Vilgax memory

"This is the truth, Vilgax! Look!" And he thrust the cracked screen into Vilgax's face.

It was nothing. Just schematics of the Enki mech, detailed readouts, specifications. Loads of useless data. Trillions of different parameters rapidly scrolled before him, each one describing the disrepair of the mangled machine. Numbers. An uncountable amount of digits. Vilgax did not consciously regard those numbers, but he perceived them, and somewhere in his mental storage bank, he filed it away. What was he intending to do? Confuse him? The cognitive capacity of a Vilgaxian was far beyond his feeble...

Far beyond... his...

What... what word was he...

Viral watched in disbelief. Vilgax watched himself in disbelief, as if trapped in his own body. Somehow he was standing there confused like an old man. Processing everything he had seen made him feel foggy. Aged. But why had... what had he done to him? Gura slipped from his hands, coughing and clutching the welts on her throat.

"I can't believe it. You're sick too. Just like the rest of us."

Vilgax should have crushed his head like a grapefruit, but something extremely alarming was happening in his mind. "You wretch... what are you... driving at?"

"Lord Vilgax. How old do you think you are?"

"I have no need to recollect it. The only date that matters is a man's death." He forgot useless information all the time. The names of peons, the planets he'd conquered. His rule was total and would last forever, that's all he needed.

"That sounds like an excuse to me, bingus," Gura said, still rubbing her neck. "When did you become the king?"

"Why should I care the day or the hour? You've wasted my time with these irrelevant questions, I've had enough of you!"

"Of course you'd get angry. I'd bet your mind is thinking up all kinds of excuses right now, just to protect you!" When did you build Battleworld?" Viral asked.

"Recently enough! It doesn't matter!"

Viral's expression grew very grave.

"My Lord. It's been a thousand years."

No.

"A thousand—no. I remember now, I remember. When I defeated that boy in Central Park, once I finally conquered the universe, I began—"

"When Battleworld began you had not nearly conquered the universe. You've probably had this idea several times, after you'd forgotten it," Viral said. "You're losing basic memories, time is slipping away from you. I know what's happening. It's the same thing that happened to myself and Gura, century after century passing by. I just showed you a long string of junk data to overwhelm you. Why do you think that would have any effect on your brain? Do you even understand the level of trouble you're in?"

But. The implications of forgetting. "Impossible." His breath was growing ragged now, though the fight was long over. "I... I am Vilgax. My body invincible, my lifespan inviolate..."

"It was never your body, Lord." Viral put two fingers against his own skull. "It was your mind. We can only hold a certain amount of memories. That's it. And when we learn more... something has to get written over." He pulled the trigger, tilted his head back. "It shouldn't have been a problem for fighters like us. We'd die before we ever hit the limit. But we kept on winning. And living. And learning..." Viral started to laugh. "I just can't believe... All that talk about how useless we were, and you were as useless as the rest of us! A thousand years for your return and you come back senile!"

- Round 3