Chapter 1 - Grief

There was a knock at the door. It took only a moment for X to look up from a report written on the current condition of Earth, eyes taking a moment to adjust from the computer screen to the door. "Come in," he calls out. There was some part of him that expected his friend Zero to walk in, a hopeful glimmer in his eye as the door opened in some prayer that everything had been some odd dream. The light in him left when Signas walked in the room. Anticipation that had once been there left as quick as it came, and as hard as X tried not to look it, disappointment came. "Commander Signas," his voice betrayed him for just half a second. He had begun to get up from his seat, "What do I owe the visit?"

Signas held up a hand as if to silence X and to motion him to stay seated. "Save me the pleasantries." He did a once over of the room that X sat in. For all intents and purposes, this room was X's room, provided by the Maverick Hunters, of course. Though sparsely decorated with pictures and a small collection of rocks (probably dug up on his expeditions with Cain), it looked very much lived in. Signas couldn't say the same with his own room, or rather, office. "I wanted to check on how you've been handling the past few weeks." His eyes laid on a picture of X and Zero together, "With the clean up and—"

"Commander," it was X's turn to hold up his hand. "You can just say it."

There was a small pause, the words suddenly were almost too heavy to say. "How have you been handling Zero's death?"

Terribly. "As well as I can, it's not the first time he's died." X winced at himself, that was a bit too soon to mention, even when it had been several years after the fact. "I tried looking for his body, to at least give myself some closure. The only thing I could find was his saber." He motioned towards the saber that sat on his desk, it had practically gone unused since X had come back from fighting Sigma. "It's almost as if his body just disappeared."

"There's still a lot of ground to cover from the crash," Signas pointed out. "So far we've only sifted through 10% of it. I'm sure something will come up." Worst case scenario that it vaporized falling back to Earth, but Signas didn't want to point that out.

"I hope. I hate to see what would happen if someone else found his body. I don't think I would be able to handle seeing Zero's body be used again to further someone's own agenda." But that could be X's empathy speaking, he had fought copies of Zero before, just not a resurrected version of him.

"Let's hope history doesn't repeat itself this time." Signas spoke, staring back at the picture of X and Zero together. His eyes then slowly looked towards the purple heart medal, he wasn't sure if it was X's or Zero's. "Have you gone through Zero's belongings yet?"

"No." Part of him wasn't prepared to go through Zero's belongings. In fact, he was dreading it. "I was going to get to it this week."

Signas nodded. "I would appreciate it if you did soon, we have many new recruits these days and need all the room we can find." For now, Signas hadn't had anyone particular in mind to move into that room. Part of him wasn't so sure to move the new commander of 0th squad into there, the thought of living in the room of one's dead commander just felt weird. Speaking of 0th squad, "Stephen wanted to talk to you about something."

X paused for a moment. "Stephen. She's from Zero's squad, right?"

Signas nodded. "She wanted to give you something, I can't say what it is for certain." X nodded slowly. Signas' eyes glanced at the clock. "Regretfully, I have to take my leave. I'm sure you have work to do and I'm taking your time away."

"Of course," X tried to say it with a smile but talking about Zero made him awfully depressed about the entire situation surrounding the circumstances behind his death. He watched Signas walk to the door but stopped short of it.

"And X," Signas didn't look at him but made a motion to open the door, "you don't need to go through this alone."

So he noticed the slight isolation that X gave himself between other people. Part of him felt guilty, but he had also read that it was ok to give some distance from other people after death. What was it? The stages of grief? "I know, Commander. Thank you."

A rock was sent flying across the dirt. Hushed murmurs and fading rants flowed from a rather disgruntled scientist. He was talking to nothing in particular, it was all needless venting towards anything that would listen. He felt stupid and humiliated, feelings that he tried to wave off but couldn't. He kicked another rock sending it flying across the dirt and over a pile of rubble. "Stupid. Why can't they see that what I'm doing is for the greater good? Shadowplay isn't ethical, bah! What isn't ethical? Building Reploids for work and only work? They're robots. They can't feel. Well I can." It was an endless conversation between himself and only himself. "Dr. Gate, you can't make this Reploid unanalyzable, other Reploids wouldn't like it and we don't want to get into a lawsuit! A lawsuit over what? You humans cloned sheep and sheep didn't sue you." Of course, that was an argument with more holes than he can count himself, but the idea of it still held.

Gate's venting eventually came down to a simmer, words turning to grunts and annoyed glares at anything that moved in the wind. He was wandering, nowhere in particular but just wandering within the crash site of Eurasia. Even if he wasn't allowed to walk around the crash site, it didn't matter either way since half the globe was a nuclear waste field anyway. Besides, what harm could come to him for taking a stroll through rubble? Everything was dead anyway, the only thing that was living was anything that creeped into the restricted area, which eventually died from exposure to radiation. He found himself walking in and around the crash site more often if only because no one was there to bother him. There was the occasional Maverick Hunter, but they generally didn't care enough to kick him out since he usually stated he was here under the guise of a science expedition to research the affects the crash had on Earth. Which wasn't wrong since he was a scientist, but it wasn't the truth either.

Eventually his legs had carried him to an area he had never been in before. It was still considered the crash site, but it hadn't been touched by any cleaning crew or Maverick Hunters to help clean up the mess of left over viruses. It was a chaotic mess, rubble arched up and over to create a half dome of sorts shading the sunset from him. Iron bars poked out of the ground like blades of grass, computers fried to the circuit, and even equipment. There were broken pieces of Reploids and the stench of rotting flesh coming from place to place. Humans and Reploids that hadn't been able to escape the initial crash, perhaps even those that were even on the space colony when it started its decent down to Earth. It was a shame that the Earth would be forever scorched.

Perhaps he could find something within the rubble that he could use to show the board how shadow play could help save the world. If they wouldn't acknowledge the worth of his ideas, then he would have to show them. Carefully, but he could do it. It was just finding the right thing to study and evolve from, but what? There was a plethora of untouched data just waiting to be reviewed and repackaged, the only issue was finding something. He could try to gain something from Sigma's body, there was probably thousands of chunks of him all over the place, but that would be too obvious, and Gate wasn't really trying to hurt anyone. Not yet at least.

Gate scratched the bottom of his chin, there were probably parts of X lying around and his DNA was just as valuable as anyone else's. Reports said that he was missing one or two parts of his body when he returned. It would be a duplicate, but there was still his DNA within. But that may be a bit too difficult, even for Gate. There was a sigh as he sat down on a piece of rubble, eyes just wandering around the place. They went from the sky where the sun was about setting, down to the dirt where his eye caught something.

At first Gate wasn't quite sure what he found. It was covered in dust but it obviously looked as if it didn't come from the space colony itself. He bent down and brushed off some of the dirt to take a closer look at it, observing it, turning it in his hands, checking the condition of it. Soon after a revelation had hit him. "This is Zero's core…" he announced to himself. Part of his studying in shadow play stemmed from Zero himself, the fact that he had been resurrected sparked Gate into diving deeper in the study and how it was possible to be able to bring life to an otherwise dead Reploid. Gate had almost forgotten that Zero had died on the space colony, what better way to show the science board than to revive a Reploid that had not died not once, but twice. Giddiness swept over him like a river, Zero was one of the most perfect Reploids, if not the perfect Reploid. But he could make Zero better, more efficient, more perfect.

Later he would come back to survey the area, no doubt the rest of Zero's body was kept holed up somewhere. For now, he would keep this keepsake to study then to recreate. For now, in his hands he held the cradle of civilization, of Gate's civilization. "Zero," he murmured to the core. "You're going to serve me well."

"Put that there. No, no, not there. There." Dr. Gate made motions with his hands towards Zero's body. Pointing at wires and plugs in some attempt to repair the Reploid before actually trying to revive him. "Isoc, take off his body armor, I need to know the full extent of his damage."

"You plan to look a horse in the mouth?" Isoc responded while lifting Zero's helmet off his head and assessing the damage.

"Of course! I need to make him as perfect as possible. I do plan to rebuild him and making him better." Gate took a step towards Zero looking at the amount of damage the Reploid took. His skin had started to begin to decay from the amount of abuse it had gone through, but it could be easily fixed. Zero's appendages were borderline crippled, if not already. Most of the trouble, Gate figured, would come at Zero's bisected body. They would need to recreate the torso from the ground up if they were to make him better. There was a frown, part of Gate believed he had his work cut out for him. Doubt was in his mind that he wouldn't be able to repair Zero fully, but that didn't mean he couldn't make a new body or a perfect duplicate of Zero. He looked down at Zero's chest. The red armor he donned had a gaping hole, and even further down he saw the tear in his body. It didn't take a scientist to deduce that's where one of Zero's cores were supposed to be, perhaps the one that he had found earlier?

"You have quite the project in front of you." Isoc mused while stroking his beard. "Not to mention expensive." The Reploid made a point of squeezing one of Zero's pipes which allowed the tiniest drop of Bassinium through.

"Bassinium is expensive, yes, but it can be recreated with the proper elements. I've done it before. Now," Gate tapped Zero's head, "it's getting this light to turn on is what we'll have trouble with. As reliable as shadow play is becoming, it isn't efficient, and I don't want to waste my time rebuilding a body that has no mind."

"And the soul?"

"Soul?" Gate laughed. "Isoc, I didn't know you were spiritual."

Isoc shook his head. "Not that. But what good is a Reploid that has no ambition? No motive? Sigma might not have had a body at times, but he had a goal which is why he survived for so long."

Gate paused for a moment thinking about that. "And what would Zero's goal be?"

"To live."

"Not to serve or fight?"

Isoc shook his head again. "To create a subservient Reploid would create a Reploid that bases their actions solely on the opinions of that they serve under. I wouldn't want a general to command an Army that would wonder what it's president would think of them. Creating a Reploid whose sole purpose is to fight would just create another Repliforce."

Another laugh, "But that's what we want. Another Repliforce. Don't you think you should expand a little bit on that goal? Maybe not to fight purely but to fight for something."

"To fight X?"

"He would reject that goal unless we wipe his memories, we can reprogram him later but diving that deep into shadow play would create a mindless zombie. Perhaps fight to live."

"Fight to live? Doesn't that seem redundant?"

"Not at all. See, nobody likes to die. Especially not twice. There comes a point in our lives that, even when we have the will to live, we also have the will to die. Memento mori: remember, you will die. Zero here is probably at that point in his life , or death, where he has the will to live given the circumstances, but wouldn't really mind being dead. But fighting to live," Gate tapped Zero's head again. "What reason does Zero need to live? In his mind he has reached nirvana. But if we tell him to fight, something he's already programmed to do, to live then we only need to introduce the ideas so his own mind can figure it out himself. Fight to live to protect humans? To save X? To-?"

"Do anything we want."

"Exactly! He can be at the brink of death but because he has the will to fight to live he'll fight death. Why? Because he just needs to. It'll be easier to give him a goal later or to reprogram one into him." Gate moved to grab Zero's head to lift it up to plug a wire into the back of his head. "Who knows," he spoke as he turned on the computer to see thousands of lines of codes. "It might even wake him up."

X waited at the side of the room as Stephen finished her speech to 0th squad. It was their personal wake for Zero, and somehow X felt awkward being here. 0th squad was a mind of its own, and being here mostly by accident made him feel uneasy. There was luckily no bad blood between him or any of Zero's squad members, even if X liked to believe one of the beastloids didn't like him for being such a pacifist. But since he had already arrived just as Stephen began her speech, it would feel rude to leave prematurely, even if he didn't want to think about Zero for the moment. The wounds were still fresh on his mind.

"…so I would like to make a toast to Zero for being our commander for so long. Lord knows that he wouldn't want us to cry over his short comings, but damn did he put up one hell of a fight." Her squad mates made nods of approval and raised their glasses of oil.

"Ay, we can't forget either." One of the Reploids shouted from the crowd, he was rather short compared to the rest of his team. "To Stephen for taking over 0th squad." There were more shouts of approval. In unison, they raised their glasses and downed the entire thing in one go. Most the squad mates made faces at their beverage and X figured that the drink itself must have been extremely bitter. Somehow there was a smile on his face seeing Zero's squad so happy even in the face of death.

Then again, 0th squad was the CIA of the Maverick Hunters. Special missions that were borderline suicidal to the normal hunter, all the team members specially handpicked by Zero for these exact situations. There were some B ranks in the fold, but Zero had told X once upon a time that they served a special purpose like a clockwork, no matter how small their contribution. It was a bitter sweetness seeing his squad together, but it could be the grief talking.

From the corner of his eye he saw one of the beastloids come towards him, the one that seemed to dislike him the most. He knew that this one was called Asard from the amount of fights that he got into with the other low ranking Reploids, even within his own team. Though Asard was tall, with X only coming just above the midsection, he knew that the other was all talk. At least that's what he liked to believe from the stories that he heard from the other Reploids. Admittedly, Asard was intimidating. Perhaps it was the king cobra motif coupled with the fact that, unlike most beastloids modeled after a snake, he had legs and arms. Surely Asard wouldn't start anything at Zero's wake (but then again, knowing Zero, Asard just might actually do it).

"X," Asard grumbled as he got close enough to the Reploid.

"Asard," X replied in light conversation. He was going to open his mouth to speak more but was cut short at the clawed hand that placed itself on his shoulder.

"Stay strong. Alright?" Confusion. "Even if I hate your guts, you gotta stay strong." Next thing X knew Asard was making his way back to his team mates with Stephen walking towards him.

She gave a laugh, "I see your making progress in your relationship."

"Does he usually act like that?" X inquired suspiciously looking towards Asard.

"Oh yeah. It's how he shows he cares. He might hate you, X, but he respects you."

"That sounds reassuring."

"He hates everyone," she shrugged her shoulders. "He's a misanthropist and the robot version of a misanthropist. But he gets the job done so we don't complain." She sighed rubbing the bridge of her nose, "It's going to be hard keeping everyone in line without Zero."

X gave a laugh, "I can imagine." He held out his hand towards Stephen to shake, to which she took it whole heartedly. "Congratulations on making commander of 0th squad."

"It wasn't hard," she let go and motioned to the rest of the room. "Zero left me in his 'will' that I become commander." Though X didn't say anything, Stephen caught the confusion on his face practically immediately. "It's a joke. See, last time he died the squad was left to Lucie. She got killed on a mission so when he came back and requested I join the squad he told me that I would be the next commander in case he died. We called it his will since then." There was a pause, "He didn't have an actual will that said that, did he?" X shook his head. "Oh, thank god. That would have been weird."

"If he had a will he would have asked that everything got donated or given away," X mused. Zero was like that kind of person, always asking that the things he didn't need to be given to someone else who needed it more. Working till the last breath and taking no days off in case there was someone that needed him. Being there for X when he needed support. There was some part of X that felt guilty even though there was no reason for him to feel that way.

"Indeed, which is why I wanted to give this to you before I ransack his office." Stephen motioned for X to follow her which he did. "He hid it in his office a while ago while I worked as his 'secretary' and forgot that it existed. I figured you might want it." For some reason Zero hiding anything already spelled disaster. His memory was more short termed than anything. The single thought that he had forgotten about it made him give a giggle.

"What is it?"

"Honestly? Your guess is as good as mine." She picked a box off the table and handed it to him. When X opened it he saw sheets of paper folded into small squares and… a floppy disk? "It obviously meant something to Zero, so I'll let you decipher what it is."

Regardless of the anti-climactic gift, X smiled and nodded his head. "Thank you, Stephen."

"No problem. If it has the meaning to the universe on it I rather you knew it than me." Stephen nodded her head. "Do you have any plans on sticking around? Alexander is planning on telling some stories about Zero and we'd appreciate it if you could tell some."

Part of X wanted to, but at the same time he couldn't bring himself to become a crying mess in front of everyone. Not right now, the wounds were still fresh. "No, I have more work to do." Which wasn't a lie, but his work didn't need to be submitted for weeks.

"Of course," Stephen smiled and placed a gentle hand on X's shoulder. "I know you two were close, and I can't really offer that type of brotherhood to you, but I'm always free to talk."

"Thank you, Stephen."