Megaman X: Elysium Rising
Final Mission: Delete the Maverick Virus
Chapter 43: Heaven's Door
By Genoscythe
16:58 October 11, 2173
"I-I just don't know what to do, Jacques!"
"Why not? It seems perfectly obvious to me. He's not human. I am."
"It's just not that simple! I love him."
"Love me instead, or I will have no choice but to take back your half-sister, and then we will never see each other again."
"There's...something I haven't told you about Yuka. She's dead."
"What? I just saw her yesterday!"
"I know. She was struck by lightning during the storm last night."
"In that case, I will have to take back your step-sister."
"No, Jacques!"
Signas betrayed no emotion as he watched the melodrama unfolding on the small screen he'd placed atop some supply crates in his command post, but there was nothing unusual about that. He always internalized his reactions while watching soap operas, but since he was programmed to constantly maintain an even temper while on the job, it was still the closest he ever came to catharsis.
Plus, it was a rerun. He knew Yuka had been granted superpowers by that lightning bolt, and that she'd faked her own death. He knew Jacques ended up with Sayako's best friend Elise, and Ricky the alien decided to settle down with Shannon, but it was better than worrying about the end of the world.
"Commander, sir!" Blip cried, ducking into the command post. He faltered momentarily when he saw what Signas was watching, but he was too terrified to let it stall him for long. "I've drawn up some new calculations."
"You've got a new ETA, I take it," Signas said, keeping his eyes locked on the TV, where the scene abruptly jumped from Sayako's apartment to the interior of Ricky's spaceship. If only we had some of those, he mused.
"Yes, sir. The disturbances have accelerated much faster than I'd anticipated, and now it appears they'll arrive within the hour."
"Are our bombers in the air yet?"
"Fifteen minutes before takeoff, sir."
"Navigator, I have a request."
"Yes? Sir?"
"We have precious little time left on this world, and I would like to be called by my name," he said. He expected a stammering reply, an exclamation of surprise at this breach in protocol. Signas had never betrayed any hint of sentimentality before (even while watching a soap opera, he appeared to be studying battle plans), but even so, the navigator was taking it in stride. "Can you do that, Blip?"
"Yes, Signas," he replied. "Do you want me to keep updating you?"
"Of course. We may be fighting blind, but at least we'll be fighting. If this thing can be stopped, I will not let that chance pass us by. If it can't, I want the Elysians to remember that we never gave up."
Blip stood at the entrance, glancing between Signas and the flickering TV, which he had gone back to studying. "Shouldn't you turn off the TV, then?" he suggested.
"Yes, once our forces arrive, or once the Elysian superweapon does. Alert me of whichever comes first, would you, Blip?"
Axl turned his pistol over, pondering whether or not he could actually put it against his head and pull the trigger. Selene had just done it, more or less, but the act was harder to execute than he first anticipated. Every time he raised the gun, he thought of X, throwing himself at Eden's tower, offering himself to the System. He thought of Alia, left alone to fend off the Elysian army, and Marx and Nephtis, fighting through Elysium to join her.
Then there was the possibility that Selene was still alive. Though he didn't want to entertain that hope, it surged again as he gazed down the barrel of his gun. If he ended it now, he would be leaving so much behind, perhaps more than he knew.
On the other hand, everything he thought he understood about being a Maverick Hunter was gone. Zero, the invincible Hunter, brother, father, friend...if Axl were to meet him now, he would have to retire him. Any true Maverick Hunter would. Any Hunter like Endymion, whose single-minded devotion had, by all appearances, driven him to an entirely new kind of madness. He had become an Anti-Maverick, a reploid killer beyond reason or remorse. There wasn't a name for that yet, but it didn't concern the humans, so why should there be?
Thinking about Endymion only reminded him of Selene's last message, and the sense of betrayal threatened to bring out a fresh wave of tears. Everything had reversed. Nothing was as Axl envisioned it. He recognized the precipice that he had reached – one way led to adaptation, the other to oblivion. He still didn't know which one he preferred.
"Drop the gun, Hunter," a voice broke out in the dark tunnel, and Axl scrabbled to his feet.
"W-who's there?" he asked.
"Someone who's in no mood to deal with your bullshit," the voice continued. "Someone who's got a hostage to keep you from doing anything stupid."
"I know that one," another voice, female, whispered in the dark. "His name is Axl. X told me about him."
"Okay. Axl. Can I trust you to put the gun down?"
"Come closer," Axl said, his tone remarkably calm as he holstered his magnum. Three shapes shuffled forward, and Axl nearly sank to his knees when he saw that the first was Selene, still looking hollow but otherwise undamaged. A tall snow leopard model limped behind her, holding a pair of mangled wrist claws to her throat. The other speaker padded in behind them, and Axl saw that it was none other than Mystic, the reploid partially responsible for Endymion's breakdown.
"I don't know what you Hunters are up to, but I don't care," the combat reploid told him. "You know where the shuttles are, and that's where we need to go."
"If I agree to get you to the shuttles, will you let Selene go?" Axl asked.
"I wasn't switched on yesterday, Hunter. You think we're in any kind of shape to keep you honest if I let her go? She tried to blow us all up back there, and I don't know if I can catch her in time if she tries to do it again."
Selene continued to stare silently into Axl's emerald eyes, seemingly indifferent to either being blown up or set free. He was afraid that, despite being saved by the Mavericks, she was already too far gone.
"Look...I know you have no reason to believe me," Axl began. "Still, I'm going to promise you, right now, that I will make sure all four of us make it to the shuttles. We're not Hunters and Mavericks in this place. We're just reploids, and we have to stick together."
"Oh yeah?" the feline model grumbled. To his surprise, tears were forming at the corners of Axl's eyes.
"You didn't know it, but I'm in love with the girl you've got hostage, and you just saved her life. She...she was trying to kill herself, and you stopped her. I owe you, and if you want a safe trip to the shuttles, it's the least I can do."
The four reploids were still for a moment, until Mystic reached out and poked the snow leopard on the back of the head. "Well, stupid? What are you waiting for?"
With a sigh of defeat, the reploid let go of Selene, and she stumbled tentatively forward. Axl took her hand, searching her face. She seemed to be as emotionally vacant as a mechaniloid. At least she was alive. Axl looked over her shoulder at the two ex-Mavericks, and he nodded decisively.
"Follow me," he said, and he turned back toward the tunnel entrance. Oblivion was never really a choice at all. He had to adapt.
Artificial sunlight bathed the shuttle platform in an orange haze as it rumbled into place on the surface of Elysium, and X could not help but feel as though the great red eye on Eden's tower was piercing straight into his thoughts, reading through his fears and doubts with clinical detachment. He thought he could see a dark shadow forming under the eye's crimson glow, like a spreading bruise. The corruption was taking root in Elysium's systems, and there wasn't much time before the damage would become irreversible.
"I don't want to leave you here," X said to Alia. She stood behind him, resting a hand on his shoulder as she tightened their Reaverbot army into a defensive circle.
"You have to," she pointed out. "Don't worry about me. Marx and Nephtis are on their way."
"Thank you, Alia, for everything," he murmured. "And good luck."
"No. Thank you, Commander," she said, gently nudging him toward the open shuttle.
"If you don't get your ass in the shuttle, I'm leaving without you, man!" Malakai hollered. X bowed his head and approached the pod, clutched the ladder, and hoisted himself up into the machine's dim neon core. Malakai sat in the center, surrounded by glowing consoles, and X took up a position at the ring of seats on the outer edge of the shuttle's interior. He gave one last pained glance out the hatch at Alia, clad only in a tan dress, chest heaving with the exertion of controlling so many Reaverbots at once, blonde hair whipping in the wind. The power of her dedication had never been more apparent to X, and it gave him a jolt when the hatch abruptly slid shut.
"Hey, X," Malakai said, as he continued to manipulate the controls. "I've got a favor to ask you."
"I didn't know you were the type to ask for favors," X replied.
"Yeah, well, I'm not usually the type to launch myself into certain death, either. I just want you to do something for me, if I don't make it to Eden's chamber."
The shuttle began to thrum with power, and it rose gently off the ground. "What is it?" X asked.
"When you get ready to kill Delta, give him a one-liner for me. Something that'll really burn, not just 'this is for Malakai' or any kind of stupid shit like that. Really make it worth the sacrifice."
X laughed, and in spite of himself, he found that he couldn't stop.
"Oh, come on," Malakai said. "Don't bail out on me now. Tell me you'll do it."
"What exactly did you have in mind?" X asked, trying to control his laughter.
"Something like 'your paradise is lost, bitch!' See, it's snappy, it's biblical, and that's just off the top of my head."
"I don't think I have your talent for insults, Malakai."
"Fine, you can plagiarize just this once."
The shuttle suddenly bucked and began swaying, as if hanging from a rope. X could hear the sounds of beam weaponry igniting in the distance. Outside the shuttle, Alia was assaulted with images from her Reaverbot perimeter, and a 360 degree view of the surrounding garden spun in her mind. The Elysian army was pouring out of elevator towers to the northeast, so she sent her remaining forces to bolster the line between them and the shuttle.
Despite how easy it had been to gather all the Reaverbots together in the first place, Alia found her strength draining even though a quarter of her forces had already been destroyed. A line of enemy Reaverbots shaped like walking lightning rods began to fire volleys of electricity at the shuttle, but she cut them down as beads of sweat rolled down the side of her face. She was momentarily startled when a drop ran to the corner of her mouth, and she tasted salt. Every time she thought she had gotten used to her semi-organic body, a new sensation would come up and remind her that she was no longer herself.
She shook the sweat from her face and turned as the shuttle emitted a high-pitched whine. Was it supposed to do that, or had the pod taken too much damage? It tilted toward the tower, and it appeared ready to fall over. Alia held her breath, and another strange feeling gripped her chest, squeezing the life out of her. She had never experienced such a debilitating form of panic before.
Then, the shuttle shot into the air, seemingly without propulsion of any kind, and Alia exhaled. A web of red beams briefly lit up the airspace around Eden's tower as the shuttle passed through their anti-air network, and then it disappeared in a puff of smoke against the side of the structure. Alia could not afford to worry about whether or not X survived the crash, because she was now the sole object of the Elysian army's attentions.
That was not the case for long. Behind the Elysians, a tower door slid open, and a metal slab, floating waist-high off the ground, was pushed out onto the road. Marx strolled out after it, and Nephtis followed more urgently, leaning down briefly to type a code into the side of the slab.
"Well, you ready to swoop in and take all the credit?" Marx asked her.
"Yes, now if you'll stop making such a damn production about it, let's go," she replied. With a shrug, Marx planted his foot on the side of the slab and kicked it toward the Elysian army. The hovering casket glided to a stop next to a heavily-armored Mother unit that seemed to be controlling the Reaverbots from the rear. She looked down as the top of the slab split down the middle and folded open, revealing a skinless android with a beam cannon as powerful as an ECHO rifle attached to its arm.
"Trigger," she gasped. Two of her Purifier escorts turned to stare at the casket. Mistress Sera slammed her fist into it, but Trigger had already vaulted into the air, and his Shining Laser cannon hummed to life as he spun over their heads. He fired off a continuous stream as he flew, cutting a swath through the Elysian ranks that brought down two old model Purifiers and Mistress Kira.
"Heads up!" Marx yelled, and his quad-buster rained bolts of energy on the Purifiers chasing down Trigger. Sera dashed away, seemingly hell-bent on destroying the rogue Purifier, and Marx aimed for her back. There was too much at stake to play fair...
Then, a shadow swung down and caught him in the chest, launching him back into the wall of the nearby elevator shaft. He heard Nephtis calling his name, and he could hear, even more clearly, the deep bass rumble of a massive creature standing before them.
Finally got you, the voice growled. I'm taking back what you owe me, bitch. Two arms, and my favorite plaything. As soon as Marx's world stopped spinning, he scrambled to his feet and saw a towering mechanical beast, not quite a wolf or a reptile, but something that combined the most terrifying elements of both. It was poised over Nephtis, who was lying on her back and staring up into the red eye glowing between its open jaws.
"Tempest?" she murmured.
That's riiight. Now hold still, I want to leave the rest of your body for when I get bored later. The creature lifted its serrated front legs and prepared to bring them down on Nephtis' arms, but she suddenly flung out her hands and screamed a feral battle cry.
Tempest froze in place. Marx was on his feet, running back into range with his buster arm primed, but the creature wasn't going anywhere. Nephtis struggled to get to her feet, apparently under some huge weight, and she never took her eyes off the Reaverbot.
What the fuck? Tempest bellowed. What did you do to me?
"Bow," Nephtis commanded. The Reaverbot didn't move. "Bow down to me, you filthy murderer. You owe me much more than a life and two limbs."
To Marx's amazement, the Reaverbot sank back, resting on its haunches and lowering its forearms back to the ground. Still keeping her gaze locked on Tempest's new body, she circled around and grabbed a laser cannon jutting out of his back. She clambered up to the Reaverbot's shoulder blades and waved to Marx.
"Come on!" she yelled. "We're taking the fight back to them."
Whatever this is, you can't keep it up, Tempest warned. I'll break this, and then I'll break you. I'll do things to you that you didn't even know were possible.
Marx approached the docile Reaverbot warily, unable to shake the feeling that it was about to spring into motion and bite his head off. But the Kamarahan was firmly under Nephtis' control, and it only bowed lower so she could extend her hand to him. He took it, and with her help, he was hoisted onto the machine's back, where he took up a position between two of the ridges running along its spine.
Tempest continued to scream and curse at them, but it had no effect on the Kamarahan's movements. It rose to its feet and took off toward the battle at a gallop, where two more Kamarahan Reaverbots were cleaving through Alia's defenses. They plowed straight into the sea of Reaverbots, firing all six beam cannons in both directions and carving trails of fire that simmered in their wake. Marx shot wildly at the Elysian army, holding onto the bucking Reaverbot's spinal ridge with his free hand. Any Reaverbot that escaped the laser cannons met a barrage from Marx's buster, and they sped virtually unopposed toward the front line.
Then, Marx was caught on the shoulder by a buster shot from the side, and as he rolled down the creature's flank, he saw a Purifier climbing up Tempest's tail. Marx grabbed a swerving beam cannon and hung on, even though the white-hot barrel was searing into his arms and chest.
"Akila! Behind you!" he yelled, as the Purifier clawed his way up to the first ridge and rose to his feet.
"I can't move!" she called back, clutching the Reaverbot's skeletal framework with all her strength. Fueled by terror, Marx let go of the cannon with his buster arm and transformed it, before setting it on top of the cannon to stabilize it and aiming for the Purifier. He seemed reluctant to let go of the ridge to fire at Nephtis, but Marx didn't know how long that would last, and he didn't want to find out.
He shot at the Purifier, but the initial volley merely scored Tempest's metal hide. Sensing that he was in danger, the Purifier released his buster hand and aimed it at Nephtis, but the next wave of bolts tore his arm off at the elbow, and one last shot struck him in the chest. The Purifier tumbled off the Kamarahan's back, and Marx urgently hauled himself up to his previous position. Deep grooves had been burned into his armor, but he didn't have time to worry about it. They had reached the front line.
Tempest slammed into the blue Kamarahan, knocking it over and nearly sending Marx tumbling off again. The Elysian war machine recovered quickly, and it leapt up on its hind legs to clash against its black counterpart. The sudden shift to vertical caught Marx by surprise, and he fell back several feet before grabbing onto one of the lower spinal ridges. Nephtis was holding on so tightly that she didn't even seem to notice that her ride was now standing upright.
Marx dangled from the Reaverbot's back, unable to find a foothold, until a red blur dove in under him and smashed Tempest from behind.
Ow! That's coming back triple on you, you mind-controlling witch! Tempest roared. The red Kamarahan was now clawing at Tempest's back, forcing him into the blue machine's claws. However, when it saw Marx dangling over its head, the Reaverbot lost interest in Tempest. It reached up at him with its jaws gaping, red eye staring implacably at the fear-stricken Maverick Hunter.
Without thinking, Marx kicked out and wedged his legs against the red Kamarahan's jaws, prying them open even as it pushed toward him with excruciating force. Bracing himself against Tempest's back, he refused to give the Kamarahan any ground, and with the Reaverbot's jaws as his foothold, he was able to bring his buster to bear on its giant glowing eye.
Marx yelled above the whine of his buster, spinning on full auto and searing his arm beneath the gauntlet. Green energy bolts cascaded down on the Kamarahan's eye, lighting up its mouth with green and blue fire and bathing Marx's body in a neon glow. He didn't stop firing until a huge gout of flame burst from the Kamarahan's mouth and neck, precluding the collapse of its head and sending the machine's body crashing to the ground. Marx was scorched all over, and he nearly fell with the release of the red Reaverbot's pressure on his legs, but he hung on with all the power he could muster.
Once the second Kamarahan had stopped pressing down on Tempest, Nephtis was able to disengage from the blue Reaverbot and circle around for another pass. The other machine did the same. They both charged each other amidst piles of wrecked Reaverbots, and as they were about to meet, the black Kamarahan ducked its head and jabbed upward, grasping the enemy Reaverbot's neck in its mouth.
She clamped its jaws shut and ripped the blue Kamarahan's head from its shoulders, tossing it aside with a contemptuous flick that only Nephtis could have performed. With all the enemies in the area either destroyed or occupied with Trigger and the remaining Reaverbots, Nephtis sent the possessed Tempest over to Alia's position in the center of the shuttle platform.
"Are you okay?" Marx called down from the Kamarahan's back.
"I think so," Alia replied shakily. Even though she hadn't been hit by any stray energy blasts, she was trembling badly, and the exertion of maintaining the army was taking its toll.
"Find cover!" he told her. "We'll take it from here!"
"If I leave now, all our Reaverbots will turn against us," she said.
"We can handle it, but I don't think X can handle losing you," Marx replied. "Go!"
"Sorry, Marx. I haven't abandoned my post in thirteen years, I'm not about to let that happen now."
"Damn..." he murmured. "At least get behind something!"
"We'll just have to keep them away from her," Nephtis said. "Hold on tight, love."
With that, Tempest galloped away from the shuttle platform, heading straight for the battle in the gardens, still swearing and struggling against his mental shackles. All three Hunters were watching intently for any alerts on the Elysian network that might hint at X's fate, but there was still no word from the tower. Despite their best efforts to the contrary, they were beginning to fear the worst.
The dust had barely begun to settle on the crushed outer hull of the shuttle pod when its main hatch was kicked open by an ebony boot. Coughing and grunting, Malakai dropped from the hatch and stumbled into the room that the shuttle had plowed into. It was a monitoring chamber, designed to keep a vigilant eye on Terra back when Elysium had enough workers left alive to staff it. Like so much of the ravaged space station, it had fallen empty and silent after the war had taken its course.
"Not my best landing," Malakai muttered. "We're at least thirty stories off."
After a moment's pause, Megaman X jumped silently from the hatch and landed next to the Elysian.
"Will we be able to use the elevator?" he asked.
"If you give me a second to hack the controls, sure."
Malakai led them through the monitoring station, kicking through squads of maintenance drones rushing to disassemble the damaged shuttle and seal the hole torn in the wall. Within minutes, they emerged from the abandoned rooms onto a platform jutting over the elevator shaft. Malakai immediately went to work on the control panel.
"Why haven't we been stopped yet?" X asked.
"I dunno. Maybe they weren't expecting us to launch a shuttle in their faces."
"But they must have caught on by now," he said.
"Obviously, they didn't. Are you gonna keep bugging me the whole way up there, or what?"
"It can't be this easy," X insisted.
As he spoke, the control panel lit up and the elevator pad descended to connect to their platform. Malakai shrugged theatrically and strolled onto the elevator. X followed him with his buster drawn.
"You're thinking I'm gonna betray you in a second, right?" Malakai asked, taking X off guard.
"Huh?"
"I know, I get that a lot. Mostly 'cause I'm a relentless backstabber, but only when it comes to the small stuff. See, I make it plain that you can't trust me, because anyone that's really untrustworthy would make themselves seem like the nicest person in the whole damn universe."
"What are you talking about?"
"Well, in this instance, I'm thinking about Double. Way to drop the ball on that one, X. He acted like the most adorably clumsy reploid ever built, he hung onto your every word, and...oh yeah, his name was Double!"
"You know about that?"
"We know about pretty much everything you've done. And honestly, I couldn't believe you fell for that. Nobody's that harmless, especially not any double agents who name themselves Double."
"Okay," X muttered, his cheeks burning in a rare moment of embarrassment. It occurred to him that Malakai could probably embarrass anybody if he set his mind to it. "Point taken. You're not going to betray me."
"Damn right I'm not. If you can trust a sleazy son of a bitch like me, then you've earned my loyalty."
"I can't say I've always trusted you," X said.
"I know, but I can tell you're starting to," Malakai told him. "And that's good enough for..." He paused as the elevator slowed to a halt. "Something's wrong. We're still one floor off."
X ran off the platform, and they both dove into the adjacent room. The elevator descended once more, and the door slammed shut behind them. X picked himself up and surveyed the room. They were standing on one side of a chasm pulsing with rainbow beams of energy, and a thin bridge led across the chaotic sea of light to the other side, where two figures stood in front of another door.
"We're on top of one of Eden's energy conduits," Malakai explained. A bolt of kaleidoscopic energy crackled out of the chasm and scorched the ceiling for emphasis. "But it's not usually going nuts like this. Dunno what the hell Eden's up to."
"Can we make it to his chamber from here?" X asked, keeping his voice low as he watched the immobile figures.
"There's a ramp on the other side of the tower that should take us to the top floor," he said. Then, the figures across the bridge stepped forward into the flashing light of the energy conduit, and it was just as X feared. Zero stood at the base of the bridge, with Purifier Lock at his side.
"This ends here, X," Zero said. "We're finally shaking free from the old world, and if you don't want to help us build a new one, I'm gonna have to kill you."
"I'm sorry, Zero," X answered. "You're advocating genocide. I can't allow that."
"I didn't think you would." The crimson reploid smiled bitterly, pulling out his beam saber and igniting the blade.
"Don't forget," Malakai whispered to X. "One-liner. Make it good."
With that, he pulled up his sniper cannon and fired a quick shot at Purifier Lock. The Elysian dodged it and returned fire with his own buster, but Malakai was already running to the side, through a door on the left wall of the chasm. Lock was back on his feet and running through the corresponding door on his side of the chasm, and suddenly X was alone with his old friend.
A friend who, at that instant, was dashing toward him with a drawn beam saber sizzling against the railing of the bridge. X raised his buster, closed his eyes, and began to charge.
End of Chapter 43
AN: Sorry for the cliffhanger and the delay resolving said cliffhanger. I was busy finishing up my first novel, which I've now printed and sent to a publisher. It's a sci-fi comedy involving classic rock, zombies, and the Soviet Union, and if all goes well with this publisher, I'll let you guys know when it's going to be on the market. Until then, I'll be diligently pounding out the last few chapters of Elysium Rising (we're almost there. I can feel it. It's tingly) and rewriting the earlier bits as I go. I don't have any new edits for you this time, as I wanted to resolve that last cliffhanger in a timely fashion and the next batch of rewrites has to all be uploaded at once, but I can tell you that chapter 13 is done and I've made progress on 14. The changes I'm making to the middle section of the story are pretty sweeping, and the story will become even more disjointed if I upload them one at a time, so it might take awhile. Once I'm done, though, it'll be well worth it. Anyway, I think that's all for now. Hope you enjoyed this one, and thanks again for sticking with it!