hacker_twins | [Backdated, see below]

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(Continued from here after Release 88 made the first post unusable)

The only thing that grates on Techno worse than when people notice how obviously he resembles Forte, is when it dawns on them he resembles both Forte and Mega. He isn't really sure how to feel about the person responsible being dead, as now he'll never get to have that nice loud 'what the hell were you thinking' talk he'd sometimes fantasized about.

But for now the Twins skirt around that topic and onto one of pets, as they follow Zero towards X's room.

"I still think we should get a puppy."

"We live in a treehouse, Middy. Canines can't climb."

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"They shouldn't miss it unless they're not looking at the numbers at all," Forte grins. It's a simple plan that has more chances of working than not.

"And they'd end up looking at the numbers when sorting the crates, if the numbers told them what was in each one," adds Zero.

X nods. "We'd better hurry. There's no way to know how long Fafnir will stay in that location, and then we'd miss our chance."

"How about you stay here and sleep, and we'll handle it," says Zero.

X sighs. "I know I should, but... Fafnir's there. Even if we can't get him home yet, I want to see him..."

If X wasn't here or if he was still sleeping, Forte would tell Zero to stop saying that, if just long enough for him to get the game's dialog out of his head. But he can't without possibly raising questions.

And on that thought, he tries to nonchalantly scoop up the games they left scattered and get them back in the box without any of the covers being seen as he talks. "Well how long would it take to gather the food and label it the way we want? Couldn't you sleep until all that's done? Even if it's just a nap's worth."

X nods. "I'll send a message to Roll. She could organize that better than I could, anyway..." It only takes a second to take care of that, and pick the blanket back up off the couch to try to go back to bed. "You promise you'll wake me..?"

"I'm tempted to say 'no'," says Zero, "but then I'd be screwed next time I need repairs."

"You'll get woken up just go to sleep already."

X nods and then goes to bed. Techno and Middy leave the VR set there, but gather the rest of their things to leave the room and let X sleep.

Zero starts to head out too, and wonders how long the preparations will take... and what to do until then. He pauses, and scoops up the box of games and the one he was playing that's still paused. "We should go somewhere and finish this up while we wait."

"Joy," he replies sarcastically. The games wouldn't be so bad if he ignored the crazy plot and now it fit into what was going on now. By itself it was still ridiculous, but it was a fun ridiculous.

He gets his own, petting Gospel who's still waiting outside for him.

The Twins, still close enough to hear that, decide not to wander off. "You said you'd gotten to Weil," says Middy.

"We'll want to see that," says Techno.

"For reference purposes," says Middy.

Zero shrugs. "Fine." And since he can't think of anywhere else suitable, he'll just head for his own room here. Since he doesn't really live at the warehouse, the room's a bit of a relic of his bachelor days. White cinderblock walls, little thought about decoration other than to drag in a couch and a TV, and some furniture made of cinderblocks and boards, or in a couple cases milk crates. There are also a couple beanbag chairs. And a bit of dust.

The twins fuss for a bit until they find a way to use a scanner to access the archaic handheld game's data and replicate the screen display information to the TV. Once they've accomplished that, Zero will flop onto a slightly dusty beanbag chair and unpause the game.

Zero's room has the odd effect of making Forte feel at home. It reminded him of the commons room back at the castle too, even it's been forever since he's been there. He flops in a beanbag chair like he owns it while Gospel sits and watches the twins mess around with the TV.

And he wants to see this fight with Weil before turning his own game back on. Weil's claim of not being able to die is written off immediately, but the idea that his mind has been turned to data is worrying. If that's possible, he could spread like a virus and it'd be even harder to kill him. The creepy half robotic looking face that shows up on the screen doesn't help.

Zero isn't having an easy time of it when the fight starts. Weil turns translucent and invulnerable, copies himself, uses something that looks like an electrical attack - though it might be noted that it's purple, heals himself, has a couple different homing attacks... one of which can't be destroyed, and is generally an extreme pain in the ass. "I don't care what he's done to himself, no human should be this hard to kill."

"At this point, he's not, no matter what he says. And it's all pattern memorization. If he's this bad-" The Weil on screen summons the eight judges who each do an attack, completely impossible to predict the first time around. "If he's this bad in a game, he's going to be that much worse for real."

At least they'd have more people capable of fighting him than the game, which only had Zero.

"And the game isn't even using a time limit to go with being on an orbital weapon platform that's crashing," adds Zero, in between the occasional muttered swearword at Weil. "I might need that VR simulation just for practice... and hell with facing him alone. I'm not above admitting backup would be nice."

Finally Weil freezes and starts to flash white in that way that indicates the boss has been beat, and Zero sighs in relief. Then he's reading dialogue. At first he thinks it's a load bearing boss scenario and he'll have to race a timer to some exit, but then Weil's back... The only response he can come up with for that is a swearword. Then he makes a face at Weil calling him a hero, and a scowl when Weil plays the species card yet again. "I don't know what the hell you are, old man, but even if you were human, you wouldn't be the first one I've killed."

Scowling as he watches Weil power up to the next form, he still can't help a snerk at game-Zero's comeback.

I never cared about justice, and I don't recall ever calling myself a hero... I have always only fought for the people I believe in. I won't hesitate... If an enemy appears in front of me, I will destroy it!

"Finally, he says something I can agree with," he says, as the fight starts. "I just hope this is the end of it."

Forte's response is the same. Why wouldn't the old man die? He's starting to like the idea of going against Weil in the VR simulation. It'll be more challenging if he's this tough.

"If force energy isn't at work here, I don't know what is. There's no way a human, modified or not, could do what he just did." Pulling the human card is just stupid, at least in Zero. Now if it was pulled on a Lightbot, then there'd be issues.

"Guess he had to eventually. And there's your timer," Forte notes the numbers counting down in the corner.

"It would explain him deciding to kill everyone, too. I read the reports on Giga City... there was some quote in there from the copy. 'What does not become part of me, shall become one with the void' or something. It fits Weil here..."

"Guess I spoke too soon about them forgetting it," Zero says. Then he proceeds to ignore the timer in favor of trying to beat Weil. Eventually, with about some thirty-odd seconds left, the monstrosity that still tried to claim it was human starts to flash in that 'got pwned' way, and the timer disappears.

"Good riddance," says Zero. And then sits through the drama afterwards, occasionally rolling his eyes at parts of it. He figures the whole lost connection thing is just drama. At first...

By the time the credits are rolling and game-Ceil is sobbing under a tree, though, he's starting to feel a little awkward.

"So if he can't win, he'll try to take out everyone with him. Tch, sore loser."

Forte thinks the drama's a bit much since he's certain Zero will come out of it fine. He's the 'hero' of the game. Even if it looks like he's died, he's fine. Battered, but nothing some repairs and an e-tank won't cure.

He's about to complain about it being dragged out, but stops himself at Ciel crying. Zero's not the only one feeling awkward.

"Well shit," is all he has to say to Zero's trashed helmet at the very end.

There's a bit of uncomfortable silence, during which Zero saves the game data and switches it off. "I was hoping for confirmation on Weil's death. Still, I guess that explains why there isn't a fifth game..."

The Twins just fidget and keep quiet. Because, really, what can you say about something like that.

"If there's not a fifth, he should be dead." There's a silent 'as well' in there that he doesn't feel like saying. It's not often you're able to see your own grave, and he's not about to poke Zero about it.

It's definitely not pleasant. Zero's already thinking they need to work on some way to kill Weil that doesn't end up a suicide mission. "Hmph. Should be. But if he's using that force energy... even if it kills him, it would still be there. The crash site will need quarantined and cleaned up." He's mentioning that partly just in case he isn't there to bring it up when it happens. He had no plans to die if he could avoid it, but...

He shakes his head and decides not to think of that any more. Tossing the fourth game's cartridge to the Twins so they can access data off it for their simulation, he debates whether to play the first or the third. He'd like to see the beginning of this, but... they'd probably have time to play through them all, and Forte's already played the first one. Might as well play them in reverse order. If Forte's done with the second before he's done with the third, there are a couple extra copies in that box... he'll pull out the Japanese version of the third game just to make it easier if it comes to that. He can read Japanese dialogue if he has to.

Forte nods as he turns his game back on. He stares at the title screen for a moment before finding his save and continuing. He can read Japanese, but prefers English.

There's nothing worth mentioning, and when he gets to a lull where a level has him standing there with Zero's shield just defending Ciel as a timer ticks down, he decides to mention something.

"You know, the weapons you get aren't that bad." Probably the only good thing that happens in the game is getting shiny new weapons to play with.

"We could try mentioning those to Gate. I still like my 'saber, but some of those are useful. I was going to talk to him after we throw food at Fafnir anyway..."

Zero snerks. "Game me just told the NPCs to shut up. They were babbling exposition on a mission. Nothing relevant to us... energy stuff."

"... and a crashed spaceship."

"You can never have too many weapons."

Forte grins. "They do go on excessively. It's too bad you can't do that to more of them."

"Spaceship? Would that be important?" he asks, trying to pick his next mission from the icons of the kids on the screen.

"Arcadia has the area sealed off. Harpy's there, tells us to scram... game-me doesn't... something there throwing Levi and Fafnir around..." He growls at something, then shakes his head.

"It's a giant reploid named Omega that was supposedly banished from Arcadia by being launched into space. That hasn't happened, and I'd say good riddance. Even if the name is a coincidence... Omega was Wily's name for the original Maverick Virus."

"Fafnir and Levi retreat, looks like Harpy wants to stay and help fight the thing. Weil shows up, tells Omega to stand down and... huh... it says Weil was banished from Arcadia a century ago, along with Omega. Which also doesn't fit for us. Hell, there hasn't even been an Arcadia for that long. Heh, Harpy's not pleased to see Weil..."

Knowing that the three are still around in the third game makes it easier to just randomly choose the next mission. He doesn't have to worry about another of them getting killed off.

"Omega's an ominous name. I can see it being used for another 'bot. But say it did have something to do with the virus, what then?" Covering all the bases meant a lot of what ifs.

Harpuia not being happy to see Weil gets a smile from Forte. At least some things are looking up.

"Then it needs destroyed, fast, hard, and without any contact it could use for transfer. Unless it came through the Nexus, though, there shouldn't be any other copies."

Zero's scowling at the screen again. "Weil rebuilt Copy X, but there's something wrong with him. He stutters, and even when Harpuia tries to tell him Weil's dangerous it's like he can't disagree with Weil. Someone's been reprogrammed hard."

"... and I think Weil just dissed game-me for wearing a thong." At least that's all he can make out of the comment about game-Zero's body.

"Hm. Doesn't hurt to be prepared." So he won't be touching it if it shows up.

"I'm surprised he didn't do that with the first one." He sighs. He still doesn't like the idea of saving the copy, but he hadn't done anything wrong, not really.

"And he's wearing a lava lamp on his head. I don't think he has room to talk."

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