Sitting on the concrete plains located in the valley of a twisted mountain range sat the fabled Maverick Hunter HQ. The nerve center of all Hunter activity, the large military base was home to nearly one hundred thousand enlisted soldiers. While the entire island was home to several dozen buildings and training facilities, the central plains called "The Throne of Justice" was the nexus of Hunter power.
Dwarfing all other buildings was the glistening administrative building called "the Tower." It levels were constructed to reflect the hierarchal system of the Hunters, from the bottom level legions of soldiers to the higher up elite units. At its 30th floor, the highest ranking Maverick Hunter, Commander-in-Chief Signas, sat atop the global information network. Below him, were the offices of the three elite units, the eastern most office, the workplace of the most famous Maverick Hunter that would ever carry the title.
Maverick Hunter X was a legend in his own time. While he had been responsible for the genesis of his entire race, it played little influence in his everyday life. He, however, was famous for being a top-notch Maverick Hunter. After volunteering to aid the Hunters during the first Maverick uprising, X gained the reputation of being the best Hunter in the world. Followed by 15 years of exemplary service, and a dozen victories over the Maverick Leader Sigma, his name came to symbolize the epitome of being a Hunter. X was personally responsible for retiring half-a-million Mavericks, or so the legend goes. In a cruel twist of fate, the father of all reploids was especially adept at killing them, an irony that was not lost on the famous blue reploid.
The sun began to set into the horizon. As the golden coin slid into the ocean, the heavens were painted with the color of fire until the last gleams of twilight faded away. Then the land was bathed in pale moonlight, transforming the Tower into a dark mirror.
Inside the administrative building, X sat before the wall of monitors which hung behind a heavy metal desk; he sat in their glow watching intently, the room tinted with pale light that did not reach the darkest corners of the office. Rocking from side-to-side on his sturdy metal chair, the famous reploid stared impatiently at the center screen, the flashing message, "Transmitting…" his only solace.
When the transmission finally connected, his friend's familiar face smiled back at X. Broadcasting from a turbulent tent at the mouth of the Eurasia desert, the red reploid, Zero, reported what he hoped would be his last long-distance transmission to his hunter comrade.
X smiled, "Good evening," he greeted, well knowing the desert sunset was still hours away.
"Hey," the red reploid answered, nodding his head only slightly.
The green-eyed commander didn't hesitate to ask, "How are my soldiers?"
"Autonomous as ever." Zero punched in several keys, and then inserted his report for transmission, "The Shinobi's pulling out, so Ash will be the one reporting from now on."
The blue reploid twisted his seat around reaching for the grey slate sitting on his desk, orange letters crawled across the black screen of the slate which was Zero's report. "Excellent."
His red companion averted his eyes for a second, as if a stray thought had crossed his mind. "Hey," he suddenly asked, "what's up? You ready to leave?"
The perceptive maverick hunter was referring to the up-coming Off-Duty weeks in line for X. The two months vacation was required of every hunter, because statistics showed that periods of rest helped reduce soldier malfunctions. The 17th Unit was incredibly self-sufficient, and so for the last eleven months, X had done not much more than evaluate reports by his autonomous soldiers. Yet, even after the events of the Lightning War which made him reenter the organization, he favored to keep away from the battlefields.
For Maverick Hunter X, his contribution to the reploid nation was the destruction of the Alpha Maverick Sigma. Three years since the maverick leader was last seen, the landscape of battle was shifting from strong individuals to massive military might.
X glanced vacantly onto the glowing slate in his hand, and gave an unenthusiastic, "Yep."
"Hang in there, and I'll see ya around when I get back." Zero tried to sound optimistic, an unusual change of roles for them.
The tired reploid stifled a yawn and replied, "I'll keep myself busy."
The red reploid smiled and nodded, "Later."
"Goodnight." X said, and the transmission ended. He shut his eyes for just a moment in the dark room lit only slightly by the glow of a dark screen. After a few seconds, the office lights came on, illuminating the entire room. The sleepy reploid shook off his tired feeling, knowing there was one last thing for him to do.
How he longed to go digging again. Archeology, Anthropology, Paleo-Anthropology, Paleo-Botany, it was all so illuminating. He even missed the dirt between his nails. In two long weeks, X could finally reunite with Dr. Cain and enjoy his favorite hobby.
The blue reploid fell from his dream and back to reality. There was one last objective in his agenda which he had put off all day. The subject was uncomfortable, and he had hoped he'd find the strength to do it during the day, but somehow he could not change the fact of the matter. As he waited for his final appointment to arrive, he instinctively rehearsed in his mind what to say, because it was a matter that required a delicate touch.
The metal door slid open, and a young reploid waltzed in. The red haired reploid lifted his arm and greeted, "Evening, X. What'cha want?"
"Axl, sit down," he started, getting up himself to walk around his polished metal desk.
The red haired reploid fell into his seat, dropped his head back and continued to talk, "I was waiting all day. Wazzup?"
"There's no easy way to say this, Axl, so I'll be blunt. You're being removed from the Seventeenth."
Predictably, the brash young reploid expressed his disdain for the news. "X, what the hell?!" he shouted, jumping from his seat and getting uncomfortably close to his former commanding officer.
X remained collected, inching away from the red-haired soldier, "Some of the others have been talking about you…"
"Which ones?! I'll kick their ass!" Instantaneously, Axl called his twin pistols into his hands, behaving much like X had envisioned.
"They're accusing me" he started, emphasizing his statement to discourage interruptions, "of playing favorites. I can't stand for those types of criticisms."
The young reploid dropped his arms to his side, a signal to X that his anger was subsiding, "This is bullcrap." He muttered.
"Some of my men turned down their own units to serve in the Seventeenth." X added, finishing up his speech.
Axl's weapons vanished into thin air, then with the serious expression that X had come to expect, he asked the inevitable question, "Where am I now?" A strange tinge of lament underlined his inquiry.
The blue reploid produced a large, sealed envelope from the drawers of his desk and handed it to his comrade. "The First."
"You haven't seen the last of me. I'll be back on the Seventeenth in two months." Axl's cockiness shone through his last statement.
"More like five," confirming the last actions on Axl's file, the blue reploid handed the soldier a small slate, "You're off-duty, effective immediately." The red-haired reploid stared at his own file astonished, he would not admit to himself that X's final orders had genuinely caught him off-balance. He staggered back, slightly stupefied, until X's last words jolted him back to reality, "You're dismissed, Axl."
The easternmost armrest of the Throne of Justice was an area sometimes referred to as "the Hive." Not half the size of the Tower, the Hive's central building was a great structure nearly ten stories tall and half a mile wide. Inside were 50,000 cocoon-like recuperation pods, the beds of the soldiers of the Legions: the First, Third, Sixth and Seventh units.
A second building, half the size of the central Hive, was the home to the 20,000 other soldiers in the other 14 other units. A reploid living in the Hive's second building, could have a space to call his, a room with walls, a bed and whatever things he could fit into his room, a welcomed change from the fortress of the Legions, where they had only their pod and a footlocker.
The commander's quarters, located in the shadows of the two other buildings, above a sheer cliff overlooking the expansive ocean was the pinnacle of commodity on the Hunter base. Two rooms for every unit's commander, a large waiting room, an ample bedroom, and a personal shower and dresser, because an officer should never be seen without his armor.
The famous reploid entered his quarters, and veered towards his bedroom. The delicate white curtains fluttered as the wind poured in from an open window where moonlight also penetrated. From the threshold, he spotted the figure of a woman resting in his bed.
She turned and looked at him with her dazzling blue-eyes, still covered by the thin white sheet. "Megaman X, I presume." Her voice was serious, but seductive none the less, and crossed her legs in an inviting sort of manner.
"You'd be right," X admitted, venturing closer to the mysterious woman, preparing to solve his small dilemma. She was the most alluring soldier to ever hide within his quarters, he could confess, but the base had rules about soldier's relations. It was not uncommon, for an illustrious Hunter like himself to have a faction of admirers.
She arose then, slipping out from the covers, standing nearly nude in the moonlight, locking eyes with the green-eyed reploid. The moonlight made her eyes appear like deep pools, deep as the ocean away in the horizon. She stood only in her black, formfitting underwear, which matched her short raven-colored hair, letting the famous X learn the curves of her sexy body.
He stepped closer to her, pushing aside the emotions provoked by her charms. Keeping his eyes locked on to hers, the blue reploid paid no attention to the woman's hands. She raised her arms, taking hold of a black bracelet dangling flimsily from her wrist, squeezing it tight. A tight fitting black armor beamed in around her, ending her private show, and surprising the blue reploid, who usually had to ask his visitors to put their clothes back on.
"You're not a normal soldier, are you?" asked the blue reploid.
The woman stepped towards the open window. With one of her sleek legs already outside, she gave her message to the perplexed reploid, "Tomorrow. The Golden Torch. At twenty-one-hundred. Tell no one." Then, without even a blink, she vanished into nothing, like a fleeting memory.
The year is 21XX, the tides of power are changing, like the ocean in constant ebb and flow. But, in the shadows, there are things that you don't see, entire wars that rage in secret and epic battles of a single bullet. Vendettas that are told in whispers. The world of light tells nothing.