WARNING(S): None. Some mention of death, no blood, no violence.

Pairings: None.

AN: Sorry this took so long guys, the plot kept wanting to change every time I worked on it, then I swapped computers and lost the original file….And lately I haven't wanted to do anything, including write. Sorry it's short. I'll try to finish plotting the fic, and the next chapter will be longer.

0-X-0

Ars Moriendi
Chapter 2

What Happened?

The pre-shock of the blast rattled his teeth the instant before he locked on to the Hunters' satellite and dissolved into a stream of red, and they still ached after he materialized. But there was something different now, as he felt particles of himself slide back together; something was terribly, terribly wrong. Multiple things were wrong.

Zero knew the moment he hit the ground at HQ that his hair was on fire. Alia screaming—"Put it out! Put it out!"—only cemented the horrifying idea. Fascinated

Holy Asimov, his hair was on fire! His hair—he'd end up bald like his father and X would probably laugh at him. No, X wouldn't laugh. X was too kind to laugh at his misfortune, but he would think it was funny, deep down, and Zero shuddered at the thought of his own appearance becoming amusing… Especially if X was the one who found him amusing.

Zero leapt up and began clawing at his blazing mane, wishing that his saber had a water-spewing attack like X's buster, but sabers don't spit water. "X, put it out!"

"Hang on, Zero!" Alia yelled, sounding closer than before, and more determined than desperate.

He knew the water was coming, but not the armor-denting pressure behind it that caused his left knee to dip. The stream slammed into the back of his head, just underneath the helmet, with enough force to momentarily confuse him. Zero yowled Alia's name in protest, and thank Light, she turned the hose off. He stumbled off the landing pad, his hair—sopping and thoroughly disheveled—stuck to the body armor on the backs of his thighs; she couldn't save all of his hair though, the terrible smell of burnt (reploid) hair overwhelmed his nose. He stood near the launch station, with a forearm planted on the computer near Layer's seat, and panted.

He wasn't just ruffled from the hosing down, the explosion had rattled him. For all the wars and fights and deaths he'd been through, that had shaken him up—"Zero!"— Staring down an explosion that could take out a city block—or a tall municipal building—would "Zero!"—shake anyone up! He reassured himself. He only hoped X was alright—and had a good excuse for not putting his hair out.
He ignored Alia for the moment—he wasn't ready to deal with the questions of why exactly did the Irregular blow up? And go report to the Commander. Feeling more in control, Zero straightened his spine and let out a bark that was more nervous than amused, "That was a close one, X... X?"

Just as Zero was turning in consternation, his bicep was clamped in an iron hold, "Zero! Where is X?" Alia shook him as she queried fiercely through her gritted teeth.

He stared down at her in confusion. What? No… Zero spun around so quickly that Alia was flung brusquely against the Nav station. He cast his eyes across the landing pad: It was bare of anything but water, and extinguisher drones, and water pooled against the pad's bright red veins. No blue armor; no X.

The Crimson Hunter had a momentary lapse in processor function as the situation registered—X was not there, which meant that X had not been pulled along with him, which meant X was probably dead.

"Zero!" Alia had numbed the pain receptors in her left side and pushed off the Nav workplace, Layer and Pallette standing uncertainly behind her.

The blonde android turned to face her, his face stunned and frightened. There was a sick knot of fear in his gut; she was looking at him like… Surely she didn't think he'd just left him there? Hadn't they seen the passenger readout as he locked them onto HQ's satellite?

"A-Alia, I...I don't understand it, I had hold of his arm when the blast hit—I was holding his arm as I was digitizing, I know it! The base's is working—I didn't get here under my own targeting systems or I would have landed in my quarters—it should have accepted X, too! He should be here, Alia!"

Alia reared back in fear as he spoke, either from his words or his close fervor, her eyes wide. "Zero... is he dead? The blast was so close to the two of you."

Zero fixed her with a sharp look to silence her. "No. No, he isn't—Layer," He addressed his former Nav. Layer jumped to attention, her solemn eyes peering at him from between purple bangs.

"Yes, Zero?"

"Layer," He gestured to the console at her station. "You stay there and hold the pad open for passengers manually; the computer obviously has a glitch so someone needs to get on that," Palette nodded and darted back into the station and presumably to the War Room.

"I've called a technician and, and a retrieval team, they should be arriving any minute now," came Era's voice over the PA, surprising them all with her sudden helpfulness, followed by a muted "What happened?!" from Signas.

Zero just shook his head, face hardening, "That's not soon enough."

Blatantly ignoring Signas and the others, Zero reached for his targeting systems again, focusing on a satellite somewhere above the upper states of NA. "I'm going back for X."

He was gone before Alia even thought to lunge for his arm.

00XX00

Zero had scarcely materialized when a chunk of fiery municipal building plummeted into the road in front of him. Zero leapt back with a hiss. Ok, maybe this was too close.

Above him, the stately municipal building was a smoking mass of flame and falling stone. Zero shielded his mouth and nose with his arms to keep the ash out of his respiratory system; having ash pumped from your lungs wasn't a great way to end a horrific day.

Zero activated his scanners as he dashed around the pitted highway. The city had been evacuated—or at least the blocks nearest the factory-so there was no time wasted on rescuing stubborn civilians. If they were stupid enough to still be here they weren't even worth rescuing.

"Commander Zero!" Zero, distracted by the sudden bark, was nearly flattened by a particularly large chunk of stone. He turned to bark at the man who had almost gotten him killed, but the sight of the enraged, burly medic stopped him. "Commander Zero, you are to leave this to the medics!"

Zero opened his mouth to argue that he was perfectly capable of finding X and that the medic should stand down but the light pole crashing down near him was understandably distracting. He swore and leapt away, nearly bowling over a smaller medic, but he managed to snag them by the elbow and steady them.

"Commander Zero, please, this is for X's own good. If he's hurt we can't have you accidentally mistreating him!" The first medic yelled.

What did this medic think he was? Some sort of ham-handed, half-witted—It took the finesse of a surgeon to obtain his level of swordsmanship.

"Commander Zero, you were ordered to return."

He twitched at that. Even Signas didn't trust him in this? He'd done retrieval missions before, even if this one was impromptu. He opened his mouth to deliver a scathing retort—

"We've got him!"

The brim of the netted olive helmet inched upward as the Met inside looked around. Finally! He grinned and took aim at the tiny mechaniloid and—

An alarm went off in his processor just as he was about to take the shot. Axl clicked the safety on and lowered the weapon as he opens the message. His stomach jumped as he realized what it was.

It was a status alert from HQ.

Axl had tagged certain names in the HQ database with status queries so he could keep an ear out for those Reploids: Without pestering Alia or Pallette every five minutes, when he was bored and waiting for someone to come back to HQ. It had to be Zero. He'd gone off to waste that Gekota Maverick this morning and there was no way a non-combat Reploid could take up longer than an hour of the Crimson Hunter's time. Maybe they could go catch a movie or something when they met up—

The alert popped up in his HUD. "Huh? Wait a minute..." There was something funny about that alert. Axl opened the file—and it was all outlined in stern, foreboding red.

CLASSIFIED.

Classified, a synonym for dead, or any other number of ugly things, put discreetly.

What…had happened?