Part XXII: Red Sky At Night
"So what are we gonna do now, Zero? Signas is in rehab, and Sigma got away. For all we know, he's ready to mount a full-scale assault!" X yelled, following his friend through the corridors of the HQ. Ever since the battle, Zero had resumed command over the Hunters, just like during the first four Irregular wars.
"Cool it, okay? We have to do things calmly."
X paused, surprised his partner would say something like that. This was Zero after all, Mr. Rush-In-Headfirst-
And-Blast-Em-Then-Ask-Questions-Later. Of course, it had been quite a while since X had seen Zero in a command position.
"Alright, so what can we do?"
They had come to the tower above the HQ, and outside the glass doors was the turret of the building. Zero pointed out to the forest beyond the balcony overlooking the city.
"We go on a search mission. There's got to be an energy signal somewhere. And most of the Maverick activity comes from that forest. We can get Blitz to accompany us and attempt to find their base."
"And then what? Remember, Zero, Bit was much stronger than he was before. I could barely scratch him, even with the armor activated."
"It's okay, X. We have an advantage over them."
"And what would that be?"
"Blitz's arm cannon. If you can recall, when he charges that thing up, he can control the weather. If he were to do that in the middle of a forest...," Zero began, waving his hand dramatically.
"...we'd all get fried," X finished.
"It doesn't matter. That's the best plan we've got right now, and I suspect that Sigma and Bit are preparing something out there, and probably wouldn't want to do any excessive fighting. You know, save their strength."
X sighed, trailing Zero into the command center.
Rock, Proto, and Bass were lounging around in the HQ's mess hall when Porter and Blitz walked through.
"So they're gonna try finding the Maverick base?" Porter asked, holding a mug of what Rock guessed was coffee.
That's funny, he thought. I didn't think that a robot could drink coffee.
Bass, on the other hand, had actually been listening. His hearing perked up at the thought of a battle.
"I'm gonna follow 'em," he said, raising from the table. Rock and Proto turned to the black robot.
"What?" they asked in unison.
"Those Hunters are going out in the forest to get the Mavericks. It'll be fun to see how much I can take out."
Leaving the mess hall, Bass disappeared from Rock's sight. He turned to his brother.
"I don't like the sound of that."
Proto nodded. "Yeah. We'd better follow him."
Getting up, the two tracked Bass from a distance, making sure to keep him in sight, as he headed out of Neo-Arcadia and to the densely carpeted jungle beyond.
Zero knocked down another tree, using his saber to slice through the vines and jungle foliage like a plasma powered machete. X and Blitz were following him closely, Blitz monitoring energy output to lock onto the Maverick base, once they found it.
"How much longer?" X asked, batting a large mosquito from in front of his face. Even though the insects couldn't get through a robot's metal skin, they were still a nuisance.
Zero glanced back at his friend. "Will you cut it out? It's not gonna come any faster with you asking that every five minutes."
Blitz, intently watching the screen of his radar, didn't see the tree in time, running face first into it and falling to the ground.
"Having trouble, there?" Zero said sarcastically, helping the white robot back to his feet. "What does the radar say?"
"According to this, the base is no where in this forest. However, there is a large rock face about a hundred yards from us. They could be disguising their hiding place."
"Or they could be hiding in a cave," X said, folding his arms across his chest.
Zero looked back in the direction of the city.
"We've come too far to turn back now," he said, turning to X and Blitz. He started cutting the vines again.
"Whoa," Blitz mumbled. "Déja vû."
Bass plowed through another grove of trees and skimmed over a pond like a psychotic skipping stone. He didn't know, little less care, that Rock and Proto were following him, with Fliptop in tow. He'd been secretly trailing the Hunters for a little over an hour, ever since they left the base. Unfortunately, he had to call Treble off several times before he attacked small woodland rodents and finally just had the robotic wolf merge with him to eliminate the problem. Any sort of minor crashing could set the entire forest into a frenzy, but he didn't take any consideration for that. He was too busy eyeing X, Zero, and Blitz from afar.
Landing on the other side of the water, he looked around. There were trees and shrubs in every direction, and the only major thing he found on the radar was a cliff or something nearby. Annoyed, he flopped down on the ground and waited for the Hunters to catch up.
Fliptop took off again, scrambling underneath a bush and making Rock and Proto find him for the eighth time since this wild goose chase began. They had seen Bass a few times, but they had to mainly rely on the path the black robot made through the greenery-he had activated the armor he'd gotten from Dr. Light so he couldn't be picked up on radar. It was also a precaution they had taken as well, since they had no desire to let X or Zero know that they were tracking them to find Bass.
Coming into a clearing, the two robots were surprised to find Bass, sitting on a log, staring out into the forest.
Proto was the first to step forward.
"What are you doing, Bass?"
The black robot looked at him askance, folding his arms in annoyance.
"Waiting."
"What for?"
Pointing out to the trees, Bass identified the Hunters.
"For them."
Rock noticed X, Zero, and Blitz, about a hundred yards away, out of shouting range. "Ya know what, Bass? You've really got yourself in deep this-"
Rock was cut off as a black streak cut across the clearing at insane speed, flying past all three of the ancient robots and disappearing into the jungle beyond.
"-time."
Bass and Proto reacted much faster than their blue counterpart, who had been about a foot away from the thing when it blazed by them. He just stood there, dazed, eyes glazed over and moving his mouth without speaking. Proto came up and slapped him.
"What was that for?!" Rock yelled.
"You looked like an idiot."
"Man, you shoulda let me do that. I've been telling him that all along," Bass piped up, huffing irritation.
Rock and Proto just stared at him, and he sat back down.
"Anyway, we need to follow whatever that was. It certainly wasn't natural."
"Yeah, I agree. C'mon, Bass, let's go."
The three robots, now suddenly intrigued by this strange encounter, hiked off into the depths of the forest, intent on finding out what had come so close to them and yet, they couldn't see it until it was too late.
X pushed another tree branch from the path and continued on behind Zero and Blitz. It was getting unbearably humid in this place, and he could see the heat rising from the brown earth below. Emerging into a meadow, the three robots looked around, finding, at the very least, a pond. Blitz began scanning the area for activity, but came up with nothing.
Suddenly, as if out of a post-apocalyptic movie, the sky turned a dramatic shade of blood red, blue lightning erupting from the newly darkened clouds.
X gulped. I don't like the looks of this.
Zero whipped around. "Blitz! What are you doing?"
The large white robot held up his hands. "Believe me, Zero, I have nothing to do with this."
"That's right, Zero. He doesn't."
Performing an about-face, the red Hunter confronted the Maverick whose voice had rung out.
"Bit. How did I know?"
The reploid crossed his arms. "Well, I wonder. Maybe because you're psychic. Well, if you're psychic, tell me what I'm about to do."
"You're gonna attack us."
Bit put a hand to his chest in mock surprise, much the same way Bass had years before.
"You are psychic! How did you do that?!" He turned sullen. "Now die!"
The Maverick's eyes began glowing with a strange, electric fire that X and Zero had never seen before. Pushing his chest out and screaming climactically, Bit threw his arms to the side. A wave of electricity blossomed out from the reploid, flying directly toward X and Zero. Blitz had taken shelter behind a grove of trees, out of Bit's sight. Leaping into the air, Zero dodged the wave, unlatching his saber and attempting to bring it down on the Maverick lieutenant. Unfortunately, it met with a strong force field of lightning and fire that threw the red Hunter back into the electricity he had just evaded.
Getting up, Zero glanced to his comrades.
"It's no use, Zero," Bit taunted. "I'm much more powerful than the last time."
X charged his blaster, drawing in enough energy to light up a city block for a year. He activated an ancient weapons database he retained from the Doppler crisis, calling forward a particular weapon he remembered damaged Bit more than anything else had. With Dr. Light's Hyper Armor in place, the effects should be even greater.
"Take this, Bit!" X yelled, throwing his cannon out directly in front of him, erupting with rage as an energy stream amplified by the Armor came pouring from the tip, showering the Maverick with ball upon ball of spherical blasts. The reploid, apparently still not immune to the Ray Splasher attack, flew backward, knocked senseless by the barrage. He got back up, circuitry sparking in several joints, and pointed at the Hunters.
"You've got another thing coming, you blue-plated nuisance!"
Charging his body once more, Bit began to undergo a different sort of function. His body rose above the ground, and he looked as if he was being pulled up by a tractor beam. The only difference, however, was that he was totally relaxed and appeared to be meditating on it.
A large amount of energy poured out around him, spinning in a maelstrom of wind and fire, as he began to change. His legs grew together, his arms augmented, the lower half of his faceplate removed itself to reveal the quickly mutating face underneath. The eyes narrowed, the mouth jutted out, and he seemed to be growing a halo or some sort of strange corona that solidified into a ring that ran from one side of his body to the other. It was only then that X realized that Bit's hands were in the same position as Tibetan monks during meditation.
"Oh, no," he breathed. Zero and Blitz looked to him.
"What's going on, X?" Blitz asked, placing a hand on the blue robot's shoulder as Zero tried shaking his friend from the apparent trance he'd been locked into watching Bit's transformation.
"Yeah, X, snap out of it. What's going on?"
"He...he's transforming."
Zero nodded. "I know that, X. What about it? It can't be worse than he was before."
That seemed to break X of his stupor. "Can't you remember anything about Bit? Can't you remember his transformation sequence?"
Zero put his hands on X's shoulders, staring him in the eyes. "Calm down, X. You're delirious."
Bit, in the meantime, continued to change. A large amount of energy had spilled out below him, rapidly hardening into a large, animal torso with large canine paws that resembled the lower body portion of Cerberus, the three-headed dog of Hades from Greek myth. A large tail grew out from behind him, stabilizing the massive body. Blitz and Zero, too busy trying to get X back into lucidity, didn't see any of it. Their comrade, on the other hand, was subjected to the horrible transmogrification.
"No..." X breathed.
Very perceptive Hunters you are. You can't even notice when something drastic is happening.
Zero's eyes grew wide when he heard that voice. The disembodied, ambient tone of it resonated through his every circuit, his every memory, speeding toward that one place in his brain he hoped he'd never have to visit again. Whipping around quickly, he didn't have time to react before the gigantic hand of the O Inary clasped his neck and chest and sped fast into a nearby tree, choking the red Hunter. The serpentine face of Bit's secondary form stared into Zero's eyes like a venomous reminder of the pain that he'd been put through.
Give up, Hunter, the creature seethed, pushing Zero up the length of the tree. The red robot's only response was spitting in his enemy's face while trying his hardest to dislodge the Maverick's huge paw from his throat.
Bit wiped the spit from his face with the other hand and proceeded to throw Zero across the entire expanse of the field, culminating with the collision of the Hunter against a large tree on the opposite end of the meadow. The robot, dazed and confused, slid down the tree trunk until he hit the ground, unconscious.
X and Blitz slowly retreated as the O Inary advanced on them, showering the two of them with energy.
"Now whadda we do, X?" Blitz yelled, hurling an electric blast at the Maverick.
X held off several blasts with the back of his arm cannon. "WE can't do anything. Zero was the only one that could take on the O Inary by himself. At least, while he had his saber. I had a really hard time dealing with it when I had to fight him."
"Can't you get a hold of Zero's saber? Then, couldn't you?"
X pondered that for a moment. He had used the saber before, not only during the Gate incident, but prior to that even, during the Doppler crisis. It seemed to be more powerful then.
"Blitz, use the number 4 attack pattern!" X yelled, dodging underneath the large branches of the trees he was now running at.
Blitz began firing pinpoint bolts of lightning past Bit's small head, diverting his attention from X. The blue Hunter took this to his advantage, slipping past the huge Maverick and crossing the field to where Zero was. Taking the saber, X immediately charged it using his X-Buster.
"Hey, Bit! Take this!" X screamed, hurling the saber downward, firing a giant blast of energy that sped directly into the enemy reploid's back.
Screaming in pain, Bit lost control of the O Inary power switch, slowly reverting back to normal. Soon, he was faced with X on one side and Blitz on the other. He was severely outmatched, and he couldn't think of what to do-except run. Taking off at a bolt, he was above to receive another lash from Zero's saber when he teleported away. X dropped the saber to the ground, allowing it to cool.
What next? he thought to himself, watching the red sky grow even darker.
"So what are we gonna do now, Zero? Signas is in rehab, and Sigma got away. For all we know, he's ready to mount a full-scale assault!" X yelled, following his friend through the corridors of the HQ. Ever since the battle, Zero had resumed command over the Hunters, just like during the first four Irregular wars.
"Cool it, okay? We have to do things calmly."
X paused, surprised his partner would say something like that. This was Zero after all, Mr. Rush-In-Headfirst-
And-Blast-Em-Then-Ask-Questions-Later. Of course, it had been quite a while since X had seen Zero in a command position.
"Alright, so what can we do?"
They had come to the tower above the HQ, and outside the glass doors was the turret of the building. Zero pointed out to the forest beyond the balcony overlooking the city.
"We go on a search mission. There's got to be an energy signal somewhere. And most of the Maverick activity comes from that forest. We can get Blitz to accompany us and attempt to find their base."
"And then what? Remember, Zero, Bit was much stronger than he was before. I could barely scratch him, even with the armor activated."
"It's okay, X. We have an advantage over them."
"And what would that be?"
"Blitz's arm cannon. If you can recall, when he charges that thing up, he can control the weather. If he were to do that in the middle of a forest...," Zero began, waving his hand dramatically.
"...we'd all get fried," X finished.
"It doesn't matter. That's the best plan we've got right now, and I suspect that Sigma and Bit are preparing something out there, and probably wouldn't want to do any excessive fighting. You know, save their strength."
X sighed, trailing Zero into the command center.
Rock, Proto, and Bass were lounging around in the HQ's mess hall when Porter and Blitz walked through.
"So they're gonna try finding the Maverick base?" Porter asked, holding a mug of what Rock guessed was coffee.
That's funny, he thought. I didn't think that a robot could drink coffee.
Bass, on the other hand, had actually been listening. His hearing perked up at the thought of a battle.
"I'm gonna follow 'em," he said, raising from the table. Rock and Proto turned to the black robot.
"What?" they asked in unison.
"Those Hunters are going out in the forest to get the Mavericks. It'll be fun to see how much I can take out."
Leaving the mess hall, Bass disappeared from Rock's sight. He turned to his brother.
"I don't like the sound of that."
Proto nodded. "Yeah. We'd better follow him."
Getting up, the two tracked Bass from a distance, making sure to keep him in sight, as he headed out of Neo-Arcadia and to the densely carpeted jungle beyond.
Zero knocked down another tree, using his saber to slice through the vines and jungle foliage like a plasma powered machete. X and Blitz were following him closely, Blitz monitoring energy output to lock onto the Maverick base, once they found it.
"How much longer?" X asked, batting a large mosquito from in front of his face. Even though the insects couldn't get through a robot's metal skin, they were still a nuisance.
Zero glanced back at his friend. "Will you cut it out? It's not gonna come any faster with you asking that every five minutes."
Blitz, intently watching the screen of his radar, didn't see the tree in time, running face first into it and falling to the ground.
"Having trouble, there?" Zero said sarcastically, helping the white robot back to his feet. "What does the radar say?"
"According to this, the base is no where in this forest. However, there is a large rock face about a hundred yards from us. They could be disguising their hiding place."
"Or they could be hiding in a cave," X said, folding his arms across his chest.
Zero looked back in the direction of the city.
"We've come too far to turn back now," he said, turning to X and Blitz. He started cutting the vines again.
"Whoa," Blitz mumbled. "Déja vû."
Bass plowed through another grove of trees and skimmed over a pond like a psychotic skipping stone. He didn't know, little less care, that Rock and Proto were following him, with Fliptop in tow. He'd been secretly trailing the Hunters for a little over an hour, ever since they left the base. Unfortunately, he had to call Treble off several times before he attacked small woodland rodents and finally just had the robotic wolf merge with him to eliminate the problem. Any sort of minor crashing could set the entire forest into a frenzy, but he didn't take any consideration for that. He was too busy eyeing X, Zero, and Blitz from afar.
Landing on the other side of the water, he looked around. There were trees and shrubs in every direction, and the only major thing he found on the radar was a cliff or something nearby. Annoyed, he flopped down on the ground and waited for the Hunters to catch up.
Fliptop took off again, scrambling underneath a bush and making Rock and Proto find him for the eighth time since this wild goose chase began. They had seen Bass a few times, but they had to mainly rely on the path the black robot made through the greenery-he had activated the armor he'd gotten from Dr. Light so he couldn't be picked up on radar. It was also a precaution they had taken as well, since they had no desire to let X or Zero know that they were tracking them to find Bass.
Coming into a clearing, the two robots were surprised to find Bass, sitting on a log, staring out into the forest.
Proto was the first to step forward.
"What are you doing, Bass?"
The black robot looked at him askance, folding his arms in annoyance.
"Waiting."
"What for?"
Pointing out to the trees, Bass identified the Hunters.
"For them."
Rock noticed X, Zero, and Blitz, about a hundred yards away, out of shouting range. "Ya know what, Bass? You've really got yourself in deep this-"
Rock was cut off as a black streak cut across the clearing at insane speed, flying past all three of the ancient robots and disappearing into the jungle beyond.
"-time."
Bass and Proto reacted much faster than their blue counterpart, who had been about a foot away from the thing when it blazed by them. He just stood there, dazed, eyes glazed over and moving his mouth without speaking. Proto came up and slapped him.
"What was that for?!" Rock yelled.
"You looked like an idiot."
"Man, you shoulda let me do that. I've been telling him that all along," Bass piped up, huffing irritation.
Rock and Proto just stared at him, and he sat back down.
"Anyway, we need to follow whatever that was. It certainly wasn't natural."
"Yeah, I agree. C'mon, Bass, let's go."
The three robots, now suddenly intrigued by this strange encounter, hiked off into the depths of the forest, intent on finding out what had come so close to them and yet, they couldn't see it until it was too late.
X pushed another tree branch from the path and continued on behind Zero and Blitz. It was getting unbearably humid in this place, and he could see the heat rising from the brown earth below. Emerging into a meadow, the three robots looked around, finding, at the very least, a pond. Blitz began scanning the area for activity, but came up with nothing.
Suddenly, as if out of a post-apocalyptic movie, the sky turned a dramatic shade of blood red, blue lightning erupting from the newly darkened clouds.
X gulped. I don't like the looks of this.
Zero whipped around. "Blitz! What are you doing?"
The large white robot held up his hands. "Believe me, Zero, I have nothing to do with this."
"That's right, Zero. He doesn't."
Performing an about-face, the red Hunter confronted the Maverick whose voice had rung out.
"Bit. How did I know?"
The reploid crossed his arms. "Well, I wonder. Maybe because you're psychic. Well, if you're psychic, tell me what I'm about to do."
"You're gonna attack us."
Bit put a hand to his chest in mock surprise, much the same way Bass had years before.
"You are psychic! How did you do that?!" He turned sullen. "Now die!"
The Maverick's eyes began glowing with a strange, electric fire that X and Zero had never seen before. Pushing his chest out and screaming climactically, Bit threw his arms to the side. A wave of electricity blossomed out from the reploid, flying directly toward X and Zero. Blitz had taken shelter behind a grove of trees, out of Bit's sight. Leaping into the air, Zero dodged the wave, unlatching his saber and attempting to bring it down on the Maverick lieutenant. Unfortunately, it met with a strong force field of lightning and fire that threw the red Hunter back into the electricity he had just evaded.
Getting up, Zero glanced to his comrades.
"It's no use, Zero," Bit taunted. "I'm much more powerful than the last time."
X charged his blaster, drawing in enough energy to light up a city block for a year. He activated an ancient weapons database he retained from the Doppler crisis, calling forward a particular weapon he remembered damaged Bit more than anything else had. With Dr. Light's Hyper Armor in place, the effects should be even greater.
"Take this, Bit!" X yelled, throwing his cannon out directly in front of him, erupting with rage as an energy stream amplified by the Armor came pouring from the tip, showering the Maverick with ball upon ball of spherical blasts. The reploid, apparently still not immune to the Ray Splasher attack, flew backward, knocked senseless by the barrage. He got back up, circuitry sparking in several joints, and pointed at the Hunters.
"You've got another thing coming, you blue-plated nuisance!"
Charging his body once more, Bit began to undergo a different sort of function. His body rose above the ground, and he looked as if he was being pulled up by a tractor beam. The only difference, however, was that he was totally relaxed and appeared to be meditating on it.
A large amount of energy poured out around him, spinning in a maelstrom of wind and fire, as he began to change. His legs grew together, his arms augmented, the lower half of his faceplate removed itself to reveal the quickly mutating face underneath. The eyes narrowed, the mouth jutted out, and he seemed to be growing a halo or some sort of strange corona that solidified into a ring that ran from one side of his body to the other. It was only then that X realized that Bit's hands were in the same position as Tibetan monks during meditation.
"Oh, no," he breathed. Zero and Blitz looked to him.
"What's going on, X?" Blitz asked, placing a hand on the blue robot's shoulder as Zero tried shaking his friend from the apparent trance he'd been locked into watching Bit's transformation.
"Yeah, X, snap out of it. What's going on?"
"He...he's transforming."
Zero nodded. "I know that, X. What about it? It can't be worse than he was before."
That seemed to break X of his stupor. "Can't you remember anything about Bit? Can't you remember his transformation sequence?"
Zero put his hands on X's shoulders, staring him in the eyes. "Calm down, X. You're delirious."
Bit, in the meantime, continued to change. A large amount of energy had spilled out below him, rapidly hardening into a large, animal torso with large canine paws that resembled the lower body portion of Cerberus, the three-headed dog of Hades from Greek myth. A large tail grew out from behind him, stabilizing the massive body. Blitz and Zero, too busy trying to get X back into lucidity, didn't see any of it. Their comrade, on the other hand, was subjected to the horrible transmogrification.
"No..." X breathed.
Very perceptive Hunters you are. You can't even notice when something drastic is happening.
Zero's eyes grew wide when he heard that voice. The disembodied, ambient tone of it resonated through his every circuit, his every memory, speeding toward that one place in his brain he hoped he'd never have to visit again. Whipping around quickly, he didn't have time to react before the gigantic hand of the O Inary clasped his neck and chest and sped fast into a nearby tree, choking the red Hunter. The serpentine face of Bit's secondary form stared into Zero's eyes like a venomous reminder of the pain that he'd been put through.
Give up, Hunter, the creature seethed, pushing Zero up the length of the tree. The red robot's only response was spitting in his enemy's face while trying his hardest to dislodge the Maverick's huge paw from his throat.
Bit wiped the spit from his face with the other hand and proceeded to throw Zero across the entire expanse of the field, culminating with the collision of the Hunter against a large tree on the opposite end of the meadow. The robot, dazed and confused, slid down the tree trunk until he hit the ground, unconscious.
X and Blitz slowly retreated as the O Inary advanced on them, showering the two of them with energy.
"Now whadda we do, X?" Blitz yelled, hurling an electric blast at the Maverick.
X held off several blasts with the back of his arm cannon. "WE can't do anything. Zero was the only one that could take on the O Inary by himself. At least, while he had his saber. I had a really hard time dealing with it when I had to fight him."
"Can't you get a hold of Zero's saber? Then, couldn't you?"
X pondered that for a moment. He had used the saber before, not only during the Gate incident, but prior to that even, during the Doppler crisis. It seemed to be more powerful then.
"Blitz, use the number 4 attack pattern!" X yelled, dodging underneath the large branches of the trees he was now running at.
Blitz began firing pinpoint bolts of lightning past Bit's small head, diverting his attention from X. The blue Hunter took this to his advantage, slipping past the huge Maverick and crossing the field to where Zero was. Taking the saber, X immediately charged it using his X-Buster.
"Hey, Bit! Take this!" X screamed, hurling the saber downward, firing a giant blast of energy that sped directly into the enemy reploid's back.
Screaming in pain, Bit lost control of the O Inary power switch, slowly reverting back to normal. Soon, he was faced with X on one side and Blitz on the other. He was severely outmatched, and he couldn't think of what to do-except run. Taking off at a bolt, he was above to receive another lash from Zero's saber when he teleported away. X dropped the saber to the ground, allowing it to cool.
What next? he thought to himself, watching the red sky grow even darker.