Lumine and Axl finally returned not long after X and Zero… not so much finished cleaning up as gave up on cleaning up. Fortunately, Lumine wasn't in a mood to take a tour of the house when he got back and spot the damage, not when he'd been away from his computer games that long, and Axl also went up to his room to get a nap after figuring out that Zero wasn't in a mood to give him more training now, and that meant the sooner now became later the better.
Not long afterwards, they heard a crash from upstairs, quickly followed by the sound of Lumine cursing.
Like a human, not like a Wilybot.
Maybe exposing him to online gaming wasn't the best decision. X wanted him to become a little more mature, not cause him to think that his current level of immaturity was just fine compared to all of the people who kept expressing their desire to torture other people and their relatives over a game.
At some point he'd like Lumine to develop standards of ethical behavior to apply to himself and also to others, and he really didn't want him to think those people who were giving themselves permission to act worse than children were representative of humanity. They did not want Lumine to develop his future self's views on species that supposedly weren't capable of evolving any further.
Another voice, raised and annoyed. Rock's voiceprint, but not a tone he would ever take. Copy-Rock.
X let Zero push past him on the stairs only because Zero was the one with melee weaponry and they were indoors. They were borrowing this house and the walls were not designed to stand up to plasma.
Which meant they could be fired through, if need be.
Since his room was right across the hall from Lumine's, Axl was already in there demanding, "Hey, what are you doing here? Don't break Lumine's stuff, what if X thinks Lumine did it again?" When Zero came in, he said, "Zero, it was the not-fun Rock that broke Lumine's computer, not Lumine!"
"He appeared right under my computer desk!" Lumine complained, and now X could see the broken boards, the monitor slid to the floor and the case that held the actual computer itself looking like it had been kicked or stamped on by a booted foot.
Copy-Rock's.
His armor didn't appear to have sustained much in the way of significant damage, just some dents and singing that could be left over from that battle with Zero when the robot master didn't have repair nanites to handle them.
Then again, robot masters didn't like combat and destruction: was the fact some evidence of it still remained on his armor even though he'd had time to clean himself up a worrying sign for Copy-Rock's mental state or was all of this new?
"I needed a large enough shadow." The ninja's voice came from behind X: he must have appeared in the shadow the open door cast on the wall. "Duo attacked us and has followed us to two other locations."
One of his arms was damaged, a torn piece of the mesh netting that normally covered his armor there handing loose over his forearm, exposing a rent in the thinner armor of his upper arm that had penetrated deeply enough to expose wire. It wasn't immediately obvious how that damage was done: kinetic?
X expected Zero to ask why two Wilybots would possibly come here, then, when Zero had already attacked Copy-Rock, but it was Axl who spoke first, insisting that "Just because someone's chasing you, that doesn't mean it's okay to break people's stuff!" A lesson he'd learned in the context of Zero chasing him and Axl damaging the trees trying to get away. "Don't go into people's houses trying to get away, that's cheating!"
Zero had to be inwardly wincing: that wasn't the lesson he'd meant to teach Axl. Combat training was combat training, and there was no cheating in staying alive unless you put others in danger to benefit yourself.
No, X saw: Zero was looking at Copy-Rock instead, and X realized why Shadow had come here. Going to the Light household or Wily Island would put the people there in danger, but X and Zero had more powerful weapons and more combat experience… and the virus meant that by the robot master version of the social contract Zero was obligated to protect Copy-Rock just as much as Dr. Wily, and more capable of doing so.
There were also fewer people here to get caught up in the fight.
X focused on Axl and Lumine.
"Get outside," he told them. "Once you're away, check if it's safe to teleport to my family's. If it's not, keep going overland. Lumine, I need you to make sure that Axl gets there or at least away from here and does not come back until someone lets you know it's safe."
"But they broke stuff!" Axl protested.
"What did I tell you about obeying X's orders?" Zero barked. He did sergeant much better than X ever had. "You're not adequately trained for this threat level. Go with your brother. Move!"
X touched Lumine's arm to stop him for a moment as they headed out the door. "Armor," he told both of them. "Axl, if you see the robot that arrived when we were with Shadow and Copy-Rock that night, avoid, don't engage. You have permission to teleport to other coordinates if that will help. Lumine, I know you have a system intended to let you take over other units if one destroyed you: this unit may be what Dr. Wily based your system on. Don't try it. Not unless you're on the verge of death." It had failed Lumine then before. "If you keep Axl from getting into fights, I'll get you a new computer as soon as things are safe..."
On the edge of his vision, he saw Shadow turning his head, looking around for something. A large enough shadow to use his technique? Zero and Copy-Rock were also acting like they were expecting an incoming attack, possibly from each other, but that wasn't a change so X couldn't tell if they were detecting anything incoming.
Mentally composing an apology to Roll for possibly adding the use of weaponry indoors to what already happened to the living room, X gestured the two newbuilts towards the door, then summoned the copy of Ice Man's master weapon he'd been given and considered using it to give Axl and Lumine some shielding against high temperatures by encasing them in a brick of ice if they didn't move.
Once they were gone, should he check on Blues, or would Zero handle it? He wasn't exactly going to forget an incapacitated hunter out in the field, or what had become the field. Just leaving one behind meant leaving them to be infected.
Fortunately the two newbuilts moved, heading towards the door as Zero grabbed Copy-Rock and went through the exterior wall with the help of his beam saber. Thankfully it had stopped snowing not long ago: they were going to need the visibility. The ninja vanished into the shadow cast by the moonlight coming through the improvised window, leaving X to dash after Zero. His armored weight was more than enough to send him falling a decent way into the snowdrifts surrounding the house, so he heard the booming voice declaring "Evil!" before he rolled to his feet and got a visual, shaking the snow off his blue armor.
Zero and Copy-Rock had made it further away from the house than X expected, knowing the strength of Zero's dash boots? Zero must have flung Copy-Rock a little further so he could get into a ready position faster, without his hands occupied – the smaller robot master was rolling to his feet just like X had a moment ago, trying to shake the snow off his shoulders as Zero moved to cover him.
Duo hovered over the trees, rockets thankfully not close enough to the branches to set them on fire. From the video files recorded by various Lightbots and a few Wilybots Roll had sent him after their encounter with Duo, X knew that trying to protect a unit the White Giant had declared evil would get them labeled evil as well. Why was it attacking Copy-Rock now and not before? Perhaps the virus had progressed further, and Copy-Rock was now able to take Sigma's place and order the other Mavericks to start exterminating humans?
Well, they were already engaged with the enemy: too late for even Zero to argue the merits of refusing to assist the two Wilybots.
That alien fist shot forward, blasting away from the body, the force of the rocket pressing it against Zero's beam saber when Zero moved to block it. It was Zero who followed through on the strike, sending it flying away through the air until those rockets returned it to the wrist of its host body.
Copy-Rock had gotten to his feet and into a ready position behind Zero: X couldn't currently get positions on Axl, Lumine or Shadow. Good.
They were surrounded by snow and it was fairly humid. A robot body built by Dr. Cossack would probably be designed to be able to handle the Russian winter, but the environment would make Ice Man's weapon especially effective, and alternating blasts of freezing temperatures and plasma while applying impact force (Zero's blows) would give most alloys trouble.
The original White Giant had an energy shield wrapped around its body: it was Quick Man who located the flaw in it and landed a hit. Using Super Mega Man's rocket fist, Rock was able to deliver a blow to the same location that caused the White Giant's structural integrity to be damaged enough the stardroids could tear it apart from the inside and escape. Was it a coincidence that it was the White Giant's own rocket fist that hit the Cossacks' hover transport and influenced Dr. Cossack into building it a new body, when that was what Rock used to take it down? Had Duo copied Super Mega Man's attack, even using a copied ability against Zero now, this long after the Stardroid invasion?
A user of the Weapon Copy System himself, X knew not to underestimate someone who studied the enemy's most effective techniques and co-opted them.
If they had to destroy 'Duo,' then they'd have to make sure all the pieces were accounted for. X would have to be the one to gather them up since he was immune; the White Giant had sealed the stardroids so it was uncertain what its technology could do to Zero; and X didn't want even Axl and Lumine coming back here until he was sure there was nothing left to hijack them.
"I will destroy evil," the White Giant boomed out, and that was different from how it acted when they met it in the city. Why the change? A change that made it aggressive, forced it to attack: like Forte soon after they arrived, had some programming been triggered?
Zero bought his blade up into a guard position. X hit up magnification – No, not blue. Green fading to yellow, and X did not like yellow on Zero. He'd seen too much of it during the Repliforce incident.
He wanted to contact Zero, see if he was willing to use that empathy channel to get a read on this opponent, but his guess was that Zero was doing that right now, and the last thing Zero needed when he was dealing with this kind of turmoil was to have to split his concentration into talking with someone. Else. Because "Stand down," Zero said, and not just because Duo wasn't a maverick and that meant there were rules to follow before removing someone's head from their body.
"I must destroy evil!"
Zero scowled. "Will claiming I'll kill him for you help… No."
X wished he could get the kind of feedback Zero was getting, but at least while Zero might not be good at figuring out people, he could still analyze tactical situations like the professional he was.
"Why are you trying to attack here and now, if that's what you're after… There's no collateral damage here," Zero said, eyes narrowing and paling further. "When you attacked them before, they were in a city that wasn't already ruined, so your programming wanted you to destroy some infrastructure in the process of taking them out, but there's no one here who can't run or defend themselves. You should have 'lost them' until they were somewhere the fight would kill more 'evil,' but some of this planet's defenders are here, so you're using destroying us so earth is defenseless as an excuse to hang around here where there's someone who might take you down…"
Zero's lips were slightly parted, teeth bared just slightly, and normally Zero wasn't prone to aggressive body language. He prided himself on self-control too much for that… or demanded it of himself, when he refuse to relapse to the red demon. Zero either killed things that made him this angry or removed himself from their presence: not being able to do either while having to fight down his combat programming was definitely a percentage of why the medical studies of him performed after the Red Demon Incident were so painful for Zero. Duo was just hovering there, not trying to make Zero go berserk to have an excuse to kill him the way at least some of the Hunter examiners were.
It wasn't Duo that Zero was angry at. Yeilding to combat programming and attacking him clearly wouldn't help: Zero knew he had to try to think. "You're supposed to pretend to be a good guy, but there's no better way to ruin that lie than by attacking the good guys. Come on, you must have a non-kill mode, or at least a non-immediate kill mode. How do I trigger it? Give me a… No, you've already given me a hint. Step aside and let you kill someone who won't stay dead: acknowledge the 'moral authority,'" Zero sounded ready to spit, "of your programming. That your programmers have the right to determine who lives and who dies, just label innocent people evil and kill them all."
Zero shifted, reflex clearly wanting to have him circle for position since this was a stand-off, but he had to stay where he was to cover Copy-Rock. That meant it was even more important to keep the White Giant too distracted and off-balance to attack with words, since Zero couldn't force Duo to keep his full attention on Zero by adjusting his position and hence the mechanics involved in warding off an attack whenever Zero chose to strike.
The robot double was holding a charged shot ready the same way X was, but watching Zero instead of interfering.
"If a planet can't be provoked into fighting back to protect its inhabitants, then you get to wait until your programming has another excuse to kill them all, don't you? To label everyone here evil barbarians who don't deserve to live because they would dare attack 'good' people to defend the 'evil,' the way the Mavericks want to destroy X for fighting to protect… I will be damned if I let people like Sigma have their way. I refuse to fight for scum like your builders. But, if I used to be like the stardroids… If I used to be like you… This is my op," Zero declared. "I'm using this unit to 'bring out the true nature' of the robot masters so they reveal that they're Evil and can be exterminated, and that will prove that the humans are evil enough to build evil like them. Stand down and stop trying to defy your programming by ruining the little excuse for planetary extermination I'm manufacturing here."
"The universe will be purified of evil," boomed the unit as it landed, rockets cutting out before it hit the ground. Was it decreasing its combat readiness, finding some excuse to render itself more vulnerable to an opponent without flight capability? Obviously neither X nor Zero would count on that, not when this was alien technology. "No race of evil will escape purification!"
"Yes, I know that's bullshit," Zero said, eyes narrowing again. Still yellow. "I've seen it before, from the Mavericks. So what are you trying to get me to figure out?" His free hand made a gesture signaling other hunters, including X, to stay back.
"No race of evil will escape to ravage the stars!"
"…This world already has enough technology for STL without crystals." Of course Zero would remember Repliforce's dream. "FTL, with robot masters to handle mass teleportation. And those bastards don't want anyone with enough technology to fight back and survive, is that it? You can't go into a longer-term watch mode: you're going to be trying to incite the kind of behavior your programming needs to justify a full assault. I bet a species that hasn't been adequately judged trying to develop space travel is an 'evil' act too, isn't it? After all, if they were good, they wouldn't be trying to run away from judgment. They'd be willing to wait tamely until whenever your builders decided they were 'worthy' to escape their sun becoming a red giant." Meaning never. "And if daring to defend people by attacking you is enough to label someone evil, then attack enough evil in crowded urban areas…"
Zero's Shinobi Unit could sometimes manage to save the village without destroying it, but Duo was clearly a distance combatant with weaponry far more powerful than a robot master's. Someone like that trying to cause collateral damage? The Seventeenth did enough even when they weren't trying to clear lines of fire to improve their ability to defend against incoming mavericks!
"Going after the robot masters would cripple this planet's ability to save and protect itself… If earth lost the capability for space travel, that would lower its 'threat' level enough you might be able to get your programming to go into 'watch' mode, is that it… No, if they've developed it once…" From how Zero's frown deepened, he was getting confirmation after confirmation. Wiping out entire races because they were allegedly inferior was the same goal the Mavericks had: was that what let Zero derive how a group with similar aims would go about the control programming that bound this unit as surely as the virus?
Zero was doing this at least partially to get verification that the White Giant fit the profile for the Cataclysm. And not even because it wanted to kill people, wipe out X's family. Because it didn't, and that was as much as it could do. All it could do, the only loopholes in its programming it could find to let this world live even a little longer.
X felt sick. How could, how could anyone…
By telling themselves that they were only revealing evil that was already there instead of manufacturing it. By… sometimes he hated knowing so much about how people's logic could fail, how easy it was for people who weren't unintelligent to be tricked into doing horrible things like murdering his family because of their race. Thinking that they were in the right all the while.
The universe was a place where someone would willingly create something like the Maverick Virus, because of the belief that things were black and white, good and bad, inferior and superior. That if two people were different, then one could be 'better' and if it was alright to torment people for being 'lesser,' then people had to insist that they were the 'better' ones, had to do onto others before it was done into them.
If the White Giant's creators thought that it was alright to exterminate species, then they had to live in fear that another species would be just like them. That other species would agree with them that such a terrible thing was acceptable, and do onto them exactly as they had done onto others.
The prejudiced weren't afraid that other people were less than them, less kind, less smart. No, they were terrified that the different were just like them. And even more terrified that the different were wiser, too wise to turn on others, because that would reveal that the prejudiced were the inferior ones, and if it was alright to kill the inferior?
Creating a robot and forcing that person to kill in order to keep their hands clean, because inferiors were evil, so a robot wouldn't care about killing (not when the 'superiors' were fine with genocide, surely a robot wouldn't be better than them), and inferiors should do whatever their superiors wanted and to disobey, to want to live, well, that was wrong. Evil.
A species that tried to incite its victims to defy them, because if they defied fate, refused to give in to the evil of those who attacked them and submit to death tamely, then that was what was wrong in their eyes, not killing innocent people…
Some called him innocent, but that was why he was put into hibernation: because Dr. Light couldn't afford for him to turn out innocent. The world couldn't afford for him to wake up an innocent. Innocence meant ignorance of good and evil, and ignorance was the most dangerous thing there was, even more than fear. Ignorance of good and evil made it certain that people would do evil, because how could they not do evil if they didn't know how to tell whether an action was a good one or an evil one?
X was built to be as tough as possible and also had a plasma buster and the weapon copy ability. So he had to know why it wasn't a good idea to start shooting when he wasn't given what he wanted. He had to know better than to just start making assumptions and generalizations about the people he met. Or else he would have killed people, and what were they to think of him then, but that he had to be stopped? And how were they to stop him, if he wielded all that power and had no idea that some things were wrong and killing was one of them? If he had no idea that it was wrong to kill people who frustrated him by, for example, saying he wasn't allowed to do things he wanted to do?
The idea of coming into the world an innocent was nightmarish. Yet coming into the world already knowing what evil was, and what it was capable of, and what the traps were that he needed to avoid? What others might do if they fell into those traps because, in their innocence, they knew no better? If ignorance was bliss, then the knowledge required to be a decent person: that knowledge was full of nightmarish possibilities like the one he saw before him.
Zero defending a maverick whispered the part of him that had spent decades as a hunter, spent decades dreading this very moment, concealing his terror at the possibility. Not because he didn't trust Zero, but because he didn't want to have to fight and kill his friend. He would give anything… No. Almost anything. There were things he couldn't give, things that Zero wouldn't want him to give, like the world's future. Like everyone's lives. If Zero was lost, he would have had to, he would have needed to, for everyone's sake and Zero's as well even as it tore him apart, even as the part of him that still had hope for this world died along with Zero.
So much death. So, so much death. The robot masters were created to save an entire world, X was created to live his own life, but a robot brought into existence to kill people? As a tool forced to carry out pointless cruelty, pointless destruction?
'Destroy evil' – what a lie that was. How could anyone not see it, X wanted to ask, and yet he knew. It was so very, terrifyingly easy. It was something everyone had to oppose in themselves, even him.
He remembered when killing Lumine was the first thing that came to mind and shuddered, because here before him was the inevitable result of that mindset.
"Yes, I know what you want," Zero said, and X wished he had this sense, that he could feel whatever Zero felt, from the soul trapped within the chains of programming. "You're counting on me to stop you? Why?"
Because Zero would always fight to protect the innocent? X wasn't the only one, even here in 20XX, who knew that.
"If I did fight you before, as this me?" Zero moved from guard position to a very blatant ready position, watching Duo to see its response. "You want me to attack you I can see that, but there's something else you want or something I need to know or you'd be forcing the issue by attacking me." It wasn't that simple.
Then the White Giant attacked.
"Keep your distance!" Zero sent. "It's not attacking so I can kill it and this will be over, it's attacking now because it knows I know it's not that simple!" and attacking and letting Zero see what happened was the best way to convey whatever kept it from being that simple? Of course a unit like this would be programmed not to reveal the details of its technology to its primitive targets. That might give them a chance to defend themselves.
It left X shuddering, but he kept his eyes on the battlefield.
Flight capability wasn't letting Duo control the range, not when it looked like Zero had picked up Blues' technique of adjusting his position. When the one who controlled the range controlled the engagement, X was very aware of how deadly that made Zero. How much deadlier.
It was one thing to see a Wilybot using the technique - mavericks often had weapons of their own, so it was a matter of learning their techniques and countering them - but adding this technique to Zero's arsenal, when it was full of techniques that could take advantage of it and he had the tactical genius to know exactly how potent a weapon it was?
Zero wasn't going to rest or let X rest until either X figured out how to weapon copy this trick or his Infinite Potential System developed some kind of counter that would let him defeat this technique. A few ways to defend against it had sprung to mind when he saw Blues use it, but they were primarily defensive and fighting defensively against Zero was a good way to let him control the engagement. Their next few sparring sessions were going to be painful.
The ninja reappeared on the battlefield from behind a tree, moving to cover Copy-Rock, but the White Giant wasn't paying attention to anything in the area besides Zero. At least that was X's guess: he needed to keep in mind that he had no idea what kind of proximity scanning equipment an industrial Cossackbot might have, let alone an alien unit. Forte had surprised him once, and that was enough.
Copy-Rock wasn't firing either, still holding that charged shot the way X was. He wouldn't understand Hunter hand signals – had he sensed that Zero didn't want him to attack, with the empathy the virus gave, or had Zero communicated with him to give him the order?
It would have been hard for either of them to land the shot regardless: intra-battle teleporting was a terrible idea because the incoming streak of light was hard to miss, and the light show of your departure gave the enemy a heads-up to look out for an incoming teleport. A little practice, and someone could hit you just as you became solid enough to hit. This technique didn't have that weakness… Maybe X was wrong. When Blues demonstrated it in the forest, fading out from in front of Zero's blade, Zero had figured out where he was going to reappear fairly quickly. Was it possible to sense where someone was going to reappear quickly enough to matter when reappearing was instantaneous, or had Blues just been telegraphing his moves, choreographing the fight in order to study Zero and siphon some of Zero's power?
The nape of the neck was the White Giant's original weak point: of course Zero targeted it first. No luck, X saw as the blade slipped up the back of that head before Zero withdrew for another strike, vanishing out of the path of the alien's giant fist. Was that weak point left in hoping someone would take advantage of it? Would, could there be another one when this unit was meant to lure defenders to try to defeat it, not actually let them win? A world that defeated both the White Giant and the stardroids: a planet that strong would be a threat. Not 'marked for death' when apparently humans and robot masters alike were already marked for death just for existing, but a higher priority target.
They knew what caused the Cataclysm now, and the unit was trying to cooperate with them in order to prevent it.
Hopefully that was what was going on, at least.
Zero reappeared on the ground this time instead of midair, boots planted in the snow, far enough away it would take the alien unit a second to reach him again. Even so, that was a flimsy defense compared to his previous mobility. Planting himself in the ground was something X would do, since X occasionally had to worry about recoil. With his weaker (built for speed, built assuming speed) armor, it was a fundamental part of Zero's tactics to keep moving during a fight. He wouldn't deliberately put himself in a position where he could hold still and then do so without a fairly compelling reason.
Had X just felt Zero do something, with the otherspace sensors he theoretically had to have but couldn't get conscious data from? That would be progress. Clearly Zero did do something, given how Duo pulled up. Also Zero's smirk: whatever it was had worked.
Zero dashed forward, beginning the movement with his dash boots and then using location altering to extend the dash, coming out of it with the momentum intact and the angle altered by more than thirty degrees. The strike bisected Duo's forearm from tip to wrist. How had he gotten past the shield? Had he altered his saber or… X's eyes widened. If this technology could alter reality, then it could make things cease to exist. Like the White Giant's shielding, the teleport shields defending HQ from the mavericks just sending in a bomb a half-second away from exploding… If the virus couldn't successfully edit someone's personality because there was something shielding them from the virus' effects, then what if the virus altered whatever was generating the protective effect instead?
It was… it was ridiculous was what it was. Why would anyone want that kind of power? Why would Dr. Wily, a megalomaniac, possibly want to give the being behind the Stardroids that tried to wipe out his children that kind of power? Even altering history fit the theme! If Zero somehow lost, the power to remove, no, destroy the fact of that loss, and try again? It was, it was ridiculous!
X knew that he could be anything he wanted, and he'd been aware even before that talk with Dr. Light that 'god' was on that list. Just like his father, X had created life. Made the decision to knowingly try to alter the fate of the world again and again and that did take more than a little arrogance, but ugh. That was just what people did! What everyone should be able to do! Everyone should have the freedom to control their own future, and create new life to enjoy that future if that was what they wanted to do.
Godhood came with the power to control others, to make their decisions not matter. A god that didn't control history in order to prevent evil would be considered an evil god, because they stood by and did nothing while people suffered. Just like X couldn't stand by and do nothing while the Mavericks attacked, but… just… And Zero already blamed himself for the Maverick Wars a ridiculous amount even without adding this into it!
For all X knew, Dr. Wily wanted the hosts of the virus to worship Zero, and that was just disgusting! People were equals, no one should look at themselves and think they were worth less than anyone else!
Creating a god: what a horribly cruel thing to do to Zero! X couldn't stand the thought of having that kind of power; he'd refuse it if it was ever offered to him, and he knew Zero was wise enough to do the same… Or was he, when he was willing to sacrifice so much to fix everything, to save everyone?
He remembered what Blues said about Dr. Wily's mercy, about how even Dr. Wily would only turn an enemy into a project like Zero, instead of forcing this fate on any of his children, and wondered if Blues had known exactly what Dr. Wily intended for Zero. When Dr. Light also knew Dr. Wily of old, and Dr. Light knew that he wanted to build gods.
When Zero could reach forward and burn that arm away. Trying to protect this world, to kill Duo so he wouldn't have to live with the memory of what his programming forced him to do for masters not worth fighting for? Trying to keep the White Giant from surviving in some part of his body, controlling another scientist to force them to build him another new body, the way it used Dr. Cossack?
No, Dr. Cossack hadn't built a whole new body. He'd added a piece of the White Giant's body to a robot under constructi-
The White Giant vanished and the Lightbot fell, first to his knees and then entirely, the crunch of his helmet hitting the snow a strangely final sound.
"Rock doesn't trust Duo. X's tech specs prove it."
"Sticking something based on Duo's crystals in there seems like a stupid idea…"
"Can you see him installing something like that into the 'precious members of his family?'"
The White Giant's last atoms were wiped from existence (or were they?), and the reincarnation of its counterpart, who had just killed it without a shred of the remorse due a death, turned towards the Lightbot he was built to kill, his partner for more than ten times the life Shadow remembered, and there was the care and concern due an ancient companion.
"I can't believe I'm saying this… Simpler! More obvious! A purely superficial reading of what you see in front of you, without any actual imagination involved!"
A Wilybot and a Lightbot: the two of them should have been enemies, and yet there Shadow and Dr. Wily found them. Working together to save the world… or so they thought, when in reality they were opposing Dr. Wily's plans, the one hope this world had of survival.
Duo. A Duo. Shadow had grown too used to people who used random words from other languages because they liked the sound of them.
A musical term, when that naming theme belonged to the Light family and units connected to it, units like a hypothetical android version of Rock. Why had the Lights broken from that theme for X? The alien took a musical term for itself, and the Lightbot had a name meaning...
"It wanted to give away that there were two of them, and let us realize it was connected to Sunstar!"
Going from a tree's shadow to the corner of the house shaved precious meters off the distance.
He didn't know the formula an ancient system was generating, automatically applying it to the weapons of his current incarnation, but he knew what had to be done- No.
Killing the enemy was not the priority. He was rebuilt as a bodyguard. Keeping them alive was the priority.
There wasn't time to get the other formula off his kunai: dosing and drawing his sword instead almost gave Zero time to reach him, but if Duo could be prevented from escaping with X's body, if Shadow could get Copy-Rock to safety and tell Dr. Wily what Duo made Dr. Light do… No, he had figured it out long before Shadow. He must have a plan.
He must, Shadow thought, stabbing his sword down through X's body to get the knockout formula somewhere near X's power supply. It took almost too much time to pull it out of the android, and dodging with a roll to get himself into a shape that could fit through the nearest shadow, he saw Zero's sword catch the end of his scarf a moment before Shadow's body became fully unreachable.
And X doesn't realize he benefits from being able to just go and replay battles he lost in his own games, as though the loss never happened.
As for whether the above line falls under 'don't explain the joke,' 'gameplay-story segregation' or spoiler...
Edit: For heaven's sake ff dot net, why are you deleting spaces? Especially annoying when Dr. Wily has a dot in there, so taking out the space means the site filters out the entire name. The errors in this are not the fault of my beta.