iiregularhunter:

“Just remember to be patient with yourself. No one became a great hunter over night.”

Well…

It was a little white lie– of sorts. Even Zero himself had been forced to start as a Class-D and had to fight to work up the ranks to being a Commander himself, though it had less to do with his skill and more to do with his attitude. Skill-wise, Zero had been at Class-S from the start of his Hunting career, but Sigma had held him back to make a point.

A frustrating and annoying one, but Zero could appreciate it now. He had no doubt he wouldn’t have been able to have any leadership skills if he had been granted his own Unit from the start. Not with how he had been prior to joining Hunter’s.

“You wanna go out later?” A hand gently clapped on her shoulder as he spoke. “Go get cleaned up first and I’ll make sure Velvet has everything handled for the rest of the day.”

She nodded in agreement, giving him a small smile.

“Yeah. I’d rather be a decent one first.”

Rebecca squeaked in response to his hand on her shoulder, nodding at that as well. She looked quite delighted, actually.

“Mhm, I do. And okay!”

Once Zero let her go, she immediately zipped off to the communal showers to get her armor off and wash down. She was covered in dust!

iiregularhunter:

The sight of her and the damage to her armor sent small shockwaves of rage through his system’s core, but he could tamp them down for the moment. She– she didn’t deserve to feel this way. Not after how terrified she had been when he had first found her. She didn’t deserve to have to experience something as horrific as this attack.

And it was only going to get worse.

“Were you hurt? Did anyone touch you?” Pulling back slightly, Zero reached up to cup at her cheeks to force Rebecca to look up at him. Lying wasn’t acceptable in this situation, and he wasn’t about to let her get away with doing that.

“If they did I’m going to kill them-” Ex-member of his Unit or not.

It’s not like I haven’t already done that.

“N-No, not that I r-remember… The a-air vent kept scraping the b-back of my armor… S’not m-made for me in my a-armor, but I couldn’t disengage it… A-Any blood on me i-isn’t mine though…”

She didn’t have the energy to lie even if she wanted to, which she didn’t, though she legitimately didn’t remember if anyone got a shot off at her before she took shelter in the air vents to make her way out to help. The answer was a solid ‘probably’ though, as the vent didn’t cause the dents in her boots and helmet.

She did, however, unconsciously lean into his touch, shaking her head before speaking again.

“Most of it’s soot, m-maybe dust from rubble…? A-And the scrapes don’t go further than the a-armor… I’m okay f-for the most part.”

The smoke hadn’t been good for her, but thankfully it didn’t affect her as much as it did humans, so all she needed to do was a bit of air cycling in a clean patch of air and she’d be fine.

She was still quite upset, though being with Zero right now was helping more than he probably realized.