Alternate Ending
~ Forgive Everything ~
No more.
Zero fell to his knees, heaving out breaths he didn’t need, coughing up fluid he did. His remaining hand clutched the sparking mess of wires where his shoulder and right arm used to be; his helmet was finally unable to hold itself against its own gravity and half of it sloughed off his head like rotten skin. Beneath revealed blood-matted hair, even a few loose wires.
He fixed his remaining eye on the twitching body before him, and willing every bit of energy left, began the slow and agonizing journey of dragging himself to X’s side. Above them Mother Elf screamed in pain, but he didn’t care about her. Didn’t care if the world was falling apart around them, only wanting to be by X’s side before either of them expired.
No more. Please.
Zero collapsed, his head falling onto X’s barely moving chest. His best friend laid beneath him, in pieces for the most part, the lake of blood growing as Zero’s own joined with it. Zero had to pause for several moments before he got the energy to lift his head, using what was left of his face to express how he felt. Could X still see at all?
“No… more…” Zero’s vocal processors were fading, and he leaned closer to X’s face when the other didn’t respond. “Please…”
X’s own vocal processors had already failed, but he was still wired to Ragnarok’s systems. He used them to reply. “… you killed me. Again.”
“No more…”
X could only see through Ragnarok’s security cameras, but he knew well the face Zero would be giving him. That pleading look, so sad and pathetic, the same one that always tore X’s heart. His own best friend… rose against him. Again… stopped him, again!
Killed him all over again.
“You talked about ideals. Dreams. Humans’ ideals and dreams, Reploids’… ours. Quite frankly I don’t even remember my own.” X would have sighed if he physically could, but his body was pretty much a corpse under Zero, and Zero laid his head back down on that corpse’s chest.
“If the ideals and dreams you told me about are not illusions, if you’re really willing to die for them… tell me more about them.”
Zero jerked a bit, not expecting this from the one who was so viciously attacking him minutes ago. “X…?”
X’s voice, despite the neutral tone of Ragnarok’s system, still carried the emotion the blond remembered he had. The same caring, loving X was in that monotone intercom, Zero could feel it. It made him smile.
“The future you’ve told me about—” X intoned, “If you’re really determined to bring it out… prove it to me. Tell me about it. You’ve proven your will is stronger than mine… that your ideals are stronger than mine…”
“Not mine,” Zero croaked. He took the energy from his lower body—he won’t be leaving anytime soon—and re-routed it to his voice. “Ours. Our will, our ideals. I gave them back to you…”
And Zero did as X asked… told him about the ideals he had. Of the sorrows of the Maverick Wars, how X shouldered the burden of the world and carried it with his head high. Zero told of the ordeals they faced, told of his own feelings during them, how he wished he was more useful to X. He spoke of their friends, their comrades, the allies and the betrayals.
Zero told him of all the things he said he wanted—a peaceful world, an Elysium, where Reploid and human could join hands in peace. His voice held the regret when he spoke of his own actions, held the admiration when he recounted X’s deeds.
Above all else, as he looked into the face of his dead best friend, Zero’s voice held the hope, love, and determination X barely remembered having himself. From the cameras of this failing satellite, X saw the best friend he cherished once, relied on. And suddenly he remembered why Zero forsook all of that.
“But Zero… what… what if I become one of the Mavericks…?”
“… don’t ask such silly questions. I’m breaking contact now.”
“Wait! Zero! I-I’m serious! … Zero… if… if I become a Maverick, you have to take care of me.”
“… don’t be ridiculous. Now hurry on back.”
“Promise me… Zero…”
X wanted to laugh, but the Ragnarok system didn’t recognize sad, dark amusement. All this time, he had thought Zero forsaken him, broken all his promises to him. But in the end, Zero was determined, never gave up… kept the biggest promise of them all. He kept X human…
“I believe you.” X finally replied, after Zero had gone silent. “But… can I really forgive everything? The humans… you… hell, can you forgive everything I’ve done?”
Zero had to turn his head, cough out the last bit of blood and fluid before returning to the resting spot on X’s chest. “Yes.”
“Even though the humans, and Reploids, will keep repeating their sins? That I’m still tortured over their inability to want peace like me…? Can we really overcome them?”
“… yes. You can. I can. We can.” Zero placed his remaining arm around X’s corpse. “I’m right here, X. I’ll stay here, this time. I’ll be here to convince you, however you want me to. I won’t leave you again. I’ll tell you about our dreams and ideals over and over. I’ll get up and show them to you… knock me down all you want, but I’ll get up for you. For our dreams and ideals.”
The Ragnarok shook violently, but Zero held only tighter to X’s body. He’ll hang on, not give up this time. X could see that, through the failing monitors as Ragnarok was caught by earth’s gravity.
“I wish that, one day in the far future, all these wars, all the strife will pass on…” X intoned.
“I do too,” Zero muttered. His voice failed to rise above the alarms of the satellite.
“You’ll stay?”
“I promise.”
X heard the sincerity. The certainty. If only humanity could be so devoted to peace… but he couldn’t change them. Zero stopped him from doing that, from doing the very things he himself once hated. The cameras failed, and the intercom went offline as earth’s gravity began to pull them closer, just as Zero pulled X’s broken body closer.
That’s when X detonated Ragnarok.
May our pain be our legacy.