Chapter Text
Upon waking up, the room bloomed open in hues of red and blaring noises.
Consciousness reassembled itself around the edges of Gigan’s jagged mind like shattered glass melting back into form. His vision cleared not from sleep, but from containment, not unlike the way a blade awakens from its sheath in the sense it awoke with equal purpose and malice.
Out of all sensations to first feel, the first one that occurred was pressure.. Metal restraints vaporizing under a flex of his saw-lined forearms. The neural chains snapped with a shriek of dying code, leaving the hangar bar trembling as his weight rejoined the world. Gigan’s vision calibrated in static scarlet, grainy like old footage, his gaze was quick to settle on the alive and well control room. So, Gigan did what came naturally!
Of course, if it wasn’t obvious enough, he charged, scythes dragging sparks across the floor, tail smashing through pylons and vaulted conduits. He could hear screaming, unfortunately not in terror, but in frequency. He convinced himself the ship was pleading ‘Don’t, don’t, don’t.’ In its ancient tongue just so he could convince himself he’d landed a kill, which only made him laugh harder. After slamming the prison’s control room like a nexus with one scythe arm sweeping through a column of Xilien interface glass, the other scythe drove deep into a pulsating core node that screamed like a child when breached.. Circuits fried, panels burst, prisoner systems collapsed, effectively sending the entire deck in a panic of alarms and flickering glyphs. “Too easy.” Gigan muttered, ensuring the whole ship felt his grin. He reveled in this part— the helpless scrambling, the loss of control, the pain, and the cowards behind glass walls made for the best screams. “Hey hey hey,” He chirped to no one in particular, his internal voice a buzzing sawblade of glee. “The Controller said wait for deployment, but you know what I have to say to that?" Gigan pondered, spinning his bladed arm in a flourish, carving a light fixture into molten slag. “Surprise..” He sneered, turning his attention toward the secondary systems, scanning for containment backups— anything that might try to reverse what he’d just done. Nope, all gone, all wrecked, just how he liked it. Above, he could feel Monster X stirring in his pod in a restless, annoyed, and slow to wake manner, likely irritated to be on the fighting side of his cousin-brother-thing. “Bet you’d still steal my kills.” Gigan grumbled, snorting static as he glanced at the twitching husk of the control room, sparking like a dying insect beneath his scythe.
Gigan descended through the clouds with a sound like rippling metal, his scythe arms catching moonlight in jagged gleams. The air tasted like ozone, burnt bark, and blood— delicious. Below him, the battlefield simmered, littered with shattered canopies of Simian architecture and the twitching corpses of creatures that simply didn’t fight hard enough. “This planet’s a goddamn zoo.” Gigan observed, spinning in a wide, lazy spiral as he scanned the terrain with infrared eyes.. As far as his senses knew, there were Titans here, or had been. He remembered the names of the Earth ones, most of them were useless, consisting of lumbering piles of prehistoric ego that either bowed to whats-his-face or died screaming, a few put up a fight, a few bit back.. But only one name mattered now: the juvenile, the offspring, the not-so-little “maybe” of Ghidorah’s legacy.
Gigan’s HUD zoomed in on a massive heat signature, buried in the foliage beyond the battlefield. Either slumbering or nesting, but certainly watching, he could feel its gravity in the world like a second moon. “There you are, you little three-headed bastard..” He muttered to himself, truth be told, Gigan didn’t know how it got there, and he honestly didn’t care. If it had multiple heads and an attitude, it was his kind of problem. And yet, that wasn’t what burned him.
Gigan’s mood soured as his thoughts spiraled backwacks, past the plasma, past the bodies, past the glory— to the festering core of it all: Ghidorah, that bloated, whispering parasite crammed inside Controller X like a snake coiled inside a corpse.. Even though Gigan was being metaphorical, it wasn’t that far off. If one asked Gigan, Ghidorah was more like a bastard with too many mouths and no balls. Look, he didn’t hate Ghidorah, he respected power.. What he hated was how every Xilien from the council down to the piss-scrubbing foot soldiers now answered to a glitchy meat puppet with one glowing eye and a mouth full of quotes from a hydra.. Controller X? More like Ghidorah’s bitch.
The guy had promise once, if Gigan remembered correctly, his name was Ren Serizawa, a human prodigy turned mad dog. Gigan had gotten quite bored from being just a head in a room and went on some forums, he’d seen the tapes, read the classified logs.. Hell, he had liked the guy at first.. Anyone who builds a metal lizard to kill Godzilla out of sheer jealousy earns a place in Gigan’s cold, dead heart. But now? He was nothing more than a conduit, a shiny, hooded mouthpiece with issues and a storm spirit whispering bedtime genocide in his ear.. And San, San was largely considered the weakest link, and somehow that made him the most tolerable. Maybe it was because San laughed at Gigan’s joke, didn’t bark orders so directly like Ichi or scream like Ni, but still, unlike Ni who obviously wanted to usurp Ichi, San lacked any ambition and was content sitting on his constantly-ripped-off head, happy being one third of a tyrant. Ni had the right idea, because if Gigan had that kind of power, he’d cut off his brothers at the neck and build himself a throne from their skulls, that was how one ruled, that was how one earned the alpha roar Ghidorah had but Gigan somehow wasn’t worthy enough to earn.. But San just giggled, chirped snarky shit like the wise guy he was, and settled back into the gold trinity like a stoner crawling back into bed with his ex. How pathetic was that?
As Gigan soared over the final ridge, he unsheathed both scythes with a metallic shriek that echoed for miles, the scent of the coming fight was in the wind, fucking finally, was he right? At the end of the day, he didn’t care who the Simians were, didn’t care what X’s ‘plan’ was, he just wanted to make something scream, and then he’d make sure that little three-headed orphan knew exactly who its daddy wasn’t.
The Simian sky cracked as Gigan landed, he wouldn’t say he landed, rather slammed into the battlefield like a buzzsaw hurled by a particularly vengeful god. The ground screamed, split, and smoked where his spiked feet had struck, stone and moss pulverized beneath his scythe-for-talons. His shadow stretched over the battlefield, a blade-shaped omen painted across the broken canopy of the Simian capital. He let out a shriek that wasn’t a roar so much as a metal-on-bone screech, a banshee’s laugh dragged through a dying mod. Simian troops in the distance stopped and stared, not with courage, but dread. “Aww yeah, that’s the stuff.” Gigan sneered, twirling one scythe-arm just to hear the air break. Of course, Gigan couldn’t have his moment without something buzzing in his optic feed. “If I recall, I said wait..” The unimpressed voice grumbled as a portal yawned open just behind the nearest rise— a vertical slit of deep obsidian rimmed in crackling white, humming not unlike a suppressed shriek.
Out of it stepped Controller X, the fabric of his black and gold coat fluttering against gravity, the silver slash of his visor gleaming like a drawn blade. His expression was unreadable beneath the glow, but the tension of his posture— the rigid set of his shoulders and the clenched fists spoke volumes, he stood still for a moment, just watching. “He just had to land like a showman..” X muttered aloud, voice flat and dripping acid. It wasn’t that he wanted the attention on himself, his preference for under the table and behind the curtain hadn’t changed, it was that he’d specifically said don’t release the Xilien Titans.. X rubbed the bridge of his nose under the visor, exhaling through clenched teeth. “Everytime I give an order, someone hears interpretive dance.. I know what I'm talking about, I'm from a planet with nearly twenty Titans.” X grumbled, not bothering to speak to Gigan, nor to shout over the battlefield. He simply turned around, raised a hand, and opened another swirling rift, the shimmering portal back to the mothership, folding open like a wound in space. “Try not to decapitate anyone important.” X deadpanned in a flat and dry tone, it wasn’t a request, but they’d probably take it as one.
Gigan, halfway through mimicking a flex, gave a lazy salute with his free scythe. “Yeah, yeah. Go do your paperwork, Controller.” Gigan jeered, X said nothing, he vanished into the portal with a flick of his coat, letting the white void swallow him whole. And just like that, he was gone. Carelessly leaving Gigan, the battlefield, and the ongoing bloodbath behind.
The corridor leading from the portal chamber buzzed with a sterile hush, lit by the dull throb of circuit-veined walls and the faint hiss of life-support systems pumping recycled atmosphere through the aliens ship’s lungs. Controller X stepped through the threshold, bootheels striking the floor in deliberate clicks, each one the sound of a verdict being rendered. His coat fluttered behind him like the trailing smoke of a bomb that hadn’t finished detonating, the door almost closed behind him before the tension cut. “Oh, for f—” X began, he didn’t finish because standing not twenty meters down the corridor, caught like rats halfway to the neural core were Nathan, still dusty from his adventure in the ship and twitching with guilt, Mira, her gold masquerade mask crooked on her cheek, pulse hammering in her throat, and some new face X didn’t recognize.
Controller X stopped in his tracks, his posture shifting from annoyance to stillness, like a blade held mid-swing. The green ‘eyes’ in his visor that were the exact same shade as Ichi’s mechanized eyes glower brighter. “Why has nobody taken out the garbage yet?” X drawled in a rarely low and seething tone. Nathan tensed but held his ground, gripping a stolen Xilien shock baton like a glorified glowstick. X was far from alarmed, his gaze shifting past Nathan and past the awkward silence, all the way to Mira, and suddenly, the Xilien stillness cracked. “We can’t have children if I'm dead.” X pointed out, “We couldn’t have children anyway, you’re not Ren. You’re a plague that’s wearing his face like a trophy.” Mira shot back, jaw clenched to restrain herself from tearing him a new one. X finally took in the third figure, Shinichi Ozaki— unkempt, twitching slightly from whatever experiment he was subject to, but standing tall despite it. The red veins beneath his skin pulsed with power that didn’t belong to the Xiliens or the Titans, something else, all he knew was it was something harder to define. X’s smile vanished— whether from Mira’s statement or from the sight of Shinichi, it vanished nonetheless. In one movement, he raised his hand, electricity cracking between his fingers with violent intent. “And who the hell is this one supposed to be?” X demanded, the current surged, but was quick to stop mid-burst, because when X reached for Shinichi’s thoughts— there was nothing, no access, no hook to sink into, no foothold in the mind. X’s hand faltered mid-air, the scrunch in the visible part of his face making it known his gaze was narrowed without any direct eye contact. “…Why can’t I hear you?” X pressed, Shinichi blinked once, his posture unfocused. “You’re a Kaiser..” Shinichi observed, X paused— like, really paused, his head tilted, the grin creeping back up to his cheek like a virus crawling home. “Is that what it’s called? Kaiser, could be worse..” He mused, but his gaze turned back to Shinichi, more curious than furious now. “Come with me.” X stated, Shinichi hesitated, looking— without realizing, toward Mira and Nathan. X noticed, his patience wearing thin. “No, no.” He grumbled, taking a slow and deliberate step forward. “Don’t look at them, look at me.” X snapped, “This isn’t about them, this is about what you are.” He clarified, Shinichi swallowed, his hands twitching at his sides, and finally he stepped forward, one foot, then the other. “Good.” X turned his back, already walking. “Let’s find out what a Kaiser’s made of..” He sneered.
The deeper they walked into the mothership’s heart, the more the alien sterility gave way to something Shinichi was actually familiar with. The walls softened into smooth white paneling, no flickering alien glyphs, no telepathic surveillance nodes pulsing overhead. Just cool LED lights, beige floors, and the gentle bum of a high-end climate control system.
Shinichi realized it was a room made for a man who used to be human.
Controller X led Shinichi Ozaki into what looked like an upscale therapy suite mixed with a luxury office— marble desk, plush seating, one of those mounted sound wave sculptures that rich people installed when they ran out of personality. “Sit. Don’t worry, that one doesn’t bite, and if it does, it’s got a good taste.” X sneered, gesturing casually toward the chair. Shinichi eyed the chair like it might detonate but sat anyway, albeit slowly, the synthetic leather creaking under him. As for X, he didn’t sit, instead standing at the far wall, rolling a sleek glass orb between his fingers like a stress toy, eye half-lidded beneath his visor. “Just a heads-up..” He began, “I have what you’d call a split personality disorder, so if I start talking like a poet, or screeching in Old Babylonian, or laughing at nothing— just know it’s probably not me.” X assured, Shinichi cocked an eyebrow. “Like Bunny and Oliver?” Shinichi pondered, X’s brow twitched, “What?” He muttered, seeming genuinely confused.. Which tracked, because as far as Shinichi knew, he was a millennial, not only that, but he was in a coma for three years and would have no way of knowing what Shinichi was referencing. “Nothing..” He trailed off, feeling silly. Thankfully, X let it go, waving it off with a tired sweep of his hand. “I’m not one to stall, let’s get to the point.” He declared, pacing a slow circle around Shinichi like a curious vulture. “Mira. How’d you get her on your side?” X asked, Shinichi squinted, crossing his arms. “I just met her.. Pretty sure she’s not on my side, it seems she’s just doing this because she loves you.” Shinichi vouched, X stopped in his tracks.
For a moment, just a sliver of one, the Controller’s mouth opened like he didn’t expect the words to hit the way they did, then he let out that infamous laugh— unhinged, electric, full of mirth and menace, a glass-hard cackle like a storm watching one through a window. “Oh, good.” He managed to rasp between snorts, pressing his palm to his visor. “I thought she was avoiding me because she was scared Ghidorah would have me kill her.” X sneered, Shinichi blinked. “Hmm..?” He muttered, he wasn’t sure what part to react to— the suggestion that X was joking, or that he was being serious. As subtly as he could manage, Shinichi shifted his breath, just a little, let the room hum, and finally reached out with something new: energy, an echo, a flicker of a try.
It wasn’t a very well thought out attempt considering X had more Xilien— well, Kaiser experience than Shinichi did, regardless, he noticed instantly. “Put them away, Shinichi.” X demanded, his voice dropped an octave, not angry, rather disappointed. “Not going to hurt you, or Nathan, or Mira, or your families.. Besides.” He paused, there was an intentional beat. “You’d lose.” He deadpanned, Shinichi leaned forward, fingers twitching faintly against the armrest. “Then why’d you bring me here?” Shinichi dared to ask, jumping in his seat when X set the glass orb down with a soft clink, turning to face him fully. “Because I want to help you.” X simply put, Shinchi barked a much needed short, humorless laugh. “Help. From the psycho who revived Ghidorah for the third time and unleashed hell on his home planet?” Shinichi paused at the audacity, tilting his head. “You think that sounds like something I’d want?” He alleged, X stared at him for a moment longer. “Look, most of them were content letting me get raped in prison.” He pointed out, the words dropping like steel on glass— flat, cold, and somehow shattering at the same time. “So forgive me if I'm not overwhelmed with sympathy for a species content with being ants.” X attempted to justify.
The silence after that was not quiet, it thrummed. Shinichi swore he only looked away for a second, but it was enough for X to step forward, their proximity close enough to the point where he could feel the unsettling madness radiating off X, his breath was cold and clammy the same way a corpse was. “You need me, Shinichi.” X pressed, leaving the silence inside the Kaiser’s room so thick it was enough to choke on. The smooth, sterile walls— so carefully tailored to resemble a human setting — felt much more akin to a padded cell, an asylum constructed not to protect its patient, but to hide the madness more tastefully. Controller X stepped away from Shinichi, opting to lean against the edge of the desk with one arm crossed and the other resting casually, as if he wasn’t trying to sell Shinichi Ozaki the soul of the universe like a sleazy car dealer peddling a death wish. “You’re all alone.” He reiterated, taking another step forward, unable to decide if he wanted to be near or far away from Shinichi. “I’ve been there, the rot at your heels, the silence in your skull. You start talking to yourself just to remember what a voice sounds like that isn’t a scream.” X muttered in a low and almost gentle tone, oozed like oil through the quiet. Shinichi hated how right he was, swallowing the bile in his throat. “Get to the point.” He snapped, his reply came fast and sharp, cracking the tension like a snapped cable. X paused, almost smiled, something that struck him, not so much anger as it was recognition, like looking in a mirror and seeing an earlier version of himself slap the future across the face. He nodded once, albeit slowly. “Don’t sell yourself short trying to protect humanity..” He advised, his voice coiling into something smoother and darker. “Been there. Done that. You know what you get?” He pondered, lifting a hand, miming a newspaper headline. “They label you worse than Bin Laden. And they believe it.” X sneered, “What do you say, hmm? Don’t make the same mistake Lind did. Join me.” He offered, Shinichi stood slowly.
The chair hissed beneath Shinichi as it slid back, he didn’t shout, didn’t break anything, instead he paced. “You’re right..” Shinichi muttered in an unusually calm tone given the circumstances. X’s visor flared faintly, studying Shinichi to figure out if he was being genuine or not. “This whole place..” Shinichi muttered, motioning around him. “I’m so fucking tired of listening to people tell me I need to be shitty in order to win.” Shinichi seethed, meeting X’s gaze with a furious gaze of his own. “Fuck you, fuck Ghidorah, fuck Gigan.. And fuck this ‘whatever it takes’ crap.” He spat, his voice broke only slightly, though enough to reveal the hurt beneath the fury. “You’re just gonna end up sitting on this steaming pile of shit you’ve built and wonder why it smells like hell. I’m done, i’m fucking done, i’m not doing it anymore.” Shinichi concluded, X pushed off the desk, pacing now— a slow orbit around Shinichi like a wolf circling another predator, he was no longer smiling, just watching. “You’re not going to be doing anything if someone kills you, it would be a shame.” X deadpanned in a flat tone, Shinichi turned with eyes like steel tempered in betrayal. “Maybe, but at least I won’t be working with a fucking nutjob. So either kill me, or walk me the hell out.” Shinichi demanded, for a moment, they stood there for a breathless eternity, then X stepped closer, close enough that the glow of his visor cast an eerie gleam over Shinichi’s face. “Keep this between us..” He lowered his voice to a murmur, something deadly tucked inside it. “It’d be really rough to take out a fellow Kaiser..” He paused, deliberately. “..But not impossible.” X finally got to the damn point, turning his head, just slightly and missed it.
Shinichi’s fingers, smooth as muscle memory, had reached the desk behind him. And when X turned back, the cold barrel of a stolen Xilien laser gun was pressed neatly against his visor, Shinichi was careful not to flinch, blink, or lower his arm. Despite his firm grip, the laser gun quivered in Shinichi’s hold, not from his hand, but from the slow precise pull of a force colder than fingers, invisible as a lie, and deliberate as gravity. The weapon lifted away, hovering midair for a breathless beat before drifting smoothly into Controller X’s open palm, he didn’t gloat, not in his voice, anyway.. But the smile, half-shadowed under his visor reeked of smug control. “I’m sure you’ve seen this in movies.” X began, turning the gun over, examining it like a bored critic. “It’s called Russian Roulette. You place one bullet in the chamber, spin the cylinder, and pull back the trigger. And before the next round, you spin it again.. It resets the odds back to one-in-six.” He trailed off, looking up with a glinting visor. “But I'd like to make the game a little more serious..” His voice dropped an octave, carrying more gravel than charm. “Because you’re special, Shinichi.” X sneered, Shinichi stiffened but tried to mask it with glare, though there was no way to hide the way his heart hammered— louder than the silence in the room. “Cut to the chase..” Shinichi grumbled, X chuckled— not the usual maniac laugh, but a seemingly soft one. “No re-spins.” He declared, holding the weapon up, rolling the power cower cylinder with one slow, metallic click. “We’ll take turns pulling the trigger, no resets, no second chances.. The bullet will fire within six attempts, and the game will be over.” X concluded, tapping the butt of the gun against the table. “What do you say?” He pondered, Shinichi’s jaw clenched, he hated that his hands were sweating, hated that he was considering it, but he nodded and X smiled like the sun was about to die.
The Controller led Shinichi to a small, sleek circular table, designed for diplomacy, now a place of death. Two minimalist chairs sat across from each other, and the lighting in the room dimmed automatically as they sat as if the mothership knew how this story would go. X set the gun down without care, spun it, it whirled in tight, deliberate circles, humming faintly until the spinning came to a halt, pointing at Shinichi. With a deep breath, he reached out, picked it up, held it to his temple..
Click.
Nothing.
Shinichi’s breath left his lungs like steam in winter.
Across from him, X raised a gloved hand to his face, unlatched the visor, and finally removed it. Shinichi sucked in a breath, analyzing the upper half of the Xilien Controller’s face— it was a battlefield if he’d ever seen one, what had once been the brooding, sharp-eyed gaze of Ren Serizawa was now a mess of burned, electrified skin and raw nerve endings— the right eye gone entirely, the socket reduced to a twisted crater of shrapnel and scorched flesh. The skin surrounding it had grown infected, angry and inflamed, likely untreated since his departure from humanity.. As for the remaining eye..? It wasn’t even consistent to put it simply, it was sometimes brown, sometimes gold, sometimes nothing.. And Shinichi couldn't help but ask himself: is Ghidorah home right now?
What pulled Shinichi out of his train of thought was when X raised the laser gun with little to no hesitation, he held it to the side of his head, closed his eyes..
Click.
Nothing.
But his expression was disturbingly.. Relieved. Like every time it didn’t fire was a quiet disappointment, he set the gun down on the table again with no fanfare, no grin, just eerie calamity. “Your turn, Shinichi.” X deadpanned, the gun sat heavily in Shinichi’s hand, not by weight— but by implication. It was a metal secret, one click away from rewriting the room. He twirled it once, lazily, the motion too casual to be genuine. Inside, his pulse roared like a drumline, he didn’t look at X..
Instead, Shinichi just brought the barrel to his temple again.
Click.
Another miss.
Shinichi exhaled through his nose and tossed the gun across the table, where it spun once like a roulette wheel before stopping in front of Controller X. He didn’t move to pick it up right away. Instead, he opted to lean forward slightly, one scarred eyebrow twitching. “I’ve always wondered..” He began, tone almost controversational. “..How you, of all the experiments the previous Xilien regimes held, made it out alive.” He paused, tilting his head. The light caught the infected crater where his eye once was, casting shadow across the bridge of his nose. “Because for one thing, Shinichi— you’re not very interesting.” X deadpanned.. That hit, a direct, quiet strike.. Shinichi's shoulders twitched, his jaw tightening, X saw it before he could conceal it, filed it away with surgical satisfaction. Then, as if to prove something, he picked up the gun.
No slow build this time, no warning, Controller X shoved the barrel between his lips..
Pulled the trigger.
Click.
Nothing.
X held it there for a moment longer, eye closed, teeth barely parted on the trigger, then he slowly removed the weapon and set it back on the table, leaning back like it was a casual after-dinner gesture. Shinichi stared, “What the hell is wrong with you..?” He muttered, reaching for the weapon again as he had agreed to this.. Even though he was taking it back. “What’s the matter?” X taunted, his voice coming in a whisper yet sharp as a garrote. Shinichi’s hand froze, lips pursing into a thin line. “Is your mind racing?" X mused, his voice now smooth and bordering on amused. “Ghidorah was tough on me, you know. Made sure I was ready.. Cut out for this.” He trailed off, leaning forward. “Now your odds of death are one in two. That’s pretty high indeed..” He sneered, voice coiling once more. “I’m sure you’re afraid, there’s lots going through your mind, isn’t there?” X alleged, Shinichi said nothing, but his grip shifted on the gun to be a little tighter. “Let me guess what you’re thinking right now.. The gun is in my hand, screw the rules, pull the trigger once or twice and I can blow this guy’s face clean off.” X pointed out, Shinichi’s hand trembled once, then steadied with a deep breath, though X didn’t blink. “Bedore I die, I'll have you admit one thing..” X began, his words now coming out slow as if he was worried he’d actually die. “That you’re cattle, just like everyone else.. A frightened, manufactured morsel that lucked out and escaped the butcher..” He paused, watching, eye glowing faintly gold beneath the scarred flesh. “Just cattle, Shinichi.” He reiterated. Shinichi stared forward, not at X— through him.
Shinichi raised the barrel to his head.
Paused.
And—
Click.
Nothing.
Again.
X exhaled softly, the grin returning like a cockroach. “One left..” He muttered. The gun was still warm in Shinichi’s hand, not from height, rather from the weight of inevitability. It sat there between him and X like a promise in steel. Slowly, he lowered the barrel, not to the table, but directly to Controller X, centered right between where his right eye once was and his barely-intact left eye.
The grin vanished from X’s face like a candle blown out in a storm. For the first time in their conversation, his expression faltered, not theatrically, hell, not even melodramatically, just.. Human. A flicker of something ancient and biological gripped his features, not fear of death— rather fear of being outplayed. “What’s the matter?” Shinichi asked in a low voice, his tone a precise echo of X’s earlier mockery. “Is your mind starting to race?” He pondered, leaning forward with his grip on the weapon unfaltering. “That’s right. Screw the rules, right? With a single pull of the trigger, you could kill me.” He pointed out with venom in every syllable, narrowing his eyes. “But I'll have you admit one thing first..” Shinichi began, the air tightening, pressurized like it had to hold its breath. “You put a visor over your face and do whatever your three-headed master tells you to do.. You run. You bark. You wag your tail for them..” He trailed off, the laser gun gleaming faintly under the ship’s overhead glow. “You’re nothing more than their dog.” Shinichi spat.
X didn’t speak, didn't blink, but his jaw twitched.. A tick, small, but real.. The truth had found its mark, and it stung.
For a moment, it looked like he might lunge, or lie, or laugh. But instead, he reached out, slowly and steadily took the gun back.
Held it in his scarred hands, now noticeably shaking.
He didn’t point it at Shinichi, he stuck to his set rules and pointed it at himself. “I’d rather die.. Than admit I belonged to anyone.” X vowed.
He turned the barrel.
Placed it just above the edge of his infected, cratered right eye.
Click.
No.
BANG.
The bolt of purple energy erupted from the side of his skull— searing through the scalp and scar, flesh and thought, the air sizzled. The light in his one good eye flickered, fluttered— and died.
Controller X slumped back in the chair.
Motionless.
A trail of smoke rose gently from the side of his head, curling like incense at the altar of a fallen god.