6: Requisition

For a time the pattern continued, and Mr. X did abide about as well as he could. The new wrinkle in the routine of weekend visitations by Mariposa had become a welcome change, and the girl slowly but surely became somewhat used to having an immense, inhuman, and mostly silent shadow. The Tyrant also grew accustomed to the tiny human and her curiously vulnerable status, drawn towards placing itself as a shield between here and even the most minor misfortunes in a way that it could not quite categorize. It was not the placid, logical, natural inclination of loyalty it regarded Dr. Ramirez with (though it did also regard the man, warts and all, with a sort of respectful fondness given that he had been the first to speak to T-00, and of T-00, with the correct regard for its awareness and intellect.) The child brought out… something else, partly an instinct, partly a thought that it could not collect the words for but did feel some control of—and a willingness to continue to feel this… something. It often wondered during the off-time late at night if this perhaps was a feeling that had to do with friendship, and from that it considered that it had not had a friendship before. Docile acceptance of its former neighbors in the holding chamber, yes. Acquainted with the names, faces, and general habits of it first set of handlers, trainers, and keepers—sure. Obedient to its master and willing to work for him until it became impossible, of course. But the other Tyrants, the most reliable trainer, and even Dr. Ramirez were not what Mr. X would call "friends". The doctor and the trainers were sources of orders and tasks and purpose—they stood well on the rung of authority over any Tyrant's head, and however kind some of them were at time this felt always incorrect… too distant for the type of bond that it felt must be required. As for the others of its kind… acknowledgement of their sameness, ease of understanding each other's cues and moods, none of that changed that T-00 had spent precious little time freely around them. Calling something that razor-thin a "friendship" felt presumptuous, and premature.

But the small girl… she and her Tyrant chaperone were different. Yes. Mariposa and Mr. X perhaps were now friends.

Through the boiling heat of August, the doctor paid less and less attention to his visiting daughter, and became far more willing to allow T-00 alone to watch over her, as he opted to focus manically on the take-home aspects on his work. As the incidence of stressful, heated phone calls increased, so too did the outings farther and farther from the small back garden plot and its shady patio. Mariposa was adventurous, and while she was hesitant at first she quickly concluded that getting some distance from her father's distracted cussing was worth whatever danger might be out in the wooded hills and wider pastures of the property. And she also reasoned that there was no danger out there that her monstrous follower could not render utterly harmless with a slim fraction of his strength and lightning-like reflexes.

Sitting in the shade by the fence line where Mariposa could watch the cows grazing, Mr. X eyed the structure being twisted together and formed in her hand with an expression of contented interest. The long, dried strands of yellow grass here were tough and fibrous, as were the other mixed species of flora poking up through the gaps in the dominant plants. She had asked him to tear some pieces of these loose—those she could not break off herself without scraping and pricking her frail fingers—and pass them to her a few at a time. She was making something. Out of the irregular bits of plant matter, a regular pattern was emerging in a long, unified band. She asked for another of the flowering species. "Daisies", she called them, by which point he knew she meant the white colored ones that had yellow centers and many small petals arranged in a single-layered radial pattern…

"Almost done," she smiled, holding the long, woven piece up and stretched to its full length, squinting appraisingly at it for unknown reasons. "Just one more piece of grass, please!"

Between two giant fingers, the bioweapon fulfilled the request, and then leaned down a few more inches to watch her looping and twining the grass around both ends of the creation. In a matter of moments they were joined into a continuous band, which she displayed proudly over her outstretched palms.

"What do you think?"

Mr. X bobbed his head, though twitched up a wrinkled brow to try and express its confusion. It was unclear what the circle of combined plant matter was for; perhaps it did not have a purpose, and was merely decorative. It did have a pleasant balance of colors and details from the placement of different flowers…

"Can you duck your head down, Mr. X?" Yes. It could. And it did, holding still as it felt its hat shift somewhat—and the pressure of two small hands pushing on it, and tugging the trilby back into its standard position. Mariposa giggled, "Okay, you can sit back up now."

The Tyrant gradually straightened up, noting the absence of Mariposa's creation with a questioning rumble. Giggling harder, she pointed up to the top of his head, and upon probing with a few fingers he found the delicate flowers encircling the brim of his hat.

"I wanted to see how it looks on you," she stifled further laughter, wriggling in place from the effort of containing her mirth, "It looks kinda silly though."

Mr. X half-closed his eyes and uttered a low grunt; it did not care particularly if it looked "silly", excepting that silly always made the child much happier. Mariposa allowed the nearly eight-foot bioweapon to wear the flower crown a while longer, only scooping it off right before returning in sight of the house—unsure how her father in a sour mood might react to seeing his personal Tyrant bodyguard so peaceably "emasculated".

September changed—though the visits remained. The nature of them grew stranger. Mariposa relied on her backpack more, fussing over the heavy texts and notebooks contained within. Their explorations were fewer (but thankfully much cooler as summer's heat started to die), and more and more of the child's time was spent indoors. She very often could be found only in her room which Mr. X found her could just barely squeeze himself into and sit cross-legged in the last remaining open floor space, relegating Mariposa to the bed with her plush toys and her mysterious written materials. If Dr. Ramirez's slurred shouting over the phone was too loud, she would retreat to the kitchen island, the mutant in her wake.

Thankfully, that Sunday night the doctor had retreated into his bunker lab for a few more hours, and his daughter had the benefit of a quiet room to spread out her papers and concentrate. Once more, the Tyrant leaned closer to the top of the bed from where he sat, eying and uttering a skeptical grunt over the open textbook and single-subject notebook. Mariposa fidgeted with her pencil and sighed.

"I know it don't make sense, but if I don't do it I'll get in trouble. It's homework."

"Rrrgh." Mr. X uttered a groan. Dr. Ramirez had not followed up on his hopes to teach the Tyrant how to speak, but in the meantime it had become practiced in use of tones, pitches, and even exercising its tough, calloused vocal cords enough to try out a number of clumsy, bestial phonemes on its own. It could form an "M", or an "R", an "H", and even "S" and "Ch"—and could distinguish how to make them and choose when to do so. The breathy, plain growls were not gone—but the creature was now far closer to language than most T-103s ever came. The girl shot him a sad but understanding look, catching the low snarl's meaning from her own long practice.

"It's math homework too. I hate math homework…"

Mr. X glanced at the upside-down numbers and symbols on the pages, one milky-white eye squinting as he struggled to make them out. There was that word again: Homework. Work… Mariposa seemed very young and underdeveloped to be expected to do any sort of work, in the Tyrant's silent opinion. It would be like barking orders to a being like himself while it was still a half-formed fetal blob in the growth tube. But it did understand very well the concept of grudgingly following a trainer's commands through a testing range, and so likened it more to that. Mentally at least, she was very much not half-formed.

Frustrated by the long page of simple math, the ten-year-old finally flopped back and grabbed onto one of her larger plushes—a bizarrely-proportioned and colored horse-like creature. Settling more comfortably, she turned the text and notebook around so that T-00 could properly read the contents.

"Ugh, it's giving me a headache… Do you wanna try one?"

Mr. X peered back up at her, eyes widening with brows raised in alarm. She wanted it to… what now? Her index finger poked out and landed on a short line of words, the only form of instructions that stood out on the page above a few columns of numbered equations, "There, that's what you're supposed to do for this row. They're not hard, but my teacher Ms. Ingels makes me 'show my work'. I dunno how to 'show my work' of just… knowing seven times seven, ugh."

"Hmmmmmgh…" Mr. X was not sure what to make of any of it: The teacher's bizarre expectation, the wording that Mariposa was using for the task, and the threadbare instructions on the page. Times? What times? How does one "times" something—especially an abstract number? The instructions were only more puzzling: "Solve problems No. 13 through No. 21 with multiplication." "Solve problems" it knew, and it could see the numbered chunks of numbers and symbols, but numbers on a paper and various "X"s and lines did not seem like a problem to solve to the Tyrant. They just were.

But they made Mariposa unhappy. They were a problem, a very different kind of problem than the monster was used to.

It picked up the pencil with some awkwardness, its fingers far too large and thick for the thin spike of wood and graphite. Holding the item up stiffly, T-00's brows screwed up tightly as it studied the little girl's work so far for clues to what the strange orders meant. She had finished two earlier sections, and had made it to copying the numbers and symbols beside No. 16 before giving it up to the Tyrant's attempts. It glanced back to No. 15: It had said "11x3", and the girl had arranged the numbers vertically instead before filling in below the number "33".

Wait a moment—

Multiply. Three groups of eleven. Thirty-three. Now it made sense! Why the book did not just ask, flatly and sensibly, to write what the numbers multiplied together were Mr. X didn't know. Somehow the compiler of this textbook had less of a grasp of how to communicate than the completely non-verbal non-human.

"Mrph," It looked back to No. 16: It read "8x8". It was childishly simple—not too much to expect for the most mathematically-challenged ten-year-old—but Mr. X still wasn't sure what Mariposa's teacher could mean by "showing her work" aside from recording the answer. Now, for the difficult part; the Tyrant moved the tip of the pencil down to the targeted spot at an achingly slow pace, trying its best to not press or move the flimsy implement too hard. It had seen humans write before, and it had seemingly awoken with an innate knowledge of all the shapes signifying the sounds and meanings for English and Spanish at the very least… but it had never attempted to write anything before. A jitter shot through its chest, and it could sense the pores on its forehead beading up with a nervous sweat.

—very slowly, with the pencil clenched in almost a whole fist, the Tyrant scratched out the number 64 in much rougher, fatter lines than Mariposa could manage. She opened her eyes wide, and exclaimed:

"Oh! You never told me you could do math!"

Mr. X's mouth twitched into the closest semblance of a proud smile as its tough, warped face could manage. It had never seemed necessary to prove its own intelligence. Mariposa had never needed the proof, and had never insinuated he was stupid. Unlike most other specimens of humanity it had met…

"And you can write!"

That much the Tyrant hadn't even known, but the confirmation relaxed the twinges of tension in its neck. It rumbled softly and focused on the next problem. The girl did try to pull the homework away, but with a planted palm and a shake of his head, T-00 assured her that he was willing to finish the task at hand—with an increasing confidence in its ability to not destroy her belongings it filled in the solutions in a matter of moments. Barely containing her excitement, Mariposa swept aside the dull school drudgery and dug out a different notebook in its place.

"What else can you write? Maybe you can talk to me by writing back!" She had also dug out a different writing implement—a pen, more importantly one with a thicker, chunkier handle—and gave it to the Tyrant. Mr. X tilted its head; it… had not thought of that possibility before. Of course, it had not thought to try and mimic how humans wrote either, and had considered its progressively greater mastery of its voice to let it communicate just fine.

But the idea seemed to thrill his friend, and he was now curious to give it a try. It hunched its heavy shoulders over the fresh lined sheet and held up the pen:

I write words.

Name Mr. X.

Mariposa. Friend.

I do good?

"Yes!" She giggled, "Yes, it's good! My old 4th grade grammar teacher wouldn't like it, but he's a baboso, so he doesn't count."

The Tyrant produced a deep grumble that was practically a purr, and glanced to her meaningfully as he scrawled out another line:

We talk like this?

"Yeah," Mariposa grinned and hugged her rainbow-hued fabric equine tighter. Her tone was excited, in a way that suggested she and the bioweapon were getting away with something. Nervous, and playful. "I wanna know more about you. Papá doesn't tell me nothing, of course—but you can tell me what you remember."

It took several of these nighttime weekend sessions for Mr. X to adequately describe not only what it was, but how it had lived in the spring month prior to coming to her father's secluded estate. Many times he had to stop, as Mariposa became distressed almost to tears—but rather than becoming afraid of what she was reading she surprised the giant living weapon by insisting upon crawling up into his grasp and clinging onto his Limiter's lapels, speaking in a cracking, tiny voice how sorry she was.

She was unable to read his broken messages when tucked up against him like this, so the Tyrant tried its best to let her know the worst of its cold, coarse introduction to life was over, and it was all better now with a deep rumble and a palm resting carefully on her back and shoulders. After the roughest parts were over, it could much more happily recall to her their first meeting from its own eyes.

First day. I scared you. You scared me.

Small. Small, but scary.

… embarrassed.

She collapsed into giggles at the revelation, unfathomably tickled by the reminder of that day's terror and the hindsight that came with now trusting "el monstruo" implicitly with her own safety. She read the last little message she had missed earlier and grinned, laughed, all over again. That one word was in the most miniscule letters she'd ever seen the creature manage—their very hidden nature adding further to their meaning.

You gave ice cream. First ice cream.

Friend then.

GOOD friend.

It was a Saturday, with September almost yellowed into nothing like the dry carpet of pasture grass. Mariposa was sleepily sprawled out on the carpet in front of the television with Benji, and old episode of some sort of Western drama playing out before the unimpressed dog and girl. Dr. Ramirez was working on breakfa—er, lunch, nearby in the kitchen—a towel from the freezer wrapped around his neck and the lights over the range in as low a setting as they went as the second grilled cheese sizzled away. A small saucepan sat on another burner—slowly heating up a can of condensed tomato soup. Mr. X leaned against the kitchen's corner—an eagle's eye on both of those he had to protect—gnawing contentedly at the reward which Dr. Ramirez had given him for its very punctual reminder that his daughter needed someone awake and sober enough to receive her at 11 a.m. It was something which he'd seen the man given to his daughter before: A "jawbreaker". The name did not seem all that appropriate—as its jaw seemed to be easily breaking off pieces of it instead. But it crunched pleasantly, and was packed with sugars, so T-00 counted its blessings, ignored the illogical naming, and enjoyed the treat.

There was a loud series of rapid knocks on the front door. Ramirez almost dropped the grilled cheese he was mid-flip, and he choked audibly before whirling around to the entry hall. Mariposa scuttled up to a seated posture, hidden partly by the couch.

"Mr. X—see who it is," the man ordered, and it was clear by his disheveled and tense response that no one was expected. The bioweapon set down the unfinished half of its treat and strode heavily, assertively, to the door, its brows twitching down in irritation. Its hearts thudded in readiness to destroy whatever threat was invading this house:

—When it opened the door, the Tyrant was faced with a relatively tall man in a dark suit, and darker shades. He faced the huge being with absolutely no shift in his pale, wrinkled face. His black hair was streaked with grey, and T-00 could not miss the hump of fabric on the front of his suit jacket that announced to its sensitive eyes the concealed handgun. The bioweapon reflexively broadened its stance, blocking more of the doorway with its body and leveled a sour glare down into the slick shades covering the intruder's expression.

"Stand down, T-00," the man ordered, and the Tyrant's hackles pricked up as he silently refused. This was some Umbrella Company personnel, but he'd offered no proof of that beyond knowing its designation, nor any proof whatsoever that he outranked Dr. Ramirez.

Mr. X instead moved like a striking snake—a fist bunching around the bundle of fabric he'd grabbed by the man's throat and collarbones—and lifted the pathetic man half a meter off the ground. Before the man could finish yelping in fright the Tyrant's other hand flicked out and ripped the small pistol out of the harness hidden under the suit jacket.

"Who is it, Mr. X?" He paused at the voice close behind him, and answered by shifting its broad shoulders more sideways and smoothly displaying the confiscated weapon as the captive intruder's struggles became visible, "A-Ah! Easy, T-00! Let him down—carefully!"

Grunting with bemusement, Mr. X obeyed to the letter and gently let the man down onto his feet again. He waited until the stranger seemed to be stable and balanced before loosening its grip on his collar. Gasping, the suited man recoiled for a second as he caught his breath, then adjusted his shades.

"Very good." He croaked, "Not to worry, Dr. Ramirez. I didn't present I.D. or offer any other proof to your Tyrant here. It did very well," He let out a breath of relief, "and I didn't even get whiplash, like the last time. A gentleman, this one."

"Ah, er, well," Ramirez blustered. "I'm sure he thanks you."

"I apologize for the rude interruption," the man said, fishing out a company Identification Card as he continued, "My name is Mr. Winters. Operations Director Winters. I've come on behalf of Umbrella's executives of the U.S. branch to discuss something, ah, very important."

Dr. Ramirez was already half-sobered-up from the shock, and as he made a show of handing the agent his firearm back he snuck a glimpse past him to the gravel turnaround, and his eyes widened. The Tyrant could see clear over their heads and the rock half-wall of the front garden, and noticed the large, boxy, white commercial moving truck parked next to the unmarked black Crown Vic. As well as the two armed guards by the former, and a Tyrant handler in their uniform gray jumpsuit and heavy boots.

"Uh. What's with the truck?"

"That's for later. Come, shall we talk somewhere more private?"

Ramirez curiously took to the polite suggestion as if it were a harsh command. Mr. X allowed them to pass through, but shut the door meaningfully hard in the nosier of the two approaching guard's face.

"Mariposa, go play in your room."

"Papá?"

"Go on now. I need to talk to this gentleman here—so go upstairs."

The Tyrant watched her climb the stairwell, then as he shifted one foot to follow the doctor stopped him with a harsh command:

"No, you stay here." Ramirez then pulled out a chair by the kitchen island for Mr. Winters to make himself comfortable, "I apologize—I send it to guard her when I can't keep an eye on her. Learned response, y'see."

"I see. Rather quick adjustment for a T-103."

"Oh yes. This one learns very quick."

The agent and Ramirez were soon facing each other across the kitchen island, a glass of iced lemonade out for the guest. Mr. Winters hardly looked at anything, even as he commented on it—and this included the nearby Tyrant.

"Dr. Ramirez, I'm sure you've heard the news by now. Internally, or otherwise," the man quirked a dark, dry brow at him.

"Yes…" Ramirez's face was quite troubled. His forehead was coated in bullets of sweat—and not the heady, steady hangover-sweat he often wore after a night of drunken phone-line shouting matches. "I always had a bad feeling about Birkin… Can't help but feel the bastard did something to start this off."

"Well, regardless of his past transgressions, we won't have to worry about that man anymore." Mr. Winters daintily sipped at the lemonade, "Unfortunately, it does seem he managed to release some form of the t-Virus either right before, or as he was terminated. He was not the only source of the situation in Raccoon City, though." The man leaned closer to the doctor, face completely flat and unreadable despite the grim facts he dispensed, "You know very well, even as far back as July, that the incident with the Ecliptic Express and the Arklay Labs had caused some level of environmental contamination in that area. Ms. Teifer herself consulted you at the time, and thanks to you both exactly 37 infected wildlife and four infected humans were discovered and terminated. I'm afraid that by the time Teifer had any words with you that the waters of Victory Lake were exposed, to some degree, to vector of the Beta strain."

"Oh. God."

"Yes indeed."

"So… the so-called 'football riot', and the so called 'new serial killer spree'..?"

"An escalation of infection. It's worse than that by now," Mr. Winters said flatly. "Which is why I'm here. The board is in damage-control mode, and they have requested certain resources to deal with it."

"I-I—"

"It's not a request, of course, but I would prefer to make this even an amicable one."

"Of course," Ramirez breathed, defeat and resentment beginning to spring up in his eyes.

"Dr. Ramirez," Mr. Winters removed his shades, revealing the pale brown eyes and their softened shape as he stared hard at the dark, worried ones of his subordinate, "Corporate is requisitioning Tyrant T-00 for their own purposes. I'm sorry, but we do in fact need this Tyrant more than you do at this time."

"Sir," Ramirez's tone grew more incredulous, "Umbrella has… has well over forty unsold and unpromised Tyrants in retention all across its facilities, and you need my prototype?"

"Yes." Mr. Winters said, deadpan. "Especially since the first five Phase 4 T-103s were completed in May, and have only recently entered their first training cycle."

"What?"

"Goldman had your specs, and process notes—and all the techs knew what to do. At the very worst, they could be a study group sent to R&D."

"I was on vacation."

"Sure you were." The agent stared, "Some people relax at home with… family." The word seemed to be sneered. "Others arrange a stay by the beach, or in a fine multicultural European city, or on a national parks tour. Some even go swimming with sharks, or they for some reason think they can crawl up Everest. Very few opt to stay actively in their home office, and keep grinding out hours picking apart microbes in a secret laboratory bunker."

"So. Why wasn't I informed regardless?"

"Obviously… I was not privy to that decision. Not to speak ill of my employer, but such things occur regularly with the board's decisions." Winters seemed to smirk, "You love your daughter, yes?"

"Oh, fuck you, you—"

"Not so fast. Think for a minute. How many daughters are there, right now, in all the 100,000 citizens of Raccoon City?"

Ramirez gulped.

"What does that have to—"

"This is a disaster, Julian." The agent's tone raised. "And you live far from it. For now. All emergency plans of Umbrella's directors are on a 'for now' basis. But that always means that 'for now' will mean 'now', if nothing is done. 100,000 people is a lot. Even if it doesn't mean Zombies crawling up into your cushy California home, anywhere close to 10,000 infected without some containment will still mean negative consequences… and believe me, you'd wish this was the Apocalypse if the U.S. government got wind you were involved with that damn virus."

"Okay… Okay…" Ramirez appeared to compose himself, licking at salty lips and mustache stubble, "I… I understand. I don't like it, but I understand." He sucked in a breath, "My daughter's going to miss the big lug, you know…"

"And she can say so, once this mess is over," Mr. Winters made a face that may have been intended as a smile, but was so so desert-dry. "Its own considerable intellect is what we need. Adaptable. We need T-00 in Raccoon because what's going on there is changing in scope and severity every day. Infected aren't even the worst of it, and we need every advantage on the ground we can get." His jaw went tight, "Umbrella already tried the 'human touch', and that first squad are all skeletons by now. If they're lucky."

"A—ack—okay now, I get it," the doctor winced. He lowered his head a moment into his wrapped arms, and then raised back up with a dazed, sad expression. "I assume you will… collect T-00 within the day?"

"As soon as possible," Winters said, though the age lines around his mouth and nose slackened, "I'm willing to give you a brief preparation time, however." He leaned closer, "Don't take advantage of it. If the sun sets and that Tyrant isn't in the truck, things will be poorly for you daughter's future."

Mr. X finally felt his spine unstiffen at the… the… perplexing and terrifying information it had overheard. It finally had processed what this had meant; its gorge rose, and eyes began to water though nothing seemed to have gotten into them to cause the irritation. It was going to leave this place. Leave his friend.

"Mr. X," Ramirez's voice cut into its thoughts, and it fixed its blurry gaze onto its master, "go see if Mari's alright. Be ready for further orders!"

The Tyrant's fearsome, beady pupils tightened with urgent focus, and then it slowly turned to face the stairs and took them at a soft, light-footed march. Once upstairs, it crept fast and suppressed its weight as much as it could and made its way straight to Mariposa's room. His friend.

Only friend.

She was almost spooked at the unusual speed which he had opened her door with, but brightened as she saw the Tyrant squeezing its way in and settling in his usual seated pose by the foot of the bed.

"Mr. X!" She ducked over the footboard and squeezed the creature's hefty neck in a hug, "I was scared something bad was happening… You okay?"

The Tyrant could not muscle out any affirmative noises or motions, though it desired to. It would preserve the joyful relieved mood that his friend had adopted in this moment. Instead, it cinched its brows together and let out a low, toneless groan, reaching out a hand to tell her to provide the thick-handled pen and a source of paper.

"What's goin' on?" She squeaked, "Who is that guy?"

Mr. X slowly began to scratch out:

He is Agent. Papá's superior.

"What's he here about?"

He twitched, the likes of which he would normally reserve for unexpected physicals and harsh training checks, and tentatively started writing again.

He will take me away.

I am sorry.

"But why?" Mariposa whimpered, "You didn't do anything wrong!"

No. It wrote, and then: There is city with danger. Infection. Threats. Extreme danger.

"What… What kind of danger?"

Released virus. Dangerous infected people. Many people. It tried to explain, in as soft of words it knew without leaving anything important out, then added: They want me. Need help to stop it. Stop it going outside city.

Mariposa's eyes became glittering wells, wincing with the pain of what it meant. Their guardian would rip a seam in their brief bond. She was technically twenty times his actual age, but her maturity took the blow much like you would expect for a child.

"No," she wept, diving off the footboard fully, knowing the giant form would catch and cushion her against any harm, "Why you? Why now? I thought they put you here! I thought dad was in charge!"

Mr. X cupped the sobbing form below the shoulder-blades with one hand, the other finding one of her own miniscule hands and enclosing it softly. He let out a very low, very bassy rumble. The vibration seemed to always comfort her, and maybe now it would settle her enough and give them more time. There was never going to be enough time.

She tucked herself closer, letting tears drop onto the leather and steel of his Limiter's neck buckles. "I don't want you to go," she hiccupped, "You're the nicest person I've ever met, since…" she cut off, and cried hard into the creature's shoulder. The Tyrant groaned, lightly tightening its grip around her fingers. She wept, "I don't want you to go."

For a long while, the Tyrant held her as she sobbed and vented the fear, and the vulnerability. The beast relaxed and let her be, calm so long as his friend was safely close by and content to let her cut loose the emotions into his own heavily-padded armor. At some point, her grip tired, and with one arm supporting her back, his other arm scooped up the notebook and the thick-handled pen. He balanced the former upon a raised leg, and she hiccupped again as she turned to see what he was writing:

I do not want to go.

Her eyes beaded with new tears.

I will be forced to.

He groaned, low—plaintive. There wasn't any other tone or attempt at any consonant that would properly capture how sorrowful the Tyrant was to admit it. Its hand holding the pen moved, flicked, and scratched again:

Friend. I will miss you.

I will try to come back.

Mariposa managed a weak, watery smile, hopeful that this at least was something temporary. Her only very reliable, unjudging companion would return—after the distant, abstract disaster beyond her young mind's conception. He'd return, right? Nothing would happen… right? The Tyrant was indestructible… right? Right?

The Tyrant tightened its grip around the child's back and gave another low, placid-natured grumble. Things were bad. But things could be okay, for the moment.

"I'll miss you too, Mr. X…" she said, muffled into the monster's thick clothing, "Please come back as soon as you can, please…"

At this point, a heavy, stoic knock sounded through the wood of the child's bedroom door. Still cradling the girl, Mr. X had stood up by combative instinct, and had to pause himself to set Mariposa safely down on the bed, and then return the notebook and pen to her.

"But—"

T-00 grabbed the pen again, and in larger letters wrote:

STAY. BE SAFE.

—And then set the pen down. The door hammered again even harder, interrupted by the massive Tyrant opening it in the face of a body-armored and heavily-armed man, who staggered back before reaching up to his radio.

"Confirmed, we have T-00 in sight."

T-00 huffed, aggravated and impatient. Of course he had the thing in sight: It was four feet wide at the shoulders and the guard had been told where it was. Stupid…

When it ducked under the doorway and stood up into the upstairs hall the encounter could have gone very poorly if not for the booming yet high voice of the handler accompanying the retrieval:

"Stand down! You fucks, it's docile. It's complying. Dumbasses…" T-00 stood still as the handler darted the rest of the way up the stairs and set a palm on its chest. Handlers often did this, whether the Tyrant in question was at risk of damage or not. Usually because even the most fierce, tantrum-ing bioweapon wouldn't try to hurt a trainer or keeper who had treated it well, or given it any particularly good rewards. But for the most part it was purely a tactic of handlers to stop more idiotic bullet spray from jittery UBCS newbies—unnecessary and ineffective to a great degree. Mr. X would not have tolerated a single stray bullet where Mariposa was concerned. It rumbled—angrily—but fixed the handler with a sharp, eager expression which possibly shocked him. The man hopped back as the Tyrant descended the stairs almost casually, and he called out ahead of the bioweapon his warning that the creature was docile. It ducked its head under the front doorway, the drop of eye contact hopefully communicating it was not going to be resistant to the process.

"They call you 'Mr. X', eh?"

It froze, lowered head training in the direction of the voice. It would recognize that dry drawl anywhere now as that of Mr. Winters, and followed up with a low growl. It raised its gaze and found the shades a few meters away, and froze again.

"You're magnificent," the agent said as he stepped up well within a range the present handler was wordlessly panicking over, "And you know what's going on, eh. Well, you know by now that you must go in that truck. Not to worry. We won't hurt the doctor or his girl if you cooperate."

With a low nod, the Tyrant growled a low affirmation, and the man raised two fingers up and towards the waiting truck's open rear door. Mr. X growled once more in a higher tone of warning as one of the guards it passed by prodded it in the back with the barrel of his rifle, unneeded. It cast a long look around, catching the glare-addled shadow of Mariposa's face peering through the upstairs hall's window before he was prodded again and stepped up the ramp into the darkness.