AN: Wow, it's been a hot second, sorry about that. The end of the semester really got busy for me. I've finally finished my degree though :D yay!
To be honest, I'm not really sure this chapter is all that good. Yet, I still struggled immensely with it. Wow. Uh, there's a bit of technobabble in this. I promise, it'll be relevant. Not much going on, just detailing the aftermath of the last chapter.
Some terms, copypasted from another fic where I explained them better. MeReAD is an acronym that stands for the Mechaniloid and Reploid Aggregation Database, which contains all public records of mechaniloid and reploid builds. The terms /#.XX/ and /#.XY/ do not signify genetics, sex, gender, whatever, though they can sometimes correlate. They are the names of build models. /#.XX/ reploids are built from Zero's make type, /#.XY/ are built from X's make type. The number in front of them stand for the degree of separation from the original builds. X and Zero are /0/ as they are the originals. Humanoids are /1/. Animaloids are /2/ etc. (NOTE: FF net formatting sometimes fucks this nomenclature up, please see the Ao3 version if it decides to break again). Everything else, Iris should explain.
Content warning there is some pretty heavy depictions of narcissistic abuse in this chapter and threats of violence. Also, I don't know why I have to say this, but no, I don't hate XZero. X is like this for a reason. This story is about how grief changes people. X and Zero will get a happy ending.
With that being said, hope you like this thing. Obligatory chapter song is Satan in the Wait by Daughters.
CHAPTER 6
There would be no peace for Zero, even in sleep. Whenever he closed his eyes, all he could see was Axl.
His final words played over and over in Zero's head until it wore out. The vision of his jaw, clenched in a scowl, condemning the world X had created even in death…
A fissure, splitting his world into pieces. Where did he go so wrong?
He sat curled over in a bathtub, armourless and helmetless, naked and entirely vulnerable, submerged in lukewarm water. His world was red, and he couldn't wash himself of the shade no matter how hard he tried. It was torture. Every waking moment he spent living in that citadel was agony.
There was no one left for him in Neo Arcadia. He wasn't sure he could ever bear to look X in the eye again. Zero felt empty. Hollow. Vacuous, his conscience vacating his body in a bid to cope with his grief.
Axl's ideal loomed over him. If he was going to have Axl's message live on, he had to find the resolve to escape X's dominion. He had to find the will to change without X's influence, for society was shaped by those who possessed the will to exalt the distant ideal. Something had to change.
But… he wasn't himself. How could he change when he didn't know what he was to begin with? Not a warmachine, not anymore- his body was frail, his reflexes like resin instead of a rapid, and yet, not fully a person either, not in the eyes of those around him. He was little more than a pet. A piece of art to balk at.
Even in his darkest hour, he had a responsibility, an imperative- he had to uphold the distant future ideal, the strongest will, not only for Axl, not only for himself, but for the people like him. The unsatisfied minority, every man who couldn't stand to live under X's dominion. If he could change the world, even by just 1%, that was an initiative he was obliged to take.
Change… Zero grabbed handfuls of golden hair and rocked forward.
Fractures that never healed- set in stone forever. What was he fighting for?
…
'Commander Zero. This is Lieutenant Wander. You have a visitor at gate 20-C2. She says she's from, er, the RIAOT? I'm here with Meander.'
The visitor came as a surprise to Zero. He really didn't have time to entertain unanticipated guests, nor did he have the desire to really do so. His schedule was busy as is, now that he was amongst the most important people in the Hunters. Socialisation with complete strangers? On any other day, it'd be off the table. Liaising with the public- that was X's duty. Most of Abel City's denizens knew that trying to contact Zero was a fruitless endeavour, and they didn't bother.
To that, Zero wouldn't complain. That was what the Hunter's PR division was for.
For some reason however, this time, he found himself compelled to investigate. He was already on his way to the entrance of the western wing.
Maybe it was the fact that the Repliforce had only recently come to fruition. Dr. Cain had demanded Zero behave during this moment in time, when tensions were high and political relations were fragile. If she was from the RIAOT, maybe offering her his time would reflect well on the Hunters as an organisation.
...The RIAOT? What was the RIAOT, exactly?
Zero appeared at the scene at gate 20-C2. His subordinates, Lieutenant Wander and Assistant Chief Meander were already present. The latter coyote reploid probably there to see if he could diffuse the situation. Alas- the guest wanted Zero, not his lackeys.
Standing between the two was Zero's visitor. She was…
Zero's initial reaction was telling to all that were present but himself.
Title- 'hot girl just walked in' by Zero /, c. 2129, oil on canvas.
"Commander Zero, sir!" Wander stood at attention and gave a firm salute. Meander offered a more subdued greeting in a small nod.
The visitor… she had a slight smile gracing her soft features when she met Zero's gaze. She was… cute?
Was that the right word? Zero was not at all well versed in these kinds of feelings. They were emotions he was rarely privy to.
She had long brown hair and hazel green eyes. There was an instant, recognisable charisma about her. On top of it all- that smile… rarely did Zero earn a look quite so gentle and welcoming. The only other person who offered such a gift was X.
Zero's tactical algorithms were at a loss. Did she have an agenda? She didn't seem to give out any threat readout. What was the RIAOT? Zero's tacticals rendered her in wireframe and identified potential vulnerabilities in her build. Further investigation revealed she was new, a month old, fresh off the factory line, and, upon consultation of the Mechaniloid and Reploid Aggregation Database, a wholly unique / model. After a short pause, he blinked and returned to his senses upon a soft reboot.
"Uh. Hello?" Zero tried. The visitor's smile widened.
"Hello, sir," she greeted in kind. Her voice was feathery and gently accented. Zero nervously looked to Wander and Meander for elaboration on the situation, but they simply shrugged. The visitor extended a hand for Zero to shake. The red hunter stared at her hand apprehensively, hesitantly letting her take it and shake. "It's an honour to meet you, Zero, really."
Zero made a face. Meander covered his muzzle to hide his smirk. The blonde was probably trying to look welcoming, but his bemusement was betraying him. The guest quickly picked up on his turmoil and laughed, the sweet sound helping dissipate some of the tension in the air.
"Oh! I'm confusing you, aren't I? My name is Iris," she cleared up. "I'm from the RIAOT."
Zero cocked his head, nonplussed. RIAOT… he searched the Hunters' infonet for further information on such an establishment.
"...The Reploid Integration and Organisation Trust."
"Exactly right," Iris confirmed. Zero frowned, still plenty confused.
"...The Reploid Integration and Organisation Trust… is a research institute."
"Again, yes."
Strange, but it wasn't like she posed any sort of threat. In fact, now that his tacticals had run a full analysis on her, Zero felt unreasonably calm in her presence, like he had been stripped of his armour and laid bare. He looked to Meander and Wander to calibrate.
'Meander' /: negligible threat 0.32% - analysis evidence significant when H0 (target: threat) is 0.05 (p=0.00006). Nope- his subroutines were in perfect working order.
Still, questions had to be asked. "Why are you here?"
"I'm here for my dissertation, of course!" She said, as if it was obvious. "So you can stop running your tacticals on me, now. I'm a non-combat build."
Zero squinted. That just sent those algorithms into overdrive.
"How did you know I was-?"
Iris gave him a suave grin. "I know many things. Your thoughts are very loud."
Zero was unsure of what that meant. She walked off to explore the courtyard, inspecting the facade of the Hunter Base with a scrutinising eye. "Maybe you're familiar with my brother."
Close behind, Zero followed Iris as she milled around the garden. "...I'm afraid I don't detect any candidate resemblances."
Iris stopped and chuckled. "Colonel."
Zero leaned back in surprise. "The Colonel? From Repliforce?"
"Mmhm. He talks about you a lot. It was what got me interested in finally meeting you!" Iris revealed. "Your story, it kind of inspired my dissertation. I'd been racking my brain for as long as I've been online trying to think of something to submit to the RIAOT, then, it came to me one night; the day you met Colonel, he came back to the Repliforce residentials talking about you, and that was when I figured it out. Machine-Human metanoia!"
"Dissertation…?" That gave Zero pause. "...if you think I'm nothing more than a thing for you to study, then forget it. I'm not going to be your PhD thesis."
Iris shook her head vigorously. "Nonono! It's not like that. My dissertation is not about you in particular. It's an investigation into what makes us reploids so human. Thus: machine-human metanoia. What catalysed the change from lower animals to sapience and beyond, et cetera? What anomaly predicated our headlong rush into sapience?"
Zero's lips drew tight. Her words, though laced with a hypnotising, provocative charisma, registered as complete nonsense to him. "...We are robots."
"And we are people." Iris cleared her throat. "What I'm trying to get at is that I'm trying to reverse engineer Thomas Light's innovations in sapient robotics and see if it can be applied to understanding the root of maverickism. That's where you come in. I'm interested in your metanoia. It's unique to you, you're maybe the only example of it out there right now. Your ability to exhibit humanity after waking up without a human conscience is the only well documented immediate switch from wild to man!"
"Meta-noy-ah…. I'm not a Light derivative," Zero noted. Iris cocked her head quizzically.
"But you are a person, aren't you?"
"...I am a warmachine," he half-answered. "I am my mission, nothing more."
Iris squinted. "X doesn't think of you that way."
"...How- wh-" He restarted. "You've never met him. Why would you think that?"
"I have eyes, a brain and a heart, is how."
Zero didn't respond.
"You're pretty easy to read, you know. It's clear to me that you're a person… at least, you're still learning how to cope with the mantle of 'man' when you don't think you deserve the title."
After a silence, Iris quickly came to the realisation that Zero coped with philosophical challenges by simply shutting himself off from the world.
"Have you ever heard of the halo-genome?"
Zero scrunched his nose. "No...?" Really- what did Iris expect him to say?
"I wouldn't have thought so." She gave him a cheeky smirk. "There's this paradox in modern robotics. They call it the Missing Piece. See, we have a processor, homologous to the animal brain…" she tapped her temple, "but… we've yet to map any region of our central processor that governs identity. The physical central processor we have is our animal brain in the most literal of terms- it governs our mechabiological functions and not much else. By all estimates… with the central processor we have, we should be as vacuous as a mechaniloid."
Zero was struggling to keep up with what she was saying. "...Did you come here just to confuse me?"
"I'm telling you this because this is relevant to my dissertation. And to you, more than you realise," she answered. "See, the Missing Piece, our humanity… is not a physical thing. If our genome encodes the instructions for our physical bodies, the halo-genome encodes the instructions for our identities. Our souls, maybe."
Zero chewed his lip in thought. "Souls… DNA souls. Like the Berkana incident?"
"Yes!" She jogged in place and fist pumped victoriously. "'DNA souls,' as she called them. That was the first time we realised the effects of the halo-genome- the haloencephelon, specifically. Berkana's victims, their haloencephelon literally burnt away completely. After that, there was no person left in those reploids… just the vacant animal."
"Halo, because it surrounds our head… the haloencephalon. The halo brain?"
"Yes. That is what makes us, us."
"But it doesn't exist."
"Well, not as you or I would expect it to. It's based in another realm, one we can't truly tap into yet as long as we're confined to basal human tridimensional limits. I call it cyberspace, like those old science fiction movies. I'm still trying to make it catch on in RIAOT. Cyberspace stores the halo in a kind of conscience cloud network. We are its physical matter cartridges."
"I'm lost again."
Iris circled around in front of Zero. "Can I show you something? It won't hurt, promise."
A moment passed. Zero was estimating Iris' heart rate as she stared up at him with cutesy doe-eyes. 63bpm… 64bpm. Back to 63. Likely telling the truth. "Alright. Just make it quick… I have a meeting at 3…"
Iris' grin widened. "Yes!" She celebrated, before composing herself to the best of her ability. "Okay. Uh, hold still. This is probably gonna feel weird."
She put two fingers on his headgem. Zero cocked a brow behind his helmet.
"Authorisation code X-291937- FULL INTEGRATION - ALL IN, HALO, DURATION 120 DEGREES."
And all at once, his HUD dissolved from his vision. Wander, Meander and Iris, previously rendered partially in wireframe with vulnerabilities highlighted in red surface planes, appeared… exactly as they existed. The incessant tactical programming that was always running was eerily quiet. Everything looked so… real. He felt off. He felt like… he was entirely himself.
Zero panicked.
"WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME-"
Meander and Wander backed up some, the canid reploids staring with wide eyes at the situation playing out in front of them.
"Relax! This is temporary," Iris assured. "You'll go back to normal in two minutes."
"How- what- euh?!"
"This is a style I developed during my socialisation period. This is your haloencephalon. This is you."
Zero stared at Iris as if she had grown a second head. He looked at his hands.
"My combat algorithms-"
"Are a part of the animal brain. Most of us are primarily driven by the Animal in our lives, you know." Zero could hear the capitalisation in her tone. "The Animal governs our innate desire to survive. It values the immediate comfort. The halo… it exalts the ideal of the future. Most reploids are caught in an imbalance favouring the animal brain, I've noticed… you included. Your halo activity heat map is… your halo brain, it's being suppressed with how you limit yourself to the physical. Hm… that's interesting. I haven't mastered this technique completely… your hindbrain is still functioning. if I could entirely inhibit your animal brain, you'd have passed out… and you wouldn't have freaked out."
She made a mental note. Zero wasn't familiar with the technicalities, but one thing was for certain.
He… liked this. Being purely himself. He liked seeing the world through the eyes of his true brain, whatever that meant. In the light of his halo, everything seemed much more vibrant, no longer bogged down by his animal impulses. As he was in this state, he felt privy to the mantle of 'man', capable of art and compassion and innovation and love. He didn't see Meander or Wander in terms of threat level anymore, he could finally see them as nothing but friends. The woman before him, he saw her not as a mere non-combatant, but as someone who was truly interested in the person behind the warmachine proxy it was inhabiting. When he contemplated X…
Was it love he felt? He wasn't too sure… they were not quite just friends anymore.
"I have two hypotheses. One, imbalance between the two brains breeds fracture in the reploid. The Animal brain seeks comfort and submits to the wiles of natural order. It's the mother of compliance. When the halo burns out, you're left with vacant animals. Berkana, you know? The halo supplants natural order in the name of the ideal- to survive is not enough, we must go beyond base desires. Nine out of ten reploids let the Animal direct their decisions. The remaining 10%... well, when a reploid tries to supplant the natural order of things, what do you suppose humans call that?"
Zero's eyes widened. "Maverick…?"
"Maverick. Sigma, I've observed his halomap- his halo dominates his physical by a hundred fold factor. Almost as if his physical doesn't even matter- hence his ability to return even after physical death. His halo-genome must have mutated in a way to escape nature, maybe by viral integration into the halo-genome. The halo draws from the realm of possibility. Sap too much from the future, and there will be none left for us. My second hypothesis- perfection and true freedom can only be achieved by equilibrium of perfect Animal and halo brain dynamics."
Zero made a face. "Which means?"
Iris prodded Zero's chest with her finger. "We are art. Your body is the canvas. Your halo is the paintbrush. You create your own masterpiece."
...
Two minutes were up. Tacticals and reflexes commanded his being once more, the world returning to what he once knew.
"That sounds like maverick talk…" Meander itched the back of his head. Iris whipped around with her arms crossed over her chest.
"Maybe it is. Maybe all reploids have an impulse to become mavericks. I didn't design the halo! I don't know what Dr. Light's thought process was."
"I don't buy the idea that Dr. Light could even do that. I mean, it was 100 years ago," Wander asserted, "sure he was smart, but tapping into higher dimensions? How many elements did they have, 50? Bahah, they didn't even have transerver spatial-mass balancers."
Iris ignored them, and turned back to Zero. "I'll need to pick at your brain a little more to find out if you were created with a halo, or if you developed it serendipitously. Which means I need your permission. Is that alright?"
Zero pursed his lips and sighed. "I don't know…"
"I'll give you some time to think about it. Anyway, I should get going… I won't keep you any longer. See you around, Zero."
Iris playfully pivoted around Zero, heading for the inside of the base. Meander woofed and chased after her. "Hey! You need a permit-"
"I have one. I'm with Repliforce, remember?"
Meander set his jaw. "Oh."
"Wait." Zero reached out for Iris, and she stopped stiffly. "Using conscience altering authority codes like that. That's a style unique to X… how did you… do that?"
"Project ADAM. An attempt to recreate X's likeness in perfection. But humans are triumvirate. They can't tap into the halo because they are limited to three dimensions. So the reploid that was ADAM- X- was split in two.."
"You and Colonel…"
She hummed affirmatively. "I don't consider myself an empath. More of… someone who reverse engineers the ego in real time."
Zero stood wordlessly as Iris stared him down. After realising he had little else to say, she disappeared into many halls of the base. He sighed.
Metanoia… masterpiece…
…
Zero sat submerged in the bath. His past played upon the fringes of his conscience.
He wished X had never woken him from stasis. The real world was so much more painful than he remembered.
The real… the physical… imbalance breeds fracture in the reploid.
He needed to be liberated from his physical cartridge. He needed to find balance to nourish his metamorphosis, as Iris had wanted.
Die, and be reborn in emancipation- his art. His metanoia.
He was to be his own masterpiece, which no one else had the aptitude to paint.
Iris? If you're out there… I think I understand now. The definition of evolution is escape.
"Happy anniversary to youuu…"
Hunched over at his desk in his citadel living quarters, X jolted upright at the deep, sultry voice, singing coyly at him. Zero?
He turned, finding the red android leaning against the doorframe to his study. Zero gazed at him with unbridled want, a cocked hip, a sly smirk. He let his beautiful flaxen-gold hair fall over his body, his helmet discarded. X stared at him with roving eyes, taking a second to compute what was happening.
Wait. It was their anniversary?
Zero blushed cutely, a pink hatch etching across his faceplate, and he flicked his shimmering blonde hair over his shoulder. "Happy anniversary to youuuu~..."
"Oh… Zero? You've finally come around, have you?" he supposed, getting off his chair and onto his feet. Zero sauntered over with a tantalising sway of the hips, every slow step drawing all of X's attention, where they met in the middle before the doorway to their bedroom. Zero's hand came over X's chest, fingers splaying out as he guided X into their bedroom. "I'm glad… you've finally come around to seeing things how I see them."
He guided Zero's lips to his, capturing them in a passionate kiss as he backed up into his bed, falling back onto the mattress with Zero strewn atop of him. It had been too long since Zero had kissed him like this. X's hand, spread across the small of Zero's back, strayed further south as Zero deepened the kiss with a greedy open mouth.
"Happy anniversary… to… you~" Zero cooed when he parted lips with the azure reploid. Their body's were flush, hot, burning with desire. "Happy anniversary dear… Eeeecks~!"
He threw his head back as he sang, playing up the melodrama for X's amusement.
"You're so funny, Zero…" X chuckled, "I love you…"
X was laughing. His heart felt aglow with the light of love, his head in the clouds. He was comfortable. Free, all inhibitions dissolving.
"I have a gift for youuu…" Zero whispered sweetly into his audial, leaning back to straddle him and shouldering off his vest. "All of me, all for you."
Shutting his eyes, X let himself smile. All his struggles, his loss, his sacrifices- all were vindicated with Zero's love.
He was his everything. It was all worth it. Was it?
A pause- a break- a fracture. Red. His world was tattered and frayed.
In a viral cyberspace facsimile, Zero stood over him with his boot pinning him to the ground, his Z-saber held viciously over his head like the sword of Damocles.
"N-no!"
Zero burned violet with animosity. His fangs were bared like a snarling beast, and yet, there was an unmistakable striking clarity in his eyes that revealed an free, awakened conscience behind the animal.
"I hate you."
True balance- this was Zero's honest self. The blade plunged down into X's prone body, splitting him in two from hip to gullet.
Was it worth it?
…
X woke with a gasp, startling upright in his bed and frantically palming his chest.
He was unscathed. Just a dream, but his terror still lingered in the waking world in his shallow breaths and quivering frame. Over the years, he had tried tirelessly to suppress the memory of the day Zero turned on him, but it was a futile endeavour. It was a part of him now, whether he liked it or not. The centuries old wound may have healed, but the scar remained forever.
X breathed in and held it. He was in control. Exhale. The feeling would pass eventually. He needed a walk.
In the middle of the night with few around to call company, X left his living quarters to wander the citadel halls, comforted by the powerful embrace of the marble white tower. The moonlight glistened off the edges of its intricate architecture.
Ever since Axl's death, Zero hadn't spoken to him since. He wasn't sure if Zero was ever going to forgive him. He was torn- he wanted Zero to love him the same way he did in years prior, but there was another half of him insisting that none of it mattered, as long as he maintained his dominion over his world. His life's work had to be preserved, and if Zero couldn't handle that, then perhaps he was weaker than he remembered.
X stopped in front of a window and looked out to Neo Arcadia, still blanketed in darkness. He gripped his hands into tightly balled fists. Maybe Axl had already poisoned his mind with maverick nonsense. He could feel his grip on Zero slipping with every passing second. Zero's seconds- they were supposed to belong to him. Had he given him too much leash?
Such a lack of control signified weakness. He would reject that. He rejected weakness with every fiber of his being!
Stepping outside onto a balcony, X took in the fresh air, the cool breeze brushing past as soft as a whisper, a testament to Harpuia's climatological manipulation. He stared into the abyss of the night sky, finding refuge in the infinite vastness of space. His world embodied his perfect ambition, a far cry from the doldrums of Abel City, where his righteous ideals and principles reigned paramount.
So why did Zero long for the past? The Maverick Hunters were nothing but a temporary fix to the problem of wild reploids. He had everything. Why wasn't he fulfilled? What reason did he have to be so insolent?
More importantly, why wasn't X fulfilled? He was comfortable, but he wanted more. Just living wasn't enough. He was still missing something to complete him, even with Zero back.
Zero was supposed to be his saviour, his guiding light- he heard his name in church bells. He was supposed to be his everything!
He had Zero back, but it hardly felt like it… X buried his head in his hands.
Axl was dead, and that was not going to change, no matter how much hatred Zero would harbour towards X for his decision. There was no point contemplating alternate scenarios for things that have already happened.
Regret was something he thought he had abandoned in his quest for the ideal future.
"Father?"
X jolted and yelped a curse, Harpuia's fairly subdued voice coming as more of a shock to him than it had any right to.
"Oh, Harpuia…" X muttered, watching his emerald son as he emerged from the shadows and stood by his side. "Sorry. I just… got lost in my thoughts for a bit."
Harpuia stared him up and down analytically before furrowing his brow. "What has you awake at this hour?"
"Nothing. I was going to ask you the same thing."
"There was an incident at Cloudforge Tower that needed my immediate attention. It has been resolved."
X huffed a sigh, leaning over to rest his arms on the balcony rail. "Good, good man… file a report with the Weather Bureau when you can."
"Of course," Harpuia affirmed. The air general stepped back and made himself look small before continuing. "Father, you seem… tired."
It must've been obvious. X didn't turn away from the view of Neo Arcadia. He just groaned and rubbed the bridge of his nose in exasperation. "Yeah… guess you could say that."
Harpuia frowned in concern, affected with rare sympathy. X had let his scruffy, unkempt facial hair grow unrestrained over the past few weeks, his dirty blonde hair spilling messily from the confines of his helmet. "Trouble sleeping?"
X could lie, but the way the ever present dark circles under his eyes managed to worsen in recent times was telling. His response was a slurred murmur. "Sure. Suppose so…"
It didn't sound all too comforting to the air general. Harpuia looked downward, forlorn. "I see…" He tightened his jaw, thinking over his next words. "Sir, I've been meaning to ask... has- something been troubling you?"
X harrumphed incredulously. "Oh… hazard a guess, why don't you?"
Harpuia shrunk back at his father's aloof response. "Is it… Master Zero?"
Even the mere mention of the android seemed to set him off. With an irate growl, X slammed his fist into the balustrade, the sound of metal clashing against metal ringing out into the night.
"Of course it is!" he snapped, sending Harpuia flinching back. "Ever since I disposed of that insubordinate pest of a maverick, Zero's been avoiding me. That… that hysterical little bitch refuses to even talk to me. Not-even-a peep. He's mad. He does this when he's mad, shutting down like that. Was I so stupid to trust him to know what's right in a world he was never privy to?! Ugh… Zero, he hates me for what I've done to Axl. He won't listen to my perspective- if it were anyone else, would Zero even care that such a vile terrorist was exterminated?! But it doesn't matter… to him, I'm just an evil, heartless monster."
X paused to breathe. "Sometimes, I wonder…"
Harpuia cocked his head. "...-if what you're doing is right?" He guessed. X hummed ambivalently, neither confirming or denying such a statement.
A silence passed over them as X mused to himself. Harpuia shuffled, afflicted by the tension in the air as words were left unsaid.
Finally, X shook his head, standing up tall with reinforced resolve. "Argh, Harpuia, what am I talking about?! Of course it is. I can't afford to be selfish. Axl may have been my son, but he posed a threat to Neo Arcadia's mission of a perfect future. Our principles must come before our selfish animal bonds." He grit his teeth and balled his hand into a fist so tight it quivered. "How could I let myself fall for Zero's bullshit, even for a second… to think he screwed me with his cockamamie ideas while I screwed him! How could I be so stupid, if I'm to lead this world into a new era of prosperity?! I can't entertain such doubt, not anymore."
X narrowed his gaze at Harpuia. "I was upholding our virtues, our laws, that were written in bloodshed. Axl had no place in our ideal future. To kill him is to kill the imperfect past. Correct?!"
"-Yes, correct, sir," Harpuia agreed hurriedly, as to not elicit X's mercurial wrath.
"Good. You understand! And yet, Zero refuses to conceive of my righteous vision… he taught me everything! He forged my ideal! He is the mother of Neo Arcadia! He struck down thousands, killing thoughtlessly because he thought it would advance our mission of peace- and now he's concerned for the lives of mavericks?! Why is he not satisfied?! Is he so insatiable?"
Harpuia swallowed through his anxiety. "He's stuck in the past, if I had to guess. He seeks the familiar comfort of your old world."
X settled himself, letting himself be cold and calculated. "Comfort… he knows better than anyone that comfort stymies progress."
If Zero refused to move on from the former life he had cultivated centuries ago, then sobeit. He could nurse anger over echoes from the past as much as he wanted, he could lash out and scream for Axl, but in the end…
A dumb bitch who bites back is still a dumb bitch. It was about time the Red Demon was broken and tamed.
"I've kept you awake long enough. Get some sleep. You're no good if you overwork that sharp processor of yours."
Harpuia stood at attention. "Yes, sir." He turned, looking over his shoulder before parting ways. "You should get some rest too, dad."
X nodded unpromisingly, and Harpuia stalked off, knowing he didn't have anything to say that his father wanted to hear.
With no one at his side to hear him out, X slumped with a long breath. He wasn't sure if keeping Zero around was more trouble than it was worth. He didn't want him in the hands of the Resistance… but in his current state, he couldn't change a damn thing about the world. Just giving people something to think about did nothing- that was a lesson Zero taught him years ago.
And despite everything, X couldn't help but foster his selfish failing that was his undying love for Zero. Zero was stuck in the past- still in love with what he once was. He wasn't that man anymore- he was so much more.
Zero was nothing without him. So how could he make Zero love him as he was- the man he had become?
The days were starting to blend into one.
Zero remained locked away in his room, laying splayed out on his stomach on his bed as the sun rose and set on Neo Arcadia again and again.
He was exhausted. A kind of tired that sleep just couldn't fix. If anything was to change, he needed to act, but after centuries of burning at both ends, his fire had fizzled out.
Change came to those who seeked it. Waiting was futile. Though, what was there for him to do, realistically? He didn't want to return to the halls of the citadel, but the other options didn't seem too feasible either. He couldn't sneak out with how the tower teemed with guards and soldiers, no doubt on high alert after the execution of such a notable resistance figure in Axl. It was a prison, physically, psychologically, and the walls were only getting smaller.
Axl… it would never get easier, would it? Just like the first time he had failed someone he loved when he murdered Iris. The way his fury lived on in his snarl even after his death. The last he ever saw of Zero was him being rendered helpless in X's mighty grasp.
Zero sobbed into his crossed arms. He felt pathetic, miserable and humiliated. It made him sick to think how worthless he had become. He couldn't go back to X now. He could barely stomach looking at him.
X was a murderer. His X! The same X who loved him unconditionally, the X who kissed his nose when he needed it most and doted on every strand of hair and carried him to bed when he was too tired to even walk after a mission. He murdered their friends, their family. All in the name of paradise. If this was paradise, then Zero wanted nothing to do with it. How could he even begin to think what he was doing was right?
If he could do this to those closest to him, Zero couldn't imagine the sheer magnitude of the wrath and cruelty he unleashed upon his own people.
Since his conception, he was meant to be alone to forge his own path towards senseless destruction at all costs unimpeded. He had no one left, just as his creator had intended.
There was a knock at the door. Zero moaned indignantly.
"...Who is it?"
"It's us! Fefnir and Levi!"
Zero sat up and swung his legs over his bedside. Though he couldn't shed tears, per se, he could still 'cry', and by the way he looked, it was going to be painfully obvious to anyone he had just been in the throes of an episode. He wiped his face down and steeled himself to the best of his ability before answering the door.
"...only you two?" Zero eked out, pressing an audial against the door.
"Yes!" Leviathan answered. "Promise!"
By the sounds of things, his combat mind derived that was indeed the case. He cracked open the door, peeking through into the hallways.
Sure enough, it was just them. There weren't any heat signatures he could detect that would indicate otherwise. "...What do you want?"
Leviathan and Fefnir looked uncertainly at each other. Fefnir took the initiative to speak. "Well… we were wondering if you were okay. You haven't left your room in a week."
Zero had lost count of the days, and he didn't care enough to check his chronometer. "Oh."
"We messaged you on the Neo Arcadian cloud, but you didn't respond. I hope we're not… overstepping a boundary, or anything." Leviathan handed him an E-tank. "We thought you might be hungry so… we got you something to drink."
Zero eyed it with suspicion. Fefnir took it from Leviathan's hands and cracked it open, taking a swig.
"See? Not poisoned. Take it, it's for you."
Now Zero had no reason not to. He hesitantly took it from Fefnir's hands. He hadn't eaten much of anything the past few days- he wasn't exactly burning through his energy reserves sitting around on his bed all day, but at this point, he was running in fumes. Just the thought of eating made him feel ill, but he supposed he had to. He took a sip.
"So… um," Fefnir tapped the ground with a clawed toe. "I know you've probably had it rough lately but… we were wondering if you wanted to hang out?"
A little socialisation might do him good. Zero was still on high alert- just because Fefnir and Leviathan were the most compassionate of the Guardians didn't mean they might have an agenda in mind. Besides- if X asked them to do something, his word superseded Zero's feelings.
"Is X around?"
Leviathan shook her head no. "He's hanging out with the judges in the upper levels."
"Oh. Then… sure. Lead the way."
The two Guardians beamed, ecstatic at the positive response. It made Zero feel just the smallest bit better about himself. At least these two cherished his presence- with everyone else in Neo Arcadia, he felt like nothing more than a piece of meat. He gingerly followed them to Fefnir's private lounge, hiding in their shadows as they passed by soldiers and citadel staff.
The Guardians were unusually quiet as they entered the lounge, their usual banter that filled the air eerily absent. Zero took the opportunity to sit at the pool's edge, basking in the sun's rays and letting his feet dangle under the water. Leviathan fully entered the pool and leaned over the edge, and Fefnir was happy to sit back on dry land, sinking into a nearby lounge chair.
Without a word, they stared off into the distance, unsure of what there was to say. There was a pause before anyone found the heart to speak.
"To be honest, we got kinda worried about you, Zero…" Leviathan confessed. She wasn't looking directly at Zero when she talked, instead watching her fiddling fingers. "You- we… We thought something happened to you."
Something did happen to him, he would've corrected, but Zero was sure she meant something physical. "Sorry. It's just- been hard. With everything… I don't know what I'm doing anymore."
Zero slouched over and decompressed with a long exhale. Fefnir and Leviathan looked in dour spirits for once- Zero's grief was infectious.
"We were gonna ask if you wanted to watch a movie but… you know, it just doesn't feel right." Fefnir swallowed nervously. "Not after… after what happened to Axl."
It was inevitable that someone was going to bring up the elephant in the room. Still, just hearing Axl's name out loud was agonising for Zero. Fefnir sighed and leaned back, scratching his neck to give his hands something to do. He looked blankly into the horizon.
"I miss him too…" Fefnir disclosed. "Master Axl was close with all of us. Whenever dad was being a hardass he was always there to cheer us up…"
As bittersweet a memory it was, it made Zero smile. "That sounds like my Axl…"
"He was like our older brother when he was with us… we wanted to be just like him. He was so cool. He was brave… strong. He was our hero. We loved him. Especially Phantom," Leviathan lamented. "Ever since Axl defected, Phantom hasn't been himself… he wasn't always this quiet, you know."
To find out that Phantom was once outgoing- or at least not quite so introverted, came as a shock to Zero. The thought sent a lurch of sorrow to the bottom of his heart. Phantom must've been hurting hard, just as Zero did. What's more- the poor kid had the misfortune of having government duties to attend to during the aftermath of Axl's execution.
How could they function, carrying such a profound burden? Knowing that their father wasn't above killing his own blood?
"...Doesn't it hurt for you?" Zero asked.
"Of course it does. Axl… he was our best friend and teacher and our brother," Fefnir answered, "it hurt back then to see him exiled. It hurt even more to see him die."
"...Then why didn't you stop him- X?" Zero posited. "He- he's crossed a line, hasn't he?"
Fefnir and Leviathan looked at him with utter shock. "W-we couldn't!" Leviathan denied such a proposition. "We could never betray our father, not after everything he's done for us."
"And X was like a father to Axl too, once," Zero reminded. Fefnir and Leviathan fell silent, faces growing pale at the notion.
"Dad was… just doing what's right for Neo Arcadia," Fefnir tried to reason. "I loved Axl but- but he was dangerous. He needed to be brought to justice. It's just... I just wish it didn't have to be this way."
Their resolve was wavering quickly, though they made an effort to hide it.
"Then maybe what's right for Neo Arcadia isn't just in the grand scheme of things," Zero retorted. "Someone has to bring X to his senses… this isn't him. He's better than this."
Fefnir just shrugged, defeated. "We've tried. X is just set in his ways, you know? We can't change his mind. Maybe you could, but… I don't know. It's hard. It's really hard..."
Zero was very familiar with how stubborn X could be at times. Regardless, it troubled Zero to know that not even his own kin could sway him. He fidgeted nervously. What power did he have, then? He couldn't make X do anything physically, and his words might as well be falling on deaf audials.
"I can't even look at him..." Zero revealed. "It's why I locked myself away. It's… just… it's like someone else has taken his place. I don't know who he is anymore."
Fefnir and Leviathan looked on with sympathy. "Yeah. I understand…" Leviathan consoled, "I think… all of us feel that way. Even if some of us hide it better than others… X is- he can be… frightening."
There was a heavy lull in the air. A weight was bearing down on all of them.
"...Have you ever thought of leaving this place?"
Leviathan stared wide-eyed at Zero in disbelief. "Neo Arcadia? But… there's nothing out there. This is all we have left…"
"That can't be right. The Earth is resilient."
"As far as we know, it's the truth. Satellite images show endless desert and icefields all over the globe. Every exploratory team we send out to the Outside Lands' furthest reaches disappear off the face of the Earth. Complete radio silence when they reach the Rift, and we never hear from them again," Leviathan said. "Besides… We have everything we ever could've wanted here. It's paradise. I mean, compared to what's out there…"
"Well, what's the point of paradise if we have no freedom? X would kill us if we even thought of turning on him. Think about it. He didn't spare Axl. He wouldn't spare us. The only thing we can do here is play along and perpetuate this vicious cycle. This can't go on."
Zero slumped over. It felt counterintuitive to complain about being imprisoned in a perfect world, like he was ungrateful for everything X had done to preserve life on Earth… but he was trapped in a horrible paradise. That paradise was bleeding to death.
"I hate this… I hate all of this," Zero muttered. "I want to trust him. I still love him…"
He didn't want this. Who would? He wouldn't wish this upon his worst enemy. Was his purpose on Earth to suffer?
Zero knew he shouldn't complain. If Axl's words were anything to go by, there were those out there hurting far worse than he was. It did little to lessen the pain clawing at his heart.
"I'm… sorry, Zero," Leviathan murmured. Words fell short of what would truly bring Zero solace, so she said nothing at all.
When his mind was in the state that it was, the gentle silence was all Zero could ask for.
Power came to those who sought it out. Zero knew it wouldn't be given to him so generously, not in Neo Arcadia, at least.
He knew the right thing to do in these circumstances was to at least try talking to X. There were certainly things Zero needed to say to him, and he was sure X felt very much the same. They were both hanging onto some unsaid burdens that needed to be aired out sooner rather than later, at least before they began to boil over into something neither of them could control.
There were problems that needed his attention- the tide was rising and Zero was already halfway underwater.
But Zero couldn't. He couldn't even bear to think about looking him in the eye.
Night fell on Neo Arcadia, and X was holding some extravagant celebratory gala in one of the citadel's countless ballrooms, surrounded by well dressed men and reploid alike, drinking and laughing amongst themselves without a care in the world. Zero knew that now was a better time than ever to confront X, with a crowd to back him up and scare X off from doing anything brash.
But he failed to muster up the grit to do that. Instead, he looked on from behind the ballroom doors, hidden in the shadows, watching on as X acted as though nothing had ever happened. It made Zero sick.
To be honest- Zero wanted to be so carefree. He wanted to be at peace, to embrace his place in Neo Arcadia with eager willingness, but he was never the type to settle for that much.
Fefnir and Leviathan had invited him to the ball prior. They were adamant, and he was sure they were disappointed to find that he had bailed. Really, he almost made good on their invite, but the prospect of just being near X was haunting.
It was self-destructive- he knew that the longer he avoided X, the greater his fury would become. Confrontation was inevitable. His synth-skin crawled contemplating what he'd do to him when their paths eventually crossed.
His fear was consuming. Zero had nothing left to do here. He turned heel and ran.
Ran right into X's son.
"Uhf- Phantom…?"
Zero stumbled as he came to a stop in front of the shinobi hiding away in the darkness out of sight of the party's attendees, the red glow of his pupils piercing through the shadows.
"Master Zero? Apologies. I was distracted."
Zero cocked his head. "I should be the one apologising. I didn't see you there." He stepped back. After a quick scan of the area, Zero found that there was no one else around. "...What are you doing here?"
"I'd ask the same of you," Phantom countered. Zero took a breath and held it in an attempt to steel his spirits, but the fortitude was lost on him. He let out a heavy sigh and looked away, stepping back to slump against the wall. What was the point in lying?
"I wanted to talk to X. It's just…" he shook his head in defeat. "I couldn't do it."
Phantom stared at the red android with a piercing glare, before his cold spirit faltered, his face softening with sympathy. The shinobi cast his gaze elsewhere, mulling over his own thoughts.
"Phantom?"
"I know how that feels…" Phantom mumbled. Zero cocked his head and leaned in, tuning his audials a touch.
"Hm?" He hummed. Phantom sighed, gripping his arm nervously and looking at the ceiling in exasperation.
"I understand, Master Zero… because I'm feeling much the same…" Phantom confessed, raising his voice a touch. "I want to be there, with them, with my family… All I want is to be happy like them. There are just too many things troubling me right now that are keeping me from being at their side."
The memory of Zero's prior conversation with Leviathan and Fefnir briefly crossed his mind. Family seemed to hold a considerable weight with the Guardians…
"...it's Axl, isn't it?"
Phantom came to a stiff halt and winced. He clenched his eyes shut to find his resolve, before breathing out the tension in his chest and staring off into a vast, dark corridor. "...Yes. It is."
Zero frowned, solemnly bowing his head in understanding.
Phantom spoke after a pause, voice softer than silk. "He was once my mentor," he revealed, "he was the first Cutting Shadow General. He was the greatest stealth combatant to ever live. He taught me everything I know. He had this aura about him that drew people in. He had a power to sway minds like nobody else could, not even our father." He tilted his gaze downwards and tightened his jaw. "And then one day Axl couldn't stand being Master Axl anymore. He revolted against X and X exiled him. Indeed… I should be glad he only exiled him at the time. When Alia and Signas- when they started to turn on Neo Arcadia…"
Phantom knew that Zero knew what had become of them. "It was only a matter of time before Axl would've been caught and killed. But… It still hurts. He used to tell me nobody could ever catch him…" His voice was quivering. "But he's dead now. Our brother is dead, and our father killed him without a lick of remorse. I don't know what I can do to make him proud, our father. I know I must remain loyal to him, but I don't... I don't know."
Maybe Phantom wasn't his own kin, but it didn't matter. It hurt to see him in pain, to hear his voice break as he fought back tears. Zero stepped forward and wrapped his arms around the shinobi. The tall stealth build stiffened up at first, eyes wide with surprise behind his mask, before quickly melting into the comfort of Zero's embrace, the tension in his frame lifting in the red android's arms.
He had needed a hug like this. Phantom had gone long without feeling the comfort of a parent's love.
"I wish I could've done more for you." Zero pressed his nose against the crook of Phantom's shoulder. "I'm sorry, Phantom. I should've been there for you and your siblings. Every second of my life, I regret having left you kids and your father alone. Maybe… if things had been different... I could've stopped X from going down this path. But I promise, I'm here now, okay? I'm going to try to make things right, for all of us. I just need time to figure out how."
Zero leaned back an inch, cupping Phantom's cheek with his hand and resting his forehead against his. Phantom leaned into Zero's gentle touch, breath hitching with a choked back sob. "Th-thank you, Master Zero. Thank you..." he stammered. After a beat, he stepped back, begrudgingly breaking away from the embrace. "I'm sorry to ask more of you, but... please, do not speak of this to X."
Zero nodded, giving the tall reploid a soft, honest smile. He set a hand on Phantom's shoulder and gently jostled him. "This will be kept between you and I. Promise."
Phantom sighed, swallowing down the ball of nerves in his throat. "Thank you. I should… take my leave."
He pivoted on a heel and began to wander off, his footsteps hardly making a sound against the muted cacophony of the party just beyond the walls of the ballroom.
"Goodnight, Phantom."
There was no response. Zero let out a deep exhale. X still weighed heavy on his mind, but offering his troubled son some semblance of love was fulfilling enough for him.
With the weight on his shoulders lightened, he retreated to his room, escaping to the comfort of solitude once more.
The assembly hall was filling up fast with nervous soldiers as the morning broke, reploids and humans alike waiting anxiously for their leader to stand before them. Ciel paced back and forth from behind a wall, thoughts racing in her mind as she struggled over what to say.
Breaking the news felt like an impossibility. After the disastrous operation that led to Axl and Neige's capture by Neo Arcadia, the Resistance had been in dour spirits, as though they knew what would become of their comrades.
Everyone loved Axl. Even at his considerable age, he still managed to retain such a youthful, boyish spirit that bolstered the Resistance's morale, though he carried a level of older wisdom and intuition that offered much needed guidance to the young rebels. His combat skills and acuity was second to none, having been honed over centuries, and he had insight into X's psyche that few others could stake a claim to as his adopted son. The copybot was one of a small handful of reploids still remaining from the time before the devastation of the Elf Wars. All soldiers were precious, but Axl was a valuable, irreplaceable recourse to the Resistance.
Ciel held on to hope, latching onto the belief that he would be spared, as improbable as such an outcome was. It was all she could do. There was far too little time to plan and wage a siege on Neo Arcadia's most high security penitentiary. Ciel had been fighting long enough to know that X did not have a propensity to keep highly sought after criminals alive for long enough to give anyone the chance to fight back.
She should've known what to expect, when their scout had returned from the depths of Neo Arcadia with the news. Axl was dead, killed at the behest of Master X. His own father.
Ciel was waiting for the moment where she would wake up and this would all have been an unfortunate nightmare, but the time never came. Her world came crashing down around her in an instant. She wanted to be strong- after years of fighting X's regime, Ciel wanted to feel as if she could become used to these sorts of outcomes. The harsh reality was that death was not something she could ever get used to.
It was time to face the crowd. Ciel sighed and ran her hands through her hair. There was no easy way out. She just had to be honest.
After taking a moment to recollect her thoughts, she turned the corner and fronted the crowd, standing before a room full of restless Resistance members standing shoulder to shoulder quieting to a hush as they cast their gaze towards their leader, countless anxious eyes honing in on her at once.
From where she stood on the dais, Ciel spoke with a loud, commandeering voice.
"Well, first of all, thank you for gathering here today on such short notice. I hope you've all had a wonderful morning, all things considered," Ciel began, leaning over the command console. She shuffled her feet and sighed before continuing. "Alright... Well, I'm sure it's all been on your minds lately, so I'm not gonna mince words here. I have no means to describe our latest operation other than disastrous. I know that the events in Neo Arcadia have impacted our performance, so perhaps it was my fault for arranging a supply drive so early after everything that happened with Zero, and I will take the full blame for that.
"If it's any consolation for you all, I'm pleased to report that many of the Reploids who made it out alive have been making a fine recovery. We have not recorded any fatalities among the survivors, and if fortune permits, we predict the recovered soldiers should be back in the fray in two months, give or take. Commander Elpizo has stabilised under intensive care, but we are continuing to monitor his condition. I'll keep all of you updated if anything new comes up. That is all there is to report on that." Ciel took a second to quell the despair welling up in her throat as she waited for the uncertain whispers in the crowd to die down.
"...But the fact of the matter is that I have called all of you here today for a different reason. I regret to say that I come bearing awful news. As many of you may know, Commander Axl was captured by Neo Arcadian forces during our most recent operation. This morning, our scout returned from Neo Arcadia, and it is with great sorrow that I must announce that Axl… Axl was executed by the Neo Arcadian Military Tribunal, as of the 14th of September, 2378. There was nothing we could've done to save him. X had him dead by sunset."
Ciel cast her gaze to the ground, shame crashing over her like a wave as the assembly hall erupted into rage, sorrow, confusion and denial, reploids and humans alike shouting and crying over each other in a flurry of emotions. There was nothing she could say or do that would soothe them and Ciel knew it.
When the tumult eventually simmered down, Ciel continued. "I know Axl was well loved by everyone here, and there's nothing I can do that will replace the hope and compassion he brought to our movement. But what I do know is that I will not let him die quietly, and I will continue to fight for his vision of a better future, for his legacy will live on in what we do today. With that being said, I cannot force you to continue fighting, and I understand if you need to take the time off to process everything. I will remind you that the next transport to Tabula Rasa will be leaving in 16 days, so I hope that gives you ample time to prepare if you are thinking of leaving. From what we know now, it appears that Neige remains in Neo Arcadian custody. That is all."
She straightened her posture. "Let it be known that Axl's death will not be forgotten and will not be in vain. You are all dismissed… take care of yourselves."
With that, Ciel disappeared into the shadows, the crowd beginning to disperse from the assembly hall and scattering into the depths of the base.
"Really makes you wonder if there was anything more you could've done, doesn't it?"
From the very perimeter of the crowd, Craft and Cerveau watched their fellow Resistance members slowly filter out of the hall, all of them surely pondering what Cerveau said aloud. Craft offered a sombre shrug.
"Felt like Axl walked into it. I think… he wanted to be captured. Just to get the chance to tell Zero the truth, even if it'd cost him his life," the large warbot speculated. "But I get it. Just… you really wish you could save everyone."
...Even just saving one life was better than nothing.
Craft's eyes widened with the realisation. "...Neige is still in their custody. She's still alive."
"Craft-"
"-I can still save her."
Before Cerveau could even think to stop him, Craft had already bolted off towards the transerver room, unstoppable in his unwavering resolve, leaving the Resistance behind him without hesitation.
Overlooking the hallowed city of Neo Arcadia, Zero stood alone at the edge of a garden terrace, a night time breeze skimming past as gently as a whisper.
The terrace granted Zero a peaceful escape from the evil that the citadel harboured, especially at night, when no servants, governors or civilians were present to scrutinise his every movement. It was just him, the lush garden, and the serenity that the night offered.
Moonlight reflected off the edges of marble and gold pillars in a pale blue glow, the distant stars shimmering off the surface of bubbling fountains. Diligently pruned fruit trees bearing little white flowers rustled with the cool air, the breeze ripping through their leaves.
It reminded Zero of Dr. Cain's gardens that he so loyally tended when he was alive. X had made an effort to maintain it after his passing, but as time lingered on and as X grew older, the remnants of Dr. Cain's precious garden slowly deteriorated until it was no more. The replication of its image here was clearly no coincidence. No matter how often X touted his desire to progress into the future, he still clung onto fragments of the past.
Zero wanted to escape it all- to breach Neo Arcadia's walls and live in nature's embrace. Even if it was only desert, it didn't matter to him. Anything was better than the torment he suffered in the confines of X's grand city, where his lover had him trapped in the belly of a dying paradise. At this point, all he just wanted was the release of the wild.
And even in this fleeting moment of peace, Zero was still devoured by the troubles plaguing his mind. He couldn't avoid X forever. When he longed for release from X's stranglehold, he was aware that they were nothing but pipedreams in his current circumstances. He couldn't run away. He was barely allowed outside the citadel without strict supervision. Zero was no hero, no ruler or king- he was a dog on a chain, tied to a pole, dragged around for X's enjoyment.
Even setting the cruel dismantling of his dignity aside, the memory of Axl's demise loomed over his delicate psyche for each and every one of his waking hours. The ache in his heart never softened- if anything, time just fomented the pain. Axl had died disappointed in him, just as Iris had all those years ago.
Perhaps, just as Alia and the rest of their old guard did. It wasn't lost on Zero that he could've done more to prevent all their deaths.
The red android rested his folded arms over the white stone balustrade and let his head fall forward. He let it happen. He was complicit- the exact type of person Axl condemned in his final few words. Not a second went by where Zero didn't feel a deep, bitter regret over his reckless, selfish decision to seal himself away a century ago, believing that he would only ever hurt X for as long as he lived. Zero didn't anticipate how deeply grief would've changed his dearest friend and lover.
It should've been obvious that X would lose his way without him. After all, Zero felt hopelessly adrift without him as his counterbalance. It was only fitting that they'd need each other.
It was far too late for this. He needed some sleep.
Zero turned and departed the magnificent terrace garden through a grand portico, padding lightly through dark corridors so as to not stir up sleeping Neo Arcadian officials.
His room wasn't too far off from the garden. He weaved his fingers through his hair and shook it out, fidgeting in a bid to compose himself. Zero hadn't been getting much sleep for as long as he had been awake in Neo Arcadia. He never was a heavy sleeper- even in better health, Zero slept fast and light, the warmachine always ready to spring into action, but even he knew that this was not sustainable. Tonight, the air was mercifully cool. Perhaps getting in a good couple hours of sleep would be easier in this weather…
"Stop."
A daunting voice pierced through the silence from deep within the shadows of the citadel.
The second he heard X's voice coming from behind him, Zero had frozen mid-stride, falling to an uncharacteristic instinct to obey his command.
"Zero."
X's tone was chilled Zero to the bone. Zero took a sharp breath and held it as X slowly stalked towards him, rigid in a trepid stupor.
"You've been avoiding me."
Zero was quivering, jaw clenched tight. He could feel X's presence behind him, cold terror creeping up his spine like a spreading poison.
"Zero." X inched closer. "Look at me."
He couldn't run. Zero was brave, but he wasn't stupid. He knew it was in his best interest to do as he said.
Zero slowly turned to confront the azure king, his cold red glare haunting in the darkness as he glowered at his former partner.
Neither of them spoke for a beat. Zero didn't know what he could say that would ease the brunt of X's anger. It was hard to know what X was thinking when he was casting him such a glacial expression.
X took a pensive step forward. Zero's breath hitched. His instincts were telling him to run, but his mind and body were not in phase. "Talk to me, Zero."
Zero opened his mouth to respond, but the words were lost on him, nervous roving eyes fixed to the floor. He sighed, looking away and wrapping an arm around himself.
"...What's there to say?"
"Don't be so coy."
That made Zero wince. X's tone was seething, but still so cold and unsympathetic, unimpressed by his obvious despair. It felt like a stranger was standing before him, holding him captive with just his presence. X was scary when he was angry, even before he ruled as this world's king. Now, a powerful, vicious tyrant loomed over him.
"What's wrong, dear?" X's voice and gaze softened, but Zero could see right through the ploy. "Are you upset with me?"
X reached out to graze Zero's cheek with the back of his fingers, the blonde jolting before stiffening under his touch.
"Don't-" Zero gently nudged X's hand away. "Don't touch me."
The rejection, as soft as it was, wounded X, but he looked more offended than he did hurt, face twisted in a slight scowl.
"Why are you being so difficult?"
Zero had to wonder if X was even hearing himself. His sheer lack of empathy was enough to finally shatter his fragile composure.
"Why- X, What do you think is wrong?! Because everything about this is fucking wrong!" Zero snapped, powerless to help himself as everything surged to the surface.
"Oh, Zero… don't do this to me…" X muttered, shaking his head and rubbing the bridge of his nose in exasperation. "Don't tell me this is about Axl…"
Zero gawked, taken aback by X's remorselessness. "You- of course it's about Axl!"
X sighed, disappointed. "Still aching over him? Listen..." X leaned forward with a narrowed gaze. "Let me make something very clear to you, Zero. He was a maverick. A jealous, spiteful terrorist. Neo Arcadia is better off without him. Do you know how many lives his senseless violence has taken?! How much damage he alone wrought upon my people? It would've been an injustice to all those who died because of him had I let him live."
"How could you say that? He was our Axl," Zero shot back, gripping his fists tight. "Did everything we do together mean nothing to you?!"
"Of course it did! Do you have any idea how much it hurt me to see him turn on me? I did what I had to do for Neo Arcadia. He was a threat to the peace you and I fought so hard for! Mavericks must be punished. You of all people should understand that."
"You don't get it, do you?!" Zero's fury was unfaltering, much to X's ire. "I hate this!"
Before he could let it get the best of him, X quashed the anger rising in his chest, gritting his teeth and decompressing with an exhale. "Zero… everything I do I've done for you! Isn't this what you wanted? I fight for peace, a world where we don't have to fight anymore! We can be together now, with nothing standing in our way. We can be happy, Zero!"
Zero's frown darkened. "X. This isn't how it was supposed to be-"
"-Then what else can I do for you?! I've given you everything you ever could've wanted, Zero. You have power, you have respect, you don't have to be a slave to war anymore. Don't think I haven't forgotten what you told me, that we have to fight for our future. Can't you see? I'm sacrificing my present for our future. Why are you doing this to me, Zero? What do you want from me?!"
"I want the X I loved back! I don't know who you are anymore," Zero answered with equal fervor. "You've changed and I- I can't stand you!"
"I've changed!? Do you know how torturous it was to live a century when the only other person who truly loved you is buried six feet under? When everyone around you turned into a gutless maverick bastard because I fought for peace and prosperity after the War? You have no idea how much it hurt, Zero. It never got easier. You could never hurt the same way I did." X paced towards Zero, slowly backing him against the wall. "You aren't thinking like yourself Zero, because this isn't you. But I know who you are."
Zero shut his eyes and furiously shook his head in denial. "You- how dare you! This is the real me!"
"Then why are you pushing me away like this?! Everything I do I do for you!"
"X-"
"The reploid I've become because of you has blessed humanity with peace everlasting!" X retorted, his voice handily drowning out Zero's pleas, "Zero, you've been in stasis for one hundred years, and you think you know what I've been through? You think everything has stayed the same? You think you know what's best for this world and its people when you're so ignorant? I know what I'm doing Zero. I'm following in your footsteps. You were the one who taught me how to be a leader. How to hate. And tell me, who better to lead these people than me? The first reploid. The saviour of humanity. Their hero. You made me into this, Zero, and I've led this world into an age of prosperity the likes have never been witnessed before, even in the face of an ending world? I am the perfect man. The perfect king. And I will not tolerate any form of transgression. I won't let anyone sully my life's work!"
Zero's back was flush against the wall. His chest was heaving with shallow breaths.
"Who better… to lead this world…" X closed the distance between them. "...Than I?"
An ugly silence permeated between the two. Zero was shaking, and so was X.
"...Such mindless persecution is what got Iris killed."
X groaned, rolling his eyes. "Oh, Iris. I am so sick of hearing you talk about her." X shot Zero a crooked snarl. "She was a maverick. She turned her back on humanity. She turned her back on us, Zero. She was better off dead. Her, and Signas and Alia and Axl!"
Zero shied away from meeting his burning glare, but it was impossible to escape his anger. "Look at me when I talk to you, Zero. You love me. All we need is each other. Nobody loves you the way I love you. I won't let you go. Not again."
Words were thick in Zero's throat. "X… I-" his breath hiked with fear. "I don't know how I ever could've loved you if this is who you really are."
That was all it took to set X off. Like a tether rope pulled tight by a lunging dog finally snapping, X pulled back a fist and aimed it at Zero.
Zero flinched back, arms shooting up to shield himself from the impending strike. Only then did X come back to his senses, his eyes widening with horror.
Slowly, his body loosened, his hands dropping down to his side as he stepped back, shaking his head in disbelief at himself. When the punch never came, Zero warily let his guard down, staring back at X with nervous roving eyes.
"I- I was going to- I didn't mean-" X swallowed hard. "Z-Zero… I'm sorry-"
"Don't." Zero shut him down swiftly. His brow furrowed. "Fuck you, X."
He wasn't sure how long X would remain catatonic. Zero wouldn't wait, taking the opportunity to scramble away, rushing into the depths of the citadel without another word. X doesn't chase.
After a century without Zero, X had finally escaped the confines of his old self, a man whose potential was imprisoned by his own weak will. Now, he had finally achieved his lifelong goal, his paramount ideal of a world governed by righteous virtues.
He had arrived, only to realise one thing. He was too late. An inherent malice lay dormant in his heart.