The two tall Reploids sized each other up, weapons at the ready. Zero looked at the green Reploid with some interest; he could see design similarities to X in this Reploid. The Green Reploid however, looked at him with disdain and mistrust.

Fairy Leviathan stood up between them, trying to defuse the tension.

"Harpuia, I'd like to introduce you to Zero, as in, the legendary hero Zero, the one who saved the Earth multiple time, and whom it would be very good to have on our side so would you both please put down your weapons!"

After a few seconds consideration, Zero lowered his pistol but Harpuia kept his sabers at the ready.

"Harpy, please put your sabers away!"

Harpuia shot her an annoyed look "he could be a Neo Arcadian spy, and don't call me that!"

A smirk appeared on Zero's face. Harpuia noticed this and barked "wipe that grin off your face! Who are you and where are you from?"

Fairy slapped her forehead "I already told you who he is. He's Zero, the hero we always heard about in legends!"

Harpuia had a skeptical look on his face.

"Levi, you've got a lot of explaining to do."

An uneasy silence followed.

"Well, start explaining!"

"Okay, well you remember those ruins that none of you would go to?"

"Don't tell me you went there?"

"Yep, now don't look at me like that Harpy, you always underestimate my fighting skills!"

"Oh, I suppose this mission was a cakewalk then, I notice that we're missing a good few robots, they got blown up didn't they!"

"Yeah, I'm sorry about them. Anyway, I reached the ruins and went inside."

Harpuia listened to Levi's story with a stern/pensive look on his face. After it was done, he looked at Zero with a suspicious look. He used a walkie-talkie to call someone inside the base to come out.

Zero watched as two other reploids exited the base and walked out to meet them. One was a lithe reploid in predominantly purple armor and, though he wasn't like those large bulky fitness people you see, Zero could tell his limbs had a wiry strength to them. The other reploid was the exact opposite, big and bulky with a red coloration, he had two large (completely oversized) guns strapped on his back.

Once they were standing beside them, the red one looked at Zero and said in a snarky voice "who's this undersized knock-off of me?"

Zero bristled, if anyone was the knock-off, it was this guy!

Harpuia turned to the two reploids "Phantom, Fefnir, I need you two to detain this reploid until we've learned more about him."

"WHAT?" cried both Fairy Leviathan and Zero.

The two reploids moved forward and Zero's pistol was out again, switching between the two of them, as if he couldn't decide who to aim at.

Levi appealed to Harpuia "Harpy, what are you doing?"

"Making sure that, whatever this thing is isn't some sort of infiltration attempt by X Original."

"But I told you the story, he was being held in a stasis pod, X tried to kill us both, how can you say that he's a fake?"

Zero called "listen to her, she's a smart one!"

The two reploids advanced on Zero. Phantom said in a calm voice "you'd best lay down you're weapon. If you're who you say you are, then you have nothing to fear. Put yourself at our mercy and we will release you once we are certain of the truth."

"Like heck I will!" exclaimed Zero.

"Very well then" said Phantom as he darted forward. He had intended to slice several places where there were wires liable to disable Zero's limbs, but something happened to him that had only happened once before, he missed.

Zero, acting on pure instinct, jerked his body and the energy knives that had just appeared in Phantom's hands sailed past him, barely missing cutting open his syntheflesh. Still acting on instinct he swung his gun hand and it collided with the back of Phantom's head. As Phantom fell Zero brought his knee up and it slammed into Phantom's gut.

All this happened within the space of a second and then Phantom fell back, gasping for air.

In the silence that followed, you could almost hear a needle drop. Then Fefnir roared and brought his guns up and fired. Zero leapt out of the way and Fefnir blinked.

Harpuia, recovering from his shock that Phantom had actually missed, charged Zero and began swinging at him with both his short energy sabers.

Relying completely on his instincts, Zero ducked and weaved, the swords never so much as scratched him.

Even when Phantom rejoined the fight and Fefnir began trying to shoot Zero again, nobody could lay a hand on him.

Levi found a comfortable patch of ground and sat down, eager to watch the show.

Harpuia swung his right saber but suddenly found his arm seized in Zero's iron grip. Zero's fist shot out and slammed into Harpuia's face. At the same moment he ripped the saber out of Harpuia's hand and sprung back. Zero gave the saber a few test spins and grinned "now this is more my style" he thought.

He quickly defended as Phantom flew at him again. After a few attempted dissections by Phantom, Zero beaned him in the face with his saber hilt and then grabbed by the arms.

Swinging Phantom around a few times, he let go and Phantom felt himself collide with Fefnir.

All three guardians were down and they're moods weren't improved by the sound of Levi clapping.

Zero himself looked astonished at what he'd accomplished. He wondered, he'd been acting on simple instinct, how dangerous had he been at his best. It was both an interesting and a bit of a scary prospect.

Harpuia, groaning and sore, got to his feet. He looked up and saw that "Zero" was just lounging about as Levi walked up to him.

"Wow, I knew you were good, but . . . not that good. Why didn't you try to go after X with that kind of skill?"

Zero looked thoughtful "well . . . I was just acting on instinct."

Fefnir's jaw fell open and Harpuia snorted in an annoyed manner. Phantom's face betrayed no emotion.

Levi looked at Harpuia and put on the cutest face she had "please let him stay in the base Harpy? Please?"

Harpy, after a good minute's worth of thought, sighed and said "fine, but he stays in the extra room. And when I say that he "stays" there, I mean that he stays there always unless we say so. He's not allowed to go poking about our base."

Levi began to object but Zero put a hand on her shoulder "it's fine, I'll live with it."

Levi still gave a scorching glance towards the other guardians.

The room wasn't very impressive. Just a bed and a small personal computer that Zero suspected had been disconnected from the Base's network.

He'd been in the room for several hours while Levi had been interrogated by her three friends. During that time he'd been trying to bring some memories back. He cast about, trying to remember anything that gave him clues of his former life.

Suddenly an image came up, so suddenly he almost fell back. A girl, reploid, with brown hair and blue eyes. Standing behind her was a large reploid, much bigger than her. Though the male reploid behind the girl was obviously a fighter and looked to be a very good one too, his face had an exceedingly gentle look on it and both gazed at Zero with kindness and happiness in their eyes.

"Aren't you excited Zero, X is gone!"

Zero heard his own voice in the memory say "X always has a back-up plan, he'll be back."

"Aye, but hopefully not for a long time. Relax Zero, let us just enjoy the time we have together now."

Zero felt himself smile, both in the present and in the memory.

"You both are probably right, c'mon let's get something to eat. Maybe we could catch that new vid together Iris. And Colonel, we should have a sparring match later. It'd be nice to have one where my opponent's not trying to rip me limb from limb."

Colonel laughed "you know me Zero, can't make any guarantees."

"Maybe we could convince Sig to spar with us too, he needs a break."

Zero blinked. The memory didn't slide away and vanish, it stuck but that was it. He couldn't remember anything before or after that memory. It was like looking at one segment of a movie without any access to the other parts. It was frustrating to say the least.

The door to his room opened and his head flew up to see who it was.

Fefnir stood in the door entrance. He had a look of obvious distaste on his face.

"You're to come to the trans-server room, stay in front of me at all times and keep your eyes from wandering."

"Why, what do you need me for?"

Fefnir looked like he wasn't going to answer, then he said with obvious disgust "we might need your h- . . . h- . . . h-elp."

Zero, internally smirking, got up and walked out the door.

Hope you guys liked this. If you have any questions or see something I've done wrong, please don't hesitate to PM me.