"So if I understand you right," Zero said while the wind whipped his hair at some hundred kilometers an hour, "I have to jump from plane to tiny plane in the middle of a war zone and hope that stray antiaircraft fire doesn't hit me?"
"Pretty much," Alia yawned through the comm.
"We're thirty thousand feet above the ground!" X yelled through the wind roar.
"This'll be fun!" enthused Axl, but neither Hunter shared his vivacity. X and Zero followed Axl, letting the kid clear a path as the trio hopped from one plane to another, buffeted by clouds and very surprised weather balloons.
"Couldn't we just use the global satellite defense array to shoot down this Red Alert fleet?" Zero yelled, trying to light a cig but failing miserably in the high wind.
"We could, if it wasn't for all the hostages! Besides, the satellites can't pinpoint Wind Crowrang, their leader!" X yelled back, "He's the main threat!"
After Axl's rapid fire tore through their captors, the Hunters slapped teleport beacons on the reploids in distress. Apparently, Wind Crowrang couldn't find a nice cage for them, and had decided to hold them hostage on the wings of these war planes in mid-flight. The presence of these hostages certainly deterred the Maverick Hunter fleet from opening fire on the Red Alert fleet, thus necessitating this rescue mission.
"Watch out!"
Axl's warning broke X and Zero out of their discussion. The red warplane below them had just caught fire from too many antiaircraft rounds. Its wings were crumpling under their feet. The trio scrambled for safety onto an adjacent plane, but a frenzied cry alerted them to one reploid hostage on the burning aircraft's right wing – they had not seen him through the smoke. X's eyes dilated in horror.
"Don't try it! X!" Zero shouted just as the azure Hunter made a leap back onto the ruined plane. "Alia! Teleport him out now!"
"I can't, Zero! You know that Red Alert jams our signal around their bases!"
X dashed across the wingspan of the plane just as the fuel tanks caught fire. Slapping a teleport beacon onto the hostage, the latter teleported just as the plane exploded.
"X!" Axl and Zero screamed. He was flying high into the sky, but was too far away from them. The fleet would soon leave him behind, and he would be in freefall for thirty thousand feet. He would hit the ground at over three hundred kilometers an hour, breaking not only his armour but all his internal systems. As if being Humpty Dumpty wasn't bad enough, his fusion core would go critical, essentially vaporizing him, never to be rebuilt.
But X does not go down that easily.
"What is he…" Axl wondered, as the energy of the sun gathered in the Mega Buster Mark 17.
THOOM!
The force of the blast shot X backwards, towards the fleet. Executing a triple somersault to reduce his speed, X landed on one of the war planes, causing it to wobble in flight.
"Whoa…" Axl said. Zero clapped him on the back.
"Chin up, kid, you're drooling," he said as he jumped over to X.
"You're insane, you know that?"
X stood up, leaving a handprint embedded in the aerodynamic plating.
"I calculated the trajectory the explosion would throw me, taking wind speed, air resistance, my velocity and this fleet's movement into consideration. From there it was a simple matter of overcharging my arm cannon to throw me to the nearest plane. It's overheated, but it'll cool down in a few minutes."
He held up his cannon arm. The X-Buster's red core was flashing red, and the air rippled around it.
"Your arm could have exploded."
"Yes, mother, I'll be a good boy next time and let the innocent reploid die," X snorted, and gestured for Axl to carry on. Shaking his head, Zero followed them, but could not hide a grin.
X was back.
888
The fleet arrived at the Mothership, onto which the trio leaped. Two giant laser cannons swiveled towards them.
"They are charging their beams of highly concentrated coherent and monochromatic photons," Axl observed, shortly before having his good looks flash fried. Meanwhile, X and Zero were doing something useful, such as rescuing reploids before the swiveling beams blew them to a subatomic level. Afterward, they pounced on the laser cannons. Apparently, the designers counted on the cannons killing targets before said targets could jump on top of the cannons and take them apart without harm.
"Is Axl okay?" X wondered while poking Axl's charred remains with a stick.
"Oh, he'll be fine, he does that all the time," Zero said, kicking the kid in the ribs, "Hey, wake up!"
"Zuh? Wha' happened?" Axl slurred.
"We killed the cannons, and then some kind of Cyber Peacock mechaniloid rip-off attacked us. It wasn't too bright, much like its predecessor, so X distracted it while I got behind and took its head off."
X juggled the robotic avian head on one hand.
"This will make a great paperweight."
888
Against all logic, destroying the outer defenses caused the locked door to open, admitting entrance to the interior of the Mothership.
"If I designed a giant battleship," Zero said while running downstairs, "And some nit obliterated my outer defenses, I'd rig that part of the ship to blow up and detach, not open the friggin' door and let them in!"
"Red Alert wants us to challenge them, remember?" X reminded him. Axl sighed.
"Wind Crowrang's not the brightest bulb in the billboard, but he's the most tenacious. He once vowed everlasting vengeance on a stair for tripping him."
"How did that go?" X blinked.
"He took a mining pick to the offending staircase, begging forgiveness if each stair he knocked off wasn't the one he was looking for."
After a few moments' silence, Zero had to ask.
"Axl, how come you're not retarded from growing up with them?" Zero demanded. Axl shrugged.
"Kids come out different from their parents."
"Okay, I just imagined a reploid giving birth. Please shut up before I kill you to save my own brain," Zero said.
"Hey, it's those grenade guys on rollerblades!" Axl cackled and zoomed off to copy their DNA. Zero sighed.
"Short attention span, eh?" X mused.
"Must be ADD."
"I'm leaning towards ADHD myself. He's got too much energy."
"I thought Vile complained about you having too much energy," Zero pointed out, and sniggered.
"Zero, I do not appreciate the way you are sniggering at me."
Zero continued sniggering.
"Damn it, Zero! Stop making me imagine things my brain would rather not!"
"I said nothing!" Zero protested, and ran off in the wake of Axl's swath of explosive DNA-stealing destruction. X clutched his helmet, forcibly dumping his RAM.
"I'm going to kill him, someday."
888
On the Mothership's prow they encountered their target.
"Wind Crowrang, eh? Axl says you're dumb," Zero greeted the Red Alert groupie. Axl jumped to clamp both hands over Zero's loud mouth but it was too late; Crowrang had already lost it.
"FLYING DEATH WHIRLWIND! I KILL YOU FOR SERIOUS!" Crowrang squawked, performing a twirling attack with his twin energy blades. X and Zero had no problems avoiding it, as it was aimed at Axl.
"You guy HEL-" was all Axl could manage before his head was lopped clean off.
"Yowch!" X winced, "Good thing our positronic brains don't rely on a circulatory system!"
"I don't know, X, that boy has a lot of fluid in him."
After Axl's neck finished spurting red circulatory fluid six feet into the air, his body slumped over. His head, however, continued talking, animated with outrage.
"DAMN IT, YOU GUYS! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BACK ME UP!"
"But you suck," Zero complained, "You're only good as an Irregular Hunter, not a Maverick Hunter, like us. We've got more powerful weapons than your pea shooter!"
"Be nice to the noob – I mean newbie, Zero," X advised, keeping the cursing, spitting Crowrang at bay with well-aimed plasma bursts that were far, far more effective than anything Axl could manage. Axl – or rather, his head – pouted and rolled away while Zero joined the battle. It was simple – X nailed Crowrang from a distance while Zero used Anteator's homing arrow of light to do most of the damage. Crowrang's boomerangs and cyclone attack were nothing that the veteran Hunters had not encountered before. They nabbed his DNA, collected Axl's dismembered body, decided against all reason to pick up his yammering head, too, and teleported out.
888
"What's wrong with you guys?"
Alia was chewing out X and Zero while Lifesaver worked on the headless horsem… reploid, whose head lay in a tray beside the table holding his body.
"It's Axl's fault for not getting out of the way in time," Zero pointed out.
"But you could have knocked him out of the way!" Alia waved her arms.
"And get my head chopped off? Sorry, but my hair is too beautiful," Zero flicked his silky locks in disdain. X giggled. Alia glared at him. X cringed.
"And you, X. I thought you protected other reploids!"
"I do, honey bun, but…"
Alia's eyes almost leapt out and strangled X.
"WHAT did you call…"
"I can't help it. Your head reminds me of honeyed confectionaries and I want to gnaw on it," X confessed. While Alia turned sixteen shades of red, Zero and Lifesaver held each other and tried not to die laughing.
"HEY! I'm the victim here!" Axl bitched from the table. In their merriment Zero and Lifesaver knocked over Axl's head and sent it rolling out the door. There was a scream in the hallway and Hannah walked in holding the grumbling head.
"Did you decapitate Axl with laughter?" she asked, dumping his head in a wastebasket, "What's the joke?"
"Alia's hair is so… delicious…" X said, stroking the comm. operative's smooth blonde crown. The comm. operative in question was making little squeaking noises while her face went through a kaleidoscope of blushes. Lifesaver fished Axl's head from the wastebasket and picked all the used needles from it.
"Ow! Ow! Those had better not have HIV! Or herpes! Or crabs!" Axl whined.
"Oh, grow up," Zero scoffed, "Everyone knows that they have the Maverick Virus."
"EEEE!" Axl squealed, "I'm getting ZERO AIDS!"
Zero's eyes bugged out and it was everyone else's turn to laugh.
"That's not funny," Zero complained.
"No, but that is," Hannah pointed to X gnawing on Alia's delicious scalp. The comm. operative had her knees locked together, an expression of apoplexy contorting her face.
"I think she likes it," Zero observed.
"Human faces do look that way during sex," Hannah agreed.
"Ewww! Is X screwing Alia in the same room as me?" Axl said, trying to move his head while Lifesaver reattached it to his neck.
"He's more inclined to screw Zero, actually," Hannah said, "Those two are closer than most romantic couples."
"That does bring up a valid point," X said, pausing from his head-gnawing, "Are Zero and I a couple because we're never apart and would die for each other?"
"I'd totally be gay for you," Lifesaver said.
Everyone in the room looked at Lifesaver. Lifesaver ducked his head and resumed his work.
"…right. Well, I don't feel attracted to X, but I can't stand a day without him," Zero said, scratching the back of his head, "I feel kinda lonely. He's like my better half."
"It is possible to have a romance without sex," Hannah suggested. X shrugged, nibbling Alia's aural units while the poor comm. operative, who could not get a word in edgewise, squeaked and endured it.
"We have fought in countless battles together. We are also original, unique models that were hand-crafted by human beings and not an assembly line. I guess birds of a feather flock together?" X shrugged.
"Eh. I find myself more attracted to the female models. Even if they are not original models, their mental processes are unique and cannot be replaced."
"Iris," Hannah whispered. Zero cast his eyes to the ground.
"Yes. Iris. Irreplaceable. X fills the gap, but not quite."
"I understand. Let's get on with it, then, and leave this emotional baggage for others to ponder?" X suggested. Axl sat up, cracking his neck.
"Yes, let's. I'll throw up if stay in this room two seconds longer."
"What are you, twelve?" X and Zero scoffed together.
"I'M SO EMBARRASSED!" Alia suddenly squealed and fled the room.
"What's her problem?" X wondered, picking her blonde hairs from his mouth.