The Value of Zero

ZX

Zero found it odd how attached he seemed to be with certain physical aspects of himself.

Obviously, his red armor and Rapunzellian blonde hair were notable. No other Reploid even came close to Zero's appearance, to say nothing of the fact that Zero wasn't a Reploid to begin with, but that was just semantics.

What struck Zero about this was that, as a robot, he could literally change any aspect about himself and still be the exact same in terms of core programming.

His hair, his eyes, even his distinct red armor could be changed so that he would become unrecognizable, yet he continuously chose to stick close to his default appearance with minor tweaks here and there.

As a robot, his adherence to his appearance made little sense. But Zero wasn't just a robot. He was an individual. Unique among all other robots. He felt emotions in the same manner as humanity, along with all the internal conflict that came with said emotions. Again, if he so chose, he could literally delete those parts of himself without a second thought, or even turn them off and on with the flip of a mental switch.

But still, he held those memories tightly in his core files. His activation, discovering the world he had been brought into, becoming a Maverick Hunter... even the death of Iris.

That last memory was almost enough to cause his system to crash every time from sheer overload. Unlike a human, he could remember with exact detail how he had felt, every single nanosecond of seeing her fall, battling her, watching her life expire in his arms… the virtual eternity that was, in truth, no more than seconds to a human became a very literal eternity to a robot, literally breaking down each billionth of a second into a file to be analyzed and archived.

And then there was X. His oldest and closest friend, the only robot that Zero ever felt was worthy of the title of 'Hero'.

He sat at the memorial of the Neo-Blue-Bomber, for once disguised in public, staring at the expertly-crafted memorial.

There was one other facet of Zero that no other robot had... no robot except X; Zero felt the liquid slowly fall down one cheek, leaving a trail as it made its way down his face, then fall to the cold ground below.

As unique as X and Zero were, the results of the most brilliant and most insane robotics geniuses to ever live, respectively, they had become like brothers. They shared worries, they shared hopes, even dreams. Zero wiped the simulated tears from his face and stood, snapping to a brief salute to his fallen brother in arms, turning on a dime to walk away. He saved the visual information of the statue in his data banks, timestamped it, then made his way back to base.

He had promised himself to fight until he could no longer function, or until he could be of better use to the fight for peace in another way. Zero knew he could delete this and every other memory, start from scratch as a new robot, a fresh chance.

But Zero wasn't the kind to run away, or to burn down the past. Until his processor itself broke into splinters, he would keep going, so long as it meant he was honoring his brother's memory.

That was what made him Zero.

ZX

For those who are wondering, yes, Zero is one of my favorite characters of all time.
I admire how he openly refuses to be called a hero, despite the fact that a lesser person, robot or no, would milk that for all it's worth.

In any event, please let me know what you think.

Until then, KRO out!