Later that afternoon, Axl was playing .hack//G.U. Redemption in the lounge under Hannah's guidance on her PS5.

"Is this really an accurate depiction of online human activity?" Axl asked her. Onscreen, a beast character was chiding Axl for persecuting his 'fursona' while a harvest cleric complained about a cupcake in her shoe.

"Pretty much, yeah," Hannah nodded. Alia walked in.

"What's the verdict?" Axl asked, looking up from Haseo's antics.

"According to GameFAQ's," Alia read from her printout, "Tornado Tonion is weak to Stonekong's weapon."

"Thank you, Internet," Axl said, jumping from the sofa. Hannah took over the controller.

"Stay out late," she advised, continuing to ruin Haseo's life.

888

Axl chose not to comment on Zero's uncomfortable silence while they ran up the long spiral staircase of the radio tower that was broadcasting terrible polka music to all the airwaves. In the background, a giant…squid… mechaniloid was launching missiles and fireballs at them. Running and dashing foiled its attempts to impress the ladies, who sort of laid about the place waiting to be rescued. The Red Ripper just puffed furiously, popped another from the pack, and kept on puffing, all the while slashing enemies apart while Axl's automatic pea shooter distracted them.

"Hey! All the reploids we're rescuing in this stage are female. Wanna ask one of 'em out?" Axl tried to lighten the mood, earning him a 'shut up' glare from his partner.

"What happened between you and X?" Axl had to ask, hopping over the omnipresent gaps in the floor that inexplicably plagued every stage.
"Would you shut up if I said my butt hurts?"
"You don't have a butt, so spill it," Axl demanded. After scooping up another female reploid into his arms to smack a teleport beacon onto her chest, Zero sighed.

"He's sick and tired of fighting."

"What else is new?"

"He's more powerful than I am."

"Considering he sits on his ass and plays WoW all day, I think you have more power over the situation than he does."

"I thought you said we don't have an ass?" Zero quipped. Axl gasped.

"Can it be some humour is returning to that otherwise cynical tundra?"

"Bite me," Zero flicked ash into Axl's face and carried on. At the top of the radio tower, they faced off against the giant head of the squid mechaniloid. Its unimaginative attacks consisted of more projectiles and spinning its tentacles, trying to knock them off the tower. Axl just blasted the hell out of the thing while Zero knocked away the missiles and fireballs with his saber. Once the squid was disposed off, they jumped off its head to access the roof where Tornado Tonion stood. His arms were detached, floating independent of his onion-shaped body whose armour was shaped like the leaves of the same vegetable. He had a pointy green head – the shoot of the onion, no doubt – and no mouth.

"What is that thing?" Zero frowned at the onion reploid. The… thing… performed a single pirouette, and somehow, its spinning generated electricity.

"I'm a dancer, ya? You here to see my dancing?"

The cigarette fell from Zero's jaw as it hit the floor.

"An electric, dancing onion…"

He began pacing the rooftop, scratching his chin.

"…with a prissy German accent. How could… why would they possibly…"

"I think you broke his mind," Axl said to Tonion, scratching the back of his head. Zero kept on pacing, shaking his head.

"Why is an electrical onion necessary? What function would a galvanic vegetable serve?"

"I dance for you now, ya!" Tonion chirruped, and began pirouetting on the spot, generating more electricity. Zero's two eyes went in different directions from trying to divide by zero (dividing by zero is, of course, the only way to determine the purpose of an electrically charged onion in the known universe). He tipped over, brain more or less broken. Axl bent over him.

"You okay?"

"Too… stupid… to be real…" Zero whispered, eyes ogling separate cardinal points.

Axl aimed his pistol at the ballet-dancing onion.

"Sorry, but I have to kill you in order to restore his sense of reality and reclaim his sanity."

"You don't like it?" Tonion gasped, oily tears in his eyes. He began spinning faster, and a funnel tornado of electricity crackled around his rotund body. This unnatural disaster began breaking up the ground as it spun towards Axl.

"Oh shi-"

BAMF. The high-velocity, high-voltage onion tornado knocked Axl clear off the radio tower.

"WAUUUGHHHHH!"

CRUNCH. Tonion broke out of the tornado and walked over to Zero's prone form.

"Hey you!" Tonion poked Zero's shoulder. "You watch me dance, ya?"

Zero stood up, and used his fingers to rearrange his askew eyes.

"Your very existence defies the purpose of meaning. Moreover, no reploid makes less sense than you, not even Cyber Peacock, and X killed him/her/it!"

"You still don't like it?" Tonion cried, and began his electrical tornado dancing technique. Zero stood his ground, his saber in defensive position.

"YOU MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO EXIST!" he shouted, and as Tonion made contact with the blade, Zero was rock solid, not moved, and so Tonion's own rapid spinning tore him to ribbons against the Z-Saber. Despite Soldier Stonekong's weirdness in life, in death his DNA had served Zero well.

"Thank you for complying," the Red Ripper said, and hopped off the tower to find Axl in a sad pile on the metal ground.

"Hey, kid. Say, arms and legs aren't supposed to bend in those directions. It must be a new world record!"

Axl gurgled.

"Okay, fine, I'll get you fixed. But, I have to say…"

Zero yanked the kid to his feet, Axl's arms and legs dangling helplessly.

"I like you much better as a puppet."

888

While Lifesaver soldered Axl's limb joints back into place (thankfully, reploids can be switched off for otherwise excruciating procedures) Zero steered clear of X's office and went to bother Hannah in the lounge.

"Hanny, X was mean to me and I'm working with a novice."

He plopped on the sofa beside her. She, busy playing .hack, snorted at him and asked, "Am I your mother?"

"I never knew my mother," Zero said wistfully.

"That's because you only had a father," Hannah reminded him.

"Yeah, and I never lived up to his expectations. Now X isn't living up to mine."

Hannah continued playing.

"Well?" Zero asked.

"Well what?" she asked absent-mindedly.

"This would be the point where you offer sage human advice to a robot."

"Kwitcherbitchin' and get over it," she suggested, eyes glued to the TV. Zero smacked his forehead.

"Of course! Why didn't I think of that? Thanks, Hanny."

"Uh huh. Sure," she nodded automatically while Zero jumped from the sofa and went to X's office. Moments later the sound of a monitor eating a Z-Saber resounded throughout HQ. The intercom had somehow been activated in X's office. Hannah dropped her controller, picked it up again, put the game on PAUSE and ran to X's office just has she heard Zero scream over the intercom, "GET OVER IT!"

WHAM!

X was flung clear through his office doors and into the corridor wall. His mind was still too muddled with the affairs of Azeroth to focus on the present situation as Zero stormed through the broken doors and picked him up, yelling at him, slapping him hard over the face, each blow an exclamation mark.

"QUIT- " SLAP! "YOUR -" SLAP! "BITCHING, AND GET-" SLAP! "OVER-" SLAP! "IT!" SLAP!

Receiving the bitch-slapping of his life brought X back into the world of reality. He grabbed Zero's arms, picking him bodily off the floor to smash him into it. He dropped an elbow onto Zero's back, and then locked both the Red Ripper's arms.

"WHAT THE HELL? I WAS IN A KARAZHAN RAID!" X hollered, his face thoroughly red from Zero's handprints, "NOW I'LL NEVER COMPLETE MY TIER FIVE ARMOUR SET!"

"THE WAR IN THIS WORLD IS REAL, NOT LIKE THAT DAMN GAME!" Zero countered just as loudly. X stepped off Zero's back and kicked him hard in the head.

"Keep pushing me, Zero, and see if I don't do something about it!"

Zero found his feet, cracking his neck back into place, glaring at X.

"Then DO SOMETHING!"

Zero marched past Hannah without another word. The latter turned to X, arms akimbo, and declared, "You're a bunch of five year olds." She went back to play her game. X looked at the monitor Zero just busted, thought about his ruined Karazhan raid, thought about his ruined planet Earth, thought about his ruined relationships with the other Hunters who grew bitterer and more desperate every day he, their commander, was absent from the field. He went to the still active intercom that Zero had turned on to make sure the entire base heard their fight. He leaned over it, muttered, "Return to your duties," switched it off, dropped into his chair, rested his chin on a palm, and began thinking.