OOC: First post! Sorry for the ridiculously long intro to Ryza and Aerys, guys...I might miss RPing a bit, and have gone a little overboard, lol. Don't mind it too much.

Ryza
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It was dark, darker than dark, actually. Blacker than the blackest night she'd ever sat out in, and twice as heavy as the heaviest thing she ever remembered lifting. The world she found herself floating in was black, empty, and silent. Her head throbbed, but she didn't quite understand why, she had no memory of hitting it...then again, she didn't really have memories of anything. As she finally found the mental strength to wonder why, the black world was illuminated by momentarily blinding blue. This blue formed what she thought was called a "word," but she wasn't quite sure what it meant.

Breathe.

The single "word" pulsed before her, almost demanding, but she wasn't sure how to fulfill its request.

Breathe.

What does it mean? She wondered, How do I do that? She had no idea, however it seemed that something within her did.

"...And you..." a male voice murmured among the blackness, "you will be strong willed and firm, the protector, the big sister, do you understand? The little one over there is going to need someone to watch her, to protect her, and you're going to be the one to do that. You are both meant to protect people, but you're meant to protect each other, too... And you will balance out her flaws. You see, she's sweet, kind-hearted..." The voice carried on in the darkness, and the more she heard it, the more she felt she knew it, though she wasn't sure how. It carried a kindness interlaced with obvious power, an authority she knew she couldn't ignore. Floating in the blackness, she listened, and she let it flow through her. Before her, the single word still pulsed, its demand unchanging.

Breathe, it said.

"...Now, girls, it's time for the final touch," she heard the voice say. "I've done my part, the rest is up to you, but I promise it's a simple enough task. I need you to listen to me, and do the one thing I ask of you...breathe."

She still didn't quite understand what it was requesting, but it seemed some part of her understood, and complied. The single word gave a single flash, and then pulsed faster for a few moments before it disappeared, and a wall of letters and numbers rose in its place. She didn't understand most of that, either, but something told her she never quite had. Slowly, her memory trickled back in, like a stream of water, slow and steady. Her name was Ryza, and she was a Guardian. She wasn't an incredibly old model, and she had already partnered with another Guardian. Actually, she had been born with a partner, a "sister" model, and they were the first to be born that way, created as two halves of a whole from the beginning. She was a happy, naive little thing and her name was...

She watched as the wall of gibberish disappeared, only to be replaced by standard startup screens that didn't quite appear...standard, though she wasn't sure why. It was one of these that caught her eye--"Current Network." She knew this particular menu would tell her how many Guardians were nearby, as well as their designations. She watched as a circular icon below the menu spun, gathering information, however a sense of dismay shot through her when it was replaced by text.

Nearby Guardians: 1

In another moment, this text was replaced by what should have been a list of Guardian designations, however there was only one.

Her sister model's name was...

Aerys

And suddenly the darkness lightened, and the world was pain.


Aerys and Ryza
12:45 PM
Doc Zod's Office

Aerys received warning that Ryza had finally woken approximately a half second before her sister model shot up on the table her unconscious body had been laid out on, and curled in on herself, agony written all over her face. Her networking menu had finally picked up Ryza's signal as her systems re-activated, which was when everything seemed to go haywire. The robot who had looked over both Guardians and everyone else in the room had just announced they all had clean bills of health, and were free to go, though it had seemed something had been missed. "Ryza!" she gasped, promptly dropping her sister model's scythe in order to reach for her, "Ryza, what's wrong?"

The other Guardian almost didn't hear her through the pain splitting her head. Both of Ryza's hands reached towards the source of the pain, as though trying to ease it, to no avail. Her optical screens, once filled with startup menus were now clouding with gibberish, something she vaguely recognized as abnormal. "Ryza!" her sister model gasped again, and as suddenly as it had come, the pain vanished. The gibberish on her optical screens gave way to startup menus again, and she was highly aware of Aerys standing next to her, a hand on one of her shoulders.

"Shh, Aerys, not so loud," she murmured, easing her body out of the curled-up position it had wound up in slowly, taking in her surroundings as she did. A relatively small room that looked like it had been built inside a scrap heap--a very old scrap heap, at that, it was a small wonder to her that it stayed together--filled with a few metal tables, a few strange beings, and some kind of boxy robot that looked as though it had seen far too many years running, and not enough maintenance to keep up with the years.

"Ryza? Are you okay? What was that?" And then there was Aerys. She was covered in dirt smudges, and her long blonde hair looked like a mess, but otherwise, it seemed the Guardian was unharmed.

No thanks to you.

Ryza tried to hide her cringe as the thought invaded her head without warning, forcing a tight smile and reaching out a hand to pat Aerys' hand where it still rested on her shoulder. "I'm fine, little Sunshine, I don't know what it was, but it's gone now, no need to worry." The words didn't seem to reassure her younger sister model, but Ryza knew Aerys was easily distracted, at times she was like a puppy, or an exciteable child. That was why she turned to the others in the room, unsure of what was going on.

"I am sorry, it would appear I interrupted something...would it be out of place for me to suggest carrying on as though I hadn't interrupted?" Ryza asked, glancing around the room again and wondering where in the world she and Aerys had ended up. It quite obviously wasn't what they called home.