Ending Notes: At long last, this baby is finally completed. I said I'd finish it one day! WHY DIDN'T YOU ALL BELIEVE ME?
Now, this final chapter will be a bit short because it takes place within the events of the game, and I really see no reason to repeat what most people who have played the games know. I tried the opposite in another story and people said that recounting the game's events disrupted the story; this is to see if that claim is really true.
Also be warned that this last chapter is really angsty and cheeseilicious, an apologia for Iris's existence almost. But hell, the poor girl has gotten so much flack over the years; I couldn't help but strive to get sympathy for her in this. And in the end her story is really a sad one. YOU watch the two persons you love most in the world fight against each other and see how YOU like it, sucker!
Finally, I do admit that I have taken a few liberties with the original storyline, especially with the small (yet important!) role X has in this fanfic. X4's separate storylines are very hard to incorporate, and I felt they could have been handled a little better in the game. I mean, what was Zero doing while you played as X, sitting in the back room with a stogie and a Playboy? And it goes both ways. I find it a bit hard to digest that Zero would be close friends with the Colonel and X never even hear of the guy until the Sky Lagoon incident. Besides, I love X to death—I love his earnestness and kindness, things Zero doesn't have much of—and I wanted to include him in the story.
Much love and thanks for your patience!
CHAPTER SEVEN: THE GLASS SHATTERS
Of the seven deadly sins, Iris thought, the deadliest of them all was pride. If it weren't for pride, people would not blind themselves and act irrationally; and from irrationality sprung all other vices. Of that she was now certain.
If it weren't for pride, this rebellion wouldn't have started at all.
Iris's cheeks colored as she recalled all of the past few weeks' occurrences, all of the anxiety, the hurt, the guilt, and the blood. She could hardly bear it: as Zero's spotter, she was indirectly responsible for the deaths of Repliforce members, members she knew, members she had been friends with! She was not so naïve that she didn't know that war and battle was fraught with horrors and anguish, but never thought it would have been like this.
When it came to the matter of the Colonel, even the sweet, passive Iris could only bend so far. It had embarrassed and shamed her to no end, but she had wept, begged, cried for Zero not to engage her brother in combat (what would he had thought if he had seen her then?). She hounded him to try for a peaceful solution, and she had a little success--she did manage to break up the potentially fatal duel between Zero and the Colonel, after all.
Still, her pleas had gone mostly unheard. A sharp word, a clench of the fist, and Zero went off, quick smart, to destroy old friends and acquaintances. She humiliated herself in the eyes of her family in vain for him, practically falling down on her knees and groveling before him. She often thought, with as much bitterness as she knew she possessed, why she even bothered to press her case at all. But she would not stop trying, even in the face of futility.
It was X who finally provided comfort and understanding. When the eighth and last Repliforce stronghold fell, the Maverick Hunter upper echelons formulated a plan for a strike on the Air Base, the Repliforce's seemingly last stand; however, there were rumors of a final base in outer space, and the objective was to effectively cripple the Repliforce before that rumor was confirmed. No gambles were to be made. Iris had watched the throngs of orderlies, soldiers, and other battle personnel scurrying around and preparing for the alert, looking at them all with a dazed eye as she stood with her back pressed firmly against the wall. She felt very small, very weary, and very sad at that moment, but she could not bring herself to tear her eyes away. And then out of nowhere X suddenly came towards her and stood in front of her; his demeanor kind and pleasant. Gently ushering her out of the busy hallway to her temporary quarters, he did not speak much until the door had shut behind them. He asked about her, how she was holding up, and the conversation inevitably turned towards the mission at hand--in particular, the fates of the Colonel, Spiral, and other ranking officers of the Repliforce that had not been killed.
"Please, X," she said softly, clasping his hands in hers, "don't kill them if you meet them! They don't deserve to die."
"Nobody does," the blue reploid sighed, not drawing away.
"I'm sure that they'll listen to reason. I know that Spiral doesn't have his whole heart in this rebellion. He'll surrender peacefully. My brother"--here her eyes lowered and she sucked on her bottom lip-- "may be more of a problem. But if you must fight him, knock him out, don't destroy him."
"I'll try my best."
"And if you see Zero--"
X snorted, and a hard look came into his eyes. "Zero never listens to me. He actually obeys you more. I can't guarantee that he'll spare the Colonel if it comes to a duel."
"No! He can't! They were friends! Friends don't kill each other! They just don't!" She jerked back and slapped feebly at X's chest, panic overtaking her in such a frenzy that she nearly throttled him. "Please don't let my brother die!"
X groaned and pulled her into a tight embrace--partially to immobilize her arms so that she would stop beating him. "Iris, you know that I'll do everything in my power to prevent the Colonel's death. But I know that if push comes to shove, Zero won't hesitate to eliminate him if he's beyond recall. Still, I promise that if I come across Colonel first, I won't kill him if I can avoid it. I promise."
"Thank you," she said in a shaking voice, sniffling and wiping at her eyes. "At least you're not trying to kill your best friend. Doesn't he even care? He's not even sorry!" Her voice grew more and bitterer with every word, and her shoulders hunched over. "Not sorry at all! They're both heartless!"
It was X who gave her what scanty comfort could be offered. "Oh, they're sorry," he said softly. "They are very sorry. No decent person wants these things to happen, Iris. But they do happen, and saying 'sorry' out loud doesn't change anything. Still, they do care, Iris. And, for what it's worth, so do I."
A wan smile flitted across her mouth, and she hugged him again. "Thank you. You're the best friend, X."
"Try telling Zero that." A klaxon blared. "I have to go now. I'll remember my promise." He started to walk away, but then turned and gave her one last bit of comfort, lie though it was.
"Everything's going to be all right."
X left her then--everybody had left her now, Iris felt—and she rushed over to her bedside, tore open her violin case, and crushed it under her heavy foot. She couldn't even shed a tear.
"I was never any good at it anyway!"
*************
Slipping into the HQ's airbike garage had proved an easy matter: all but the most essential personnel were on full alert, their attentions diverted elsewhere, and such a minor place was definitely not at the top of the high priority list. Only one reploid watched over the garage, and Iris quickly managed to convince him to loan her out a bike, protesting that as a spotter for the Hunters she needed to check on the damage outside and report it. It was probably more her innocuous air and sweet face than her actual argument that got the job done, but beggars couldn't be choosers. All that mattered to her was that she was on her way to the airbase. She prayed to everything she could think of—to all gods that the humans had ever made up, to Chance, to Fate, to whatever entity who was in charge of these things—that she might arrive in time to stop Zero and her brother, to make final peace. She could not bear it otherwise. Living without either of them terrified her. They both meant life. Speed! Speed was of the essence!
When she arrived at the broken front gates of the airbase, Iris shrieked her airbike to a dead halt, the scene swimming in a smoky haze before her wavering vision. Her breathing ragged--why couldn't she stop gasping, and why did her heart pump so painfully erratically?--she dismounted on quavering knees. Faint roars sounded from the straggling remnants of the Repliforce fleet that had yet to leave for space, buzzing in her head at a maddening frequency, screaming in every crevasse of her skull.
"Brother? Brother? Brother!!"
She ran, calling, her voice small and shrill and frantic. Soon she was screaming the Colonel's name, screaming to keep from sobbing. She could not bring herself to think of Zero; a horrible feeling in her deepest parts told her that her brother was in much more peril than she could ever imagine.
Dull pieces of scrap hitherto unnoticed caught Iris's attention when they came into contact with her feet, sending her splaying over very ungracefully onto her face. Rubbing at her offended forehead, she looked down at the parts: wires, pieces of jagged metal, decals.
The hilt of a saber.
Blue eyes closed tight like a baby's. She didn't want to look, to see, to even think about what she knew to be the truth. It could not be! How could it be? It was not right . . .
Yet she looked again, slowly raising herself to her knees, neck swiveling almost apathetically around; her eyes found new pieces of scrap, all painted a familiar scheme of white, red, and black. A hand here, a piece of his leg there. No face. Iris reached out and, absently at first, began to pick up the shards. Then she grew more and more frantic, silent tears wetting her ashen cheeks. The smaller pieces sifted through her weak fingers, and she clutched at them in vain. There were simply too many parts to gather.
As Iris cradled the shattered limbs of her brother close, something in her mind snapped. She began to scream, louder and louder, screamed until her voice was raw.
And, for the very first time in her life, she began to have truly violent thoughts.
Oh, yes, sometimes, when her creator had been alive, her thoughts had had a bitter tinge, resentful even, but Dr. Thorne was her creator. You didn't hate your creator or your family; they were the only ones you could ever have. But when someone close to you, to whom you had given nothing but love, respect, and obedience--when a person like that came along and murdered your kin, then you could hate him.
Iris shook violently as a wave of nauseous loathing crashed into her gut. Zero had done this, Zero had killed her brother, her brother had undoubtedly put up resistance when Zero came, but Zero never had to destroy her brother, no, he didn't, but he did because he was cruel and vicious and a monster.
She hated him. She, sweet little Iris, who would have never hurt a fly! She wanted to hurt him, cut his throat, and spill his blood!
A small strain of music sounded, originating from the throbbing vein underneath her ear, humming straight into her brain. Iris stopped her screaming, face pale and quiet, pupils dilating and constricting in time with the beat as it grew louder and louder. The music revealed itself as a series of ones and zeros, a binary code, and she translated the code as saying: Go…kill…avenge…honor is at the stake here…fight…the only way!
"Stop it," she whispered. She stood up, the world blurring around her as if she were whirling around on a top, the musical numbers piercing into every fiber of her being, commanding her forward. Tears spangled her cheeks. If she killed someone, if she avenged her brother's death, then the pain and the sounds would stop, oh God she wanted them to stop! She wanted to feel nothing anymore.
In the distance she saw the last convoys going towards the single remaining shuttle. Using a speed that she had heretofore never realized she possessed, Iris bolted forth and found herself running along the convoy, a TRAM-like thing that floated slightly over her head, no glass in the windows and no door. She gripped at the empty door-space, fingers encasing the space between the floor and the hull.
"Please! Please take me with you!"
"Miss, what the hell are you doing!?" a soldier yelled, yanking up her up by her arm. A sea of disciplined, hard stares greeted her arrival.
"Take me with you," she said in a monotone, glazed eyes burning. The soldier who had pulled her up made a sound of protest, but one of the passengers in the back spoke.
"Come on, what harm could it do? Don't you know who this is? This is the Colonel's sister. She's a part of this as any. Let her come."
Iris nodded her thanks, and then she sat down, letting herself be taken to the ship, the source codes still humming in her brain.
*************
Iris did not speak to any of the soldiers while they journeyed to the Repliforce's bastion, the Final Weapon, no matter how kindly they regarded her. She didn't want to be looked at. That which was not the source code singing through her veins meant nothing.
But then something a solider was saying gave her pause and managed to grab her black attention. "Now, when we arrive, we all need to each take one Mech crystal and get inside a machine as quickly as possible. They'll probably need all the defense they can get, with both X and Zero up there. Hook up to your links and go where you're told on the double."
"I'll take one too," she spoke up.
The speaker flinched his head back a bit, blinking his eyes. "You? But ma'am, you hardly look like a combat unit…"
"I will manage. I will have one, sir. I know how to pilot a Mech."
Conversation effectively ended, the soldier, a bit frightened of her blank face and eyes, gave her a crystal without hesitation once they landed at the Final Weapon. It was a multifaceted power core, deep purple and shivering with great destructive capacity. She thought of all the pain such power could inflict, such justice it could dispense; the two had always gone together, fitting perfect as the yin and the yang. For one sweet moment she would truly forget about everything else and do what the source code screamed at her to do, and after that—nothingness, she supposed. It was irrelevant. Vengeance lay in the present moment.
The other soldiers went their own ways, leaving Iris alone to walk stiffly through the corridors unheeded. Eventually she arrived at a room located not too far from the General's main chambers; with a few select sharp words, identification that she was indeed the late Colonel's sister, and a display of the powerful weapon she carried, the few guards within soon dispersed. She then stood at rigid attention in the center of the room, for there was nothing to do but wait until Zero arrived.
At long last, a movement flashed in front of her eyes, snapping her out of the haze induced by the heady pumping in her veins. She recognized the silhouette in the doorway, and she let out a hissing breath through her bared teeth, curling her fingers greedily around the power crystal as if she were strangling it. She had nothing to say to him, so she remained silent, staring at him with hate-watered eyes. Zero stepped forward, his hand outstretched. His face was tight and drawn.
"Iris—"
"So, you fought with my brother. I asked you not to."
"I'm so sorry, Iris, but there was no other way. You know that I would have never harmed him if I could avoid it."
"I don't believe a word of that. But it doesn't matter what's true and what's not. Nothing matters anymore. It's all over--"
"Iris, listen to me! Please. I'm very sorry—"
She lifted up her face to speak to him at last, her blackened irises clouded and glaring, seeming to suck up all her color into their inky-blue depths. Her voice sounded distant and stilted even in her own ears, and even as she spat at him a part of her mind cried out.
"You dare to apologize to me? After what you did, you even dare? To Hell with you and your mercy and your 'sorry'! Everybody has said that to me, and it never helps! I'm tired of that word! My brother is dead, and you killed him! SORRY won't undo what you did." The power crystal shimmered and burst into life in her palm, searing the skin, but she felt no pain but instead a sick delight and the thrill of impending battle. Through the glee a soft strain of sorrow made its way through, and for a moment she felt tender towards him—for a moment she felt like her old self, when she was happy and new and carefree and the world, despite its ugliness, had been a nice place.
"Good bye, Zero."
And with that, the crystal floated out of her hand and into the air, encasing her body in dreadful mechanized armor, and she leapt at him.
*************
The ceiling shimmered in and out of focus in Iris's vision, as if a silver mist was creeping over her eyes, the same kind of mist that she used to see on a summer morning just as the sun touched the grass's dew. Everything was quiet, a vacuum. She couldn't even hear the blood pulse in her ears. The only thing she felt was the burning pain deep within her; she had suffered much external scuffing and some burns, essentially superficial, but her insides were shredded, bleeding from within. Iris felt gutted. Her internal computer assessed the damage--her synthetic organs were failing at a rapid rate, and her CPU had been irreparably damaged. She was dying. Each breath became harder and longer to draw, and the silver mists coalesced into a thicker shroud, harder to blink away.
I am dying, she thought to herself. Not much time left. Her eyes shut tightly as the pain began to register more clearly, stifling her cries. She did not want to die, but it hurt so badly.
She was afraid to die, Iris suddenly realized.
Blood filled her mouth, and she daintily turned her head to the side and let it drip onto the cracked and burnt floor. Somewhere she heard a voice calling her name, but she continued to look at the blackish pool next to her head. The blood was not natural; was it real, though? The question echoed in her increasingly dizzy mind, faint but nagging like an insect bite. A man had made her, but men did not know everything even though they tried to use their science to say otherwise. Did they know what they were creating? Iris wouldn't have minded if the answer was no. But she had no idea; that was the most terrifying thing about death at all, for she was concerned about a soul that may not even have existed.
"Iris! IRIS!"
With an effort she managed to turn her eyes to the voice. She struggled to smile as she watched Zero kneel down beside her, cradling the back of her head in his hand, his face strained and eyes filled with a great anguish. Is he hurting for me? The pain made her almost delirious, but she had to speak.
"Zero," she said, her voice heavy and dreamy, "stay away from the Repliforce--and let's live in a world where only reploids exist…"
Why am I saying this? She did not know, but the words were mixed and cloudy to her, a dream mixed within a dream. Vestiges of Colonel's programming still remained in her subconscious, she supposed, but she was too weary and in too much pain to think further on it. Thinking was coming harder and harder. All she saw were images, images of her brother and her friends--reploids all.
"Iris, there is no such place," Zero said, jaw set to keep his teeth from chattering. "It's just a fantasy."
A wave of pain broke the film of pictures over her eyes and Iris managed to agree with him, knowing the pragmatism of his words. "Yes, I know. But deep down I wanted to believe it." The film closed over and she thought of the times her creator had scolded her like a child, how the humans in both Repliforce and Maverick Hunter HQs spoke slowly to her, never allowed their hands to touch hers when they gave her papers, sliding them across the counter or table surface instead. She had never said a word or even noticed anything wrong with such actions then, but deep down she had always hated it. She hated being called a 'Roid, hated having to lose her old house.
But there had been good times too. Dr. Thorne's pleased smile when he first looked down on her held the bitter memories at bay. He had been kind to her at first and had still been very decent after she fell from his graces. The quiet family sitting in the living room, exchanging soft glances and secret smiles, the sound of a violin in the background, Zero's dashing green eyes that looked at her with a softness reserved only for her.
"I only wanted to live in peace," she gasped. "With you." She focused back on his face and reached a hand up to touch him; he grasped it with his own.
"I'm sorry for all of this," Iris whispered. "I know I didn't know you for very long, but I love you the same."
A catch sounded in Zero's breath before he spoke: "Don't leave. Hang in there. I'll get you medical attention. I don't want to lose you." His breath felt very close and warm across her face.
"I guess it doesn't really matter now." She suddenly felt deeply ashamed for all the grief that she had caused to the people most important to her. She had made her creator disappointed; she had failed her brother; she had tried to destroy Zero. She thought of how it could have been different, imagining different reactions and scenarios, anything to take away the shame. She did not want to acknowledge what she did. Even without her brother, there had been Zero; now both of them were lost. But she could not live without her brother.
Maybe death wouldn't be so bad after all; at least there wouldn't be any more shame and regret in nothingness, if nothingness was what was there for a living machine like herself.
One last thing to do first. Summoning up all her dying strength, she relayed one last command to her CPU. She felt a tiny white-hot twinge in her mid back as her main chip started to melt and fuse. Nothing would salvage it. If her brother could not be revived, then she would not either.
A deep, heavy sigh escaped from her failing lungs and the tips of her fingers squeezed Zero's hand. She gave a last little shy smile. Her pulse was faint but it roared in her ears now. The silvery mists swarmed upon her, numbing all the pain and thought. Green eyes flashed once and disappeared. And the last thing she knew was hearing her brother's voice speak to her. She had heard him reading an old book aloud, something by an author from ancient Rome or thereabouts, and he had said: There is nothing so noble or beautiful in life than immeasurable courage.
Iris had not been brave in her life; in her death she was much more fortunate.
