Fire, fire, everywhere.
X, Zero and Axl stood mouth agape at the suicide mission ahead of them.
"You do know that molten lava incinerates us, no matter how badass we are, right?" Zero spoke over the intercom.
"Kwitcherbitchin and get on with it," Alia muttered, "You've been through many volcano stages before."
"Yeah, but not ones littered with HUGE mechaniloids, fire-breathing dragons, molten lava everywhere you walk and bloody BOMBS, the kind that EXPLODE!" X waved his arms desperately.
"It's like a cross between Magma Dragoon, The Skiver and Blaze Phoenix's stage!" Axl remarked.
"Oh, paying attention to our past exploits, were you?" Zero noted.
"Well, yeah, you sort of saved the world six times before Red Alert formed. I haven't been living under a rock the past century!"
"But you were born yesterday," X said, "Or else you wouldn't bother to become a Maverick Hunter."
"Yeeeah," Axl sighed, looking at the unbelievable amount of traps laid before them, "Fame doesn't bring fortune in this business."
"Amen," Zero agreed while whipping out his saber, "At least we get to blow shit up."
The trio progressed slowly and with great difficulty, failing to save many of the trapped reploids due to the proximity bomb booby traps. Everyone had horrible burns at the end of the road.
"My legs! I can't feel my legs!" Axl bawled, staggering on two stiff legs before falling over..
"The moving parts must have fused together when that fire dragon knocked you into the lava pit," Zero conjectured. "The only reason you survived was because X pulled you out."
X grimaced at his blackened hands and arms.
"Can we really continue like this?" he asked.
"We have to, because Alia's a bitch and won't teleport us all the way here if we return to base."
Static squealed in Zero's aural receptors.
"I HEARD that!" Alia growled, "I'll rip your ponytail clean off…"
"Too late for that; it caught fire halfway during the stage. I'm bald."
Shocked silence on the other side.
"You're BALD?"
Zero removed his helmet to wipe the ashes off.
"Alas! My head reflects the sun."
Axl went cross-eyed.
"And you're okay with that?" X sputtered. Zero rolled his eyes.
"In case you've forgotten, I don't grow my hair. It's an accessory, like your brown hair, and Axl's stupid."
"Hey!"
"Shut up, kid. I'll get another ponytail when we get back to base."
"You have spare ponytails?" X stammered, going cross-eyed himself. Zero shook his smooth shiny head.
"You think I have jerseys and jeans in my wardrobe? Come on; let's get this over with."
"But I can't move with my legs half-melted!" Axl whined.
"Oh, that's good news!" Zero rejoiced, "Alia, return Axl to base for repairs."
"Wait a m–"
Axl's complaint was cut short by the teleporter beam. X sighed with relief.
"Thank Light; I thought we'd never get to do a mission by ourselves."
888
The second half of the stage was much easier, what with the platforms actually being large enough so that one misstep would not lead to molten doom. X and Zero still had to contend with legions of irate mechaniloids, however, and fire dragons that guarded the really, really narrow bridges between platforms.
"I get the feeling that we're not welcome," X commented while shooting down the aerial defenses.
"Soldiers are welcome nowhere," Zero muttered, beheading a fire dragon.
"Can't you be optimistic just a little bit? For my sake?"
"I would like to live in a world," Zero said, slamming his saber through a mechaniloid, "where there is no war. I would like to live in a world," he continued, dodging a fire dragon's breath while they scampered over another bridge, "where for one day I could think about making friends instead of killing them. I would like to live in a world," he said very quietly, turning to face X, "where Iris is alive, and reploids and humans coexist in harmony. I don't live in that world, X."
X lowered his eyes.
"We will make that dream come true, Zero. But it won't come true if you're a cynical bastard every step of the way; you have to have some hope!"
"Hope is for the weak," Zero dismissed the notion, turning his back on X as he walked towards the next teleporter, "Hope is for those who do not have the power to change their world. I have that power, so I want results, not hope."
X rubbed his grimy face with a blackened hand as his friend teleported to the next area.
"I don't like the results so far," he muttered, and followed.
888
A dinosaur mechaniloid the size of a three storey building was tramping around the lava pool, circling the platform on which they stood. The Red Alert member, Flame Hyenard, squared off with the duo.
"Pain. Pain. Y-You," he pointed at Zero, twitching violently, "You're the one who d-did this to me."
"He's infected," Zero observed, his voice utterly deadpan.
"Hyenard, we can help you; we have a cure!" X pleaded, "Trust us for a few minutes and you'll be yourself again."
"N-No. You are r-responsible…" he said, releasing an anguished groan that made X and Zero wince, "so if I tear you apart, the pain will stop?"
"It doesn't work that way," Zero said in the same deadpan tone, "I'm the original carrier; I would know. Listen to X."
"Please, Hyenard…" X began, but was interrupted by the hyena's cackling shriek.
"Y-Yes, that's it! I'll burn you b-both… to the ground! No more pain!"
In his ecstasy of discovery, Hyenard divided himself into three, his original body leaping onto the monstrous mechaniloid as it plodded through the lava around the platform.
"Ignore the copies; go for Hyenard!" Zero ordered, leaping over the clones. X took out the cannons at the side of the mechaniloid while Zero went for its joints, disabling them so that the dinosaur's legs buckled on one side, lowering its back for the duo to scramble onto. Hyenard was there, and his clones leapt to his side.
"Burn!" he shouted, "Burn! Burn! Burn to the ground!"
While the dinosaur found its feet again and resumed its endless trudging, Hyenard and his clones ran circles around X and Zero, flinging fireballs at them.
"Stop!" X cried, "We want to help you!"
"Burn! Burn! Burn! Burn to the ground!" Hyenard screamed his crazy song.
"This isn't the answer you're looking for! Let X help you!" Zero chimed in, his saber bracing against the flames.
"Burn! Burn! Burn! Burn to the ground!"
"Stop!" X cried, feeling the armour melting off his body
"BURN! BURN! BURN! BURN TO THE GROUND!"
"STOP IT!" X screamed, blasting Hyenard with a plasma charge so powerful it blew the Maverick's head clean off. The two clones went dead, as did the dinosaur, which stopped mid-stride. A purple cloud rose from Hyenard's slag, glimmering with energy, taking the vague shape of Zero. Before X could react, the Maverick Virus sped towards him, but Zero knocked X out of the way and absorbed the full infection that had just driven a reploid insane. As X watched, purple energy crackled over Zero's armour, shining in his eyes. Scorch marks vanished. The damaged parts of his armour rebuilt themselves, converting energy into matter. His whole body sparkled as though he had just stepped off the production line.
And finally, from the base of his skull, a shining stream of golden hair flowed out of Zero's helmet and fell to his feet. The purple shine left Zero's eyes. He looked at X.
"You know who I am, and who made me, and yet you help me, X."
"The circumstances of your birth are unimportant. It's what you've done with your life that matters, Zero, and you've saved mine many times."
They shared a brief smile whose meaning only they knew.
"Let's go home, X. You're a fried chicken."
"I'm not a pussy," X whined as they teleported home.
888
Zero sat in Lifesaver's chair while the latter tended to X and Axl.
"Morale for the entire Maverick Hunter organization has been boosted by your return, X," Lifesaver commented, "Even our comrades in faraway Europe sounded happy that you'd returned to the field."
X shifted uncomfortably in the maintenance pod.
"I didn't want to."
"Until I beat some sense into you," Zero pointed out.
"What? X kicked your ass every time!" Axl reminded him while Lifesaver replaced servos in his legs.
"Kicking my ass proved the point he must be out there fighting," Zero chuckled. X and Axl rolled their eyes.
"You planned all that, didn't you?" X accused him.
"No; I was genuinely pissed off at your inactivity. Remember before the first war, when Sigma bombarded Adam City because you wouldn't fight him?"
There was silence. It was a sore subject with X. Only the devastation of the fifth war had ever surpassed that human body count.
"You must always take action, X, because evil reploids like Red don't take a day off."
"He's not a Maverick!" Axl growled, "He's my commander!"
"Your commander wants to use your DNA to strengthen his illegal vigilante agenda, yet you defend him?" X questioned the young reploid, "Unless proper investigations are conducted, innocent lives will be lost."
"Unless we do something about the real threats instead of waiting for the legal system, innocent lives will be lost anyway!" Axl shot back. X shook his head.
"You sound just like Red."
Axl pouted and looked away.