Chapter One - Let Me Rest
The scorched wind scooped handfuls of sand into its invisible fingers, carelessly tossing them over the reploid's unconscious body. Zero lay on the sweltering desert sand, a moment of rest having dragged him deep into a mechanical sleep.
A bright, radiant light shone over his unconscious face, Zero's unconscious form uneasily shifting in response to the powerful, but familiar presence.
Zero's lips moved in a slurred shift. "X..."
The cyber-elf took on his true form, the legendary blue-armored reploid's holographic ghost standing over Zero. X knelt, his translucent blue robes crumpling around his knees as the sand crunched beneath one of them, raw energy giving him an unstable, but corporeal existence. X reached out and touched a momentarily stable hand to Zero's back, his old - but unconscious - friend's red vest almost steaming with the heat of the sun and war.
"Zero," X smiled. "It's been so long, and I'm so tired."
Zero's fist clenched in the sand, clumps of the fine grains leaking out of his fist. X continued as he observed this.
"I've fought so hard, and for so long, I've watched in agony as reploid after reploid was wrongly terminated. I watched as the very people we fought and bled for turned their backs on the reploids who needed them most." An all-too real tear slowly trickled down X's momentarily solid cheek. "I'm tired, Zero, I'm so tired. Copy X, it felt horrible to watch him do such horrible things to fellow Reploids, to abandon the dream that we had all fought so hard to realize while bearing my name."
Zero's eyes flittered open as the heat of the battle with that pirate copy of X returned to him. The strange yet familiar sensation of Zero's saber cutting through the naive tyrant's armor, the blistering heat of a buster round grazing Zero's shoulder.
"Zero, I believe in you, but I'm tired." X rose to his feet, Zero's eyes climbing up a blue-armored boot to the blue helmet which hid dark hair.
"X, you," Zero groaned as he shakily lifted his head, still worn from the clash with Copy X.
X's form became static and translucent for a moment as worn green eyes welled with tears. X's smile more of an exhausted respite than a celebration.
"Yeah, it was so difficult without you, Zero, too difficult." X inclined his head to his left, shifting Zero's attention to the approaching Neo Arcadians. "The battle was so long and weary, I didn't feel like I could keep fighting any longer, I felt like I wouldn't be able to protect the Resistance."
Zero pushed himself up, sand falling off of his red vest and arm bracers as he forced his body off of its lazy respite. 'That's right,' Zero's eyes narrowed with a sudden clarification. 'I destroyed Copy X in order to protect Ciel and the others.'
X smiled in intuitive understanding as the atmosphere solidified with Zero's determination. It was her bright blue eyes and joyous smile that had given Zero purpose, after all. 'Not too far behind her, that little reploid girl Alouette, with that long blonde hair the two of the might as well have been sisters.'
"Zero, I'm so tired," X turned to his old friend with one last request for him, for now at least. "Please, protect the reploids, realize our dream."
Zero, still on one knee, his saber's hilt in hand, watched as X's reploid form slowly disappeared, the bright blue orb of light that was X's cyber elf form taking its place. He momentarily shifted his attention to the pantheons that had completely surrounded him.
"Zero," X's cyber elf continued. "Watch over this world, and let me rest."
"Hmph." Zero confidently shut his eyes and rose to his feet. "I will, take as much time as you need."
Zero activated his saber, the long, triangular energy blade humming with an electric jade glow. The pantheons unanimously raised their integrated busters, some ten or so meters behind them the jet pantheons hovered patiently, busters aimed at Zero.
"I'll fight, rest, and leave it to me." Zero drew his buster from the holster on his back, priming the energy pistol for battle. "I don't care what it is, if an enemy appears, I'll cut it down, so leave it to me, X. If it gets in the way of our dream, I'll cut it down."
X's cyber-elf form gratefully glimmered as the red warrior relieved him of the battle. "Thank you, Zero, thank you so much."
Zero would've watched the cyber-elf fly away from this bleak situation, but the deafening roar of buster fire had prompted him to move. Zero bobbed and weaved like a hyper-charged boxer as he evaded the pantheons' lines of fire, the warrior's dance bringing his blade within lunging distance of his enemies.
Zero moved deeper into the swarm as two of the pantheons' cyclops-styled heads flew off of their falling bodies. Zero slashed and lunged and weaved and fired his buster - mostly point blank shots to mechanical red eyes - as he moved deeper into the swarm. Tens of pantheons fell as Zero fluidly danced through them, sand kicked up as they fired after him. The wind threw the oil that spurted from their bodies into their still-standing comrades' eyes, friendly fire decimating even more of them as they blasted through their own ranks.
"Agh!" A single blast of energy grazed Zero's already 'bleeding' shoulder.
Zero dashed and sliced through another trio of unfortunate pantheons as he evaded the buster fire of the extremely nimble jet pantheons that relentlessly pursued him from above. Zero lowered his head, curling his back and rolling through the sand to his feet as the over-sized fist of a close-quarters fist pantheon tore through a regular pantheon. A revolving jump and a well-placed horizontal strike was all it took to cut the down fist pantheon and a squad's worth of pantheons before Zero leaped behind a rather slow-witted pantheon.
A jet pantheon's busters tore through the unlucky pantheon as Zero put two crippling shots through the nimbly moving target before moving forward yet again, smirking as its wings shut down moments before a mid-air explosion.
"Agh!" Zero slid face-first through the sand.
Flipping over onto his back, Zero kicked the arm-integrated electrifying baton of a pantheon away, the lunging enemy stumbling as the baton which had momentarily crippled Zero's foot slashed at the air. Zero raised his buster, squeezed the trigger twice by way of double-tap, and kicked the lifeless pantheon off of him. Zero's eyes widened as a jet pantheon locked him in its sights.
Swiftly tucking his buster away, Zero pulled a small disc out of his bandelier and positioned it over his chest and face. The energy shield flashed as buster fire crashed and bounced against it, peppering a few pantheons with reflected buster fire.
"Hah!" Zero threw the shield and rolled out of the way, pulling out the extremely contracted triple rod as he deactivated and tucked away his saber.
Jumping in time to the rhythm of his roll, Zero activated the spear, the flash-light sized handle snapping to its full five feet of length with brilliant green energy at the end forming into a spearhead. Zero briefly observed his shield boomerang curving through the air and back to him as the still smolderingly hot halves of a jet pantheon fell out of the air. Bearing his teeth in a snarl, Zero brought the spear down in a ferocious and impressive seven-twenty spin through an unlucky and startled pair of pantheons.
Landing on the ball of his armored right boot, Zero spun with the momentum, deftly raising the spear over his head as he fluidly swung it round in a counter-clockwise motion with one hand, the jade energy spear slicing four more pantheons in half. Zero ducked as the shield boomerang whizzed over his head, leaning back limbo style and stabbing a fist pantheon as it wound back its right fist. As Zero pushed off of the fist pantheon, he noted the shield boomerang violently tearing through a pantheon's stomach as the pantheon before it fell, its legs sliced clean off from the knee down.
Zero's steely blue eyes shifted to the jet pantheon swooping down from above, buster raised and aimed for the lone reploid. Zero abruptly spun, spear in hand as he leaped onto the shoulders of the wounded fist pantheon, hopped onto its head and kicked off of its face, crushing its crimson eye.
"Hmph!" The solid thrust of his spear-like triple rod pierced the pantheon's metallic heart.
Zero ripped the triple rod upward through its head and circled it downward at the pantheon that pointed its clumsy buster straight up at him. The unmistakable raking sound of a reploid being split in half filled Zero's ears as the triple rod tore straight through the pantheon's entire metallic body. Sand flashed up as Zero's heavy but agile feet plowed into the desert sand, the harsh wind blew against his 'sweating' forehead. Zero swiped his left hand through the air, catching the shield boomerang as he poised himself for battle. Shield at his side, spear over his shoulder as his eyes darted about.
Two fist pantheons, two 'o clock. Regular pantheons from all sides, and multiple jet pantheons swirling through the air. Somewhere in the thick of the swarm of pantheons Zero saw the fist pantheon that got its eye crushed when Zero jumped off of it. The big-fisted clumsy oaf wildly swung its fists about in a blind but frenzied rampage, hitting pantheon after pantheon after pantheon and tearing off reploid arms and heads in the process.
Zero would've laughed, but the momentary stalemate demanded discipline. The wind harshly blew, throwing up some sand at all the reploids who stood ready for the battle, busters raised, massive fists clenched, wings steady, spear in hand and shield ready to be thrown. Zero's long blonde-hair waved in the wind, lapping over his shoulders and gently tickling at his cheeks. Another forceful gust of wind kicked up small clouds of dust. Zero seized the opportunity before him.
Zero lunged at the two fist pantheons as his shield boomerang tore through a squad of pantheons. Zero deftly moved, multiple rhythmic thrusts of the triple rod leaving gaping, oil-gushing wounds in both fist pantheons as he dashed into the crowd. Zero caught his shield boomerang and threw it again as he tore through the pantheons, spinning and ducking and weaving as he thrusted and swung his triple rod like the spear it was. Zero caught his shield boomerang again, quickly deactivated it and tucked it away as he continued to cut down pantheons with the triple rod.
Zero's eyes darted to his far left. The fluid but icy sensation of pain seized his left side as he drove the triple rod into the ground for support to stop himself from stumbling to the ground. The jet pantheon soared overhead as Zero clutched his 'bleeding' buster-wound.
"D-Dammit!" Zero swore through clenched teeth.
Pain, nothing new or foreign to Zero, it's what he'd done. His whole life, he suffered so that others wouldn't have to. That much he vaguely remembered as he clutched the wound, thick oil oozing out in a non-lethal flow.
"Rragh!" Zero pressed on.
The wound hampered his movements, so too often Zero found himself quick-drawing his buster on a jet pantheon or a squad of regular pantheons. Zero fought on, stabbing and slicing and shooting every pantheon that got in his way, parrying the heavy fists of the fist pantheons that assaulted him, and nimbly gunned down the jet pantheons that deftly soared through the air above him as they relentlessly fired away at the lone reploid.
Panting, Zero stopped for a moment. His wound was sending icy jolts of pain coursing through his body with each breath and movement. The wound was no joke, if left as it was, rusting might set in, but before that, it would continue to...
Zero raised the spear in an attempt to parry the fist pantheon's strike, but he stumbled forward as the triple rod was ripped right out of his hands. Zero watched his triple rod fly right into the chest of a pantheon as the fist pantheon's heavy right fist came flying right at him. Zero ducked and slipped to his left before ducking and weaving to the right, now standing in between the fist pantheon's massive arms. Zero drove his right hip into the fist pantheon's waist as he wrapped his right arm around its torso. Grabbing its right arm with his left hand Zero lifted the fist pantheon with his hip, pulling it against and over his hip he twisted his shoulders, hurling the pantheon into the desert sand.
Zero found his saber skewering the pantheon's head instinctively as he lunged at a squad of pantheons. Zero's blade ran through the first as he danced between their volleys of buster fire, his own buster exploding the head of a second and a third before sliced the right leg off of a forth, shooting it three times in the chest as he danced around its remains. Zero pressed on, dancing and weaving through and around his opponents as he even dragged around and threw pantheons at one another in the feverish pace of the battle. Long and hard the lone red reploid fought on, for Cerveau, the dark-haired reploid who'd poured such a great effort into developing Zero's weapons and entertaining the warrior with tales of hilariously failed experiments.
Zero brought his blade down on a fist pantheon, slicing clean through its armored wrist and cutting its body in half as he threw one of the halves at a squad of pantheons behind him. For Ciel, the only human being who risked her young life for the hopeless reploids X fought so desperately to protect, even as a cyber-elf. Alouette, that little reploid girl who aspired to be just as kind and caring as Ciel, and even invited the warrior to tea parties. For that old man Andrew who often indulged Zero with stories of his lively and peaceful past. For Andre, and Hibou, for all the members of the resistance. And more importantly.
"Hah!" Zero ran his blade through the chest of a pantheon, ripping it out through its left armpit as he bypassed the dying reploid.
For X, an old friend, Zero's greatest friend, and a true, weary hero. A hero who believed peace between human and reploid to be more than a dream. Zero spun clockwise on his left foot and brought his glowing saber through one of the final pantheons. Its arms and upper body falling off as its lifeless body collapsed. Drawing his buster Zero gunned down the last jet pantheon, the flying reploid exploding midair as it spiraled for the sandy earth. Zero lunged at the last pantheon, skewering the reploid and spinning clockwise as he fluidly removed the blade from its metallic chest cavity and sliced through its neck.
Zero panted as its head dropped off and rolled a couple feet while its body spasmed, fell to its knees, and lifelessly hit the ground. The pain in his side had grown somewhat more intense, crippling him with a limp that he'd somehow delayed during the course of the battle.
"Hah, hah! Hehe!" A weary smile spread across Zero's face as he limped through the ocean of reploid bodies. "Take as much time as you need, X, take as much time as you need."
Limping a little faster as he agonizingly brought his leg underneath him, Zero gripped the triple rod's shaft with his left hand, and yanked it out of the sand. He panted as he disabled the triple rod, the weapon retracting to its non-lethal flashlight sized self.
"You can rest now, X," Zero turned to the now setting sun, his softly glowing and humming saber in hand as he tucked the triple rod away. "I'll fight now, and I'll protect all of the reploids."
Zero looked down at his wound with a wince, and looked around at the hundreds of slain Neo Arcadian reploids as he thought of the supply depot literally lay before him, and behind him, and to his left, and somewhere to the northeast. Zero shook his head.
"Not all of them, but, you get my meaning." Zero disabled his saber and clipped it to his thigh. "Don't worry, I'll fight to see your dream become a reality. Peace, between humans and reploids. One day."
Zero searched one of the jet pantheons' remains, checking bandeliers for E-crystals and maintenance-packs. He found weapons-grade E-crystals that'd definitely power his weapons nicely, and ingestible E-crystals. The wounded warrior moved on to the bottom half of a normal pantheon, checking its bandelier and finding a thickly folded piece of yellow cloth. Zero flashed it open, to find a rather long cape that would definitely help him should there be a sandstorm. 'I'll fight for that peace, X.'
Zero clipped the cape on, already moving to another pantheon's somewhat intact remains. He blinked when he noted that he'd sliced its buster-arm off. 'But for now, I'll fight to get my wound fixed up before more Neo-Arcadians arrive.'
Zero's head locked up with pain, as if his mental gears had ground to an agonizing halt. He saw images of war, desolation and destruction as comrades died at the hands of enslaved Mavericks and as he and X cut and gunned down said Mavericks. He saw images of himself and people he apparently trusted resting around a strangely comforting fire as Zero treated his own wounds. He put a hand to his hurting forehead and grit his teeth.
"I'll fight for that peace, just like before, bro. I'll fight for that peace." Zero took another look at the sun.
Zero squinted his eyes as he sucked on a tooth. 'Three, about three hours until the sun sets. Before find somewhere safe to rest. This war is far from over.'