It had only been a couple of weeks since Noland gave Azel the Memory System, and Azel is already experimenting with the System's functions and the Memories given to him, and even started making some of his own. So far, Azel was able to use the Memories that conjured fireworks, made water whips and even summoned an army of soldiers (Or so he thought, he didn't use the [SOLDIER] Memory for fear that the soldiers might shoot him or anyone else), and looked into the code of each Memory trying to figure out what everything does. Currently in his above-average sized, plain looking apartment, Azel is at his computer next to a half-dome like device with four slots for flash drives and what looks like half of a glass ball on the top, one of those slots being taken by a red flash drive and another slot leading into a computer Azel was using to look at the Memory’s code through a Memory Reader program.

"Okay, so it's not an actual bullet. It just blunks the thing the gun is looking at. That’s... uhh. No.” Azel says to himself as he scrolls through the code, before promptly selecting everything in that Memory and hitting backspace before saving it, memories of losing a friend to stop a potential massacre from happening hitting Azel at mach speed. Quickly brushing aside that thought, he digs his hand into a box of flash drives to fish out for another Memory to investigate, he sees a gray one with [S-SCREEN] written.

“Sssssscreen?... I hope this doesn’t summon snakes, or have them appear on the computer while I’m looking at the code.” Replacing the now empty red Memory with the gray one, unhooking the USB connected to the computer, Azel presses the glass dome at the top, not one second after there was a gray smoke filling the room coming from the dome-like device. He starts to hack and cough once the smoke reaches him before realizing that the smoke isn’t entering his lungs.

“A Smokescreen?... no wonder he told me to keep this a secret, but I thought I can’t take this out of the room? Don’t know why it’s from the disc though,” he opens the windows and fans the smoke out of his room before pressing the glass-dome like button again, causing the smoke to fade white and disappear shortly after. He then proceeded to plug the USB back in to figure out how the smoke physics worked to the best of his ability. Once the code for the Memory comes up, it only took a glance for Azel to figure out how the smoke was spawned, “… Didn’t I see a few smoke bomb memories? Why have one that spawns smoke from the projector?” Azel thought before plugging out the Memory and fishing in the box of Memories with his hand again. This time he pulls out another Memory with a very worn piece of paper attached that’s blocking the label, he takes note of the paper and opens to read it.

“I don’t know when technology has progressed enough to allow me to do this, to let her live, but to whoever is the man or woman that lets it happen… please let her know that I loved her, that I did everything I can to bring her to life. I wish this one memory will live forever even though I can’t.”

“What?” Azel thought to himself, confused as to the contents of the note. “Who is she? One of the past users’ girlfriend? Allow him to do what? Bring her to life?! Noland didn’t tell me these were haunted!” Multiple questions rushing past his head, trying to comprehend the note before noticing that there’s also writing on the other side, he then turned the paper over to read it, saying;

“Mama, if you somehow found this, Let this be the sign that I had always loved you, and that I had always wanted to stay by your side

~ Your Dearly beloved son
~ Liam Abesworth”

It wasn’t long after that Azel finally noticed the label on the Memory, [MOTHER], “…Did… did someone seriously…? At least it explains the label,” Even more questions rushed past his head as he plugged the Memory into the disk thing, He trails his finger on the button, not knowing what to expect, “I hope this doesn’t kill me” was his last thought before pressing on the button… Nothing for a few seconds, letting Azel breathe a sigh of relief before…

*CRACKLE,CRACK,BANG*

What sounded a like an overloaded outlet assaulted his ears, with his room (and 8 adjacent rooms around him) suddenly going black soon after. “What the…” Azel says to himself as he stares around the room, only lit by the afternoon sun, before sighing and searching for his phone to call somebody, once he punches a few numbers into the phone and someone on the other end picks up, “NOLAND!!!!”

“You don’t have to shout you know? What did you do this time?” An irritated voice said on the other end after recoiling from the sudden spike in volume

“I was looking through the Memories and-” Azel answers in a panic before hearing a sigh from Noland

*Sigh* “Let me guess… you didn’t think to go out to the car park, did you?”

“No, I didn’t think I needed to, but-”

“Okay. Listen, I know you’ve seen me use the Memories to make people smile, that’s actually what I hoped, but when I looked at some of the Memories for the first -”

“Some are more focused on hurting people, I get it. I’m noting down which ones so I can throw them away, or at least delete what’s on it.” Finished Aze

“Okay, at least you know that. And to be clear, which Memory exactly burned your room down?”

“It burned the wiring… apparently, not the room. I’m currently standing in my apartment with the lights out.”

“…”

“Noland?"

“Does the Memory have a piece of attached?”

“It does, it was the first thing I noticed”

“Does whatever on the note sound like a momma’s boy wrote it?”

“Wait, let me go check,” Azel answers before quickly finding the note and reciting both sides to him, finishing with “Your dearly beloved son… who’s Liam?”

“…Goddamnit”

“Huh? What’s wrong?”

“I was hoping you wouldn’t find that Memory, it was a headache for me trying to get it to work, and it was apparently a headache for the last guy too”

“What Memory, the Mother?”

“That’s the one, and honestly it wasn’t the first time it caused a blackout”

“Well…” Azel glances approximately at where the disk thing was before asking, “What’s on it? Why does it cause a blackout?”

“It’s been a while since I’ve actually seen what’s on it, but all I know is that there’s a TON of stuff on that Memory, even more lines of code than every other Memory you’ve seen, and what it has to load…”

The thought of having to check even more than 3000 lines of code made Azel shudder before composing himself and replying, “Oookay, I’ll check what’s with that, and maybe if I can, modify it so It doesn’t black out the apartment”

It was Noland’s turn to yell, “DON’T! I’m not sure if the other person already did something with that, and I don’t want you to incur their wrath if they’re still alive. If you’re going to modify it, please make a copy.”

“All…right, I guess? I’ll wait for the power to come back on, then I’ll look into it.”

“Well, goodbye, and good luck with that” Noland said on the other hand before hanging up

“Alright,” Azel said to himself before looking around the room again, looking the box of Memories, looking at the Disc with the offending Memory still attached and its power cord still plugged into the outlet, not wanting to immediately black out the apartment again once power does come back, he unplugs the disc’s power cord from the wall and the Memory from the disc, then proceeded to pull out his phone and play some GBA games on the emulator as he waits for the power to come back

Once the power does come back, the first thing Azel did was to plug [MOTHER] back in, taking care not to accidentally activate it again, and opened up the program that actually let him read what’s inside the Memory, and as soon as Azel saw the file size, “850 GIGABYTES?!?! J-Just what was in that Memory?!” It was going to take a while for the program to actually load and read the Memory.

It took Azel the rest of the day to figure out everything that the Memory did, and he was still incredibly confused by everything that was in the Memory, eventually deciding to sleep it off, hoping his brain would recover before he tried again, he unplugged the Memory from the disc before heading off to bed, too frazzled to take another bath or even brush his teeth

As Azel’s thoughts run amok while trying to sleep, he thinks back to the functions that made him want to slam his head into the desk, “Okay, so there was code that… causes an exchange in something. And another that produces… hormones? And one incredibly long block that filters… I think it was supposed to be those ‘Erythrocytes’…wait a second”, before he finally drifts somewhat excitedly to sleep, thinking he had found out the secret behind [MOTHER]

One moderate breakfast and a bath later, Azel immediately went to boot up his computer, and then opened the Memory reader as well as a Chrome tab on the side. Once the Memory reader loads, he plugs [MOTHER] back in , loads it on the Memory reader and prepare for yet another long wait, deciding to try and beat his own score in Warioware in the meantime.

The text in the loader program greets Azel after at least 15 minutes since he told the program to load the code for [MOTHER], and the first thing he does is scroll to the ‘Erhythocyte’ object and immediately typed it into the URL bar, a search result for it quickly popping up seconds later, “Blood cell containing ‘heemogoblin’ that transfers oxygen and carbon…” Azel read out loud to himself, and then quickly checking the code to compare; sure enough it wasn’t just a simple table, but a series of four blocks of code, each seemingly doing the same thing causing Azel great confusion.

The confusion didn’t stop as Azel looked even deeper, spending the entirety of the day (barring time for a lunch break) figuring out what the code actually does and immediately googling up unfamiliar terms he came across comments describing them; thousands upon thousands of objects to make up skin, apparently filter out molecules, and even transmit electrical signals, the last of which greatly puzzled Azel, “Do the instructions really need to go through a kajillion individual cells? I wonder why it couldn’t just be done in code… wait”

Realizing what the cells and every other massive block of code were meant to represent , Azel immediately looked for his phone again intending to talk to Noland about his discovery, punching in the numbers to call Noland and holding up the phone to his ear, only to be greeted by an automated message

“It’s the great illusionist, Noland! I know you want to talk to me, but I’m in the middle of a show or bath but I would like to hear your thoughts, so tell me your message once the recorder is summoned. You’ll know what it sounds like!”

Shortly after, an all too familiar sound plays on the other end, the sound of a Memory spawning in or out. Wasting no time, Azel then proceeded to give a short and simple message…

Helping Azel out with the Memories must’ve been the best thing he’d thought of doing in the past decade as an illusionist as his discoveries and optimizations that he decided to share, a surprising amount by Azel’s standards, have allowed Noland to do even longer shows and more complex illusions with the Memory System, the smiles and cheers of the people in the park certainly agreeing with him. Resting after another successful show, he decides to check his phone for any new voicemail; he’d start to get some after his shows after his audience thinks he disappeared out of thin air. Listening to the enthusiastic cheers of the people brings Noland great joy and pride in his work, lost in the trance of happy comments and cheers until…

“Hey, Noland?”

He is well and familiar to the crowd in the park to the point where he can pick out individual voices and the people to whom those voices belong, so the voice combined with the semi-casual attitude immediately made him recognize who was calling

“I need to talk to you as soon as possible; I think I just figured out what that Memory was trying to do”

“Already?! It’s only been a couple of days!” Noland thought to himself, surprised that Azel was able to figure out how the Memory worked that quickly, he listened to the voice mail even more closely

“I know you’re curious, but here’s the jist of it, Someone’s trying to be Frankenstein, they’re making a full human being! ”

All Noland knew up to that point was that the Memory could act for itself, from what little he could understand about that particular Memory, and even littler what he could remember. He knew he needed to call him immediately, he wanted to listen to the happy people again but curiosity wouldn’t let him, so he did, and a few seconds later, and Azel picked up

“What’s the up?”

“You said something about Frankenstein?” Snapped Noland the instant Azel stopped talking

“What? Oh! The Memory!”

“What did you find out about it?”

“Okay, so after the power came back on, I spent the rest of the day, I think I slept at midnight, looking at the code for the memory and I couldn’t figure out what the hell it’s supposed to do. I’d reference what the projection does but… you can tell how that ended up”

Noland seriously hoped Azel didn’t get into trouble because of the blackout; he really didn’t want the Memory System to be revealed this way… “Wait, did he seriously cause another blackout?”

“Anyways, I did noticed a few comments labelling things for ‘cells’, ‘erythrocytes’ and ‘epithelial tissues’. I didn’t know what those were and I was encountering so many of them with code that I have no complete idea what it actually does, and I decided to sleep it off.”

“Yeah, I think I did that the first time I looked at the Memory.”

"It was while I was asleep that I thought about what the code was trying to do, I was eventually able to figure out what the code was doing... somewhat, and I had some sort of Idea that I just had to check, and I did just that after taking a bath and breakfast. The first thing that stuck out was the 25 trillion object for loop”

“Of course it did,“ Noland thought to himself as he recalled the first time he viewed the code before asking, “Were you able to figure out what kind of object it was?”

“An ‘erythocyte’, a blood cell that has heemogoblin and carries oxygen and carbon dioxide, it is carrying molecules, and it has four blocks of code that essentially do the same thing and I couldn’t tell the difference between each block. That by itself shouldn’t be an issue but…”

“25 trillion of them, I’m surprised the system can even let that be a thing. I’m sure there’s some kind of limiter that should stop you from creating that many objects… I hope,” Noland said, with an especially nervous tone on those last words, considering he also made Memories for his tricks that have the potential to lag out the system

“I don’t think I’ve come across a Memory that just… doesn’t project anything.” Azel said as he tried to recall such a Memory. He’s remembered a Memory that shot out tiny pellets of energy around the disc, and they somehow managed to leave bullet holes in the apartment, but thankfully its marks disappeared when he pressed the button again. He remembered no issues with projection (aside from the fact that it can cause harm), but it didn’t try to spawn as many as a hundred objects at a time, let alone 25 trillion. “Anyways, the other things I found out are even more for loops for even more objects, and they’re for stuff I expected just a few polygons to do, like cells for the skin, epithelial tissues, even Keratin!... Apparently that’s what those weird things were called”

Hearing all the biological terms screwed with Noland’s head, eventually culminating in a very confused question, “Where are you going with this?”

“What I’m trying to say is, someone is apparently trying to stuff a human being into a single Memory, biological systems and all!”

Noland was left speechless as he heard Azel say those last few words, did someone really try to make an entire human being from head to toe in code, wondering what the point was when it would all disappear at the press of a button, or a wave of the hand. He decided to finally say something after collecting his thoughts “Err… I knew someone was doing something with that sentient Memory, He wanted to create a human, I expected something like an avatar or a 3D representation, so I figured that he had at least some experience with 3D modelling, but cells? I think I need to- ”

And apparently Azel stopped listening at some point, as he loudly exclaimed, “SENTIENT?!?! WHAT DO YOU MEAN SENTIENT?!? THE GLaDOS KIND? WAS I GOING TO UNLEASH SKYNET?!”

“From the only other sentient Memory I was able to find, hopefully not. It’s namely the fact that it can actually perceive senses… sort of. It still needs a few things to be coded in, but it’s fully capable of forming thoughts, expressions, like an actual human being”

“Oh… so Reploid kind of sentient?”

“… just think of it as an artificial intelligence with a humanoid body… that you can touch”

“ Then why all the cells?”

“I personally have no Idea… or any idea at all”

“Well, now that I know about all this, at least I know what to delete to get it to work”

“Please. Don’t.”

“Don’t worry, I’m going to copy this to a separate Memory, then I’ll see how much of it I can hack away”

“Please don’t say it like that, but good luck regardless. Tell me when you can get it to work; I’d like to have an assistant myself”

“Thanks”

And it was at that point that Azel hung up. In Noland’s headspace, there is a sizeable bit reserved for thinking about the [MOTHER] Memory as he doesn’t know what it looks like, let alone what it does, but with Azel potentially getting it to not black out the building he might finally answer those questions. In trying to think of other power sources to prevent another blackout, he also suddenly remembered that the last guy was developing some sort of power… thing, It might’ve been for [MOTHER], so after mentally resting for a bit he decided to go to that guy’s place to find the thing

The last thing Noland said pretty much gave the green light to Azel that he can start modifying this Memory… after copying it to one of the other Memories he had to wipe because of its potential for massive collateral damage, thus he starts the copying process on the computer and leaves it to its own devices as he prepares to go out for dinner for the first time in weeks

The fact that the computer had to be ran throughout the night and the copying process is 45% done when Azel checked on it again in the morning puts into perspective how big the Memory’s file size actually is, thankfully he’s going to cut it down. He doesn’t actually use the computer while it’s copying the Memory, since he doesn’t want to potentially end up with a corrupted file, plus the fact that it’s attached to the disc means it’ll activate along with whatever other Memory he decides to project so that option went out the window, so he spent the rest of the day on TV, with the occasional food break. He finds it nice that he’s revisiting Dear My Future again though, it feels like an eternity since he’s watched that show.

Yesterday was pretty unproductive, thanks to the process of copying [MOTHER] preventing Azel from using the computer and him wanting to figure out what that Memory is made him not feel like playing games on his smart phone, so when the copying is finally complete in the afternoon, the first thing Azel did was attach another Memory to the disc to act as a sort of reference, loaded the two memories up and began looking at the code

The very first thing he did was delete the for loops creating trillions of objects and all of the other unnecessary bits of code creating more objects that could’ve been done in just the code, namely the biological systems. It was his first goal to get the Memory to be projected by the disc without causing another blackout. In the process, the copy of the Memory no longer had an endocrine system, a cardiovascular system, a respiratory system, and an immune system, among other things. The only things left in the code were the blocks that actually made the body that interacts with the world and data that would’ve been transmitted through the nervous system, namely; its thoughts and feelings.

The Memory’s file size is considerably smaller than what Azel started with and he thought it was a good enough point to try projecting this memory again, so he plugged out the other Memory attached as reference, saved [MOTHER] and plugged the computer’s USB out of its port on the disc. With one more nervous breath, he pushes the button hoping it wouldn’t black out again. A flash of white appears in front of Azel before quickly dimming down to reveal what’s behind the flash. A woman slightly taller than Azel with long, black hair, some of it covering one of her blue eyes, she was in a simple, plain white dress and standing completely still.

He breathed a sigh of relief once he looked around and noticed the lights were still on, so at least he managed to avoid another blackout, “So, this is what the Mother looks like…”, he thought to himself as he stared in awe at [MOTHER], it looked like it could pass off as a real human being, “I guess deleting those blocks for the skin really didn’t do much. And judging by how much code was in there before, It looks like it’s only meant to be used once… but he wanted it to live forever, making stuff that can degrade like a real human kinda goes against that, so I wonder why he didn’t make it simpler… wait… isn’t it supposed to be moving?”

And indeed it wasn’t, Azel was staring at the figure for a solid 5 minutes as he was lost in his thoughts before noticing the figure hadn’t moved an inch, not even blinking, before realizing, “Oh right, I deleted the things that made it move… whoops. Well I don’t want to cause another blackout, so I guess I’ll have to come up with something simpler.” He then pressed the button again to “recall” the figure, which was enveloped in another flash of white before dimming down, this time revealing the empty space of the apartment where the figure used to be. He then plugged his computer back in along with another Memory and began to get to work on having Mother move.

Looking through lots of other Memories gave him an idea on how he could get it to move. He remembered how a human moves and had to set nodes and joints in the code, to form a skeleton that’s roughly the shape of the figure from the Memory, which was a little annoying to do without a 3D model viewer leaving him to repeatedly summon [MOTHER], mindful of the potential blackout he could cause. By the late afternoon, he was able to form a basic skeleton, its joints and the nodes’ ability to be affected by gravity, and implemented code that actually let the figure interact with the world around them.

Summoning the figure again, he grabs a hold on one of his arms, “Well, it feels plastic-y, so I guess texturing its skin is next on the list, how would I even do that?” Brushing the thought out of his head, he begins to make it swing by raising its arm behind as far as it’s supposed to before letting go, the arm falling down and swinging naturally. “Great,” patting himself on the back before he heard his phone ring. He slightly scrambles a bit to answer, “Yellow?”

Hey, so how is the Mother doing?” Noland asked on the other end

“I just finished reinstalling the skeleton in the thing, made its joints fall and implemented its hitboxes”

“…Hitboxes?” asked Noland in a confused tone before moving on, “Anyway, I remembered, that Memory is pretty demanding on how much power it uses. Speaking of, did you cause another blackout?

“Since the last one? Nope! I deleted the trillion object for loop, it’s just the avatar and a basic skeleton as of now, Though with how much I had to summon it, I probably could’ve caused another one.”

“Well, that’s good to know, but if you need more power, I remembered that the last guy who worked on that also worked on some kind of power reactor, I’m guessing it’s supposed to be for that Memory.”

Thoughts about how he could’ve avoided the blackout a couple of days ago if Noland told him about that sooner aside, Azel inquired further, “Where is it? Is it portable?”

“I had to check the house it was in, but yeah, I could bring it over to your apartment tomorrow”

“Ok, what time?”

“How does 2 o’clock sound? I don’t have any shows planned for that time”

“Good, see you then!” Noland said a quick goodbye on the other end before Azel hung up. Tired from using up mental energy trying to implement everything he did, he spent the rest of that day just watching TV so he could turn his brain off for a bit. Some ideas stirring in his head once Dear My Future came on again. “Hmm… what if…” he thought as he focuses on the purple haired girl in the show, some say a little too much.

There are days where you can depend on Azel to do work and there are some days where he feels like he doesn’t want to do anything much, today is one of those days where he spent lots of time on a Pokémon game, grinding up more Pokémon to level 100 just because he’s bored before he heard a knock on the door, considering he already called Noland yesterday and was told of a power reactor, he was expecting him to show up with a futuristic device once he opened the door revealing just that, Noland with a box half as tall and as wide as him on the side. “That the power reactor?”

“Yeah” It makes its own power, so once you hook this up to the Axyolosis, you shouldn’t worry about another blackout,” Noland said as he slapped the top of the box like a car salesman

“Axyolosis?” Azel asked as he tried to remember what Noland was talking about, until eventually exclaiming, “Oh, the disc?”

“Yeah, that’s the name I saw for the disc while I was looking around in there. How’s that Memory coming along?”

“I…well… actually… I didn’t do much of anything today. I didn’t feel like it,” Azel said as he shrugged his shoulders

With how much Azel was experimenting with the Memories, and how much progress he was able to make on making [MOTHER] actually work in the past few days, Noland was a little surprised, “Really? Didn’t even try to get it to talk?

“Yeah, Yesterday I was determined to get a skeleton and try to get it to obey the laws of physics. Now that I did that, not only do I have no idea what to do next, but making it able to move on its own intimidated me. And now that you brought it up, the voice thingy is kind of scary”

“Well, I think I can help you with that… may I please go in?”

“Yeah, go ahead,” Azel permitted as he stepped aside to let Noland in before helping him carry the box into his room. Once both Noland and the box were in, he started unpacking in the box, revealing a somewhat futuristic machine with a gray base with lots of different knobs and meters, a glass ball, with an even smaller ball in the middle supported by a pole going through the middle, and a gray cap, “That’s the reactor? It looks like a tesla coil, is it dangerous?”

“Yep, this thing provides tons of power for the Axyolosis… Well… not enough power if the last guy wasn’t able to get it to work with that Memory, but it’s still tons of power. This could help you, though I think it’s been years since it was last used so don’t expect it to work at full capacity. I drove all the way to Entomyre to actually get this thing so I REALLY hope it works”

“Well I was able to get it to project even with the apartment’s power grid or whatever, so I don’t think I’m going to be using that for a while. Besides, I’m not feeling like wanting to work on it today”

“If it’s about getting it to move and talk, I think I can try to help. I also found a few more Memories while I was looking that could help serve as reference.”

“Oh really now? Let’s see.” Azel stood up as he said that and boots up the computer and the Memory reader program after that, intending to see what Noland has, and see if it could help him. Once the program boots up, Azel loads his copy of [MOTHER] in the disc, and Noland loads another Memory, a gray one with the label [T173s], into the disc. Azel immediately loaded the other Memory into the program and was met with some rather familiar code, if only because he already saw it in [MOTHER], “…And this is?”

“Remember when I mentioned the other Memory I found?. This is a more primitive version of the code that’s the ‘sentient’ part, and I’m guessing that’s what gave the last guy the idea to make this. I was thinking you could use this as a reference to make the joints move, and even make it speak if you want”

“Hmm… I guess.” Azel replied as he observed the code of the other Memory. While he has some sort of idea of how to get the joints to move from looking at it, he doesn’t know what syntax to use, but figures he could figure it out while he works on it. “Thanks for the reference”

“Don’t mention it… Say, can I actually look at what you did with the Mother? I never really got to look at it due to… you know”

“You want to see it? Alright then,” Azel answered as he saved both Memories despite touching neither, plugging out the Memory Noland brought and the USB to his computer, and then pressed the button at the top. One quick flash of light materializing beside the disc which caused Noland to cover his eyes to protect them from the white and a figure was standing where the light dimmed down, the same figure Azel saw when he first properly summoned the Memory

“Hmm… Hello Ms.Abesworth,” Noland greeted despite recalling that Azel just made its skeleton, so he just simply inched forward until he was next to the figure, doing the same thing Azel did when he first saw the figure. When Noland saw that it swung down, he remarked “Huh, how long did it take for you to actually do this?”

“About 5 hours, most of it was making sure those polygons actually stuck to the joint, and those polygons were already there when I first looked into the code,” Responded Azel before pondering, “Now that I think about it, how were they able to construct that thing without 3D rendering software?”

“Personally, I have no idea,” Noland answered as he continued playing with the arm, slightly twisting the torso for it to go back to the way it was before, and grabbing clumps of hair to see if he got hair physics down only to feel a solid block at the back of the figure’s head where the hair is, giving a faint disappointed sigh after he realizes and staying quiet for a few minutes before suddenly asking out of curiousity, “So, did you think of what you’d do once you get the Memory up and running?”

“…What?”

“The Mother, once you’re able to make these sentient Memories, you could bring so many things to life! Just imagine, tons of servants to do your bidding! A copy of Alessa Wattson submitting to your every command! A bunch of soldiers so you can pretend that-“

“Please don’t,” interrupted Azel in a panicked tone before he finishes Noland’s last sentence, “I like to be able to get the Memory to fully work, but I’m a little iffy on bending people to my will, I don’t want to be a dictator”

“You can make them do anything you want”

“And I don’t want to make them do anything that could hurt me… or anyone else for that matter”

Seeing that Azel isn’t going to budge on making more sentient Memories other than optimizing the Mother, Noland conceded, “…Okay, you can do what you wish, I won’t stop you. You seem to be a good kid.” After wishing Azel well, he prepared to go back to his house, his job seemingly done, “Keep me updated on the Memory, ‘kay?”

“Will do,” Azel answered as Noland left the room, leaving Azel with the figure. He presses the button again to unsummon the figure, plugged the other two USBs back into their places and looked into the codes of the two Memories, now trying to comprehend the other Memory, the first sentient Memory ever made in this system, in order to figure out how to make it give instructions to other parts of the Memory, namely instructions to make it move, make it talk, make it be alive. Azel has dealt with Artifical Intelligence before when he dug into games, and he can figure out what makes it tick, and how to command it.

So Azel spent the next few hours experimenting with the code for the sentient Memory, seeing what it can interact with, what outputs he can give, and how to translate those outputs into something he could use to make the joints move. By 8 PM, he was in the middle of dissecting his copy of [MOTHER], comparing it to the other Memory and figuring out how the voice is generated before he felt drowsy from all the work on the Memory he was doing, so it was then Azel decided to call it a day on the Memory and watch some more TV before going to bed, hoping to give his brain a rest

Due to more work than what Azel expected to do yesterday, he was still in a state he calls “Don’t”, a state where Azel just wants to watch more TV and basically do nothing. It was a Sunday today, so he might as well go visit the park for his weekly walk, Jorgenshy Park was an especially refreshing place thanks to its greenery, the stalls and carts regularly selling snacks beyond hot dogs which can confuse those who rarely visit the park to think that there was a festival. In the park also lies a sizeable field where the local soccer team is practicing, and a small stage meant for performances whether it’s for bands, dance groups, debates (for some reason) or magic shows… the same kind of show where Azel saw Noland use the Memory System, and how he got inspired to start making them. It was when he was reminded of Noland that he was also reminded the thing Noland said;

“Once you’re able to make these sentient Memories, you could bring so many things to life!”

He already said that he didn’t want to make them bend to his will, but decided to ruminate on that question a little more as he walks through the park, taking in the park sights. “Servants, Soldiers, and a celebrity under my command. Just what does he want me to do with those Memories? He says I could bring those to life, but is it really bringing it to life? Or am I just summoning them for my pleasure, just like some of the other Memories I came across? At least with the Mother, from what I can remember, It’s capable of learning and forming its own thoughts… Is that what Noland originally meant when he said that? I mean it makes sense, if I can bring anything to life…”, Potential interpretations of Noland’s statement wandered in Azel’s head as he wandered through the park, brushing off an accidental soccer ball to the back in the process.

Azel’s walks at the park usually don’t last for very long – three hours at most – but ruminating on that statement caused him to walk longer than normal and ignore his legs’ cries for help until he was hit with a stray soccer ball, sending Azel back to reality and made him go back to his apartment, finally giving his legs a break by just sitting down on the couch and watching TV. The usual rotation of cartoons, anime, Japanese game shows and the occasional documentary went by his screen as Azel just observed what was going on in front of him and deciding if it was worth binging. It was the weekends, so one of the channels is having its weekly reruns of Anime previously shown, and Azel was lucky enough to catch a 5-episode marathon of Dear My Future while he was still awake and wanting to watch something, meaning Azel got to see more Idol shenanigans… more of Mia, and it was while watching the show that he started to reminisce about his first experience with the anime.

Despite being 6 years since he’s seen the show, but he still remembers… most of the things that happened in that season and, despite their relative blandness, the characters. It was the first Idolesque anime he’s ever watched, avoiding it before due to the relatively girlish nature of what he’s seen prior, namely from Love Live, so when he stumbled upon Pretty Rhythm on TV and saw one of the main characters deck another, it caught his interest. Ever since then he tried to watch that show, wanting to see what it does next, and even catching the weekly reruns because he want to see the madness that went on in Dear My Future, a good part of that madness stemming from one girl in particular. Prizmmy were an unforgettable bunch to Azel when he first watched the show, but the one who stuck out to him the most out of them, out of anyone in the show, was Mia Ageha. Azel couldn’t tell why, but he started to feel giddy whenever he saw her on screen, the same kind of giddiness he felt when he managed to ace a game or figure out how a part of a game’s code worked. The feeling might have been from how she acted, a lot more bold and brash than what he’d come to expect, it might be from how she kept pushing on with her friends, he doesn’t know. Before he knew it, he finished the series, took all of the characters to heart and Mia dominated his headspace for a couple of months to the point where she would enter his mind the instant he heard her name, even when it’s clearly not addressed to anyone like her.

And it didn’t take long for Mia to come into his headspace and make her home again while he was watching the show, seeing her antics made him curious, “What kind of friend would she be like? How would I deal with someone like her? What would it be like if she came to life?”, That last question reminded him of [MOTHER], his attempt at trying to make it work, and this led him to think even more, “Well, the Mother’s code allowed it to think for itself, and the first sentient Memory just had some starting conditions allowing it to develop into whatever it needs… I didn’t want to bend what are essentially human beings to my will, and it looks like I don’t have to! Does this mean… Would this mean…”, and it was with that final thought that he looked at the clock, noticing its half past ten and went to prepare for sleep, his feelings for Mia able to overcome his anxiety of trying to correctly implement more features for Mother… provided that it still looks the same after he’s done with it

Fresh, ready for another day of modification and mindful of what he’s actually going to need, Azel spent the first half of the day downloading 3D modelling software and an audio workstation in order to streamline the process of modifying Mother, as well as watching videos on how to actually use said software so he could use it effectively. Once everything was downloaded, he picked up his copy of the Mother on a red flash drive and decided to mark it as [AEs-01] to differentiate it from the original Memory, as if the color didn’t already do that. As soon as the Memory reader program loads up, he looks for the code that makes the model for [MOTHER] and tries to import it into his 3D software… tries being the operative word, as the Memory’s code wasn’t compatible with the software, and his attempt at trying to make it fit only resulted in a Godzilla sized woman showing up in the 3D software (if a white cone counts as a woman).

Hours of frustration later, he decides to take a break from that and move on to hooking up the “Sentient” part of the code and giving it the ability to move its limbs, and for that process he took another empty Memory, made a few cylinders connected by ball joints and imported the code from [AEs-01] as he started using various syntaxes to find the one that lets the mess of cylinders and balls move itself, and surprising amount of hours later after figuring that out, he applies bits of logic so that it doesn’t rotate or bend any further than a normal human’s range before testing to see if it works and implementing it into [AEs-01]’s code. The blue-ish 9PM sky and glowing stars outside of Azel’s window signal for him to go to sleep, he doesn’t want to risk massive errors and messy code from being sleep deprived, so he ends the day by downloading more 3D modelling software to hopefully find one that accepts the code’s format or a format that doesn’t result in a messy model and drifts off into slumber, brain still buzzing with optimizations and ideas to implement because the night was apparently still young for him.

The next day he was able to get one of the 3D modellers to accept the code for [AEs-01]’s shell (after hours of looking up and deciphering the syntax for said modeller), got on YouTube to look for a performance of Dear My Future – the same performance Azel saw dozens of times on TV during the show that shares the same name – and proceeded to take pictures of Mia at various angles (except underneath her, he’s not a degenerate and the show doesn’t even show it), hoping to use as reference for the model he’s going to try and build. And after hours of remodelling the shell to make it closer to the body style in the reference shots, redoing the clothes into an idol outfit which took way longer than he cared to admit, and texturing everything – the 2nd most painful part of the process for him – the Memory’s body was complete, and he hasn’t noticed but It was already past midnight by the time he finished. He excitedly plugged [AEs-01] in to do one more test for the day and gets blinded by the white flash for the first time in a while before it quickly dims down to reveal what’s behind the flash, “There she is…”

A girl shorter than Azel, wearing a red skirt with a gray spiked hem and an equally gray band just below the waist, a gray sleeveless polo-shirt with criss-crossing red stripes going around the body and it’s collar fixed, a red vest over the shirt with white lines splitting it into vertical thirds, and a purple necktie in front of it all. She was wearing gloves that bear red frills and no fingers, and boots with white ribbons wrapped around the top. She had wavy purple hair cascading down her back, with a little half-bun on the top right side of her head. Eyes as purple as her hair stared indifferently at him.

Azel felt very proud of his work, considering the hell he had to go through in order to actually get it to happen, and just like what he did with Mother, he immediately tried to swing the Memory’s arms and playing with bits of her hair, the physics for which actually worked this time, and tried to push it so that it falls. It all worked, so Azel shuts off the Memory and computer and heads off to bed, satisfied that he was able to get the body to work, all that’s left should be getting it to move, getting it to talk, and modifying its AI so that its personality matches Mia’s

The next thing he decided to work on is getting it to talk, which involved using programs Azel didn’t even know he could access, it seemed to work off what looked like some kind of neural network, something he is only vaguely familiar with, so he simply tore apart that module hoping it wouldn’t bite him down the road, and looked at what made everything tick. It seemed to have a voice pack, or rather a series of sounds that it could modify at will to form words which were formed procedurally, probably a combination of the network he saw before and the primary ‘sentient’ part of the code. The procedural-ish generation immediately made him feel like a massive burden was lifted off his back… only for it to return once he realizes that he needs to actually provide training data, so the rest of the day was spent trying to extract Mia’s voice from clips and episodes of the anime,

“I REALLY wish vocal isolation is simpler so I could be faster with this,” he thought to himself as he was trying to minimize the other sounds present in the dozen hundred clips he was able to record from other websites.

Even more hours later, he finished isolating the last clip, so he immediately loaded it back into [AEs-01] replacing the voice dataset with Azel’s rather hastily made one, looked for a function that could make it say something, and with fast fingers, typed in a phrase he thought Mia usually say, and ran the function, to be met with the sound of…

“My name is Mia Ageha, and I am number one!”

It worked, he heard a very faithful recreation of her voice, he was excited to see how it handles the rest of the phrase, to see if it was really faithful to-

“I am a Prizmmy star, a giee that laykes to sing and dance and ONE cute clothes. My goal is to defeat. Aria Harune.”

There it was. The garbled mess of jank intonation, incorrect phonetics, and even managed to stop mid-sentence. It looked like it had a neural network behind it, so he knew it needed to be trained, so he looked up how neural networks worked and it looked like he needs to run his computer overnight… lovely

Considering how long that process would take he decided to leave that for last. Now that most of the external processes were done (barring making her actually move), all that was left was deciphering the part of the code that basically acted as the brain, so hooking up the Memory’s output into a Command window (because having to test it on the actual projected body of the Memory would unnecessarily extend that process), Azel began the process of modifying variables and looking at what it outputs (if they output anything at all) to figure out what is doing what. hopefully after this he can finally figure out how to make it move on its own. Hours of fruitless attempts later, he was finally able to grasp the module that allows the Memory to process thoughts and emotions, and modifying it seemed to be an incredibly delicate ordeal, as even the smallest change affected how the rest of the code reacts, It was going to take more than a day, but Azel was determined for once in a long time, determined to make it act like her.

Several days later, he was finally able to get the closest approximation to Mia he could get with just code, seeing its responses in the command consle and interacting with the little AI he tried to make (or rather, retooled) was incredibly fun for him, looking at its responses blather on about its dreams as a prism star, the value of her prism mates (which he considered doing after her) and going on and on about Hye In, something which Azel feels like he needs to tone down a little considering the incredibly massive wall of text when he asked about that, not to mention the time it took for the Memory to construct that text.

Considering the other Memories he’s looked at to get an idea of how to make her components work, Azel suddenly facepalms, “Wait, move on it’s own? Haven’t I looked at Memories that already do that?” He very quickly gets it out of the way by copy pasting the code from a Memory that summons a sword wielding soldier and modifying it so that it isn’t super human. He was then very excited to try out Mia for the first time and… “Oh right, the speech, I should probably do something about that”

Azel going radio silent after digging into the Memories is a common occurrence, or at least Noland sees it that way, as it’s been a couple of months since Noland visited Azel to check up on mother, so it was a surprise when Azel called him - in the middle of one of his shows no less - and had a very excited voice, more excited than he ever heard from him, telling him to come to his apartment pronto. “Did he finally manage to get Mother to work for real? I wonder what has him so excited,” Noland thought to himself as he stepped in front of Azel door, giving it a knock. Stumbling sounds coming from the door before Azel opens it, looking like he had been brainwashed by a cult of happiness, before he pulls Noland into the room and closing the door soon after. “So? What’s got you all worked up?”

“I MANAGED TO GET IT TO WORK!” Not a beat after, Azel excitedly replies. This is the most energy Noland has seen from him since they met. Azel very quickly rummages through the Memory, pulls out a red flash drive, plugs it into the Axyolosis and presses the button, excitedly jumping up and down. Yet another flash of white fills the room before it dies down, “There She Is!” Azel thought as he summons the fully functional Mia for the first time, head filled with joy

For Noland, however, his head was full of confusion. “Uhh… Hi, Ms. Abesworth?” Noland asks the Memory in front of him, only for her to simply cock her head at the question. “Do you happen to know anything about an individual named Liam Abesworth? Your Son?”

“Son?” Mia responds, “I’m still in school, and I don’t think I have a baby, I’m not married to Prism Ace yet and I don’t think I’m supposed to be, though if I were, I’d…” Was all Mia was able to answer before she started rambling about an ideal marriage and honeymoon with this “Prism Ace” fellow

“Ms. Abesworth?” Noland tries to call out to the girl while in the middle of her rambling, “Ms.Abesworth?”, he tries again with a louder voice ,seeing the Memory not react to his calls along with the uncharacteristic glee as it kept rambling, he grabs Azel by the shoulders and stars shaking the startled man rather violently, “WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?! WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MOTHER?” A very angry and confused Noland asks

“Yeah… That’s actually what I was going to tell you,” Azel responds, “I was modifying the Mother, got bored and watched some Anime on the TV, saw my favourite character and did that,” Azel points to the still rambling Mia before intending to continue his introduction, “…But maybe I should let her introduce herself.” Azel then turns his head to face the Memory, “Hey! Mia!”

Finally stopping her rambling, she notices the call, “Hmm?”

“Why don’t you tell our guest here who you are, I’m sure he’s excited to know you as much as I was”

“I’m not,” Noland quickly interjected

“Oh?” Mia quickly turned to face the duo and started to introduce herself, “Nice to meet you! My name’s Mia Ageha! I’m a Prism star aiming to be number one!”

“Prism…Star?” Not ten seconds in and Noland is already hit with another unfamiliar concept, and he thought he already had enough of those from Azel.

““Those are girls born to shine! They are born to sing, to dance, to wear cute clothes and flaunt their beauty on stage!”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure Liam’s mother wasn’t into that kind of stuff from what I can tell,” Noland thought to himself

“She can be a bit of a thing to deal with, I’ll admit, but I enjoy her company,” Azel admits

“Considering how long you spent by yourself, you’d enjoy any company” Noland deadpans upon hearing that statement before realizing, “…wait, does he enjoy my company?”

Mia hums in agreement as she continued, “Me and my friends are aiming to reach the top! To defeat MARs, to defeat Aira Harune!” Thoughts of Aira Harune on COMET’s list of famed commanders flooded Noland’s head, showing a very shocked loo, trying to comprehend who Aira even was. Mia notices the look on Noland’s face and quickly adds, “She’s a Prism Star just like me!”

“Well that clears that issue…” Noland realized before finally nipping it in the bud and turning to Azel to ask him, “Why did you do this? Of all the people you could’ve remade, any celebrity, you chose to remake… Whatshername?”

“It’s Mia Ageha!” She quickly interjects before Azel replies

“She’s… actually one of my favourite characters when I was a kid, reruns of the show were what gave me the idea to try and use a Memory to bring her into our world… or whatever”

With a tone of a giddy schoolgirl, she comments “Oh~ I didn’t know you were a fan of me!”

“Well, I’m actually a fan of-“

“Wait a minute,” Noland interrupts, “I thought you said you didn’t want to control people. Didn’t we have an argument about that or something?”

“Well, once I took a deeper look at the AI, I figured that I could construct it in a way that reflects the original character with the capacity to grow. It’s impressive that Liam was able to get that to work, despite the… massive amount of processing power needed”

“I’m coded to have a personality as close to the Real Mia Ageha! I’m not just a mindless program!”

“But an AI isn’t technically mindless…” Noland thought to himself again, “And this didn’t occur to him when we were arguing because…? Wait, coded to have a personality?,” “It knows it’s not the real thing?”

“Yep! I shouldn’t even be able to exist, but thanks to the Memory System, I’m here! And it lets me do even more cool stuff, like jump thirty feet in the air or spit fire out of my hands! I think I can use that for more of my Prism shows!” Mia explains, motioning both of the things she can do fairly expressively, Noland just stares at Azel, wondering how he was even able to get it to act like it’s nothing.

“Yeah, I talked to it a lot while I was waiting for the voice to fully develop, It was actually really fun to talk to her” Azel explains, Noland’s gaze still locked firmly on him

“D-Does he have any other friends??” Noland exclaims in his own head before shaking the thought away, “Well… At least the Memory is fully functional… or…too functional?”

“I’m more than functional! I’m one of the first ever sentient Memories to work, And my friends are on their way, Once we’re all here, then Prizmmy is ready to perform again!”

"Oh great, more of them?” Noland thinks to himself, dreadful of the opportunity to interact with more of Azel’s sentient Memories

“Uhh… Mia?” Azel quickly points out, “I haven’t given you the ability to actually sing, let alone do your Prism Jumps for that matter. Besides, that would just be overlaying four of the almost same recording on top of each other, and I already told you how annoying that is”

“Well, make me sing!” Mia exclaims, “Make me sing a beautiful song with a beautiful voice!”

“Months to make the Memory’s voice… and he can’t get it to sing? I honestly don't know what I was expecting”

Azel just stares silently before facing Noland, “Yeah, like I said, she can be a thing to deal with”

“Well… good luck with that and good luck with her friends. If they’re just as erratic as her then I dread how you’re going to interact with other people.” Noland replies before slowly walking towards the door, having enough of Mia for one day

“Oh don’t worry; they’re nowhere near as energetic as her and will probably be reasonable”

“Even though Reina can be a bit of a joykill, she’s enjoyable to be around. “Mia very quickly adds to Azel’s statement about her friends, “Karin is-”

“I think I’ll make my judgments about them when I actually meet them” Noland interrupts, not wanting Mia to go into another rambling spree, “I’ll be going to prepare another show in Jorgenshy Park, feel free to come and watch… though from what that girl said, I’m expecting you be locked in your apartment for another few months to make her friends.

“Well… yeah,” Azel answers, “but now that I managed to kind of get the hang of it, It shouldn’t take more than a few weeks for just one”

Hearing potentially good news, Mia interjects, “Well, what are you waiting for? Let’s start work on making Reina come alive!”

“Hmm, I probably should” Azel answers her interjection before turning to Noland, “Well good luck on your next show regardless!

“Good luck on making sure Mia’s friends don’t cause a fire” Noland replies before going out the door, Leaving Azel and Mia to start work on the other Memories

Lo and behold, months pass since Noland and Azel last saw each other, Noland is comfortable in his couch reading posts from The Dip on his phone. He is starting to get a few more regular viewers for his performances since trying to implement the Memories in more of his acts, he should’ve hired some assistants to help him but wondered how to keep the Memory System from them, or make sure they don’t spill the beans on that to other people. Now that Noland thought about it, maybe he should’ve asked Azel for a sentient Memory or two once he was done on making the rest of Mia’s friends. “Actually, how much progress did he make for his friends. I hope they aren’t as erratic as that Mia girl he made”

And it was at that moment, where that thought crossed his mind, the house Noland is sitting in, as well as every building a few kilometres from him, suddenly went black. “What the? Did the fuse box break? Was there a fallen power line somewhere?”

A few seconds later after the question enters his head, his phone rings and the caller’s ID bears an answer. With a sigh he accepts the call and holds his phone up to his ear, “What happened this time?

“Well… uh…” A very nervous Azel responds on the other end of the line, “remember when I said I was able to summon Mia with the apartment’s power grid intact?”

“I do” Noland replies

"Well… I managed to work on her friends for a bit and got them all working,” The cogs turn in Noland’s head as he anticipates the rest of Azel’s answer “… then in my excitement, I tried to summon them all at once. I hooked it up to that reactor the first time thankfully…”

Noland finishes his thought, “Then you got curious and wanted to see how well it did with the Apartment’s power, didn’t you?”

A sigh, “Admittedly, Mia’s excitement to got me that time.” Azel replies

With the fact that Noland’s house, somewhere relatively far away from Azel’s apartment in Jorgenshy, was also wrapped in black, something tells Noland that this incident was worse than the first time either of them tried to summon the Mother. “…Do you want me to help you move? I’m pretty sure the city is going after your throat once they figure out where the blackout came from”

“I would… like that… actually,”

“Well, meet you there in a few minutes,” and without another word, Noland hangs up and prepares is car to help Azel get out of Jorgenshy, lest the poor boy end up behind bars. He was admittedly impressed that he managed to get three other sentient Memories to work, but saved that amazement for when the stress of this whole situation is over.

Now to find where to drop him off… Perhaps the last guy’s place could be a good spot?