oceanicbutterfly | RL with Zero

There was a loud smashing sound as the metal door grew a rather large dent. There was another, and a last resounding smash against the door, which was now significantly damaged. On the other side, Zero stood there, his forehead on the door and his fists by his head.

There was something going on, something wrong with his head. His cybernetic eyes flickered, static running across his blue eyes. A few seconds passed and it stopped, but nothing was right.

A terrible smile crossed Zero's face and he stood up, one last punch causing the door to break off and fly forward into the room. Zero strolled in rather casually, a light cackle coming from him. He looked up at Karen, a horrible deviance in his face as he wordlessly advanced towards her.

Karen--Aqua--blinked as something pounded on the door, then flinched as it suddenly flew towards her, even though it wasn't quite headed right for her.

Oh, it's just Zero. That was a relief. But he had a strange expression she'd never seen him show before. It was... creepy.

"Zero? What's happening?" she asked, unsure.

"HehehAHAHAHAHA! Well, it's simple what's happening. If you can tell me where Dr. Wily or Dr. Light are, I'll consider sparing your life." He continued towards her, stopping about four feet away from her.

"So, where are they?"

"I don't know," Aqua said almost immediately. "I don't even know who..." She trailed off as she realized what Zero had said. "My life?!"

Zero was a Maverick Hunter, one of the good guys. He would never really do anything to her, right?

"Zero, this isn't funny."

Right?

"Tch, then you're not worth a damn thing, are you?" Zero smiled and lashed out with his right hand, attempting to grab Aqua's throat in his very large reploid hand.

"How do you want to go?"

"Zero, what's wrong with you?!" Aqua instinctively threw up her left arm to block what she'd assumed was going to be a punch. Her right arm tensed, and she tightened her grip on the Ribbon. There is no way this is really happening.

Well damn, all he'd wanted to do was snap her neck. This would suffice, though. "Nothing's wrong, in fact, I feel stronger than ever before."

Zero grabbed onto her arm, gripping as tightly as possible. He turned his feet slightly and swung her over himself, slamming her hard enough into the metal ground to dent it.

"Zero, what aaAAAAAH-IEEE!!" Aqua screamed as she was suddenly jerked into the air by her arm. She barely had time to realize what was happening, not quite even noticing that she was still moving, before she hit the floor. Hard. As usual, her Pretty Cure power protected her from being injured, but she felt every bit of it. Dimly she felt her right hand open and heard a clattering sound like plastic on metal, and even more dimly she thought that was a bad thing somehow, but it was hard to concentrate on such things through the pain.

Zero didn't give her a second to recover. He shifted his feet slightly again and swung her over him once more, slamming her down into the ground with the same amount of force. He repeated this one more time before swinging her once and hurling her towards the wall.

Aqua hit the floor again with an "agh!" and yet again with an "ugh!" Her body felt like it was going to fall apart, probably starting with her arm popping off. When she expected to hit the ground a fourth time, she instead found herself sailing through the air, with just enough time to be caught off guard by this before she hit the wall and actually broke through it, landing just inside the next room.

She knew she had to get up. Fight, run, any option started with standing up. Aqua managed to pull herself slightly up on her elbows before she fell back down.

Well, this place was pretty shoddy. Zero hadn't expected her to break through the wall. Ah well, it's not as though Zero cared about any of that. He walked towards Aqua rather quickly, laughing as he approached her.

"Still alive, huh? You're pretty damn persistent, but that's alright, really. I guess I'll just take my time to kill you as slowly as I can."

Just before Aqua fell, Zero's rather large metal foot flew up into her.

The kick itself was the worst part. The sudden sharp impact hurt enough on its own, and on top of that, she got to feel the butterfly-shaped ornament on her costume jab into her chest. In comparison, grazing the ceiling was barely noticeable, and hitting the floor again was just hitting the floor again.

Somehow she managed to process what Zero had said. Kill her? She thought of her parents and her friends...

Aqua couldn't even manage to get up partly this time, not yet anyway, but she turned her head towards Zero. After a second she was able to speak.

"............I can't lose to you."

He walked forward after he kicked her, stopping on front of her. His smile was still there, the pure enjoyment n her pain was evident.

"You don't have much of a choice. Nothing can stop me."

Zero leaned over and grabbed Aqua by the base of her long ponytail, standing and lifting her up to her feet. "Let's see just how much of a fight you can put up, then. I've got all the time in the world."

There was definitely something wrong with Zero. Aqua already knew that, of course, but at a time like this it was hard to control what strange thoughts came to mind.

Having her hair pulled was practically nothing, compared to what had just happened, but she still winced as he pulled her up. She managed to look at him as she put weight back onto her feet.

"Everyone is waiting for me at home. My friends... they still need me to come back. I have to get home safely, for them. That's why I won't lose to you!"

With that, Aqua jumped away to the side, almost to the wall. She'd need some distance to pull this off. Her Pinky Catch glowed bright blue as she landed, a bit wobbly but on her feet.

Edited 2008-09-05 16:18 (UTC)

"Hahaha, that's an awful lot of crap you care about. It's too bad they're never going to hear from you again."

Zero held up his left arm, his fist pointed at Aqua. "Let's see what this can do." His arm changed into his Zero Cannon, a blue jewel in the shallow barrel. Energy around the end of the barrel became visible as it was absorbed into the jewel, which started glowing immediately. The process took less than a second. His arm recoiled as he fired a massive ball of energy flying towards Aqua.

Karen had been expecting him to run towards her and try to grab her again. She hadn't realized Zero could do this. Nevertheless, it wasn't far removed from one of the tricks Bunbee liked to use, and with a leap to the side she dodged the shot, shouting "It's not crap!" as she went.

It wasn't too far from one of her own moves, either. As she landed, water swirled around her from her Pinky Catch. "The rock-crushing power of a young girl's outpourings--take this!" she shouted. Then the water formed into one huge blast aimed towards Zero. "PRETTY CURE AQUA STREAM!"

Zero had fired off another shot and it crashed into the water stream, but it hadn't done much at all to stop the flow.

"Tch." Zero threw his arm sup in front of his face and braced himself for the impact of the water. He waited for it to hit him and the second it did he leaned forward into the water and activated the boosters in his feet. He was pushed back slightly, but the boosters got him to stay in place for a bit. He was only pushed back a few feet.

Once it stopped, he was soaking wet, and shook his face a bit to get some water off. He looked up, glaring at Karen, and started approaching her.

No effect?! Well, seemingly no effect, anyway. Aqua braced herself--there wasn't much left for her to try.

Once he was about fifteen feet away, he dashed forward with his boosters and grabbed a hold of Aqua's neck. He threw her down into the ground and stomped his foot down onto her back, his right hand reaching around to his back. "This is getting boring."

Zero removed the Red Lotus Saber from the white pack on his back and extended the massive blade. With his foot still on her back, he let the blade destroy the metal floor beside Karen's head, giving her an opportunity to see the weapon. To be honest, it was his first time seeing it, too.

"Don't worry, I'll bring your head to these so-called 'friends' of yours," with that, he moved the seemingly flaming blade over Aqua's neck.

Aqua wasn't even aware of what Zero was saying anymore. The weight on her back was making it hard to breathe, and the addition of the energy blade he was threatening her with had her in a panic. Instinctively she tried to cry out for Jiiya, but couldn't quite manage it. Somewhere in the chaos that had temporarily replaced her thoughts, she wondered what would the saber would actually do. She'd never seen any sign that she could actually be harmed in Pretty Cure form, but it seemed impossible that she wasn't about to die.

Until he heard the commotion from down the hall, Axl wasn't thinking about anything more important than rewiring the speakers in the command room for a good Rickroll.

Screams and crashes snapped him right off that train of thought.

He dashed down the hall and through the door, guns out and ready to go -- still, somewhere at the back of his mind, he had to wonder what kind of threat could've made it this far into Hunter Base without getting caught already --

And then he saw Zero. "Zero, what the hell?"

Before Zero had a chance to question Aqua's continued life, the navy Hunter burst into the room. Zero turned to look at the new challenger, a smile reappearing on his face. He sheathed the flaming sword and took a few steps toward the reploid.

"Ooh, someone else to play with. Tell me, do you know where Dr. Wily or Dr. Light are?"

"I think you're like a century too late to talk to either of them," Axl replied. Despite being confused as all hell, he didn't relax his stance or lower his guard.

He really didn't like the direction this was going in.

"Tch, don't play games with me. If you're not going to help me, you'll end up just like her."

Despite not receiving the information he wanted, he was still smiling. He knew that he wasn't going to get an answer, and besides, even if he had it wouldn't have stopped him from tearing Axl a new one.

There was only one logical explanation for all this, and it was exactly the one Axl had most been dreading. But that was just how his life always went, wasn't it? You find people you care about, you build a life, and then someone goes Maverick and screws the whole thing up.

Not again.

"I'm not kidding," he said, with a calmness is his voice that he definitely wasn't feeling.

"I told you NOT TO FUCK WITH ME!" Zero threw his left hand up, which changed into his buster and fired off a shot at Axl.

Axl leapt to the side. Apparently Zero wasn't kidding either.

He already knew that Zero outclassed him in most areas. Speed and wits were going to have to be enough, but if he didn't have the firepower to take Zero down...

His dash thrusters kicked off, and he moved further to the side, looking for an opening to fire.

Zero watched Axl dash to the side, but didn't stop firing at him, alternating between aiming at him and aiming a few feet ahead of him.

As he fired, he attempted to slowly move closer to Axl.

Axl was observant enough to notice that Zero was getting closer, and sharp enough to know that if Zero caught him in melee range, he was pretty much completely screwed.

So he did the first thing that came to mind: he went into hyper mode.

You can't hit what you can't see.

There was a large glow, and then he was gone. Well, Zero was absolutely puzzled. He scanned the room quickly, his Zero Cannon still out. Nothing. "Tch, and just where the hell did he go?"

Cautiously, Zero lowered his cannon and returned it to his arm. After one more quick survey, he started to return to Aqua's unconscious body.

Oh no you don't.

Axl changed weapon programs -- if Zero couldn't see him aiming, he could afford the speed delay of the Spiral Magnum, and it packed a better punch than his usual shots.

He fired, then immediately dashed out of the way. If Zero decided to start taking blind swings in the direction the shots had come from, well. That could still hurt.

Oh that little bitch.

The shot hit Zero in the back and it did nothing to calm his temper or stop him from wanting to rip Axl apart. A few seconds after he recovered, Zero moved his hand to draw one of his sabers, but he took one more look around the room and stopped. He dashed backwards over Aqua, ending up with her unconscious body between him and Axl. He reached down and grabbed her by the base of her ponytail, holding her up in front of him and close to himself. He just found a fun new shield.

"Go ahead! Take another shot! You might get lucky and blow one of her arms off!"

Well, shit.

Axl stopped -- still a good distance out of Zero's reach -- and deactivated his hyper mode. "Why don't you stick to fighting people who can still fight back?"

"Heheh, you're right! I should fight someone who's still living so that I can watch them squirm beneath my feet, shouldn't I?" He took a single step forward to brace himself as he hurled Aqua's body at Axl.

Once he was rid of that, he dissolved into the familiar red energy beam and shot into the sky.

That wasn't exactly the response he'd been hoping for.

Axl frowned as he caught Aqua's body. Things didn't sound good for whoever Zero ran into next -- he had to go chase him down, and if he couldn't beat Zero himself, he had to at least either lure him back to Hunter Base or buy time for someone who could win to get there.

But he couldn't leave Karen like this, either.

He needed to find someone to take care of her -- someone who knew how to handle an injured person, who wouldn't mind being interrupted to do so, and who wasn't going to demand the long version of the story until after he got back...

He activated his communicator. "Cinnamon? If you're there, I could really use some help over in the training room. Like...now."

When she heard the call, Cinnamon rushed directly to the training room as quickly as she could. Whatever Axl wanted, it was probably something important. She turned to enter through the doorway (why was the door open?) and--

"Karen?! What happened?"

"Zero went berserk. I can't tell you why, because I honestly don't know." Axl carefully handed Karen off to Cinnamon. "Can you take care of her? I have to get moving."

Cinnamon gently took hold of Karen. She didn't look like she was bleeding, but... "Zero went... what? Where are you going?"

In all honestly, Axl wasn't looking forward to this at all, but she was going to worry enough if he didn't put on a brave face about it, so he gave her what he hoped was a sufficiently reassuring grin.

"Somebody's gotta bring him back, right?"

Bring Zero back? If he had gone berserk, that would be dangerous. Cinnamon knew Axl was good, but Zero was good too...

"Good luck... and be careful, Axl."

She wanted to say something else, preferably something helpful, but she couldn't think of anything. Instead, she focused her attention on Karen. Cinnamon was admittedly not an expert on humans, but while the girl was unconscious and covered in dirt, there was no sign that she was actually injured...

RL with Zero

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You weren't on AIM when I wrote this so just tell me if the slight gmodding is not okay

No problem; also this would be a good time for Axl to appear

and heeeeere he comes!

ew, it's Axl

don't worry zero, he won't give you new gen cooties

Axl cooties

:B

oh yeah, karen-mun is a guy

boys? on lj? MADNESS.

MADNESS? THIS. IS.

CAKE TOOOOOOOOWN

Posh, Zero doesn't need to that close since he has a sword TWICE HIS SIZE (ilu Sigma blade)

he also has SILLY FANS. 8D

youshutyourface. also, you can start posting devirus'd responses, we're backdating this

oh yay, my internet is cooperating long enough for me to post again ;.;

D=

the router, it does nothing D8

Re: the router, it does nothing D8

Re: the router, it does nothing D8

Re: the router, it does nothing D8

Re: the router, it does nothing D8

The router really needs to stop doing nothing