Ch. 14 What little boys are made of....
Crystal sat in the main room a short while after her talk with Zero, watching a smaller monitor that Dr. Light had set for her to watch Zero and the others in the training room. As she sat and watched it Dr. Light himself showed up on the main screen.
"Well my dear, have you thought about what I told you?"
"Yes, I think I have."
"And may I inquire as to your answer?"
"I think I can do it Doc. I just don't know how well I'll be able to do such a job, knowing that Zero's out there fighting."
"How do you think Alia felt doing this, knowing that X was out there?"
"Well, I suppose you're right about that."
"Besides, I just wanna teach you how to do this in case of a time when we need Alia out on the field." He looked down at her corner of the room that she was watching the monitor in once more. She looked up at him with a smile on her face.
"Very well. Whenever you wanna start teaching me, I'm ready." She jumped a little as a keyboard suddenly jumped out at her from the wall. "Eep!"
"Sorry about that...you know how to operate one of these?"
"I vaguely remember from before Sigma managed to kill everyone else who knew how."
"Then we'll start with the basics on here."
Zero and Signas were once again sparring with their sabers. Zero had a tunnel closed in around them for this day's practice, training himself a bit as well as Signas on extremely close quarter fighting. Zero had the slight advantage, being shorter than Signas, but that advantage wasn't much. X and Alia watched from the control room. Toronto and Zenton were outside the box, sparring with each other as well.
"You seem to be having a few problems in here Signas," Zero said while grinning at him between one of the spark showers their sabers ignited from contacting each other and the walls.
"You don't seem to be faring much better," Signas retorted.
"Yeah, well, at least I'm not cramped by the ceiling too," Zero responded, swinging his saber to deflect Signas again, striking out with his free hand while the sabers were locked. The punch connected and sent Signas out his end of the tunnel.
Signas picked himself back up to find Zero handing him back the handle of his saber. "Thank you," he mumbled, rubbing his jaw for a moment. Zero just grinned back.
"Didn't do any real damage did I?"
"Nah, it'll just be sore for a bit." Signas said, chuckling lightly.
"Ya know, up until Dr. Light converted me, that was the last thing I expected to hear out of a Reploid," Zero commented, chuckling a bit himself. X and Alia walked out of the control booth. Zero turned and fired a level 1 blast at both of them. They both dodged to the outside and then came at him from both sides. Zero dodged out of the middle of them, but turned around to find Alia attacking him from one side and X firing at him from the other. He rolled under X's blast, tripped Alia on his way by and jumped straight up from where X was rapid-firing at him again. As he touched on the ceiling he clung there for the moment he was able. "Okay guys, you two wanna play team battle, that's fine by me, but just be warned, I'm gonna have to turn the difficulty up on ya." He grinned upside down, his hair falling below his head, forming an oddity in mid-air. Suddenly he disappeared from his perch. X and Alia both turned to fire at the same spot right as Zero appeared there. He managed to deflect X's blast with his saber, but still got hit by Alia's pistol fire. Being the lesser of the two evils, it wasn't enough to stop him, but it did slow him down for a moment.
"All right you two. I thought I was the only one holding back," He said between breaths. "I guess I was wrong for once. So let's dance. It may be practice, but that doesn't mean we can't have some fun with it."
X and Alia both grinned as well.
Crystal kept the one screen constantly showing her what was going on in the training room. Dr. Light took up a good deal of the main screen, though the portion nearest to Crystal was given to her to use for her own type of training.
"Well my dear, you're picking up on this very quickly I must say." Dr. Light commented. Crystal smiled widely at the monitor.
"Well, my mother always did say I was a fast learner. But they say there's no such thing as a bad student, only bad teachers." Dr. Light chuckled a bit.
"I don't know about that my dear. I've had some very bad students as well. It's a combination of both I'd have to say." Crystal smirked at his comments and continued with her typing, looking over occasionally at the monitor to check on Zero.
"You care for him very much, don't you?" Light commented.
"Of course, otherwise, I wouldn't have recognized him when I saw him again on that train." She replied solemnly.
"I do suppose you're right on that matter." Light said as well. As Crystal seemed to be intent on the screen, Light was forced to get her attention again. "Ahem I do believe we're trying to get you to work on something yourself my dear?" Crystal turned around with a slightly guilty look on her face.
"I'm sorry Doc. I shouldn't be so easily distracted like that, should I?" She immediately went back to typing as she had been.
"It's alright for now. But later you won't have that luxury. Try to remember that."
Zero bounced around the room like a rabbit gone mad trying to avoid blasts from X and Alia. Where one would fire, the next one would fire at the next spot Zero started to leap to. As Zero watched, X began to change armors in mid-fire, maintaining his firing pattern the whole time. Interesting. He's improved quite a lot here lately. The old X wouldn't have been able to do that, or at least wouldn't have thought of it.
X in the meantime was having trouble concentrating on his own. As Zero had managed to counter-fire a couple times, X had to watch for that, as well as maintaining his concentration enough to exchange armors every thirty seconds.
{Good work, X. Very large improvement. We'll have to see how you do when Zero actually combats you instead of just dodging with an occasional return.}
{Okay Doc, will do.}
As X returned his focus to Zero, he noticed that the Crimson Wonder seemed to have gotten a bit closer. Suddenly he realized how much closer. "SHIT!" He yelped right as Zero's fist suddenly made contact with the center piece of his armor. As X flew backwards he twisted around so that his feet made contact with the wall instead, allowing him to see as Zero turned to attack Alia. And though he could see what was going on, he was helpless to stop it, since he was still stuck in mid-flight towards the wall.
Alia managed to duck under the red and gold blur that was Zero's foot as he attempted a roundhouse at her head. She quickly moved in and tried an uppercut but found Zero already having danced backwards and jumping forward again, trying to sweep her this time. She backflipped over the attack and smoothly landed, squeezing off a blast at Zero's head. Though her aim was perfect, so were Zero's instincts. He moved his head just far enough to avoid the beam from the pistol. As Alia watched, Zero suddenly went straight up and over her, coming down behind her and kicking her towards the same wall he'd sent X towards. By this time X had finally managed to make contact and rebound, catching Alia as she flew, setting her down, turning and changing armors before she even realized she wasn't going to make another crater in the much abused wall. As she watched, X flew forward, already having changed into the Gaia Armor. Though slowed down, he could take massive amounts of damage in that armor, and Zero knew it. As X landed, denting the ground almost an inch there, Zero went on the attack, almost all of his attacks connecting, but leaving no marks on X. Zero poured on more speed, but as he did so, he found himself suddenly at a loss as to what to do besides pulling out the saber. X grunted with each hit, but otherwise was mostly unharmed.
"Nice one, X. I gotta give you that much." Zero said as he backed off for a moment.
"Thanks. I actually got the idea from you somewhat. I've watched you pull pretty much the same tactic, just without the armor changing." X grinned.
"Huh...usually I dodge everything."
"Exactly. I know that one of your advantages is the way you're balanced, so much towards speed and power, but not as high on def. To counter-act that, the best thing to use against you is something with almost no speed, but a load of defense. You would've had a few issues with Rainy Turtloid."
"I did. I fought him Sigma's fortress when I went in there."
"Ahh. I'd forgotten about that actually."
"Well, you also forgot something else."
"What's that?" X asked, perplexed momentarily.
"I wasn't using the saber." Zero said as he suddenly pulled it out and dashed forward, leaving no question as to his intentions.
"SHIT!" X spat out, moments before crossing his arms in time to block the saber. Thank Light for the Gaia Armor's nearly impenetrable sections. X thought to himself momentarily. But even they aren't gonna hold out long against the Z-Saber. I've gotta do something
Suddenly the Z-saber was no longer there to be blocked. As X brought his arms down, he found Alia where Zero had once stood. She was in a peculiar fighting stance that X hadn't seen before, and she smirked a bit in Zero's direction. "You didn't forget about me, didja?"
"Actually, to be honest, for a moment, I did," Zero commented as he grinned from his spot over by Signas. "Nice kick, by the way. That one hurt." As he stood back up he wiped the side of his mouth of the small amount of blood trickling from it. Alia merely continued to smirk a bit. "Okay then. I think that's enough for today."
"Awww," X started in on him. "You get kicked around once by a girl, and suddenly you're done? Come on, afraid of losing your great reputation?" X taunted at him.
"Ha, at least I'm not the one she's got wrapped around her finger!" Zero retorted.
"Nope, Crystal did that before Alia could." X replied immediately sticking his tongue out at the red reploid.
"Hey, that's a low blow!" Zero replied.
"And like the comment about me being wrapped around her finger wasn't?"
"Well come on, look at ya, I kick her once and suddenly ya go superman on me with the Gaia Armor there."
"HA! That's what you think, I was actually planning that all along."
"I smell something in the air here, and I think it's called BULLSHIT!"
"You calling me a liar?"
"Yeah, I think I am, either that or you stepped in one hell of a platter of it."
"Of what?"
"BULLSHIT!"
"That's it, you're losin the tail now!" X said as he changed into his first armor and began to chase Zero around the training room with a boomerang cutter.
"Hey now! WHOA!" Zero yelled as he dodged out of the way of the cutters, careful to do so to keep his hair out of path as well. "You cut my hair and you're the one answerin' to Crystal. She's got red hair for a reason, I'm warning you!!" Zero continued to run for a few more moments til X finally relented and stopped chasing him.
"Fine Bisho-boy, keep the hair, I'm just surprised you had to sink so low as to threaten me with your girlfriend."
"Fiancee."
"Whatever....wait a minute??? When did that occur?" X suddenly looked dumb founded. As did nearly everyone else in the room.
"Well, technically it didn't yet. But I'm planning on solving that problem here soon." Zero said, looking somewhat abashed.
"And just when were you planning on asking her about this?"
"Umm...soon as I rid us of Sigma once and for all? Might be a good idea to wait until after the baby's born too." Zero replied. Jaws dropped collectively. Alia was the first to recover.
"Well then, congratulations are in order I think then." She said as she finally holstered her pistol. X began to grin from next to her. "But that just leaves me with one question on the matter."
"Fire away. I'll give you an answer if I have one. If I don't have it, more than likely Dr. Light does."
"How's she pregnant anyway? I mean, you're a reploid, right? Isn't it kinda hard for you to...well, you know?"
"To be honest, she's about three months along or so, so as to her getting pregnant in the first place, that happened before I was changed. As to the other part of your question....ehh....I'm not completely sure to be honest. It's not something that's really been any sort of matter lately. I suppose we could always ask Dr. Light, though last time I checked, I've still got everything necessary."
"That's uh, not gonna, be umm...quite, umm, necessary, I don't think." Alia said as she suddenly turned a very dark shade of red.
"Actually, I don't think it will be," Zenton stated from the area him and Toronto had backed into when the fireworks had originally started. "I can tell you for a fact that I still have everything intact. If I don't then I'm not feeling a difference."
"Yeah, he's got a point there" Toronto rumbled. "I feel no different either."
"Well then," stated Alia. "I guess that solves that issue."
Author's notes: I'm sorry for the incredible delay on this latest chapter, but between some issues in my life lately keeping me incapable of writing decently, and having a bad case of writer's block just about any other time, getting this chapter cranked out was a bit of a problem until last night. So ehh....sorry bout the delay there. .
Crystal sat in the main room a short while after her talk with Zero, watching a smaller monitor that Dr. Light had set for her to watch Zero and the others in the training room. As she sat and watched it Dr. Light himself showed up on the main screen.
"Well my dear, have you thought about what I told you?"
"Yes, I think I have."
"And may I inquire as to your answer?"
"I think I can do it Doc. I just don't know how well I'll be able to do such a job, knowing that Zero's out there fighting."
"How do you think Alia felt doing this, knowing that X was out there?"
"Well, I suppose you're right about that."
"Besides, I just wanna teach you how to do this in case of a time when we need Alia out on the field." He looked down at her corner of the room that she was watching the monitor in once more. She looked up at him with a smile on her face.
"Very well. Whenever you wanna start teaching me, I'm ready." She jumped a little as a keyboard suddenly jumped out at her from the wall. "Eep!"
"Sorry about that...you know how to operate one of these?"
"I vaguely remember from before Sigma managed to kill everyone else who knew how."
"Then we'll start with the basics on here."
Zero and Signas were once again sparring with their sabers. Zero had a tunnel closed in around them for this day's practice, training himself a bit as well as Signas on extremely close quarter fighting. Zero had the slight advantage, being shorter than Signas, but that advantage wasn't much. X and Alia watched from the control room. Toronto and Zenton were outside the box, sparring with each other as well.
"You seem to be having a few problems in here Signas," Zero said while grinning at him between one of the spark showers their sabers ignited from contacting each other and the walls.
"You don't seem to be faring much better," Signas retorted.
"Yeah, well, at least I'm not cramped by the ceiling too," Zero responded, swinging his saber to deflect Signas again, striking out with his free hand while the sabers were locked. The punch connected and sent Signas out his end of the tunnel.
Signas picked himself back up to find Zero handing him back the handle of his saber. "Thank you," he mumbled, rubbing his jaw for a moment. Zero just grinned back.
"Didn't do any real damage did I?"
"Nah, it'll just be sore for a bit." Signas said, chuckling lightly.
"Ya know, up until Dr. Light converted me, that was the last thing I expected to hear out of a Reploid," Zero commented, chuckling a bit himself. X and Alia walked out of the control booth. Zero turned and fired a level 1 blast at both of them. They both dodged to the outside and then came at him from both sides. Zero dodged out of the middle of them, but turned around to find Alia attacking him from one side and X firing at him from the other. He rolled under X's blast, tripped Alia on his way by and jumped straight up from where X was rapid-firing at him again. As he touched on the ceiling he clung there for the moment he was able. "Okay guys, you two wanna play team battle, that's fine by me, but just be warned, I'm gonna have to turn the difficulty up on ya." He grinned upside down, his hair falling below his head, forming an oddity in mid-air. Suddenly he disappeared from his perch. X and Alia both turned to fire at the same spot right as Zero appeared there. He managed to deflect X's blast with his saber, but still got hit by Alia's pistol fire. Being the lesser of the two evils, it wasn't enough to stop him, but it did slow him down for a moment.
"All right you two. I thought I was the only one holding back," He said between breaths. "I guess I was wrong for once. So let's dance. It may be practice, but that doesn't mean we can't have some fun with it."
X and Alia both grinned as well.
Crystal kept the one screen constantly showing her what was going on in the training room. Dr. Light took up a good deal of the main screen, though the portion nearest to Crystal was given to her to use for her own type of training.
"Well my dear, you're picking up on this very quickly I must say." Dr. Light commented. Crystal smiled widely at the monitor.
"Well, my mother always did say I was a fast learner. But they say there's no such thing as a bad student, only bad teachers." Dr. Light chuckled a bit.
"I don't know about that my dear. I've had some very bad students as well. It's a combination of both I'd have to say." Crystal smirked at his comments and continued with her typing, looking over occasionally at the monitor to check on Zero.
"You care for him very much, don't you?" Light commented.
"Of course, otherwise, I wouldn't have recognized him when I saw him again on that train." She replied solemnly.
"I do suppose you're right on that matter." Light said as well. As Crystal seemed to be intent on the screen, Light was forced to get her attention again. "Ahem I do believe we're trying to get you to work on something yourself my dear?" Crystal turned around with a slightly guilty look on her face.
"I'm sorry Doc. I shouldn't be so easily distracted like that, should I?" She immediately went back to typing as she had been.
"It's alright for now. But later you won't have that luxury. Try to remember that."
Zero bounced around the room like a rabbit gone mad trying to avoid blasts from X and Alia. Where one would fire, the next one would fire at the next spot Zero started to leap to. As Zero watched, X began to change armors in mid-fire, maintaining his firing pattern the whole time. Interesting. He's improved quite a lot here lately. The old X wouldn't have been able to do that, or at least wouldn't have thought of it.
X in the meantime was having trouble concentrating on his own. As Zero had managed to counter-fire a couple times, X had to watch for that, as well as maintaining his concentration enough to exchange armors every thirty seconds.
{Good work, X. Very large improvement. We'll have to see how you do when Zero actually combats you instead of just dodging with an occasional return.}
{Okay Doc, will do.}
As X returned his focus to Zero, he noticed that the Crimson Wonder seemed to have gotten a bit closer. Suddenly he realized how much closer. "SHIT!" He yelped right as Zero's fist suddenly made contact with the center piece of his armor. As X flew backwards he twisted around so that his feet made contact with the wall instead, allowing him to see as Zero turned to attack Alia. And though he could see what was going on, he was helpless to stop it, since he was still stuck in mid-flight towards the wall.
Alia managed to duck under the red and gold blur that was Zero's foot as he attempted a roundhouse at her head. She quickly moved in and tried an uppercut but found Zero already having danced backwards and jumping forward again, trying to sweep her this time. She backflipped over the attack and smoothly landed, squeezing off a blast at Zero's head. Though her aim was perfect, so were Zero's instincts. He moved his head just far enough to avoid the beam from the pistol. As Alia watched, Zero suddenly went straight up and over her, coming down behind her and kicking her towards the same wall he'd sent X towards. By this time X had finally managed to make contact and rebound, catching Alia as she flew, setting her down, turning and changing armors before she even realized she wasn't going to make another crater in the much abused wall. As she watched, X flew forward, already having changed into the Gaia Armor. Though slowed down, he could take massive amounts of damage in that armor, and Zero knew it. As X landed, denting the ground almost an inch there, Zero went on the attack, almost all of his attacks connecting, but leaving no marks on X. Zero poured on more speed, but as he did so, he found himself suddenly at a loss as to what to do besides pulling out the saber. X grunted with each hit, but otherwise was mostly unharmed.
"Nice one, X. I gotta give you that much." Zero said as he backed off for a moment.
"Thanks. I actually got the idea from you somewhat. I've watched you pull pretty much the same tactic, just without the armor changing." X grinned.
"Huh...usually I dodge everything."
"Exactly. I know that one of your advantages is the way you're balanced, so much towards speed and power, but not as high on def. To counter-act that, the best thing to use against you is something with almost no speed, but a load of defense. You would've had a few issues with Rainy Turtloid."
"I did. I fought him Sigma's fortress when I went in there."
"Ahh. I'd forgotten about that actually."
"Well, you also forgot something else."
"What's that?" X asked, perplexed momentarily.
"I wasn't using the saber." Zero said as he suddenly pulled it out and dashed forward, leaving no question as to his intentions.
"SHIT!" X spat out, moments before crossing his arms in time to block the saber. Thank Light for the Gaia Armor's nearly impenetrable sections. X thought to himself momentarily. But even they aren't gonna hold out long against the Z-Saber. I've gotta do something
Suddenly the Z-saber was no longer there to be blocked. As X brought his arms down, he found Alia where Zero had once stood. She was in a peculiar fighting stance that X hadn't seen before, and she smirked a bit in Zero's direction. "You didn't forget about me, didja?"
"Actually, to be honest, for a moment, I did," Zero commented as he grinned from his spot over by Signas. "Nice kick, by the way. That one hurt." As he stood back up he wiped the side of his mouth of the small amount of blood trickling from it. Alia merely continued to smirk a bit. "Okay then. I think that's enough for today."
"Awww," X started in on him. "You get kicked around once by a girl, and suddenly you're done? Come on, afraid of losing your great reputation?" X taunted at him.
"Ha, at least I'm not the one she's got wrapped around her finger!" Zero retorted.
"Nope, Crystal did that before Alia could." X replied immediately sticking his tongue out at the red reploid.
"Hey, that's a low blow!" Zero replied.
"And like the comment about me being wrapped around her finger wasn't?"
"Well come on, look at ya, I kick her once and suddenly ya go superman on me with the Gaia Armor there."
"HA! That's what you think, I was actually planning that all along."
"I smell something in the air here, and I think it's called BULLSHIT!"
"You calling me a liar?"
"Yeah, I think I am, either that or you stepped in one hell of a platter of it."
"Of what?"
"BULLSHIT!"
"That's it, you're losin the tail now!" X said as he changed into his first armor and began to chase Zero around the training room with a boomerang cutter.
"Hey now! WHOA!" Zero yelled as he dodged out of the way of the cutters, careful to do so to keep his hair out of path as well. "You cut my hair and you're the one answerin' to Crystal. She's got red hair for a reason, I'm warning you!!" Zero continued to run for a few more moments til X finally relented and stopped chasing him.
"Fine Bisho-boy, keep the hair, I'm just surprised you had to sink so low as to threaten me with your girlfriend."
"Fiancee."
"Whatever....wait a minute??? When did that occur?" X suddenly looked dumb founded. As did nearly everyone else in the room.
"Well, technically it didn't yet. But I'm planning on solving that problem here soon." Zero said, looking somewhat abashed.
"And just when were you planning on asking her about this?"
"Umm...soon as I rid us of Sigma once and for all? Might be a good idea to wait until after the baby's born too." Zero replied. Jaws dropped collectively. Alia was the first to recover.
"Well then, congratulations are in order I think then." She said as she finally holstered her pistol. X began to grin from next to her. "But that just leaves me with one question on the matter."
"Fire away. I'll give you an answer if I have one. If I don't have it, more than likely Dr. Light does."
"How's she pregnant anyway? I mean, you're a reploid, right? Isn't it kinda hard for you to...well, you know?"
"To be honest, she's about three months along or so, so as to her getting pregnant in the first place, that happened before I was changed. As to the other part of your question....ehh....I'm not completely sure to be honest. It's not something that's really been any sort of matter lately. I suppose we could always ask Dr. Light, though last time I checked, I've still got everything necessary."
"That's uh, not gonna, be umm...quite, umm, necessary, I don't think." Alia said as she suddenly turned a very dark shade of red.
"Actually, I don't think it will be," Zenton stated from the area him and Toronto had backed into when the fireworks had originally started. "I can tell you for a fact that I still have everything intact. If I don't then I'm not feeling a difference."
"Yeah, he's got a point there" Toronto rumbled. "I feel no different either."
"Well then," stated Alia. "I guess that solves that issue."
Author's notes: I'm sorry for the incredible delay on this latest chapter, but between some issues in my life lately keeping me incapable of writing decently, and having a bad case of writer's block just about any other time, getting this chapter cranked out was a bit of a problem until last night. So ehh....sorry bout the delay there. .