Mega Man X: The Mist Enigma
Chapter 18: Up, Down, All Around
We continued to melt the plethora of snow below us. It seemed like it would never end. I kept checking the radar periodically to see how much longer it was going to take. At the halfway mark, a second blip showed up on the radar not too far below us.
"What's this?" I asked. The Hunters shrugged. I decided to dig toward that blip. I knew I hit it when a block of ice appeared below me. I threw a fireball into it, but it did not melt. "That's weird."
Zero took a look. "It must be like the ice that blocked the capsule that used to be here. It can be thawed with light."
X changed to the Solar Saw and aimed at the ice block. "I'll take care of it." He fired two saws into the block, thawing it in a heartbeat. Behind it was a passageway to an alcove.
"Yes!" I exclaimed. "We can get out of this cold place. I'm freezing my nips out here." We stepped inside.
While I sat in the corner and heated up, the Hunters found another of Dr. Light's capsules. "X," the doctor began, "this capsule shall give you the helmet for the Ultimate Armor. It will increase the speed at which you charge your Buster and give you infinite weapon energy."
X stepped in and the helmet materialized onto his head. "Thanks, Dr. Light," he said, "I'm going to try this one out right now." He walked back into the snow shaft. We followed.
I wasn't very keen on the idea. "Just when I get back to room temperature."
X changed to Tyrant Fist and charged. Opposed to a three second charge, X had fully charged in one and a half seconds. He walked to the wall and drew his fist back. "Tyrant Rave!" He punched the wall with fist ablaze. A wave of fire spread from where X punched, bringing the shaft's temperature way up. The snow melted in an instant, leaving a pool of water for us to float to the bottom to. Surely enough where the first blip was on X's radar, a boss door awaited us. We went in it.
On the other side was a room covered with ice. In the middle of it was Blizzard Wolfang, a blue wolf Reploid, with claws out and teeth gritting, and Dive Choujean, the same harpy from the day or two before, saddled on top of him.
Dynamo stood forward. "I'll start this one," he said as he raised his saber. Wolfang began spitting chunks of ice to Dynamo. He blocked them by twirling his saber like a propeller. X and I ran to Wolfang's sides. X fired a Plasma Shot while I jumped forward with Kaiser out. Choujean flew to the ceiling bringing Wolfang with her. She summoned multiple whirlwinds from the ceiling. Easily avoided, even with slippery ice on the floor.
Axl fired a Delta Ember and lasers to the wolf and harpy. Choujean blew them away with a gust of wind. They dropped to the ground and dashed to Zero with claws out. Zero avoided it by sliding to the left. Alia contacted us on the Bulbrite. "We think we've discovered the bosses' weaknesses. They should be weak to what they used to work against."
I thought about that. Renaraid was weak to Gryfflion's weapons, whereas it used to be the other way around. And Marymer was fried up by fire, where Hell Sanhound used to be weak to her weaponry. If Marymer was vulnerable to Choujean's weapons before, this would mean that Choujean would be hurt by water. Maybe it was only coincidence that it worked like that for the first two, but anything was worth a try.
I threw a water ball at the two Mavericks. They cringed in pain. "There's your cue guys!" I called. Zero jumped over them and used the Suiryujin. The blade went through Choujean's chest into Wolfang's. They screamed in pain to the ceiling.
X ran up to them, charged, and spun repeatedly with the Hydro Slash sword. "Typhoon Slash!" X's spins created a large whirlpool that sucked Choujean and Wolfang inside. They cried again as the whirlpool and X cut them up. Once X finished, the two fell to the floor in pain. The room began warping once more.
We were transported to the bottom of a giant spiral staircase with a green tube in the center. "Split Mushroom's lab," Zero said. "Why's Gate making all these nostalgic areas for us?"
"Can we think about that later?" Dynamo asked nervously. He was looking behind us with fear. The rest of us turned to find that the stairs began crumbling.
Axl yelled at the top of his lungs "RUN!"
As we ran, the stairs continued collapsing into a bottomless void. After the fifth floor I began flying to the top. It seemed endless. "Is there a friggin end to this thing?" Twenty or so floors later, there was an end. A dead end. The stairs stopped at the ceiling. The Hunters saw it too. We were all on the last few steps, watching the stairs disappear before us into the abyss. Amazingly, the stairs we were on did not fall.
We wiped our brows. "Now what?" X asked.
Dynamo looked below at the wall. "There's a platform sticking out over there," he pointed. Axl and I flew to it. Beyond it was a passageway that held a boss door.
"There's a door here," we called. Dynamo did his helicopter trick to get across. Zero and X were baffled for a second. Zero smiled, jumped forward, air dashed, and got to the platform with the Hieiryuha.
X called into the Bulbrite, "Douglas, send me the Blade Armor."
"Sorry X," Douglas answered, "there's too much interference. I can't send you any armor while you're down there.
"Damn," X grunted as he hit the wall. A beep sounded and the stairs descended a few feet. A door then opened, which X entered hesitantly.
"What's with that?" Zero asked.
X came out a couple seconds later with his Ultimate leg armor. "That answers it," Dynamo said.
I called to X, "I hope that thing extends your air dash, 'cause it's still a big jump!"
"I got it," X waved as he jumped off the stairs. He then suspended himself in midair and thrust himself forward with boosts from his boots. He softly landed next to us. "These gave me the Mach Dash," X said, "plus a boost in speed and jumping height, so no worries." The rest of us nodded, and we all went into the boss door.
The room was completely empty. Soon we heard a faint buzzing noise that slowly became louder. It was coming from the ceiling and coming towards us. The buzzing was the wings of Commander Yammark, a dragonfly Reploid with smaller robotic dragonflies circling him. He pointed to us, sending the dragonflies flying to us. We quickly batted them out of the way and charged to Yammark. Suddenly, Swamp Kappaphi jumped in front of Yammark and kicked us away. Like it never happened, we charged again.
Dynamo and I threw a punch to Kappaphi's face, but missed. He kicked us out of his way, which let Yammark summon more dragonflies. They fired green energy blasts at us. While that happened, Kappaphi attacked us with rapid physical attacks. We all took a few hits more than we would have liked. Kappaphi then spit up a ball of some sticky substance that exploded on contact with the ground. We were able to dodge it narrowly.
We had a problem. We didn't know what Kappaphi used to beak weak against or who he worked best on. So we tried it the old fashioned way: use weapons until we get it right. Axl fired lasers and the Nova Flare at the duck. Nothing. Zero used the Hieiryuha to try and pin the two to the wall. They dodged it effortlessly. Dynamo twirled his twin saber quick enough to create a gust of wind. It pushed Kappaphi into Yammark, who were then both stunned shortly.
X was charging the Helix Twister. When ready, a tornado surrounded him as he floated into the air. "Rush Twister!" He flew at undetectable speeds around the room, charging into the two Mavericks repeatedly. When he stopped, they had fallen into pieces. They screeched in pain as the room began warping again.
I was beginning to see a trend. The four areas we'd been to so far were from X4, 6, 7, and 8. If we were going to fight the eight remaining bosses, they would be in areas from X1, 2, 3, and 5. And whichever areas those would be, they would correspond with the Investigators attributes. Scaravich, Heatnix, Sheldon, and Mijinion were left, who would be paired up with Minotank, Sanhound, Gryfflion, and Unicrown respectively. I wasn't worried about Scaravich, and Heatnix and Sheldon wouldn't be a problem either. It was Mijinion, one of the most difficult bosses to beat, that worried me. How would we fare against a Mist clone of him and Unicrown at the same time? Could the others be any worse? Or could Gate completely me throw me off with another twist?