From Ashe to Flame

Mother's Love

It never quite occurred to her what would happen when her mother saw him. Admittedly, she wasn't quite ready for the unholy rage that was Ren Bonne's fury.

"You stole a Reploid from a guarded laboratory?! What the hell where you thinking Ashe?!!" Mrs Bonne screeched. "Do you even know what the punishment is for removing developed Reploids from their owners?"

"I don't see how you would care!" Ashe spat back. "You're head of the freaking black market, home of everything stolen- how are you surprised that I came back with a Reploid? Maybe I just wanted a boyfriend!"

"Do we look like Giro fucking Express, pup?" Mrs Bonne replied without a second thought, "We deal with bounties, not bodies. You know as well as I do that human -or Reploid- trafficking is against our code."

"Didn't stop you from taking me in." Ashe rebutted without thinking.
"If I did not want you, you would have never existed." the aged Reploid whispered in a dangerous tone. "You do not know why this Reploid between us was abandoned, and it's more than likely that his true owner will return to get him some day. And what is that owner going to do when he finds out how you got in? How you took such an immense breach in the security, how could you even...?"

"It was my hand Momma." Ashe darkly proclaimed, interrupting Mrs Bonne. "I put my hand on a scanner the door had, and the next thing I knew the door opened. It was the same thing with his containment unit. The security system reacted to my genetic code. Why?"

For a moment, Mrs Bonne stopped the processes that allowed a Reploid to mimic the act of breathing. She stared straight at Ashe, unblinking. To any human that wasn't familiar with Reploids, one could have easily assumed Mrs Bonne had deactivated- but Ashe knew it was because of something else. Something that made Mrs Bonne brilliantly furious. Something that was supposed to be a secret.

"He's not my prototype, is he?" Ashe questioned.

"You were not born a Reploid, child." Mrs Bonne scoffed.

"A different kind of experiment then," Ashe carefully decided, "By someone in my... Di's family. Someone from... from Poppa's side of the family- the side you never seem to talk about..."

Mrs Bonne did not answer, but started to regulate her bodily movements once more. The fingers in her hands slowly started to clench into a fist and a new light shone in her eyes. It was a light that Ashe had never seen in her mother before; it almost looked like... fear.

"He would not have wanted to keep his family from you a secret, pup." the aged Reploid finally said. "But I refused to tell you because I do not want to be responsible for any of your opinions with or against Master Albert."

"What does Master Albert have to do with anything?!" Ashe demanded.

"He was Di's cousin." Mrs Bonne informed her child carefully. "And he built that very Reploid laying between us; a Reploid that, in all but terminology, is your cousin."

For a moment, Ashe wasn't sure how to respond. Saying it out loud just seemed to validate her suspicions.

"Was that why the reporter woman came around a year ago?" Ashe slowly asked. "To tell me about the truth? The truth you wanted to hide just because you don't like how the Sage Trinity runs things?!"

"She was going to take you away; report you to Albert for a bounty. There's a price on your head, girl, did you even know that? I kept you away from any interaction from those who sought to take you away from me for any reason, and I had planned on keeping it like that."

Ashe's body trembled with slow rising anger as her fingers started to curl into a fist. "So you wanted to cage me? Surround me with folks who only bore with me because you told them to? I have to be unleashed sometime Momma! You have to die sometime too!"

"I am not going to unleash you while there are people out there who could kill you!" Mrs Boone fired back. "Conceiving and raising you has been the hardest part of my life that I do not want to take back; one false move out in the world and all of your life is gone in a blink! All of your life, all that I've done for you, all of that time that I can't bring back; You stupid, ungrateful pup, I'm keeping you alive! I'm keeping you with me! You are never going anywhere!!"

Ashe took a step back in shock and surprise. It never quite occurred to her that her mother loved her, sure the inherit idea of it was present, but not the actual feeling of it. Ren Bonne loved no one, not even her own husband, but she... she loved her daughter enough to suffocate her in lies and isolation. Now Ashe wasn't sure whether to cry or be more angry.

Interrupting their thoughts and line of thinking, Grey started to mutter something in his half aware state on the table between the two women. They both stared at him as if suddenly aware of his presence as he attempted to sit up.

"So loud..." he grumbled sleepily. "Will any of your conversations be quiet for once?"

Grey sat up and looked around slowly, his eyes eventually falling on Mrs Bonne.

"Ren Bonne..." the Reploid slurred, as if unsure of his own thoughts, "I'm not supposed to like you..."

"Do you know why?" Mrs Bonne questioned darkly.

"No."

"Then ignore it." she then insisted, "Never act on feelings you can not justify."

Grey gave Mrs Bonne a side look before turning his head around to look at Ashe. He didn't look very amused to see her.

"I know your name, but I do not know about you." he uttered tonelessly. "There's something about you, a connection, and it grinds on my nerves so much that I..." Suddenly, Grey flinched as if someone had hit him, then reached for his head with agony. Calmly, Ren positioned herself behind Grey and opened a hidden panel at the back of his neck. As she reorganized whatever the panel hid, Grey started to relax again.

"Better?" Mrs Bonne curtly asked. Grey nodded. "Would you like me to detach the restraint collar and accompanying wires from your past imprisonment as well?"

"Don't!" Ashe quickly interjected, earning her an equal, blank look from Mrs Bonne and Grey, "Leave them on, they make him look unique... and cool!"

Mrs Bonne glared at Ashe before turning to Grey to inquire, "Do you disagree?" The younger Reploid stared back at the older Reploid with little emotion. Come to think of it, has he ever shown any kind of emotion this entire time?

"I have very few memories and desires, just inert commands like having a dislike for you." Grey started to say. "I know now that you have a strange urge of protection toward your daughter, and I am half scared to tell you that I did plan on fatally harming her. It should be your call to remove them as I could have harmed the thing you love."

Mrs Bonne recoiled a bit. Her cold expression unwavering as she made up her mind.