Back in Neo Arcadia, the remaining children of X are finally released from their testing. Both are grieving and, in effort to do right by their brothers, now carry memorials of the lost AXRs. Hopefully, these simple mementos will give them the strength to continue on. And that says nothing of the emotional toll these recent events have taken on their father…
And speaking of the copy unit, he gets a rather unexpected visit today. And if the unit who stops by isn't surprise enough, the offer he brings before Copy X definitely is.
And we'd like to thank everyone for the continued support we've been receiving. HarunaRei just picked up a second job (yay!) and has been a bit busy to be able to respond to reviews recently, and Midnyght, unfortunately, is still without a functioning laptop. We'll try and get through to answer some people's questions in the coming week.
Fefnir inhaled deeply as the plugs were pulled from his ports, pushing himself from the pod once he'd been fully disengaged, and he silently grabbed his helmet from the tech that had been holding it. "Everything's clean?" he asked; he'd been undergoing intensive virus scans for the past four days and wanted to know the results as soon as possible.
"We've run every test we could think of, Guardian Fefnir. Everything came back clean," the Reploid answered. "And from what we're seeing in the coding, you and Guardian Leviathan should, by all accounts, be immune. There's protections in your base programming to counter infection and protect you from any influx of Maverick energy."
Leviathan had awakened several minutes before Fefnir and already received her prognosis: she, too, was completely clean. She was looking down to the floor, lost in thought, but she did look up when Fefnir emerged, listening as the technician told her brother the same thing that she'd been told: they were immune.
They were immune, but Phantom went Maverick.
And this Maverick, their once-brother, killed Harpuia. He was likely going to strike again and, suddenly, Leviathan realized that she was the eldest now. It left a sick, empty feeling inside her.
Fefnir looked over to his sister, noticing the almost-hollow look in her eyes, and he moved over to her, silently wrapping his arms around her. There were a million things that he wanted to say, so much he wanted to offer her in terms of comfort, and couldn't even bring himself to speak a single syllable. He pulled her closer, letting the simple motion speak for him.
She leaned into his embrace, sliding off of the table she'd been sitting on, her ranseur leaned against the nearby wall. "We're both clean," she said, her voice coming out a bit softer than usual. She slid her arms around Fefnir: even if he wasn't as vocal about his feelings, even if he wasn't displaying it, she knew he had to be grieving, too. Their numbers had been halved. "I've been ordered back onto patrol."
That got him speaking again. "What? After all this? Levi, you can't! If…If Phantom's still…he'll come after you, us…Levi, you have to stay in the city." He held her tighter, as if that would be enough to get her to listen to him.
She shook her head, even as Fefnir protested. "Father ordered it. The city has to be protected," and they'd all made a vow, hadn't they?
"Father…" and he stopped for a moment, as if considering his words, "Father's not in his right mind, Levi. You saw how he took the news. He's…I'm almost tempted to say that he's taking this worse than we are. Just…you saw him, heard him, when he gave us the news. Even the way he let us find out," and he frowned at the thought. "Father's not thinking straight, Levi. We've lost two already and he's…I don't know how any of us are coping. I honestly don't." And to Fefnir, that unease, that sense of being lost in his emotions, rocked him to the core. He was a fighting unit, the strongest of Neo Arcadia's forces, and yet this? This was near to breaking him down more completely than any physical damage he'd ever been dealt in all the years they'd been fighting the Maverick scourge.
"He didn't react at all," to the death. It was as though a faceless soldier died and they had to reposition to pick up the slack. Like it wasn't one of his sons that was killed. Her father just lost two sons and he didn't even look affected. It made her wonder what it was like once those doors were closed and X was alone. "I…don't think he took it well," she finally said. "Stay close to him, Fefnir." And that was a plea: she couldn't stay close, couldn't watch either of them when she had her job to do. When her job took her outside Neo Arcadia.
A Reploid darted into the room then, worry crossing her features as she moved closer to the two Guardians. "My apologies, Guardian Leviathan. I retrieved these as soon as I could. Forgive me for the delay in delivering these to you," and she handed Leviathan an unmarked box, similar in design to the one that she'd been given by X days before.
"Leviathan, what…?" Fefnir asked, finally releasing his sister, her request to him noted but dismissed for the moment. He wanted to know what was in the box that the Reploid who had delivered it seemed so distressed for the time it had taken.
She accepted the box from the Reploid, taking it carefully as she nodded to the unit. "Thank you. Dismissed." Right now, she didn't even care about the delay. What was important was that it was here. Carefully, she set the box down on the table and opened it, pulling two items out. They were Harpuia's sabers. "They're damaged beyond repair, but I had the casings replaced," so they wouldn't have to look at what Phantom's kunai had done. She pulled a third item from the box, a sheath for the blade's hilt, and handed it to Fefnir along with one of the sabers. Her gaze was pained, but steady. Determined. They would do right by their older brother, come hell or high water.
"Levi, I don't…I don't…why?" he asked, even as he took the offered items from her. "They…they won't activate, so…" He couldn't understand the idea of carrying around useless weapons, even considering who had wielded the sabers before they'd been wrecked. "Why would you want me to carry this? Even if they did work, I'm not skilled in saber use."
She sighed and managed a weak smile, cuffing him lightly on the side of his helmet like she did when they were kids and he wasn't getting it. "It's a memorial, Fefnir. To honor his memory." She'd heard a human say once that funerals were for the living. She thought that now, after this, she better understood what they meant.
Acceptance was the final stage of grief, after all.
Fefnir looked at the items in his hands, nodding solemnly to Leviathan as he reached down to attach the sheath to his right leg, securing it before dropping the saber into place with a quiet click. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. I just…" I don't want to be reminded of this every day, "I'm not…" and he hugged her as soon as she'd secured her saber. "I miss him, too. Miss them both," he said, and his voice was breaking ever so slightly.
"We…we have to remember, when we see him again…we have to remember that it's not him. We have to remember that he's already dead." That whatever was puppeteering Phantom's body, it wasn't him. Not anymore. She was trembling as she said it, her shoulders shaking not with fear, but with grief and pain. Harpuia hadn't deserved what Phantom did to him. Phantom didn't deserve what happened to him. She hoped that the sabers would be enough to anchor them.
"I'll stay as close as I can to Father," Fefnir said, refusing to let her go. "Whatever you do…while you're on patrol, I want hourly reports. Let me know what's going on. Let me know you're safe. Until you come back to the city, Levi, I want to know you're alright."
"I'll check in with you hourly," Leviathan agreed, and it was a promise. She knew how dangerous this was to her, how dangerous the seas would be now with their brother apparently hunting his siblings down. "Let me know if anything changes in the city, let me know immediately if something happens and I need to return. Let's keep the communication line active."
Fefnir remained silent, quietly contemplating Leviathan's words and the memorial they would carry of their eldest brother. "Levi, where are Phantom's kunai?"
She paused at that, "They're still downstairs, in the labs, I think."
"Send a message down to the labs. I want them brought up here."
Leviathan nodded, closing her eyes for a moment as she focused through the channels, quickly posting the Reploid in charge of that lab with the orders. At least, she thought, there hadn't been an order issued to dispose of the kunai. Fefnir was right to ask for them: both brothers were to be counted among the fallen now.
"From what you said about Father putting you back on patrol duty, you have your routes already figured out." And with Harpuia and Phantom's lieutenants already reassigned to either of the remaining Guardians? "Do you want me to send any of the Jin'en with you? I know Tech Kraken was reassigned to your fleet, but…" He hated that there really wasn't a way for him to stay at her side, to protect her, even if she was the elder between them. She was still his sister, and Harpuia's death was obviously taking its toll on her mental health. "I don't want you to go."
She smiled a bit weakly, "I'll be fine, Fef. I have three of…three former Zan'ei lieutenants and Aztec Falcon for additional support should anything come up. That's quite a guard; I don't think we need to move any other units from Neo Arcadia," especially not when Leviathan herself was far from helpless.
"We don't," he said, his voice low. "I just wish that there was something more I could do. You and Father are all that I have left, and to stay here, to guard one while the other is forced to leave the city?" He shook his head. "I don't want to lose anyone else. This is already too much," already cut too deep.
"I think that Father has taken this far worse than either of us," she said, gaze dropping down and to the side: why else would he seem so cut off, if not grief? "He needs you here, whether he'll say it or not." Needed the support and protection far more than Leviathan.
"And that's why I'm staying, like you asked. Anubis Necromancess and the Anchus brothers can handle the patrols outside of the city, and Magnion and Flauclaws can take care of whatever's going on here." Anyone that had the gall to make an attempt on their father's life would have to deal with Zan'ei assassins and a very pissed off Fefnir. "If…if Phantom…if you encounter that Maverick while…" Fefnir forced an agitated breath through his nose. "Stay safe, Levi," he said finally, resting their foreheads together.
A Reploid stepped into the room a moment later, holding Phantom's kunai already secured in their own sheaths, handing the items to Leviathan. "Guardian Leviathan, Guardian Fefnir…we…our sincerest condolences for your loss," he said, bowing to her. He knew he risked a great deal in allowing himself the use of his emotional matrix, but for this? For the Guardians who had lost such close family? He'd let himself be marked Maverick before he'd deny them knowledge that the city supported them, cared for them despite the emotional locks that were required.
She didn't thank the unit verbally, but her gaze did soften as she took the kunai from him, a small smile finding its way to her face as she nodded to him. She was thankful, even if she couldn't acknowledge it right now. This, she thought, has to go. This repression. There had to be a way to reason with Father, but now was not the time, not when they were all in so much grief. "Dismissed," she told the Reploid even as she handed one of the kunai to Fefnir. At least the kunai were still viable weapons, unlike the sabers.
Fefnir secured the sheath to his other leg, running his fingers over the cool metal for a moment. "This…" he said, his voice barely above a whisper, "this scares me," the thought that they had a Maverick sibling, that one of them was somehow not immune, that one of them fell and was trying to take the rest of his family with him in his madness.
"I know," Leviathan said, just as quietly. "Feeling this now, and knowing…Fef, how many decades did Father exist this way, with one ally after another, one friend after another falling, over and over," with no end in sight, not until the Mother Elf? But then? And now, it was starting again?
"And now he's lost half his family," Fefnir admitted. "I'll stay at his side, Levi, as long as he allows me." He hugged her once more before stepping back and bowing. Mentally, he linked into the network and set up permissions for a permanent network link between him and Leviathan. "Every hour on the hour," he said solemnly.
She bowed as well, smiling to Fefnir once again, "On the hour." She permitted Fefnir's link, setting it up from her end as well so that even if something did happen to her, he'd know immediately. There wouldn't need to be a third party to deliver any news.
A knock startled Copy X from his thoughts, turning from the data scrolling across his terminal screen to stare, somewhat confusedly, at the door to his quarters. He'd had no message or alerts that he was to have visitors, and most that came before him did so in more public forums. Pushing to his feet, he linked with one of the Zan'ei at his door. 'Was there a reason you disrupted my work?' he asked, voice seething across the link.
'You have a visitor, Master X, a scientist by the looks of it,' the unit responded.
'Send him in,' Copy X ordered, crossing his arms over his chest as the door slid open.
A tall male Reploid walked in, long tail of blond hair braided down his back, the white lab coat he wore somewhat worn and dusty. Standing almost a full head taller than Copy X, the unit did not bow once the door closed, striking cerulean eyes simply watching the copy closely.
"Some audacity you have coming before me and then refusing to show proper respect," Copy X said, holding his ground. "What is your serial?"
"Instead of my number," the blond answered, eyes piercing as they locked with Copy X's own, "I'd rather provide my name. I am Telesphoros," and only then did he bow.
"Audacious and bold in a city where personality and identities for our kind are so heavily restricted. Care to let me in on how you're important enough to warrant the allowance of a name?"
Telesphoros smirked. "Now is that any way to greet the assistant of your creator, Copy X?"
The Reploid's eyes went wide, and he bowed deeply. "My apologies, Telesphoros. I did not recognize you."
"It's alright," he said, moving to take a seat and motioning for Copy X to do the same. "I did not spend much time in the lab during your construction. Was really only there for a short while to drop of some of the supplies your creator required, since my services are oft put to other uses. You probably wouldn't remember me," and there was a hint of a smile on the Reploid's face at that.
"What brings you to Neo Arcadia Tower?" Copy X said as he dropped into his chair. "I haven't heard from my creator since a few days after my activation, so for you to come unannounced…"
"It does seem odd, but things have been becoming more and more problematic. Your creator and I have been working on a few projects over the past few years, and one of the more recent developments may be of use for the power plant." Telesphoros leaned back in his chair, his expression becoming a bit more somber. "And we have heard about the loss of two of your Guardians. Such a shame and a pity that one so important could have fallen to the virus and taken the life of another in his bloodlust."
"Despite what the remaining two say and their emotional attachments being what they are, it's more of a strategic loss than anything else, one that can be made up for, given time." Copy X dismissed the unit's solemnity. "Do not waste your breath on condolences I don't care to accept."
"The Jin'en and Meikai Generals have been returned to active duty?"
Copy X nodded. "Fefnir will likely express worry for Leviathan to be placed on duty outside of the city perimeter, but I think us hiding her like that would only goad whatever is left of Phantom into attacking the city again."
Telesphoros nodded. "And they underwent testing for the virus?"
"For the last four days, yes, and I just received word that they've completed their testing," Copy X returned. "And I underwent my own testing in secret. I was never told if I carried the original X's immunity, so I thought it prudent."
"The results are good, I would assume?"
Another nod. "All three sets came back completely clean."
"That is good," and the blond looked over Copy X for a moment longer, "though you were made to be immune, so further worries of that sort should not cross your mind."
"I was?" Copy X looked astounded. "How so? I was under the impression that X had been immune because of his age."
"It was part of a process similar in fashion to what had been done to the Guardians," Telesphoros offered.
"It obviously failed with Phantom, so what's to keep that from happening to me?"
The blond laughed a bit. "It is said that X coded the Guardians himself, so there was obviously something wrong with his methods. You, however? Your creator is highly skilled in designing Reploid systems, so even though he and X used the same base idea, your version would not contain the same glitches that allowed Phantom to become infected."
Copy X remained quiet for a while, letting the information bounce around his processor. "You mentioned the power plant earlier?"
"Ah, yes," Telesphoros said, sitting up, threading his fingers together in his lap as he sat forward. "It seems that even the best attempts at correcting the flux issues and the overall output decline aren't doing much, so we have been looking into alternative means of correcting the issue. This city being the last bastion for the two races, it was important to figure out how."
"And were you able to come up with anything substantial?"
"We believe so, but I'd need to see the facility myself. Working in Reploid engineering only goes so far in terms of clearance, so getting into the power plant is currently beyond my level of authority. It's part of the reason I was told to speak with you."
"To ask me for access?" Copy X said, tilting his head. "I don't see why not. The Judges grow more divisive a council each day with the retirement orders, so something to stem the tide there will help greatly."
"Thank you," Telesphoros said as he stood, bowing once more. "If you'd like, I can provide my net access information so that you can forward the clearance orders to the necessary individuals."
Copy X got to his feet, bowing in return. "I am beyond grateful for this news, and let my builder know that if he is ever in need of anything, he need but ask or send you to make the request, and I will do what I can to assist."
The taller unit smiled, though there was a hint of something sinister in the expression. "Thank you very much for your generosity, Master X. We will both be greatly indebted to you for your assistance."
"If your work can save the plant and the city," Copy X assured, resting one hand on the Reploid's shoulder, "it will be I who is indebted to you."
"Take care and good night," Telesphoros said as he turned and left the room.
Copy X stood staring at the door for a long moment, wondering for a moment why the scientist, despite all his words, had seemed so incredibly familiar, as if he had met him some other time and his memory banks simply refused to supply the when.