Beauty & The Beasts (Twisted Wonderland x Reader)

Turn for the Worst -108-

"...What...?" Idia whispered, his hold on Ortho's forearms weakening as he slightly backed up. His eyes stared into Ortho's, Ortho's eyes avoided his. Never before had he seen his little brother look so... so... detached.

Tightening his metal jaw, Ortho begrudgingly looked up to meet the shellshocked gaze of his elder brother. "I've been thinking a lot about what I could do to make things better, Brother," he admitted in a calm tone, "I wondered about what it really meant to 'do everything in my power'..."

Backing up a bit more with his eyebrows furrowed, Idia blinked in pure confusion and disbelief. "What are you saying, Ortho?" He breathed out, baffled at his brother's strange behavior. Perhaps the current events had slightly scrambled his circuits. It's fine though, as long as he was safe, everything was fine.

Upon hearing one of the technicians call out to him, Idia turned away for a brief moment before looking back at his brother with a firm expression. "We can talk about this later." He said sternly before going to turn away and help with the others in the room, expecting Ortho to help elsewhere while keeping himself out of danger.

But before Idia could fully turn around, he felt a small grip on the elbow part of his robes. He looked back, surprised at the determined face his brother wore. "But, I finally found the answer I've been looking for!" Ortho exclaimed proudly, "If rewriting the future is too difficult, then we can just erase everything and start over."

Idia's eyes grew, the tension in the background increasing. Still, Ortho went on. "Programs work the same way, right? It will be faster to rewrite a program than have various engineers comb through it for bugs. In other words... We should just reset the whole world so you can be born anew, Brother!" He declared with a fist raised towards the sky, way too happy for what he just said.

"What do you mean, Ortho...?" Idia said slowly, the gravity of the situation just now fully sinking in. He was... serious. Serious?! No, surely not. Right?

The fire haired man pursed his lips and rubbed his head. "Tch... I knew I should have debugged your AI system as soon as I noticed you were acting weird!" He exclaimed, blaming himself for his brother's odd behavior. Maybe it was just his robotic rebellious phase. All robots went through it at some point, right.

A small pout formed at the younger boy's face. "I'm not bugged, Brother. This is my free will speaking." He argued definitely.

Another shout from the technician for help. With growing frustration, Idia clenched his jaw, his thoughts becoming muddled. "It's not. You are..." He closed his eyes and clenched his fists, "You're an autonomous magical humanoid I modeled after the image of my brother. Whatever "free will" you have has been programmed into you...!" He shouted firmly.

The two stared at each other, defiance burning between the two. Ortho was the first to break his gaze, looking to the floor, then to the side, then back at his brother was a blank look. Ortho was not used to pain, his brother deliberately programming out any painful memories.

Pain.
The definition is physical suffering or discomfort caused by illness or injury.

He isn't hurt, all perfectly intact. So why... what was this?

Ortho tore his gaze away from the alarmed look of his brother. "Yes, I'm aware that I'm an artificial being. But, did you know?" He paused, slightly furrowing his eyebrows, "I'm a blessed child made possible by the Heretic Genius's gifts for magical engineering! You're the reason why I can operate beyond a normal robot's capacities!" He exclaimed, his tone becoming firmer and his face hardening.

Before either of the two could speak again, one of the technicians turned back with a loud voice full of desperation, pointed right at the acting director. "S.T.Y.X's main servers are being hacked by an unknown assailant!" They informed. Another fiddled with the control deck. "Tracking underway. Impossible... This is Humanoid ORTHO's AI program!!" They exclaimed.