Chapter 4: An Old Enemy Revived!
Meanwhile, back at the main base for Copy-X's army, a engineer reploid worked hard on blue prints for another reploid. One that was once a great hero, and great enemy to the Mavrick Hunters known as Zero and X. The reploid tediously, and meticulously calculating and drawing up schematics, and circuitry designs needed for this new ally. HIs work showing on his body. Grease and dirt clung to his metalic body, while he also worked on parts, and other machines. These were to be used on the new reploids construction, and also for future creations. A reploid came into the room, assessing all the procedings, and walking around admiring his handy work. "How goes the work, soldier?" The reploid asked the engineer. The hard working reploid looked up to see his master Copy-X, staring down at him happily and approvingly. "Sir, if everything goes as scheduled, he should be ready in two or three days." The reploid responded, and then went back to what he was doing. A smile creeped up on Copy-X's face and then he turned towards the beginings to the new reploids, unfinished but still beautifull body. To the impostor it almost seemed like a work of art, that inspired, yet disgusted him. The thought of him being responsible for creating another threat to the humans made him shiver. But it was very delighting to him, none-the-less, so he just shrugged the pained expression from him. "Good, why don't you take a rest for a while. You have been at it all night. What is a few more hours delay for someone who works so hard. Go recharge, he will still be here when you get back." The working reploid stopped what he was doing and stared at his master. This was not like him at all, and it worried the reploid that he may have done something wrong, and he would be destroyed for it. But Copy-X turned around with a smile, and reached out his hand to his loyal servant.
"But, Sir, he is not completely done, and if I stop now, it could cost me 3 more days of work." The reploid said with deep concern. Copy-X smiled at him and continued to pull the reploid around his work bench. "Do not worry friend, what is a few more days? Soon he will be done, and you will have no further use, and then you will be dismantled. Enjoy a day or two of rest and relaxation. It may be your last chance to have it." Copy-X said as he pushed the reploid out the door. The reploid, who knew better than to dissobey, then started to walk to where his quarters were and turn on some classical music, and rest. Who knew, when he might get another shot at this. Copy-X remained, and looked at the reploid body that lay before him. Something in him told him he was wrong, and to destroy this reploid while he had a chance. This reploid while alive caused alot of trouble for humans, and there was no telling wether or not his programming would be enough to overide his individuality. But Copy-X dismissed it as just a minor problem in his own circuits that would soon be remedied. Copy-X then left the room, and proceded down to his war room. He had plans to work out, and a mission to fulfill.
Meanwhile, Zero and X, were searching an abandoned mining facility. The pair had looked everywhere they could think of, not finding a single trace of any Maverick activity in this area. The two reploids were confused, mainly because the info that HQ had, said that there was a significant Maverick essence. X and Zero started to wonder if they may be on a wild goose chase. X turned to his friend and just shrugged. "You know X, I think that we might just be chasing our tails here," Zero said. X looked at his friend confused, "What do you mean Zero. This is the info HQ had, and their info is almost always good." X responded. Zero just looked at him and shrugged, then started to walk out the entrance to the mine. Then all of a sudden there was a tremor in the ground, and both reploids tried to brace themselves. "Man, do you feel that Zero? I think we might not be sniffing the wrong tree, especially with the ground shaking." X exclaimed as rock started to fall on him. X powered up his buster and started to blast the rocks that were falling. Zero noticed what he was doing and dashed to him and pulled his arm down and pushed him to the ground. "NO, X, you might hit the ceiling and bring the whole place down on us!" X returned his arm, and shut down his buster. The two reploids tried to dash towards the exit but tons of rocks suddenly fell against the entrance. Zero pushed X to the side and jumped to the opposite side of the tunnel. Both reploids covered their heads and tried to block themselves from the rubble.
When the dust cleared, a massive reploid looked at the entrance, with a grin he threw an enormous boulder against the entrance. It was one of Copy-X's generals, Mastadon. The mighty reploid started to laugh as he turned away and activated his telecom. A video dislplay then showed Copy-X waiting to hear if he had completed his mission. "Master, the mission was a success, they are both trapped in the mine, and there is no way out. I made sure of that." the reploid said as he saluted his commander. Copy-X looked pleased and saluted his general, "Good Mastadon. Now, I want you to assemble the rest of your army." The general saluted his commander and then turned off his comunicator. Mastadon then rolled away on his tank treads and started to laugh manniacaly.
Zero and X laid where they were, X being the first to arise, threw a boulder off of his arm wich was slightly damaged with a few wires hangin out of his elbow. He looked the wound over, no severe damage, so he just shrugged it off and cut off main power to the affected systems. X then dug his way out of the rubble as carefully as he could. He slowly stood up making sure he didn't damage anything else. He checked his body, and then turned to see how Zero fared. What he saw, would have made a human shiver. But since he did not have that ability it just made his heart sink. Zero laid against the wall, two large boulders lay across him, his left arm was almost ripped completely of his body. His helmet was cracked diagonaly from his ear to the top left side of his head. HIs face, bloody, had a patch ripped off leaving only his mechanics showing. Half of Zero's left shoulder pad was destroyed, leaving only his mechanical shoulder exposed. His legs were badly damaged, some spots wires and machinery were showing. X ran over to his friend and tossed the boulders off of his friend. "Zero!" X screamed, "come on, wake up! No, you can't leave me again, wake up damn you!" X couldn't controll himself, he slapped Zero, and started to shake his body. "Come on Zero, you have to stay alive, I can't repair you if you aren't awake." X was yelling as he tried to prop him up. Zero grunted, and opened his eyes, wincing as he tried to move his damaged arm that was dangling. "X, thank god your alive. I didn't think I had gotten you out of the way, I - cough - couldn't stand the thought of you dying in a place like this" Zero said as he tried to cope with the pain.
X looked his friend over, "Man, your messed up, what the hell were you thinking not covering yourself up better?" X scolded, as he tried to repair his friends arm. "Ouch, watch it okay?" Zero exlaimed. X looked at his friend and nodded, trying to rewire his broken arm so it would work when he put it back into place. Zero attended to his face, ripping off the patch that was haning from his face. "Well, I guess I'll never have those dashing looks again huh? Hehe, ouch." Zero said gripping his chest. X looked into his friends face, and couldn't help but feeling an enormous pain for his friend. X didn't know if he had the capabilites of repairing his friend enough to get him out of this place. Not to mention himself, being as damaged as he was. His buster was damaged in the collapse, and he had to shut it down to prevent an ustable explosion. The situation was quickly getting more dangerous for them both. Zero stared off in another direction, actually entering his computer mind and looking at all his damage. Screens flashed in front of his sight, warnings of potential hazzards flashing everywhere. Zero tried to shut down systems that were not integral for him to funtion. He even had to shut down his main power generator, which meant he had to run on internal batteries. But the crimson hero was able to shut down most of the affected systems, and avoid much of his normal power consumption. The main one he tried to avoid turning off was his memory circuits, needing them to store anything he might learn in the cavern. Even if he depelted his power remaining, at least then they would be able to use any information he might be able to provide once he got back to HQ. Zero then turned to his friend, and grabbed his arm, suprising his blue friend. "X, don't worry about my arm, I won't be needing it." Zero said looking empathicaly at his friend. X looking shocked replied, "If I don't you won't be able to defend yourself, not to mention you'll lose more power." Zero looked at his friend with affection. "Don't worry about that friend, I doubt we will have any trouble in here. We were meant to get trapped here. It was all a setup for Copy-X's army, so they could attack the HQ without having to worry about us. If the collapse didn't kill us, us being trapped in here would be even better. Then we wouldn't be interferring." Zero said as he winced again.
X looking at his friend looked past him with fear, "If they attack the HQ, they will obliterate it. There will be no way HQ could defend themselves. Not with all the hunters missing!" X exclaimed as he looked on in a dream like look. Zero shifted his body and looked at what was left to put his arm together. He was very impressed with X's work. The blue reploid had almost nearly finished it. But Zero was confused as to how X knew how to put his arm together. "Hey, nice work." Zero replied, "How did you know how to fix it?" X looked at his friends arm. "I just accessed my own files of how I was put together and assumed that we were the same." X said. The blue reploid then started to finish his work.
Meanwhile, back at the Rebelion HQ, Ceil was trying to find X and Zero's homing signals. She was worried that the two hero's didn't return after the aloted time that was set. She slammed her fist down on the keyboard. "Arrgh, why didn't they come back yet?" She screamed. Then a reploid came up behind her and coughed. "What do you want?" Ceil snaped. She turned around to see one of the copies saluting her. "Ma' am, there are reports of a large Maverick invasion within the hour. Scouts are coming back with either battle damage, or tales of Mavericks attacking every sleeper cell of the Resistance." The reploid reported. Ceil cursed and then turned back to her screen, "Get all security forces up and going, implement plan Delta." Ceil stated. The reploid saluted her again.
"Man, they attacked so early, even for them. They must know that X and Zero didn't come back." Ceil thought to herself. Then it dawned on her, "OH MY GOD! They-" She was interupted by another soldier. "Ma'am, we have to evacuate you now, the Maverick's are here, and we are almost complete with operation Delta." The reploid reported. Ceil slammed her fist on the desk and then hit several keys on the keyboard. The screen went blank and then file names and processes started to run down the screen. There was a highlighted spot on the top of the screen that read: SECURITY ACTION DELTA INITIATED: TRANSMITTING SAFE GUARDS. Then the screen went blank and was replaced by another highlighted area. This read: DESTROYING FILES...FILES DESTROYED...CORRUPTION OF PARTITION COMMENCED. Ceil then got up and followed the reploid, stopping at the entrance. She couldn't help but feel like she was abandoning her friends. "Come on, we don't have much time Ma'am. And we need to get you to the retreat point." The reploid said as he grabbed her arm. "Please, X and Zero, you have to be alive. We need you now more than ever." Ceil wispered as she was taken out of the room. Ceil found herself being placed in a pod that was on a track. The reploid closed the hatch and then saluted her. "We hope that you make it Ma'am" The reploid said as he pressed a button. The next thing Ceil knew she was being shot down the track at an incredible velocity. She then heard an explosion as she looked back, seing the soldier hit a switch on a wall. The explosion collapsed the tunnel behind her. The ceiling falling behind her the entire way, covering the tracks and her only way back to the HQ. This was a safe guard to make sure the Mavericks couldn't find the retreat base. Ceil just slumped back into the seat as she closed her eyes. She felt bad for the soldier who stayed back and engaged the covering blast. Another reploid who died for no reason. Ceil just hoped that she could find X and Zero when she got to the retreat location.
X and Zero, both of them holding each other up as they traveled down the tunnels, stumbled as they came up to another dead end. Both hero's sighing as they turned around and went back to the place where they turned. This was the fifth tunnel that they found that had no way out. Once they got back to the main tunnel, they set each other down and collapsed on the floor. Both of them exausted from the trek. They had traveled down these tunnels for what seemed like a day, but they both knew it was only a few hours. X starting to pant opened a panel on his arm and looked at what his generator levels were at. He winced when he saw that it wasn't even online any more. There was more damage than he had orgionaly thought. His systems must have shut it down a while ago to avoid it going unstable and exploding. "Well; I'm only running on batteries now, and I don't know how damaged those even are." X said as he looked at his friend. Zero was starting to rapidly look worse every time X looked at him. This was starting to worry X, and he wondered if he too was running on internal batteries. Zero laughed, "Well, we both are in the same boat. I've been on them since the collapse." X looked at Zero with horor. X rushed over to his friend, "But that means you won't be able to go on much longer!" X exclaimed as he tried to help his friend to rest. Zero looked back at X and just smiled. "Don't worry friend, I'm not going anywhere. I already shut down most of my systems I didn't need." Zero said. X just looked the other way, then looked back at his friend with regret. "But that still means you maybe only got a few more hours left. No, I won't let that happen, we are getting out of here, and I'm going to get you some more energy!" X exclaimed as he pulled his friend up onto his shoulder. X then accessed his internal systems and activated his generator, ignoring all warnings. And overiding the main processor several times, he then activated his generator, shutting down insignificant systems, trying to minimize the stress on the generator.
Copy-X, waking up from his shutdown, turned and pulled the plugs from his body. The Maverick then looked around him and grabbed an information pad, and read the report that had been lain on his desk while he was shut down. He then smiled widely as he read the report. Everything had been going according to plan. X and Zero were either dead or trapped in the abandon mine. There was no way out of that mine, and he knew that neither one of them, if they survived would risk the chance of breaking out with thier weapons. Especially if the other was still alive also. His joy almost jumped right out of him, if it could, and he let out a slight yell of pride. The reploid then regained his composure and threw the information pad on the desk. His elimation of the reploids would finaly be at hand, and he would finaly be able to rid the world of the one thing that he thought plauged it: Reploids. Copy-X then walked out into his instalation, walking down the hall, noticing all the reploids working around him. It was a sight he thought was ironic. All of these reploids were working towards their own destruction, and they all did it willingly knowing they would be destroyed in the process.
A reploid came up to him and saluted him, "Master, we are almost done with the prepartions. There is an army attacking the Rebelion HQ as we speak, and other units are starting to wipe out reploids wherever they come in contact with them." the reploid said. Copy-X grinned and then raised his arm. "Good soldier, that is good, now you shall be destroyed along with the rest. You also are a plauge to this world." he said as he turned his hand into his X-Buster. The reploid looked at him with horror as Copy-X let the blast leave his Buster. The reploid screamed as the blast exploded, throwing his parts everywhere. Copy-X then turned and started to fire at other reploids, some of them running, others trying to defend themselves with no success. Copy-X started to laugh, as he blasted every reploid who crossed his sight. He then realized he was enjoying this, and he stopped. Smoke rose from the barrel of his X-Buster, and from the rubble of destroyed reploids. Something in his mind screamed as he looked at the destruction he just created. This was starting to annoy him, and he returned his Buster to normal and let his hand re-materialize. He then proceeded to the lab, he was going to find out the source of this annoyance once and for all.
"Ha-ha-ha-ha, this is more fun than blowing up landsape!" yelled Mastadon as he was firing at helpless reploids as they all ran in panic. Several were trying to fight back but were destroyed as other Mavericks were firing and fighting. Mastadon noticed a young female reploid and raised his blaster and fired a charged shot at her. The female reploid screamed as the blast hit her and her parts flew. Mastadon looked on with a grin of satisfation, when all of a sudden a lone reploid landed on his back and started to punch and pull on his head. The massive reploid shrugges his shoulders and hurtled the reploid to the ground in front of him. The reploid got up and stared at Mastadon. The reploid then got into a fighting stance and his left arm turned into an X-Buster. Mastadon recognized this reploid as an X copy. The blue reploid then started to charge at Mastadon, who launched another charged blast at the blue reploid. But the blue X copy jumped up suddenly and shot his own charged blast at Mastadon. The large reploid had no time to dodge and took the blast straight in the chest. "There you go Maverick!" the blue reploid yelled as he charged at Mastadon again. The large reploid then charged back at the blue reploid and then reached out his arm to try to grab the reploid. But the X copy, expecting this maneuver, dodged to the right and fired again at Mastadon. All the large reploid could do is turn and stare as the blast hit him again. This time the blast hit him as he was unstable, and knocked him over and caused him to fly into a wall. Mastadon pushed himself up, screamed and then tried to charge again. But the blue reploid was already in the air again and fired several less powerfull shots but hit Mastadon in the right spots to knock him over again. Then the X copy charged at him and jumped onto him. But Mastadon just turned his head and used his special ability. The blue reploid could not dodge his Horn Slam attack, and flew back against an adjacent wall. Mastadon pulled himself to his treads and then grabbed a section of broken wall from the ground and turned to the blue reploid. The reploid pushed his way out of the rubble, a large chunk of concrete falling off his back. The blue reploid was only able to turn and see the wall section at the last second, it hit him and knocked him off his feet and against another wall that just crumbled and fell on the reploid. "Now, there you go, weakling" Mastadon said as he dusted himself off. There was a shuffle from Mastadon's left, he looked to find that the blue reploid had survived. The reploid looked badly damaged, but still had some fight in him. Mastadon just looked at him and grinned. "I love it when they keep coming back for more!" He yelled as he charged the blue reploid.