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All they are is lines of code. Zero’s and one’s. Machines made up of metal and numbers.
They aren't real. They are nothing. They are only here to do one thing: conquer. You should not care about them.
Those are the words that repeated themselves in Smithy’s mind like an echo would in a desolate cave. When he first established his monochrome factory, and made his very first weapons, those words were his first thought. And he was determined to make it his only thought in the whole process.
As he coded, developed, created mechanical life with manager’s and director’s support, he attempted to ignore the apparent humanity that had materialised in his factory made weapons. Each machine’s code seemed to develop by itself the longer said machine existed, creating what looked like humanity, and developing individuality.
They spoke, they yelled, they whispered. They laughed, scowled. Had things they liked, things they hated. They made friends with each other, and they made enemies. They felt pain, and relief from it.
And Smithy hated it.
This was not something he initially planned. When beginning to bring his elaborate plan to conquer the world into fruition, he initially assumed that his weapons would have the same code, the same morals, the same personality. Uniformity between them all, aside from their strengths.
He expected that he wouldn't somehow end up with approximately eight of the world’s strangest anomalies comparable to AI experiments way ahead of their times.
But it very obviously happened and that was, indeed, what he ended up with.
And their overly advanced personalities was something he always tried to ignore: repeating to himself that all they were was meaningless code and all that mattered was if they stayed loyal to him and his ideologies. Thankfully, they did - they were programmed to - but it did not help his dilemma any further. It did not reinforce what he constantly tried to reinforce.
He had a slight dilemma and he knew it: for his constant affirmations that ‘they were just code’ did not help.
He caught himself slowly but surely caring for his coded machines. His own metaphorical heart swelled when they did something particularly sweet (although that was rare), and it raced with fury when they fought with each other, or would argue about something mundane.
Repeating that ‘they are nothing’ was starting to become useless, though, he began to realise. It would not get rid of the strange feeling in his chest whenever one of the machines came to him for something.
And he was unsure of what to do about it.
-
In the midst of his anger inducing thoughts, a little Shyster had hopped all the way back to Bowser’s Castle in a frenzied panic with, strangely, none of his friends following in his stride. He blindly rushed through a secret lane in the castle, past Boomer, and made his way through Exor’s dimensional pull, and into the factory. He needed to see Smithy himself.
Concerned and puzzled by the lack of his friends and his panicky mannerisms, lieutenants Bowyer and Yaridovich attempted to stop the boy and question him, but he refused to stop for anyone other than Smithy.
Which caused a bout of sudden fear in the two machines the boy approached.
He eventually jumped off of his pogo stick and trudged towards the main room Smithy resided in, lugging his pogo behind him.
Once he made it to the room, he exclaimed: “Smithy-! Er- Your Majesty...!?”
The shrill, raw voice of the boy startled Smithy out of his trance. He reflexively tensed up.
“What's going on?” He answered, following up with another question before the Shyster could get a word in: “Where are the others? Where's Mack?”
He heard the hint of uncertainty in his own voice. He almost felt somehow nauseous at the sound.
“That's the problem! ” The Shyster yelled, dropping his pogo stick and fidgeting with his hoodie string. Smithy furrowed his brow.
The boy continued: “So, basically, w-we went to the Mushroom Kingdom like you told us to, and we were fine! Some of us were all jumping around the kingdom n’ stuff…”
“Okay…” He listened intently.
“A-and Mack and I and a few others went into the castle! Mack found a…star? I-I don't even know what it was but it was blue and he found it! And he wanted to take it back here so he guarded it! And we were just in there, doing our thing, when some guy with a mustache and a little cloud kid came in! T-they challenged us, ruined our party, so we all fought and stuff! And- and-”
The boy began to cry, stumbling and tripping over his words. Smithy, still, listened intently to what he had to say, concern now very evident on his face.
The boy sniffled, and took a deep breath. “And now most of the other Shysters are gone! And Mackie, he- he's so broken…! I don’t even know how he made it back here…! He did, I helped him, but he's in super super bad shape…! Wires everywhere- and we still don't even know what that dumb star was! They just took it and left!” The child exclaimed as he continued to sob.
It was as if Smithy had completely forgotten about the ideology that was clouding his mind just a moment before. His metaphorical stone cold heart almost stopped so suddenly it caused physical pain.
He stammered, scrambling for a response. “Well-” he took a deep breath, attempting to come across as level-headed. “Okay- well it's a good thing he's here because it means we can do something without having to waste time or cause pain with production stuff- where is he? Do you know?”
“He's here, he's trying to find the Manager-”
A fuse then blew inside of him. “Then go and help him! ” He exploded.
The poor Shyster squeaked and backed up towards the wall. For a moment, Smithy softened, feeling guilty for scaring the boy - but that softness hardened quickly, and his sudden fury returned.
He began again: “You know I don't have the time to help him myself! I've got hours worth of work to do! And you know the other weapons haven't got the time either as much as they wish they had the damn time!”
“I'm sorry-” The boy whispered.
“Is anyone even with him? Or was it just you?”
“It was just me-”
“And your first instinct was to tell me instead of helping him get to the people that can actually fucking do something oh my God… ” He angrily muttered, bringing his palm to his face.
He realised in the moment that the care for his and his staff’s creations transcended the care for his own emotions and his ‘blood’ pressure usually heightened by said emotions.
He knew that the process of being re-made was painful, disorienting even, for them. He didn't want to have to do it this early, or at all, in their endeavours.
He took a deep breath, and then looked at the little Shyster, who was staring right back at him. He could tell the boy was scared despite his mask displaying a blank glare.
“Go find him and help him get to the Manager.” He said flatly.
“Y-yes, Your Majesty-” The boy stammered. He then promptly scurried off back into the main body of the factory.
Smithy sighed as he watched him run away.
His guilt of yelling at the poor boy returned, but it was overpowered by concern for Mack, and guilt that he was not able to help him.
Even if helping him was possible, poor Mack would most likely have to be remade anyway; the damage done to him was severe by the sounds of it.
He was not expecting to have to remake anybody this early into their plans. In their eyes, they were unstoppable, unbreakable - so why would they have to halt and delay things already , if at all? In addition to this, the remaking process was painful for the one being remade, he knew this from previous tests. He reluctantly wished he didn't have to.
He paced around the room, neglecting work long overdue. He worried about his weapons, the busy ones and the hurt one. His worry was haunted by anger and guilt surrounding the worry at all.
All they are is lines of code. Why are you worrying so much? Stop. They were made for this.
In the midst of his worries, he remembered something the small Shyster mentioned: a star?
He vaguely remembered noticing a star or something similar shaped when Exor descended into this world. Maybe Mack had discovered something related to that and decided to guard it. Getting attacked for guarding it implied, at least to Smithy, that these supposed stars were seemingly important.
It may be one step towards their goal and, hopefully, one step towards being anxiety-free about anything at all.
He simultaneously felt anxious for the well-being of his creations and guilt for being anxious at all. He knew deep down he cared for them. Despite this, the guilt would constantly persevere to the point of making him angry.
He was not used to this. Not used to feeling so soft over these creations. His own dimension was full of cold, hard, unforgiving metal, unable to feel even the slightest smidgen of affection - always shooting bullets of criticism - and yet here he was, feeling what he thought was not possible to feel.
Accidental code malfunctions and strange AI abominations meant the machines developed personalities they were not even initially meant to have. That's probably what softened him up so much: their personality, their artificial wit. It made them so accidentally lovable.
That was something he would never come to terms with.
-
His work long overdue was eventually complete after a long, gruelling five hours. He had crept out of his, what he likes to call ‘office’ to finally get updates from the Manager on what had transpired.
Mack had, in fact, been unable to save, somehow completely defeated by the perpetrator. He would need to be remade, and it was something the staff were working on.
He groaned upon hearing this: the worst case scenario. He did not get mad at his employees, however - he simply sighed and uttered gratitude.
On his way back to the room he typically stayed in, an Aero made its way over to him. It had a slightly troubled look on its face.
Smithy gave it a look as if to say 'what now’ non-verbally.
“I tried to tell him not to because of what happened to Mack but Bowyer’s gone looking for the perp-”
“Are you serious…!?” Smithy uttered, facepalming once more, the anxiety and dread returning internally. The Aero nodded.
“Mhm-” it affirmed, looking at him. “Listen, it's not my fault, I told him not to because it was dangerous, that if they're out here beating like twenty Shysters and Mack himself he and the Aeros he took with him probably won't stand a chance either, but…you know him. He doesn't listen. So he’s gone and done it anyway, to both make you proud and make sure those perpetrator guys get what they deserve. Apparently.”
The self proclaimed king snarled, and the Aero had a specific gleam in its eyes, telling him that it agreed with him.
“I swear, that man has fucking arrows for brains.” Smithy began. “How on Earth did he think that would be a good idea? He's gonna come back hurt just like Mack- oh, whatever. He's out there now. You know you won't be able to convince him to come back.”
“Yeah, I know…”
“You should probably just…go with him, wherever the hell he's gone, stay out of any fights or trouble he gets into. Report back to me when you can.”
“I…can do that…thanks,” the Aero muttered. It then promptly slid away, presumably to follow the archer to wherever he had ended up.
Smithy, however, slinked back to his room, snarling as he went.
The anxiety, love, dread, and anger had all materialised once again. At the same time.
This was going to be a long couple of weeks.