Zero returned to find the place empty. He searched the guard posts, command centre, energy crystal factory, dormitories, and found no one.

"Okay then."

He took the elevator to the engineering level, and sure enough, everyone was crowded inside Cerveau's laboratory. Uproarious laughter shook the building.

"Where's the party?" Zero demanded, pushing past green uniforms. Cerveau was on the floor kicking his legs into the air. Ciel, wiping tears from her flushed cheeks, was leaning breathless against the computer console.

"Z… Zero. We decrypted another portion of the data you recovered from Maha Ganeshariff. L… look!"

Feeling ridiculous already, Zero elbowed Colbor away to get a better look at the screen. Everyone fell into an expectant hush. There were static, flickering images, and then a video feed began to play from a security camera.

"We think it's from the old Maverick Hunter headquarters," Ciel narrated, "Look, it's you and Megaman X, a hundred years ago!"

Indeed it was. Zero's draw dropped. He had been much bulkier, with a heroic chest and two large green orbs where nipples – or boobs – would have been. Megaman X, the legend he recognized and did not recognize, was looking at Zero's past self and smirking. There was audio, and Zero spoke:

"Aight, aight. X, you get to do the honours!"

X reached towards Zero and flicked a switch somewhere inside the engine exhaust he had in place of abdominals.

Zero's boob lights began to flash, accompanied by stereo.

"I'm blue, da ba dee, da ba dai, da ba dee, da ba dai…"

X began to dance and sing along.

"Blue are the people here that walk around

Blue like my Corvette it's standing outside

Blue are the words I say and what I think

Blue are the feelings that live inside me, I'm blue, da ba dee…"

Everyone was in fits of laughter at the look on Zero's face. The latter picked his jaw up off the ground.

"I HAD A JUKEBOX IN THERE?!"

Ciel tipped over giggling against Alouette, waving at the screen.

"Look! It's my great-great-great grandmother!"

In the video, a fair girl walked into the room. She had greenish hazel eyes and blonde hair. She looked askance at the Hunters before hooting and hollering at their antics.

"Her name's Hannah. I recognize her from my family pictures. She knew you both, Zero, like I do now!"

Ignoring the guffaws and knee slapping going on around him, Zero peered closer at the screen.

"What's that she has hanging off her belt? It looks just like my…"

Ciel reached behind her back, procured a thin metallic cylinder and flicked a switch. A long luminous cylindrical beam, the ancient construct of the beam saber, flared to life. Ciel smiled behind its warm green fire.

"The batteries still work."

Despite the emotions passing over Zero's face, his mouth wriggled into a wry grin. "Those Duracells outlasted me."

888

Under the watchful eyes of sentries, Zero walked with her outside, handling both sabers. He waved them around, went through the motions of spinning in midair with one and then the other, comparing them.

"The new one is much lighter than the old and its blade is more aerodynamic. These factors make the new one feel more natural. The old one… your saber, is so heavy and the blade is so thick."

"Your chest was almost two yards wide in that old recording," Ciel mused. Rare and precious sunlight filtered through the oppressive gray sky. Ciel's face became golden white beneath its rays as she stopped to drink them in. Clouds always seemed to hang over Neo Arcadia, the city of sorrows in the distance.

"They exaggerated everything in the old days. You were bigger, your weapon was heavier, and so many mechaniloids were unnecessarily huge. They minimized once energy reserves began to run out. The ones that couldn't make the transition were turned into cyber elves or transferred to cyberspace. That tendency towards miniaturization explains your current human size."

"Take off this armour and I'd be downright scrawny," Zero observed, "Hey, why not?"

Zero stripped his armour right then and there. The cloth tunic fell to the ground. Forearm bracers popped off. He stepped out of his boots. The redhead sentries whistled. Their male counterparts bristled. Ciel gaped.

"Oh… my, but you're not scrawny at all."

Underneath the bright red shell was skintight black material that showed a green tinge when the sunlight struck it. This black/green film formed a body suit down to his individual and clearly defined toes. His fingers were deceptively slender; each could crush steel. But more important than phalanges, were the ripped muscles packed onto his wiry frame. His muscles – that were not muscles – undulated with every breath he took, rippling along his arms and chest. The white plastic girdle remained around his groin. Other than that, he was exposed. Zero tilted his head.

"You're staring."

"Sorry. It's a common human reaction to objects of beauty."

Zero inclined his head to the other side.
"I'm… beautiful?"

Ciel walked towards him. One armour piece remained – his helmet.

"I forgot I had it on," Zero remarked as she lifted it from his head.

Luxuriant golden strands caught and magnified sunlight until a waterfall of gold cascaded around his shoulders. Ciel caught her breath.

"You have bangs."

They stood out from his hairline like a circlet, waving in the wind.

"You would call this body beautiful."

"It was designed to be."

She traced the sharp definition of his arm 'muscles'.

"Wondrous. I know these are servos driven by hydraulic fluid but their look and feel is that of a very… athletic… human."

Zero flexed his arm and the muscles flexed with it.

"I am a human model."

Those wide blue eyes drank him in. She was a child playing with a toy.

"Just how advanced are you?"

Zero accessed his physiology databank and looked down at his plastic girdle, detaching it like a belt.

"I have a dick."

Three things happened then. First, Ciel got a gushing nosebleed, and had to be rushed to the infirmary. Second, the redheads experienced a monumental systems overload and had to be sent to Cerveau for repairs. Thirdly, the male sentries nodded at Zero and said, "Nice."

Zero put his armour back on.

888

On his way to the infirmary, alarms went off in the command centre. Defying the elevator, Zero wall-kicked up the shaft, rushed past the guard and hit the comm. console.

"Attack… Repeat, under - AHHH!"

Zero was gone before Ciel entered with cotton stuffed up her nostrils.