Violen was an extremely loyal and trusting reploid; he as a Maverick would never cease to follow orders from his High Commanding Officer, Sigma, and eqaully for his other partners, Agile and the other X-Hunters in general. Though he may have not always done his job the way his comrades would always desire him to (which, unfortunately, occured most of the time), Violen would never, under any real circumstances, give up on a job, no matter how bleak a positive outcome became. And, on most occasions, Sigma and the others would completely fail to realize that... the leaders usually demanded near-perfection, sadly, and Violen wasn't exactly one to live up to those standards, mostly due to his somewhat unintellegent nature.
But that wasn't the only one of poor Violen's vices, however. There was another small quality that the Maverick behemoth usually kept anywhere but public, one he never had really mustered up the guts to tell anybody about. And that small vice - or fear, which makes more sense in his situation - was a fear of working alone. Oh, of course it was usually fine to be executing some sort of important job/tactic/attack when there was somebody there to guide him and help him out with it. But without that? Oy... he was a like a puppydog abandoned in the Sahara Desert.
Which is what made it all the harder for him to complete another integral task ordered by him from Sigma... one for him to do alone. But then again, the job wasn't that big, and the other X-Hunters had more important jobs they needed to attend to, anyways...
But DAMN, did Violen run like the dickens from the security deck to maintain his post in the second floor lobby. Sure, he knew perfectly well that running so dangerously fast wasn't exactly the most necessary (or safe, for that matter) thing to do, considering he was already on the second floor, he could've cared less. He just wanted to get his job done already, and to get it done before X and Zero's Units could cause any significant damage. This, however, required rallying up all of the soldiers on that floor and getting them to pounce on the Hunters' unsuspecting Units. And that would be much, much harder than Violen had really expected it to be.
"Everybody here on the second floor! ALL MAVRICKS!" shouted the distressed X-Hunter as he dashed through the large corridors of the second floor, flailing his arms around madly in a vain gesture indicating that the soldiers should follow him. "Everybody, gather up and meet me at the SECOND FLOOR LOBBY, ovah thissa way! If you don't, the Hunters are gonna SMACKA your faces, along with many other cruel and unusual punishments!"
But it was all in vain, sadly; many of these newer Mavericks lacked something integral that the Mavericks of olden days used to keep themselves grounded - a thicker skin (figuratively). As if they could barely hear what their superior officer was shouting at them, the Maverick recruits ran around in nervous circles (some shouting "MEDIE! MEDIE!" over and over), punching out their own allies in order to run to a safer locale before their 'friends', many soldiers retreating from the mishap on the first floor downstairs... Violen even managed to get a glimpse of one or two of them bothering to leap out of the windows, completely shattering the glass - and ALMOST themselves - in the process.
"Guyyyyyyyys! Come ON!" Violen shouted at the panicked soliders once again, to no real avail. "This is really NOT COOL! What am I supposed to do, fight all of the friggin' Hunters by MYSELF?! I NEED SOME HEEEEELP!"
But it was hopeless, as Violen soon realized, to get anybody's attention. All that he could really do was head for the lobby and wait for the Hunters to arrive... yes, he'd wait, and if he died, well, than he died. So, in pure Violen fashion, he marched bravely into the lobby to face the people who may very well have caused his ultimate end...
...and then stopped cold in his tracks. "Guh... nobody here...?" he muttered to nobody in particular, looking around the large, barren room which usually withheld some of the most Maverick activity in the entire building. But nay, the entire area was totally cleared out, with an eerie kind of silence...
"Oy... well, I guess I'd better wait somewhere else," Violen murmured again, the courage he had held before now beginning to deterierate quite a bit. As he began to slowly inch out of the room, he caught notice of a yellow-tinted figure in the far corner who seemed to be completely dormant; most likely asleep, due to the fact that he was still breathing (which was a somewhat different process with reploids than humans). He also had another distinctive quality, which was the fact that a small liquor bottle hung off of his limp hand, spilling a bit of a dark liquid on the floor. Though Violen considered the option of leaving the poor souse alone and saving himself, he then also considered the fact that the slim soldier could have had absolutely no idea about the incoming Hunters headed straight for them, who would cause him a great deal of distress had they the desire. In the end, the large X-Hunter's strong loyalty to his cause led him to help the man... so he took a deep breath and did all he could.
"Hey, buddy!" Violen almost shouted, jogging over to the Maverick Van Winkle. "Wake up, wake up, wake UP! There's a pretty big group of Hunters headed up here, and if we don't get the hell OUTTA this lobby, we're gunna be french-fried!" Luckily, the Commander's panicky yelps were just what was needed to jolt the poor sleeper back to his senses.
"Ahh..." he muttered grogily, slowly rising himself to his feet. "Alrighhhhty, okay, letzzzz go to the movies, Sall-eeeeee..." The man, obviously drunk Out of his gourd, stumbled around the room clumsily in a completely vain attempt to maintain his balance. His booze-induced stumblings eventually led him to the middle of the lobby, where Violen was standing. To the behemoth's surprise, the man embraced him in a large bear-hug, for no real reason whatsoever.
"Hey, maaaan... I love ja, you know that?" the intoxicated reploid muttered to his superior.
"Hey, hey, HEY!" Violen shouted, trying to back away from the loony. "First off, I really don't swing that way. Secondly, there's a FRICKIN' GROUP OF FRICKIN' HUNTERS WHO'RE ABOUT TO FRICKIN' BLOW OUR FRICKIN' BLODDY FRICKIN' HEADS OFF. Do I need to make that any CLEARER...?"
"J'know whut, pallll-zey?" the poor drunk rambled on, clinging on to Violen's shoulders despite his attempts to break free. "Yooza allll rite. I DUN CARE what zoz peoplez says about the timez yoo took uh ride on the Tobacco leeeeeef, I STILL love ya the way you are... dun change aftur yoo gradjuate frum hieeee-skool..."
"You think I'm not serious about this? WELL, THEN YOU'RE THINKIN' FRICKIN' WRONG, palzy!" Violen now shouted, taking a tone of seriousness that he rarely ever used. "Get this through your FRICKIN' WHISKIED-UP HEAD! We're going to DIE if we stay up here! Hunters, my friend! HUNTERS! THEY WANNA KEEEEL US! Can I make that ANY CLE-"
"I gotza somethin' to CUNFESS, maaaan..." the drunken slug continued, denying Violen any more chances to panic. "Nowwww, lizen heur. You know I love your mamma, your pappa, your brutha, your sista, your grannmutha, your grannfathua, your a'nt, your unc, n' alllllll your cuzinz... but MAN, what I LUUUUVED the most was that GOOD TIME I had wit'chur WIFE LAST NIGHT!" The reploid then proceeded then flashed Violen a few winks of the eye, obviously suggesting something on the vulgar and inappropriate side.
"Aww, YEECH! Get OFF me, you weirdo!" Violen shouted at his harrasser, nudging him away and causing him to stumble madly around the room on some seemingly endless loop. It was a weird thing - for the first time in quite a while, the X-Hunter was actually feeling some awkward kind of intellectual superiority to somebody else. I mean, c'mon... he knew damned well that, compared to that crazed drunkard, he could be viewed as the next William Shakespeare. The other X-Hunters probably wouldn't object to that... well, probably.
Before Violen could finish his mental pondering, however, an unnatural rattling sound began to ring in his metallic hearing devices. It was coming from below the floor... a clanging of feet, perhaps? It was somewhat hard to tell, at first... but soon enough, the clanging began to become louder and louder, so loud that it became extremely close to the being level with the flooring that Violen stood on. Then, the Maverick heard a familiar voice from the stairway below him, one that he never liked to hear...
"Alright, guys..." the somewhat low-toned voice began. "We've searched all through the bottom floor, and we haven't found jack, unfortunately - same thing with X's Unit, as he reported to me just now. But, just in case we don't run into the same incident that we shoved ourselves in when we first got in here, I'm going to perform a small visual scouting of the area, just to make sure things're clear. X's Unit should be joining us shortly, as will Magma's. So wait here, I'll hopefully be back in just a second..."
Oh Jeebus, JEEEEEEbuzzz... Violen mentally panicked. That... that voice again... I think that's ZERO's voice!!!
"Oh, mutha frackin' great," he whispered, not really caring if the drunken Maverick stumbling in the background actually heard him or not. "Now ZERO is coming... I've gotta do something... QUICK..."
In a desperate maneuver, the bulky Maverick grabbed his 'companion' by his arm and pulled him forcefully over to a dark corner of a right-side hallway adjacent to the main lobby, where he couldn't easily be seen by any wandering eyes. Crouching down to the ground, he kept a firm hold on his intoxicated friend's mouth, preventing him from making any kind of outburst that would give them away. Though the slim Maverick kicked and squirmed in a vain attempt to regain freedom, Violen ignored him for a while as he set all his attention on what he could hear from the other room; and, soon enough, he could hear the soft tapping of metallic boots echoing from the smooth flooring. His foe had arrived.
Please, whatever deity is up there, if you can hear me now... Violen thought frantically, his adrenaline pumping like crazy. Please... don't let that red freak find me out...!
The first thing that Zero noticed about this lobby in particular was that it was quiet; really, REALLY quiet. There was one thing Zero wasn't particularly fond of - any eerie kind of silence. Whenever he strolled into a room and came face to face with the silence, it only took a very short while for trouble to come rushing after it. That trouble usually came in the form of a large, threatening enemy, or some large grouping of enemies... it was hard to tell exactly which one was worse.
Before doing any real searchwork, he glanced briefly around the room to check out his surroundings; surprisingly, the room was actually pretty pleasant looking, considering the general nature of the people who ran it. It wasn't really that big of a lobby, but it was still a bit bigger than the lobby downstairs. The lights were a bit dim, but that didn'nt bother the Crimson Hunter too much... he'd faced worse. He could still see seperate sets of doors aligning the walls on each side, likely leading to stairs or dormitory areas, with two large hallways breaching the back corners of the room. There was a wall that formed a separation between these two side hallways, which Zero noticed clearly from the moment he walked in - the reason being was that there was a large, red-tinted banner covering it that revealed the Maverick insignia, the classic alteration of the Greek letter 'Sigma' (for obvious reasons). If Zero had withheld any previous doubts about Mavericks owning this entire fortress, they had been sent down the crapper by that sight.
Well, there ya have it, folks! Zero thought. I guess that concludes things... Irregies dun gots dis nice little edifice. But this floor in particular seems kinda ghostly... probably best I keep my guard up.
The Hunter, attempting to be as cautious and silent as he could possibly be, walked a bit further into the lobby, first beginning to approach the left side of the room near the left hallway. It was only a few seconds later when Zero was forced to hear one of the loudest, most annoying belches he could have ever heard in his life.
"BUUUUUUUUUUURP!" went the noise, snapping Zero into action almost immediately. Using his quick reflexes, he unsheathed his infamous beam saber, it's greenish glow illuminating most of the area around him. That noise... it had come from the other hallway, Zero's right side. Somebody must've been there...
"Alright, buddy!" the blonde reploid shouted at the opposite end of the room, his saber still pulsating in front of his face. "I know you're in there, Captain Indigestion. Don't think you can fool me... reveal yourself to me NOW, and I'll consider letting you go. If NOT..."
The threatening words echoed effectively down the other hallway, no doubt reaching the ears of that sneaky (and blatantly rude) Maverick. Yes, he was certain it was a Maverick... had it been a member of someboy else's Unit, they would probably respond to Zero's yelling. But no, this fellah didn't seem like he was willing to be found out. It was made obvious when, after the loud shoutings coming from the Crimson One, no response came - just total silence once again. Something was very fishy here.
Still keeping his blade unsheathed, Zero kept his eyes sharp as he continued to advance towards the place where the voice had been coming from... it was pretty much identical to the other hallway, though it seemed as if it were a little darker than it's mirror image. That didn't phase Zero, per usual... with his saber at hand, everything could be seen pretty easily. As he continued to slowly advance down the somewhat-long hallway, he began to hear something else coming from behind him; a soft chattering noise, like somebody muttering something, followed by the sound of muffled jarbling that was distinctly louder that the chattering. It caught Zero's attention immediately, as it was coming from the exact same place that the belch had come from - closer to the entrance of the hallway, behind him...
"C'mon, now, you're just making this MUCH harder than it has to be..." shouted Zero again, his voice echoing in the same manner as before. "I'm going to find you out whether you show yourself or not... it's the simple truth! I really hate wasting time with this kind of bull, so if you'd just come out RIGHT NOW, it would make my life a helluva lot easier..."
But alas, no other sounds came... they ceased the moment Zero finished talking, just like before. This was the time in which the elite Hunter began to grow extremely impatient; he had better things to do at the time, and searching for some belching moron wasn't exactly high up on his things-to-do list. But then again, this person might now something about the location of Sigma and the others...
"Alright, then!" Zero bellowed. "Last straw. I'm ending this little charade right freakin' now..."
Shutting off his neon blade for a moment, he rapidly raised his free left arm and smoothly converted it into an arm cannon. After letting his systems charge for a second or two, he aimed the cannon directly at the ceiling near where the voice was heard and fired a small-yet-effective shot of blueish plasma. The shot screamed through the imposing air and connected forcefully into the concrete supporter, ripping through it easily and causing a small explosion that lit up most of the room for a brief while. Due to the force of the shot, chunks of the ceiling began to rain down on that darkened area, and soon enough some very audible yelping noises could be heard coming from there. Zero's little random act of violence proved very useful, just as he had planned; not one, but TWO figures stumbled out of the falling concrete's way, a large bulky one dragging a somewhat lanky one. As Zero approached the two, he was able to get a good look at them - the lanky one was of yellowed-hue, but didn't look like somebody the Hunter knew. The other, however, he recognized almost immediately. The bulky figure, as he remembered, could be none other than...
"VIOLEN!" Zero spat out at the Maverick angrily, leveling his buster right in his direction. "I knew somebody like you would be sneaking around here!"
"GHAA!" the large reploid shouted, cowering to the ground with a mix of shock and utter fear on his face. The other reploid seemed a bit less frightened by the threat that had been presented before him, and just continued to stumble around the room awkwardly, like usual. Zero ignored him, passing him off as not much of a threat... the big guy was the one the Hunter had the beef with. As he kept his buster leveled at his adversary, he began to notice that the aftereffects of his plasma shot were beginning to wear off a bit, now with smoke rising from the building's wound.
"Alright, my little Maverick friend... now is the time for you to do a little explaining," Zero threatened, his buster glowing faintly.
"I know! I KNOW..." Violen yelped in panic, not wanting a large ball of plasma to be embedded in his chest. "Don't kill me, please! I'll tell you what you need to know... if you'd just calm yourself down for a minute, I'll tell you everything..."
"Whoza hell iz THIS guy?!" shouted the still intoxicated man to Zero's right, who was now taking more notice at the scarlet assailant in front of him. "I've neva seen HIS face 'round heeee-yah..."
"What the-? Who in Lucas's name are YOU?" Zero asked him right back, uttering the name of a human who he held a surprisingly high amount of respect for. "Violen! You know this guy...?"
"Well... not really," the Maverick muttered, still a bit worried about the cannon aimed right at his face. "I... I sorta just found 'em here. But I'll set the record straight when I say that he does NOT represent me in any way whatsoever."
"You SHUT UP!" shouted the drunken man once again, pointing a damning finger at his supposed comrade. "You... you dunno me, palzEE. I work long 'n hard EVERY fliggin' DAY, no breakz orrrr strinG CheeSE... and then, thizz red guy comez in 'n startz insulting my LITTLE BABEE BOY! Youza best stttay away from him, I knowz what kinda influence peeeeople likez you HAVE ON INNOZINT LITTUL KIDZ..." The man then began to approach Zero, with a strange kind of malice in his eyes. "And youz KIL'd mah UNCUL, youuuuuuu! YOU TOOK AWAY HIZ PRIZ'D ICE CREEEEM BAR! AND I, AZ HIZ DEZENDINT, HAVE COME TO RECLAIM IT!!!" He raised his arm for a punch, but only managed to produce a slow, extremely weak attack that passed right by Zero's face in seemingly slow motion. He then stumbled back off, taking seemingly no notice of the two, and rubbed himself unnaturally against the wall.
Zero was still in a bit of shock. "Oh...KAY," the Crimson Hunter muttered at the situation, very confused as to what had just happened. As he stood there utterly confused at the situation, he failed to notice that the intoxicated reploid's little follies were actually a blessing in disguise for the distressed Violen; during all of the confusion, the bulky reploid began to slowly inch away from the scene, unnoticed by Zero. Unfortuntely for him, however, he backed into another set of metallic boots, and considerably large ones at that. He stopped cold; it certainly wasn't the drunk, who was near where Zero was. Then who the hell...?
"Well, looks like I got here just in time, eh?" commented a soft voice coming from the figure. "Violen... what a pleasure to see you around here again!"
He didn't want to look back, he already knew who it was, he really did... but he looked back anyway, staring directly into the face of the feared MegaMan X, the other world renowned Maverick Hunter and right up there with Zero in terms of ability. X, surprisingly, didn't appear to be too shocked at his enemy's presence in the room; it was almost as if he had been expecting something like this all along. He, unlike Zero, did not brandish his arm cannon... I mean, this was X we were talking about. But still, he could just as easily...
"Hoboy, hoboy, hoboy..." Violen muttered, backing away from the boy in blue. "I am... NOT in a good position..."
"Oh my, aren't you the quick-thinking one, eh?" X muttered sarcastically. "Hey, Zero. You might want to at least try to keep an eye on this guy..."
"Hey hey HEY," Zero snapped at his friend in self-defense. "It's not as easy as it looks. I mean... this other guy causes a lot more distraction than you might think."
"Other guy...?" X replied in confusion, directing his glance to the yellow-tinted man stumbling around next to his friend. "Who's he supposed to be?"
"Your MOMMA!" shouted the drunken Maverick, pointing a damning finger at the new arrival. "Joo... joo just SHUT UP, right nauw... you dunno me! Y'see... y'see what's 'appenin here? We gotta RED guy... we gotta BLUE guy... I'm pretty shur I'm uh YELLOW guy... we're gonna start havin' ALL THE FRIGGIN' COLORZ OV DA RAINBOW bargin' in heyur... it's CRAZY, man..." The Maverick then stopped dead in his tracks, gave one last ridiculous to X, and fell forward flat on his face, his body sprawled on the hallway floor. His mouth was still partway opened, and a soft garbling sound could still be heard emitting from it.
X, fully traumatized by the entire ordeal thus far, buried his face in his left hand. "Oh, come ON," X muttered painfully. "First I deal with brick-throwing French guards, and now this...?"
Zero shot his friend a befuddled glance. "Err... brick-throwing French guards...?"
"Please, PLEASE... just don't ask."
"Will do," said Zero worriedly. "Now back to business. What should we do with the big guy here, my friend? Deep-fry 'em?"
Violen shivered at that remark, still lacking the guts to get back on his hind legs. Zero wasn't a guy who really took crap from his enemies - killing Mavericks without much second thought was something he happened to specialize in. The bulky reploid was relieved, however, when he saw the azure X shaking his head in disapproval.
"Naw, sorry Zero..." the famed Hunter apologized. "I don't think there's really any need for that. He probably knows something important, I'm bettin' ya he knows everything about what Mr. Sigma and the others are planning to do..."
Violen cringed a bit. How did they find out about Sigma so quickly...? Oh well, I guess there were some obvious things around here that gave us away...
Suddenly, like the sound of heavenly angels sounding from above, a clearly audible beeping sound began to emit from where X was standing. The Hunter stopped talking immediately, reaching for a small blackish box with an antenna at his side - a communicator, no doubt. He checked out the radio frequency quickly before looking up to face his partner.
"We've got a message..." he told him. "It seems like it's coming from Magma's unit. I'll take this one, you keep an eye on Mister Maverick Bait here."
"Yuperoo..." replied Zero, keeping his trusty buster leveled at his enemy's head level. X pressed the little button on his communicator, like usual, and spoke casually to the person on the other end if the line.
"This is Commander X of the 17th Unit... would this be the 14th Unit?" he asked kind of lamely.
"Yeah, that would be us!" the Hunter on the other end responded, sounding a little panicked. "Sorry if we've interrupted you during anything important, sir... but we've just ran into a little, well... predicament."
X furrowed his brow a bit. "Predicament?" he asked. "What kind...?"
"Well, err..." the man on the other end muttered nervously. "What, uh... what happened was that, erm... our leader sort of... ABANDONED us."
"...what?" X exclaimed in confusion. "You mean, Magma Dragoon? He abandoned you...?"
"Yeah, well... it was something like that..." the man grumbled. "What happened was, we had entered through the left side of the building, which was really just one large stairwell. Now, y'see, there are this translucsent walls that separate them from the lobby rooms, and, well... when we reached the second floor, he just... paused, dead in his tracks. He was staring through the wall, watching something really intently. Before we could ask him about what was going on or what he was staring at, he bolted out of there like a bat out of hell, all the way up those freakish twisting stairways. He stopped when he reached a certain floor... the third one, I think, but we couldn't tell. And we can't follow him or anything, since he scorched up the entire stairway... there's barely anything left of it now. We're kind of in a rough spot, to say the least..."
"Oh, friggin' GREAT," yelled Zero sarcastically before X motioned for him to keep his trap shut.
"Alright, buddy..." X began again. "Would you mind telling me where exactly you guys are right now?"
"Yeah... we're near the main floor's stairway now," the man replied. "All of us are here... well, with the exception of Magma, of course."
"Well, alright, then..." X muttered a bit, pondering what to say next. "Right now, I'm thinking that the best thing for you guys to do right now is to get the hell out of the building, until I can update you on the situation further..."
Before he could finish, there was a second beeping noise coming from X's same communicator. Stopping for a moment, the blue Hunter realized that yet another message was being transmitted to him, this time from a somewhat obscure location... one he really couldn't recognize. He hurriedly ended his conversation with the man in the 14th Unit and switched frequencies to the location of the other 'caller'.
"This is Commander X of the 17th Unit..." X began again in his usual professionalized tone. "Uh, whoever this is, please identify yourself and specif-"
"X... that is you," replied the voice, a very low-toned, very familiar voice. "I had a feeling I'd be able to reach you... still on the second floor, I see. It baffles me as to why you're still down there..."
"Waitasecond - Magma?!" X almost shouted, a look of shock now on his face. "Where the hell ARE you? Your radio frequency is WAY off..."
"I'm amazed, X," the intellectual-sounding Dragoon interrupted from the other end. "Tell me, my friend, why is it that you sound so surprised to hear my voice now? Nothing's changed... unless, of course, you were tipped off by those nice fellows buried in the side of the building... poor fools..."
"Just FORGET about that!" X exclaimed, now starting to get infuriated. "I just want you to tell it to me straight RIGHT NOW. Where the hell ARE you, Magma? I heard you abandoned your ENTIRE Unit back there... what's going on...?"
"Heh heh heh..." the Commander chuckled sadistically. "You sound very flustered today... incompetence up the yin-yang, I presume. We'll, just so you don't get too huffy about the entire situation, I'll give you a bit of interesting information to help you out: to put things bluntly, I making quite a bit more progress than you are now. As a matter of fact, I could be right over your heads, as we speak..."
"Magma, would you cut it out?" X ordered. "This ain't very funny. Seriously, I want you to get your butt down here and explain to me just what the hell is going..."
"Sigma's up here, you know," Magma blurted out, interrupting X once again. "Up here, on the third floor. I believe he's waiting for a confrontation right in the lobby..."
"...what?!" X exclaimed, now starting to lose it. Zero could hear Magma's voice too, and had a similar look on his face; Violen was just worried that one of the Hunters had discovered Sigma's whereabouts. "Magma, how do you know where Sigma is...?"
"I saw him myself," Magma began again, "just as my Unit and I were advancing up along the stairways near the side of the building. There were these walls... somewhat transparent, as I could almost see everything that was happening in the rooms beyond. Just as we had approached floor two, I managed to nab a look at the great Sigma, bolting out of some room and running upstairs like a banshee... so I followed him. Followed him all the way up here..."
"But how do you know for certain that it's Sigma?!" X queried, becoming slightly mad. "You said that those walls were translucent... not everything could be seen clearly. Maybe that reploid you saw wasn't Sigma, but some other guy... you're eyes could've been playing tricks on you."
"Impossible," Magma stated simply. "If it wasn't Sigma, then why would the Reploid King be waiting right around the corner, in that humongous lobby? He's waiting for the two of you, I believe... standing as still as a statue, right here on the third floor. But he wouldn't fight alone, I don't think... no, I would guess that a very special friend of yours is going to be waiting there with him very, very shortly. Should make things a lot of fun for me..."
Zero almost choked at that statement, along with everyone else in the room. "Sp... 'special friend'? Don't tell me he means..."
"Vile!" Violen blurted out, surprising himself. "Sigma... he ordered him to be transported to the third floor..."
"Oh, don't tell me..." X moaned. "Magma, if Sigma and Vile are going to be up there, then I'm gonna have to have you down here, where we can discuss strategy. It's the safest thing to do..."
Magma almost went into hysterics on the other line. "X, you fool!" he exclaimed. "How dense can you get? There won't be any outside interferences from you, Zero, or anybody else. I'm making this my own battle - only I will fight. The matter will be taken care of by me and me alone..."
"Magma, have you gone completely NUTZO?!" X shouted. "Listen to me. If you march in there and fight Vile and Sigma on your OWN, you'll be overpowered and eventually killed. You can't fight both of them at the same time... wait for Zero and I. It shouldn't take us too long for us to reach you."
"Wrong again!" Magma claimed, now sounding as if he was taking pleasure from bugging his comrade. "Don't underestimate me, X... I cover my tracks. As of now, all methods of transportation to any floor above the one you're on are completely disabled. The stairs, the elevators... even teleportation won't prove to be of any use at a range like this. It's that simple... you lollygaggers are stuck in that hellhole of a second floor, with absolutely no way of interfering with my battle. While you remain nulled, I get to make some actual progress." He huffed a little bit. "And as to me getting killed... well, let me say that I don't appreciate you demeaning my power like that. Sigma and Vile will fight with me alone... and I will kill each of them. The two of you aren't the only ones capable of defeating powerful Mavericks, you realize. About time you stand aside and let somebody else take care of things for once, eh...?"
"Magma! Cut this crap out NOW! You're talking crazy!..."
"Sorry... we're done here," Magma rasped. "Enjoy wasting your time, per usual..."
"Magma, WAIT!" X shouted to his comrade. But it was too late - X's ears were now met only with an annoying static-y sound, and the little red light on his communicator had been fizzeled out. In a bit of bittersweet silence, he shut the black box off and placed it to his side once again.
"He said that it's impossible for us to get upstairs..." muttered Zero, still chilled as to what Magma had just said. "Is... is that true?"
"Good question... I'll check it out myself," X replied before sprinting off in the opposite direction, leaving Zero to keep Violen in check. Inspecting all of the stairways and elevators, he grimly discovered that Magma's little prophecy was actually true - every stairway was now replaced with a pile of ashes, with little bits of the stairs still crumbling down lifelessly to the ground below. The elevators held a similar story - all of the cables had been singed, with the elevators themselves lying in a useless heap on the ground. Magma really had covered his tracks... there was really nothing they could do now.
Soon enough, Zero came into the lobby to meet up with X, a frightened Violen still in tow. The bulky Maverick was now on his hind legs, with the drunken reploid now slung over his shoulder (Violen now believed that the man was his responsibility). Zero approached his azure friend, who was now staring listlessly at another broken-down stairway in the main room. "Oy... I'm figuring we're not in a very good position?" he stated.
"You're damned right, we are!" X exclaimed, still staring at the destruction that Magma had caused. "Seems that Dragoon is really, really serious about this whole thing... he's gunna try and kill Sigma - and maybe even Vile - on his own..." He then swerved in Violen's direction, his buster aimed directly at his face. "Hey, Violet Boy! I figure you know this building pretty well... I want you to show Zero and I a way to get up to the third floor. NOW."
"What? You can't be serious!" Violen snapped, almost offended. "Why should I tell you anything? Just so you can march on upstairs and kill our leader and friend?! Well, you can just forget that right now!"
"You're going to tell us," Zero told him, "because you just happen to be at the wrong end of our happy little arm cannons here."
Upon hearing that statement, Violen stared back and forth at both of his enemies' weapons, and realized that he really didn't have much of a choice. "Alright, alright..." he agreed, admitting to defeat. "Just... follow me, I think I might now a way upstairs... it's a little risky, but..."
"We don't care. Just show us, NOW," Zero ordered him. "Oh, and X... what do you think we should tell the other Hunters near the first floor? We can't just leave them there..."
"Don't worry, I'll take care of it," X assured him. "I'll probably just order them to get the hell-diddly-el out of this building as quickly as possible. I hate forcing them to abandon their duties, but... well, to be honest, my gut is telling me that things are about to get pretty hectic from here on out. I would hate to lose more Hunters than we need to..."
Magma Dragoon, fully pleased with the conversation that had just taken place, shut off his communicator to drown out X's incessant yelling. To make sure that no further communications incident would ever cross his path again, he squeezed at the small black box as tightly as possible, until the tiny machine promptly snapped into a large amount of little pieces, which he let fall limply to the ground with a very soft and inaudible clicking sound. There would be no disturbances during this fight whatsoever, Magma thought... this would be genuinely his battle, his one moment to shine.
He stood as firmly as a rock outside of the third floor lobby, in a hallway on the left side of the room. Sigma was in there, he knew... near the front of the room, beyond Magma's vision at that point. He had been waiting there for only a few minutes now, obviously awaiting a confrontation with both X and Zero. The fool, he didn't realize what he was REALLY up against now...
It was time. Without any hesitation or second thought in his mind, the Dragoon warrior walked casually down the hallway and straight to the large breach at the end of it. Soon enough he had reached the corner of the hallway, which was now the only thing separating him from his goal. Finally, he left the darkness behind him, entering into the lighted room that served as Sigma's resting place.
It was strange, at first... it was as if the Reploid King hadn't even taken much notice in him when he first saw the red dragonlike reploid. After a moment, he furrowed his brow a bit at the sight of the foreign warrior, and addressed him in a somewhat angry manner.
"Hey, you!" he almost shouted. "I thought Darrick ordered all of the Mavericks on this floor to evacuate immediately! Return to your appropriate posts... it's too dangerous to be hanging around here!"
Magma, amused by this statement, chuckled a bit. "Please," he requested casually. "Don't belittle me by labeling me as a 'Maverick'. I'm nothing of the sort."
Sigma, a bit taken aback by that comment, widened his eyes. He was dressed in an armor that appeared to be similar to the one he used in the second Rebellion, now donned with a nifty scythe-saber at his side. "Not a... Maverick? Well then what the hell are you, a Hunter?! If that's the case..." He advanced towards the dragon-reploid a bit, brandishing his scythe.
"What does it matter to you, Sigma?" asked Magma, still standing completely still, with his arms now crossed. "Alliances aren't an issue at the moment. All that matters is that I'm here to destroy you, and what little helpers you've got left around here."
Though the bald-headed Maverick was surprised at this statement, he still held a twisted grin on his face. "Oh, really? Personally, I have doubts that you'll be able to even get a scratch on me. Foolish Hunter... where is X and Zero? They're the ones I want to fight."
This comment stirred Magma's composure a bit, the rage inside of him now beginning to come out. "Forget about them!" he yelled. "They're trapped below us... I made sure of that. I'm taking you down MYSELF!"
"Really, eh...?" Sigma muttered nonchalantly. "Well, how about we make things interesting? I've got a little friend who's been DYING for some fresh Hunter kill ever since he's been activated. Now that X and Zero aren't present, I figure you could provide a nice refresher course for him! He'd love it, I'm sure..." Before continuing, the maniacal reploid pulled up something on his wrist, resembling something like a wristwatch. After pressing a few buttons, he laughed out loud and yelled, "OMEGAVILE! Get your ass OUT HERE!"
Suddenly, a blinding light of gold and yellow filled the entire space that separated Dragoon and Sigma, one so bright that the two were each forced to cover their eyes almost completely. Awkward whistling sounds began to fill the air as the light soon began to form a shape... the shape of a short, apparently helmetted reploid with features that wouldn't normally frighten anybody. It was like a golden silhouette... with all of the bright lighting in the room, it was extremely hard to get a good look at the figure before them. After a few more seconds, the light finally began to subside, and the figure that replaced it could now be clearly seen. Golden and yellow armor, with some black trimmings; a Maverick insignia painted neatly on his left arm, signifying his loyalties; a helmet serving as his only head, with only total blackness within in... different than before, as if he was almost without a soul; upgraded armor, with a larger-than-normal arm cannon slung fittingly over his right shoulder. Finally, Magma had come face to face with...
"Vile..." Magma muttered, sounding almost overjoyed. "Finally... I get to meet the real you."
"OmegaVile!" Sigma shouted almost immediately, pointing a finger at his new adversary. "He's in alliance with the Hunters! Eliminate him immediately... we can't let a fool like this remain alive." He chuckled evily a bit. "But, most importantly, enjoy yourself while doing so!"
And Vile would do just that. "Yes, Master Sigma..." he replied in a dark, monotone voice, much different than before. He stared straight at the red figure, his eyes lighting up like the fires of Hell. And so the battle of a lifetime was about to begin...