Megaman X: Elysium Rising
Chapter 6: Radio Silence
By Genoscythe
In two days, Megaman X had seen just as many Maverick leaders destroyed, stopped a riot, recruited a new Hunter, and sent a painstakingly-detailed report on the concussion grenade program to Douglas. He still had not spoken to Alia. X walked wearily into the command room of MHHQ, expecting to see her bent over a console or lying on her back under one, digging through its components. Since the unusual communications problems, there was little for a navigator to do, but Alia still tried furiously to locate the source of the problem. However, the room was dark, and even Alia had apparently given up for the moment. He was about to leave when he received a local call on his comm link.
"Hey X, can you come down to Hangar M for me?" the feminine voice on the other end asked. X recognized it as Alia's immediately.
"Sure," he replied, turning around and walking back to the elevator. In moments, he was emerging under the shadow of a large hover transport, and Maverick Hunter HQ's underground hangar spread out before him. Maverick activity after the riot at the Sky Lagoon had dropped off, and the HQ was mostly locked up for the night, leaving the cavernous hangar bathed in dim backup lights. He walked through the relatively uncluttered central pathway, passing sector after sector until he arrived at the area designated M, ostensibly used for developing advanced armor modifications. Usually, the only thing that they ever developed in sector M was X's armor.
As he walked into an enclosed lab with the lights turned on, he saw Alia leaning over a table and punching numbers into a datapad laid out next to her. X couldn't see what was on the table, but his mind briefly wandered over Alia's figure, displayed so prominently by her position and her new, lighter suit of armor. It occurred to him, as he studied her out-thrust hips and gently swaying waist, that she was merely posing to get his attention, since he was fairly certain her more flattering armor came about for the same reason.
It was working, and he despised himself for it, because he knew it was only working because he was imagining another woman superimposed over her, a reploid with long, streaked brown hair. He wanted to see her cherubic face again, but he was sure that the illusion would break once Alia noticed him. When the reploid girl abruptly turned her head and locked X's green eyes with hers, he was disappointed to find that he was right.
"Hey," Alia said. "Hope I didn't interrupt anything."
"No, not at all," he replied. Yes, you interrupted me pretending you were my dead girlfriend. "You wanted to talk?"
"Yes, if you've got some free time," she said, but X could barely hear her over the crashing wave of self-loathing that swept over him. It wasn't fair to Alia that he couldn't get over Calliope, but she was suffering for it nonetheless.
"X? Did you hear me?" she asked patiently.
"Yeah. I've got some free time," he said, latching desperately onto the last thing he could remember her saying.
"No. I told you I had something to give you," she said, and X could see some of the life drain from her face.
"Sorry...my mind was wandering."
"You've always got a lot to think about. Anyway, would you like to see it?" She slid over as he approached the table, giving him a clear view of the sleek, navy blue armor lying on the metal surface. It was similar to his current armor, but the gauntlets and greaves had been slimmed down, extra energen crystals were fitted on the elbows and knees, and the whole armor was trimmed with white.
"Is that my armor?"
"Essentially. We started with an exact replica, but we altered it as needed. As you can tell, we've reduced the bulkiness in certain areas, mostly the legs. This will improve your speed and maneuverability. We also managed to muffle the sound of buster fire without decreasing attack power. The boots are fitted with silencing soles, and we've even thrown in a basic utility belt."
"I'm seeing a pattern here."
"It's basically the same armor," Alia said. "Just stealthier."
"Have you tested it yet?" X asked.
"I was hoping you would oblige me, Commander," she replied, beckoning for him to touch the suit. He pressed his palm against the chest plate, and the pressure sensor scanned his personal data. The armor then disappeared in a flash of white light that spread across X's body. When the light faded, he was wearing the new suit, and his original had been teleported to storage. He flexed his arms, then his legs, testing the movement. "This armor barely hinders my movement at all," he mused. "Only about..." He let his processor do the math. "2% difference."
"Great!" Alia exclaimed, discreetly leaning in closer. "I requisitioned more energen crystals to boost your power output, so the suit isn't that much lighter, it just makes you stronger." He took a step, and though he strained to listen, he couldn't hear anything.
"Isn't that expensive?" X asked, performing an exploratory kick to test out the thinner greaves.
"I had to fight the quartermaster for every one of them. He almost cried when I told him what I needed, but it was the only way I could get the results I wanted, so..." Alia trailed off, staring at the floor while X continued his inspection. Suddenly, she took his hand and pulled him over to a target board against the wall of the little lab.
"Try the buster," she said quickly, almost worriedly. X leveled his left hand and his fist retracted into his arm, a dark gray barrel blossoming out to replace it. He fired a normal bullet, and the ball smashed a fist-sized hole in the board. Neither reploid heard the shot fire. "Not bad at all," Alia breathed.
"Shouldn't we be doing the first test with more techs? I don't want to be stepping on anyone's toes, here."
"It's okay, I'm recording all of this. Besides, I put most of the suit together myself, so I'm the only one who needs to see the results anyway."
He nodded slowly, charging his next test shot. Besides a low hum emanating from his buster as the weapon charged and a slight crackle of energy as the large blue streak shot from his buster, it was rather noiseless. Only after the target board was vaporized did X fully understand what Alia had said, and her increasing unease began to make sense.
"You did this all yourself?" he asked.
"Most of it. Satoru gave me some help with the chest plate since I couldn't get the weight-to-armor ratios right, but other than that..." she trailed off again, shrugging nervously.
"I had no idea you knew so much about armor development," he said, fully aware that, as far as compliments went, it was a pretty pathetic attempt.
"Well, I was Gate's partner before I joined the Maverick Hunters," she explained, curling a lock of her shoulder-length hair around a fidgety finger. "We designed whole reploids before...before things went wrong."
"I remember," X affirmed. How could I have forgotten that? "Are you still trying to bring him back?"
He wandered out of the lab and back to the main hangar bay, where he could see Alia's private workstation against the far wall. Inside, a capsule containing the remains of Alia's former colleague and lover rested by the window. He always thought the arrangement sounded like torture for Alia, having the dead eyes of her partner staring at her while she worked. Perhaps that was what it was meant to be – punishment for abandoning him and helping her superiors destroy the reploids they had created together.
"You've never asked about him before," Alia pointed out, emerging behind him. "Not since you retired him."
"I should have."
Alia closed her eyes and hugged herself bitterly. "He's long gone. I might be able to reconstruct some of his basic personality traits, but he was badly damaged when you brought him to me. And, to be honest, I'm afraid of who I might wake up if I do somehow repair him."
"I know you were more than just colleagues, Alia," X said. "Isn't it worth the risk, for someone you love? If I had the chance to bring back someone I loved, I would take it."
"Is that a hypothetical scenario, or is there really someone..." she stopped when she saw the answer on X's face. "Nevermind. I had feelings for Gate, but that doesn't make up for what he did. Even if some of that was my fault." She closed her eyes again, but not before a pair of tears escaped and rolled down her cheeks.
X couldn't stand it anymore. He was putting the poor navigator through hell just because he was afraid that she might replace his bittersweet visions of Calliope, and he could only break her heart in so many ways before the weight on his conscience would crush him. He took her by the shoulders and pulled her into a chaste hug. She merely hung there in his arms, stunned, until her processor had time to catch up and she wrapped her arms around his waist.
"Forget I mentioned it," X said, chin bouncing against the top of her head. "This armor's fantastic. Better than anything Douglas has ever thrown together for me. Don't tell him I said that."
Alia laughed through her tears, and X gave her a reassuring pat on the back. "Speaking of the armor, there's one more thing I wanted to show you. If you thought it was fantastic before..."
Her hands snaked up his back, ending up at his collar. She flipped a switch, ducked out of the hug, and vanished into the armor lab. Nothing seemed to have happened.
Then, Alia reemerged with a mirror, and it all became clear. Behind him, what appeared to be a red scarf hung from the back of his armor. X felt behind him, but his hands passed through the fabric. Alia put down the mirror.
"It's a hologram. Wearing a real bright red scarf would defeat the purpose of this armor, don't you think?"
"You added a holographic scarf to my armor?" he asked skeptically.
"Yes," she said, smiling through the remnants of her earlier depression. "Satoru thought it was a bad idea, but I decided to leave it in."
"What's it for?"
"It's just for looks. I thought you might want a little flair," she explained.
"Oh," X said, wondering if he really seemed like a 'flair' person. He usually left that kind of thing up to Zero. "Thanks."
"Of course," Alia replied, clasping her hands together. "Well, now that you've seen the armor, can we talk?"
"Sure."
"What exactly happened last night?" she asked. He then proceeded to go into detail about the attack on the Maverick group and the subsequent destruction of his escape vehicle. X had learned long ago not to leave out any details or alter the story to make it better to hear; Alia knew exactly when he was lying. During his story, X hadn't even realized he was still wearing the armor because of how comfortable it was. It also gave him a visual aide when describing his fight with the survivors of the attack.
It was when X was waving his buster at invisible foes, Alia sitting rapt in a chair across from him, when one of the monitors in the lab flickered to life. X halted the charade as Alia pressed a button on a console, and a pudgy face stuffed into a green helmet popped up on the screen.
"Alia, I'm trying a different approach with this communication problem of ours. Would you be a dear and come up to the relay tower for me? I need your assistance," Douglas said. Before Alia could reply, the transmission cut out. She sighed and turned back to X.
"Sorry. It looks like I still have more work to do."
"I'll come with you," X offered. Her face brightened considerably at this.
"That gives me an idea," she said. "I totally forgot about the last new feature for your armor..."
"What's that?" he inquired. Instead of responding, Alia took him by the hand and led him out of the small lab, out into the cavernous hangar again. She took him to the nearest wall and pressed his palm against the surface.
"Wall climbing program, activate," Alia ordered. Nothing happened. X tried to move his hand, but it stuck fast to the wall.
"What the..." X muttered, pulling his arm. He found that with a little extra exertion, he could pull his hand away.
"Try climbing the wall," she suggested. X proceeded to put one hand above the other, pulling himself up the wall. After awhile, he was used to the strange sucking feeling when he placed his hand on the wall, and he was able to make it up to the ceiling of the hangar, where he swung himself out several feet before stopping. Alia clapped approvingly below, and he disengaged the program with his mind. When he hit the ground, the floor didn't buckle like it usually did.
"Those extra energen crystals are powering impact dampeners," Alia mentioned. "It should make hard falls even easier for you."
"Why hasn't anyone mentioned this before?" he asked her. To this, she lowered her head.
"It was my idea. I wanted to surprise you," she said softly.
"Surprise me?"
"Yeah. I worked on this armor for almost a year, and...well, I spent some of my pay on it too."
"You did what?"
"Most of my pay, actually. On top of the budget Signas gave me. And I had to sell some of my other projects toward the end. I guess there's a reason people don't build suits with four high-powered energen crystals in them," she said, laughing nervously.
"Alia, I don't know what to say," X murmured, staring down at his armor with new appreciation.
"It's a gift, don't worry about the cost. I didn't. It's the only thing I can do to keep you safe, especially with this comms nightmare going on, and it's worth it."
"You know, I've got plenty of money saved up. I can pay you back if you tell me how much came out of your own pocket," X offered.
"If you want to pay me back, just put it to good use and come back to me – us – in one piece."
X smiled, flexing his buster arm. "It's the least I can do. Hey, aren't we supposed to be seeing Douglas right now?"
"That's what reminded me of the wall climbing program. You see, I was wondering if we could take the test a little further..."
The Instant Transit beam deposited Marx directly back into his cell, where he found a clipboard lying by the door. As shaken as he was from the mall riot, his curiosity got the better of him and he picked it up. A simple note posted on top of a stack of printouts described the clipboard's contents.
Congratulations, you're not a Maverick, you're just an asshole. Give these data readings to Zero, and he might let you go, or at least move you out of this cell.
The note was unsigned, but Marx knew it had to be from Nephtis. The printouts showed his test results, and in any case, the attitude was unmistakable. He pushed open the door, hoping to clear his name before diving back into Nephtis's Egyptian mythology collection, but the door was stopped halfway by a hand encased in a black gauntlet. Axl squeezed through the opening and shut the door behind him.
"Zero's on the warpath," he told Marx, leaning against the door. The reploid mercenary gave him a half-smile.
"Because X talked me into helping you guys out after he failed?"
"Something like that," Axl replied, matching the mercenary's smile. Marx was taken aback by the change in Axl's demeanor. "I'd stay in here for awhile, if I were you."
"Looks like you're in a pretty good mood," he commented.
"Yeah, well, I thought about everything that's happened with us, and I decided the grudge isn't worth it, especially if you're gonna keep saving my life."
"Is this your way of getting to that ever-elusive thank you?" Marx asked. Suddenly, a heavy impact shook the walls, and the handle on Marx's door began to rattle.
"Come out here, you sneaky, two-faced son of a bitch!" Zero roared from the other side.
"No, warning you and locking the door is my way of thanking you," Axl answered.
"Axl? Are you in there?" he yelled, now more confused than angry. "Haul that merc's scrawny ass out here. I might let you shoot him after all."
Axl raised an eyebrow. "What exactly did you do to him?" he whispered.
"Not much. Certainly not enough to deserve getting shot by a punk Hunter like you," Marx said, his half-smile evolving into a full grin.
"Don't push it," Axl chided. "I would've gladly handed you over if he'd asked this morning."
"And I appreciate the change of heart, really. Now, I've got some reading to catch up on, so if you think you can talk him down, could you give that a shot?" the mercenary asked, walking over to his bed and flopping down next to the mythology book.
"Okay, but after this, we're even," Axl said.
"Hey, I saved your life, kid," Marx pointed out.
"Exactly. Watch me save yours." Axl approached the door cautiously, turned the lock as slowly and non-threateningly as he could, and as soon as the handle was unlocked, the door flew open and he was yanked out into the hall.
"I'll teach you to screw around with – " Zero cut his outburst short when he noticed who he was holding up by the neck. "Axl. What's going on here?"
"Let me down, Zero!" Axl choked out.
"I give him a chance, and he turns me down. I deal with the head Mav, I get back to base, and I find his cell empty. Only after I put the whole place on lockdown does a navigator think to tell me X let him loose on the Sky Lagoon. What the hell did I miss?"
"I dunno, Zero. Seriously, put me down."
"He put the whole mission in jeopardy just 'cause he wanted to prove his way works," Zero huffed. "And that damn merc..."
He tossed Axl out of the way and rushed back to the door, raising a fist to pound on it again. However, the door opened first, and Marx stuck his head out.
"Maybe you didn't hear me, Red. I've got some reading to do, and it's really hard to concentrate over all your bitching, so if you don't move the tantrum somewhere else, I'm gonna move it for you." With that said, Marx dropped a clipboard stacked with papers through the opening and then slammed the door shut. The lock clicked, and Zero dropped his fist without a word.
"Damn..." Axl muttered breathlessly. Inside the room, Marx exhaled sharply and unclasped his helmet; keeping the insensible terror out of his voice for two whole sentences while staring down an enraged Zero was almost too much for his processor to handle. It worked, though, and Marx was able to read in peace for another hour, before his adrenal-energy spike wore off and he was calm enough to spread out in his capsule and shut down for the night.
End of Chapter 6