From Ashe to Flame

Grey

           

"Ashe slow down!"

"Nah, you gotta try to keep up!"

Racing Billy would have been a lot more fun (and a lot more rewarding) if her friend was a lot faster. It was an awful shame too, really, considering he was the Reploid among them.

"Ashe if you don't slow down we're going to get lost!" Billy called out. Ashe only laughed at him as she went in further. Serpentining between trees, jumping over large rocks, checking every once and again to make sure Billy was still behind her; Ashe went further and further into territory she wasn't familiar with all in the name of a good chase. She only stopped when she got to a bridge. Billy caught up only seconds later and looked at over the bridge with her.

"We need to go back." Billy told her, pulling on her sleeve to coax her back in the opposite direction. But she shrugged him off and started to head toward the door. Uncomfortable, Billy followed behind her. They got up to the door to find it locked; Ashe then tried to find a way to open it up.

"Ashe don't do it." Billy warned while the freak haphazardly pressed buttons on the door. A confirming beep sent the door slowly siding to the side with a particularly dangerous cackle coming from Ashe.

"Too late." she mused before going inside.

"Oh my god..." Billy groaned as he grudgingly followed her in.

The inside was dusty and appeared to haven't been touched in years. It didn't stop Ashe from looking around at everything with a child's curiosity. Billy trudged along- taking note of places where it looked like someone had a pretty nasty gun fight here at some point.

"This place is great!" Ashe hollered, if only just to hear her echo and not out of sincere interest. "Don't you think it's just so GREAT Billy?!"

"I think I hate you."

"Let's have a party here!" Ashe continued to shout, "We'll invite everyone, even my cousins!"

"You don't have any cousins." Billy told Ashe sternly.

"Maybe I do." Ashe rebutted defiantly. "And they're right under our nose too. You just don't know it yet."

Billy rolled his eyes, completely unimpressed. Ashe chuckled in return, starting to lean against a glass containment capsule- not even a second later an alarm went off. The hybrid jumped off the glass in surprise and spun around to look at it.

"Ashe, what did you do!?" Billy screamed as he searched for a way to turn the alarm off. He didn't get an answer though as Ashe stared at the containment capsule. The glass separating them from an unnamed Reploid started to slide down to the floor, lowering the Reploid inside to the point where Ashe could nearly touch the top of his head. She wanted for the glass to lower completely, before stepping up into the capsule to get a better look.

Ashe's eyes widened as she inspected the Reploid from head to toe. He had been rejected as some point (this place had been abandoned after all), but even then he still seemed to be... alive...? Ashe lulled this over as she ran her hand against his hair. Surprisingly soft, the Reploid's light gray hair inspired a name for Ashe to call him.

Grey.

She was going to call him Grey.

"Ashe..." Billy whispered, partially from shock, the rest in fear, "There's nothing we can do for him. Let's go before someone comes after us."

Grudgingly, Ashe did as she was told. As she backed away, she just now realized that the alarm been silenced. Billy probably found a way to shut it off, or it went off on its own when the glass separating the Reploid between them had finished its descent.

"Sorry Ashe." Billy said to her as they started to head back. "But when a Reploid's abandoned by their owner, there isn't much we can do for them."

The hybrid freak grimaced; what was that old saying? One man's rejected Reploid is another's best friend?

. . .

It was night when Ashe made her way back to the mysterious laboratory. She successfully made it inside and went straight to the containment capsule. To her surprise, however, it was now empty.

"Who are you?" someone from behind Ashe questioned in a soft, yet eerily dark, tone. Ashe only turned her head a fraction of a centimeter in an attempt to see who had snuck up on her. A small glimpse was all she needed to grin wide before looking forward again to forge a shred of innocence.

"I'm a lot of things." Ashe declared with a shrug. "A puppy, a freak, a daughter, a brat... maybe even a cousin."

The exposed wire crackled against Ashe's neck as the Reploid forced it closer toward her. "You do not have a cousin." he told her. "I overheard the conversation you had with that other person. Glass, as it seems, is not that thick."

"What conver-" Ashe started to say before she realized what he was talking about. "Oh, that conversation... with Billy. He's a great kid and all, but he sure can be a wet blanket some times."

"He's not a kid." came the short retort, "And humans can not morph into new objects, let alone a 'wet blanket', however lackluster it sounds."

"It's a figure of speech." Ashe replied with an eye roll. "It means he's boring; particularly when I'm around. Also, if you want to be so literal, Billy's not even human any way- he's a Reploid like you. 

"Reploid..." he reflected for a moment. "What is a Reploid?"

Forgetting that he had placed wires so close to her neck, Ashe whipped her head around to look at him.

"You don't know what a Reploid is?!" she uttered in pure surprise. He didn't answer her and instead looked at her hand where one of his wires was touching her. The exposed end laid on the backside of her hand exchanging little blue bolts of static between the two of them: Ashe wasn't even aware that it was on her either. Grey looked at her with an ambiguous expression before she realized that the wire was on her- she jumped away quickly, acting as if the wire had hurt her, but they both knew the truth.

"If that person... Billy, was not human- are you not human either?" the Reploid questioned, squinting at her with distrustful eyes. "There was enough voltage in that wire to burn flesh, yet yours acts as if it wasn't touched."

Ashe said nothing as she continued to keep up her act of being hurt. Without warning, Grey took her by the neck- in return, Ashe gasped in surprise as the Reploid slowly started to lift her up in the air.

"Who are you?" he asked one last time, so slow and dark that Ashe nearly grew pale. 

"A-Ashe." she managed to stutter, "Ashe Bonne."

"Ashe?" Grey questioned as he tightened his grip around her neck- but then something clicked in his mind as he loosened his fist. "Ashe... Bonne... Ashe...?"

Slowly, Ashe felt her feet touch the ground again as the Reploid let go of her to fall over into a heap. Immediately, Ashe checked him over to see if he was alright. He had shut down, but other than that he still seemed to be rather operational. Ashe picked him up and carefully slung him over her shoulder before starting to head back home.

Why her name was the thing to shut him down was baffling enough, but if he was going to hurt her, they were going to finish this on her turf.