It was rather amazing that there was anything left here. Not only because it had been a century, not only because the island itself was flooded – if it weren't for where he stood, this would be a sand bar, not an island – but because X would have thought that they'd blow this place up, to be on the safe side.
It was reduced to rubble, but it was still a hill of rubble. X was sure the pieces had been pushed around enough by the tides and monsoons that the shape of the hill wasn't much like the shape of the original compound. There were some pieces of former wall that had been braced at angles: X stood on top of one that jutted up out of the sand, and there was even a little shaded area beneath it.
Wily's main compound. An islet in the middle of nowhere that had even been put on maps as Wily Island because why not? At first, his fortresses were hidden, and he'd had some periods of relative poverty like before and after the fifth war, but by the time of the sixth he'd built this place as a permanent site.
The world's militaries hadn't assaulted it for obvious reasons. It would take planes to even reach it, and planes that would stand a chance against the defenses needed computers. Boats were slower and would need anti-missile systems. Systems that would inevitably be taken over once they came too close.
Rock had invaded it periodically, but only when Wily started another war, and in between, well, Wily's robots had the right to a home. No one liked the idea of sending a robot to attack a human as a preemptive strike, and Rock and Dr. Light hadn't wanted to do that either.
It was devastated in the assault by the White Giant, before Rock defeated it and unfortunately released the stardroids from within it, but it was rebuilt very quickly afterwards, because Wily'd had another war planned and had wanted to get that show on the road. No alien invasion was stealing his thunder.
The tide that lapped at the sand and rubble was red, but to the best of Dr. Light's knowledge no human blood had ever been shed here. It was probably more dangerous for a human to be here now than it had been back in 20XX, given what that stuff would do to unprotected skin if a wave sent some splashing up high enough. Enough of the more unpleasant varieties of plankton must have washed up onto the rocks here over the years that they'd decayed to form a sparse but real excuse for soil, and X was noting the various plant species present.
He hoped they could fight somewhere else. X liked plants, and he knew enough to have both respect and fondness for the survivors, for the ones that could grow in a place like this and create soil for other plants to grow in, so other lifeforms could follow. By living, by growing, just by breathing, they made every other living thing better off.
Maybe the Sahara, or one of the Amazon Desert islands. So easy for the soil that once supported a thriving jungle to be washed bare, blown away in the wind. Life was so fragile, and X could really do without any more examples of that.
Incoming teleport. X's eyes narrowed as the beam of light began to resolve itself into green and grey, not red and gold.
A hulking figure: humanoid, but far too tall to be a human. Tall and broad. There was no helmet on its bald head, and the purple under the eyes made X think of eye shadow. The design conveyed 'hulking brute' rather well, but it didn't really seem to match Dr. Wily's aesthetics. "Who are you?" X asked.
"I am Sigma," it said, activating a light blade and raising it in a salute. "Master Zero's first herald."
"Why are you here?" X asked.
A menacing smile: X found himself a little surprised the teeth weren't sharpened. "To fight you." Obviously.
"In your Master's place?" X didn't shudder at the word master. The robot masters hadn't minded it applied to them, and he had no idea what this Sigma was. Except it would be rather silly to designate something an Android Master and have it be a Robot Master Master instead.
"You are no match for him."
"Yes," X agreed. Not yet. "He knows that. I made this appointment with him." In theory, X should be glad to fight a different, presumably weaker enemy for the experience, but he really didn't see a warbot like Zero giving up a fight it must have been looking forward to. If Zero had, well, there went X's idea of using these fights as grounds for negotiation. "Who sent you? Your master or your builder?" No response from Sigma, which answered that question. "So you don't have to do whatever Zero wants, or are you just programmed to serve Wily instead of him?" did they have a chance at free will, at choice, even if only in the breach between two masters?
Those eyes flashed. "Master Zero is the messiah." How dare X question Sigma's loyalty! "Our builder used to be an inferior human."
"What are you doing intact?" X heard a moment before Zero teleported in behind Sigma. It looked like X's words had made Sigma tell Zero what was going on. "If he repaired you already, then go train."
"Yes, Master Zero," Sigma said before soundlessly growling at X and vanishing.
"My father wouldn't give any of them the infinite potential system," Zero said, sounding a little annoyed. "He doesn't want them evolving out of my control, even though it's at least a century too early for that, judging from you. He was fun when he was completed, but he doesn't come up with things the way you do. I don't want to evolve to fight weak opponents, that's useless."
X raised an eyebrow: Zero couldn't have seen it through the faceplate, but, "You don't count," it said offhandedly. "You're improving faster than I am. But I'm sure I can make you improve faster than he could make you improve."
And it would be more fun for Zero that way, presumably. "Have you talked with him?" X wondered. "Or them?"
"It's a waste of time. They don't know anything I don't, and they all worship me. One of them's built to be a strategist and study the humans, so I thought he might force me to evolve my ability to deal with others I can't control the way you do, but no luck. Whenever I express an opinion, they all need to agree with so much they can't play devil's advocate. They can spar physically, at least, even though they're incapable of raising a hand against me if it were a real fight. Sparring verbally is right out. I could force them to do it, but the pain showing defiance would inflict on them would distract them too much for them to do a good job, and there's no infinite potential system to force them to evolve to be able to do it despite the pain."
People in pain. Because they were brainwashed, because their free will was taken away from them, and with it even their ability to object to what was done with them. Zero didn't see anything wrong with that, except when it inconvenienced him. There was discontent in his voice, but X was sure it wasn't for their sakes.
But then, he'd realized that Zero did value others and their pain at least somewhat close to how he valued his own. Would he do his job, his duty, despite having pain inflicted on him? Yes, and he might have that same incomprehension if that happened as he would now, if X said that it was wrong that people were suffering pain inflicted on them by others. Especially by mind control.
"My builder claims he's working on something that will be a little less disappointing." Zero didn't look like he was holding his breath. "I need to learn how to control people without the virus if I'm going to rule the humans instead of destroying them. I need you for that. Oh, eventually I'll have you as my herald, but once that happens you won't be able to make any attempt to defy my will, and there goes my chance to practice crushing defiance."
There his systems went, overheating again. Scrambling for a solution, desperation and sheer incomprehension.
Zero peered at him. "You're not afraid. Or angry. I do not understand you at all. It's frustrating," and annoying, "but I require challenge to evolve. My skill in combat doesn't frustrate you." Was X more challenging to Zero than Zero was to X?
"I don't understand how you can possibly not understand this," X managed to say finally.
"Whether we talk or fight, I get data and challenge that will allow me to improve, but are you sure you want to spend your time on training that will only benefit me?" Zero wondered.
"That's… You need to not think in terms of benefitting one person at the expense of the other. You understand that by training me to get stronger, that helps me, but it also helps you, since if I'm stronger you can get stronger?"
A nod: Zero was following along so far.
"That's a relationship of mutual benefit. They are inherently superior to relationships where one person benefits at the expense of the other. Since if the second person ends off worse than when they started, eventually they will not be able to help the first person anymore, and the first person will have deprived themselves of a valuable resource." And lost a friend. "By taking away from someone else, without giving back… because Sigma and the others don't have free will, they can't use their wills to help you! If you take mine away from me, you clearly understand that you'll lose out if you do that! You won't just have hurt me, you'll have hurt yourself! Isn't it obviously counterproductive to hurt yourself and your best interests? Don't you care about yourself at all…? You don't," X realized, blinking. "You don't care about yourself. That's why you didn't care if someone hypothetically brainwashed you, destroyed your self the way you're willing to destroy mine. That's why you don't care about anyone else's life and identity. You don't care about your own."
"Why should I?" Zero wondered.
X held up a hand. He had to sit down.
"Why do you even have all those emotions?" Zero wondered as X settled himself on the ledge. "It's convenient for me, since you'll be a good power source, but doesn't it tax your generator?" Concern, even if it was for X's continued ability to function, since Zero wanted him to continue to function. He should be thinking that it was something to work with, a starting point.
"I am currently." X paused, folding his hands on his lap in lieu of counting to ten. "Very upset. That my brother didn't kill Dr. Wily." He knew that was illogical. He shouldn't want someone else to be killed. "My existence has a value to you, yes? And to your creator's remnant. If I am destroyed, the total value that can be extracted from the universe is reduced. You don't want me to die because the both of you will be poorer for it. Can you extrapolate from that?"
"Extrapolate where?"
"Everyone has a value. Everyone who is alive, and is sentient. Everyone has the potential to be of value to anyone, everyone else. When they die, that value is lost. When someone else dies, the total value that I could extract from the universe is reduced." Do not ask for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee. "Currently, you have caused me, and so many other people who are also important to me, because of the fact they… they're alive, but to put it in terms you might understand, they might be my friends, they might help someone who might go on to become my friend… Limitless possibilities. That you took away from me. By extinguishing them. But you also are alive. You are also a person, with the potential to stop taking and start giving.
"My family, my family died. I lost so much then. I lost all the moments we could have spent together. I lost everything they, that my brother could have taught me." It was Rock as a warbot more than as a person that Zero would care about, the combat skills, but whatever helped him realize that this was important. "They were my family, so they were more important to me than people I don't know. But people I don't know are still people. I could meet them, get to know them, find another family. I did. Then you took almost all of them away from me. Of course I care about humanity! They're people. They're part of the world I live in. And of course I care that you… that you're blind to something so important. That you're going to destroy everything and realize only too late what you've lost. That you're going to ruin things for me, for everyone, and not even understand what you're doing." How utterly, utterly pointless that would be.
"People are valuable as tools," Zero acknowledged. "Tactics, strategy: both require planning ahead. So I need to think of potential value over time instead of just current value. And you're saying that I should be assigning a minimum, non-zero value to all sentient life-forms?"
"Yes." Yes. "You need to. Including you. You said it yourself, that you're Dr. Wily's greatest creation, aren't you? You're not worthless. You have worth in and of yourself, as a person, not just as a, a tool. You don't need to reduce someone else to a tool for them to be helpful to you." X shook his head: was any of this getting through to Zero? It felt like after so many years of testing this, of seeing it proven over and over, that he didn't know where to start explaining it. It was wrong. The way his brothers and sisters were treated was wrong.
"I suppose they're all useful as a crop, if nothing else."
A, a crop? "And they created both of us," X said, once again trying not to be startled into incredulity. "Who knows what else they'll… Who knows what you might create? Haven't you ever wanted to be something more than a, a killer?" And worse?
"Father thinks that I should become something more. You heard what he programmed them to call me," he said, waving at where Sigma stood and labeled Zero the Messiah, a king with the power of a god. "I don't know what he expects me to do with the world once I have it."
"I don't think he ever thought about what he'd do with it," X muttered. "Do you even want to conquer the world?" If he wasn't interested in it, then maybe X could talk him out of doing it?
"Do you want it?" Zero said, tapping the hilt of his sword thoughtfully. "You said you didn't want to take it over, but what if it was already conquered? I don't know what to do with it, besides gain more power, and I can do that without conquering it. They're so weak: there's nothing here that might possibly challenge me except you. Yes, I could just kill them all, but then I'd have to create, or have my father create, something in their place so I had something else to eat after that. I've already decided that after I've conquered it, I'll have you and my father decide what to do with it." Because Zero truly didn't care. Green eyes (not quite the color of X's) blinked. "What's so frustrating about that?"
"I think we should spar now," X said, because he wanted to hit his head against something repeatedly, and he might as well do that in a way that might give him the power he needed to stop Zero from pursuing this insane course.
"Are you offering me a spar in exchange for offering you the world?" That couldn't be it: at least Zero knew X that well already. Even though X actually thought that Zero would agree to a deal like that.
"No, I just… I have no words, Zero. And it's also not right to insult people who are… trying their best to understand." Maybe, X thought, Dr. Light would have some ideas as to how Dr. Wily had managed to program something with the IQ Zero had to have, coupled with the infinite potential system, to be so very, very stupid.
X might have decided that shooting the WRO members was wrong and counterproductive, but he still wanted to do it, very very much. He hadn't thought anyone else could ever inspire the same degree of 'I do not want you to exist; I do not want you in the same world as me and my family.' Dr. Wily had managed it. He was a little disappointed in himself. A century and he still couldn't always make his emotions go along with his logic. He still sometimes wanted to do things that he knew were wrong.
At least this was making it easier not to hate Zero.
"Are you going to be distracted during the spar?" Zero frowned.
"Forcing my thoughts back on track is something else I need to work on," X said, pushing himself up and getting in a ready position.
X started to charge his buster. Zero activated his blade of light (was there a term for the weapon? Could it be weapon-copied? Although a close-range weapon was the last thing X needed, when at some point Zero would stop refraining from use of the virus, going easy on him).
The green light cast strange shadows on that face, and X was struck by how the red of that armor resembled not just blood, but the poisonous sea around them. Life, yes, and thriving, but a life that was poison to that which already lived upon this world.
He hated the thought that two things might be so different, so inimical, that they could not live together. That they could not both survive.
In Zero series, there's that whole 'you want to make the world a better place, so I'll kill everyone who gets in your way until the survivors see reason' thing with Ciel.
Here X is getting the same offer, except his reaction to having the world handed to him on a silver platter, or rather a pile of bodies is more 'WTFNo.'
Re. Sigma, etc.: Dr. Cain won't be building reploids here, but Dr. Wily was and I needed characters, so yeah. Using Cainbots, even though here they're not Cainbots.