onepassingnight | *001*

Entry tags:

001 | In Memoriam

"Hey."

Nothing but a simple tombstone, engraved with nothing but a "Z", stared back at him. Not that X expected it could talk; a slab of stone under a large blossoming apple tree didn't make for good conversation, he wagered. Still, there was a comfort in small, silent things, from the simple grassy field that made up their meeting place to the hilt of the beam sabre that sat next to the bouquet of irises that lied down next to it.

It wasn't meant to be an extravagant place full of pomp and ceremony: the clear sunny sky, endless grass (short of the single tree), and lack of any sort of building made that abundantly clear.

"It's been a while since I've seen you...sorry about that. I've been busy and it's been hard to get away, even to sleep. You know how it is."

X chuckled, scratching his head.

"But we're starting to home in on the last of the straggler groups still holding onto Sigma's ideals. We might even win the war soon, and then...well. Things will be peaceful again. Maybe I'll be able to go back to being a B-class, huh?"

Maybe. Maybe he'd even be able to wear his favorite human clothes, like he was wearing now: blue upon blue, with even more blue. Right now, he couldn't have even worn these around the base with as little free time as he had, but here, it was all right. In dreams, everything was safe, including prattling about at a gravestone in the middle of nowhere like he was a character in a human drama.

Well. He was alone.

There was no harm in creating a grave for an old friend that didn't exist in the real world, just as there was no harm in voicing his thoughts to him.

After all, it wasn't as though anyone could hear him.

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Mercury didn't think to notice the Dark Kingdom forest was very different this time. Apple trees replaced the rustling of the familiar surroundings, and the whole place was almost as open as the fields that should have been laid out nearby.

The solemn mood was the same. Her blue hair and the blue sailor-style uniform seemed to suggest the water she carried, as she carefully tended the ground around another memorial tablet that had begun to be worn away by weather. When she was finished, she laid a single white flower in the grass nearby, amid a variety of green plants. Roses in bud, made of ice, sprang up around it.

She stood again, and spoke as if the person buried beneath the stone could hear her. "Everything we swore to do is already accomplished. So, rest."

With an audible crackle, one of the ice buds flared into bloom. Whatever meaning she took from it, she was visibly surprised. As her head lifted sharply, she caught sight of X. The pathos of the scene was broken as she looked suddenly defensive, unappreciative of being caught in such a moment. The calm changed to a quick demand.

"Who's there?"

Edited 2013-02-05 11:03 (UTC)

"I'm a little worried about some of the new Hunters. One of them especially is a bit reckless, doing tricks and playing around instead of focusing on--"

X stopped in mid-sentence as he realized that he wasn't alone.

...How? He was in a dream. Usually when he dreamt of this place, he didn't want distractions, nosy nellies, or even familiar faces of home to distract him from the diarrhea of the heart that this sort of solace offered him.

He turned around, but instead of offering the quip of a response that his tongue wished, the woman herself gave him pause, as well as the memorial stone that she was standing nearby.

Is she...mourning too? he wondered.

Really, the bigger question was why someone like that would appear in a dream of his, when it hadn't been like that before. Not that X really understood dreams...not really. For humans, it was a place where the subconscious went out to play. But for Reploids...scientists were still unable to crack how X and many others were able to dream humanlike dreams, even able to simulate phases of REM, the 'deeper' he slept.

Or why sleeping, much akin to how a human could, managed to replenish spent energy stores slowly, even without an outlet to connect himself to.

X stared the woman down for a moment and let out a small, thoughtful 'hum'.

"Don't worry." he said, "I'm...here for the same reasons as you."

Humans said that different people in their dreams sometimes meant something...was it the same for Reploid dreams? X could only wonder.

Mercury's eyes found the stone X had been speaking to before coming back to rest on the Reploid himself. He hadn't given his name, she noted. She might have demanded it again in her suspicion.

What came from her mouth instead was, "I'm here to say goodbye." There was no shame in that much. There was a certain note of finality to the word she chose to use, less remembrance and more release.

"Funny." X almost found himself laughing, but even the hints of it were small, and hollow. "I'm here to say 'hello'."

Because he didn't have time to contemplate such things in the waking world. Between the battles, the training routines, and the large amount of work that was piled onto him, he didn't have time to breathe, as a human would say.

But it was good. With a bit more effort and some more pushing, they'd finally be able to win this thing. Two months in and already they were closing in on the stragglers, and rounding up the Maverick supporters.

...

Did that mean his battle would come to an end?

Maybe...when he had time, he'd bury Zero's control Chip and make him a grave in a place like this.

Just because humans often made Reploids into scrap (except the particularly sentimental ones, to whom X was always grateful) didn't mean that Reploids were less deserving of graves.

Still...

"My name's X. Who are you?"

It was a more complicated question than X knew. Mercury chose to interpret it in its simplest form.

"The soldier of Water and Knowledge, Mercury." The slight stiffness of formality seemed innate to her, though it might have been a defense against her initial flustered state.

Maybe it was the place, maybe it was her calm mood of earlier, or perhaps it was simply X's own openness; Mercury found herself saying more.

"The man I came here for was also my comrade." Yes. Comrade. It didn't do nearly enough to explain everything, but it was true. He was someone she would not forget, or forsake; but he no longer filled her world.

Even he had known that in the end, had told her that once their goals were fulfilled, she should move on. It was how she'd known... many things he'd tried to keep hidden. It wasn't like him to let go.

Well, that was certainly formal. Really, if it wasn't such a sombre occasion, X would have remarked that she reminded him of many commanders that he met in the Maverick Hunters, apt to tell him their rank alongside their name even in simple introductions.

Besides, there was something else that he was more interested in.

"I'm sure he's happy that you came to see him," X said. "and given him such beautiful flowers."

If those were all left by her, that is. Still, there was something of a quiet beauty of flowers at a memorial stone, almost...humbling. It was enough to set X aback, at any rate.

"I don't know if human souls can see things like that after death, but...I'd like to think that they're watching, and see these things."

The flowers were laid by Mercury, and yet even she could not be sure what he would make of them, whether he would be affected by simple loyalty, or merely impatient and snappish with the sentiment. There was no one else to mourn him. Other comrades were also gone; and enemies were far more numerous. He had not lived a gentle life.

Neither had she. She was not to be led further into intimacy.

"Isn't that something people say only to comfort themselves?" she challenges X. A half-dozen years ago, she might have agreed with him. Or at least wanted to.

Edited 2013-02-05 12:46 (UTC)

"No."

It's funny; X said that without even thinking. There was no prompting, no deliberation, it was like breathing. Was this 'mercury' a figment of his own heart, the doubt he carried within himself whenever he fought in battle?

Maybe.

But if she was, then why did he deny her so easily and so quickly, without even feeling an ounce of burden? That wasn't how 'facing yourself' was supposed to work, was it?

"There are all sorts of things the modern mind, whether human or mechanical, can't begin to understand. Who's to say that it isn't true, and that there's consciousness after death, whether it be organic or mechanical?"

She thought first of the mechanical - of AI, of computer simulations, of parts of a person's consciousness stored for the future. She thought of the past life she knew she'd lived, of being reborn in the Dark Kingdom and all that entailed. Vaguely, like a dream already fading into the morning, she even thought of the Galaxy Cauldron where she, like other stars, lost and gained life.

There was something. She had seen that for herself. But it wasn't some guardian angel, it wasn't even some tender thought. More likely, it was the pressure of a hard demand that still needed to be carried through even if others had fallen along the way.

"Even if it were true," she told X, "Do you think it's that easy?" Even if there's something, why should it be something good?

"Why not?" he asked. "If humans have a heaven, why can't we? Data can exist in just about anything that allows it to be held, and if you download a Control Chip into a computer or convert it into a file, who's not to say that their consciousness would activate it, and it could move through networks and see the world and watch over those they care about?"

It was possible. Even if modern computer science learned as much as they could about data within Reploids and other machines, sentient life had a way of doing things that went beyond expectations. Humans alleged that they saw spirits, glimpses of heaven and hell, when they were close to death.

Reploids, within their given element, could certainly go beyond the expectations and do what needed to be done.

But...at the same time...

Scientifically, none of this could be proven. And even if it could, it was unlikely that humans would give much thought to it. The spiritual implications of a Reploid Afterlife was something that the more religious humans tended to avoid, and the more scientific denied as they denied the existence of an afterlife at all.

But who was to say that it didn't exist?

"Humans don't have a heaven either," Mercury said simply, even in front of this grave she so obviously came to honor. Her question hadn't been whether a Reploid consciousness could duplicate a human's, or another being's. It had been whether these pretty thoughts existed, or were reachable, at all.

A part of her supposed it would be nice to believe in someone watching over her, but that wasn't how the world actually worked. (And even if it was, there would be no one watching for her.) And even if there were a heaven, she doubted the man buried here ever expected to see it instead of Hell. She didn't expect it, either, not after what her life had been.

The slight wind ruffled her hair, and Homura brushed it back out of her way with a practiced hand. The man grieving for his fallen friend was, perhaps, deserving of privacy but, already here, she spoke anyway.

"Your comrade is fortunate to be remembered in this manner," she observed. If she found the talk of peace to be an unreachable goal... even she knew this was not the moment to say so.

X, once more, had a visitor.

Not a Reploid, or a comrade from beyond the grave who wished him well, or taunted him for his inability to allow his closest friend to survive the Independence Day conflict, but once more it was a young girl.

He didn't turn to look at her. No, he simply stared at the simple insignia before giving a small, strained smile.

"I wish I could have given him a real grave," he murmured. "Him and everyone else who died."

When they die on the wrong side of the barrier - which is the vast majority of the time, since it means a death in battle - a magical girl does not even leave behind a body.

And often, neither does she leave behind friends or family. It was some time before Tomoe Mami was even noted as a missing person.

"There are many people without even such a resting place as this," Homura said, somewhat cryptically. It was, if she had thought about it in such terms, a fairly horrible thing to say. She did not think about it in such terms. It was reality.

"All people should be remembered. Even if there's no body to bury, there should be a marker. There should still be...something, so the world will never forget."

The words came unfettered, almost as though they spilled from his mouth like a leaking faucet. Reploids were often turned to scrap metal instead of buried, except in rare cases where humans were sentimental and kind enough to give them a proper funeral and gravesite in a well-kept cemetery.

X himself tried to visit each of these graves he knew of, but then it ended in him paying his respects to everyone at the site, whether human, Reploid, or animal, that familiar saline solution bunching up and falling down his cheeks.

"...even if it's only in a dream."

Edited 2013-02-05 11:55 (UTC)

If she was surprised to hear it was a dream, Homura didn't show it by so much as a flicker of her expression. Instead, there was the smallest trace of a wistful smile that crossed her face, just briefly.

"You sound very much like someone I know," she remarked, saying know and not knew because that person was everywhere - and always with her. "She worked very hard with all her strength to change that situation for the people she cared about."

Edited 2013-02-05 12:02 (UTC)

This must have been some dream; never had X seen avatars with such color and personality that weren't directly related to his own experiences. That wasn't to say that he was immune to flights of fancy or imagination (his own bent towards poetry disproved that), but he hadn't imagined it would come about at a time like this.

Strange.

Still, X found himself smiling.

"She sounds like a great person." He even chanced to glance back at her, still smiling. "I hope she succeeded."

His eyes added something else: After all, I'm trying to do that, too.

It was funny: X normally was ridiculed for his sentimentality. He hesitated when an innocent or comrade was caught in the crossfire; he worried deeply for everyone involved in a crisis regardless of how senseless it was for someone of his position to worry; and he even was considered weak for his admittedly compassionate nature.

And yet...

Even in dreams, he must have felt, somehow, that it was justified.

"She did." Homura found herself looking up at the sky. It wasn't childish to think Heaven was there; it was natural. It was like the starry end of the universe.

Opposite of X, Homura was often misunderstood and mistrusted for her pessimistic (they said; she called it by a different name, when it came from experience) bent. But that had been part of the burden Madoka's hope to change the fate of magical girls had lightened.

"And she was."

"'Was'?" X turned fully around, facing her.

He didn't have a stomach, but he felt an odd psychosomatic clenching that he equated to dread, maybe guilt.

With his core growing heavier by the second, his eyes glanced away, staring down towards the grass near his feet.

"So she's...?"

"You have surmised it correctly," Homura admitted. "She is no longer in this world."

It was a loss she lived with every moment, to know that the only way for her feelings to reach her dearest friend, the person she'd do anything for, had been to never be able to see her or touch her again. In some ways, that simple fact felt lonelier than the life of a puella magi.

Still, she had Madoka's presence to comfort her, even if not in body. And she had a life lived as Madoka would wish her to. And, finally, their hearts had met on equal terms again, knowing and seeing everything, understanding each other.

It was enough. It had to be.

X didn't have a heart, but he certainly felt something fall like a cold stone inside him.

"I'm sorry. I...I didn't mean to bring it up."

Losing friends was one of the hardest things to do, he found.

Not that he had any real experience with it other than...well, this. One moment, he was fighting for the sake of those he cared about, and perhaps in the back of his mind, he never thought he was going to lose Zero. He was invincible, after all, his mentor who taught him so much, still had so many more things to teach him, and was the most powerful Maverick Hunter he'd ever seen.

And yet...

Zero had not only entrusted his Control Chip to him, but...he gave his arm cannon systems to him. He allowed X to absorb a part of his programming into his body, essentially replacing X's buster arm with Zero's own.

He was always with him, a mark of his own failure to protect him, and Zero's own sacrifice.

And yet...he'd inadvertently brought up the death of this girl's friend, even if she was a figment of his own imagination, conjured through a dream. He hadn't wanted to bring her unnecessary pain; she was probably getting over her death, too.

Though there was something about her words...that comforted him, somehow.

"There is no need for your apology," Homura conceded; and she didn't precisely seem angry. Unless very self-contained was covering angry like a thick coating. "You could not have known this."

No one knew this except Homura herself. Even after saying so much to X, she had not said who she meant, or precisely what happened to bring those events about. She had not told the whole tale except to Kyuubey, and Kyuubey only knew it as a story - no different from a dream, he'd said.

Homura knew it as a memory, one she held close to her always.

"In fact," she added, "Perhaps I should apologize to you. You must have come here seeking privacy."

There was always someone listening. There was always someone waiting to prey on the weak, on the pained. There were always eyes set on the next victim to turn into an akuma and it was Kanda's job to prevent that. Sort of. It's not like he had much of a choice but that really didn't matter, now did it. That was a story for another time.]

That's it. You said your hello's now get lost.

[The Earl liked to show up during times like these and if this guy was really missing who ever was buried in that hole, it was sure to attract a deal. Kanda personally didn't want to put up with the Earl but he had been feeling very confident. Let him show his ugly face, he'd rip him a new one.]

[X's body stiffened as those words cut through his thoughts like a scalpel through wet paper. Out of all the things he'd expected to hear in this dreamscape, after the other images of his own subconscious (though why were they both women...?), the last thing he'd heard was something so curt.

He had something this callous in his head? Or was this something his mind conjured to challenge himself?]

...No.

[Did he really expect him to leave? Yeah, sorry. That wasn't happening.

Not when this was the only way he had to mourn. Not when he didn't have time to mourn in the waking world.

And who the hell was this...gentleman to dictate to him when he did and didn't spend time at his friend's grave, even if it was in a dream?]

Maybe I didn't make myself clear.

[Kanda really didn't want to do this but he really didn't have much of a choice. He had a job to do and the last thing he needed was akuma running about killing people. It was hard to tell which were victims for a potential turn over or not so for his own safety, anyone who wasn't an exorcist (or Ami, since she knew better than that) was a potential threat.]

Get. Lost.

[Okay, this was ridiculous. First of all, this was a figment of his own imagination, why were his insides filled with this tense, coiling heat? He should have simply been able to ignore it--

--No, of course he wasn't going to ignore it! And especially without any damn good reason!

And even then...he probably wouldn't have listened. He had to leave Zero behind as he died. He had to constantly spend his time being unable to mourn. Who the hell was this person and what right did this...this figment of his own data have in telling him when he should or shouldn't mourn?

X glanced over his shoulder, green eyes blazing and his mouth pressed in a hard, firm line.]

And maybe you didn't hear me. I'm not going anywhere.

[His tone was a taut bowstring, ready to snap.]

Least of all for no reason.

Don't make me kick you out.

[His hand reached to his sword. Come on, idiot. Just leave. Why are you making this worse on yourself?]

Force...?

[Wait. Kick him out? Of his own dream?

His anger cooled, but only with the perplexity of what the hell this figment of himself just said. How the hell was that even possible?]

I don't think you can kick me out of my own dream. And even if you could, you wouldn't; there's too much of a risk of not only my data scrambling when being forced to boot, but yours, too.

Wh-What.

[Wait, this was another dream? Well shit. This sure explained your lack of cooperation. He grunted taking his hand off the hilt of his sword.]

I must have fallen asleep on the job...

[Even if he was awake, X still wouldn't have cooperated. Sorry, Kanda.

But...

........um. Wait. Why was he so surprised? That...didn't normally happen, did it? Objects within dreams didn't become self-aware enough, or at least acted self-aware enough to not even know they were within a dream. He supposed that if it was his own data, it was probable that it could have reacted in any way X saw fit, or whatever adapted with his own situation and dream-state...

But something didn't seem right.

No, nothing seemed right about any of this, though maybe that itself was part of the dream simulation. X didn't make pretentious to being a dream-expert, nor did he ever intend on doing so; even after all the research he and Dr. Cain still did on his systems, nobody fully knew how they worked, and his own understanding of his dream-states were...

...fuzzy, at best.]

Fallen asleep on the job? What do you mean? You're...you're data, aren't you?

[Of course he was. The probability of him being anything else was so outside of the realm of science ~~X, you do realize that you yourself come from a magical world of sparklescience and Unicorn Logic, right?~~ that he didn't even...

Unless he was a Reploid himself, but when did Reploids have the ability to cross into others' dreamscapes? Especially X's? His firewalls were far too advanced for most to break into, unless somehow when he slept, he...]

Just who are you?

Data? I don't know what that means but I'm a person. It's a human mistake. I'm tired. Don't act so weird.

[Weird? Him? Did this guy even listen to what he was saying? Human mistakes? He was a person? He was tired...?

Okay. Okay, X just had to think for a moment. This...person was clearly claiming to be a human, and acted independent of the environment (thus the programming) that surrounded it.

This could mean one of two things:

This strange man was somehow another AI that managed to walk into his dreamscape and get through his firewalls accidentally using a wireless connection.

This strange man was a huma--

--nope. Nope, sorry, he wasn't even going to go into that line of thinking yet, sorry. That was completely impossible, unless a human translated themselves as data and managed to walk through his mind but how in the world was that even possible? Or, barring that, and a human simply crossed into his dreams while sleeping, that added a lot more questions about X's dream-state that he wasn't even going to think about.

X turned fully towards him.]

I'm not, I just...!

[If you only knew how impossible X saw this entire situation. Do you even see the confusion, the BSOD that took over every facial feature?!]

Are you a Reploid, too, sir?

[Or was X really just having one hell of a weird dream?]

Edited 2013-02-12 23:12 (UTC)

Cortana had been present at several funerals during her time with the UNSC by her own request, but she had never really been to a cemetary before. She knew what one was and what it should basically look like but being in a place and seeing it in databases were two different things, especially when there was someone there grieving over a decorative stone.

How tragic, she thought to herself, that the only thing a person has once their gone is a stone to represent them. Even in time with rain and snow, a stone can't withstand the pressures of nature and it soon too fades. What then? What happens to that patch of ground? What does it become once the person buried there no longer exists... at least not as a whole. Who knows how many bugs a human corpse could feed. That wasn't very polite to think about, right? She took a step closer, hands joining over her front in a shy motion as her body glowed blue gently.

"I'm.... sorry for your loss." She wasn't even sure what she was doing here but here she was.

X wasn't even fazed anymore by the interruptions. This dream seemed to be full of them, vestiges of himself (or perhaps something else? he wondered) speaking their own thoughts as though they were separate entities. It was fascinating what the mind could do, really; were human dreams like this, or was this a byproduct of his own programming, creating if-else statements based on his own personality, thoughts, and memories?

He couldn't say.

"...Thanks."

His tone was solemn, even if he didn't turn to look at her at first. His eyes were glued on the stone which would never exist in the waking world.

"Are you here to mourn, too?"

Cortana was new to this human condition frequently known as dreaming. Machines didn't dream because they never slept. At least she didn't. She knew her time was up soon and then, perhaps, she would know what 'sleeping' was really like. She took a few more steps until she was finally standing beside the armored guy.

"I would definitely mourn if I knew who I was mourning for."

Since the war started, she knew how these things went. There were more bodies than people to dig graves for so eventually people kept getting lost as just another name in a tombstone. She would at least try to make the best for this guy.

Of course; the others that had shown up hadn't known who he was, either; it made sense that this woman wouldn't have, as well. This -- X's eyes shifted to rest on her, only for him to give a blink of surprise at her appearance before easing into comfortable placidity -- glowing, blue woman.

X quirked the tiniest of smiles, but it wasn't a happy one. It was a wan one, filled with old emotions and memories.

"His name is Zero. He's...my best friend."

Or, he was, but X couldn't make that distinction yet. It was too painful to think about.

Besides...

He had his control chip, Zero's essence. So long as he had that, was he really gone? Data couldn't have awareness unless they had a means for themselves to activate, but that didn't mean that...he didn't know what was happening, right?

Somehow...

X lightly touched his right arm.

Zero was watching over him.

Through his peripheral's she noticed he had turned to look at her and she turned to meet him. His reaction was strange, unfortunately for her, no matter what information her internal database held on emotions and facial gestures, without knowing the guy she couldn't figure him out. Her mind was searching eventually reaching a conclusion, the best way to deal with unknown gestures was a neutral one in return. She gave him a weak smile.

"I'm sorry for your loss. May I ask how he died?"

Again, an unconventional question to mutter in front of a grave but Cortana couldn't console the guy if she didn't know what had happened. She was also curious.

How he died...

Ah, the touchiest subject of all. Not even his own squadmates dared even speak an inkling about how it happened, lest they bring that guilty pain to his face. Like humans, he'd get over it with time, he was sure, but...simply mentioning it was something that made his core ache.

Or at least, that's what it felt like. He knew that it couldn't physically flutter, soar, burble, clench, shrivel, or feel such pain that it was unbearable, but that was the strange nature of his own programming: humans often talked about how their chests felt when they went through many an emotion. With X, it must have been similar, but how does one convert such a thing into coding? How does one make numbers out of feelings? Lines and commands out of sights, sounds, and sensations?

X rose his hands to his chest.

"People die in war, everyone knows that. Especially machines like us, who are meant to do what humans can't. We did what we had to...but I really thought we'd make it to the end. We'd made it through everything else together."

He laughed, but it was a humorless one.

"Zero always told me I was too soft, and that I worried too much. But I think...it balanced us, in a way. I...just...If I'd been stronger, he wouldn't have had to..."

No, he couldn't say it. It was all he could do to keep the tears out of his eyes -- that strange thing that only he could do, and no other machine had been able to replicate -- and he blinked them back.

A few spares managed to break through and sat on his cheeks. Quickly, he wiped them away.

"Wait. What did you say?"

Cortana had heard but she only truly listened to the part about him being a machine. About war. She knew the cost of machines and war far too well but she hadn't been expecting to find someone that understood. He didn't look like a machine. She reached a hand to touch at his shoulder, not like it would do much, and she paused right before making contact.

"You're a machine." Yeah, she should have known. This was a dream, wasn't it? If a machine could dream, what else would she dream of but other machines?

X nodded. "I am."

His expression betrayed his surprise at her words. She had to ask something like that? This was like that other...he didn't even know what that was. Human? Data entity that had lost all sense of identity? Either way, it was something to think about.

"...Are you?" His words were careful. Was she a part of himself, or was he like...that man before? Separate from his programming but still somehow in his dream?

He didn't understand how dreams even worked, though maybe once things settled down he'd read a few books about them.

"I'm a machine too."

She wasn't very sure how accurate those words were but she was glowing, wasn't she? There was no flesh on her, no nervous system to allow her to feel, she didn't even think her emotions were accurate. Either way, she was definitely 'different'.

"My name is Cortana. I'm an A.I. if you want me to be precise."

Another figure in armor is nearby as X pays his respects. He walks up the hill upon noticing the tree, considering it a viable place to scout before entering the city, but his train of thought changes when he immediately notices a slab of stone and blue armor. He stays still.

For a moment, he thinks it's Rock Volnutt.

However, he's older, and different. The Spartan stays silent, still as he hears the respects the boy pays towards the person representing that grave. Even at a distance, John could hear him. A part of him thought it was pointless to hope for the end of a war. For people like him, they would always be needed. It doesn't stop him for wishing X was right. That his world was right, and that he could get to enjoy that life.

John doesn't think he would.

As he approaches, the Spartan lowers his head in a reverent vow, for close friends gone.

Full-body armor, even down to the covered face?

It was different than what X had seen, bulkier and perhaps more cumbersome-looking than what he was used to, with no hints of an undersuit or even of s slim shape. Whoever he was, he had to have a high power threshold to be able to walk around in it. Even his Ultimate Armor, cumbersome as it may have appeared, never looked like that.

Did he see it somewhere before? Was that why he was dreaming it? Or was it some other reason?

This isn't the time for that. Maybe you saw it in a Human Film or something, and that's why it's showing up here.

Moments passed.

X's awed stare melted into a thankful smile, accompanied with a silent, returning nod.

The armor slowly moves towards the grave... kneeling. Another form of respect he learned outside of his universe.

From his side, he watches the armor. The armor was light, almost the same way Rock Volnutt's was, but this was more rounded, rather than angular. It reminded him a little of Samus' armor.

He reminded himself of the differences of many worlds. He probably wouldn't even know any of the people Rock lived with in his world.

"What was his name?"

[Kanda sure chose one hell of a person to dream about. He gave X a look before heaving a sigh.]

I don't know what a Reploid is.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

*001* | In Memoriam

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SLOW AS BALLS BUT HERE WE GO

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Sorry about how slow I've been! D:

It's okay!

Oh, good!

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Sorry this is so late ;w;

it's alright!

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001 | In Memoriam