Chapter 26 - First Aid Kits

X watched as 32 crept back into the room where the stasis pods were located and acquired his detached arm. He came back into the room where X was and began to reattach it, fixing up the shorted components while coupling the broken wires between the base of the shoulder and top of the arm.

'Well.. The fun is over for now.. I should go check up on PX..'

X heaved himself away from the wall and exited the small room, his metallic feet clanking their way all the way down the hall. He turned down a hallway and made his way to where the door was located on the floor.

32 glanced up from his work, noticing that X was gone. He tapped the keyboard in front of him with his good hand, checking the scanners. The external one had suddenly gone off. It was about a mile away from the entrance to the base, so someone was coming back.

"Not now of all times, dammit.."

He spun around in the chair and finished the repairs quick, doing a shoddy job of it. He returned to the stasis room and snatched up his hammer, using his good arm to swing it and setting it up on top of his good shoulder as well. He stood a few feet from the door, making sure he was invisible to anyone that passed.

Franco's buster exploded with energy, sending shrapnel all around him as he took a point-blank shot at the door. It had been locked and coded from the inside and he couldn't get it open, the only way in was to blow it open. He stepped through it gingerly, making sure to not bump Bread Man's body into the sharp, broken edges of the door.

'The labs have always been downstairs.. I hope that they haven't remodeled since the deactivation!'

He leapt down the staircase, landing in a cloud of dust at the bottom of the first flight of stairs. Bread Man's body teetered a bit, so he readjusted his body, taking another leap and landing down in the basement, a much larger cloud of dust and dirt exploding from contact with the floor. Franco started coughing, using his free hand to cover his mouth.

"Ugh.. This place needs a maid."

X walked slowly down the corridors, his eyes wandering about the structures about him, yet he didn't see anything. His eyes just roamed. He closed his eyes and stood in the middle of the hallway, making no movement whatsoever.

'It was only a few hours ago that I was in that stasis pod.. Only a few hours ago, that I didn't know what was going on.. A few hours ago, I was fighting X1.. This is going to take some getting used to. It was always, mission after mission, with rarely any breaks between..'

He opened his eyes once more and began walking down the halls. He stopped and turned to the right, walking up to the broken down silver door. He paused for a moment and stared at the fallen door. He crouched down and hefted it up, leaning against the wall to the right of the doorway, letting it tilt there.

'I wonder if PX is completely repaired yet.. Only one way to find out.'

He walked into the dimly lit room and stopped a few feet from the pods, staring at the pod he had put PX in. It was now empty. He swept his eyes about the room and stopped them on a shadowed form a few inches from him.

"PX."

"Hello X."

PX stepped out of the shadows and into the dim green light of the pods. He stared down at himself, while X did the same, both of them were slightly baffled by the 'upgrade' that PX was supposed to have received while in the pod.

"More like a downgrade.."

"Maybe it gave you something new?"

PX's form was the same as it always had been, it was the same structure and design as his original form. His helmet was more aerodynamic to his head now, more than it used to be, and the design on the helmet's front was slightly altered. His armor was now back to the normal colors, where the armor was red and the carbon suit was grey. The golden stripes across the front of his carbon suit were gone, as well as the stripe on his chest plate. His belt had returned around his waist and about his neck was the golden scarf he hadn't word for years. PX reached back and unlatched the shield on his back, putting it between X and him.

"Dr. Light turned you back into who you really are."

"Proto Man X."

"The Lencin Armor is damaged beyond repair.. Or so I'm told."

"Lencin Armor?"

"What I was in when you put me in the pod.. It was an armor I had designed while protecting you. It was in case my normal body was destroyed."

"Ah.. It did it's job well then."

"Short-lived usage. Maybe I can get it back later."

"Maybe."

"..."

"..."

"Well, this is a lovely conversation."

PX smirked and then nodded. X turned and exited the room, with PX following. Both of them left Axl within the pod, not activating it. X walked off down the hallway as PX stopped in front of the door, placing it back into place. He set his hand over the small panel at the top and the door resealed, the locks reinserting themselves, despite the door's broken condition.

32 completed the repairs on his arm while waiting for the intruder to come into the lab, or anywhere near the lab, so that he could jump out and get him without being spotted. He thinned his lips and began to breathe slowly, letting his breath out in small wisps. He curled his fingers tighter about the haft of his hammer, taking it into both hands.

Franco ran down the hallway as quick as he could. He looked into every room he passed and was getting nowhere. He had already checked four rooms and not one of them had been a lab, all of them seemed to be personal quarters for Hunters and Scientists.

'Dammit! Where are you 32!?'

He stopped in front of the fifth door and opened it. He smiled widely as the door opened, revealing the room to be a laboratory. He ran into the room and stopped in his tracks, a loud crack of metal against metal resounded in the room.

"Ugh!"

Franco fell over forward, Bread Man's body falling limp from his shoulders. 32's hammer slid out from underneath Franco's form, which was now in the fetal position. He was gasping in pain as 32's eyes moved from the injured Franco to the limp form of Bread Man. Neither of them notice Enzan run into the lab, standing in the doorway, he gasped loudly

"SHIT!"

X and PX hadn't heard the noise of 32's hammer slamming into Franco's gut. Nor had they seen Enzan run into the lab, or yell. They had finally gotten to the hallway where 32's laboratory was located and X opened the door and stopped just inside of the room.

"I wonder where he went.."

"X."

"Yeah?"

X turned around and saw PX kneeling down by the doorway, there were new marks on the floor. They were of sneakers and much larger ones were around it. PX also pointed to a large wiped area that continued for a little bit and then disappeared.

"Enzan, 32, and someone else left. They were dragging something, and then picked it up."

"Follow it?"

"Follow it."

They turned away from the lab and ran back down the hallway they had just come, the lab door slid closed behind X as he left the room. PX watched the floor, making sure they didn't bypass the door to where the three other people had went to. He slid to a stop in front of a door and X opened it up. They look in and find 32, the human kid Enzan, a critically damaged Reploid laying on a table, and a Reploid that looks sort of like Zero, but completely different.

32 turned to the door and motioned them in. He placed X up on the table beside that of the critically damaged Reploid. X got a better look and saw that he had a hole about the size of a softball all the way through his chest.

"I'll get to you in a minute, X, I'm going to repair you. It shouldn't take me to long, I doubt there is any internal damage."

Enzan was on the opposite side of the room with a table that had wheels. He was grabbing random instruments from the cabinets and drawers, setting them down on the table. He spun the table around and pushed it back to where it was right between the two tables. PX moved out of the way and sat on an unused table on the other side of the room. Franco joined him on that side, leaning against the wall right next to the table.

"I'll need some help, aside from you Enzan.. Aasterinian," 32 spoke toward where PX and Franco were.

The wall behind PX and Franco split open and slid apart, a female figure stepping through into the florescent lighting of the medical bay. She was adorned in a dark blue dress that hung all the way down her and touched the tops of her shoe-shaped boots, the dress accentuating her bust. Enzan stared for a moment and then shook his head.

'Whoever made her was a pervert..'

She lifted her right hand up and pushed her aqua-green hair out of her face, turning her attention toward 32, who was waiting patiently between the two tables. X had laid down on the table and was relaxing.

"Do you require some assistance, doctor?" Enzan noted that her voice held a musical tone to it.

The pod room where Axl was gleamed a little brighter for a moment, before his pod began to shift on its stand. Axl's eyes had suddenly shot open and it seemed like he was drowning in the restorative liquid that all Reploids are placed in during repair. He slammed his fists into the glass multiple times, beginning to break it. The glasses suddenly ruptured and he went tumbling out upon the floor. He gasped heavily, spitting out the light green liquid.

"Horrible.. Horrible nightmare.. Sigma.. Back.."

His eyes rolled up into the back of his head and he toppled over forward, laying flat against the floor, his systems switching off and putting him into an automatic repair of his entire system. His programming had thought something had been corrupted and immediately went into fixing it. They would find nothing.