(Player)
The door to the elevator slides open, revealing an armed group of human soldiers.
"Hands up," one of them demands.
The soldiers in my group look at me with questioning eyes.
"Were in an elevator, it would be like shooting fish in a barrel, they win this round," I reply.
Our group lays down our weapons. The guards motion with their guns for us to start walking.
The halls of the inside of the tower are an iridescent ivory-white.
"What do you think this tower is?" I ask one of the guards walking in front of me.
"What rock have you been living under? It is and EMP antenna strong enough to wipe the planet clean of all these damn reploids. No more wars, and war machines to start them," he replied.
"Even if that were true the wars started by other humans would not end, humans will simply find other ways and reasons to kill each other. Reploids by nature are replicas of mankind, warts and all. Even then, you are following a reploid general are you not? I could hear the radio chatter from your fallen." I replied.
"He's a proper bot, he obeys humans without question, like the stupid machine he is," the soldier replied.
I could feel the murderous intent fuming from Cpt. Dynami.
"Looks to me like you are the one doing the following, eh meat-bag?" Cpt. Dynami taunted.
"Well, that isn't going to last too long either, if your boyfriend wins the duel Elpizo planned, we're free. If your boyfriend loses, we're still free, once the emp fires, the world is mankind's once again. Yeah, I know you have a saber, Elpizo's orders were to let you keep it, and honey, yes it is that obvious." he replied.
I awkwardly look at my left vest pocket. Cpt. Dynami lets go of my arm with a blush.
We stop at a set of double doors.
"Elpizo's orders are, you go in alone, we will wait outside for the victor," the soldier announces.
"Kick his ass," Cpt. Dynami whispers in my ear.
(Zero)
The doors to the elevator open before me. I make a mental note to thank Cerveau for making that back door.
A group of human soldiers level their guns at me in an attempt to broker my surrender with threats of violence.
I snap my fingers, to signal the pantheons behind me to start shooting with one hand, and draw my buster and start exploding heads with the other.
They fall quickly, I killed most of them and lost only one pantheon of my group of ten.
I heave a bored sigh and make my way down the corridor to the control room.
But I am quickly stopped by a series of blast doors closing before me, one pantheon got crushed by the door, and two auto turrets popped out of the wall to either side of us and began shooting, killing two more of my pantheons.
Another memo to self, manufacture more pantheons. Two stop bringing pantheons on dangerous missions like this. Scratch that, it's sorta entertaining. Three, kill Cerveau for designing the cannon's defenses so well.
A searing blast of energy zooms past my peripheral vision, breaking my train of thought. I quickly terminate the existence of the source. The pantheons managed to kill one with their combined effort, whereas I killed the other in one shot.
I draw my z saber and slash the blast door open and rush into the kill zone to repeat the process, over and over and over again.
The four remaining pantheons in their limited sense of self preservation, decided to hang back and let me handle it.
Smart.
Before continuing I quickly call for some more reinforcements to come up the elevator. The operator tells me 50 more pantheons are one the way, ETA five minutes. I laugh to myself how pathetically little ground I covered, hardly past one bloody hallway.
Shouldn't be too long now though, most of the way through.
I am going to fucking kill Cerveau.
(Cpt. Dynami)
Some unintelligible chatter comes over the soldier in charge's comm.
"Well shit," he swears to himself.
"What's wrong?" another asks.
"Zero's almost here," he replies.
"Well shit," the other one swears.
The group of human soldiers mumble amongst themselves.
"The base of the tower can't spare any reinforcements, what are we going to do?" another soldier asks.
"Ahem, need a few men?" I ask.
The group turns their heads in unison.
"How can we trust you?" the commander asks.
"It would be awfully hard trying to keep your captives captive in the middle of a firefight eh? Plus, ever heard the saying the enemy of my enemy is my friend?" I reply.
The commander pauses for a moment, before heaving a sigh, "Fine, just promise not to shoot me in the back."
"Scouts honor," I reply.
(Player)
I walk into a large circular room littered with thick cables, all of which led to a central podium. Each of the cables plugged into Logos in different sockets on her body. She was suspended in midair over the podium by some unseen force. On the podium were many buttons and switches.
"Ahem"
I turn to my right to see Elpizo, wearing the pink coat and garb I remembered from the game.
"Impressive isn't it?" he asks.
"As much as I'd like to hear your long spiel on your diabolical plans, I am rather tire. I just want to get this fight over with, collect Logos, and call it a day," I answer.
"I am well aware, that a brute like you would probably not understand, nor agree with what this cannon does or why I use it, but I absolutely love to hear myself talk," Elpizo replies.
I heave a sigh,"I figured."
"I am actually quite shocked you are not in the least bit curious," Elpizo says.
"I am really just in it to stop the apocalypse and rescue my friend, but you absolutely must tell me or bust, go ahead, I humor you," I replied.
"A brute, but a courteous one at least. As the name suggests, it is a cannon designed to slay the ultimate truth," Elpizo responded.
"Insert pretentious doughbag convoluted pseudo intellectual philosophic argument here?" I ask.
"You watch too much anime, actually it is much more simple. You see, with the power to slay the ultimate truth you have the power to select the new truth. My predecessor, Alexandrov, wanted to become a god and punish the world for making him suffer. I on the other hand am less ambitious/childish, I want to use the cannon for it's original purpose, rather than it's side affects. To destroy the ultimate truth completely. That way, I can become the ultimate shepard of this world, without fear of someone else using the cannon on me. I can rule just fine with my superior intellect, and martial might. People become much more easy to lead when they don't know what to believe, because they will believe anything! Hahahaha!" Elpizo ranted.
"I reiterate my previous statement," I reply.
"I figured you would not understand, I mostly just brought you here to finish that duel we had, before your friend rudely interrupted," Elpizo replied.
"I understand, I understand you are a narcissist who is out of touch with reality," I reply pulling out my saber.
"With the truth slain, I will define what the nature of reality is!" Elpizo replied, drawing his saber.
(Zero)
Boom!
The last autoturret burst into flame and ceased to fire. I heave a sigh and lean against the closest wall. I look back at the fifty or so pantheons that hung back from the fighting.
I then look at the map on my retinal hud, only thing standing between me and them is that one last door.
Might as well send them in first.
"Demo team, blast that door down and get ready for a good fight!" I shout.
I will rest here until I feel like fighting again.
Blam!
Thud!
The blast door falls with a clatter.
Because the corridor arched a bit, I was out of the firing line, but from the small glimpse of soldiers on the other side, both human and reploid I could see that woman.
The one trained by Phantom. See reminds me so much of Ai, but with that brown hair and green eyes.
Ours locked for a moment, I could see only anger, but for some reason the hate was gone.
Nevertheless I will stamp out every last cruel reminder of Ai, and this world.
I will finally bring about the GAME OVER I now yearn for.
(Cpt. Dynami)
I see through the crack for a split moment Zero.
My eyes lock with the beast for a moment. I do not see the hatred, cruelty, or malice that I saw in the first hour in the war when he single handedly wiped out the last of Hidden Team, only sadness.
For a split moment, I felt no hatred, only pity. But that ended when the bullets flew.
The battle for the control room has begun.