Ch. 10

"How is he?"

"What just happened?"

"I don't know, the signal's gone!"

"Did he just get hurt again?"

"No, none of his nerves even went off."

"So what's happening?"

"Someone must be masking his signal, we won't know what happened until he gets out of there or destroys whatever's blocking it." Ciel typed furiously on the keyboard, trying to get Zero's signal back onscreen. "This'll be the best I can get you." She said as a faint blue circle appeared around the car he had just entered. "As long as that's there, he's at least alive." Iris and Jordan were crowded next to her, their concerned faces cast pale and white by the harsh computer screen in the dim command room. They were still in the dark about the fact that Zero's legs were missing, but had less concern about that since he had started working again. They watched intently as the blue circle sat there, Flickering slightly as his signal weakened and strengthened. They gasped collectively when the circle flashed white for a moment, but he still seemed okay, so they forgot about it, continuing to watch in suspense.

Zero stood on one hand, panting, his saber glowing a pale blue and leaking a cool mist. The engine car had been torn apart; long gashes revealed torn wires that released thin arcs of electricity into the air, the lights flickered, ice clung to the corners in white-blue clumps, and a thin frosty mist glided back and forth across the floor. His opponent stood on the other side of the room, one arm stuck deep into the wall; integrated with the onboard computer defenses of the car, the other holding a large flamethrower pointed straight at Zero. In a small glass case inset into the wall sat the small case that had caused such trouble lately; Calliope.

"Given up already?" Zero smirked, "That's no fun."

"Just giving you a chance to catch your breath. Are you ready now?" The short, squat little pantheon chuckled in a metallic voice. It's mouth had no features, but if it did, it would be smirking widely.

"I thought you were catching your breath, let's go already!" Zero leapt off with his left hand, swinging his frozen blade down with his right. His attack fell far short of his opponent, but at the fall of his blade, large segments of the floor rammed together; jutting straight up in jagged spikes, and freezing solid. The short pantheon simply twisted his arm, and a spike flew out form the wall beside him, stabbing the floor sheeting that had begun to come hurtling towards him skewering it and pinning it against the far wall. Zero came leaping high over the flooring that was not skewered on one of the many long needles that had flown out of the wall over the course of the fight, and slashed down again. The short little reploid raised the cannon on its arm, and released a long stream of flames straight at Zero. Zero's saber broke the flames into two streams on either side; the cold air it put out pushed it away. Zero landed just in front of the short robot, and swung straight for him. The stubby legs brought themselves up, and Zero's swing went too low. Bringing his flamethrower to face Zero, he fired again, Sending a massive cloud of red flames hurtling forward. He couldn't see through the torrent of flames, but was sure that his opponent was dead by now, and shut off the flames. He gasped when Zero stood on one hand before him, icy blue saber glimmering in front of him. The pantheon grunted in anger, and twisted his hand again, causing a short needle, only a foot in length and a few inches in diameter, to fire from the floor underneath Zero. Zero leapt back, and charged again, rolling to the side to avoid another long stream of flames that came flying towards him. Zero raised his saber, facing downward over his head, and plunged it into the ground below him, causing a white frost to spread out across the floor. The frost grew in the direction of his opponent, and as it crept along the floor under his feet, the frost began to climb his leg, and spread out as crystals of ice, rooting his feet to the floor. "Let's see how you like having no legs!" Zero pushed off with his left hand, and swung his saber through the central cooling unit of the pantheon who had frozen to the spot.

"Damn it!" The pantheon roared, and pulled his arm out of the hole in the wall it had been so closely integrated with. Soon after, his top half over heated due to the complete lack of a coolant, and he resulted in a small explosion which broke the glass over Calliope's cage. Zero ran forward as quickly as possible, and grabbed Calliope's case from behind the frosted over legs and lower torso of the reploid, and turned around to walk out. Before he reached the door though, the ground below him began to heat up very quickly, and began to burn his hands That bastard turned on the self destruct system! He frowned general unhappiness, and picked up the pace to the door. When he reached it, the metal inside had begun to glow red, and he was caught in the back by the enormous explosion that engulfed the car as he tried to jump. This resulted in propelling him up and out, scalding his back, which produced a loud scream of pain from Zero, who was getting quite tired of being burnt that day.

He landed with a monstrous clang two cars back, and continued to roll onto the third, his fingers losing their grip on Calliope, and dropping the case into the gap between the cars. He was barely awake to realize the fact that the N-freeze had frosted over the previous car (what remained of it, at least), the car he was on, and half of the next one. He tried to pick himself up and head back, but managed to do nothing more than twitch his muscles before his energy ran critical. He forced his heavy eyelids to stay open, but before he could move again, his burnt spinal cord gave out, and he fell limp, unable to move anything as his systems shut down one by one.

"Is mister Zero better yet?" Allouette peered into the heavy duty stasis pod that held Zero, watching his moist breath creating a swelling and shrinking cloud on the glass that kept him safe from the outside world. He now had a new pair of thighs, but his lower legs hadn't been rebuilt yet.

"Nope, not quite, I'm about to do some more work, He should be up and about by tomorrow." Cerveau smiled at her from his computer on the counter near the front of the lab.

"OK!" Allouette Smiled, and skipped jovially out of the room.

Cerveau finished his preparations on the computer, and opened a drawer, pulling out a set of medical instruments, and walked over to Zero. Opening the stasis pod, he manipulated the platform on which Zero rested up and out of the stasis pod. He lifted Zero up on his side, and began to work on the spinal cord that had been fried. Only minutes later, as he was stringing a new central nerve for the right arm, he noticed it. His jaw dropped as the glistening golden string hung before him. He bolted to the desk, and grabbed a reader, which he hooked up to the string. The codes that flew before him only served to strike him more and more incredulous. He removed the reader with the utmost care, and slowly, methodically, a painstakingly careful as he possibly could, he began to remove the nerve bundle, trying to keep the priceless technology inside form being damaged.

Allouette skipped down the hall, looking for miss Ciel. She had decided that the command room was the best place to start, but she was wrong. She looked all around, but found no sign of her. She remembered he mother's words: If you need any help, just ask a grown-up. So that's what she did. "'Scuse me mister." She said, reaching up to tug the sleeve of the old man who had just walked by.

"Yes, Allouette, what is it?" He said, turning around to face her. "And since when do you call your own grandfather 'mister'?" His already sunken, beady eyes squinted further as he smiled at her.

"Oh! Sorry Grampa, I didn't notice it was you!" She said, smiling at him, then running forward to hug him.

"Oh-ho, I'm getting too old for you to do that you know." He said, smiling at her.

"But you aren't a human, why are you getting older?" She was confused.

"Oh no, I am older; it was Sarah's and my anniversary last week, so I had my body modified again. It will probably be the last time I can before I give out." At these words, he gained a distant look in his eyes, as if he were delving into his memories and holding tight to a time he remembered, desiring to go back there.

"Anyway, I was wondering, do you know where miss Ciel is? She said she would play with me." Allouette was oblivious to the old man's reminiscence, and simply asked the question without giving him a moment to complete his reflection.

"Hum? Oh, sorry, I believe She's in her quarters." The old man smiled again.

"Thanks grampa!" Allouette Hugged him again, though less violently this time, and ran off to Ciel's quarters. Everyone knew where Ciel's room was, though few were ever allowed inside, as She kept highly confidential files and information in there. Allouette was allowed in there more often than most, given her good standings with the resistance leader, as well as the fact that she was a child. She pressed the button on the small intercom panel to the side, and waited patiently, hands clasped behind her back, for Ciel to answer. Soon, her face appeared on the small screen over the intercom, and she smiled when she saw Allouette;

"Hold on a second, I'll open the door for you." Ciel said, and the screen shut off. There was a muffled clatter from inside, before Ciel slid the door manually, and only enough to pop her head out, as if a bit reluctant to let anyone in with the room in its current state.

"Hi, miss Ciel! Can we play now?" Allouette began to rock back and forth between the balls and heels of her feet.

"I'm sorry, Ally, I'm really busy doing something for Elpizo, so I can't right now, but You can play with Calliope if you want." Ciel looked apologetic, but Allouette understood.

"Okay! I'll play with Calliope. Can I come in?" Ciel nodded and pulled the door open further, revealing herself to be in a loose pink t-shirt, with a pair of overalls on over it. Her hair was tied back, and A wrench hung loosely from her left hand. Her clothes, face, and arms had smudges of grease sprinkled over them, topped off with a glaze of dirt and sweat: She had been working in her garage. Ciel's Garage was a small room adjacent to her own that very much resembled Cerveau's little garage on the side of his lab, and it was a very scary place most of the time, so Allouette stayed out of there for the most part. She stepped into the very plain looking room that combined sitting room and den, as well as led off to the kitchen and dining room through the far wall. She walked over to one of the couches that lined this room, and sat down, bouncing up and down slightly on the soft surface, Thoroughly fascinated by it.

"Hello there, You must be Allouette." A voice sounded from the entrance, snapping Allouette out of the hypnotic squishiness of the sofa. She looked up so see a small girl, perhaps five years old, standing in the entranceway, looking at her. She had an unusually large head for her body, and wide, searching eyes. The little girl wore a school uniform, something rarely seen in the world in those days, she had a large pair of glasses, almost to the extent of being cartoonish, and held a pencil in one hand, a book in the other. "My name is Calliope." Her voice was that of a five-year olds, but the tone she held was such a serene, calm, and matured one that she could have passed for an adult. She stepped into the room in a clean, almost supernaturally perfect way, her torso and body dipping less than a centimeter with every step. "I suppose we're playmates for the day." She smiled the small and innocent smile of a child, and sat on the couch in the same celestial, serene way that she conducted herself in her walking and speaking. "So is there anything in particular you wish to do?" She started to swing her short legs in a very childish manner, "Or should I try to come up with something?"

"Hmmmm…" Allouette looked thoughtful, "Do you know how to play checkers?" It was a simple game, but Allouette and Ciel played it often, and Allouette was very fond of it. When she said the word 'Checkers' Calliope's eyes glazed over, went dark, and glimmered slightly as the Elf searched for information.

"Yes, it's in my memory banks. Would you like to play?" Before she finished the sentence, Allouette was out of her seat, and already searching through the small metal cabinet in which Ciel kept all of her board games.

It was a very, very old set, neither electronic nor magnetic, but a simple wooden board of alternating oak and maple wood, one stained darker than the other in an alternating pattern of squares. The playing pieces were much the same, matching in color to the wood of the board. Allouette placed the board on the ground, and beckoned to Calliope, who sat across the board from her. Allouette handed her opponent her pieces, the darker ones, and they both began to place the pieces in their respective places. Since Allouette was the light pieces, she went first. A simple opening move, not a whole lot could be done at that point. Calliope's eyes glimmered for a moment, and she made a very basic counter to Allouette's piece. Allouette thought for a moment, and moved another piece, Calliope's eyes glimmered, and she moved accordingly. It continued very predictably for a while, but soon, Calliope captured one of Allouette's pieces. Allouette tried to put herself in a position to capture next turn (Something Ciel would occasionally let her get away with), but was promptly captured again. She continued to lose a piece a turn, Several of Calliope's pieces were crowned, and Allouette sat thinking. She moved again, and was countered perfectly again. Within a few moves, the board was devoid of the beige discs.

"I suppose that I've won." Calliope's tone was flat and matter-of-fact. "Do you wish to play again?"

"Sure!" Allouette clapped her hands in delight, and began to reassemble her pieces. The second game went quite the same way as the first, the sole difference being that Allouette captured one of Calliope's pieces before being completely wiped out. "You're really good at this." Allouette frowned at the board that was again covered with only the chocolate colored pieces.

"It's a simple input-output equation, It isn't very hard." Calliope reached for the pieces near Allouette's side of the board.

"But that isn't fair! You're using a computer equation!" Allouette was angry that she had been cheated so.

"It's perfectly fair, My hard drive has the protocol preset to do that."

"But that means you win every time! And that isn't fun!"

"Is it not fun to win?" Calliope held a wide-eyed and innocent look of a pet being scolded for something it had no idea was wrong, while still looking calm, collected, and very mature. Allouette was even further irked by this.

"Not if you don't have to try hard!" She hunched up her shoulders in anger that .

"But trying hard implies work, and Is work not as undesirable as winning is fun?" Calliope's mannerisms didn't change.

"Nuh-uh!" Allouette shook her head furiously, "Not if you're rewarded for it, My mommy says that The only things worth having are the ones gained through hard work."

"I see… This is very odd information. Do you wish me to play taking this into account?" She was still computerized and matter-of-fact in her tone.

"Of course I do! Just play as best you can with simple reasoning, and don't use all your computer junk to win without even trying!" Allouettetook her pieces, offered to her by Calliope, and began to place them back into their proper position, hoping maybe to win this time. She didn't. Although shje managed to capture three of her opponent's pieces, and only one of Calliope's pieces was crowned, she still lost.

"That was more difficult. I believe I understand what you meant." Calliope sat in a very contemplative looking position, trying to process the information. Her thinking was interrupted, however, when Ciel popped her grease-smudged face in the doorway.

"Calliope? Elpizo said he wanted you to be there for the next meeting, which is in a few minutes; we should get going." She said, stepping in and grabbing the rag hanging from her pocket to wipe her face.

"Yes ma'am." Calliope stood immediately, and began to walk in her smooth, perfect manner to the door, and out. Allouette began to clean up the checkers pieces, and by the time she was finished, Ciel had cleaned up, and came out in her pink human tech, smiling at her.

"Did you have a good time?" Ciel asked as they walked out of the door together.

"Yeah, but Calliope doesn't know how to play checkers."

"You truly are an astounding piece of technology, Zero." Cerveau said to the extremely angry and uncomfortable reploid who lay on the operating table in Cerveau's lab.

"Astounding or not, I'm about to kick your ass! What is going on?" Zero only had the capacity at the moment to turn his head slightly and look at Cerveau as he fiddled with his backside, shooting twinges of pain hurtling along his already broken appendages as he reconnected his spinal cord nerve by nerve.

"The less you move. The less it'll hurt." Cerveau replied in a manner that shouted 'just shut up, I'm doing you a favor, after all.' Cerveau reconnected another nerve, and smiled with satisfaction as Zero's right thumb twitched. "You see, the thing that made mega man X famous was his chameleon technology. It's truly amazing; and it was developed over a hundred years ago! But of course, it was made by that genius Dr. Thomas A. Light, and Has never been recreated. The chameleon technology allowed him to assimilate any unnatural data that that happened to electronically contact him. It would probe into it, read how it worked, and then rewrite it in a manner that suited his own systems; a truly amazing ability!"

"Ok… Was there any point to you telling me this?" Zero grumbled as Cerveau caused his neck to itch, sting, and twitch, all at the same time.

"Well, It seems that as he spent time around you, and probably used this technology in very close proximity to you, His Ability quite literally rubbed off on you. You have three nerve endings, one connected to each arm, and another near the optic nerves, that have this strange ability."

"Weird, so what made you notice it?" Zero wondered immediately how it could have rubbed off on him.

"Well, It just looked different. It only took a short analysis after that to figure it out. It seems you have already picked up an ability on the one in your right arm."

"You mean the ice thing?" Zero was now very intrigued, while his mind still roved for how on earth the ability could have transferred to him.

"So you've noticed it?" Cerveau made Zero's leg sting suddenly.

"Noticed? That thing saved my life!" Zero grunted in pain as his arm stung and his bicep undulated violently.

"And you've already figured out how to use it! Incredible!"

"By the way doctor," Zero was a bit nervous to ask the question.

"Yes?" Cerveau didn't even look up.

"How could his ability have transferred to me? I mean, He would have to be in really close proximity, wouldn't he?"

"Yes, I'm a bit baffled by that as well. I'm not really going to bother myself with it unless it poses a serious problem, which I doubt it will." Cerveau continued his work in silence while Zero pondered the situation. Zero's thought continued onto several other things before he finally heard Cerveau tell him his nervous system was now reconnected, and that he could lie down, before Cerveau moved his chair around, and began to reconstruct Zero's legs, which Zero had a feeling were going to hurt far more than his spinal cord had.

"Un-acc-eptable!" Elpizo emphasized ever syllable for added poignancy, as well as smashed his fist onto the table, which served to nearly tip over several of the coffee mugs around the large conference table. "How can you let Zero off with no sentence! It's practically High treason, what he did; He was on strict orders not to go, and he did! We cannot excuse that!"

"But Commander, Might I remind you that we were the ones with the faulty intelligence, and that without Zero, we wouldn't have recovered Calliope!" One of the more inexperienced division leaders, who didn't know how to deal with Elpizo in a state like this, spoke up.

"I don't give a damn! He was given Direct orders as a soldier, and he had sure as hell better learn to follow them, or there will be consequences!" Elpizo was spitting by now, a bad sign.

"We can not either dismiss the fact that Zero is not officially employed by us, He has no real obligation to follow our orders, He's just doing this as a favor." The R&D Leader pointed out.

"Then we have no obligation to let him live here! He should be in the brig as it is if he has no official registry with us!"

"Have you not noticed that he has single-handedly taken out two missions that half of your regiment couldn't complete in a week, in less that two days?" Iris' tone was cold as she said this, angry at Elpizo for having accused Zero so. She had been allowed into the board meetings since Zero had come along, as she knew him best, and since had become a valuable source of reason and balance. She was a mother, after all.

"Should celebrities be above the law? All He has are flashy moves and a little more experience than some of my men! There's no reason not to imprison him!"

"Elpizo, Does it matter how it happened? If Zero wins, and is a benefit to us all, why should we question it?" It was Ciel, and her voice held a tone of finality that Elpizo knew better than to deal with. "Now, you had a new war plan to show us?"

"Very well, then." Elpizo said, and opened a large hologram on the table.

Zero lay in his bed, unable to shut himself down, staring at the ceiling. He was still preoccupied by how on earth he had contracted this ability from X. It was a truly troubling thought, him being in such incredibly close proximity to X for so long, It really made Him think he may have been gay in his previous life.

His train of thought was interrupted, however, by the door opening, and a bright light silhouetted a figure standing in it. It was odd how much light was coming in from behind, as the lights usually went off in the base after 11 p.m. He looked over to see the figure walking towards him. When the door slid closed behind him, he saw a tall, slender man standing in a tech suit with several shades of blue in it, and a tight black undertech. Zero was both horrified and enraptured by the beautiful sight of megaman X in his quarters. X turned his head down, and Zero saw a softer pair of eyes, a pair of eyes so infinitely kind and deep that Zero immediately found himself falling into their spell. Wordlessly, X pulled of his blue tech and slowly began to unzip the undertech beneath it. Zero watched as the thin black clothe slid down the muscular shoulders, over the flat, hard chest and smoothly sculpted stomach. Z stood before him, totally naked, totally beautiful. X stepped forward and Zero sat up in bed slowly to meet that soft, beautiful face before him, those soft eyes that so gently pulled him in closer to those soft, warm lips, closer… closer…

"Aaaaahhhhh!!!!" Zero sprung up in bed, panting and dripping coolant(1) out of sheer horror of something, but he couldn't remember what. Suddenly he did, and jerked away, snapping his head up to stare, wide-eyed, at the door. He panted, pressed back against the wall, eyes darting around to find that horrible, disgusting image from his dream. He didn't see anything. It was just a bad dream. He had let his imagination get away from him; that was all. There was no way that was how he had obtained the chameleon skills, right? It doesn't matter anymore, it's over, and nobody. NO-BODY ever knows about this. He thought I've really got to stop letting my imagination get away from me… His train of thought was stopped at that when he heard an odd noise coming from outside. He opened the door, and popped his head out, trying to determine the noise. With a shock, he realized that it was screaming. Someone was screaming! He ran out, and realized that it was coming from Ciel's quarters. He ran as quickly as he could to her door (Which didn't take long, as their quarters were quite close together), and began to pound on it, yelling,

"Ciel? Ciel, are you okay?" His pounding was soon greeted by the end of the screaming, and a short series of beeps, followed by a hiss, before the door opened to reveal Ciel. Zero's cheeks bergan to turn slightly pink at realizing the fact that she was in her underwear, but he was definitely relieved to see that she was alright. "What's wrong?" He said, and leaned down to get a better look at her face; her eyes were bloodshot, accompanied by a pair of bluish rings under her eyes, and her mouth hung rather loosely. She was very, very tired.

"It's nothing Zero." She said with a yawn, "Just a bad dream." She said, and rubbed her eyes to see him a little better. Suddenly, She froze up, her face turned pink, and her eyes slowly moved downward, hoping and praying she would see a flatspot(2). Half of the hall was awakened with a resounding, high-pitched "Eeeeewwwwww!", followed by the loud slam of Ciel's door. Zero stood, hands covering his groin, face beet-red, and eyes looking around like a child afraid of being caught doing something they knew they shouldn't have been, before he bolted down the hall, and back into his room. He ducked under the covers again, and didn't even bother to close the door (Which had been automatically been set to manual mode when he locked it before he went to sleep) as he cowered in shame under the blanket.

Again he heard a noise. This time it was quite a different one; beepings, clickings, general computer noises. He got up again, and slowly walked outside to follow the noise. It led him, slowly, to the command room, where there was only one light on; a solitary computer screen that lit the face of a young girl, perhaps five years old, a pale green color. Her eyes were invisible under two panes of glass, far bigger than necessary, over them that reflected perfectly everything in the screen. Zero set his optic zoom to 500, and looked at the reflection in her glasses. White boxes flashed up all over the place, green text inside them. She was speed reading through the entire resistance database. Zero dismissed it, figuring it couldn't mean anything.

As he walked past Ciel's door again, he heard the same noises coming from her room. He was immediately concerned again, and reached up to knock on the door, which slid open for him; she had forgotten to lock it. He walked in to the small dark house, and heard the noises continuing, though they sounded quite different now that he was this close. He followed the noises, finally winding up in front of Ciel's room, where he was met with an amazingly lewd sight. The sounds of screaming were mixed with heavy breathing ad moans of apparent pleasure as Ciel writhed under the sheets of her bed. Zero was unable to see anything beneath them but he heard more than enough: his name. His eyes went wide, and he instantly felt his body become numb and uncomfortable, he stood rooted to the spot, he watched in unwilling fascination, his jaw dropped open. He felt himself become amazingly uncomfortable as she screamed particularly loudly, and arched her back. With her back so high up, the sheets shaped more closely to her body, and Zero could see both of her arms coming to a point between her legs. Soon, she began to calm down, and her back fell down to the bed's surface. Zero suddenly realized that she was looking straight at him, eyes half closed, still muttering his name, She was half asleep, but she had seen him, knew he was there, but was on some kind of sex high that caused her not to care. He slowly forced his still half-paralyzed body to walk out of her quarters, and into the hall. Where he realized something in his general groin region that made the evening infinitely worse Damn it! Ciel, why on earth do you have to be so hot! He sighed, deciding that this was the last time he would ever get out of bed in the middle of the night. He turned around to head back to his own room, only to see Jordan walking down the hall.

She had her laptop opened in her arms, and her eyes darted around as she typed and walked at the same time. She looked up, saw Zero, gasped, and stood up straight, looking as innocent as she possibly could. Zero's hands immediately sprang in front of his inconveniently difficult to cover groin, and he looked around with an unbelievably sheepish look on her face Jordan's eyes followed his hands when they sprung down, but immediately snapped back up when she realized what they were covering. Their faces slowly gained deeper and deeper shades of red, they both began to sweat, Jordan turned the tiniest bit purple; holding her breath and trying not to burst out laughing. Zero was a deeper crimson than his armor when he finally tried to edge to the side and get around Jordan. The two looked at each other one last time before saying, almost in unison; "I won't tell if you don't." Before bolting off, trying to get as far away from the embarrassment as possible. Zero vowed never to leave his bed again.

Heads were rolling, Literally. Several dead bodies littered the central command room, and several of them were missing heads. X's right forearm was smoking, and he held it before him, pointing straight at a terrified computer operative. He fired again, and watched in pleasure as the left arm of the poor reploid was torn off by a large burst of energy, and then as another shot tore straight through its chest before the man's eyes widened in horror. His cooling system gone, he instantly heated up, and soon created a small explosion that left nothing but a pair of burnt, smoking boots on top of a large black spot on the ground. "You let her get away!" He screamed at the small group of those few who had been drafted into telling X of the failure to procure Calliope. He took a step forward, which they collectively mirrored; not wishing the distance between them to close the tiniest bit "How in God's name could you have lost her to one, damned, Soldier!" He emphasized every word with another step, which they again copied every time.

"S-s-sir," One of them spoke up, bringing his arm up in a violently trembling salute.

"What!" X's face snapped to him, and the man cringed as the blood red gaze fell upon him.

"W-well, sir, It was confirmed that Zero was the one who sabotaged the train." He was merely trying to dilute his punishment by pointing out that the situation had been hopeless for him to rectify.

"I don't give a damn if it was one Zero or fifty, The fact remains that Calliope is in the hands of the resistance!"

"S-s-s-sir…" Another gulped as he saluted as well, even more shaky than the first.

"Yes…" X snarled, continuing to be excessively aggravated by these soldiers.

"Um…" the recruit gulped, "It was also confirmed that Meta escaped his stasis pod, and is now on the loose.

"Well then Why the hell haven't we sent a search party after him? Get the damned tub of goop back in his cage before he destroys half of the state!"

"Y-yes sir!" The soldiers barked in unison, and ran off as quickly as tha\ey could, hoping that X wouldn't change his mind about not having shot them.

"You seem to be in a bit of a predicament, hmmm?" A deep , smooth voice, refined, calm, perfectly collected, and emotionally lacking, spoke from behind X.

"Indeed I am." X was too tired to be angry at someone as powerful as the person he knew had just spoken, so he turned around and decided not to snap in anyway as he engaged this voice in conversation. Except that there was nobody behind him that could have spoken.

"Oh, come now, did you really expect to be able to see me? You know I don't like that."

"I'd rather not play this game right now, I'm too tired."

"My apologies, master." Suddenly, there was a blue flash; a stream of what appeared like a stream of information on a live drive(3) wire. Presently, there was a swift flurry and a black blur before Phantom stood before X, fully cloaked, a smile barely apparent under his black mask.

"My preparations are finished, would you like me to strike?" He said.

"Yes. And If Zero happens to be the one to investigate, deal with him personally. Don't let him out alive."

Footnotes

1. When a reploid is scared or excited, or just plain working hard, the system will heat up significantly, threatening a meltdown. To compensate, the cooling system will overwork itself, sending extra coolant fluid to every area of the body. If any excess is released or sent out (Which is often, since it is difficult for the system to predict the precise amount to release), it goes to the skin and is released through pores similar to a human's. It a reploid's way of sweating

2. As a reploid has no necessity for an excretory or endocrine system (nor even a digestive system, for that matter), and are not created with sex/excretory organs or such hormones as estrogen or testosterone. This results in a smooth, flat segment between the legs typically referred to as a 'flatspot'. Some reploids, however, particularly those who are romantically attracted to one another, can opt to have genitals added on through a surgical procedure. For one to have had the procedure, and not be romantically involved, often labels one as extremely sleazy and perverted at first glance (Though it is not necessarily the case.)

3. A live drive is any circuit board or piece of circuitry that is openly exposed to the air. (Mostly seen on massive motherboards and systems that require constant maintenance and use for several functions) When a live drive is active, the streams of electrical information and impulses can be seen on the wires that carry the energy along as beads of light with slowly fading light trails that follow them. When several processes are activated at once, the board seems to be constantly moving, or alive, hence it's name.

Author's note:

thank you so much for sticking with me this far, I really appreciate it, all. I have a lot of stuff coming up soon (My birthday, for example), so it may be a little while before I get the next chapter up. Anyways, I really appreciate everyone reading, please review and lemme know everything you think! Ttfn; Ta-ta for now!