DAN-002 Pandora (
trap_phantasm) wrote2015-06-29 01:58 am
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Entry tags:
OOC ✪ INUGAMI APPLICATION
Player Information
Name/Alias: Audrey
Player Journal:
cherubot
Contact: PM the journal
Timezone: Pacific
HMD: HMD
In-game: N/A
Character Information
Name/Alias: Pandora
Fandom: Megaman/Rockman ZX
Canonpoint: After ZXA
Gender: Female
Age: Appears to be a teenager, maybe 15-16.
Physical Description: [original appearance, Inugami-mode!]
Robots only really pretend to have ages the way humans do-- it all depends on their programming and how they're built, you see. Pandora was built to resemble a girl in her early teens-- 15-16, think first-year highschooler range. The telltale signs that she's really a Reploid? An inverted red triangle on her forehead, hidden beneath her bangs, and bulky headphone-like attachments in place of ears. There's also the weird synthetic skin thing going on where it's dark everywhere but her face and fingertips. Yay robots! These will obviously not be present on arrival.
As a human, though, she looks fairly average, if you can get past the red eyes and mint-green, mid-back length hair. She's quite petite and pale, almost sickly-looking (and this will be in part to her not knowing how to take care of her new human body. Whether or not this improves will depend on her learning to cope and/or regaining her Reploid strength.). She won't be able to levitate as per her usual, but she'll continue to carry herself with a graceful air.
History: Please refer to the wiki.
Personality:
At first glance, it would seem like Pandora doesn't have much personality to speak of. Quiet, doll-like, and with a poker face that could put statues to shame, she might seem harmless enough- maybe even a blank slate, but get her talking and one will quickly realize why she and her brother Prometheus are known as the voices of Model W. Influenced by the lingering spirit of a madman who had once endeavoured to destroy the world, Pandora reflects both his nihilistic attitude and his disdain for others, and years of forced exposure have made her more than a little extreme in this regard. Seemingly emotionless, she exhibits zero care for others-- human, Reploid or otherwise, and can be just as destructive (if not more so) as her brother: simply a little less vocal about it. This in combination with the power granted to her by Model W makes her especially dangerous-- a Maverick any way you look at it. So, in a world populated by Maverick Hunters- those who seek out and destroy Reploids who dare step out of line- how is it that she was able to survive for literally centuries alongside her brother?
One either had to be crafty or lucky, you'd think, and with luck not much of a factor in the siblings' history, scheming comes rather naturally to the both of them. Pandora's quiet demeanor and tendency to let her brother do all the talking belies her strength as an actress-- feigning loyalty to her creator Master Albert in order to survive long enough to destroy him and all he stood for: in this case, hundreds of years... and in more recent times, she exhibited this skill as, under Albert's instruction, she and her brother wormed her way into the heart of Slither Inc., one of the most powerful organizations in the world, and successfully influenced company President and national hero Serpent into participating in the Game of Destiny-- a mad competition in which Mega Men (those able to fuse with Biometal) would fight each other until only one was left to claim Model W, with the promise to recieve power with which to rule the world. Serpent's agreement would set forth a change in both him and his company, leading to his using violent extremes-- and, through careful operation on the siblings' part, none of Serpent's staff seemed aware of the pair's involvement.
Speaking of Model W: though highly regarded as the ultimate prize, wielding its power comes at a steep price. In Pandora's case, as well as Prometheus', the pair have been permanently fused to their Biometal, and while it carries only a fraction of Model W's immense strength, it's more than enough to have taken a toll on their mental states. Remember Serpent? He, too, was compatible with Model W, but not nearly strong enough to overcome its vast influence, which resulted in a rapid descent into madness and his untimely demise. Pandora, on the other hand, can-- or has to-- handle it while still holding onto her own soul and agency. Plus, not only does she have to deal with the massive negative influence of her Biometal-- hatred, nihilism, the urge to destroy-- but she'd undergone years of torment and experimentation prior to her fusion in order to be functionally compatible, warping her mind from what should have been a sweet-if-timid girl's disposition to that of a quiet and cold-hearted killer. This, combined with an absurdly short lifespan that required her to return to a maintenance capsule every three days (one that toyed even further with her mind by deleting and manipulating her memories) contributed to her madness and despair as both she and her brother were effectively made to be tools in their creator's hands.
Through the years, she'd gained the reputation of 'Witch' in Hunter circles: even in the far-flung future where robots and science reign supreme, she carries the air of a mysterious sorceress: soft-spoken, often cryptic when she even deigns to speak to those unfortunate enough to encounter her. She even has a tendency to use her staff-like weapon like a witch's broomstick, often sitting upon the handle as she floats in midair... when she's not using said staff to rain alarming amounts of destruction upon others. While once-upon-a-time she would never dream of causing harm to others, countless years of suffering and being forced to kill resulted in her completely detaching from her emotions, rendering her completely apathetic. Whether this was her own doing, the result of her life capsule's manipulation or a combination of both is unknown, and, frankly, doesn't matter in the end. Other's lives don't matter to her: not strangers, nor Serpent's, and certainly not Albert's after all the years of abuse.
There is, however, one exception to that particular statement: Pandora's one and only brother, Prometheus. Their relationship isn't explored too much in-game, but a drama track from ZX Gigamix reveals quite a lot about their history together. While she can clearly stand on her own as she is now, she has never been without her brother, and prior to their fusion with Model W she seemed quite reliant on her big brother. In a world where they'd only known suffering, he was a constant, her only real support or source of comfort. Even after their descent into madness, this doesn't change: they are clearly more relaxed when alone together, and Pandora's tendency to speak in short, disinterested sentences fades: while she either has trouble around others or just doesn't care much for what the have to say, she's much more comfortable speaking to Prometheus. That aside, their synchronization extends to just about everything they do, and while both are perfectly capable alone, they're much more effective- and deadlier- together. With such a deep and necessary bond, it's probably a given that one couldn't live without the other- after all they've been through, all the warps and twists in their mental state, one fact remains constant: there's no one else in the world they could possibly depend on.
Then the two of them get knocked unconscious at the bottom of the ocean, all their mental strain siphoned off by the fragments of Model W, and the whole place collapses in on them and that's the canon point we're taking them from since the series was dropped like a flaming hot potato after thatthanks a bunch, crapcom.
Upon meeting her, it would seem that Pandora doesn’t have much of a personality left to begin with. Quiet, doll-like, and with a pokerface that could put statues to shame, she almost seems a blank slate compared to her livelier brother Prometheus. On the rare occasion that she does deign to speak to anyone that’s not her brother, she’s either short and businesslike (when following orders from Serpent, or giving orders to underlings/the protagonist) or lets her words trail off vaguely. If she’s fond of anything anymore, it would seem to be dishing out mysterious little hints towards exposition.
Depending on which character is in play at the time, Pandora will drop some exposition in her weird, blunt way, outright telling Vent (the male protagonist of ZX) that Biometal is conscious, and can control the weak, as well as announcing her and her brother’s role as ‘the voice of Model W’. Rightly so- years of forced exposure to Model W, the crystallized soul of a psychotic man who once delighted in the suffering, rage, and humiliation of others, a man responsible for not once but twice causing the collapse of Human-Reploid society unfortunately resulted in Pandora picking up on quite a few of the same traits: most notably his calm (for the most part) manipulative nature, his thirst for revenge, and-- for better or worse-- his persistence in the ever-looming face of destruction.
Pandora’s quiet demeanor and tendency to let her brother do most of the talking belies her strength as an actress. Mega Man Model A comes across the siblings’ maintenance capsules in-game, where it’s discovered that Pandora’s life-- as well as her brother’s-- is on a very short timer: a couple of days, at the time of the discovery. In order to stay alive, Pandora was required to return to the capsule for maintenance, which meant that her creator Master Albert kept her on a pretty short leash. With no choice but to obey Albert’s orders, Pandora was forced to feign loyalty to him, despite her own resentment towards the man for everything he’d put her and her brother through for literally hundreds of years. By the time Slither Inc. came into power, she was an expert at pretending to be a subordinate: just what she needed in order to manipulate Company President and local hero Serpent into participating in the Game of Destiny. Though she did give Serpent the one-or-two-word treatment, only sparing him the most necessary details, she seemed a perfectly obedient lackey while at the same time helping her brother to pull the strings. By the time Serpent had biomatched and ‘claimed’ Model W, he was reduced to a madman that could do little more than mindlessly fight and parrot the siblings’ words… with no one in the company seeming to have noticed her involvement at all.
Let it be known that Model W is not for everyone. Ideally it should not be for anyone, because Dr. Weil was a horrible, terrible, awful person who hated pretty much everybody. Serpent, for the short time he’d been with it, had fallen completely under its control, so how was it that a little girl stayed sane enough to handle its power and retain her own sense of self? Well, count her a little lacking in the sanity department. She was created and maintained specifically to successfully biomatch (or at least power) Model W, which took years of torment, experimentation, and conditioning prior to her fusion to become functionally compatible. The result? A girl who, when not willingly detaching herself from her emotions (in the drama tracks, she’s somewhat hesitant to even bring up the ‘dream’ Prometheus might have had, the memory of their trying to escape from Albert’s clutches) is constantly having her own memories manipulated in order to keep her in her current state. She no longer feels sympathy for others, Human or Reploid-- referring to their sadness, pain and anger as merely food for Model W. She’s also aware that her own emotions feed into W’s power, however buried deep they are-- she just doesn’t care. Moments before said emotions are siphoned from her, she reveals that she and her brother can’t return to their old, unarmored bodies, cannot change their fates, and is resigned to ‘hasten the destiny of destruction’: planning to destroy Albert and everything he’d created, including themselves.
But why her, and not some other poor sap of a Reploid? Simply put: Prometheus and Pandora were made as a pair, specifically siblings, and specifically to be hosts for Model W. Why two? Why a family? Well, unlike the majority of creators/father figures/etc in the Mega Man series, Albert held no love for either Reploid. It’s made pretty clear in-game that he regarded them as tools or even just Model W fodder, if plans went awry. One can assume that they were made as a sibling set-up in order to squeeze some extra-tasty despair out of the deal, because you can’t know real sadness unless there’s some positivity in your life, right? The siblings served as each others’ sole source of comfort, one unable to exist without the other, and perhaps that’s why they survived so long.
In any case, contrary to her current mindset, Pandora was once as normal and well-adjusted as any other Reploid made in her time-- perhaps a little shy and clumsy, childish as most Reploids of her build, with a tendency to be dependent on Prometheus (and why wouldn’t she be? daddy didn’t love them. at all). The two were kept isolated from the rest of the world, forced to go under various tests and experiments meant to make them more compatible with Model W: essentially torture in order to maximize the pain, frustration and despair they felt to better feed the Biometal. Though Pandora was not quite as proactive as her brother (rather, reactive, which is a staying trait-- a lot of her interactions with others involve someone or something else prompting her to action), it can be assumed that she wanted freedom just as badly as he did. In the drama track we find this actually hinders them in terms of escape as one can’t bring themselves to leave the other: Prometheus’ attempt at running might have been successful if she hadn’t stumbled and forced him to go back for her. Just before that as well, when they were hiding from the Mavericks chasing after them, Pandora didn’t adequately prepare herself to run when her brother warned her to and, in waiting until after Prometheus gave the go ahead, resulted in a slight delay that may have fed into their ultimate recapture.
Then again, Albert has backup plans for pretty much everything, so even if their escape was successful, it probably would have been short lived. The impossibility of escape eventually proved too much for Pandora and-- at some point before or after being permanently fused to Model W, it’s unclear exactly when-- she resigned herself to her fate, sinking further into depression, into madness. Between that and the memory manipulation brought on by her maintenance, Pandora took an opposite coping path to her brother, and sealed most of her emotions away. That’s not to say she doesn’t feel them, but has rather become an expert at concealing them, as when Model W finally absorbed all of the siblings’ negative emotions, Pandora had just as much energy as Prometheus: one can assume that Albert made sure the two suffered in equal measure no matter how they tried to counteract it.
While Pandora can converse easily with her brother (using full sentences, actively paying attention to what he has to say) other characters rarely received the same treatment. The closest thing to family next to Prometheus was Albert himself, and while most inventors in the series regarded their robot creations as their children, Albert saw the siblings as merely tools. If Pandora harbored any positive feelings towards him in the beginning, they were quickly replaced with bitter resentment due to his cruel treatment of the pair (keeping them captive, tormenting them, forcing them to kill and destroy to further his plans…). It’s inferred that she hasn’t been in the same room as him physically for centuries, instead taking orders from Albert remotely via monitors because he knows that those two would try to wreck him the first chance they get. What a good father.
By the events of ZX/ZXA, centuries of abuse resulted in Pandora’s desire to kill Albert, along with destroying everything he made and stood for... including herself. That’s right, folks, the self-destructive tendencies are thanks to some serious daddy issues.
Her interactions with Serpent were likely very similar to how she handled Albert’s instructions: very few words outside of basic confirmation/acknowledgement. Serpent is seen issuing orders to her several times in-game, acting like the big shot he thinks he is, and she just… barely responds to him. At one point, he orders her to distract a Mega Man and she barely acknowledges the order outside agreement. Pandora ends up talking with the Mega Man more than with Serpent, who had promptly transported off after telling his ‘underling’ what to do. If she wasn’t outright disrespecting him before, she barely acknowledges Serpent as a pawn once his purpose is served: as a Mega Man, his fate is to fight and die until somebody wins the Game of Destiny/forces Albert out of hiding.
Speaking of Mega Men, these are about the only other people we see Pandora engaging with in-game verbally as opposed to just straight up destroying them, and even then, her capacity for conversation is severely limited in comparison to her interactions with Prometheus. Her speech is full of pauses and she tends to trail off even during exposition-- in the English version she leaves out words and sounds almost trancelike in her speech?
While she does interact with all of the protagonists, she drops a little more exposition for the male protags than the girls- it’s the opposite with Prometheus, though he tends to info dump more than her in general. She deals directly with the male protagonist of ZXA, Grey, though at first it’s only to dispose of him solo (she doesn’t). She keeps up the same slow, trancelike dialogue with him, at one point placing the blame for the planet’s suffering on Grey himself along with Albert (because, surprise! Grey’s some kind of shitty robot clone of her even shittier dad woohoo) and outright stating that he’s only alive because she and Prometheus need him to further their plans at another. She’s surprisingly straightforward when she wants to be even if those instances are few and far between and usually filled with suitably cryptic comments about the true purpose of all the characters.
When it comes time to fight with the other Mega Men, Pandora actually expresses a teensy bit of displeasure when Prometheus takes the opportunity for himself the first time around, calling it unfair. There’s also an instance near the beginning of ZXA if you are playing as the female protagonist, Ashe, where Pandora will show up as Prometheus is dealing with her and ask who the heck this woman is. Maybe she’s jealous… or just protective of her one and only big brother. Game was made in Japan y’all know how it is.
In general, Pandora doesn’t like to talk to strangers, but will if she has to.
Abilities:
Samples
Dialogue: [here] AND [here]
Exposition/Introspection: [here]
Name/Alias: Audrey
Player Journal:
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Contact: PM the journal
Timezone: Pacific
HMD: HMD
In-game: N/A
Character Information
Name/Alias: Pandora
Fandom: Megaman/Rockman ZX
Canonpoint: After ZXA
Gender: Female
Age: Appears to be a teenager, maybe 15-16.
Physical Description: [original appearance, Inugami-mode!]
Robots only really pretend to have ages the way humans do-- it all depends on their programming and how they're built, you see. Pandora was built to resemble a girl in her early teens-- 15-16, think first-year highschooler range. The telltale signs that she's really a Reploid? An inverted red triangle on her forehead, hidden beneath her bangs, and bulky headphone-like attachments in place of ears. There's also the weird synthetic skin thing going on where it's dark everywhere but her face and fingertips. Yay robots! These will obviously not be present on arrival.
As a human, though, she looks fairly average, if you can get past the red eyes and mint-green, mid-back length hair. She's quite petite and pale, almost sickly-looking (and this will be in part to her not knowing how to take care of her new human body. Whether or not this improves will depend on her learning to cope and/or regaining her Reploid strength.). She won't be able to levitate as per her usual, but she'll continue to carry herself with a graceful air.
History: Please refer to the wiki.
Personality:
At first glance, it would seem like Pandora doesn't have much personality to speak of. Quiet, doll-like, and with a poker face that could put statues to shame, she might seem harmless enough- maybe even a blank slate, but get her talking and one will quickly realize why she and her brother Prometheus are known as the voices of Model W. Influenced by the lingering spirit of a madman who had once endeavoured to destroy the world, Pandora reflects both his nihilistic attitude and his disdain for others, and years of forced exposure have made her more than a little extreme in this regard. Seemingly emotionless, she exhibits zero care for others-- human, Reploid or otherwise, and can be just as destructive (if not more so) as her brother: simply a little less vocal about it. This in combination with the power granted to her by Model W makes her especially dangerous-- a Maverick any way you look at it. So, in a world populated by Maverick Hunters- those who seek out and destroy Reploids who dare step out of line- how is it that she was able to survive for literally centuries alongside her brother?
One either had to be crafty or lucky, you'd think, and with luck not much of a factor in the siblings' history, scheming comes rather naturally to the both of them. Pandora's quiet demeanor and tendency to let her brother do all the talking belies her strength as an actress-- feigning loyalty to her creator Master Albert in order to survive long enough to destroy him and all he stood for: in this case, hundreds of years... and in more recent times, she exhibited this skill as, under Albert's instruction, she and her brother wormed her way into the heart of Slither Inc., one of the most powerful organizations in the world, and successfully influenced company President and national hero Serpent into participating in the Game of Destiny-- a mad competition in which Mega Men (those able to fuse with Biometal) would fight each other until only one was left to claim Model W, with the promise to recieve power with which to rule the world. Serpent's agreement would set forth a change in both him and his company, leading to his using violent extremes-- and, through careful operation on the siblings' part, none of Serpent's staff seemed aware of the pair's involvement.
Speaking of Model W: though highly regarded as the ultimate prize, wielding its power comes at a steep price. In Pandora's case, as well as Prometheus', the pair have been permanently fused to their Biometal, and while it carries only a fraction of Model W's immense strength, it's more than enough to have taken a toll on their mental states. Remember Serpent? He, too, was compatible with Model W, but not nearly strong enough to overcome its vast influence, which resulted in a rapid descent into madness and his untimely demise. Pandora, on the other hand, can-- or has to-- handle it while still holding onto her own soul and agency. Plus, not only does she have to deal with the massive negative influence of her Biometal-- hatred, nihilism, the urge to destroy-- but she'd undergone years of torment and experimentation prior to her fusion in order to be functionally compatible, warping her mind from what should have been a sweet-if-timid girl's disposition to that of a quiet and cold-hearted killer. This, combined with an absurdly short lifespan that required her to return to a maintenance capsule every three days (one that toyed even further with her mind by deleting and manipulating her memories) contributed to her madness and despair as both she and her brother were effectively made to be tools in their creator's hands.
Through the years, she'd gained the reputation of 'Witch' in Hunter circles: even in the far-flung future where robots and science reign supreme, she carries the air of a mysterious sorceress: soft-spoken, often cryptic when she even deigns to speak to those unfortunate enough to encounter her. She even has a tendency to use her staff-like weapon like a witch's broomstick, often sitting upon the handle as she floats in midair... when she's not using said staff to rain alarming amounts of destruction upon others. While once-upon-a-time she would never dream of causing harm to others, countless years of suffering and being forced to kill resulted in her completely detaching from her emotions, rendering her completely apathetic. Whether this was her own doing, the result of her life capsule's manipulation or a combination of both is unknown, and, frankly, doesn't matter in the end. Other's lives don't matter to her: not strangers, nor Serpent's, and certainly not Albert's after all the years of abuse.
There is, however, one exception to that particular statement: Pandora's one and only brother, Prometheus. Their relationship isn't explored too much in-game, but a drama track from ZX Gigamix reveals quite a lot about their history together. While she can clearly stand on her own as she is now, she has never been without her brother, and prior to their fusion with Model W she seemed quite reliant on her big brother. In a world where they'd only known suffering, he was a constant, her only real support or source of comfort. Even after their descent into madness, this doesn't change: they are clearly more relaxed when alone together, and Pandora's tendency to speak in short, disinterested sentences fades: while she either has trouble around others or just doesn't care much for what the have to say, she's much more comfortable speaking to Prometheus. That aside, their synchronization extends to just about everything they do, and while both are perfectly capable alone, they're much more effective- and deadlier- together. With such a deep and necessary bond, it's probably a given that one couldn't live without the other- after all they've been through, all the warps and twists in their mental state, one fact remains constant: there's no one else in the world they could possibly depend on.
Then the two of them get knocked unconscious at the bottom of the ocean, all their mental strain siphoned off by the fragments of Model W, and the whole place collapses in on them and that's the canon point we're taking them from since the series was dropped like a flaming hot potato after that
Upon meeting her, it would seem that Pandora doesn’t have much of a personality left to begin with. Quiet, doll-like, and with a pokerface that could put statues to shame, she almost seems a blank slate compared to her livelier brother Prometheus. On the rare occasion that she does deign to speak to anyone that’s not her brother, she’s either short and businesslike (when following orders from Serpent, or giving orders to underlings/the protagonist) or lets her words trail off vaguely. If she’s fond of anything anymore, it would seem to be dishing out mysterious little hints towards exposition.
“The wheel of fate... in motion... No one can stop... our destiny of destruction... Not you... Not Serpent... No one…”
Depending on which character is in play at the time, Pandora will drop some exposition in her weird, blunt way, outright telling Vent (the male protagonist of ZX) that Biometal is conscious, and can control the weak, as well as announcing her and her brother’s role as ‘the voice of Model W’. Rightly so- years of forced exposure to Model W, the crystallized soul of a psychotic man who once delighted in the suffering, rage, and humiliation of others, a man responsible for not once but twice causing the collapse of Human-Reploid society unfortunately resulted in Pandora picking up on quite a few of the same traits: most notably his calm (for the most part) manipulative nature, his thirst for revenge, and-- for better or worse-- his persistence in the ever-looming face of destruction.
Pandora’s quiet demeanor and tendency to let her brother do most of the talking belies her strength as an actress. Mega Man Model A comes across the siblings’ maintenance capsules in-game, where it’s discovered that Pandora’s life-- as well as her brother’s-- is on a very short timer: a couple of days, at the time of the discovery. In order to stay alive, Pandora was required to return to the capsule for maintenance, which meant that her creator Master Albert kept her on a pretty short leash. With no choice but to obey Albert’s orders, Pandora was forced to feign loyalty to him, despite her own resentment towards the man for everything he’d put her and her brother through for literally hundreds of years. By the time Slither Inc. came into power, she was an expert at pretending to be a subordinate: just what she needed in order to manipulate Company President and local hero Serpent into participating in the Game of Destiny. Though she did give Serpent the one-or-two-word treatment, only sparing him the most necessary details, she seemed a perfectly obedient lackey while at the same time helping her brother to pull the strings. By the time Serpent had biomatched and ‘claimed’ Model W, he was reduced to a madman that could do little more than mindlessly fight and parrot the siblings’ words… with no one in the company seeming to have noticed her involvement at all.
Let it be known that Model W is not for everyone. Ideally it should not be for anyone, because Dr. Weil was a horrible, terrible, awful person who hated pretty much everybody. Serpent, for the short time he’d been with it, had fallen completely under its control, so how was it that a little girl stayed sane enough to handle its power and retain her own sense of self? Well, count her a little lacking in the sanity department. She was created and maintained specifically to successfully biomatch (or at least power) Model W, which took years of torment, experimentation, and conditioning prior to her fusion to become functionally compatible. The result? A girl who, when not willingly detaching herself from her emotions (in the drama tracks, she’s somewhat hesitant to even bring up the ‘dream’ Prometheus might have had, the memory of their trying to escape from Albert’s clutches) is constantly having her own memories manipulated in order to keep her in her current state. She no longer feels sympathy for others, Human or Reploid-- referring to their sadness, pain and anger as merely food for Model W. She’s also aware that her own emotions feed into W’s power, however buried deep they are-- she just doesn’t care. Moments before said emotions are siphoned from her, she reveals that she and her brother can’t return to their old, unarmored bodies, cannot change their fates, and is resigned to ‘hasten the destiny of destruction’: planning to destroy Albert and everything he’d created, including themselves.
**
But why her, and not some other poor sap of a Reploid? Simply put: Prometheus and Pandora were made as a pair, specifically siblings, and specifically to be hosts for Model W. Why two? Why a family? Well, unlike the majority of creators/father figures/etc in the Mega Man series, Albert held no love for either Reploid. It’s made pretty clear in-game that he regarded them as tools or even just Model W fodder, if plans went awry. One can assume that they were made as a sibling set-up in order to squeeze some extra-tasty despair out of the deal, because you can’t know real sadness unless there’s some positivity in your life, right? The siblings served as each others’ sole source of comfort, one unable to exist without the other, and perhaps that’s why they survived so long.
In any case, contrary to her current mindset, Pandora was once as normal and well-adjusted as any other Reploid made in her time-- perhaps a little shy and clumsy, childish as most Reploids of her build, with a tendency to be dependent on Prometheus (and why wouldn’t she be? daddy didn’t love them. at all). The two were kept isolated from the rest of the world, forced to go under various tests and experiments meant to make them more compatible with Model W: essentially torture in order to maximize the pain, frustration and despair they felt to better feed the Biometal. Though Pandora was not quite as proactive as her brother (rather, reactive, which is a staying trait-- a lot of her interactions with others involve someone or something else prompting her to action), it can be assumed that she wanted freedom just as badly as he did. In the drama track we find this actually hinders them in terms of escape as one can’t bring themselves to leave the other: Prometheus’ attempt at running might have been successful if she hadn’t stumbled and forced him to go back for her. Just before that as well, when they were hiding from the Mavericks chasing after them, Pandora didn’t adequately prepare herself to run when her brother warned her to and, in waiting until after Prometheus gave the go ahead, resulted in a slight delay that may have fed into their ultimate recapture.
Then again, Albert has backup plans for pretty much everything, so even if their escape was successful, it probably would have been short lived. The impossibility of escape eventually proved too much for Pandora and-- at some point before or after being permanently fused to Model W, it’s unclear exactly when-- she resigned herself to her fate, sinking further into depression, into madness. Between that and the memory manipulation brought on by her maintenance, Pandora took an opposite coping path to her brother, and sealed most of her emotions away. That’s not to say she doesn’t feel them, but has rather become an expert at concealing them, as when Model W finally absorbed all of the siblings’ negative emotions, Pandora had just as much energy as Prometheus: one can assume that Albert made sure the two suffered in equal measure no matter how they tried to counteract it.
**
While Pandora can converse easily with her brother (using full sentences, actively paying attention to what he has to say) other characters rarely received the same treatment. The closest thing to family next to Prometheus was Albert himself, and while most inventors in the series regarded their robot creations as their children, Albert saw the siblings as merely tools. If Pandora harbored any positive feelings towards him in the beginning, they were quickly replaced with bitter resentment due to his cruel treatment of the pair (keeping them captive, tormenting them, forcing them to kill and destroy to further his plans…). It’s inferred that she hasn’t been in the same room as him physically for centuries, instead taking orders from Albert remotely via monitors because he knows that those two would try to wreck him the first chance they get. What a good father.
By the events of ZX/ZXA, centuries of abuse resulted in Pandora’s desire to kill Albert, along with destroying everything he made and stood for... including herself. That’s right, folks, the self-destructive tendencies are thanks to some serious daddy issues.
Her interactions with Serpent were likely very similar to how she handled Albert’s instructions: very few words outside of basic confirmation/acknowledgement. Serpent is seen issuing orders to her several times in-game, acting like the big shot he thinks he is, and she just… barely responds to him. At one point, he orders her to distract a Mega Man and she barely acknowledges the order outside agreement. Pandora ends up talking with the Mega Man more than with Serpent, who had promptly transported off after telling his ‘underling’ what to do. If she wasn’t outright disrespecting him before, she barely acknowledges Serpent as a pawn once his purpose is served: as a Mega Man, his fate is to fight and die until somebody wins the Game of Destiny/forces Albert out of hiding.
Speaking of Mega Men, these are about the only other people we see Pandora engaging with in-game verbally as opposed to just straight up destroying them, and even then, her capacity for conversation is severely limited in comparison to her interactions with Prometheus. Her speech is full of pauses and she tends to trail off even during exposition-- in the English version she leaves out words and sounds almost trancelike in her speech?
While she does interact with all of the protagonists, she drops a little more exposition for the male protags than the girls- it’s the opposite with Prometheus, though he tends to info dump more than her in general. She deals directly with the male protagonist of ZXA, Grey, though at first it’s only to dispose of him solo (she doesn’t). She keeps up the same slow, trancelike dialogue with him, at one point placing the blame for the planet’s suffering on Grey himself along with Albert (because, surprise! Grey’s some kind of shitty robot clone of her even shittier dad woohoo) and outright stating that he’s only alive because she and Prometheus need him to further their plans at another. She’s surprisingly straightforward when she wants to be even if those instances are few and far between and usually filled with suitably cryptic comments about the true purpose of all the characters.
When it comes time to fight with the other Mega Men, Pandora actually expresses a teensy bit of displeasure when Prometheus takes the opportunity for himself the first time around, calling it unfair. There’s also an instance near the beginning of ZXA if you are playing as the female protagonist, Ashe, where Pandora will show up as Prometheus is dealing with her and ask who the heck this woman is. Maybe she’s jealous… or just protective of her one and only big brother. Game was made in Japan y’all know how it is.
In general, Pandora doesn’t like to talk to strangers, but will if she has to.
Abilities:
- Reploid Body -
- As a Reploid, Pandora appears remarkably close to human, albeit heavily armored. As the field of robotics advanced over millennia, the lines between human and robots have started to blur. While humans recievng cybernetic implants to make their lives easier became increasingly common, Reploids- advanced robots who had the miraculous ability to think and feel just as any human could- were given termination dates that mirrored their human counterparts (in Pandora's case, hers became severely limited-- just a few days at a time, which had to be continually reset). Being a Reploid still carries its advantages: advanced durability, stamina, and physical capabilities, as well as processing power that grants her the ability to calculate and problem-solve far more efficiently than the average human. Also equipped is the usual Reploid tech: radio, radar, scanners and the like, supplying Pandora with plenty of information to work with.
- Staff Usage -
- Pandora's weapon of choice, her 'witch's staff’, is an interesting piece of tech in itself. Though she's not as skilled at close-up combat as her brother, Pandora wields her staff with considerable grace and skill. She mainly uses her weapon to dazzle and confuse enemies, along with summoning forth both ice and electricity with which to attack her foes. Despite her weapon looking somewhat unwieldy, she's deceptively quick, often seeming to disappear behind the staff in a stylish form of teleportation designed to confuse foes. If an opponent isn't paying attention, she'll make quick work of them.
Oh, and she doesn't even have to be holding onto the thing, either. With what seems to be anti-gravitational capabilities, the staff is able to float and be remotely controlled-- however, Pandora mostly uses this as a means of getting around, somewhat living up to her 'Witch' title by riding on the handle as if it were a witch's broom.- Model W -
- The main source of Pandora's power, this evil Biometal was forged from a piece of an ancient space station and contains the will of a spectacularly villainous man. It is only a tiny fragment of the whole, of course, but both Pandora and Prometheus are biomatched and permanently bound to their Biometals, resulting in their peculiar looking armor, their mass amounts of cray-cray, aaaand a few more perks, listed here:
- → Elemental Mode Change -
- Hearkening back to the Variable Weapons System of old, Pandora is able to change the elemental base of her attacks on a whim. This comes with a cosmetic change to her armor as well-- a blue tint indicates the use of ice, while yellow colouration signals electricity. She can quickly switch between elements, keeping enemies on their toes with a variety of long-ranged elemental attacks.
- → Short-and-Long Range Teleportation -
- Like her brother, Pandora's design also features an onboard Transporter with access to a vast number of coordinates. This is useful not only to get around, but in combat as well; with a (perhaps unnecessary, but undeniably stylish) flourish of her staff, Pandora can quickly teleport at a short range in order to confuse foes and gain the upper hand.
- → Anti-Gravity Engine -
- Along with her staff, Pandora herself is also capable of floating in midair. This allows her plenty of space to dodge and maneuver and lets her excel, again, at long-range combat…
- DAN-001, PROMETHEUS -
- …and leave the close-range violence to her brother dearest. While they may have started out as ordinary siblings, their connection to Model W has literally turned them into fighting machines- dangerous alone and deadly while working together. The two of them exhibit perfect coordination when fighting in tandem, and their opposite specialties ensure that only the most skilled of fighters can oppose them.
One can also theorize that the two of them are able to locate each other via specially built tracking systems, or at least a private radio channel that allows them to keep track of one another.
- Model W -
- Staff Usage -
- Reploid Body -
Samples
Dialogue: [here] AND [here]
Exposition/Introspection: [here]