Well everyone, I've written a new chapter for you all to enjoy. Right now, it's pretty late so on with the chapter:
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Outside Guardian HQ
The dark clouds slowly began to subside as everyone looks up. "Zero completed his mission, but this still isn't over." Aile and Vent look on to find the whole army of mechaniloids waiting for them to make their move.
"We have to get through these enemies quickly and help the humanoids in Innerpeace!" Harpuia lunges at a group of mechaniloids as they begin to make their move.
"Guess we'll have to provide back-up for Harpy now." Leviathan freezes five mechaniloids trying to jump Harpuia from behind and Fefnir starts shooting at all the mechaniloids.
"Rock-on!" Vent and Aile charge their X-Busters and fires it, clearing a large path.
"I'll go to Innerpeace and take care of the situation there, the rest of you stay here and defend Guardian HQ." Flames engulf X as he charges forward at the path Vent and Aile cleared. Any stray mechaniloids in his way were incinerated before he charges out of sight.
"Even after all of that, it still doesn't look like their numbers are becoming any smaller!" Aile charges up her buster again, but stops when streaks of purple lightning strike down the mechaniloids.
"Sorry I'm late. I was occupied with some other grunts." Forte appears from the remains of the scorched mechaniloids with a purple armor. "I've managed to discover a few tricks while fighting."
"There are more of them behind you!" Forte swiftly turns as his armor changes to a green color. Waves of flames shoot out of his buster, incinerating the mechaniloids.
"Did we get all of them?" Vent looks at the corpses of the mechaniloids as their eyes start to glow red again. The damaged mechaniloids slowly begin to stand up, each and every one of them.
"You just had to ask." Aile fires two charge shots, destroying a large number of the reactivated mechaniloids. After three seconds, the mechaniloids stand up again. "How are we suppose to defeat these things!?"
"Give me a bit of time while I scan for their weakness." Harpuia stops for a moment as a visor appears from his helmet. "Buy me some time." Everyone else nods as they prepare for battle.
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Innerpeace
X walks in to find the city in chaos. Flames surround him and the water on the streets is waste deep. X tries to search for any signs of life, and his sensors pick up a faint life force. X follows the signal to find a baby humanoid floating in the water and crying.
X reaches for the child, but his keen reploid eyes picks up the sound of a bullet through the air, so he jumps out of the way to avoid it.
"It's one of them!" X looks up to see a group of humanoids staring at him with fear in their eyes. One of them is a male holding a pistol with his hands shaking. "Stay back or I'll shoot!"
I guess what Prairie said about the attitudes of some humans haven't changed. X picks the baby up and the male shoots. X grabs the bullet in his hand effortlessly and tosses the baby at the group.
"Well, X, looks like you're having a hard time communicating over there." X turns to find Burnerman standing on top of a scorched building. X's eyes narrows as he stares at him.
"Burnerman, I should have known it was you causing all of this!" X charges up his buster and prepares to fire, but hesitates when he hears screams coming out of the building.
"Well, X, are you going to risk shooting me? I'm sure someone with your aim won't hit these innocent bystanders, besides, even if you do, they're nothing but worthless scum."
There might be a misunderstanding between humans, humanoids, and mechaniloids because of the Maverick incidents, but shooting them isn't going to solve anything. X lowers his buster as Burnerman jumps into the air.
"Take this!" Flames engulf Burnerman's as he charges at X. As soon as he lands, it'll be clear to fight him. X quickly scans the area to find the humanoids present earlier weren't here anymore, and the humanoids in the building seem to have evacuated.
"I… can't… move…" X looks down to find the waist deep water to be frozen. X shoots a charged buster at the ice to free himself, but Burnerman crashes down before he could escape.
"You didn't think Burnerman was the only one here, did you?" A part of the water freezes as a figure appears.
"Freezeman!" X charges up his buster while his eyes shifts between the two opponents. Defeating one of them is a challenge as it is, so I need to be careful. One small mistake can lead to my death.
Freezeman makes the first move by firing a large shard of ice at X. Burnerman raises his arms as they transform into flamethrowers and shoots from the other side. X jumps into the air and does a flip while firing two blasts, one at each enemy.
"Was that supposed to hurt?" Burnerman and Freezeman brush off the attack and they charge at X again. Burnerman's attack leaves a trail of fire behind him and X's sensors can pick up the low temperature around Freezeman.
NOW! X's armor becomes white as he transforms into his Falcon Armor. X activates his jets and flies into the air, causing Burnerman and Freezeman crash into each other. Time to end this! X raises his buster and charges it.
"Metal Blade!" A huge metal blade hits X from behind, knocking him down and forcing him to revert back to normal.
"Just how many of you are here?" X puts his hands on his knees as he pushes himself up to see Metalman and Crashman.
"Almost all of us are here." Three more figures come out and X gasps in surprise. The three newcomers are Plantman, Magnetman, and Geminiman.
"You two, but how!? Aile and Vent defeated the two of you already!"
"You don't get it, do you? Because of the Ciel System, we can rebuild ourselves as many times as need be. You can't win no matter what you try to do." Plantman's hands become vines as he sticks it into the ground.
"Stop." Plantman stops his action as bats appear in Innerpeace. The bats slowly come together and then Shademan appears after a bright flash. "I'll flight X on one on one. I want to see the power of Rockman's successor."
To defeat him, I'm going to need all the power I can get. I haven't done this in a long time, I hope this works! X stands up straight and raises his buster upwards. A light forms around him as his armor starts to slowly bulge out and transform into a dark color.
"So this is your ultimate form, this can prove to be quite interesting."
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Guardian HQ
"Alright, I've located the weakness. There's a regeneration device hidden in the left shoulder of each mechaniloid, target that area and make sure the device is destroyed." Harpuia's visor returns to his helmet as he draws his blades and stabs them through two mechaniloids in the left shoulder.
The two mechaniloids sizzle and then fall down permanently. The others nod as they begin to aim for the left shoulder as well.
"It finally looks like they're numbers are diminishing." Vetn starts rapidly shooting semi charged shots covering the front with Aile against his back covering the rear.
Leviathan extends her staff and skewers eight mechaniloids lined up in front of her. Her staff returns to normal length as the mechaniloids fall down. Fefnir shoots down the mechaniloids with his twin busters and then rips their left shoulders apart with his bare fist to keep them down.
Forte transforms both his hands into busters, covering every direction and shooting down the mechaniloids. After about five minutes, all of them are out of breath as they head to Innerpeace.
"Come on, we have to go help X!"
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Innerpeace
I can barely move with all this water in the way! Shademan swoops down at X with the edge of his wings touching the water. X sluggishly moves out of the way, but Shademan makes a sharp turn and cuts X with the tip of his wing.
Those things are more dangerous than I first expected! X fires a charged shot at Shademan, but Shademan blocks the attack by shielding himself with his bat-like wings.
"You're going to have to do a lot better than that to defeat me." Shadmean opens his wings as a wave of noise comes out. "CRUSH NOISE!"
X uses a nearby building to wall jumps out of the way and activates his boosters to dash behind Shademan. "NOVA STRIKE!" X is engulfed by fire as he charges at Shademan with a blazing speed. Shademan screams as X's attack connects with his left arm, completely ripping it off.
"Give it up now, Shademan, and I'll let you walk out of this alive." X points his buster at Shademan, but his eyes narrow as Shademan begins to chuckle. "What's so funny?"
"You actually think you've won. You have no idea, do you?" Shademan's severed arm starts to slowly change into white particles and goes toward Shademan. In about two seconds, Shademan looks like exactly the way he was before X's attack.
"TAKE THIS!" Shademan's arm extends as he launches it at X, catching him off guard. The claws pierce through X's chest as pieces of his black armor fly into the air. X reverts back to his original form as Shademan pulls his claws out.
Is this how I'm going to die? X falls into the water and Shademan watches as the bubbles rise, signaling X's struggle to breath.
"Plantman, finish him off."
"With pleasure," Vines surround Plantman's arm and hardens into a pointy spear. Plantman looks at the location where the bubbles are coming from and stabs the spear inside. Plantman frowns and Shademan notices his expression.
"What's wrong?"
"He's gone." Shademan extends his arm and sends it into the water, but isn't able to find any signs of life underneath.
"Well, he doesn't pose much of a threat to us. We did enough for today, let's go back. It will take them a while to recover from this attack." Shademan teleports out, followed by the other Robot Masters, leaving Innerpeace in a state of turmoil.
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Guardian HQ
"Where am I?" X opens his eyes to find himself in a hospital bed. He immediately sits up and looks around the room to find Zero, Ciel, Prairie, Forte, and Harpuia. "What's going on in Innerpeace?"
"We managed to get all survivors of the incident back in base and in the medical bay. There were only a few casualties, but almost the entire population is heavily injured now." Harpuia points at a nearby bed to show a humanoid from Innerpeace.
"All of this is my fault. I couldn't defeat Shademan."
"Just feel lucky that you got out of there with your life, X. Besides, what did you think would happen if you did win? The others would all jump you. You're strong, but even you can't win with those odds." Zero looks at Ciel, as their eyes meet, Ciel nods as the two of them leave the room.
"Where's Zero going?" Forte looks at the red reploid leave as Prairie reads recent reports, mostly having to do with damages in Innerpeace and injuries.
"I don't know all the details, but something happened to Zero during his fight in the Control Center. He's getting Ciel to look over it right now." Prairie turns to X. "Don't overdo it next time, okay? There's nothing wrong with having to retreat once in a while, you can't save everyone."
X nods as the three remaining visitors leave the room. X looks down at his chest to see it slowly being repaired. If Shademan's group alone can cause so much damage, then what are Model W and Yuriskah capable of?
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Aile leaves the room for a brief moment to take a breath and finds Vent there as well. "Are you taking a break as well?"
"I just can't stand seeing all those people like that. Some of the injuries there are too gruesome." Aile sighs as another person is brought to the medic wing.
"How is it helping out Rose and the others with their work? Ever since the incident with Shademan, everyone healthy had to pitch in to help the injured."
"It's not that hard, most of the time. I just sit there and listen to the patients talk to make them feel better. I'm no expert in health, so Rose just told me to try to calm all the patients down. What about you?"
"I just help transport patients around and pass things, kind of like back when we were working with Girouette." Vent and Aile are immediately silent as Vent realizes the situation they're in.
"Vent?"
"Yeah?"
"The real reason I came outside was because one of the patients lost their child in the flood. It just reminded me of some things that I prefer not to think about."
"Me too."
"Do you really think that things will turn out okay? Back during the Serpent situation, we only had to deal with one group, but now, we have three different enemies to worry about. This is a lot worse than the situation with Serpent."
"I'm sure we'll be fine. We have more people to help us," Vent refers to the reploid heroes and Ciel, "and we've got each other. No matter what, we'll find a way to make everything work out."
Both Vent and Aile sit down on the floor as they lean against each other. "Vent, promise me you won't walk the same path as Girouette and die."
"I won't as long as you don't."
"Don't worry about me, you're the reckless one." The two of them pause for a moment as they bring their lips together. After about two full minutes, they had to break the kiss for breath.
"Well, I better get back to work."
"Same here." The two chosen ones stand up and leave to do their temporary jobs.
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Commander's Room
"Did you find out what's wrong?" Zero looks at Ciel with a look of despair in her eyes and immediately knew his answer. "Ciel?"
Ciel turns her chair to face Zero, and he sees tears forming in Ciel's eyes. "There seems to have been something wrong with your programming ever since you reawakened into your body, but it was unnoticeable until now. If this keeps up, then you'll slowly lose all your strength and permanently shut down."
Ciel stands up and looks down to the ground, avoiding Zero's eyes. "Ciel…"
"I'm sorry, Zero. After everything you've done for us, I couldn't even do this one thing right for you." Tears start to hit the floor from Ciel as she continues staring down.
"Ciel…" Zero puts his hands on Ciel's chin and lifts it up, staring into her blue eyes. "I'm still okay now, and I'm sure we'll figure out a way around this. You did your best, and that's all I need. Don't give up yet, Ciel."
Zero puts his arms around Ciel's waist and brings is lips on hers. Ciel slowly relaxes and puts her arm around Zero's neck. Zero breaks the kiss after a minute and wipes the tear from Ciel's cheeks.
"Nothing's decided yet, Ciel. Don't give up. I promise."
"Zero…"
"I haven't broken a promise to you before, have I?"
"No…"
"Exactly, and I don't plan to start now." Zero puts her arms around Ciel as she continues to cry. Ciel stops crying, but she remains in Zero's arm and Zero doesn't seem to show any signs of letting go.
His body is so warm for a reploid. If I could, then I would freeze time and try to remain like this a while longer. Zero, please be okay. You've always managed to give us hope when there seemed to be none, and you trusted us. This time, I'll trust you to keep your promise.
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Well, I'm not sure if this would count as a cliffhanger or not, but anyways, read and review!