Mega Man X: The Mist Enigma

Chapter 15: Fight On

I never had a puzzle this hard before, and I do the crosswords in the newspapers. Everyone else was stumped as well. I sighed. The only reasonable thing I had found was "LAST EVER PIERCING FOTH FAGE." I'm pretty sure "fage" and "foth" weren't words. Regardless, I showed it to Alia. "You might be able to work from this," I said.

She nodded a "thank you" and studied it. Her eyes lit up. "I think I got it!" We all crowded around her as she typed the sentence out. She then rearranged the words and took letters out of some. She created the word EVERLASTING and the rest were just a mess. A light went off in my head. I had figured it out. But so did Alia. She rearranged the extra letters into three words: FIGHT FOR PEACE.

X's jaw dropped. "Fight for everlasting peace."

We all turned to him in shock. "How did you get it?" Zero asked.

"I dunno," X answered. "I just knew it for some reason." That creed was from the ending of Mega Man 1. Apparently, X had inherited that from Mega Man's programming. It was very interesting.

Alia sighed again. "Well, we figured it out, but how does it help us find Gate?"

Gate's image appeared on the screen. "Very well done, everyone. I was beginning to think you'd never get that one. But you did. And now I'll tell you where my new lab is." He stayed silent for about five seconds. The schmuck. "My lab is located in the junkyard that was once New York City. Your neighborhood, isn't it Miss Satoryu?"

I stared blankly. "Yeah. Thanks for telling us where you are. I can't wait to beat you to dust." Gate laughed. The image then went away.

The Hunters put their helmets on. "Alia," X called, "send us there on the double."

"Right away X," she responded without skipping a beat.

While she entered the coordinates, X said, "And thanks. For everything." Zero and Axl nodded. Alia smiled as she entered the last coordinate. The Hunters teleported off. I followed. It's like a broken record, isn't it?

We touched down on what looked like Wall Street. Mist was gathered a few blocks down, so we ran to it. I had just remembered something. "What did you guys get from Kappaphi?"

Axl looked to me. "Where were you? We already went over that. I got the Bog Burst, X got the Marsh Spear, and Zero got the...uhh..."

"Renyoshou," Zero finished for him.

"Oh, forget about it," I said. "I'll see them when I see them." There was a large hole in the street where the Mist was congregating. With a nod, we jumped in.

The interior looked a little similar to Gate's old lab. The color scheme was way different though. And I had a feeling that nothing else would be too similar. We began walking further in. The air was getting more purple and evil as we walked. I was coughing on it.

"This is strange," X said. "Usually enemies would be crawling all over the place in a place like this."

Zero said to him, "It's all mind games, I guess."

We came across a large wall with Gate's portrait covering most of the large wall. "That proves it," Axl said, "he loves himself too much."

The wall below the portrait then crumbled. Dynamo was thrown through it into me. He was surprised. "Oh! You guys are here." He changed to uneasiness. "Sorry, Chris, I couldn't find out anything. I've just been fighting these guys the whole time." We looked at the hole to see eight shadowy figures walk through it. They were the Nightmare Investigators; Ground Scaravich, Metal Shark Player, Infinity Mijinion, Blaze Heatnix, Blizzard Wolfang, Shieldner Sheldon, Rainy Turtloid, and Commander Yammark. The Mist was surrounding each of them. They all had the look of anger on their faces. "I could not get to any of them," Dynamo continued. "It's like they're zombies or something."

I changed to my male self. "They are zombies in a way. That's just the Mist copying their bodies and, I'm assuming, abilities."

Zero drew his Z-Saber. "Take the bench, Dynamo. We'll handle them from here."

The Investigators then changed into Mist and hovered towards us. Once they were close, they rocketed into Dynamo's chest. He was in pain, needless to say. He was hunched over and trembling. His muscles, if you can call them that, began to expand. His armor began cracking. We watched in fear as Dynamo suddenly became a gigantic mutant of a Reploid. He roared at us and threw his fist at us. We dodged it, leading it into the floor. X and Axl fired at his back, but it didn't seem to do anything. Dynamo freed his fist and threw it at us again. Zero and I jumped on top of it and then jumped to his face. We slashed at it, but didn't leave a scratch. Dynamo shook us off and raised his foot. He stomped down just as we had gotten out from underneath his shadow.

Axl called to the Navigators, "Does this thing have a weakness?"

"Negative," Alia responded, "It has all the resistances of the Investigators and Dynamo himself. None of your weapons can damage him."

"So what do we do?" Axl asked.

I told him, "Run." The four of us did so.

Dynamo gave chase, crashing through walls to do so. The Hunters were dashing like crazy while I was flying over them. It seemed that no matter how fast we ran, Dynamo easily caught up to us. We ran and ran and ran.

Pallette then called to us, "Be careful everyone! There's a dead end coming up!"

"Typical," I muttered.

Pallette continued, "And it's riddled with spikes!"

"You have got to be kidding!" I shouted as a piece of rubble clocked me in the head.

"If I'm lying, I'm dying."

"If you're not, we're dying."

We saw the dead end coming up. We made it there before Dynamo could catch up. There were spikes practically everywhere. There was a surge of energy there as well. "We're doomed," Axl sighed.

I flew into it and looked around. There were some spikes that were transparent. I touched one and went right through it. "Over here!" I waved. "There are fake ones here!" They used light from their helmets to see through the thick Mist and find the fake spikes. They followed them to a corner of the room. Dynamo had finally caught up and had begun stepping into the spike room. Axl fired his Grapple Talon to the wall beside Dynamo. He then tripped over the taught wire and onto the spikes. They electrocuted him beyond belief. He was smoking purple.

"Now's your chance!" Layer called. "His defenses are malfunctioning. One big shot will do it!" The Hunters leapt on to Dynamo's back and drew their weapons. Axl and X fired a shot into the small of his neck, and Zero stabbed him in the same spot with the Z-Saber.

"Sorry," X said under his breath.

Instead of an explosion, the Mist just fumed out of him. The spikes disappeared as well. The Mist cloud appeared over Dynamo, now in his original body. He sat up and turned to me. "Sorry. I couldn't help you at all. I failed the job you gave me."

I knelt before him and smiled. "It's okay, Dynamo. But how about this? I'll pay you 250K more if you help us fight."

Dynamo shook his head. "No. I don't need to be paid for this. This is my business now." He stood up as if he weren't hurt, which oddly he wasn't.

"Alright," I smiled. "Like they say, the more, the merrier."

Dynamo smiled also. "Amen."

The Mist cloud then reformed into the Investigators. They all stared at us with menacing glares. The entire room then became Mist and spiraled downwards. It took all of us with it. To where, I had no idea. Whatever it was, it couldn't be good. I heard Gate laughing again. Laughing all the way down.