"Zerah."

The Reploid held her sister in her arms. They were abandoned. Left to die in the dusty dunes. Zerah's black hair fell over her arms. She stared into her red eyes. The false flesh on her skin had seen better days. So too did the clothing she wore. It peeled off, showing beneath the silver metal of the inside. The true body, the body that was Reploid. A machine.

"Perez," Zerah murmured as she hugged her sister tighter in her arms, though not too tight to hurt her. "Perez, I want to go home." Her wails were soaked in pain and despair. Not a hope lingered in her tongue.

"We can't go home," Perez whispered to her sister. They were left here to die by the scientists that built them. They called them obsolete. So they left them here to rot in the sand. One of the humans said they would be eaten alive by the cannibals that roamed these parts. Another said they would eat each other to join those cannibal Mavericks. To Perez they fell on deaf ears, but the sister that she took under her wing it ate at her mind. Tempted her to become Maverick to suite the words of what those humans told her. She could still see their faces, their upturned lips laughing at the two Reploids who struggled as they were left to die in this forsaken place.

The wind almost sounded like the ghost of their laughter and jokes. Perez wanted to kill them for doing this to them.

"Perez…" Zerah looked up at her sister. She reached up to brush a strand of white hair from her face. "Perez, am I… a Maverick?"

Maverick. The words echoed in the godless desert. Perez could hear Mavericks laughter. Licking their chops as they stared down at the two sisters waiting for them to be lulled to sleep to feast on their oil. So they could be taken apart and used for scrap or placed upon their bodies as trophies.

Perez laughed and shook her head. "Of course you're not." She smiled down at Zerah but her sister did not smile back. They were in pain; their bodies were falling apart. Zerah could no longer move her body the way she used to. What was once a bubbling girl running in the fields of the desert was now mutilated beyond repair. The dogs that were sent after them tore apart her legs. Perez killed them. She still saw the oil on her hands. Stained forever. She smiled down at her sister bitterly.

"Then why did they leave us out here? If I wasn't a Maverick wouldn't the humans have kept me safe in that lab?" Still laying in her lap, Zerah looked up at Perez. "I don't want to be a Maverick. Mavericks… they're scary." Zerah looked down to her legs. "They did this to me. I don't want to do that to anyone else." Perez patted her sister's head and closed her eyes still smiling down at Zerah. She sounded so scared of turning into a Maverick. The seed of hatred was planted so deeply into her sister. It was surprising that it was not blossoming into a flower.

Perez started to hum a tune. "You're not a Maverick, Zerah. Those Humans just don't realize what they did. But its ok. We have each other. That's what matters." She felt Zerah nod her head. Those lies were gulped up so quickly. She hated herself for saying those words, for spewing lies of hope. There was nothing they could do. "Now sleep."

"But what about you?" Zerah looked up at Perez again. "You need to sleep too-"

"I know. But you need it more than me. You're younger." That was what a human would say to their sibling. The older one to take the burden of death while the younger was to stay alive. Left alone in the world to be taken by only herself. That was the struggle of survival. That was the struggle of humanity.

"Ok…" Zerah replied almost reluctant. "I'll sleep. But if you get tired wake me up! You need your sleep too!" Perez nodded her head as she saw Zerah become comfortable in her lap. She tried to wrap herself in her clothes and tried to become more comfortable on the ground. There was no comfort from this godless world. No comfort for the scar upon the Earth. Area Zero brought only death, just like the legends of the red soldier.

They say that the red soldier walked this unearthly plane two and a half years ago. Sacrificing himself to the moon so that all would live. But in his ignorance he doomed the world to the struggle of death. He walks no longer, only a husk of what used to be. Doomed to damnation.

Zerah's body became still. "I love you."

Perez smiled down at her sister. "I love you too."


The sun shone upon the horizon. The sand glittered as death stood above him. Zero dragged his body across the forsaken land. He hid in the shadows created by the monstrous metal that rose from the ground. They're like city ruins, the ruins of the city space. Bones of the deceased litter the ground. Reploid parts, some more fresh than the other. They were mutilated beyond repair. Teeth markings, stab wounds, sometimes the bodies were even human. It was hard to tell as he walked through the desert. The images were blending together creating one outlook on life: death.

At one point he picked up a skull to look at it. To contemplate the meaning of this life. From a long time ago, he remembered X telling him a play. He didn't remember what it was, all he remembered that it had to do with a man holding a skull. The memory was so vague, it escaped him as he held this skull.

Alas, poor X.

Still he walked towards the unknown. Although he didn't know where he was going it was better than that place he had once come from. Part of him wondered how Gate was taking the news that he had escaped. Part of him even wondered if anyone knew, besides Gate and his crew, that he was still alive and kicking. They probably didn't by the way Sister looked at him. The way her eyes shone bright, gleaming in the death that would follow her soon.

Somehow he could still see the look in her face. The way she looked at him as if he was a meal on a silver platter. Her eyes burning into his soul as if he held the answers to becoming human. Did she ever become human? Did she die for nothing? It was hard to tell. Zero regretted not going back to help her or asking her if she was becoming more human than machine, but it didn't matter anymore. She was, very likely, 100% dead. He wondered if Sister knew that death was coming for her. Why else would she give herself up for the dead body on the table? But would Gate bring her back from the dead? To make her body be useful one last time?

The thought of seeing Sister again, her zombified body walking these earthly plains, it sickened him. Everything about Gate sickened him. The way he touched his hair and touched his face. Sticking his hands into his stomach as if he was a plaything. Even now, as he walked in the desert he felt sick to his stomach knowing that there were still pieces of his body left there. His heart, one of them, still on Dr. Gate's table being experimented on. It made functioning hard without his three hearts. The heat was horrible on his skin, and all the dirt and sand filling his body helped no better as he made his way up the hill in the beating heat. As he made his way up the hill the metal upon his torso slid from his hands. His guts began to spill forth again.

A sigh came from his lips as his body fell against the hill, pressing against the hot sand. There was so much getting into his body. So much energy he was losing. But he didn't care. He was exhausted. It was too hard to move, but he had to keep going. So he lifted himself from the hill, sand pooling from the opening in his gut.

Why am I still going?

He gathered himself in his arms, not so much trying to put himself back together but holding his parts in his hands. The heat was merciless on his body. The black metal absorbed heat so easily, it felt like he was on fire. His body was turning into flames. Melting into the sand that felt like glass.

Where am I going?

Zero stared down at the horizon as he managed up the hill. The sand spilled down from it. Looking down into the horizon he saw nothing of worth. The kingdom of metal, the iron that clawed up to the sun and reached into the abyss of the sky, the hellish sun that beat down upon him. For a moment his mind wandered elsewhere. He thought of all the horrible things Wolfang told him of the outside world. Of all those Reploids that would eat for the pleasure of eating or kill themselves to amend their sins. How could he stand up against those Reploids in this state? He could overcome a group, but an entire army of them was out of the question. He couldn't speak anything to them either. Not like he was diplomatic, he rather his sword or fists do the talking than speak. Though in this instance talking was the only thing that was going to save himself from imminent death. Even if death sounded wonderful that thing kept making him tick. Kept preventing himself from smashing his hand into his skull and crushing his personality chip.

Gaze turned down to the organs in his arms and a frown crossed his face.

Am I still alive because… of him?

A vision of his friend came into view. X. He thought of X, of his friend.

With a sigh he slid down the dune. The sand turned into rock and dirt and life was possible in the shade of metal. It was his chance to survive, albeit small it was better than walking in broad daylight all the way out in the beating sun. He hoped he could find some salvageable metal to be worked on him or a friendly Reploid that would repair him for the fee of protecting them.

His vision was getting blurry.

But he had to keep moving.

Had to keep himself alive.

Had to see his friends one last time.

How long have I been walking?

His guts were still in his arms. He was coated in sand. Zero never thought he could ever feel the need to breath. Reploids and machines didn't find the need to breath so there was no use to have that function. Yet as he walked across the desert, ducking his head under metal, wiggling through small openings in holes to find a place to sleep, Zero found that the ability to breathe, or to feel out of breath, was a horrible feeling. He wondered how humans managed to survive for this long. How something so delicate had the power to live through the burden of living. The Reploid was finally beginning to understand why humans hated to be choked to death. It was so personal, so intimate. Though the desert was a rather intimate creature, as was Gate, he would prefer death by the desert after he was repaired otherwise it would be a death at the hand of Gate. Death in general was something that Zero wanted, but if it had to come down to it he wanted the desert to take his body. He wanted to choose death by his own hands, whether it be suicide or the desert that simply wanted his life. So Zero dragged himself across the desert. Sometimes he saw another Reploid, tried to speak, but found eventually that the Reploid was already deceased or found better pleasure in pleasuring themselves.

It disgusting him.

Zero was repulsed by this anarchy.

There were no rules or guidelines that he could follow to prevent himself from becoming Maverick or missing a step, but at the same time he couldn't do anything but embrace this interesting yet cruel world that Sister and Gate had forced upon him. The Laws of Robotics was still fresh in his mind, yet in this world there was no need for them. This cruel world would not allow the talk of the laws of robotics. That much was for certain from the way 'Fuck the Hunters' was painted on metal or how some Maverick Hunters were out on a stick with their guts hanging out.

So in this new found freedom, he did what any other Maverick would.

He tried cannibalism, he tried the false religions that Reploids spoke of, he tried to kill himself, he tried to set himself on fire to become a martyr, he tried pleasuring himself in the ways humans would, he tried everything. In the end he couldn't. Zero's teeth could not sink into another Reploid, though he did smear oil and blood upon his lips yet found himself too repulsed to actually eat the flesh. Zero could not handle those words of those false priests and they preached of godhood. It all went over his head, not once making any imprint on him, so he left the church and no one said a word to him. It was ironic, that the next day they began killing each other. They were all the same in the end anyway. And Zero could not, under any circumstances, commit suicide. That thing in the back of his head screamed at him not to, subjected him only to inflicting self harm, but never being able to take the blade in his hand and plunge it into his chest. Pleasuring himself was no pleasure. He had no pleasurable bits. All he felt when feeling himself was numbness, was the aches of his guts, was nothing.

So instead he wandered.

Days turned into weeks. His guts were still trailing behind him. In those weeks he made a sword from the scrap metal to protect himself from being eaten alive by those cannibals. Still his voice would not return to him. Eventually he figured out the problem was not because of his mental state but because Gate had not completed his body just yet. So until he could repair himself with the proper tools or until he could find someone else to repair him Zero was mute and had his guts hanging out for everyone to see.

Some of the Reploids called him death. They saw how he slinked across the wastelands dragging his body behind him still carrying his twig of a sword. His long hair matted with oil and human blood as his mouth was still smeared in that oil. The rains barely fell on the forsaken land, so Zero was forced to become a monster for the Reploids to preach of. They said he was the devil, that his meat will make them achieve godhood, that his sword has slain thousands upon thousands, that he was the true Maverick.

Most knew who he really was: a dead robot that breathed legends. Yet those that didn't spun tales of old about who he really was. In the end Zero didn't care. At the end of the day his thoughts wandered to his friends or to the pain in his body. How he sat against the metal and thought about his friends and wondered to himself how it would come to this.

The day was getting late. He heard word from one of the friendly Reploids a storm was coming so shelter had to be found. Should he need to murder then he was fine with that fate. So he walked, his eyes peering into each nook and cranny for safe havens. All the Reploids had hid far away from anywhere. The dust was beginning to kick up. Was it going to be rain at last? Or would it be another dust storm?

Zero sniffed the air. It didn't smell like rain or dust. Hail? Fire? He wasn't sure anymore.

So he dragged his body across the desert, his body sore and still bloody. It was becoming increasingly harder to move. But he couldn't stop after walking for so long, for surviving so many ordeals. He had to keep moving.

Eyes became hazy. Vision blurred and again those hallucinations became apparent. Sometimes he saw Iris in the corner of his eye. Other times he saw X. Sometimes he saw Driftwood's mangled body or Sister's disfigured neck. But still Zero walked forward and didn't mind those sights. It was hard enough to pay attention to things that would throw him in a fit. A sigh came from his throat, his body still dragging across the desert.

I need to find someplace to rest.

Zero shook the hazy feeling from his head. Body becoming heavier with every step. Eyes still trailed back and forth finding some appropriate place but still he couldn't find one. The sword slid from his hand and hit the ground. It was getting harder to breathe again, but that was normal now.

He looked up to the sky. The darkness was beginning to reach into the swirling reds and purples. Just like how Wolfang told him. It was the last thing he saw before he hit the ground and passed out into the great abyss. A smile apparent on his lips.

Here… I am fine dying here.

The wind howled. The kingdom of dreams began swirling. He felt death touch him.


Eyes opened wide and Zero sat up straight. Those eyes stared deep into the metal wall in front of him until he turned towards the being towards him. Guts fell out his body as he turned, his clawed fingers ready to rip apart the Reploid near him. The program that told him to kill, the system, it screamed at him, shouted at him to kill the other. All he could see was red. It was funny, that the system, that thing that told him to kill, should rack its ugly head back up from the depths of his body and giggle endlessly.

"Wait, wait!" yelled the Reploid. The red began to fade. He saw a child. A Reploid child to be exact. He was small and young. His hair was blazing with red and his eyes were a deep purple. He wore clothes, torn from use, but clothes nonetheless. "Please don't hurt me!" Zero lowered his hand, the system still screamed at him to pounce but he pushed it down for now. So strange. It was so strange for that animalistic instinct to come back at him and nip him. He was shaking so terribly, the both of them. Fear, death, hatred, all swirling around. The child sighed. "Oh, mister. I thought for sure you were going to kill me." Zero stayed silent as the child wiped their forehead rather theatrically. "Whew. I'm glad you didn't. You looked really messed up back there, and that storm comin' was a serious banger."

You talk like… Driftwood.

"Um. Uh. Sir? Red? Aren't ya gonna say anything?" Zero was silent before he realized the fact that couldn't say anything. Zero touched his lips, feeling the grime of oil and blood, tried to say something, and frowned. So Zero pointed to his mouth, specifically the tongue, and shrugged his mouth. "Ohhh ok! I getcha! Can't talk!" The child nodded their head. "Well my name is—I don't really have a name. But my mom calls me Sam!" He pressed a thumb against his chest. Zero frowned. That was impossible. A Reploid could not have a mother nor father. A creator, but never one that they could consider a true parent. Then again, this Reploid was a child, ignorant of the hearts of humans. Were they abandoned here? Did their 'mother' leave them here? "But my brothers and sisters call me SamSam! You can call me either one—or… er… think in your head any other name."

Zero was still silent. He looked down at his stomach. Guts were packed neatly in his chest and held together by strong hemp.

"Well uh… since you can't talk I'll just call you Big Red! Like Big Blue. That's what they call the sky, or is it the ocean?" Sam looked down at their hand deep in thought. "I can't remember which one mom taught me is the one."

The ocean. Its the ocean.

"Well! It doesn't matter Big Red." The child smiled at Zero. Zero looked away observing his surroundings. They were in some makeshift hideout. He saw the small hole that Sam dragged him through and saw the storm that raged outside. It was rain. Zero looked down at the dirt and began to write something in it. If he couldn't speak at least he would try to communicate with the other. It had been a long time since anyone was so nice enough to talk to him in this way. Most shunned from him, but at least this one didn't.

Why didn't you kill me?

Sam looked down at the ground and furrowed his eye brows. "What's that say?" he looked up at Zero.

Oh. Great.

"Gosh darnit. I forget you can't speak! One of my siblings back home can read. Maybe she'll get to the bottom of this!" Sam smiled at Zero. Zero looked away. He couldn't get attached. The other was going to die. They all died. All of them that came into contact with Zero died. Sam tugged out the makeshift sword Zero made from behind him and laid it in Zero's lap. "While I was draggin' you in here I found the sword you dropped." Zero's hands found itself on the sword. Gripping the hilt as if it would bring one last bit of mind back to him. "It's a pretty bad sword. It can't even speak!"

A talking sword? Impossible.

"Maybe when you come back home mom can make you a sword! One that talks and says nice things!" Sam smiled at Zero. Zero didn't look at him. Sam frowned, "Mom hasn't been back in a while. But that's ok! I was put in charge of gathering goodies. Well not alone. Some other of the kids are helping too. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to gather the most stuff!" Sam beamed proudly at the prospect of gathering as many supplies. Zero wanted to leave and run as far away as he could. But looking at himself now he couldn't. His entire body was ruined beyond belief. It was a miracle that he could still walk.

Heh… Miracles.

Is this a miracle?

Sam brought out a knife from his bag. It was a grant looking knife. Forged carefully and skillfully. It was amazing work. Words were engraved in it, words beyond Zero's comprehension. All Zero could do was peer into it. Beautiful. "Mother's second made this for me." He offered it to Zero but Zero would not budge. It was too holy for him to touch. Too beautiful. So Zero drew back away from it. "Don't worry! It ain't anything bad and I'm not givin' it to you! I just want you to hold it." Sam offered the dagger to Zero again. "Maybe you can speak to it?"

Again with the talking swords. The more Zero heard about it the less inclined he felt to hold that thing. Holy? Cursed? Maybe the spewing of some lost child not knowing what their place was in the world. The delusions of an abandoned Reploid, left here, unknowing to the world outside. Either way, it freaked Zero out. The way that dagger sat so still in the other's hands. Staring at him, peering into his soul. He wanted to move away, to crawl out that hole and be left to the sharks. Still…

Zero reached out to take the dagger in his hand. It beat underneath his clawed fingers. A fire spread through his body. He heard the thing speak to him in that strange tongue. A foreign language, as if it was made up, but all of it made sense to him. All Zero could do was stare deep into the dagger. Seeing his reflection in the pretty metal.

It was the first time he had seen himself since waking up from death's cold grasp.

His face was ruined. Eyes stared cold into that endless reflection. Eyes burned with no passion. Skin peeled so carefully at his sides. Hair was frayed and matted, bathed in disgusting oil. The sleek golden blond looked more like brown and mud. Lips were torn. Scars running up his face. Everything about himself looked like a zombie. He looked so much like a husk of a human. So much like nothing.

Am I… nothing?

He dropped the dagger on the ground. He was shaking. His body was being torn apart, his mentality ripping apart the false body he had made up in his mind and putting it back together to become more disgusting. Sam picked up the blade from the ground listening to it as Zero sat staring at his hand. That dagger pried opened into his mind somehow. It tore down what he considered to be himself by only a reflection.

No. I did this to myself. I did it to myself.

Sam looked at Zero. "The rain doesn't look like its gonna let up soon." He sat crisscross, putting back the dagger into his pack. "But when it goes away we can go home! You can meet all my siblings and everything. There we can patch ya back up!" He wagged his finger in the air at nothing in particular. All Zero could do was stare into the hand that held the dagger. Slowly he clenched his fists, those claws digging into his palms. It was the pain that kept him steady.

It talked…!

He hated how Sam acted like nothing was wrong. He wanted to speak, wanted to say something, but all he could say were some groans or moans. Ahhs. Eeehhs. Cracked. Choked. Like biting on his own tongue. That's all he could possibly do anymore besides swing his pathetic excuse of a sword around and rip open those Mavericks that dare touched him. Zero still thought he was better off dead. At least then he would no longer have to suffer this horrible feeling of uselessness. The enteral dread of death hanging over him. A noose tightening around his neck harder each and every day as if this death was destined.

But why… why can't I die? Why can't I break my head open and take my personality chip and smash it? Why can't I dig the sword into my throat or stomach. Why do I keep… going?

Zero laid back down onto the ground. He didn't say anything to Sam, or at least made no indication of acknowledging the other's words. So quiet was the night besides the rain that dripped against the metal. Sam spoke, said something to Zero, but Zero ignored it; or rather, those words slipped through his head and joined the rain that stormed outside. So he allowed himself to drift into darkness and the void gleefully took his mind. That consuming darkness, that horrible darkness. He stared into the metal as he laid motionless. Scared to move his body, scared that his guts would spill out, scared that Sam was Gate in disguise and shove his hands back into his guts and experiment with him.

Cold. That's what he felt. He felt so cold as he curled in on himself again as any other night and held his sword close to his body. So cold and tired in this hell, he had nothing better to do but dream of the future, of think of his living friends.

X.

He thought about X. Wondered if he was still alive, wondered if he had moved on from Zero to let Zero's body rot in the cold unforgiving lands of death. That would be for the best. It would do everyone a favor because at least then he could go on living, or dying, alone like it always should have been. So staring at the wall he waited for the rain to cease, waited for death to take him, or waited for someone to find them and, hopefully, kill Zero as he slept.

I hope…. I die.


In the distance, a scientist walked upon the rocks that his lab was hidden in. The rain fell upon his face. His coat whipped in the wind. He looked up at the cloudy sky, the night breeze blowing in his face. As he stared into the sky, he wondered to himself how this could happen? How could he lose the one thing he most dearly loved? His body was weak, his knees hit the ground as he stared in that unforsaken sky. In his hands was the heart of the dead. He could feel it pulse under his fingers. Green blood dripping from his fingers.

Rage burned in his heart.

Rage.

Rage.

He stared into the heart in his hand. Beating green blood. Dripping green blood. It was slick in his hands, turning his body green. How good it would be to eat it, to have a part of him in himself forever. The flesh must taste so good, so delicious. He pressed the thing to his lips, beating against his tongue. The taste was acid, burning on his body as if it would melt his skin.

Beautiful.

But his thoughts turned to the other Mavericks that would dare touch his beloved. So infatuated he was with Zero that all reason had left his mind. To see the other again, to lay with him, it would be wonderful. How he wanted it, how he wanted to dig his hands deep into the other's body and kiss his lips. To touch and brush his fine hair and stare into his eyes as he stared wordlessly back.

What if another person has him?

That thought—that single disgusting thought that would dare intrude upon his mind—sent him into a rage. Thinking that someone else, besides himself, would dare be allowed to baby Zero, to hold him in his arms, be allowed. That single thought turned him mad. Made him shake and growl and look onward in disgust at the world before him. No one was allowed Zero, no one but Gate himself.

So that thought bled into his mind, dripped down into his body and tainted the last purity that Gate had, which wasn't much. That burning rage reached every single crevice of Gate's body and turned him into a mad dog fret with lust, or was this lust merely the broken dreams of an angry doctor that was allowed nothing so gave into the false heat of Zero's body? None the less, Gate cradled that very green soaked heart that didn't beat. Gate believed it did, however, so thus it did. He pressed that heart into his chest, pressed it close to his body that he might become one with it.

With that seed of disgust implanted deep into Gate's soul, he could not help but stare into the desert. The rain cleaning him of Zero's fluids. His body letting a cold laugh expel from his lips. Only the dead could hear it as he laughed louder and louder. That laughter of death, that laughter of longing. So unforgivable. So cold.

That laughed died slowly, but still a smile persisted upon his face. Full of teeth tainted with that green oil.

"Zero."

That smile on his lips, a terrible disgusting thing. Something that brought illness.

"If I can't have you… then no one will."

Till death do us apart.


Zero laid down staring at the ceiling. It was crude and old fashioned. Put together with pieces of metal and welds. But it worked well to keep the outside destruction at bay. Sat carefully at his side was a child so willing to 'sew' his stomach back up with metal. It wasn't good metal, but the best metal they could find in the godforsaken place. But he was quiet, still unable to speak besides his croaks and hums. But Sam did well to explain everything he could, at least enough to the point from Zero's vague hand gestures and body near passing out from the abuse put onto him. That child that worked on him was silent, almost terrified of Zero as he laid there on the ground. Zero would not look at them, not even acknowledge their existence, but he felt it, felt the fear of that child. Those steady shakes as they put his body back together and cleaned his body.

Pathetic. I can't move. My body finally gave out.

So he was still as the child finally got up and left. He was happy to be left alone to lay on the ground. No one to bother him, no one to look at him, no one to see him squirm and attempt to speak.

He closed his eyes.

His body still hurt. Yearned for death. Phantom pains itched their way everywhere. Skin still peeled and he still felt his guts out his body.

Put it back. Back in my stomach. Get your hands out. Out of me. Stop…!

When he opened his eyes another child sat next to him. Older, more teen than child. She was dressed more nicely than the others. Green short hair, pink eyes, a delicate figure. Her clothes were pure white, dressed in gold. It was priestly, but not the type of priestly he found in those false religions. A true holy feeling. She stared softly at Zero, a small smile on her face. Her face so serene compared to all the other faces he's seen. It reminded him of X.

"You're awake," she spoke. Her voice heavenly and soft. Zero was silent. "I know you can't talk. Sam told me." From her lap she picked up a data pad and a pen. Something Zero could write with. She must be the person that Sam talked about—the one who could read. "Here." Zero took the thing from her, and immediately began to write. He showed her the data pad and waited intently, watching her with those eyes of death. She looked down at the pad, and gave a soft chuckle from her lips. Her hand gently touching her chin as if she were nobility. "You don't even give me enough time to ask you a question. But I guess that's normal."

She looked away from Zero, trying to form an answer for his question.

"We don't kill you because you did no harm to us," she paused for a sigh. "Sam knew you weren't one of them. Those Mavericks. It might surprise you but we've seen you wander this place. You never did harm to those innocent Reploids, only the bad ones." Her answer pissed Zero off. It was too innocent of an answer, too pure of anything. It made him want to rip the data pad in half. "But since I answered your question, you must answer mine. What is your name?"

Zero began to write it down, not bothering to delete the question on the data pad.

Zero.

The teenager smiled. "Zero. A nice name." She pressed her hand to her chest. "My name is Ferhat." He didn't need it. That name would be quickly forgotten, dispelled from his mind as all the other memories were. His faulty mind, his faulty memory, it never failed to delete that which he cared not for. So he wrote another question down, rather straight to the point and with little care for how Ferhat felt. There was no need for any emotion, not when his body was half dead and these children wouldn't give him any piece of mind. He hated it. Hated how the world would never let him die.

Where am I? Why are you all just kids?

Ferhat peered at the questions for a little bit before drawing back. "You're in the outskirts of Area Zero. This place is, I suppose, a kingdom for orphan children and those abandoned by their creators and family. I didn't create it, but I'm considered the leader of the group should mother be gone." Ferhat flattered her clothes a little as Zero began to write another question. He didn't need to show her; she already knew what that question was. "My mother, she is a kind lady. She taught us our trade—to create weapons that can speak."

Again with the talking weapons. He was so interested now in what that entailed. How could a weapon speak?

So he wrote.

How can a weapon talk?

But all Ferhat could do was let out a noble laugh and smile brightly at Zero. "These weapons…" she drew a rapier from her side. Her smile grew sinister. "We take the dead's personality chips, and store them in here." Zero wanted to crawl away. This wasn't some type of blacksmith. This was more like a place to raise zombies, this was… shadowplay. "It doesn't matter who it is. If its one of our own, we forge them into a weapon using their parts. Its what makes our weapons special." She pressed the blades tip onto Zero's shoulder. He knew now, what that dagger was trying to tell him. A call for help. He heard those screams now, those agonizing screams. "This blade, Fury's Tower, is my child." Ferhat drew Fury's Tower back, laying the blade across her lap as Zero stared.

Another question itched on his tongue. So he began to write it, but Ferhat raised her hand to stop him.

"You must rest now. I will answer any more questions you have in the morning." That sickly smile on her face was still present as she got up from the ground and moved to the cloth that hung from the opening. "Goodnight, Zero." Then she left.

Zero sat there, fear in his eyes as he looked down at his body. A useless body, a body that could barely function of move. Were they going to harvest his chip and turn him into a blade? There was no other way, that must be his payment for his sins. A life as a blade. To kill more and more until he would perish. That had to be it. But as those thoughts swarmed him there was nothing he could do but lay upon the ground and stare at that ceiling.

He would not pray, he would not scream (he could not), all he could do was lay there silent. Children laughed outside, giggling and playing. He heard those words, heard them whisper as they talked about him. Were they preparing their feast? Were they preparing the flame to turn him into a blade? He wanted to throw up but nothing would come from his mouth. Not a single shake left his body, so he stayed still in fear.

So still as he looked at that ceiling.

So still as he thought of Ferhat's sickly smile.

But he supposed that, in the end, it was a better fate than being left with Gate.