The rain was falling without an end in sight, turning the grasslands into a muddy trough that not even the greasiest of pigs would dare to tread through. The sight of the mud and rain left little impact on a weary robot, whose vision was at present eclipsed by a grotesque, titanic mech.
His vision was crackling with a loud and cumbersome static, and he there was no longer feeling in his arms or legs. He hadn't realized it, but a large chunk of his head was lying on the floor next to him, sinking into the thick, swamp-like ground. Two people were crying out to him in a panic, while a muted bark echoed in from the left.
In this broken down state he couldn't even identify who the voices belonged to anymore. All he knew was that, for some reason, he couldn't fail them. He raised his right hand up, driven almost entirely on bare instinct, and turned it into a small barrel-like cannon. The mech lurched forward, draping an oppressive shadow over the robot.
Then, in a flash of lightning, the mech's true form was revealed. Composed of a mish-mash of broken scrap and loose wires, the mech was a junkyard come to life, and it's presence was akin to a tsunami making it's inevitable advance towards an occupied shoreline.
The robot could shoot at it all he wanted, but it wouldn't be stopped. It crawled forward and pulled it's hefty limb free from the murky mud surrounding it, then used it to wrench the robot off the ground and hoist him high enough to see the back of the mech. Every movement made tore the mech apart, leaving a trail of scrap in it's wake that gave off the appearance of a serpent's tail.
The robot was lowered before the 'head' of the mech, and inside it rode a bald-headed man with grey hair spread out in a shape that one could easily mistake as bat-wings. The person laughed in a quiet, subtly gleeful manner as they crushed the robot between the mech's massive fingers.
"You're so…tiny," Mocking, malicious, it was obvious the man had waited a long time to say this, "How a robot like you ever managed to thwart my plans time and time again I'll never know…"
There was a loud crunch, and the robot's body crumbled apart in the mech's grasp.
"But you'll never…get in my way again." His tone cold even as he overheard the anguished screams of those who cheered this little robot on, the man spread the hand of his mech out and let his shambled remains fall to the wayside. His body skipped along the surface of the mud and landed on it's back, and the grimy glop attached itself to his exposed circuitry to further damage his audio and visual receptors.
The robot twitched and stared up towards the sky, the droplets of rain gathering in his cracked sockets and leaving his vision in an indefinite flux of static. Another person approached and picked his body up, his eyes dampened with tears as he cried out to him. His voice was muffled, but the tone could be made out as one of painful fright. The person opened his mouth, ready to cry out the robot's name…
"WRRRRNN…! WRRRRRNNN…!"
A sharp alarm awoke the Maverick Hunter known as X from a very deep slumber. If he had a heart, the jolt of being awoken like that would have rippled through his entire body. Instead, only his head was affected, inflicted with a throbbing sensation that he could not explain no matter how hard he tried to think on it.
With a tight groan and a creaking rise, X pulled himself out of his capsule and stepped onto the cold metallic floor. The rigid sensation was familiar and welcome in this moment of disarray, allowing X's mental state to anchor itself back into reality. Laying a hand on the side of his head, X looked up and saw that the Maverick Hunter HQ was flooded with a red light.
"X! Zero! Report to the command center immediately!" It was the voice of Alia, X's current mission navigator, who addressed him through the intercom.
Lowering his head and slanting his brows in a manner that looked worried, X murmured to himself, "Me and Zero? Sounds like a large-scale Maverick attack is happening…"
His right fist tightened against his hip and he lingered on the concern of what may be happening before picking up his feet and dashing out of the room. As he made his way through the many winding halls of his base for what was sure to not be the last time, X's thoughts began to wander towards the sights he had seen prior to waking up.
"…That's the fifth time I've had that dream lately. And I still don't understand what it means or why I'm having them." For a moment, X closed his eyes and tried to visualize what he saw, but was only able to draw upon the final moments where the robot was cradled in the arms of a bearded scientist…A scientist he knew for a fact to be Dr. Light.
Between that and managing to scrounge up an article revealing the doctor had committed suicide, X could only hang his head and wonder, "Doctor…What have you been hiding from me?"
Prologue: Doomsday's Reckoning
It has been five months since the resolution to the Repliforce Incident. In the wake of the news that the human government had been killed by their own secret Reploid assassination group known as the 'Shadow Corps', paranoia has been high amongst the populace, none of it at all helped by Repliforce's betrayal.
The world has been trying to recover from everything that has happened, but now more than ever Reploids have been trying to seek independence from their human creators. Unions have formed in their name, rebellions carried out by their will, and thanks to the machinations of Sigma the Maverick Hunters and the remains of Repliforce are stretched thin trying to contain all the chaos that has swarmed the planet.
Sigma himself has not dared to show up during this time, but his presence can still be felt in the virus he's created. Thanks to the Sigma Virus, it has become difficult to discern who is simply carrying out his will, or who are merely rebelling on their own against a corrupt, bigoted system. These are trying times for the Maverick Hunters, especially the likes of X, whose overabundant optimism has come under pressure from the difficulty of discerning friend-or-foe alike.
Humanity is in no better shape. In fact, from their point of view their own planet has been transformed into a living hell. They lie in the middle of a war without end, unable to put their trust even in their own government. Many humans are forced to hide in underground camps, while the others can do nothing but hope that they'll live another day. But no matter how hard they prayed, things were only going to get worse before they got better…
X made his way through the HQ in record time, arriving in the command center right as the sirens began to quiet down. All the navigators were operating without end, their fingers tapping along on their keyboards to the point of wearing them down. After a quick scan of the room X swerved his head to the right and saw his comrade Zero already at Alia's side, his body leaning back against the side of the desk and his arms crossed against his chest.
"Zero…" X murmured his name once and looked him in the eyes. Zero lifted his head and acknowledged his glance with a tinge of relief present on his face. X's expression wasn't the same. He couldn't look at Zero with anything less than concern.
"Hey, something the matter X?" It was only when Zero spoke to him that X stopped staring and shook his head, approaching his friend while giving a response of, "I-It's fine Zero."
Zero raised his left brow for a moment and then pulled his arms apart, murmuring out in a mildly suspecting tone, "Well…alright then."
The two stood behind the chair that their comrade Alia sat in, watching as she typed away at the keyboard faster than the others did, her fingers little more than a blur.
"Alia, what's the situation?" X inquired. Even with all her focus put into work, Alia was able to give a swift response.
"Not good. We've detected a large conglomeration of the Sigma Virus in the center of the city. The readings are higher than anything on record."
Zero slanted his brows into a fervid glare and remarked, "Has Sigma returned again?"
"I don't know. The quantity of the virus we're dealing with is rendering our primary and auxiliary scanners dysfunctional for the time being. I'm trying to bolster their power to try and lock onto the source of the virus, but it's proving tougher than I expected…" Alia was performing routines, subroutines, anything her brilliant mind could perform to get the system operational again, but the screen continued to be obscured by a blanket of static.
"Don't worry, I'll break through in no time!" But she wasn't stopping anytime soon, even as heat began to build in her fingertips. X couldn't help but admire her dedication, but knew that standing around waiting for her to find the answer would do nothing to solve the problem.
"Alia, Zero and I can go in and deal with the source of the virus." X offered, laying a hand on his chest to assert confidence in their capabilities.
"I'm not going to make that call X. You'll have to ask the Commander." Alia replied.
"Given the situation, that would be our best option." A calm but stern voice of reason spoke out from behind the two Hunters, and they turned around to find Signas approaching them from the center of the room. His arms were held at his back, and he stood with a dignified stance a few feet away from the saluting hunters.
"Commander Signas, sir!" X gave his utmost respect, but Signas simply smiled and waved his right hand out beside his hip.
"I told you X, you can still just call me Signas," Once he placed his hand back he got straight to the point and explained to the two, "Now then, I'm ordering you two to investigate the virus outbreak and if possible, destroy it at the source."
"Are we going in alone?" Zero wondered, to which Signas nodded his head, having no need to explain why. With a nod of his head, Zero then looked at X and said, "Lets get moving, X."
"I've got the coordinates already set. Be careful out there you two." Alia stayed professional even as she expressed concern for her comrades' well-being. As the two hunters ran out of the room, she watched them off, her face looking dour for just a moment. The hunters made their way for the teleporter room, entering them one at a time and being carried away in a flash of light to their destination.
They arrived in the center of the city, standing on a highway decorated with a few organic trees, a rarity in this day and age. Before they moved on, a couple beeps entered their ears, signaling that Alia was trying to reach them.
"Oh good, the communications relay is still functional," She breathed an audible sigh of relief and then alerted the two, "Be careful out there. If my coordinates are correct, you're close to an abandoned business district. The buildings around there are unstable and may collapse at any moment."
"We'll be on high alert. Thanks Alia." X remarked, while Zero gave a nod of the head before moving his hand towards his back and detaching his saber handle off it. He then swung it out at his hip and summoned the glowing green blade he'd grown accustomed to wielding.
"Ready whenever you are." He said with a momentary glance over his right shoulder at X. The blue Hunter armed his buster cannon in his right hand and cocked it near his head, giving his friend an even briefer nod of confidence.
"Beginning the mission!" He proclaimed, and the two were off to deal with the threat at hand.
It didn't take long for the signs of conflict to reveal themselves. The highway was uneven as though a rough earthquake had struck it, and cars and the corpses of normal Reploids were flung every which way. Buildings were torn down and their debris scattered, the damage spreading out to the elevated freeways a mile away.
"This is horrible. All this destruction must've been caused by Mavericks…" X commented in grief as his eyes fixated on a Reploid ripped in half, his oil and wires exposed in a slick, messy puddle.
"That's just the way things are these days X," Zero offered a grim, almost callous reminder to his friend, pausing to take in the sights of ruination spread everywhere he could see, "But it didn't used to be this bad…"
There wasn't a single living human or Reploid in sight, and were it not for each other's company the Hunters would've been encumbered with a sense of dread and loneliness. After surveying the area, Zero looked down over the raised, slanted highways and commented, "Hey, come take a look at this."
He hopped off the rock and X soon followed, and with caution Zero peered under the crumbling concrete to find the remains of a purple, vehicular Reploid built like an SUV. It had been split clean in half, and the points where it was cut had hardened into a semi-molten state.
"This cut could've only been made with a sword…" Zero murmured and then stood up, letting X have a chance to examine the Reploid while he contacted Alia.
"Alia, put Commander Signas on the line."
"What's the matter Zero?" Signas' response was immediate, much to Zero's surprise. He recovered fast and delivered his answer while glancing back at the Reploid.
"I thought we were going in alone, but it seems there's another unit on the scene already."
"…That's interesting. I never gave any orders to the other units, and we're the only ones operating in this sector."
"You sure it's not the remnants of Repliforce?" Zero was hesitant to inquire. Signas hummed on the subject for a little while before responding.
"No. Colonel was the only member of Repliforce proficient with a sword," Signas' suspicions were at the forefront of his tone of voice, and he then stressed a warning to the two Hunters, "Stay on guard. I have a bad feeling about this."
Zero gave an affirmative nod then cut off communications before looking back at X. After touching the molten metal, X pulled his hand back and shook it, a black mark scorched onto his fingertip.
"It's still warm." He whispered.
As he was about to examine the Reploid again, the stretch of highway above him shook, and upon noticing that Zero dashed forward and exclaimed, "X, watch out!"
He grabbed his friend by the right shoulder and jerked him away, swing his sword upward in the other hand to slice through the falling road. The halves crashed and slid away from the Hunters, but crushed the Reploid underneath it's back edges. On top of the halves was a complete version of the Reploid they just examined, which wasted little time thrusting a spiked wheel out from the sides of it's front window.
Zero held his sword beside the shoulder to deflect the wheel, and as sparks flew into his face he charged ahead and sliced the rod connecting the wheel with a swift swing. Then, with a leap, he brought his sword down in both hands and stabbed it through the center of the Reploid to reach it's core. He then flipped off as X fired a charged shot through it, landing a good ten feet behind the ensuing explosion.
He wouldn't stand still for long, as a turn of the head alerted Zero to the presence of more similar Reploids, all of whom were joined by small pod shaped gunners and smaller spider-like turrets. The sunlight was fading, obscured by the clouds growing over the horizon, as lightning began to strike down on a red steel construction site in the distance.
"I'm starting to get a reading on our target! It has to be in that building over there!" Alia remarked.
"Alright, we'll head on over. Come on X!" Zero led the charge without a moment's hesitation, assaulting the incoming swarm of Mavericks with blade in hand and a defiant will. He cut them down and sped on by faster than the Mavericks could shoot, leaving a trail of explosions in his wake.
X followed suit and kept his buster charged at all times, firing into the remnants of the Maverick crowd whenever multiple targets lined themselves up. He used the smoke for cover and rolled underneath projectiles and spiked wheels, slamming his buster into the ground and using the blast to launch himself over the back of the crowd. With a quick spin, X kicked his legs up and used his jet boots to thrust away, firing one last charged shot into a lone bomb in the center of the Mavericks to blow them all up.
He then swung his left hand back and magnetically attached to the side of a ruined parking lot, sliding down to join Zero at it's entrance. The two charged forth, the ceiling coming down in large chunks to try and impede their progress. X cleared the way with a charged shot, while Zero leaned forward and dashed underneath the broken up pebbles.
Reaching the end of the building first, Zero found a large chasm separating them from the building they needed to go to. He turned around and motioned his left hand towards X before holding his sword up like a platform. X nodded, the two not needing to say a word, and leapt on top of the sword. The bottom of his feet burned for a second, but he was able to vault his way across the chasm and landed safely on the other side.
Zero turned around and took a couple steps back, concentrating all his energy into making it across. After a swift running start, he kicked his feet off the edge of the cliff and flew across the chasm. He wasn't capable of crossing the whole gap and thus resorted to stabbing his sword into the rock wall, grinding down a couple feet of it until stopping.
He then let go with his left hand and swung his body upward, grabbing onto X's hand as he bent over to help. In a couple of seconds the two were reunited at the base of their destination, leaving just a short climb to the top in their way. The two climbed the ladder and noticed that there was a towering, feminine statue propped up in the center. It was incomplete, but the most noticeable thing is that it lacked a head.
The two hopped between broken walls and made their way to the very top, but before they entered the door Alia yelled to them, "Hold up!"
"What's going on?" Zero and X asked simultaneously.
"I'm detecting something strange. There's two other Reploids in your area, and they're fighting the source of the virus!"
"Two other Reploids? Where could they have come from?" Signas commented with a great deal of curiosity.
Before X and Zero could offer their input, an explosion rocked the building from behind the door, throwing off their balance for just a bit. Zero stamped his feet down and held his sword aside before replying to Alia's comments, "We're going in. Whether they're friend or foe, we'll find out soon enough."
He advanced towards the door, his presence causing it to slide open. Despite Alia's objections to this plan, X followed Zero in and told her, "It'll be alright. When Zero and I work together, no Maverick can defeat us!"
"What the hell…?" Zero paused after making his way past the door, his tone flustered by exasperation. X followed his partner through the door, and his face would quickly contort into one of confusion as well.
Floating above the intertwining crimson beams was a large metallic head suspended in place by jets attached to the back of their skull. On the front of this head was Sigma's familiar mug, and with his face up-scaled to fit the rest of the machine he looked even more grotesque than normal. Before the Hunters had arrived, his gaze was fixated on two others.
One was a boy with a red shirt and blue jeans along with a simple brown hairstyle. He wielded a curved, fanged amber sword covered in flames, and wisps of heat fizzled off from his body. Beside him was a girl with knee-length blonde hair around the same age as him, and she had a fancy outfit on complete with a scouter and a pair of pistol that appeared to be made out of solid energy. But all those features were unremarkable compared to the major one that stuck out in the Hunter's mind.
"Their skin…They're…human?" X commented, and was hesitant to keep his buster raised. Then, the cackling guffaw of Sigma entered his ears, forcing his buster to be pointing skyward at his face.
"X! Zero! You kept me waiting…" Sigma's voice echoed across the horizon with a tone brimming with arrogance and authority, his mouth unmoving. The two people fighting him stopped and looked over their shoulders, the boy slanting his brows and murmuring, "Ah crap…Figures we'd run into you two."
Next Time: Strangers from Another World