Zero is a unique creation, unlike anything before him. His design is utterly singular, with many inexplicable, seemingly redundant systems that make maintenance a beast. Most of his upkeep is self-containing, fortunately, so he doesn’t need to spend much time with the mechanics. Wily designed him to destroy everything Light ever built or loved, such was the depth of Albert Wily’s madness. In the end, it all collapsed on him, as he activates a premature AI. It runs rampant and Zero kills him and nearly kills Bass. It is, in the end, Bass who is his salvation, awakening Zero from his berserk haze long enough to send him into hiding.
Zero dreams—insofar as he has just about the same recurring nightmare over and over, nearly every cycle. His internal charge is self-sustaining, much like his internal maintenance systems, so he can in fact, sleep like a human, outside a pod, in a bed.
His hair is made of a carbon fiber mesh that is actually connected to the synthetic neurons in his painfully complex CPU. Triggering these neurons can change the color, the texture, and density, to some degree. This explains the slight shift to platinum in his Nightshade form.
In the same way his hair is connected to his neurons, his armor, custom-fit and the only set he has ever worn (out of necessity, since no robo-smith has ever been able to duplicate the alloy or complexity of his armor), is also connected. The Nightshade protocol could be a subroutine, hidden beneath his standard set of scripts and programming. As Zero’s AI evolves (and it really is much more than a simple AI by this point), it seems to be more able and willing to control and utilize this secondary subroutine, which shifts his green eyes to red, golden hair to platinum, and red armor to black. Even his Heat Haze function changes, red to violet. There is less of a personality shift in Nightshade than
Absolute Zero. This form mimics Zero’s predecessor, Bass, save that Zero has no need for a mechaniloid companion to initiate the shift. Even he does not know what triggers the emergence of the ice beast, but it is a vicious, almost mindless killer with frightening, cryogenic attributes. Some of the Maverick Hunter R&D team have theorized it has something to do with the presence of the unstable Force Metal alloys, as the ability first shows itself in Giga City.
The Z-Buster is an early attempt to modify Zero’s design to mimic X’s, the template for all known reploids. If the former Maverick’s design can be altered, then perhaps it can also be reverse engineered, thus introducing another base design into the reploid “gene pool”. Until Axl, there are no prototype reploids, and after the Z-Buster does not pan out properly, no attempt is made until the chameleon unit and, after Lumine, no more attempts are made, period.
Zero is left-handed. He has the capacity to use either or, but favors his left side.
Zero is much taller than X, in or out of armor. This could be because Wily’s goal had been fear and intimidation, but even out of his armor, he’s well past six and a half feet tall.
