[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]

"Yeah, right after Kraft kidnaps Niege to try to protect her. Weil'd have to do a lot worse than tell me I don't want to kill a human in front of Niege... She's a reporter, I'm sure she's seen worse."

"Yeah. At least Wily had just enough sanity not to try to blow up the planet while he was standing on it. The boss for this stage has to be crazy too. What other kind of person signs up for a suicide mission to blow themselves up..?"

[builtforbattle.livejournal.com]

"Much worse." He sighs as he fights through the bosses again. Half of them should be dead, seeing as they had blow up in big balls of fire earlier on, but that's how games went.

He shrugs at Zero's question, agreeing. He's not sure if he should be proud of the kids' determination to beat him or not, but before he can figure it out, he beats Phantom for the second time and has to double take at the dialogue. The following explosion has him gaping at the screen. That didn't just happen.

[vengeancechild]

At about the same time, Zero makes a low hiss and almost drops the handheld game system he's using. When he finds the ability to speak, he says, "The stage boss is one of Phantom's. He said he only put up with Weil to get revenge..."

His dropping of the game caused him to lose the first fight against that boss, and he just stares at the words on the screen. Phantom... I will be joining you soon!

"We have to get them back. It can't happen this way."

[builtforbattle.livejournal.com]

"I didn't kill him; he blew himself up! Why did he blow himself up?! The others didn't blow themselves up!" He bites his tongue after the outburst and glances at X, hoping he hasn't woken him. This is a really bad time for X to get woken up.

[hacker_twins]

He'll look up to find Techno and Middy, out of an honest attempt to be helpful, squooshing a throw pillow down on X's head to try to prevent him from hearing that.

X was still asleep, but if they don't quit 'helping' they're going to wake him. He twitches a bit and tries to push the pillow off his face.

[builtforbattle.livejournal.com]

"We can't go after the copy," he growls lower this time so the two don't have to smother X. "Not while they're there. Not if that's going to happen."

[vengeancechild]

The twins let up on the pillow and X pushes it off his face without completely waking.

"We might be better off trying to steal the copy than scrap him, depending on what he's like," says Zero, knowing Forte won't like that idea too much. "If he's like the megalomaniac that was in the Nexus, he'll have to go. If he's more like Mega or X... then it would explain why Weil would discard him after a while. If that's the case, some of the humans might follow him away from Weil... This game keeps mentioning he at least protected the humans from Weil. It sounds to me like he got in the way of Weil's plans one too many times."

"And we'll have to get the kids away first. Or find some way that can't happen. I know X didn't design any of them with a self-destruct. If we can get that code to all of them before that... I don't know how that's supposed to work, but if it can get Phantom to remember, why would he do something like that?" Zero's guessing blind on some of this, since he'd started with the fourth game instead of the first, but he does know that the sooner they get the kids out of there, the better.

[builtforbattle.livejournal.com]

No he doesn't, but he's not as dead set on scrapping him either after seeing Phantom die for the copy. And if he got in the way of Weil, that would help in a big way.

"Make it so undeniably obvious that we're not trying to harm the copy in any way." How to do that, well, Forte doesn't have the slightest idea. Getting the kids back first would be easier.

"He wouldn't if he remembers. But the missions- Harpuia showed up to help Aztec Falcon. That doesn't happen in the game. The same could happen with the others, but most of the missions can't happen for us."

[vengeancechild]

Zero figures it's either steal the 'figurehead' Weil's hiding behind if they want to get the humans on their side, or use X or Mega. X really isn't in any condition for it, and Weil's had too much propaganda out about how Mega abandoned everyone...

"Are you sure about that? In this one, you beat a boss and then teleport right out. When we beat Aztec Falcon, we held back and didn't finish him off. And there were several minutes before we walked out of the place. Harpuia in the game could have just arrived too late."

He sighs. "None of this is going to be easy. Phantom... That isn't the first time you see him in the game, right? You mentioned bombs before. If that happens, it would be our best chance to do something. Even if it's just send someone into the area first and have them spraypaint that code all over the walls."

He picks his game back up. While they're planning, it wouldn't hurt to get past Volt Kraken.