A Digital Soul in an Endless Pain...*

TCO runs a hand over his face, just a blank expression, standing in the ruins of another battle.

"Am I a robot or a doll? Am I anything at all?"

The words echo in his mind, but no answer comes. He clenches his fists, sparks of his immense power flickering around his hands. Power that was never meant to be his. Power that chained him to a life of endless conflict.

"Maybe a soul like me doesn’t even need to know..."

TCO exhales, but does he even breathe? He’s not sure. Maybe he doesn’t need to. Maybe it doesn’t matter. He looks up at the glitching sky, watching fragments of code swirl like dying embers. He has destroyed, he has saved, and yet… he still doesn’t belong.

"Am I big or am I small? Hunching over, standing tall?"

To the others, he’s an unstoppable force, a legend whispered in fear and awe. To himself? He feels small. Smaller than the tiniest line of code in this vast digital world. His hands tremble slightly, and for the first time in a while, he lets them.

"I lost my identity oh so very long ago."

Yes. That’s the truth, isn’t it? He was The Chosen One, but chosen for what? Destruction? Survival? He doesn’t even know who he was before all of this - before the battles, before the suffering, before Alan Becker himself saw him as a mistake that needed to be erased.

...But even if he doesn’t know who he is, he knows one thing:

He refuses to be controlled. He refuses to be erased. He exists, even if the universe itself wants to forget him.

(Gotta comfort the boy even tho he doesn't show single soft side yall🫡)