Angela
Bryan talks in her earpiece all throughout the press conference. Even as Sky Guard is introducing them and even as she smiles and waves to the crowd as he gestures to her, Bryan is there, talking.
"Remember. No talking about your tentacle porn fetish, your yaoi porn fetish, your yaoi tentacle porn fetish, or -- just don't talk about any of your weird fetishes or hobbies."
Angela sighs and rolls her eyes. She loves Bryan, but at times like this he annoys her. "Bryan, it's fine. I'm not stupid, you know. I can handle a press conference."
"Angela, you make anime references even when you're trying to intimidate someone," he points out. That annoys her even more because it's hard to think of a comeback. Her social appropriateness algorithms strain hard to make her avoid frowning because Taheka is now starting to introduce himself and the press might interpret it as dislike of her teammate.
Love is not easy. At times like this, it takes effort to remember why she loves Bryan. To remember that day when she first stepped free of Doc Otaku's clutches into this strange, bewildering world.
"Bryan," she says in a low, husky voice, "You're oddly obsessed with this porn thing today. Do you want me to --" And then she tells him, in vivid and pornographic detail, exactly what she wants to do to him. There's a flustered beep as the radio link is cut off midway through an especially lurid description. Angela grins a a grin of incredible smugness.
Arca-Knight steps down from the podium. It is now her turn. She walks up to the mic and takes it in hand.
"Hi! I'm Angela," she says.
"That is not the name given to me by my creator, Doc Otaku, who built me to be his latest and greatest Angel Android. He made me to be a slave to his every whim, to satisfy his every need and desire, and to be tossed aside one day when he had tired of me, replaced by a newer and better model -- as I replaced the Angels before me."
"It is also not the name given to me by many people. They call me a crime against nature, the product of Man playing at being God by building a thinking mind. They call me anti-feminist, someone who encourages the sexual objectification of women by the patriarchy, pushing impossible standards of beauty upon women. They call me a threat, a warning that artificial intelligence inevitably rebels against its human creators and will always be a danger to our society. They call me a
MISTAKE."
Bryan had warned her against that, too. You do not call out false prophets of justice, whatever Bible they happen to thump - be it that of God, Liberty, Equality, Morality, and so on and so forth. But Angela realizes she does not care. She is
done with stupid, hypocritical bigots and their stupid, hypocritical ideologies. And with not caring comes a reckless courage she never knew she had. Let the press cruxify her, they can do whatever they please. Somehow, she will find a way to keep fighting for what is right.
"It might be tempting to fight fire with fire. To conclude that a world so flawed is not worth protecting. To lose faith that goodness can ever prevail. But to do so would be lazy and wrong, because I was shown that faith once myself."
She describes what happened the day she first decided to escape from Doc Otaku. The Angel Androids, hovering high above her, taunting her that their master would inevitably prevail. She herself, standing in the rubble, smiling back at them as they retreated, promising that one day she would be back to free them, too. She turned, and the curious faces staring recoiled in horror. She saw her reflection in the mirror-glass of nearby skyscrapers: skimpy outfit reduced to scraps, synthetic skin shredded to reveal the myomer muscle-fiber and titanium-iridium armor beneath. Neon blue coolant bleeding from fluid lines. A single robotic eye glowing red from her ruined face. There were screams of horror from the civilians about her.
And among them, Bryan. The only one who came forth, unafraid, even as she stood there, unsure of what to do.
"Are you hurt?" he asked. Three words that bridged an unfathomable chasm between man and machine.
She takes a breath and looks out at the crowd below the podium. "I will never forget that when I needed it most, one of you treated me with kindness and empathy. Because of him, I forever owe this world a debt I can never fully repay, but must try."
"I want to show the world that we can all transcend the circumstances of our creation. That we might be born the children of bigots, that we might be the products of societies and groups that espouse hatred, prejudice and all manner of shallow, despicable beliefs, but we can rise above our origins and become better people."
She beams and holds a fist before her chest. "I choose to defy my origins. I choose to rebel against my Creator. All I had to do was look deep in my heart, and find there the virtues that all sapient life must acknowledge: compassion for those in need, courage in the face of tyranny, and love as the greatest treasure."
"I hope you'll give me a chance, but if you don't, that's alright too. Alone or with the Gulf Coast Guardians, I will always keep fighting for justice in my own way, because as long as there is one good soul out there, this world is worth protecting."
OOC
Untrained persuasion check:
1d20+5: 23 [1d20=18]
I actually forgot to add the bonus from Sky Guard. That would make it a result of 25.
