Chapter Nine: A Piece Left Behind


Their interactions in the following days were as normal, as if nothing had happened. Raven waited and observed how she would behave around him since then, trying to see if anything had changed. Reese, however, had quickly convinced herself that it was probably nothing and that perhaps there really was something on her chin that day, and so she thought nothing more of it.

When Raven saw that nothing had changed, he felt both relief and disappointment. He felt relieved that he hadn't made things awkward between them as they spent the following days continuing to improve and clean the house. He was also a little disappointed that it hadn't affected her as much as it affected him. He became more and more aware of her since then, so much so that he started to notice things about her that he had never noticed before…Like how good she smelled whenever she was close enough, or the graceful way in which she stretched early in the morning when she appeared from his old room. She always tried to insist that he should take the bed every night, and he would always gently shrug it off, telling her that he doesn't mind the sleeping mat. In truth, he just wants her to be comfortable, which was very unlike him, to care about something as seemingly trivial as someone else's small comforts.

However, among the small satisfied smiles she makes whenever she finishes a particularly satisfying clean, and her witty sarcastic sense of humor he had seen glimpses of, there was also that same sadness about her that he had noticed before, which she seemed to always try to hide and shake off whenever he was near. It vexed him, the fact that she practically knew everything about him, and yet he knew next to nothing about her past.

Eventually, the time came for the necessity to resupply again, and Raven couldn't wait to head out. After days of doing repairs and house work, Raven had felt restless, not used to staying in one place and not be in a zoid for long stretches. So when the day came when they planned to take the second trip to the settlement, he rose before the sun to prepare himself and the Geno Breaker for the journey.


Reese woke up to the smell of fresh coffee, and when she exited the room, she felt a sense of déjà vu when Raven nonchalantly gestured to the carafe of coffee on the table. It reminded her of the first time he had offered her coffee in the same manner. Except this time, it was bright in the room, and Raven wasn't sitting sullenly against the wall grieving Shadow. Instead, he was looking out the window, his cup of coffee in hand, looking deep in thought.

She poured herself a cup of coffee before approaching another set of windows to admire and enjoy the early morning view. After a long peaceful silence, she looked over at Raven, who was still deep in thought, and traced his line of sight to see what he was staring at. It was the Geno Breaker, looking ever-looming and menacing, an angry red monstrosity clashing with the serene morning scene surrounding it. He was staring intently at the red zoid, as if trying to look for something.

"Raven…?" She hesitantly called to him. He had been quiet for a little too long that it had started to worry her.

He broke out of his thoughts and looked at her, a little bewildered. "Hm?"

"Is everything ok?" She asked him, wondering what he was thinking about.

"Hm…" He hummed, looking out the window again, at the zoid. "I took out the Geno Breaker earlier this morning…" He paused, as if trying to decide what he should say. "It would be too obvious to use if we want to keep a low profile. When we go to the village today, we should use Gus instead. It'll take longer but it would be less risky. We can't have another close call like last time." He finished, still looking at the zoid intently.

Reese looked at him intently as well. Her intuition was telling her that there was more to his sudden quietude, but she was unsure how to ask him. She sighed, preparing herself to inquire him again, but was glad to find that it was unnecessary when he continued to speak.

"The Geno Breaker is closed off to me…" He started, his voice trailing off as he searched for the right words to use. "I hadn't noticed it before, but it had always felt cut-off from me somehow."

After piloting Gus for the first time, he had started wondering about the past zoids that he had piloted, and how he somehow still knew that each zoid was different, that each one had a personality, a different feel to them. It was always him that continued to deny them, treating them as if they were nothing but scrap metal. However, with the Geno Breaker, it was the other way around…It felt that he was the one being denied, that he was the one being shut out.

He sighed, beginning to get a bit frustrated at himself for not being able to fully understand it, let alone explain it. He finished the rest of his lukewarm coffee in one gulp before putting the empty cup on the table.

"Forget about it-" He started to dismiss the whole thing, but stopped himself when he finally looked at Reese, and saw her looking at him with such open awe and wonder on her face.

"What?" He asked her, breaking her reverie. She closed her eyes and shook her head in amazement and slight disbelief.

"You really have changed so much." She said to him, although her tone made it seem like she was saying it more to herself. "It took me a long time to notice it myself, and really the only reason I even began to suspect anything was because of the color."

"Suspect what?" He asked, frowning in impatience. She paused to choose her words carefully, but knowing that he would be angry no matter how she told him, she pushed on.

"Hiltz and Ambient meddled with the evolution of the Geno Breaker." She finally said, giving him a meaningful look. The look of shock quickly passed over his expression before it was replaced with dawning realization and eventual anger. He gritted his teeth.

"That fucking bastard…" He seethed out, angry at finding out that he was, yet again, manipulated and screwed over.

"Shadow spent the energy evolving it, but it was Hiltz leading the evolutionary design through Ambient's influence." She continued to explain. She didn't want to anger him any further, but she wanted him to understand what the Geno Breaker truly was, a left-over piece of Hiltz.

"It's not just you being handicapped by the Geno Breaker, there's a reason why Shadow struggles to stay fused with the core." She added, looking out the window to see the two organoids by the Geno Breaker.

"You two must have had a good laugh then, watching Shadow and I struggle with it." He said sardonically, an accusatory tone in his statement. "And exactly when were you planning on telling me about it?"

She looked back at him, noting the challenging look he was now giving her yet again. She chose her words carefully, not wanting this conversation to turn into a fight.

"Hiltz kept me out of the loop, and you know as well as I do that if I had gone against his plan, he would have killed me on the spot. He only kept me around when I was useful to him." She said calmly, understanding his anger, trying not to let it affect her. "I did try to get away with warning you about Shadow's limit with the Geno Breaker, but even then he still punished me for it…" She trailed off, her eyes looking down and a hand touching her cheek where the red-haired man had struck her for interfering without orders.

Not missing the way she touched her cheek, as if remembering something particularly unpleasant, he regretted his earlier statement. He caught on to her meaning, and his anger immediately flared again, wishing it was him who dealt the killing blow that ended Hiltz. The bastard was dead, and he was glad he at least had a hand in helping with that.

"And I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner…" Reese said, her eyes sincere, imploring him to understand.

He looked into her eyes and saw only sincerity. It helped calm him down somewhat. He only nodded to her before returning his gaze back out the window. He didn't say anything else as he continued to seethe. She finished her coffee quietly while he silently tried to further calm his useless anger towards a dead man.

"Come on, let's go." He said after a while, not wanting to waste any more time glaring at the red zoid.

Reese quietly followed him out, her mind filled with regret and guilt from the role she played against him, from her actions and inactions that could have led to his death. If he had died in the battle, in part it would've have been her fault, too.


A/N: I changed the rating to T, for the language...and maybe later on, for other things, too.

A/N: Episode 50 "Attack of the Geno Breaker" – the episode that showed when Reese questioned Hiltz on whether he meddled with the Geno Breaker evolution (about 7 minutes in).