Chapter Text
His birth was an interesting one.
He could faintly feel the sensation of electricity, buzzing through his chest and head. Especially his head – almost to the point of being heavy. He opened his eyes slowly, the weight of electrical energy making it a labor just to consider taking a look around. When he was able to see, the light made doing so hurt.
He was alone.
He instinctively attempted to sit up, but a sharp pain rippled up his back. A slight whimper came from his throat. He remained still. Moving was too much.
Approaching footsteps could be heard from outside the door. The metal entryway scraped open loudly. Someone wearing black and gray metal armor entered the room. He didn’t see him right away. He could faintly hear someone shouting from far away. “Alright, I get it!” the mystery man barked. “I’ll be quick about it.” The stranger finally caught a look at him, and his eyes widened. “Holy s–t!” The unknown individual came to his side quickly. “You – you’re, ah – not ‘sposed to be awake yet.”
He blinked in confusion. He could understand the essence of what he was being told, but the words missed the mark for comprehension. Did he do something wrong? He got the sense that something about him had been… unexpected to the other person.
“Here, get up.” The stranger tried to pull him so that he could sit, but he cried out in pain. He hit the table with a thump, and began to sniffle as he felt a burning behind his eyes, followed by a wet feeling slowly moving on his face. The mystery figure seemed disturbed by this. “Oh, no, don’t do that. What’s wrong with you?” A spark of electricity came from his shoulder, causing him to hiss. “Oh. You’re just overcharged, that’s all.” The stranger snatched a wire free from his head, and almost instantly the pain subsided, and the heavy feeling in his body gradually started to wane. He exhaled in grateful relief.
“So, uh…” The figure paused. “We need to get you out of here. Show you to the doctor an’ all.” He waited patiently for him to sit up on his own. “Alright then, Zero. Let’s go.”
He cocked his head slightly to the side, confused. “Who?” The word came from his lips before he knew he was going to say it, startling him briefly, but not to the point of it being shown.
“You. That’s your name, dummy.” The mystery person was losing patience.
“What is… name?”
The stranger’s eyes widened again before he broke out into a repetitive series of sounds, seemingly out of amusement. “Oh – oh man! Ahahaha!” The stranger walked to the door and leaned out of it. “H-hey – hey Shadow – ahahaha! Get a load of this!” The figure struggled to catch his breath. “W-Wily’s so-called ‘greatest creation’ – he’s stupid! Worse than a brick! Ahahahaha!”
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Zero emerged from his recharging pod with a headache. It was another one of those dreams. The ones that left him confused and with a strange ache in his chest, like remembering something he wasn’t meant to forget in the first place. He walked along the floor with a series of heavy thunks before reaching a box on the other side of the room, and dressing himself in his red and white battle armor. Before he left his bedroom, he checked himself in the mirror, to ensure none of his hair was sticking out from his helmet or otherwise unkempt. It was an odd habit he’d had forever. Most other reploids didn’t care much about their appearance, besides X – and Iris, of course. He felt something like butterflies inside him as he thought of her.
He left the room quickly. There was a meeting happening soon, and Sigma was not one to be left waiting. He hummed as he walked, hurriedly moving to the kitchen to grab an e-tank to sip on before he started work. He hesitated as he grabbed one that was supposedly “raspberry” flavor. He failed to understand why any kind of flavoring would be needed for such a simple form of sustenance – as a matter of fact, he didn’t quite comprehend the allure behind food or anything “needing” a pleasant taste to begin with. He, like most reploids, was designed to be able to eat food like humans could. Unlike humans, however, their metallic bodies were able to efficiently turn every last nutrient into a form of energy to be used later. On rare occasions, when something was leftover as waste, it would be internally incinerated.
Zero, despite making it abundantly clear that he had no interest in consuming such frivolous sources of energy, was repeatedly assured by his friends that the sensations brought on by doing so had little difference between digesting an e-tank. X in particular had been adamant about this, and had requested on multiple occasions that Zero at least try something like a cookie or some bread.
So, in an effort to compromise, Zero had settled for the strangely flavored e-tank. He drank it slowly as he approached his destination, unsure if he liked it. It was most certainly a change of pace, but it overall seemed pointless. But then again, perhaps not. If it made everyone else happy, then it had some sort of value – even if he failed to understand it.
He was halfway through the tank by the time he reached the door. He chugged the rest of it, glad nobody was around to witness it if some of the drink got on his lips or dripped down unexpectedly.
Wait.
Nobody was around.
Was he late? Zero trashed the e-tank with quickness, before rushing to type in a passcode to the war room. 8-8-9-2-4. The doors slid open.
Sigma was the only one present.
Zero swore internally. Had he missed the whole meeting?! This had never happened before – at least not to him. On the rare occasions when someone was absent for a meeting without good reason, Sigma usually gave them a scolding harsh enough to make them so full of melancholy that they would sulk in their room for hours. Zero could only imagine what kind of reprimanding awaited him.
“You’re right on time, Zero,” Sigma said with a smile. The smaller reploid was puzzled – it was 8:00 a.m. on the dot. But if he was on time, where was everybody else? Unless – was he the only one invited? Such special things only happened to higher-ranking hunters, like Storm Eagle and General. He felt excitement build up in his chest. “Have a seat,” Sigma said encouragingly, gesturing for the chair closest to his. Zero sat down obediently, and watched as Sigma closed the doors with the press of a button on the command center in front of him.
“I’m going to cut right to the chase, Zero.” Sigma’s tone was still light, but Zero could still tell he was serious. “And you must not tell anyone else. Not X, and not Iris – though I know you are… fond of her.”
Zero felt his face flush. “Fond” was an understatement – they had been doing what Iris called “dating” for a good few months. He briefly recalled how he had initially thought that such an activity was unnecessary, and told her as much – not that he wasn’t interested, he just… didn’t see the purpose. Iris had simply smiled at him and said: “If it makes us both happy, there must be some kind of significance to it. So why not try figuring it out?”
“Zero,” started Sigma again, bringing him back to the present. “Can I trust you?”
“Of course,” responded Zero.
He was rewarded with a pat on the head. He struggled to avoid revealing how pleased he was with this sudden display of affection – he didn’t want to “weird out” Sigma, as X would say. But at the same time, he craved such blatant shows of approval. Sigma was the closest thing he had to a creator, and something inside him told him that having his respect was important.
“Look carefully at the table.” Zero gazed down at it as Sigma pushed some buttons. An image of an eerily familiar maverick appeared on the screen. “Do you recognize this robot, Zero?”
“It’s Vile,” responded Zero casually. The visor and purple armor were “iconic” as Iris would have put it – simply impossible for him not to recognize.
“That’s right.” More buttons were pressed, and the image shrank as a small diagram of a warehouse was revealed to be behind it. “This seems to be Vile’s current base of operations – an abandoned warehouse right here in Abel city, on fifth street in between the new Chinese restaurant that opened up and the Bright apartment complex, to be exact.” Sigma shook his head. “I would have never thought that he would choose to hide in such an obvious location, and yet, there he is. The man has a knack for hiding in plain sight, I’ll give him that.” He looked at Zero, an intense expression on his face. Zero felt himself shiver. “This is what I need you to do – find out what he’s planning, neutralize him, and come back with as much information as you can.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you must do it alone.”
Zero tilted his head subconsciously, not realizing what he had done until it was too late for it to be unnoticed. “Alone?”
“Yes. The others may prove to be… a liability. Due to Vile being in such a public place, discretion is what’s needed. Sending in more than one unit could get the job done faster, but it could bring unwanted attention to us. You understand this, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
Sigma smiled again. “That’s my boy.”
Zero thought he might burst.
“Now then – I need you to get on with this as soon as possible. We need to deal with him before he becomes any more of a threat to the civilians than he already is, or before he moves.”
Zero didn’t hesitate – he got up and turned to leave.
“Oh! And, Zero…”
“Yes?”
“Don’t forget. Don’t. Tell. Anyone.”
Zero turned to Sigma and nodded before leaving. “I won’t.”