Note: From a game-design perspective, having upgrades a player can find along the way works great- they're a tangible reward for clever play and exploration, a way to work in different sorts of puzzles to solve, and something experts can skip to show how pro they are. From a story-telling perspective, it's... troublesome. (The capsules would have been placed a hundred years ago- how would they be inside newly-built factories, airports, etc.?) I use a different approach to explain the power difference between early-game X and late-game X. It's hinted at here, but explained more fully in my earlier story "Supernova". Anyway.


Vile reached out with his ride armor's hand and casually backhanded a car. The machine flipped to its side. Vile would have grinned, if he'd had a face. Some people thought he wore a helmet, but there was nothing beneath the outer shell. He had no like-flesh, no discernible features. He had a humanoid profile strictly for its versatility. He'd been designed for combat, and nothing else. Making a combat reploid too human had made his designers uneasy.

No one would ever confuse Vile for a fleshbag. That thought made him very happy.

"Finally!" he hissed. "Finally off the leash! Time to inflict some damage!" He looked to the three Mavericks around him. Each was riding a hover cycle to let them keep up with Vile. "Keep an eye out, I'll be busy for a few seconds."

The machine Vile commanded was a ride armor—a large, mechanized suit with an operator inside the body. Vile was especially proud of this model, a prototype designed specifically for him. Sigma had noted his expertise with them and commissioned one as Vile's personal chariot. Its armor was top-of-the-line, stronger than the personal armor of even the toughest reploids, and its strength…

Vile grabbed cars and stacked them like building blocks, closing off the road completely.

…was enough.

"That should do it," he said, before driving the armor into an ungainly hop that somehow cleared his makeshift barricade. "Come on, runts, there's more for us to do. Cain Labs is ahead of us, and Commander Sigma wants it cut off!"

He paid no mind to the other Mavericks of his squad. He jetted past them without actually looking at them. He had weaklings backing him up, and knew it, and knew why—he had so much personal power that the others didn't need to be anything special for the squad to be a powerhouse. That was why Sigma had given him this mission—just in case.

The roads ahead of them were rapidly clearing. People had streamed into the streets at the sounds of the first explosions, but by now most were huddling indoors. All the better, Vile thought. They were out of the way while there was work to do, and when the time came to exterminate them, he would know where to find them.

Even so, he couldn't resist every urge. He spotted someone in a second-floor office looking down at him while on the phone. A perfect target! Vile strode over to a traffic sign and uprooted it without noticeable effort. Turning, he took two steps and chucked it like a javelin. The office worker barely ducked in time; the sign embedded itself in the wall behind him. The window collapsed in a shower of glass.

"Ha ha!" crowed Vile. He batted the ride armor's hands against the pavement in enthusiasm like a great metal ape. The sidewalk cracked beneath the pressure. "Cower before me, humans! Oh, I can't wait to really let loose!"

An explosion caught his attention—too far to be seen in the dense urban landscape, but close enough to hear. He was close to the edge of the city now, close to the elevated highways that were the escape routes of the commuter class. He remembered the briefing. If all was going according to plan, bee bladers dispatched by Storm Eagle were supposed to have cut off those roads. That explosion didn't sound like a bomb, though…

"That sounded like a power core going boom," said one of Vile's squadmates. "Big one, too."

"Bee blader-sized, you think?" Vile said.

"Maybe."

Vile waved his squad forward. "Change of plans. Someone's being uppity. We can't have that." If he had cared, Vile would have noticed that the expression on the other Mavericks' faces matched what he felt. They were agents of destruction, and they could hardly wait to fulfill their purpose.

They came to the base of the highway's on-ramp just as they saw a robot coming down it. "Who's that?" Vile said.

"I dunno, but… he looks a little like X…"

"Hm… Hold here."

The Mavericks came to a halt and dismounted their hover-cycles. Their plasma rifles were kept ready, but unaimed, as the figure approached them.

He entered range of shouting and called out to them. "Hey! What's going on in the city?"

Personal relations weren't Vile's forte. He wasn't sure what the right play was. He remembered Sigma's orders, but… he didn't always enjoy following orders. He did always enjoy breaking things. Maybe this was something he could break. "Was that you who shot down that bee blader?"

"Yeah," called the robot. They could tell now that he was, indeed, X—he approached more closely with every step. "It was bombing the roads. That's the second one, actually. I think there's a lot of Maverick activity going on. What are you doing out here?"

Vile's mind strained as he tried to figure out what he was supposed to say. It was far easier to remember what he wanted to say. He gave in. Rust the plan, rust Sigma, rust everything. Vile's fingers rolled against his controls. "Alright, X, you found us out. We're Mavericks, and we're here to close this place down. I'm gonna give you one chance to play nice. Raise a buster, and I'll flatten you."

Vile almost laughed when he saw X's eyes widen. Then the old android shook his head. "So it's come to this, huh? Sorry, but you're mistaken. I can't let this continue."

"Your loss," said Vile, but there was no hint of regret in his voice. He could barely keep the glee out of it. He was shooting the ride armor forward with thruster-enabled bounds almost before X's arms came up.

The smaller being darted out of the way before he could fire. Vile roared past him—the squirt was faster than he'd expected. He heard plasma fire. By the time he'd turned around, two of his squadmates were down, and the third was desperately firing at X. Some of his stray shots were pelting Vile's armor, though they made no impact. Loading up again, Vile charged at X from behind, intent on turning him into roadkill.

X unleashed a large-diameter plasma bolt right as he heard Vile's approach. For one glorious instant, Vile could see the panic writ on his victim's face. It felt delicious. X leapt high and hard, straight up, intent on getting enough height to get above the charging ride armor. Vile couldn't have that. He boosted again and swiveled his ride armor's torso forward just enough to clip X's legs. The android was sent tumbling from the impact.

Stopping hard, causing metal to complain from the force, Vile whipped one large hand around at X's impact point. X had been recovering and was almost to his feet. Vile's second blow sent him sprawling again. Vile cackled as he brought his armor around. X's shock absorbers had kept the force from scrambling his brain, but he was still struggling to recover even to a kneeling position. He unleashed a hail of small plasma bolts at Vile to try and buy time. The Maverick didn't even need to see his readouts to know that such a low level of output couldn't hope to stop his armor. Instead he boosted forward again.

X dodged laterally this time, and again, it was almost good enough. Vile's hand caught X's extended plant foot as he went by, lifted the android up, and smashed him into the concrete. A wonderful feeling of power surged through Vile at that. This was X, a being of so much mystery and intrigue, and Vile was pounding him without even breaking a sweat.

He raised both arms above his head to bury the outdated piece of junk for good, but X rolled sideways out of the way, came to his feet, and dashed just beyond Vile's grasping fingers. No matter. Vile turned almost casually to face X, completely unafraid. "I can't believe Sigma thought so highly of you!" he called, before charging again.

He was too fast for X, too well-armored for X, and entirely too strong for X. Whether X used large shots or small, whether he dodged, tumbled or jumped, he couldn't stay ahead of Vile. Another body blow sent X tumbling, and Vile felt himself almost getting bored with simply beating X. Acting before X could get to his feet, Vile activated his suit's secret weapon, one he'd been instructed to save.

The attack caught X in a kneeling posture. A flood of quick-drying resin splashed against X's side, arm, and legs. In the second before it solidified it seeped into joints and between armor plates. When it hardened, it locked the pieces of X's limbs in place. Vile heard X cry out in surprise as he was pinned on the spot like an insect in a collection.

Vile took his time to have a full, hearty laugh. "Ha! Did you think you had a chance just because you blew away the nitwits that were with me? What a joke! Though that's not as funny a joke as you." He strode forward until he loomed over the blue android. He filled X's vision and left the smaller machine in his shadow. "What does an obsolete piece of scrap think he's doing on a real battlefield? You can't do anything out here but die. I'm stronger than you are—stronger than you'll ever be."

X shot him an angry glare, but the anger was dampened by knowledge of his helplessness. Vile drank in the sensation of power, gloried in what his body and his armor had wrought. "To think we're named reploids because of you—ha! You're a prototype. A nobody. We've left you behind. Hey, maybe after I kill you, they'll make new robots based on my design. We'll call 'em viroids—ha ha!"

He tightened down one massive fist like a warhammer's head. "Prepare to die, X!"

That's when the plasma bolt hit him from behind.

The ride armor's left arm clunked to the ground.

Swearing, Vile backed away and spun. The rear armor on this suit was thinner than the front, and didn't perfectly cover the joints—a compromise to allow such heavy frontal protection while keeping weight manageable. He'd gotten so caught up taunting X he'd lost situational awareness.

He spotted his attackers and swore again. It was the 0th Squad! He recognized them instantly—specifically, he recognized Zero himself. Vile reviewed his situation in an instant—down secret weapon, down an arm, outnumbered four to one—and quickly decided it wasn't in his favor. He grabbed one of the hover-cycles his now-deceased squadmates had left behind. The ride armor struggled only slightly to launch the vehicle down the road, scattering the Hunters chasing him. Jetting backwards while keeping his face to his enemies, Vile laid down suppression fire from the heretofore unused cannon on his shoulder. Plasma blasts chased after him, but they did no serious damage. He came to an intersection, smashed a fire hydrant to obscure sight, darted around the edge, and turned to run.

His anger smoldered. It wasn't just being denied his rightfully earned kill. He'd made it seem as if Zero could beat him, when in a straight-up fight the red robot hadn't a prayer. He would fix that—soon.

For a brief, fleeting moment, he remembered his mission from Sigma. He'd disobeyed orders in half a dozen different ways—but it would be alright. He'd make it alright. He chuckled to himself as he mapped out his plan, then called up Sigma's command frequency.

"Commander Sigma," he said, "X has acted against us."


"Aaaaargh!"


"What the rust is wrong with you?" Zero exclaimed to a helpless X. "You're faster and stronger than that."

X blinked in surprise. "You saw the fight?"

"A little bit, before we were in buster range," Zero replied. "But don't dodge the question. Why were you so slow? I've seen your schematics, and I've gotten a taste of your abilities before. You should be able to do better than that."

It was only after X's eyes turned to the ground and the fight seemed to leave him that Zero realized he might have said not the right thing. "I guess I'm not strong enough to defeat him…"

Zero grimaced. He didn't know how to deal with this. X had just been reassuring him; he was the one who was supposed to have conviction. And Zero knew—knew, though he couldn't express how—that there was more to X than what he'd just shown. He knelt to X's side and started working with him to fracture the resin. His fist was like a hammer; resin cracked and crumbled. "He's made to be a war machine," he said. "You're more than that."

"Fat lot of good that does me in a war," X huffed.

"You're not fighting at full power," Zero said. He hoped that the conviction he felt was audible over the sound of disintegrating resin. "Once you are, you may even be as strong as me."

"You think so?" X said in surprise.

"I'm sure of it."

"If nothing else," X said, mostly to himself, "once I've got a few victories under my belt, I'll be able to expand my arsenal a bit with the…" he cut himself off, face flushing.

Zero blinked. "The Weapon Copy System, right?"

X's eyes flew to Zero's face, searching there. "How did you know I have that?" X said carefully. "It's not common knowledge. Those sections of my schematics are marked "unknown"."

Zero felt uncomfortable and didn't know why. "How did you know you have that?" he replied.

X held the look for another moment, then seemed to come to a decision. His face softened. "Now that I think about it, I'm almost glad. If you know what I'm capable of, it can only make us better teammates, right?"

"Right," said Zero, though his voice betrayed he'd never thought of it like that. The feeling of relief was too strong to control.

"Then I'll be able to back you up better, especially once I've got some weapons to use. Of course, that's all assuming I can get a few to begin with. That… battle was rough."

"You seem alright, though," Zero countered. "Your armor doesn't look too bad."

"Self-repair is patching it up pretty quickly."

The words struck a wrong note with Zero. X's design was very generalist. It wasn't like he had thick armor at the expense of speed or power; he had all three in proportion. The armor had stood up to Vile, while the rest of him hadn't. What was going on?

The last of the resin fell apart between the two robots, and they stood. As he flexed his limbs to crush any resin lingering in his joints, X looked behind Zero. Zero belatedly realized he had a half-squad of Hunters behind him waiting for more instructions. "X, this is 0th squad," he said lamely.

X nodded. "Pleased to make your acquaintances. I wish it was under other circumstances."

Rekir looked surprised at how polite X was, and made no response—the first time Zero could remember that happening to Rekir. He decided to step in before things got even more awkward. "X, we need to plan our next move."

X nodded and turned to point. "We can get a pretty good viewpoint from that overpass."

Zero grunted an affirmation. He took a step, but then bent into a dash, thrusters flaring. X was after him in a flash. Zero's analysis subroutine took careful notes as he watched his blue counterpart. Yes, X was definitely underperforming—by twenty percent at least. Why was he holding back? Or was something holding him back?

He hoped it went away before they got into a real mess.

X hadn't been lying. They could see most of the city laid out before them from that overpass. Well, they should have been able to see most of the city. Mostly they could see skyscrapers and smoke.

"Time to think strategically," Zero said. "Where are the Mavericks, and what are they up to?"

X pointed. "We know they've taken the airport, that's where the bee bladers are coming from—and the smoke over there. You have to think they've taken the seaport as well."

"Another access point."

"Of course. They're taking out the highways one by one for the same reason."

"Limiting access in or out."

"What else do they need?"

"Reinforcements. That means factories…"

"And the power to run those factories…"

"And, longer term, resources to fuel power plants and factories."

"So that's mines, power plants, factories. All of those things exist in and around this city, so all of them are targets. What else?"

"The base at the foot of the mountain glaciers. They had some experimental ride armors working up there, trying to adapt them to the cold conditions. If they're as tough as the one that purple robot had, they're a big threat to us and a prize for the Mavericks."

"And the Kelvin building. I'm sure there're all sorts of toys in there that the Mavericks would want to have or keep from the humans."

"What about the road to the north?"

"What, into the jungle? Possible, I suppose. Wait… what's up there? It's not like there's any sort of towns or connections to other major roads…"

"It's a small military base."

"Storage depot!"

"Munitions and weapons."

"Control the road, control the base."

"And be in position to ambush any military attempt to relieve the city."

"Government buildings?"

"Secondary target only. Without electricity, they have no power."

"Concur."

The two companions stopped speaking. They had reached a point where one's words had flowed into the other's, and it had suddenly become confusing who was speaking when. They smiled.

"Glad to see your thinking is at full strength," Zero said.

"They say great minds think alike," X said.

Zero harrumphed. "Well, then answer me this. Where's Sigma?"

X's face fell. He shook his head.

"Me neither," Zero said. He looked out over the city. "This may take a while. Even if we take down all his followers, there's no guarantee he'll reveal himself."

He could see the hesitation in X. He managed to steel himself, and spoke. "I bet that if you went back in there, to Hunter HQ, you could find out."

"What do you mean?"

"Sigma was working as the commander of the Hunters right up until this moment. Where was he spending most of his time? In his suite at Hunter HQ. He probably worked on the rebellion from his desk."

"What, where anyone could see?"

"Except that no one would see. He cloaked himself behind that perception. He acted as if he had nothing to hide. Transparency was his shield. Yes, I'm certain of it now. He used his office as the cockpit of his rebellion. Who would look there? Who would think Sigma had anything worth hiding, and if he did, why would he hide it in such an obvious place? No, more than that. I bet it was a game for him. I bet he was almost daring someone to find out. I bet he got a thrill from knowing that anyone could find him out, but that no one would dare. No one would go against Sigma's reputation, and that tickled him. The arrogant ass."

Zero turned to look at X, eyes searching the android's face. X's eyes had a far-away look, as if he was projecting them into Sigma's office on another day. Zero found nothing, and looked back to the city. "I can't do that," he said.

X's shoulders slumped. "I know it's dangerous to go back there, but it's the only way we know we can find out what Sigma was up to. If anyone can do it, you can."

"That's not what I meant. I meant… the rest. I couldn't understand Sigma enough to do what you just did. I couldn't place myself inside him, think as he thinks. That's a strange power you have—one I don't have at all."

X seemed surprised by this. "It's so natural for me, I just… thought…"

Zero waited for X to finish, but even he didn't seem to understand what he meant. Shaking his head, Zero looked towards where he knew his target to be. "I can get to Hunter HQ," he said confidently. "Out of all the Hunters, only Sigma could stand in my way for long. And if he emerges to stop me, all the better. Even if I got there, though, I'm not sure I could crack the security on Sigma's computers. I'm no hacker. If he's got any additional protections I'd never get in."

"Cain Labs," X replied, pointing behind them. "One of the teams there does nothing but design robot security systems. If they can make, they can break, I'm sure. Bring the memory units to them and we should be able to crack them open and figure out what Sigma's up to."

"How will we be sure there's still a Cain Labs left to come back to?"

"Cain Labs aren't defenseless. Besides, you have a squad with you, don't you? Deploy them in defensive positions around the lab. If the 0th Squad lives up to its reputation, they should be able to stand up to a lot."

Zero gaped, then laughed. "You remembered, and I didn't! I really am an awful squad leader. How would you like the job?"

"I'll have to think about it," X said, failing to suppress a smile.

"You did promise to join me in the Hunters, some day."

"I did, at that. And I'm sure there are plenty of openings for squad leaders about now."

That sobered both of them up. They looked into the city again, which smoked and smoldered before them. There hadn't been any explosions for a while, but whether that was good or bad they couldn't tell.

"So that's the plan, then," Zero said. "I'll cut my way into Hunter HQ, retrieve the memory units from Sigma's computers, and return them to the scientists at Cain Labs, guarded by the 0th Squad."

"And I'll blunt the Maverick intrusions at critical infrastructure," X agreed. "This will slow them down and give me access to weapons to Copy."

The top few floors of a skyscraper came apart, interrupting their conversation. Masonry, wood, metal, and—maybe—people showered down into the city below as the top of the building separated from the rest. It fell, kicking up dust that raced down the city streets like an aggressive fog.

"X," Zero said, "are we doing the right thing?"

X closed his eyes. As Zero watched, the blue android clenched a fist and placed it over the center of his chest, where his heart would be were he human. It made no sense to Zero, so he waited.

Eyes popped open. "Yes," X said. Doubt did not exist.

Zero nodded in relief. "Then I'll give it my all," he said. "Come on, X. We have work to do. We can use the hover cycles those Mavericks left behind."

"Yes," X agreed.

"X," Zero said, "I was built alone, and there are no other robots like me. But… I'm glad to go to war with you."

X smiled. "And I'm glad you're at my side."

They went down the ramp, down into the war and the chaos, together.


Smoke rose in great gouts all throughout Abel City. Between that and the dust kicked up from collapsing buildings, the sun was not visible from most of the city. In the darkness, the intensity of the fire made it look like an angry orange sunrise, but people knew better.

In Abel City, and in other cities around the world as reploids answered Sigma's call, night was falling. It was the end of the beginning. The Maverick Wars were on.


Fin