And so it begins. Not sure where I'm gonna go with this, or even if I'm gonna continue. Every chapter'll be a surprise! Yay! Enjoy yourselves.

Oh, and I don't own MMX. I own Geoffrey, Lana, Argo, Philip, the weird guy, and Danielle tho.

---

Breep! Breep!

Alia's hand descended to her bedside table like a tidal wave, striking the snooze button on her alarm with unerring accuracy.

"Mph, five more minutes you fascist machine... wait, today's Saturday..."

Breep! Breep!

This time her hand fell on the headset sitting beside her clock. She grumbled as she dragged it over to her and put it against her face.

"Figures. I always take the weekend off and it never fails someone absolutely HAS to talk to me at the bloody crack o' noon there must be some kind of universal law that I'm not allowed to sleep in hello what is it?"

"Miss Alia?"

"Give me a good reason for this intrusion or your very life is forfeit."

"Ma'am! There's an emergency! Commander Zero's looking for Commander X! But he's not in his quarters and he's not answering his pager! You always seem to be able to find him so we assumed..."

"Right right, I'll take care of it. Go back to work, peon."

"Yes ma'am!"

Alia sighed and plunked the headset back down on her table. Then she rolled over and prodded X in the nose. "Hey, sleepyhead, time to get up."

X grumbled. "Alia, if you want seconds, you can bloody well wait until I'm rested. I may be a reploid but even we can't go more than ten or eleven times a night..."

"Actually it's not me this time. Zero wants some too."

"...oh holy hell why don't you just gouge out my eyes?"

She gave him a shove and he rolled out of bed, landing in a heap on the floor amid the various articles of clothing that had been scattered there earlier. There was a moment of silence.

"Hey, I've been paged."

"Yeah. Apparently there's an emergency or something. Why don't you go take care of that?"

"And what will you be doing in the meantime?"

"Why, lying here unclad, awaiting hot sexings upon your eventual return."

"Actually, if I recall, you're wearing my boxers."

"Hmm, so I am."

"Can I have those back?"

"You'll wear my thong and like it, mister."

-

Zero was gnawing on his ponytail as he sat waiting in the command room. And I'm not talking figuratively. He literally had a fairly large chunk of his ponytail in his mouth and was chewing on it. It was quite a sight to behold.

"You know, if you don't stop that it's gonna get all crinkled and wet and icky, and then what will the Mavericks think? That you didn't care enough about them to get your hair all nice before you came to kill them?"

The second-in-command of Zero's Shinobi unit, a reploid woman in blue-trimmed snow-gray armor named Lana, was leaning on a control console as she watched her commander eat his hair. Lana took fastidious care of her own flowing white locks, so she couldn't understand how Zero got away with abusing his the way he did and still come out looking like he'd just finished washing, conditioning, and carefully blow-drying it. Zero was enormously fond of pointing this out to her on a regular basis.

He spat the lock of hair out and placed another plait in its place, grunting noncommittally as he continued to chew. Lana sighed and threw up her hands in a gesture of surrender. Then the door whisked open and in walked the love child of Shakespeare and Carrot Top.

Geoffrey didn't look like most Maverick Hunters on the base. In fact, he went out of his way to avoid it. Wearing only the bare minimum of unpainted gray armor on his arms, boots, and chest, he otherwise maintained a carefully slipshod look of half-fastened black trousers, a baggy shirt that may have once been white, and a ratty old dark brown trenchcoat with an upturned collar and garish gold trimmings. He could not be prevailed upon to wear a helmet, insisting on letting his spiky short sandy blonde hair be free to "breathe."

And then, of course, there was his particular flair for the dramatic.

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! Here today you stand in the presence of greatness! Not myself of course, but another comes after me, one whose boots I am not worthy to cleanse of the Maverick blood that clings to them! Bow before him! Give him honor and praise, for he has saved your sorry asses from the forces of darkness more times than I can count! Because I cannot count very high at all! Give it up! For I present to you, the ONE, the ONLY, MEGA MAAAAAAN X! Ow!"

X smacked him in the back of the head as he passed. Behind him, Argo, another member of the 17th unit, gave the loud reploid another whack for good measure. Geoffrey ducked the second blow and smacked Argo on the ass. The larger reploid grunted in surprise and started chasing Geoffrey around the room. X watched them for a second, shook his head, and walked over to Zero.

"You've been looking for me?"

Zero spat out his hair. "For TWENTY FREAKING MINUTES. Twenty minutes X. If this was an emergency then we could have all kissed our asses goodbye, because YOU had to have your precious beauty sleep. Not that you don't need it, but damn man! Priorities!"

X nodded, raised a finger, opened his mouth to speak, stopped, considered, and then turned pointedly to Lana. "What the hell is he blathering about?"

Lana held up a plastic bag, in which was contained a Post-It note. "This was found this morning on a jungle gym in the park a few blocks down. A seven year-old girl named Danielle is missing and her friends say the last time they saw her she was going over to give a homeless guy her sandwich."

"Oh isn't that just frickin' adorable. I fail to see why this came to us instead of the police except what the poo do we have here...?"

The Post-It note had been scribbled on with what appeared to be red crayon. It was hard to make out the exact wording of the message with all the extraneous marks, but it seemed to boil down to "Hey! Maverick Hunters! You want this girl back? The dog knows all! THE DOG! Follow the dog!"

"...did the homeless guy have a dog?"

"Yeah, a little rat terrier, but we haven't been able to find it. We think we know why, though, look on the back."

X turned the note in a bag over. Written neatly on the back of the note was "Oh, and be sure you tell X and Zero to come, 'cause I'm such a HUGE fan. Ta!"

"This is messed up," said X.

"Tell me about it!" said Zero, leaping to his feet. "We have to get to the bottom of this X!"

"You DO realize this is a glaringly obvious trap, right?"

"Of course! I'm so excited I can hardly contain myself!"

"...riiiight... so we should probably have some backup on this. You're bringing Lana, I take it?"

Lana took the double-ended lance from her back and whirled it in the air, light sparkling off the razor-sharp silver blades. "Sho 'nuff."

"Alrighty then. Argo! Stop chasing Geoffrey, you're temporarily in command of the 17th unit until I get back."

Argo and Geoffrey skidded to a halt, the former with a delighted look on his face, the latter looking somewhat outraged. "Whaaaat!? You're putting HIM in command? What about me? I have seniority!"

"You're also deranged. You're coming with me so I can keep an eye on you."

Geoffrey sighed. "Right, right, tally-ho then. When are we leaving?"

"Now. Let's go."

"Woohoo!"

"Stop hugging me Zero!"

-

A quick search of the playground revealed no sign of any dogs or dangerous homeless people. Zero voted for firing their arm cannons in the air and declaring martial law, but then they got some coffee into him and he mellowed out. They were currently wandering around, hoping something would happen. Lana noticed X leaning against the wall next to a dark alley and walked over, curious.

"X? Why are you just sitting there?"

"Shh, listen."

"Listen to what?"

"Is it safe?"

"Buh?"

"You heard him," said X. "He wants to know if it's safe."

"Is it safe?"

"Uh... yes?"

"It rubs the lotion in its... in its... skidmark? No, that's not right. Damnit, I don't have the ram capacity for this. Screw it."

A little terrier dog trotted out of the alley and looked up at a visually disturbed Lana. It winked, then turned to X.

"Yo, so the boss says to give you a message. Uh... assuming you ARE MegaMan X?"

"Why yes. Yes I am."

"Right. I'm supposed to say initiate self-destruct sequence- oh FU-!"

Poom!

The dog exploded with a flash of light and a burst of fur and multicolored confetti. X and Lana traded horrified looks before a charred piece of notebook paper landed on X's head. He took it off and read it, eyes widening somewhat in surprise.

Zero and Geoffrey ran over. "Bloody hell!" said Geoffrey, "what did you do to that poor dog? He just up and all a'sploded he did!"

"He was delivering a message," said X, handing him the paper. "Here, set your teleporter for these coordinates. We're going in."

"Woohoo!"

This time X hammered Zero in the side of the head before he got a chance.

-

Four teleportation beams touched down, one red, one blue, one white, and one sort of dirty flesh-colored. The results were Zero, X, Lana, and Geoffrey. A fifth beam, a blue so light that it looked white, touched X and left him wearing the gleaming white fourth armor that he had acquired a few months ago during the Repliforce uprising. Properly teleported and armored, the four hunters took stock of their situation.

They were in the middle of a fairly large room, apparently a storehouse of some sort. The only illumination was beams of light that fell through the gaps in boarded up windows. Everything was covered in dust and the only visible exit was a door that had fallen half off of its hinges. It was run-down, musty, and vaguely creepy.

"GPS scanning... we're in the warehouse for the old Toyota factory in sector three," Lana said, holding the auditory receptor on the side of her helmet.

"The one that exploded during the Doppler War?" asked Zero.

"Yeah. As I recall, you had something to do with that, didn't you commander X?"

X didn't seem to hear her. Instead he ran across the room towards the door and kicked it the rest of the way open, revealing a dark hallway beyond.

"Come on!"

The others looked at each other, shrugged, and followed. As they ran, Lana drew her lance, and Geoffrey pulled out a large, cross-hilted beam saber. Zero just cracked his knuckles. X transformed his right arm into cannon mode. It only took them a few seconds to see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel and picked up the pace. Despite being the slowest of the four on foot X was there first, slamming his fist into the door and knocking it aside as he burst into the room.

It was much smaller, about the size of an office, light streaming in from the remains of a skylight in the ceiling. Most of the room was still cloaked in shadow, but the hunters could still make out the large figure, totally obscured by a ratty brown blanket, sitting in a chair at the far side of it. X and Zero raised their arm cannons.

"Where's Danielle?" asked X.

"And who are you?" added Zero.

The voice was scratchy and faded, like an old record. "I am the terror that flaps in the night..."

There was a telltale whine of X's arm cannon charging for a shot.

"Stop with the stupid theatrics and tell us, you're helpless against all four of us."

"Hehehehe... I beg to differ... Danielle here, is helpless..."

The blanket was thrown back to reveal the girl sitting in her captor's lap, bound in a length of rusty chain and gagged with a strip torn from the bottom of her skirt. Her eyes were wide and frightened, red-rimmed from crying. X swore under his breath and lowered his cannon, Zero doing the same a bit less quietly.

"Now, I'm going to talk to you. I am not making idle chatter. I am outlining for you exactly what the next few minutes are going to be. You, X and Zero, are going to stay where you are. Your little playmates are going to take a few steps forward and notice the large hole in the floor."

Lana and Geoffrey did, and they indeed noticed the large, four-sided shaft in the floor.

"Now, catch."

Danielle let out a muffled shriek as she was tossed forward into the abyss. All four Maverick Hunters surged forward, but Lana yelled, "I've got her! X, Zero, kick his ass!" She leapt into the hole, followed shortly by Geoffrey. X and Zero needed no second telling, leaping over the shaft and reaching the cloaked figure in a split second, grabbing the blanket and tearing it aside to reveal-

A barely functioning drone with lolling head and one arm. The optic lights blinked rapidly as it spoke.

"Look out behind you..."

They whirled. The ceiling was blasted apart, sending burning shrapnel in all directions. Both Maverick hunters leapt upwards, clearing the ceiling and landing on the roof of the building on either side of what was now a fairly large hole. Standing before them was a huge battle mech, a variant of the now defunct "Kangaroo" line with a set of four spinning blades one ach arm instead of hands, but this particular version boasted onyx black armor with gold trim, and a number of ominous looking boxes and panels on the arms, shoulders, and chest.

Oh, and Vile was piloting it.

The Maverick had changed significantly since his last appearance, returning to his old purple color scheme but now sporting bright blue and white highlights similar to his last armor style. The cannon on his right shoulder was larger and more threatening than ever, and the missile-firing pack on his left had increased significantly in size since his last form as well. All in all, it was a pretty intimidating package.

"Vile!?" X was incredulous, "What the hell are you doing here!? I blew you up! Again!"

"These things are for me to know and you to agonize over for many lonely nights, comforted only by your right hand," Vile replied. The blades on his mech's left arm spread open, revealing a recessed energy cannon that fired a thin red beam of light. X leapt over the beam easily enough, but the series of massive explosions that followed it sent him sprawling. Then Zero came rocketing at his mech from the right, beam saber out and whirling in a complicated series of maneuvers as the red reploid approached.

Vile simply pressed a button and the shoulders on his mech opened to reveal a set of force field generators, which hummed to life, forming a spherical energy shield around himself. Zero was going too fast to stop and slammed into the shield with a grunt and a crackle of energy before flying off in the opposite direction.

"Hee hee hee! This is the end, boy and girl! And yes I'm talking to you Zero, ya frickin' hippie. I'm riding the Strong Bad, most powerful anti-personnel mech ever devised! I'm going to stomp on your heads and-!"

"NOVA STRIKE!"

X hit the shield with a blast of light like a sun being born. There was a sharp crackle and a small explosion, and then he slammed into the Strong Bad's side. Unfortunately, he didn't have any juice left by that point and couldn't really do anything but fly when Vile whacked him aside, but the damage was done. The energy generating spheres in the Strong Bad's shoulders were shattered and broken, belching smoke.

"Okay, that just totally ruins my gloating, you inconsiderate asshole. Eat high-yield explosive ordinance."

The aforementioned boxes on the Strong Bad's forearms and shoulders opened up to reveal several banks of heat-seeking missiles, which fired with a blast of smoke and streaked through the sky towards a still disoriented X. Zero raced across the roof and tackled him to the side, barely avoiding the missiles that stitched a line of craters in the roof as they passed. Finally they rolled to a halt, mere feet away from the last smoking hole.

"Hah!" crowed Zero, "you missed!"

Strong Bad's chest panels opened, revealing more, larger banks packed tightly with bigger missiles.

"Aaaaawwww fugnuckers."

"I am vary L33t!"

Fwoom!

-

Danielle was not what you could call an easily frightened young lady. In fact, very little could be said to frighten her. Her friends had all told her to stay away from the scary homeless man, but she'd be darned if she was gonna let that poor fellow starve when she had a perfectly good sandwich. It was an act of mercy.

Of course, then she'd been kidnapped and used as bait by a homicidal Maverick reploid. We can all see the lesson here can't we children?

Anyhow, Danielle was not prone to being freaked out, but being tossed headfirst down a bottomless chasm can bring even a strong man to peeing his pants. So we'll kindly gloss over the fact that the poor girl needs a change of undies and move on to the part where Lana snatched her out of mid-air and hit the wall of the shaft with numbing force, screeching to a halt amid explosions of dust.

"It's okay, I've got you, its all gonna be okay, I'm just gonna climb back up now..."

"Go down go down go down GO DOWN-" Geoffrey shot past them, skidding down the wall on his heels. Lana spared a glance upwards, saw the incoming shower of flaming shrapnel that the roof's exploding had generated, and decided discretion was the better part of valor.

Luckily Danielle's bladder was empty now.

The two reploids hit the floor of the shaft with twin explosions of dust before leaping aside into the room that the shaft opened up into, escaping the ball of fire and metal and wood fragments that hit immediately after they did. Everything was quiet for a moment as they lay there, panting.

"Well!" said Lana as she sat up and began untying and comforting a hysterical little girl. "That could have gone much worse. You okay Geoffrey?"

"Hark, luv, I do not believe we are entirely alone."

"Oh great, he's British. What the hell is it with British Maverick Hunters?"

Out of the shadows stalked a huge reploid clad in layers of heavy, medieval style armor, deep blue in color and richly trimmed with gold and silver. In his hand he wielded a battle axe that was at least as tall as Geoffrey.

"Hey!" Geoffrey was downright insulted. "What the hell is that supposed to mean, insulting my heritage and then walking up like a great clanking Sir Lancelot, you bloody hypocrite!?"

"I'm French, you son of a hamster."

"Oh, well that just makes EVERYTHING better."

Geoffrey's saber had fallen off of him in the fall and was now lying in the dust at his feet. He calmly kicked it upwards and caught it, igniting the weapon into a four-foot blade of red plasma-y death.

"Ooh, mine's actually made of energy instead of metal, which went out in the sixteenth century. I'm gonna stomp a mudhole in your ass."

The armored Maverick's axe blade split in half, revealing a long crystal in the center, which began glowing, covering the entire axe head in writhing, violent green energy. Geoffrey wilted a little.

"Oh. Well, I suppose that's only fair."

"Indeed."

"I'm Geoffrey, by the way."

"Philip, charmed."

They leapt towards each other, swinging their weapons in great arcs. Beam saber connected with energy-charged axe blade and there was an explosion of sparks. Hey, that rhymes, thought Geoffrey as he flew backwards from the force of the impact and slammed into the far wall.

Lana sat, watching helplessly at the combat unfolding before her. She COULD help, of course, she was higher ranked than Geoffrey and could probably do a better job. Unfortunately, Danielle was clinging to her and sobbing pretty hard, and she didn't dare think what would happen to the girl if she just left her to the further unknown terrors of the room. She'd bet a week's salary Sir Philip d'Maverick wasn't the only surprise waiting for them in there.

Philip followed up his initial assault with a full-out charge. Geoffrey leapt straight up and over, landing behind the larger reploid. Philip skidded to a halt just before hitting the wall and whirled, swinging his axe in a horizontal arc. Geoffrey anticipated the move and leapt over it as well, bringing his saber down in a double-handed strike. Philip raised his gauntlet and caught the furious blade, heaving it back and hurling Geoffrey away. Geoffrey landed on his feet and skidded to a halt, just in time for Philip to come charging at him again, axe aimed at the hunter's neck.

Geoffrey simply raised his saber in front of his eyes, which were abruptly glowing as red as the blade. Philip didn't like that one bit and slid to a stop immediately before a blast of flaming red energy sent him flying.

The hunter was engulfed. Raw fire rose about him, outlining his body in the near darkness, but he was not consumed. The crosshilts on his beam saber lengthened, splitting at the ends to curve upwards and downwards, and the energy blade disappeared like a candle blown out by the wind, revealing a broad blade of gleaming metal.

"I don't give a shit about your light show," Philip growled. "Get him!"

Out of the shadows leapt three mechanical wolves, their gold-trimmed blue armor a reflection of their master's, eyes glowing green as his fearsome axe. With a howl they rushed at Geoffrey, who raised his sword above his head. Fire flashed and shot out from the blade in three streams of pure destruction, striking the wolves. There were three muffled explosions, and they fell to the floor in charred, broken pieces.

Lana and Philip stared, utterly confused. What sorcery was this?

"WYVERN STRIKE!"

The sword struck the ground, and where it touched there sprang up a roiling pillar of flame that coalesced into the image of a great roaring dragon. With a mythic shriek it spread its wings and shot forward, slammed into Philip, and bore him into the far wall with a terrific crash and an explosion of dusty wood and mortar. Seconds later it was all over but the flaming.

Lana and Danielle stared at the wreckage for a long moment, then turned back to Geoffrey, who was calmly slipping his beam saber back into his coat, any sign of its transformation gone. Abruptly, he turned to them with a giddy grin, spreading his arms theatrically.

"Ladies, I present to you, the winner and STILL champion, Geoffrey! No photography please, you'll just get my bad side in this lighting."

"Geoffrey... what... how...?"

"Oh, that? A bit of puffery on my part, I fear. All smoke and mirrors you understand, just to prop up the reputation and perhaps get me a little more action with the ladies, eh? Eh?"

"Buh... buh..."

"I can understand if you're speechless, really, it happens. No need to do anything untoward in front of the youngin', I can wait until we get back..."

"Behind you, you moron!"

Geoffrey whirled just in time to see a much charred and battered Philip rise to his feet with a mighty roar and hurl his battleaxe in Geoffrey's general direction. Before he had a chance to draw his saber Lana had already converted arm to cannon and squeezed off a shot, impacting with the blade and sending it hurtling in the opposite direction. Philip barely had time to say "Aw poop" before his weapon buried itself in his skull and pinned him to the wall.

"...right, well, I've gone and soiled myself proper now. Let's go see how the commanders are doing, shall we?"

"Yes, let's."

-

"Oooh, look at all the FIRE..."

Vile leaned back in the Strong Bad's seat and stretched. Ahh, this was the life. A big, sturdy mech underneath you, your enemies roasting at your feet, the smell of molten metal...

Creeeeaaaak!

"What the hell?"

The Strong Bad was starting to list to the side. Vile leaned over and looked down at the mech's left foot, which was starting to sink into the corrugated metal roof.

"Hm, maybe I shouldn't have fired those missiles quite so indiscriminately..."

Cree-ee-ee-ee-eeEEONK!

"Aaaaiieee!"

KER-SLAM!

A three-storey fall will do wonders where a plasma cannon might have otherwise proven less than effective. The Strong Bad's left leg snapped right in half, and the other one didn't looking much better.

"Damnit, I TOLD him not to use cheap foreign parts. Those Japanese loafing slack-for-nothings wouldn't know high quality titanium if you jammed a burning rod of it up their collective asses!"

"So tell me, exactly who is 'he'?"

"Is he the reason you're back on your feet and making life miserable for us again?"

X and Zero landed on opposite side of the Strong Bad, arm cannons out and charging. Vile swore and hit the controls, rotating the mech's arms around to fire its arm lasers at the hunters. They simply dashed forward to avoid the resulting explosions and sent a pair of plasma bursts into the barrels of the weapons, blowing off both of the mech's arms.

"Oh, fine, be that way."

Vile leapt out of the now useless mech and fired his shoulder-mounted weapons. The ground immediately in front of Zero exploded with the impact of a minimissle, throwing the crimson wonder into a far wall. A stream of crackling blue lightning struck X square in the chest, slamming him into the floor and pinning him there. Vile laughed as he alighted next to the stricken hunter and knelt, aiming his shoulder cannon directly at his face.

"I could just stomp on your neck and snap the power cable to your brain, but I prefer the idea of hitting you with a continuous burst of energy until your entire CNS fries like Old McDonald's crappy ass food..."

"RAIJINGEKI!"

Vile swore as Zero's lightning-charged saber lashed out and struck him hard in the side, hurling him up and away from X. With a roar, X tore his way free of Vile's stun blast and leapt to his feet, teeth gritted and arm cannon charging.

Vaile hauled himself upright and glanced back and forth between the two Maverick Hunters. They were clearly not in good moods.

"Uh, would it help if I said I took care of the kid?"

X and Zero remained largely impassive.

"Aw come on, I even fed her!"

X grimaced. "Oh you sick son of a bitch, she's gonna need therapy for years now..."

"Wha? What are you... oh Jesus Christ that's sick! I gave her a hamburger you bastard!"

Zero brandished his beam saber. "Look, we're busy, so I'll make this quick. Tell us who's been resurrecting known Mavericks, apparently starting with yourself, and maybe it won't hurt so bad."

Vile appeared to consider it. "Hmmm, tough choice. Here, I'll give you a hint. He wears purple."

Zero turned to X. "About how many reploids are registered with purple armor?"

"A few thousand, last I checked."

"I didn't say it was a particularly GOOD hint! Alright alright, here's a good one. He did something else for me besides rebuilding my ass."

X raised an eyebrow. "And that would be?"

"He connected me to the teleporter network, bitches."

He disappeared with a flash of purple light. Zero's jaw went slack with an "N-oungh!" sort of noise. X proceeded to beat himself in the head with his fists.

"Well cripes, you two look like you've had a bad day."

Geoffrey walked in out of a hallway, glancing around at the damage they'd done to the walls and floor in the course of the battle. He whistled as he saw the ruined mech.

"A Strong Bad! Not a bad choice. Pity 'BSU' magazine only gave it a 3.4. Poor structural integrity. Who was piloting it?"

"Vile," supplied Zero. X seemed to be having a rather violent argument with himself.

"Oh dear. That could cause problems. He get away, I take it?"

"Yup. We'll trace his teleporter signal when we get back but there's a billion ways to mask that... where's Lana and the girl?"

"Lana took 'er back to base. She'll be reunited with her folks in less than an hour."

"Ah, that's some good news, then. You ready to go X?"

"AH KEEL HIM DEAD!"

"Probably a good idea to give him a few minutes," said Geoffrey.

"Probably."

-

In the warehouse basement, Vile was taking stock of his inventory.

"Hmmm, I have two mechs left, a year's supply of ammo, an extra suit of armor, that fancy new stuff I got off Ebay, my Boba Fett costume... Hmmm. Damn hunters set my graham crackers on fire, though. What the hell where they doing setting shit on fire down- hello."

He blinked as he observed Philip's massive frame, still pinned to the wall thanks to the blade that had cut his head almost in half. As he watched, the corpse finally dislodged itself and slumped to the ground, a fresh flow of circulatory fluids adding to the already impressive puddle on the ground.

"Odd. I don't remember having one of those."

"Consider it a gift."

Vile whirled, shoulder cannon ready. Standing before him was a tall figure clad in a billowing dull black coat. Despite the looseness of the garment, it was easy to tell that the figure was almost skeletally thin, wearing pale blue armor wrapped in lengths of steel chain. Its face was hidden by its helmet, but the faceplate formed a deep, dark hollow, like a mouth opened in an eternal wail. Its helmet had eye sockets, but no optics could be seen beyond them.

"And just who the in the name of Sigma's bald ass are you?" asked Vile.

"No-one," the figure replied. It turned and walked away, fading into the shadows.

What was interesting was that there was no place for it to go. There wasn't a door or a corridor of any kind there. But it wasn't hiding in the dark; Vile's visor would have continued to detect its presence. It simply ceased to be.

"Wow," he murmured, "that couldn't have been a lead-in to a larger plot twist at ALL."

-

X opened the door to Alia's apartment with a sigh, not even bothering to turn on the light as he slumped in. "Honey, I'm home!"

"Did you save the day?"

"Yes, but the bad man made nasty insinuations about my sex life."

"I suppose we'll just have to prove him wrong then. Guess what I'm wearing."

"My boxers?"

Something made of cloth flew out of the bedroom and hit him in the face.

"Guess again."

"I love this game."