Chapter 3: Neo-Arcadian vengeance
The next morning...
"I want you guys to sweep this desert. Anything unusual goes straight to me. That includes footprints, foreign objects and signs of struggle." Zero commanded, the resistance soldiers acknowledged and started to search the desert.
Zero followed the same path of 'blood' that he followed yesterday.
He reached the first dune and a flashback of Leviathan's impaled body came to his mind.
He crouched near the 'bloodiest' spot where Leviathan's body was lying, but there was nothing to be found there but some of Leviathan's parts and the 'blood'.
He stood up again and kept following the trail of red fluids until he reached, Fefnir legs; a soldier was just picking them up.
"Anything soldier?" he asked.
"No sir, nothing foreign or any signs of struggle. Whoever did this sure is good at hiding his tracks." The soldier replied.
"Transfer those to base, Cerveau will need those to reattach to Fefnir." Zero ordered, more trying to get the soldier away than from concern for Fefnir's legs.
"Yes sir. Transfer me to base..." The soldier said in his comm. And in a flash of white light he was gone.
Zero inspected the ground, the soldier was right; even though it is clear that the legs were shattered in this place there were no signs of struggle.
"Hmm..." Zero said and kept following the path of red fluid until he reached where Fefnir's body was, he remembered hard what was there last night and a flashback of Fefnir jumped into his head. He was mumbling to himself, acting as if he was crazy.
Zero thoroughly looked around and searched for anything that might identify the assailant but there was nothing there at all, nothing to identify whoever the attacker was or where he was.
Zero was getting pretty desperate, if there was only a clue... any clue...
When he reached the massive dune he found Harpuia on he saw Colbor inspecting the place.
"Zero, I'm glad you're here base just informed me they analyzed that harpoon thing." Colbor said, "It's dispensable, meaning whoever used it can either make or summon any number of it imaginable." He explained.
"Anything else?" Zero asked, a flicker of hope within him.
"Well the design is unfamiliar to them but Ciel is comparing it to other reploids' weapons so she might be able to find out who this belongs to." He said.
"Good, anything here?" Zero inquired, not that it mattered if Ciel found the reploid using the harpoon.
"No, nothing." Colbor simply said.
Suddenly their communicators lit up and the operators voice was heard,
"All troopers to base, Zero please report to the commanders room immediately."
Zero looked at Colbor, who nodded and they both were transferred back to base.
Zero entered the commander's room with him to see Ciel, a shocked look on her face.
"Zero, we just transferred Harpuia, Leviathan and Fefnir to Neo-Arcadia." She said, a tear running on her cheek.
"They are still alive but we can't repair them here. They have been damaged badly so we gave them over to Neo-Arcadia and they..." she stopped and looked at the ground.
"They don't believe us... they said we set them up and... they are going to destroy us..." more tears ran down Ciel's cheek.
"What?!" Zero yelled, "I must get over there!"
"It's no use... they have already started moving their forces towards us..." Ciel said calmly, as if she was certain that this was it.
"No I won't let them do this!" Zero said and turned to operator.
"Transfer me to their forces now!" he screamed.
The operator didn't respond and in a second Zero was gone in a flash.
Zero materialized in front of the thousands of Pantheons and reploids that wished to destroy him.
"Stop now!" he said, the forces were lead by an unfamiliar reploid:
He was at least as twice as bigger than Zero, and he was an animal-like reploid, meaning instead of resembling humans (Like the four guardians, X, Zero and the executioners...) they resembled animalistic humanoids, they were called Mutos reploids, they were high ranking members of the Neo-Arcadian army.
The one in front of Zero resembled a large hyena, wielding something that looked quite similar to Zero's shield boomerang and what Zero suspected was his old Triple rod, that he dropped in the desert after escaping X's fortress.
"I am Hyena Hahira, I am the leader of X's guard, hand picked and personally trained by him. You have insolently set up the guardians and almost destroyed them. They are now being cared for by Neo-Arcadia." The reploid said.
"We transferred them to you! We saved their lives, they wanted me to become the fourth guardian but when I arrived in the meeting place they have already been attacked!" Zero yelled boldly. Seeing as the reploid in front of him was much more threatening.
"Liar! The guardians would never appoint a Maverick to become a guardian!" Hyena said.
Before Hyena could react Zero was upon him, the fact that this pathetic reploid even dared to challenge him and call him a Maverick hit a certain spot Zero was uncertain about. He didn't understand why he was so mad, he still haven't recovered all of his memories and figured it was something that happened a long time ago but what really surprised him was his thoughts, pathetic reploid? Zero can't remember ever thinking something like that before...
Zero jumped and slashed Hyena's face furiously with his sword.
He landed on the ground and quickly jumped backwards, to a safer distance.
Hyena felt the burning slash mark on his muzzle and bared his teeth.
"Errurgh!" He let out a roar before charging at Zero, trying to hit him with his triple rod but Zero dodged.
Zero dodged another strike when suddenly he was hit in the face by Hyena's shield boomerang.
He fell backwards and rolled away just in time to avoid a sharp chop from Hyena's triple rod.
Zero tried to kick Hyena's leg to make him fall, but he wasn't strong enough.
"Rats!" he said as he dodged yet another chop from Hyena, he jumped to his legs and quickly dash-slashed Hyena's arm, he turned around only to dodge the shield boomerang and then a stab from the triple rod.
He jumped slightly backwards but Hyena extended the triple rod and scraped Zero's knee.
"Ugh!" Zero rubbed the wound and focused on the battle again.
All of the soldiers and Pantheons watched the battle, mesmerized.
Zero decided he had to take out either the boomerang or the triple rod so he drew his chain rod and purposely missed Hyena; he relied on a memory about hyenas and hoped he was right.
Hyena laughed, "Ha he! You missed you pathetic Maverick!" Hyena started laughing.
Zero hoped for that, and seized the opportunity to make a certain action very carefully
Without Hyena noticing Zero slowly pulled the chain until it grasped the shield boomerang's metal center and then he pulled so tightly that the chain rod tore the center and the shield broke.
Hyena stopped laughing and grabbed the chain of the rod. Zero pulled it back and the energy tip of the chain sliced one of Hyena's fingers.
"Aargh!" Hyena yelled and grasped his index finger that was cut off.
"Get him!" he yelled, and thus all of the reploids and Pantheons charged at Zero.
Zero disappeared in a white flash just before they reached him and was back in the resistance base.
"What were you thinking?" Ciel asked furiously.
"You can't just take on all of Neo-Arcadia's army!" she seemed to be crying out of concern.
"Ciel, if I won't stop them they'll destroy the base." Zero said sharply.
"No they won't, look it's been awhile and we can take care of ourselves!" Colbor who Zero had not noticed was behind him.
"Look there are many of us now, we have two towers with two excellent gunmen and we can hold them off until the guardians get better and order them to stop."
Zero sighed and he left the room probably to go to the gates and wait until the enemies come near.
A few hours later at Neo-Arcadia...
"Have you finished reattaching Fefnir's legs yet?" A maintenance reploid asked.
"Almost, have you finished with Leviathan?" the other replied.
"I'm just about to reactivate her... There!" the first exclaimed.
Leviathan opened her eyes, she realized where she was and got up with a start.
"Oh no! Fefnir and Harpuia they...!" She exclaimed but relaxed as she saw Fefnir and Harpuia on the tables beside her.
"What happened?" She asked the maintenance reploid.
"Those Mavericks set you up! They sent us to you and you were wrecks. So Hyena Hahira of X's guard took command and should by attacking their base now..." Leviathan, who just noticed her helmet was ruined and was twirling her cyan hair jumped.
"It weren't them! I must get there and stop Hyena!" she said and ran out of the room.
"Well, I'll just work on Harpuia now..." the maintenance reploid said nonchalantly as if he didn't care if the resistance was guilty or not.
At the resistance base...
Zero stood in front of the resistance soldiers, serving as a first defense line.
He sliced and hacked, slashed and cut and blasted and blew up every Pantheon and reploid he could, while the soldiers behind him shot at anyone who managed to slip past him.
But now Hyena stood in front of him, his index finger was torched back into place, leaving a large scar around it.
"You will pay!" he yelled and drew a weapon, not any weapon Zero has encountered before. It was a beam axe or something similar. A long metal shaft that on top of it was a sphere from which emanated two energy axe heads making some sort of battle-axe.
Hyena charged with a roar and swung at Zero, Zero jumped backwards and the axe hit the ground creating a rather large slit in it with a hiss of his beam axe.
He swung again this time horizontally so Zero had to duck, Zero used the opportunity to dash at Hyena and to slash his side with his beam saber.
Hyena roared but there was no red fluid spilled, he must have more armor than Zero thought because the slash wound was pretty deep.
Hyena turned around and tried apparently to whack Zero with the axe but as Zero jumped sideways he noticed the axe's energy heads detached and were zooming his way. He did a backwards somersault to avoid the energy head and he noticed that it slashed through some resistance soldiers as well as Pantheons.
"He doesn't care who he kills!" Zero said to no one in particular as he dodged another swipe of the axe.
Zero drew his buster, deciding it was best to attack from range and shot a couple of rounds at Hyena. The bullets just bounced off Hyena's body and he laughed,
"A buster can't help you now Maverick!" And to his surprise Zero had slashed his left leg.
"Stop calling me Maverick, scum!" Zero yelled at him.
Hyena roared and placed his hand on his leg.
Zero noticed every Pantheon and reploid stopped fighting the resistance soldiers and they all cleared the way for Leviathan. Her cyan hair fluttering behind her due to the speed she ran in.
She stepped between him and Zero and talked,
"Hyena!" She yelled at him, "Cease this immediately! They didn't attack us, how dared you authorize this attack before you waited for us to recover!?" she scolded.
Hyena was however raging and pushed Leviathan out of the way, in order to attack Zero.
He was destroyed before he even reached Zero, the soldiers and Pantheons all opened fire on him, for attacking Leviathan, and he was already badly injured so when he reached Zero he was nothing but a deactivated pile of scrap.
Leviathan stood up and said,
"Everyone transfer back to Neo-Arcadia immediately." She ordered.
Every soldier and Pantheon transferred away in brilliant flashes of white.
"Is the offer to become a guardian still stands?" Zero asked.
"Yes, why?" Leviathan asked.
"Because I accept." Zero said.
To be continued...
Author notes:
So you see? They didn't even know they were in the resistance base.
Harpuia was too badly injured to remember that Zero told him that he transferred Leviathan and Fefnir to the resistance base and Neo-Arcadia would never tell them that the resistance saved them. Instead they simply said that Zero found them and informed Neo-Arcadia.