Arsenic and Rubies

AN: Beware of slow introductory chapters. I know, I know, it's not Dreamer or Unlaced. This is an AU sequel to The Skies Hold Fallen Angels oneshot that I thought I had doomed to being just a oneshot a long time ago. Then I got an idea. Anyway, this is actually a birthday giftfic for RandyPandy, so it might not catch everyone's attention. It won't be too long, I think, maybe a few chapters. I don't have it all written out as of right now, even if the majority is somewhat plotted out. It might be a bit confusing. See, like I said, it's a sequel of sorts to a oneshot I wrote, but it isn't the "canon" sequel I was going to write. I realized I don't have the time or the desire to write out the massive epic that would be required for the sequel, so I crammed in most of the information needed for what happened into this chapter.

I am on semi-hiatus due to school.

*Pairings: None, in spite of the origin of some of the characters here. You'll know what I mean when you come to it. It will be explained. Hopefully it isn't a huge turnoff!

Happy birthday, Panda.

Disclaimer: I keep forgetting about these. Megaman belongs to Capcom, regrettably. Frith and Sheol belong to me. Xavier belongs to RandyPandy.

Chapter 1

X pondered the tall unit at his side. It was a peculiar thing for him to ponder, given that he was studiously trying not to look at him. His gaze was instead focused on the city outside his bedroom window. Abel City was his now and it had taken so little effort to take that it was sad. His. X's. Of all people to overthrow both military and government to lay claim to a city.

Once he would have been relieved at the lack of fighting, now he was almost disappointed, if only because of all the stress the mere idea of being attacked by the Hunters had caused him. After Zero had fallen they had scattered, running away in fright or defecting. Perhaps defecting wasn't the right word since X had hardly had an army at that point. He only had his weapons, his armors, and three Reploid younglings on his side. Which was probably why Zero had gone after him alone; and then Zero had failed. The Hunters had withdrawn from the city, likely to get reinforcements. He wondered where they were now, and when they would return.

X's fingers twitched around the glass in his hand, his chest tightening with…. Guilt? Something. Zero hadn't failed; he had hesitated because he couldn't kill X. It was almost disappointing. Sparring with Zero used to be so exciting, and it was widely believed among the Hunters that, should the two really go at it, Zero would win. Why did people so easily forget about their past battles? X won. X almost always won; he was better, faster, and more powerful, and yet Zero was hailed as the Hunters' greatest.

Not that any of that mattered anymore. Soon X and Dr. Light would have the rest of the Hunters under their thumb as well. With X gone, Zero was their best. Had been their best. Now he supposed Signas was their best warrior.

X glanced around the room, feeling nothing for it. It was large, fancy, but it felt flat and unlived in with its grey walls and dark furniture. Maybe he would repaint as soon as the city was settled and the humans were no longer cowering in their homes waiting for one of them to swoop down and start ripping them limb from limb. The brunet's head finally tilted toward to the former Hunter beside him, though he never looked the other in the eye. The dark blue of his new uniform looked jarringly cool in place of his usual vivid crimson armor. Zero looked so diminished with his hair cut. Like a shaved lion.

"You promised me." There was no anger or accusation in his voice. He was merely resigned.

Zero probably hadn't expected to have to fulfill that promise. X was supposed to be immune to reprogramming, and to the Virus. The mottled red and green right optic that glowered at him in the mirror every morning proved those beliefs wrong. It had long since been proven that Zero was susceptible to the things X was supposed to be unaffected by; his current state was further proof of that.

"At least you're on my side for once," X said, managing some dry humor. Still, his blond companion didn't reply. X knew Zero was still capable of speech because he had been the one to reprogram his former friend. On Dr. Light's orders, of course.

"You know," he went on, not sure why he was suddenly in such a chatty mood after ignoring his new bodyguard for the entire two days he'd been… reformed. "I bet you think I did this to you to torture you. I didn't, you know. I'm still weak; I had you pinned, I could have shoved your beam saber right between your eyes and that would have been it. But I couldn't do it, obviously, or you would not be here."

Now he had the blond's attention. The proud head tilting toward him in kind; Zero looked older and sterner with his hair short.

"I'm sorry about your hair," he finished lamely. "I know I always threatened to cut it off back when we were Hunters, but I didn't really mean it."

Zero continued to stare at him, his blue eyes unreadable. Once, X would have been unnerved; Zero's reputation of being a vicious and driven Hunter didn't stem from rumor.

"Don't look at me like that," he scolded, crossing one leg over the other as he turned his attention to the window again. It was a lovely view of Abel city; from here, the tallest building in the city, X could see the still smoking ruins of the overpass where he and Zero had encountered the remainder of the 17th unit yesterday. X hadn't recognized any of them.

"We can be miserable together now."

And miserable he had been when this entire fiasco had started. He never would have thought the greatest threat to Earth yet would be contained in a Light Capsule. Sometimes Mavericks were right. Sometimes X was too naïve.

"What happened?" Zero's voice was as low as he remembered it, rumbling through X's chest.

"So you remembered how to talk, did you?" X asked him lazily, rolling his head toward his companion but not looking at him. "After ignoring me for so long?"

"It's been two days, not a week, you drama queen," Zero scowled, reaching up to rub between his eyes as if trying to soothe away a headache. X sympathized. "I was hoping to learn something about the situation other than the obvious, but all you've done is ramble."

"I'm bitter and old, I'm entitled to ramble," X told him, taking a sip of his water.

"Sounds more like you just want to talk to someone," Zero said, abandoning his new station as loyal body guard and dropping into the seat adjacent to his. He sounded dazed, and he shook as if he wanted to fight but was being held back. X knew he did want to fight and that he was being held back. It was all X's fault. "I knew you didn't turn on us of your own free will."

He wanted to rub away the ache in his chest. "Shut up. If it weren't for you and your precious Hunters we wouldn't be in this mess."

"You tell me to shut up but you reply anyway," Zero pointed out, as infuriating as always. "We'll work up to that then. So who are they?"

X couldn't seem to smooth the frown off his face. "Who is 'they'?"

"Yesterday, when you made me play bait—" Nice try, Zero, those Hunters had it coming. He felt no guilt. "—there was another unit there during the ambush. Tall, blond, tan skin?"

There was an edge to Zero's voice and X knew why before Zero continued. "He looked similar to me. His signature was close enough to mine that neither I nor the other Hunters knew he was there. You have some explaining to do."

X tried not to smile at the confusion in Zero's voice. The blond knew what the mystery unit was, but not why. "His name is Frith, he's my creation, based on my schematics, as well as yours."

Zero didn't splutter unless he was truly frustrated and at ease. Right now he was tense as he leaned toward X in his seat. "Why?"

X turned to give his companion a deadpan stare. "Because that makes him an ideal soldier. He has brothers. An older twin unit named Sheol, and a younger brother named Xavier."

Twins. The small brunet watched the former Hunter trying to come to terms with the knowledge that he was a creator (through build). It wasn't uncommon for friends to share schematics, as it was. During a lull in Maverick activity, back before X wasn't ashamed to have been a Hunter, someone in the aerial unit had made a newbuilt with the combined schematics of almost every other unit member. Reploids that were built were vastly superior to their mass-produced brethren, and 'created' units (which were growing in popularity) were above even them. They were more stable, less vulnerable to viruses, and they had a family.

If a military setting where your parent and sibling could be ripped away from you at any moment could be considered a proper family for a child. Unfortunately, there just wasn't much in the way of options for Reploids these days. Yet.

"Soldier?" Zero's voice snapped his out of his reverie.

"Dr. Light was aware that I wouldn't be able to take on the Hunters alone, Armors aside," X explained. "He suggested I build them on the pretense of keeping me from getting lonely."

And there was the magic name. "Dr. Light? Your creator is dead, he's been dead for over a hundred years."

"And yet some of his survived through the capsules," X supplied him with some vague answer. He watched his friend's features harden in thought, the dim light making him look aged. Zero wasn't stupid.

"I remember you telling me that's where you got your armors from," Zero said slowly. "And that Light left you a message in every capsule. That's just a recording though."

X shook his head slowly. "This one, the last one, it was different."

"Tell me about it," Zero commanded, and suddenly there was a commlink prompt. X hesitated, wondering if he trusted Zero enough to allow the intimate exchange of information. And then he remembered Zero couldn't lay a finger on him unless he allowed it. X had the good grace to feel sick as he began memory file transfers.

And so began an abbreviation of the most exciting months of X's long life.

~ X ~

X had received many Armor programs before; he hadn't thought twice about downloading what his father's capsule had to offer. If Zero had found him, X lamented, none of this would have happened. The capsule had been hidden so far down in the old subway system that there was next to no chance he would have found it had he not been trapped. It didn't look any different from the countless others he'd stepped into, but the lack of a greeting from the AI inside should have warned him that something was wrong.

He had downloaded a number of full armor programs, pleasantly surprised to find full armors rather than pieces. X had examined each one closely, trying to decide which one he should activate first of the eight. Eight armors. He hadn't noticed that the chattiest program, one that introduced itself as the Valkyrie Armor, seemed… off. He had just been glad for the company as he waited for rescue. When rescue didn't come and his autorepair systems failed to finish his repairs due to lack of energy, X had started to get anxious and frightened. He supposed that was how Valkyrie started to worm its way into his head. He hadn't noticed the convenient feeding of his fears, the gentle commands, the way more and more of his programs stopped responding to him. The mottling of his right eye was likely the result of his programming being altered, because X knew he wasn't infected with the Virus. He'd been too tired, too frightened. Or too naïve.

~X ~

"And then what happened?" Zero asked, looking grim.

X shrugged and didn't go further with his story, though there was still much more left to tell. "You can guess. The Valkyrie program turned out to be a comprehensive AI based on Dr. Thomas Light. It contains all or most of his memories. Shortly after the LWNs, my creations, were activated, he tasked me with creating a shell for him, so he's unable to hear you now, at least. Or me. He's different from what I expected."

He didn't try to keep the disappointment and confusion from his voice.

"So that's who this Dr. Light person is. And he's…trying to reprogram his own creation and take over the world?" The blond's nose wrinkled. X didn't have to hear it to know he was thinking about how unlikely that sounded.

And yet here they were.

"Two of those Armors are extensive, aggressive antiviral programs." He let the implications hang in the air. Why had Thomas, who lived in an age prior to the Reploids and the Maverick Virus crisis, created something like that?

Zero opened his mouth, his incredulous, confused expression promising dozens of questions he wouldn't be able to answer. He wanted to be able to answer them, he just couldn't.

"I don't know anything more about him, or what he wants other than you and I and the LWNs taking out any conceivable threat to him." And there wasn't anything they could do about it.

There was nothing Zero could do about it. X…

He turned to frown down at the city, already awash in lights from the streetlamps. Other than the overpass from the fight yesterday, not a single other building had been damaged and no humans had been displaced, except for in this building. X doubted any sane human would want to board with an insane program, an apathetic former Hunter and his disgruntled bodyguard, and three rowdy newbuilts. Was this really so bad? The Hunters had been corrupt. He'd known that for a long time, Zero had begrudgingly admitted it as well. Even Signas, had X been able to contact him, would have agreed, he knew it. No one had been killed, except for a few Hunters. No civilians harmed, nor property destroyed. As far as he knew, Dr. Light's only goal was wiping out the Virus and "guiding" humanity and Reploidkind alike. But there was something wrong here as well. X and his children, and Zero were all toys to him. And yet… He glanced down at his drink but didn't pick it up, conveniently turning his face fully away from Zero.

X was faced with the uncomfortable revelation that he was no longer under "Dr. Light"'s thumb, and yet he didn't want to do anything at all to stop this.

—

AN: Reviews are nice, though I know this might be a bit too bland or confusing to garner much interest. They really do encourage me to write and they really make my day. You all should be seeing more content from me soon!