MEGA MAN X: THE SOUND OF MAVERICKS
By Erico
CHAPTER SIX: AN ANGEL'S TOUCH
"Great gravy…It's worse than I thought." Hazil muttered to himself. Staring through a microscope lens over his right eye, Hazil squinted into the deep wounds of Bastion. The bright lights over the table lit up the darkness, and Hazil found it long and arduous. But if he went faster, he risked losing Bastion forever.
At least, this body. But Hazil knew better than any even a recreated body lacked certain qualities of the reforged reploid. When Cain and him had put Zero back together again, the plucky Hunter forgot the tiny tidbits of his life before.
"The fraggin' control chip may remember the names, numbers, relations and situations of life before…but it always misses the way a reploid smiles." Hazil growled.
He had spent three hours alone cleaning out the blood and sealing the vessels in Bastion's body. "A bloody mess of things." Hazil had said then. After that, he'd switched to examining the internal damage.
That was even worse. The saber wound in Bastion's stomach ran out all the way through him, through the Powerstorm armor. That damage had almost ignited the fuel cells in the pack. If that had happened…
Well, there would be no Bastion to save. It was a mixed blessing, though. The damage was severe enough that it had destroyed critical warping circuits. Until further notice, Hazil had to work on Bastion, all armor attached.
"There." Hazil blew out a breath of air, releasing the tension in his hands. Withdrawing the wiring tools, he ran a quick scan on the circuits he had just repaired.
"That's the best I can do here." Hazil said quietly. He wiped the sweat from his brow and looked down.
There was still much of Bastion that needed to be fixed.
Three hours ago, this same spot witnessed a murder and a near fatal attack.
Three hours ago, someone or something had been here.
"Three hours ago, Bastion got the snot beat out of him." Zero grumbled. The rage he felt was intense, but with all his anger he had learned long ago to store it up for fights. He did that now. Clenching Bastion's saber in his hand from where it had lay aside the pool of reploid blood, Zero kept it in. Whoever did this would pay.
The sun was still young on Tokyo's horizon, almost blinding them all. But they were grim and dedicated to their goal…
Trying to figure out exactly what went down here last night. The ground still held Bastion's blood, now dried on the concrete. Inside the abandoned warehouse, a scanning team from the 17th was carefully examining the reploid whose circuits were now forever scrambled to oblivion. Zero was merely a watcher, a person to keep an eye on the skittering troops working in grim silence.
But they all felt the chill. One of the Hunter's best had been dealt a serious loss, completely by surprise. And since only Bastion had seen his attackers…and he was still being put back together…there wouldn't be any answers from him for a while.
In the meantime, they all knew that in the same situation, they would be in as critical of a condition.
A Hunter had been taken down. There was no indication to who did it.
"Commander Zero!" Zero swiveled his head to look at Doan, a 17th specialist of gadgetry. Zero dipped his head down slightly and fixated a gaze of stoicness on Doan.
"What did you find?" Doan shook his head, as glazed as any.
"The reploid in there is dead…period. No second chances, no rebuildings. Whoever attacked him jammed a beam saber INTO HIS SKULL and turned his control chip into silicate slag." Zero shuddered slightly.
Reploid murder. That's what it was.
"Any indication on why someone would attack him?" Doan shrugged.
"Nope. His name was Canark, and he worked maintaining net connections for Tokyo. I can't see any reason for a grudge or even an intense hatred of the company. And he wasn't infected either." Doan finished, referring to the Maverick Virus.
That made Zero's head hurt.
"So what we have is a reploid working for the betterment of society, for a company people love, who isn't infected, who on the last night of his life went stark raving mad and charged through throngs of people in an attempt to escape a force that even he couldn't name." Doan nodded.
"Thereabouts." Zero sighed.
"I can't make sense of it either. Well, wrap up our friend Canark and let's head home. I'll let X and Cain do the brainwork on this case." Doan nodded, then whistled to his team to give the instructions.
Zero activated his warp generator and slowly slipped into the strata once more. But aside from getting Canark's remains to HQ, Zero had another important goal.
There was a death vigil to be kept for Bastion.
Back at MHHQ, the majority of everyone was clustered in the dining hall. Quietly whispering amongst small groups, the people of the Hunters waited silently. The TV flickered softly, but it had been muted. Only erratic silence echoed in the halls, and even Cain was morose.
More so than usual, X noted grimly. Cain had always been a bit of a serious individual, but there had been too much happening recently for him to break out of the sad shell. X finally walked over to Cain, who sat, calmly sipping a cup of coffee that had long ago been lukewarm.
"Need a refill, Cain?" X asked softly. Cain shook his head, not looking at the blue Hunter standing above him. X nodded slowly.
Not too many people now wanted much of anything. They were all worried sick about Bastion, or at the least stunned. Grouped in the cafeteria, they waited. Waited for news of Bastion's recovery…
Or his death. In the Hunter's line of business, death was nothing new. But a death like this was rare. As X looked around, he realized the abstract absence of Wycost.
Wycost more than anyone should be here. Perhaps if he was still with the Hunters…
"No." X shook off the thought. It was doubtful that even Wycost, an ex-maverick and hard headed Hunter could have done better in that situation. And blaming his absence for the cause of Bastion's attack was not only stupid, it was hateful.
Still, it gave X pause. Wycost had made a very big impression on the Hunters during his one year stay, and would always be remembered.
"Stop it, X." He chastised himself. "Stop talking like Wycost's dead." But what pained him is he didn't know.
Wycost COULD be dead. What if he was the next target for these fiendish attackers?
That made him shudder even more. But he calmed himself down and looked about.
There WAS one person missing from the cafeteria. And X realized that if she wasn't here…
She probably needed more solace and comfort than anyone.
True enough, X found her in her room. She was dressed in her pink and blue armor, like they had found her only two weeks before. But unlike everyone else, her feelings were all too evident. She was crying.
"Hey." X finally said. Standing in the doorway, it was the only comment he could muster. Bristol looked up, her eyes teary. "I see you heard as well." Bristol blinked, then dabbed her eyes.
"I don't think there's anyone in here who hasn't." Bristol put her tissues away and looked at X. "Before he ran off to get mangled, Bastion was comforting me." Bristol smiled softly, sniffling.
"He's always helped me out, X. No matter what, Bastion always tried his hardest to try and help me." Bristol's face drooped. "And now that the tables are turned, there's nothing I can do to repay the favor." X nodded.
"It's hard to realize that a friend may pass on. I know what you're going through." Bristol raised her hands, then let them fall.
"Yes. You're no stranger to pain, either. You lost Cancer and Zero in the First Maverick Uprising." X shrugged.
"Yeah. But we managed to get Zero back." X stared at her and smiled a bit. "And if I know Bastion, which I do…he'll come back alive and kicking as Zero did." Bristol wiped her eye with a finger.
"But you didn't talk about Cancer. He died, and you never brought him back." X sighed.
"Cancer was a quirky fellow, Bristol. One, he wasn't a Hunter. Secondly, if we brought him back, he'd never forgive us. Wherever he is, it's happier than this place." X stared off for a moment, his features smiling slightly as he thought back on Cancer, how the yellow reploid never stopped smiling.
"Bastion has a reason to come back to us. There's two parts to recovery, Bristol." Bristol looked at X, peering at his face. X continued.
"The first part is rebuilding the body." X pointed to his chest. "But if a person's heart isn't in it, no amount of physical recovery will save them. It's a two part process. Bastion possesses a spirit as fiery and burning as the desert he hails from." X got up.
"For that reason, he'll come out just fine." Bristol slowly bobbed her head up and down. X had alleviated her sorrows, and replaced them with hope. X smiled.
"Come on. We'll drop in on Hazil and see how our friend is doing."
Hazil breathed silently as he put his tools away. His weary arms dragged slightly, and he realized he needed to get some stasis time soon. And soon, he could.
As far as Bastion was concerned, he'd done as much as he was capable of.
"Physical wounds are moderately easy to fix." Hazil grumbled. "Whether or not Bastion is all right is up to the emotional trauma he's sustained." Just then, his door rang.
Hazil thought about hollering a curse, but he thought better of it and scratched his head.
"Yeah, who izzit?"
"Hazil, I have someone here who'd like to see the patient." Hazil noted X's calm voice and sighed.
"All right, Blue Boy. Come on in, and drag Bristol with ya." The door slid open with its usual hiss, and X screwed a puzzled look on his face.
"How'd you know it was Bristol?" Hazil yawned, at that point between sleep and duty.
"An educated guess. Anyhoo, I've done all I can. The holes are patched, his systems are running and the wiring is fixed." Hazil turned back and motioned to the pulse monitor, which read Bastion's continual circulation. "From this point, all he needs is some rest and some wakey wakey." Bristol looked past Hazil to Bastion.
His breathing was slow, and his wings were still attached, if pulled back into their stationary position in the pack. The holes in his sides were patched up…truly, you couldn't even tell they had even been there. But the rest of him didn't look too well.
His face still had more pain on it than any person should have to endure, and one arm was draped across his chest while the other dangled loosely. Bristol drew in a ragged breath, and X shook his head.
"Hazil, he looks pretty bad." Hazil glared.
"You should have seen him when he came in, bub. Just be thankful I got him here." X walked over, touched Bastion's shoulder.
"Any long term damage?" Hazil lowered his head.
"His Powerstorm Armor Pack is giving me the most trouble. Its circuits were fried pretty well by that saber wound, and I couldn't warp it off of him. Worst case situation, he'll be stuck wearing that thing until he dies."
That was an unhappy thought. "Teleport circuits are a delicate thing. If I couldn't do it remotely, it may be up to Bastion to try it manual."
"Not exactly certain, are you?" Bristol snapped acidulously. Hazil shrugged.
"Mark Twain once said that nothing was certain in life, save death and taxes." Hazil shook his head. "I may be wrong, I've been known to get cranky and mucked up in the head when I've gone on THREE HOURS OF STASIS." X harrumphed for a moment.
"I'd tell you to get some sack time then. You've done all you can to help Bastion, right?" Hazil raised his hands upward, extending the spindly metallic limbs.
"As much as can be done, short of a human sacrifice." Hazil lowered his arms and rolled off into a corner of the Medical Bay. "I'll be in snooze land. Maybe Bastion would like some company there."
Hazil finally stopped talking, his head drooped down and the lights in his corner went out. Then with ultimate irony, he began to snore. Bristol raised her eyebrows at the sight, then looked at X. X shrugged with a half smile.
"Hey, he's pretty old. Or at least he likes to think he is. It's just something he picked up from Cain." Bristol sighed.
"So now we wait."
"Wait for Bastion to return to the land of living."
"Hey, you awake?" In the heat of midday on the Northern Africa coast, two figures rested in a long forgotten shack. Both reploids, they patiently ran their cycles in quiet thought. But one had decided to break the tedium.
The tall one opened his eyes with a resigned look of annoyance, then yawned and got up from his chair.
"What is it, Allegro?" The short one shrugged with a fiery look.
"I'm getting restless." The tall one shook his head back and forth.
"You'll have to wait. It's not time yet to take this fight all the way." Allegro crossed his arms.
"Like these small attacks we've been doing amount to doodly squat overall. Remind me again, Andante…Why exactly do we keep ourselves so limited?" Andante walked over to the door of their desert shack, walking slowly and pondering his thoughts. Finally, he turned and pulled out his weapon.
He ignited the twin beam saber, watching it pulse a dark blackish purple in the dim light. Andante raised it to eye level, holding it steady in his right hand. He clenched his left hand at his side, and shut his eyes.
"We are like this beam saber, Allegro. Two blades with one mission. In our quest, the hilt from which we emanate has not yet reached full power. Until that time, actions outside of our limited attacks thus far are futile and suicidal. We must bide our time, Allegro. As much as that pains you to take it slow, you have to." Andante extinguished his blade, then slipped it back in the recharger on his back. Allegro sighed.
"So what do we do about the Hunters? They've gotten involved in our operations." Andante nodded slowly.
"Allegro, it's their choice to get involved in our business. We cannot be blamed for the outcome." Allegro grinned from ear to ear, and slowly began to laugh.
His laugh carried across the desert, sounding like little more than the rushing, howling wind.
But it was still enough to send chills down the backs of the nomads whose camp was set up fifteen miles away.
"All right everyone. You can all get back to your duties now…Bastion's gonna live." X spoke with forceful placidness, hoping that he would convince everyone in the Cafeteria.
Luckily, he did. The Hunters shuffled off, one depressive disaster averted.
But that still didn't stop the fact that there was a twenty six day timer on their heads. As the room quieted down, Zero walked up to X and folded his arms.
"So how bad was it?" X blinked.
"He should live. But if Hazil's fears are confirmed, he'll be stuck with those Powerstorm Wings on his back forever." Zero swore.
"Figures. Jam a blazing blade of contained plasma into circuitry, and watch the devastation reign. There are times I wish Hunters were immune." X shook his head.
"Oh, but we're not. In any case, we need to get back to normal schedule."
"Yeah. No sense in doing any more digging on Bastion's attack until he's up and running. He's the only witness. Jad, Kol and Gavin reached him too late to stop the attack."
"So Zero, whacha gonna do now?" X sighed. Zero scratched his helmet and pulled out his saber.
"Time for some practice in the workout room. Care to join me?" X shrugged.
"Simulation, danger level nada. If that's the parameters, I'll be more than happy to." Zero guffawed.
"And after that, we'll bash each other senseless with plushies." X shook his head.
"Not funny, Zero." Zero nodded.
"Yeah, I know. Nothing's gonna be funny for a while yet."
"The Maverick Hunters now have a total of twenty six days remaining before the Global Defense Council takes action on their ultimatum, passed five days ago. But even as the clock winds down, they keep busy with a variety of tasks and problems."
Horn watched with semi-interest, if only because he liked to hear the Hunters were being flushed down the drain at long last. And the lady on the worldwide CNN wasn't half bad looking.
"You're darn right, gallie!" Horn finally guffawed. "Sigma's gone, and so's the threat. Time for URFAWP to take over!" The reporter on his large screen paid no attention to him.
"But there is a more recent and disturbing part of this tale. Last night, the Hunters were dispatched into Tokyo itself to stop a crazed reploid running amok. Leading the small team was Commander Bastion, a recent addition to the Hunters and also partially responsible for the success at the end of the Fifth Maverick Uprising more than a year ago." The reporter blinked, flustered at the next tidbit she was to read. Horn saw the slight change in her demeanor and raised his sunglasses. Whatever came next had to be pretty interesting.
"Commander Bastion was attacked on that jaunt, and severely wounded. The Maverick Hunters have yet to release details on the extent of the damage, and what caused it. We'll bring more news to you on that story when it comes in. Now we go to Bob, with an update on the Presidential elec…"
Horn flipped his TV off, once more stunned.
"Sheeze. Now they're even getting attacked?" Horn kicked his feet up and flipped his glasses down. Genuine late 20th Century Blue Blockers, they were highly valued as a collector's item. "Oh, the life of a Hunter is a dangerous one."
At the moment, there was no one in the world that could disagree with him.
"No, WE ARE NOT GIVING INTERVIEWS!" Cain hollered into his telephone. He slammed it down with a finalizing thud, and pulled out a bottle of aspirin. Hazil had finally give him a bunch of his own, if only so the reploid doctor could get some sleep.
That was when Jad, Kol and Gavin came walking in, their hands tightly clutching the reports from last night's jaunt in Tokyo's warehouse district.
"Hey, boss. Wassup?" Jad said calmly. His voice was slightly cheerier than it had been before, and Cain guessed that it was because of the happy news they'd gotten about Bastion's surgery. Cain motioned for the reports, and they forked them over in the same manner. Cain sighed.
"Remind me. We monitor calls to news organizations, right?" Gavin nodded.
"Yup. And even then, you have to have either you or X or Zero give a confirmation code to the demn thing just to make the call." Cain nodded.
"Exactly. So anyhoo, here's what I'm getting at, fellas. Siddown for a moment." The trio plopped into Cain's chairs, watching Cain with open eyes, but leaving their feet dangling haphazardly over the sides.
"Someone tipped off CNN to the fact that last night, you all and Bastion went chasing after that one reploid."
"Canark." Gavin corrected. Cain shrugged.
"Canark, right. Anyhoo, because of that one thing, my phone's been flooded with calls from every blasted newsie under the sun, looking for that special quote or tidbit no one else has. AND IT'S RIDING UP MY ARSE. Any suggestions?" Kol chortled, then silenced himself. Cain looked up.
"Whaddya got, Kol?" Kol shrugged.
"Nothing. It's just too mean." But he started to giggle with a huge grin, and Jad folded his arms.
"Kol, spill it." Kol stopped giggling and wiped his blurry optics.
"Are you guys sure?" Gavin nodded.
"REALLY sure?" Kol asked again, still grinning from ear to ear. Jad leapt out of his seat and began to mercilessly rub Kol's helmet into his head.
"Trust me, Kol. We wanna hear it." Kol squirmed and finally escaped Jad's death noogie.
"All right, all right! Here's what I'm thinking."
When he was done, they were all rolling on the floor. Save Cain, who had enough dignity to remain in his chair while he laughed himself silly.
"Oh yes. We gotta do that!" Cain finished.
As luck would have it, his phone rang at that very moment. Cain shushed the giggling trio and set his phone to speakers. Now they could all hear and speak to whoever was calling.
"Hello, you've reached the Maverick Hunters. Doctor James Cain speaking, how may I help you?" Cain managed to erk out. Kol chortled a bit, but covered his mouth so he only shook uncontrollably.
"Hello, Doctor Cain? This is Marles Coralt of ABC News, 21/21. I was wondering if you would be able to furnish me with any information about that attack on Commander Bastion last night." Cain 'herrmmmmed' for a moment, then snapped his fingers.
"Well, lemme see what I can dig up here." At that moment, Cain hit the record switch on his sound recorder. If this worked, Jad Kol and Gavin would have saved him heartaches galore. Cain began to make a lot of shuffling noises with the Trio's reports, and Kol began to open and slam Cain's file cabinets. Cain continued to mutter for a moment, pretending to be fully engrossed in his search for data.
"Well, let's see. Aww, shoot." Cain said finally. "Hold on a moment, will ya? KOL, GAVIN! Can you come in here for a moment?" Kol and Gavin began to stomp their feet loudly, imitating the noise of tromping boots running into Cain's office.
"Wassup boss?" Gavin said placidly, a perfect opposite of the wide grin on his face.
"Boys, I have this nice person on the phone from a news organization, and well, I need some information on Commander Bastion. Can you help me look for some?"
"Sure thing boss!" Kol said enthusiastically.
"Thanks, I knew I could count on you. You hear that, newsperson? We're gonna have some stuff for you soon enough here." Cain and the trio began to make shuffling noises once more, banging about the office with as much efficiency as they could muster.
"Hey Cain! I found something!" Kol finally yelled from the opposite side of the room. It was loud enough for the recorder and the reporter to pick up quite audibly.
"What is it, Kol?" Cain asked loudly.
"It's a report about the time Commander Bastion saved the world from nuclear fallout in the middle of the Fifth Maverick Uprising!" Cain clicked his teeth.
"No, that's not it. Keep looking fellas!" More noise.
"Cain, here's something. It's a report on how Bastion saved the entire 18th Unit by taking out the command module of a robotic tank squad."
"No, no, no!" Cain said. "This newsperson has been waiting patiently for news about YESTERDAY." A long pause, and then a unison comment from Kol and Gavin.
"Oohhhh…you got it, Cain." More shuffling.
"Aha! Boys, I've found it." Cain cleared his throat. "Bastion was keeping the world safe for all, on the night before away from the mall." Kol continued, pretending to read from the same sheet Cain held.
"Bastion made sure Canark was all right, that's the reploid he was chasing, for you doofs out of sight." Gavin finished.
"However, Bastion got clobbered, completely by surprise, so for all the newsies in happy day skies…Realize for a moment we'd like some release!" And then they joined in a unison phrase.
"This recording was made by Maverick Hunters, PROTECTORS OF PEACE!" Cain flipped the connection off, and then the recorder.
Then they all laughed at long last. Cain dabbed his eyes.
"Oh, thank you all boys. Laughing makes me feel a whole lot younger than I am." Gavin chuckled.
"Some of us reploids would give anything to be considered ancient. I mean, reploids are as a race, how old? Less than ten years? X and Hazil hold claim to the longest surviving ancients. We're so unloved."
"Age brings two things alone, fellows." Cain sniffled. "Wisdom, and a really huge corn on your big toe. SO APPRECIATE YOUTH!"
The office of James Cain became a battlefield of its own on that philisophical discussion for the next thirty minutes.
Things had returned to normal.
For Cain, at least. But in Hazil's office, things were about the same.
Hazil woke up from his semi-peaceful slumber, blinked once and unfolded his arms. Twelve hours had passed, and it was now late at night.
Rolling over to his recuperating patient, he saw that Bastion hadn't moved an inch. A quick check of the bed's internal scanners showed that the Arabic Hunters hadn't moved out of stasis the entire time Hazil had been asleep.
"Crap." Hazil muttered. This was bad news indeed. He pulled out his scanner, flipped it on and ran a check of Bastion's control chip.
It was undamaged, but a crucial pathway had been shot to hell. A pathway that allowed Bastion to control his stasis cycles, and more importantly, in his incapacitation allowed it to run on a simple nine hour frequency.
In human terms, Bastion was in a coma. Hazil shut his scanner off and shook his head.
"Crap." That was all he could say as he slipped his scanner back into his chest compartment. "Crap crap crap." Hazil pushed his hair back and quietly brought up his memory of what was to be done with reploids when they entered a zombified state.
"Well Bastion, you have another twelve hours to try and solve the problem on your own. Then we get to do one of two things…end your life forever, the humane way about it, or we reformat your entire mind. Erase it all, start from scratch. And while you are a total blank, everyone else gets to suffer with the fact that the Bastion they know and trust is no more." Hazil waited silently, pleading with the Hunter to do something. To extend a limb, to mumble a bit. Anything to reverse the diagnosis.
But Bastion was as silent as he'd ever been. A mind whose last moments of activation had been tarnished by pain and the possibility of death, and a body who even when patched could not help the ruined circuitry that the original injury's intensity had caused.
Hazil sniffled back a tear, then rubbed his eyes.
"I'm sorry, Bastion. I tried. I really really did try to save you." Hazil clenched his fist. "And in the end, I failed as miserably as I did with Bolt Eagle." Hazil turned off the medical bed's scanner, conserving its power.
Bastion was as good as dead. And Hazil once again had a mind filled with doubts about himself. He rolled out of the Medical Bay and shut the lights off.
"What good am I anymore, if I can't even save a life?"
X, Zero and Bristol were crowded about a table in the Cafeteria of the Hunter Base, quietly chewing on their food. Bristol had a light Caesar Salad, X was munching on a Club Sandwich, and the ever predictable Zero was chewing on a five pound slab of steak…no silverware.
Bristol frowned in disgust as tiny bits of Zero's food were flung from the hulking meat in his hands. X shrugged, and kept his eyes on his own sandwich.
Finally, Bristol sighed.
"Is that thing healthy for you?" Zero stopped gnawing on his meat and looked up. He looked at Bristol and grinned devilishly from ear to ear.
"I'm a reploid. Whatever I chew up goes down me gullet and into el Fusion Tankeros. Instant kapoof, energy it becomes. Happy I am that I can chew on a whole lot of meat at a time." X put his sandwich down and pointed a thumb at Zero while looking at Bristol.
"Oh, don't mind him. There's a reason he stays away from sugary pastries." Bristol raised her eyebrows.
"Oh? Why is that, luv?" X grinned.
"One time this doof had the gall to challenge me. The item in question was marshmallow chicks. Namely, how many can a reploid eat safely?" X rolled back and kicked his feet onto the table, sighing happily. Zero muttered a Swedish Curse and returned to his meat slab.
"Oh, I think this one must be humiliating." Bristol grinned. "Do tell!" She set her head onto her smallish hands and peered at X. X chuckled.
"Oh yes. So anyhow, we got Hazil to stay with us, in case this got dangerous. Then we picked up about ten CASES of marshmallow chicks from our local 'Shop N Save' and set down to business. This being a slow time in between Sigma's Second Appearance and The Doppler Incident, every Hunter had a bet going on who would win. If marshmallow chicks proved to be our downfall, Zero won. If not, I did." X leaned back even more, closing his eyes.
"So the big day came. Between the two of us was this ten foot tall pile of marshmallow chicks, all unboxed and unwrapped. Yellows, pinks and whites, chicks of every color and one uniform size. Hazil started the buzzer, and the chanting began. No hoots and hollers like you'd expect. Just a continual count of the number of chicks we were scarfing. One at a time, the two of us downing them at a speed so constant it would get boring. Were it not for the two of us throwing insults and challenges at one another, it would have gotten boring in a hurry. And THEN…The conclusion." X paused, then went on.
"The count was at 287 Marshmallow Chicks between the both of us. Well, we decided eating them plain was getting boring in a hurry, so we tried to spice it up. Alter the form if you will. We burned them into crisps with small Buster emissions, expanded them and tore them limb from tiny sugary limb, and then the FUN ONE. We stuck them a liquid and dissolved the buggers. In this form, it got crazy. We drank the liquid down just fine, but there was residue that remained in our voice synthesizers at the upper portions of our throats. Sugar that isn't in water or another solution is a terrible conductor, so when we dried out, that blasted sugar coating short circuited our voices. BOTH OF THEM." X grinned. "Boy, Hazil spent four hours cleaning our voices out. And just to get back at us, while he was fiddling we changed our voices to sounds like midgets." Bristol blinked.
"Midgets?" Zero guffawed.
"Think of it like this. Nothing but 'WE REPRESENT, THE LOLLIPOP GUILD!' a hundred times over and not as fun. We got Cain to fix it back to normal, but we always knew from that point on any kind of prank we pulled like that that resulted in Hazil having to do something WOULD BE BAD." X took over for him.
"A shootout with water pistols? Hazil would make our Busters shoot H20 in training sessions. A footrace that resulted in a helmet being smashed into the wall? Hazil would make the helmet look like a dunce cap. Hazil definitely has a bizarre, if not perfectly blended sense of humor in his reach."
"Speaking of Hazil…" Bristol interrupted. They all looked over to see the doc on wheels roll into the Cafeteria with a defeated look on his face.
"What the…" Zero began. Bristol raised a hand, her face turning to dread.
"I don't like the feeling I'm getting from his less than dapper mood." X nodded.
"Yeah. Come on then. Let's see what pushed our usually grumpy friend to extreme depression."
The three of them got up and walked over to Hazil. Zero whistled loudly, bringing Hazil's attention to bear.
"Hey, Hazil. Coming out to scarf something? I'm buying." Zero said. Hazil shook his head.
"Better make it a drink. Double Scotch, if this waterhole has it." Zero furrowed his eyebrows.
"Double scotch? That's pretty strong." Hazil nodded.
"Exactly. It ain't a happy hour effect I'm going for." X crossed his arms.
"What happened?" Hazil frowned.
"Is this going to be twenty questions? I have better things to do than answer 'em." X nodded.
"I'm sure you do. Just answer one: What is making you sad?" Hazil finally slammed his hands to his side, clenching them into fists.
"FINE!" The outburst came noticed by everyone, as the cafeteria grew silent. Now Hazil and company were the center of attention.
"You wanna know what's bothering me, X? I'll tell you. I just got up from a not very satisfactory stasis period, only to find that our plucky friend Bastion had NOT. You know why? Because with all pain he'd undergone during the attack, he fried a crucial circuit in his head that controls his stasis patterns. In other words for the vocabularly challenged, HE'S IN A COMA. I can't bring him out of it. I may be able to fix the physical wounds, but I just can't go messing with his head. It's against regulations, and even more so against my beliefs as a doctor. So now at the end of a twelve hour period from now, the Hunters have a choice. Destroy Bastion's Control Chip and have a memorial service, or let me dig in his skull, fix the glitch and forever eliminate what makes Bastion Bastion." Hazil finally released his fixed grip and sighed.
"The ending choice of course lies with the entire mass of the Hunters. At this point in time, I'm not a doctor any longer. I'm nothing more than a worthless reploid who can't save lives, and has to resort to killing them." Hazil rolled up to a table and slammed his fist down. "Scotch, rocks. NOW."
Dead silence, and then slowly the conversations started again. The entire day had been an iffy event, not knowing whether to grieve for Bastion or hold out hope.
There was no more fuzzy gray area. X shook his head.
"I am really gonna miss the guy, Zero." Zero nodded.
"Yeah, I know. We'll all miss him."
"Even Wycost."
"If Wycost was here, yes. But he's not here anymore. He'll have to suffer about the loss later." X blinked away a tear that was beginning to form. He looked around, then blinked again.
"Where did Bristol go?" Zero looked around on his own, then shrugged.
"Away. Just let her be alone for now."
But Bristol wasn't entirely alone.
In the Medical Bay, darkness and silence were the only two prevalent forces, save for the timid lights of the few active medical instruments. None of them were currently running scans on the sleeping Bastion, forever doomed to death.
Then a new sound approached. The door to the rest of the HQ slid open with its usual hiss, and then a darkened form walked in. The door shut, and once more silence claimed the room.
The neon green lights barely illuminated Bastion. It did less for the frame of Bristol, head bowed down, hair dangling across her shoulders, tear glistening in the corner of her eye. Gently, she raised a trembling hand from her side and brought it up to Bastion's.
"Hey." Bristol finally managed to say, eliminating the tremble from her voice. She waited, but Bastion didn't respond. She sniffed back a tear, then began to stroke his hand.
"It was pretty stupid of you to go off and get attacked like that, you know." Bristol's other hand clenched up. "I'm sorry, Bastion. I'm sorry that there's nothing I can do to help you." She moved closer to his sleeping form, putting his hand up onto his stomach.
"You were always there for me, Bastion. On that same night where you were hurt, you helped me reach past the sadness within." She shut her eyes, clearing her blurry optics. "Why is it then that I can do nothing to repay the favor?"
Still more silence. Bristol sniffed again.
"I know you're only sleeping. You're in a deep sleep, Bastion. But you're not dead. If there's any part of you that wants to stay alive, I'm pleading with it to wake you up." Bristol brought her teary face down to his. "Please, Bastion. I don't want to be alone again. Please…"
But her pleas did nothing. She blinked out her eyes, letting the water droplets fall onto Bastion's weary face. "So that's it then." But she could not bring herself to leave Bastion.
Bristol sat on a chair close by, and pushing away the dark sadness that welled up within her, quietly slipped into stasis.
More silence.
But even silence cannot last forever. Beside Bristol, the comatose form of Bastion slowly stirred to life. His eyes fluttered open, and he yawned for a moment. Then he looked around.
Hazil was gone, but there was someone else in the Bay. He picked himself up from the cot, and looked around. A quick self diagnostic showed that although there had been a flaw in his internal circuitry, it had repaired itself as if by magic.
"Odd." Bastion frowned. The scan continued to show that the automatic warp circuits of his Powerstorm wings were shot. "Oh, well. Manual override, Command Code Zeta Three Fox." The wings bleeped in response, and the pack vanished from his back. He walked over and found himself looking at the sleeping form of Bristol.
"Now what is she doing here?" Bastion brought his hand up and traced the lines of her face, tear streaked as they were. "Looks like you've had some down time there." He looked over. "Maybe the sound recorders in here can give me a clue."
The automatic sound recorders in the Medical Bay picked up ambient sound when more than two figures were detected inside. And they had recorded the events in the Medical Bay while he had been asleep.
His eyes were brimming with tears five minutes later, when he had discovered all that had happened. He walked back over to Bristol, and sat down beside her. Shutting his eyes, he nodded.
"Don't worry Bristol. I'll never leave you alone." And then he went into stasis.
Only this time, he was in control.