Author's note: I don't own the Capcom characters referenced here, but I do claim ownership of everything else. Oh, and at the time of posting this chapter I've also edited chapters 1 and 2 to make them better. Even if you've read them before, it may be worthwhile to have another gander.
Oh, and by the way, the site recently destroyed all the scene breaks in my story. I'm reinstating them in different form as of 3/23/08 US mountain time, but it'll take a few hours.
The Maverick Hunters failed, and Sigma won. Old Earth died, and in its death gave rise to a new, digital world, Diamond Earth.
However, not everything went according to plan. Four hundred years after the birth of Diamond Earth, Zero has been reborn.
Someday, the crimson warrior will regain his true purpose and stand anew to defeat his ancient enemy. Assuming he survives long enough to try.
Please enjoy the twists and turns of this sci-fi adventure romance. I appreciate reviews, particularly those with helpful criticism, and like to personally answer reviewers' questions and concerns.
Chapter Zero: Homecoming
Iris Cainson stood still and alone in the cluttered dank of the basement workshop, hands clasped in front of her. Yellow, flickering light wandered cautiously from panels in the ceiling and shuddered back from the ghostly white dust guards covering the furniture. A few squat, dirty windows lined the very top of the wall, showing a tiny glimpse of the outside world. Occasionally she glanced up through those windows, her face pale.
After a few minutes of this the young woman pulled a little device from her purse the general shape and size of a cell phone. She pressed a key on its surface, and the device expanded into something the size of a paperback novel and the general design of a laptop computer, complete with a miniature keyboard and a small monitor. Iris dialed a series of digits, and after a moment's wait a video feed popped up on the teleconsole's, or TC's, monitor.
The feed showed a young man's handsome angular face, dominated by a pair of sapphire blue eyes and framed by a scarlet and white durasteel helmet. A ponytail the color of ripened yellow corn sprouted from the back of the man's helmet and fell behind his armor plated shoulders, offscreen. He frowned at her with slightly creased brows.
"Sorry we're late, Iris. Flash said he had to pack some things before he could go. We'll be ready soon. Excuse me."
Before Iris could respond or even say hello, he pressed the mute button and spoke to someone offscreen, his frown deepening. He left his own teleconsole lying on a table or some other high, flat surface, giving the young woman on the other end a high-definition display of his armor covered body.
Iris' eyes flicked up and down the young man's vividly red plate mail, complete with its pearly white accents and black bodysuit lying underneath. A glossy black sheath dangled loosely from its buckle on his hip, holding the adamantine sabre that had seen the warrior through hundreds of battles. She smiled at the sight.
He turned back to her and unmuted the receiver. "Just a little longer. I've reminded Flash of the situation."
She nodded. "I'm sorry to ask you both to come home like this on such short notice. You don't really have to stay for long if you don't want to, sir."
"Yes I do." He turned his head at a voice from offscreen. "Time to go. We'll be there soon."
Iris inclined her head to him, setting her dark brown hair tumbling around her face. "Thank you, Zero."
00000
Hundreds of miles away, the crimson warrior nodded and closed the connection. "Flash, you lunatic, teleport us now. Your sister is scared. She needs us."
Flash nodded, typing one last line of code into his personal programming teleconsole. The man's roomy cargo pants held over a dozen compartments for his many tools and devices, that TC included. A drab green belt at the waist served the triple purpose of holding up the heavily burdened pants, carrying another half dozen other esoteric inventions, and binding in his long, multicolored tunic at the waist.
The tunic by itself was a sight to make sore eyes. Its brilliant patchwork of colors clashed in ways that never failed to earn astonished or morbid stares from passers-by in the street. Its pattern shifted from time to time, but never into anything more stylish or less shocking.
Flash stood between 5'8 and 5'9, roughly six or seven inches shorter than Zero, and weighed nearly thirty-five pounds less, leaving him with a frame of average height that nevertheless gangled excessively. His face was narrow and bony, and his short, light brown hair stood straight up from his head and curled slightly on itself, giving it a wavy look. It waved to and fro as he continued to nod like a deranged bobble head doll.
"No worries, Sissy's gonna be fine, I'll kill the sonofagun for trying! Just have to tag all my stuff as parameters for the teleport program and its, oh, here we go, beam us out Scotty—"
The programmer cackled a string of gibberish with over twenty times the speed of human speech. "EXECUTE teleporttype:secure/biotransfer(0, , 6, trif'ce, 73, domain:Wind Programming University Town/Wind Programming University/Student Residences/Pentium Hall/number 319/frontroom, domain:Stormy Hill region/Windy Fountains/Silver Pine Street/number 1407/basementworkshop, leavegate:5 minutes); return 0;. WhoooooooOOOOO!"
The two men evaporated into thin air along with the crazed programmer's several large boxes of luggage. They reappeared hundreds of miles away, in front of Iris, in the dank of the basement, with the barest whisper of movement.
She jumped, amber eyes popping wide, at the suddenness of their arrival, then ran forward to embrace her brother. The young woman hit Flash hard enough to send the brunet programmer tripping and falling backwards over a box. Her own momentum carried her forwards, and they landed together in a heap. Zero smiled at the sight of the siblings reunited.
"Ouch. Are you all right, Flash?" Iris stood up and lent her brother a hand. He blinked and sneezed, making no move to take it. Reclined over his luggage, the programmer looked around the room.
"Sissy, why's my old workshop all dusty and covered in these cloth thingies?"
Iris dusted off her dress and bowed, her forehead creased. "I'm sorry, I should have kept it up better while you were at college. I didn't have time to get it all cleaned up before you gentlemen got here. Again, I apologize."
Zero rolled his eyes. "Your brother will survive. I've seen his automated cleaning programs. Tell me where I can find this Takato Matsuda."
Iris turned to the warrior and clasped her hands over her chest. He took a moment to get a better look at the young woman.
The blond saw echoes of Flash's bony countenance in hers, but softened to fit a smooth, feminine ideal. Her face bore the high cheekbones, pale skin, and narrow nose and lips that suggested a largely Nordic heritage. In contrast with these features, Iris also possessed a pair of deep amber eyes and a head of soft, dark brown hair that fell in perfect ringlets down to her narrow waist.
Currently, the young woman wore what looked like a dress for a modern soirée, complete with loose, glittery skirts slit up to the knee and short sleeves to allow free movement while dancing. She wore a bracelet of diamonds and topazes to accent the violet dress, and a pendant with her house emblem around her neck. Even in the poor lighting of the basement, the outfit suited her. Everything seemed to suit her.
Zero's eyes jerked back up to Iris's face. She had been talking. "What?"
The brunette blinked at him, her eyebrow twitching a little. "I was saying, sir, that the gentleman in question is still at the party. I don't know what's happening up there, with me gone. I'm supposed to be the hostess. I hope he didn't follow me home."
"If he did, he's a dead man…but he's a dead man anyway. Flash, stay here with Iris. I'll find the man and challenge him to a duel. A death match." Zero strode out of the basement, one hand gripping the hilt of his sabre.
Iris watched him go with wide eyes, a faint smile hovering around her lips. "He's always…refreshingly direct, isn't he, Flash?"
He cackled and removed his teleconsole from a pocket. "He's funny when he's mad. Let's watch!"
00000
"Is it wrong to say that we should serve the Genesis King for all he's done for us? I mean really. Hasn't she got any sense at all?"
The warrior lounged back in his lawn chair, tan ring mail armor glinting glossily. The daylight had long since departed, and there had never been stars in the sky, but the cream colored light from the standing lamps effectively illuminated his armor, weapons, and some of his facial features.
Stiff plates of dark tan augmented the ring mail in places like the chest, shoulders, head, and thighs. A sheath dangled from either side of the man's sword belt, and a broad grin spread across his young, mustachioed face.
His lawn chair, and those of the people around him, stood on a smooth, grassy turf ringed on three sides with flowers and hedges. The turf shared a fourth side with a stage on which a number of people, aged from sixteen at the youngest to late twenties at the oldest, danced to flashing lights and heavily rhythmic, energetic music. Their wardrobe variously glittered or swallowed the light, twirled sinuously or clung to their forms in the fashion of their generation. A few severely dressed older men and women stood by the sidelines or watched the dark corners of the area to inhibit any hanky-panky by their partygoing sons and daughters.
Most of them currently watched the scene unfolding under the cream colored lamplight. For several minutes now, the dancing of the young crowd had stuttered along like a junior high prom in Boise, Idaho of Old Earth. Groups and pairs of teenagers and twenty-somethings took up their coats and left. Meanwhile, the warrior cultist kept up his monologue uncontested.
"And serving me serves the Genesis King. I mean, that makes sense, right? I'm a loyal follower here, I'm preaching his word, I don't think it's too much to expect something in return. What's the big deal?"
The young woman across the table from him forced a smile, her hazel eyes straying to the pair of katanas sheathed at the man's waist. Others, mostly single men or women around Iris' age or married couples of the same age group, forced a laugh. One man cleared his throat and spoke into his drink, eyes glued to the grass.
"But, Mr. Matsuda, what will you do if she's gone to call her brother's friend, that Zero Doppler? We hear he's quite…something…"
The man sputtered to a stop and cowered back as Takato Matsuda glared. "I'm a servant of the Genesis King. No one gets in our way. If he really thinks he's so special, this Doppler kid's gonna wind up dead."
The young woman across from him stood and set down her glass. For a brief moment she remained still, smirking stiffly at the armed and armored warrior before her.
Takato Matsuda regarded the woman with raised eyebrows. From her general appearance and development, she could have been anywhere from seventeen to twenty years old. Set in a tan, oval face, her ruby red lips curved upwards at the corners and her eyebrows slanted slightly up and out in the loveliest aesthetic of the Chinese. Her sky blue hair fell back in a lustrous ponytail, with a few locks hanging free on either side of her face. She regarded him through narrowed hazel eyes, accented with exactly the right amount of eyeshadow.
His eyes strayed down from her flawless countenance to her feminine curves. They merited the attention, despite having been dressed in a noncustomized, conservative dancing outfit, rather than the specially tailored clothes of the rich or something cheap but provocative. Matsuda grinned and returned her gaze.
"What, are you going to stand there all night looking pretty? Come here, missy. Don't be scared…" he crooked a finger at her, toying with the hilt of one of his katanas all the while.
"I won't ever answer to 'missy'. I am Malon Haolin." She looked down her nose at him, her voice steadying. "And I won't let you talk about Zero like that. He's the best warrior in the world. In fact, I bet he could take you out in three minutes flat."
Matsuda laughed shortly, his face reddening. "I think I heard you wrong, missy. Because I think I heard you say the Doppler kid could beat me. You'd better come over, right here, and tell me what you really said before we get all miscommunicated."
He leered at her and gestured to his lap, gripping the hilt of the katana openly. Malon turned away.
"You're really stupid if you think you can intimidate me. Zero and my brothers could—"
Her voice cut off in a squeak. Matsuda had drawn a katana, cut the cast iron table between them in half, and crossed the intervening distance to grab Malon before anyone could blink. He held her around the throat with one arm, keeping the young woman pinned against his armored chest. His other hand held the blade, orange fluid running slowly along its edge to drop from the tip to the ground.
Behind him, the two pieces of the table tumbled to the side. Those youths still dancing on the stage stopped and pointed, some of them screaming, others simply murmuring among themselves and watching. The people closer around Takato and Malon froze, speechless. One woman fainted quietly, but no one thawed enough to help her.
"Your brothers aren't here, missy, and neither is Doppler. And none of them are really dumb enough to go up against one of Sigma's chosen." As he spoke, she crinkled her nose at a whiff of strong, cheap liquor.
"You. Are you Takato Matsuda?"
Takato half-turned, relaxing his grip on Malon slightly. He raised his eyebrows at what he saw.
Matsuda's eyes alit on a 6'3", 175 lbs man wearing fully fifty-five pounds of scarlet plate mail armor. Nine pounds of that consisted of a red and white shield shaped like an elongated diamond, or a simple, four-sided kite. The man stood with one hand resting easily on the hilt of his sheathed, 32" metal sabre, and the other in a loose fist at his side. He was bigger, taller, and more heavily armored than Takato Matsuda by far.
The tan warrior laughed and let Malon Haolin go altogether. She ran over to Zero, who gave her a quick hug around the shoulders and maneuvered her to stand behind him. He kept his crystal blue gaze locked on Matsuda's sneer the entire time.
"Who's asking, punk?" the cultist warrior muttered at him.
"I am Zero Doppler. I take offense at 'punk.' Do you withdraw your word?"
"Like he—" The other man stared at him a moment, mouth twitching, and his whole expression changed. He laughed.
"I get it, I get it. You want to go through that whole 'taking offense' business to get me into a legal duel with you, eh? Trying to get rid of me? And you're trying to make it all about us two, so the Cult will only come after you if do beat me. How noble.
"I don't think I'm going to play that game, Doppler. Tell you what, I do withdraw that word, 'punk' and anything else I said to hurt your feelings. I'll even say I'm sorry I said it, in front of all these witnesses. I'm just here to preach the good word of Sigma, right?"
Zero glared. Takato cocked his head and sheathed his katana. He stepped forwards and gazed up at the crimson warrior with half-lidded eyes. "You know, the Genesis King really does preach peace, Doppler. No need to fight."
He laughed again, like a hyena. Zero said something thoroughly unprintable with regards to the warrior's mother and possible sisters. Malon blushed, covering her mouth with her hand.
Takato smirked, his eyes narrowing. "And now you're trying to bait me out. Cute. Who are you really fighting for, Zero? Little missy here?" he gestured at Malon, who scowled at him. "Or the Cainson girl? That's official, it is, to say whose honor you're defending. Not that it's really important. Whoever it is, I'll make sure she suffers for defying Sigma's servant."
Flash and Iris Cainson watched and heard the entire scene through the brunet programmer's teleconsole. He picked a small, flanged metal thing off his belt.
"We'll see who suffers, gelatinous glob of zits—"
His sister laid her hand over his and locked his amber eyes in her own. "No combat hacking. You could go to jail, and that would leave me and Zero all alone, Flash. Let us handle this one."
The man twitched and waggled his eyebrows at her. "Not even just a little hacking?—okay, if you say so, Sis…"
He pulled his hands from the keyboard and slowly put away the flanged thing. Iris blinked and frowned a moment, forehead creased.
Please tell him you're doing this on my behalf, sir. With you and Flash, I'm sure even the Cult can't hurt me. I trust you both.
Out under the starless sky, the young woman's voice beamed into Zero's head as if though a cell phone or radio of Old Earth, but hearable only to him. He replied immediately in like manner.
Understood, he beamed to her, and opened his mouth—
Malon gripped the warrior's elbow. "Zero. Tell him you're dueling him for me. You and Kai and Matt can keep me protected just fine. I believe in you," she whispered.
He half-turned to regard her. His eyes flicked from the woman to the other warrior, and back again, but Malon didn't follow Zero's gaze to the cultist.
She turned away, holding his arm with both hands. "I'll be fine."
The Cainson siblings watched and listened. Iris shook her head. Zero, this would put her whole house in jeopardy. She can't make that choice for them. I can, for my house. Please tell the gentleman you're doing this for me, sir.
Even as her words entered Zero's head, he turned at the sound of footsteps on the grass. Takato did the same, and they watched as an old man approached, the hem of his cloak floating around the tops of his soft leather boots. The crowd of partygoers watched him as well, including the youths standing or sitting frozen around the epicenter of Matsuda and Zero's confrontation.
"What is this? Timothy Keppler, your fiancée has fainted to the floor in front of you. See to it she's taken to the hospital this moment, you young fool."
The old man glared, and Keppler came unfrozen with a start. He knelt by future Mrs. Keppler's side, mumbling apologies and pulling out his teleconsole to call the paramedics.
Zero kept his gaze on the old man. "Elder Programmer Gau. I would bow, but this cowardly fool Matsuda might stab me in the b—"
"Silence, Zero." He turned to the young warrior, wrinkled face pursed in a frown. His snowy mane fluttered in the cool night breeze; frowning more deeply, Gau pulled his drab, woolen cloak tighter around his stoop shouldered frame. The man's chill blue eyes shone piercingly from under wispy white eyebrows. "You, Miss Cainson, and Miss Haolin have already done enough to endanger this town. I won't allow your rash actions to cause our destruction."
The crimson warrior returned the Elder Programmer's gaze in silence a moment longer, receiving one last message from Iris.
Understood. I'll do it. Zero turned his back on the administrator and faced Matsuda. "You. Cultist scum."
The tan warrior laughed. "Yeah?"
"On behalf of Iris Cainson, I challenge you to a duel to the death. Do you accept?"
Gau waved a hand. "Zero Doppler! You have one last chance to take this back. Think of Miss Cainson!"
"I won't." He didn't look back.
"Then as the domain administrator of Windy Fountains, I formally declare House Doppler null and void. You are an exile. You will leave this town by this time next week and not return. I declare House Cainson similarly erased, and Iris and Flash Cainson exiles effective one week from the time they receive these words. This town has no business with those foolish enough to challenge the Cult of Sigma."
Zero nodded. "Understood."
Matsuda folded his arms. "Shut up, you wrinkly old man. Doppler, I accept your challenge. I'll kill you at noon tomorrow in the central arena, and you can bring any weapon you like to die with. Enjoy your last few hours alive." He winked at Malon Haolin and strode off.
The young woman hugged Zero's arm tighter. He put a hand on her shoulder, and she looked up to him with her hazel eyes wide.
"I—I'm sorry, I—"
"It's not your fault. Malon…your brothers are here. They'll take you home. I'll see you later." He glanced into the dark and pulled away from her. She put out a hand to catch him, but the blond warrior leapt away too fast for her eyes to follow. He left her behind without another word.
"Wait…" Malon Haolin stared after him a moment, then turned on Elder Programmer Gau. Her face flushed red and her hands clenched into fists.
"How could you do that to him! All he wanted was to protect us from that filthy cultist, and you have the gall to say he can't come back to his own home town? You've probably wrecked his career at the Academy, too, but what do you care? Not to mention Flash's scholarship is dead and buried with an exile on his record! But I really can't believe you'd throw out Iris, who's lived here all her life! What are you thinking?"
As she talked, a pair of warriors in azure blue plate mail, accented in lighter blue, dashed over to the scene from the direction in which Zero had glanced. They took positions on either side of the young woman and grabbed her arms.
"Malon, calm down!" Matt Haolin yelled.
"That's Elder Gau you're talking to. Don't say such things," Kai Haolin added.
She jerked free of their dual grip and folded her arms. "Shut up. I don't regret a single word of it, any of it."
Gau stood silent through this exchange, eyes locked on Malon's. "I don't expect you to understand this now, child. Someday, though, perhaps you will learn."
Malon glared at him wordlessly, and the old man turned and walked away. The Haolin brothers stood with their sister as Iris' party broke up around them.
"I'm sorry we got here too late to help you," Kai muttered.
"It's hard to find a teleport facility open this late at night," Matt finished. "What did we miss?"
Malon stalked off into the night, grabbing up her purse on the way. Her brothers exchanged a glance and followed after her.
00000
Night passed, and dawn came to House Doppler in the normal way of things. Its soft, ruddy light fell into the gritty gray of the roofing, splashed across the brick of the walls, filtered through the dusty windows, and caressed the gardenias gone wild by the front porch. A couple of hours passed, and the light changed from rosy pink to orange and finally to yellow.
Unlike the normal way of things, when morning came to the house it found someone else already sleeping inside. Zero Doppler, a tall young man of nineteen years, awoke in a bed made for the twelve year old boy he had been before leaving for Hurricane Force Academy. Even when he curled up like a cooked shrimp, the mattress barely contained him.
Blinking in the yellow light, the orphan rose, left his bedroom, and walked alone through a house built before his parents had disappeared. Silence echoed from the walls, and dust settled down from the furniture whenever he took a step. Glancing around the emptiness, he descended the stairs to the first floor.
Zero passed a hand through his long, blond hair, muscles rippling and flexing sinuously under his flawless, light caramel colored skin. The motion activated his armor programs; a few seconds passed, and a black bodysuit materialized over his otherwise naked form. Piece by piece, the warrior's scarlet and white suit of plate mail materialized over the bodysuit.
In only a moment, he stood at the front door, one hand gripping the hilt of his sheathed sabre. The bed had been too small and the house too large, but the weapon and armor fit just right. Zero smiled and strode out onto the porch, sniffing the air to catch the buttery scent of the gardenias.
The blond got on his motorcycle (Flash had teleported it from the warrior academy late the previous night) and collected Iris from her house, and the two of them went to Windy Fountains' administrative office to fill out the legal paperwork for the duel. Takato's paperwork had been taken care of already, so they didn't meet him while they dotted the i's and crossed the t's.
By the time they finished, an audience had begun to gather around the town's central arena a little way down the street. Zero held the door open for Iris on the way out of the domain admin's office building, and they walked shoulder to shoulder to his motorcycle. Iris glanced up at the blond, and saw him gazing into the distance with a faraway expression. She bowed to him.
"I'm sorry for all the trouble I've gotten you into, sir."
He blinked and focused on her. "That cultist is the only one in trouble."
"Yes, of course," she smiled a little. "I only meant—"
"I know. It doesn't bother me to leave here, or give up my place at the academy. I've learned all I can there, and here. Are you ready to go?"
The brunette nodded. "Yes, please take me back to my house. If Flash decided to interfere with the duel, I'm the only one that could stop him."
Zero climbed onto the motorcycle and lent Iris his hand. "Understood."
She took his hand and mounted in front of him. His long arms easily reached around her to hold the handlebars, surrounding the young woman on three sides with his strong, steely embrace. She, too, held the handlebars, but only for support. Her hair, currently coiled in an elaborate braid, tickled his nose.
Zero put his passkey in the ignition and kicked back the kickstand, and the two youths set off at a gentle pace to her house. He dropped the brunette off and saw her inside, then revved the engine and roared over to the arena at breakneck speed. His ponytail streamed out behind
His scarlet armor gleaming in the full, golden light of noon, the young man arrived to the boisterous murmur of the crowd. Despite the unusually short waiting period between the challenge and the event, over five hundred people had arrived to watch the duel. Beneath their noisy calls and murmurings, the bleachers groaned under the weight of nearly twenty percent of Windy Fountains' entire population. Takato Matsuda was not the first cultist to blow through the town, but he had caused more trouble than most. And few of the townspeople had ever seen the Doppler child fight in a real live battle, much less a death match.
Zero parked his motorcycle in a space reserved for the purpose and strode through the open gates into the arena. The outcome of this battle would mean the death of either him or the cultist Takato Matsuda.
Malon and her brothers watched from their front-row seats as the crimson warrior walked from his parked motorcycle to one end of the flat, elliptical, granite-floored arena. On cue, Takato Matsuda rose from a chair placed at the other end and kicked said chair to the sidelines. He was armed and armored as he had been the night before, his tan ring mail and the sheaths for his two katanas clinking as he moved. Malon looked from him to Zero, hazel eyes wide.
"Glad to see you showed up, fool. I thought you might take the girl and run off," the cultist announced in a voice that carried to the back of the bleachers.
Zero made no vocal reply, but unstrapped the shield from his back and unsheathed his sabre. Takato filled the silence for him.
"It would've been the smart thing, Doppler. You're a green little whelp that thinks he's special for being the perfect student at school."
Zero remained wordless, weapon drawn. Hearing it all from her front row seat, Malon answered for him.
"You idiot! Zero graduated from Hurricane Force Academy four years ago!"
Takato waved her comment aside. "Shut up, wench. I know for a fact he came here straight from campus just last night."
"That's because he's been teaching there, idiot! After Zero graduated, the academy hired him to teach! Good luck beating a full-status HFA combat master!" she crowed in reply.
The tan warrior hesitated a moment, eyes flicking from the young woman in the bleachers to the blond in front of him. "He'll be a combat master's corpse when I'm done with him," he muttered loudly.
Malon looked ready to keep up the argument, but stopped at a glance from Zero. After a long moment of silence, Elder Programmer Gau stood from the seat placed on his raised platform on the sidelines.
"Zero Doppler, of no house. What is the grievance for which you have challenged the man before you?"
"Numerous offenses against Iris Cainson, of no recognized house. I hereby challenge this man to a duel on her behalf."
"Takato Matsuda, of the foreign House Matsuda. You have previously read his grievances, and they are many. What is your response to these accusations?"
"- him. I've done nothing outside my sworn duty as one Sigma's blessed followers. I'll take his challenge and shove it nine inches up his -."
He unsheathed both katanas and adopted a ready stance, both blades lifted in front, one to either side. Zero, a right-handed swordsman, raised the kite shield up to cover his left flank and held his sabre back and to the right. Gau sighed at the sight.
"Then there is no other way. According to their respective wishes and the laws of this land, the Wind server, these two warriors will engage in combat to the death, and by this death clear the operating system of their grievances." He turned and touched a few keys on the teleconsole sitting on the arm of his chair. "The barriers around the arena are now active. Let battle be joined."