Megaman X: Elysium Rising

Chapter 9: Thunderhead

By Genoscythe

Marx stretched his arms and leaned back in his dull metal chair, inadvertently making the book of Egyptian mythology slip from his lap and onto the floor. Dutifully, Darius waddled out from the shadows and nudged the book with his triangular foot, trying to pick it up as best he could in the absence of any useful limbs. Marx finished his stretch and snatched the book from the little robot, setting it on the table illuminated by lamplight. After dinner, he had promised himself to get right to the section he had left off at the other day, but his curiosity intervened. He became wound up in the myths of Anubis, the Egyptian God of Judgment. Apparently, they thought he weighed the hearts of the dead against a feather, and if the heart was heavier than the feather, the dead human would be eternally damned.

The logistics of this setup bothered Marx. First of all, Anubis had to have a massive backlog of hearts waiting to be weighed, since the whole procession must have taken longer than it takes for a human being to die on Earth, especially if there was eternal damnation involved. Even if Anubis did a rush job on the eternal damnation and kept up on his heart quota, the test was heavily slanted against humanity, what with the average human heart weighing about seven pounds, and the average bird feather weighing significantly less. He wondered how anybody managed to avoid being eternally damned. It probably had something to do with bribery.

Marx had spent the better part of the night reading through passages on Anubis and Horus, the son of the Underworld's god, when he came upon a familiar page. He skipped the section he was currently on and found what he was looking for. "In the Hall of Judgment where souls awaited his verdict on their righteousness, Osiris sat at the throne with his wife and sister Isis, his other sister Nephthys, and his four sons, as well as a complement of forty-two..." Marx stopped reading. He knew this all sounded familiar, and in any case, he was sure he had found the passage Nephtis had meant for him to read. He decided to leave a more thorough investigation for later, shutting the book and sliding it down the table to rest on the corner as he moved to flick off the lamp.

However, as he did so, his door hissed open without warning and dim light spilled into the room, making him jump to his feet in surprise. With Marx still flinching from the mild shock, Nephtis entered his room without a word. He could barely see her features as they were silhouetted by the doorway, but he could recognize her spicy perfume from a thousand other scents. "I suppose privacy doesn't mean anything to you?" he asked.

"What would you have to keep private anyway?" she retorted.

"I could have been naked, you know."

"The thought of you naked was so far from my mind, it never occurred to me."

"Well, now I'm just gonna be naked all the time in here."

"You'll never see me again."

"Or maybe you'll learn to knock," he grunted. "What do you need?" His query fell on deaf ears, as it soon became clear that Nephtis was not paying attention to him anymore. Her gaze was fixed on Darius, who was too busy staring blankly into space to notice her. In one fluid motion, she bent down, scooped up the little metool and hugged it against her breast.

"God, he's adorable!" she whispered reverently, stroking Darius's mining helmet. Marx couldn't believe it. Did I fall asleep at my desk? Is this a dream? No, if it were a dream, she'd be hugging him instead of Darius. Still, he thought the woman to be incapable of emotions outside the range of anger and condescension, but her drastic mood swing had even affected the posture she now took as she cuddled the little metool. "Aren't you? Yeah, you're the sweetest little met there is!" She rubbed its helmet again and Marx could swear Darius made a faint cooing warble. Astonished at Nephtis and disgusted by the overwhelming affection she was pouring onto the robot, he felt it was prudent to interrupt. In retrospect, this wasn't a very good idea.

"Hey, do you mind? Get your own damn pet."

As quickly as her mood change had come about, her back straightened, her synthetic muscles tightened and her face once again took on its icy glare.

"Elif air ab tizak," she said slowly, enunciating as if the power of her disgust might translate the words for her. She more or less succeeded. Before Marx could fumble out a suitable reply, she set Darius down gently on the desk and walked back to the door. She paused only for a moment to say, "I was gonna ask if you wanted to help me in the hangar tomorrow, but I see that was a mistake. Enjoy your upgraded prison cell." At that, she turned and walked out the door. As her footsteps receded down the hall, Marx was torn over whether or not he should apologize to her. All it took was a mental image of her angular, dark face to make up his mind. I hope you appreciate this, woman...He ran out the door, but by the time he got to the elevators she was already on her way to the maintenance staff's quarters.

Marx swore under his breath as he returned to his room and closed the door. He decided that he didn't want the hassle of a full recharge, so he simply flopped onto the bed and shut down.

Megaman X lay back in his capsule, thinking about the secret Alia had told him the night before. He could interpret it many ways, and he was trying to sort out the most innocent conclusion. She wanted to join the Maverick Hunters because of me...why? She didn't even know me more than anybody else did. Were my actions really so inspirational that she decided to join the Hunters just to be closer to me? X wondered. Maybe it didn't start out as a romantic interest. Maybe she only wanted to follow his example. There were too many ways to interpret her message, and he still couldn't picture her in his head without the image of Calliope superseding it. He didn't want to analyze Alia's words too closely. He didn't want to give up that image. He just wanted to...

...feel a warm, soft hand tracing letters on the side of his neck, scratching cursive curlicues with the tips of its fingernails. He closed his eyes and raised his own hand to enclose the other, tucking it into his fingers like a small animal.

"I miss you," he sighed, eyes still closed.

"I miss you too, Rock," Calliope whispered back. He could feel something shifting next to him in the capsule, bare skin rustling his uniform. He squeezed the hand tighter.

"You didn't deserve this," he said.

"You don't deserve this," she countered.

"What am I supposed to do?" he asked, as tears stole past his eyelids and escaped down the sides of his cheeks. "What can I do?"

"Open your eyes," Calliope told him. In a flash, he was staring at the ceiling through the capsule's glass door, cradling empty air in his right hand and wondering why there was sunlight peeking through the blinds in his room. He ran a quick diagnostic, and according to his system, he had spent a full night recharging. His face, however, was still wet.

As he opened his capsule and sat up, an urgent knock shook the plating on his front door, and he trudged across the room to answer it. Zero stood on the other side of the doorway with his arms crossed and a grim expression on his face. "We've got a slight problem," he said.

"You have a strange way of defining slight," X pointed out.

"Alia's found something in the mountains up north."

"What is it?"

"Well...we're not really sure. It's some kind of massive electrical disturbance near Dopplertown," Zero explained, unfolding his arms.

"And there hasn't been any Maverick activity in those mountains?" X asked.

"We don't know. A lot of our equipment has been malfunctioning since our comms died."

"But you were still able to detect the electrical disturbance?"

"X...we can practically see the electrical disturbance. It's huge, and we have no idea what's causing it."

"There's a lot of things we don't know," X groaned. Zero scowled.

"Look, whatever the hell's screwing with our equipment is making it really difficult to get information. It's not my fault, okay?" the crimson hunter growled. X held up his hands.

"Sorry, Zero. I...had a rough night."

"Who doesn't?" Zero replied bitterly. It wasn't the response X was hoping for, but he decided to move on.

"We've got to find out what's going on up there. I'll have the 17th ready to deploy in half an hour," X said.

"This could be serious, X," Zero said, his mood softening. "Unit 0's got your back."

"Thanks, Zero. We'll meet you at the hangar in thirty," X said, and Zero nodded in reply. Without another word, he turned around, his golden hair swishing about as he walked down the corridor to where the 17th's quarters merged with unit 0's. Since Special Unit 0 wasn't large enough to fill an entire barracks, they shared the floor with the 17th. As X began to broadcast a shortwave call to his teammates, Zero was rousing Selene from her chambers and practically dragging her out the door when she refused to leave.

"Zero, ugh...at least let me fix my hair!" Selene complained as she was dragged past.

"You're a reploid. You're about to...cover it up with a helmet anyway!" Zero protested, straining to pull along the resisting Maverick Hunter.

"I don't want it to look like this when I take it off!"

"Can't you wait? We're deploying in less than thirty minutes!"

"Hey, you understand what it's like, don't you?" Selene tried to stop herself when she realized what she was saying, but her mouth had already started and it wouldn't stop. Silently, X backed into his room and shut the door. Even so, he caught Zero's first outburst.

"What's that supposed to mean?" As much as X wanted to watch the spectacle outside, he was afraid for his own safety. But now, calls were coming in from the 17th, and he had other business to attend to.

Commander Hector was not in a good mood. Thanks to a well-timed particle scan from one of the Maverick Hunters' senior navigators, they had uncovered what could well be a secret Maverick superweapon to the north, and yet his division was being sent into the wasteland on a scavenger hunt for a minor enemy installation. According to Megaman X, the Maverick base's leader had already been retired, and even the glory of terminating a high-profile target had been taken away from him. Still, the big lion considered himself a professional. He would never let it show.

"Based on the intel our source has provided us, the installation is located about twenty kays south of the Maverick Disposal Plant," Hector informed his division, crowded as they were into a tiny briefing room. The original architects underestimated the size of the 9th Ranger Division, and despite the fact that the 9th was one of the smaller Hunter divisions, they seemed to be twice their size when packed into their briefing room. Hector barely had room to maneuver his pointer as he indicated a red circle overlapping the map being projected by the wall. "It's a subterranean base, and they're likely at about three-quarters strength. Everything else we'll have to find out for ourselves."

"You want me to bring my shovel, boss man?" Malakai asked, slouching smugly in a front row chair. Nobody understood why, but Malakai always arrived at briefings at least two hours early. He obviously relished being able to tease the late Hunters crammed in the back, but he often went so far overboard in getting to meetings early that this explanation was no longer adequate, especially since he was teased far more often for an occasion when he spent the night in the briefing room because of a meeting that took place at noon on the next day.

"It's a big area to cover, I know," Hector continued unfazed. "Signas knows it, too. That's why he's sending us. Because nobody can move faster, nobody can track better, and I have never seen a bigger group of well-oiled death machines than I see before me now."

"Aaand...commence cheers," Malakai said, as the division gave their leader a scattered round of applause.

"Shut up, Malakai," one of the rangers called.

"Hey, I suggest we send Mal out there by himself," another chided.

"Denied," Hector replied, without irony. "We can do what no other division does because of our teamwork. I don't care how much you hate Malakai, you watch his back out there."

"I didn't know you felt that way, boss man," the lanky Hunter said, getting to his feet.

"Of course, Hunter. Why do you think you're still alive?" Hector said, and a begrudging smile split his black lips. This is humiliating, he thought, waving a gloved hand and sending the Hunters out the door. We're going to be out picking carrion while the whole island might be in danger. His smile turned into a snarl as he loped out of the empty briefing room. What a waste of time.

"Hey, what are all those people doing here?" Marx pointed with the wrench in his hand at the gathering of armored Maverick Hunters near the hangar bay. Nephtis shook her head, with a hell-if-I-know look on her face. Despite her stern protests, Marx had practically forced her to put him to work in the hangar as an apology for his outburst the previous evening. She had reluctantly accepted his offer, though Marx liked to think that she was just playing hard to get.

He recognized a few hunters in the group milling about, namely Axl and Megaman X. Some techs were handing them equipment, but before he could watch further Nephtis pulled him back to work on the new ride chaser. It was far more extravagant than the other chasers he'd seen, with an angular nose and golden airfoils flowing out of the sides on the front and back of the vehicle. The entire machine was colored saffron, and from the nose backward it became thinner and lifted farther off the ground up to the engines, which were tall and thin. The engines were placed at a slant on the back of the craft, and from a distance, the chaser resembled a flaming arrowhead.

He still thought 'Zephyr' was a lame name for it, but he figured he was on thin ice without pointing that out, and even Marx knew when to keep his mouth shut occasionally. He began to detach the left fin on the nose so he could install one of the pulse cannons, but as he unscrewed the part from the chaser, it slid off and clattered to the floor noisily. He sucked in his breath, waiting for the inevitable scolding. Surely enough, Nephtis's face appeared over the top of the ride chaser.

"This is a prototype, moron! It has to be perfect! If the tests are off because you didn't know how to unscrew a goddamn airfoil, I'll take you apart and turn you into a coat rack," she said sternly. Marx looked down at the fallen part in disbelief.

"It just fell! Look, it's not even scratched!" he cried. "Also, coat rack? What?"

"Are you gonna try to be more careful, or not?"

"I am trying to be careful!" he said, rising and leaning across the chaser to face her. He noticed with satisfaction that she backed up a few inches. "I didn't ask to be stuck down in this pit. I'm not very good at this auto shop crap."

"Then what are you good at?" Nephtis snapped. "Obviously, you haven't passed basic training, or you wouldn't be here."

"I'm still trying to figure that out," Marx said. The indignation drained from his voice, and he pushed off the Zephyr to return to the discarded airfoil. He took the silence that followed to mean that Nephtis was contemplating his response, or possibly working on an apology. However, when he glanced over his shoulder, he saw her back turned and her right hand raised in salute. Marx looked past her to see Commander X standing before them, saluting in kind. He shot up, dropping the fin noisily again and trying to imitate Nephtis. X broke the salute.

"Remember what I said about salutes, Nephtis?" he asked her.

"Yes, sir."

"Please, try to stop doing them."

"Yes, sir."

"When's the new ride chaser going to be ready?" X asked, diplomatically directing the question to both of them.

"Should be less than a few hours 'till the prototype's done," Nephtis said. Marx had now seen two new sides to Nephtis – Adoring Nephtis and Polite Nephtis – and neither of them had been used on him.

"Great. I'm heading out now, and when I get back, I'd like to test it," X said as he turned around to face his division again. As he did so, Nephtis punched Marx in the arm for dropping the fin again.

"Don't worry, sir. I'll be sure to have it completed by then," she said as he walked away. As soon as X rejoined his group, which now included Zero, Selene, and a handful of Hunters Marx didn't recognize, the whole of them disappeared in a brilliant flash of light. Nephtis sighed and Marx grinned.

"Having fun with your boyfriend?" he chided, though his words stung himself more than they appeared to sting her.

"Show some respect. If it weren't for Commander X, none of us would be here right now."

"I know, but you act awfully friendly around him."

"That's because Commander X is a gentleman and a hero. He's more than most men are." Her remark hit home, and without another word Marx grabbed the pulse cannon from a table nearby and shoved it into the socket behind where the airfoil would lock in. He screwed the fin back on, his thoughts boiling. He didn't know how much more of this he could take.

"Commander, the energy signature is up ahead...Commander?" a Maverick Hunter clad in red and black armor spoke to X as he stood atop a flat rock, looking down at the ruins of Dopplertown. He could swear that the two small, roughly shaped headstones were still standing near the wreckage, but he was too far away to tell. Unwanted memories assaulted him, and everything that happened around him was muted, even the provocations of the Hunter next to him. Finally, after what felt like ages, his memories let go and he snapped back to reality.

"X! You need to see this now!" X looked about to see Axl running down the slope ahead, waving his arms and calling out to him. Slowly, he nodded and hopped down from his perch. As he moved up the slope to rejoin Axl, the Hunters behind him looked about warily. The mountain was jagged and the sky was thick with lumbering clouds. If the Hunters were human they would have undoubtedly been freezing. As X moved up the slope, he came to the peak.

What he saw before him was anything but what he had imagined. A massive cannon protruded from a gaping hole in the mountain, electrical sparks dancing about the long, thick barrel of the giant gun. The cannon bore the Maverick insignia on the side, and it was aimed at Neo Tokyo City.

End of Chapter 9