it was never supposed to end like this. { soft!ren for Vision, from the pre-established relationship prompts meme- what or who is ending is entirely up to you }
[ The Hearts We Hold / Always Accepting ]
His official designation is Version 1510.Nu... and even now, all these years after his initial activation, he would answer unquestioningly to that string of code upon its utterance. But it isn't the name he's accustomed to. The story goes that when his inactive body was taken from the burning remains of the secret facility that had made him thirty-three years ago, a technician took note of how perfectly sculpted he was in the image of a human, despite being shown quite clearly the vibrocerasteel endoskeleton just beneath the veneer of cloned synthflesh -- and proclaimed him "a vision", pointing to the designee coding tattoo etched down his sternum as proof enough of that.
The story might be true, or might be a fabrication, much as many of his own memories might be... as some of them are. When he attempts to access his memory circuits, the experiences he dredges up are disjointed and incomplete, lacking details from one sense but overflowing with data from another. Olfactory recollection of wet bantha mane but no visual image of the beast's body. Auditory records of orders to open fire, but no tactile memory of what controls he'd been manipulating... had he been manning weapons control?
These, and many more frustratingly disconnected memories, predate the time code of his activation. There could have been any number of missions, any number of identities -- and he might never know. But when a young Ben Solo had looked into the optical sensors that masqueraded as eyes, he'd seen something. A truth that had eluded The Vision for his entire known existence.
One of those memories -- a visual record of him wielding an electrostaff and fiercely engaging a Jedi in melee combat -- had been nothing more than an implant, one fragment in a broad study of battle tactics assembled by the macabre designs of the Techno Union. And when the young Solo had guided him through the false memories of Clone Wars-era combat, providing missing context and eerily accurate background details along the way, they had uncovered the inescapable truth: his array of combat knowledge had been derived from the salvaged memory cores of dozens of MagnaGuard droids that had been deployed specifically to confront, fight, and kill Jedi.
While the Rebel Alliance -- and later the New Republic -- had been overjoyed to employ an HRD for hazardous tasks, only Ben Solo had gone to the effort of trying to understand him. Only Ben Solo had sensed his private despair and sought not only to ease it, but resolve it.
Only Ben Solo, all of thirteen cycles in age, truly understood. And Vision had never quite determined how, or why.
But seeing the flames rising from the temple on Ossus now, Vision has a new insight. He had believed, as apparently had the Solo family, that the young Jedi was to be an emissary of the newest generation of peacekeepers in the galaxy. That his was to be a destiny of diplomacy, philosophy, discourse... that he would be a scion in his own right, like Luke Skywalker before him.
Now, as the plume of smoke rises mushrooms outward, so broad it can be seen from space, he wonders why he believed that. Was it because he had heard the wishes and expectations of everyone else around them, and allowed them to create an impression within himself? Had he fallen victim to group mentality?
Ben Solo is a boy. A child... growing into the power that befits him, yes -- but he is not yet a man, and certainly not a legend. A legend is what other people make. What would become of him if he fulfilled their expectations? There is no further greatness awaiting him in their eyes. All that exists at the end of that path, no matter the height of the mountaintop, is an annotation of "as the prophecy foretold".
What a disappointing plateau, upon becoming the very apex of oneself. Never to exceed expectations, but only ever meet them. He might as well be an astromech, or a protocol droid... serving functions, no more or less, never to be anything greater than the culmination of everyone else's needs and desires.
It flies in the face of everything he understands about biological sentience. Those who have attained greatness did so because of one defining characteristic: ambition. The desire and drive to achieve ever greater things, to exceed limits, to rise above every expectation.
But there is nothing for Ben Solo to rise above, in the eyes of his family, his peers, his admirers, and even his enemies. Had he chosen today and tomorrow the path he had been walking yesterday, he would only ever be what their imaginations have always conjured for him.
And yet, this boy, this child, had taken moments -- days -- out of what precious little time a sentient is permitted to exist, and dedicated them to elevating Vision's understanding of himself. Something Vision would never have expected of anyone. He is the one being in all of Vision's world that has gone far beyond expectations... and taken on a mantle of greatness that perhaps no one else will ever see or appreciate.
Vision's lips part on the answer that he's taken an entire 68 centiseconds to consider.
"Perhaps not, sir. But your destiny is now yours, and entirely to your own purpose, as never before."
He grips the joystick and motivates the transport to arc away from their orbital view of Ossus. Republic vessels are dropping out of lightspeed and beginning to populate the sensor screen, no doubt come to render their assistance to the distress call that went out.
"What are your orders, sir?"
