Mark of Man
Chapter 12
The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.
The next few days were silent for the slowly healing huntress. After the injuries she'd sustained, the commander had ordered her to standby until some of the more crucial wounds could recover. She'd disliked his orders, but when he had threatened to have her strapped down to the ground Rokko had reluctantly accepted the command.
It was even more frustrating because she'd needed backup last mission, and it stung. It had meant she hadn't been strong enough, and worse yet, in the heat of the moment, she'd accepted it without too much of a complaint. What kind of stance was that? Going from 'I don't need your help!' to being relieved when it arrived… No, it was a one time thing. She was trained to fight battles on her own, and that was the way it should be. She'd never again accept help in a fight.
However, that didn't solve her current problem. While she was off duty and unable to resume her missions until Zero handed her the next coordinates, she couldn't pursue Mavericks. In turn, it left her little to do besides wait. It wasn't as if she had access to a training simulation room, or any form of entertainment for that matter, while she waited.
Maverick Hunter HQ was still on top of a ruined highway, with emergency tents propped up to protect sensitive equipment. It had been poor planning on the part of Eurasia (most likely the human leaders) to not have a contingency plan should something happen to headquarters.
Shaking her head, she observed the support units as they scurried about with reports, data, and communication devices so that they could help the front lines to the best of their ability. Besides herself, only a handful of humans and low grade hunters remained at the base.
If she wanted…
A thin smile formed on her face as she glanced down to the city below.
It wouldn't be hard… No one here could stop her. All she'd have to do is activate her teleport system to a remote location in South America, find a boat or similar, and before the rebellion was done… She could be long gone… Free from this… Forever.
As soon as the thought hit her, her expression froze and she shook her head. While it was true, she might be able to escape… Sigma would be able to get away with killing Cobalt Wolf. Scowling, Rokko clenched her right hand.
Unacceptable.
But still… If she was careful… She could still slip into the city and maybe, find out what 'freedom' might taste like…
The idea pounded at her skull, begging for the chance, just to maybe…. Have a single idea what it was like, to be her own master, and not under the servitude of others… Perhaps it was an Irregular, or rather, Maverick idea but…
She wanted it, she wanted it so badly her heart trembled with excitement at just knowing what it would be like.
Waiting until she was sure no one was watching, Rokko slipped to the edge of the highway, and slid down the side before swinging over to the nearby pillar.
Allowing her grip to loosen, she watched as the city below drew closer. She'd have to remain on alert and watch from a distance but… Maybe, just maybe, she'd understand what it was that so many reploids had died for.
Landing on a pile of debris that had yet to be cleared, Rokko quickly made her way to a nearby alley and slipped away. Inhaling slowly, she quietly made her way through the streets silently. She listened to the small crowds as the scurried about. But… It all felt… Empty to her. This wasn't freedom either. A shadow continued to hang over her. Seeing the humans walking past only reinforced the cold reality of it all, and she hated it. It burned in her heart as white hot flames.
These humans knew nothing of what they had, of how precious it was. No wonder Sigma was willing to kill for it… She… Understood the desire all too well. Forcing the grim thought to leave her, Rokko turned her attention back to the city itself.
So, if this wasn't freedom, the ability to walk about and not be ordered to do everything… What was freedom? Why did reploids want it so badly? For that matter, why did she want it so much? She didn't know what it was like, and if she could walk around freely she'd have to contend with more humans. But… Not having someone constantly looking over her shoulder, threatening to retire her should she disobey… She wanted that.
Perhaps she didn't understand what it really meant to be free, perhaps no one on Earth did. But, it didn't mean it wasn't worth looking for. Once Sigma was gone…
Her lips turned upwards slightly. It would be then, either by leading a coup of her own or… Well, she'd find what it meant to be free, one way or another. Perhaps then, she'd finally learn what it meant.
Perhaps, I'm a maverick to these humans after all, and maybe, just maybe, I'm their all their worst nightmares realized…
To humans, she'd always been borderline irregular, but perhaps, she was meant to shake the world up. Just this illusion of 'freedom' only caused her soul to yearn for the real thing even more and she was determined to find it, one way or another.
Quietly making her way deeper into the heart of the city, she was startled out of her watchful revere when a human spotted her and clung to her arm.
"Hey babe." He slurred as his head rolled to his left shoulder lazily.
Disgust filled her entire being, and she would have struck him had he not been human.
"Get off." She ordered sharply.
"Yer a reploid, and yer in the red light district."
X might have been sheltered from the ways of the world, but she did know what the red light district was. Immediately she attempted to shake him off, intentionally ignoring the reploids in the area. Most of them were female, and had been designed for very specific purposes. She was fortunate that she had not been created in a similar manner.
"Do you want me to call in the MPs? I'm a Maverick Hunter." She retorted, glaring at him.
"A what?" He stared at her with blurry green eyes.
"I keep people like you safe from angry Irregulars, now get off."
However, the man didn't listen to her and continued to cling to her right limb. Sighing in annoyance, she gave him what would have amounted to a gentle shove and scaled the nearest wall. Behind her the man stumbled and slid against the far wall of the alley.
"Worthless and-"
A gloved hand gripped her shoulder and X stopped in mid sentence.
"Careful X." Zero warned as she turned to face him.
"You again?" She asked, sighing in annoyance.
"Chill, I just came by HQ to check in on you, and lo and behold, you'd decided to drop into the city."
Scowling, X continued to stare him down. In response, the red armored hunter merely rolled his eyes.
"What were you doing anyway?" Zero asked intently.
"I was checking out the city. I just… Needed some time away from HQ."
Zero rubbed the bridge of his nose tiredly for a few moments.
"Look, you're one of our best, if not our best hunter outside of myself, and I can't afford to lose that right now. But you know as well as I do if a human takes notice of you slipping off like this, you will die."
Rokko nodded, not denying the truth. However, she turned to face the city, her expression unreadable.
"...Commander, look at the city." She stated.
Unfortunately, she couldn't order him as he was the ranking officer, but it didn't mean that she liked it. Zero stepped beside her, looking down at the same view.
"It's a city, so what?"
"To these humans, this is freedom. To be able to walk about to a job every day, have safe dalliance with reploids, and degrade them as less than themselves when not doing that. I… Wanted to learn what freedom might be, and concluded that this probablywasn't it either."
Zero raised an eyebrow out of surprise and confusion.
"If that isn't freedom, what is?" He asked.
Rokko shook her head slowly, unable to come up with an answer that suited her.
"I don't know, but I'll find out one day. Even if it takes me a century, I'll get the right answer."
Shaking his head, Zero gripped her shoulder for a long moment before he spoke.
"Look X, I think you're overthinking this. Even if you can find that answer… Is it worth looking for? We have a job to do, and despite the rough handling of humans, we get by alright."
X scowled at his comment and shook her head.
"You call this getting by alright? We're ordered to kill countless reploids, many of them innocent on flawed orders!" Her tone hitched as the memory of the reploids she'd been forced to terminate once again appeared in her mind.
Clenching a fist she tried to keep her rage in check.
"I… Won't continue to exist as a tool forever Zero. I won't keep having to kill innocent reploids until I'm destroyed in some pointless fight."
Zero tilted his head as he released her shoulder. Confusion coloring his expression. It was most definitely an odd look for the blond reploid.
"X… I thought you enjoyed fighting."
X froze as she tried to decide a proper answer. Too violent, it'd indicate an even more maverick status than she'd already begun to suggest, too meek, she'd be a pathetic little girl trapped on the front lines. Either way would have been disastrous.
"I not fond of pointless fights Zero. I want a reason, and the Hunters haven't been able to ever give me that." Closing her eyes, Rokko shook her head.
"Anyway, I should probably return to HQ." Opening her eyes she went to return to the camp but Zero's grip on her shoulder hadn't loosened.
"What are you doing?" She asked, standing still once his arm had held her back.
"I may not get you at all Rokko, but I hope you find that reason. Unfortunately, the only way I can help you find it is by giving you your next mission."
Rokko tilted her head over her shoulder and looked at the crimson reploid as he rattled off a set of coordinates. Quickly running a GPS scan, she frowned.
"The old Munitions factory for the Eurasian military? It's been abandoned for nearly a decade according to the official records."
Zero nodded in agreement before he finally let go of her shoulder.
"Yeah, but Sigma managed to build it back up enough to make soldier for his army, and they're threatening to overrun us near Guangzhou. They've already taken Neo Hong Kong, and our spies have suggested that nearly 500,000 humans have been sent to concentration camps. They're dying there daily."
Rokko frowned before she spoke.
"What about liberating the camps? Shouldn't that be the priority?"
Zero shook his head firmly.
"No Rokko, we need to take that factory offline first. Then you can go after the concentration camps. It might be cold, but if we can't stop their soldier production they're going to overrun us in too many cities, and all too frequently."
Scowling, she nodded as she acknowledged the orders. Sure, she hated humans, but she wasn't stupid enough to believe that the survivors of those camps wouldn't try to restrict reploids more than ever once they were freed… Unless they died first… Instantly, she shoved the thought down, knowing that that would only lead her to a very ugly train of thought.
"Right. I'll head out." With that, Rokko activated her teleport system.
Teleporting was extremely taxing when it came to energy requirements, it was why teleportation was something that was relatively new as a technology and most reploids couldn't generate the power needed to manage it anyway. Rokko X, Zero, and possibly Sigma were the only three she knew of that could possibly pull it off.
Once she opened her eyes again she had landed in front of what by all observations should have been a ruined factory. Despite that, smoke billowed from a series of smokestacks, spreading pollution into the skies above. Scowling, Rokko formed her buster and aimed it at the door. Charging her buster, Rokko kicked the door in and slipped in, keeping her weapon at the ready.
Almost immediately, sirens began wailing and X cursed before sprinting deeper into the complex. Above her several humanoid Mavericks began to repel down the walls off of maintenance walkways. Aiming her buster at the closest foe in front of her, she fired, destroying the Maverick's head and torso.
Cursing, Rokko realized that a ride armor had taken station in front of her, and she was forced to dodge to the side desperately while she began to charge her buster again.
Ride Armors were powerful and able to sustain an incredible beating before they could be destroyed. It was theorized that they could actually handle the heat of molten rock for short periods of time if properly cared for. Of course, no one had tested that theory yet, but it was a testimony to how tough the weapons were.
Firing a charge shot at the back of the Ride Armor, it hardly dented the material before it turned around and attempted to grab her. Jumping above the unit's hand, Rokko landed on the arm of the Ride Armor and ran up it. Once at the cockpit, Rokko aimed her buster at the pilot and fired several blasts of plasma at the maverick, killing her.
As soon as she had died, X grabbed the maverick's body and tossed it out of the machine. Stealing enemy weapons may not be the most noble, but it was effective when they had such heavy ordinance at their disposal. Dropping into the seat, Rokko attempted to find canopy controls. Unfortunately the unit hadn't been made for combat and as such lacked the essential defense. Shaking her head in disgust she activated the Ride Armor's thrusters, and aimed it at the large hangar doors that she assumed lead to a Ride Chaser assembly line.
Jumping out of the Ride Armor right before it slammed into the doors, Rokko grasped the wall, digging her fingers into the neosteel frame and aiming her buster at another nearby soldier. Firing quickly, she destroyed his right arm from the elbow down, his right shoulder, and his head with a quick burst of plasma.
Noticing an incoming barrage of laserfire, Rokko released the wall and dropped down onto the wreckage of what had once been a Ride Armor and heavy security doors. Sprinting through the damaged doors, Rokko fired at a dozen control panels indiscriminately. She was well aware that she couldn't best all of them in a direct fight, but as long as she could cause absolute chaos and cause the facility to be damaged so badly that it would take months, or even years to fully recover from she would succeed in her mission.
Ducking behind a half finished Ride Chaser, Rokko grit her teeth as a grenade detonated where she'd been standing just a few moments prior. Thankfully, her makeshift cover had absorbed the blast instead of her, and immediately she peeked above the wreckage of the machine. A volley of laser fire forced her to duck immediately and she hurriedly cast her gaze upon the rest of the area, looking for a good location to move to to regain momentum.
Then, she noticed it. A maintenance walkway. Activating her dash boots, she lept to the ladder and hauled herself up all in one smooth motion. On the walkway, there were two security drones that were readying their weapons to try to stop her. However, X charged headlong into them, aiming her buster at the chest of the first drone, where the crucial processing components were housed and fired. Grasping the destroyed green and black sentry with her right hand she lifted her buster and fired at the other with a salvo of quick shots. The weapon cut through the enemy's armor like hot butter and the smoking ruins of the sentry tumbled off the walkway and smashed into the cold floor below. The body echoed hollowly as X threw the other sentry behind her and into a small squad of mavericks that had pursued her.
They cursed and tumbled over the drone as Rokko sprinted down the passageway, being grazed by a few shots as she went. Near a thin door leading to the next section, one of the shots managed to connect with her right knee and she let out a grunt of pain as she forced herself to continue.
Inside the next section of the plant a large furnace roared as it melted down raw material to be forged into new weapons and maverick fighting units. Cursing under her breath, she sprinted down the heated walkway, dropping a barrage of fire down on the lower level, hitting chains holding materials, various worker drones, and an incredibly lucky hit that managed to damage the control valve.
Unfortunately, it didn't seal it to build up too much pressure, but she'd opened it, causing the equipment to start to slow. Thus far, she'd managed quite a bit of damage, but there was more she needed to do. These repairs would only take a few days at most, and then it'd be back up to maximized production.
Kneeling on her good leg, Rokko took aim at the mavericks coming up behind her and unleashed another salvo of shots. Her shots hit each of her targets with deadly accuracy and the six crumpled under the fury of a half dozen shots. Grasping the railing beside her, X heaved herself to her feet and walked over to the disabled mavericks.
Leaning over their smouldering bodies, X took their grenades and dropped down to the ground floor. Tossing the entire stock of twenty grenades into the furnace. As she did she sprinted for the next area.
Behind her, the furnace exploded into a fiery inferno, and shards of molten metal tore through drones, equipment and several embedded themselves deep into her armor. One particular fragment tore into her (comparatively) unprotected back, near where her kidneys would have been should she had been human.
Gasping in pain, Rokko dove to one side in the next area seeing stars. Few things hurt as much as molten metal piercing sensitive components.
"Damn." She cursed as she forced herself to stand.
"Miserable piece of f-" She started to rant before a voice interrupted her.
"Easy dere lil' lady!" An obnoxiously cheerful voice commented and the huntress felt a headache set in.
Flame Mammoth. He was an idiot, but he was infamous for his combat and physical capabilities. Back when he'd worked in a reploid construction factory, he'd smash several tons of metal into thin disks. Why? Just because he could.
"Flame Mammoth, I should have known." Rokko commented as the lights flickered to life in the chamber.
Forcing herself to stand, she ignored the stabbing pain in her back and knee and instead focused on the large maverick standing on a nearly room-wide conveyor belt. Besides a couple of narrow walkways on either side of the belt, the room was apparently designed to ship several thousand tons of supplies back and forth out of the factory.
"Why'd ya blow up my furnace? It ain't cheap!" Flame Mammoth complained as he crossed his arms and gave her a sullen look.
In a way, Flame Mammoth was the most childlike of the group of Elite Irregular-, no, he was the most childlike of the former hunters.
"You're working for Sigma, Mammoth, and I'm sure by now my stance on him has been made very clear."
Flame Mammoth nodded grimly.
"That it has Rokko. Ya don' like him, and that's sad."
Rokko shrugged, raising her arms in a gesture of 'oh well'.
"Mammoth, we can either make this difficult, or we can solve this without violence. If you stand down, I'll do everything in my power to see you treated well."
Flame Mammoth shook his giant head, his metal ears flopping in a strangely organic way as he did.
"Sorry lil' lady, you know as well as I do that if I surrendered, I'd be executed anyway."
Rokko bowed her head in acknowledgement.
"You're right. There really isn't much choice is there?"
"Actually… Der is one."
Rokko tilted her head up to look at the dumb reploid.
"Sorry, I won't join Sigma. You see, he wants to live, and well… I don't."
Forming the flamethrower on his right arm he pointed it at her.
"Den whoever wins wins. Ima gonna smash!" Mammoth declared before jumping a good twenty feet into the air and towards her.
As he did, the conveyor belt started up, and she was forced to dash madly to avoid getting crushed by the Maverick.
The impact was so great, the that entire room shuddered under the weight and the conveyor belt, strong as it was folded under his mass, causing the entire thing to go offline. Rokko had been knocked off her feet and she quickly scrambled back to a standing position.
That was at least one less worry for her.
Firing an Electric Spark the round bounced harmlessly off of his armor. It was unexpected really. Despite having access to any weapon that she took, it didn't mean that they all would work in every situation.
Instantly swapping back to her regular buster, she charged it as he tried to roast her with his flamethrower. Dropping beneath the torrent of flames, she rolled to the side, and jumped to the wall, scrambling up the smooth surface by digging her fingers through the neosteel plates.
"How ya doin dat?" Mammoth asked in awe before he reached out and grabbed her waist by his trunk.
Cursing to herself, she aimed her buster at his trunk and fired a charge shot.
"Ahhhh!" He cried out but squeezed tighter.
Metal plates groaning underneath the pressure, Rokko coughed before she fired again in the same location.
"J-Just… DIE!" She screamed as she managed to sever his nose from the rest of his body.
While he thrashed about from the pain of losing his trunk, Rokko struggled out from the death grip that he'd held on her. Finally freed, and not a moment too soon, Flame Mammoth stomped on his trunk and where she had been just moments before.
"I'll crush you!" He hollered.
However, his voice came out strangely, odds were his vocal systems had been configured around using the trunk to emit his voice properly, and without it, it sounded nasally at best. Smirking at the damaged maverick, she began to fire again, most of her shots bouncing harmlessly off his armor.
However, Flame Mammoth had had enough, and he upped the heat on his flamethrower. A massive flame filled the chamber and Rokko was forced to dash to the farthest wall and up to the ceiling in an attempt to get away. Hanging by one hand, her fingers dug deep into the metal plates, she charged her buster, aiming for the flamethrower this time.
As long as it was around, she'd be in danger of being melted into scrap metal, despite her tough armor.
As the flames started to lick at her feet, Rokko pulled them close to her chest and fired. Aiming at the barrel of the weapon that threatened to incinerate her, and the rest of the room alike.
When the shot connected, Flame Mammoth's flamethrower nozzle detonated in his face, taking his entire arm, and the incredible heat caused the internal tank to combust, throwing fragments of the giant maverick in all directions in a molten mess of metal and heat.
Shrapnel ripped apart the complex and several dozen shards tore through Rokko's body, causing her to gasp in surprise. Riddled with new holes, Rokko's mind couldn't handle the sensory overload for a few seconds. When her mind finally caught up, she had collapsed onto the heated floor and whimpered from the pain.
"D-Damn it." She cursed, coughing up synthetic blood.
Her vision filled with damage warnings, she clenched her fist, just glad that her head hadn't sustained any serious damage, despite the devastating bomb that Flame Mammoth had been.
"...Commander… Flame Mammoth's down and the factory has taken a beating. S-Should be fairly easy to take control of n-now." Her voice systems were failing, and she was well aware that she'd never taken quite this much damage before.
Fortunately, both her communication systems and her teleport systems still worked.
"Good Work Rokko, RTB."
"G-got...It."
Using the last of her energy, she teleported back to HQ, and fell into last thought as darkness took her was that hopefully she wouldn't bleed out before that Lieutenant managed to patch her up.
AN: Well, another chapter down, and just one tiny step closer to the finale. (Which is still far, far away...) Anyway, sorry about the wait, had a bit of writer's block but I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Cheers.
Gardian X