Italics will be either recorded speech or real time metal speech. Speech found in 'blah' will be past verbal or mental speech repeated mentally within the mind of the specified character. Trust me; you'll understand when you get to it.
Please note that you will see a lot of OOC (out of character) here. I don't have a clue how these people really act, that and as of this chapter our favorite Crimson Hunter is STILL under Wily's control. So please keep that in mind.
And on a final note: Please Review! Not just this story, but all stories! Please? If you don't mind? Reviews are becoming just about as rare as a good book these days...
Well, now that everything's settled, let's move on.
Salvation
Chapter 1: Personal
Personal data entry; Rockman X recording.
Blues wasn't kidding when he said that this world had become hell. Every since I had found out the truth to my demise as Rockman I've been having second thoughts about fighting. It was my ability to fight in the first place that caused Wily to rebel like that. Blues keeps saying that it's not my fault, that Wily was a nut case to begin with. And he's telling the truth as he always has. This war, the deaths caused by it, the uncivilized, corrupt, horrid mental destabilization of that Reploid down in lockup... It was all Wily's fault. He's the one that caused Fireman to malfunction. He did it because he was afraid I would be able to stop him. And you know what? He's right. I will stop him, even if it means I must lose my life again in the struggle for peace.
On a less fury driven note, Allure's permanent nanny-bot was decided yesterday. Forte was unanimously called into serves as her Guardian. After all, he was the one that found her first when I was awakened. Or make that she found him first. Either way, the match couldn't have been made any clearer. Besides, he's the one that's always shadowing her in the hallway. Some Reploids reported seeing him catch her before falling flat on her face when he hadn't even been in the same room as her seconds earlier. The guy has a serious knack for keeping her out of trouble. It's like he's got radar tuned to her bio frequency or something.
Well, I have work to do. Being the commander of the 17th Maverick Unit does give a guy a lot of responsibility. But I've got help in the form of Caroline and Blues. And when she's old enough, maybe even Allure will pitch in as a mechanic. I won't even dream of saying front line fighter. Stuff like that is best left to the Reploids.
Rockman X ending personal recording.
--------
X, as he had decided to go by, leaned back in his chair. He counted down in his mind.
"Three, two, one..."
And right on cue the door alarm went off.
"It's unlocked as always, sis." X sighed.
In walked Caroline with Allure in tow. Forte seemed to vanish into the shadows, either that or he wasn't even there. That would have been odd; however, X was too used to the shadowy Reploid after two years of living with him to notice anything odd about him now. Although he had noticed that since he now had emotions, he seemed quieter, less boastful than he had been without the sentient upgrade.
"You know me far too well, X." Caroline laughed. Allure tugged gently on her mother's sleeve.
"And I know what that means." X laughed. He sat straight up in the chair, tapping both hands on his legs. "Yah want a sit in the commander's seat?"
"Yeah!" Allure giggled. She still seamed weary of X at times, but those times were few, occurring only when she felt he was troubled to the point of being snappish about his duties as a commander. Regardless of his mood now, she bound head over foot towards her uncle. With one great lift, she was airborne for a few seconds before finding a comfortable perch in X's lap.
"So, what news do we have today?" X questioned to Caroline.
"The usual, with the exception of the Wilybot in lockup." Caroline sighed.
"Oh? I thought he had taken a vow of silence when we took that control cortex off his helmet a year and a half ago." X blinked.
"Well he had, 'til somebody decided to sneak out of her room for the past ten nights and pester him into talking. He's not much of a chatter box, and whatever he is talking about to the pester-mister, it's not being repeated." At this point, Caroline's line of sight fell on her daughter. If she could have willed it, Allure would have warped right to her room if only to escape that particular stare from her mother. X caught the hint.
"So," he leaned back, taking Allure with him. Her midriff left open, he began his dreaded tickle torture. "Somebody's been hacking the locks again, huh?"
Allure remained silent on the topic at hand, yet giggled profusely at the fact her tummy was being mercilessly attacked by ten wiggling fingers. X paused for a few seconds, giving the child a chance to breath, before continuing again.
"Well? Come on, what's the answer?"
"O-Okay!" Allure finally succumbed to her uncle's method of torture. He stopped and sat her upright yet again. "I admit I made the locks click."
Allure's three year old mind's definition of hacking a lock: making a lock click.
"But I didn't make the lock click on Mr. Zero's cell." X breathed a slight sigh of relieve at this. He then stopped, and blinked.
"Mr. Zero?" he repeated. Allure nodded her head.
"Uh-huh. His name's Mr. Rockman Zero. But, I just call him Mr. Zero, because your other name is uncle Rockman X, and having two people named Rockman was too confusing." she explained. A juvenile statement, but true nonetheless. Her expression grew downtrodden.
"Allure?" X questioned softly. She looked up at him, her eyes sad.
"He...He said he wants to kill you, uncle X... I was gonna ask him why last night, but I heard the guards making the locks click down the hall, so I left. May... May I have your permission to visit him today when it's not so late? And...uh...without the guards or anybody watching?" Allure's eyes had turned hopeful, almost pleading.
"I'll see what I can do. But, shouldn't you be asking your mother first?"
Allure turned back to face her slightly annoyed mother. She blinked, then gulped.
"I thought she was gonna yell if I asked her first." Allure whispered her explanation. X nodded slowly in understanding. Caroline may not have been a Reploid, but that didn't stop her from having a fist and a voice that, combined, could deal out as much punishment as a plasma rifle.
"...Allure..." her mother's voice had turned to ice. Allure gulped.
"Allure, you have class with the other children in a few moments."
Allure thanked whatever deity had decided to send Forte to rescue her from her mother's frozen wrath. She quickly said her goodbyes and one quiet good luck to her blue uncle before jumping delicately from his lap to the floor. She took Forte's outstretched hand. They left with Allure humming the haunting lullaby Forte had taught her when she was nothing more than an infant.
The nanosecond the door was bolted, Caroline snapped.
"You're allowing her to talk to that monster?!?!?!?!"
X leaned back in his chair, watching his sister fume. He had to fight back a laugh or two at the outlandish foreign curse words she spewed. He instantly lost that will when she removed his helmet and smashed her fist against his head then replaced his helmet all in one fast move.
"Pay attention! You should be the most cautious around him! He's outright said that he wants to kill you!! And to my daughter! My daughter!!" Once her furry had cooled to a more manageable level, Caroline slumped down into the X's office guest chair.
"...I'm so worried, X... So...So worried... I don't want to loose the rest of my family to that mad man."
X stood up from his chair. He pulled his sister to her feet, and pulled her into a tight hug. He held her close to him, allowing her to feel the echoing thump of his mechanical heart resonating through his armor.
"So long as I have the will to live, no one else in our family is going to be hurt by Wily. But... We have to take a small risk. He may not even know why he wishes to kill me. He might not even know anything about what Wily's made him do. We need to know as much about him as we can. And if he needs it, we must provide as much help as he is willing to accept. It's what I believe father would do if he were here."
He waited till her tears had dried before releasing her again.
"Thanks. I needed that, Nii-san..." Rockman X simply smiled.
"Hey, what are younger brothers for?" Caroline smiled as well. Two red arms suddenly wrapped around their necks, pulling them into a group hug.
"So! I see you two have had a busy morning! Want to fill the older bro in?"
"Blues!" Caroline echoed off the first of the two part protest.
"How many times have I told you, I hate it when you just warp straight into my room!" X growled. He tossed Blues' arm off him, socking his older with a gentle elbow punch to the gut. Blues seemed to have not even felt it.
"So, like I was saying, want to fill me in?"
Ten minutes later and Blues was left in total silence.
"He actually talked to her?" he whispered.
"Apparently it was just enough for her to make coherent sense of what he was saying." X answered. Blues leaned back against a wall, crossing his arms over his chest. His brow was furled behind his visor, echoing the fact he was deep in thought.
"Talk to Signas. Have him okay the plan. But make sure Forte's close enough to know if Allure needs help. I don't want to make her the center point of an interrogation tactic and I also don't want her jeopardized, but it looks like we might not have a choice." Blues sighed.
"We just might." Caroline echoed. She had remained oddly silent in the background till now.
"How so?" X was the first to question.
"If we can get him to trust her enough to trust us, then maybe we can interrogate him lightly with idle chit-chat."
"Yah know, that's so daft it might just work." Blues chuckled. Caroline repeated with him the same tactic she had used to get X to stop thinking of laughing. His reaction to the tactic made X laugh just as hard as he would have during one of Caroline's cursing sprees.
The cell room was dark, the only illumination being that of the soft amount of light coming through the barred upper windows. Allure did not mind the lack of light, having lost her fear of whatever demons might lurk in the dark with her discovery of Forte.
She had with her a tray loaded down with a hot meal. She had slipped a few chocolate chip cookies onto the tray before leaving the guards' watchful eyes. Her juvenile mind connected darkness to sadness waiting to be lighted up by some kind of joy. Joy, she reasoned, came in small packages of warm delicious melted chocolate dough balls that had lacked enough consistency to stay as balls, therefore flattening out into oval cookies. With that kind of non-technical argument at her disposal, any reason for her not to lighten up the lockup block Mr. Zero was in with the small treats was shot to ribbons.
Allure found him in his usual halfway slumped position against the wall in his cell. He had on the same black body suit under the same once pristine white hand, feet, and central helmet armor, and red full chest, leg, arm, shoulder, and main helmet armor. His helmet was different from the others she had seen. It had horn-like short red spikes coming up in two places. One was where demons of lore had their spikes, and second and final pair was directly behind the first. The white central triangular section of his helmet had a downward facing triangular beautiful blue jewel. And his hair! Allure had never seen hair quite like his. It reached down in one swooping golden ponytail straight to his heels. To finish his design and add some sort of color to his two-tone arrangement, a golden capital cursive Z was painted onto his right shoulder guard.
His brilliant green eyes looked over at Allure in casual fashion.
"Hello, Mr. Zero." Allure laughed. He said nothing in response. Not at all abated by this, she set the tray down on the floor by the meta-alloy bars of his cell. She then promptly sat behind the tray of food.
"I brought some cookies with me, along with your normal meal. Mamma helped me bake them, so they're full of lots of good joy!"
Zero seemed to melt like a red shadow into the darkness, and just as quickly reappeared sitting cross legged in front of the child. He reached his hand through the bar. Allure giggled lightly at his request.
"You're welcome." And with that she placed the cookie in his grip. Zero stared at it blankly for quite some time.
"Silly!" Allure giggled before him. She picked up one of the ten remaining cookies and demonstrated how to eat it. Once sure the girl had swallowed, Zero slowly followed suite.
"Here, you should eat the rest of your meal first. Mamma always says it's not good to spoil your appetite with cookies before you eat your dinner. I think she also meant that to apply to lunch, too."
Allure took another two cookies before sliding the tray through a small vertical slit between herself and Zero. Once Zero was eating the warmer part of his meal, Allure pulled out a small lunchbox. The two ate in silence. Once both were done, Allure took back the tray, leaving the uneaten remaining seven cookies in Zero's grasp.
"...I have made my mission clear to you, yet you still come to me and hold such idle talk... Why?" Zero's voice almost seemed chalky, as if it had never been used before. And yet, if one took away that chalky edge, they would find he had a rich treble offsetting his demonic looks.
Allure set her cookies on the lunchbox before her. She slowly rose to her feet, making it so that she was now level with Zero's eyes. Her head snapped up, her brilliant green eyes forcing the emeralds of Zero's eyes to become locked within the depths of her own gems.
"Because I don't think you mean it." Allure answered harshly.
"I heard from uncle Blues that Dr. Wily created you to destroy uncle X. I also heard that Dr. Wily added the sentient data into your programming. That report was confirmed by Dr. Cain and mamma. However, the sentient data in your programming was deemed to be inactive."
"I do not see what this has to do with the conversation at hand." Zero answered coolly.
"He took away your free will! He took away your will to feel!" Allure shouted out at the top of her lungs. The tears she had been fighting back splashed down against the cold ground. Zero noticed the tears first before noticing their source.
"You're leaking." He stated bluntly.
"No...I'm crying for you, Mr. Zero..." Allure countered. She sniffled once, wiping her eyes with the edges of her short silver sleeve, and plopped back down against the ground. The very notion caused Zero to sit back slightly.
"C-Crying...?" His voice lost its chalky edge for a moment.
"Uh-huh... You can't cry or be sad because Dr. Wily took away your will to feel. S-Somebody's got to cry for you if you can't even cry for yourself."
Zero seemed to melt back into the shadows of his monotonic self before answering, "Crying is a human trait. Humans are weak."
"That's true, but at the same time it's a lie."
"There is only one possible answer. Explain why there is two."
"You told me that humans are weak. I agree with this statement in the physical sense. Human beings in comparison to Reploids on the physical level are weak. But on the emotional level, there are differences. Both humans and Reploids can be emotionally weak. They can fail to see the joy in front of them, and become so lost in the depression of darkness that they vouch to terminate their existence instead of finding the light of joy again. Some do this through the method of suicide bombings in order to disguise this weakness as strength. Others use the method of simplistic suicide which has no mask of so called courage. However, the fact remains that both factions – humans and Reploids alike – can be emotionally weak. The reverse of this statement is true as well. Both factions can be emotionally strong.
"Humans, with more experience in emotional matters, often times find themselves the strongest emotionally. They can lead better, handle stressful situations better, and can even find gentler paths through grievances easer than their weaker emotionally based Reploid counterpart." Allure stopped here. She looked back up at Zero, the tears still evident in her eyes.
"That's why I cry for you, Mr. Zero, because the strong have to help the weak. I don't want to become weak in the only area I excel at, so I exercise my strength by helping the weak. In an emotional sense, I am the stronger of the sentient beings present in this lockup sector."
Zero remained silent, processing the words of the child before him. He picked up one of the cookies from his hand.
"You say these are filled with joy?" Allure nodded her head yes.
"Then please eat these, and stop crying. Seeing you cry...disturbs me...here." And with his clenched cookie filled hand, he laid his hand over his heart. Zero then quickly devoured the cookie he had in his free hand, with Allure following in quick pursuit. Both released a gentle burp of satisfaction.
"These are good." Zero's less chalky voice smiled lightly.
"Uh-huh! I'll ask mommy if we can bake some real fresh ones tomorrow before I come!"
"Won't they notify your uncles if they see you coming here during the daytime too often?" Zero questioned.
Allure seemed to slump lightly at that. She beckoned him closer to the bars. Once his head was even with the bar, she leaned forward. A short set of whispers later, and Zero was brought up to speed on what she had been forced to relay to her uncles and Commander Signas.
"I see. I'm not angry at you, Allure. You were given no choice." Zero disappeared into the shadows again, only to reappear in the same spot he had stayed at for over two years. "I look forward to seeing you tomorrow, then."
"Bye!"
Allure, now guilt free and filled with joy, dashed off towards the exit. Zero heard the locks click and the echo of Allure's laughter at suddenly being hoisted off the ground by her boisterous uncle Blues, and he heard it all echo away like ice melting slowly in the warming sun.
He gently altered his position so that he was lying flat on the meta-alloy jail cell bed. His hands rested behind his head, serving as a kind of pillow, and the heaters in his armor compensated for the chilling air that came in with the setting of the sun.
'I'm crying for you, Mr. Zero. You can't cry or be sad because Dr. Wily took away your will to feel.'
Allure's words seemed to haunt him. What was it that she had said? His sentient program had been left inactive?
Self diagnostic program activation. Search hard drive. Locate file name: Sentient Program. Zero's mental command was answered by several small screens coming into his field of vision. The search results came back negative.
Rerun search. Search for keyword: Sentient. Again the search responded negative.
Rerun search. Search keywords: Human Emotion. Ignore internal dictionary response. This time he had a lock.
Locate and activate program. A warning came across his field of view.
Warning: Activation of program will override current programming. Do you wish to see contents of program before activating? Yes.
Zero absorbed the data scrolling past his vision carefully. The definition gave him the answers he was looking for. The Sentient Emotional Replication program allowed for Reploids to feel and experience human emotions, thinning the line between the human race and the race of machines to nothing more than a dull mark.
Activate Human Emotion Program. Warning: Activation of... Cancel error. Activate program. It will be necessary to reboot all systems after activation. Comply? Yes. Do whatever is necessary to activate program. Command registered. Deactivating all key and secondary systems excluding core power unit maintenance system.
To the world it was as if Zero had fallen asleep. To Zero, it was the dawn of something eccentric. At first, while the program took effect, he felt no difference within him. And then, he felt it. He felt a strange tugging at the back of his mind -- his conscious, perhaps? He decided to test this theory by replaying his memories starting from his activation to the present moment and applying the new feeling to them.
Zero snapped up in alarm from his once docile position on the bed. His hand clutched at his racing heart, his mind whirled in pain at the memories he had seen in such a strange new light. He searched his internal dictionary for the right word to match the grotesque feelings that echoed through him about his past acts. Only two words came forth. Self hate.
No. His stubbornness was coming to light. It was hate he was feeling, but not at himself. It was a deep hate at his creator for forcing him to do such things when he had no choice in the matter. He had been stripped of his will to feel! A boiling anger awoke in him. He had been stripped of the very thing that allowed Reploids and humans alike to choose their own destiny! And he despised that man and what he had done to him with a newfound passion.
"From this moment on, I am Wily's slave no longer. I hate what he made me become, and I will destroy his beloved empire in show of that hate. I will have...revenge!"