Ummm....I really need to do something with these disclaimers...Zero isn't
mine, and neither is X, or Dr. Light, or Sigma.......
Zero2 Ch.9
Memories/Reconciliation
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~
Seero stood up, surrounded by darkness. A figure stood outlined in front of him. It seemed vaguely familiar.
"Who are you?" a voice echoed around Seero. "Why do you disturb my memory? What gives you such a right?"
"My name is Seero. And I am a Maverick Hunter." Seero answered the dark figure. Seero could begin to make out the figure. There seemed to be a handle of some sort resting behind broad, yet oddly squared off shoulders. "The same could be asked of you. Who are you? And what disturbing do you speak of? How can I disturb what I know nothing of?"
"You call yourself a Hunter? Or are you a Maverick? Are you a human, or a reploid? Does it matter? Is there a difference anymore?" The figure cocked it's head to one side. Seero could now make out the gleam of it's eyes. Blue as saphires, yet they shined with an odd shade of red residing just behind the blue, making them seem almost purple to a point. Yet at times, it seemed as if the red would take over. They shook Seero to the very core. "Why do you fight? What is your purpose?"
"I fight to free humanity from the slavery of the Mavericks."
"Is that so? Then you should be able to defeat me, for if you do not, then the Mavericks have won." And with that the wraith reached over it's back to grasp the handle that Seero had spotted before. Seero watched as an even blacker darkness seemed to extend from the handle. It was all Seero could do to avoid that blackness for what seemed an eternity. "Why don't you fight at full power? Or do you prefer to fight at the same level as a normal human?"
Seero slid to a stop from the backhand spring that had been his last avoiding maneuver. "What do you mean? I AM human."
"You are more than human," the figure pointed out, thrusting at Seero once again.. "Who am I, you ask me?" the shadow seemed to soften to the point where Seero could make out a few features. He knew those features all too well.
"You, you're...."
"Exactly," the shadow stated. "I am you, and you are me."
"But I can't be you...you're Zero."
"Exactly...you are me. I am you. You're me now. You're not just Seero anymore. You ARE Zero."
"Then where does that leave you?"
"Me?" Zero's shadow asked as it chuckled. "I will take over when it seems to me that you need help. Or whenever I find the moment appropriate."
"You'll take over?"
"Don't worry," Zero stated. "You'll know in good time...if you're really curious you could always ask Light to lend you the Twin Soul ability."
"The Twin Soul ability?"
"Light will know what you mean." Zero grinned while fading. To Seero, there was a slight look of insanity in that grin.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~
X hauled Zero's unconcious form into the lab as Zenton and Toronto stared in bewilderment. Zenton was the first to run to X's side to help with lifting Zero to the table. The suit, as Light had pointed out, was not the lightest thing on earth, especially with fried circuits.
"X, what the hell barbecued his ass?" Zenton asked as they laid Zero down.
"He did it himself."
"WHAT?!" Zenton and Toronto both nearly dropped their jaws.
"He did it to himself. You should see what he did to the building. Doc?" X yelled into the ceiling and walls.
"Yes, X?" Light's face came down on one of the ceiling monitors.
"You did say there weren't any humans left there, right?"
"That's easy enough to tell you, X. There haven't been any humans there for several weeks. They were all moved out of there sometime before Sigma reactivated you."
"Good."
Several hours passed as Dr. Light worked on the remains of the suit. Seero had regained conciousness but was as yet unable to move, due to Light needing to work on the suit, and Seero not being able to shift out of it until it was fully functioning again.
"Doc?"
"Yes, Seero?"
"What was Zero actually like?"
"He was...well, hard to put into words. He seemed a constant joker, and yet beneath that joking, there was a certain, how to say, recklessness. He seemed to always be pushing the edges of everything. Beneath that, though, was one of our fiercest fighters. He was all seriousness in battle. I don't remember him very well, because of my limited number of probes above ground at the time, but I never saw him smile for a fight."
"Wrong, Doc," X interrupted from the chairs and table where he and the other two were sitting.
"I beg your pardon, X?"
"I didn't ever find a point where he wasn't smiling in battle. Apparently all you saw were the battles where he was bored. He loved fighting. He lived for the thrill of the clash. I don't know who you were watching when Zero was fighting, but I couldn't ever get him to quit grinning when he was in a good fight. Except for one fight."
"Which one?" Seero asked.
"The one between me and him."
"Oh. I think I'm sorry I asked."
"I don't see why. Go through his memories."
"My memories." Seero said, not even leaving a breath's space in between the corrections. His voice seemed suddenly to hold a whole different tone.
"What the? What do you mean, your memories, Seero?" X asked, bewildered all of a sudden.
"Don't tell me you don't recognize me, X. I may be dead, but dead isn't always gone." Z/Seero's face lit up with a grin.
"Zero?" Light and X both sounded out at once.
"In the flesh, so to speak."
"But if you're Zero, then where's Seero?" X asked.
"He's here. As am I. You knew I was still around X. Think about it" Zero's voice still held an amused tone.
"But how are you and Seero the same person?" Light asked, his scientifical computerized mind not quite comprehending the situation.
"Because my spirit's still around. And perhaps history is not yet done with me. So fate created a new vessel for me, although it has a mind of it's own. Doc, didn't you program him with an internal repair unit?" Zero asked.
"Well, yes, Zero, I did create Seero's new body with a self- regeneration ability, but it doesn't include the suit, and the suit is what he fried."
"Then redesign a few circuits. The ability to self-regenerate is going to be rather necessary in his future." Zero was all seriousness now.
"What makes you so certain, Zero?" Light asked, sounding slightly skeptical.
"Call it a hunch if you want. His life hasn't really been too much different from mine. Nothing but hardships and battle. I know of at least one opportunity when my self-healing ability came in handy. Besides, do you really wanna have to do all the repairs yourself every time he comes back in?"
"Very well, Zero." Light responded.
"Heh, good. And I now return you to your regularly scheduled persona," Zero said with a chuckle.
"Well, Zero, how do you feel? Or is it Seero this time?" Doctor Light asked some time later.
"Don't worry, Doc. Just call me Zero. It'll help solve everyone's problems, not to mention my own," Zero answered. "He pointed something out to me while I was unconcious. No matter what I want to do, he and I are one and the same. No matter how bad I could ever want it to not be, we are one person now. I don't like the confusion in my mind right now, but I'll get used to it. In time, who knows, I might end up liking being me."
"Very well then...Zero."
Zero had walked off by himself, taking one of the chairs with him. He sat backwards on the chair, with his head resting on is arms. Suddenly X tapped his shoulder. "Wanna talk about it?"
"Sure, not like it'll do me any good not to. Although I've got a question for you."
"Shoot."
"How the hell did you walk up behind me without making a sound when you've got great big metal feet?" Zero asked, completely perplexed all of a sudden. He could understand how he could do it. Just walk around in human form, minus the armor, then shift into the armor when he needed to.
"Easy actually, Light installed some sound dampener's into my big metal feet when I was still fighting Wily. Even back then it was annoying to listen to me walk around." X grinned at him. "You should have seen how much it drove Roll up the wall. Between me running around and the animals, she finally yelled at Light one day to do something about it."
"Wasn't she a robot too?" Zero asked, grinning in spite of himself.
"Yeah, but Light designed her to look a little more human than the rest of us. So she got to wear boots so that her metal feet weren't in contact with the floor." X chuckled.
"Yeah, well, I guess that makes a certain amount of sense then." Zero chuckled as well. "Where are Zen and Tor?"
"Then went down the hall to our little training room."
"Ok."
"Now, ready to talk maybe?"
"Not really much to talk about, I'm just confused like hell. Why am I even still here? Why hasn't Zero just taken over and left me on the back burner?"
"He wouldn't want to do that. He might not seem like it, but he's not the cold-hearted bastard he acts like. You should've seen him for a while after Iris died. It was like watching a dead man moving sometimes."
"I can remember the feelings."
"Yeah, sometimes I forget that you've got his memories too. Look at it this way. Light once told me that your mental patterns are an exact match for Zero."
"So?"
"There's a good possibility that the original Zero's time to actually spend on this earth is up. However, there has to be something to spur you to fight. What better than his memories, the realization of what he fought for?"
"But if that's the case, then why was I born, why not just created as a Reploid?"
"Because, if you'd been created, there would be too much of a chance for you to have been turned Maverick at the start, and then where would we be? We'd both be Mavericks, and Zenton and Toronto would never have been freed and changed."
"That still doesn't answer the other question I've got."
"And that is?"
"Why me?" Zero's face fell.
"You've got something else bothering you to make you even ask that, I can tell that much."
"Yeah, there is something else bothering me, but I don't want to talk about that right now."
"Very well, but look at it this way. Maybe there's another reason for you having your own life before becoming Zero. Something else hidden within your mind might be a key to balancing Zero out."
"Balancing him out?" Zero was now thoroughly confused.
"Zero was a good friend, and a damn good fighter. But in spite of that, even I have to admit that he was a bit unstable at times. The closest I've ever seen him to being completely in control of himself was when him and Iris were becoming an item. But then Repliforce happened, and well..."
"Yeah, I can understand that part. And maybe you're right, maybe there is something balancing me out. I just hope it's not what I think it is, because if it is, it's what's bothering me, and it's been bothering me since I got changed."
"In that case, try not to let it worry you too much. Also, consider this."
"What?"
"You asked, 'Why me?'. Well, if that's so important to you, I've got another question for you."
"And that is?"
"Who else?"
"Wh-"
"Why are you fighting Zero?"
"Because I can."
"Because you can? Seems to me like that's a reason Sigma could use for why he does what he does."
"Well..."
"Find the reason you fight, and maybe that will help teach you why you are now Zero, and why Zero, is now a ghost."
"And what about you X?"
"Me? I know why I fight, and my reason is two-fold."
"May I ask what?"
"I fight to protect humanity. I've been doing so for far longer than any other Reploid, and I'm not going to stop now. Also, there is someone I care very much for, and I have no intentions of allowing this world to go to waste as long as she still believes in me."
"She?"
"Yes, there's someone I became very close with at one point in my life, and she's still out there, somewhere."
"But how do you know?"
"I was a Maverick for a while. I had access to their databases. They logged every Reploid they killed or converted. I had yet to see several very important people before I left, and since Reploids don't age, it's my belief that they're still out there."
"Okay then....but what happens if we meet them and they've been turned. I have Zero's memories, but I don't have his iron will. I couldn't live with killing a friend." Zero buried his face in his hands.
X's face took on a strained, and yet sad look. "Zero and I have had to bury enough friends in our lives, some of whom we were forced to take life from with our own hands. If someone with a mentality like mine can survive this, and still come out alright, I think you should be fine. After all, not even the original Zero liked taking out old friends." X got up, and left a suddenly bewildered Zero behind. Zero's face slowly became a smile as X walked out the door to head down the hall.
Zero2 Ch.9
Memories/Reconciliation
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~
Seero stood up, surrounded by darkness. A figure stood outlined in front of him. It seemed vaguely familiar.
"Who are you?" a voice echoed around Seero. "Why do you disturb my memory? What gives you such a right?"
"My name is Seero. And I am a Maverick Hunter." Seero answered the dark figure. Seero could begin to make out the figure. There seemed to be a handle of some sort resting behind broad, yet oddly squared off shoulders. "The same could be asked of you. Who are you? And what disturbing do you speak of? How can I disturb what I know nothing of?"
"You call yourself a Hunter? Or are you a Maverick? Are you a human, or a reploid? Does it matter? Is there a difference anymore?" The figure cocked it's head to one side. Seero could now make out the gleam of it's eyes. Blue as saphires, yet they shined with an odd shade of red residing just behind the blue, making them seem almost purple to a point. Yet at times, it seemed as if the red would take over. They shook Seero to the very core. "Why do you fight? What is your purpose?"
"I fight to free humanity from the slavery of the Mavericks."
"Is that so? Then you should be able to defeat me, for if you do not, then the Mavericks have won." And with that the wraith reached over it's back to grasp the handle that Seero had spotted before. Seero watched as an even blacker darkness seemed to extend from the handle. It was all Seero could do to avoid that blackness for what seemed an eternity. "Why don't you fight at full power? Or do you prefer to fight at the same level as a normal human?"
Seero slid to a stop from the backhand spring that had been his last avoiding maneuver. "What do you mean? I AM human."
"You are more than human," the figure pointed out, thrusting at Seero once again.. "Who am I, you ask me?" the shadow seemed to soften to the point where Seero could make out a few features. He knew those features all too well.
"You, you're...."
"Exactly," the shadow stated. "I am you, and you are me."
"But I can't be you...you're Zero."
"Exactly...you are me. I am you. You're me now. You're not just Seero anymore. You ARE Zero."
"Then where does that leave you?"
"Me?" Zero's shadow asked as it chuckled. "I will take over when it seems to me that you need help. Or whenever I find the moment appropriate."
"You'll take over?"
"Don't worry," Zero stated. "You'll know in good time...if you're really curious you could always ask Light to lend you the Twin Soul ability."
"The Twin Soul ability?"
"Light will know what you mean." Zero grinned while fading. To Seero, there was a slight look of insanity in that grin.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~
X hauled Zero's unconcious form into the lab as Zenton and Toronto stared in bewilderment. Zenton was the first to run to X's side to help with lifting Zero to the table. The suit, as Light had pointed out, was not the lightest thing on earth, especially with fried circuits.
"X, what the hell barbecued his ass?" Zenton asked as they laid Zero down.
"He did it himself."
"WHAT?!" Zenton and Toronto both nearly dropped their jaws.
"He did it to himself. You should see what he did to the building. Doc?" X yelled into the ceiling and walls.
"Yes, X?" Light's face came down on one of the ceiling monitors.
"You did say there weren't any humans left there, right?"
"That's easy enough to tell you, X. There haven't been any humans there for several weeks. They were all moved out of there sometime before Sigma reactivated you."
"Good."
Several hours passed as Dr. Light worked on the remains of the suit. Seero had regained conciousness but was as yet unable to move, due to Light needing to work on the suit, and Seero not being able to shift out of it until it was fully functioning again.
"Doc?"
"Yes, Seero?"
"What was Zero actually like?"
"He was...well, hard to put into words. He seemed a constant joker, and yet beneath that joking, there was a certain, how to say, recklessness. He seemed to always be pushing the edges of everything. Beneath that, though, was one of our fiercest fighters. He was all seriousness in battle. I don't remember him very well, because of my limited number of probes above ground at the time, but I never saw him smile for a fight."
"Wrong, Doc," X interrupted from the chairs and table where he and the other two were sitting.
"I beg your pardon, X?"
"I didn't ever find a point where he wasn't smiling in battle. Apparently all you saw were the battles where he was bored. He loved fighting. He lived for the thrill of the clash. I don't know who you were watching when Zero was fighting, but I couldn't ever get him to quit grinning when he was in a good fight. Except for one fight."
"Which one?" Seero asked.
"The one between me and him."
"Oh. I think I'm sorry I asked."
"I don't see why. Go through his memories."
"My memories." Seero said, not even leaving a breath's space in between the corrections. His voice seemed suddenly to hold a whole different tone.
"What the? What do you mean, your memories, Seero?" X asked, bewildered all of a sudden.
"Don't tell me you don't recognize me, X. I may be dead, but dead isn't always gone." Z/Seero's face lit up with a grin.
"Zero?" Light and X both sounded out at once.
"In the flesh, so to speak."
"But if you're Zero, then where's Seero?" X asked.
"He's here. As am I. You knew I was still around X. Think about it" Zero's voice still held an amused tone.
"But how are you and Seero the same person?" Light asked, his scientifical computerized mind not quite comprehending the situation.
"Because my spirit's still around. And perhaps history is not yet done with me. So fate created a new vessel for me, although it has a mind of it's own. Doc, didn't you program him with an internal repair unit?" Zero asked.
"Well, yes, Zero, I did create Seero's new body with a self- regeneration ability, but it doesn't include the suit, and the suit is what he fried."
"Then redesign a few circuits. The ability to self-regenerate is going to be rather necessary in his future." Zero was all seriousness now.
"What makes you so certain, Zero?" Light asked, sounding slightly skeptical.
"Call it a hunch if you want. His life hasn't really been too much different from mine. Nothing but hardships and battle. I know of at least one opportunity when my self-healing ability came in handy. Besides, do you really wanna have to do all the repairs yourself every time he comes back in?"
"Very well, Zero." Light responded.
"Heh, good. And I now return you to your regularly scheduled persona," Zero said with a chuckle.
"Well, Zero, how do you feel? Or is it Seero this time?" Doctor Light asked some time later.
"Don't worry, Doc. Just call me Zero. It'll help solve everyone's problems, not to mention my own," Zero answered. "He pointed something out to me while I was unconcious. No matter what I want to do, he and I are one and the same. No matter how bad I could ever want it to not be, we are one person now. I don't like the confusion in my mind right now, but I'll get used to it. In time, who knows, I might end up liking being me."
"Very well then...Zero."
Zero had walked off by himself, taking one of the chairs with him. He sat backwards on the chair, with his head resting on is arms. Suddenly X tapped his shoulder. "Wanna talk about it?"
"Sure, not like it'll do me any good not to. Although I've got a question for you."
"Shoot."
"How the hell did you walk up behind me without making a sound when you've got great big metal feet?" Zero asked, completely perplexed all of a sudden. He could understand how he could do it. Just walk around in human form, minus the armor, then shift into the armor when he needed to.
"Easy actually, Light installed some sound dampener's into my big metal feet when I was still fighting Wily. Even back then it was annoying to listen to me walk around." X grinned at him. "You should have seen how much it drove Roll up the wall. Between me running around and the animals, she finally yelled at Light one day to do something about it."
"Wasn't she a robot too?" Zero asked, grinning in spite of himself.
"Yeah, but Light designed her to look a little more human than the rest of us. So she got to wear boots so that her metal feet weren't in contact with the floor." X chuckled.
"Yeah, well, I guess that makes a certain amount of sense then." Zero chuckled as well. "Where are Zen and Tor?"
"Then went down the hall to our little training room."
"Ok."
"Now, ready to talk maybe?"
"Not really much to talk about, I'm just confused like hell. Why am I even still here? Why hasn't Zero just taken over and left me on the back burner?"
"He wouldn't want to do that. He might not seem like it, but he's not the cold-hearted bastard he acts like. You should've seen him for a while after Iris died. It was like watching a dead man moving sometimes."
"I can remember the feelings."
"Yeah, sometimes I forget that you've got his memories too. Look at it this way. Light once told me that your mental patterns are an exact match for Zero."
"So?"
"There's a good possibility that the original Zero's time to actually spend on this earth is up. However, there has to be something to spur you to fight. What better than his memories, the realization of what he fought for?"
"But if that's the case, then why was I born, why not just created as a Reploid?"
"Because, if you'd been created, there would be too much of a chance for you to have been turned Maverick at the start, and then where would we be? We'd both be Mavericks, and Zenton and Toronto would never have been freed and changed."
"That still doesn't answer the other question I've got."
"And that is?"
"Why me?" Zero's face fell.
"You've got something else bothering you to make you even ask that, I can tell that much."
"Yeah, there is something else bothering me, but I don't want to talk about that right now."
"Very well, but look at it this way. Maybe there's another reason for you having your own life before becoming Zero. Something else hidden within your mind might be a key to balancing Zero out."
"Balancing him out?" Zero was now thoroughly confused.
"Zero was a good friend, and a damn good fighter. But in spite of that, even I have to admit that he was a bit unstable at times. The closest I've ever seen him to being completely in control of himself was when him and Iris were becoming an item. But then Repliforce happened, and well..."
"Yeah, I can understand that part. And maybe you're right, maybe there is something balancing me out. I just hope it's not what I think it is, because if it is, it's what's bothering me, and it's been bothering me since I got changed."
"In that case, try not to let it worry you too much. Also, consider this."
"What?"
"You asked, 'Why me?'. Well, if that's so important to you, I've got another question for you."
"And that is?"
"Who else?"
"Wh-"
"Why are you fighting Zero?"
"Because I can."
"Because you can? Seems to me like that's a reason Sigma could use for why he does what he does."
"Well..."
"Find the reason you fight, and maybe that will help teach you why you are now Zero, and why Zero, is now a ghost."
"And what about you X?"
"Me? I know why I fight, and my reason is two-fold."
"May I ask what?"
"I fight to protect humanity. I've been doing so for far longer than any other Reploid, and I'm not going to stop now. Also, there is someone I care very much for, and I have no intentions of allowing this world to go to waste as long as she still believes in me."
"She?"
"Yes, there's someone I became very close with at one point in my life, and she's still out there, somewhere."
"But how do you know?"
"I was a Maverick for a while. I had access to their databases. They logged every Reploid they killed or converted. I had yet to see several very important people before I left, and since Reploids don't age, it's my belief that they're still out there."
"Okay then....but what happens if we meet them and they've been turned. I have Zero's memories, but I don't have his iron will. I couldn't live with killing a friend." Zero buried his face in his hands.
X's face took on a strained, and yet sad look. "Zero and I have had to bury enough friends in our lives, some of whom we were forced to take life from with our own hands. If someone with a mentality like mine can survive this, and still come out alright, I think you should be fine. After all, not even the original Zero liked taking out old friends." X got up, and left a suddenly bewildered Zero behind. Zero's face slowly became a smile as X walked out the door to head down the hall.