AN: After many a years of being gone, I make a triumphant return! Well, I hope I can get back into writing again, finish up my old stories and maybe do some new ones. This one I did a while back but never posted here, I guess better late than never huh?

Enjoy!

An Old Timer's Tale

"Why did it have to be me? Why'd I have to get picked?" muttered the man as he gently shook the glass in front of him, causing its frothy contents to swirl and slosh inside it.

He looked around the establishment that purported itself to be a bar. Perhaps the term dive was more accurate given the rundown appearance of the building's interior and furnishings. The dim lighting that illuminated the bar and tables failed to reach the booths along the walls, giving them the appearance of being shrouded in darkness. It was a place one went to in order to avoid being recognized or to not have people bother you while you drank.

The man could think of a hundred other places he'd rather be right now than seated on a sticky stool at the bar itself. The atmosphere did little to relieve his irritation over the circumstances that had driven him to be here. The fact that the place was mostly deserted also made him feel a bit uncomfortable. He'd rather be in a place with more people and background noise other than an old, broken jukebox that played the same song over and over again.

The man sighed and checked his watch. He sighed again. It was late, the place was almost empty, his drink was getting warm, and there was no reason for him to stick around any longer.

As he reached into the pocket of his coat for some money, the man nearly feel off his stool when he felt a hand clamp down firmly on his shoulder. A tall man in a trench coat whose silver hair was pulled back into a ponytail sat down beside him with a chuckle. "Jumpy little feller, ain't ya?"

"Whatever. I was just leaving any-"

The silver haired man grabbed him by the arm and yanked him back towards the bar. "Not yet Shirley, sit and listen to an old timer's rambling for a bit."

"I really need to get going . . . and my name isn't Shirley," growled not-Shirley as he tried to break free of the man's grip.

The Silver Hair looked at not-Shirley incredulously for a moment. "Funny, you look like a Shirley," he commented.

"Well, I'm not," retorted not-Shirley, "now if you don't mind, I'll be going."

"But I do mind," responded Silver Hair as he held onto not-Shirley's arm, "now if you'd just sit down for a minute and listen to me, I promise it will be worth your while."

Unable to break free of the man's grasp, not-Shirley sat back down on his barstool. "Fine, if it means you'll let me leave this dump."

"Hey now, I'll have you know this is the tenth best bar in town!" the trench coated man rebutted.

"Okay, whatever. I'm listening."

"Good, now you just might learn something," Silver Hair replied smugly. "Once upon a time –"

"You want to tell me a fairy tale?!" shouted not-Shirley.

"Good Lord no. Everything I'm about to say is the honest truth – two things that are so lacking nowadays. I'm just using, uh what-you-call-it," Silver Hair responded, snapping his fingers as he searched for the right words. "Creative license! That's it! Now may I continue, oh hater of the brothers Grimm."

Not-Shirley responded with a confused nod as he tried to figure out who the Grimm brothers were. Silver Hair smiled and began his tale. "Good then! Now, once upon a time in a place not so far away, there lived a boy who became the father of a whole race. He had a friend, a humorless, long-haired punk with a steel rod up his butt. They were best friends for only God knows why and they were part of a group that hunted down certain beings who were determined by the government to be a menace to humanity.

"Time passed, they killed a lot of bad guys, ran into a stunningly handsome mercenary, met up with some annoying red haired kid who turned out to be more trouble than he was worth, and the boy even fell in love with a girl. Everything was happy and times were good.

"One day, the boy got a magic fairy and used it to wipe out the cause of what had made so many members of the race he fathered go bad. But a self-important jerk stole the fairy and turned it evil. He used it to power a monster and destroyed the world – most of it anyways. Lots of people died: the good, the bad, the ugly, and even the good looking ones – even the boy's girlfriend died . . . but that's another story.

"The boy and his punk friend finally managed to stop the monster, but they couldn't kill it. Not while the evil fairy still existed. The jerk was granted immortality for all the trouble he caused instead of being executed like a certain mercenary suggested and banished along with his monster. The fairy was sealed away. The boy became an important leader. Then the boy's punk friend went into a deep sleep in an attempt to cure himself of something - probably of being an asshole. Time passed and even though where the punk was asleep was known at the time, people forgot where it was when they left the city he was sleeping in and left him behind for some unexplained reason.

"Time passed again and the evil fairy started to break free of her seal. The boy used his own body and life energy to seal it back up again. The people he had been leading panicked and commissioned a ten-year-old girl the job of making a clone of him.

"The clone however, was a cheap knock-off. The eyes were even the wrong color. However, everyone assumed that everything the clone ordered was something the boy would've wanted them to do. The clone knew he didn't measure up to the real deal and started looking for ways to surpass the original. First he wiped out most of the military commanders that realized he was a flawed copy and would've opposed his desires. Then he sought to eliminate as many records of the past that he could to keep knowledge of the evil fairy, the jerk, the monster, and the punk from the public. Anyone who knew anything about such stuff vanished in the middle of the night. Once the fake had gotten rid of those who would've opposed him or told the truth about this world's history, he found he had no enemies to fight in order to prove himself greater than the original.

Not-Shirley's eyes widened in surprise as the realization of what the other man was talking about dawned on him. "Wait. What you're telling me is-"

"I ain't finished yet Shirley," replied the man with silver hair. "With no real enemies to fight, the clone created one. One day some reploids went on strike and a riot broke out. The clone deemed them to be Mavericks and rounded them up and executed them. But it didn't stop there. He began to raid places where reploids lived and worked, deemed the inhabitants Mavericks and then sent them off to be 'retired.' Nobody questioned him, even the three generals who should've known better. One day, the girl who had made the clone realized he was a bad man and left Neo Arcadia with a band of reploids she smuggled out. They formed a rather ineffective and incompetent resistance group. Now she wants to find the boy's punk friend and have him fix her mistake for her. The problem is that most of the archives that would reveal his location have been destroyed by the monster she created and that clone didn't even realize that by doing so, he lost the one chance he had to rid himself of a bigger threat than any of the others he's faced so far . . ."

"You know where he is, don't you?" not-Shirley whispered as he leaned towards the storyteller.

"Shirley, I want you to pass that story along to your boss. If she and the others in charge had just let things be and not created that copy, we wouldn't be in this mess. Also, tell her my answer is no . . . I won't join her little group. I'm not really a joiner, plus your group's exploits so far do not fill me with confidence about your chances of accomplishing anything," Silver Hair responded solemnly. "I also don't clean up other people's messes for them – not without substantial compensation anyhow. If it comes down to me getting involved, I'll fight in my own way at the time of my choosing."

"Do you know where he is or not?" hissed not-Shirley impatiently at the other man.

The man in the trenchcoat placed a data card on the bar and got up. He started to walk towards the front door. "Take that and get out of here . . . someone must've sold us out."

A figure clad in black armor materialized in front of the doorway. He was shorter than the silver haired man, had a red scarf wrapped around his neck, and brandished what appeared to be some sort of massive shuriken. "You were aware of my presence?" the figure stated emotionlessly.

"You don't get to be my age without figuring out how to tell if you're being watched or not," replied the silver haired man as he removed his trenchcoat, revealing the dark blue armor that had been hidden beneath it. The Silver Hair unclipped a cylinder from his belt and pink, curved blades of energy erupted from both ends of the cylinder as he held it.

While the two reploids focused their attention on one another, not-Shirley slipped out the back of the bar with the data card and ran as fast as he could.

"So, you must be Phantom," the silver haired reploid said nonchalantly. "I've heard about you – not that anybody really had anything good to say about you. How's the pretender to the throne doing these days?"

"Such disrespect . . . prepare for termination."

"What? The big, bad ninja wannabe doesn't even want to know the name of the guy who's about to kick his ass? I tell you, reploids today are so ill-mannered," sighed Phantom's opponent.

Phantom glared at the android standing in his way. "Who you are is irrelevant. You were assisting an enemy of Neo Arcadia and the punishment for such a crime is death. That is all that matters."

Phantom's foe burst out laughing. "Oh you crack me up and I thought that blond haired punk was uptight. Let me give you some free advice. First don't be such a prick, enjoy life a little and don't be so serious all the time. Second, who a person is does matter. How else are you supposed to know what you're in for if you don't know who it is you're going up against? Third, don't just assume you're going to win. I'm hardly in the same class as these supposed 'enemies of Neo Arcadia' you go on about. Besides, they're only enemies of the madman you call a boss, not Neo Arcadia – though apparently you're incapable of such fine distinctions."

"I hardly need advice from the likes of you. Are you quite finished now?" Phantom responded coldly.

"Not yet," replied the silver haired reploid with a grin. "You see, not even the real X or his pal Zero were able to exterminate me and you are nowhere near their level. I've been around since the golden age of reploids and have fought more people than I can count in that time. I fought in the Elf Wars and lived, unlike a lot of other, possibly more deserving folks. I watched Neo Arcadia's rise and even helped it out some. I plan on being around to see the farce it's become fall too. That said, not only do I plan on not dying, but I doubt you'll succeed in killing me when folks much stronger than you have failed. But, as a small measure of consolation, I'll tell you who I am so you can brag about having been bested by the greatest mercenary to have ever walked the Earth - I'm the one and only, legendary Dynamo! Now let's see what you've got kid!"

Back at the Resistance base, not-Shirley rematerialized on a Trans Server pad as a blond haired girl ran up to meet him.

"Milan! Did he show up?" she asked full of hope the answer was yes.

Holding up the data card Milan nodded his head. "He told me to take this and then he stayed behind to deal with Phantom. I don't know how, but Neo Arcadia found out about the meeting . . . I didn't stay around to see what happened – though he said he didn't plan on joining the Resistance."

Ciel took the data card and held it gingerly in her hands. She silently thanked the reploid who had risked his life to give the Resistance the information they had been seeking and prayed that he was still okay. "It's okay. We have what we need now Milan . . . it's time to go find Zero . . ."