Relic From the Seas
By
Dr Facer
-26-
The last thing Pallette could remember when her systems came back online was Axl shooting her. She forced her optics open and ran a self-diagnostics as she tried to sit, finding that her left side was not responding as it should.
Warning: Power Core at 19%
"Tell me something I don't know," Pallette muttered as she read the report the diagnosis was displaying for her.
Midsection pierced by Axl Bullet. Projectile still embedded in this unit. Projectile has caused damage to servomotors, reducing mobility of left arm and leg by 89%. Teleport circuit is also damaged. Teleporting is not possible. Immediate repairs necessary.
"Just what I expected," the young navigator sighed as she managed to sit, leaning on the wall. She experienced a sharp pain expanding all over her as she moved and started coughing, power fluid coming out of her lips and nose. She winced as she straightened a little and placed her right hand over her wounded torso.
Warning: Power Core at 18%
"Damn it… just moving caused my core so much strain?" she suddenly felt fear. Was she going to die here? No, that couldn't be. She had worked too hard and still had so many things to do just to die here in the middle of nowhere. What was the protocol for these situations?
"Call your navigator and ask for help," she recalled. Problem was she didn't have one. She was one. "I… I'll just call HQ…"
Trembling in pain, she managed to reach up and activate her communicator. She tried her own frequency first but got no answer. She tried three more times and got the same result. Something was blocking her signal, and try as she might, she was not getting through.
"This is really bad," she breathed, her face twisting as another flash of pain went through her. Pallette moved a little to the right and found the pain became tolerable if she stayed still in that position. Problem was, staying in that position made the power fluid leak worse. She was practically sitting in a puddle of the liquid, now. "I'm done for… aren't I?"
Warning: Power Core at 17%
She tried to relax, thinking that maybe they could bring her back somehow. Her I.C. was intact, so there was a chance her fellow hunters could reactivate her someday, if they ever found her. Thinking that way helped her recover some semblance of tranquility, and she finally devoted a few moments to looking at the room she was locked in.
It was bare. White and empty, except for a big monitor hanging on the wall in front of her. It struck her as funny that whoever tossed her here to die would bother with something as silly as having a screen on the wall. Perhaps it would even show her something. Maybe her captor wanted to make sure she was entertained as she died slowly here.
The monitor suddenly turned on, startling her a little as it did so. She had half-expected to see Axl, gloating about his betrayal, but no, it was not him. In the screen, immaculate in white armor, his lavender hair falling down his shoulders and his eyes shining with madness was Lumine; the powerful New Generation Reploid who had masterminded the Jakob incident.
Lumine started talking then, delivering a message that sent chills all over Pallette's body.
What he said was this:
[Greetings, people of the Earth, my name is Lumine. After much deliberation, I have confirmed my beliefs that this world needs to be cleansed of all impurities. Weak humans and reploids must be eliminated and so I shall purge this planet so that a new age will begin with me as the creator and ruler of a better world, one only the strong and worthy will inherit!]
[To accomplish this goal, I plan to detonate eight nuclear bombs in strategic locations; they will explode deep underground, triggering a volcanic and seismic reaction which will make the Permian-Triassic extinction event look like nothing! Under the ensuing cataclysmic conditions only the strong shall thrive!]
[I, however, am not without mercy. I am willing to give any reploid interested in surviving a chance once the purging begins. You will have to swear your loyalty to me, and if I deem you worthy, I shall let you purchase one of my Nightmare Drives, powered by the Nightmare Souls that I have been producing in my own factory. You will know how to contact me then.]
[Extinction begins in fifteen hours. The purge is inevitable, so don't try to stop me and accept fate.]
With that, the transmission ended.
Shocked and terrified by the implications of what she had just heard, Pallette tried to get up, but all she managed was to collapse on her left side, pain filling her world as she hit the floor. Frustrated, afraid and hurting to the point she was almost going crazy, the young navigator could do nothing but cry in despair.
WARNING: Power Core at 15%
"I don't want to die," she cried, biting her lips and punching the ground. "I don't want to die!"
The door opened behind her.
"But you will die," Lumine countered without actually entering the room. He waited until Pallette managed to turn to face him and then continued. "You are not worthy of being a part of my new world. Death is the only adequate end for you."
"You are a monster…" she accused him, her voice weak. "A monster… full of hate and…"
"Be quiet, woman," he interrupted as he moved to one side, revealing Flame Scorpion, who carried Axl between his pincers. The young hunter was extremely damaged. "I will be gracious and allow you to die next to this piece of trash."
"…Axl!"
"He tried to fight us, after I transferred my mind from him to this new body," Lumine recalled with a mocking grin. "Idiot; my programming had already damaged his electronic brain to the point where it would take a miracle for it to be repaired, and Flame Scorpion left his body in the same state."
"He… he didn't deserve that, he…"
"Didn't I tell you to be quiet?" The cruel new generation reploid asked, lifting a finger and shooting from it a beam of heat that pierced Pallette's right foot, earning him a scream of pain from the young navigator. "Now shut up, I don't want to kill you quickly. I want you to lay here in pain while life escapes you bit by bit… it's the only thing you deserve."
Lumine smirked and then punched the unconscious Axl in the face, splitting his scar open again. "I detested being trapped inside this numb-minded imbecile's defective brain, being limited to only borrowing his body while he entered stasis! I hated manipulating him until he started a stupid relationship with you! I loathed the moment he linked with you, even if I used that instant to obtain the codes to the Maverick Hunter's database from your feeble mind! Ugh, just remembering that humiliation fills me with rage!"
"You… you used us…!" Pallette whimpered.
"Of course I used you both!" the mad reploid sneered with an expression of disgust. "How else could I get the information I needed to find Gate's laboratory? How else could I have learned where the nuclear missiles High Command has are? How else could I have learned a way to contact Dynamo and other powerful Mavericks that would be willing to help me with my plan?"
Pallette didn't answer. The impact of this information had left her speechless. She couldn't process the fact that she had played such an essential role in the destruction of the world. Her brain was struggling with this revelation, with the implication of it all.
"He does have strong feelings for you, however," Lumine revealed. "A good thing for me, it made using him as my puppet easier. I just had to make him dream of you and he'd be so distracted I could take over his body with no opposition any time I wanted."
"Boss, shouldn't we…?" Flame Scorpion interjected.
"Yes, Scorpion, it's time to go," Lumine agreed. "Leave the inferior ones to die here, they're so damaged they won't go anywhere. I'll go to the Factory, meet me there."
Saying no more, Lumine beamed out.
"I would love to melt the two of you," Flame Scorpion said once he was alone with Pallette and Axl. "But there's no time for that."
"Axl said…" Pallette coughed and looked up, not bothering with cleaning the power fluid from her lips. "Axl said you would need a good motivation to go full maverick… what did Lumine offer you?"
"Gold and diamonds… and a chance to survive," Scorpion said. "Did you not listen to him? He is going to burn it all down, only a fool would refuse him if he wants you on his side."
"Someone will… stop him," she challenged.
"That is where you're wrong," the maverick said. He then gave Axl one last squeeze that cracked his armor before tossing him into the cell. "Enjoy your last few minutes together, children."
Scorpion shook his head with apparent resignation and teleported out of the base.
"…I… I really ruined it… didn't I?"
Pallette turned, ignoring the way her body protested or the warning that her power core was now at only ten percent. That had been Axl, and she just had to see how he was. She found him lying on his back, unable to move as his power fluid leaked from the cracks in his, once again, black and gray armor. The impact had apparently helped him reactivate.
"I… I felt something was… wrong," the young hunter continued. "A small flux of… energy… it came and went so… I ignored it… thought it would go away on its own…"
"You didn't know it was him," she said after crawling to his side. "You didn't know."
"But… I should have," he managed to get out. He read his self-diagnosis and saw his systems were on critical, and his power core was at two percent. Axl estimated he had less than an hour before permanent system failure if he wasn't repaired. "At least… X and Zero are still out there… they'll stop him… I know they will… Pallette?"
"I'm here…" she said, reaching for his hand and giving him a soft squeeze. "I'm here…"
"I'm sorry, Pallette," Axl muttered. "I'm sorry he hurt you… I'm sorry he used you."
"Don't be."
"I've been... happy with you," he admitted and then couldn't hold back a weak chuckle. "I always liked you but… I didn't know how to… approach you, then he pushed me into it… but it's funny… isn't it? You… you are the only good thing Lumine gave me…"
"I guess it's… funny," she smiled, doing her best to hold back her tears. "I've been happy with you too… I'm sorry I always told you to stop acting like an idiot, Axl… I'm sorry."
"Yeah… never thought you'd apologize," Axl said and started laughing, a happy, if weak, laugh.
Despite herself, despite the pain, Pallette ended up joining him. The two laughed together until he fainted again, leaving her alone in the silent room. She leaned her head on his chest and closed her eyes. If this was her end, their end, it was probably the best they could ask for given the circumstances. An end together.
"Pallette, can you hear me?"
The young navigator opened her eyes and shot her hand up to activate her microphone. "Signas?"
"Yes, I have been trying to contact you for a while now, your signal disappeared," the Commander of the Maverick Hunters explained. "We are in code red, I need you and Axl here."
"We can't go," Pallette answered with a wince of pain. "Axl and I… we are too damaged to move."
"I'm sending a rescue team for you. Don't worry, we can track your signal now," Signas said, his voice as calm and collected as it always was in times of crisis. "Stay calm, you two will make it."
"Thank… you… Sig… nas," Pallete couldn't continue and collapsed on top of Axl, her power core having dropped to three percent, forcing her systems to put her into stasis to save energy.
Notes:
Thanks to Adam for beta reading this chapter.
X8's ending in a cliffhanger always bothered me, the story had been set up for something but Capcom has not done anything with it so far so I thought I'd visit it and do something with it.