Ch. 27 Hollow Victory

Three months had passed since the fall of Sigma's last fortress. The remains of his Maverick army crumbled in the absence of their master, fields of their dead lying around in areas of the countryside now.

Roll stood with her back to X for a moment, both of them watching as the area around them was lit slightly with the remains of plasma fire.

"Hey, sis?" X asked idly, his eyes constantly moving even though his voice was calm.

"Yeah, Mega?" Roll replied, never quite ridding herself of her habit of the old days. Her blonde hair blew about in the wind uncontrolled, the three stripes in her hair having gained several additions in the past few months, an additional red stripe with blocks of black mixed in, as well as a solid black stripe, and two new white stripes.

"What exactly do you think has happened to Zero?"

"What kind of answer do you expect to a question like that?" Roll replied, her voice almost cracking even as her eyes maintained their vigilant shifting across their surroundings.

"I'm not sure. I'm still trying to come to grips with it myself." X replied, relaxing slightly as he saw no sign of any more attackers.

"Trying to come to grips with what part of it?" Roll replied, leaning back slightly against her brother.

"The whole thing, his wife, his kid, especially the kid. I'm honestly not sure what to think of that one. Knowing that the kid's father is a Reploid adds a very confusing twist to it." X replied, his response somewhat slow.

"I think it's a good thing. It shows that us Reploids can blend in perfectly with humans, other than our lack of health problems and obvious long life." Roll replied lightly.

"Yes, but it adds its own problems to things as well." X commented as he started walking through the battlefield, checking the debris for signs of anything unusual.

"What do you mean?" Roll queried as she walked along beside him, the occasional small plasma burst firing from either of their busters as they found several barely surviving Mavericks struggling to take one last shot at them.

"Well, the humans, in spite of their well known health issues, were able to nearly overpopulate the planet at one point. What happens with Reploids? We don't age, we don't die other than lack of maintenance, or a violent end. We could easily begin to overpopulate the planet ourselves within a matter of three or four generations at most I would think." X replied as he kicked at a pile of broken parts, a small gem-like object glowing at him from beneath the rubble.

"Looks like you found what we came for." Roll commented as she watched him lift the blue sphere.

"Yep, sure does. Let's go home" X ordered lightly as they both turned into beams and were zapped to their headquarters.

"Incoming teleport beams" Alia shouted as Roll and X touched down in the middle of their main operations room. Signas stood and saluted the two of them, receiving a salute back from X, and a wave from Roll as they quickly walked off of the teleportation pad that they had installed shortly after Sigma's fall. X merely tossed the blue sphere at Alia who quickly inserted it into a round indent on her workstation. The ball lit up and began to float and spin above the indentation, picking up speed and beginning to make a light whirring noise as it did so.

Crystal walked in from the main doors, carrying hers and Zero's child with her gently as she walked past X and the others, moving up near Alia's workstation as the sphere began to project a hologram.

"I'm guessing you guys are wondering where I am." Zero's voice rang out through the room before the image was even fully formed. Finally the hologram solidified, showing Zero standing alone over a cliff, his armor still black, odd waves of energy seeming to move under the surface even though he stood still as a statue.

"Well, I wish I could tell you. But I don't feel I can just yet. This…power. It won't seem to go away at will like my other power levels would. I feel that I'm no longer safe around everyone else, until I have regained control over this new facet of my abilities. Zero and I, we've talked about it a few times now. I'm a liability to the team, and to my family until I can quiet this ability down to a controllable level. Even now, standing here on this cliff, I can feel the energy pent up inside of me, ready to explode at a moment's notice. I feel like a bomb, waiting to go off at the setting of an unknown trigger. Were that I were a normal human being again…or just a normal Reploid for that matter. But if I were, I couldn't have done what I've done, nor could I have saved my family. Crystal would've died in that fortress, and our child along with her. And I'd have never forgiven myself."

The image of Zero turned to face straight at the camera for a moment. Only Crystal seemed able to notice a small tear track down the side of the S-Class Hunter's face. "I'm sorry, but please don't try and use Light's scanners to find me. I'm masking my presence from them anyway, plus I'd only show up as a field of distortion on your scanners. Until I'm sure I can control this energy well enough to not be a danger to those I've fought alongside of, and that I love, I will not bring myself near you."

X jumped as he suddenly heard the sound of plasma fire from off to the side of the projection, Zero merely stepping backwards to avoid the blast as it slide between him and the camera. "Plus, in destroying Sigma, I seem to have gained quite the…cult following one could say. It seems that somehow with his last few moments, Sigma put some sort of signal or command through to the Mavericks. They all attack me on sight. I cannot bring such a menace home to my family. I've literally had to fight through armies on several occasions already."

Roll gasped lightly as she watched Zero come under sudden heavy fire, the energy in his system immediately jumping out and forming a shield around him, deflecting each and every shot. The view began to show heavy static for a moment before calming back down as the energy coalesced into a more solid form, a blade of energy extending from Zero's forearm.

"As you can see, the forces which come after me are only slightly less than what we fought inside of Sigma's fortress," Zero commented as he turned as slashed what looked like another copy of Wheel Gator in half with the energy blade. A piece of what seemed to be one of Storm Eagle's wings flew across the screen after he stepped out of view for a moment. As he walked back over, he knelt in front of the camera. "I'm sorry I can't come home to you yet Crystal. When I can do so safely, then you will see me again. I love you." He made a motion to shut the camera off, the small delay allowing them to see as a wave of plasma fire hit his side, making him growl in slight anger before the view cut off.

With that the hologram replay shut down quickly. Even X was somewhat shocked at his friend's resolve. Roll was holding Crystal, patting her consolingly as Alia snaked her way under X's arm, a habit she had picked up from watching Crystal do it to Zero back when he had been with them. Zenton stood from his place near the back wall.

"I don't care what he says. I'm looking for him anyway." Zenton declared, his voice cracking slightly as emotions he hadn't known he could show surfaced. Toronto merely nodded his approval as several of the others made similar confirming motions.

"I hate to break this to you folks, but the only time I can track him at all," Light commented as he brought his face and a map up on the main view screen, "is when he's fighting. And even then, I can only tell because that field of distortion becomes absolutely massive. I'm not sure exactly what happened to his systems, but when he lets that field loose, it causes a distortion in my sensors over a mile wide."
Alia sighed in desperation as X moves up and begins to speak animatedly to Light, his arms waving with each sentence as he speaks.

"If that's the case Doc, then we'll just have to start beaming down into the middle of every field of distortion we come across. I will not see his child growing up fatherless. It's possible that you can somehow help him stabilize that energy pattern. He doesn't have to deal with it alone."

"I agree wholeheartedly X, except for one problem." Light's statement caused several looks of confusion. "Actually, it may be several problems. But first and foremost, I have absolutely no idea what that field of distortion will do to my circuits if we bring him in this room. And not to sound vain, but if my circuits go down, we just lost our headquarters, because without me here at all, this place shuts down. Nothing works at all."

X's look switched to defeat quickly at that notion.

"However, if he can get within range of the base, I may be able to scan him via the external sensors, if they can get enough range and he can keep the energy completely controlled. Otherwise, the distortion field will keep me from being able to scan him at all."

X's usually calm responses are thrown out the window as he slams his fist into the wall beside him, causing a horrendous grating sound as the metal gives way to his armored hand, Crystal jumping slightly, Alia turning and suddenly hugging herself to X, tears rolling down her face silently. His anger is quickly drained away as he wraps his arms around her and holds her tight.

"Are you sure there's nothing we can do about it right now, Doc?" He asks quietly, already sure of the answer himself.

"Nothing we can do that would allow us to remain confident in our ability to hold our base of operations from the Maverick swarms. There are still far too many of them to even think that we stand a chance with my auto-defenses down. It would be a rather…well, pointless thing to regain Zero, only to lose his family that he was trying to protect, because our defenses weren't up and we got attacked while dealing with his new powers. Plus Zero seems to be almost afraid to make contact with anyone he knows and cares about, as he's not sure the energy field cares if anyone is friend or foe."

"Very well," X stated as his face took on the resolved look that all who knew him were so familiar with. "If we can't bring him here to help him, then all I can do is try to make sure things are made as safe as possible, as quickly as possible. After all, if the Maverick threat is no longer a threat, then we wouldn't have to worry about the defenses."

Six months later…

X stands and stares at the devastation of yet another battlefield, having teleported in the moment they had noticed the field of distortion. What he finds disheartens him once again.

He lets out a loud curse as he slams his fist into a pile of dead Maverick bodies, sending most of them flying off a good several yards. The air around him glows slightly as his frustration builds yet again.

"How the hell is it that he can take out an entire army of Mavericks, every time, in less time than it takes us to detect the energy output and get me teleported? Every time!" X shouts uselessly as he backhands yet another pile of bodies.

He looks up a moment as he hears a buster charging, turning and avoiding the blast radius barely as he rolls to the side, the blue plasma trail leaving a heat trail behind it. "Only busters made by Light do that…" he thought as he tried to make out the assailant through the dust cloud kicked up by the plasma blast. He quickly aims and releases a level 5 blast from his own buster, not able to make out the identity of his attacker before the dust cloud clears and they have disappeared.

"Well, that was unusual to say the least," he comments to himself as he begins the preparations to return to base.

"X to Hunter HQ."

"Go ahead, X" Alia responds quickly.

"This battlefield is clear," he replies, pausing slightly before his next words. "No sign of Zero, other than the aftermath. We'll have to be quicker next time" He watches around him as he is teleported out.

Well…that's it, sort of…the end of my first story, after way more time than I originally intended when I started it. And yes, I left a great many details rather vague, as I'm intending to do a sequel, but I'm not exactly sure of what direction I want it to go.