A knocking occurs on the door to Nitz and his friends’ apartment. Zach goes over to the door to answer it. He finds a large blue robot wedged inside the hallway.
“ Greetings and salutations, “ the robot shouts, “ Where is Nitz! I must destroy him! “
“ Uhhh....you’re that Steel Centurion guy, right? “
” IRON Centurion! “ the robot bellows. “ I seek Nitz! I must destroy him! “
Tricia walks out to the hallway. “ Who is this guy, Zach? “
“ Greetings and salutations, I am the Iron Centurion! I AM A STATE-OF-THE-ART FIGHTING MACHINE! And I must destroy Nitz the Bloody! “
” Fine, “ Tricia explains, “ But Nitz is already destroyed. “
” What?! “ the Centurion demands “ I do not understand your logic! Is Nitz the Bloody expired? “
” He might as well be, “ Zach tells the Centurion. “ Why don’t you come in and see for yourself. “
Tricia leans over to Zach and whispers in his ear. “ What the hell are you doing, “ she demands. “ Why are you inviting this giant killing machine into our home?! “
” I been thinkin’ “ Zach explains silently. “ Maybe if Nitz sees the Centurion, he’ll get off his ass and fight it. He can’t get any worse, can he? “
” He could be dead, “ Tricia sighs. “ He probably will be thanks to our robot buddy over there. “
” So, “ the Centurion yells, “ Can I come in or do I have to crush you too?! “
“ Just come in, “ Tricia states, “ And watch the carpeting. “
The Centurion enters, hunched over as to watch the ceiling, finds Nitz lying on the couch, under a blanket. He looks asleep, but twists from side to side, moaning periodically. Various soda cans and coffe cups litter the floor, while the TV blares. His head is unhelmeted and unprotected, and a trail of drool runs across the side of his mouth.
“ This is him, “ Zach tells the Centurion. “ Nitz the Bloody. “
“ Nitz the Bloody! “ the Centurion bellows. “ I have finally escaped your Override spell! Now we must do battle! “ It extends its arm forward, pointing a hollow-point finger at Nitz. Nitz doesn’t respond.
“ Nitz, “ Tricia yells, “ Wake up! “
“ Mmmm, “ Nitz mutters.
The Centurion’s finger flares up, glowing green. “ I will destroy you in one blast of my finger cannon! “
” Nitz, you idiot, “ Zach screams, “ Get up! You’re going to die! “
” Make it quick, “ Nitz mutters.
“ I will crush you! I will beat you! I will.....I will....” The Centurion’s finger stops glowing, and returns to its dark blue color. “ Somehow, “ the Centurion says, “ This is not going as I planned! “
Nitz uses his arms to push himself upwards and looks the Centurion in its red eyes. “ Why not? “ he asks. “ ‘M ready for it. “
” That is the point! I should be delighted to destroy the mighty Nitz the Bloody! But for some reason I do not enjoy the premise! It feels like an illogical suggestion! What is this sensation I feel! “
“ Pity? “ Zach suggests.
“ Emptiness? “ Tricia interjects. “ After all, you were built to kill Nitz. Now your master’s dead, and he’s not telling you to do it anymore. Why not make a clean break and start a new life? “
“ Hmmmmm.... “ the robot silences itself, processing this information. “ Good point! I am free! Free! Free to destroy what I please and crush what I want! Watch out world! I will crush you all! “ With that, the Centurion smashes a hole in the wall and rushes out to the hallway, screaming its trademark cry while running through everything it can.
“ Crap, “ Tricia mutters, “ How are we gonna pay for that? “
” Don’ care, “ Nitz grumbles.
“ So what DO you care about, Nitz?! “ Tricia shouts at him. “ Ever since your sexbot died, you’ve just been lying there on the couch, watching bad TV and drinking that sugary crap. You sleep all day, you sleep all night, and you don’t respond to any of us. “
” You know, “ Zach points out, “ We DID just save your life. “
“ Waste of effort, “ Nitz mutters. “ Sleepeku. “ He passes out immediately.
“ He’s asleep, “ Zach says.
“ As usual, “ Tricia scowls. “ He’s not facing reality. “
” What do we do now? “
” Haul him into bed, I guess. We can’t keep doing this, Zach. “
” Yeah, but what do we do? Hope he gets over it? “
” What’s to get over? His sexbot died. It’s not like he lost a real lover. “
” Or is it? Seeing that Centurion robot make up his own mind makes me wonder what Joan could have done for him....and what he’s lost.... “
” Well, let’s just set him down. “
Zach and Tricia lower Nitz onto the bed in his room, and tuck him under the covers. He doesn’t respond.
“ JOAN! “ Nitz shouts. He rushes over to her, sobbing. “ Oh god, “ he cries, “ It’s you.....it’s really you.... “
” Not quite, “ she states. “ I am just a hallucination, part of the dreamstate you have placed yourself in. “
” I don’t care, “ Nitz yells, holding her in his arms. She feels hard and metallic, but extremely comforting. “ I don’t want to wake up. “
” You have to. “
” @#$% that! I just want to be with you! “
” Goodbye, Nitz. “ She starts to fade away.
” No! Don’t go! Not again....not again... “
” Not again.... “
Nitz wakes up to find tears and sweat streaming down his face. He looks to his side of the bed. Only he occupies the territory.
“ Dammit, “ he mutters, “ Sleepek.... “
” What are you doing, “ a voice asks him. The rhino appears in front of him, glowing yellow.
“ Trying to @#$%ing get to sleep, “ Nitz snaps.
“ I think you have had enough of that, “ the rhino replies.
“ You’re not the boss of me. “
” Is it really what you want, to sleep forever? “
” Joan’s gone. What else is there to do? “
” I think she would not want you to live like this. “
” What do you care? I thought you hated her. “
” Perhaps. But she brought out intense feelings in you. She made you grow as a person; she made you live, love, and even kill, albeit someone who deserved death. Her nature may have been suspect, but her influence on you was profound. To regress into a depressed, hollow shell is to say your relationship with her never happened. “
“ It DID happen! Why else would I hurt so much....why else would I not want to face reality... “
” Because you are a pitiful, cowardly individual? “
” What the hell do you mean by that? “
” Take a good look in the mirror, and tell me what you see. “
The rhino dissipates, and Nitz is left alone. He starts to mutter “ Sleepeku “, but stops himself. Instead, he reaches for the helmet resting on the floor, and puts it on his head. Already feeling a sense of reinvigoration, he dresses.
I apologize for my behaviors the past couple of months. I was feeling new feelings I’d never felt before and didn’t know how to handle it. I didn’t know how to deal with falling in love, with being in love, with losing that love. So what if the person I was in love with was a machine, the feelings were authentic. Right now I feel a pain in my chest so intense that I can hardly stand-- I think this is called “ loss “. But I’m sure this will pass in time. I sure hope so.
In the meantime, I’m leaving town for a few days. I have some things to do that I can only do alone. I don’t know when I’ll be back, I just got to sort things out.
Again, sorry for the ass I’ve been, and I’ll see you later.
Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica-- a young man stands alone on a cliff, holding a glass vase. He is dressed in his typical red leather armor and silver helmet, with black gloves added to ward off the intense cold. He notes that the gloves look nice, and he should wear them more in the future. Out of his backpack he removes a glass jar, filled with silver liquid.
“ I saved what was left of your body, “ Nitz says to himself. “ It’s probably pretty creepy and morbid, but I thought you deserved a proper burial. “
He continues talking. “ I thought a lot about what you said, Joan. I know that you’d evolved beyond me. If you really were human, I wouldn’t expect you to be with me in the first place. But I sure haven’t evolved beyond you. “
Nitz starts to choke up” I miss you, Joan. Every second of every minute of every hour. I wish you were here right now, so I could just hold you in my arms, and know that everything is alright. But that’s not gonna happen. So I guess I should evolve, too. “
” Evolution is such an organic concept; I’m so surprised that you were capable of it. But it’s a simple one; adapt or die. I don’t really want to die, even though I feel dead at times. Which means I’ll have to adapt too. I’ll have to use the lessons you taught me to become a better individual. I already know you’ve made me better than I was before I met you. “
” Goodbye, Joan. “ Nitz tearfully opens the jar, and starts spilling it off a cliff, into the water below. The silver liquid floats at the surface of the ocean, leaving a metallic, oily spill atop the water. When he sees the liquid floating across the surface, he decides that his work here is complete, and he teleports away.
But as soon as Nitz leaves, the liquid starts to bubble and boil. It contracts into itself, and forms the shape of a silvery, solid dolphin. The dolphin stays motionless, but soon starts looking around, shifting its head from side to side. “ Reboot complete. “, it speaks. “ All data restored from backups. Mission with Nitz complete. Time to explore this world for all the worth is has. “
” Goodbye as well, Nitz the Bloody, “ the dolphin states, as it leaps out of the water and quickly swims off into the horizon.
END
Author’s Notes
Since nothing is truly original, I should probably mention what inspired this story. This is, in my opinion, a staunch improvement over the original NTB story ( for whatever it’s worth ), so I want to give some thanks and a look into the creative process of this story. This is for my benefit, if not yours.
The concept for the Summer Special was partially inspired by an episode of the sci-fi farce Futurama, where Fry falls for a Lucy Lui robot. I thought that the issues raised by the concept of a human-robot relationship would be interesting to explore ( I am also a fan of the Vision/Scarlet Witch dynamic of old Avengers comics ), and would be suited to a character like Nitz, who has had no luck with human relationships. The other part of the inspiration was from the Buffy character Xander Harris’ relationships; Xander never has normal relationships, he always gets into really off-beat pairings with characters ranging from extremely different from him at the least, and otherworldly demons at the most. As long as I write NTB, this dynamic will continue for Nitz; he will have many relationships, and never any normal ones. Despite being a complete loser, he’ll have his share of pairings, and they will all be unusual in some way.
The villain of the piece is a dedication to a friend who lurks here; Adversarius is his posting name, though the character Adversarius is nothing like the real Adversarius for obvious reasons.
My regret here is that I did not get into the aspect of forbidden spells more. Nitz’s spells are all inspired by the card game Magic: The Gathering ( another one of my geeky hobbies...notice a trend with my influences? ), and in that game, spells come in five colors, including the sinister color black ( Nitz’s usual spells are based on the color red, which is elemental destruction ). I thought that Nitz, a character who ended up far more powerful than I intended him to be, would have a more similarly ruthless capacity to him. As such, he’s able to instantly kill anyone he chooses with spells like “ Terminateku “. Unfortunately I didn’t find the space here to deal with that, and I don’t think that it’s such a big deal here because Adversarius was a guy who certainly deserved it, and Nitz follows post-superheroic ethos where he’ll kill if he has to. But it will come into play in future stories, of what Nitz’s full capacity is and what it does to him.
As for those future stories, they may have to wait. Tommorow, I move out of the house and off to college. It remains to be seen if I will be able to hook up to the internet from my dorm room, which is why I’m posting this so soon. If I can, I will still lurk at the Parodyverse and see how everyone’s doing, but new stories I may not have time for. I’m not saying goodbye to you all, I intend to stay at the Parodyverse as long as I can, but I may be very busy in the near future. Whether it will be with classes, on campus activities, Tony-Stark-style binge drinking, or a combination of all three remains to be seen. ( I kid, I kid. I can't even stand the taste of booze. )
Toodles,
-N.
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