Lost In Reality - Glitch In The System
Hello, readers. This is a brand spankin' new fanfic about Megaman (X) and Sigma (sorry to disappoint Sonic fans). What? An X and Sigma fanfic is not original, you say? Well, I don't want to spoil anything, so just go ahead and read. You may be pleasantly surprised. I tried to be original with this so I hope you can appreciate it. Enjoy! (Disclaimer: I'll only say this once. I do not own any Megaman characters,Capcom, or anything else related. So stop calling me.)
File 1: The Last Hurrah
File Date: May 21-26, 22XX
Absolute zero. The point of temperature where it is so cold that all molecules stop moving. This was the best way to describe the air of silent tension that surrounded the two warriors. X stood still, his buster charged and aimed at the evil that stood before him. The only motion came from the gusts of wind that passed over the rooftop. X and Sigma were standing on the precipice of the tallest skyscraper in Giga City, the cold ground hundreds upon hundreds of feet below them. X was the first to break the deafening silence. "You've got nowhere to go, Sigma!" The stillness and silence between words was almost unbearable. "Give yourself up!" As if on cue, several police helicopters came up and began flying over their heads. Sigma just looked and smiled.
"You think... that you can win just like that?" Sigma put his hand to his forehead and chuckled. "We've known each other for so long, and yet your naivety still amazes me."
"Quiet! I'm holding the cards now! I have the power! You are not in a position to insult me!" Sigma's smile quickly became a menacing scowl.
"FOOL! Don't mention power unless you are willing to give your life to defend your words!"
"Just stop this right now! This can't go on forever! You cannot win!" Sigma's grimace became a smile again, but the anger still remained.
"Well, I guess you are right in one respect. This can't go on forever." Sigma laughed and clenched his fists. "Let's end this with a bang!" Sigma punched the ground with a tremendous and frightening fury. The concrete where X was standing suddenly cracked, shook, and became askew, separating itself from the surrounding . Suddenly, great bursts of fire rose out of the faults in the cement that circled X. X gasped and lost his concentration for a split-second, but soon broke out of it and jumped up over the fire with lightning reflexes, shooting off one round into Sigma's chest.
"Give it up, Sigma!" X fired round after round into Sigma's unguarded abdomen, causing him to step backwards slowly towards the skyscraper's edge. After a few shots, Sigma regained his self-control and vaulted up into the air.
Sigma looked down at the ground below him. "SMASH!" He was now right above X. X dashed out of the way of Sigma's rapidly descending feet, which crushed the ground where X was standing just an instant ago. Sigma looked at X and smiled again, his eyes beginning to flash. "And the heat goes on!" Two bright orange lasers suddenly shot out of Sigma's eyes. X was still reeling from the last attack (which threw him off-balance) and was unfortunately not quick enough to fully dodge the upcoming beams.
"AAAHHH!" X screamed as the lasers pierced into his left arm, almost severing it. The arm immediately dropped to X's side, immobile from the shoulder down. X raised his buster immediately, almost as if it was an involuntary reaction. He began shooting powerful shots, but without his left arm to stabilize his buster, the shots became hideously inaccurate. After a second or so, though, through what seemed like pure luck, a single round managed to hit Sigma square in the stomach.
Sigma was knocked back slightly, but then lunged over and fell on his knee. "You little punk!" Sigma turned his head and noticed several steel beams rising up out of the concrete. Sigma smiled and resumed standing erect, again facing X, his focus unscathed. X stood cautiously and semi-curiously, wondering what Sigma was going to pull out of his sleeve this time.
Sigma stuck his hand out in front of his body, his palm facing X. All of a sudden a large, translucent beam of crimson energy shot out of the center of his hand, traveling in a beeline towards X's head. X ducked almost entirely out of the way of the scarlet ray, but was hit slightly on the right side of his forehead. He would have been razed by the energy beam if it carried any force, but oddly enough, X was not damaged. Amazed that he had not taken any injury from the blast, X stood with an air of curiosity, eventually turning around to see the true target of the shot.
X's eyes followed the ray of energy to a vertical steel beam, at which point the energy twisted and bended like a rope, tying itself to the metal. As Sigma began pumping more energy into the powerful crimson ray (which looked to X like a shaft of liquid light), the steel beam (which, by the way, was heavily cemented and welded to the skyscraper) began to shake and come loose of its surroundings. With more force from Sigma the beam was free, and it began rising rapidly. X gasped.
The steel beam then started flying at high velocity towards the mildly dumbfounded X, who used a quick dive roll to avoid being decimated by several hundred pounds of metal. X rose from the roll and soon had to jump again to avoid another beam sent hurtling in his direction. A second later, more beams were on a collision course with X's more-fragile-by-comparison body. Between diving to avoid metal annihilation, X fired off more shots, but was unable to maintain any accuracy whatsoever. After a bit more dodging (and a lot more crashing), X formulated a new strategy, and began spraying shots left to right. With the combination of being unable to stabilize his shots and constantly having to evade flying pillars of death, the task of shooting Sigma became fantastically difficult, but not impossible.
Sigma's anger increased with each of X's stylized evasions. His fury built up until in a flash of rage he thrust his palms out to the sides of his body and channeled all his energy to force six beams out of the ground. "RAAAAAAARRRGGGHHH!" A bellow of ferocious proportions echoed out of Sigma's lips as six columns of death were thrown haphazardly. As bizarre as it would seem at the time, this last effort from Sigma was a godsend.
The police copters which circled above the two were nothing if not a waste of airspace. While they did manage to fire off a few rounds of exceedingly ineffective bullets in Sigma's general direction, the Giga City police helicopters seemed to have no purpose except to circle the skyscraper and consume fuel. However, despite their apparent uselessness, the police did manage to help X in one way. Unfortunately, it was in the same way that a pawn helps in chess by sacrificing itself so the queen can move to kill the king.
The sixth steel beam did not make contact with X at all, nor did it even come close. Instead it soared over X's head, pummeling into the side of a circling copter. This caused two things: First, it triggered a large, fiery explosion which made X gasp in surprise. However, after the initial shock of the blast, X soon realized what else the explosion had caused; a distraction. For the first time since the beginning of the battle, Sigma had lost his focus on X. "Checkmate."
Seizing the opportunity given to him, X dashed towards his enemy with an intense energy, until he was mere feet away from Sigma. Sigma was stunned when he got around to noticing the proximity of his foe, and even more stunned when a barrage of close-range fire came barreling at him. Within the next five seconds, despite a miss or two, X had successfully released between 20 and 30 shots into Sigma's unprotected body. With each shot Sigma moved backwards a little, (a feat X knew would be impossible if Sigma was alert and on guard,) and soon Sigma was mere inches away from the roof's edge.
It was then that Sigma fully realized what was occurring, and the precarious position he was in. Within a split-second Sigma had regained the enraged concentration which he'd lost when X began firing. Sigma, in a move of both power and desperation, tightened his fists and formed a giant barrier of orange energy around him. X's shots, which were knocking Sigma back just a second ago, were now being deflected in every direction. Sigma's evil smile returned.
With another push of energy, Sigma's shield pulsated and expanded, knocking X backward onto the ground. Sigma's smile turned to a laugh. "HAHAHAHA! Get up, X! This is starting to get interesting!" X looked at Sigma with intension, desperately trying to figure a way to harm Sigma. As it would turn out, the answer lied beneath Sigma's feet. X frantically began charging up his buster. Sigma laughed again. "Hahaha! What are going to do, X? Shoot me? HAHAHA!"
"No... no I'm not." X pointed his buster down towards the concrete Sigma stood on. X launched the fully charged energy shot, and with a great explosion the ground Sigma stood on was reduced to nothing but dust and chunks of cement no larger than a tennis ball. And with that, Sigma went down.
X smiled slightly, and gave a sigh of relief. He casually got back up and walked to the side of the building where Sigma fell off. However, when he looked down, he saw nothing. No falling Sigma, no crater in the ground. It was like he'd vanished into thin air. X's bafflement now took over any other feelings. Then suddenly, X noticed something. A few feet under the ledge where Sigma fell, there was a series of windows, one of which was broken. X took a step back and realized where Sigma was.
"Hahaha..." Sigma's evil laughter seemed to echo throughout the rooftop, and X responded only by becoming more vigilant. The laughing continued for a few seconds, but then diminished. Just then, X heard a loud thumping noise that seemed to originate from a far corner of the rooftop. A second later X heard another thump coming from the opposite corner behind him. 2 thumps followed, both coming from radically different locations. X turned slightly, listening intently, trying to locate the source. Ironically, it was the source that found him first.
"HEEEEEEERE'S SIGGY!" With a great explosion, Sigma burst through the ground X was standing on, devastating X and knocking him backwards. Chunks of concrete were scattered everywhere, and the center of the roof was now a hole seven feet in diameter. Sigma fell back to the cement, where his feet impacted what was left of the ground about two inches. X was now pretty damaged, and Sigma seemed unscathed. X realized that if Sigma was to be destroyed, it had to be soon.
Sigma began to pick up chunks of concrete with the same crimson beam (X refers to this as 'energetic telekinesis') and began hurling them at X. X was weak, but not powerless, and still had enough strength to dodge the large masses of fast-moving cement. X didn't fire a single shot as he avoided Sigma's throws, but instead he charged up his buster to its maximum potential, waiting for the opportune moment. Sigma just continued to throw and laugh.
"HAHAHA! What's the matter, X? Given up the will to fight? I don't blame you! Hahaha!" X breathed heavily, his anger slowly increasing.
"I... never... give up... the will... to fight!" As X muttered that last word he dashed towards Sigma at full glorious speed, planting his buster right into Sigma's chest and firing with every ounce of power X had in him. This was enough energy to knock Sigma way over the edge of the skyscraper, and that's what would have happened, but by some miraculous event Sigma had managed to grab X's arms as he was flung back towards the edge. When Sigma and X stopped moving, the predicament they were in was a tricky one indeed.
Sigma had clutched X's arms and was holding them away from his body as he leaned precariously over the street hundreds of feet below him. X struggled to keep from falling off the edge, leaning back towards the safety of the roof behind him. Sigma's face showed both concern and amusement; concern for his own safety, and amusement for the quandary X was in. "A fitting end to a fitting battle, eh, X? My only regret is that I won't be able to see you die."
"Same here. ERGH..." X grunted as Sigma began twisting his buster clockwise.
"Heh... it's almost a shame... to see such a worthy adversary perish." Sigma twisted harder. X spoke through insurmountable pain.
"Then... I guess that's good news for you..." X summoned up any amount of energy that still remained in his body. With a painful groan, and through what seemed like some unknown mystical force of nature, X began to move his buster. "...because... I'm not going to perish..." X's buster slowly worked its way left until it was directly over Sigma's chest. "...you are." X fired off a single shot.
In a moment that seemed like it was in slow motion, Sigma was blasted off the edge of the building, at the same time ripping off X's left arm, and was sent plummeting down to the planet's harsh, solid surface. X fell back to the ground, oil gushing from where his arm was severed. As the copters lowered down to the rooftop to save him, and as X's vision faded, X heard three things: he heard the whooshing of the spinning helicopter blades, the maniacal laughter of Sigma as he fell, and the satisfying crash of a body hitting the ground at terminal velocity. After that, X's world went black.
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"How's he doing?"
"He seems to be recovering quite well."
"Yeah, I've never know X to take a hit he can't get back up from."
"Well, that battle took a lot out of him. I just thank heaven that the fight didn't last longer."
"When will he be fully recovered?"
"I'd say a week, maybe more, maybe less. I still have a lot of repairs to do. Plus I need to manufacture a new arm. I guess, to quote an old saying, 'only time will tell'."
X opened his eyes to see Zero to the left of him, and Douglas, who was trying to rebuild him, on his right. Douglas had been working around the world, but jumped on the chance to help X after he heard about the... incident. X was lying on a bed inside one of the rooms of the mechanics bay (sort of a sick bay for robots) of the Central Tower, which served as a base for the Maverick Hunters. Tubes and wires were hooked up to X's body, and next to his head was some sort of life monitor X couldn't comprehend. Douglas opened up a panel in X's buster and began fiddling with some wires. "How do you feel?" X smiled weakly.
"Like I've been through a war." Zero smiled slightly to match X.
"You battled Sigma. They're one in the same." X winced as Douglas connected two wires that created a bit of a spark.
"Is he dead?" Zero walked around to the other side of the bed.
"You mean Sigma? He doesn't die. He's like the bad guy in a slasher movie." Zero stopped moving. "We can only hope to control and contain him." X stared up at the ceiling.
"I guess..." X just stared at nothing until another crossed wire caused him to wince again. "So, what happened after I blacked out?"
"The GCPD cleaned up the mess. It took a little while to extract Sigma from the 10-foot deep crater, but he didn't really put up much of a struggle. I pity the poor soul who was around him when he woke up."
"What are they going to do to him?"
"I don't know. His trial is in three days. Until then he'll be kept in a holding cell 200 feet under the planet's surface."
"I hope... for the sake of the world, I mean... that they know what he's capable of..."
"Yeah..." Zero put his hands behind his head and paced some more. "Hey, X, can I ask you a question?"
"No." X closed his eyes and slipped back into darkness.
"He's a fighter. A foolhardy fighter."
"Hey, he did what we couldn't up on that rooftop."
"I suppose you're right. I hope, for X's sake at least, that Sigma gets what's coming to him."
"Even if he does, it doesn't end here."
"I know. It never does."
"Is that a bad thing?"
"That depends."
"On what?"
"On whether or not you want the world to stop spinning."
"Why do I talk to you?"
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The trial took place in a dark, grey, lifeless room, devoid of windows, hundreds of feet in height. The Council, which consisted of five people, sat on a large dais that was raised high up off the floor. No member spoke, and no sound was made, until the convicted was escorted through the large metal doors at the room's base. All that could be heard were the echoing sounds of two feet stepping on the cold steel floor. When the footsteps stopped, the only sound heard was a mechanical whirring as a small pillar rose up from the center of the floor.
Standing atop the rising pillar was Sigma, who seemed suspiciously docile, considering the situation. Sigma's face showed no hint of emotion, no hint of hostility. In one sense he might have even appeared to be tranquil, serene. His hands were sealed behind his back, using special 'handcuffs', per se, that were hooked up to his central processing unit; any attempt to force them off resulted in all of Sigma's inner systems being simultaneous shut off. It was perhaps only for this reason the Sigma seemed calm for the time being.
When the pillar reached its highest point, the trial began. The head of the Council, who sat in the center of the dais, stood up, and walked forward to where there was a small podium that overlooked the ground below. The Council head's look was stern and unforgiving, and many people had a hard time believing that he would ever acquit anyone. And yet his reputation always seemed to precede him. His jurisdiction was never overruled and his choices were never looked upon with derision. However, it would not take a Council's word to convince someone that Sigma was a soulless force of pure malevolence and evil.
"Sigma!" The Council head's deep and methodical voice boomed and echoed through the vast space of the room. "You are on trial here for insurmountable counts of violence, murder, destruction, and tyranny. The punishment for all counts, not including minor crimes and offenses, is a combined total of 11,537 life sentences, which would be served out consecutively in the cyber prison Taraknis." During the entire trial Sigma's head was tilted down. He never once looked upon the faces of his prosecutors. He simply looked down and mumbled to himself incoherently, remaining perfectly motionless.
"However, the Council and I have decided that in this case the sentence be extended to eternity in cybernetic exile. We believe that no amount of time, no number of years in a normal prison could ever alter you enough for you to become a sane, compliant member of society." As the Council head spoke, Sigma's mumbling became increasingly louder. At one point the Council head became so irritated that he slammed his large fist onto the steel podium. "SIGMA!" Sigma became quiet, but still did not lift his head. The Council head straightened up, coughed, and resumed with the sentencing.
"So, in conclusion, it is the final decision of this Council that, for your crimes against humans and mechanoloids alike, you will spend the rest of eternity in the outskirts of the Mother System, in perpetual cybernetic exile, until you cease to function. The judgment is final. Your sentence begins tomorrow. Do you have anything to say for yourself before this trial ends?" Sigma was silent. Although the trial was over quite fast in retrospect, it felt like an eternity in itself. The Council head soon became angered with Sigma's blatant disrespect. "I SAID, have you anything to say for yourself?" Sigma again remained perfectly silent. "Fine. As you wish. If you have nothing to say, then I hereby adjourn this-"
"Wait." The statement caught the Council head off-guard.
"Do you have something to say?" Sigma waited a second to answer.
"Yes." The Council head resumed his position at the podium. Once again, for a few seconds a silence and stillness filled the vast room.
"Well?" Again, Sigma waited to answer.
"Goodbye." As the words escaped Sigma's mouth, the dais where the Council members stood suddenly exploded in a flash of brilliant light and color, sending it plummeting to the floor below. When the dais finally contacted the ground, the light from the gigantic explosion lit every inch of the room, giving Sigma a god-like appearance, as he stood on the pillar raised high above the wreckage below. Even the explosion did not interrupt his almost meditative state.
"If it must end, it must end like this." Sigma tightened his fists and ripped his hands apart, breaking the restraints and shutting off his CPU. His lifeless body fell silently, and almost serenely, off the pillar, into the fiery, tangled mass of steel below. When all was done, a curious peace seemed to radiate throughout the room. Even Sigma seemed to be in a better state of being. However, when Sigma woke up, the state of being disappeared along with the peculiar peacefulness he had during the trial. When Sigma woke up, it was in a different place...
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The Madness Room. A white-walled prison of the mind that could turn the most levelheaded man insane, and, interestingly enough, could turn the most deranged of men into sensible and well-adjusted members of society. In theory. And only in theory. The Room was really a machine that was housed in a small, white room with no visible doors or windows. It was designed to utilize a subject's mind as a tool of rehabilitation. Each subject who endured the process soon realized what a dangerous weapon the mind can truly be...
The way the Room worked was actually quite simple.
Phase 1: Entrapment
The subject who was to be 'altered' was made unconscious by some means. (Usually it was via a toxin called Creazoin which, when injected into a subject, acted as a deep sedative. This was truly the first risk of the process, as the subject did not always wake up.) The subject was then strapped to a small chair in the center of the Room. When the subject was fully restrained, they were hooked up to a virtual reality system of sorts, which placed them in an artificially generated cybernetic world which stretched infinitely in every direction. This was really just an effective way of imprisoning a subject's mind.
The subject's first reaction upon waking was always to escape. This was the first step towards psychosis. This could last any amount of time, but inevitably, at some point, the subject would accept the reality of being trapped forever. It was only at this point the Conductors (the staff who originally created and currently operate the Room) could bring the subject to Phase 2.
Phase 2: Subconscious Replay
The Psyche Encapsulating Device, or PED for short, was built into the Room shortly after its creation. It was a simple device which was used to transfer the subconscious thoughts, images, and memories of the subject's subconscious into a sensory program which could be played back to the subject at regular intervals. It did this by sending a small wave of electricity through the subject's head which 'scanned' it onto a disk. The PED was said to reveal the innermost personal truths, and was supposedly able to alter the thoughts of criminals, by showing them repeatedly the guilt which was locked in their subconscious. This was relatively effective and mostly harmless, but only in small doses. However, it wasn't the successes that the Madness Room was named for...
The Forced Psyche Alteration process was saved for criminally insane death row inmates who were used as guinea pigs. The Conductors had an... amusingly macabre little poem that went with the horrifying process. It went, "If you're troubled or insane, we'll put a current through your brain. We use too much, and that is that; against the wall, your brain goes splat." It really wasn't an exaggeration, to be honest. For the most disturbed and dangerous subjects, the treatments were much worse that a replay of guilty memories. The subject was forced to experience the horror show which was the full contents of their mind. That is, of course, if the electricity from the PED didn't fry your brain like a chicken egg on a griddle. Such an event was reasonably commonplace. After all, the process was still in its testing phase.
If the subject survived the scanning process, their life became a living nightmare, which was repeated over and over again. Not even the Conductors were allowed to view the content that was extracted from the subject's mind, ironically enough, for health and safety reasons. It was during this horrendous process that line between healing and harming became hazardously thin. Not even the Conductors knew exactly where that line was. They could only wait for the process to end so they could move to Phase 3.
Phase 3: Shutdown and Release
The Conductors are never more nervous, anxious, or excited than when Phase 3 is in effect. In Phase 3 the replay program is shutdown. (Gradually, of course. Even the Conductors know that an abrupt replay stop leads to brain shock and a 99.78 percent possibility of death.) After the PED is shut down, the VR program is turned off, and, at long last, the subject is back in reality. Dazed, demented, damaged, or dead.
If the subject is alive and relatively sane, (which was easy to tell, considering that the sane subjects generally aren't screaming demonic incantations with wrists that are drenched in blood from trying to escape the restraints,) they are given a short reorientation in the form of a film which described who they were, where they were, and what just happened. Following that, the subject exited the white room and was escorted (still somewhat restrained) to the Testing Room. The Testing Room was nothing more sinister or complex that a small, silvery room where the subject was given a quick multiple choice psych test. Interestingly enough, one of the questions was "How would you describe your experience in the Room over the last year?" The choices were 'pleasant', 'unpleasant', and 'a living hell'. They have yet to receive a 'pleasant' or 'unpleasant' answer.
After the test results were calculated, the subject was either released back into the world, or committed back to a regular prison. Despite the sometimes appalling (yet unintentional) results the Conductors brought upon their subjects, the Conductors still had rules of safety. Rule number one: never put a person in the Room twice. Never.
This was Sigma's fate. And what a twisted fate it was. To date, only 3 other robots have been subjected to the Room. Everything in the Room was equally effective to any mechanical being with artificial intelligence, and equally deadly. If Sigma survived through this, he would be the first.
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The Conductor's Room was where Sigma, and all other subjects, were monitored both physically and mentally. It was also where the Conductors could control the PED and VR environment. One wall was composed of several TV screens. One set of screens was connected to a simple security camera located inside the Room. The second set was hooked up the both the VR system and the PED. It was this second set that sometimes had to be shut off during Phase 2. Usually, no civilians were ever allowed into this room. The Conductors did make one exception in this case. Zero was allowed to enter the Room on the condition that he would not repeat anything that he heard or saw. The whole process was meant to be kept top secret.
Zero walked through a thin, doorless hallway, with black walls and ceilings and a clear glass floor that was lit from below. He was alone, though he felt a strange, poltergeist-like presence surrounding him. When he reached the end of the hallway, he was almost convinced that someone else was there. The Conductors all felt this at one time or another. They called it the 'jibblies'. Zero looked up at the large door marked 'Conductor Entry Only', and pushed it open.
Stepping inside was like stepping into another world, or, more likely, like stepping into a hallucination. The Conductors all wore long, orange lab coats that went down beyond their feet so when the walked they looked like ghosts. Their hands were covered by thin black gloves. Each right-hand glove had a small hole cut in it, revealing a small, hieroglyphic-looking symbol tattooed on the back of each Conductor's hand. The Conductors' faces were mostly covered by large, round, black goggles and also by the unusually long collars of their lab coats. Most people who had seen the Conductors wondered how they could differentiate between each other, seeing as they almost never speak. Some people believed that the Conductors were able to communicate telepathically, with brains specially bred to be of a secund nature (no pun intended), completely logical. The Conductors have no comment on the issue.
The Conductor's Room, to Zero, anyway, was amazing in itself. It was the size of an airship hangar, having several floors of computer stations and holographic brainwave analyzers. The most impressive part was the far wall, which was several stories high and composed entirely of video monitors. Each monitor showed either a picture of the inside of the Madness Room or a computer generated image of the VR simulation, which was essentially what the subject would see. An image of the actual subject was also present in these images. The monitors basically relayed what the subjects witnessed and experienced as they endured their treatments. It was these monitors that were most often shut down, for one reason or another.
Zero stepped fully into the Conductor's Room, taking in everything he saw. He stood around for a few seconds until he realized that someone was tapping him on the shoulder. He turned around to see a Conductor staring down at him. The Conductor walked past Zero, then turned and signaled that he should follow. Zero walked behind the Conductor onto a small elevator which carried them down to the main floor. Zero didn't really notice, at leastuntil now, how many Conductors there actually were. The number of Conductors in the room had to be at least a hundred and fifty or so. Further looking upon them, Zero realized how eerie they seemed, as they all looked identical. Zero shook the feeling off and continued following the Conductor ahead of him. Soon they were at the wall of monitors. Finally, Zero saw what he'd come to see: Sigma.
The sight of Sigma strapped to the chair brought an almost sickening pleasure to Zero. Sigma seemed so helpless, so powerless, that it was almost funny. Several dozen wires were hooked up to Sigma, from the back of his head, down to his, back, and even up and down his arms. The wires traveled down to small, perfectly sized, perfectly symmetrical holes in the floor, which added to the flawless appearance. Once again, Sigma's peacefulness was an odd sight. Zero found solace in the sight of the tamed beast.
"He should be waking up soon." The Conductor's unexpected statement made Zero jump a little.
"What?"
"Sigma. His systems should be switching online soon. However, when he wakes up, he won't find himself in there." The Conductor pointed to the picture of Sigma in the Madness Room. "He'll find himself in there." The Conductor then pointed to the screen which showed the VR world.
"What then?"
"You'll see." Zero saw what he assumed to be a smile, hidden under the long orange collar.
"Right..." Zero looked deeply at the VR world. It was actually quite beautiful, to an extent. The floor, or surface, if you prefer, seemed like it was made of glass, floating infinitely over an abyss of nothingness. The sky, as you could call it, looked like a constant, rainless storm, looming eerily above the glassy land. Suddenly, a blurry image appeared in the center of the screen. The image slowly came into focus to reveal the shape of Sigma. The Conductor tapped Zero on the shoulder, causing him to quickly turn around. "What?"
"It starts now."
"What do you mean?" The Conductor turned towards the screen.
"He's awake."
Not TOO bad, eh? It only gets better. I REALLY don't want to say too much more about upcoming chapters and plot twists, so I'll just say... Coming Soon - File 2: Malfunction