ZERO

Chapter 2

Fan Fiction by Senya

twilight_rhapsody@hotmail.com

Disclaimer: All characters copyright by CAPCOM, I did not create them, nor do I own them. The exception is May, whom I did create.

The crimson hunter made his way through the bustling hallways of the Maverick Hunter's Head Quarters only half there, his mind, artificial or not, was lost in thoughts. He had just severed his best friend's arm. Oh, X would be alright, they were Reploids, and it had been a clean cut, no trouble to re-attach it, once Lifesaver got a hold of one of Dr. Light's ever elusive holograms. Yet still . . . he did not make mistakes.

In a battle against the swarms of renegade robots they so often faced to protect humanity and the unaffected Reploids Zero did find that he lost himself. There was the first initial blows and slashes, leaps and dodges and then a surge over took him and the rest was a hazy, blind fury. But he had never attacked one of his team mates so viciously before. He never wanted to hurt X. Yet he had.

Zero shook his head, the long golden hair swung softly from side to side as he entered his quarters. Nothing there but his resting capsule. Nothing at all. Iris had told him once that it resembled a prison cell. So what was wrong with that? He was a robot, and a warrior, what else did he need?

Of course he instantly regretted remembering Iris. And once he started it was impossible to stop. Her soft brown hair, her gentle, innocent eyes. Her, not even a battle-reploid making him, Zero, feel such emotions . . .

Since the day he had saved her during a mob riot in a human city he had felt different around her than he did around any one else, even X. . . She interested him more and more. But they were reploids, they were artificial, did they know love?

"I love you, Zero." That was what she had said to him.

Had he said that to her?

No.

Guilt, guilt.

Guilt tugging at his mind, vile regrets. Oh, he could not blame her for hating him, in the end, he destroyed her brother, the Colonel. Had he not been friends with the Colonel so shortly before that? The Colonel was not mad, he only had a--a different opinion--he had his values astray, that was all. Was it right to kill him? Kill. Kill. Kill.

"Be quiet!" Zero yelled into his own mind. He abhorred the torment, the pain inside of his mind, the tugging. He was sorry, oh he was sorry but it never stopped, the painful thing . . . emotion . . . never went away. What other choice had he had? He asked himself again and again. There was no other choice, no other option, he had to kill the Colonel to save everyone, it was his job as a Maverick Hunter, his duty--

And Iris, beautiful Iris, they had only grown closer and closer until the Colonel died--by Zero's own hand--Iris had been so close to her brother. She had wanted revenge. He had killed her. With his own hands. Kill. Kill. Kill.

"No!" Zero shouted, this time he actually shouted it aloud, into the darkness of his room. "It wasn't like that--it wasn't--" He fell to his knees in the darkness, clutching his head, his mind, why did his mind delight in replaying these sick images. Iris in his arms. Iris dying. Dying. Killed. Murdered. MURDERED! Screamed his mind back at him.

"NO!!" Zero screamed, but it was yes, and there was no changing it. They were both dead, by his hand, he was a killer. Just like before only now he knew the difference between right and wrong, now he had had the choice of what to do, now he felt the guilt. The guilt.

Was there no end?

Yes. He stood up, suddenly a spark in his mind. There could be a remedy, there had to be. He swept quickly out of his quarters, down the hallway again. Alia passed him and greeted him cheerfully, he brushed by, not seeing her.

He burst into Lifesaver's office and stood directly before him. "Erase my memories."

Silence. Lifesaver was to stunned to reply at first, he had just a moment before been working very meticulously through a mountain of paperwork and suddenly, out of nowhere this. "Erase my memories." The hunter repeated.

" . . . Zero." Lifesaver began, regaining his composure. "What in the world has gotten into you?"

"Don't make me repeat myself again, Reploid." Zero narrowed his emerald eyes into an icy glare.

"But why?"

"My reason is my own. Now do it. I know you can." He said coldly.

"No, no I absolutely can not do that, I'm sorry Zero that's just the way it is." Lifesaver turned back to his paperwork, but Zero's fists came down on the desk, shattering it into to halves. The white reploid leapt back in surprise.

"Don't make me ask you . . . again." Zero said in a voice very much like a growl, a tone Lifesaver had never heard before.

As fate would have it X walked into the office at that moment, his Buster arm re-attached and looking as good as new. The blue reploid's eyes widened in alarm as he took in the sight. "Zero what are you doing?" He cried, and ran quickly between the two of them. "Knock it off!"

Something that was alien and had been in Zero's eyes as he intimidated Lifesaver faded into their normal placid shade. "X . . ."

Lifesaver cleared his throat uneasily and bent to retrieve the pieces of his desktop from the floor, X bent to help him and at last when they had cleaned up the office to some satisfaction both sets of eyes turned back to Zero. "X," It was Lifesaver who spoke. "Zero wants me to erase his memories. I just can not do that."

"Your memories?! Zero why? Such a thing!" X exclaimed.

Zero looked away, it was then that X noticed his friend's hands were clenched tightly into fists. "It isn't so much . . ."

"I would have to disagree, Zero." Lifesaver told him. "I know you have a lot of bad memories but every life has some tragedy in it, those negative memories together with the positive are what make us who we are. If I were to delete your memories you would not even be Zero any longer, you would be a completely different person. Are past experiences shape us and give us our individual identities so that we are more than just robots. Without your memories you could . . ." He trailed off and fell silent. Zero's eyes had shadowed over, without a word he turned and left the room, his long hair swishing behind him.

X glanced at Lifesaver and then quickly followed him. "Zero what is it? What's wrong?" There was deep concern on his face.

Zero did not reply, he continued walking, staring straight ahead as though not even aware of his friend's presence.

"Zero!" X tried again, half-running to keep up with Zero's quickly-paced strides.

". . . Leave me alone, X."

"But Zero--"

"It is not your concern!" The Maverick Hunter snapped at X harshly, then continued on, leaving X stopped in his tracks.

Alone, again, in his dark room Zero moved towards the capsule. But no, there was no rest there, either, not with his dreams. And now he had just yelled at X, his closest friend, his only real friend, the only one that didn't think he was a filthy murderer just waiting to turn Maverick.

He sighed, even though he didn't breathe, and leaned against the outside of the capsule instead, resting his head against it he closed his eyes. Damn it, damn it all. And that worthless Lifesaver-- he hated his memories.

Iris laughing. Iris smiling at him, winking. And then always, always, Iris lying there in his own arms, battered, dying. . . Again and again and again, always, always!

He did not even notice when his door slid open and shut softly again and the blue reploid approached him with concern. But he did feel the hand on his shoulder and the familiar warmth in the touch. He opened his eyes to a friendly face, that was something, at least.

There was silence for a long time as the two hunters gazed at each other. Zero was the one to break it, "I'm sorry I snapped at you, X."

"It's alright." X said softly. "But Zero please, please, tell me what's wrong! I'm your friend and I want to help you but I can't if you don't tell me anything! Please! Why did you want Lifesaver to erase your memories?"

". . . I have to many memories I don't want." The other replied.

"Like what? Meeting me?" It was supposed to be a joke, but it didn't sound that way when he voiced it.

"Of course not!" Zero said, and there was real pain in his voice. "Iris, the Colonel, it was bad enough learning that I was a Maverick and all those that I must have killed then but--but Iris--"

"Zero . . ." He was usually so composed, X thought, heck, Zero was always so composed, so cool and collected but not now. He had nothing to say though, what could be said to that? He had no choice? He'd heard that, those words were of no help. No words could be. . .

"And--" Zero continued suddenly, breaking X's thoughts, "There's something else, X. There's something else, I don't know, there might be something wrong with me . . ."

"W--What?" X asked, startled.

"I've been having dreams, not only the dream where I'm in the laboratory with that crazy scientist, not only that--"

"Then what?" X asked, "What could be bothering you more than that?"

Zero had to smile at that, because it was true the dream that was bothering him seemed far less disturbing. "It's a dream . . . where I'm standing in a house I've never been in before, a human house. . ." And Zero told X all about his recent dreams of the unknown human female and the human house.

Only to X, he would only tell this dream to X.

His friend listened closely until he had finished and then shook his head as though in disbelief. "Man your other dreams were freaky enough--and just the fact that you were dreaming at all--but this, and your sure it's no one you know?"

"Positive." Zero nodded.

"I don't know . . . maybe we should tell Lifesaver, or Signas he'd--"

"No." Zero said sternly. "No one needs to know about it. I don't know . . . what this means, X."

"Oh . . . okay." There was a long silence, and then X lifted his head at a sudden thought, "What about if we find out if this human is real? We could find out who she is and maybe that would help, somehow?"

". . . X," Zero closed his eyes, "I don't even know what her name is, or if she is real!" But there was something to what X had said, and suddenly he felt the urge, the need to know who this woman was who haunted his dreams with even more regularity then the shadowed scientist and the bloody hands. "But you are right . . . I want to know who she is. . . I want to know everything about her!"

Author's Notes: Who is this mysterious human? Read the next chapter to find out!!