YES! Another chapter! About time, ne?
Actually, I wasn't going to upload any more chapters until I finished the rest of the story. But I figured I've made you all wait long enough, so here's chapter seven! I'm sorry about the shortness. It's better than nothing, though... I hope.

Also, I'd like to point out that Musashi the Master has adopted my story and is adding a few changes to it; including a crossover change. You should go take a look.

DISCLAIMER: Megaman X and all Mavericks and Maverick Hunters are copyright to Capcom. Sailor Saturn and the Sailor Scouts are copyright to Naoko Takeuchi. I take no credit for them whatsoever.

--Part Seven: The Search Begins--

"Whoever took her was careful enough not to leave any tracks." Said Storm Eagle. He, X, and Zero were investigating the place where Hotaru had been just before her capture; not that there was much there to see. It seemed to be just the same as it was when Zero had left Hotaru there. Speaking of which…

"I shouldn't have left her alone…" Zero said solemnly, hanging his head in disgrace.

"Don't blame yourself, Zero." X replied, "There's no way you could've known what was going to happen. The important thing now is to find her…" X let his words trail off as he began to imagine what sort of things the Mavericks would do to Hotaru. Again, he remembered when Flame Mammoth had nearly crushed her in his trunk, and the look of sick pleasure that he had seen in the eyes of the behemoth at the time. X knew that they had to find her before something like that happened again—or something worse.

Just then, Zero caught a glimpse of a shining stick-like object on the ground. Curious, he picked it up and was shocked to find out what it was.

"Look!" He said urgently. The others came to his side to see what he had found.

"It's Hotaru's pen!" X exclaimed, "She can't transform without it! That means she's defenseless! We have to hurry! We need to—"

"X! Get back here!" Zero called, interrupting X's words and halting his steps. As soon as X had said 'hurry,' he immediately started setting off towards who-knows-where. He didn't care where, exactly; he had to start looking somewhere, after all. Normally he would've thought things through much more clearly; but the thought of Hotaru being in danger was making him act upon impulse instead. The poor, confused little reploid still didn't quite understand why, though. Reploids aren't used to having such emotions.

"Where do you think you're going?" Zero asked him. "You won't be able to find Hotaru without having at least some idea of where the Mavericks took her!"

"Well we have to start somewhere!" X retorted.

"We should just keep doing what we've been doing. I think that's our best chance of finding her."

"What do you mean?"

"You and Storm keep fighting off the Mavericks." Zero explained, "If she's with one of them, then you're bound to find her. And I'll keep searching for Sigma's fortress. If she's been taken there, then the sooner we find it, the sooner we'll find her."

"I agree." Storm Eagle said.

"Alright. I suppose that makes sense." X admitted.

"But first, I think Zero needs a few repairs." Storm Eagle said, eyeing the damage Zero had taken from the battle with Boomer Kuwanger. His auto-repair systems had taken care of everything they could, but there was still a good deal of damage left to repair.

"No I don't." Zero said defiantly, "I'm fine. Just a few little scratches, that's all."

"Zero, Storm Eagle's right. You—"

"I'm fine." Zero repeated.

"But—"

"I'm FINE."

"You're embarrassed about almost loosing the fight with Boomer, aren't you?" Storm Eagle asked with a slight smirk.

"I'm fi—wait, what? No I'm not! And I don't need any repairs! Besides, there isn't any time for that. We have to hurry if we're going to find Hotaru."

"Which Mavericks are left, Storm Eagle?" X asked.

"Only two: Sting Chameleon and Launch Octopus."

"Then let's split up. I'll take one, you take the other."

"I'm not built to operate underwater." Storm Eagle explained, "So I'll find Sting."

"Underwater?" X questioned, "Launch's base is underwater?"

"Yes. He is an octopus, after all."

"Then Hotaru can't be there."

"Launch can function both underwater and on land. It is very possible that he could've come here to kidnap Hotaru; and it's also possible that he could have taken her back to his base. The area is full of submarines, all built by the Maverick forces. It's worth checking into."

So Storm Eagle gave X the coordinates to Launch Octopus's base (as well as Sting Chameleon's just in case), and then headed in the opposite direction towards Sting's headquarters in the forest. Zero set off in search of Sigma's fortress again. None of the three could take their minds off of Hotaru; they were all too worried about her. Especially X.

Mechanical seahorses, fish, and sea serpents were only some of the obstacles X had to face in Launch Octopus's undersea world. He also had to put up with a few submarines and a small, missile-launching ship—all of which were being controlled remotely. Needless to say, it was more than just troublesome to find Launch. It was an enormous pain in the—well, I'm sure you get the idea. And it made it even worse that X had Hotaru on his mind the entire time; it only made the underwater trek seem even longer. But eventually, he met up with the eight-armed menace of the ocean: Launch Octopus himself. And of course, the first thing that came from X's mouth was: "Where's Hotaru?" Or, at least, that's what he meant to say; but during that brief moment he had completely forgotten that he wasn't on land. By trying to speak, he only ended up filling his mouth with foul, salty seawater, much to the amusement of Launch Octopus. Launch didn't need to speak to show his mirth; the look in his eyes was enough.

Launch gave X the "you're going down" gesture, and a silent, underwater battle began…

"Ohh, would you STOP pounding on that door already?" Sting Chameleon hissed, "It's beginning to get on my nerves, it is!"

Hotaru ignored Sting's words and continued to beat on the door. She knew by now, of course, that she wouldn't be able to get it open, but she still couldn't let herself stop trying.

Then, to her amazement, the door slid open. Had she done it? Had she actually succeeded?

Not really…

As soon as the door had opened, she found that she was staring into the glowing red eyes of a tall, purple reploid. There was an incredibly large gun upon his shoulder, and on his helmet (which covered so much that even his eyes hardly showed through) was the mark of a Maverick.

"Trying to escape, are you?" The reploid questioned with an amused chuckle.

Hotaru didn't answer. She couldn't. She couldn't even move. There was something about this reploid that was extraordinarily frightening, although she was unsure of whether it was his voice, his eyes, or something else. It wasn't the gun on his shoulder, either; it was just something about him.

"You can take down Flame Mammoth, but you can't break down this little door? Maybe you won't be so useful to us after all. Oh well. I still have orders to follow."

Hotaru darted away from the reploid as he tried to grab hold of her arm. She stopped running, though, when she realized that she was running towards Sting Chameleon; she was trapped. Oh, how she would give anything to have her transformation pen right now!

"Fine." The reploid said, placing his hand on top of his gun, "We can do this the hard way, if that's what you want!"

The reploid fired an orb of yellow-orange electricity from his gun. Hotaru tried to escape it, but it was too fast for her to dodge. She screamed as it struck her. A wave of electricity danced all over her body for a moment before she lost consciousness and collapsed. The purple attacker stared at her in surprise.

"That shouldn't have knocked her out like that," he said, "It couldn't even do that to X! All it should've done is paralyzed her."

"Sigma might be wrong about her, Vile, he might." Sting said, "She doesn't seem all that powerful to me; I got her here with no trouble at all, I did!"

"Be quiet." Vile commanded curtly, "I don't like the way you talk. And you should know better than to speak of your leader that way! Lord Sigma is never wrong!"

"Yes, sir, yes! I am sorry, I am!" Sting stammered, shrinking back into the corner in response to the fierceness of Vile's voice.

Without another word, Vile picked up Hotaru and prepared to leave. As soon as he lifted her, he realized that she was a lot lighter than he had expected. Without even so much as a nod in Sting Chameleon's direction, he headed towards the doors that led out of the chamber. Sting was quite disappointed that a reward for his success was never even mentioned; he had been looking very forward to one.

'The shock overwhelmed this girl far more than it should've,' Vile thought suspiciously as he walked out of Sting Chameleon's quarters and into the forest. 'And she seems much lighter than a reploid should. Is it possible…? Could she be…? No…' Vile forced the thought out of his mind and teleported away to Sigma's fortress, with Hotaru still sleeping silently in his arms.

X had figured out by now that Hotaru was probably not anywhere near Launch Octopus's base, so he wanted to leave as soon as possible to search elsewhere. But he had to take Launch down first.

Fighting underwater was no easy task. X wasn't as agile underwater as he was on land; the water slowed him down a great deal. But Launch was having no such trouble, as he was built for swift underwater maneuvers. He could swim to the other side of the room so quickly it was almost as if he had teleported there. And if he spun around fast enough, it would cause a whirlpool that would pull X closer to him. Not that Launch needed X to be close—for he could also fire heat-seeking missiles that X couldn't avoid no matter how hard he tried. There was no denying it: Launch was winning this battle. X regretfully wished that he had thought to ask Storm Eagle about Launch's weakness. But since he hadn't asked, he'd have to find out on his own.

As X tried to dodge missiles and escape the currents of whirlpools, he thought about what Launch's weakness could be. Obviously, it couldn't be fire. Even if it was, X couldn't use it while he was underwater. And since water conducts electricity, Spark Mandrill's Electric Spark was out of the question too. Throwing a boomerang would be too difficult underwater as well, and Storm Eagle's Storm Tornado was likely to cause a whirlpool (and that was the last thing X needed). That only left his buster gun (which hadn't been working well so far) or Armored Armadillo's Rolling Shield.

X switched to the Rolling Shield immediately and fired at Launch Octopus. Launch had fired a horde of missiles at the exact same time, though, and the two weapons collided. The missiles were destroyed while the Rolling Shield went on and struck Launch, who hadn't been expecting such a thing to happen. Neither had X, actually—but now that he knew, he had the advantage. And that meant that this battle had finally turned around!

And indeed it did; Launch Octopus didn't stand a chance against the Rolling Shield. Even though he was fast and the weapon was slow, it would still manage to catch him due to X's impeccable timing when firing it. And his missiles didn't do any good anymore, either, because X could easily destroy them now. The only thing he could think of to do was to create as many whirlpools as he could—but he couldn't do that either because he didn't have time to. He was too busy trying to escape from the Rolling Shield. And he was failing even at that.

Needless to say, this battle didn't last much longer. As time went on, Launch Octopus continued to get weaker and weaker. Finally, X could see that one more shot would take him down.

'This,' he thought as he prepared to fire, 'is for Hotaru!'

Launch Octopus glared at X, not intending to go down so easily. In a final attempt to destroy X, he fired the remainder of his missiles all at once. Some of them did manage to hit X, but the Rolling Shield that X had fired at the exact same moment took out the rest of them. Launch tried to get out of the way of the Rolling Shield, but it only bounced off of the wall and rolled back towards him again. The Rolling Shield crashed into Launch, who broke out into a series of small explosions that would've surely been much larger if he hadn't been underwater. X found a piece of one of his tentacles and copied his missile-launching ability. After that, he went ashore and headed to where Storm Eagle said Sting Chameleon's base was.

"Storm Eagle? What are you doing here?" Sting Chameleon asked in surprise as Storm Eagle entered his chamber. "This is quite unexpected, it is! You should be manning your base at the airport, you should!"

"Sting," Storm Eagle said sternly, "Are you the one that took Hotaru?"

"Ho-who? OH! Yes, you mean that little girl Lord Sigma wanted, yes?"

Storm Eagle nodded. "Did you take her?"

"Yes, but Vile has already come and taken her to Lord Sigma's fortress, he has. You just missed him, you did! If you were hoping to get in on the reward for her capture, don't bother—there was no reward, there wasn't!"

"Do you know where Sigma's fortress is?"

"Lord Sigma still keeps the location a secret, he does. I'm sure I don't know any more than you do, I'm sure."

"Do you know why he wants Hotaru?"

"I don't have a clue, I don't. You sure are asking a lot of questions, you are! But why…?"

"I came here to take her from you." Storm Eagle said matter-of-factly.

"Ah! So you were after a reward, you were!"

"No. I actually came to save her from whatever it is you Mavericks plan to do to her."

"I told you, already, I did! I don't know what Lord Sigma's planning for—" Sting stopped in mid-sentence. It was as if Storm Eagle's words had just hit him square in the face. "Did you just say 'you Mavericks'? But… you're one of us, you are! What did you mean by that?"

"I'm not a Maverick anymore, Sting." Storm Eagle told him. "I'm a Maverick Hunter now."

There was a moment of complete silence before Sting finally responded.

"Well, well, well… I never would've thought a high-ranking Maverick like you would turn out to be a traitor; no, I never would've thought!" Sting then narrowed his eyes maliciously. "This makes us enemies, it does. I hope you had fun being a Hunter, I do; because you are about to retire, you are!"

Sting Chameleon leapt onto the wall, fired three needle-like objects at Storm Eagle from his tail, and vanished. Only one of the needles actually hit its target; it pierced right through Storm Eagle's breastplate and cut into his internal circuitry. Instinctively, Storm Eagle clutched at the spot where the needle had shot through, as if doing so would somehow stop the immense pain that the needle had caused. It felt as though a white-hot iron blade had been stabbed into his body—he couldn't believe that the real source of the pain was only a needle that was barely even two inches long!

"You don't stand a chance against me, you don't!" Sting Chameleon's voice rang from out of nowhere. Like a real chameleon, he was able to blend into his surroundings. But he didn't do it by changing colors; he was equipped with a state-of-the-art cloaking device that could make him completely invisible. "You were built from an extremely lightweight metal, you were; my Chameleon Sting can easily penetrate it, it can!"

Sting Chameleon was right. Storm Eagle had been built of light materials to enhance his flying capabilities. The less his armor weighed him down, the more agile he could be in the air. Unfortunately, this light armor greatly reduced his defense.

"It won't be long now, it won't," Sting's voice said surely, "You can't last much longer against my Chameleon Sting, you can't!"

"Show yourself, you cowardly lizard!" Storm Eagle shouted furiously, "An honorable fighter never hides from his opponent!"

"Honor!" Sting Chameleon exclaimed, showing himself at last. He was clinging to the wall on the other side of the room now. "You are a traitor to Lord Sigma's army, you are! And yet, you dare to try and tell ME about honor, you do! HA!"

Storm Eagle used his Storm Tornado to try and knock Sting Chameleon off of the wall. But he didn't loose his grip at all. Not even slightly.

"I was built for climbing, I was." Sting Chameleon said simply, "I can't be knocked down by a little breeze like that, I can't." Sting laughed as he disappeared once again. Storm Eagle looked around the room for any signs of movement, but he couldn't see anything at all. Then, suddenly, three more stingers shot out from nowhere and one struck Storm Eagle's tornado blaster. It wouldn't be able to fire anymore (not that it had been of much use anyway). Another of the stingers hit his left shoulder, and the third one struck him in the right leg just above his knee.

The battle had just begun and Storm Eagle was already in so much pain that he wanted to collapse. How could such tiny needles cause so much pain? A few more of Sting's attacks and Storm Eagle really did collapse. The stingers had caused so much damage to his circuits that he was on the verge of a breakdown. At this point, Sting Chameleon ceased firing his stingers and began to use his bladed tongue to lash at the beaten-down bird instead.

"You must tell me, you must," Sting Chameleon said, stopping the painful torture for the moment, "You know your weakness (your one weakness!) is my Chameleon Sting, you do. And yet you still tried to face me, you did! Why…?"

"To save Hotaru." Storm Eagle said weakly. "A human like her doesn't belong in the hands of Mavericks like you."

"Human?" Sting shouted, "The girl was HUMAN, she was? You would rescue a filthy human, you would? That makes your treachery even worse; I'll show you what happens to human-loving cretins like you, I will!"

Storm Eagle braced himself for another series of blows from Sting Chameleon's tongue, but this time, it was Sting's turn to be attacked. He let out a shriek as a bladed boomerang struck him in the back of his neck. Both he and Storm Eagle looked to where the boomerang had come from.

X was standing in the doorway with the barrel of his buster gun aimed directly at Sting Chameleon. He had used the technique he had copied from Boomer Kuwanger: the Boomerang Cutter.

"X!" Storm Eagle exclaimed gladly.

"Looks like you need some help, Storm Eagle." X said.

"Megaman X!" Sting Chameleon said with a grin, "If I didn't get a reward for capturing that little human brat, then I'm sure to get one for destroying you, I am!"

"Hotaru? Where is she?" X shouted.

"Gone." Sting cackled.

You can imagine, of course, what X thought when he heard that. All in one instant, he felt a strange mixture of despair, fury, and hatred. He felt despair for loosing Hotaru. He was furious with himself for arriving too late to save her. And he felt hatred towards the Mavericks for causing the whole mess in the first place.

Mavericks.

Like.

STING!

Sting Chameleon was almost as defenseless against the Boomerang Cutter as Storm Eagle had been against the Chameleon Sting. Even with his cloaking device, he was having a hard time evading X's attacks, as the boomerangs flew all over the room. But Sting still fought back. He shot stingers from his tail at every chance he got, and lashed at X with his tongue whenever he was close enough. But X clearly had the advantage in this battle; Sting Chameleon was taken down in no time at all.

"Lord Sigma will destroy you all, he will…!" Sting said furiously (though weakly) as he tried to stay on his feet. "Your luck will run out… it's only a matter of time until you Hunters finally get what you deserve for protecting the humans… only a matter of time…" At that point, Sting found he could no longer hold himself up. The chameleon's legs gave in and he collapsed, his armor clanking noisily as it collided with the floor.

"Are you okay, Storm Eagle?" X questioned, going to help him up.

"I'm fine," Storm Eagle replied as he struggled to stand, "But Hotaru… we have to rescue her before—"

"Storm Eagle…" X said sadly, "Didn't you hear what Sting Chameleon said? Hotaru is—"

"Gone. I know. Vile took her away just before I arrived."

"What? You mean she's not…? Is she really still…?" X let out a breath of relief. But then he realized just what all of this meant. Vile had her. And X was sure he knew where Vile had taken her, too. "No! He must have taken her to the fortress! But that means… that means Sigma has her!"

Storm Eagle nodded gravely. "Our only hope of saving her now is finding that fortress—and soon."

"Let's go back to headquarters." X suggested, "Maybe Zero has found something by now. And as for you, it looks like a few repairs are in order."

Zero looked around. Everything was tinged with the pinks and oranges of the sunset. Because of the light, his armor seemed to be a completely different shade of red, and his hair, usually the color of molten gold, looked instead like a stream of caramel.

Zero knew that it wouldn't be much use to continue searching in the dark. It would be best to head back to headquarters and return to his quest in the morning. But what about Hotaru? Could she stand to wait that long?

As Zero wondered what he should do, he found himself looking up into darkening sky. A few stars were beginning to show themselves, but they weren't very bright yet. His eyes wandered across the sky and happened to fall upon a dark, bulky mass floating in the sky over the eastern horizon. At first he thought it might be a cloud, but that was highly unlikely because there weren't any other clouds in the sky. Besides that, it was too dark to be an ordinary cloud, and it had an unusual shape to it. Because of how far away it was, Zero couldn't make out its shape exactly. But it was tall and had pointed stalks high up towards the top of it. In fact, the more he stared at it, the more Zero began to think that those pointed stalks looked very much like…

"Towers!" He exclaimed even though no one was around to hear. "Those things at the top are towers! It's a floating fortress!"

Now unless it was suddenly fashionable for ordinary people to own floating buildings, that massive citadel could only belong to one person—that is, if he could be called a person. It would probably be more fitting to call him a monster.

"I've found it." Zero said, still in somewhat of a shock. "I finally found Sigma's fortress!"