My apologies for the lateness: family vacation and health issues.

Thinking used up energy. A lot of it. Cyber-elves would have been much more energy efficient, and able to live much longer, if they weren't sentient.

X and Dr. Cain had been able to derive designs for non-sentient mechanaloids from X's designs, because there as a lot of important work to be done, much of it monotonous enough to drive a sentient reploid irregular. Non-sentient, robot or animal-level units also didn't need to be paid, on top of the ethical issues involved in 'slave labor.'

Well, they'd seemed like pressing ethical issues to the two of them, at the time, but from all their dreams of building a better world had come a place where yes, people were essentially forced to work, because if they didn't work, they wouldn't be fed/recharged, and if everyone didn't work, no one would get fed or recharged.

Neo Arcadia used mechanaloids for everything it could, because of the lower energy cost, but there were so many necessary tasks that required thinking, training, judgment. Like riding herd on packs of mechanaloids to keep them repaired and spot any problems that developed before they became emergencies. Since that normally didn't require a lot of heavy lifting (that was what the mechanaloids were there for in the first place), most of Neo Arcadia's managing and engineering positions were filled by humans. That was part of why Neo Arcadia had started genetically engineering for intelligence instead of just dealing with the potential hazards of a population with so little genetic diversity, despite the risks. A human who couldn't do the advanced mathematics required for basic engineering or learn how to craft and analyze words well enough to program that wasn't able to find some other way to make themselves useful, like developing the reflexes necessary to join the Zan'ei, had two options: surrogate motherhood (bearing children for professionals valuable enough the city didn't want them taking leave long enough to have the required offspring), or using their superior senses to help scavenge the Wastes for valuable supplies. And probably not making it to thirty. Even today, no one wanted to be useless. It was not a good thing to be.

Those who did not contribute were not tolerated. Especially after the Elf Wars. If a human was suspected of using their race to coast, taking advantage of the labor of reploids? After a century of maverick propaganda, after what Weil had done? For the first decade, a human who didn't make it very clear that they were contributing, that they were pulling their weight well enough to make up for all the energy 'wasted' growing crops, was very likely a dead human.

The age of lynchings, riots, sabotage of the hydroponics farms by reploids and production lines by humans was over. Mostly. But the Guardians remembered that if a district's humans went three days without food or a reploid's charge decreased enough that they only had a handful of hours left to get more energy, all bets were off.

It wasn't that the people hadn't trusted that X would try to do his best for them. It was that they had known that there were only so many resources, so the food or energy might just not be there unless they got it for themselves, first.

All that effort to keep those people alive, two races with such different needs, and there was one race that had mocked X's efforts.

Because cyber-elves had to be made. They could do things that were otherwise impossible, either because they violated the laws of physics or doing them conventionally would have required too much time, energy and machinery the city didn't have and couldn't afford to build. Researchers had tried to make them less intelligent, something like mechanaloids, so they wouldn't be sacrificing the lives of people.

It couldn't be done. In order to alter reality, cyber-elves had to be sentient. They had to have that concept of an 'I' in order to pit it against the universe. They couldn't create cyber-elves without sentience. They could drastically reduce their level of sapience.

So, even as they were making humans more intelligent, they worked to make another sentient race less intelligent. So that they would live longer? So that they wouldn't rebel against their fates? So that people could feel better about sacrificing something that might not have much imagination, but was still a person? All of those?

Of course, there were limits.

None of that mattered to one of the elves sent with Fefnir, who was bobbing up and down, simultaneously excited and annoyed, but mostly excited as they watched the battle from a safeish distance of a few hundred meters. "Can I blow it up now?"

"No," said the largest one present, who sounded amazingly little annoyed for someone who had been hearing this every fifteen seconds or so since the battle started, with only the occasional break when something especially impressive happened..

Bob. Bob. "Can I…"

"No."

"Okay." If the cyber-elf had a very detailed face, he probably would have pouted. He sank down to the ground, not touching it because there was a lot of iron in the soil around the city, and there might be another electrical attack. The group's 'leader' was happy that at least he wasn't that stupid. Cyber-elves didn't have to worry about conventional attacks, but the power that had come from the sky… awhile ago (cyber-elves didn't have built-in clocks, unlike robot masters who had needed them for random number generation and reploids who had jobs and were expected to show up on time) had been terrifying. Even he'd hidden behind the half-melted body of one of the stealth mechanaloids that had tried (and failed) to sneak in before Omega showed up.

He'd never felt that much power in his life, all four years of it. And the Jin'en blew a lot of things up.

"Can I blow it up now?"

…Sadly, basic self-preservation and attention span were two different things. "No," he told Leo, again. Tank would have been far more annoyed if he wasn't used to it.

Leo was one of the older elves in the Jin'en, if not as old as Tank, who had been selected as a group leader and given more energy crystals very young. Actually, Leo wasn't supposed to use his power. Ever. All the other elves in his design generation had already sacrificed themselves, and the brass wanted to see how long Leo would last before wearing out. He'd already lasted far longer than an elf of his level should. The trouble was that the most likely reason he'd lasted this long was that he was, well, dim. They didn't make them like Leo anymore because elves that could barely remember orders and would constantly talk to the soldiers, again and again asking, "Hey, listen! Can I blow something up yet? What about that?" were… Not very well liked. Their rate of attrition had been much higher than normal, and even though Tank wasn't going to put up with the big people wasting the elves under his command, he sort of understood why they'd wanted to get rid of the annoyances.

He'd found himself looking after Leo because, well… Leo's view of the world was a very simple one. Explosions were awesome, and he'd been told that it was his purpose in live to make a big explosion. Which was awesome.

Most elves, well, very few wanted to die. None of the decent big people wanted them to die, either, so when Tank and his elves were called in, everyone was depressed, feeling like they'd failed if an elf had to be used. It was… Nice, to have around someone upbeat. Someone who didn't see elf existence as the tragedy that it was. Even if it was because Leo just didn't see that there was any problem with it to begin with, instead of because he'd thought it through and decided that saving someone's life, or saving the whole City, even, was a pretty good reason to go.

Tank wasn't sure Leo even understood death. Other than as a byproduct of explosions-Oooh pretty explosion! Mine'll be much more awesome!

If Tank knew what a pet was, he would have agreed that being Leo's commander was rather like having one, yes.

"Just stay here and watch the explosions," Tank said again, calmly. There was a lot of other important stuff going on, like the fact Master X was here, but he doubted Leo had any idea who Master X was. Explosions, though, Leo understood perfectly. Probably. Maybe?

She shouldn't be moving this easily.

Not that it was technically her moving, but regardless, either the armor that had appeared around her was actually some sort of energy field or the elf was doing something to reduce the inertia. It wasn't just that her body's strength was being boosted, that wouldn't reduce the momentum like this.

Training was mandatory, and mens sana in corpere sano, after all. Cerveau had taken his duty very seriously, including making sure she got outside and knew how to run. Or rather, learned how to run. In the close quarters of Neo Arcadia, no one ran outside of emergencies. And even when you were scrambling to get somewhere in a hurry? Outside the traffic-heavy corridors where running was banned and a whistle would send everyone to the sides in an emergency, most of the work areas were cluttered, pipes and all sorts of stuff, so rapid movement was more about agility, taking lots of little steps and adjusting her course, than covering ground with long strides.

She'd run both with and without a backpack, because if they ever did have to evacuate, running into the wastes without supplies wouldn't have kept her alive for very long, and she knew the difference between moving encumbered and unencumbered.

The red and blue armor she could see on her arms was probably an energy projection, she decided. Actually generating the mass and changing its properties, while possible, would be more elaborate and since this wasn't an ability Iris had come pre-coded with, it had to be something she'd just come up with. A program she'd created, that had come out of her mind and how she thought. Since she wouldn't have wanted to actually turn Ciel's body into a reploid, a copy of the body Iris was used to (which body, though?), she probably thought of it as an overlay. So it was more likely something like a force field than physical armor.

That was the idea, after all. Overlaying Iris' knowledge and skills onto Ciel's body. And Iris' ability to take a hit.

Ciel told herself that no, she was not going to learn how to use the beam saber after this. Zero's beam saber belonged with him, Master X, or in a museum; Ciel should stick with distance weapons because melee weapons like this were obviously a bad idea without elf help and she wasn't going to have someone die for her in every fight she got in; and beam sabers were dangerous. Ciel started thinking and lost track of what she was doing easily: she'd ruined a lot of meals that way before she was sent to her new base with Cerveau as her minder/minion. Not that he minded being called a minion, because it was traditional and he was proud that he was the one who was trusted with helping her with her inventions, but she didn't want to insult him…

Like that. If her mind wandered with a live beam saber, she could die, and then who would work with what she'd just discovered? Who would have the insights and create the technologies needed to let everyone come back to life? She didn't want people to die because of her, and if they died because she'd died because beam sabers were so, so Omega-damned cool…

How had Zero been able to give up his beam saber? Well, maybe he hadn't remembered that this was the coolest thing ever?

It would have been even better if Ciel was the one kicking this much ass, but getting to watch Iris, getting to feel all the movements… Ciel bet she could reverse engineer Iris' beam saber style… Which would be Zero's beam saber style, because Iris said Zero had taught Colonel-her?

Learning Commander Zero's own beam saber style… Eeeeee!

Maybe she could train with a padded stick, or something? Well, bruises would be much better than cauterized stumps. It wasn't that Ciel was clumsy as that she didn't pay attention to where things were relative to her while she was thinking: maybe training would improve her coordination, help her learn to focus on things like that?

Which was totally just an excuse, and she knew it, but… She shouldn't spend her time on things that were impractical and would just get her killed in a real fight…

"Are you alright?"

"This is so cool! I didn't get to see Zero fight with the saber." Even when he'd fought the one enemy he'd needed the saber for, she'd done the sensible thing and stayed around a corner from the room they fought in. She'd wanted to see, but she knew that just one stray shot would kill her, and Copy-X would blame himself, and she was determined to be responsible. Even if it meant having to miss out on the Legendary Zero fighting. She'd watched a lot of tapes of him, while she was studying X in order to copy his capabilities and techniques instead of just his design, but getting to watch him in person… He was so graceful he made managing that long hair look easy even just with guns and his bare hands: how elegant and graceful he'd be with a beam saber! Such skill, he'd make it look so easy, like how X fired without even seeming to take an instant to aim, charging as he dodged…

"That's a shame. You should have seen him back then, he was…" Both of Iris had loved it. Iris-her because even though it was an art meant to kill, it was a thing of beauty, and she'd first see him use it to spar, before she became his spotter. He'd seemed… Invincible, perfect. The contrast between when he held that beam saber in his hand and when he didn't, though? He was so skilled on the battlefield, just somehow knowing what to do, where to stand, how to use every new technique. Flawless. But when he talked with her, with most people besides X, he was wooden and professional, and then when she'd made her feelings known? He'd been so awkward it was adorable, and actually, she'd been relieved that he wasn't perfect. That she was the one that could cheer him up, help him be with people. Help him smile.

But it was the part of her that had been Colonel that supplied the word, "Glorious." Dr. Cain would have preferred it if Colonel had chosen another weapon. Any weapon that wasn't the beam saber. Not when that had been his brother's weapon, lost Sigma. Not when Dr. Cain would be the one optimizing Colonel for his new weapon, tweaking his balance and remembering building Sigma's new body, after he'd decided to be a warrior.

But Colonel had decided that Zero would be his role model, not X, not the one Dr. Cain had chosen. Not the pacifist, not like timid Iris.

Made to be like X, they'd both defined themselves in terms of Zero. Trying to be their own people, they'd just picked another to copy. Or had they still been copying X, who had been Zero's sparring partner before Colonel? The one who tried to cheer Zero up before Iris?

Colonel had wanted to protect Iris as Zero had X. Protect the part of him-them that still believed in peace, that still had hope that the world could change. Waging war while working for its end, for something better.

She wasn't sure why it was so easy for her to kill now. Reploids like the one she had just demolished, striking at his overextended boot and almost leisurely polishing him off once the damage put his balance system out of whack. Iris-her hadn't been able to bear it before, knowing that every life was precious. Was it the madness that had overcome her when Colonel died, now that there were no longer supposedly two of her, now that she couldn't share the blame? When fighting had to be done, and there was no one to do it but her, no protector she'd forged out of her own soul to send in her stead?

It might be that she knew, now, that they wouldn't really die. Only humans really died. And it was humans she'd been willing to leave to the virus' lack of tender mercies. So what would happen if she was to fight Weil?

Well, she couldn't kill him to begin with. And that wasn't what she was here for. It wasn't any of the reasons she was here. And Signas was right, she shouldn't be the hero. She'd had her life, her chance to be the hero, to try to make a difference before the virus took her. It was their turn now, even though she'd do everything she could to help.

She was turning off her beam saber even before the last of them fell: she knew the output of X's charged shots, and judging from how much damage X's other copy's were doing…

None of them screamed when they died. The mavericks had all roared with rage, something. The members of Repliforce had all shouted defiance, although in retrospect it seemed like just simple frustration, that the world couldn't be the way they wanted it to be. That someone wouldn't let them have their way.

"Ciel, Iris? Are you two alright?" Copy-X asked as he turned, the small, just for show protrusions Ciel had designed him with to mimic the Ultimate Armor folding up a bit to make his profile smaller but not retracting. He hadn't extended his true wings, not in such small corridors. Not when Iris had promised she'd protect Ciel. Copy-X just needed to know how long she could keep this up for.

"We're fine," Ciel told him, knowing the instant control of her body was returned to her, although the armor remained and she could feel that Iris was ready to take over. "It even feels solid," she mused, tapping the armor on one of her legs. "Well, all 'solidity' is caused by electron repulsion…" So how sturdy was this stuff? Would it be more vulnerable to energy weapons?

Copy-X looked over Craft and Elpis next. If it weren't for the fact he was a Lightbot, if only by adoption, even though he wasn't imitating X, he would have backed away slowly. He had never seen anyone that furious except for Leviathan, and Leviathan had been, well, exaggerating.

Elpis was staring at her hair. It hadn't been cut, or else Copy-X would be much more worried. It was clear that Elpis was holding on to self control by sheer, obstinate refusal not to give anyone the satisfaction of watching her rave and curse. Weil's reploid hadn't managed to cut it, but the third-to-last one she and Craft had faced had been fire element.

"Maybe you can dye it?" Copy-X said, hopefully. It was still intact, even if the heat might have damaged the fibers as well as burning them black.

Elpis took a deep breath. "No one has ever got my hair before. And they were aiming for it, the bastards." There was no real rancor in that. She'd known they would: of course they would. It was better than aiming somewhere vital, even in a spar, and leaving her hair hanging loose instead of tying it up under her helmet before she fought was a boast. The Rekku took their pride seriously, and anyone who couldn't put their fighting skill where their mouth was deserved to be taken down a peg. Or have a couple inches sliced off. Leaving it down, well, it was something she'd done to force her to fight her hardest. Even if the risk of having to replace something so ungodly expensive wasn't the same as risking her life, it was still a risk. She'd always been hot-headed: she'd been easy to goad into making stupid attacks all throughout training. Doing things without thinking it through first was her weakness, and she knew it. Having something to defend on her person, something precious at risk, had been the only way she could think of to make herself feel a little reasonable fear. Because in a real fight, it wasn't a few feet of high-tech fiber she could lose by putting herself in danger, it was her life, and the lives of her men.

She'd only been able to afford it because of the bonus everyone on Antarctica got, between the environmental hazards and the extra energy needed to operate at that temperature. No one there had been powerful enough to give her a real challenge after it had arrived. This was the first time anyone had gotten her hair.

And she'd stabbed the bastard that dared in the gut, felt her saber slice through important components until she'd felt the initial shock of containment giving way and kicked him off her blade into the wall before he blew up.

That had been the second time she'd killed something that wasn't a mechanaloids. It was the third reploid she'd fought, but Craft had finished off the first of them. He'd also gotten one of the ones afterward.

Even so, fury had long since started to turn into elation, and she realized her body was now vetoing shaking with excitement, not rage.

Three kills. Two more and she was an Ace, even if they weren't air-to-air kills.

But no. General Leviathan had told them to stay here, to protect Dr. Ciel.

"We can't stay here."

All three of them stared at Copy-X.

"Splitting the group isn't a good idea," he told them. "I didn't disagree with Leviathan while she was here because it would have caused arguing," which they didn't have time for. "We're going after them."

"But the General told us to stay here," Lieutenant Elpis reminded him.

"We should stay out of the way while they're fighting Weil, but we should stay close…" Copy-X stopped himself. Right, there wasn't time to explain, but he didn't have to explain. "I'm countermanding her orders. We're following the three of them."

"Countermanding the orders of one of the Guardians?" As little as Craft liked getting told to stay here out of the way while the exciting battle went on elsewhere (Neige would never forgive him for missing this), he remembered the last time he'd done something disobedient. He'd rather not tick off the General like that again, thanks.

"Under the circumstances, I have the authority," Copy-X said calmly.

"He does?" Craft asked Elpis, who should know the regs, since she was in the military.

"You do?" Ciel asked Copy-X, surprised and proud.

"Yes." The layout of this place could change: there was no safe place here. Leviathan hadn't given that order because it was safer for him to stay here, she'd given it because she wanted to keep him away from Weil. That was why she would have tried to get him to back down if he'd said no, he was coming with her.

Right now, according to everything Phantom had taught him, the safest place was where General Leviathan was. If she hadn't known that, she wasn't thinking clearly. Because this was Weil. Another reason he'd been willing to stay here at first was in hopes of keeping Ciel away from the fighting, but since they'd been attacked here and Iris had revealed that she could link into Ciel to boost her like this and recharge from her nervous system, that didn't make any difference anymore. They'd found a place with three corridors, so they had multiple ways to retreat, but even though they'd been attacked from all directions, most of them had come from the way Leviathan and the others had gone. Trying to herd them away from the center, possibly into a trap.

Another reason he'd wanted to keep them away from Weil for a bit was that he hadn't known how any of them would perform under fire. Now, Elpis was making him think of Leviathan, which was good. Even Craft, who must be new, and Ciel were holding up okay. Even though they'd killed.

It was actually making Copy-X feel a little relieved, that they weren't bothered by it more. Since he hadn't been bothered by it the way he'd thought he should be. If they were going to crack under the pressure, hopefully they'd be showing signs? So they weren't likely to snap at a bad time and distract Leviathan.

For fighting Weil, it was better if all of them stayed away from Leviathan and those two. For keeping the group safe, they should stay together, or at least close enough to assist and not get separated. He knew that Harpuia and Phantom would agree with that assessment. Leviathan had to know that too. She'd just… after seeing that he was okay, it was like she'd wanted to pat him on the head, put him somewhere safe, and kill Weil so he would stay safe. But that wasn't… That wasn't the right thing to do in this situation. Even if she wanted it to be. Even though he understood, and wished he could keep Ciel away from Weil too.

He had the right to overrule the Guardians when he was playing the role of X. When he was being X. And right now, he knew what X would do. He was good at knowing what X would do. It was much easier than figuring out what he personally should do, actually. So, "Let's go," he said, and although he didn't raise his voice they knew that was an order.

I may think that Elpizo had the right assessment of Neo Arcadia, and what he did while under baby elf control can't really be used to judge how he would act of his own free will, but his fatal flaw as a commander is overconfidence. Just because Zero can kick Guardian ass one-on-one doesn't mean ordinary reploids can, not when they're aspects of X with decades of experience as individuals on top of that. That doesn't mean that the Resistance should give up, of course, it just means they need to fight smart. And call in air strikes.