Chapter Twenty-Seven: Counterattack
Zero walked the grey plain once again, as alone as he'd been before he killed the teenage version of himself. He endured the monotony of the dead landscape for another timeless interval, his processors beating very slowly with the lack of new sensory input.
After a hundred thousand, a million more steps, the warrior's feet fell with a couple of clanks on glittering ground. He looked around, and witnessed the landscape shift into something new.
Ivory and metal detail work, coupled with chandeliers of perfectly shaped quartz and glass, covered the vaulted ceiling. Murals spread across the walls like banners, declaring in pictorial form the honorable, bloody, glorious deeds of Hurricane Force Academy's founders, staff, and alumni. An intricate mosaic formed the floor, sparkling with the flare of several tons of diamonds, rubies, opals, topazes, bloodstones, citrines, amethysts, sapphires, and every other type and color of gem imaginable. Zero's eyes swept the mosaic for a moment, and he blinked as he saw the picture it displayed.
Then the crowds appeared, covering the floor and filling the room. They milled around aimlessly, murmuring syllables without sense. Zero frowned and strode through the people, glancing around as he did. Many of them carried weapons and wore armor; most seemed about the right age for college students or their parents. Others wore the insignia of combat masters and school officials.
He looked up and saw that the massive wall clock stated the day to be March 19th, a couple of days before the start of the spring semester's classes. Time for course registrations. He blinked and grabbed a nearby combat master by the arm.
"I am Zero. Who are you and how did you get here?"
The armored man turned to face the young blond, and vanished into thin air. Zero drew the Z-Saber and donned his kite shield.
"Where am I! Who is in charge here!"
The crowds milled endlessly. No one turned to regard him.
At the real Hurricane Force Academy, somebody would have challenged him to a duel by now. Zero sauntered through the murmuring people towards the reception desks, but the secretaries acted as if he didn't exist. When physically touched, they disappeared as though they didn't exist either.
After several minutes' fruitless effort trying to find a real person in the mob, the blond walked over to the grand, frosty-glassed double doors and pushed outwards. The translucent portals gave in to the pressure, and Zero strode through them…
…only to find himself at the entrance to the registrar again.
The young warrior's knuckles tightened on his beam saber. He couldn't see the mosaic of the floor because of the crowds, but he could and did take another long look at the murals around the walls.
They were all of him now. He, Zero, singlehandedly laying waste to an enemy army; choosing a bride from the most beautiful and powerful of a hundred foreign princesses and heiresses; burying his weapon in Sigma's bald old head; ruling the servers with an iron fist and a gentle twinkle in his eye; it went on and on, and in each picture, the warrior's ponytail was longer and his armor more stylized and decorated.
"Pure conceit. I'm not that prideful," Zero muttered to himself, scowling. He blinked, and his expression shifted to a twisted smile. "Pride. That's what he meant. Up yours, pride!"
The crowds suddenly stopped milling and turned to face the other side of the room, away from the Zero who had spoken and towards another Zero.
He stepped out from one of the murals, his blond ponytail falling past his knees like a glorious flag. His armor had twice, three times the ornamentation of his counterpart's. He surveyed the multitude serenely from his eight and a half feet of height.
He tilted up his chin and smiled. "I am Zero. Bow down and worship your god."
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While the smoke from the RPG cleared and Officer Kurosaki gathered his legs under him for another leap, Vile's bullets ricocheted off a circular, rainbow colored barrier in front of Lt. Picard. Momentarily thwarted in his pursuit of another man's death, the violet warrior's head jerked to the side, his gaze landing on the source of the shield.
Vile saw Officer Matt Haolin, his azure armor replaced with a frilly, shimmering robe complete with hood. Meanwhile, his brother Kai had apparently donned a pair of beige blond cat ears and matching armor, as well as an icy scepter. The two of them dashed down the corridor at full speed towards Vile's position at the T-shaped intersection.
Their enemy activated his jump jets, shooting behind the corner to put him out of the X Force's line of sight, and trained his P-90's on Picard once more. The purple police warrior rolled to his feet, leapt to the side, and kicked off the wall and ceiling in rapid succession as bullets streaked through the air all around him. Two seconds and sixty automatic rounds later, Vile fired off a pair of missiles at the lieutenant and spiraled away to avoid the shouting Kurosaki and his lunging falchion.
He collided thunderously into another of Matt's shimmering barriers. His breath knocked out by the impact, Vile flared his jump jets and lashed out with his legs to get airborne again. As Kurosaki's falchion whistled through the air where he had been, the violet warrior's shoulder mounted rocket launcher fired another salvo of rockets.
In the meantime, Lt. Picard dashed away from the missiles the violet warrior had devoted specially to him. His form blurring down one branch of the corridor, the policeman ran nearly as fast as the weapons chasing him. Nearly.
While the homing missiles caught up to him, Picard leapt and somersaulted towards yet another handy wall. With perfect coordination and control, he kicked off it towards the ground, diving narrowly beneath his doom. The missiles swerved around in a tight arc, short of the wall, and continued pursuit. The police warrior cursed, sheathed his main gauche, and drew a pistol from its leg holster as he ran.
Over a hundred yards away, half a dozen five inch long rockets scattered into the air from Vile's rocket launcher and shot towards the X Force on a half dozen different trajectories. Matt's eyes widened and he somersaulted backwards, while Kai waved the scepter in his hands Casselini-style. A massive blast of frigid air burst from the weapon, rolling down the corridor like a boulder towards Harrison Ford in a cool adventuring outfit, but much faster than either one of them. As the supercooled air rushed through the hallway, the incoming missiles froze solid and fell to the floor with a swift series of explosions.
On the other side of the detonations, Kurosaki shouted and brought his blade in an upwards swipe at Vile's legs. The violet warrior laughed, somersaulting in the air even as he brought his P-90's to bear on the orange-haired young man. While the officer dodged away, Kai's freezing blast took Vile full in the back, instantly encasing his plate mail covered body in a layer of rock hard ice. He fell to the ground with a massive crash, scattering glittering crystals of his prison in every direction.
Officer Kurosaki raised his falchion for a deathblow on the other warrior's prone form. In that moment, Celestia's foxfire circle activated like a wormhole straight from the surface of Old Earth's sun. White-hot flames filled the hallway, allowing no escape for the orange haired policeman.
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"My god?" the smaller Zero laughed shortly as the crowd around him knelt to the floor. He strode towards the larger, more ornamented version of himself, beam saber and kite shield in hand. "You are Pride. You don't belong in my head. Surrender now or die."
Pride Zero smiled broadly. "I heard of what you did to Adrenaline. Thank you for your small service. I could use a warrior like yourself."
"You are a Maverick. I don't serve Mavericks. I kill them."
With that, Zero dashed in to attack. Pride Zero, with a total reach over two feet greater than his opponent's, struck first with an overhead chop of his shining 42" (blade length) Z-Saber. The other warrior threw up his kite shield to block and gasped as the sheer force of the blow slammed through his body into the ground under his feet, sending cracks through the stone foundation beneath the mosaic.
Pride Zero pivoted on one foot and kicked his opponent's raised shield, hurling the warrior through the insubstantial crowd to land in a twisted heap on the floor. The smaller blond twitched and groaned as his eight-and-a-half foot counterpart strode over, that same broad smile pasted across his handsome angular face.
"Fool. I expected better from you. Your bones couldn't take that little kick?"
"------ ------." Zero's grip tightened on his Z-Saber and he began to rise to his feet. His giant opponent kicked him again, throwing him across the room. More of the people evaporated as his body sailed through them.
"I will not tolerate disobedience. Not from myself. Not from anyone. All will bow before the Crimson King! Sigma will fall, and I will take his place!" Pride Zero laughed. "None will question me. They will love me and fear my might. You cannot stop me. Fool."
The smaller Zero coughed a few drops of shining data up onto the gemstone mosaic floor. "You're too big. Too fast. This is bad."
Despite his statement, the blond's mouth turned up slightly at the corners. His opponent completely missed this detail.
"Now you see sense. Too late. Your attack shows disrespect that must be punished. Prepare to die." The crimson warrior approached with long, slow steps, but flinched before he'd closed the distance between them. Glancing down, Pride saw a small trickle of data running from a cut in his calf armor.
"You…you cut me? Infidel!" He shot a sapphire-eyed glare at the smaller warrior.
Zero chuckled, his broken bones crackling as they knit. "Pride, how fast do you heal?"
The giant Zero roared and leapt into the air, tucking in his legs and spinning end over end. Pride's form blurred with the speed of its rotation, beam saber slicing the space around him in a beautiful display of swordsmanship.
His opponent smirked and rolled to the side to avoid him. As Pride Zero landed on his feet, super long ponytail and saber flashing around him like a dual halo, the other warrior rose to his feet and leapt to the attack.
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Cpt. Nagasaki dove to the side as the sleek, seven foot nine inch long, blue-grey missiles rocketed up into the sky. The salvo accelerated at the extreme speed offered by the most powerful, military-grade rocket propulsion, totally illegal for anyone outside the military to possess. As they passed by with their thunderous roar, the silver warrior's spear let off another 500,000 volts into one of them.
Lightning crackled through the rocket's metal skin and into its innards, causing it to detonate with an explosion much bigger than the first missile Nagasaki had zapped that day. He grunted, pumping his wings as the shockwave tossed him through the air like a rag doll. Unfortunately, its companions had already diverged too far apart for the detonation to cause a chain reaction.
Back at Elites HQ, the staccato rhythms of typing fingers and the hum of active programming teleconsoles filled the spotters' control center. Officer Jeri Cato squinted at her teleconsole. Cpt.'s Nagasaki and Laharl, five, s-s-six, seven…seven missiles en route to the Cainson M-M-Mansion from enemy HQ. Thirty seconds to impact!
To her right, officer Zemorah scowled at his own TC. "I'm trying to hack them, but they're just moving too fast to for me to make a connection. It's up to the 33rd and the Captain to stop those things." He glanced past Cato. "Any luck reconnecting with the others down in the base?"
Lt. Alia Sorores shook her head, biting her lip as her fingers flashed over the keyboard. For once, the honey blonde failed to throw back a sharp retort. Zemorah blinked and bent over his work, dark green eyes wide.
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Pride Zero hopped over his smaller opponent's slashing beam saber and brought his own shining blade down and across in a decapitation attempt. The other warrior dove to the left, under the huge Z-Saber, and cartwheeled. Both feet lashed out towards the larger opponent's face as he fell, forcing the man to arch his back to avoid Zero's metal boots. He landed off-balance, and the other warrior slashed Pride across the knee.
In the next instant the smaller fighter gasped and choked, his enemy's beam saber plunged through him to the hilt. Pride Zero flexed his sword arm and brought the blond in close, twitching and screaming as the huge Z-Saber cut further through his body.
"Any last words, infidel?"
"…" Zero grimaced and brought up his sword arm, but the giant warrior grabbed his wrist and twisted the Z-Saber out of his hand.
"One more chance. Beg for mercy." Pride Zero grinned toothily.
Zero opened his mouth, closed it, sneered, and spat in the crimson warrior's face.
Both men screamed, one thrown across the room with a hole in his chest, the other wiping the spittle from his cheek with the back of his hand. The smaller Zero's beam saber skittered across the floor into his hand as he stood up, his wounds already patching themselves.
The giant Zero charged, his booted feet slamming and sliding across the ground in a swordsman's staccato dance of death. His saber spun and slashed through the air, his ponytail swirled behind him, and the warrior bore down on his opponent like the most lethal ballet dancer in human history. The smaller man smirked and charged to meet him.
They clashed again, and again, and again, and each time Pride Zero gained another nick, cut, or bruise. Many times his enemy came close to death. Impaled, dismembered, spine shattered, time after time he recovered just fast enough to avoid oblivion and come back for more. The process went on for minutes that stretched into hours. As they crisscrossed the registrar again and again, shining data covered the floor, evaporating to leave an ugly, mudlike residue on the beautiful mosaic.
Then it happened. Pride Zero, bleeding from dozens of place and roaring like a wild boar, twitched the wrong way as he stabbed towards his smaller self. Zero dodged the attack by a hair's breadth and thrust under the giant's shield, plunging the Z-Saber deep into his gut.
"Infidel," the giant sputtered, sneering.
"Maverick." Zero pushed and twisted, his countenance locked in a grimace.
After a moment he stepped back, pulling out the beam saber as he did so. Pride Zero grunted and remained standing as the flood of data from his wounds slowed to a stream, then a trickle, then stopped altogether. Still, his body remained both intact and upright, his sapphire eyes glaring down at his smaller self.
"You targeted my movement processors. I, the great Zero, will never forgive you, scum."
"You talk too much." Zero dropped his kite shield to hold the Z-Saber in both hands. Straining his muscles and sinews to the breaking point, the warrior cut down and across his opponent's bulky legs at the knees, then clove the man's head in half as he fell. The massive ponytail fell loosely to the floor at Zero's feet, in a pool of its owner's blood.
As Pride's remains collapsed in a shimmering heap, the remaining Zero looked around the grandiose registrar. Their battle had swept away all but a few of the people in the crowd; despite the bloodstains, the warrior could once again make out the picture shown in the gemstone mosaic.
It was a portrait of himself, all of himself. As the room began to fade at the edges, Zero counted no less than six versions of himself, arranged like an honor guard around a central figure. Two versions the warrior had already met and destroyed; one he was; and three more he had not yet met.
Located in the center, set in a glittering, stylized background now covered in blood, lay Greenie's image, picked out in emeralds, diamonds, and a variety of other colors for accents and detail work. Greenie Doppler, the boy whose life Megaman Zero had taken over seven years ago.
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"Ridiculous poser. Thinks he can get away with it? Die, die die, oh no, nonononono that's bad, firewalls up up up, ha can't catch me, gingerbread milktastic intestinal worm…" Flash vibrated like the picture on a broken television set, his light amber gaze dancing to and fro to collect the data from all seven of his teleconsole's monitors at once. "Loserloserloserloserloserloserloserloserlosergonnadie. Nooo, how could he see it coming, it's a bridge too soon, puppies!"
A video feed popped up on one of the monitors. Flash's rant and his typing continued uninterrupted, but his sister's dark amber eyes widened at the sight.
"What…are those missiles?"
Officer Katarina Casselini looked to the screen at which the brunette pointed. "Yep. Hey, Flash, those are yours, right?"
The undead programmer shook his head. "Nope. They're coming for us. Activating maximum defense mode." For a moment, the tenor of his keystrokes changed, and the brunet bared his teeth at the screen. "Oh. Maybe not. Uh, sis, Kittie, that freaker's hack is blocking me from using the house shield or AMS. I can't override him unless I cut loose my Zerglings and leave the police high 'n dry. Cappy and his flier friends'll have to take this. But even if they scrag out—" he gestured, and Iris found herself encapsulated in a grey deadstone sphere—"you're gonna live through this no matter what. Kat, get ready for a fight. Those aren't all normal missiles."
The slightly feline female's eyes widened, but she nodded and turned to her young charge, putting a hand on the barrier. "Don't worry, Miss Cainson. Your brother and I'll keep you safe."
Flash nodded and continued ranting at his brilliantly wily enemy. Iris beat on the inside of the deadstone sphere and opened her mouth to shout, but both her voice and her fists stopped dead at the translucent grey walls of her protective prison. Helpless to escape, she watched her brother's teleconsole and waited for the explosions that would turn her house to dust.
