Well, alright... here's something different I wasn't planning on doing... an Alia fic. I luff Alia. She's so cool. Much better than Iris. Much, MUCH better than Iris... and even though I despise X8 for the reason that they de-poofed Zero's hair, I am very, very glad that Capcom is starting to do more justice to the MMX world with more female reploids! lol. Yaaaay for female reploids! Anyway...

I have to be honest. I haven't actually played X8 yet, except for the trial version on MMXCM. So, I really don't know much about Palette and Layer besides what I've read about them on other MMX websites. So, if I'm not getting something right about them PLEASE let me know! lol. I would like to get their personalities as correct as possible. . Disclaimer Thingy: I don't own any of these characters. Capcom does. points a finger to Capcom See? They do.

ONWARD!

Alia stretched her arms out and yawned happily. Today was going to be an interesting day, she thought. She was going to work with her new navigator buddies, Layer and Palette, to hopefully recover some items and injured reploids that X, Axl, and Zero had missed on their last runthrough of a new area Palette had found the other day.

She ran her fingers through her soft, shoulder-length brimming blonde hair and sighed with content. She had to admit - she was a bit surprised when X had told her she should probably grow it out some. She had been bent on being tomboyish as long as she was going to be the only girl around on the bridge. But, she had started to let it grow rather reluctantly. When the other girls showed up, however, she didn't mind it so much, and she had now grown rather fond of it.

"Hello, girls!" Alia said upon entering the navigation room. "Who're we working with, today?" she asked. Layer turned to Palette, who seemed to want to shout this more than her.

"Gaff and Beryn, some idiot rookies…!" she yelled, folding her arms. Layer chuckled and turned around in her chair with Palette to wave to Alia.

"They're idiots, I'll admit that, but they probably aren't as rookie as Palette thinks they are…" she said. Palette stuck her tongue out in secret and looked off to the side. Alia folded her arms to think for a moment.

"I wonder just how much those three missed… Palette, can you get a scan on the area and see what's left to recover?" she asked. Palette nodded and got on it right away. Alia got in her navigator chair behind the two other girls and started typing to get a status report.

"Layer, can you see if there's any mavericks around? I'll start leading Gaff and Beryn though, alright?" she announced.

"Got it!" Layer and Palette answered with girlish determination.

The day had been a lot longer than Alia had expected. It turns out that Palette was right. Gaff and Beryn were complete idiots, and complete rookies. X, Axl, and Zero had left one inured reploid behind somewhere in a secret basement underneath one of the caverns in the forest area, which meant that she must be losing her touch if she didn't notice it in the first place.

She sighed heavily, weary with the day's constant chatter, and attempts to stop the constant arguments between the rookies and Palette. Boy, did that girl have a temper. She was impressed with Layer's ability to just stay calm and above it all, though. It was no wonder she was Zero's favorite operator. Not that Alia would ever let on that she knew such a thing!

She ran her hands through her hair once more as she made her way down to the central room, where all the off-duty reploids in the base usually went to relax.

"Hey, Alia!"

Alia turned around to see X trying to catch up behind her. She smiled. He was her favorite blue reploid who preached peace out of every orifice he could manage to.

"Hey, X! How was your day?" she asked. X walked with her to the central room.

"It was okay. Boring, really. Zero's unit is chock full of brainless rookies, sad to say it… so Signas had Axl and I help him out with the training and supervising," he replied. Alia nodded. Boy, was her day similar.

"I hear ya, there. What's with these crazy new recruits? I had to help Layer and Palette lead two of them in that new area you, Zero n' Axl went in yesterday. It was a simple task… so, so very simple… and somehow, it ended up taking us the whole day. We just finally finished up…" she explained, running her hands through her hair again.

"I really like how you grew your hair out, Alia. It looks nice," X said with a smile. Alia blushed ever so slightly and smiled. Then, he heard clamor from another hallway. "Sounds like Axl ran into something again… I better go help him out. I'll talk to you again later, Alia!" he said, rushing off down the hallway. Alia waved with a smile. She stood still for a moment, watching X dash down the halls, then started to the central room again.

Then, she heard another noise, and if definitely wasn't Axl running into something. She tilted her head, peering down the opposite hallway X had ran down. The sound was more of a scuttling rather than a crash. But she was pretty fearless, and crossed her arms as she walked towards the door it was coming from. It was a storage closet. Odd. Why would anything be in there?

She put her hand against the cold metal door, and leaned in to listen for the noise again. Sure enough, a faint scuttling was coming from inside the dark storage closet. She typed in the passcode for the door, but it didn't budge.

"…? Hm… I should go find Layer and Palette…" she muttered, turning away.

RxR please! Tell me how I've done and if I've made any mistakes with Layer and Palette... hehe, or anyone, for that matter. ;;;