Believe in Me

By: Flashgunner

New story arc.

Ch. 10: Unfortunate circumstances

"Whoa! What the hell is that!" One of the resistance soldiers pointed to the monitor that displayed power readings. There were three strong readings, one really strong reading and one that was too high to measure with the system.

"I don't know! But we've already confirmed that this one is Zero!" Another soldier pointed to the really strong reading. "That means that whatever this is… its strength is miles above Zero!" Ciel immediately stood up when she heard this.

ZERO! She ran for the door. The soldiers stopped her.

"Ms. Ciel! Where are you going! It's not safe outside!"

"I don't care! Zero's in danger!"

"Zero can take care of himself Ms. Ciel! Besides… he gave you his word that he'd come back." Ciel stopped struggling. She took a deep breath and sighed. The soldiers let go of her as she walked back to the bench. As she sat down she clasped her hands together.

Please… please stay alive Zero!

With Zero……

Zero was shuddering. The sight of an old foe that caused him and his friends so much pain in the past culminated in an unknown fear that gripped Zero's heart. I don't understand… I know I'm surprised to see sigma, but why am I trembling? I'm not afraid of him… I never have been…

"Ah all the years of lying dormant in this pitiful human's body were boring…" Sigma turned his eyes to Zero. "How about we have a little fun?"

"You don't scare me!" Zero drew his Saber. "I've beaten you long in the past, and I can beat you again!"

"Are you sure you're not scared of me? My… you're shaking! Zero you were never one to be intimidated…"

"Shut up!" Zero flew towards Sigma and poured all of his strength into his swing. There was a bright flash… Sigma had blocked Zero's saber with the palm of his hand. Zero didn't let this affect him, and he continued his frontal assault. Sigma blocked each with one hand.

"Enough of this…" Sigma thrust his hand forward, flat. His fingers stuck into zero's chest.

"AAAAAAAHHHHH AAAAAAAAAA!" Zero screamed out in pain. I'm not afraid of him… but my body can sense his power and is unwilling to act unless I force it! How is he so powerful! Sigma waited for him to stop screaming before he continued.

"All of these years must have caught up to you Zero… you are no where near as powerful as you were a century ago… you disappoint me. It will be no fun killing you as you are…… so I'll be nice and give you a month to dig up your power from the past if any of it is left! I'll wait for you at the crash site of the Ragnarok… but don't run away… if you take longer than a month, I'll pick up from where I left off all those years ago… and I might get bored and decide to kill a couple humans… starting with that blond haired girl four hundred and thirty two meters from here that you seem to have an important conection to. I'll be waiting. Hehehe! I'm already looking forward to it!" Sigma built up energy in his hand that held Zero… "Here's a little preview off the pain you'll receive that day."

An explosion ignited from Sigma's hand. In Zero's line of sight, sigma became smaller and smaller until he passed out.

"……ro? Zero? Can you here me?"

"X…?"

"Yes Zero it's me…"

"I take it you saw what happened."

"Yes I did… look I know exactly what you're planning to do in order to face sigma… but I know as well as you do that it won't be enough."

"Yes… I know it won't be enough, but it's my best chance… besides, we don't know how powerful I will become."

"That's true, but there's another hope. I will be able to fight along side you, but I won't come alone…"

"Is Axl a cyber elf too?"

"Yes he is… and with the help of Croire… we'll be able to fight along side you just like old times."

"Old times huh?"

"There's a problem though… Axl's current location is unknown to me… I don't know how long it will take me to find him… but I'll do my best."

"Won't one month be enough time?"

"There are trillions of cyber elf out there Zero… you may end up facing Sigma alone… but our hope is that Axl is out there, and the two of us with you will be enough to take down this age old menace!"

"Well then you better get searching then."

"I'll do that… besides, right now you need to wake up anyway."

"What…….?"

Zero slowly opened his eyes. Bright lights were shining in his face. He turned his head to the left and noticed that he was on a recovery table in Cerveau's lab. Upon turning his head to the right he spotted Ciel, asleep in a chair next to his table.

"Ciel?" Ciel wearily opened her eyes, but was immediately wide awake when she noticed Zero.

"Zero you're awake!" She wanted to hug him, but she knew it would probably be painful to him.

"How long have I been out?" Zero quickly remembered Sigma's threat.

"About a week, why?"

"A whole week wasted. Where's Cerveau I need to get out of here as soon as possible."

"Wait Zero! What's going on!"

"…What happened on the day we fought Weil."

"Well… from the data we were receiving, and what we heard from the others, we concluded that you defeated Weil, a strange looking reploid appeared, you defeated it, but the explosion from you doing so sent you flying and you went through our tent. Then we brought you back here as quickly as we could so Cerveau could fix you up. So peace can finally be recognized……right?"

Zero sat silently. "I'm afraid not… I'm sorry to say this, but peace is even more distant than it was before."

"What? No…… Zero please tell me what happened!"

"It'd be better if we gathered everyone in here."

"I'll go get them…"

Ciel quickly left the room gathered Harpuia, Leviathan, Croire and Cerveau together around Zero's table.

"Where's Elpizo?" Zero asked before he began.

"His time expired so he's back to being a cyber elf." Croire responded.

"He would've been helpful… oh well there's no way around it now. Anyway…I heard what you believe happened and I'm sorry to tell you that the fight is not over, in fact the fight has become near impossible for us to win…" Zero revealed to all of them what had happened. They all listened attentively as their plans for the peaceful times slowly deteriorated as the story continued. "…… So now we only have three weeks to get ready for him… its fight or die now and we must all play our parts."

For a moment everyone was silent. Ciel was heart broken. They were so close to her life long goal, only for it to become more distant than ever. Zero turned to Cerveau,

"Cerveau… how quickly can you have me up and running again?"

"I was aiming for a slow recovery of around another week, but now I'll get you ready by tomorrow morning. By the looks of it you'll need all the time you can get your hands on."

Harpuia grabbed Leviathan's hand and began to pull her out of the room.

"Harpy? Where are we going?"

"You heard Zero… we need to get training right away."

Leviathan giggled, "Seeing how quickly you pulled me away I thought you were planning to do something else."

Harpuia raised an eyebrow, "Wha….! Argh… you're a handful, come on… to the training room."

Leviathan giggled again and followed him.

"Those two can be cheerful no matter what the circumstances…" commented Ciel. Then she turned to her faithful warrior. "Zero… what are you going to do?"

Zero was quiet for a moment. It'd be best if she didn't know the whole truth. "There is somebody I need to see. He'll be able to point me in the right direction."

"Who is he?"

"I can't tell you."

Ciel put her hand on her waist and gave Zero an annoyed look. "Oh please Zero… do you really think I'd doubt any of your actions?"

Zero didn't like the situation he had gotten himself into. He obviously didn't wan her to know about Sigma's main threat about killing her, but he didn't want to reveal to her who he needed to see, because it was mainly about his past and he obviously wouldn't want to start a topic on it.

"Look Zero… we've been through a lot… for once you could be a little less distant from everybody."

Zero thought for a moment. Sigma appeared due to his presence. I guess this is partly my fault… I guess I should make it up to her. "Fine… I won't tell you who he is…" Ciel looked hurt. "…but if you want to know… why not come with me and meet him yourself?"

Ciel almost fainted. Did Zero just openly invite her to come along on a journey? Zero had always been a lone wolf who would rather work alone. "Seriously? You'd let me come with you?"

"My own actions have stirred up an old foe, which now hinders the goal you've worked so hard for. It's only fair that I make up for it."

Ciel smiled happily, "Thank you Zero…"

"Alright Zero I'm going to get to work right away so you can get out of here by tomorrow morning." Cerveau walked up to Zero, cracking the metal joints in his knuckles.

"We'll leave as soon as I'm ready Ciel."

"Okay… I'll be ready." Ciel exited the room. When the door closed behind her she lost control of herself and blushed madly across her face. I'm going to travel with Zero! She was so happy that she nearly floated down the hallway, attracting confused looks from the soldiers.

The next day rolled around and Ciel was waiting in the hangar. Her heart was thumping. This was finally her chance to spend some time with Zero. Her giddiness almost made her forget about the seriousness of the situation. She was wearing a blue coat over her normal clothes and was holding a small duffle bag that contained radio, navigation equipment, and food.

"Are you ready to go?" Ciel nearly jumped twenty feet into the air.

"AH! Zero! Don't scare me like that!"

"Sorry." Zero was wearing his brown cloak that he always wore while traveling. He led Ciel over to the hover bikes and picked up a two-seater. After storing her bag in the compartment she got onto the back seat and strapped on the restraint on the passenger seat.

"Ready?"

"Ready." Zero faced forward and gave the signal to open the doors. The engine started and Zero took one last check of all the bike's systems. When all lights were green, and all systems energized, Zero tucked his pony tail into his cloak, so it wouldn't be in Ciel's face, and with all that they sped out of the hangar, into the distance.

---To be continued---