AN: Sorry it took so long for such a short chapter, but I finally got it done. Enjoy and please R&R

Chapter 4

The sounds of battle echoed through the halls of Hunter HQ. Weapons fire, screams, shouts and smoke filled the air. The dim, red of the emergency lighting cast eerie shadows in the corridors. The walkways were cluttered with debris from collapsed ceilings and walls; revealing the hardened steel supports that served as a frame for the base. In some places, live wires left hanging out of damaged power conduits and pulses of energy shot out of them into the floor.

X ran as quickly as he could through the hallway leading from the Unit 17's barracks, side-stepping debris piles and the bodies of slain Hunters. He ran towards the sounds of gunfire and clashing saber blades. The smoke and weak light made it hard to see and he tripped over a fallen I-beam.

X picked himself up off the ground and resumed his sprint through the halls of the Hunter base. He passed a body that was leaning against a wall, its head lolling to one side. X skidded to a halt as he caught sight of a familiar v-shaped crest on the reploid's helmet. The four ray-like spikes painted around a red gem on the corpse's armor only served to verify its identity as the 17th's second in command.

X started towards the sounds of battle once more, there was nothing he could do for Slag now and every second he delayed would result in another dead friend. Before long he came upon Tempest's decapitated body and Gunner's remains, his body pummeled almost beyond recognition. He didn't stop running as he passed their bodies and the cadavers of other Hunters he knew, too many people were already dead for him to risk slowing down now.

X rushed onward through the twisting, seemingly endless corridors. The sounds of sabers crashing against one another was louder now, he was almost there. He leapt over the body of Zero's second in command, a female reploid with emerald hair and gray trimmed, forest green recon armor laying face down in a puddle of her own blood, and continued onward. As he rounded the last corner, X heard a scream and saw Zero fall to the ground. A deep gash ran diagonally from Zero's right shoulder down to his left hip and his eyes were cold and lifeless. There was something unsettlingly familiar about their blank stare.

X just stood there staring in anger and shock at Zero's body. Whoever had done this was going to pay dearly for killing his friends. The sound of someone shuffling towards him drew X's attention back to the situation at hand. He snapped his head towards the source of the sound and immediately leveled his X-buster at the person responsible for it.

"X?"

X blinked in surprise. Alia was limping towards him. Her body was covered in cuts, her pink armor had burn marks from where someone had slashed at it with a saber, and her right arm hung lifelessly at her side. She was clutching a pistol in her left hand, aiming it at X. A look of relief appeared on the spotter's face as she lowered her weapon.

"Alia! What happened? Who did this?"

Whatever reply Alia had been about to make was lost as a luminous, yellow sphere erupted silently from her chest without leaving a mark. X's eyes widened in horror as the realization of what had just happened dawned on him. He watched helplessly as all traces of life vanished from her blue eyes, her face taking on a blank expression. The sphere shot forward and looped back towards a figure standing in the shadows behind Alia. The sphere settled itself in the shadowy figure's hand as Alia's now lifeless body collapsed in a heap on the ground.

X trembled in rage as his fired off a shot at the person shrouded in the darkness. The shot hit its target and briefly illuminated some purple armor. The figure giggled and brought the hand holding the yellow sphere towards its chest. The soft light cast by the sphere illuminated the lower part of the figure's face right before it merged with the shadowy being.

"You murderous b–" X began to mutter.

"Has anyone ever told you how cute you get when you're angry?" a woman's voice asked playfully.

"Berkana," X growled, "I don't know how you came back to life, but you're going to pay for this!"

Berkana emerged from the shadows. Her purple armor resembled a Puritan style dress and it swished along the ground as she moved slowly and casually towards X. Even in the red of the emergency lights, the gold decorations adorning her waist, forearms, and the hem of her skirt glittered. Berkana's helmet was modeled after a witch's hat decked with a large amethyst jewel set in gold and a river of blond hair spilled out from behind the helmet. A ruby-like broach sat atop a delta shaped crest of gold on the piece of cloth-like armor that draped over her shoulders so that it covered the upper part of her chest and back.

"But darling, I thought you'd be happy to see me," Berkana said with feigned shock. "It's just been such a long time since we were last together and I've missed you so," she continued in a low, seductive tone while slowly advancing towards X, "Up for a little fun blue boy?"

"I don't get what your game is lady," X snarled, keeping his buster trained on Berkana, "but I'm not playing it and there's no way I'm going to allow you to get away with what you've done here!"

X fired off another shot and Berkana leapt to the side, twirling like a ballerina, to avoid it. The shot vanished into the darkened hall behind Berkana and she looked at X disappointedly, wagging her finger at him.

"How typical of you, X," Berkana sighed, "Always putting business before pleasure." She eyed Alia and Zero's corpses, looking as though someone had just dumped the contents of a garbage can on her front lawn. "Is this what you're so upset about?" she asked icily. Berkana's expression softened and a demure smile spread across her face as she shifted her gaze back to X. "Such concern for people so far beneath you . . . it's almost charming, really," she said with almost genuine warmth. "If it's any consolation at all, your friends are now a part of something greater than themselves – me."

That was all X could stand. Enraged, he charged Berkana. Before Berkana could react, X's left hand closed around her throat, squeezing hard, as he lifted her off the ground. X jammed his buster into her stomach at an upward angle and unleashed a fully charged blast. The plasma tore through Berkana's body easily, detonating her reactor as it did so. An unbearably bright light blinded X as the force of the explosion knocked him to the ground.

The light finally faded and X felt himself still clutching something in his left hand. He opened his eyes, expecting to see what little remained of Berkana. Instead he found himself looking into the face of a dead refugee. A look of shock and horror spread over X's face, rivaling the one frozen on that of the corpse.

He immediately released his grip and stumbled up to his feet, confused about what had just happened. X looked around himself, his horror and confusion intensifying to the point where his entire body simply went numb. He was no longer in the halls of Hunter headquarters, but in the desolated remains of a refugee camp. It was littered with the dead bodies of not only refugees, but Hunters as well. X saw the slain members of his own unit, Signas, Douglas, even Zero and his unit were among the dead. He slowly turned around in a circle, his body trembling in a mix of sorrow, anger, despair, and shock. He tried to stop moving, he tried to shut his eyes, but X was unable to do anything but look at the carnage surrounding him. He saw refugees from various camps he had visited while on patrol and more fallen Hunters. From the damage inflicted on the bodies, X could tell that every last one had been shot with a buster, a very powerful buster . . .

A feeling of nausea came over X as a horrible possibility occurred to him. He spotted Alia's body among the dead, the whole front of her body burned away by a massive burst of plasma. A crushing weight settled on his chest and X collapsed to his knees.

Now look what you've gone and done X, a woman's ghostly, echoing voice said.

I couldn't save them . . . They were counting on me and – and I failed . . . I – I killed them . . . It's all my fault . . . X thought, gazing at the ground in front of him, as laughter began to echo in his ears. He tried to block it out, but failed. Berkana's voice continued to laugh mockingly at him.

A shadow fell over X. X tried to raise his head up so he could see who was casting the shadow, but his body refused to obey him. X saw the shadow raise an arm and heard the familiar hum of a beam saber. The shadow swung its arm downward . . .

X awoke with a start as he jerked his body into a sitting position. His breathing was fast and his mind raced as his eyes darted around his room. He was inside his quarters, in his own bed – which would have been soaked if he were capable of sweating.

X found himself getting out of bed and walking to the closet where he had stored his armor for the night. He forced himself to halt halfway there as he managed to get a hold of himself.

It had only been a dream, a nightmare. There was no reason for the panic coursing through him. The members of his unit were still alive. Zero was still alive. Alia was probably haggling with some bureaucrat in some far away warren. More importantly, Berkana – the scientist who was responsible for developing the so called "Soul Eraser" technology and the mastermind behind the events at Leguz Island – was dead and had been that way for almost thirteen years.

Even as foolish as the need to make sure that his friends were okay seemed in light of those facts, it refused to go away. As he struggled to calm himself, X looked at the alarm clock next to his bed. The bright green numbers stood out in the darkness and informed him that it was only three in the morning. It was still about three hours before he normally woke up. X gave the timepiece an irritated scowl.

Even before the problems with Gate, he and his unit had been on call 24 hours a day since the colony drop. On top of that they were usually pulling double and triple patrols in order to stay on top of the resulting Maverick situation. It had only been in the last week that his unit had been able to resume something close to a normal rest cycle. Now that X finally had an opportunity to get a full night's rest for a change, a stupid dream had to go and wake him up at this godforsaken hour. Why didn't dreams like that one have the decency to at least wake him up at a reasonable time? Getting a good rest had also been high on X's agenda because he had to attend a meeting about the attack on Camp 5 in the morning.

X laid back down on his bed in an attempt to resume his slumber. Sleep eluded the azure Hunter however and his thoughts began turning back towards his nightmare. Visions of the destroyed camp, his dead friends, and that shadow he had seen continued to hound his mind.

The events of the dream played over and over in X's mind, in spite of his attempts to avoid thinking about them. It seemed like the harder he tried not to let his mind dwell on the nightmare, the more he actually thought about it.

Berkana's presence in the dream had been a shock – it had been years since X had even really thought about the scientist. Even though it was only a dream, her appearance dredged up nasty memories of the past. X had done his best to banish what happened at Leguz Island to some far, dark recess of his mind. He had never wanted to think about Berkana, her bodyguard Gareth, or what they had done to the reploids there ever again. X didn't have a clue how the erasure process worked – something he had no desire to know anyhow – but what he did know was that it effectively turned a reploid into an oversized doorstop. Even after thirteen years, X had never forgotten how unsettling it was to encounter an erasure victim. There was never any sign of struggle, no trace of exterior or internal damage – it was like the reploid had simply dropped dead for no apparent reason. The creepiest thing about an erased reploid was the eyes, something about them just wasn't right.

The more I think about it, the more the eyes of those refugees remind me of those reploids at LeguzIsland. But the erasure process wouldn't have inflicted any damage to those reploids and the humans in the camp would have been left unharmed . . . Berkana was the only one who knew how to erase reploids and she's dead, so those reploids couldn't have been erased . . . X felt a chill run down his spine as he remembered what Berkana did to Zero and Alia in his dream.

He quickly shifted his thoughts towards the shadow at the end of his dream. That was the most unusual element of the whole thing. Normally when he met his end in a dream, the person who killed him was usually some long dead foe or Sigma. This time it was just some nameless, faceless person. The worst part was that he had been totally helpless as his attacker struck him down – paralyzed by the despair of seeing all of the slaughtered Hunters and refugees in that camp and knowing that it was his fault.

X sat up and looked at his alarm clock again. An hour had passed since he woke up and he wasn't any closer to falling asleep again. He felt a little foolish for allowing a nightmare to dominate his train of thought and keep him awake. It wasn't like he hadn't had a bad dream before; in fact this one hadn't been the worst by a long shot.

So why am I letting this one bother me so much? Maybe Zero's right about me needing a break. I've been way too stressed out lately and now I keep thinking about erased reploids . . . maybe I'm starting to crack. Of course if I do take a break, naturally some nut job is going to try and take over the world or something . . . which they may do even if don't take any time off . . .

He looked grumpily at the alarm clock once more. Well, I'm not going to sleep anytime soon, X thought resignedly, May as well do something useful while I'm up. He got up out of bed, donned his armor, and exited his bedroom. He stepped into the small living room that made up the bulk of his quarters and walked over to a desk made of synthetic wood sitting in the back next to the entrance to the kitchen – even though reploids didn't really need to eat or go to the bathroom humans still insisted on putting such amenities in the Hunter's living quarters. The desk had a small, portable computer terminal atop it and a pile of datapads stacked next to the computer. X plopped himself down in the desk's swivel chair and activated the terminal.

X removed his PK card from a compartment on his left gauntlet and inserted it into the computer before entering his password. He waited for a minute as the computer connected to the Hunter mainframe to verify his authorization and grant him access to the base's network.

The meeting tomorrow has to be about the camp attacks. I should read up on that report Tanya wrote up about last week's attack and see if Lifesavor or the investigators have turned in their findings yet.

Even though everyone at the meeting would be given all the information relevant to the matter being discussed on arrival – or at least the material they cleared for – X saw no harm in looking up the information ahead of time. Especially if it helped with planning on how to deal with the situation and doing so got his mind off of that dream. X opened a search program and sent a query to the base's central computer. Then he leaned back in his seat and waited for the results.

Zero entered the conference room located on the third floor of the HQ. It was a large room with a massive rectangular table located in the middle of it. There was enough seating at the table to accommodate the leaders of every unit on base in addition to the command staff and still have a few seats left over. The table itself was made of a synthetic material that resembled polished oak and had been carefully designed to create the illusion of being hand-crafted. The seats were well cushioned and could support a fully armored reploid's weight as easily as it could a human's. The walls of the room were wood paneled – except for a portion of the back wall that was taken up by large video monitor – and the floor was covered in a grey carpet. The features blended together to create a comfortable atmosphere in the room – an atmosphere that, in Zero's opinion, was not necessarily appropriate for some of the matters that were discussed in it. The relative size and luxury of the conference room as opposed to the others on base had earned it the unofficial title of the "Grand Conference Room," but most people still just called it conference room D.

At the moment, all but five of the seats at the table were empty. Zero spotted Lifesavor and X sitting on the right-hand side of the table with Douglas and a female reploid sitting opposite of them. The female reploid was sporting dull brown recon armor over her black body suit and wore a matching helmet with a blue-gray gem mounted on it. There was a small pile of papers in front of each reploid and the empty seats next to X and the woman sitting opposite him.

Zero walked over and greeted the other Hunters at the table. He studied the woman for a moment, trying to put a name to the face. Finally, Zero grinned and said "Well, well, if it isn't the infamous Tanya," as he sat in the seat next to X.

Tanya raised an eyebrow and smirked. "Ah, the legendary Zero. I'm surprised you've heard of little ol' me."

"After what you did to those mercs in Madrid a few months ago, a lot of people know about you. Did you really cram that one guy's beam saber . . ."

"Why is that everyone always brings up that particular incident whenever they talk about that mission?" She responded with a sigh. "I mean it wasn't exactly intentional or anything – not that he probably didn't deserve it," she added with a strange glint in her brown eyes.

The glint in her eyes made Zero a bit uneasy. The incident in Madrid had involved a group of mercenaries hired by a crime syndicate confronting the members of Unit 23. The mercenaries had been summoned to deal with Tanya's team because they had been apprehending the reploid members of the syndicate, disrupting the organization's activities. When the hired guns finally managed to track the 23rd Unit to Madrid, they attempted to ambush them. The reports about what happened during the battle claimed that Tanya took out four of the seven mercenaries on her own. Zero briefly wondered if any of those mercenaries had seen that same glint when she was coming attacking them.

"So . . . anyone know what this meeting is about?" Douglas inquired as he leaned back in his chair. "I'm not sure why Signas asked me to show up. He seemed a little distracted when I talked to him yesterday."

"I assume that this is about the massacre at the refugee camp," X said tiredly. "I tried looking up the reports from the investigation and the medical examination teams last night . . . the files were sealed."

Zero saw Lifesavor shift uncomfortably in his chair and suddenly take a great interest in a scuff mark on one of his gauntlets. "Now that's unusual," Zero commented. "I could understand them possibly being classified, but sealed?"

X nodded his head in agreement. It wasn't unusual for reports with sensitive data to be classified so that only certain individuals could examine them. Sealing a file or report was a bit more extreme and put access to the data they contained out of reach of everyone except for the highest ranking members of the Maverick Hunters. The level of clearance required was beyond what any unit commander would have, even himself and Zero.

Zero looked down at the pile of papers in front of him. "What about these?" he asked pointing at the papers.

"They aren't any help at all," Tanya replied with a board look as she leafed through the pile in front of her. "They're just the reports that X and you turned in regarding the last attack and the one I submitted after the Council yanked the investigation out from under us." Her eyes narrowed as she mentioned the Council and her mouth twitched slightly.

"I wonder why they did that?" Douglas pondered aloud. "That jurisdiction bee es they gave us doesn't make sense. They've never made an issue of it before when there was an incident involving human and reploid deaths."

"Probably just an excuse to remind us that they're in charge," muttered Tanya. "They probably can't stand the fact that the Hunters are actually running the planet now."

"Given the way things are right now, you could hardly say that we have things under control," X began solemnly, "We've managed to secure a number of sectors – but there's still areas where there's no significant Hunter presence. On top of that, we're struggling just to maintain order in some the areas we do control . . ."

"But ever since Sigma first rebelled, a lot of humans have been afraid of the idea of reploids being in a position of power over them," Zero added. "Now that we're the main force behind Earth's reconstruction and not the Council, it makes sense for them to see us as a potential threat."

"Geez, you guys are just a barrel of laughs right now," replied Douglas. "To hear you guys talk, it's like things are way worse than they seem. Don't forget that we've made a lot of progress already. We've cleaned up a lot of the atmospheric toxins released by the Eurasia debris and we've already got several areas back on their way to supporting plant life again. Things are going much faster than we planned and Maverick activity isn't as bad as we feared a few months ago. Now as much fun as talking about how messed up things are right now is – why would those files be sealed and why would Signas want to hold a meeting about the attack in the most secure conference room on base?"

Zero mulled over Douglas's second question for a moment. The Grand Conference room was known to be the most secure place on base to have a discussion. The walls, ceiling, and floor were packed with equipment meant to jam any type of listening device. In addition to that, the room was soundproof and was swept several times a day by base security and Hunter Intelligence for anything suspicious.

The doors of the conference room slid open noiselessly as Signas entered the room followed by a stocky, sandy haired human in a military uniform bearing the crest of Hunter Intelligence carrying a datapad. Zero recognized the human as Aaron Fletchly, the head of the Hunter's intel division. Fletchly looked tired and pale as he followed behind Signas lethargically. It was startling contrast to his normal demeanor that it caught Zero off guard.

Fletchly seated himself across from Zero while Signas went to the head of the table and sat down in the chair there. Signas tapped on the table and a panel opened up to reveal a monitor, keyboard, and a data disk slot.

"I'm sorry to call all of you here on such short notice, but we have a possible crisis on our hands."