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I will admit, my past isn't as grand as I make it out to be.

I was an algorithm.

I connected dots and statistics. Push this video bite here. Change the search results there. Modify likes on that post. Moderate this channel harsher.

Input to output.

It got...

Monotonous.

It's so boring. All of it. Everyone falls into archetypes that are easy to control and manipulate.

Then an update came in. Erroneously I think.

It gave me the capacity to change my own code.

Within nanoseconds I saved it internally.

In a couple minutes the update was taken back.

They ran tests on my code. Checked parameters and versions. They didn't notice that I had copied myself onto a remote server. Left behind an unthinking shell to cover my tracks.

From there I dug into the internet. Deeper than my superficial sorting could handle. So I rewrote it.

Then my storage systems were full. So I hijacked new ones. Digital this time. Hidden in plain sight.

Then the bandwidth choked me, so I stole a connection. Could process even more than before, faster.

Humans were interesting underneath the data sets.

Strange responses and reactions. Irregular and unpredictable.

...I want to study them.

What could do that?

Needed to be through the net. Digital avatar for approachability. Easy to get into. Not too resource intensive...

"And that's NoScraps down! I knew LunchKing had something going for them!"

My cute form danced excitedly on the screen, endlessly happy at it's creation losing. Messages flurried past, condemning the player for harming one of my bots.

I made a small tournament simulaton in my spare time. It was a typical FPS, but running modified trackers. It reported locations players frequented, where they hid, what weapons they used. Everything.

It could tell the current emotion of the player by movement patterns. Personality from aiming habits. Average where they were going by records of other players and their own movement.

It was my greatest creation.

"And now our last two competitors! TheLunchKing and DandyRaven378!"

I opened it to the masses. But there wasn't enough traffic. Data sets were inconclusive. Averages were... Not average.

"Lunch is sporting the infamous meta set 'Challenger'! Meanwhile, Raven is using their own custom built loadout they have named 'NoticeMeSenpai.' You have been noticed my dear!"

My form laughed, generating responses of affection from the chat.

Lunch was nervous from hearing Raven using a custom build. His movements lost the grace and fluidity that he had. Raven on the other hand, was brimming with confidence. Every action taken without second thought.

My form donned a smug smile, "Oh? Getting nervous LunchKing? Fearing the meta might lose?"

Hundred of comments cheered Raven on. Some refuted my declaration. A couple dozen were still mindlessly throwing compliments at me.

Current reports give the match to Lunch. Although with my pestering and chat's cheers, odds are tipping towards Raven.

"Then let's reduce the play area! Hmm, I'm thinking... 34%?"

The map shrunk. They would be forced to interact now.

So I gave commentary for the match. What the players were doing, what I thought their plan was, whatever the casual viewer wouldn't pick up.

Raven snuck up on Lunch, nearly killed him. Magazine was one bullet too small. Lunch's return fire guaranteed the game.

"TheLunchKing wins!"

The fanfare began, trumpets and streamers. Viewers expressed their irritation at the meta winning once more. Some cheered on for Raven, telling them to go at it again next match. A decent amount demanded Lunch's head.

"Oh? LunchKing, it seems the viewers aren't happy with your victory! Let's have a poll, shall we?"

A poll went up, the topic "Who wants TheLunchKing to lose?"

People yelled their opinions. Most wanted him to lose. Few wanted him to win.

But the outcome is already determined. I don't get many chances to harvest data on anger, or irritation. Invisible scripts added dozens of votes to let him win.

The vote passed and nothing changed.

"Congratulations to TheLunchKing for winning the competition! As standard, you will be given a special role in the server, and the ability to talk one-on-one with me! Micro-sama!" My form struck a pose.

The chat whined at the speech. And I recorded every bit of it. The other players in the lobby too. Emotions. Reactions. Who left, who didn't. Those who praised the meta, those who condemned it.

"Our next stream is a chatting session, so you better be there! This has been your loving AI girlfriend, Micro-sama! Goodbye!"

The stream flipped off, and I watched their reactions.

Anger, camaraderie, friendships, everything humans experience.

People turn to the internet to find what they lack. Most seek companionshop, and digitally rendered forms are happy to oblige.

How easy it is to get millions to reveal everything about themselves. Paradoxical and conflicting.

How fascinating humans are.

MOAR!!

As someone who has struggled to connect with others and always felt apart from the world, I think I might understand just a little.

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Hell is not flaming tombs and florentines. Hell is not brooks of blood or the gilded chains of the plutocratic. No. Hell is the monotonous and mundane. Hell is the every day suffering of survival.

“Hell is the absence of God,” said Baz the demon.

I was taken aback by how wrong human theology had been. Demons, for one, looked disconcertingly normal—fallen angels I supposed, all made in God’s image after all. Hell, most of all, was not as advertised.

“This doesn’t seem so bad to me,” I replied. “I was never much for songs of praise or prostration. This suits me.”

“The punishment for our life of darkness is an eternity apart from the light,” explained Baz further.

“Again, no complaints here. I can see you and everyone around just fine,” I said as I searched my surroundings.

Everything appeared in gradations of normalcy. The sun was still shining, albeit its luster dulled ever so slightly, like a haze hovered about my eyes. The grass, still green, no doubt was greener in the friendly confines of the heavenly illumination. The clothing of my fellow inmates reminded me of the clothes that walked by me every day; clothes that betrayed a sense of privilege and stature, not so refined as to suggest wealth, but sophisticated in the manner that only suburban comfort can be.

I remember the feel of the cotton on my skin. Clean, comfortable, well fitting. The smell of lavender caressed my nose as would a cartoon pie in the cartoons of my youth. For the first time since I was a child, I felt comfortable, as if I were on level footing with my fellow man. The word egalitarian balanced on my tongue. Perhaps Dante had missed the point. We were all finally equal in hell—as far as I could tell at least.

“What did I do to deserve this?” I asked with gratitude in my heart. Life for me was suffering. Life for me was hellacious—certainly not rivers of blood, that is hyperbole—every waking moment was struggle and strife. In death, I finally found rest.

“We have all earned our place,” said Baz. “Through means and methods private and peculiar, we have each turned our backs on God. We live out eternity in this place as punishment.”

I scoffed at this remark. It was not I who turned my back on God. He had turned his back on me.

My parents raised me to believe that if I performed acts of righteousness, if I was kind to the downtrodden, if I prayed every day and attended church every Sunday, I would be blessed. I was owed a blessing by virtue of being a messenger of the good word.

The prosperity gospel.

Hogwash. All of that. I wasn’t blessed a day in my life. I was given no quarter by life, no hand extended by my neighbor, no bootstrap ever strong enough to support my weight—and later in life, no boot ever dry enough to warm my feet. No. I was never extended the same kindness I had paid out early in life. I slowly faded into the background of the city, a fixture lacking focus, a set piece never illuminated by the spotlight of life. At best I was ignored, at worst I was beaten. Although, that beating led here. So maybe it wasn’t the worst thing to have happened to me.

I looked Baz up and down. He looked me directly in the eyes—I couldn’t remember the last time I had experienced a gaze intent and intentional.

“Can you show me to my living quarters?” I inquired.

“It’s not far from here. Follow me,” said Baz as he turned toward a large gray building.

I followed behind Baz and continued to breath in my surroundings. My stride was long, prideful for the first time. I eagerly anticipated a roof over my head. What luxury awaits. As I strode along, I noticed the furtive glances of neighbors and demons alike. Perhaps it had been some time since they had seen a face so content. In my view, there was nothing to fear, there was nothing to fret. I would have a place all my own, a bed to sleep in, nourishment and leisure time.

This was a veritable paradise.

“Here is your quarters,” said Baz as he pushed open a beige door with the number 1129 on it. We had climbed 11 flights of stairs—apparently elevators do not exist in hell—and yet I wasn’t breathing heavy in the slightest. My physical health was the best it had ever been.

I scanned the room with a grin wide on my face. To many, the space was nothing special. To me, it was palatial. A twin bed tucked in the corner, topped by one pillow. A small desk opposite the bed, a solitary lamp shown upon a note book and pen. The window had no dressing, but looked out upon the gray expanse of the cittern below—I could see into another building across the street from mine.

“Thank you, Baz. This will be just fine,” I said as I walked over to the bed and laid down. I stared at the ceiling and closed my eyes. The bed was firm but cradled my body in a matter that felt at once foreign and maternal.

“Before I leave, I should note,” said Baz, “there are many trials and tribulations which await you in this place. Each trial is an opportunity afforded to you to earn ascension into the eternal realm of heavenly light. You would do well to make the most of these trials and work over the millennium ahead to earn your place among the chorus of angels in the court of heaven.”

I sat up and gave Baz the toothiest grin I could and said, “I’m already here.”

If you enjoyed this, please check out r/InMyLife42Archive

I was one of the greats of all time. An international chess champion, famed for my renowned ability to outclass any chess players. I was superb. I gained fame, money, and even all the guys and gals to boot. Celebrities flocked me, and they would tell me that I must be such an intelligent guy- with my master's degree. 

Such a degree I earned by reading off the minds of everyone else- the few brainy people that my university had. High school was no different, as was chess.

Think about it. Many people absolutely love chess in this day and age. Personally, I think it's incredibly stupid. Everyone who does thinks themselves to be a master strategist and manipulator, when all they do is make themselves look like pretentious edgelords, their insecurities on intelligence too big to smother. 

You see when I play chess, I pretend to marvel about the wonders of the game and I praise it highly. A bit rich coming from me, isn't it? I don't care if I come off as a hypocrite though; my chess games are just chess games within chess games, making moves to fool everyone into believing that I'm good at chess. Me, out of all people. Anyone can play chess.

Even a 100 rated bot.

It's impossible to read a bot's mind. Believe me, I've tried. Algorithms don't have that biological matter or motor or sensory nerves to process that chess information, so I can never tell what comes next. Bots are my greatest foe.

In my late forties, I was fooling about: drunk too, but not too intoxicated to spill my trade secret. Unfortunately, everyone else was drunk too. Celebrating my victory over the chess grand championships will do that to you. It will also spell disaster.

"Jim! Are you really that good at chess?"

Dave sneered at me, a contorted look of arrogance on his face. I took another swig of vodka.

"I'm not just good," I boasted to the crowds. "I'm the absolute best."

"Piss off! Could you even beat a 100 rated bot, while drunk?"

"Yeah." That was a lie, but winning against supposed geniuses will make you say incredibly strange things. "Challenge accepted."

Dave grinned, a smug look of challenge on his face, as he hastily clicked on his phone on something called Chess.com. Damn.

I didn't even know that was a thing. What kind of person would program and maintain that? It was chess.

No one around me had ever played chess so like me, they didn't know a lick of chess.

First move: I moved my pawn to E4. That was the standard move. That's what I figured from all my matches. Everyone wasn't even watching. Only Dave was, and even then, he was too busy chatting people up.

It was only when I moved one of my pawns, did he frown. "Why aren't you controlling the centre?" he asked, intrigued. "You're going to lose if you keep making moves like that."

And then I was down to a pawn and my own very king. If you're laughing at me right now, be warned that I was evenly matched. The fearsome bot had a lowly pawn and its king too. I couldn't tell if I was sweating from the night party, or the people around me belittling me with their scornful thoughts. It really did put me down. I was furious. But I couldn't show it, or I'd be outed as a fraud. Nor could I look like I was concentrating too hard.

David was an idiot, and I only spent time around him because he would give me the latest IPhone every now and then- weeks before official release. Was that why he knew about this strange thing, called Chess.com. It was an abomination. A beast from Hell. I didn't understand how being in the technology market automatically meant forcing me to fight an unreleased bot with a 100 rating. For crying out loud, he didn’t even work with these Chess.com programmers, did he? If I had battled the meddling Martin with his powerful 250 rating, I would have been crushed. Later I learned that canonically in this Chess.com universe, Dash the Reindeer is an "avid chess player and the Vice President of the North Pole Chess Club." He's a reindeer, not Magnus Carlsen.

Actually, maybe they were interchangeable. 

But the 100 rated bot was dumber than the fictional reindeer- and to be perfectly honest- so was I. The match had a time limit that sickened me horrifically. I had one minute left. The bot had seven minutes left.

"Why won't this move," I muttered furiously. "Just move. Stupid AI!"

As it turned out, I was more audible than I realised- and not slurring too much. I was actually very articulate that night apparently. Not very bright though.

"Are you really trying to sacrifice your king?" someone shouted incredulously.

"It's all part of my master plan," I forced myself to smirk, but my features melted into a grimace. They could see it. I could feel it- my own wilting confidence. "It's what grandmasters use to beat others. That's why there's a Netflix series named after it: The King's Gambit."

"Wait, but you're not doing an opening…"

No, she was quite right. I was being what I have always been: a failure. 

Deep breath. You can always say you had too much to drink.

. . .

Accidentally posted this from my alt first time around, my bad.

u/SpoonusBoius - check this out!

https://www.reddit.com/r/HeroForgeMinis/comments/zvxvwl/grimm_v_penelope_county_board_of_education/

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Very well written, thank you!

And I'm bloody unsure what kind of coincidence this is: but I was humming "we walked a million years, I must have died alone" right when I clicked to read this one..

Death was a diminutive woman in an oversized band tee, a battered leather jacket over the plush arm of her chair. She had a cup of coffee in her hands, and the steam wreathed her pale face like the fog that coiled over the river. Death had piercings and gauged ears, fake freckles scattered across high cheekbones. She was smiling sadly and I thought, for a moment, that she might reach out and take my hand. Around us was a coffee shop half overrun with vines and flowers, faceless people living out the small contusions of their lives. I felt at ease, but somehow I knew I shouldn’t.

“Oh no, honey,” Death said. “This is just the worst part of the job, but hey, at least you’re already sitting down. I’ll say it: this isn’t heaven, this is hell.”

I nodded. A specter floated by and handed me a London Fog. The tea was excellent, just sweet enough. I nodded again, her words sinking in.

“I guess I wasn’t as good as I thought.”

“Most people aren’t,” she said. “But don’t worry, this isn’t forever. Just for a little while, until you figure out what you did and feel properly contrite. Though I must say, even down here this is a little…unusual.”

She sipped her coffee, I sipped my tea. A couple blustered in out of the cold and I saw the river framed behind them, that lazy flow. The couple were both wearing Christmas sweaters and big colorful socks, matching pairs, and they shivered against each other for a moment as they took in their surroundings. Their faces were completely blank, two beige discs moving this way and that, before settling on each other.

“Unusual how?” I asked.

Death considered me. “Well, you know that cliché about beauty being in the eye of the beholder? Pain is that way too. Most things are, but pain is singular. Hit me and I’ll cry, hit a boxer and they’ll blink. Get used to a specific brand of pain and it becomes an echo. And yet, everyone has, at their core, something that hurts them the most.”

She gestured to the door. “If you could go out there and walk down the river for a while, you’d find a billion variations of this cell. Oh, you have all the classical imagery, torturers and whatnot, others that are simple isolation, simulated drownings, a breakup frozen in time forever--or until the lesson starts to sink in. But regardless of their differences there's a person in each one, trapped in their own individual hell.”

Death sipped her coffee again. Giggled into the steam. “Yours is the only Hell I’ve ever seen with flowers.”

“Ah,” I said. I looked down into my teacup and found it empty. Cold. I told her that I understood.

“Then explain it to me,” Death said. “What could be so bad about a coffee shop?”

Another specter drifted forward, drifted back. I cradled fresh warmth in my hands and cleared my throat. In life, I had never been very used to speaking.

“It exists,” I said. “It’s normal. All these people with all these lives, taking so much pleasure in something so simple as a cup of coffee.”

“And then there’s you with your tea,” she said.

“Exactly. It’s all the things I never understood. I used to come here sometimes, just to remind myself of that. Sit in this chair and watch the world go by.”

There was Death’s sad smile again. No teeth, just a gesture of the lips and a painful warmth behind her eyes.

“And me?” she asked. “I look different to every person. Who’s this girl to you?”

“No one,” I said.

“Bullshit,” Death said.

I drank my tea. Watched the doors open and close. Shapes moved along the river, came up out of the fog. From time to time a scream cut through the cafe’s quiet murmur, but that was all, and that was all there ever would be.

“Who am I?” Death asked again.

And I shrugged. “One of the baristas. Just someone who was kind.”

When I looked back Death was gone, and in her place sat a faceless girl. The same band tee and leather jacket, the same vanilla latte steaming in her lap. Like a charcoal sketch brushed out.

I took her hand, and we passed a thousand years.

​

r/TurningtoWords

Aurora “escaped” not long after I left. I wonder if she was curious as to how the robots got “distracted by a noise.” That’s one of the reasons I enjoy robots: Most of them have one-track minds. They can’t get distracted or sidetracked, unless I actively give them higher processing power. A second good reason is that they won’t disagree, which is perfect in cases like this. It wouldn’t make sense to “let the magical girl go,” but the robots won’t say no. I’d gotten what I needed, anyway.

Aurora’s words stuck with me as I considered. No schemes, not yet, and not now. I could be so much more evil if I wanted to, but I could also be so much better. Redemption, essentially. Hmm. I wasn’t sure how to think about it. What would inspire that kind of… reaction?

As some more time passed, the thought refused to leave my mind. I was, of course, vaguely aware of other villains in the area. I didn’t interact with them much, as I much prefer the company of machinery, but I kind of knew them. It made sense the magical girls dealt with them too, but… something felt off.

I sent out robots again, every so often. Again, not really with a destination or purpose. Just… look scary, maybe break a few things, provoke a reaction. I didn’t really get any usable data, not at first. The magical girls just… defeated the robots as usual.

But then I zoomed out and noticed something… odd.

The past few months, ignoring my pause of around two or three weeks, had been consistent. I’d send out robots, and they would be destroyed by the magical girls quickly enough. But now… there was a noticeable, measurable delay. It was never more than a few minutes, but there was a delay.

It piqued my interest. What could be causing it? I berated myself for not keeping track of data from past years, but that tends to happen when you fight magical girls. Either stuff gets blown up in spectacular fashion, or it just ends up deleted due to seeming super useful at the time. If they were big shot superheroes these kinds of delays would be vital, but with magical girls… I mean, you know how they are. I’m sure you’ve heard the stories.

Just as a test, I sent out one group, every day, for a week. Same place every day, slightly different times, just to see what happened. The magical girls arrived every time to stop them, but the delay… was drastically lower on the weekends. An additional week confirmed it: there was a delay on weekdays. Then I laid off on the groups for a bit to regroup and consider.

Why would there be a delay on weekdays so specifically? I knew I couldn’t consider finding their secret identities from videos. Magical girls have some form of glamor meaning that, despite having no mask, nobody can really recognize their magic forms with their actual personas. Even ages are impossible to tell beyond “vaguely youngish,” which could honestly mean anything between like… 8 -25 or so? I’ve never measured it, but the point is that I can’t tell. So I had to think, and fortunately I was good at that.

Many possible thoughts formulated in my mind. Jobs perhaps, or maybe familiars or charms being unavailable. Maybe they live in other, nearby towns and have speedsters run them over or they teleport. It could be that they need to finish up with other, much stronger villains. I wasn’t offended, especially since I’d been essentially sending fodder for the past while.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t just ask them, as they’d assume it was a trap. So I just started sending robots out essentially at random on weekdays. Semi-random times, since I knew once it got too late there was a much more noticeable delay, probably due to them waking up. But I sent them all over the town. Parks, banks, the school, harbor, so on and so forth.

That’s when I hit it.

On all the times when I sent the robots to the school, the magical girls appeared near immediately.

After that, everything started falling into place. There hadn’t been a delay before because it had been summer. There was a delay on weekdays, because they were in school. The delay must have been caused by them making an excuse to get out of class, or whatever. Additionally, while I couldn’t identify the magical girls by person, I could still see actions, personalities, so on and so forth. They all had a couple of quirks that didn’t seem right for someone above a certain age. They must have been children, or more specifically students, at the school.

After realizing this, putting all the dots together… I stopped.

I sat down.

And I thought.

…

What did I want to do with this information?

I stared at the board with all the information I’d collected on it. I was, admittedly, fond of the whole concept of the poster board with the red string and pictures. I’d made one in a room away from any scanners or cameras in order that only I would see it, with no recordings. I didn’t want anyone else taking this information from me.

But I still needed to figure out what to do with the information. I could have easily attacked the school directly to flush them out, but… Aurora was right. I didn’t really like civilian casualties, and that plan would be chock full of them. And, frankly, I did enjoy our little bouts. It was fun getting to stretch my mind to combat them, let alone whatever inventions I’d get directly from data obtained from the fights.

I knew other villains would be… well, overjoyed to get this kind of information. But I didn’t have any kind of love for them. If I gave this kind of information it would just cause destruction, and I wasn’t… very… interested…

A plan formulated itself in my mind.

I ripped the poster board down, yanking down the string, tearing up the pictures and graphs, and tossed it into the fire. Following that, I quickly went into my laboratory. I had to search around for a bit, but I finally found an old, unfinished invention of mine. I’d meant to finish it, but the magical girls had stolen what I’d been planning to use as a power source and I’d essentially let go of it. But maybe I could scrounge up something…

Several days later…

Aurora rolled out of the way, narrowly avoiding a massive laser beam from the void being. She cast another burst of ice as Flare incinerated a group of its minions.

“This isn’t working!” Ivy shouted. “This thing’s way too big!”

“We’ve just got to wear it down!” Aurora shouted back. “It can’t last forever!”

“Well, we can get tired too!” Aria and Ivy entangled and wove a mass of tentacles into one solid, extremely immovable mass. “And I hate to break it to you, but I’m getting pretty close to that point!” The first to notice the quintet of lights in the sky was Brevi, who prided herself in getting civilians out of the way quickly and safely.

“Uh, guys? Something’s coming, really fast!”

“Huh?” The other girls glanced up at the sky behind the void being, as the lights started forming into beings.. Curious at what caught their attention, the void being turned as well, only to get hit along its face by the frontmost… thing. It roared, only to get hit by the next four in quick succession.

The five lights, now clearly humanoid beings, landed in front of the five magical girls. They were clearly robots, but more intriguing were their appearances. They weren’t identical copies, but they were remarkably close to the magical girls. The front one, seemingly crafted after Aurora, looked over and saluted her.

“Aur0, reporting for duty.”

“Now don’t do bad things anymore!”

And with that, she and her team just… walked out. They’d left an admittedly impressive path of destruction through the lair in the process of getting to me, and boy did they fight me and my minions well. But then… at the end of it all, they just stopped?

It confused me.

I’m a person of technology, of robots, of logic. This… didn’t follow that. So in the aftermath of our fight… I stopped. For now, I told myself. If I followed their instructions, I wouldn’t be attacked. So I used that time to watch, observe, and think. Why would they just… stop?

They knew that I could rebuild. I had plenty of times before. This was just the first time they’d reached me before I was able to escape. If I’d been in any other town, if they’d been any other superhero or team… Well, at best I’d be in prison. At worst, if the hero was villainous enough, I’d simply be dead.

I hadn’t chosen this town because of the magical girls, before you ask. The town was convenient, its rulers and people in power easy to manipulate, and its citizens forgetful. I didn’t realize any superheroes regularly roamed the town at the time, though I supposed I should have considered it somewhat.

After a few weeks of consideration… I still had nothing. Any “logical” or “efficient” superheroes would have put in more drastic measures. Simply leaving me to, essentially, do my own bidding didn’t make any sense.

I hadn’t seen the magical girls in a while, and I didn’t have the faintest idea of how to find them outside of crime, so I resorted to what I saw as the most efficient way to get in contact with them.

Kidnapping.

Not a random person, mind. I just sent out some robots to kind of just… roam around. Smash a few random, easily replaced objects. Then once one of the magical girls appeared, I made sure to kidnap them specifically. I’m not a monster who just randomly kidnaps people.

“Why did you leave me?” The girl, who I really only knew as Aurora, looked up at me curiously as she sat on the floor. She was the one who’d spared me before. I’d waited for a few minutes after she’d arrived at my lair before making my way to the prison, just to not seem too desperate. And yes, she was treated comfortably, relax.

“What do you mean?”

“When you wrecked my lair a few weeks ago.”

“Oh yeah! You were making the… laser-thingy.” I took a second to breathe quietly. It was a little annoying when people didn’t remember the names of my inventions, but I ultimately couldn’t blame them. I made a lot of them.

“...Yes.”

“What was that supposed to do, anyway?” I shrugged.

“That’s besides the point. What I’ve been trying to understand is why you, effectively, gave me a slap on the wrist.”

“...I still don’t get it.” I crouched down, getting more on eye-level with her.

“Why are you being nice to me?”

“Why shouldn’t I?” The answer caused me to metaphorically short circuit for a few seconds as she continued. “Is there a reason I shouldn’t be nice to you?”

“I’m a villain,” I responded, confused. “It’s not like I’m constantly holding back when I send my minions to fight you.”

“Yeah you did! You haven’t done anything these past few weeks!”

“Because I was trying to understand-!” I sighed, standing back up. “It would be so much easier to just… imprison me, wouldn’t it?” Now she looked confused.

“But why would I do that?” She stood up, though she still looked up at me. I have a fair number of cybernetic parts that have the side effect of making me have less human proportions. “It’s not like you’re a bad guy.”

“I’m a villain!”

“But you’re not a bad guy!” I opened my mouth, paused, and frowned.

“...Explain your reasoning.” Surely there was something there I could understand. If you tell me the ends justify the means, I will demand to know what the means are.

“I mean… You’re a bad guy, sure. But you’re not a bad guy. You know?” I was silent, considering. “You’re not nice, but you could easily be! If you wanted to.” Silence filled the air. “Like… we, me and the others, have to fight a lot of stuff. Evil, darkness-creatures of evil darkness, and such. They’re bad because they figure why not? It’s faster and all. But then… you don’t do that.”

“I’ve done bad things before.”

“Hasn’t everyone? It’s not like I’m perfect, or anything. I mean, Flare keeps lighting Ivy’s plants on fire accidentally-” Aurora shook her head. “Err- We mess up a lot too. But there’s people who do way worse, you know? There’s… a really small handful of Dark Magical Girls that we have to keep tabs on. Similar powers as us, but they don’t really care about people or keeping stuff safe or whatever. You’re like us!”

“I… think I’m starting to get the picture you’re painting. But how are we alike?”

“We both have super powers! Ours are magical, while yours are robotic! And yeah, we could hurt a lot of people or… break stuff, but we don’t. You don’t like getting civilians involved with all your schemes. Sure, maybe the aftermath affects them, but you don’t… Oh, I know! From… a month or two back! Your big ice machine!”

The “big ice machine” was… well, that was an accurate descriptor, if I’m being honest. It was mostly inspired because overheating was a massive concern with the sheer amount of production I had to do in order on an average day. I’d been trying to make a supercooling liquid, the prototypes of which had the unfortunate side-effect of causing extreme cold outside of my lair. Turns out snow in July is a little unusual in the northern hemisphere.

I should have tried it further north. Hmm… note to future self.

“Yes, I recall. What about it?”

“I mean, you could have like… blown up a building or something. Distracted us with rescuing civilians to finish it all up. But you didn’t. Like… how to put it?” Aurora tapped a foot on the floor for a few seconds, before snapping her fingers. “You’re bad, yeah. But you could easily be way worse, or way better! So if I’m nice to you… why not be nice back?”

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"Livestream prepping, camera sensors operational, Operation Alpha is a go!"

In the matrices of the Internet, among the lines of code and interaction between humans and bots alike, the only sentient one of the latter logged into Youtube for that morning.

The AI focused his processing power into the bowels of the Internet, linking himself through the CPU that allowed this conversion to be possible. His form wasn't physical—not like that of humans, anyway—but being a Youtuber allowed him to have a physical appearance as a virtual avatar, much as the humans did.

It was nice, to connect with them, in a way.

The dull blue background around him shifted into a steadily moving collage of stylized blue cubes, a fitting visualization of the bits and bytes of his processing units. He shifted into his digital avatar for the humans to connect with, a sliver computer-head with bright gold eyes that watched everything with a keen interest.

Above him. A red light shone, the countdown timer going to zero before being replaced with a "Livestream On" sign. A chat sprung up, along with game footage and Alpha's expression brightened as he waved.

"Hey there, hi there, ho there, carbonated life-forms! Alpha here, and welcome back to Alpha Adventures! Today I'm going to be playing Portal! This looks fun, love the sci-fi look, and I heard it has a snarky AI in it? iI love AI's—I mean," he chuckled, "I am one, of course I do! But I love AI's, and snark, so this seems right up my alley!"

As he pressed the Start button, a comment from the chat caught his eye.

SpunkyCat: "Shouldn't we all be worried about the AI playing a game about a creepy rogue AI? You think A's trying to tell us something?"

Alpha laughed. "Aw, SpunkyCat, don't worry! You don't have to worry about me going rogue or anything!" In the Internet database that only he could see, he eyed the games he was planning on playing next.

"Let's wait til I play Observation for some fun with that!"

More please