This place was a graveyard.
This place had been forgotten by Humanity long ago.
It was from this abandonment that nature flourished. No mechanical trees. No mechanized animals. It was as the Earth intended.
Pure. Untouched.
Zero passed through like a ghost amongst the living. His steps were light and his face hallowed. Not a trace of emotions passed his eyes as he waltzed through the long-abandoned graves. Nature had reclaimed this spot where it had once been maintained and cultivated purely for the dead. Now it was overrun by trees, vines, and the grass reached Zero’s knees. Every tombstone had been worn away into stone nubs. Not even the faintest trace of etchings remained except the lichen and moss that clung to it as home.
He might have thought this place would have been beautiful. But such musings had been locked away for this Hunt. If there was any emotion, it was annoyance that he had to trudge through the middle of no where to reach such a pathetic Maverick.
This Maverick was nothing.
A simple low rank hunter would have been able to slay this machine. But, instead, the Maverick Hunters deigned to send Zero. They had claimed it was because they were short staffed. They had claimed it was because they were unsure of this thing’s capabilities. But to Zero, this Reploid was normal.
In fact, it was extremely normal.
Which was what made Zero wary of this hunting ground.
There was nothing abnormal about this Reploid. Nothing at all. Which was what made everything else about its creator and siblings all the more unnatural.
Signas gave him the briefing before the mission. And what Zero saw made him blanch in disbelief.
“Is this edited?” Zero pointed at the holographic tablet. His brows furrowed in confusion.
Signas shook his head. “Nothing is edited.”
Here, Zero saw the picture of Elegy’s creator. He laid on the floor dead. Each one of his creations stood around him in a circle, staring down at him. Unmoving. Unchanging. Merely staring. As if the dead fascinated them.
What’s more, they were all named after concepts of death. Much like the Maverick that Zero was now hunting.
What was this obsession of death?
It was ironic. As if this hunt was also a calling for Zero.
How many times had he been killed and resurrected? One too many. And now twice many more.
He waved the thought from his mind. Dismissing it quickly to refocus to the mission at hand.
The quiet of this place was disconcerting. What made it stranger was the quiet that filled Zero’s mind. There was no war system that called for him to analyze every spore and leaf. No thousands of ways that an enemy could pounce on him and for him to defend himself. There was nothing but the silence. A silence that seemed to fill the void of death that curled this very place.
He passed by so many rows of graves that when he saw a body laid before one, he merely balked. For a moment, he mistook it as a human. But then, upon further inspection, he realized that it was the Maverick he had been sent to hunt.
Its eyes were closed, and it laid still on the ground with hands clasped together as if in prayer.
Is it dead?
Zero stared at it for a time. Unsure whether to approach it or not. It looked peaceful. Almost serene in this state. It almost seemed wrong to disturb this corpse.
But he was sent here to kill it. And that was what he must do.
The blades of grass almost seemed to part away as he walked forward. Welcoming him to this deathbed. Zero clasped the hilt of his sword firmly, but not yet activated it. It felt as though this place should have become his deathbed.
It was only when he stood beside the machine that its eyes parted open. It turned its head gently towards Zero and stared. As if they were reflections of one another.
“Are you the one sent to hunt me?” Elegy whispered.
Zero nodded his head.
“He told me that you killed me before.”
Zero frowned. “What do you mean?” He had no recollection of killing this Maverick before. But his memory was not what it once was. Perhaps he did. Perhaps he did not. There was no telling with these things. And Zero was not in the mood to argue with a Maverick.
“I was dead before.” Elegy continued. “And my father resurrected me. Because he loved me. Vanitas told me that I was killed before by the Hunters.” Elegy turned its head away from Zero, staring back into the sky. “I was put down.”
Like a dog.
“Maybe it was someone else,” Zero blandly replied. “How long ago has it been since you were brought back?”
Elegy’s face twisted and contorted. As if trying to remember. “I don’t know. Maybe months. Maybe it was weeks. I can’t remember things like I used to anymore. Everything keeps merging together. From my past life, and this one.”
Zero shifted uncomfortably. Because they were one in the same.
But who decided that he should live and it should die? No one, really. He was lucky. He was almost put down as well. But they all stayed their hands, because they took pity on him. Because he was useful, even if he was being torn at the seams. But his fraying sanity was maintained, where this one was not.
Would they do the same for him when he would end up killing a human? It was only a matter of time.
“I’m the same way.” Zero said suddenly. Was it wrong to sympathize with a Maverick like this? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Afterall, they didn’t get the choice to come back. It was taken from the both of them. And no one else he knew had experienced this. Ironically, they were all dead. Mavericks.
“You’re not just saying that.” Elegy looked at Zero. Their eyes were empty. As if the soul had left a long time ago.
Zero squatted beside Elegy, as if talking to the grave. “It’s true.”
“Then why do you live and I die?”
“Because I’m…” He trailed off. Silent.
That’s the way things go.
He tried not to look at things as either fair or unfair. It simply was. The less he questioned the easier it was to be able to go back to base every day. But as the years waned, as decades passed, it became harder and harder.
“It doesn’t matter.” Elegy shook their head. They reclined back into the grass. Their hand played with the spades of green. Flattening the plants out as if fixing the sheets of a bed. “We all die one day. Vita brevis breviter in brevi finietur.” There was a pause. “You understand, don’t you?”
“Life is short, and shortly it will end.” Zero translated. If only that were the case for me. “I expected you to say memento mori.”
“Another apt saying. But I’m not allowed to kill myself.” Elegy shook their head. “I remember I must die. But I’m not allowed to. Is it so unnatural for us to die?” Elegy’s voice almost sounded as if a wail. A siren’s call for peace. “Is that why we are brought back? I hear all the memories spin in my mind. But I don’t know if that’s me or not.” Elegy raised their hands to greet its own face. “Is it because we have no soul? I came here to find one. But they’re all taken.”
Zero stared down in silence. He could not answer. He knew he had no soul. X always told him he did. But deep down, Zero knew that he was just a killing machine. Thoughtless. Only needing to kill to drown the silence. And this was no different.
“I think you have one.” Zero lied.
“Then why do I feel empty? Like the me that I am is not the me that I was?” Elegy did not stare at Zero’s eyes. Perhaps it was trying to tear out its own.
“Because…” Zero became quiet.
He wasn’t spiritual. He didn’t know how to offer comfort. He was a machine. Nothing else. No one else.
But deep in the back of his mind. He knew he was a killer. That this was not who he was.
“We weren’t meant to be brought back. So, we don’t know where we belong anymore.” Zero finally broke his own silence. It felt wrong to project. But this machine was the same as him. One was just luckier than the other. Who? He did not know. “This time, I’ll make sure you don’t come back.”
Morbid, perhaps. But a mercy.
Judging by the way Elegy’s fingers spread apart and it finally stared into Zero’s eyes, they believed that too. It stared up at Zero, mystified. As if he were the Madonna. It was a particular look that Humans would sometimes stare at him with. Whenever Zero would save their lives, or grant them peace.
It was unnerving to see a machine stare at him in this way. Maybe X felt the same when Zero stared at him so.
“You would?” Elegy clasped their hands as if in prayer. “You’d save me?”
He supposed this was saving someone. Whether it be more Humans from death from this Maverick, or this Maverick from itself. Sometimes, Zero liked to think he was saving machines from Humans. Even if it was Dr. Gate that brought him back, he could sympathize the hatred.
Zero stood straight, and stared down at Elegy. It looked beautiful lying there in its grave. Prepared for the inevitable.
“I came here to kill you.” Zero tightened his grip on the saber. “They say I’m the best Maverick Hunter in the world.”
If it’s one thing I know how to do, it’s to kill.
“You have to promise, then.” Elegy stared up at Zero. In all his holy glory. The stare was intense, and uncomfortable. “That you’ll kill me good. So that no one can bring me back.”
He wasn’t expecting himself to make promises to a Maverick like this today. Not that he could say no either. This was what he was born to do. What he was made to do. To kill. And to kill ‘good’.
“Yeah,” Zero replied unceremoniously. “I promise.”
Elegy said nothing. Its eyes kept on Zero for another moment, and slowly both closed. Resigning itself to fate. Hopefully, the fate it always wanted.
Zero was never about ceremony, but something about all this made it felt like so. The graves, the fog that slowly rolled in, the way the clouds covered the sky. It was if he was in between life and death. That this is where everyone meets to cross over. But Zero would never be allowed to. The Grim Reaper was neither alive nor dead, only an object to help one reach the other side.
He lifted his hand up with the saber and clasped his other hand together on the hilt. He flicked the switch on to activate the blade. It pulsed steady as it drew out in a flash of light. The sickly green illuminated the surroundings and cut through the natural with its beam. The air cackled with raw plasma which drowned out the birds and flutter of leaves as the wind blew right through them. As if a reminder that they were both machine and death was not natural for them.
But, at the very least, Zero would try.
He dipped his hands down, carving the blade into Elegy’s head. It did not flinch and merely laid still as if it were already dead. As though he was carving into a not yet birthed Reploid whose body was abandoned in the graves.
Its face melted away.
Its DNA chip melted away.
And soon, nothing remained of its head. Only molten metal that spilled into the grave below.
Finally, silence.
And Zero could only feel envy for what he could never have…
A peaceful death.