Chapter 5: Maternal love
The room is filled with thick tension as Iver waits for Kei's response, the occasional beep and the unmistakable whirring of the monitors aside his desk.
Kei finally breaks the silence with an outrageous outburst of laughter as he arises from his seat and walks towards the door "HAHAHahahahaa...haha" he wipes a tear from his eyes as he taps Ivers shoulder and calms down, "Man teenagers these days, alright then drifter. "
He then tosses a USB stick towards Iver, it's reflective surface shining gently in the light in the air as Iver catches it, and stares at the object in his palm, "So this is it?"
Kei walks towards the large multilayered glass window in his office and stares out into the star spangled space, the black void is filled with celestial bodies, plumes of cosmic storms, showers of asteroids and bright dots illuminating the far edges of space.
"More or less, I've encrypted it to prevent you from going AWOL, I'm aware of your track record of going MIA."
The Masked Drifter eyes twitch slightly at his comment, slightly annoyed he replies sarcastically, "Sigh anyways, I'm leaving---", Iver is suddenly interrupted by Kei.
"We're not done here Iver."
The atmosphere within the room shifts abnormally fast. Iver then breaks out in a cold sweat, he's faced many different kinds of things but not quite like this. This man in front of him...there's something off about him, there is this sudden pressure that wasn't there before...and it's more suffocating than the mask Iver dons.
"I understand that we're both fighting for the same cause, Ryo may see you as an asset however I..."
All of the sudden, the pressure dissapates as soon as it was there, the atmosphere became normal and the gentle breeze from the fans cooled the sweat off of Ivers forehead. Kei breaks out with cough and smiles.
"Anyways, I have a feeling that you'll be doing some hard labour tomorrow so get some rest, you'll need it."
Iver responds with a weary nod.
Silence fills the room as Iver leaves. Kei then sighs as he spins himself in his chair, the squeeky sound of the chair fills the room as he takes a sip out of his flask and stares into his office window*
"Sigh, almost lost it again, when am I ever going to change."
As the elevator makes its way to the bottom floor, he asks himself just what the hell was going on in that office, he stares into the stick in his hand, should he be elated or wary, he's never recieved something he's been wanting so easily, he shakes his head and tells himself to take advantage of this opportunity before anything bad happens,ge then stuffs it in his pocket.
As he gets off the elevator he's met with a towering hunk of metal resembling a robot, the path behind the contraption, Destroyed, and on its chest are the words "Baby 0.1".
They stare at each other for a good minute until it speaks out with a rough metallic voice.
"MOTHER AWAITS YOU MASKED DRIFTER."
It makes an attempt to grab Iver with its ridiculously large arms, a spark of yellow flashes and he moves like a blur, friction bending to his will as he slips behind the robot, evading the grip of death.
"Look, I'm not here for playtime, so why don't you go back to the scrapyard you came from."
The robot rotates it's head 180 degrees and it's torso does the same, it's eyes glow blue as it locks onto him.
The robot responds, "I'M AFRAID I CANNOT DO THAT OR ELSE I WILL INCUR THE WRATH OF MOTHER."
It catches Iver off guard by making a feint which is not possible for such a large body and grabs him, locking him into its cold grasp tightly.
He feels a sharp sting on his lower back, specifically on his spine, turns out it was some kind of injection.
"APOLOGIES FOR THE USE OF FORCE, HOWEVER I CANNOT ALLOW YOU TO ESCAPE, I AM AWARE OF YOUR ABILITIES"
Iver shakes his head in confusion and dizziness, the tingling sensation traveling up his spine and eventually throughout his entire body.
"The hell did you do to me."
Iver activates his force, however nothing comes out, he's stuck in this awkward and uncomfortable position.
"I INJECTED YOU WITH IOZ-4G, AN INHIBITOR WHICH-"
Iver cuts off the robot mid-speech using a know-it-all tone "blocks off the chemical reaction my body has with plasma which allows me to use my force. Shit."
"I APPLAUD YOU FOR YOUR KNOWLEDGE FLESH ONE." says baby.
"HOWEVER I ADVISE AGAINST CUTTING ME OFF, FOR FUTURE REFERENCES."
The masked drifter keeps quiet as the robot begins walking. Where to? No idea, it didn't seem like anyone was coming to his aid, not that he wanted to socialize, better yet in his current predicament. Iver had to improvise, if he was asked to follow the robot, he would have done so with "little" to no argument, however this wasn't the case and so what did he do?
Using his sweat, he managed to move his arms bit by bit to make his palms to press against the mechanical arms of baby and did the only thing that came to mind.
He pushed.
The robot stops ominously as it feels something pushing outwards in its grasp. Ken Igarashi, the younger brother of Kei watches from one of the catwalks above.
"Would you look at that." Ken smirks, "Making new friends already."
Iver continues pushing outwards, and the robot keeps quiet as it watches its massive arms get pushed open from the inside, its not really much for baby but it's a bit frightening from a teenager his age. Slowly but surely, the robot felt dents going outward from where Ivers hands were placed.
"I DISABLED YOUR FORCE, WHAT YOU'RE DOING IS NOT POSSIBLE WITH YOUR STATURE."
The commotion gathers the attention of the other members, they all watch the chaos unravel with amusement, some from afar and some gathered around. During this commotion, the robot scans Ivers body to see if there was an abnormality.
After it finished the biological scan, it stopped moving entirely, and it's eyes flashed to recalibrate.
"I UNDERSTAND NOW, YOUR BODY-."
Iver cuts it off quickly before it says anything else. "Shut up."
The robot stares at Iver for a moment then knocks Iver out in an instant from the back of his head without lethal force, and the boys unconscious body goes limp.
--Hours pass by--
It's cold. There's a lot of small objects it's uncomfortable, very uncomfortable.
"Am I back in the red district? It feels a lot like my bed, which would be the floor."
"Was it all dream?"
Slowly but surely, light cracks through Iver's eyes as they slowly open. He gets up slowly and rubs the back of his head and looks around.
His hand slips and he falls off a bed of scraps and the come crashing down on him, luckily there were no casualties, right? A loud familiar voice booms from the other room.
"Would you look at that!"
"It's real."
"What?"
"Nothing."
The voice comes closer and the first thing Iver sees is a streak of black on a head full of purple hair now in a shaggy ponytail, and black eyes, except this time she's wearing protective clothing with it's her.
"So its you huh? Mother." Iver mumbles.
She grimaces as she scratches the back of her head.
"Don't call me that, I already have enough of that from my creations, just stick to Stitcher or Aoi please? Thanks!"
Immediately, Iver stares at his hands and brings them together, Stitcher stares at him in confusion. He begins rubbing rubbing his hands together, his hands generates yellow sparks for a fraction of a second and his eyes burn yellow. His hands begin sliding against each other with zero effort and no heat generated at all.
He sighs and closes his eyes.
"Looks like your hunk of junks IoZ inhibitor wore off." With a tone of annoyance in his voice
Stitcher pauses for a good minute until her face twists in horror, "I'm sorry, WHAT?!?!"
She begins crying yes bawling her eyes out. She falls to her knees with no shame at all, she crawls to Iver and grabs his shirt.
"YOU KNOW HOW LONG IT TOOK ME TO FIND A SAMPLE? THOSE THINGS ARE RARE AND EXPENSIVE!?"
"Don't look at me, I'm not the one who authorized it's usage."
Iver stares down at her face, its like she's got the mental capacity of a child, very different from how she nearly killed him when he arrived on the base.
"GET OFF OF ME WEIRDO." He grabs her wrists and begins to remove her hands, however she's got freakishly scary grip.
The chaos in the room attracts the attention of a young blonde man, around his early 20s. Iver recognizes him from the Scrambler chase. He fixes his glasses and he facial expression grimaces at the sight of Aoi pathetically crying on her knees like a child and immediately runs and pulls her away.
"Aoi, you're acting like a child again, remember why you brought him here?." He looks back up at Iver and nods.
"Its Judah."
The cries die down as she begins to prop herself up on a nearby table filled with blueprints, she takes a few deep breaths and wipes her face and rests for a few seconds in silence. Immediately after she grabs one of the blueprint and throws it in Ivers way.
"Sorry for my emotional outburst, looks like I'm gonna have to discipline one of my children."
Iver stares at her with an expression of confusion and he then sighs and takes a look at the blueprints she threw at him.
Aoi then stares at him with a smile.
"You didn't forget did you? Your little promise to fix my baby after brutally destroyed her."
Destroying? All Iver did was rip off a panel, sure it did not mean much to him, but from someone who had a spear sized needle pointed at his throat not that long ago, he'd rather keep to himself to avoid giving himself a headache.
"Nope."
"Good, since I'm so nice, I'm gonna need you to get some sleep."
Iver rubs his head. "Everyone keeps repeating the same thing, get some rest, get some rest, get some rest. I get it."
He recalls a moment from not long ago. The conversation he had with Kei, he told him he had a "feeling" he was going to do some hard labour, guess this was what he meant.
After the whole fiasco Iver then leaves the room and finds Ken waiting outside.
Iver's eyes start twitching. "The hell are you doing here."
Ken stares at Iver blankly and yells.
"HEY STITCHER, YOU BETTER SLEEP THIS TIME OR ESLE MR.RYO'S GONNA TAKE CARE OF IT"
Aoi shouts back. "WHATEVER."
Ken's eyes begin to twitch, then after shakes his head.
"Anyways come on, I've still got to show you where you sleep."
Iver quietly obeys and they begin walking side by side, the atmosphere is quiet and a little awkward between the two of them, taking a complex route of turns due to the destruction caused by the robot.
Eventually they arrive to a staircase leading to the basement. Its a quiet place, aside from the humming of the engines, the hissing of steam pipes. And finally the pair arrives to sliding door that looks a little run down. There are some cables from hanging from one of the open panels in the ceiling. Ken begins pulling them down and Iver assists him.
"Alright man, here's your home. I hope you don't mind the location. The Plasma Nexus is running short on funds so this is the best we can do for now."
Iver looks at the steel door. There are dents and lines running all over it. Suddenly the door slides open revealing a moderate sized room with a bed tucked in the corner, a door leading a small bathroom and a window pane showing the vast space outside.
Iver turns to Ken. "It's alright."
Ken explodes in amazement. "No freaking way, THIS ROOM HAS IT'S OWN BATHROOM?!?"
Iver raises an eyebrow "So I'm assuming this place has communal bathrooms?"
Ken nods with excitement "Yep, there's only a small amount of rooms with a bathroom, consider yourself lucky."
He stretches and as he's about to leave the room Ken's mood suddenly shifts, you can hear it in the tone of his voice. He's just like his older brother, only except this time, there's no malice only...pity? He hesitates.
"I'm sorry."
Iver stares at his back as he leaves the room and the door closes shut. The lights flicker on illuminating the forgotten room. Just what the hell was that about. Iver sighed and assumed it was best he not concern himself.
He stares at the bed for a while and places his whole body on the soft embrace of the bed.
It felt amazing, its as if it was a warm embrace, something that he doesn't experience much. The tension he normally felt dissolved which felt strange. Its as if something was missing.
After a few minutes of pondering Iver soon fell fast, his breathing sounded metallic due to his iconic mask, and a little snore. Iver has never really been much to snore, but he's doing so now probably because....
Its the first time he's ever slept on a bed, for a full night that is.