Chapter Two and a Half: The 4th Wall is Broken

"Zero!" Alouette's soft blue eyes swelled to comical proportions as the legendary red reploid finally responded over the comm system. "Everyone! It's him! Zero's finally on the radio!

Every reploid in the Engineering Room froze solid, their jaws almost falling off of their skull frames as their eyes expanded to owl-like proportions. "Zero?" "It's him! It's Zero?" "OMG! What is he saying?" They all seemingly teleported from their equipment to Alouette, the frightened reploid girl shyly blinking as they assaulted and surrounded her with questions.

"Umm, I, uh, umm!" She shyly stuttered, unsure of how to deal with the swarming mob.

"Hey!" A deep, familiar voice barked, silencing the mob of frenzied reploids. "If you want to hear what Zero's saying, why don't you let the girl talk to him?"

Alouette's sparkling blue eyes gratefully softened at the sight of the tall, burly machine that was Faucon. His rough, long jaw was sharp enough to cut you, and his freshly shaved 'stubble' felt like sandpaper on remarkably smooth skin. His silver eyes glowed with the light of a reploid who'd seen enough combat alongside a fellow warrior to know that even if he was dead, it was just because he let the enemy killed him.

"Go ahead, baby girl," His heavy, gravelly voice boomed. "Talk to Zero!"

"Hah? Uh, mhm!" She nodded and shifted her attention to the sleek radio in her hand. "Z-Zero?

"Ah, it is you, Alouette! Has Ciel made any plans?"

"Um, no!" She softly chimed. "Why? Are you coming back to help us?"

"Ah, sorry, Alouette! I'm not gonna be back for a while."

"Why? Why Zero? Why aren't you coming back?" Tears welled up in her soft little eyes. "Is, is someone trying to kill us?"

"Neo Arcadia wants me dead, if I go back they'll hit you guys with everything they've got!"

"Oh," she pouted. "So are you fighting them off?"

Zero swung his saber down, slicing through another fist pantheon as he touched his left hand to his helmet's radio comms. Zero stood there, slicing pantheon after pantheon as they marched at him in a neat, cozy little line.

"Well, it's more like they're jumping off a cliff to be honest." Zero cut down another fist pantheon, climbing over their halved, smouldering metal corpses with one or two lazy steps. "Maybe it's because I broke the fourth wall."

"The fourth... wall?" Alouette turned to the others. "What's the fourth wall?"

"Don't you know?" Cerveau chimed as he made his way to the front of the crowd. "The fourth wall is the law of writing that states that a character of a story isn't supposed to know that they're a character. Breaking the fourth wall makes the story really awkward, and..."

"It apparently makes the author too lazy to write up a challenging fight!" Zero added as he cut down another dumb fist pantheon.

"So Zero, now that you've broken the fourth wall? What's gonna happen?" Alouette chimed.

"Well," Zero stepped over yet another smouldering corpse. "I guess that the author's laptop got taken away, so he's pressed for time when it comes down to weekly posting."

"And on top of that, he has to finish his online scholarship application before the thirtieth of April! And he has to take advantage of his fairly vast knowledge of self-taught martial arts in order to fight his siblings for a mere two hours on the family desktop!"

"Wait!" Alouette's eyes narrowed in confusion, wondering just how powerful a breaking of the fourth wall really is. "I thought that I was the only one who could hear Zero!"

"We've broken the fourth wall," Zero stepped over yet another corpse, not even bothering to look at his opponents. "Anything can happen now."

"Oh. Okay." Although Alouette wasn't quite sure what to believe at this point.

"Wait, if anything can happen because the fourth wall broke," Faucon pondered, tapping a finger to his masculine chin. "Would that mean that Neo Arcadia would replace their strongest reploids with pantheons with minor upgrades?"

"Or that every time Zero beats a reploid from Neo Arcadia we'll get fancy equipment and weapons like what the Neo Arcadians have at their capital?" Colbor hoped out loud.

Zero stepped over another dead fist pantheon. "Well, anything new?"

Everyone froze, looking about expectantly as Zero continued to slice away at pantheons. Faucon radioed the other combat reploids who were on sentry duty, figuring that they might've gotten some upgraded anti-aircraft weapons. He shook his head, disappointed that the fourth wall's brokenness wasn't helping them the way they hoped.

"The author must be really upset about having his laptop taken away," Cerveau surmised by way of deduction.

"He did bring it on himself, though," Zero responded as he surpassed another dead reploid. "His dad told him to study for his final exams and he starts watching boxing videos on his phone."

"But his dad never even knew he had exams until his uncle asked him when his exams were ending. It's his father's responsibility to know these things beforehand, he even has the password to his account for that Blackbaud thing and his dad never checks his grades."

"Wait, wait!" Alouette begged of Zero and Cerveau. "How do you know so much about the author and we don't?"

"Well, we were the first to break the fourth wall, so that might explain it." Zero surpassed another one of these severely dumbfounded reploids. "Man, the author's on a serious lazy-streak! All of these pantheons just keep marching right into my saber!"

"Yeah, probably doesn't help that the author's dad religiously implies that he's a crack-addicted gang-banger with no potential in anything in life but textbooks!" Cerveau added.

Faucon 'hmphed!' In disgust as he crossed burly arms over his chest. "Pathetic, if the man really believes that he should just come out and say it."

"Umm, everyone?" Alouette asked rather conservatively. "Is all of this happening because we broke the fourth wall? Or is it because the author made us break it?"

Everyone paused. Almost, Zero had to continue killing his non-intelligent opponents.

"That's a good question." Colbor remarked.

A/N: So this mini-chapter was pretty much me finding a non-canon (to the actual story that is) means of griping to you what happens. I've pretty much explained the whole situation, which has proved to be a critical set back so my usual weekly updating on Saturday may be thrown completely off-track, and this little filler is just here in case I can't meet my self-imposed deadline. So yeah, just wish me luck or something, I wanna try my best to stay constant, but without my laptop it's just much harder than it needs to be.