MEGA MAN X: AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE
By Erico
CHAPTER 15: THE FOREVER SIGMA
Fresh from the defeat of the powerful but predictable D-Rex BattleTank, a grimfaced X finished teleporting into the final level of Sigma's powerful Hovertfortress. Where he landed was narrow and quiet, without activity or foes. It was as if he was at the bottom of a very long shaft. X had no doubt that the elevator for this place had never been constructed.
Eight copies of the original mavericks he had faced before this blasted fortress had stood in his path, and each had been blasted aside like nothing as the determined X continued to run through the deadly maze of traps Sigma had laid. His armor, his weapons, everything he had was used to decimate all in his path of the ultimate goal:
The destruction of Sigma and the end of the Maverick Uprising.
The one thing that disturbed X of the entire layout of this place was the simplicity, as well as the holes in the pipe walls that he would have to climb.
He would have to face perils on his way up, and most likely they were a hidden trap for him. A quick look on his meters gave him all he needed to know; Full health, for once. Two full Sub-Tanks, and only his Boomerang Cutter energy had a dent in it.
"Still not something I'd like to face Sigma with." X grimaced. He needed to grow stronger, to be able to run at full power in the last fight.
Suddenly, X realized what the holes in the wall piping was for. Green robotic caterpillars wormed their way out of the holes and down towards him.
"Nuts." X frowned. Sigma would have made a few final setups for the wily Hunters. "And the pipes go all the way up." And then an idea hit him. "This could be used to my advantage." X switched to the Rolling Shield and began charging. The caterpillars were slow, and his Buster was faster. With a sigh of relief, the purple blue shield surrounded him in a comforting glow of protection, and X slammed into the closest one. It spat out a weapons recharge in despair, and the Rolling Shield was at full health. Another slam attack revealed a life energy capsule, and X nodded slowly.
This would work.
He hovered over the pipe openings, eliminating the robots as they emerged and taking their health as his own. It was an easy process, and most likely a tactic that the brooding Sigma would not have thought of.
With everything in his systems at full potential, X switched off the shield and quickly clambered the rest of the way up. A leap through the hole barely cleared him from the tunnel as a revolving gate slammed shut and prevented escape. A surprised but ready X stood ready to fire off a Hadouken blast in his own corner of the room, his optics and sound sensors scanning the room for the slightest hint of a foe.
And at last Sigma revealed himself.
He jumped down from above, followed closely by his bane of a dog, Velguarder. The purple demon growled angrily and tried to leap at X, but a bark from Sigma brought the hound to a halt. X stared across, not moving but braced ready for a roomwide leap if necessary.
"Sigma." Sigma's frown was just as deep, if not darker.
"X." X raised a hand.
"You killed them all, Sigma. Jim Dacker, Cancer, all those Hunters and innocent people-And Zero as well. You killed them." Sigma crossed his arms and shrugged, his expression still poison.
"And you in turn have become what you hated most. A bloodthirsty, reploid killing 'savior of humanity.' Heh! X, the pure definition of a hippocrate is you. My actions will bring freedom and salvation to a superior race, the meshing of humanity and machinery in the greatest blend ever. All you have done is killed your friends who strived for that goal." X took the blow in stride, but paid no attention to it. His own blood screamed for vengeance for all the lost lives.
"Sigma, NO DREAM is worth the price that has been paid. You've corrupted yourself and corrupted the very objective you try to attain. Because of the bloodshed, humanity will always see us as tools of war and destruction. Light built me-BUILT REPLOIDS-because he dreamed of a world in which we could live in peace." X shook his head. "Now the ultimate price must be paid." Sigma nodded as well.
"Then it seems we are at last agreed upon one detail. One of us will not live from this encounter. And for all your enhancements my dear friend, you are still weak. I am the most advanced reploid there is, and you: you, X are not even a true reploid."
Sigma turned to pet Velguarder, who still bristled at the sight of X. "I'm surprised you made it this far, X. Zero certainly knew what he was doing. I would gladly kill you here and now-but I would not deprive my pet of that pleasure. If you survive this fight, then we will meet. Until then, X." Sigma issued the fateful command of attack to Velguarder, and then leapt high into the air, beyond the ceiling into a hidden room.
X had little time to pay attention to where Sigma had gone, for Velguarder had already bound towards his head. X ducked the attack, then turned in time to see the mobile critter come at him by a wall bounce. X dashed backwards, then turned and shut his eyes. Now, his Hadouken would be his salvation. But would it work?
The energy ball flew from his hands-
And slammed viciously into the metal mutt, still in midair. The once proud Treble, who had been found by Sigma and converted into Velguarder by Hazil and Sigma completed his last cycle of maintenance in that instant.
And all that had been from the past vanished in the white hot explosion that turned on itself.
The smoke cleared, and silence reigned once more. The ceiling opened up, and a foreboding Sigma dropped down. He paused by Velguarder's head, stooping down to pick it up. He held it aloft for a moment, and X saw the utter crackdown of a figure who had always been dark and angry.
In that moment, Sigma shed a tear. It shattered X, took away the hot anger and rage inside of him. He felt deflated, and at the same time, guilty for what he had done. Velguarder had never harmed anyone, not even during the breakout on June 4th. No, it had been Sigma and the Maverick Hunters who had done the killing. Velguarder was innocent-
And now Sigma had paid the price for putting the dog in X's path. Sigma's trembling hand grew strong, until it shattered the metal skull of Velguarder into scrap. Sigma threw the metal away from him and gritted his teeth at X.
"So you've done it. You have eliminated every one of us but me now. X, you should have joined us. Then, the suffering would not have been yours. Now, that has changed." Sigma pulled out his saber and lit the blade. "I'll see you beyond oblivion, X."
And Sigma charged.
The first saber strike sent Sigma flying across the room, with a massive yell that shook X to the core. X's face tightened in fear as the approaching behemoth of Sigma drew ever closer with the millisecond, powered by the dash thrusters in his boots. And he froze, just long enough to realize any movement by him would not be fast enough to fire back. X could do the only logical thing; avoid and counterstrike.
X jumped backwards up into the wall, took another leap upwards and narrowly managed to avoid the angry downswipe of Sigma's beam saber. Sigma's eyes flashed pure fire as he jumped up and took another hack-
But X was already flying across the chamber with a huge dash jump. Sigma harrumphed and nodded.
"You're a good Hunter X, almost as good as I was. But not good enough." Sigma's massive head was distinctive, lacking a helmet at all but still having a crystal control chip cover in it. And now, the crystal covering spouted angry fire bullets towards X.
X yelped and dropped down, avoiding the hail towards his position on the wall. The shots spattered out with a fizzle on the wall, leaving X unscathed for the moment.
A burst from his X-Buster, charged to the green level did little to affect Sigma, who took the shot in the gut and coughed meekly. X gritted his teeth and shook his head.
Sigma definitely had the advantage in this fight. "Was that the best you could hit me with, X? If so, then you'd best pack up and wait for the transition to the afterlife."
X cursed and jumped up the wall again. Sigma chuckled softly and blasted off the ground in a straight arrow path for the fleeing prey. X turned about and saw him coming. He gritted his teeth and dropped down. Sigma saw him move, but was moving so fast he could not remaneuver. He was in effect, stuck on the path he traveled. X took the few milliseconds he had upon hitting the ground to carefully track Sigma's path and to look at his weapons array. Sigma was moving too blasted fast for his Hadouken to work, and Sigma knew how to defend against it by now anymore. Doubtful anything would affect him that much.
Sigma was a humanoid reploid. Different from reploids whose designs take on the shape of animals or other things, humanoid reploids do have one defining quality; they lack weaknesses. A powerful enough attack will harm them, but as far as hitting them with any special weapon, it usually does not do as good of a job as a simple plasma shot. Each of the mavericks under Sigma had had a weakness that X had used to defeat them, but Sigma was as versatile as X.
"And only one maverick gave me trouble with my enhancements; Spark Mandrill." X grumbled softly as he dashed to the side, avoiding the powerful downswipe the unpredictable Sigma tried to spear him with. That simple flash of a sentence woke him up: The Electric Spark!
It was wider than a plasma shot, just as fast, and it had really shocked it to X a lot. Perhaps it just might do the trick! X wasted little time in activating the secondary weapon and bringing it to bear. Leveling his left hand, he formed it into a Buster and fired off a haphazard blast. Sigma, who was still landing didn't manage to block with his saber fast enough, and the shot hit him in the stomach. Unlike the X-Buster, this one definetely hurt him.
Sigma seemed to tighten up all at once as his servos went haywire, curling him in as the electric bolt coursed through his body in a fiery river of pain. His mouth opened and he managed to emit a yelp of pain. A yelp which instilled new hope in X.
"So you DO have a weakness." X nodded, raising his Buster again and firing. But Sigma recovered from the subsiding effects and raised his saber, blocking the blast and cleaving it into two harmless bits of electrical gas that flew up into the walls and dissolved. Sigma's face still held pain, but his eyes burned intensely with fire.
"You have yet to defeat me, X. I am the only true Hunter, and because of that, I WILL WIN." Sigma charged at X full tilt, but X didn't run. For a brief moment, his eyes flashed angrily, and he braced his feet against the ground. Sigma's roar grew louder at his approach, his fury becoming hotter as the shock wore off. Sigma's angry green saber swung down in a vicious arc-
And X sidestepped the hack with a gentle nudge from his thrusters. Quickly, Sigma tried a horizontal swipe to catch X off guard, but it failed.
X's Buster had been ready at the downswing, and a new world of pain unfolded in Sigma's face as the Electric Spark once again viciously ate at him. His hands clenched and unclenched uncontrollably at the blast, his entire body spasming with the energy. X's frown grew wider, and his eyes burned at the wrath.
"You sick monster." X fired another shot into Sigma's slackened body, scorching it again. Sigma at last screamed in pain, but X continued, landing a thick punch along his arm and knocking the deadly saber loose. It turned itself off as it rolled to a halt, and then Sigma was unarmed. "GET UP!" X screamed, kicking Sigma off of his feet. The devastated Sigma could not respond, but as his stomach wrenched at the blow, he was knocked into the air, and his neck clenched tightly by X. Another shot into his gut made Sigma's hands dig fingerprints into themselves. X lowered the now immobile Sigma to eye level, letting his orbs burn into Sigma's own pained eyes.
"You are not a Hunter, Sigma. You are a maverick. I am the Hunter. A world in which you were the last Hunter would not exist. Your regime has ended, you sick monster." Sigma's face tightened up as he took a short raspy breath.
"X! Before-before you kill me, I have to know one thing: What will you do after I am finished? How can you live with our blood-my blood-on your hands?" X took a calm blink of thought, during which his pose lessened. Sigma grinned sardonically and braced one of his legs for a vicious kick.
But the kick never occurred. X knew what was coming, and another blast into Sigma's stomach stopped the attack. Sigma's face finally crumpled completely into pain, and X's became full stone.
"I can live with it because the lives I took were not innocent. The lives I took had taken many more than I ever could. When you are in Hell Sigma, I want you to know this; I fought to stop the death. No one mourns the death of a tyrant. But you killed innocents. And for that, your punishment can be only one thing. No less of a sentence than you have ever passed. DEATH." X threw Sigma high into the air, the limp metallic body floating as a rag in the wind. A roar from X rose, the last Hunter making a dash to the wall and leaping off of it. He met Sigma in midair, releasing a triple blast of his Electric Spark. Sigma's systems went critical, but X added the last bit of punishment to it; a dropkick into the ground.
The last of Sigma exploded when the crumpled and overloaded metal slammed into the ground, the fusion generator within at last succumbing to the effects of the paralyzing Electric blasts and becoming the volatile denizen of destruction that it was. The explosion took all of Sigma, save his pathetic head that rolled to a stop inches from where the rest of his body had vaporized in the corona of the fusion fury.
The last sounds of the room stood quiet, and at last X breathed deeply.
It was done. Sigma was destroyed. The humans were safe, and the worst maverick threat of all time had gone up with its leader. X knelt down, picking up the undamaged saber of Sigma's and taking hold of it in his right hand. It felt out of place, and so X gingerly placed it on his back, having his systems take hold of it by the electromagnetic attraction. Zero had wanted this weapon as his own-
Now, all X could do was return the great beam saber to Maverick HHQ, as the final momento of Sigma's tyranny halted. He looked down and shook his head sadly.
"Zero, you'd be proud of me. But I'd rather have you alive than in my mind."
It never occurred to X to look over to the decapitated head of Sigma. The dying head, its eyes closing slowly in the final cycles of existence as Sigma sadly thought of his failure.
One Hunter had done this. And it had been X-X, the founder of their race, no less! That had done it.
But Sigma's death was not to be foretold in a match with his normal body. Now, the machinery of Vile's, the final weapon in the fortress came to life. It's scanners showed that Sigma was fading-fading fast. So, it sprang to life, sending down metallic tendrils that grasped the metallic head and pulled it up. Life had to be fed to its master, and soon! Sigma's head plugged into a socket that seemed built to hold exactly that object, pushed in by the tendrils before they sunk back into the slots of the hidden armor.
New life flooded into Sigma's mind, and he laughed in relief and insanity. Vile's last plan had worked. Sigma even remembered what Vile had said. 'If they manage to obliterate you, it ain't the end of your reploid mind.' Now, that cryptic and annoying message rang so true.
Sigma was no longer himself. He flipped the lights on in the dark room, surprising X. X looked up in surprise, a glance which soon became utter fear as he saw what was before him. A massive purple dog-like robot, its haunches swinging about lazily in arcs, ready to smash him aside with little difficulty. And the head looked the most dangerous, with a massive gun of some kind embedded in the mouth.
But it was who was IN the head that frightened him. Sigma had been revived, and now was tenfold as strong.
"Saints and marshmallows-Sigma's still alive?!" Sigma looked down at him oddly, before grinning angrily.
"Oh, I am no longer 'Sigma,' X. I am something more." A massive paw swung down from above, one which X barely saw coming. An ungraceful leap to the side saved X from instant death, but his worried face gave him little comfort. An angry Sigma laughed insanely. "I am The Forever Sigma!" The now demonic maverick looked down at X, a calm fury burning inside of him. "And now it's payback time."
X stood frozen in place, unable to comprehend it. And that was when the cannon in the giant robot's mouth activated, whining angrily before releasing the blast of plasma energy at the tiny foe at its feet.
The amount of power that single attack produced was incredible. X had never seen such hateful power without a long period of charging. The plasma blast started at one end of the floor, skimming along with a speed that seemed all but impossible. And X, stunned beyond any ability to fight back, did all he could.
He ran.
Dashing away from the horror behind him, X jumped onto the wall and slammed his body upwards. Finally, he was clear of the danger below. But as the closest paw swung down to take a hack at him, X realized in desperation Sigma had him massively outgunned.
The massive mitt connected with X, slamming him against the surface he had been using to avoid the attack in the first place. And not only that, but the damage it had caused was extensive. X took a fraction of a second to look up his internal operations energy. It had gone from 95% to 62% in less time than it took a human to blink. X shook his head, trying to shake off the sudden dizziness in his head.
"X, no matter where you go, I will destroy you!" Sigma laughed happily, pushing the paw below X. X looked down in shock, wondering what attack would come next. He saw a slight flash of light below, and then a massive Thunderbolt raged from the metallic hand's surface. Up and down the blast went, hitting X with a devastating attack. Now X realized how much danger he was in.
"No-32%? I'll die in the next blast. Gotta-drain a Tank." X wheezed. The aftereffects from only two attacks had him effectively down. But as he drained a Sub-Tank, his energy crept back up to full, and he shook his head. He only had three more of those. Then-
Then he was dead. And he would have failed. But X was strong of spirit, if anything. All his exterior strength came with anger. But inside himself still existed the same steely determination that had been with him since he had opened his eyes to look at Cain, peering inside with that wide smile at him and his capsule.
"You haven't won yet, Sigma!" X screamed angrily at the top of his lungs. He began to charge his Buster, allowing it to reach full power as he hung on the wall. Sigma frowned for a moment before swinging the paw upwards, but X was now too fast and too pumped to be stopped.
The paw stopped where X had been moments ago, but X was soaring through the air in a dash jump, right at the massive head of Sigma. Sigma saw him coming, but none of his attack would reach the Hunter in time. X released the massive Purple Blast Light's X-Buster capsule had bestowed upon him-
And hit the head full on. But it did little damage. As a matter of fact, it did little to none. Sigma blinked for a moment before looking down at the panting Hunter, still charging up for another blast. Sigma laughed.
"You are almost destroyed by two of my attacks, and the best you have to offer me barely makes a scratch in my armor?" X glared angrily at Sigma before reaching behind him with his other hand and taking the saber to bear.
"Then let's see how your wonder weapon works." Sigma's eyes flashed in surprise for a moment, and genuine concern lit his face. That beam saber was powerful, able to slice through things a normal X-Buster shot could never even scratch. X hit the trigger button on the shaft, waiting carefully for his chance. The green blade thrummed into life, the angry energy within contained by the fluorescent electromagnetic shielding that also gave it its shape. In the semi-dark interior of the lair, it also gave X's face a haunting glow as well. But to get to where he could use the saber effectively, X knew he would have to make it up to the top for his jump.
And Sigma wasn't stupid. He'd be pulling out all the stops to prevent X from using the hallowed saber against the manifestation of Velguarder and Sigma combined.
For a brief moment, the two beings in the room considered each other, each chewing at their jaws in restless wait. One Hunter and one maverick that wouldn't die. And only one would live.
Then Sigma began the attack. Unlike the plasma wave he had used before, now he tried a different attack. A roiling wave of flames replaced the plasma, just as deadly and far beyond the definition of overkill. X kept the saber in hand, at the same time charging down his Buster. He dashed onwards, taking a peek upwards. There it was-Sigma's right handed punch headed his way for a flattening. He stopped short of where the hand smashed into the ground and hopped onto the levitating hand. Using it as a stepping stool, he took a huge leap up onto the wall above. The hand rescinded instantly as Sigma roared at the quick move. X continued to leap upwards, totally unaware of the chaos unfolding below. His eyes turned towards the giant head, avoiding the glare of the flames which spewed from the mouth. The hand below began to whine insistently for another electrical discharge, and X heard it coming. He reacted with incredible speed, jumping off the wall and raising the saber high. A cry of death came from his mouth as he flung himself at the head-
And was then stopped cold as Sigma's other hand, coming through the very flame bath itself to remain undetected slammed into him, pushing the badly damaged Hunter back into the electrical current he had just avoided. His circuits screamed at his head, his mouth widening in a cry of pain as he fried from the inside out. He almost passed out at that dual attack, but X somehow managed to keep himself semi-functional. He felt himself fall onto the hand that had bitten him, and begin to roll off.
At that, his eyes snapped fully open and his Buster switched back into a hand, taking hold of the unsteady platform. The reason for doing so was obvious once X had looked below, and seen the ground underneath him become as black as pitch under the roiling flame attack. A quick scan of his systems proved to the ailing Hunter how strong and devious Sigma truly was. By some miracle, X had survived, hovering at 8% power. He instantly drained 2 Sub-Tanks, bringing himself to full health. But the external damage was even worse.
His glorious white armor, the only thing that kept him from being destroyed in one blow had been mangled. Wires and circuits underneath the plating bares to life, showing the inner workings and a few sparking connections. X cringed at it. No matter how much internal damage he could recover from with his Sub-Tanks, the external armor was there. If it was destroyed, it couldn't be GROWN. It was given to him in a capsule, and it held a strong alloy that was unproduceable anywhere else. Sigma's eyes flashed angrily.
"You can't win, Hunter." X looked up and shook his saber at the figure above with murder in his eyes.
"Just wait, Sigma. Just wait." When the blast finished and the ground subsided to being a danger, Sigma's other fist swung at X in an attempt to split the Hunter in half. X dropped to the ground and dashed to the other side of the room. Sigma saw it and cried out in surprise. He halted the fist's now useless swing and sent it in a backhand at the wall. X was slightly faster than the mitt, and was jumping up the wall just above where the wall had been crushed in.
A dash jump off the surface of metal took X to the air once more. And then he fired his Buster again, in the massive purple blast. This time, the shot struck through, hitting the same chunk of weakened metal that he had hit before. It burned through the tough armored hide of the beast's neck, and X took his chance. He took the saber and screamed.
"THIS ONE'S FOR YOU, ZERO!" Sigma shut his eyes, for nothing he could do could stop X now. X drove the saber deep into the wounded hole of the beast's neck, hanging from the handle as it sliced in its calm fashion, eating through wires, controls, servos and the outside armor itself with as little difficulty as a 2 ton block would crush a Met.
The smoke was furious as it poured from the gape in the robot's massive neck, and Sigma screamed in pain. He brought his fists together, upwards in a massive swing at X.
X looked down angrily and pulled the saber out, holding on with his other hand to the hole as a support. When the arms of the hands came close, X sliced through them.
Two loud and dull thuds silenced the deadliest-and final-weapons that Sigma could have crushed X with. X glared and turned around, turning the saber off and putting it back on his backholder. His right hand morphed into the red and white Buster of destruction, and all of X turned a shade of reddish pink as he selected the Rolling Shield.
X spoke no final words to Sigma, and Sigma could only gasp in fear. And then X fired.
The blue and purple orb of energy hit the frayed wires and energy conduits, at last making the very vitals to the beast fail and explode.
The explosion severed Sigma's massive head from the beast and brought it crashing to the ground. And then it happened.
The whole base began to go up in smoke. Without the beast's head to control the powerful energy within the maverick fortress, the flying terror began to wail its klaxons and crumble apart. X fell to the ground, but climbed to his feet, his anger vanished with the siren's appearance. And Sigma looked over in pain, now at last defeated.
"X, why did you betray us?! Why? This could have been our world-our world!! X! WHY?!" the question struck him full on, more powerful than any blast that Sigma had ever hit X with. And the question haunted him, until at last he shook his head from the stupor. A piece of ceiling crashed at his feet, and X finally realized he could warp out of the base and escape.
So he did.
He landed on a high ledge overlooking the sea, a mile away from where the crumbling fortress of Sigma lit up the night sky with its explosions and crashed into the ocean. And then the final blast came, obliterating everything of the flying horror in white hot fury. The sound grew into a massive tremoring wave-
And vanished. The light faded, leaving only X, the cliff, and the night sky. And the realization of everything finally crashed onto him.
He fell onto the ground like he had been pushed. And perhaps he had.
One Hunter. One final maverick. One victory achieved. And hundreds dead. Disaster had been averted, and there would be no human genocide. But at what cost?
X took off his helmet, looking at it for a very long moment. His eyes glazed over in tears as he looked at it, cracked and showing the signs of a terrible struggle. Even the crystal control chip cover had shattered, bits of it never to be retrieved. And the shattered red crystal was a perfect representation of his life. Shattered. Crystal chips-his friends-that would never return to him. Zero, Cancer, Jim Dacker and all the others that he knew.
The people he knew before he was a Hunter. A tear droplet fell onto the white and gold trim, and he screamed in a shriek of sadness and lost anger.
He threw his helmet as hard as he could, and it rolled to a halt inches from where it would have fallen off into the void below. He buried his head in his hands, feeling the black hair that he had not felt in so long underneath the discarded helmet.
"Zero-blast it, Zero, why'd you have to go and be a hero?" X sobbed. "How can I go on?" He shook his head again.
"How can I go on?" He looked down, and formed a Buster. This was his life now. A Hunter. Gone was the X he had longed to keep. No matter how hard he tried, from this point on he was a marked soul. Scarred for all eternity with the blood on his hands. But what did the future hold for one Hunter, in a world where the head of the ultimate threat had been defeated?
As he got up wearily and put his helmet back on, X decided to take the long way home. Walking back to Maverick HHQ at his own pace. Hopefully that would clear up the hazy, depressive fog in his muddled mind. But X knew some answers would never come to him.
Perhaps only his X-Buster knew for sure.
The walk home had been a long one, and X had been forced to drain his last Sub-Tank to fully heal the limp in his left leg. But in the blazing light of Ten in the morning, he stepped into the sliding doors of HQ. He shook his head and looked around. Now the base was fully rebuilt, and a fresh shipment of Hunters even bustled about close by. One turned about and gazed in shock at the weary individual before him.
"What the-poor guy looks like a fallen angel." The reploid managed to erk out between his lips. X heard the comment, but paid no attention to it. He walked on, a zombie as he stepped into the Medical Bay.
Hazil looked up from a box of fluid filled vials in surprise, and then it changed into a gasp of horror.
"Sheeze-X, you look like hell!" X stopped in the doorway and threw Sigma's saber in a lazy arc at the box on wheels that served as the doctor. Hazil caught it easily and looked down in surprise. His glance became a mix between relief and sadness.
"So, you destroyed Sigma." X nodded his head slowly, too weary or too unwilling to speak. Hazil nodded. "Well, the bugger had it coming to him anyhow, you know."
Cain chose that moment to come limping into the room, and whistled at X. Hazil nodded.
"Yeah, the guy looks like crap." Cain sighed.
"So it's done, then. Sigma's gone. But even though the base is destroyed, there are still a bunch of rogue elements Sigma had sent off to every corner of the earth. The maverick threat isn't done for yet, X." X covered his head.
"I don't care. I just don't care anymore." He sat down. "I wish I could go back to the way things were. When Cancer was alive and we were happy with life. Now I take it." Cain sat down beside him and rubbed the Hunter's tender shoulder. X looked over into the weary eyes of the man who had spawned a revolution. Cain spoke slowly, choosing his words.
"X, you can't go back. We have to go on. Cancer's gone, and that's all there is to it. We burned his body to ashes, as well as his mind. You're part of the 17th now, under Zero." X's eyes flashed for a moment, then he bowed his head in sadness. Cain's mouth widened in the realization.
"Oh my God…Zero's not coming back, is he?" X nodded, and even the grizzled Hazil had to lean against the wall for support. No Zero? The war had indeed taken a terrible toll. Cain shook his head.
"Well, that does it, then. X, you're now the leader of the Maverick Hunters. You have to go on, to lead them and to keep the world safe from the threat of those who would destroy us all."
X sighed and got up, closing his eyes and in one thought removing every piece of his armor and weaponry. He kept them stored as data, the same form which they had been given to him. Cain looked up, and Hazil confirmed the last vestiges of X's Hunter gear had vanished into the computer files.
"You're not going to keep the armor, are you X?" X shook his head.
"I'll keep what Doc Light gave me to start with. Everything else stinks of death. And that's one stench I'd like to forget." X walked over to the Medical Bay door and opened it up. He could hear Hazil talking to Cain softly.
"Cain, Zero will remembered fondly-as a hero." X swiveled around, and the final tinge of his anger vanished. Cain and Hazil looked at X in interest, and X's mouth drooped as a single tear crept into his eye. He motioned for Hazil to throw the saber at him, and Hazil did as requested. X caught the silver cylinder and held it in his hand.
"Guys, let me tell you something that I've learned from all of this." He blinked the tear away. "In war, there are no heroes-only mourners." He looked up at the lights, anxious for a different thing to look at than the prying faces of his two coworkers.
"I'll be in my quarters sleeping for the next week. Don't bother me." Cain nodded slowly, and even Hazil gave a grunt of approval. They wouldn't stop X.
X had a lot to deal with.
It had been hours ago since he had collapsed on his bed, placing the silver handled saber of Sigma's on his Television set. Laying on the bed, his blue armor gone in favor of a set of sleeping trunks and his bristly hair, he stared up at the ceiling.
He wouldn't quit. There was still too much left to do, and Zero wouldn't approve of him being mopey all the time. X would have to get over it-and he was. At his own pace, slowly and through the entire process that he needed to go through to do so. He could feel his eyes begin to fade off-
And then his television set flashed on.
X jerked up in befuddlement, and the visage on the screen chilled him. Was he still dreaming? X couldn't determine where the reality of life existed anymore. It was Sigma, most likely a preprogrammed message. But what if-?
"You have won a temporary victory X, over a temporary body. But my spirit lives on. In time, I will find stronger bodies to inhabit, and then I shall return. I shall see you soon, X…very soon." X walked over, examining the set for a minute with steely eyes. Then he crouched down and pulled the plug on the TV set.
"If you are still alive Sigma…then bring it on." X said quietly. At last, the spirits of the dead could rest, knowing that X would be there to prevent another tragedy.
And ironically, even with the threat of Sigma's possible return from beyond the grave-
Even X soon found himself dozing off peacefully on his bed.
The greatest Hunter.
Asleep at last.