Archive of Our Own

Returning to the Land of Light for real after defeating Belial in the Monster Graveyard as his ticket to redemption had been probably the single most surreal experience in Ultraman Zero's entire life. His father (since when did he have a father??) lauded him as a new hero of their kind and Mother of Ultra herself (he'd never so much as seen her before) praised his actions while Father of Ultra and Zoffy (the same Zoffy who had labeled him as a problem child when he was a cadet) officially reinstated him to the Intergalactic Defense Force with honors. Zero had always wanted attention - he was a little bit of a glory hound, admittedly -, but this was a lot at once and he was still trying to process everything that had just happened. He felt completely beside himself the whole time, like he was watching these celebrations of him from a distance. He only shunted himself back to his body when, after they retreated from the public eye to the quiet areas of the Headquarters at ceremony's end, Ultraseven pulled him into a strong fatherly hug that never once in his life had Zero ever been on the receiving end of.

That had been when he started crying. Warm particles of bubbling light fell from his eyes and onto his father's mantle as his body shook from the sheer emotional load. He hadn't expected any of this.

To his credit, Ultraseven held him through the most intense of it, even if he was stiff as a board. He guided him to a couch nearby where he could catch his breath and rest, and Zero was thankful, but he was also baffled.

"...Why were you never here before?" He asked, his voice raw, almost muted.

Single-parent families were fairly common in the Land of Light, as were multiple-parent families, but Zero had never even known of Seven as anything other than the Ultra Brother his mom worked with sometimes. Most of the Blues he grew up around had only one official parent, but the other progenitor was often known and around. Zero had only ever had his mother, who seemed to be so committed to work that were it not for the red in him he would've just assumed she mysteriously produced him from thin air as a Bureau project.

Seven avoided his gaze, just slightly, but Zero was used to people not looking him in the eyes.

"Specter did not want my lineage's pressures to fall upon you." He finally said, like it was an excuse he barely believed. "She feared you would turn out either arrogant or insecure under the shadow of our legacy and my influence, so she preferred you remain ignorant to our connection."

Arrogant or insecure? To no one's surprise, he'd turned out to be both, he thought, even or especially without that. The toiling combination of self-importance and a need to prove himself led him to the Plasma Spark that day he was exiled. He had thought about it for a long time, actually - he couldn't say it was fully an impulse decision to take the power for himself - and he'd envisioned very clearly what he wanted from power: to be the most powerful and fully realized version of himself; power for self-actualization's sake. Now that he had felt the Light through his pulsing veins, that he had earned it for that short moment, he knew it could never really give him that on its own.

Truly, he'd also kind of wanted to show his mother that he wasn't just Specter 2, The Sequel. She'd accepted enlisting in the Intergalactic Defense Force, but it confused her that he never developed highly accurate teleportation or phasing and had little to no interest in being a subtle observer in the grand scheme of the universe. Despite his inherited fascination with space and adventure, Zero had no intention to become the next Intergalactic Field Researcher or any other Bureau-adjacent job. He'd honestly given more earnest thought to working in the Space Information Center sifting data.

But failure and K76 had changed something in him, in a good way, even as they tore him apart for those precious few centuries of his early adult life. And it was thanks to the Ultraman he now knew was his father all the damn long, for better or worse.

"But did you… how did you feel about that?"

Seven grimaced lightly, like he could hear the question Zero hadn't asked: Didn't you want to be my father?

"I respected her decision, and tried to watch for you as best as I could as a member of the community, but admittedly," he gritted his teeth once more, like it hurt him to say it, "I was never sure if I was right as a father figure, for you or anyone. Leo can attest to that, as one who's suffered me, and so can Taro, as one who's done much better than I ever could, both to Mebius and to his son Taiga."

"Huh…" That didn't feel like a satisfactory enough answer to Zero, it just made him feel bad for being born at all. But that aside, he could ask the question he'd had since he began to have a minimal notion that his mother was the single most antisocial being on the planet: "What were you and my mother?"

He clicked his tongue with a crooked smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Friends is how I would put it, but she'd rather say colleagues. I figure she liked me as much as she could ever like someone, but I wouldn't dare say it to her face, especially not now."

That snagged something in his chest, and he didn't know why. 

"What happened?" 

His father's face grew sorrowful, like he didn't know what to do with himself any more than Zero did. Seven looked away, like he didn't want to face his child as he said this.

"Your mother did not make it a secret that she saw me as a fascinating example of someone so overwhelmingly pathetic, but who even still lived their life to the fullest, with an open heart. It thrilled her, like studying a particularly interesting ant colony in a terrarium." Zero didn't know where he was going with this, but it made an awful lot of sense, as much as he hated it. "Do you know what led to your mother wanting a child?"

"She wanted a successor." 

"No, beyond that." Zero was silent, he truly didn't know. "She nearly died in one of her expeditions. It imprinted a primal fear in her that had long been extinguished in our kind. She wanted to assure the continuation of her legacy, of her memory. And she wanted me to contribute, as one who'd laugh in the face of the futility of my own existence."

Zero's sluggers twitched, his eyes widened, a wordless expression of what had just dawned on him. 

Oh, damn.

"I disappointed her, and I imagine it was a big blow to the seeds of hope in her heart. But she still had you."

A sharp ache made a home in his chest. The insecurity that would never ever go away.

"...Do you think it... do you think I gave her hope? Even after..." He couldn't bring himself to continue; he knew his father knew what he meant.

"I'm sure you did, son." Seven lightly patted Zero's barely shaking shoulder, "Your mother is… not like most people here, I'm sure you know that. She follows Ultra Law simply because it does not interest her to go against it. Your attempt did not register to her as a betrayal of her principles. You took the life that was foisted upon you and made it your own; she noticed that far before anyone else."

He wanted to scream "Then why didn't she do anything?!" , but the urge died as soon as it came. What difference would it have made if she had? What could she even have done to stop him? And most importantly, what kind of person would he have turned out to be if she tried? In hindsight, maybe this was the better outcome.

"Hey," Seven called his attention, voice soft, "I'll be here for you from now on, as long as you want it." 

"Father…" Zero began, still a little choked up, but gathering whatever vigor he had left, "You suck."

Ultraseven was stunned silent for all of three seconds before he burst into disbelieving laughter.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he tried again, still laughing, "You just sound so much like her."

That would've once generated a kneejerk negative response from Zero, but this time he supposed it was a fair comparison. He couldn't fathom having inherited his mean streak from this guy.

Since he had yet to receive new quarters, Zero found himself back at his childhood home, the place even more dead and dreary than it'd been when he lived there. It looked like a haunted house, with all of his mother's trinkets and specimens strewn about and the blinds closed to avoid photodegradation. Dark, quiet and chaotic, like the ghost of a woman it belonged to.

Zero's room was nearly untouched, but he was surprised to find his silver grass plant well-cared for and his bed made, like she expected him to return. It ached between his eyes and within his chest, but he didn't want to cry again today - he was Ultraman Zero, son of Seven, hero of the Light, and it was unbecoming of him to come undone so easily.

He sat down on the bed slowly, drawing a deep breath, and then laid on it fully, moving the Samekujira plushie out of the way and close to his chest. He buried his face into the pillow and rubbed it into the soft fabric - he hadn't had such comfort in too long. 

It didn't take much for the silence to lull him to sleep, the past few days weighing heavily on his shoulders. His body needed this, he was so achingly sore and had been for years uncountable. He was so exhausted not even his dreams could form full images or sounds, just a strange feeling of sharp heat in his chest that overwhelmed him.

He woke up with wet marks on his pillow and he wasn't sure if they were from tears or just drool.

After some more dwelling, he decided to go draw a bath - another daily life comfort he'd missed, but also he knew he had to still have dirt clinging to him from 200 years rolling around in the sand. The water was the easy part - his mother might leave the place unattended to for decades every so often, but she usually just closed the register to avoid potential dripping -, but Zero had precisely zero idea where his bath salts had ended up. The muscle relaxing blend he'd started keeping when he first started DF training was exactly what he needed right now, but it wasn't in the bathroom cabinets, so he went back to the main room to seek it out - he knew he hadn't used all of his last bottle before he was exiled.

He'd been neck deep into one of his mom's ground sample cases when the sudden rainbow light of her teleportation ability filled the room. Zero had barely enough time to straighten up before she psychokinetically yanked him out of there with her Wraith Hand.

The deathly chill imbued into the technique had him shiver, but she gave him the time to gather himself, standing with arms crossed over her chest waiting for his explanation.

"...Do you know where my bath salts are?" He asked as he caught his breath. Straight to the point worked best with her.

Specter sighed, and threw him a small bottle.

"I improved them. I figured you would need something stronger when you returned after Seven sent you away with that tamed beast of his."

She said "when", Zero noted. It made the feeling of trapped light in his chest grow scalding hot. He rolled the vial in his hand, taking a cursory look at the hastily scribbled label; almost every ingredient was an incomprehensible chemical formula indicating a not-yet-named substance, probably all things Specter had identified and collected herself in her expeditions. He extremely hoped this concoction wouldn't turn him purple, intangible and/or radioactive.

But that was only as far as stalling could take him, even though it still felt like stepping over the edge to discuss anything relating to his father with her.

"Why…" Where to start? "Why do you call Leo my father's 'tamed beast'?" Not what he really meant to ask, but he did wonder, what with Seven's tangential mention of mentoring Leo… badly.

Specter sneered slightly, like it disgusted her.

"I cannot possibly condone dealing with one's overwhelming patheticness by wrangling someone stronger into his little pet. My sympathy and concern do not erase that the lion has been declawed and defeated, and that your father trusted him to do the same to you."

Zero knew better than to take her words as an accurate depiction of reality, but the sheer hurt and hatred and disappointment in her voice were as palpable as the icy knives imbued deep into every use of her Willpower. He had never understood her - again, he wasn't her -, but he knew his mother valued not being beholden to anyone high above anything else, and that she scarcely trusted. Again and again the thoughts of How did this all lead to where we are now? rang deep in his aching head. 

And then Specter was speaking again.

"I regret that I wasn't there for you. I can't know what you were seeking, but you are my blood, it should fall to me to keep you safe." She admitted, all harshness evaporated into nothing. "I failed you just as he failed me."

"Mom… What are you talking about?" She did not fail him, it was he who made the decision to destroy his old life.

"I tried to appeal to have you reassigned as my offworld assistant, as your father once was, as a mode for your exile, but Seven's influence in punitive matters is greater than mine."

"Oh…" He tried to imagine how that would've been. Training in K76 with the Tector Gear had significantly improved his physical strength - before that, he had just about the same power as any other Blue Defense Force candidate, maybe a slight bit more, though his back didn’t do him any favors -, but perhaps traveling the cosmos with his mother would've given him the chance to fully master his mental abilities and teleporting accuracy. It would've maybe given him the chance to know his mother, more than he had in the preceding millennia with her increasing intermittent absence.

And then he'd remembered what his father  had said about it: "You took the life that was foisted upon you and made it your own; she noticed that far before anyone else."

"I…" It was almost soundless at first, but he tried again, more successful, "I don't resent the consequences of my actions. I feel it was a bit necessary to have someone tear me down and build me up again, and Leo and Astra did more than that. I might not like how you raised me up till then, but it's not… I forgive you for that. You're not me and I'm not you and we should be able to live with that."

That was more talking than he'd imagined he'd be able to get out, but his mother never once interrupted, she wasn't the kind for that. There were no tears in the Wraith's big, sunken eyes, but they held a light that was not cold and analytical as he'd grown used to as she lowered her gaze.

"I wouldn't have forgiven myself were I in your place," she near whispered, and then her eyes were back on him, an understanding glint he had never seen before. "You're better than me."

"Your new assigned quarters are at Spire 853, floor 60. If you require assistance to move in your belongings, a small contingent of cadets can be assigned to do that. Now," Zoffy put down the datapad he was reading from, "What did you want to discuss?"

"Did you know about all of this?"

Zoffy sighed like he didn't have the patience to handle Zero right now but was being forced to magically produce it.

"The rumor had reached my ears a few times, but neither of your parents were under my jurisdiction until your father's stint on Earth, and even then he and his sister's insubordinate actions were more direct concerns to me than disreputable workplace gossip."

The answer was frankly disappointing, didn't provide as much ground for him to be angry about it, but something unexpected caught his attention.

"His… sister?" Why did he never hear of a sister of Ultraseven, ever?

Zoffy's concerned expression made it clear that this was most likely to be very interesting information for Zero.

"Ultrawoman One. Bounty hunter." He took one look at Zero's overjoyed face and knew he had to put a stop to it. "I can tell you more about her if you promise you will not seek her out. She is dangerous and you are… suggestible."

Zero immediately took offense to that.

"I'm not suggestible! " 

"You tried to hijack our artificial sun so your mother would pay attention to you."

"It wasn't like that!" He answered, scales bristled. "And besides, even if it was, it worked, didn't it? Got even my absent father to acknowledge me and you to let me bother you about my family situation."

Zoffy held his gaze in a vaguely less disapproving manner than the one from Zero's cadet days. It made him squirm under it regardless.

"It's just… If that was my goal all along, I wouldn't be a naive suggestible person so much as an awfully childish idiot who'd play with forces beyond my control to solve my petty disputes. And while I can't claim I'm not a childish idiot, I'm not going to shy away from the fact that I really just wanted power and it wasn't some grand plot." The words just flowed out, like an anxious river of repentance. "I'm not smart enough for that."

Zoffy sighed.

"I suppose that level of strategic planning and patience is beyond you, yes. You just proved my point."

"Eh?"

"It is remarkably easy to lead you down one path or another by appealing to your emotions. That is 'suggestible'."

"Ain't that like everybody though?" Zero muttered under his breath, then directed himself to Zoffy, "My aunt. Tell me about her."

"Very well."

And so Zoffy told him about a woman that had once been a valorous warrior of the nascent Intergalactic Defense Force, one of their very best, but who upon the loss of her parents was released from service to care for her brother, eight thousand years younger. And she cared for him, well enough, but she wanted more, she always wanted more, and so it began: the career of surreptitiously listening to the stars searching for chances to be a hero again, a dutiful older sister by day and a dabbling bounty hunter by night. As the millennia passed and her brother grew into his own, she herself had become an entirely new person, for whom the thrill of being a free agent was paramount, and so she never returned to the Defense Force, shooting off into space never to return. But the consequences of her actions still reflected upon the Land of Light, upon the trustworthiness of their kind in the eyes of the universe.

"There is no reason to chase after her anymore, even if she was once my friend."

"Do you think I'll turn out like that?" Zero asked, thinking. "Do you think that now that I'm free from my bonds in K76 I'll just run away?"

"I am not entirely sure," Zoffy admitted, "You do have quite the escapist bloodline, but I want to trust in your redemption. In your developing sense of duty. The Plasma Spark found you worthy, I want to believe it was right."

"I see…" Zero trailed off, "Do you… do you have a picture of her? Of One?"

Surprisingly enough, that made Zoffy chuckle.

"She still sends me pictures. I can certainly forward a few to you."

Zero had been setting up the shrimp tank in his new apartment when someone knocked on his door. It surprised him - his mother normally teleported in and his father usually just called, and he hadn't really told anyone else where he was living now -, and so he tried to will himself not to charge up his Beam Lamp as he prepared to open it and see who the hell had business with him.

"Hello!"

Even more unexpected, at his door was Ultraman Taro carrying several bags and boxes and smiling like ty was happy to carry them.

"Uh, hi?" 

Zero's lack of enthusiasm didn't seem to bother tyr.

"I thought to visit my new cousin, and since you just got all new quarters I brought some housewarming gifts!" Taro explained, so ridiculously cheerful. "Most of my students are around your age, so I got some pointers for what is in with you young folks these days."

"...Right. Do you wanna come in with those?" He supposed it was just fair. Guy was being so nice, Zero had to not seem like a total ass. "I set up a couch a couple days ago, so you can, like, rest your antigrav or something."

"Ah, yes, thank you." And so Ultraman Taro, his first cousin once removed, was in his house, laying tyr five gift bags and two boxes on the little coffee table that Zero normally used as a footrest. "What is it that you've got in that little glass tank over there?"

"Oh, I've been planting that thing all day." Zero couldn't begin fathom how Taro thought of the 2.1 megalitre tank as little . "Gonna put some brutalist-ass ugly freshwater shrimp in it."

"Oh, pets! That's very sweet." Taro smiled, "I often wonder if I should get Taiga one, but I think back to my childhood Rabbidog and I get all wistful. Have you ever had pets before this?"

"I asked my mom for a Rabbidog when I was 2000, but she said spacefarers like us wouldn't make good owners." Zero answered, dropping down carelessly on the couch beside tyr. "She got me a plant instead. It's still alive somehow so the day it dies I guess it's all over."

That made Taro's smile falter a little, but ty caught tyrself in a matter of seconds.

"And how is your mother? We'd run across each other every so often when Tregear was in the Bureau and I'd see her with her adorable multicolor tadpole on her shoulder, but I haven't seen her in millennia, not since Taiga was born."

Zero was taken aback by Taro remembering these encounters - he himself didn't -, probably because of the unusual sight of a half-red toddler climbing all over her mother in the Applied Research levels of the Bureau of Science and Technology. How many people knew of him in a similar manner? But back to the conversation, he reminded himself.

"Your own tadpole keep you away, huh?" 

"Yes, I… I had not planned for Taiga, at all, so tri was quite unusually brought into this world. I was unprepared and alone. I could do well enough because I have my parents, because I have Ace and all of the other Brothers, but it was never not challenging." Ty met Zero with a warm, melancholic gaze, "Which is why I ask after your mother. I sympathize, as a single parent, even if all else is different."

Zero felt completely disarmed in the face of that, a polar opposite than how it'd been facing his parents. Taro was upfront about the things that left a mark in the course of tyr life, ty didn't need Zero to poke them out when ty was vulnerable. That was good, he thought. Social relationships ought to be like this.

"My mom is staying on the Land of Light for a couple more months before she's off into space again, so we're trying to be a bit more open to each other and I think it's paying off." He began, probably one of the first times he's actually answered a question in a straightforward manner. "She feels more healthy and whole, and I think I do too. We're not, like, good at the whole communication thing, but if it works it works."

"That's good, I'm glad." It was amazing how Taro seemed so genuinely kind . Zero had never met people like this. "Now, can you tell me a bit about you? Who is Ultraman Zero, my little cousin, other than our newest Hero of Light?"

"I am…" God, when was the last time Zero had to introduce himself? It brought a hint of laughter to his lips, "I used to say I was the worst mezzo-soprano the Land of Light had ever seen, but I haven't sung since my voice changed. Who knows, maybe I'm a half-decent tenor."

"Did you like singing though?"

"Not enough to care to go back, but…" Zero lined up his hands to the side of his cheek, miming a flute, "I also played woodwinds. Not sure I still have the finger dexterity, but," he huffed a cheeky smirk, "got rrrreally good at whistling. Master Leo thought it was cool, but not enough to cut me any-" 

His face fell, suddenly. He shook his head, as if shaking out the thoughts, and continued talking about something else or other, but doubt festered in Zero's heart once again.

He knew what people knew him as, but he could never breathe a word of his initial settling in with Leo as a teacher and warden. It was so embarrassing, low, mean-spirited, pathetic - Zero felt that probably made him worse than both his parents combined.

The gifts were fine though, even if the fancy disintegration wastebasket's first use was for catching stress reflux once Taro was gone.

It took two days of excruciating mental pain and self-loathing for Zero to no longer be paralysed with fear of himself. He'd hidden in his room most of that time, with the blinds closed to starve himself of light as a self-imposed punishment; he was just ridiculous like that. It honestly hadn't gone away quite yet - he supposed it never would -, but he could leave the house now, at least.

His body had taken him to the Colosseum on automatic - it could be a coincidence, but the more likely option was that his natural sense of direction had worked out the way there from his new home on its own -, and Zero froze in midair as he realized it. He hadn't been here since before his exile. Mother of Ultra had put him on a month of medical leave due to nineteen separate cases of chronic muscular inflammation throughout his body from his reckless approach to training under Leo, but she'd allowed the form exercises and meditative practices that composed the true art of the Space Martial Arts. Maybe that was what his body wanted to do.

But there were so many people here… he wasn't sure he trusted himself with people quite yet.

The decision was made for him, though, when a tardy cadet flying in fast narrowly missed getting slashed open by his sluggers. Stalling was more dangerous to hapless passersby than exercising in an enclosed space, it seemed.

So off he went, seeking a secluded and empty training room. It didn't take too long, just a few stilted courtesies and blunt questions, until he found a good space where he could feel at ease.

Zero queued a holographic training sequence to guide him through the motions; gentle, easy - not at all like him, but it felt good, serene, to pretend as he followed. He closed his eyes as the sequence became ingrained in his mind and body, letting his limbs flow like the golden light through his every cell.

The peace was immeasurable while it lasted, but soon the telltale sting on the outside of his knee warned him not to overdo it. He stepped back into awareness with a long groan, stretching back into a standing position with multiple audible pops .

"Ugh, still so stiff!" He complained, loud and dramatic, back to all of his own nasty disposition.

"It'll go away with time."

A voice he didn't think he wanted to hear right now, but that hurt far less than he expected it would.

Leo…

"But you might need more than just exercise for that weight on your shoulders." The wise kindness in his tone made Zero's heart ache at how cruel he'd been to this man. "Talk?"

Zero nodded, all fight drained from him. Closure, he needed closure; that was more important than his crushing guilt and wounded ego.

Leo took them to Planet King with a swish of his silver mantle and a gentle hand on Zero's tense shoulder. It was a dreary little planetoid, but the view it afforded of the Land of Light and the rest of the nebula was unparalleled. And, of course, it was as private as it could get while not being claustrophobic, meaning Zero could fly away if he wanted to, and that was a much appreciated contingency even if he didn't think he'd need it.

The silence lingered for a few moments, as if Leo was waiting for Zero to begin of his own accord, and the words jostled inside his hollow chest like trapped insects. What does one say in this situation? How does one do this right?

"Hey," Leo's hand moved to cup Zero's chin, interrupting his troubled brooding, "There's no right or wrong here. Just tell me what you feel."

"I feel-" the voice hitched in Zero's throat, "I feel like I don't deserve… like I don't deserve to be back here. Like I should still be rotting in K76, for the good of everyone else."

"Why?"

Zero jerked away from him.

"Because! I am not good, Leo. I don't belong here." He glanced at the green planet, overcome by his alienation from it. "I treat people badly no matter what I do. I take advantage of everyone's worst impulses all of the time; I tried to do it to you , but you didn't bite it and I- I didn't know what to do!" Tears started brimming from his eyes and his breathing got ragged with anxiety. "It just- All the time, all the time I look at myself and I don't know what to feel about it. Sometimes I miss getting things easy, but then I feel so bad about wanting to manipulate people for it, but then I think about you and it makes me wonder if all those times someone older let me off they were actually concerned for me, like you, rather than into me, and then that makes me realise I probably jeopardised all my personal relationships with this weird thinking that obviously people just wanted to paw at me and it couldn't be that they really wanted to be my friends or that I was genuinely doing a good job. And then it starts all over again because that hurts and I don't want to accept it, and I hate it so much."

Leo's hand landed softly on his trembling back. It relaxed slightly under that caring touch, and Zero could barely fathom why.

"You wouldn't have let me lay a single finger on you when I first met you. You would have hit me, very hard, and with no delay." That was very true. Zero knew he was violent on top of manipulative. "This is the most important proof of your redemption, of your recovery honestly. Do you know why?"

Zero shook his head.

"It is… difficult to become truly committed to the good of others when you are fully convinced others cannot be trusted, when you believe good is a fiction. You believed that. Do you still?"

"I don't think so, not anymore." It surprises him more than it does Leo.

"And why is that?"

Because…

"Because you were there for me. All that time." Did his voice ever sound this broken before? "I never had that."

"But you needed it. You were never evil, or corrupt, you were just a very alone, very scared young…"

Zero shrugged.

"A very alone, very scared young Ultra, who knew just enough of being cared for to miss it, but not quite enough to believe it was ever real."

It made sense, far too much of it, and the tears would not stop coming no matter what he did. Leo rubbed his back to calm the sniffling, as if he had done this many times before.

"It is isolating when it seems all is well for everyone but you. It builds a chasm between you and your peers that is not easily surmountable, not without effort, and in your case the world needed to come to you first."

"Did they-" So hoarse, "Did they put you with me to do that?"

"No, I was assigned to simply watch over you by your father." He paused, and then his voice was tinged with fondness as he spoke, "I chose to, when I met my master's errant son and he was a scrawny kid half my age with such clear fear in his eyes, but a most defiant fire in his color timer."

Zero looked at him then, and the genuine kindness and understanding in that face made him melt into a whole other type of puddle of tears, hugging tight the man who felt more like he'd raised him in those two centuries than either of his own parents in fifty-seven. 

He was still sensitive for a day or two after that conversation, but at the end of the week Zero felt less like a raw nerve. Still a sore one, but not raw and bleeding anymore.

Fittingly, his follow-up appointment for his injuries came up.

It was another apparent oddity in face of the veneer of perfection the planet tried to preserve. Despite the advancements in healing technology making it easy to conceal, it was not uncommon for Ultras to retain slivers of physical trauma or repetitive strain injuries - they couldn't just magic the pain away, not all of it -, but it was considered socially impolite to linger on it, to make it known that it still hurt.

When he met Mother of Ultra again at her seldom-used office, she made sure to remind him that he need not be polite in this manner to healthcare workers, as it could worsen his prognosis.

Well, Zero had never been too good at being polite anyway, so he told her without sparing detail.

"...And my lower back has been getting this little snag, which is weird because it's my upper back that's f- messed up from, y'know, the scoliosis."

"Ah yes, the scoliosis is a trait from our family, like the teeth," she mimed a smile, showing fangs that matched Zero's own - an astoundingly rare trait among the perfectly flat teeth most Ultras had. "Spine deviations can make it easier for injuries to occur even outside the affected section because of the strain it puts on the joints."

"Oh, huh," he pressed over the pain area on his back, "Didn't think I would've inherited something troublesome from the lot of you. I mean, you're old nobility, right?"

"Nobility doesn't mean perfect. Being completely immune to ill effects, whether applied to Ultras or nobles is… an old myth, much older than even our family." She sounded just like Taro, telling him so honestly and kindly something so unacceptable. "There is no power in the universe that can eliminate all suffering or correct every impairment, not even the Light.

It was an uncomfortable truth to hear, but it was not an unfamiliar one. He'd long wondered why the Light had failed him, why his life wasn't as sunshine and roses like everybody else's, why he was alone , but there was little the Light could do about the sensitive hearts of sentient beings.

"Your inner turmoil is no stranger to me," the Mother began again, "We had lived a life of endless bliss for millennia, and though our elders still held the trauma of our sun's death, we believed all was to be good for our future generations. And then the Ultimate Wars came and laid waste to that. Many children of those times grew up neglected, isolated, much like you did, including your father."

That made sense, what with what Zoffy had told him about his aunt, but it still itched at him.

"You're his aunt. Why didn't you help when my grandparents died?"

"I did, but I couldn't give Seven and One my full attention when I was a full-time frontline medic." Her voice was solemn, regretful. "I gave them what I could, but what I could wasn't much."

"That sounds like we need a better social safety net."

Mother of Ultra sighed, fang digging into her lower lip.

"That is absolutely true. We always want to assume the best from each other, so many are disinclined to interfere unless they're close. It leads us nowhere, and leaves a precious few unconnected, like yourself, behind." She looked at him, a trace of a request in her eyes. "You have an uncommon expertise in being a child of neglect. Your input could be valuable in strengthening our society's sense of duty towards the children of others."

"I'm not sure what I can do about that. I can barely take care of myself. I don't know what I need, what anybody else needs. That's going to take time."

"I understand. That is perfectly within your rights. I hope you will be a good asset in that fight when you're ready." She nodded, grateful, and reached for a data screen, pulling up a hologram for Zero to see. "I will be prescribing some energy infusion sessions for your back, but I count on you to keep a gentle exercise regime to prevent further injury. Your hemolymph analysis also points to your physical and emotional distress being exacerbated by your approaching egg season, to which I would normally just recommend warm baths and allowing yourself proper rest, but since your chart notes this is a recurring issue on top of your already volatile moods I can also prescribe a long term mood stabilizer."

Zero sighed, rubbing the side of his mouth.

"Yeah, I think I'll take the mood stabilizer."

Lately Zero had probably been spending more time in his tub than out of it. It probably wasn't good form for an Ultra Warrior, but he was on leave, so he could afford to run tests on how best to wash out the stale taste the medicine left on his skin, even if he didn't always enjoy tasting lavender or rosemary for an entire day if the bath bomb of the day had too much of either.

He'd found he particularly enjoyed the feel and taste of buttery fruit, a delectable experience that left a pleasant looseness to his usually tense muscles and a rich aftertaste under his scales. Though the chemoreceptors on Ultra Armor were chiefly to be used for spatial orientation and environment analysis, this felt like a much better use to being able to taste and smell with every inch of one's skin.

The comfortable buttery feeling accompanied him as he went out in town for "groceries". Ultras didn't need to eat, not exactly, but the shrimp did, and there were other basic needs to fulfill other than just nutrition. Such as entertainment. 

And Zero fully intended to get himself very entertained.

He stopped by the library first, hoping to score some new games and zany alien books to make up for lost time. The Land of Light also didn't really have money, or a concept of copyright, so all he needed to do was send the files in the appropriate data terminals to his home's entertainment system.

His top choices for the following month were a fighting-rhythm game hybrid, the threequel to an open world quest game he'd liked as a teen, and a small selection of Earth short stories and comics to warm up his appetite for reading again. As his teachers had long lamented, Zero did have good text comprehension and analysis skills, but his inattention to anything that failed to catch his interest made him a frustrating student - without even getting into the deliberate negligence he'd put towards intellectual pursuits. But he liked stories, in whichever format, so reading continued to be a hobby he liked to keep fed, despite how picky his brain got.

He'd been about to leave for the pet store when someone came by the data terminal he was using.

"They have some really cool movies in there too," they chimed in, peppy, "Zero, right? I'm Mebius."

Mebius? The baby Ultra Brother? What business could he even have with him?

"I ain't good with movies. Get all antsy sitting through them. And yeah, Zero, son of Seven, whatever that is to you." He noticed that maybe that had sounded too harsh, so he amended, "What's up with you?"

"I'm preparing a little movie marathon for my day off," Mebius explained, "My academy buddies can't make it this time, so I was wondering if you'd like to tag along? Usually watching with people helps when you have attention issues."

Eh?! Ehhh????

A rush of anxiety burned under Zero's skin. Was this-

"Uh, I, um, uh, I-" he stammered, gesturing with unquiet hands, "I-I don't really do dating, sorry."

Mebius' eyes widened.

" Oh, oh, sorry then! I didn't mean to presume, I just thought you might need a friend." He did not seem to be anywhere near as embarrassed as Zero felt for this little outburst , like being misunderstood did not trouble him. "Brother Leo and Brother Seven say you don't have many of those, and since I saw you here I thought that maybe I'd try."

"Agh, I- I don't know why I-" Zero shook his head, it wasn't productive to feed that train of thought. "I guess that's evidence I can definitely do with some friendly hanging out, isn't it? If you've got some cool high adrenaline flicks then I can consider it."

"Nice! You like horror movies?"

"Only the really bloody ones."

"Then I can get on that! I might get a bit queasy though, so just a warning." Mebius seemed excited, kind. It was dazzling. "I'm at spire 485, floor 39. You can meet me there on the 10th."

Zero nodded, dazed but definitely interested.

"I'm at spire 853, floor 60, if you wanna call first. But I think your Brothers might've already told you that."

"Still good to hear it from you though!" A sweet little grin with pearly rounded teeth, another interesting mutation. "Gonna let you leave now, but take my greetings to your shrimp! Taro's too."

"Will do." Zero's own mouth formed into a smile.

Friends… he could use friends.

The tingly taste of positive attention sweetened his skin almost more than a murumuru butter bath.

Grispod, Clawford, Cami and Biscuit nipped at Zero's fingers as he skimmed the water lightly, trying to come to a decision. The meter-long Caridemons had been fed earlier, so they probably would not attack him, but Zero still expected that the fright of a particularly hard pinch might knock some sense into him. 

He wanted to make a call.

He was also very afraid of making said call, because he knew he had been an awful friend before. 

But he wondered if he really shouldn't try, now that he had more of a head on his shoulders.

Biscuit grabbed Zero's finger, very firm but in no way painful. He sighed, petting her shell with his other hand until she released him. He shouldn't go through his life always expecting hostility, he supposed.

"House," he called out, "call spire 294, floor 19."

The dialing noise echoed through the room, ringing once, twice, before the line connected.

"Hello?"

"H-hi!" He righted himself, clearing his throat, "Is this Melody?

"Yes, that's me! Who is this?"

"Oh, ah, it's Zero, I was your son's classmate in Secondary School." 

"Oh, Zero? Voice's best friend in the world Zero?" She seemed genuinely happy to hear from him, and that made Zero's heart skip. "You sound so much more grown up! Feels like it was just yesterday you played your flute at Ocarina, Starling and I's wedding and did your own special toast."

Oh, that was an embarrassing memory, but a well-loved one in hindsight. Better cringe genuine 3700-year old Zero than moody mean 4700-year old Zero or literal criminal 5700-year old Zero.

"I suppose you're looking for Voice?"

"Ah yeah, Melody, I was wondering if he was still living with you three or if he requested new quarters at some point."

"Voice still lives with us. You should be able to reach him outside of school hours, he's a teacher now!" Melody paused, as if thinking, "I take it you are no longer with Specter?"

"I'm not. Mom's house has always been for her research and not for me." His mouth formed a tight dismissive smile, "And I needed a fresh start after I came back home. Just me and that damn plant."

"Oh yes honey, weren't you deployed somewhere? How was the job?"

Zero froze.

Did- did Melody not know?

On second thought, did anyone outside his family and the Ultra Brothers know??? Did no normal person on this planet know they had a second attempted sun-stealer??? The very idea sizzled his brain.

"...Zero dear, are you alright?" Melody's voice came back, clearly worried, "You don't have to tell me if it's too painful for you."

She thought he had combat-related PTSD, didn't she? Honestly, that might've been the only ridiculous stress disease he didn't have at this point, but that assumption seemed like an appropriate way out.

"I… yeah, Melody, I think I'll pass on telling you, I'm sorry." He clicked his tongue, sighing, "But it made me want to talk to Voice again. I miss him even if… even if our last few decades before I left were not ideal."

"I see… I hope everything can work out fine. I'll tell him you called."

"I hope so."

"And Zero?" Her voice softened, "Take care of yourself."

Zero swallowed the teary knot in his throat.

"Thanks, Melody."

The line closed, and Zero let his shoulders finally relax. A hoarse, disbelieving laughter began at his larynx until it shook his entire body. He did this. He was not as socially incompetent or fundamentally unlikable as he thought.

The Caridemons watched him silently, clicking their pincers.

It took only a lull in the chronic aches plaguing Zero's body for something else to begin burning through his veins. It started with dreams - fuzzy wild thoughts unraveling him half awake until a thin sheet of cooling slime clung to his skin -, making his nights disquiet and hot with confusion. 

The brimming repressed energy bubbled under his armour, tickling the inside of his chest and drawing sinful noises from his lips whenever something touched him just right. At this point, certainly, he could scarcely deny that the desires that had run dormant with his physical and mental torment were back at full force, tempting his body with the promise of pleasure. 

His interest in others, however, remained null. Zero's lust ran abstract, sensual, and every time it accidentally formed itself into a person the fantasy ran its course, turning unpleasant - something still held him back in the idea of letting someone else under his skin, even if his insides were so hungry that satisfaction under his own power eluded him.

That impatience nagged at him sometimes, hands biting at his own flesh in spiked bathwater until it bruised, but it felt better when he got carried away like this, and he hadn't yet lost his mind enough that he'd expect a nice and upright citizen of the Land of Light to handle him precisely as rough as he wanted, no more and no less.

But that was needless worrying, so after a good go he refilled the bath with clean water and let himself soak, warmth tingling the sore fingerprints on his chest and thighs until the ticking clock lulled him to sleep. 

It was as good a self-care routine as any.

After almost two weeks of narrowly missing each other, Zero managed to finally catch Voice after class. Those previous days he'd always seemed so worn, so tired, that Zero didn't quite have the heart to make himself known, but today Voice looked pleased, like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

Zero hoped he wouldn't be the one to ruin that mood, but even still he convinced himself to lift a hand in a small wave from across the street. His heart practically hit his pharyngeal jaws when Voice took notice and actually began jogging towards him, a wide grin on his face.

"Zero! You're back." He squeezed Zero's hands for a friendly greeting as they met, but he seemed disappointed when he let go, concerned, "You feel a little off. Have you not been getting enough light?"

"I… have?" It came out almost unsure, even though Zero knew his light consumption had been better than in years. Voice just looked even more concerned, and that made him anxious, so, "But anyway, I've been back home a little while and I… wanted to check on you, now that I'm trying to get my life back on track."

Voice's lip curled into a fond smile.

"Well, I'm happy you did. I was beginning to worry with all the time between your call and you coming here. You don't have to be afraid of me, you know."

"I'm not afraid of you," still, Zero's cheeks were hot as he said it, "I just feel kinda bad that I pushed you away like that before. Doesn't that make me kind of a shitty friend?"

"Don't say stuff like that," Voice chided him, hand tangled around his wrist, "Your problem is that you tend to act like everyone is your enemy, like you're alone in this world, and yes it is hurtful to us who love you regardless, but dwelling on how you then must be public enemy number one for it is also moot. You have your own space and time, that's all. We just need to meet halfway."

"Hmm, if you say so." Zero still wasn't certain, but it wasn't like he was the one with any emotional intelligence here. "How's life been treating you these past centuries? You look well." He didn't want to say better than when you had to deal with my nonsense , but it still remained in his surface thoughts.

"Well, it's Academy of Arts entry exam season right now so everyone's been really anxious, but I like it here. I was originally going to be part of the Royal Chorus, but I guess I have a tendency to want to stand up for troubled youth."

…Huh?

"You… willingly put up with that? Like, you do this because you like it?"

Voice sighed, an exasperated turn of the lips.

"Is it really so hard to believe I actually like and care for you, that I have all this time? You were a difficult friend, I won't deny that, but I knew you enough to see that you acted out because you felt like everyone hated you already and you had to own that at least. You're quite literally just scared of people, and I don't believe you're alone in that."

It tickled at Zero's vocal apparatus, slime seeping into his throat from the utter confusion of being forgiven , of being understood. For better or worse, Specter had taught him they were different, that they could not expect others to make space for them, that he needed to keep his guard up and the world at arms-length. Maybe this was the same she had felt when he'd forgiven her - even if he could not understand what was on her mind because they were as utterly alien to each other as everyone else, he could recognise that she deserved the grace that she'd never received (or accepted); this was just the same, was it not?

"Voice," Zero near whispered, "I want to be the friend you deserve me to be."

"You could begin by letting me in like I know you want to. You don't have to be afraid of what others will think of you. You can define your own attachments."

"I'm not afraid-," Zero interrupted himself with a sigh, "But you're right. You're my friend, I don't need you to be anything else." Dancing around their only friendships because of an ideal of loftiness hadn't worked for his mother, and it would not work for him.

He also shouldn't dance around all of this.

"Voice…"

So he told him. About his torment, his rage, his loneliness, his distrust. About how much he wanted the Light to fully consume him, to fill the cracks in his structure and remake him anew. About his punishment, the death of his ego. About his chance at redemption, about the man whose steps he'd unknowingly followed and whom he then felled. About his father, and the rift between his parents. About discovering this world was kind, even if not perfect. 

On the park bench across the school, with hands entangled between them, came the words that would live in his heart forever.

"And just the same, you don't need to be perfect to let yourself be kind, Zero."

"Do you really think so?"

"I know so."

The week ran its course fairly quickly with more consistent training and accompanying Voice home from school, and soon came the 10th - Mebius' day off, the day he'd agreed to participate in his small watchparty. 

The creeping chill of unfamiliarity ran its long fingers over Zero's brain and proverbial stomach as he readied himself, polishing his sluggers almost obsessively because… because he didn't know what a friendly get-together looked like. He'd been on dates before - not ones he truly cared for, but he'd always wanted to feel a smidge of power, a touch of holding absolute control of someone else's desire for him, so he accepted them and preened his scales accordingly to make himself so perfectly out of reach, but still here enough for an unsuspecting lovelorn victim to lay down their dignity for -, but those experiences were not ones he wanted to replicate, and would be even less desirable if he'd actually been interested in Mebius that way. 

But he wasn't. Mebius was a tentative friend and he was probably bending the Chief Scientist over a lab table in their free time already anyway, and even if he wasn't- Zero needed to stop making excuses. His lack of interest in relationships befuddled him deeply; once he'd removed his selfish power plays, where did that leave him? He'd hoped it would bring him clarity, but it just turned potential attraction repulsive in the oddest possible way. Why couldn't he want Mebius or Voice like a proper young lady would in his place?

The phrasing his own brain threw at him caught him blindsided. He was not proper , had never been, but young lady hit… strangely; off-kilter but not wrong. He was not a proper one, but maybe he still was a young lady, somewhat? That was such a confusing train of thought - he'd put so much towards being Ultra man Zero and he didn't want to undo the key parts that made him at home in his body, but being his own man had been as disappointing and without reward as being his mother's little girl - what was left for him after all the threat displays and pointless rebelry had been disarmed?

But Mebius. He'd promised Mebius a try at being friendly and he couldn't afford to miss it for an identity crisis. Those thoughts would have to wait until he actually had the time to dwell on gendering angels or whatever odd expression his people used for overthinking senseless things.

So he took a last pass at removing flaked off scales, decided against dousing himself in perfume, and flew out for his first hang out in centuries.  Thankfully, his sense of direction was good enough that the delay of being so fussy didn't make him actually tardy. 

Mebius' home AI scanned him as he pulled up on the window and sent a prompt to its resident - Mebius hadn't obtained his energy signature yet, it seemed - before it let him in with a small delay.

Zero didn't have to wonder for long what took Mebius so long to answer the proximity alert, as when he entered the apartment all his senses were fed some most compelling information. The living room was saturated with the smell of strong spices and fried garlic and the whistling sound of a pressure device sounded from the kitchen as Mebius ran up to meet him, silver body stained with fragrant yellow powder.

"Hi, welcome!" He greeted, cheerful, "Sorry for the mess, I haven't gotten enough time to clean and cook lately."

Oh, cooking. That was what all this was.

"Eh, we're in our base thousands, we're allowed to be messy." Zero answered, a conversational kind of thing with no real meaning, before the elephant in the room bothered him too much not to discuss. "I don't make a habit of eating, so you didn't need to go out of your way to make me food."

"Oh, this is more for me than for you, but I did make enough to share if you happen to be interested. It's double spicy curry, so it might be a bit much if you don't usually eat."

Despite himself, the idea of a challenge lit something inside his chest. He straightened his back and gave Mebius his best cocky smirk.

"Gimme a bowl then. If you're watching my gory movies, I ain't being the one to back down here."

"You got it!"

In the end, neither of them could actually stomach their respective challenges. Mebius got too distressed halfway through the second movie and they had to tone down to something with less realistic organ spillage, and converting the spicy curry into energy made Zero's Emerium glands swell into a splitting headache, but even with both of them splayed on Mebius' couch looking up at the ceiling Zero couldn't deny that he had fun.

Maybe friendship could be this too: doing absolutely dumb but ultimately harmless stuff together. Letting loose was not a thing Zero knew well, but it was something he was glad to be learning.

He ended up spending the night, curled up in the bed because Mebius wouldn't let him take the couch, and this was something life-changing. He didn't want Mebius, and Mebius didn't want him, and they could both be confident about that.

Knowing that, Zero slept better than he had in centuries.

"What does it mean when I might not be the gender I thought I was anymore?"

It was an odd question to bring up at a medical appointment that had nothing to do with his transition, but Mother of Ultra had told him to be honest, so he would be.

"It means whatever it might mean to you, it is not up to me or any others to decide." She looked up from examining his reflexes. "Did anything in particular cause you to think that?"

"I've been getting mad at my past self lately. All I ever wanted to do was hurt people before they hurt me."

"And how does that relate to your gender?"

Zero sighed, winding his ankles together.

"I guess that was what being a man meant to me, being some kind of maneating manwhore to 'attack is the best defense' myself out of legit social interaction."

"I see," Mother of Ultra answered solemnly, rising to sit by him on the examination couch, "That is quite like how Belial had been before we lost him."

"Oh." Zero looked down at his own hands, squinting to form a logical conclusion, "So then, like, it's just a thing that on some very odd occasions extremely alienated people just end up going toxic sludge insane? And it ends up having a strong lone wolf manliness correlation since we're a matrifocal society and thus women and mothers represent the values of our ideal social functioning and so a weird logical leap would make these people produce this intertwining of manhood and antisocial behavior?"

It seemed the degree of his vocabulary caught her off guard, by the wide-eyed look on her face, but that was the kind of impression he liked to foster, so he took no offense to it.

" …That is an insightful analysis. I believe it could have some merit if you ever wish to make a formal study."

"Oh, no, I'm definitely not a scholarly type," he clicked his tongue; he really wasn't, and he was fine with that, "But then I guess… I guess I'm still rougher than any of our cultural standards, for men or women or otherwise, but without being actively mean and full of hatred my sense of identity is collapsing into a black hole of doubt and I'm wondering what the hell I even am."

Mother of Ultra took his hand, holding it softly.

"Sometimes this happens. We are fluid creatures, we can change our minds however many times we want, or not at all. I fully converted myself millennia ago and have not looked back since, and even then I was already 60,000, but in my long life I've known people of all wealth of experiences with gender, and new realizations and questions will naturally come up, sometimes multiple times throughout life, and that can be overwhelming, but you will find what makes you comfortable eventually."

He let himself mull over these words, as if they were a soft blanket around his shoulder.

"I appreciate hearing that, M- Can I call you Marie?"

Marie nodded. 

"Right. I appreciate it, Marie." 

They sat in silence for a few moments, but then Zero began again.

"I definitely feel… more at ease in my body now that I changed it, even if it wasn't a whole lot. I like having a lower voice and more muscle, and, like, I never actually had any blubber on me so nothing really changed shapewise except I have even less of a waist. So I don't think I'm undoing it, I just have to figure out what this all means to me."

"That would be a good course of action." Marie answered, then after a thinking pause, "Is your low blubber content something that bothers you? You are unusually thin for your weight."

"A little, yeah. I feel like I look malnourished," he winced, "But my Spacium Energy Generators make me way too efficient to need storage, so what can I do?"

"More than you think, actually," she posited, "You marked in your anamnesis that you almost never consume matter. Did you know that, unlike energy from light, which is absorbed as needed, the surplus energy produced from metabolizing matter will tend to be retained as blubber if not instantly used?"

"I… no, I barely knew we could even eat until I started craving raw meat in egg season when I was 4000." He paused, thinking. "I honestly don't know how to handle eating outside of that. Makes my whole body feel weird."

"That often happens when one doesn't eat with that much regularity. Your body doesn't know how to handle the excess energy," Marie explained, "I recommend at least once a decade outside of high demand periods for you chiefly because more internal energy and nutrient storage might diminish your repetitive strain injuries and help regulate your mood. If you make it regular, you'll progressively become better at processing it."

Zero tilted his head. It made sense that it'd become easier with time, like exercising, but it still seemed… wrong. Why would something their evolved bodies had lost the organs for, something that was essentially just misusing their vocal apparatus' defense mechanism, be recommendable and healthy?

"Zero," Marie began, concerned, "Have you ever given thought as to why we have not collectively succumbed to arrogance and disdain?"

"Because the Light makes us good?" It was not an answer he strictly believed, but it was drilled into his mind.

"Because we make an effort to remind ourselves what it's like to be material rather than primarily photonic, and we enjoy the comforts of materiality as closely as we can, because being material is just as rich if not richer than our power." She joined her hands, producing a small illusion resembling a small, harmless monster. "As I imagine Leo taught you, our 'goodness' comes from a deep respect and compassion for that which is in our care, for the small lives we are able to protect and preserve. And it helps feed that sense of tangibility to indulge in our earthly comfort, to acknowledge we are real in every way."

"I don't feel real," Zero admitted, "I feel empty. I shouldn't still feel empty."

"You've atoned, but now it's time to rebuild yourself. The more you nurture your humanity, the more your life will gain color and substance. For most, eating is how we connect to the material plane, to our ancient way of life. Whether it is for you remains to be seen, but if you're lost then that is where I recommend you start."

Comfort, color, substance, humanity. Zero let the concepts reverberate through his inner slime, resonate with the few strange organs that lay in it.

It felt like a good lead for figuring out where he stood in this world and beyond.

The small flame of curiosity warmed his chest throughout the rest of the appointment, and he thanked Marie for her kindness with an honest smile.

Zero's mandatory medical leave had come to an end, finally. His aches were mostly gone, the muscles and tendons he'd strained had healed over and, while they were tender, they were begging for more intense action once again. He'd always been an action kind of person(?), even when he was a child, and all the stillness of the past months had left him antsy - he needed to pour all his heart and soul into something physical and gratifying in order to have some semblance of peace, it had always been like that.

So the Colosseum, again. 

He'd actually called Leo in advance to schedule a training session, not exactly trusting himself to interact with strangers or former colleagues who'd only known his old, odious self, and thankfully his teacher was available and willing, appointment set for the morning of the 25th.

The Colosseum was mostly empty at such an early hour, just overly zealous cadets putting in extra hours in the public areas, but the space Leo had booked for them was more private, for Zero's own sake, though not quite as isolated as the individual training rooms Zero would sometimes go to in order to do form exercises and light workouts to avoid losing muscle mass. The gym he'd chosen had a wider area, more well-suited for Zero's high speed build than the sparring platforms, and it had tall walls of transparent reinforced crystal - Zero tapped at the wall with the tip of a finger out of curiosity, and his initial guess about soundproofing was confirmed.

"Sharp, aren't you?" That was Astra's voice; it seemed he had arrived first. "As in the old days, I will be watching you and Brother Leo's fight from outside and interfere should things get out of control, but he wishes to be able to talk to you privately should you require it too." Astra patted him on the shoulder, a light, friendly touch, "It's good to see you, little apprentice."

Zero flushed - he still wasn't used to being liked - but answered with a confident smile and a Cross Touch.

Leo arrived soon enough, bringing a small armoury selection in a large sack. Lances, bows, swords - Zero didn't feel a particular draw to any, his Sluggers sufficient armament on an usual day, but for simplicity's sake he picked a lance bracelet. Leo took a blunt staff for himself.

"No blade?" Zero questioned, "You don't need to treat me like I'm made of paper now that you aren't punishing me, y'know?"

"I don't need a blade to take you down, you should know that." Leo pointed out, tapping the end of the staff on Zero's chest, "I didn't get to work on your armed combat skills in K76. Best we catch up on that before you're out in the field again. And Zero?"

"Hm?"

"I was never punishing you. I was reforming you. There's a difference."

"If you say so," he shrugged, summoning the lance to throw over his shoulders, "Let's see if your confidence still holds, Master."

"Arrogant little thing," Leo answered as he dropped into stance.

It was all friendly ribbing - there was no malice or genuine bite to it -, and it felt good to quip and banter as they traded blows.

Leo's handiwork with a weapon had a fine grace to it, fitting of a prince, but it still held the ferociousness and raw strength of a true fighter. He swept across Zero's shins with his staff and almost knocked him off his feet, but Zero boosted his antigrav and rolled backwards into a low hover. When Leo went for a follow up attack, he parried it with the lance, but his lack of practice made him twist his wrist in a sharp sting. 

Still, he wouldn't let himself be defeated so easily. Zero detached his Sluggers and had them attempt to slice at Leo while he took a few steps back to rub the sprained joint. By the time Leo had managed to fend them off - not without a dripping slash or two - Zero was back into attack position, lance transmuted back to a bracelet. 

With his hands free, Zero could move more easily, with the agile, vicious tenacity that resonated best in his muscles, and so he proceeded to counter Leo unarmed. The staff almost came down on his side, but Zero stopped it with the bracelet and countered with a high kick that put Leo minutely off balance, though he tanked it just fine.

"If this is how you'll have it…" Leo discarded his staff and the fight descended into something more familiar, though Zero now had his full physical capacities at his disposal and just his scaled skin in the way of Leo's blows.

The play-by-play blurred in Zero's head, mind and body overtaken by honed instinct. It hurt; it was exhilarating, until Astra came between them and sent them flying in opposite directions.

"Purpose, Brother." He reminded Leo with a sideways glance. "Let's get the two of you patched up."

Astra brought them minty balms for their wounds and pouches of photonic fluid, and they sat on the floor together commenting on their performance. Zero's body felt alive, brimming with boundless energy despite the bruises smarting under his armour, and his mind felt blank, serene.

His heated humors were so perfectly soothed that the scathing critique his teachers had for his poor handling of the lance bounced right off of his sense of self-doubt, so unlike how it normally would.

Zero could get used to this feeling, he really could.

On a lazy afternoon spent lounging on a heated cushion to soothe the near-pleasant soreness from training, another visitor appeared at Zero's door with a polite knock.

The house's intelligence system didn't ping him about unknown energy signatures, meaning it was probably his mother, Voice, or an Ultra Brother, so Zero just waved at it to unlock the door without getting up from his warm little nest - if he got murdered, then he got murdered, who cared?

Still a whole minute passed and his visitor did not arrive.

"...May I come in?" A gentle, raspy voice asked, amplified by the house. What was he dealing with here, some sort of vampire? Regardless, Zero gave a nonchalant affirmative reply, now perhaps a little too on edge to properly rest anymore. (He wasn't afraid, just annoyed. Definitely.)

It wasn't a vampire, but this visitor loved blood and guts just as much.

"Ace." Unlike many of the top brass Zero recently had to accept as part of his family, Zero knew Ace - not closely and definitely not well, but he'd seen and talked to aer often enough on the way to Zoffy's office in his cadet centuries that they had a good acquaintanceship. In fact, he wondered if Ace had ever noticed that sometimes he got himself reprimanded just to see aer, but that was probably awkward to revisit now that they were cousins.

It didn't, however, change the flutter in Zero's stomach as ae approached with a basket of delightfully fragrant homemade bread, and that caught Zero off-guard. It wasn't so much direct attraction - no, them being family killed that completely -, but he felt… he felt he could love someone, trust someone with body and soul if they were someone like Ace, and his mind struggled to process what was so different about aer that could soften his highly guarded heart like that.

"It's nice to see you again, Ultraman Zero," ae put emphasis on the title, as if teasing, or maybe even proud, "Mother told me you might need some guidance, and I thought it'd be a good opportunity to catch up with my favorite bad apple."

Zero stuck out his tongue, "Hey, I'm a good apple now. Sour, but still good." Still, favorite - that was nice to hear, even if it brought on the question of whether there were others (he supposed he shouldn't mind if there were; Ace was a cherished acquaintance, not his monogamous partner).

Ace covered aer laughter with a gloved hand, "Yes, of course. May I sit with my favorite sour apple?"

Fast-beating heart notwithstanding, Zero put his legs down and stopped hogging the whole couch. Ace sat by him, aer wide hips and thighs lightly brushing Zero's foot slung over his opposing knee and making it twitch with how cool aer skin felt after his hours spent marinating - he must have overdone it; in his tactile memory Ace had always been warmer than him.

"What did Marie send you to guide me about?" He asked, hoping to dispel the awkwardness he felt, "Isn't that a breach of patient confidentiality?"

"Mother didn't tell me anything much, other than I might be of use to you. Knowing me and knowing you, this could be about sharp objects, blood and gore, gender, family, or love."

"...Love?" The hemolymph ran to his face. He hadn't told Marie a single peep about his affective struggles, so this was definitely just Ace being sensible and perceptive and perfect, and that boiled his blood with defensiveness. He hadn't processed this strange feeling yet and it offended him to have someone suss him out before he did it himself. "All the others make sense, but you know damn well I'm just a nasty frigid slut."

Ace fixed him with a reproving, but compassionate stare.

"There's more to you and your affections than that." Ae lingered on a pause, as if deciding whether to fully dig into it, "You need to be kinder on yourself."

"I wanted to hurt people. There's no kind spin to put on it."

"Do you want to know what it looked like to me?" Ace's tone was intense, like it was important to aer to relate it, so Zero conceded with a careful nod. "You wanted people to like you, plain and simple, and you tried to obtain it through, in your view, exploiting others' terms. That is an uncharitable view of your own motives through a zero-sum cognitive bias: you perceive you can only gain at the expense of others, and them at your expense, so when they do not earn the love you think they sought from you, you see it as you having harmed them. But a relationship not working out does not constitute harm."

That sounded plausible, but…

"What about the 'flirting my way up to where I was' thing? Y'know, I did it to Zoffy even." It was a dirty move to bring that up when he was well aware that Ace and Zoffy weren't exactly just friends (not that Zero knew what they were, but he was observant enough to notice it), but that was the point. Zero wasn't kind; he was becoming it, but how can one become something good rather than just be it if they weren't ever bad?

"I know that, Zero. Just as I know that no one has ever taken your bait. Everything you've earned was through your own work and despite your offputting behavior." Ace sighed, exasperated, "That was not where I wanted to go with you. The matter of the fact is, where does it leave you when love is not transactional, when you can let it soak through your being and wash you clean? Whether you see it or not, there is love in you, if only you let there be."

"I love wrong. I don't want anyone to suffer me." It struck him only when it left his lips how much it sounded like his own father's cheap excuse for not parenting him. The hollow feeling in his chest ached.

Ace handed him a soft, buttery pastry; a peace offering of sorts.

"Have you loved before?" Zero's nod took a while to come, memories of the ridiculous complicated feelings whenever the ones who wanted his affections were girls - he felt such a hesitance to hurt them, but often he craved their affection just as much - flooding his mind. "Have you ever allowed yourself to?"

He hadn't. Ever.

Zero knew he was bad news, that he was a selfish, nigh malicious creature, so he pushed Livia and Edge and Angela and Talon away out of such a fundamental disgust with his own self, even if their faces and voices haunted him for years thereafter, so unlike with the rest of his suitors.

And it pieced together some remaining parts of the puzzle. What was he but a web of contradictions, and his façade a reactive mess of antitheses to feelings he couldn't accept?

"Ace," Zero said, weakly, "What are you?"

"A man and a woman and neither and both, at my own discretion, in the image of our Goddess."

"I don't think I quite fit that, but," he clicked his tongue, "A woman and not; ceci n'est pas une femme kind of thing. Can I be that?"

Ace smiled, "If it is what makes sense to you."

"It does, I think." Zero lowered his gaze to the pastry in his hand and tentatively brought it to his mouth. As much as his skin could taste the exterior with great precision, the flavour still filled his mouth with a rich sensation from the increased surface area that went far beyond that. It soothed his nerves, even if just a little. "Maybe this eating thing isn't so bad."

Ae passed him the full basket. 

"You can take them all if you want. It should give your energy attacks a boost for a few months if you space them out accordingly."

And now the Master of Beam Techniques made a lot more sense too, and Zero wondered if he'd ever be able to balance out kindness and violence so harmoniously.

"You wish to be assigned… scout duty?" Zoffy questioned, eyes squinted, as he inspected Zero's readmittance file.

"For lack of a better word, yeah," he - she? they? something else? that matter was not quite clear yet - confirmed, "Basically if you need to assess an unknown situation you can just throw me at it. I think that'd be a good usage of my skill set."

Zoffy looked at her very intently in the eyes, as if gauging her seriousness. Zero did his absolute best not to blink or twitch - he wasn't playing here, this was the best area of effect he'd found for himself on the vacancy list Command posted outside the office every third week of the month. After a solid minute of this staring contest, Zoffy broke it to pull up a data screen and began typing.

"I'll approve it. It could be a good exercise in restraint for you." He lifted his gaze again, "I suppose you'll be going by Ultrawoman Zero now?"

"Eh, not sure. Maybe I'll keep it interchangeable like Ace does it." They quirked the corner of their lips when they mentioned aer, just as a teasing acknowledgement. "Though I don't think I wear it quite as well."

"You won't get me to flatter you with that," Zoffy rebutted without even hesitating, but there was no bite to it. It was almost funny, and that was a marked change from the borderline disdain between them just two centuries previous. "You are aware that, while scout work is intermittent, some missions might require several years of observation and, if immediate action is required, your life might be in danger, yes?"

"Didn't choose it 'cuz it's easy, y'know? I'm noncompliant, not stupid." That was an important point to hammer in, even if he didn't think Zoffy would ever forget it. "But I guarantee I won't die. My mom would kill you and I both if that happened."

"Fair point." By the way he clenched his jaw, Zero had to imagine that her mother had already caused Zoffy infinite trouble during her exile. "Your name will enter the rotation by the end of the month, so you should be ready for a summons at any time since then."

"All good with me. Although…"

"Yes?"

"...I'm gonna need someone to look after my shrimp and my plant."

Zoffy sighed.

"I'll look to arrange that."

It was the day before Specter's next multiple-month research trip - the first since her son-daughter thing had been readmitted into society - and miraculously this time she invited said thing for a mother-child outing instead of disappearing without a trace. However, Specter was still Specter, so where they ended up was…

"...Why are we out here in the wilds?" Zero asked, not quite a complaint. He'd just rarely ever been outside the city at all outside of feeble attempts to run away in his tweens (sometimes she was found, sometimes she just grew irritated with how long it took, but she'd always come back).

Specter took a while to respond, taking in the environment with every sensory organ at her disposal. "This is an exercise in perspective," she said, finally.

"What does that mean though?"

"I want to feel the purpose your work gives you, and for you to feel the purpose mine gives me. Such a vast, liminal place should give us space for that."

That didn't make it any clearer.

"How do you suppose we do that?"

Specter tapped her forehead crystal.

"I'll attune our minds. It should be easier to transmit such abstract information that way." She paused then, tilting her head. "If you'll allow it, that is."

It was truly a mark of how she was trying that she remembered to ask, even if in such a tacked on manner. Zero had always resisted or refused attunement before, felt stifled by the very idea of it, but they were willing to give ground, just this once, if it helped bridge the gap between them.

After he conceded, the two of them sat down on the dew-slick grass facing each other. Specter closed her eyes and pulled in a deep breath from her gills. Her crystal began shining brighter and stronger, and then Zero closed her eyes too as she felt a familiar nudge in her mind; she accepted it, let it melt over herself, and then through the forged connection sent over her own consciousness too. 

Specter's inner light was full of cool, burning radiation, dominated by blue and purple hues all the way through to ultraviolet, with small hints of other visible spectrum projections made by the icy prisms floating in the space. Zero had been here before, a long time ago, and it'd been darker and sharper then, just traces of rainbows amid searing x-rays - vaguely, they wondered if that had been around the time her tentative friendship with Ultraseven went up in flames.

"It was," Specter answered, impassively, "I wanted to keep you close to me, but my inner thoughts were too unstable. I imagine that contributed to losing your trust."

Zero didn't answer. 

"Show me what it is you do," he diverted.

Specter did not insist.

A wave of sensory and emotional input began to feed into Zero's mind from Specter's own. 

It began with a thrill deep within their structure, rattling their bones as the galaxy streamed by with nebulae tickling their limbs and stars warming their scales. It was a familiar enough feeling - in the short missions she'd undertaken before being discharged, Zero had gotten to know the eternal joy of space travel on his own skin, and it'd felt right, just as the emotional feedback told them it did for her mother. He sent his own feelings in return, the immeasurable peace of the void combined with the creeping excitement of purpose. Receiving the breadth of her child's unfocused intensity for the first time in millennia made Specter's projection falter, but she let it tangle with her own measured subtlety as she grew used to it.

"The world seems like it is so much to you," she remarked, a trace of bitterness in her tone.

Is it not for you? Zero didn't say.

Specter changed her mental landscape then, leading them to some low-tech planet brimming with verdant growth. This was where her excitement began to bubble, a low simmer of joy in the pit of their proverbial stomach as the colours and smells and sounds filtered in. The worlds beyond were alive, full of noise and chatter, and devoid of judgement. A pang of sadness hit Zero at the realization of why his mother had always been so eager to leave.

Zero had been about to queue their own sensory display when another figure landed in the illusory jungle where Specter and Zero-as-Specter stood. Red, sharp, and short: that was Ultraseven alright.

He came up to them and greeted them eagerly, happy to be of service, and Specter's heart melted - and then the connection was broken and mother and child woke up again in the dewy meadow.

"You should talk to him."

"On the day that I die."

In the second week since her name was added to the scouting rotation, Zero received her first summons.

He had been dozing off in the warm afternoon light when his house's AI woke him up with an unusual notification noise.

"Ultra-man/woman Zero: briefing scheduled at - 15h - in - Intergalactic Defense Force Headquarters, 5th floor, office number 53," it said as soon as it registered them awake.

It hit her with a small delay that this meeting was scheduled for her father's office: The Ultra Brothers all had 5th floor offices, even if rarely used, and they were accordingly numbered, though Zero was most familiar with offices 51 and 55. A small sense of unease caught him - was he assigned his father to brief him just because of their relation? Was this how they did things for the offspring of the elite? Was this what his mother had wanted to protect him from? They dismissed it for the moment, they had more important things to worry about now.

When the allotted time came, Zero had already fed her Caridemons a hefty piece of prey, watered and trimmed the silver grass plant, and eaten a small roll of moonbread for luck - more careful maintenance at once than she'd usually care for, but anything to ease the anxious burn of awed excitement in her interstitial fluid -, but she still reached her father's office with perhaps a minute or five of tardiness. That would not bode well for his first day, but he hoped they could ignore it.

"Zero," Seven greeted them, stern, as they hurriedly walked in, "Sorry for the short notice, but when this report came from the Space Information Center…" he sighed, "I knew we'd probably need you."

"...Me?" Oh yeah, this was definitely favoritism. "I just got here."

"The other scouts might have a better theoretical knowledge of space, but your instinctive sense of it should be more in line with investigating the space distortion that has engulfed Planet Cheney." Seven fixed him with a critical gaze. "Emergencies related to spatial geometry and space cartography are my jurisdiction; I know what it takes to get through these things, that it happened to involve you is just a pleasant coincidence, if that's your concern."

Zero didn't know if she believed it, but she also didn't care to argue it. At least a space distortion should be a fun challenge, and if it was more than they could chew it wouldn't be their fault.

"What's the full sitch, then?" 

"Cheney is a known scientific development base for the people of Planet Salome. They are very technologically advanced and potentially hostile. The core mission is to discover whether we must rescue the Alien Salome scientists stationed there, foil their plans, or leave them be," Seven explained, "I've fought some of their kind in my time on Earth, so I can tell you that you should expect the possibility of being attacked by their robot replicas of stronger aliens, such as ourselves, and kaiju. I don't quite believe they would develop whatever led to this incident with pure intentions, but we have to give them the benefit of doubt; hence you."

"Why do I have the feeling now that you picked me because you know there's no benefit of doubt to be given?" Zero was self-aware enough to know he was the resident loose cannon, even more than his father before him - there was no way he was being trusted with such a delicate mission as providing humanitarian aid for a normally hostile species right away.

"Do you accept the mission or not?"

No point in dawdling.

"I do, yeah."

As he shot out into space, free for once, Zero contemplated the overall state of his life now. She knew so much the absence of which had tormented her life now - her father, her mother's struggles, the social fragility of the Land of Light, the nature of her own self, the nature of her relationships. It ached and hurt the way an organ transplant would: they needed it, their body wouldn't take their old answers, but it'd hurt and ache and conflict with their defense mechanisms until it fully assimilated into acceptance.

Out under the light of natural suns, Zero briefly considered escaping like his aunt, but now he was bound by duty and love to his pets and friends - he couldn't just abandon them, not again -, so the idea was shelved. She had a mission, a purpose, a home and a place of belonging - skewed, but she had it. 

Zero wasn't like their mother or their father or their aunt or anyone else - Zero was Zero, whoever that might be, and what distinguished them was that they would not conform themself to alienation, powerlessness, or exclusion anymore. If she had to brute force a sense of safety and acceptance she'd do it one hundred times.

Space distortion ahead of him, Zero flew past the event horizon with no fear, of death or otherwise.