Zero opened one eye to watch Wily enter the room, grumbling.
"What's got you all in a twist?' he asked, taking note of the way Wily almost seemed to stomp like a child as he grumbled.
"Damn Light bots. They're always giving me a headache. Break's the worst," Wily responded. Zero raised an eyebrow.
"Any issues?"
"No. Don't involve yourself with them. Break will have a conniption if he discovers I woke you up. Had to command line every one of my robot masters to keep that fact from slipping. Lord knows I don't need Breakman breathing down my neck right now. He's not afraid to start a war with me like he is Light. Rather not get stabbed in the back by my own bots right now."
Zero raised an eyebrow. From what he remembered of Breakman, or Protoman as he was known by Light bots, he was ruthless and far more powerful than he let on. Perhaps it was better that he didn't get involved. He didn't understand it entirely but Breakman had control over the entirety of the robot master population. Zero was fairly confident in his abilities, but he had no desire to get in a fight. He acted all rough and dismissive, but his time with X, even if it was a fantasy, had softened him up. He tried not to let that fact slip and thus avoided most of his siblings. They were afraid of him anyways and honestly, he didn't blame them.
He missed talking to people though. Missed talking to X. Missed having somebody around that understood. He felt like he was losing his mind. Everybody kept telling him that the wars was just a dream, his friends were just a dream, but that felt real. This? Right now? This felt to him like a dream. Nothing was right, nothing made sense, and he was completely unaware and lost as to what his purpose was.
Sure, Wily practically built him to take over the world, but he wasn't going to do that now was he? So what was the point? In his dream, he was a warrior and there was always a battle to fight. Here, sure Wily picked fights with Light, but that wasn't his fight. These were battles between robot masters. Not hunters and mavericks. Not good and evil. From what he understood, neither Light nor Wily were good. He couldn't stand by either one of them. It didn't feel right.
He'd only ever fought for what X believed in.
He sighed and glanced over to see Quickman watching him carefully before closing his eyes. That was another thing. He didn't blame them and honestly he would do the same. But his siblings always had somebody watching him, watching the internet too when he was logged on. He couldn't do anything privately. He was the bad guy now and he hated it. He'd worked so hard to gain a positive reputation in his dream and now that he'd started back at ground zero? It felt just like his early days with the hunters. Except, now there was no X. Nobody that had faith in him.
He'd tried to be nice a few times, let his true personality slip through, but the others had only gotten more nervous, so he closed off and kept away. It's probably a dumb mentality to have, hiding himself as he was, but he'd already killed one of their brothers.
They weren't going to let him get close enough and risk him doing so again.
He couldn't prove that he'd changed. Well, he did prove that he changed. He proved that he was absolutely crazy. But personality wise? After his little stunt with breaking out of the pod and practically attacking them? Not a chance.
He didn't know why they bothered waking him up.
Pharaohman sighed as he tapped into the internet, reaching out to where he knew Break's inner circle generally occupied. The location switched often, but most robot masters were informed as to where the "hive mind" so to speak was relocated to on the network. He quickly sent out a request for communication with one of the circle and sighed in relief when Iceman was the one that responded.
He liked Iceman. Iceman was chill, both literally and figuratively.
/What is it?/ Iceman asked, curious but not suspicious. Pharaohman was a Cossack robot and on good terms with Proto. Not every Cossack bot was entirely trustworthy, but Pharaoh was definitely the most trusted by Proto. Close enough that Ice knew that Proto had considered adding him to the circle several times. Ice had nothing against Proto doing so.
/I have something of importance to discuss with Break./ Pharaoh responded. Ice hesitated. With everything that had been happening with X and now Rock, Break was incredibly busy. He would be even more grumpy if something else was added to his plate.
/How important is it? There's a lot going on right now and Proto is quite busy./ Ice knew that Pharaoh wasn't going to be using such information against Proto. Pharaoh was smart. He knew that wouldn't end well.
/Cossack built another bot, not a robot master, a while back. Cossack asked us to keep it quiet but I don't think it should be held from Break any longer. There isn't a threat. It's just well . . . It's partially got to do with X./
That set off several alarm bells in Ice's head. First, a new built that nobody except the Cossack bots knew off. Okay, no biggie, happens all the time. Just let Proto know and he'll go over there and introduce them to the hive. But a robot that wasn't a robot master? Best case, some special mechanaloid that Proto should probably know of. Again, no biggie, just let Proto know and he'll take care of it. Hell, if it's a mechanaloid, any one of the circle could take care of that. But the way Pharaoh's signal bent over the network made Ice think that it was something bigger. And what was bigger that wasn't a robot master?
Fucking. Androids. Honestly, Ice thought they were done with those. They were in the middle of dealing with what the inner circle fondly called the X crisis. Did they really need another?
And to top that off whatever Pharaoh needed to say had something to do with X. That fact alone would make Ice immediately transfer Pharaoh over to Proto. With everything else? He might as well throw Pharaoh towards Proto and run away before he got burned too.
/I'll transfer you over to Proto immediately./ Ice stated and promptly reached out towards Protoman's location on the network, fumbling around a bit. He wasn't the best robot master around with the whole internet thing, but in his defense, Proto wasn't going to be found if he didn't want to be and the eldest robot master was a bit strung up today.
Luckily though, Proto was in a semi-decent mood because he saw fit to amuse Ice.
/What is it?/ Blues responded to Ice's prodding.
/Pharaohman's got something to tell you. From what he told me, it's big enough that I didn't think it should wait. Should I guide him to you?/
Blues visibly sighed in annoyance and X looked at him in concern. The two of them were off in the middle of the Amazon. Blues had recognized that he might be on thin ice with the android and worked to appease him (and also distract him from pressing for more information by distracting the android with sights and plants).
/Send him my way./ Blues felt Ice's affirmative over their link and waited until Pharaoh's presence was close enough on his monitored network that he could snatch him up and bring him close. Might have been a bit rough but who cares?
/What is it?/ Blues demanded.
/Cossack has been working on an android./ Pharaoh stated, cutting right to the chase. Blues froze.
/For how long?/ Blues practically growled.
/Actually . . . Axl has been complete for the last two months./ Pharaoh winced as he felt Break's biting frustration across the network.
/And I WASN'T INFORMED?!/ Yep, Pharaoh was expecting that. He understood that so far every android built had proved to cause problems. Break was understandably pissed for not being aware of yet another "problem child" as some robot masters were beginning to call them.
/Cossack asked us not to inform you. Before you freak out any further, Axl is not in any way shape or form unstable or interested in doing anything that might cause you issues. For the most part. He is . . . interested in X however. Mostly because of the pod./
/What do you mean?/
/X remembers something called the maverick wars, yes?/ Blues paused, Pharaoh shouldn't have known that. Pharaoh. Should. Not. Have. Known. That. Did somebody in his circle slip up? No, the only one that knew was Elec. He'd even kept quiet about everything going on with X from Shadow and the elusive wily bot was usually the first to be informed of things. Somehow it didn't seem right that Elec had spilled, especially not to Pharaoh. He'd bring it up with Elec after he was done here.
/How do you know that?/ Blues practically growled across the link, his signal snapping threateningly at Pharaoh's.
/Because we think that X's and Axl's pods were linked. Zero's as well. Axl remembers the same thing. He also distinctly remembers X and fighting alongside him./
/What? That's not . . . how is that possible?/
/We're not sure yet. The general consensus is to blame Light, but if somehow a signal got to Axl's pod and we didn't know about it then Light made something that can sneak past all of us on the network./ Pharaoh warned.
Blues cursed. Just one thing after another wasn't it? First Rock, now they had to worry about network signals they couldn't pick up on?
Granted, Cossack never specialized in networking and thus his bots weren't particularly skilled when it came to such, but his point still stood. Someone should have noticed something.
Either he'd gotten extremely lax in keeping track of the Cossack bots which admittingly he had, or there was something out there that could truly keep away from a robot master's sight on the internet.
In any case, there was only one way to verify that Pharaoh wasn't pulling Blues' leg.
"X . . . do you know of anybody named Axl?"
Author's Note: Two chapters in one day?! What?! Yeah, I felt bad. I was also pretty inspired so I decided to take advantage of that. I wrote until I hit a wall and then quit. Took me a surprising amount of time to hit a wall cause I got a fair portion of the next chapter done as well. Not sure when it will be finished though. The wall I hit was me realizing that maybe the way I was going wasn't the best way to be doing things so maybe I'll have to rewrite. Dunno yet.
