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Titanium Showdown: Tale of the Zero Clones

Chapter Fifteen: Discourse of Tyranny

Silence pervaded the room, ad the Enforcers stood stock still. Hardly a breath was drawn. The sound of plasma bursts still resounded in Virus' ears. The smell of melted steel and silicon, cauterized pseudo flesh and sinew still pervaded the air. Then, with strange momentum, the now headless bodies of the twins Bit fell to the floor, sprawled atop each other in a disharmony of artificial limbs.

The silence dragged on, seemingly endless. Slowly, deliberately, there came the sound of hushed footsteps. One pair at a time, light and metallic, they echoed in the still chamber from the opposite side. In an agonizingly slow concordance, they drew closer and closer to the group. I tiny waves, they fell inward to create a clear pathway, as if a skipped stone flew true in a line and the ripples had made a causeway.

There were reploids at both ends of the path. At one end, the bodies of the now deactivated Bit twins. At the other, as if o punctuate long-held fears: Sigma. Cape draped about his shoulders and chassis buffed, he stood in splendor as if to mock the battered and injured reploids opposite him.

The tyrant could not contain his pleasure at capturing all of his enemies at once. He wore and evil grin so vile that even the long-dead scientist Wily would have cringed at the sight. The uneasy feeling that each of the trapped reploids shared seemed to quadruple, but they stood tall and made as brave of faces as they could manage.

Things had never gone well for them, but it always seemed better than this. It was bearable, but then Sigma started to speak, and it was as if a thousand needles pressed into the listeners' minds.

"What a pity… look at you X. You're dead –a mere shell of the fighter that once was. I must say I'm surprised X, I never expected you to be so easy to defeat, but I'm not complaining. You should have joined me all those years ago X –but no! not you. You thought humans were superior, you gave in to their selfish minds and did their bidding. Well X, at last I've put things in their place." He spoke to X as if none of the others were in the room at all.

"I'd tried everything X, but you still seemed to win. But now I've found out your weakness –the one thing that will keep you from ever troubling me again: your precious Zero. I thought I had it with those traitors, but no, you only drew from them. Now I know X, now I know what will crush you! Death." He drew to a whisper, and held the last word with a vicious power that sent shivers down the spines of those in the room.

"Don't look so surprised X, you saw him. He was just a husk, a container for the infinite expanse of the Maverick Virus." Sigma took a few menacing steps forward through the passageway. "It was bound to happen, after all, he was the source! Don't you see X? He was created in the virus, in essence, he is the virus. But now, now he's gone, and he has shown me what makes it. Yes, I can make all of the virus I like without him. That's just as well, as he is dead –dissolved into molecules and atoms.

"Never again X, will you or that pesky Zero trouble me." Sigma discarded his cape in a fluid motion. "It's time X. Time for you to die!"

As the last word ended, there was a resounding crash from the side of the room. Dust flew about the room and a massive pile of junk reploid parts buried several enforcers. As before, a path was made, this time between Sigma and the pile of parts. Sigma had stopped dead in his tracks.

The dust settled, and there was once again silence in the room. After a moment, there came a peculiar humming sound from the middle of pile near the bottom. Then, there was a strange reddish/purplish glow from the cracks between the junk, and at last there was a flash and a shockwave and the junk was cleared.

Phew.. getting closer to the end now.
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