The Villain She was Meant to Be
Happy @loving-cryptor-day ! A little 750 word drabble. Echo and Cry, living a roommates, chat about Pix.
Echo entered the living room holding a large laundry basket, and set it down on the floor in front of the couch. His roommate lounged on top, flipping through channels, and getting progressively more annoyed.
“Anything good on?” Echo asked, folding onto the floor next to the basket as he began sorting the load.
“Nothing but the worst press conference on every channel,” Cryptor groaned. “I swear, I can’t stand her stupid smile.”
Echo chuckled, looking up to see Pixal’s face filling the screen, giving some sort of address in front of the Bounty. “She really is everywhere, isn’t she?”
“It’s infuriating.” Cryptor grumbled. “I mean, plastering her face everywhere is legitimately insulting.”
“I mean, it’s a little annoying, I guess.” Echo shrugged.
“She should be rotting behind bars.” Cryptor asserted, still toggling through stations, only to meet more feeds of his sister.
“For what?” Echo scoffed, shifting his glare over to the couch. “From the sounds of things, it seems like she just saved the city again.”
“For everything I got pinned for.” Cryptor stressed, muting the television. “She started the whole thing, she’s the one who helped the Overlord escape in the first place.”
Echo continued his folding, rolling his eyes. “Well, she was also under the control of the Overlord-”
“We were all under the control of the Overlord!” Cryptor lurched forward. “It was all the Overlord! There was no piece of corrupted technology that wasn’t just the Overlord!”
Echo dropped his wrists over the edge of the basket, a shirt still hanging in his hands as he turned his attention back to his roommate. “Didn’t the Overlord commission you though? You were made to work for him.”
Cryptor sighed, now hunched over at the edge of the couch, a hint of defeat entering his manner. “...the first memory I have, is of being arrested.” He stared out into the room, his eyes sitting with a thick, heavy blankness.
Echo stared back at him, the room frozen in fragility. “What do you mean?”
“It’s the very first event written into my processor. There is no record of anything before then.” Cryptor looked back at Echo, eyes still impenetrable. “Things from before came back to me eventually, but it was information. Events I knew had happened, but had no memory of participating in. Because I didn’t do any of it. I didn’t have any kind of control. People called me a weapon, and a murderer, and a terrorist, before I’d ever had the chance to make a single decision for myself.”
Echo leaned over the edge of the sofa, now locked on getting to the bottom of the situation. “Why didn’t you fight to get out earlier? You would have had decent case, manipulation by an evil presence is pretty common in Ninjago.”
Cryptor shrugged. “Because I did it.” He lowered himself onto the floor, his glance reaching toward his companion. “Even if it wasn’t really me, it was still me, you know? And it was the only thing I had ever done, even if I didn't do it. It felt sort of pointless to try and resist. If people wanted to label me a monster, I didn’t have any grounds to disbelieve them. It all felt sort of inevitable.”
Cryptor’s eyes turned again to his sister’s image, still smiling on the screen in front of them. “The only difference between Pixal and me, is that she was freed of the Overlord’s code soon enough to get away scot-free. She managed to win the heart of the hero, and so everyone forgives her.” His head sunk back onto the couch cushions behind him, his eyes now pointed at the ceiling. “She lucked into falling in love with the right person and the right time, while I’m left playing the villain she was supposed to be.”
Echo gingerly leaned over his laundry basket, toward his friend. “You know, I don’t think Pixal should’ve gone to jail, but for what it’s worth, I also don’t think you should have either… I know how rough that can be, especially in solitary.”
Cryptor’s head turned Echo, a new found solidarity in his face. “But hey, we got out.”
Echo nodded. “We got out.”
Cryptor’s hand reached out, grabbing the other end of the laundry basket, his expression softening. “How about I do this load, and you find us literally anything else to watch.”
Echo’s face lit up in a smile as he quickly sat up. “Is this permission to put on a rom com?!”
“As long as it’s not about two stupidly perfect robots, I think I can handle it.”
