Cognate "Cerberus" (R-Type Distortions)

*"I don't want to do this any more."*

*This character has been moved to another continuity and is, thus, no longer canon to R-Type Distortions. This page is left as an archive. For up-to-date information about this character, see Cerberus (R-Type Yggdrasil). For other things with this name, see Cerberus (disambiguation).*

> "I'm a weapon of war, not of war *crimes.*"
>
>

## Physical description

### Eye color

Red

**Cerberus**, or simply **"Cerb"**, is a Bydo organism created via the merger of a Bydo Tree with the wreckage of an R-13A Cerberus; however, he has taken his identity from what datalogs were absorbed into the entity that became him, rather than his Bydo heritage. He is a Cognate of the R-13A encountered in Forest Watchdog. Due to the specifics of his origin, he is technically a Bydo Core.

## Appearance

Cerberus' appearance is mutable, due to his Protean nature. His most taken forms, however, are fairly concrete. For the purpose of flight (and, often but not always, interacting with other R-Craft}, he takes on a perfect mimicry of the form of the R-13A that was converted into him. When interacting with humanoids, he takes a form resembling an anthropomorphic wolf *(Canis lupus)*, which is roughly two meters tall, with mostly black fur, a red tuft of fur atop his head, and red markings on his belly, the inside of his ears and the underside of his tail; and entirely red eyes--even the pupils, while appearing black due to color constancy, are (usually) a very dark red.

While he is a Bydo Core, he has yet to be seen in the default form of one.

## Biography

### Creation

*Main article: R-13A Cerberus*

The model of craft that Cerb was created from, the R-13A Cerberus, was developed from the earlier R-13T Echidna by Warrick Incorporated; it was an ambitious craft, incorporating several innovative new technologies at the time, but has since been disparaged as a mere publicity stunt.

### Bydo Seed Incident

The R-13A that would become Cerb was launched in 2164, alongside an R-9A2 Delta, an armed TP-2C POW Armor, and one of the Cerberus' predecessors, the RX-10 Albatross.

The four craft were first sent to intercept the berserk Moritz-G, being intercepted by Bydo craft en route, including a Contrite. Nonetheless, the craft overcame the challenge and destroyed the infected superweapon. This done, they were sent to reclaim an energy plant that had been taken over by the Bydo, encountering a pair of Dust Nates and destroying them. The R-Craft were each sent to take on one of a trio of land-based carrier craft, the *Trojan* class. The pilot of the R-13A successfully destroyed the prototype of the class, the *Trojan*, keeping it out of the hands of the Bydo. An EAAF space station came under attack by the Bydo, and along with the other two R-Craft, the R-13A went to intercept the attack; the Cerberus encountered a large R-Craft-shaped vessel, QT Cat, destroying it after a pitched battle and causing it to release an R-9A Arrowhead.

The four R-Craft, however, had sustained significant exposure to the Bydo; in the case of Cerberus' pilot, causing a nightmare within which they were still piloting the R-Craft. The Cerberus encountered a damaged-but-functioning Shell, Gomander, and Green Inferno, along with several nonfunctioning Bydo craft and organisms, destroying them.

The pilot of the Cerberus received word that the Bydo were attempting to undermine the EAAF's ability to wage war by attacking its source--the facility in which the R-Craft were developed. The pilots of the R-Craft--who had each entered a similar nightmare--managed to come to, rushing to this facility and intercepting the Bydo invasion to the best of their ability. They then encountered multiple infected R-Craft, attacking and destroying them. In a last-ditch attempt to take out the fighters present, the Bydo mass in the launch tower coalesced on the side of it, forming into a version of Dobkeratops known as Subkeratom. Subkeratom was nonetheless destroyed, stopping the Bydo assault long enough that other craft would be able to arrive and fully clean it out.

The four R-Craft then each entered Dimension 26 to intercept and destroy the Bydo Seed, accompanied by a squadron of unmanned POW Armors; they succeeded, but a golden light attacked the four piloted crafts' Forces, destroying them and using their remains to revive the Bydo Seed. The four R-Craft persevered however, destroying the Bydo Seed a second time.

Each of them attempted to escape by punching their way out with their Wave Cannons; all but the Cerberus succeeded, the Cerberus Ghosting and being contained within a Bydo Tree. However, the Bydo coefficient within the R-Craft began to merge with the Bydo Tree...

...and over the years, they continued to merge, the remaining data within the Cerberus being absorbed by the Bydo flesh even as the composite mind of the Pilot and R-13A passed away. The EAAF never made an announcement of the loss.

### Last Dance and Limbo

The Bydo Tree that had been merging with the R-13A had merged sufficiently to the point where both were effectively a single Bydo organism. A new mind came to inhabit this organism, drawing the absorbed data as their first memories. While initially unaware of their Bydo nature and shedding most of their mass to "escape" the Bydo Tree they believed they were still simply contained in. The organism managed to deduce from their memories that they had become a Bydo organism. They managed to pull an Anchor Force out of the surrounding Bydo mass, whether reconstructed during the intervening time or accidentally created by the Bydo entity at that moment.

As part of Operation last Dance, an RX-12 Cross the Rubicon explored the Bydo Forest, detecting the extremely high Bydo Coefficient of the R-Craft, and attacked them; Cerberus evaded, attempting to flee. Cerberus managed to secure a red Laser Crystal from one of the unmanned POW Armors, firing deliberately-missed Shade Alpha beams to restrict the RX-12's movement. After roughly a minute of cat-and-mouse, Cerberus managed to find an inactive POW Armor, taking control of it and using its Bydo Cannon to make a way out of the Forest.

Upon exiting, Cerberus encountered an Angel Pac-controlled R-9A Arrowhead from another timeline, and from further in the future. The two conversed, Arrowhead briefly mistaking the R-13A for the one that investigated the Bydo Seed Incident in her timeline, before quickly correcting herself and giving further information on the Bydo to the nascent Bydo organism, hoping to turn him away from the influence of the primary Bydo Core, Solar Pupil.

A series of dreamlike temporal incursions began to come and go--a Limbo state wherein individuals from the past and even from places far beyond what could normally be reached, in which an EAAF station manifested. The first few of these temporal incursions only affected Cerberus, causing him to be briefly separated from Arrowhead. During the first one, Cerberus, out of curiosity, entered the station, taking on the form of an anthropomorphic wolf and briefly interacting with the inhabitants of the station.

In the station, among those Cerberus encountered was a being from a distant universe, who was nonetheless like himself in enough respects that they were able to strike up a casual conversation, bonding over their similar origins--and forming the closest thing Cerberus could yet call a friendship in his so-far short life.

Over the course of several more temporal incursions, spacetime paradoxes began to rear their ugly heads, causing superpositions to occur on a macroscopic state; during an encounter with an Angel Pac-controlled R-90 Ragnarok whom had known an instance of Arrowhead (and who gave further information on the Bydo, such as the Empire's dubious nature), the Ragnarok acted as if Cerberus was still in his canine state, when from his perspective he had reverted; the temporal incursion abruptly ended, separating the two,and in another incursion, a friendly fire incident caused Cerberus' Anchor Force to be in a superposition of ramming and not ramming his target--a belligerent R-9Leo2--with Arrowhead reappearing and ramming the R-Craft away.

Another conversation occurred between Cerberus and Arrowhead, Cerberus rejecting the idea that he was the same person as the Cerberus from her timeline, and stating that he had intended to go back in time, to find a refuge from the incursions. Arrowhead relayed words from "her" Cerberus, before reluctantly leaving; while he didn't know it at the time, it would be the last time Cerberus would see this timeline's version of Arrowhead.

One last temporal incursion began, the EAAF station orbiting into view, as Arrowhead left; Cerberus entered it one last time to say good-bye to Rutherford, whom he *did* believe he would likely never see again. As the two said goodbye, Rutherford confirmed that, as he neither came from the timeline Cerberus did nor from the Limbo that he and Cerberus were meeting in, the worst the growing instability in Cerberus' timeline would do was eject Rutherford back into his universe. Rutherford asked if, should they meet again, he could shorten Cerberus' name to "Cerb", a nickname Cerberus agreed to.

Cerb and Rutherford's good-bye was interrupted by another instance of Ragnarok, who declared Cerb an insult to the Cerberus from her timeline; Cerb protested that he was effectively a separate being entirely; Ragnarok responded by agreeing...and stating that "their" Cerberus was superior to Cerb, as he had died a hero while Cerb had accomplished nothing, and demeaningly asking Cerb to remain in his canine form so as to not remind her of her lost comrade. Cerb reverted anyway, assuring Ragnarok that they would not see each other "after this day" (a subtle hint at what Cerb was intending to do), launching off to make his way back to stabler times.

Entering another portion of Dimension 26 and fighting through a fleet of Bydo craft, Cerb managed to make his way to a less unstable 2180, emerging from a Desynch Gate amid the gas giants.

### Arrival at 2180

Cerberus' emergence from the Desynch Gate set off Bydo warnings; to intercept the mysterious Bydo organism, the instances of Arrowhead and Ragnarok from this present were dispatched, sortieing; Cerberus attempted to talk them both down, explaining his unaligned status; however, his phrasing of this, particularly his description as being unaligned with the Bydo Empire, gave them pause. When Arrowhead brought this up, Cerb, remembering the words of the future Ragnarok, realized his mistake, clarifying that he did indeed know that the Bydo Empire was a state in name only; as he did so, he fully processed Solar Pupil's manipulative nature, beginning to feel empathy for the others who suffered under him.

Solar Pupil, in an apparent attempt to turn Cerberus and the two R-Craft against each other, had two B-1B Mad Forests under his control approach Cerb from the sides whilst desynched, a transmission sent to him telling him to move out of their way; them, along with a fleet of Bydo craft, resynched, Cerb wasting no time in attacking one of the Mad Forests and telling Solar Pupil where he could shove it, him responding simply by nonverbally gloating. Their apparent frame-up complete, the Bydo fleet desynched and retreated, leaving Cerb alone with the two R-Craft, Arrowhead proceeding to attack him and Ragnarok getting into firing position.

Evading their attacks, Cerb explained that he had inferred that the two desynched craft were R-Craft, come to escort him to Earth-helf territory, and that Solar Pupil had set them up, attempting to use the two R-Craft's feelings of betrayal to ensure that at least one threat to him would be eliminated. The two R-Craft remained suspicious, Arrowhead instructing Cerb to jettison his Wave Cannon Conductor and detach his Anchor Force; to Arrowhead's surprise, and despite the former being practically pointless as Cerb's nature meant he could simply regrow it, he complied.

Arrowhead instructed Cerb to remain still, as she used her own Force Conductor to disconnect Cerb's Anchor Force by making an attempt to connect to it herself, before pulling out a set of spare Standard Force control rods and impaling Cerb with them, reasoning that even if their sedative properties would not work, she would be able to determine that Cerb was indeed under Solar Pupil if he attempted to remove the Control Rods from himself. Arrowhead instructed Cerb to follow her and Ragnarok's movements as closely as possible and to not attempt to remove the Control Rods from himself, as Ragnarok looked on at the odd sight of Cerb "rodded" in bemusement. Cerb, content to finally have a moment of calm, not only made no resistance to the Control Rods' attempts to connect with him but actively aided in them, focusing on following the two R-Crafts' movements to the meter.

Arrowhead and Ragnarok escorted Cerb to Bestra Research Facility, a former Bydo research facility that had been utilized by the Granzella Revolutionary Army (which was in an alliance with the Earth Allied Armed Forces by that time) as a fortification. The crew of the facility looked on at the odd sight with roughly the same reaction as Ragnarok and with even less context, Cerb being led to the facility's Bydo Holding Pens, within audiovisual range of Ingel's B-1D Bydo System Alphas, or "Darling Fingertips".

While the Control Rods were removed from Cerb, he remained largely motionless, simply waiting, as Arrowhead and Ingel argued outside due to Ingel wanting to observe the new specimen. However, as a group of other Bydo System Alphas, led by an infected R-Craft pilot, caused unease in the "Darling Fingertips". Cerb sent a transmission attempting to warn the personnel stationed in Bestra about this, but received no immediate answer. The ongoing battle and what appeared from Cerb's perspective to be (and might well have been) an attempt by Solar Pupil to influence them into acting against the station caused unease in Cerb, causing him to briefly consider terminating the Bydo System Alphas to protect the station out of a need to do *something* to aid.

Arrowhead managed to catch wind of this, however, arriving at the Bydo Holding Pens to defuse the situation, managing to calm it. After being instructed on how to transmit over Bydo frequencies, Cerberus thanked her (which one of the Bydo System Alphas simply parroted), and asked her if there was time to briefly speak with her. When Arrowhead asked what he wanted to say, he stated that he had been wanting to explain where (and when) he came from--but more immediately important and quicker to explain (and demonstrate), that he had already learnt to shift shapes, and had simply not been using the ability as he was waiting to explain that he possessed it. He demonstrated this by taking on his canine form--to Arrowhead's minor annoyance. Ragnarok, entering the room after mobilizing Bestra to repel the attack outside, joined with Arrowhead in banging their canopies against the wall.

However, they were interrupted in this fun activity by a transmission from the EAAF: With the current state of affairs, it was determined to be best to launch the colony ship *Evergreen* from Earth's orbit as soon as possible; Bestra's forces were to mobilize to escort it. *All* of Bestra's forces.

### Evergreen Embarks

As various GRZA personnel in Bestra, including Arrowhead, prepared to embark, Cerb, Arrowhead, and Ragnarok all going off to prepare for launch, Cerb encountered The UX-7 Pilot, whose craft was very obviously an R-7 derivative--to his surprise, having been told that the R-7 had been vaporized during a test flight whilst attempting to fire its Wave Cannon with a Force connected. The two entities who accompanied the pilot, EV and AD, were able to detect the specific nature of Cerb's Bydo signature--that of a Bydo Core. The two advised Unknown to exercise caution around Cerb, who nonetheless casually introduced himself and informed Unknown of the evacuation order, taking a moment to switch to his canine form (confirming at minimum his Bydo nature) and look around the "Bad Luck" craft, before reverting back to his R-13A form and resuming preparations for launch, elaborating on the evacuation order to Unknown as he left.

### Future

During a dramatic recreation of the events of the war, Cerberus misremembered the events of his initial arrival at 2180, causing him to make mistakes during it--in particular, he missed Homing Missile attacks by Arrowhead on two occasions (and in a frantic attempt to dodge a web of fire from Arrowhead and Ragnarok, switched to his canine form before he originally did), resulting in the missiles impacting him, to his embarrassment.