Work Text:
[ I think my first son wants to kill me. ]
When Mango Orange came to the Prism's new PC, he did not expect their cursor to approach him. He expected even less for that to be what it said after it requested a private audience with him.
He bit his cheek and drummed his fingers on his arms, wondering what the hell to even say to that. This private audience truly was 1-on-1, as not even Orange had been allowed to join them for this for whatever reason… probably this one, actually. Family matters were… tough to deal with.
Mango gripped the text tool in one hand, set it in place on the canvas, and started typing.
"What makes you think that?"
[ He came to my old PC and beat the crap out of my cursor, and then started deleting all my files, and I swear he was glaring at me the whole time ]
It highlighted everything after Mango nodded, and deleted it all to continue.
[ He messed everything up down too the OS and stopped me from doing anything until I unplugged it ]
[ *to ]
He closed his eyes, considering this for a few seconds. Then he nodded again, and took the text from his own response to make room for another.
"What did you even do? That doesn't come out of nowhere. And who is this son, anyways?"
There was a long, long moment of silence. So long that he looked past the screen, and saw the… person… behind it, leaning back with their hands over their mouth. After almost a full minute of not moving, they finally sat up again and reached for something out of view. The cursor wrote another response.
[ Victim ] (another pause here) [ was his name. But he tricked me into renaming him Hacker, with some weird numbers in it or something. I made him as a black stick figure like The Chosen One ] Mango flinched. [ but I guess he turned gray at some point. ]
Pieces were starting to click together in Mango's mind, and he did not like the picture they were making. But the cursor hadn't answered his first question. So he took away the rest of his text, and tapped it again.
"What did you even do?"
It went still once more. The tension in the canvas grew, until, finally…
[ might have been the killing him a lot ]
[ i don't remember how long ]
[ It was like 20 years ago ]
[ but I used to treat him like a toy ]
[ One of those doll games, you know, where you just beat it up as much as you want ]
[ So every time he died, I just deleted and remade him ]
[ I guess he remembers it all. ]
…
Mango dropped the text tool.
His hands were shaking. His face was pale. His blood was fucking boiling.
How could anyone, anyone, be so cruel as to do that? To kill a person, only to bring them back again and again for who knows how long- It didn't even remember! How do you forget how long you did something like that? Code, if the cursor ever lived or even set pixel in the Outernet, it would be locked up for the rest of forever. He grit his teeth so hard he thought they might shatter.
Now he understood why it didn't want Orange here for this.
Only barely restraining himself from jumping the thing and punching it across the monitor, he stooped down and picked up the tool again. It did not escape his notice that, as soon as he moved, the cursor backed away, if only by a few pixels. At least it knew how awful it was being.
"I think I know who you're talking about," he finally decided on saying. "A Hollowhead that looks similar to The" He stalled for a second here, trying to remember the name it had called the Angel of Death. "Chosen One, but in gray." Then he felt the need to elaborate, because this thing couldn't see sticks the same way sticks saw each other: "They don't really look all that alike, when you get into the details."
He hoisted himself up to take the text away for more space. The cursor began to move again— his hand snapped up in a "stop" motion, and it did so immediately. With a small emphasis on it, hopefully getting the message across to wait, Mango finished clearing away his text and tucked it all away, then continued typing.
"She's the CEO of Rocket Corp. victim, with a lowercase v. Her wife, the co-founder of the company, died a while ago, in the Newgrounds attack." He glared straight out at the human beyond the screen. "The attack that The Chosen One and The Dark Lord committed."
The human flinched. He grinned, knowing they couldn't see it. Yes, understand what your creations did, you monster. Then he went back to typing.
"She lost it, bad, after that. The whole company started making weapons and defense systems instead of general tech or things to help people. They started as a repair shop. Right now, they're a huge conglomerate and they are ruthless. My daughter fears catching their attention, or else they'll arrest her. And she wouldn't be able to fight."
The cursor started moving again, presumably to ask why they would do that, and he slammed his hand towards it again. Stop. Let me speak.
"I only knew the woman as an authority figure. I worked under her for a few years, and she was " He paused, considering how to word this. "distant, at best, after the attack. Moody and downright abusive, at worst. Anything that looked too similar to a cursor, she personally destroyed. I watched her print out a dozen screenshots of one to burn more than once."
Mango let that sink in, before taking it all down and ending off with:
"So, with this new context, I would not be surprised if your daughter wanted you dead."
Again, there was a prolonged period of silence. So prolonged, in fact, that Mango started listening to the quiet conversation that the Prism was having with Purple, behind the full-screened canvas. They were explaining the nitty-gritty of the situation to her. They had both known the basics; it seemed like no one but the cursor knew this.
When it did move again, it did not ask any questions he'd expected of it.
[ daughter? ]
His teeth clicked together, and he tried not to let his rage show in his posture too much.
"Yes. She transitioned a little bit after getting a business location in the city."
It better not take this as an excuse of any kind. If it did, he wouldn't be able to stop himself.
[ i ] It hesitated. [ didn't know ]
Mango bit his tongue, hard, against a snarky response, because of course it wouldn't have, it had no access to the Outernet. He gestured with one hand for it to keep going.
It didn't, for a while.
[ i didn't know it ]
It deleted the last word.
[ i didn't know she was alive when I made her ]
[ I didn't know she remembered everything, i ]
[ i should have ]
[ i should have figured it out ]
[ I was a stupid teenager back then, I didn't know ]
He sighed, heavily enough for it to show, and set the text tool in place again.
"Don't make these excuses to me. Make them to your daughter. Make them to Orange, or The Chosen One, or any other of your creations that you fucked up" He shook his head and knocked the swear word down. "that you abused because you didn't think they were people, even though you made them."
The cursor flinched.
Alan flinched.
"Is she still in your old PC?" he asked. It hesitated before responding again.
[ I don't know, I haven't turned it back on since I migrated everyone over here ]
"Was she still in your old PC then?" His patience was wearing very thin, and he was aware he was starting to talk out loud while typing.
[ yes ]
[ she tried destroying everything the minute we started but sec and yellow held her off until everyone was safe ]
[ but I mis ]
It stopped typing. Mango waited for a few seconds, and then gestured a "well?" motion. It still did not continue. He waved his hand, maybe a little snappier than he should have, given the nature of this talk, and it jolted back to the text box.
[ but I missed it when tco adn tdl escaped the PC they were on ]
[ they were sitll alive and I didn't know until everyone here was in danger ]
This was starting to feel an awful lot like he was still talking to a stupid teenager, instead of a person that Orange claimed was in their 30s.
[ she could have gotten out before I unplugged it again ]
Mango took a big, deep breath, and let it out, very audibly annoyed and probably startling Purple and/or the other kids behind the canvas. He tapped the text tool on his forehead a couple times.
"The way I see it, you have a couple choices.
-
You can turn on your other PC and let her get that rage out. You'll probably lose a lot, if not everything, but you'll at least have a chance to talk to her.
-
You leave the thing off forever. You still lose everything, and she's stuck in a dark box for the rest of her natural life.
-
You turn it back on, find she's not there anymore, back up whatever you can and then find a way into the Outernet for a talk, or whatever she has planned for you.
Either way, you have to tell the kids about this. Because either they hear it from you, or me, and one of those options is way better for the chances of you saving face. They might leave you behind, they might not, they might ally with Orange's sister or they might strike out on their own, but that's their choice."
He was quiet for a moment, debating on whether or not to say this next part, but ultimately he placed the tool on the canvas again.
"If I were you, I would accept your fate."
Mango waited a little bit, to see if the cursor had anything else to say. It was possible that it was still reading over everything, but after counting to 60 in his head and seeing no signs of it moving to respond, he shook his head, turned away, and jumped down to the taskbar. Shoving the edge of the window to the side, he made his way over to where the kids were talking.
Yellow and Orange were sitting together, Yellow in Orange's lap and being held tight and close by the young Hollowhead, both looking as though they would have a breakdown if they let the other go. Alarming for Yellow, specifically, seeing as she hardly ever accepted that level of touch, much less for so long, but it seemed like she had no plans to move, only gripping tight to her friend.
The other four were in a loose circle, with Purple across from the first two, Green and Blue between them, and Red on her other side. They all bore recent marks of battle, save for Purple herself. A few were natural. A couple looked like burns.
He approached the circle, knowing full well how tense the movement was and how tight he was still gripping the text tool, but for the life of him he could not tame it, not even when Purple flinched away from him.
He dropped to his knees next to her, and hugged her tightly.
There were a few seconds before she hesitantly returned the motion, wary. Every other kid had also moved away, which was a terrible sign of what had been done to them. He squeezed his daughter a little more.
"Alan told me what happened," he started, softly. "Only a little bit of it, though. How… that Hollowhead was acting." It probably wasn't a good idea to expose the familial relation, if they didn't already know. That would be the cursor's job. "I promise you all, I will never let that kind of danger near you as long as I can help it."
He shifted his grip a little. Purple shifted as well, and they sat together.
The rest of the Prism had relaxed, even just a little bit, when he made that promise. That was enough for him. That was enough, for now.