The forest was too green, too wet, and too thick. The Earth was a suffering planet, barely able to support life thanks to the endless Maverick Wars. But this forest was not pure flora and fauna; technology grew through the roots and veined the leaves, manufacturing water and nutrients in an otherwise dead world.
"Hannah has a sucky job for a human, huh?" Axl determined while they ran, "Babysitting X all day and taking his appointments."
"What appointments? He plays WoW and chats online."
"But what about all those negotiations? The fights to settle?"
"The only crises he resolves are what gear to buy off the Auction House and the non-existent love lives of his online friends," Zero said with massive disdain, flicking his cig into the half-metallic underbrush. Axl took notice.
"Won't that cause a forest fire?"
"Eh. I've burned down forests before. They grow back," Zero cleared his throat, lighting up another one. Axl shrugged and followed. Meanwhile, in the bush where Zero's cigarette butt had landed, an insect mechaniloid detected the threat to the environment and promptly squirted it with carbon dioxide foam.
"You know anything about the Red Alert guy we're facing?" Zero asked while shredding the robotic monkeys that sat on each other's shoulders and fired lasers at him. Axl winced.
"Yeah… Soldier Stonekong. He's, uh, a fan of yours."
The brightened Zero's day. A genuine smile broke through his smoky cloud of cynicism.
"Cool. Usually, the bad guys hate me, or want to use my body for world domination."
"Uh-huh, yeah, well… you'll just have to see him for yourself," Axl squeaked, trying to concentrate on the task at hand. Zero smiled all the way until the middle of the stage, making even the most stoic Ruins Man raise rocky eyebrows in perplexity.
"There's a reploid trapped at the end of this long, long spike shaft," Zero pointed just under a mossy ledge, "There's no way to reach him, because wooden spikes make me go boom despite my titanium armour."
"Oh, no problem, Zero. I can just…"
"Hey guys!"
"Shut up, Alia," Zero warned, tapping the side of his helmet.
"No, really, I have something useful to say!"
"Make it quick," Zero grumbled, puffing smoky clouds into the trees.
"The Ruins Man can walk on spikes."
Zero and Axl waited.
"So yeah. You know what to do."
"Let somebody with a hovercraft rescue the reploid?" Axl suggested.
"No, you blockhead! You can copy DNA!"
Axl rubbed his chin.
"And that is relevant to the situation because…?"
"AUGH! Just copy the Ruins Man DNA so you can walk on the spikes and save the reploid! Sheesh!"
Alia clicked off. Zero gave a thumbs-up.
"Nice. Now she'll be too pissed to bother us for the rest of the stage."
Axl grinned, returned the thumbs-up and proceeded to do precisely what he would have done before Alia had called. However, at the end of the tunnel, Axl called out, "Zero! There's a reploid stuck in the ground above me! He's too high for me to jump!"
"What do you mean, stuck?" Zero frowned, "Did he trip and get wedged in the ground? How clumsy do you have to be?"
"Well, he's stuck in the floor above me. Only you can jump that high! Find some way to get over here!"
"I am NOT hitching a piggyback ride from a Ruins Man!"
There was a silence.
"Axl?" Zero called.
"Zero, that's a great idea!"
Zero spat out his cig.
"No it's NOT!"
"Yes it is! The Ruins Man mechaniloid is very peaceful, and only attacks when provoked. Just ask one!"
"Forget about it!" Zero implored.
"I'm not coming back out until you do!"
Zero looked around, puffed angrily on a fresh cig and climbed up one of the stone pillars where a Ruins Man stood in perfect tranquility, staring at him with heavy-lidded eyes. Zero coughed.
"Uh, hi."
"…"
"So… hang out around here much?"
"…"
"Right. Um. I have this friend, see, and sort of need your help."
"…"
"Look, would you just get your mute rocky ass down there so I can get a ride over the evil spikes of sudden, inexplicable death?"
The Ruins Man took two deliberate steps forward, fell off the pillar with a deafening THUD, and began plodding into the shaft of spikes. Grumbling about the things he did for the sake of very replaceable and mass manufactured reploids, Zero jumped onto its shoulders. The Ruins Man did not even flinch with Zero's weight on it, and continued treading over the spikes as though they were soft brown earth. Axl clapped his hands when Zero arrived. The Ruins Man turned around and plodded back.
"See? You can make friends," Axl applauded him.
"You drain the life force of reploids, and impersonate their friends to kill them," Zero shot back while he double jumped to rescue the reploid stuck in the ground above them.
"Hey, how do you jump again in midair, Zero? I don't see any rocket boosters, and I don't detect an antigravity module."
Zero gave him a look.
"It's magic. Let's go…"
At this point, Zero realized he had no ride back.
"DAMN it!" he stamped his foot. Axl laughed.
"It's okay. There's a Ruins Man behind us, walking in circles over there."
Zero burned through four cigs by the time Axl's incredibly weak, DNA-stealing, charged shot destroyed the Ruins Man.
"Well, hop on!" Axl's punk rocker voice came from the stone giant. Muttering under his nicotine-laced breath, Zero sat on Axl's shoulders and rode the hell out of there.
888
The rest of the forest stage was blocked by huge boulder traps that rolled too slowly to be effective. One would think that the boulders would move faster than the speed of slime if they were meant to squash reploids with legs. After a silly battle with Easter Island heads revolving at high speeds while spitting rocks, the Red Alert member appeared.
"Soldier Stonekong, I presume," Axl said. He pushed Zero forward.
"Good luck. I'm going to Grandma's house to look for the big bad wolf."
While Axl skipped away into the forest, Zero chomped on the end of his cig while sizing up the boss.
"Are you aware that you're drooling?" Zero asked after a bit. Stonekong began panting heavily. Zero shuffled away from him.
"Zero… the grace of whose techniques is like none other…" rasped the hoarse throaty ape voice, causing Zero's ponytail to stand on end, "You are the most perfect fighting machine ever built."
"O…kay," Zero said, edging away faster, "How about I sign my autograph on that giant sword of yours and we call it a day?"
"Ooh! Ooooh! Would you? Please?" Stonekong hopped up and down in hyperactive glee, unlimbering his monolith of a sword and holding it out. Zero carved a neat Z into its stony blade with his saber. Stonekong withdrew the sword to stare at the fresh autograph, and began drooling again. Zero coughed, fumbling for another cig.
"Y-yeah. It's been fun…"
"Oh, no, you can't leave now," Stonekong dribbled, "You're staying here with me… forever."
Zero almost swallowed his cig.
"As much as it tempts me to hang with you and your rock-hard old man nipples, I'd rather be saving a thankless world."
"Oooh, stay, stay," Stonekong said, lumbering nearer.
"Dude, stay back," Zero warned.
"Let me touch your hair," Stonekong slavered, pawing at the golden strands. Green light lit his obsessed eyes. He was still rooted to the spot, his paws groping for his idol, when Zero pulled his saber from between Stonekong's eyes, spat a thick wad of tar on the Red Alert corpse, and walked off.
888
Alia was reviewing their mission log when the odd couple entered the Command Centre.
"Am I to understand that Axl tags along and looks stupid while you do all the work, Zero?" she asked.
"Oi! I'm standing right in front of you!" Axl protested. Zero gave a thoughtful pull on his cig.
"Yup. The kid's got spunk, but be damned if it's useful for the mission."
"I didn't come here to be insulted!" Axl whined.
"Where do you usually go?" Alia quipped. Zero doubled over in pain.
"Punchline… so… stupid…"
While Zero griped about stale jokes, Axl stood before Alia, arms akimbo.
"I do help during missions! I do!"
"Oh?" she arched both eyebrows, "Let's review."
She tapped her console to bring up images from their previous missions: Axl screaming his ass off on the Ride Chaser; Axl getting kicked around by Gungaroo; and Axl asking why his grandmother had such big eyes. Axl gawked.
"Who took those?"
"Our orbital satellite system can count the hairs on a fly that's underground and in total darkness. That's because it was built by, y'know, machines so advanced they can end the world tomorrow."
"So that's why you always know where to find Mavericks! But still, that's not a fair review! It cut out all my good parts!"
"Welcome to the world of Maverick Hunters, kid," Alia smirked, "we don't allow you to look good."
888
When Zero was admitted to X's office by bribing Hannah with a fresh, hot bowl of crunchy popcorn, the reploid commander's desk was empty. Zero blinked, scanned the room with his diverse array of optical sensors, and then called, "Here, kitty kitty kitty."
A pair of cat's ears popped up from behind the desk, twitching.
"Kitty want fresh fish?"
"Ew, I hate fish," X said, sticking the rest of his head over the edge of the desk and sticking out his tongue while squinting his eyes.
"You're physically incapable of breaking down the organic components anyway," Zero deferred the topic, and then made his request, "Help us with the next mission."
"You mean, help you murder more reploids," was the commander's cynical reply, stroking his cat ears.
"They retire innocent reploids, we retire them," Zero shrugged.
"There is no 'we' anymore, Zero."
"Yeah, I kinda realized," Zero spat a gob of tar on X's nice clean floor. "Why are you being useless to your fellow Maverick Hunters, X? Where is the fighting spirit you had all your life?"
"There was no fighting spirit to begin with!" X retorted, "I was designed to empathize with all life forms. I felt pity for those who suffered, so I relieved their suffering. That's the problem: I provided relief, never a cure! The suffering continued, for six wars!"
X placed his hands on his desk, head lowered between his shoulders.
"I began to suffer, too. So I studied human history, Zero. I realized that there was no war when one side refused to be provoked into a fight. Humans avoided needless suffering through nonviolence. Let there be no more suffering," he pleaded with his brother. Zero slapped his forehead, amazed at X's naïveté.
"The Mavericks are not human! They destroy recklessly! They don't have a conscience like humans do! You can't understand Mavericks by studying human history!"
X raised his head and his voice at Zero.
"So what shall we do? War endlessly until there is no planet Earth to stand on, until the human Creators are extinct? Mavericks are not the problem, Zero; humanity's continued survival is!"
"What are you talking about?" Zero interrupted impatiently, spurring X's own impatience as he continued.
"The more we go to war, the more they suffer! We were created, but they evolved! We built a nation of reploids in less than a decade, but it took millions of years for humanity to reach where they are now."
X pointed a finger at Zero.
"Remember the fifth war; remember the Eurasia colony crash, Zero! Reploids destroyed thousands of years of human progress in less than a week. I will not go to war anymore. I will not permit the human Creators to suffer at our expense."
Zero grimaced, and then sneered, looking away.
"Too weak. The X I know isn't this weak."
"So," X said in a tone of voice that drew Zero's attention, "So you believe that I am weak."
Zero, with every sensor and every motor functioning at optimum capacity, did not even see X move. What he did comprehend was his arms pinned behind his back, and the loud whine of a charging arm cannon pressed into his head.
"I am strong," X breathed into Zero's aural sensor, "I am so powerful that I can tear this planet apart with greater efficiency than Sigma. That is why I will not fight, Zero: because I am too powerful. I fear my own power more than any Maverick; more than death."