Megaman X: Elysium Rising
Mission 1: Maverick group extermination
Chapter 2: The Hunt
By Genoscythe
"Give me three reasons why you shouldn't believe me," Marx said, wriggling under the weight of the black Maverick Hunter pressing him against the ground. Axl smirked.
"One. You were in the middle of a group of known mavericks, and you obviously weren't their captive. Two. You're trying to escape capture. You must be hiding something, or else you would surrender immediately. Three. You attacked a Maverick Hunter. There, is that enough for you?" Marx shook his head.
"I'm a mercenary. I work for whoever pays me, so that's why I was with those Mavs. And who wouldn't try to escape from people trying kill them? Yeah, your Hunter friend attacked me first, so I'm innocent there too. Is that enough for you?" he asked with a certain measure of spite in his voice.
"Not nearly. I've got some more Hunters on the way, and you're going back to HQ for examination," Axl replied. "I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I let you go and you were lying."
"Well, isn't that admirable? You make it look like you care about the humans, but all you're really interested in is the thrill of the hunt. That's what all Maverick Hunters are after, isn't it? You love the feeling of excitement when you're chasing down a 'Maverick', taking another reploid's life just because your superiors said to. You'd do anything for a little action, won't you? You're just not with the Mavericks because the Hunters are the winning side in this conflict."
The reploid mercenary's continued jeering flung Axl over the edge. He brought the butt of his handgun against the back of Marx's helmet as hard as he could, inciting a loud thwack and pounding his head into the ground. He was silent, unmoving. Axl stood up, keeping one foot on his back. Bending down, he looked to see if the mercenary was unconscious. His eyes were blank white slates, signaling a shutdown. Axl smiled to himself. It was particularly tricky to knock out a reploid, considering they were machines, but enough force applied in the right spot could temporarily shut down a reploid's processor.
Axl took his foot off of Marx's back and leaned against the wall of the shop next to them. Now, all he had left to do was wait for a detainment team. He tapped a foot absent-mindedly against the ground, drawing small pictures with the toe of his boot armor. His mind wandered off to his days in the Red Alert Syndicate, and he found himself drawing a sketchy picture of Red, his friend, leader and mentor, in the dirt. He remembered the times they had trained together and brought down rival criminal activity. Back then, Axl had never thought of what they were doing as illegal, but as he looked back on it, he realized Red's methods were cruel, bordering on sadistic. Sure, they were hunting down Mavericks and gangsters, but extortion and torture weren't fitting punishments for anybody. Perhaps it was his new perspective on the other side of the law, but all the wrongs of vigilantism now stood in stark relief out of the shadows his mind had previously hidden them in.
A gunshot put an abrupt halt to Axl's thoughts. With a creeping feeling of terror, he felt along his chest, and when he drew his hand back it was stained with blood. A second shot rang out, and his handgun was knocked forcefully from his hand. Disoriented, he looked down and saw the end of a pistol poking out from underneath the fallen mercenary.
Rising to his feet, Marx brushed himself off and holstered his gun. "You were off by a few millimeters, kid. Unfortunately for you, I wasn't." Instantly, Axl knew what had happened. Pistol-whipping the mercenary hadn't knocked him out after all, and he had shut himself down to make the Hunter think he was unconscious. Then, once Axl had let his guard down, Marx reactivated himself, took out his pistol, and shot it from underneath him so Axl wouldn't see it.
Disarmed, humiliated, and shaking from the agony in his chest, the young Maverick Hunter slid down the wall in resignation. Marx flashed him a cocky smile, then turned forward and ran.
"If you had believed me, this wouldn't have happened!" he called back as he ran. However, he didn't get far before he heard a cold voice from an alleyway on his right.
"Freeze, now," the voice said. Marx was about to offer a snide reply, but it caught in his throat as a heavy object descended on his head from behind. This time, it was right on the mark.
"I can't believe you won't let me kill this loser!"
"Shut it, Axl. Just calm down for a second."
"He shot me! Can't I at least shoot him back?"
"Nope. He got enough punishment from Selene."
"I'm sorry, Zero. I shouldn't have hit him so hard."
"It's not your fault. You should probably use a smaller gun next time, though."
"Yes, sir."
"But...can't I just shoot him once? How about in the leg?"
"I already told you no, Axl. Are you gonna make me say it a third time?"
"I could've died!"
"Then just be thankful it didn't happen."
"Zero's right, Axl. You should be glad he didn't hit your reactor. We all are, aren't we?"
"Some more than others."
"Thanks for the encouragement, Selene, but I still can't let this jerk get off free."
"You're gonna have to, Axl. Just let it go. We still don't know what this guy's story really is."
"He checks out clean for the Sigma Virus. He must not be a Maverick."
"Well then, what is he?"
"Analysis shows he's a Replitech Model 3. Serial number 88657."
"Model 3's are usually prone to infection, right?"
"That's right, Zero. However, this guy has no trace of any kind of reploid virus. He's totally clean."
"So, either he's lucky or someone's been tampering with him."
"Scans report multiple augmentations to systems and some basic parts have been swapped for more high-performance ones. He couldn't have done those by himself."
"Everything we learn about this clown just leads to more mysteries."
"When he wakes up, we'll get some answers out of him. We just have to wait for his system to reboot."
"That might take awhile, Selene."
"I hope not. I really wasn't trying to knock him out like that."
"I wish you had hit him a little harder."
"Axl..."
"Hey, I'm not asking to shoot him anymore."
"What happened to Endy and X?"
"I think X is trying to track down the Maverick leader that got away. Your brother is in holo training."
"Great. He's always on that thing."
"It makes him a good warrior."
"It makes him a lifeless killing machine."
"Funny how similar those two concepts are."
"You would know, Zero."
"More than you could possibly imagine, Axl." Marx heard voices, but his audio sensory was the only subsystem currently working. Whoever had attacked him – and he guessed it was the female voice – had done a great job of wrecking his processor. His long-term memory unit was all but ruined, and when he tried to restart his optical telemetry, an 'operation failed' signal would appear in his mind's eye. He assumed that his helmet had been dented in to mangle his main processor so thoroughly, and there would be hell to pay if he ever got all of his systems running again.
"Do you think he's having trouble rebooting?" It was the female voice.
"Serves him right," Axl, of course.
"I'll check it out," the girl said. Moments passed in silence, and Marx still couldn't access his movement controls. His sense of touch was also offline, so he had no idea if someone was tampering with him. Suddenly, everything became incredible bright, and he was able to move again. His eyes snapped open and his head shot up, surprising the female reploid bending over him. He looked around and absorbed his surroundings.
He could tell he was in Maverick Hunter HQ due to the dull blue metal walls and the figures standing around him. He recognized two of them, even though they weren't wearing their combat armor. They still wore their tight undersuits, Zero in black and Axl in light gray, with padded vests the color of their armor. They wore slim, rounded white gauntlets around their wrists, and their hands seemed much smaller without combat gloves on. Their boots, unlike the armored versions, were form-fitting and matched their gauntlets.
Axl and Zero looked much the same as they did the night before, possibly due to the color-coding of their uniforms. Zero was easily recognizable due to the long blonde hair flowing down his back, and Marx could not mistake the 'X' scar on Axl's face. The female Hunter wore a green and gray uniform, and she had a shock of brown hair that flared out above her face but tapered off toward the back of her head. She looked young, almost as young as Axl, but she obviously had more combat experience than he did.
"Well, you're awake," she said, crossing her arms and standing back next to Axl.
"No thanks to you," Marx spat, directing the comment at the woman. "I take it you were the one who put me out?" She took a curt bow.
"Lieutenant Selene, Special Unit 0, at your service," she mocked. Marx shook his head, partially to orient himself and partially as a gesture of contempt.
"Cut the crap. What do you want from me?" He did not immediately get an answer, though Selene looked a bit uneasy. Zero folded his arms. Marx noticed the vengeful glare in the crimson Hunter's eyes was gone, and he was extremely relieved.
"We'd like you to tell us a little bit about yourself," he intoned coolly.
"Tell you about...what, are you people trying to psychoanalyze me now?" Zero strode forth and rested his hands on the edge of the table that Marx was lying on.
"Alright, I think it's time that you cut the crap and tell us what we need to know."
"Gestapo tryouts ended a couple centuries ago, I'd say you're more than a little late and interrogating reploids you pick up off the street won't impress anyone." Zero gave him a cruel smirk that set Marx on edge.
"You keep that wit running 24/7, don't you?" The calm manner in which Zero spoke chilled the mercenary.
"It's my main subroutine," he replied, but his voice wasn't as confident as he wanted it to sound.
"Well, if you want to be an ass, go ahead. Just remember that you're completely unarmed, and I'm not." Zero turned around and walked to the wall behind him. He rapped his knuckles on the hard metal, barely making a sound. "These walls are soundproof. Nobody can hear you scream, and if they did, they wouldn't care, seeing as how you're a bloodthirsty Maverick and all." He came back and leaned over Marx. He slowly pulled out a small beam dagger from a holster around his waist, and a thrumming green arrowhead flickered to life over the handle. "You're not getting anywhere by stalling."
The mercenary was about to speak, but Zero cut him off. "Don't even start with that crap about the law. We admitted you here as a Maverick, which means you belong to us. We're an independent organization, and when it comes to our specialty, the government leaves us alone. They know better by now." Marx saw in his eyes how serious he was. Still, something inside him told him not to panic, not to give in. He would be stubborn until the end.
"And what would you gain by killing me, huh? Your threats are transparent, Zero. I can see right thr – " He was cut off as the dagger arced down, slicing through one of the legs of the table. The leg gave way, and the whole table snapped sideways, dumping the mercenary onto the floor.
Slowly, Marx remembered to breathe. He looked up at Zero, who stood calmly in front of his awestruck companions. The same vengeful fire filled the Hunter's eyes as the night before, but before Marx could look away, the fire disappeared. "So, do you have anything to share with us yet?" he asked. Marx blinked twice before the question registered. He stood up shakily.
"Okay..." He took a deep breath, as did the other two Hunters. "To be completely honest with you, my long-term memory unit might be damaged, and I've got an inkling as to why." He cast a glance at Selene, and it didn't go unnoticed. "I'll tell you what I know now."
"We're listening," Zero said.
"My name is Marx. The reason why I was with those Mavs is because I'm a mercenary; if it were a legitimate line of work, I'd have a business card. They offered to pay me five hundred credits if I accompanied them to a meeting between two Maverick groups looking to unite. I was supposed to protect them, but I didn't know they were talking about Maverick Hunters when they said there'd be trouble."
"Who did you think they were talking about, genius?"
"Lay off, I was desperate. Wasn't thinking much at all. Anyway, I don't particularly like tangling with your kind, so I tried to split. You know the story from there," Marx sighed.
"All you know about them is where you were told to meet?"
"Pretty much. Why?"
"The main reason why we need you is because Vulcan Stinger escaped capture, and we need to find him."
"Wait a second, Zero!" Axl interjected. He ran forth and grabbed the hunter by the arm and pulled him back.
"We've got a contact! Why do we need him to tell us where Stinger is?" Axl whispered so Marx wouldn't hear. Zero looked a bit downcast for a moment.
"...Sylph's dead."
"What?" Axl's voice rose higher than he intended, and he saw Marx cock a brown eyebrow in their direction.
"Her helicopter was shot down on the way back to HQ," Zero whispered. Axl gave him a stern gaze.
"Wait...wasn't X in that helicopter?"
"Yes, Axl, he was."
"So...X is..." Zero shook his head.
"Don't worry, Axl, I didn't lie to you. I told you X was tracking down the maverick leader, didn't I?"
A swarm of bullets buzzed about Megaman X as he dashed across the low rooftop. As far as he could tell, the projectiles were being generated by the Maverick leader Vulcan Stinger, but he didn't have the time to look in the direction of the gunfire. He concentrated on the thrust pouring out of his boots, blasting him between cover and eating away the distance between him and the edge of the rooftop. Waves of ordnance tore through climate control generators and thick cylindrical heating ducts, but X was already past them before the Mavericks could tear through him as well. Ducking down low, X turned his thrusters off for a moment and let his feet slide across the neocrete as he was propelled by inertia off the side of the hotel.
Jumping into the air and activating his propulsion system at the last second, he launched into the air and curled into a defensive ball, the thickest parts of his armor covering his weak spots. Bullets seared his armor, shooting sparks and molten metal into the cold night air. Before the shots could do any serious damage, he was falling over the edge of the building and out of their range.
As he fell, X unfurled himself. Already having a plan in his head, he spun about in midair to face the building. Fire escapes were a thing of the past, but this section of the city was ancient, and the walkways had merely been left to rust rather than cost the city time and money in their removal. He thrust his arms out, grabbed the edge of the horizontal walkway and swung himself feet-first at the hotel. He pulverized a window, flying into a dark, unfurnished room. Nearly unfurnished. A sagging bed with a stained mattress sulked against the far wall, and next to it, two naked humans sat wrapped in a threadbare sheet, holding onto each other desperately.
The humans stared at him, and X could see the fear suddenly drain from their faces – not out of relief, but out of the certainty that they were about to die, and there was nothing they could do about it.
"I'm a Maverick Hunter," he said to the couple. "I'm here to protect you."
The man's adam's apple bobbed silently, but the woman visibly relaxed. "What should we do?" she asked. "Are they here for us?"
"No," X replied. "They're here for me."
"Oh," she said, as it occurred to her that the target all those heavily armed reploids on the roof were shooting at was now standing in her hotel room.
"Stay here, lock the door, and leave the lights off. I'll deal with the Mavericks," he told them. The woman nodded, and the man tightened his grip on her shoulders.
X rushed out the door, but he waited until he heard the lock turn on the other side before continuing. Looking left, then right down the hallway at the two elevators on either end, he thought of the best route to take. He remembered the gunfire coming from the north, but they were probably moving by now.
X decided to take the south elevator, so he turned right and ran down the corridor. Punching the elevator button, the double doors slid open immediately. Fortunately, nobody was inside, so X didn't have to worry about any more humans. He hit the button marked 'roof', and the doors slid shut. As the elevator traveled upward, X readied his buster.
The moment the doors opened, X rushed out into a Maverick, who he slammed into a climate control generator while the reploid was still disoriented. Electricity coursed through the Maverick and overloaded his nerve centers. X heard shuffling and guttural battle cries, but before he could even see the other Mavericks, he let loose a charged blast. The blue-tinted energy bolt caught a beetle reploid in the chest, knocking him off the edge of the hotel. The rest of the Mavericks, who were trying to get down the fire escape, turned toward X.
Plasma and solid rounds erupted from the small group of Mavericks, and X ran to the right, firing energy bullets as he dodged and wove through enemy fire. He ran behind a disused fan box, abandoned like the fire escape after the hotel was fitted with modern climate control systems, and pressed his back against the side while he charged another shot. Bullets peppered the other side of the fan box, and X didn't know how long his cover would last. He stepped out from behind the box and fired his buster, catching a Maverick in the head and blasting it apart.
Blood and metal showered the rest of the group, somewhat dividing their attention. X took the opportunity to test out the new feature Douglas had implemented in his buster. Closing his eyes and calling up the program in his mind, X felt his body start to rearrange itself. The color of his armor shifted, ever so slightly, into a lighter metallic blue, and the barrel of his buster widened. Feeling the change complete, he stepped out from the fan box again and raised his buster.
He fired, and a ball of energy, moving much slower than a buster bolt, arced toward the Maverick group. The seething ball of blue light landed in front of the group, and as soon as it touched the neocrete, an intense concussive blast wave erupted from the spot, blowing the mavericks off the roof. Well, Douglas should be happy to know his concussion grenade program works, X thought to himself. Unfortunately, he didn't recognize Vulcan Stinger among the group of slain Mavericks. He must have already gone down the fire escape...
X stood and, knowing he was built to resist damage from high falls, ran back at the edge of the hotel and jumped off once more. This time, he let himself fall and the weight of his armor and mechanical body lent him speed. Most would be terrified of the rapid plunge, but X had done this many times before.
He hit the ground, and the neocrete below him started to give way. Dropping to his knees and planting his hands on the ground, he stopped himself from being crushed by gravity. He stood up, dislodging his feet from the street and tapping the side of his helmet.
"Zero? What's the situation?" he asked after choosing the correct frequency.
X? Everything's under control here. We have a suspected Mav in custody, and we're on our way back to HQ. Where are you?
"Our helicopter has been...shot down – "
What?
"It must have been remnants of the Maverick force we just defeated. I can tell you more when I get back. Right now I'm going after Vulcan Stinger."
What happened to Sylph?
"She didn't make it."
Damn it. Do you need backup? 'Cause we can turn this 'copter around an-
"That won't be necessary. I don't want to endanger any more Hunters than I have to," X said. He heard Zero grunt and turn off the comm. link. There was no activity to be seen in or around the street. He noticed a warehouse and construction yard a block or so away, and he figured that was as good a place as any to look for the Maverick leader.
"This guy is trouble, Zero. Do you really think it's a good idea to leave him in there?" Axl asked as Zero locked the observation room containing their new guest.
"Yeah. I think we can at least trust him to stay put unsupervised."
"I can't believe this."
"Believe it, Axl," Zero growled in a menacing tone that took the gray and black-clad reploid by surprise. "It's never too early to grow up. You can start by dropping this thing with Marx."
Axl flushed, and he fought the urge to retort. He knew he was being unreasonable, and he knew there was nothing to worry about with Marx locked in the observation room, but his wounded pride overpowered all rationality. As usual, it took one of Zero's surgically-precise insults to excise his tumorous anger.
"Sorry, Zero. I'll drop it."
"Good. You're learning. Just wait 'til X gets back, we'll have him take a look at that guy."
"Do you think it'll do any good?"
"Sure. X has a way with people."
X walked through the shadows of the old city, occasionally illuminated by a streetlight overhead. The events leading up to his current situation appeared, unbidden, in his head. The injustice of it set his metaphorical blood boiling, and instead of thinking about retiring Vulcan Stinger for the sake of protecting humanity, he started to see it as vengeance for a scared young reploid girl...
X stood in the open helicopter, waiting while the female reploid with the thick metal headband pulled herself up into the flying machine. When she stood, X cast a glance at the pilot, and they lifted off. The female walked shakily to a bench against the wall of the helicopter, but X made no move to sit down. He watched as the harbor drifted into the background, and ancient tenement buildings replaced them.
He turned to the female, who was slumped against the wall of the helicopter. "You're safe now. The Maverick Hunters will take care of you," he said. She kept the detached stare on her face.
"How can you trust me?" she asked. "Not only am I supposed to be infected with the Maverick Virus, but I also betrayed my former comrades."
"You betrayed your 'comrades' for good reason. Stinger threatened to kill you, didn't he?"
"Yes, but still..."
"You're worried about the virus acting up."
"Uh huh."
"Well, I won't lie to you. If there were a way to cure you, we wouldn't even be here. However, my superiors find it interesting that you are only affected by the virus on certain occasions. They want to run some tests on you when we get back to HQ to find out why your system is resistant to the virus."
"Okay," she said. "But all I really want is a peaceful place where I can get away from...this. I don't care whether I still have the virus or not. Your organization promised me amnesty for giving them the location of Stinger's group. They didn't say anything about turning me into a lab rat."
"You have nothing to worry about, Sylph."
"I wish I could say I've never heard that before." X gave her an intense gaze.
"I'm serious. The Maverick Hunters aren't like what your comrades undoubtedly said about us. If you don't want to be tested, we won't do it. Just keep in mind that it could potentially save a lot of lives, and you could be cured."
"I'm sorry, but it's not worth it. I just want to get out of here. The more miles you put between me and Stinger, the better."
"I'll personally make sure he never finds you," X said, keeping his earnest green eyes locked on hers. "You've already done your people and the humans a great service today. I can't really ask you for more, can I?"
Sylph smiled and looked away. "Get me back to Hunter HQ, and you can try again."
The helicopter soared over the old city for a time as the passengers were silent, until a siren blared from the cockpit. The pilot cried out an instant before a hail of bullets ripped apart the cockpit shielding and plastered him across the window. X swore and his arm transformed itself into a cannon in an instant. Sylph screamed as the helicopter began to jerk wildly.
Gunfire now sprayed through the open door, peppering X's armor and shedding sparks around the interior of the helicopter. He looked around for the source of the attack, but the helicopter started spinning and it was difficult to see the rooftops clearly.
X grabbed the side of the open door and fired blindly, not caring if he hit anything. He was aware that they were dropping in altitude, so he turned to Sylph. "Take the controls!" he shouted to her. She nodded shakily and stood up, running to the dead pilot's chair and leaning over it to get a view of the controls.
Their shuddering descent slowed, and the turning smoothed out. X began to see faint shapes scurrying across the hotel rooftop directly below, firing wildly at the helicopter. X managed to nail one of the attackers scrambling for cover. However, he soon noticed a shape that stood out from the others. It was completely still, and the silhouette of its geometrically-perfect armor didn't match anything in his database. The Mavericks attacked as if unaware of its existence, and X was starting to think the silhouette was a hallucination until it raised its barrel-shaped arm at the helicopter. A pinprick of light appeared at the center of the shadow's arm, and X's eyes widened.
"Sylph!" It was too late. Incandescent energy burned through the cockpit and blood splattered over the walls as the Maverick woman's scream died away. The helicopter began to jerk and spin wildly again, and X was thrown back into a bench. Another beam tore into the rear of the helicopter, and the vehicle began to dive for the street below. Taking a running stride, X placed the edge of his boot firmly on the doorway and pushed off, jumping for the rooftop alight with gunfire...
He didn't want to remember the woman's scream, but the sound invaded his mind repeatedly. He had looked for the humanoid Maverick with the beam cannon, but it seemed as if he had disappeared into thin air. It was possible he had left with Vulcan Stinger, but there was evidence on the rooftop of several more discharges from his laser cannon. These had been aimed at the Mavericks, and a handful of melted corpses had been left behind. Either he wasn't a Maverick after all, or they had a falling out. It didn't matter. The shadow was gone, and X had a known Maverick leader to find.
He had to remind himself of this fact repeatedly, as the bubbling fury churning under his calm exterior threatened to lure him back toward the hotel, where he might find that strange reploid's trail. Maverick or not, he had killed Sylph, and Vulcan Stinger's crimes against humanity suddenly paled in comparison.
That's not right...think of that scared human couple, X. Think of...Sylph...damn it! X silently raged. She died for those humans. Those helpless, useless...no. He couldn't shake the resentment creeping into his thoughts, and it horrified him when he realized what he was starting to sound like. Is this what it's like to contract the Maverick Virus? After all these years, has it finally happened? He pushed the idea from his mind. He told himself that it was just his anger talking, that he just hated to have promised Sylph her safety, only to watch her burn away in the heat of a beam cannon.
It can't be the Maverick Virus. This has happened before... Near the end of the Second Maverick Uprising, X and his mentor, Dr. Cain, thought that he had been infected by the Maverick Virus somehow when he almost attacked a group of humans. The incident, following X's battle with the X Hunter Violen, was blown out of proportion by the government and X had to leave the Maverick Hunters for a time until the controversy was resolved.
It was discovered later that X hadn't really contracted the virus, and that he was just suffering under extreme stress, so he rejoined the Maverick Hunters right before the Doppler Town Revolt. Tensions were high between the Neo Tokyo government and the Maverick Hunters, who were accused of harboring a criminal (They claimed X had killed innocent humans, a crime that Violen was responsible for). However, when X almost single-handedly resolved the Doppler incident, charges were dropped.
He was taking his responsibilities too seriously again, that was all. He simply couldn't maintain his gentle nature in an occupation that required him to kill on a regular basis, and he had to treat Sylph as a statistic, the way most of his fellow Hunters would. He attempted to do so as he approached the warehouse where Vulcan Stinger could have been hiding. The gate had been smashed open, and a trail of sharply pointed bootprints were left in the gravel beyond. Buster drawn, X continued through the dark loading area stacked with crates and filled with gas tankers. There was no movement at all throughout the area. X took this as a bad sign.
He made a wide berth of the gas tanker; not only was it a good spot to ambush from, but if someone tried to blow it up... X tried not to think about it. Fortunately, he passed the tanker without incident. He moved into the open warehouse cautiously. Almost instantly, the familiar rattle of a gatling cannon opened up on him. A few of the small bullets grazed his shoulder, but his armor was made to withstand plenty more than that.
He jumped and rolled before he was overwhelmed by a swarm of stinging bullets. Bringing his arm cannon to bear, he fired at the figure crouched atop a storage shelf. One blaster bolt hit him on the arm, but it didn't seem to affect the Maverick. Vulcan Stinger jumped, and his tail sprang into the ceiling, suspending him in midair. Grasping the ceiling with the claws on his forearms, Stinger began crawling rapidly toward X and firing from the swiveling gatling cannons mounted on his shoulders.
X ignored the bullets overwhelming his armor and concentrated on his buster. Shards of his own armor cut synthetic skin from his face, leaving trickles of blood-colored energy running down his cheeks. It wouldn't matter in a few seconds...
Stinger was almost above X when he let loose a full charged shot. The blazing azure ball leapt up at the Maverick, and when it hit the ceiling, a nebula of blue and carmine energy burst from Stinger's location. X jumped back just as the Maverick crashed to the floor, clutching the stump of a golden arm.
Wasting no time, Vulcan Stinger stood, hatred burning in his slitted eyes. For such a nimble, twitchy reploid, his gold armor was unusually bulky and unwieldy. The gatling cannons atop his shoulders swiveled back and forth eagerly, and his long, bladed tail followed the rhythm of the guns' movement.
"I guess it's too late to convince you to give up?" X said. Stinger laughed through viciously-pointed mandibles.
"Why do you bother asking anymore, Megaman X? You know this conflict can't be solved with words."
"At least tell me who the Maverick with the beam cannon is," X asked.
"Who?"
"The one that shot down our helicopter. Who is he?"
"I shot you down!" Stinger balked. "And I didn't need a beam cannon to do it."
"Then you may be responsible for the pilot's death, but you didn't kill Sylph," X said.
"Sylph? My scoutmaster? Why would..." he trailed off as understanding overtook him. "Of course. We were betrayed. In that case, I don't know who killed that human-loving whore, but once I find out, I'll be sure to give him a promotion."
"Shut up, Maverick," X spat, and he could feel the rage clawing its way up his throat. "If you can't help me, then I'm retiring you right now."
"Finally," Stinger muttered under his breath. The two reploids raised their weapons at the same instant. As Stinger fired, X rolled to the side. Steadying himself on his knees, he fired a concussion grenade into Stinger's chest. Small, golden chips of neosteel rained down on X as the Maverick flew across the warehouse like a rag doll toward a large energy tank. The Maverick landed several short meters from it, but as soon as he realized what happened, X had switched back to normal fire and shot a bolt of energy at the tank.
X closed his eyes, but before he did he caught a glimpse of iridescent light engulfing the warehouse. He heard other tanks exploding as well. This must be an energy warehouse, X thought. At least four more explosions sounded off before the sound and light died down. X opened his eyes to see the opposite side of the warehouse in ruins. A gaping hole in the wall was the only indication that Vulcan Stinger and the energy tanks had ever been there.
Heaving a sigh, X turned to leave the warehouse. Since he no longer had to worry about transporting Sylph, he could use the Instant Transit network to return to HQ once he was outside.
Mission 1 status: Completed
Maverick leader: Retired
Main Objective: Achieved
Secondary Objective: Failed
Note: Maverick contact retired by unknown assailant. Further reconnaissance necessary.
End of Chapter 2