X: (looking around) So This is the second part… nice, spiffy…
Mega-X: Yeah, and you get to run your mouth.
X: Run my mouth, eh? You seem to do that all chapter.
Mega-X: Quiet you.
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The next day nothing special happened. He gathered some reports from the base and wondered about the town. Sometime, in the night, he stumbled upon Dart. He was laughing it up with some human girls and just being a big flirt. Sighing X moved over and excused Dart from their presence.
" So, taking lessons from Zero, eh?"
" Lessons? I taught Zero everything he knows." Dart exclaimed as they returned to the base. That day they had prepared once again to leave. Such short visits bored them but they endured. Though it felt ridiculous to be there for no other reason than appearance they all wore a smile.
At one point in the night Dart found X within the largest common room looking out the huge windows. It was dark but settling to see his commander in what was a vulnerable stage. Sometimes the orange hunter wandered what really went through X's mind. What was Zero to X? There was no doubt in his mind that Zero and X had a fantastic friendship. Yet, a part of him wanted greatly to know what was beyond their playful antics. What had caused Zero and X to become so close? Closer than he had seen just about anyone on the base. With these thoughts his mind turned to his commander, Deena. He had known Deena for a long time. He respected her though she was a tad abusive. He realized that her harsh and bitter seeming nature greatly improved his skills as a hunter even if he did wish she would find more settling tactics.
" Um… X?" Dart started. He was a little uneasy and didn't originally want to disturb X's peace.
" Yes, Dart." X didn't even turn his head from the sky.
" I was just kinda wondering…" He started meekly sitting a seat away on the couch, "What's it like to be friends with Zero? I mean, what is Zero like?"
X chuckled. This had not been the first time he had been asked this question. Yet, over time his annoyance turned to a deep understanding. For everyone else Zero was a near god. A strong hunter but very mysterious in his own way. Zero almost never got close to anyone so everyone else was on the outside without even a clear glass window to look through. So finally X caved to the people and mentally drew up a speech.
" Well…" X started turning his body to face Dart. " Zero, well, for starters, he's really good in bed."
" X!"
" OK, OK, getting serious. Zero has a very big heart, and yet it can be very small. You know what I'm saying. He has all the love and forgiveness in the world for his friends and absolutely none for his enemies. Thank Allah I'm his friend. Or this would really suck. It makes him come off cold because he doesn't like to open up to people much. He likes to put on a show. Not that his humor is fake or anything, but he'd rather not show his out-of-battle serious side. It can get complicated. Don't get me wrong, he's not just some virtuous angel. He's got some annoyances that'll drive you up the wall. Like snoring and being a pain in the ass and… He chews with his mouth open but only with me. It's like. 'oh, it's X. I don't have to pay attention now!' Arg. Drives me nuts, and a couple of other things. But I don't want him to kill me, you know?"
" So what about him and Deena?"
" Well, she's a daughter to u—him so they're very close."
" Daughter? They both have enough sexual jokes about each other to say otherwise…"
" Yeah, I know what you're talking about. That's just them being sick with each other. I mean, you've seen how he and I act."
" That's true. If you don't mind my asking, what's the story behind you and Zero and Deena?"
¤ ¤ X's POV ¤ ¤
I explained what happened back in the past. I explained a lot to Dart. He seemed absolutely fascinated with the entire ordeal. As many of our time know, there's a lot of stress about humans and reploids. Even now the issue of the relationships between reploids and humans is a delicate subject. Humans fear for their identity and reploids fear being used. Both races fear one another because they cannot understand, and because they are alike and yet not. Still, it's sad how hard it is for two races so similar, in fact one spawned by the other, to get along in true harmony. Be that as it may, the story between Zero, Deena and myself is a sad one.
A very long time ago, or at least a long time ago for humans, Zero and I were fighting another bloody battle. This time Sigma had reeked havoc in China. It was somewhere near Mongolia and everything was in complete shambles. The war between Sigma's forces and the Chinese Hunter Base had left their defenses stretched. By the time Zero and I got there we chanced upon a mass slaughter.
" By the gods! I knew humans were messy to kill but I have never seen…" I couldn't complete the sentence. It was just too horrid. My boots where stained, I had this queasy feeling the stench would haunt me forever, and as usual Zero looked bravely on protecting his unit with his strength. He shuffled his feet through the bodies and rounded a corner to the village where the humans must have come from. He walked before our units surveying the carnage. I trailed behind wading through the heaps of bodies. A part of me just did not want to face this. I think deep down inside, thinking of it now, that I felt I had failed. I fought with my unit and my comrades to stop this carnage and yet when I looked around it seemed our efforts were in vain.
I could hear Zero calling to and commanding his unit. We both ordered our units to find if any of the humans were alive. Every unit member reported to us in a negative. Nonetheless at some point, while I was sitting on a large fallen plank watching the cleanup crew, a hunter came to me reporting that they had found someone alive. I was very relieved, more so than anyone else. At one point a small child was brought before me. She was scarred and her clothes were tattered but she was obviously a fighter. She had her small hands wrapped around an old sword. She was crying endlessly but she finally calmed down a bit. It was obvious to me that she didn't trust anyone around her, and I tried to talk to her. As you can probably guess that child was Deena. As you can see she hasn't changed a bit. Still a little fighter and not about to give up anything to anyone. She stayed by my side and didn't speak. Not until Zero showed up did our situation change. We had confirmed that there were no enemies in sight or any more living.
" Um, Zero?" I said pointing to little Deena in question. I wasn't quite sure what to do with her.
" I have no clue, X. We've been given orders to return to the base immediately." He said moving and looking around as our units formed around us. " We may he to take her with us."
" But Zero, the humans, they'll take care of her won't they?" I said standing up.
" Do YOU see any humans alive around u?." He said with bitter sarcasm and I shunk a little back. Zero had a knack for being condescending at times. Thankfully he had cut down on it. After a few punches and buster shots in his direction he learned. He was completely right though. This village was pretty remote and it didn't really surprise us that it had been obliterated so completely. This location made it hard for the Hunter Base of China to respond too.
So we took her back to the World Hunter Base, which is where we are stationed, so named because it's the first, biggest, and most well respected. It was very interesting since she was the only child to ever live in the Hunter Base. A lot of reploids were a little offset by her presence, but for the most part we all tried to make things comfortable for her. We also had a problem with the language barrier because no one else spoke her tongue of Chinese, however, we were lucky because we did have a few Chinese hunters who could communicate with her through calligraphy, but even that didn't get us far. Then there was her name, none on the base used it, and to this day I regret taking it away from her. I hope Deena remembers her original given name because I do. I remember watching her draw it over and over again with her small brush kit. I guess her pride made her want to remember the only other legacy from her origins. But I recall having a talk with Zero about her name. We both decided that Deena Rutel was a good name, though it wasn't Chinese. In fact, it sounded nothing like her original name, but through some sort of unanimous agreement we all landed on that name. In fact, we're not sure how it worked out. Her skin color and her features say that she was a mix of two different bloods.
" Tuo-nu." I use to call to her. In fact, I still call her that from time to time. She gives me this confused look. I have a feeling her heart remembers that sound but it has been so long that she has forgotten just why she responds to it. Ran Tuo-nu was her given name and I recall correctly that she was very proud. Yet, I think the pressures of the people round her made her conform and except her new name.
The base continued on even with this new addition to the fray. The only good thing is that Dr. Cain was still with us supporting the base with his wisdom. This is, of course, before he left us for retirement. He used to give us advice and tips on how to take care of her. He also warned me of a certain female cycle that would come around as she got older. Zero and I heeded these warning though, to our anger, we later didn't need to worry about them at all.
Deena stayed with Zero and I within our own quarters and I think that it was her that brought Zero and I a little closer. I feel that probably our newly formed parental fondness of her made us fonder of one another. Some people wouldn't think that was possible but it was. So, she stayed with us and became apart of the base family. For the first few months, and some times afterwards, she would sleep with either Zero or me. She had frequent nightmares about what had happened back in her hometown and she would often times call out for her parents, rejecting us, of course.
Zero would tell you, if you asked, all about the crazy antics he and her would pull off together. Most of them were set into place to drive me crazy cause I know I'm a worrywart and so did Zero. But what is more important is that I think slowly Deena really did see us as her parents and when she became sad or had nightmares she would come to us. I think deep down she wanted very badly for us to be her parents. In accordance, I tried my best to fulfill a parenting role. Dr. Cain used to tease me endlessly because I really didn't understand all the complexities of the human take on parental roles. I couldn't really be defined as a mother or a father, and since Zero was the other parent it left us at a loss of what to be called. In the end we settled for being referred to by our given names.
By the time that she was about eight years of age she had finally really started to pick up English. She devoured books and spent endless amounts of time within the Hunter Base library. We tried our best to help her and I think we both only achieved in teaching her our own native tongues, which in some cases was good and in others it was bad because she would get confused. She would make a complete statement but it would have a mix of our three languages. For the longest time there were several words she only knew in Russian or in Korean. It took Deena awhile to flush out our two languages, which have a distinct difference in sound.
By the time Deena was ten things started to take a turn for the worst. It had always been a whisper among outsiders that it was odd for a human girl to be living at the base. Regardless Deena faithfully attended school outside the base and kept up a normal friendship between other humans. The good thing about Capcom City is that people are actualy generally excepting of relationships between reploids and humans so many of the pro-interracial activists kept her stay at the base hush-hush. However, we all knew that word would probably leak out and disturb the other some-odd percentage of people. And just like an omen Deena started to question Zero and me.
" Why is it odd that only I have reploid parents?" She would ask us out of the blue. Zero would look to me raising an eyebrow before bending down and calmly explaining that it was circumstantial that she had been adopted by us. But that wasn't the end.
Weeks after that we had received a notice of sorts from concerned adoption agencies that were outside of Capcom City. The government was now getting involved, and it was not as if she was not a registered citizen either. She was considered a resident citizen of Capcom with full rights. It was just overlooked purposefully by the adoption agency that we were reploids. Actualy I recall that lady quite well. She was the head of the department and her name was Elizabeth.
¤ ¤ Elizibeth's Office ¤ ¤
" You do realize, X, that adopting this child is gunna cause some controversy?" I recall her saying as she looked through the blinds of her office window. " I have been advised by those around me to and not to allow you and Zero to keep her."
" I understand but I know we can raise her well. We have all sorts of support."
" It's not just that, X, it's the fact that she's a human and you're a reploid. That's the problem. It has nothing to do with anything else."
" Yes, I know this... but, but I don't see how that says we're unqualified to take care of her."
" I know, I know," She shook her head in pain. She must have had a hard time the past couple of days after we asked to keep Deena with us. " But this has nothing to do with me. I think it's fine. I want you to keep her. It's obvious both of you love her, but that doesn't change the hearts of the people. Even reploids would look down upon you taking care of a human child."
" Yes, many within the hunter base are not very supportive of her being there. This is true, but many more are very happy that she's with us, and several people have offered to assist us with any information we may need."
" Well X, I can't say that this won't affect someone. One day someone's gunna find out that you're keeping a human child on the base. And trust me, they will disguise their disliking of your reploid parenthood with saying that living on the base will hurt her in some way or another."
¤ ¤ X's POV ¤ ¤
And she was right, completely and utterly right. To a fault she was right.
It was a horrible day when they finally took Deena away from us. It had taken two years for the courts to decide that the hunter base and we were unfit to take care of a human child. The entire court debate was so hot and hate-stained that we ended up seeing several different judges. People argued that we couldn't have a court session within Capcom city because the people would be bias on our side. I could sympathize with that but the people outside Capcom were bias against our side so it ended up fifty-fifty. The judge decided to hold the court session with people from outside and within the city.
As a hunter, I'm very use to being seen as a killer and savior but in the courts it was the first time I had ever felt that there was something wrong with me. The way the people accused me of not being adequate truly did offend me. They were pointing the finger at us and saying things that we had never fathomed in our lives. We knew that raising Deena was something new, we knew it was going to be a learning experience, and we knew that it wasn't going to be easy. Yet, even with this knowledge Zero and I promised we'd be there and figure it out together. We were best friends and we'd face this challenge together.
We had been told several things.
" They don't know what they're doing!"
Sure we do, we're taking care of a human child. She needs the basics like any other living creature.
" How will she lead a normal life?"
No one leads a normal life these days. But as normal as one can, she is leading a normal life. She has human and reploid friends, she attends school, and most of all she has people that love her.
" What about when she gets older and hits the stage of puberty?"
Then, like any child raised by a father, she will be informed of what is going on with her body. Zero and I, unbeknownst to most, didn't sit idly by and just watch her grow. We knew we had to read up on children, especially since she was female.
"What about a mother? Every child needs her mother."
And to this we didn't have an answer. I wasn't female after all and nor was Zero. But our defence mace a point that a child needs love above all else so this statment was slightly obsolete. Yet they hammered us about it and I guess I couldn't blame them. A mother is an important figure after all. They are the nurturer of the human race after all.
" A child shouldn't be raised in the World Hunter Base. In fact, a child shouldn't be riased on any active militant base at all. What about the violence she's being exposed to?"
And I guess I couldn't argue there too much either. Everyone, thankfully, had gone through strides to shield her from the battle chaos that would envelope the base every once in awhile. Sure, there were times when the base was almost a complete mess with nurses and doctors running every which way. Often times people would be considerate enough, if they say her, to try to shoo her into our quarters or they would try to get one of us to take her. But there were often times when Zero and I were gone on missions and the staff would take care of Deena. In fact Deena never had to be alone. She loved to learn and could often be found in her school clothes till she went to bed at night, she was just so busy asking questions from the staff.
However, even I know that she knew what was going on. She knew where she lived and she knew the dangers that we faced. Sometimes, with a very sad face, she would ask Zero and me if we were ever going to leave her. She was afraid that one day we wouldn't return from our missions and we tried our best to reassure her. I'm not sure if it worked but at least we tried our very best.
Deena cried all the time back then. She use to sit in my lap and hold on to Zero's hair till her last waking second. She didn't want to lose either of us and we didn't want to lose her. I'd put her to bed only to stay up and watch her sleep.
I know it hit Zero very hard, too. What remnants of fatherly instinct had been engraved in his programs had flared. There were times I know Zero wanted to cry but he didn't and I feel he thought he had to be strong for me. I thank him for this, too. I don't think, in my state, that I could have handled the both of them crying. In fact, all I wanted to do was cry but since Deena clung to us I couldn't and I felt it best to be strong for her. Zero didn't really need my strength but we nodded knowingly to one another and sat in silence before finally dozing off.
And it was like this each and every night as the court proceedings wore us out. The media was in a flurry trying to get a scoop and all Zero and I wanted to do was blast them to the past. Deena's grades slipped heavily and she'd cry up a terrible storm if either of us tried to leave her side. If either of us had to do work she would curl up our laps and wait for us to finish. If one of us had to go on a mission she wouldn't leave the other alone. One of use to have to be with her at all times and preferably both.
My favorite thing was, thought maybe it was a bad time to feel this way, was the way she would fall asleep in Zero's lap. Zero was significantly bigger than she was, as he is bigger and taller than I am, and she would take his beloved hair, twist it around and lay within it in his lap. I took a couple of pictures once trying to lighten the mood.
" Very cute." Was all I said as I put the camera away and watched Zero carry on silently with his work.
The day she actually left was the hardest as to be expected. The courts had decided that we could at least try to do something for her financially if we wanted. Bastards, of course they would allow us to support her in anyway we wanted, it'd be cheaper for them. So, because Zero and I make a pretty penny as top hunters we paid for her to attend a boarding school. We both agreed that our anger just wouldn't allow us to let her stay in their hands. We wanted to flip them off so how better to do that then tell them their system sucks and send her off to an upscale school?
Once she was settled there she wrote us endlessly and it made us feel better that she still cared enough to write us every day. It also gave us a sense of pride. Take that social scum. Our daughter loves us more than you could ever know. And we wrote her back, in fact, several times a day. We always had more to say and more to tell and so our letters had a tendency to be pages long.
So she stayed within that school for a long period of time. Every once in awhile she would get unruly. Probably because she was hurt by the way her life had turned out and the school would go to all lengths to get her to stop. But what made Zero and I really beam was that in the end the school and the government would come to us. They would plead with us to get her to behave since she would often proudly announce.
" I am the daughter of Zero and X. Top hunters at the World Hunter Base. I will not listen to anyone else because I don't trust any of you!"
So in the end it was up to use to tell her what was right and wrong. Sure, she would dutifully obey us but we know that it greatly disturbed the social system and the prejudice people that a human would only obey a reploid.
Another thing I noticed about this was her growing pride within our reputations. As a small child she had learned quickly that her parents were held in esteem, and often times we would have to scold her about her holier than thou approach to some things. But I think she slowly started to understand that our reputation meant a lot of pressures were put upon her. She started to wane under the stress of being expected to be perfect and to become a good fighter. We gave her points for confidence but what I loved most what that she developed a great sense of justice and what was right and wrong. So at the least her elitist mentality was being balanced out by an almost bushido type of morality. Plus, she was young with many more mistakes to be made.
While at the base she did learn how to wield the sword that she had inherited from the death of her original family. But only when she was at her boarding school did she start to exert her inherited blade abilities. This got us another letter from the school asking us to tell her to stop using her sword techniques during class to shoot down mobiles. We sent her a scolding letter and Zero greatly put in key words to show his disapproval. I know I had been lenient compared to him because I was actualy very amused by it, and I also was interested in how she learned this technique She later explained that it was a family trait that she was learning to understand through trial and error.
Looking back I realize that Zero and I were a lot stiffer back then, but as parents I guess we had no choice but to become uncool. That's what happens when you're a parent, you can't be cool anymore. You're not hip. You're now a parent. Just give it up. You're not allowed to be cool anymore because you're out of date. I actually didn't mind being out of date.
Deena was allowed to come back to the hunter base and visit us once. It was only for about a day since it was because her school was taking a class trip to Capcom City. They were doing some sort of research project about the city and the World Hunter Base. Once we heard of this we immediately turned to Dr. Cain and called in for some vacation time. He gave it to us and we were able to find a few hours for the week they were here each day to see her.
I was elated to see how she had grown and I thought I saw a tear swell up in Zero's eye. We spent the entire time doting upon her and buying her whatever she wished. We knew it was probably bad of us but we had missed our daughter terribly. We even gave her little school group the opportunity to spend time with us. This is when we started to show our crazy side outside of the hunter base and embarrassed her to death. Well, maybe not death, she's still alive after all.
Deena returned to her school and we continued on as was normal. However, Deena did return to the hunter base, after she had turned of age and had graduated high school she came back to the base and became a hunter. She was put into one of the lower units and then gradually made her way up. At some point she was put into Unit Zero but the unit was too tough for her. Later the unit captain of unit three had died in battle and she had been asked to except the position. She did and it's been that way ever since.
It's hard for most people, since we try to treat Deena as an adult, to notice the underlining parental love we give her but we figured apart of growing up was being separate from your parents. Not only that when she came back she had developed very independent nature and we respected that.
¤ ¤
¤¤ Mega-X's Notes¤¤
¤ ¤
X: Sniff My little girl…
Zero: -- I ki' you, system! Ki' you!!
Dart: Fo' shizzle nizzle
Doll: Shu' up holmes! XO
Flank: Su'p brah? XD
Alpha: Eeeyy. O
Deena: Black panthers! Know the struggle!
Mega-X: Stop, stop, STOP! No more ebonics from any of you!!
Deena: I'm just getting back to my roots.
Mega-X: (Slaps head)… -…-… O Peace out, yo!
All: MEGA-X!!
Mega-X: What? Like Deena said, getting back to my roots. ;3
Note: I've been planing on doing more back stories on X and Zero and how they relate to the current way that things are. Not only that now one relationship is cleared up (the one between Deena and Zero and X) so off to some others that make no sense… like SIGNAS!! And Alia, and GATE! Yeah, gate is kinda a whisper on the wind right now. Gotta work him in. Gotta also get our favorite bad-boy in this too.
I was just sitting back reviewing a lot of the to-be story line and I noticed something… I'm gunna have to make a lot of supporting characters. I only wanted to make a few, you know, Alpha, Deena, Dart, Doll, Flank, Mater… but I just DAMNED myself with this story. Anyone have any names to use? Just random everyday names.
Maybe I should complain to Capcom, that unlike its other games, MMX has very few characters and thus writers have to make up an entire cast… naw.