A fuzzy Cossack hat clamped over his auditory sensors, X braved the Russian gale that buffeted him while he hopped from truck to truck on the convoy.

"Ninety-nine crazy Irregulars on the truck, ninety-nine crazy Irregulars…"

He decommissioned a pesky turret that had a habit of guarding large transport.

"Shoot one down, smash it around, ninety-eight crazy Irregulars on the truck…"

"X!"

"Jesus Christ, Alia! Stop calling me! I don't love you anymore!"

"You have to destroy the core of that truck to advance!"

"Can't I give them free tickets to a Lakers game?"

"No! You have to destroy the cores! It's vital to the mission!"

"But the truck's gonna crash into that parked one a little ways ahead."

The parked driver, who was enjoying his Smirnoff pit stop, saw the barrage of trucks barreling towards him. Deciding his cargo of cereal boxes was less important than his life, he dove for cover.

"What?" Alia persisted.

"I said it's gonna…"

FWAM

"CRAAAAAASH!"

The vehicle went from a hundred to zero in half a second, catapulting the blue Hunter a few hundred yards before he skidded to a halt on the frozen ground.

"Ow! My knees! They burn!"

"X! Are you okay?"

"No! I just braked with my legs after a death-defying leap!"

"The base is just ahead. Will you make it?"

"Woman, please. I don't even blink when trapped on an exploding space station."

"Well, bring back the Cossack hat. I think it looks cute on you."

X stopped dead.

"You are NOT coming onto me, Alia!"

Click.

"Alia! I demand you reestablish this connection so that I may express my extreme dislike for you! Alia! Damn it."

As if an army of Irregulars wasn't bad enough, the most annoying comm. operative in HQ had just paid him a flirtatious comment.

"I do not have any fangirls and I never will!" he yelled while peppering startled reploids with hot plasma, "I will not go the way of Sephiroth! My voice is an octave too high to qualify! Nothing about me is sexy!"

Somewhere amidst the angst and explosions he spied a ledge a little ways above him.

"Le gasp! An out-of-the-way alcove! It must surely hold…"

He dash-jumped.

"An armour capsule!"

He inserted a coin and pressed continue.

"Hello, X. Nice hat. A colleague of mine wore one."
"Hi, Dad."

"I made new…"

"Yeah, yeah; same old, same old. Don't tell me… an air dash upgrade?"

"Why, yes. You know my pattern, do you?"

"We are related, you know."

He hopped in, was zapped, and stepped out the same as before.

"The hell? I did the kickass pose and everything!"

"Oh, for the purposes of security, I've sequence-locked all armour parts until you receive the full Falcon suit."

X nearly had an aneurysm.

"Security purposes? Hello? Are we on the same team? I need armour pieces now! I can't effectively slay evil without upgrades! You know that better than I do!"

"Yes, X, but due to the spread of the Maverick Virus, it's much easier for it to infiltrate my isolated armour capsules. There is a high chance that, if you were to activate one at a time, they would be corrupted. Therefore, I added a security subroutine that guards against infection when all parts are united."

"Jeebus. You never heard of Norton Antivirus? I'll be going now."

"Always wear protection, X."

"Yeah, I'll… HEY!"

Dr. Light fizzled out with a chuckle.

"All right, who else wants to make fun of me?"

Fuming thus, X ransacked the hidden base until he found Grizzly Slash gnawing trout in his little cave.

"Comrade!" boomed the bear's commie accent, "I do not appreciate the destroying of the train, yes?"

X glared and aimed his arm cannon.

"You. Gun. Face. Now."

The bear's eyes became bloodshot as he thundered, "FOR ZE MUZZERLAND!" but he was too big, too heavy and his crescent beams too slow for the small nimble Hunter, who teleported out barely a minute after the shooting began.

888

At Hunter base, Alia received a flying Cossack hat to the face. It is rumoured that she wore it behind closed doors and giggled, but nobody likes a gossiper, so let's move on.

"Status?"

"Fifteen hours left before Eurasia erases Earth!"

"What the bloody hell?" X choked, "I spent less than ten minutes taking out the train AND its boss!"

Signas grabbed X and shook him.

"IT ACCELERATED!"

"Gah! Okay! Okay! Leggo!"

While Signas went to a corner to cry, Zero leaned on Alia's chair.

"Uh… who's vulnerable to Grizzly's special weapon?"

"I dunno. You got the generic spinning slash, so it's anybody's guess."

"Right. In the last war it wasn't effective against anything at all."

The main screen turned on and the winning smile of a reploid with white hair and black armour beamed at them all.

"Hello ladies! Before long, I will attack the Hunter Base… Aw, are Mr. X and Mr. Zero there? Please play with me! I'm really bored…"

X held the perfect WTF expression on his face. While processing this latest threat, Alia's comm. console beeped. She touched her headset microphone.

"Maverick Hunter Headquarters… sir! Yes, sir! We are aware, sir!"

Her face became paler. She sat up ramrod straight as she listened.

"Right away, sir!"

Zero was intrigued.

"The President?"

"Worse, Long John Silver's chain of seafood restaurants."

Zero drew a perfect blank.

"Eh?"

"Duff McWhalen is in the Icelandic ocean. That area is known for their fish and delicious shrimp. With the hydrogen Duff's manufacturing from the seawater, he can use his own fusion core to make a hydrogen bomb. But if he screws up…"

"The entire arctic ocean will become irradiated."

That meant the death of all sea creatures in that ocean and the downfall of Long John Silver's chain of restaurants along the western Atlantic coast, because the Atlantic current ran directly through the area Duff controlled.

"Get moving, Zero! I want my jumbo shrimp to be safe!"

"Oh, sure, and saving the world is my second priority."

Alia grabbed his arm and yanked him to her so he could see her urgent, no-nonsense expression: "Life has no flavour without shrimp."

888

He was finicky about the effect of cold water on his hair, but Alia's next message committed him to the mission: "There is a Maverick submarine passing through this area, carrying an illegal U-555 uranium element. That means Duff will have the capability of making two bombs!"

"Radiation is worse than cold water. Maverick Hunter Zero, engaging the enemy."

Spoken like a true warrior, he proceeded to walk the talk, beam saber lighting up the aquatic cave.

"Wait… what? Why is the background music a remix of Bubble Crab's? If Capcom had a low budget, why did they make a game? Are we here just for PROFIT?"

"Stop breaking the fourth wall, Zero."

"But I like it."

U-555 made an entrance, spitting lethal energy bolts and chasing him with missiles.

"Another thing: how does my saber work underwater? How does X fire underwater? How do the plasma and laser beams from that blasted submarine do that? Spiderman 2 proved that a fusion reaction can be drowned!"

"It's just a game. Stop taking it so seriously."

"You're all conspiring against me."

"Why yes. Capcom pays the bills."

"If they hadn't funded Dr. Cain in the first place, none of this would have happened!"

"But then there'd only be you and X, and that's no fun."

"Ugh. I think they funded Dr. Light and Dr. Wily, too. Blasted video game company."

"Stay the course, Zero."

Chasing the submarine along the undulating seabed, Zero employed the Crescent Blade's huge attack radius to nullify its attacks. As he and X shared similar learning capabilities, they transferred data seamlessly even when one defeated a Boss and the other did not. However, as they were different models, they interpreted data differently, resulting in his current beam saber skill.

Dropping into a sunken ship to shelter from the relentless assault, he noticed a bomb through the cracks in the floor. He couldn't reach it, so he contacted X.

"McWhalen must have stashed it there, so it should react to his weapon. I'll investigate those coordinates with it when you're done."

"Your confidence in me is touching. Zero, out."

By raising the water temperature of the boss room, McWhalen was relaxing in his sauna.

"So many third world countries… so little uranium... until U-555 arrives."

"HELLO, SAILOR!"

"Wark!"

The sub in question smashed through the wall, Zero riding the prow with his saber wedged into the control unit.

"You sent your sub to pester me throughout the whole area, so I'm returning it!"

"My sauna! My house! You imbecile!" shrieked Duff, shaking off debris, "Your saber could perforate the uranium core of the sub!"

"You first."

Blubber lined the walls before the Hunter departed.