Chapter 8: "Deep Trouble"
Spikesaw whipped around, his right forearm open down the center and generating a massive, plasma chain-saw from his armor's spikes. It split a target mechaniloid in half before it could fire a stun-blast into Turbo's back.
In reciprocation, Turbo ripped around Spikesaw at insane speed, and somehow sliced the head off another practice mechaniloid with a sweep of his arm. Only the re-closing plates on his forearm indicated something other than his hand had been involved.
Before the pair could drop the last two targets, grapple-tendrils shot past them on both sides, and latched onto the faces of the mechaniloids. Tripwire started to reverse the motors of his forearms, and lashed violently. It pulled the mechaniloids forward and wrenched them off the ground, shattering them into pieces on the metal flooring of the training chamber.
Spikesaw let his forearm seal around his retracting weapon, a faint chuckle sounding from his armored face. "Having fun, Wire?"
Tripwire gave the larger Reploid a look with his visor as the tendrils finished retracting. "I'd say you enjoy those chainsaws more than certain other weapons you might've chosen."
Turbo waved them both down. "Quiet already."
A new voice boomed across the chamber from a sound system. "Nicely done, recruits. Take a few for a charge, and report back to the assignment desk."
The three saluted a darkened observation chamber in the far wall, and then left the chamber. Their route happened to take them back through the main hall of Maverick Hunter headquarters. Spikesaw and Turbo noted that there were a few new faces in the lobby, but nothing caught their attention. It was Tripwire who drifted to a stop, his visor lingering on a most unexpected visitor to the facility.
Cadis was standing at the front desk, speaking in a pleasant but serious manner with the Maverick Hunter running the desk that day. Tripwire became completely astonished when he saw the recognizable datapad of a recruitment form. She was signing up to be a hunter.
"…I'll catch up," he said distantly.
Spikesaw and Turbo halted, finding him with their optics.
"Tripwire, what's up?" Turbo asked quietly.
"Just something I want to check on personally. Nothing serious. Go on," Tripwire waved them off without looking, moving toward the front desk.
Spikesaw rubbed one of his gauntlets. "He have a thing for that recruit at the desk?"
Turbo shrugged, and they continued on, remaining quite confused.
Cadis was just turning from the desk, and stopped short, startled by the Reploid waiting behind her. "O-oh, hello."
Tripwire tipped his head. "Sorry to bother you, ma'am." He gestured at her hand, where the datapad was. "Signing up?"
Cadis lifted the pad, then smiled anxiously and rubbed the back of her head. "Yeah, actually. Another newbie!"
"Can I ask what inspired the choice? No offense intended, you just don't strike me as the type interested in that kind of lifestyle."
She blinked, confused a stranger would care so much about the issue, one way or the other. "Well… I mean, I met a Maverick Hunter recently, and he was quite inspirational. I also don't really have a home or place to work that I'm familiar with, and I think I can help out, you know?"
His visor tightened, and Cadis became concerned at the pain she could see in his unique face.
"Are you okay?" she asked softly.
Tripwire made a throat-clearing sound, and then offered his hand. "I am, sorry. Welcome aboard. I'm Tripwire. I'm new as well."
Cadis shook his hand firmly, smiling. "Cadis! Nice to meet you. Not sure we'll have any training together, but if we do, it'll be nice to have someone to talk to, right?"
He chuckled. "Indeed. Stay safe, Cadis."
"You, too, Trip."
Her choice of nickname made his chuckle return, and the two parted casually. It wasn't until he was walking away that he let his expression fall again. And she has no idea I'm the one that cost her that home… all her friends… His fists clenched. No more, you damn virus. No more.
The blue teleportation field ripped down and splashed out over black, sharp rocks amidst splashing waves. X stepped out of the fading energy, his armor glistening in the failing light. /Maverick Hunter base, you reading me?/
/Dex here, X. Shimmer's running data scans for you. With your own sensors patching us data, this confirms the cavern system below you was the source of that armada that attacked the city. It must be a full-scale fabrication facility for those submarines./
Focusing down, through the rocks ahead of him, X's new sensors revved to full power. It was a tremendous chamber just a short way down, and there was a downward dry-dock area just ahead of him. An entry point. There were mechaniloid squids for most of the defense, mingled with some turrets designed to aquatic environments, and propulsion poles. The poles likely would have formed protective tunnels or paths, but were scattered around as a security precaution.
And at the far side of the deep cave was a walled facility. It was harder to read, indicating dense materials, armor plating. An actual base.
/I think I have Bubble Crab's most likely location here. I'll start-?/
/Hold, X,/ Dex interrupted as politely as he could. /…Yes, Shimmer just confirmed it. We have an X-Hunter in the area. He… just teleported down about half a mile from your current position, deeper down./
X rubbed his forearm, frowning. "Waiting for me, alright." /Roger that, Dex. Mission still a go. I'm mobilizing./
/Understood, sir. Dex out./
Letting his new sensors deactivate to avoid giving his processors a meltdown, X burst forward. There was a pool of fish mechaniloids, driven by turbine-spikes, and they tried to charge up at him as he leapt over their position.
"They'll probably be a problem later," he muttered to himself, hand-flipping over a ridge of stone, and reaching the dry-dock.
With no hesitation, X dove into the water, and let his heavy body fall slowly and surely toward the metal surface deeper down. His eyes, already adapted to water vision, widened a bit when the surface pitched, and slammed open with a rush of force through the water. Riding the quick wave of pressure in the water, he started to sink further, and his optics locked up on the reason for the abrupt entrance.
One of the submarines was right there, floating into the dry-dock from a tunnel in the rock under where he'd first teleported down.
This one seemed modified, however. The plasma lens was on the under side, and it had thicker plating, with more, but smaller ports for presumed weapons.
The floor beneath them opened up in a far more vast stretch, dumping them into the depths. X was starting to adapt to swimming as the submarine's large optics focused, and the plasma lens began to glow. At the same time, dozens of small torpedoes started to pop out of its flanks and jet around to home in on their target.
X's expression fell dismal. Does this have intelligence? His sensors reactivated, scanning the submarine's systems. In a quick rush of data readings, hacked terminal data, and sonic pulses, it was clear the thing was a mechaniloid through and through. A sophisticate weapon system, but little more than a friend-or-foe program with weapons attached.
Water flash-boiled around X as his body began to shimmer with power, his sensors fading as his weapons fully powered up.
Before the first few torpedoes could reach him, he snapped his busters forward, and fired with both.
The resulting storm of plasma erased a tube through the water and submarine alike from the barrels of his weapons. The torpedoes blew up prematurely from the shock through the depths, the closest ones barely brushing heat and bubbles over X's frame.
And then the tube of open air crashed back together, ramming X straight back like a jet-engine.
X grunted, grimacing as he privately cursed at himself for forgetting about the shockwave such a massive blast would trigger.
His back found one of the jellyfish mechaniloids, and he was literally jolted out of his streaming momentum. Swirling around after the jolt to his system, X fired pulse-blasts at the jelly, still crackling with power as it reached for him again. It blew apart with a few pulses of air and sparks that quickly extinguished in the depths.
X drifted down, landing on a chunk of rock much further down, his system adapting to the higher pressure. He looked up with a mild frown at the start of the embedded facility. His little rocket-propelled swim had done most of the work for him.
However, something caught his eye straight above. Focusing, reactivating his sensors, X realized there was another dock system higher up, and signal from the X-Hunter was adjacent to it.
X braced down, readied his ignition system, and then ripped upward, his boots thrusting at full power. The ease of the water helping his weight and the raw power of the Light-designed system had X rocketing out of the water and onto the catwalk at the surface of the dry-dock just a core-pulse later.
Standing fully, X eyed the door ahead of him. It was already opening expectantly. "How polite," he muttered, and marched into the darkened hall beyond.
Dr. Cain blinked as a soft beep emanated from the consoles behind him. He frowned, turning away from the large, transparent capsules holding Zero's body parts and the floating chip and system buffer X had retrieved some months ago.
A metal wall sank down and closed in, hiding the capsules from sight as he came around the consoles and touched a glowing red button. "Dr. Cain here."
"Dr. Cain, it's Lt. Alia. I need to speak with you, sir."
A hand clenched the handle of the cane. Her tone was firm, hard. She was determined. "…Come in."
He turned about, looking across a massive console and screen along one wall, toward a doorway at the opposite side. It started to slide open, and Alia walked through. The room almost seemed to shake despite the calm metallic clicks and hisses of her legs.
Dr. Cain rested both hands on his cane, leaning on it a bit more heavily. "What's on your mind, young Alia?"
She chose to formally salute. "Sir, I am requesting permission to deploy to the geothermal plant facility on the island."
The human's frown furrowed deeper. "Didn't you draft the assault plans for X yourself?"
"X doesn't know Flame Stag like I do, sir. I've kept up with all license and training regimens. I am fully qualified, and I understand how the target prepares defenses."
Dr. Cain tilted his head. "You're dodging the issue, Lieutenant."
Alia's manner hardened. "Dr. Cain, I have to do this. Flame Stag was one of the best, and he was completely sincere in his beliefs. He would never agree to any of this insanity!" She surged forward a step, fists clenched, eyes blazing. "Please, sir!"
Dr. Cain sighed, bowing his head with closed eyes. "Alia, I respect your devotion to your old teacher, and I agree that the Maverick issue is deeply painful and confusing, but I don't believe sending you out after Flame Stag is a good idea."
Alia shivered, her fists clicking faintly from grinding servos. The human slowly looked up at her, serious, but sympathetic.
At length, the Reploid's manner sharpened, her eyes tightening, and she focused faintly on the wall behind him. Dr. Cain's brow creased. Alia began to stand up straight again, exhaled, and fixed him with a direct stare that he had to admit was rather unsettling.
"I can bring Flame Stag in alive, Dr. Cain. Imagine the breakthroughs possible for this entire war if we capture a Maverick?"
Dr. Cain exhaled, almost rasping, and shifted his cane out to one side, straightening his shoulders as he met her gaze again. "Alia, we have no shortage of materials to study regarding the Maverick issue. I think you're letting your emotional connection to Flame Stag cloud your judgment."
"I know the target better than anyone currently deployed. His closest allies were already lost in the last major conflict with Sigma's forces," Alia retorted, not backing down.
A right mess… If I block her, she'll just storm off anyway, and die from lack of support. X is already deployed. A multi-lateral mission… Dr. Cain rubbed his head. "Permission granted, Lieutenant. I'm temporarily reactivating your Hunter status due to logistical expertise. Deploy immediately."
Alia's expression broke with a smile, and she saluted. "Thank you, sir!"
"I wouldn't, Alia. I'm sending you to take on your mentor. See if you're still grateful when you return," Dr. Cain chose to reply grimly.
Alia's smile faded, but she nodded, and then twisted to dash out of the lab.
After the door shut, Dr. Cain sighed again. "X won't forgive me for this one."
X stepped out into a well-lit metal chamber. His sensors were revving already, so his optics were already locked with Violen's across the gap. It was an almost perfect cube of a room, and Violen's mighty frame eclipsed a good portion of the opposite wall. There was also clearly a massive spike-mace on his back, behind his rounded, armored head.
Embedded in the wall on either side of him were tow capsules, one for each leg of the reconstructed body of Zero. X's sensors showed thruster mechanisms, hydraulics, and pressure switches, all ready to ram the cylinders down into the depths below, and likely to crush depth. It was also clear how heavily armored Violen's body was, rather like the thick bulkheads all around them.
"I've been looking forward to this, Megaman X," Violen began. The mace on his back lifted higher with a deep clank and hiss of powerful hydraulics. His arms were not connected to it, it was moving on its own. "The reunification will not be threatened any longer!"
X clenched his hands into fists, but didn't form his busters yet. "Your plan doesn't make much sense. And if you could reconstruct Zero's body, which no one else could pull off, why couldn't you just remake the chip and buffer?"
Violen answered by stomping forward and sweeping his entire body down. The mace shot out, flying free on an extending hydraulic chain of armored links. He was sneering as he watched the weapon rip forward.
X dove to one side, the room shaking from the impact. The mace ricocheted after him, forcing X to twist flat to the ground. It almost immediately hit the far left wall, and bounced back lightning fast. X had to shove himself back and skid to a halt.
Violen let the mace retract, chuckling. "It's not going to matter to you when you're DEAD!"
X let energy start to build over his frame, his eyes hardening. "So even you three are in the dark."
The sneer on Violen's face melted away, and he twisted with a crash of his legs, unleashing a room-spanning sweep of his hydraulic mace. X flattened himself under it, and instantly sprang into the air in its wake. Violen's optics flared when X came bursting toward him from mid-air by the thrusters of the Maverick Hunter's boots, energy purling off his frame.
Violen reared back, yanking his mace inward. X aimed his left arm at the X-Hunter, firing a full-power plasma blast. He watched it blast over Violen's frame, but could tell it wasn't doing significant damage even that same instant. With the mace rushing at his back, X planted one boot on Violen's scorched chest, and kicked off, arcing over the mace.
A spike from the mace still gouged into X's back, making him grunt. The two fighters skidded back from each other, X hissing from the sparking wound on his back, Violen growling through the smoke coiling off his body.
The mace is too fast for me to keep track of it while focusing him down. X braced, a full charge still ready in his right arm, light dancing over his frame gently from the eagerness of it. Can I run the enhanced sensors and fight at the same time?
Violen roared abruptly, his arms swinging back on either side, hands open, and his mace rattling to build for another rush. The forearms were opening along small ports around the wrist as he did so.
X grimaced, and started to dash forward. Time to find out!
His sensors fully activated as Violen wrenched his arms in, his wrists firing plasma bolts like gatling guns even as the mace came arcing over, ready to smash down.
Air pressure, sound, digital signals, energy pulses, diagnostics, hundreds, thousands of types of data all poured into X's perception as he hurtled into the onslaught. Every angle on each plasma bolt, the wind screaming around each spike on the mace, the arrangement of the room, the way the sounds of their bodies, weapons, systems, and air were reverberating against the walls. It almost crashed X's system as he tried to keep his weapons fully active, ready, and his targeting systems aiming.
Violen's optics widened. X's eyes were locked with his own, but the Maverick Hunter's body whirled into a mad dance without losing the gaze. He shifted side to side, dove between, twisted through the plasma bolts in a core-pulse, like he was dodging through a static maze. Without losing momentum or even seeming to notice, X pivoted to his right, shifted his weight forward, letting the mace scream down behind him without contact, and flowed into a leaning stance, buster aimed straight at Violen's face. The weapon lighting the Maverick's expression with the glow of burning plasma, X's free hand gripped the hydraulic chain down between them.
It had all happened in a moment, barely a second. X's eyes were still wide, but focused; emotionless, but encompassing. Violen just stood there, his respirator heaving, forced to fold down to X's height by the weight of the mace and his own crossed arms.
X's voice came out calm and steady, almost cold, distant as a dreamer. "You won't hit me again. Choose how this is going to end."
Violen snarled, but stayed down. "See you next round, Megaman X." He started to glow with teleportation light.
X released the mace chain, but kept the buster trained on Violen's face. When the X-Hunter shimmered out of existence, warping up into the ceiling as a globule of crimson light, X aimed his buster at the wall beneath the two containers, and fired.
The mechanisms designed to launch the containers were flash melted or erased, and the two cylinders started to limply fall out. X shot forward, catching them in an arm each, and eased them down carefully. Moving quickly, he attached small, blinking devices to their sides, and touched his comm, "Dex, Shimmer, can either of you read me?"
"Surprisingly, yes," Shimmer answered this time. "How are you cutting through that much metal and rock so clearly?"
"You can thank Dr. Light for that, I imagine. Can you read the teleportation transponders I just placed?"
"Checking… Yes, got them. Teleport immediately?"
"Please. Straight to Dr. Cain. I have to secure Bubble Crab himself still."
"Understood. Shimmer out."
X stood back, and watched the two cylinders shimmer with white light, then pour up into the ceiling above, very much as Violen had.
Only then letting his sensors rev down, X held his head for a moment. "Doable, but that gives me one awful headache."
Shaking his head free of the mild fog the recovery caused, he sprinted for the sealed door, igniting his flame thrower as he closed in on it. There was a mission to finish.
The deep-sea base itself was simple in design, X found. Dull, metal halls with mechaniloid workers and security forces. The map structure his previous sensor-runs had pulled together for him offered a pretty obvious location for Bubble Crab's control chamber, higher up, and deeper into the rocks of the island.
Specifically dodging around the maintenance mechaniloids that tried to attack him on orders, X only fired on a couple of gun emplacements, blowing them apart as he shot past, kick-climbing up a ventilation shaft, and punching through a vent at the level he needed to access Crab's control center.
A final maintenance bot tried to get in his way, and X gave the poor thing a dismal glance as he came dashing up. It leapt at him, drill-nose whirring, and he simply flipped over it, landing into another dash, and vanishing through the sphere-lock door beyond it. The little mechaniloid was left blinking its optics, the target nowhere to be found.
It didn't surprise X that the room let him in. He did, however, have to catch himself and correct as he fell out of the far door, landing in shallow water at the bottom of a cube-like chamber. When his feet touched bottom, his head was just under the surface he'd fallen into. His optics adjusted to the relatively dark chamber and waters, seeing consoles and screen, all designed for submerged use, littered around the perimeter of the room.
There wasn't much time to wonder at the room's emptiness. A slide-gate opened in the roof on the opposite side of the chamber, and a dark mass shot down, slipping into the water with astonishing finesse for its oddly bulbous shape.
X watched light pulse through the chamber, rippling through the gently lashing waves over their heads, from the plasma claws that seared up from Bubble Crab's shoulders. The Maverick was crouched down, a hand to the ground. Though his body was almost comical, barely more than a rounded disc with arms and legs, the dark optics and burning power of the claw-weapons were not laughing matters. He was also clearly comfortable under the water, his body seeming to glide through the fluid almost easier than air as he simply stood up.
The voice that came from the vented faceplate beneath the hard optics was a deep, rumbling torrent of malice, "You've made rather a mess of my armada, Megaman X. I intend to extract compensation from your plating." The plasma claws surged again.
X's colors shifted, his busters shifting into plasma-saw generators. "You attacked a civilian harbor with military force. Stand down."
Bubble Crab snapped his arms up, and the water around him hardened into a plasma shell. "You've come down to my domain, Maverick Hunter. You may yet regret that!"
The Maverick shot forward, ripping through the water like a cannonball. X burst to his right, but barely got out of the way in time. Small, crab mechaniloids scuttled in through ports in the walls, and started to rush toward him at the same time.
X wrenched back, firing plasma-wheels with both arms. The mechaniloids burst apart, but Bubble Crab flitted around, floating up in X's wake. The two locked gazed over X's shoulder, Bubble Crab's fist already rushing down at him.
X dove-twisted in the water, dodging the strike. While upside-down and floating, he fired a fresh saw at the Maverick. Bubble Crab glided away from it, but the saw ripped through his water-bubble. His optics snapped to the start of the tear, watching the shield evaporate around him.
"Charging the water into hard structures around you," X explained as he righted himself. "Clever. Adaptive. Smarter than the fighting style you're using. You're not used to this level of aggression, Bubble Crab."
The Maverick's hazed optics smoldered at him, and then Bubble Crab rammed his hands upward. Water surged into the chamber, lifting the surface nearly to the roof, while simultaneously throwing X around from the surging torrents.
X clawed at the ground, and finally regained control, but immediately had to dash back in the water as Bubble Crab came ripping forward, energy-claw leading.
"Bubble Crab," X called more sincerely, "Overdrive Ostrich fought it. He came back even at the finish. I know you're still in there! Make yourself stand down! I know what's happening to you, and I'll make sure no harm comes to you!"
Bubble Crab glided to the far wall with his charge, hit it, and rebounded twice as fast, both shoulder-claws searing the water. His optics never eased.
X sighed, bubbles filtering up, and he dashed to his left, just around the cutting edges of the claws. He then swirled around, firing off plasma saws in various directions. Bubble Crab started to rush and dance around them in the water, and X drew to a halt, power building over his frame, making the water bubble and steam within itself.
Bubble Crab shot in, crouching at X's feet in an instant, shoulders flashing with the preparation to ignite their claws again. "Got you!"
X looked down at him as his right buster aimed straight up. "Do you?" His left buster aimed at Crab's face.
Crab flickered, ripping out behind X, laughing at his bait succeeding. "You can't correct fast enough!" he roared, charging in at X's back with a claw ready.
X fired up, and the plasma saw was fully charged by his system. It hit the water in full form… then exploded into ripping torrents of disruptive plasma. Instantly, a matrix of evaporated water was cut through the liquid around both combatants, Bubble Crab's body cleaved through in two directions, his optics already widening.
Water crashed back into the tubes cut through it, making the chamber roar and shake from force, Bubble Crab's body flung apart, X jerking this way and that as he rode the disruption calmly.
The chamber started to drain as Bubble Crab's optics faded, his limbs separated from his core structure by the two cleaving plasma lines.
Wading through knee-deep water, X drew up to the Maverick's body, and reached down. After a moment, he had the control chip and system buffer, and placed them in his storage chamber. "…Sorry, Bubble Crab. We'll talk soon."
He was just reaching to his comm when it beeped for him. X jerked, startled, and then activated. "X here, report?"
Signas' voice came over the comm this time. "X, Alia just deployed."
So many things crashed together in X's head in that one instant, he came to a full stop mentally.
"X?"
X's face animated, panic and focus swirling together as his fists clenched. "Meet me at the teleportation grid, I have… data from Bubble Crab's base that needs to be secured, and I need immediate clearance to teleport down to the geothermal plant afterward."
"Dr. Cain's blocking it."
X froze again, his eyes burning down into the water at his feet. "…Meet me at the grid."
Signas eyed the comm console on the carrier over the island. He'd never heard such a dark, rasped tone come out of the young robot. "…Understood, bringing you in."
X's body washed over with blue light, and tore up into the air.
Author's Note:
Again, thanks for all the reviews, favs, and comments, everyone. Greatly appreciated!
I wanted to give Bubble Crab more characterization, but the various concepts I had just didn't ring right for me. Needing to resolve Violen, the necessary progress for the Alia sub-arc, and some additional development for the good X-Hunters provided more substance and fun for me, so I focused on them, and made sure to give Bubble Crab what I hope is seen as a respectful treatment in battle.
Bubble Crab represents one of the reasons I actually strongly disliked Megaman X 2 the game. It remains my least favorite of the series (though, admittedly, I don't even bother counting anything after X 4 myself, they just got… weird on me). Bubble Crab's design was simplistic, even for Megaman, and his attacks/weapons made very little sense. His claws coming off his shoulders also just… confused me. But, that is his design, and I'm very much going for 'the story of the game you played' with my own touches, so I didn't want to change him.
The scene between Alia and Dr. Cain is something I was looking forward to for a while, honestly. I love having a solid reason to show Alia's hard-core side. She's always had it, but she's such a rational, charming person, it rarely has a reason to come out. Originally, Dr. Cain was going to be convinced by her offer of a live maverick, but I realized during drafting that it just seemed weak, and he's NOT stupid. Trying to corale her somewhat like he does X struck me as much more true to character, at least for the Chronicles version of him, and so that wound up being the real clincher.
Bit of a cliff-hanger this time, eh? Bwahahahaha *cough* hahaha *cough* *ahem* … Yes. Take your cliff-hanger and like it!
I kid, I kid… but you still have a cliff-hanger. Because I'm evil. *points to the maniacal laughter above*
On the bright side, I will now be able to update weekly! Yay!