Chapter Text
Initializing waking procedure
Booting up... DWN ω codename Zero booted up
Run diagnostics
Current date: September 19th, 21XX
Time since creation: 34 years, 1 month, 27 days
Weapons system fully operational
Locomotive functions fully operational
Consciousness loading... complete
Zero blinked. There was light and there was sound. The world formed around her, showing objects she had never seen yet knew and understood. Walls. Ceiling. Floor. Containment capsule. Robot. Robots...
external presence detected
initializing termination protocol
loading...
loading...
The capsule released her and she found herself on two shaky legs. Struggling not to fall, she analyzed her surroundings. Her mind and her vision were foggy, but she could tell what kind of place she was in: an empty metal house, with nothing but the red capsule behind her and the two robots pointing guns at her in the other direction.
"Unknown reploid, identify yourself!" one of them said. He was green, with a red crystal at his forehead. His partner was purple, sporting four arms and as many guns. None of that was what caught zero's attention.
"Reploid. What's that?" she said. It felt weird to hear her own voice. An expression of herself that she'd never experienced. Was it modeled after some human or synthesized a priori?
The two robots looked at each in incredulity and the purple one spoke. Her voice synthesizer seemed really out of date. "Um, it's what you are?"
loading...
"As opposed to?"
"Human." this time it was the green one.
"Do you mean robot?"
The two robots looked taken aback. The purple one especially looked hurt as she pointed all of her guns right at Zero's head. "No need to use that word, ma'm," she said. So that was probably a bit rude. Best to say "reploid", then.
loading complete
termination protocol is now running
fog gone. the room in perfect detail. scratches on the walls, specs of dust on the floor, insects maneuvering through the air. her body in perfect detail. wires sending her control chip's commands to her limbs, weapon systems in her arms, propulsion systems in her feet. sword at her hip.
enemies in front of her in perfect detail. weak points: eye, neck, core.
Zero was a marionette. Strings deep in her core pulled her limbs and her thoughts and she dashed towards the enemies, bullets crashing into her too slowly and weakly to stop her. She saw the reploids' emotions with perfect clarity, from the shock of sudden movement to the fear of an invincible opponent that only rose as they decided to run. Too slow. Too weak.
The purple one had only one eye, which shattered like glass as zero drove her blade into it, opening the back of the purple head. The green one was already halfway to the entrance of the room, but Zero was faster. She dash-jumped above the enemy, her saber shredding the dead one from head to core as it exited, and she was between him and the entrance. Slowly, she turned around to bring her prey into view. She was a marionette. Strings pulled her emotions and her reactions and she rejoiced and she laughed and she stared at her weak green prey. She was born, alive, conscious, and this was why. She would kill them all.
Her prey shook and cried. Tears. An emotional expression designed to communicate with humans. Zero did not have tears. But she had laughter, and she laughed.
"Please don't kill me," said the prey. Its legs shook, like hers had before she fully awakened. Fitting, as this one was about to fall asleep.
She walked forward, and the prey backed up. It was time for a bit of extra fun. She could afford it, it wasn't like there was any chance of failure.
"I'll spare you," she said, turning of her saber and placing it at her hip. She wasn't laughing anymore, but her smile seemed to scare the prey just as much. It backed up and backed up and backed up, away from Zero, until it came to where she had guided it.
"Augh!" it cried as it tripped on the corpse of its friend. Rage and grief and terror showed on its face and in its mannerisms as Zero began to glow. The hand on her left arm was gone, in its place a cannon with a growing orb of blue energy at its tip lighting up the room. She was marionette, strings pulled at her wishes, and the wishes made her raise her arm herself. She was a slave, and she was perfectly in control.
"Please... no..."
"I'll spare you," she said. The laughter went on in her head. The projectile that promised to shoot out of her arm and shatter her green prey grew brighter and larger. "If you just tell me some things."
It swallowed. Zero didn't even know how that was possible for a reploid. "What do you want to know?"
There wasn't really anything Zero needed to know, she was just playing. Couldn't hurt to ask something, though. The more you know and all.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"Green Biker, of the 4th land unit of the maverick hunters."
Maverick hunters? They hunt people like me?
Ah, whatever. She wanted to kill now, learning about the world could wait. Ever so slightly, she twisted her left arm so it didn't point at Green Biker's head. And then she let go.
She could never have anticipated the power of her charge shot. It smashed the air, creating a trail of fire and deep crack like a distant atomic bomb. The building shook, the recoil almost sent her of her feet, and nothing stopped it. It shot forward, obliterating the right half of Green Biker and digging a molten tunnel through the ground for meters before it diminished.
And her prey screamed. Its left hand went to clutch the right side, but too much was gone to sooth the injury with just one hand. It lay shattered on the ground, bits and pieces falling out of the opened side, and its scream shrank and dwindled and disappeared as its lights darkened, and then there was no soul left in the carcass in front of her.
Zero laughed. This was death, and this was life. She lived for the termination of others. All of them. She'd kill them all until there was no one left. Especially... him...
Him...
Finalizing termination protocol
Unaltered consciousness restored
The strings snapped and she was herself. Reactions spread through her metal body and told her of what she'd done. Human reactions. Nausea, heightened rate of respiration, and again with the shaky legs. She truly was based on that race.
She fell to her knees and reacted. Pain, guilt, horror. Her head turned to bring the corpses she made into view, and she screamed and jumped back. Not from carcasses, but from proof of her power.
I am a killing machine.
She sat there with heightened frequency of respiration and panicked. Nothing made sense, none of this made sense. She had been born like five minutes ago, dammit. She knew nothing, yet understood so much, but her understanding was outdated, but she learned quick, but she had no purpose, but she was a killing machine a killing machine a killing machine. What kind of sick fuck had created a killing machine and given them guilt!?
A red light turned on behind her. She turned to see a crimson hologram in the capsule that had once held her. It was an old human man with beard and a lab coat.
"You're awake!" the hologram said. "My creation... you're finally awake."
"You created me?" Zero said. Anger was building up within her. This fuck made me a killing machine.
"I did," the hologram said. "I am Dr. Wily, your father. And you are the strongest robot built by human hands."
"Why." Zero's grip tightened, but there was nothing to hold. Her fingers pressed in her palms with a pressure that would have shattered a human hand.
And Wily smiled. "You will destroy the creation of my hated enemy. You will destroy Mega Man X."
He laughed. He had the guts to fucking laugh. As if this pain and death, and all the pain and death that could transpire, was all just a joke to him. Zero wouldn't have it. If he wanted her to kill more, he shouldn't have made her mind like this.
For the second time in her life, she charged her buster. This time she was ready. It would crash through the capsule and the walls of the house and who knew where it would go then? The temperature of the room rose as her blue-white killer shot lit it up.
And Wily Smiled. "Ah, you're like that? Do you think it matters? Do you think this capsule is the only place where I keep my mind? Do you think morals will stop you when I initialize your termination protocol? You are powerless, Zero! I am your master! Your will is irrelevant, you will terminate the memento of-"
"Shut the fuck up." It was no more than a whisper, but it felt louder than the release of her fully powered charge shot leaving her arm and blasting the capsule and the wall behind it into a million pieces, revealing a vast lifeless desert beyond.
She walked out through the hole she had just made. Her shot was still travelling forward above the sand. There were no landmarks nearby, just sand and the starry sky.
Her master was gone for now. It was time to find her own path, through the desert and through her life.