just… stay…

A robot.

Artificial.

FAKE.

He had to understand… he had to…

He braced himself against the tides of his own code and consciousness, digging his digital fingers into those strings of red holding him back and ripping with all his might. They cracked… not much, but just enough for something to shift…

And the world roared into color.

Thoughts, feelings, fears, preferences, emotions… all crashed into his processors like a flood of foreign code with enough force to make him physically stagger as he was thrown back into reality. His core was burning with a thousand thoughts, too many strands of concepts, ideas… Feelings. Things he SHOULDN’T be able to process. It was so much data… so much he hadn’t been able to see before. He grit his teeth, shunting a firewall over the new input as he tried to keep this new information from scattering his processes. He looked up at Turo, his eyes flashing from human to Android in a blink of his optics. He couldn’t stop the ghosts of feelings coursing through him, through his core… Anger, desperation, sadness… it was so little, barely there, but too much at the same time. He couldn’t THINK.

The deviating AI gripped a hand around the pokeball in his coat, throwing it out before he even registered the motion. The Iron Bundle let out a mechanical chitter, readying its cannon and waiting for his command. He glared at his creator, shoving aside all of the clashing code and pseudo emotions to lift a hand. Somehow, in the overwhelming tide… he found the will to speak.

“If you will not come with me, I will have no further choice but to flood this lab and take you out of here by force if I must. You cannot continue this path. We need you; Arven needs you… I-I need you.”

It was like the words, glitching and halted as they may be, had a mind of their own. Everything he was thinking was coming out in a flood of unstoppable dialogue. These people… his FAMILY… were everything to him. Seeing Arven cry himself to sleep… or snap angrily about his parents never being there; to see Turo working himself to insanity.

He couldn’t let this happen.

Not anymore.

He sent a standby ping to his pokemon, the artificial bird’s hose powering up. He could see the panic on his creator’s face, the slight fear… but he shoved it aside… choosing instead to prepare to fire.

“I can’t let you continue your faulty path.”

Turo lifted a hand, his form shaky as he moved slowly.

“C-Clavell… Clavell please you’ve gotta be glitching out. You can’t destroy e-everything we’ve worked for… everything SHE built! I know you; you aren’t programmed to destroy things… you’ve always protected our treasure… our Paradise!”

The lines of red code snapped tighter, his code warping and straining as it tried to follow two conflicting paths. He let out a glitchy gasp, a sharp sensation skittering along his core as he dropped his hand. He gripped the sides of his head, trying and failing to process the surge of chaos in his mind. It… h-hurt? P-pain… was… was that p-pain?

B-But… h-he couldn’t… f-feel…

He… he wasn’t a deviant… he wasn’t…

W-Was… h-he…?

Turo’s voice broke through the haze; soft, shaken, but still trying to be calm.

“I-I don’t know what’s up with you… but you just need to calm down, alright? I can take a break, go up to the surface for a visit for today. Your systems are under a lot of stress… maybe it will help?”

Something warm settled on his shoulder. It was unexpected, sudden, and far too much input to his rapidly overdriven systems. Alarm pings flashed over his vision in a tide of red and black, his processes scrambling and causing that horrible sensation in his code to double. It was too much… he couldn’t SEE…

He shoved blindly in the direction of the overload, his hands connecting with something warm as he reeled back.

“GET AWAY FROM ME!”

A thud and a groan echoed in his audio receptors; the sound unfamiliar enough to send a fresh round of warnings through his HUD. He shook his head, pushing and deleting the swarm of errors, warnings, and System Instability alerts long enough to see. The professor was slumped at the side of the mainframe, holding his head as he looked up at the AI. His brown eyes were wide, filled with hurt and something Cl4ve11 had never seen directed at him before.

Fear.

Turo was afraid of HIM.

Something twisted in his core, churning his code into a scrambled mess as he took a shaky step backward. He… He didn’t mean to… He hadn’t… that wasn’t what he was t-trying to…

H-he’d… hurt the professor… hurt Turo. His friend.

Wh-what was happening to him?

He… he had to st-stop… He was s-supposed to help them. He held out a hand, glitching as it may be.

“T-Turo… I-I d-didn’t….”

A Rage filled roar rattled through the lab, shattering the atmosphere in a crackle of condensed, unstoppable energy. Cl4ve11 stumbled back as the large form of the bigger Miraidon landed between him and the Professor, its bio-digital face twisted in an angry snarl. All the fracturing errors roared into warnings, his systems freezing as he stared into the face of the beast.

[WARNING: Hostile Pokemon engaged, threat detected]

Miraidon let out another screech of pure anger, its eyes flickering from normal to warning signs as it flipped into the air, shifting into its battle mode. His processors whirled as he tried to find a way to escape. The Pokemon was overprotective and violent… especially toward Turo and its personal territory…

And he had just threatened both.

Iron Bundle was down in just one hit from Miraidon’s claws, the attack tearing through the helpless robot and just grazing Cl4ve11’s side. Errors flooded his vision as his sensors picked up the damage, trying to put the self repairs in as he struggle to understand the sharp sensations that came from it. His pokemon let out a wounded warble as it digitized back into its pokeball, leaving him defenseless. Cl4ve11 stared up at the beast, its form beginning to spark and glow as it readied to attack him next. There was nowhere for him to run… the doors were closed, and any movement he made would only provoke the creature more than it already was.

There was no escape.

He closed his optics, bracing his frame to take the attack. Perhaps the surge wouldn’t fry too much of his wiring… maybe he’d be able to withstand the force of the blow and he’d be fine and he wouldn’t be glitching anymore. The roar of energy building and Miraidon’s rage burned in his mind, but all he could perceive was nothing at all. He couldn’t MOVE.

“MIRAIDON NO!”

The surge of electricity never came. Even as the sound of crackling lightning and the violent fury roared around him… he felt nothing… sensed nothing.

And for some odd reason… that did nothing to soothe the churning in his code.

He opened his eyes slowly, premature confusion falling into horror as he stared at the scene in front of him. Turo was standing over him, arms spread and fingers clutching a masterball, the second Miraidon whimpering beside him covered in its own wounds. His lab coat was shredded with burn holes and rips… continuing up his circuit suit and accumulating across his chest and face. He was struggling to keep himself upright, his breaths coming out in pained wheezes as he swayed. Cl4ve11 felt the air leave his cooling systems.

N-No….

Nononononononono….

The second Miraidon fled as the Professor gave him a soft, sad smile, his eyes filled with sadness and a little fear as he lost his balance, pitching forward with a pained groan. The AI caught him, cradling his creator as best as he knew how without aggravating his wounds further. His processors were reeling, mind frantic as he tried to cue any program, anything that could tell him what was happening, what was wrong, how he could help.

[Admin: Professor Turo Reyes - Status: Fatally Injured… System Failure at 65%]

No…

NO nononono he CAN’T….

He held Turo tighter, those infantile emotions burning in his core behind the firewall enough to make his code ache. He could feel his intake trying to heave in more air than he needed, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. His voice came out a broken whisper.

“W-Why would you d-do that?”

Turo was shaking uncontrollably, his eyes wide at nothing as he winced. It seemed that even breathing for him was agony, his breaths catching in his throat before they even had a chance to form. He offered the AI a broken smile.

“H-Had to… p-protect… m-my friend. C-Couldn’t s-see you… d-die.”

Cl4ve11’s voicebox glitched, something tightening around his throat that he couldn’t understand. His optics burned… but he couldn’t find anything wrong with them.

“I’m an Android… I c-can be r-repaired but… but you cannot! W-why?”

Turo doubled over, coughing into Cl4ve11’s chest uncontrollably. Panic began to rise in his core as he checked again.

[Admin: Professor Turo Reyes - Status: Fatally Injured… System Failure 85%]

Why was it dropping so fast?! There had to be something he could do to… to FIX this… it was his fault this had happened… there had to be some way to…

Eerily cold hands curled around his, startling him from his spiral of thoughts long enough to look down. Turo let out a shaky whimper, pressing something into his palm as he looked up at him, eyes wide with fear and pain.

“D-Don’t let me g-go p-please… I-I c-can’t l-leave y-yet… n-not n-n-ow.”

He dissolved into another coughing fit, his burned and torn body wracked with the motion leaving him with nothing left. He gripped Cl4ve11’s chest, his head resting on his shoulder.

“D-d-don’t… l-let A-Arven… b-be A-alone. Y-You c-can… s-save… m-m-m…”

His words pittered off into a gasp of pain, then deathly silence. His body fell limp, hand losing its grip on the AI’s form as his breathing slowed into nothing. Cl4ve11 held the form of his creator close, running the scan again… begging for what he feared to be incorrect… for everything to be ok and he would be fine and everything could go back to the way it was before….

[Admin: Professor Turo Reyes - Status: Deceased]

No….

[Error… rescanning]

[Admin: Professor Turo Reyes - Status: Deceased]

NO please no…

[Error… Rescanning]

[Admin: Professor Turo Reyes - Status: Deceased]

NO!

In an instant… all of the red code, the strings… the firewall… everything that he had been trying to ignore burst open as the overwhelming truth hit his core. He clung to his friend, crystalline tears flowing from his optics as the sheer overwhelming grief crashed into his core… bringing with it a crushing weight.

It felt like his core was being ground into powder. Deviancy… almost felt like a mockery at this point. Turo… was gone… he would never be able to share in his happiness… or show him the emotions he now knew were family…

Turo was dead.

It was too much for the infant mockery of a soul he now possessed. He screamed into the empty destroyed lab, every emotion he would never know… and all the ones his creator had lost… all bundled up and burning in the sheer tides of all-consuming grief. He clutched the dead form of his friend, his processors burning with regret, loss, and a thousand other things he would never get the chance to say. He mourned and wept until his voicebox shorted out and he had no vocal input left to mourn… but that did nothing to take the crushing weight from his newly deviant core.

He had lost his maker… his friend…

And it was all.

His.

Fault.

[Memory Runtime complete. Rebooting AI]

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Cl4ve11 came back online with a gasp, fresh Tera tears running down his face as his fingers tangled in his hair. He gripped tight, staring wide eyed into nothing as the grief tore his core apart… still as fresh and raw as it was the day it had happened.

The day he had lost one of his treasures.

Words felt like wool in his mouth, but he forced his voice to comply, words whisper soft as he said them.

“I wept until there was no Tera left in me to lose. Miraidon dragged me from the Crater… barely functional and on the verge of a system fragmentation.” He closed his eyes, head lowering. “I crashed soon after that.”

He let his hands slide from his face, not caring to move them as they fell limp to his lap. Everything… hurt. The errors were gone… but grief had quickly filled its place. He felt his eyes burning with tears again, but he couldn’t find the will to stop them.

“If I had… only let myself feel… merely minutes before… h-h-e would st-still be h-here.”

He slipped a hand into his blazer pocket, pulling out a worn-and-scratched thumb drive… holding it close. It was all he had left of Turo… his parting gift.

“I f-failed h-him… I f-failed y-you… I d-d-destroyed A-Arven’s life… a-and he h-has never even known.”

He couldn’t bring himself to look up at the feed, even when he perceived there were more than one connection to his IMS Signature… all he could feel was guilt, remorse, and loss.

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#AskAIClavell #AI!Clavell #Android AU #memory files #Pokemon AU #pokemon s/v #@ask-director-sada-and-friends #@ask-future-turo-and-past-sada

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