((Part 2 of a collab between Letter Bee and Gentlemenvaultboy))

There were protocols, of course. The Ministry of Science wasn't about to just let its golden boy plug a strange data drive into his neck and get a crippling virus. There had been a battery of tests run on it first, and after a few hours of through scrubbing they'd finally declared the thing clean enough for v2 to view.

Now the two proceeded down a long looping hallway to an old room kept clean mostly for photo shoots. The door slid open, reveling a round, white room. Plush white carpeting covered the entire floor, saved for the tiled kitchen to one side. On another was an enclosed room contain a soft white bed. All around the room bubble windows let in the light, spilling on sports equipment, stacks of old comics,  things a boy might reasonable have in his room. In the center was a state of the art holovid, a large circle that displayed television and phone messages.

It was the only thing in the room that ever saw any use.

v2 walked purposly toward the bedroom, expecting Sharukh to follow. Past the useless bed to the closet, he pushed aside clothes he didn't wear until he found a box. Inside the hidden box was a stack of dirty magzines that he dumped unsermoniously out. There, at the bottom of it, he found what he was looking for.

v2 thrust the box of data drives into his hands. "Video. Of Shouji. You will watch all of it." It was less a command and more a statement of fact. "There is a costume. You will wear it. These people need their hero." The "not you" went unspoken. The "not me" also went unspoken. It went unspoken much louder.

A nod.

"Don't worry, I'm a good actor," spoke Shahrukh Mirza the Fifth. "The only problem will be that I am going to have to use a Keychain to alter the appearance of my Keyblade, but I can make or procure one." He smiled.

"So, you do know how to assert yourself."

"When I believe it necessary." v2 said, said, walking over to one of the large bubble windows to look down over the city for what might be the last time. "You may keep your blade as is. Most likely the ministers are already seeding the idea of it through the television show. It is what they did for my key, though in contrast I believe yours is what they would call a 'mid-season upgrade.'"

It was silent for a long time, looking out over the sprawling cityscape. "Query." it said. "Are there so few Keyblade Masters left that you have come seeking me?" 

"Yes," spoke Shahrukh. "Our order is decimated, with few survivors, stragglers, and retired members. Leo's purge of us...it was successful enough that we can only start to fight back." He then conjured up a scroll with some Arabic script, then handed it over to v2.

"When you're ready to go, just press the Arabic script, and it'll teleport you to where the others are." He then smiled, remembering how he had asked Apokaukos to write in Arabic instead of Greek for this teleportation scroll.

The robot almost touched the script immediately, but then suddenly stopped. "Second Query." is said. "Kingdom Hearts. If in the course of this I were to come in contact with it would it give me a heart?"

Sharukh shot a piercing glare at v2, saying:

"Anyone who thinks of themselves as a person can grow a Heart, including Nobodies; it just takes time. That data drive I just gave you, it was compiled by Data-Ascot, a [i]computer program[/i] who developed his own Heart while searching through the Keyblade Order's corrupted records. If digital data that doesn't even live in the corporeal world can grow a Heart, you can too." Shahrukh spoke with firm conviction.

The machines face was unreadable. "Hypotheticals." It said. "I apologize if I made you angry." With the it touched the script on the paper and was whisked away.