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To no one's surprise, Marino did not come to breakfast. Even less of a surprise was Dynamo continuing to be a nuisance in her wake.

"You say one wrong thing, and suddenly you're a criminal." he bemoaned- loudly, and rather insincerely. "What could I have done to deserve this much ire in a day?"

"Maybe it's because you're victim blaming the dead." Zero informed him in a short tone.

"You've also been incredibly sexist every morning since the girls decided to share their morning routine with each other." X pointed out as well.

"You even tried to say that Aero is a transvestite!" Axl also chimed in, slamming his hands on the table. "Well jokes on you, buddy! She's cis, straight, and loves it!"

Everyone gave Axl a confused look- one he brushed off with his own air of righteous justice. Dynamo ended up shaking his head with a sigh.

"That is all completely undermining my point." he then tried to tell them.

Zero cocked an eyebrow. "Which is ?"

"That it's all Marino's fault!" Dynamo proclaimed- sounding as if the idea just hit him. "I'm not responsible for that change in 'step on me' energy to whatever little pity party she's having now! Just stress alone doesn't do that. Which leads me to believe that she must be on her peri-"

A loud smack stopped Dynamo from finishing his sentence. Reeling back his hand was Zero, who definitely was not going to take that kind of talk this morning.

"Utter one more word, and you'll be nursing bleeding bruises for the next month." he threatened.

"From you, or is everyone going to rotate?"

"I'll let you decide."

Dynamo grimaced. He knew he was crossing boundaries. At the same time, he knew he was the only one left to step on them.

Which meant he had to be good.

If only being good wasn't so… so… boring .

"Whatever," Dynamo said as he finally resigned. "I'll just be out of everyone's way from now on. Those who can't keep their mouth shut, deserve to be alone. Right?"

No one offered him any words of kindness or dissatisfaction as Dynamo left the cafeteria. In the few moments after, X realized just how quiet the room was nowadays. Thankfully, the air returned to a more jovial mood with Axl and Zero there, but the lack of others only kept the reminder in the back of his head.

Who would go Maverick next?

X found himself wandering around the tower after breakfast. His feet just wanted to move instead of staying in one place for too long. They led him around the first floor, and then the second. Light sounds of keyboard tapping finally brought him out of his half-aware daze. He followed them into the science lab. Sitting at the research terminals was Aero.

"What are you working on?" X spoke up.

Aero's whole body jolted upright, as if she had suddenly been woken up. She turned around to face him. Nothing on her face illustrated anything had been amiss.

"Just trying to test my hacking." she smiled. "Wanna watch?"

X gave an absent nod. "Sure."

He took a spot next to Aero, then scooted his chair closer to hers. His sense of comprehension went out the window when he saw just what Aero was working on. Lines of code, every so often indexed in, filled the screen repeatedly. Every so often he could pick up words that felt real -like 'parent' or 'override'- but others were completely gibberish. He could blink and one string of code could make sense, then with the next blink it was indescribable again.

"I have no idea what I'm looking at." he finally admitted.

Aero laughed.

"Yeah, I guess you would." she continued to chortle. "But there's a pattern to it. See, look-"

She adjusted the screen a bit so X could see it better. With her finger she started to point out where she was talking about.

"That line of code means that the point starts at this location. That line of code over there dictates that the 'camera' is centered on the point. The line after that affirms that it is meant to track the point should it move."

X looked over what she had pointed out to him. It made as much sense as much as it didn't. He looked her over. She had noticed a line of code that didn't look quite right to her, so she had already gone back to fixing it up. There was something special flickering in her eyes then. Something that filled X with both awe and the smallest hint of… fear?

X shifted in his seat.

"That's amazing." he said- if only to say something.

"It's just a puzzle," she insisted, "One made up of ASCII most of the time- but still a puzzle."

He gave another absent nod to show he understood. His eyes drifted back to her screen. A certain kind of hypnosis came over him as he watched her work. Every so often the words 'denied' would flash up on the screen, causing her to hiss something under breath before furiously typing something back. X found his thoughts drifting even further- believing for a moment that she was having a chat with someone instead of causing numerous error codes to pop up every so often when her commands were denied.

A knock on the door broke the spell over X. Both he and Aero looked to the door. Standing there, looking a bit out of place, was Layer. She hid herself behind her bangs even more than usual.

"Aero, can I talk to you?" she asked- polite and awfully quiet.

"Sure, why not?"

Layer uncomfortably shifted from side to side. X could feel her gaze shift onto him.

"I… I wanted to talk to you privately." Layer elaborated. "I noticed that you've been helping Marino a lot. I might have overheard some of your talks… And I… I wanted to ask you some things. P-personal… things…"

Aero face seemed to go through many emotions in one.

"I…" she started to say, but didn't know how to finish.

"If it's personal, then I should probably go…" said X. He started to get up, but was immediately stopped by Aero's hand wrapped around his wrist.

"You would be perfect for this conversation." she informed him. Her eyes held determination and a certain kind of darkness within them. He wasn't going to get away easily. It caught X off guard for a moment.

"I would?"

"He would?" Layer nervously repeated.

"He would." Aero affirmed. She used her hold on X to make him sit again. "No one's got any bad feelings about X, whereas I've got AT LEAST Zero giving me the stink eye every time I walk in the room."

Layer recoiled slightly in thought.

"That is true…" she agreed, mostly to herself. She then gave a firm nod. "Yes, X would be good for this too."

Layer moved into the room, taking a seat from one of the terminals across from where X and Aero were.

"So what's wrong?" X asked first.

Layer's face flushed as she admitted, "It's… it's actually about Zero."

X and Aero very quickly exchanged a look.

"You know," X noted, "I think I am perfect for this."

Aero tried, and failed, to keep her laugh down as Layer's face only became a darker shade of red.

She didn't deserve to die.

Too many people just don't care. That girl had more love and patience in her pinkie toe than most people had in their entire bodies. The world wasn't always this cruel- why did it have to be so cruel to her?

They had tried to move on, tried to work through the pain, but every reminder came every morning when she wasn't there. An empty room. Her voice no longer echoing during breakfast. No daily knocks to see if they wanted to join with the others. It was just silence. Silence, and regret.

The Maverick knew their hand in it all. If they had just been there a bit sooner. If they had intervened instead of waiting for her. But no. All of it was gone now. Could a Maverick be a Maverick through inaction too? They should have died. They should have died instead of her that morning. She had deserved the world. She could have saved the world, in their opinion. And it was gone. Gone. Gone. Gone.

They had found a ribbon that reminded them of her. It was in the art room by the section dedicated to sewing. The ribbon was primarily blue with a white stripe down the center. Within the stripe were embroidered red hearts. They had to take a piece with them. They cut it down just long enough to be the length of their arm. The ribbon was then wrapped around their wrist- in their mind's eye they could pretend it was her, still tugging at their arm for advice.

Pretending that this didn't hurt was never an option. So what if people thought less of them? Maybe being a Maverick meant not hiding. It was a small snap to call one to action. Action always meant more. Any bastard that claimed otherwise didn't deserve this life.

Speaking of bastards…

Taking a walk to the rec room had been a mistake. Already there, staring quite thoughtfully at the vending machine, was Dynamo. He didn't seem aware of the Maverick's presence at first. When he did, he turned around and didn't suspect his danger in the slightest.

"Come to apologize?" the asshole grinned.

There was no thinking about what came next.

The Maverick tackled Dynamo with their whole body. He went down with a crack and discomforted 'oof' in its wake. The Maverick worked quickly to keep him pinned down, crushing his ribs with their knees. Their hands wrapped around his throat and squeezed tightly. Horror crosses his eyes in realizing what was happening.

"H-hey!" he croaked. "Stop! Get off!"

The Maverick did nothing of the sort. Their hands wrapped around his neck even tighter. Dynamo closed his eyes. Panic might have been an immediate reaction, but it wasn't going to save him if he kept acting on it.

Using his knee, Dynamo hit the Maverick as hard as he could. It was enough to surprise them. Dynamo scrambled to his feet and tried to get some distance between him and his attacker. It wasn't much. The solitare table was right behind him.

"I haven't even said anything yet!" he then tried to defend himself. "If you'd give me five seconds to apologize or whatever-!"

The Maverick was on their feet now too. The ribbon around their wrist had partially come undone. They still gripped it- a choice coming to their mind without hesitation.

"It's too late for that."

Like a thief, the Maverick darted toward Dynamo, shoving him hard into the table. The force caused the table to slide backward. Dynamo's head whacked the edge as he lost his balance. Stars tracked in his eyes and his mind couldn't defend the rest of him in time. The Maverick was back on top of him with the ribbon completely unfurled.

The Maverick's vision went red as they used the ribbon to choke Dynamo out. He tried to struggle, but each time the Maverick used the ribbon as leverage to slam his head onto the ground. Their world of red did not stop until Dynamo's body finally did. If anything, it was a massive relief. An eye for an eye, and all that. There were no regrets as the Maverick pooled saliva in their mouth before spitting on Dynamo's dead body.

'I'll kill you in my next life too, asshole.' they thought to themselves before heading back to their dorm. With one less bastard in this world, they would finally be able to rest easy again.

However, there was someone they needed to talk with first.

"So you think he really does like Iris?" Layer asked, hiding in her bangs. It was almost silly to ask it at this point, and yet she knew she had to make it obvious- if only to herself.

"They spend a lot of their time together," X agreed, nodding. "Iris likes being with him too- so I think it's mutual."

"If you still like his company, you shouldn't avoid him because he won't reciprocate the way you want." Aero added. "It's terrible advice, but you can still be there for him. Just don't, like, expect much."

"Yeah." Layer sighed. "Yeah…"

The awkwardness in the room couldn't be helped. Kessie-Louise, the writer of this fic, has a hard time defining what 'friend' means, let alone any reasonable advice on when you crush on someone or vice versa. Asexuality is strong in this writer… or ignorance. She's working through it.

"Aero?"

Everyone's attention went to the door. Standing there was Marino- hair disheveled and a suspicious red mark from something once wrapped tightly around her wrist.

"Marino?" Aero asked as she looked over Marino. She stood up, her face becoming harder. "Marino, what happened?"

"I'm not sorry."

"What are you talking about?"

"Dynamo… That bastard … He's… he's finally…"

A chill came over the room. Aero was the only one who moved. She got close enough to place a tight-gripped hand on Marino's shoulder.

"Marino, where is Dynamo?"

There was a long, dreadful pause before Marino admitted, "Rec room."

Hearing this, Aero flashed a quick glare at X and Layer. The two knew what to do right away. They quickly left the room, leaving Aero and Marino behind.

Sure enough, there was Dynamo lying dead. Eyes bulged from strangulation. Apparently Layer and X in a rush had caused the attention of Alia and Axl, who followed them into the rec room. All X knew was that he was too in shock to fully register Lumine's words as they came over the intercom.

"A Maverick has killed. I repeat, a Maverick has killed. Please review the body at your pleasure at the recreational room, then report to the auditorium for further instructions."