Chapter 7, part 2

When they finally found the elevator, it turned out to be a small one. But it also had an official map of the underground rooms. X looked over the map while waiting on Zero and Axl to get to them. This level, unsurprisingly, was listed as 'Variable Indoors Combat Test Chambers'. B3 was 'General Offices', B2 was 'Securities and Bunks', and B1 was 'Observation and Control Room'.

However, B1 was not available on the elevator's control panel. The Securities area was likely where he wanted to be looking; given the name, Marino could be of some help. Zero could clear the Offices floor, but X wanted him working with the others (to help undo the damage done by Shadow's betrayal). But of the ones left, Cinnamon was still a bit of a liability and Butler wouldn't be fighting as strongly as usual. X didn't want to put Zero with both of them.

The last two came in, so X turned to the group. "Okay, we have two levels available to us. Butler, Marino, you two are coming with me to Basement Level 2. Zero, you, Axl, and Cinnamon should clear out Basement Level 3 and see what's around there. According to the map in there, the controls we're looking for are either on level 2 or 1, but we shouldn't leave 3 out in case our peers are there."

Zero nodded. "Right, we'll get that covered."

At B2, X's group found a room with four hallways. The south door led to an elevator that would bring them to the sandstorm level; that door was locked, however. The other three doors would lead to a long set of three halls which led between four rooms. Wanting to do this in a reasonable order, X led Butler and Marino to the southwest room. From there, they could check on the rooms in a clockwise order.

But all they found in that southwest room was a fight against two Elite Preons. One was a green model equipped with two guns, while the other was tall and red, with a short blade. "Intruders will fall," the green one said as the red one dashed forward to attack.

Basement Level 3 was constructed of four rooms connected by four halls around the elevator shaft room. In the southwest room, they had fought an Elite Preon with a large shield and a black Elite with a long blade. And the black one could jump extremely high, touching the eight-foot ceiling and crashing down onto them with its green blade. Cinnamon had felt momentarily spooked when it jumped at her the first time, especially since Zero and Axl were off trying to deal with the shielded one.

But, she had to hold her own too. She moved to the side, then punched the Preon in the head as it was landing. It crashed onto its side, stunned by the bad landing. And in her contact with it, she had felt that its metal surface was cold, unlike the warm air around them. So she pulled out a Giga Lightning capsule she'd bought; lightning usually defeated cold elementals, right? She set it to blow, then jumped back as a blast of electricity struck the fallen Preon. It spasmed when the capsule went off; something cracked and it shut down.

By then, the other one was down too. "Nice work Cinnamon!" Axl said to her.

She smiled bashfully. "Um, thanks."

"Doesn't look like anything useful is in here," Zero said. "Let's go north."

While the hallway heading north was empty, the next room was not. There were eight Preons in here, a mix of types including three of the black jumpers. Back on the far wall, there was a strange arrangement of switches, wires, and electrical boxes. "Intruders die!" a number of them yelled, readying their weapons.

Zero held his hand up, getting Axl to put his hand on Cinnamon's shoulder and hold her back in the doorway. Then the blond Hunter dashed into the room, slashed at the nearest jumper, turned and kicked at one of the red ones dashing at him, turned around again to finish off the first jumper, then smoothly went into attacking a third. In this manner, he preceded to clear the whole room without pausing once.

Cinnamon put her hands up near her mouth. "Wow," she said softly. She wouldn't have thought that was even possible, but Zero seemed like he could have taken on many times this number without effort.

Near her, Axl grinned. "It's always cool when he does stuff like that," he whispered. When the last one had fallen, he spoke up, "I guess you feel better now?"

Zero rubbed the back of his neck. "Not quite," he said, turning to them. In that moment, Cinnamon saw a shimmer of a thin reflection near the floor. "But I don't want to waste time with prisoners about. What's this arrangement for, you think?"

The younger Hunter went up to investigate. "Well…"

"Zero, we've encountered a problem in the northwest room," X informed them over the com. "We've found a computer station, but it's shielded by an electromagnetic field. The controls should be in the northwest room of your level."

"That explains that," he muttered, turning back to the wall and going towards it. "Yes, we've got a mass of switches and wires here. Where along the wall is the shield generator? There's several wires going up there."

While the two of them were doing that, Cinnamon looked around. This area was quiet, for now. Then she went into the room and saw that thin reflection again, on the floor. She knelt down and picked up a long blond hair. But, it was much longer than any of hers would be. It must have been Zero's, which would explain what she briefly saw. She wondered about something; she had a theory of her own, but had never had the chance to test it. And she wanted to be friends with Zero, so maybe if she helped him…

Cinnamon carefully wrapped the hair around her fingers, then tied it up with itself. Then she tucked it into her pocket. Later, she'd try it out.

X had been able to shut down about half of the interference signals from that console, so he, Marino, and Butler continued to clear out the B2 level. There hadn't been much useful in the northeast room, just a battle. But in the southeast room, they came upon a larger version of the energy field that had blocked them before. Behind that was a male reploid, an average-sized humanoid model with spiky red hair pointing out of his pale blue helmet. It seemed he had been roughed up, but not to the extent of the beatings from Silver Horn.

"Kratos!" X called out, going over to the field. "How are you doing?"

He looked up, hopeful. "X?" He smiled, but only briefly. "Where's Sunbee? Our last communication got cut off."

"She seems to have been captured too, but we haven't located her yet," he said.

"Oh." He pounded his fist into the floor. "The lower level is rough, with all those armored turtles and wolfoids. It was a bit much for me alone; I haven't fought by myself in so long… I'll be all right, but please let me come look for her too."

He nodded, but was looking over the back wall. "Right. We have to get in contact with our other group in order to get this field neutralized. Marino, can you go over to that side and figure out what circuits are doing what?"

"Looks simple enough," she said, going over to study the wires.

X turned back to him. "Butler, stay in the doorway and keep anything out while we're doing this."

He nodded. "Sure, I'll do that." He went back and stood there. The hall looked empty.

Still, he didn't have his usual armor. Butler clenched his lance, feeling vulnerable again. He had gotten used to it; he was always protected and never came back with bad injuries. That protection was gone now. At least the love metal was still with him. It had already changed its focus from increasing his reflexes so he could counter to increasing them so he could dodge. There was also the thought that if he did have the Massimo armor, he might not have been able to get into these halls, or even the elevator.

His teammates were talking to each other now. "There seems to be a weapon in the field cell that could damage him," X noted. "We'll have to be careful with unlocking it so that we don't hurt him."

"Axl, you handle it then," Zero said.

"All right."

"I can help," Cinnamon offered.

"Right." X and Marino started to go into descriptions of what wires were where, with Axl and Cinnamon checking back before they moved switches and boxes on the wall.

Kratos seemed to be in some pain, but he ignored it and kept up with them as they went back to the elevator shaft. Zero's group had gotten to it first. "The first level is opened up now," Zero reported. "We'll head up there, but hang back until you come."

"Good." He looked to Kratos, who didn't have the key to their line. "There's just one more level we have to search in this place supposedly. Hopefully she'll be up there, but there will probably be a Rebellion member around too."

He nodded. "Yeah. I'll hold out as long as I can."

When they got up to B1, the other three were waiting. Cinnamon went over to Kratos to see if she could heal him any more. "Someone's in there," Zero said. "There hasn't been a response, but they must know that we're here."

X nodded. "Right, let's take care." He led them into the next room.

Zero felt peculiar. Ever since he'd arrived on level B1 of this place, he had a nagging feeling of something being out of place. Looking around the short hall, he saw the crack of light beyond the next door and felt certain he heard hover jets of some kind behind them. But that didn't seem to be it. There weren't any hidden weapons or traps that he could sense; unusual for a Maverick hideout, but perfectly normal for a testing facility of its caliber. Nothing seemed to have changed about Axl or Cinnamon, or even himself. Yet he still felt like there was something here that shouldn't be.

Something possibly dangerous.

On that thought, he scanned through his senses again. All possibilities, like volatile chemical smells, electrical activity, viral energy from without and within… nothing dangerous came up that he could sense. Unless… it was like the energy that the force metal explosion had released, but diluted. Had one recently been destroyed here and he was feeling its aftereffects?

No, there was one other time when he had felt something like this, exactly like this. It wasn't quite as strong, but he had felt it at the top of Lagrano Tower. And during that fight, it had affected him.

…

Zero readily ducked under Shadow's heavier blade and attempted to disable his sword arm. To think that he had nearly trusted this traitor into bringing him closer… but something wasn't right. That weird feeling he had just a minute ago had sharply increased. And it was making him feel so sluggish, as if this fight was harder than it should be. It was a difficult one with so many foes, he would admit that to himself. But this was like his own body was working against him.

…

Of course, once Epsilon had struck him and X, they had lost any chance at winning. And after that, he had other things to think about that were more important to him than why he had been so off during that one battle. Now that he encountered that feeling again, Zero felt like he should have questioned it.

But there wasn't time now. They went through the door (X first, checking for traps) and into a much larger room than the rest of this facility had. From the array of computer stations on the walls, as well as large screens showing the desert sandstorm outside, this was definitely the observation and control room. The insectoid girl Yellow Sunbee was tied down to one of those stations by a large chain and a binding on her wings. Although it was a work space, much of the furnishings that should be here had been removed, leaving a nice open room for a battle field.

Also in the room was the one who wanted the battle. Zero recognized him from the mission files, one of the three Cadres that made up the Rebellion members directly under Epsilon. Quite frankly, Botos looked ridiculous, a spherical 'man' with normal sized limbs, a dome head, and a large tuning fork on his back which was attached to amplifiers. But Zero knew that just because a reploid looked ridiculous, it didn't mean he (or she) was slacker in battle. His high level position spoke for itself.

And he laughed at them in amusement. "Well, well, nicely done! Not only have you two recovered from almost certain death, but you've managed to get through this facility despite the extra weights you've been dragging along."

Nearby, Kratos was glaring at the Cadre, but Axl had his hand on the guy's shoulder as a warning. They had just rescued him. Even if it was his wife at the other end of the room, they didn't want him charging ahead recklessly and getting killed for it.

"This place was a cakewalk," Zero retorted in the guy's place.

"Well that's gonna end here," Botos bragged, showing off a force metal that was in his right hand. Although it was shaped like any that one could buy at a store, this metal had had a high refraction, causing it to sparkle in many colors like a well-cut diamond. "This is just a small piece of the ultimate supra-force metal." He then placed it onto a slot on his chest, where it starting shining once it connected to him. "But with its power, I'm stronger than any dumb shmuck you've ever faced before." He fired a white shot at them.

Zero deflected it with his rapier, though. Near him, X firmly stated, "I doubt that." He then gave a hand movement for Zero and Axl to move ahead to make the first attacks while he was dealing out orders to the rest.

Dashing ahead, Zero heard as Axl fired close to him. He didn't worry about getting friendly fire from him. Turning some, Zero made to ram into Botos with his shoulder then strike with his rapier. But Botos moved, making him strike without the ram. Too slow… why was he moving so slow? Then there was a blur as the Cadre formed two illusionary copies of himself. The three then began bounding around the room. Zero carefully watched the one that had been in the center, the real one.

The others were attacking now, but uncertain of which one to go for. Apparently with spoken orders from X, Kratos went to strike one of the illusions with his discus weapon, only to make it vanish. Two mechaniloid bots appeared in its place, both attacking him at once.

"Marino, take Cinnamon with you to Sunbee and get her free," X ordered. "If she's up to battle, let her. Butler, you come with me and we'll work to keep Botos' attention away from them. Zero, do you know the real one?"

"I'm watching him," he replied. He was just waiting for him to slow down.

"Then you focus your attacks on him. Axl, you take out those little bots and tell Kratos to follow Zero's lead; looks like those things dodge combat strikes."

The real Botos had finally stopped to observe the actions. Zero dashed over to him; but it was like dashing through water, with more resistance forcing him to slow down. Great, this was being a repeat of Lagrano Tower… he did not want this to turn into a repeat of that battle. He plotted out a move combo that should stun him, making him an easier target for Kratos and anyone else. It started off with a jumping somersault to strike with momentum and power…

Somehow, he miscalculated and ended up not only slashing Botos, but crashing head to head against him. It did succeed in forcing him into the wall, disrupting his hover jets. Zero recovered and went to slash horizontally at the fallen reploid. But his body was feeling heavier than it should be, and his strike not as powerful. And slow. What the hell was going on with him?

Then Kratos sent one of his spiked disks into Botos. Zero saw it coming and was going to move a step away. He still nearly got hit with it. However, the Resistance fighter didn't seem to be affected by whatever had Zero like this.

Then he got a personal message from X. "Zero, what's wrong with you?"

"I don't know. Something's got me off-kilter."

The next message came over the group line, much to Zero's chagrin. "Zero, stand down. Axl, keep track of Botos. Butler, be careful but…"

Then Botos set his turning fork to vibrate, sending a two-toned screech through his amplifiers. The two sounds were offset just enough to make Zero wince at the horrid discord; it made his internal mechanisms vibrate unsettlingly. And it disrupted even X's secured line, cutting off his instructions.

But X was right. As much as he disliked it, Zero was getting sloppy due to that feeling he couldn't explain. The safer option for everyone was for him to back off into a corner and stay out of the way. Putting a clamp on any feelings of shame, he dashed along the wall to a nearby workstation. He nearly tripped over the chair, then stepped around it and turned to watch the battle. If he couldn't participate actively, then he would make the attempt to offer support for the others by watching the whole scene. But with his body feeling heavy, he dropped down to sit on the ground.

After a moment, he felt further confused. It seemed as though everyone was moving slower than usual. Even Butler, minus the Massimo armor, seemed to be fighting slower than he should be. But not one of them seemed to be affected by it like Zero was. Kratos was obviously enraged and fighting Botos fiercely, yet Zero could see every little motion of his discus fighting style. The particular moments he tightened, loosened, or let go of his grip… and how his style could be made more efficient with a few small alterations. He could see that about Butler too, even though Zero had never used a lance himself. If these were representative of the Resistance, then they were quite good, but could be better.

He glanced over along the wall (his head moving slowly too), to where the girls were. Marino had already gotten the chain off Sunbee and was carefully removing the bindings. Nearby, Cinnamon was prepping a small bomb, which she then tossed at another illusionary copy. She had a good throw; the bomb went off directly under the copy, damaging the two bots in the process. Not enough to defeat them, but then X was able to take both out in one shot. Botos just called up two more copies and a pair of free-floating bots. Then he started firing wildly all around the room.

While the others dealt with that, Marino had Sunbee free. She seemed conscious, saying something to her. After nodding, Marino swapped places with Cinnamon, who then healed Sunbee. The bee girl summoned up a small swarm of bee drones and sent them after a bot that was shooting energy rings at them.

Then, Zero spotted something about the other drone, a particular green part hanging at its side. "Butler, that bot by you has an e-tank," he said.

"Focus on taking that one out quickly," X ordered. Another screech filled the line with static.

It probably blocked up advice on hitting a dodging enemy, Zero thought in irritation. Across the room, Butler turned and was going to use that momentum in his lance strike. Was he fighting differently than he did with the suit? More defensively, obviously, but that strike didn't seem the same. However, the bot slipped out of the way.

Then, the screech and the static were gone. "Just grab its ring and smash it against the wall," Zero recommended.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that the three girls were moving towards him. Marino and Sunbee acted as a guard to Cinnamon who came over to him. Again, they were moving slowly. He could watch as Butler tried a strike again, but then managed to turn it into a feint so that he could grab the bot and do as Zero had suggested. The hit against the wall rattled it greatly, enough to drop it to the floor. Butler put his lance through it to make sure that it wouldn't try healing Botos or his bots.

Cinnamon was then kneeling by him. "Is it okay to work on you now?" she asked softly.

Zero nodded. "It should be fine," he said quietly. She gave a small smile and put her hands on him.

Across the room, X's armor had shifted colors to a crystalline violet and gold. His buster arm glowed, then flames sprouted beneath Botos, the two illusions (destroying them both), and another loose bot that the Cadre had summoned. That was probably a ploy to get Botos to pay attention to him rather than the group near Zero. It worked a little too well as Botos turned to him and started charging something.

All of a sudden, everything became sharp and detailed. He felt a warm presence as Cinnamon's power touched him. It had a taste like calmness and vanilla (which puzzled Zero). She used a good amount of energy that felt like what it was to charge a buster gun, only for something else. And her power core must have been running high off battle stress, which was expected except for how well Zero sensed it. And there were all the colors of the three girls near him; he found himself unable to watch what was going on past them.

Then Cinnamon withdrew her powers; the sensory blast died off, leaving Zero feeling dazed and drained. He felt like he wasn't getting enough power. But when he checked, nothing seemed obviously wrong.

She had an explanation for it, though. "X, the only thing wrong with Zero is that his perception is running abnormally fast," she explained. "It's throwing off anything he does, and I'm afraid I somehow worsened it when I tried healing him."

"Okay, I know what's going on then," X replied. "You two stay over there and keep anything from attacking him, but tell Sunbee to take out the small bots. Her bees should hit them well."

So there was a reason for this. His perception was abnormally fast… he knew that his mind could do that, on occasions. But the times it did that were when he was infused with viral energy. That energy would boost all of his systems, requiring his perception to jump a level too so that he could handle the increased speed and power. If his perception had jumped without the boosts, then that explained why he felt so sluggish. It wasn't that he was any slower or less powerful. It was that his senses were moving faster and everything only seemed slower. Still, it was enough to throw off his usual movement programs.

But then why had his perception jumped?

Zero looked back to the battle. Botos had struck X with some kind of attack, injuring him. But his friend was still working to keep the Cadre's attention on him while coordinating the team's efforts. Botos was indeed strong, due to what he called supra-force metal. Whatever that was, Zero knew that he already reacted badly with normal force metal. Something that was presumably stronger would affect him even more. Even if he wasn't the one equipping it?

Then he remembered. X and Gaudile had discussed about how the Zero virus and the force metals worked on the same principles, but in different ways. And an explosive metal had stirred his dormant virus, but did not empower him. What was probably happening here was that his subconscious mind sensed the SFM's power, assumed it was viral, and pushed up his perception to compensate for an expected infection. But it wasn't the same energy; it couldn't boost him without being equipped (and causing a lot of pain, most likely).

Zero tried to focus down, back to normal level. That could let him rejoin the fight properly. However, some safety mechanism kicked in, thinking that would do more harm than good. It wouldn't let him reset his perception level.

And… someone back at Lagrano Tower had to be using an SFM, as Zero had felt the same reaction. It could have been Botos. Or it could have been one of the others. They were all the best of the Rebellion, so they would have access to the best supplies. That meant that in future battles, Zero was going to find himself just as useless to do anything. It would take too long to train himself to fight in this state, not to mention that such retraining would make his regular fighting skills suffer.

Zero really did not like this place. It was working against him at every turn.

Now that his senses had calmed from Cinnamon's attempt at healing him, Zero watched the battle again. They were making progress; there was a Botos illusion, but the real deal had enough dents and scorches that it was easy to pick him out. He sent one of his charged attacks, a blast of strong sound waves, towards X and Butler. While X saw it in time, he moved just enough so that he took the brunt of the attack, not the unarmored Butler. This was too much, though; X got thrown to the floor, looking badly damaged.

As could be expected of a civilian volunteer fighter, Butler looked momentarily panicked when his leader fell. However, he used that to drop his defensive fighting in exchange for an aggressive lunge at Botos. His lance promptly smashed through one of the amplifier units. Botos just laughed, though, tossing him aside, then whirling over in their direction. After crashing into Marino, he grabbed Cinnamon.

Zero felt a sharp burst of anger; if only he could do something without hurting the other two! Then he saw when Cinnamon's gaze fell on the SFM and hardened with determination. She punched not at Botos, but sweeping across his chest in order to knock the metal out of place. It flew halfway across the room before hitting the floor, then skipped over to where X was getting back on his feet. When he dropped Cinnamon, Marino whirled around and slashed into his other amplifier unit, destroying it handily.

Although he was still off with his perception, Zero put his hands on the console and stood up too. That simple threat could be enough to push the limits of Botos' bravado.

"Ack, my metal!" Botos called. To Zero's ears, it sounded like false concern. False? "Noooo, I, um…. Bye!" There was a flash and he teleported away.

Both X and Axl looked concerned. Zero looked over the screens, wondering if there was a time bomb around. Even the others didn't entirely buy that. "Um, he just left?" Cinnamon asked, uncertain.

"He's up to something," Marino said, crossing her arms over her chest. "He's just going to leave us with a sample of their secret weapon?"

X brought out his handheld scanner and tossed it over to Axl. "Here, check that over for me. I'm a little woozy after that last attack."

"Oh," Cinnamon said, then ran over to help him.

"Kratos!" Sunbee flew over to him and hugged him. Before long, the two were caught up in their own little world, glad to be reunited. Nobody was about to deny them that moment, although Zero did watch in case of hidden weapons or foes. Folks like Botos would attack the couple right now.

Zero started walking towards the others; Marino glanced at him, then followed alongside. He still felt off and in a daze, but since that metal was no longer attached to anyone, the movement might help correct the perception error. "That thing has got to be potent," he said.

Crouched on the floor, Axl examined the handheld scanner, then nodded. "That it is. Yikes, if this thing is reading right, this metal would be a highly concentrated force metal. It's way out of normal range… and has an erosion factor of 112? I don't think any of us could resist that."

"We can't," X said, while Cinnamon was still focused on him. "Butler, if you'd remove your metals; you can keep the love one, though, it might help. Then pick that one up and store it in your pocket until we can get it in a proper container."

"All right," he said, taking off two. After a second's thought, he went over and handed them to Axl, who nodded and put them away for safe keeping.

"Um, X?" Cinnamon said, sounding worried. She dropped her hands to her sides. "I can't fix all the damage Botos dealt to you. You're going to have to stay in the repair bay for a little while."

He smiled sheepishly. "Fine, I trust your judgment. Let's get the communications restored between here and Central, then we'll head back. Great work, everyone."

To make up for the repeated missed weeks, I'm posting the whole of this chapter.

Vanallia's mirror switch puzzle isn't that hard, just a bit annoying because you can't see the shields that the switches drop. The masses of Preons might be tough, but after you learn which model does what, it can be handled. The ones that defend are most annoying. Fun thing about the Preons is that they're designed and named to mimic the Rebellion members!

Botos with the SFM fragment might be tough, but he's easier than Incentas. The game's difficulty noticeably drops around here. Of course, part of it may be that you start to get access to better stuff, like X's ultimate armor and a lot of really good weapons, metals, and items through the mechaniloid search game Nana runs. For this story, I combined his bit summoning from the Vanallia chapter with his image cloning from the Melda chapter.