Pure lotus 11
The room was silent, saved from the beeping of different machines and the hum of the monitors. In the middle, still dressed in an adorable nightgown, was Iris.
Nothing had changed about her situation; she could still not boot fully. She was stuck in a state between sleeping and waking up.
And While Douglas knew what the problem was... to fix it would probably take yet another divine intervention since replacing Colonel's presence value with Zero sounded easy on paper.
On paper.
But not realistically... not without a few quantum computers, X and an entire team of code monkeys slaving away to rewrite Iris's source code, overwriting her memory in the process.
But... she was alive. X had managed to evacuate her.
Zero... was extremely grateful for this fact alone.
Shukuna's recovery mission soon began, and the powerful blond wanted to spend time with Iris... his...
Could she still be considered his ex? Or was she still his girlfriend since their breakups had literally been her apparent demise to Zero's sword?
Nevertheless, Uma had calculated that to start their journey to find the inchling now would be rather inauspicious, and thus were waiting for the next Muhurta, who was blessed by the glance of the Goddess of Victory. (Well, obviously, Krishna had unlimited potencies.)
Means, Zero had four hours to kill before it was go time. So he was spending it with Iris.
He was sitting on a stool, holding his... maybe-not-girlfriend-anymore hand as he massaged it with his thumbs. One leg bouncing up and down in a bid to vent some anxious energy.
Thanks to Douglas's amazing repairing skills and Uma's ever-increasing wallet, Zero's legs were nearly as good as new.
Not yet, though, but it was enough for his purpose.
If he could fight with them, then all was right in the world. And if he could serve with them and follow Mother Bahula, then it was even better.
Still, it didn't change the fact that, unless they would take a reploid-making facility... or birthing centre. Something that was even more highly guarded than anything in the world right now, then saving Iris was basically just a dream.
'unless.'
Zero had magic... and he could use it to affect other reploids. The Mavericks were reploid affected by Sigma's brand of magic, but...
If Sigma could infect them, reprogramming them into machines of war and destruction, then what if...
What if he could?
Zero raised his hand to his eyes... and, for the first time since his crash, called to his magic willingly.
He felt it swirl in him like a lazy whirlpool; Bahula had said that it would react to his emotions like another limb.
He closed his eyes and dove into it, accepting it fully as a part of his temporary body.
It was indeed like another limb, one he barely knew...
'Well, no time like the present.' And with a prayer to Lord Narahari and Nityananda... and Srila-Prabhupada, Zero, with the help of his magic, dove into Iris's system.
And by God's unlimited avatars, it was not a pretty sight.
Well, he was sure that it would be, but at the moment, everything was in complete shambles, nothing made sense, and so many things were missing.
It didn't take long for Zero to figure out the missing things were where her Colonel's driver used to be.
He was like the expansion pack for Donkey Kong 64. the game didn't really need it, but it wouldn't boot without it.
It was frustrating, to say the least. How could those scientists force something so horrible on her? Iris did nothing w-...
Well... no, In her many previous life, this soul did a bunch of things that got her in this situation.
Just as how Zero got himself there, in... well, Zero.
Still, he could not leave her in this state; he knew she had been suffering from depression before...
You know.
And as Bahula had told him, the real cure for depression and death was to take to Krishna Consciousness...
As long as you stick to it and practise it carefully. Incidents and unfortunate decisions had been known to occur, but for those who fully took shelter of Guru-Gauranga, then nothing, not even mental illness, would stop them.
And boy, wasn't this the cure, Zero went from a suicidal robot with the weight of his Father's sin on his back to a much happier soul on his way back home, back to Godhead.
And he wanted Iris to have that.
Oh sure, there was this irrational and material part of him who desperately wanted his girlfriend to just forget everything, forgive the overly aggressive ass he was and start over.
But Zero knew not to put his hopes too high for it.
But... Well, he wasn't a Brahmachari; he wanted... he wanted a wife...
He wanted Iris.
And yet, from Bahula's teaching, he knew not to grow attached to the result and to fall for the trap of Maya.
And thus, he would fix whatever was broken in Iris, putting him as Unit number two and...
Leave the rest to Krishna and trust him implicitly.
God was Good, and whatever he did was for the ultimate good, even if it was hard to understand how.
And thus, Zero went to work, detaching himself from the result while giving Iris up to God, to Bhagavan Sri-Krishna.
He began to scan each and every variable, every place, every hertz that made Iris's artificial subtle body, reconnecting it with all care in the world to her actual subtle body made of mind, intelligence and False Ego.
Huh... she didn't look as sweet and fragile there...
and wait... what was this suppression program?! Iris had no need to be suppressed... right?
Unless there was something catastrophically wrong with her subtle body... like a mental illness, but...
No, everything seemed fine, and while Zero had just recently learned about what a clean, subtle body looked like. Since Bahula was, despite all of her trauma, the sanest person around... and then came Acyuta-gopi and Yami devi.
So... iris had no reason to be locked away.
Unless... the sweet, wallflower Iris who sometimes would pull a gun on herself was not the real Iris.
Zero was... intrigued by it.
Worst case, push comes to shove...
And thus, Zero removed the seal, rearranged connections and took the place of Colonel...
Or tried to.
Apparently, having removed the block, having a second unit was seen as unneeded. Not only that, but Iris's RAM was running optimally.
She had always run a bit... slow when not engaged in navigating Zero through obstacles, thankfully.
Still, she tended to lag behind, and soon people joked that Zero only dated her to make him look smarter.
Assholes.
Still, it was good to see some positive change, and dared he say that it gave him hope?
After a while, he realized that he had done everything he could... he'd even put his Bluetooth address so she could be connected with him.
Just in case he'd read those files wrong, since, you know...
he was hopelessly new at this.
When he exited Iris's internal terminal and returned to the normal sun-given time and Iris's room... or X's room.
Speaking of which, there he was, once again in armour... his new, illegally updated armour. He was looking at Zero's askance. "Say, buddy... How's Iris?" He asked as he moved closer, peering at the seemingly sleeping woman.
"Well... I ah." Zero rubbed the back of his head, hesitating to reveal how he'd played in his old Girlfriends code. "I... tried to fix what was wrong with her code, so... umm."
"Want me to call Douglas?"
"Yeah... call Douglas," Zero admitted, no use making this whole thing worse.
Humility truly was a bitter pill, but medicine was medicine.
Maybe He'd screwed up; maybe he did something wrong or...
Or not.
But still, he had played in another reploids Code, and he, Mayhaps, had glitched something up.
Sure, he would get scolded by Douglas, but hey...
he must not have messed up this badly... since she was opening her glorious green eyes once more.
"Z... Zero?"
~0~
Consciousness for a reploid was.. well, the same as any other spirit soul stuck into a body would have.
Especially the human body.
Not all bodies had this level of access to their consciousness, and humans had the highest access.
But I digress since Iris' own was returning to her as a small trickle.
She felt a strong, familiar presence in her... at first, she thought it was her brother...
Only to remember that Zero had destroyed him, dooming the poor navigator to madness... then death.
Did she hate Zero for this?
Honestly?
...
No...
No, because she knew there had been nothing she could have done.
Her Brother had made his choice; he'd listen to Sigma...
No, Iris was not as Naive as she looked. To be honest, if Colonel had been anything less then a vital component to her, and if she didn't have this stupid code preventing her from going against him, she would have fought him to their death.
But Alas... She couldn't.
And instead, had gotten... unstable.
So Unstable, she had absorbed what had once been hers, but Sigma had corrupted it, and Zero had no choice but to mercy kill the poor thing.
Actually, Iris had lost all control, and it wasn't Colonel's side that moved the perfect weapon...
No...
it had been Sigma.
And Sigma never wanted Iris to win; his goal had been to cause harm to Zero...
Emotional harm.
She frowned... how could she have been so blinded... how could Colonel, her other half, be so trusting of a well-known madman...
She sighed... this was in the past; she now had to deal with the consequence of their actions right now...
"Iris?" She heard her Zero. "Iris!"
She opened her eyes... and had to adjust the brightness since, please forgive her junkyard jargon, but holy crap, the lights were bright!
She blinked a few times until her lux receptors understood that now was not the time to freak out... unlike Zero and X...
She opened her eyes fully and looked at Zero... who was staring at her with hands folded in prayer, his whole body shaking... It was either his battle computer or he was witnessing a miracle. Behind him was X, dressed in updated armour and Douglas, who was staring at her as if he had witnessed the second coming of Christ...
Or Iris returning to life.
She heard a sob... it was X.
"Oh Krishna, Oh Govinda! Oh, Bhagavan, this is the best news ever! I need to-," and with that, Zero's partner ran out, yelling to others.
Iris unlocked her analogous movement, and the feeling of having a body washed over her.
Oh...
oh, that felt good!
She began to move her stiff limbs and recalibrate all that needed to recalibrate.
"Iris, take it easy, please." Zero beseeched her, and Iris stared at him.
"... Zero, why are you so careful with me?" She asked as she managed to figure out how to emote again. "You were never like that before."
"I... Got..."
"Zero learned more about humans than even me." X piped up from outside the door, somehow remembering that everyone had a com for easy access, whipping his tears from his green eyes. "He's a saint now."
"Shut up!" Zero hissed as he jumped to his feet, causing X to laugh more, whipping more tears as he sobbed happily.
"I can't believe it." Douglas spoke as he shoved his way past Zero and X. "It's a miracle, an honest to God Miracle." he whispered as he took out the medical terminal he'd managed to grab from his flat. As he booted the thing up and ran a scan on Iris (a normal procedure, no need to panic... wow, she felt way more stable now.) Zero approached here while a woman radiated more viral energy then Zero at the moment.
Speaking of the most handsome reploid on the planet, he noticed how Iris had stiffened at the sight of the woman in the black, colourful sari (the background was black, but the patterns shamed rainbows whit its flashy colours.) and gently held her hands.
"It's alright, Iris, this is Mother Bahula Devi Dasi; she's a thousand-year-old God-Loving witch who stepped in Err... Mana for about the same time. By the way, Mana's got the same energetic signature that the maverick Virus has; I'm not the source of this virus; Sigma was. "... And She destroyed Sigma for good and saved me and the earth in the process."
"Krishna's the one who killed him." the beautiful... human (?) woman spoke meekly and humbly. "I am but an Instrument of God's mercy; he only desires me to have his fame." She grumbled.
"Oh... Ok..." Iris Murmur as she nodded.
This... was so Odd. "Am I... really back? Is this reality or..."
She felt Zero squeeze her hand gently. "Yeah, it's real..." He snorted. "I had the same reaction when Mother Bahula stopped the plummeting space station, you know, Eurasia."
"Wait... they actually managed to get this clunker functional!?"
"Yeah, they did," Zero admitted. "Worked pretty well until-"
"Sigma infected it." Iris deadpanned as she massaged the middle of the forehead. "Well, you told me Miss Bahula killed him for good."
"It wasn't me; it was God... Krishna, I saw his Sudarshan Chakra getting rid of this Soul's gross and subtle body, granting him m-moksha." The Witch shuddered at the words.
'Wow... that's a whole lot to unpack.' Iris thought.
"Um... Iris." Zero began, wringing his words. "I think you need a major update on our current situation."
"You don't say?" She snarked back... and then covered her mouth.
She had never been sassy in her life, and she was now talking back to Zero, her superior, like a mouthy brat.
Zero stared at her... and grinned. (was it just her, or did his teeth get bigger.)
"Alright, so, let's start after you got deactivated."
~0~
Some time Later.
~0~
"Alright, so to make this story short, Sigma didn't die with me; that roach survived and, after giving you guys a lull, infected the Eurasia orbital space colony, killing even more humans and reploids in the process and used the viral ship as an orbital drop payload to eradicate all life on earth because he's an ass hole like that-"
Zero grinned at his sweet Iris's cussing.
"So they had to destroy the space colony just so that something would survive the impact. They tried to build the enigma canon, but it failed to shoot the station down, so they had Zero on a suicide mission to blow it up whit a nuclear bomb... not the best choice, but effective nonetheless."
"Hey! I could've ejected from the shuttle!"
"Oh sure, Zero... and then get blown up by either the charge, the nuclear reactor inside the space station, or upon re-entry," Iris grumbled as she crossed her arms. "I'm sorry, Suki, but I don't think you expected to live through that." She scowled.
And zero... Crumpled a bit.
"No... Iris, I... your death, the war... was just… it's just too much, and then the whole thing about me being the source of the Plague... not that I was, Sigma's the one who did this whole bullshit, but..." The blond warrior in red sighed as he ran his hands on his face. "But yeah... no, I wasn't in a good place... I wanted... I wanted to rejoin you in cyberspace." He shamefully admitted. "Living… got too hard, you know?"
Iris's bright green eyes widened in surprise... and then softened.
"Oh Zero... I never reached cyberspace," she revealed. "I was... I guess I was in a coma." Iris gently caressed the fearsome warrior's cheek, and Zero leaned into her hand. "You would have waited a heck of a long time, love."
Zero let out a shuddering breath as he leaned into her hand, and if he had the same tear ducts as X, they would certainly be working at the moment.
"I... I know that now... and... and I now know that suicide's never the option... ever," he admitted.
"Zero, I-"
"It's... well, not fine, but... it was Sigma. Sigma was an ass... and he got what he deserved."
"So you killed him."
Zero shook his head. "Nah... God did. I..." Zero averted his eyes for a bit before sipping some air in his system. "The virus... or the miasma that caused the Virus' still considered a part of me, no idea why tough, but... it affected me, it... gave me back my Memory also." he pinched his lips together as if he had tasted something unpleasantly bitter... or sour.
"Zero?"
"I... this body was made by Doctor Wily, Doctor Light's... can't even call the ass a Rival, he was a criminal, kidnapping our ancestors, the robot master, and... I don't know, brainwashed them? Reprogrammed them? He also made his own robot master and..."
Iris sat up and held Zero's head to her heart. "It's all right, Zero. It's over." She spoke above his helmet, gratefully noticing how X, Douglas and Bahula had all vacated the premise... save for the blue bomber, her Savior.
He remained outside like a sentry.
Probably in case of either of them turning suddenly maverick or Iris being a jerk to her Boyfriend.
She remembered how she had given Zero the cold shoulder under the council of uncle Sigma (gag, Barf.) she had been... quite nasty to him either.
And what to say of her taking... no, this had not been a reploid core, let alone something that had belonged to her Brother willingly. In hindsight, it was clear that the gel-like substance had been... Sigma's Virus.
No wonder she went mad; that thing was made to drive the good bots bonkers.
She let Zero sob his heart out, feeling his... not, not the virus, now that she thought about it, but something else entirely, reacting to his emotions.
Whatever this substance was, it could cause great harm to humans... but it remained in Zero and nonreactive so far.
It also had nothing to do with Sigma's Virus at all since it wasn't made of ones and Zeros.
Eventually, and rather all too quickly, in Iris' opinion, her boyfriend stopped sobbing.
"Sorry, we're in a time crunch right now. we... one of our own disappeared, and we need to get her from this one insane copy of me." Zero said as he wiped at his dry eyes, despite not needing to.
Perhaps he had picked it up from a human? Bahula, probably, or maybe X?
As an answer, Iris's eyes blew wide open as one of her expertly drawn brows migrated as high as it physically could. "Ah... Copy?"
Zero sighed Dramatically. "I know, right? It's like the maverick doesn't have any idea what else to send against us. I mean, the usual eight ones can sometimes give me and X a challenge, but... I mean, I get it, you know. I'm freaking perfect." he flipped his hair with his hand. "And I supposed it's true that imitation is the best form of flattery... but Come one, Green and Purple?" He scoffed. "I almost feel sorry for the guy.
Iris laughed for the first time since... well, the last war she remembered. It sounded like a wholesome bell of sunshine.
"So yeah..." Zero scratched the back of his head. "I ah... to return to where I was... well, I did perform the suicide mission but... instead of hitting the space station head on, Bahula pulled me out of the cockpit before it could hit the station and... yeah, kill me."
Iris reached for her boyfriend's hand.
"It was... Bahula then put me in the viral environment... Hey, she is a foreigner from Gensokyo, Japan; there was no way she could know the amount of Sigma virus would trigger in me a full system restore. So while she was holding up the huge viral payload, lowering it gently to the ground like the angel she is, I remember my prime directive."
"To destroy X."
Zero nodded sadly. "Yeah... and I was... Iris, I was so hopeless, I took it in, I awoke from my long sleep and took the mantle of Infinite Void, knowing that my Kohai would be ruthless and destroy this body and Sigma."
"But... you're not evil, and X hasn't-" Iris stuttered in shock, was her boyfriend still evil?
"Nah, instead of facing X in an epic fight, I had to face off Bahula Devi Dasi, a thousand years worth of magic and fighting experience and a whole lot of divine mercy. She and... well, God, knocked plenty of sense back into me." Zero admired. "By the way, Mother Bahula's a Gaudia-Vaishnavi on top of being stupidly strong. Like, she's the one who lowered the Eurasian space station by holding it on her shoulders and flying back down to earth, then she destroyed a pair of Missiles whit magic light bullets, and she defeated me at my most powerful." Zero shamelessly gushed. "Listen. Usually, she's as squishy as an average human; remove her head, and she's dead... but when I tried that trick, you know, crushing her windpipe, I ended up with damaged servos and her head locking me to the ground."
"Zero I... it sounds like you... really love her." yes, so Iris felt jealous
Zero snorted fondly. "It's hard not to; she's the kindest person ever... Even X can't be as merciful as her. For one, he would've blasted me to death or close to it."
Iris was about to protest since X was well known to abhor unnecessary violence when the man himself spoke up.
"Yeah, it's true," X spoke up from behind the closed door. "Zero's the source of the 'infection,' and I'm 'programmed' to destroy him, even if it would've caused me years of Trauma to come," he revealed. "At that time, my onboard computer showed me that Zero was the biggest threat to Humanity, so getting rid of it would make humanity safe." The bitter sarcasm that dripped from this statement hung like a miasma. "But... I doubt it, since I'm sure Sigma would've pulled his Usual crap again."
This caused Zero to bark in laughter. "Yeah, Heard from Bahula that the ass actually came back as... Well, Bahula had no chance to see him, but from what my magic managed to piece together, think about Siggies half melted, fleshless face with a sonic scream attack and more hatred then there's chips and memory module in Signas... by the way, how's the big guy?"
"Still uptight about everything, and still super sus about you... last I heard anyway."
"Last you heard, aren't you two sharing a rambus sometime?"
"I quit my Job; I'm a full-time Hare Krishna now."
"Wow... I never thought you'd ever leave this dead-end job, X. Congrat... hey, and with Sigma gone and the... my Magic's not going crazy, then we are not needed anymore!"
"Jay!"
"Umm... Zero? What happened after Miss... Mother Bahula saved you?" Iris interrupted the small but genuine celebration of the two greatest heroes… and robotic slaves over their newfound freedom
Zero returned his attention back to her... and then smiled.
No, not a smirk or a cocky Zero smile. But a beaming smile filled with gratitude.
"I tried to kill her; she countered me... like, could not even make her neck joint crack."
"Zero!" Iris gaped, horrified about what her boyfriend had tried to do.
"Wait, Iris, I'm not even done. She no-selled whatever I was throwing at her, and she kept talking to me... with compassion. Like... like I'm a person and not a robot programmed to make other robots go batshit insane with rage." he spoke with wonder, his eyes sparkling. "Oh, iris... I still wanted to destroy her, but... she tolerated everything I threw at her until I admitted that..." Zero's eyes dulled a bit. "That I... I wanted to return to zero... to... end, you know."
"Oh, Zero." would she have tears-
"And Mother Bahula... She's a super-powerful witch. And she used to be a Buddhist nun also." he explained. "and she spent... well, a thousand earth years in a nasty place called Hokkai, basically a magical solitary confinement."
Iris took a sharp intake of hair as her eyes grew wide in horror. "Oh, how barbaric! How did she manage to remain sane?"
Zero offered a helpless shrug. "Told me she looped around the state of sanity to insanity a few times before she was busted out; she assured me that Kokila's sister cleared her of any mental problem... Well, she wasn't fine until Revati and Maricha returned from an impromptu trip to America with divine knowledge usually found in India."
"That sounds complicated."
"yeah," Zero admitted with a sweat drop. "But yeah, Mother Bahula's fully recovered now... but it also means that she can replicate how it feels to become one whit, Brahman." Zero hugged himself as his thousand-yard stare fought to claim his eyes. "I wanted... to become on with everything... it's not... Iris... we, the spirit soul, the tiny, infinitesimal parts of the Brahman effulgence, can't stay in the para-Brahman indefinitely. We just can't." He shook his head harshly. "Iris, the soul... us... we're always active, always desiring and wishing and looking for pleasure; it's the soul's very nature. To deny it... that's suicide." He whispered at the end.
Iris grabbed a hold of his quaking hand. "It's alright, Zero, it's over."
The red warrior laughed... It was not an insane type of laughter, or even a hollow or nasty one either; it was the laughter of one who had received wonderful, life-changing news. "I know! Bahula, she's showing me how to live, Iris...and not to live for the next check, the next fight or war... but to live for God, to be Krishna's instrument of mercy." Zero rubbed the back of his head. "I know... I know I can't do much right now since I'm considered a maverick."
"To be killed on sight," Iris spoke with gravity.
"Yeah... thing is, once you get that, you can't remove it... and humans tend to love slapping this particular label." Zero's eyes darkened.
Iris's lips pressed together in a show of bitter discontent. "... and the worst is that the moment a Reploid starts to complain about how they are basically set up to get this label? Boom, maverick... and what to say of those who got infected with the sigma strain." Zero finished with finality, like the last nail in a coffin.
"yeah, it's... nasty."
"I'll say..." Zero rubbed the back of his head. "But... I may have a way to free us... without killing innocents." He stared, speaking slowly as he carefully chose his words.
Intrigued, Iris tilted her head as he grasped Zero's big hands again. "And what would it be, Zaki?"
Zero swallowed (huh, He did hang out around a human.) as he closed his eyes, his long, gorgeous hair flaring behind as they were carried by a wave of bliss. "It's... the Iris Initiative."
"Oh, you named it after me?" wow, Iris felt flattered... not that she had any idea what the Iris Initiative was all about.
Unless...
no... no, Zero would never do something like that... right?
"The initiative... is to give an out to abused or disgruntled reploid and to start a village somewhere else... somewhere where Reploids, and Reploid supportive humans and otherwise can live in peace, away from the fear and the labels."
"And otherwise?"
"I know of two witches, one who started as a human, who was born as such, an Oni from hell, and an inch high woman... whom we've lost and the Vaishravana-like tiger Yokai."
"But there are no Tigers in Japan."
"Didn't stop Shou." Zero shrugged. "But yeah, Mother Bahula managed to land the wreck safely somewhere close to Kathmandu... what's left of it. And I've been getting in touch with my inner handyman and... well, I've built some shelter there, and I'm planning on more too." He explained. "It won't be a perfect reploid utopia since, you know... where more human than we like to admit."
Iris nodded mutely, reflecting on how it had been so easy for her and Colonel to be tricked by Sigma, despite knowing the old commander had turned insane due to the...
Zero's magic?
"Well... it's nice to know that us reploids will have our own place, and hopefully, we'll crack the reproduction code. But... What's happening now? What's the next step?" she asked, unable to remain still.
"We'll now, we're planning on finding a needle princess in a haystack, locate and destroy my viral clone and-"
"And bust Gate; the guy's been linked with the Clone." X piped up. "Also, on other news, I now know how Signas pay dandavat."
"Huh... wait, what?" Zero yelped.
"Yeah, so, I decided to try my luck contacting HQ, and Apparently, things went downhill fast after I walked out of my old life and having me... more or less back in their game was enough to have Signas listen to me. By the way, we're all pardoned, thanks to cloud dad."
"Cloud dad?" Iris asked at the apex of confusion.
X opened the sliding door, his eyes shining whit bliss... When was the last time she'd seen him this happy? "Yeah, Unzan, he's a cloud."
At this point, Iris decided to just roll with it for the sake of her sanity.
Also, yes, Unzan really was a cloud... a pink cloud.
And since his body was made of water, he was basically holding the entire electronic city hostage, meaning that Bahula Devi Dasi(Gosh, she was so pretty... inside and out. And potent, the virus... magic... whatever was practically pouring out from her every pore, and yet... Iris was still sane, shockingly enough.) and Uma Devi Dasi (She looked like a man... moved like one too but still identified as a woman... huh.) could now move location, and all members from the temple now had the right to extract reploids from Abel city to Ashraya, the town Bahula and Zero had funded.
But, the real highlight was how Signas had blue screened the moment he'd laid eyes on the fully operational Iris.
Thankfully, the pursuit of finding Shukuna Shinmyoumaru made sure that no one lingered too long on Iris's miraculous recovery, and Bahula suspected that this may have been aided by a certain 'imaginary friend.'
Said Imaginary friend was on the Altar, showing Krishna and Radharani what their new temple would look like.
And by how all of His forms smiled, it was clear that they loved it.
~0~
Gate sighed as he walked among the trash and other refuse that littered the abandoned dump he'd, well... dumped Zero Nightmare in after his malfunction.
"What a mess. First, I lost High Max to a human laser, then Isoc crashed on me and had yet to reboot and now... Zero's back with his still living girlfriend... a resource I never bothered sourcing because I'm a frigging idiot, and X... and more human women wielding powers they shouldn't have.
or... they looked human, but... save for the blond, the dyed one and an anomaly, none could be read by anything, except for visuals.
But as Gate knew, eyes were notoriously imperfect.
Nevertheless, he needed to check on his pet and fix him as quickly as he could before he went berserk again.
Following his PDA, Gate found his Fab-Zero... still talking to Himself.
"So... why did we fall?" He asked, seemingly no one. Nightmare Zero then paused for... a rather long time before he replied. "Huh... alright... show must go on, we fell... we go back up now."
...
"But my Nature is Destruction... I need to Destroy... kill spread virus. Gate's demand... can't break free... good master."
Gate preened at the last one. Why yes, he was a very good master, the best! Now, if only others could understand and accept his genius. Making sure his boots were loud enough, Gate approached his best of creation. "Why yes, Zero, I indeed am, a good master..." he kicked a rock out of the way, just as he did with Alia.
Ah, f-framed reploids were as easy to trick as any flesh woman, if not easier.
"MASTER! Fix me?" his rabid dog asked...
Gate almost zapped him to remind Nightmare that he, Gate, would choose when and how he would be fixed... and because he loved seeing such a powerful reploid cowering and grovelling at his feet, it made Gate feel even more powerful.
God-like, really.
"Oh, I will. Get ready to transwarp, my masterpiece." Using his GPS coordinates, Gate found his lair and, dramatically pointing to its direction, the mad scientist dramatically pointed at it. "To my Lab, minion!"
And, with a flash of light, they were gone. And Gate wasted no time to warp his creation to the medical table, bolting him down on the hard surface, ignoring his screams of agony as he clipped in it.
Oh well, it was just his armour and some fake hair; Gate could always fix them later.
"Now, I'm just going to open you up; try not to scream too much." The scientist said as he took out his pry bars and proceeded to rip his creation open, and, of course, his screams were deafening.
But Gate was God, practically, and he was Nightmare Zero's God; he could do and take what he desired.
And it was good to be in complete control!
'Today, my children, tomorrow, the world and next week? The universe.' Gate cackled like the madman he was.
He didn't notice Shinmyoumaru slipping past him to hide inside a broken-down computer. Her little heart beating so hard she feared it would suddenly stop.
Being so small meant that fear was everywhere; of course, there had once been a Pon'cle village back in Kamui, but all that was left of this stump was a vague memory of the smell of fresh ink and the semi-divine breeze.
All is gone now.
And thus, the last of the Inchling was stuck in a world far too big for her, with only her needle, her wits, magic and the lord's mercy to protect her.
'No... Krishna's already protecting me; I'm his seamstress.' She thought as she slid in a hole behind the big machine. 'But... Nini's just starting, and he's in pain." The tiny princess winced as her friend screeched in pain.
She cursed the other robot; she could pull the same trick she did against Nini... but he was wearing a mask and moving too much.
The last thing she wanted was to get crunched between his human teeth.
There was only one Person who had the right to crunch her dead, and he was Virat-chan, the universal form of the Lord, Time himself.
And thus, she waited for her moment. She would either kill the big metal demon or free Nini, then have him get rid of his false Guru.
Such souls who thought of themselves as gods and who dared exploit everything they laid their eyes on didn't deserve to remain in their current bodies, and those Kings (and recently Queens.) who swore to uphold Dharma could never let such demons cause harm to other living entities.
Shinmyoumaru was such a warrior...
She could only hope her friends arrived before she had to stain her hands... that, or she ran out of water.
'Oh God, Oh Krishna, supreme controller of everything. My life is in your hands. You may save me, you may slay me, whatever you chose for me will be perfect." she prayed as she covered her ears, Unable to tolerate Nini's screams of agony.