Relic From the Seas
By
Dr Facer
-23-
Splash Woman had to admit she was experiencing a response she could only catalogue as fear as she walked through the deserted hallways of Gate's secret laboratory. While most of the underground complex was a useless ruin now, there were still some lights flickering at intervals along the corridors. They provided a weak if somewhat adequate light source, but at the same time they only seemed to add to the macabre feeling of the place. The gigantic statues of demons standing next to those of chained cybernetic angels which decorated the deep chasm under the rail they were currently walking upon did nothing to ease the Robot Master's restlessness, either. Another thing which made her nervous was the overabundance of spike traps all over the main path, (which they had wisely avoided, entering via a trap-free secret corridor which had been discovered years ago). Splash Woman rubbed her arms as she recalled the spikes. There were so many! All of them set along the floor and walls in ways that would have made it impossible for someone as skilled as even Blues to navigate. That X had managed to get through all of that before reaching the mad scientist who once lived here was an incredible testament to his skill and to the abilities Doctor Light's armor upgrades could bestow upon the wearer.
She suddenly bumped into Alia, not noticing the Navigator had stopped before entering the next room. The android had been too distracted by everything around her.
"Sorry," Splash Woman offered as she composed herself.
"No problem," Alia told her and pointed to where X stood. "X signaled me to stop."
"Wait here," he said, standing still and peeking into the next area. "I think I saw something moving but my sensors aren't picking it up… it may be nothing but I'd better make sure."
"Be careful" both females said at almost the same time, a detail which slightly annoyed one and greatly amused the other.
"I will be, don't worry," X smiled at both his companions and stepped into the darkness.
"That was… awkward," Alia sighed, wondering if she should feel jealous or outshined.
"Us telling X the same thing?" Splash Woman smiled. "It's fine. I'm glad you worry for him as much as I do."
"I always worry," the navigator rebutted, crossing her arms as she kept her eyes on the floor and wishing her sensors could pick up what was hiding in that room.
"If it helps, I think what X saw is a small organic, probably a rat," Splash Woman provided.
"And how do you know that?"
Splash Woman pointed at the ornament in her helmet. "Sonar, it's not very effective here as it is optimized to function underwater, but from what I'm getting it's something very small."
"You should have told him that before he walked in there!" she frowned.
"I couldn't. I didn't use my sonar until after he entered the room," the Robot Master said with a concerned expression. "But you are correct, I should have used it sooner… that was poor judgment on my part that may have endangered X needlessly. I shouldn't be so careless!"
"Wait, where are you going?" Alia asked, reaching for Splash Woman's arm and stopping her before she could cross the door in front of them.
"I have to tell him what my sonar discovered," the marine Robot Master stated. "Please, let go of my arm."
"No. X asked us to wait here and that is what we'll do," the navigator said. "We enter there and we may cause him trouble."
"But…"
"What if you go in there and you get hurt?" She tried, "How would X feel then?"
That made Splash Woman stop, she was about to reply that her directives mandated she must keep X safe, but then realized she had not yet installed any directives or primary objectives. There was nothing forcing her to go in there. And yet she wanted to do it. She understood that she wanted it because X mattered to her in a way that she could not yet understand, the same way she could never truly understand the way he cared for… him, so long ago.
"He would… feel terrible," the Robot Master admitted.
"Yes, he would," Alia told her. "And I would, too. We're friends, aren't we? Friends don't let each other act foolishly. Please be reasonable, let's just stay here and wait, if X needs us we'll both go in to help him."
"That… sounds logical," Splash Woman said after evaluating the option for a microsecond. "I agree with your suggestion."
Alia nodded and thanked her luck that her new friend was being sensible about this. The last thing she needed was dealing with an untrained tag-along causing trouble for both her and X. It could easily lead to disaster, something she wanted to prevent at all costs.
"I really need to thank you," the Robot Master said after a moment of silence. "For helping X when he was in the Orbital Observatory. I understand it is because of you that he survived."
"You don't have to," the navigator said. She hesitated for an instant, then decided she had to say what she felt before X returned; she knew she wouldn't dare otherwise. "X is… he's the most important person in my life, I would even give mine for his! That is why you… no, forget it, I guess you and I want the same thing and in the end it's probably for the best."
Splash Woman observed Alia carefully. Her sensors focused on the blonde reploid as she assessed her condition. Her heat signature had risen a little and from what she could tell thanks to her RMC field, Alia's power core was sending energy through her systems at faster intervals than it should. This abnormality lasted only for a couple of seconds, however.
"I've seen something similar to this before," The Robot Master decided as she recovered one of her old self-diagnosis files from her memory banks and compared it with the current readings she was getting. "Alia's reactions are similar to mine were when Blues was near me! Does that mean Alia…?"
"It's safe to proceed!" X announced as he walked out of the mysterious room. "It was just a rat."
"It seems you were right," Alia said, smiling to Splash Woman as she walked past her and approached the blue hunter. "Thanks for making sure we weren't in danger, X. Are there any lights in there?"
"I couldn't find any, but the room is small and there's light visible from behind the door on the other side," X told her. "We should be alright."
=0=
"I don't believe this," Alia gasped as they entered a large rectangular area. In the middle were the remains of a very tall, almost gigantic black armored reploid. "That's High Max! I didn't think I'd see him again, didn't he blow up?"
"No, his armor was almost indestructible," X said, shuddering involuntarily as he recalled how hard it had been to defeat Gate's right hand man. "The only way I could beat him was using the Magma Blade. It turned out his inner circuits weren't properly insulated and they overheated. It wasn't easy figuring that out."
"He looks fearsome," Splash Woman said in awe. She had never seen something like this High Max before, the closest she could remember was King, and not even he was this tall… or scary.
"Trust me, he was," X told her while Alia nodded in agreement. "Anyway, Gate's actual lab is quite close now. If someone has been here working on anything Nightmare-related, that's the place where we'll find clues."
Saying nothing more they continued on their way but just as they were about to exit the room a strange and ghostly figure, similar to a reploid but built out of phantasmal DNA strands, appeared on the door. It floated there for an instant and then teleported behind the surprised trio.
"Nightmare Virus!" X warned and prepared his buster.
"Nightmare what?" Splash Woman asked, but neither X nor Alia answered, for the two were busy shooting at the strange apparition, which dodged most of the shots by twisting in the air like an ethereal snake.
"Don't give it any options, Alia!" X ordered as he started charging power in his buster. "Try to keep it busy!"
Alia didn't answer and focused on doing just that, firing bolt after bolt of plasma at the horrific apparition, hitting it a few times, but not hurting it enough to destroy it. The Virus kept dodging the majority of the attacks but that wasn't important, what mattered was to keep it on the move to prevent it from attacking any of them. A humming sound reached its peak then, signaling that X had finished preparing a charged shot.
"Take this!" X shouted, unleashing a large ball of plasma that collided with the virus, dissipating it at last.
Or so it seemed. The Nightmare Virus had simply teleported and now hovered ominously above high Max's corpse.
"Try this one!" Splash Woman yelled, unleashing a concentrated laser beam from her trident that went right through the head of the Virus, erasing it at last.
"Nice shot," Alia said appreciatively as she eyed the mermaid's trident.
"Yeah, that was great!" X added with a smile.
"There… there is another!" Splash Woman announced then with a scared stutter, pointing her trident at the ceiling and unleashing another blast of her weapon.
X and Alia turned, busters raised, and shot at the Virus with all they had, but it was useless, the thing vanished and reappeared in the same place the previous one had selected: Just above High Max. Before its attackers could send another round of attacks at it, the Virus descended and merged with the empty husk of Gate's main enforcer.
"There's no way this will be good," Alia muttered, eyeing the door. "Let's get the hell out!"
But just then, High Max's eyes lit up and as the black giant came back from the dead, so did the room. The door slammed shut and the computers restarted, displaying Gate's jewel emblem on their screens.
"Teleporter's jammed," X said as he looked at the two women. "You can't beam out of here!"
The giant growled in rage and unleashed a massive energy ball aimed straight at were his three enemies were, aiming to vaporize them. The only reason this attack failed was because X grabbed his two companions and dashed out of the way in less than a second, leaving nothing but a smoking hole where they had been standing.
"Damn it, this is just what we didn't need!" X cursed as he deposited Alia and Splash Woman in a safe spot behind the gargantuan monster. "Shoot at it with all you've got, Alia! Use charged shots preferably, but focus on dodging!"
"Roger!" she agreed and started driving power to her Alia Buster, moving to the left and dashing to draw the attention of the zombified High Max away from X and Splash Woman.
"What should I do, how can I help?" the robot mermaid asked, a look of pure fear on her face. She had never seen something like this before, not even during the Roboenza crisis or during the time all the Wilybots…
"Focus on surviving, attack it if you can!" X ordered and then joined Alia, moving around the room at blinding speeds to keep the monster distracted.
Splash Woman gasped and barely rolled out of the way when the beast shot a wave of energy at her. This angered X, who unleashed a charged shot right in the mechanical creature's face, staggering it. The marine robot cursed under her breath and wished she had better mobility on land, or that she had leg thrusters like X and Alia. Feeling far more afraid than ever before, Splash Woman forced her electronic brain to analyze her enemy, who was now busy chasing X. She noticed the only attacks that seemed to affect the beast were the ones that hit its head. Problem was, the head was very small compared to the rest of the body and it was not an easy target.
She, however, did have perfect aiming, and her special weapon would probably penetrate that thing's armor. Her Laser Trident was designed to go through everything, wasn't it?
"Very well, let's give it a shot," Splash Woman muttered to herself as she ducked away from an errand energy ball that went flying in her direction. "Here goes nothing…"
The trident lightened up and she unleashed a concentrated laser that hit the monster right between the eyes, making it stumble into a wall with a loud crash. The creature straightened with a deafening, furious roar, revealing then that the Laser Trident had indeed hurt it, cracking the face plate and infuriating the beast so much it focused all of his attention on the one who had dared cause him pain.
"Go for the face, Alia!" Shouted X, who immediately noticed the new opening Splash Woman had created for them. "We have to bring him down!"
The navigator nodded and dashed at High Max. She jumped and bounced on the wall, releasing the charged shot she had been saving right on his face. Alia's charged shot wasn't strong enough to defeat the monster, but it did destroy its face plate, revealing the glowing red eye of the Virus controlling it. She almost paid dearly for this, as she barely dodged the creature's fist.
"All yours, X!" Alia shouted. "Finish him!"
The blue hunter didn't have to be told twice and, taking precise aim, shot a fully charged shot at the mechanical zombie, hitting the hole where that sinister red eye shined. The creature screeched, flailed in despair and stumbled towards Alia, but just before it reached her…
It collapsed on its side, smoke coming out of the hole in its head.
"Is it dead?" Splash Woman asked, a tinge of fear still present in her voice.
"Yes, I can't pick up any traces of the Virus inside it," Alia provided.
"We make a great team," X said with a pleased tone. "The three of us."
"Agreed, we did a good job, didn't we?" Alia agreed, smiling with pride and still more than a little exhilarated by the current battle and the more unexpected victory.
Unfortunately, while they were still enjoying their triumph, a third Nightmare Virus emerged from the wall and, before X or Alia could do anything to stop it, the ghastly apparition descended over Splash Woman, entering her body through her back.
"No!" X shouted. "No, no, no!"
But Splash Woman didn't answer. The Robot Master simply fell on her back, enveloped by a sickly green glow that indicated her body was now fully infected by the Nightmare…
Notes:
Thanks to Adam for beta reading this chapter.