The author stood there in the quiet, two lane street. She and Roll were still there, outside in the country outside of Arcadia. Roll was still blinking and trying to get used to the normal world after the vision of the future she and GrimMoody had appeared inside. It brought about the sensation of swimming through the surface of water after holding your breath for a long time.
"You really are the author, aren't you?" Roll finally said, amazed by what she had seen. "That was...well, really sweet. Thank you for showing me. But, if I'm going to live through that anyway, why did you show me? You didn't have to."
GrimMoody ignored this question, instead choosing to talk on about the Maverick Wars. "Like I said, the War will end soon. In fact, in a little over than three years, the Maverick Hunters will be excessively big. There will always be robots that go haywire on occasion for whatever reason, but the official war will be done and faded away. Signas began to send Hunters away to other towns to become regular assistants to the normal police or additions to human armies, citing that this world need to be a world where humans and reploids need to get along."
"Does that mean Bass thought of a way to cure the Maverick virus?"
The author scoffed. "No way. Do you really think that a robot like Bass can cure it? He's not a scientist, Roll. Already he feels overwhelmed by the burden he has now. He's going to try everything he can and knows to cure the virus, but well, it's not an easy thing to do. Even now the Mavericks are narrowing, weakening without the influence of Sigma. Illegal copy chips are being cracked down on, and there's just no powerful Maverick who can really lead them like before."
Roll nodded. "So...things are getting better?"
"Oh yes. X is actually able to leave the Hunters for a while and start working in politics, a place he is surprisingly far better suited. Axl and Zero stay with the Hunters, and after several years, Bass actually comes up with a way to upgrade his busters, finally being able to fight again the way he wants to."
"Wonderful!" the girl-bot laughed. "I bet he was really happy about that."
"Actually, not as happy as you might think. He just didn't care that much anymore." GrimMoody said. "He's already given most of his hope to Axl, so much so that he never even bothered to take the tests to become S rank. Bass is more proud of the guy than you might expect. Mostly he was happy about joining Axl so they can fight together. And Treble."
"What do you mean, 'and Treble'?" Roll was curious. "Doesn't Treble always fight with Bass?"
"Well, let's show you this."
Instead of swirling the world around them again, GrimMoody traced a large square in the air, and it turned completely black before it light up, bright like a television. Roll stepped closer to it, peering into the strange void. It wasn't at all like watching something on TV. It was like witnessing real life in complete 3D, natural and not an image made up of tiny dots.
Treble growled. He sniffed abruptly at Bass' legs, nudging them impatiently. Bass didn't respond. He was too busy working at the computer, his face in a constant stage of grimace and desperation that it always was when he was researching cures for the Maverick virus. His own anti-virus programs didn't work, and trying to figure out something that would ran the risk of driving Bass to drink. Fortunately for those around Forte, no one had ever invented alcohol for reploids, so he just had to continue his futile battle against the Maverick virus.
Treble nudged his master again, bored. He couldn't help with the science. He wanted to go bite something. It had been too long since he'd had the taste of Maverick "flesh" in his mouth.
"Leave me alone!" Bass hissed, hating all interruptions.
"Rrrrr..." Treble growled, obeying nonetheless. If he wasn't going to get what he wanted, he was going to make sure that Bass knew about it.
"Hey Bass, I'm off to find you more Maverick CPUs to test on!"
Out of nowhere, Axl appeared with this merry greeting. Bass however, growled almost as loudly as his dog at the sound of another interruption. "Fine."
"Hey boy, how are you doing, buddy?"
Axl reached down to pet Treble, but all he got for his trouble was a doggy whine. The wolf settled his head grumpily back on the floor, ignoring the more cheerful Hunter.
"Take him on the mission, will you?" Bass hissed. "He's bored out of his mind and driving me nuts."
"Uh..." Axl hesitated. "Are you sure about that? I don't think Signas will approve-"
"Just do it and don't tell him!" Bass snapped, concentrating on a nasty bit of programming. "Come on, are you really going to say no to that?"
Axl looked down again at the purple wolf, and sure enough Treble had given a slight wag to his tail, and stared up at Axl looking as sad as he could. Axl bit his lip at the poor thing. He wouldn't want to go too long without fighting either.
"Well...okay, but if I get in trouble I'm blaming you. Come on, boy! Let's go get some Mavericks!"
Treble immediately jumped to his paws, barking with excitement. He and Axl raced each other out of the room and to the navigation room's teleporter.
"Oh...so Treble is Axl's assistant for a while." Roll said, clapping her hands merrily. "That's actually really cute!"
"Right. That was even the case a lot of the time after Bass gets his busters upgraded. Bass did stay on doing the research for the Maverick virus a lot of the time, but at times he did go back to his native fighting. Him and Zero actually become pretty good friends."
"What?" Roll exclaimed with delight. "Really?"
"Yeah." GrimMoody smiled at the joy on Roll's face. "You're beginning to see signs of it now. It takes them a while, but eventually they pretty much forget how much they hate each other. They come to see each other more or less as siblings, in a weird, demented sort of way."
"What about Alia and the navigators? What happens to them?"
"They do various things, mostly in keeping with the Hunters. Alia was always too attached to the Hunters to really give that job up, and Layer wanted to stay on working for Zero. Pallette left the force to become an archeologist once the war was legally declared over. That left Alia to become Axl's navigator, and you became Bass'."
"What? Me?" Roll hesitated. "But I don't know anything about that job!"
"You learn." GrimMoody shrugged, brushing back some of the hair in her face. The wind was starting to pick up, and a light breeze was making Roll's hair flutter about as well. "Especially after the capsule starts working for good."
Roll knew what that meant. Dr. Light's capsule was the only thing that had brought her back to her sanity after the heartache and struggle that had begun from Dr. Light's death. Roll didn't know how she would carry on if she didn't have her creator to serve. She wanted to cry.
"But...but..."
"I'm sorry, Roll, but that's just the way things go. Dr. Light's capsules are old, and there are certain parts you can't replace without shutting down the mind inside and damaging it permanently. You know that already."
"It's...it's just not fair."
"You got more time with him than anyone normally gets." GrimMoody noted, adding in a little sternness to drive in her point. "And besides, nothing lasts forever, anyway."
"Okay..." Roll took a deep breath. "But everyone else is fine, right?"
Moody nodded. "Yes...for some time. X manages to get legislation passed that grants reploids more rights. His education reforms provide new jobs. Things really start to look up for reploids."
"Then why did you say 'for some time'?"
"Eh, it's like I said, nothing lasts forever."
Suddenly, the author was wearing a jacket. It hadn't been there a second before, but Roll couldn't remember it appearing. It was still a sunny day, so why would she even need a jacket?
"It started with Zero." GrimMoody explained, ignoring Roll's confusion. "Once this war ended, he found himself lost. He didn't realize how much the fighting had distracted him from himself. He never knew who he was. All of Zero's good existence was spent fighting the Mavericks, and with less work to do it became harder for him to ignore this reality any longer. Ever since you and Bass showed up, it's been worse for Zero. The guilt he experienced over the existence of Mavericks became unbearable. He never said anything, even to X, about this made him feel."
"I don't want him to be guilty!" exclaimed Roll. "It wasn't his fault!"
"No, but he could hardly see it any other way. Wouldn't you feel just as bad? To make it worse, he always knew that some remnant of the virus - or else just some bad programming from Wily - was still within him. He was afraid that this could possibly mean that the virus would return one day. So, he made a difficult choice."
The big screen from the last scene GrimMoody had shown was still there, completely black. However, she touched the corner of it, and it at once lightened up with a new vision for Roll to behold.
The unfamiliar lab was crowded with restore capsules, as if it were some kind of hospital for reploids. Some of the capsules appeared to be occupied, but all in all the room felt a little lonely. That was even with the two robots standing there talking. One was Zero, and the other was a scientist, someone who wasn't recognisable.
"...I see." the scientist said. "It'll take a while to get rid of this. Even with the latest technology, it's hard to succeed. I'm not really sure if I can fix this completely."
"Don't worry." Zero answered. "I must do it before it's too late."
The stranger scientist shook his head as he opened one of the capsule's force doors. "But you haven't had any problems yet. You'll be fine as you are, won't you? It's none of my business, but what will we do in a crisis without you?"
"Ha, I'm sorry, but don't worry." They ponytailed Hunter entered the capsule, lying down and shifting into it more comfortably. "There's a superior Maverick Hunter. But I'm scared that I might become a disturbing presense."
The scientist peered down at Zero, a little curious. "...I agree. You look ready."
"Yeah..." Zero said. "So when will I wake up?"
"If there is no problem, it will be around August 15th, 102 years from now."
"Right...here's to a successful sleep."
"I'll do my best. Have a good sleep!"
With that, the capsule lid slid down over Zero, and the stranger pushed the proper buttons on the controls. With a beep of the computer, he knew that Zero was powered down, secure in sleep mode.
"Oh...he's obviously trying to free himself from the virus..." Roll felt her heart sink. Zero had never been anything but kind to her, and the housekeeper-bot could only imagine how Zero shutting himself away would make X feel. "So he's going to be free of the virus after that?"
"Uh..." GrimMoody thought about it for a minute. "Well, yeah, pretty much. I guess he never did have to worry about it actually being in his CPU afterwards. It was such a hard procedure that they actually had to separate Zero's mind from his body later just in case something went wrong. As paranoid as he was that the virus would be accidentally spread by him, that was the one thing that didn't happen. Mavericks never completely went away, they were just under control. And in 22XX, their numbers started to rise. X was forced to quit politics and return to being a fighter. It was all Bass and Axl could do to keep the Mavericks from becoming as bad as they got in the first Maverick War."
"But didn't somebody cure the virus?" Roll's voice grew as if her volume would somehow produce what she wanted. "They've been working on it so long!"
"It's a very complicated virus, Roll. Really, it's the most complicated thing that Dr. Wily ever made. But yeah, they did make a cure. It's this thingy called Mother Elf, a sentient computer program that can erase the virus. Other elves were invented at that time for other purposes, like healing or increasing stamina, but the Mother Elf was especially powerful. I personally feel it was made from Zero's mind.
"This was invented by an unknown scientist, who was a female. A collegue of hers, Dr. Weil, was so jealous of her accomplishment that he began to want the Mother Elf for himself and his evil purposes. He had a complex plan, but in the end he knew that if he got what he needed, he could bring the world to its knees. The Elf was too powerful on its own to simply be stolen right off, so he had to find another way."
As the window through time lit again, Roll found herself dreading the very sight of it. But her mind wouldn't let her look away. She wanted to know without knowing why she wanted it. Before she could think this through and argue with herself one way or another, the scene had already started.
It was a dark, starry night, fairly peaceful in appearance. Axl was standing outside a rather common looking office building, and he pulled out a set of keys from his armor to open the door. Once Axl had entered and locked the door behind himself, the feel of the situation changed entirely. A new set of Maverick Hunters were on guard, all of them invisible from the outside.
"Hey, Axl!" a happy Pallette greeted him. "Good to see you're alright!"
"Hi. I heard you rejoined the service again." Axl grinned. "Hey, are you ready to go? The sooner this mission is completed, the better I'll feel."
"You're the real slowpoke around here!" his former navigator teased. "Zero is waiting on you. Where did you go?"
"I just ran into a few Mavericks, nothing I can't handle!" the Hunter winked. "Come on, let's get this mission done! The sooner we get Zero's body back to his head already."
Pallette ordered two of her guards to go with her and Axl as they went deeper into the facility. The last room they entered was familiar: it was the room where Zero had stored himself for the duration of his 102 year sleep. Zero's calm, expressionless face was visible through the window on the capsule, and he looked more peaceful than he ever did during his activation. Pallette went over to the console and began to input the proper codes to initiate the opening of the capsule.
Axl scratched his head. "I don't think Zero will like it that we're stopping the process early."
"He'll hate it worse if we make him skip out on this war." Pallette said. "You know he always takes this kind of thing personally."
"Yeah, I guess so. Hey, why can't we just bring his CPU back to his body? It's a lot more trouble to bring the body to the mind."
"Not that much." Pallette started on the last of the codes. "Besides, transporting either one is risky, and Mavericks would want his mind more than his body. We can't let Zero fall into enemy hands. Ah, there we go, got it open!"
As the front plating of the capsule started to lift, Axl switched to his white armor. Quicker than lightning his arms shot out, placing a chip in each of the necks of the two guards with him. Pallette turned back, catching Axl insert the last chip.
"Uh...what are you doing?"
Slowly, white Axl turned around and faced the now horrified Pallette. Distracted by the collapse and subsequent spasms of the guards, she didn't at first notice the expression change on Axl. But she did notice it. He waited long enough for her to see his malicious, demonized grin - a completely un-Axl expression - and for her to begin to scream.
But only just.
Axl charged, and as many shots as the desperate Pallette fired from her weapon, it did no good at all. He had her snatched up by the neck without so much as flinching from her plasma gun.
"You're wrong, Pallette." This voice was definitely not Axl's "To us 'Mavericks', the body is more important than the mind."
"But no, you can't-!"
Pallette knew she was going to die, but she had no more time to think of better last words. Her body fell to the ground, and then so did the several parts of her severed head. Piece by piece Axl ripped away armor, skin, and structrual supports, finally getting to the CPU underneath. He smashed it in his hands.
"Hey you, don't just stand there." Axl scoffed at the guards. "Come get this guy so we can get out of here. This place stinks of Hunters."
The two guards, unnoticed til this point, had stopped their seizures and now seemed calm, confident even. In any case, they obeyed their master without complaint and went over to go haul the body. One of them pulled out a knife, cutting off Zero's hair to make him easier to carry. Axl seemed to enjoy this, and he grinned. Glancing around the room, he looked up to see a video camera spying on them. He waved, vicious and merry.
"No!" Roll shouted at the screen. "Axl can't get the Maverick virus! It's not possible!"
Wincing at the volume of Roll's voice, GrimMoody rubbed her ears. "Ow. Well, you have to consider that the Maverick virus is just one thing. Just because Axl can't get that, doesn't mean something else can't happen to him. I mean, it would have to be really powerful to get him, but still. Heck, you've looked at Maverick Hunter history. Remember that time that X and the gang went to go fight Sigma on the moon? Y'know, that whole Jakob elevator thing?"
Roll gasped. "Lumine! He...he did something to Axl when they thought he'd been defeated!"
"Yep. Lifesaver and Alia scanned Axl dozens of times each, and they figured that because they couldn't find anything, that Axl was fine. He wasn't. Well, he sort of was, but there was still the most important part of Lumine's data still inside of him. It couldn't really do anything by itself, but Lumine had made plans. See, that whole orbital elevator plot was to use the Hunters to the Maverick's advantage. It didn't turn out quite how they wanted, but in the end it worked out for them."
"He was always planning to get inside Axl's head? But...what if Axl didn't show up that day? What if it had been someone else?"
"Uh, well, I personally don't think Lumine was being that specific." GrimMoody explained. "He would take anyone he could get, I suspect. Getting inside Zero's mind potentially could have returned Zero to the evil state Dr. Wily had always planned for him to become. Getting inside X's would corrupt him, resulting in a worse demon than even Dr. Wily could possibly imagine. Of the three, Axl was the least dangerous...sort of. Being as he was a copy-type robot, this enabled Lumine to make himself survive in fuller form than it would have been with the others."
"Lumine took over Axl's body..." Roll said in little more than a whisper. "Poor Bass must have been devastated."
"Yeah. Actually, X figured out pretty quickly what the real deal was with Lumine, so nobody thought it was the real Axl for long. X is good at that kind of thing." The jacket on GrimMoody's shoulders turned into a coat, and she had to start tying up her long hair to keep the wind from blowing it back in her face. "Lumine wasn't ever that interested in Axl's body, though. He wanted his own, and he needed Zero's. Then...yeah, I'll just show you."
"I don't want to watch it anymore." Roll stomped her foot on the road for impact. "I don't want to hear it! I don't believe you or anything you say and I don't want to listen to you anymore! Just leave me alone!"
"Roll, chickie, you can't stop now." For once the resolved gaze of the author showed something like pity. "You already said yes. Besides, I think you do believe me. And if you don't finish here, how will you ever live without dreading the future, knowing that what I said will come to pass? Think about it."
"Does it get better than this?" Roll pleaded, her hands desperately clasped together. "Does the war end and everything turn out alright? Is Axl okay, and everyone else too?"
There was silence for a moment, and in that moment GrimMoody adopted an expression that reminded Roll of Dr. Light, when he would grow stern with her when she was afraid - Dr. Light never got fully angry. It was the sort of look that disquieted Roll, reminding her of days when she had to stop being so fearful and let Mega Man go defeat the latest Wily robot master team, trusting that he would come back. The girl-bot somehow knew that she was going to have to be brave. Her hope rose within her.
"No." GrimMoody promptly stabbed all Roll's hopes in the chest. "Things do not turn out alright."
The screen began again, without any prompting from the author.
Bass dashed through the hallways, getting more and more impatient. And when he wasn't doing that, he was getting more angry. This technological facility was the operations point of the new Mavericks, and they were planning something big. It had been weeks since they had stolen Zero's body, and by now there was no telling what had been done with it. The only thing Bass was certain of was that he was going to kill Lumine for what he had done. He swore it, breathing each next breath by it.
Spies had determined the layout of the technical facility, and Bass used the map in his head to see that the double doors he was heading for lead into a large warehouse. Forte dashed faster, guessing that he would find something in there. He entered, as silent as he had trained himself to be.
The half-lit room was filled with technological whatnots, more than Bass could immediately identify. Computers galore were in the room, but most of them didn't seem to be on. Fuel pumps hung from the ceiling and were scattered across the floor, leading Bass to believe that something very large and very Maverick had once been in this room. There was nothing anymore. The Mavericks had to have gotten word that the Hunters were coming, and they had dropped everything in the rush to get away.
"You and your Hunter friends came a bit earlier than I expected." A voice rang out, echoing so much in the huge room that there was almost no way of determining its location. "I'm impressed, a little."
"Get the hell out here and face me!"
It was difficult for Bass to be so loud when his teeth were so firmly gritted, but he managed it. His shout was rewarded with a presense floating down from the ceiling. It was Not-Axl, Lumine in the Hunter's white armor. He hovered there with evil in his eyes, staring down at the dark robot with intense glee. Bass' immediately flinched from the sight, before snapping into an even worse rage. Seeing what Lumine had done to Axl was too much.
"Let him go, Lumine." the threats in Bass' voice poisoned the air.
Lumine cocked his head to the side, musing over this and just enjoying Bass' fury. Then he promptly shrugged.
"Very well, if that's what you want!"
At this, long metal tentacles reached out, clasping at Axl's body. The eyes went open with shock, and he began to scream. The voice that at once had been so evil and hateful changed, returning to normal as the ear-shattering scream went out longer and longer. Bass gasped. Whatever Lumine was doing, it had to be painful. All at once the screaming stopped, and Axl thunked to the floor, now in his regular armor. Forte wasted no time staring. He just dashed forward as fast as he could.
"Bass..." the Hunter called out weakly, unable to lift himself from the floor.
"I'm coming, kid!"
Lights blinked on, revealing exactly what Lumine had done. He was now in a different body, one fairly similar to the one he had used before. At least the hair was the same, and he had the taint of something feminine (it looked terrible on him). His armor's coloring was white and yellow, and he had four large wings, each a malevolent black/grey. He smiled, and it was not at all a warm or comforting smile.
"Like this body? Dr. Weil built it for me. You should see what he's done with Zero's." Lumine began, who, besides speaking, was doing nothing more than stand atop a large computer. "I've had a lot of time to spend in Axl's mind, Bass. You know, he really admired you."
Bass didn't listen. He had to reach Axl, who was still struggling to widen the short distance between himself and Lumine. He struggled to move, forcing his hands to pull him along. Lumine watched with demented pleasure, his grin cheshire.
"'Robots don't have family', huh, Bass? Are you really sure about that?" Lumine continued, letting one of his hands wiggle dangerously, as if summoning some sort of weapon. "You never seemed to take that principle very seriously. You always spent time with Axl, listening to him, helping him improve as a fighter...one might actually believe that you see Axl as your child. I know Axl does."
"Shut the hell up and leave him alone!" Bass was getting closer, and he readied his busters. "I'll kill you if you touch him!"
"As if you wouldn't try to kill me otherwise." Lumine laughed a little, then peered into Bass' worried face. "You have so much concern for him that you stopped caring about your own fighting. Don't lie to me now, I saw it all through Axl's eyes. You almost forgot about it completely. After all, what did it matter, if Axl could be even better than you..."
"Bass..."
Axl had the power to smile, faintly. By this time, Bass was almost at Axl's side, trying to get to him. If only he could just grab his hand, then he could teleport Axl out of there, and-
Lumine was faster. Much faster. In an instant, he rushed forward. There wasn't so much as two feet between Bass and Axl when he attacked, swooping down and stomping down on Axl, smashing a foot into the Hunter's head. His helmet offered no significant resistance; there was nothing left but shattered computer bits. When Lumine flew up and out of Bass' reach, but the dark robot hardly noticed.
In that instance, everything inside Bass disappeared. He had no pride and no hope. Not even any anger. There was nothing there whatsoever. He didn't believe anything before his eyes. His broken heart wouldn't let him. Everything was gone, taken away from him in that one instant. Without any mental acknowledgement, his hands wandered to Axl's remains as if shaking the Hunter's shoulder's would wake him.
"You even wanted him to outlive you." Lumine said, cooly and with upturned lips. "Just like any good parent."
Bass lifted his head, finding still some strength to be mad. He glowered at Lumine, unable to do anything more than shake as the horror and rage simultaneously emitted from his eyes.
"You're an excellent father, Bass." The evil reploid gave him a pleasant salute. "Top-notch."
Even as Lumine said this, a cloud of white light filled the air around him, and he disappeared, the smoky glow along with. That left the room dark, symbolic enough of the cold void now eating its way through Bass. He wanted so desperately to deny what had just happened. He went back in time in his mind and imagined all different scenarios, each with a different outcome than this. But this was the truth, the reality of the situation beyond any mental objection Bass could make.
He tenderly lifted Axl's shoulder. Metal shards fell away as he moved the body, sliding down the mess of Axl's hair. Not knowing why he was doing it, Bass turned him over, looking one last time at the robot's face. It was horrible. Axl's face was flattened and cracked, and his lips were stretched grotesquely away from his mechanical jaw, its teeth jagged and broken. A thin cranial support shot though the side of his face, tearing through the simulated skin. This was no longer his son. It was a wreck.
Forte's shoulders began to shake. He tightly held the body, then did something he had never done before in his life. Wail. His crying was loud, and in it was no trace of dignity or any of Bass' stubborn pride. He could hide none of his grief. His son was gone, and there was nothing he could do to change it.
Hearing the noise, X dashed into the room, buster ready. He dashed a few feet away from Bass, then paused. He could see from there that it was Axl, but he refused to believe it, thinking that something in his mind was deceiving him. He tried to let himself think that the darkness of the room was throwing him off, but it frightened him to see that Bass was so unafraid to weep openly. X's buster lowered automatically as he forced himself to get a better look. From what little remained of the face, X knew that the peppy Hunter had always spurred him on would no longer be there, confident and unafraid.
A light had gone out.
X collapsed to his knees. He began to shake uncontrollably. He didn't want this death to affect him so much; he had seen so much death before, of both human and reploid, stranger and friend. The years of experience didn't help. This hit X with every bit of heartwrenching pain any of his previous losses. He closed his eyes, horrified still by Bass' frantic weeping. X lifted a still shaking hand, trying to activate his comm. Professionalism was his only escape.
"Alia..." his voice cracked. "It's Axl...he..."
He stopped. In the battle between professionalism and grief, grief had won. It was a bitter victory.
Well before the vision had ended, Roll was crying. She buried her face in her hands, shaking. GrimMoody, on the other hand, was stern. She didn't seem very affected by the scene they had witnessed, and just stood there.
"It's just not fair!" Roll cried. "Poor Axl was such a good Hunter...he didn't deserve this! You can't do this to him! And to Bass! Please tell me that Bass had a plan to make this right!"
"Uh...well, being the sort of dude Bass is," GrimMoody answered. "He's definitely out for revenge. Definitely his thing. Trouble is, if he was fast enough to defeat Lumine, then he would have been fast enough to save Axl. In short, he can't do it and he knows it. So he has to come up with a different plan."
Why in the world Roll pulled her hands from her face and took another look at that terrible vision screen GrimMoody had set up was beyond her. She never could have explained this, except maybe by some sick curiousity. All the same, she found herself watching again something new terrible.
"You can't possibly really want to do this." X's face was contorted with doubt. "Not for Zero."
He was speaking to Bass, who was busily running from computer to computer in the lab, pushing several buttons loading data. It was his own schematics, plus the schematics of a different robot. It was the new Zero's blueprints. On one of two repair tables lay Zero's new body itself. The other was empty.
"Of course I'm not doing it for Zero." Bass snapped back, not letting X interrupt his work. "If I was going to do something for him I'd let him stay dead. He'd like that a lot better than coming back and seeing how the crap Omega tore up the planet in the past eight months. I'm strong enough to admit that he's better than me, and if you want him back to be actually able to defeat Omega then there's no other option."
"Are you sure about that? Isn't some there some other way?"
"Damn you to Hell, X!" Bass' glare was as menacing as his volume was loud. "Don't act like you haven't hated me since day one! I'm going to be gone soon so you can cheer the hell up and be happy now. Don't you for one second act like you wouldn't want it any other way."
X opened his mouth, wanted to object to this conjecture. He couldn't; the only reason he wanted to "win" the debate was because of how much he didn't want the dark robot getting away with the last word. He did hate Bass, even before meeting him. X just slammed his mouth shut, glaring at the smaller robot with all the hate he really did have for him.
"It's not that I care." X found the words to argue. "It just doesn't seem like you to do this without trying to find some way to live."
Bass impatiently shoved a data pad in X's hands. "I explained all this before. Zero is a bassnium powered robot. Since Omega has his normal power core, we can't put Zero's brain in this body without making him suffer massive power loss." Bass tapped his chest armor as he got on the first repair table and laid down. "I'm the only one with bassnium on this stupid planet and nobody knows how to make more. Even if they could, they wouldn't know how to make a power core that could process it. I can't defeat Omega or Lumine, so it's up to you and your boyfriend to fix this crap. That is, if you can make the power core transfer without screwing it up."
X began to wish more than ever that Alia was still alive, but she had been one of the first casualties of Omega. She was dead, and that left this up to X. X could only hope that this would work. As much as he really did despise Bass, there was something about this that just seemed wrong. It was unjust of him to have to give up his power core for another. He felt bad for Bass despite himself.
"Do you really want to die?" X asked.
This question produced a strange effect in Bass, he stared up at the ceiling with glazed eyes, like a man finding himself face to face with a ghost or ghoul that he had no ability to stop. He was peering outside of the situation, before all the robot wars and before mankind had truly known what a terror the robot race could be to them. He was taking one last look at those few happy years of his life, trying to ignore how the years before and definitely the years after had swallowed them all whole. Bass had never done anything in his life that made any difference in the end, he told himself, and had done nothing to truly stop what the earth now faced.
"I should have died two hundred years ago." Bass said, his voice firm and bitter. "Now hurry up."
Bass closed his eyes and powered down. X approached his quiet form with some reluctance. This was going to be harder than he expected. X, however, was not dishonest with himself. If he had to choose between Zero and his brother, X would pick Zero every time. Yet, despite that, X felt once more that bitter sting of loss. Bass was selfish, arrogant, and violent, but X still wanted him to live. It was too late. X was just out of options.
"That's not Bass!" Roll cried out in protest as the vision screen faded to black once more. "Bass is obstinate and determined! He would never give up, not in a million years! Bass wouldn't give up! Never ever!"
"Is that so?" Moody commented. "I don't think even you believe that so much any more. He's changed a lot since the first generation days. You've seen it. What you don't know is the real reason why Bass was at the junkyard that day he found you."
"He...said he was lost..."
"He wasn't, sort of. He was going to kill himself."
Roll gasped in horror, so rocked by sobs that she didn't have the voice to tell the author to stop. GrimMoody just continued to tell the story, staunchly avoiding the emotions that were coursing through Roll.
"Bass changed his mind about just falling into the trash compactor that day," Grimm said. "Because that was too cowardly. In the end he decided on fighting as many Mavericks as he could until his body finally gave out. Once he found you, he decided to live. You've been the one keeping him alive all this time, Roll. Without that promise he made to take care of you, he wouldn't have wanted to live at all. You gave him enough hope to live on until he could learn to appreciate everyone around him. The Cyber Elf War made him forget again, especially when he started losing friends. He was always competitive, Roll. When someone like that feels they aren't good enough to compete, what will they do then?"
The little hope left in Roll faded, and she paled. So much of her hope rested on Bass, the only one still left who knew about what she had gone through. As her guardian, Bass never failed to make her feel safe. Only recently had she learned how deep he really was, but this was too deep. She didn't want to see his brokenness.
"He did the right thing...didn't he?" Roll choked. "It was good of him to save Zero. Omega...what was that thing?"
"Oh yeah, I didn't mention that yet." GrimMoody said. "My bad. So, um, Omega is this huge robot thing that Dr. Weil made from Zero's body that he stole before. Since it didn't have a mind, he combined it with the Mother Elf - now called the Dark Elf - to form this mad strong being that can control all reploids. Well, not all of them because it didn't get X and several Hunters too. I'm actually not sure what kind of effectiveness it had. However, I do know that the war against Omega was so bad that only 90% of reploids survived and only 60% of all humans. The war only lasted four years, but the Dark Elf's army did that much damage. It had to have been a big army."
"Please don't show me a clip of that!" Roll blurted out. "I don't want to see us lose the war!"
"I wasn't going to. That's gross. But uh, you didn't lose. You won."
The housekeeper-bot was appalled. Just when she thought she couldn't stare in dead surprise any longer, there was another piece of bad news. Was there anything in the world that would not crumble at the slightest touch? Roll was an optimistic robot normally, but the ground she stood on was falling around her. She found herself wondering all the things X did about war - mainly when it would stop.
"That's right, you won." GrimMoody seemed only the more oblivious to Roll's despair, though now a pink scarf appeared around her neck. "Lumine was the first to fall. Actually that was pretty early on. Eh, why don't I explain that? Here, take a look."
"I don't want to."
GrimMoody didn't respond. She just touched the black rectangle, bringing it back to life and making the horrid image of two enemies appear on it. Roll hated herself for not having the self-control to turn her gaze away.
One was Lumine, the winged false angel. The other was an older man, wrinked and disgusting. He had the appearance of sitting in a barrel of brine for six months - probably having something to do with the fact he was indeed contained in some sort of suit filled with something that looked rather like a pickling juice. The suit peaked over his head like a pyramid. He indeed looked like a true, monstrous villain. The two appeared to be inside some sort of monitoring station, filled with all manner of computer screens and maps.
"Some fine war you are running, Dr. Weil." Lumine scoffed. "We're suffering a lot of reploid casualties."
"Relax." the older man waved him off. "This only the beginning. Omega is our most powerful robot. Once he defeats the strongest cities on the earth, then the miserable humans will be too weak and afraid! they will surrender. Just relax and trust me."
"Yes," Lumine rolled his eyes. "So you've been saying since the beginning of this conflict. I thought we were creating the ideal reploid world here."
"Well, if that's what you want then it's not going to be easy to achieve. In fact, you may want to start with the Hunters right now running through our facility."
Lumine looked at the monitor Dr. Weil was pointing to, exclaiming, "What? They're not supposed to be here yet!"
"You'd better go an deal with that, then, if you want to be the leader of a reploid world."
The bright Maverick glanced back at his human counterpart, disdainful but not unamused. He flapped his wings lightly, thinking how nice it would be to be rid of the human. But he needed Dr. Weil, so he was going to have to let him live, for the time being. Little did he know that Dr. Weil was thinking very similarly, though Weil wasn't certain he needed Lumine anymore.
-t-
X dashed through the hallway, his buster blazing through the enemy mechaniloids. The Maverick Hunters had heard that this was the facility housing their worst enemies, and they weren't going to let them get away with what they had done. They had heard that Omega was going to be gaining a new source of power, and they had to be there to stop it.
That's right, "they". Zero, living in his new body, followed right after X and charged in front of him to slash at the enemy mechaniloids with furvor of his own. He was accompanied by a glowing light, this one purple and shimmering lightly as it flew over him.
"Where are we going to find this power source, X?" Zero called back as he fought.
X checked an internal map loaded in his mind. This facility had once been Miyomoto Mechanics, so finding their way around couldn't be too hard.
"We need to go left through the next hallway, then it should be straight on through to the old factory floor. That's where the signals for the Mother Elf are coming from."
Zero's lips tightened. "Whatever happens here is not going to be good. The poor Elf...there's no telling what Dr. Weil did to her."
That was the end of the conversation. They both focused on fighting the waves of baddies that were sent at them, fighting with all the years of cunning and expertise that they had gained in the century of their lives. Nothing stopped them for long, and as it became apparent that nothing would, a new enemy arrived. It was Lumine, his evil grin bearing down on them as it never had since the end of the Jakob elevator incident.
"Lumine!" X exclaimed, his voice darkened with rage. He hadn't forgotten Axl.
"Well, if it isn't X, and there's Zero following right along as well!" Lumine seemed almost proud of the pair, in a perverse sort of way. "Ah, I see it's as hard to kill you as everyone says it is, Zero. But I think that's something I can succeed in. You are, after all, inferior reploids. Evolution has passed you by, both of you. The time has come for your final elimination. And I'll start by taking away your extra power!"
Lumine was quick, dashing in and snatching the cyber elf from Zero, absorbing its power into his own body. The shock of the two heros stayed only a second before it turned into just regular surprise. X shrugged.
"Well, that was easy." Zero said.
"It sure was. Let's get going, then."
X, his features hardening with both pain and pride, stared up firmly into the eyes of Lumine. His voice was calm, and his resolve never flinched for a moment.
"Goodbye, Bass."
"Bass? What?" a startled Lumine said. "Wait, get back here...oh no..."
As the Hunters departed, Lumine searched his mind. Sure enough, the cyber elf he absorbed was indeed named Bass. This realization had come far too late, and the false angel could feel the all of the security alarms in his mind going off as the cyber elf tore into his systems, shutting down his brain from the inside. This was the end.
"No!" Lumine screamed, though there was no one to hear him. "You can't turn reploids into cyber elves! It's just not possible!"
"Believe it, bastard. I told you I was going to kill you."
The Maverick froze. This was what the Hunters had been planning all along for him, and he had been stupid enough to not only fall for it, but to bring it on his own head. All of his anger would not save him. It was all over. Everything started going dark, and the power flunctuations Bass forced on him brought Lumine to his knees.
"For Axl..."
The explosion rocked the halls, even as far as where X and Zero had travelled in the meantime. Zero winced as he felt the shockwave, but otherwise said nothing. They had an enemy to stop. Going through a set of double doors, X and Zero found themselves on the factory floor of the once glorious Miyomoto Mechanics, where everything was now a mess. Automated arms and conveyer belt wreckage was all over the floor, making walking difficult as the two wondered where to look next.
"I don't understand it." X said. "She was supposed to be here...there she is!"
Sure enough, the large cyber elf was found hiding in the rafters, and they could detect the fear that she eminated. That, however, was not the only observation they were able to make. She had changed. Her color was no longer bright. Dark waves of purple encased her, writhing about her and blinding her to freedom outside of the black boundaries. Out of nowhere an evil laughter rang out, and from the shadows appeared Dr. Weil.
"I have been waiting for you, X." Weil laughed. "In fact, I was waiting until you were right here to witness my greatest advancement to the field of science!"
"Advancement nothing!" X yelled in reply. "All I see in front of me is perversion! Free the Mother Elf at once!"
"If you want that so bad, why don't you just make me?" Weil haughtily scoffed. "Take her back, if you can. Oh, wait, it's already too late. Omega!"
The large robot appeared. He was as tall as the warehouse itself, and if the roof was as much as a foot lower, then Omega wouldn't be able to fit inside. The hulking robot had two arms held on only by energy, and several translucent panels were on him that made his inner workings visible from the outside. This in fact made up his face. A wide puff of hair stuck out from the back of his head, a pale imitation of the body Omega had once been.
X sneered at the imitation, then growled seeringly at Weil. "Weil, I don't know what you mean to do with this, but do you honestly think that all this war will make you happy? Are you so jealous of other peoples' happiness that you have to spoil everything? We could be living in an age of peace, you rotten monster! I've fought for too long for you to make a mess of everything!"
"You reploids have been fighting forever, haven't you?" the doctor sneered at the Hunters, letting his aura of superiority expand even further. "None of this would have happened if it weren't for you reploids. Do you dare criticize me for the things that I do? You had your chance to appreciate me, and you failed! Now I shall command the wars of robots!"
With this, the darkness that choked and strangled the Mother Elf dragged her over to Omega, forcing her to merge with the terrifying machine. Omega brimmed with power. A light that was not light shone out from him, darkening the room. X and Zero had to cover their eyes until finally the force was gone.
"Something's not right here..." Zero said as quietly as he could to X. "I can...sense something. I think it's one of my powers, one of the things that Wily wanted me to have...it's different somehow..."
"Bwaahahahahaha!" Dr. Weil burst out with fresh, malicious laughter before Zero finished speaking. Weil gestured grandly at his evil creation, showing it off to the suspicious Hunters. "This you behold before you is my way of controlling all the reploids in the world! You fools underestimated the power of the Mother Elf, and now she is mine!"
X gasped. "No...this can't be happening!"
"Oh, trust me, it is, X!" Weil's horrible laughter sounded like drowning - the fluids in his suit only made it so much worse. He drew closer to the robots, hovering down to them. "What happens next is up to you, X. Now that I have control of the world's robots, I can do horrible things. I can murder many humans. I can start a war that no one will end! But X, if you and Zero surrender to me and allow me to rule this world, then I shall have pity. I will make things right! Choose wisely. I already am gathering an army outside this factory that you will have to fight your way out of. Which will it be, Maverick Hunters?"
X glanced at Zero uncertainly. Ever the rational one, Zero felt at a loss. The choices were both ugly, and there was little he could do about it. He turned to his best friend in the world with the worst advice he felt he had ever given.
"X..." he said. "We can't let him win. Not like this. It's better to fight."
"I know." X nodded, turning his own glare to the horrible doctor. "If he's killed so many by now, I don't think anything will get him to stop!"
Zero's confidence strengthened him, and he too faced the doctor, saber ready. "Besides us, you mean."
"Let's go!"
They both dashed forward, only to watch as Omega teleported away.
"Ha ha, not now Hunters!" Dr. Weil squealed with terrifying delight as he lifted himself high up to the rafters. "You need time to watch as I bring about the war that you allowed! There is no turning back now! See you later, Hunters! Well, if you survive the reploid attack! Aahahahaahahaaha!"
Even before he was done, Zero and X could hear the busters and the banging against the outer walls. Shadows appeared at the windows as more and more reploids gathered, streaming in toward the two heroes. With horror X recognised the rest of their unit. These robots had been the ones that enabled them to come into the factory in the first place, and now protection was the furthest thing on their minds. Somewhere in all of this, Weil disappeared, but the pair were too busy fighting for their lives to notice.
"Zero, did we make the right decision?" X's voice cracked as he fired off a charged shot into former friends.
"We made the only decision." Zero swung at a reploid that was getting too close to X. "We've got to get out of here, X. We can't win overwhelmed like this."
"Right. I'll signal all human military organizations that I can...if it's not too late..."
\\\\\\\
Author's Notes:
- And this is part two of what would have turned out to be a far too long update for one chapter alone. I am so dang surprised that it ran this many words, but I won't make it too long between updates, so expect the third and last part of my 4th wall smashing within a few days. I hope you enjoy the insanity, because there is a point to it.
Maverick time!
Arktemis
=====Slayer Bateau
"Yeeeeaarrggh! Fire!"
Slayer is a sailor Maverick, capable of switching from humanish to boatish at will. Unlike other Mavericks, you fight him in a long stretch of ocean, not in one room. He is a primarily wooden Maverick, making his defenses lower than others. However, his offensive is not fun at all. In human form, he shoots a huge rifle at you, one big ammo and then a spread of smaller bullets. In boat form, he fires cannonballs, throws anchors, and leaves driftwood in his wake so that the boat that you fight him on is damaged and you fall into the bottomless ocean below. The player that beats him gets Slayer cannon, a ridiculous weapon that causes major damage. It sinks swimming Mavericks and breaks walls.
This one just got a life of its own. Ark is like boat, which is bateau in french. Slayer is a synonym of hunter, and hunting is one of the things Artemis was goddess over in Roman mythology.
Luce-Loup-Garou
=====Paradox Gormander
"Cackle and crackle!"
Nobody likes this Maverick. Maybe they would if they got to know him, but everyone is afraid of him. This wolf or hyena (nobody really knows) Maverick is essentially one giant dog skull, complete with hanging jaw, and a massive skeleton body overflowing with electricity. Paradox has no legs, but floats in the air. He likes to say strange things that may or may not be relevant to the future or wisdom in general. Despite being alone, Paradox is generally too nuts to be lonely. Paradox attacks with electrical beams, electrical sparks, and by simply swallowing you whole. The player that beats him gets the Gorm Bone, an item that can be used as both a sword and an electrical whip.
I wanted to do something different, but basically every word in this favoriter's name means "wolf". So I went with a flying electrical dog monster thing. Gormandize means to gorge oneself. There's some sort of mathematical principle that has to do with "luce" so axiom came from there, and an antonym of that is paradox.