Back at Hunter HQ, X had recovered from his stupidity-induced coma, and naturally blamed it all on Alia.
"I want my Falcon Armour back!"
"You told me to delete it, you idiot!"
"You're a REPLOID! Your BRAIN is a COMPUTER! Didn't yo momma teach you how to BACKUP!"
"At least I had a momma. All you have is your old man!"
"Oh yeah? Well yo mamma…. uh… she… don't talk about Daddy that way!"
They began to arm wrestle. Signas separated them.
"Chill! Once X finds his Shinobi Armour or whatever, it'll be fine!"
"Ooh, I like that name," said the azure wonder, "The first thing I'll do with it is destroy Alia's keyboard so she can't delete it by accident."
"YOU-ASKED-ME-TO!"
Ignoring her, X turned to Hannah, who was (ab)using their Internet connection to add to her playlist.
"Will I look cool?"
"Almost as cool as Zero!"
"Why almost?"
"Because you'll still be a wuss!"
"Bah. And I was going to get you a wolf, too!"
"Wolfy? Where!"
Leaving her hanging, X went to the transporter room. They could teleport wherever they wanted from whatever location, but a transporter room was more secure, especially in these Nightmarish times of viruses and hackers.
"Zero came back?" he asked the NPC there.
"On his way."
Emerging from the beam, Zero shoved X onto the platform.
"Armour capsule. Acid rain bath. Through spikes. Have fun!"
"Wha-?"
And he was gone. Zero flicked on his comm. device.
"Alia, I took down Hi Max. I sent the body to Douglas for analysis. Ask Hannah what the next stage is."
"Good work, Zero, and she says Metal Shark Player."
"What, he's a pimp? Get the coordinates, NPC."
"Will do."
888
It was Zero's first encounter with a compressor stage.
"I'm too pretty to be squashed!"
"But you sent X through acid rain to get his armour!"
"Send him back!"
"Bah. You brought this on yourself."
Groaning, Zero hopped in the mobile armour suit that only lasted until the end of the corridor.
"Why don't they give this thing flight capability?"
Abandoning the short-lived aid, he climbed down the ladder to face an even longer corridor.
"Oh, great. So I have to rescue those reploids from Nightmare tentacle rate at the peril of being flattened?"
"You signed up for this job. Nobody forced you to."
"Sigma KO'd me and had me brought to Doctor Cain!"
"Kwitcherbitchin' and save them!"
"Fine, you old nag."
"WHAT did you jus…"
Click. Zero loved the Off button.
It was quickly established that this, being a factory, had oil waste on the floor.
"My hair! But I'll be crushed if I don't duck! Damn it! I hate making choices! This is supposed to be a simple side scroller!"
Condemning his hair to brush along the ground, Zero ducked. Just beyond the next obstacle was a Nightmare slowly drifting towards a helpless reploid.
"Oi geez. You can't even move?" Zero called.
"But I'll be crushed!" she whined.
"You prefer tentacle rape?"
"This isn't an animated Japanese porn flick!"
"But this is Japan."
Motivated by fear of the stereotype, she clawed along the conveyor belt, dragging her injured leg behind her. The Nightmare was not designed to move faster than the speed of smell, so she was safe long enough for Zero to wait out the compressor, then come over to slash the thing apart.
"There you go. I really should organize self-help classes."
"You spurred me on with the fear of rape!"
"And you didn't get crushed. What's your point?"
"Chauvinistic bastard!"
"You know you love me."
She teleported out with a grimace. Zero laughed and continued. These newbies/noobs/nooblets did not understand the simple concept of 'getting out of the way so as to avoid zombification by very slow Nightmare'. And they wondered why they were the laughingstock of the more experienced Hunters. At least they found upgrade parts, and refilled some of his energy, otherwise he wouldn't have bothered. After all, reploids were little less mass-produced than humans, and he felt no kindred for anyone but X.
Towards the end of the stage was another blue portal.
"Didn't I kill Hi Max already?"
Shrugging, he explored. Purple garage doors and then…
"Dynamo!"
The black and white rogue smirked, tossing his snow white hair with a flick of the wrist.
"Miss me?"
"Like a virus. What are you..."
"Collecting Nightmare Souls."
"For what purpose?"
"What do all men fight for? Power!"
With that sweeping generalization, he attempted to throw purple spinning things at the Red Ripper who disdained them with cuts from his saber.
"Dynamo, you copy X's affinity for projectiles and my affinity for blades. Would you conjure up some originality before trying to take me on?"
"You wound me! How about this?"
Dynamo punched the floor, and a curtain of electric beams seared the area. Zero danced out of the way.
"Heck, you punch the floor like me, too. I've been doing that since the second war!"
"Bah!"
Zero cycled through his weapons until he found one that made Dynamo grunt with surprise and flinch.
"Aha! So you're weak to the Ensuizan!"
"The what?"
"The spin attack from Rainy Turtloid!"
"Ahh! Get it away!"
Dynamo jumped out of the way. He left behind a floating, green, pulsating sphere.
"Oooh. What's this?"
"Don't touch my Nightmare Soul!"
Disregarding the weaker robot, Zero laid hands on it.
Purple fire.
Dynamo took steps backward until he hit the wall.
"You… you're not supposed to glow!"
Zero, and yet not Zero, turned his head. His emerald eyes… and disturbing grin… radiated a feral gleam.
"Eeesh. I told you not to touch it…"
888
"I'm getting a report from Douglas!" Alia announced, "He says he analyzed Hi Max's data, and found the location of Gate's Lab!"
"No!" X yelled, "I only have two pieces of the Shadow! I want the rest before I go there!"
"Why? You can end this right now!" Signas protested.
"Do you know what the trend is for final areas? SPIKES! And Dad said the Shadow can walk and jump on them! I'm not going there without my spike insurance!"
"You just want to look cool," Hannah summarized.
"That too!"
"Immature," Alia murmured, "Hey, why hasn't Zero come back yet?"
"That stage lasted more than ten minutes," Hannah related, "Longest exercise of holding the Down button to avoid being flat. I hate that place."
"Oh. We'll wait a bit longer."
"What about his signal? Can't you track him?" Signas offered. Alia did so, and reared back.
"He's gone."
"Gone?" X echoed.
"Off the map. Unless he's left the solar system, his signal's jammed."
"Oh boy. Last time that happened, he was…"
"Infected," X finished Hannah's observation, "You said he was in the factory area?"
A beep sounded on Alia's headgear.
"HQ Command! Come in!"
"Go ahead, transporter NPC."
"Dynamo's just transported here, and he's going crazy!"
"More than usual?" X wondered, but Alia ordered, "Call Lifesaver!"
"Will do!"
As one, the four of them left the command centre.
888
"D'ahh!"
"Secure him!"
In sick bay, Lifesaver's burly assistants held down the frantic bishounen long enough for Lifesaver to activate the restraining field. Reploids, with their tremendous strength, cannot be held by tangible restraints without damaging themselves. Lifesaver walked around the table while Dynamo, held immobile, could only follow with his gaping eyes.
"Y-y-y-y-y-you have to get r-r-r-r-r-rid of the v-v-v-v-v-v-virus!"
"Max Headroom infected you?" Hannah quipped. Lifesaver confirmed the data by medical computer.
"Nightmare Zero Virus. Insertion by beam saber," he indicated the mark across Dynamo's chest plate, "Inoculation required."
"N-n-n-n-n-no sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-it!"
"Beam saber?" X worried.
"Lots of Mavericks have beam-type blades, Lifesaver was making a generalization," Signas stated. X leaned over Dynamo.
"Who did this?"
"Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Zero!"
"Generalization, eh? I'm going!"
"You don't have any armour!" Alia warned.
"And whose fault is that? I'll contact you when I see him!"
Lifesaver charged the restraining field with antivirus. Dynamo's scream followed X to the transporter room.
888
The compressors were stopped. The factory was dead dark.
"No whirring generators, no music, not even cries for help."
"Creepy," Alia acknowledged, "You have the Virus Buster installed?"
"Since the last war. You can't get Zero's signal?"
"No, but there're two energy readings in Metal Shark's room."
"On my way."
X hated dark places. Although his ocular units adjusted, the oppressive silence and loneliness caused his artificial emotions to expect dire things. Bypassing the blue portal, X climbed down a ladder.
"X, that leads nowhere."
"No such thing as a dead end… hello? What's this huge pit doing here?"
"X! Nightmares!"
"I see them," he said, and did something about it, "Zero missed these. That means something's here."
"What kind of logic is that?"
"Alia, why else would there be a pit in the middle of a factory?"
"A plothole?"
"No! To protect something. I'm going over."
"What about Zero?"
"I'm sure that Shark Player's entertaining him. He can wait two minutes."
For some reason, there were crates stacked on the edge of the pit. Using Ground Dash, X knocked the things into a stairway formation. Standing on top, further over the edge of doom, he said famous last words.
"Here goes nothing!"
"It's too far!"
"BANZAI!"
Using all the boost his dash could muster, X took flight over the pit.
"Yaaah!"
His hand caught the edge of the other side!
"Phew."
"Idiot! You could have been killed!"
"Stop telling me how to do my job!"
Hauling himself up, an armour capsule greeted him.
"Please, please be a piece of the Shadow!"
Dr. Light flickered into existence.
"The legs, actually."
X pumped his arms.
"YES!"
"Just one question… how are you going to get back the way you came?"
"Um, duh?"
After retrieving that armour part, X braced his back against the armour capsule and dug his heels into the ground.
"Nnngh!"
"Don't strain yourself, X!"
"Dad, why are you so heavy?"
"Huh! I will not stand here and be insulted."
Dr. Light vanished, and along with it, the weight. X nudged the capsule into position and hopped on top.
"Here goes nothing, again! Waaah!"
His boots connected with the side of the most jutting crate and he kicked to safety.
"Phew! One more piece to go!"
"This is Alia, I have a status update. There's only one energy reading now."
Elation evaporated.
"Thanks for making me twice as scared."
Resuming the corridor, he continued along his solitary path. The reploids Zero was supposed to rescue lay in pieces… beside their Nightmare captors.
"Well, at least the stage is easy."
Alia didn't grace his futile grasp at optimism with a reply. Through the garage doors filtered a bright light…
"X. Always rushing into things unprepared."
"Zero."
The Red Ripper sat upon a throne of junk, its former king in ribbons on the floor. Purple flames licked around the room, like chained ghosts straining for release.
"That warning signal is finally gone. I hear nothing but blissful silence when I kill."
"This is not who you are!"
"This is who I want to be. Someone without a voice in his head. Someone who knows power without doubt."
"Such a person would be a fool! Anyone who wields power without heeding the consequences will never prosper!"
"Falling back on your Boy Scout philosophy, I see."
The King rose from his throne.
"I'm not for words."
"I understand. I'll blast that thing out of you!"
"That's what I find funny about you, X. The moment things don't go your ideal pacifist way you come out shooting!"
"Evil triumphs when good people don't act!" he quoted.
"Whether or not there are good people, evil triumphs."
Zero opened with his usual arm cannon barrage. X flew backward, kicked off the wall and, true to Zero's comment, came out shooting. Zero erred on the side of caution and dashed away rather than deflecting, allowing X to come at him with his beam saber.
"Oh, please."
They clashed once before Zero spun and kicked X away.
"You're awful at melee combat."
X fired. Zero grinned and vanished.
"Huh?"
KZASH!
"AHH!"
Blistering pain in his back!
"How?" X demanded, jumping out of the way. Zero held his red Z-Saber assassin style, blade running along his arm rather than facing away from it.
"Extreme speed. Colonel had it. I can copy it."
"Only possible with a blade," X recalled, "Because an arm cannon's recoil would slow down movement."
"You know much. But can you do anything?"
Zero vanished again. Knowing what was going to happen, X listened for the hum of the Z-Saber. When it came – and his reflexes were fast enough – he ducked under the slash, spinning with the momentum of the dodge, reached for his own beam saber and blazed a scar across Zero's chest. It was more than a wound, however, as Zero and his aura convulsed.
"Argh! You put antivirus in your saber, too?"
"You taught me that in the third war! I'm only copying the Zero I know!"
"Damn you!"
Zero teleported out. X tapped into his communicator.
"Get me out of here."
Before Alia complied, X touched the remains of Metal Shark Player to gain that Investigator's special ability.