What Am I Supposed to Be?: If That's Who I Am...

The call went out for a Search and Rescue team in Airidin. System Error 123’s team was unavailable, so the black armored, blue visored protogen answered the call solo. They hadn’t been to Airidin yet, so Systor wasn’t sure what to expect when they arrived. The protogen set out to find their mission, wrapping themselves in their brown-tattered cloak. Systor wouldn’t give up on whoever needed rescuing until they found them.

 

Portal travel into Airidin was luckily uneventful with no mishaps. The warm, moist jungle air washed over the blue visored protogen. Systor adjusted its internal temperature to compensate for the new climate using its Temperature Control system. Luckily, that module worked now, or the protogen would vent steam every few minutes to prevent overheating. After momentarily looking around the Airidin guild, System Error 123 spotted the flower-adorned jaguar woman who had put out the request standing nervously by the door.

 

“Hello, I’m Systor with Search and Rescue,” the blue-visored protogen greeted the elven woman. “Can you tell me about the missing adventurer and where they were last spotted?”

 

“Um, hi, my name is Faunus and its not exactly an adventurer that is missing,” the leopard lady introduced herself while fidgeting with the flowers on her forest green dress. Something about this woman struck Systor oddly, but they decided to put it aside for a moment. “There is a Guiler of parkats that usually spend their days jumping about the roof of the guild hall but have been missing for a few days. The little guys don’t usually roam far from where they nest and I’m worried poachers got them. No one else would help so I put in a request with Search and Rescue.”

 

“Missing parkats,” the protogen asked, not believing their ears. This mission wasn’t a job for Search and Rescue, and System Error 123 was about to turn it down when they saw the pleading look of concern on Faunus’s face. “Do you know how I can track them or recognize the correct Guiler when I find it?”

 

“I’ve got one of their feathers,” the jaguar woman answered, perking up. She pulled a light brown and dull red feather from her dress and held it out for the protogen.

 

“I’ll see what I can find,” Systor nodded, taking the feather. They had no experience tracking animals, but maybe there was something they could track down.

 

The black-armored protogen held the feather up and looked around, stepping out of the guild hall. The trees here were too dense, so System Error 123 would have to walk instead of flying with their Jet Boosters. Still trying to figure out where to start, the protogen cycled through the visions available on their visor until they hit ultraviolet. That wavelength of light made the feather light up in brilliant pinks and purples. Looking out into the rain forest, off in the distance, I saw a similar pattern lighting up. Walking to it, they found a fallen feather. Then, looking around, they saw another far off.

 

As Systor followed the trail of fallen feathers, the Airidin forest got darker and darker. Hours wore on as barely any light escaped through the trees. The blue-visored protogen had left any marked trail behind long ago and was pushing through thick underbrush following the UV trail. Systor started considering making a set of wings with all the feathers they found. A misplaced step sent them through a covered hole in the ground. Hitting the underground floor hard knocked Systor out cold as feathers fell all around them.

 

“Harvest what you can from the weaker one, I’ll take what’s left and make it into something useful,” Dr. Mal’s voice echoed through the darkness of the protogen’s unconscious mind. “If that doesn’t work we can burn them with the rest.”

 

Systor awoke with a gasp as they jerked upright. Was that a memory that amnesia buried deep? If it was, it directly opposed other memories they had recovered. System Error 123 decided to wait to unpack that till after their job was complete. They had scraped up their back and a large lump on the back of their head from the fall. Systor summoned their Support Gauntlents and used the medical spray from them to fix up the injuries before surveying their surroundings.

 

Illuminating their surroundings by turning up the intensity of the red lights on their black armor, the protogen found that they were in some sort of underground structure that looked made of an intricate network of tree roots. Carvings on the walls gave the impression that this was a temple of some kind at one point in the ancient past. Gathering up all the fallen feathers, Systor looked down the hallways, saw the ultraviolet signature they had been following, and went in that direction. After following the fallen feathers through the tunnels, they opened into a grand, massive room.

 

Old shelves made out of the temple’s roots lined the walls of this room filled with wooden tablets. Each of them had priceless information from a lost age. Tables and chairs shaped from the roots lining the floor filled the center of this ancient library. On top of them sat small cages with the missing parkats stuffed inside the cramped quarters. The winged felines hissed in fear as Systor approached the confined animals. 

 

“Go free, there’s people missing you,” the protogen tells the parkats as they crush the locks with the aid of the Support Gauntlets and throws the cage doors open. Nervously, the flying cats climbed from their confinement and ran off into the temple to freedom.

 

“Gamma! We were starting to think you’d given up hunting us down,” a voice from the far end of the room called. Looking towards it, Systor saw a silver-armored protogen with a fur color similar to theirs but at least a foot taller and much more muscular. Behind them, they dragged a giant war hammer with a head that radiated with plasmatic energy. “Nonetheless, the reward for returning to the doctor with your body shall go to Fortis.”

 

Systor tried to move out of the way as the large silver armor charged them. As the Jet Boosters kicked to life, the energy-charged Warhammer struck true, sending System Error 123 hurtling into the wall. Error messages lit up across their visor as they tried to stand up but couldn’t find the energy to do it. This finale was the ending they deserved for all the lives they may have taken, for they didn’t deserve better than this. As the light faded from their body, Faunus stepped into view. Their form shimmered and changed to that of an anthropomorphic parkat with rainbow-colored fur and feathers.

 

“In the past, I was worshipped as Amell, the earth god,” the winged feline knelt to Systor as time started to slow. “I can’t give you back everything you lost, but for saving my children, I might be able to give you what you need to win this fight.”

 

As Amell placed their hand on the downed protogen’s visor, the world faded around them, and a memory of the past played out. Systor’s armor had changed to black to help them blend with the shadows when their lights were dimmed. They watched themself sneak through a cyberized futuristic factory assembling war machines. Managing to go completely unnoticed by the robot guards, the protogen assassin made its way to the AI core, controlling the facility. Blue energy blades silently slid from Systor’s wrists as they stepped forward to disable the computer brain. 

 

Suddenly, a blow from an unseen metal object struck the protogen across the visor, cracking it with a loud bang. Their vision flickered wildly on and off before restarting entirely to a different scene in front of the visored assassin. Systor was no longer in a factory at a computer core. They were standing over the bed of a child of their species, poised to kill them. The parent of the kid stood holding a solid projectile gun, ready to fire again. System Error 123’s visor tried to flicker back to that seen in the factory, but the truth had already been revealed. Everything they had been told and sent to do was a lie.

 

Systor blinked back to the present with new energy, filling their body with energy. Fortis stood over them, posed to bring down the killing blow with their hammer. Nimbly, the black armored protogen dodged the attack as their combat data reinitialized. Battle tactics, enemy weaknesses, and survival methods filled System Error 123’s brain in agonizing, painful, rapid succession. Bunny hopped backward, using the Jet Boosters to add a bit of distance between them. The former protogen assassin analyzed the room with new tactical eyes.

 

“Fortis! Dr. Mal lied to us! She messed with our minds and manipulated reality around us,” Systor shouted to the larger protogen. Red lights dimmed on the black armored protogen as they threw their brown tattered cloak off in preparation for a fight. “We don’t have to fight each other!”

 

“Oh Gamma, we knew what we were doing,” Fortis laughed as he brought his war hammer around, prepared to charge again. “You were the only defective idiot that needed to be tricked into doing their job. Dr. Mal should’ve just made you a drone like the others.”

 

Fortis charged Systor just like they had predicted their opponent would do again. The former assassin opened their steam vents and coated the room in thick vision-obscuring steam while Jet Boosting into a dodge. Sneaking around through the humid fog, they knew infrared would be useless with all the heat from water vapor. Ultraviolet wouldn’t betray their location, so Fortis would try to use X-ray to find them, which left them open to ranged attacks. Freezing the water in their liquid cooling system to ice with their Temperature Controls, Systor aimed at the area where the plasmatic glowing warhammer was. Razor-sharp ice shards flew from the Support Gauntlets as System Error 123 quickly moved through the fog to confuse X-ray tracking.

 

“She made us kill our own kind! You can’t seriously be okay with that,” Systor shouted as they heard several of the ice projectiles strike true. “We can find a new way forward together and save the others!”

 

“I wasn’t made to do anything! I wanted to do it. I volunteered to do it. I relished in their blood even before Dr. Mal made me better and stronger,” Fortis cackled as they charged at where they thought the smaller protogen was but missed completely.

 

“There’s no fighting who I am is there,” System Error 123 sighed as two blue wrist blades slid from their wrists, palely illuminating the protogen in the fog. In one swift movement, both blades slid into Fortis’s spine from behind. A ragged movement eviscerated the larger protogen’s back, killing them as they fell. “I can’t change my past, but maybe I can save the future.”

 

Systor vented water over their body to clean themself off, followed by hot steam venting to dry off. Once cleaned off, the protogen collected their cloak, found it no longer in tatters, and looked brand new. A rainbow feather neck clasp crafted from metal indicated that this was one last gift from Amell. There was a slight smile on Systor’s face as they found their way out of the ancient root temple and made their way back to the guild hall. Despite everything else that happened and what they’ve learned, the protogen had saved the lives of a whole Guiler of parkats. That was a silver lining to this terrible day.

 

“Have to hold on to the good while it still lasts,” System Error 123 whispered to themself while navigating back to town.