Part XI: Sand, Sun, and Large Wooden Boxes
Zero climbed onto the Speed Chaser, switching on the power. The whine of the engine turbine gearing up was a sound that almost made him nostalgic, if robots could reminisce, that is. Echo, parked nearby on another Chaser, leaned forward as the bike powered on.
"I'll never get used to that," she muttered to herself, noticing how easily Zero handled his.
Just as the group was about to take off for the city, one of the members of the 17th stopped and pointed.
"Wait, guys! It's Cirrus!"
The rest turned to see where their colleague was directing them. Sure enough, Cirrus was walking from the ruins, black sear marks all over his normally white and gray armored body. Zero and X both got a strange feeling as the reploid commander approached, as if there was something about him that wasn't quite right. They decided to shrug it off. After all, those feelings are what caused a large amount of the distrust among the original Maverick Hunters.
"Hold on a second, there!" Cirrus shouted above the noise of the bikes.
X waited patiently for the burnt reploid to catch up with the group, and then turned to Zero.
"Let's book it, k?"
"That's exactly what I was thinking, X."
The two Hunters sped off at top speed across the desert, accelerating toward Neo-Arcadia as the 17th, Blitz, Echo, and Cirrus watched from behind.
"So why'd you wanna get away from there so fast, X?" Zero inquired, jumping the Chaser over a boulder.
"Something about that Cirrus guy just gave me the creeps. I don't like the way he just walked out from those buildings with all that damage but acted like nothing was wrong."
"Like there's something unnatural about him, you mean."
"Yeah. To tell you the truth, it's been a long time since I had to battle a Maverick with a lot of my strength, but when Cirrus came out to the bikes, I felt my power shooting up in defense. It was weird."
"I know exactly what you're talking about, X. My defenses automatically came up when he appeared. I trust him about as much as this bike has chances of going through a solid titanium block."
X dodged some sort of armadillo creature as he raced alongside Zero's Chaser. "I just want to get back to the old HQ again as soon as possible. There's some stuff to take care of."
"You mean Alia, don't you?" Zero asked, smirking.
X appeared to blush. "Very funny, wiseguy. Watch out!"
Jumping the bike and coming very close to Zero's Chaser, X gunned the engine and took off in front.
"Have it your way, X. You know I'll still beat you!"
Zero raised the front of the bike so that more of the speed was diverted to the back, rocketing him back beside his friend.
"You were saying?"
"Eat my dust!" X responded, flying to the right of a buried building's rooftop and straight into a wall. Zero swerved around and came back, setting the bike down next to the blue robot, who was laughing hysterically sprawled on his back.
"Feel smart now?" Zero said, helping X to his feet.
"The look on your face was priceless!" he responded through the chortling, gesturing back to his friend.
"Yeah, but see what you did to the bike? It's totaled."
"That wasn't a good thing, I guess."
"Right. Look, there's no room on the bike for two of us. So here, hang on."
Hooking himself onto the back of Zero's Chaser, X lost his breath as Zero took off, making him sand-ski behind the bike. After a couple of seconds, X lost his balance as well and dropped face-first into the dirt. The speed of Zero's Chaser, however, was enough to separate X from the ground and carry him along without hitting again.
X spit sand from his mouth. "You must think this is hilarious, don't you Zero?!"
Zero laughed. "What do you think? You've had your fun, now it's my turn!"
X managed to flip himself over, folding his arms and assuming a semi-comfortable reclining position while flying through the air behind the bike. After a few minutes, Zero turned around again.
"X, we're just about at the new HQ. Get ready."
"Get ready for wha...aattttttt?!" he screamed, as the force of Zero skidding to a stop threw him. The cord holding him to the bike had snapped, propelling him towards a large stack of wooden crates. Crossing his chest before the impact, X slammed full-force into the crate stack, shattering the wood and tossing so much dust into the air it was impossible to see anything behind the cloud it created.
A female reploid scientist came running out of the building.
"What's going on? I thought I heard something."
Zero, still on the Chaser, laughed. "No, just a little landing exercise."
The scientist rubbed her eyes in disbelief. This simply wasn't possible. Zero? He hadn't been seen in three hundred years, and neither had...
"That was smarts," X said, getting back to his feet, rubbing his lower back. "Remind me never to ride with you again."
"I'll do that, X," Zero smirked, dismounting the bike and switching it off. The scientist's mouth was on the ground.
"You're Zero," she said, breathless, eyes fixed on the red Hunter like an idiot staring in amazement at a bright light.
"Yes, I am. And you would be...?"
The scientist stumbled to find her words. "P-Porter. It's Porter."
"Okay. Porter, this is X," Zero said, introducing his comrade. "X, Porter. I would appreciate it if you stopped drooling."
"Sorry," Porter replied.
"I was talking to X," Zero joked, being met with a glare from his blue counterpart.
"Okay. So where's the rest of the 17th?" Porter asked.
Zero motioned his thumb back at the ruins. "They probably haven't left Arcadia yet."
X's attention was diverted elsewhere. "Is that a snack bar? Look at the size of that thing!"
Watching X go for the buffet, Zero put a hand to his eyes and shook his head.
It was a few minutes later that the remaining Hunters got back to the HQ. Porter immediately took notice of Cirrus' damage.
"Sir, you need to use the repair bay right away."
Cirrus looked down at his chest. "I suppose so. Where is that?"
Porter was surprised, to say the least. "Sir, the repair bay is next to the headquarters. It's over there."
She pointed to a large hangar that had the words 'Repair Bay' painted on it. Cirrus saw it and left.
Porter turned back to Echo.
"Did he suffer some sort of brain damage or something?"
Echo shrugged. "I dunno, Porter. He's been acting weird ever since he came to meet us at the bikes."
"What happened before that?"
"He got blasted back into a building by Enigma. Then X and Zero ripped all those Mavericks to shreds and we went back to the Chasers."
"Hmmm, I don't know then. Oh well, it doesn't matter. Cirrus is better left to his own devices. The guy's a major pain in the neck, if you ask me."
Blitz leaned up against another stack of crates.
"Are you sure the Maverick activity is truly being controlled by some central force?"
Porter looked back at him, continuing the conversation that they'd started before Cirrus and the 17th returned.
"All I know is that the behavior of the Mavericks we've seen sofar is concentrated around sabotaging mining, restoration, and industry operations. It's almost as if they were given directions to get materials for some project."
"Yeah, I do remember Enigma saying something about his 'master', whatever that means."
Sigma entered the repair bay, looking around.
"So far, so good. They don't suspect a thing. Now, to find the parts I need."
Scrounging through the old piles of junk and refuse, he stumbled onto the body of a deactivated reploid. It was mangled beyond general recognition, but a couple of its signature features stood out enough for him to determine who it was.
Lifting Bit's shrapnel from the pile, Sigma took the remains to a nearby repair capsule. He placed them in the machine and closed the door, activating the facility's restoration faculties. After a minute of two, the door opened, and Sigma was left with a smoldering, yet better condition body of his former Doppler-controlled lieutenant. His arm cannon and left leg were both stripped down to the skeleton, and it's abdomen circuitry was exposed, since most of the armor had been blown apart by X when the two had fought. Half of Bit's face armor was gone as well, leaving the robot's frightening skull exposed. The blue optical receptor flashed impatiently, awaiting an input program.
Sigma knew that he couldn't reactivate Bit just yet. After all, there was no telling if he had enough of his memory circuits left to remember everything that had happened. The restoration was only able to buff the remaining armor and repair cracks and dents in the skeleton and skin. The circuitry was only renewed as far as the boards were concerned. The internal wiring was still not correctly installed. He would have to take Bit somewhere and upgrade him. Only then could he reactivate the strongest second-in-command he'd ever created.
Let's see, he thought to himself. A nearby subterranean laboratory would be perfect.
Holding his hand out, Sigma called all of his viral strengths plus those of his new body together to telepathically reassemble the jungle base that Doppler constructed all those years ago. Of course, now the base was located deeper in the tropical forest, and nearer to the ocean than before.
"Good. Now, to take you to safety."
Using Cirrus' inbuilt transport program, Sigma teleported himself to the base. The area was in even worse repair than after he destroyed it. Vines and other vegetation were growing on the outside of the installation, and the electricity probably didn't work, but he couldn't complain. After he had the power to assemble a new wave of Mavericks to do his bidding, he could get those amenities filled to his desire. Right now, however, he had to work on getting Bit fully up and running.
Zero climbed onto the Speed Chaser, switching on the power. The whine of the engine turbine gearing up was a sound that almost made him nostalgic, if robots could reminisce, that is. Echo, parked nearby on another Chaser, leaned forward as the bike powered on.
"I'll never get used to that," she muttered to herself, noticing how easily Zero handled his.
Just as the group was about to take off for the city, one of the members of the 17th stopped and pointed.
"Wait, guys! It's Cirrus!"
The rest turned to see where their colleague was directing them. Sure enough, Cirrus was walking from the ruins, black sear marks all over his normally white and gray armored body. Zero and X both got a strange feeling as the reploid commander approached, as if there was something about him that wasn't quite right. They decided to shrug it off. After all, those feelings are what caused a large amount of the distrust among the original Maverick Hunters.
"Hold on a second, there!" Cirrus shouted above the noise of the bikes.
X waited patiently for the burnt reploid to catch up with the group, and then turned to Zero.
"Let's book it, k?"
"That's exactly what I was thinking, X."
The two Hunters sped off at top speed across the desert, accelerating toward Neo-Arcadia as the 17th, Blitz, Echo, and Cirrus watched from behind.
"So why'd you wanna get away from there so fast, X?" Zero inquired, jumping the Chaser over a boulder.
"Something about that Cirrus guy just gave me the creeps. I don't like the way he just walked out from those buildings with all that damage but acted like nothing was wrong."
"Like there's something unnatural about him, you mean."
"Yeah. To tell you the truth, it's been a long time since I had to battle a Maverick with a lot of my strength, but when Cirrus came out to the bikes, I felt my power shooting up in defense. It was weird."
"I know exactly what you're talking about, X. My defenses automatically came up when he appeared. I trust him about as much as this bike has chances of going through a solid titanium block."
X dodged some sort of armadillo creature as he raced alongside Zero's Chaser. "I just want to get back to the old HQ again as soon as possible. There's some stuff to take care of."
"You mean Alia, don't you?" Zero asked, smirking.
X appeared to blush. "Very funny, wiseguy. Watch out!"
Jumping the bike and coming very close to Zero's Chaser, X gunned the engine and took off in front.
"Have it your way, X. You know I'll still beat you!"
Zero raised the front of the bike so that more of the speed was diverted to the back, rocketing him back beside his friend.
"You were saying?"
"Eat my dust!" X responded, flying to the right of a buried building's rooftop and straight into a wall. Zero swerved around and came back, setting the bike down next to the blue robot, who was laughing hysterically sprawled on his back.
"Feel smart now?" Zero said, helping X to his feet.
"The look on your face was priceless!" he responded through the chortling, gesturing back to his friend.
"Yeah, but see what you did to the bike? It's totaled."
"That wasn't a good thing, I guess."
"Right. Look, there's no room on the bike for two of us. So here, hang on."
Hooking himself onto the back of Zero's Chaser, X lost his breath as Zero took off, making him sand-ski behind the bike. After a couple of seconds, X lost his balance as well and dropped face-first into the dirt. The speed of Zero's Chaser, however, was enough to separate X from the ground and carry him along without hitting again.
X spit sand from his mouth. "You must think this is hilarious, don't you Zero?!"
Zero laughed. "What do you think? You've had your fun, now it's my turn!"
X managed to flip himself over, folding his arms and assuming a semi-comfortable reclining position while flying through the air behind the bike. After a few minutes, Zero turned around again.
"X, we're just about at the new HQ. Get ready."
"Get ready for wha...aattttttt?!" he screamed, as the force of Zero skidding to a stop threw him. The cord holding him to the bike had snapped, propelling him towards a large stack of wooden crates. Crossing his chest before the impact, X slammed full-force into the crate stack, shattering the wood and tossing so much dust into the air it was impossible to see anything behind the cloud it created.
A female reploid scientist came running out of the building.
"What's going on? I thought I heard something."
Zero, still on the Chaser, laughed. "No, just a little landing exercise."
The scientist rubbed her eyes in disbelief. This simply wasn't possible. Zero? He hadn't been seen in three hundred years, and neither had...
"That was smarts," X said, getting back to his feet, rubbing his lower back. "Remind me never to ride with you again."
"I'll do that, X," Zero smirked, dismounting the bike and switching it off. The scientist's mouth was on the ground.
"You're Zero," she said, breathless, eyes fixed on the red Hunter like an idiot staring in amazement at a bright light.
"Yes, I am. And you would be...?"
The scientist stumbled to find her words. "P-Porter. It's Porter."
"Okay. Porter, this is X," Zero said, introducing his comrade. "X, Porter. I would appreciate it if you stopped drooling."
"Sorry," Porter replied.
"I was talking to X," Zero joked, being met with a glare from his blue counterpart.
"Okay. So where's the rest of the 17th?" Porter asked.
Zero motioned his thumb back at the ruins. "They probably haven't left Arcadia yet."
X's attention was diverted elsewhere. "Is that a snack bar? Look at the size of that thing!"
Watching X go for the buffet, Zero put a hand to his eyes and shook his head.
It was a few minutes later that the remaining Hunters got back to the HQ. Porter immediately took notice of Cirrus' damage.
"Sir, you need to use the repair bay right away."
Cirrus looked down at his chest. "I suppose so. Where is that?"
Porter was surprised, to say the least. "Sir, the repair bay is next to the headquarters. It's over there."
She pointed to a large hangar that had the words 'Repair Bay' painted on it. Cirrus saw it and left.
Porter turned back to Echo.
"Did he suffer some sort of brain damage or something?"
Echo shrugged. "I dunno, Porter. He's been acting weird ever since he came to meet us at the bikes."
"What happened before that?"
"He got blasted back into a building by Enigma. Then X and Zero ripped all those Mavericks to shreds and we went back to the Chasers."
"Hmmm, I don't know then. Oh well, it doesn't matter. Cirrus is better left to his own devices. The guy's a major pain in the neck, if you ask me."
Blitz leaned up against another stack of crates.
"Are you sure the Maverick activity is truly being controlled by some central force?"
Porter looked back at him, continuing the conversation that they'd started before Cirrus and the 17th returned.
"All I know is that the behavior of the Mavericks we've seen sofar is concentrated around sabotaging mining, restoration, and industry operations. It's almost as if they were given directions to get materials for some project."
"Yeah, I do remember Enigma saying something about his 'master', whatever that means."
Sigma entered the repair bay, looking around.
"So far, so good. They don't suspect a thing. Now, to find the parts I need."
Scrounging through the old piles of junk and refuse, he stumbled onto the body of a deactivated reploid. It was mangled beyond general recognition, but a couple of its signature features stood out enough for him to determine who it was.
Lifting Bit's shrapnel from the pile, Sigma took the remains to a nearby repair capsule. He placed them in the machine and closed the door, activating the facility's restoration faculties. After a minute of two, the door opened, and Sigma was left with a smoldering, yet better condition body of his former Doppler-controlled lieutenant. His arm cannon and left leg were both stripped down to the skeleton, and it's abdomen circuitry was exposed, since most of the armor had been blown apart by X when the two had fought. Half of Bit's face armor was gone as well, leaving the robot's frightening skull exposed. The blue optical receptor flashed impatiently, awaiting an input program.
Sigma knew that he couldn't reactivate Bit just yet. After all, there was no telling if he had enough of his memory circuits left to remember everything that had happened. The restoration was only able to buff the remaining armor and repair cracks and dents in the skeleton and skin. The circuitry was only renewed as far as the boards were concerned. The internal wiring was still not correctly installed. He would have to take Bit somewhere and upgrade him. Only then could he reactivate the strongest second-in-command he'd ever created.
Let's see, he thought to himself. A nearby subterranean laboratory would be perfect.
Holding his hand out, Sigma called all of his viral strengths plus those of his new body together to telepathically reassemble the jungle base that Doppler constructed all those years ago. Of course, now the base was located deeper in the tropical forest, and nearer to the ocean than before.
"Good. Now, to take you to safety."
Using Cirrus' inbuilt transport program, Sigma teleported himself to the base. The area was in even worse repair than after he destroyed it. Vines and other vegetation were growing on the outside of the installation, and the electricity probably didn't work, but he couldn't complain. After he had the power to assemble a new wave of Mavericks to do his bidding, he could get those amenities filled to his desire. Right now, however, he had to work on getting Bit fully up and running.