"You are our last hope. It's funny. We thought the legendary Zero was nothing more than a fantasy…" admits Ciel quietly. She tucks a stray blonde strand of hair behind her ear, and winces when she encounters a knot on her way to bringing her hand down. The young human drags the rest of her ponytail over her shoulder towards her front and starts combing through it with her gloved fingers, nose wrinkling at the flecks of dirt that plague it. "Sorry, I'm usually more put-together than this," she says witheringly.

The fourteen-year old did just return from being nearly murdered after all.

The red combatdroid standing before her says, "If you thought 'Zero' was a fantasy then what am I…" He trails off as he reaches a hand to his helm as if that'll coach his lost memory back. It doesn't.

"Despite the lies and the propaganda Neo Arcadia feed us, there's usually a grain of truth somewhere. One historical account every school is mandated to tell is the heroic feats of…you, Zero. The legendary robot who fought with X to save the world one hundred years ago."

The warbot perks up, eyes shining with recognition. "X…? That name sounds familiar."

Ciel's shoulders drop. Her lips twist into a joyless smile. "At least you recognize that name. Though that's not much. Everyone knows him," she says stiltedly. "X is the Mega Man. The Azure Angel. The Blue Messiah. The Master of All."

With every title she lists out, Ciel's voice becomes flatter and bitterer. Her hands collapse down to her sides and clench into fists.

"X is the ruthless dictator of Neo Arcadia and he's trying to retire all of us. He's a monster."

Despite the gaping hole in his processor, even Zero can feel something is terribly wrong on a fundamental level. Slowly, he starts," X is trying to…retire you…?"

The teenage girl looks to the side, attempting to hide her face but Zero catches the thinly veiled pained expression. She hugs herself as if cold. "X has been persecuting reploids for Light knows how long. I don't know about the humans outside of Area X, but the humans inside the capital were definitely kept in the dark of how Neo Arcadia kept running for all these years. Reploids are horribly oppressed. It's so hypocritical – how dare they preach to us to be good and kind and sympathetic when they've been…when they've been…!"

Groaning, Ciel rubs her eyes furiously. "Ugh, I promised myself that I would stop crying. It's wasteful…"

She fully turns to the bewildered warbot. Her face is puffy red but determined. "Please help us, Zero. Our future depends on you."

No way, declares tactical automatically. Clearly the Resistance is at its wits' end if it went so far to seek out a seemingly myth of a robot from a century ago as a final attempt to survive. This is not the winning team. Why stake his survival on these people he doesn't know, less alone trust?

And what? Go off alone? Outside conditions are bleak.

Zero won't forget the sight he saw outside of this base, at the perimeter of the ghost city that it has taken refuge in: seemingly endless kilometers of brown wasteland filled with stray rogue mechaniloids and wretched Maverick reploids whose directives have boiled down to "kill anything that moves because it probably has a fuel tank to consume."

Neo Arcadia is also not an option. Zero woke up to getting fired at by their forces – those mass-produced, wretched blue robots that don't even have real faces. If Zero was someone Neo Arcadia wanted to have, why attack him at all? They are a hostile faction.

The warbot has nowhere else more favorable to go.

"I won't help unless you tell me everything," orders Zero. "If I really am this Zero you speak of, what has happened to me? And why are reploids being persecuted?"

Ciel nods. "I understand. It's too much to ask you to help us when you're suffering hibernation sickness." She twists towards the back and points towards the door behind her labeled "Sci. CIEL.". "I don't think I can answer all of your questions, but I'll do my best. Let's go to my room and sit down. This is going to be a long talk."

Zero follows.

"To be honest, I'm not sure what happened to you. We were told that you were X's comrade during the Maverick Wars and you fell sometime in the middle of it."

"So I died?"

"That's what we were told. Again, there's so many things Neo Arcadia tells us that aren't the truth. Before I escaped from Neo Arcadia, I hacked into as many encrypted files as I could in order to get an edge in this war. Some of the files I managed to open involved projects in a highly secured lab in the forest outskirts of the empire and one of them was an in-depth research into your design."

"My design."

"Yes. Most information of the research project was redacted, but what was leftover was enough to let us know a couple things. One, you didn't fall in battle. Instead, you were in hibernation. And two, even though the lab was eventually abandoned, you were cared for."

"…I was cared for?"

"A dear friend of mine…sacrificed herself to wake you up. Neither I nor the other members could get close to you. You had a barrier. Passy was a cyber-elf so she was the only one who could get pass it. But that's the point. If the lab was abandoned and we're in an energy crisis, why was power running through there? And enough power to keep you protected in a force field? Even though you were disassembled and left alone, you're very important, Zero."

"This…this is crossing all my wires. If I was so important then why was I left to rot in that lab? But I was in a force field? None of this makes sense."

"It really doesn't. I wish I knew more."

"It can't be helped." A frustrated sigh. "So. Reploid persecution. What the smelt is going on inside Neo Arcadia?"

Three hours and one energy capsule later, a dangerously quiet Zero agrees to help the Resistance.

Ciel cries out in relief.

The sky is in an uncaring, clear blue with distant dotted puffy clouds above an equally uncaring ocean. The limitless mass calmly laps the hulking pillars that hold up the rundown highway that Zero speeds across, thrusters driven further once he spots four fallen bodies clad in the Resistance's iconic greens creep into his vision.

"Run, now!" Zero orders as soon as he arrives to the scene of the massacre because at least Colbor is alive, standing and trembling like a dumb mech with its gyros dislodged, right before an unfamiliar robot that's firing off multiple blaring warnings in Zero's processor.

The Resistance member startles out of his frozen state, relief instantly washing over his features when he sees the Crimson Hero. "Zero! Thank goodness!" Colbor cries and he hobbles past the red warbot, leaving Zero to face with this stranger. Someone so self-assured in their strength that they simply let Colbor go without fuss, an unspoken message that the Resistance really has nothing against Neo Arcadia.

The android wears formidable, light-weight armor. Powerful jet engines under a pair of sharp wings. Zero glances up to their helmet, trying to figure out if those protruding antennas have any use, but stops short at those stern viridian eyes, filled with something unfathomable.

Zero knows those eyes.

"You must be Zero," the stranger says in faux-politeness. "Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Harpuia, one of the four Guardians of Master X."

That declaration alone has Zero tightening his grips on his buster and his triple rod.

He has to strike first, aim for those wings. He can tell that Harpuia is fast and with the jet propulsion the green android is probably going to hop into the air and take advantage of the -

"Mana Ganeshariff passed me some information about you before you ruthlessly terminated him."

Zero hesitates.

Harpuia continues with a voice as chilly as mountain wind. "The Resistance found you and now you're fighting for them? What are you, a duck? Imprinting on the first faction you see? Are you really the so-called legendary Zero?"

Mouth set to a tight line, Zero glares. "Whether I'm Zero or not doesn't matter. All I know is that Neo Arcadia is oppressing reploids and you're contributing to it. I'm going to put an end to that."

"You woke up a week ago and now you're feeling responsible for people you barely know? You don't know half the story," Harpuia scolds derisively.

"It doesn't take much coding to know what X is doing is wrong."

"If he's wrong then who's right? You? Ciel?" The Leader of the Strong Air Battalion lifts his chin, his entire form painting a patronizing picture. "Exactly what are you fighting for?"

Harpuia is making it really hard for Zero to restrain himself. The warbot wants to slice him down, but this is the first time any Neo Arcadian that Zero has faced is willing to talk. Maybe he can learn something.

"Anyone with a functioning processor can see that X has gone insane and Neo Arcadia is a joke," says Zero deliberately provoking, and he feels a tendril of accomplishment when Harpuia's eye twitches. "Ciel wants a world where humans and reploids can live together peacefully. That's a cause worth fighting for."

"A world where humans and reploids can live together peacefully…" Harpuia repeats slowly, drawing it out to the point it borders condescension. "Sounds familiar. In fact, it sounds like Elysium. Master X's Elysium." He pointedly glares at the red warbot. "You've been on the wrong side this entire time."

Suddenly Zero doesn't feel as secure as he was a minute ago. "What the fritz are you talking about?"

"Do you know why the Elf Wars happened?"

The constant non-sequitur is knocking Zero off-balance. Harpuia is talking about things that Zero neither know nor remember, and the red combatdroid grits his teeth, frustrated at the void in his memory banks.

Harpuia seems to sense Zero's struggle and takes pity. "They were the World War II to the Maverick Wars' World War I. The cause for both wars were the same: A megalomaniac takes advantage of a horribly flawed species and turns them against the rest of the world.

"Can you really call the current lines of reploids a proper 'people' when it's so easy to possess them? That they have so little a soul that all it takes is a malfunction, a virus or a sentient program to transform them into mindless murderers?"

Zero isn't…he's not prepared for this.

"Neo Arcadia has gone off the deep end," he echoes Ciel's words because they're all what he has for now and he can at least believe in her. "It's a dictatorship where normal reploids holds the lowest class. A single sign of opposition of a reploid from a model line shuts the entire line down – "

"Because they need to start over," Harpuia counters like a gavel slamming down, a final judgment. "Ciel is a misled child who doesn't know better. She and Master X share the same dream, but she's executing it incorrectly. The reploid lines need to be constantly purged and upgraded until they become real people. Or else it'll take another dolt like Weil to kill the world again."

Harpuia walks forward briskly but he's looking past Zero as if the red combatdroid is beneath him. His green wings barely brush against the stunned warbot's arm. "Don't you see? Master X has seen it all while you…slept." The disapproval rings loud and clear. "You're not responsible for the fate of all reploids. He is. They're his mistake to fix. You want real peace? Then get out of our way. You're not necessary to Master X or to his vision. The least you can do is not interfere while I take care of the real Mavericks."

Suddenly Harpuia stops in his steps. It takes a second for Zero to realize that he has grabbed the younger android's wrist. Zero didn't even realized he moved at all.

"…I was going to let you go because if you are indeed Zero, you were Master X's friend," Harpuia says matter-of-factly. "Do you really want to go against us? Even though we're the ones in the right?"

"I've lost a lot of my memories," Zero confesses like seizing ceratanium teeth from his jaw. "But the few ones I have…the ones I have of X…he never wanted things to turn this way. He'd never believed in killing a minority in order to fulfill a vision. It's a fake utopia built on death. That's not true peace. He'd never kill innocent people for evolution. That's what…" Zero's eyes flash. "That's what Sigma did!"

Conviction renewed, Zero activates his weapon just as Harpuia rips himself away from the red warrior's grasp to seize a large leap away, creating space between the two of them.

"Sigma? I guess that answers my question. And yet you choose to go against us? Such foolish behavior for a legendary hero to side with the Mavericks…" Harpuia whispers venomously, his arms drawn up to an X-shape over his chest. He swings them down to reveal two bright magenta sabers that catches Zero's attention.

The shape, the design, there's something about those swords…

"Before the world can return back to zero, it seems I'll have to take care of the actual Zero first."

Hardened, Harpuia lifts one sword and aims it at the crimson warbot. "I'd rather not waste time terminating ignorant yet perfectly fine bots, less alone someone like you. But perhaps Master X will find it in him to forgive me. He doesn't need you. We don't need you."

Before Zero can ask what the fritz Harpuia is talking about, the Guardian is already flying in the air, ready to strike.

"Thanks to you, Colbor was rescued," Ciel says quiet and sincere. Her blonde hair is nearly spilling out of her usually well-kept ponytail. She's exhausted. "He sometimes makes mistakes but he is a good reploid at heart. Please forgive him."

She doesn't say anything about the rest of Colbor's fallen team, maintaining a smile the same way she maintains the base's morale. Genuine yet barely hanging in there. The young scientist's fingers are tightly clasped together in a constant, subconscious prayer. In various corners of the humble, two floored Data Center are various Resistance members laying against the cool, grey walls, resting. The room is a short breath of relief between pains.

Considering how all the odds are stacked against the resistance, morale is precious commodity. Zero doesn't make any comment.

"You've been roughed up too," Ciel notes, sky-blue eyes boring on the various cuts and shed hydraulic fluids all over Zero. "I'll tell Rocinolle to get Medbay set up for – "

"I'll be sufficient with a couple pellets and a full recharge. Self-repair can take care of the rest," Zero cuts in despite the ache clinging stubbornly to his legs and abdomen. The Resistance's resources are low and must be rationed, and if Zero really is the legendary warrior Ciel claims he is, then he will be fine.

Yet Ciel immediately snaps her back straight, hands parting to become clenched, determined fists by her side. "You just fought Harpuia, Zero," she asserts as an explanation. "Go to Medbay."

Harpuia.

"The Guardians…did they come with Neo Arcadia's conception or much later?" the warbot asks.

Ciel pauses.

"I…I don't know," she admits, looking away. "I can only say that they're older than me. They were always there as long as I can remember."

"I see," Zero says simply and leaves it at that.

"Did something happen, Zero?"

He doesn't answer. He simply strides towards the exit out of the makeshift watch floor, distantly hearing Ciel's, "Oh, um – anyways, please go to Medbay!" behind him.

He's greeted to a sight of Colbor waiting for him at the other side of the door. The reploid's goggles are sitting limply around his neck, revealing his eyes that would be crying if he - and every other reploid at base for that matter – contained enough water to produce tear ducts. Water is also a precious commodity entirely reserved for cleansing and Ciel's survival.

Crying itself is a luxury no one can afford here.

"Thank you," Colbor says voice cracking. "I can still work here. Thanks to you."

He bows deeply, his upper half a perfect perpendicular angle from the ground, and as he rises back up he hitches. He's staring at Zero's waist.

"That's his saber," Colbor says dumbly.

Zero glances down at the newly acquired weapon and then back to Colbor.

"I couldn't kill him. Before I could, he recovered. He may have used a cyber-elf. But I did take his weapon," Zero explains.

"…Robin, Mesange, Bouvreuil, Colibri."

Colbor's newly terminated team. Zero did not know them well, but he remembered the lively bunch.

It's going to be a little quieter from now on.

"He killed them with that saber," Colbor spits bitterly. "None of us has a chance. If you fight that monster – if you fight any of X's guard dogs, I hope you cut them down with Harpuia's own blade. Dunk them in acid, Zero."

"I cannot guarantee that," replies Zero bluntly. Because Harpuia's saber, despite the bizarre déjà vu it gives off, doesn't feel completely right in Zero's hand when he tried it. It's well-balanced, but the reach is small and the charge disappointingly weaker than he expected. Still, it's effective and now it's just one of the few limited tools the warbot can utilize to raise his kill count.

But he had one tool. A special one. Didn't he?

(Did he?)

"Their transport chopper is rapidly approaching. Stay alert, Zero!" Ciel warns in the radio before the actual chopper arrives. Its deafening blades sweep the rest of Ciel's voice and the surrounding sand, pooling the yellow grains in wide swirls as it slows into a stop, hovering.

A door bursts open from its side and a red robot hops off from the chopper gracefully, his landing summoning a blanket of dirt, momentarily fogging them until they step out of it to face Zero.

Zero just finished laying waste line after line of Neo Arcadia's troops, the desecrated remains of dead mechs collecting sand behind him his trail of achievement. Still he readily assumes a combat-ready position, alert.

This newcomer's build outclasses everything Zero has seen so far in the desert: hardy, bright red plating lined in white and gold shielding the extended limbs and joints, topped off with a heavily guarded helm that's shaped as fanged jaws. Any part of the body that's not exposed is covered in thick insular padding.

The android cocks a hip to the side as he hefts his unwieldy arm cannon over one protruding shoulder pauldron. Casual.

Zero is receiving approximately the same number of warnings that he had when he saw Harpuia.

This is not a coincidence.

"You're one of the Guardians," Zero declares.

The other red robot grins. "You're right. I'm Fefnir, one of the four Guardians of Master X."

Then his eyes widen comically, theatrically so. He pounds the bullet end of his arm cannon onto the palm of his other hand, an exaggeration of gestural realization.

"You're Zero, right? The 'highly-skilled reploid in the Resistance.' I heard you're pretty good." Fefnir stretches out to one side to peer behind Zero's back and whistles, impressed. "Bolts, seem to be about right."

As soon as the Leader of the Scorched Earth Squadron's hand goes down, his cannon goes up. Cheekily, he remarks, "Welp. Bye Zero."

If he dodged a split-second slower, Zero would have a blast of fire melting the faux-skin off his face.

Straight to combat without any confusing questions or monologues. Zero finds himself secretly relieved.

Unlike Harpuia who was an aerial-specialized combater, Fefnir is overall better balanced. He's effectively combining the use of distanced weaponry with solid melee techniques, Fefnir is neither disadvantaged in close or ranged battles. Still he's carrying a lot of weight and bulk, meaning that as long as Zero stays light on his toes Fefnir won't be able to catch up to him and inflict damage.

Zero dashes in low and strikes for Fefnir's legs, but before he can swing his saber he feels a claw-like grip swing into his chest, digging in so hard that Zero feels his thin chasis crack, and gets slammed backwards into the ground. Sand explodes upon impact.

Zero gasps at the sudden strain on his shock absorbers, but quickly twists around to get off of his back, his long hair whipping around dust as he maneuvers his sword to stab backwards right by his side.

He receives a surprised squawk for his reward.

"Not bad, Zero!" the Guardian praises, jumping back to pat the wound on his side. He raises the gleaming liquid to his eyes and grins. "No wonder Master X liked you. Hell, it hasn't been two minutes and I'm already starting to like you!"

Fefnir leaps forward and punches right at Zero's feet. The Crimson Hero is already in the air, a hand reaching out to meet the expecting cannon's head and he knocks it to the side, feeling the fire's heat kissing him.

"For once, someone doesn't break when I touch them. Shame that you're our enemy," Fefnir comments lightly as if he's talking about bad weather. He parries a couple thrown punches at his face then skids backwards with a smooth swerve of pedes, shrugging. "But eh, job's a job. Sometimes you have to burn the earth to fertilize it so the seeds can grow into healthier trees. I wonder how Master X will feel if I burn you and toss your ashes over him. Kinda like that human ritual thing – confetti, was it? Wonder if he would like that."

Fefnir abruptly freezes in place and Zero hesitates despite it being an opportune moment to strike, wary.

A large smile splits the Guardian's face in half as he wraps his belly with his free arm. His blood-red eyes are seeing off into the distance, consumed with unadulterated glee. "Ohhh wow, smelt me! What was that?! I never felt anything like that before! That was the most satisfying rush I've had yet – I guess now I really have to set you on fire!"

"What is wrong with you," Zero deadpans. He kicks off his thrusters, circling around as fast as he can while firing his buster gun.

Instead of dodging, Fefnir automatically raises his cannon like a shield. Zero's shots leave behind a trail of black scorch marks on the surface. "You should be asking yourself that question later when your parts are all over the desert!" he cackles.

"The X I remembered didn't like violence," Zero says as he continues firing, aiming to wear down at a critical joint or two. He stops for a second to fling out his shield boomerang for extra measure. "He fought because he had to not because he wanted to. Has he really stooped so low to keep someone as unhinged as you by his side?"

Suddenly Fefnir bends his legs and aims his cannon buster in the air, balls of fire like comets raining from the heavens around him like a humanoid volcano.

The smart route is to increase distance, but Zero makes the snappy decision to take a risk and close it, planning to take advantage of Fefnir's vulnerability –

And barely catches himself from tripping when his foot breaks through into something.

The fire – it wasn't to force Zero to back away, but to modify the environment. The sheering heat has transformed parts of the battlefield's surface into glass, and Zero wastes a precious few seconds trying to break out of the inconvenience while Fefnir closes in again.

Zero expects to be fired at again – and is mentally thrown off when Fefnir lifts his arms up in a boxer's position. "You good in hand-to-hand? No one else besides Father has given me a challenge yet."

"'Father?'" Zero would have forgo the hand-to-hand for an energy weapon if it weren't for that one word. He feels he's at a brink of a well of something he needs to know and Fefnir is tugging the ropes down, raising the bucket.

"Ah smelt me," Fefnir groans, eyes rolling before barreling against Zero with his fists, all of which Zero parries. "I need to stop slipping up like that – oof! Nice swing!" he adds when Zero catches him at the chin. "That one stung."

Zero glares. This child is treating all of this like a game. "Exactly what are you? Besides being his general, what are you to X?"

"Bolts, and here I thought Ciel knew enough to tell you. Glad to know the Resistance's recon efforts are as pathetic as a mettool." Something wild and ineffable taints Fefnir's easygoing grin as he spreads his arms wide, presenting himself theatrically. "Come on Zero, it's me! Don't you recognize your old pal X?"

Fefnir's head snaps backward, wincing. "Ow, wow okay, now that was a really good swing."

"Stop screwing around and answer me! What are you!?" Zero snarls, gripping the pair spikes on Fefnir's chest to pull the other robot close, commanding attention. "You're a reploid aren't you? Why would X make more reploids when he's so determined to kill them off? What makes you special?"

Fefnir barks out in laughter. "That last one really rubbed acid on you! Seriously though, I'm not lying." He tilts his head lazily to the side. "I'm his right-hand man." He waggles his arm cannon. "Hah, get it? Get it?" He waves it away with a chuckle. "Of course you don't. Bot, this is hysterical."

Then he grabs the sides of Zero's head and butts their foreheads together. Zero lets go and stumbles backwards.

Zero's internal ventilations are protesting loudly against him. He feels Fefnir's shadow over him but the heat and the earlier battles are starting to wear on him. He runs a diagnostic and his body reports back that he's on the verge of overheating.

(Isn't Zero supposed to be sturdier than this?)

Bending down to meet Zero's eyes, Fefnir grabs the back of Zero's helmet and pulls it backward, forcing Zero to look up to the other android.

Fefnir's red eyes roam around Zero's face. He must have found something because he finally nods, letting go. Zero's head flops back down with a pained hiss.

Sighing, the Guardian drops down next to him, elbows resting on his propped up knees. "If I knew I was going to fight you today I would have taken a break after work," he says wistfully. "Would have commanded the mechs to stop attacking you too. Now we're both exhausted from fighting at half-power. We're so fritzing lame. Bolts, what a pair of oil spills we make."

Fefnir starts laughing again, this time slapping Zero's back amiably.

"I've made up my mind: I'm going to let you live a little longer! If I kill you like this, I'm going to regret it." Fefnir gets up and stretches, ignoring that his various wounds are bleeding harder from the effort. "So I'll just hop back on the transport chopper and go back home if you don't mind. Make sure you don't lose before we fight again."

With one hand on Harpuia's stolen saber, Zero surges upward with all his strength, slashing across Fefnir's cannon right where he spies the thin line of where the parts were assembled.

The younger robot yelps and gawks when the front top and bottom portions of his weapon slide off like a lopped off top of a fruit. Zero is displeased to see that the cannon's muzzle remain.

"Oh come on, I had Sodom and Gomorrah redone two days ago!" Fefnir cries as he picks up the fallen pieces that Zero realizes are actually stabilizers. Fefnir's weapon looks less like a cannon and more of a buster skeleton reworked around his trigger hand. "Don't tempt me into blasting your head off after I literally just spared you."

"If you let me live, you'll regret it too," Zero growls darkly though his processor, dazed and at a brink of short-circuiting, is elsewhere. He can't stop looking at Fenrir's buster. "This is a war and you're treating it as a game. Your victory is not scratched in metal."

The other robot scoffs. "Pffft. Now that's where you're wrong."

Fefnir bares his ceratanium canines, his ember-like eyes burning bright. "The Resistance already lost. Come on you old rustbucket, did your tactical deteriorated while you slept? We know your base is somewhere in that city over there. If we wanted to finish you all off in one go, we'd drop a bomb and level the whole fritzing thing down. What's one more after the Elf Wars, right? Ciel's alternate energy research and our interest in you are what's stopping us from laying another MOAB right now." He smirks. "You think this is war? Naw, a war implies that both sides are even. This is just sad."

Zero's fingers curl into fists. A part of Zero already knows that the Resistance is on the losing side. But he's betting on that three point two percent chance that Neo Arcadia's forces are spread thin in order to support a domed empire too large, too busy, and too arrogant to bother using full force on the Resistance. Appearing weak and feeding underestimation can give Ciel's faction a chance until they come up with something.

"Seems like my ride's coming around again," Fefnir announces cheerfully over the distant hum of approaching air transit and Zero's increasingly hazy processor. "See you later, Zero!"

"Thank you, Zero," Zero hears Ciel's voice chime into their channel some time later. "If our defense line was broken, this Base wouldn't last long…still, I can't believe you wiped out such a large number of enemies…you are truly a legendary hero."

But I didn't win, Zero doesn't say, frustration building.

He was allowed to not lose.

Night was aging by the time Zero hears the door creak. All the other wounded are fast asleep, every medical slab occupied. The warbot is the only one who hasn't gone to recharge.

The combatdroid blearily drags his gaze towards a small reploid at Medbay's entrance.

Alouette spots Zero watching her and she tiptoes towards his corner, careful not to disturb the other occupants.

A child reploid. Among all model lines Neo Arcadia can produce, why a child reploid? Her existence makes no sense to Zero. He can't even take a guess of what kind of designation Alouette originally had. When they first met, this small thing shied away and spoke little.

Now she's coming closer, brown plated shoes clacking timidly despite her best efforts. No one stirs.

"Zero, can I ask you a question?" she asks quietly when she comes close. "Do we need to find another home?"

Alouette hugs her white doll tightly. "Ciel says that everything's going to be okay, but I'm scared. Neo Arcadia sent their army at us. They know where we are. They're going to come to hurt us again, won't they? We…we can't stay here much longer."

It's futile, Zero thinks tiredly.

Because even if the Resistance wants to move, it can't without it inflicting a major blow at their eternally decreasing stock. The amount of energy and effort to regather all of the hard-earned scavenged materials. And what vehicles do they have to uproot the Medbay's equipment and recharge capsules to another location? A location that has to be close enough to Neo Arcadia and the resource-rich, techno-organic forests that surround it, but far enough that it takes effort on the metropolis' part to retaliate against the Resistance Base if it wants to again. And that's not even factoring in trudging through vicious terrain filled with multiple hazards including wandering Mavericks, unpredictable and ruthless weather, and fritz, the list never ends. The Resistance relies on the survival of their fragile human leader.

Basically as far as Zero knows, Neo Arcadia is the sole safe bastion in the hellscape that is the post Elf War-devastated world. If there's a haven for the Resistance somewhere, it's not reachable.

The warbot has done his calculations. No matter how many missions he succeeds and how many enemies he slices down, the Resistance still sits on the broad side of Neo Arcadia's blade. All it takes is for Neo Arcadia's emperor to care enough to flick the sword and slice them apart. It's stressing and depressing.

Before he woke up, did Zero ever go through anything as punishing as this? He feels a constant, invisible itch in his compact tank. Like something inside him is dislodged and he wasn't properly put back together.

"Neo Arcadia is expecting us to die out of attrition," Zero says finally just to say something when Alouette starts appearing increasingly distressed. "We won't."

Because chances are if the Resistance gets decimated, it'll be by something else. Something big and swift with no room to fight back.

At least it won't be slow.

"My name is Leviathan, one of the four – "

Zero lunges forward with a fully-extended triple rod, frowning when the other android swims smoothly out of the way.

"Rude! I was trying to introduce myself!" Leviathan shrills indignantly, cheeks puffing. She lays her hands on her hips, which Zero suspects are containing extra subtanks, wired to the probably sophisticated propellers and auto-balancers embedded in her legs.

The red warbot kicks off in a jump to hurry back on the ground to re-stabilize his footing. He says, "You're one of the four Guardians of Master X and you're here to retire me. I know the drill. Let's get to it."

He doesn't want to stay in the water too long. Working his vocals up to communicate effectively underwater is hard enough already, Zero's sensory inputs are dampened by all this liquid. Also, considering how Leviathan's head fins are acting as effective rudders, allowing her to use minimal energy to steer direction, she's clearly meant to be an aquatic-based android. Zero is in a field disadvantage.

The blue android crosses her arms, legs lazily swinging back and forth to keep her in place underwater. "Excuse you, I'm not here to fight you. I'm here to check you out. You're all what Harpuia and Fefnir talk about these days so I got curious."

Zero can feel a short circuit coming. "Really."

Leviathan nods. "I'm not fond of violence. There's so little in this world that has any value anymore. Why make that worse?"

If Leviathan intended for her words to relax Zero, it has done the exact opposite. Despite her soft smile, there's something in her eyes that raises Zero's guard.

She notices. "Hmm, I don't blame you for not believing. Here, what if I do this?"

The aquatic android dives down slowly to lay her feet on the cavern floor like Zero, as if aware that any sudden movements will have the warbot reaching for his weapons again. Holding Zero's gaze, she slowly bends down and lays her spear on the ground, rising back up with her hands up.

"See? I'm not here to fight you. I just want to make a decision."

Zero's fingers tighten at his buster's trigger by his waist despite the display of vulnerability.

"Come on, without my spear I'm a defenseless damsel! You don't need to be so uptight around me!" she whines, stomping one foot down like a child. "Do you really think a woman like me can hurt you?"

Zero doesn't budge. His eyes narrow because his processor is still signaling off klaxons.

A tense minute ticks by and then Leviathan's superficial pout drops for a thin line of intrigue. She straightens up, legs untwisted and feet no longer awkwardly pointing towards each other. Her curled up shoulders settle down and her scrunched up hands fall gracefully down by her side. The air around her changes as her shallow mask fades away.

"No response. Huh," she comments lightly with a smile that Zero's threat assessment reads as genuine. She taps her chin thoughtfully, ocean deep eyes full of scrutiny. "The whole woman thing makes no sense to you, does it? You really aren't some Neo Arcadian runoff. Harpuia did say you knew about Sigma, but…I wanted to make sure."

"What are you trying to get at?" demands Zero.

Leviathan clasps her hands behind her back as she takes one dainty step after another to the side, not looking at Zero anymore.

"It's okay. You don't need to know," she says airily, more to herself than to Zero as she stares upwards. Light refractions caused by the water surface dribble across her face. "Just one of the many necessary measures we had to do to ensure human survivability."

She shakes her head. She brings her hands forward and steeples them together as she looks over her shoulder to hold Zero's gaze again. "That's probably not relevant to you though. Master X did say that around the end you started despising humans."

"…I did?" Zero can't help but ask. This is the most information he's ever received about himself outside of what Ciel has told him.

She tilts her head. "So you don't remember that time. Hmm. Hey, does the name 'Iris' mean anything to you?"

The way she's staring at him meaningfully makes Zero uncomfortable. That name must be important. Why else would a Guardian say it? Unless this is some psychological ploy to throw him off? Either way, all Zero can come up with is nothing. His memories haven't progress as fast as he liked them to.

He's reminded once again at how little he's running on in this life.

"So you don't," Leviathan concludes in the trailing silence. "I guess there's hope for you yet." Raising her hands to her hips, she forces a harsh stream of bubbles when she harrumphs. "Do you know how much of an oil spill you've made back home? Both Harpuia and Fefnir were arguing the pros and cons of letting you run around so it's up to me to be dealmaker to shut them up. Phantom's opinions don't count since he hasn't met you yet."

There it is again. The nonchalant jab at how much stronger Neo Arcadia must be for its rulers to afford this lenient attitude. No matter how powerful Zero is, there's only one of him and that's nothing to an empire.

"To be honest, I'm not sure what to do with you," the Leader of the Deep Sea Squadron answers. "You don't remember everything and who knows how you're going to turn out once you do? Or maybe you never will? Do you care about Ciel even though she's a human? Because I don't want to take you back home if you hate humans, or if you eventually hate them. In my house, we like humans." She brings both hands to her temples, rubbing them. "Ugh, this is giving me a short-circuit. This is stupid."

Something in Zero grows cold. Self-diagnostic check helpfully informs him that the water temperature has not changed.

"What do you mean taking me back home?" he asks cautiously.

"Exactly what I mean. Once we started talking about it, Fefnir got really into it," she says twirling in place, sing-song. "He's such a combat nerd and he finds you a lot of fun. I personally think it'll be awesome 'cause think about it! You get to be reunited with Master X! The legendary war hero duo from the last century back together again. Doesn't that sound great?"

Her eyes glow predatorily "You messed up, Zero but it's okay. Master X will probably forgive you. Then you can finally be back where you belong."

Back where I belong…?

Zero remains silent.

Hands still raised up, Leviathan takes small dainty steps towards the red warbot. "Neo Arcadia's got weather control and real plants, y'know. Seriously, our city is the most beautiful thing you'll ever find in this world." She pauses. "Well, besides the ocean that is. But that's also not too far off so our location is really optimal. Especially at Area-X. You'll have the best view from there."

When she's a couple meters away, the blue android starts circling around him, continuously selling Neo Arcadia. "Last time I checked, we're at least fifteen thousand kilometers square and we're looking to expand! We're going to terraform more land and construct more domed cities. Meanwhile, you can enjoy actually knowing what civilization is in Neo Arcadia – bolts, you'll get the VIP treatment! You won't have to fight anymore. I don't know about you, but I don't like fighting. Why do that when you can – I don't know, go take a swim or play with the human kids? Oh bot, the kids - they're so great to play with. If you poke them, they laugh because they're ticklish. They're so funny! You should try it."

Zero was quietly following the other's movements with his eyes, making sure not to let Leviathan leave from his sight until that last comment. Then he pointedly glares. "So you can blissfully play with children knowing they are the result of hundreds of genetic engineering."

Leviathan stops in her tracks.

"When I told Ciel that I remember of humans having diseases, disabilities, and mutations, she was shocked." Zero's eyes grow distant as he recalls again of someone he used to know whose name still eludes him. Someone who he remembered always being in a wheelchair. "She told me that she hasn't seen a 'flawed' human even outside of Area X-2."

"We got the formula down," Leviathan answers with a forcibly careless shrug. "Did you know Ciel is one of those kids? She's a success story. She wouldn't have survived outside of Neo Arcadia without falling victim to radiation, disease, starvation – all the nasty stuff that's out there. We upgraded humans and made them better. We're doing a good thing."

"The same way you upgrade reploids?" Zero responds bitingly. "Then I have a question. What happens to the failed humans?" When he receives no response, he continues," Did you purge them the same way you purge failed reploids?"

Zero silently equips his buster in one hand and Harpuia's saber in another.

"X isn't just oppressing reploids. He's oppressing everyone. Ciel told me that she was taught to pray for hope and peace all for 'Master X.' She was taught that X was the be-all and end-all."

"There's a problem when trying to force beliefs down the throats of children genetically modified to figure out how to take apart and put together advanced robots by the age of nine," Ciel's sorrowful voice echoes in Zero's mind. "Brainwashing clashes with critical thinking. I kept on feeling something was off. Like I lived in a simulation and there were glitches everywhere."

"She was taught that reploids aren't like humans. They're expendable."

"But I kept on studying and studying because they told me I had to improve the template. I had to find out on my own that reploids were people! They can think and feel like humans – and this evil empire had conditioned all of them to believe all their lives combined worth less than a human's! It's not fair! None of it is!"

"How do you know that you're not being manipulated right now? You're a reploid! How can you be a part of this system?" Zero accuses.

"You don't know anything," says Leviathan flippantly. She doesn't appear the least perturbed. "And what you said doesn't even apply to me. I'm not a real reploid."

Zero blinks. He opens his mouth for an elaboration when Leviathan throws her hands up with an exaggerated sigh.

"What did I expect. Both Harpuia and Fefnir couldn't get you to stop. You laid all your trust in that stupid girl. That's what we get for not getting to you first." She shakes her head. "And here I was hoping we get to add another chair to the table."

She barely takes another step when Zero's threat assessment spikes. He reflexively jumps up, releasing a fully charged buster blast below him so the momentum pushes him farther away, narrowly avoiding the multiple homing spear heads aiming where he used to be.

Zero fires multiple shots, all of which Leviathan dances around with the simple kick of her legs and her thrusters. She's startling fast - faster than both Harpuia and Fefnir despite the frictional drag of being underwater. Her thrusters are that powerful.

Zero needs to take that speed away.

Leviathan clicks her tongue and skids low with unseen speed as her homing weapons return to her. She bends low to pick up her previously discarded weapon. "I really don't like fighting. But…" she smirks. "I guess it would be fun to see my brothers' faces when they find out I retire you."

Zero raises his sword just in time to block a lunging spearhead towards his core.

"Ciel, do you really believe your energy research will help?" Zero asks in the restless hum of the teenager's office.

"I think it can be used as a bargaining tool or it can give us more time," Ciel says optimistically as she stacks her newly acquired books from the latest scavenging. The Resistance recently found another university library in the city ruins, one that was blessedly not entirely decimated. It even had clean, blank papers (the scorched copy machines had to be cracked open first) and some preserved writing supplies for them to use. "Depleting resources and energy crises is a constant concern. The current crisis has been around since the Elf Wars and it's been worsening in the past couple of years. If Neo Arcadia wants to survive, it needs me."

After planting the last of her treasures on her desk, Ciel turns to Zero with a confident smile. "I was Neo Arcadia's leading scientist in the energen linkage project before I left. I made more leaps and bounds in it than anyone else did. Just a little more time and focus on my research and I can do it. And since we have you being our guardian, it's very possible."

Her expression softens. "I truly can't thank you enough, Zero. With your help, I think I can save everyone."

"…What if Neo Arcadia doesn't listen?" asks the warbot, already factoring and calculating as many worst case scenarios.

Ciel pauses. Her sky-blue eyes turn thoughtful.

"You know what? My experiments are going fine so far…once we succeed in developing a substitute energy, we can go wherever we like. We can find another place to live a happy life." She looks up and clasps her hands together as she envisions a better life. "If Neo Arcadia chooses to stay as our enemy, we can go somewhere out of their reach. We don't need to rely on their resources anymore! Anywhere else we can live in peace, free from the anxiety of hunger in a warm blanket of happiness…"

Her cuts herself and rubs the back of her head shyly. "I'm getting ahead of myself, sorry. It's just. I'm so happy. Things are going well and I'm feeling really hopeful." Ciel's face reddens. "A-Anyways, if that happens…you're going to come with us, aren't you, Zero?"

Taken aback by the sudden question after being carried into the flow of the girl's sincere and positive speech, Zero forces himself to nod. The Resistance is his chosen faction after all. Also, the more he learns of Neo Arcadia's atrocities, the less interest he has in its inhabitants and whatever past lofty connections he had with them.

Zero doesn't need his memories to know that he's designed to be a weapon. To fight is his reason to exist.

And fighting for a good cause…to be the sword and shield for those who can't protect themselves…

That appeals to him. He doesn't know why when tactical tells him it means nothing to his personal survival, but it feels right. In a world that's already gone to bolts, Zero latches on that small bit of reassurance with everything he has.

He needs to. He doesn't have anything else.

The energen producing factory is all high ceilings with thick cables large enough for someone like Alouette to crawl though vining throughout its caverns. It groans and moans with stubborn activity around Zero as he steps in, the dying light of the red setting sun blinking shut as the gates close behind him. He's draped in shadows and aching yellow lights with the occasion dim, flashing colored lights from the surrounded automata.

"This is strange…none of our watches are responding…" whispers Ciel in the radio. Her voice is heavily fraught with worry.

Zero's proximity alerts, which have been buzzing antsy since he's entered this metal dungeon, are suddenly screaming at him. He leaps backwards – and keeps leaping backwards as the row of aimed knives follow him several paces back.

The warbot is has already reached for his buster to shoot the blurring movement above him. There's a dark shape expertly snaking through the jungle of pipes and wires as Zero chases after it.

Then it lands neatly on the ground in front of Zero, forcing the warbot to stop and assess.

It's another robot. They're clad in whites and blacks, donning an outstretched mask over the upper half of their face. Slim figure, lots of mechanical mesh and the way this robot barely made a sound upon landing – sound absorbent pedes. It's impressive how they're able to maneuver around so quietly without releasing a single clank of the blade on their back as well as the various circular devices by their belt.

"Who are you?" Zero demands though he has an educated guess from the black robot's familiar design.

Ciel said there's only four Guardians in total. Crossing out of who he has already met, there's only one Guardian left.

Phantom, the Leader of the Cutting Shadow Squadron, says nothing. He only dashes forwards, blade prepped in hand.

Straight into battle without prologue. Zero has nothing but wariness and contempt towards Neo Arcadia's generals, but he can almost call Phantom his favorite amongst them just for being the one enemy who isn't confusingly chatty.

Though the Guardian is compensating his lack of talk with his movements. Zero would be twisting towards the side to avoid a blade, only for it to explode in multiple directions. The red combatdroid is constantly on the tips of his feet as Phantom dives in and out from the shadowy corners of the room, which only grows as every stray kunai hits a light, further darkening Zero's surroundings.

The black android is tricky. He's frugally keeping his cards hidden, revealing new techniques as he steadily changes the battlefield.

Zero slashes at something in the corner of his eye. His blade goes through nothing. The mirage fizzes through and Zero fails to evade the sharp nick on his shoulder. He dodges to the side, hand over the wound. If he didn't move further faster in time, that cut would have sliced through his neck.

"You should have remained lost," whispers the dark venomously.

Zero hesitates and the timing couldn't have been worse. More and more holographic versions of Phantom charge towards him from all directions, and the warbot curses under his breath, his vision and his reflexes are arguing with his proximity alerts. He narrowly misses a blow from above.

Just as he considers closing his eyes to block out the conflicting inputs, Zero sees a giant four-winged blade swirling towards him and he ducks.

"All you've done was hurt him. You're the worst thing that has ever happened to him and this world," Phantom' echoes insidiously around the crimson combatdroid. It's calm and everywhere like the low rumbling thunder before the storm. A voice of a higher entity. "At least when you were asleep he could have kept the best parts of you alive."

"What are you talking about!" Zero yells as he twirls in place with his saber when his proximity alerts inform of something real approaching him. His sword cuts through circuitry and he growls in frustration when the hologram glitches to reveal a Pantheon. Phantom's sneaking real robots in his illusions now.

"You were his best friend," says a gentle whisper in Zero's aural cone. The abrupt closeness has the warbot stuck. "Master X loved you even after you stabbed him in the back. Traitor."

Zero grunts in shock as he bursts apart to a sharp pain – his left side is thinly stabbed through from behind – and he bends forward, collapses to his knees. He rolls, shying from another attack, dark fluids dripping after him across the floor.

Best friend? Traitor? What are you talking about? Tell me! A part of Zero urges to cry out. Combat mode restrains it and informs Zero that Phantom has been staying patiently in the dark as the unpredictable and opportunistic assassin. The Guardian needs to be provoked into the light. Zero needs to rile the other android up. Make him angry. Winning this battle is the primary directive.

"X deserved it," lies Zero, feeling very like he's reading a script in a play he's forced to act out in. "He thought he was doing the right thing when he's actually fritzing it all up. One hundred years later and he's still a fool."

Zero's proximity alerts die down. He looks around him. He can't see Phantom anywhere. He looks up towards the ceiling, hoping to see a sign. The air is vibrating.

"You remember?" Phantom's voice creeps out. It has an edge to it. "And yet, you don't regret it at all? Is that why you're still against us, Zero?" Phantom sounds dangerously small, brimming with something desperate. "If you're not the only Robot Master of this world, you're going to try take it all away again?"

Zero's eyes widen.

What?

"You monster!" Phantom screeches, surging downwards from his unknown perch. His eyes blaze with sheer hatred through the holes of his mask as he charges toward Zero, swinging his blade wildly. "You're evil! You're irredeemable! You're beyond hope! Hah!" Phantom laughs, a strange thing that lilts between his normally deep voice to something higher, younger - and it cracks for a split second. He sounds like two different people laughing the same horrible laugh and Zero's core drops hard and heavy into his compact tank. "I should have known. Programming is programming. No wonder Master X was too scared to wake you up. How could he? You were going to break him again, you damned Wilybot!"

Wilybot. Wilybot wilybot wilybot -

At some point Zero has stopped processing. He might as well have stopped functioning. His processor goes blank white, consumed by sheer subroutine. He distantly notes from a faraway point in himself that his body is still moving, his weapons are flying, that his inputs are still working, but he's not here. His entire existence has been expanded and compressed, streamlined into binary, and the only thing he can truly register as himself is Phantom's voice, which Zero for once feels something liken to genuine fear towards it.

"You were his only friend! After everything you both went through together, after everything he did for you, you didn't choose him! You just couldn't let it go! You just had to follow programming!"

Zero receives an alert that he's receiving heavy damage.

"Does it hurt? Good! You deserve it! You deserve hell, Zero! No amount of suffering you experience would be an ounce to what Master X had gone through! I'll make your termination painful!"

No, he can't die. He's not allowed to. Forbidden. Emergency mode activated. Because he has to survive at all cost because he's the last one, he has to enact that man's vision, he can't do any of that if he's dead and he needs to make this a world where only the pure and innocent exist, a world where only robots exist –

"Sometimes I wish he died with you because it would have been easier. He never wanted to have this power or any of this responsibility! They forced him to be a ruler because there wasn't anyone left who could do it! I never asked for this burden! You told me the world needed me, but I needed you! WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME ALONE, ZERO?!"

Zero thinks he feels his saber carve through something thick. A sobbed scream.

He blinks and comes to. He's in a lunging position and his sword is through Phantom's exposed abdomen. A slight movement tells Zero of the multiple layers. Compact tank. Phantom won't be able to make normal maneuvers without bleeding out horribly.

Instead of tugging Harpuia's sword out, the warbot lets go of the hilt and takes a couple steps back, for the first time feeling horrified. It must show at his face because Phantom, despite wearing a mask, is visibly stunned by this display of mercy and regret.

"You're…you're not X, right?" Zero says as if to convince himself. "You sound like him but you're not him…" Like a question because he's not sure. Nothing is sure anymore.

He is so, so lost.

Phantom staggers backwards, barely catching himself from falling down. He coughs static. He makes a couple meaningless sounds, each of them crackling and changing in varying pitches before stabilizing into something consistent. The voice Phantom used when he first met Zero. The Guardian is using a vocal filter.

When Phantom speaks again, he sounds dulled down to exhaustion.

"I apologize. Sometimes the leftover experiences and memories I have from him affect me strongly," Phantom whispers bowing his head. "That's what I get for being his shad…his youngest," he amends himself. "I didn't have as much time as the others to grow into my own yet. But I am Phantom. I'm not X. Not anymore."

Phantom looks terribly displeased by that. Zero is still bewildered.

"I don't understand," the warbot confesses, processor overworking with all this new information and its terrifying implications. "I don't understand anything."

"You don't need to," Phantom snaps sullenly. "Go ahead. Finish me off. Destruction is your directive, Wilybot."

"I…I don't want to," admits Zero quietly. He actually doesn't.

"Too bad. Because I want to."

Phantom wrenches the sword out violently, spraying out fluids with a wet gasp. It clatters on the tiled floor. He shakily reaches into a small pouch by his belt and takes out a tiny glowing capsule. A cyber-elf. He ruthlessly crushes it, the small thing's pained and fearful cry cut swift. Right before Zero's eyes, Phantom's gaping wound stitches itself shut.

"I can't let Master X's best friend return to him as a Maverick," continues Phantom in the same stoic vein. He clearly holds no sympathy for the poor cyber-elf that he sacrificed. "He doesn't deserve to go through that again. But I don't have the energy to fight you any longer. Which is why I have a surprise for you. I've set bombs all over this factory. They'll explode any minute now."

Zero freezes.

Phantom smirks maliciously. "The Resistance needs this factory in order to stay afloat, doesn't it? Ciel's hardy, but neither her research nor her Resistance can last long without the energen. We'll eventually take her back. And once we secure her, both you and the rest of the Mavericks can go to hell."

Phantom vanishes and Zero bores daggers at the spot where the black android used to be.

He changes his mind. Phantom is definitely his least favorite.

"Zero, I'm sorry that we are always risking your life," Ciel says upon Zero's return after he miraculously deactivates all the factory bombs in record time. She's the only one who's not smiling while the other Resistance members are cheering raucously. Couriers are transferring carts full of crystals from the loading deck into the Base.

"Crystals are everywhere! If you don't get them all, you'll be sorry!" one shouts out in high spirits.

"I…I should be grateful. Your mission was a success and you're alive. I'm sorry, I'm kind of depressed," murmurs Ciel. "I was so worried when you didn't choose to evacuate. I appreciate everything you do for us but please…" she side-eyes the extensive damage lacing Zero's form. "Don't push yourself too hard from now on. Keep in mind that we are all worried about you, Zero."

"Who am I?" Zero whispers more to himself than to the human next to him. "Who did I used to be?"

Ciel blinks. "Zero?"

"He told me I was X's best friend. He said I was a traitor." Zero's fists are shaking by his sides. "He called me a Wilybot. He said I left X first. What does that mean?"

When Zero turns to Ciel, his blue eyes are manic.

"What did Neo Arcadia tell you about me? Am I really a hero? Did you really tell me everything?" When the scientist says nothing, cowed by this uncharacteristic display of emotion from the usually cool warbot, Zero raises his volume. "Tell me, Ciel!"

"I told you everything I know," she reassures quickly. "I didn't omit anything I know from you. Please trust me."

He does. That's the problem. He trusts her more than anything Neo Arcadia has ever said to him, despite how little she knows.

The combatdroid deflates.

"Zero, are you okay?" asks Ciel tentatively.

Before Zero can say that he is, every single person in the Base freezes where all of their radios simultaneously turn on. A mass message on every single frequency. There is no choice. It is an inarguable command to listen.

"Hello," greets a soft and powerful voice.

Cyan eyes bulging, Ciel raises her hands to cover her slack-jawed mouth. Allouette drops her doll. Cerveau, Colbor, Dande and the other Resistance members distributing the energen shares look like their world is ending.

"This is a message to Zero. I'm sorry for not contacting you sooner." The worst part is that it sounds heartbreakingly sincere. "I'm also sorry for the rude welcome on behalf of my children. They've heard so much about you and were excited."

Zero can't exvent. There must be a chink in his ventilations that's slowing it down.

"The reason I am contacting you now is that I would like to humbly invite you into my home. No one is to attack you or the Resistance if you accept. I will see to it."

Every single pair of functioning eyes of Base is on Zero now. Autruche and Andrew are shaking their heads fervently, mouthing "No no no no no no."

"If you don't want to, that's okay. After everything you've gone through, I understand that you are wary. If it reassures you, you may bring your friends too."

Ciel is trembling.

"At the outskirts of the Forest of Dysis there will be a transport for you. It will wait there for a number of days until you decide to take it. Once you do, it will grant you safe passage through Neo Arcadia to me." A beat. "I recommend that you do not take too long to make a decision. My children are not patient and I do not plan to restrain them any longer. Choose wisely and soon."

The vast presence fades away with that lingering ominous note.

No one talks for the longest time.

"It's a trap," Alouette cries out, breaking the trance. "You can't go, Zero!"

Like a crashing wave, the rest of the Resistance members pool in their opinions.

"They're going to strike us the moment they pull you away from us!"

"It's because you're super strong, Zero! They want to bring you to their side!"

"Hey, X said not to take too long," someone pipes up nervously. "What happens to us if Zero doesn't go? Is Neo Arcadia going to come after us?"

"Don't be stupid!" retaliates another. "Neo Arcadia came after us multiple times and we're still standing, aren't we? It's because we got the legendary hero on our side! We can take them on as long as we got Zero and Ciel!"

"Yeah! X is reaching out to us because he's getting desperate. Don't get fooled, guys. We're the ones winning!"

"We're not," Zero counters tersely. "That wasn't just an invitation. That was a warning."

He grits his teeth and faces the abating crowd.

"Until now, has X himself ever made a move?"

No one answers.

"He hasn't. It was always someone else, but it was never X," Zero continues, head bowed and eyes shadowed. His golden hair blankets around him. "X said he's not planning to 'restrain them any longer.' That means he's been deliberately holding back."

Which Zero knew, but he was hoping – fritz, he was hoping…!

"Neo Arcadia has never been serious. It never needed to."

There's no point circumventing in order to uphold morale now that circumstances have changed. The Resistance is cornered and Zero needs to make these people very aware how painfully thin is the glass they stand upon above the acid pit.

The warbot glares up. "If Neo Arcadia chooses to unleash full force upon us, what do you think will happen? Total massacre. We are functioning by the whims of X's…children."

They always been.

Alouette whimpers. Ciel's shoulders start to shake.

"We need to move," the teenager whispers in a punched-out rush. She sounds younger than she is in her fear. "We'll pack everything and move. We have enough energy to not have a shortage for a while. We'll go somewhere far away from Neo Arcadia where X can never find us – "

"And you're going to leave all the other reploids back in Neo Arcadia?" asks Zero, tired.

Flinching, Ciel snaps up to him with watery eyes. "No! But if X is coming after us then…"

"Once you develop the substitute energy, you were planning to take everyone as far away from Neo Arcadia," the combatdroid says remembering Ciel's words from before. "You didn't plan on how to break into Neo Arcadia and save the rest of the oppressed reploids. You never did. Because you knew as of now, it's impossible. That's not within our power."

Ciel's lips tighten to a flat line, caught.

Zero closes his eyes. "Ciel, what are you fighting for?"

A shuddering breath later, she declares, "Freedom. That's all I wanted. That's all I wanted to give for everyone here. A chance to live life happily without fear."

"…Okay."

The warbot turns his back to the rows of anxious reploids around him. "After I recharge and refuel, I'm going." Before another wave of protests can barrage him, he continues," None of you will lower your guard as long as Neo Arcadia is out there. You won't ever know real peace." That's Zero's entire life. "Ciel, you need to stay here. Neo Arcadia can't have the chance to take the both of us."

"Zero…" She bits her lip. "If it were not for you, everyone would be gone by now. Promise me that you will come back alive. I just want you to be able to return safely."

"I can't promise that. But I can promise you one thing."

He meets Ciel's eyes, determined. He wears the face of a prisoner of war stepping on the platform, ready to lay his neck under the guillotine with a needle sawing off strands of his rope-bonded wrists. Thousand-yard stare focusing onto the executor's jugular.

"Once I see X, I'll end him," the Crimson Hunter vows. "Even if I can't destroy Neo Arcadia, I'll cripple it."

Because when an enemy appears Zero will terminate it. He will protect these people.

The transport is a self-driving, white blocky automobile that can seat two people maximum. It's surrounded by Pantheons who don't move at Zero's presence. They watch with their singular red cameras for eyes as Zero steps into the vehicle. The transport chirps when the warbot takes a seat and detaches from the earth. It hovers above the overgrowth and through the Forest of Dysis.

Upon closer observation, the bottom section of Neo Arcadia's Eden Dome is an approximate twenty-five meter wall with series of secured sewer holes and gated entrances. The transport approaches to one of the looming gated entrances manned by golems on both sides.

They let Zero go through.

The tunnels within the walls are long. The vehicle breezes past by miles of bricks the size of a person, of herculean columns standing like soldiers. The transport keeps coming across each gated layer after layer, with a small army of Pantheons and Golems at every security check.

At the final gate, the vehicle flies into a world of light and noise.

Zero can't stop his own lips from parting open in awe.

Neo Arcadia really is an empire.

Everywhere he looks outside of the window is a sprawling metropolis: towering skyscrapers and stretched bridges, roads, and highways, one of which Zero's transport seamlessly joins at a smooth traffic. Zero looks down the best he can from his constrained angle. He can see that Neo Arcadia goes further down: the city has stacked itself over. Highways over highways. Glowing mechanical rivers that swivel like veins through this enormous city.

The sky in this smaller world is an unnatural azure blue, interrupted by picturesque clouds. There's more than plenty of filtered sunlight to grace the pockets of flowering grass fields and trees in between urban sections.

Zero sees people, but they're moving dots from his height. He can't tell if they're human or reploid or neither.

Somewhere in this congested concrete diorama of a normal world long lost are reploids driven to near-termination with dangerous labor. Somewhere, a reploid is making an error, declared Maverick out of paranoia, and is sentenced to execution along with its entire model line.

A shining utopia built on dark secrets and oppression.

"For security reasons, the windows shall be shielded," the car alerts in a mechanical drone. "Commencing."

The see-through windows transform into a dark solid grey before Zero's eyes. He exvents deeply and leans back in his seat.

There's nothing more to do but wait.

A couple hours later, the transport slows to a gradual stop.

"Destination arrived."

The doors open in silent command for Zero to get out.

He does and finds himself at the foot of a large outdoor hallway ramping around the side of a mountainous tower in an upwards spiral. The sky is painted in pink and red hues, indicating twilight.

Behind Zero, the transport closes door and hovers away.

Clearly he needs to walk up.

It's a solitary journey climbing up the atmosphere like this. There's no one else in sight. It's only Zero, this open hallway, the paled sight of the rest of Neo Arcadia in the distance as if the rest of the city is hazing into sleep as night arrives closer. The hanging moon's ghostly whites grow more solid as the warbot approaches towards the top of this tower.

Another gate. He opens it.

Another hallway.

Zero soldiers on and on.

Zero knows he's coming closer to his real destination because he finally sees something else functioning besides him.

The security.

Gil-Eyes, Garms, and Condoroids appear into view. They guard the sides of the path.

Then the Barrier Counters, Pantheons and Golems appear into view. They too guard the sides of the path.

Hundreds and hundreds of mechaniloids and reduced reploids ready to attack Zero if he makes any suspicious movement.

At the end of the path is another door. It's special in that it's nondescript. It's tall enough for a normal person to enter it. It is completely out of place with the sheer size and grandeur of everything else.

It slides open politely to Zero. It's a large circular room with walls and ceiling replaced by windows. The moon is staring down above him and everywhere he sees are clouds billowing by. It's like he's standing in the sky.

It was a tense yet uneventful stroll until now.

Right in front of him are the Guardians. Zero's proximity sensors informs him that there are five presences here, but the four androids in front of him take over his entire view in their immediacy.

"If you were going to come anyway, why didn't you get out of our way when I told you to?" lectures Harpuia. "You offlined so many of our forces in the past couple of months. Do you know how expensive they were? Of course you don't. How inefficient."

"Come on, Harpuia" says Fefnir who's casually leaning on the green robot's shoulder with his elbow. "Look at it in another way. Now you know that Aztec wasn't such a hotshot. We got a good reason to tell the scientists to build them better."

"Boo! I liked Blizzack how he was!" Leviathan disagrees as she pokes Fefnir's cheek. She pulls her hand away with a giggle when Fefnir half-heartedly tries to bite it off. "Just because Zero terminated them, doesn't mean they were ill-made. It just means Zero is that stupidly strong." She faces Zero with her tongue sticking out. "But I agree with Harpy - "

Harpuia sighs, exasperated. "How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that?"

" – If you were going to come, why didn't you come earlier? Each of us gave you a chance. Honestly, we're practically the nicest people ever. Giving you that many second chances like that."

"You three did, but I didn't," spits Phantom by Leviathan's side, arms crossed sulkingly. "I never wanted him here. I still vote for killing him."

"We're not killing anyone tonight," Harpuia orders sternly at the same time as Fefnir quips, "Yo, if anyone's fighting him, it's going to be me. I call first dibs."

Leviathan reaches out for Phantom and draws him close, one hand rubbing the top of his helmet soothingly. "Shhhh, we understand you and love you. But you know that's not for us to decide anymore."

Phantom harrumphs.

The warbot stares. He's not quite sure what to make of this.

"You're overwhelming him," drifts in a voice behind the Guardians. "Will you please excuse us? I would like to have a personal moment with Zero."

Zero's core falls all over again. Like someone has clawed into his chest and seized the round thing, tightening it like a kind vice and dragging it down.

"Please don't tell me you want us to leave you with him," asks Harpuia over his own shoulder. "You better not be. That's idiotic."

"How about we don't leave but stand really far away. Like all the way over there," Fefnir adds, pointing towards a curved window wall for good measure.

Leviathan scoffs. "I literally waited for an eternity to see this reunion. This is historical!"

"No," Phantom deadpans flatly.

A beat of silence. Then:

"Will I have to repeat myself twice?"

The Guardians stiffen. A split flash of indescribable emotion flits across them.

"Master X! But…"

"…No."

"…As you wish, my master…"

"Don't let him hurt us again."

The Guardians part from the middle and stride pass Zero to leave. Phantom in particular spitefully shoves into Zero's shoulder as he goes, forcing the warbot to stumble a bit.

Zero can't bother to muster any ire over the pettiness. He's still staring at the azure android coming closer.

Zero isn't sure what he was expecting. Maybe a rush of familiarity. A flood of memories or flashbacks of this supposedly important person of his previous life.

Blank dark eyes. Rounded helmet with a fanned crown. Slim arms and legs and torso tucked under a cassock bearing a cross.

The Dictator of Neo Arcadia looks so small. Fragile. Will disassemble apart if mishandled. With the moonlight shining around him, he looks like he can fade away from existence.

And Zero feels nothing. Senses nothing. Threat assessment has been nagging right up until now.

This void disturbs him greatly.

X rakes Zero's form with his eyes up and down.

"You look different, Zero," the Azure Angel observes. "If I didn't know any better, I wouldn't have recognized you."

"…I don't recognize you too," confesses the warbot. "Are you really X?"

"That's a good question. I don't think I am anymore."

If Zero was a lesser robot or human, he would be squirming in place.

"You've met my children," remarks X. "They used to be parts of me. It was only fair that I gave them parts of me too."

He touches his eyes. "Harpuia." He grasps his right wrist. "Fefnir." He taps the side of his thigh. "Leviathan." He wraps his own throat with both hands. "Phantom."

He drops his arms down. "Even if you had all your memories, you wouldn't recognize me. I gave so much of myself away over the past century until there wasn't anything more to give."

The corner of X's lips twitch upwards apathetically. "That's why your combat mode is quiet. I'm practically dead."

Zero hides his astonishment. He's thrown off by this unexpected reveal of insight. Instinctively he reaches for the saber hilt by his waist.

X's eyes flicker towards the movement. "That's not yours."

"I took it from Harpuia."

"I know."

X moves glacially slow as if knowing that any sudden movements will increase Zero's agitation. He fingers the two white buttons on his chest. They obediently release and X peels the fabric away from himself. His body appears like another plain Pantheon.

But there is something thin and white on his waist.

"This is yours." The Blue Messiah unhooks the hilt and tosses it at Zero.

The moment the weapon falls into the combatdroid's hands, Zero feels as if something inside him has slotted into place finally. He activates the saber, its ethereal blue white glow charging into life. He gives it a test swing and his core aches at how perfect it feels.

"Why," asks Zero as he stares at the beautiful blade, uncomprehending. Whatever their history may be, they're enemies now. Zero has been fighting against Neo Arcadia's forces ever since he was reactivated. Why is X giving him this?

"It's only right for the Z-Saber returns to its rightful owner. I kept it ever since the Fifth Maverick War."

Zero snaps back to the other android. The questions that's been bursting inside him can no longer be held back.

"X, what happened to you? What happened to me?" Zero steps forward, desperate. "I may have lost my memory, but my body seems to remember…that all of this is wrong!" He stretches one arm to gesture towards their surroundings, at Neo Arcadia, at the barren world, at the emotionless robot in front of him. "That this isn't you! None of this is! What the hell happened to us?!"

X looks up towards the moon as if he didn't hear Zero. "You don't remember what we talked about after we left Final Weapon? On our way back to Earth?"

"I…I don't."

"If you can't remember that much then it doesn't matter anymore. You're not my Zero."

The red warbot recoils as if slapped.

X tilts his head like it's a habit instead out of genuine musing. "That's not quite right now that I think about it. Right now, you're the closest to my Zero than you've ever been. The only difference is that you're not mine anymore. You haven't been ever since you realized your true directive all those years ago."

"My true directive?"

X smiles a smile that doesn't reach his eyes. "Perhaps your threat assessment of me is so low that you can't tell. Whatever the case, you're here now. You're here to fulfill your purpose. You're here to kill me."

His face defaults to infuriating blankness again. "Let's not delay this any longer."

X looks down at his hand. It swaps into a buster.

"Everything will come to an end. Whatever happens, I will have my peace."

Mega Man X raises his buster up and Zero realizes whatever evils his own empire has been conducting against its own people, its emperor doesn't care.

This person really isn't X anymore.

Neo Arcadia is the enemy. This robot is the enemy. Ciel's the right one. I'm fighting for her and the Resistance. I'm fighting for the people I believe in. If I don't take him down, Neo Arcadia is going to kill them all. They'll never let us go.

No matter what Zero tells himself, he can barely feel the fleeting tail of his previous conviction. This familiar stranger before him looks like a puppet being made to go through the motions of entering battle than wanting to at his own volition.

But he has to. He's come this far. He made a promise.

It's what he's fighting for.

The reluctant Crimson Hero tightens the grip on his saber as he hears a buster whir into life.