Like everything else here, he was a mess. He was missing an arm and his armour was cracked in places. Even the forcefield that Milan ran into had not spared him. He was a broken legend.

"How are we going to get past that shielding?" Milan wondered. With a shout, the guard at the entrance died. Pantheons filed into the room, firing. Milan shoved Ciel behind him, taking three energy bolts to the chest. He opened fire, bullets ricocheting harmlessly off their pursuers.

"We're cornered! We have to evacuate!" Milan insisted, although they had no avenues of escape left to them.

"But Zero…!"

Three shots were fired. A shower of circulatory fluid and her last bodyguard was no more.

"Milan!" Ciel screamed. The rogue human scientist fell to her knees beside his body. Red had stained her bright blonde hair.

"…"

Passy, flitting nervously, considered her mistress in distress. The Pantheons, their cannons smoking, were advancing, their luminous cyclopean eyes bringing death ever nearer.

"Ciel!" Passy cried.

"………"

"Ciel!!"

"…………………"

"GOD DAMN IT WOMAN!"

"What?" Ciel moaned.

"I can break through the barrier!"

"Who's stopping you?"

"You have to charge me!"

"Wha?"

"Just stick out your hand before those Pantheons make you very dead!"

Ciel obeyed, and Passy generated enough power to not only break the forcefield around Zero but to resurrect him in perfect condition. Perhaps it was her own power enhancing his auto-repair function, or perhaps she had hacked into and activated the life-support cables attached to him – who knew? The results were stupendous.

"Whoa. I thought Passy was only good for a mascot!"

Zero opened his eyes, and his first word after one hundred years of stasis was uttered:

"Coooooffeeeeeee….."

"Zero!"

He blinked.

"Huh?"

A girl with a blonde ponytail, like his, and huge blue eyes, like his, was clutching his hand. They looked like twins, except he was male, reploid, and covered in bright red armour.

"Please… help me," she whimpered.

Basic programming took over. To summarize the infinitely complex chains of code, here are the conclusions at which he arrived:

NEW FRIEND FOUND. FRIEND WANTS PEACE. MUST FIGHT FOR PEACE. PEACE BRINGS PLEASURE TO FRIEND. PLEASURE IS ALL. FIGHTING IS ALL. MUST FIGHT TO BRING PLEASURE TO FRIEND.

Zero dropped from his erect posture and pried the heavy gray handgun from Milan's hand. He shrugged. Maybe he was a combat-class model.

"Okie dokie," he acknowledged.

"Mission Start!"

"What?"
"Just shoot those Pantheons!"

"Hey! Uh, they look familiar."

"SHOOT THEM!"

"Okay, just stop yelling! Come to think of it, you remind me of someone…"

But the Pantheons were not attacking at all. In fact, they were running back and forth, much like beheaded chickens. Zero scratched his helmet.

"Um. I see green dead guys. How were they killed?"

"Those Pantheons shot them."

"The same Pantheons doing absolutely nothing right now."

"Yes."

"Got it."

Zero dispatched them with three shots apiece. Killing was more instinctive than thinking, more like breathing.

"Okay, whatever they reminded me of did not fall apart after three hits."

"Good. Let's keep going."

"Why?"

"Because I'm in danger!"

Zero cocked his handgun. Fighting is all.

"Not while I'm here."

"Well then, take me back home."

"How?"

Ciel smacked her forehead.

"Look, just keep going right until we find the exit, okay?"

"Okie dokie. I still don't know who you are or what the hell I'm doing here, but let's carry on."

Zero killed… spiders… later on in the stage, as well as Pantheons with shock sticks. Sure enough, they arrived at a dead end. While Ciel went forward to inspect the wall, Zero holstered his Z-Buster. Hey, his first weapon had to have a name, and it was better than 'Dick Justice'.

"Oh hey, I've only been around for a minute, but I'm way more powerful than those guys back there. Were your people killed by them? They must suck."

Ciel flew to their defense with shock and outrage.

"They were brave soldiers!"

"Who were killed by barely functioning zombies."

"You're not invincible, you know!"

"I've just cleared an entire area without damaging myself or injuring you."

Ciel tilted her head to one side to process this.

"…Yeah. Maybe I should keep you close, y'know, just to be safe…"

As she said this, the platform beneath her began to crumble. First Pantheons, then Golems, and now the ground was conspiring against her?

"Ahh!"

Zero dashed forward to grab her. The fall was over one hundred feet, but he landed without so much as a grunt. Ciel found her feet, wobbling a bit.

"…Thank you. That's the second time today."

He saluted.

"Just doing my duty, ma'am."

"My name's Ciel. I'm a scientist. And you're Zero."

"I don't like that name; it makes me sound like a loser. How about One? The One."

"But the databanks said…"

"Saviour of maidens in distress, the One."

"For a legend, you're a real fathead, Zero."

"It's called hibernation sickness, my dear, so grin and bear it."

Ciel sighed and led the way. There was more of that green slush on the floor leaking from broken pipes, some high-backed chairs with moss growing on them and dusty computer terminals.

"There should be a Trans Server around here where we can teleport back to base. I guess this is the laboratory where they monitored you. In case you didn't notice, you were behind several containment doors, meaning you're very important."

"Considering the mess you woke me up in, I beg to differ."

"The Elf Wars destroyed this facility," she explained as they walked, "and you. The only reason you were not in pieces was because of that massive forcefield around you. My Cyber Elf, Passy, broke through the shield, revived and restored you."

"That would explain my screensaver."

"What?"

"Just before I opened my eyes, there was this little fairy flitting back and forth, telling me to wake up."

Ciel smiled.

"She will always be a part of you."

"Oh, great, now I'm part fairy," Zero smirked, "C'mon, let's get out of here."

Ciel's face fell.

"Can't."

Debris had choked the rest of the hallway.

"Shall we go back?"

Zero's advanced aural sensors heard the hum of hover engines before she did.

"Stay back!"

A giant metal fist burst through the debris to snatch the girl off the ground, withdrawing into the room beyond. Zero followed her screams to find a Golem holding her captive.

"Ciel!"

Despite terror, she thought of her saviour first.

"Run, Zero! Buster shots won't harm this thing…"

Zero whipped out his gun.

"Like hell it won't!"

Without thinking he kicked off the wall and got a headshot in. The Golem, surprised at its vulnerability, counterattacked with an energy beam that collapsed part of the ceiling. Zero dashed almost underneath the behemoth to avoid the falling blocks, and used them as platforms to get in more headshots.

"They always have a weakness!" he informed Ciel, kicking off the wall again to avoid more energy beams. As she watched him evade attacks that had killed her friends several times over, she wondered… was combat restoring his memory? He seemed to be moving faster, more sure of himself, ruthlessly efficient. Even so, his shots were not having much effect. The Golem's head was only beginning to be scorched.

"Rats!"

"Ahhh! I don't like rats!"

"Not rodents, Ciel! This monster isn't going down as fast as it should!"

In response to his frustration, the computer screen behind them flickered. Something resembling the model of an atom, with rainbow rings crisscrossing a blue core, appeared onscreen. Zero noticed its lurid presence.

"Huh?"

A small gray cylinder popped out of a compartment on the console. Then, a sizzling green beam emanated from its hilt, piercing the hard metallic ground at Zero's feet.

"…USE THIS… ZERO…"

Yet another person… or thing… that knew the name he had forgotten.

"Who are you!?" Zero demanded.

"HURRY… YOU HAVE TO… SAVE HER…" the blue core ordered, "DON'T WASTE TIME…"

Zero felt compelled. That voice… he connected it to the familiarity he felt when he looked at the Pantheons. He pulled the sword, no, the Z Saber, out of the ground, like King Arthur drawing Excalibur from Merlin's rock.

And it was the most natural thing in the world for him to rebound off the wall and behead the Golem with one sweeping slash.

Ciel fell from lifeless metal fingers. Zero used his body to shield her from the explosion.

"Mission… accomplished…" Ciel coughed in the smoke, "I can't believe it."

"That I was able to destroy that thing?"

"No… that a Cyber Elf gave you that sword…"
"Cyber Elf? I don't think that was just any old fairy."

"Even so, you must be the legendary reploid, Zero. That weapon is associated with him."

Zero, if that was who he was, frowned.

"What if I'm not?"

"You killed a Golem and you treat that saber like an extension of your arm."

Zero stared into the shimmering green blade of his weapon. It was a triangular arrow, leaving a neon trail when it moved. It felt good in his hand, unlike that gun which was clunky and awkward in comparison. Memory stirred, settled, and slept. He couldn't get a fix on what he was feeling.

"Ugh… I can't remember…"

"You still have hibernation sickess. Let's get you back to base before more enemies arrive."

He complied, following her through the hatch.