MEGAMAN X: THE SERIES SEASON ONE: Poles Apart EPISODE FIFTEEN: "Old As It Is" Author's Note: You know, for a guy that fails English or nearly so many times, I'm not such a bad writer. Too bad my teachers never agree with me. Ah well, at least you guys disagree with them...or else I guess you probably wouldn't be here. Anyway, this episode has some fighting, and I know of a few readers who don't like it. Well, since I'm in a bad mood today, I'll just grumble about it incoherently whilst I read bouts of Hitchiker's Guide. ________________________________________________________________________________________ "I saw something beautiful in your life. Fighting is an ugly thing, and that is the last thing I want for your life." - Daisuke Ido, Gunmm
UCO - Physics Department - Room 003
Cluster One, Australia
November 18th, 2093
The Present
"What the hell happened?" asked X. He had just walked through the doorway to Anyi's lab when he noticed the brown rusted metal door lying at his feet, apparently torn off the hinges. He looked up and saw Anyi picking some metal scrap off the sofa. In fact, the entire place looked like it had just seen a war. Even the computer terminal was smashed, probably beyond repair, as well as the capsule. "Oh, hi there X! I'm just...doing some Spring cleaning," replied Anyi. "In November?" "Yeah, well your sister had a problem with a memory file...and she gave the problem to me," said Anyi dryly. X noted that Anyi wasn't normally this sarcastic. He took a few more quick glances and noted that even though the place was nearly completely destroyed, it actually looked proper given the previous horrid state of the basement before Anyi moved in. Maybe now the Physics Department would give them a new room. Or kick them out of the Physics building entirely. As it was, they were on shaky ground since the groundskeeper figured out who made the rather large divot in the courtyard and reported it. 'I get the feeling she's very, very mad,' thought X. 'Maybe I better keep my own memory problem to myself for a little while longer.' He leaned over, picked the door up through the windowless frame, and put it against the wall. "Well, at least I won't have to listen to that godawful squeak next time I walk in here," said X, referring to the badly rusted hinges. He had went for humour, unfortunately he didn't feel up to it and Anyi probably didn't either. X walked over to Anyi who was busy trying to set up the network grid under the courtyard window. "Here, let me help you with that." X stood tall to reach the top of the grid. He then took the object from the reaching Anyi and put it up on the shelf for her. She looked at him with a smile, her mood getting a little less emotionally bearing. "Thanks, I'm a bit too short to try fixing the network grid," she said. "Well, let me handle it. I've got some networking experience when I was living at Caine Labs." "Wow, you used to actually live there?" Anyi was sweeping the glass from the broken monitor into the overflowing trashbin. X was trying to figure out if it was the red wire or the blue wire which was supposed to connect the port. "Yeah, when I had first woke up from the capsule that Dr. Caine found. He never did mention how he found it, he said he had found the original lab of Dr. Light, when Rock was being constructed at the Red Seven Military base in South Canada...no wait, back then it was the Navajo Reserve in Nevada. Anyway, later when I was training with the Maverick Hunters a year later, he figured out that the capsule wasn't naturally supposed to be there. He couldn't figure out exactly how my capsule got there and surmised that it must have come from Dr. Light's laboratory during the confrontation with Dr. Wily." "You mean the legendary laboratory that was only accessible by teleportation?" asked Anyi. "That must have been the one we found...so your capsule must have been launched from there into a degrading orbit around the Earth. Whomever launched it must have calculated the trajectory so that you would land at Red Seven, assuming that there was still a military refuge that you could be protected by. That's when Dr. Caine came along and found the old base later after the Terran War...maybe Roll's memories will give me a clue when I scan through them later. I managed to book the Planetarium, so that should help me quite a bit." X was still looking in confusion at the wires. He held up the red wire in his left hand and the blue wire in his right hand. He tried one and it fit perfectly. He tried the other and it fit perfectly. X checked to see if he could find a colour strip on the port to give him a clue to which one should be plugged in. X was only further confused when he found that the strip for the port was purple. "Why did you book it?" asked X, still holding the wires. "Well, originally I was going to take some time off with their telescope and take a look at the stars. I used to study Astronomy as an elective and found it interesting. It also manages to calm me down, which has been increasingly difficult over the last week. Except now, I think I'm going to switch my bookings to the Imager just so I can take a look at Roll's memories. I'm betting that something really big happened and it may give us a clue to what took place before the lab went up in smoke." X finally just chose the red one and plugged it in. He turned on the section for the grid. Nothing happened. X was a bit annoyed, but happy that Anyi finally had her mind on something else. "Yeah, I guess the memory might be that...I hope you find something," he replied. "Well, I can't wait until I get Roll back online in any case. I have a lot of research to do into Dr. Caine's work and the info we found at the lab and it'd be nice to have some help. There's definitely a warm trail there somewhere." "What happened to Roll that made her do this, anyway?" asked X. Anyi just looked up, picking the plastic remains of her computer equipment off the floor. She just shook her head, "I don't know. Roll just started panicking and broke nearly everything here. I couldn't stop her and really it was hard enough to stay out of her way. Fortunately Zero had come back early from where ever he went and managed to subdue her. Still, she was panicking pretty bad, it even took Zinc to stop her too." X just looked up from his work. 'Who?' "Zero was here?" asked X. Anyi nodded as she started cleaning the glass around the capsule. The floor was nearly clean of glass, but was still covered in metal scrap. "He was with someone?" "Yeah, a little kid named Zinc. Well, he looks like a little kid, I can never be sure with bolts," said Anyi. X guessed that her temper was a bit flared right now about the destruction of her lab to be that tactless towards his nature. "Oh!" she said in surprise at her statement, holding her broom with a shaky grip. "Oh gosh...I'm really sorry about what I just said! I'm just so--" "Yeah, you've got a lot on your mind, don't worry about it. The last two weeks have been pretty stressful, even for me. Sorry to drag you into a mess so soon after you started working for us," he said, standing up in defeat from the jumbled mess of wires. "Anyway, I can't figure this out, maybe I'll get Zero to do it later. Do you know where those two went?" "I gave them the storage ticket so you guys can get your equipment," said Anyi. "What? So soon? But we only filled the order in yesterday...I figured it would have taken a week or two, especially so close to Finals for the classes." "Yeah well, it came in today. I guess we were lucky, although Zero shares your paranoia, so he'd probably be a better person to talk to about it," she sighed and looked up from her sweeping to take another glance at the room. It was definitely going to take the rest of the day just to clean it. "I've still got a lot to do here anyway, so let me handle it okay?" X noted that her voice was getting very stressed and he began to worry about her. *** "Hello, this is the Physics Storeroom," said the mechanical voice. Zero just stared at the speaker with a glimmer of annoyance in his eye. He had been in this dark basement for the past ten minutes attempting to reason with the automated machine. Unfortunately, it was turning out to be quite useless to argue with something that is automated since they always repeat their own side of the argument and therefore always win, because the other side of the argument isn't quite as patient as the automaton. Zero was annoyed by the whole mess. The basement looked like it hadn't been cleaned in a few decades, with a thick layer of dust over the walls. It surprised Zero that there was even anything down here, but they must have lowered the storage lockers from the floor above them. It still surprised him that the package came so surprisingly soon, however at this rate he was never going to get at it. "Yes, I know that," said Zero, his patience wearing thinly. "I've got a claim check for room 003's order." "I'm sorry, but your command is unacceptable." "What do you mean my command is unacceptable!?" "I'm sorry, but your command is unacceptable." "Why the hell can't they replace these automatons with a Reploid I can talk to!" "I'm sorry, but your command is unacceptable." "The voice recognition must be broken," Zinc offered his own thoughts on the matter. "I'm sorry, but your command is unacceptable." "I've got a ticket!" Zero put the ticket in the slot, but the slot just spat it out like a ripped dollar bill for an old change machine. The thought of the ancient device only served to enrage Zero further. "I'm sorry, but your command is unacceptable." "Yeah?" asked Zero in anger. "Well, unaccept this!" Zero sent his fist through the door to the storage room and the sonic shockwave from his hand shorted out the speaker. Microphone feedback rang through both of them and Zero laughed, triumphant over his enemy. Zinc was startled by the whole event. "Even in death, it's annoying," he noted the annoying microphone feedback as he motioned for Zinc to go first. Zinc just smirked and went inside the dark storage room. "Aren't we going to get in trouble for breaking that thing?" asked Zinc, a bit worried about consequences. "Don't worry, it was broken to begin with. Now maybe they'll notice and fix it now. I'm to impatient to sit through an automated voice." "Well, I guess your solution worked," Zinc was still a bit unnerved. He never thought his idol had such impatience, although he had to admit that the automated voice did deserve it. It was possibly one of the more annoying experiences that Zinc had ever had. "Ah ha!" exclaimed Zero, standing in front of the locker. "Here we go!" "But we don't have the key," said Zinc. "That was the ticket's job!" "Ah, don't worry about it," Zero took his left index finger and held it up to the keyhole. A small thin metal prong came out and after a bit of fiddling, the lock unclicked and the locker opened. It was a fairly large storage locker. Large enough to hold two sets of full plated body armor and a variety of weapon modules which went unclaimed by the government at the end of the war. Zero always found that rather annoying. Every time they claimed a weapon module from a Robot Master, the government always stepped in and say, 'Nuh uh, you can't have toys like that to play with.' "Well, now I've got my own toys," mumbled Zero. His day had been fairly bad up to this point, but now he finally had the chance to blow off some of this plasma. Zinc's eyes glimmered at the boxes of weapons and armor. Even after being on weapons detail in the War for six months, he still found just these two large boxes rather impressive. "Can I watch you use them?" asked Zinc. "Better," replied Zero with a wink. "You can watch X and I use them on eachother." *** "Ah, there's the man now," said Zero with a smile. X just walked into the courtyard to conclude his search for both Zero and Zinc. He had just finished looking in the storage room and found nothing but a broken speaker and a dented door. X could guess that Zero lost his patience, although he wasn't usually so violent about it, unless it was very annoying. "Well, there you are! I've been looking for you!" said X. A sudden gust of wind picked up X's hair and blew it across his face. Zinc had to admit that X with long hair, a dark blue overcoat and sunglasses made him look really cool. X brushed his hair back in time to see his bluebird land on his left shoulder. "Who's your little friend there?" asked X. Zero looked over at Zinc who was utterly speechless. Apparently the reality of the situation had just sunk in and he had no idea how to react to it. He simply gazed at the former Squadron leader in wonder. "I could ask the same of you," said Zero with a chuckle. X gave him a look of confusion until he noticed the bluebird pecking at his shoulder to get his attention. "Oh, he just happens to like staying on my shoulder whenever I'm outside. I'm not sure where he goes when I'm inside, though." "Is that the bluebird you nearly killed?" chuckled Zero. "What his name?" "Oh...well, I haven't got a name for him, but I was thinking Beat worked fairly well. I know Dr. Light always wanted to have a real pet even though they were difficult to come by given all the damn ecology problems before the Terran War." "It's not a machine like the other one though, so you better handle it carefully," said Zero. Zinc just ran up to X to get a closer look. X took off his sunglasses and put them in his front pocket, then kneeled down to get a closer look at...himself. No wait, it was Rock. 'What the...?' thought X. He put his face on Zinc's cheek who just stood there silently. "Now you look familiar don't you?" asked X. "What's your name, kid?" "Uh...the name is Zinc, sir. I was based on the Rock100 series, if you wanted to know." "Oh right, the series made to increase Maverick Hunter morale. You guys were only around at the end, so you can't be too old," said X with a smile. He stood back up and walked over to Zero who was rummaging through the two boxes. Zinc just followed him from behind. "No sir, I've only been running for 5.512378 years." "Hmmm, not bad. I take it that you're one of Zero's friends?" asked X. "No sir, we just meant recently...he, well, I'm just hanging out with him until he has to go." Zero looked up suddenly at Zinc. X noted that he looked a bit concerned. "Where are you going?" asked X turning to Zero. "Well, I've got some business to take care of in Cluster Two...Venus was my home for five years, you know," he replied. "Hmmm, when are you leaving?" asked X. "I guess as soon as this is all over..." replied Zero silently. He suddenly looked up with a smile. "Well, don't worry about it, we haven't seen eachother in five years, what's a few more between friends right?" "Sure, except this time you better have a phone number," said X with a smile. "Oh yeah, that's right," said Zero suddenly remembering. He had already given a card to Zinc and two to Anyi for as soon as Roll would wake up. "Here you go!" The metal phone card flew through the air and landed in X's left hand. Zero winked and went back to rummaging in the box. "Hey, a Hexer! Very nice, aren't these things about $500 each though?" asked X. "Don't worry about the cost, Zinc here covered for me. The range is only about 20,000 kilometres, but I figure I should be able to fix that with a booster once Anyi gets the lab back in order. I remember seeing some scrap that I could use for the signal." Zero suddenly got a very large, very evil smile on his face. "There's my baby," he said in a disturbing whisper. "What's got you smiling?" asked X. Zero responded by pulling out the red chestplate to his suit. "Wow, this is gonna be so cool!" said Zinc, now sitting in the grass waiting for some action. Even if the courtyard was a mere 33.7 meters in both length and width, it was still large enough for some heavy-duty action. "What's gonna be cool?" asked X. Zero winked and handed X his white chestplate. "Remember that deal we made on the plane? We've been a little busy, but I think I've got some time to spare now. The question is: Am I gonna teach you some swordplay, or are you gonna teach me some fistfighting?" X took off his overcoat and removed his polo shirt. His bare chest revealed to the sun. X fitted the chestplate which immediately formed a vacuum and fit perfectly onto X's chest. "Hmm, fits just like it used to," X murmured as he felt the Armor powercell charge his weapons systems. X waited as the indicator on his chest glowed with half maximum power. Zero tossed him the rest of the armor plates. He responded by putting them over his shins and on his fore-arms. He was still 600 terawatts short of maximum power, though. "Hmmm, something's missing," mused X aloud. Zero looked at him and threw him his white helmet. The forward crystalline spikes across the forehead gleamed in the sunlight and charged X to maximum power. X called up the menu screen, only to be disappointed that there were no weapon modules left in the main suit. However, he had his dashjets installed, as well as his Plasma Stream which was the main power for his Buster Protocol and a few other little goodies. X smiled as he realized the armor still had a self-defence protocol installed, giving X the automatic ability to absorb energy from his enemy's attack and redirect it as an electrical aura to fend off physical melee. "Well, are we ready yet?" asked Zero. He was standing in front of X with his red armored outfit and a thin blade which rose from his helmet into two quick points. Zero had got the idea from X's database on an old Robot Master design known as Quickman. Zero found the quick idea fairly appealing and redesigned his armor to be aerodynamic for the last few months in the Reploid War, unfortunately the armor upgrade had only seen action once. X felt a strain on his neck. "Just a sec," X felt the back of his head and tied his hair back so that it didn't bunch up so much. "Geeze, now I know why you always complained about fixing the helmet for your hair." "Hehe, don't worry, you get used to it," replied Zero. "So you ready to go?" "Sure, let's just do some basic hand to hand today, I'm tired enough as it is. Maybe tomorrow we can pick up the swordplay," said X. "It's too bad we don't have any weapon modules. Even if the government confiscated them all, we should at least have a few left from rogue missions." "Oh we do, I just didn't know you wanted to be that particularly nasty. If you want we can relocate to the football field. It's only about a five minute walk from here," said Zero. "Alright sure, let me see what we've got in the box," X picked up one box and started sorting through the various weapon packs available. "...Storm Tornado...Magnet Mines...Ooo, Split Missiles are fairly recent..." X quickly sorted through the weapons and chose three. "Okay, how about just three? We don't want to overdo it, and these things have a limited lifetime as it is." "Well, maybe we shouldn't fool with them in case we need them later," said Zero. "Yeah you're right...though I can't imagine Chameleon Sting coming in handy." "Wow, that one is really old! Do we still have those old ones?" asked Zero. "Yeah, we've got all the really old ones before the government started confiscating them." "Geeze...hey do we still have that Kuwanger guy's piece?" asked Zero. "Oh yeah, we've got five of the modules from our first encounter with Sigma." "Cool, I always loved that one. Of course, the Weapon Modules have a different configuration for my system, so my version of that weapon is cooler than yours," Zero said with wry arrogance. "Yeah right, we better start heading over to the field and you can share with me the coolness of your separate configuration on the way. Maybe Zinc will actually be interested, though don't be too mad if I sometimes say the next thing before you," X started walking away, packing the boxes. Zinc came and took the boxes from him, insisting that he help carry them. "Have I really told you that many times?" asked Zero. He shrugged and looked at Zinc, who looked like he was hoping for a repeat of the story. "Ah, who cares? I'm always willing to tell you again." X just yelled as he went back inside the Physics building, "Yeah, yeah, I know." *** "Well, this place looks pretty good," said Zero thoughtfully, scanning the ground for any anomalies such as grassy holes and large rocks. It was standard procedure to keep a topographical map of the battleground in one's head and play out the fight as one would play Chess because it was the simplest way of keeping track of events rather than recording it into memory visually. Zero had smirked at all the passerbys' looks as they walked down the street in their fanciful armour. Whenever asked, X and Zero simply stated that they were auditioning for a play at the Jenson Theatre. Zinc simply tagged along, carrying everything in one box while X and Zero scoped out the football field which they were passing. There was a good chance that the field would be occupied for practice, however Zero had found a rather good undevelopped field in a forest clearing which they would use instead. Nice and far from any would-be onlookers. Simply put, they were about to test "confiscated" equipment, thankfully they missed a lot of things from the Reploid War since no one ever kept careful track of the details. It was mostly done on purpose so that Sigma would never have the upper hand. During the time, Zero wasn't sure if the government wanted to stop the war or watch Sigma win. "Alright, but we better keep it quiet, we don't want to attract too much attention," said X as he began to stretch and limber up his tendons. Most of his muscular tissue was constructed from what was commonly termed, "Bio-metal". It was an idea which was conceived by the government nearly a century ago, however the idea of a synthetic organic structure had only been realized fully just before the Terran War. For some reason, instead of microscopic pistons which were used for Rock, Dr. Light had chose to build X with the Bio-metal stringset encased in Titanium Ceramic. Certainly it made him a formidable opponent, however it did require stretching out every once in awhile. "Cool!" exclaimed Zinc, finding a comfortable spot on the grass. "You guys must have the best MGS that the government could ever design!" "Probably," started Zero as he began to stretch as well. He only required doing it once a year, but better safe than sorry. He did find it rather odd that X did it every chance he got, simply as a way to relax. "but we aren't going to be using MGS. We're gonna shut them off." Zinc raised an eyebrow in confusion. Zero knew what was going through his head. The Motion-Guidance System was designed to simulate instinct and reflex. Without the MGS, Zero didn't even know how to predict his enemy, to sense his chi, as an old Zen master would probably put it. Without the MGS, Zero only had his technique to guide him, for he had no perception of combat of which to speak. That which lets him feel the fight. It truly was a remarkable design on Dr. Light's part who had designed it for the original Rock, unfortunately Zero had relied on it so much in the past, he was uncertain he could let it go now. X raised his hands with both of his feet firmly on the ground. Zero looked at his eyes and saw nothing but the steel of determination. X wasn't playing around this time, he really was going to give it his best shot. "Hey X, relax, this is just a sparring match!" said Zero. Zinc stared between both of them in confusion before X brought his stance down in Zero's direction. "If you don't understand the depth of a technique without an MGS, how can I expect you to really try your best to learn it from me?" Zero responded by bringing his fists down into an aggressive stance. 'I never could get the best of you in an argument,' thought Zero, his own determination resolved as he faced his opponent. Zero knew that X wasn't going to use the Plasma Stream, so he'd probably be walk away with only surface damage. Of course, if the attacks were delivered at supersonic speeds, things could get pretty messy. Zero charged X and brought about an attack heightened by the dash sensors in his armor. Immediately, his entire body moved through what Maverick Hunters used to jokingly call, "The Hyper-Real". The sense of one's body moving at sonic speed without uttering a sound. The name arose from the term which humans used for living faster than one could perceive, a common complaint on current technology. Since Reploids represented that technology, they commonly lived slower than they could perceive simply because their thought process revolved around what the humans could not keep up with. Therefore, moving faster than a Reploid can perceive would be Hyper-Real. It was a stupid joke, however the technique was deadly. It was a technique designed and perfected by Zero himself, who many Reploids looked upon as the founder of the first Martial Art designed for Reploid use. Even without the experience of physical training as he had found in his later years of study in human-based Martial Arts, Zero's first techniques were physically flawless and Newton would have applauded his geometric accuracy. The fighting style was designed to move through The Hyper-Real at unparalleled speeds towards the opponent who would immediately be attacked by a body only capable of being tracked with a state of the art MGS, or be instantly destroyed if the technique was at full power with the Plasma Stream activated. As it was, it may have put a rather large dent in a state of the art ceramic model. X easily dodged. In fact, he had dashed upwards and did a forward flip over Zero by moving at the same Hyper-Real frequency. X knew what frequency Zero operated at in Hyper-Real and could probably easily keep track of him as long as they were both moving at the same speed. Since Reploids generated a sonic frequency when they moved through the Hyper-Real, knowing that frequency would allow an opponent to track the Reploid even without an MGS. 'Damnit, I've got to run a randomizer on my frequency before X decides to retaliate!' Zero quickly thought and in another millisecond it was so. Zero landed on the ground and saw X standing behind him using his radar. Zero quickly turned and spun into a horizontal cartwheel five feet off the air. The surprise of a blind-fighting maneuver nearly caught X in the head, however he simply jumped up through Zero's separated legs in the attack and hovered in the air before shortly coming down to land on Zero's head. Zero quickly tucked and somersaulted towards a tree as he tumbled across the field. X landed on the ground, making no signs of another attack. 'Okay, let's see if he can predict this!' said Zero, a smile creeping into his face. In all the years during the Reploid War, Zero had found taking opponents one on one pathetically simple. Even Sigma couldn't pose the same challenge presented by X, of course Zero only ever fought Sigma tete-a-tete once. Not even X ever got to do that, always trapped by some infernal invention of the maniac. Zero leaped up into the tree and quickly ran up the side of it. He then jumped from the tree, again matching Hyper-Real speeds in order to dash down and do a vertical spear across X's neck before he had the chance to turn around. Before Zero could finish the maneuver, X put his hands up behind him and caught Zero by the arm, driving him into the ground. "Damnit! Normally I would have seen that!" cursed Zero into the grass. X was sitting on his back, apparently having exerted almost no effort into it. "Last time we fought, you had the MGS turned on and surely you were an extremely formidable opponent," began X whistfully as he began picking at the grass. "Since we departed last, I have focused my attentions into a way to fight without any of my systems operational, except for my main powercell. Because of this, having an MGS turned on would only hinder my movements. When we fought on the plane, you saw my movements and parried them with ease. You are so used to the MGS being your instincts, that you focus all your attention on how to attack, forgetting that without an MGS you must also defend." "See my problem?" said Zero with a grim laugh. "How can I focus on both at the same time? Even with my main systems operational, there are still too many factors to consider. To worry about defense while attacking is self-defeating. I even learned that during my human studies!" "Yes, I know. You told me over the few e-mails I had got from you these past years. Still, you studied Aikido and you should know that a good defense is also a good offense." "Yeah, too bad it's useless against Reploids who have an MGS and can see through both! If one is flawed, then the other is flawed with Aikido!" started Zero. He knew X was getting to a point, and he was starting to wish he'd hurry it up so he could stand and brush the dirt off. He knew that Zinc was watching, and it was probably a little crushing to be watching his role model rolling in the dirt with his enemy lying on his back. "True. Then you must learn how to defend and attack at the same time. The principle behind Kung Fu was always this. Wing Chun taught me well how to do this, yet it was still flawed because of it's human influence." "Isn't that designed for women?" asked Zero. "Yes," replied X. "However, it was useful in a few points for my technique though my gravity does not match that of a female. I slowly became aware of a great secret for anyone who doesn't own an MGS. If you can attack with a defense and still keep it within the Hyper-Real, which is the Reploid battleground, then you are an unstoppable foe, especially if your Plasma Stream is activated." Zero knew of this, simply because he had apprenticed X that one day so many years ago. How to fight within the Hyper-Real with your Plasma Stream activated and still be able to function properly. He had taught it to X shortly after they had found the dash activator for X's systems from one of Dr. Light's holographic capsules. X had certainly come a long way since that day. Of course, Sigma, even being a maniac, always predicted that X had limitless potential. It must have been part of Dr. Light's design, but was unfortunately left out in his own. Of course, what he could do with what he was given still could take X in a standard battle anyday. At least, a few years ago that was true. "Of course, but to have an attack and a defense would take awhile for me to design, so I guess I'll have to think about it," mused Zero thoughtfully. "Hey wait a minute, X how did you design these techniques so quickly? It would have taken me a long time even with my knowledge of The Hyper-Real and certainly it would have taken you at least a decade to determine all the variables!" "My body already knew them," replied X silently. "I don't know how I know them, but I do. It's an old memory which eludes me, and it may not even belong to me. Perhaps it is merely the result of an instinct developped over time." "I can't imagine how," replied Zero. He was thoroughly confused, but then again X seemed to be having memory lapses recently, although he only knew of one for sure. Still, he was starting to worry about X, because he had been a little distant since Zero arrived, although he was smiling more these last few days. "I don't know. Instead of trying to attack my opponent, I simply look at it from the other point of view. I'm already going to hit my opponent, there is no question of it. I simply let it happen instead of trying to cause it." Zero smiled as he recognized that was the same thought process he went through when he practiced with his blade. It was just an instinct he developped over time, so he could still swordfight without an MGS, he knew because he had to a long time ago on Venus. Perhaps fighting and swordplay weren't so different after all. "Shall we have another go?" asked X, getting up and brushing the dirt off his chestplate. "Sure, hey Zinc how did you like that?" called out Zero to the distant kid sitting in the field. "That was great, even if you didn't win! You were right about X being so cool! I never even thought he could stand up to you!" yelled Zinc. "He can't!" yelled Zero. "Just wait until I get my sword!" X walked over to Zero and put a hand on his shoulder. Zinc was practicing some of the maneuvers he had learned in the Reploid Defense Training protocol, but he was obviously rusty at it. X leaned over and whispered, "Hey Zero, you better watch it now. You got someone watching you. You know how we love to fight?" Zero nodded. It was the basic protocol instilled in X and Zero. Zero always followed it, even on Venus. Somehow X had managed to live without it, but even now he knew that X felt truly alive for the first time in five years. "He doesn't have it," he finished. "If you want him to have it, you should keep displaying how much you enjoy it." Zero noted the light sarcasm in X's voice. Zero knew that Zinc was impressionable, but would be surprised if Zinc actually enjoyed fighting, especially after the war. Zero knew the trouble fighting caused, which was why he tried his best to keep it to simply sparring. Suddenly, Zinc turned around and then turned back at Zero. "Hey wait a second! There's a few people coming this way!" The two rested from their fighting stance and saw a group of college students heading their way with a football. One of them, tall with blonde hair, called out, "Hey! You guys using the field!?" Zero called back, "No, we were just leaving! What do you need it for?" The group ran up to them, there was eight in total. They were all fairly well-built and were wearing the school colours, Red and Black. "Hey man, what were you guys doing?" asked one of the students in a particularly thick Australian accent. He was obviously from outside Cluster One. "Oh...we were just playing around with some old school costumes we found. We..uh, were thinking of using them for the next SCA meeting!" said X brilliantly, as the excuse came quickly to them. Zero just glanced at him, it was obvious the kids didn't know what the SCA even was. "Oh yeah, we were gonna practice some football, but all the fields are being used. Hey, you guys wanna play with us? We could always use a few guys, except you'll have to lose the armor." Zero and X just looked at eachother, Zinc came running up from behind. "Hey! Can I play too?" asked Zinc. The students just looked at eachother and shrugged. "Sure why not? So how about it?" asked the tall blonde one again. "...Sure, I guess so. What do you think Ze...Veron?" asked X. X noted that Zero didn't charge his MGS and was apparently going to see if he could go without it on the field of football. X powered down his Dash Activator and Zero did the same. The kids needed at least a fighting chance, even if they still couldn't match the 1.2 Exa-watt of power. Zero just turned to the leader with a bit of an evil smile. "Let's rock." *** Author's Comments: Well, probably a whole bunch of new terms for everyone. Anyway, this episode was largely to introduce the whole aspect of how the guys fought without their Plasma Stream activated. I'm gonna save all the big explosion stuff for later. Too bad you guys aren't going to see any more action for quite a while, hopefully this held you for a bit.