Mega Man ZX Soundtrack - Crisis Zone
At the moment Neal turned around, he was met by the visage of five large armored vehicles. They were painted orange with red trim and had a dragon-shaped emblem on the sides. The windows had thick iron bars on them, and on the tops were medium-sized turrets. Suddenly the sides opened, and several dozen modified galleons marched out forming up like soldiers.
The modified galleons were orange in contrast to the normal galleon's purple color scheme. What also set them apart were that their heads had a dragon-like motif to them and that the plasma rifles on their right arms were replaced with massive artillery weapons.
The last bit of rumbling came from an armored four-wheeler with similar color schemes to the armored vehicles. What set it apart was who was riding it.
Riding it was a well-muscled reploid girl with a very aggressive look on her face. She was wearing an orange vest, gauntlets, and boots, all with yellow trim. Under it she wore a black skin-tight outfit, and over her legs she wore white cargo pants. Her hair was brown on the back, and orange on the front and spiky.
"By the authority granted to me by Legion, I am hereby placing you under arrest!" the girl spoke in her vehicle's built-in intercom. "You are completely surrounded, our weapons are readied, and we will fire if you do not surrender your Biometal!"
Biometal? Is that what this thing is called? Neal asked himself as he looked down to the metal emblem he held in his hands.
"Neal, listen to me. Stall for time while I try to find a way out of this," Elpizo spoke.
Easier said then done, Neal thought.
"On what grounds am I being taken in?" Neal asked, hoping to stall for time.
"You don't have the right to know that human filth," the reploid girl spat as she signaled for the troops to converge on their target.
Damn, that didn't work, Neal thought. I'll have to try something else.
"Before you take me in, I have a question for you," Neal said while raising his arms in surrender, which in his current state felt like he was lifting bricks of lead. "What's your name?"
"My name is Atlas," the girl spat. "Troops! Take him in!"
Crap! I'm in some deep shit! Neal thought. I've got guns pointed at me on all sides, my energy reserves are next to nothing, and there aren't any witnesses to slow them down. It'd take some kind of miracle to save me now.
Right as he was about to give up hope, the sound of revving engines met his ears. Suddenly two motorcycles, one red and one blue, rushed through the line of galleons. Riding them were Vent and Aile.
"Don't worry we've got you!" Aile said as she scooped Neal up and tossed him into the side car.
The stunned Atlas regained her senses and started up her four wheeler. "Don't just stand there! AFTER THEM!"
Mega Man ZXA Soundtrack - Target Chasers
At that very moment, Vent and Aile with Neal in tow were rushing up an intersection into one of Legion's main highways. They were the fastest means of getting from one place to another without Transfering, and hopefully the traffic would help to slow Atlas down.
"Thanks guys. I was in a real jam back there," Neal said as he sighed a sigh of relief.
"We'll talk later!" Vent said as the three of them veered into a lane of fast-moving traffic.
Neal slumped in his seat. "Who was that? Why did she have all those troops?"
"Her name's Atlas," Vent explained as he and Aile steered between two semis. "She's the Model F Mega Man, and one of the more ruthless ones at that."
Neal slumped, still clutching his duffle bag and his biometal. "Biometal? Mega Man? I don't know what's happening anymore."
Vent tapped the communicator on his right ear. "This is Vent to base, do you copy?" he asked as he swerved between two cars and narrowly avoided hitting a third.
"Vent! We have a lock on your position! What's your status?"
"We have a Chosen One in our custody," Vent said. "At this moment we're being pursued by the Model F Mega Man and a battalion of modified galleons. They're using heavily armored vehicles with large mounted turrets."
"Guys, lose them and head to the abandoned warehouse in South Legion. You'll find a Transerver there you can use to escape through an untraceable circuit."
Vent nodded as he cut the link. "Aile, did you hear all that?"
"Yeah!" Aile said as she followed behind Vent. "Lets get to that warehouse and get out of here."
"Guys," Neal moaned as he tried not to loose his lunch, "we've got company."
Vent and Aile looked in the rearview mirrors and saw the five transports coming right at them. Taking the front position was Atlas megamerged using her Knuckle Busters to force cars out of the way.
"This is bad!" Aile moaned as Atlas suddenly launched a bomb at them. She quickly swerved to the right and pulled back as the car in front of her was turned into a ball of flame. "Oh no!"
"She's on the war path!" Vent shouted as he tried to find the best route to South Legion. "Evasive maneuvers!"
Neal clutched his biometal and tried to transform, but was unable to do so. "Its no good. I can't transform anymore."
"Don't even try," Aile said reassuringly. "You did your part, we'll do ours."
Didn't they already take on four of those metal monstrosities? Neal thought as he weakly nodded. "Thanks Aile."
"C'mon Aile!" Vent said as he finally got the route locked onto his on-board computer. "I have the route locked in! Lets lose these guys and get out of here!"
Aile passed Vent the Model X before anything more could happen. "Just in case!"
Vent nodded as he pulled back on the throttle.
"Hold onto your lunch kid!" Aile said as she followed behind. She pulled back on the throttle and bolted between traffic, Atlas and her troops shortly behind. Traffic didn't do them much good in slowing Atlas' forces down, since anyone in their was either blown up, shot down, or knocked out of the way by Atlas.
The wind was blowing through Vent and Aile's hair, their motorcycles were pushing their limits, and Neal was looking worse and worse with each passing minute.
"Aile! Get Neal to the Transerver! I'll hold them off here!" Vent said as he pulled out Model X and Model Z and prepared to megamerge.
"Are you insane? There's too many for you to handle!" Aile said. "They'll kill you if you stay here!"
"Well what do you want me to do?" Vent asked. "Just hand over the kid? We can't let his Biometal fall into the wrong hands."
They're doing all of this for me, Neal thought as he tried to figure things out. What's going on that would make this Biometal so important they'd put their lives on the line for it?
Right at that moment, he remembered a little "surprise" he kept stored in his bag for just these emergencies. He was mentally beating himself for not remembering he had it earlier during the maverick attack. It would've saved a lot of pain and bloodshed, but on the other hand it probably also would've gotten him arrested too. Either way he didn't remember it then, but it only mattered that he remembered now.
"Vent. Aile. Do either of you have mechanical limbs?" Neal weakly asked.
"No. Why?" Aile answered.
Neal pulled out a dull brown orange-sized sphere from the bottom of his bag. It looked military-grade, and its sides it had small glowing red panels. "I'm going to use this Droid Popper to slow them down."
"Droid Popper?" Vent asked.
"I had this delivered to me when I was younger by some people from Giro Express," Neal said as he powered it up. "It's saved me a few times since then."
"You got that from Giro Expresss!" Vent said, realizing he hadn't really met any clients after delivery.
"Wait a minute! Aren't Droid Poppers illegal?" Aile asked.
"Fire in the hole!" Neal said ignoring Aile as he chucked the sphere at their pursuers. As it flew through the air at Atlas, she veered off to the right, as did the other armored transports, causing the Droid Popper to bounce off the pavement.
"Crap! I missed!" Neal moaned, knowing he was never going to get that back.
However, just as the Droid Popper flew past its targets, it detonated. A nearly invisible shockwave was released, short-circuiting the galleons and sending the troop transports veering off in every direction.
"Okay, it kinda worked," Neal said as the only one left pursuing them was Atlas on her four wheeler, "except now I'm short one Droid Popper."
"We'll get you another one later," Vent said. "But after we get out of here, you've got some serious explaining to do!"
Neal nodded. When he felt a warm liquid on his shoulder it was then he realized he had blood trickling down the side of his head and down his shoulder. A weird feeling suddenly came over him and he couldn't speak fluently. "Um. Aile. I think... I may have... gotten some blood... on the sidecar."
Aile looked to Neal and nearly screamed. "Vent! He's injured! We need to get him out of here now!"
"Relax sis," Vent said as he and Aile steered off the highway and just entered South Legion, a large industrial area covered with factories and warehouses. "Blows to the head are less serious then they look. He'll be fine for a few more minutes."
"I beg... to... dis...agree..." Neal clenched the side of his head as his vision started to go. The next moment he lost consciousness, probably due to blood loss. Amongst other things of course.
"Vent! He just passed out!" Aile said as she tried to keep Neal from falling out of the side car. "We need to get Atlas away from him and make our escape! Otherwise we'll be fitting him for a body bag!"
Vent nodded. "Got it! Megamerge!"
Atlas shielded her eyes as a bright flash of light. When she unshielded them, she stared face to face with the Model ZX Mega Man, Vent.
"You! I should've known you'd be helping this twerp!" Atlas spat as she charged her bomb launchers.
"Get to the Transerver! This will only take a minute!" Vent said as he activated the Auto-Pilot and charged his buster.
"You won't escape me human scum!" Atlas howled as she launched her bombs at Aile and Neal, only for them to be blasted out of the air by Vent's ZX Buster.
Atlas looked to them as rage filled her eyes. "Fine! I'll get rid of you first!"
"I don't' think so," Vent said as he began firing charge shots at Atlas, only to have her dodge them at every turn.
"Is that the best you got?" Atlas asked as she successfully dodged three charge shots, feeling confident about her own abilities.
"Not even close," Vent said as he fired another charge shot at the front of her four wheeler.
"What the-" was as far as she got before she was thrown from her vehicle and sent crashing into several cars, skipping like a stone before slamming into a firmly-planted lamp post.
"Damn you," Atlas muttered before passing out.
Right as Aile had finished dragging Neal and putting his duffle bag onto the Transerver, Vent appeared out of his mega merged form and jumped off his motorcycle.
"Commander! We're out of immediate danger!" Vent said into his communicator. "Get us out of here and have Rose ready for a new patient!"
"Got it!"
"Transerver Coordinates locked! Transfer start!"
In a flash of light, Vent, Aile, and Neal were whisked away from South Legion and back to the Guardian Base.
High above in the Guardian Base, Commander Prairie, Fleuve, Rose, and two other Guardian members with a stretcher ready watched and waited in the Transerver room for the return of the two Mega Men and supposed third.
In a flash of light the three of them returned, Aile holding an injured boy in her arms.
"Is this him?" Prairie asked as she looked to the boy in Aile's arms.
Vent nodded. "Yeah. That's him."
Aile gently set Neal down onto the stretcher and Rose gave him a quick one-over. She quickly pulled out a small flashlight, opened an eyelid, and flashed it to check for dilation. Then she placed an ear to his chest to check for breathing.
"Get him to the medical ward immediately!" Rose ordered. "If we don't treat him soon, he may come out of this with permanent damage!"
The two guardians quickly fell into line and followed Fleuve to the medical ward.
"What's his status?" Prairie asked as she followed Rose. Vent and Aile followed behind as well, worried that the guy who helped them, however indirect it was, was seriously injured.
"He has a slight case of blunt trauma," Rose explained. "We won't know what else is wrong until we do a full evaluation. Until then I ask that you stay out of our way. If we miss something, it could probably cost him."
Prairie nodded as the boy was carried into the medical ward. As soon as the door closed, the red light flashed signaling that it was in use.
"Commander, its just as we suspected," Vent said as Praired led him and Aile to her office. "Atlas went after the boy, and more importantly she had troops backing her up. Legion troops."
Prairied nodded as she looked out the window. "I see. That means Atlas must've escaped the Ouroborous. However I can't figure out why she has Legion troops backing her up."
"With your permission," Vent said, "I'd like to ready the troops in case they come after us."
"Permission granted," Prairie said. "Dismissed."
"Thank you Commander," Vent and Aile said with a salute before leaving.
Right after Vent and Aile left, Prairie sat down in her personal office and pressed the Com Link button to the bridge. "Gardenia, Tulip, Marguerite, I want this ship out of Legion airspace and out of radar range ASAP."
"Yes Commander," the three Operators spoke in unison.
"Also, get Fleuve up here and ask him when the repairs will be fully completed," Prairie said as she stretched her arm.
"Yes maam," the three of them said before cutting off the line.
Prairie sighed as she reached for her stuffed animal, only to have her arm stiffen up for a moment.
Man, its been three months since that attack went down and I'm still damaged, Prairie thought to herself. She looked out the window and thought about her sister and what she'd do if she were still alive. I can only hope this kid is on our side. Otherwise, the future looks grim. For all of us.
Just a disclaimer I need to get out of the way. The Droid Popper Neal used is roughly based on the one used in Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
P.S.
Sorry if this chapter was a little short, but there wasn't that much content that could be expressed in this part of the story.