#ace zero escape

This character is Ace. Or Gentarou Hongou. Yep. This dude. I am regretting everything.

It would mostly be funny because I love doing pure crack AUs and add humor where there should not be and while I do enjoy a lot torturing my favs with angst (and there will be for this man, I want to shake him in a tupperware like chicken with spices for his crimes. I have ideas and you cannot become my fav without going thru hell in my stories first for my own enjoyment and analysis/interpretation of core themes making up the writing of the character or could be expanded upon by taking things from canon — or not !), I also love using jokes and crazy events to put characters in situation. Especially when those characters are supposed to be villains and completely serious with what they do. Tho, it will not be purely humor because I cant keep myself from adding existential stuff and feeling emotional suddenly. The premise tend to be serious but how the character act in it is completely different, especially in their POV that can be biased.

So, to explain my AU simply, let’s call it «Morphogenetic Error Hongou AU» (damn im bad at naming things), we follow thru the narrative Hongou. But not the Hongou we are used to in the story, that we all know and can deal with, sending him to prison for his crimes. Because this version of Hongou never did anything. Ever. The Hongou we have here is mostly the same, but circonstances of his world made that he never participated in any death game or even heard of one, and of couse never organizing one involving the kidnapping of innocent children and certain death to test things with the morphogenetic field because he wanted to see faces above all else, following his disability. This Hongou is… a good man. Yes, you heard me well, you are not dreaming. That is an already crazy thing to say. I think all the crack of the AU can be held into this single line. One could say he is quite simple really, almost painfully ordinary compared to his other version in the most disarming of ways when you know what he is capable of. Or at least what other versions of him could do. He got therapy, live with his disability in healthy ways and while he still has issues with human connection, he tries his best, (without it leading to obsession and murder like in the original universe), he works a normal job that can be annoying at times, stressful at others — as all jobs are lol—, keep a routine that feels okay, pays his bills on time, makes sure his fridge is stocked, never built an empire on unethical science and pharmacy and instead works in a tiny company that barely anyone has heard of, doing perfectly legal research that mostly involves paperwork, requests, and the occasional lab day where he reads medical journals out of curiosity when he has time to, as well as boring quality control in a place where nothing ever happens. He is against all odds doing fine, complaining when deadlines arrives and making the worst jokes ever to anyone that would unfortunatly listen to him. Because damn this is the one thing that won’t change, his jokes are terrible but at least his are genuine and not made to gain the trust of others. He has a small house where he keeps shelves full of books (fiction and science, as well as pseudo-science he reads like it is fantasy and laugh at it, thinking about how he could have liked those stories when he was younger… hehehhe the Irony!), stuff he keeps despite their use showing the place is lived in and alive without even thinking deeply about it, and neatly tucked away where no one would think to look, old game cartridges, as well as a secondhand console. Because yes, this Gentarou Hongou has a guilty pleasure, and it is video games. Puzzle games, mostly (Ironic isn’t it? HAHAHA). This Hongou will never tell anyone about this little secret as he finds it embarrassing. Everyone is aware of course and clearly it is nothing compared to what other version of him did. Not that he knows about the multiverse of course.

This Hongou is a man who adopted two children, two kids who had nowhere else to go. Brother, sister — we all know who it is don’t we ? (Again, extremly ironic and extreme crack again. I am playing house with a version of a criminal that did nothing wrong for once) How this could have ended in another universe… — who were orphans. This was supposed to be a temporary measure, a volontary choice to help following the suggestion of a friend until those children could find something more "stable," something more "appropriate," something that didn’t involve a single man like him with a quiet life and no particular qualifications. Yet this didn’t happen. This didn’t happen and, over time, this was no longer temporary. Somewhere between breakfasts that started awkward and turned into a feeling of belonging, between homework that dissolved into mild despair because the three of them where not at all understanding despite their best efforts, between learning which nightmares required the light left on and which only needed a glass of water and company, somewhere in gaining their trust and learning them that things will be okay now, somewhere in growing older and seeing them grow up into great people, somewhere in seeing them hanging out with their friends and doing terrible dad jokes afterwards, somewhere in buying things without thinking, to spoil them even though this version has not as much money as the other, somewhere in noticing tiny details other than their faces because he couldn’t see them and had to rely on voices, tones, favorite clothes, body language, the way they held unto his sleeves when they were younger and pretended not to when he spoke about it when they were older, laughing while reminescing about it. Somewhere in all of that, "temporary" stopped existing… and the horrors and hurt that would fall unto those two kids never took place, never even crossed the mind of their adoptive parent in this universe, never was real. And that was enough, this Hongou never felt like he was missing something.

This is not a man that would become a Villain anytime soon. So what happens in this AU ? Well, this is where the bullshit starts and the very-not-murderer Hongou is thrown into a game of life and death against his will.

In another universe, the version we all know of Hongou never saw such kind events, this version did do wrong and hurt many many people. His obsession was left to fester, as much as his greed and lust for more, madness, rejecting any form of morality if it meant reaching new heights for himself and curing what he believed was a fatal flaw, desperately not seeing it as a part of himself or that connections could still be made. Being extremly egocentrical and only focusing on a personal suffering rather than the one he did to people, or things he could have done to help others with the power he had in his hands. This other Hongou wanted to use the field to see faces, to reach out. In the end, it is painfully human, this desire for connection — yet it doesn’t excuse anything. And if the morphogenetic field he is experiencing on can transmit information across time, across consciousness… why not across selves ? Why not reach another version of him that got it right ? That could see ? So, he tries everything, wanting to create a bridge and forcing resonance to find that one version of himself that was not blind to the faces of those around him. Desiring to create a perfect condition where two identical minds (or at least he believes), diverged by circumstance, could overlap. Or maybe steal this mind, or even overwrite it, or justify everything, all that he has done to arrive to this point.

He doesn’t even get that far. Because the field is not a tool. It never was. Not for people like him, and never has been. The karma, you might say. By wanting to unleash this power, he accidentally misplace himself, stuck in the multiverse somewhere empty, and bring an unexpected visitor in his world.

Instead of opening a clean, controlled link between two versions of Gentarou Hongou, it "erases" one (not actually but you get it, he is in a position where he is powerless due to his own actions). Shatter him across the timelines where he can do nothing, stuck. And pulls the other in. But by accidentally unleashing such a power without even knowing what he was doing or even how he managed to do it, the one pulled in is picked randomly and it falls unto our nice Hongou. The "wrong" Hongou. The good Hongou. Who clearly did not want to deal with that, thank you. He has other stuff to attend to that does not include murder or torture!

At first it is dreams, visions. Short time flashes giving him headaches that are gone before he knows it. Then those flashes get clearer but he brush it off as stress or imagination. He hates most of those flashes for obvious reasons and just start to believe it’s his fears playing tricks on him by giving him those weird stuff in his mind. He just need more sleep, not stay up late. Maybe he is having a burnout and need to take things slower before at affects him badly. It’s what he tells himself because, hell, what would be the alternative in a world where Hongou never turned into a monster or believed any crazy theories of pseudo-science ?

Except, one day, something happens. It’s during the night, he is finishing tidying up his house for the day. His children — though they are not children anymore — are already asleep in their room, staying for a few days in between their studies and occasional student jobs. Everything is calm, as it usually is during those moments. He just has to finish his mundane tasks and then, himself can finally go to bed. But, it would have been too easy of course. Instead, he hears a very distinct click echoing in the living room where he keeps his old stuff. He goes there, to check what could have made such a sound when he clearly remembers turning everything off. Strangely, the TV is on and one of his old consoles he really remembers to have unplugged earlier is casting a lazy glow while making something appear on the screen. There is something clearly wrong with this. There is no menu. No logo. No cheerful retro startup jingle. All that there is, is a black screen, with a single number : 9

He does not remember downloading anything. After all, this one console is too old to be connected to any form of Internet compared to the newer models. He also does not remember buying anything. As things are getting weirder and weirder and a sort of buzz is getting louder, the number changes. The 9 become an 8. The 8, a 7. Slowly, it is lower and lower. In a way that is almost supernatural, a kind of white smoke seems to be produced by the old machine. Immediately, Hongou grabs the device to turn it off because he is not going to try his luck with things that seems possesed. He is not that stupid. But nothing happens and before knows it, he feels a sharp pull rattling his whole body. Like something or someone grabbed inside of him and decided to drag him somewhere else. He collapse unceremoniously due to the force of whatever is happening. It is his mind that his yanked, passing past bones and nerve as a consequence of what this other him — but not him! — did foolishly with the morphogenetic field.

The "game" on the old console only act as some type of "portal" that his brain could register, understand in his universe to manage to catch him, or else his mind would have completely shattered too. To grab him with whatever random dumb fate he unfortunatly inherit due to this other him across whatever timeline there exist and the universe (and author) having some kind of sense of humor (at least I hope). Also, because I love doing meta-narration. And referencing the original game interface in some way because if I ever write a fic for this AU, readers are supposed to be players and get the reference ? This is absolute cinema for me and only me (and probably only understood by me because I feel like I am getting way too off-track with this symbolism and leaving the borders of what the story of the AU was supposed to be about. Anyways—) and I justify it by saying that this is the field attempting to make sense to this Hongou, making him understand simply something far bigger by wearing the guise of a dusty piece of plastic. The "game" act less like a doorway to another world but more like a tear forced open by his other version. It takes this form because it had to, because taking a consciousness across universes without giving it something familiar to latch onto would shatter human minds instantly. So it had to "improvises" (not that it is something that can think but you understand what I mean). It takes something from his life and builds out of it, packaging this whole nonsense into familiarity. Something his brain can accept in some way. And unfortunatly, the field once set free could only latch unto him as it chose randomly and his other self had no control of what he was doing.

Back to the story for this AU ; One moment he is losing consciousness on the floor, the next he wakes up somewhere unfamiliar that seems like a… boat ? With a bracelet numbered "1" around his wrist ? Welp, this is not ideal at all. The thing is, quickly the visions he had formerly starts to make sense as he recognize the place and the situation. Furthermore, this other version of himself that he unfortunatly comes to inhabitate due to the morphogenetic error comes with it’s own set of memories. Not everything but enough to know the context, understand what the hell happened (which tells him that this is not himself while the body is almost the same and that this is not his world!) and do a quick cross-referencing of the information obtained from his visions. What do he get from all of that ? That this other Hongou really fucked up and clearly, he is now expected to clean up this mess that was never his to begin with, if he wants to survive and find a way to go home. Fantastic. Yep nope he is so doomed. He cannot panic — he is clearly, internally, and lying to himself — because if he does, things will go wrong faster and he might never get a chance to find his home world again. And of course, he knows that right now, he will be a problem to a lot of people due to the past and current actions of his other self and the fact that they absolutely do not know that he is not that Hongou and he cannot tell them because of the uncertainty surrounding those events and how he might find a way back home, find a way to survive all of this. Because he knows what this version of himself has done. Not in full, not in every grotesque detail, but enough too make his stomach twist. Enough to see what circumstances brought another version of him to become a monster and do horrifying acts. And this creates a lot of dangerous possibilities as well as fears and uncertainties considering his own position, his own future in this story, especially when he is in a body that is like his but not his, carrying an history that is not his own and he don’t want and that will only create him more problems.

But among all of these incertainties, he know one thing for sure : he is not that man. Never will be. He might be a version, but he is his own self, shaped by his choices. This other him made his choices, he will make his own. He will find a way to go home, do his own decisions and this with everyone alive. No pressure…

He has nine hours. Nine hours to find a way out. Nine hours to survive. Nine hours to get out of this world and go back to his own. Nine hours before his kids wake up and find his body downstairs, unresponsive, unreacting. Empty. Something he don’t want them to see at all.

Of course, this choice creates chaos and will lead to lots of changes. He is not acting like he is supposed to, and other participants of the game that knew this world's Hongou prior to that might become progressively extremly confused because their whole plan is put into jeopardy. With a touch of chaos. And they don’t know at all how to explain what the heck is happening. And the good Hongou himself will surely be incresingly flabbergasted because what the fuck has this version of him done hello. He would be so done lmao. Like, "Excuse me, I did….what ?????!?!"

Also I have many dumb scenes and things that change with this AU. Like (spoiler) this Hongou coming back with Nagisa, who is still drugged. That the other version of him was supposed to kill, without even knowing it was him because of his disability and Nagisa being made to wear Snake's clothes, making him unrecognizable to Hongou in the plan to make Hongou kill all of his old coworkers and confess to everything he did. But the Hongou who has a decent functionning moral compass does not and bring back Nagisa, not knowing who he is (because well, Prosopagnosia) like : "Hey Clover! I think I found your brother! Don’t know what happened to him tho" and Clover is like "dude that is not my brother who is this???" And then chaos like, "What do you mean this is not your brother, he is literally in Snake's clothes!" ; "He don’t have the same face??? Can’t you see that ? Who did you manage to bring what the heck-" ; "Well, I can’t know they don’t have the same faces because I CAN’T SEE FACES!!" And everyone including Clover look at him, look at the guy wearing snake's clothes who don’t look like snake at all and is currently being carried, because what the fuck is happening. Collective existential crisis. Especially for a few people who see their plan vanishing before their very eyes. Like, why is he so honest like this there is something not adding up there. When Nagisa is back to being normal and the soporil has finally dissapeared from his system, he immediately look at Hongou, like "uh… boss ?" And Hongou is like "who are you I don’t know you-" (how dare you say that to him 😔✋…)

Nagisa stares. yep. Something is clearly clearly wrong. And Akane and Santa are questionning everything in a corner. Damn. This AU is, in a nutshell, "What if the worst man in the room was replaced by the only version of himself who was chill in a narrative that was not made for it"

Another dumb scene would of course include terrible dad jokes. And since I imagine that in the universe of the nice Hongou, Aoi/Santa got a design closer to that of the one he got in the past since he never had to appear "stronger"/"thougher" due to no trauma, his immediate reaction to seeing Aoi/Santa in the death game would be like "my kid in this universe is having an emo phase. This is fine." He would just accept it and not question it like "👍" (This is terrible humor i am so sorry hdkzkkdkz). Tho, when Santa says a curse word, he immediately says "Language!" Before he can stop himself and earn a few weird glances, even more from Santa. This is habit kicking in unfortunatly for him. Where the "mentor" way of acting was a performance of manipulation for the original Ace, this one is genuine and it is dissarming.

Also, I think this Hongou in this AU would have just usually weird facial expression because he never had to mask his disability, never became obsessed to curing it, got proper support, a good environnement and so, since he don’t see his own face, don’t completely know how his own expressions work due to never needing to weaponize them to convince people to trust him, he tend to just let them happen and you never know what you might get from him, from one second to another XD!

my friend (who made me try the game) : "Please no."

me, again : "I really like him tho."

my friend : "But… he is a villain!"

me, with already many AUs prepared because when i get attached to a character, it just happens : "What if he was nice tho…"

my friend : "NO-"

me : "What if a version of him got therapy. What if he was a good guy!"

my friend, staring into the void : "You cannot fix him."

me : "Counterpoint : I have Google Docs and my notes ready!"

my friend : "He literally committed crimes. He needs jail time. That's not how that works!"

me : "okay but imagine: found family."

my friend : "For the love of all that is holy, please I’m begging you to like a normal character for once"

me : "I am normal. I see a morally questionable murdery man and think this man needs personal growth and a multiverse. I am utterly fascinated."

my friend : "He killed people. Tortured people. Did unethical science."

me : "but hear me out tho. If evil why pathetic shaped. :)!"

my friend : "I am giving up. There is no saving you."

me : "Maybe. But that means in one of my AUs I can—"

"Woah, there was a number on my door when I woke up!" - Guy who put the numbers on every door