Chapter 2: Resistance
Color melts back into Zero's vision an instant after it first faded. Around him, aside from the trans-server, are dilapidated walls. While not in utter disrepair like the laboratory they arrived from, the off-white metal is chipped and crumbling.
Fortunately, the door on the far side of the room looks functional.
Ciel walks off the trans-server and towards the door. The Reploid walks after her.
"Zero, welcome to our Resistance Base."
As if on cue, the door slides open. It leads into a hallway that's dingily lit and not in the best of shape.
A good bit away is an elevator that hardly looks functional. Standing near the entrance is a Reploid with the same outfit as the soldier he picked up his Buster from.
Upon seeing Zero, he gawks. He looks over to Ciel the instant after.
"I-Is that him!?"
She responds with a nod before continuing towards the elevator.
"A Resistance? What are you trying to resist?" Zero questions. The both of them step on the elevator, which prompts the letters on a keypad to light up. The human's face darkens and a shadow falls over her eyes. With shaking hands, she taps a button on the keypad. The elevator begins to rise.
"Things have changed since you went into slumber. X, that other legendary Reploid, has been trying to retire us."
Again, that tuning fork-like sensation runs through his body. Brief flashes of blue flicker into his vision. With a wince, Zero grasps his forehead gem.
"X? That sounds familiar…"
"He was your partner a hundred years ago. You two saved the world over and over again, but now he's…" Ciel glances away from Zero. The look in her eyes is one of pain and, oddly enough, guilt.
"He's changed. Reploids who don't obey humans are sent to concentration camps to be 'retired'. Anyone who stands against him is disposed of."
The elevator stops after going up two floors. She steps off slowly and deliberately. Something feels distinctly off for Zero, but he can't put his finger on it.
"Why is he hunting you like this?"
"A few decades ago, an energy crisis began. The Energen, or E-Crystals, used to power everything, including Reploids, were running dry. There was barely enough then and there's even less today. X decided to allocate almost all of the remaining energy to humans, to let them live lavishly in the utopia of Neo Arcadia. Reploids were treated the exact opposite way."
Ciel walks towards a room with a blue sign reading "DATA". Zero silently walks behind as he tries to wrap his head around this newfound information. If X supposedly saved the world, why would he do something like this?
With a press of her finger on a sensor, the human opens the door and walks through.
"They were barely given enough energy to live and were expected to serve humans or die. If they disobeyed these rules, they'd be disposed of in mass centers. In fact…"
Ciel stops in the middle of the room before turning to face Zero. Her expression, though grim, still remains determined.
"We need your help with a disposal center near us. Our captured soldiers are destroyed there even as we speak. We can't solve this problem on our own. We need you, Zero."
The crimson Reploid glances down at his Z-Saber for a moment. He saved her with this weapon once before.
And just thinking about what X is doing is enough to clear any doubts in his mind.
He looks back up.
"I'll do it."
In all directions, ruined buildings stand beneath a gray, clouded sky. The roads are broken and hardly traversable by any vehicle. Spike-like protrusions have formed in a few pits as well.
Zero walks through the gates of one of these buildings. In his hand is his Z-Saber, though it's not activated yet.
"Zero, up ahead is the Disposal Center! Three innocent Reploids are going to be retired if we don't act!" Ciel's voice can be heard right in Zero's ear, though it's a bit crackly on account of the shaky transmission.
"Roger." With a press of a button, the Z-Saber activates in a flash of green.
Mission Start!
Zero dashes through the broken roads and, when he sees a pit in front of him, jumps over it. Wind blows through his flaxen hair just before his feet touch the ground. Scarcely any time passes before a spiked ball of grey metal rolls across the ground. It's certainly fast, maybe too fast for a proper evasion.
He slashes clean through the spiked surface of the Mechaniloid, yet he fails to cut through its core. It hits his leg with a hard enough impact to make him wince. Pain, sharp and hot, echoes through his systems. Compared to his headaches from earlier, this is on an entirely different level. Yet it feels so familiar. Time and time again, the legendary Reploid felt this in his past. The damage report from Zero's systems snaps him back to reality.
Minor damage, no decrease in functionality. Good. Before the machine can keep damaging him, he jumps forward.
As he soars through the air, he takes note of a Pantheon standing outside the decayed, broken shell of a building.
When he lands, he smashes his foot into the ground. The concrete pulverizes and the Reploid soars through the air at sonic speeds.
The Pantheon glares at him with its single eye. The last thing it sees is the emerald flash of the Z-Saber.
The blade cuts clean through its steel body like butter. Circuits melt and crackle, silicon chars, and metal turns to molten slag as the Z-Saber splits the Pantheon down the middle. And from split pipes, red oil spews.
The two halves clatter to the ground. The edges, glowing orange from heat, spark with lightning as Zero flies through the spray of crimson. Splatters can be seen on his armor and hair, but he doesn't make an effort to clean them off. Instead, he simply keeps dashing.
Another one of those wheels rushes towards him. With his right hand holding the Z-Saber, his left hand holding his Buster, he wastes no time. Two shots rip through the air and into the Mechaniloid's armor. Deep craters are made, just severe enough for a blade to cut through what's left!
And a single horizontal stroke is all it takes to split it from side to side.
The halves spark for the briefest of moments before exploding in a spray of metal shards, molten wires, and flame that consumes the airborne droplets of oil.
Zero dashes through the flames without a single scratch or blemish. Up ahead is a skyscraper that's half fallen apart with a damaged crane right next to it. Standing near the building's base and on the crane are several Pantheons. There's even two outfitted with wings floating hundreds of feet in the air.
Irritated, he looks at his Buster. A fragment of his memory involved a weapon like this charging.
Sure enough, there's a slot on the device just big enough to fit his Z-Saber's hilt. With a press of a button, his saber deactivates. He leaps over a pit in front of the building and, while midair, slots the weapon into his Buster.
Three spheres of yellow plasma cut through the air where he once was. When he lands on the ground with a metallic thud, Zero's finger is pressed firmly against the trigger. A green glow exudes from the barrel as solar energy, drawn from the Saber, gathers into one point.
Two Pantheons raise their weapons towards the Reploid. But he's quicker on the draw. A piercing, meteor-like blast of white-green light erupts from the Buster with a sharp, crackling bang.
And in a single fraction of a second, it tears a hole through the first Mechaniloid in its path.
As it explodes, the blast collides with the leg of another Pantheon. In a burst of smoke, the machine is sent toppling to the ground. Zero dashes straight through the remnants of his foes. The second Pantheon's fate is sealed when his foot smashes through its head like a rotten melon.
Now nothing stands between him and the skyscraper's walls. He leaps a solid 10 feet into the air and, as soon as his ascent begins to slow, his foot kicks the wall to send him upwards.
He does this multiple times a second, each one leaving cracks in the metal and glass. One of the winged Pantheons swoops down towards the red Reploid. It shoots at his back, only to hit nothing but the open air. Zero kicks off the wall with a dash-jump, fast enough for him to blur through the air. Carefully, he draws his Z-Saber back for a thrust.
And in a single movement, the emerald blade pierces straight through the machine's chest.
Its eye flickers on and off for a few moments. When he kicks off its body, it goes dim for good.
The whoosh of air as he hurtles towards the skyscraper's top, the sound of that foe exploding...it all reminds him of something.
The sound of his feet landing on the rooftop breaks this train of thought, though. Another winged Pantheon flies towards the legendary Reploid before he can even catch his breath.
This time, the plasma shots are a bit closer to hitting him as he leaps into the air. He can feel the heat from one that passes near his face.
But they aren't nearly close enough. An upwards slash cleanly bisects the Mechaniloid. A spray of crimson, a flash of sparks…!
The explosion sends pieces of burnt metal clattering to the streets below. And sure enough, Zero begins to fall down.
10 feet, 20 feet, 30…
The instant his feet slam into the concrete below with a deafening clash, he dashes forward. There's another building up ahead with a Pantheon standing by the doorway.
The Mechaniloid raises its arm cannon towards the red Reploid's face. But this is hardly an issue.
Three shots from Zero's pistol! In a split second, the Pantheon is blasted into shreds of flame, smoke, and metal.
In a sonic blur, he dashes through the remnants. There's a ladder that he could use to traverse to the second floor, but he hardly needs it. He twists himself around just in time for his foot to slam into the wall behind him.
The resulting momentum sends him rushing clean past the second floor. In fact, he ends up halfway on the ladder to the third floor. Zero jumps up and notices a Pantheon standing in front of him.
A quick shot to the back of the head blows it clean apart like a rotten melon. The legendary Reploid knocks over the body with the force of his dash.
When he jumps from the third floor and towards the ground below, hair flowing behind him like a golden cape, he can see a compound with a blue shutter door. Judging from the broken vehicles and scrap metal surrounding it, this must be the place. Three more Pantheons and three of those spiked wheels guard the final stretch of road between him and his destination.
Zero holds his sword so that the point is aimed straight down. Sure enough, when he finally gets to the ground, it impales clean through a spiked Mechaniloid.
He leaps forward just as the orange flash of an explosion emanates from its remains. A sideways slash cleaves a Pantheon in two, from one shoulder to the other.
Two yellow flashes to his right!
This time, he's not quite fast enough. One of the plasma shots scrapes the side of his helmets. The heat is just barely enough to be registered as painful, but he's still kicking. And without even a single circuit damaged, the red Reploid's still in the fight.
He fires a single shot through the eye of his assailant. The orange and black plumes of an explosion are followed by another volley of shots. The remaining Pantheon is blasted to ribbons in only a matter of seconds.
Zero doesn't even bother with the remaining spherical Mechaniloids. He jumps over the first one he sees. When the second rolls towards him, he dashes to the side.
And with that, nothing stands between him and the disposal center.
And as the rush of combat fades, he can finally hear the rain. Cold droplets of water fall from the sky softly. Zero gazes at the door as the water soaks into his hair.
The puddles of oil far behind him float atop a thin layer of water before flowing towards the innumerable potholes and cracks in the concrete.
The sight of the ruined street reminds him of something...Images flare in his mind of a highway at night.
A blue flash of light, some sort of armor exploding?
He has no idea what this is. But whatever it is, Zero tries to put it out of mind. He has a mission and he can't afford to be distracted. He leaps up the mountain of crushed metal. After a few seconds, he lands in front of the door.
With his Saber held by his side, he advances forward.
The shutter opens automatically, to his surprise. A short hallway leads to yet another shutter door. When this one opens, it shows a vast expanse of cold, sterile metal. Splattered across the walls are dried, brownish-red stains. Oil, most likely.
Standing on the far side of the room is a strange looking Reploid. From the looks of it, he's designed to resemble a bird of some kind...a falcon, maybe? His arms are sharpened 'wings' with electricity charged in the gaps between the two blades on each one.
Ice-cold eyes of red stare straight into Zero's own. An instinctive chill runs down the length of his body, but his stoic expression remains the same.
"Are you looking for the one in charge of the disposal center?" The falcon's voice is harsh and metallic, like a knife scraping against rock.
Zero simply nods. He takes a step forward with his right foot. A grin, or something similar, forms on the avian's beak.
"Then you've found him. I'm Aztefalcon. I work for Harpuia, one of Master X's Four Guardians." He raises one of his wing-blades until it's level with the red Reploid's head.
"You must be some of the garbage. Just in time." He begins to chuckle, just before breaking into full on laughter.
His voice drips with pure, distilled wrathful glee. Zero's instincts practically scream "Danger!".
"I'll dispose of both of you together!"
Here goes nothing! Zero grabs his Buster with his left hand and braces himself. But...A whirring can be heard just below him. On the sides of the walls, display screens light up. They showcase green arrows pointing downwards and, sure enough, the floor is actively lowering itself.
"Hey, someone help me!" A desperate scream echoes below the two fighters. If this keeps going, whoever's there is going to be crushed.
"Don't get distracted now!" Aztefalcon's wing-blade fires an arrow of blue lightning towards the legendary Reploid's head. Fast…!
He manages to jump to the side just as the projectile's about to collide with his shoulder. Yet the avian doesn't stop! Immediately after the first, a second arrow soars towards Zero's chest! His eyes widen when the realization sinks in: He can't dodge this!
In a flash of azure, sharp bolts of pain flow through his body from the point of impact. His systems give him a report detailing serious damage to his torso region. With a grunt, Zero is sent flying backwards with a sharp bang. Smoke rises from the charred metal on the very center of his chest's armor.
Despite the pain, he doesn't fall. This is nothing! Though he can't remember, he knows he's had worse! Reality snaps back into his mind like a rubber band. Two more arrows…!
He rolls beneath the first, but another still flies towards him. A slash of his Saber is powerful enough to dispel it with a gunshot-like bang. Aztefalcon flies straight towards him, fast enough to nearly be a blur. The red Reploid leaps backwards with his Buster held out. Get a clear shot...and fire!
The first pull of the trigger sends a blast straight into his opponent's face...but it's not nearly enough to put him down! Zero pulls the trigger twice, thrice, a fourth time! Though plumes of smoke rise from Aztefalcon's body with each hit, the damage is minimal; Only a few cracks and scratches can be seen where the bullets hit.
That damned laugh can be heard as the falcon draws nearer. Only a few feet away!
Zero whirls around so that he's facing the wall. Right before he would've smacked into it, his foot smashes into the metal surface!
With a metallic clang, he's sent flying straight over Aztefalcon's head. Before his foe can even respond, he lands right behind him. A horizontal slash of his Z-Saber cleaves straight across the Reploid's back in a flash of bright green!
A shrill metallic cry can be heard from Aztefalcon as a deep gash is left in his armor plating. Cut wires spark and the seared edges of steel plates glow with orange heat...but this isn't like the others!
He's still alive! And sure, enough, he whirls around with a look of fury in his ruby eyes.
The falcon's wingblade slashes diagonally down and to the right, right where Zero is.
Or rather, was. The red Reploid jumps back far enough for the slash to miss him by a mere inch. Crackling static dances through the air right where his head used to be.
"You aren't going anywhere." The two components on Aztefalcon's wing spread apart like the two blades of a claw until they're almost the entire length of his body. Electric humming emanates from the sleek metal. Zero braces himself for something to fire, but nothing does.
Suddenly, some sort of force grabs ahold of him! It's like...His eyes snap wide open with realization.
It's like a magnet!
Zero doesn't have any ground to work with, so all he can do is turn himself around with saber in hand. The blades of the falcon's wing begin to close in...but right before they do, he slashes at the wing's interior in an attempt to shear it in half.
Sparks fly from the point of impact, but the slash mark is a few millimeters shy of hitting the internal mechanisms!
Dammit! If only Zero followed it up with another slash!
With a metallic clank, the wing closes on him with enough force to render him effectively trapped. Though only minor cuts are dealt to his frame, part of him knows that this isn't the end.
With a cackle, Aztefalcon flies straight towards the wall! As Zero struggles to break free from the iron grip of his opponent, he catches sight of the arrows on the display screen.
They've turned a bright yellow. And the last thing he sees before he's slammed into the wall is the color changing to an urgent red.
The wall behind him dents enough for the legendary Reploid's body to sink into it a good few inches. A few system alerts, alongside a wave of dull, aching pain, tell Zero that several internal parts are either cracked or bent out of shape.
With his eyes staring wide at the opposite wall, he can't do much other than slump into the newfound crater.
His entire body feels like it's made out of lead. Doubt begins to creep into his mind. He has his Saber, he has a ranged weapon.
He's using everything he can.
So why can't he put Aztefalcon down?
"Stay on the ground like good garbage!" The falcon leaps into the air, a good 20 feet up. And in both of his wings, a blue glow charges.
This isn't just going to be a normal thunder arrow.
"Gyahahahahahaha!" Aztefalcon falls down towards Zero just as fast as he ascended! His wings are raised above his head as the charged thunder reaches its apex.
Yet even as the soot-covered, barely standing legendary Reploid sees the incoming attack, he smiles.
That's it.
His body seems to remember that he used to have an attack very similar to that. Each time he used it, his horizontal slash followed.
Maybe it's time to reverse that.
Zero rolls to the side just before the double-bladed strike would've destroyed him. A deafening thunderclap and a flash of blue rips through the room. Tendrils of static flow from the point of impact in a wide circle.
The red Reploid jumps just in time to avoid getting shocked. Aztefalcon soars towards the wall farthest from his opponent.
Zero grips his Z-Saber with both hands. Carefully, he observes the avian. Sure enough, he flies back the way he came. Though he's fast, his movements aren't impossible to see.
Zero just has to time this right. One more hit and he isn't getting back up!
Five feet away...Aztefalcon raises his left wing-blade with a crackle of sparks.
Time seems to slow down the instant after he swings towards the legendary Reploid's neck. The Z-Saber counters the slash in a burst of green light and sparks, carrying just enough force to send Aztefalcon's wing away from Zero!
With a malevolent grin, he gets ready to counter with his right wing...only for the red Reploid to raise his sword straight in the air. A cold, purplish-black gaze meets the falcon's eyes.
And the last thing he sees is a burst of emerald light.
From the right side of his collarbone to the very edge of his torso, Aztefalcon is bisected. The edges of his body glow with orange heat, as do the severed copper strands within his circuits.
Droplets of oil stain the walls around them, which only adds to the brownish splotches from earlier.
A glass orb with glowing red liquid, embedded in the center of Aztefalcon's chest, brightly radiates light and heat. Cracks spread across the entirety of the surface until, with a final flash, it explodes!
The resulting fireball, white-hot and bright as a star, is enough to rip through the entirety of the platform they're standing on. It's almost enough to melt a few of the pieces!
With a thud, Zero lands on a floor several feet below. The light from the explosion finally fades, revealing that there's nearly nothing left of his enemy.
On top of a pile of scrap, though, is some sort of glowing computer chip.
A Reploid in the garb of the Resistance glances over to Zero as he violently trembles. A shaky smile crosses his lips.
"I...I didn't think anyone was coming to save me. Th-Thank you so much. I'll head back to base when...when I can walk again." With that, he looks towards a now revealed exit shutter.
"I think it's unlocked now, if you want to leave." Zero nods. It's at this point that Ciel's voice chimes in through the radio.
"Thank you so much, Zero! I knew you could do it! Head back to base, but don't forget to take the Thunder Chip with you!"
Oh, so that's what the thing in that scrap is. He walks over to retrieve the chip, which he slots into his Z-Saber. For whatever reason, it's a perfect fit.
There. The last remaining shreds of his doubt begin to melt away. He can do this. If he had any skill from his past life, then it's coming back.
He walks through the shutter door and through a hallway. On the left side, near the end, is a door. Zero opens it, revealing a trans-server. Alright, that cuts out a few minutes of walking.
He steps onto the machine and inputs the coordinates he saw Ciel use back in that lab.
In a flash of white, his vision fades.
Author's Notes
First and foremost, I'm sorry it took so long for me to post an update. Without going into too much detail, I've had a lot of trouble writing this. I was stressed from academic work, from trying to come up with other projects, and had little to no inspiration.
I'm not exactly satisfied with this chapter as it is now, from formatting to a sense that I was just getting tired near the end, But I don't want to leave you guys waiting for over a month. I feel like I dropped the ball with this chapter, I only hope you can forgive that.
Anyhow, I need to make something clear: I won't be able to get the rest of the chapters out very soon. It may be a month, two months, or even longer. It's a stress and motivation thing, really.
I can only hope that you understand this. For now, enjoy the chapter.