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Fireworks Aftermath: Misery Loves Company

He certainly would have preferred this meeting to have come at any other point than the one they were currently at, the blond not at all pleased with the fact that Xander had just finished addressing the City again, this time in the wake of Fairy and Sage’s failure to capture Omega. They knew, given his ability to use the rifts, that it was going to be a nearly impossible mission from any angle, but they had had to try.

At least all four of the kids were home and motions had been made to reassure the populace that the threat Omega presented would no longer encroach on their safe haven without someone knowing about it.

Doubly so for Leto having hand-picked the officers that had been reassigned to the newly-commissioned Rift Security division of the City’s security forces.

Not that anyone really worried about that when it came to Lieutenant Commander Zero.

Much like Xander had done some hours earlier, Zach reached up to knock at the doorframe after the door had slid into the recess of the wall.

Rhythm had been watching the new broadcast that Xander had done, one leg crossed over the other from where he was seated currently. His lip had curled upon both the news that Omega had failed to be captured and the assurance that Omega couldn’t encroach without someone knowing about it. Perhaps, but by the time someone found out, it could be far too late to mitigate any of the damage.

What was wrong with killing the bastard? People like Omega had little to no chance for a true reform.

He looked up when the doorframe slid open, only then acknowledging the knock and the near-mirror in front of him. Well, at least it wasn’t Xander, he wasn’t sure that he could hold a civil conversation with that particular X at the moment.

How in the name of Asimov did older Xs have a tendency to give him migraines? But he’d stay civil with his counterpart for the time being.

“Something that you need?”

“Came to see how you and your little one were doing,” Zach answered, taking Rhythm’s question as permission to enter. “I figured today’s been a bit of a drain on everyone,” and his gaze flickered over to Xavier, the bioroid slumbering peacefully (enough), and a slight smile came to his face at the sight of the vase of yarrow on the bedside table. “My wife stopped by?”

“She did,” Rhythm confirmed, not stopping him as he entered but not taking his eyes off of the other Zero, either. “I’ve already contacted Lifesaver about his condition; there’s little you can do with the technology you have.” Namely, that core inside the bioroid’s chest right now. “So other than that, I just wait.” And he was not the sort that enjoyed waiting all that much, either. “The flowers from her were appreciated, by the way, even if he’s not awake.”

Zach’s gaze flicked over the room, noting the somewhat rumpled state of the bedding covering Xavier—more than what seemed normal for a unit recovering from surgery—before his gaze passed over Rhythm and the now-silenced holoscreen hanging in one corner of the room.

Well, not wholly silenced, Zach realized, catching the slight hint of sound just above minimum audial receptivity.

He was horribly tempted to make some form of snark or joke about a Zero unit getting along with a Lifesaver, but given his own interactions with the one that knew the Wonderlanders, and the fact that now was a bad time for the Rileys, he opted for somewhat safer grounds.

…Safe was relative.

“I take it you saw the earlier broadcasts.”

Xav hadn’t been sleeping very well, and Rhythm knew it. There was little he could do except just place a hand on the teenager to calm him down, to make sure that he wasn’t alone in this particular time of pain and grief.

He’d lowered the volume ages ago—enough so that he could still hear, but enough so that Xavier would remain, metaphorically speaking, dead to the world. “I did,” he said simply. “All of it, from the very beginning.”

Of course, the implication was there that he had heard everything that had been said between Xander, Omega, Leto, and Zach.

Being a Zero unit himself, and with Rhythm being far younger than him, it was altogether too easy for Zach to read the tension and barely-restrained anger in the other’s body language and tone of voice.

He could, to some degree, understand the response, but at the same time, Zach was used to looking at more than just his own little bubble within the City.

He was used to ignoring the hollow pit inside him every time he was reminded that his daughter wasn’t with him, wasn’t with her family, was still scared and warped and a threat to almost everyone she encountered. Rhythm should be thankful that Xavier suffered only becoming a pawn, that he’d not been made into a living virus that made the Maverick bug pale in comparison.

Zach had never been one for speeches—on more than one occasion, a speech demanded of him by the Federation consisted of two raised middle fingers before he walked off-stage—but he had no problem talking with people. And Rhythm needed to understand what was happening, why they couldn’t treat this world’s Omega with the same lack of mercy as he’d treat his own.

“It’s hard,” he admitted, moving to grab one of the chairs resting against the wall, carrying the piece of furniture closer to Rhythm. “Knowing what we’d all like to do, how much we’d love to be able to make him pay for the billions of names on the walls of the upper levels of Sanctum Yggdrasil, to make him suffer as he’s made those closest to us suffer.” His gaze flicked to Xavier again, a soft tremor of sound escaping the bioroid before he settled again. “It’s so damned hard having to push all of that aside, all of that hate and rage, because we cannot let our personal feelings trump the safety of our City. It’s one thing to swear oaths of allegiance to the Federation as a Hunter. It’s another thing entirely when your life becomes bound by law and honor to a cause so great that the upper echelon cannot falter.”

If questioned about the levels of patience he had, even Rhythm would admit that being around Lightbots for most of his childhood had done wonders in making him restrain himself from acting without thinking.

It was very different when one started looking after someone else. He’d never had the opportunity to look after someone else long-term until Xavier had turned up, needing a place to go, and it had been a learning curve for him—the both of them, really—in the past four years or so that the teenager had been with him. Before Xavier, he could easily give it his all to the Maverick Hunters and his unit had been like his family after he had joined them.

People said that something changed when one became a parent, even as late as Rhythm had to Xavier, but they were right. Rhythm glanced down at Xavier as Zach moved closer to him and sat down, adjusting the covers so that they were tucked securely around the bioroid and not as loosely. He didn’t want him falling off of the bed after all.

“Oh, I would like to rip their processors out myself and smash them to bits,” he admitted, glancing down at his fingers. Why, out of all the people that there had to be alternates of, did Omegas have to have them, too? “Except that, if I were to do that, I would have to leave the Maverick Hunters, which of course is not an option for me because you know as well as I do that personal vengeance doesn’t matter for the greater good. So what really brings you here?”

“I had a talk with Xander between our morning broadcast and this one, so some of what you said to him was mentioned,” and Zach leaned back in the chair he’d settled in. “And as a father myself, I’m concerned not only after how Xavier’s holding up, but how you are as well. Xander does want to try to smooth things over with you, but he’s,” and Zach paused, gauging what should and shouldn’t be said. “He’s in no condition right now to be dealing with anyone, and for more reasons than just his current task of reassembling his eldest son’s right arm again.”

Zach had plans to go over dual saber combat defense with Sage once things had calmed some, just to see where the AXR’s issue was that he kept damaging that arm, though the blond had a good idea that it was something to do with Sage being a rightie and tending to lead a little wide at times.

Ah. That conversation had been mentioned. Rhythm looked up, regarding Zach with a little more suspicion than he had before, but he didn’t comment on it. “I don’t think you need to worry about me in the slightest, I can deal with my own problems.” And he would have to, otherwise there was a good chance that somebody would consider him incapable of doing just about anything.

“It’s Xavier that is going to suffer the most lasting damage out of the two of us.” Given what he was now fully convinced of, that wasn’t going to help the teenager’s self-esteem in the slightest—especially considering how much drama and lack of self-esteem teenagers were already composed of when it came to their relationships with others.

“I think you may be more of a concern to us than Xavier,” especially given the younger Zero unit’s earlier reaction to mention of Omega.

“Now what makes you say that?” Rhythm asked, his eyebrows going up. He hadn’t been the one to get reprogrammed, after all.

“You’re pissed. You have a history with your own Omega. You’re a Zero unit,” which covered a lot in terms of combat capability and anger management issues. “And let’s not forget that you weren’t the unit that just had open-heart surgery and can’t exert himself with an moderately incompatible core.” The standby organ had been accepted, but the scans that the Medical staff had been forwarding to Xander made it clear that Xavier wouldn’t be doing much more than idling around in his room until after the synthetic core had been replaced with a bioroid one.

“I am pissed,” he agreed, not even bothering to comment about his own history with Omega and being a Zero unit. They might as well just have a separate threat classification labeled ‘Zero Unit’. “And I have every right to be, given what just happened, but I haven’t attacked anyone, have I?” He crossed his legs. “That core is incompatible; it’s a miracle his systems even accepted it for the time being. It’s not designed for his power output.”

“You haven’t attacked anyone yet is our concern, my concern, and that you understand so very little beyond your own issues with your family worries all of us.” Reaching into one of his vest pockets, there was a soft click of metal on metal as he withdrew two small items, tossing them both to Rhythm.

When the other caught the items and looked at them, he would find two discs of bronze emblazoned with the Hunter logo of Zach’s world, both attached to bands of cloth, a center stripe of yellow bordered on both sides by stripes of muted orange and light blue. “Those at all familiar to you?”

“I couldn’t even pretend to understand all of your issues other than what I can see right now,” he pointed out. “I’m well aware of what your priorities are. Otherwise I would have just taken Xavier and left long ago, but I haven’t.”

He reached out to catch the items, looking down at them to see what the other had tossed him. “Yes, I do.” The emblem was a little different, but there were enough similarities that he was pretty sure of as to what they had to be.

“Then you know what they stand for.”

“I do.” Of course, his biggest question at the moment was how the other had not only one, but multiple, and was still standing in front of him.

“I was lucky the first time. Still offlined, still officially and posthumously awarded my first Mark, but enough of my systems were still whole, so my repairs consisted of a lot of smaller pieces that had to be replaced and my entire frame being reconstructed. Arc and Xander were…” and he stalled then, glancing at the medals, the only ones he still had physical versions of after the Wars. His others had been donated as scrap metal, but Xander had ensured the Marks of Valor remained untouched.

Zach still wasn’t entirely certain why.

“The second time, I was older. I should have known better. It was suicide mission after suicide mission by the time the seventh Maverick War was in full swing and I knew there was more to me that I didn’t want to learn about, not with how everyone around me got sick because of the virus while I got stronger. I didn’t want to be alive, not with the dawning realization that I had carried what began the wars, when all the blood shed in the decades prior was on me, on what Wily had wanted of me.

“By the end, after the Eurasia Colony had started making landfall, the nine pieces of what was left of the space station too large to burn up on reentry, I was in the thrall of a Level Four Zero-Tau-Omega infection and...insane didn’t even begin to cover it. Xander was able to bring me back from the brink, was able to stand against me despite how I am when infected, even if it cost him much of his ability to keep on fighting after our encounter. So when Sigma took aim, intent on ending Xander’s life, I took the shot in his place. Close enough to my core to be dangerous, but not close enough for me to shut down entirely. Not at first.”

The slightest waver was starting to come to his voice then. “I survived long enough to see Sigma, or the shell the Virus puppeteered in his name, destroyed by Xander, but…it was blackness after that. Perhaps a month had gone by before I saw light again, and it confused the hell out of me because there was maybe a quarter of my full frame left by the end of the Eurasia Crisis. So how was it that I was whole again? Xander would have woken me during the rebuild to make sure my processor was operating properly, but I was alone in the middle of nowhere.

“My wireless is still fragged for Light only knows what reason, so I can’t get a message out or link up for a geomatic jump back to base. And then I find out that someone found a part of my processor, analyzed it, and created a variant form of the Maverick Virus that looked like me. Best thing to do then is lay low, avoid drawing attention to myself until I can try and figure out just what the hell is going on. So I go back to the last place I can remember clearly, which was the main section of the Eurasia.” He stopped for a moment then, his gaze meeting Rhythm’s. “Can you even begin to comprehend how it felt to return to the Eurasia’s main crash site, to where I died protecting Xander, and find my corpse still there?”

It was only polite to remain silent for the entirety of Zach’s story, especially considering that he was talking about something so incredibly personal. This sort of thing was not something that a person would share with just anybody or even close friends, and he got the feeling that circumstance and his own identity were the only reasons that he was hearing all of this at all.

But even then, it was clear that there were huge differences between him and this particular Zero unit. Species difference aside, the sort of things that he had gone through would be enough to terrify anybody, and he wasn’t immune to that sort of thing, either. “You’re right, I couldn’t possibly comprehend something like that—not when I haven’t been through it myself.”

And though at the beginning he’d been truly puzzled as to why Zach was talking about something like this, it was beginning to click in his head that for him, and likely those connected to him, something as ‘simple’ as death wouldn’t be enough to stop them.

“I know it doesn’t change anything about Xavier’s condition, about what’s happened here and in Abel City, about the repercussions we’re going to be dealing with,” and were already dealing with, given the reports from four separate districts of violent anti-synthetic gatherings—that they were making their opinions known so publicly was a marked change from their usual clandestine operations—and the recovery efforts still going on in Manu Ausare. “But do you at least understand why we have no choice but to show mercy when it comes to dealing with our world’s Omega? And why I worry after you more than Xavier because of it?”

And it didn’t, that much was clear. “That does explain far more than I had known before.” If only someone had explained something like that to him earlier. Asimov, this world had gotten a terrible draw when it came to dealing with units like him. “Sucks that you can’t just off him and leave it at that, but doing that would put you right back where you started or make things worse. Though,” and here, his eyebrows went up, “I couldn’t tell you if that sort of thing would apply to me or not. I’ve never been injured enough to know.”

And he had taken some pretty nasty knocks when he’d been younger.

“Saying that it sucks doesn’t even begin to put to words how much I hate this, and for more reasons than just the world’s condition beyond the Eden Dome,” and there was a flicker in his gaze, an old wound that had been clawed at and reopened. “Our situations may not be the same, but we…we’ve both suffered those we love harmed by him, even if we have no idea what happened because of your Omega before our own.” A hesitant pause. “It probably doesn’t mean much to you, all things considered, but if you need to talk to someone, I can lend a slightly more sympathetic ear than Xander can,” and given his wife’s teasing ways and playful nature, he’d rather avoid having Leto and Rhythm in a room together if he could.

He actually liked this alternate of himself, different as their pasts were. He really didn’t want to have to punch Rhythm for garnering more of Leto’s attention than he considered appropriate.

Rhythm leaned back in his chair, letting out a quiet sigh of his own as some of the tension that had been in the air went away—not all of it, but enough that he didn’t have to feel constantly on edge with his near twin. “You don’t, and the biggest reason I didn’t tell Xander was more to protect Xavier’s privacy than anything else.” He found himself chewing on his lip—he probably would prefer to talk to his counterpart more than he would Xander; less because Xander was an X, and more because goddamn older Lightbots.

He didn’t need flashbacks to a certain one, thank you.

“Hell, I’d rather have you for a brother than that Arschloch,” he had to say, if only because it was true. “But the other part of the reason is that I’m not privy to the full story myself—only this kid knows the full story, or at least I think he does, and I only know what I personally have seen.”

Zach nodded in understanding, a soft smirk on his face at Rhythm’s brother comment, and he looked back to Xavier. “We got in touch with a clinical psychologist in the midst of all the heyday who specializes in treating juvenile trauma cases; Xander wanted to me to ask you for permission to have the staff alert her once Xavier’s awake.” Xavier wasn’t a citizen of Beacon City, was in no way truly entitled to what they were providing beyond the kindness of the Arcadians, but his healing would be more involved than just getting a proper core into the young bioroid. “And he also wanted to know if you had any idea how long it would be before a new core would be available.”

Rhythm didn’t want to think about Omega anymore at the moment, and tilted his head in consideration. “…If he’s willing, I would be willing to give her a try. I’m just more worried because he never reacts well to any type of medic, physical or not. It’s part of why he hasn’t had therapy before. How could he when he keeps fleeing from just about every therapist that someone tries to introduce him to?”

Still, he wasn’t about to give up, and he would very much want to see if this woman could succeed where all others had failed so far. Just because it kept failing didn’t mean he wasn’t going to keep trying.

“As for his core, I seriously have no idea. I’d already told Lifesaver to keep an eye out for one, but I doubt there’ll be one for at least a few weeks. It’d be easier to find one if he wasn’t a Lightbot.” This one would keep him alive, but he wouldn’t be able to exert himself too much physically, or eat in huge amounts. And then there were all the things that were special about Lightbots that made it even more complicated.

“I take it that it’s not as simple as just building or lab-growing the parts,” and while Zach was no medic—he really hated anything that had to deal with medical facilities unless it was his or Xander’s lab—he knew enough about human physiology and Reploid engineering to know that no one in Beacon City had any sort of real clue about bioroid technology, even with the information Trig had provided that had allowed Xander the ability to save Xavier’s life.

“Unless you’re excellent at building or lab-growing human hearts, no. This would be pretty much the same thing.” Rhythm paused as he pondered exactly how to explain it; he might have lived in a lab where bioroids had been made, but it wasn’t as if he knew every little detail. “But our mechanical parts are designed to literally meld with and work with the rest of us, it’s not a matter of putting separate parts in. Imagine…imagine electric wires running through muscles, or blood vessels circulating throughout our Ride Chasers instead of gas lines.” He frowned. “And because we grow, both the mechanical and organic parts are designed to grow with us. No offense, but I have no idea if your technology is capable of that sort of thing, and since he’s not full-grown, any parts that don’t grow with him could cause complications later on.”

Rhythm rubbed the bridge of his nose. “We have DNA, in both the traditional and metaphorical sense. I’m sure you’re aware of how they recommend that humans receiving blood or organ transplants receive one from a relative instead of a complete stranger; it’s the same with us. You put something in him that’s not meant for him without confirming compatibility, the chance is extremely high that he’ll reject it. And if he doesn’t, he’s meant to do things that a typical bioroid doesn’t. If he enters any type of dangerous warzone,” which he likely would given his occupation and what he’s learned so far, “or accesses some of his more…unique abilities that I know he has, he’d never survive.”

In fact, he half-suspected that was why Xav’s core had had so many repairs done on it instead of being replaced.

Zach was smirking a bit by the time Rhythm fell quiet, though it wasn’t a matter of humor that had brought that particular expression to his face. “Interesting how Offworlders tend to forget what century they’re in when they visit,” and he leaned over to grab the medals from Rhythm, tucking them back into his pocket. “Organogenesis has been something we’ve been able to do for several decades now, and it’s not unheard of for humans within Beacon City to be quite heavily enteched for medical reasons.”

He knew it was probably going to be well outside the scope of what they could provide for the bioroid, but it was worth the effort nonetheless.

“Fine, fine, you lot can do everything, can’t you?” He wasn’t sure whether to be amused or not that tech has probably developed that far. Rhythm allowed Zach to take the medals back—they were his after all—and continued his explanation. “I’m no scientist though so I probably left a lot of the nuances out when it comes to my kind, but I think another thing I should mention was that it was Thomas Light that managed to succeed in creating bioroid technology.”

He genuinely wasn’t sure whether they could create one, but it would still take a lot of time; one would not be ready in a couple of days no matter how good the technology was.

“Almost everything,” Zach corrected. “But we’re working on fixing that,” and there was that trademark ego. “Given everything you’ve said, it would be in Xavier’s best interests to find a suitable donor organ, but the offer is there for us to push ahead for the biotech to grow-slash-build a new one if the situation becomes dire enough.” He made no comment about their world’s version of Xander’s father being the one to crack bioroid development. Thomas Light was…seemingly ahead of his time, no matter what world you came from or looked at.

Yup, it wouldn’t be a Zero without an ego of some kind. Rhythm finally cracked a small smile, though it wasn’t very wide, at that comment. “Trust me, I contacted his medic at home to start looking for some potential donors already. Hopefully it won’t take too long, because if he’s like any teenager I know, he would get extremely bored sitting at home alone.” That was the reason he gave, but he knew deep down that without a proper core, Xavier would be handicapped for the rest of his life.

Xav shifted again, and Rhythm’s eyes flickered to him until the bioroid had settled back down. “But the offer is greatly appreciated, if you believe you can get one completed before we manage to find a donor.”

“I don’t have the greatest history with Lifesaver units,” and that was really covering up how horribly he and the Lifesavers of his world had gotten along, “but I know Xander would be more than willing to lose a few hours going over the details if that becomes a necessity.”

While Rhythm had turned to look at Xavier, Zach’s own gaze had gone from seemingly half-focused on the nearby window to very plainly not focused on anything.

A small part of him was jealous of Rhythm, angered at the fact that Omega had bent the younger bioroid to his whims but had left him intact enough that he was still himself despite the nightmare of the past few hours.

“Yes, a good number of them do tend to be gruff and rather gung-ho about their work to the point of forgetting that they are working with people,” Rhythm conceded; it was really that one particular Lifesaver unit that Xav went to (how the bioroid identified him out of a throng of Lifesavers, he had no idea).

“…How are you holding up?” He had heard enough of the banter with Omega to know that some buttons had been pushed. Hard.

“I…” and he blinked, coming back to himself, his focus shifting for a moment to Rhythm before he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. For the time being, I’m stationed in the Tower, so until we get a message in from Rift Sec or something comes up where I’m needed, I don’t have much of anywhere to be.”

The look that Rhythm gave him showed him that he wasn’t convinced in the slightest. But he knew better than to push another Zero unit. “Just going to say one thing to you. If you’re not fooling me, you’re probably not fooling those that know you very well. And it’s a lot easier to do what you have to do for everyone else when there aren’t things weighing on your mind. I’m not saying you have to talk to me,” not at all, not with something that was clearly that personal, “but that’s just some advice from someone that can read himself quite well.”

“It’s not a matter of fooling anyone. It’s…when you’re bond-mated to another unit, it connects your emotional matrices together in a way that is, at once, a blessing and a curse. As uneasy as my wife’s been over the course of the last two days, I don’t want to go down that road right now because if I dip, she’s going to fall down right alongside me.” His hands clenched in his lap, the rigid set of his jaw an evident sign that he was fighting against an emotional turn he did not want to deal with right now.

Over the link, Leto had been practically curled around him, not wanting to let him go after the time they’d spent with the bond-link severed; between his initial (failed) attempt to capture Omega in Abel City and the separation during her tracking of the wanted warbot, it was going to take an event of cataclysmic proportions to split the two of them up for a while. A wave of reassurances, wavering but there, passed from him to help shore up her own matrix, and he twined himself with her as further confirmation that he wasn’t going anywhere.

“Maybe in a few days, once Xavier’s feeling a little better, you and I can head down to the garage,” he offered, not wanting to make it seem like he wasn’t interested in talking or that Rhythm had tread on unsafe ground. Chasers were a safe topic. Chasers were something they had in common, even if Rhythm’s hadn’t quite been in working order the last time Zach had seen her.

“You do have a point there,” Rhythm replied after he thought about it. With someone else that dependent on him to remain stable, it would be hard to be emotionally distraught without taking them down with him.

He remained quiet and contemplative for a few minutes, not taking his eyes off of the teenager that was still curled up in bed until Zach spoke up about the Ride Chasers, and he found himself looking at his counterpart again.

“Let’s see how much has improved in terms of specs that I can swipe for my own,” he said with small smirk that was more for show, glad for the distraction away from the more serious topics. Chasers were safe. Zeroes and their Chasers belonged together, and that at least remained a constant between worlds. “She’s all fixed up, by the way. Better than new.”

“Until you see my girl, at any rate. So eager to find out what you can snipe from Beacon City, you’re going to be gutting yours down to her chassis with that kind of attitude.”

Yes, Chasers were a much safer topic.

“And? A few more centuries, I would hope that your world’s technology far surpasses my own in the sense that I can make her even more gorgeous than everyone else’s Chasers back home. She only deserves the best, after all.”

“Indeed,” and Zach fell silent for a few seconds, considering the two others in the room, before he pushed himself to his feet, offering a hand to Rhythm. “I can’t promise that I can just drop whatever I’m working on and bolt over here, but if you need anything, just tell the Zan’ei posted that you need to speak with me and they’ll pass the message along.”

Rhythm stood up, not saying anything for awhile as he glanced down at Xav, and then back up to his counterpart before taking his hand. He still wasn’t completely calm yet—who would be, given what was going on?--but he was more than willing to talk to Zach whenever the situation arose. “I’ll be sure to let you…them…know. Take care, then.”

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