Qoq Qagh

Chapter 4

Even before Esmeralda and Lasko had stepped into the house, Pro happily jumped into her mother's arms, hugging her tight. Surprisingly though, she followed up by leaping from Es to Lasko and hugging him as well. Lasko reluctantly hugged back as the corners of his mouth curved into a smile. Es chuckled as well until Lasko set her down on the ground. When he did this, Pro tugged on his arm and brought him to the living room where she had apparently drawn something on a blank white piece of construction paper.

The drawing consisted of three characters. One was rather tiny and wore a white shirt with a pink plaid jacket over it, a frilly pink skirt and long black hair that went halfway down the back. Clearly, this was Pro. The other two figures were almost twice as tall. The first one had black hair as well (however it only went down to her back and wasn't as straight as Pro's) with slightly suntanned skin, a black shirt and a pair of blue jeans. This was Esmeralda. The third character was clearly a man. It had grey, metallic-looking hair which was parted to one side whose body was mainly grey with hints of green and little holes in it. His face and legs also had a grey area. This was clearly Lasko.

Under normal circumstances, Lasko would be happy to see something like this, but ever since he and Es had left the grocery store, something inside him felt empty as if a huge part of his very existence suddenly became nonexistent. And staring at this picture seemed to make matters worse.

"Lasko?" Es asked. "Are... are you okay?"
Lasko suddenly jolted as if he had just awoken from a deep state of entrancement as his head violently and uncontrollably started to shake for a split second.
"Huh?" He took a minute to recollect himself. "Y-Yeah, I'm fine." He looked at the picture again before smiling and handing it back to Pro. "This is really good." With that, he turned to Es. "So... are we gonna give me the human form or what?"

Es had forgotten about this during their grocery trip and it had just now occurred to her that she promised to make Lasko's appearance more human-like.

"Of course," she stated. "Follow me." They walked into the guest room (which was now Lasko's room) as he lay down on the bed.

"Wait here," Es said as she ran into another room just off to the side of the guest room. Then, she came back with a box full of art supplies such as different colors of construction paper, markers, food coloring (which can qualify as art supplies depending on the project), clay, scissors, paint and paintbrushes. When she was about to begin, she looked to Lasko.

"Um, you don't mind if I turn you off for this, do you?" she asked, motioning for the power switch on his chest.
"Go ahead," Lasko said. "It won't hurt anything."

Hearing Lasko's approval, she flipped the switch to the left, how she had seen it when she first encountered Lasko. Then, she began to work on changing Lasko's appearance on the frontside starting with his face. He took different colors of paint to create a color that seemed to be a pale-ish skin tone, similar to Pro's. Then, he took a paintbrush and applied it to the metal parts of his face. With Lasko's eyes and mouth now closed, it was rather easy. When that was complete, she moved down to the body. She applied the paint to his torso as well.

The arms would be a little harder. She had to take some of the paper and carefully create a custom arm. It didn't matter what color the paper was since she planned to paint over it anyways. She took multiple pieces and cut strips out of them length-wise. She then put them around his arm followed by taking the skin-tone paint to the paper to make it all blend in. She then did the same with his legs, then moved back up to the head where she took some brown paint and applied it to his metallic hair to make it seem more humanly. With this, she flipped Lasko's switch to the left as the now human-seeming robot suddenly opened his eyes. Before he could sit up, Es carefully held him down, making sure not to get her hands in his new coating of paint.

"Lasko, I'm going to have to keep you turned off for a few hours," she said. "I'm going to let you dry and I'll turn you back on to let you know when I'm going to work on your backside, okay?"

"You didn't have to turn me on to let me know," he said. "I can still see, hear and feel things when I'm turned off, but my movements cease which includes speaking."

Es seemed surprised at first, but quickly regained her posture. "Well I'm gonna turn you back off to let the paint dry, okay?"

Lasko nodded as Es flipped his switch back to the left and he closed his eyes.