"Break me out?" Ciel was incredulous.

"You heard me. But don't take this as a guarantee that you can trust me." Zero said.

"A lot of resistance members have tried to escape before, and none of them made it out. What makes you think you'll be so different?"

"I thought I was supposed to be a legendary, warrior, why wouldn't I be different? And besides, Its not like you can command the resistance from in here."

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"Move!" X shouted as he shoved the security guard, office chair and all, and bent over to look at the computer screen. "Has anything happened recently?" He asked the guard.

"N-no sir." The man replied, entirely terrified.

"Damn!" X hissed, and immediately began typing furiously on the console that wired into the security cameras from detention cell f-b-13 through f-c-19. All except f-c-18 fizzled out, and X saw only a little girl crying in the corner. "You Idiot!" He roared at the security guard, "Did it ever occur to you that the leader of the resistance wouldn't sit in the corner and cry for 24 hours straight? She hacked the damn camera!" X's Cannon flew over his hand, and the guard's head popped 2 feet in the air, and landed with a Plorp, as blood began to flow freely from the confines of the arteries it was so long imprisoned in. The officer's body slumped forward, bleeding even more profusely than his head.

X returned to the screen, and began to type again. He restored the camera, and watched the current scene flicker onto the screen. He waited little after hearing the resistance girl utter the phrase 'break me out?'. He smashed the computer screen and stormed out of the room. He ran at top speed to the nearest barracks room, and composed himself slightly before walking in. The door slid aside, and the rowdy quarters immediately stood at attention in varying degrees of nakedness, saluting their leader.

"Ferguson!" barked X.

"Sir, Yes Sir!" Officer Ferguson yelled back as he stepped forward from his place in line, and turned to face X, hands folded behind his back.

"Assemble your men as quickly as possible with a battalion of the pantheon, and a golem."

"Sir, yes sir!" Ferguson saluted.

"When you have finished that, head to the prison hold, and bring everything in room f-c-18 to me. That is all." X turned on his heel, and headed back to the command room.

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"Ok, we might be able to escape, but we'll need weapons first." Said Ciel.

"That may be a problem, but I'm sure I can get into the armories without a hassle. X seems to be in an exceptionally happy mood today." Zero replied. "I'll Go get'em as soon as we figure everything else out."

"What do you mean? We don't have anything else to figure out! We blow open the door, and then we run like hell!"

"And what? We run straight through an enemy territory on foot with a monstrous army trailing behind us that is obviously much faster?"

"So what do you suggest?"

"The hangar." Zero said, "I saw it last night, it's off of the command room, It won't be hard to find."

"How do you expect to be able to pilot any vehicle they have in there?" Ciel asked.

"I don't." Replied Zero quite plainly.

"So then we get trapped in the hangar with no way to leave, and an army cornering us against a three-hundred-foot drop. I liked my idea better."

"But I'm the one breaking you out. I could just as easily repeal my offer if you don't comply."

"But your plan is rash and stupid, there's no way we could guarantee our survival, while with mine it's at least probable." Ciel was getting impatient and infuriated by the calm way Zero was acting about a matter of life and death.

"With yours, we'd be trying to navigate through a city we know nothing about. If we manage to get a vehicle, especially a flying one, we would be able to head straight out." Now it was Zero who was getting impatient.

"Look, you!" Ciel was obviously utterly enraged now, and whatever string of curses and insults she would have let loose on Zero was cut short by an explosion from the door, and a loud clang as said door was thrown against the wall.

The young girl screamed as soldiers began to poor in through the smoke left by the detonation, wielding machine guns, and obviously aiming them towards them. Zero felt himself losing control of his own body, and dove through the smoke, flying out on the other side with a soldier's head in his hands, the rest of the soldier flailing helplessly behind him. Zero flung himself around, bringing the soldier in front of him, sandwiching the poor man between himself and the wall. Zero Heard Ciel scream again, and grabbed the soldier's head again, swinging him around the other way, and sandwiching him yet again on the opposite wall, again next to Ciel. Zero's own consciousness sat by and watched his body grab the handgun from the limp soldier's hand, and began to fire at the other soldiers. Zero stepped in on his body just in time to keep himself from killing them, and directed his fire only to incapacitate the advancing soldiers. When all of them were unconscious, unable to move, or had fled in terror, Zero turned to Ciel.

"Run! Follow me and don't fall behind." He flew out the door, and Ciel did her best to follow. Zero had held on to the gun, and realized how incredibly lucky he was to have done so when he entered the hall. Zero looked to either side, and on his left was a 5 1/2-foot high wall of blue.

The hall was jammed with three hundred of the pantheons. Almost as soon as he had entered the hall, every single one of the cycloptic red eyes turned to face the staggeringly outnumbered reploid that they had been told to terminate. Zero again watched his body take control, and blew of every single head he could see; at least fifty pantheon bodies littered the floor before Zero was knocked back by one of his own lasers returning, and hitting him straight in his chest. As he recovered, He watched the pantheons advancing, and saw a single one in the front wielding an electrically charged sword on its right hand. Zero rolled back, and fired at it again, but it held it's sword up mere moments before he fired, and Zero watched his shot fly back at him again. This time, He managed to roll backwards again as his beam was being redirected. Zero leapt forward, ignoring his gun, and grabbed the Pantheon's arm, and twisted the device driver straight out, and plunged it into the great red eye of its previous owner. He retracted the blade, and threw it straight through the army, creating a domino effect, the pantheon's bodies falling along a straight path. Zero finally realized the futility of trying to destroy all of them, and fell back to help guard Ciel. His mind worked frantically, trying to find a way to get out. He then saw it; the fluorescent panels in the ceiling.

"Shield your eyes!" He shouted to Ciel, and she did so without question. He raised his pistol, and pointed it at the light, Closing his eyes and turning his head away.

There was a brilliant flash as the beam connected, and melted a hole through the tube of light, releasing the gases inside, and causing it to shatter into thousands of miniscule shard that rained down upon the pantheons, causing them to look up. Zero's internal tracking system locked onto a particularly large shard of the un-frosted glass used to shield the tube, and fired again, causing his beam to refract, sending hundreds of tiny beams storming through the pantheon ranks, wiping out nearly all of them. Ciel screamed again, as one of the final remaining pantheon raised itself on a leg and a half, and pointed its gun at her. A slow whirr sounded, and Zero dove for Ciel, not entirely removing her from the weapon's rounds.

Ciel winced as one of the many machine gun rounds pierced her side, leaving a gash along it. Zero took no notice of her wound as he laid her down, and leapt to wrench the pantheon's head off. In mere moments, Zero had finished off all of the remaining soldiers, and helped Ciel to her feet.

"There'll be more soldiers soon, we need to leave quickly, and I think we're going to the hangar." Zero smiled, and led Ciel in that direction.

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They ran until they were just outside the command room, fortunately finding no other beings on the way, and hid behind one of the many doorways to the monstrous chamber. Zero could see the corridor curve around, and end in a flat wall, which Zero was quite sure was the hangar. They slipped inside, and were unnoticed in the shadows of the command room, and walked quickly along the wall to the massive doors that led to their destination. They reached the side of the doors, and Zero placed his palm on the registration panel beside the door, and watched as it scanned it.

"What are you doing?" Asked Ciel, not knowing that Zero was treated by the system as a general.

"They apparently added my name to the system nearly as soon as I got here." He replied.

The words "Identity accepted, welcome to the hangar, Zero." Flashed on the screen, and the doors slid open with a loud Hisssss…, and turned every head in the command room.

"Crap." Said Zero very plainly before running into the open doors, and to the panel on the other side. As soon as the doors registered that a being had crossed its threshold, it closed again. Zero rammed his fist into the console, completely derailing the registration system. He then led Ciel along the rows of vehicles, looking for something useful. He frantically tried to remember something. He tried to scan them to uncover something about them, but to no avail. He ran by helicopters, jets, jetpacks, gargantuan transportation trucks, nothing, nothing, Nothing, NOTHING! He couldn't remember anything, and had no idea what to do.

"I told you, we have no idea how to pilot any of these, We're just stuck here until they blow the door down, and we have no way of getting past them. You'll be retired, and I'll be either executed or tortured, and it's you damn fault!" Her voice was cracking, and she winced in pain as the adrenaline in her body died down and she felt the full sting of the wound in her side.

"Don't worry," Zero said as he stooped to catch her as she fell from the pain. "I promise you I'll think of something. And if I don't we can sure giv'em hell before they take us." Zero was again finding his voice controlling itself, because he didn't think he had any idea how to smooth talk a girl like that, but he was watching himself do it before his very eyes.

Ciel stared into his eyes and found herself oddly charmed by the cool grey they seemed to emanate. She felt happy in a way she could not explain; she felt like Milan was holding her again. At the thought of her dead boyfriend, her eyes began to well up, and she buried herself, sobbing, in Zero's shoulder, hardly knowing what she was doing, but somehow, it felt right.

She shrieked as she was cut short by a loud CLUNG! CLUNG! As a large something pounded itself against the hangar door. Zero turned quickly and guarded Ciel as they both waited in terrorizing fear for the door's destruction to complete itself. CLUNG! CLUNG! CLUNG! The dent-making something powered relentlessly at the door, smashing at a steady beat, sounding like a rhythmic tribal drum, calling forth with agonizing tedium the sacrifices to the mountaintop, beating powerfully, painfully in the foolish human attempt to please the pagan gods they so worshipped. CLUNG! CLUNG! CLUNG! The door wouldn't hold long. CLUNG! CLUNG! Zero tensed every cybernetic muscle in his body, and crouched lower. CLUNG! CLUNG! He was ready to spring. CLUNG! CLUNG! SHKOOM!

A large, circular, low dome shape flew into the hangar, and over Ciel and Zero's heads, smashing into a helicopter behind them. A large golden monster floated through the newly created door, and stared down at them. Sliver and chrome ran in many patterns up and down the conically shaped body. Zero and Ciel's hair fluttered slightly as the turbines under the massive body brought their blowing wake across the doorway, and over the two escapees. The tiny head atop the beast lifted itself from the metal collar that covered the bottom half of its face, and a small barrel on its chin began to glow green.

"Zero, Run! There's no way you can take down a golem on your own!" Ciel yelled over the roar of the turbines, taking her own advice, and running off to the side. Zero stood stock still as the golem stopped charging its weapon to follow its other target. By its moronic reasoning, as long as Zero was still, he would stay long enough for it to terminate him later. The golem turned toward Ciel, and slowly powered towards her. Zero saw a hatch on the back of the golem slide open, and a hand floated out as the hatch closed behind it. A pair electromagnetic redirectors(1) positioned themselves in-between the hand and the golem, as the hand reached forward, and grabbed Ciel around the waist, holding her alongside the golem. Ciel screamed when she felt the hand grab her, and tried to struggle her way out of the iron grip, but to no avail. Zero was at an utter loss as to what he could do, before a voice sounded behind him.

"Who was it that had no balls, hmmm?" Officer Ferguson called mockingly from the doorway the golem had created.

"You." Zero growled, turning to face him.

"Yes, me. You see, after master X overrode that little stunt your girlfriend pulled with the camera, he sent me with my troops, a team of pantheons, and my new little toy over there, to apprehend you."

"Bastard!" Zero yelled as he leapt forward to kill Ferguson.

"Ah-ah-ah… I wouldn't do that if I were you, you see," He pulled a small controller out of a compartment that opened up on the side of his tech suit, "With the push of a button, I can tell that golem over there to snap that girl like a toothpick."

Zero stopped short, only a few feet from Ferguson. "Fine, what do you want?" He snarled.

"Simple, for you to come with me." Ferguson chuckled at Zero's inability to do anything.

"Over my dead body!" Said Zero, though he made no movement.

"Well, If that's how you feel," Ferguson reached for a small knob on the controller and began cranking it up slowly with a sick satisfaction on his face. Ciel screamed in fear and pain as the metal hand closed more tightly about her.

"Ok! Fine, I'll go." Zero hissed.

"Very good. Golem, drop the girl." Ferguson said. The golem's grip loosened, and Ciel fell, panting, to the ground. "Now, if you would, I thin-." His eyes rolled back into his head, and he fell to lie unconscious on the ground. Behind him was a small glowing ball of light.

"Good God." Spoke a voice from inside the ball, "He was getting annoying, I just had to shut him up."

Zero was baffled at the sudden presence of the glowing bubble, but grateful for its knocking out his adversary. "Who are you?" He asked.

"Not only is that unimportant, but I am not at liberty to discuss such a matter in our current situation." The ball replied. Zero did not see how something unimportant could be confidential enough to not be spoken of, but he did not want to begin an argument with neo arcadia nipping at his heels. "There's no time, half of neo arcadia will be here any minute. Take this, and get out of here." At these words, Zero's systems sensed something very odd that they registered as a "Teleportation sequence" Zero watched what looked like a handle to something materializing before his eyes. "You will know what to do." And with that, the ball disappeared. Zero stooped to pick up the now fully materialized handle, and flipped a small switch on the side, and watched a long, thin green spire appear from the end of the handle. And, like the light had said, he knew what to do.

Ciel stared in horror as the golem stared down at her, though it was not going to make a move after it had been ordered to drop her, She, however, did not know that. She lost her balance from her weakening legs, and cowered in fear at the gaze of the stupid monster, remembering what happened to one of her own soldiers being engulfed by the weapon contained in the barrel that now kept vigil over her. A green flash flew through the entire golem's head, and Ciel turned away and shut her eyes as she awaited the death she knew was to be flying at her from the chin of the golem. She turned back very timidly as she felt nothing, and saw a headless golem tottering precariously after losing the guidance system in its head, and Zero standing very triumphantly, his legendary Z-saber in hand.

Zero stood, looking down at Ciel and laughing inside himself. His happy, proud attitude was diminished when his feet suddenly felt very hot. He jumped very frantically from the golem, and almost tackled Ciel as he shielded her from the impending explosion. It didn't do much. The two skidded and rolled along the polished metal floor, almost to the edge the hangar. Zero stood, slightly burned on his backside, and somewhat sore from being thrown across the length on the great room, but otherwise okay. Ciel, however, was unconscious, and obviously seriously burned and bruised. He lifted her slowly in his arms, and began to look around for a way out. He ran as quickly as he could without hurting Ciel anymore, looking for other vehicles he could escape in. Then it happened again: he just knew what to do. A Red phoenix(2) stood in line with many other hoverbikes, Glistening brilliantly under the bright lights. Zero's eyes went wide as he saw the beautiful object, and ran to it, ogling the vehicle that somehow seemed so familiar.

Zero situated himself with Ciel in his lap, his arms making a makeshift seatbelt for her when they grabbed the handlebars. Zero revved the engine, taking in the beautiful hum of the anti-gravity boosters, and the low roar of the engines as they turned over. After the mere flip of a few switches, the bike lifted off the ground, and growled in anticipation of its impending flight ahead. With a roar and a whoop from Zero, The bike soared into the air and out of the exit to the hangar, destroying a small team of pantheons that was running up behind him to apprehend him.

"WAAAHHHHHOOOOOOOOO! YEEEAAHH-HAA-HA!" Zero yelled as he turned a barrel roll, and flew of into the desolate wasteland beyond the edges of the metropolis below him.

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The first thing Ciel noticed as she began regaining consciousness was that she was in pain. The next thing was that she felt cold, then that she was moving, probably very quickly, and beyond that, that she was in a person's lap. She opened her eyes to a periwinkle blue-purple sky with long, thin, eventide clouds laced with golden orange. Then she realized that she was all of a sudden flying through one. On the other side, she felt somewhat more awake, but even colder, and wet.. She finally put two and two together, and looked down, only to find that she was about 250 feet off the ground.

"AAAAAAHHHHH!" She squealed in a very high voice, and began to uncontrollably squirm very vigorously and kick her feet; stomping them on the feet that rested on a black and red footrest below her. She hated heights. She was about to scream again, but a black hand clapped itself over her mouth.

"Please don't to that again," spoke a soft, deep voice in her ear, "It makes it very difficult to drive."

Ciel twisted her head around to the owner of such an absurdly calm voice at such an absurdly high altitude. A smiling Zero was behind her, his head bent slightly around her shoulder so he could watch the skies properly, obviously. His hand released from her mouth, and returned to its position on the handlebar. "What the hell are you doing?" She asked him, having to yell slightly, as her voice was subject to the wind.

"Like I said, Breaking you out." Zero replied happily.

"On a motorcycle?" Ciel was absolutely outraged.

"What was I supposed to do? Jump in a helicopter and smash all of the buttons?" Zero smiled superiorly.

"Anything but a motorcycle!" Ciel cringed to one side as the other tipped slightly.

"Get over it. It'll be nightfall soon, and unless we can get to your base within a couple hours, we'll have to lie low for the night. They're bound to send search parties to sneak up on us in the dead of night. Those mountains look like a good place for the night." At this Zero turned the bike very sharply and headed to a small string of mountains and tall rock formations. Ciel cowered low in Zero's lap as he barrel rolled through a large ring-like rock formation. Zero started circling as he lowered the bike in a valley between two mountains.

Zero lifted Ciel off, and tried to set her on the ground, but found her to be faint and weak from the flight, and carried her to a small overhang at the base of the mountain. Zero ran back to the hoverbike, and flew off to one of the dead trees hanging around the valley. Pulling out the blade that the odd little light had presented him with earlier (For which he found a convenient sheath on his back), flipped it on, and quickly sliced a few branches from the tree. He heaped them on the ground under the overhang, and held his sword near it. The heat that emanated from the blade was more than enough to quickly ignite the dry branches into a dancing, crackling fire. Zero made sure Ciel was comfortable in her resting spot on the ground, sat back against a rock, and set himself on sleep mode

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Ciel awoke with a sore back from the uncomfortable position she was laying in on the rough rock of the mountain she had seen Zero head to before she had fainted from the dizzying flip and the sheer terror she felt from flying entirely unprotected like that. She tried to shift into a more comfortable position, but found that moving was more painful that staying still. The gash in her side hadn't had nearly any time to fully close before they escaped, and her squirming on the bike had most likely caused whatever healing it had gone through to undo itself. She grabbed her side to stifle the new bout of bleeding, and sat up rather difficultly.

"Do all humans sleep as much as you?" Asked Zero from his leaning position against a rock.

"Only when they are rescued from deadly organizations by utterly insane red reploids on hoverbikes." She smiled and flinched at the same time, resulting in a very odd look on her face.

"It's almost dawn, we should head out soon." Zero toyed with a twig in his hands before snapping it and throwing it into the dying embers of the fire.

"Oh, and what about me?" Asked Ciel, "In case you hadn't noticed, I'm wounded." She lifted her hands from the gash on her side, revealing the wound that was very obviously becoming infected, and bleeding slowly.

"I'm sorry, but I don't really have anything I can do about that, I have no cloth for a bandage, and definitely nothing I can use to clean it. We'll just have to get to the resistance base as soon as we can." Zero stood, and grabbed Ciel by the shoulders, holding nearly half of her weight for her. Zero took his hand and placed it over hers, helping her push to stop the bleeding. The blood slowly crawled along Ciel's white, clean gloves, and began to reach Zero's fingers. Her felt the warm, sticky substance slowly reaching his hands, and quickly jerked his hand away. Ciel looked around at him as he let go of her shoulder too. Zero was staring at his hand. The blood wasn't even visible on it, but he stared, eyes wide, at the stuff.

Blood. His eyes went wide, his pupils shrank. His head pounded, the blood in his brain wanted out. He yelled, it hurt, his head hurt. He saw the blood dripping down his hands. It flowed freely where there was no wound. It pooled around his feet. He was swimming in it; An ocean of the blood of men and machines alike. It churned angrily; It wanted revenge. He wanted it to disappear. It disliked him, he disliked it. He was drenched in it, Robed crimson from head to toe. A child lay on the ground before him, cut in half, bleeding freely. Men ran frantically. He wanted to kill them, they were of no use. He ran, destroying them with his bare hands. Laughing at their dead bodies, laughing at their pitiful attempts of resistance, laughing at the blood he felt running down him so freely. He bathed in it. It felt wonderful. A man with hair in every direction told him to do something. That angered him. He wrenched his head off. The blood began to flow. It gushed. It streamed. It trickled. It dripped. It was gone.

"Zero! Zero! Zero wake up!" Ciel was shaking him violently with the hand that wasn't preoccupied with her bleeding. "Oh Zero, thank God you're alright."

"Wh-what, what happened…?" Zero's head pounded with a massive headache. He was sore, confused, and afraid.

"You started staring at your hand, screamed like a madman, and then you fell on the ground and started shaking like you were having a seizure." Ciel was panting and her face was pale. She had obviously been terrified.

"Come on," Said Zero, sitting up, "I think I'm ok now. Just don't let me touch your side again."

Footnotes:

1. An electromagnetic redirector is a device designed to concentrate and direct electromagnetic pulses, giving the ability to detach limbs from robots, or anything made of metal from anything else made of metal, for that matter, and allow them to merely be controlled by information that can be sent in the electromagnetic pulses.

2. A Red phoenix is a model of anti-gravity motorcycle (also called hoverbikes) that, in Zero's previous years as a maverick hunter, he owned. Designed with a High performance, low maintenance engine, and all the bells and whistles, it was a Porsche among hoverbikes. Zero, being the "man's man" that he was, treated it like his child, and never let a scratch on it.

Author's note:

Well, well, well. Wasn't that fun kids? Join us next time when Zero rapes Ciel! (no, he doesn't actually do that, so don't get your hopes up.) The next chapter will most likely be shorter, and therefore, up faster. The adventure finally begins! There won't be much happening for a couple chapters, but there will be a lot of character development. And by the way, if you're ever going to review my story, please do it now. I'm at a pivotal point in my story, and if I'm gonna fix any thing, it would be better sooner than later. Thanks for taking the time to read this, I really appreciate it.