A/N: Hello all! It's me, back again with a new fic. I felt inspired by a story I recently read called "Relic of The Seas" by Dr. Facer and I enjoyed it alot! With their permission, I was able to write my own spin on the take of X meeting Splash Woman. As the summary somewhat explains, this takes place after X5, specifically the good ending. Which means poor X is all alone...hopefully he will gain a new friend!

This one will definitely be an interesting ride throughout, I promise.

I hope you will all enjoy it! Please don't forget to R&R and check out Dr. Facer's original!

~MW

0: PROLOGUE

Boring work...as usual…

Thought a so far nearly 3-year veteran of the outpost, his mind completely dull from the menial tasks he was assigned to. When he said he wanted to join this division, this is not what he had in mind! The Reploid dreamed of bigger things like finding a cure to the Maverick Virus, or even human diseases, perhaps even creating the next big "green" energy source that will last for centuries! Creating new Reploids too, perhaps!

But no.

Here he was.

Stuck on a deserted island out in the middle of Freezing Nowhere, Russia.

Watching fish swim through the eyes of a marine mechaniloid he was piloting remotely.

And it was all because he wasn't smart enough for the things he wanted to do. Too stupid for the big work. Or, as that test proctor put it: "not qualified".

His position was something of a paradox. On the one hand, he was smart enough to get into the research division. But on the other, he wasn't intelligent enough for the real grind. This position as a pilot may earn him recognition in the Hunters Division, but for Research? He was a laughing stock. At least, in his eyes he was.

With all this negative thought, it really made him want to go play out in the snow until his core couldn't keep him from freezing anymore. It would at least give him some comfort knowing how he's better than everyone here at something. That being: he handles the cold better than most of the Reploids here.

He almost had enough of this snooze-fest and was just about to go on a small break until a bunch of warning signs flashed up on the monitor, making an ear-violating alarm sound. It made him cringe with such intensity that he refocused on his work just to make it stop. He had to hand it to whoever designed this, it sure did grab his attention and reinforce work ethic.

Snapping to the controls, he immediately leaned into the screen and squinted, quickly pushing a button that turned on the high beam floodlights, their light reflecting off metal. And that's when his eyes grew large. It was rare for the system to be notifying him of oncoming objects the mechaniloid could ram into, and even then it was something like a rock or seawall.

But it was rarer for something to be in his way that was made out of a man-made metal. How did he know? The answer lied in how the surface reflected the bright light back and nearly blinded him, causing him to shut it off and change to low power. No rock or wall could ever do that. Normally, he would just move around it, but this thing got the cat-killing curiosity stirring within him. Especially as he noted the strange, unnatural form of the object's shape in the dark.

Taking hold of the two joysticks, he made the drone slow into a halt, pushing a button to make it enter in a still, hovering state. Again, he squinted to get a better look, but got nothing.

He took hold of a nob on the console with his finger, and adjusted it, making the light slowly go brighter until he stopped at a luminosity that allowed for better visibility without causing glare. Even in the better light, he could not see the object well.

Must be too far…, he thought to himself as he pushed the button he pressed earlier and eased the mechaniloid closer, until hitting the brakes and repressing the button again. Moving his finger to a switch, he flicked it, causing the camera to shake a little as it was dislodged from its slot, moving it until he got close enough to the unidentified metal object.

The pure shock and realization in his face told millions of thoughts conveyed in a single mouth gap. He immediately recognized that symbol, squeezing the joystick's trigger in a flash fury as it took multiple pictures. Pushing another key, the machine popped out a disc with the images stored on it. Immediately, he swung his chair out and stood up, startling nearby coworkers.

"Sorry, watch my post for a bit. It's urgent!", he flurried his speech as he slid on his heel and made a mad dash towards another set of offices, setting his eyes on one in particular.

He wasted no time, busting in the door and startling the man who sat calmly on his desk, his hand backing away from the liquid-filled mug as he vocalized his surprise.

"Shit! What do you want?!", he near-angrily shouted from his state of slight fright.

"Colonel Locke, sir! Contact HQ right now! I found something big! Really big! Big enough to get you and HQ's attention!", the employee panted as his hand brought forth suddenly a disc.

"God, what is it this time, Snow?! It better not be like the last time you said that exact same thing!", Locke grumbled as he scrunched his brow at him.

The Reploid definitely looked the part of a colonel, complete with masculine toned face, captain's hat and Reploid-typical fake beard, alongside large golden circular parts which mimicked the buttons of a military jacket. Though while he did not have a fake cloak surrounding his legs, he did have fancy squarish shoulder parts with real, golden cloth tassels hanging off it, all alongside his white color scheme with red and golden highlights.

"Trust me sir, I really mean it this time! Look!", Snow slid the disc over to him, which made the commander snatch it up in annoyance and insert it into his terminal, shaking his head.

Snow always was an interesting fellow. He came out of nowhere, crash landing near the facility like a meteorite, and there was not a single file in any database on him. On top of this, he had a rather strange yet familiar appearance when he first appeared, donning a fur collar and sleek armor of white, blue, and black with a yellow core on his helmet. And to boot, he was an amnesiac who couldn't even recall who or where he was. But Locke took on him anyway, not only as a courtesy to keep him off the streets and give him purpose, but also because he saw some kind of potential in him, even getting to the point of conducting repair on him despite his strange architecture that was very much unfamiliar.

However, that was then. Nowadays, Snow was a lot different. Though some features remain unchanged such as his chest armor and boots, there was a lot that had to be changed due to his rather high state of disrepair and damage done by the collision. The biggest by far had to be his head, his face now that of most standard male Reploids (he still had those piercing green eyes with white pupils though), and his helmet being a lot more basic too. Now, it was a helmet that was a lot less rounded on the sides, with rectangular blue ear pieces that connected to the white, circular standard ones and wrapped around the back of his head, the pieces extending out from the helmet onto the sides of his cheeks. On the top was a more rounded piece that seemed to be on a separate level from the base helmet, evident from the elevation of it and the pointed extrusion on the back that melded back into the base helmet in a rounded way. Replacing his original crystal helmet core was a plain black cover in a shape of a rounded upside-down triangle that was made of the same metal as the rest of the helmet. Extending slightly from the core was a singular large stripe of blue which ran all the way to the back of the extrusion.

His forearm guards were replaced with dull spares that didn't differ much from the others besides its blue stripe down the middle and cuff pieces with an extended hand guard, his right one containing two conspicuously traced spots on the top most part of the downward curving guard. If anyone had a half a working processor in this center, they would know that was for his weapons system, the spots acting as trap doors. It was a sort of buster that extended from said cuff via two small barrels with an extending handle to steady his aim. As for what was fired from there, no one knew, not even himself.

Yes indeed, Snow was quite the enigma.

And yet despite all the efforts to keep him, and all the work that was necessary to repair Snow, Locke sometimes began to doubt those initial thoughts he had as he watched the Reploid's strange quirk of rubbing the fur collar of his. A nervous habit he noticed Snow had picked up along with his rather submissive and shy personality early on ever since his completed repairs. Taking a deep breath, he inserted the disc against his better judgement and pressed a few keys, watching as a myriad of images popped up on his display.

"Jesus, kid! Only press it once!", he chided.

"I'm sorry!", he immediately replied. "But t-trust me! There's a reason why!"

Groaning aloud, he stared until the flickering of images stopped, producing one last image that seemed to be the clearest of them all. Probably the first shot he took. Leaning into the screen, he rubbed his chin. Thankfully, that hand on his jaw kept it from dropping completely to the floor.

"That symbol...you!", he jerked to Snow's direction, pointing his finger and slamming his other hand on his desk. "Inspect this further and provide detailed pictures and analysis on my desk by 11:59:59 PM tonight! I've got a call to make!"

"Y-y-yes sir!"

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

3 days later...

"We've got a possible Maverick situation in the city, Sector Alpha Kilo 112! He hasn't hurt anyone but he's holed up and holding hostages that are a mixture of Reploids and humans!.", Alia reported into her headset as she typed away frantically at her terminal, processing the information before her. "That's all the information I have on the backup request. It seems urgent if the description is that minimal.", she huffed.

X, somewhere else within the city on a Ride Chaser, touched the black earphone part of his helmet, which reacted to his touch and activated to his comms. "Roger, Alia! I'll be on my way as fast as possible. Send me the coordinates."

"10-4, X!", she smirked, his neverending will to help innocents even after a hard day of work never ceasing to amuse her. It's no wonder X was such a valuable hunter in their ranks alongside Zero. "There, sent! I'll notify them that you're on the way. They'll brief you when you arrive, I'm sure."

X concentrated as he sharply turned the Ride Chaser bike in the opposite direction, avoiding any traffic as he moved to the other highway, boosting the Chaser in sort of wheelie to gain speed quickly. "Got it. Thanks, Alia!"

"No problem. Good luck, X!", she smiled as she went back to focusing on the data on her terminal, ending communications.

Meanwhile, as X continued on, he let one of his hands off a handle, lightly ghosting his fingers over the holstered saber handle on his side. "Watch over me, Zero.", he remarked as his grip returned to the empty spot, revving the engine as he sped off in the dawning sunlight.

A/N: This Snow fellow sounds familiar...but who is he? Guess we'll find out sooner or later, right?