"Colonel," said General, "have you ever heard of 'Pyrrhus'?"

"Absolutely. He was an ancient military leader," Colonel replied instantly—military history was his favorite diversion. "Though he won battles, his victories were very costly and exhausted his army. Eventually he lost everything. This is where we get the term "Pyrrhic victory". It means 'a win more costly than a loss' or 'a victory that's also a defeat'."

"Thank you, Colonel, but I was looking for a more… recent example."

Colonel gave up after a few seconds. "No data, sir."

"In the Hunters, perhaps?" General tried.

"I could ask Zero or Iris," Colonel offered. "They're Hunters I know."

"Please do that. At your convenience. After this."

"Yes, sir."

The message, General remembered, was both simple and unnerving. The simple part was what it said: Ask the Hunters about the Pyrrhus incident. The unnerving part was how it had gotten into General's office. No one seemed to know.

He'd been tempted to throw it away. It was a complication he didn't need right now. His soldiers were in their first deployment. Their lives were at risk. Even if General wasn't deploying with them, they needed his full attention on getting them the right support. He owed them that.

And yet… someone had gone to the effort of getting the message to him. Someone felt he needed to know.

A newbuilt's curiosity wouldn't let him just forget about it.

He'd compromised. He'd gotten rid of the message. But he'd also decided to find out what the Pyrrhus incident was.

Quietly.

He looked at Colonel again. His subordinate was, as ever, formal to a fault. Proper. Yet… restless.

"Are you nervous?" General asked him.

"Iris is," Colonel replied. "Or… maybe it's just the people around her. It's hard to tell, sometimes."

"I see," said General, privately disbelieving. "Is it difficult for you? I can reassign you to…"

"No," said Colonel firmly. "This is what we were made for, General. We were made to command Repliforce. We can't evade that. We must face our destiny head-on. Begging your General's pardon," he added. "Your will be done."

General nodded, though he kept his amusement to himself. Colonel respected General's rank, as well he should. Still, General hoped Colonel never became too much a slave to that respect. He needed Colonel to tell him when he was making mistakes. He was thrice General's age, after all.

(He could hardly be blamed for his lack of perspective. His point of view was, literally, correct. Three months is thrice as much as one month.)

Both fell to silence as they watched the screen. Before their eyes, the dots of Repliforce's transponders crept, bit by bit, towards Alexandria.

"Pyrrhus?" Alia said with a blink.

Iris nodded. "I figured if anyone knew, you would."

Alia knew it was true, and it would have made her ego preen, except… "Almost all Hunters know about Pyrrhus. Especially the field Hunters. But then again, you're an Operator, not a field Hunter. I guess that's why you haven't heard about it yet. Hey, Double." The other rookie had been nearby, looking over the shoulder of a different Operator; he turned, startled.

"You're not in trouble," Iris said to Double. That seemed to calm him.

"Iris asked about something, and if she didn't know I figured you wouldn't either," Alia explained.

After a moment's hesitation, Double approached, smiling broadly. "I'm always eager to learn," he said.

"Ever heard of Pyrrhus?" Alia asked.

"No."

"There was a Hunter, once—we'll call him Pyrrhus. That wasn't his name, but we'll pretend it was. He was a first-rate Hunter, a rising star. He was point-bot for his squad after only two weeks. He completed his first five Hunts as point-bot with incredible speed and efficiency. People were starting to compare him favorably to Zero, or X."

"Or Sigma?" Double said.

"Never to Sigma," Alia said firmly.

"Sorry, I just thought… I'd heard Sigma was the best Hunter there was, before he turned. I don't know for sure, because when I checked, I didn't see him on the scoreboards."

"You won't, no matter how efficient he was before he turned. And you won't see Pyrrhus, either, because… well, you'll see.

"The point," Alia went on, "was that he was a great Hunter. It turned out he was also really lucky. He wasn't lucky because he faced weak Mavericks—after-action reports all showed he was facing nasty opponents. That was one reason why his reputation was so good. No, what made him lucky was that, out of those first five Hunts as point-bot, all five were either outside Abel City, or in low-population areas.

"You see, Pyrrhus had a particular style. That style was heavy on firepower. Both his own firepower, and his squad's. He would use lots of shooting to pin his quarry down and force it into cover. Then he would use even more to blow a hole in the cover, and rush the Maverick before it recovered from the surprise.

"And that style worked great for the five Hunts outside Abel City or in low-pop areas. His sixth Hunt? That one took him downtown.

"It wasn't even supposed to be his Hunt. He was three sectors away, and two units were closer. The Operator chose to use those other two Squads for containment and human protection instead, and brought in Pyrrhus to do the actual Hunt. And why not? He was the rising star. He was the Hunter with the sparkling service record. He'd done so well…

"And because he'd done so well, he'd become convinced that his methods were perfect. They were the right ones. He didn't know any others that would work—he didn't need them. So, when he arrived on the scene, he followed exactly the same patterns he'd followed before.

"The difference was that he wasn't outside Abel City, this time. He wasn't in low-pop areas. When Pyrrhus opened fire to drive the Mavericks to cover, he didn't look too carefully at what else he might hit. And when he blew through that cover to get to the Mavericks, well, that was peopled, too."

Iris gasped; Double looked appropriately grim. Alia nodded to confirm their fears. "The after-action report tallied five humans dead and forty wounded. Of those, we could only pin three deaths and twenty-two wounds on the Mavericks. That left the rest as Pyrrhus' doing.

"He tried to defend himself. He tried to argue that he didn't know. He tried to argue that if he hadn't done what he did, the Mavericks would have killed a lot more people. None of his arguments worked. Pyrrhus was deemed to have broken the First Law, and… declared Maverick.

"And the Operator who vectored in Pyrrhus instead of using the squads on hand… she was disciplined, too, for failure to match unit to mission, and relying too heavily on heroes."

"She was declared Maverick for that?" said Double, appalled.

"No. But she was disciplined. And she had to give training to all the other Operators on her mistakes."

"You sound like you knew that Operator," Iris whispered.

"I did," Alia replied.

After a few seconds of silence, Iris' staring was too much for Alia to bear. "Anyway," said the senior Operator, "the whole incident was a major shame for the Hunters. It's always bad when a Hunter goes Maverick, but this was a special kind of shame, because this was a Hunter who was still loyal. He was a Maverick by sheer carelessness. And he was a rising star, too; everyone liked him. That made everything so much worse."

"Plus it made everyone scared that they might be next," Double said. "I'm guessing," he added hastily. "If even a loyal Hunter could be declared Maverick, no one's safe."

"Not quite that," Alia said, "but… well, I'm sure some Hunters were thinking that way. Most of us were just hurt and confused. We put so much emphasis and training on being careful, so for a top Hunter to be so sloppy... It didn't seem possible. What more could we have done? What could we have done differently where he'd have gotten the message? Never mind that- how could someone's Three Laws gates let them be so careless? No one could come up with any good answers. That hurt most of all- the senselessness of it.

"We couldn't deal with it, so we struck him from the rolls and the scoreboards. We didn't want to remind each other of him. Before too long, we found we couldn't so much as talk about him. We couldn't even say his name. It was too painful. So X started calling him Pyrrhus."

"Oh, so that's where the name came from," Iris said.

"That's right. X disagreed with people being too hurt to talk about it. It was something we had to deal with, he said. It had happened, and pretending that it didn't… that just guaranteed it would happen again, some day. He started calling it the Pyrrhus incident, and the name caught on from there. It helped."

Alia shook her head, disengaging from her story-telling trance. "Anyway, that's the story. Why did you ask? You'd obviously heard of it before."

"Colonel wanted to know," Iris replied.

"Colonel did?" Alia mulled it over, then nodded. "I suppose that makes a little sense."

"Why?" asked Double.

"Because if my calculations are right, Repliforce will be starting operations in Alexandria any minute now. The last thing they need is for their very first deployment to be a repeat of the Pyrrhus incident." Alia frowned. "But that just changes my question. How did Colonel know to ask about the Pyrrhus incident?"

"He didn't say," Iris replied, "and I didn't feel any strong emotions from him about it."

"Didn't… feel?" repeated Double, confused.

Alia rolled her eyes. "I'm sure Iris will tell you all about it, but I'd rather you not do it here. Even if I'm off-shift, I still have a lot of work to do."

"Everyone in here's too anxious for me anyway," Iris said to Double. "Let's go and I'll explain."

"I'm… interested in hearing this," replied the yellow reploid.

Iris laughed. "I can tell you are!"

The ten Repliforce soldiers looked out of their cover against the Maverick barricade. The Mavericks had gutted two buildings of their furniture, and thrown that along with several cars together into a barrier.

If the soldiers had been Hunters, they would have fallen back on their corporate knowledge: experience, training, standard techniques. Their squad leaders and Azzles—always veterans who'd survived many a firefight—would have started thinking of ways to outmaneuver Mavericks foolish enough to tie themselves to a fixed position. Maybe X would have started scrolling through his secondary weapons looking for the right solution. Maybe Zero would have barked "Cover me", emerged to draw Maverick fire, then overwhelmed the enemy the moment their attention lapsed.

These were not Hunters. They were Repliforce, and, for all of Colonel's research into military history, they only had a vague idea of what they were doing. There was only one truth they felt they could cling to, the most obvious one.

The enemy was there, so they had to fight the enemy there.

"Look at you lot," said Slash Beast scornfully. The ten soldiers looked behind to see one of the company commanders approaching. There were a few feraloids in Repliforce, always in positions of authority. The theory was that if most soldiers were generic humanoids, then any non-humanoid profile had to be an officer, which made giving and obeying orders faster and easier.

Sometimes it worked. Slash had the soldiers' full attention.

"I know what you're thinking," Slash said, still disdainful. "You're thinking about the enemy out there. About how fearsome and dangerous he is. But I say the enemy's not out there. The enemy…" He pressed a palm against a soldier's chest. "…is in here."

He looked around. "Can you imagine what Colonel would say if he saw you hiding, hoping someone else would take care of your problems? Can you imagine how disappointed General would be?

"They sent us here to uphold the pride and honor of Repliforce. I couldn't face them again if I failed them. Could you?"

He tried to make eye contact, but only a few could hold their heads up. "Then we'll reward their faith. We'll show them we deserve to be part of Repliforce. We'll earn our place in their eyes. Third Lance, to me. We're going to take that position together. Follow my lead."

The soldiers rose, each screwing his courage to the sticking point. "For General," Slash shouted, "for Colonel, for Repliforce… CHARGE!"

One of the soldiers was struck twice and killed instantly the moment they cleared their cover. Two more went down with more or less damage. But the Mavericks were ill-armed, with only a few having proper weapons and the others improvising; their firepower wasn't high, and Slash was fast enough to cover the distance before too much more shooting could happen.

Then he was amongst the Mavericks, scattering and panicking them, and then the other soldiers crested the barricades and blasted away at the Mavericks, and after a few moments of intense violence it was all over.

The level of noise went from ear-splitting to nearly silent with eerie suddenness. The silence was broken anew. "Field Command, Slash. Third Lance has cleared its objective."

"Roger. Watch out for counter-attack. Second Lance is moving up soon."

"Understood."

"Zero!" said Colonel enthusiastically. "…oh. And X," he added upon seeing the blue Hunter. The difference in tone was unmistakable.

"Good afternoon," X said politely.

"Why did you bring him along?" Colonel asked to Zero.

"I enjoy sparring with each of you too much to miss a chance," Zero said. "If I can't be in two places at once, I'll spar with you both at the same time."

Colonel laughed. "That's not very fair to you, is it?"

"I think I can hold my own," said Zero.

"Hm… even though I'm a match for you by myself?"

Only X caught the faint whiff of embarrassment from Zero at those words, and only because he'd worked so closely with Zero for so long. Maybe Iris could have detected it. Probably no one else on Earth could have.

He knows better, X thought to himself grimly.

"If anything," Colonel went on, "I'd think that it would be the two of you against me. We're from different organizations, after all! What with the jurisdiction issues, we probably won't ever fight side-by-side."

"Well, we probably won't ever fight against each other, either, right?" said X.

"If you say so," said Colonel, and the tension in the room spiked.

"Anyway," said X, uncomfortable, "I don't think anyone could stand against Zero and me together. Remember what happened when I sparred with you?"

"Oh, yes," said Colonel. "I remember. You got lucky."

Disbelief swept over X's features. It stilled his voice processor.

"Lucky," Colonel repeated, "and you started before I was ready. I was expecting you to announce the start, and you just began. That extra half-beat made a world of difference. The outcome wouldn't be the same a second time, I assure you."

He was built to be proud, X remembered. They hoped he would be immune to Sigma's appeals if he had pride of his own. They forgot how corrosive pride can be on its own. It reshapes your reality.

He's so doomed.

"Even so," Zero said—though whether he knew he was coming to X's rescue or not wasn't clear, "X and I have fought side-by-side many times. Our teamwork is impeccable. That's too much of a handicap for you. If the two of you fight me, your unfamiliarity will help make up for your numbers advantage."

"Ah," said Colonel, "that is true. Very well, I accept! We'll fight on those terms."

"Spar," X corrected.

"What?"

"We'll spar on those terms," X explained.

"Yes?" Colonel said.

Freudian slip? X wondered. He doesn't even realize what he said. It was a bothersome thought.

"Typical rules?" Colonel asked to Zero.

Zero shook his head. "No, dial the power down. Training mode on weapons."

That surprised X. Zero's been sparring with Colonel with full-power weapons? Because he knows Colonel can't actually touch him? Or… or was he trying to force himself to remain engaged?

If he knows the Colonel can't keep up with him, the only way to keep himself interested is to raise the stakes, to punish himself for a mistake of his own. He wouldn't do that with me, the risk of us actually hurting each other is too high, and I'm challenging enough he's fully engaged even with low stakes. Colonel isn't in that league.

But Colonel doesn't know that, X realized. He has no empathy of his own—his Suffering Circuit was transplanted into Iris. Colonel doesn't know…

"En garde," said Colonel, igniting his saber. The gesture jarred X from his reverie and drew his focus. The saber didn't glow as hot or as bright as it should've. Training mode, X confirmed. He raised an arm to show his readiness.

Zero's expression sharpened until he could have cut paper with his gaze alone. "Here I come," he warned.

He took one step toward Colonel—then bent into a booster-assisted rush towards X.

X was better prepared than that; he'd fought with Zero often enough. Frost Shield was his first impulse. A handful of artificial icicles sprung up between him and Zero.

The red Hunter was unimpressed, barreling between three and through one of them. X wasn't there to be caught, of course, and the impact slowed Zero ever-so-slightly, giving X a chance to open distance.

He circle-strafed around, forcing Zero to make adjustments to his course to keep himself safe, to evade enough to throw off X's targeting. A little more, a little more…

And Zero, following X, ran almost directly into Colonel.

Colonel, who'd been coming counter-clockwise even as X had been coming clockwise.

There was a brief scuffle and vibrant flashes of sabers as Zero struggled to disentangle himself from Colonel. X steadied himself and waited for his chance.

Zero slapped Colonel's saber away, almost breaking the larger fighter's wrist in the process, as he moved to disengage. Before he could take more than two steps, a projectile flew past him, made a sound like an inside-out boom, and sucked both Zero and Colonel off their feet.

His target framed, X let fly with a Parasite Bomb.

Staggered though he was, Zero had reflexes enough to slice through the slow-moving explosive with his saber. Regaining his balance before Colonel could, he zipped out of Colonel's range and rushed for X again.

This time X wasn't as ready to evade. Zero made up most of the distance before X could match his speed, and soon Zero would have him boxed in.

X veered in and powered up Tri-Thunder, hoping the electrical barrier would give him at least a little cover. A booster-assisted leap gave him a little bit of height—not enough. Zero crashed through the Tri-Thunder and knocked into X's legs, sending him tumbling.

He rolled on landing, snapping off wild shots in Zero's direction, and finally Colonel came back into the fight. X regained his footing behind the protective aegis of Colonel's body.

He's coming for me, X knew. I'm the real threat, and the interesting one to fight. Colonel is just an obstacle to go around. But will he go left or right?

He raised a buster arm in each direction.

So he was surprised when Zero came over Colonel.

X realized his mistake too late—even if Colonel was in the way and an able fighter, Zero's agility allowed him to get multiple booster-thrusts in quick succession, letting him jump and jump again. It caught Colonel off-guard; his swing was low. That left Zero with a clean line-of-sight to X. His shot hit X before X could bring his arms back in line.

Before X had finished regaining his footing, Zero was on his feet. A dash brought him in range. The saber flashed.

X fell to the ground, defeated.

Zero whirled without pause and got his saber in place in time to block Colonel's vengeful swing. "Well done," said Colonel. "Now it's just you and me!"

Which should take about three seconds, X thought, but he knew it wouldn't. Three seconds, in fact, elapsed between when he thought that and when Zero made his next move.

Colonel moved up behind his saber to force Zero off-balance. Although Zero was strong enough to resist the motion, he allowed himself to be moved, but his grace kept him in position and defended. He became passive, allowing Colonel to dictate the pace of the fight from there, content to occasionally counter-attack while concentrating on his defense. It served to prolong the fight.

It was such a sharp stylistic shift X was amazed Colonel made no note of it. He had to see it! Had to. Even without a Suffering Circuit he could still see.

After two minutes, the two went into another clinch. Each of them was pressing their bodies forward as their sabers hissed against each other. Each was putting their weight and strength into the balance.

X saw Zero make an ever-so-subtle adjustment—and then both sabers touched home on their targets. Not roughly, not enough to do real damage, but the tenor of the sabers changed, and both combatants sprang back from the sting.

"Ha ha—what a battle!" said Colonel. "You really are amazing, Zero. There's great honor in a draw with you."

Zero nodded—X thought he detected a hint of embarrassment there. Maybe he just expected to see it. The red Hunter looked to X. "All the weapons you have available, and you chose Parasite Bomb?"

X shrugged. "It would have been a perfect spot for a charged shot, but I can't really charge my buster in training mode. There's no such thing as a powered-down power up."

Zero snorted. "That would explain why you'd use Parasite Bomb. It's no firepower upgrade."

"I'm kind of glad," X said. "For as strong as Doppler's mechaniloids were, his Mavericks weren't very well prepared. A lot of their weapons were just… impractical. Bad for me, but at least it limited the damage they did during the war. I don't know how many of those profiles I'll keep. They take a lot of memory."

"You could have at least used Ray Splasher."

"I couldn't use anything that might splash damage on Colonel," X objected.

Zero blinked. "I suppose," he said after a time. "That was your best chance to win. After that, the advantage was mine."

"Don't sell yourself short. Your vault on Colonel was a great maneuver, and that's what won you the round. I'll have to remember that in the future. My mistake was in letting him block my sight of you completely. I needed to offset. I can't react to you if I can't see."

"Yes, that's a better adjustment."

X belatedly looked at Colonel. The reploid's frown was deepening as the conversation went on. "We don't debrief like this," Colonel said. "You've never gone through a match like this with me."

"We're stylistically similar, so I trust your analysis subroutines to handle it," Zero said.

X's jaw dropped.

Zero had just told a transparent lie! It was unbelievable to X—both the lie itself, and the fact that Zero had said it. Zero being unskilled at lying was to be expected—most of the time, Zero didn't know when to lie, or how or why, which made this lie all the more stunning.

And yet, before his eyes, Colonel bought it. "The same is true for you, of course," Colonel agreed. "We warbots are able to understand each other like that, I suppose."

X wanted to scream.

"It was a good round," Colonel said. "I have e-tanks over here if you'd like some refreshments."

"Sure," said X, as much to put distance between the conversation and Zero's lie as any other reason.

The three robots made their way to the side of the room. Colonel handed out the e-tanks like a good host. Zero held one up. "No signs of wear," he noted. "All of these new?"

"Like everything else around here," said Colonel. "New buildings for newbuilts."

X didn't dare speak, but Zero trod that ground. "Not like at Hunter Base. All of our equipment has seen its share of wear."

"The Hunters, too," X said before he could help himself.

Colonel tensed. "Because you've been busy fighting Mavericks all this time and we haven't?"

"I didn't mean it like that," X said.

"Well, we'll see," Colonel said. "We'll see what our forces look like when they get back from Alexandria."

"We can help with that," X offered. "We have experience in force recovery and debriefing…"

"Repliforce can take care of it just fine," Colonel said coolly. "You can trust our analysis subroutines to handle it."

X's eyes darted over at Zero. Zero didn't flinch. "I just wanted to try and promote cooperation," X said cordially.

"Thank you, but that won't be needed," said Colonel, tone unchanged. "The Hunters don't need to know how Repliforce operates. And we have separate jurisdictions—we won't be cooperating."

The more the conversation followed these lines, the more alarmed X became, the more entrenched Colonel became, and the more awkward Zero became. Time to change tracks. "You're very worried about your troops," X said.

Colonel nodded. "Of course I am. I'm supposed to be there."

"I know what you mean," said Zero, eyes looking distant.

"We both do," said X. "We all know what it's like to want to protect people, and not be able to. It's a horrible feeling."

"Not only that," Colonel said. "I'm Colonel of Repliforce. Leading them into battle is my entire purpose, the reason I exist. To be... stuck here, marooned… I'm surrounded by things to ensure I can operate at full power, and I can't even…"

"Do your job," said X.

Silence came over them. No one needed to explain. They were all fully aware: without a constant stream of signals from Iris—specifically, from the Enhanced Suffering Circuit Repliforce's creators had designed for Colonel, but been forced to install in Iris—he couldn't function. Couldn't live. That meant he had to stay where he could 'hear' her. It shackled them together. They were twins with a conjoined brain.

"How is Iris, by the way?" Zero asked.

"Checking in?" X said, almost teasing, mostly pleased. Zero didn't rise to it.

Colonel leaned his head back. "She's fine," he said. "She's in a quiet spot now—I think she's found somewhere she can be alone."

Zero nodded, which X noticed. Your doing, Zero? X wondered.

"She told me," Zero said, as if to confirm X's thought, "that if she's not alone, other people are too loud inside her head. She has to be away from other people to know who she is."

"So you helped her with that?" X said.

Zero didn't reply. It was as if he didn't want to admit to something.

"It makes my life easier," said Colonel. "Less noise in her head is less noise in mine."

"Is that a problem in combat?" Zero asked, Of course.

"Not so much," Colonel said. "I can… turn the volume down, so to speak. I can focus more on my own emotions, and that helps me drown out her signal. The most important factor is how many emotions she's feeling and how intense they are. It's worst when we're together. Then she picks up my emotions, and then I feel them again."

"Feedback loop," X said.

"That's right," said Colonel. "I do care for her, but… it's not easy being us." He smiled. "Which is why I'm so grateful for your friendship, Zero! Someone who appreciates the things I do, and understands me, and can work with me… it's very gratifying."

X's guilt was like a miniature black hole centered deep in his chest.

Who was he to judge this poor, misbegotten reploid? Who was he to protest Zero's coddling in their spars? Who was he to feel unnerved—bothered—at this friendship?

Colonel needed it. Zero enjoyed it. It made both of them more whole, more mentally stable, and… happier.

Happier.

There it was. That was X's real problem. He was jealous.

The whole time he'd been here, he'd been evaluating Repliforce's security and installations, just in case. He'd been building his models, just in case. He'd been evaluating the words and actions of these two robots, one a colleague, one ostensibly a friend, just in case. And all along the specter of organizational politics, the question of Why Maverickism, the fractures within the Hunters… all of it weighed on his mind. All of it needing to be worked. All of it… never stopping. Always popping up whenever there wasn't something more immediate to worry about.

He'd come here to get away from some of those problems for a few minutes. Not only had he failed, but he'd piled new ones on top. He paused, tried to calm his racing mind. It didn't work. So he tried something else: he looked at Colonel and Zero. He saw their comradery, their friendship, the gratitude they had at being in each other's company.

He tried to soak himself in it, to glean some pale sense of it, maybe get a shadow for himself. They were happy. X could be happy about that, at least.

"Let's do another round," X said, knowing it would please both Colonel and Zero. It did; they readily agreed. They headed back out to the center of the sparring area. X followed behind, listened to them eagerly talking about the parameters of the next fall.

They could be happy, at least a little. Maybe X could, too.

A whisper: Except that they're doomed.

The wan sense of happiness curdled. X hoped that his analysis subroutine was wrong, and knew it wasn't.

Next time: Resonance