Author notes: First thing, I'm not writing in lines anymore its fan fiction that makes it lines, second thing there are more chapters to this thing than you might think. I have already decided how many chapters to dedicate to Zero and Leviathan and how many chapters to develop the characters so don't worry about it.
Also, I have taken a time-out for a while. I decided to rest a bit from now on I'm going to update it once in a while you see, when you upload daily and you suddenly lose your inspiration there is the pressure of completing the chapter, so I decided it would be best to remove this stress.
Thank you for reviewing y'all!
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Chapter 19: A protégé
The Neo-Arcadian core, infirmary/maintenance room...
Zero was sitting next to Leviathan, filling her with fluids wasn't as easy as it sounded.
It was something like an infusion, straight into the fluid conductor inside her hand from a large bag of fluids.
"It might take a while, a day or so." Said one of the nurses to Zero, nurses were female assistants to the doctors/maintenance reploids. They have to take extensive medical courses and tests before they are qualified to become nurses. If they wish they can take another six years course to become a fully-fledged doctor. Or alternatively they can become doctors without going through the nurse training.
That is the same to male reploids, with the exception of being able to become nurses. Neo-Arcadian rules forbid male nurses, whether if they are in a civilian clinic or a medical center.
"Oh hang on, you're Zero aren't you?" The nurse asked.
"What about it?" Zero said rudely and without moving his head turned his eyes to her.
"Oh, nothing err... sir I was just wondering, sorry." The nurse blushed and turned to walk away.
"I'm sorry, I was rude yes I am Zero." Zero said apologetically.
"Oh, my name is Belle. I heard a lot about you, I'm glad you're on our side now. From what I've seen from the reploids you've sent in here I'm glad we don't have you as an enemy anymore." Belle said and left.
Leviathan stirred, it happened occasionally. As the fluids were injected into her the body would react every twenty minutes, to check if there are enough fluids to re-activate.
He was with her for the rest of the day since he returned; Harpuia came in earlier and asked Zero to meet him at nineteen hundred hours in the training chamber. That time was drawing near; it was eighteen forty-nine and the skies have already darkened which Zero could see through the transparent window near him.
"Well, I guess I have to go for now. I'll be back soon though so don't worry." Zero said, taking Leviathan's still hand and holding it in his.
He took off and left towards the training chamber, where Harpuia had asked him to meet.
He took a left turn at a corridor and went down another one; the training room's door was in front of him.
He knocked on the door before entering, to find a room full of different reploids in all shapes and sizes, varying from gigantic Mutos reploids to tiny human-like soldiers.
"What's all of this?" Zero asked Harpuia who was standing in front of all of the reploids.
"Well Zero, since you're now a guardian you get to choose a protégé to train and to work with as a partner, I have Aztec Falcon here..." Harpuia gestured at Aztec Falcon, who Zero didn't notice and continued, "Fefnir had Fenrir Hahira." Harpuia gestured at Fenrir, who stood silently near Falcon.
"He's really miserable now that Fefnir's gone." Harpuia said and looked apprehensively at Fenrir.
"Wait wasn't he with Fefnir?" Zero asked.
"No, only X's guard was sent to the assault. Such a great waste of reploid lives." He said and continued his explanation.
"And Leviathan currently doesn't have anyone for the moment, since there were not much aqua-reploids or ice-based reploids in the last recruit shipment. I have assembled some of our top reploids, as well as some of our worst for you to choose. Go talk to them all, don't choose by appearance for example you see that humanoid over there?" He pointed at a human-like reploid that looked completely ordinary.
"That's Nathan, he can take on most of the Mutos reploids in the room. So talk to each of them and choose carefully, remember you only get one. Until he or she dies.
Zero started from the human-like reploids, first approaching a nervous small reploid.
"What's your name?" He asked, and the nervous reploid gave a yelp. He didn't realize Zero was approaching him.
"Umm... it's Jeff sir... I umm... yes Jeff." The nervous reploid said.
"Any combat experience?" Zero asked.
"No err... I mean no sir..." The reploid said.
"Any skills?" Zero started to wander what this reploid was doing there.
"Umm... I'm uhh... I'm pretty good at cleaning sir." Zero smacked his forehead and looked at Harpuia, he seemed pretty amused by this.
"Very funny Harpuia." Zero snapped.
"Okay all of the cleaners back to work." Harpuia said, all of the human-like reploids but Nathan left the room confused.
Zero walked over to Nathan.
"What weapons are you good with?" Zero asked.
"Buster, buster rifle, buster cannon. Just give me a buster and I'm set." Nathan said.
"Any useful skills?" Zero asked raising an eyebrow.
"I'm a good climber, so I can climb stuff like trees or mountains to scout ahead. And alert from enemies sir." Nathan said and muttered "Bet you can't do that." He looked shocked when he saw that Zero heard him.
"Then go become a scout. If you're so good at it and get out of my sight."
Nathan left, disappointed.
Zero walked over to a small rat-like Mutos-reploid.
"Name?"
"Raton sir." The reploid said.
"Combat skills?"
"I'm small so I don't get hurt often, I'm good with a buster but not with anything too heavy."
"On your way then." Zero sent him away.
Zero passed and interviewed any reploid; he was surprised as most of them were useless but had attributes like strength or quickness.
He finally reached the last reploid, a Mutos resembling a Doberman with a steel colored lower jaw.
The reploid had regular hand with large and sharp fingernails.
The reploid's eyes were green and his body color (except for the lower jaw) was dark brown, his ears black.
His body torso-down was humanoid, with an exception in the color.
He wore a black suit, silver buttons decorated it and it had two long sleeves with silver cuffs.
His pants were the same as his shirt; to his right leg was a buster holster and on his lower left ankle's side he had a combat knife.
"What's your name?" Zero asked curiously as this reploid was much different than the others. He was roughly Zero's size without the ears.
"My name is Hubershnicdt." The Doberman said with a heavy German accent.
"Und I vas nominatid for the leatership of the X guard, I got to finals but lost to big hyena reploid because of technical difficulties. My jaw was malfunctioning and it vas causing me great pain so I could not beat that reploid. Otervise you would have been looking at the leater of the X guard." Hubershnicdt explained.
"I see, well then I suppose you have exceptional combat skills." Zero said.
"Yes, I am able to perform many moves and to fight with many veapons. I can takedown whole platoon myself. I never forgive hyena reploid for beating me so I replaced jaw with better one. So malfunction will not occur again." Hubershnicdt said and pointed to his steel jaw.
"What weapons can you fight with?" Zero inquired.
"Any, any veapon familiar to our armies that is. I know how to use beam sabers and busters. I know how to fight with long-range sniper weapons and close range buster rifles. I can fight with cannons and other beam veapons as well. I am especially good at guarding fortresses and fighting indoors." Hubershnicdt explained.
"When was your last battle outside training?" Zero asked as he noticed the action-craving stare in Hubershnicdt's eyes.
"My last battle was long ago with resistance. They trying to steal special supplies but I defeated all of them." Hubershnicdt said.
"I pick this one!" Zero yelled to Harpuia, who was standing and conversing with Falcon.
"Really? You mean it? I fight again?" Hubershnicdt asked excitedly.
"Yes, and I'm going to train you right now so wait here." Zero said and walked over to Harpuia.
"Falcon." He nodded and Falcon nodded back.
"So you chose Hubershnicdt? A good choice, he was one of the best in his time. A shame about his jaw but Copy X, he didn't want him. He assigned him to guard duty of no importance." Harpuia said, he was leaning against the wall his arms were crossed on his chest.
"Really? How can the runner up for the leading role of his guard be assigned to become a simple guard?" Zero also crossed his hands on his chest as he asked.
"Copy X said he didn't want to have old broken 'dinosaurs' he called it, in his army." Harpuia shrugged.
"Well what about me Harpuia? Am I a dinosaur?" Zero smiled.
"I'm going to use my right to remain silent for this one." Harpuia smirked.
"Well you'd better get to the observation room then. I want to see what this guy's all about." Zero said and shooed the out of the room.
"Right then." He said, "Time to see what you've got."
Hubershnicdt grinned, baring his razor sharp teeth.
"I am ready." He said.
"Combat simulator level one please." Zero said loudly.
The combat simulator would produce holographic images of units in order to train the guardians or the military reploids.
It had many levels, each producing a different stronger unit.
The five levels before the last one were Fefnir, Leviathan, Phantom, Harpuia and Copy X and the last level was Zero himself. No one had beaten Zero or Copy X's levels yet, including the guardians. Zero didn't have time to use the combat simulator or otherwise he would have beaten all of the levels.
Hubershnicdt prepared for battle and in front of him appeared a Pantheon guardian.
Hubershnicdt pounced and brutally ripped the hand with the club and then crushed the Pantheon's head with it.
The Pantheon guardian disappeared and the computer announced, "Level one cleared."
"Go on computer." Zero said, and a Pantheon hunter appeared.
The hunter barely raised his buster before Hubershnicdt ripped its head off the shoulders.
The hunter disappeared and the computer announced, "Moving to level three."
A Pantheon crawler appeared, but as he tried to pounce Hubershnicdt drew his buster amazingly fast and shot it straight in the oval red eye.
"Moving to level 4" Now a stronger unit appeared, a mechaniloid with a chain ball.
The weak spot for this mechaniloid was the bottom; Hubershnicdt would have to hit the mechaniloid in the head, and while the mechaniloid's base is exposed he should strike it.
Hubershnicdt dodged the chain ball without difficulty and with a sprint he jumped and double-kicked the mechaniloid's head with his boots and then did a backwards somersault, landing in front of the mechaniloid.
It took him only one more second to destroy the base of the mechaniloid with his buster.
"Good, level 12 computer." Zero said, and now a reploid very familiar to him appeared, Maha Ganeshariff.
The gigantic elephant reploid rolled into a ball and spin-dashed at Hubershnicdt, who jumped out of the way and quickly shot three times at the elephant, who returned to his normal state.
The elephant was knocked back a bit by the shots and yet again rolled to a ball but this time he sent his trunk upwards and grabbed the ceiling.
He lifted himself in the air and swung himself at Hubershnicdt, who dashed underneath to avoid it.
Hubershnicdt moved quickly and jumped drawing his combat knife, and slicing the trunk with it.
The elephant's heavy body crashed on the floor and he got back to his original state.
Hubershnicdt dashed at him and with a quick slash, severed his arm.
Without giving his opponent any time to recover Hubershnicdt shot him with his buster again, and the elephant exploded in a brilliant blast.
Next up was Anubis Necromansess the third, which also wasn't a match for the experienced and trained veteran.
After that it was Blizzarak, who was also defeated easily. Zero, after studying the technique Hubershnicdt used realized he changed it all of the time, to keep the computer guessing what he will do next.
Then he reached the Rainbow Devil, who he also defeated but with a bit of difficulty.
To Zero's surprise Hubershnicdt was doing great, he managed to beat Fefnir and Leviathan but then moved on to Phantom.
Phantom made several copies of himself but couldn't fool Hubershnicdt, who used his nose to sniff out the real him and sliced him with his combat knife.
Zero wondered, the combat knife had to be made of some sort of special metal to be able to cut through metallic objects like that.
Phantom tried to slash at him with his sword but Hubershnicdt jumped in the air and landed on Phantom's head.
Phantom collapsed to the ground and was replaced by Harpuia, this battle however was very difficult for Hubershnicdt. He tried his best but couldn't beat him.
"All right that's enough computer." Zero said.
"Do you realize that you are stronger than three of the guardians?" Zero asked.
"Ja, I do Mr. Zero but Harpuia is too much for me. I need more training."
"Do remember, Zero that we haven't updated that thing since you defeated Copy X. We have grown in power." Harpuia said as he and Falcon entered the room, Fenrir apparently left.
"Undoubtedly so, but still he is very strong and I just can't believe that Copy X rejected someone this powerful." Zero said.
"Copy X's motives were always his own." Harpuia replied.
"Well, Hubershnicdt." Zero said, "I'll call you Hub, for short because it is a bit hard to properly pronounce your name." Zero suggested.
"I have no objections master Zero." Hub said.
"Well Hub, I'll meet you tomorrow here for another training session. I'll show you some moves and I'll teach you some of the things I know." Zero explained.
"Ja master Zero, goodbye if you ever need me I vill leave my comm. freqvency at your door." Hub saluted and left the training room.
"Well I'll see you tomorrow Harpuia, goodbye Falcon." Zero said and left the training room towards his quarters.
To be continued...Author notes: The spelling errors when Hubershnicdt speaks are intentional, because he has a heavy German accent and he doesn't speak English well, or Japanese.
Any other spelling errors should be immediately reported to me so I can fix them.
Thank you all, keep reviewing and goodbye.