Author's Note: Sorry if I rushed the first MMX game, but I have a slight problem trying to talk action instead of details of a location of where the fight took place. If I had the dignaty to at least spend some time working on more than just the description of a location, I wouldn't have to shorten this chapter to avoid boring you to death (Don't take this as me being rude, I like the fact that you are actually reading this, and I hope that I get some good (or bad) reviews out of you...if you have the time).
5 - Seeking Answers to an Unsolved Mystery
When X regretfully joined the Maverick Hunters in hopes of getting back at Sigma for destroying half of Hunter Base and putting his friends in the hospital with major injuries, he has yet to learn that the casualties of his closest friends were just the beginning of his depression. He has managed to take down the eight mavericks that survived the Chimera's slaughter, along with Vile and Sigma's dog, Velguarder, and, after a rough and agonizing battle, Sigma himself.
While the war had been won, more sacrifices widened the hollow victory X received after Sigma's destruction. Zero, who had become his friend long before he joined Maverick Hunters, died while knocking Vile down a few notches both in power and in size. The sorrow of having to watch him die before his eyes left an emotional scar in his mechanical heart. But that sorrow wouldn't stop him from finishing off Sigma's remaining force and put an end to the infernal war for good while bring peace back to the world. Unknown to X, the real war was about to start.
In the far outskirts of Japan, a fortress resembling a rusted, moss- covered version of the Eiffel Tower emerged from the ocean near the cliff of a forest, the water spilling from the roof of the tower and drenching the trees and grass below it. Once it was fully out of the water, the windows glowed an eerie purple as a mysterious and sinister laugh echoed throughout the entire forest.
The outlines of crushed reploids, both maverick and innocent began to glow as they slowly rose, their natural eyes replaced by a foreboding, crimson gleam. The further the strange phenomenon went, the more reploids rose with the same eyes glowing on their undead features.
The alarms at Hunter Base went off, scaring half the Hunters who were either falling asleep near their surveillance console or playing card and board games with one another. Dr. Cain, who was released hospital a week after having surgery to remove most of the metal shards from his body, ran into the command center a second later.
"What's going on!?" Dr. Cain blurted out.
"Dr. Cain!" one of the Hunters said, turning to him, "We're getting a massive report of maverick uprises all over the world. We don't know what's causing it. What's even weird is that they aren't even alive."
"Alive? You mean they're just machines without a will or a soul?"
"Not one. If we don't figure out what's causing these dead mavericks to come to life, the world could be in serious trouble!"
Dr. Cain looked at the map that was riddled with flashing dots, indicating signs of high maverick activity, "We should take it slow and easy. Try to identity the source of all the madness. Maybe then we can figure out how to stop it."
"Searching...." the Hunter began typing like mad on the keyboard, "Found it! It's somewhere at the edge of Japan. But the place is crawling with so many undead mavericks, not even second strongest hunters could get in."
"Looks like something that involves X. I'll go contact him and see if he isn't too busy to come deal with this situation."
"Don't bother," came a voice that stopped Dr. Cain after taking only three steps towards the communicator, "I will handle this alone."
"ProtoX?" Dr. Cain asked, turning to white haired reploid leaning against the doorway of the command center, "But why? You said you didn't like becoming a Maverick Hunter."
"I didn't mention wanting to become a Maverick Hunter. But that won't stop me from seeking out and destroying the source of these disturbances on my own. Besides," he adds, looking at the flashing dots on the map, "I feel that if I fight the source of this strange anomaly, I would find answers to who these memories I have really belong to."
"But ProtoX, fighting isn't the only way to find answers to your unsolved mysteries. I'm sure there are other ways of uncovering your true past."
"No, there isn't. I know it. Even if there was, it would take a while to make it come true. And I can no longer wait that long. I feel that fighting for the answer is the quickest choice I have."
"Think of how X will feel if you go out there blindly and get killed. He's already lost Zero, we don't want to lose you too."
"I won't lose. These memories also hold fighting capabilities that I have been taking the liberty of perfecting every time I go on a lunch break by myself. I have also perfected a new weapon technique that has not been in my memory before, and created a weapon with the same ability as X's ability to copy the mavericks' powers after each defeat."
"ProtoX...." Dr. Cain's voice was less harsh and a little more strained with sorrow. ProtoX walked up to him and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Please, let me handle these mavericks. I know I don't want X to suffer another loss, but this is something that can't wait. I have to find out who I really am."
Dr. Cain moaned and looked down, muttering, "Do what you must...just be careful, okay?"
ProtoX compressed his lips a bit before taking his hand off Dr. Cain's shoulder, "I'm sorry...I'll try." He turns and walks out.
"Are you really going to let him go?" the Hunter asked.
"He is a reploid," Dr. Cain said, "He has a right to choose his own path in life. Even if that path will cause X more pain than what he has suffered already."
A beam touched down in the forest near the location of the source causing the resurrection of dead mavericks. Wasting no time, ProtoX runs through the forest, keep an eye out for any mavericks that might come at him along the way. He suddenly caught a strange figure fly past him a foot from where he is and came to a stop, seeing it disappear into the shadows of the forest.
"What was that?" he mutters to himself, "Whatever it is, it's faster than Sigma." He stands there for a moment before continuing into the forest after the figure that zoomed past him. After an hour, the sound of rustling leaves stopped ProtoX again as he looks around for whatever caused that noise. He caught something out of the corner of his eye as he turns around to see what it is.
It was a mechanical monkey. Judging from the torn condition it was in, ProtoX knew it was one of those reploids that had already been destroyed. He reached for the 7ft, white rod behind him and pulls it out, the red, five inch high, three inch wide nozzle shooting out a neon green, five inch wide, slightly curved blade, a third of it separated from the rest.
The monkey reacts by leaping off the branch, heading towards ProtoX only to pass by him, cleaved in half when he swung his PX-Staff over his head like a sledgehammer. He stares at the vertically sliced monkey before continuing towards the source of its activation. As he got closer, more mechanical monkeys popped up everywhere, jumping at him only to get scrapped by his PX-Staff.
But when he got near the edge of the forest leading to the cliff and the pinpoint of the strange phenomenon, a giant, mechanical gorilla sprang from the bushes leading to the forest exit, pounding its chest and roaring. Its shoulder had been torn open, exposing the circuitry, bleeding fluid and spitting sparks every few seconds. The tractor that moved it was severely damaged, making it difficult for it to move fluently. The gorilla was missing an arm and a lower jaw, exposing the slightly burn nozzle of a plasma rifle as well as a shattered, right eye.
ProtoX bared his teeth a bit as he backed away some, hands on his PX- Staff held beside him. The gorilla eyed him with its remaining eye, lifting its fist and firing it at him. ProtoX jumped back as the fist slammed into the ground a second before it flew back to the gorilla, reconnecting with its wrist. He charges at the gorilla, swinging his PX- Staff at it, leaving a hefty gash in its chest and knocking it back some, but the gorilla continued to stare at him, growling and moving towards him, sparks flying out of the new gash mark. Growling, ProtoX thrusts his PX- Staff into the gorilla's stomach, forcing it to stop. He thought he had finally gotten rid of the obstacle blocking his way only to see it get worse.
Outraged, the gorilla began thrashing about, trying to yank ProtoX off his feet as he kept a firm grip on his PX-Staff. It then fell back, sending him flying over it, forcing him to lose his grip and slam into a tree behind the gorilla. He struggled to sit up in time to see the gorilla stoop over him, raising its remaining fist to strike when a giant boomerang smashed through the tree over his head, knocking a third of it to the side, and slam into the face of the gorilla, knocking it onto its back, roaring in pain.
ProtoX followed the boomerang as it flew back to its thrower who lands in front of him, slinging it onto his back and facing the gorilla struggling to get to get up with its tractor feet. His mouth opened slightly upon seeing his savior being none other than the Chimera, whom he read from the reports on the Internet and in the newspaper stands along the streets of New Tokyo.
The Chimera eyed ProtoX before turning his attention back to the gorilla and jumping towards it, bringing his arm blades down on its head, slicing it in half before jumping back and allowing it to explode into a burning heap of scrap.
'Why...why did he decide to save me?' ProtoX thought to himself. He continued to stare at the back of the Chimera, a strange, familiar feeling growing inside of him, 'Why does he...feel so familiar? Who is he?' The Chimera eyed him before taking off into the air, "NO! WAIT!" he gets up to stop the Chimera only to see him disappear through the leaves of the tree. The way the Chimera looked at him was as if he had known him from the start. Perhaps he was the key to all of ProtoX's answers. He shakes his head, thinking that it was just a coincidence and continues to the edge of the forest, finally reaching the location of the undead mavericks' source of power, the glowing windows of the metallic and moss-covered Eiffel Tower.
"That must be where the source of power is coming from," ProtoX muttered to himself. He focused on an open window, which seems to beckon him to walk inside, to which he did.
The inside of the to tower was covered in wires, with very little space on the floor for him to walk through without having to trip over the ones that stood a foot off the floor. Surprisingly enough, with all these wires getting in the way, a slew of undead mavericks managed to make their way around, focusing on the intruder and coming towards him, chanting the word "kill" as if it were a ritual and he was the sacrifice.
ProtoX winced in concern, seeing most of the mavericks looking like innocent reploids that had recently been scrapped for reasons he didn't want to know or imagine. But since these innocent reploids no longer had a soul to tell them what to do, he wasn't as concerned about having to take care of them as he would if they did have a regretful reason to attack. Clutching his PX-Staff, he came at the hoard, swinging the blade everywhere and severing the mavericks in several places as he charged through the wire covered room until he reached the stairs, seeing wall-crawling mavericks aiming their small phazers at him.
"This...may take a while...." he grumbled as he ran up the stairs deflecting the blasts with the beam end of his PX-Staff and blowing the mavericks that came in contact with their own blasts. He kept doing this for the next two to three minutes before he finally reached the top of the stairs, slicing the last wall-crawling maverick that decided to jump off and knock him down. Beyond the flight of stairs he ascended from is a door that may lead into another section of the room.
ProtoX cautiously walked through the door, thankful upon seeing the ballroom-size area beyond it free of wires with three doors, two on the side and one in front. One of the three doors was bound to lead him to the source of the undead maverick's soulless battery. He walk into the center of the room, looking between the three doors, seeing which one will lead him where. His thoughts were cut off when he heard robotic footsteps coming towards him. Nervous, he moved into a fighting position, holding his PX-Staff to the side as the footsteps got louder, seeing a figure slowly appear from the doorway in front of him, his determined face soon turned to that of confusion when the figure came in full view.
"It's you," he mutters when the Chimera stopped a few feet from him, his eyes showing no signs of expressions. ProtoX also lost his previous expression, staring at the Chimera some more, "There were a lot of questions running through my head the minute I saw you, but you left before I could ask them. Seeing you again made this deep feeling of familiarity inside me grow. It's as if I knew you from one of these memories. The question is, which person in these memories do I remember you from?" the Chimera said nothing, only continuing to stare at him. ProtoX's expression became deeper, "I see. I guess that by fighting you, something might click that would tell me who you really are." He moves back into a fighting stance, seeing the Chimera do the same, "I wish we didn't have to fight for something so simple, but since you seemed to have been created to fight, I suppose this is the only way to settle things."
The two stared at each other, unmoving for the next two minutes before coming towards the center of the room, letting out a battle cry so loud, it echoed throughout the entire tower, followed by the sounds of blades clashing. The fight went back and forth between blows. One minute, ProtoX came at the Chimera with moves that sent him back with defensive maneuvers only to have him retaliate a minute later, forcing him back, using the rod of his PX-Staff as a shield to deflect the blades that were coming at him. The more the fight deepened, the similar it was to ProtoX's memories.
After a while, a sudden vision flashed in ProtoX's head of the first time the memories' original owner had appeared, fighting a blue reploid that may have been recognized later a his younger brother. This sudden vision caused ProtoX to lose hold of reality, allowing the Chimera to knock him to the ground, abruptly stopping the fight the minute ProtoX had dropped to a sitting position, propped on his hands, his knees standing. Neither of them moved as they continued to stare at each other, ProtoX looking like something had spooked him.
More visions that claim to have something to do with the Chimera continued to flood through ProtoX's head from the next two fight between the memories owner and his brother, showing up and saving a human girls life, stopping an evil clone from messing up his reputation and then helping him until the point of his death at the hands of an imbalance infecting his machine and turning him into a motionless shell in a scanning capsule.
'What...what do these memories have to do with the Chimera?' he asked himself, 'What did he do to bring them up?' his eyes widened behind his visors, 'Could...could he be...?'
ProtoX's thoughts were once again cut off when a maniacal laughter echoed throughout the room he and the Chimera are in.
"It appears that we have intruders!" the voice boomed, "Well, I have only set my sights on the Chimera, but I want to get my hands on you too, Break Man ProtoX!"
"Who are you!?" ProtoX shouts.
"Why don't you come up here and fight me? If you can survive the avalanche that is!"
"Avalanche?" before the two could figure out what the voice meant, the tower began to shake with explosions coming from the roof over them, sending piles of stones and concrete raining down on top of them. By the time the dust cleared, the entire room was covered in two feet of debris.
After an hour, the Chimera emerged from the pile, his coat slightly torn, but his armor suffered nothing less than scratches and dents. He looks at ProtoX, his head and shoulders being the only body parts barely sticking out of the pile. His face twisted into a snarling rage as he turned to the door where a strange glow seemed to give the maverick's location away. He looks at ProtoX again.
"I'm sorry," he mumbled, "I should've seen you sooner so you would know me better. But this is something I must handle alone." With that, he turns and heads toward the glowing stairway.
ProtoX soon stirred and dragged himself to his feet, stones and concrete slipping off his back as he stood. He was barely conscious, only remembering part of what happened. Fluid dribbled down his forehead and mouth as most of his body was covered in bigger dents and scratches, some of his armor torn open with fluid spraying out along with the sparks crawling around his exposed circuitry. The left side of his visor broke off from the avalanche, revealing his half open, green eye and his once braided hair spilled out along around his back, surprisingly straighter, if not slightly messy from the crash.
"M-Must...save...him...." he muttered half-consciously as he walked/stumbled towards the stairs where the purplish glow is emitting from.
From the top room of the tower, the Chimera begins to back away some, a look of terror written on his faceless expression. In front of him is a capsule much like the ones that held X's armor data, only this time, instead of Dr. Light, a different scientist with wild and messy hair around his bald scalp and a long mustache, wearing a high collared lab coat, shirt, pants and a belt with a skull-shaped buckle around his slightly tubby waist appeared inside the capsule, his holographic features were purple instead of blue.
"What's the matter, Chimera?" the hologram said with an evil cackle, "Surprised to see me again? I knew that eventually, my robots would rebel, so I downloaded by A.I. into this capsule and set it to activate should anything happen to me. Being killed by my own creation may have delayed me for 100 years, but when the holographic program finally kicked in, I found the right opportunity to make my appearance by resurrecting all the robots that have been permanently disabled by the ones you are trying to protect." The Chimera snarled as he began to back up some more, "Oh yes. I wouldn't want to forget my surviving servant. He thought he was so smart, allowing a goody-to-bot like you to install another program into him without even thinking of what happens when you activate it." The hologram's grin widened before he threw his hands out, "NOW! TIME TO ACTIVATE THE FUSIONS MANUAL OVERWRITING COMMANDS!" The Chimera's eyes suddenly shrank to the size of rice grains. He stumbles back, grabbing his head and screaming in agony. The hologram laughed, "That flea-bitten traitor may have accepted you as his new master, but even he isn't aware of the brainwashing program that will consume you both and turn you to my side! Consider this a trade off, my masterpiece for you. And the best part is, X won't even know he had two brothers until he has annihilated you."
The Chimera drops to his knees, throwing his head around and screaming at him to stop before a streak flew past him and hit the head of a deformed praying mantis standing behind the holographic capsule, causing it to short circuit and fall over, its arms dangling in the air.
"What...what happened!?" the hologram screamed.
"You will not...lay a hand...on my brother!" came a slurred voice. The Chimera took his hands off his head once the pain stopped and turns around to see ProtoX hunched over and breathing heavily with his left hand stuck out from throwing his PX-Staff.
"You!? You were supposed to have been destroyed!" the hologram looked as though he was backing into the glass of his capsule as ProtoX dragged himself past the shocked Chimera towards him.
"As long...as he needs me...I...will never...die...!" ProtoX seethed, inching closer to the frightened hologram.
"Stop...STOP HIM!" the hologram screamed. Almost immediately, the impaled mantis' eyes glowed and slowly rose with a mechanical whirring sound, taking its claw and swinging it towards ProtoX, who seemed blinded by the pain to see it coming.
The sound of blade slicing metal echoed throughout the room. The Chimera's eyes shrank even smaller at the sight of ProtoX's upper torso and left arm falling towards the ground a second before his lower body. Shaken, the renegade vigilante gets up and walks toward him dropping to his knees and picking up his upper body in his arms
ProtoX opened his left eye slightly and looked at the Chimera, smiling as more fluid dribbled out of his mouth, his sliced torso oozing more fluid and creating a puddle around the sky blue legs he was being held over, "F-Fight...fight him...brother...." he mutters before closing his eyes and dropping his head into the Chimera's trembling arms. He mumbled something in a cracked voice before embracing the dead corpse in his arms, more fluid staining his white coat and lap, turning from trembling to shaking.
"A small price to pay for not showing your face sooner," the holographic scientist laughed, "But now that he is out finally of the way, I can finish brainwashing you to do my bidding." His gleeful and sinister grin soon turned to terror when the Chimera suddenly sprang up, screaming and dropping ProtoX, "What's...what's going on!? Your readings...they're going off the charts! How can that be!?" The Chimera sprang towards him at the same unbelievable speed that shocked Sigma when he took down X. Again, he tried to back himself up only to hit the corner of his holographic capsule, shaking everywhere before throwing his hand in front of him, "S- Stop! Don't do this! I beg of you!"
The Chimera was too blinded by rage to listen to him. Frightened, the hologram braces for impact as he zoom past his capsule with enough speed to knock him against the wall, causing the projectors to distort, fuzz and wiggle before bringing back his appearance.
The hologram lowers his arms to see the Chimera leap into the air and slice the mind-controlling mantis off the wire covered walls, sending it crashing to the ground as sparks flew from its body. He then began tearing through the wires and computer consoles surrounding the room like a savage beast, scaring the hologram even further.
"No! S-Stop it! If you keep tearing this place apart you'll cause a chain reaction that will blow up this tower!" the room jolts slightly as a sign that one of the severed wires has knocked the towers floatation device offline, causing it to start sinking into the ocean. A wave of explosions ripped throughout the tower, stopping the Chimera as his expression suddenly goes from raged to shocked at the damage he caused, "You fool! No thanks to you, we'll all sink into the ocean!"
Water began spilling into the room as more explosions ripped throughout both inside and outside the tower, annihilating anything that got in the way. The Chimera just stood there, shaking everywhere as the water slowly rose to his ankles before running over to ProtoX, ripping his back panel open and pulling his control chip out. The hologram looks down, seeing the water rising past his tilted waist, then the Chimera who takes off for the roof of the tower, crashing through it and sending large boulders down towards the water.
"NO! DON'T LEAVE ME HERE! HELP...ME!!!" his scream began to sound buzzed and distorted, as his hand, fuzzy and wavy, was the last thing sinking into the rising water.
From a distance, the exploding tower disappeared into the ocean a second before it exploded, sending a giant wave that drenched a third of the forest around it. All zombified mavericks stopped what they were doing and fell to the ground, motionless.
The Chimera floated over the giant splash as it settled into the ocean, eyes wide before they close, lowering his head.
"Deactivate helmet." He muttered.
"Helmet deactivated," the computer inside his head said. The Chimera's helmet glowed and vanished, revealing Rock's head as he opened his eyes and stared at the destruction he helped cause. He looked at ProtoX's control chip in his hand, trying to fight back the tears that were coming out of his eyes.
"They're...they're right," he murmured, "I'm no vigilante. I'm just a murderer. I...I killed my own brother!" Rock closed the fist holding ProtoX's control chip and throws his head to the side, tears spilling out of his eyes as he groaned from emotional pain.
"The mavericks have all stopped what they were doing!" the Hunter shouted, "ProtoX did it!"
Dr. Cain jumped and screamed for joy, "I never should have doubted him for a minute! He is definitely like his little brother!"
"But wait! I've lost ProtoX's signal! Something must be wrong!"
"What!?" Dr. Cain ran over to the map and saw that the signal used to locate ProtoX had suddenly vanished, "But...how can that be!? Did he...?" a thud interrupted him before he could finish. He ran outside to see what it was. There was nothing there, except for a white and red beam spear with a CD, sealed in a small, plastic bag, hanging off the center of it by a piece of string.
Dr. Cain ran back inside with the CD and pops it into a nearby computer, running the program, his eyes widening at what he saw, "Oh...no...."
The Beginning – Epilogue
After a triumphant victory over Sigma's second defeat, X and the newly revived Zero return to Hunter Base to give Dr. Cain the news. But when they came through the door, Dr. Cain just sat in front of the computer, staring at the monitor, his lips quivering from sorrow and fear.
"Dr. Cain?" X asked, "What's wrong?"
Dr. Cain snapped his head up, turning it to X, trying to fight back the urge to cry, "Oh, X.... It's ProtoX.... He's...."
Deep within the ocean near Japan laid the ruins of a tower. Underneath a pile of stones, a violet glow emitted from the gaps, an evil laughter echoing throughout the ocean depts.
End of "The Beginning"
OOC: I wanted to make the first series longer, but because most of the chapters involved more description than action, I was worried I'd bore you readers to death. So instead, I just cut to the point to save you the hassle of having to read a bunch of stuff that you didn't need to know.
Next Book Series: "The Mysterious Reploid"