The mind felt hazy. A fog clouding his vision even though he could not see. There was numbness surrounding his body, although he could not place the feeling, it was ethereal. One would describe it as a dreamless sleep, or astral projection crossed with sleep paralysis. He couldn't move, but at the same time he could in a way he couldn't describe. It was almost as if he was moving and his body was trying to catch up, yet in this case he had no body.

It was peaceful. Death was peaceful. Initially he had feared it when his vision had become blurry and he was beginning to see visions of his past, but now being able to feel at peace, he welcomed the warmth of it. There was that part of him that didn't want to go on to the afterlife-reincarnation-whatever, there was the part of his soul that still fretted over the world and what could happen to it. Yet the better part of his mind knew better than to question the state of the world. X would keep it safe, and with that thought, he slowly, but surely, spiraled back into nothingness.

X walked into Zero's room looking around the place as if he wasn't allowed to be there. No one could blame him, it had been weeks since he had entered Zero's room, even before the entire incident with Eurasia. Everyone had been so stressed over the hanging noose on the world that they recharged, if sparingly, and when they did it was in the more public rooms that the Maverick Hunters had for more low rank recruits. Zero's room was just as standard as X's. A recharge pod, a desk with chair, a dresser, a personal computer, filing cabinets, and then some other 'decorations' that Zero had set up for himself. A whiteboard was hung next to Zero's recharge pod with nonsensical scribbles all over the place, next to that, a calendar that was one month behind. Where to begin?

With a sigh, X set down the few boxes he brought in and took out a trash bag he had brought with in case he needed to throw or toss clothes in to donate. He wrapped it around the chair and began his work of sifting through Zero's belongings. Although X had put aside an entire day to go through Zero's things, he didn't plan on taking that long. Zero, like X, lived as sparingly as possible, perhaps even more so.

Giving another once over, X decided to start at the corner near his recharge pod and work in a circle. First, the whiteboard and calendar. Curiously enough, X tried to decipher Zero's handwriting. They looked like important notes on dreams or who was going to go on patrol on what day. He had to take a step back before thinking too much about it. Into the box it went. Next was the calendar. Like the whiteboard, X also read through it though more sparingly. It mostly listed certain due dates for reports, missions, and some were more formally titled. "Coffee with X", "Training with Squad", "New Recruit", "Speech on Replif—". X stopped there and threw the calendar in the trash.

A self-pep talk was in order. "X, you're here to pack Zero's belongings. Not snoop." In retrospect X knew he wouldn't listen, but he said those words anyway to try to take himself away from the situation, even if for a moment.

Next was the dresser. He walked towards it and picked up the box on top of it labeled "Medals". Opening it was every medal that he was awarded, POW, purple heart, silver star, the list went on. He picked up the POW medal in particular. X remembered how Zero joked about them not having a medal for being resurrected in the line of duty so awarded him the POW medal instead. But Zero was a prisoner of war, he was held against his will and was resurrected in shadow play. Still, Zero joked about his death when it obviously affected him. It was always sarcasm in his replies of death, never anything serious. He frowned as he placed the medal back and closed the box setting it within one of the larger boxes he brought. He'd have to keep them.

Going through Zero's clothes was the easiest part of cleaning out his room. He put them all in another trash bag to be left to donate. The only article of clothing he didn't donate was a jacket that X felt compelled to keep. It was a little too large on him, but he'd wear it nonetheless. It vaguely smelled like Zero. Vaguely he remembered one night they were together and Zero let X borrow the jacket to use to keep the cold at bay. It was an official Maverick Hunter jacket, completed with a patch insignia and everything. He put it in the box with the medals. Moving onto the filing cabinets, X made sure to keep everything as organized as possible to sift through at another date. He figured important papers such as files about his squad, medical exams, or sensitive papers were within. It would be easier to determine what was necessary papers in the following week. He put all those papers in another box, labeled the boxes, and put them to the side with the clothes to be donated.

Green eyes looked towards the desk. Part of X wanted to factory reset the computer and call it a day, but knowing Zero he kept something important on there. There was a sigh as he sat down at the chair and turned the computer on. Password protected. X furrowed his eyebrows. A bit of guesswork later X had figured out that Zero's password was the date he was activated and the date he came back from the dead backwards. Clever.

He hooked a spare hard drive to the computer and began to transfer all the data on his computer onto it to be looked at on a later date. Much of the things worth noting on his computer were programs Zero made himself. None of them were completed, as far as X could tell, but they appeared rather odd. Later he would have to see what it really was, but while everything transferred X was to go through the drawers in the desk.

The first one he opened contained junk which X promptly threw in the garbage. The other one contained several photo albums. Curiosity killed the cat and X grabbed the one on the top and opened it. It was the first picture that made X begin to sob. The photo was of Dr. Cain, X, and Zero. The two Reploids were in armor while Dr. Cain was dressed in his old archeology outfit standing between the two bots holding them as if they were his children. Zero's smile was casual yet awkward while X's was small yet bright. It was before the war, before X had joined the Maverick Hunters, before all the horrible things that led up to the very point of X crying in Zero's room over a photo taken several decades ago.

Grief hit X like a bus. He had just become hit with the realization of how much he missed Cain and Zero. He had friends other than those two but now he was without anyone to freely express himself. Cain was there when Zero died to console X. Zero was there when Cain died to console X. Now, with the both of them dead, X found himself feeling void, purged of emotion and feeling. X didn't want to feel like this, yet all he could do was sob into his hands and muffle curses into nothing as he slowly drifted into depression.

"The analysis for Zero's DNA has begun." Isoc announced rather pleased with himself. A few days had passed since bringing Zero into the care of the two scientists. They were making progress with Zero, slow, but progress nonetheless. Gate had begun to pump Bassinium into Zero's body to prepare him to slowly regain consciousness.

Gate looked up from the pipes he had been monitoring. "Excellent, do you have an estimate on when it will be finished?"

"A year."

"Really? I thought it would take much longer."

"It is rather complex, but I have made some changes to the programs to hasten the progress." Isoc moved towards Zero. He was stripped of the armor he once wore and now was laying on the table completely 'nude'. Nude was an inaccurate term, there was no synthetic skin from the neck down. All Zero was below his neck was black metal that vaguely looked of a 20th century robot. It was human looking, but not human at all. "How is Zero coming along?"

"Slowly." Gate pointed at the computer screen, "I've been creating a schematic for Zero to base off when I do the repairs. In all respect, he's the same, save for a few minor details. Some aesthetic changes to his armor, but still the same."

"And his mind?"

"Faint, but still there." Gate moved towards Zero's head. "He's not alive, neither is he dead."

"Bordering reality and hell." Isoc mused out loud. "Fitting."

"If it pleases you." Gate's eyes flicked up towards Isoc for a moment, then back down to Zero.

"Is there a reason?"

"He's at the tip of the iceberg, the climax of his life. Of course, he's teetering towards death, it's the natural course of things. You think you're dead, so your body feigns death. In Zero's case, he's dead. But for some reason he keeps slipping out of that for just a fraction of a millisecond."

"So he's dead, but alive?"

"In a sense. Think of it as a battery being used even though something is turned off. It's off, but the battery still allows it to function sparingly. This helps us. See, he's aware of himself in those seconds. He's still dead, but the more metaphysical part of him is alive and well. All I have to do now is get into that head of his, create a virus that would capture that awareness, and bring him back into that state of being alive."

Isoc nodded to himself. "Would there still be a possibility that, even if you were to accomplish it, he would reject being alive?"

"Of course! I can't say I've experienced myself, but being resurrected is nasty business. It involves plenty of trauma and working your body back into that alive state. The easiest way I can explain it is that Zero can be stuck in a permanent state of sleep paralysis. There's also the possibility of thinking oneself to death as a form of suicide."

"Would he actually do that?" Isoc furrowed his brows at Gate. Zero didn't seem the type to commit suicide, no matter the circumstance.

"Who knows for certain. I wouldn't blame him if he did. But if we were to program that goal into him, to fight to live, it would be completely avoided." Gate walked over to his computer and began to type something into it. "When he wakes up he'll probably still want to die. Death is never happy when you take something away from her, especially for the first time."

"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

"More like fool me twice, shame on you again."

"How long is he going to be like that?"

"It could range from a second to several years, it depends on his self-preservation."

"Even with the virus?"

"Indeed, the virus can only affect so much without completely destroying his sense of self and make him brain dead. The way I see it, it would take a couple months." Gate typed another thing in to bring up an image of Zero's head. "But look," Gate pointed at a certain area of Zero's head.

Isoc walked over to Gate and bent down a little to look at the screen. It looked like a fried circuit or even a slightly fractured board. Part of it even looked incomplete. "What am I supposed to be looking at?"

"An injury predating his death. It's the part of the mind that affects memories. One of the Reploids I had the honor of building had the same issue from an accident. Not entirely fixable, but somewhat repairable. There are side effects to it."

"Such as?"

"Hallucinations," Gate flicked his eyes towards Isoc. "Nothing too serious, minimal at best."

"What if you completely destroy his memory?"

"Isoc, are you questioning my ability of a simple procedure?" Gate turned to fully face the other scientist frowning. "Comparatively, Metal Shark Player's injury was massive compared to Zero's and he came out just fine until the board destroyed him. Last time I remembered, you completely destroyed a Reploid in your care that had a simple head injury making her brain dead." Gate almost appeared visibly bristled at Isoc's comment. "Question my competence again and I'll take you off this partnership. Are we clear?"

Isoc backed down, "Yes, sir."

"Excellent." Gate walked over to take a vial of bassinium that was on that table Zero laid on and practically shoved it into Isoc's hands. "Analyze this and I'll forget your comment." Gate made a motion with his hands as if saying 'begon from my sight'. Isoc looked down at the vial for a moment before turning on his heels to the other room.

Stephen rammed a hand into a dummy's face. Shattering the plaything on impact as her claw like fingers dug into the head and began to tear the insides of it out. She was venting. Even if she had not been around for Zero's first death, she had been around ever since he had come back from the dead and had been a friend to him. Her other squad mates knew how to deal with the grief that they already endured. Stephen not so much. She shoved the dummy to the side throwing the stuff inside it off her hands. "That won't be getting up anytime soon." A blink as Stephen looked behind her seeing one of her squad mates standing at the door of the training room. "Piss you off that much, huh?"

It was Basalt. If Asard was a tree, then Basalt was a skyscraper. He was a beastloid like Asard, only instead of being modeled after a snake he was modeled after a whale, but to be fair, he looked like a cross between a whale and a shark. His hands were more like massive fins with giant claws at the end of them to imitate fingers and his tailfin was ridiculously large. He never caused problems with anyone from his personality, but the sheer massive size of his body was what always brought complaints. He was just so big. It made the word big seem like an understatement.

"You should have heard what it was saying," Stephen replied looking down at the dummy. She scrunched her nose at her handiwork. Part of her almost felt bad at what she had done to it, but it didn't matter now. Basalt began to walk towards her, leaning down slightly as a curtesy of his height and to get a better look at the dummy she had torn apart. She didn't feel good. Pressing her fingers to the bridge of her nose, she closed her eyes. "Basalt, how did you deal with Zero's death?"

Basalt took a moment to reply, he still looked down at the destroyed dummy before looking towards Stephen. "I don't really know. I'm use to people dying so I just accepted it." Stephen looked up to stare at Basalt with a frown. "It's not like I don't miss him, but nothing lasts forever."

"Stop trying to be philosophical about this."

"I'm not trying to be." Stephen frowned a little harder taking her hand away from her face. Basalt only stared from the corner of his eye. "People deal with death in different ways. I've seen many people die that I care about, so I've learned how to deal with it." Stephen's frown turned into a small grimace and eventually she turned her head away from Basalt.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. Death is normal. People forget about that." There was silence, as Basalt straightened back up to stand at his full height. "There are always people to talk to you if you need it. It wouldn't hurt to call the counseling center."

Stephen sighed, "I'll think about it. I just don't know how to get my feelings into words. I'm better at just…" she motioned to the dummy that was on the floor. "You know… acting them out."

Basalt nodded his head, "I understand. Talking about it can be hard. It gets easier."

"I know," Stephen looked past Basalt to the ceiling. It wasn't the first time someone she knew died. Someone she was close to at least. "How do you feel about his death."

"I told you-" Stephen gave him a look. Basalt was silent for a moment before replying earnestly. "Raw."

"Yeah…"

"Yeah?"

"That's a good way to explain it."