A Chance Meeting

Five quickly put his hand over Zero's mouth.

"Shhhh! You can't just go saying that out loud!" He said in a loud hushed voice.

Zero blinked a few times as he was taken by surprise. Five removed his hand from Zero's mouth, "Yes, I really can."

Zero looked around to make sure they were far away enough before continuing their conversation.

"How? Does everyone else know too?" Zero asked quietly.

"No, as far as I know it's just me. Maybe One too. He seems to know everything anyways."

"Okayyy, but HOW do you know?"

Five smirked and held up a single finger. A tiny spark shot off the tip of it like a party trick. "That's how."

"Don't think I won't hit you."

"Okay okay, no need to get hostile on me Z. Alright so it's like this - not too long after I joined up with Midnight Squad, I accidentally overloaded the tracker while practicing my ability. I didn't even know I did it honestly 'till Sgt. Sadiki jumped down my throat weeks later asking what I did. So, they had to put in a brand new one. And it's righttttttt here." He said as he reached around and pointed towards the square of his back.

Zero was beside himself. This changes everything…he thought. Without the tracker, I could leave during the day for brief moments without fear of them knowing where I went! This will work!

"Though I'm not sure if it's in the same spot for everyone. It can be pretty deep in there too, y'know?" Five said, as if he knew Zero was feeling too hopeful.

"What? You've never checked??"

"Are you kidding me? I can imagine that conversation. 'Hey Three, let me feel around you for your tracker..'. No thanks, I've seen the old Zero decked enough to know where the line in the sand is drawn." Five replied.

"Sigh…I guess that makes sense." Well, back to square one then, Zero thought.

"But the trackers are made of metal after all. I could totally find it." Five said with a grin.

"Seriously? Can you find mine?"

"Sure." Five motioned for Zero to turn around. Zero did so and Five began rubbing his hand over Zero's back.

Zero could feel little prickles across his back as Five ran a low voltage of electricity through his hand into him. Five was fishing for the tracer - once his electricity came in contact with it he would feel it.

"Hmmm." Five muttered as he continued to run up his back and then down.

"Ouch!" Zero yelped as he pulled away. He suddenly felt a sharp pain radiating in his back.

"And there it is! The metal is conductive so that was what you just felt. It's under your right shoulder blade."

Zero tried to rub the sore spot, but it was hard to reach.

"Anyways, let's go finish with the clean up. I wanna jump on the console before Four hogs it AGAIN." Five said as he began to walk back towards the others.

Zero held up his hand to stop him. "Wait, Five."

Five turned around. "Yea?"

He hesitated with his next words. He knew how weird of a request it would be, but there was no one else that could do it and he needed this done if he had any hope of reaching his goals. "Can you…remove the tracker?"

There was a brief moment of silence following Zero's words. Five raised his eyebrow in scrutiny and Zero began to wonder if he just made a huge mistake.

"...why do you want it removed exactly? We could both get in big time trouble for doing that." Five asked of him.

Should I tell him the truth? Zero thought to himself. Five is the closest thing to a friend I have, but…can I trust him? What happens if I tell him and he tries to go and tell Sgt. Sadiki? Or One? Would I have it in me…to stop him?

"Because I feel bad that we let Leo escape. I wanna be able to go search on my own too, but I know Sadiki would never let me." Zero decided it was best to lie.

Five seemed surprised which meant he bought the lie. "Are you crazy man?! That guy took on both One AND Two and managed to come out on top. Going after a guy like that solo is suicide."

"I don't plan on fighting him, I just want to know where he's hiding out. With my speed and ability I can cover way more ground by myself and get back fast enough before he decides to change hideouts." Zero even surprised himself that he was able to seamlessly throw this story together. "I promise I won't rat you out if Sadiki finds out. I'll say he threw me into a power line or something, I don't know."

Five stood and pondered Zero's words for a moment. He looked at Zero and then sighed.

"Fineee. But listen - if you find him, you better come get us FIRST. I owe that guy some payback."

It worked, Zero thought. It actually worked.

Zero had to contain his excitement so as to not seem a little too over zealous about it. "Thanks, Five. That means a lot."

"Of course. What are friends for, right?"

Zero nodded a bit nervously. Somehow those words hurt more than make him feel better about the situation.

"Sooo, how do we do this?" Zero asked.

"Well, if I try to pull it out of you it'll cause quite a bit of damage to you. Not to mention hurt like absolute hell. So instead - I'll leave the tracker in but just short circuit it. Which will also probably hurt pretty bad."

"It's okay, just do what you have to."

***********

**Capital City**

It was early afternoon and the streets of Capital City was as busy as ever. It was prime time for people heading to lunch or heading back to whatever job they do.

While everyone went about their day to day, Zero stood atop one of the taller buildings looking down at them. Five had been successful in deactivating the tracker and was spot on about the pain level. He could still feel the pain in his back as well as the muscle spasms that followed from the electric shock.

He didn't have on his special outfit since he didn't want to attract attention to himself. He instead wore a light jacket and a pair of pants that he 'borrowed' from one of the stores using Chronos Trigger. Which worked out due to the wind that day. Wearing his military outfit would allow people to make connections as to where he was from, which would be a terrible turn of events.

Zero watched as people walked to and fro and began to think about something that has been plaguing his mind recently: What now?

I had clear targets before, he thought. But now I don't know where to go from here. Since I don't live in the city I don't know about all the injustices that happen everyday so I don't know who to even go after. If I start randomly going after people then I really will be just like them…

That's when he noticed a small flier floating above the ground in the wind below. Zero would've paid no mind to it, except there were 2 more like it also being kicked around the street by the wind.

"What's the deal with all the trash?" He asked himself.

He used Chronos Trigger to quickly go back down the fire escape and get back to street level. He wasn't wearing his hybrid badge, so no one questioned as he walked out onto the street and picked up one of the pieces of paper.

"Important changes effective immediately…" Zero read out loud as he scanned the flier.

The more of the text he read the more his face began to warp in shock and despair.

"It can't be…did I cause this?!" He exclaimed.

"Huh? No, didn't you hear about all the murders?"

A man walking by that overheard him had stopped to give him a questionable look.

"The murders?...Yes, yes I've heard about them." Zero said not to give himself away. He didn't see an armband on the man.

"Thank goodness they're finally doing something about it, am I right?" He scoffed and then continued on his way.

This is not what I wanted! Zero thought loudly to himself. Things are just going to be even worse…because of me.

"Who the hell keeps throwing all this shit on the sidewalk?!" Someone yelled out.

Zero looked and saw that there were quite a few of the fliers floating about on the sidewalks. He looked around the crowd and saw another flier floating out of a nearby alleyway near a restaurant.

"What is going on here.." He said as he decided to investigate further.

Zero slipped through the crowd and found his way to the alley as a flier flew right in his face. "Ugh!"

"Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry!" A female voice called out. Zero removed the flier from his face and saw a young woman currently trying to stuff an entire stack of fliers into a small trash can. They were barely fitting around what was already in there, so bit by bit they were flying out during her attempts.

"O-oh, it's okay." Zero said, taking in the woman's appearance. She had two brown, messy, space buns that sat on top of her head. She also had on an interesting pair of glasses with heart shaped frames as well as dangling crescent moon earrings. She wore a blue jean jacket, a pink graphic tee, and capris.

Something about her made Zero's mind drift a bit.

She looked to Zero and then back to what she was in the middle of doing. "Yeah, I know, I look like a crazy person doing this right now haha."

"What are you doing exactly?" Zero asked while he approached her.

"Well….I'm trying to throw out some trash. Trash that doesn't belong out there for all to see."

Is she talking about the fliers? Zero thought. "Why do you say that?"

She stopped trying to shove the rest of the fliers in and put them in a pile next to the trash can. "I know I'm in the minority here, but I just feel like this recent move by the President and his administration is downright terrible. I get that there were people who lost their lives, but is anyone even sure that a hybrid did it?? Like that's just profiling at its worst! And the stereotypes they're profiling off of are just asinine anyways! And now they're plastering these all over the city and only making relations with everyone WORSE." She suddenly stopped and put her hands over her mouth.

"I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to word vomit there - I tend to rattle on when it comes to this. Please, feel free to just ignore me. Everyone else does."

Zero was stunned. He looked at her arms and didn't see an armband on her.

She was a full fledged human. A human that sympathized with hybrids. He didn't know such a person could even exist in this city.

"Ummm. Are you okay?" She asked with a hint of concern.

Zero snapped to, not realizing he had been staring. "Oh, oh! Yes, I'm sorry. And no - I actually agree with you. I just never thought…I would find someone else here that thought that way too."

She smiled, "Really?? You are literally the first person to not call me a traitor or try to spit at me. You'd be surprised how cruel some of these people really are on the inside." Her smile faded a bit as she finished her sentence.

Zero knew all too well what she was feeling. He's seen first hand the cruel methods of mankind.

"Um, so what's your name?" He finally asked.

She seemed to light back up at him asking.

"I'm Heather."