Zero, Resistance Warrior
AxelWildfire000
Chapter 001: The Disposal Centre
Zero felt a moment of discomfort as he entered the Trans Server and was transferred. It reminded him of something, though he couldn't think what. He appeared on another pad in a cement room. He stepped off the pad and Ciel appeared right behind him. "And we're back." Ciel muttered. "Come up to the data room when you are ready to learn what's going on." She said, and walked out of the room.
Zero followed her out the door and promptly realised that he couldn't see her. A soldier was standing by the door, and Zero nodded curtly and kept walking, noting that the sign on the wall was a misspelling of 'Trans' – it had been spelt 'Trance'.
He came to an elevator and decided that he'd travel upwards to see Ciel. He travelled up in it, spotted a blue sign saying 'Data', and dashed through the door there.
"You wanted to see me." He said. Ciel smiled. He's so formal, like he's a relic from a past era… wait… technically speaking, he is.
"Yes. Welcome to our Resistance Base, Zero. This is a shelter for injured Reploids who are suspected of being Mavericks. We have fought so hard to survive… however; we know that the end is coming… But that's why we have been looking for you. You are our last hope. Most of us think Zero is nothing but a fantasy. However, a few still believed in your existence and have looked for you… you ARE Zero, the legendary Reploid who fought with X to save the world a hundred years ago."
Zero considered. "X…? That name sounds familiar."
"X… That legendary Reploid is still alive and trying to retire all of us."
"X is trying to… retire you…?"
"His plans have already begun. Many innocent Reploids are already being retired as we speak. Our future depends on you… will you help us?"
Zero considered. Every joint in his body screamed for him to bring this house of Mavericks to the ground, but his mind and his heart disagreed. If X was trying to retire them all, then was he actually still good? There was only one way to find out.
"I'll do it."
Ciel smiled. "Thankyou… it's like a dream come true. Now… with your help… I think I can save everyone. I have something I need to ask you."
"Shoot."
"What I want to ask you is if you would try and do something that no-one else has been able to do so far. I want you to destroy the Disposal Centre, where they retire our comrades one after the other… even while I speak, they may be retiring a Reploid who is wrongly suspected of being a Maverick. To prevent any additional loss of Reploid life, please destroy the enemy facility… Will you accept?"
Zero nodded. "Take the elevator up to the very top floor to find yourself on the surface. You'll be given additional instruction there."
Zero nodded again and took off.
He stood out in the ruins of a city. Ciel came in over the Radio.
"Zero! The Disposal centre is up ahead of you. Please, rescue our comrade."
Zero nodded and took off. "Oh yeah, I forgot that they can't see me. Oh well."
Something grey and spiky rolled to towards Zero. "What the…" he slashed it to bits. "Interesting."
He kept on running and found another, this time he decided to avoid it instead of engaging it and leaped over it. It kept on rolling, ignoring him.
"That was easy… what the -?" Zero lost his footing when he landed and dropped down a hatch in the ground, landing with a crash at the bottom. A resistance soldier with red hair dashed over to him, her grey eyes alight with worry. "Oh my god, are you okay?"
Zero picked himself up and shook some of the dust off. "Fine… what are you doing down here anyway?"
"Ciel asked me to watch for when the enemies' transport train arrives. I'll inform you if a train does come, so you can leave this area to me."
Zero nodded and leaped onto the ladder, climbing at breakneck pace.
As he reached the top and poked his head out, he was forced to retract it or lose it as one of the spiked balls rolled over the small wall in front of him and bounced right where his head had been. Fortunately, he moved in time and it fell to the ground, where he heard the resistance soldier firing on it until it exploded. Leaping over the wall, he travelled down a slope and was forced to confront a new threat – boxy, yellow, flying mechonaloids that held the spiky orbs in their hands. As he jumped up to slice it apart, it flung the ball at him, catching him in the chest and sending him crashing to the ground. Something changed when the dust cleared – Zero was glowing orange. "Now you've annoyed me!" he roared, drawing his Z-Buster and pumping a massive glowing blast into the orb, which shattered. Thus encouraged, he continued.
A few Pantheons later something else nearly caught him – a pit full of spikes. Zero was halfway through leaping the pit when he realised that he was dead if he fell and was forced to dash jump over it. Continuing on, he came across a half demolished school building swarming with Pantheons. The first three shots hit him in the chest but he still stood. The Pantheon stared at him as it watched a hit that should have killed Zero glance off, dance a pattern in the sky, and fade. Zero crushed the Pantheon's head with his fist and continued on his way. The next Pantheon yielded something special: the Nurse elf Gireff. Zero vowed not to use any of the elves and continued on his way, where he faced four more Pantheons. Zero cursed and charged up, firing another glowing blast at them, taking them all out.
Climbing to the next building over, he was forced to deal with a twin threat. The first was a weather control device that was powered by a green gem. This was what created the rain, and it was cleaved apart in two swipes, fell to the ground smoking, exploded, and the rain cleared in moments and the red sun came out.
The second threat was a flying Pantheon, green in colour with an orange jetpack. Zero jumped back as it opened fire, and as it flew towards him he leaped over it, cut off the jetpack, and threw it off the roof. It met a harsh fate at the base of the building.
"It's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop." Zero said with a grim smile, and turned to leave. As he did so he spotted a white container, the same kind that had held the Hacker elf, and blasted it to bits. The Elf inside flew over to him and joined the other Nurse elf. "Cousin Mippie!" Gireff squeaked with joy.
At least someone is happy. Zero thought, leaping off the building and crushing another of the orbs beneath his feet.
Yet another threat was presented to him here; purple towers that sprouted turrets and fired on him. Zero cleaved it in two and continued on, leaping another spike pit. As he did so, he slid underneath one of the rolling enemies and it impaled itself in the spike pit. Zero smirked. "Pungee jumper." He muttered, continuing on. It appeared as though there had been a multi-car pileup, for he ran across a truck, a Winnebago, and a smaller van before running straight into another of the towers. Cursing, he destroyed it and moved on.
After taking out three more towers, climbing up a building, climbing down a building, jumping over more pungee pits and destroying another purple tower – This one forking over a Gibber Animal Elf – he was seriously building up a bottle of anger to open on the retiring centre's ass. Climbing up a small building he found a blue shutter. "Looks interesting…" he muttered, before receiving a communiqué from Ciel.
"Through the shutter you'll reach the Disposal Centre. Be careful, Zero."
Zero shook his head and opened the door and entered a passageway with another shutter at the end. He walked over, kicked it straight out of the frame, and dived through.
The door hit him in the face on the way back. Zero fell back, rubbing at his optics and cursing like a sailor. A human shaped, green falcon Reploid faced him across the room. "I am Aztec Falcon." He intoned. "Harpuia, the Guardian, sent me to clean up." He added a meaningful glance down. Zero looked through the see-through platform they were standing on; attached to the base were a row of spikes. He realised that their combined weight would cause the platform to go down, crushing the three Reploids beneath them. The runt of the three yelled out. "Hey! Help! Help me!"
Aztec Falcon smirked. "You must be some of the garbage." He let loose a giggle. "I'll just dispose of both of you together!" To emphasise his point, he pointed one of his wings at the restrainers holding the platform in place and bolts of blue lightning flew from them, severing the cords. Great orange blocks spelled out the word 'WARNING' on Zero's optics. The Reploid cursed and drew his Z-Sabre.
Everyone in the control room back at the Resistance Base watched with baited breath as the Reploids duelled. Ciel especially. The science officer shut her eyes to the combat monitor. Come on, Zero…
Falcon charged, Zero leaped over him and climbed up the other wall as Falcon climbed the wall he ran into. The glared at each other as the platform began to drop away, screeching and creating sparks on the sides. Falcon glared over at him. "Well, I see your rank is A."
Zero glanced down and cursed as he spotted the glowing gold stripes on his chest. "Uh… what's it to you?"
"Well, then I won't hold back." Falcon smirked, leaping off the ground and driving both wings into the platform. Zero leaped off the wall just as it glowed blue with electricity. Falcon re-absorbed the energy and leaped back, preparing for another fight.
He's a sitting duck while he's doing the lightning thing. Zero thought, snapping out of it in time to block a lunge from Falcon. Zero spared a glance down; the three Reploids were crouching to avoid the spikes. He didn't have time for a miss; this had to work first time. "C'mon, Falcon." Zero grinned. "You're holding back."
Falcon was taken aback. "Oh no I'm not!" he roared, charging forwards and jamming both wings into the ground. Zero left the ground in a gravity-defying jump and only came down when Falcon was done. He cleaved down with the blade, but Falcon managed to block it in time by holding is wings in a cross shape. Both fighters slid backwards. Don't have time for this! Zero thought urgently. Falcon charged forwards, holding his wings behind him for speed. Zero dashed and slashed, going at such a high speed that he slid to a halt on the other side of Aztec Falcon. "You lose." Zero growled. Falcon separated into two halves and glowed white. "Oh, crap." Zero muttered, quickly climbing one of the walls to escape the blast, which was so strong it blew the floor out.
He landed next to a human style Reploid who was sitting down, shaking. The two larger worker Reploids were shaking as well, but not as badly. "You okay, kid?" Zero asked.
"Uh… ha. ahem. Thankyou. I never expected someone would come to rescue me. Thank you so much… I'm still in shock… heh. I'll return to your Base when I'm able to walk again. You can go back now, I'll be fine."
Zero nodded and turned to leave, but froze as the voices in his head began talking again. He just about ripped out his COMlink before he remembered that they were people worth talking to. Turned out to be Ciel. "Thankyou for your co-operation, Zero. That is the Thunder Chip, I presume." Zero glanced around before spotting something glowing in Aztec Falcon's remains. Pulling it out, he discovered it to be a disk with a lightning bolt on it. "You must get it before you return to the Base." Zero nodded, pocketed it and headed off, poking around a corridor before he spotted the Trans Server door, entering, and returning to base."
"Zero…" Ciel began, back in the data room. "Thankyou. I never thought I'd see the day when the Reploid Disposal Centre was destroyed. Innocent Reploids will be safe for a while. Thank you so much, Zero. You ARE Zero, the legendary Reploid… I'd like to ask your help again if you have time… that is, if you don't mind doing us favours." Ciel smiled and giggled a little, Zero felt his temperature skyrocket. That's weird. He thought. Normally I've got no sense of temperature other than what my readout's tell me. He called them up on his optics. Nope, according to these my temperature hasn't changed… Zero nodded to Ciel.
"Well, come talk to me again if you have time. I'll be waiting…" Ciel smiled, turning and walking into her room, calling over her shoulder. "By the way, if you go to the engineering room downstairs, you'll find our Engineer, Cerveau. He asked me to give you this." She threw a metallic box over her shoulder. "It's an EXIT unit. Your own was damaged, but you should be able to integrate that into your systems. Also, do you have a data slot?"
Zero shook his head.
"Well, go and see Cerveau. He'll install one for you, so that you can use the element chips." Ciel smiled and left.
Hmm… meh, never mind. I'll give some people a few tips in general here, because I'm nice.
The Z-Sabre owns. Practise with it much much. Once you've max outed its levels, none of the bosses stand much of a chance.
The Buster is the second best weapon in the game. The Shield Boomerang prevents your speed and leaves you defenceless when you attack with it, and the Triple Rod is too short to be any real use.
The Buster is just about the only way to beat the final boss, so max it's levels to get the most out of it.
The Buster is only elemental on its second charge level.
Remember the Element Triangle: Fire beats Ice, Ice beats Thunder for some unfathomable reason, and Thunder bests Fire for no apparent reason.
Remember that non-elemental bosses take half damage from elemental attacks.
Remember that elemental bosses take double damage from the element they are weak against, half damage from the element they are strong against, and normal damage from non-elemental attacks.
Remember that the elemental chips only change your weapon element, not YOUR element. You ALWAYS are considered to have no element, not even non-elemental. All attacks do full damage.
Try to avoid using the Escape unit – you'll need to know how to fight the bosses later.
NEVER, NEVER, NEVER lose your cool in a boss fight. One calculated strike is worth more than five-hundred-thousand frantic ones. Make sure you know what the boss can do, and be ready to counter it. Spend a few seconds at the start of a battle dodging to work out the attack pattern.
Above all else, remember that dashing is good. It let's you move faster, jump further, attack better with single slashes and look damn cool in boss fights when you dash through them and deliver the final blow.
Also remember that Zero kicks ass.
Also, remember that Megaman will turn up eventually…
…and remember to read and review. Here's a cookie for bothering with the tips.