Chapter 1

Reawakening

It had been 50 years since that fateful day. 50 years of capsule isolation. Five decades of lifeless inexistence. His entire body felt numb. The time had come, however. He couldn't quite refute it.

Stryfe's eyes opened slowly, and the iris and pupil grew and shrunk in accordance to eachother, then moved about in all ranged of vision, and blinked a couple times, running simple systematic checks. As he did this, he wondered his existence once again. Why…? I'm...a murderer, why have I been given a second chance…? Not God himself would have this mercy… As he pondered, he heard the pleasant hiss as the capsule released steam from pressure. The capsule slowly opened, and Stryfe stood up with it, every muscle and rusty joint snapping several times. He looked around, observing his new world and exercising his neck, and he walked away from his capsule.

He was in some sort of laboratory, he knew. The walls were white with unevenly-hung bulletin boards hanging, most of the material in it eaten out by rodents, no doubt. The laboratory smelled of blood and corpses, very disturbing. Every once in a while, he spotted dried blood on the wall, as well.

As he walked, he observed many capsules on the way. As he took closer looks, he noticed most of them resided by already-dead reploids, most of which looked oddly familiar to him. Several of these capsules, lined up on the walls, with broken life support tubes splattered about randomly and still-crackling computers making the capsules seem more like sarcophagi, lined up on the walls, memorials to the dead almost. Several rooms later, he saw something that profoundly caught his eyes.

A lone capsule lay in a room, most of it eaten away by some sort of malevolent radiation. Upon closer inspection, there were actually about five capsules in the room originally, but the other four had been smashed against the wall, and lay in piles of scrap metal and scattered glass. The capsule held within it a dead reploid, his face looking as a ghoul. But in the hand of the dead reploid was a black orb emitting a purple radiation. The thing's hand had been eaten away by this radiation as well, only a skeleton, but somehow still managing to support the orb that looked to be very heavy. Runes had been etched in the wall with blood, and a black barrier protected the zombie-figure. Stryfe walked up to the capsule, and felt energy pulsing through his body, and images of his dark and bloody past returned to him.

He fell to his knees suddenly, grasping his head in pain. The pulse was rhythmic, but it seemed to increase in tempo and crescendo. He fought hard to subdue those skeletons in his proverbial closet, but in vain. He closed his eyes, dedicating every motion and thought in his body to fighting off this force. The pounding, however, did not relent. It rang with the clarity of a sledgehammer pounding a rock to dust, as the force was defeating his every attempt at subduing it. The pulse stopped suddenly. Everything lay still in Stryfe's mind. He sat for many moments…not thinking…not blinking. Not moving, not breathing.

The orb took control.

His eyes shot open, pure red and letting off "flares" as the sun. He stood up, and a wave of power demolished the remains of the room further. He glared at the orb. He took one step forward, coming in contact with the barrier, and when his foot stepped down, another wave burst from him, ruining the zombie to dust. He shot forth, bursting through the barrier with relative ease and grabbed the Chaos Orb. A familiar evil power surged his totality and gave him the powers of god his inner thoughts always though he sought. Yes, he deserved to be king…

He soon grinned a sickly grin, and disappeared from sight, letting out a final wave that completely totaled that room. In a flash of light, he reappeared above the roof, and nothing happened for the longest time. The roof exploded upwards furiously from where he disappeared from a few moments later, every piece of scrap metal, however, missing him. He cackled, and lifted his hand with the orb in it, and lights from the immediate world disappeared as shadows detached from walls and floors, and flew into the orb, empowering it's purplish hazy glow and boosting Stryfe at the same time.

He pointed at the remains of the building with his other hand. He uttered a small chant, and as soon as the final syllable resounded clearly throughout the valley, shadows detached from the orb and flew in front of the finger. The shadows swirled and combined, purple and blue lines circulating the orb it eventually formed. He lifted the dark bomb above him, and flung the magical sphere at the lab, keeping his hand in its pointing position.

It settled in the lab comfortably. Things lifted and floated towards the dark bomb, first slowly, then increasingly fast. The dark bomb grew until Stryfe was satisfied, and lifted his arm. The bomb similarly flew out of the ceiling of the building, many flying things still straining to reach it. Stryfe slammed his arm down with all of his force and clenched his fist. The bomb flew into the building and released lines of bright light everywhere, before belatedly exploded with godly wrath, destroying everything in an ever-increasing black dome, and when the explosion completely engulfed the lab, it stopped, and faded from appearance. The lab did not exist anymore. Only a huge, blackened crater

He cackled again at his artwork, and focused his sights on the city below. The city of Zeta was a thriving city. The lights of the skyscrapers cut through the air of the gloomy night like a pillar of salvation. Stryfe abhorred it. Stryfe hated everything, even existence and wanted to get rid of the nuisance as quickly as possible. His armor started to glow black, and grossly, like liquid steel, morphed into a new form. It was clear by now that Stryfe had gone maverick. Once again…how deliciously morbid. He spread his arms, and flew down to the city, withdrawing his beam saber. The Ultimus Blade, however, refused to call it's blade. Stryfe growled, and sheathed it, regarding it a malfunction, and formed a blade of energy over his right hand, boosting downwards faster in a corkscrew.

When he had fully descended the mountain the lab was on, he leveled his flight and entered the busy, forgoing a fancy introduction or entrance, and simply slashed away at residents left and right, not having any mercy for age or status. Slash and hack, then blood and gore flew everywhere with each brutal strike. No one could offer any resistance. Zeta was largely a human city.

----

Relaxed in his own quarters, Hazard boredly read through his new emails. Tall and stately, the reploid leaned back in his chair. His hair was a neon green, spiked upwards in multiple random directions. His quarters were sparsely decorated. A circular room, the door to his right. The opposite side held an electronic bulletin board, and one wall held a dresser for humanform disguise.

A suddenly loud blare knocked him backwards from his chair, sliding across the floor. Quite cross, he just stared at the ceiling in contempt for a moment before standing up, dusting himself off and looking at the screen on the three-sided pillar in the center of the room. A big sign lay in the center of the monitor, a blinking exclamation mark in a triangle, with the words "ALERT!" above it, and "incoming message" plastered below it.

Before long, the screen turned into a large portrait of Signas, the leader of the base. Hazard muttered to himself lightly, the two just staring eachother down. Neither of them particularly got along well.

"Well, what is it?" Hazard prodded finally. Hazard winced inside as he noticed Signas fail to hide a smirk, since he had one their immature waiting game. But suddenly he fell dead serious.

"There's a mass genocide in Zeta. Go check it out, now," he said.

Hazard looked at him confused. "You're going to go send a specialist to take care of some sort of mass murderer mafia or whatever this group is?"

Signas growled and barked, "No, dammit! There's no group, it's one maverick!

Hazard blinked, but then obediently gave in and nodded, leaving the room quickly and heading towards a teleporter in the central hall of the massive Maverick Hunter Base 32.

----

Someone called for him just then. A voice in his head, resounding with the voice of the damned …?! …Altimus?! You bastard! Stryfe realized his mind had just then separated from his uncontrollable body at that point, and realized what was happening. He attempted to force himself to stop, but his body simply could not stop. All it offered was a grunt."Stryfe…you always did go maverick easily, didn't you? You pitiful fool," Stryfe had heard, although "You there! Stop immediately!" is what the real carrier of the voice had clearly shouted. It was a green-clad samurai-type reploid, his blade pointed at Stryfe.

"I have no clue who you are or what you want, but I won't allow you to destroy this city!" said the reploid, leveling his sword in defense. Hazard had worked these streets for years, and he had more than his share of psychotic mavericks trying to level the city to deal with. Never had any of them actually come close to succeeding, however. He simply would not stand for it.

"…leave me alone…" Stryfe's voice rasped, his mind still fighting with his body for control. He felt…dead. "If you insist on being that way, I must kill you," Hazard pointed out, his face grim, his stance still as night. All Stryfe offered was, "…hmph." Hazard charged at Stryfe then, pulling his sword back in an obvious bum rush, or so it seemed. But Hazard disappeared from his location just as Stryfe had, and reappeared behind him. Stryfe knew he was a magic user now, and wondered what had brought him about this way.

"Wolf Fang!" Hazard yelled, and fiercely brought his blade down, cutting Stryfe's back and sending a powerful and terrifying chill through it. His entire back seemed to freeze. Inside, Stryfe was glad this reploid had defeated him.

Stryfe fell, cursing yet not quite understanding how such a weak shock felled him so easily. "How could you even touch me…it makes no sense! I should be all-powerful…maybe you are truly worthy. So…what's your name?" Stryfe asked, and coughed up blood. His features morphed back to their former self and his eyes faded back into the dark blue they once were. He dispelled his magic blade, and brought one hand up to feel his hair. Matted with blood, as he had expected. Not any sort of dream, for sure.

"Hazard…Hazard Gherdan of Maverick Hunter Base 32! Surrender." Hazard replied. He was quite weirded by Stryfe's morphing, but ignored it.

"No need for that…I'm done for…today…" Stryfe laughed, and fell to the ground, unconscious.