Zephyrus and Antoinette Do Some Charity at the Soup Kitchen

The room was as silent as death as Oceanus sat in his dusky apartment, looking at the door expectantly.  After a long three-day break Zephyrus still hadn't returned from wherever it was he had run off to.  He wouldn't respond to any messages sent, and whenever Oceanus tried to look around the city he just couldn't find the other robot.  He had to admit, he was getting concerned.  Zephyrus had been prone to wandering lately, but in the end he always came back home within a day.  Now he was just plain gone.  Did something happen?  Was he hurt?

Oceanus knew he couldn't allow that.  He and his brother had been through hell together: the Lord, the Fiends, that one horrible night when the supermarket ran out of chocolate.  It couldn't end with Zephyrus just vanishing into the night.  So the green bro-bot had made a little call, and was currently waiting to see if his Zeph-hunter for the day would respond.  He looked at the clock: half past ten.  Maybe she wasn't coming after all.  As he let out a dejected sigh and started to turn on the television, the door started to creak open.

The door swung open and Antoinette stuck her head in, her usual sunny smile on her face as she waved at Oceanus before opening it and walking in. She was clad in her outfit from when Pech had pretended to be an enemy of the Bar to give Garnet a present of beating up people, all-black along with a trench coat on, doing little to nothing at hiding her pistols or gladius.

"Hi, Oceanus! Sorry I'm a little late... My Art class had everyone draw a bowl of fruit, but I kept getting the colors wrong, so they made me stay until I finished." She said as a way of explanation, shouldering her sniper rifle off her back and underslung shotgun off her waist onto a counter. She had stopped to get them before riding the bus here, smiling at all the disturbed and frightened glances she had attracted going around armed so heavily.

"So what's up? You said you needed help with something?" she asked cheerily.

Oceanus couldn't help but chuckle.  Antoinette never did put down her weapons, even when going to an art class.  Her college would've probably worried she'd shoot the place up one day if she wasn't always so cheerful and smile-y.  "Looks like you came prepared," Oceanus commented.  "Perfect.  Not that I'll know if you need all that weaponry, but with how things are nowadays it never hurts to bring some along."  He produced a small two-way radio, staple of the technology of this time period, and handed one to Antoinette.

"Now, I'm going to keep this brief: big bro's been gone lately.  He took Mach with him, so finding him has been a giant pain in the assplate for me.  Pech tells me you're one hell of a tracker, so I figured you'd be able to help.  If you see him, just tell me with this radio and I'll try to get over here as soon as you can.  What do you say?  Will you be able to help a robot out?"

"You just want me to find him? Sure, no problem! It'll be easy!" She said, taking the communicator and strapping it to her belt. "He's probably, I dunno, meditating or something... or maybe in the Junkyard, practicing with his gear..." She took both of her heavier weapons back up, strapping them to their correct places and nodding to herself before looking back up at Oceanus and patting him reassuringly on the arm.

"Don't worry, he's fine. I'll find him and let you know as soon as I do." With that said, she turned and walked out, careful to close the door behind her.

"Much appreciated, Antoinette," the robot said as he watched Antoinette leave.  Once she left he turned on the television, watching the Double Pangolin reboot and sighing.  "Yeah, he's fine.  I sure believe that with how he's been lately," he muttered as he watched some gritty 90s cartoons.

~~~~

An explosion rocked the walls of the Luchadillo Memorial Soup Kitchen, the sturdy building shaking a little.  From the windows of the building were two figures: the first a burly masked man holding a shotgun and the second a familiar-looking blue robot.  The two took potshots at a few notoriously well-dressed robots, who were surrounding the facility.  "¡Dios mío!" the burly man exclaimed over the roar of battle, ducking under the bullets of a robotic minigun.  "They keep on coming!"

The Killbot Mafia had been a real thorn in Zephyrus' side lately.  The silly gangs of yesteryear had been run out of town by well-oiled organizations like this.  And lately this particular mob had become quite grabby with their territory.  At first Zephyrus didn't care much.  They were just another movement, he figured, and they'd be gone soon enough.  Then they attacked the Luchadillo Memorial Soup Kitchen for not paying their protection money.  Once they proved themselves the scum of the earth, Zephyrus just had to spring into action.  Law enforcement wasn't doing anything, they were all on the Killbot Mob's payroll.  The lucha-priests who ran the kitchen did the best they could, but their fists were nothing against cold steel.

When justice needed to be dealt, Zephyrus was always ready to snap into action.

A beep of the claw cannon indicated a switch of ammo.  Rapid-fire spikes, the preferred armament of his old comrade Needle Man, pierced into an incoming robot and detonated him.  The masked man turned to Zephyrus, impressed.  "You never cease to amaze, robot," he remarked.  "Had you not started showing up two weeks ago, we'd be crushed by now."

"Don't mention it," Zephyrus muttered.  "Sooner this scum's gone, the better."  Of course, he soon started to hear nothing but clips.  "Warpdamnit!  Not now!" the robot shouted as he checked his ammo supplies.  He had been holed up in this soup kitchen for almost three days now, and even when the fighting stopped he never had a chance to replenish his ammo.  He had exhausted most of his supplies: only his natural tornadoes, the Leaf Shield, and the much-maligned Top Spin remained.  He turned to the man and shouted, "Cover me!  I'm going in!"

The blasts of a firing shotgun punctuated Zephyrus' lucha-priest ally's attempts at keeping his ass out of the fire.  It was times like this the robot wished he had kept Ultima Weapon.  He rushed into the horde of approaching robots, cleanly decapitating one of the small ones with a snip of his claw cannon.  The blue Wily-bot fought like a cornered animal, spinning his fan to clear the ranks with tornadoes as he wove his claw cannon with rarely-seen fury.  This wasn't his usual heroic fervor he displayed at the bar.  His fighting style seemed more vicious and punishing.

Unfortunately, with rage came recklessness, and soon a larger robot had punched Zephyrus with a fist the size of a minivan.  Zephyrus stumbled back, turning to the robot and glaring.  The claw cannon seemed to shine in the moonlight as he ran forward, screaming with fury and jabbing it right into the robot's chest.  It connected, spewing oil profusely and causing Zephyrus to chuckle darkly.  Bigger they are, harder they fell.

Only problem was, this robot didn't fall.

The massive bot slammed Zephyrus with both fists, slamming him into the ground.  Two panels in his chest spread apart to reveal a massive pair of spinning tractor wheels.  "Of course," muttered Zephyrus darkly as the massive robot pinned him with a gigantic foot.  The robot began to lean down, whirling doom approaching Zephyrus.  He was out of options, and he figured he could only sit back and watch his fate.  As he watched, though, he noticed a green dot start to appear over the robot's head.

Boom.

~~~~

"Oceanus, Target Located, over." Antoinette said as she jerked her Sniper rifle to the side, the empty round falling from the chamber even as she braced it and reloaded, watching the other Robot that had been looming over Zephyrus slump to the ground, it's head a ruin of shredded metal and spurting coolant fluid. Sniper rifles had always been her forte, but even now she was amazed at how much they impacted a battlefield.

Kneeling down once more, she sighted and located a straggler, lining up her crosshairs with the base of it's head and spine before breathing out slowly and squeezing the trigger, the gun jerking up and the enemy's head exploding like a coconut made of metal that had been struck by a hammer. Slinging her rifle across her back with a practiced motion, she drew her Combat shotgun and her gladius, taking a circuitous way in order to remain relatively undetected.

For now.

~~~~

Zephyrus would've jumped back in surprise had he not been pinned.  The robot above him had become an ex-robot, and as it slumped to the ground Zephyrus was able to shove it off and get back into the fray.  He looked back over at his assistant, wondering if the luchapriest had helped.  The look on the man's face, one of barely-masked surprise, told a different story.  After wondering whether the shooter was friend or foe, Zephyrus shrugged.  Never look a gift horse in the mouth, after all.

Being out of ammo, though, meant Zephyrus had to improvise.  He ripped off the spiked tractor wheels and wielded them, testing their weight.  No Metal Blades, but they'd get the job done.  He ran into the crowd, hefting a wheel by its shaft and slamming it into a robot.  The robot was sliced neatly in two, making Zephyrus thankful he was not on the receiving end of those wheels anymore.  Combat had ceased to become about shooting.  With Zephyrus in the midst of the crowd, it was way more practical to get up close.

The robot soon found himself surrounded as he continued his mad scramble, a few scrawnier robots all charging him with their knives.  It was incredibly hard to fight them off all at once, and many times his chassis was scratched off as a swing of the claw cannon proved too slow on defense.  More robots ran in, and soon Zephyrus appeared to be overwhelmed under a flurry of killbots.

Of course, they had forgotten his arsenal.  With a few clicks of the claw cannon a storm of metallic leaves shot from Zephyrus' body, slashing into the robots and even shattering a few of the weaker ones.  With the leaves repelling his foes Zephyrus found himself with a lot more breathing room, a fact he promptly took advantage of by whipping up a tornado and shattering a few of the robots with it.  The little ones scrambled, trying to retreat and regroup.  If only they knew what a mistake they were making.

~~~~

Antoinette lurked on the periphery of the fray, staying hidden, staying unnoticed. While Zephyrus's assault was the kind of things of which legends were made, her own methods were coldly efficient. Driving her gladius through the back of a Robot's head, she ducked down even as it crashed to the ground and spasmed it's last.

A glance over to the smaller robots made it clear to her they were regrouping for another assault.

Not if she could help it.

Rising up with her combat shotgun in her left hand, she fired, the sawed-off barrel throwing out a flurry of flechete-like metal that cut and sliced into the small horde. They turned as one before she sheathed her blade and pumped the barrel, taking aim once more and firing another thunderous detonation, walking forward even as they tried to escape.

One more pump, one more split-second of aiming, and another thunderous BOOM. Metal and scrap littered the street, the only remnants of her adversaries that had remained under her cold regard.

~~~~

Zephyrus didn't care where the robots who fled to him were off to, but even he had to quickly look as he heard the sounds of annihilation.  By the time he turned his glance to the carnage, though, whoever caused it had vanished as quickly as they had appeared.  Travelling on a path of robot scrap metal, Zephyrus soon noticed the largest and most well-dressed of all the killbots that had arrived.  He even had a magnetically applied mustache.  Clearly he was leading this little incursion.

And Zephyrus was about to end it once and for all.

The robot turned to him, and for a while there was only silence as they stared each other down.  The silence was broken as Zephyrus rushed him, claw cannon slashing at the killbot.  He was surprisingly agile, though, and the only thing Zephyrus managed to accomplish was tearing a large gash in his suit.  The robot mafioso responded to this by changing one of his fists into a sledgehammer and smashing Zephyrus in the side, causing him to skid back.  He had draw first blood today, for there was some oil dripping from Zephyrus' side.  Laughing with cold triumph the killbot charged forward, hammer-hand raised.

Their fighting was like an elaborate dance.  A duck here, a parry there, hammer meeting claw, steel meeting steel.  Occasionally lesser robots tried to charge in, but they were quickly detonated before they could even get close.  Antoinette and her arsenal made sure of that.  With their interference blocked off it seemed Zephyrus and his adversary were at a stalemate, neither letting up in their furious barrage of hits.

However, once more it was the killbot who struck harder.  He pushed Zephyrus back with a knee to the groin before reaching into his pocket and producing a revolver.  The Hardcore Prawn style of fighting, it seemed.  Before Zephyrus could get out of the way and react his opponent shot him right in the head with robotic precision.  A shower of sparks launched from Zephyrus as he slumped to the ground.

Zephyrus wasn't down for the count, though.  When the robot walked over, revolver primed to finish the job, Zephyrus responded with a headbutt to the gut.  "I'm not finished yet!" he roared, taking advantage of the robot's staggering to get in one fatal assault.  A volley of jabs to the elbow joints left him unable to move his arms anymore, a brutal stomp to the knee left him limping, and a slam to the jaw nearly left his head spinning.

The robot tried to right himself and escape, but Zephyrus was having none of that today.  He rushed behind the robot, priming his final weapon: the Top Spin.  Leaping high into the air, Zephyrus spun for momentum and savagely kicked the robot in the back of the head.  The robot had been hit with enough force to send his head flying, Zephyrus landing gracefully behind him.  There were gashes in his chassis, a massive smash wound in his side, and a decent-sized hole right by his AI core.  And he had never felt more alive.

~~~~

Antoinette's eyes had widened after Zephyrus had spin-kicked his enemies head off. THAT was the Top Spin?! That was awesome! Why didn't he use it more often?! Still, it looked like their enemies were gone, so she unclipped the communicator once again and said "Oceanus, Target acquired, Hostiles neutralized. Over." directly into it, before replacing it on her belt.

Walking out of her concealed position, she stepped lightly over to Zephyrus and smiled.

"Hey, Zephyrus! I was looking for you! Oceanus was worried.... and so am I..." She trailed off, noticing the damage he had sustained.

The blue robot turned to Antoinette, waving a little.  "Long time no see, eh Antoinette?" he asked.  "You were the one shooting those robots down, weren't you?  Thanks for that, really pulled my ass out of the fire there.  Anyways, why are you worried?"  This statement was punctuated by a small flurry of sparks coming from the hole in Zephyrus' side, the robot hastily covering them up.  "Besides that," he hastily admitted.

"Well, Oceanus was worried because you haven't been home in a couple of days... that and...." She paused, before taking a deep breath and going on. "Because you're different, Zephyrus. You're not who you used to be, and that's okay!" She said, holding up a hand. "I know that people change.... but you don't seem HAPPY anymore."

Zephyrus started to respond as soon as Antoinette mentioned he had changed, but the second part hit him hard.  The robot briefly tried to puzzle out something to say before giving up with a sigh, averting his eyes and looking at the pavement.  "You don't understand," he muttered.  "Times have been tough lately.  City's been full of trouble since the Major's been gone.  Even my job turned out to be nothing but a farce . . . "

"Well.... I know times are tough NOW, but that's the thing! Just becaue things are bad NOW doesn't mean everything will be like this all the time! Zephyrus, remember where I grew up? That whole UNIVERSE? I know it's hard not to just give up, but you can't just let yourself get beaten down by how bad things are, or else..."

The next part seemed almost like blasphemy to her, but she still had to say it.

"Or else you'll end up like who Pech was when we first came here."

"You're right," commented Zephyrus.  He sighed, averting his gaze from the asphalt and looking back at Antoinette.  "I'm not normally this much of a downer nowadays.  This month has just been exceedingly crappy.  Sorry our meeting had to be like this."

Zephyrus was just telling half-truths at this point.  While it was true that March had been one hell of a month for him, he was still more jaded than he was before.  He had only been truly "alive" for less than a year, so even something as small as a few months made a lot of difference to the robot.  Antoinette's assessment was scarily accurate: he had taken too much of the world on his shoulders in too short a period of time, got burnt out, and now was forced to see the consequences.  And he did not like them.

"It's okay. I'm sure if you knew we would meet up it would have been at a kitchen or something, not in the middle of bullets flying around and stuff." Antoinette said, smiling up at him.

"But, look... if you ever get too stressed, or feel like everything is grim and dark, you know you can come talk to me or Pech, right? We won't judge you or anything, or joke arou- Okay, Pech might joke around, but he only'll do it to be funny. But yeah. We're always here for you if you need us. I'm always here if you need me. Someone has to be....."

For a while there was nothing but silence, but the look in Zephyrus' eyes said it all.  Had he a mouth, he'd be smiling.  "Thanks a ton, An," the robot replied.  "It means a lot to know that you two are backing me up.  I really appreciate it."

He turned to the skies and let out a beep, Mach descending from the air.  The two briefly exchanged some words in morse code, before Zephyrus turned to Antoinette.  "They've been attacking this place for three days straight, but Mach says they're finally gone," he explained.  "So, what do you say?  Want to head home now?"

"Yeah, otherwise I think Oceanus will fry his brain because of how worried he is." Antoinette giggled.

Zephyrus chuckled at the mental image.  Even despite all the crap he had been through, shades of his old self were once again showing.  There'd be more shit coming his way for sure, and more despair to wade through, but he knew he was strong.  He knew he could beat it.  "Excellent," he replied, Mach descending and popping out its sidecar.  "Lets be off, then."

Its the 90s, do a lot of pot and whine about Bush Sr.

What do you do when everything you know is wrong?

This was the question that pounded in Zephyrus' head as he stalked through the streets of Zoofights City.  The world around him was cold and silent, the only noises being the hustle and bustle of distant, uncaring traffic.  The city's streetlights flickered, occasionally shrouding the robot with darkness.  They were very poorly maintained: after all, who gave a damn about this place once the Major and his men packed their things and cleared out?  The Zoofights were the only attraction this city really had, and once they ended for the year the men in charge turned their sites to more profitable matters on Maul Street.  The residential districts would just have to deal with it.

And when the time came to deal with it, they did so like vultures.

Zephyrus himself had fallen for a few of their ruses: he had once tried to be charitable and give a poor, down on his luck man some money.  When he returned the next day to check up on the guy he was face down on the ground, dead of an overdose.  Fumes would've been disgusted.  Another time he had tried helping a man with some packages only to be pickpocketed while his hands were still full.  The would-be thief tried to escape, but he didn't get far.  Zephyrus' hands may have been full, but that didn't stop him from activating his shoulder-mounted machine guns.

He sighed as he remembered these dismal events, but the freshest scars were given just this afternoon . . .

~~~~~

"Do you know what this means, bot?" a shady man in a dark coat asked.  He was armed with a pointer as if he was some kind of lecturer, and he motioned to a steadily decreasing red line.  "Ratings are in a freefall.  We have gone from the highest-pulling show on this damn channel to routinely being beaten by Reality Bites, that goddamn robot shark show!  What do you have to say for yourself?"

Zephyrus' arms were folded as he looked at the man with cold eyes.  "You know I'm not a damn killer, Wallcroft," he adamantly replied.

"You sure did a good enough job putting that bird down."

"That half-baked ripoff?  Please, Murducken's rolling in her grave at that travesty.  Even Thumperstruck could take that piece of crap out.  I've told you once and I'm telling you again, I'm not killing for your sick entertainment."

Mr. Wallcroft shook his head, chuckling a bit.  "You really think you were signed on for a cooking show, weren't you?"  Zephyrus eyed the man curiously as he looked the robot dead in the eye.  "Have you even watched this show before?  We don't get views because the people want to see food, we get views because the people want to see kitchen-based brutalizing!  You think Os was some kind of master chef?  No, she existed for two reasons: profit, and bloodshed.  And you've let our expectations on that front down so much."

Zephyrus' curiosity was piqued now.  He glared daggers at Wallcroft, who cleared his throat as he continued.  "Your intimidating design . . . your massive storages of weaponry . . . your claw, perfect for reminding people of OUR champion."  The smug git wouldn't let his backing of Hardcore Prawn down, would he?  "All it took was a little rigging and we got our perfect new commodity!  You even came from that King of Beasts place.  People loved seeing you freaks on the news acting like a bunch of heroes-"

Before Wallcroft could continue, probably ranting about celebrity endorsements from the "Svilzerian freaks" or something like that, Zephyrus slammed his fist on the desk hard enough to cause a small crack.

That did a great job of getting his attention.  "What did you call us, may I ask?" the robot commented, his voice turning hostile.  It had been ages since his design had caused him any trouble, and now all those times his design and powers pushed people away came flowing back into his memory.  The mention of rigging the competition also stung quite a bit.  Zephyrus took a lot of pride in his cooking, as silly as it was for a robot to cook, and the two statements combined just set him off.

Wallcroft opened his mouth to speak, but by then Zephyrus had already risen.  He lifted the man by his collar and hurled him right into the wall, causing some cracks to form from sheer force of impact.  "Consider this my resignation notice.  So sorry," he dryly hissed as he turned to walk away.

"Grrg . . . you've made a powerful enemy, bot," Wallcroft spat.  "Why the hell can't you pull that shit off when we're airing, anyway?"

Not even looking back, Zephyrus responded "I only hurt monsters.  Now get out of my sight."  The man shouted in protest, threatening to call in killbots, the mob, or even the Killbot Mob, but Zephyrus merely flipped him off and continued to walk away.

~~~~

When everything you know is wrong, do you desperately cling to it anyway?

Zephyrus quickly pushed these thoughts out of his head as cheap neon lighting alerted him to the presence of his destination.  He was lost and confused in this new reality, and he needed some semblance of stability.  He wrote and called his friends quite often, even if he hadn't had many chances to actually visit, but that wasn't enough.  He needed something else . . . he needed something to do . . .

He needed a bar.  And the Ned Killey Alehouse was just the place.

The robot flung the doors open, the bar filled with stereotypical tough guys of various shapes and sizes.  It was a far less colorful ensemble than the King of Beasts, that was for sure.  The robot had to admit, this place was boring.  The lighting was tacky, everybody was depressingly normal, and whenever a fight broke out it made him just wish Jumpropeman would warp in to show these losers how a real Fite is run.  But it gave him something to do that vaguely sparked feelings of better times, so it was better than nothing.

Today, however, things seemed different.  The grainy, faded-color television was displaying an ad for the local Fite Club.  He remembered Amanda writing about going there on the Neuronet, Sintendo's new pride and joy, and he had even popped in once or twice to watch her fight.  But she wasn't being discussed today.  Instead word around the NKA was all about this unstoppable guy named Ali.  Some kind of minotaur who has never been beaten, huh?  These tough guys seemed to uphold him as a god.

Little did they know, all gods fall eventually.

The robot let out a spin of his fan, some dust puffing out as he approximated the sound of clearing his throat.  "Jones could take him," he declared, the other bargoers turning toward him.  He never interacted with them much, and they never interacted with him.  But they did not look pleased.

"What did you say?" the biggest and toughest of them asked.  He turned on his barstool to look at Zephyrus, and even sitting down he was tall enough to see eye-to-eye with the robot.  "Jones?  You think SHE'S a real fighter?  She's just some celebrity whoring herself out for the damn media.  Its all a publicity stunt, bot.  Name one reason why she could take Ali."

The robot merely looked at the would-be tough guy, and if he could smirk he would.  "She's got more balls than you do."

The man deathglared Zephyrus, shades still firmly on as he rose to his full height.  He must have been a giant or something, because he was almost the size of Erebus.  "Wanna say that to my face, bot?" the man asked, focusing his gaze down on the robot.  The bar had gone deathly silent, and it seemed everyone was watching the two.

Unlike his adversary, who seemed to boil with rage, Zephyrus was almost disturbingly calm and cool as he gave his response.  "I'm sorry, should I repeat what I said slower so you can understand? Or maybe I can translate into ignoramus for you?"  Something inside him told him this was a bad idea.  Picking fights really wasn't his usual idea of a good time.  But he had recently been told by his own boss that his job was just a farce, him jumping around the monkey cage for entertainment.  He was furious, and when one is furious they don't usually think straight.

The bar seemed quiet before, but now it was dead silent.  Hushed whispers were exchanged as the man stared Zephyrus down, removing his night sunglasses to get a better look at the bot.  One of his eyes was bulging and of a different color from the other, looking like a cheap back alley transplant.  Whispers were heard among the crowd: "He just called out Freak-Eye!" "Well, scrap pile walking right there." "Shouldn't take too long for Freak-Eye to junk this bitch."

Zephyrus looked at Freak-Eye, the mountain of a man quivering with rage.  There was no movement for what felt like hours, just machine and man staring each other down with pure hatred.  "Go ahead," Zephyrus dared.  "Make my day."

That was all the signalling Freak-Eye needed.  Roaring like a proud animal he charged Zephyrus, lifting a barstool and smashing it right over the bot's head.  His strength was immense, and soon Zephyrus was floored in a single hit.  The other bargoers cheered and hollered with appreciation, but as Freak-Eye turned to walk away he heard a voice.

"Okay, my turn."

Before Freak-Eye knew what was happening, Zephyrus had risen to his feet and charged the man.  Freak-Eye wheeled around and drew back a fist to knock the robot out, but when he got charging he moved like a bullet train.  A single punch to the gut, enhanced by robotic servos and metallic hardness, was all that it took to knock the wind out of Freak-Eye.  He fell, face turning blue, as Zephyrus turned to walk away.

"Forget this place," he grumbled, walking off despite threats and shouts.  He was not in a good mood today, and this was the final straw.  "I'm out of here."

~~~~

When everything you know is wrong, how long does it take to move on?

As the robot stomped away from the Ned Killey Alehouse he heard the sounds of raindrops falling on the pavement.  "Perfect," he muttered to himself, his already-bad mood further spurred on by this rainstorm.  "Just freaking perfect."  He quickly dashed into an alleyway, hoping the overhangs of buildings would keep him sheltered from the rain on his way home.  As he began to walk, though, he noticed something shiny on the ground.

Zephyrus investigated, discovering this object to be a mirror.  It was quite long and had a few cracks in it, but it was still perfectly usable.  The robot looked at himself in this cracked, near-broken mirror, unable to hide a wistful sigh.

The cracks distorted the image a bit, but Zephyrus' visage was plain to see.  His armor appeared to be bulkier, new layers of armor hastily scrapped on in a self-made job with parts from the junkyard.  It was very much a patched-up job, and many cracks or uneven patches could be seen as the results of the occasional would-be mugger or street brawl.  His claw hand seemed to grow longer and sharper, which combined with small spikes hastily added to his knees and elbows made him look pointier overall.  It was easy to tell that Zephyrus had been having a rough time.

He briefly searched through his memory banks and projected an image of himself, or at least what used to be himself, onto the mirror.  The contrast was subtle in most ways: the occasional uneven patch or added bulk here or there.  The old Zephyrus looked more rounded and slender, almost "child safe" in a way.  But the biggest way the two differed was in their expression, one of weariness on Zephyrus and one of innocence on his old portrait.

The modern Zephyrus glared with almost anger at his old, innocent self.  Why the hell didn't he ever realize when he was being taken advantage of?  Why did he just keep enduring, never speaking up when he needed help?  Why did he refuse to even comprehend the possibility of bad things going on?

Why was he happy, and why is he finding it so much harder now?

Zephyrus' musings were interrupted by the sound of a familiar ringing, one that he hadn't heard since December.  For a brief second he was filled with happiness, before his happiness slowly turned into an explosion of other emotions.  Slowly, he drew the Sifter from his storage and looked it over.

He had barely used the technological wonder in months, and whenever he did it was just a futile attempt to try and contact a friend who had apparently forgotten him.  No matter what, though, it always ended with him receiving a busy signal.  In January he didn't mind this.  Obviously his dear friend had something more important on her plate, and would surely get back to him in a few days!  In February he started to grow a little suspicious, but he continued to hope that his friend would see it in her heart to just respond.  By March, however, he was getting fed up.  How does one who can jump through time and space not even take the time to visit the friend who had repeatedly put himself in harm's way just to protect her?

Sine X. Cosine was calling.  And Zephyrus was not sure if he would answer.

Thoughts raced through his head as he tried to figure out what was going on and what he would do.  He had barely known companionship besides his own brothers until he met Sine and the rest of the bargoers.  She always seemed to be there for him, helping him with his problems and generally making him feel accepted.  She was his best friend, and now she was gone without a trace.

What did Sine think of this?

Sometimes Zephyrus went to others for help, often by writing to avoid startling them with the changes to his appearance.  Celestia seemed understanding and worried, as she always was.  Jonesy had a strange mixture of trying to comfort him and asserting an "I told you so" position about Sine's intentions.  And Antoinette . . . the way she reacted was almost frightening.  Seeing such a kindly person pushed to rage by abandonment issues that made Zephyrus' own anger pale in comparison was never enjoyable.

Did Sine even know?

Even then, Zephyrus faced the biggest conflict in himself.  One part of him was completely done with Sine.  The special part of his heart that she had was ripped out and replaced only with fire.  He had seen many types of relationships in his time away from the bar: romantic, familial, just plain platonic.  The way Sine acted, though, often fell into another category: abusive.  Even this call could just be her making Zephyrus do some errand for her.  Did she even see him as anything but an errand boy?

Another part of him, a more innocent and hopeful part, told him to keep waiting.  Sine always came through for him, why wouldn't she come through now?  Obviously she had finally gotten one of his missed Sifter calls and was remembering the bargoers.  Everything would be back to normal!  This side of Zephyrus held the strongest sway at first, but as time went on it started to run out of ammo.  Now it was just a voice in the back of Zephyrus' head, constantly pleading with him to not lose hope.

Did Sine even care?

Zephyrus was at a crossroads, though, and knew he had to make a decision soon.  But one x-factor started to tip the edge of his decision-making process.  Sine attracted trouble, and right now he was in the kind of mood where punching some trouble right in the face might do him some good.  Slowly, he answered the Sifter.

"Sine? Is that you?"

The Grand Opening of the Writing Nook

I felt like redesigning, touching up, and in the end rebooting my blog once I saw how many other people were getting their blogs touched up with writings for this year's RP.  So without further ado I present to you all the Writing Nook, where I hope to present various writings and ideas I've had over the course of the past year.

This will just be a short little intro so I can say I have an intropost.  Now, let the writings begin!