A/N: I'm still trying to figure out how this site works, so bear with me. Hopefully I'll get this down soon.
Sunrise
Chapter 1: A Twist of Fates
Five months later...
Gazing out over the west, one could see for miles over the suburban horizon with a beautiful view of large, fluffy, bone white clouds against the cerulean sky. The sight was nearly flawless, save the radio tower in the southwest, which didn't really ruin the entire scene if you just ignored it. However, if one looked out to the east, there was the vast expansion of the Maverick Hunter Headquarters, complete with an 8-acre training field, registration and command centers, three battle simulation labs, a cafeteria, three med labs, various recreational stations here and there, and to top it all off, an enormous bunker in the dead center of it all. (And as if that weren't enough, there were twelve more stationed in other countries around the world.) Then, if one had been looking out over the southeast wing, there was the city just beyond. All in all, the landscape was nearly erased by technology in the east.
Zero hated the view of the east in broad daylight. He much preferred the nightlights of the city and HQ at night and the sky scapes during the day. Unfortunately, he didn't have time to admire either, for out in the distance to the west, several small dots were fast approaching his position. Staring out at them gravely, Zero lifted a pair of binoculars to his eyes. From his vantage point high up on one of HQ's eastern look out posts, he could vaguely make out about seventeen rather large Mavericks marching through the streets. They weren't the normal scouts sent out to keep the Hunters on their toes - these were Destroyers, huge mavericks with mind-blowing firepower and nearly impenetrable armor. Every few minutes, one of the Mavs would fire something off into a nearby building, either sending it sky high, or into a ball of flames.
Luckily, that area had been evacuated some time ago, so civilian casualties would be none. It was only property damage that the humans would have to worry about this time. This only gave Zero more reason to feel as at ease as he did - he was by no means nervous. He'd seen the likes of the Destroyers before, knew exactly how to deal with them, and knew well that no normal weapon they carried had the kick to destroy the mini-malls and such that they did that easily. These buildings had been made to withstand a certain level of damage. It seemed that the Mavs had been given a little extra punch, but it was nothing new to the crimson reploid.
Overdrive lasers, he wondered to himself.
Dropping the binoculars to hang from their strap around his neck, Zero flung himself over the ladder at the side of the look out post and quickly climbed back down to the ground where another reploid stood patiently awaiting him.
Megaman X had joined the Hunters about a year before Zero had. Although X had been with the Hunters for a considerably longer amount of time, he hadn't been as inclined to fight from the get go as the blonde wonder had been, which set him back somewhat in his skills and rank. Still, it hadn't kept the two from becoming friends immediately.
Zero acknowledged the azure reploid with a nod, then hurried through a door beside them leading back into the compound, explaining his findings as they went.
"They're Destroyers," he stated before X could even ask, "Destroyers with new toys. They're down there taking out houses with one hit. And there's about twenty at the most, not any real threat."
Behind him, X's eyes widened, his jaw hung slightly open. "It's getting worse," he groaned. "They weren't ever this serious before."
The commander simply shrugged. "Don't get nervous now," he said in assurance to his smaller friend. "I don't need you passing out on me out when we get started." He smirked, earning him a nasty glare. It wasn't X's fault that he'd been knocked unconscious during his very first battle and everyone knew it, but Zero would be the last to let him live it down. "Anyway, it may not be anything serious, but we'd better get down to the briefing room and tell them what we saw."
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No more than ten minutes later, Zero found he had been right about the weapons they were carrying. Almost every one of the Mavs held at least one overdrive laser, something he had run up against several times before.
Zero leapt high to avoid a shot from the deadly beams, then kicked the air at the peak of his jump for a second mid-air leap to dodge a second blazing beam. A third came at his head and he merely ducked it as he was falling to escape the blast. He retaliated with a few slashes from his beam saber as soon as he hit the ground, running a little to the side to get out of the way of yet another laser beam.
Landing from a double back flip and avoiding yet another attack, Zero sighed, and frowned. The last two Destroyers leapt towards him, one landing on either side to surround the Hunter. The ground trembled almost violently as they landed - one might have thought it was a small earthquake. Both hulking Mavs circled Zero for a moment, each sizing up the smaller reploid who simply stood there, staring out into nothingness as if accepting his defeat.
At first, that was all they did, and Zero couldn't help but wonder if it had been his agility or speed out there that had amused or intimidated them so. Ah, Destroyers. They were so hard to read. But, he thought, charging the plasma in his blade. Immediately, the Mavericks crouched for battle - it looked like their enemy was ready to fight again. They're still so easy to take out once you know how to get them.
Giving it no more than a brief side-glance, Zero found the spot he was looking for and swung the beam saber wide, creating a crescent-shaped projectile of the blade that sailed forward, crashing into the stomach of one Maverick and splitting it in half completely. A second swipe ensured the hasty death of the second, and the battle suddenly came to an end.
A few blocks away, he could hear the sounds of the other battle where X was still fighting the remaining Mavericks. When it had been decided that only he and X would take the mission, Zero silently volunteered to make the smaller Hunter's safety a priority, whether his superiors expected him to or not. There was no doubt in his mind that X's skills had improved, but if he kept making the little mistakes he did, he was going to get himself seriously hurt or worse. No one needed to ask X if he minded the idea of his best friend protecting him during the fight; of course he would have been opposed to it. So, Zero kept it a secret to himself and kept as close to the other during their brawl as possible without bringing too much attention to himself.
Sighing, Zero turned and broke into a trot down the street, following the noise to where X would surely be.
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"YAAA!!!" X screamed wildly, firing off a powerful blast at the very last of the Destroyers. The shot connected perfectly, and X had to bring his arm up to cover his face as shrapnel flew in every direction from the explosion that followed. Panting heavily, he straightened himself up and brushed off some of the dust that had collected on his armor at some point or another during the brawl. As he did, he turned his head, looking around at the damage the Mavericks had caused. There were a few buildings that had been completely destroyed, but none of them had been very large. Almost every standing structure had suffered at least a chunk blown out of a wall. Other than that, there didn't seem to be much that couldn't be repaired without a great deal of trouble. Relief flooded him and he allowed it to take reign over his mind, temporarily keeping him unaware of how shaky his body had become after the heat of battle had died down.
"It's okay," he told himself over and over again, one hand at his forehead, the fingers there gently working soothing little circles against his sweat-drenched skin as far as his helmet would allow. "You're not dead; you had control of everything. You're fine." But despite his efforts, another voice at the back of his mind still chided him, No you didn't. You lived by sheer luck, you and your panicky self.
He tried to ignore it, adding pressure to his massaging, but in the end, the voice won him over once again. Who was he trying to fool? He was nervous, plain and simple, and losing his grip was doing him no good. If it weren't for that, he would have been made a commander by his fourth real battle just as Zero had. Granted, he had only assisted in three attacks and this raid made his second in live-action combat, but...
Stop it, he commanded himself mentally, shaking his head with a small smile. You're just inexperienced. It'll get better. Then he remembered something else, and his smile faded as he heard footsteps approach from behind.
"Freak out again?" came a teasing voice from behind him, but X didn't even flinch.
"I just got... shaky is all," he shot back, unable to hide a renewed grin. He turned to face Zero, hands on his hips. "But you've got nothing to brag about. I finished my part all on my own this time. Nah!" He stuck out his tongue for emphasis.
For a moment, the blonde was tempted to walk over and slap the underside of X's jaw, forcing him to bite his own tongue. He settled for a shrug instead. "Whatever. Looks like we're done here for now. Le-"
Across the street in an old, out-of-business clothing store, a window suddenly burst out of its frame, shattered glass fragmenting even further on the sidewalk and startling both Hunters. Zero reflexively unsheathed and activated his saber, but X was a little slower to react. Both had their eyes trained on the store window, watching and waiting for anything to happen. Inside, something was moving around, stumbling over itself as it came toward them. It was small and couldn't have been more than a few inches shorter than X. Neither Hunter could quite make out what it was, as it was shrouded in shadows, but they did know that it wasn't human.
"Who's there?!" Zero demanded forcefully, venturing a few steps forward as he tried to get a better view of what they were now facing.
The figure tilted its head slightly and jerked, swaying as though standing on its own two feet was a challenge it couldn't quite seem to overcome. It made an attempt to walk forward and only succeeded in stumbling over something in its way, then fell forward, landing half in and half out of the broken window frame. In the light, it became much easier to see that it was a reploid (or at least it looked like one), and it was in bad need of repair.
Concerned for the reploid, X took a few cautious steps toward it, Zero right on his heels. While the crimson Hunter took a short glance around the store for more enemies, X gently prodded the still form with his foot. When the reploid didn't so much as twitch, he sighed, assured that he was either unconscious or dead, and knelt down for a closer look.
The reploid was sticky to the touch, and small, green specks of seaweed led X to the conclusion that it probably had taken a swim in the nearby ocean and hadn't bothered to wash itself off. It had black armor, highlighted with a bright orange color. Two large fin-like protrusions jutted out from the dead center of the helmet below a blue star-shaped crystal, fanning to the back. Under the visible, softly closed eye, a purple blaze shot out from the corner, contrasting sharply with the lightly tanned synthetic skin and faded into the soft flesh under the chin. It was clearly male by the shape of the body, but what was interesting about him and even puzzling was the presence of several small spots and huge splotches on the armor which had actually begun to rust and deteriorate, creating little pits and holes here and there.
Baffled, X called to his partner, motioning for him to look at the corroded splotches. Zero's face twisted in something that could have been mild disturbance - neither had ever known a reploid to rust. In fact, it was deemed impossible with the alloy that made their armor and other parts. Clearly, this reploid was an older model... much older.
Without a word, Zero hefted the small body up over his shoulder. He gave a short, meaningful jerk of his head and X nodded his understanding. In the next instant, the two were engulfed in red and blue lights, respectively. As the lights disappeared, so did the Hunters and their captive with them.
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Enraged, Ketsu shot up out of his chair, pounding a fist on either side of the computer screen in front of him. "Damnit!" he swore loudly and glared maliciously at the screen. He knew he was going to lose. He always did. It was inevitable. Ketsu and solitaire just didn't mix. But he had given it another shot anyway.
The medical reploid swore one last time before closing the program out entirely and slumping defeatedly back in his chair. For one brief moment, he entertained thoughts of deleting the game from the computer's hard drive permanently, but decided grudgingly against it. Delta would absolutely have a fit if his second favorite pasttime were destroyed.
Without warning, a dull beeping popped out of his internal communicator. With a groan, he activated it, speaking into it gruffly. "Yeah? What have we got? Did he get hurt too badly?"
"Wow, you sound peeved," replied the deceitfully young voice of Delta. "No, Commander Zero and X haven't been hurt at all, if it makes you feel any better. But they've brought someone back with them, and Dr. Cain wants you to have a look at him. He's still in that meeting, and he can't exactly fly all the way over here from Germany right now."
The purple and yellow-orange striped reploid yawned loudly, mostly for effect. "He's not one of our own? I thought that was up to the RRA to deal with non-Maverick Hunter reploids."
There was a short pause and a sound of shuffling. "Yes I know... but Ketsu... he's... rusting."
Ketsu nearly choked, jerking wildly in his seat. "WHAT?! I'll be down there in a sec!"
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Too anxious to hold still, X shifted his weight to his left foot, emerald eyes switching from the base's head doctor to the black and orange reploid lying on the examining table, then back to his right again. Zero, on the other hand, had taken to silence, staring blankly at the robot alone. When X stole a curious glance at him, it seemed that there was something on the blonde reploid's mind, but he decided on a better time to ask about it.
On the table, the new machine lay, eyes softly closed, not emitting so much as a sigh as he slept, if he were asleep at all. For all any present could tell, he at least looked very well dead. A large, removable panel of armor had been taken off his chest, and Ketsu had taken to that first thing, placing a few wired patches here and there to monitor the half-dead creature. He spent a good amount of time poking around inside carefully, frequently glancing back to the computer monitoring his patient's status and "Hmm"ing to himself every once in a while. What the hell happened to you? he questioned it mentally, making an attempt to sort through the rather large blobs of wire and seaweed that had somehow found their way inside the dark-armored machine's body.
When X could stand the silence no longer, he took a small step forward and quietly asked, "What do you make of it?"
"Hmm?" the reploid medic replied, not taking his eyes off the machine under his gaze. "What do I make of it?"
X nodded quickly. "Can you help him?"
Ketsu took another minute to examine a mass of particularly frayed wires. "To be honest, I don't think he has a lot of luck with him," he began gravely. "His insides are completely waterlogged, half the panels I've seen in him so far aren't responding, and to make things more interesting, he's slipping in and out of consciousness and I can't control it. How he made it this far inland on his own, I'll never know. On top of that, some of these plant forms I'm seeing inside him are from at least a mile out in the ocean, which makes it absolutely incredible that he even made it to land period. At those depths, he shouldn't have survived whatever dive he went on at all. Add to that the fact that from what I can tell, he's not of any maker I'm familiar with and you're pretty much dealing him the death sentence, assuming he can even hear us."
Reaching behind himself to a small tray, Ketsu took a small pair of tweezers and began pulling strand after strand of seaweed out of the still body. He froze after a moment, then removed what looked like the remains of a baby crab that had been badly crushed. Staring at the crustacean in mild horror, he dropped it in a nearby trash container. Even Zero winced at that - just the thought of something alive crawling around inside his systems made him shudder.
Finally, the medic threw away the last of the plants that he could find and stood back from the machine, giving it one last look over. "This isn't even a reploid," he concluded matter-of-factly, "he's practically an antique. I'd even go so far as to assume he's older than you, X." He cast a glance in the blue Hunter's direction. X's shock was well-enough apparent from his hanging jaw and wide eyes. After a moment, it became obvious that he either would or could say nothing about it, so the purple reploid continued on. "The way he is now, I can't do anything for him. His design is so out-of-date I don't know how to repair the damage that's been done without risking further harm." Two green, glistening orbs widened sadly, as Ketsu had predicted, and he quickly continued before X could protest. "However, I can probably have another body built for him, and if the data in his memory hasn't been too badly damaged, I can just transfer the files over to a new core."
The little blue reploid nodded immediately, excitement plain as daylight on his face although he tried in vain to keep himself calm and collected. Ketsu couldn't help but break into a wide grin as X's already high-pitched voice took on an even higher tone. "That's great! When should we expect to see him wake?"
"Give it a good week to get the body built. In that time, I should also have copied his data to a compatible neural net. Come see me then."
Near about to burst, X gave his friend a short bow of gratitude and turned to Zero, grinning ear to ear. However, the crimson Hunter stood oblivious to the smaller reploid, a severe gaze trained on the robot lying peacefully on the table. Just the look on Zero's face was enough to extinguish a good part of X's joy for the moment; his smile faded and he regarded his friend with a questioning look. "Zero? Something wrong?"
The red reploid shook his head slowly, turning to leave. "Nothing..." Without another word, he was gone down the halls, off to wherever he would go. Puzzled, X turned back to Ketsu; the medic simply shrugged, scratching at the back of his head. Long ago, he had learned no one could figure out Zero when he got into his moods. Now would surely be no different than before, and both knew it was best to simply let him be. He would talk later, if he even wanted to at all.