[Backdated, see below]

[hacker_twins]

(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."

Comments

[vengeancechild]

Luckily for that, the twins soon dart off on a detour to get the needed equipment. They catch back up just as Zero reaches X's door. He knows the access code, of course, and stores his armor to be quieter before letting himself in. The twins follow the hint on storing armor. This was going to be tricky enough unless X was a really sound sleeper.

The main room of the apartment-like area is cozy and for the most part neat and clean. Roll had intervened with X's habits early, trying to make sure he wouldn't be as messy as Rock, and it would seem she'd mostly succeeded. The room is clean and one can find the floor, but it's also slightly more cluttered than Roll might have liked, in a comfortable and relaxed way.

The walls are in a soft creme with blue trim, the carpet a darker blue. There's an overstuffed and comfy couch and a few beanbag chairs, a TV, and a video game system. Zero and X have played a lot of multi-player FPS/Puzzle games here, sometimes with others joining in. There's a coffee table for snacks, though right now all that's on it is a folder of what looks, at first glance, like art sketches.

More than one wall has an arrangement of family pictures hanging on it. There are two other doors, one going to a small bath, and the other to the bedroom... If X is in here, it would seem he really did go to bed.

[builtforbattle.livejournal.com]

Forte pauses at the others storing their armor but gives in and does the same. There's another pause as he makes sure what he's wearing isn't so dirty that it'll cause problems, since he can't remember what he was doing the last time out of armor, just that it couldn't have been anything clean. Luckily the state of his clothes is of the stained and torn verity and not the track mud and dirt where he goes.

With that done, he orders Gospel to stay at the door and follows the others in, trying not to look too interested in the game system.

[hacker_twins]

The last game played is still in the system, and is of the multiplayer biohazard variety. Lots of puzzles to solve, and lots and lots of zombies and other nightmareish creatures. Rock likely squicks just at the box art.

As Zero very quietly opens the bedroom door, he'll find out two things. One, X did actually go to bed. Two, his estimate on how well the Lightbot would be sleeping was dead wrong. It seems Rock isn't the only one in that family prone to nightmares.

The bedroom also has more pictures, and four little plushies on the bedside table - a little black bat, a blue dolphin, a red dragon, and a small green bunny.

Techno frowns at all of this. This was not going to be at all easy...

[builtforbattle.livejournal.com]

The type of game is surprising until the mental image of X covered in gore comes to mind. It's still hard to picture the X that has reminders of his kids all over the place as the same X that isn't bothered by digging into someone's chest. He half wonders if X could have broken the same as Rock, but reploids are more flexible mentally so it isn't likely.

He's not sure what to think of the nightmares, or how to deal with them. Will this make him harder or easier to wake? Should they continue with the plan at all? Best to get it done with is his thought, but who's to say they'd agree with X in this state.

This is the problem with helping people, he thinks sulkily, everything has to be handled carefully.

[ekkusu_light]

The Twins set the heavier equipment down by the door, and start to creep closer...

But none of them get more than a foot or two into the room before X jerks awake. In armor. And pointing a buster at them. "Wha.. Weil... hnnn," he shakes his head. "Nightmare. Zero, is there any news?" After all, they were supposed to wake him if there was.

Zero just mutters a swearword in German. "Is this why you've been avoiding sleep? Hell, are you getting any sleep at all like this?"

[builtforbattle.livejournal.com]

Forte barely subdues the urge to recall his armor. In it he can take hits and shake them off no problem, without and that's not the case. He can dodge if he has to, and this is the Nexus, but his fighting programming still isn't happy with the buster pointed his way unarmed.

"Is there not a way to turn that off?" Keeping the discussion off why they are there seems like a good idea.

[vengeancechild]

X sends his armor back to storage. Zero sits on the bed next to him and soon ends up with an exhausted Lightbot leaning on him.

The twins seemed torn at first between hiding behind the VR equipment and staying in front of it to hide it. They'd ended up doing the first, though both now had their armor back.

"No, there isn't," says X, avoiding Zero's questions. "What's happened?"

Zero sighs. "Nothing's happened..." Then he thinks of a way to salvage their situation. "I just... Gospel and I were talking earlier about setting up some kind of stress relief for you. And from the looks of things, you need it more than I realized."

[builtforbattle.livejournal.com]

With the plan interrupted to comfort X, Forte tries to find something to do with himself. He's pretty useless in this situation and it shows with how he uncomfortably leans against the door frame and searches for something to focus on besides X and Zero. His eyes land on some of the pictures of X's kids and he frowns. They aren't much more than little soldiers now, like the Hunters before them and the Robot Masters before that. The thought fills him with rage, but he hasn't lost any sleep over it.

How much more must it be bothering X if it keeps him from sleeping even when he tries to get some rest?

[vengeancechild]

Some are even little silent video clips in digital frames, with the ones in X's bedroom more potentially embarrassing than the ones out in the 'open' in the main room. Leviathan, with Splash hanging off her like a backpack, sitting on top of Minnow the whale outside. Next to that frame, a full-sized but not very old Phantom is laying in the grass under a tree, watching a bee... while inside there's Leviathan with duckweed in her hair, picking bits of it out and eating it, and a Phantom unexpectedly knocked out of a tree by a cheery Fafnir. There are even pictures of them as chibis. A bitty Harpuia waves hi with short little arms from one camera frame while, behind her, a chibi Fafnir is headfirst in a box of bbq bites.

"I don't know, Zero... I don't think anything's going to help... except getting them back, and..," X pauses and looks away, "making sure they're safe from him." He balls the edge of the blanket up at that... and there's almost a half second count before he bursts out with, "What about being human is so special anyway?" Two of the people here are Wilybots, and he knows the Twins won't tell his family...

"Rock can't even think about hurting Weil. He doesn't have the laws any more, but it... it's like there's this invisible line we're not supposed to cross, and all I want to do is choke the bastard... And I know I can't. That if it came down to it, I'd hesitate. He's going to force them to kill people, and even if we could get to him, I couldn't kill him to stop him."

"Don't worry about that, X," says Zero. "We'll get to him. And he'll pay for this. You're the medic. You just worry about picking up the pieces after."

X just shakes his head slightly at that. That wasn't enough. "I just remember that other Harpuia... saying my alt didn't care about them. He abandoned them when they needed him..."