Chapter 13: "Sigma's Fortress"

Only one thing affected the war waging around the fortress: it had stopped trying to move toward the nearest city. Surrounded by the Hunter armada, the floating fortress remained ominously silent in the air, the land-war still raging across its attached island of rock and metal.

"And we still can't get a signal inside?" Dr. Cain asked, glancing down to his left.

Alia looked up at his back. The human scientist was at the front of the command bridge, watching it all in his grim focus. "No, sir. I'm sorry. Hopefully it stopped advancing because of their efforts."

Dex adjusted some of his controls, and reported, "We're making steady progress, sir. Unless Sigma has a new trick to pull out at this stage, we'll win this battle."

Dr. Cain's hands tightened on his cane. "Sigma was the best Hunter for a reason, Dex. This isn't over until it's over."

Alia and Dex both answered, "Yes, sir."

[In the Depths…]

Inside the fortress, X stepped over the wreckage of a few hover-bots to face a new sphere-lock door. Dark emotion was etched into his face, his buster remaining active and ready. His cold gaze flitted across the features of the door, then the wall around it. Armored bulkheads on the other side. This looks like a bunker system. A fortress within the fortress. Hm… time to spring the trap then.

X dashed and hopped through the doorway, unsurprised when it slammed shut and whirled into full-lock behind him. His eyes scanned the new room, finding it a featureless, large cube, except for the door opposite his current position. It was another sphere-lock barrier, already sealed.

Two things saved his life. His body was primed for combat, and he'd heard the subtle whisper calling for his doom once before.

X dove forward, twisting in the same motion, and fired back at Boom Kuwanger.

The Maverick was just flickering into view, its right arm swinging the blade-cutter down through the air X had just left. Its optics saw the plasma bolt, and it twisted and crouched at full speed, blurring down to let the shot sail overhead.

X skidded to a halt, his expression unchanged. Those optics are dead. A core-copy. A dangerous replica, but it can't make new thoughts or be creative. Sigma likely focused it for combat, too. "Haven't we done this dance before, Kuwanger?"

"I found the conclusion unsatisfactory," the clone replied.

X's colors shifted, his highlights dimming to cold gray as his buster snapped into a torpedo-launcher. "I really don't have time for this. Stand down, and I won't harm you." He felt the thing before him rather akin to a bot, but even a bot didn't deserve to get blown apart without necessity.

The clone smirked with its optics, and flickered out of sight.

X's right hand snapped up to the side, palm open, and his buster fired ahead, left, and straight back in a quick, snapping arc.

The clone Kuwanger appeared, optics-wide. Its right arm, which was holding the blade-cutter, was already caught by X's open hand. The arcing torpedoes were rushing in from his other sides just as fast.

X held fast, and drove the clone's blade into the flooring, their pair locking optics. Kuwanger eased faintly, "No hesitation?"

The torpedoes hit. X closed his eyes against the wash of fire and smoke that poured around him. He opened them down at the battered remains of the clone.

Kneeling down, X pried open the armor, and looked for the core components to confirm his theories. His brow creased, and he pulled out a system buffer. "No core chip, just the buffer itself. A cached personality." He sighed, wiping a hand down his face. "Just very dangerous battle-bots."

Standing, he marched toward the far door, but paused, his face tightening with suspicion, when the door just unlocked and rushed open. Reverting his colors and buster-mode, X started forward again. "Invited right in. I'll accept."

The door immediately led into a narrow hall, which more resembled a metal tunnel than anything. The doorway at the end opened for him as the first had, but the room beyond was pitch black. Still focused as before, X just dropped down into the new room.

He'd braced for a possibly massive drop to be safe, but found the floor less than a meter below the lip of the door. As before, the door slammed shut and locked in his wake.

Lights began to flash on, but they were dim, and stopped about six meters over his head. The details the light revealed made X start to brace back with one foot, his eyes scanning up toward the darkness.

Thick, metal pipes of dark green coloration ran throughout the room, filling its space with a maze of crossed, angled lines. The pipes were segmented, and each segment had strange, iris-like openings all around it.

Surging down toward his level, the pipes started spewing random extensions out of the iris-openings, forging a massive, random network of narrow structures.

Assuming it was a physical trap, X dove forward, and dashed into a weaving path between the larger pipes, narrowly missing an impaling strike from one of the small extensions appearing between the last two larger pipes he slid between.

That was when something massive rattled in the shadows above. X looked up, his eyes widening with realization. Only the speed of his own perceptions allowed him to see what came tearing down out of the darkness.

Heavily armored silver ripped down one pipe, shot across a tiny extension, down another, and it keep doing so. The speed of the charge and track-changes wise mind-boggling even to a machine as the massive thing somehow found perfect gaps between the pipes and twisted, switched, and rushed toward X.

Twisting to his feet, X dove away from his previous location, aiming back as he did.

Eight mechanical legs unwrapped as a razor-maw opened toward him, the massive spider-bot only missing his feet by centimeters. The flooring and wall near the end of the pipe it was riding were tore apart like paper, however.

X fired a quick volley, and watched the shots disperse over the bot's tank-like body. The armor seemed to shimmer and glow softly, but was clearly unharmed.

For a split-second, on the thing's back, a massive crimson optics opened, focused on X, and then slammed shut. The next second, the spider tore back up into the shadows with a horrid screech of metal and hydraulics. At the same time, four metal pods came flying down, flung by some of its limbs.

X started to dash through the pipe matrix in a random pattern, trying to keep himself a hard target. He watched the four pods split open, revealing themselves as tiny echoes of the massive spider, all scuttling after him as quickly as their bladed legs would carry them. Their single, glowing red optics were all tightly focused on him as well.

Plasma bolts pinged off their armored bodies, but one took a bolt to the eye, and stumbled back, quickly shutting the exposure.

Hearing more hissing above, X firmed, and kept dashing.

The massive spider came hurtling down as the pipe-network changed with two snaps, the old pipes vanishing, new ones forming. X had to back-flip under one that snapped across his face, and barely dodged the massive machine again. He tried to fire at its eye, but the blink was too fast, and then the massive machine was ripping up into the darkness again, firing more pods.

X growled, and started dashing again. Think, think, think! You don't have time to be this stupid, X! The armor, work around it. It's dispersing energy and is highly refined. …Spark Mandrill's prototype refined. The pipes probably work as a secondary power-source to counter-balance the draw or even the heat. Time for a test!

His colors and buster snapped a quick change, and he fired an ice-bolt at the nearest spider-pod. It his the optic dead-on, and the pod snap-froze through the sensor. It collapsed where it stood.

Another quick ice-blast hit the flank of another pod. It slowed down, but wasn't harmed.

Definitely perfected. So the optic is the key. These little ones keep their eyes open, the big one just blinks. Why use one at all? Wait… He recalled the last two strikes. It looked straight at him for a split-second, then shut the optic tight. It's pegging me. My movements, he glanced to a pipe as he dashed past it, are sending vibration through the pipe-web, but it would be imprecise. Spotting me after each strike keeps the margin of error down. This is a machine-trap, not a thinking enemy. It will always take that glance. Okay, so it's all timing.

X leapt over a particular pipe, and snapped his buster right, then left, firing each way. Two spider-pods shattered from the force of the flash-freeze through their optics.

The pipe-matrix changed with another pair of snaps.

This time X stopped, thumping one pipe with his fist, and looking up.

The spider-tank came ripping down, jittering along it spath, arms and maw open.

X back-flipped at the last-second, letting it churn into the metal where he'd stood, and aimed his buster straight down into the closed optic.

It snapped open, dilating at this buster point-blank at its surface. He fired.

The massive spider roared, slamming the optics shut as it flailed for a moment. X climbed away quickly, watching for another possible opening.

Keeping the optic shut, the spider started to retreat, but slower, and with odd bumping gestures at a few junctions of pipes. It had definitely felt the strike.

X knew it wouldn't risk opening the eye again yet, so he pegged the rest of the pods while the main spider retreated. Changing tactics once the spider vanished into the darkness above, X started to climb through the pipes himself, swinging, jumping, and grappling through them like a monkey.

When the matrix shifted again, he cursed as a smaller pipe grazed his arm. His armor was strong enough that it only scratched, but the force twisted him around dangerously, and he caught himself on another pipe.

Then he heard the roar of the spider-tank. It started rushing down, and X boosted into a flip, buster snapping down. Proving his theory true, the spider ripped down to the junction just below him after his flip, and then started to lash out with its arms. When the eye opened, X fired again.

This time the eye froze over and burst apart with a gush of flame. The spider roared again, screeching mechanically. X scrambled further away as cracks formed on its body, the limbs lashing and the maw gnashing.

An explosion burst out of its flank, and the pipe matrix reverted, only the larger pipes remaining. X kept himself perched between two, watching as the spider-tank kept blowing open in chunks, limbs falling, armor plates crashing down heavily.

As the tank started to completely fall apart and crash down below, X looked up, puzzled as the lights came on fully, illuminating the chamber all the way to the ceiling, where a door opened in the center.

"…Why show me the way?" X muttered. His buster and colors reverted, and he started climbing. "This isn't a fortress. It's a test. Fine." The dark haze filled his eyes again as his emotions returned from his battle-focus. Zero's death would not be reduced to a test by an infected Reploid madman. This war was going to end.

[Above…]

The end of the vertical tunnel put X in a surprisingly different interior style. He felt as though he'd teleported to an entirely different building. Bronze and brown metals made up the surfaces of the interior. They were only interrupted by blue lights in long, angular lines and small domes along the walls, and black details connecting everything. The sounds of industrial equipment were also clear.

X quickly moved to a guard-wall ahead. A ramp led down to the bulk of the large, long chamber just off to his left. The quick glance he stole over the top showed him what he needed. There were bots loitering near mech-suits on service platforms between conveyor systems. It looked like the conveyor platforms were moving raw materials from something above, and dropping to slightly different areas below. The conveyors were additionally guarded by gripper-bots.

The mech-suits were the only real problem. Them crashing along in his wake would be problematic. X sighed, his hopes for stealthing through dashed by the risk of any future alarm bring all of those mechs up after him. So he started to charge, energy writhing along his frame even as he moved toward the ramp, still huddled against the wall.

In a flurry of action, X leapt into the open and fired. The back-blast of his plasma wave highlighted him for the bots in the entire hall-chamber, but the actual wave tore down and incinerated the first team of pilots and left their mechs hobbled if not entirely unusable.

Quickly switching weapons and colors, X dashed through, firing torpedoes out in clusters toward the various conveyor systems. Gripper-bots rained down in pieces all over the chamber, while mech-wearing bots finally came charging toward the Hunter.

Another switch, and X unleashed a tornado straight through the main line of charging mechs. Two were cut in half, a third lost most of its lower body, and a fourth's pilot was obliterated through its chest.

X almost flew, leaping across conveyor platforms, unleashing blasts, missiles, waves, and vortexes. Mechs and grippers crashed down or flew apart, none even getting close to attacking the Reploid ripping through their ranks.

Dash-leaping through the remains of one last gripper, X dropped down to a crouch. He faced a sphere-lock door at the far end of the room. There were no other exits.

Sigma must just be trying to slow me down. This design makes no sense for a functional fortress. X shook his head, and ran for the door. As expected now, it opened for him, let him drop into the next room, and sealed in his wake.

The same walls and details of the previous hall continued, but this room was another large cube. Another sphere-lock door waited opposite him.

X kept his buster ready. "Who is it this time then?" he called out to the room.

"I'm flattered! You're figuring the place out!" Chill Penguin shouted back, dropping in from a mechanical trap door above. It sealed flawlessly in his wake, and the clone landed to a flawless crouch. "Are you ready?"

X's eyes sharpened. The empty haze was in this clone's eyes as well. "…This must be a chore for you, Chill. Such a direct, simple confrontation. Sigma's orders?"

Chill frowned, his optics sharpening right back. "Still plenty of room to finish you."

X shook his head. "What makes you think you'll win now? Especially compared to our last fight?"

All Chill Penguin did was shrug, and then ripped toward X with a charging dash.

X twisted, exposing his back to Chill, but X instantly flipped, one-hand-standing on Chill's very shoulder. "Even a clone of Chill must find this set-up insulting."

Their optics locked over Chill's shoulder for a core-pulse.

Yes. Even this poor clone feels insulted. A cruel fate. To be an echo of someone already dead, never allowed to be yourself, X thought in that split-second.

X landed, changed colors and buster-configurations. Chill Penguin bounced off the wall, and used that to come ripping back toward X.

This time, X pirouetted around Chill Penguin, and instantly aimed his buster at the clone's back. Chill was engulfed in flame from behind. He pitched around the force of the impact at his rear armor, his optics relaxing. The clone hit the wall already exploding. It just slumped down as a heap of charred armor.

X stood there, not firing, but frozen in his last moment of releasing the firewave. "I've never thought of creation as an act of cruelty," he whispered to the too-quiet chamber. "…am I going mad myself?"

He forced his eyes shut, reverted his colors and buster, and moved to the door. It unlocked for him, and he rushed through again.

This time he climbed. Wall-mounted cannon-bots, grippers, hover-bots, and mace-wielding shield-bots all tired to slow him down. X simply leapt from shattered enemy to wall and up he went. Once had had gone several levels up, he reached a hallway with surprisingly bright light beyond.

X dashed along, but abruptly halted, looking around at a massive platform raised into what looked like open sky in broad daylight. It was still night time outside the fortress. Ahead of him, beyond the large platform, he saw another tall part of the fortress waiting. "…What is this?" X asked no one, sincerely confused.

"My new roost."

X looked up as a familiar flapping sound echoed in his audio-sensors.

Storm Eagle elegantly dropped to his feet on the platform, his turbine-buster already rotating idly. "Working for Sigma has its perks."

"You mean being reduced to a delaying tactic in a fake sky is satisfying for you?" X shot back. He was too aware of the stakes to banter.

The clone of Eagle frowned. "This 'delaying tactic' might just kill you-!?" he cut himself off when X shimmered out of sight without moving.

"I can't waste time bolstering my ego," X's voice came from right beside him.

Storm twisted, trying to fire, but his buster was kicked further out, and he took a palm-ram to the chest. Storm stumbled back, and watched the green-tinted Reploid pour out of the air, already aiming at him.

"No offense, but I don't think you were built with the capacity to see how to beat me, clone."

X fired twice. The horizontal chameleon sting hit Storm in the chest and both wings, blowing the lighter-armored limbs apart. Eagle cried out, but the second blast, oriented vertically, hit him in the chest, stomach, and head.

The clone held its face, crashing down to its knees, growling.

X held, aiming, but not firing again. "Surrender, and I will make sure you get repairs, and are free to live as you wish. Not a clone of Storm Eagle, but yourself."

The damaged face looked up at him. With the inner workings exposed and the surprisingly dark visage, Eagle suddenly looked outright demonic. "Do you actually think I'd accept?"

"Honestly, no, but I had to offer."

Eagle's optics began to glow, and he started to roar like an unholy beast. X's eyes widened, and he twisted away, dashing toward the far side of the platform, toward the rest of the fortress.

The clone self-destructed, and the shock-wave was large enough to send X flying into the base of the next tower of the fortress.

X picked himself up enough to look back at the scorched platform. "…May peace find you."

Then he looked up, and firmed. He had another climb.

[Later…]

Leaping up through a port-hole amidst burning, melting wreckage, X let the pieces float up around him for a core-pulse before he rolled forward in the air and landed. He didn't even pause at the new sphere-lock door waiting for him. They were becoming comically redundant. He strode down the hall after it, and only paused at the complete darkness beyond the next door.

Flipping over the edge of the doorway, X caught a glint of metal, and twisted, spreading his legs. The quick gesture spared him some nasty damage, as he'd just done the splits between two spikes. Brightening his helmet gem, X saw that he was in a valley of spikes between two otherwise featureless halves of a cube room. It took him a moment to shift his weight enough to kick-flip over to one side. The moment he was kneeling on solid metal again, however, the far side of the room changed as the lights flared.

Despite his darkened manner, X gawked as he recognized what the far wall was doing. Massive optics split open as gold and brass metal revealed a massive face. A large, mechanical 'nose' shifted out and expanded with hydraulic hisses to its full shape. Below was the top part of a mouth, hanging perfectly over the valley of spikes, like some absurd under-bite.

The eyes clearly focused down on him, but closed just as fast. When they opened again, one was blue, the other was red.

Instantly, both massive eyes came flying out of their sockets, rushing toward him. Each was bigger than X himself, and they were fast.

X dashed to his left, and then twisted as the red eye fired a trio of plasma bolts toward him in a blunt spread. It was easy to dodge, but X noticed his return fire of normal bolts just bounced off the clean, round surface of either eyeball.

The eyes rushed back to their sockets, and the lids closed.

That was when the room trembled, and the walls suddenly snapped toward the pit of spikes. X instantly kick-climbed up the wall, barely rising fast enough to avoid getting rammed into the spikes below.

Hissing hydraulics came from the collapsing nose, which detached from the wall, and rushed toward X with obvious intent to ram him off the surface. X boost-jumped himself off the wall, side-flipped over the charging machine, and slammed against the opposite wall, firing as he did so. His plasma shots, again, bounced off the thing's armored hide.

If this thing wasn't trying so hard to kill me, I'd be asking who set me up for a practical joke. A giant face? Really? X had to think even as the nose reset itself, and the walls snapped open.

X landed harshly, but was already dashing as the eyes opened. This time one was green, the other blue. The blue one came shooting out to ram him, but the green stayed in its socket, and fired better-aimed, single bolts his way.

What kind of surface would be heavily armored and function as a conductor for a plasma coil? X thought fast as he dodged, experimenting with his electrical bolts, torpedoes, and a charged blast. The fully charged wave did make the eye rock back, as did a torpedo shot, but it was clearly only lightly damaged.

X jumped as the walls came closing in again, climbing up, and preparing for the nose. Wait, conductive yet durable materials. Sting Chameleon's entire focus for his stealth systems used the same principles. Meaning… He turned green-tinted, his buster reconfiguring.

As the nose came rushing at him, X dash-flipped and aimed in one gesture, firing a tri-part blast into the nose nearly point-blank.

The nose nearly blew apart, crashing into the far wall, and quickly resetting as it's compressed shape hid most of the damage.

X smiled, and dropped down, battle-focus back in his eyes. "Gotcha now."

This time two blue eyes opened. As they came charging toward him, X leapt back, aimed, and fired. The first triple-blast stopped them both, each shuddering where it floated for a core-pulse.

Not wasting the chance, X charged them, firing constantly, barraging the pair with slightly angled triple-shots. The right eye finally cracked and burst, raining down onto the spikes to the side. The left started to retreat, but took a hole through its left hemisphere, and simply fell down.

The walls started to close in, and X leapt up to meet his side. When the nose activated again, he smiled faintly, and leapt over, crashing onto it, and aiming his buster straight into the center of the hydraulics.

One more shot gutted the machine explosively, rather like an absurd sneeze of wreckage, and X back-flipped to the opposite wall.

The spikes were blown apart below him from a wave of flame the giant face belched forth. It flattened the alley, and exposed a sphere-lock doorway in the fire-scorched remains of the lower face.

Not wasting time, X dropped down and dashed, leaping through the doorway and out of the face-room before it changed its mind.

[Deeper…]

Now X felt like he was in a fortress. The walls were a sterilized white, hard and thick. Piping and other industrial features, like the grated catwalks all around, were substantially more militaristic and harsh than the previous sections of the fortress.

And I can't hear the battle outside at all… X's eyes tightened as he thought of Zero, and how he would have to let everyone know. He touched his front, near where he kept Zero's components. "…I'm sorry."

He hurried on.

Opposition was strangely light, he discovered. Mining bots, the occasional turtle-mortar, but laughable compared to the armies outside, or even the forces he'd already faced.

The first sphere-lock door in the new section made him pause only because opposition had been so light. He took a breath, and dashed straight into it.

He saw a door across the chamber beyond, and didn't look back as his door sealed behind him. He did quickly focus on the awful tearing, shearing sound coming from the ceiling ahead of him. Something broke through at high speed, and X braced. He only fractionally eased as he saw Armor Armadillo unravel and land to all-fours, glaring back at him.

X already snapped to his electric buster format. "I have no need to harm you. Please stand aside."

"Oh, but I have a GREAT need to harm you!" Armor snarled, and suddenly blitzed into a roll toward X.

X knew the patterns this time, and the clone wasn't creative enough to change them. He leapt over the clone's initial rush, ducked the bounce-back, and fired once. The clone hit the wall and was unraveling in time to take a blast to the chest. His specialized armor started to electrocute him, forcing him to drop it as the real Armor had.

However, the clone looked up from this only to take another blast to the head. More came, blasting him back step by step, and finally critically overloading his system. His charred from dropped flat on its front. The sphere-lock door behind him opened before he even hit the ground.

X did linger a moment, grieving for these poor creatures made only to die and delay him. Shaking his head free of such thoughts, he dashed on.

Still, there was precious little resistance. He was blowing through enemies with ease, turning and dashing down halls, dropping down vents. He dashed straight through another sphere-lock gate before he really thought about it.

This room had strange walls. Littered with pipes and wires, it looked almost like a labyrinth of vines.

A familiar shuffling made X switch to his blade-cutter mode, and lock his eyes on the faint distortion to his left.

Sting Chameleon's clone hadn't even started to appear properly before it had to dodge a cutter. "Wow! Gotten a little grumpy, have you?" the clone challenged as he leapt back and rolled to a ready-stance.

X caught the blade he'd fired, and aimed. "You were about to fire with your tail. Now stand aside, and I won't harm you."

"Are you really going to try it with every one of us?"

"Yes."

The clone laughed, and then fired his tongue. X jerked to one side, but actually caught the tongue with his hand, and aimed his cutter-buster again. The clone's eyes widened.

X yanked, and step-kicked the clone away. "I'm serious. Stop, and I don't have to hurt you."

Sting stood up, sighing. "So are we, kid. Back at ya. Stop, and this ends."

"For all humans, yes. I can't allow that."

"Do you think it's any different for us?"

X firmed. "…So be it."

He dashed to his right, firing forward and to either side. Sting scrambled up the wall, cloaking, and leapt through the air as a distortion toward the hunter.

X looked up at the clone almost sadly, and fired again straight up. The clone's eyes widened, and he back-flipped under the direct attack… to take the returning three blades into his back.

The clone stumbled forward faintly. "…Good job. The real me… wouldn't have… fallen… for…" He just fell over.

X retrieved the cutters, whispering, "I know."

[Further…]

More halls, more paltry resistance. X found the next sphere-gate, and leapt clear through it, only really watching to make sure the ground was safe.

This time, the room stayed dark as the gate sealed. X waited, and then felt a familiar tremble through the flooring as something large landed ahead of him.

The lights that flashed around its frame made the clone of Spark Mandrill more obvious.

"Ready for another-!?" Spark never got to finish his sentence. He was frozen over in ice the next core-pulse.

X was standing firm, buster aimed in ice-gun configuration. "Stand down after breaking free, and you won't be harmed further."

Spark roared as he shattered free. "Never!"

The clone started to charge, but froze in place again. Just as it shattered the crystal prison, X fired again. Again, and again, and again.

Finally the clone stumbled back, clutching its torso. "A b-bit… harsher… than last time… kid."

X walked up to it, point-blank at its face with his blaster. "Stand down."

Spark sneered, and started to swing at him.

One more shot shattered the clone across the floor. X bowed his head, reverted his configuration, and then dashed on.

[On and on…]

When X dropped down into water, he knew who he was fighting next. More submariner bots were waiting for him, but it was still a laughable force. Swimming through their wreckage, X spotted the sphere-gate, and dashed inside.

He locked eyes with Launch Octopus' clone as it drifted down from an opening in the ceiling. He switched to his rolling-shield configuration as Launch landed on the flooring.

"Please stand aside. This doesn't have to get violent," X persisted calmly.

"You're the only one who still believes that, X," the clone rasped, lashing his tentacles.

"All the more reason to maintain the belief," X replied, his head tilting down.

Launch braced and fired with all four tentacles as his response.

X dash-swam into a drill maneuver through the torpedoes, and fired his rolling shield straight for the clone in their wake. Launch started to dodge, but lost two tentacles to the first shield, unbalancing him.

Another rolling-shield sent him crashing into the far wall through the water.

X aimed, but held. "Stop."

Launch whipped his remaining tentacles forward. This time X let him fire, simply side-stepping the torpedoes, and firing a shield after them to blow them up. Only when Launch then bodily charged did X fire at the clone again. This shot the clone did not survive.

Letting the shockwave from the last shot wash over him through the water, X sighed some bubbles out, and swam through the next sphere-gate.

[Out of the water…]

X used his camouflage to simply evade the next sections of bots. He felt ill just slaughtering them for obviously pointless tactics. He was relieved to see the next sphere-gate, and only paused at the threshold for the shear oddity of the chamber beyond.

It was huge, though longer than wide. It was also a crisscrossing mass of conveyor belt systems.

"The conveyors from the factory? Really?" X muttered, dropping down finally. He already had his turbine-buster configuration ready.

Neither he nor the clone of Flame Mammoth showed any surprise at seeing each other when the massive Reploid dropped down from above, nearly crushing the conveyor he actually landed on.

"Go ahead, say it," Flame began, almost laughing.

X firmed, but said, "Please stand aside. I have no need to harm you."

"Then I'll give you a reason or two!" the clone roared back, blaring a trumpet-call, and spinning around to fire off a lashing wave of fire as well.

The conveyors all snapped into motion. It did throw X a bit, forcing him to dive roll under the fire-wave at first. Seeing Flame flying through the air to land on him made X's eyes widen, but he quickly fired a tornado, and dashed aside.

Flame managed to dodge the tornado, landed on the conveyor where X had been, and twisted to fire a fresh flame-gout at the Hunter. It was his turn to widen his optics when he saw the tornado already blasting toward him from behind and to his right.

This one hit home, and sent the massive Maverick clone into the far wall with shuddering force.

Flame Mammoth wrenched out of the dent he made, and lashed flame-blasts toward X, X firing rushing tunnels of air back. The pair side-stepped, dashed, flipped, and countered constantly for several minutes. Flame was just limber enough with the switching conveyors, and X just off-kilter enough from the odd environment to keep them at each other's throats for a little longer.

At last, X burning with energy, Flame charging as he unleashed driving beams of fire, the two unleashed fully. X's power was simply greater. The wind-wall unleashed by X's charged turbine-buster nearly tore the room in half, and sent Flame's clone crashing back in pieces.

X watched the clone's body stop moving, and gave a solemn nod before hurrying to the exit gate.

[Down dark halls…]

X knew there were no more clones to expect unless Sigma wanted a repeat show. It left him troubled as he evaded most of the next groups of bots. He had to blow through one turtle-mortar, but managed to avoid harming the rest.

At the next sphere-gate, X finally stopped. All this useless fighting. Just stalling? Testing? Why? Clearly Sigma has what he needs to launch his assault on humanity's hubs. I'm just a template, testing me is all but pointless. Why does he care? X shook his head, and stepped inside.

Another tunnel, leading to a second gate. X took it as well, dropping down into a room akin to the ones he fought most of the clones in.

In this one, however, waited a strange machine. It was rounded, almost cylindrical, but highly detailed, with repulsor 'wheels' arrayed around the base like a truck. It also had massive, dead eyes mounted on the forward, top portion.

Instantly, the top half of the machine lifted up on open air, and a huge energy reaction started. Waves of purple plasma built and swirled amidst crackling green power.

X's eyes flared, and he dashed along the wall.

The Truck fired, and X felt the tug of the inertia from the passing plasma sphere even though he was at least eight meters away from it. The shockwave from it hitting the far wall sent him flying across the room outright, and he slammed flat against the opposite wall.

The truck twisted, and started to charge. It was moving faster than Armor Armadillo while rolled up!

X barely dashed out of the way, watching the thing nearly bury itself in the super-armored bulkhead.

It ripped backward, and split in half. The lower portion chased after him, and only when X leapt over it did the upper half fly down and nearly cut his head off with its own charge.

This time X fired up at the top half, and watched his plasma-bolts disperse along the plating harmlessly.

Tremendous power generation, heavily armored, and incredibly fast. Think, X! You can't combine those traits without a major problem! He had to dive out of another ram, followed quickly by a plasma-sphere.

It's basically a tank. It can fire, but only after a slow, risky charge. The armor plating obviously counters that weakness, and the speed lets it ram quite effectively. It has to have a monstrous power core. Even a mild bit of damage would probably blow the thing sky-high. Again, the armor… What would go through armor that tough?

X back-flipped under the top-half trying to crush him again, but he took a glancing blow from the follow-up charge by the lower half. It sent him crashing along the ground and into a corner. He did NOT need to be in a corner. Dash-leaping with full power, he still only barely got out of the thing's path in time. It buried itself in the bulkhead enough to actually need some time to get out, however.

And that was when X remembered. Dr. Light's armor completely bypassed by a cutting strike from Kuwanger. Time to get serious, he thought, and his configuration snapped to darker details with his buster sprouting blades.

The next time the lower-half ripped toward him, X leapt up onto it, and fired toward the top half. It rushed around his first volley, and X dashed out from its path, flipping off the lower portion. Keeping the blades in the air and hurtling toward himself, X started to lead the truck's halves around the chamber in a mad blitz of dashing, ramming, and crashing.

At last, X kick-dashed off the wall near the ceiling, and flew over the top half of the truck. It twisted instead of moving, and took all three cutters across its belly.

They tore gaping fissures in the trucks top portion, and torrents of energy came blasting out like a storm contained to the room.

X landed and dashed aside, watching the lower portion crash into the wall and stop, while the upper portion meandered around, bouncing off the walls, scorching the air in its wake.

X formed a charged shield around himself with rolling-shield just as the truck finally blew apart in a brilliant flash of blinding power.

It left the room, except for the flooring directly under X, a scorched mess.

And that was when the roof above split open, revealing a dark, large tunnel going straight up.

X's brow creased, and he braced when a voice sounded over some kind of speaker system above.

"Well done, X. It seems I'll have to tend to this personally after all. Now what was that charming human expression? Welcome to my parlor, said the spider to the fly?" Sigma challenged with no attempt to hide his mirth before the signal ended.

X's fists clenched. Zero, Jessica, so many lives both human and Reploid lost for absolutely no reason. "…Coming right up… Sigma."

[Author's Note]

Thank you so much for the reviews and comments, everyone! Sorry for the big delay! I'm making steady progress, but had a great deal of RL stuff to deal with between the last update and now. Thanks for sticking with me!

This chapter ran the risk of being repetitive and heavy-handed. I'm not entirely sure if I succeeded in avoiding those weaknesses. I didn't want to 'skip over' the memorable 'Sigma Stages', and the clone Mavericks presented a unique plot-element I wanted to tackle head-on. I also greatly enjoyed writing for the three crazy Sigma bosses. Especially the spider. However, I'm not sure I set the pacing properly, or perhaps I should have just skipped over it.

Whatever your take, please bear with me. Exciting things in the next chapter, and I'm already started on it, don't worry.

Thanks again, and, as always, your reviews and comments are keeping this beauty going!