Title: Hero Falling
Author: generalnothing
Gift for: moonyblues
Rating: PG
Summary: Xavier Zero did not live as a hero, but he died as one. And that's all that matters.
Warnings: Character Death and sort of a weird Zero Third Person POV.
Author's note: Written for the Fic of Tin Fic Exchange on LJ. The prompt was "I want to see Zero redeemed in a way that doesn't involve him being bewitched or possessed." Dedicated, as always, to Kennedy for being awesome, and to moonyblues for the awesome prompt. I hope you enjoy it.
Part I
By the power vested in me, granted by the great House of Gale, I sentence you, Xavier Zero, to a lifetime of hard labor in response to and in punishment of your crimes against your crown and your country. Do you have anything you would like to say Mr. Zero?
He is awoken with a start by a clang, an echo down the hallway, metal on metal, loud and foreboding. His eyes snap open and the dark of his cell is so black it almost hurts. All he hears is the steady drip of a leaky pipe and the occasional snore from a fellow inmate.
He wishes, and it's not the first time nor will it be the last, that the youngest Cain had killed him. He even wishes sometimes, though he'll never admit it, that the older Cain had killed him. He wishes, in the dead of night after a hard day's work, that they had left him in that metal suit, had left him until the air ran out and his mind had gone numb. Left him until he'd starved to death, until he had sunk into himself and withered away.
But both were too noble to do something so unjust and so just like Wyatt Cain had told his long-lost son, Zero was released and brought to Central City Jail a week after the witch had fallen.
He remembers the moment he knew the witch was dead, and it wasn't because he had felt some sort of release because he hadn't been under a spell. No, all those things that he had done, all those years spent in the darkness were voluntary. So that's not how he knew that the witch had been defeated. No, in that dark suit, in the green of the forest, Zero knew because he could see everything. He could see as the emerald green beam, the one that was supposed to be his salvation, petered out and then finally the suns reemerged from behind the moon.
For the first time in twenty years, Xavier Zero had cried. He cried for his queen, the one who had saved him; he cried for his people, the ones he had hurt; he cried for himself, because he finally realized that it was over.
Now, in the dark, he thinks about the past. In the still of the night, the black covering him like a thick blanket making it hard for him to breathe, memories creep up on him. Memories of families he had ripped apart, people he had killed, places he had destroyed. He tries to block them with newer memories and one springs to the forefront before he can stop it. He's thrown back to only a few weeks before, just after he was sentenced.
The two princesses are there, though they really shouldn't be. He sees them and laughs; they think they are hiding beneath their disguises. He sees their bodyguards too, the two Cains. How the two girls convinced the men to let them come, he has no idea, but for some reason he's glad they're here. All of them.
He's just been sentenced. A lifetime in prison and hard labor. In the back of his mind, far past the part that's screaming that this sentence is a major injustice, thinks that this is far less than what he deserves for what he did. It's a quiet part, so quiet he barely hears it, but it's there and it shocks him, just for a moment.
The princesses are close enough that he can hear them, though they are speaking softly to each other. The youngest, the one who he should hate but can't because she is, after all, his princess, is asking her sister questions so rapidly, the oldest has almost no time to answer.
"Why hard labor? Why not death? I mean, it seems only fair for what he did to so many people? Right?" she asks, casting a sideways glance at her Tin Man.
Azkadellia smiles at her sisters rapid fire queries and tucks her head down. Zero watches as the older Cain leans down to speak into DG's ear. He can't hear the words, but he imagines that he is telling her that there is no death penalty in the O.Z. and that hard labor until he dies is the harshest punishment they can dole out.
"You'd think they'd make an exception," DG says, and her voice is so cold it makes a shiver run down his spine. He's surprised to hear such a tone come out her pretty little mouth, she'd always seemed so optimistic, so vibrant, but he knows she's not asking for herself, but for all her friends that were hurt by him. His suspicions are confirmed when she sneaks another glance at Cain.
"He was just following orders," he hears, this voice deeper than the youngest princess' yet still very feminine. His head jerks up and his eyes meet Azkadellia's. There's something in her eyes, an understanding of sorts and the pain in her eyes is enough to make him tear his gaze from hers. "He was just doing what any good soldier would do."
He's snapped back to the present by another annoying clang, one that makes him jump. He never used to be so off guard and it makes him weary.
He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, though it doesn't matter because the dark of his lids matches the black of his cell, and tries to drift off into sleep. Hours later, after he's thought all the thoughts he can take, he slips into unconsciousness.
Part II
He got lucky today, he'd been assigned gardening duty in the palace gardens. That meant there was a possibility that he would see his princesses today.
The suns beat down on the back of his neck and he can feel the skin reddening and blistering. He welcomes the pain though as it dulls the ache in his heart. His work is tedious and boring and he keeps looking up every few minutes to see if they had arrived yet.
He's in the middle of de-weeding the begonias when he hears them, their bright, cheerful laughter carrying over to him on the light breeze. His head snaps up so fast that it cracks and his neighbor looks at him in surprise.
He stares at the end of the hedge, watching, waiting for them to come around the corner. He needs to see them, to know that they are there, and he needs them to see him so that they know that he'll do whatever they want.
He sees the Cains first and then two more guards and then finally, finally, the princesses and he breathes a sigh of relief. Knowing that they are safe, that they are here and alive, makes his heart race and he smiles just as Wyatt Cain catches his eye.
He knows Cain is thinking that he's planning something evil, some twisted plot that will get the princesses killed, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because the princesses, his princesses, are here and the suns are shining just a tiny bit brighter.
He stands up tall, the bones in his spine cracking as he straightens, and watches them. They are giggling, whispering things into each other's ears and he thinks it's probably castle gossip, but they keep sneaking glances at the Cain men and their cheeks redden every time they look at them.
A lone cloud passes over the suns, just for a moment, but it's enough to make him stiffen. Something is wrong. He whips his head around, searching for the cause of his discomfort. The princesses are less than ten feet away from him, the path curving in his direction, but the Cain men are between them and any prisoners working, including him.
He stares at the princesses for a moment more as a quick breeze catches their dark tresses, tossing them around their faces. There is evil on the wind, but they don't seem to notice. Their guards notice though and they cast their glances around and to him. A scathing look from Wyatt Cain is all he's rewarded.
And then time is frozen, just for a moment and the wind stops and the cloud blocks the suns before everything seems to explode. From the corner of his eye he sees a glint of sunlight on silver and before he's made up his mind, he's dropping his shears and bolting for the princesses just as a canon goes off.
He feels no pain as the bullet tears through his heart and he is dead before he hits the ground; it's over before it started. If anyone could have read his mind in that half a second after he made his decision and before he fell, they would have been surprised.
On the outside, Xavier Zero was a lying, conniving, murdering son of a bitch. But, just as Princess Azkadellia had said on the day of his sentencing, he was just a soldier. Everything he had done, every move he had made, was made for his queen, his country. In the beginning, he'd tried to resist it. If he was given orders to pillage a town, he made sure word got out before he and his troops made it. But after years of following the Sorceress, he'd grown hard and resentful. He followed orders without question, whether they were good or bad. In the end it didn't matter what the order was because he did it all - does it all - for them, his crown. His princess.
Part III
The funeral is large and extravagant, though no one really shows up. The Royal family and their guards of course and his mother. But he's given a hero's funeral, a soldier's funeral, because that's what he was.
No one cries, not even his mother, because no one is really sad that he's gone. But they all have a new found respect for him. He'd given his life, more than once in his twenty five year military career, once when he'd joined the Queen and then again when he'd fallen for her.
It had been Azkadellia who insisted on the soldier's funeral for him and the Queen and Prince Consort agreed readily when they'd heard what he did. Wyatt Cain growled when he'd heard the news, but the youngest princess' hand on his arm quieted him.
The Royal Guard in all their glory stands on the edge of the soldier's cemetery, guns raised in the air and ready to fire. The shots echo around the small congregation as his body is lowered into the ground and DG says something about a twenty one gun salute.
Xavier Zero did not live as a hero, but he died as one. And that's all that matters.