Once again, if you weren't sure after the first two chapters, Zero isn't
mine! He's Capcom's...
Ch.3
Attack
"So what exactly was the deal with all those missions, X?"
"The first time we were just trying to take out the leader of the Maverick movement. After that it got personal. While I was busy hunting down Maverick hideouts I discovered that more leaders like Chill Penguin and the others had surfaced. After I fought and destroyed a couple of them Dr. Cain was contacted by a group of Mavericks calling themselves the X- hunters. They had all of your parts except for the control chip."
"My control chip? I don't remember any of that."
"That's probably because you weren't online at the time. You weren't even available to help until I was ready to go at it with Sigma and his copycat of you. Then you blew through the door and his mimic. It was actually kind of funny. I didn't think so at the time but it was later."
"You seem to be easily amused now days X. My memories don't show you as being half as happy."
"People change. So do Reploids for that matter. I was bound to unwind sooner or later."
Dr. Light interrupted their reverie. "I hate to break this up but we've got company. And lots of it. You're going to pay attention to the door, Zero. You're going to be reactivated, X, but I'm going to hold you back until Zero needs help. Got it?"
"Right, Doc." Both were so used to accepting orders from the doctor, X from habit and Seero from Zero's memories that both responded in unison.
"Hey, Doc. Is Zenton going to be able to help with this one?"
"Probably not, Zero."
"Oh, well. He'll be disappointed that he missed the party though."
Zero turned his attention to the door in front of him. He could hear the pounding of several Reploids on the other side. He merely stood there as the door flew open. Sigma was the first to step through. A mistake that he was not likely to forget anytime soon.
Zero wondered for a moment what had possessed Sigma to take the lead. Cockiness or just plain carelessness? It was a thought that had but a moments notice before Sigma's arm left its proper position. As it fell to the floor Sigma stepped back, the pain playing tricks with his face. It wasn't but a moment before he backed out of the door and sent the other five or six reploids in instead. Zero realized that he could already recognize a few of them. They all stopped when they realized that he had not taken a single step backwards while they approached the area directly in front of him.
"What have you done with X, traitor?" A purple Reploid with a shoulder mounted cannon, labeled Vile by the visor, was doing the speaking.
"Traitor? That's a new one. I haven't been called that since last time I ran into one of you idiots." Bass was clearly not happy about coming up against Zero again. "What's the matter, Bass? You look like you're afraid of something. Does the fact that you got your butt kicked last time we met have something to do with that?"
"You are being questioned on the whereabouts of another Reploid, traitor. You are required to speak or you will be blown to scrap on the spot." Vile seemed to be even more warlike than before.
"You're beginning to irritate me, Vile. That's not a good thing to do. If you want to try to blast me you can just go ahead and try. I wouldn't keep my hopes up too high, though."
All of the Mavericks began to fire at once. When the smoke cleared there was no sign of Zero. Sigma's face took on an irritated look. All of the other Mavericks began to laugh at Zero's stupidity in the face of their obviously more powerful weapons. Sigma did not look happy, however.
"He's not dead, you fools. Find him, immediately." Sigma was not a happy camper. The loss of the same arm that had been taken off by Zero before might have had something to do with his irritation.
Zero, in the meantime, had put his sword up and was busy standing on the wall about ten feet above their heads. He was amazed at how dumb they could be. "I thought these guys were supposed to be really tough. All it would take to confuse them would be to start teleporting all over the place. Bass and Vile seem to have some sort of intelligence but it seems that the only one who has any real amount of brains is Sigma. And that's not really saying all that much. This may get kind of fun, though."
"Hey, Zero. Leave some for me."
"Fine, X. I will."
Zero teleported down from the wall to end up in front of the group. "Hey, guys, I told you it wouldn't work, but no. You had to go ahead and try to shoot me. Now I'm afraid that I'm going to have to rearrange at least a few of you." Zero reached back over his shoulder and slowly pulled the pulsating blade from it's home. As the blade came free several of the smiles on the faces of the Mavericks slid into looks of fear. They all took a moment to look around and make sure they still had their friends and then began to get ready to actually fight instead of trying to overwhelm him with firepower. Storm Eagle stepped out to the front first. He nodded in acknowledgement of Zero. Being a bird had given him a certain sense of propriety.
"I will be the first to face you in single combat, Zero. I take it that you have no objections?"
"None whatsoever." Zero backed away from the bird and took up his fighting stance.
Storm Eagle brought his arm cannon up and let loose with one of his tornadoes. Zero sidestepped the shot and ran at Storm. The Maverick launched himself into the air, sure of the fact that Zero was restricted to ground movement. He stopped and stared as Zero launched himself into the air to hover in front of the awestruck reploid. Zero then quite casually swept his saber across the space where Storm Eagle's midsection was residing. The Maverick's eyes lost the light that had been in them as the two separated parts fell to the floor with a resounding clang. Bass seemed even more unnerved. Zero calmly flew back down to the floor.
"Is this is what you think of as a challenge? If it is then I think I'll go home for a while. This is boring." Vile's eyes began to glow underneath his helmet, red with suppressed fury.
"You will die, Zero. Get him," Vile yelled as he launched himself across the space between him and the crimson one. Zero easily caught Vile by his cannon, spun and threw him into the rest of the Mavericks. Zero also knew that there was no way to tackle all of them at the same time.
"Hey, Doc. I could use X about now."
"He's on his way, Zero."
Zero sliced the arm of another Reploid, one that his visor couldn't label. He turned to slice at another one and watched as the Maverick flew across the room with a plasma trail.
"Well, X. It's nice to see you can use that stuff on them too." Zero grinned as X walked over from the spot where he had slid down the wall. The Reploids were all staring, although Sigma looked as if on the verge of apoplexy.
"This isn't the last time we will meet, Zero." Sigma then turned into a beam of light and disappeared, leaving his arm behind.
"Hey, Zero," X yelled. "Do you think we should send his arm back to him?"
"No. If he wants it that bad, he can come and get it."
"Good point. Why waste the energy if he doesn't want it?"
"My thoughts exactly."
"Hey, Doc, what's to stop Sigma from coming back?" Zero asked the ceiling.
"Well, my teleportation shield should do the trick. Or at least it would have if I'd have thought about turning it on." Light answered, even managing to sound somewhat ashamed of himself for not thinking of it earlier.
"And how are you going to stop him from teleporting to just outside the shield and walking in?"
"Autocannons."
"That were also not turned on?"
"Correct." Light answered as X began to double over laughing.
"Well, Doc," Zero stated after a good chuckle, "just goes to show, you may be a computer, but underneath it you're still human."
"I have a perfectly plausible excuse." Light replied.
"And that is?"
"I was multi-tasking."
"And that made your computerized mind forget something?"
"My dear boy, let's see you manage to fix one reploid, and basically create another one, all while trying to watch all of your security cameras, and keep track of one rather lively reploid. Believe you me, Windows couldn't handle this much info at once."
"Ha, you could have had me fooled with all your complaints."
"Please, I have quite some intelligence. I run my own OS and wouldn't use anything less."
X looked up from his spot rolling on the floor. "At least now I have a sense of humor to appreciate this." And he promptly went back to rolling and laughing hysterically.
Ch.3
Attack
"So what exactly was the deal with all those missions, X?"
"The first time we were just trying to take out the leader of the Maverick movement. After that it got personal. While I was busy hunting down Maverick hideouts I discovered that more leaders like Chill Penguin and the others had surfaced. After I fought and destroyed a couple of them Dr. Cain was contacted by a group of Mavericks calling themselves the X- hunters. They had all of your parts except for the control chip."
"My control chip? I don't remember any of that."
"That's probably because you weren't online at the time. You weren't even available to help until I was ready to go at it with Sigma and his copycat of you. Then you blew through the door and his mimic. It was actually kind of funny. I didn't think so at the time but it was later."
"You seem to be easily amused now days X. My memories don't show you as being half as happy."
"People change. So do Reploids for that matter. I was bound to unwind sooner or later."
Dr. Light interrupted their reverie. "I hate to break this up but we've got company. And lots of it. You're going to pay attention to the door, Zero. You're going to be reactivated, X, but I'm going to hold you back until Zero needs help. Got it?"
"Right, Doc." Both were so used to accepting orders from the doctor, X from habit and Seero from Zero's memories that both responded in unison.
"Hey, Doc. Is Zenton going to be able to help with this one?"
"Probably not, Zero."
"Oh, well. He'll be disappointed that he missed the party though."
Zero turned his attention to the door in front of him. He could hear the pounding of several Reploids on the other side. He merely stood there as the door flew open. Sigma was the first to step through. A mistake that he was not likely to forget anytime soon.
Zero wondered for a moment what had possessed Sigma to take the lead. Cockiness or just plain carelessness? It was a thought that had but a moments notice before Sigma's arm left its proper position. As it fell to the floor Sigma stepped back, the pain playing tricks with his face. It wasn't but a moment before he backed out of the door and sent the other five or six reploids in instead. Zero realized that he could already recognize a few of them. They all stopped when they realized that he had not taken a single step backwards while they approached the area directly in front of him.
"What have you done with X, traitor?" A purple Reploid with a shoulder mounted cannon, labeled Vile by the visor, was doing the speaking.
"Traitor? That's a new one. I haven't been called that since last time I ran into one of you idiots." Bass was clearly not happy about coming up against Zero again. "What's the matter, Bass? You look like you're afraid of something. Does the fact that you got your butt kicked last time we met have something to do with that?"
"You are being questioned on the whereabouts of another Reploid, traitor. You are required to speak or you will be blown to scrap on the spot." Vile seemed to be even more warlike than before.
"You're beginning to irritate me, Vile. That's not a good thing to do. If you want to try to blast me you can just go ahead and try. I wouldn't keep my hopes up too high, though."
All of the Mavericks began to fire at once. When the smoke cleared there was no sign of Zero. Sigma's face took on an irritated look. All of the other Mavericks began to laugh at Zero's stupidity in the face of their obviously more powerful weapons. Sigma did not look happy, however.
"He's not dead, you fools. Find him, immediately." Sigma was not a happy camper. The loss of the same arm that had been taken off by Zero before might have had something to do with his irritation.
Zero, in the meantime, had put his sword up and was busy standing on the wall about ten feet above their heads. He was amazed at how dumb they could be. "I thought these guys were supposed to be really tough. All it would take to confuse them would be to start teleporting all over the place. Bass and Vile seem to have some sort of intelligence but it seems that the only one who has any real amount of brains is Sigma. And that's not really saying all that much. This may get kind of fun, though."
"Hey, Zero. Leave some for me."
"Fine, X. I will."
Zero teleported down from the wall to end up in front of the group. "Hey, guys, I told you it wouldn't work, but no. You had to go ahead and try to shoot me. Now I'm afraid that I'm going to have to rearrange at least a few of you." Zero reached back over his shoulder and slowly pulled the pulsating blade from it's home. As the blade came free several of the smiles on the faces of the Mavericks slid into looks of fear. They all took a moment to look around and make sure they still had their friends and then began to get ready to actually fight instead of trying to overwhelm him with firepower. Storm Eagle stepped out to the front first. He nodded in acknowledgement of Zero. Being a bird had given him a certain sense of propriety.
"I will be the first to face you in single combat, Zero. I take it that you have no objections?"
"None whatsoever." Zero backed away from the bird and took up his fighting stance.
Storm Eagle brought his arm cannon up and let loose with one of his tornadoes. Zero sidestepped the shot and ran at Storm. The Maverick launched himself into the air, sure of the fact that Zero was restricted to ground movement. He stopped and stared as Zero launched himself into the air to hover in front of the awestruck reploid. Zero then quite casually swept his saber across the space where Storm Eagle's midsection was residing. The Maverick's eyes lost the light that had been in them as the two separated parts fell to the floor with a resounding clang. Bass seemed even more unnerved. Zero calmly flew back down to the floor.
"Is this is what you think of as a challenge? If it is then I think I'll go home for a while. This is boring." Vile's eyes began to glow underneath his helmet, red with suppressed fury.
"You will die, Zero. Get him," Vile yelled as he launched himself across the space between him and the crimson one. Zero easily caught Vile by his cannon, spun and threw him into the rest of the Mavericks. Zero also knew that there was no way to tackle all of them at the same time.
"Hey, Doc. I could use X about now."
"He's on his way, Zero."
Zero sliced the arm of another Reploid, one that his visor couldn't label. He turned to slice at another one and watched as the Maverick flew across the room with a plasma trail.
"Well, X. It's nice to see you can use that stuff on them too." Zero grinned as X walked over from the spot where he had slid down the wall. The Reploids were all staring, although Sigma looked as if on the verge of apoplexy.
"This isn't the last time we will meet, Zero." Sigma then turned into a beam of light and disappeared, leaving his arm behind.
"Hey, Zero," X yelled. "Do you think we should send his arm back to him?"
"No. If he wants it that bad, he can come and get it."
"Good point. Why waste the energy if he doesn't want it?"
"My thoughts exactly."
"Hey, Doc, what's to stop Sigma from coming back?" Zero asked the ceiling.
"Well, my teleportation shield should do the trick. Or at least it would have if I'd have thought about turning it on." Light answered, even managing to sound somewhat ashamed of himself for not thinking of it earlier.
"And how are you going to stop him from teleporting to just outside the shield and walking in?"
"Autocannons."
"That were also not turned on?"
"Correct." Light answered as X began to double over laughing.
"Well, Doc," Zero stated after a good chuckle, "just goes to show, you may be a computer, but underneath it you're still human."
"I have a perfectly plausible excuse." Light replied.
"And that is?"
"I was multi-tasking."
"And that made your computerized mind forget something?"
"My dear boy, let's see you manage to fix one reploid, and basically create another one, all while trying to watch all of your security cameras, and keep track of one rather lively reploid. Believe you me, Windows couldn't handle this much info at once."
"Ha, you could have had me fooled with all your complaints."
"Please, I have quite some intelligence. I run my own OS and wouldn't use anything less."
X looked up from his spot rolling on the floor. "At least now I have a sense of humor to appreciate this." And he promptly went back to rolling and laughing hysterically.