The sand danced across the ground. Sliding down the dunes of the earth. Sliding into every crevice of the world. Drowning into the sea of sorrow of the ever-expanding wasteland.
How long had he been walking?
How long had he been fighting?
How long had he been yearning?
The wasteland hid nothing but the true self. Revealed for him to gaze upon each speck of sand and contemplate his own existence. That was all he could do as he passed through this wasteland. Contemplate. He was alone in this journey to nowhere. Alone in the passage of time. The day turned to night, and the night turned to day. All that he knew was the yesterday that he dreamt of. The yesterday of today. The yesterday of tomorrow.
When he slept there was no beautiful dream that held him close and washed away the sorrow of the day’s pain. When he closed his eyes only the visions of memories would carry him away on his cart of death. Drowning him in the sorrow of a pain he did not remember. A pain he did not wish to understand. A pain that he would often contemplate but ignore. Deep in his mind, past the system, past the machine, through to his soul and corrupting his heart.
What were these dreams?
Visions of the past?
Visions of the future?
Visions of what had been lost?
He wanted to end it all. To draw into his body and hold his soul in his hands. To snuff out his own existence and bring peace to the world. But every time that thought drew him in, every time his fingers pressed against his chest to end it all, the body screamed in agony. Convulsing. Twitching. Screaming. Preventing him from allowing himself the beauty of death to continue the nightmare.
The sins of the world were too great for him sometimes. But he could not shield away that which he brought upon the world. Mavericks drew upon his body at times. Saw his mangled flesh and knew him as the legend of the world. Knew him as ____! Called his name! But who was he really? That man he knew was a proud warrior that fought for the dreams of his friend. To bring peace to the world. But this thing that trudged through the land was nothing but a ghost in the shell.
So, he killed. Killed for the sake of killing. Self-defense, perhaps. That was what he told himself. Yet the system grew hungry. Even in his dying pangs he still brought his hand to tear away life from those that lived.
How many had he killed?
Did it matter?
He was a wolf dressed as a human. Dressed as a machine. Made to hunt. Made to slaughter. There was no humanity in his precision of death. No warmth in the touch of his body. No reason for his state of existence but to kill and maim all those that would dare stand before him. To indulge in violent tendencies as his coding demanded him to.
But a wolf killed because it needed to sustain itself.
No… then…
Not a wolf. Not a human. Not a man.
There was nothing that laid underneath the armor he wore.
Nothing beneath the beautiful face sculpted to him.
He was only a machine.
A machine dressed in the wolf’s pelt.
Made only to hunt.
To kill.
This blood on his hands. He knew it well. All those Mavericks that dared stand in his way. It was theirs. This ecstasy of death thrilled him. The feeble mind becoming ever so clear. It was the coding locked away so deep in his psyche that he had so desperately tried to bury deep within. Was it Cain who hid it? Was it X who quelled him? Was it Gate who devoured him?
It did not matter anymore. What mattered was the art of the kill. His hands drenched in death. His body ready to maim.
The only thing that held him back now was the wounds that covered him. The wounds inflicted upon him from his very own Nightmare. The reflection of his self. The reflection of the dream of those that devoured him. The reflection of his mind. Even if the body was unwilling, the soul was not. His hands were enough to play into murder. His teeth were enough to tear out if his hands could not. Afterall, everything in life started in the mind. It was all a mental game. If he willed it forth hard enough, the body would soon follow.
Death was all that mattered to him in this barren wasteland. Death was the only thing that mattered to anyone. The language everyone spoke. The language that was so familiar to anyone.
The others who clung to this wasteland learned of him quickly. Word spread far and wide of his prowess. Many thought him an illusion in this world. But the trail of bodies he left behind was no illusion. The blood that flowed was no mirage.
Who are you?
One Maverick approached him and asked.
Who am I?
He would reply.
They called me Zero.
He would continue.
But now… I’m not too sure.
The Maverick would laugh.
But Zero is dead.
And he would nod in agreement.
You’re right. Zero is dead.
The Maverick would only laugh.
Zero would laugh too.
Its blood would cover his hands. Like all the rest.
Like all the rest.
Like all the rest.
Like all the rest.
Zero ducked underneath a canopy of metal and thought the forest of blades that littered through Area Zero. From the sand he treated upon dirt parched for water. Metal creaking and rusting. Red and yellow and black scorched upon the sunset. Night reaching above the heaven to wrap the world in a beautiful embrace.
The canopy of metal reached up and over Zero. Covering the sky filled with millions of colors. Shielding him from the world above to wrap him in the world of himself.
He stood in a ballroom.
The carpet laced in beautiful iconography of eons long ago. Stained glass that drew to the ceiling. The ceilings made of high arches dotted with fresco of mankind. Pillars of marble. Walls of beautiful white. Paintings of kingdoms and dynasties. Glittering chandeliers of thousands of crystals. The room illuminated with the bright glow of yellow.
Zero stood at the top of the ballroom stairs. The balcony overlooking the beautiful scape. His eyes flittering across the beautiful wonder. Paintings began to move. So did the people in this place. Their long sweeping dresses flowing and flittering across the glossy tiles. Carefully he stepped down the curling stairway. Stepped upon the ballroom floor. Stepped alongside the people who danced and spun. They hardly regarded him as he moved past them. Merely staring ahead. Looking at only their partner.
A hand was soon to grab him. Taking him into the dance. It was a woman’s hand that held his. Her long brown hair flowing behind her. Her beautiful emerald eyes glistened in the chandelier lights. Sparkling like those stars that Zero regarded so often. She smiled so sweet at him. So gently. Held him so careful and soft. He held her at the waist as they danced. Their feet taking them no where in particular as they joined the people below.
But she would soon leave him. Her touch lingering as Zero continued to twirl by himself within this ballroom floor. His armor falling to the floor as his body was consumed by the ghosts swirling between his body and fingers. Another person would soon take his hand and guide his steps. His hair was black, and he was much taller than Zero. He wore military fatigues so familiar and held him in the same gentleness of the woman who had once danced with him. His smile was small and his steps were with meaning, yet still held that same softness.
The ghosts would take him away as well. Leaving a chill in his hands as he twirled upon the tiles. Dancing and spinning and joining with the ghosts that danced endlessly in this waltz. Danced wonderfully in this place. The people he did not recognize and yet felt so familiar to him. A memory he could barely grasp. A memory that fluttered between his fingers. A memory that guided him deeper into the dance. Deeper into the feeling. Deeper into this dream.
The figures danced gracefully across his memory.
The memory burnt dim.
He spun endlessly within the ballroom letting these ghosts hold him. Letting these images pass him by.
Who were these people? He could hardly remember them. They were so familiar, yet they all disappeared slowly through his fingers.
The vision eventually faded. The happiness that he felt slipped away. His steps slowed and his eyes widened at the carcass of the world. That beautiful ballroom slipped away in his hands. The people he danced with fell away into nothing. And Zero was left to face the reality that he had created for himself.
All he could do was slip to his knees and scream.
The blaze of the sun battered down onto the careful shade that Zero hid beneath. Glittering gold sand speckled the beautiful day as he stared out into nothing. The metal craning its neck towards the sky to call back to its once beautiful position back in space. Never to be free from the land. The wind howled as it always did. Days were unremarkably the same as they always were. The war machine had once kept track, long ago. But slowly forgotten as his mind slipped from his body back into the machine.
Today was no different from the mundane.
But there was a sound.
It was different than the scrap that would fall from its failing structure. Different than the Mavericks that would scuffle around in search of their next prey. No, this sound was more refine. Sounded more purposeful in its movements against the rubble. The system hummed. The alerts of his failing bodied hummed louder. Carefully, Zero huddled closer to the metal that barely sheltered him.
The yellow and red sand sifted through his fingers and fell back into the sea. The storm brewed once more. The wind muddled the air again. A pale rider stepped forward from the brilliance of red. The rider he knew so well. Not from a dream. Not from a feeling. But from a memory as he slept deep in his coffin.
The machine stared.
And the wolf stared back.
“Wolfang?” Zero whispered in shock. Mixed emotions flowed through him. His body felt heavy with uncertainty. Body tensed ready to leap at the other, ready to destroy him like he destroyed all those other Mavericks. But he held back. Was it the memory of comfort for all those horrid nights? Was it Wolfang’s calming gestures that kept his sanity stilled? The wolf only looked on.
“Wolfang? What did you find?” came another voice. Zero tensed once more as Wolfang turned.
“Nothing,” the wolf replied.
“Nothing?” the voice replied. It drew closer. “That is impossible. The readings are clear.” The dust began to settle. The silhouette becoming clear.
Zero could only lay still against the metal. His eyes were wide. But there was nothing behind them. All he could think of… was to kill. To hunt. To end the madness that swept his body. Perhaps if he killed Wolfang then--!
He did not move as Wolfang suddenly bounded forward. Bringing the once safe canopy tumbling downward on top of Zero. Hiding him away from Gate eyes.
There was several coughs and sputters. “Why did you do that!?” yelled the voice.
“There was a hostile hiding.” Wolfang’s voice rung out. “I disposed of it.” There was a pause. Shuffling. “Perhaps we should head back, our supplies are getting low.”
The voice sighed. “I suppose we should. There is no use dying out here and wasting the second chance that we have.”
Wolfang paused. “I shall return once we resupply. I suggest riding the winds to the south. Perhaps he might be there.”
“I agree and then we…” the voices drifted away.
And, after so long, Zero smiled.
Zero scarfed down the energen tank that Wolfang handed him. If Zero had appetite in the traditional sense, one could say he might have been hungry enough to eat an entire buffet. Lasting on solar power and nuclear fusion was enough in a pinch, but that pinch had lasted one day too many. It made him lazy, sluggish, and dim. One can was hardly enough for him as he crushed it in his palms, cracking open another and scarfing it down as well. He hardly had a second thought about the wolf who sat steadily beside him watching Zero enjoy his meal.
“That hungry?” Wolfang chuckled.
There was a silence as Zero finished his second can. He hardly resisted reaching for a third. “Gutting Mavericks for half consumed energen is hardly filling.” Zero shrugged nonchalantly. Brutal, perhaps. But with half his hearts pumping and one too many wounds, it was all about survivability in this wasteland. Not a drop could be wasted. Especially not for the dead. He reached for the repair kit that Wolfang brought with him. Rifling around for a moment he picked out a simple welding tool.
“Where are you going?” Wolfang set a few more cans near Zero. “Home?”
The machine grew silent. Hardly a glance was made towards the wolf as he begun to set the small repair machine up.
“You don’t look like you want to go back,” he moved himself to lay near where Zero sat. Eyes watching him closely as Zero begun to weld together pieces of his inside. Armor discarded to the side.
“Who was that cheap copy back at the laboratory?” he winced as he welded. Wolfang raised his brow not quite sure how to respond. “The one that looked like me. Gate called it Nightmare.”
“I cannot tell you.”
Zero frowned as he placed the welder down, reaching for a foam tube. “Can’t or won’t.” There was a shrug in response and Zero sighed in kind. “Not sure what I expected.”
“Do not confuse my kindness as betrayal.” Wolfang narrowed his eyes. “I am still bound to Gate’s side. I am merely repaying my debt to you.”
That answer still pissed Zero off. “Just a debt?” he chuckled as he reached for another drink. “That’s all it is?”
“Yes.”
Zero narrowed his eyes towards Wolfang for a moment. He assessed the other carefully before returning back to repairing himself. “You piss me off sometimes.”
An amused huff was his only answer.
Zero could not help but glance idly at the wolf who laid so calmly beside him. The white metal so serene in this horrid desert. It had been so long since he felt so calm and at peace. So long had it been since he felt as if he did not need to run. To search. To hide. To hunt. To kill. The system hummed gently in his ear the utterings of how to easily murder the other. One thousand and one different ways to kill him in this perfect night. The darkness illuminated only by the stars that hung overhead. Had it been another person, Zero might have given into the temptation. Yet, he did not. Rather, he enjoyed the peace. The quiet. The stillness.
“What has Gate been doing now that I’m gone.” Zero took a sip of his drink, staring up at the night sky. “I guess he’s been searching for me.”
“He has,” Wolfang nodded his head. “Many of us have been sent out every day looking for you.”
“I’m surprised it took anyone this long to find me.” It wasn’t like he was trying to hide particularly well in the desert. It did the work for him.
“I have been leading them away from you.”
That explains it then.
“I figured.” He didn’t.
“This will be the last time that I do.” Wolfang sat up, turning towards Zero giving him an even stare. “Gate is planning something. I do not know what, but I will not be able to help you any longer.” Zero was silent. He stared from Wolfang down to the drink in his hands. The wind blew softly against the desert. His hair flowing in the wind. A question laid heavy in his mind. Gate’s melody always rung in his head. Softly sometimes. Loudly others. But it was always the same question day in day out.
Where will you go?
There was the obvious answer. Home. Back to the Maverick Hunter HQ. It was where he belonged. The only place that would accept him for who he was. A killing machine. There was no place for a war machine besides where war was conducted. Yet, if that was the case, why was he so terrified to go back there? To hunt once more as he was made to do. His killing perfection was unmatched. And he knew those people would treat him with the respect of a killer. Or was it fear?
Perhaps that was what prevented him from turning back there. It was not his machine grace. It was not his pride of his love of the kill. No. He was terrified of one person. Terrified of the shame that would gaze to his soul. Terrified knowing that the other would treat him as another person. A person that no longer existed. A person that had been worn away by the torture of war. By the torture of himself. By the torture of the machine.
X.
And even still he longed to be with him. Longed to see his friend’s face once more. Longed to protect him. There was no one else that knew Zero more than him. No one else that would face Zero and accept him for who he was. Man. Machine. Or the wolf that would hunt to kill. To maim. To destroy.
Was it being human that scared him?
Was it knowing that he too could kill X as easily as he did Iris?
He chewed his lip for a second, taking another sip of the energen as he stared into the distance.
“I’m on my own then,” Zero tipped his body backwards to revel in the night sky. “That means the next time I see you…” his voice drifted. They both fell into silence. Knowing what bitter end it meant.
Zero turned and reached out towards Wolfang’s body. Finger tips kissing the white metal of the other’s soul. The ice seeping into him resting his festering soul into a silence as he allowed the chill to overcome him. A feeling Zero wished that could last forever. For a moment, he was brought back to laying in that icy room against the metal bed, and for a moment he wanted to return to that place. Return to Gate’s arms and allow himself a final resting place. Not because he wished to endure the torture of Gate’s mind, but to allow himself to create a world of some semblance of peace. That was what Gate wanted. That was what Gate was offering him. Another chance to create a better world. Another chance to rid the world of war.
Maybe it would be better that way.
A sigh escaped Zero’s lips as he closed his eyes once more. “Never thought I’d be friends with a Maverick,” he chuckled. “Wouldn’t be the first.” A smile tinged his lips.
“You became friends with a Maverick once?” Wolfang stared at Zero with a semblance of disbelief. “I think I may have misjudged you.”
“I… did once…” Zero opened his eyes staring into the night sky. “I saved him… and he joined the Maverick Hunters… He joined my squad…” his voice sounded more distant as the memory drew into him. In the distant sand he saw Asard dancing in the desert. Dancing in circles with Driftwood. He tried to smile at himself at the memory of the two of them but it only gave a terrible sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He knew it shouldn’t have been like this, and yet it filled him with dread all the same. Knowing that they were there, continuing to kill with no end in sight. Did they hate him for the future he failed to create?
“I will be honest, Zero.” Wolfang reached over to open his own can of energen. “I always thought you a killing machine.”
Killing machine.
“I am…” Zero muttered. His body shook in fear.
A machine.
“All I know is how to kill others…”
A machine draped in the pelt of a wolf.
“That’s why I was made.”
Made only to hunt.
“My only purpose is to kill.”
Made only to kill.
“That’s… the only thing I’m good for…”
Made only to perpetuate the cycle of violence.
His body quivered with death once more. The system whispered into his mind again. A thought that tainted his very self. An urge that made him sink his teeth into all that was beautiful and tear it into shreds. Painting the ground red with blood. Painting everything he knew and held dear with black.
That was why Iris died. That is why he feared to return to X.
He couldn’t be humanized. Couldn’t be told he was HUMAN. How could he go home? Home was for humanity. Home was for the comfort.
A machine did not need comfort. A machine only needed the battlefield.
Here.
In this desert.
The place he belonged. A place for the machine.
Yet he still wished to bring a world where only peace existed. Wanted to fight and kill so that peace could remain. But where would he go then if there was peace? What would he do? He could not turn human. A machine could only remain a machine.
The can slipped from his hand as he drew his head into his palms. The beating heart thumping in his chest. Echoing into his mind. Beating harder. Beating deeper. He felt his other heart beat in that laboratory that Gate laid. He wondered what he whispered to Zero. Wondered what he would whisper to him in these moments.
Would Gate call him a machine?
“I’m… just a machine…”
Where will you go?
His knees curled towards his chest. His breathing deepened.
How could he show X himself? How could he show X this disgusting visage of a machine?
Where will you go?
Wolfang stared on. The wind howled.
If Zero had tears, would he have cried? He was not sure. A machine could not cry, so that is what he believed. But to Wolfang, Zero was the most human of them all.
A human housed in the body of a machine.
Where will you go?
Wolfang’s steps slowed as Zero kept waltzing across the desert. The sun peaked carefully at the desert’s edge, the sky arranging itself into beautiful colors. Slowly the machine’s steps slowed, he turned back towards the beastloid with a brow quirked slightly. But soon enough the revelation would don upon him and the somber look would return back to Zero.
The wolf smiled. “This is as far as I can go.” The wind howled. “If I go any farther Gate will know. I do not want to take you back there.” In their eyes spoke everything. “I know what you’re still thinking. How could I stay with Gate?” Wolfang drew closer to Zero. “I owe him a debt.” Zero felt the cold of the wolf’s pelt enrapture him. “You understand.”
This was no question, but a statement. Unlike Zero, he was not bound by an unspoken law of debt and repayment. Gate’s blessing was nothing more than that. The laws that Zero was bound by was the words to kill. To bite the hand that fed him. The system clicked back into place and soon his mind would be overwhelmed once more by the bright lights of death and murder.
So it goes.
Zero nodded his head. But was this the Zero he knew or the mirror that did it for him?
“I owe Gate my life, as do you.” Wolfang smirked as Zero drew back in disgust. “You know it to be true.”
Zero grit his teeth. “I owe him nothing.” He shut his eyes, shaking his head side to side. “I wish I was dead!” But even if he wished that, his body would not allow him to.
Wolfang nodded his head, closing the distance again. “If you believe that…” carefully Wolfang took from his bag a saber. He held it out for Zero to take. “Then end it here.”
There was no moment to the next that Zero grasped the saber that Wolfang held. The piece was so familiar in his hands and ushered in the song of death to his mind. The system roared in blissful ecstasy as it was all flooding back to him. The true self. Even if it was the thought of suicide that spurred these actions it quickly was overtaken by the howl of the kill that drew the graceful green energy from the saber not to himself but to Wolfang. He shook with a fear that he did not know. A power within him that did that he did not tell to do.
Zero gasped as he grasped his other arm to lower the blade. Yet his body seemed to convulse at such action. Wolfang only stood still. Accepting whatever fate Zero decided to draw upon the both of them.
Where will you go?
“No…” Zero shut his eyes again. Gripping into his arm as he forced his hand down to his side. The glistening green sparkling across the two of them. The wolf and the machine. “I… I can’t!” Zero screamed. “I want to… but I can’t!”
Would he have cried if he had the tears to?
“If I ever see you on the battlefield I will have no choice but to fight you.” Wolfang stated the fact that they had not wished to utter. A reminder, almost. “Will you kill me?”
Zero kept his eyes shut. The sun rose from the edge of the desert. Its power raining down upon the two of them. The heat was unbearable, but the cold kept it away.
Carefully Zero finally looked at Wolfang. The two of them saw their invisible tears. The two of them saw how their souls cried out to the end of this nightmare. Had they both been dreaming all this time? Had they been both sleepwalking side by side, hand in hand? Was this why they felt so much like brothers? A link that never should have been made. A knot that never should have been tied. Their destinies intertwined that never should have been. It was destined to end in tragedy.
Like all the rest.
“Come with me,” Zero reached his hand out. But Wolfang stepped away.
Wolfang shook his head, still with a smile. “You know I cannot.”
“Please…” Zero begged. “I don’t want to….” His voice trailed off. He could not say the words that were destined for the other.
Is this my destiny? To continue to kill?
The wolf stepped away from Zero. Farther away from him now. It was finally time to leave.
As easily as the wolf came, he too did leave. He turned away from Zero’s hand, turned away from the machine, and began to walk back into that desert. Yet Zero stood still, as if stuck in the sand. Sinking deeper and deeper into the arms of sorrow.
“Wolfang!” Zero shouted. But the wolf kept walking. Even if he wanted to run to his side. Even if he wanted to drag the wolf back with him. Zero still did not know one thing…
Where will you go?
“Wolfang…!” Zero shouted again. He moved forward, but yet his body planted him to the ground.
Where will you go?
“Wolfang… tell me please…” Zero cried out to the other. He reached towards the desert that now had nothing in it anymore.
Where will you go?
“Tell me… what do I do…?” slowly Zero fell to the ground. His hands reached out for nothing. Only the sand was there to greet him.
Where will you go?
“Where do I go?”
The door slid open as Wolfang walked back into the familiar hallway. It was not home, nor was it a prison. Merely a place in time that he spent until the moment to be used. Perhaps the wolf likened it to a toolbox.
Silently he walked the hallway, careful as to avoid all the reploids and humans that crowded around the place with new vigor and purpose. Plans were beginning to set in motion and there would be no turning back soon enough. The die had been cast, and the chess pieces have been placed. He wondered who would be the other player in this game.
Dr. Gate slowly drifted into view as he busied himself over Nightmare. Speaking to him with fervor, his hands darting this way and that. Isoc stood carefully by but far away enough to remain outside of Gate’s ire.
The man had been much more erratic since Zero had left. For the better or worse.
When Isoc’s attention caught the wolf, so too did Gate’s. The man turned on his heels, staring up at the white wolf with great expectations. Wondering why he had come back so soon. Wondering if, perhaps, the other had brought joyous news to them.
“Wolfang!” Gate bounded towards him. His face was with joy everlasting. A smile that seemed to have lit the entire room. “Do you bring news? Have you found him?” he placed his hands on Wolfang’s arms. Drawing close.
Wolfang was silent for a moment. A beat that might have been a little too long. Wondering what he should or should not say. Wondering what destiny he should give to Zero. Wondering what destiny he should give to himself.
“No,” he finally replied. He saw Gate visibly deflate. “Zero is… dead.”
It was fury that rose to Gate’s face. Eventually it was physical anger. He felt the tension in Gate’s hands as he drew deeper into the wolf. Drawing deeper into his soul.
“There was not a single piece of his DNA left.” Wolfang continued as he ignored Gate’s ire. “I believe he must have killed himself.”
Was this the lie or the truth?
“How!?” Gate finally yelled. “My greatest masterpiece… this shouldn’t have been possible…!” Finally, he left Wolfang’s side. “I did everything correct. Everything was as it should have been!”
Everyone watched as Gate descended deeper into the madness. Deeper into his own nightmare. Deeper into the obsession. Some were with disgust. Others were with fear. Wolfang merely stood with not a single judgement cast. Only took it as it was.
But clarity was soon to watch over Gate. A clarity that, perhaps, would soon bathe Zero as well.
Gate soon turned to look at Wolfang once more. “Ah…” the doctor smiled. Wolfang couldn’t help but recoil at such an emotion. It was nothing he had ever seen before. A wicked smile that not even a devil would touch. A smile that even fallen angels would shudder at. A smile that shied away even the most terrible of creatures.
Did Gate finally realize what Wolfang had been doing all this time?
Or had he always known?
“Not dead…. But reborn.” Gate approached Wolfang once more. “I see now, it has all become clear to me.” He placed his hands on the wolf’s sides again. “He has chosen to fight for a new world.”
The wolf tried not to recoil in fear at this disease that overtook Gate’s mind. Tried to keep his face even. Tried not to betray the truth the laid just beneath the surface that Gate stared at.
“This may work in our favor.” Gate kept that terrible wicked grin. “Wolfang you have done so much to help me. But your work is far from over.”
And Wolfang could not help but wonder if he had sent Zero back to the war that the machine desperately tried to flee from.