File 38: Deadly Epiphany

Violet went back into the office to straighten up. It was two in the afternoon and everyone was still recovering from last night. She hadn't gotten drunk with the guys, but she had stayed up late to see a show and wander about window-shopping. She was nervous today. Do I, do I not? It was something she'd thought of for a long time, and some things X had said yesterday only encouraged her.

Then he came up. "Have you got any messages from my brother? Axl's not in his room."

"No, I don't. There's a few on shop business, but nothing else."

He said a quiet curse. "Well, I'll try calling him. Anything directly for me?"

"No,"

"Okay then. Oh, and make sure I have no appointments after four today. Zero's complaining about some internal feedback that I have to check out."

"But wait a moment. I want to talk to you."

"Sure, what about?"

"I was just wondering if you wanted to hang out or something in the next few days. I'm not really doing anything, so…"

He smiled at her. "Are you trying to ask me out?"

Had she been that obvious? "Well, yeah, I guess."

"That's sweet of you, although you're not the sort of girl I usually go out with."

"But I like you. Most of them hardly know your name, right?"

"That's true." He paused, then glanced outside the office. "Look, Violet, you are a nice girl and I do like you. But we can't be any more than friends."

"Why not?" She swished her tail, trying to look angry, but it didn't work.

X put his hand on her shoulder. "Please don't take it that way. It would just be… a little freaky for me to date you. I did build your shell."

"But my mind is my own."

"And you remind me of my sister."

Violet looked at his eyes, because he seemed sad to be saying that. It wasn't like him to show any signs of sadness. "Your sister?"

"Yeah, Roll. She was only a robot, but I liked her a lot. Like how I felt about Rock before I upgraded him. She was the only one who could keep the peace between my father and me."

"What happened to her?"

"Aliens kidnapped her."

"Oh, sorry. I guess I can understand that."

He nodded. "Good. But you remember, any other guy messes with you, call me right up, okay?"

She smiled a little. "Sure X."

It was still very disappointing.

"Hey X!" Dyne yelled from the shop floor. "We found your brother!"

He ran over to the railing. "Where's he been?"

"He's dead."

"Oh ****." X leapt over the railing and onto the shop floor. "Where is he?"

"Out back."

Blues had been split in two from head to hip. X looked around in a rising panic. "Where's Axl?"

"We haven't found him yet," Dyne said.

His first thought was that he could be hiding. But X hadn't given him his helmet yet, so he couldn't hide that way. "Where've you looked?"

"Along this wall, since we found him."

Arcanine came up with a piece of paper. "Here, I found this against the fence. Must have blown away."

"I'm afraid he's been dead for several hours," Iron Panther said.

X's systems got cold quickly with fear. "Axl's been kidnapped by Sigma."

"Wasn't he on the Eurasia station?"

"Look, tell the Maverick Hunters he's here. I'm going to find Axl."

"All right boss," Arcanine said.

"Hey, don't… doesn't he want us to get Zero to help?" Dyne asked as X ran off.

Arcanine shook his head. "The note says if anyone else comes, they'll kill his son before he gets there. He has to go alone."

"That is such an obvious trap," Dyne responded.

"Yes, but they plan on killing Axl anyways if he doesn't get there in time. All we can do is inform the Hunters and hope X is up to this."

The directions in the note sent him to the Sahara desert. Dry barren land stretched to every horizon in a flat sheet. It was nighttime here, which was a good thing. These sand flats were probably blinding by day. As the note said, he faced east. Off in the distance, he could see a speck of something. It was several miles off, and he had not brought his meta-bike. Or any special armor. He should have, but time was running short. He ran for the speck, using his dash jets to go as fast as possible. It took ten minutes for him to reach the speck. It was a group of pyramids that had been in the middle of this desert for centuries.

Sigma was waiting for him. "You're later than I expected."

"Where's my son?"

"We'll talk about that later. Right now, I want to talk about my father."

"Dr. Cain? I haven't heard from him in a while."

"That's because he's dead," he said angrily. "And you killed him."

"I wasn't aware of that."

"You moved Sky Lagoon right over his location. You knew what you were doing."

"I did not. I had no idea they meant to blow the thing up. I just wanted it out of the way."

"You're a dirty liar. You meant to kill him. You've said such threats before."

"Probably when I was in a bad mood. You have no proof."

"That is not so. I have proof you have killed your own father."

"What does that have to do with this? I wasn't near the lab when he died."

"It shows that you don't care about anything unless you get your way, that you will do anything to get what you want. You've risked your brother's life to get your business in a game of poker. No matter what you do now, your crimes are unforgivable."

"I want Axl back and if I have to kill you to do that, I will."

"As I said, anything to get your way."

X began to suspect that this whole Maverick Sigma scenario was a complex ruse to get admission of guilt. They could have even faked Blues' body. "Where are you getting all this information on me?"

"From someone who knows you well. I am speaking of the Reploid Goddess."

"The Goddess? Zero told you this?"

"No, Dr. Wily implanted an independent program within Zero to control him. It is this program that gives rise to his powers of ecstasy. When you repaired Zero, you unwittingly shut the Goddess program down. She's very angry with you, as we all are. She has been from mind to mind ever since, collecting information, intelligence, and power. She has been in Dr. Doppler, Iris, and I allowed her to examine your half-brother after he died. She has been in others as well, but these three knew your shadows."

Shoot. If the Goddess knew everything those three knew… "Tell me where my son is."

"This will be your execution ground. We will take care of your son properly. You need not fear for him. He'll know everything about you."

"You'll regret this."

Sigma rushed at him, activating his saber only at the last moment. X darted out of the way and ran off while charging his buster. Once it was at full power, he stopped, turned to face Sigma who had come charging after him, rolled aside, and fired.

His fully charged buster hardly scratched Sigma's battle armor. But it gave him enough time to notice Sigma had put earplugs in. Shatter Wave couldn't fully work if the target could not hear. The Goddess would know almost all of X's weaponry. Almost.

X currently had two laser weapons: Aiming Laser, which was horribly weak, and Firefly Laser, which wasn't as funny as what he thought it was and it was horribly slow. But they were the same type of weapon, so there was a fair chance he could combine the two. He started with A-laser and targeted Sigma, but ended by firing F-laser along A-laser's targeting path. The firefly missile turned into a guided missile and slammed into Sigma hard. He followed that with a round of Ground Hunter, which was also a guided missile, now auto-targeted to A-laser's target. Finishing it off with a charged buster shot to about the same area and X wound up with a heavy-hitting combo attack. Sigma was knocked to the ground with at least one heavy crack in his armor.

X darted over and aimed his buster right at Sigma's face. "Where is my son?"

"X…"

"Tell me."

Sigma's eyes turned red. He fired a large pink ray. X was blown back several feet to land on his back, stunned. Whatever that weapon was, it had taken a lot out of him. His internal scanners were registering critical damage levels all over his body. He could keep fighting, but he needed a few moments for self-repair.

Sigma walked over. "Mavericks never win," he said.

His mind raced, rushing out an idea that just might work. He began laughing.

"What's so funny? You're going to die."

"I have lost, I'll give you that. But you have lost as well.

"Not at all."

"Sigma… you were the top Maverick Hunter. You were the most noble and admired reploid around. But what about now? Now the world knows you as the top Maverick, not top Hunter. And why is that? You nearly destroyed all life on Earth to destroy me. You kidnapped a child not even a year old and threatened to kill him, just to destroy me. You nearly killed your own brother, just to destroy me. You sacrificed your mind, body, and soul to the Goddess, just to destroy me. I lost the battle. You lost your honor."

As he'd hoped, Sigma looked horrified. "But I…"

X got up, painfully. "Now look… I'll tell everyone in the world you defeated me. I'll even let myself be arrested and tried for everything I have done. Just tell me where Axl is! Once I know he is safe," he paused, feeling overwhelmed. "Once I know that, I will even let the true Hunters raise him, if you wish that. I just want to know that he is still alive and well."

"He… he's over by that pyramid with Dynamo. But I've lost Dynamo's signal since our battle started."

"He'd better be over there," X said angrily.

Despite having his pain sensors constantly ringing, X walked over to that pyramid. When he got there, Dynamo was nowhere to be seen. Axl was curled up on the ground motionless. There was significant damage to his armor. X dropped to his knees and touched him. "Axl? Wake up."

When nothing happened, X touched his outlet ports to check manually. But his query got no reply. He picked Axl up and tried touching both ports. "No, Axl…"

"Can he be repaired?" Sigma asked.

"I can't get a signal off him." He forced open one of his pockets and pulled out two wires. "I have to get something."

"What are you doing?"

"Last chance method. It's too risky to be commonly known. If I can't revive him, I might shut down myself trying to."

He linked his outlet ports to Axl's. The deadly silence of his son's mind was terrifying. But he had to remain calm to make this work. He linked minds and attempted to jump start Axl under his power. The scariest thing of all was that he had only read about this method in theory. As far as he knew, no one had actually made it work.

But it had to work.

Then he sensed a spark of activity. X clung onto that and empowered it. He began to sense stray memories and feelings. His power core began to report excessive strain from injuries and trying to support another life. No, he couldn't stop. He bypassed his own security functions to keep the connection going.

Axl's power core restarted. His central core took another few seconds to fully regain control. His body was still motionless, but X disconnected one wire, hoping it was enough. He watched warily through the other wire, in case he should fail again.

It was the slowest revive he had done. Or maybe it only seemed slower because of who it was. Then there was a moment of pure magic when Axl opened his eyes. His central core was testing out who was on the other end of the wire. "Dad?"

"Axl!" X hugged him and started crying. He wasn't sure why, but moments later Axl was crying in his arms too. It didn't need to make sense.

A touch on his shoulder reminded him that Sigma was there. X recalled what he had said and felt scared. Axl noticed this and touched his hair. "Dad, what's wrong?"

X disconnected the other wire. It was for Axl's own good, he thought. But the last thing he wanted to do now was to give his son over to his hunters and never see him again. But Axl would be safer, better. "I…"

Axl took the tear off his face.

Sigma pushed him away. "You'd best run."

"What? But…"

"The Goddess is still in my system. She'll kill me in a short while. If you both are here, she will kill you as well. She has grown that powerful."

X nodded. "Thank you, for giving him back."

They teleported away, back home.

"You're a fool," the Goddess said sneeringly.

"He really does love him. In that case, I don't care."

A few days later, both of them were back at full operation. There were no visible scars from the encounter. But Axl was easily frightened by things he did not know and would not stray far from his father's side. X became nervous and tense, always checking the numbers on incoming calls. Neither of them had spoken of it, even to each other.

Zero came into X's personal office late in the afternoon. "What're you up to?"

"Thinking, mostly." He sketched in his design notebook with no particular idea in mind. "What about you?"

He shrugged. "Taking the occasional job here and there. My office has been awful quiet since Repliforce went down."

"Most of your clients were in there."

Zero smiled and nudged his shoulder. "You've gotten nervous lately. You've hardly relaxed for days."

"I am nervous."

"You wanna go out tonight? Reno says there's a party planned at Jumbles."

He shook his head. "No, I'd rather not."

"You don't want to? Come on, you're always up for a party."

X tapped his pencil on his desk. "I'd like to."

Zero sat on his desk. "Then why not?"

"I can't."

"What's wrong? Something is."

He made eye contact. "I nearly lost Axl because I stayed up all night to party and drink. I lost Blues for it. If I had just gotten back here on time to meet with them, it wouldn't have happened."

"It just happened that way."

"I touched his mind when he was dead."

This made Zero pause. "You did?"

"It was the only way to get him back." X felt himself crying again, but didn't care that someone was seeing it. "I can't continue on like this. I've been escaping reality ever since Doppler tore me apart. Or maybe even earlier. It hadn't occurred to me until I felt his silent mind that I was making things even worse by doing that. I have to stop. I have to, for Axl's sake. Or I'll just lose him again."

Zero wasn't sure how to respond to that. Eventually, he got up, shut the door, closed the blinds, then sat by X and was there quietly, thinking himself for most of the evening.

Hah, bet you weren't expecting this chapter. Unless you read this the first time around, of course.