2 Die 4 You

for the sake of morale

"Good morning lab rats. Since you all agreed to out the Maverick yesterday, I'm going to give you a little gift. The second floor has been unlocked for your enrichment. Please feel free to explore it."

X moved out of bed despite his mind wishing all of this was a dream. The walk to the cafeteria was surreal. There were two less of them now. It was two less people to expect in the morning. A knot formed in X's stomach as all that remained came back to the cafeteria for breakfast.

"So we gotta new floor to explore," Axl mused as most everyone was near done with eating. "Are we going to explore in groups again, or...?"

"It might be smart." Alia agreed with a nod. "We're not exactly equal in gender anymore, though, but there's still enough to make two groups of six. I can start one group, who'd like to join me?"

"I'll go with you." Layer said.

"Me too!" Cinnamon cheered, happily waving her hand in the air.

Marino gave a snort before saying, "Where that plucky girl goes, I'd like to follow. Count me in as well."

"Anyone else?" Alia offered, looking to the rest.

"I guess we could pony up to protect you girls." Dynamo said, slapping a hand on Spider's back. "Ain't that right, buddy?"

"If this is what I have to do to uphold our contract, then I guess I must." Spider mused with a playful shrug.

"Then that settles it." Alia nodded. "We'll meet back up here in about, say two hours? Maybe three?"

Everyone gave a nod of agreement. Alia's group moved out first. The remaining six, subconsciously knowing that they didn't quite have a leader yet, didn't go pretty far.

"I don't understand what you're all waiting for." Zero huffed at them. "Let's just get this over with already."

"Aye, aye, captain!" Palette agreed, putting on a serious face for all of a moment before dissolving into a flurry of giggles. Axl joined her, and soon after Iris and Aero did as well. Even X got out a chortle or two. Zero's steely expression, on the other hand, did not change.

With that, the troop was off. Axl and Pallette lead the group the most. Iris and Zero were mostly toward the back of the group. Aero kept in closer time to Axl and Pallette's footsteps, but still lingered close enough that X could have reached out to touch her if he had felt like it. The first room they entered immediately got the approval of Zero.

"This is a rather nice gym." he noted with a nod.

"It's very... clean." X decided, looking around. Each corner of the gym was outfitted with different types of equipment- one corner dedicated to cardio, another to weight lifting, and so on. Each piece looked rather high-end, and also well kept. There wasn't a single speck of dust to be seen.

Axl immediately drifted to the hand weights and tested a few out. Then an idea came to him.

"Hey Breezy, how heavy can you lift?" he loudly teased, a wide grin etched on his face.

At first, his only response was a small shrug as she walked over to him.

"I'm about as scrawny as I look." Aero admitted.

"No way! I can see you getting at least 20 pounds. Maybe even 35."

"Oh, I want to try too!" Palette cheered, running to catch up with Axl and Aero.

"Please don't hurt yourselves..." Iris said to them. Her steps behind were more cautious, as if the training equipment would purposely fall on top of her at any moment.