The Hunter Base, being shielded tighter than spandex, survived the new viral plague sweeping the globe. One of its members, however, was showing symptoms of the crash.
"ZEROOOOOO!"
"X."
"Zeroooo! Nooooo!"
"X!"
"Why is this happening to me?"
"X!"
"WHAT?"
"Shut up! I'm listening!"
Alia was pressing her headphones so close to her skull that her eyes bulged.
"What're you…"
"Shhhh!"
Signas closed his hand around X's jaw and pinned the smaller man to his heroic chest for the sake of silence. Two minutes of interminable silence while X struggled to breathe, and then…
"A signal from the crash site! It's…"
Colour evacuated her face. X took note, elbowed Signas in the gut, gulped air and shouted, "Zero!"
"Don't go, X."
It was Lifesaver, approaching with his typical doom and gloom complexion.
"He's my friend, not a Maverick!"
"Then we will go with you."
Another Lifesaver walked into the room. X jumped.
"Sweet Jeebus! There's two of you?"
"Ever heard of copy and paste? Look, if you're foolhardy enough to go to the source, we'll act as Virus buffers so you don't die immediately."
X nodded at them with new respect.
"Roger that. It's time to fly."
888
And what of our intrepid game tester?
"It's dark!" she bawled. The first thing to go when civilization ends is the electricity. The second thing is one's sanity, and Hannah was working hard at it. Feeling along the walls, she searched for escape in vain.
"I'm hungry! My head hurts! I'm thirsty!"
"Kwitcherbitchin'"
Bright purple lanced through the night. Perceiving it to be a blade, an elegant silhouette was illumined by its light.
"Who're you?"
"Who are you, my dear human girl, and what are you doing in Capcom's bunker?"
"I thought this was their game testing headquarters."
"Pshaw. Everyone knows Capcom keeps one of these rooms in all their secret bases."
"Whatever. Get me out of here!"
"Step this way. And we're walking, we're walking… humans are so clumsy."
"Oh, I get it. Reploid, huh?"
"Yes."
He moved the energy blade nearer his face. Hannah stood back.
"Dynamo!"
He stood back.
"You know me?"
"You're a bad guy!"
"Oh, come now, darling, I'm not all bad."
"Then why did you make Eurasia mate with the Earth and why did you attack the Hunter base?"
Dynamo lifted his visor and stared at her, frowning.
"How the hell did you know that?"
She folded her arms and lifted her chin.
"I play games."
"So do I, but this is serious."
He led the way, lit by his weapon, through the pitch black bunker.
"In a bid to escape Capcom's control, Sigma ordered me to make Eurasia crash into Capcom's headquarters. Of course, the Hunters got involved and nudged it from its intended impact site, but the point is, it hit the Earth. So far Capcom's been pulling the strings when it comes to the Reploid Wars, even to the point of designing games that would indicate the War's progress."
"I know that part. Go on."
"Sigma found someone after the fiasco with Final Weapon."
"Dr. Wily?"
Dynamo sighed with exasperation.
"For a human, you know too much. Yes, the old machinist who created Zero. Wily's hologram told Sigma that Zero is the original vector for the Maverick Virus, and that, if Sigma combined his own unique virus hybrid with the Maverick Virus, it would coalesce into something else entirely."
"The Zero
Virus."
"Stop interrupting me. But yeah, that's about it. It
seems that, when Sigma initially took out Zero, the Maverick Virus
integrated with his systems and made him go crazy. Thus the Sigma
Virus was born, but it was unique to his programming because he was
the first to be infected by it and kept resurrecting as a result. The
Maverick Virus remained with the Sigma Virus as a sort of subroutine,
and he spread that Virus to the other reploids and
Irregulars."
"For a bishounen you sure know how to psychobabble."
"Yeah, well, I'm part machine, so bear with me."
They arrived outside. The sky was scarred just like in "The Matrix" except purple.
"Will the Virus get me?"
"Girl, it's gonna get everyone. Some are just more resistant than others. Oh, hold onto this."
He tossed her a metallic tube.
"My beam saber!"
"Yessiree. Hang onto it. I traced it energy signature halfway across the globe to here."
Handing it, her frown betrayed curiosity. A mystery unfulfilled. Dynamo took a seat on some nearby slag and played storyteller.
"You can say that I am something of a… patriot. Capcom designed me with my good looks and heart-melting charm…"
Hannah snorted. He cleared his throat to continue, "So I didn't really want to see them or the human race go kaput just because one Maverick has bad luck. I mean, humans are good for laughs. Reploids? Not so much, except X and Zero. I don't plan on spending my retirement laughing at just two guys, so I made provisions for humanity to survive.
Hannah looked around her at the wasteland.
"I suppose this is philanthropy at work."
"You and your snarky
comments."
He folded his arms. Hannah poked his leg with the
beam saber hilt.
"Hey, I saw a smile."
He flashed a grin that would have won awards, had the World's Best Smile committee not been overrun and horribly destroyed by the Zero Virus.
"That's why I said, humans are good for laughs. I want your race to survive or else I'll be terribly, horridly bored for the remainder of my immortal life."
"So why'd you come
down here in the first place?"
"Damn! I thought I had led you
away from that train of thought. You humans; so tenacious!" said
he, grinning all the while, "Ah, well, here's how it goes…"
888
They were in a valley of ashes.
"I thought Sky Lagoon was bad…"
The Lifesavers conferred in the muted tones people adopt after a tragedy. In Falcon, X picked his way downhill over cinders and vitrified ground. Lifesaver waved his tricorder at the pit's core.
"Intense Viral activity of the Zero nature."
"Whatever, Spock. Step back."
"Yes, Captain."
At the heart of darkness, at Ground Zero, was the original Maverick himself. His back was turned, but the air around him was shimmering with raw energy. X noticed that his old friend's feet were not touching the ground.
"X. Step into my lair."
With that, he rose into the sky and streaked off. Bewildered, X murmured, "I feel like Agent Smith."
"This is no time for obscure movie references. I strongly advise you to cease and desist your current course of action. The Virus will overtake you."
"Lifesaver, there is only one person who can stop Zero, and that is me. I don't know what he's planning, I don't know if I'll survive the Virus, but I will stop him… for the sake of the Earth."
"Good man. Scotty, beam us up."
"Ahem."
"Scotty,
belay that command."
X turned around.
"Hey, dad."
888
"So this saber..?"
"Yes. That's why I came here. Maybe if you can replicate…"
Pshew. Neon purple touched ground a few hundred yards south of their position. Dynamo stood up hastily, every hair on his head standing on end.
"Oh boy. Bad day. Bad day!"
"Was that…"
"Zero! Yes! I'm outta here."
"You're going to leave me all alone?"
"Don't worry, doll, if Ernie's here, Bert isn't far behind."
While Dynamo retreated, the ground underfoot shifted, melted and completely morphed, reforming around, above and underneath her in complicated patterns of blue and white neon lines. It appeared as though the environment was being taken over by a computer simulation.
"This looks disturbingly familiar. If my calculations are correct, X should appear…"
Pshew. Hannah nodded.
"Zero's south of here."
X blinked, recalling data on this human.
"H-Hannah? How did you? When did you? Ah, never mind. Please remain here while I deal with Mr. Sunshine."
"Okie dokie."
She had her fingers crossed behind her back. She wouldn't miss this for the world.
"What, did a bad techno song throw up?" X was commenting on the 'stage' Zero had created with his presence. As there was abundance of hovering platforms, Hannah followed. For the first time, she slew an Irregular with her beam saber. It just happened to be a Met-all, the most common enemy since the franchise and its predecessor began.
"Booyah!"
She survived the spike pit here and there with a good running leap.
"Wow. My first Megaman stage!"
Quite proud of herself, she skittered after X through the omnipresent garage doors.
"Oh, crap. This thing locked me in here!"
"Hannah! Why did… you're in terrible danger!"
"It's not like you to bring guests, X."
He descended, regal in nightmarish glow.
"Zero! This is our fight! She has nothing to do with this!"
"She is here. I name her, 'The Ambassador of Humanity'"
"That'll look good on my resume," Hannah muttered.
"If she survives, humanity will be spared, but I will rule the reploids."
"You're forgetting me, Zero! I don't know what's come over you, but I'm bringing you back?"
The Red Ripper's eyes burned incandescent. His Z-Saber was Sith red.
"You are welcome to try. We have always been… eternal rivals!"
It was too fast to follow with human eyes, but this narrator is omniscient as to the happenings in this story. While Hannah only saw a brilliant flash, Zero had flown fast and straight, saber proceeding, while X Quick Charged and countered with the piercing laser shot. So powerful were the attack, both combatants were pushed backward.
"Stymied already?" X goaded, "And you claim to possess power?"
"Possess? I DOMINATE!"
Zero has arm cannon mode, too. With his 'true' form unleashed, it was super-charged, but X figured he was the arm cannon expert, and tried to match shot for shot. Unfortunately for the expert, Zero had more energy, and fired two consecutive charged shots. Both bypassed the laser beam that struck Zero, who did not even flinch, while X took damage.
"Gyaah!"
Hannah twiddled her thumbs.
"Touché."
"You don't speak French, so don't even try!"
When Zero attempted another arm cannon round, X took Falcon flight and, with its protective aura, burst through the viral plasma energies to blitz Zero with the laser. This time, the pure Maverick flinched.
"I'm getting through to you."
Zero reverted to his weapon of choice.
"You're wasting time."
Doing something X had last seen three wars ago, Zero slashed outward, the extra energies culminating in an airborne slash that sliced through the air and into X.
"GwAUUUGHH!"
"X makes amusing sounds," Hannah observed while beaming her name in the ground.
"Are you breathing?" he taunted, stepping closer to the kneeling Hunter.
"Give me an inch and I'll take a yard."
At such close range there was nowhere to dodge or block, and the laser drilled full into his chest.
"Impudent…"
Slice.
"BASTARD!"
Snick.
"Oh dear."
Hannah watched X being pulverized.
"You think you're a little bit closer to changing me?"
"GrAHHH!"
X tackled in Falcon mode, blasting Zero with its aura as they scudded along the floor to slam into the opposite wall that cracked from the strain.
"Ugh!"
"Yes, yes, I do."
"Get away from me."
Punch to the gut, uppercut! Roundhouse kick to the face! X spun around and into a twisted heap.
"Oh dear."
"Stop saying that, would you?" he grunted, trying to recover.
"Sorry."
"Now for you, human."
"Excuse me? I have a name."
"Hannah, that's my beam saber you're holding."
"You gave it to me!"
"Well, I want it back."
She backed off, hugging it.
"So it's true what Dynamo said! This does contain the antivirus! That's why you came here!"
For the first time, Zero looked surprised.
"I came here to destroy what would stop me – X, and that beam saber! I used it in the third war against the Sigma Virus."
"Yeah, I played that game, remember? So all I have to do is nick you with this…"
"Hah."
He leveled his arm cannon at her. Hannah was not a Jedi.
"Oh, shit."
So she ran. Large holes in the wall followed her. It seems that whenever a major character is running from bullets or other projectiles, except during those Sniper movies, the character is never hit so long as they keep running and don't trip over something. Which Hannah did, now that I mentioned it.
"Oof!"
"Gotcha."
"Not."
Pshoom.
A hole appeared in Zero's shoulder.
"WOULD YOU DIE ALREADY?"
"Nope. I'm the hero, remember?"
"X, catch!"
"Thanks."
Zero glared at the green saber now in X's hands.
"Cool! I feel like Yoda."
"You underestimate my power!"
"Remember what happened to the last guy who said that?"
They dashed at each other. While Zero was a dyed-in-the-wool swordsman, X was unconventional. Just before contact, Zero swung; X ducked, rolled under the slash, and brought the saber up into Zero's fusion core. Stunned, he was transfixed.
"Gotcha."
"Damn… you!"
In a last-ditch maneuver, Zero summoned the Soul Body. It made no sense to Hannah when he did that during the game, because everyone knows that boss abilities NEVER EVER carry over from game to game. But, he did it, so the result now was two Hunters knocking each other out.
"Holy crapolies."
She prodded them with her foot.
"Don't tell me I'm all alone again!"
