He was with sitting together with Rebecca in her room. Something they’d done together often, not that he could really complain. The only issue he really had was just how quiet it was. To him, there was silence despite there being a sound of a fan running in the background.
Shifting a little, almost uncomfortably – Axl thought of a topic to break the silence. There was something on his mind anyway, and now was probably the best time to mention it.
“Hey, uh- Sunshine?”
Here hoping Rebecca doesn’t smack him for this one.
“Ya mind if I tell you somethin’?”
Rebecca looked over at Axl, wondering what it could be about. It had been a bit quiet, mostly because she had been deciding on something to do.
“Hm? Sure, go for it.”
Internally, she still debated. Maybe she could play her violin for him? Hm, she didn’t think she had done that before. Or they could probably play a video game together.
Though she paid full attention to what Axl had to say, because she wasn’t an asshole and people deserved to be heard.
Oh, he had just about had enough of this behavior from the two of them. They were siblings and siblings were supposed to
kill each other
tolerate and love each other. Maybe not get along all the time, sure, but they were the ones who were always there no matter what. This whole ‘I don’t want to spend time with the other one’ bullshit had to end.
“– Both of you are coming with me, and both of you are having a sit down talk with one another, or I’m stripping both of you of your rank.”
Zero didn’t bother to hear their complaints or explanations; he had turned to stomp away to an empty briefing room, intending on using it for their makeshift group therapy session.
A quiet ‘”Oh.” left Aerin in response. He had a feeling a talk of some sort was going to be arranged at some point, but he didn’t know his career was at stake. Well, what little of a career that he had.
Since this was the case, he knew this was serious.
Seeing Zero had immediately turned and stomped away, Aerin simply sighed and followed him. All the while, expecting this entire thing to turn into a dumpster fire.
“Yessir.”
Rebecca followed behind as quickly as she could, wondering what this could possibly be about. She had solved the problem that she was sure Aerin was having with her, he didn’t need to deal with her, and she could do her job just fine.
But she didn’t protest regardless, figuring that Zero knew better than her. She didn’t want to lose her rank either, so obey she would.
“I don’t have time. I have to… I have to find everyone else… take care of anyone else who’s hurt…”
He was shell shocked. There was no polite or gentle way to dance around the realization; the events of the past hour were only slowly starting to sink in. He had been attacked by his own unit. He had killed his own unit. So much… damage… death… destruction had happened, and it was… their fault…
His fault. He had been in charge of them. Trained them, molded them into the monsters they had become-
Infected them…
He would have continued to murmur on about everything he had to do, but Rebecca’s sudden movement had him pausing. Zero actually smiled before shaking his head and, with a slight arch of his brow, turned to go sideways through the door, avoiding the issue of fitting her through the doorway entirely.
“You don’t have to worry about anything, baby girl.”
“I wanna make sure you’re okay too though, Papa.”
Her response was soft, but she didn’t ask about it again. She went a little pink when he went sideways, a bit embarrassed she hadn’t thought of that.
Rebecca then let out a yelp when her leg sparked again because of the movement, a bigger one but nothing that wasn’t fixable. She simply got startled, was all.
She looked over at one of the medics and smiled nervously as her father brought her over to a medical table to sit her down. She’d have to keep her armor on for repairs, but at least nothing hurt much and it could be repaired.
It wouldn’t be as scary as the first time she was in here for repairs. Then again, she had been panicking badly that day.
“No, of course you aren’t. You’re too idiotic to make the smart decision.”
Attacking first was… a poor move. Making the first move revealed your intentions, your strengths, and just how far you were willing to go– even if you didn’t intend on broadcasting any of that. It was what kept him standing to casually, fingers still drumming a beat against the arm of his buster.
“Your sister made the right decision. Or, no…” A curious look seemed to seep into his red eyes, softening his gaze as his brow furrowed. “… I didn’t ask her. I– I didn’t make her. She just… asked to be happy.
“Did you know that she wasn’t happy? Not before. But she’s so happy now.”
“I’d never go Maverick just to be happy. I got better shit to do with my time than random mass murder, like punching Sigma in the crotch armor to see if he goes down like a human would.”
Rebecca didn’t know why she admitted that one, but the longer they kept talking, hopefully it would give him the idea to not dismember her.
“It’s not our fault that she never said anything. Dad can’t do anything if she doesn’t say something about it. He wanted to give her a chance to tell him of her own volition, just like he gave me the chance.”
She was still tense, wondering if the other would make the first move or not, because she certainly didn’t want to. She was impulsive, not completely stupid.
She did know she wouldn’t be able to survive a one-on-one fight though, but she wasn’t going to glance at anything around the room to make her plan to escape as soon as she had an opening obvious.
That would also be stupid and Zero would probably whack her upside the head for it with a datapad. She’d keep eyes on the enemy, have internal scans look for an escape instead.
If she survived this, she was going to beg for an emergency teleporter.
“Uh. Hey there.” Was he… supposed to be… getting to know her? Sure, they had been dating for two months now and he had briefly spoken with Tomoe and Aerin, but… was this really the ‘meet your kids’ point?
“I’m…. Zach.”And I bang your dad-
Rebecca stared for a good minute or so before signing a quick hello, before holding up a finger in a ‘wait a moment please’. She reached up to her ears to turn on her hearing aids so she could actually respond at a normal volume.
“Hi, I’m Rebecca. You’re going out with Dad?”
This was the guy who was making her dad really happy? Well, she’d definitely never rib him for his taste in dudes ever again. Somehow though she thought the other probably wouldn’t appreciate that she thought he looked cool.
Absently, she wondered if he’d let her braid his hair… It looked soft.
“You’re one of the brats that X enjoys calling his family, aren’t you?” A question, though there was nothing for her to really answer.
Kai just stared, curiosity masked with indifference as his fingers tapped against the surface of his buster.
“What piece of you should I send back to him to hurt him the most?”
“I’m sure you’re already picked out a piece. I’m not going down without a fight.”
Which was probably obvious by the fact that she already had her armor on, her personal shields maxed out. She didn’t bring out her saber, she definitely wasn’t confident enough with it to hope to survive this encounter. Her buster would have to do.
“Well, there’s only one thing I can really say to that.”
There was a flash of movement before her armor was on and the anon was blasted into a black mark on the floor. Then, the armor was off and she walked away to go play her violin.
Perhaps that had been a bad choice of words on the anon’s part.
“Yeah no, we’re not doing this. Goodbye. If you would kindly fuck off, that would be wonderful. I like both Papa and Dad and that’s the end of it. I have better things to do with my time than listen to some dickshit trashtalk the love I have for my family.”
Back in the Game 
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