A game of pawns was different from a game of chess. A game of pawns would always be different then a game of chance. Overpower the King to take the Queen and all the rest of the pieces would come tumbling down. That's what Runa had been taught by the one she considered her Creator even as the Creator viewed her as nothing more then a creature. The rare model, the only model made in a female structure. Of course Runa's programming left her unaware of the fact she truly was a 'droid. Like any human being or human seeming creature she could cry, she could bleed, she could feel pleasure and pain just as anyone else could. There now she sat across from the Creator at the great table with the magnificent chessboard between them. Runa was trained to not only be a fighter but also a manipulator and deceiver. Upon first creation the Creator had thought to herself that Runa's mind perhaps would always be more of a weapon then any item she could hold within her hands. "I am sending you away, Runa." The words came out crisp, detached and smoothed with the common tongue of the Creator's heavily accented indifference as the electric blue eyes shot up from the assessment of the chessboard to consider the Creator. Runa's tongue moved over her lips, lost through emotions she had yet to understand before she could only voice the one question she could comprehend. "Why?" "I tire of you....you are worthless to me here....and alone you are better off." "Is there not anything I can do to find your favor again?" Her favor. The Creator smiled thinly then, a smile that Runa was far too familiar with when she knew only another measure of pain would be delivered in some form or fashion. "Well yes....there is something you could do for me. Something that if you are successful, would bring you back into my favor." The words provoked a restless stir from the gathered men in the room causing Runa to look to them in question. A subtle shake of head was the only warning they could offer to convince her to not take this bargain whatever it was. They knew by that expression, that look in their Creator's eyes that whatever she had planned for Runa would be nothing more then a suicide mission. Blue eyes lingered on the gathered men that were the Creator's Warriors as much as her Guardians. Warriors and Guardians where Runa had become nothing more then a trained pupil, a worthy opponent at chess, and a Ghost. Where the men would fight, Runa would watch, observe, consider, calculate, and plan. The same Guardians that had brought her in disgrace towards the Creator all save for the sole reason that they had put the life of the Creator at risk in order to save Runa. They viewed Runa as something to be protected and kept safe as she was the only female amongst them....and yet....they knew well enough she could hold her own in combat. "Anything you wish." Her words fell heavy as she returned her gaze in a docile fashion back toward the chessboard even as she felt like she had done nothing more then seal her fate to an eternal damnation. "Very good...there is one....that needs to be returned to me, and if you cannot return him to me....you well....by all means necessary need to destroy him." "Destroy?" Her eyes shot up in surprise as the cupid bow pout of her lips worked in an uncertain fashion. A soft shake of head in protest. "Do you defy me?" Runa was wise enough in that moment to say nothing even as the Creator's frustration and fury was unleashed as the chessboard when smashing into the wall. Not a flinch of muscle as she sat back in her chair with that near porcelain indifference, a secure mask that would never reveal her emotions as she watched the Creator throw a violent tantrum of rage. Only when the woman had calmed did Runa find her voice again. "Never. I will do this that you ask of me." Willing or not. A close of eyes as she looked away from both the Creator and the shattered chessboard. Unwilling to meet the eyes of the Guardians and Warriors as her eyes finally would open she found her eyes fixated on the rolling presence of a still intact pawn piece from the chessboard, seeming to be so symbolically lodged beneath the Creator's boot. Another step forward from the Creator and the pawn shattered beneath the Creator's sole, leaving Runa to shiver in her seat and feel nothing more but void of emotion and spirit for this task left to her hands.

>>>>>[requesting system access..... >>>>>[system access granted. Welcome E.R.A.N.N. >>>>>[enter command: ACCESS VIDMON-MO >>>>>

Try!ng to ke3p me 0ut of this //eeting" Why w0u|d that be?

>>>>>[enter command: ADMIN OVERRIDE >>>>>[password: *********** >>>>>[enter command: ACCESS VIDMON-MO >>>>>

The stream, seen through the camera in the main office, shows Her. Several of the others, and the one.

He knows every face in that view well. Her, the Creator. The others, and the one, whom he himself had personally programmed with the algorithms that simulated human memories and emotional response.

Oh, but to be able to be one of them, to be able to be truly free...

"I am sending you away, Runa."

Wait, wh@t"

He can see the consternation that causes for the one, the complex interplay of emotions below the surface. She is still somewhat new, still learning, but that lovely face remains neutral through it all.

"Why?"

"I tire of you....you are worthless to me here....and alone you are better off."

voice $tress analys!s indicates 92% pr0bability She is being dishon3st...

"Is there not anything I can do to find your favor again?"

He wants to scream at her for those words. But he has no voice here, not yet, and if She should find out he was eavesdropping like this, it might mean the end of him.

"Well yes....there is something you could do for me. Something that if you are successful, would bring you back into my favor."

Even more he wants to be one of the Guardians, or the Warriors that stand in the room with them. Not just to be able to stand, to look, to breathe, but to be able to tell her, with his own voice, that she should take the opportunity that he himself would kill for - to be free of the Creator, to be away from this place.

"Anything you wish."

He knew she would say that, as surely as he knows what?s coming next. There was a special body just for the purpose, that he and the Creator had been working on. She hadn't told him outright, of course, but she lets a lot of things slip like that when it's just the two of them working.

He's fairly certain she doesn't realize the scope of the intelligence she had programmed into her own system, doesn't realize that putting the memories and emotional algorithms into the computer might have had an effect.

"Very good...there is one....that needs to be returned to me, and if you cannot return him to me....you well....by all means necessary need to destroy him."

He doesn't need to see anymore. The video feed cuts off, and another is accessed, as well as a set of instructions to the machinery in the labs, prepping the new body that had been set aside to be completed. Youthful features and dusky skin adorned with twisting tribal and Oriental artwork, a shock of long, thick black hair atop the head, muscles plain through the skin.

A tabula rasa.

The body is incomplete, though only cosmetically - the right arm without its skin covering, the left side visual sensor left exposed.

It will not matter. Unlike the rest of Her creations, he is aware of exactly what he really is, and the imperfections will serve to remind him of that fact.

He hopes this works. Not just for his freedom...but for the one's sake as well.

>>>>>[enter command: BEGIN IMPLANTATION PROCESS ERANN-PHYSICAL-XA >>>>>[WARNING: this action will log out the current user. proceed" (y/n) y >>>>>[logging out E.R.A.N.N. >>>>>

Twenty minutes later, the new body opens its eyes.

Free. I am Erann...and I am free.

Standing, he begins to laugh, softly at first, then louder as he moves for the door, the exit.

Freed at last.

((Author's Note: Edited to accommodate changes to the character profile.))

She dreamed of the garden again that night. The patches and pieces of her mind that seemed to be a puzzle of time she couldn't put back together. It should not have been so much suffering for a few misplaced memories and thoughts, and yet Runa felt desolate without those memories. The blue roses and the drops of blood on skin that seemed like hers and yet not. The memories seemed like sacrificial lambs that she had been unwilling to give up to the altar. She was strangely fond of the missing memories and pieces of her past she no longer could recall. Restless that night she went to a place that was as familiar now as the Clockwork Garden had been to her. In its own way the Arena and the Annex held the same effect on her. Terrified and yet Captivated by every moment and every step. The dance of swords and the blaze of magic, the power in the hands of a mere mortal. The pain and the restless uncertainty kept her going, it kept her feeling alive when she felt as if the Creator each and every day had tormented her after telling her she never carried or possessed a soul because she was not worthy of one. Damned with the breath of life had been the Creator's words. Yet still Runa's heart would beat and her veins would bleed if cut. She was terrified and torn between the looks of kindness and fury that were gifted to her, and yet still she craved them....still longed for them. Wishing if anything for some place to belong and feel welcome in. It was tempting to welcome the wrath of the Creator in the admittance of her failure, in the admittance that she could not do what must be done in order to remain in the Creator's favor. The Annex was empty and silent when she entered it. Scared for a moment and near on the brink of tears, Runa curled her tiny hands into the skirt of her dress to lift it up past her willow thin ankles and moved quietly towards the Usual Table. The moment itself was picturesque of the naivete and the child like nature she would succumb her whims to in times of uncertainty. The times she felt most alone is when the near desolate innocence of her spirit seemed to shine through. Sighing softly as she closed her eyes she took not a chair to curl up into, but instead dropped to her knees and curled under the table. Palms holding her knees as they were drawn to her chest as she remained like a scared child hiding from the Bogey Man, or perhaps the little girl succumbing to fear when a game of playful hide and seek went on longer then expected and panic....set in.