I still own nothing, because I didn't create it. MegaMan X and all characters associated with it belong to Capcom. The town of Silent Hill, and all things associated with it, belongs to Konami.
ChaPteR Two: No hope…
The great expanse of fog that enveloped Zero cut off all visibility beyond the range of his headlights. He could see the headlights on X and Axl's Chasers, but the Ride Chasers themselves had disappeared in the blanket of grey. It had been two days since they left the Nevada branch, and in that time they had made it all the way to the east coast, and subsequently into the massive bank of fog that surrounded Silent Hill. The road below them had many potholes from lack of upkeep, which made Zero glad they hadn't taken something with wheels. If they had, the fog would have hidden the deep holes until it was too late to maneuver. The fog wasn't very unnerving to X, Zero and Axl, but Alia was a different story. And from what the Crimson hero could hear, she was quite scared by the lack of visibility.
"Alia, are you okay?" X voice was barely audible over the roar of their Ride Chasers.
"I'm fine X. It's nothing, really…" Alia's voice was even softer than X's, and Zero almost fell off his Ride Chaser trying to hear what she said..
"Then why are you squeezing me like so hard? It's like you're scar-- Oh. Sorry…"
Evidential, X had finally gotten the point of her squeezing him like a plush toy in the arms of an all too loving child. "It's just that the fog is really thick… Who knows what's out there?"
That's when the Ride Chaser beneath Zero started to die out. First the headlights, then the engine that kept the bike moving and afloat. "Holy--!!!" Thinking quickly as the road started to curve into a turn, Zero leapt off of his dying bike and onto Axl's, which wasn't fairing much better. He heard a muffled crunch followed by a loud crash as the vehicle hit the ground and careened through an ancient guard rail.
"Zero!!" It was X that called out his name.
"I'm fine X! My Chaser died on me, and Axl's is doing the same!"
"What the heck is--!!"
X's voice was cut off by the sound of his own Ride Chaser failing and hitting the not so soft pavement below. Zero vaguely made out the shape of two figures jumping away from the machine before it hit a pot hole and flipped end over end, disappearing out of sight. Suddenly, the Ride Chaser bucked as its engine started to give out. Axl yelped as he struggled to keep the bike going straight.
"Zero, we've got to get off, now!"
"I know! Jump, and try to keep track of it! We may be able to salvage it and use it later!"
To punctuate his last sentence, Zero kicked off the back of Axl's Ride Chaser and waited for the younger hunter to do the same. He heard the bike crash onto the pavement as Axl's familiar outline hit the dirt and rolled, coming up in a kneeling position with his pistol drawn. Zero drew his own weapon, the famous Z-saber that had cut down literally thousands of Mavericks, and ignited its emerald green blade. The duo also activated their helmet gems, which put out a small amount of light to make travel in the fog easier and also allowed Zero to attract Axl to his position. Once the two hunters were back together, they turned back to search for X and Alia. They didn't have to search long, as X's own red gem attracted their attention.
"X, Alia, you two okay?"
X, who was currently checking himself over for injuries, nodded. "My boots are a little scuffed from the landing, but other than that we're good."
Alia huffed. "Speak for yourself. That's the first time I've ever had to abandon a moving vehicle that mysteriously quit for no apparent reason."
Axl shrugged his shoulders. "I think that's a first for all of us Alia, except for the jumping off a moving vehicle thing."
X sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Whatever. We need to get our bearings and analyze the situation."
"There's not much to analyze X." Zero gestured toward a badly weather road sign that was lying next to them. The garbled words on the sign were hard to understand, but Zero did the best he could. "I think it says a quarter mile till Silent Hill."
"Then let's get over there and be done with this foggy mess." Alia obviously didn't want to stay any longer than she had to.
"When you put it that way Alia, I have to agree." Zero smiled as he turned and started down the road again.
Time seemed to crawl by as they walked toward the town. If they had known what there were getting into, it would have still been possible to go back and leave the entire matter a mystery. Zero could have forgotten the letter, and went on hoping that his nightmares would stop eventually. X could have turned back as well. He had no real reason to be there. The letter had only mentioned his name once, while the rest was about his red armored friend. Axl wasn't even mentioned in the letter, yet he was still here to support his friends. Alia was a desk worker, not even built to be in combat. She was supposed to be behind a desk, telling others how to get though tough obstacles and saving lives by alerting them to incoming threats. Yet she was still here, trying to make X understand her feelings and support her friends Zero and Axl. If one backed out, the others would probably have stopped with the exception of Zero. Unfortunately, none of them knew what was going to happen, which ended any chance of them thinking about it and turning back. X was the first to spot a building in the distance.
"Hey, I think we made it."
Zero ignored X's comment and continued walking. He suddenly stopped when a strange scent filled the air, one that he hadn't smelled since he stumbled upon a killing ground where Mavericks had slaughtered a large group of humans and left their corpses to rot. The oppressive smell was suddenly all around the group, invading their senses, almost suffocating them.
"Oh my God…" Alia had covered her mouth and nose, trying to keep the odor from entering her body. She suddenly found it hard to stay awake and, after a few moments of struggling against her fatigue, fell to the ground unconscious. X and the others didn't notice, as they too had to fight to stay awake. Axl was the next to fall, who was shortly followed by X. As Zero started to tilt forward, he could have sworn he heard sirens in the distance…
Layer was a Spotter, born and bred for it by her manufacturer, and was proud to serve the Maverick Hunters. With Alia's absence, she had been assigned to take over her duty station as Spotter for all senior members of the 17th and 0th units, which included X and Zero. It wasn't as exciting as she heard it was, seeing as the two units were on vacation, but it was still an improvement over a rookie Hunter division. "It's been a day since we've had any contact from Hunters MegaMan X, Zero, and Axl. We've also received no word from Alia, sir."
Signas closed his eyes as he sipped a cup of coffee. Setting it down after quenching his 'thirst', he revealed his silver grey eyes once more and looked Layer straight in the eye. "Keep me updated on any changes. You may return to duty." The Hunter General gave a sharp salute that was returned instantly. As Layer returned to her station, Signas sank back into deep thought.
'Should I have let them go so easily? I know that X and Zero can handle themselves, but Axl is still green in some ways and Alia has no combat experience whatsoever… Was I wrong in sending her with them?'
Signas rubbed his face with his palms, trying to wipe away the uneasiness that had become more and more oppressive as the day went on. Unfortunately, his rubbing did nothing to lessen the foreboding feeling.
'It's probably nothing. Just a figment of my imagination is all. But still, I've got to remember that X and Zero aren't invincible, even though it may seem like it sometimes.'
Zero moaned as his system came online again. In his minds eye, he ran over a checklist of all his systems to make sure everything was in working order. When he finally got his sense of balance online, he noticed that he was lying flat on his back. He found this rather strange, because when he fell asleep he had fallen flat on his face. The next odd thing was the soft mattress below him, which most certainly wasn't the cold concrete he had fallen on. He opened his eyes and looked around.
'Yep. I've been moved. The question is where did they move me, and where is everyone else?'
The room was dark, but even without his helmet gem on he could see well enough to navigate. There was a small lamp next to him, which Zero immediately investigated. It was an artifact compared to every other lamp that he had ever seen which made figuring out how to turn it on a quest in itself. He finally figured that the knob near the round part turned it on, which blinded him momentarily when the bulb lit up. He whispered an "Ow" as he turned away, waiting for his overloaded sense of sight to return fully. When it finally did, he sat up and took in the sight of his location. Drab and half rotted wallpaper was peeling off the walls. There was a wooden table and a small reading chair just a few feet away from him, and both had seen much better days. There were only two doors in the room, one of which was partially open. Zero opened this door first, giving him a view of a bathroom that was overgrown with mold. The only real oddity in the rooms besides the extreme disrepair and ancient technology was the blood red words painted on the bathroom wall.
"AYE, theRe Is no hope for murdererS?"
The sentence did seem out of place, especially with the pirate dialect at the beginning. The more he looked at it, the more intrigued he was. Something was strange about the message…
'That's it! There's more than one capital letter in the sentence. A, Y, E, R, I, and S. Doesn't really spell anything I know of. Dang it! X was always better at word games like this.'
Giving up on the meaningless puzzle for now, he decided to move out of this room and explore the surrounding area. He opened the door slowly, looking around outside for anyone that might have been waiting for him. When all that greeted him was a dark hallway, he turned on his helmet gem for light and proceeded. Looking in both directions, he noticed that his room was one of four on his current level, and had a stairway leading down to his left. There was another stairway to his right, but it was covered in rubble and inaccessible. He tried the handles on each of the other rooms and discovered each of them was locked from the inside. With nothing else he could do in this area, he took the stairs down. According to the number on the wall, he was currently on the second story and on his way to the hotel's lobby. He stopped on the stairs when he heard heavy breathing from below. He drew his Z-saber as a precaution, but didn't ignite its blade. He quietly stepped down the rest of the stairs looking for any signs of a hostile in the area. When he finally reached the ground floor, he found Axl curled up into a ball, crying to himself. His armor was in sorry shape, and had a hole in one of his shoulders. A little coolant had leaked out, but his auto-repair systems had fixed the problem with ease. There was also some blood on his hands, which disturbed Zero slightly.
"Axl?!"
The young hunter instantly lifted his head up at the sound of Zero's voice. His eyes went wide at the sight of Zero, and he slowly began to crawl away from him.
"Axl? What's wrong?"
Axl brought his pistol up and pointed it at Zero. "Just… Just stay away from me Maverick…"
"Maverick…? What the heck are you talking about? Axl, put the gun down."
"No Zero. I know what you're trying to do. You want me to put my gun down so you can slice me up into little pieces! I won't fall for that, Maverick!"
"What are you talking about?! Axl, I'm not a Maverick!"
"Then why the hell did you attack me?!"
Axl didn't wait for an answer. He simply dashed out the nearest exit, leaving Zero to chase after him. The red hunter attempted to stop him, but Axl was long gone when he reached the exterior of the building. As it was, he could barely see the other side of the street, let alone where Axl had gone.
"Damn it all… What the heck was Axl talking about?"
Shaking his head, Zero started back into the lobby. As he looked around, he found blood splattered liberally across the walls, but there were no corpses to accompany the liquid. The strange thing about the blood was that it was fresh, not crusted over or evaporated with age, as if it had just been splattered on the wall not five minutes ago. The front desk seemed to be the only furniture still intact, as the nearby couches had been smashed by something. With his curiosity getting the best of him, Zero searched the desk for anything for value, and discovered a set of two keys and a map. He scanned the map, saving it in his memory for later use. The set of keys had two different symbols inscribed on them. One had an H inscribed on it, while the other had a L.
"I'd better hang on to these. Ya never know what they might open up." He opened up the small storage unit on his back and placed the item inside. Closing it up again and deciding to search for Axl now that he had a map, Zero made his way to the exit and marched into the fog laden wasteland. The street was deserted, something that Zero hadn't noticed before. A few cars were parked on the curb, but one of them was parked in a store window. "Talk about a poor parking job…"
The Crimson Hunter began walking east. Amazingly, he hadn't seen anything or anyone besides Axl since he entered the town. The oppressive scent of death still hung in the air, but Zero hardly noticed it. His mind was completely focused on seeing through the dense fog that surrounded him. His concentration paid off when he saw something move. It was down an alley, and seemed to be retreating from him. Could it have been someone? Quietly, Zero began to follow the shadow. He hesitated when he heard static start rumbling in his communicator, but ignored it and moved into the alley. The white noise increased as he went down the alley, giving Zero a foreboding feeling as he continued on the path. A little further down, he could see that the alleyway opened up a little bit, giving some more room for him to move around if need be.
'Good,' he thought, 'this stupid alley was giving me claustrophobia…'
Unfortunately, that's when his foot hit something on the ground. Looking down, he noticed a helmeted head lying on the ground without a body attached to it.
"Oh great. Disassembled bodies for everyone." Ignoring the head and steadily increasing static, he moved on. As he reached the opening the sound of metal being torn apart filled the air. Zero stopped and peered around the corner to see what was making the noise, but jumped back when the static spiked. With his Reploid heart beating double its normal pace, he slid back a few feet.
'Why am I so afraid? I've been on hundreds of missions that would have scared the crap out of lesser hunters, yet I can't even bring myself to look around a corner because of some static! Why the hell is my communicator on anyway?'
Tapping a hidden switch on his wrist, Zero tried to cut off the static. Unfortunately, it didn't work and the static was still present in his mind. Zero grimaced and tried again, but the static still remained. Finally, he gave up and tried to look around the corner again, ignoring the static. He suddenly wished he hadn't when he spotted a creature tearing into the chest of what looked to be a deceased Reploid. The creature, which Zero couldn't get a good look at through the fog, seemed to be licking up the coolant that spilled out as if it was drinking water from a bowl. To say that this disturbed Zero would be a massive understatement. He pulled back from the corner, but in his haste he rubbed his armor against the brick wall. He could have sworn he heard the creature growl in his general direction. He peered around the wall to find the beast had disappeared from his range of vision.
'Not good. Not good at all.'
That's when he noticed that the static had increased to double its previous amount. Quietly, he reached up to his saber's holster and grabbed the weapon. As he began backing away from the opening, he saw a silhouette walk through the fog like a panther circling its prey. Zero instantly brought his movements to a halt. The shadow appeared again, but this time it stepped out of the fog and into Zero's view. It was like a Zombie dog out of a horror film, only worse because of the extra head that had been surgically attached. The demonic creature let out a feral roar before charging at Zero with grim intentions. Zero silently activated his Z-saber and dashed at his opponent, bringing the energy weapon into an upward slash that was supposed to halve the creature. The Hell Hound, not anticipating a melee attack, was unprepared for Zero's speed and ran straight into the energy blade. To the Hunter's surprise, it passed right through the creature without damaging it in the slightest.
"What the hell!?"
Zero wheeled around to face the creature. It too turned around and prepared for another attack. With another howl, it leaped at his throat but instead caught part of his waist. The beast's powerful jaws began to tear away part of his protective armor plating, exposing the Reploids inner frame to open air. The searing pain of the bites caused Zero to drop his saber out of shock. He pulled away as the Hell Hound kept on him, trying to take snaps at him as best it could. The static was at a deafening pitch as the creature tried again for his face. In a fit of blind rage, Zero lashed out with a punch that impacted one of the creature's heads straight in the nose. The impact sent the beast rolling head over heels, but it was soon on the offensive again. Zero dashed forward and slammed his other fist into its left face, earning him a sickening crack as the face and spine were broken. The other head yelped in pain before trying to take its revenge. Trying to finish the fight, Zero brought his fist into an uppercut that connected with the Hell Hound's chest. The blow knocked it onto its back, which allowed Zero to attack its chest. Before the dog creature could right itself Zero had started his assault on its midsection, mercilessly slamming his powerful fist into the beast's ribcage.
Now would be a good time to explain a small fact about Reploids. While sometimes built to resemble humans in many ways, their pure mechanical strength allows even the weakest of human shaped Reploids to unleash almost a eighth of a ton of force against something. Zero definitely wasn't the weakest of Reploids, and in fact was in the top two in matters of strength and power. With this fact in mind, it isn't surprising that Zero's fists punctured all the way through his opponent's heaving chest and into the cement below. He quickly pulled his fist from the Hell Hounds body, revealing it to be covered with blood, coolant, and several fragments of bone. The beast was still breathing slightly, and the static still played in his head, though it had softened. Zero stood from his kneeling position and delivered a swift kick to the remaining head, which silenced the static. Zero staggered away from the destroyed creature, clutching his side as he moved toward the alleyways entrance. He was mentally exhausted from the fight, and wasn't even thinking as he stepped out into the street. He was so exhausted that he didn't see the curb and tripped over it. He saved himself from a face plant by kneeling on the cement. He stayed there for several minutes until he was able to think clearly.
"What… What the hell was that thing? And why didn't it die when I cut it with the Z-saber?! What the freaking hell is wrong with this town!?"
Alia had said that Silent hill was sealed off for over a hundred years, yet there was a body of a Reploid in an alleyway being eaten by a freak of nature. Why was it drinking the coolant anyway? And where did all the fresh blood come from? Where was X, Alia and Axl? Who was controlling all of this? Where was Iris?! Nothing made sense. No matter how long Zero thought about it, nothing fit together. For the first time since he recovered from Iris's death, Zero felt completely empty. A half hour later, Zero had recovered his sanity and began to move again. He needed to rest so his auto-repair systems could work their magic on his waist. He walked down the street, back toward the hotel. As he did, static began to fade into his communicator. The more he walked the louder it got. However, as he finally reached the hotel, a song began to play through the static. He could barely make out the words that accompanied the song.
"…Coming down, the world ...s over, and angels fall wit… you there. And I go ……. you get colder, or are you someone's prayer…"
The words Zero could understand through the static struck a cord within him. It reminded him of something from his past, though he couldn't point out what exactly. As he entered the hotel and climbed the stairs, the static faded to nothingness. He was relieved that the annoying sound was gone, but he knew that the static had something to do with the creatures. It had only started when he saw the shadow of the Hell Hound walking down the alleyway.
'Well, if there are more of those things around I'll know from the static.'
As he ascended the final set of steps, Zero noticed something hanging on the door to his room. As he approached it, his heart began to beat faster. Something inside of him screamed for Zero to look away, but he was hypnotized by the object. His white gloved hand clenched around the hat. Zero lifted the object from its resting place and held it up for closer inspection… It was a pink beret. The same pink beret that Iris had wore during the Repliforce incident.
"No… She… She can't be…"
Without wasting another second, Zero reached for the door's handle. He threw the door open and charged in.
"IRIS!?!"
He was yelling at an empty room. The lamp beside the bed was still on, casting its dim illumination on the walls. He shook his head in sorrow. Nothing in the town was right. It was as if the entire town was centered on torturing him... Slowly, he closed and locked the door behind him. Zero set himself down on the old mattress, causing significant amounts of dust to fly into the air. From Axl's accusations, to the battle in the alley, even finding the beret on the door, everything weighed heavily on Zero's mind. That weight quickly transferred to his eyelids, making them close over his sea blue eyes. It wasn't long until Zero was sound asleep, struggling against the nightmare once more.
As Zero began to toss and turn, a shadow stepped out of the bathroom. Quietly, it walked over to Zero's bedside and cupped his face in its hand. It murmured sweet nothings into Zero's ear, calming him substantially and allowing him to sleep in peace.
"My poor, poor Zero..." Her voice was soft and loving, and had a slight English accent which seemed out of place in a town full of so many nightmares. "Everything will be okay now that you're here with me…"
So, what did ja think? Review please!
