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zecretsanta · 2 years ago

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to: skylar @agentdate from: @kayzero Hi! Sorry if I twisted your prompts into something unrecognizable!

(prompts: post ztd sigma struggling to fit in + anything with d team being family)

In a base built into a crater on the moon, Akane Kurashiki heard Sigma Klim take a shuddering breath and knew that the Shift was successful. He was laid in bed in the hospital room behind the divider, and she could hear the rustling of sheets as he reacquainted himself with his circumstances.

She was also close enough to hear a muffled thud, the back of his fist hitting the mattress, most likely, and a barely audible growl. A failure, then. Pitiable, but there were other realities where he could have succeeded.

Akane waited exactly a minute, as was customary between them, before crossing the room and peering past the divider. Sigma was still visibly upset — interesting, considering how composed he was normally. Perhaps because the most recent failure was so final, there was no need to hide a negative reaction.

He looked up to see Akane, and tried to fix his features. A prominent scowl still remained, however.

“I’ll assume, since I’m here, that the Game was successful. If you don’t mind, I’d like to wait to debrief.”

“Of course,” Akane replied. And then, just to make sure, she said, “I would like to hear just a bit about your end of things.”

The scowl grew into a snarl for a split-second before Sigma closed his eyes to compose himself.

“I suppose there are two things I can impart before a full debrief. First, as far as we can tell, Radical-6 was never released.”

Oh? The project was successful? Then why was Sigma so…

“Secondly, the younger me missed the mark. By a full year.”

…Ah. A year with his young love, and then cruelly torn away.

Akane supposed she would be irate as well.

Sigma woke up in the past completely whole with a pair of babies in his arms. This was surprising on a few levels. The first was that he wasn’t missing any of his body parts — he knew his arms and eye had been replaced, and he assumed it was after whatever had happened in the Mars habitation experiment, but that appeared to not be the case.

Secondly, the wriggling infants that were exploring his face, frozen in fear like it was. Nobody told him to expect babies! He knew that they were reactive to people’s emotions so he was trying not to panic but it was getting harder because they were starting to notice his mild hysteria—

“Oh dear, did they wake you up?”

—and then he was saved. By a kind-looking redhead wearing a long skirt.

Now, he knew he was wrong, but he had to ask to make sure.

“Luna…?”

She looked shocked for a moment, then snorted and dropped her face into a hand, shaking with laughter. When she came back up, wiping a tear from her eye, she was muttering, “Of course. You would know yourself best, wouldn’t you?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Nothing, just a bet I lost with your other self.” She came over and took the babies from Sigma one after the other before introducing herself.

“My name is Diana. It will be a pleasure getting to know you, Sigma.”

He was taken aback. Not just by her kindness, but also…

“You sound so sure of that.”

She just smiled, just a little sad, and said,

“I am sure of it.”

Apparently, Sigma shared an apartment with Diana and her twins. And apparently, that apartment belonged to a compound owned by Crash Keys. Diana recommended that Sigma go and talk to Akane.

To better center himself, she said.

To figure out what he’s supposed to do now that there’s no apocalypse, he heard.

And wasn’t that a nice surprise, to find that the purpose of a nigh on torturous experiment was well and moot, to find out that Radical-6 had not only never escaped, but there had been no evidence to suggest that it had ever existed in the DCOM facility in the first place!

Yes, Sigma is happy that the world isn’t being destroyed. But now he’s just…

Lost. Without purpose.

He could go back to college? He’d only been missing for a few months, it wouldn’t be hard to get back to… normalcy.

What even was normal, anymore? Were the last two days just a dream?

Did he dream up Phi?

(He wanted to ask Diana about Phi, if she knew her, if she was part of DCOM, but something in the back of his head screamed that it would be a terrible idea, so he listened.)

Anyways. Akane.

She was supposed to be somewhere downstairs in the underground portion of the compound. Constantly working, Diana said, which matches Sigma’s perception of her in the future. Someone who was willing to let themselves be killed for a greater good doesn’t seem like someone with a good work-life balance — not that he’d say as much to her face.

Thankfully, for whatever reason, the compound was empty, so Sigma was able to just peek into rooms until he found one with a young woman hunched over a laptop typing furiously and a young man lounging in a chair behind her. It’s him that noticed Sigma first, standing awkwardly in the doorway trying to find a way to ask if this was the right room, and it’s him that snorted and shook his head.

“Hey, what do you know, it actually happened.” His comment makes the woman, hopefully Akane, look up from the laptop, take a single glance at Sigma, and sigh despondently before immediately turning back to her work.

“Uh, what happened?” Sigma’s forced to ask, still stuck in an awkward limbo.

“You Shifted back,” probably-Akane mumbles behind her screen. “We weren’t expecting it. It was mentioned offhand as a possibility, but not ever considered reality. Until now, I guess.”

“Wait, but me Shifting back was always the plan…”

“Well for starters, you’re a year off,” the guy takes over. “You were supposed to land in apocalypse-torn 2029, and instead you’re here, in hunky-dory 2030.”

“Aoi,” Akane says with a bit of reproach, then leans back away from her laptop to continue. “We were also discussing the possibility of this being too far of a branch timeline for you to be able to travel to, but obviously that theory was wrong.”

That part confused Sigma. If not having an outbreak of Radical-6 was enough to shift the timeline so far that he couldn’t return, then what was the point of Shifting back in the first place? That was the whole point! To prevent the outbreak! Which meant that if older Sigma did his job, this Sigma wouldn’t have a purpose at all. That was enough to try and deny the reality staring him in the face.

He tried to laugh it off. “I know that Shifting back and forth would create divergent timelines, but isn’t that the point? To make a future that isn’t ravaged by Radical-6? How could this branch be so far off that I wouldn’t even be able to land here, y’know?”

“That’s fair…” Akane agrees, putting her head in her hands in a way that really highlighted the bags under her eyes. “I guess he thought that between becoming a father and facing down a new apocalyptic threat, there might be enough interference to throw you off? I’m not really an expert on timeline theory…”

…Okay, one of those things was more important than the other, but Sigma really wanted to ask about the less important one. He refrained, though. “A new threat?”

“Yeah — we actually got the information from Zero, or Brother, as you’d know him. Some cultist or another trying to restart the world.”

“A cultist who was bent on ruining the world is telling us that a different cultist wants to ruin the world, is that what I’m hearing?”

“Yes, it does sound ridiculous when you put it like that, but the evidence is compelling.” Akane turned the laptop around, and you took a glance at graphs and data that didn’t have the attention span to look into at that moment. “Someone else is tapping deep into the Morphogenetic Field and taking advantage of people in a way that worries me. And according to the information we were given, he has the ability to twist other people’s minds using the Field.”

Okay, so it was real as far as Akane knew, and it sounded serious. “How can I help?”

“Uh, well—”

“From where I’m sitting,” the man, Akane called him Aoi, cut in, “you’re missing about forty-five years of credentials.”

“Aoi!”

“No, he’s right,” Sigma interrupted Akane. “The other me has decades more experience than I do, that’s an unavoidable fact. But he’s gone now — and I’m here. I can’t imagine he would just sit back while all this was happening, what was he working on?”

Akane growls and rubs the bridge of her nose between her knuckle and thumb, but answers regardless. “His idea was to use machinery to get close to the cultist. An android of some kind. He was working on a robot that could pass for human that could serve as an infiltrator.”

“Oh, that’s a genius idea! It gets around the issue of corruption through the Morphogenetic Field entirely by not using a human brain!” Sigma ignores the fact that he has zero knowledge of programming or machine learning, and barely any experience putting a robot together in the first place. “Do you have any of his work that I can look over and get a base?”

“We can have a laptop ready for you tomorrow,” Aoi declares, to Akane’s sigh. “In the meantime, why don’t you get acclimated to the area and the compound? Settle in a little.”

“Yeah, let me… Let me go do that.” Acclimate to… what, fatherhood? Oh, Jesus… “See you tomorrow.”

There are two symbols on the door that Sigma’s been staring at for the past four and a half minutes.

Two Greek letters, Delta and Phi.

It could be a remembrance sort of thing. Delta means change, right? ‘We must change so what happened to Phi won’t happen again.’ That’s what Sigma’s afraid of. It’s possible that there could have been a Delta in DCOM that died with Phi. Diana and the other Sigma would have wanted to remember both of them so they carved their Greek symbols into their door.

There really aren’t a lot of reasons to carve something into your door, Sigma thinks.

Diana or other Sigma could just really like Greek lettering, that’s always a possibility.

Five minutes, now. Sigma is officially stalling on going inside.

He knows it’s the right door, he took note of the carvings as he was leaving earlier in the day so the sameness of the compound isn’t what’s preventing him from entering. Nor is it the prospect of the tiny children actually being his tiny children — not totally, at least. He’s a few months late to the process, but he’s sure he can learn how to be a father. Feeding and changing babies is kind of like maintenance of hardware and maintenance is integral to engineering. Babies don’t scare Sigma.

Diana, on the other hand.

It’s not that she scares him, per se. It’s the implication, the relationship she must have had with the other Sigma to cause the tiny children to exist in the first place. The expectations she must have for him, now that he’s here, back in his body, after she had a harrowing and bonding experience with the older him.

…But she seemed so earnest earlier, wanting to get to know him, rather than looking at him like he was an invader in the body of someone she loved. Maybe he’s afraid of himself, rather than her expectations. He’s afraid of not being good enough.

Six minutes now. Stop stalling, Sigma.

The doorknob turned — he was surprised that he was surprised, maybe he believed in the bottom of his heart that he is an intruder after all — and the door swung inward, letting Sigma in to close it quietly behind him. He could hear Diana shushing a whimpering twin in the room just past the entryway 1-as he entered.

“I know Delta, I know, but you have to settle down, you don’t want to wake up Phi, do you?”

Oh, well that explains it.

Sigma moves from the door into the apartment proper. Diana is sitting on the couch, facing away from him, but the baby, apparently Delta, sees him immediately and exclaims, waving their pudgy little hand excitedly. This, of course, makes Diana turn her head around to look at you.

“Oh, Sigma,” she says, standing up. Sigma’s arms seem to move on their own, grasping the baby and cradling them in such a way that they’re up by his face, eagerly grabbing onto his ear. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“It’s a habit I picked up,” he explained, sitting down with her and readjusting Delta. “I had a roommate with a nasty noise sensitivity — closing the door too loudly would hurt him, apparently.”

“Oh, wow.”

“I imagine that forty-five years in isolation would make the other me kinda blind to stuff like that, you seemed kinda shocked that I even could be quiet.”

Diana raises a hand to cover her mouth, but Sigma can see the corners of her lips turning upward.

“Yes, he was a bit of an elephant coming and going, but the twins enjoyed it, loved seeing him come in. He quieted down when it was time to put them to rest, though, he wasn’t completely without discretion.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to—”

“I know, I know. It’s a bit funny how different the two of you are.”

Forty-five years will do that to a person, he doesn’t say. Instead, he asks about the door.

“Which one of you carved the, uh, the symbols, in the door? They’re the names of the twins?”

“Oh? You saw those?”

“It’s how I can tell the doors apart up here.”

“They are a bit samey, aren’t they? Yes, well, he took the twins to the park that’s nearby to give me a little bit of a break, but I got a bit stir-crazy, and like you said, the doors all look the same up here, so I took a penknife and decorated a little.”

At some point during the conversation, Delta’s little hand fell from Sigma’s ear to his shoulder and, looking down at them, he noted that the baby had fallen asleep. He gestured to them with his chin and Diana gently took hold and stood up, walking to the bedroom, presumably where the crib was.

Sigma followed, body on autopilot. He wanted to ask why Diana didn’t tell him that he was the father of the twins, but he couldn’t formulate the question without sounding accusatory, and the last thing he wanted to do was verbally assault such a kind woman. So when Diana came out of the room and closed the door, Sigma asked the other question on his mind.

“How did they get their names?”

Diana stopped walking, halfway to the kitchen, and seemed to shudder in place. Sigma wanted to move and help her, but she shook her head as if to clear it.

“Delta came second, we wanted his name to match Phi’s, and Sigma wanted to name him after me, so we ended up using the Greek letter D. For Phi…”

She stops again. Sigma takes a step closer, hesitant, and ignores the blaring in his head to ask the question.

“Did something happen to Phi?”

There was a pause, during which Sigma took another faltering half-step before Diana choked out an answer.

“We don’t know — I don’t know. We woke up during the game and she was just — gone. Phi was gone, Akane had escaped, and we were trapped in that facility for-for-”

Her choking picked up and turned into a cry. Sigma’s body moved on its own, gathering her into his arms and stroking her back.

“I gave up on Akane coming back for us,” she sobbed into his chest. “We ran out of food three days before she showed up, I didn’t have anything to feed them with! He was trying, God knows he was trying, but he’s just so pragmatic and everything he was saying was so morbid and-and-”

There were no more questions that night. Only Sigma holding Diana as she released sorrow at least months old.

The park was nice, Sigma supposed. He went the next day to get away from the compound, from Akane and his potential worthlessness, from Diana and the hole he couldn’t quite fill. He wanted to get away from existential crises brought about by circumstances out of his control, from different apocalyptic situations than he was mentally prepared to face.

He wanted to get out from the other Sigma’s shadow. He couldn’t quite manage.

But at least the park was nice.

It was a small, grassy thing, with stone benches surrounding a slide and a swing set. The swings had a small little baby seat, so Sigma could see why it would be a good place to bring the twins.

He didn’t, of course — it would defeat the purpose.

“I’m sorry, but do you mind if I sit here?”

Sigma was snapped out of his thoughts by a face that made his left wrist itch. He shouldn’t be so suspicious — Akane said Brother was dealt with, and any guy could have blonde hair, blue eyes, and a slim face.

However, Sigma’s eyes did rove over all of the empty benches around the park, then return to the man with a raised eyebrow.

“Sorry, it’s just, I could really use the company right now, is all. If that’s okay! If it’s not, feel free to—“

“No, it’s fine. Have a seat, I guess.”

They sat in silence for a while, but either because Sigma felt awkward brooding with an audience or because his curiosity overwhelmed him, he simply had to ask.

“Sorry, but why?” The man turned his head with a confused look in his eyes, so Sigma elaborated. “Why didn’t you want to be alone, I mean. I’m sorry if that’s—“

“No, no, you had your day disturbed, the least I can do is tell you why.” He sat back on the bench and looked up at the sky, searching for the right words to say. “I was a caretaker for someone for a number of years, and they died recently.”

“Oh, I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you for your kindness, but, well, it wasn’t as if it was unexpected. The man was well over a hundred. Still, he was a constant. Something expected, right? And now he’s gone. I’m just — having a bit of trouble finding where to go from here. Should I become a caretaker for someone else? Would that be disrespectful? Being alone leaves me with all sorts of questions.”

“I understand that feeling,” Sigma admitted, more to himself than his conversation partner. “Being lost, not knowing the next step. I don’t know if the opinion of a stranger means much, but if you’re a good caretaker, and it certainly sounds like you are, it wouldn’t be disrespectful to find someone new to take care of.”

“See, I would have never gotten that wisdom had I chose to sit alone today. Thank you for that. I know Delta would hate it if I was mourning him for too long.”

“Delta, huh?” That was the name of one of the twins, right? Sigma’s… son. “That’s a good name.”

“It is. A symbol for change and adaptability.” The man stood and turned to leave. “I hope whatever situation you’re stuck in changes for the better.”

“Thank you…”

He walked off, leaving Sigma sitting on the bench for a moment before deciding to leave as well.

Diana mentioned that she was going out with the twins and gave Sigma a key for the door, so he was unsurprised to see that the apartment was empty.

But there was a laptop on the coffee table, with a note taped to the top.

‘This is the laptop that Sigma was using to work. No password to get in, not sure why. There are also some notebooks and stuff down in his workstation if you need them. —Akane’

No password? Well, if it was supposed to be a work laptop with the intention of saving the world from an apocalypse then it makes a bit of sense to keep it open…

It almost rings true, but Sigma doesn’t think that’s all there is to it.

Oh well, at least this way he doesn’t have to solve some kind of puzzle to get working. Sigma opened the laptop to a file directory.

In the directory were all sorts of blueprint files and coding files and other things that made Sigma’s eyes swim. But there was also a text file titled ‘Checklist,’ which Sigma could easily relate to — he started every project with a task list, and it seemed that didn’t change as he got older. So he opened the list.

ai code—c housing blueprint—c model blueprint—ipr ABT—c mat list—c housing—ipr model—nst

He even used the same code for the list — complete, in progress, and not started. And it seems like everything that needed forty-five years of experience was already done! Sigma wouldn’t have been able to code an artificial intelligence or develop biological tissue, but he could finish a blueprint for a robot and then put it together!

Was that the natural progression of work, or did the other Sigma prepare in case the Shift did happen? Either way, this Sigma was grateful as hell!

The door opened, and he turned his head to see Diana walking in with the twins in a carrier.

“Oh, hello Sigma.”

“Diana! I…”

He could have said any number of things then.

He’s able and willing to help Akane. He’ll try to be a stellar father for Delta and Phi. He knows he isn’t the other Sigma and he can never truly fill those shoes but he’s going to try his best.

But in the end, he could only say,

“I’m looking forward to getting to know you.”

#submission #zero escape #zero time dilemma #virtue's last reward #ztd spoilers #vlr spoilers #agentdate #kayzero

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tiktokonaclock · 1 year ago

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The Siren and The Demon Chapter 2

"The whole point of your mission was to convince the brawlers to join us. “ Kazarina scolded the teenagers kneeling in front of her. “What part of that was confusing to you ?!”

The agents all found the floor quite interesting, appearently. Her teammates each scolded the kids, except for Gill. Interesting Kozarina thought. Gill would never miss a chance on belittling someone. Perhaps, degrading teenagers was not as enjoyable as degrading her. He gave the emperor a suggestion for their next strike instead.

The meeting was dismissed.She watched the agents leaving the room one by one, on their toes. Emperor gave them the order to prepare for attack. Gill turned to her with a smug expression on his face.

"We have to prepare for the attack, not a night out. So don't waste too much time On your make-up."

"And you make sure to go potty before the attack."

The stifled laughter on her other teammates’ face were reassuring her that she had come up with a good come back. She sent Gill her fakest smile.

The agentd have been waiting in the main sallon of the palace for some time now. The ships needed to be prepared by their owners, and it took almost an hour. They were mostly silent, yet they stood together. The failure was theirs, just as how the victory would have been theirs as well.

"Do you guys think Sid is okay?" Zenet asked, finally breaking the silence.

“Sid’s dead, Zenet. "Mason replied, his expression cold as stone. "They killed him for losing the element."

"Have you seen the body?"

"Do I need to? The emperor explicitly said that he doesn't want any weaklings around. So You get destroyed when you fuck up. Easy as that.”

“The stakes are high for us now." Lena said, crossing her arms. “My guess is that they will try us out individually and decide who gets to stick around." She looked around, "Our lives would've been lot easier if it wasn't for the brawlers."

"Those fucking idiots have no idea what we are going through here." Mason said. "Both us individually and the entirety of Gundalia generally."

"If they had seen the Gundalia's condition they would have chosen to help us instead of Neithians," Ren spoke as if he was in a dream. "I am sure of that."

"Then perhaps you should have tried to explain our motivation to them. We didn't start a war just to satisfy our craving for violance." Jesse said.

"Maybe you should've done that Jesse, since you are so good with words"

“If I was the appointed leader of this mission, I would.”

Zenet's cell phone rang, interrupting the bickering. Once she saw the name on it, she hid the screen by putting it on her leg. "I'll be right back." She said as she walked away. Once she was sure she was far enough, she picked up the phone. Her head tilted and her expression hardend on her face. "No, I am not." They heard her say. "I can't talk to you right now." She turned to her teammates and once she realized that they were observing her, she covered her mouth with her hand.

"What the fuck?" Mason grumbled. "

"My money is on the chance of her having a suitor that won't stop chasing her," Jesse replied.

“Isn't she a little too young for that?"

“She is only 2 years younger than us.”

“2 years is lot when you are a teen.”

“Well, I had a boyfriend when I was 15.” Lena shruged." Plus, if we are going to get murdered for losing a match we might as well lose our virginity beforehand."

The others laughed at the irony.

"Well well." "Kazarina said when she saw the knight running towards the enemy's Side. "Who let Elright out of his cage?” "Somebody is getting fired." Gill replied. Kazarina crossed her arms as she turned to him. "I thought Airzel was keeping him captive." She sent a cheeky smile. "Perhaps your loyal aide is not as great as you think.”

“Do not take his name on your mouth Kazarina." Gill replied harshly. "At least I have friends other than lab rats.”

The blonde's smug expression slowly faded off her face as she turned in front of her. "Neither you nor the other men would have your vicious toys to play with, if it wasn't for my research center," she said. "It is thanks to us, to me, that we are so strong.”

Gill smirked as he walked towards her. Closing the few steps gap between them, he leaned on her. The scent of his woody perfume filled her lungs as he whispered: “Then perhaps I'll have to find new toys to play with, my dear.”

#bakugan #bakugan gundalian invaders #the siren and the demon #gill x kazarina #gill and kazarina #emperor barodius #kazarina #zenet surrow #lena isis #jesse glenn

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