Mega Man X: Demons Of The Past

by Erico

The fight never ends, and two weeks past the end of TSOM, a new Chronicle is begun...

20. Curse Of The Oracle

MEGA MAN X: DEMONS OF THE PAST

By Erico

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: CURSE OF THE ORACLE

            Hazil had spent most of the night working and slaving over Bristol, purging her blood of the damnable serum that had turned her body's nanobots against every system in her body. Now at 2 A.M the next day, MHHQ time, the medical reploid was beginning to feel like he'd finished up everything he could.

            "Well, Bristol, it seems you were bound and determined to be the next person on my 'deaths' list." Hazil said quietly, reaching down to the blood filter inserted into her neck. The synthskin had peeled itself away when Hazil had brought it near, and now as he pulled the intertubule from her main neck's artery, it closed itself just as quickly. Hazil sighed in relief at that. He'd been worried her structural damage had been far more serious…but in the long run, all that serum had managed to do was turn her bloodstream's nanobots and slowly but surely, through a painful series of inner shocks, drive her body closer and closer to death. Somehow, its effect had been halted right at the point before she would have perished.

            The medical reploid shut the filter off and stared at the viscous green garbage that had been removed, sitting like a tumor inside the device's cache. He peered at it long and hard, then shook his head.

            "Somehow, the intelligent races on this Earth can always think of a hundred different ways to kill people, and yet at the same time can only bring up around five new ways to save them." He drew the operations curtain back and walked out, running a hand through his hair. "If I ever got to meet the bastard who came up with that little number of a serum, I'd gladly shake his hand…and then proceed to rip it off and bash him with it." The craziest part about Hazil's statement was that he was dead serious. Most statements before and right after a long session of drinking were. During was another thing, the close friends around him had discovered. He usually got carried away then.

            He exited out of the separate side room of the Medical Bay and into the main pavilion, where every last one of the eclectic group sat waiting. Hazil had to take a second look to make sure they were all still there.

            Wycost for one…his armor discarded for a more conservative green t-shirt, black leather jacket and blue jeans. His black hair was bristling as ever, and there sat his sunglasses on the bridge of his nose. Just by how he held his head made it seem as if he stared at nothing and everything at the same time.

            There on one of the waiting benches sat Doan, refusing to change out of his armor, but his helmet lying on the floor beside him. Cleo, that chipper and dazzling example of female genius was leaned up against him, eyelids blinking as she dozed peacefully. The medical reploid didn't fail to notice that the stoic Doan still rubbed a hand up and down the side of her neck.

            Allegro and J.K.—Julius Kinnian—Horn had pulled up two chairs next to one of the medical cots and were now playing what looked to be Gin Rummy. Horn's face was a mask of serenity, while Allegro's was far more scrunched and concerned. Maybe that came from the fact Horn had just knocked, and Allegro had a handful of garbage. Hazil perked his ears up…he'd been so preoccupied with Bristol's condition and randomly staring about the room he had missed the familiar crackle of a radio broadcast from another corner of the room.

            "…Large explosion occurred only hours ago here in the rural countryside of England, catching all by surprise. Sources nearby indicated that the explosion had been loud and brilliant, but had little outside damage aside from that brought about by the blast's concussion. Investigators on the scene comment that the damage was minimal, and seemed to happen in the middle of nowhere. Still, the burrowed hemispheric shaped crater dug deep into the English soil would seem to indicate that it was a large microfusion detonation that caused the incident…"

            Wycost went over to the blaring radio and shut it off. Hazil narrowed his eyes, but Wycost merely turned around at him and shrugged.

            "Let the world wonder. The only people who need to know what happened there do." The Bronx Bomber went back to his corner of the room and Hazil shrugged, letting his eyes continue their wary scan.

            Willow sat on another patientless medical cot, her legs crossed and head bowed in thought, red hair hanging like a drape over her face. Most of the rest of her body was hidden by a seagreen cloak, perhaps more of a poncho, that she had summoned out of nowhere. Her emotions, Hazil decided, were best left untouched by his scrutiny. He didn't know her well enough, and she certainly didn't make a habit of letting people get too close from what little of her he'd seen.

            Which left Bastion…If he was here. Hazil looked about the room, and couldn't see any sign of the Desert Angel…

            "Look above you." Came the ragged voice of the aforementioned Hunter. Hazil snapped his head up, only to find Bastion's face looking down at him from only inches away. Hazil jumped away in surprise until he realized how Bastion was doing it…his Archangel wings were active, allowing him to sit cross legged on the ceiling with his arms folded in an inverted position to the rest of the Medical Bay's inhabitants.

            "How is she?" Bastion asked shortly, denying the medical reploid a chance to utter a question of his own. Hazil opened his mouth once, shut it, then opened it again. Bastion's face tightened to the point of breaking. "DAMNIT, HAZIL…"

            "She'll be fine." Hazil assured him. "She'll be tired, cranky, and sore when she wakes up, but she'll live. I just hope you all are able to undo the emotional damage."

            "Acknowledging the truth wasn't easy for me either, ye know." Willow chirped, lifting her dazzling green eyes to shine through her red hair. "But in this case, it's definitely a few notches more difficult." She got up from her position and faced Hazil. "Just how long until the lass will be up again?"

            Hazil blinked at her a few times, hardly believing the question.

            "In her state of physical and mental exhaustion, I really don't want her getting up for another day or so…"

            "You'll have to be changing those plans then, O'Reilly." Willow chirped. Hazil narrowed his eyes at her.

            "And just what is so damned important you'd risk her life to pull her out of recovery stasis early?!"

            Willow looked back at Hazil, green eyes calm. "Not much, really. I suppose the survival of our race really doesn't matter. As a matter of fact, how about we all wait until tomorrow? By then MI9 will have carried through with Ice Beacon and doomed us all. So just go ahead and let her sleep what little life she has left on this Earth. Not that big of a deal, but I thought I'd at least TRY."

            Wycost cracked a smile, despite the fact there was very little left to laugh at anymore. After he'd realized Willow wasn't an enemy, he'd begun to watch her closely. She had a sort of bitter, dry real world humor about her, the kind Wycost paralleled. The both of them had spent most of their lives in Hellish conditions, which did little to give them good social graces. It did wonders for winning conversations, though.

            "Yeah, that." Hazil muttered to himself. He looked up at Bastion, and then around the room. "And just how is that supposed to happen? This Apocalypse sent from Ice Beacon, I mean." Willow looked at him coldly.

            "The Berserker Beacons were designed by Bristol at the time, to be used against Mavericks. But for all purposes, they can cause their effects in any plum reploid off the street. 'Be they Irregular or be they straight, every last one will suffer the fate!' I think that's what Jowers chuckled once. Wretched excuse of a man…" She shook her head. "Ice Beacon is a gigantic transmitter dish built out of the solid ice miles deep on Antarctica. This in itself would pose no difficulty…were it not for the fact that despite all rational beliefs held by me and Tarkin, there is indeed a Universal Berserker Frequency. A frequency and signal attitude that will place in every reploid it reaches the same state of paranoia, fear, and utter terror. We call it The Trembling." She looked up to Bastion. "Your dearest is a genius, Bastion. Make no mistake in that. Just know it may well cause the end of our race, and that if the world goes mad, it truly is her fault."

            Bastion glowered at her, but said nothing. Willow shrugged and turned to look at Horn for a moment.

            "What MI9 plans to do is throw the Universal Berserker Frequency planetwide, to hit every inch of land and sea with that unstoppable madness. Reploids will be hit with it, will scream in fear and rampage and flitter in terror. By itself, the power of a Berserker Beacon cannot instill death. But MI9 doesn't want to simply kill every reploid on Earth. That would do nothing."

            "I don't get it…" Doan uttered, being careful not to disturb Cleo. "Why don't they try and modify the stuff behind the Beacon and make it more powerful, so it just CAN destroy every reploid on Earth?"

            "Because humanity would rebuild them." Willow answered calmly. "If reploids were to vanish from this earth ten minutes from now, humanity would rebuild them. Because there would be no reason for reploids to stay deceased." She lifted a finger at the Ghost Wind. "But their plan is foolproof. It plays on humanity's nature like a drum. They'll send the signal from Ice Beacon, route it through every communications satellite in earth's orbit, which will then cause it to descend down upon us all. When that happens, every reploid will go berserk. And that is when everything has the capability to fall apart." She folded her arms underneath her cloak and looked down for a moment, then pulled her head back up, looking out blankly at no one this time. "In effect, every reploid on Earth will go, whether they want to or not, berserk. Which in human terms equates to Irregular—Maverick. When that happens, humanity as a whole will discard us. We'll be too much of a danger to their eyes. All everyone will know is that every reploid on Earth has gone off of the deep end. They won't know that a powerful, undefeatable signal hailing from Antarctica was the true source of the madness. MI9 seeks the end of all of us, an end to the age of robots and reploids and advanced technology. An end to the madness that began with the Wars of 2040, continued with Wily, and now in what MI9 considers to be the final dark chapter, all reploids entirely. But they will not strike the finishing blow. That will be left to all of humanity. MI9 will simply make it impossible for their race to ignore reploid genocide as the only viable option any longer."

            The Medical Bay of the MHHQ was most definitely one of the loneliest places on Earth. The only people who had ever come here 97% of the time had belonged in two groups—the dying, or the dead. Even now, that held true with grim irony.

            Hazil stuffed his hands back into his laboratory coat pockets and chuckled a bit.

            "Well, this is definitely new. Usually I'm the one giving terminal prognoses."

            Kalinka, now in June of 2085 was a knockout. That girlish charm she had held ten years before in 2075 and the Fourth Robot Rebellion had blossomed out, revealing the breathtaking blond beauty beneath. Sergei Cossack, her father, had noticed it, and so had every other Tom, Dick, and Larry. The brown haired robotics engineer merely chuckled a bit and shook his head sadly whenever he looked at her. He saw too much of her mother in those innocent features.

            It was those features Protoman found himself staring at over a chessboard. Whether most people believed it or not, all blondes were NOT stupid. Kalinka, for example, was very intelligent. Smart enough that Protoman was put to the test when it came to the 64 squared game. Sure, he could have simply shut off every other thought process and figured out countless thousands of ways to defeat her in five moves, but he never once bothered. There was no challenge in it.

            Now, there was.

            The robot, dressed in a gray t-shirt and black leather jacket nudged his pawn forth, his eyes staring at her face through his sunglasses. The Treeborg park was unusually empty today for a change. Of course, maybe that was because of the chill bite in the air. A gray sky stood overhead, preventing even the smallest amount of the sun's heat from coming down on the Moscow beautification project.

            "Your move." He announced unnecessarily. Kalinka batted her thin eyelashes once, then threw back a loose strand of her blond hair that had come down on her eyes. There was definitely something on her mind, the prototype decided…she seemed more preoccupied with something today. She usually played better than this.

            The young lady that was born from Sergei Cossack's loins crossed her legs underneath the table, out of nervousness rather than the cold. Everything today had gone so well, but for her, it all boiled down to this one moment.

            All these past nine years…Blues, Protoman, had always been there. Somehow, he kept coming back to her, despite the fact he was, according to the rest of his family, a loner who didn't stick around much.

            And now it came to this…

            She pulled back the wandering sleeve of her light blue knitted sweater that had decided to creep onto her hand's wrist and reached for the board. She pushed her knight two squares left and one forward…but didn't draw her hand back yet. She couldn't yet. Not while her heart felt so weak and the world smelled so hazy, when her body felt cold and hot at the same time. Breathe, Kalinka…Come on, breathe…

            She exhaled and drew in a fresh breath, then lifted her head up and stared at Protoman.

            "Blues?"

            "Da', Kalinka?" Blues asked, humoring her with a touch of her native tongue. Kalinka smiled nervously at the reference and almost gave up there. But a part of her still screamed for her to push on. So she did.

            "How long have we known each other?" She managed to squeak. Oh, GREAT. Come on, clear your head, you stupid girl…having your voice give out on you now is not an option!

            "Ten years now thereabouts, isn't it?" Protoman answered back. She nodded her head weakly. "Yes. Ten years now…Ever since…Well, you know." He continued meekly, not wanting to finish with 'ever since Wily kidnapped you and I saved you by dragging you through the Siberian wilderness'. "Why do you bother asking? This is something you know by heart, isn't it?"

            "I suppose." Kalinka admitted, finding strength in the fact her voice had grown stronger. Finally, she released her slender finger's grip from the knight and pulled her hand back. Your move, my knight…

            Protoman mulled over his options for a few more moments, then ruffled at his head of black hair and readjusted his glasses. "You know, everything's been so quiet recently. I mean, Wily hasn't done anything in months…" He reached down and nudged his queen forward two spaces. "I want to say he's given up, but considering his track record I can't give that statement more than a passing glance."

            "Don't worry. If he comes back, you and Mega Man will defeat him." Kalinka said, blushing a little at the tone that seeped into her voice. God, Kalinka…you're like an open book at times. You take any longer and he'll figure it out just by watching your body language…

            "But I had a reason for asking you that question." Kalinka continued. In response to his queen's new position, she brought her other knight to bear. Her king was now only protected by a fringe of pawns…No sense holding back now. You can't. Just lay all your cards down, girl. Just tell him!!

            "Oh?" Blues pondered. He hesitated on his next move and leaned back in his seat. "And what, praytell mistress Kalinka, was that reason?"

            Kalinka had to shut her eyes for a moment, to quiet the fluttering ache inside her chest. But she finally opened her eyes and nodded, standing up from the board.

            "You've been a part of my life for ten years now, Blues. And in that time, you have been one of the few that actually bothered to get to know me, to get close to me." She smoothed out her blue sweater and long red skirt. A wind blew by, causing her to shiver briefly. But she fought against the urge to put on her heavy winter coat. She wasn't trying to stay warm. She had a more important goal on this gray day.

            "For that reason, I know that you have at least some feelings for me. But you're not the only one, Blues. It's taken me ten years to know this, ten years to finally have it sink in, but I now know why you are the only robot I truly get along with."

            Behind his glasses, Protoman blinked a few times, wondering just what she was getting at. But he said nothing, allowing the Russian girl to finish her statement. Something about it seemed to ward off any sort of interruption. Still, he dreaded its coming.

            "And do you know why that is, Blues?" Kalinka continued, slowly moving next to him and sitting down beside him. He looked up into her face, and she looked down into his. "It's because I love you."

            Oh, please no…Please, don't say that…

            "Kal…"

            "Let me finish." She exclaimed, lifting a hand up and covering his mouth. Her eyes were shining now with the beginnings of tears. All her fears about the moment vanished away, because now she was in it. Was a part of it. "It was you who saved me from my death. It was you who rocked me to sleep those cold nights on the trip back. It was you who protected me from death, time and time again. It was you who sang to me and talked to me and comforted me when no one else could. Blues, you are the man I love. The man I will always love."

            Protoman opened his mouth, shut it, then opened and shut it again. He shut his eyes and shook his head, dropping his chin down to his chest. He mumbled something then, which Kalinka couldn't hear.

            "What was that?"

            "You can't love me." Blues finished sadly.

            His reply dropped like a stone in calm waters. It utterly destroyed Kalinka's state of mind.

            "Blues…"

            "No, this time let ME finish." Protoman answered back. His voice was firm, but also cracking from the effort. "Kalinka, you can't love me. I'm a robot, and you're a human. You can't 'love' a robot…not the way you love a human. Christ, any shot you'd have at reproduction would get thrown out the window!"

            "I don't care about having children, I don't care about carrying on the family line!" Kalinka protested desperately now, still clinging to the broken shards of her fairy tale dream. "All I want is you, Blues!"

            "We age differently, Kalinka." Blues argued again. "Twenty, thirty years from now I'll still look the same. But you'll have grown old…to spend a lifetime with me is just ridiculous. You'll only get older, I'll still be me. One day, you would become resentful of that. I know it."

            "Even if it is just for one short human lifetime, the dream can still exist!"

            "It can't." Protoman croaked. Kalinka's face mutated into a hurt and snarling creature.

            "LIAR!! You're just afraid to admit your feelings…admit it, you feel the same!!"

            "I have to." Protoman echoed. "First Law of Robotics: A robot cannot harm, or through inaction, allow harm to come to a human being. If I don't follow that prerogative, I DIE." Blues stood up and looked evenly at her. "Is that what you want, Kalinka? A lover who can only love you to prevent you from suffering harm? A forced relationship? If you pursue this, you'll do nothing more than enslave me. Because that's exactly what I'll become, Kalinka. I won't be the free spirit you see and love before you. I'll become a hollow shell of who I once was, bonded to you only by the immutable First Law and the need to prevent damage to you."

            Kalinka's lower lip quivered. But even as his words sank in, a part of her rebelled against the truths they offered.

            "Blues…"

            There, the robot reached a hand up to his face. And he did something he'd almost never done in his entire life. Very few times had this particular action been performed.

            He took off his glasses.

            "Look into my eyes, Kalinka." Protoman said, keeping his blue irises from dancing about as he restrained his emotions. "Through them, you'll know the truth. The truth I'm telling you."

            It shone in his blue eyes. The utter belief he held in his words that he was right, that it could not be. Somehow, Kalinka had known all along. She had just never been willing to accept it. Until the moment he had finally told her no, had finally refused her, she simply brushed aside the reality.

            You do this to prevent harm from coming to me…but don't you know that you're breaking my heart??

            "It hurts now." Blues muttered quietly. "I know it does. But if you kept this up, it would only hurt more later. A broken heart is far better than a shattered one, Kalinka. If it's broken, you can at least pull it back together."

            Kalinka looked down at him, her own eyes glistening with tears now shed out of loss and hurt feelings.

            "Blues, I can't…I just can't…"

            I can't stop loving you…

            "This can't go on, Kalinka. It's not healthy and it can't happen. For…"

            Kalinka uttered a choked sob and escaped out of the park, her winter coat in hand. Blues let his eyes trail her a while longer, then slipped his sunglasses back on.

            There were times he wished he could cry like humans could. They threw it around so freely…only robots like him could be so envious of the power of tears.

            But Kalinka had run off before Blues had finished his last sentence. So as he turned away from the sight of the fleeing girl and back to the abandoned chess game, he finished it.

            "For me, Kalinka. Not you. Humans can rebuild their hearts. I can't. Perhaps I could love you…but then what would happen on the day you left me?? It couldn't happen, Kalinka. Death would not let it happen."

            The prototype of Rockman shut his eyes and tightened his left hand into a ball.

            In the end…maybe we just hide our true feelings behind excuses.

            He reached down and moved his queen into the interior defense ring of Kalinka's pawns…

            "Checkmate."

            Kalinka lay there in her bed, blinking her teary eyes and staring at the ceiling.

            It didn't matter how many layers of blankets she put on her bed. She still felt how cold it had been that day in 2085…the day when Blues had rebuked her feelings.

            She got up from the sheets and walked over to her nightstand, her light blue nightgown tickling her ankles. The glass of water left by Bright Man was still there. She didn't reach for it.

            After her confession to Blues, Kalinka had never seen him again. Only a few months later, Blues had died like all the others at the hands of Wily's final creation—A Demon that years later, was given the name Zero.

            There had never been closure in that aspect of her life. Years later, while Sergei Cossack withered away in the Citadel's lower levels, Kalinka had tried to integrate back into the world. That had utterly failed. She knew too much, was too embittered by her life to be pulled into the shallow existence that plagued humanity in the time before the age of reploids.

            Of course, after the discovery of Mega Man X, or more precisely, the announcement of that discovery late in 2117, Sergei Cossack had decided along with his robots that perhaps it was time to 're-open' their doors. At least it would bring some much needed money back into the Citadel…keeping the place running was no easy task.

            Kalinka hadn't liked it then anymore than she had liked robots in the first place…But her father had frowned at her then.

            "Damnit, Kalinka! I'm an old man now, well past my prime. Just how else am I to provide for you, for them?"

            "What do you mean, provide for THEM?! Your robots, father? Just why in the Hell would you have to provide for them? They're ageless, they don't have worries like you and I do…"

            "Kalinka…" Sergei had said then, eyes hurt and brimming with tears.

            Even in his final hours of life, Sergei had never heard Kalinka say something he had to have wanted to hear for years.

            And now it was too late.

            Blues was dead. Her father, Sergei Cossack was dead. And all she had left was this castle, and the robots that lived in it. All her life, Kalinka had been caught up in questions she'd never answered, conflicts she'd never resolved. And because of that, because of that lack of closure, every loss always hit her hard.

            She'd nearly lost Pharaoh Man not long ago. And that was what scared her.

            "Times change. And if you don't change with them…you're lost in the dust." She whispered quietly.

            She slipped on a robe and walked out of her door, looking down the hall. There was Pharaoh Man, on patrol once more.

            "Phare?" The robot turned his head in reply, then darted over next to her.

            "Yes, Kalinka?" He asked, blinking his robotic optics. Kalinka stared at him for a long while, then bent down and gave him a hug. Pharaoh Man blinked in surprise, but returned it. "What's this for, sis?"

            "For a memory." She replied, taking a long breath in. "You're all I have left now, Phare. The only one who came back from death…"

            "What do you mean?"

            "Blues…my father…" She whimpered, dropping to her knees as she tightened her grasp on the Robot Master. "I never got to tell them how I truly felt. They both died before I could…only you came back." She pulled back from him and nodded. "Phare, I'm sorry for all the hurtful things I've ever said to you. It's taken me over thirty years to realize the truth…"

            "What truth?"

            "That perhaps I didn't hate robots…as much as I hated the people who used them." She looked at him. "It was Wily who made those Robot Masters that kidnapped me in 2075. It was Wily that made the Demon…the Demon that killed Blues. And in some way, I hated my father, because he made you, and after the Fourth Robot Rebellion put all his energies into helping you."

            Kalinka shook her head. "Just know that I love you Phare. You're the only family I have now. You and the others…we're my father's children, all of us. Whether we're made of flesh and blood or silicon and steel. And I was wrong to ever think otherwise."

            "I care for you too, sis." Phare answered back. The aging beauty nodded her head once.

            "I know." She bowed, then stepped back inside of her room and shut the door.

            Phare blinked a few times, then headed back down the hallway, a slow contented smile creeping on his face.

            "Now the healing begins." For Kalinka, at least. Phare's process was still underway. But for now…

            He had to go down to the Fourth Ring and keep an eye on the ops center.

            "State your name."

            "Signas." Came the unfeeling reply of the towering reploid. He sat across a long table from three gentlemen, all a part of the GDC. He recalled their names, of course…minor parts of the larger whole. Nobody in the triad sitting in front of him was of great importance. Not like Emilius Cristoph.

            They all looked at Signas, not in disgust like Signas had found some did. They looked at him with eyes that indicated thought and hawkish planning.

            "Signas, do you know why you were created?" The middle aged man on the right asked.

            The towering reploid shook his head and the military style cap atop of it.

            "Well, let us remind you." The one in the middle picked up. "You were designed to be the most intelligent reploid ever. Your CPU is the most precise ever built of any reploids'. But most importantly, you were designed to serve the interests of the Global Defense Council, which represents the world." Signas nodded his head, but said nothing. The final man leaned forward a bit, propping himself up on his arms.

            "You were made to be a negotiator, a thinker. A planner. The perfect diplomat. Concise and to the point. You were designed to help this world, Signas. To help this world in a way no other reploid before has."

            "What is to be my first mission?" Signas asked, face unblinking.

            A manila envelope was slid across the large meeting table to him. Quickly, Signas opened it up and peered at the contents.

            "One of our liason officers has retired. He was our official connection to both Repliforce and the Maverick Hunters…"

            "Of course now, Repliforce is for all purposes annihilated." Signas summarized. "Less than 10% of their former strength now remains, and they have been placed under direct GDC control."

            It was the truth, of course. Even with the final news that the events leading up to Sky Lagoon's crash to the city below, as well as the massive Maverick Dragonoid had all been Sigma's doing once again, the simple fact had remained after the fact that Repliforce had reacted rashly. Jet Stingray was the worst example of that overreaction, with his destruction of the massive harbor port city so many humans had called home.

            "Yes. I suppose he felt some responsibility for what occurred…the fool." The GDC official on the left mused bitterly. "In any case, the events of the Repliforce Uprising…"

            "The Fourth Maverick Uprising…"

            "In any case, Signas." The center official snapped, chastising the reploid for speaking out of turn. "You are to assume his role, as our official liason with the Maverick Hunters."

            "As you wish it." Signas bowed. They dismissed him, and he left.

            Signas blinked a few times, then shook his head suddenly. He'd lost all track of time…now he'd taken to dreaming of the past, eh? Perhaps just being around these Maverick Hunters was changing him.

            The LCD clock display beside the glowing computer monitor blinked a steady 10:47. A.M. The next day. Which meant it was June 25th. And time now for action to be taken. He tapped his wrist's comm.

            "Commanders X and Zero, please report to Signas's office." It was basic enough, and betrayed nothing of his true intentions. That was one part of Signas's attitude he hadn't changed since his GDC days. That indifference in his voice.

            It only took the two Maverick Hunters around four minutes to arrive. They walked in the door without knocking…an action that Signas had to remember they were still used to doing. For 13 years, Cain had probably allowed them to come and go as they pleased. That wasn't likely to change anytime soon.

            X looked collected; Zero looked mad. In other words, the two were about normal. The both of them shared a quiet repugnance for Signas.

            Well, that's what he had to change now, wasn't it…

            "Since my arrival, I have been met with almost constant defiance and anger. I believe a part of this reason is that I was forced upon you all to replace James Cain, the man responsible for the creation of the reploid race as a whole and also your trusted friend. Also, I am beginning to realize that my early actions were at the time, rash and unnecessary." Signas stepped out from behind his desk and tucked his hands behind his back. "As of this moment, I wish to apologize for that."

            That made the two blink and stare at him oddly.

            "Just what sort of a game are you pulling, Signas?" Zero growled. The General of the Maverick Hunters shook his head calmly.

            "No games, Zero. I am merely trying to smooth out the wrinkles in the relationship between the rest of this base and me. Because that is the only way we'll be in any shape to take on the Mavericks. If we work together. Realize my experiences are vastly different than yours. I was trained to be level headed, without emotion in my choices. You two, and the rest of the Hunters have obviously had a different set of values instilled into you. You have no problem using emotions, and for the longest time have relied on them. This is where the difference lies. I need to adjust to you, and you need to adjust to some of my habits. I can't change everything about how this place works. I apologize for my attempts at even trying. I can only move on." Signas stepped closer to the two. "I know all too well who runs this place, who the others look up to. They look to you. And so now I look to you. Will you forgive me? And will you work with me??"

            X and Zero looked at each other for a moment, and then at Signas.

            "So you really want to make a difference?" X asked tentatively. "You're willing to put aside your viewpoints and rely on our own experiences to help guide you?"

            "Yes." Signas nodded calmly. He extended his hand. "So will you help me?"

            X reached for the reploid's hand…but Zero beat him to it, grasping the reploid's paw firmly.

            The Crimson Hunter stared Signas down.

            "So you're serious? You won't change how the Hunters work, or how the MHHQ operates? You'll let it stay how old man Cain ran things?"

            "I believe you made it quite clear I didn't know my place in matters such as those." Signas said, the corner of his mouth curling up. Zero smirked at that.

            "Guess I did. But you won't mess things up?"

            "Did you notice the door opened for you automatically? I disabled the lock on it. Anyone can come and go as they please. I believe that's how Cain would have wanted it." Signas inferred. "I cannot change how the Hunters operate. You have your own styles, your own methods. The GDC was wrong to think that I would have the power to change that. But there are two things I can do that will aid you."

            "And just what are those?"

            "One, I can keep the Hunters how they are, by getting the GDC off of your back again." Signas said. Both X and Zero brightened up at that.

            "And two?" Zero asked, tightening his grip on Signas's hand. Signas smiled, an earnest smile that both Hunters had not thought possible with the stoic reploid. Zero began to clench his teeth as Signas's hand tightened around his with even more power.

            "Two; let me use my rational brain to give the Hunters a plan of attack that works." Signas released his grip on Zero's hand, and the Crimson Hunter pulled it back, still wincing.

            X looked at Signas.

            "A plan, huh? You mean, we take the offensive for a change? I like that. The trick is, will they fall for it?"

            "They will." Signas assured them. "One thing I know about the Mavericks under Sigma after studying the Uprisings and all other major incidents over the past thirteen years…they're all too predictable."

            Dolph Reach opened his eyes. Instantly, he was attacked by a thousand pinpricks of visual stimulation and was sorry he'd done so.

            He was floating in some sort of green liquid…

            Aaw, shit…not this crap again. The rest of them had to drag me back by my fins, I'll bet.

            The light in the room dimmed, and the feeling of weightlessness over all of the Maverick General's body slowly subsided. He realized, as more of his mental faculties came back online, that the restorative tubule he was in was slowly draining the green regenerative fluid out. He ran a self-diagnostic.

            All systems at 100%. Optimum performance levels. Addition of TitaniTefloAlloy wristbands…accepted.

            His feet settled onto the bottom of the capsule and stood erect. A gust of wind blew through the capsule, siphoning away the last particles of wetness left. The capsule opened with a slow hiss, and Dolph used one of his hands to steady himself as he stepped out.

            "Welcome back to the land of the living." Came a dry, but satisfied voice. Dolph blinked a few times more, then let his eyes adjust. The lights began to bring themselves back up to full intensity. Kazok was staring down at him, arms folded. "Although I'd suggest next time you try to avoid getting those hands of yours sliced off."

            Dolph stared at his hands. A shimmering gleam of metal on the upper portion of his hand caught his eye, and he found that it went all the way back, providing a solid guard against any sort of slicing. An entire ring went around his wrists.

            "What's all this?" Dolph asked, lifting his paws up backwards so Kazok could see them. The black haired Maverick Leader shrugged his shoulders easily.

            "Insurance. That stuff's TitaniTefloAlloy. Does a terrific job of deflecting plasma bullets and minimal semi-charged blasts, and more importantly, beam saber slashes. With any luck, you'll never have to worry about getting your hands chopped off again."

            Dolph made an excited chittering noise and clenched one of his hands into a fist.

            "I like those odds." Kazok smirked a bit.

            "Thought you might, Dolph. Now come on. We have to get you back to the others. Still more training to be done."

            "What kind of training?"

            "For one, now I have to show you how to use those wristbands of yours effectively." Kazok replied back, priming his Buster and letting it hand at his side. "As if you didn't already know it by now, Dolph, I made a promise to every last one of you that as long as we stuck together, we'd all make it back alive. Well, I don't intend to start failing on that now." Kazok tilted his head slightly so the bottlenosed Maverick could see one of his eyes. "You with me?"

            "Until the cold, bitter freakin' end!!" Dolph announced steadfastly. Kazok clucked his approval and kept walking on. But he didn't let Dolph stare at the uncertainty in his black eyes, which now shone with self-control and not the Virus's power.

            The end is coming soon, Dolph…I only hope to whatever power exists that we all survive it.

            Bristol was not one taken to self doubt all that much. In her past life with MI9, she had been confident in her abilities, her skills, and her genius. In the life that followed at the MHHQ, she had trusted in Bastion, in her love, and her purpose.

            Both would have gone fine by themselves. But Bristol had had the misfortune to have two methods of existence. And there could be no balance between them. Especially not now.

            While her body slept and recuperated, her mind scampered about under its own accord and fear. Under its own paranoia, delusions, and lies, Bristol had provided the raw materials for her prison. MI9 had built it.

            So she hung there, in that realm between the waking world and death, suspended on a cold stone wall by chains that dug into her wrists, dull eyes watching the void ahead of her unfolding into madness.

            Madness I am responsible for creating, she thought with what sanity had been left to her.

            "Oh, come now Bristol." A crackling, dull voice rasped cheerfully. "You've got to realize that at some point, your race was doomed. Even in religious texts, the tales of races created by their masters that grew too strong, too self-confident in their abilities are prevalent. They rebelled against their creators as well, you know. And do you know what happened to them, dear Bristol? They were destroyed. Such was the fate of all then, as it is now. The reploid race was doomed from the moment Sigma started the First Maverick Uprising."

            She lifted her chin off of her neck and stared at her tormentor. It was a figure shrouded in tattered rags, a death shroud that had long since lost any beauty. Like somebody had buried the garment underground and left it to decompose for countless hours of time before pulling it back up to wear. It held a worn down scythe in one hand hidden in ragged cloth, looking for all the world like the reaper of legend.

            "Oh, they were doomed all right. As doomed as you. But you, dear Bristol, hold all the blame for a more immediate demise. Without you, without you creating the Berserker Beacons, humanity and reploid kind would have gone as it is now for handfuls of years. But now…now, that timeline has been shattered by the coming of an element even God himself could not have forseen. The efforts of one naïve little inventor, the woman who would doom the world."

            "You put guilt upon me I already suffer." Bristol murmured quietly, unable to blink as she stared at the pseudo-grim reaper before her. "Just how much more do you think you can add to this Hell? Kill me and be done with it."

            The grim reaper figure before Bristol mulled over that for a while, then reached a hand out of the shroud…skeletal, obviously. But what frightened Bristol was that it was a metallic hand…the hand of a reploid, without the synthskin, glove, or wiring and blood tubules.

            Slowly, but deliberately the hand came up and pushed the hood of the death shroud back, revealing the face underneath.

            Numbly, Bristol stared back at the face that mirrored hers horribly.

            "Guilt you have…but pain and suffering, the penance for your actions?? You do not. No, death will not come yet. Not until I am done." The skeletal Bristol answered back. Loose flaps of synthskin dangled loosely from the metallic skull, in other places it was missing entirely. The blond hair on her dark doppelganger had fallen out in some portions, combing with all the other facets of her design in a vision that was truly horrific.

            "Come on, Bristol. Say it." The chameleon murmured, cracking a grin with its metallic skull. "Say what you yourself have confirmed time and time again. It's my fault. It's my fault." Still, Bristol remained silent. The demonic impostor rubbed at its chin for a moment before chuckling. "Even worse, you have doomed Willow. And you have given Bastion nothing but a troubled future to look forward to…one where he'll be pitted against humanity."

            The specter turned about and waved a hand in front of the opposite wall, causing the stone to ripple and shimmer. As if water took its place, a dull mirror filled Bristol's sight.

            "Few ever get to see the fruit of their labors be born into the world and appreciated, Bristol." The specter chuckled lowly, turning about and motioning a skeletal hand in front of the makeshift mirror. "But now, let me show you of what will be. What will come because of your genius, your existence." The mirror trembled for a moment, filling itself with darkness…

            And then darkness gave way to clarity and vision. Heart aching from a sudden pain, Bristol could do nothing as the horrible vision asserted itself…

            The humans in the hovertransport crouched lowly as they checked and double checked their weapons. Power packs were tested, magrifles reloaded, beam sabers ignited and extinguished. Dressed in an amalgamation of traditional fare body armor, stranger cloaks and robes, and low-EM shield emitters, the humans looked prepared for anything, yet tense at the same time.

            The commander at the front of the bus turned around and ran his eyes over the men in front of him. His uniform was more traditional military, clearly marked with the rank insignias on his shoulder lapels. He needed only clear his throat once, and every person aboard quieted down and stared up expectantly. Only the low engine thrum of the hovertransport made any sound then.

            "Team, the GDC has sent us on perhaps our most dangerous…and last…mission ever. In the past, we've dealt with Mavericks from traditional areas. But this time, we're facing trained Mavericks. Ex-Hunters."

            "God…not HIM!!" One young woman gasped, her face blanching easily. Every person on the transport tensed up at her statement, instantly looking worried. The commander shook his head easily.

            "No, we're not facing Mega Man X. The GDC hasn't been able to find him yet…he's somehow managed to remain hidden from every last one of our sorties. It's like he doesn't even exist anymore. But we are facing highly trained ex-Hunters. Our data indicates that this particular group is an amalgamation of scraps, composed primarily of what used to be the Lightning Strike Unit. So no. We're not facing the one, but we are facing well-trained warriors this time around. So be on your guard, all. Mistakes here will cost us all dearly. We'll only get one chance at this, so make it good. We have them confined in an anti-warp EM field around what used to be New Tokyo and the MHHQ, so they can't run in the traditional fashion. But realize the odds we're up against. Even SIGNAS is working with them, according to our sources." He stared around the carrier. "Is the mission objective clear, all??"

            "SIR!!" Came the unison response. The commander had no smile to offer. He merely nodded his head.

            "In that case, may God be with us." He tipped his hat and sighed, then turned back around to the driver. "Let's go."

            "Roger that!!" Came the enthusiastic reply.

            The hovertransport powered up its boosters even more and rapidly skimmed across the many kilometers of sea between Cornus Island and the main island of Japan.

            Now there was no turning back.

            "Incoming." Gavin said wearily, accessing the MHHQ's radarscope data. Signas was by him in moments, firm hand placed on the back of the ruined chair. The War Room was darker than before. Of course, considering the fact that New Tokyo had become a ruined shell of itself and the MHHQ was fast running short of its power supplies, they had had to cut back on certain measures.

            "How soon?" Came Signas's icy reply. Gavin blinked a few times, then tapped the keyboard.

            "An hour…two hours at most. And we can't escape. They've used their satellites to erect an EM anti-warp bubble over the region." Signas shook his head.

            "They never give up, do they?"

            "Can you blame them, sir?" Gavin scoffed. "As far as the world knows, all reploids are now a danger. Even the Hunters."

            "You don't need to remind me of what happened in the past…" Signas mumbled, rubbing at his wrist and the blinking device that was attached to it. "If it weren't for Willow's Anti-Tremblers, we'd have long ago perished as well."

            But in the process…we've merely doomed the end of our race to a slow and dwindling whimper.

            Dully, Signas nodded his head and pulled away from Gavin. "Who do we have available for defense?"

            "Bastion, Willow, Doan, Dash Blade, Kazok Gravor…A few others, but those are the main power players." Gavin mumbled. He looked up and shook his head. "This is gonna be the one, isn't it sir?"

            "The one what." Signas replied back quietly.

            "The one where the humans finally kill us." Gavin snorted bitterly. "The great and mighty reploid race…forever extinguished because of a plot instigated by a group whose roots go back even beyond the time of the Robot Rebellions."

            "Don't think like that, son." A new voice spoke up forcefully. Signas and Gavin turned about in the quiet War Room to find themselves staring at Julius Kinnian Horn, the brilliant but slightly misguided weapons designer who had crossed paths with the Hunters because of his doomed group URFAWP. His Hawaiian shirt had seen better days, but the sparkle in his normal eye was still as bright as ever. "You seem to forget one thing about us. We were made to be like them. We have their streak of self-preservation, as well as the Laws." He shrugged his shoulders. "In any case, should I warn the troops?"

            "Do it." Signas ordered. Horn gave a half-hearted salute and tottered back out, maneuvering his way over the rubble that still hadn't been cleared away yet. Gavin shook his head and turned back to the monitor.

            "Three hovertransports…and each of those can hold up to twenty men. That's sixty, Signas. And our numbers are barely half that anymore."

            Signas didn't bother answering. He let the room's quiet speak for him.

            Journal Entry, November 21st, 2132. 4:27 P.M, Central MHHQ Time.

            It's been a year and a half now since 'The Cleansing'. I use MI9's term for that statement because that is just what it caused. Ice Beacon was a complete success, despite all our efforts…We weren't able to stop them in time.

            Bristol died in her sleep. I suppose that the damage caused by her torture in the now destroyed MI9 HQ was too intense…And yet Hazil continues to insist that she should have lived—That is, when he isn't curled up in a corner babbling like a child. Her loss proved too much for him, and The Cleansing didn't help matters much either. Perhaps in the end…perhaps she felt so guilty that her subconscious no longer wanted to live. Because it's largely her fault. She was the one who created the Berserker Beacons, the technology that MI9 used in Ice Beacon…

            We lost Allegro, Pharaoh Man, and Wycost in that failed attempt to stop MI9's plans. We mourned them then…but now, we mourn for ourselves and consider the dead lucky. They died in pain, yes…but they didn't have to face the Hell that followed.

I suppose for anyone who might ever conceivably read this, I might as well list what we now know. 'The Madness', as humanity and the GDC calls it, the event where every reploid on Earth went berserk, was not caused by the Mavericks. No, Sigma could have never conceived of a plan as grand as the pure human mind did…What caused The Madness was Ice Beacon. A large satellite dish built out of solid ice, at the heart of Antarctica, Ice Beacon managed to get its signal out before we could stop it. The UBF. It escaped us, and then we were all doomed.

            Sigma and most of the Mavericks were done in early on…they were too visible, too readily available to blame. But killing them did not solve a blessed thing…it changed nothing. If the world had remained as it was, killing Sigma would have solved everything. But not in the fractured reality we exist in now.

            Horn paused quietly and stared at the hole in the exterior wall. A dull grayness had fallen over New Tokyo again…it seemed to come more often than usual, as did the rain. This time, the clouds were content to hover there oppressively, a constant reminder of the void beyond. Eventually, he finished and kept walking to the makeshift barracks.

            Of course, the GDC and the entire world found itself unable to ignore the threat any longer. Reploids were all declared Maverick…even those within the Maverick Hunters. Not even Signas, the GDC's golden boy escaped accusation.

            We were all ordered destroyed. But X and Zero took a chance then, a chance we still find ourselves questioning even now. Coming in peace, they marched into the GDC's regular session and tried to plead our case.

            They didn't return. As far as we know, they're dead. Or if they aren't, they were driven into hiding. It's funny…in the time when we need those two the most, they're nowhere to be found. 'Superman doesn't live here anymore' perhaps rings true now.

            The humans abandoned New Tokyo quickly…once X and Zero vanished from view, the Hunters panicked and bunkered in. The mighty gem of the orient is now nothing more than a ghost town, one that the scraps of reploids remaining now inhabit like the survivors of the Apocalypse. New Tokyo is perhaps the only surviving haven left to our kind anymore. The Purges worldwide saw to that. And only New Tokyo remains because the Maverick Hunters and even the Mavericks remained steadfast and vigilant, protecting their own kind.

            Perhaps that is the humorous part. In the age we left behind, the age where some things still made sense, Maverick Hunters fought with Mavericks and humans sat back on their laurels. Once Sigma was destroyed, and once X and Zero vanished from sight, both parties found themselves with one single thought on their minds; survival. Previous allegiances didn't matter anymore. Not with humans screaming for the extinction of our kind. No, in the end, we are all reploids. And we need all the help we can get.

            In the beginning, there were hundreds of us. HUNDREDS. Now…

            Only handfuls of surviving civilian reploids remain in New Tokyo anymore. And the warriors?? At last count, there were only twenty nine of us. And I'm the 29th.

            Just minutes ago, I walked into the War Room and found a dismal vision staring back at me. Three hovertransports…sixty able reploid killers on their way. The MHHQ lies in disrepair, and is low on power and resources. My bank accounts were frozen and appropriated, and even if they hadn't been, nobody would have sold me anything. The reploids now live on borrowed time.

            We didn't want this. None of us did. But MI9…damn them, damn them all…They made it impossible for humanity to see us as anything but a danger. It was thanks to them that we are doomed. No…

            No, it is thanks to Bristol that we are doomed. Damn her. I hope in whatever Hell she occupies, she is suffering and crying for us. Like the mythical Prometheus, who was chained to a rock and unable to escape as a crow ate his liver day after day, I hope Bristol suffers an equal penance for what she has done.

            The blood of the innocents…It lies on her hands. Of course, none of us ever say that. Bastion still cares for her, still loves her. Even in death, she remains his angel of mercy.

            And not just for Bastion's sake, perhaps the final figure we can all rally behind. For our own. Crying over the past will do us little good now. It will not help us, or make us stronger.

            Perhaps this is the day. The day when it will all end. When humanity will at last kill the last of us, raise their banners high and shout that from here to eternity, they are free of the robots, free of the reploids. Free of all intelligence but their own.

            But then, I have studied history. And what I have learned…

            If it hadn't been for the Mavericks, humanity would have destroyed all reploids.

            If it hadn't been for all the reploids…Humanity would have destroyed itself.

            The Wars of 2040…the War of 2090…all the evidence is there. Even if they do destroy us, it will not help them. Their destructive natures will see their end. With the reploids' help, perhaps the inhabitants of Earth might have endured.

            Without us…humanity will turn against itself. This is fate. This is destiny.

            And soon, there will come a time when we are gone. When humans are gone. When the cities will be crumbled into sand and the planet will shake our monuments and symbols of existence off like fleas on a dog.

            It is said God made a rainbow after Noah's flood, a promise to mankind that he would never again destroy them.

            Humanity created the Second Rainbow after the Wars of 2040, as a symbolic promise that it would never destroy itself.

            But now…Now, none of that matters.

            We're all doomed.

            All we are…is dust in the wind.

            "End recording." Horn mumbled. A message flashed in the corner of his eye. SAVE? Horn told it yes. He always did…it was his lucky momento, a good luck charm that he would always make it back alive. But this time, the action felt hollow.

            He reached the barracks, though. What had remained of the Rec Room, the expansive facility that hordes of Hunters had once trained in. It seemed emptier now. As empty as he did.

            Kazok and Doan walked up to him, eyes dull. Kazok because he wasn't at maximum power, and Doan because…

            The death of Cleo hit him hard. God, it had to. Losing Bristol nearly made Bastion go insane for a while.

            And yet, 'The Ghost Wind' remained eerily silent, face letting nothing out.

            "Where's Bastion?" Horn asked quietly.

            "In the city." Kazok answered back. "Why?"

            "The killers are back." Horn replied. Kazok's eyes darkened.

            "How many?"

            "Three hovertransports full…we estimate sixty. Find him and get him. We need every man we can get for this one." Horn replied.

            Doan chewed on his lower lip. Kazok said nothing. Horn merely breathed. Finally, Kazok nodded.

            "All right, I'm on it." His gravicrystals popped free and began to rotate around him…they weren't nearly as polished as they had been at one point. The supply shortages had seen to that.

            Kazok took off, pushing aside the piece of debris they had used to cover the gaping hole in the barrack's ceiling that had been caused by GDC shelling some months ago.

            Dash Blade tottered over next to them and shook her head.

            "This one's going to be bad, isn't it." She stated flatly, sounding as if she already knew the answer to the question she had never asked.

            Horn could only nod his head slowly.

            New Tokyo had once glimmered like a diamond in the darkness. Humans and reploids had coexisted peacefully, and the neon lights had made it almost impossible for anyone to tell night from day.

            But that had been then. And this was now. A far different now. Slowly, Bastion maneuvered his boots over the piles of mildly dangerous rubble as he made his way into the somehow intact main hospital. Intact, but still as dead as anything else here. Most hospitals had the smell of antiseptic wash, of sterile floors.

            Here, the only smell that pervaded the air was death. Like everything else in New Tokyo anymore, only corpses and shells remained.

            "Hazil??" He called out warily. The hallway whistled with the wind that the outside blew in through the structural cracks, offering nothing but a hollow response.

            "Come on, old friend. I know you're in here somewhere."

            Finally, The Desert Fire found who he was looking for. The clattering of a chair and bedpans off in one room down the long hallway, the door cracked and letting out the barest sliver of light.

            "So there you are." Bastion murmured quietly. He walked the rest of the distance and poked his head inside…

            Empty. No, Hazil wasn't in the empty, dead room. But there was the large hole in the wall that led to the outside. Bastion's eyes narrowed behind his helmet's pink tinted flight visor as he walked inside and wandered to the gaping wound. Outside, he caught the barest hint of a shadow as it went around a corner and disappeared.

            Still wandering…He just can't ever stop, can he? Bastion shook his head for a moment, then jumped out of the hospital's jagged opening and fell down to the ground. Unlike Hazil, Bastion had the ability of flight, which he called upon as two majestic, but tarnished wings sprung free of their container underneath his arms. His rapid plummet slowed down until he hovered just above  the ground, wings flapping only because he felt the need to make them do so.

            The Angel's Advantage still performed as well now as it had on its very first mission. Only now, thanks to J.K. Horn, the wings drew their power directly from his microfusion generator, and not their own rechargeable battery supply. They'd had to do that change…eventually, the batteries had worn out, and they had had nothing to replace them with. Of course, they hadn't had much to replace anything in New Tokyo at all.

            Bastion felt his eyes droop a little lower. "Guess I'd better find Hazil." Still hovering above the ground, Bastion proceeded to float around the corner the shadow had left for.

            The sky above remained gray, the only color it ever was anymore. A part of Bastion wondered if the humans on the main continent of Asia weren't trying to demoralize them by producing constant cloud cover. If so, it was working. For the past two months now, gray was all that had hovered over the dismal skies of Japan. If it was not darker still and moaning with powerful storms that the ruined buildings of New Tokyo no longer protected its doomed inhabitants from.

            From the shadows of crumpled doorways and the corners of abandoned buildings, Bastion felt the eyes of all the remaining civilian reploids staring at him. Not staring out of fear or hatred or respect. But just staring…staring at the figure that represented the last glimmer of hope for their kind. Bastion took note of them, but didn't bother looking back. The last time he had done that, they'd scattered into the shadows out of fear.

            Grimly, he remembered a time when these streets had shone with the light of hope for all humans and reploids. And now…now, none of that remained. Instead, it was virtually all of the world's population, what was left of it anyhow, against the final scraps of the reploid race.

            Bastion slowed down, blinking his eyes a few times as a memory washed back over him. One where X had said something as he sat in tears.

            "This isn't the reality that my father dreamed of…this can't be the one that was meant to be."

            Of course, X and Zero had left not long after that, and never returned. Everyone that remained assumed the worst. Not even the greatest of their kind was above the purges of humanity.

            "You thinking again?" Came a gruff voice from behind the Desert Angel. Bastion blinked a few times, then swerved about. A tattered and slightly bemused Hazil stood there, tapping the side of his arm. The last year and a half hadn't been that terrific on Hazil either, but very little had changed physically. No, Bastion had to remind himself, it was mentally that the old medical reploid had been crushed.

            "And just what would I think about, you old coot?" Bastion queried back, not smiling, but letting the twinkle in his eye respond. Hazil shrugged and walked over to Bastion.

            "The past?" The medical reploid asked, eyes distant. Bastion held his tongue there.

            A low wind blew by through the ruined street, ruffling Bastion's wild mess of hair. It had grown longer through the months, a part of the fact that he hadn't found the time or motivation to cut it back. Hazil remained stolid in the wind, still lost somewhere else.

            And that was how Hazil was anymore. Half the time…his mind lost to something else.

            "The past is a fun thing to look at anymore." Hazil continued, walking on. Bastion reluctantly followed. "Because that's the ironic part of the reploid race. We have a past. Just not a future." The medical reploid pulled out a medical scanner of some sort and motioned with a nod of his head. "Follow me…I've still got my rounds to attend to."

            "You still keep rounds?" Bastion murmured slowly. Hazil shrugged, not breaking his stride.

            "I've been trying to save lives almost every day of my life, Bastion. That's all I have left now. No Cain, no X or Zero, no Sigma…They're gone, Bastion. They're all gone. There's no distinction between right and wrong. The world's gone mad and taken every last one of us with it."

            There was too much truth in those cold words, Bastion decided. The overlying truths that they'd relied on to stay sane and focused were all gone now. Which left two paths; bitterness and insanity.

            Hazil stopped at a nearby ruined building, knocking on the surprisingly still pristine door.

            "Hazil??" Came the wary voice.

            "It's that time of the week again, Evinrude." Hazil said quietly.

            "So it is, so it is…Well, come on in." Came the aloof, but more relaxed female voice. Hazil blinked his eyes once, then turned to Bastion.

            "You care to come inside?"

            "No thanks." Bastion said with a small shrug. "I'll just wait out here until you get back." Hazil made no motion to indicate he'd even heard Bastion, or if he cared. The reploid simply slipped inside the door and left it propped open a bit.

            "And how are we doing today, Evin?" Hazil asked softly.

            "Better…your serum did the trick, all right."

            "I only wish there was more I was capable of, dear." Hazil answered back, sadness in his voice.

            Interest finally got the best of Bastion, and he slowly creaked the door open, only far enough so that he could stick his head in.

            The building's interior was lit by dim candles, the only source of light left to Earth's cursed race in the burned out city. What little power they were still able to manufacture had all gone to keeping the MHHQ running. Posters hung from the walls, tears from point to point. A bed stood off to one corner of the room, remarkably well kept. And sitting on it was a female reploid.

            So that's Evinrude…

            She was sitting upright against the headboard, her lower torso covered up by a thick, scratchy blanket. Normal periwinkle blue body armor, smallish hands, sparkling blue eyes. Short brown hair was kept neatly tied back, and her face was a smile, even in the ruined state of affairs.

            "However, the serum only dealt with the immediate effects, Ev." Hazil continued. "You won't feel the pain anymore, that part of it is healed. But you'll never regain their use. I don't have the ability anymore to heal functionality. I can only dull pain anymore."

            Bastion blinked a few times. Hazil's voice grew sadder at that, almost croaking. His head dropped a bit.

            Evinrude smiled as only she could, reaching a hand up and caressing the side of the medical reploid's face. Tenderness and genuine trust shone in her blue optics.

            "Hazil, you have done all you can. Nobody could ask more. Not now, when easing pain is all that's left."

            "All that is left in my power…or all that is left to do?" Hazil murmured questioningly, tilting his gaze up and looking into those shining eyes Evinrude held.

            The vision of loveliness stared back into the face of the beaten, worn down, and utterly destroyed Hazil and gave him a quick kiss.

            "All that is needed." She finished, before he pulled himself up and kissed her again, deeply.

            The blanket fell away from Evinrude's lap as she drew into Hazil's tender embrace. It was then that a stunned Bastion noticed that the female reploid truly was indebted to Hazil's care…

            She had no legs. The rough scars said it all. They'd been sliced off, probably in one of the attacks on New Tokyo.

            So perhaps Hazil has been recovered, in some small way…

            Bastion could easily remember a time not long ago when Hazil spent all his time in the ruined portions of the MHHQ's Medical Bay, rocking back and forth in a corner in the fetal position, babbling about all the people who had died under his care, who should have lived…

            Bristol's had been the hardest for him to take. Bristol had died where no cause for death had existed. Where no direct physical cause could be blamed. Like a causal loop Hazil hadn't been able to escape, those first months after Bristol's passing and the success of Ice Beacon had made Hazil almost insane, searching for the cause, searching for his fault.

            Finally, Hazil had just up and left the MHHQ, and had wandered into the ruined New Tokyo like a hermit without his mission. But nobody at the MHHQ was particularly concerned about Hazil.

            And a week later, Kazok and Bastion had found Hazil in New Tokyo's ruined hospital. Even in his confused and tortured state of mind, the medical reploid Hazil still wandered to a place of healing. But Hazil had been adamant about one thing. "Leave me be, Bastion. I've fought my battle for more than thirteen years now. And in the end, I lost. So just leave me alone. Let me be. Let me think. And when my day comes, let it come. There's nothing more I can do for anyone now. Nothing."

            But then, back when Hazil had said that and turned his back on them all, he didn't have the clairvoyance enough to realize that he could never stop. Not while there were those that suffered.

            Bastion blinked a few times more, then stepped back lightly and shut the door.

            This wasn't his place anymore. Not here, in this ruined city, whose inhabitants knew and accepted that one day it would all end, that the dull mottled sky overhead would descend down and cover them all, forever wiping reploids from sight and memory of Earth.

            He hovered up into the air fifty feet, looking around and down. Reploids of all shape and size were found here, hovering around ignited piles of rubbish for heat, or simply finding solace in the void by being with one another.

            In the end, Hazil has become one of them. The edge dwellers. The battle, the desire, the dream…those have all faded from mind and memory. For them, death is beyond. The only things worth keeping anymore are being together with those you care for, making those last moments count.

            Some of the reploids below stood on the rooftops of the long abandoned buildings, standing and staring to the gray skies above. One of them, a green armored reploid looked up at Bastion with sad, quiet eyes, and for a brief moment, the Desert Angel felt that pang of sadness as he remembered.

            "We still miss you, Wycost." He muttered, waving to the green reploid below. The figure nodded his head once, then walked back to the rooftop exit.

            But then Bastion saw another figure. One that didn't rest inside the city, but rather approached it from Mount Fuji. The Desert Angel blinked a few times, then frowned and scrutinized it closer.

            Behind him in midair, Kazok Gravor came to a slow hover, the once-Maverick's gravicrystals rotating around his waist.

            "Signas needs you back at base quick, Bastion. We've got trouble on the way…"

            Bastion raised a hand up to silence Kazok. His now wide eyes could hardly believe what he saw.

            So many had been lost to them in the last year and a half. So many allies and friends.

            But now one had returned. Bastion hovered down to the city's edge where the figure was dragging himself to, and a now stunned Kazok followed as well, upon noticing the newcomer for himself.

            As the two flight-capable reploids came down and slowly descended at the city's edge, the traveler slowed his heavy-laden footsteps. He looked up, and let his weary blue/green optics blink at them both. A flash of recognition appeared in his eyes.

            "Bastion…"

The Desert Angel shook his head at the Blue Bomber of 21XX.

            "Welcome back, X. We've missed you."

            Bastion had remained visibly planted in the Medical Bay, never once leaving Bristol's side since Hazil had emerged. Everyone else sympathized with him, of course. Even Willow, who was for all purposes, the greenhorn in the group. Still, now at ten in the morning, tensions were still rising, and not showing any signs of fading out anytime soon.

            About the only one in the group who seemed to hold any continual sense about him was Wycost, who found himself wandering through the MHHQ aimlessly, as it would seem to any regular Hunter who saw him. He had however, shifted into his trademark battle armor, which made him stand out less. Still, what was left of the 21st recognized him easily enough, glares included.

            J.K. Horn and Allegro had left for the cafeteria an hour ago. Hazil just sat in his office, looking between the stack of unfinished medical reports and Sigma II floating aimlessly in his goldfish bowl. Doan had left for the training facilities off to one side of the MHHQ. Willow, however, had vanished the quickest of anyone after giving them the bad news.

            A tiny voice in the back of Wycost's head had told the Bronx Bomber to go look for her. She wasn't in the War Room, not the dead room or any of the seminar rooms.

            Not in the barracks. No, Wycost avoided going to any of those. Instinctively, he knew where he would find her. The only place somebody who was going to run off and do something stupid went.

            The hangar bay and connected weapons depot.

            The weapons depot was remarkably empty, aside from one desk jockey whose nose was stuffed inside an edition of Newsbite, eyes wide. Wycost waved a hand from his position in the doorway, unable to hide his frown.

            "Anyone come in recently?"

            "Huhwhut?" Came the mumbled reply. The clerk looked up, blinking a few times. Sheepishly, the reploid looked about the various wire door cabinets filled with various instruments of mass destruction, finally noticing the one door lying torn off of its hinges in front of one of the cabinets. Wycost frowned and stared at the one cabinet whose contents that had been messed with.

            "Well…good grief…" The clerk mumbled, his cheeks flushing in disbelief. "That can't be a good sign." Wycost walked over and pulled out one of the remaining heavy laser bazookas left. He held it one handed in front of the bumbling oaf for emphasis.

            "Somebody just walked in here, TORE the Goddamn storage door off of its hinges and plucked out a Class Eight Photonic Energy Disrupter with sighting scope attached under your nose as easy as finding the purple Easter Egg on Sunday morning, you lazy paper pusher." Wycost dropped the heavy cannon on the ground and walked out, leaving the flustered weapons depot officer to scramble for the weapon before it was too scratched up. "Go ahead and write yourself a missing items report, because that's about all you're useful for."

            Wycost dropped down his glasses again and walked out of the room into the main hangar bay, shaking his head.

            She's definitely been here. That's just like her to grab the goods and try to make a break for it.

            The hangar bay was a little busier, thankfully. Wycost managed to catch sight of Cleo off in one corner, looking slightly frazzled from having to worry almost all of last night about Wycost, Bastion, and company, but still coherent enough to return to her duties. At the moment, she was throwing orders around to some of the grunt mechanics struggling with a Chimera 'Mech.

            "Oh, come on boys! This is something you should EASILY be able to handle." She snorted, tapping a wrench on her waist. They all grunted and groaned with their torque wrenches, trying desperately to undo the tight fit the nut held on the necessary bolt. Cleo sighed and looked up to the high ceiling. "Why me, God? Why me?"

            She turned about and noticed Wycost, blinking a few times before waving. "What are you doing in this neck of the woods?"

            "Looking for someone." Wycost answered. He looked at Cleo intently from behind his glasses. "You wouldn't happen to know where she is, would you?"

            Cleo paused for a moment, then set her wrench on the ground and brought her hand up to her chin.

            "Hmm…by someone that is female, you'd have to mean that righteous, antisocial Irish wench you dragged in kicking and screaming." Cleo muttered. "If that is the case, you might try the back of one of our larger, immobile hovertransports. We keep operational Landchasers in the back of those, and the odds are she's trying to grab one and make her escape."

            "Aren't you worried she'll leave?" Wycost queried, his voice rising. Cleo grinned mischieviously and reached into her chest compartment, pulling out a cylinder of some sort.

            "Kind of hard for a Landchaser to function without its ignition chamber. We take the primers out of all the vehicles here on base anymore, up until they're actually needed for a mission. We've learned from the great chase you, Doan, Allegro, Andante, and J.K. Horn had about a month ago." She tossed it up in the air a few times, then yawned. "She's probably still trying to get one of them to work if she's in here. Go on ahead."

            Wycost nodded and walked on to the far side of the hangar bay, to where the larger, nearly behemoth sized transports lay in various states of dormancy. Some of them looked familiar, eerily haunting in some regards because of Wycost's path in life.

            Some of them were dead on replicas of some of URFAWP's hovertransports, the massive people packers that the now disbanded group had used to ferry its 'peace officers' from point to point. Hovertransports were like that, though. For the most part, as generic as peanut butter.

            Still, it didn't help with Wycost's recurring memories of that dreadful incident where under Fluid Ferret and Sigma's control, he'd annihilated Isaiah into dust. He imagined Allegro had a similar experience somewhere in the back of his mind the ex-URFAWP reploid didn't really feel like talking about either.

            He made his way through one of the side hatches, noting that this hovertransport had had its rear section modified not to hold seats, but a miniature hangar bay. One which obviously had been visited recently. He could tell from the sliced off door handle lying next to its ajar larger half that simple detail.

            The interior was dark. Immeasurably so. But Wycost wasn't affected by that. His sunglare goggles twinkled for a moment as he engaged their infared sights, letting every detail of the dark room suddenly shift into clarity.

            Like the room that was empty, save for one reploid with a flowing cape and a Landchaser that refused to start. Satisfied, Wycost disengaged his infared sights. He didn't need them any longer, now that he knew where to look. His glasses remained in place, though.

            "And just what are you doing?" He queried silently, hands at his sides.

            Willow jerked upright in an instant, and Wycost could almost sense her flaring nostrils and burning green eyes. Her head twisted in several directions, trying to pinpoint his voice. Finally, Wycost sighed and flipped the light switch beside the door. Willow winced for a moment as her optics adjusted to the sudden influx of light.

            "You're not going to be getting out of here with a Landchaser and a Class Eight Photonic Energy Disruptor like it was Christmas morning, you realize that." Wycost said plainly. "MHHQ security is too tight for that anymore."

            "There isn't a trusting soul in the whole lot of you here." Willow finally murmured in response. She picked herself up and walked over to Wycost. "At the same time, I have to go."

            "To what? To die??" Wycost said flatly. "I thought you had more potential than mere cannon fodder."

            Willow bared her teeth at him, and behind his glasses Wycost blinked at the sight. Not out of surprise, but that even when she was angry, there was that element of beauty.

            "You idiot. After all we've done, after ALL YOU KNOW…"

            "You're not leaving here…" Wycost began unsteadily…

            Willow screamed angrily and kicked him back out through the doorway he'd just come in from. That was the end of that conversation then and there.

            Wycost skidded to a grinding halt on the concrete floor outside of the hovertransport, grunting in pain as he recalled thankfully his choice to put his armor on before he'd gotten here. That last kick and its recoil would have done a number on his best leather jacket.

            Outside in the hangar bay, a few people looked up from their work for a moment to look over at Wycost being thrown out of the hovertransport after that immense scream. A few snickered as Wycost shook his head free of the attack. Just another domestic act of violence, they supposed. Even Cleo smirked for a moment.

            "Guess that fiery little barmaid got the better of him that time."

            Then they noticed a blistering beam of laser energy hurl itself from the hovertransport's side, narrowly avoiding a madly dashing Wycost. Not content to stop there, the raking beam of unstoppable piercing power arced its way about the hangar bay, taking down a triad of Landchaser laying against the wall. Thankfully, the concrete only gave about a meter as the beam passed over it, otherwise it was likely it could have gone through the entire complex. And it was there that the people inside the hangar bay realized now would be a very good time to make tracks out of the facility for the time being.

            Wycost narrowly avoided the blistering wave that chased after him. He could see it in Willow's eyes. There wasn't that same edge of murderous intent in them that he'd seen before. Annoyance. Extreme annoyance was about the extent of it. But even with the knowledge that she was only trying to make him run and get out of her face, it didn't improve his odds any. This little firefly had punch behind those burning green eyes, a power called upon rarely.

            This could get ugly real fast…

            Willow jumped out of the hovertransport, ignoring the still melted gash mark torn along its side. She looked at Wycost with disgust, then lifted the massive Class Eight bazooka again.

            "If I don't go, we all die. So if you're so intent on stopping me, then you simply deprive yourself OF WHAT HOURS REMAIN." She spat out, firing the cannon off again.

            Wycost stood erect and still, shutting his eyes and focusing his thoughts onto his body.

            This ends now, you treacherous minx.

            Cleo watched in horror as the blazing beam of light energy soared along and overwhelmed where Wycost had stood. The attack seared along and finally ended as it slammed into the opposing wall of concrete.

            Willow let the massive weapon drop down beside her, shaking her head.

            "A waste of good talent…but a needed one."

            "I'd have to disagree there." Came a gruff and familiar voice from behind. Willow's eyes snapped open and she turned around at full speed.

            In the instant before it discharged, Willow realized in horror that her face was only three centimeters away from the end of Wycost's very capable Buster.

            The room exploded in brilliant light, and Cleo could only watch in disbelief as a newly returned Wycost stood still, letting the effects of his Strobe Flash turn Willow into a harmless reploid in only moments.

            Willow screeched in pain, stumbling backwards with her hands covering up over her eyes. Disgusted, Wycost slammed his steel reinforced boot down on her stolen weapon and crushed it into uselessness.

            "Next time you fight somebody, take into account the idea that they're not always going to let you take potshots at them. Especially if they have a habit of using warp generators to their maximum capability."

            "Damn you…" Willow groaned, continuing to back away from Wycost. The Bronx Bomber scoffed and lifted his sunglare goggles up into his helmet, then ran full tilt into Willow and knocked the air out of her. She collapsed onto the hard ground backfirst, wheezing from the blow, eyes still clenched tightly shut. Before she could make a move to the contrary, Wycost was lying on top of her, pinning every last one of her limbs to the ground so she couldn't even struggle.

            "And that was only half strength Strobe Flash, Willow. Next time you ever think about pulling a stunt like that, you'll lose sight permanently in those pretty little optics of yours."

            "Wycost, we don't have time for this…" Willow croaked, still trying to pull in her breath. "Ice Beacon…"

            "What we don't have time for is visions of grandeur, Irish Banshee." Wycost growled. "By the numbers you dug up, Ice Beacon won't be completed until later tonight. That's time enough for us to wait until we're ALL set to go, you hear? If you go alone, you'll be DEAD."

            "If I don't go, we're all dead."

            "If we all go, we LIVE." Wycost finished sternly.

            Slowly, Willow's eyes began to open. Unsteadily, eyelids fluttering as light once again filled them and sent the now painful signals back into her eyes.

            But when they finally cleared and focused, Willow found herself staring into Wycost's face. Not hidden behind those black glasses of his, his face, bared to her in its entireity. Determination was evident.

            She inhaled and exhaled a few times, examining those eyes of his for a few moments more.

            It was then Wycost noticed how close to her he was. Her rising chest was brushing up against him. Fighting off the urge to blush, he pulled himself off of her and shook his head.

            "Give us time, Willow. Time enough for Bristol to come back to her senses and organize. And then we'll go. Until that time, we don't stand a chance. We will destroy Ice Beacon. We will." He extended a hand out, blinking once before looking straight into her. "All I'm asking for now is your trust. The same trust that we put in you when we went to save Bristol."

            Willow stared at him a few moments more, then reached down and grasped his hand, shaking it firmly.

            "Don't fail me, Wycost." She said evenly. Wycost nodded, smiling slightly.

            "If we do fail, then you'll have no chance to hold it over my head, minx." Willow snorted at that.

            "You make death sound humorous."

            Wycost shrugged. "And by the way…"

            "Yes?"

            "You hit like a girl."

            That comment sent Wycost screaming across the hangar bay as he slammed facefirst into the cement wall. An infuriated, but for the moment, calmer Willow stomped out of the hangar bay, leaving behind the remains of her spat like Kleenex in a wastebasket.

            When Wycost could see clearly again, Cleo put her hands on her hips and shook her head.

            "Just what did you say to her?"

            "I said she hit like a girl." Wycost mumbled.

            Cleo promptly kicked him in the throat and stormed off, shaking her head.

            "Serves you right, you chauvinist." Wycost grasped at the wounded part of his body and shook his head.

            Women…nothing but trouble.

            Some of the people inside the ruined remains of the MHHQ could hardly believe what they saw when Kazok Gravor returned with his two compatriots. X had even made the trouble before going back to the MHHQ to catch up with Hazil a bit…the old MHHQ medical reploid, though mentally scarred, seemed to brighten up at the 21XX Blue Bomber's appearance. With X's return came another part of Hazil's damaged psyche calling home once more. But he'd shrugged X off, shook his head and told the goof to get back where he belonged.

            Which was here. Or at least, what used to be here.

            X leaned back against the chair, exhaling in relief as he was now finally able to let his weary body rest. Still, despite that relief, there was pain in his eyes. A pain that nobody on Earth could possibly share. Though they might guess at it.

            "Zero is dead." X finally spoke up when he regained the energy to do so. But even then, everyone in the room, which was Signas, Bastion, Kazok, Doan, Dash, Willow, and Gavin, felt it. That sudden drain returning to him again. X had to choke out that last part of the sentence, and it took every ounce of willpower he could muster.

            Grimacing, X gripped at his helmeted head, shutting his eyes tightly against the new tears, feeling the memories flooding through him again.

            Damnit, X!! Run, already!

            Zero, I'm not leaving you!!

            If you don't leave, then the BOTH of us are going to die today, you stupid bastard!!

            "Just how did he die, exactly?" Signas asked calmly. X took a moment to calm his thoughts, and to force the sheer vividness of the memories back.

            "Ever since we escaped that GDC session, Zero and I had been trekking back East. Going through all of Europe, especially a hostile one, was no picnic."

            "Couldn't you warp?" Kazok asked.

            "No. Not as things were." X said raggedly. He took another moment to look at Kazok and chuckled a bit. "I'm sorry…I still find it hard to believe that Mavericks are working with Maverick Hunters."

            "All the rules have been changed, X." Dash spoke up, walking next to Kazok and wrapping an arm around his waist. "Sigma was one of the first to be destroyed by the Purges. Without him…the movement died. Even before then, Dash and I had managed to destroy the Maverick Virus within ourselves by force of will alone."

            "They did the same thing Wycost barely pulled off twice, X." Bastion piped up. "Internal deletion. But let's move on. You and Zero…just what happened?"

            "We couldn't warp. We figured out that much early on. To keep the reploids trapped, the GDC had set up anti-warp EM shielding everywhere we went. We tried to protect them at first…being unable to call back home, to do anything else, it was the only thing we had left to do." X pulled himself up, visibly wincing as new pain ran through his right leg. "Damnit…"

            "What happened there?"

            "One of the Reploid Hunters got very lucky." X murmured. He shook his head. "Our efforts were in vain, though…despite our skill, they were just too many. I was too weak to begin with. No armor sets, no more capsules from Dr. Light…Which is funny. He gave me the Fourth Armor Set during the Fourth Uprising, and that time the foes we were being thrown against was Repliforce, a mere scapegoat in Sigma's schemes. Now, when our entire race was doomed, nothing appeared."

            X shook his head.

            "Zero and I could do nothing for them. For the race we created."

            "You created, you mean." Signas motioned. X laughed again, the sadness still evident. But he turned his face on Signas and shook it.

            "No. Many years ago, before any of you were born, he still existed. As did I."

            "But…but that would mean…" Willow spoke up, green eyes squinting in disbelief,

            "Zero was also a prototype to the reploid race. He too, was built with the schematics of me Dr. Light had created. But not by Cain's hands, any not by any of this age. I was the final child of Dr. Thomas Xavier Light. Zero…Zero was the spawn of Dr. Albert William Wily."

            The room was silent like a stone.

            "Wily…yes. The same one." X sighed again. "Believe it or not, Zero was originally built as Wily's last great weapon. Built to destroy me, and my namesake."

            "And did he?" Signas asked gingerly. "Did he truly succeed as he thought he would?"

            "He doesn't remember any of that." X murmured. "Or rather, he didn't."

            "So what happened next, after you realized that being the good Samaritans was getting the two of you nowhere?" Doan mumbled.

            "We kept heading East, the only way we could. By foot, and occasionally by Landchaser if we found one. Eventually, we cleared a path into Siberia…I thought we were home free then."

            "Why? What was in Siberia?" Willow asked.

            "Cossack." X replied raggedly. "Or rather…his daughter." Bastion's face went pale.

            "Oh no…X…please don't tell me…"

            "Apparently, Pharaoh Man had gone with the assault team that had tried to stop Ice Beacon…the apparent cause of all the madness a year and a half ago. Only Pharaoh Man never came back. It was too much for Kalinka, I suppose…she must have snapped. Losing her father, and then one of her father's most trusted robots…" X laughed a bit and shook his head. "She betrayed us. She let me and Zero in…but all the while, while we sat and recuperated, she had called the GDC in. The authorities came knocking."

            "So how did you two escape?"

            "Only I escaped." X said quietly, looking at the palm of his hand. "Kalinka and her Robot Masters were all killed by the GDC as reploid sympathizers, nothing but weeds to be taken out of the garden. And then they came for us. Zero and I fought to the best of our abilities, we hijacked one of their Landchasers and tore off…but they tracked us anyhow. Zero sacrificed himself to stop them. He jumped off of the Landchaser and screamed at me to move on…" X shut his eyes and fought back the beginnings of his sobbing. "So I took off, leaving Zero there to face down every last line of opposition pursuing us. Half a minute after I left him there…" His voice cracked.

            "What?" Willow asked harshly. X looked up at her, eyes wizened.

            "That explosion behind me indicated all too clearly that nobody had survived."

            The room was silent again, as everyone absorbed X's report. Finally, the Blue Bomber of 21XX stood up.

            "Zero is dead. Nearly every reploid on Earth has been extinguished. And in less than two hours, a massive Reploid Hunter task force will arrive in the ruins of this once proud New Tokyo to put an end to us. Would that about sum it up?"

            "Essentially." Signas replied. "Things have gone from bad to worse, and even beyond that, my friend." X mulled over the comment, then looked around the room.

            "In some weird way…you are all related to me. You were all created in part off of the schematics that made me. You are my brothers, my sisters…Every last one of you, belonging to a proud race that now faces its doom." X blinked his eyes a few times. "But it will not end here. For nearly all my life, I have fought to stop injustice and create peace. Now, that is no longer possible…so I realize that there is only one thing left to fight for. Survival."

            X stood up, tottering on his bad right leg for a moment before standing erect. "I'm sorry I wasn't here for you all sooner. I know that no amount of apologies can make up for my absence, but I must at least try. On this day, this final prophetic day, you have my sword. I will stand by any who would walk with me and defend the race born of my flesh to the bitter end."

            Shouts of agreement rang throughout the room, but yet that did not help the dull ache in X's heart.

            And that's just what this is…the end.

            Wycost poked his head into the Medical Bay once more. "Haz? You still here??"

            "I'm in the back with a bottle of whiskey." Hazil called out halfheartedly. "You're welcome to join me."

            Wycost walked all the way into Hazil's office, then lifted his goggles up into his helmet. "I had an idea."

            Hazil put the nearly empty flask down and stared up at Wycost with fake inebriation. "Well, izzat so? Holee crit, the cowboy's finally using that noodle of his. What did you think of?"

            "One possible way to improve the chances of our attack on Ice Beacon." Wycost finished. "We call in more warriors." Hazil frowned for a moment, then shook his head.

            "Sorry, bubsy. Outside of the freaks that already know about this crap, I doubt there's anybody in the Hunters who would be willing to help us out. And if the GDC is corrupt as Willow would have us believe it is, you're not going to find any willing volunteers there either. MI9's claws are in deep."

            "I'm not talking about them." Wycost said, cracking a small smile. "I'm talking about pulling in a certain group of people you had the opportunity to upgrade recently. I think they were the bunch that defended Moscow during Sigma's Sixth."

            Hazil frowned for a moment, opened his mouth to voice further opinionation…then promptly slammed it shut as his eyes widened in sudden epiphany.

            "But…GEEZUS, WYCOST!! Pharaoh Man and his gang are ROBOTS." Hazil murmured when he could speak again. He tapped the side of his muddled skull for emphasis. "You and I are reploids. And though I don't particularly like to fathom the idea, because it puts us damn near on edge with what Mavericks do, going up against MI9 and stopping Ice Beacon will require the strike team taking human lives. If we do that, we feel bad, we go and get drunk, wake up the next morning with a hangover, shake it off and move on. If one of THEM kills a human, that's it, bub. Game Over. Mind Freeze. Breaking the First Law. All of the above. Send Flowers to The Funeral Parlor. Buy the coffin. Slag 'em down and close the curtains." Hazil pulled himself free of his office chair, jerking his hands in front of him for emphasis. "Are any of these allegories getting through that thick Coney Dog stuffed brain of yours?!"

            Wycost took Hazil's strained gibberish in stride.

            "All of them, actually. They've proven their worth once. They are capable of getting the job done. They may not be able to help us directly fight off the MI9 forces, but I'd bet they're very capable of doing a number on Ice Beacon itself. After all, nothing in their core programming says they can't shred a gigantic satellite dish carved out of ice. And at this point, Hazil, you have to realize we need every scrap of help we can get." The Bronx Bomber sighed, then leaned back against the wall of Hazil's office. Using both hands, he pulled his helmet off and set it on the ground beside him, then looked up at the ceiling.

            "At one point on my search for Bristol, I was asked by somebody if I had any idea what was worse than a Maverick. Well, now I know. It's MI9. All of it. I asked myself once if I still had a purpose. Now I do." Wycost looked at Hazil. "Life itself is an unclear, hazy gray mist covering roads with gnarled roots that rise up to trip us. The lines between right and wrong…messed up. Perhaps for others, they're clearer. For me, they're a lot harder to find. But I know this, Hazil. Willow speaks the truth. If we don't do this, if we don't do everything in our power to prevent Ice Beacon from going off, then we truly are lost. Since its birth, MI9 has represented a side of humanity that has shunned the rest. You can look at MI9 very simply, Hazil; They are the Mavericks of the human race. Just like the reploids have Mavericks, so do they. This time, the danger is different. MI9 has to be stopped. Sigma can wait…he's had his chances to ruin everything, and he will again, but this time, it isn't that baldheaded freak we need to worry about." Wycost tilted his head down and looked at Hazil, shaking his head. "I have human friends, Hazil. I have reploid friends. And if Ice Beacon succeeds tonight, then we're all screwed. That's why I want you to call Pharaoh Man and the rest of the Foregone Five. They're the only people left we can turn to for this."

            "What about X? Or Zero??" Hazil murmured. "I know you don't particularly like them that much, but they've done a lot over the years. Undoubtedly, they'd come in handy."

            "No." Wycost mumbled softly. Hazil frowned for a moment, but stopped his return comment when he saw the glazed look in Wycost's eye. "This isn't their battle. Theirs is with Sigma. It always will be. This is ours. This is Bristol's. This is Willow's. This battle is Bastion's, and Allegro's. This battle is MINE."

            "And Doan? What about that cheeky plucker?" Hazil queried, rapping his fingers together. Wycost cracked a bit of a smile.

            "Old grumpy? Doan does whatever he wants, always has. And it was his choice to help us out in the mission to rescue Bristol…as it is his choice to help us now. So don't worry about him."

            Hazil mulled over the conversation a bit more, then shook his head.

            "So…You want me to call up Sergei Cossack and see if the old codger is willing to give his most prized Robot Masters up to the greatest crapshoot of all time?"

            "Yup."

            "I'll see what I can do then." Hazil said curtly. "Now get the Hell out. Let's keep with tradition and hold my appointments the way I like 'em. Short, sweet, and fifty bucks for fifteen minutes."

            Wycost flipped a hand up over his shoulder and walked out of the room, helmet nestled in the crook of his arm. The aging Medical Reploid sighed, then pulled himself tighter into his desk.

            "Now then…just where did I put that old phone number?" Hazil grumbled to himself, typing on the computer as he went.

            It was amazing he could multitask between searching the interior of his mind for a phone number he hadn't dialed in a long time and typing his document on his desktop PC. Especially given the subject of his report.

            From: Dr. Hazil, MHHQ Medical Bay CMO

            To: Commander Signas, MHHQ

            Subject: My Two Weeks' Notice

            "Time for all us old reploids to fade away…" Hazil said shortly, eyes glancing off into nowhere.

            Time indeed.

            Pharaoh Man sat in front of the massive computer display at the very depths of the Fourth Ring, calmly trying to ignore the sheer boredom. He supposed he could have opened of the games programs that his creator, Sergei Cossack, had always insisted on keeping on the rustic machine. Nearly 150 years after its making, Pharaoh Man had to admit that the original NES Metroid ROM still posed a challenge of significant difficulty.

            Still, there were other things to keep him occupied. Like the dazzling theatrics of Bright Man and Ring Man, who kept exchanging shots in the next room. Pharaoh Man kept one of the separate mini-screens tuned to the room's monitoring camera.

            Both Bright Man and Ring Man had been built and re-built with equal jumping and speed equipment. Which made them nearly equal, aside from their fighting styles.

            Ring Man always been a blitzer. The rudimentary combat program Wily had built into him during his capture had remained in some small form even after Cossack had reconstructed him. He was accurate with his shots beyond all expectations, which he needed to be. Bright Man could perform what was called a 'spray and pray', where he fired wildly in all directions, hoping to catch his enemy in the various zones of fire. But Ring Man's form of attack used his own special type of cutting blades, a kind which returned to him if he so willed it. However, he had only managed to fire one at a time and stay concentrated enough to keep an eye on it. For him, if the shot didn't make it, the best he could hope for was that it would strike the enemy down in the return trip.

            Currently, Bright Man was following just that same policy of spray and pray, and doing a rather fine job of it. His various cones of plasma bullets was keeping Ring Man from making a full out acrobatic leap, leaving the more melee type Robot Master to cope with little more than slight hops and sideways dodges.

            Pharaoh Man cracked a small smile, one of the many idiosyncrasies Sergei had given him in his many years of life. He drew a hand up and rested it on his chin.

            "My bet's on Ring Man." He muttered finally.

            Now, we just let it play out…

            Pharaoh Man was so concentrated on the fight between Ring Man and Bright Man that the sudden incoming call caught him completely off guard. He jumped up in his seat for a moment, then turned back to the main monitor with a slightly dazed look on his face.

            Quickly, he turned around to the main monitor and thought about who exactly would be calling here. Cain? No, Cain was dead…he'd kept in touch enough with the news to realize that. Which left X, Zero, and Hazil.

            He tapped the annoying comm chitter on. "Cossack's Citadel."

            The viewscreen tapped on a moment later. Yup, Hazil.

            The gray haired reploid looked terrible. His voice didn't sound all that good, either.

            "Hazil." Phare said calmly. "How are things at the MHHQ?"

            "Cain died, and we got a real GDC asskissker stuffed in his place. X has lost three of his armor sets, and the Maverick's new strategy is just too damned effective."

            "Is that all?" Pharaoh Man asked jokingly. Hazil snorted.

            "Hardly. To make matters all the worse, some old friends have returned back to the MHHQ after a wee bit of a hiatus. Wycost and Bristol. And guess what? They brought company, a red haired Irish reploid with more spunk in her than a Mexican jumping bean called Willow. Apparently, Willow and Bristol share common family ties with an informal splinter faction of the long deceased Second Rainbow called MI9. Recently, MI9 got a bee in its bonnet with the concept that all reploids were a danger and needed to be destroyed. Which meant that slowly but surely, they began to eliminate both their own reploids and those that they could hunt down in the middle of nowhere. Willow and Bristol narrowly escaped with their lives, but not before Bristol had done some pretty amazing inventing. One of her inventions, or at least a greatly expanded version of it, now lies ready to cause every reploid on Earth to fritz up into hyper panic mode."

            Hazil stopped to take a breath. Pharaoh Man just sat there in the chair and blinked for what seemed like a hundred times. Hazil chuckled, albeit gruffly.

            "Take your time. It caught me off guard too."

            "I hope that was a very bad joke you just told." Phare finally spoke up. "Because I don't find anything humorous in it."

            "We don't think it really deserves any praise either, but it's the truth." Hazil said. "I need to talk with your dad. We're hurting bad, and I need to see if he's willing to send you guys on another mission." Pharaoh Man's eyes dimmed slightly.

            "I'm afraid you'll find that a call you're unable to place." He said, a hint of sadness in his voice. "Doctor Sergei Cossack passed away on the very same day as your own Doctor Cain."

            On the other end of the conference call, Hazil sunk back into the depths of his seat, eyes even emptier than before.

            "Cossack's…dead?" Hazil repeated, unable to grasp onto the fact. Pharaoh Man nodded his graceful head once.

            "Old age, Hazil. It was his time."

            "Does X know?"

            "He has not called in for a long time. The last time he did…" Phare began shakily, "The last time he did, my master was growing worse, but he was alive."

            "He's been busy." Hazil finished sourly. "Things have only gotten worse for him and Zero, and they're far from improving."

            "They just have to move on." Pharaoh Man said. "As painful as it sounds, the only course we can take is to move on, and strive to preserve the memory of those that have gone before us."

            The Robot Master stood up from the seat and looked at Hazil on his feet. "But what's this mission you were describing? Is it another group of Mavericks?"

            "Not this time." Hazil muttered. "And this is what makes my skin crawl. The enemies in this mission are humans."

            If Pharaoh Man would have had a heart, it would have stopped beating then.

            "You can't be serious." He uttered. "Humans?"

            "The same group I was talking about earlier, Phare." Hazil continued grimly. "MI9. As we speak, they're in the closing stages of Ice Beacon's final design. And tonight, my friend, whether we like it or not, that thing goes off, and we're all screwed sideways. Once before, you volunteered because you believed you could make the world a better place. Now, we're asking you and your men again to take that risk, just as we are. This time, we're not trying to make the world a better place. This time, we are trying to preserve it."

            Phare thought over Hazil's statements. And thought. And thought some more. Finally, he looked up, his mouth and eyes stern.

            "I cannot let the others be thrust into a situation such as you've described. They cannot fight humans, not as they could fight reploid Mavericks. Mind Freeze…DEATH, Hazil, is an all too real possibility."

            Hazil's face fell. "I figured as much myself. Even during your initial upgrades…"

            "BUT." Pharaoh Man continued, lifting a finger up, causing Hazil to silence his voice, "I will go."

            "Why just you?" Hazil asked quickly, lifting an eyebrow.

            "Because I am the only one of Cossack's robots who isn't restricted by the Laws of Robotics." Pharaoh Man said calmly.

            Hazil's eyes went wide for a moment, then flared back to normalcy. "Be serious."

            "Oh, rest assured that I am completely serious." Pharaoh Man said. "I know this for a fact because I have survived Kalinka's instigated Mind Freeze. The core programming always dies first in mind freeze."

            "Just how did Kalinka trigger mind freeze?!" Hazil bellowed, still unwilling to grasp onto the idea.

            "She made me think I had done her serious irreversible psychological harm." Pharaoh Man said amusedly. "And though I can't exactly explain it…it was as if I fought against a version of myself undeniably connected to the Laws, and defeated it."

            Hazil absorbed it, but said nothing.

            "I will go. The others will stay." Pharaoh Man finished calmly.

            Hazil clucked. "You sure about this? There's no hard feelings if you stay behind on this mission." Pharaoh Man seemed to smile a bit, then shook his head back and forth.

            "I will go." Hazil ran a hand through his hair and sighed.

            "We'll be waiting here for you, buddy. Catch the comm coordinates when they come in, they'll take you straight to my office. I've also included the signal you'll need to pass through our EM shielding."

            Hazil's connection clicked off, leaving behind one simple file attachment.

            Pharaoh Man stared at the numbers, the coordinates and passcode clearly marked.

            Just then, the camera focused on the fight between Ring Man and Toad Man flashed with a sudden flare of light. Pharaoh Man turned back to his preset monitor and watched with earnest.

            When the light died down, Bright Man's flashbulb was lying up against an outstretched ring in his opponent's left hand. Ring Man's right held another Ring Boomerang against Bright Man's chest.

            They show so much promise…I can only hope that I return to them.

            Pharaoh Man tapped his comm.

            "Ring Man, Bright Man."

            They looked up to the camera focused on them.

            "Yes, Pharaoh Man?"

            "I will be leaving you all for a while." The silver and goldenrod armored Robot Master said calmly. Ring Man blinked, then lifted a hand up.

            "Just where are you going?"

            "To help our friends in New Tokyo." Pharaoh Man replied.

            "Then we shall come with you." Bright Man spoke up hopefully.

            "No." Pharaoh Man said sternly. "You cannot. Not on this mission, Bright. The risks here are too great for you, and indeed for all the others. Only I can deal with this."

            "And just why are you the only Robot Master built by our creator that is capable of dealing with this newest challenge?" Ring Man retorted drily.

            "Because I am the only Robot Master amongst us who is no longer under the will of the Three Laws." Pharaoh Man said back, after a moment's hesitation.

            Bright Man narrowed his eyes. "I don't see any scenario where having the Three Laws would pose a diffi…" He cut himself short, blinking a few times before looking up at the camera with wide optics. "No."

            "This mission will pit our allies against humans. A radical group of humans who seek to destroy all reploids."

            "Is that what they said? Do you really believe that??" Ring Man called back, a sour tone present in his voice.

            Pharaoh Man felt his insides churning over the same question.

            Are humans…truly this capable of such acts??

            "I do not know what to believe yet." He finally echoed back. "But unless I go on this mission and see for myself, then I will never know what to believe."

            Bright Man and Ring Man looked at each other for a moment, then left the room.

            Ten seconds later they were standing beside Pharaoh Man. The Robot Master with the ring on his head scrutinized the Egyptian robot for a long time, then eased back and shook his head.

            "I don't truly approve of this action you are taking. It is illogical, it is irrational, it is…"

            "Human?" Pharaoh Man finished humorlessly. Ring Man sighed and nodded his head.

            Pharaoh Man shrugged.

            "Our creator once said that we were all capable of great things…if we allowed ourselves enough time to reach for them. Perhaps he meant that one day, with enough experiences and years, we could achieve a state of self rivaling that held of Mega Man in the age before." He turned to Bright Man. "I know that it has held true with me. I have gone beyond my original programming, I have conquered the supposed death of Mind Freeze, and I have found emotions, and how to use them. It is all this that allows me, and me alone to attempt this task without risk of harm. If any of you should go, Mind Freeze is almost certain. And I don't want to lose any of you. I doubt Kalinka does much either."

            "Well then, if your mind is made up, there is nothing that we could do to convince you otherwise." Ring Man said, extending out a hand. "Just promise me, for Mistress Kalinka's sake you will come back alive."

            "You'll all keep an eye on her for me while I'm gone, right?" Phare queried shortly. Ring Man nodded, smiling a bit.

            "We shall try."

            Pharaoh Man finished preparing the necessary data for his warp jump, nodded one final time at his comrades, and then blasted off.

            A few moments later, Bright Man turned about.

            "Will he be all right?"

            Ring Man shrugged.

            "He made a promise. We can only hope he's capable of keeping it."

            Sigma could feel something. He could smell it in the air, that biting hint of something beyond the normal Hellbent on seeing itself through. The years had done that to him. In retrospect, the years had done a lot to him, Sigma supposed.

            It was hard to envision the earliest period of his existence anymore. So much time had passed…so many different forms and bodies and conflicts, that the lines had become blurred. It was difficult for Sigma to accept the truth of how he had become who he was. It was difficult to admit that at one point, he had been a Maverick Hunter. That he had proudly wore the colors of the MHHQ, walked with pride in his step and joy in his heart.

            It was difficult to remember that because it was a painful reminder of what he no longer had. Thanks to the one. The Crimson Hunter who now stood in the upper echelons of the MHHQ power structure, a deadly force to be reckoned with.

            It was thanks to Zero that Sigma now walked his path. It was thanks to him that he stepped with scars slashed across his eyes and a burning fire in his heart. A heart that now was black…but at one point, the Maverick Lord resignedly admitted, was clear.

            Odd how being destroyed time and time again by a figure in blue would do that to you. And that was the second half of the equation.

            X. The unknown variable. The portion of Sigma's grand equation he hadn't accounted for when he had taken the rest of his elite Hunters on June 4th, 2118 at the beginning of the First Uprising.

            Together, X and Zero had stopped Sigma's plans time and time again. But this time would be different. This time, Sigma could feel it. In this last great series of battles, it would be the Mavericks that stood tall over all opposition.

            X was without his armor sets. Zero was crushed by the sudden reappearance of his lost love Iris. And James T. Cain, the man that both Maverick Hunters had called mentor and friend, lay dead of a brain aneurysm.

            Yes, this time those two will lay dead at my feet. I shall not be denied this day.

            Sigma was so focused on his internal thoughts he didn't notice the figure creeping up behind him. But he did notice the slender pair of hands that crept about his waist and latched together over his stomach.

            "What are you thinking about now?" Iris asked seductively, her voice silk running over fine chocolate. Despite himself, Sigma smiled.

            "I'm thinking about them." He answered back, reaching a massive hand up to caress the back of her head and run his fingers through her long hair. "About how every time before, they have defeated me. But this time, they will not."

            Iris reluctantly pulled her hands back away from his stomach and walked about until she was facing him. Her eyes shone into his cold, soulless ones, and he almost turned away in shame for a moment. Almost.

            "Those murderers won't get away with it this time." She said, picking herself up and sitting on his broad lap. She reached a hand up and caressed his stony chin. "I won't let them, and neither will any of the others. You have trained us too well to fail. Zero may have killed me once before, but he never will again. He'll never be able to hurt anyone ever again by the time I'm through with him."

            Sigma reached a hand down and picked up her lithe body with one simple movement. She yelped for a moment in surprise, but stopped worrying when Sigma smiled at her, that toothy grin she had become so accustomed to.

            "Your spirit gives me the strength to continue this war, Iris." He said finally. Iris smiled, that innocent smile that belonged to her and shook her head.

            "And your spirit is what I love, Sigma." She craned her neck a bit, but kissed him full on the mouth. Sigma returned it immediately, then pulled her close into a tighter embrace.

            And even then, Sigma's actions came under the duress of a cold, barren spirit that long ago lost any ability to love. He could only hate now.

            Love…just another tool for my utility belt.

            It was Doan who had opted to move to the shores of the Japanese mainland that stood between New Tokyo and the open Pacific seas that led to the GDC stronghold of Cornus. So he sat there, on a high rocky cliff as the crashing waves beneath continued their slow erosion of the Cliffside.

            The gray skies had still not cleared in the slightest…they hadn't had a bright blue sky for the longest time now. Nearly everyone had forgotten what one even looked like now. The combination of their existence, the weather, and the ruins they barely existed in had done little to aid their moods.

            Doan himself stared into the horizon unblinking. For him, death had already come. Cleo was dead. Wycost was dead. Everyone he gave a damn about was gone…even his family, or what was left of it had been turned against him and his kind.

            "Wind blow high and wind blow down, wind gust through the shattered town, carry the pieces of long lost love, beyond the dim to heaven above…" He mused quietly.

            But they were coming. He narrowed his eyes for a moment and stared out farther into the ocean. There he spotted what he was looking for. The hovertransports were coming in, and its engines showed no sign of stopping.

            He opened up his comm.

            "They're inbound."

            "Copy, Doan. Return to base." Came Signas's voice. As commanding and stern as ever. Doan nodded his head, then hopped to his feet and popped his wings out. The rocket thrusters ignited and he blasted off into the sky, making a quick midair turn to point himself inland as he went at the comfortable pace of two hundred and fifty kilometers an hour.

            But the lead hovertransport noticed him. Its upper plasma turret on the roof turned about and locked onto Doan as he soared above the skyline. The Ghost Wind heard the sound of it ratcheting into place and firing, even over the wind that blew past him. He turned his head about and saw the all too lethal bolt of high energy careening towards him. With years of experience under his belt, and another year and a half of being used to his Flight Wings, Doan backflipped in midair, allowing the blast to narrowly soar by his contorted body.

            "Base, Doan here." He said through gritted teeth as he blasted down towards the ground, picking up speed by gravity alone. His thrusters he shut off for the time being.

            "Base here. What's wrong, Doan?"

            "They spotted me. Sorry I won't be able to join the party, boys. Give X my regards…and tell him he won't have to worry about the plasma turrets on the hovertransports when they arrive."

            "Doan, NO!! Escape! Get out of there, just escape!!"

            Doan smiled a bit at that, a grim and bitter smile. The frontal plasma turret popped off another round, angling towards his falling frame. The Ghost Wind activated his thrusters and shot down even farther away from the second shot.

            "That's no longer an option…Doan out." He finished, shutting down the comm even as Signas began to utter another ridiculous retort. With his left hand, he reached behind his neck and grasped onto the hilt of his beam lance, pulling it out in front of him and igniting the elongated plasma blade.

            Just before he slammed into the ground, Doan inverted his body about once more and fired all of his thrusters…even his normal dash boots. The effect was immediate. His body was jarred out of its freefall and sent him hurtling towards the hovertransport, beam lance drawn and ready.

            Of course the behemoth he was tracking down tried to attack. Doan would have been worried if it didn't. Furiously now, the front plasma cannon began to pelt shots, not even bothering to charge up but creating a hail of smaller, less powerful plasma bullets towards him. Doan deftly flew his way through the storm, using his beam lance to knock away any shots that grew too close for comfort. Even as he did, he hummed…Something that frightened him at first, both by the mere idea of it and his choice of music. But as he cleared through the storm of plasma bullets and sliced the frontal laser turret clean off of its base, Doan accepted his small idiosyncrasy and just kept going.

            Oh Superman where are you now,

            When everything's gone wrong somehow…

            The middle turret was destroyed just as quickly, not even having a chance to target onto Doan before he made three neat slices through it and made it explode. The third and last, though, did begin to track onto him.

            "Not today!!" Doan shouted, rotating about the single turret faster and faster and then jamming his beam lance into the side, opening up the bulbous protrusion like a can opener might.

            The hovertransport began to slow down as Doan continued his successful attack on the vehicle's only external defenses. Doan shot off a fair distance from the hovertransport and waited as it ground to a halt. The other two turned around then, hoping to destroy the singular reploid infidel once and for all. Doan shook his head and primed his Buster, unleashing a flurry of shots on both that destroyed their laser turrets as well and left several well sized dents in the thick armor they carried. The two who had thought to attack Doan suddenly decided better of it, then tore off. The initial hovertransport remained behind for a few moments more, even as its compatriots blasted for a meeting with cruel, cruel destiny.

            The back hatch opened up and one of the Reploid Hunters within jumped out. Its passenger dropped off, the hovertransport started up again and continued its trek towards New Tokyo and the MHHQ.

            The Reploid Hunter walked towards Doan slowly, his thick metallic boots giving the human the appearance of the same accursed race he and his kind sought to exterminate. His clothes were all dark black, giving the human a slimming effect that betrayed the sharp angles of his musculature underneath. What Doan wondered in the back of his mind, was if this Reploid Hunter was one of the new recruits…or MI9.

            Doan pointed his beam lance at the oncoming man as the Reploid Hunter stepped to a halt and let his burning eyes bore into the reploid.

            "If we had known you were coming, we'd have had the chance to bake you some cookies." Doan muttered. The Reploid Hunter sneered at the comment a bit and reached behind him for something dangling at his waist.

            "Reploid, that's the last joke you'll ever crack." The short haired man held out his hand; he was holding a beam weapon casing.

            It came to life with a deft flick of the Reploid Hunter's thumb; a beam staff.

            Doan harrumphed.

            "It figures…You MI9 bastards again." The Reploid Hunter's eyes widened in surprise for a moment, but dimmed to normalcy soon afterwards.

            "Well then…you knowing about us is just one more reason you deserve to die."

            "It's your fault, you know." Doan countered, using the limited maglev function of his Flight Armor to lift him a few inches off of the ground. He held his beam lance steady in both hands then. "The Hunters were dealing with it. The Hunters had the threat in check. But then you had to go and build Ice Beacon, and throw every piece of our hard work out the window."

            "There are no distinctions between good and bad reploids." The MI9 agent countered, twirling his beam staff about with the grace of a baton twirler. "You all deserve death. You are an abomination; one that has been removed, and will be completely lost from this world by the end of this day."

            "Reploids were made in humanity's image." Doan snapped. "Reploids were built to be just like you and the rest of your kind. Only we don't have to worry about the messy process of childbirth and menopause and erectile dysfunction. If there is some fundamental problem with all of us, then the problem is the same in YOU."

            "You reploids…" The MI9 agent snorted. "I swear, some more of you should have gone into televangelism. That way, nobody would listen to you."

            "Oh?" Doan queried, waving the tip of his beam lance through the air. "Then let me dumb it down for the masses. If there are no good reploids, there are NO GOOD HUMANS."

            "LIAR!!" The MI9 agent screamed, running towards Doan and striking with a blistering slash of his beam staff.

            Doan had to push back with all his strength to prevent the human from carrying through with the perilous slash. Through gritted teeth, the reploid who had had everything taken from him laughed.

            "About time you show some spunk…although, is that the bio-implants they gave you, or are you really tapping into that rage you're supposed to have??" Doan ignited his Flight Wing's thrusters and pushed the Reploid Hunter off balance. With one mighty punch, Doan decked the human in the chin and sent him flying off ten feet. And that was even with the shimmering EM field that flared about the human in his defense.

            The human managed to hold onto his weapon, but the blow Doan had given him was a serious one that left stars dancing in the fool's eyes.

            "You're so dead, reploid." The MI9 agent hissed as he came back up to his feet.

            Doan swung his saber around a bit and shut his eyes for a moment before opening them.

            And then cold, icy fury burned in his eyes.

            "Reploids and humans could have lived in peace. None of this should have happened. But you and the rest of your goddamned troupe of idealistic zealots had to throw everything away. You seek to create a world without reploids; I can't change that. But you'll have a hard time getting rid of us. We share your persistence for survival, we reploids…And right now, we're running on forces you yourself have feared for all your existence."

            "And just what would that be, abomination?"

            "Rage…desperation…defiance." Doan called back, his voice growing thicker. "You have pushed us closer and closer to the brink, and we totter on its edge. But you will not win so easily."

            "And why would that be?"

            "Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best, human." Doan called back, pulling himself into his attack stance. "Do not go quietly into that good night…rage, RAGE, against the dying of the light!!"

            The human absorbed the statement for a moment, then laughed.

            "In all our human endeavors has that statement never rung truer. But the light that would die stems not from you. It comes from us, those that created you and those that will unmake you."

            "And so it was that the Gods on Olympus faded from view, so assured of their superiority that humanity's dissolvation of their covenant destroyed them at once." Doan mused. He looked at the human. "So do you now claim that humans have become Gods?"

            "We have." The human sneered, charging towards Doan again with another wild slash.

            Doan parried the blow and jumped backwards, crouching low again.

            "Then you are truly doomed…" Doan mused. "It will not be by our hands that humanity will fade away…as much as you would not believe it, you will die by your own destructiveness."

            "Not before we have killed you." The MI9 agent snarled.

            Doan stared at him with icy eyes. His beam lance came up higher.

            "Either I leave here alive…or we both will not."

            The rest of the forces that had been present at the MHHQ had managed to spread out to the city and warn the civilians. The reploids that could not fight had been moved to the underground caverns and waterways of New Tokyo, to hide away from the conflict whilst those that could fight remained behind.

            They now sat at the very fringe of New Tokyo, crouched on the crumbling buildings that stubbornly refused to fall. A grimfaced air hung about them all, a tense purveyance that only made them stand more on edge.

            The warrior reploids who were not as elite were dug in slightly to the North a bit more, put there to act as a barrier between the three hovertransports and the entrances that led to the catacombs of New Tokyo, where their downtrodden brethren lay shivering in wait. Gavin, Jad, Kol, J.K. Horn and Signas were with them.

            To the south, guarding the initial point of arrival of their foes was those who had no qualms about thrusting themselves headfirst into a battle that would probably claim their lives. Led by the greatest Maverick Hunter ever, Mega Man X now returned, Bastion, Willow, Kazok and Dash now waited.

            X's dull saddened eyes glimmered a bit.

            "Why didn't Doan run?? Why didn't he get out of there and back to reinforcements?"

            Bastion tilted his head over and looked at X.

            "He lost Cleo to these raids. He had a score to settle with the Reploid Hunters, and in the process he sought to eliminate the immediate threat of those juggernauts. Now they'll be forced to fight us in hand to hand combat."

            "Which most of us seem to excel at." Dash Blade growled, priming her TitaniTefloAlloy claws. Kazok smirked a bit as his love bared her fangs, then shook his head.

            "There are times I wonder…"

            "What?" X asked, looking to the former Maverick. Even now, The Blue Bomber of 21XX had a hard time dealing with the fact that the former Mavericks were now allied with the remnants of the Maverick Hunters. Kazok blinked his gray eyes.

            "All of this came about because Ice Beacon went off under our noses. Those that went had failed in whatever attempt to prevent it from going off. And this is the result. We're moments away from the final battle, hours away from the end of our kind…" Kazok shook his head. "But what if this wasn't supposed to happen? What if we just all failed, somehow? Failed to prevent this from coming about?"

            "Kazok, dear, there's little you can do now about that." Dash murmured, shaking her head. "Even if we did fail somehow, we can't change what's happened. We can only live for now, and try our best to live for tomorrow."

            "And what about you, X?" Bastion asked, turning to his former MHHQ superior. "What drives you now? Some sense of desperation, or vengeance? Do you fight for your own survival? Doan was willing to sacrifice himself to increase our odds of success. That is the legacy that blasted Ghost Wind has left us. But we were your legacy, X. The reploids. And we have slowly been killed."

            X looked older than anyone there at that point. Just the weariness in his eyes, the sadness in his face. Still, he absorbed Bastion's comments without flinching.

            Slowly, he reached up and took his helmet off, holding it down in the crook of his arm. Only Dash gasped in shock. The others remained eerily silent.

            Mega Man X stared at them all, that forlorn look not lost from his face. As a matter of fact, with his helmet removed it seemed deepened. Of course, his long flowing white hair would be an indicator of his sorrows. His once proud mane of black hair had bleached itself into death. And it had grown.

            The hair of the forefather of all reploids fell down to the small of his back and hung there. Limp and defeated, yet proud and defiant at the same time. As everyone looked at Mega Man X in his worn armor and newly revealed hair, he looked for all the world as the eldest and saddest creature of all time.

            "What is my legacy?" X asked quietly. "In part, all of you. But what I've done with my life is what will stand the test of time." He looked out to the horizon, and the hovertransports yet to come. "My father created me because he held a dream in his last days of a world where my kind and humans could live in peace. Where we could cooperate and grow stronger by one another's efforts. And I fought for that dream. I fought for a peace that seemingly never came. For thirteen long and hard years, I had to watch my friends die and my hands become bloodier and bloodier."

            "And now that dream is gone. Despite all we ever tried, humans and reploids will never be able to live together. The cumulative effects of the Mavericks and whatever hit us a year and a half ago has shattered whatever opportunity existed. And this is the result."

            X pulled his hair back, then put his helmet back on and turned to the others.

            "My legacy began with the reploid's race birth. And it will end when we are all gone and forgotten. We should have lived for far longer. We had the potential to do great things. But I've studied history when I wasn't creating it, and I know that after we're dead and gone, humanity will move on and forget about us. There will never be another age of reploids. There will never be another age of robots. It ends with us here."

            "Optimistic, aren't you?" Willow snorted. The Irish Banshee had grown only more acidic since she had arrived at the MHHQ a year ago. X just blinked with that empty stare.

            And then the hovertransports came.

            Underneath New Tokyo, the hordes of civilian reploids waited in anticipation. Of them all, only Hazil stood at the door, his rarely used Buster primed.

            Even farther into the makeshift catacombs, the others waited. Some wore armor. Some had no armor at all, by their design alone cursed to be without any means of protection. But none cried now. None of them could.

            The ex-MHHQ reploid at the door looked behind him to the huddled masses. Less than a hundred of them, most in no shape at all to fight. Most of them New Tokyo reploids in the first place…only here and there was there smatterings of 'foreign' reploids.

            Like Evinrude, who lay in a wheelchair with a blanket covering her lap. She wasn't as deeply hidden as some of the others, choosing instead to remain out with Hazil. The man who had given her hope again, even when everything else fell apart.

            Hazil looked at the European born reploid and smiled softly. She returned it, bobbing her head ever so slightly. Her love he reciprocated, fully and even more so. All he had done was save her life. She had saved what little remained of his fractured sanity and provided a glue to keep it together.

            Almost all the reploids who were civilian had a warped sense of hope. Survival no longer mattered anymore…not when so many of their kinsmen had fallen. They knew that their time would come. Instead, when life was no longer the hope that burned in one's heart, it was treasuring what was left of life. The simple joys, being able to wake up and treat each day as a full experience, and finding love. In the ruins of the once proud city, many male and female reploids had joined together, finding an odd sort of comfort and solace in one another. The unity of hearts, it seemed, had the power to block out the dismal state of life. If only for the moment when two became one.

            Hazil and Evinrude were two such reploids. Hazil would die for her, he knew that. He would die to save her. Life no longer mattered to the reploids. Only hope did.

            Hazil felt a shuddering from above rattle through the ground. His smile faded away, and he bowed his head for a moment.

            "They're coming." He said.

            "I know." Evinrude replied quietly from her corner. She looked up to him. "But that no longer matters."

            "Little does anymore." Hazil agreed, with a tinge of a smile reborn on his face.

            "Fan out." Signas commanded. As he said it, he drew out his powerful beam foil, a variation of the beam saber with a thinner blade meant more for fencing than anything else. It ignited with a pale blue light, then sat and waited.

            At his words, the first attack wave of reploids shot forward. Bastion and Kazok took to the air, their respective antigravitational systems running at their full strength. Dash Blade and Willow and Mega Man X jumped off of the side of the ruined building and into the rubble filled streets below.

            Reflexively, Signas pulled his comm up to his mouth. "Remember the plan."

            "Roger that, black sheep." Came the response from Dash Blade, ever the feraloid in both demeanor and action.

            Gavin, Jad and Kol led the charge with their own pack slightly off to the side of the main force, and the third group of warriors chose the other side.

            The hovertransports themselves swung in at full throttle, swinging about so that their noses faced away from the ruins of New Tokyo. It was then that the reploids struck.

            "GO!!" Signas commanded. The desired effect that the commander had hoped for worked. Willow and X Sight Warped behind the hovertransports, using dead reckoning alone to beam their bodies to their new location. Bastion and Kazok took to the air, using their antigravitational systems to push them above the hovertransports and into attack range before the humans could even blink in surprise. And finally, Dash Blade and J.K. Horn spread out to the sides, Horn holding a massive cannon of some sort that defied all rationality.

            The hovertransports didn't stand a chance. Kazok unloaded with a furious barrage of plasmafire on one of the craft, aided by the blistering Lightning Strike from Bastion's Flight Wings. X also used his Buster with great skill, targeting the sensitive nose area of his craft, while Willow bided her time by unloading every last one of her plasmic explosives into the midsection of the ship by the fuel supplies. And lastly, Dash Blade sat cautiously by while Horn leveled the monstrous device and fired a piercing beam cannon shot that went straight through the hovercraft from front to back, exploding technology as it went.

            The sudden attack's effect was immediate. Every last hovertransport went up in a fiery cloud of smoke, ash, and atomized particles. Some of the reploid warriors began to cheer a few seconds later, thinking that the battle was over.

            X looked up at the sky, then shook his head.

            "Something wrong?" Willow asked him, lifting an eyebrow. X laughed a bit.

            "It's not over." Every reploid who had kept their comm circuit open heard the Blue Bomber of 21XX's voice utter those words. Those who were cheering suddenly stopped. Those who had remained silent gained a new edge of ice in their stance.

            And then the killing began.

            Everywhere, surrounding the reploids in a circle of warp beams, the Reploid Hunters appeared, unscathed by the all too deadly attack of the reploid's prime task force.

            Signas cursed and dropped into a defensive stance as a beam saber came about towards his neck. "They sensed it! They warped out!!" He deflected the hammering strike, but had to jump back to avoid the followup slash. "Fan out and defend yourselves!!"

At what might be called the front, Horn, X, and Willow found themselves attacked by three Reploid Hunters. Two looked basic enough with their skintight body armor and beam sabers; but the one that caught Willow's eye obviously was the leader of the entire charade…His clothing was different than the others. It was like a thin black cloak of some kind, showing tears and gashes and tatters. Willow's eyes widened as she saw what they were doing; the two headed towards X, while the one in the shroud being closest to Horn suddenly brandished a weapon that caused fear to lump in her throat. But her voice remained solid.

            "HORN!!" Willow screamed, dashing towards him, beam whip pulled out and ignited within less than a second, whipping behind her.

            Too late…Too late did Horn catch what Willow meant and turned around.

            Nothing could be done then. Horn had only then begun to widen his eyes in surprise and lift his cannon up. But the Reploid Hunter, armed with the shimmering black beam scythe showed no mercy.

            Like splitting a watermelon in half, the Reploid Hunter slammed his scythe through Horn's skull. What was left of Horn trembled for a moment, then collapsed as his torso slipped into its inevitable shutdown cycle, automatically seeking a way to prevent microfusion generator overload.

            Willow's dash thrusters gave out…she skidded to a halt and stared dumbly at the scene. Her attention was no longer on Mega Man X and his plight…it was on the destroyed remains of Julius Kinnian Horn, and the nightmarish figure standing above it, beam scythe held in triumph. It was then the Irish Banshee realized what the Reploid Hunter was dressed in…

            A death shroud.

            Bastion and Kazok stood stunned for a few moments at what had happened, but then snapped out of it with fire burning in their eyes.

            "Damn them…Damn them to HELL!!!" Kazok screamed, plummeting towards the ground at a speed that would have been possible to attain without his gravicrystals. Buster formed in his hand, he fired off a blistering supershot and took out one of the Reploid Hunters immediately. But that drew in the attention of three more, all armed with magrifles. A pathetic weapon in most cases…But as they leveled to fire at the scourge who had just atomized their ally, Bastion swung down with his beam staff at the ready, all too aware of just how devastating their projectile weaponry could be in this case.

            "Kazok, FLY!!" Bastion barked, swerving behind the Reploid Hunters and striking down one, the human's EM field sparking in protest before it died and let Bastion sever the warrior in two with a fierce slash. The shriek was nearly unbearable, and would have been for a Bastion of a former age. But all the reploids on the battlefield now had hardened themselves to that sound over the long months…remembering that thousands of their brothers and sisters had died in far more twisted and sick ways allowed them to keep fighting.

            The other two, though, managed to fire before an enraged Bastion slammed into one and turned his dash boot thrusters on the other. The last human attacking Kazok fell to the ground, his face and clothes charred off to the bone by the blistering Dash Overdrive. Even as Kazok turned around in surprise, the magrifle rounds carried on, and met his antigravitational field. Surrounded by another electromagnetic enhancement field, the bullet's speeds only increased, gashing into Kazok and boring completely through him before exploding out of his back, two large exit wounds now very visible…and bleeding. Kazok gasped in pain, losing his mental control over his gravicrystals and collapsing to the ground as the black hexagonal pods drew to him with a sigh and snapped back into place around his waist.

            "KAZOK!!" Bastion cried out, face twisted in horror. He turned back around to the human he was grappling with and glared daggers.

            "You're all going to die today, you monsters…" The human grunted, forcing Bastion's hands away from his body and slowly winning out. Which meant this human was Enhanced.

            "Go to HELL, MI9 scum!!" Bastion rasped, pushing back. The surprise of being discovered washed over the middle-aged human's face like cold water…and gave The Desert Angel just enough time to push down and snap the pathetic human's neck like brittle timber. A sudden instant of pain and further shock, and then the human's body fell limp, his bright eyes dulling and finally dying as his head's shattered support gave out. If Bastion had been as he was a year and a half ago, that pained gaze in the human's eyes as he stared up at his killer would have torn the ex-Maverick Hunter apart. But little could affect him anymore. Except, perhaps, his death.

            Bastion was by Kazok's side and lifting the badly damaged reploid up into the sky, held tightly in his arms.

            "Run a systems check." Bastion ordered curtly. Kazok coughed up a mouthful of reploid blood, then weakly chuckled a bit.

            "Like that would help me any…"

            "Just DO IT!!" Bastion demanded. The ex-Maverick sighed and did what he was told.

            Warning. Internal systems have been breached. Armor failure. Microfusion Tank has been punctured; temporary seal in place. Commence auto-stasis within five minutes or Microfusion Tank will destabilize. Internal Operations Energy is at 23%.

            "I've got five minutes to live, Bastion." Kazok muttered grimly. "Bastards destabilized my core."

            "Go into auto-stasis then." Bastion replied. "Let your body recover from it." It was then that Kazok lifted his head up and shook it.

            "Do you really think we have that much time left??"

            Bastion said nothing. Kazok shook his head. "Get me to Dash. If I'm going to die, then I'll die by her side."

            "The way that I should have died with Bristol." Bastion murmured underneath his breath. He sloughed off the sobering thought and cleared his throat. "Hold on, Kazok. And get that Buster of yours primed."

            Meanwhile, Signas and the two rear defense forces were having a much harder time of it. This was easily explainable, the suffering warriors found. The squad was half composed of humans which were obviously of MI9's make.

            Gavin brought his saber about and deflected the saber slash from one, grunting in dismay as he was promptly kicked backwards.

            "Status report!!" He barked into his comm. "Jad, Kol, give me the sitrep!!"

            "Jad's dead." Came the unexpectedly bitter reply of Kol, the more serious of the pair Gavin had kept away from him. "But so's the sonofabitch that got him." Gavin rolled away from the angry lash of his foe's beam saber and dashed into the human, pushing the sack of EM field protected flesh backwards and out of his hair for a moment. His eyes swiveled about, then latched onto the scene…

            What was left of Jad lay slashed to pieces on the ground, his lifeblood drained out of him and his ghostly face staring up into the sky with a pleading gaze. Beside him lay the human who had been Jad's killer, half of his body blown away by a massive wave of plasma. And above the two was Kol, who found himself trapped between two far too agile Reploid Hunters who were both sporting beam sabers.

            "I'm coming, Kol!!" Gavin cried out, dashing towards his friend. He shut off his thruster's safeties, doing a fantastic job of roasting the human behind him who had almost been ready to attack once more.

            Signas could do little except deal with one human. If anything, he was having a hard time even dealing with that. He wasn't a military grade reploid, he ran on heart and strategy alone…

            "Ha!! So you're the great n' mighty Signas, the GDC's prized reploid creation." His opponent sneered. "Boy, they shoulda shipped you back." Signas almost recoiled physically from the man's hicklike demeanor. But he shook his head and fought on.

            "You won't win so easily this day." Signas called back, swinging his beam foil about a few times before landing in his set position. "No, you shall not."

            "Oh?" The human chuckled a bit, his eyes twinkling in falsified mirth. "Whut makes ye think that?"

            "You're a poor swordsman." Signas snapped back. The human relaxed his pose, then shrugged his shoulders.

            In a flash of light, he vanished, causing a stunned Signas to stare about in search of his target.

            And then he arched his back and screamed as the same beam saber he had been faced with jammed through his back, grazing his spine and narrowly missing his microfusion generator. It blew apart the sole Heart Tank Signas had managed to keep operative, though…taking with it the precious extra Internal Operations Energy the strategist had come to rely on.

            He could smell the human's breath pouring on his neck…sour beer and rancid meat. And that same disgusting chuckle.

            "Weeyl, I may be a poor swordsman…but I'm a great backstabber."

            Horn had perished quickly; the Reploid Hunter had appeared behind him too fast for the aged reploid to block or dodge by any great length. Willow tried to take comfort in the fact he had died quickly…The black beam scythe had been gashed through his skull, cleaving his sentience and consciousness into oblivion in the first microseconds. Still, as his body lay there in a heap, his discarded heavy beam cannon lying beside the bludgeoned torso, Willow felt disgust and remorse for the fellow. She had called him friend…possibly even more than that, but the two had never had the time to pursue it. And he had died before any chance at possibility could be granted.

            It happened to them all…Bristol, Wycost, Tarkin, Pharaoh Man…Even Fannir was twisted by their sick wills. All for what?! MI9's grand dreams??

            Something more burned in her then, something she couldn't quite explain.

            The damned human, obviously of MI9's ilk, even had the gall to wear a black death shroud about his body as if he was death incarnate, using his beam scythe to reap fields of grain. Or in this case, reploids.

            One more dead…one more gone because I couldn't…I couldn't…

            "You killed him." Willow uttered. The shock drained from her face, and an emotionless pallor took over. Slowly, she lifted her head up and stared into the Reploid Hunter's hood. She caught a hint of a sick smile. "You killed him."

            The figure shrugged his shoulders. He seemed to be enjoying watching the shell shock slip over her. Willow began to tremble a bit, but somehow pulled up enough conscious will that she didn't collapse to her knees.

            "You killed them all." She continued, staring at him. Strangely, the unnatural calm in her voice didn't unnerve him. Almost as if he expected it. "And you'll never stop, will you? Until we're all dead, and even then…"

            She reached her free hand up and pointed at him. "You truly do think you're the reaper. But what do you reap? Those you believe to be unfit for life? Or those who have only lived better than you could ever hope to??"

            The reaper shrugged again. And finally, Willow's face lost that emotionless stare. She gained anger…the only emotion she'd truly had ever since she had regained her memories of Bristol and MI9 and began her search for the one that could doom the world.

            "DAMNIT, SAY SOMETHING!!" The reaper finally chuckled.

            "And just what would you have me say?" He finally replied, his voice carrying a distinctive timbre in it.

            So distinctive that shock replaced Willow's anger. The reaper's free hand came up and pushed back the death shroud's hood, revealing the face underneath. It was a face Willow had hoped never to see again.

            "Jowers."

            "So nice to see you still remember your executioner." Jowers said, his failed attempt at mirth only adding to the stony silence of his personality. "But I'm sorry that there's no time for idle chitchat. We still have to get to the business at hand of killing you and all your bastard kind. Both for past sins and future ones."

            Willow narrowed her eyes and brought her beam whip up in front of her, where it coiled like a serpent waiting to strike. "Of all the Original MI9 Enhanceds, only you survive. Those damned fools Geoffrey and Tim bit off more than they could chew early on."

            "And don't think for a moment that I've forgotten that fact." Jowers growled, waving his beam scythe about in front of him in a few test swings. "You killed friends in those days. Your friends killed my friends. For that, you shall never be forgiven. The rest of humanity is content to simply do away with the entire reploid race; But I and the rest in MI9 forever damn your souls to burn in a thousand places of eternal torment."

            "Strong words from somebody who's about to face the Banshee." Willow called back, her green eyes narrowing into slits. "My voice sounds the doom of those who would defy me."

            "Enough talk, you Irish Wench." Jowers snapped. "Now is the time to die."

            "At least we agree on that point then!" Willow called back, launching herself forward, beam whip raised to strike.

            Dash Blade disposed of the Reploid Hunter closest to her; what plasma claws could be deflected by, TitaniTefloAlloy ones cut right through. The human female almost looked like a fish gasping for water as her punctured lungs frothed and bubbled, bringing bright red aerated blood to gurgle at her mouth. The Feraloid dropped the destroyed carcass of meat to the ground and let her senses take over, waiting for another target to come within range.

            Bastion and Kazok got to her first. Slowly, Bastion descended, dropping Kazok's body to the ground until the ex-Maverick's footing became stable enough to support his weight.

            "Kazok!!" Dash called out in worry, running beside him. Bastion tilted one of his wings and fired off another Lightning Blast, obliterating a Reploid Hunter who was coming too close to them.

            Weakly, the gravicrystal wielding reploid looked up to his love, hand held across his chest wounds.

            "Hey, babe." Dash looked over to Bastion.

            "What happened?"

            "Magrifle rounds. His core's been punctured." Bastion stated flatly.

            Dash's face fell at the statement. Anything else could be repaired…but a punctured microfusion tank meant immediate stasis…or a quick and blazing death by self-destruction.

            "You two gonna be all right?" Bastion asked quickly. Dash breathed in for a moment, then nodded her head.

            "Yeah, we got it covered here. Go help out the others."

            "Already on it." Bastion replied, tapping the side of his tarnished open helmet. Two screen visors drew in from the outside and clicked together with a snap, flickering for a moment as the displays came online. Effectively, Bastion's eyes were now protected by a thick barrier of highly damage resistant(And wind shear resistant) visor. Early in its use, it had been pink. Now it shone a bright blood red. In a blur of red and orange, Bastion vanished from Dash and Kazok and back up into the air, where he could hopefully get a bird's eye view of the situation. Three Reploid Hunters began to close in on Dash and Kazok below.

            The Feraloid dropped into her stance for a moment…then felt a hand grasp her own. She looked over to a weakened Kazok, who now breathed shallowly out of need. Even beads of sweat were beginning to appear on his brow.

            "Whatever happens, Dash…know that I loved you."

            "The same here, you freak." The Feraloid answered back with a sigh. "But I'm not planning on dying quite yet.

            With Kazok grounded and by Dash, Bastion knew he was the only one left who could fly up and get a view of the whole picture. Which is exactly what he did, lifting himself up on the closest thing to angel's wings he'd ever be granted.

            Everywhere he looked, the situation was bad. The Reploid Hunters had had this all planned. It was too late for Signas…too late for Doan way out in the middle of nowhere. Horn was dead, and Willow was locked too deeply in combat that went deeper than mere survival. But X…

            In a blur, Bastion shot over to X and fired off another lightning bolt from his wingtips, scorching one of the two Reploid Hunters trying to defeat the Blue Bomber of 21XX.

            The other turned about in shock and fear…and then was promptly blown away from behind by X's supershot.

            Bastion landed and shook his hair out again. "You okay?"

            "I've had worse." X managed with a grimace. But there was no hiding the deep gash alongside his waist where a beam saber had struck by.

            "Bastion, we're all dying. They were too much for us…"

            "NO." Bastion barked, his eyes flickering with sudden fire. "I'm not about to believe that!!"

            "Believe what?" X retorted.

            "That we were destined to all die this day!!!" Bastion shot back. He pointed to X and stabbed a finger in his chest. "Just look at yourself, X!! Look at what you've become!!"

            X stared numbly back at him. Bastion shook his head.

            "You've changed, X. And not for the better. I know it's been tough, everything about this…but you're not the only one who's suffered. We've all had friends and loved ones perish because of this stupidity. We all KNOW that some day it will end and the last of us will fade away. WE KNOW THAT. But do you know what the difference between us and you is??"

            "What?" X replied quietly.

            Bastion merely shook his head and looked to the battle.

            "The difference is…WE HAVEN'T GIVEN UP. And admit it. Before Zero died to protect you, you felt the same."

            "He might have been able to stop this…" X murmured.

            "What, and you think you're any less capable?" Bastion shot back bitterly. "Bullshit. I know the history of the Maverick Hunters. And I know that at the very beginning, when Sigma went Maverick and started the First Uprising, you stopped him. And even in the Second Uprising…you stopped them all. And each time you started those Uprisings, you went without your armor. The only thing missing from now and then is very simple; your fire, X. You've lost your fire."

            Bastion shut his mouth and waited for some sign from the progenitor of the reploid race…a sign that never came.

            Disgustedly, Bastion exhaled and shook his head again.

            "We fight to live. We know how bad it is, but we keep on fighting. But you, X…you've already died on the inside. So what does that say of that speech you gave in the MHHQ, then? When you pledged to fight with us? Till the very end, no matter what? Was that all false, just a lie made up by a hollow shell to remind himself of the better days?" Bastion lifted up into the air slightly, his brown hair waving in the wind. "In everything that happened, we never lost hope that someday you and Zero would come back to us. Even as you told us that Zero was dead, we held out hope that at least one of the Legendaries was back in our midst, ready to serve and protect. But now I see the truth, a truth only this age of darkness could reveal." Bastion turned about and shook his head, smouldering eyes burning into X's face. "You're dead as well."

            The Desert Angel took off, his two beam sabers in hand as he rallied to the rear defense line, hoping with some small part of his spirit that there was still enough time…enough time to blunt the charge and prevent the Reploid Hunters from finding Hazil and the civilians.

            All his hopes were dashed when a large explosion blasted away the ground to reveal the caverns underneath…and a ring of Reploid Hunters prepared to jump down into the darkness that held the final glimmering sparks of light in their world.

            And as for X…

            By now, the other Reploid Hunters had moved on, were ignoring him for the moment. The other reploids were making more mess, and perhaps there was fear that prevented the murderous humans from drawing too near to 'the one'.

            And that gave him time. Time enough to clench his hands and shut his eyes.

            "Zero…"

            Zero, what do I do now??

            He already knew what Zero would scream at him. FIGHT, X!!!

            And father…what would you say now, when everything's fallen apart??

            No answer came. No answer from Dr. Light, by capsule or dream had come to X since before Ice Beacon's launching. And none came now.

Father…why have you forsaken me??

            X lifted his head back up and stared at the battleground once more.

            Reploids fought and died, in a futile effort to eliminate the Reploid Hunters before their race was exterminated. They didn't fight for honor, or for glory. They didn't fight for money or morals or religion.

            They fought for life. In a nightmare that would never end, the last of the reploids fought for life.

            And then X knew. The realization hit him, his purpose shone clear. A single ray of sunlight parted the clouds, if only for a moment, and shone upon him.

            "Until we meet again…" X murmured, priming his Buster once more and drawing in a charge. He looked to the battleground again, then screamed long and loud as his dash thrusters took him into the fray.

            If I should die before I wake…

            I pray my soul to take.

            Signas, X, and Zero all walked into the MHHQ's War Room together, purpose shining in their faces. It was a look that caused the truly alert techs in the room to perk their heads up in wonder, staring at the marching enclave and wondering with all of their intelligence just what was going on.

            Just the day before, X and Zero wouldn't have been caught dead marching with Signas. But now they were stepping in perfect synch with him.

            One of the techs in the room, a spiderish looking reploid by the name of Yarn clicked his mandibles together.

            "Hey X, what did he drug ya with?" The Blue Bomber of 21XX looked over, then smirked a bit and shook his head.

            "Nothing…just keep quiet and watch the fireworks." Signas walked over to the tech at the main communications panel and tapped the busybody's shoulder. The tech spasmed for a moment, then looked up as if his skeleton had jumped out of his body.

            Signas calmly stared at the MHHQ employee, a basic humanoid class with horn rimmed glasses. "What's your name?"

            "Willard, sir." The tech responded. Signas nodded in affirmation.

            "Very well then, Willard. Open up the comm circuits and broadcast a signal on every known frequency at maximum power." Willard's eyes boggled, the motion only enhanced by the spectacles he suddenly felt the need to push farther up his nose.

            "Exsqueeze me?!" He sputtered. Zero came over and harrumphed at the worker, a slight glimmer of impatience in his eyes.

            "You heard him. Do it."

            Willard swallowed his pride and did just that, then turned around and handed the wireless transmitter to Signas.

            "You have the comm."

            "Worst joke EVER, Will!" Yarn called out from across the room, mandibles clicking in what might have been a laugh. Willard rolled his eyes, then motioned for the new General of the Maverick Hunters to talk.

            But Signas deferred, handing the transmitter to X. He nodded once at the blue/green eyes soul.

            "It's all yours, X." Zero snickered and nodded.

            "You heard the man. Give 'em Hell." X nodded, then clicked the transmit switch.

            "This is Mega Man X at the Maverick Hunter Headquarters, transmitting on all known frequencies. I'm issuing a challenge to Sigma and his band of Mavericks for one last duel…if you all accept, call back. You still know the number, I'm sure." He finished with some measure of deadpan humor in his voice.

            He clicked the transmitter off and waited. From his seat, Yarn stretched his arms.

            "You sure the bastard's gonna call back??"

            X just smiled.

            In the Greenland URFAWP built base, Sigma was surprised to find his communications equipment ringing off of the hook. He frowned for a moment, then tapped the controls a few times.

            "Hmm…multifrequency overlay. Nice." Sigma muttered. "Somebody is trying to get someone's attention." He clicked the 'receive' switch and waited.

            "This is Mega Man X at the Maverick Hunter Headquarters, transmitting on all known frequencies. I'm issuing a challenge to Sigma and his band of Mavericks for one last duel…if you all accept, call back. You still know the number, I'm sure."

            Sigma's mouth twitched as he heard it.

            So, X wishes to toy with me?? The fool.

            He lifted his head up and tapped in the bases' intercom.

            "Mavericks, report to the War Room."

            Every last one of them, even Iris, managed to make it to the room in under thirty seconds. Sigma smiled on the inside. They were punctual today.

            "My Mavericks, we've just been given the gauntlet by one Mega Man X at the Maverick Hunters." He played the message for them.

            Naturally, Shell and Cumulus were enraged. Of the six Mavericks Sigma had brought back from slumber, it was those two that held the shortest tempers. Dash…well, Dash was different. She found a way to temper that rage into a sharper blade than her claws provided. Iris just looked to Sigma with those clear sparkling eyes and waited for an answer.

            "I'm inclined to accept his challenge." Sigma said with finality in his voice. "And this time, it is my turn to lead the pack." No complaints were issued, so Sigma nodded his head and turned around to the screen. With a few more keystrokes, he opened a steady comm channel to the MHHQ…once he'd bounced his signal off of nearly every relay satellite in orbit.

            "We got a bite!!" Willard exclaimed, clapping his hands together in excitement. X's eyes turned to meet Signas's, who simply nodded his head.

            "I hope you're right about this one, Signas."

            "I hope so too." The General of the Maverick Hunters issued back. Zero snorted.

            "Now THERE'S a confidence builder."

            "Zero, shut up." X murmured. He turned to Willard. "Go ahead and open the channel."

            In a blink of light and the flare of electrons, the plasma screen above them came on, revealing Sigma and every last one of his Mavericks…even Iris, who stood defiantly by the Maverick King with her small hand resting on top of his mammoth one.

            "Greetings to all my friends at the MHHQ." Sigma said perfunctorily. "I thought it best to reply to your message…but know that there is no way you can trace our signal."

            "Wasn't my idea." X spat back, disgust burning in his eyes. "You and I long ago ran out of fuel to throw our fires of reason and morality at each other, so this time I'm going to make it simple. The Maverick Hunters are throwing a challenge at the Mavericks. Us against you, on a battlefield of our choosing."

            "Hmm, I see…" Sigma rumbled, rubbing at his chin. "A battlefield of your choosing. Is that because you're fed up with us always instigating the first blow?"

            "The river runs deep, Sigma." X shot back.

            "So does the forest, dear contemplative X." Sigma retorted. "In any case, we accept. My Mavericks and I will show you the error of your ways and clean the world of your wretched warrior race." Sigma looked deeper into the figures present on his viewscreen, then grinned at Zero. "I do hope you'll be at this fight, Zero. Lady Iris here still has not yet concluded her business with you."

            Zero looked at Iris for a long moment, then shook his head sadly. "Iris, what has he done to you??" He asked quietly.

            "Shown me the truth." Iris snapped angrily. "This time around, you shall not kill me for defending Sigma or his beliefs. This time around, I will destroy you."

            X winced at her words, then turned to look at Zero. The destroyed look on his face was all too clear of the pain her words had resurrected in him.

            But then the pain vanished. Anger took its place. Zero turned his head to Sigma, eyes burning a bright green, and the hint of something more…

            "Sigma, you'll pay for what you've done."

            "We shall see." Sigma mused humorlessly. "In any case. X, just where would you wish to hold this little soirée??"

            "We'll meet at the place where you and I first crossed swords." X said simply. "We'll meet you on the rim of Hokkaido Island, where your Flying Fortress was born from."

            "The one you destroyed, you mean…" Sigma replied. He rubbed at his chin once more. "Very well. We shall see you then tonight. That should give you, and whoever else you were thinking of inviting, ample enough time to pray for their souls before we throw them into the seas."

            The comm channel clicked off with a resounding snap, and then the War Room faded back to its normal dim lighting.

            Zero turned to X, face burning.

            "Sigma is mine, X. What he's done to Iris…I can never forgive him for." X held his tongue inside of his mouth for a while, looking intently into the face of his longtime friend.

            There was a fire that only vengeance could quench.

            "He's yours then." X said simply. "But please, be careful."

            "I'll be myself." Zero stated bluntly. The Crimson Hunter turned to Signas and pointed with his index finger. "And your plan had better work. I want Sigma and the Mavericks dead."

            "Even Iris?" Signas asked, even more bluntly than Zero usually spoke. The Crimson Hunter lost his edge of madness there. "No, I didn't think so. Let me make a wager here…at one time, she was something more than a friend to you, wasn't she?"

            "Yeah." Zero murmured, the rest of his anger fading away. "And then she died."

            "And now Sigma's brought her back again, just to torment Zero." X finished.

            Signas moved his eyes up to the ceiling, then shook his head.

            "It's not the same Iris, Zero. She looks like the Iris you know…but it is not the same one. As long as you never lose sight of that, you stand a chance."

            "A chance of what?"

            "Surviving." Signas stated flatly. "Zero, as hard as it may sound, this is one time where your emotions can only get you hurt. Be careful out there. Don't engage Iris, if that is the problem. Avoid her, deal only with those you know you can take with your full force of will to guide you." Signas blinked his eyes a few times, then sighed. "Well, that's done. Call in the elites of the Hunters. We have much planning to do, and little time to implement it."

            Black beam staff and brilliant green beam lance crashed together, raging with the forces of thunder and tempest. A reploid and an MI9 elite Enhanced met head on, each boiling with the rage of their species. Anger became strength, strength became will and focus…and will and focus drove them to fight to ever increasing crescendo.

            Doan's eyes remained steadfastly open, refusing to blink even as errant plasma from the fringes of his beam lance wisped off like vapor from dry ice. The human also seemed unfazed; and just in the way that he wielded his beam staff showed the human had trained with considerable skill and mastery with the weapon. The fact that Doan hadn't been able to land a single strike showed that the MI9 Enhanced had trained in many of the martial arts Doan himself had picked up over his years; including that damnable variation of Bojitsu somebody had made for beam weaponry.

            No words. Just action. Every flex of their muscles, every twitch of their eyes became as malediction in a place where sound became muddled and drowned by the roaring of the blood in their ears.

            Doan couldn't chance his Saber Extend; his weapon was already at half power, and that particular skill would knock down his energy reserves even more. He needed all the power his beam lance could provide, the way this battle was going.

            Every thrust of his was met with a deflection; then the other end of the beam staff would swing up and threaten to gash his arm, forcing Doan to pull back his blade and go on the defensive.

            In short, the Enhanced was slowly winning. It defied logic, it defied reason…

            Reploids were built to be better than humans…There is no way I should be losing!!

            Doan gritted his teeth as his mind screamed that simple statement of plausible reason. But it didn't change anything.

            "You're talented for one of your kind." The MI9 Enhanced grunted, leaping over Doan with his staff twirling about to parry the Ghost Wind's lance thrusts. He landed on the other side, then smirked a bit. "But you're not talented enough."

            Doan charged at him with another scream, forcing his body and mind into overdrive…

            Thrust. Block. Parry. Thrust. Parry. Duck. Roll. Leap. Thrust. Stab. Thrust. Sidestep.

            SLICE.

            Before the human's eyes, his beam staff was sliced in half, taking with it two fingers from his right hand. The MI9 Enhanced screamed and jumped backwards, gripping at the cauterized wound. Still, he didn't lose a hold of the one part of his beam staff which was still operational…now just a very odd looking beam saber.

            Doan drew in a long breath, then exhaled, letting himself relax a bit and release the tension of that last furious strike. He looked at the MI9 agent and shook his head.

            "Fuck talent." He snapped. "This battle is about survival." The human looked up, his eyes burning with pain and focused fury.

            "Yessss…" The human slurred, tightening his left hand's grip around the only surviving portion of his weapon. "Survival. But you won't LIIIVE!!!!"

            The human's feet slammed into the ground, taking him towards Doan at a furious pace. Doan lit his Flight Wing's thrusters and streaked at the same speed.

            The flash from their beam weapons connected and exploded, the opening strike so furious that an errant plasmaburst erupted from the slight destabilization of the electromagnetic fields that gave the dangerous beam blades their distinctive shape.

            The screams and hisses from the two beam sabers connecting could be heard for nearly half a kilometer distant. Even closer, one could hear the screams. Closer still, one could see them, two figures dancing about with flaring blades that glowed unholy light upon accursed soil. And as they fought, the two drew nearer and nearer to the rocky shores, and the crashing waves and jagged rocks below.

            Slowly but surely, the tempo died down. Fury and adrenaline gave out to exhaustion and fatigue. And at last, the two warriors found themselves staring each other, tottering on the precipice to a long fall below.

            Doan stared at the human, breathing in a feeble attempt to feed extra power to his microfusion generator. The human did the same, but for him the oxygen went to his burning lungs.

            On both, sweat beaded their brows and dripped into their eyes. But neither could tear their gazes away from one another.

            With one unison scream, the warriors flung themselves forward, beam lance and saber held high…

            And in one collective gasp, they fell away from each other after collision.

            Numbly, the human stared down at the beam lance thrust through his chest…through his heart exactly. He looked up at Doan with a glazed look, then fell backwards and collapsed into death, his stubborn body finally giving out from the vaporization of his heart. The beam lance embedded into him shut itself off only half a moment before he fell dead onto the rocky, unfertile soil.

            And as for Doan, the reploid who had suffered all and given all, he found himself stumbling backwards as well, losing his balance and falling off the cliffside. The beam saber through his microfusion generator had sealed his fate.

            Warning. Microfusion generator has been punctured. 0% chance of sealant. Ten seconds to Microfusion generator explosion.

            In other words, Doan thought through his dizzied mind, I'm dead no matter what.

            His wings remained unresponsive…as they well should, seeing as the same beam saber that had handed him his death sentence had also slagged the neural controls of his wings. So he fell. Arms and legs outstretched in his last moments, he fell to the sea below.

            But as his head, forever looking above to that same gray sky and the cliff from which he'd fallen, decided to blink, he saw something appear from the clouds…something that followed him all the way down.

            It was a person he'd never forgotten about…a person who had died long ago.

            CLEO…

            The female reploid Doan had called his love followed Doan down, a broad smile on her face as she held out her arms. Behind her, emerging from the back of that wonderful sunfaded yellow dress she had always wistfully described, a pair of wings emerged.

            My angel…has come to take me away…

            "Cleo…" Doan murmured. And in his last moments, as he continued to fall, he held out his arms, reaching for her in that single moment of clarity.

            Warmth filled him…and then his mind shut down.

            Doan was dead before his aged frame hit the crashing, foamy waves and the craggy rocks.

            What survived of that initial impact exploded in a brilliant spherical fireball of white light, illuminating the darkness for one brief moment before fading away.

            In the house known as Earth, another candle was snuffed out.

            And nobody wept.

            Hazil was prepared that the civilian reploids would be discovered; that nearly went without saying.

            What he'd not prepared himself for, though…Was the fact that the Reploid Hunters would come knocking as loudly as they did.

            Before his very eyes, and the eyes of Evinrude as well, the love of his life that had chosen to stay by the entrance with him, the sealed overhead hatch was blown down into the concrete that they stood with the force of a resounding explosion that would have shattered their eardrums…if their hearing was affected by differentials in air pressure. As it was, they only received a long blossoming of fire that accompanied the acrid smell of high explosives tearing through the barrier.

            Hazil could hear the cries from farther inside the catacombs; the screams of those who could not defend themselves. Those yawps gave him strength; strength enough to ready his rarely used Buster and turn to Evinrude.

            His lady merely bowed her head; awaiting whatever fate would come. Still, Hazil could almost pick up on her spirit calling out to him.

            Whatever happens, Hazil…We always have our love.

            "YOU SHALL NOT TAKE THEM!!!" Came a sudden scream from above. Hazil blinked in consternation, then dashed over closer to the jagged hole the Reploid Hunters had blasted into the Catacombs. Staring above, he found the source of the voice; it was indeed Bastion.

            Three of the Reploid Hunters who were planning to jump down the hole and attack the innocents found themselves blasted into quivering piles of charred flesh by the lightning wing blasts of Bastion's Flight Armor. One turned about too late to defend and was sliced in half, his EM field no match for the saber…and it's user's…momentum.

            And then the other five Reploid Hunters about the hole finally began to react, turning their weapons on Bastion. Hazil lifted his Buster and fired at point blank range; one more Reploid Hunter went down without even realizing he was being targeted from behind.

            If Bastion noticed Hazil's aid, he didn't show it. With fire in his eyes and the sands of destruction waving in his grainy brown hair, the Desert Angel swung himself into the special technique Hazil easily recognized as Bastion's "Whirling Slasher"…

            The ex-Maverick Hunter transformed himself into a gyroscopically spinning wheel of destruction, easily claiming one more and setting the other three on their guard.

            But that was when Bastion's frantic attack ended. One of the three surviving Reploid Hunters pulled up a magrifle and fired off a staccato burst of shots, all dead on target.

            The EM fields of his wings only drew the shots in closer and with greater speed…

            But unlike Kazok, who had been taken to death by a similar barrage, Bastion only got one of his wings shot off.

            The other lost control of Bastion's flight, and the Desert Angel suddenly found himself plummeting to the ground and skidding along at the incredible pace of his flight. And then he screamed.

            Hazil could feel the Desert Angel's pain as he fell like Icarus, with his wings burned off…skipping along the ground like a stone at three hundred miles an hour did little to benefit the health of a person.

            One of the Reploid Hunters, the one who had fired the magrifle, dropped down the newly created shaft and landed in front of Hazil, startling the medical reploid.

            Blindly, Hazil fired bullet after plasma bullet.

            And just as calmly, the Reploid Hunter pulled out a beam dagger and deflected nearly all the shots. Those that connected fizzled out angrily against an EM shield that wouldn't die.

            The male Reploid Hunter, with cold black hair and even colder gray eyes gave Hazil a look of pure disgust before he lifted up his magrifle again.

            "One less monster…" He said, in an almost sterile tone.

            Hazil didn't hear the gunshot…but he felt the high caliber magrifle round tear through his neck and sever his spinal column from his head. He fell dead moments later, his Microfusion generator shutting down without the commands of his brain to control anything.

            Evinrude said nothing, even as the Reploid Hunter turned on her next and ended her life the same way.

            Above, Bastion found himself almost unable to move.

            Warning: Critical armor failure. Starboard Angel's Advantage wing has been severed. Internal Operations Energy at 34%. All motor functions at 10% efficiency. Seek immediate repair.

            As if I could just ask them to just leave me alone while I recovered, right??

            The two other Reploid Hunters approached Bastion slowly, moving with menacing steps. He could feel their malice rising off of them as they approached…a malignant force that threatened to choke him with its darkness. They seemed to enjoy watching him struggle to rise to his knees.

            But then they were upon him. In one stroke of a beam saber, Bastion's other wing was clipped off as well. That time he screamed…because the human had taken a part of his shoulder off as well.

            The two chuckled and kicked him onto his back, exposing his vulnerable front to their piercing eyes and far more piercing beam sabers. And then they stood, looking down on him with disgust and that same malice.

            "Well, gee…I guess we clipped angel boy's wings here."

            "Guess that means he doesn't get to go to heaven then." The other sighed. The first one snorted.

            "Small loss."

            Bastion looked up at them, unable to move in his defense…his beam sabers lay ten feet distant, well beyond his reach. He couldn't even move his arms quickly enough to deflect any blows.

            He was at their mercy.

            But they would give him none.

            "Well, if he can't fly, I guess that means he'll just have to walk." The first one continued dolefully. The second's eyes gleamed at the statement…Bastion felt the beam saber dig into his legs, slice them both off at the knees, leaving him with useless, half-cauterized stumps. He trembled where he lay, but as his mouth came open for a scream, Bastion found he didn't have the energy to.

            Mercy…

            "You mean he'll be walking with his hands." The second one finished with a dark chuckle. "Because those stumpy things ain't gonna do SHIT anymore."

            Warning. Legs have been severed. Seek immediate repair. Auto stasis function…Inoperative. Auto stasis mode cannot be attained. Seek immediate repair.

            "But you know what they say about a reploid, Lem." Earl continued, hefting his beam saber up a few times before grasping it firmly.

            "No Earl, what do they say about a reploid??"

            "Never trust a reploid that's still got his hands." Earl finished gleefully.

            Bastion shuddered once more, arching his back off of the ground as they sliced off his arms at the elbows.

            It ends somewhere for all of us…

            Feverishly, the Desert Angel tried to push past the pain of being torn limb from limb. A difficult proposition at best, yet somehow he managed it…

            Access Microfusion Generator controls.

            Affirmative. Microfusion Generator Controls Open. Command??

            Set for immediate overload, 15 second detonation time.

            Warning: Will result in death. Confirm??

            Confirm it, you pathetic…

            Confirmed. 15 seconds until Microfusion Generator Detonation.

            The control program inside his mind…the thing that allowed Bastion to examine his internal structure with a simple mental query in its last moments, asking him to confirm whether or not he wanted to die in a fiery explosion. If he was healthier, Bastion would have found it ironic. But now…

            Lem easily picked up Bastion's torso and head by the ruffled mop of hair sitting on top of it, clicking his tongue in disgust as he looked at the torn and jagged synthskin across the reploid's face.

            "Boy, we're almost doing him a favor killing him like this." He joked. Earl shrugged.

            "The way you say that almost tempts me to just leave him here to die like the pathetic wretch he is."

            Bastion opened his mouth, the faintest of whispers coming out. Lem frowned, then snickered.

            "I think robot boy here wants to say something, Earl."

            7 Seconds until detonation…6…5…4…

            "Aaw, he does??" Earl chortled, drawing next to Lem and staring Bastion in the face, breathing his rancid breath onto the ruined face of one of the Reploid Race's brightest stars. "Go on, you sonofabitch. Say something."

            3…2…

            "You're…" Bastion began weakly. Lem and Earl drew their faces nearer still. "…Coming with me…"

            Lem and Earl only had time to blink in slight confusion. Recognition never even came to them.

            1…0.

            Bastion, Lem and Earl all vanished together in a massive atomic fireball.

            Thus ended one more valiant warrior…with no body left for surviving Reploid Hunters to butcher for their sick fancies. With him went the spirits of two longtime bigots who had found a place in the twisted world.

            And the battle raged on.

            Signas had one thing above all else; a mind that never stopped thinking. Thoughts, conjectures, ideas, plans and strategies always buzzing inside his cranium.

            Even now, as the Reploid Hunter's beam saber was embedded straight through him, sticking out of his chest like some joke, Signas continued to think.

            Warning. Internal operations energy at 35%. Prepare for auto-stasis.

            Negative. Override auto-stasis.

            Overriding of auto-stasis may result in complete mental death. Confirm Y/N??

            YES.

            Affirmative. Auto-stasis override enforced. Be advised; Heart Tank shows critical failure.

            "You reploids." The Reploid Hunter spat out angrily. He twisted the beam saber inside of Signas, causing further injury and a half choked cry from the weakened frame. "You thought you were all high and mighty…when the simple truth is, you die just as easily as we all do."

            "At the same time…we die with purpose." Signas uttered back. He glanced at the beam rapier in his hand, then shook his head. "We all die…with purpose."

            In one swift movement, he brought his beam rapier up and drove it straight through his own body, plunging it up to the hilt and keeping the power on.

            He heard the human's choked cries of surprise and pain milliseconds later; felt the warm, sticky wetness of the human's blood being coughed up onto the back of his neck as the human's lungs boiled and shrank. Signas twisted his own blade downwards…Finally hitting what he knew beyond all doubt was the human's black heart.

            Both the beam saber and beam rapier shut themselves off not long after that…both warriors had lost their grip on the trigger switches.

            Both collapsed. But Signas fell with a sad smile on his face.

            "It…is done…"

            Even in death…purpose.

            We had a purpose. And now mine is finished.

            Complete mental shutdown imminent; no chance of revival.

            It's never a good DAY to die…

            Signas lifted his head up to the gray cloudy skies above.

            But perhaps…perhaps it's a good time to.

            The circle around Kol was too thick, too well armed and too capable. For all of Gavin's speed and screams, he could do nothing as the Buster wielding reploid who had worked with him for all of his career was torn apart, riddled by magrifle rounds and slashed to ribbons by scores of beam sabers.

            "BASTARDS!!!" Gavin screamed, charging into the nearest Reploid Hunter with a powerful shoulder charge, sending the human flying into the pack. It was too late…too late for Kol…

            But that had triggered a transformation. In a sudden shift, Gavin became more powerful than he'd ever been in his life. His body's every safety removed, his every sense heightened beyond normalcy.

            He moved with his dash boots spouting continuous fire and his eyes burning like diamonds in the night. And nobody in that circle of murderers could touch him.

            Nobody. They tried, heavens they tried. Those with magrifles were the first to respond, lifting their projectile weapons and firing at near point blank range. Gavin merely ducked and weaved around the high impact, high velocity rounds, taking no time to notice that those Reploid Hunters behind him were torn apart by the blasts meant for him. With one mighty Saber Extended slash, the entire lot of them were sliced in two, collapsing as legs and screaming torso.

            The nearest melee Reploid Hunter charged at Gavin with his beam saber…no, STAFF…Aloft in the air for a strike upon the infidel.

            Gavin lifted his orange saber high and deflected the black blade as it came down, jumping the followup sweep and jamming his saber in for one last merciless kill. The orange tinted plasma blade buried itself into the human's throat after burning its way through the thin EM shield about his body…

            That look of abject fear and pain in the human's eyes as his throat collapsed on him made Gavin almost sick. Almost sick of what he'd become…what they had FORCED him to become. But he fought on.

            Quickly, he air dashed into the air, pulling his weapon out from the defeated corpse and staring below him to the massed forces. Gavin bared his teeth at the suddenly frightened mob below…but then his eyes picked up the glint of something distant. With one flicker of his eyes, he moved his gaze up to the faraway sight.

            And there it was…

            A sniper with an extremely accurate magrifle, set on a scope. Gavin could tell by the sniper's posture who the target was.

            He said nothing. There was nothing to say. The glint had been the firing of the shot…

            Dully, Gavin felt the impact as it tore through his forehead. And then he felt nothing.

            Below, the Reploid Hunters cheered as Gavin's entire head exploded like a walnut. A metallic one.

            Dash Blade and Kazok Gravor proved to be more dangerous than any of the Reploid Hunters surrounding them had originally wagered. Yet at the same time, their greater numbers made it inevitable for victory.

            Dully, Dash deflected another magrifle round straying too close to the two of them. Once more, Kazok unleashed a barrage of plasma bullets, forcing the Reploid Hunters to partially withdraw so they could weather the storm. Another fool charged in, and was kicked back out into the circle just as easily, with a slash on his face or arm to show for his troubles.

            But Kazok was growing wearier; the timer clicking down in his head made demise nearer every moment, weakening his concentration and skill.

            Time to Microfusion Generator overload; fifteen seconds.

            "Dash…" Kazok wheezed, firing off another supershot and making the Reploid Hunters scatter, "Baby, it's time."

            She stabbed at a nearby Reploid Hunter, gutting him straight through the EM shield that offered no protection from the slow and non-energy based power of her TitaniTefloAlloy claws. Once he had been dispatched and lay fallen and bleeding on the ground, she turned her head around to him slightly.

            "That time, eh?"

            Kazok nodded an affirmative.

            Dash's eyes quieted out a bit.

            "Well, my flying wonder…I guess we knew it had to happen sometime."

            "Yes." He grunted with a quiet grin. "But at least we fought well." He lifted a hand over and squeezed hers.

            "And at least we had each other." She replied, squeezing back. "And we always will."

            "It's like that saying, then…" Kazok chuckled softly. "Till death do us part." Dash bared her teeth at the circle of Reploid Hunters, as they all drew closer still, smelling victory.

            They smelled wrong.

            "Kazok, Kazok…" Dash chided him one last time. "You're forgetting another saying."

            "What's that??"

            "Death…is only the beginning."

            Another wave of Reploid Hunters, and the monsters they sought to destroy, vanished in white hot atomic fire and noise.

            Another battle ended.

            And the war drew to a slow, but final close.

            The beam scythe of Jowers was a powerful weapon; deadly against somebody armed with a single beam saber. But against Willow and her menacing beam whip, a melee weapon with far more reach than the beam scythe, he found himself struggling just to avoid being slaughtered.

            It was an odd sound, if sounds were what one could gauge the battle by. There were the cries and grunts, a common facet to nearly every duel ever performed on Earth since the dawn of time. The snap and hiss of Willow's beam whip snaking along the ground, coiling up only to shoot forth crisscrossed with the occasional slash and parry of Jowers' weapon.

            Unlike the other battles that were being fought on this last day of the world, Willow and Jowers had a history; a past that was never reconciled and at long last was finding its closure. Perhaps it made this one skirmish the fiercest one of all.

            Jowers was MI9; at one time, Willow had been as well. At one time, Willow and Bristol had escaped MI9 to protect their lives. But all that they had received for their troubles was the doom of the world.

            Even as he twisted and rolled away from the angry snake that was Willow's primary weapon, Jowers grinned at her and laughed.

            "You know, I often think back to that day long ago, Willow."

            "When you launched Ice Beacon??" Willow retorted, dashing in closer and swinging her beam whip in a horizontal arc that threatened to tear him in half. The Enhanced human simply backflipped up, pushing with all his might until he had gained enough height to his jump that the slash missed him cleanly.

            He landed, that same devilish grin on his features.

            "No…although I remember that day well also." He replied, motioning to a wicked scar torn along the side of his face. "That's how I remember your beam whip, my darling Willow. Old memories and wounds…" He shook his head. "But no. The day I laugh about is the day when you and Bristol escaped MI9."

            "And just what's so funny about that day??" Willow snapped, charging towards Jowers with her whip held high. He brought his staff up, nearly running her through; Willow turned her boots to him and fired her dash thrusters, straining his EM shield from the attack. Jowers barked out in surprise and jumped backwards, grimacing from the flashburns his protective shielding hadn't been able to deflect. "Or do you just like to laugh about us?"

            "No, not that." Jowers snickered, regaining his composure. He stood up and held his beam staff in a defensive pose. "I do not find you reploids the least bit humorous. Fate, though…"

            "What's that you're rambling about now?" Willow growled, pulling her beam whip up and gripping it halfway across its length. The chain retracted the plasma about her grip with ease, an obedient weapon to the last.

            "Fate has a sense of irony about it that I've always appreciated." Jowers continued, seeming to stare up at the sky as he rubbed his chin with his free hand. "On that day long ago, you and Bristol escaped us in MI9 seeking to preserve your own lives. You knew it would be a hard road, but at the same moment your self-preservation was of critical essence. Thusly, like we all would be. Human nor reploid is willing to sit idly by and perish on a whim; not unless they're very despondent or very crazy."

            "And your point, ENHANCED??" Willow snarled. "Or do you have a hard time dealing with the fact that in some form, Bristol gave birth to you and your accursed kind?"

            "Oh, we've dealt with it very nicely." Jowers shrugged, a hint of anger showing through. "We've accepted the fact that we are cursed beings. Imperfect humans. We still hold you and your kind in contempt for that daily…but at the same time, we appreciate the power that it grants us. To kill you. But shall I continue?? I'd like to make my point before I destroy you."

            "You've never been able to destroy me before, Jowers." Willow growled. "What makes you think you can do it now??"

            "As I was saying," Jowers continued, pushing her question aside, "Fate holds irony. And the irony of this scenario is a simple one. If you and Bristol had not escaped us that day, you would have perished on our beam staffs. Yes, you would have died…but the reploids, dear Willow…The reploids would LIVE."

            The Irish Banshee blinked for a moment, sharp green eyes slanting in confusion, widening in recognition, then twinkling as recognition gave way to complete comprehension.

            No…

            Despite herself, Willow's hand began to tremble and her beam whip lowered. Jowers chuckled again and shook his head.

            "My poor, poor Willow…you hadn't realized it until now, had you?" His voice took on an almost caring tone. "If you and Bristol had died on that day long ago instead of stubbornly surviving…then Bristol would have never been alive to be discovered by our wandering field agents in Alaska. Bristol would have never been tortured into revealing the Universal Berserker Frequency…and all of reploidkind would still be existing as they did before Ice Beacon's successful transmission." He walked towards Willow, shaking his head. She collapsed onto her knees, staring at the ground like a beaten dog. "And now you know. Now you get it. All of this nightmarish future holds its roots in Bristol's ideas and machinations, to be sure…but without the UBF, the key would be missing. And your stubbornness gave us that key. We have the both of you to thank for the doom of your kind, my Irish Banshee: Bristol, for providing the Berserker Beacons and the Universal Berserker Frequency, and YOU, Willow, for keeping her alive long enough to tell it to us." He stopped walking, standing over her with his beam scythe in his right hand.

            Numbly, she looked up at him, her green eyes streaked with tears.

            "So it's my fault? All this…"

            "Your fault." Jowers assured her. Gently, he reached a hand down and caressed her shoulder. "And it hurts. I know it does."

            Willow was unable to muffle the sob that choked in her throat. Jowers sighed.

            "There is great pain, Willow…but it can be ended. All of this is nothing more than a dream, a horrible dream that none of us can wake from…There is a way out."

            She shut her eyes tightly to flush away the tears, then opened them again and looked pleadingly into his face.

            "How do you wake from a nightmare that never ends??"

            Jowers smiled gently, kneeling down next to Bristol and lifting her chin up with his free hand. His smile was one of betrayal, or perhaps the only kindness he had left to give her.

            She gasped as his beam scythe's curved blade was gently thrust into her upper abdomen, pushed all the way through until it passed out the other side.

            "Simple, my dear angel…" Jowers whispered, pulling her body tightly to him in a final embrace of death, nuzzling the side of her head and her fiery red hair. "You wake by vanishing from the dream."

            He could not see the placid look fall over her face, the loss of everything but absolute calm and acceptance. But he could hear her gentle breathing, the final gasps of life fading away from her soon to be cold and lifeless body.

            He never saw her hand clench tightly around her beam whip and lash it forth, wrapping the elongated chain around the both of them.

            But he felt the green power chain draw around him in a tighter embrace of death, slice through the EM protective shield and embed its burning length into his back, severing his spinal column. Willow remained unscathed, even in her last moments protected from her own weapon.

            Her breath quickened, and she bent her mouth next to his ear. A now dying Jowers couldn't move, he could only hear…

            "Then wake up with me."

            They collapsed to the ground, both fast fading. And as the noises of the world faded away and their senses failed them, the last thing that they saw was each other's eyes.

            Burning into eternity, waiting for release from a dream that went wrong.

            For all his strength, and all his skill, X had been no match. The mass of Reploid Hunters he had attacked were too numerous and too skilled themselves.

            With high phase energy disruptors and electromagnetic pulse cannons, they had taken him down, leaving him to shiver and tremble on the ground as the rampaging energies ran through him.

            They had left him there until the last of the warriors had been exterminated. Left him like a piece of garbage…

            The next thing X could consciously recall, they had picked him up and lifted him up onto a section of wire fencing…

            And staked his hands to the thin barrier with railroad spikes. They did the same to his feet, leaving them dangling and spread apart. And he bled. Oh, how X bled…

            But he was not to die so quickly…

            They wanted to keep me alive…

            Numbly, he stared down with his pain glazed eyes onto them. The ten surviving Reploid Hunters. The last of the great warrior reploids had fought bravely to protect their kind…

            In the end, empty sacrifices. They fought a battle nobody will remember, a war with no heroes…Nobody will quote their deeds years from now. Nobody…

            The Reploid Hunters walked over to him. Spat on him. Punched him. Pushed the spikes in harder, forcing X to scream to make them stop.

            "Mega Man X, we now hand sentence on you and your race." The leader of the survivors proclaimed. Numbly, X stared down at them all.

            Humans. Eyes burning with anger and hatred. Fires of bigotry and racism unquenched for decades now released in full force.

            My God…They've crucified me…

            And they had. They had hung him up to die, to witness the end. The end of his kind, Dr. Light's last gift of hope to the tortured world.

            "For too long have the members of your species run amok, ruined our world, hurt humanity time and time again." The leader continued sternly. "It ends here. The Reploid Wars end here. The Reploid Race ends here."

            He turned about, his gaze leading X's own. And then X saw them…

            No…not them…not them…

            "Don't do this…" X croaked, shaking his head. "They did not fight. They did not cause pain. They were innocent victims…the same as any of you!!"

            "Hollow words from a false savior." The human snapped back. "The warrior reploids are all dead. These are the only ones left on the entire planet." He turned back to X and let his eyes smoulder.

            "Now they die."

            X could only stare on in horror and dismay…and sadness.

            The civilian reploids had been ousted from their safety nest underneath the earth, every last one of them had been lined up against another fence. In front of them were the last of the Reploid Hunters, all with Magrifles.

            There was fear in the reploid's eyes then. Yet at the same moment…acceptance and pity. X could see it.

            They pity those that would destroy them…

            "FIRE!!!"

            Down they all went…the last of their kind, the final litter of their species…

            Dead. Every last one dead…

            And then X was truly alone.

            His head hung low, his chin nestled against his chest.

            "It is done." The new leader of the Reploid Hunters proclaimed. "The reploids are all dead."

            "And what about me?" X asked quietly. He lifted his face up, streaked with tears of purple…his blood…And cried. "Am I to die then as well? To fall on this last day of the Earth?"

            "You are to be a symbol, Mega Man X." The Reploid Hunter proclaimed loudly. "A warning to all of humanity of what we had to fight long and hard to destroy…to prevent from destroying us."

            "So I am to die…" X mused. He looked down on the Reploid Hunter and shook his head. "I pity you."

            "You?? Pity me??" The Reploid Hunter retorted, looking surprised. "Why?"

            "Because…" X whispered, "You never understood…None of you ever did."

            The gray, overcast skies above did not clear up then. In fact, they only darkened in color. And before all those who remained alive on that tragic battleground, snow began to fall. A snow of sadness and mourning…

            Frightened, the Reploid Hunter turned to Mega Man X and shook his head.

            "You…You're…no, you can't be doing this…"

            X looked up at him, his seagreen eyes streaked with the blood he shed in memory of his people. But he was not looking at the Reploid Hunter…the human shivered as he realized that the first, and the last member of the reploid race was staring through him, beyond him…

            And then X lifted his face up, feeling his helmet lose its hold on his head. Slowly, the proud symbol of justice and a hope for peace fell away from the Blue Bomber of 21XX, falling backwards over the fence and clattering to the ground on the other side. His snow white hair and all of his face was at last exposed to the skies and heavens above…hair that had once been as black as night, but was now as clear and sad as the snowfall above.

            It coated him. It coated his helmet. Slowly, the blue of his armor and the purple of his blood gave out, was washed away by the cold soothing white of the falling snow, frozen tears from heaven…

            Father…

            It felt right to say. As the last of his power faded away, as X felt the icy fingers of death close in around him, he realized it was the only thing to say.

            "Father…Why have you forsaken me??"

            He did not scream it. He did not wail it. He did not thrash or struggle.

            X greeted death with sadness, with pain. With quiet, unsteady acceptance. His body fell limp, his eyes went dull, and his head lowered itself in a final prayer.

            And then the snow continued to fall…on X, and on all who had died that day.

            Suddenly, the anger and rage and bitterness of all who had survived that fateful battle melted just as quickly as the snow froze to the ground.

            The Reploid Hunters…the humans who had murdered the last of the reploids, stumbled around each other and found themselves inexorably staring at the saddened, placid face of Mega Man X. Slowly, steadily, he was covered in snow. As if heaven and earth sought to protect him, enshrine him from their hands.

            The leader of the Reploid Hunters turned about, unable to look at the sight any longer. One of his men noticed it right away.

            "Sir, why did you turn around??"

            "Because, his last question won't leave my mind." The commander replied shakily.

            "What did he say??" the other asked.

            The commander looked up to the sky, then back over to X, who slowly vanished underneath the tears of snow.

            And he couldn't say it.

            It would not stop snowing over New Tokyo for three months.

            "And that would be it then." The Bristol wraith concluded, pulling away from Bristol and staring at the female reploid with that sick grin. "Pretty fantastic, huh? I was personally hoping that X was going to receive a harsher punishment than simple crucifixion…but leave it to humans to be creatures of habit with their supposed despots, eh??"

            Bristol turned to her doppelganger, but said nothing. The wrath pouted.

            "Oh, come now. Surely the destroyer of the world has SOMETHING to say about the future. Any last comments? Any 'if onlys' to satisfy whimsy's sake?? Or are you just so caught up in your misery that you don't want to put up with it anymore?" The wraith turned to Bristol and lifted her chin up.

            There was calm that shone in those sunken eyes then, Bristol found. A frightening calm.

            "There is a way out, you understand." She continued, running a gentle hand through Bristol's hair. "The same choice Jowers gave Willow. Death."

            Bristol looked into those eyes. So much of her wanted to give in…so much of her wished for it all to end and fade away.

            "Aaw, gee…and did Bristol's tormentor forget door number two??"

            Both Bristol and the wraith turned their heads up and found themselves staring at a sudden building brightness out of nowhere.

            A brightness that made the wraith scream and jump away from Bristol, covering its sunken eyes with its tattered cloak.

            The ball of incandescence descended and dimmed…to form a person. A reploid, Bristol realized with widening eyes. The dilation of her pupils may also have had something to do with that.

            He stood at medium height, not much muscular build…the only indication of his species the large boots he wore. His clothes were white and simple…an open shirt and loose shorts. And his face…confident and self-assured, full of purpose and something more.

            "Leave here now!!" The wraith snarled, charging towards the intruder.

            The reploid seemed to narrow his eyes at the doppelganger, then shook his head and grinned again.

            "Oh, please…" He tucked one hand into his shorts, but kept the other out as the wraith descended on him with suddenly sharp claws.

            With one flick of his arm, the wraith went flying and collapsed four meters distant, bleeding from that simple gesture. The reploid turned around with that same placidness in his movements, and lifted his hand up. The wraith's eyes widened. "Why would I ever be afraid…"

            He swung his hand down, carrying along with it a quiet and gentle gust of healing wind that hit the floor and slammed into the doppelganger, melting it into darkness and casting it away like sand in one smooth gesture.

            "Of mere shadows?"

            The reploid clicked his tongue again and walked over to Bristol, setting an arm on her shoulder.

            "Bristol…are you all right?"

            As his hand sat there, the tired reploid suddenly felt a surge of newfound strength, will, and resolve ebb into her. With eyes that now shone with her full intelligence, she looked on him in wonder.

            "Who…"

            "Am I?" He asked jovially. The reploid in the simple, agrarian clothes shook his head. "I'm surprised Wycost hasn't told you about me…no wait, he never did…" The reploid shook his head. "Sorry, sometimes being able to see everything can be a little burdening on such a fresh mind. Forgive me, milady. You can call me Isaiah."

            Her bonds vanished with a simple snap of his fingers; Bristol settled onto her feet as she met solid ground once more. And still she stared at him.

            "Questions, yes." He continued, almost musingly. He looked to her and grinned. "I know, everybody's got questions. Well, let me answer your first one. You're NOT DEAD. Of course, I am, but that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish. And as far as your tormentor goes, that wasn't real. Things that aren't real can't hurt you."

            "So what was it then??" Bristol asked back. Isaiah shrugged.

            "The power of the mind is very intense…that little wraith tormenting you was a manifestation of your guilt and terror intermixed. Not a nice combination, but seeing as it was only a manifestation…well, ideas have a tendency of dying, don't they??"

            Bristol sat down and leaned against the stone wall. She put a hand to her head.

            "But then, everything I saw…"

            "You ever watch one of those stupid, carbon copy 'Christmas Carol' movies??" Isaiah asked, interrupting her. His eyes held a little bit of mirth, but also annoyance, not at her, but the topic. "Better yet, read the book if you can find it. The book is always better than the movie. Essentially, that little piece of your psyche that was torturing you can be equated to the ghost of Christmas yet to come. And like Scrooge, you ask yourself, was that a vision of what will be…or a vision of only what MIGHT be??"

            Isaiah sat down cross-legged in front of Bristol and cocked his head to the side.

            "Bristol, that was a vision of what might be. It can be prevented. It can be changed."

            "How?" She asked, looking at him. Isaiah hit his forehead.

            "Aah, for the love of Jee…" He sighed and shook his head. "Look. You just asked the dumb question of the day. How can it be prevented? SIMPLE. Stop Ice Beacon from transmitting the Universal Berserker Frequency."

            Bristol rolled her eyes.

            "Is that all? You might as well ask me to move mountains."

            "Hey, I've met people that have done that." Isaiah retorted, lifting a finger. "Don't insult them." He stood back up. "The next question you're going to ask is 'why am I here?? Why am I telling you all of this'??" Isaiah shrugged. "Easy. The first step can only be taken by you. As we speak, your body lies asleep in the MHHQ's Medical Bay, being watched over by your faithful love Bastion and a host of others. Tonight, they are all going to warp to Antarctica on their most important mission ever; To stop Ice Beacon from launching. And they'll either succeed…or fail." He pointed at her. "You, Bristol. YOU. Yes, you are the one who created Berserker Beacons. Yes, you are the one who was forced into giving them the UBF. But you are not the cause. All you gave them was tools. MI9 would have done it themselves eventually, or they would have found some other method. You are only a tool they used. They are the cause. And you and the others are just what the good doctor ordered to shut them down."

            He held a hand out and helped her to her feet. Isaiah clucked his tongue.

            "Look, I'm trying to make this as short a visit as possible. I'm already pulling overtime, and I'm getting kinda hungry." Isaiah twisted his head up and shouted at the newly appeared sky above. "Do ya hear me??! I want OVERTIME PAY FOR THIS!!!"

            He got no response, so the reploid sighed again. "Maybe some tea when I'm done here…But in any case, have any more questions before I push off for lands beyond your sight?"

            Bristol thought long and hard, then nodded.

            "Can Ice Beacon be stopped??"

            "Yes." Isaiah said simply. "If there are enough good people on this planet willing to put themselves on the line to stop it…like YOU…Then yes. You can stop it. That's why I had to show up and stop your guilt and grief from killing you. The first step in that nightmarish future was you kicking the bucket for the hell of it. Step one, completed. The rest is up to you. Next?"

            "Will it be done with after this?" Bristol asked, staring at Isaiah. "If we stop Ice Beacon, will MI9's madness be done with?"

            Isaiah shrugged…an iffy answer, if that. He lifted his index finger. "One last question, beautiful. Make it a good one."

            "Is there a heaven?" Bristol asked, after much hesitation. Isaiah smiled.

            "I don't know…what do you consider to be heaven? A place you feel safe? A place you feel warm? Where all your family and friends are gathered and sing merry songs in an angel's chorus? Where you wake up every morning and there's the lovely scent of grandma's cookies fresh from the oven?" Isaiah shrugged. "Heaven's what you make of it, Bristol. Some people I know still think heaven is found in a cornfield in Iowa." He tapped her nose with his finger, then clapped his hands together. "And there you have it. My work is done here, and I'm off to enjoy a long deserved rest. Just do one thing for me, will you?"

            "What?" Bristol asked, tilting her head to the side. Isaiah grinned. "Tell Wycost I said hello…and to expect a visit from me very soon."

            She almost said something else…but before she could, Isaiah had one hand tucked into his pocket and was whistling a four tone, five note melody that seemed to carry on for eternity. With his other hand, he pointed to the sky above and let his twinkling eyes lift up.

            Unconsciously, Bristol followed his gaze into the blue cloudless sky above…to the bright sun that grew brighter and brighter, blocking out everything as it filled her vision…

            She woke up with the barest of twitches. A slight exhalation of breath, the movement of an arm…

            And a familiar voice to guide her to heaven, and the mouth that went with it.

            "Thank heaven you're alive…" Moments before a warm, comforting mouth met hers.

            Even with her eyes shut, Bristol knew him. By his touch, by his gentle warmth. That tenderness only he had.

            She kissed him back, reaching her arms up to pull him closer. He responded under her hands like water, shifting to accommodate.

            "I missed you…" He croaked when they finally came up for air. Bristol opened her eyes up and looked at him.

            His hair was bedraggled, his chin was growing synth-beard stubble, and his armor hadn't seen a polish in a long time…

            He never looked so beautiful.

            "I'll never leave you again." She replied. And the tears of happiness in her eyes spoke the truth.

            They held each other tightly in another fiery kiss that wouldn't end…

            And then Hazil walked in and cleared his throat as loudly as he could.

            "When you two kids are done, I'd like to get organized." Bristol squeaked in surprise, jerking away from Bastion and blinking at Hazil. The Medical reploid chortled and shook his head. "God, I gotta remember this. You wake up from coming back from the brink of death, and what's the first thing that you do? Suck tongues with Bastion. Willow probably wouldn't approve."

            "Willow?! She's here?!" Bristol snapped, jumping to her feet and leaving a still enamored Bastion to collapse facefirst onto the medical cot Bristol had been occupying.

            When the Desert Angel came to and picked himself up, he nodded his head.

            "Yes. If it wasn't for her, we would have never been able to rescue you from MI9 HQ." Bastion replied. "As it was…we were nearly too late."

            "The fates haven't gotten rid of our ilk yet." Came the female voice with the Irish lilt. Willow calmly strolled into the Medical Bay, body hidden underneath a seagreen cloak of sorts that covered her entire body…save her head and her boots, which kicked themselves out defiantly underneath the hem.

            Bristol blinked in disbelief, then rushed over and gave her longtime friend a big hug.

            Willow was taken aback for a moment, her green eyes flaring in dismay. Eventually she patted Bristol's head. "Remember everything now, don't ye, lass?"

            "Everything." Bristol replied quietly. She pulled back from Willow and shook her head. "Funny…the truth I sought for ever since I arrived at the MHHQ was the same reality you and I had tried so desperately to escape."

            "MI9's shadow falls a long distance, lass." Willow replied, her face hardening again. "And you know of Ice Beacon, correct?? I presume that fool Fannir was still as much of a rambler as he always was."

            "They did it to him." Bristol nodded sadly. She looked to Willow. "They drove him insane, tortured him, broke him…reprogrammed him to do their bidding, to hold to their twisted ideals…"

            "I thought as much." Willow murmured. "But make no mistake. Ice Beacon launches tonight. And all of us are going to attack it and make sure it doesn't."

            "Who is all of us?" Bristol asked, lifting an eyebrow. Hazil cleared his throat again.

            "What, would you like me to rattle down the list for you? Willow, Wycost, Bastion, and you…J.K. Horn, Allegro, Doan, and…"

            A sudden bolt of warplight blinked into the next room, and Hazil grinned.

            "Well, speak of the devil. Here's the last member of our merry troupe."

            Confused, the others followed him out.

            Willow and Bristol were especially stunned to be staring at, of all things, a Robot Master…modified, yes, he was a different color than in what recordings remained of the Fourth Robot Rebellion…but it was definitely him.

            "Pharaoh Man, glad you could make it." Hazil said easily, patting the Cossack model Robot Master on the shoulder. Phare shrugged his shoulders and turned about.

            "I feel a little unease currently, Hazil. You are the only familiar face in the room." Slowly, he turned about and examined them all. They blinked back at him.

            "Hazil, have ye gone DAFT??" Willow barked, extending a hand out from underneath her cloak and pointing at him. "The lad's a ROBOT. As soon as he lifts a hand to help us, the First Law'll shut him straight down!"

            "It would…If the Laws no longer held any sway over me." Pharaoh Man replied calmly. "Odd how surviving Mind Freeze will do that."

            Everyone just stared blankly at him, trying to absorb the concept of a Robot Master that was no longer guided by the Rules of Robotics. Hazil cleared his throat again.

            "Well, let me do the rough introductions. The fiery redhead with the poncho syndrome goes by the name of Willow. Blond and beautiful by her side is called Bristol. And Bastion is that dashing guy with the fuzzy brown hair from here to Alabama."

            "How many are to go on this mission?" Pharaoh Man asked. Hazil shrugged his shoulders.

            "These guys, you, and three more. Seven. Plus, if you include us all back here who are going to be supporting you from afar, maybe eight. So eight total."

            "Eight??" Pharaoh Man queried back disbelievingly. Hazil blinked a few times.

            "Yeah, eight. So?" Pharaoh Man smiled a bit, a gesture that unnerved everyone but Hazil, and an amazed and excited Bristol.

            "Well…allow the oldest person in the room to remind you all that Robot Rebellions were fought with eight Robot Masters…"

            Hazil shook his head.

            "Yeah, whatever. We'll talk about the irony of it all and the horoscopes after I get everyone together. Phare, go with these guys. Guys, I'll see you in the silent conference room with the rest of our merry troupe."

            X and Zero and Signas had completed their phone call successfully; they had told where the Mavericks would meet them and when. Which left only the general alarm to be sounded…

            "Emergency, emergency, all Maverick Hunters rated at 'A' rank or above, report to the front courtyard immediately…"

            The Hunters looked an eclectic sight standing there outside of the MHHQ, weapons lowered but ready for battle. X and Zero stared at them all; the best and bravest of the Hunters, no grunts to look out for. The most capable of all the Hunters stood here, numbering thirty eight, including X and Zero.

            Signas frowned for a moment, then turned to X.

            "I do not see Commander Bastion or Doan of your Unit." X shrugged.

            "They said they had some other stuff they needed to deal with. Even got a doctor's excuse from Hazil."

            "That is highly irre…" Signas began, but Zero fixated him with a stern gaze and the Maverick Hunter General sighed. "Fine. I'll let it slide for now. But I will have questions for them later."

            "Right." Zero muttered. "Let's just get done what we need to get done, awwright?"

            "What he said." X replied easily. He turned out to the masses that shuffled about impatiently and whistled loudly. "Listen up, Hunters!!"

            The pack stopped their shuffling and waited. Close to the front, Gavin, Jad and Kol watched X with expectant eyes.

            Signas stepped forward and cleared his throat. Everyone waited.

            On that hallowed ground in the front of the MHHQ, only walking distance away from the grave of Dr. James T. Cain, with a cloudy sky above, Signas looked at them all, and they all looked back.

            "Maverick Hunters, you all know who I am. Doubtless you've had your misgivings about me…I understand that. Here and now, I offer apologies to all of you for my actions. I did the same for X and Zero. But now we must move on." Signas nodded his head for a moment.

            "Currently, the six Maverick Generals under Sigma…and Sigma himself…are waiting to set course for Hokkaido Island. You see, Mega Man X and Zero have issued a challenge to Sigma. One great showdown. And all of you are invited."

            That brought some cheers of approval. Signas continued, not waiting for the noise to stop.

            "But this will be a very different kind of battle…You see, Maverick Hunters, this will be an ambush." Signas nodded his head as all the cheering Hunters stopped and looked at him blankly. "Sigma expects us to fight like we usually do. All guns blazing until the bitter end. But not today."

            And as he told them his plan, and what needed to be done, the elite Maverick Hunters looked at each other with faces that gleamed of recognition and trust.

            This was going to work.

            At last, everyone had been assembled inside the dead conference room of the MHHQ. The team that would save the world.

            Willow remained as mirthless as ever, her weapons and life energy at full, her armor hidden by the sleek cloak that draped over her like a shroud. Wycost had even sniffed out a Sub-Tank for her.

            Bastion ran a quick self-diagnostic, but didn't pop his wings out. He didn't need to, and there wasn't enough room. He hugged Bristol one last time, then turned to Hazil and J.K. Horn at the front of the room.

            Bristol ignited her pink beam saber for a moment, a replacement for the one she had lost, then satisfied that it worked, shut it off.

            Wycost just leaned against the wall, arms folded against his chevron emblazoned chest armor.

            Allegro checked his black beam staff, smirking for a moment as he twirled the cylinder. "The irony here is that the weapon of the snake is going to strike its head." He said sardonically.

            Doan propped his own wings up for a moment, looking at Cleo one last time and nodding his head to let her know they worked like a charm. He remained characteristically silent, though. Cleo offered one wary glance at Willow, who chose not to notice the stare.

            And Pharaoh Man, the oddest recruit of the bunch, a Robot Master beyond his time, but a warrior being born into his full prime, merely let his eyes wander around the room, and hoped that the three Energy Tanks he had brought along would be enough…

            Finally, the lights dimmed and Horn cleared his throat.

            "People, let me just offer a brief overview of the situation once more." He stepped out and looked at them all, hands tucked behind his back. "As of today, MI9 agents at Ice Beacon had obtained the Universal Berserker Frequency. By tonight, Ice Beacon will have been fired. We are the only ones on Earth who know of this plan and are capable enough to stop it."

            Willow stepped forth, continuing the dialogue for all present.

            "We'll be meeting with heavy resistance, lads. The Enhanceds that weren't at MI9 HQ in England when it blew have no doubt relocated themselves onto that blasted transmitter. They're as capable as reploids; show no mercy, hold nothing back. And push your doubts aside. We are not harming innocents, we are destroying would-be murderers."

            Bristol stepped up next to Willow.

            "We all must do what we can. Willow and I will try to infiltrate their nerve center and disable the transmission of the UBF from inside. The rest of you all…The rest of you I ask to go outside. Attack Ice Beacon's heart, the massive dish they have been carving into the ice. If we fail to disable the signal at its source, then it will be up to you to stop it from launching by the transmitter. MI9 will stop at nothing to prevent us from carrying through with this goal; but we cannot lose." She stepped up, her blue eyes became harder. "We CANNOT. If we fail here today, then our world as we know it will be destroyed, and MI9 will have won. Reploids will slowly be exterminated by humans, both MI9 and those without a clue as to the true cause of the madness. We can do this; I know we can." Bristol smiled and turned to Wycost. "Isaiah says hello, Wycost."

            The Bronx Bomber grunted in surprise and lifted his glasses, blinking furiously at her for a few moments. Bristol shook her head and continued.

            "I know the odds seem slim…but if we all try, if we fight with everything we have, then we will succeed. This was told to me. And this I know." She stared at her hand. "They considered Willow and me nothing but tools to create their machinations…well, now we are the tools that will be used to destroy them."

            "For the world, then." Horn echoed. He looked around the room and nodded, a small smile curling onto his lips. "For the world."

            For the dangers past and present,

            For a Trial preserved by time,

            Hunters become the Hunted, in all of fate's ignoble rhyme…

            The danger looms nearer now,

            Nearer than it has before,

            We hear the darkness coming, answers lie beyond the door…

            And we can only face them, by chance or by design…

            Now the question will be answered…

            How will reploids fade from time??