Archive of Our Own

Hours into nightfall, the end arrives.

High above desolate plains and lifeless valleys, across arid desert and barren wastelands, an infinite sea of deep azure is torn asunder, luminous streaks of vapor and debris gleaming bright and stark. They set the ever-stretching sky ablaze, illuminating vast darkness, casting light and salvation upon a long-forsaken earth, where guttural cries for respite repeat endlessly in an agonizing loop. Where pleas for clemency and forgiveness continue unanswered.

Airspace tinged with ash and smoke, the distant echo of destruction and carnage serves as the bittersweet crescendo of a centuries long symphony of warfare and annihilation; the ultimate subjugation of destiny in all its cruelest forms, against its most malevolent of machinations.

The land below, its putrid soil rich with coagulated toxins, trembles.

The stars shine brighter than they ever have.

“Ma—…Father…?”

X closes his eyes, remembering himself. 

He looks back.

Harpuia’s expression is purposefully taut, confusion over their abrupt stop apparent despite his best efforts. His helmet is missing one of its wings, his thrusters lacking their shell, crackling with unconfined energy. It is the slight slouch in his posture that gives away his exhaustion, although he is as unlikely to admit to it as X is to point it out. Nothing would be gained by embarrassing him with worry.

His siblings are no better off. Leviathan is hugging herself with one arm. The other is missing, leaving her shoulder socket bare. She’s observing their surroundings warily with her left eye, the other lost a fair distance back. 

Fefnir is adjusting his grip on Phantom; hikes him higher up his back with a grunt. The latter is unconscious, the edges of his mask snapped, his gem cracked. The fraying remains of his scarf are all that keeps Fefnir’s chassis from completely falling apart.

X looks down at his hands, mangled and welded together haphazardly with whatever he could scavenge from scrap. 

None of them have escaped this conflict unscathed, battered by unforgiving circumstance. Had he known what was to follow—had he known just how endless this fight would be—he would have spared them the bitterness of failure and hardship, of fighting for justice in a world that cares only for undermining it. 

Were it in his power, he would take it all back.

“It’s nothing,” X replies softly, starting up their pace again. 

His children follow dutifully, their footsteps a reminder it is not in his place to think of such things. To allow such caustic musings would be to lament their existence, to lament all that keeps his rusted limbs moving, his mind sane, his core thrumming with the drive to continue.

To lament would be to regret, and there is simply nothing in this wretched, forsaken plane of existence that could ever bring him to lament his precious guardians, so young, naive and precious.

A new world. One where stalwart protection is not gifted as reluctant compromise to a lesser evil, where provocation need not be worthy of a tense buster or preemptive saber strike.

A new world. A better one.

Believe, he thinks as they walk. Phantom’s final coordinates before powering down had been promising, his searching and sleuthing in line with X’s own intuition and prior analysis. If all is as it seems, it could serve as a sufficient starting point, somewhere to begin anew. Across the known world, beyond the scope of what remains and what will be rebuilt. A place for his children to take root.

X hopes. He hopes with all that he is.

They walk on.

High above an ancient, hidden grove, across frosted mountaintops and burgeoning pines, beyond sprouting vegetation and the timid flow of a feeble riverbank, a blazing star streaks across the sky.

iv. spring

His database is rich with memories of the old world, of knowledge supplied by his tragically naive creator, but uncontrolled torrential rains are still a stunning sight for X.

The strike of lighting, the distant rumble of thunder. The measured pattering of raindrops seeping into parched soil, nourishing the beginnings of healthy verdure, eagerly reaching skyward for more. 

An artificial weather system may represent the pinnacle of scientific achievement, but X doesn’t believe anything will ever sufficiently substitute the wonders of the Earth’s own methods for sustainment and regeneration. How it shifts and changes and evolves, carrying on despite centuries of abuse and neglect. It is nothing short of miraculous that within the desolate decay of waste and fallout, a spot of green can exist at all. 

If infinite potential exists, perhaps this is what it was always meant to look like.

“Stop cheating, Harpuia!”

X looks away from the curtain of precipitation, an exasperated smile tugging at his lips.

While he doesn’t mind the occasional lethargic afternoon spent on meditative introspection, his children are less inclined to gawk and stare than they were the first few occasions. Rain means taking shelter beneath their leafy canopy. No excursions, investigations or tentative terraforming at X’s insistence because, their efforts notwithstanding, the stability of the earth and surrounding cliff-sides are not a guarantee. Not without further analysis, at least.

Harpuia rolls his eyes, moving to shuffle the deck of cards again. A lost treasure found within the ruinous remains of a village nearby. The markings are faded and worn, the instructions missing, but that hasn’t stopped them from creating their own rules with whatever they could parse out.

“Being better than you doesn’t equate to cheating,” Harpuia replies, unmoved.

“Don’t play dumb!” Fefnir snaps. “You can’t win five times in a row. That’s impossible!”

“Really?”

“Really!

Harpuia thinks on this. 

“Have you considered that you’re just bad?”

“No! Phantom! Back me up!”

“But I wasn’t looking.”

“Phantom,” Fefnir whines, slinging an arm across his shoulders. He tugs him back and forth easily, like a rag-doll. “Stop playing favorites! You just want him to win and me to cry.”

“No, I don’t,” Phantom’s head bobs back and forth from all the jostling. “I don’t—That’s not something I want. I don’t want him to win.”

“You want him to cry then?” Harpuia drawls.

Phantom blinks.

“…no?”

The trio dissolves into a mess of tangled limbs and snatching hands. Fefnir demands it be his turn to shuffle in order to prevent any irregularities. Harpuia holds the deck just out of his reach, simultaneously attempting to pry Fefnir’s grip from a flailing Phantom, caught in the middle of their argument.

“I’m sure there are better ways to resolve this,” X calls, prepared to intervene.

For better or for worse, his suggestion seems to spark an idea from Fefnir.

“Good idea, Father!” he jumps to his feet. Points at Harpuia, then outside. “We’ll settle this like warriors. Fight me!”

“Is your circuitry fried?” Harpuia sneers. “There’s a storm out.”

“So?”

“What do you mean ‘so'? It’s your—“

“La la la,” Fefnir covers where his auditory receptors should be. “All I’m hearing is a coward whining! Harpuia’s a coward, everyone! Coward ! C-O-W-A-R—”

“Fine. Get out there.”

“Why do I have to go,” Phantom laments, stumbling after Fefnir as he’s dragged along by his sheer inertia. “I should stay behind. That’s where I should be.”

“You’ve gotta spot me, little man,” Fefnir responds cheerfully. “Keep an eye on things. We’ve gotta stick together since Harpuia’s a rotten cheater.”

Harpuia curls his lip. “That better not be your excuse when I wipe the floor with you.”

“As if! You’re the one who’s gonna eat dirt!”

X watches them race into the distance, considers calling them back and scolding their impulsivity. He decides against it. They’re still visible from where he’s seated. If things get too out of hand, he can always put a stop to it. He doubts that it will. Their rough-housing has never been the malicious sort. Could never be.

The rain keeps falling, this time accompanied by shouts and yells, the sound of metal clashing against metal.

X looks beside him.

“You shouldn’t poke at it like that,” he murmurs.

Leviathan takes a moment to register his words, as if she wasn’t even aware she was prodding her face in the first place.

Her arm falls.

“Sorry.”

“Is it bothersome?”

“A little. Optical systems are still recalibrating.”

“…I see.”

“Sorry,” she repeats. “It must be off-putting.”

X almost wants to laugh, however inappropriate it is. That isn’t the case at all. The only off-putting thing about this is his own guilt, but what right has he to feel as such in the first place? The blame has always been his. His children’s suffering has been of his own making, the result of his inability to protect them from the very problems he wrought.

“It’s not,” he manages, eventually. Truthfully. “Not at all."

“You’re kind, Father.”

X does laugh this time. “You’re kind to say that.”

There is a beat of silence.

“…he wouldn’t have hesitated to say otherwise,” Leviathan whispers. “The copy.”

X doesn’t say anything to that.

“He used to talk about it,” she continues. “about how fortunate we were to have been borne of perfection. How we should be grateful to carry mere pieces of what made him whole. I…started believing him after a while. I would pursue all the little reploids he sent us after, look at all the mismatched pieces they were made of and feel so superior.”

She places a hand over her shoulder socket.

“I guess it’s only fair,” she says, shaking her head disparagingly. “I knew you would never say anything like that, but I got caught up in it anyway. You only ever taught us otherwise, and I knew he was different, but sometimes he wasn’t, sometimes he was kind, and I would convince myself it was fine. It’s just—sometimes he would look at us and—“ her fist trembles. “You would become upset with us, sometimes even angry, but I was never afraid. He would look at us and all I ever felt was afraid.”

“He wasn’t given the opportunity to learn,” Even with all the years behind him, X has never been entirely confident in his choices. To have that immense pressure placed upon their shoulders from birth isn’t anything to laud. Ciel wanted what was best, but sometimes, it’s better to let things go.

Perhaps if he hadn’t deluded the world into having such high expectations for him, she wouldn’t have earnestly assumed his makeup infallible.

Leviathan looks up into the dark sky, laden with heavy clouds. “Even now, I can’t bring myself to resent him. He was part of you. Part of us. If things were different, we might have all learned together. Maybe Neo-Arcadia would still be standing and…maybe the humans and reploids could have found a way, just like you always used to talk about.”

A way, X thinks. A brother to call his own, one not lost to the passage of time. The world he’s always dreamt of, where peace and prosperity is gifted onto every living being, mechanical or not.

All it counts for now is another regret to pile onto the rest. While they can mourn what never was—perhaps never would be—there remains nothing but the perpetually malleable future, one to be shaped by those unlinked to a chain of unceasing violence.

Perhaps those like Ciel—gentle and compassionate, lacking a pre-installed weapons system—could make that dream a reality.

“I would have liked that,” X says, and they fall into silence once again.

A long ways ahead, Fefnir is sprawled on the ground, kicking and flailing helplessly, screeching his displeasure. Harpuia has him gripped in a firm headlock, casually lounging on his back. Immovable. A safe distance away from their scuffle, Phantom is turned towards the surrounding wood, distracted.

X smiles wistfully. So long as he can watch over them, allow them to live as he always intended them to, he is content.

“Leviathan,” he chides, noticing her scratching and prodding her absent eye again. 

“Sorry, Father,” she repeats once more, frowning. “There’s just—I feel something—“

One more tug brings a thin, green vine into view. Sharing a surprised look with X, Leviathan keeps pulling, bringing up more and more emerald before, finally, a peachy pink blossom centered with a soft sunshine yellow erupts outward.

“Oh,” is all she can manage, gently feeling the soft petals taking up the space her right eye used to occupy. “This is…”

“A lotus,” X supplies, awe-struck. “They aren’t very common. Not anymore.”

“Should I…?” she gestures, as if to pull it out.

“If you’d like.”

“Does it…?”

“I think you look lovely.”

“Really?” Brightening at the praise, Leviathan considers. “…I think I’ll keep it around, then. For now. It took the time to grow, after all.”

“It grew because you allowed it to,” X says kindly. “There could never be anything off-putting about that.”

Leviathan beams, her left eye a brilliant aquamarine.

Harpuia, Fefnir, and Phantom return a while later. Exasperated but feeling particularly magnanimous, Leviathan helps clean off the mud caked onto their armor. Doesn’t tease them too much about their juvenile behavior.

It is the following day that she brings X along to the river basin she’s been working tirelessly to restore. A crystalline body of water greets him, as blue as the sky and sea used to be. 

On its surface, small groups of lotus flowers buoy serenely.

iii. summer

One of the benefits of settling within a deciduous biome is the plentiful amounts of shade it offers.

Temperature regulation has always been a staple of reploid and mechaniloid engineering, but it isn’t unheard of for those systems to fail or require maintenance. It is a common problem, easily remedied under normal circumstances. 

Unfortunately, X and his offspring do not currently find themselves within the parameters of such fortune. Until the appropriate repair parts can be salvaged, there is very little they can do if such an occasion is to arise, leaving them at the mercy of solar-powered irony.

Much like how they find their dearest Phantom.

“How’s this feel?”

Leviathan gives Phantom no opportunity to answer before she dumps several liters worth of water onto him. He sputters, fruitlessly shielding his face from the onslaught.

“Stop squirming,” Harpuia scolds, fanning their youngest the best he can. “We’re helping.”

“You’re waterboarding,” Phantom decries, yelping when Leviathan freezes the remaining moisture onto his body.

“No, we’re helping,” she insists, preening at Harpuia’s approving nod. “You’ll overheat and power-down again if we don’t.”

“I’d rather that than be awake for this.”

Harpuia frowns. “You’re speaking lightly. There’s nothing pleasant about watching you shut off like that.”

Sufficiently abashed, Phantom shrinks into himself.

“That’s why you should just let us take care of you,” Leviathan knocks on his helmet playfully. “That’s what we’re here for, y’know.”

“…I may as well just soak, in that case,” Phantom looks down at his arms, completely frozen solid, and sighs. “At least until dark, when it’s cooler.”

“That would be more efficient,” Harpuia agrees, nodding to himself. He grasps Phantom’s ankles, gesturing for Leviathan to do the same with his arms. “Let’s go dunk him in.”

“Aye aye!” Leviathan takes up the challenge, asking over her shoulder, “will you two be all right here?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Fefnir waves them off, not really paying attention.

“Please take care of your brother,” X quickly calls as they scurry away, mischievously swaying him side to side. Judging from Phantom’s muffled laughter, it doesn’t appear he minds all that much.

With those three otherwise occupied, X turns his attention back to their original task. 

Vast stretches of land located within the centermost region of their haven haven’t seen much improvement in terms of regeneration. While rainfall patterns are stabilizing, the nutrients necessitated for encouraging further growth have yet to reach viable levels.

“Low on nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium,” Fefnir declares without looking away from the barren landscape, defenseless against the scorching sun. “That’s all it is everywhere.”

“Agriculture is fairly complicated.”

“I’d say logistics is,” Fefnir frowns at a particularly decrepit plot. “Crops are usually for feeding, and humans have got plenty of mouths. Getting things where they need to be is key, but that’s never been a priority for them.”

“Their societies have been largely hierarchical,” Namely, lacking in equity, but X feels that goes without saying. “They’ve suffered greatly.”

Fefnir looks at his hands, to where his cannons currently are not. “Pretty resilient species, huh? They weren’t built to fight, but they’re still standing.”

“They found other ways,” Inclination towards mass destruction somehow always found a way. He would not exist if that were not the case. Even his predecessor valiantly dealt with the brunt of those short-comings, another shield to wield against the magnetism of violence. X wonders what he would think of the world he gave everything to protect. It’s current state. Whether it was a wasted gambit all along, simple folly and nothing more.

Somehow, he doesn’t believe that could ever be true.

“We’ve got our work cut out for us,” Fefnir glares into the sun, challenging it to whatever battle of wills he’s decided is necessary.

“We have plenty of time,” X smiles, prompting a grin in return.

They carry on surveying. The past several centuries have been unkind, although that is no reason to believe they cannot be remedied. Patience and compassion. A steady hand and understanding. That’s all that’s ever been necessary.

“Father!” Fefnir exclaims against the backdrop of the setting sun. “Look at this!”

Small and seemingly insignificant, an erupting stalk breaches topsoil, swaying gently beneath the shade of an imposing larch.

“You’ve done it.”

“Nah,” Fefnir shrugs off the praise, downplaying his diligent attentions. “How’s it go? Where there’s a will there’s a way? The big guys and the small guys, no matter what they’re made of, they all wanna live. That’s on him.”

Fefnir reaches a hand out, as if to touch it. 

He stops short a few centimeters.

“I’m thinking we should move him on over east,” he says, pointing out the general direction he has in mind. “See how he’s kinda yellowing on the edges? Too much shade. Might be getting in the way of his water supply too. The pH level is decent, plenty of those good minerals. Could be a gamble, but it’s worth trying.”

“Sounds like a plan,” X agrees, finding his explanation apt. He begins heading over, expecting Fefnir to follow. 

He doesn’t move from the spot.

“I, uh, I think maybe you should handle this. You’re better at it.”

Not really. Not at all. X has only ever known how to smash and destroy. No better than a trash compactor. “Fefnir—”

“It’s delicate stuff, y’know?”

X does know, and he’s sure Fefnir understands it as well as he does, which is why he doesn’t pursue it further. If this is something he can do for his precocious son, X will gladly help in any way he can.

That is his intent, at least, for what little time it takes Fefnir to reaffirm he is incapable of sitting back while others perform his duties for him.

“Father, you’re being too hasty.”

“Whoa! Easy there!”

“Not enough soil—the root’s gonna tear! Hurry and put them back!”

“You should sprinkle some water first.”

“Father, a little to the—“

“Fefnir,” X cuts him off, more amused than frustrated by the constant stream of corrections. “are you sure you wouldn’t rather do this yourself?”

Fefnir glances helplessly between his hands and X’s. “…what if I crush them?”

“You won’t.”

“But what if I do?”

“You won’t.”

“But what if?”

“Do you want to?”

“Of course not.”

“Then you won’t,” X concludes. “Why would you think otherwise?”

Fefnir makes a complicated expression.

“…do you remember when you first used your buster?”

“I do.”

“After that, how did you…become normal again?” Fefnir flexes his fingers. “When I’d use mine for all that landscaping, I was fine. It was nice. I never thought too hard about it but…” he pauses, picking at the shattered remains of his helmet. “Turning them on the ‘bad guys’—makes me wonder whether that’s why the humans are so afraid of us.”

“…I don’t think I’ve ever felt normal,” X admits. Regardless of what his father hoped for him and humanity, he’s never felt at ease with his original purpose. “I don’t think there’s ever been a day where I’ve felt that way.”

“Have you ever been afraid?”

“All the time,” X has done what he’s needed to, whatever the results. He carries many regrets, but doing what he thinks is right—refusing to stray from that conviction—that isn’t something he’ll ever take back. “Whatever the circumstances call for, whatever side of the battlefield you find yourself on, you’ll always be what you choose to be.”

“How do you know what’s the right thing to be?”

“You don’t,” X smiles, a little solemnly, and guides Fefnir’s hand over to the delicate sprout. “but if you can worry this much over it, then there’s really nothing worth worrying about at all.”

Fefnir hesitates, his usual bravado tampered down by his anxieties. Carefully, he takes the mound of soil into his palms. Carefully, he rises and carefully he carries it to the eastern side of the field. He digs out a small burrow, transplanting the lone speck of green into its new home.

Directing a relieved smile at X, he pats the surrounding dirt affectionately.

“Better, huh?” Fefnir remarks, grinning when its leaves sway, as if to agree. “No thanks needed, little guy. You grow big and strong, y’hear? Gotta lead by example.”

Harpuia, Leviathan, and Phantom return by sundown, bringing good news in their wake.

“Treasure!” Leviathan chirps, still dripping with water, swinging around what looks like a thermostat. “I found it at the bottom of the lake. Phantom is fixed!”

"Huzzah!" Fefnir cheers, high-fiving her.

“Harpuia let me jet on the water with him,” Phantom says, hopping off said brother’s back. “He’s almost as fast as Leviathan.”

“She’s almost competition,” Harpuia adds pompously, easily deflecting his sister’s faux offended slaps.

That night, X repairs Phantom, earning applause from all his siblings, much to his—very endearing—embarrassment. 

The following week, precisely on the day, he is awoken by Fefnir’s insistent prodding.

On a once barren stretch of land, colorful buds breach the surface, at last stirring from their long slumber.

ii. autumn

Within the depths of a cool night, X awakens to darkness. 

There’s something off.

Adjusting his vision, he peers to his left. 

Fefnir lies on his back, limbs stretching in every direction. Not unlike a lackadaisical sea-star, as his sister is so often inclined to compare him with. 

Situated at the corner and strung between two firm branches, a methodically constructed hammock hangs, netting made of vine, stem and rusting wire. Phantom’s arm hangs limply off the side, idly moving with every gentle sway of his bedding.

To his right, Leviathan reclines peacefully, hand lying primly on her abdomen.

The dormant whirr of their systems assure X they are fine. They are all right. They are beside him, their self-sustaining energy reserves the result of innovation borne of affection. His own engineering, encrypted and safely tucked away within the depths of his core. While they rest, they absorb what they need. When they wake, they return it onto the earth.

A cyclical kindness. A cooperative coexistence.

The first and only of their kind. X sees the good in all, but good is as liable to corruption as what revels in its misery. He will gladly take their lovingly crafted schematics to the great digital beyond.

This must be how Father felt, he presumes, sitting up. It’s much too late to still be awake. Too early to warrant rising. Still, he gets to his feet, careful not to perturb the others. Without a threat for miles, it shouldn’t be a concern.

“He left around an hour ago.”

X pauses. 

Leviathan does not open her eye.

“Thank you,” he murmurs, smiling when her lips quirk, the nearly indistinguishable shift in her position indicating her fall back into stand-by.

X exits their homely little den, hidden within thick foliage and rocky cliffside, and steps out into the surrounding forest brush. It’s growing denser, but the leaves are changing hues, decaying as their annual cyclical lifestyle dictates. Once, X might have been tempted to press them into pages, to forever preserve their beautiful gradients. Now, he is content to leave them at peace.

A quick vicinity scan brings much of what he already expects, including the singular blip of power on the fringes of his radar. A familiar and warm guiding pulse of energy, constant and steady as he trudges through leafage, boots crunching against fallen needles and leaflets.

A felled pine intersects a rolling meadow, grass swaying and undulating upon every touch of a late night’s breeze. 

Harpuia says nothing as X sits beside him, fingers idly brushing mossy, damp bark. It’s peeling, chipped and completely stripped in isolated sections.

Above, the moon shines ethereally, its light blanketing heavily forested woodland, breaching gaps in maple, oak, and elm. Bright and prominent, hailing from a starry, unblemished sky. Ill-fated a settlement though she was, Neo-Arcadia’s cityscape often shined equally as bright. Artificial or not, it served to remind X he was not alone. That humanity and Reploid-kind lived on within the compact strip they called home, if only for a short while.

“I keep recalling.”

X stills.

“The day you first took us beyond the city walls,” Harpuia elaborates, chin resting on his palm. “What you told us.”

As does he. It is still vivid, carefully secured within X’s memory banks. How young they were. How much younger he was. The unbridled sense of optimism and excitement that came with introducing his little ones to the broken world he’d been preparing for them to help salvage at his side.

“This is our home—“ Harpuia begins, reciting it straight from memory.

“—let’s work on it together,” X finishes.

“I can’t help thinking we failed in that regard,” Harpuia’s gaze remains trained on the ground. “We achieved nothing we set out to do. We raised our tools as weapons and where has it left us? Exiled. No better than the rogue mavericks we insisted on pursuing.”

“Harpuia—“

“What was even the point?”

A weighty silence settles upon them, thunderous in its tangible absence.

“…would you like to return?” X inquires, hesitant. “Would you prefer to go back?”

“...no. I don’t. I just feel that—“ Harpuia looks away, shoulders hunched in frustration. “Your—he—was lead astray, just as we were. We could not guide him. We could not protect the humans nor ensure their safety. We chose to fight. We chose to abandon the earth for it. We let your efforts burn to ash. We failed to uphold your wishes.”

Harpuia wavers, his next words devastatingly quiet, devoid of his usual steadfast resolution and surety.

“…we failed you, didn’t we, Father?”

X’s core sinks. 

Nothing could be further from the truth. His diligent children, so attentive and observant, readily prepared since inception to exceed his expectations without his even having to suggest such a notion. He’s never wanted anything more than they were willing to give and, even then, they’ve willingly done everything in their power to surprise and challenge the non-existent limitations of their mechanics. 

How much prouder can he be? Of his stormy and dependable Harpuia, always the first to lead and instruct and succeed? Always so firm and uncompromising?

This must be how Father felt, X laments, the suffocating sorrow of a patriarch incapable of wholly turning away the dark and ensuring only the sweetest of dreams for his loved ones. Incapable of ensuring their efforts haven’t been in vain. 

That he hasn’t disappointed him.

“You haven’t failed,” X says, equal parts saddened and weary. “You’ve done no such thing.”

“But Father—“

“You haven’t failed,” X gently stops him before he can unravel further. His eldest is strong and unshakeable, but not always and never in equal measure. He thinks in excess, an inherited trait. X would be regretful if it did not make Harpuia so quintessentially Harpuia. “If anyone’s failed, it’s me.”

Harpuia finally looks at him.

“Father…?”

“I’m the one who’s failed,” X admits cuttingly. Truthfully, to himself. “I’ve failed all of you. All I wanted was to protect everyone, but I failed at that before I was even awake. Nothing I’ve done has been enough. I thought I could do better this time, that I could offer you more, but I couldn’t, and you went off to fight a battle that wasn’t even yours to begin with.”

Because that’s what it comes down to, isn’t it? For all that X’s systems are completely incomprehensible, for all the good that Dr. Light thought imbuing him with free will and infinite potential would do, all he’s ever done is watch calamity take those closest to him.

He could not protect his friends. He could not protect the humans nor bridge the divide between their reploid counterparts.

He couldn’t even protect his other half.

“Is that why you sent us away?”

“I didn’t want you to be the same,” X wanted them to be more than shrapnel imbedded into concrete, more than a sentient arm to be tossed into the line of fire. X has always wanted more for them. That’s all he’s ever wanted. It didn’t matter. They were drawn back anyway.

“We couldn’t possibly have been different, Father. We are you.”

“You have my apologies,” X replies sardonically. What a burden it is, indeed.

“We are pieces of you,” Harpuia says, closing his eyes. “The good and the bad, yet entirely individual. You made it so.”

X says nothing.

“You taught us to defend what’s right. To do good. But we cannot control what is out of our hands. I know little of the old world besides what our databases hold, but I know who my father is, and I know he is fair and he is just. I know there is little that would stop him from doing right by others.”

“I’m no saint, Harpuia.”

“No, you aren’t, are you? You’ve fought your entire life. You’ve made mistakes. Just as I have. Just as everyone has, human or reploid. We cannot change what has already come to pass, but we only truly fail when we give up that which makes us whole,” Harpuia gazes up into the sky. “I don’t have much, not anymore, but I have my brothers and my sister. My father, as well. I don’t have the power to lead this world in any direction, but I have the strength to stay by your side, no matter what becomes of the rest.”

Harpuia looks directly him, and it’s in that imperious gaze, so relentlessly discerning and perceptive, that X understands why it was he gifted his eldest the title of Sage, however jokingly it began.

“If we are ever to fail,” he speaks, brooking no argument. “wouldn’t it be as one?”

“...I suppose so,” X relents, incapable of repressing a laugh at his forthright attitude. There is not a being in existence capable of winning against his dearest Harpy. “we’ll do it together, then.”

“Absolutely not. You should be encouraging the opposite,” Harpuia rises to his feet, holding out a hand. “Success is our goal.”

X takes it. “Of course. You’re right as always.”

It’s midway through the trek back, deep in the thick of greenery, that X recalls something he’d meant to do from the very beginning.

“Harpuia.”

“Yes?”

X reaches out, delighted by his son’s befuddlement when he playfully taps him on the tip of the nose. A strikingly human gesture, one lost to past familiarity. A special fragment to share with those he holds dear today.

“Thank you,” X says, warm and affectionate and ever so grateful for what he’s been allowed to keep as his own. “for taking care of them while I was away. I’m so proud of you.”

Harpuia stands frozen, eyes wide and bright, glistening with droplets of gentle moonlight. His face warms a soft pink, the whirr of his systems stalling briefly.

“...of course, Father,” he mutters, his smile timid.

When next they visit the secluded meadow, during the oddest hours of night as ritual dictates, the felled tree is surrounded by an array of autumn foliage, overgrown and sprinkled with glimmering dew.

i. winter

The textile arts are not what X would consider himself overly well-versed in.

While he is familiar with the bare basics—the remnants of his time aiding the auspicious Dr. Cain bittersweet recollections tucked away with all the rest—his clumsiness with delicate needles and flimsy thread has persisted well into the centuries since it has served a necessary, requisite skill. 

It isn’t all that different from constructing vessels of metal and steel, is what X tells himself, acutely aware the product of his grand ambitions would garner him only laughter from the late doctor, more than accustomed to his botched attempts at mending. Not that he ever felt the need to discourage X from the not at all menial endeavor. Perhaps he should have.

Convinced he can do no better than he has with the materials at his disposal, X neatly folds the patchwork fabric together. A tailor he is not, but adaptability has always been his forte.

“Fefnir! Fefnir! Guess what! Guess what!”

“…hey! I don’t know what that is!”

“It’s a whale shark!” Leviathan huffs, carefully carves the final outline of its wide mouth. She steps back, observing her masterpiece of compounded snow with an appraising, critical eye. “I used an image from our database for reference.”

“What do they do? Eat humans?”

“They were filter-feeders,” Harpuia answers idly, attention focused on his own sculpture of an avian creature. A great horned-owl, if X is correct. “They lived in oceans.”

“But what did they do?” Fefnir presses, knees drawn to his chest within his sturdy, four-walled fort. It’s far too small to conceal his hulking body, but he’d gotten bored of building and sought to reap the rewards of his painstaking efforts sooner rather than later.

“Eat plankton,” Leviathan says at the same time Harpuia responds, “exist.”

Fefnir seems to consider this. “Fair enough. Can’t fault a guy for living the high life.”

“I wonder what plankton tastes like,” Leviathan muses. “I think I’ve read certain diets change the color of certain organisms. If I ate enough, would I be as green as big brother?”

Harpuia rolls his eyes. His siblings snicker.

“Green with envy maybe,” X chimes in, smiling at their huffs and pouts. “Where’s Phantom gone?”

“To get some stuff for his snow guy,” Fefnir gestures over to the lone snowy figure, misshapen and clumpy.

“He’s been a while,” Harpuia looks off into the dense, partially leafless forest, frowning. “Shall I go after him?”

X waves him off. “I’ll go. Try to behave while I’m gone.”

Fefnir salutes him. “Got it, Pa. We’ll only be kinda irresponsible.”

“That’s all I can ask.”

With the sanctity of these lands all but unsecured, X takes off in search of his absent shadow. An elusive one since creation—the very quality he purposefully sought to instill in the youngest of his guardians—it is not rare for him to wander off and return when he pleases, his inclination towards the occasional bout of isolation as true to his character as it was the many times X spent seeking him out within Neo-Arcadia’s infinite nooks and crannies. An ethereal energy gone undetected by even the most advanced of tracking technologies.

Of course, X is beholden to no technology beside his own. His children are his beacons, even the most illusory of the bunch, easily sought out through the engineering of his own systems and honed parental intuition.

That said, Phantom is quite simple to locate when he makes no effort to hide himself.

“There you are,” X announces his presence, entirely aware of how unnecessary it is. He was clocked long before his physical arrival, but Phantom’s always appreciated that sort of thing, so he likes to indulge. “You’re a long ways away from base.”

Phantom inclines his head in reciprocation, but does not vocally respond. He is crouched before a looming, imposing conifer, evergreen leaves verdant and stark against the endless stretch of untouched white frost before them. Were it not for the inky patterns of his armor, the mop of chestnut hair protruding from the shattered portion of his helmet, he might have blended into the scenery.

X stops a short distance away, boots crunching and sinking into knee-high drifts of snow. Gently cascading from soft grey skies, flurries have piled upon Phantom’s spiked shoulders.

Unraveling the fabric clutched in his hands, X carefully settles it around Phantom’s neck.

“I finished,” is all he says.

Phantom finally seems to stir at that. He looks down at his scarf, tugs at the messy seams stitching patchwork fabrics into the now kaleidoscopic muffler he’s refused to part ways with.

“Thank you,” he says, throwing the trailing loose ends over his shoulders. He looks up at X, his minute smile an open door into what his mask often hides. “I like it.”

“I’m glad,” X replies, returning his smile. Glancing around curiously, he asks, “What’s brought you all the way here?”

Phantom blinks, violet eyes a somber shade. He looks to the spot he was fixated on previously, uttering simply, “eggs.”

This time, it is X who blinks.

“…eggs?”

“Eggs,” Phantom repeats, pointing to the snowy ground. 

X takes a closer look, core thrumming and tightening as he spots the remains of what appears to be a nest, twigs and twine scattered and snapped.

Beside it, coated in a thin layer of frost, are three lone eggs.

“I was waiting,” Phantom informs him quietly. “I could hear it sometimes. Singing.”

“Have you seen the parent?”

Phantom stares down at his boots. 

“I found her.”

Even with all their progress, it’s still not enough.

“I’m sorry,” X whispers.

“It isn’t your fault,” Phantom replies, picking up a thin remnant of the nest. He brushes it gently between his fingers. “Organic life…is very delicate, isn’t it?”

It is, X thinks, reminded of the doctor. Of his father. So knowledgeable and wise, yet fleeting in every sense of the word. It is often he longs for their guidance, for them to tell him what’s right.

To lean on them, however immature.

“It’s strange,” Phantom says next, thoughtful. “They’re delicate but…they’ve managed this far, haven’t they? Despite all their suffering, despite everything, they survive.”

“No different from us in that regard.”

“No different from us…” Phantom closes his eyes. “Perhaps we were never all that different to begin with.”

X smiles a bit ruefully at that. So many complications, so much misunderstanding and mistrust. If a reploid could bleed as well as a human does, would things have been different? 

“Perhaps.”

It isn’t much, what they can offer, but Phantom lays the unborn hatchlings to rest beneath the damp soil at the tree’s root.

He stands silently afterwards, fingers quivering. His scarf billows behind him. 

X watches.

The snow keeps falling.

Phantom turns, beginning the trek back to the others. X follows closely at his side, core heavy with an emotion he’s carried before and now; will likely never be without, regardless of how deftly he manages to outrun time. There is no end to it. There never is when one has lived as long as he has.

Abruptly, Phantom halts.

X does a moment later.

A violent screech cuts through the silence, harsh and piercing.

They turn around. Look up.

Circling overhead, wings fanning out beautifully, a creature soars.

Arcing its posture, it does a mid-air loop, picking up speed as it dives straight towards them.

It is instinctive reaction that nearly leads to X forming his buster and blasting. Perhaps it is that same instinctive reaction that drives Phantom into raising his arm instead of defending as he normally would.

The bird screeches, landing upon his hand in a flurry of feathers, talons curling tightly around his metal fingers. Were he human, they would have pierced flesh and drawn blood. 

As it stands, Phantom stares, nonplussed, as if surprised by his own behavior.

“It’s a bird,” X comments, aware of how asinine a statement it sounds. Were this another place and time, another world, it might not be warranted.

“Yes,” Phantom agrees, confusion melting into curiosity. 

He stares. The bird stares back.

“A hawk,” X specifies after a brief glimpse into their database. “Thought to have been extinct several centuries ago.”

“Are they friendly?”

“Not especially. Falconry was a practice, but they were never domesticated.”

“I see,” Phantom moves his hand. The hawk’s grip only grows firmer.  “They won’t let go, Father.”

“Likes you, maybe?” X smiles, amused. There’s whimsy and there’s this. “They look young. Maybe they appreciate what you did for the others.”

“It wasn’t any trouble,” Phantom frowns when the creature tugs at his scarf, attempting to tear one of its recently mended seams. He moves it away. “I accept your thanks.”

Thanks accepted or not, the hawk doesn’t seem inclined to give up its perch, glancing around the area disinterestedly. Unwilling to forcibly dislodge them from place, they decide to head back and wait the obstinate bird out.

“How about a name?” X suggests along the way.

“Is that appropriate?”

“I don’t see why not.”

Phantom considers this, eyeing his companion shrewdly.

“….Falcon Jr.”

“Falcon Jr…?”

“Falcon Jr,” Phantom confirms, eyes aglow with wonder and awe as his new friend screeches their approval. How can X possibly argue against that? 

The other children are no different, abuzz with excitement as they surround Phantom.

“Whoa! Harpuia shrunk!”

“I wasn’t aware hawks were still extant,” Harpuia states after elbowing Fefnir hard enough for him to yelp and stagger to the side, confounded. “The database does them no justice.”

“Looks like you’re already good friends,” Leviathan laughs as the hawk picks at Phantom’s hair, poking and prodding as if it were an actual nest. “Do they have a name?”

“Falcon Jr.”

The three elder siblings exchange a look.

Then—

“That’s super cute!” Leviathan exclaims.

“Really cool!” Fefnir grins.

“Powerful,” Harpuia nods approvingly.

Thusly, Falcon Jr. the Hawk becomes a regular visitor, flittering in and out of their lives as they please and, of course, favoring the perpetually baffled Phantom above all else. 

Most importantly of all, however, is what their mysterious yet miraculous appearance heralds.

The distant, harmonious tune of emerging avian colonies. The skittering and scampering of woodland creatures scurrying from bush to bush, branch to branch. The bubbling of water as the aquatic and marine undulate tail and fin down freshly flowing streams and tributaries.

Come every dawn and every dusk, perched upon the tallest conifer in a snow-blanketed land and recovering wood, life screams.

Life, he thinks, gaze fixed on falling snow. On clouds and sun and stars.

Life, he thinks, marching. Forward and onward. Instinct. Never-ending. Unstopping.

Life, he thinks, horizon blending into earth. Sky into sea.

Life, he snarls, colors blurring. Red into blue, blue, blue .

Believe, he thinks.

Believe.

0.

It is on his lonesome that X greets daybreak.

The children are resting, recuperating their energies after a lengthy expedition into the mountainous terrain south of their location. A pestilential wasteland, expunging toxic, noxious fumes at levels far beyond what can be considered inhabitable by organic life. The following months will see their return, after they’ve prepared an adequate clean-up and support procedure. Fefnir is already toiling with various corrective mechanisms.

For now, they rest.

X waits.

The azure skies melt together into dreamy pink and indigo, bright and golden with the rising sun. Branches shift and dance against the wind, their newly sprouting leaves snapping and crinkling against each other. Ceatures of flesh and blood stir from their lengthy hibernation, chittering and chirping, darting in and out of their established territories, cozy dens enough to house each and every beating heart.

Distantly, a river rushes strong; streams trickle into brooks and ponds and creaks.

The world is alive.

X waits. 

For dawn, for day, for the call of his name. He looks and he listens, today as distinct as yesterday and the years before then. He’s lived so long, but no moment is the same as another, each carefully filed away for when he wishes to remember and longs to forget. 

X waits, perhaps for something that will never arrive, something he’s lost and isn’t his to grasp. He isn’t sure what drives him to seek the outside when his children are huddled together inside, safe and intact, but he waits nonetheless, reaching for something that isn’t going to arrive. 

Not anymore.

The sun breaches the horizon, as it does every morning. X rises, as he aways does, ready to oversee matters he will not allow of his tired guardians. Not today, when they so quickly powered-down upon arriving yesterday. 

Something stops him.

He looks back.

Faintly, a faraway birdsong reaches him.

At the edges of the perimeter, something—someone—approaches.

Giving into the impulsivity of his curiosity, the vaguest traces of hope, X walks towards it, systems blaring a warning for possible engagement, assessing a threat, readying a blaster he will not wield. They silence the closer he draws, the familiarity of a strong and steady energy reading enough to stay their concerns, synthesizing with X’s cognizant memories of the past.

There is no mistaking this. No mistaking him.

Crimson armor fissuring and cracking, deteriorating from every corner. Golden, silk-spun hair singed and tangled. A radiant gem gleaming bright against the sun.

“Zero,” X says, weakly, vocal modulators quavering with the joy and terror of a coetaneous dream and nightmare come to fruition. This is what he’s longed for; in equal measure dreaded. The strings that bind them are delightfully immutable, horrifically unbreakable.

A specter of lifetimes past glances away from natural grown arbor bracketing sprightly wildflowers, idly brushing his fingers against lush and weeping vines.

Overhead, the warblers sing harmoniously, uncaring for all that transcends below their quaint nests.

“X," he says with that same self-possessed certainty, concise acknowledgment as well as an imposition of his own presence, perfectly balancing the thin line between hauteur and overt self-awareness.

It’s so familiar, X wants to weep.

“Why are you here?” he asks, wearily, because despite his desires—despite the temptation and weakness and longing—his wishes and the whims of everything beyond his control have never coincided. All he’s ever been saddled with are misunderstandings and false alarms.

Much to X’s consternation, Zero seems almost amused by his inquiry, as if there is humor to be found in his lukewarm reception after all the time they have spent apart. X hasn’t bothered counting anymore. There’s never any point to it with Zero. There’s never any point when their paths are destined to intersect, perpetually and forevermore.

“Because you are,” Zero answers without hesitation, and X truly does want to weep then. It is that same directness which has always assuaged his concerns, soothed his nerves into something approaching calm.

“You know what I mean.”

“I do. I don’t agree.”

“What of the others? Have you seen them?”

“I did,” Zero confirms. “They’re fine.”

“Why are you here, then?” Here, across the world and away from those who have come to know him as their rightful champion—their shining star—as he was always destined to be. As he has always been, radiant and brilliant and good. “They need you.”

“They aren’t helpless,” Zero slinks closer and, as always, it is X who gazes up at him, lying in wait for whatever it is he can give. Whatever he's willing to gift unto him. “They’ve never been.”

“They need guidance.”

“They have her,” Ciel. It goes without saying. Her brilliance is once in a century. “They have others.”

“You should be with them,” X whispers, shuddering when Zero reaches him, his singular remaining hand coming to rest on X’s cheek, unburdened by his helmet, left beside his children’s.

“I should be with you.”

“You should be happy,” X begs, beseeching of his friend, his other-half, his partner and his world. The only being he’s ever felt understood by; has understood fully in return. “You shouldn’t be made to suffer.”

“Why do you think I’m here?” Zero’s splitting lips quirk, and all X can see is that same proud hunter, so secure in his position and power, so willing to stand by X and believe in everything he’s never thought himself capable of. He smiles and all X can do is weep. 

“Wherever you go,” Zero murmurs, unbothered by the tears, leaning into X’s trembling touch. Like it’s instinct. Like it’s only natural. “I’ll follow.”

X would laugh if he wasn’t already crying. 

As always, a man of his word. Torn to pieces and put back together only to be destroyed again and again, over and over. Rising every time, always finding his way back to him. Crossing land and sea, breaching the heavens and beyond. Bathing in stardust, flames and destruction, all for the sake of following. It is his Zero through and through, the one he sees in sunset and sunrise, in cool waters and verdant treetops. In Leviathan’s acumen and Fefnir’s tenacity, Harpuia’s resolve and Phantom’s aloofness.

His one and only.

“You’ll stay?” X loathes how his voice trembles, how pathetically feeble he sounds. He has endured much—lost much—but losing Zero again and again never grows easier. It only worsens, fills him with despair and regret in agonizing cycles of guilt and penance.

“As long as you’ll have me.”

“You’ll never leave.”

“That’s the idea,” Zero’s grin is crooked, so boyishly endearing and accursedly smug. “Any other concerns?”

“You’re horrible,” X means it but he doesn’t. Nothing about Zero is horrible, aside from when he says things like that, exceedingly aware of just how unfunny he is. “I can’t believe you.”

Something like a laugh leaves Zero, his expression sobering as he stops to silently gaze down at X, dark eyes a mixture of wonder and exhaustion. “Sorry for making you wait.”

X’s smile is a tinge bittersweet. “It’s okay,” he absolves, leaning in close, the cool press of the gem adorning Zero’s shattered helmet a steadying touch against his synthetic skin. “I don’t mind.”

He’s waited before and he’ll wait again. That is the nature of their relationship, always chasing after the other, never having had enough. X does not mind. He’ll wait endlessly, without question and hesitance, if it means catching even a glimpse of that stark red armor, the violent spark of a saber or a flash of golden hair.

He’ll never falter. Not with this. 

Never for this.

Zero will always be worth waiting for.

“Welcome home,” X murmurs against his temples, whole at last.

Zero hums.

“I’m back.”

-i. [???]

“Stop cheating, Harpuia!”

X glances away from the violent rains assaulting the outside world, a sensation not unlike what he imagines déjà vu to be like for humans melting over him.

Fefnir throws his hand of cards onto the ground with a frustrated growl, pointing an accusing finger his brother’s way. “I didn’t take you for a dishonest man. You bring shame to this family!”

“Your lack of discretion is more shameful, I’d think,” Harpuia responds nonchalantly, unfazed. “Your face gives away everything.”

“That’s not true! Phantom! Back me up!”

“What?” Phantom plucks a feather from his hair, twirls it wondrously, thoughtlessly arching his neck when Falcon Jr. jerks forward to get a better look at the proceedings. “Sorry. I wasn’t looking.”

“Phantom !”

“You’ve gotta practice your poker face, Fef,” Leviathan kindly informs her brother, poking his cheek playfully. “Harpuia’s right—everyone can tell what you’re thinking.”

“Father, are you listening to this? They’re bullying me!”

“Stop bullying your brother,” X scolds half-heartedly, sighing when Fefnir snatches the deck from an unwilling Harpuia, the two becoming locked in a petty scuffle on the floor. Leviathan cheers for both sides. Phantom shuffles closer to her, relaxing when she pats his back reassuringly.

“They’re so noisy.”

X looks down at his lap, where Zero is reclining peacefully.

“A little,” X agrees, although he could never consider that a bad thing. Not from his precious children. “Nostalgic, isn’t it?”

Zero hums.

“Reminds me of you,” X adds, his smile cheeky when Zero snaps a single eye open. “The resemblance is uncanny.”

Zero considers him for a moment.

Then, he pinches X’s nose.

“Uncanny, huh,” he drawls, letting his arm fall after he feels X has been sufficiently chastised. He makes a clicking noise. “You should thank me. They’re capable even when they’re swinging around farm tools.”

“...could you tell?”

Zero turns onto his side, eyes fluttering shut once again. 

X brushes his hair away from his face, not expecting a response.

Naturally, he is surprised when Zero quietly admits, “I know what’s mine.”

X blinks. His face softens. 

He glances outside again, his children bickering and laughing and happy, Zero warm and present and here.

“Yes,” he says, smiling. “so do I."