Chapter 13: "Servants"
Dr. Cain, Signas, Alia, and X were in the command center of headquarters, surrounding the holomap table. With the base in the arctic activating, they had an actual map thanks to the thermal readings spiking.
"Well they certainly don't waste any time," X muttered, rubbing his chin.
Dr. Cain spoke, "I'm close to reactivating Zero, but I still need more time to finalize the system checks. This," he gestured at the map, "can't wait, however. Lt. Alia, do we have enough data to launch a mission?"
"Yes, sir," she answered, datapad in hand. "There's interference around most of the structure, so I can't say it's not a trap, but I can teleport into the Western wing of the facility they've built under the ice."
Signas leaned onto the table. "They likely have mechaniloid forces preparing to attack in large numbers, similar to Sigma's attack from his floating fortress during the last Maverick event."
Hearing Signas talk about Sigma like that was a little jarring for X and Alia, but they showed no outward sign of the emotional twitch. Instead, X nodded and added, "I agree. We should deploy our naval and air fleets. We need to try and contain this. I'll head in. It's probably those 'X-Hunters' running the show here, and I've gotten a taste for how they operate."
Dr. Cain frowned faintly, but nodded after a moment. "Agreed. Alia, operate for our lone-star hero, would you?"
It let a mild laugh pass around the table.
"Get to the teleportation field, X," Alia finished with a nod to the door, already heading for her own console.
X saluted, and boosted out of the room with a rush of wind.
On their private channel, Signas added, /I'll get Crystal Snail situated while you're handling this mess, X. Him and Magna Centipede should be up and running within the week./
/Thank you, Signas./
Dr. Cain simply started out of the command center himself. "I'll see if I can't get Zero out of bed. Lazy bones."
The ironic turn of phrase made Signas, Alia, and a few others in the command chamber, including Dex, share a morbidly amused glance.
X boosted out of his teleportation field as soon as it splashed down inside the facility. Energy shimmering over his frame, he kept rushing, wasting no time. His face was a mask of battle.
"Damn! X? That interference… spreading!" Alia's voice reached him with a loud burst of static in the middle.
"I copy, Alia. Do what you can!"
Two tones responded. Apparently she could still get partial signal through, but not enough for audio data. X clicked his comm twice to reciprocate.
Leaping to meet the first mechaniloid to greet him, X started to twist around. It flared a plasma shield over its large iris as he did so. X fired once, spun faster, and fired again. It tore the plasma shield away, and ripped the hovering iris apart.
Dropping down through lower halls of dull gray bulkheads, X boosted into their lengths. Reaching a tall shaft, he frowned, and then started to kick-climb the wall, boosting from point to point to try and keep up momentum.
That was when the wall pitched, and they all started to clamp in around him. Activating his sensors as he kept rushing upward, X finally caught sight of the mechaniloid ratcheting the walls closer together by special tendril arms and claws. With another dash-jump, he twisted, and snapped off a plasma bolt. The mechaniloid blew apart as he reached the other wall. The tension it had been maintaining caused it to fly apart even more explosively, parts of it body lodging through the bulkheads around it.
X used part of it as a final grip-hold to flip up onto the next level, and only cast a faint glance around the wreckage before boosting ahead.
The next moment, he was juking and rolling out of storms of plasma lances. Scorpion-like mechaniloids were scuttling slowly toward him, firing tri-blasts from their open claws, filling the gaps with pulse-blasts from their tail-tips.
As he performed a particular twist and dash, focused on the mechaniloids, X's torso actually soaked up the plasma lances nearest it, absorbing them through the vents in his new armor.
With a snap of his colors and a twisting flip over the charging mechaniloids, X left them twitching as plasma-saws cut them in half.
Reverting his colors, he kept rushing along. There was another vertical shaft, this time with oblong segments of wall that were harder to leap and climb, but he knew it was just another crushing trap. He charged power as he started the climb, and did another spinning flip as the walls pitched the first time. He fired a purple-blue shockwave of plasma straight up the center of the shaft, and was rewarded as he landed on the wall with a soft rain of parts. The walls stopped moving.
With a faint smile, he continued his climb.
It didn't take much longer to reach a sphere-lock door, which surprised him. It whirled and snapped, hissing open for him as they so-often did, and he readied both busters, marching into the short hallway beyond. The second door opened into a large, cube-shaped chamber… with Violen standing guard at the door on the opposite side.
Violen actually cracked his knuckles into each opposing palm. "I've been looking forward to this, Megaman X. No tricks, no trades, just metal and plasma."
X started to shimmer as he gathered power. "No tricks?"
The X-Hunter smirked. "Well… maybe a couple."
Rock-like cubes shimmered into existence throughout the room, floating in mid-air at random intervals. Violen raised his arms with a laugh, and they all shimmered again, instantly shifting to a different arrangement.
"Dodge this!"
X started to dash forward as the hydraulic mace came hurtling in. He pitched around it, but his optics followed as it rose up, struck one of the blocks, and started to ricochet back at him even faster. Grimacing, X boost-flipped, barely carrying himself over the mace without getting mauled by the spikes.
"I'm going to tear it all down, X! Everything you've worked so hard to protect! Everyone you want to keep safe!" Violen ranted, continuously swinging his mace, letting it bounce madly through the blocks, keeping X dashing, flipping, leaping, and dodging around.
X scrambled along the 'rocks', letting the mace smash around in his wake, trying to get closer to Violen's position while in their cover. The mace bounced off the corner of one block, however, and came ripping in after him much more directly than normal. X tried to dive out from it, but it clipped his left boot, and sent him hurtling down to the ground just behind Violen.
The X-Hunter twisted with a grin, and X frowned up at him from lying on the ground. Instantly one buster snapped up and fired, washing Violen over with purple-blue fire. Violen's hand came down through it, however, grabbing X's torso. Startled, X gave a shout as he was yanked up into the air, right into Violen's steaming, but otherwise unharmed face.
"We've been preparing."
That moment froze for X, locking gazes with the brute. Violen's optics were clear. Vicious, murderous, but there was no haze. No infection.
X's expression sharpened, and he brought his other buster forward, firing point-blank.
Again, the attack just washed over Violen's frame as he laughed, and the X-Hunter wrenched X around, throwing him to the far side of the room. X hit the wall with a grunt, crumpling down. He was building power again even in that moment, however, glaring up at his adversary.
"You're not infected," X began, his voice dark. "You're not being controlled."
Violen spread his arms, letting the blocks shift orientation again as he grinned. "What can I say? I enjoy tearing things apart too much!"
"All those people," the weather control facility, their scorched, screaming corpses; the dock attacks; the super storm over the city, "were slaughtered… and you enjoyed it. No infection. Just you."
"It took you this long to figure it out!? How naïve!" Violen bellowed, and snapped his arms forward, unleashing a storm-volley of plasma bolts.
Enjoying that kind of death… Zero detonating himself, the woman bleeding to death in his arms, all the suffering and pain caused by this violence… X's eyes dilated to points, and he suddenly ripped forward, snarling.
A one-two spin release of his charged plasma blasts tore a hole through Violen's attacks, but just washed over the X-Hunter himself again. X kept charging, boosting straight into his enemy, still building power.
Violen smirked, and then dive-rammed his right fist straight down into X's back with astonishing speed, the room shaking from the force of the impact. The armored floor was dented under X's body as he went limp in the crater for a moment.
X's voice came through muffled the next moment, making Violen twitch. It was completely calm despite being plastered into the ground. "You're using a modified version of Bubble Crab's shield and Magna Centipede's magnetic disruptions."
"Perceptive little brat," Violen growled, and then gripped and snap-threw the Reploid away.
X flew back, but rolled over himself, and skidded back on two feet and one hand, the other up as a buster, energy building over his body again. He was already glaring up at Violen with that dark intensity.
Violen stomped forward one step, his mace bracing to one side, his hands prepping plasma bolts. "Just for you, I'm going to find that little Reploid you like so much. The blonde? We saw how nuts you went for her when you took out Flame Stag. I'm gonna do a lot more than tear her arm off when I find her, Megaman X."
X's eyes narrowed. "You don't get to speak about people that way."
"Oh? Not gonna let me near your girl, X?"
"She's not something I could possess, you miserable wretch. I fight for her because she's a good person, who cares more for people than almost anyone else. She's the type of person I want to see in this world, and so I protect her if I can. She protects me, every moment, every mission, with her knowledge and her skills. I work with an amazing Reploid who could hand you your plates, Violen. You're just the animal reducing her to a prize to be stolen because you're a jealous programming glitch."
Violen suddenly wrenched forward, arms aiming, mace ripping forward. "I'll show you a glitch when I scrape you off the walls, X!"
X ripped forward to meet him, roaring as his arms swung back, both busters trailing power this time. The mace came rushing in from his left, but he simply leapt over it, sliding over the spikes like a fish through water, driving both arms forward together.
Before the first plasma bolts could reach him, X still shouting, he unleashed with both busters at full charge.
A shockwave ripped through the room from the release, and Violen was engulfed in a searing beam of purple-blue light that was nearly as wide as he was tall. The arms stopped firing, the mace hit the floor.
X landed at last, the body parts that hadn't been erased by the plasma-beam rained down in front of him.
Letting his hands revert, X marched through the debris, his mood dark. "You're not coming back to hurt anyone else," he rasped. "Anyone," he repeated, his entire body tensing with the emphasis.
The far door had been flash melted into a hole by his plasma beam, and X simply marched through it.
Dr. Cain eased back from Zero's frame on the lab chair. He was a bit apprehensive, but stood by with his cane held by both hands as system gave gentle chimes and building hums. "Come on, come on," he muttered quietly.
At last, the skin around Zero's eyes animated, his pupils flashing.
The white-gloved hands gripped the arm rests, and eased their owner upright. Dr. Cain looked on with cautious hope.
"Are you back with us, Zero?"
Mostly overshadowed by the top-down light, Zero rested one arm on a raised knee.
"…I'm going to need a sword."
As he dove into the water flooding the next section of the base, X sourly wondered if it was flooding because of errors during construction, or just to annoy him. Violen was haunting him already. It couldn't deny the threats to Alia had churned up all of that rage and fear he'd felt in the geothermal plant, her scream running through his system over and over.
He should have given Violen a chance to surrender, but he also hadn't even been sure the plasma beam would work. It was twisting in a vicious storm of guilt, pulling on the deaths he'd failed to stop… Vile's death during the first war.
Submerged, he flipped around a propulsion pole, and drove himself to the next to avoid the spikes waiting to impale him on virtually every surface. When he could finally emerge, he had to pulse-blast a few tri-turret mechaniloids, and felt his system absorb the passing energy bolts he dodged. At the top of the shaft, he touched his chest, grimacing a bit.
Fully powered again. I need to be careful. I feel like I'm slipping.
He started to dodge around mechaniloids instead of blow them apart, and he quickly hopped, climbed, and dashed around the various mechanical obstacles the base was trying to throw into his wake. He knew that even though he periodically had to climb higher, he was actually going much deeper into the ice.
It was almost surprising when the next sphere-lock door appeared. "…Already?"
He frowned, but proceeded. The moment he was through the little hall, however, he stopped on the first part of the floor he reached. His sensors immediately revved up to max as his optics coasted around, grim.
The chamber was massive, and even as wide as it was, it went on ahead of him for some unseen distance, lost in shadows. He stood on a platform that was clearly designed to break apart, separated into clean little circles of metal barely connected by latch-arms at the moment. He was basically standing in the center of a massive cylinder.
When the chamber began to shake, X braced, but was facing ahead without emotion on his face. It wasn't distance blocking out the lights beyond, it was a massive machine. Slowly lumbering toward him was some kind of tunneling machine, the part facing him a wall of plasma turrets in radial patterns.
"I intend not to underestimate you again, Megaman X," Serges' voice echoed through the chamber, amplified by the machine apparently. "Especially since you showed you're more than capable of killing your target when you need to."
X's optics narrowed, and he moved forward, but only to the next platform ahead of him. "I've killed many Mavericks."
"I wasn't talking about Mavericks."
Anger twisted X's face again, but he smoothed his expression out quickly. "So just going to grind me to pieces with this tunneling device then?"
"Whatever works!" Serges cackled as he finished, and the cannons started to power up.
"I'm not playing your version of this game," X muttered, and seemed to curl in on himself, his arms crossing over his chest, his head bowing.
"Surrendering to your fate, Megaman?"
X opened his eyes at the platform under his feet, his pupils glowing red. "…You're the only person to call me that, Serges." He looked up, snapping his arms out as the plates and vents of his torso started to shift and open, exposing burning red coils that started to distort the air around him.
"You'll never get the chance to f—!?"
X's body lifted off the ground, his back arching as his eyes flared. With a pulse-flash, the room quaked, then was filled with searing fire and plasma.
X dropped down onto the platform immediately below him. Only it and three of its fellows around him survived.
The front of the drill machine was sloughing off, crashing down to the ground level as molten slag, the walls of the tunnel wider and scorched.
Serges was in a control-pod at the center of the surviving rig, the pod attached to tracks that spiraled and networked over the entire front of the machine. He looked quietly furious.
"You're not getting past me, Megaman X," Serges rasped, and then started working at his controls.
The pod started to race around the front of the drill machine, the front of it firing whistling globules of plasma energy. At the same time, the platforms under X burst apart and started to zig and zag randomly. It took X several moments just to regain his footing, especially ducking the exploding plasma blobs that sent smaller parts of themselves flying in every direction on impact.
X's colors snapped to blues and yellows, his busters readying.
"You can't catch me and dodge at the same time, Megaman!"
X flipped onto the next platform, and in mid-air he twisted, lashing out multiple times with each arm.
A storm of plasma cutters from Overdrive Ostrich came flying out. Serges cackled at first, but then shouted as his pod halted abruptly. He looked down, and saw one of the cutters embedded in the track he was using. Quickly glancing around, he realized he wasn't the target. X was cutting off the entire rail system.
Serges tried to backtrack and rush along another path, but was halted again, and looked up in time to see X standing on the platform just in front of his pod, glowing with power, arms out to the sides.
"Stand down," X rasped.
Serges' narrowed his optics, and rammed a control forward, his cannon starting to fire.
X lashed his arms forward, unleashing a pair of super-charged cutters. They ripped through Serges and his pod, driving deep into the drilling machine, cutting a tunnel all the way to the far side of the chamber.
X let his colors revert, and leapt into the hole, where Serges upper body was still flickering with power, servo fluid leaking out from the severed arm and waist.
Serges spoke, but the voice was different. It sounded heavier with an accent. "He… is my… masterpiece…"
X glared into those dying optics. "…You reach out of the grave too much, Dr. Wily."
The Maverick Hunter simply kept walking as the chamber behind him started to crash down under its own weight.
"Getting tired of climbing," X muttered as he clambered the sixth long ladder since leaving the drill tunnel.
When he finally reached a new room, he climbed up, and heard an odd whistle on the air. He'd heard it before. With a quick charge, he pulse-blasted a shark-mechaniloid that was ripping toward him from the right. They were the same time that had tried to swarm him off of Wheel Gator's mobile fortress.
Hopping over a ridge, he blasted the launch iris that had been the source of the flyer before it spat more out at him.
Able to look up, he frowned at the awkward platforms leading up to the exit above. There were strange tracks on the walls. Clearly some kind of lift or platform was intended for this room, not feet and hands.
That was when a discus-throwing mechaniloid hopped down from above. X tilted his head, realizing the bot was the perfect height… X's colors snapped to a pale blue mixture of hues, and he dove out of the disc's path. As the mechaniloid landed on a slightly lower platform to recover his weapon, X fired once. A crystalline globule flew out, and splashed over the mechaniloid. It was immediately trapped in a crystalline prison, frozen and unmoving.
"Sorry!" X announced as he pounced up, onto the crystal prison, and then higher up to the next platform.
There were floating control platforms in the next area, and X had to awkwardly pilot one through a series of spike-laden tunnels. The odd tracks were still abundant, and they didn't seem to match to anything he'd yet seen. He kept his sensors on high as he blasted a few mechaniloids that tried to knock him off his platform.
Again, discovering a sphere lock door somewhat surprised him. They're relying on their own setups to defeat me? Or is this all just another huge distraction?
He stopped, and touched his comm, sending a few clicks through.
Two clicks responded. Alia was still there, and there weren't any emergencies on their side… at least not yet.
Another series of clicks came through. Status request. She was checking in on him.
X sent back the coded version of 'continuing the mission,' and stepped through the door.
This room was by far the strangest. X glanced around as he stepped down onto a platform that had a huge, strangely shaped hole in the far left corner of it. Beneath that hole was simply another layer of the same type of textured flooring… though it appeared that the bottom of the layer he was standing on was studded with thousands of spikes.
Focusing up, he saw the chamber leading up into the shadows far above. "…Agile? You hiding this time?" It was the only 'X-Hunter' left, after all.
"Only waiting for a dramatic on-stage reveal," Agile replied, his voice echoing from above.
X watched as a strange pod device lowered down on the far wall. It was disc-shaped, with pipes, spikes, and armor all around the top and bottom halves. The middle seemed to be a single ready-to-open hatch that would split to the top and bottom of the pod's design.
Agile's face was embedded in one side of it, interrupting the opening. He smiled. "What do you think of my new look?"
X was incredulous. "You built yourself into that… contraption?"
"Well it's certainly going to trap you, Megaman X. Enjoy!"
The pod suddenly rushed out, ripping around the room above X. X braced watching its movements for several seconds. Then it froze abruptly off to the opposite side of him, Agile laughing. The hatch opened around the pod's perimeter, and suddenly a new platform formed by blasting out of the pod in every direction, slamming into the walls. X was looking up at a ceiling of spikes.
Then ports in the walls around him opened, and missiles and plasma bolts stormed out in every direction. X had to side-flip, firing off a storm of bubbles to blast the plasma and missiles apart before they could tear him to shreds.
As soon as he landed, a loud bang resounded, and he looked up to see the new ceiling starting to crash down on him. Instinctively, he boost-leapt toward Agile, and rolled just under the pod before the ceiling smashed down with a cacophonous boom.
"Let's watch you dance then, hunter!" Agile taunted, starting to rip around the room again, bouncing around like a mad bumper car.
X growled. "Time to get serious."
He leapt to one wall, but watched Agile come hurtling toward it. He flipped off, and watched a shock-wave of electrical power rip out from where Agile hit the wall.
"Ah, ah, ah! Stay DOWN!" Another platform burst out.
X used his boost-dash to rip around the chamber for the missiles and blasts this time, then got himself under the pod just as the platform came crashing down.
This time, X tore up one wall, racing Agile to it, and finally got above the pod. He back-flipped off the wall just as Agile hit, dodging the electrical surge, and landed on Agile's top half. With medium charge, X pulse-blasted various part of the pod, trying to crash it rather than completely blow it apart.
Agile snarled, wrenching the pod one way, then another, trying to throw X off.
Abruptly, the pod glowed, searing with heat. X gasped, and boosted off, and immediately had to bounce off the wall as Agile rammed it again.
X used silk shot to wrench some debris down into the floor behind Agile. Hearing it hit, Agile laughed, and fired another platform out… not realizing X was still above him.
X landed on the platform right in front of his face, and aimed his buster as the missiles and cannons below them both fired at nothing. "Stand down, Agile. This is over."
Agile snarled, letting the platform drop. X simply leapt back, firing one more time straight into a hole in the armor he'd already punched through. It hit, and he landed below, looking up with a cold mask as Agile's pod started to blow apart in clustering waves. Agile screamed and roared, but couldn't stop his pod crashing down. It blew apart completely a moment later.
X sighed, and looked up. There was a hatch faintly visible several meters further up. "…Let's finish this, virus."
He started to climb.
As X climbed up into a large chamber that was dimly lit, he tapped his comm twice. This time, no one answered. "Sorry, Alia," he muttered, and then glanced around.
Apparently in response to his presence, the chamber illuminated. X only became more confused. It was a massive chamber, filled with teleportation pods. Eight of them were active and waiting, a ninth, right in front of him almost, was inactive.
Activating his sensors to max, he let his perceptions be absorbed by the data rushing into his system. Wiring and circuitry through the chamber became apparent to him, as did a detailed map of the structure around him. There were large chambers beyond, but they were muffled by fairly sophisticated armor in the walls.
"…An activation loop. All eight teleports have to be used to turn them off, and only then will the last one function. Unless I can re-wire this entire room…"
He revved down his sensors. "None of them leave this facility. Let's see what's behind door number one, then." He turned, and stepped up to the first teleporter on his right.
Splashing down into water made him blink, and then he looked up in the cube chamber as Bubble Crab dropped down into it with him. X turned dismal.
"This again? Eight teleports…" he sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I know you're a clone, but you're still alive. Please stand down. You don't need to die for this fight," he said to the Maverick in front of him.
"You underestimate my devotion to the task before me," Bubble Crab rasped, his plasma cutters flaring off his shoulders.
X shook his head. "No, but you're programmed more heavily to obey. I can help you, just stand down."
Bubble Crab answered by ripping through the water to skewer X on his cutters. X flowed aside, his colors snapping, and he scissored his arms across Bubble Crab's middle, firing plasma saws as he did.
The clone was cut in half before his shoulder blades could even form, his optics flaring forward as he started to blow apart.
"…Sorry," X whispered.
Before the clone finished blowing apart, X felt himself getting swallowed up in teleportation energy. He was slammed down in the center of the original chamber once again. Stumbling a bit from the harsher teleport, he dusted off part of his leg armor, and looked to his left this time.
"…And again."
X skidded down on crystal-white sand, and glanced around at a surprisingly huge chamber. It was a self-contained desert. A faint howl on the air was the only warning he knew he'd get. His colors snapped to pale blues, and he twisted, firing a globule of crystal to his back left.
Overdrive Ostrich's clone hit the globule in mid stride, and crashed at full speed, blowing a dune apart past X with his back.
"You're innocent," X called over. "Please stand down. There's no need to hurt you. You've done nothing wrong."
Overdrive Ostrich picked himself, but one leg was still covered in crystals. "You think so little of copies!"
"No, I recognize you as a unique person, not a copy. Just stand down, and you will not be harmed. If you keep attacking me, I have to defend myself. There is too much at stake here."
Overdrive shattered the crystals on his leg, and started to rush forward. X was building power, and then snapped his arms to the sides. A distortion pulsed out, engulfing them both. Overdrive's optics flared, watching X fire more crystal globs at him. The globs seemed to ignore the time-warp, and splashed over him, covering almost his entire body in solid crystals.
The warp faded, and Overdrive roared, shaking and thrashing in his prison of crystal. "I'll tear you apart! I'll rip you to scrap!"
"Just stand down!"
Overdrive trembled with fury and suddenly burst free, his body starting to whirl around to unleash a storm of plasma cutters. "You'll stand down after I cut your legs off!"
X shot forward, drove his buster into the underside of Overdrive's beak in mid-spin, and fired once.
Headless, the clone's body was blowing apart still as X was pulled out of the chamber by another harsh teleport.
Taking a moment to collect himself, X exhaled, and stood up. He marched to the next teleporter on the right.
At first he thought he dropped into water again, but then he realized it was the murky mixture of lubricant and water from the super tank. X switched his colors, his busters turning into tendril-claw launchers.
"You don't have to do this. Stand down, and I won't harm you."
"Little late for that, X."
X rocketed out of the fluid, side-flipping as four different plasma-saws tried to tear through him from the corners of the room.
Wheel Gator came drilling out of the water below him, but X didn't falter. His left buster fired a claw into the tip of the rotating Reploid. The twist yanked him to the far wall, but X simply landed on it, then fired the other claw, catching Gator at the waist. It was an awkward lurch that halted the Maverick clone's momentum, and X yanked him back, slamming him into the wall.
Wheel Gator tried to wrench X back by the same connection, but X released the tether from the Maverick's waist, held onto the snout, and lashed the other claw up into the center of the ceiling.
"Just. Stand. DOWN!" X yelled, yanking them both off the wall, and swinging Wheel Gator all the way across, slamming him into the far wall with enough force to dent the bulkhead.
The Maverick grabbed the tether, glaring up at X. "We will surpass the originals. We will please the master! Then we'll be recognized!"
Wheel Gator yanked down, and it pulled X off the ceiling, splashing him down into the water. The Maverick revved up two plasma saws, and threw them into the water where X landed.
The water exploded, the plasma saws deflected out from a massive gripping claw that churned toward Wheel Gator, and nearly cut him in half as it pinned him to the wall. Only X's twisted face and buster-arm were visible in the crater of the water he'd temporarily made.
"Your master is a psychopath! If you want to live, STAND DOWN!"
Wheel Gator started to whirl into his drill attack. "NEVER!"
X wrenched back, the water splashing back in over him. The massive super-claw took Wheel Gator all the way across the room, and smashed him into the far wall before he could start spinning. Then the claw yanked back, pulling Gator down into the water like a rip-tide.
X's boots planted on Gator's neck and waist, keeping him taut between the claw and both feet. "One last chance. Just let it go!"
Gator roared, looking down around his own face, and started to grab at X around the tether-chord.
X roared with exertion, boosting with both feet and ripping back with the super claw. It tore Wheel Gator's body in half amidst an explosion of water.
X's colors were reverting, the claw retracting into his arm as he watched Wheel Gator's halves fall into the water. He couldn't even sink himself before the teleporter yanked him out of the room.
Some of the fluid came with him, and he landed in a puddle in the central chamber again. Heaving himself up, he marched to the next teleporter.
This time, X landed facing his adversary. Wire Sponge twirled his blade-chords as the center of the ceiling crackled with energy. "Ready for round two?"
X's colors snapped to blue and yellow, his busters igniting. "Please… stand down."
"Stop offering. We're not going to accept."
A surge of power ripped down from the ceiling and washed over Wire Sponge even as he fired his tethers forward. X snapped his arms out in wide sweeps, unleashing a storm of plasma cutters.
Even surging with power, Wire Sponge's optics widened as his chords were sliced to pieces, more cutters bouncing off the walls and flitting toward him. One cut through his head near the top, and his power surge halted, more slicing into his flanks and limbs.
X was already reverting his colors and busters, meeting the clone's eyes across the gap between them as one last cutter bounced off the rear wall, and cut Wire Sponge in half. The clone started to explode as X was washed over with light.
In the central chamber, X sighed, standing up straight from the teleport. "Are you just trying to exhaust me now?" he shouted to the room.
Nothing answered.
Fists clenched, X continued to the next teleporter.
Landing on a bed of junk pieces caused X to switch to speed burner immediately. "Morph Moth, we don't have to do this."
"Oh, but we do."
X twisted even as lines of junk started to tear back toward the little spider body Morph Moth started in. The Maverick Hunter started to twist, switch legs, and otherwise dance around the swiping lines of junk, while firing off blast after blast of speed burner.
As more flame burst and coiled around the spider body, Morph Moth started to stumble around, the junk crashing back down into the ground.
With a sudden whirl-rush, the spider drilled down into the junk, vanishing. X stood still, waiting, listening.
Morph Moth's fully realized form burst out of the junk behind X, glittering pink dust starting to fly toward him.
X's body was shimmering with power already, and he suddenly turned and lunged up at Morph Moth. His body ignited, turning into a flaming comet that carried him into Morph Moth, plowing into the top corner of the room, incinerating the dust that would have warped his circuits.
Kick-flipping off as he fired with both busters, X burnt both wings to cinders, forcing Moth to crash land on the ground with him. X trained both busters on the prone Maverick the next instant.
"Last chance. Stand down."
Morph Moth glowered, and started to lunge forward, dust bursting off his wrists. "DIE!"
Two blasts of speed burner tore most of his torso apart, leaving the burning body to crash back limp.
When ported back to the main chamber, X just started marching for the next, his colors reverting.
This chamber was tall and round. X stood up straight, glancing around. He stopped when Flame Stag came bounding in from side to side, crashing down to a crouch across from X. Already, blue fire was rippling off his head in twin antlers.
Flame Stag sneered, fire igniting off his wrists. "I'm going to tear you in half, and then find Alia. I think I'll rip off both arms this time, then take her head. What do you think?"
X's expression was a morose kind of dark, eyes narrowed to slits. "…Stand down."
"NO!"
Flame Stag ripped forward, ramming flames ahead of himself, all of it churning toward X like a siege blast.
X's colors snapped to gold and yellow, and he shot to meet the fire wave.
The clustering burst made Flame Stag skid to a halt, X flying through the fire unharmed as his arms swept bubble-splash plasma out to the sides, cutting through the attack. He knee-rammed Flame Stag's head back, landed, and their busters and hands crashed together as they leaned into each other, their bodies shivering.
"I'll enjoy watching you burn to cinders this close!"
X had to smirk faintly. "I'm going to have to burst that bubble."
Flame Stag twitched, and then they both fired. Bubble Splash tore the fire blasts apart before they could really get started, and continued on, blowing parts of Flame Stag's arms apart. He reeled back with a shout of pain.
X stepped in, machine-gun-punching with both fists, inflicting a barrage of dents on Flame Stag's chest plate before a final step-kick and thruster-blast sent the Maverick into the far wall.
Flame Stag stumbled forward, but parts of his body started to blow apart, his frame rattling and crashing to its knees.
"Too… powerful…"
As he blew apart, X was pulled out of the room by another teleportation.
Again, X marched to the next teleporter. There were only two active ones left.
It wasn't immediately clear who he would facing in the next chamber, so X waited for a moment. Then he heard the alien whistle of Crystal Snail's shell rushing through the air. The cloned leader of the Maverick team hurtled down from the ceiling, and popped out of his shell to land deftly, frowning up at X.
X colors switched, his busters converting to mine-throwers. "Stand down." His voice was cold this time, his optics almost dead without emotion.
Crystal Snail smirked. "Even you don't believe that's going to happen."
"But the offer stands."
Crystal Snail started to snap into his pose to unleash the time-space distortion, and X twirled, unleashing a cluster-cloud of magnet mines already flying free of his body.
The wave of distortion passed through the room, and Crystal Snail whirled into his shell, rocketing forward. X started to dive side, though he knew he'd take the hit. The shell seemed to guard Crystal Snail from the mines quite well, and X was clipped on the side, sending him spinning off into the air.
It was when Snail stopped, turned, and landed, the distortion fading, that all of the mines he hadn't hit suddenly came hurtling toward him. His optics flared, and he tried to rush back into his shell, but three of them caught him before he could make it in.
He was blown away from his shell, bounced along by four more mines that followed him, leaving him a smoking pile in the far corner.
X stood up, more mines ready on his arms already. "Last chance."
Crystal Snail glared up at him, and then slammed something on his chest. A moment later, he blew apart from self-destructing. X's eyes widened at this, but he was teleported out before he could react further.
Now with only one teleporter left, X sagged down to one knee for a moment. I'm getting used to this slaughter… That's the real loss. Stay focused, X. Don't lose it again.
Picking himself up, he moved to the last teleporter, already switching to Silk Shot's colors, his busters configuring.
Magna Centipede formed together with his unique shatter-teleport just as X arrived in the chamber with him.
"Ready for our rematch, X?"
X exhaled, and then met Magna's eyes. "Please, just stand down. None of this fighting is necessary." He nodded at his adversary. "Especially your expertise could help me find the virus' core here, and end this."
"Aw, that's cute!" Magna Centipede posed, and started to burst apart.
X's buster was up, and Magna's body slammed back together instantly. "No," was all X said, and then wrenched Magna around, slamming him into the far wall.
The massive claw-tail snapped apart, Magna Centipede stumbling aside. He started to teleport again, but X silk-shot him again, and flung him up into the ceiling.
Magna landed hard, and stumbled slightly. He stared at X with widened optics. "…Brutal, kid…"
"Stand down."
Magnet mines were in Magna's hands. "Now how it works!"
His arms wouldn't move, X's buster already up. The hunter wrenched backward, pulling Magna Centipede straight toward himself. Magna tried to unleash his mines, but his arms were held fast. X axe-kicked down into Magna's head, smashing it down into the flooring, the torso crashing down on the mines, triggering them.
The clone's body blew apart around X from the force of its own mines.
X appeared in the main chamber again, and the final teleporter was at last open and ready. The room also started to shake, the walls bursting and crashing apart all around him.
"It's been a while, Megaman X."
X glared up at the ceiling. "…Sigma."
"I've been looking forward to this meeting. I have an old friend I'd like you to meet. You'll find us in the computer facility. I suggest haste. That arctic base is about to melt itself down into the frozen depths."
He felt the signal end, and then Alia's voice burst through.
"X! Can you ready me!?"
"Yes, Alia. Sorry about that. I think Sigma finally cut the interference."
"Sigma…? Again?"
X looked at the teleporter. "Yep. And he's extended an invitation to the computer facility. This base is scrap. I have to try and end this."
"…Understood. I doubt I'll be able to reach you in there, X. Be careful?"
"As much as I can be, Alia. X out."
The comm died, and X leapt into the teleporter.
Author's Note:
This chapter was challenging to write. It called for fairly rapid-fire jumping between different elements, all of which were important for the reference to the game experience and the various plot inferences so far. Overall, the most vital elements were Serges speaking in Dr. Wily's voice, and X realizing the X-Hunters (Viral) are NOT infected, but actually aligned with the virus.
Serges' fate may seem like blowing over a major plot development, but really it's quite simple. He was a back-up plan, just a robotic copy of Dr. Wily's intentions. Not necessarily powerful, but built specifically to bring Zero back in his original, viral-host form. At this stage of the story, that's interesting, but a little moot. The virus itself is still the real enemy. Serges is just a disturbing echo of Dr. Wily. I chose to do it this way to both reference and handle the theory that Serges IS Dr. Wily. Nothing wrong with the theory, I just never cared enough about the game X-Hunters to want to make a bigger deal out of their existence. Still, it's a rich concept, and worth some kind of attention, so I ran with it half-way.
The fight with Agile stole the most from my own personal handling of that fight in the game. I 'cheated' by simply climbing the wall to the top corner, leaping off to dodge the electricity, and just blasting and wailing on Agile until he died. Making Agile a three-dimensional fight was the hardest, by far. The fight works great in a 2D environment, but starts to really get weird in three-dimensions. Hopefully it flowed enough.
The teleporters to the eight Mavericks always struck me as cheap, annoying, and DRAGGING in the game, so I decided to reflect that within the story, but validly so. Each fight has drama and shows an ever-escalating brutality that wears down X (and likely the reader), leading to his anger and frustration at the end of the chapter here. I think the way he finished Wheel Gator was particularly brutal yet satisfying to develop. Again, this is not intended to glorify the violence, but rather show it. Skill is involved, it's impressive to watch, but it's just harsh at the end of the day.
More next time, folks! Again, thanks for all the comments, favs, follows, and reviews!