Chapter 2: Noble Creature of Snow, Blizzard Buffalo
With a quick and stable warp through time and space, X is dropped down right into enemy territory and immediately finds himself having to stabilize himself upon realizing that he was standing atop a very frozen roadway. Once X prevented himself from slipping, he looked around the immediate vicinity and saw that it was not just the road that was frozen over, but everything for a couple miles on end. Fallen buildings, street lights, and even the river running through the area were all covered in a frosty but slick layer of ice that reflected beautifully the light of the descending full moon.
With questions on his mind, X laid a hand against the side of his helmet and inquired to Alia "What happened here?" Alia replied rather quickly with an explanation of "From what we've researched, Doppler has used the ruins of an abandoned city for materials and space for his own town. This area must be space he's planning to use for later purposes, though right now he seems to have been content to give the area up to Blizzard Buffalo…"
"Wonder what he needs all this space for…" X inquired as he looked around a little more, and Alia told him "Blizzard Buffalo always had an artistic side to him from what I heard. He must want to use all of this ice to create grandiose pieces of artwork. Honestly X…I wouldn't try and attack Blizzard Buffalo unless he forces your hand, since he doesn't appear to be causing any trouble around these parts."
X squinted his eyelids a bit and looked on ahead, noticing a few sentry drones wandering about in the sky before he stated "Then there's no reason for these drones to be around. This facility isn't anywhere close to the outskirts of Doppler Town." "There's drones there? Then that means we are on the right track here with our investigation…Or perhaps Doppler was recently attacked and he set up some defenses around his facilities to protect himself." Alia theorized.
"Or he's wanting to protect it from me…" X bluntly remarked, leading to Alia telling X calmly afterwards "I'm just throwing around whatever theories come to mind X. You won't know any answers until you go deeper into the facility. You won't be able to avoid confrontation with the drones, but try and not cause too much trouble, especially since the facility is frozen over and one wrong move could destabilize the building right on top of you."
X held onto his arm cannon and looked on ahead, remarking as he does so "Thanks for the heads-up Alia. Tell me any more information as you get it." X then proceeded on his mission, sprinting forward along the frozen road as he makes his way for the facility, taking into account the friction that he would have to endure along the slippery ice as he moved. The drones are alerted to his presence and turn around to face him, opening their frontal plates up and unleashing a gatling gun barrage to try and hurt X.
While charging his buster, X leaped over the gap between different parts of the road and then slid underneath the drones the moment he got to the other side, using the momentum from his earlier sprint to propel himself forward along the road at high speeds while the drones swerved their bodies around to keep their guns looked onto X with no available, their bullets chipping apart the ice as they fire down. X turned his body around and slid on his stomach while firing a charged shot off to destroy both drones at the same time.
After taking out the initial patrol drones, X flipped his body around and saw that he was continuing to slide right towards the entrance of the facility, but if he kept going at this speed he would surely suffer damage from impact against the wall. Thus by using his Air Dash boots to work against his momentum, X slowed down enough that his feet only pressed against the frozen stone wall just a little bit upon impact. X then stood upright and took a moment to glance over the ledge, and saw a small slope leading to a small spike pit and a ladder right above it.
Knowing where to go, X grabbed the edge of the ledge with one hand and then pulled himself up, suffering a little bit of a slide forward thanks to the momentum he used to get up, but in the end that just allowed X to quickly leap into the air and grab onto the first rung of the ladder, swinging on it with a very tight grip for a few seconds before clenching it with his other hand and beginning his short ascent to the top, which brought him into the heart of the facility. Inside, the walls were broken open all around and there was not a window in sight, with the heavy amount of ice being the only thing keeping this place from collapsing.
X looked up ahead and saw a few more drones flying around, these ones carrying within their bodies a few small missiles. It was certainly an interesting decision to have those types of drones when explosives would easily lead to the destruction of this area, but X assumed that it was meant to bury any intruders under the rubble of this building if nothing else worked to stop them. However, he wasn't going to let them fire off even a single missile, leading to him quickly running forward and leaping over onto a slide of ice, laying on his back and aiming his arm cannon up at the drones as he goes sliding down the area.
He just needs a series of rapid-fire shots to puncture one of the missiles within the drones and cause them to go off, creating an average sized explosion every time that happens in mid-air and prevents the building from even being scratched. After sliding for a couple more seconds, X drops down a small shaft and flies towards an icy metallic wall, where X quickly straightens his body and holds his hands forward to attach to the wall, which allows him to slowly slide down until he drops straight down to the next floor of the facility.
On this floor, there wasn't any enemies in sight, and things were rather quiet much to X's surprise. But he knew that meant something was up ahead that would attempt to catch him off-guard, and with a firm expression on his face X went on ahead and then leaped at a wall to begin slowly climbing it with a series of jumps, all the while keeping his arm cannon out just in case he had to attack an enemy quickly. Once at the top of the wall, X is prepared to land on the ledge when all of a sudden a grenade is lobbed right into his face, which goes off and hits him with a small explosion powerful enough to make him plummet back down to the floor below with a heavy thud against it. The attack came from one of those bipedal, spherical Mavericks that X saw during the attack on the Hunter HQ.
The explosion knocked X for a bit of a loop as he landed, but he was at least able to get back onto his feet in a matter of seconds and then lean himself up against a wall so he could take a break and contact Alia about what he just saw. "Alia, some of those Mavericks from the attack on our base are here." "It's certainly suspicious…But those kinds of Reploids are mass produced these days, so it's not too surprising if Doppler decided to grab a few for himself for defense. Just destroy it and move on." Alia replied, and while she was talking X charged his arm cannon and then leaped off the wall he was leaning against to get to the one on the other side so he could launch a charged shot from a safer distance at the Maverick that attacked him before.
Once that was destroyed X proceeded along the icy floor until he had to drop down another shaft, where two more of those cannon Mavericks were ready to take him down with grenades, but X responded to their presence by ducking down and letting the grenades they lobbed pass by each other and blow up on the opposite Maverick to blow them both up. X then lifted himself up and ran forward, dropping down onto a small ice slide and slipping up, falling on his stomach and being sent hurtling down to the next floor.
It was a miracle that there were no spikes waiting for X at the bottom of the floor, but the X did feel a bit shocked once he landed, and once he rose to his feet he brushed the slightly skid marks on his armor that were put there from how roughly he slid down the ice. After he was done with that, X saw a couple of familiar sliding steel doors up ahead, and experience taught him that beyond those would lie Blizzard Buffalo…But to X, it seemed way too early for him to be meeting the former Maverick Hunter.
Sure enough, upon walking through the doors, X was not greeted by the usual passage and instead went directly into a large-scale room filled with a bunch of ice statues. The amount of ice in this room fogged up the atmosphere incredibly, and X had to activate his internal heater to protect himself from the sub-arctic temperatures for the time being. X opened his mouth and breathed, a small cloud of frost coming out as he slowly walked through this museum of frozen statues.
The most obvious thing to note were there were a number of statues shaped like Blizzard Buffalo himself, giving X the knowledge that he was a very bulky Reploid with a buffalo's face, large fists and two-toed hooves, and pipes that fueled the Reploid with cold energy. But there were other statues in this room as well, such as one based on a very large Walrus-like Reploid with tusks made of crystalline ice and the familiar Chill Penguin. As X noticed these statues, Alia said to him quietly "Frost Walrus of Repliforce…Ex-Hunter Chill Penguin…It seems as though Blizzard Buffalo is a fan of making art based on ice-elemental Reploids."
X stopped in front of a statue of a Reploid he didn't recognize who had a wolf-like design with frosted hair, sharpened claws on his hands and feet, and an overall powerful presence despite it being just a statue. Once there, X looked down and saw that this statue had a plate on it, remarking as he looked it over "It's a memorial statue for a Reploid called…Blizzard Wolfang? I've never heard of this guy before…Alia, have you?" As X stood up and waited to get an answer from Alia, but she surprisingly went silent.
"…Alia?" X tried to get her attention with a concerned inquiry, and she remarked with a stutter afterwards '"H-Huh? Sorry X…I was thinking about something for a moment. Sorry to say, I'm not familiar with that Reploid. I'll look into it later if you're interested, but you should just get out of this area and move on to Blizzard Buffalo. This museum is just a waste of time." Alia was rather blunt about X moving on, and X decided that he did agree with the idea and just weave through the rest of this small museum until he was out of there.
In this next part of the facility, the lighting was a lot dimmer as X had now gone underground and there was nothing of the outside world in sight, just a series of pistons going off in the background nice and slow. Moving on with the help of his night vision, X goes through a couple stretches of icy floor without any enemies getting in his path that he actually paused for a moment and glanced behind him upon landing down underneath the light of a faulty ceiling lamp, thinking that perhaps he was about to be ambushed.
The chill going through X's circuits thanks to the increasingly colder atmosphere did little to help his concerns, and after letting out a few short breathes he slowly turns himself around and stepped forward at a snail's pace. There were droplets of cold water plinking against the ground, followed by a slight howl of wind moving through this underground tunnel, and X then noticed something odd on the ceiling. A rugged clod of blue ice was dug into the ceiling, and compared to the metallic ceiling it was very out-of-place.
X aimed his arm cannon up and fired upon this ice, and his suspicions were confirmed when the ice dropped from the ceiling in the form of a crystalline armored drone with a central eye and a hidden turret on it's underside. The icy drone fired some spread shots from it's turret that covered the ground near X's feet in a spray of bullets that sparked upon hitting the floor, leading to X being forced to jump back as some of the bullets nick through his leg armor. But as he leaped back he prepared his arm cannon for a charged shot and then aimed precisely at the center of the drone to destroy it in a single attack.
Once X landed on the ground a slipped back a couple feet along the ice, he recognized what type of defenses this part of the facility had and focused most of his attention on the ceiling as he moved forward, which allowed him to destroy a couple more of those drones while jumping over spiked pits, ending once X made it to a ladder and used it to climb his way out of the underground. The light began to return to his eyes as he went higher and higher up, culminating in the full luminescence of the moon reaching him once he wall jumped back into the outdoors. He had now exited the facility, though there was another building off in the distance that X could see the roof of from where he currently stood. That had to be where Blizzard Buffalo was hiding.
X took care of a couple drones patrolling the area and then suddenly got a message from Alia, who told X bluntly to "Find cover for a moment! I'm detecting something you might be interested in this immediate vicinity." X quickly pulled back and leaned against the backside of the facility, laying a hand against the side of his helmet before inquiring with a surprised look in his eyes "What's up?"
"This doesn't make any sense…According to my scanners, I'm picking up a faint signal for a Dr. Light capsule close by." Alia's words lit up X's interest, and he commented with a great deal of surprise in his voice "D-Dr. Light has a capsule in this area? How?" To X's surprise, Alia could not find a definitive answer to the question and replied with "Well, we've established that Dr. Light's hologram is sentient before…It's entirely possible that he can move his capsules around as well, wouldn't you agree?"
"…Then that just begs the question as to how he knew I'd be here." X pointed out, with Alia telling him afterwards "That's just something you'll have to ask him X. At the very least, you can certainly use the armor upgrades in case you run into any heavy resistance, so I suppose we really shouldn't be having problems with this type of convenience. Though I do wonder why I didn't detect the signal sooner…"
As X left Alia to think about that, he proceeded back along the given route while keeping an eye out for anything suspicious, scaling a few large steps until a heavy amount of snow starts to fall down from the sky. It wasn't nearly blinding to X's line of sight, but he had to activate his night vision again to be able to see the outlines of the ground and any enemies that may be in his way up ahead. At the top of the steps, X lands onto a patch of broken highway and stands still for a moment to see what his options were.
Between two patches of road was a large twister that was likely responsible for creating this miniature blizzard, but X had no idea if he would be able to make it back up here if he went down to destroy the machine creating the twisted, so he decided instead to just leap straight at it and use an Air Dash to push through the high gusts and land on the other side of the road. But upon landing he skid forward quite a bit, and there was a Maverick riding a car straight towards X a moment later.
X didn't bother to destroy it, instead choosing to jump over it and let the car skid right off of the side of the road and crash down into the tornado creating device to destroy it. X got a bit of déjà vu from that, recalling when a similar thing happened when he went after Overdrive Ostrich, but that memory lasted only a moment before X focused back onto his mission and went on ahead across the highway. With the blizzard gone, X no longer needed the night vision to move on, but it took him a moment to drop it as for a moment he saw something poking out from a secluded room that looked like the top of Dr. Light's capsule.
There was a large gap between the portion of the highway X was on and the thin ledge X would need to land on in order to reach the room, but X ran forward at his top speed and then leaped right as he reached the edge of the highway. He used his Air Dash boots to close most of the distance, but even with all this combined X had to swing both of his arms out and grab as hard as he could onto the slippery ledge. The slickness of the ice meant that X had to act fast to pull himself up, which while difficult due to the lack of traction, eventually ended in his success.
After letting out a sigh of relief, X walked forward until he approached the capsule, and the lid popped off and levitated in mid-air as the engines of the machine whir to life and the hologram of the old and kindly Dr. Light appeared in the air. Upon looking at X, Dr. Light cracked a little smile and then remarked "It's nice to see you again X…Though it seems as though you have once again been dragged into a horrible battle." X remarked to Dr. Light after a momentary pause "Possibly…Right now I'm investigating a potential uprising of Mavericks within this supposedly peaceful town."
"Hmmm, and investigation you say? To be able to investigate to the best of your ability, you should be able to reach all possible locations with relative ease. Your standard Air Dash boots are quite potent, but they only allow you to move greater distances horizontally. X…Step into the capsule, and I shall give you the first piece of the Third Armor, a set of foot parts that will allow you to perform the Variable Air Dash, which will allow you to boost through the air for short distances in all directions."
After Dr. Light explained what part he was giving X, he made his hologram disappear for a moment so X could get the foot parts applied to his armor. Stepping inside the capsule, X was consumed by a stream of data that transfigured his body to place the new part onto him. After a few seconds, the data disappeared, and X stepped out of the capsule wear some new foot armor. It shared a lot of physical similarities to the Second Armor's feet, but with thicker plating around the lower legs and tougher, orange colored kneecaps.
Once X was out of the capsule, Dr. Light appeared again and said to him "I know you will use these parts wisely X. I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors." X glanced over his shoulder and then turned his body halfway around before holding a hand out and saying "Wait, Dr. Light…There's something I have to know."
"What is it X?" Dr. Light anticipated the question happily, and X responded by looking straight at his creator and saying "How did you know that I was going to be here?" Dr. Light paused for a moment and then raised a hand to his chin, rubbing it before replying "I am capable of detecting where you're at X. So I knew you were coming to this area at some point. I wish I could just directly place these capsules close to your location, but I don't know where you'll teleport to and I can't risk dropping them into open space since they'd be detected by the enemy."
"I thank you for doing all of this for me Dr. Light, don't get me wrong, I just was a little curious to know how you were keeping up with me…That's all." X said, and Dr. Light cracked a smile and remarked "Don't take my response to mean that I am offended X. Curiosity is but one part of discovery, after all. Oh, and I suppose I should say right now that your friend should change the frequency for her scanner. These capsules have a different signal to them than the last batch. Otherwise, I can only wish you good luck until we meet again, X."
With that remark of good will, Dr. Light's hologram disappeared and the capsule deactivated, and as X turned around to leave the room Alia remarked "I'll get to work on modifying the scanner for later. Right now, you should be very close to Blizzard Buffalo's chamber, so it's time to see what's going on here…" X leaped down from the icy ledge and landed near the entrance of the building, which was protected by the familiar sliding steel doors.
X walked to these doors and let them slide open, allowing him to walk down a small passage within the surprising intact interior of the building and make his way through one more door to end up in the final room of this facility. Inside, the room had the temperature of a large refrigerator, but also had a peaceful allure to it that made X feel comfortable despite being in the middle of enemy territory. Moonlight glistened through the two large windows in the room, and at the very end a figure could be seen working on a large ice block.
The figure was Blizzard Buffalo, who looked exactly the same as the statue of his likeliness depicted, though just a little bit bigger. Steam emerged from both sides of the Reploid's face as he looked up at his ice block, and after a few seconds of contemplation Blizzard Buffalo swung his hands out rapidly to chop down the ice block into a sculpture that he wanted to make. His movements were swift but very, very precise, as he was able to perfectly create a statue of his likeliness out of the ice block in a matter of seconds, a feat that would put even the best of artists to shame. With his work complete, Blizzard Buffalo took one of his large hands and rubbed his chin, remarking in a very soothing but accented tone of voice "Hmmm…A crack in the side. I used too much force there…But it seems I'll have to wait a little bit to try again."
Blizzard Buffalo slowly turns himself around as X approached him, and with a respectful bow of his head he said "Maverick Hunter X…It's an unexpected surprise to see you here. How are you doing?" X was quite surprised by the hospitality the Reploid showed him, and responded kindly by lowering his arm cannon and remarking "Blizzard Buffalo…I'm here running an investigation into a recent attack on the Maverick Hunter HQ."
"Oh? And why did you come here specifically?" Blizzard Buffalo quietly inquired, and X gestured his right hand out and explained to him "One of the Hunters who betrayed us said that he was working for the Doppler Army. But as you know, we can't investigate the main part of Doppler Town, so we decided to check out the facilities around the town for anything that might indicate a connection between the attack and Doppler."
"So you're taking advantage of the lack of diplomatic immunity in these parts to perform an investigation. Unfortunately, I know nothing about any 'army' that Doppler might have. I mostly spend my time around this facility, practicing my statue crafting art in peace. I have much to thank the good doctor for, especially since he gave me a vaccine that would prevent me from going Maverick. I'm sorry X, but you will have to look somewhere else for any evidence." Blizzard Buffalo remarked without sounding the least bit dishonest about his knowledge.
"Thanks for being cooperative Blizzard Buffalo. I'll leave you to your work now…" X said with an appreciative nod of his head, and Blizzard Buffalo slowly turned around and began to move back to his ice statue, examining it for any flaws and such while X turned around and laid a hand on his helmet to communicate with Alia. "I don't believe he's lying. I'm honestly surprised to find that he hasn't gone Maverick…" X said, glancing back and admiring the work Blizzard Buffalo was putting into his craft.
"Hmmm…I think you should investigate a little bit outside. The fact that there's some of those cannon drones around here is still pretty suspicious…" Alia remarked, and X did nod his head in agreement at that and remarked quietly "Yeah, I guess I should still look around. So long as I don't disturb Blizzard Buffalo, we should be fine…"
X then lowered his hand and prepared to make his way for the door. Meanwhile, Blizzard Buffalo was continuing to examine his statue unimpaired, but he had a bit of a harder time now ever since he finished talking with X. There was this annoying twitch coming from within his head that just wouldn't go away, and Blizzard Buffalo lets out a few quiet grunts until the pain spreads to further parts of his body, making his grunts turn into groans of pain as a voice begins whispering in his head to "Kill X…"
"Grrr…GrRRRRRRR" Blizzard Buffalo's grunts become audible, beastly roars as he blows cold steam from his snout and suddenly thrusts his right fist out angrily against his statue, shattering it apart and finally grabbing X's attention before he was ready to leave the room. X quickly turned around and saw Blizzard Buffalo in agony, his hands grasped against his head as he slowly turned himself around and rammed his body against the back wall a couple times while X ran forward and exclaimed "What's going on? Blizzard Buffalo, are you alright?!"
"G-Grrrr….K-K-Kill…X…." Blizzard Buffalo stood in place while muttering this out, and X widened his eyes upon hearing him say that, realizing that it seems as though something was forcing Blizzard Buffalo to start going Maverick. Widening his eyes with absolute fury on his face, Blizzard Buffalo raised his right fist up and loudly proclaimed "KILL X!" He then slammed his fist straight down, breaking right through the floor and unleashing a multitude of icy spikes around his hand as X leaps back to avoid the attack, aiming his arm cannon at the once peaceful Reploid as he finds that battle is now unavoidable.
X fired upon Blizzard Buffalo with simple buster shots, but it did nothing but irritate the Maverick when they struck his face. Blizzard Buffalo then pulled his hand from the ground and swung it out, throwing out a series of icy arrowheads to try and penetrate through X's armor, but X backflips out of the way, leading to only one of those projectiles penetrating through the side of his arm cannon. But the attack didn't go deep enough to prevent X from firing it, and he charged it up quickly so by the time he landed he could point it at Blizzard Buffalo and fire a charged shot.
However, the Maverick suddenly charged forward by releasing a heavy burst of cold steam, and while the charged shot struck his face and seemingly did some damage Blizzard Buffalo, the Maverick still pressed on unimpeded and rammed right into X with a heavy amount of blunt force from his forehead. X was sent flying across the room, slamming right against the back of the nearby wall and bouncing right off it a moment later, where Blizzard Buffalo then continues to ram forward and slam X right back against the wall with his forehead, using his horns to hold the Hunter in place by puncturing the wall on both sides of X's body.
X raised his arm cannon up and placed it against Blizzard Buffalo's head, charging up energy while the Maverick presses forward a couple times to apply pressure to X's body and make it harder for him to concentrate, but even though X grunted in pain he managed to fire off his charged shot point-blank, creating a strong burst of energy that broke off a small plate of the Maverick's face and pushed him back a bit across the ice.
X landed on the ground and panted a bit, surprised by how much damage he had taken considering the higher defenses he had from taking in the properties of the last two armors into his body. Knowing he could not afford to screw around, X quickly prepared another charged shot and ran forward, firing upon Blizzard Buffalo's chest and causing a decent sized dent to be placed in his massive body, but the Maverick retaliates by slamming his left fist into the ground with enough force to tremor the room and send a series of ice spikes across the ground at X.
X swerved to the right and then prepared another charged shot, ready to fire it down at Blizzard Buffalo's legs to down him, but the Maverick responded by swinging his right fist out in a hook and hitting X straight in the face with a heavy enough blow to disrupt the circuitry in his body and make him slam against a wall, creating a large set of cracks while X's focus on his arm cannon is broken. X creaks his eyelids open and sees some static in his vision appearing occasionally, but he could see that Blizzard Buffalo was ready to attack him with a strong punch. Gritting his teeth, X knew he had to get out of this situation quickly.
X charged up his arm cannon again and pulled himself from the wall, using his new Air Dash boots to launch himself right over Blizzard Buffalo and then turn around to aim his arm cannon at the large engine on his back that was producing all of the cold steam, and with quick reflexes before the Maverick could turn around and hit him X fired off his charged shot and punctured right through this engine, releasing all of the pressure within in an explosion powerful enough to make Blizzard Buffalo's body burst apart in multiple parts, with his legs caving, his tubes coming off of his broken arms, and the dent expanding outward and blowing apart from within.
X lands on the ground and skids into the wall as the bulking Maverick collapses onto the ground, seemingly defeated by X's efforts. X held his arm cannon down and walked over to Blizzard Buffalo, who was struggling to pull himself up with his broken hands. "W-What…W-What happened…?" He said, tired and confused being his prominent emotions as he turned his head slightly and saw X barely standing beside him. "…X? D-Did I…Did I fight you?" He inquired.
"Blizzard Buffalo…What's going on here?" X inquired, and Blizzard Buffalo looked absolutely dumbstruck as he replied "I-I don't know…I saw you…And then some voice told me to kill you…And t-then I just…lost control of myself…I don't know what could possibly have h-h-happened…" His voice became weaker with every breath he took, and it was clear that the damage he had taken was getting to be too much for him to bear.
"Hold on, we can get you repaired!" X remarked, and Blizzard Buffalo stated "I-It's too late for me…You destroyed my engine…The one thing keeping me alive…And my body is broken all over…I can barely see…Barely move…Barely talk…" X stated firmly and honestly to the Reploid "…I'm sorry…I didn't want this to happen…"
"I-I-I know…You did what you had to…Urk! …As a Maverick Hunter…I hold no ill will towards you….X…" Blizzard Buffalo remarked, and then he raised his right hand up slightly and said "Something…Is going on here X…But I don't believe it's Dr. Doppler's fault…He took me in…Gave me a chance to make art in peace…Why would he ever betray his inhabitants? Please…Don't blame him…for my death…"
Blizzard Buffalo lowered his head against the ground, and with the last of his breath he said "Life is like art…It is quite beautiful…" His eyelids close, and he lays his arms against the ground to accept his death in peace, and X grit his teeth out of irritation for Blizzard Buffalo's demise. He was a kind soul who just wanted to get away from the Maverick Wars, and now his final moments were spent being nothing more than a berserk Maverick. X honored Blizzard Buffalo's demise by taking on his powers via laying a hand on the Reploid's body, then upon copying his power his body briefly became icy blue.
X then stood upright and was quiet for a few seconds before he contacted Alia, telling her with a melancholy tone of voice "…Alia…Blizzard Buffalo suddenly went Maverick. I was forced to terminate him…" Alia responded solemnly with "I saw that…It's really odd that he suddenly went Maverick like that. It's definitely safe to assume that something is going on around here, and regardless of what Blizzard Buffalo said, Dr. Doppler has to be involved."
"Right…Blizzard Buffalo felt like he was much stronger than he should have been too. Maybe whatever caused him to go Maverick also made him stronger…Alia, you should warn Zero about that before he runs into any of the Mavericks." X remarked, and Alia replied afterwards "He already went off to investigate the underground sewers. I'll tell Iris to pass on this information to him. For now though, it's time for you to come back and get some repairs done, then we can continue the investigation elsewhere…" X nodded his head in agreement of that, and after a few seconds Alia set up the teleporter to bring X back to HQ, carrying him away from this frozen facility and the corpse of it's kindly giant…
Next Time: From Zero's Perspective…