Zero realized X was a surprisingly good pilot during that tense, though quiet ride. With Shimmer's cloaking engine humming in the back portion of the shuttle, they were able to coast by drone defense perimeters, and even past a few turrets as they finally crept under the shadow of the formidable space station.
Final Weapon morbidly resembled a flower more than anything, with one thick stem pointing back from a set of curved petals opened wide. X had studied it closely, but the human authorities had been careful not to let information slip off LAN connections.
X paused the shuttle near one of the maintenance docking bays, his optics scanning out across the horizon of the station.
Zero touched his shoulder. "We're not going to find better than this, we shouldn't waste time."
X frowned slightly, but after a quick glance, he didn't see any promising prospects, and Zero was right about time. "I don't like how far it is from the command decks."
Even so, he was steering the ship in smoothly.
Zero shrugged a little. "Wouldn't be the first time we've had to crawl through insanity to get to our enemies, hm?"
X was caught between a mild huff of laughter, and being offput by the comparison. He didn't want to call Repliforce enemies... but they were. He'd put too many of them in medical to deny that.
X directed the shuttle off to one side of the landing bay, carefully lowering down near one of the fuel supply stations. Few other ships were likely to try to land in such a precarious spot, and crews mostly moved around the other way. Crews of mechaniloids, that is.
"No soldiers," X muttered with mild concern.
Zero eased around his chair, and moved to the cloaking engine itself that Shimmer had hotwired with surprising finesse. "Bays are exposed, even if secured. Mechaniloids make sense. ...Alright, looks like this engine has another hour of charge on its own, independent of the shuttle's power grid."
X nodded, and shut the engine off, securing the cockpit controls in case someone else did stumble onto it. "My sensors are mapping the immediate area. Seems like two paths have equal odds of going the way we want, one higher, one lower starting out."
Zero paused to glance at him. "...You already have that much detail? How?"
X just tapped his helmet, "Dr. Light."
"...No wonder you keep getting into places no one else can."
"That's mostly Alia, to be honest," X added lightly as they both braced near the exit of the shuttle.
Zero gripped his Z-saber hilt, but didn't draw it yet. "She does always seem very helpful to your endeavors." The dry tone nearly choked the air between them.
X rolled his optics. "She does good work for everyone. So... you want low or high?"
Zero elbowed the panel to open the hatch. "I got high last time. Let's go!"
X started to open his mouth, then realized there was no point arguing the matter, and hurried out with Zero.
When it was clear no mechaniloids had immediately noticed them, X waved Zero on, and took the time to re-seal the shuttle so that it was less directly visible to the eye.
Zero avoided his thrusters for the moment, and dashed along behind the fuel storage. He paused at a walkway, and braced when mechaniloids started to come across in front of him... but they were just utility drones, and were not coded to pay attention beyond their tasking. They were just carrying repair parts along to a mechanical bay across the landing area.
With a ping from X's system to his own, Zero confirmed that this was his branch anyway. He leapt around the corner, and hurried down to take cover behind some crates before more mechaniloids appeared.
Meanwhile, X managed to all-but-spider-crawl up the corner near the shuttle, and pulled himself up into a ventilation duct. He had to quickly stop to deal with a sensor grid a few meters in, but thanks to Alia's training and his own systems, he was able to loop its detection safely without triggering alerts, and continue along the duct at a decent pace.
Zero had kept things quiet so far. What confused him the most was the station's general architecture. The bulkheads were comprised of layered patterns of plating that resemble art-deco paintings from old human culture. Further, the patrols of security Mechaniloids were milling about between substantial static defenses. Turrets, arrays of spikes that resembled frayed rope despite how deadly they were, and even missile-battery mechaniloids all waited at key points.
At one main junction, he finally had to stop, considering his options. There was no real blind spot between the guard mechaniloids, a Repliforce soldier, and a missile-mech. Additionally, the platforms they were elevated on were guarded by walls of the frayed spikes.
With his abilities, he could quickly dispatch two threats at once, but not three, not quickly enough. An alarm was going to sound.
/X, can you read me?/
/Copy./
/I have to get loud to proceed. You?/
/Hm. Well, if it's going to get loud, that simplifies things for me, really. Go ahead./
/Copy. You'll know in a second.../
Zero wrenched his saber free, twisted, and dashed into view all in one swift, smooth rush. He twirled and threw his saber up toward the mechaniloids just starting to take aim with their blasters. He boost-vaulted toward the Repliforce soldier as well.
The soldier shouted into comms as he brought a plasma-rifle to bare. The klaxons sounded, the missile-battery started taking aim, the mechaniloids were sliced into glowing pieces, and Zero landed kicking the soldier's rifle out towards the missile battery.
Forced to delay by recognizing a friendly target in the splash zone, the missile battery didn't fire immediately, and took several back blasts to the front 'face' above the mounted rocket launchers.
The soldier tried to switch to CQC, but Zero elbowed one forearm aside, ducked the blind punch from the other side, and knee-rammed the soldier's flank.
The Z-saber came spinning back, which Zero caught in one hand while the soldier folded around the knee-strike, and Zero twisted to snap the weapon toward the missile-battery.
The missile battery was skewered right through the core processor in the heart of its frame by the saber buried to the hilt through its forehead.
And Zero gripped the soldier in a headlock the next instant. "Go into repair mode, or this gets very messy." His voice was a low rasp, heavy with threat.
The soldier struggled, grimacing, clearly determined not to surrender.
"You did your job, the alarm is up. You don't have to die for this," Zero whispered, his tone still hard, but calm.
"After what you did to the Colonel, we'll never surrender!"
The soldier tried to wrench upward, but Zero sharply yanked back, removing the soldier's leverage with his legs, and then snap-wrenched the head the other direction with a cold and vicious grimace of focus. The nearly decapitated head sent an emergency shut down through the soldier's systems, putting him into emergency stasis.
Zero let the body down, and just sighed heavily. "Fair enough."
He leapt down to the missile battery, pulled his saber free, and dashed ahead.
Once the alarms flared, X dropped all pretense of stealth. He thruster-blasted the ventilation below him, and dropped straight down into the middle of a formation of Repliforce soldiers and mechaniloids defenders.
X's colors changed and cycled so fast he almost looked like a cuttle-fish. He wrenched a chunk of bulkhead and flooring up with silk-shot to slam several defenders to one side, the other arm spraying out blasts of lightning web to shock and constrict another group of them.
Quickly spin-flipping over bolts and melee weapon strikes, X fired a chain-grapple into one mechaniloid, and spun to wrench it across into the next group of mechaniloids. The Repliforce soldiers watching him tear several defenders apart thus, quickly took fresh aim with rifles and pistols, accounting for X's penchant for wild bursts of agility.
Which is why X flared a charged rolling-shield over his frame the next moment. Most of their shots bounced or absorbed into the shield, and just as it was about to give way, X shimmered into nothingness from a charged chameleon shot.
The Repliforce soldiers shouted coordinating signals, immediately going into circular formation, facing out.
Above them, a series of rushes and pings echoed. Before they could lift their weapons to hone in on the source, rushes of slash-cutters, plasma-cutters, spinning-blades, and boomerang cutters tore their weapons to pieces... as well as the flooring around them.
All of the Repliforce soldiers, only then realizing they'd been herded into a single point, collapsed down to the next floor of the station with a chunk of the flooring they'd been standing on. Before they could recover from the violent crash, super-charged lightning web sprayed down over them, covering the entire area.
X gave them a mild wave before he burst ahead where he was.
Zero was a red wind of death for mechaniloids. He never stopped flowing forward. His saber spun, slashed, lunged, and his body coiled, writhed, and glided around enemy attacks. Humanoid bots were left weaponless or in pieces. Missile batteries were mostly disabled with precision strikes, but one was sliced apart at every weapon before Zero moved on.
It was the actual Repliforce soldiers that were the complication. Most he could just disarm and they would fall back, but others were passionate about their war, and forced his hand. Several more were left in emergency stasis, with precise holes through their torso's just off-side of their cores.
Finally, Zero reached an armored bulkhead, likely sealed when the alarm went off. He drove the Z-saber into it, all the way to the hilt, and then started to cut a circle through it with pain-staking effort. It had to be nearly as thick as his blade was long.
He paused briefly near the bottom of his cut as he heard faint sounds from the other side. Adjusting his audioreptors for more sensitivity, he realized it was panicked voices murmuring. These weren't soldiers.
/X, I've got noncombatants down here./
/...Damn. Logistical staff most likely. ...I may have an idea to get them to safety, but it can't be put into action yet. Try to just get past them?/
/...Copy./
Zero finished his cut, and instead of kicking the thick hunk of armor through, he gripped parts of it, and pulled it out. The molten metal at his slice let it slide forward like it was on syrup, and he rolled it aside before jumping through the steaming hole.
What he found had him pause awkwardly instead of brace for an ambush. He'd assumed panicked engineers and such might have set up some traps, but not this group. They were huddled behind armor plating, and mechanical parts amidst construction machinery all around him. They were palpably terrified.
One Reploid was nearer him, effectively pinned by his presence against the side of a metal-press. "...P-please don't hurt us..."
Zero sagged faintly, and just sheathed his blade before walking right around the one Reploid, and continuing on for the door. "Get to escape pods," he said before vanishing around the next corner.
The entire room shared panicked, but relieved looks, and then started bolting for the escape bays. The few disabled soldiers they saw on the way made a few cry out in dismay, but they didn't stop.
X leapt clear over the exploding mass of a siege-bot. He dropped through the air, straight into an opening that fell to the floor below. Likely a dead-drop set-up to try to finish off weakened Reploids. To him it was little more than a free ride toward his destination.
It was the sphere-lock door he discovered that made him pause, his eyes sharpening. He approached it calmly, then paused again as it snapped the locking mechanism around, then pulled open without further hesitation.
He bowed his head for a moment, his sensors pinging off of some kind of device signal in the room ahead of him. He nodded faintly, and then stepped through into the darkened chamber.
Unsurprisingly, the door rammed shut and locked in his wake. X didn't seem terribly fazed, however, even as the lights suddenly flared online... with Double standing across the armored room from him.
X kept his head tilted forward, his eyes focused rather than shocked. "What are you doing here, Double?"
Double sneered, his demeanor alien and cruel. "Enjoying you fools! Maverick Hunters and Repliforce, all of you, complete idiots!"
"The people who took you in, despite your abysmal record?"
Double laughed outright. "My act? You lot never saw it coming!"
X remained oddly cold in his manner. "What do you mean, Double?"
Double's face lit with manic glee, and he suddenly hunched over, his arms folding ahead of himself. With a snapping, staged rush, his body warped and expanded, his bulk transitioning into separated armor plating, blades, and fins around... transparent, fluid-filled chambers.
Rising nearly three times X's height, Double's new, narrow face sneered again. Blood-rimmed optics, golden armor, and glowing, pinkish fluid filling most of his limbs, he let fiery blades of plasma ignited over his fists in a threatening gesture. "This!"
Only now did X seem considerate, but it was focused, his optics staring deeply at Double's. He was calculating something.
"Cat caught your tongue? Or perhaps just panicking?"
X finally showed sadness. "...You're not infected. Your optics are clear."
"Damn right. This is going to be the most fun I've ever HAD!"
Double suddenly burst forward, his frame staining the air with color from pure acceleration. X seemed hard-pressed to catch up, narrowly folding to one side under one swipe, then leaping back, folding outside of the second.
Double kept up the pressure at ridiculous speed, his arms whipping and bursting in motion. However, X was just barely managing to glide, twist, or jerk out of the cutting paths.
Instead of frustration, Double seemed pleased.
"HELIX BLAST!"
He wrenched back, and ports along his torso flew open, unleashing buzzing blades of plasma power that started to fly out in patterns too varied to be pre-programmed.
X was immediately forced to flicker and jerk with flashes of thruster speed as the buzz-saw like blades came hurtling after him in swarming flurries. Double pushed in with them, his arm blades lunging, slashing, and chopping in a constant barrage of air-searing attacks.
"Master will be so pleased when I bring him your shattered corpse!"
X appeared utterly on the defensive still, flickering across walls, the floor, even having to do a full loop from floor, wall, ceiling, and down again during one onslaught, but he replied nevertheless.
"Why do you care about pleasing it so much?"
"Because he lets me do THIS!"
Double suddenly hunched again, and small blades burst out on jets, joining the plasma discs, and himself with a thruster-powered lunge straight for X.
There was no safe path, and X strangely seemed to be facing his fate with grim anger rather than despair.
Zero's path would have been horrifying if not for emergency stasis. Repliforce soldiers were crumpled, folded, or laid out with burnt holes through their chests and weapons scattered across the floors of various hallways.
It seemed that General had been smart. His most loyal and dedicated troops were more concentrated the deeper Zero got into the station.
When Zero reached a sphere-lock door, he paused, suspicious. It snapping open made his saber burn out and aim, but nothing came out for him, and no enemy fire lit the darkened space beyond.
Frowning, Zero glanced around, double checking his schematic mapping for any alternative routes. Likely be design, all routes passed adjacent to this chamber, unless he doubled back too far to be worthwhile. If it was a trap, he had to spring it.
Saber out and ready, he stepped through, his optics and audio-receptors attuned to fine disturbances.
As a result, he knew a Reploid was ahead of him, just not exactly who. The core pulse's subtle rise of heat, respirator cycling... and it felt strangely familiar. Too familiar for this hostile place.
Purple light filled the room the next instant. Zero had to raise a hand as his optics readjusted. He gaped, his eyes going wide with dilated pupils. There was possibly nothing else that could have shocked him more in that particular moment.
Iris stood there, grim and sorrowful, looking down into the purple sphere that had ignited afresh in her hands.
"...Iris?" Zero breathed out, still hoping he was just malfunctioning somehow.
She did look up to him. "...Part of me hoped it would be X. Maybe I could have turned myself on him more easily..."
Zero's saber was down and away as he started to move toward her. "Iris, I don't understand. How did you even get up here...?"
"A Repliforce shuttle. I failed, Zero. I tried to save my brother, and all he sees is betrayal. X... mutilated him." Her eyes watered as her face constricted. "Nothing I've done has worked. At least I can make my brother proud for once."
Zero was still too stunned to think as sharply as he normally would. He was scrambling to explain how this was fake. Iris couldn't have gotten up here, especially ahead of him. ...But when had he last seen her? How long had she really stayed near Colonel after that?
Iris cut his confused thoughts off. "Forgive me, Zero!"
Her hands flung the orb upward, and arcs of power burst out of it, slamming into and through her frame in violent snaps.
Zero's eyes flared in panic, and he thruster-blasted toward her. "Iris, no!"
But the power engulfing her was tremendous. His saber was deflected out, and his body thrown back to the very door he'd just entered with a painful clang and crunch.
Iris' body started to break apart, her optics glowing. She suddenly floated up to the center of the room, and her core broke out of her chest before the purple sphere merged with it.
Armor plating from the bulkheads around was torn off and wrenched toward her.
Zero kept trying to blast toward her, but the energy rammed him back or thick armor sparked against his frame.
What, at first, appeared to be a sphere of metal and energy, soon condensed and shaped itself in much finer detail. How it could do so was a mystery to Zero in that moment, but in only seconds, a valkyrie-styled ride-armor had manifested, with a knight's helm around a black T-optic, a buster-cannon arm, and mechanical wings fanning out behind it.
Iris' voice was filtered and empowered by the suit, resonating across the chamber. "I can't let you stop my brother's dream, Zero. My life is all I have left to use."
Zero stood there, lost, staring at her in sincere horror and disbelief... while her buster-cannon primed with brilliant purple light.
It was a strange juxtaposition. As Zero barely remained cogent enough to dive to his side as a massive beam of energy ripped through the air he'd occupied an instant before, X was facing Double's onslaught with that grim anger.
X's colors snapped to greens and whites, his forearm plating adjusting out in vented radials, and he suddenly jammed both hands out to the sides as he curled into a thruster-dash straight to meet Double.
Double-cyclone wind-orbs sliced every direction as they flew out, tearing apart the plasma discs and sending the projectile-blades scattering harmlessly to the walls and floor.
Double was annoyed, but not afraid. His arm blades scissored down at X, only to finish their motion after leaving glowing cuts in the floor shy of X's forward blasting boots, the Hunter hovering and halting his motion just enough to avoid the intercept.
X then aimed his arms at Double's shoulders, firing again. Double was rammed back, as if punched from below, his armor shearing off several layers along his upper arms.
"It'll take more than THAT!" Double roared, lunging down with another arm-stab in retaliation.
X flickered out of the strike, and only then did Double's optics widen slightly.
Double roared as he slashed out again, and again, accurately aiming at X's new location, but never fast enough to actually clip the flickering, darting Reploid.
"You're never getting out of this room, X! I can play with you for eternity!"
Double cackled as he declared it, swiping this way and that, firing off helix blasts and blade-rockets again.
/X! It's Iris!/
X paused, glancing aside at Zero's so-uniqely desperate call.
Double cried in delight, coming down at X full force.
X snapped one arm up, out, and down, deflecting Double's lunge out to the side. Even as Double was flying down in surprise, X's other hand aimed into his face, and fired another double-cyclone.
Double was sent stumbling back, and X finally replied.
/Zero, I don't follow?/
/IT'S IRIS! She's here! In a ride-armor mech! I... I don't know how to fight... her.../
That did break X's focus. His eyes widened as he realized so much in an instant. His betrayal of the promise, her speaking with Colonel alone. Her loyalty to her brother despite her own nature...
As a result, the helix blasts, blade-rockets, and Double's slashing blade were too close to dodge fully. X abruptly shouted with exertion, whirling up into the air to dodge most, deflect others, and force the rest of the attacks to graze around his limbs and flanks. A slash from Double back at him caught his back, and X cried out, stumbling forward as his back sparked and pulsed blue energy ringlets before his systems could reroute power-paths.
/Disable the armor, stay alive, and keep her alive. I'll be there as fast as I can./
/...Copy./
X turned to see Double gloating, a satisfied edge to his sneer.
"Slowing down already, old bot?"
"One last chance, Double. ...Why did you try to kill Cadis?"
Double frowned. "Try...?"
"Try."
Double growled, and then shrugged. "Well, she was getting awfully close to the truth, but really... I just couldn't stand that pretty little face and how vexingly sweet she always was!" He clenched his fists, intensifying his arm blades' power. "I'll have to find wherever you hid her after this, and skin her plating off before I crush her core in front of her optics!"
X bowed his head, and then pulled a small device out of his back storage, narrowly missed by the slash. It was the twin to the communicator he'd given Double. "Did you keep this, Double?"
Double laughed raucously. "Your great symbol of trust to the poor, inept young recruit? OF COURSE!" He tapped his chest lightly. "I never knew when it might come in handy, but you walked right to me anyway!"
X flicked his thumb, and the top of the device actually popped open, revealing a second button. "Well, you had one part right."
Double was confused for a beat, then X's thumb pressed down. The next instant, Double roared in pain as his entire upper left torso blew open, throwing components and armor scattering into the ceiling, walls, and floor, Double stumbling back in shock, his left arm falling limp.
And now, finally, did fear show on Double's face, while he only found grim focus on X's.
"That was for Cadis. This is so you can't hurt anyone else."
X's colors shifted again. Still green, but darker, with some yellow tints, his busters turned into plasma-saw emitters. Wheel Gator's weapon. "Do you know what I did to her brother?"
Double snarled, and drove himself to lash forward with his remaining arm blade.
X just flowed outside it, his weapons glowing as they came up...
Zero only had marginally better focus after his brief exchange with X. Iris' super-ride-armor was fast for its durability, and the main buster was already leaving chunks of the room as melting haze. He could tell her heart wasn't truly in it. The precision of her aiming was mediocre, and with the weapon systems he could plainly see, Iris' talents would have made her nearly as sharp with targeting as Cadis herself. Perhaps she just wanted to delay him.
Waiting on X felt simultaneously idiotic, and the only thing his mind could lock onto. When Iris rushed him with a shoulder charge, he managed a slash at her far arm while he dodged, but was little more than a test. It confirmed her armor's durability was far beyond standard, barely glowing in the wake of his weapon.
What was more, the armor released drones out of its back in response to the impact, and he quickly had to dash aside, slashing through them as she turned about to take fresh aim.
"Iris, please stop!" he called to her once again. "We don't have to do this! Your brother is alive! His pride is stung! He'll recover!"
She aimed more directly. "You never understood him well enough, Zero!"
Zero's eyes widened, and he dove as she nearly vaporized him with that shot.
Zero recovered in a roll to one knee, looking at her in pained realization. She was pushing herself into a dangerous mental state even now, making herself obsessed with honoring her brother, and his damned pride.
"So you'll die because he can't handle losing!?"
There was more anger in it than Zero truly felt. He was scared, utterly lacking his normal confidence in this mad situation.
"Are you so different!?"
The armor buster raked across this time. Zero had to flicker across the chamber to avoid the duration of its blast, and he glanced back to see that two full walls had been burned deep in his wake.
Zero focused back on her desperately. "I get it! I'm a prideful jerk, too! But I would never have asked someone else to die for my failing! This isn't right! You're not a fighter, Iris, you never wanted this!"
"But you revel in it! Just like my brother! Part of you always thought I was pathetic for not standing up for myself with a buster on my arm!"
Zero flickered back the way he'd come to avoid the next raking blast. She was being riled up, more furious with every comment he made. The frustration was boiling over inside him. "Damn it! Iris! I only ever thought that for a moment! Before I knew you! Once I realized, I never would've tried to push this on you! Why do you think I left you alone after you retired!? I didn't want to push my violent life into your peaceful one!"
There was a hesitation at last. The armor paused, just aiming, no movement.
Zero softened faintly, a hand reaching out. "...Please, stop...?"
Her gesture was so clear the armor echoed it. Her head ducked down with sharp focus, and she growled with exertion, suddenly bursting forward, her buster charging a fresh blast that would go-off point blank if it could.
It made Zero's expression break. It fractured between fear, anger, and guilt. He didn't know how to stop someone from fighting when they were this devoted to it! Anyone else, and he'd just...
Zero's face contorted into a furious grimace, and he roared as he wrenched his Z-saber down into the plasma blast that finally went off.
It split the catastrophic blast from Iris. She flowed into a punch with the other arm, but Zero side-flipped over, kick-flipping himself off of the limb to go further out.
"I can only hold back so much, Iris! If you don't end this, I'll have to!"
Iris snap-twisted, aiming the buster at him from a long turn. "I know!"
This blast he dashed just outside of and charged her, roaring into a battle fury he'd rarely had to drive himself to. He couldn't let his mind think about it. He had to fight or he'd fail everything. Or would he fail everything anyway? He couldn't be frozen by that terror.
He slashed across the armor's torso in a flurry combo, curling up over the far shoulder to spring off. The armor did reel back a few steps, but the drones were released, and Iris started to track him again almost immediately.
Zero buzz-sawed through the drones, dashed out of the beam blast again, and shot past the armor with a fresh flurry. Iris could track him far better than anyone else in such bulky armor, but her plasma-beams were always just shy, barely singing his ponytail or boots.
This blast and flurry exchange repeated nearly a dozen times in rapid succession, Zero dicing up the drones he spawned at each pause. He was barely scratching the armor, but he was seeing his slashes leave more lingering marks. If he persisted, he'd wear through it.
Iris knew this even better than he, however. At last, just as Zero passed her armor, the chest opened in a snap of multiple plates, though it didn't seem to expose Iris herself. Instead, a purple prism floated out, large enough to compare to the armor's buster cannon.
Zero saw this, and braced back with his saber, trying to estimate what it would do.
Iris flew back, and as her buster aimed, the prism floated far out to her side.
Zero started to dodge, and just as her buster fired, the prism mimicked the same tremendous beam of plasma from a completely different angle.
Zero barely flattened himself in time to avoid it, spark-sliding under the second beam, and rolling to his haunches again, his eyes wide with focus.
Both weapons were already re-aiming, and Iris was deadly quiet.
Purely focused on combat as he was, Zero knew he couldn't leave both weapons up. Iris was too precise. And since he knew he could only whittle down the ride-armor, that left a specific target as his priority.
Once more, the beams fired, and Zero had to flicker. This time, however, he appeared on the far side, beyond the prism itself, nearly across the room from Iris's armor.
He vaguely noticed how urgently the armor twisted to cover for the prism, but it couldn't hope to stop him this close.
He slashed hard, a full-body wrench with both arms driving the hilt down through the air.
It tore down through the prism much more like his usual prey, but in the wake of his own attack, Zero's optics flared in realization and panic.
Beneath the purple prism itself was a power core. A power core he'd just nearly cut in half.
Iris' own power core.
Even while he and the critically damaged core were still airborne, the ride-armor started to groan and collapsed to its knees. Zero had that painfully timeless moment to look toward her with vicious clarity, realizing what he'd just done.
The prism's remains hit the ground, shattering, as his boots did, thruster-blasting toward the armor the same instant.
The ride-armor started to break apart, huge chunks of it breaking off and sluffing down like charred flesh.
Even as Zero was flying toward her, Iris was finally revealed from the inside, interface plugs and containment shielding cracking open and dissembling around her. She was mostly under-frame and parts other than her limp face and loose, tangled hair.
Her optics lacked focus even as her tattered frame of a body started to fall freely out of the ride-armor skin she'd created, a terribly dark hole in her central torso.
Zero's eyes were wide and tearing, droplets flying past his face from his pure speed. Even as he reached out toward her, he felt like the slowest creature in the universe, only able to watch her dying body crash down, so horribly limp and decimated.
He did this.
The sweet, kind, smiling Reploid with the adorable blush and so shy when complimented. He'd torn her apart. She was dying in front of him, so far beyond his reaching hand.
He understood now, so suddenly, why X had looked at him that way after he cut down Mac in front of him. If he'd been trapped, X cutting down Iris to save him from this... And he'd done it himself.
Desperation fed him, and his pushed through several safety limiters. His pupils glowed, his core strained, and his thrusters burst with explosive power.
He finally reached her, just before she could crash to the hard floor.
Zero gathered her frail, limp frame up in his arms, trying to get her head to lift up as he openly wept.
"Iris! IRIS!"
Her optics stirred weakly, and she looked up to his face. "...I wanted... to live... in a world... just for Reploids... with you..."
Zero was torturously mixed between relief and pain. He rationally knew she was dying in his arms, but she was awake! He petted her face desperately, trying to keep her with him. "Iris... there is no world just for Reploids... this is the world we've got... Iris..."
Her skeletal frame of a hand managed to reach up, and pressed to his cheek. It was horrifyingly weak, but it was there, and he grasped it to him desperately.
"I knew... but I had to believe..."
Her optics faded, her frame going limp.
Zero roared in pain, curling her to himself. Panicked desperation fed the next screaming rush out of his body.
"X HEEEEEEELP!"
Double was left screaming in frustration as little more than a head and torso as X backflipped into the air. His systems had primed to maximum, pain searing through him from the overload, but what little time he'd had he'd run out of.
He finally activated it. Dr. Light's honed gift. The same catastrophic power that could erase everything around X, focused into a tight, contained skin of light hotter than the sun. Optics blazing, body bleeding light, X dove into the ground ahead of Double, flash-melting through it like it was little more than paper and liquid light.
He'd never heard Zero's voice so desperate, afraid, and tortured. It told him everything he needed to know.
With his Light-built systems telling him exactly where Zero was located, X wasted no time navigating. He bore through the station like a beam of light, flash melting everything in his path. What few Repliforce soldiers and mechaniloids were left to see it, only fell back, stunned, as the flicker-rush of searing power that trailed liquified metal in its wake, several seconds after the fact.
The sheer brilliance and speed was all that could have shocked Zero out of his focus on Iris' limp face. He looked up in instant shock as X flipped out of his own path of light, body steaming as he landed to his haunches, flowing into a rush toward the crumpled pair.
Zero broke down. "I killed her. I KILLED HER! It was her core! I-!"
X actually planted a hand over Zero's mouth as he looked over Iris with intense focus, his optics flickering so fast they nearly turned black from the movement of his pupils.
"She needs a core, yes. Immediately. Her buffer still has her, but it's fading fast."
Zero curled down. "I'd give her mine..."
X looked up to Zero. "You can... but you have to leave with her now for it to work."
Zero gaped up at X, only shock delaying his response. "...Do it."
X didn't so much respond as start working, reaching to Zero's chest and somehow deactivating the security locks that protected unauthorized access to a Reploid's core components. Zero didn't care if it killed him in that moment, he had no reason to hesitate, even if he didn't grasp how X could possibly perform such a detailed transplant in the field with no tools to support it.
Only once X was mid-process did Zero grow astonished out of his emotional stupor. X's hands and fingers were flickering and jerking to infinitely precise points, not just transplanting the core, but linking Iris' power system into Zero's own.
Zero had watched work like this on occasion. Even Dr. Cain, even the manufacturing facilities for Reploids, couldn't work this fast. And with even a faint glance to X's face, Zero could see it was using up every faculty the Reploid had.
At last, X let his hands back, and Zero felt Iris' shift. He looked to her instantly, and her optics shimmered softly. At last, she woke up, inhaling deeply with her respirator in shock. In a few seconds, she looked down at herself, then the glowing wires connecting to her Zero's own core. Her optics watered as she looked into his own tear-soaked, blissfully relieved smile.
"...Is this a dream?" she asked quietly.
Zero shook his head, unable to speak.
Only then did Iris realize X was there, and her eyes locked on him shock as he slowly stood up, clearly strained by what he'd just done. Her feelings were painfully mixed, so aware of what he'd done to her brother, but she knew better than anyone how impossible it was to save her in whatever time they would have had. ...Only X could have done it.
"T... Thank you," she managed weakly.
X shook his head. "I broke a promise. I understand what that means." Then he looked to Zero, who was unusually cowed by what had just happened. "Zero, you can't teleport together like this. Get back to the ship. As soon as you can, get the Hunters up here with all the transports they can scrounge up. They need to give the survivors somewhere to go while I finish this."
Zero looked up with sincere worry. "...Alone?"
X tipped his head. "I can stop the threat, but a lot of lives will be lost on this station if they aren't helped."
Iris clearly had her outrage at X cooled, and just curled closer to Zero.
Zero had renewed purpose, and he picked Iris up cleanly in his arms to make sure the core-connection wasn't strained. "On it. ...X? You're coming back, right?"
X smiled wanly. "My work's not done yet. Hurry."
Zero twisted with Iris, dashing off. It allowed Iris to look over his shoulder, watching X slowly turn away.
It was the guilt weighing him down that really struck her.
He did know. How much it hurt her. He cared, but was doing terrible things. ...And she wasn't sure she could stay angry at him for it.
Zero had initially tried to keep Iris held close while starting up the shuttle, but she had enough power from his core to hold herself to him, freeing him up to work. He nearly blasted several mechaniloid workers into the bulkhead with the swerve and blast of speed he put into the ship, aiming straight for Earth to get into comms range as fast as possible.
Realizing something, Iris actually reached out from Zero, and pulled up sensor data. Zero was slightly startled, but didn't question her.
"...The defenses are still operational. No one can get close without a cloaking field."
Zero growled. "Damn. Good check."
He was interrupted by the comms crackling to life.
"-an you hear me!? This is Alia at Maverick Hunter HQ, do you copy!?"
"Yes, Alia, it's Zero! I've got Iris with me, she... needs medical immediately."
"Telefield-!?"
"She can't teleport! I have to bring her in! X has a plan to get the survivors off the station, but the defense systems are still running. Can we retrofit anymore civilian craft for emergency evac purposes?"
Alia was unusually silent for a beat. "...X is still up there."
"Yes..."
Signas' voice sounded next. "Alia patched me in. The logistics are too tight for that plan, Zero. Shimmer can upgrade maybe a few small transports. That station runs a crew of over a hundred, even at baseline."
Zero growled, thinking as fast as he could.
Iris, still weary, but alert, focused back on him sympathetically. "A few ships could start? Maybe X has a plan for the defenses?"
Zero blinked, then nodded to her. "Signas, Alia, get as many ships rigged as possible, and have a large enough fleet on stand-by! ...Maybe X can pull off another miracle for us."
"Another...?" Alia had to return in soft confusion.
"...You'll see when I get there, just try, please!"
"Of course," Alia returned.
Signas offered, "Shimmer has been dispatched, and I've given him full maintenance team support. We still need time, even just to get started."
"Hopefully that's what X is working on now," Zero replied, unable to keep the doubt out of his voice.
[Author's Note] sorry again, folks. It's been a weird week. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I'm especially interested in feedback on what happened here with Iris!