Harpuia stared out of his office window, seemingly deep in thought. Usually, on a normal day, government ministers and military officers would be seen freely entering and leaving the little room for matters that required his immediate attention. However, today, it was quite the opposite: the civilian staff and all the other junior military officers, were trying to stay away from him as much as possible, desiring to have as little contact with him as possible unless absolutely necessary. Even at his best, Harpuia was still icily cold to most of the staff in Neo Arcadia's government administration centre, although those who were fortunate enough to know him personally would have very different ideas.
The green guardian did not mind them avoiding him though. In fact, he was secretly pleased that they were trying their best not to disturb him. This way, he might just be able to slip out of the building without raising any eyebrows once he had gathered some of his personal items which had been left in his office. Technically, he was no longer a Guardian of Neo-Arcadia, for Copy X had ordered him to step down after that bastard Weil suggested to X that he fire that missile at a human-populated city. Harpuia of course protested the missile launch, but his efforts were in vain, and the city was reduced to rubble. It affected him so much that he finally decided to rebel against X and take down Omega by himself, without or without authorization.
The only problem was that it did not go as planned. Harpuia did not expect the gargantuan reploid to power up so much within such a short time span, neither suspecting that the Dark Elf had already been absorbed by the monster reploid. After taking his share of beating, he grudgingly admitted that he would have been slaughtered on the battlefield had it not been for Zero and Ciel's intervention.
Still, it disgusted him to no end to think that he owed them a debt of honor and gratitude. They were supposed to be mavericks responsible for threatening the safety of Neo-Arcadia, and he was supposed to be defending the city against the likes of the Resistance! What was a defender of Neo-Arcadia doing, accepting help from the rebels?
However, as it turned out, after spending a few hours in the Resistance Base receiving repairs to the near critical damages his body had taken form the punishment Omega had dished out, the Resistance was nothing like the bloodthirsty, mindless mavericks he had imagined them to be. Of course, he had known it right from the very beginning, otherwise he would not have returned the fallen Zero back to them when he was out patrolling the Sand Wilderness. He just let his duty get to his head, and a mental image of the Resistance as mindless killers usually made it much easier for him to strike down Resistance soldiers when they clashed time and again.
Harpuia pushed the flashbacks away from his mind; there was no time to reminiscence on the past. Right now, he had to get back to Ciel as quickly as he could, and he wanted to make sure that he was out of the Neo-Arcadia government building before that crazy Weil returned. Snatching up the last few items he singled out into a small bag, Harpuia was about to make his way out when he felt a hand on his back. He swung around only to see Fefnir and Leviathan standing before him.
"Sage, I hope you are not planning on doing what I think you are trying to do." Harpuia sighed. While he was glad to see his sibling reploids one last time before leaving, he was also mentally kicking himself for being spotted by HIM, of all people. Fefnir had a nasty habit of forcibly restraining people from leaving until they provided him with a satisfactory reason, and Harpuia was unlucky enough to have been subjected to one of those 'interrogations' before.
"Fefnir, I'm sorry, but I don't have the time to explain to you. I need to leave quickly before Weil comes back, or the info I have here will be useless. I.."
Fefnir cut him off. "Save it. I know. I heard the announcement while in the maintenance bay. Lev did too. And personally, we were thinking of the same thing as well." A sly grin flashed across the crimson ex-Guardian's face. "More importantly, we also saw the REAL Master X. And he sorta convinced us to help Zero and the Resistance out somehow, although Lev will probably be more interested in flirting with Ze..Oww!" Leviathan had crept behind Fefnir and smacked his head smartly with her halberd. "What was that for?!"
"Because I wanted to do so for a long time already," she replied simply. She then turned to Harpuia. "Sage, X…no, Copy X may have relieved us of command, but Master X entrusted us with the safety of this empire, and right now, we can only rely on the Resistance. In a way, they are not all that different from us. After all, all both sides want is peace for both reploids and humans. And quite frankly, I have had some doubts about this whole 'maverick' situation we've been dealing with for years," she added sadly. "But we couldn't just both 'disappear' from here without raising suspicions and endangering the Resistance, especially when we need their help now. So we were deciding who should go and who should stay behind to cover for us, and well…..you took the decision out of our hands."
"Right, right, I get the idea. I go, and the both of you stay here as normal," Harpuia snorted. "Now I have to move, or else Weil will return and spoil our plans. If he tries to have you both arrested, break out and head straight to the Resistance Base; I'll need both of you alive if we are to stand a chance against Omega." And with that, he pushed the both of them out of the way and hurried off. Fefnir watched the green ex-Guardian disappear round the corner, and turned to Leviathan.
"We're going to die, aren't we?"
She shifted her weight uncomfortably. "Fef, even Zero and Master X could not defeat him. We can only stall him long enough and hope for the best. And even if we are die…"
"Lev, you have to speak up, I cannot hear you."
"…at the least, let's put on a good show… "
Meanwhile, Harpuia ran into yet another obstacle; this time, it was a government council member that was holding him back. However, Harpuia allowed himself a few minutes to speak with her: she was one of the few people within the Neo-Arcadia government whom he could allow himself to be informal with. As a government councilor, Tessa had both brains and looks, and she too had more than her own fare share of friction with the previous administration by Copy X and more recently, Weil. In fact, she was responsible for silently blocking many of Copy X's more unfavorable policies when they were up for debate, an action that earned her the ire of both Copy X and the hardliners who sided with him. X had tried countless times to dismiss her from office without any success, and clashes between her and X were everyday occurrences.
"So you're leaving. What are your plans? Don't worry, you can tell me: you of all people should know that I keep secrets well." Harpuia hesitated. He knew that she would not betray his secret, but at the same time, he was unsure of how she would react if she found out that he was going to meet up with the Rebellion.
"I'm just doing my duty of defending Neo-Arcadia," he answered simply, not wanting to let her in more that he was willing to. But a quick glance at her facial expressions was all that was needed to convince him that she was not buying his feeble attempt of an answer.
"Sage, you have already forgotten that a kid can lie better than you. Has Master X's decision affected you so badly that you can no longer think straight?"
"Fine," Harpuia snapped. "If you really want to know, I'm meeting up with…" he suddenly stopped himself, realizing that he was still deep in Neo-Arcadia territory, and their centre of government at that. "I'm going to the Resistance," he whispered, making sure that his voice was soft enough to not be picked up by any curious bystander. "Weil will destroy this peaceful city that Master X had worked all his life to build. And I'm not going to sit down and watch that happen as long as I still have breath in me."
"Sage, someone with your knowledge should be fully aware that all of this was started by one person. Even if you successfully hunt down and dice up that crazy old psycho into a million pieces, there'll always be someone around to take over the role of a crazy scientist bent on world domination. Throwing your life away is not going to help anything. Although…" Now it was her turn to lower her voice. "…why the Resistance? Don't you hate Zero's guts?"
"I only fight him because we serve different sides," he shot back. "He saved the world alongside Master X before, and X trusted him till the very end." The mention of X brought a lump into his throat, that is, if Reploids could even feel choked up to begin with. "Now, with the world in total chaos and fear, I keep thinking that deep down, he may be the one to succeed where we have failed."
He slung the small bag over his shoulders. "And now, I have wasted enough time talking about my plans. Weil will be back soon, and I want to be in the Resistance base before that happens. It's not much, but these data pads contain information on Weil that should be able to help the Resistance."
"You'd betray Neo Arcadia? THAt's so unlike you, Sage."
"I betray nothing. My loyalties are to X and Neo Arcadia, not Weil. For Neo Arcadia I was made, and for Neo Arcadia I shall fight."
*szzz…hiss….szz…Re…szzz…tance…to General H…ia…*
"I thought I made it very clear that there was to be a communication blackout!" Harpuia almost shouted into his communicator, although he quickly checked himself. This was not the time to be pushing the Resistance around, especially when he needed their help against Weil's atrocities. And to top things off, he was still deep in Neo Arcadia, where outside communication signals could be easily tracked and intercepted by the city's communication network. It didn't help that the Resistance did not have the means of encrypting their transmissions, which would only make it all the more easier for the city to piggyback and trace down the source of the signal. That is, if the operator wasn't sleeping on duty.
By right, he was supposed to have net up with the Resistance by now if he just flew straight to their hideout. However, being both the combat crazy soldier and the military tactician, Fefnir had radioed Harpuia, insisting that the former leader of Neo Arcadia make his way to the Resistance camp on foot.
"Sage, you will be attracting a lot of unwanted attention from your own Rekku unit if they were to see their former general suddenly take to the skies in the direction of the Resistance camp," Fefnir had explained. "At the least, make it to the border checkpoint on foot first. Once you're out of Neo-Arcadian soil, the jungle out there will provide excellent cover for you. Just make sure you don't fly into a tree or something. I had to blast one of your rookies out from that situation once, and I sure as hell don't want to have to oversee a 'Reploid stuck in tree Part 2'."
It made perfect tactical sense, except that Fefnir had conveniently forgotten that no one in Neo Arcadia had his level of stamina to last a 14 hour trek to the Resistance base. If anything, of all the 4 Guardians, Harpuia had the lowest stamina levels due to his heavy reliance on his jets and boosters to propel him over great distances in a short amount of time; even Leviathan could outrun him easily. After trekking for what felt like an agonizing 7 hours, Harpuia swore to himself to literally strangle the breath out of Fefnir for making that stupidly impractical suggestion.
That is, if they were able to survive the inevitable clash with Omega. Although it was not Harpuia's nature to harp on the future, every time he thought of the prospect of combating Omega, his mental images would just somehow fade into darkness, as if his mechanical brain was trying to block out his thoughts, and it unnerved him immensely; it was almost as if the mental blackout was a harbinger of things that were to befall the city and him, along with his sibling reploids.
Another cackle from his radio system brought him back to the present. "Sage? This is Ciel here. Please turn on the signal beacon we gave you. A transport team will arrive to pick you up. It's too risky to take to the air."
"Alright."
An hour later, Harpuia nearly fell over when Zero suddenly drove up to him in a modified Land Chaser. After staring down and taking in the interesting turn of events for a couple of seconds, the green reploid finally found his voice:
"Is the Resistance stretched so thin that they had to send you, of all people, to drive over?"