Chapter 3
Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.
Her training held no triumphant celebration once it had concluded. There was no 'well done', nor any type of compliment. Instead, immediately upon entering the helicopter her future was decided for her once again. This time, on the transport chopper that same foul human that had tortured her so was waiting for her.
"Girlie, you've completed your final test and now you can be of some use." He stated without preamble, lightly tossing a familiar remote in one hand.
Fear gripped her heart, but she said nothing, instead stared straight ahead impassively.
"You'll be going to the Irregular division in the southeastern Russian Province, and you'll be assigned missions by High Command, in other words, anyone I say you'll obey, you'll do so."
Her jaw clenched slightly, the hatred for this man more intense than ever before.
"Yes sir." Rokko stated, managing to keep her rage in check, primarily because of that foul remote in the man's hand.
I am no mere machine!
Hate bubbled in her breast, filling her with an icy cold loathing for all of humanity. Humans were disgusting, yet here she was forced to clean up their messes. It was truly frustrating to deal with.
Thankfully, her new commander remained silent on the remainder of the trip, leaving Rokko X to her enraged thoughts. So much of her wanted to fire a shot and end the 'commander' before they arrived. However, she was already well aware that that would only end her own life far too quickly.
She would live, and one day, these humans would either learn the errors of their ways, or she'd fix every wrong against her people. For those lives she had taken, and for all the innocent blood spilt… She would live.
Finally, the large craft descended onto the roof of a complex, and the door slid open. Stepping on the helipad, Rokko X was able to see her new 'home' for the first time. A clear blue sky greeted her even as the sun beat down, causing her to clench her eyes shut for a moment even as the blades of the helicopter slowly came to a stop.
"Get out." The gray uniformed commander ordered.
Nodding once, Rokko X stepped out, feeling a gentle breeze caress her face. The air itself was cool, crisp, and… clean. If she needed to breathe, this would have been one atmosphere she would not have complained about breathing in…
Shaking her head, she quickly strode away from the helicopter until she was able to look about.
Her new 'home' was an intricate complex of eight buildings, and a gate to the south. To the west of the gate a grove of trees resided, probably so that the humans in the complex had a place to relax. The various buildings each had a different height, size, and layout. To her left, a single doorway stood in solitude, leading down to the main part of the building itself.
"Move it!" Her commander barked, not giving her time to continue her observances, indicating the doorway.
Rokko Didn't bother to nod again, but instead headed for it, and down the stairs. One, two, three… Ten flights later, she made it to the ground floor. She entered a small room off the main hall where cleaning supplies were kept, just to hear the commander behind her back for her to enter the main hallway.
Once in the main hall, she waited for the aged man to arrive.
"Alright, here's the thing. You're really a waste of my time, so I'm going to be turning you over to Cobalt Wolf."
A waste of time he says…
Her rage bubbled once more, but she kept it to herself, deciding not to reply.
"Damn Machine, you've already forgotten to respect your superiors haven't you?" The man spat, glaring at her.
Gritting her teeth, she responded after a moment's pause.
"No… Sir."
"That's better." He crossed his arms, smirking at her smugly as the elevator on the northern edge of the hall opened, revealing a wolf-like reploid with a set of three silvery claws on each hand that flickered with both red and blue hues.
Crimson eyes set upon Rokko X, and it drew her attention away from the human as the reploid approached.
Cobalt Wolf towered over Rokko, nearly eight feet tall and so broad that she wouldn't be able to enter any doors beside the reploid. The wolf reploid had an air of command, making her realize that this was not someone she wanted to cross.
"So you're the new girl." Cobalt's voice was deep and rough, as if each word was created by gargling nails.
"Yes sir." She had been reminded of 'her manners' from the human's chiding.
"Forget the formality with me. I'm the commander of the tenth unit, but my team and I tend to get shuffled about so much that ranks don't matter much." He replied gruffly before he turned his savage eye upon the human.
"If there's nothing else, I'll be taking the rookie about and showing her the ropes."
"Just get out of here." He replied quickly, waving a white gloved hand imperiously.
Cobalt nodded and quickly led Rokko south, through the automatic doors to the outside, his white furry tail flicking about lazily every few steps.
"So, Rokko X, was it?" He asked, and without waiting for her response he continued, "Welcome to hell."
Rokko quickly caught up to him, and glanced up at the much larger reploid.
"That bad huh?" She asked, not really that surprised.
He nodded faintly, his weariness so great that she could almost feel it pressing down upon both of them.
"We basically exist to do all the dirty work. If a reploid gets out of line, we terminate them. It's that simple." Brushing off his padded hands, he began the tour.
"Right then, to the south is the exit, not that we'll ever use it. It's only for the humans, and a reploid caught trying to leave the complex is deemed AWOL immediately. Don't try to escape if you want to live." He nodded at the seven foot tall chain link fence.
So far, nothing had surprised her. Save for how… Nice the complex was.
"There is one thing bothering me though; why is this place so… Nice?" She asked, raising an eyebrow at the well trimmed lawns.
Cobalt laughed bitterly.
"It's for the human forces on HQ. We reploids aren't the only individuals in the Irregulars. In fact, almost all the supporting roles, and high command are all human. There's even some Irregular Hunter Humans; formerly special forces mostly."
Rokko's expression contorted in confusion.
What the…
"Sounds insane doesn't it? To be fair, they're not used most the time, but if something happens, there's some humans to deal with reploids that get too out of bounds… Including the reploid irregular hunters themselves. Still, most of them humans are snipers and scouts, and they leave the dying to us." Cobalt explained.
Well, that made a bit more sense to the huntress.
"Anyway, west of the gate is a place for humans to rest and relax in nature. Their writers and poets and such like to recover there. Sometimes their psychiatrists help their patients there too. Needless to say, we're not invited."
Again, Rokko found nothing surprising so far.
Then, Cobalt pointed to a small building just south and a little to the west of them.
"If you, or any of your allies are wounded, that building is for repairs. Of course, don't be surprised if they don't have the supplies you need to save a comrade. New Irregular Hunters are constantly replacing our casualties after all."
Rokko nodded once more, remembering her experiences with training, and how wounded reploids were casually discarded and recycled with little care or respect for the individual.
Over the next few hours, Rokko X was shown about. She learned that there was a hangar for ride armors; a type of large humanoid tank like armor that only humans were authorized to use, a prison complex, two command centers, quarters for them, and a large hospital devoted to taking care of human injuries.
"So there you have it." Cobalt finished as he led her to the main highway once again.
Rokko nodded before she asked yet another question.
"Why are there two command centers?" She asked, feeling that it was both redundant and inefficient for them to do that.
Wolf rubbed his hand against the left side of his muzzle, his fingers scratching just beneath his closed eye.
"The first command center is for the reploid navigators and commanders. The second is for the human commanders. It also doubles as quarters for all humans… Which is why it's so damn large."
"That was a stupid design choice if I ever heard of one." Rokko observed.
"Preachin' to the choir Rokko, preachin' to the choir."
Crimson eyes met blue and for once, Rokko managed a small smile. Perhaps things were looking up.
Thankfully for her, the rest of the day passed in relative silence. However, that night, around three or so in the morning, a warning alarm blared, forcing her to wake and with the other Irregular Hunters sprint to the Reploid Command Center on the opposite side of the main highway.
Entering the domed structure for the second time, Rokko X fell in beside the other hunters. Some of them were much larger than herself, (such as Wolf), while others were much, much shorter. (Most notably a twitchy mouse like reploid.) In turn, the hunters were a relatively motley bunch of seemingly random reploids, with X being one of the more 'normal' individuals.
The ranks were silent, standing still as they waited for the commander to make his way to the central platform. Again, she saw him, and her blood boiled.
"Alright scrap heaps, you've got a mission tonight. A rampaging mechaniloid is tearing apart Neo Tokyo. Worse yet the damn thing was designed to support our soldiers in war. As you can imagine, that means it's armed to the teeth and has a ton of armor." The officer waved his hand at the screen behind him, summoning a schematic of the weapon.
Twenty or so feet tall, and four tank tread feet. It had a series of cameras nestled beside two powerful lasers that could be adjusted by the mechaniloid at will. Worse yet, it had an appendage designed for grabbing, crushing, and knocking buildings down to help clear enemy forces quicker still.
"The Mechaniloid also has a pair of vulcan cannons on each leg, allowing it to hit infantry units while the lasers focus on enemy armor." The commander added quickly, pointing out the offending weapons.
"The vulcans fire magnetically charged eighty millimeter rounds. Because of that, the rounds move at subsonic speeds. They're designed to tear through armor like it's butter, so don't get shot if you want to live. You are to mobilize and head to point alpha 13. Rokko X, you're to go in via teleportation and attack the mechaniloid before the others and delay the machine until the rest of the hunters are able to make it to the battle. Furthermore, you're to try to lead it to Alpha 13."
"Understood." The huntress agreed before the Irregulars broke up.
"Drew the short straw today eh?" A thin and gangly reploid asked her as she headed to the transporter.
Rokko shrugged, indifferently.
"Cold 'roid eh? Guess I'd be a bit cold if I was told to die too." The reploid conceded before turning and heading for the armory.
She weaved through several corridors before finally arriving in the server room.
Two pink haired navigational reploids with visors covering their faces manned the navigational computers, leaving her to simply head to the center of the room where she'd be teleported to the field of battle. While she herself had been installed with a teleport system, it took a great deal of energy for her to connect to the satellite network, and then be 'beamed' to the correct spot. Instead, it'd be better for the base to do that for her, for at least the first teleportation.
"Dropping you into the battle in three… Two… One…" One of the buxom navigators announced.
Matter displacement and reassembly was an awkward process as suddenly appearing somewhere else was disorienting. It was one of the major reasons drop ships, helicopters, transport planes, and warships were still used for transporting soldiers.
She'd arrived in absolute chaos. A dozen or so skyscrapers had been crushed, and bodies littered the ground. It smelled of death. Smoke had filled the air, and a thick layer of dust mingled with it, decreasing visibility to nearly zero.
The mechaniloid had certainly done a number to the humans and reploids in the city. A low rumble however drew her attention from the field and toward a quartet of glowing red lights about eight feet above her.
It was her only warning before a barrage of automatic fire began. She quickly ducked under a slab of duracrete, but it was only a matter of a minute or so before the sheer number of high velocity rounds would tear it apart.
She didn't have a lot of options unfortunately. Diving out was begging for a death sentence, popping up was almost as bad, and staying where she was was also suicide.
She only had one chance. She needed to destroy the cameras and then pelt it with shots to draw it to Alpha 13. She quickly charged her buster, seeing chunks of duracrete explode here and there only made her focus more intently. She'd only have one chance at this, and so she'd have to do this right.
Three… Two… One… Quickly standing, she aimed her charged buster at the glowing lights and then, even as a few 80 MM rounds passed close beside her she fired a single charged shot directly at the mechaniloid.
Disabling its cameras had been essential, and meant that she didn't have to worry about it tracking her and taking her out with concentrated fire. However, there was no time to be standing about celebrating. Angered at the loss of its cameras, the mechaniloid began firing its lasers, and cannons in a rage, trying to hit the nuisance that had taken its eyes. X had to duck to avoid a powerful laser strike that sliced another skyscraper in half, causing the large building to fall with a mighty roar. More dust, more debris, and more smoke. In the distance Rokko could hear a few more screams. This mechaniloid had already done millions, if not billions in damage already.
She was going to end it before the rest of the company arrived. Scaling a ruined wall, Rokko carefully picked a path that led her to the top of a still (if barely) standing skyscraper and charged her buster a second time. Then, after taking careful aim, fired a shot at the joint piece of the mechaniloid's long crushing arm. To her surprise, the attack wasn't enough, forcing her to leap off the building to dodge an incoming laser barrage. As she slid down the wall, she charged her buster again, once more waiting till she had a clear shot at the arm's joint.
A third shot, and finally the arm fell off, leaving the enemy a little less dangerous.
"If I need to I'll take you apart piece by piece." She muttered as her weapon charged yet another shot.
Slowly, over the next fifteen minutes she was as a surgeon in an operating room. Shot-by-shot, and slice-by-slice she disabled a bit more of the berserk Irregular. Then, at long last, one of her multiple attacks to the same armored spot finally saw its way through, and to the energy reactor, causing the entire weapon to explode.
It was over.
"Rokko X to HQ. Mechaniloid is destroyed, repeat, mechaniloid is terminated."
She was greeted with silence before a voice on the other end answered.
"What the hell do you mean it's destroyed?"
Rokko winced, recognizing the voice.
"As in the mechaniloid's energy core was hit, causing it to explode… Sir."
"The hell…?" He muttered to himself on open comms.
However, he was interrupted by one of the navigators joining in on the communication line.
"Weapon destruction confirmed. Mission Complete. All units can Return To Base."
She would live for another day, live to fight, live to kill, and exist in hell for a while more. Quickly, she shook her head of the thought, reminded just how pointless all of this was.
"Returning to base." She announced before doing just that.
Another few weeks passed before her next mission began. A borderline irregular named Vile had gotten into trouble again, and she had been tasked with bringing him back in. This time, she was to work with Cobalt Wolf, someone she'd come to understand to some degree.
It took some time to track the high grade reploid as he proved to be much smarter than the average sniper joe. They tracked him threw Moscow, London, and Madrid alike until they finally caught up with him in Berlin.
He'd taken to a small pub where he'd picked fights with the server reploids. Nothing too extreme, but enough to warrant an arrest.
Her orders had been clear, that Vile was not to be killed, as strange as it sounded to her.
Rokko quietly leaned her back against the stone wall, Cobalt Wolf about a block to the east of her. He'd move in after she got the drop on him. His large size meant that sneaking up on an alert reploid was hard, and he'd be best used pursuing him should Vile get away from Rokko X. Rokko X breathed a handful of simulated breaths, mostly to keep track of time before she kicked the door down, and nearly lost her head to an attack from Vile's cannon.
The irregular was armed to the teeth with a shoulder mounted cannon, fingers with built in machine guns, and a leg system that could fire a variety of bombs and napalms, and explosives. Worse yet, he was rumored to have a high powered flame thrower built into his chest unit.
Quickly she rushed in, dodging Vile's barrage of finger shots, before finally drawing close enough to kick his helmeted face, sending the irregular flying through the stone wall, and into the street.
Immediately, she dashed after him, not giving him a moment's rest before stomping on his cannon, crushing the end of it. At the same time, she aimed directly at his head, buster glowing with charged plasma.
"Move and you die." Rokko warned coldly.
Realizing he'd lost, Vile froze, and Rokko beckoned for her partner to approach.
"Nicely done Rokko." Wolf observed a nearly feral grin on his face as he pulled out a pair of handcuffs and secured them around the irregular's wrists.
Unlike typical metal ones that humans used, these were a special type of handcuffs that drained most of the energy from a reploid, and storing it, forcing the reploid to operate on a tiny fraction of its total power. Furthermore, the more stress the unit put on the handcuffs, the more energy it absorbed, so if a prisoner were to try breaking them, it would literally suck all of their energy out of them, leaving them helpless anyway.
When a reploid was to be released, the cuffs were given an authorization code that reversed the flow, allowing their wearers to have their energy back. Then, once this process was complete, the handcuffs would fall off naturally.
Once the cuffs were secured on their prisoner they waited a good seven minutes, to give the cuffs time to absorb Vile's energy before Wolf lifted him up and tossed the irregular over his shoulder.
"Vile, if I have to come after you again, I'll kill you." Rokko warned.
"Yeah right, you don't have-" At that, Vile managed to glance at Rokko's cold, unforgiving expression.
She would kill him if she ever pursued him again.
"Cobalt to HQ, we've secured Vile."
"Understood Commander, we'll be performing recall in three… two… one…"
Well, another chapter finally posted. Hope people enjoy the third installment into Rokko X's journey. I'd like to thank those that have given me their input thus far. Hopefully, those of us that still write Mega Man Fanfiction can inspire others to do so while we're at it! And yes, if you've noticed a trend of slowly increasing chapter size, I wouldn't be too surprised if that remains a trend for a while.
Update: For some reason this stupid site doesn't transfer italics over right, so I had to fix. Fun.