There'd been relative silence in the hangar. The Zoids were asleep, the Organoids were out of sight, and Vega sat staring wistfully in the direction of the stone Berserk Fury.

Bit - the only other person around - occasionally let his eyes lift from the datapad he held. He didn't feel comfortable leaving the hangar, and hadn't all day. He tried to keep himself distracted with busywork, but there just wasn't much to do. He wanted to nap, but couldn't relax.

Both Bit and Vega were discomfited by an impending sense of something. One's continued irritation coupled with Zero's unyielding attention felt like a physical pressure: one that Vega was trying to ignore, and that Bit just desperately wanted to stop.

When would Zero act? What did it expect Bit to do, if anything? What was it going to do? Occasionally the blonde caught terse glances from Vega, which only betrayed how similarly - if not on the complete opposite side of the problem - that Vega felt.

Neither wanted to talk about it though. As if their silence somehow meant that the issue wasn't real, or at least wasn't as bad as they thought.

~Everything will be fine.~ Zero said simply.

Bit believed Zero, and appreciated the reassurance. So why did his anxiety remain?

Bit occasionally caught glimpses of One moving around in the rafters. He knew Zero was keeping a careful eye on the black Organoid, so he himself didn't have to. But...

"Vega."

Stoller's voice startled Bit. Zero mentally glanced, surprised by the older man's silent approach.

Vega also glanced, his sidelong regard much more dour than it'd been earlier in the day.

"Yes?"

"What's wrong with your arm?"

Brown eyes flicked once, twice in study of Stoller's face. "Nothing."

"If you intend to lie to people, you have to do better than that."

The child's throat worked. He didn't look away, but he didn't speak.

Stoller arched a disapproving brow, staring back. Neither said anything for several seconds.

"Well. I won't say anything to Sara. If that's what you're worried about." The man promptly moved on, looking back and forth across the hangar. "May I see the Organoid?"

Vega lifted his eyes and motioned upward with his head. Stoller followed his line of sight to One, hunched on the rafters.

"He's not in a very good mood." Vega said, shooting a glare at Bit.

To which Bit responded with sincere bafflement. What did he do? Or what did Vega expect him to do?

~He is just upset and wants me to be more accommodating since One is… not.~ Zero said, dryly. ~Vega, perhaps you should use this opportunity to elevate your request. One should oblige you.~

But Vega, as always, didn't like the idea of making One any more uncomfortable than it already was. He just wanted Zero to do what h -

~Discomfort is part of life. You have authority in this relationship, and you need to learn to assert it.~

"That's fine." Stoller said patiently, unaware of the conversation going on. He squinted upwards, barely able to make out the dark Organoid in the equally-dark space. "I just find this fascinating, is all."

Bit couldn't help but snort. "'Man. You have no idea."

A muscle in Stoller's face twitched, and he looked down at the blonde. "People have been searching for proof of these creatures for a very long time. You're in a precarious situation, Bit."

Bit didn't particularly want to be reminded. "I know."

"So is Vega."

"I know ," Bit repeated. "It isn't like there's a manual on what to do in this situation."

That was true. And unfortunate. Stoller conceded with a nod, and folded his hands behind his back.

"Well. What have you learned so far?"

The evening encroached. The lights in the study were dim, yet increasingly effective against the ebbing daylight. Beyond the ongoing hiss of cold wind outside, there was near-complete silence.

Brad and Naomi lay on a couch, limbs loosely twined. Despite their soft and even breathing, neither was asleep. They simply lay together, quiet, hands drifting to the occasional idle caress of a limb or shoulder.

Brad lay with his head back, gazing at the ceiling. His eyes flicked with thought. Naomi glanced up at him occasionally, wanting to know what was going on in his head… but also doubting she'd get an answer if she asked.

There wasn't much to do, or anywhere to go.

They'd started to doze. Brad cracked an eye several times at the random disturbance of Layon peering in. He could tell Ambient was around as well. The latter meant he didn't have to worry about the former.

Brad had become used to the red Organoid's mental presence. It was so much like One's, just-

The man sucked in a breath.

He didn't want to, but he could feel a twinge of One in the back of his mind.

It wasn't painful. It wasn't pleasant. It was just there.

He couldn't listen to, reach out to, or demand attention from the black beast: their actual bond was indeed gone. But its gaping absence ached to contemplate. When reminded, Brad could only look on in desperate silence, longing unwillingly for something every other part of his mind panicked about.

~Stop thinkin' about th'One.~ Ambient growled.

Brad looked aside. The Organoid could see right into and through him. Frankly, he wasn't comfortable being that transparent.

Sorry.

~Donnae lie to me either. Yeh're not sorry.~

No, he wasn't. Defensive now, Brad tensed.

Oh fuck off. You don't get it.

~Lad. Ah'm one of very few who gets anythin'.~ The beast's tone dipped to disgust. ~No good can come from tha' rotten son of'a bitch.~

Brad sighed deeply and glared off in the direction he knew Ambient was in.

You've fought him before. The thought had the edge of a question, but the force of a statement. And lost, I'm guessing .

Ambient went silent.

It's not a dig, man. You were right to not want to fight him. I just...

Brad proceeded to replay the mess in his head for the hundredth time. The Fox being gravely wounded, Ambient being torn into. He wanted to blame the Fox and its stubbornness. But even that thought crossing his mind labored his breathing with emotion, and set off the deep gnaw of guilt and anxiety in his chest.

The feeling grew worse.

It wasn't in his chest, it was in his stomach. Sharp and excruciating hunger.

Ambient glanced.

Brad shut his eyes hard, trying to work through the pain of the feeling while not disturbing Naomi. This didn't work, as he started to involuntarily bunch up. He recognized this sensation as identical to what he'd experienced before, at Naomi's apartment - just many times worse. Sense-strippingly worse.

Naomi lifted her head and looked at Brad blearily.

He took a sharp breath to speak, but Ambient perceived his thought a split-second before.

AMBIENT-

The sun dipped out of sight, and the evening cooled. Things became increasingly difficult to ignore.

Bit had Stoller's rapt attention with an extended discussion of the Liger, but Zero had declined to make itself known. Its own attention remained firmly on One.

Vega stood at length and stalked towards the Liger Zero, glaring up at it. He knew Zero was on the Zoid's back.

Stop it.

Zero slid the child a mental glance, flicked its tail, then focused again on One.

I already feel bad enough. Stop making it worse!

~And why do you feel poorly?~

A simple question that Vega found he didn't actually have an answer for.

~When was the last time you ate?~

He couldn't remember. A few days ago? It felt strange and hollow to ponder. He was really hungry, come to think of it.

It didn't matter. All he could think of was One, and how upset, uncomfortable, and hungry One was. Bit was supposed to help them... somehow. But Bit and Zero had also effectively declared that they weren't allowed to help themselves. Hence this mess. That didn't seem fair.

The hunger became excruciating. Was he hungry? Was One hungry? It didn't matter. They had to do something. Now.

"Bit," Vega called out, tone a strangled mix of distress and warning. "We can't stay here."

Bit turned to look, and Stoller glanced also. Bit didn't bother with any social niceties, ending his conversation abruptly and bolting to Vega, who'd started to back outside.

"You can't go back to Mackaray." Bit said, voice firm.

Vega's throat worked uneasily. He caught Stoller's gaze, but was quick to evade it. "Then what am I supposed to do? You don't want him here like this."

~You and One must learn to behave. Properly.~ Zero stated.

Part of Vega did want to figure this out, mainly to stop these excruciating bouts of hunger. But the rest of him was all-too-easily swayed by One's single-track mind. The two could simply leave, damn both the consequences and what anyone else thought.

There also existed the option of simply going after what was nearby and available. Which was becoming more enticing by the second.

"Come on, Bit!" Vega swept his arm at the hangar. "He'll go after these Zoids! That's what I was trying not to do!"

It somehow hadn't actually occurred to Bit that that was the consequence involved. His blood iced at the realization, and further iced when he found Zero unperturbed by the prospect.

It wasn't that Zero didn't care about the Zoids in the hangar - it did. But it did not view One as an actual threat to them. Because of course, Zero would not allow One to be.

What shocked dissent Bit could muster immediately died, crushed beneath the weight of Zero's influence. Everything about the blonde sharply changed, even the way he stood. He lunged, grabbing at Vega-

One's proximity was immediate and violent. In the same instant Bit consciously registered enough to flinch, Zero materialized and blocked the crash of One's fangs with a hard, bladed tail-slap.

The shearing metallic clang of the collision echoed in the hangar's silence.

Stoller blinked.

One raised its dark optics at Zero, voice rough.

~We are leaving.~

~Perhaps you are. But Vega is not.~

And without warning, the white Organoid lashed forth its cabling and abducted Vega from the ground. Vega shrieked in surprise, and the sound cut off as Zero's belly-plating snapped firmly shut.

Bit wasn't expecting Zero to grab Vega. He doubly wasn't expecting to experience an empathetic wave of the hunger the boy was experiencing. Zero toned it down, but that only swung Bit's awareness to how angry One was.

The black Organoid's entire facial carapace slowly lifted, an obscene show of fangs. It seethed with the emotional equivalent of proximity to intolerable heat.

~I will kill you.~

~Not while I am holding him, you won't.~ Zero said idly.

One dropped its head, inhaling steeply. ~Do not do this, Zero. Leave us be.~

~Consuming unwilling Zoids is a horrifying relic of our ancestors. Symbiose. It is what we are to do.~

One visibly struggled to speak. ~We are not hurting anything.~

The creature really did pay the Zoids it'd decided were food no mind. It simply didn't care. There wasn't even a slippery slope to go down - just a featureless wall, a straight drop.

Zero's disgust with this spilled nauseatingly over to Bit.

Vega struggled against Zero's hold for several seconds, but the massive Organoid quickly subdued him. Zero narrowed its orange optics, focus flickering inwards.

~One. You must control yourself. Your will is not his, and vise versa. You are disrupting his own needs. He is a child. He WILL starve.~

One's dipped head swayed back and forth. ~We are fine. We are working on it. Give me Vega.~

~Why do you not symbiose? What Organoid cannot symbiose!?~

Bit became aware of Vega sulking in his mental periphery. He glanced, and his attention was met furiously.

"It's none of your business what we do!" Vega snapped. "If you're not going to help us, then leave us alone!"

"We're trying to help!"

"Like this?! This isn't helping!"

"Look, you can't just kill Zoids an-"

"Yes. I. Can." Vega enunciated, wild-eyed. "What, you think you're so special, with the Liger and Zero? That you can tell us what to do because you've got a Zoid and I don't? Because One's different?"

"I think they're more alike than they are different. We just-"

"Just shut up! Everything's perfect for you!"

"Nothing about any of this is perfect! "

"I've seen your face when you're sitting with them!"

There certainly was a unique sense of peace and belonging that Bit felt when he was with both Zero and the Liger. But it never lasted, overshadowed by his own thoughts and anxieties… or Zero's disruptive recollections.

"I'm dealing with things too, Vega. Bad things. I just don't talk about it."

"Well why not? Why do you get to deal with your things, but when I'm dealing with my things it's wrong?!"

Bit curled his lip, no longer sure if he was struggling with his own irritation or Zero's. "Nothing I'm doing involves the wholesale destruction of living creatures."

Vega sneered right back. "Hnh. Maybe you'd feel better too, if you and Zero came with us."

That rattled something deep within Bit, and shook Zero even worse.

The white Organoid twisted into the private depths of its mind and dragged Vega down with it, leaving Bit behind. The sensation was smooth but strangely violent - like pure molten steel descending forcefully into deep, freezing water.

Time lost meaning and an overwhelming pressure crushed in from all sides. Vega's entire awareness was consumed by Zero's attention.

~Child. You know nothing. You have experienced nothing. Were you not bonded to One, I would crush you out of existence. For your own sake.~

Vega found himself quite terrified by the specter of Zero was at this level, a shifting and pervasive mass of blades and mandibles that leaked light and didn't seem to have any end. In contrast, One was just a simple, soothing void. Dark… silent… comforting. Vega very much preferred that.

~Come with me.~ Zero stated, and it wasn't as if Vega had a choice.

It'd only been seconds: in a blaze of white, Zero vanished, reforming in the Liger Zero's core chamber. Its undersides splayed, cables branching, but it quickly caught itself above the Core and suspended Vega in the space between. Zero gently set the child on one of the Core's fibrous branches.

Vega blinked as sense and reality returned, then blinked several more times trying to parse where he was. The sealed Core chamber was hot, humid, and rather oppressive to breathe in.

Zero seized Vega's attention. Though the child knew the Core should've been a solid object, he watched Zero drop to it and push inward, interfacing as if the surface was soft gel.

Bewildered, Vega put his palm on the Core's surface and pressed. It was uncomfortably warm, and undeniably solid. One watched this through the child's eyes, struggling to wrap its mind around anything but how much it wanted to sink its teeth into the Liger's Core.

"He doesn't understand," Vega whined. "I don't-"

~No. Calm your mind and feel how the Liger and I are together.~

"Zero-"

But he did feel it. A strange mental duality, with the creatures' physical pulse and operating frequencies aligning. It was incredibly satisfying to perceive, like watching every last inch of something fall perfectly in line.

He felt a strong, almost mind-numbing need to join in, but couldn't. He had no place in this arrangement - and he was gently, but firmly rejected.

That didn't feel fair.

And neither did the sear of hunger that gouged up into his ribs, making him choke with pain. He felt One jolt for him, reaching - but something about the Liger and Zero made it impossible.

Vega's calm vanished as One's panic and rage ripped through him. He looked at Zero, desperate and crazed. " We can't do that. I don't know how!"

~Calm down. Take a deep breath. Do not let him dictate how you feel.~

Zero didn't quite grasp the severity of One's state, or the extent of Vega's horror at watching his partner disintegrate into a feral incoherency.

"I can't!" Vega screamed.

With a sigh, Zero mentally reached through to help, but encountered something it didn't expect: nothing.

Literally, nothing. Like touching a black hole. No context, no sound, no thought, no sensation.

And it wouldn't hesitate to seize you.

Zero reeled with surprise.

Like current that'd found grounding, One materialized into the core chamber and struck Zero, hard. It took advantage of the white Organoid's fleeting shock to lash forth its own cabling. Like a noxious ivy, its jet black cables twined and strangled every angle of Zero's.

The Liger Zero shrieked with panic and dipped its chest, belly-panels splaying as it did the Zoid equivalent of wretch. Unlike when it'd easily dumped out Ambient though, this wasn't so simple: slick masses of taut, contrasted wiring spilled out like viscera, hanging, tangled and writhing as if a mound of serpents in combat.

Vega was getting smothered in the slimy mess, surging out in frantic attempts to escape. Bit bolted close and grabbed Vega's outstretched arms, only to have One's black cabling seize his wrists, snake up his own arms, and twine together on his neck - hard.

A very primal fear took hold of Bit as he lost the ability to breathe, nevermind speak. For a brief moment, he wondered if his neck was just going to snap and that'd be that.

He didn't have much more time to contemplate. He blacked out.

Leon sat at the dining counter, idly eating while reading a datapad. Beside him sat Jaime, doing the same.

There wasn't much to talk about. Once a new uneasy norm had settled in, days had begun to blend together.

Leon paused, lifting his eyes from his reading.

He felt a twinge that he'd come to recognize as the Blade Liger. But it was odd to experience, while not around or in it. He turned his head to Jaime, who met his glance.

The teen looked uneasy, like he wanted to say something… but didn't want to say something stupid. He gave up after a few seconds and blurted: "Is something going on with the Zoids?"

Leon frowned. It wasn't just him.

The two watched Sara and Polta bolt down the corridor behind the kitchen, flying past the doorway.

They both stood at once and quickly followed.

Stoller had little idea what was going on, but quickly determined it was nothing good.

He didn't hesitate to confront the chaos, forging into the mess of wires for Vega. He hooked one arm around Vega's upper body and the other around Bit's torso - but he couldn't get any leverage against the powerful cables, or traction against the slime coating everything.

Before this had a chance to become a problem, the Liger Zero swung its head down and hooked the back of Stoller's coat with a fang, easily ripping him - and those he had a firm hold on - free.

It also ended up throwing all of them about fifteen feet, when the back of Stoller's coat ripped. The Liger didn't have much to offer in the way of being gentle when it was still dealing with two warring Organoids hanging out of its body.

Stoller caught himself in a roll, albeit awkwardly. Bit sprawled, limp as he landed, out cold. Vega also managed to catch and right himself, but grabbed his shoulder against a stab of pain - just in time to see One materialize next to him.

Before the slash of black had even finished reforming, it parted its jaws and dove at Bit.

Vega lunged and locked his arms around the base of the Organoid's neck, his whole body cording with a seemingly-futile effort of control. One reared indignantly, dragging Vega upward; it sharply dipped its head to snap at the child - but stopped short, jaws agape.

Vega blinked as he stared up at his partner, noticing light in the creature's eyes - something he hadn't before seen. They weren't lighter points of obviously-underlying optics like Zero's were. They were horizontal red slits, dimly lit beneath dark eyecaps - directionless and feral.

It should've been terrifying.

It wasn't, to him. Yet it was.

How-

Vega realized in that split second, One was terrified. That's what he felt. The creature both recognized Vega, and that it couldn't stop itself. But he could. He did.

And he had.

Vega struggled to find and claim the delineation between them, in a battle with the beast's numbing gaze.

But as if slammed by a tsunami, Vega found himself enveloped in a blaze of white heat and torn aside.

It was Zero, he knew it was Zero. He tried to articulate to the larger Organoid what had happened, what was happening-

But Zero wasn't listening. Its fangs bared to their grey roots as it plowed Vega to the hangar floor, followed sharply by its massive hindtalons slamming down to his either side.

Beneath the beast's weight and force, the concrete webbed: Vega felt the ground split under his back. He'd never appreciated how huge the white Organoid was until it stood towering in a fury, optics blazing pure white and tail arched around in threat.

Zero had a curved blade on its tailtip: two more appeared beside it, flicked into being like serrated switchblades. With no warning it stabbed down at Vega-

Only for the blades to hit and spark off of One's gloss-black carapace. The Organoid gouged into existence, seizing Vega with its cabling as it powerfully backwinged, striking Zero and shoving it backward.

One twisted skyward and slashed out of sight, leaving Zero to shriek at empty air.