It was a day after Zero had arrived in town. Many of the elder residents were clamoring to see him, but he’d been granted the space to rest and get his bearings and have his immediate worst injuries treated.
Now, inside one of the many common spaces found throughout the town, Zero was answering questions about his exploits while Tanuki Man gave him a more detailed damage assessment. A voice from the crowd asked, “So, you run into that rat bastard X?”
Zero met their gaze. “X is dead.”
A murmur ran through the group. “You killed him?”
“No. He died decades ago. After I was sealed away. His ghost came to me.”
Eyebrows raised. It was a crazy statement. Ghosts? X, the hero-turned-oppressor, long dead? Zero continued, “Sorry, I should say his Cyber-Elf came to me. At first, he was just a vague voice and glow after I woke up. He returned my saber to me. Later on, he appeared to me and my comrades at Resistance Five’s base. Said he’d cracked the security ciphers on Neo Arcadia’s legacy transerver network. I didn’t believe him, but sure enough, when I booted up the base’s transerver machine, the worship site at the base of the Area X spire was listed as a valid destination.”
Zero paused, lost in recall of his prior home. He had the crowd’s rapt attention, and nobody chimed in. He resumed his tale. “That was the last time I saw that base. We’d just barely driven off a severe assault by the Neo Arcadians, and plans were being made to evacuate… and I made the transfer, intent on distracting the Neo Arcadian military by attacking them directly. I emerged in the marble of a Greek Parthenon styled building. I made the long climb all the way up the spire, and the person I confronted at the top was a Reploid made as a copy of X, a stand-in ruler to keep the masses satisfied. He claimed to be the real X, but even without my memories, I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he was a different person.”
Next to Zero was Tanuki Man, using a Cyber-Elf to inspect Zero’s systems. And next to Tanuki Man was a taller Robot Master with indigo hair. It was Copy Man, Tanuki Man’s partner. At the description of X’s doppelganger, he perked up, nudging Tanuki Man. “Heh. Evil clone of a Light kid. Remind you of anyone?”
Without looking up from his work, Tanuki Man muttered a response. “You’re too sweet to be evil. Get real.”
Copy Man’s voice carried jovial mock offense. “You can be both, y’know.”
Zero continued on. “It was a feeling deeper than recollection. Like my body was anticipating a certain danger and thrill and pain that was simply missing. I killed him with extreme prejudice. In his dying moments, he set off a fail-deadly mechanism. I would have been vaporized, but that Cyber-Elf appeared, shielding me from the blast and conveying me into the desert. He’d hinted at it before, but he finally revealed himself to be the true X. We spoke, and he asked a favor of me- keep fighting the Neo Arcadians, or as he described them, the true Mavericks. I knew I couldn’t return to my comrades- the enemy would chase me relentlessly now that I had killed their perversion of X. So I have fought, for half a year, day in and day out. Sometimes, it feels pointless, like the enemy is neverending, but I know, logically, that every enemy I kill directly costs the enemy on the whole. So I keep going.”
Another voice spoke up. “So does this mean that Neo Arcadia is, like, fucked? Can’t cover up a dead leader, right?”
Zero responded in an even tone. “They kept up the ruse that X was around for years after he died, and eventually were able to get by with a fake one. While it was undoubtedly a problem, they’re far from finished. It is my belief that the Four Guardians are currently joint leading the military and delegating the political situation.”
His normally stoic expression broke into a wicked grin. “Well, I should probably call them the Three Guardians now.”
“Don’t tell me…”
“You didn’t.”
Zero beamed. “Yup. As I was climbing to meet the fake X, I had to fend off the Guardians. Beat ‘em all bad. But Phantom wasn’t having it. Blew himself up to try to stop me. It didn’t work out well for him.”
A raucous cheer broke out. One of the Wily-bots present- not Copy Man- exclaimed, “That’s our little brother! Hell yeah! Fuck Phantom!”
After the cheer died back down, Tanuki Man got Zero’s attention. “Report’ll be ready in a second.”
The Elf flitting around Zero ceased, coming to rest on Tanuki Man’s shoulder. Its holographic body was in the aspect of a humanoid mouselike creature wearing Reploid-esque battle armor. It pantomimed whispering into Tanuki Man’s ear as it transferred data.
After a moment of internal analysis, Tanuki Man began to rattle off the information. “Pinatari here has looked you over pretty thoroughly. Their report mostly lines up with the more superficial observations I made yesterday. Right shoulder hydraulics are in bad shape from that shrapnel I dug out, you’re using the reserve line. Your core is damaged and you’re burning a lot of fuel on nothing as a result. And a lot of your armor systems are compromised. This is pretty bad, and it’s honestly shocking you were able to fight like that. Also, one of your Sub-Tanks got pierced. The reserve Energen flowed down onto the control circuits and corroded them. Unusable. Bad news is, we don’t have the tooling or parts or materials to fully repair you. Even nowadays, you’re just so advanced. Good news is, we can do plenty to ease your pain and bring your effectiveness back up. I’m sending a team out to the remains of the old Wily Tower to recover some spare parts the old man had made for you. He never made enough for a full replacement body, but there’s some stuff lying around that would be really annoying to find substitutes for otherwise. And we can make do with off the shelf stuff for your Sub Tank and some of the hydraulics.”
Zero touched at the taped up wound on his shoulder. It hurt much less. “Even just getting that chunk out of me was huge. Thank you.”
He smiled at the Cyber-Elf. “And, uh, thank you, too, Pinatari.”
The Elf gave a tiny thumbs-up and smiled back at the warrior, before reverting to their abstract form- a glowing green orb, pulsing with vertical rings.
Zero asked, “Speaking of Cyber-Elves, what about the ones I brought with me?”
Tanuki Man replied, “Yes, they’ve been rejuvenated. They’re all stable and ready to go, except for Jackson. They were really low on power when they lent you help in your latest fight. They’ll live, but they were a bit destabilized, and I don’t think it would be healthy for them to try to use their ability again.”
Zero remembered Jackson saving him from what would have been a fatal blow to the chest during the fight. He felt regret.
“Sorry.”
Tanuki Man smiled. “Hey, it’s alright. You’ve taken good care of your guys, and Jackson will be okay with us.”
Zero replied, “I appreciate all the help. I wish I could say I remember the times before when I was in contact with you guys.”
“Don’t worry about it, Zero. We’re just all glad to see you’re out and about and doing what you do best.”