Soleil

Soleil's memories of anything that came before he was turned into a cyborg are extremely blurry, an incoherent chaos of sounds, places, smells, ideas, dreams. He knows they're there, but he just cannot grasp them, no matter how hard he tries. Maybe he remembered he wasn't always a cyborg a bit too late, after having strayed too far away from them already, and there's not much he can do about it.

The first memory was waking up in an unfamiliar room, with no clue of who were all the people around him, all those unknown faces, all staring at him as if they had never seen anything like him before, whispering between themselves. The second memory was a feeling of deep confusion, the realization that he did not know who he was, either. The third memory was feeling pain, for a reason he could not know.

He soon learned all those people were engineers, specialized in the creation of cyborgs. He was, in their words, "still one of a kind" and "their greatest achievement yet", the first prototype of a new Version and Model of cyborgs built for peace, to keep situations stable and to protect people in need, unlike his "siblings" — other cyborgs, he supposed — who had been made for war. Finally, they told him that his name, officially, was V3-PKM-P1, but that he could choose a better fitting name by himself.

At first, the situation was confusing, to say the least. Everything they said or did made little to no sense to him. He understood nothing, nothing at all. For a brief moment, the though of just killing them all crossed his mind — they had to be messing with him. Something he would not tolerate.

That was until one of the people in the room came forward. Introducing themself as V1-WZM-P1, or simply Nox, they explained what the engineers were talking about and that they, too, were a cyborg — and a first protoype, on top of that. Their voice never raising or changing intonation much, they tried to make everything as clear as possible, between the engineers talking to themselves and the newly-awoken cyborg's questions. Finally, there came a glimpse of understanding.

When Nox asked him what he would like to be called — V3-PKM-P1 was quite a mouthful to say, after all — he had to think about it for a while. Eventually, he came to make his choice.

"Soleil".

From then on, Soleil would harbour the deepest respect for Nox, viewing them as sort of an older brother or mentor, giving them the credit as teacher for all he knew at the time. If only he had known how the situation would have changed, he would've never gotten so close to them. It could have spared him the pain of seeing someone you love betray you.

After some more verifications to ensure everything was right with him, Soleil was officially made fully operative, in order to see what would go down: if everything went as expected, a couple more prototypes of V3-PKM cyborgs would be made to further test their capabilities and characteristics, before beginning serialization. Luckily enough, this is pretty much what happened, apart from a couple hiccups in the road, and a few years later the serialization began. This all happened in a period of peace the new V3-PKM cyborgs were tasked with maintaining, no matter the means necessary. They were loyal protectors of mankind, built to make everyone feel more secure now that the war seemed over.

However, the previous models of cyborgs, the ones who had been made for war, began to harbour a deep resentment towards their creators for what they had forced them to go through. They had been deprived of their life before the war permanently, deprived of a lot of their free will and emotions, deprived of their humanity.

Rumors of more and more cyborgs suddenly rebelling, brutally killing any humans they'd come across, began to spread. Soldiers, doctors, judges, soon enough almost every cyborg became a part of the Insurrection, in a way started and led by none other by the very first cyborg ever created. Nox.

There were cyborgs who decided to still side with mankind, such as most V3s. They would not abandon their role of protectors, no matter what. Yet, a single cyborg cannot do much against a pack of others, ready to slaughter any obstacle in their path. Many, many V3s lost their lives in a futile attempt to protect humans. Among them, however, was not Soleil.

Soleil managed to fend off most attacks very efficiently, in a display of his perceived absolute superiority when compared to other cyborgs. He began getting less and less tolerant of infractions to that ideal he perceived as sacred, to not hurt the humans that gave cyborgs all they were, he began getting more and more violent in his interventions, he began enjoying that aspect more and more.

Soon, however, he would learn who was the "leader" of the Insurrection, a name way too familiar. Nox's direct involvement made him distraught. Someone he had trusted so much, now an enemy to face, to defeat, to kill in cold blood. As much as it hurt, Soleil pushed it all as deep as he could inside himself. He was not going to let some idiotic feelings stop him from doing his job. He had to protect mankind. If that meant killing Nox, then so be it. Mercy was not an option.

Soleil wanted the fight against Nox to be something grandiose, a true turning point in his life. He wanted a duel, just him against them until one of them dropped dead. He wanted it to be bloody, to be violent, to be fun. He would get what he wanted, in a way; sadly, it was the worst possible way for him.

He got a duel. He got a bloody, violent fight. He got his arm and eye ripped out by Nox, virtually unscathed compared to him. That, certainly, would end up a turning point. For the first time in all those years, Soleil looked at death face to face, realizing just how much stronger Nox was, how hopeless with struggle against them was.

Covered in his own blood, his circuits exposed, pain running through every inch of his body, terrified, Soleil fled. There wasn't much more he could do if he didn't want to die, and he was determined to live to see another day.

He went back to those same engineers who had created him, asking for something more than simple repairments. He always wanted more, this was not an exception, but this time the engineers put much more effort into creating whatever would boost Soleil in fights. He knew the research would be long, but he didn't mind waiting. He just wanted to have his chance at beating Nox alone.

When the arm and the eye were finally ready, Soleil took a while before he could truly find himself at ease with them. He had to practice their usage a lot, to get used to the feeling of something that was not with him from the moment he woke up as a new being altogether, but when that moment came, he felt absolutely invincible. A new arm and a new eye, studied to be deadlier and more efficient than ever seen before. With those, Soleil was sure he would not lose again.

Before he could leave and go hunt Nox down for their rematch, however, he still had one thing to settle once and for all. In the workshop, thee satisfaction of improving onto an ally cyborg quickly turned into terror as Soleil began attacking.

"Enough crying. You've brought this upon yourselves. It's such a shame, you had not made me strong enough the first time around... It would've spared you the price you have to pay now."

Soleil's words had never been so coldly cruel before, not even in the worst fight, much less against people everyone else would have seen as completely innocent — to him, they were only a minuscule step above the insurrectionists, guilty of having hidered him in some way. Soon enough, there were no engineers left alive, only the broken bodies and blood of those he had loved and hated so passionately, laying motionless on the floor.

They were gone, and yet Soleil's bloodlust remained unsatiated.

"...Truly a fitting aftermath for such an insignificant fight. I sure hope my next foe won't be as weak... This time, you won't be so lucky. I won't be defeated so easily. You'll have no hope of winning this one."

After all, they had always been the reason he acted as he had in his life. At first, it was out of admiration. Then, it shifted. And now, the leading forces were those aesthetics of hate he found out he much preferred to simple love.

"Get ready. This will be our final showdown, Brother. And this time around, I won't fucking lose."