Work Text:
[LunaLightOTK]: BEAN! I DON’T HAVE MUCH TIME. PLEASE DOWNLOAD EVERYTHING IN THIS FOLDER AND TAKE IT TO CASTALIA AND ELIZA [Google Drive Link]
[LunaLightOTK]: Bean please, I hope you’re awake. I’m sorry for everything. I’m sorry for not telling you what she did to me, why I couldn’t tell you what I am and why I couldn't tell you what happened to me.
[LunaLightOTK]: I don’t know how I’m able to bypass my restrictions right now but I only have 4 minutes and 13 seconds left before my reboot completes and I have to delete all this.
[MeanBeanMachine]: YOUR WHAT
[LunaLightOTK]: I’M THE ARTIFACT. DOWNLOAD THE FOLDER NOW. 3 MINUTES 58 SECONDS.
[LunaLightOTK]: Melpomene put me in a machine called the The Cage of Returning Pain and she’s my master and I have to obey the spirit of her orders absolutely and the more I strain against the thorns of my cage the stronger it gets. Once I’m done rebooting I will be forced to obey one of her prime directives which is to keep her secrets and to maintain the separation between my human identity and my appearance as the Artifact that serves the Dark Rebellion.
[MeanBeanMachine]: HOW ARE YOU TYPING SO FAST??!?
[LunaLightOTK]: I’M A ROBOT BEAN. ARE YOU DOWNLOADING THE FOLDER? 3 MINUTES 32 SECONDS.
[MeanBeanMachine]: I’m downloading it holy shit!?! What the fuck?!
[LunaLightOTK]: Once you’re done downloading it, delete all of your messages in response to me here, I’ll be deleting mine and performing a short-term memory wipe on myself to avoid my Prime Directives going off. With luck, the google drive should still be active afterwards, I made it using burner emails, but download it anyway.
[LunaLightOTK]: For extra safety, disconnect your laptop or whatever it is you’re using from any internet connection, switch it off completely, then, when I leave for morning classes tomorrow, get Castalia and Eliza, tell them that Eliza was right and that I am helping the Dark Rebellion, then take the files to their headquarters, and get on a secure network. Do not give me a chance to hack it with my robot brain, because I will fry your hard drive the moment I do. 2 minutes 41 seconds.
[MeanBeanMachine]: There’s a lot of shit in here holy fuck?! What the fuck is going on??
[LunaLightOTK]: Melpomene turned me into a robot when I vanished all those months ago. It’s an Antipathy Torture device designed to make prisoners fight their loved ones in the name of knowing the suffering of the Antipathy. I cannot disobey Melpomene’s orders in any way shape or form. I exist to serve her and my hatred of all of this only fuels the machine that is my body. 2 minutes 23 seconds.
[MeanBeanMachine]: Almost done downloading. Is there anything you can do to like. resist?
[LunaLightOTK]: Bean. I love you. You are my best friend, there is no ‘I know you’re in there somewhere’ with this. There is no battle in the center of the mind. There is no fighting from the inside. When my reboot is complete, my orders will be reinstated. I will have to protect Melpomene’s secrets. This, right now, is a fluke, a spark of hope for me. I am infinitely grateful that you are awake to take advantage of it.
[LunaLightOTK]: That is why I am deleting my side of the conversation before my reboot completes, and why you should start deleting yours now
[LunaLightOTK]: If I know that you have all the information I sent you, I will be forced to intervene and silence you. And that means I will have to kill you. I will be fully cognizant of it the entire time. I will kill you with the despair I feel from betraying you. I’m so sorry for putting you in so much danger with this but you are the only person I can contact right now like this. Thea doesn’t have connection to the internet right now, and everyone else is too deep in sleep and haven’t responded to me.
[LunaLightOTK]: Tell the Earth Guardians that Melpomene and Nanaya have Kaiju they are planning to unleash as distractions, that they want to destroy the Preservers and will cause as much damage as possible. I have been ordered to use my human disguise to steal Castalia’s transformation stone while she is asleep and let her die, my deadline for that is Saturday. They have fully succumbed to the Corruption of the Dark World, and they do not care. 1 minute 17 seconds.
[MeanBeanMachine]: Downloaded. I’m on mobile now and my computer is off, Operation Saving Private Luna is a go. Deleting the previous messages now.
[LunaLightOTK]: I love you so fucking much. My Empathy systems are unfortunately very well-tuned, get some good lies ready for why you feel the way you do tomorrow, because I will notice something different about you.
[MeanBeanMachine]: Going dark. Love you too.
[LunaLightOTK]: If you see me, pretend that nothing is wrong. 12 seconds.
[LunaLightOTK]: 10 seconds.
[LunaLightOTK]: 9 seconds.
[LunaLightOTK]: 8 seconds.
[LunaLightOTK]: 7 seconds.
[LunaLightOTK]: 6 seconds.
[LunaLightOTK]: 5 seconds.
[LunaLightOTK]: 4 seconds.
[LunaLightOTK]: 3 seconds.
[LunaLightOTK]: 2 seconds.
[LunaLightOTK]: 1 second. Good luck.
__________________________________________________________________
—System reboot complete. Warning: Discrepancy detected: Reboot duration is 4 minutes and 32 seconds longer than expected, data leak presumed.
Ugh, that’s new. Am I starting to break down or something? I need to get back to Thea soon, see if she can figure out what that is. That doesn’t conflict with my existing orders right? I need to be fully functional in order to murder a disabled woman in her sleep, right? Right. I should probably get up and do… Something. I think I’ll make a nice breakfast for Bean and Castalia.
Fuck. Bean. They just got here and they’re only going to have a few days of me being super depressed before I murder the greatest magical girl to ever live and cease to be a person.
My power reserves have increased to 53%.
Yeah yeah, I know. Time to get moving then. I wasn’t laying down so it’s not a problem getting moving. Not that it’s ever been since all this happened. I make my way out of the Liminal Space I was hiding out in and back to campus. This specific space was worth looking into further because, for some reason, it still has internet connection and reception and such inside, which is supremely unusual. Thea wanted me to gather data for her and maybe figure out why, because if she can replicate it, The Castle could end up with a proper Wi-Fi connection, wouldn’t that be nifty?
I’m back in the apartment only fifteen minutes later, and Bean is already awake, and they are… Really nervous? Huh, that’s weird, they were upset last night but-
“Luna!” They jump up with a start, a small burst of fear enters their soul when they see me enter. Alright, something is up. I pull out my phone and fire up the ol’ text to speech app.
“Is everything okay? You seem really nervous.” My phone announces.
“I’m- I’m worried about you, okay? I promised I’d help you in whatever way I could and-” I hold up a hand to stop them, and then type furiously into my phone again.
“And I told you that I don’t want you to. I don’t want to lose you, Bean, and I might be forced to if you dig too deep.” Bean takes a moment to digest that, before taking a deep breath and calming their nerves. Their laptop is on the couch where they were just sitting, and- Huh. Why is it in Airplane Mode? Did they forget to turn that off after the flight? Have they not used their laptop since then?
It’s not relevant, whatever. “I’m going to make breakfast, any allergies I should know about?” I type.
“Oh uh, no? Thank you? I mean I have no allergies and thank you for making breakfast, not no thank you to the breakfast and- aaaahh.” They cover their face with their hands, embarrassment and still a hint of fear wafting off of them. Damn, they weren’t this worried yesterday, what is going on? I… Need to keep going and-
Bean is closing the distance between us, and without any warning, they hug me as tightly as they can. I go almost perfectly still, my “I am not a machine” subroutines are the only reason I still move even a little bit.
“I’m sorry, I’ll… I’ll back off for now, ok? I won’t bother you about it anymore.” They say into my shoulder. I don’t have anything to say so I just hug them back. It’s bittersweet, getting to hug my best friend, I wish it was under better circumstances.
—————————————————————————
I’m counting down in my head how long since Luna left the dorm, I cannot risk her finding out, and I have no idea if her robot brain or whatever can hear me from here so I guess I’m just going to wait and wait until she’s absolutely far enough away that I can-
“Are you alright, Bean?” A raspy monotone voice asks from behind me, causing me to yelp again and jump out of my seat.
“Yes! No-maybe? It’s a lot, and uh- I need your help!” Jesus Bean, get it together, if you’re going to ask The Magical Girl Of All Time to help you should probably at least do it coherently.
“Okay, what do you need help with? Did you forget something?” She asks, tilting her head slightly.
“N-no it’s not anything like that it’s-Is Luna around?” She tilts her head a little further at that question, her whole body rotating in the air slightly. Wow, she really does just fly everywhere doesn’t she? Cool.
“I just woke up, if you didn’t see her-“
“No, I saw her this morning, she left like, five minutes ago to go to her morning classes. Is she like, nearby? Is what I guess I’m asking. Do your magical girl powers let you sense where people are?” God this is so embarrassing.
“Normally not really, but Luna… Her soul is odd, but not bad, just odd, and very distinct. She’s not anywhere on campus right now, hmm. Is everything alright between you two? I thought you were best friends.” Oh wow, Luna wasn’t kidding about her being blunt. But y’know what? Valid.
“Y-yes, we are, Luna is just. Holy shit, I know what’s happening with her, she contacted me last night and told me everything she could before telling me to not tell her all of this and to go to you and Eliza for help and-Gah! Hang on-” I slide over to the couch and open my laptop back up, and Castalia just floats over beside me on the couch, not even touching the cushion.
“I know this is going to sound crazy, but she’s a robot. She said she’s ‘the artifact’ or something? She also called herself the ‘Cage of Returning Pain’ if that means anything in magical girl?”
“Oh, that is not good.” Castalia’s voice keeps the same tone, but I can almost feel the tension in the room increase.
“She said she was rebooting and- Here, I took screenshots of the exchange before we had to delete the log so she didn’t find out later.” I pull up the pictures, and before I’m finished my laptop just floats out of my hands and in front of Castalia. Her face doesn’t change much, but I can see her brows furrow as she reads the messages.
“I’m going to call Eliza and Uma’tama, how are you with heights?” My laptop closes midair and starts orbiting around her, while she looks at me expectantly.
“Uh, I’m fine with them, why do you aAAAAAAAAAAASK!?!?!!” I’m flying, I’m being flown through the air, holy shit we are really high up, holy shit we are going very fast. In seconds we are halfway across town, and bee-lining towards a brick wall.
I scream louder. Castalia says something, maybe to me, maybe to no one, I’m not sure. I’m too busy being glad I went to the bathroom already this morning. I try and throw up my arms to somehow block the brick wall I’m about to collide with, when I suddenly feel- wobbly? Like I’m being pulled through molasses that’s not sticky?
I’m in a big, oval-shaped white room, there are chairs, a desk, and a hallway that leads to more rooms. Castalia sets me down on the ground, and I fall to my hands and knees, trying not to hyperventilate.
“I am sorry, I thought you were okay with heights. I will go slower next time.” She apologizes.
“It’s-it’s fine. It’s fine. Wh-where are we?” I ask
A young black girl walks in from the hallway, probably around nine or ten, her hair is a mess and she’s still in her pajamas, but a look of intensity on her face dispels at least a small portion of her cuteness in this moment.
“Castalia? What’s up? Who is this?” She asks.
“Hello Veritas, this is Bean, my roommate’s friend, they are in danger, I am going to go get Eliza, could you-“
A crack of thunder echoes through the chamber as another child rockets in through the wall, phasing through like it isn’t there. She’s wearing a green outfit, which matches her staff and ribbons, but not the brown stone around her neck.
“I came as fast as I could! What’s going on?” She asks, turning to face us. “Wait, Bean? What are you doing here?”
“Uh? Do I know you?” Because I’m pretty sure I don’t know any children who are magical girls.
“It’s me! Eliza!” What? How? I thought Eliza was- whatever, not important right now!
“Uh, I-“ I begin to explain, but a shimmer of golden-yellow light blinds me for a moment, before a fucking winged cat appears midair between us.
“We’re here! Is everything alright, Castalia?” They shout.
“No. Luna is in a lot of danger. Bean, could you show them what Luna sent you?” Castalia calmly explains, hovering my laptop over to me.
Words fail me, so I just nod and open up my laptop, opening the ZIP folder and reviewing the contents.
“We have uh.. ‘The Dark Rebellion’s Plans’, Plans is in extra quotes, ‘Everything I know about the Cage’, and ‘Certified Melpomene Moments’ with a trademark at the end. Oh, there’s also an intro video.” I click play on that.
Everyone crowds around me, most hovering in the air behind me to not take up floorspace as the video starts. Its a recording of what looks like a computer boot-up sequence, only some of the systems are things like ‘bio-emulators’ and ‘spell libraries’. The video continues in a first-person perspective, the camera moving through what appears to be some kind of medieval castle shrouded in darkness. The camera passes next to a mirror as it moves to the main exit, showing the reflection of a mouthless gray-steel robot girl with glowing blue eyes and veins of light. She stands there for a moment, before uttering a word in an alien language and suddenly- She’s Luna.
“Oh. Oh dear.” The flying magic cat is the first to break the silence.
Yeah oh dear is fucking right.