Road of the Warrior, Part Five
Part Five-Alter Ego

Boss Grissom looked over his bountiful meal with considerable pleasure. Grissom was not a small man by any stretch of the imagination, and he enjoyed these feasts at the citizens of Monsteropolis's expense. Of course, certain precautions had to be taken. He gestured to the red headed Reploid beside him.
"Beta, taste this." Grissom said with a smile, "I wouldn't want to be hurt."
"We could only be so lucky." Beta said in a low voice, then tasted each and every course in the man's meal, scanning it for any trace of poison. Unfortunately for her, they were all fine. She nodded, and Grissom began to assault the food around him. First the potatoes, then the bacon, then the biscuits. He then turned his attention to a large piece of chicken in front of him. He reached for it with a large smile. Just as his pudgy hands reached his treasure, another hand came down in front of it.
"What is the meaning of this?" Grissom said, jumping to his feet with considerable difficulty. The face he came to meet made him scream.
One eye was human-like, but the other was a large red circle. Portions of the pseudo flesh around it had been torn away, revealing the gears underneath. Another portion was missing near his mouth-one half of it was gone, leaving only a skeletal grin His red armor shone in the light of the table,casting an eerie glow across the spectral face of his visitor.
"Well well, if it isn't Boss Hoag." the Reploid said in a mechanized voice, then turned to one of the guards. "You must be Roscoe."
"K...K...Kor, I didn't mean to be so rude to you..."
"Silence." Kor demanded. "There have been a number of...events recently that disturb me. The appearance of this Break Man character, Doctor Cain's new excavation site, and the X- Hunters have been far too quiet lately."
"Sir, I have had nothing..."
"I don't recall asking you anything yet." Grissom was silent again.
"There are even rumors something's happened to Mega Man X. I'll tell you this right now Grissom-If anything happened to X, and I find out about it over the news..." "Shadoo, you should thank the gentleman for his efforts." Kor said. With that, the black and green Reploid lifted the guard to his feet, then reached for the radio cable sticking out of his neck. He touched it, and smoke began to rise from the area. The guard convulsed violently for only a few seconds, then fell to the ground.
"Now now," Kor said, returning his glare to Grissom, "That wasn't a nice thing to do. I hate to end a productive partnership, but this is what the carbons say is the fat lady's number. Excuse me, miss Beta, would you care to join us?"
"Sure." Beta said, and smirked at Grissom as she walked by and took Kor's arm.
"Surgeon," Kor called out, and the stainless steel robot walked forward, "This gentleman needs a little plastic surgery. See to it."
"With pleasure." Surgeon replied, and walked menacingly towards Grissom.

"We have to help him!" Zero said, and pounded the desk of the General Director of Maverick Hunter.
Binary could only look at Zero with sympathy. "I'm sorry Zero, but without Doctor Cain to give the okay, I can't let you run off on something this dangerous."
"But X is out there!"
"He knew the risks. And he would understand this."
"But it's not right..."
"I know you were his friend. But we don't know what Sigma has on his side. I can't let you run the entire Hunter force on what could be a suicide mission." Binary then looked at his monitor. "Explain to me again why X is being pummelled, but there's not a scratch on you."
"I can't explain it, sir." Zero replied, looking at the floor.
"Zero, we're not accusing you of anything. You're one of the most loyal hunters. But we need to know everything we can."
"I can only guess it had to do with Sigma's obsession with me." Zero said.
"Alright, now, who is this?" Binary said, pointing at a small image at the back of the screen. "Enhance 500%."
Zero looked, and saw it. A man behind all the robots, in a grey robe. He was definately human, but who was he?
"I have no idea, sir."
"Thank you." Binary said. Zero began to walk away.
"Zero, don't blame yourself. X was my friend too. I'll miss him if he is gone. But now we have to be strong."
"Yes sir." Zero said, then left the room.
"Computer," Binary said, "Run recorder comparison of this file and File 47318."
"Systems match." the computer voice said. "Subjects in Maverick Hunter recorder-Zero and in File codenamed Breakman outperform current Reploid technology by 750%."
"My God." Binary said. If Sigma had that kind of power, nothing could stop him. They could only hope Break Man would be able to help them...if he truely was on their side.
But he kept looking back at the man in the cloak, wondering his part in all of this. And then, as they had for the last few hours, they went back to Mega Man X, being pummelled by the Mavericks. He knew he would never see his best soldier again.

"Sis?" Break Man said, walking out onto the small hill where Roll was sitting.
"Go away."
"Look," he continued, "It's not going to do you any good to keep all this bottled up inside. You need to talk about it. I know how you felt about Rock. Heck, I miss him. But he wouldn't want us to dwell on it. It's been five hundred years, Roll..."
"I don't know, Blues," Roll said, looking out over the ocean, "I really miss him. It's just..."
"He's family. I know..."
"It's more than that and you know it."
"Roll, don't be ridiculous. Robots can be in love."
"Really?" Roll said, glaring at him.
"I knew it was a mistake to give you these emotions." Break Man said, shaking his head.
"Oh, it's fine for you and Rock to be 'living', but when Dad was able to recreate the experiment and give me life, it was a mistake?"
"That's not what I meant, Roll." Break Man replied. He sat down beside her, and took off his helmet. Roll looked at him, as she did so many times in the past, and saw Rock again. She had a hard time convincing herself it was really Blues, the brother she had only known since he had returned to help his father during his darkest hour.
"I'm sorry, it's just..." Roll began.
"Whoa, Enker dude, check out the most bodacious surf down there!" Quint yelled as he jumped out of the house and bounded towards the ocean. Both robots laughed at the diversion. They turned to see the troops they had managed to assemble. There was Quint, Enker, Saturn, Pluto and Terra. Not a bad team to begin with. Hopefully, he could find more robots to rebuild when they explored deeper into the remains of Skull Palace.
"They're a good group." Roll said.
"Definately." Break Man replied. "It's a good start." Only after he said it did he realize how much he had sounded like his brother.