Title: The Fine Art of (Mis)communication.

Author: Nemesi.

Fandom: Rockman Zero (MMZ)

Genre: Humor. Romance.

Word Count: 1.171

Characters: Copy X, Omega, Dr Weil.

Rating: PG-13.

Disclaimer: Rockman Zero, its characters, places and themes belong to Capcom, Keiji Inafune, Inti Creates, etc. No copyright infringement is intended.

Warnings: Unbeated.

Summary: Copy X thundered inside, blazing with righteous fury, a mortified Omega scuttling after him like a kicked puppy. Recognizing the signs, Dr Weil threw away his tools, dove for the notepad, and pressed his nose to the screen, waiting for the drama to unfold.

* * * * *

The door clanged open, rebounding harshly against the wall, and Copy X thundered inside, blazing with righteous fury.

His limbs shook, his eyes flashed. His face was an interesting mix of pale and flushed, tensed to the limit, lips pressed into a tight, unforgiving line.

In his laboratory, Dr Weil looked up from the Pantheon he was vivisecting and into the surveillance monitor, mentally counted up to three, and watched with no surprise as Omega scuttled in right after the clone, eager but cautious, like a kicked puppy that seeks forgiveness from its master.

Recognizing the signs, Dr Weil threw away his tools, dove for the notepad, and pressed his nose to the screen, waiting for the drama to unfold.

Copy X crossed the room once, twice, three times, then came to a stop right in the middle, fists clenched tight and arms shaking with fury. Immediately, Omega shuffled up to him, sank down on one knee and expelled a small, inquisitive harrumph from deep in his chest.

Copy X rounded on him, faster than lighting, beautiful and terrible as the dawn.

"D-Don't y-you d-dare play t-the innocent act on m-me! N-not after what y-you d-did!"

Omega flinched back, somehow managing to look small and helpless and pitiful despite his size, and issued a weak noise from the back of his throat.

Weil penned down a few things on his notepad, nodding to himself. As usual in their dealings, it was clear what distinctive role each of them played in their exclusive pack of two: Copy X ruled, Omega submitted. End of the story. There were no limits to what Copy X could ask, or what Omega would do for him. There was no hesitation, no questions asked. The most fitting comparison to be found among social animals was that of a Queen bee who had at her command a grand total of one single drone.

An intriguing happenstance, for sure. But not what Weil was researching at the moment.

As the scientist scribbled down something on his notepad, Copy X turned his back on the grovelling beast, snorting in a humourless fashion, rather unimpressed by Omega's endeavours to look small and pitiful.

Omega mewled again. His face was a mask – literally, not figuratively – but he still managed to look contrite, somehow.

Copy X darted him a glance over his shoulder, and even though he wasn't taller than Omega's paw, his glare was more than enough to make the massive beast cower in fright.

"N-now you're s-sorry f-for what you d-did?! And you t-think that will m-make it all r-right?!"

*harrumph*

"W-well t-that's not how it w-works!"

*rumble* *whine*

"Ah!" Copy X snorted, looking away. "As i-if."

*rumble* *bark* *growl*

"…no."

*howl*

"Frankly, I neither know nor care."

Weil distractedly recorded how long it had taken for Copy X's stuttering to cease.

Amazingly enough, whenever Omega was near, the synapses inside Copy X's brain tried to compensate for the missing components (Zero had been a tad too efficient when he'd destroyed Copy X the first time, leaving little to no parts intact) by tuning to the signal the massive beast broadcasted, creating a neural circuit that all but cured Copy X of his defects.

A worthy subject for Weil's next research, but nothing he wanted to waste too much time upon at the moment.

He took some more notes, nodding to himself.

Omega moved closer to Copy X.

*…mewl*

Copy X glanced back at him, eyes narrow and brimming with a dark emotion, maybe anger, maybe hurt. Maybe both.

"You're like everyone else. The only thing you see me as is a substitute for X." He looked down away, hands clenching and unclenching rhythmically, limbs shaking with barely-restrained emotion. "You don't care for who I am. The only thing you care for is him."

Omega moved closer, butted his head gently against Copy X's back.

*purr?*

Copy X snorted, but the noise that escaped his lips was more of a sob than a laugh.

"Tell me, how would you feel, if you were in my place? How would you react if I… if I told you that you are just a substitute for Zero? That I hold no love for you, but only need the release and that…"

He couldn't go any further.

Snarling, Omega raised his massive arms, trapped Copy X within his paws and wrenched him around. Copy X looked up, eyes wide and unafraid boring into the mask of Omega's outer armour.

Even as he watched, the thing splintered, smoking at the seams, and opened like a sarcophagus, revealing the pharaoh trapped inside: Omega's real, human-sized body, the ruby eyes of him flashing like embers, the synth-skin gleaming with a film of moisture, the golden hair spread across his shoulder in thick coils, dark and heavy with perspiration.

His eyes were narrow, his eyebrows knotted together in anger and his lips pulled back in a feral snarl. He worked the outer armour's paws to yank Copy X closer, until the marble-like face could brush against his own, nose to nose, lashes to lashes, their mouths breathing hot puffs of air against each other.

A low, rumbling noise like thunder rose from deep inside Omega's chest, something powerful and reverberating, but modulated like waves crashing ashore.

Copy X's eyes grew huge, then softened, and his whole body seemed to trill as his face suffused over with pink-hued hope.

"…do you mean it?" he breathed. "Omega…"

Omega's only answer was to pull him even closer, lowering his eager mouth to Copy X's awaiting lips. The air between them was crackling with electricity already, energy shifting between them in a shimmering circuit as their bodies turned in unison into sexual mode.

The clung to each other, and the first pieces of armour began to fall, discarded, to the floor, revealing layers of highly sensible skin and conduits and gears, as…

…but as enlightening as that display could be, Copy X and Omega had already provided Weil with enough data on Reploid mating habits to last him two lifetimes (and let's not forget he's immortal).

So the evil Doctor turned his back on the monitor – and the moans coming from it - buried his face in his notepad and focused on what really interested him.

Ever since activation, Omega's vocabulary had been comprised of a grand total of four words: Zero, Weil, X (though Omega garbled it so badly he made it sound like eek-ku-su instead) and Copy; other than a plethora of various growls and roars and guttural noises that made no sense, no matter from whence you looked at them.

And yet, Copy X managed to correctly translate the garbled nonsense into legitimate words and to answer it as required. In Weil's book, that was nothing short of amazing.

Speedily, Weil began to compare the lovers' quarrel – pardon, the exchange between pack-members – he'd just recorded with the countless before.

Who knew? With some luck, he might still be able to translate Omega to Common Language in time for World Domination.


~*~おわり~*~