"Quickly! Move these boxes into the spaceship!"
"Yeah, yeah… don't rush me, okay?" snorted Double, scrambling to pile up the boxes as big as his round belly. He wasn't the strongest Reploid around, nor was he specialized in labour work, attempting to stack some ridiculously huge and heavy boxes was indeed a toll to him.
After Zero and the others had taken down the Repliforce defenses at the Space Port, there weren't many defenses left which would hinder their pursuit into the Final Weapon - the "utopia" built by Repliforce only for Reploids, which also doubled up as a powerful cannon designed to destroy the Earth. With swift orders, the Maverick Hunters H.Q. had assembled all available spaceships, most of their soldiers and weapons to end the war once and for all with the Repliforce.
Double, being readily available in the H.Q., would of course be tasked with some work he would not want.
"Ah dang it!" The boxes did not stack according to how Double had planned in his head and doubled over, causing a ruckus to be heard throughout the entire hangar.
"Hey, watch it!"
"I am sorry…" Double turned over to see the one shouting at him, another one of the low-ranked Reploids whose job was only to move cargo and stuffs around, yet they were bossing around the hangar since it was pretty much their forte. Many of the Reploids working under the Hunters, from various departments, had been called here to move stuffs around as well, and many were also clumsy like Double.
"These guys really don't cut us any slack eh?" Double hissed softly. A beeping sound was immediately heard and a red light flashed at Double's collarbone, which he quickly pressed it to stop the beep, not wanting to attract needless attention.
"It's me. Still playing around? When are you going to take action?" A rough and low-toned voice came from the other side of his coms system.
"Right away, sir. I've been waiting for the main troops to make their appearance… and here they are."
A group of soldiers entered the hangar, highly organized, around sixty of them, all fully armed for battle. As they made their entrance, the Reploid who yelled at Double just now lowered his head quickly and headed up to greet the soldiers.
"Pfft, pathetic two-faced twerp." Double then proceeded to giggle all by himself. It quickly became excessive and drew the attention of those who were nearby.
"Hey, Double, what's the matter?" One of the cargo-moving Reploids who knew Double stopped his work and rushed onto him from behind, thinking to check on him. Just as he tapped his shoulder, Double looked over his neck, his eyes changed from the innocent derpy ones to bloodied red.
The Reploid backed away hastily from the shock, but found himself decapitated immediately after a different Double landed a swift, clean chop which sent the Reploid's head flying. The other Reploids were stunned after witnessing a horrific scene, without much delay Double had already doubled in height and length, fully transformed and deadlier than ever, two green energy blades emerged from the superior part of his wrists, from the round and stocky body he was currently pointed all over, sharp appendages protruding from his head, shoulder and feet, while his arms, torso and legs are covered with a peculiar, gelatinous purplish substance which were well encased in said parts.
While most worker Reploids were frozen in spot, Double went on a killing frenzy, hacking everyone into half with mostly a single slash. The Maverick Hunter soldiers tried to retaliate, but never in their heads would they imagined an ambush right now, right here. As they spammed on their machine guns, none of them did significant damage onto Double's newly fortified gelatinous armor, as he did not need long to dispatch every single Reploid in the hangar.
"This is the Maverick Hunters. Anyone, please respond! We are….!" A stray Reploid managed to start up a radio transmission, Double quickly terminated him before he could finish his sentence, now he had to wait and see who would pick up the call.
"This is X! What happened? Report!"
Double laughed briefly before picking up the radio transmitter. "Nothing to worry about…" He used a monotonous tone, his new voice deep and a lot different than before that X would not recognize him, at the same time he had to contain his laughter.
"How are the preparations of the hangar going? We need reinforcements at the Final Weapon immediately!"
"Understood… we are on it right now."
"I'm breaking contact."
A beep ended the dubious call between Double and X, the latter totally oblivious by the fact that not a single reinforcement would be able to make their way to the Final Weapon, not immediately.
"Hee hee hee hee! Ha ha ha ha! X, you are next!" Double laughed his entire way to a spaceship and launched himself to the Final Weapon, while leaving the other spaceships in the hangar, which soon exploded one after another.
"Where are the reinforcements? They are running late, way too late." Snorted X, terribly upset that they were severely lacking in numbers to press on. They had finally made it on board the Final Weapon, but what lied ahead of them was a ridiculously elaborate trap, an unbreakable bastion. You may eliminate all the soldiers stationed at every corner of the gigantuan spaceship, but the traps inside that would even put the legendary pyramids to shame would devour everything foolish enough to venture further.
Against such odds, the Maverick Hunters found themselves not able to proceed, staying still at a spot not far away from where they came in. There, they were constantly ambushed by various Mavericks and Repliforce units from all directions.
There was that outrageous distress call from the HQ as well, until now they could not trace anything back to have anything constructive to give them the slightest hint of what's going on there. The communication with the HQ is extremely difficult to establish soon after they had entered the Final Weapon.
"No good, we can't contact with anything here." Zero sighed. "We have to scout ahead ourselves, time is running short and we can't afford to delay any longer. Cover us with your unit, X."
"Roger that." Despite out of desperation, the plan was quite a no-brainer. Who would make better scouts than the Shinobi Unit themselves? No one in the Maverick Hunters dare to boast greater agility and dexterity than them. Despite their limited numbers, they had been doing well to earn their reputation.
With his team right on his tail, Zero zipped through the enemy defenses and mapped the area around. It was a relatively straightforward path ahead, if not for the heavily laid down booby traps such as spikes and bombs as well as the strategically placed guards that had the perfect aim to anyone who dared to take a step too close. They were mostly too quick to be taken down, however.
The progress was pretty smooth so far, until Zero halted his tracks suddenly. Sapphire bumped into him immediately after.
"W.. what is it? Commander? Why did you stop suddenly?" The startled Sapphire asked, her voice representing the entire squad currently.
"Why…" Zero looked up. There was a larger gate just right ahead of them, and another much smaller one about five metres above them. Both lead to uncharted paths, the general consensus would be to stick together in cases like these.
Zero said nothing more and took a large leap up, scaling the walls with maddened speed and his contact to the gate opened it instantly and swiftly shut tight a fraction of a second later, allowing only the red Hunter in. His comrades didn't even had the time to consider following their leader.
"Commander Zero!"
"Go ahead without me, we should be able to rendezvous soon after!" Zero yelled through the tightly shut electronic gate. The voice was faint but it went through.
He let out a quick snort, his hands suddenly began to tremble. Why… why could I feel her here?
Iris…!