"Only you can make this world seem right. Only you can make the darkness bright."

- The Joker, Batman: Arkham City

[Branch F-93-2.]

[Recording in progress.]

Fatigue and carelessness were catching up with Four. In the midst of her gleeful killing spree, one of the warriors had just enough time to blindside her and sink his blade into her lightly armored flesh. She knew the wound was fatal when the flower began to rapidly spread its magic through her body.

She fell on her side in a cry of pain. She could feel the life flowing out of her, but a new life started to grow within her. The sensation moved up her body, tingled through her arm, and went into one of her fingers. As her eyes closed and her breaths became soft, she scraped lightly at the ground with a single long fingernail. Where her nail touched, a lush patch of plant life instantly sprouted up from the floor. Her body dissolved, irrigating the small garden and leaving only her metal gauntlet behind. A giant blood-soaked flower grew in the center of the patch, and a new Four burst from its petals. She was almost unrecognizable without her clothes and covered in crimson gore.

Quickly coming to her senses, she picked up her gauntlet and put herself back in the battle. The remaining soldiers were no match for a fully rested Intoner, and Four's bad mood only hastened their demise. She hated having to regenerate in the middle of fighting. Not because she was bitter over her temporary defeat, but because being resurrected in such a manner meant she had to bare herself in front of total strangers. She wanted to be modest and quaint, like a delicate tulip, but here she was in all of her vulgar and disgusting glory. It felt improper every time it happened. If anyone other than her beloved Disciple managed to see her like this, she wasn't going to let them live to talk about it.

She finished them off in seconds. Once they were dead, she stood in patient silence waiting for her next command. She flexed her armored fingers and pondered what kind of apocalypse the flower would make her bring to this world. The game they played was slightly different every time they destroyed another planet.

When most of the flower's restorative nectar had dripped off of her body, she remembered something. She and Septimus had shared their love in her previous incarnation. That meant her appearance had changed again. She had to see for herself.

She anxiously looked about for anything she could use. Her vision settled on a round shield sprawled on top of one of the soldier's corpses. She lifted the shield with both hands, brushed away the soldier's entrails with her gauntlet, and started at her reflection on the polished surface.

She couldn't believe what she saw.

Her long silver hair. Her vibrant rose colored eyes. Her nose, her lips, her neck, and everything she had below. It was beautiful. It had all come out just as she wanted. After waiting for so long, after almost giving up so many times, it had finally worked.

She was Zero. It was a perfect resemblance down to the most minute details.

She had never felt this happy in ages. Her expression of joy started as harmless giggling. It gradually turned into insane, uncontrollable laughter. The Power of Song meant she would always have Four's voice, but that was okay. Zero would get used to it. She would get used to it. She was glad a small part of Four could remain with her after all the hard work she had done. Plus, it just sounded cute.

When she finally relaxed, she sighed contently and smiled to herself. She held the shield to her chest, tightly hugging her own reflection.

Then someone ripped her heart out. The shield fell from her grasp and clattered against the ground.

She looked down and saw the gaping hole in her sternum. Then she looked over her shoulder. Behind her stood a young woman with strange, stick-like limbs and round spectacles holding the missing piece of her body. It was covered in her blood and wrapped in the flower's central root system.

"No... fair…" Four whimpered in pain.

"I apologize for my rude entrance," the mysterious girl said. "I cannot allow you to interfere with timelines outside of this one."

Something was wrong. Four couldn't sense the flower using its magic to give her a new heart. Her strength only continued to fade away. The symbols in her eyes flickered like tiny petal-shaped flames.

"The flower… Why does it feel so weak?"

"It's one of my advanced features," the girl answered calmly. "All Accord models can automatically modify their equipment under extreme circumstances. For this mission, my weapon systems have been reconfigured to the physical composition of Dragonbone. It's the only element we know is effective against the flower. The parasite that allows your body to function is dying."

Four's fear turned to sorrow. Her eyes became moist as she went into a panic.

"But… but I finally got to become Zero. That's all I ever wanted!"

"Zero was eliminated from this Branch years ago." Accord narrowed her eyes. Her voice was cold and impatient. "By your hand, no less."

"No, that's not right. You don't understand!" The Intoner was rapidly losing her composure. "The only reason I did that… the only reason Four did that is because she wanted to free Zero's spirit. My spirit. Everything had gone so badly, it was the only thing she could do."

She started to cough. Blood trickled down the sides of her mouth while tears started to stream from her eyes.

"We... I… The other Intoners! They're the reason Zero turned out like that! I told them we should just go back to her and try to start things over! I told them we didn't need to go on a big fight for peace. I tried to stop them from killing Michael! I really… She really did! I knew that would only make her hate us more. But they were too stupid and selfish to listen to me! We never should have taken him away from her. I… I mean they never should have taken him away from Zero. I mean taken him away from me! Four… I… Four wasn't like the rest. She just wanted us to be sisters again. That's why she used her own life to bring me back!"

"The flower is the reason you have this form." Accord showed her no amount of sympathy. "It realized your obsession was making you more and more unreliable. It only gave you what you wanted as a last resort."

She gazed intently at Four's heart.

"I've observed all possible outcomes for this Branch. If you had gone through one more resurrection in any other body, your mind would have shattered from grief and the flower would have been stuck with a vegetable as its Intoner. Now that it has avoided that outcome and regained your full commitment, it's ready to proceed to the next stage of its infestation. That is a risk I absolutely cannot allow."

Four became even more disjointed. Everything she had worked toward was being dashed away by Accord's stinging words. The pain was unbearable. Her entire body started to tremble as she sobbed.

"No! You can't do this to me! Not now! She's already… I've already lost everything once! I've been through so much and I'm finally ready to move on. Can't I at least have my life? Four would have wanted me to live!"

"You really are pathetic." Accord slowly shook her head. "I thought the greatest threat to the entire metaverse would be more intimidating than this. I expected you to gloat at me about how indestructible you are, or try to convince me the flower is your puppet instead of the other way around. Instead you're just a hopeless crybaby caught up in her own fairy tales. You don't even know who you are anymore."

Four tried to stifle back another wave of tears.

"But… but I'm Ze-…"

Accord crushed the heart in her fist. The Intoner suddenly froze mid-sentence, then toppled into a lifeless heap. Accord dropped the useless organ beside its owner and cleaned her hand with a handkerchief.

"Accord Unit 1138 reporting," she announced to no one in particular. "Surrounding Branches are no longer compromised. The singularity known as Four has been termin-…"

Her voice trailed off as she glanced down at Four's final incarnation. As she stood there, she considered everything she had observed in this timeline and wondered if she should show any sort of pity for the miserable girl. A girl created out of a living doomsday weapon, who was cursed before she was even born and was never allowed a chance to live as a normal human being. A girl who, in all of her catastrophic actions, underneath all of her madness, was just trying to give a tiny amount of meaning to her bleak and artificial life.

Accord sighed in regret before submitting to her conscience.

"Correction. Zero has been laid back to rest."

[Recording ended.]

[Branch F-93-2.]

[Minor error detected in existing record. Re-recording for Quality Assurance.]

Fatigue and carelessness were catching up with Four. In the midst of her gleeful killing spree, one of the warriors had just enough time to blindside her and sink his blade into her lightly armored flesh. She knew the wound was fatal when the flower began to rapidly spread its magic through her body.

She fell on her side in a cry of pain. She could feel the life flowing out of her, but a new life started to grow within her. The sensation moved up her body, tingled through her arm, and went into one of her fingers. As her eyes closed and her breaths became soft, she scraped lightly at the ground with a single long fingernail. Where her nail touched, a lush patch of plant life instantly sprouted up from the floor. Her body dissolved, irrigating the small garden and leaving only her metal gauntlet behind. A giant blood-soaked flower grew in the center of the patch, and a new Four burst from its petals. She was almost unrecognizable without her clothes and covered in crimson gore.

Quickly coming to her senses, she picked up her gauntlet and put herself back in the battle. The remaining soldiers were no match for a fully rested Intoner, and Four's bad mood only hastened their demise. She hated having to regenerate in the middle of fighting. Not because she was bitter over her temporary defeat, but because being resurrected in such a manner meant she had to bare herself in front of total strangers. She wanted to be modest and quaint, like a delicate tulip, but here she was in all of her vulgar and disgusting glory. It felt improper every time it happened. If anyone other than her beloved Disciple managed to see her like this, she wasn't going to let them live to talk about it.

She finished them off in seconds. Once they were dead, she stood in patient silence waiting for her next command. She flexed her armored fingers and pondered what kind of apocalypse the flower would make her bring to this world. The game they played was slightly different every time they destroyed another planet.

When most of the flower's restorative nectar had dripped off of her body, she remembered something. She and Septimus had shared their love in her previous incarnation. That meant her appearance had changed again. She had to see for herself.

She anxiously looked about for anything she could use. Her vision settled on a round shield sprawled on top of one of the soldier's corpses. She lifted the shield with both hands, brushed away the soldier's entrails with her gauntlet, and started at her reflection on the polished surface.

She couldn't believe what she saw.

Her long silver hair. Her vibrant rose colored eyes. Her nose, her lips, her neck, and everything she had below. It was beautiful. It had all come out just as she wanted. After waiting for so long, after almost giving up so many times, it had finally worked.

She was Zero. It was a perfect resemblance down to the most minute details.

She had never felt this happy in ages. Her expression of joy started as harmless giggling. It gradually turned into insane, uncontrollable laughter. The Power of Song meant she would always have Four's voice, but that was okay. Zero would get used to it. She would get used to it. She was glad a small part of Four could remain with her after all the hard work she had done. Plus, it just sounded cute.

When she finally relaxed, she sighed contently and smiled to herself. She held the shield to her chest, tightly hugging her own reflection.

Then someone tried to rip her heart out. She spun around on her toes, threw the shield in her attacker's face, and caused the assailant to clumsily stumble backwards. Four landed on top and held her sharpened gauntlet to the android's neck.

"Ah-ah-ah," she said with an innocent grin. "It's no fun when you play sneaky, Accord."

[Wait, what?]

Accord frantically struggled to fix her glasses.

"You knew I was coming?"

Zero answered her with a small nod.

"Mmhmm. My Intoner powers have helped the flower grow so strong that it can sense threats outside of its own universe. It doesn't just regenerate me anymore. It can regenerate entire timeline Branches. I'll bet this is already going differently from how your records say it happened."

[Yeah, kind of.]

Accord kept her silence. Zero looked down at her with a taunting glare.

[Branch F-93-2 on High Alert. Deploy all available combat units immediately.]

"You've probably already tried sending a bunch of extra Accords to get rid of me," she teased. "There's really no point, you know. The flower will just watch how they fight and create another Branch where I'm ready for them."

[Uhhh… Rescind previous order.]

Four's tone began to change. At first she sounded pouty and stubborn.

"I'm taking the flower out of this Branch whether you like it or not. All it wants from you are some directions. It doesn't really need your help, though. It just wants to make things easier for all of us." Her voice gradually became more ominous. "If you don't want to play along, we'll just have to start picking random timelines and hope things work out. Who knows. Maybe the Flying Garden will end up in whatever dimension you're from."

[SHIT FUCK DAMN CODE BLACK WE'RE IN CODE BLACK WE HAVE A CRACKED HOURGLASS. CORE BRANCHES IN IMMEDIATE DANGER ALL PERSONNEL ON RECORDING DUTY RETURN AT ONCE FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!]

Accord swallowed nervously. There was a short delay before her courage protocols kicked in.

"Go ahead and kill me, Intoner. You've got to be joking if you think I'm just going to tell you how to destroy the entire space-time continuum."

Four responded to her bold declaration with a small burst of tickled laughter.

"Stupid machine. The flower doesn't want to go that far. It would only be dooming itself if that happened. It just wants a peek at your records so it can find some fresh soil. You can stay safe and sound in your little timekeeper universe while the flower gets some more worlds to consume. We both know new Branches are created faster than it can destroy them."

Zero stopped to think to herself. Her gauntlet stayed at Accord's neck while she coyly tucked her other hand under her chin.

"Hmm. Tell you what. You can start off by giving it some Branches that are already falling apart. The kind where things have really gone bad and all they do is give you more paperwork. The flower can take care of everything else. If it likes you, maaaybe it will stay out of the Branches you think are really important."

"We've never had to process this type of request before," Accord spoke in hesitation. "It's going to take me a while to look into it…"

[DO IT DO IT RIGHT NOW THERE ARE NO OTHER STABLE OUTCOMES.]

Something happened in her cybernetic brain. She looked as if she had come to a shocking epiphany.

"Request granted. I am now authorized to share information on Category Z Branches." She submissively tipped her head. "I'm at your service, Lady Four."

The Intoner finally lifted her metal claws from Accord's throat. She mumbled bitterly as she rose to her feet.

"It's Zero, now."

Under different circumstances, Four would have completely lost control of herself and cried her little heart out if someone didn't call her the name she wanted. This time, she just rolled her eyes and blew a puff of air from the corner of her mouth.

Accord slowly sat up and bowed again.

"My apologies, Lady Zero."

[Recording ended.]