"If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month." –Theodore Roosevelt
Author's note: I have no clue what I just wrote, but I really needed to finish this chapter.
Two months later
He didn't really know how he progressed from a C level grunt to a B so quickly. He supposed it probably had something to do with the fact that his X buster packed a bit more punch than standard reploids. Then again, a lot of reploids didn't even have a buster. First off, it was completely unnecessary for a civilian reploid to have a plasmic weapon in their inventory. Secondly, suppling busters for every maverick hunter recruit was incredibly expensive, especially since the death toll was so high, which was one thing he never understood
In essence, reploids were computers and had a hard drive. Which meant, that their systems could store information and keep it even after power had been removed. Which also meant, that as long as a reploid's I.C. chip wasn't destroyed, you could rebuild them. The government wasn't. They were just writing off reploids as dead even though it was just their bodies that were destroyed and then producing new ones because they could.
X had whined about it several times to Cain, Zero, and his friends. He even whined to Sigma about it once. The commander just shook his head at the android's protests and stated that he could do nothing about it. X promptly wrote a protest to the governor later that day.
If X picked up every reploid I.C. chip still intact that he passed, he could save over twenty reploid lives within a week. In fact, he had done so, for about a month, before X's roommates complained. Apparently a box full of reploid I.C. chips was a little bit unsettling and Zero had to step in to talk to X before the entire base thought X was some mass reploid killer. X's dorm hallway thought that the android was some crazy maverick for months and even after then it had been exaggerated and became a story to terrify new recruits with. It had gotten so bad that most recruits refused to bunk with X and the android got his own room simply because everyone was terrified of him.
Zero laughed his butt off for weeks. X was embarrassed but really could not understand what was wrong with what he did. Sigma just told the android to bring any I.C. chips he found to the base mechanic and not to put them in his room. It was a lost cause to convince the android to just stop "saving" the reploid chips to begin with. X just made a bigger fuss about it.
In the end, under the watchful gaze of a blue android, Sigma ended up contacting a reploid factory who agreed to take in the I.C. chips and rebuild their bodies.
Needless to say, X's experience with the Maverick Hunters was far from average. Beyond just being promoted almost right away and his experience with the dorms, people in general were just in awe that the father of all reploids had decided to join an organization that had an had a low average life span for reploids. The scientists stationed at base had tried to convince X to come down to the labs for some studies several times, after hearing from Cain that reploids were an imperfect copy of X's systems. They wanted to figure out what made Cain think that X was so different.
At first, X didn't understand really what the scientists were asking of him, and he almost agreed. Luckily, Zero chased them away and explained to the android what it was that the scientists wanted to do. X shocked by the idea, later approached the scientists and informed them that his systems were designed to be impossible to copy. The scientists reluctantly stopped bugging him about it.
Zero had become X's mentor throughout the starting days. The red reploid was shocked at how little X actually knew about fighting and the way battles worked. No that wasn't quite right. X knew far more than he let on, but the android had far better aim when he was firing at targets rather than actual reploids. It was a mental thing, Zero realized. If X simply let go of the part of him that held onto humanity, he would be by far the best maverick hunter in the world. But then, he wouldn't be X, Zero concluded. He couldn't see X without those human qualities. That was why Zero tried to learn more about X, so that he could teach the android how to fight effectively and work around all of those morals. That and Zero just simply liked being around the android.
X seemed to be one of the only few people who saw Zero as a friend and not a weapon of mass destruction. It was refreshing and the more Zero stayed around X, the more he found himself developing a personality. He'd always been on the quiet side(albeit still a bit of an asshole), but recently, he found himself joking around more. In fact, he pulled a prank on the fifth unit just over a month ago and the investigation had lasted two weeks because they couldn't link the evidence they'd found to any suspects, which didn't include Zero. Sure, most people understood that Zero was an asshole, but they had yet to realize that Zero did in fact enjoy a little bit of fun beyond just pissing people off. Technically, pranking still pissed people off, but the maverick hunter preferred to think that it was more ethical than spouting off random crap to their faces.
When X figured it out a few days after the event, he merely shook his head and replied that if they hadn't figured it out already, there was no way that he was going to help them. Zero merely grinned in response and took it as an initiative to dye the six unit's uniforms red. Except that it wasn't red, because the uniform's original color was green and it had mutated into a sickly gray after Zero's alterations.
X had through his hands up in response and said that if they refused to believe that Zero wasn't always out for blood, they'd better get it soon.
Sigma had finally figured it out after the third prank and called a sheepish Zero into his office that day, proceeding to ask Zero just how the red reploid had been corrupted by X's innocence. When Sigma confronted X about it, the android replied that Zero had always been like that. Most people just didn't have the courage or patience to try to get to know that. Both Zero and X found the situation entirely hilarious afterwards. Zero didn't find it so funny the next day though, when he had latrine duty.
Needless to say, both X and Zero were the cause for all of Sigma's headaches for weeks. After the tenth prank, (Zero called it battle training. He had to get recruits ready for anything. Sigma informed him that it was unnecessary terrorism.) Sigma discovered that X usually knew what Zero was going to do before it happened and therefore, he pegged X just as responsible for Zero's crap as the demon reploid himself was.
X protested, but ultimately decided that he wasn't going to betray his friend and made no changes to the way he did things, beyond just the fact that he did rig Zero's door to dump hair dye on him as he walked through in retaliation.
Zero whined and glared at X for days because his hair was pink. X merely replied to questioners that if the maverick hunter hadn't figured out that he could dye his hair to a more reasonable color or simply just cut it, than he wasn't going to help him. (At the end of the week, X gave into Zero's whining and yelled at the reploid to use logic.)
At prank number fifteen, Sigma simply gave up and assigned Zero permanent latrine duty. He let X off the hook though, after the android came in his office and protested against his own punishment, using the maverick hunter's monthly motto "never betray your allies" against him. The motto was changed the next day, even though it wasn't the beginning of a new month. X, however, was still not punished for anything Zero did. The blue android did, however, give Zero a knowing grin every time the reploid had to report for latrine duty. Eventually, Zero slyly replied that he'd get revenge for X's betrayal in leaving him to such a crappy job alone.
Remarkably, Zero's pranks the next week were not targeted at a specific unit, but rather X himself, which resulted in a prank war that lasted the rest of the month, before both maverick hunters were put on suspension for two months. X had been sent back to Cain's in order to "think about what he'd done". They were called back in the next week because of a shortage in available hunters and weren't "banished", as Zero so liked to put it, again.
Zero was still on permanent latrine duty and X was tasked with joining him at random times of the month.
Which explained why the two of them were in the bathroom, singing songs nearly a century old as they performed various duties.
"But she said, where'd you wanna go," Zero sang, using an empty toilet paper roll as a microphone. X was sure that if people's original understanding of the maverick hunter hadn't been shot, shredded, and burned yet, it would be now.
The android was sure that he would get weird looks for any passersbys but joined in anyways. He really had nothing to lose. All of the dorms thought he was a mass murderer anyways.
"How much you wanna risk!"
"I'm not looking for somebody with some superhuman gifts!" Zero belted, sliding out of the bathroom stall on his knees. He was, amazingly, not in his armor for once, not wanting to get the metal tainted with anything foul.
"Some superhero," X added, straining to wipe the mirror; he was too short to reach.
"Some fairy tale bliss!" Zero walked over to the mirror and lifted X onto his shoulders so that the android could reach.
"Just something I can turn to!" X, with Zero's help, managed to clean the spots that he was unable to before.
"Somebody I can kiss!" Zero finished and if anybody walked in to see a blue shirted reploid still on the shoulders of a red shirted one with insanely long hair and singing to the lyrics of "Something just like this", they were either too stunned to comment, or decided that they were going to try a different restroom instead.
"I want something just like this!" somebody yelled from outside the restroom. Zero raced to poke his head out the restroom door. X yelped. He was still on the reploid's shoulders.
"WHO EVER THAT WAS, I FREAKING LOVE YOU! YOU DON'T KNOW HOW LONG I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR SOMEBODY TO JOIN IN!" Zero screamed. X chuckled.
"ZERO! GET BACK TO WORK!" Sigma's voice shouted from the other side of the office. X's chuckled morphed to full on laughter.
"MAKE ME!" Zero screamed. He then looked up at X. "We had just finished right?"
X nodded and leapt down from the reploid's shoulders.
"I mean, the cleaning supplies are still in there, but otherwise, yes," he replied.
"Leave the supplies then! Let's go! We need to book it before the mean green machine gets over here!" Zero exclaimed and ended up having to drag X away because the android was laughing too hard. Onlookers merely watched in confusion. They didn't understand.
Sigma eventually found the two in a bowling alley of all places nearly twelve hours later, eating pizza and starting on their twentieth game. He started to lecture them about responsibilities and scolding them about what could have happened in case of an emergency. Both maverick hunters pointed first to their armor, which they were wearing, the ride chasers outside, and the communicators on their belts, both online and functional.
"We told the secretary where we were going and also, we're taking vacation time, of which we are fully obligated to take and we prepared for not only communication but quick transportation too. Not to mention that we're also strategically positioned in the city that should an emergency happen, we'd be able to get there before anybody from base could," X started.
"Also, we finished latrine duty soooooooooooo . . . wanna join this game?" Zero asked. Sigma merely held a hand up to his forehead and rubbed it. He left almost immediately after, grumbling about blue androids corrupting perfectly good soldiers. Both Zero and X just shrugged and returned to their twentieth game.
Zero muttered stream after stream of curses as the icy cold wind tore into his face. He wasn't cold. No. He refused to be cold. Because that would just give the shitty Commander the satisfaction that he had managed to finally give the reploid a suitable punishment. Although, he was still cranky that he-they- were being punished for this at all.
His joints were stiff, nearly frozen, and his hair was no longer free flowing, instead a solid mess of matted hair and ice. Not to mention that they'd been walking through waist deep snow for hours because apparently there hadn't been any available Ride Chasers.
Zero growled audibly and cursed at the reploid responsible for his situation. This mission was shitty. Sigma was a complete asshole and that was saying something, coming from him. He screamed in frustration as another blast of icy wind sent a face full of snow his direction. It was freaking cold, dammit!
He glanced over his shoulder to his companion, partially satisfied to see that the android was just as miserable as he was. This was ridiculous, he growled to himself. They were robots; they shouldn't be getting this cold. But they were and their systems and joints were sluggish as a result. X was faring slightly better than Zero, but was still far more sluggish than he normally was.
Their mission was simple. Go to a military base in Greenland in the middle of winter and respond to a maverick report that came in earlier in the week. They got a ride to Greenland, but had to be dropped off several miles away because of the winds.
Honestly, the entire situation pissed him off. Why were they only responding to the call now? Why not right when they got it? And why the hell were they walking there when a maverick could be attacking right now? If Zero got to the base and found out that there actually wasn't a maverick, heads would roll. He was going to actually kill Sigma.
X chuckled, amused, at Zero's bad mood. His hearing was sharp enough to pick up the multitude of death threats that Zero breathed against Sigma. Sure, he wasn't happy with the situation either, but he understood where the Commander had been coming from. The two of them had been getting a little bit too comfortable with the way things were run at base. As a result, they'd been doing a few things that while fun, were also incredibly ridiculous and unprofessional. X still thought his actions were justified, because nobody really wanted to join an organization that had a high mortality rate. Maverick hunting had become such a depressing topic over the last few months that there needed to be something that kept people from see the world as a lost cause. Sure, he knew that there were limits to what you could and couldn't do, endangering the security of a mission was one of them, but both he and Zero made sure to never cross that line. It seemed though, that the Commander, for all his tactical understanding, didn't quite understand the mental structures of his own troops and therefore saw his and mostly Zero's actions as childish and completely unnecessary.
Still, the Commander did know how to plan an extensive and almost fool proof strategy. In fact, both Zero and X idolized him for it. X chuckled at the thought. It was ironic how Zero was now cursing out the commander's name right now when he had been gushing over one of the reploid's battle plans earlier that day. X was sure it had to do partially with the fact that the blonde haired maverick hunter could not participate in the battle plan because of this very mission.
X sighed as he thought. Even still, Sigma just didn't get that because Zero's social processing skills were so skewed, Zero fully believed that pranking was a good way to get people to lighten up. Because apparently he knew that even he had been incredibly tense before he met X, and since then was starting to see the world in more than just black and white.
Really Zero was just a child, desperately wanting to impress its less than appreciative parent. In contrast, the blonde haired reploid was practically an old man with how experienced and knowledgeable he was on the battle field.
X wondered if Zero knew just how human he actually was. People always commented about how human X seemed and most seemed to think that Zero was some demon spawned from hell. But nobody cared enough to realize that while the two were specialized in two entirely different fields, they still acted far more human than most reploids because of that. And because they could learn. People could be so knowledgeable about one thing and then completely ignorant about another. They were just raised differently. It was as simple as that. That was the only thing, X believed, that made him so different from Zero. Zero's originally faulty social processor was no longer as faulty. It had developed far faster than any reploid X had worked with. Perhaps that was partially because Zero was so bad at understanding people in the first place and had so much to improve on, but even still, with reploids there was always an underlying tone of artificial feelings. With Zero? That sense that told him that Zero wasn't human purely because of the way he spoke had been quiet for months now.
And while X understood people on a more emotional level, Zero could sometimes recognize the potential in people far faster than X could, often in people that X hadn't even considered for the job. Sometimes X's emotions got in the way, and while this didn't present to be too much of a problem, Zero was always around to pull X into line and get him refocused on what really mattered. Similarly, X prevented Zero from becoming a heartless jerk, as he commonly was before he met the android. The blonde was often still snappy, especially when dealing with commanding officers other than Sigma.
X paused in his mental ramblings as Zero let out a cry of joy. The base they came to investigate was finally visible and the blonde reploid started running, armor squeaking in protest. X began running as well, if only so that he could be there to keep Zero restrained when they finally got to the base. He had a feeling that this whole mission was a wild goose chase anyways.
His suspicions were confirmed later on and he ended up having to teleport a bloodthirsty Zero out of the base. Sigma was lucky that he wasn't around when they got back, because Zero was livid and an angry Zero could have been almost as bad as a maverick one if X hadn't been around to stem off most of the anger.
Author's Note:
Sooooooooo, I lost the flash drive that this file was on. And then found it again, a month later, hooked up to the computer I use for writing music. It was on my desk the entire time. . . . I'd like to say that my desk is clean, but it's really not and that's probably why I lost it in a computer. . . .Also, I meant to add more to this chapter, but ultimately decided I'd already made you people suffer too much.
Unless something changes, the next chapter is where we start delving into the good stuff. I just wanted to set up X's maverick hunter life a little bit more before I started the crazy Sigma goes maverick plot line. I meant to start that this chapter, but somehow writing about X reflecting on his life for the last few months just before he dropped from the sky turned into a three thousand word description of Zero's pranking tendencies. . . . Not really sure what happened there.
