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Gate stood silently inside of his lab, looking down at his hands in utter silence. Just as he had been for the past few minutes. He didn't know what caused it, that it just hurt so badly for some reason.
Their deaths.
Their cries.
He never heard them, but he imagined them as they died again and it was all his fault.
Gate had realized too late that he shouldn't have tried so hard to make that stupid utopia.
He was so weak.
Why did Alia even bring him back? She should have left him dead, a soon to be relic of a dark past.
He did all of this to prove them wrong, to be better, to prove his ego correct. But no, it blew up in his face, just like everything else in his career, just like how his old research team had gotten jealous and killed the reploids he worked so hard to create behind his back. Sabotaging them, labeling them as Maverick and even sending people to kill them. All because they were advanced. All because they were well made.
Gate didn't get it as he looked to the wall, slowly blinking, a hollow hole growing in his chest.
Why was he always the one struck down? Was he not good enough? Did the universe hate him?
Everyone else could make advanced and dangerous projects and no one would bat an eye, but the second he wants to help save the world every single friend and colleague he has turns their back on him and leaves him to quit his job and start anew.
He wanted to scream that day, at them, himself, the world, the stars. It was all so stressful that day. His creations were dead and along with it his hopes and dreams. His dreams crushed into powder like they never mattered.
He clenched his fists, teeth gritting before he relaxed his body again, arms falling to his sides.
Gate was to blame for much more, though. At least, now he was. He had deserved to be killed by Sigma, to be struck down that time because what he did had to be the most idiotic thing he had ever attempted. The scientist was glad he failed.
Even if Gate made that Utopia a reality, it wouldn't work. Everywhere you go there are going to be weaklings and the disabled and the suffering. Even if he had achieved his once-dream, that would blow up in his face too.
Gate sat down against a wall and contemplated for a while more, just as he had been this whole time. He pulled his knees up just a bit and pressed a palm to his head as he looked down at his lap, Black undersuit creasing where his legs bent up. He stared at his golden belt for a while, not that it held any sort of importance, but just because it was the one thing catching his eye in this dimmed lab.
His purple eyes were half lidded and tired, at that point he had been up all night. He didn't want to be yet here he was, lingering on the past pathetically, wishing he could change it all.
That was a distant dream, just like everything else he tried to do, to complete, to change. How fucking stupid was that? Why did he keep dreaming, wondering, trying when all he ever did was fall to his own arrogance or someone else's petty jealousy? His eyes widened and his breaths got heavier.
That was enough.
Gate forced the feelings away before he stood up from the wall he sat against, and sighed as he walked to the door of his lab, all equipment that was required to be was deactivated, things were put away and cleaned already, so all he had to do was turn off the light and leave.
So he did, then closed the door.