(I do not own MMZ, and I owe credit for Project Ezekiel to the unnamed organisation........)
Chapter 2
A newcomer, and an old friend
(note: indicates thoughts, indicates thoughts that are intruding on the hearers mind)
"Zero?" a voice echoed in his mind....not again....
"looks like he's asleep...." The voice rang again...this time very clear, and from outside of his head...that's a relief, not that hellish nightmare again....wait...is that Ciel?
Zero awoke, bolting upright and startling Dr. Ciel. "Good morning, Zero. Did you sleep well?" She asked him. "No.....I had a nightmare." Zero said. why am I opening up like this?!
"hm?" Ciel looked around a second.....before turning to face him again. "...a nightmare?" she asked.
"Yes." I ALREADY SAID THAT!
"I know that, silly!" she said, teasingly. Zero grew suspicious then....".......hn" he said simply and crossing his arms to look serious, imitating a character he saw in an anime that Ciel showed him, the character was named Heero. "you alright? You really took off like a beam shot last night. You even scarred little Alouet nearly out of her metal hide when you vaulted boldly over her. You have never done anything like that before." Ciel said to him, getting suspicious herself....
she is trying to figure me out...isn't she? Well, I'm just going to surprise her....
"Ciel? I have to tell you something." Zero said to her.
is he going to say what I think he is? a soft voice rang quietly in his mind, like a gentile velvet breeze. what was THAT!?
"What was what? Zero? Did you say something?" Ceil asked him. "Hmmm......I should have known...." He said, locking eyes with her. "you, you're a-" he got out before the rockface beside Zero exploded.
Zero grabbed Ciel and shielded her from the blast, the heat searing at his back and burning some of his hair away. ZERO!! a voice screeched in his head, like the hammer blow of a Colony Drop. "GAH!" he exclaimed. The next few seconds seemed to take forever in Zero's mind. Things slowed to a crawl, and he turned to see a rocket coming right at his body.
He dropped Ciel, her body falling slowly, and he spun his lower half on his right heel, brought his left leg up and kicked the rocket away just as it got close. It flew off, back at the launcher it originated from, and detonated. He reached down and caught Ciel as she came within inches from the ground.
Suddenly, a blue head, with a red mono-eye, rise up to face him. He jabbed a straightened hand into it, shattering the eye, as he drove his hand into its head, before drawing it back out and holding several vital circuits in his hand that he had removed from it by force. It fell to the ground, deactive before it even began to fall. "X-drones." He said simply. "The enemy?" a voice said, from his right. Zero spun about and put himself in front of Ciel, aiming his Buster Gun at the source of the voice. What he saw was a white and blue Reploid, a human-replication type, with a blue V shaped crest on his head, that swept up and back, and piercing green eyes. He held a beam rifle, but set it down beside him as a gesture of trust. "I came to join the resistance." He said calmly, before introducing himself. "I'm Zeta...hey, Axl.....better get over here, and keep your weps down too.....looks like the welcome wagon is pissed." The new Reploid said to someone off to one side, behind the rock wall. "Stay back!" Zero warned, somehow knowing of another attack.
He spun about and blocked a sniper's beam shot with his beam saber, the beam simply absorbing into the blade and changing the color for a moment. He saw Zeta grab his rifle and before Zero could turn to face him, Zeta had unloaded several rounds in the direction of...
....the enemy sniper. WHAT!?
He heard a faint, far away scream, and saw a human fall from his perch in a tree. Zero turned to glare at Zeta, as Ciel looked at the fallen man, then Zeta in shock. That's a violation of the three laws! Zero heard ring in his head, just s Ciel said the exact same words, with the exact same tone and pitch, and the exact same emotion in them. He saw her raise a Buster Gun she seemed to have kept secret, a secret she had kept from them all. "Don't worry...I just stunned 'im." Zeta said. He turned to the unseen Reploid next to him. "Axl, go and get him....if you see any drones, take 'em out, if you see Humans, just leave him, they will take care of him, otherwise, bring him here." Zeta said. "Roger!" a familiar voice said.
A navy blue and grey Reploid, also a human-replication type, sped down the rock face, toward the source of the attack.
Several seconds of violent fighting sounds passed, then silence....then....
The Reploid returned, carrying a human male in his arms. "I already checked him for any trackers or anything else like that, he's clean." The Reploid said. "Oh...Hey Zero!" The Reploid said excidedly, as he waved at Zero, dropping the man in the process.
"hm...." Zero crossed his arms. "Zero....I see Axl remembers you..." Zeta said. "What?" Zero said....
He looked at Axl, trying to remember who he was, or is.....and couldn't place a face to the name.
"I'm sorry...I just don't remember you." Zero said to Axl. Axl's face, filled with hero-worship, deflated then. "Oh...I see...I bet you would remember this then!" Axl said, as he pulled out a wallet.
He opened it, and handed it to Zero, pointing at a picture. In it, several Reploids were gathered in close, all smiling, save one, who was looking completely deranged Axl....probably, they look alike, unless that's an earlier model of him...
He saw in the picture, a red and white Reploid smiling too innocently while holding two fingers upraised and in a V shape behind the head of one that looked like a Commander of some sort. Zero stared a bit more closely at that red and white one...he could see long blond hair behind that one's head, like a ponytail, similar to his, if slightly longer and fuller. is that......me?
He continued his gaze, until his eyes fell upon a Reploid of two shades of blue, with green eyes, and a charismatic smile. He somehow could immediately name that one. "X." he said to himself. "yep...I see you remember him." Axl said. Axl then began to name each Reploid in the picture..."That one that looks like a commander, that's Signas...then that lady next to him is Alya..then the kinda stocky green one is Douglas, then there me, goofing off like I used to I KNEW IT!, before....gah, forget it, there is X, just above me, he was holding my hair to keep me from running off toward the cake, then there is you, next to X, in the red and white....your hair was longer and fuller back then....but you had breast lights.....weird.....moving on....that's Gamma, Zeta's previous version." Axl said. By then, Ciel had gotten a med team to arrive, and they had taken the stunned human to the bases med bay. Zero and Axl, plus Zeta behind them, moving backwards to fend off any attacks on them, followed Ciel and the med team, soon also arriving in the base.