Raichu is an Idiot, Part 11: His Brother's Keeper
The blond soon found himself overwhelmed with anxious Judges, and Ari, with an uncomfortably familiar blond unit hovering outside the throng. The smaller, slimmer "Zero" was interested in Raichu's condition, but unwilling to go closer.
Raichu found himself being led away to be treated, trying to fend off Cubit Foxtar and Virgo and Ari all the while.
Max didn't assist him in escaping, crossing his arms with a sigh as he turned Raichu over to the mercy of his family and friends.
It was an hour and a half before Raichu was released, and it was now well into the afternoon. There was a patch over the new optic, and the afflicted synthflesh around it had the silvery tinge of fresh skin not yet recolored by his nanites. He'd had a change of clothes, his hair was free of coolant and gel, and he'd been fed well. He looked much better, calmer and more lucid.
Max eyed him up and down critically, before he nodded. "There. You look much more presentable."
Raichu nodded and continued on past his father, mouth set in a thin line as he walked into his quarters and the door attempted to slide obediently shut behind him.
Max stepped inside the room just before the doors slid shut, watching the other.
He moved on through the living room, past the new china set on the dining room table, through the hall, into a small lab at the far end of his quarters, safely away from anything important that could potentially be blown up. His "official" lab was elsewhere, but some of his most private ideas and projects were stored here.
The door locked behind him.
‘Where are you going?’ Max asked him quietly as he followed.
"I," his voice pierced through the door, furious and slightly hysterical. "Am digging out those time machine schematics, and I am not coming out until I have gone back in time and fixed this magnificent fuck up."
"Which time machine schematics?" he said sharply, banging on the door. "Raichu, let me in, now."
"The old ones," was the lackadaisical response. "There are some energy crystals in my bedroom if you're hungry."
"Wh- why do you even have multiple time machine schematics?!" Max looked irritated at that. "I'm not hungry. I'm more concerned that you are going to try something completely reckless."
"Some of them are Wily's," he said absently. "Some are Dad's work. Some are my own."
The name ‘Wily’ rang a bell. "You know, before you run around using some of Wily's things, why not ask about them to someone that knows him quite well?"
"I'm busy," came the response, muffled this time.
"So you're perfectly fine with never meeting me or Quint. Got it. Glad to know."
The noises of muttering and shifting paused. "You would be fine without me, wouldn't you?"
"I think the bigger question is, would you be fine without us?"
".....I'll never know, will I? If I don't try." And the noises resumed.
Max wasn't giving up. "I'm calling your older brother. Maybe he can get it through your head."
There was a mutter from Raichu as he continued paying very little attention to his father.
And call Quint the program did, because he needed all the backup that he could get. However, the horrified shriek that he heard from the kid was something he had not expected.
Quint was there within seconds, looking more frazzled and panicked than Max had ever seen him. He even had, in his panic, accidentally put on one of Copy's bright neon purple socks instead of his own. "Raichu! You don’t know what you’re messing with! Stop! It won’t work!"
Inside, the blond jumped in fright at the screeching, knocking off a beaker of connectors. He swore and bent down to pick up the important bits, gesturing for a tiny cleaning mechaniloid to take care of the glass.
"Why is Quint here?" Raichu called, baffled.
"I called him like I said he would, and told him what you were up to but-"
"That won't work, Raichu! I already t-tried!" He sounded on the verge of panic as he tried to open the door.
"Dad, I'm kind of busy here," the blond sighed, turning his back to the door as he went back to work pondering the schematics. "It's okay, Quint."
Quint stared at the locked door, a high-pitched noise that sounded suspiciously like a frightened wibble coming out of his mouth.
The tip of Raichu's left index finger squeaked across the surface of the table as he tried to ignore Quint's distress. Why had his father brought him here if it was just going to upset him?
"Y...You shouldn't d-do it," Quint said, sounding tired. "It's n-not going to w-work. I told y-you. I already t-tried to do this once, with a m-machine built f-from those schematics."
"I got them out of an old base during the Elf Wars," Raichu said, though that hadn't been the question. "It'll be fine, Quint."
Unbeknownst to him, the little mechaniloid, having not been told to keep the door closed and seeing that it was out of supplies, unlocked the door to go retrieve some polish from a supply closet.
Quint found himself gripping the doorknob, and nearly starting when it opened. But he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth, and he ran inside the lab, past the mechaniloid, and snatched the schematics from Raichu's hand. "......"
"Hey!" Raichu yelped as the device holding the preserved schematics was taken from him. " Quint!"
"I'm not l-letting you use these. W-What made you not a-ask me if I s-still had it, m-myself?" The Robot Master said, holding those schematics close to him.
"Because, I'd prefer to make sure there are no errors. The only way to be sure of the integrity of something is to build it up yourself." Raichu could scan and test the other one, if Quint had it, but it would feel wrong. "Quint, come now." He reached out slowly, as if trying to soothe a spooked, dangerous mechaniloid.
Quint’s eyes narrowed, and he looked more serious than Raichu had ever seen him, and shook his head. "I'm not giving th-this to you. It's n-not going to work."
"....." Raichu sat back, his gaze going from Quint to the open door. His milky green eyes looked almost blue in the right light. "Then I'll just have to go back to perfecting my own machine."
"N-Never said the t-time machine wouldn't work, dummy." His green eyes were glaring at him.
Raichu stood up slowly and walked out the door. "I was talking about finding some other schematics to work with. The schematics I made are taken from Wily and Father's findings, along with my own."
Quint reached out and grabbed his arm, glaring at him in irritation, and he looked like he was starting to cry - and not to make Raichu feel guilty, either. "You don't even c-care? That it ruined m-me and you're going to let it ruin you, too?"
Raichu scowled, his lip curling in disgust. "I'm already ruined. I can think of no way for the situation to be worse." He could, but he was stubborn.
"I c-can," Quint muttered, giving Raichu's arm an annoyed shake. "You're r-reckless."
"So I've been told," he said, turning to go on. Where had Max gone?
Max was still there, eyeing the two of them, with something akin to disapproval in his eye.
Quint dug his heels into the floor and held tightly onto Raichu's arm. "You're n-not even the least b-bit curious? About why I d-don't live with P-Papa? Or wh-what even h-happened with me and t-time travel?"
Raichu paused and tried to lift Quint off the ground with the one arm. By Light, he was a sturdy little thing. He gave up and sighed, "Fine, you can tell me on the way to the Garden."
Quint sighed, looking tired and older than his tiny frame normally would make him appear as he tried to figure out where to begin. "H-How much about m-me survived to this e-era? Just that I s-stopped Dr. W-Wily all the time before everything s-suddenly stops?"
Raichu nodded, trying to nudge Quint along. At the very least, he needed to move and burn energy. His single optic darted about almost suspiciously.
Quint looked up at him, his face still unreadable. "There's a r-reason all of that s-stops so suddenly. It's b-because I vanished. I don't... c-completely remember what h-happened, my memories of the time are a bit f-fragmented, b-but..." He hesitated. He'd never said this to anyone. "Th-The reason I vanished w-was because I was k-kidnapped by a time-traveling Dr. W-Wily."
"So Dad.... doesn't know what happened to you, at all?" Raichu slowed, wondering if Max was following them, if he knew all this already. "What? Kidnapped?" That made him angry. His brother was too sweet to have to deal with something like that.
Max was following them; he hadn't heard the entire story, after all, and he needed to see if Raichu's was going to still be reckless.
"N-No. I can't g-go near him, it's t-too dangerous," Quint pointed out, finding himself, holding onto Raichu's robes with one hand while the other gripped the schematics. "Uh huh. K-Kidnapped. Not just k-kidnapped, but t-taken back in time, and r-reprogrammed. He th-thought that the o-only way to b-beat Mega Man w-was to make him do the j-job himself."
Raichu's hand found its way on top of Quint's head, giving him a brief pat as he got into the private lift and directed it to the floor for the Garden. A frown appeared on his face. "But if you exist, then Mega Man has to exist, or there would be no you? Reprogrammed."
He didn't like that word. "To do... what? Just to fight yourself?"
Quint shook his head, not relaxing as much as he would with the other's hand on his head. "I thought it was that simple too, but it really w-wasn't. Y-You see... as Mega Man, I n-never fought Quint. I'd never met him. He didn't exist. That entire incident never h-happened."
His face was unreadable. "R-Robot Masters aren't l-like you. You're special, b-because you have free w-will. We don't. We have p-personalities... but not f-free will. So if w-we were reprogrammed, we couldn't f-fight against whoever had r-reprogrammed us. So I lived t-the next several y-years in the heart of e-enemy territory, w-watching things get d-done, knowing things would b-be done but not able to stop them."
Raichu's single visible eye watched Quint, absorbing what he said with distaste and surprise. "Never happened?"
The bitter, metallic taste of anger filled his mouth as Quint spoke, his jaw tensing. How dare that disgusting, hateful human use a Robot Master like that? They weren't just tools. "Forced to watch and do nothing," he said, his throat tight. Then he grabbed Quint by the shoulder and gently turned him toward the window, figuring Max would already be facing in a way more conductive to viewing.
"Look." The drab inside of the elevator shaft gave way to a massive dome inside the Tower. It was anything but empty, filled with a variety of technoorganic plants, some so real they couldn't be distinguished from their natural counterparts.
The entire biome was brightly lit bit Yggdrasil, its gargantuan girth seeming all the bigger for the amount of space it occupied in the Garden. Glowing foliage of semi-organic leaves and data ringed its trunk and branches like twinkling, impossibly close stars, fading in and out of existence to some unheard rhythm, bathing the landscape in soft but pervading light.
Quint nodded, toying with Raichu's fingers as he continued to speak. "I'm g-getting there..."
Again, Quint nodded, turning his gaze away from the other's face to his hands. "Th-The worst part was th-that I was still me. I still h-had my own thoughts and hopes a-and dreams... but I couldn't s-stop anything that was happening f-from happening. I kn-knew what was going to h-happen, but I couldn't warn anyone. Then... then one f-fateful day, I got into a f-fight on his orders and I took a b-bad hit to the head and- and I was badly injured."
It took a moment, from how he was reliving his past, but his eyes flickered over to Yggdrasil, and everything that he could see. "...It's beautiful," he said softly, his gaze fixed on it.
Max was several paces behind them, wanting Raichu and Quint to have some semblance of privacy, but even he could appreciate the beauty that he could see - and the amount of life that the tree represented.
Raichu's hand brushed through Quint's hair again, unable to stop himself. "He's dead now, Quint," he said, unable to think of anything else that might soothe him. He couldn't say it was over, or okay, because pain like that was neither of those things. "You were injured? What then?"
The lift stopped and Raichu stepped out onto the grass, instantly aware of a powerful, benevolent consciousness turning suspicious and sour, like an immense pressure on his mind, a starfish trying to pry open an oyster. He shook his head and failed to submit. "Don't let him bully you. He wouldn't hurt you, since you mean no harm, but he needs to learn not to do that to me and family."
"Beautiful, but..." He strode across the grass, quiet for a moment as he realized he'd forgotten why he'd come here. "I keep some of my most precious things here. No one ever comes here, and there are no guards to see what I hide or do here."
"N-No, the man that d-did that is not around, but Dr. W-Wily isn't dead back home yet," Quint reminded him, closing his eyes at Raichu's hair. "And then I g-got badly hurt, and... it w-was like a fog was lifted." His face was unreadable. "My head was injured. M-My voicebox got a g-glitch, and my processor was damaged - specifically," he said, nervous, "one major s-section with the c-coding that has the r-reprogramming."
Other things were damaged too, like some of his weaponry, but that was the biggest part.
Quint stepped out, wincing a bit as he felt something pushing against his mind. His processor was still injured, as he'd never gotten anyone to look at it, and giving oneself brain surgery was a Very Bad Idea. "Wh-What is this?" he asked.
He paused, glancing up at Raichu when the other said that. "..."
"That must have been quite a bump, Quint," the blond murmured, glancing down at his head. "But I'm glad it happened or you'd not be here now, safe. You have had your processor looked at though, right?"
The foreign mind was vast, alien, annoyed. With a stab of annoyance, it surged forward to push and nudge again-- "I said no ," Raichu rebuked forcefully. A loud hiss followed his outburst, loud, breathy, so forceful that he had to dial down his audio sensitivity to avoid covering his ears.
A massive serpentine creature was now coiled around Yggdrasil's trunk, translucent, electric blue, its hood flared aggressively, displaying a network of dark blue and green filaments throughout it, all leading up to its angular, cobra-like head.
Raichu looked undeterred. "You know who they are. Stop this tantrum immediately."
"It hurt," the small robot murmured. And it still did, actually, he'd had a mild, constant headache that he'd gotten too used to having that only became worse when he had to fight mentally. "And I'm n-not done. I ended up p-pretending that I was d-dead while I tried to figure o-out what was going on with everything and whether I c-could go back to the f-future - where I'd come from. Because th-there were still two mes at the time."
He didn't answer Raichu's question about having it looked at.
Max was silent throughout everything, letting Quint talk to Raichu, though he wasn't afraid of the thing that was coiled around the tree. Quint went quiet for a bit, watching the serpentine creature.
"Don't duplicates cause issues in most time travel scenarios?" Raichu asked, looking down at his brother. "And you're going to get that head of yours looked at later. I won't be satisfied until that happens."
The two of them hissed and shouted for a few moments, the serpent's body twitching from time to time even as Raichu slowly began to hunch over, his breathing stilted. There was a deep, angry, hungry throb in his core. He hadn't been this close to Yggdrasil since the serpent had devoured Elpizo and he'd gotten his own head injury, then his body. It was no wonder his core was demanding the part of it that was in Nidhoggr's body.
Even as he realized that keeping the two of them separate any longer would be futile, the serpent melted and was absorbed into Yggdrasil mid-hiss. A tiny, screeching blob of electric blue fell down from where the beast's head had been, it hit the platform at Yggdrasil's base and bounced down the steps, rolling to a stop a few meters away from them. It was a tiny blue Limited, dazed and limp.
"Yes," Quint said, sighing. "B-But this was r-real life. So the f-first thing I did was... t-try to go to the future. Easy, right? Especially after I s-stole the Time Skimmer?" His face suggested it hadn't been that easy, though. "No thanks. I'm fine."
He turned to Raichu in concern. "A-Are you okay...?" He gripped the other's arm, trying to keep him steady even as Max approached the two of them, a bit wary of the giant snake, and-
That was a Limited. Max had to resist the urge to back away from it, but he didn't take his eyes off of it.
"Understandable. So what happened then?" Raichu gave his brother a dry look. "I'm not accepting no for an answer."
Raichu wobbled and sank down, grumbling at the throbbing in his belly and eye. "No. My core is very angry with me right now. I don't blame it though, it's been years since my core was whole." He hadn't told Quint about any of this. Damn, he'd forgotten.
The Limited squeaked pitifully, trying to rouse itself enough to 'stand'. Its nucleus was small and scattered, only a few pieces of that part that was essential for the creatures.
"The f-future I went t-to was not the o-one I remembered." The Robot Master didn't explain how. "S-So I decided to go back in t-time and fix it to how I r-remembered it. Remove the T-Time Skimmer so that I c-could make the future the o-one I remembered."
Quint looked very puzzled as he knelt next to Raichu, wrapping his arms around him. Max stepped closer, eyeing the Limited with something akin to wariness and curiosity.
"It wasn't the same?" Time travel was complicated, he knew that much, but... Quint seemed so frightened of it. And after his ordeal with Wily, could he be blamed at all?
Raichu huffed and decided to rest for a moment, Quint's weight discouraging him from moving at all. The little beast looked right at Max and let out a little chirp of recognition and crawled toward him.
He shook his head. "N-No. I went b-back in time, destroyed th-the Time Skimmer, stole the p-plans so that no one c-could have them..." He stared ruefully at the object in his arms. "But wh-when I went b-back, nothing had ch-changed. It w-was how it had b-been when I first went back. So I k-kept trying." He'd done so many different things, trying to change time, but...
Max warily knelt down and looked at the Limited. "......"
Raichu rubbed Quint's back, slowly digesting the information. "...Does that mean you made an alternate timeline elsewhere that you couldn't get to? Or you just couldn't change anything at all?"
It squealed happily and moved as quickly as it could through the grass. Raichu looked over at Max and grimaced. "Sorry, the Garden is sort of my Precious Thing. I don't like it when anyone goes near the tree because the last person who did tried to kill me, but I ate him so there's nothing to worry about now."
Quint didn't answer Raichu's question directly. "...I k-kept getting frustrated, b-but I eventually discovered a f-function on the Skimmer I h-hadn't before. Temporal Identification. I used i-it on myself and th-the support unit I h-had built after being kidnapped. We h-had different temporal identifications. I d-don't get what the n-numbers mean, exactly, b-but it was enough for me to figure out w-we didn't originate from the same world."
Max raised his eyebrows at Raichu, still paying attention to Quint’s tale. "You ate the last person that came too close to you?"
"....Are you saying you did make a series of alternate worlds and timelines?" Could nothing be changed then? ".....He was trying to destroy my body. I spat him back out later. Apparently he didn't taste good." The Limited warbled in disgust.
Quint nodded, looking down. "...E-Ever since the first j-jump... I wasn't a n-native of the world where I'd b-been reprogrammed. It... t-took me awhile, but since I f-finally figured out my t-temporal identification, I was a-able to program to Time Skimmer t-to take me back to the correct world. I still have it." At that, the little bot got an ugly look on his face. "That's mean. He shouldn't hurt y-you."
"Good riddance," Max muttered.
"So that's what that bit was for... Maybe Wily wasn't as insane as I had originally assumed if he had the foresight to add that in." He had a feeling Quint wasn't done yet.
"There are a lot of mean people in the world," Raichu said simply. "....Some would even say I'm one of them."
The Limited reached Max's foot and began climbing, squeaking determinedly.
"And h-home was exactly h-how I r-remembered it, just a bit f-farther into the future. I c-considered going home..." Quint trailed off. "B-But I didn't w-want to admit wh-what had happened to m-me. How could I t-tell Papa what I had done? Or w-worse yet, what if P-Papa fixed the part of me that was damaged, and a-activated the reprogramming a-again? So I didn't go back h-home and just f-found that place where B-Bomb used to mess around and s-stayed there." He frowned again. "You're n-not mean."
Max went very, very still, as if trying to decide what to do, because there was a Limited on his foot.
"So you've never gone to see them? That's silly Quint--you could always tell Papa to be careful about the reprogramming and he could rewrite it altogether--You are still damaged, I knew it!" Raichu turned to give his father a wry look. "Dad, you do know who that is, don't you?"
"N-No..." The smaller bot glanced away. "...But... it's b-better if they d-don't know what I d-did... and I d-don't know how much of my insides w-were changed since... I d-don't fully remember what he did."
Max took a deep breath. "Logically, I know it's you."
"But Papa would know what was different, wouldn't he? You're his son." Raichu ruffled Quint's hair, petting him affectionately. Why was it that Lightbots never had happy endings?
The Limited let out a demanding squeak for attention. "So, the Limited is an X. An X ."
Quint managed a nod at that, leaning into the other's hand. "I kn-know, but..." He was ashamed. How could he face them after this? "I m-messed around with t-time too much... that's wh-why the multiverse m-must have happened. The fabric m-must have broken down..."
Max took a deep breath, and held his hands out for the Limited. "..."
"Or it's always existed and a freak accident opened the rifts. Or the rifts have always existed, just in smaller numbers," Raichu said.
The brilliant blue Limited chirped happily and bellyflopped into Max's hands where it proceeded to roll around flailing with glee.
"Maybe..." Quint trailed off. "I d-don't even kn-know if we're f-from the same world, j-just different times."
Max couldn't help the smile that came across his face as he picked the Limited up. "......"
"Even if you weren't the same Rock, he would love you and try to help you. You know that. Are you just... ashamed?" Raichu asked.
The little Limited grabbed one of Max's thumbs and rubbed its 'head' furiously against it like an affection starved cat.
The way Quint turned his head away from Raichu's face would answer the question that was asked. "......"
Max stared at the Limited as it did that. He had to admit that it was... kind of cute.
"I guess all Lightbots are the same, aren't they?" Raichu said grimly, wrapping an arm around Quint. "There's nothing for you to feel guilty about, you were only trying to get home."
The Limited Raichu chirped up at him, pausing.
Quint burrowed into Raichu, hand lightly gripping the other's robes. "Maybe..."
"Do you want to see who Max has?" Raichu nudged him, trying to distract his brother. No wonder he'd been so upset at him.
It felt odd to refer to himself as if his Limited self was a completely different person, because they were the same. Every day was filled with snatches of his other self's thoughts and processes as it went about being Yggdrasil/Nidhoggr.
Quint blinked, but nodded in response, still gripping Raichu's robe as he turned to look at what Max had.
Max turned around towards the two of them, revealing the bright blue Limited. Quint slowly blinked at it. "...Gel?" All he could think of what a miniature Yellow Devil.
The little creature lifted itself up, its fragmented nucleus shuddering dangerously at the top of the gel dome. He'd weakened more than he'd thought over the years, and the gel had become somewhat dull and cloudy.
"I suppose, that even if I do not take the schematics," Raichu said slowly, more to Max than Quint. "That this trip was necessary. It has been... several years since my core was whole."
"You - he - doesn't look healthy, Rai," Max said slowly. Even he could tell that, with the splintered nucleus and the dulled gel, that this was not a healthy Limited.
"...?" Quint looked puzzled again, as if trying to understand. "That's a part of you?"
"He isn't, but I didn't know I was this bad off. The nucleus and my own core are fused. If much more of the nucleus left my core to make him steadier, I would die, and even then, I can't survive long in that form without returning to Yggdrasil or me ."
Raichu nodded, glad that Quint seemed distracted. "I'm a Limited. A semi-organic gel organism."
"So..." Max said slowly. "What are you going to do?"
Quint looked puzzled still. "You weren't when Papa made you..."
"Let him go back," Raichu said after a moment, opening the single gel valve in his right forearm. The Limited let out a sour, reluctant chirp.
"....You're right, Quint, I wasn't." He looked at Max, as if asking for his advice. Should he tell Quint or not?
Max raised an eyebrow, as if indicating that it was his choice, as he stepped closer to Raichu with the Limited.
"..." Quint turned his eyes to the Limited, as if saying that he wouldn't hold it against Raichu if he didn't tell him.
"...I've already told you, and a Zero . After that, I think it would be insulting to not tell my own brother," he said with a nervous sigh, prompting a file transfer to Quint. "My history isn't so interesting as yours is, unfortunately."
The Limited gripped Max's hand stubbornly.
Quint's eyes glazed over as he focused on the file that Raichu had transferred him. After a few minutes, though, he wrapped his arms around Raichu and nuzzled him affectionately. That was horrible. How could anybody do something like that...?
"I don't think you want to go," Max pointed out.
The blond felt rather numb to it all after digging out the memory files after so long. They felt unreal, like they'd happened to someone else. Or maybe he was still in shock.
"Because I'm stupid and stubborn."
"I think we all know that," Max said wryly, prompting Quint to giggle.
"No, because you're a Lightbot," the small Robot Master replied.
The Limited finally dropped down and retreated into the valve, feeling too groggy to keep fighting it. "I know, I know."
"....Fine, Quint, you win," he said after a moment, feeling the pain in his core ease. "I won't make the machine."
"Why were you two separated, in the first place?" Max asked.
Quint smiled and wrapped his arms around Raichu, and though he was glad, his eyes still showed he was haunted by everything that he had gone through.
"....After the wars ended, I wanted to try to figure out who I was. I thought that by separating parts of the nucleus from my core would help me, but all it did was make me weaker and scatterbrained. If anything, it confused me more. But..." Raichu looked at the tree, which was now considerably duller. "I... was Yggdrasil, and it's an intoxicating sensation, even if both parts of me felt weaker and ill, I was content knowing I was Yggdrasil, helping people."
Max and Quint looked up at the tree as well. "...So if you aren't in Yggdrasil, what's the difference?"
"It still functions," the blond assured them. "As originally intended when the elders proposed it be built."
"So why were you in there...?" Quint asked, nose pressed against Raichu's chest.
"I was curious about the internals of the tree. It goes very deep into the earth, far wider and longer than its height, and it's constantly growing. I didn't realize how easily its systems would accept me until I gave in to my curiosity."
"Who made it?" Quint asked, craning his neck up so that he could look at it. It couldn't have been Raichu.
"It was grown for the most part. It's semi-organic, and organic enough to grow. But it was... never really a sapling." He ran a hand through his hair, amazed at how he felt. "It was a cooperative effort between our best scientists and the elders."
Quint nodded, looking up at it. "What's it do...?"
"It's an archive of sorts. It stores information, and it helps manage certain facilities in Neo Arcadia--it was also an experimental voyage into a mass air purifier, on my request. It does quite a few things."
"That's..." Quint's eyes widened. "That's pretty cool."
"It's... Nothing." The fact that the beautiful tree also served as a very effective prison wasn't something his brother and father needed to know.
The two of them looked very concerned, though neither said anything. Quint reached down to play with Raichu's hands again, and Max wrapped an arm around the blond's back.
"I never expected to tell anyone half of what I did today," Raichu admitted, feeling remorse again for his actions and admissions. "Is it so bad to want to take it all back?" He'd told Quint as a sort of exchange. It didn't feel right to have his brother drag out those painful memories.
Quint shook his head. "...I never told anyone either. N-Not even Kopin knew."
Max also shook his head. "You're scared. I think you had every right to be considering you didn't know how we would all react."
"Thank you, Quint, for telling me. It means a lot to know you care that much," he said gently. "...Even if I still want to try it." Still…
"I want to take back everything. What I said to you and Zero, what I said to Cappy's father.... Zero. I wish I had never gone to look for him." Raichu just wanted everything to be better . "I just wish I could be happy and not have the looming threat of an existential debate over my head."
Quint scowled and lightly swatted his hand. "Don't try it. I j-just... don't w-want you to freak o-out like I did."
Max toyed with some of Raichu's hair. "...I think you'll be fine. Once Caprice's father calms down, if you want to go back... we will go with you."
"I know, Quint. You're sweet." The blond looked at his own hands, then reached down to pluck some of the grass. "I'm not a child, even with the way I behave sometimes, and despite my Limited. I don't need to be escorted, even if I'm afraid. It's embarrassing."
The childbot looked a bit thoughtful. He didn't tell Raichu, but he did want to check if Raichu's timeline was connected to his own - or connected to any of the timelines that he knew of. "I love you."
Raichu reached out to pet Quint again, smiling at his little big brother. "I love you too."
Max sat down beside the two of them. "I know you aren't. But if anything, we might be able to make him stop if he makes a move on you again."
Raichu looked up at Yggdrasil for a few moments, feeling a deep sense of loss. He wasn't meant to stay connected to the tree for so long, he knew that. He'd used Yggdrasil, and then Max as a crutch for his own weaknesses, but he couldn't do that anymore. "Maybe. Angry Maxes are frightening, perhaps even to Wilybots?"
Right now, Quint just wanted Raichu to know that he was there for him. That even if Raichu wasn't his real big brother, he would always consider him as such. ...He would test it one day. And then, only then, would he decide what to do next. Try to go home, or... or go with Raichu.
Max gave a smirk. "Do you really want to be in the path of a program trying to do its job and will do anything to get it done? Or between whom I consider my child?"
"No," the blond smiled, reclining in the grass to better look up at the great tree. "Programs are scary."
Quint debated crawling on Raichu's lap, but decided not to, instead just snuggling against him. He felt oddly better now that someone knew the story and hadn't shoved him away.
"I hope not too scary for you, eh?" Max grinned, laying down beside him.
Raichu glanced at his brother, giving him a little smile. Quint was so adorable, it was hard to believe he was the older brother.
"No. You're too ridiculous to be truly frightening."
"Y-you know," Quint spoke up suddenly. "You were fine, because Papa built you to adapt to e-everything and anything, even what h-he couldn't plan for." Lightbots were survivors, no matter what life threw at them.
Max rolled his eyes. "Thank you, Rai. Thank you very much."
"Do you think that's what happened with the Limited? I adapted to it rather than being used by it?" For all he knew, he was the Limited who had taken over X's body and now had his memories.
"I think so," Quint murmured thoughtfully. "I th-think that all the stuff that Papa - and me! - put into you made it s-so that you adapted t-to having it put in you... h-he didn't make y-you to be compatible w-with that, I know."
"Papa... he did a lot of good things. I know Xander thought that Father had betrayed him, but I know those armors he made were to protect me, not to control me. Not to make me..." He shook his head in the grass. "I still wish I knew exactly what happened with the Limited."
Quint shook his head. "Papa would n-never do something l-like that. He l-loved you a l-lot..." Dr. Light had always seemed both too happy when the subject of X came up, and sad at the realization he'd never really see him out and about.
"I wouldn't know," Max replied. "All I can do is dive into your programming to check, but if your memories from that time are fragmented..."
"Why do I get the feeling that I would have been spoiled had things turned out differently?" Raichu asked, wondering yet again what life would have been like had he been activated immediately after being completed. "I remember nothing except that my core hurt and I had no idea who I was."
"We would've s-spoiled you," Quint insisted, nose pressing against Raichu's neck. "I w-would've loved teaching y-you how to do everything. I... d-don't know why everyone w-wasn't around..." Dr. Light would have passed from age, but why hadn't the rest of them been there?
Max toyed with Raichu's hair for a few moments. "...It's entirely possible that your short-term memory was shut down so that your body could redirect more of its attention to repairing you and adapting."
"I believe you, Quint. I think you would have been the worst offender, especially given how much you love to cuddle me when I'm a Jolteon." The little unit went wild at the sight of the yellow fuzzy creature. "I don't either, Quint, but I have to assume they're all dead."
He'd accepted that long ago, after questioning Cain about where the other Lightbots were, and after looking around himself.
"It wouldn't be the first time that had happened. It certainly explains why I have no definitive answer."
Quint smiled against his neck. "Y-Yes. You're fluffy and c-cute when you are one. I like animals." He sobered up at the idea, a bit saddened. "...S-So that means I'm g-going to die, aren't I?"
Max nodded. "I think that's what most likely happened. Your body is designed to prioritize what is most important, and at the moment, I'm sure it prioritized survival once it realized it had something it could use to repair you."
Raichu stilled, realizing the implications of what he'd said. His brows drew together. "No. Because you're going to stay here with me and nothing is going to happen to you."
The blond lifted a hand above his head, staring at it. "Maybe I'm still X. Maybe I'm just a Limited in X's body. But maybe... Maybe I'm someone different entirely. I'll never know, but I think being alive is better than knowing."
Quint smiled softly. "...D-Do you want me to stay?"
"I think," Max said, quite bluntly. "That you are still Xander Thomas Light."
"I've been trying to get you to stay here for months," Raichu returned, lightly tickling Quint's "ribs", before lifting his head to look over at Max, his expression blank. "You think I am?"
Quint squeaked as his ribs were tickled. "Y-You get a free K-Kopin. I'm not l-leaving him alone."
Max nodded, closing his eyes as he lay on the grass. "Yes. I do. So you're a little different from the rest. That doesn't matter. You're still Xander."
"I'll take him then. I'm sure I'll figure out how to deal with him in time." Raichu laid down again, his neck tickled by the blades of grass. "Do you know... what I do remember? Other than that I killed Zero, I kept saying--thinking, 'I am X'. And that's where Ixion came from."
"He's not b-bad. Just b-badly hurt and I'm th-the only person to r-really show that I c-care beyond what h-he was built to do." Quint murmured, listening to Raichu and Max talk with each other.
"Did you select another name just because you weren't sure? You are still X," Max pointed out.
"What happened to him?" Raichu queried, frowning at the idea of another injured unit coming into his home. "And I did, and maybe I picked that one because I felt guilty and unworthy to have a name that people equated with a hero."
"Well - he's hurt e-emotionally," Quint explained. "He... was b-built to be a copy of m-me by Wily and had no identity beyond that, and was s-sent to die. So during one of th-those times I t-tried to change the past, I s-stole him right at the m-moment he was going to die."
Max lightly scratched his head. "Hero or not, you are still X. You are still Xander. And you are still our Raichu."
"....So even Rocks kidnap other Rocks?" Raichu smiled, even if it was sad. "I'll try to be gentle with him."
Maybe Max was right, and he was still X. Were all those years wasted on tormenting himself? Did they amount to nothing and the answer was as simple as being told who he was or wasn't? Raichu sighed, frustrated, but couldn't deny that he felt better.
Quint nodded. "...He deserved a ch-chance. He's n-not a bad kid - he just tries to p-protect himself. I named him K-Kopin, and he is pretty happy about h-having a real identity."
Max rolled over to curl around Raichu. "...Besides, no matter what you did, you are a good person. And we and the rest of your family and friends love you."
"Yeah... I suppose he would be. Well, when you're ready, Quint, why don't you go home and pack up your things--Kopin included--and come back here?"
Raichu chuckled, wincing playfully. "Dad, I don't think I'm a good person, but I won't argue with you anymore. I think I've grown tired of that."
Quint nodded, feeling warmth settling in his cores. "I want to snuggle a bit longer, though, before I do that."
"Yes, I would advise not arguing with me anymore. You'll lose every time," Max said lightly.
"Then we can stay here and do that, if Max doesn't mind," Raichu looked between them, feeling smothered but loved.
"Yes, Dad," he said with mock deference.
"I hope you kn-know what you're g-getting into w-when you take me in," Quint said, cheerfully. "I'll n-never give you a m-moments peace~."
"Perhaps we can put that to use. I'll get you some robes and make you my assistant."
Max grinned smugly at him, causing Raichu to nudge him while grumbling affectionately. Of course, then Max just nudged him back.
"I like robes," Quint said thoughtfully, picking at the poncho that he was wearing. "A-And I'll constantly ch-chase you around." As much as his older style body let him, at least.
"You can chase me to your heart's content when you move in, Quint," he assured him, closing his eyes with a smile.
Maybe now, in spite of all he'd done wrong recently, he could grow beyond his demons.
The Robot Master smiled brightly, settling down finally. Sure, he'd be leaving behind his old life, but it was probably for the best that he move on and stop looking back in the past.
