Author: Guh. Essay project. Advertising project. Spanish test. And…basketball? Well, my time for this story is diminishing? Yes. But that won't stop me! I'm trying to put in time in between super-duper-fun high school and chores. Enough about me whining, here's the next installment.
Disclaimer: I do not own any characters from the MMZ series. Those rights belong to Capcom. Characters I do own are Dex, Max, Sam, Camo, and the three silhouettes. More may appear soon.
A Momentary Truce
"We need to talk, Zero." Harpuia was standing outside of the Resistance Base with Fefnir and Leviathan in his arms.
Apparently, he wasn't going to spring a surprise attack by waiting outside of the base. The members of the Resistance didn't really trust him, however. Well, except for Old Andrew and Alouette, who met Harpuia. Zero knew Harpuia's style, so he had no doubts that the Emerald Neo-Arcadian Guardian was sincere.
Ciel must have read Zero's mind, because as soon as Harpuia was done with his message, she walked up to Zero and nodded her head. Zero nodded back and turned to walk to the gates.
The Resistance Base had never been really big on building any major, major defenses, but this time it was different. Zero had no idea that the base had been reinforced with a large gate. It was made with two large doors. They stood tall twice as high as the gun turrets, and were thicker than several layers of heavy-coat armor. The gate made a huge impression on Zero. Literally. The distance apart from the gates and the entrance to the base was a significant walking distance, about half a mile. Zero was never one to complain and be lazy, so he dashed through in no time.
Although the gates had to be opened by a switch within the base, at the bottom of the two tall doors there was a small door to cross from outside the base and in. It was a narrow path, and was guarded. It was also fairly difficult to notice, since it was well hidden. Nothing could possibly get past the gate.
Zero opened the small door and met Harpuia outside the base. On camera Leviathan and Fefnir looked like they were in bad shape, but up close they were a total wreck! Leviathan had scorch marks all over her body and what was left of her armor. Fefnir's armor appeared to be brutally shattered, and it looked like his arm was dislocated. Even though Harpuia was still standing, he didn't look in the best of form. He had a bruise on the left side of his cheek, and he was bleeding on the lip. There were some scratches on his armor and a couple shards of ice.
Harpuia scoffed and literally gave him the cold shoulder and turned to the gate. With his body, he asked, "Aren't we going to go in now?"
Zero had a lucid understanding of body language, and chuckled as he led Harpuia through the small door. Although words were not spoken to either of them, they understood each other. As Harpuia walked through the door, he looked around the area surrounding the Resistance Base. He had been here before, courtesy of Zero saving his emerald behind. Large hills and mountains surrounded the base, and there were many passes visible. On the right, there was a steep, smooth mountain slope. Harpuia had to admit; this was an excellent location for a base. It would be very difficult to stage a successful assault here.
Zero noticed Harpuia looking at the mountain slope on the right, and he looked, too. What the Blond Bomber wanted to do was to get a board and slide down that slope. Of course, the only boards available were hover boards, and if you were to "surf" down the slope, the results wouldn't mean a nice paint-job.
The Resistance waited outside of the door to the base gingerly. They tried to look fearless and intimidating, but the fear and unrest in them was noticeable. Harpuia flashed them a glaring look with his eyes. They were as hard as jade-green jewels. The soldiers gulped and Zero chuckled, standing before them and letting Harpuia walk in first. The Emerald Guardian noticed this and he smirked.
"I won't bite." Harpuia chuckled and continued to walk inside while the soldiers had time to take a breath. Zero chuckled and walked in after Harpuia. He saluted the soldiers and they went back to their duties.
"Your soldiers are obviously lacking. I don't think they felt their legs shake in my presence." Harpuia looked at Zero and raised a brow, waiting for a comment.
"Well, I guess soldiers are one thing, but they are a bit smarter than those fearless drones you have." Now it was Zero's turn to smirk.
Harpuia scoffed and looked ahead. "Whatever. Just put these two in the Maintenance Room so we can have our chat."
"Say the magic words, boy." Rocinolle stood before Harpuia. She was the head nurse in the Resistance, and trained the new coming reploid nurses. She also helped Cerveau work on complex reploids who were injured in battles (particularly Zero). The one-woman medic team did not show any fear as the soldiers outside did, and she stared straight and hard into Harpuia's eyes. He met her eyes with a similar stare, but she would not yield. He admitted he was a little intimidated by her. Just a little.
"Please?" Harpuia frowned.
Rocinolle smirked. "That's a start, buddy boy. I'll take over from here." There was some heat in her voice, but overall she kept it under control. She carried both Leviathan and Fefnir on her shoulders and walked towards the Maintenance Room.
Finally alone, Harpuia and Zero both looked at each other. Zero grinned widely and Harpuia scoffed. They both made their way towards the Waiting Room, perhaps the only room that Harpuia knew the direction to. While they were walking, Zero made whipping sounds at regular intervals during their trip. If he weren't going to be kicked out, he would have started fighting with Zero right there. The Legendary Maverick Hunter wouldn't have minded that.
When they arrived, the doors slid open. Harpuia walked in casually, as if this was his room. He pulled a chair in the corner and set it near a table in the middle of the room. Zero preferably stood, leaning against the wall. The door closed and there was a silence between the two. Harpuia grimaced a bit, feeling his bruise on the left side of his cheek. He caressed it with his hand. As he did, ice shards fell off of his arm and melted on the floor. With his other hand, he wiped the blood from his lip.
"The bandages and gauzes are on that shelf there." Zero pointed to the shelf near the back of the room.
Harpuia ignored that comment and stated bluntly, "We need your help."
"Really?" Zero raised a brow.
"Yes. As you can see, we aren't here to visit you for no reason, obviously." The Neo-Arcadian Guardian frowned. "Some mysterious figures drove us out of Neo Arcadia."
"Who were they?" Zero crossed his arms.
"I'm not sure, but I do know what they did to the other Guardians and me."
Change of scene
"I'm going to get it right this time." Harpuia hovered in the air and stared at the wall. Even though he had recovered from his last injuries, he went straight back to training. Of course, he had to deal with many daily issues before he could do so. The humans that lived in New Califern grew worried and fearful of another attack. Harpuia and the other two Guardians had to find ways to calm the worrisome city down, and stop the usual riots. The people of Neo Arcadia grew more and more restless. Some were afraid that another attack would come. Some were bolder and started to chant "No more Reploids!" Near chaos was ensuing, and the three Guardians were suppose to clean the mess up.
It wasn't Harpuia's problem anyway. Fefnir was in charge of crowd control, so he would be the one who would be out there all day taking care of the bedlam outside. Leviathan, however, nagged Harpuia not to train and finish overseeing the precautions of another attack. As much as he respected the other two Guardians, he didn't like Leviathan's nagging. It vexed him greatly. After she had finish nagging, she had her own things to do. Harpuia had already set up a defense plan for the armies and citizens of the Neo Arcadia in case of another attack, so he didn't feel like "overseeing" the plan again. So when she had left, Harpuia sneaked out to train.
Training was one way to blow off steam. The same could be said for Fefnir and Leviathan as well. After the stress of dealing with a crazy, lunatic government like Neo Arcadia, you would think the Guardians would have a day off. A day off was training for these guys.
Harpuia smirked to himself, finally having some time for himself for a change. He activated the target system and brought up the wall again. As many times Leviathan nagged "not to do that crazy attack anymore or else you'll get killed!" he just screwed it and went off to train. He had more important things to do than to look over a carefully executed plan for the fifth time, like perfecting the "Flying Izuna Corkscrew."
He flew up into the air to level with the wall. He stared at it, determined to tear that wall into shreds. He felt that he could do it now, and that now would be the time that he would finally perfect this attack. The thought of it excited his body, and he illuminated with green energy. He activated his beam sabers and kicked on his boosters at full speed.
"Flying Izuna Corkscrew!"
He dashed quickly towards the wall at a very high speed. He spun around right away like a corkscrew and the beam sabers twirled around him. He was about to make contact with the wall when it suddenly fell to the ground. The target system had been turned off, but Harpuia didn't turn it off. He stopped abruptly and looked around. Only he had access to the controls on his own training room, so what happened? There was a control room below him that had access to the target system and such, so he figured that Leviathan must have found him and turned off the training program.
He cursed under his breath and floated down until his feet touched the ground. Pissed and expecting another nagging, he walked to the control room to confront the she-devil known as Leviathan. He opened the door.
"Yeah yeah, I know. I'll get back to overseeing the plan…" He realized he wasn't talking to anybody. No one was in the control room, but the switch had been flipped off. He stared at the switch incredulously. Who flipped the switch off? Did anyone even do that? He looked around the room and saw that the doors were closed, and he didn't hear them open earlier. The thought of a ghost possibly doing this crossed his mind, but he knew it wasn't possible. Ghosts don't exist, Leprechauns do.
The alarm blared off. Harpuia sighed and dashed out of the room, expecting another attack. He wasn't the only one.
Fefnir wasn't at crowd control as Harpuia thought. Instead, he sneaked back into his room and started to play video games on the computer after Leviathan nagged him not to. The thought of crowd control sent shivers down his spine, and he didn't want to be the missing one after a day's work. Besides, he was in first place in the middle of the game, so he did not want to be interrupted. When the alarm blared off, Fefnir leaped up in surprise and accidentally pulled out the mouse. He scrabbled to put in back in, but by the time he did, he was in sixth place already. He pounded the keyboard and broke it. His hot temper flared up again and he stomped to the Operations Room to find out why the alarm went off. He hoped it wasn't another attack.
For a reploid capable of nagging two Neo Arcadian Guardians, you would think Leviathan would have some discipline. She didn't. After she had finished nagging, she went off to her Temple of Ice to swim a few laps around. For her, swimming mollified her mind and her stress drowned out in the cool water. Laps were like minutes to her, and she never wanted it to end. However, the troubles of Neo Arcadia would never cease until the war was over. The alarm blared off and Leviathan groaned. She wondered what Harpuia would want now, since he would usually be the one who sets off the alarm. She leaped out of the water and ran to the Operations Room without drying herself up.
Leviathan and Fefnir were the first ones to arrive at the Operations Room. They expected to meet up with Harpuia, who probably would be the one to set off the alarm. When they got there, however, three cloaked figures were standing over the alarm switch. The figures heard Leviathan and Fefnir, so they turned around. The hoods on their cloaks concealed their faces, but their size wasn't concealed. There was a large cloaked figure in the middle of the three, while the medium-sized figure was on the left and the shortest on the right. The Guardians and the figures stood facing each other in silence, until Fefnir broke it.
"Who the hell are you? What are you doing here?" Fefnir fazed his arm blaster on.
The large one spoke with an incredibly deep voice. "Enough talking. I already know that you want to fight."
The large one must have read Fefnir's mind because he was itching to brawl. The hotheaded reploid aimed his blaster at the large cloaked figure and fired several Blast Shots towards his direction. They were larger than the average shots, since Fefnir's temper heated them up. Leviathan followed suit and phased on her trident. She aimed the tip of it at the cloaked group and fired several sharp tips of the trident at the group.
The group of cloaked figure looked at each other and the large one nodded. His hands sparked with electricity and he smashed the ground under him with those hands. A barrier of thunder materialized over the group, neutralizing Fefnir's Blast Shots as they hit the barrier. Leviathan's ice-cold sharp tips would pass the barrier, though. The shortest one ignited his hands with flames and threw multiple sparks of fire, each one melting the sharp tips. He laughed an odd laugh.
"Heh heh heh. Ju shrimps ain't got nuttin on meh. Time tuh blow dem tuh bits, eh?"
The large one nodded. "I concur."
The medium-sized one just stood there and watched.
The towering giant rose lifted his hands up from the ground and charged them up with electricity. Sparks shot out of his hands until he couldn't keep them contained anymore. He brought his hands together and clapped his hands together. The sound was as fast as a bolt of lightning. In fact, the sound acted as a bolt of lightning and shot Fefnir in the chest. When it made contact, he was electrocuted badly and some of his armor went flying off, melted by the heat of the thunderbolt, and Fefnir had a horrible allergy to electric attacks. The Guardian was sent reeling several feet back, his body skidding on the floor.
The large one wasn't done, however. He used static electricity to attract the metal on Fefnir's armor and pulled him into his hand. With Fefnir in his grasp, he tightened his powerful grip and was slowly crushing Fefnir. As if that weren't enough, he charged up his hand and electrocuted Fefnir as he put the squeeze on him. The hotheaded reploid's fire burned out as he cried in pain over the shock noises.
"Fefnir!" Leviathan cried out. She started to run towards the group's direction to try to save Fefnir. The short figure anticipated this and he threw some more fireballs at her. The cool blue reploid stopped in her attempt and batted away the fireballs with the blunt end of her trident. The fire melted some parts of her trident, since it was made of ice. Leviathan flinched every time she hit one away because she could feel the heat of each one, which was hotter than she was used to.
The short figure smirked under his hood, realizing Leviathan had an allergy to fire. He spun his arms around in a circular formation and then clasped his hands together. He slowly started to part them as a small ball of fire slowly burned in between his hands. As he pulled his hands farther away form each other, the larger the ball grew. When he was satisfied, he threw the ball of fire, which was about as large as Leviathan's head. She quickly stabbed her trident into the ground and created an ice serpent. Before the ball could hit her, she leaped onto the serpent's head and jumped over the ball. Or so she thought. The ball of fire was actually a heat-seeking one, so it followed Leviathan where she was in mid-air and found her. When it made contact, a large explosion shattered the sound in the air and Leviathan fell to the ground, severely burned and almost unconscious.
The large one had been electrifying Fefnir the entire time. He finally decided he didn't want to waste energy like this and threw him into Leviathan. The impact pushed them both back a few feet. Now they both were knocked out. The two figures charged up their attacks, preparing for one final strike.
"Take dis shrimps! Yee-haw!" The short one fired a power stream of fire. The large one shot two bolts of thunder out of his hands, and the two bolts mingled into each other. The fire stream circled the newly formed bolt and was about to hit the two vulnerable Guardians. However, they had only beaten two Guardians.
A green blur appeared in front of Leviathan and Fefnir. Right before the attack could come within a foot, two purple beam sabers cut through the attack and parted it left and right, missing the targets completely. The explosions the attacks made rocked the room, but Harpuia kept his composure and glared at the group with those harden jade eyes of his. He looked behind him and was appalled that Leviathan and Fefnir were injured so badly. However, he kept his cool and looked back at the group of cloaked figures.
"Who are you and what is your business here?" Each syllable had to be enunciated slowly so Harpuia wouldn't lose control and just lash out at them. He knew the safety of humans came before him, so he needed to know what these strange figures wanted.
The large one lowered his electric hands. "At last, the most dangerous Guardian. Yet, you remain standing and not just attacking randomly. You truly are the leader of the Guardians, aren't you?"
"Your flattery won't lighten the mood. Now, what are you doing here?" His grip on his sabers tightened. A drop of sweat rolled down his cheek and dropped to the floor.
The short one spoke up. "Ju da friggin shrimp ain't cha? Well, now ju gotta deal wid us, got it?"
The large one held one of his enormous hands in front of the short one to silence him. "I suppose you deserve to know the fate of humans. We are here simply to destroy Neo Arcadia and eradicate the entire human race, or what's left."
Harpuia sneaked in a sly smirk. "That's all I needed to know. Now I'm going to show you the way out. Or even better, dispose of you Mavericks!"
"Who is the Maverick here?" The medium-sized one spoke. Her voice was icy cold, and it froze Harpuia's attention. The large and short figure nodded to each other and stepped away from the medium figure. They knew that she wanted Harpuia to herself.
The Emerald Guardian also knew this, and he held up his sabers in a defensive position. Perfect. I'll dispose them one by one, starting with this one.
"I'll have you know, Maverick, after our little squabble we will break down the gates to these cities and kill all of the humans." She drew a short metal sword from under her cloak.
"I don't think so." Harpuia pressed a button on his communicator and the alarm blared off. What he had pressed was a button that activated the full metal gates. They sealed the front entrance of all of the cities, and their coats of armor would take days to penetrate completely. The armies and civilians were already inside the protected cities, which Harpuia had planned beforehand. "You're going to have to plow through these metals gates."
"No problem." Under her hood, she smirked. Her voice was getting slightly more playful, but she kept the ice in her voice. "After we destroy you, it'll be only a matter of time before he break through."
"But you can't destroy me."
Harpuia quickly Mirage Dashed towards the figure and slashed both of his sabers at her. She quickly retaliated by blocking one saber with her short sword. It seemed to be made of the same metal that could withstand beam sabers. However, she didn't block the other saber, which was coming down towards her head. The short sword she had extended and blocked the other saber. The Emerald Guardian didn't expect this, but he also didn't expect her next move. With her free hand, he sent a powerful right slap that landed right on Harpuia's left cheek. He staggered back, reeling from the surprise blow.
Then her sword broke away into separate pieces, but they were parts of the "sword" attached together with a strong chain. It was a combination of a metal whip and sword. With a swift motion of her left hand, she thrust the end of the whip towards Harpuia's face. It whipped his lip and the attack stung Harpuia bitterly. It burned with pain, but also felt cold with malice. He noticed there were ice shards on his cheek.
Shit. He had an allergy to ice attacks.
The figure smiled playfully under her hood and the whip wrapped around his right ankle. Before he could react, the whip pulled him from under and he landed squarely on his butt. It had not been an attack, but more of a gesture, and Harpuia realized she wasn't taking him seriously. This angered him, so he flew up into the air and burst with green energy. He held his sabers of his head and summoned multiple Thunder Strikes. The bolts came out quickly, but incredibly the whip reacted and deflected each bolt that came down. Harpuia stopped the rain of thunder attacks and stared at the figure incredulously. The whip retracted back into a sword and the figure spoke.
"You aren't going to defend the lives of humans by performing silly clown tricks like these, are you? I'd rather fight Zero."
Harpuia's blood boiled. He hated being compared to Zero. The green energy from him surged, and he lost his cool composure, having his anger melt it away. Without thinking, he flew at top speed towards the figure and spun around. He was going to perform the "Flying Izuna Corkscrew," perfected or not. Unfortunately, it was far from being perfect. The figure saw the attack coming from a mile away, and she stepped to the side out of Harpuia's contact range. However, as he passed her, the very air and Harpuia was manipulating was sharp, and it shred parts of her cloak. He stopped, screeching his feet on the ground to stop himself. He glanced back at the half-cloaked figure, and saw a glimpse of short, midnight blue hair sticking out of the ripped side.
She wasn't amused. "You…" Any playfulness that had possibly been in her voice had diminished now. The sword broke into a whip again, and it wrapped itself around Harpuia's neck and constricted it. Although he didn't necessarily need air to breathe, his neck was being crushed. He tried to pull the whip away, but it didn't help. With another swift thrust of her left hand, she used the whip throw him to where the other two Guardians were. He landed right on his head, and it hurt badly.
She retracted the whip back into a short sword. "I'm done wasting time with you. Time to retire the obsolete Guardians of Neo Arcadia." The other two figures nodded and began to charge up their attacks.
Harpuia wasn't in the best position in the world right about now. He had to escape, as much as he hated to retreat. But he knew he needed aid to fight these figures. Before they could launch their attacks, Harpuia fired a Super Sonic Boom towards the group. The large one had no choice but to cancel his attack and bring up the Thunder Barrier. The Super Sonic Boom made contact with the barrier and created a large explosion, scattered dust everywhere. When it cleared, Harpuia and the other two Guardians were gone.
"Damn! Dem muthafackas got away! Les get dem!" The short one shot his ball of fire into a wall.
"No. We have our assignments." The large one crossed his arms together.
A dark shadow appeared next to the three figures. This one wore a cloak also, but it was ripped on all parts of it, and the figure inside had yellow, bright gleaming eyes. Its voice was very menacing. "I congratulate you three. I never thought they would be easily scared off like that."
"Who are you?" The female pulled the rest of her cloak over her body.
"Let's just say I'm an associate of Omega. Now, here is the rest of the assignment…"
Change of scene
Harpuia frowned.
"Those guys sound like Reploforce!" Zero uncrossed his arms and slammed his hands on the table.
"Whoever these characters are, you're going to help us destroy them."
Zero raised a brow. "What makes you think I would help you guys right out of the blue? This could be a set-up."
"Think about this, Zero. If this Reploforce you speak of takes over Neo Arcadia, not only will they destroy all of the humans, but use our resources as well. That means they'll grow in number, especially with all of the factories we have." It was Harpuia's turn to cross his arms.
Zero already knew he would help them; he just wanted to see if Harpuia was awake. Apparently, he was. Harpuia also knew that Zero would help him right away, but he wanted to see how he would react. This made the Guardian feel a little better.
Suddenly, a loud crash noise came from the other room. Zero and Harpuia exchanged looks, both realizing Fefnir must have woken up sooner than they thought. They both went out of the Waiting Room and into next door, which was the Maintenance Room. When the doors slid open, the first thing they saw was Fefnir shaking a fist at Rocinolle, who was staring Fefnir down. Leviathan drowsily rubbed her eyes, waking up as well. Rocinolle noticed Harpuia and Zero walk in, so she greeted them as if Fefnir wasn't even there.
"Hey kids. These two woke up earlier than I thought! They aren't completely healed yet, but at least they're conscious."
Fefnir cursed under his breath when he saw Zero. "Damn! It's one thing to be beaten be some fat ass, but now I got Zero helping me! Zero, helping me!"
Leviathan sighed, already tired of Fefnir's consistent complaining, or perhaps "whining" would be a more suitable term. "Fefnir, just rest. We'll talk about this later on." She looked at Zero and he looked back. It was body language, and they were greeting each other. The announcer going off interrupted their moment of vision. It was none other than the Operators.
"Zero, please report to the Command Room immediately!"
He smirked and dashed out of the room. Harpuia followed suit, and so did Fefnir and Leviathan. Fefnir's loose gown fluttered while he was running, but he didn't notice. The girls in the Resistance passing by sure did. When they all walked into the Command Room, a message was loading on the screen.
"Alright, what now?" Zero crossed his arms.
The screen turned on and three figures stood, barely visible on the monitor. The three Guardians knew immediately who they were.
"It's them! They're the three who drove us out of Neo Arcadia!" Leviathan emphasized by pointing her finger at them.
The large one spoke. "Resistance. Guardians. Zero. We have taken over Neo Arcadia. We know that you and the Guardians plan to take it back, but as you can see, it's not as simple as you think. We are offering you a challenge. If you are able to defeat all three of us, we will leave Neo Arcadia as it is. However, you are only permitted to bring one Guardian with you, seeing that we have altered the transportation system. We will be in the Temples of Fire, Ice, and Wind. See you all soon."
The message ended.
"Looks like it's a team effort." Zero uncrossed his arms. The Guardians already felt uncomfortable with this, but Harpuia knew it had to be done.
"As soon as Leviathan and Fefnir have fully recuperated, we will start the assault."
"What about you? Why don't you and Zero go and fight now?" Fefnir wanted to fight, but he wasn't ready for battle yet.
"Because," Harpuia said. "I need to clear my head."
Zero understood this. Harpuia needed to think, especially after what happened to him recently.
"Alright, as soon as you guys are ready to rumble." Zero smirked.
"Then I suppose this is a momentary truce, then." Leviathan smirked as well. "Emphasis on the word 'momentary.' Got it?"
Zero chuckled.
Author: Alright. The next couple of chapters are going to be the more interesting ones. I had this segment of this story planned from the start, so wait patiently. Read and review please!