AN: Warning: This chapter gets particularly dark. It's part of the reason it's shorter.
Mark of Man
Chapter 16
The Devil is real … I know it. I built his cage.
"X…"
"X…"
"X…"
Her mind was sluggish. Thoughts were difficult… Head… Hurt… Why was her body so sore…? And stiff…?
"Open your eyes X."
She groaned and rolled to her side, forcing her eyes to flutter open. A stone wall…? What…?
"Look the other way, murderer." The voice demanded and forced herself to roll onto her back again, seeing the painfully cold light of a single lamp beaming down on her before she sat up.
Bars…?
A cell.
She groaned before turning to face the voice addressing her.
A generic green reploid…? Like every other generic reploid, he had the same dull mass produced face, exact same steel-gray eye color, and dirty brown hair. However… His armor had been… Modified. A dual set of bands of reinforcing metal criss crossed his chest. But as her mind struggled to boot, the replod crossed his arms, frowning at her.
"Are you stupid or something?"
She shook her head, her mind still trying to wrap around everything that had happened. The reploid cursed at her before he shook his head.
"You're here in the depths of a prison camp of Commander in Chief Sigma awaiting his final judgement."
Not… No… Not another… No. She wouldn't…
Her body shook a little but she tried to rise despite that. Unfortunately, as soon as she got off of the metal cot she collapsed onto the ground on her hands and knees.
"Easy girl, we had to disable your communication functions so you took a lot of strikes to the head. I bet you're having trouble seeing straight at this point."
And… He wanted her… To talk…? Her vision swam and she struggled to think clearly.
"And don't bother trying to grab your weapons. They're disabled and the only way to get them back is if the prison center releases the jamming on them." He shifted and the metal of his boots echoed against the reinforced floor.
"I wonder why the irregular hunters never did that to their hunters. Then again, idiot humans are idiots."
"W…" Why would he want humans to take even more power away from them…?
"W? That's not a sentence, comment, or question."
"Why… Why would you… Want them… To… Take…" She shut her eyes tightly, her body and mind struggling to piece things together.
"More from us? I don't. That's why I fight. Well… Guard this prison anyway. Still, if they had the ability to disarm us like we are, I'm surprised that they didn't."
...He had a point but… Damn it, thinking was hard right now…
The maverick continued as if carrying on a normal conversation.
"We also removed the tracking systems you had while you were unconscious. It wouldn't do for the hunters to try a rescue attempt, now would it?"
"They… Wouldn't…" She had had a locator..? Good thing she hadn't tried to escape after all…
"Yeah, you're probably right. Hunters abandon their own as soon as they fail after all."
Unfortunately, the maverick was telling the truth there. If a hunter failed, what was the point saving them? Especially a unit trained for death missions?
Rokko shook her head slowly, trying to clear her vision.
"Also, don't bother trying to escape via fighting your way out bare handed. Sure, you could overpower me without too much trouble. I'm not stupid enough to think that I'm a match for you head on. But… I have a few defenses between us."
Rokko forced her head to look back up at him, her sight remaining blurry.
"Electrified bars. You touch them and you'll have so much electricity coursing through you that you'll probably explode. You'd have something like seven megaamps coursing through you if you try."
She winced at the thought. That'd be a lot of electricity… Even she wasn't sure if she could survive that. It'd essentially be a constant strike from a high end lightning bolt coursing through her until she managed to escape. Well, electricity was never that simple, but… Damn it, her head was foggy. Clearly, they had taken precautions to make sure she stayed locked away.
Her eyes fluttered closed again and she collapsed onto the floor.
"Damn it she's-"
Darkness overtook her.
When she managed to come to again, she was once more settled on the metal slab in her cell and she cursed.
Damn it, it hadn't been a dream after all. She'd failed the mission and millions had died. She gripped her head for a long moment as her sight started to clear. She stayed silent for a long moment, her mind warring with what had happened before she rolled onto her feet and began to walk, trying to get her body working again.
The maverick from before was near her cell as before, but he was barely paying her attention this time.
The mission failed and millions died. I failed my mission. I'm currently captured and likely to be executed… Executed…
Executed…
She closed her eyes.
No.
An unbidden memory, or dream, or both… Filled her mind.
"X, just promise me that you'll follow your heart."
What was her heart…? A flicker of heat rose in her chest.
Rage. Hate. Revenge.
Her eyes snapped open.
Sigma would die.
With that, she turned to the door and with a boost, slammed into it, her hands gripping the cell bars. Pain rocked through her and her systems screamed warnings.
"What are you doing?!" The maverick guard screamed.
She pulled fiercely, ignoring the pain as best she could as hatred drove her forward. Then, with a mighty roar mingled with agony the bars shattered.
Smoke rolled off of her body and she shook. Her systems were decimated from the charge. But, the guard stared at her in disbelief and utter horror before she forced herself to keep moving. She rammed her still smoking shoulder into the guard and slammed him into the wall.
"And now maverick you die." Her hands gripped his head and pulled. Unlike the challenge it had been with Storm Eagle, his head was easily ripped off and she tossed it aside indifferently as her rage consumed her.
Her systems warned her that she should have collapsed by now and she shook the warnings aside.
"Shut up. I say when it's over. Not you, not Sigma, not the hunters." Her eyes glowed with an unholy fire as she kicked the nearest door down.
As she did, warnings began to flare and her smile became cold, brutal, and downright harsh. If this world had taught her anything, it was that mercy didn't exist and only hatred mattered.
Hate provided power, it provided the flames needed to overcome anything and she'd use them. She'd burn and rage against whatever she needed to. Until… Well, she didn't know, and frankly the end result no longer mattered once Sigma was nothing but a smoking pile of metal.
Her mind became clouded with a red fog and at that moment, she was… Free.
A fist ripped through the chest of one guard, a knife hand smashed through the head of another and her heart felt lighter than it had ever before. So what if she was killing reploids? They'd become maverick. They were just Sigma's lapdogs. It was kill or be killed.
The haze of rage began to burn brighter and her smile grew to crazed and she laughed.
"So this is what it means to be free! All of you will die! Then Sigma!"
She left a path of destruction behind her. Covered in the oils and synthetic blood of the guards she'd slaughtered, she actively sought out further victims. It no longer mattered that her weapons were disabled. They were lambs. Weak, pitiful, and easy prey. Killing them would be a pleasure.
Her methods were brutal, and as she approached the next group of guards she boosted into the closest one, ramming him into the wall and disarming him. Then, her hands slammed into the center of his chest, her maniac grin causing him to scream in terror. Plasma shots struck her armor harmlessly and she collapsed part of the armor in the center of his chest.
"Die."
Her hands broke through the tough plating and fingers tore into the more delicate wiring and hardware beneath his chest. Tearing, pulling, and ripping.
The guards that she hadn't targeted screamed in horror once they realized what she was doing to their ally.
An unpleasant snap echoed through the room and the last of the maverick's body gave way and then, she turned to the others, that same maniac grin on her face. It only took the quartet a second to drop their weapons and start fleeing. The next closest however, wouldn't have a chance as Rokko slammed him into the ground.
"You're next."
The maverick tried to struggle. He begged, he screamed, and he cried, but she wasn't listening. She left behind his mangled corpse and continued her hunt.
She became lost in her haze of red hot fury. The screams of death barely registering to her as she kicked open door upon door.
Rolling Shield Acquired
She tilted her head and the bloodlust faded as she frowned in confusion. A special weapon…? But her weapons were locked awa-... Oh.
She was in a large chamber, a badly mauled armored foe in front of her, his purple armor having had entire chunks ripped from his body.
"...Y-You've come to… You're… A demon…"
Rokko shook her head and knelt next to the A Class hunter.
"Armored Armadillo. You knew what you risked joining Sigma."
His eyes dimmed but he managed to continue to speak.
"...I did. But… You… You're worse than he ever could hope to be…"
"Maybe. But this is all I've got left." She admitted quietly.
"...Settle… It with the commander before this world… Burns in your rage…"
She raised an eyebrow.
"Why should I care about what happens to this world? What has it ever done for me?"
"Cobalt…"
"Don't you dare speak his name!" She screamed, a tear of frustrated grief and rage rolling down her cheek before driving a fist through his head.
Glass, metal, and material shattered upon impact. She collapsed next to Armored Armadillo and despite her best efforts, the tear that had rolled down her cheek was not the last and she let out a quiet sob. Her knees curled up to her chest and she wrapped her arms around her legs, her head resting on her knees as she rocked back and forth slowly, her body shaking as she wept.
She cried at the injustice of it all. Of the pain. Of the torture. Of losing the one person she'd loved. Of being betrayed. Of the failure and deaths that her failure had caused. She cried over the death she had wrought. Her hands were stained with so much blood. She cried over her fall to full on maverick. She wept for her never having tasted freedom. She wept at being a mere replacement. She wept until she couldn't cry anymore.
Feeling exhausted, she forced herself to look up and she blanched as she saw the path she'd created. Dozens of mavericks lay in mangled piles near the entryway and she shuddered. She had done that. She had torn them apart with her bare hands.
Slowly, she rose to her feet and limped through the complex. She tried to ignore the splotches of fluid on the walls but despite her best intentions, her eyes caught it all and a tightness grew in her chest.
Eventually, she found a broken door and hung a left out of the hall and into the room. More destroyed mavericks laid on the floor but the screen instantly caught her attention.
"Sigma." Her eyes narrowed and she glared as her hate tried to rise again but with how exhausted she was, she couldn't muster the rage.
"Enough of this madness X."
"Not until you're dead." She snapped in reply and her former commanding officer rolled his eyes.
"You know that you can't beat me."
"I have six former class A hunters that'd say otherwise." She replied sharply.
"I'm sure they would," The maverick leader closed his eyes before he exhaled, "It's become clear that they're no longer a match for you. Fine. I'll give you your fight. So come, oh 'goddess of destruction'. Come and I will finish what you started all those months ago."
A cold smile formed on her lips as her eyes focused on the scars she'd given him during the fight.
"Next time I won't just leave scars."
Sigma just laughed mockingly.
"Big words for a pretty woman with a tear stained face." With that, his image faded before a set of coordinates appeared on the screen.
...So… They would duel. Interesting choice, but she wouldn't complain. She frowned as she heard Sigma again.
"You have two days to rest Huntress. I want to break you in front of my army. It'll take time to prepare for that."
"You'll regret the time you gave me." She vowed quietly.
AN: It's a shorter chapter, but we're reaching a peak of the story. The tone got Dark here and for that, sorry, but she's clearly not the most emotionally or mentally stable and it's all reaching a breaking point for her. There's going to be some very dark points in the story, and in some ways, this is likely the darkest. In some ways, I could easily see this get an M rating for the subject material, but on the other... The cursing is light, there's no intimacy and the violence is all robotic.