Note from the Almighty Spyda: Hello, readers! A little note before we bring yeh into the next chapter. Axle the Red and Dark Dizzy will be referred to in their Japanese names, Spike Rosered and Dark Necrobat. Personally, I think these names make much more sense than the GNR names... anyway, time to continue with the story! Huzzah!
Chapter 3: Maverick Arrivals
"Damn, all this walking.... it isn't fair......"
A sleek plantlike reploid was walking tiredly down the twisting road which led to the hidden fortress of Sigma's army. His two colleagues were flying gracefully above him, having a grand old time, barely making sure to not fly too far away from their stressed cronie. In fact, they might as well have just ditched the plant man by the pace they were going.
"Hey! Come back here, you little S.O.Bs!!!" the distressed reploid yelled. He was, unfortunatley for him, the only one of the three who didn't have wings. He also hated long walks more than anything. What a nasty combination.
At this point, the lone Maverick was running like hell, shouting profanities to his so-called friends. It took them a little while to realize that their rose-headed buddy was ready to mercilessly kill both of them slowly and painfully.
One of the flying Mavericks, an awkward-looking stingray with large wings and a twisting tail, looked back at his colleague and chuckled a bit. "Poor, poor little Spikey..... hey Necrobat, think we should slow down a little for Rosebud?"
The other Maverick, a large, winged purple bat with long, menacing fangs, snickered. "Nah, I'm having too much fun with this. Anyway, I'm curious on how many more profanities he can spin out...."
The plant Maverick was still shouting. "....with your mother's damn tampon!" he finished, barely able to breathe. He finally stopped his frantic running and swearing and leaned over to catch his breath. He was fed up with his partners.
"Alright.... if this is the way it has to be..."
Rather than continue chasing the two renegade reploids, the lone Maverick stuck his hands out in their direction. As his hands slowly sucked themselves into his arms, he made sure to carefully aim his arms at the two. The Maverick smiled as two long, spiky vines shot out of his arms and wrapped themselves around his partner's necks.
From a distance, he still could hear his colleauge's choked gagging sounds. The mutant Maverick loved every moment of it. He savored it by wriggling his hands around, causing the vines to slither around the poor victim's necks.
When he believed his comrades had had enough, he tugged on the vines as forcefully as he could. The two were pulled strongly to the ground below, landing right in front of the mutated plant reploid. The vines suddenly jerked the two upward, so that they were directly facing him.
"So," the plant reploid said, smirking. "We like abandoning our partners, do we? He he he......"
The two were now tugging on the vines as hard as they could. The stingray reploid, who was no doubtebley pulling the hardest, managed to partially slip his head out of the bottom of the spiked death cord. The plant reploid quickly corrected this by strangling the stingray much more forcefully than before.
"Naughty, naughty boy.... wait till I'm finished.... alright you two... you're both gonna walk with good ol' Rosey rather than flying off into freakin nowhere... and if you do fly off again, you'll face the consequences..... do we understand?"
The two reploids weakly nodded.
Rosered smiled. "Excellent..... now let's get our arses in gear."
He dropped his partners to the ground, recoiling his vines in the process. After his hands were rejuvinated, he continued to walk down the dirt road, leaving his comrades behind him.
The bat reploid, still stroking his neck, spoke first. "What an ass."
The stingray shook his head in agreement. "Yeah, and he smells worse than a... ummmmm........"
"A Chinese train station?" The bat piped in.
"Yeah, that'll do," the stingray agreed.
While the two were lifting themselves up, the bat remembered something.
"Uhhh.... hey Jet, do you have the map?" he asked his partner.
The stingray scratched his rounded head. "Well... no, I thought you had it."
The bat looked worried. "Well, Spike gave it to one of us... I thought he gave it to you...."
Jet gulped. Their mutant plant partner, Spike Rosered, had given them both a map to Sigma's Headquarters. He had told them the gruesome details of exactly what would happen to them if it was lost. Jet Stingray, who was worried out of his mind, decided that they'd better tell Spike exactly what had happened.
"Uhh..... Spike? Yoo hoo?" Jet called out. "We.... have something to discuss about the map..."
Spike jerked his rose-topped head around. "Heh... you lost it, didn't you?"
Dark Necrobat, their batlike partner, gulped. "H... how did you know, Spike?"
The thorned green face smiled. "Simple.... I have it right here." Rosered dangled the dirty piece of parchment in front of him. "And it doesn't matter, anyway. We've already reached our destination. Look."
Spike pointed a short white finger to a far-off clearing. When his colleagues walked over to get a closer look, they realized that Rosered wasn't bluffing. There were several tall towers in the distance, all with shimmering lights flashing beautifully in a dazzling array of crimson and gold. The towers themselves were shimmering silver and shone brightly against the light of the sun. There was a total of five towers, with four on the outer rim and the biggest and tallest planted in the middle. It was amazing that a spectacle this large could go totally undetected by all searchers and radars, but there it was, untouched by humans nor Hunters.
Rosered was delighted. "This is excellent. We've been waiting for this moment since the day of our creation... to be in the great Sigma's Maverick army...." He looked like he was going to burst out in tears, but he managed to supress the feeling.
Jet's ambitious nature took over again. "Well, Spike, may I ask how we're supposed to get down there?" he asked. It took an instant to realize that he had just made a huge boo-boo.
Spike gave his trademark evil smirk. "Thanks for reminding me, Jet.... now let's get airgliding! We need to hurry to Sigma's before he hires some rookie wusses."
Jet and Necrobat both sighed heavily. They stood still while Rosered wrapped his green spiked vines around their chests. "Alright you two.... MUSH!!!" he yelled like a man cracking his whip at a stronghold of huskies.
The two spread their wings and took flight towards the majestic fortress, Spikey in tow.
Magma Dragoon cupped his hands and shouted once again.
"HADOKEN!!!"
A wave of hellish flames propelled after Glacier Dragoon, who barely dodged the fierce attack. He jumped to the wall and clung to it as strongly as possible, keeping a keen eye on his brother. A week's worth of traning shown heavily on Glacier's matted azure armor, which had already taken a serious beating from the mighty flames that his bro dished out. The poor dragoon couldn't take the beatings much longer, but still was determined to show Magma that he wasn't a quitter.
More shouts followed. "HADOKEN! HADOKEN! HADOKEN!!!"
Glacier winced as three more powerful fire waves lurched rapidly in his direction. He only had one option. It was a desperate attempt, but it was all he had.
"Uh..... SHOTGUN ICE!!!" the blue dragoon screeched frantically as he shot three large ice blocks towards the flames. Luckily for him, the ice managed to penetrate the fire ever-so-slightly, veering it it the opposite direction. It barely missed the top of Magma's fearsome head. He was not happy about that, and Glacier knew it.
Before Glacier could register the situation, Magma was already charging the spot where he clung helplessly to the Training Room wall. The azure dragon gave a slient prayer before Magma shouted once again. "RISING FIIIRE!!!!"
A sharp, burning sensation spread throughout Glacier's chestplate. His brother had just punched him forcefully in the stomach, causing him to gag and wince. As Magma returned to the ground, he smiled as Glacier fell to the ground with a loud clank, clutching his scorched chest. For some awkward reason, Magma found a certain pleasure in it. Seeing his brother wounded badly made him feel powerful, superior.... capable of defeating almost any reploid or Maverick....
Glacier looked up at his brother, and for a moment, it looked like Magma was going to kill the injured reploid. He sensed a sort of insanity in his eyes, one he had never really seen before. All he knew was that he had to get up, and do so as quickly as possible. He could see Magma cupping his hands again. Was this the end...?
"HEY, MAGMA!!! WHAT'RE YA DOIN???"
Glacier could hear a very familiar voice call out from the far corner of the Training Room. Magma abruptly jerked his head only to see Zero rushing over to the scene.
"Zero... what do you want now? This is our training time. We don't need any insignificant interruptions." Magma said.
Zero stopped in front of Glacier. He gave Magma a look of disgust.
"Magma, you're gonna kill the poor kid. Just look at him. He's almost completely barbacued from what you did to him. Lay off." Zero took a firm stance of authority.
Magma, lowered his arms, his face livid. "It's the only way he'll learn, Zero. I expect only the best from him. His fighting skills are mediocre at best. That's not acceptable for a Dragoon." He turned his back to both of them and smiled. "Farewell, Zero. I'll leave my brother for you to take care of, if that's what you desire. I'll train alone..."
The red-clad Dragoon walked away, leaving the Crimson Slayer and Glacier alone. After we had walked out the door, Zero gave a heavy sigh and looked to the injured reploid. "Sorry, Glacier. You and I both know that your brother can be somewhat of a tight ass at times." Zero offered Glacier a hand.
He took the hand and smiled. "Yeah, tell me about it," he said as he lifted himself up, still clutching his chest. "I really don't know what he expects from me. He believes in all this 'honor of a Dragoon' crap, and it annoys the hell out of me." Glacier decided to not tell Zero of the killing instinct he saw in Magma, since he didn't want to get anyone worried.
Zero shrugged. "Well, we shouldn't worry about it too much. Let's just get you to the Repair Center. I don't think this would be too hard for the repair technicians to take care of." He smirked. "And I think X is hanging around there too. Cain's punishment. He's gotta clean the patient's bedpans for another three weeks."
X scrubbed as hard as he could, but the benpan stain still wouldn't budge. It seemed imprinted. The Neo Blue Bomber was having the worst day of his life... as usual.
Dr. Cain kept a watchful eye as X continued to scrub the filthy pans. Though not many of the patients in the Repair Center were human (since humans really aren't really "repaired" anyway), Cain still kept a load of bedpans. X was starting to believe that he had a certain "thing" for them.
"Alright X, I'm going to return to my quarters. I'll let Jenn keep an eye on you from now on." He gave a small sigh. "I'm very sorry I had to do this, X, but those capsules were very important for my research. And I needed an extra helper, anwyay."
X gave a nod as Cain walked off. His endless scrubbing was beginning to take its toll on his robotic hands, which were now covered in grime and filth.
"Jeez... maybe Cain should have spent less money on his friggin bedpans and buy some safety gloves..." X mumbled to no one in particular. His scrubbing was interrupted when Zero opened the Repair Center door.
"Hey, X! Lookin' great there!" Zero said cheerily. X gave a look of disgust and continued to scrub.
Zero gave him a pat on the back. "Hey, old buddy! Glacier here needs a band-aid on the boo-boo Magma gave 'em. Could you tell me where Jenn is?"
X wearily pointed a finger to his left. "Down the hall, second room to the right. She's performing surgery on an apple pie," he said. "Now leave me to my misery."
"Gladly! Ta ta, old chum!" He motioned for Glacier to follow him as he advanced down the hallway. Glacier's chest was still badly scorched, and he had some trouble getting down the hall. Though the pain wasn't quite as bad, the damage taken had weakened his robotic joints.
Zero walked back over to Glacier. "Tee hee... sorry, buddy. Forgot about that." He put his arm around Glacier and helped him walk to the room where Jenn resided.
The Crimson Slayer opened the door slowly, still supporting Glacier with his free arm. The injured blue Dragoon was much heavier than Zero had expected.
A young woman with short, blonde hair was sitting at the desk. She wore thick, rounded glasses and a long white medical jacket. From Zero's viewpoint, she seemed to be engulfing something in her mouth from behind the desk.
"Uhhh.... AHEM...." Zero muttered.
The girl put her head up. In her mouth was a long piece of pie, and it was sticking out a great deal. In her hand was a McDonalds Apple Pie container.
"Mmph... Oh, iths you Zewo.... Thorry, I'm justh haffing mah desthert..." she mumbled, the apple pie still lodged in her mouth. She turned around quickly and gobbled the whole thing up, bit by bit. She pulled out a small towel and wiped he face before swiveling herchair back around to face the two.
"Sorry, Zero. I've been very... busy lately." She gave a flustered smile.
"Yeah, I'm sure you have, Jenn... anyway, Glacier here needs some repairs. His chestplate got scorched by you-know-who, and his joints have gotten weak." Zero motioned to Glacier, who was wriggling around awkwardly.
Jenn examined him carefully. "Hmm... oh dear... yes, don't worry Mr. Zero, we can get him fixed up without too much trouble. Let me just contact the technicians...."
As the head of the Maverick Hunter Repair Center, Jenn was always busy. She seemed to act very flustered in the workplace, as many reploids (and sometimes humans) needed attending to around the clock. Due to the battles with his brother, Glacier seemed to become a regular customer there.
After Jenn's talk with a technician on the other line, she gave the two a smile. "The technicians are on their way, Glacier. They've been busy attending to other matters, so it may take a little while. You can take a seat and relax for a little while, If you want."
The blue-clad reploid smiled weakly. "Yeah, thanks....." he said as the slowly lowered himself into the cushy warmth of the lounge chair sitting in the office. "Zero, I'll wait here by myself for now. You can get going, if you want."
Zero unwillingly nodded his head in agreement. "Yeah, I'd better keep poor old X some company before he hurts anyone. I hate to leave ya alone, Glaish....."
Glacier smiled. "Don't worry about it. I'll be fine, the technicians will be on their way soon enough. I'm strong enough to wait."
"Well... alright, If you're alright with it. Just remember to let me know when you've recovered, alright?"
"No prob."
Zero smiled as he walked out the door. He proceeded to find X still doing his rightful duties.
"Having fun, are we?" Zero said playfully.
X turned around. "Shut yer mouth. Just to let you know, Wiedl came up here a few minutes ago looking for you. He told me to tell you to meet him in his office A.S.A.P. Don't ask me what he wants, because he was in too much of a rush to tell me."
Zero sighed. "What more does that idiot want from me? He's probably inviting me into his lair to give me another lecture of my "hippy hair" and tell me more about the "secret project" he's developing for Cain. I don't understand why the doc would even trust that guy."
X kept scrubbing as he spoke. "Nevertheless, you should still see him. He's pretty smart for a psycho. As a matter of fact... most psychos are pretty smart. Kinda like Hannibal Lecter...."
"Alright, shaddap now," Zero muttered. "I'll go see the damn guy. But I'm getting out of there before he tries to pull any of his crap on me." As he walked out the door, Zero made sure his Z-Saber was firmly inserted into its sheath. Just to be sure.