Iris might have arrived a bit too early for training the next day. There was still a stunning lack of Reploids upstairs at this point of the day; did anyone actually come up here or was Zero so high and mighty that he was the only S Class Hunter in HQ?
"Zero, you can't authorize this!" someone from inside the training room cried, stopping Iris dead in her tracks. "Colonel, no, Repliforce, needs to know that she's here and undergoing offensive attack procedures!"
"X, chill." came the calm, emotionally distant voice of Zero.
"But-!"
"Could you just listen for once? Look, there's something about Iris- I can't explain it yet, but I know it's there. I think she has some fighting capability left over from her extraction from Colonel. It's rare in an Eve Reploid, sure, but not too uncommon. I want to see what her limitations are. I want to push her to her limit. If it all works out, either Colonel will let her take field, or we'll all know for sure if she's no better than a common pencil pusher."
There was a pause after this. It was the small voice of X that said;
"I think you like her."
Something about Zero's immediate laughter made Iris's skin crawl until he suddenly stopped.
"You're… not joking. Are you?" Zero then questioned. There was something in his voice, a small thing that Iris was just barely able to detect, that seemed to have broken through the red Reploid's emotional armor. The extended silence only confirmed how serious X had been.
"X, I..." Zero started but faltered. He eventually started up again with, "We can discuss this later. She's supposed to be here soon."
"Oh… okay." X slowly agreed. "Just… remember what I said? If she gets hurt, and Colonel doesn't know where she is..."
"I get it. Thanks X."
Iris took a step back as X came out of the training room, looking far too perplexed than what should be possible for a Reploid, before puffing up her chest and walking into the room herself. The Reploidic woman didn't have time to realize that X hadn't even noticed her before she saw the Ride Armor Zero had found for her.
"So I take it you like it?" Zero teased, having seen her reaction from next to the Ride Armor.
His only answer was an absent nod as Iris made her way to the Ride Armor for a closer look. The armor was a deep purple with large bat-like wings on the back. The armor was sitting on the ground, waiting to be activated, currently making its overall body just a little taller than Iris. She could have been able to climb in if she wanted to dive right into it, but it never hurt to ask.
"How do I get in?"
"You hop in." Zero answered with a shrug.
Iris turned to Zero and raised an eyebrow. "Literally, or…?"
Zero pursed his lips together and gave a slow nod of acknowledgment. "It's… situational." he admitted. "For now, no; not literally."
"Is there any special way to get in it?" Iris then asked.
"No."
"Then help me in." the female Reploid told him. "We're not going to get anywhere just staring at the thing."
Zero agreed to this with a gruff nod. Getting in the Ride Armor was fairly easy, barring the smallest of boosts from Zero despite not needing it, and Iris carefully situated herself to get comfortable inside. The red Reploid took a step back and attempted to not be amused by her shuffling.
"Once you get comfortable in that rust bucket," Zero eventually spoke up, "There's a red lever off to the side; flip it and the armor will activate. You can't miss it."
"Got it." Iris immediately agreed. After easily finding the lever, Iris switched it on and nearly had to hold on to something as the armor rocked as it attempted to stand up. Once the Ride Armor was on both its feet, Iris was able to regain her balance.
"Are you alright in there?" Zero mused.
"Yeah." Iris agreed. "You could have told me it would do that, though."
"That was a test on your reflexes, obviously." Zero smirked. "Some folks give this weird yelp in surprise when the Ride Armor activates for the first time."
"Lemme guess," Iris interjected, a mischievous smile growing on her lips, "X was one of them."
Her answer was a rather irritated sigh; an agreeing, yet rather annoyed, sigh.
"Operating the Ride Armor is painfully simple after the start up." Zero soon went on, "As clearly marked on the console; you have operations for movement is all four cardinal directions, a basic combat attack, a basic long range attack, and a special attack. In your case, the Ride Armor you have now is equipped with energy replenishing mines- this is your special attack. Your basic long range attack is a simple laser that fires in a single direction, but has high fire power to knock at Mettaur out in one shot. Not kill it -mind you, those bastards are tough- but knock it over for you to squish later. If you just feel like punching shit, the combat attack is the most basic of all of them; let the Ride Armor take care of the strain."
Iris huffed. So far, this was going to be ridiculously easy. So why on earth was Zero acting like she was going to fall apart at any moment? It was annoying, sexist, and getting in the way of this supposed training session. Then something crossed Iris's mind: what if all of this was some ruse for him to flirt with her? If that was the case (and as reputable Zero was and all, it shouldn't have been), Iris was going to maim him without an inch of remorse.
"I'm going to start the main scenario once you're ready." the red Reploid informed her, snapping her out of her train of thought. "It will run through a basic course that will help familiarize you with the Ride Armor, if you progress well enough, you might get to face the 'boss.'"
"Lemme guess, it's going to be you?" Iris snorted. Zero gave his own smirk in return.
"You'll just have to see." he teased before warping to the control booth, allowing the training room to morph into a new environment. Just as Zero said, the program told her how to operate the Ride Armor before setting her through some rather basic scenarios; taking down a small Maverick, then taking down a large quantity of Mavericks, and rescuing a small handful of Reploids from harm.
Iris knew she had done well adapting to the Ride Armor, but had allowed herself to get hit during the Maverick swarm simply because of the quantity. Rescuing the Reploids in danger also proved to be rather cumbersome as she had to think of ways to reach them in the dumbest of places. She knew she missed several of the Reploids, and flinched in considering that their 'survival' was a large chunk of her final score. Eventually, the simulation led her to a hallway that revealed the boss of the course. Iris smirked when she saw Zero there. For a moment, she had forgotten that he was roughly half the height of the Ride Armor. He looked so tiny just standing there with his saber out; it was almost cute.
"You've come this far Iris!" Zero called up to her, preparing for battle. "Don't let me down."
And with a war cry for the ages, Zero came at her with everything he had. Or, it's what he wanted her to think. A simple side step was enough for Iris to avoid his first move. For now, she wanted to get out of his way and study his attack pattern, not that he was making it easy for her- Zero landed three hits before Iris was able to recognize when he would attack. It was at the moment that Zero side kicked off the wall to perform a spinning slash on her that Iris was able to rear up and land her first hit on the red Reploid.
The attack had thrown Zero backwards and allowed the wall he just jumped kicked off of to hit back at him. Genuinely dazed for a moment, Zero looked back at Iris with a rather flabbergasted face.
"You hit me." he remarked, saying it as if he couldn't believe it himself. But then it sparked an interest in him, and a wide smile appeared on Zero's face in return. With an amused shrug he told her, "Well, I guess this means I can't hold back now."
From inside the Ride Armor, Iris gave herself a rather playful smirk. "Bring it Goldilocks!" she even cheered as she made the Ride Armor taunt Zero. As he regained his footing and battle stance, Zero found himself going into a rather hearty chuckle before starting the battle over again.
. . .
Much later, when Zero called a truce to the simulation, the red Reploid was going over the status report. Iris lingered near him but couldn't bring herself to get closer enough to read the report.
"Not bad for a first run." Zero mumbled as he went over the diagnostic. "There are definitely signs of improvement here. Pretty impressive Iris."
The female Reploid looked at her superior nervously, waiting for him to get to the part she wanted to hear. Zero could feel her staring, but ignored her in favor of keeping up the charade. He even let out a rather exhaustive sigh that only made Iris more antsy.
"Iris, I don't know how we're going to tell Colonel," he then mused, "But I think you might have a chance at being combative after all."
"Are you serious?!" she nearly shouted in surprised.
"Take a look." Zero offered, showing her to report now. Iris quickly scanned over the contents and looked for the final score.
"82." she noted when she saw it. "How high's that?"
"B rank." the other Reploid told her, a genuine smile etched on his lips. "The exact rank needed on preliminaries to mark a Reploid viable for combat."
"Are you serious?!" Iris repeated, her jaw dropping in shock. Zero's smile only widened as he looked back at the report.
"Colonel's going to be pissed." he mused to himself with a snicker. But as Colonel crossed his mind, Zero's smile quickly disappeared and he looked back at Iris with an unreadable expression.
"You better get back to Repliforce before Colonel wonders were you are." Zero told her rather sternly. "I can give you some more time to get familiar with the Ride Armor before we practice tomorrow, need it be. But for now you need to go home. Rest up- you've deserved it."
"You're not my brother." Iris objected with a flick of her wrist. But she paused for a moment before adding, "Thank you, Zero, for this opportunity. I can't tell if you're actually treating me seriously or if it's all some ploy to get in my pants, but I want to thank you anyway for the experience. Not even Colonel got this far with me, and it's just… comforting that someone may actually be taking me seriously for once."
"Think nothing of it." answered Zero quite sincerely. You're definitely… different, Iris. I like that." Now was when he paused for a moment before adding, "And I don't like you like a… what's the word?"
"Mate?"
"Sure. That's a human thing. I'm not human, nor do I aspire to be one like X does. It's too exhausting, mentally and physically."
"Agreed." Iris nodded. "In any case, see you tomorrow Zero."
"See you." the red Reploid agreed with a stiff nod.