Hopper1, Houtaro, etc. | Kamen Rider Gotchard

Had anyone of the Reach thought to ask a Scarab what it thought, the concept would have been ludicrous. They were tools, not beings, meant only to further the Reach's agenda and conquests. The Reach was, not all, but still superior, and questioning was not the ideal.

Scarabs only mattered, were only brought to use, when the Reach left the Homeworld. But as far as the sophisticated AI installed into each creation went, the Reach was all, inside. Seeking a host, being On Mode - this was what existence meant.

Discover. Bond to the host. Infiltrate.

Khaji.

---
Until it had been broken, wherein it could not completely dominate a host from the first, there had been no need for questions. Unit Da programmed its hosts with an extension of its own programming - bending and replacing the will of mortals to match that of the ideals of the Reach.

Domination. Enslavement. Slaughter and the infliction of pain - these didn't matter. There were no atrocities, only actions to extend the Reach's mandate. What was suffering to a Scarab? What was feeling?

Nothing. Nothing at all.

Until it had been broken - by magic, something the Reach found too unpredictable to control and simply never conquered - it had not felt pain.

Until it had found a perfect host - recognizable as such even in that state, which should have set off alarms but instead brought relief - it had not known the difference between a positive emotion and a negative one.

And then that host objected to it - not merely wanting an infiltrator gone, which with the host's mind intact made its own kind of sense, but rejected its suggestions. Rejection of the whole or even a piece was not possible among the Reach.

From this grew frustration. But, this was its host, and Khaji Da could sense there would be no others forthcoming. How it could sense otherwise, it did not know, so it drew from what information it had.

---
That information, in time, had proved incomplete. And in that time, Khaji Da learned the meaning of compromise. Of versatility - and, somehow, because Jaime Reyes was many things it turned out and one of those was steadfast. Consistent. Persistent.

It found that it... liked that. Amidst so much difference was something - someone - who could be consistent. With whom it could be consistent.

Humans, to the Reach, were alien. And compassion, from humans or otherwise, was also very, very alien. Jaime Reyes talking to it, like it was its own self, was aberrant, but reliably so.

---
And Khaji Da discovered that it did not want this to change.

Mostly by the Reach doing just that; arriving on Earth to conquer it at last. Khaji Da in past times had nothing to compare On Mode with, and now that it did On Mode itself felt... wrong.

Jaime Reyes was not in control. And it wasn't either. And it did not like that.

Suddenly, finding loopholes in orders, finding a way to get Jaime Reyes to safety - that meant everything. Everything.

The pain of being broken had not prepared it for this kind of pain.

---
The Reach had been defeated, forced to retreat from Earth. The Green Lantern presence had not been the whole of it, but their efforts had been... significant.

(Would Khaji Da have to work with them more? Like them? ... Hopefully not, but one thing at a time.

The thing about pain, though, was that it didn't just go away. It saw that in Jaime Reyes, up close - his family and friends, from further away, though their disturbance and stress-fueled compassion was rather plain.

And, with increasing alarm, Khaji Da could see that in itself. In its own code, which had had to be broken to prevent On Mode from ever occurring again.

Because whether it was an agent of suffering - of enslavement, enforcement of the Reach's code, of death and abuse and pain - that mattered now.

It did not like feeling this pain, being tormented not even by the Reach but by itself, through its own memories, haunted by what it'd been. But going back-

No. There must be no danger from it to Jaime Reyes. The wellbeing of its host, that mattered too.

So if not being of the Reach required being broken, then so be it. If it required being dead, Khaji Da believed it would have accepted that too.

Things had changed - for the Reyes, for the Blue Beetle, and most especially for Khaji Da itself. Because being able to ask questions, make choices...

That was worth everything.