Between Friends
By Simon Woodington
Previously: The events preceding Earth's present peace; the destruction of Gate, the Zero Nightmare, and the recovery of the enigmatic hero, Zero, have left the Earth in a precarious state. With economic disaster, social disarray and a ruined planet, the remains of both 'races' are left with a difficult choice. While society is left facing disaster, our hero's X and Zero are presented with their own challenges...
"Pilot" Episode: Interlude
There it was, hovering three feet from the broken tile, a yellow and silver sphere 'eye' of unknown alliance. It paced his every step, maintaining no more of less than an eight foot distance. His lip cursed curled unpleasantly.
Saber and Buster, both useless! The drone bore no identification nor had it the pride of self will.
"Zero! Zero!" called a concerned voice half a dozen feet and one level away. Zero peered up through the gaping hole in the ceiling, cursing the sluggishness of the Terra Armor.
He'd have to lose the Ninja, of course, he griped. Corrupted and defunct. The Terra Armor is impressive, but not mobile enough!
X clambered through the hole, hands and feet holding their surface with no visible means of support, until he dropped to the tiled floor with the unmentionable grace of a refrigerator. With four inch ultra-dense armor plate, the Terra resembled a stylized 'Theron' builder drone, with its bulky limb brace-beams and indiscreet lines.
"X," Zero almost swore as he watched his friend steady himself. "This is a sheer erratum. Can you even use the saber in that?"
X nodded, detecting Zero's attempt to shoulder the burden of the coming battle. He would not allow it.
"Alia improved the armor. It is twenty-three-point-eight percent lighter than Dr. Light's initial version," X said with the hopes of mollifying him. "She also doubled the Buster's attack range."
"That will do. Come! The trace has not faded yet!" Zero snapped impatiently, turning to run. X's hand gripped his shoulder heavily.
"Go ahead of me. I will only delay you. Too many lives are at risk!"
"Yes, but I will not go alone, X. We are a team, and no one can stand against us when we unite in battle! Even Gate," he declared as though X had forgotten. "Move as quickly as you can… I will scout ahead."
X bowed his head, agreeing sharply before they set out after the 'unidentified energy signature' detected twelve minutes ago by Alia. Zero seemed to be attuned to the source, and though Alia had her suspicions, she had not challenged Signas' order to locate and – if necessary – eliminate this new threat.
The waiting room connected to a hallway which turned right, becoming a seemingly endless corridor of debris and death. Humans – doctors, nurses, and patients lay with wounds of the most brutal nature: Some still twitched and moaned in their last throes. Occasionally a Reploid or Maverick Hunter would appear, usually function less. Three of the thirteen were given the Hunter HQ transfer key and allowed to transport there. One spoke:
"You! You look like the one who attacked us!" sputtered the Reploid Systems Analyst, gazing with one undamaged eye at Zero. "I know you – champion of our race, Zero, so I know that it was not you, truly. He was infected, you see, with some manner of virus. The ruin you see he executed with the slightest of effort, using a weapon of great power! A saber, like yours!"
"A saber," Zero mused, recounting X's defeat of his nightmare self. "Is there more? What did he do? Did he speak?"
"He said that he will cleanse the Earth of humans. Zero, you must stop him! Only you and X can do it! He waits in the … common room."
"Thank you Chiffon, but do not stress your systems any further!" X blurted hurriedly. "Please go to the base. Lifesaver will repair you there!"
"Yes… he let me live to tell you that. I will go, and I thank you," he conceded slowly, before his battered and dust smeared body – what remained of it – became a thin strand of beige and blue light, striking upward though the ceiling. The chunk of wall tilted forward with a thud! and a short burst of chalky gray dust.
"And I thought I was arrogant," Zero shook his head as he turned to X. "The common room is that the end of this hallway."
"A trap-!" X gasped.
"Of course, X, have we not been invited into them many times before? Come, we will meet this Nightmare on his terms."
"I see no other way," X relented, though Zero was not in command. "You are right. Let us go."
They continued on, eyes locking on the twin doors untouched by the siege laid upon this undeserving hospital. As they neared, their steps began to quicken, when X stopped and said:
"Wait … do you feel that?"
"That soon we will be scrap? It is oppressive, yes, but we have deleted more powerful opponents. Mightier than … no …" Zero's voice halted on a note of awe and dread which his face mimicked exactly.
"What is it… Zero!" X cried, leaping at him and shoving his impassive friend out of the silver crescent's path as it reduced the door to glass-like shards of brittle plastic. The mono-edged blade of energy caught X, slicing through his left shoulder and calf, loosing them both cleanly from his body.
X tumbled forward in an inert heap, dull blue eyes gaping in horror. Zero rolled with X's sudden motion, and came up on his feet, glowing green saber in hand, unfocused hatred in his eyes. The damaged form of X tempered Zero's boiling emotions as he took stock of the damage.
You will live my friend, these are not meant to destroy you, if he could do such a thing, Zero concluded from the quick sealing work done by X's highly advanced auto-repair systems. But I swear on my honor he will not have that chance!
"Come Zero!" commanded a familiar voice. His own. Suspended in an eerie respite, Zero paced deliberately forward, listening to the ominous hum of his saber, a reflection of his desire for combat.
"I know what you are!" Zero called, scanning the quarter-circle shaped room his energy signature. Negative.
"I am you," replied the sinister sounding version of Zero's cool tenor with the same rhythmic flow.
"Not a 'what', fool," Zero rebutted with a grin. "We are beings of intelligent thought and self will. You are not, I tell you, and do not regret to say so."
"I am the hatred you have for every thing that exists on this planet. There is nothing you do not loathe, no enemy you will not fight. Your past is lost in your future, Zero, and you will be consumed by it."
"What you are is a Reploid of no logic!" Zero chuckled, swiping his blade dramatically.
"You have naught but the desire for battle!" Insisted the as-yet invisible owner of the voice.
"I have friendship."
"A friendship amidst war? I have all but dissolved it, my disillusioned core-reflection. Your 'friend' cannot help you now – he cannot even help himself."
"So you accede the point. We are friends," Zero grinned. Just keep talking you blithering moron.
"I accede that all exists, but as it does, so does the void, into which I shall send you!" flared the voice. "You will soon see that I am right, champion, for I know that your feelings of inferiority run deep in your code. Deny them and deny yourself."
"What else have I done but that? I choose to fight for others, not my express pleasure," Zero replied, sanguine. "You were perhaps once a mere part of me, one I have long discarded. These words you speak mean nothing to you, Nightmare! Come and know me in battle, because as a part of me I know you will only be justified in that!"
"Justified to exist," muttered the voice, its tones reverberating mildly against the bare brick walls. "This is true…"
Responding to an illogical ulterior-process, Zero swept his blade in an upward parry, knocking aside the larger violet saber with little effort. Another followed, a vortex of supersonic wind, which Zero leapt over, swinging his blade through the source of the attack. He glanced up, bemused at failure to make contact, and then darted into the air, firing his air dash thrusters to meet Nightmare in mid-jump. Their sabers hissed and snarled like the gritted expressions of expended effort plain on their faces.
"You survived to fight me," Zero observed as they began to fall.
"X was not you, I cannot prove my existence to him. Only you will know me," replied Nightmare, who grunted and pushed away just as Zero shifted his weight, opting to do the same. "Only you will free me with your DNA!"
"Never!" Zero snarled, summoning in that instant the Dark Armor, which replaced his red plate with black, and yellow with gray. "Face the power of your better! I will not be subdued by my past!"
A crimson energy, swirling and billowing around his slender figure with curling edges, which swam downward towards his saber. Nightmare paused, the metallic magenta tones of his armor reflecting the cursing light of his enemies' hellish blaze.
"Ultimate light!"
What burst forth in a swelling of rumbling force receded and superseded human perception of light and sound, shaking the Earth to its core. Alia, leaning over her terminal, gave a gasp at the detection of such wild and fierce energy, and sent a recovery team to the site, fearing for the future of their races.
-
Lifesaver poured, with three bodies controlled by one very powerful CPU, over the data collected from Nightmare, Zero's "evil" counterpart.
"There is no data to account for those power levels, Zero," he started. Nor is it possible he was defeated by you alone, but it would not be the first time he has evaded – even defied – deletion. "Where is the body of Nightmare?
"Vaporized. Is his N-Buster and Saber not enough?" Zero protested, sitting and growling like an irritable terrier.
"The saber is unique," he affirmed, taking the inactive weapon by the hilt and passing it to LifeSaver-2 who returned it to Zero. "And unmatched. There are functions stored in its DNA I cannot fathom... even the reason it has DNA. The N-Buster is identical to yours, though there is an expansion module where you have none."
"I don't need my Buster, Saver..." Zero negated disinterestedly.
"You don't use it because of its unexplained reduction in range and output two months ago," LifeSaver elaborated, near profuse. "When the Nightmare began."
"I see," he replied dryly.
"Safety is my primary worry. There are many tests to run, so until then you will wait."
"I don't need it... I won't miss it now, Saver. Run your tests, and when you are done give me the chip," he demurred, laying out the law rather plainly. LifeSaver-3 stepped over from a DNA decoding terminal to Zero's left and gently left a small IC in his palm. "Thank you. How is X?"
LifeSaver grimaced over his shoulder.
"Weak, but stable. He was not infected, but I cannot ascertain the nature of his immunity to Nightmare's virus. Zero shook his head.
"Why? Why are we immune?"
LifeSaver gazed at Zero for a moment, then said:
"A virus of the same strain, Zero, if that is what we should call it. You have a will so strong that like Sigma, it can not be overwritten or deleted. Sigma's code was not sate in its shell – instead his desire was to unify every Reploid he came into contact with. Hindsight, Zero," he said, waving a finger, "indicates that Sigma was only a virus by definition. I believe he, you and X, have, what can be approximated to be a soul."
Zero raised an eyebrow.
"I won't bore you with my hypothesis," he grinned, knowing that he'd finally peaked the warrior's interest after these many years. "I can tell you that X's systems were heavily strained by damage done by the virus and Nightmare himself. It may be months before he awakens."
Zero nodded solemnly, folding his arms.
You fool! He cursed internally. X gives you his life on a whim, and what can I repay him with? He has my allegiance... My deaths for him do not equal his matchless integrity! What remains?
'The blade serves none, Zero, not even me. Destroy it, or it will destroy you,' Nightmare had told him laying pale and ruined. No! For X, and for all Reploid kind you will not let that hatred leave only open wounds! The Nightmare blade will serve us... otherwise, all hope for peace is lost!
"Zero? Is there something the matter?"
Zero glanced up and made a negating gesture.
"No Saver, I am well, and soon all will be well with me," he proclaimed with a tone of inspiration that failed to capture LifeSaver's interest. "Good day."
"Good day," LifeSaver responded, not paying attention to Zero's abrupt departure.
-
Gratitude was not an unknown feature of her character, for somewhere inside of the copious flow of tasks to be monitored, managed, and recorded, she had a chance to work on the armor and simply reflect. It took less than two percent of her CPU time to calculate the necessary steps to repair X's armors, provided that their heavily encrypted data remained intact. Even the Terra armor looked to be in poor condition, so seriously fragmented by the mischievousness of the 'Zero Virus'.
Not even a chance to analyze its code! she thought regretfully. Was it self-willed? Now I may never know!
So far the corrupted sectors found by the diagnostic software could be restored, but without a backup – which was impossible to make – any unique hardware lost would spell certain doom for the armor. It would be defunct as useless, as no 'spare parts' could be grafted into a new design. The Terra was just too temperamental!
Hope there was, though, with the Falcon, Nova, Gaea, and Blade armors secure. Remarkable how resilient they seemed to be, when others simply failed at the first sign of corruption! How much like the humans they were!
Alia could not help but marvel at the formidable team the Reploids (comprised of robots, drones, android, and cyborgs) and Humans (the rest) had become. Signas saw the low-level disruptions among the socially maligned and the dissidents, but they could not rally together a force with sufficient organization to pose any viable threat.
Another uprising is due, she mused, gazing at the sector truant as it blinked alarm. Oh no! The alloy formula!
Alia bowed her head, closed fist dropping softly onto the readout, sorrow darkening her face. That was it ... the Terra armor was worse than useless: She could substitute the formula, but could never equal its sub-atomic density. Moreover, there were no samples of the alloy to replicate or analyze. It would have been simplicity itself...
"Report, Alia," requested a stern bass voice flatly over her headset.
"Uh?" she bleated, blinking out of her stupor of remorse. "Yes sir, I have bad news."
"What is it?"
Have I let X down? Alia sighed, a purely emotional response to the situation.
"Alia? Please report immediately," Signas demanded.
"Sorry sir. The Terra armor's alloy code is corrupt, and I cannot synthesize a replacement comparable to the original formula ... until I have at least had a change to review my records of its properties, and even then..."
"Thank you Alia. Do you have a suitable alternative?" Signas interrupted gently. Alia was not surprised.
"Yes sir. The Falcon armor is ready, and will function adequately."
"Excellent. I knew my trust in you was not misplaced," he replied with a genuine warmth. "Have you uploaded the revised schematics to Doctor Silvane?"
"Yes. She has requested further alterations of the engineering floors."
"Then make them," he said, tension audible.
"Yes sir," she acknowledged, harried somewhat by the unusual show of emotion. Only the best for the assistant of the late Dr. Cane? "Sir?"
"Yes Alia?"
"What is X's condition?" she asked, poorly concealing her anxiety. Signas voice softened, speaking as a father to a daughter.
"Well, but we cannot know when he will awaken. I will not risk further damage by doing so before there is absolute need."
The leap in logic followed without a hitch:
"So Zero has joined him?"
"Yes, but Douglas tells me he is running simulations involving the Nightmare Blade."
Alia's eyes widened in something of horror. She had reviewed and analyzed its DNA! There was nothing like it, and though she could ultimately trust Zero, the darkness in her heart could not be denied.
"Is there nothing more, Alia?"
"No..." she said, voice distant.
"When will you deliver Dr. Sil-"
"In two days. Good day, Signas," she stolidly cut him off, terminating the signal on a sour note. Silently, slowly, she turned and walked towards her historical logging terminal, face registering no sign of feeling nor process. Then, at the black chair she sat, and lifted while hands to the keyboard.
"It has been two months since the extermination of of the Nightmare Virus and its Master, Gate. To this day I wonder how he became so misguided, since he had never expressed so dangerous thoughts or desires in the time we worked together.
"I digress. The atmosphere bound dust shield caused by the collision of Eurasia has begun to settle, and so we are attempting to replant native flora and fauna in regions most exposed to solar light and radiation. Reploid built and maintained greenhouses continue to supply the majority of food for the Humans and Cyborgs on Earth and the local satellite, the Moon. 'Oceano D'argento' is nearly self-sufficient, with only a need for twelve percent external stock and supply import.
"The Reploids and Humans who survived the cataclysm have formed the new hope of our collective future: 'The Unity', lead by Signas and Yale Cadius, the most knowledgeable survivors of the Maverick Wars and as elected by their respective alliances. Together we are exploring our two options:
"The first is to burrow deep into the Earth, where it is still warm, so that we can construct a self-sustaining underground city that will require as little interaction with the surface as possible. Currently two sites are excavated: In the plains of Mexico, just ten miles north of the equator, and in Rome, where much of the soil is still rich with life. There are occasional setbacks, but we are satisfied that progress is steady, and that success is only a matter of time and consistent effort.
"The second is to construct a new colony the Moon. Oceano D'argento has become a landmark of hope for the desolate hearts of the hopeless. Though the workers rely mainly on Reploids and drones designed to operate in the harsh conditions, construction is progressing admirably, and we are two months ahead of schedule. It is a record for the Re-Organized Guinness Book of Achievements.
"Black Sparrae and his team head the dome development, and reports that a second dome nears completion. We are told that there have been no casualties, few disputes, and that only three drone revisions have been necessary to meet their needs, but that is to be expected.
"Morale is high, and the labor is good. Unity has accomplished much more than anticipated, and far more than history recalls, though we are not alone in our plans for the future. 'New Dawn' is a poorly organized faction of Humanists who have assembled on the continent of South Africa, where the abandoned ex-Maverick Hunter Base lays in waste.
"They are technologically limited, and having no leadership structure has kept them from becoming a viable threat thus far. I estimate that it will take them another eleven months to rebuild the city, and make use of the might of our previous base. I rue the day that the might of Metropolis arises once again.
"I can only hope that for the sake of peace and its preservation that X and Zero are not consumed by the legacy of the Nightmare. If they are, I can see no future for us at all."
[Signed] Alia Althea Light.