Memory Fragments: Probity

Karan's Superhero Training Regimen

Karan Lionel Hubbell. The "Skilled Young Lion of a Brave Heart" or simply: "The Lionheart." Do you know of his motto? His war-cry to get himself pumped up? "My emblem, my hope. My body and mind, my convictions. For the fight at hand, my honor and glory shall see it through." Pretty "cool" for a kid of his age, right? Although, being twenty-nine years old seems to me a bit far-fetched to still be called a kid. Karan always struggled with being respected and treated as the adult he is because of this. He often thought himself a hero and trained like one to protect his people from the underlying violence and crime ever-present in this town. But really, all he ever wanted was to help not many, but a single person, am I not correct in this assumption? 1.90 units tall, the body of a well-toned and apt behemoth, the face to represent an entire faction; he could have been the star of the military. He had a marbled physique and looks back then. He still has them, but how much has he changed it since then? He went from white ruffled and short hair to gold. From black eyes to ultramarine ones. A shaded beard to a baby face. And from using this "cool" and "rebellious" tattered white coat with a black lion dyed on it, this pair of black "fighting" fingerless gloves, those big black pants with white lines on them, and of course, his pride and joy, some marching white boots that never got soiled on the battleground now did they? To some run-of-the-mill "hero" costume.

For how long do you intend to be this way, Karan? You were a real hero back then. One who got praised and was beloved by his people of Cyfoes. Of course, robots know no heroism. No true virtue of righteousness comes from a machine who was never taught the meaning of justice, right? So tell me, you were a hero in the eyes of who? Rather, in whose eyes did you want to be seen as one? That fantasy that you still live in will soon come crashing down on you, and no "superhero" strength will help you lift the guilt and sins off of your back. Just as you stopped the evil of haywire machines back then, so you do it with unruly drunkards and drugged vagabonds now. But why? Who is left here to sing your praises? Whose voice do you want to hear your name from?

You trained since you were little to protect her. Your parents died because you were too weak of both body and mind to help them in the wars. It was not your fault, you see. They were just doing their duty as citizens, but I can empathize with your feeling of powerlessness. You became a child of the streets since then; playing hero to cope with your sense of loss and grief by always wanting to be the cop in cops & robbers with the other children. Oh, but that is right. You never really did play with other children; just small robots. Did you realize soon enough that, by their nature, robots will always do what they were programmed to do, right? That no matter how many times you beat them, by it in a game or in real life, they would never learn and would resume their "evil" as soon as you let them be again? That is justice for you, Karan. You programmed them to always be evil, because that way you could always be the hero.

And now, alone and rusted, they are still evildoers; doing and undoing whatever they please. Just as you left them when you moved here to Clockwork. Did you get bored of them? Justice changes not by time, but by merit. Were their crimes just too little too boring for you, now that you are an adult? Or did you leave for another reason? Tell me, is Alice that evil to you? Or is she the personification of your sense of justice? Time did not change her. Your merits did. She never knew what time was, trapped in that house of nightmares, tortured by her own existence. Every day, the same pain. Night or day, the tears knew their way. Across her cheeks, down to her heart; little Alice, the chimera, a grotesque work of art.

Chimeras do not change over time, for they are artificial beings. They change depending on who is looking at them, and what animals they see reflected. You saw many things in her the moment both of you locked eyes from her window. Back then, you were doing "hero" work by dispelling the bullies that threw rocks at her windows, right? You thought she would fall in love with you, and that she would see a man that cared not for her appearances. She would say to you "My hero" and you two would leave Cyfoes? Just like that? Well, you two did leave. You two were made for each other. But justice shows no bias towards any man. She was blind back then, and still is now. So tell me, did she fall in love with you, or your merits? As both of you grew and got older, did she not change her ways thanks to your actions? She was never blind, Karan. Justice was never unbiased towards you. It followed you, wherever you went. It escaped that terrible judgement of the world towards her and stuck close to the one man who would seek her out. Like a game of hide & seek, or a round of tag. In my opinion, it was more like cops and robbers.

You made justice fall in love with you, and in doing so, you corrupted her. She knew she could not stand alongside you anymore. She saw her for what she truly was: a chimera of ideologies who fit only the cage of a serpent. That lionheart of yours is like a cage to her. The more righteous and heroic you are, the bigger, tender, and wider your heart gets, the more you can see her through the bars but, the easier it is for her to escape. The smaller the cage, the tighter your heart gets for her, the easier it is for you to maintain a grip on the true nature of justice.

Justice is a kid's view on the wrong and bad of the world. That warm and uplifting feeling of something done right and good. Sometimes, Karan. Sometimes justice can be cruel and unforgiving. But justice it is, regardless of whose eyes its merits are looked from. Stop being a child and see justice eye-to-eye. In that blindness, do you a man reflected? Or a kid who is afraid of the monster that he is looking right in the eyes. There is no cure for her, Karan. Justice is a chimera that sees no ideology as right or wrong, good or bad. No matter what truths or ideals you uphold, she will not see past the widening cage you put her in. And the bigger and wider this heart of yours gets, the easier it is going to be for justice's bite to poison your mind as she does not see who she bites.

This killing ideology you call a love for justice; like a lion who drinks a serpent's poison. It will not make you stronger. It will not make you a superhero in her eyes. Did you really think that consuming evil would make you immune to it? Was this your idea of training? Let go of the poison and let her be. Show the true ideology of a hero.

Those who let justice be without bias. Those who see its true nature as a monster of ideologies, but blind it so it does not see itself as one.

She is afraid of herself, Karan. Justice needs her hero. Help her accept her nature as a chimera. Help Alice, help the serpent be not afraid of its own rattle and accept the lionheart she too has.