Not a word was spoken as the girl's eyes returned to their normal color, terror lighting them where cold-blooded killing efficiency had once been.

Instinctively, she backed away from the circle of weapons pointing at her as she lowered hers. What had she just done?

Luckily for her, they promptly began to lower. Axl beat everyone else to the punch speaking.

"London… Is that you?"

Still scared, she nodded the affirmative.

"That's…good to know," Zack half-mumbled in a mumbling, indistinct tone. "Now, if you'll excuse me…" His eyes then lost their color and he went down.

"ZACK!"

The teens, including the boy's revived twin who'd slipped in towards the end of Black's lecture, immediately ran to tend to him.

That is, all except for London.

"P-Please…" she begged (a pretty foreign concept for her, since Tiptons don't beg), her eyes frantically looking for an escape before landing on X. Don't kill me!"

Her other two conscious friends went wide-eyed as the other three warriors exchanged looks, seemingly deciding her fate.

X and Zero, for their part, knew a threat when they saw one. Even though they knew that Lucien was behind this, the fact remained that this could happen again during a mission or another point when they were vulnerable.

But she wasn't a threat right now, was she?

"Relax. We're not going to hurt you…" the blue and red reploid tried to reassure, walking slowly up to her as she nervously backed away. As he was doing so, he didn't miss a beat shooting a glare at Zero, who hadn't put away his sword and in fact still had it still clutched at his side.

Axl didn't say a word. What could he have said? He'd been on the other end of the Hunters' weapons and trust before (more than he would ever let them know),

Taking a look around, he quickly realized that he likely wasn't going to have the option to step aside this time: X and Zero were probably the last two people she needed to see right now and those other two kids literally had another problem on their hands.

Letting out a frustrated breath, he made his decision.

"I got this. I'll handle her."

Cody and Bailey looked up with unease. The navy reploid had expected their hesitancy, to be honest. The blonde of the duo asked the obvious.

"Are you sure about this?"

A cocky smirk lit up his features. This in particular was a mask, but they didn't need to know that. "Of course. She is my protégé, after all…" He pointed to himself for emphasis on that last point.

The twin eyed him oddly for a moment before breaking his gaze. "If you say so."

With a glance at his partners (Zero's crossed arms alone sent the message of her being his responsibility pretty loud and clear), he collected the girl, who was still shaking but remained strangely silent and left for his own barracks…

With the teens…

Zack eventually woke up to bright lights in his face. Mercifully, his sleep this time around (for what it was) was dreamless so even if it was possible, he wouldn't have woken up in a cold sweat. He was stopped before he could flee himself off of the cot he was on.

"Whoa there, partner! wouldn't want to overexert yourself there."

The white and green reploid was smiling, though it was pretty obvious to see that it was more to put the boy and himself at ease more than anything else. Even Zack noticed that there was concern underneath the facade.

The man, a medic judging by his gear, checked him over one more time before glancing back at the two other people in the room.

Cody and Bailey. They both seemed on edge, too. For the briefest moment he wondered why until the past came roaring back to him.

Even his at the time foggy memory retained the knowledge of their recent scuffle with their rich friend.

Now he really had to go. As he began to move, though, he got a good look at his new armor situation. It kept the relatively sleek exterior of the last set, only in a predominantly black color scheme with red highlights that flipped the colors of his original heavier armor set. His brother's armor looked pretty similar to the original from what he could tell, albeit perhaps a little more reinforced...?

"I had to take off the other set. It was pretty beaten up and falling apart actually. That Lucien character may be insane but I'm never going to say that he doesn't make halfway decent armor. I wouldn't trust it though, so it's good that it's off."

"Good riddance," his taller twin half mumbled, half said. "Anything associated with him gives me the creeps..."

The medic took a glance back at the others before, seemingly taking an unsaid hint, respectfully taking his leave, the girl in the room following suit as she exchanged looks with her boyfriend.

For the first time in quite a while, the twins were completely alone, with only each other as company.

Minutes passed. The only reason why they did so in silence was because neither twin knew exactly what to say to the other.

Cody felt as if he was walking on eggshells, no matter what he tried to say. He'd imagined getting him to cave and having this talk back on the ship. Truthfully, he had guessed even before the Incident that he had been struggling with some things. He just hadn't worked up the nerve to pull him aside.

The situation had only gotten worse and the stakes higher over time. His heart ached for his twin and the last thing he wanted to do was to alienate him further.

On the other hand, Zack was just…numb. Even ignoring the torture Lucien had put him through, he felt as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. Those girls, Black (whether he liked him or not), London…

…and…

…and there he was. Standing right in front of him. His little brother.

He remembered his brief moment of lucidity during their little fight and just how small he felt back then.

Seeing him battered and beaten, but still fighting forced down his throat a truth that he had been denying for years.

Cody had simply outgrown him.

He honestly should have accepted this reality back when his taller, smarter counterpart had started distancing himself from his pranks and schemes, devoting much of his free time to his girlfriend instead.

Meanwhile, there he was, desperately trying to recreate the "good old days" using Woody (good friend as he was) as a replacement for the twins' usual dynamic.

Mr Moseby had been right about him. He really was nothing more than an overgrown child, a lost cause.

That's when he finally collapsed.

Any pretensions of being okay swiftly melted away in a pool of (would-be) tears.

He was so caught up in the release of all of his self-loathing that he didn't even notice the arms wrapping around him now. Nor did he notice a simple question pass his own lips.

"What's wrong with me?"

It took a second for the Cody to bite back the lecture bubbling in the back of his throat and a second more to formulate a proper answer to his question. He instinctively ruffled his brother's blonde hair, something he'd been on the receiving end of more times than he could count.

Making his choice, he gently pulled Zack away and lifted his chin to lock eyes with him.

"Listen to me, Zack. There is nothing wrong with you."

"Huh?"

He let go and stood back a little bit. "I said this back when we were fighting, but I want to make sure you hear it while you're in your right mind. I've never been more proud of you."

The short twin's voice was hollow, rough like sandpaper, but there was a faint touch of genuine curiosity to it.

"What's there to be proud of? My grades are horrible, I have no real plans, no future…"

"I addressed that during the fight, too. All you've done since you got here is everything you could to protect us." The rest wouldn't even matter if they didn't get home...

He couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Protect?! I nearly killed London back at that dump!"

"Nonsense," Cody admonished as softly as he could while maintaining a certain firmness. "Bailey and Alia showed me the audio logs afterwards. If anything, you tried to stop her and save her after she didn't listen. Heck, she's grateful for what you did! Did you know that she thinks of us both as her brothers?"

"Really?!" That shocked Zack more than anything. It was pretty rare that the heiress got close to anyone that she deemed "poor". He never imagined that she actually thought that highly of them...

"She said as much. It was after she saved me." Well, technically, he overheard her say it, but...

He let the words hang there for a second before speaking again.

"I know I said this before, but I never should have yelled at you like I did…"

Before he could be interrupted, he kept talking.

"…and what you tried to do for Ruby and Sapphira—"

An eyebrow raise. "How do you know about that? You were…out during most of that."

Now it was Cody's turn to raise an eyebrow. "You do remember who I am right?"

It didn't take long for Zack to jump to the natural conclusion. A sort of bewilderment that always showed itself whenever his twin did something particularly nerdy made its way onto his features.

Not only that, but against his better judgment (and his own feelings), a smile, feeble and small as it was, appeared for the smallest of split seconds.

It might have just registered as a passing twitch to anyone else, but it was obvious enough to his twin.

"You studied your butt off."

"Hey, I had a couple of hours to kill while you were being worked on. You have your ways of passing time and I have mine. Anyway, you might not realize this, but that was very big of you, giving them a chance at redemption like that."

He was getting insanely hard for the boy not to crack one of his signature grins at this point. How did Cody manage that? Even here, in this situation, he managed to bring the best out of him just like he did with everything else and everyone else…

That thought took it off and brought back to mind a burning question that was going to hurt like heck to ask…

Sensing his hesitation, the taller boy urged him on.

"I'm your brother, you know that right? Regardless of our petty squabbles… You can tell me anything."

With a sigh, he let something fly. "Why do you put up with me? Why don't you hate me? I make fun of you all the time…"

"That's what brothers do…"

"I'm responsible for most of your groundings…"

"…only in part. I chose to go along with it, so that's on me."

"I tease you and Bailey a lot, too."

"I think we'll live. We both know you don't really mean it."

Zack stopped looking at him entirely. His last protest was barely even audible. "You don't even…need me anymore."

"Excuse me?"

"You've outgrown me. You don't need me to fight your battles for you or protect you. And where does that l-leave me?"

That voice crack gave it all away. This was what was hurting Zack all along. How long had he been keeping this inside?

"First of all, I will never, ever, ever hate you, so get that out of your head. As for me being able to protect myself, just ask X, Zero, and even London how well that's going. Even if I didn't need you, I'd still want you. The fact that some of your traits happened to rub off on me is the only reason why I've even made it this far! Remember that book report I gave when we were seven?"

He remembered. He had teased his twin relentlessly about that one, too. Until he learned what he'd written about, that is…

To this day, it still hung up in a frame back at their suite at the hotel.

"I meant it then, and I mean it now: you're my hero and my bestest friend in the whole wide world!"

Finally, the shorter of the two truly smiled, his leftover concerns shoved to the back of his mind by a tidal wave of brotherly love.

He didn't even care how mushy this all was. He hadn't felt this genuinely good in a long time, and he was going to take it for all it was worth.

"You too, man, you too."

"Now, are you done with the edgy emo phase?"

The laughter that filled the room was music to both of their ears.

"Yeah. Pretty much."

After the two sobered up, the smarter boy continued. "Let's go keep the promise we made to that 'sister' of ours."

The boys finally left the room, but not before passing a certain farm girl who was conspicuously placed within listening distance.

As he passed, Zack looked her dead in the eye. "You don't tell a soul about what went on in there. Got it?"

She nodded, smiling knowingly. She kind of wished she had her phone with her so she could get a picture of this...