'I found his signal! You should be able to get there soon.'
That didn't comfort Zero at all. He was in H.Q for less than a second before taking off to the region X's unit was supposed to be checking out. Barely enough time to brief Dr. Cain on the Takione doppelganger he ran into (he wasn't sure yet if he believed it was really Takione) or the data collected on limited. There was no time, his hardware burned at the thought of X being kidnapped again---
Was it fair to call it paranoia when his instincts were usually right? Every time he had a bad feeling about X being alone, something awful occurred. Kidnapping, brainwashing, the options were awful in how they managed to surprise Zero. Save for outright killing him, Zero wasn't sure what else they could do at this point. If limited was still being used...
"X! Can you hear me?"
‘His communicator isn’t online.’
“I know! But if he’s close, maybe he can…”
‘Zero?’
Dr. Cain’s voice wasn’t registering anymore. Zero had stopped dead in his tracks, his processor struggling to come up with a reason for the reploid standing in front of him.
‘Zero, what on Earth are you doing?’
He shut off the connection.
“Hello.” The boy reploid waved at him politely.
It was like the first introduction they had. The twins were brought on to help at H.Q, one being charged with monitoring their mother computer while the other helped bulk up the defenses of their anti-cyber attack unit. To his surprise, they were familiar with Zero and both acted like shy children that needed Dr. Cain nudging them forward. He told them it wasn’t rude to talk to ‘the’ Zero, especially when they would be working with him soon.
Then they lost contact with one of the twins. The only one that stuck around and would regularly make a point to see Zero when he wasn’t busy with work was standing in front of him, almost a year after Zero had to comfort X about his death.
“Middy?” His first impulse to take on a protective role when civilians were in enemy territory was at odds with his confusion. “It can’t be, how are you—why—”
“Whoa, you got a new buster again!” In the snowy region, the sound of Middy’s boots against the slush covered earth was loud to his aural cones. He didn’t flinch the first time the twins ran forward towards him but in this setting, his mind came back to him and Zero remembered they weren’t in a safe area and X was still missing. “...Did I do something wrong?”
It would’ve hurt him being looked at that way if not for his logic circuits reminding him that if that Takione look-alike was wandering around, there was a chance limited was used to create Mavericks with shape-shifting abilities. And yet, when he performed a quick scan, it matched the energy signature of Middy. He watched the boy uneasily.
“Zero, you remember me, don’t you?” Middy’s outreached hands finally lowered. “I’m one of the people you didn’t save. You went outside to fight while X went online. Alone. Why did you do that, anyway? He’s alone again, you know.”
His saber was out but he didn’t strike. He didn’t need to, Middy was already gone.
no subject
'I found his signal! You should be able to get there soon.'
That didn't comfort Zero at all. He was in H.Q for less than a second before taking off to the region X's unit was supposed to be checking out. Barely enough time to brief Dr. Cain on the Takione doppelganger he ran into (he wasn't sure yet if he believed it was really Takione) or the data collected on limited. There was no time, his hardware burned at the thought of X being kidnapped again---
Was it fair to call it paranoia when his instincts were usually right? Every time he had a bad feeling about X being alone, something awful occurred. Kidnapping, brainwashing, the options were awful in how they managed to surprise Zero. Save for outright killing him, Zero wasn't sure what else they could do at this point. If limited was still being used...
"X! Can you hear me?"
‘His communicator isn’t online.’
“I know! But if he’s close, maybe he can…”
‘Zero?’
Dr. Cain’s voice wasn’t registering anymore. Zero had stopped dead in his tracks, his processor struggling to come up with a reason for the reploid standing in front of him.
‘Zero, what on Earth are you doing?’
He shut off the connection.
“Hello.” The boy reploid waved at him politely.
It was like the first introduction they had. The twins were brought on to help at H.Q, one being charged with monitoring their mother computer while the other helped bulk up the defenses of their anti-cyber attack unit. To his surprise, they were familiar with Zero and both acted like shy children that needed Dr. Cain nudging them forward. He told them it wasn’t rude to talk to ‘the’ Zero, especially when they would be working with him soon.
Then they lost contact with one of the twins. The only one that stuck around and would regularly make a point to see Zero when he wasn’t busy with work was standing in front of him, almost a year after Zero had to comfort X about his death.
“Middy?” His first impulse to take on a protective role when civilians were in enemy territory was at odds with his confusion. “It can’t be, how are you—why—”
“Whoa, you got a new buster again!” In the snowy region, the sound of Middy’s boots against the slush covered earth was loud to his aural cones. He didn’t flinch the first time the twins ran forward towards him but in this setting, his mind came back to him and Zero remembered they weren’t in a safe area and X was still missing. “...Did I do something wrong?”
It would’ve hurt him being looked at that way if not for his logic circuits reminding him that if that Takione look-alike was wandering around, there was a chance limited was used to create Mavericks with shape-shifting abilities. And yet, when he performed a quick scan, it matched the energy signature of Middy. He watched the boy uneasily.
“Zero, you remember me, don’t you?” Middy’s outreached hands finally lowered. “I’m one of the people you didn’t save. You went outside to fight while X went online. Alone. Why did you do that, anyway? He’s alone again, you know.”
His saber was out but he didn’t strike. He didn’t need to, Middy was already gone.