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Chapter Text

Moments before, Toby remembered thinking that the weaponized machine was amazing. Its adaptive technology modified its armour and by connection, its artillery, as it required. The battle between the emotionless droids had filled the air with an array of fireworks made of red and yellow beams. They seemed far more harmless in comparison to their actual deadly nature.

It had been fun to watch until things had taken a turn for the worse. The robot turned against its creators. As he had watched from the sidelines, he remembered feeling exhilarated as well as slightly scared for his father as the Peacekeeper charged full throttle towards the unprotected beings.

Out of the corner of the young boy's eye he saw the bony arm of his father lift up. As he turned his attention momentarily towards him he realized that he was activating the shield. A thumping began in his ears and made its way down into his chest.

Toby had been told to stay in a 'safe' place, which was in the janitor's closet that one of the guards had put him in. No one had known or even had the chance to realize that the sly boy had slipped out of the enclosure and snuck into the laboratory.

Feeling slightly safer that the shield was lowering at an increasing speed, he relaxed knowing that he'd be safe with the others…until he noticed his location…at the other end of the lab. The side that was being closed off from the Peacekeeper was at the opposite end. As soon as the glass would hit the floor and lock its position it would stay sealed and he would be trapped. Someone inside the sealed partition would have to disengage the emergency switch to open it again.

Heavy metal steps reverberated menacingly as they thundered across the laboratory floor. The Peacekeeper rapidly approached the console that separated the President and scientists from the raging machine. Monstrous steps shaking the floor as it run towards them.

Toby raced to the clear shield just as the Peacekeeper collided with it at such an unbelievable speed that the thick protective glass shook violently. Just as the shaking stopped and Toby pulled back both of his arms to hit the glass and call for help, smoke and sparks flew from the opening in the ceiling that the shield had emerged from.

"Dad! Dad!" Toby screamed as he pounded on the glass barrier, catching his father and Doctor Elefun's attentions. Their shock at seeing Tenma’s son standing on the other side of the shield quickly turned to horror.

"TOBY!" the father shouted.

"DAD! HELP! PLEASE HELP ME!" He looked at the two men desperately pressing buttons on the console. As he watched his father yell, nothing moved and panic overtook him. A cold feeling of dread washed over the boy and nervous energy coursed through his veins. He felt himself go red from the exertion of pounding on the glass barricade.

Toby’s thoughts bounced around the room, trying to remember if there was another exit. He came up blank. The heavy door he entered through locked on entry and safety was on the other side of the glass.

"DAD! DAD!" his voice raising, cracking and shrill to even his own ears. His calls for his father quickened in a vain attempt at willing the machine to function again. All while banging his thick hands against the barrier.

The Peacekeeper's red core light blared through the glass and shone onto their panicked faces. The deadly rogue robot pulled his club of an arm back menacingly before delivering two earsplitting strikes to the shield. They rattled Toby's head so sharply that he bent over in pain trying to protect his ears.

"Stop it!" he yelled to the machine. As he looked up, his father had raced towards him and was pressing his hands against the barricade, yelling his name.

"Dad HELP!"

"TOBY!"

"DAD!" He continued to desperately look from his father to the enraged robot beside him, hoping beyond hope that it’s batteries would suddenly run out and stop it from striking out again.

"It's going to be okay Toby. I'm going to get you out! Everything's going to be fine. I promise." The more he tried to comfort his son, the harder the lies seemed to be to tell, and the more panic crept onto his face.

Toby stood in a panicked daze, dread filling his stomach as he slowly realized that his father's words were empty promises; hollow and desperate.

Trying to be strong, the scientist locked eyes with his son. His words a hopeful drum across the near impenetrable glass. As he spoke, the fear in his son's eyes overwhelmed the father. Choking back his words, he remained silent, taking in the distress and silent resignation that stretched across his son's face.

Toby's little chest picked up anxiously and heaved stuttered breaths as the foreboding red core energy grew horrendously gigantic in the cold metallic palms of the Peacekeeper.

A whirring noise came from the automaton and almost instantaneously the red core blast had enveloped all in its deadly and powerful glow, leaving those protected by the shield hanging in horror and anticipation.

Nothing but utter silence and a blinding red light.

Chapter Text

Surprisingly, the blinding light of the deadly red core receded back into the still chest of the Peacekeeper.

Tenma stood stunned, staring at the place where his young son had been pounding on the glass moments before. Nothing stood in his place.

Scorch marks were burnt into the floor around the machine including where his son had been standing. A thick layer of dust and debris hung in the air, mimicking the atmosphere.

"TOBY!" the father cried out, a look of disbelief and desperation passed over his face. He reached out for his son as if the past few moments had never happened.

Suddenly, perhaps jolted back to animation by the sound of the human, the Peacekeeper's head snapped up. It eyed the barrier which still stood in its way as if in contempt of its audacity to remain standing.

The others who stood safely behind the shield glanced at one another anxiously as the creation merely stood and stared fixated on the barricade before it.

The words 'SHIELD INTACT' and 'ABSORB' beeped and flashed on the red-tinted periscope-like computer screen the robot sported. One massive metal arm pressed to the shield and the glass began to melt. It bubbled and rippled and ultimately was sucked away at an increasing speed, into the hole at the end of its arm.

Stunned, Tenma slowly withdrew his hand from the burning glass. Stumbling back a few paces, the pale and clearly distraught father leaned against the barrier.

"Fire now!" President Stone ordered the guards as he ran back to safety.

The line of guards armed with high grade machine-guns and upper body armour fired a continuous barrage of bullets at the monstrous robot. The Peacekeeper, who had started to climb through the melted hole it had made was unaffected by the assault. Standing tall, the high-pitched reverberating bullets hit its chest plate,merely pushing it back and away from the hole.

As it fought against the motion, quick thinking Doctor Elefun, who had ducked moments before to avoid the stream of bullets, noticed the two large core cables. Thoughts and possibilities ran through his mind and one plan jumped out at him.

Acting quick on his feet, the short professor wrenched the massive blue core cable from its source and inching his way forward, he jabbed the sharp blue prongs of the cable into the red core residing in the Peacekeeper's chest.

Once the two cores had connected an electrifying surge shook the robot violently. Almost instantaneously, the dominant blue core erupted beneath its chest plate and the machine was blown backwards. The force was powerful enough to eradicate the connection between the Peacekeeper and the droids it had absorbed. Each of the robots scattered along the floor. The smaller round droids hit the ground and rolled further away, while the massive body of the Peacekeeper collided with the scorched metal surface, producing sparks and an earsplitting noise.

As the robot's red core shut down and slowly faded out, the functioning shield lifted before the distressed father's face.

Breathing deeply, he walked forward into the debris and called out, "Wh-where's Toby? Where's my son?"

President Stone, looking completely unaffected by the disastrous scene he had caused Not moments before, walked forward to inspect the unresponsive machine. The machine that has nearly destroyed them all. All of those who had been protected now spread out around the damaged half of the room to investigate the extent of the destruction..

One of the armed guards motioned over his shoulder.

"Uh… President Stone? I think you should come have a look."

"What is it?" the President replied, practically bored with the situation.

"I don't really want to explain it, sir."

Doctor Elefun, being nearer, walked towards the guard and looked at the source of intrigue. Placing his hand over his mouth, he closed his eyes and turned away. Sadness and a sickly colour spread up from his chin.

The stunned Tenma stood alone wandering through the remaining debris not hearing the guard and President converse. Scanning the wreckage of the horribly failed experiment, a small red dome-like object caught the tall professor's eye. With a sorrowful exhale, the father stepped forward and almost instantly, a look of recognition passed through his features.

It was his son's cap.

The little red hat was dusty and understandably banged up.

He slowly reached forward. The cap had never been cherished so much as in that one moment when the father squeezed it to his chest and remembered his beloved son.

None of the others in the room paid any particular attention to the short man approaching the grief stricken father.

"I am so sorry…Tenma. For the sake of your sanity, my friend, don't be tempted to go over there."

His thoughts immediately jumped to his missing child as if snapped back to reality from his foggy uncertain thoughts. The precious object was still tightly held in his long pointed fingers, when a look of horror danced across his face. The father tried pushing past his short friend.

"What? What did you find?" the professor asked apprehensively. When he received no answer from his melancholic co-worker, he panicked, shoving forward and towards the guard.

"Tenma! Don't do it!" Elefun shouted back.

Collapsing to his knees once he was near enough to recognize what they had been looking at, the father's eyes grew wide and his mouth fell open. It was his son.

"No…Toby," he breathed disbelievingly.

Among the debris and rubble, there lay the badly burnt body of his young son.

From where they stood, Toby had fallen with his back facing them. Legs splayed on the ground and one arm bent at an awkward angle behind his back. His blue hoodie, white shirt, and jeans were singed and torn revealing the dark and bloodied patches of what used to be the soft unmarred skin of his side and back. His hands appeared scuffed and scratched, undoubtedly from desperately pounding on the glass.

When the professor reached out to slowly turn his son over, a heart wrenching sight met his eyes. The front of his exposed shirt was torn apart and the skin charred badly on the side that was nearest to the deadly explosion.

But as if by a miracle, his face was only mildly burnt. Toby's eyes were closed, in a cruel pantomime of sleep his mouth hung open slightly and what little of his neatly gelled hair that remained was blown every which way.

The father stunned and still, whispered to himself, "Toby…"

For a moment he pulled back, before steeling himself and desperately grabbing at his son. Clutching the limp body tightly to his thin chest he noticed that his body was still warm, skin almost hot to the touch, undoubtedly from the blast.

He thought to himself that this was the first time in a long while that he had held his child. The physical contact made the father's heart swell with joy but it lasted for only a brief moment before the deafening reality that it would also be the last time, came crashed down on the man.

He hid his long and slender face in the crook of his child's neck. Rubbing his cheek to that of his son, he recalled the first time he ever held his newborn son, running his slender fingers over the baby's cheek.

Remembering the uncertain touch of his boy’s hand to his when he had taken him to the museum as a toddler. He had been so small and intrigued by the world around him. The father gripped his son's still warm corpse to him, rocking lightly back and forth.

As the memories flooded in, the man began to crumple. His shoulders tensed, his legs tucked in beneath him tightly and his back curled over the little body. Tears rushed down his cheeks as he cradled the child under him.

Shallow inhales followed by heart-wrenching sobs echoed out from Tenma's huddled form and filled the room.

"Oh Toby…its all my fault…if only I had…if only I hadn't….oh Toby…I should've spent more time with you. I should've kept my promises…my son…my little boy…" His quiet sobs an uncomfortable accompaniment to the melody of his sorrow.

Doctor Elefun bowed his head and looked away from the painful scene so that his friend could grieve in peace. He listened to the heartbreaking sounds of a father saying a last agonizing goodbye to his son who would not hear a word of it.

He took a deep breath and tried to hold back his own tears as he kept his head down, it hurt to listen and know that the most powerful, emotional, and loving things this father would ever say to his son would fall on deaf ears.

Chapter Text

From his crumpled position, the father lifted his tear-stained face and rose with the frail body of his deceased child cradled in his arms.

"T-Tenma? Wh-where are you going?" Elefun stepped forward, breaking his silence. Using the sleeve of his once pristine white lab coat, he pressed at the corner of his eye, leaving behind a thin streak of tears.

The little red cap lay on the dirty floor feet away, discarded in Tenma's panic at discovering his son's corpse. No one except for his concerned friend and colleague paid the important little object any mind.

"Laboratory," the professor answered simply. Elefun's eyes widened in confusion. The tall man stared straight ahead and practically marched himself towards the exit, urging himself not to think about what he was doing.

"Your labora-why? Why not the hospital?" His small legs tried desperately to keep up with the long legs of the seemingly possessed father. Tenma steeled his expression and walked resolutely onwards. Elefun's confusion turned to concern at seeing his friend’s now blank face; the face and demeanor of a man on a mission.

The smaller man stopped beside the fallen cap, picked it up and softly dusted the debris away, reverential in its handling. He held the discarded red cap in his hands and ran his fingers along the edges. Remembering the big eyes of a very young Toby that peaked out from beneath the lip of his favourite red hat from across the dinner table years ago.

Turning towards the fleeing father with a stern gaze he called out, "Tenma. What are you going to do with him?"

The father stopped mid stride and stood facing his exit with uncertainty. Several long moments passed.

"Tenma. What are you going to do with Toby?" Elefun repeated louder, knowing the man had heard him the first time but demanding a response nonetheless.

As if spurred by the name of his son, the father turned towards his friend.

"He signed a paper. When he was younger," Tenma's sentence tapered off. Elefun stood silently waiting for him to continue.

"Said that he wanted his body to be donated to science. I-I'm doing the right thing!" The words sounded as if they were more to convince himself than his colleague.

"He wouldn't want this for you, my friend," the smaller man's voice softened. Tenma's shoulder slackened, listening to the calming voice of his closest friend as he softly approached him.

"Toby wouldn't want this." Elefun gently lay the little dirty red cap on the young boy’s unmoving chest. The father gripped his son's body closer, the words striking a nerve and the red hat urging him onward. Inhaling deeply he grit his teeth in anger.

"Toby wouldn't want to be like this. He wanted to go to the Symposium. I'm doing the right thing." The father strengthened his resolve, spun on his heels and continued towards the doors, this time at a hurried pace.

"I'm doing the right thing. I'll make him better so that I can be a better father to him."

Elefun was left standing in the emptiness of the damaged room, staring at the door in shock. His mouth hung slack before he swallowed deliberately in realization that his friend had snapped. Rubbing his fingers together he could feel a fine film of grit and grime left over from the cap.

Elefun looked up and spoke towards the empty door, "The right thing for whom?"

Chapter Text

Spread across the solid illuminated workstation, Tenma shuffled through stacks and stacks of documents.

“Where are they?” he mumbled to himself. Scrambling around as he tossed bundles of crumpled and disorganized papers behind him until the floor was carpeted with instruction manuals, lists, and unintelligible handwriting.

Jamming his hands into his unkempt hair, Tenma groaned angrily. His eyes darting about the expanse of the surface until his harried thoughts stilled long enough to notice a tube. It was peeking out from beneath a blank sheet of paper where it had been buried under the resulting mess of his panicked searching.

Unrolling the hidden scroll within the tube revealed highly detailed blueprints, some of which featured diagrams of Toby’s face.

Far back against the wall stood two hesitant scientists; both staring intently at the Doctor’s form. A third scientist emerged from the shadows: carting a flat trolley piled with wires, metal plates, and copper tubing.

Tenma walked over to the flatbed and rifled through the heap. Sticking his hand through the sharp metal edges, the conical tip of something stuck out. Brushing aside the unneeded hardware, a neat stack of unused rockets revealed themselves.

Immediately filling his arms with the cylindrical projectiles, he vanished once again into his workstation; the three scientists eyeing one another, concerned and more than a little frightened.

Having gathered all of the necessary pieces for his project, Tenma entered a code into the display panel and the large overhead laser engaged. The thin beam of bright intense blue light ran along the connecting and overlapping edges of metal, attaching them seamlessly without any flux or silver solder. The scientist, determination etched into his features, focused intently on the ray.

From afar, the scientists had a partially obscured view of the table. The bright blue laser hissing across the strewn about metal pieces that surrounded the most concerning item on the workbench: the charred corpse of the Doctor’s son.

As if hit with a sudden reminder, Tenma walked slowly but with purpose towards the holographic suspension case beside the console that held Toby’s dirty but intact red baseball cap.

Lowering the clear walls, he slowly picked up the hat and held it securely in his shaking hands. With a deep shuddered breath, he used thin forceps to reach inside and remove a dark hair woven into the hat’s red fabric.

Like it was the final piece of the puzzle, the father reverently dropped the thick hair into a cylindrical compartment on the monitor’s dashboard. A tense silence lay upon the room as he waited and stared at the screen; The computer’s display counting upward as it scanned the DNA locked within the strand.

While waiting, the three confused scientists stepped closer to the Doctor, intensely keeping their gazes on the screen and away from the deceased body of the young boy they had all met and enjoyed the company and curiosity of.

Spinning frantically towards the table, several large screens popped up above the little body lying on it, like a cruel digital mockery of a headstone.

One by one, screens of every size layered one on top of another, each containing a video of a different time or event in Toby’s life. Each containing a memory. Each both paying tribute and morbidly painting a picture of one child’s entire existence.

Him as a baby reaching up from within his crib. Picnicking in the park on a checkered blanket. Presenting to his class in school. Eating dinner. Playing on Orin’s shoulders.

Pointing, discovering, and learning; Fascinated about the world.

Each memory included his father.

The doors disengaged, sliding open to reveal the troubled Doctor Elefun holding a metal briefcase in his tightly clenched fist.

Relieved at the sight of another friend and colleague, the third scientist in his beret and glasses quickly approached the older man. “Thank goodness you’re here. We aren’t sure what to do. He hasn’t eaten or slept for days.”

“I know.”

“He’s gone crazy, hasn’t he?” the bespectacled scientist inquired dejectedly.

Elefun rested a wrinkled hand on his coworker’s shoulder and looked towards his old friend sadly. “If you lose your son like that and you don’t go crazy? You’re not a human being.”

Hearing the deep older voice caught Tenma’s attention. The father stepped swiftly over to Elefun, ripping the case from his hand and unlocking the two tiny latches. The lid airily popped open, luminescent blue light highlighted the dark creases and bags on his face as he reached in and delicately removed the Blue Core.

“Clear the lab!” Tenma shouted, his voice echoing in the vast empty room. The three scientists hurried out in fear of the desperate man, the doors sliding shut behind them.

Elefun’s eyes lingered over to where the fleeting forms had been before, swiveling his head back to Tenma who had hunched over the large table, blue light creating ominous shapes and shadows against the surrounding floors and wall. A click and a whirr completed his scattered movements. Elefun held his breath and stepped closer.

A panel of light appeared beside Tenma, accompanied by a high-pitched trill. Elefun approached until what was on the table was in clear view. The sight knocked the air from his lungs.

The form was nearly indistinguishable as having been a living being in the past. Layers of burnt skin scraped away; damaged and unusable appendages removed; hair shaved off.

There lay what had once been Toby, bare as the day he was born and laying prostrate on the cold sterile unforgiving surface of his father’s laboratory workbench.

Elefun could no longer look.

Turning away, he closed his eyes and held a hand to his mouth, choking back the need to vomit. He stood still hoping that the feeling would subside.

The warble of the laser panel cut off suddenly and when Elefun glanced over at the table top he was stunned.

Laying where the mangled corpse had been, there was Toby; whole and hale. His skin unblemished, his hands and legs attached, and his hair completely regrown.

Everything looked as if the past twenty four had just been a terrible nightmare.

Tenma stepped closer, hands raised, wanting but too afraid to touch his own son.

“It-it looks just like him! Doesn’t it? A perfect replica. It has the most advanced defense systems ever created grafted into his body; His bones, his organs, his skin, every part of him is enhanced and protected. I won’t lose him again.” His eyes hovered over the digital display, reading the diagnostic report intently.

A large screen appeared, covering the other memory clips. Brighter, more jagged and sharp than the others.

Tenma glanced up at the screen, Elefun following suit only after seeing the stunned wide-eyed look on his old friend.

The video’s left edge a highly pigmented red and on the screen was the face of a very panicked and distressed Tenma. His hands out in front of him trying to get closer. The audio snapped to life, "It's going to be okay Toby. I'm going to get you out! Everything's going to be fine. I promise."

Toby’s final moment alive, captured perfectly in vivid detail and crisp sound, repeating over and over.

The father tore his eyes from the screen angrily, jabbing the monitor and inputting a command quickly before stepping back to watch his handiwork. Several screens closer to the front, including the one featuring Tenma’s large distraught face, faded away into nothingness.

Directing himself to Elefun he spoke, “I’ve uploaded almost all of Toby’s memories.” Practically giddy with excitement, the towering scientist smiled up at the screen.

Hair askew, sweat clinging to his brow, hands twitching, and with a mad look in his eyes, his smile dropped suddenly.

“It’ll think it is Toby…”

Elefun stared gaping at his old friend, tears welling in the corners of his eyes. “Tenma…what have you done? He’s a cyborg! How could you do this to him, your own child? To have his body desecrated and manipulated like this instead of being laid to rest. Toby didn’t deserve this-”

“TOBY DIDN’T DESERVE TO DIE!”

The father’s deep breaths weighed heavy in the oppressive silence of the laboratory. “Toby shouldn’t have been there. It was my fault. I should have told him to run. Should have told him to hide and he didn’t- he-. He wasn’t supposed to... He didn’t deserve to die. He wasn’t supposed to die.”

Elefun reached his hand out and lightly touched his friend’s forearm. Tenma shook him off roughly.

“I can’t lose him too. Not after his mother. I didn’t deserve to lose him too.”

His voice quivered slightly. Eyes damp with a trickle running down the sharp slope of his cheek and curving at his chin before dripping to the documents that covered the floor around him.

Tenma raised the sleeve of his white lab coat and swiped along the moisture before clearing his throat. “So I fixed him. It’s perfect… he’s perfect. Just like Toby was.”

The distraught father lay one of his hands on the newly formed chest and his other on his son’s spotless forehead. The cyborg’s eyelids flickered gently against the sensation of warm pressure.

The faint sound of whirring gears was followed by the delicate movement of fingers; moving up and down softly and repeatedly, almost as if playing the piano.

As the body hummed to life, the machinery became practically inaudible, and over it floated a soft and uncertain sound.

“Da-ad?”

The little cyborg drifted off into sleep looking at the face of his relieved father. Elefun gawked as Tenma hoisted his son into his arms and walked towards the door. In the hollow quietude of the laboratory, Tenma’s voice bounced off the metal walls.

“Now we can be together again.”

Chapter Text

Brightness. 

Cooling his skin and illuminating his face. Wrinkling his nose to avoid the light, he turned his head and opened his eyes. It was night, a large white moon hung in the sky, perfectly framed by the window and toys surrounding it. 

He was in a bedroom. The clock ticked past 2:00 am. His fingers twitched and felt softness beneath him and on top of him, wrapping him, trapping him. The reddened glow of light reflecting through his tightly closed eyelids. He felt a thumping in his ears and a panic settling in. Grabbing the fabric he pulled every which way in an attempt to free himself but something heavy weighed it down. He flailed desperately.

“Toby?” came a groggy voice from the heaviness, stopping him instantly. Toby. He knew that name. His name. Trapped beneath the fabric unable to see anything, he couldn’t see its source but that voice, he knew that voice. It felt like home.

“D-Dad?” 

The heaviness lifted off and the fabric layers were pulled away like the petals of a flower to reveal Toby, wide-eyed and disheveled sitting at the center. His father gave a watery chuckle.

“There you are, you’re alright.”

Relieved to be able to breathe normally again, Toby was unsure what to say. He stood, grabbing the edges of the fabric within arms reach and flattened them nervously.

Tenma straightened the foot of the bed that he had been sitting on while his son slept. Hesitant at the prospect of his success he tentatively asked, “How do you feel?”

“Better now. Thanks for saving me.”

The father choked at his son’s words, a tear welling in his left eye. He cleared his throat sharply and blinked away any wetness.

“From the sheets. Right.” Encouraged at the news he confidently continued on, “What’s the last thing you remember?”

"I...remember a light."

Tenma dropped his head towards his chest. His son had seen a light. The white light that everyone would mention when surviving a near-death experience. He had always believed it to be a farce; just a dying mind playing a final trick on its host. Who was Tenma to know what death was like for those taking their last breaths. 

"It was a big bright red light. Just thinking about it makes me feel sick." Toby ran his thumbs over the fabric of his pants to soothe himself.

"Red?” The scientist lifted his head in confusion towards the window and the brilliant white moon hanging in it.

“Yeah... big and bright. Loud...” Toby listed.

"Loud? When did you see a loud red ligh-"

“Dangerous,” Toby finished abruptly.

The father’s eyes blew wide open, pupils dilated, staring at the windowsill across from him in shock. A memory flooded his view, a flash of intense light from days before. A deadly red light. The Peacekeeper.

“Dad!” Tenma startled out of his thoughts.

“What is it son?”

“Nothing. I don’t know why I said tha-DAD! DAD!” his voice so loud it nearly echoed. Toby looked to his father confused when his arms extended out suddenly. 

The father and son stood facing one another, silent and perplexed. From the stillness came Toby’s voice, “Absolutely, though I'm sure you'll agree the latest D-Class Interceptor underlying deployment-to-target system is quite old-fashioned. But you said I could see t̸̤̉̚h̶͖͗ͅe-the-the-This is so unfair!; He began to feel the thumping in his ears once again followed by a nauseousness in his belly as his eyes flickered side to side quickly.

Tenma took hold of his son’s shoulders and slowly helped him sit before his legs did something unpredictable as well. “Sit down, son.”

“Plea-e̴͒ͅa-ea-ease don't leave me in here, sir-ir! I can't stand small pla-ces. Anywhere but here! This is so unfair! This-thi-t̸̤̉̚h̶͖͗ͅ-th-th-Thanks for the life lesson, and th-th-t̸̤̉̚h̶͖͗ͅank you for this-is-is.”

“It’s going to be okay Toby. Everything’s going to be fine. I promise.”

From his seat on the edge of his bed Toby stared into the eyes of his father who knelt in front of him. He found comfort in the warm hands on his shoulders.

“You said I could see- No! I’ve said all this already. You said that already.” Making contact with his father’s tearful eyes he continued his hard-won cohesive thought, “I was scared and you promised e̴͒ͅv̸̤̂-ev-everything’s going to be fine. It was hot and stuffy and Dr. Elefun tried so hard too but there was the loud red light. Red-r-re-Call me a dreamer, but I think we'll get a bit more bang for our buck using the red one. And I was so scared.” 

Toby began to tremble, trying desperately to keep his focus glued to his father, the only constant in the wave of confusion that washed over him repeatedly. Caught in the current of his own sweeping memories he felt warm, almost too hot for his climate-controlled room. 

The father kept one hand anchored on his cyborg son’s shoulder and slid a thin piece of glass out of his pocket. Flicking through several blue-lit screens, he tapped on an icon of Elefun’s face before he settled on a screen that contained the portable system files for the software he had used earlier that night to fix his son. Wirelessly connecting to the hardware residing in his son’s chest, he performed a diagnostic assessment.

The mobile system’s pairing sounded like static and felt like it was sizzling his raw nerves. Toby’s confused trembling turned to violent shakes, his hand gripped tightly around his father’s wrist seeking any shred of comfort as his body and mind went haywire.

The complete report pinged onto the screen and Tenma read eagerly. Words like ‘System misfire’, ‘Inorganic incompatibility’, ‘Cybernetic reformatting’, and ‘Delta wave bursts persisting’ scrolled by. Tenma’s brow furrowed, his eyes manic while Toby sat incredibly tense, perspiring from his scalp, and staring at his father for answers.

The icon of Elefun pulsed on the screen, Tenma tapped it out of habit.

“Tenma? Are you alright? The private server just sent me an error report,” the kind man said, his striped pyjamas peaking just beyond the edge of the screen.

“Something is wrong. He’s repeating things, forgetting things. He can’t control his body. I ran a scan but it doesn’t make any sense! I don’t understand why this is happening!” The father scrolled back and forth between the pages, absorbing and processing as much as possible.

“He can’t hear me, can he?” Elefun asked, always the considerate man. 

Tenma put the glass to his ear and turned his head away from his son who had his eyes closed and was focusing on deep breathing techniques he had learned earlier that year. “No, go ahead,” Tenma whispered.

“One of the chemicals used in your... um, procedure earlier tonight temporarily halted cellular degeneration and restored some cellular functions. It’s caused spontaneous synaptic activity in an otherwise clinically deceased brain. Experimentation like that hasn’t been attempted since the early 2000s. I can’t believe you managed it by accident...”

“But why is he reacting like this to it?”

“It’s temporary. The cellular degeneration has begun again and his brain is shutting down and now the cybernetic parts you’ve grafted to him aren't being provided enough energy to function at full capacity.”

Tears filled the father’s eyes, his thumb rubbing a comforting circle in the fabric of Toby’s shirt. “I can't leave him like this, he never should have gone through this. I won't let him go through it again.”

“The blue core,” Doctor Elefun added soberly “With the installation of the blue core, once his body shuts down completely the core should essentially reboot his system and power him from here on out. The parameters you set last night will take effect and he will become entirely robot.” 

“He’ll live...”

“Um, yes so to speak.”

“I set his memories to end yesterday before he left school. He won’t remember this. He won’t remember any of this.” Tenma’s hand dropped from Toby’s shoulder, the boy’s eyes opened to see where his father’s hand had gone. The doctor pressed his ear further onto the glass device.

Elefun’s voice spoke deliberately and with care, “Yes, he won’t remember any of this tomorrow but he’s still suffering now. These are the last moments of your human son’s life. He’s likely very scared and needs his father. Tenma? Tenma, listen to me. You’ve been given a second chance to hold your son as he dies. Don’t let him suffer alone.”

Tenma turned his head back to his son, taking in his panicked features.

“I’ll be over tomorrow to check on you. Good night Tenma.” The line clicked and went silent. Looking down at his screen he read the final line of the report. An estimated time to total cellular degeneration between five and thirty minutes. He slid the glass screen back into his pocket quietly.

“Da-da-DaD̵͎̺͔̺͎͊̈̌â̸̄͘͜d̷̙̟̞̙͔̝̝̮̓̈̏̑̚Aa-Dad. He̴͒ͅ-Here Anywhere but here. He-H̷̪̀e̴̙̅l̷̟̆p̷͇̿ ̸͍̈́Help me...please?” Toby’s fingers twitched in odd directions. 

The father lurched forward, lifting his son as if he were still a baby and slid onto the bed beneath him. Holding the boy close and tucking his child’s head under his chin, he breathed in deeply.

Toby pressed in close trying to match his father’s breathing. He continued to sweat but his panic had begun to ebb.

Above him, Tenma squeezed his eyes closed as tightly as possible. Tears running streams down his cheeks as he willed the world away in his son’s final moments.

“Everything's going to be fine. I promise.”

The soft little whisper spoke back in the dark, “I love you Dad.”

Brightness. 

Warming his skin and illuminating his fingers before climbing up to his face. Flickering his eyelids, lashes tickling his cheek, he raised his head and opened his eyes. It was morning, greyed clouds rolled by on a light teal sky, perfectly framed by the window and toys surrounding it. 

He was in his bedroom. The clock ticked past 9:00 am. His fingers rubbed together and felt softness over him, a soothing weight on his shoulders. Toby wiggled his toes, feeling a heaviness weighing him down he looked to his feet and discovered a man draped across them.

“Dad?”

A gasp followed by a groggy voice from the heaviness, “Toby?” His father pushed himself up, leaning against his more awake arm. The boy eyed his worn face, confused and disoriented.

“Good morning son. How do you feel?”

“Uhh Kind of weird. Have I been sick or something?” Toby was confused and uncertain about what to say. He looked about the room to pass the time.

The father surged forward to hold his son to his chest, “No, you’re fine Toby, you’re perfect. You’re wonderful.”