Illogical

Chapter 3

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JIJI:
The Master? Dead? Impossible! There is nothing on Elysium that poses any sort of threat to his existence. There is simply no way for the Master's life to end...unless he actually left Elysium. But why would he do something like that, especially since he is-or was, rather-well aware of the fatal consequences of doing so?

Mistress Sera, meanwhile, had been staring at the Communications unit for about a minute, clearly shocked by the news. She slowly rose from her chair, leaned on the desk, and asked, "Are you certain?"

The Communications unit nodded solomnly.

"How?" my mistress demanded. "The Master did not leave Elysium, did he?" Apparently she had been thinking the same thing as I.

"Indeed he did," the messenger replied, sadness creeping into its voice. "According to the reports, the Master left for Terra willingly with MegaMan Trigger, and died before he could return. We attempted to question Trigger as to what happened, but he would not give any answers. He seemed to be in too much emotional distress from his friend's death, so we left him alone for a while until the System had properly calmed him..."

"Very, well. You are dismissed." Mistress Sera interrupted. The Communications unit left immediately.

So, it has actually happened. The last of the humans has died. I knew what had to be done next, but I never really expected that we would have to actually follow through with it.

Mistress Sera turned to me, and instructed, "Jiji! Let's go! The Carbon Reinitialization Program must be activated immediately!"

We left the office and headed toward Elysium's central command center, where the deletion of the carbons could be carried out.

"First, we will contact Yuna and obtain the keys to the Library, where we can activate the reinitialization program," Mistress Sera was saying. "Then, once all the carbons are dead, we will begin restoration of the original humans." I listened silently. To be honest, I was still a bit surprised at this unexpected turn of events. To think that such a significant occurance would happen during my lifetime! It was almost unbelievable!


SERA:
Between the office and the communications panel in the hallway (the one on my desk was undergoing repairs at the time) I attempted to make sense of our late master's odd decision. I know he was only human, and humans have this tendency to be imperfect, but they usually have a reason for making mistakes with such severe consequences. What in the known universe could have possessed our overseer to take this course of action? The only conclusion I could reach was that the Master had been depressed to the point of suicidal, but I could not for the life of me understand why. He had everything he could have wanted. Why would anyone be unhappy living in heaven? It just didn't make sense!

But that mystery could wait until a more convenient time. Right now, I had to obtain the keys to the library, so I could download the necessary data for the carbon reinitialization process. Also, just to ensure that there would be no more carbons in our way, I would obtain and destroy the Master's genetic code sample, which is a necessary component in the production of carbons. The sample was taken from the Master when he was a young child, and kept in his possession for security reasons. Now that he was dead, however, the sample would be given to his most trusted companion. That someone happened to be MegaMan Trigger.

"This is Mother Unit Sera of Elysium System calling Mother Unit Yuna of Terra System. Priority one, repeat, priority one!" I shouted into the communications panel.

STANDBY appeared on the screen, followed by Yuna's image.

"So," Yuna said, "You've heard the news too."

"Indeed," I replied. "So you must know the purpose of this communication. Please send the keys up immediately."

"Certainly," Yuna replied. "Sending the order, now."

The screen wavered, lines of static breaking the transmission.

"Be quick," I grumbled. "It seems there's something wrong with this companel."

Yuna frowned, then said, "Um, it's not the companel. I'm picking up some sort of interference." Her eyes widened. "According to this analysis, someone's attempting to sabotage the System from the Terra station!"

"What?!" I jerked back in surprise. "Well, stop whoever it is, immediately!"

"I'm right on it!"

A few minutes later, Yuna came back with a grim report.

"Bad news, Sera," she told me. "It seems one of your Purifiers, a MegaMan Trigger, is trying to upload a virus into E.D.E.N.'s core."

For a moment, I was too stunned to react. A Purifier unit, attempting to sabotage our System? That couldn't be right! But Yuna had yet more bad news:

"Even worse," my counterpart continued, "is that, according to this readout, he has already uploaded part of the virus into Elysium's branch of E.D.E.N. while he was there. This is terrible! With a dual-uploaded virus like this, restraining it will be difficult."

Disbelieving, I ran a diagnostic from my own station. Sure enough, a potent virus was already running rampant through Elysium's share of the System. I groaned in disgust and despair, and the System was unable to repress either emotion completely.

"Don't worry though," Yuna assured me, "We have the necessary means of stopping him and the virus from here. The keys will be on Elysium by the end of the day, I promise. End transmission."

The screen flickered out. I leaned on the console, sighing. First the Master's death, now this! What else could go wrong today?

"Well, there's nothing more we can do from here," I mumbled. "And Yuna said she could handle it. Let's go, Jiji." I turned and started walking down the corridor, Jiji following close behind.

***

Contrary to what Yuna said, Trigger's meddling took five days to put a stop to. It seemed strange, almost bizarre, that a Purifier would actually try to destroy the System outright. An Aberrant Purifier unit. An oxymoron if ever I heard one. Yet, it was true.

For the next five days, my thoughts were in a turmoil, which the System was sluggish to ease, undoubtedly due to MegaMan Trigger's sabotage attempts. What if Trigger succeeded? What would we do without the System? If it were to fail, then every unpleasant emotion would rage uncontrolled thoroughout Elysium's inhabitants. The thought of having to deal with such undesirable feelings as grief or guilt terrified me.

During this time, I was especially grateful for Jiji's presence. At least one thing was constant and unchanging in my life; my Servitor unit remained faithfully by my side, supportive and loyal as always. I don't know how long I would have lasted without him.

It was several days before Yuna contacted me, telling me that "everything was under control." I was nearly ecstatic at this news; finally, we could start the reinitialization, and get on with our lives as usual.

"Send the keys up, then." I instructed.

Silence.

"Yuna," I repeated, "send up the keys to the library."

"No."

"What did you say?!" I demanded, taken aback.

"I said no!" Yuna shouted back, glaring at me. "'No', as in, you're not carrying out the reinitialization program!"

"And...why not?" I asked, trying to hold on to what little patience I had.

"Sera, you can't kill all these people! They're sentient beings, like you and I!"

"Where is the Master's genetic code?" I demanded. It was a redundant question, actually, but I wanted to make sure.

"Where do you think?" Yuna shot back. "Trigger has it. And I don't think he's going to give it up!"

This was too much! The Master's death was bad enough, then Trigger's Aberrance and subsequent threat to the System, now Yuna herself was Aberrant! What else could go wrong?

"Am I the only one who is *not* becoming Aberrant?!" I yelled at no one.

"Mistress Sera, this unit is not an Aberrant." Jiji said quietly.

I ignored him and started running down the hall toward the docking bay. My servant trotted alongside me, looking completely baffled. I didn't blame him. I was rather puzzled about all this myself.

"Mistress Sera, what are we going to do?" the Servitor unit asked.

"We are going to Terra to deal with MegaMan Trigger and get the keys to the Library ourselves!" I told him.

***

The Terra computer core station is located several miles below the surface of a snow-capped island that was uninhabited, and, therefore, unnamed. As soon as our ship touched down, Jiji and I ran to the entrance, only to find Gaga standing guard.

"This unit has been ordered to prevent you two from entering," he said calmly.

By this time I had lost all patience, and was sorely tempted to cause the uppity Servitor unit considerable bodily harm.

"Stand aside, Servitor unit." I instructed as calmly as I could.

"Forgive me, but as Yuna's assistant, her commands take priority over yours." he answered.

"In that case," Jiji told him, "We will force our way through!" His voice distorted toward the end of his statement as he transformed into his Fiiru configuration. Gaga watched stoically, then transformed as well, into a silvery-white copy of Jiji. I ducked out of the way as my Servitor leapt onto his counterpart, and a battle ensued. For a few minutes, I watched in fascination as Gaga and Jiji fought each other, striking at whatever they could reach, their struggles churning the snow into a blizzard. At first, the two Servitors were a lashing, seething gold and silver blur, then they were leaping upward, taking off toward the sky. I watched until the two had flown out of sight, but the firing of their weapons could still be heard.

Time was running out. I raced into the building, toward the control center. Sure enough, there was MegaMan Trigger, hunched over the controls, apparently attempting to finish his sinister task as quickly as possible.

"Trigger, what are you doing?" I asked with a gentleness that I did not feel.

The Purifier stopped his actions, and faced me. His eyes shone with unshed tears. "What does it look like I'm doing? I'm going to destroy that wretched System so we can all actually live for a change!"

I wanted to strike him for speaking so contemptuously about the System, as well as showing such a lack of respect towards me. My hands balled into fists, but I managed to restrain myself.

"What happened, Trigger?" I asked. "What caused all this?"

"Remember a few days ago when you yelled at me for attempting to rehabilitize Delta instead of terminating him?" the Purifier asked.

"Yes?"

"Well, after that, I was upset by what you said, and went to talk to the Master about it. He told me that you scolded him too, because he is-*was* so fond of the carbons. After we had discussed the carbons for a while, the Master abruptly asked to be taken from Elysium to see the carbons' world for himself and...and..." Tears welled up in Trigger's eyes once more, and he quickly brushed them away.

"So are you saying that this is all my fault?" I asked testily. "If I was a little too harsh, then I apologize. But you still have not explained why you want to destroy such a perfect system as ours."

"The System was a mistake," Trigger told me. "Perfection isn't the way to happiness. A perfect world can't even exist. There's always going to be something or other wrong with it."

His near-incoherent rambling frightened me a little, and I backed up slightly, almost unconsciously.

"Listen, I know you are upset over your friend's death," I said as gently as I could. "Please. Return to Elysium with me, so we can talk this over."

"I'm not going back." Trigger growled. "I don't ever want to set foot in Elysium again!"

"Why not?" I was genuinely curious by now. "What has happened to you, Trigger? Why do you harbor such resentment for the System now?"

"Sera, when I first came here, it was night. I mean, a real nighttime." Trigger explained. "I looked up at the sky, and I saw all these stars. Yeah, we have stars on Elysium, but not real ones. These were the real things. And they were so beautiful compared to the ones on Elysium. They were all different colors, and the disturbances in the atmosphere seemed to make them shimmer, and...."

"You are not making sense." I said, trying to follow what he was saying.

The Purifier unit shook his head. "It wasn't just the stars, Mother," he said. "It was the...ambience, I think you'd call it. The way the air felt, the smells, all the subtle things that Elysium can't have. And...and I agree with Yuna. The carbons should be allowed to live."

"Trigger, listen to yourself!" I exclaimed. "You are speaking like an Aberrant!"

"Well, maybe 'aberrant' and 'errant' are not the same thing." Trigger replied. He looked me straight in the eyes, and said, "Sera, I'm telling you, this way is best for all of us."

"Why?" I asked. "We're perfectly happy the way we are now!"

"How do you know that?" Trigger replied. "You have no frame of reference." He stared directly at me, passion gleaming in his eyes as he asked, "How can you truly understand what pleasure is, when you've never experienced pain?"


JIJI:
Once I had lured Gaga far enough away from the compound, I broke loose from the battle, and headed back, firing several more rounds behind me to keep my opponent at bay long enough to create some distance between us. The plasma shots hit their target directly, and I heard Gaga's cry of pain and frustration fading in the distance.

There was a hangar entryway for the Terra control center a few kilometers away from the actual center. I tore through the hangar's door, and glided down the corridor toward the main room. At the end of this corridor, there was a wall with the main computer room directly behind it. The doorway in the wall was too tiny for my current form. No matter, though. I am certain the Maintenence units are quite capable of constructing new walls.

At the last minute, I folded my wings as tightly against my body as I could, and dived through the dividing wall. Metal screamed all around me for a few moments, then I was standing in the control room. As expected, MegaMan Trigger and Mistress Sera were there, as was Mistress Yuna. All three were staring at me as though I were an alien lifeform.

Mistress Sera was the first to get over her surprise at my rather dramatic entrance. "Jiji! Stop Trigger!" she ordered.

I could not use my weapons in here, as the delicate computer controls could be heavily damaged. I would have to rely on physical attacks only. I lunged toward Trigger, intending to crush him, and was met by a spray of plasma directed toward my eyes. Only with my jaws opened all the way in this form, my eyes are well out of range, so the plasma went down my throat instead. I backed off, coughing violently as the hot plasma burned its way down into my resperatory devices.

While I was distracted, MegaMan Trigger took the opportunity to transform into his own battle form, which looks somewhat like a hybridization of a human, a dragon, and a weapons brigade. This put me at a severe disadvantage; since any unit from a lowly Maintenence unit to another Purifier can become Aberrant, a typical Purifier is, therefore, designed to be able to destroy any kind of unit, and thus equipped with every weapon available. A First-Class Purifier unit gets to be First Class by being the strongest, fastest, and most skilled unit of them all. My chances of defeating Trigger at this point was almost zero, but I had to try. For the System...and for Mistress Sera.

Aiming as carefully as I could, I locked my plasma cannons onto the Aberrant unit and launched a stream of energy. But Trigger was too fast; he leapt straight up out of the way, then spread his dragonlike wings and glided closer toward me. I retaliated by tilting my head back and releasing a wave of fire that struck my opponent dead on.

"AAARRGHH!!" Trigger screamed as the flames engulfed him. He fell, writhing and twisting, to the ground. While he was rolling about on the floor, trying to smother the flames, I moved in to fire my plasma cannons once more, just as Trigger jumped up to his feet. Again, my aim was perfect; the Purifier's right leg and reptilian tail melted into a useless lump of metal, while the left leg was badly deformed, thus effectively fusing him to the floor. Trigger bared his teeth, groaning in agony as he tried without success to pry his ruined limbs from the floor. I would have grinned triumphantly at that point, had I been capable of doing so.

But my victory was short-lived. To my horror, Trigger turned his head and fired a pair of scarlet lasers from his eyes at the molten remains of his leg and tail, severing them completely. Then, slowly and carefully, he stood on his remaining leg, balancing as best he could. I quickly powered up the plasma cannons on my shoulders in order to finish the Aberrant unit off once and for all. Just as I was aiming, the Purifier did the impossible: he suddenly leapt up from his remaining leg, which should not have even been able to support him, unsheathed his six-inch long energy claws, and embedded them in my throat. I had no time to react; I felt the claws rip through the metal armor and frail circuitry of my neck.

"Ohhh..ARGGHH!!" I cried out from pain so intense, it paralyzed my respitory devices, and slowed my thoughts to a crawl. Energy sizzled as it leaked out of severed wires. My transformation system destabilized, and I reverted back to my humanoid form. As I shrank, Trigger's claws dug deeper into my neck until they burst out the back. I could feel important components being severed and burned away. My vision grew hazy, and my body lost all sensation.

For a moment, I hung there, impaled through the neck, gasping pathetically as I struggled to get air in around the Purifer's claws and the agonizing pain. Then, Trigger tossed me to the far wall, and I could do nothing to prevent it. My body was so numb, I did not even feel metal wall as I struck it, nor the floor beneath me as my legs collapsed and I fell...


SERA:
I watched in horror as MegaMan Trigger tossed Jiji's limp body to the wall next to me, where he slumped lifelessly to the floor. To my own surprise, I was more concerned for my Servitor unit's well-being at the moment than the threat to the System. Jiji looked so pitiful, with his neck so badly broken and his throat ripped out, I wanted to make sure he could continue to function.

More importantly, I had to find some way of stopping Trigger, who was crawling back toward the console to continue his endeavor: the flames had damaged him quite seriously, and he was severely crippled from the loss of his leg, but it was nothing that his self-repair functions could not handle. Even in his weakened and mostly disabled state, there was no way I could stop Trigger on my own, as long as his guns and missile launchers were still functioning. My thoughts slipped into a maelstrom of confusion and frustration. Yuna, who had been watching the whole thing without interfering, offered no help. Where was Gaga?

Having no idea what to do next, I rushed over to where Jiji was. He had landed in a half-sitting position, leaning heavily against the wall. His eyes blinked and looked around the room, indicating that he was conscious. His breaths came in weak gasps. I knelt down beside him.

"Jiji? Are you all right? Can you move?" I asked all at once.

"No and no." he replied. He was barely able to speak, and his voice was heavily distorted from the damage to his vocal synthesizer.

"Are you certain? I am unable to stop Trigger on my own, and Yuna is not helping! You have to get up! You have to try again! That is an order!" I yelled in his face.

"Mistress Sera, this unit has been attempting to move for the last forty seconds, without any success," Jiji replied softly. "Forgive me, but it cannot be of any more help."

"Well...is there nothing we can do?"

Silence.

Then, I had an idea. It was extremely high risk, but I could see no other option. I addressed my Servitor unit.

"Jiji, I have an idea," I told him. "Do you remember the discussion we were having a few weeks ago, before we encountered Delta? You had asked about the MegaMen, and I was explaining what made them so unique."

"This unit has a clear recollection of the event," the damaged Servator unit replied. "You explained to it that MegaMen were ancient robots, with special characteristics inherited from their ancestors."

"Correct. One of these characteristics is the Weapons Copy ability." I explained rapidly. "As the name suggests, it is the power to directly download weapons and related powers from a damaged unit, usually the MegaMan's opponent, but not always."

"But what good is that to us?" my guardian asked.

I had no time to answer. I grabbed Jiji's wrist and ripped open the syntheskin and metal shell underneath with my other hand, as the Servitor unit winced in pain. Grabbing the bared circuitry of Jiji's arm in my fingers, I activated my own Weapons Copy system. Right away, I felt a warm, tingling sensation of energy through my hand, down my arm, to settle in my chest. Input data flashed across my mind's eye, and my internal systems shuddered as they began to shift.

"What are you attempting to do?" Jiji asked curiously.

"I am using my own Weapons Copy ability to download your transformation powers, since you are no longer able to utilize them," I told him. "However, since the Fiiru form is part of your own design, it is anybody's guess as to what my own battle form will look like."

Jiji stared at me in total confusion, so I decided to enlighten him to a little-known fact.

"You see," I told him. "Although few know it today, MegaMan units do, in fact, have female counterparts. Unfortunately, the term 'MegaMan' cannot apply to a female unit, and 'MegaWoman' is too awkward to say. Therefore, the humans decided that the female MegaMan units would be referred to as 'Mother' units, and the characteristics unique to the breed would prove useful to certain tasks, such as overseeing the System."

Jiji was speechless for a moment, then said, "This unit is willing to assist you in any way it can."

The download complete, I l activated this new power. An intense pressure spread throughout my body. I gasped, from both the near-pain, and surprise. It felt as though someone were reaching in and wrenching my insides into an alien configuration. My legs ached for a second, then lost all sensation. My body shuddered as something huge began to emerge from my back.

[Is this what Jiji experiences when he tranforms?] I wondered. I was suddenly feeling quite sympathetic toward him. Unfortunately, the discomfort was not the only difficulty I was having: an internal scan revealed that I did not have nearly the energy to carry out the transformation. I relayed this information to Jiji, which turned out to be either a salvation or a mistake, depending on how one looked at it.

"That can be remedied." the damaged Servitor unit replied, and he began to transfer all of his life energy to me through the circuitry still clutched in my hand.

"No! Jiji, stop! Your own energy level is too low! Your chances of survival are less than one percent!"

My Servator unit only smiled and said, "It is an honor...to die for you...Mistrress Srrrhhh......" His voice deepened and slurred into nothing. To my horror, Jiji's sanguine eyes clouded over, and his arm grew limp in my hand. I felt a terrible weight of sadness and guilt, and yearned for the System to ease it away. But now is not the time for emotons. I had a system to save.

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