Author's note: Hey, back after a long time with a fic... Or, part of a fic. Mostly, I try to only upload completed stories... But I wrote this, and it was so cool-sounding that I had to upload it. More chapters to come. Probably. Now, if anyone here has read any of my other stories, they'd probably know that I generally write shipping fics set in the classic series, but today... That didn't happen. To be fair, I've had the idea for this story just sitting around in my brain collecting dust for ages.
In later chapters, the rating will probably be raised a bit for some violence, and more characters will be added, including Zero, Phantom, Fefnir Leviathan, and Harpuia. Description might change if I think of something better. AU, Character death (probably), and possible OOC-ness, kept to a minimum. Without further ado, I present...
The Game for Neo Arcadia
Chapter one
He was pretty displeased.
Of course, when one is the ruler of the entire human race, a lot of things are displeasing, but when you're somebody else's clone, it's particularly displeasing to have the original around.
And yet there he was, the original, the true X, a flickering, shimmering, seemingly holographic image, and Copy-X was not happy.
He was still not happy when the "hologram" flickered in and out of vision, and his slightly garbled voice came through as "want to play a game?"
Not happy, surely, but interested.
Curious.
The smart thing to do would have been to tell him to get out—or better, to force him out—but Copy-X found himself wanting to know more about this "game", which X had found so important as to slip into what by all means was enemy territory, alone and unarmed, to share with his copy, who was also his enemy.
X seemed to almost sense his curiosity. "I'm sure someone like you enjoys a little competition now and then…" The holographic image seemed to smirk.
"Go on…" Copy-X said.
"And since you're just so perfect and all," X's tone was almost mocking, "And since you can surely do anything…"
"I can do anything." Copy-X corrected him, pretending to be irked, but secretly, he was very interested.
"Let's play a game…"
A hundred years ago, when X was new in the world, innocent, naïve and full of hope, it would have sounded childish—no, it would have been childish, as he was childish, then. And he would have earnestly wanted to play a game, something like hide-and-seek, perhaps.
But now, it sounded ominous. He was no longer the child he had been. This was the voice of someone who had seen more than a century, a century full of pain and loss. This was the voice of the one who had led the world, had taken down countless threats with ease, had ended a war, had nothing to fear. Someone who was so irreparably broken inside that the word "friend" only meant someone else who would inevitably be taken away from him, like all the others.
Ominous, and yet, somehow enticing.
"What kind of game?" The question came, almost tentatively.
And X smiled.