Mega Man Cross
Chapter 2
"The secret entrance"
By MEGAMANX411
"You know, I'm pretty new to these islands meself," Kid commented.
"Is that right?" Zero asked, trying to sound mildly amused.
"It gets rather lonely travelin' alone..so how about we become mates?" Kid asked.
"Sure, whatever," Zero replied.
"Don't you try anything funny just 'cuz I'm cute an' all!" Kid teased.
While Kid and Zero continued their conversation (which mostly consisted of Kid's teasing and Zero's muttering), X remained silent.
As Kid, Zero, and X drew closer to Termina, X fell into deep thought. He placed his hand on his chin as he pondered why he had that dream. Why did that..thing call him the assassin of time? Why did it call him the Chrono Trigger? What is the Chrono Trigger? He couldn't figure it out.
And there was something else that bothered him. Kid, to be precise.She looked exactly like the reploid girl he saw in his dream awhile back.Did it mean something? Did he manage to predict his own future, or was he just going crazy? Or maybe it was simply a coincidence? Or maybe he had met Kid previously and forgotten her? He didn't know for sure.
"You ok?" asked Zero.
X quickly shook his head to free himself from his train of thought, and looked back at Zero with an innocent guise.
"Uh..yeah, I'm fine, it's nothing," X replied, rubbing the back of his head in embarassment.
"What's with ya anyway?" Kid asked, keeping her seemingly natural obnoxious attitude.
"He said don't worry about it, so there's nothing to worry about. Let's keep going," Zero commanded, obviously becoming a bit annoyed with Kid's behavior.
When they finally reached the city of Termina, X and Zero were amazed at the size of it. It was a veritable metropolis full of humans and reploids.
"Well X, let's try to find a communication tower. Maybe we can get a powerful enough signal to reach home," Zero offered.
"Hey wait, I thought ya were going to help me with those dragoons?!" Kid shouted.
Zero rolled his eyes, and obviously didn't care for Kid's attitude.
"Look, we don't care about them, because when we get home, they won't be an issue for us," Zero replied.
"You don't care that they're after you? You don't care why? I helped ya outy'know, " Kid answered.
Zero narrowed his eyes and seemed to take the role of an annoyed parent talking to a bratty child.Several of the nearby civilians glanced over and assumed that Zero must have been Kid's father.They could be right in assuming so from the looks of it.
"If we're no longer here, that won't matter. Come on X, let's go," Zero muttered.
X didn't really say anything, but quickly followed Zero. Kid followed behind them. Her pace wasn't particularly stealthy, so X and Zero could easily detect her. But they didn't believe she was trying to sneak around.
"Why are you following us?" Zero asked.
"It's not like I have anything better to do," Kid replied.
"Don't you have any friends or family to look after you?" X asked.
"Nope," Kid replied bluntly, crossing her arms.
"I'm..sorry to hear that," X replied, looking down.
Zero shrugged his shoulders and sighed.
"Come on X, let's get going," he repeated.
The nearby communication tower was an absolutely enormous building. It wasn't particularly wide, it was rather slim, but just very tall. Hence the tower title, or at least that's what most everyone assumed.The building obviously had a communicating dish on top (coupled with a receiver in the case of incoming transmissions), so a lot of the size came from purely the function of the tower as opposed to actual room for people inside the building.
With that, Zero and X entered the communication tower, they hastily climbed the stairs to reach the top level; the navigation room. Zero nodded to X, and gestured for him to head over to the computer console.X tried to enter the coordinatesof Maverick Hunter HQ. X's fingers typed on the console furiously, and the computer's menu screens were virtually littered with inputed information. However, after the coordinates were put into the search engine, bright red letters came across the screen reading: "Search Inconclusive." The search was consistently inconclusive on every attempt.
"How can this be?" Zero shouted.
Zero slammed his fist on the console, and took a deep breath. He was clearly agitated. X, in the meantime, was reading over the inputed data trying to assess the situation. He couldn't come up with much.
"The coordinates are correct..they just aren't showing up," X replied, scratching his head.
"Should we try the teleportation system?" Zero asked.
Zero shot a look back at the teleporter. He had used the one at Maverick Hunter HQ a lot, so he knew that they came in handy when his internal teleporation systems couldn't assist him. X shrugged, and didn't think much could go wrong either.
"I guess it's worth a shot," X replied.
Zero entered the teleporting device, while X manned the computer and entered the destination code. The teleporter made a rather loud hissing sound as it released pressure and activated. The lights located around it began to glow as it surged with power, and a faint light encompassed Zero.
However, before the teleporation commenced, a red light went off. Suddenly, a rather mundane computer-recorded message came through the intercom.
"Teleportation process...cancelled. Destination invalid. Have a nice day."
Zero sighed loudly and stepped back out of the teleporter.
"Damn..that doesn't work either..do we at least have some way of confirming a way back home, or at least finding something of interest here?" Zero asked, crossing his arms.
X looked back at the computer panel, and began to type faster.
"I'm not quite as skilled as Alia is at this..but I'm trying my best. I've typed in almost every keyword we have on Sigma, but this computer doesn't seem to have any record of him. So if he's here, he hasn't made himself known yet. And unfortunately, I can't seem to find any dimensional tears like the one we found earlier," X muttered.
"Yeah, you would think dimensional portals would be more common," Zero replied sarcastically.
X narrowed his eyes and gave Zero a rather annoyed look.
"That doesn't help Zero. I'll keep trying.." X muttered.
"Just keep at it..there has to be something," Zero replied.
"You know, this computer system may just be to weak. It is possible that they simply haven't updated their database and they're running on an old system," X explained.
"It's possible..." Zero muttered.
X turned the computer off, and sighed.
"So what now?" he asked.
"Well, let's look at what we got. First of all, we're in a place we know nothing about," Zero began.
"Second, we have some unkown reploids coming after us," X added.
"Third, we have no idea how to get back home," Zero added, becoming increasingly annoyed.
"And last, you have to help me out," Kid commented, entering the room.
"Listen here, we're not really in the mood to play games. We have to figure out a way back home," Zero replied.
"I know that ya dunce. I'm just sayin' that you may as well investigate this..'sides, you have to be a little curious that these dragoons somehow knew you'd be around," Kid replied.
"She does have a point.." X muttered.
"Alright, alright, so where to now?" Zero asked.
"Well, I guess that makes us mates!" Kid replied happily.
"That's wonderful, but where now?" Zero asked bluntly.
"Hmph..well, we have to enter Viper Mansion, their headquarters," Kid answered.
"And how exactly do we enter? I doubt they'll just let anyone in from the sounds of it," Zero replied.
"Well, there are quite a few rumors floating around Termina about a secret entrance," Kid explained.
"So maybe we could fish for a little information here to try to find out where this entrance is?" X asked.
"That's not a lot to go by," Zero muttered.
"But it is better than nothing I guess," X replied.
Zero and X looked at each other, and shrugged their shoulders. There really wasn't much else they could do at the moment, so they decided to at least put their effort into the task at hand. When they walked back out into the light of the busy day, X happened to notice a rather gargantuan poster plastered on the wall.
"What the heck is this?" X asked, pointing to the poster.
"Must be for a local attraction," Zero observed.
The poster apparently depicted some kind of band that was supposed to be playing.
"That reminds me...I heard tha' the lead member of that band has gone missin'..." Kid commented.
"And this has to deal with our situation how?" Zero asked.
Kid pouted and gave Zero a hard gaze.
"I'm gettin' to that, sheesh...anyway, I heard that he's supposed to know how to get into Viper Mansion," Kid replied.
"That's great..but if he's missing, how are we supposed to find him?" X asked.
Zero pointed back at the poster.
"Look at this..maybe we could ask the rest of his band. They're probably hanging around town somewhere," Zero commented.
"That must be it over there!" Kid shouted, pointing to a rather elaborate hotel building.
There were securtiy guards posted all around the area, and several of them didn't look like they were ready to let anyone through.
"Just great..how do we get in now?" X asked.
"We could just smash through 'em..they don't look very tough to me at all," Zero replied, an arrogant smirk appearing on his face.
"No Zero, no fighting..let's try to think of a better plan," X replied.
"I got it!" Kid shouted, darting past the two hunters.
Zero slapped his face in disgust, and then sighed deeply.
"I really wish we could just ditch her," Zero muttered.
"What's the matter Zero, having some girl troubles?" X teased, smiling.
Zero wheeled himself around, and got straight in X's face.
"What did you say?!" he shouted.
"Yeesh..sorry," X replied.
"You guy's comin' or what?" Kid asked.
Kid was apparently at the side of the building, scaling it from there. Zero and X both darted over quickly, and followed her lead. When they both reached the top, they dropped down to the balcony, and slowly opened the door.
Inside there was a red female reploid, apparently in distress about something. She nervously paced back and forth. However, her nervousness was a little more like fright when she saw several strangers enter her room.
"Who are you? How did you get in here?" she shouted.
"Easy, easy..we're not here to hurt you. We just want to talk to the lead guitarist of this band," X replied.
"You mean Niki?" the female reploid replied, her eyes widening with what everyone assumed to be surprise.
"Uh..yeah. Do you have any idea where we can find him?" Zero asked.
"Unfortunately, he's been missing for almost the entire day, and I have no idea where he is. We can't start the show without him either," the reploid answered.
"Where did you see him going last?" X asked.
"I know that he sometimes heads to the Shadow Forest...some people went to look for him, but didn't find him..are you going to look for him too?" the female reploid asked.
"Yeah, we are. Well..Shadow Forest is the best lead we have so we may as well go for that," Zero muttered.
"Thank you...but who are you?" the reploid asked.
"I'm X. The red one is Zero and the little girl is Kid. Don't worry, we'll help get Niki back..and who might you be?" X asked.
"I'm sorry, I didn't introduce myself. My name is Miki, I'm the lead dancer for the band. If you could get him back, I'd be eternally grateful to you all," Miki replied.
"Sure thing, we have other business there anyway. Ok, let's get going," Zero commanded.
"And don't worry about the security, I'll tell them to let you through," Miki added.
As Zero, X, and Kid strolled out of the room, the majority of the security guards just stared at them in awe because of how easily they slipped past. Kid walked with evident pride of her stealthy abilities, whereas X was somewhat embarassed.
Soon, they reached the outskirts of the town and the entrance of the Shadow Forest....
