Megaman X: Final Prologue

By: SylentStryke

Rated: M

Disclaimer: Don't own Capcom. Literally. I don't own them. THEY own Megaman X and other affiliated characters. I own my original crew.

Chapter 2: The Report pt.2

Giga City: Central Tower
Time: 2:36 PM
Date: 6-11-22XX

Zero, X and Leyna all looked at each other as the room above them was filled with a horrifyingly familiar cackle. The same screams filled the room once again. X let Nana sit against the wall before he took off upstairs, Zero and Leyna hot on his heels. About halfway up the stairs, Zero stopped abruptly and doubled over.

"Zero! Are you okay?" Leyna asked the pained reploid. He righted himself and gave her a nod of affirmation. She returned his nod and continued upstairs. She had to duck in order to avoid becoming a pincushion. Dozens of kunai and shuriken were impaled in the wall next to her. Looking up, she saw X, Locke and Stryke locking horns with another reploid.

X was thrown back into Leyna like a baseball, leaving Stryke and Locke to battle the reploid. Stryke and Locke attacked the lightning quick reploid with ferocity. Stryke lunged forward with his short sword, slicing into thin air. Locke was blown out of the door, grunting all the way. There was an odd silence.

"Hah...hah...haah...Locke? You alright?" The cinnamon haired Hunter walked back into the room, holding her leg.

"Yeah. I'll manage." She said through a weak smile. She stepped into the air after Marino kicked her feet out from under her. Locke hit the ground with a thud and cried out in pain. The crazed Marino drove a heel into her chest, effectively pinning her to the ground.

"Ma-ri-no! Get offa me! AHH!" Locke screamed as a razor sharp blade pierced through her thigh into the floor. She struggled to move, but stopped as the knife began to tear into her leg even more. Marino grinned a hellish grin as she drew out her beam knife and drew back, ready to behead Locke. She swung. Locke closed her eyes and screamed.

>>>

Locke felt something wet splash onto her face. It was warm. She could feel? So, she lived...

Opening her eyes, she saw Stryke kneeling over her, blood covering most of his face, along with Marino in the wall opposite the room. He looked down at her and smiled weakly. "Ha ha. Sorry about the mess." She smiled and shifted her body weight, causing her to yell out.

"The knife...it's still in my leg. I can't move." Stryke looked over to where she was pointing and found the object. He looked at her, asking her for consent with his expression. She nodded and held her breath. Stryke grabbed hold of the hilt and prepared to remove it quickly. A shadow appeared behind him and tackled him to the ground. He pulled the knife out of Locke, causing her to stifle a yelp.

Marino loomed over him with an evil presence. Stryke saw her as a blurry figure, due to his left eye being damaged. She appeared to draw something out from her back.

"Ehh...Marino...stop..." Stryke tried to reach out to the crazed reploid. She returned his plea with a sinful grin. Bringing her knife over her head, she opened herself up for an attack. A green blade stabbed through her midsection, making her drop the knife. She began twitching from the pain. Suddenly, X appeared on the side of her, arm cannon fully charged and aimed at her head. "Now, Zero!" X shouted as he pulled the trigger. Zero deactivated his saber and hopped backwards.

"X...I'm sorry it had to end this...way..." Marino whispered out moments before she was engulfed in extreme heat. X felt sick as he thought about what Marino just said, combined with what Cinnamon said earlier about mind control. The room grew quiet. All that remained of Marino was the lower half of her torso and legs.

"They...aren't Mavericks..." Leyna whispered out. Zero placed his saber back into place. He walked towards the door, making a notion for the others to follow him. Leyna gave Stryke a hand with Locke, as X went to help Nana. Looking back, X blinked away a tear, wishing his friends peace in their death.

>>>

As the battered reploids made their way through the noise filled hallway, a loud battle cry filled the room below, followed by a lengthy flash of violet light. Then, silence.

"Oh, god...AXL!"

The group sped up, running into the room below. The entire room reeked of blood and fried circuitry. Smoldering chunks of metal dented the wall, with Echo and Axl in the far corner. X and company made their way to the corner.

"X! It's Axl! He...he...blew up!" Echo babbled out. X gave her a confused look, seeing as how Axl was in one piece.

"Echo, you're hold-"

"That's not what I mean! He started to glow with a weird light, then exploded! We have to help him!" X shook his head.

"We have to get out of here first. Nana, is the air bus still functional?"

"... ...no. It's been shot down!" X swore under his breath. Nana gasped in realization. "Wait a minute... ... ... okay! There's a maintenance submarine at the bottom of the tower. It has a seating capacity of... ... ... eight bodies." Zero smirked. "Well then...shall we go?" Right on cue, the entire tower rocked violently, sending the team of Hunters to the ground.

"That sounded like one of the support columns! We have to hurry!" Nana said as the group regained their footing. They rushed down the hall to the sub.

>>>

When they got to the bottom of the tower, a familiar sight surrounded them: dozens of dead corpses and blood-stained walls. They continued walking toward the sub room, trying their best to ignore the stench.

"...never actually been down here. Kinda spooky." Nana murmured out. Zero merely scoffed at the comment. "Eh, besides all the bodies and blood, it's not so bad." He grinned at Nana, who was confused by his statement at the moment.

"We're here." Leyna informed anyone who wasn't paying attention. They all spotted the sub, which was docked at the station. The submarine was wide, brightly orange, and looked spacious. The bubbled top hissed open, giving them access. "All right! We're outta here!" Locke exclaimed.

"We're not outta the woods yet. We have to hustle back to HQ to heal up and report on what happened. Giga City is huge. If the reploids here can almost all be controlled, then that means Arcadia and the rest of Neo Earth is in danger..." X summed up while they entered the sub. He glanced at the numerous corpses lying around.

"(But, those corpses don't look like they died from any type of bullets or plasma. Some of them have been cleaved in half. Cleanly, too...)" X shook his head, as it was his turn to hop aboard the sub. After stepping on, he extended a hand to Nana. She nodded and leaned forward to grab his gloved hand. The world around her flashed, then grew blue as she felt something cold slide through her back. The pain was sluggish, but definitely there. Her arm dropped involuntarily, but she tried her hardest to reach out to X, who was screaming. She couldn't hear his voice. She looked down at the blade jutting out from her abdomen, which extended two prongs on each side. It began to pulled her back. She continued to reach out to X, who began charging his buster.

Suddenly, the blade exited her body, spinning her around. She looked blankly into the eyes of the man of shadows. His cold, lifeless stare, the blank expression on his face. "... ...Scar... ..." That's all that escaped her lips before everything went black. Scar brought his blade across her body, dividing it cleanly into half. The submarine was splashed with blood before it slowly lowered into the water. Zero caught a glimpse of the reploid that killed Nana.

"...you gotta be shittin' me...Scar..." He looked over at X who was still in a mild state of shock along with the other Hunters.

"Listen up! I know we've all been through a lot, but we're not out of the woods yet!" Zero spoke, looking back at Scar, who was already gone. "(Scar...I thought you had changed...)"

Arcadia: City Limits
Time: 2:57 PM

"Alright, Hunters, in the truck, and we're heading back to the base." X commanded, fighting back the emotions running through his veins. They agreed without expression. Everyone was depressed, having just seen some of their closest friends die, even having to take their lives. The sub docked at the loading station and the Hunters quickly disembarked the aquatic vessel. They hopped on their transport truck and proceeded out of the city. X took the small moment of time they had to observe the condition of his team.

"(Locke has a deep gash in her leg, Stryke's eye has been cut up, Echo has a few bruises, Axl's unconscious, Leyna and Zero look fine. And I have a headache.)"

The sound of plasma turrets discharging and kinetic explosions fill the area, muffling the hum of the transport truck. X looked outside the truck, seeing the giant structure that flew over Giga City hovering over Arcadia.

"...what in the hell is that?"

"X! Come here!" Leyna yelled from the driver's seat. X hurried up to the front. Leyna turned up the radio to an audible volume.

'...situation in Arcadia is worsening with each passing second! Both reploid and human alike are being absolutely annihilated! Explosions rock the land, people everywhere are dying! This could be the... ...I have just received breaking news! The leader behind this large conflict happens to be Dr. Weil!'

X gasped at this. Leyna looked up at him quizzically. His eyes looked horrified.

"X? What's wrong?"

"INCOMING ROCKET!" A voice shouted from the back. There was a brief moment of silence before the truck shook violently and began to twist rapidly.

"Hold on!" X couldn't tell who shouted that out; the voice was warped from the speed the truck was spinning. Almost as soon as the spinning began, it stopped abruptly, sending everyone to the ceiling of the truck.

"...ugh...is everyone okay!" X gasped out, glancing over his comrades. "Heh, we're...all...here..." A muffled voice replied. The Hunters climbed off of each other, revealing Zero on the bottom of the pile.

"The doors are broken!" Leyna yelled out. "I got it!" Locke activated her right RSB and dug it into the side of the truck. She kicked the large piece of metal out door, forgetting that she had a gash in her leg. While she stifled a holler, the Hunters carefully clambered out of the ruined truck.

>>>

The Hunters ran as fast as they could across the dry land, praying in Light's name that plasma beams would not find them. No beams struck them, but a shockwave from an explosion rocked the ground beneath them. Zero fell backward and let out a small yelp of pain. He got up slowly, his chest heaving. The other Hunters began loading up on the hover transport. Zero began sprinting, ignoring the numerous alarms screaming at him in his head. Leaping for the transport, he just barely grabbed the side handles. Struggling to pull himself up, he felt something click.

"Oh no..." His vision froze as his critical systems shut down. The last image he saw was Leyna reaching out to him. The sound of her voice calling out his name kept repeating. He only hoped that his sense of feeling would turn off before he hit the ground. He wasn't so lucky.

"... ... and that's the entire report..." X ended his explanation of the previous events. Alia had her hand over her mouth, trying to absorb the shock from the report.

"...there's no survivors in Giga City?"

"No sir. If there are any, I'm pretty sure that they are under the mind control of this Dr. Weil." X replied. Signas crossed his hands in front of him and set his chin on them.

"Is it true? That this Weil guy is...human?" Alia asked. X shook his head.

"That's what the rumors say. I'm hoping that they aren't true. How are we supposed to fight an enemy like that?" X said hopelessly. Signas shook his head.

"So...Zero is MIA?" He stated in the form of a question after a brief moment. X clenched a fist.

"Signas, we have to find him!"

"Yes, X. We will eventually find him, but first, you and your team need to rest up." X cocked an eyebrow.

"Rest? I can't rest! Not with things the way they are right now! I'm going to go look for him..." X spun around and headed for the door when Alia jumped in front of him.

"X, don't be stupid!" She shouted. X was taken aback, not expecting Alia to lash out like that. "If you go out there in the condition you're in, you'll be killed! Then what are we supposed to do, huh? What am I supposed to do?" X looked her in the eyes. They were filled with anger, sadness, and worry. And pain.

"...Alia..."

Arcadia
Time: 5:12 PM

Zero slowly opened his eyes. He looked around the area with painstaking difficulty. He moved his arms about, soon finding out that he was suspended in a liquid-like substance in some sort of container. He felt sluggish. He must have been out for a while. His movement functions and vision were the only two systems operating at the moment. He saw a blurry figure move closer to the tank, stop to peer into it and walk away. Moments later he felt his body stiffen up as an electric current surged throughout the tank, shutting him down once again.

To be continued...

Sorry again that it took so long to get this chapter out. I've been really super busy. Next chapter will be out sometime between now, this very second, or later on this millennium. (Laughs) Kidding, kidding! Hmm...anyway! Stay tuned...

Till Next Time!