"What Should I do Zero? I…love her, but I'm afraid to tell her that. …What will she say?" asked an anxious X to the always-helpful red Maverick Hunter known as Zero. In response to this desperate question, Zero proceeded to put his arm around his buddy in a friendly manner and said, "Then that's what you SHOULD tell her X! If I've learned anything in the past few years, it's that you MUST tell the person you love how you feel about them or it'll torture you until you do. I know it tortured me until I admitted my love for Iris, so go DO IT NOW!"
Iris…that name still caused a painful twinge in his heart. It had been four years since Iris died, and he had just started to overcome his pain. He loved that girl so much, she was the world to him, but then he had to kill her, and that's what made the situation even more painful.
After a few moments, in which both Zero and X seemed deeply immersed in their own thoughts, X jumped up out of his seat and said in a determined tone "Alright! I'll do it! I'll do it right now!" At this, Zero jolted out of his own deep thoughts and said, "That's the spirit!"
Zero watched then as a nervous, yet determined X left the room at a brisk walk towards Alia. Zero was glad to see his friend find true love. He leaned back in his chair, interlaced hands supported his head, and began to think. After only a few moments of random thoughts, an interesting one occurred and he decided to follow it through. Zero got out of his chair and exited the room.
Outside of the Maverick Hunter base, a bloody, beat up, and broken reploid stood, just barely, on her own two feet. A warm and accomplished smile crossed her lips as her eyes moved to the point where the Hunter base first came into view. She had made it. She had finally made it. At long last this nearly destroyed reploid, with her beret bearing the Repliforce symbol, and her torn clothes, had made it back to the place she left so long ago. Iris had returned. The beat up reploid moved into the base and slowly began to move through the halls until she encountered her beloved Zero.
Walking down a hall in the Maverick Hunter base, Zero headed down towards the room that he knew X and Alia would be talking in. Turning a corner, the big smile on his face faded. What he saw confused him, brought back memories both bad and good, and increased his guilt for the pain he caused to this person.
Iris stood before him. Her tattered, bloodstained clothing and scratched up face only caused Zero's feelings of guilt to become stronger. "What have I done…?" he thought to himself "I thought I killed her but I instead left her to suffer in who knows where, for over four years!"
Finally coming back to reality, Zero realized that Iris is probably extremely weak. He ran to her and allows her to collapse into his arms. He was so overcome with emotion at seeing Iris again that he could barely squeak out the words "…Are you ok…? We need to get you to the hospital wing…" Picking her up, he moved quickly into a room containing all sorts of medical paraphernalia. Setting Iris down on the bed, he began looking frantically through the drawers and cabinets of the room. Finally he found what he was looking for and pulled out the wound dressing materials. Pulling up a chair he gently took Iris' arm.
Iris and Zero sat in silence for a long time until Zero finally worked up the courage to ask his love a question that had plagued him since he saw her in the hallway a few minutes ago. "Iris…how…did you survive…? I wouldn't have left you there but…I was attacked and couldn't return…how did you do it Iris…? How…?" He looked up to Iris with a mix of curiosity, worry, and fear.
Wincing from the pain she was experiencing, Iris watched as Zero dressed her wounds. She began "I woke up…about a year ago. When I last saw you, we both thought I was about to die. When I passed out…I thought I did die…but I didn't. I woke up later in a dark room. I couldn't see anything in this room and, for several minutes, I didn't move. I was too afraid to go anywhere. Suddenly…I heard a voice. The voice was so familiar, but I couldn't QUITE place it. It was asking me a question. 'Who are you?' it asked. Suddenly…I realized that I couldn't REMEMBER who I was! I couldn't remember anything! I told this to the voice and it responded 'I thought so.' Then it reminded me of everything that it knew about me. That was enough to remind me of the rest. I thanked the mysterious voice for all the help it had given to me and asked how long I had been out. Three years…for three years I had been passed out and, apparently, on this bed. After a minute to brood on that, these two blue orbs lit up just in front of me. These orbs…looked just like eyes…they actually looked a bit evil. I didn't feel like I could trust them, or the voice that seemed to go with them. 'Now' said the voice 'There is certain information, that you possess, that I do not, and, I believe, as a sort of…payment for my helping you all these years, you should give me this information.' But I just…couldn't bring myself to trust the voice 'No, I can't tell you what you want…I'm sorry…' I said. I was a bit worried, and for a good reason. At my refusal, all the lights in the room turned on and who is standing before me but the evil Sigma himself. His arms lashed out to my neck, I felt them tightening around it. He was…shaking me too…violently shaking me while yelling 'TELL ME!' over and over again. After refusing profusely, he threw me to the side, knocking a table over, and slamming my head into a doorknob. I was surprised I didn't pass out again. When I looked up, he was quickly approaching me, and he looked mad. Sigma picked me up by my collar and pushed me against a wall. He continued to throw me around like this for what felt like several hours until he finally decided to take a break and threw me into a small room. There was no privacy in this room. The only way you could tell there were walls was because of some iron bars. The bars were pretty widespread…but not wide enough to slip through. After a few hours in this room, he pulled me out again and took me to a torture chamber. It was a horrible place. In the middle of the room was a table with metal cuffs near the top and bottom. The table itself was split in the middle. I didn't understand what it was, but it looked ancient. He put me on the table and used the metal cuffs to restrain me. Then he talked to me again. He said 'We will be in this room every day until you tell me what I want to know. Every time you do not answer a question I ask, I will do SOMETHING to torture you. Every day, the torture I inflict will be different and more painful. Now, WHERE is the Hunter base?!' I refused to tell him and he did something to the board I was laying on that caused my body to stretch beyond what it can. It hurt so bad, I could barely see because of the tears of pain in my eyes. This went on for hours, and he was right, it only got more painful. Sometimes, he hit me with a club, other times, a mace to my face and back. I didn't think I would survive. I believe I was in this situation for about six months, all the time trying to think of a way to escape, when I finally thought of how to get out of that horrid place. One day, while on the floor of the torture chamber, trying to cover my wounds, I noticed an old tool known as a file lying on the ground. I picked it up and very discreetly slipped it into my shirt so that Sigma wouldn't see it. When I got back to my barred room that night, I waited until Sigma left, and pulled out the file. It was rough enough on the edges, so I decided to try and file down the bar. I started on the bottom. I had decided to file it on the top and bottom to get out. When I started, I discovered that it would work, but it would take a long time. It took about a month and a half to file the bar in one section to the point where I could push it and it would break. I didn't break it just yet though because I didn't want Sigma to see that I had broken it. Finally, after another month or so of this torture, I got the other side filed down. All I could do now was wait. I had to work fast though because I felt that I couldn't last much longer being tortured every day. After another week or so, I found my time to escape. I waited for Sigma to throw me into the room, as he did every day after he finished his torturing of me. Once he left I very quietly broke the filed down points of the bar and slipped through the opening. I staggered out of the door that Sigma just went through and found myself in a hallway. I could go straight or left. I decided to go left. I got lucky because that led straight to the exit. Once I got out, I was completely disoriented, and started moving in the direction I thought this base was. Well, of course I started going in the wrong direction. After a couple of days of hiding from Sigma's forces during the day and travelling at night, I finally figured out that I was heading in the wrong direction. I had to turn around, so instead, I went around Sigma's base, still hiding constantly from Sigma's forces. It took me so long to get here because of all the pain he had inflicted on me. I could barely move most of the time. But, as you know, I finally got here."
After Iris finished her story, she realized that her head was in Zero's lap. She looked up at Zero and, reaching her hand up to touch his face and with a smile on hers, said, "…but…now that I've seen you again, I can die happy."
Zero grabbed Iris's hand and pressed it against his face squeezing it tightly. "Don't die again! Please don't do this to me! Please no! Iris no!" he said as tears began to spill over onto his face, then his hand, and finally down towards Iris.
Iris, looking weaker by the moment, stared lovingly at Zero and said "Goodbye, I'll always love you."
Zero began to outright cry, not able to accept the fact that his beloved is dying.
It's too late, she is dead.
He couldn't move, his lifeless reploid love lying in his lap and he couldn't move. Zero couldn't bring himself to accept everything just presented to him. He had left her for dead when she wasn't, and now she died in his lap. She was dead. His tears spilled out more and more rapidly.
X and Alia suddenly entered the room. They both had large smiles on their faces, most likely because they had just admitted their love to each other.
X began to approach Zero and thank him for all the help he gave in getting them together. He was approaching Zero from behind, and once he reached the red one, he saw Iris. Taken aback by the pure sight of her, he beckoned Alia. She stood in complete, shocked silence the rest of the conversation, having heard of this Iris person before.
"X…what do humans do when other humans die…?" Zero asked, in a sad tone
X responded slowly and gently, now understanding the full situation, saying "Well, from what I understand, they have something called a 'Funeral'. They put the deceased in a fancy casket, all the humans speak about how great the person who died was…and then they bury the casket about six feet underground…"
"I want that…for Iris. Can we do that X? I…want her to be honored…" asked Zero.
"Of course we can Zero" X responded.
Zero picked up his deceased love and carried her at a slow trot out of the room and towards her final grave.