Chapter Text
Maintenance was painful.
It wasn’t physical pain, no technomantic designer was that cruel.
If Ortho was honest, he would even call this a nice experience. The cold of metal felt safe - like home in a distant way, connected to digital memories that Ortho was never sure were entirely his, or real at all for that matter. The pain came later. Rebooting the systems he always noticed something missing - he had no way of knowing what it was or why was it gone, let alone why the idea of losing it felt so painful he could cry.
He never did though - trusting his brother that whatever he deleted was not important or maybe even actively harmful.
He never asked about it out loud.
It wasn’t until the overblot and it’s consequences that Idia got locked out of deleting or adding any updates - that's when Ortho started to suspect what it might’ve been. He noticed specific areas where he was less knowledgeable than the average person his age should be. He even realized how his default body was slightly more childlike than it should be if it was supposed to mimic the growth of a teenager...
His maintenance was never leaving him with any emptiness anymore - at the same time Idia looked more and more uneasy with the process he used to find comfort in.
“Ok, with this you should be able to do it yourself” he said one day, presenting a new device that looked like a simple tablet with some wires. “Obviously I’ll be in the room in case anything goes wrong, but you know. I’m not like… gonna look around in there, you know.”
Ortho felt grateful, but wasn’t sure how to express that, so he just nodded. Idia looked as if he felt guilty for something and Ortho felt like he shouldn’t ask.
He thought he wouldn’t like the answer anyway.
—-------
Ortho felt Epel’s eyes on him. It was a weird feeling, not knowing why he was looking that intently - Ortho wasn’t sure what to do, so he just asked him.
“What?” it came out a little rude unintentionally, Ortho hoped Epel would forgive him.
Epel suddenly had a shocked expression - seemed like he didn’t even realize how he was staring. He looked away for a second, but quickly caught himself and decided to just say what he was thinking.
“I was just wondering… why are you short?”
They stayed like that, staring at each other awkwardly - Epel embarrassed at how stupid the question sounded, Ortho not fully understanding what he meant by it.
“Ah!” Ortho exclaimed when he finally understood the question. “Because I don’t actually have to be!”
He didn’t have any answers though, so he didn’t say anything else.
“Y… yeah…” Epel replied, glad the awkwardness was over. “If I were you I’d make myself as fuckin’ tall as your bro or even taller! And I’d give myself guns and stuff, and all that!”
He got excited and started listing more things, but Ortho was still stuck on the initial question. Aside from the fact that he DID have guns, actually… why was he still short? Did he like it or did he think he should be? He never thought about that part, but it did feel right to be this height, didn’t it? If he ever wanted to look at anyone from above he would just fly up… but what if he couldn't fly for some reason? Would it still feel right to be short?
“Hey, are ya listening?” Epel asked, a little annoyed.
“Ah! Sorry!” Ortho hoped he sounded sufficiently apologetic.
—---------
“So you’re still using his name, huh?” asked Ace, completely unprompted.
So unprompted in fact that Ortho was not sure he was even talking to him at first. He looked at Ace with a puzzled expression, trying to process a possible answer that would be more thought out than a simple “idk”.
“I don’t know.” he said in the end.
It was true to a point.
Ace just shrugged and left it at that, but Ortho somehow felt like he didn’t believe him.
But how could Ortho explain something so vague? His name was important for reasons too personal to spell out just like that. Aside from that, his sense of individuality was more tied to things other than a name - but when he focused on that thought he realized that he wasn’t even really sure what those “things other than” were exactly.
After coming back to his room he stopped in front of the mirror. He rarely did that, but had read somewhere how it helped humans with self-reflection, so he tried.
His school uniform gear looked exactly like it was supposed to, his core shined brightly and happily… his hair started to turn a little pink as he realized he got embarrassed by the whole thing - what was he even doing here? His gear was so easy to change in and out of that he didn’t usually even think about it as “him” specifically, it had little to do with his core identity - so why was he looking at it now like it did?
He paused for a moment, processing. Some helpful and relevant articles showed up from all over the internet, but none of them felt relatable exactly.
If he was a human he would need to sit down - as a humanoid he decided to reboot for the day. It was still early, but a fresh start of the system sounded like the best idea right now. He ignored that day's homework and went straight to his pod.
—------------
Humanoids don’t really sleep, so they don’t have dreams either - for the most part.
On one hand it's nice to just essentially time travel to a few hours later with a clear mind, but there was something magical missing. When Ortho heard his friends talk about weird dreams they had last night he had no idea how to relate. He sometimes wished he could dream.
He had a taste of how it might feel like in Malleus’s dreamscape, but these were all someone else's dreams - Ortho still didn’t know what he would dream about if he could.
Would he have dreams of his life?
You’re overthinking this, haha!
The voice in his head sounded just like real Ortho did when they had met… Ortho heard it from time to time and was never sure how to interpret it. The only things the voice said were positive and encouraging, so Ortho liked to believe it really was some kind of a telepathic connection with his other older brother - he would never have any proof of that though, so the computer part of his mind wanted to reject the idea out right.
Don’t worry, you’ll figure it out!
Ortho smiled, deciding to believe the voice again.
Right before his mind turned off for the night he was sure he saw a familiar face smiling proudly.