X and Zero, Sliders Extraordinaire

by kaelenmitharos

Megaman X and Zero are the strongest fighters of their world. How will they fare on other worlds when Gate goes into interdimensional technology instead of reploid design? Rated T for robot violence and puberty.

6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6: In which our heroes awaken for battle.

I had flashes of consciousness.

A spiky-haired teenager dressed in black stood in the air, holding what looked like a ridiculously huge falchion. Blood dripped from his head. He said nothing, but—

"Nooooooooo!" I saw a hospital somewhere. People stood all around the bed where a young man laid, his body far too quiet and still. Anguished sobbing filled—

Unearthly groans echoed from all around. A bearded man with a long blond ponytail stood with sword drawn on a hill, while a woman spoke from her place on a giant bird before him. "Until we meet again, belov—"

A young woman fell to her knees, hands held up as if in supplication. Auburn hair tumbled around her shoulders like a waterfall of bronze as tears dripped freely from her eyes. "Xavier! Xavier, come back to m—"

My mind swam into the darkness, and found a pocketful of memories. But whose?

Ah well. At least I still seemed to have a brain to think with, after all that pain. One minute I was at Alia's bedside, the next I found myself down in a pit somewhere, feeling like I had gone a long way and come back without ever deciding to travel.

At least I hadn't been alone.

With that thought, my mind swam up from the darkness, shattering my visions of the future's memories like glass under the touch of a murderous hammer. As I awoke, the fragments of recollection left me altogether.

X

"Fire!"

Guns shrieked and blared in the distance, insulated from my senses by a half-dozen walls and the fog of recent unconsciousness. Maverick Hunter HQ had come under attack. My buster armed and began to charge at about the same time my feet hit the floor. Meanwhile, my communicator crackled with radio chatter from those of my squad who still lived—mostly orders to them from Sprint Eagle, in fact.

"Mike, Sound Barrage! Go!"

Mike was Rockstar's codename for use during battle. It's funny if you think about it.

"Eeesssckaaaaykkpt!"

"Now! Go for it, Lensy!"

Lensy, Cataract's codename. I picked it myself when she first joined the squad.

I burst out of the tiny hospital-smelling room and found myself in the main area of the infirmary at MHHQ. Padded tables lay unfilled throughout the room, waiting for the waves of injured sure to come. With all the wars I've been in, I found myself wondering not if I had lost anyone, but whom I had lost in the firefight already. My hands found the handle for the main door to the infirmary.

"Commander X, you're awake!" A young male voice piped up from the other side of the room. I looked over my shoulder and saw a human intern, probably in his late twenties, wearing a lab coat. He had sandy blond hair and a hooked Roman nose. A connection closed in my brain.

"Tom. How long have I been out? What's the situation?"

Tom Saunders looked me up and down as if trying to diagnose a problem. "You were down in something like full hibernation mode, and it was about a week. Someone leaked that you and Zero were out of commission and Mavericks attacked in the wee hours of the morning two days ago. Zero got up during the battle and fought but fainted at the end, and now we're under attack again. I think they're inside the building."

I nodded. "And Alia?"

The sounds of gunfire got noticeably louder and closer. The intern's face filled with fear as he looked past me at the door. His mind had probably filled with memories from the last Maverick War, or maybe historical images he'd seen from the war before that one. Those old news programs didn't leave much for the imagination.

As much as I wanted him to tell me what happened to Alia, war is no place for a human. I waved for Tom to go back to his hiding place and hailed my squad on the comlink.

"Blue Bomber here in the infirmary. Systems nominal, I'm ready to fight. Quill, give me some orders."

"Bomber! It's good to hear your voice." Sprint Eagle (a.k.a. Quill) processed for a second, probably torn between sorting out strategic options and fighting off Mavericks. I listened to the approaching noises of battle and gestured for Tom to go hide himself. My second-in-command took back the comlink.

"The infirmary doors have been sealed to protect you and some of the infirmary staff. Red Ripper's been moved to another location. We're executing Ambrosia-6 on some of the attackers with you as the Calypso."

I nodded. Using the Calypso bait-and-pincer was a perfect strategy in this kind of situation, provided they had a good stopper to close the trap. In this situation I'd pick Rumble Rhino unless he had some kind of weakness to the attackers' armaments.

On another level, I wondered whether asking about Alia on the com would put her in any more danger. The last I remembered, she was just opening her eyes, and her brain had been giving us all kinds of weird readings on the monitors. Hopefully Sigma didn't know how valuable she was to me yet. With that in mind, I decided against asking about her until after we'd secured the base. "Good. Is there anything else I should know?"

The building shook with an enormous tremor, like high explosives had gone off somewhere outside the complex. Without even having to think about it, I swayed with the motion to keep my balance.

Then the door in front of me exploded.

My body reacted well before my mind. I leapt clear of the blast and raised my X Buster with the idea of firing through the breach where the door had been. Before I had the chance to do that, however, Rumble Rhino's massive form crashed into the hall and barreled away. Pebble-sized debris plinked off the forceshield visor that protected my eyes.

Storm Eagle's voice crackled in on the radio. "Yessir. Stay clear of the door."

My eyes rolled behind the visor. "Thanks. I'll keep that in mind."

He paused a second longer than I expected before answering. I wondered momentarily if the reploid had picked up the faintest trace of sarcasm when he spoke again. "Blue Bomber, new orders. You're ready for action?"

Signas had already figured out what to do with me? His processing speed must have gotten better when I was out, or else—a thought struck me. I decided to risk a little piece of information on the com by using Signas' codename. "I'm ready. What's Medalman got to say?"

I swear I heard Storm Eagle chuckle. His next statement, though, was the best thing I'd heard in a long time.

"Medalman? Get with the times, Blue Bomber. Honeyhair's handing out orders now. Listen up."

I smiled, trying to focus on the orders, but a part of my brain simply refused to listen. Alia was alive! My Alia! And she was even commanding her first battle. I, Megaman X, had the best wife ever.

SXSXS

"This is incredible."

I looked back at Captain Koyotsu and frowned. The Japanese are not at all reserved like people say. They are downright talkative. Their reploids, at least, talk too much. Talkative was not what I wanted from a captain of bodyguards.

We set this room up in a fortified basement to keep a few VIP's safe. Zero lay on the cot behind me. Captain Koyotsu, head of the special protection squad, stood a few feet off to my left. His crew had already set themselves up around the area for safekeeping. Sigma loves killing generals.

The old monster had pulled a fast one on us this time for sure. When Zero and X collapsed, my subordinate Catcher Tiger defected right from under our noses. He had to be the one who carried the information about their condition to the other Mavericks. We reasoned this not only because he went missing, but because we found his body after the first attack—amidst the wreckage of a bunch of other Mavericks that got in Zero's way.

Speaking of Zero—I glanced back to see if he had stirred. Nothing so far this battle, but we were only twenty minutes into it. Maybe he'd come around in time. Him or X.

Koyotsu Narutobi turned his bright, smiling face at me and smiled even bigger. He spoke perfect English, anyway. "The lieutenant's been rebuilt by Light-sama, and now it's time to show us her true power. This is her crowning moment of awesome, General. I'm happy I was here to see this."

We both looked at Alia. She stood in front of the battle monitor. It's a screen for watching a whole battle at once, with information from all of our spotters on the display. The base commander watches it and gives the unit commanders orders. I used it during the fourth war to keep an eye on major conflicts. I used it during the defense of HQ a few nights ago, at least at the start.

Then Lt. Alia took over and I just sat back and watched. She ran the battle like a master general. This time, I had her deliver orders from the beginning. Why bother trying to stop a landslide? She was brilliant. Smarter than me, no problem.

"It's interesting her new powers manifested as a strategist instead of a frontline tactician like Commander X. Maybe it's because she was originally trained as a spotter? But that's funny; she worked in the sciences before we even met her. Shouldn't the upgrade have made her a better scientist instead of a better spotter?"

Koyotsu was still talking. That paragraph is part of the record from my auditory logs. In fact, I ignored the reploid at the time. I was busy listening to Alia give orders on the comlink.

"Popeye, Celty, back off. Something's wrong with the enemy formation. Ikkaku, bring your squad in and flank those mechaniloids. Quill, spring the trap already, they're getting too close to my bait."

That meant X. She told me everything about her new upgrade after Zero and X collapsed. I still didn't understand it at all, but not much I could do about that. I could definitely tell she was different now. It scared me to see how different.

She turned and looked at me. "General, where's our air support? Did you call the army?"

I nodded. "I contacted them about fifteen minutes ago. They should be here any second."

A shockwave rolled in hard. I stumbled to keep upright; Koyotsu and the bodyguards in the room with us barely kept their footing. Alia, though? She hardly moved. I didn't even know if she noticed until I saw her expression.

Lt. Alia used to be as professional as anyone. She always kept a tight lid on her emotions during missions. You can't keep an eye out for your unit if it's tearing up or going red. Alia had always put her feelings aside when duty called for it. These last few days, though…

When she thought the Air Force had bombed our battle without telling us, her blue eyes hit me like a post pounder. I've seen a lot in my thirty years and I stepped back like I'd been burned. She turned back to the screen, voice full of rage.

"The entire north side is gone. We nearly lost Popeye's squad. General—"

I shook my head. "That wasn't the military. They'll radio in for targets when they arrive."

At that point I saw what Alia had seen on the monitor. My pupils shrank to tiny little dots.

The north side was nothing but a crater. Our facility walls had been cracked right open, leaving a clear path to the brig. We had moved some Mavericks out after the first attack, and the survivors of Repliforce had gone to a different prison to begin with, but our on-base holding facility was still half full of infected reploids taken prisoner in the war. And, as we watched, a couple of enemy diggers popped up from the crater of the explosion. They made a break for the brig at top speed.

"Popeye, Celty, don't let those—" Alia stopped as another unit of Mavericks slipped onto the screen. Our spotters quickly ID's them as a light mounted unit. Worse, they had the kinds of anti-infantry weaponry perfect for taking down units like Killer Kelly's and Nautical Ned's. The lieutenant pursed her lips. "New orders. You two take your squads and harass the mechaniloids on the east side. Blue Bomber will take it from here. Quill, I'm beaming Blue Bomber to the brig area, along with two of your squad members. Lavender, initiate teleport protocols."

Blue Bomber? When had X woken up? Huh. There was his icon on the screen, right in the infirmary. And here Alia was sending him straight to the front lines. Emotions or not, she certainly didn't waste any time.

I tried to keep that in mind as I listened to the reploid's ensuing dialogue with her new "husband." Not just the words, but the saccharine tone—I ordered myself not to visibly cringe.

Dr. Light, what have you done to my Hunters?

ASASA

"Now, when you engage the enemy, shoot to kill, honey. We can't afford to give Sigma any reinforcements from those prisoners."

"Yes, dear. We'll make sure they don't get out. Thanks for the data files on the prisoners, by the way."

"Of course! I can't have you lose any of them, sugarpie."

He laughed at that, which made me smile. I'd been waiting to hear that voice again for what felt like a very long time. In the days since he'd lost consciousness, I hadn't gone five minutes without thinking about my X; his messy brown hair, the smile he kept for everyone to see, our future together—I never wanted anything to separate us again. I couldn't stand the thought of losing him. That's what young love is like, people tell me now.

I saw on the screen that he'd made contact with the enemy. I wished I could be there with him for this, but Dr. Light's upgrade had primarily focused on my CPU and internals, not weapons or armor. My Alia Buster had gotten a power increase, but nothing else. I could help X best by directing the battle from here in the general's command room. With that thought, I reviewed the battle monitor and sent orders to some of our other squads.

Signas' voice intruded on my private reflections. "You're not worried about sending X into the fight?"

"Of course I'm worried, but he's the best man available for the job. And don't worry, I'm having Lavender keep a close eye on him. If X shows any signs of fainting again, she'll teleport him out before he hits the ground."

Signas raised an eyebrow at that but didn't question me any further. I didn't really want to tell him any more at the moment, so that was just fine with me. When the Maverick virus could potentially infect anyone, it was better to keep the most important secrets as close as possible. The truth was, I didn't need Layer—codename Lavender—to watch X for me; I had another way of keeping tabs on him without the use of sight, sound, or comlink.

Alia, if you are reading this message, then the upgrade was a success. As soon as you have a chance, you should conduct a thorough self-analysis and identify all the new systems embedded in your body. Do this in private; the secrets involved with some of your new abilities are powerful and dangerous, especially in the wrong hands.

That last part of the message had been interesting. Dr. Light hadn't said the secrets of the design could be dangerous only "in the wrong hands." He had said they were dangerous, "especially in the wrong hands." Why give me such a dangerous tool? It made me wonder what kind of threat Dr. Light expected us to face.

Once I had woken up and that message popped up from my files, I took a good, long look at my systems. Aside from the new hardware I was told to expect, he had essentially scrapped my old processor and put in a whole new design with thirty-two times the processing power. As a researcher who specializes in programming techniques and circuit design, I had never thought that kind of speed possible. It put me in a league beyond even X or Zero, in the realm of supercomputer clusters that filled entire lab rooms.

I had taken Dr. Light's advice as soon as possible and dug further to find out what else the upgrade had changed. I found an extensive set of protocols for android development and construction; in effect, instructions for building another living robot like X, or another ten like him, lacking only a few key pieces of seed data to determine the rest of the blueprints. Before my upgrade, such a find would have left me catatonic with shock; Dr. Light had left me his own personal robotics production manual with only five or six critical diagrams missing. It was amazing, it was unprecedented, and it was mine, but it wasn't the dangerous power the doctor had alluded to. I dug deeper into my internals for the answer.

The search paid off. Deep in the guts of my new neural equipment, surrounded by a shell of metal I couldn't identify, Dr. Light had installed a piece of hardware I had no idea could exist. A one-page help file came along with it, describing the device as an "extradimensional communication system" and warning against its misuse in the direst of language. A log file referenced in the help file marked Megaman X as the only "identity" registered for communication.

Communication, however, utterly failed to describe that device's true function.

X's emotions flittered unabated through my mind once I activated the extradimensional communication system. Muted confusion and uncertainty while he slept, melancholy as he awoke, sorrow and anxiety when he became fully aware of the battle, frustration, surprise, a surge of joy—and only moments ago, I felt the wave of relief wash over him when he learned that I had taken command in General Signas' place. My husband's emotions swept atop my own like waves on the beach, wonderfully united but still separate enough to distinguish the one from the other.

Even now I felt his excitement at entering the maze of deathtraps outside the brig, tempered with a concern for his squad members. I couldn't pick up his actual line of reasoning or conscious thoughts, but I knew instantly his emotional reactions. Dr. Light had given me a device for nothing less than telempathic communication.

Telempathy! I had an inside view of X's innermost feelings, anytime I needed—anytime I wanted. The thought frightened me and thrilled me all at once. True, I couldn't hear his thoughts, and knowing his emotions while asleep or unconscious did me little good, but those limitations didn't make me any less aware of the device's potential uses. For instance, could I rework the device to transmit as well as receive? Could I link to other thinking robots and nudge their emotions one way or the other?

One way or the other, I had certainly found the power Dr. Light meant to give me. At the very least, if X's emotions shifted drastically or cut off, I'd know fast enough to teleport him out before his body hit the ground. I felt totally certain of my ability to follow through with the claims I made to Signas.

A sudden rumble cut off my train of thought. I saw on the battle screen that another huge crater had appeared where part of the brig area used to be. As usual, Sigma never let a good move un-reused; his diggers had been carrying a second pack of explosives to bust the brig open even further. For that matter, the blast had enough power to kill or cripple almost any resistance sent to deal with the situation, leaving easy pickings for the mounted unit approaching from the north. I saw Signas staring wide-eyed at the monitor and pursed my lips.

"General, I planned ahead to keep X safe. Sigma's not as unpredictable as he'd like to think." I paused and sent a couple of new orders over the comlink, then turned and gave Signas a level stare. I spoke the next sentence with the most serious tone at my disposal.

"While I'm operating for him, anything that threatens my husband will die."

"That sounds good to me."

The voice came from behind us, off to one side; it had the slightly gravelly quality of someone who has just woken up from a long slumber. I turned from the monitor and saw Zero stretching like a sleepy cat. Like a sleepy, lethally armed and nearly indestructible cat. I frowned.

"Are you going to pass out again like last time, or can I trust you to stay awake until the job is done?"

Hands on hips, the blond twisted his torso from left to right with a distressing popping noise. "Oh, sure, X you trust implicitly, but I get the third degree. I see how it is. Look, just send me out there already so I can fi—"

He stopped in midsentence, expression flickering to surprise, and beamed out in a crimson flash of energy. I nodded, momentarily impressed; Layer was getting faster with those teleport codes.

The general's voice broke the silence. "Lieutenant, how did he know about X?"

I shrugged. "Why isn't he still a rabid killing machine like when he woke up the very first time? There's a lot I don't understand about Zero, General. Let's just see if Sigma's goons have a countermove to this."

I pointed at the screen, where X, Zero, and two of X's troops had confronted the incoming mobile unit. I turned my attention elsewhere. The world's two greatest heroes had taken that side of the battle; what could possibly go wrong now?

XAXAX

We arrived in a collective flash of teleportation. I felt my coolant pump's beating quicken involuntarily. Even knowing exactly where to turn and how to dodge every trap, coming into the maze outside the brig still makes me wonder whether artificial intelligences can expect an afterlife. Certainly, if I made a wrong move anywhere inside, I'd find out once and for all.

Don't get me wrong. The design was more or less my own idea. By the end of the first war my team and I had fought our way through more trap-ridden fortresses than Dr. Wily used to build in a year; apparently the Maverick virus does strange things to a reploid's sense of interior design. I'm immune to possession by the virus, but I do like stealing other people's good ideas, and even the useless ones if they look interesting enough. I'm pretty sure surrounding the brig in a horrifying labyrinth of deathtraps was one of the good ones.

There was a safe way through to the brig, since we weren't sociopathic killers like the average Maverick, but it was a guarded secret even among MHHQ staff. I helped design it, Zero helped test it, and no one else but Squad 8 and a few higher-ups knew how to get through unscathed. Rockstar and Blast Turtle would have to have their memories scrubbed if they wanted to go back to normal duties after this.

Alia's voice came in on the comlink. "I'm sure I don't need to tell you where you are. Now, when you engage the enemy, shoot to kill, honey. We can't afford to give Sigma any reinforcements from those prisoners."

"Yes, dear. We'll make sure they don't get out. Thanks for the data files on the prisoners, by the way."

"Of course! I can't have you lose any of them, sugarpie."

I laughed, and Alia laughed with me. With a tinge of regret, I wrenched my thoughts away from her and focused on the situation at hand.

Layer had teleported us into a hallway right next to the one the suicide bombers had busted open. Screams from behind the wall assured us the attacking diggers had not come sufficiently prepared to tackle the maze. Blast Turtle and Rockstar looked around, their eyes going from the wall-mounted turrets to the floor spikes to the ceiling spikes to the random white-hot flame jets to the non-Newtonian acid pits. I grinned apologetically and shrugged.

"Squad 8 might go a teeny bit overboard in some places. You guys like memory wipes, right?"

Rockstar wiped a greasy lock of hair out of his eyes. "Um, Commander X? How are we going to make it out of here alive 'n stuff?"

Blast Turtle looked up, looked at the wall, and tackled both of us to the ground. Rockstar reacted with superhuman speed in his usual manner.

"Frackle jaggit shetting mudderetching ashulofa—"

Then the world exploded.

I realized, after the first few seconds, that the world had not entirely exploded; I've been in a lot of rubble piles, and this floor felt too solid to qualify. Also, for all my uncertainties regarding the afterlife, I doubted it smelled like C-4 and grease-scented hair wax.

What I took for collapsed ceiling slowly lifted until it looked less like a ceiling and more like Blast Turtle. He rose like a colossus from the ruins, dust and debris pouring off his dented red shell like a waterfall. The reploid cocked his head and hunkered down to fire his shoulder-mounted shock cannon, and at last my ears picked up the whine of approaching hovercycles. Blast Turtle had probably sensed them first the same way he sensed the bomb before it detonated; his design and long experience in demolitions gave him a sixth sense for explosives.

I sprang to my feet and right on cue, our spotter (codename Lavender) informed us on the threat: thirteen mechabikers with a reploid leader we hadn't seen before. They were armed with light repeaters and armored with phase deflectors. Two in the back had rocket launchers. Watching them approach through a cloud of dust, I realized the enemy's next move and looked around for cover.

Our new environment offered plenty of that. The most recent explosion had rendered the two-story maze into a wreckage heap of stone, plaster, steel, and bits of various traps. Parts of roof or wall remained intact, but in general, we and the maze's ruins stood open to the overcast morning sky above. My eyes scanned across the battlefield for useful patterns and found several before Layer had time to point them out.

"Rockstar, Blast Turtle, hide in the collapsed crushwalls over there and disrupt the enemy charge. I'll stop them from reaching the brig. The traps should all be disabled by that last blast, so move!"

The two of them shouted acknowledgement and ran off. Glancing back at the mechabikers, then to the crumbling ruin of the outer brig area, I sprinted over piles of rubble and switched to Magna Centipede's weapon. By the time I reached my goal in front of the still-intact holding area, some of the mechabikers had opened fire and I had left a round dozen magna-mines in their path. Their shots flew wild into disabled traps and crumbled concrete walls while Magna's bombs laid wait for them.

Once I reached the front of the holding cells area, I skidded behind a handy spiketrap and switched weapons; blinding flashes of energy shot from my buster into the advancing pack. The weapon was decades old, and modern reploid armor shrugged it off like water, but Neon Tiger's Ray Splasher had never been about inflicting damage.

I should explain. Somebody told me once to get rid of my outdated special weapons, like Neon Tiger's blinding light attack and Crystal Snail's immobilization crystals. I gave that person the same answer I gave the people who insult my old bell bottoms: everything has its use, and everything eventually comes back into style. When the time is right I will bring back the afro and no one will laugh at my old weapons again.

The oncoming mechabikers certainly didn't find them funny. Eyelids squinched shut and hands flew up to protect sensitive optics from the light; the magna-mines exploded with little force but their intense magnetic fields played merry hell with the thrusters on the speeding hovercycles. Distracted and scattered by the combined effects, the mechabikers fell easy prey to Blast Turtle's shock cannon and Rockstar's sonic blaster. Some crashed into debris on their very own. A stray rocket sailed uselessly into the air, its hapless owner veering wide in an attempt to keep his bike under control. He did not succeed.

I let off another round of Ray Splasher before switching to the Megabuster and ducking down to charge a shot. Sadly, my Fourth Armor had been deactivated and removed after I passed out, but system upgrades from previous wars have left me plenty strong anyway. The sounds of gunfire and the whine of the hovercycles grew louder and louder while I charged.

It was just as I popped up to fire that everything changed.

The mechabikers had closed the distance between us to a matter of yards. Having put my back to the concrete pile, I rotated as I rose to face the oncoming threat, bracing my right arm with my left in preparation to fire. The enemy had their attention focused completely on the brig that lay beyond us. I took aim at the reploid leader when a crimson flash interrupted the scene.

With my tremendous processing speed, I perceived Zero forming as if in slow motion. As fast as I am, though, he was faster. The android's beam saber flared into life before he even finished materializing; as the mechabikers passed, the weapon flickered twice and Zero turned to fire at their retreating backs. I came to my senses in time to release my own charged shots into the fray.

Explosions rent the enemy ranks from one end to the other. Some came from our weapons fire, but at least two detonations originated from the power cores of dismembered mechabikers. The reploid leader and a scant two of his pack survived intact, and all three promptly jumped from their hovercycles, leaving them to ram straight into the wall of the brig.

Funny. I pulled a similar trick near the beginning of the first war, and people have been copycatting me ever since. And people get after me for stealing techniques.

Already damaged from the previous blasts, the brig wall broke wide open with the mechabikers' sacrificial charge. This had probably been Sigma's plan from the beginning; however, he obviously hadn't counted on both myself and Zero appearing and decimating his mechabikers. The first two high explosives attacks had been intended to disable any defenders near the brig. Without anyone to stop them, the mechabiker squad and its leader would've broken open the brig like a house of blocks and slapped teleporter transceivers on the prisoners to beam them out. We had jamming in place, but no practical jamming system yet invented can stop transceiver-assisted outbound teleportation.

It was a good, workable plan, but at the same time, Sigma had spent an enormous amount of resources to break out a scant few prisoners of war. The cost-benefit analysis didn't add up. Given, he had inflicted a lot of collateral damage on MHHQ in the process, and could easily have brought down a few squads of Hunters with those explosives and the biker rush, but I still felt there was something more going on here. Sigma had to have some especially good reason to break out those prisoners.

Regardless of what that reason may have been, Zero, Rockstar, Blast Turtle, and I opened fire on the three remaining bikers like an execution squad. Their armor held up less than a second against the barrage; we made sure they never had a chance to slip into the brig. My heart sank at the sight, but it was the only way to keep Sigma from getting the prisoners inside. Even with a hole in the wall, there was no possible way for them to escape while their cell doors remained intact. Squad Eight knew their job better than that.

GXGXG

Darkness and noise surrounded me. The lights had gone out with that second explosion. I, the incredible Dr. Gate, sat listlessly inside my cell.

The Voice had not spoken to me since my ignominious capture a week ago, leaving me to wallow in my failure. What had made those despicable guards call for backup? Why didn't it go like I planned? And why had they gone and arrested me afterwards? They couldn't have known what I had done. I was just the victim of circumstances. Why didn't they believe my story?

I cursed. Those Hunters hadn't even listened to my story after I woke up. All they wanted to know was where those guards had gone. How should I know! All I had done was banish them. I didn't care where they went, so long as they went. Their sacrifice may have already created the gate I dreamed of making. What were a handful of reploids more or less? Why should anyone care what happened to them? They probably weren't even custom models like me. They might as well have been humans: mass-produced by amateurs without the least prior thought to the design efficiency.

As I sat stewing on the injustice of it all, a whisper of light crept across my mind and I felt the promise of revenge. A vision permeated my brilliant mind, forewarning me of how to proceed. My heart lifted with hope; the Voice had spoken to me again at last!

I stood and braced myself. Just as the vision had warned, another explosion shook the walls of the prison and punched a hole straight through. Through the sound and smoke I heard the tremendous clang of every cell door bursting outwards, and I knew the blast must have hit the main control unit for the prison. Perfect.

It struck me later as oddly convenient that an uncontrolled detonation should open the doors so uniformly. At the time, however, I simply waited for the chaos to subside.

Chaos? Oh yes. I heard a cacophony of shouts and the heavy stomping of soldiers' feet. The other prisoners dashed from their cells like reploids possessed. The sounds of gunfire and plasma bursts outside didn't seem to phase them any more than their own lack of weapons or armor. They hadn't yet realized one simple truth: not one of them had the power to escape this compound alive.

Of course, the maverick virus has that effect on people. I find it nothing less than barbaric. Sigma and his ragtag band of brigands will never achieve anything but anarchy and technological regression, like Wily and his infantile robot apocalypse.

A mid-size beast-form reploid howled in the midst of them, and the hurried motion in the darkened brig subsided. A loud even voice called for order and quickly laid out a plan.

"Blah blah blach blach blah blah—" and so on, as far as I cared to discern. I don't bother listening to fools.

Following the vision the Voice had given me, I crept from my broken cell and moved quickly to the door of the brig. It remained as suspiciously open as the rest of the cell doors. Beyond it lay fire traps, and electrocution wires, and death spikes, acid sprays…independent power remained for these when the cells themselves lost primary and backup.

My eyes burned with the glory of the Voice.

I make no pretense of athleticism; I'm entirely uninterested in pedantic details like deftness, energy, or resilience. The jailors hadn't inhibited my systems like the other prisoners because I had no weapons to speak of, not even the brute strength of a factory-line servant. Dr. Cain built me without those things for his own accursed reasons.

That day outside the brig, though, I moved like a god.

The vision flooded through me! My body flowed and wove through traps and triggers, sinuous and shining in the light of electrical arcs capable of totally fusing my systems. My synthetic skin, bare of lab coat or undershirt since my imprisonment, gleamed like oil as jets of fire flared feet away from me. One, two, three steps, and a jump, step, twirl, step, jump, through spikes that rushed out from the walls and down from the ceiling in a pattern unpredictable by any digital system. I danced through the monsters of stone and metal let loose from the floor and leapt across the pits like pools of endless black. My body moved as if on its own, a puppet dancing flawlessly on strings of streaming dark energy while my conscious mind watched in wonder.

By the time I arrived at the exit to the prison maze I was breathing hard and red in the face from trying to cool my heated body—but I was alive. I keyed in the code for the door to the rest of MHHQ and walked into my brilliant new life.

All will know of Dr. Gate, and fear.

0G0G0

One, two, three quick reploids came pounding out of the broken brig. They weren't due for execution for another week, but if they wanted to keep helping out with Squad 8's research they should've stayed in the brig. Despite a moment's surprise at their escape from their cells, our ranged attacks tore the reploids apart like so much confetti. Bloody, twitching confetti.

A grim little smile played across my face. I hate confronting a maverick I used to know, and especially for the first time; there's that second of hesitation where I have the urge to save them, and I realize I can't. The first moment of confrontation always gives me a pang.

Then, sooner or later, the second moment comes along. They do or say something that makes them nothing more to me than malfunctioning hardware. Like make a threat against X, or promise I'll regret coming to fight them, or draw a weapon or set off a bomb, or just give me that look that tells me no one I want to know is home anymore. When that happens everything changes. When I know, absolutely know from core to fingertips my comrade is dead, killing the parasite in his body gives me a buzz like no other.

I'm talking about fighting reploid Mavericks here, of course. Mechaniloids are nothing more than target practice.

A quick dash or three put me in reach of the hole in the brig wall. After all the effort Sigma's troops put into breaking these guys out, I had a feeling the fight hadn't ended yet.

As if to spite me, the roar of Air Force jets came thundering in from the sky above, followed by the threatening whistle of falling bombs. That spelled the end of whatever overt resistance the Mavericks had to offer. Explosions from across the battlefield shook the ground, and right on cue, a bunch of Mavericks took a shot at escaping the brig.

They thought I'd be off guard from the explosions.

They thought wrong.

Three big fighters, armorless and quick, rushed out to tackle me. My Z-Saber flared five times in half a second and reploid parts rained down around me. Energy attacks screamed in from the side and tore apart another four or five hostiles as they attacked.

Finally, the ringleader of the group showed himself. Lupe de Couronne, originally designed by the French as an agent of the neoroyal guard, had been one of the few Maverick leaders to face defeat without dying in the process. In other words, he met X on a good day. Good thing, too; Squad 8 had pumped him for information since the moment we captured him.

Lupe was probably also the reason for this desperate assault; Sigma doesn't value many of his pawns, but when he finds one of them interesting, he'll go to insane extremes to recapture them.

Kind of like how crazy he gets about capturing X.

Putting that thought away for the moment, I prepared myself for Lupe's inevitable charge. He had given us a lot of trouble as a Maverick. Even disarmed and without his ferrofibrous power armor to absorb attacks, the wolf-bot moved quicker and fought smarter than almost anyone we've encountered. X had admitted to getting lucky with capturing him like they did. To top it all off, Squad 8 had never found a way to limit his speed without compromising vital systems. Thinking about that, I realized what I had to do.

Lupe dashed towards me with a snarl, then darted around my first wild slash. Seeing their leader's move, two or three of the tougher cronies ran off towards X's squad, drawing their fire and ensuring I fought the wolf without my allies' support. I brought the Z-Saber back up as if to guard against a tackle, but the wolf-bot lunged for my ankle and yanked my feet out from under me instead. My hands flew out to either side in apparent surprise as I fell.

The gray-furred reploid leapt for my neck with jaws wide. Lupe had used this technique many times before; the sheer speed of his attack left no time to think of a counter-strategy.

Good thing I had finished thinking about my strategy a long time ago.

My left dash jet flared wildly under the wolf's torso, letting loose its entire payload in a fraction of a second. The overpressured burst of ions hit Lupe in the torso and sent him spinning off to my right; the reaction force drove me body another two inches into the rubble beneath me.

Not nearly far enough to stop me from chopping Lupe in half.

My Z-Saber arm, conveniently flung far out to the right, flexed inwards with a twitch of pectoral actuators. My hand crossed under the wolf-bot as his body flew helplessly in the other direction; the beam saber slashed past his fake fur and unarmored hide, carved through the muscles in his stomach, chopped the spine in half, sliced past his internals, and slipped out the other side of his torso in a burst of burning artificial flesh.

In another second, a short series of thuds sounded to my right. Lupe de Couronne's two halves hit the ground and bounced once or twice before coming to a stop. I rolled to my feet with saber drawn to deal with any more trouble. Any other Mavericks aside, Lupe still needed a little more attention from the Red Ripper to seal the deal.

Or so I thought. No sooner had I regained my footing than a familiar shriek of energy flashed past me and detonated on the Maverick's broken upper body, reducing it to twisted, burning wreckage. Even cockroaches don't come back from that. I turned to X, not two dozen yards away, who shrugged and gave me an embarrassed look as his buster cooled.

"Sorry, he twitched funny and I got spooked."

I rolled my eyes. "Megaman X, you are hopeless."

A0A0A

The battle had ended. Mop-up operations finished the last of the enemy mechaniloids and Zero returned to his unit to help with the wounded. For a fighting android, he had a surprising knack for battlefield repair. Medics hated dealing with the makeshift solutions afterward, but at the very least, Zero kept power cores from exploding and neural equipment from overloading.

For his part, X had professional experience building and programming reploids but less experience fixing them. He makes a better doctor of psychology than doctor of mechanical medicine. Plus, he gets the saddest expression out looking at the wreckage on a battlefield, so I ordered my husband to report in before I actually called an end to the battle.

Of course, he reported in to General Signas. The moment I declared the fighting ended, I ceded authority as the commanding officer; Washington wouldn't react too well if they found a mere lieutenant with less than eight years' experience running the base instead of their handpicked reploid general. For one, he had actually gone to officer school before taking on this job. My main claim to fame at the moment consisted of a yet-to-be-made-public upgrade from Dr. Light and a holofile with a "Certificate of Robotic Matrimony" on it. Legend or not, that old roboticist had one odd sense of humor.

At any rate, I ducked out of the command room before X arrived. From the feelings my telempathy system picked up, he intended to give the General a full report on his situation, and I didn't want our first face-to-face meeting after the upgrades to be a military debriefing.

…although, a non-military one might be nice…

I suppressed the sudden urge to giggle and ran to X's office instead. The giggle burst through regardless and the run turned into an all-out sprint.

I knew exactly how to welcome my conquering hero home.