Chapter 3: Childish Weather Wielder, Wire Sponge
With Overdrive Ostrich dealt with, X was able to return to the Maverick Hunter HQ safe and sound. After a brief trip to the repair pods so Alia could use the data from Dr. Light to fix the cuts in X's new armored boots, X made it back to the command center to meet up with Alia so he could plan out his next move. He looked at the map of the island on the central hologram, and saw that Overdrive Ostrich's mugshot had been blanked out with some static. Once more X's gaze was directed towards the Maverick who killed Persius, but as much as he wanted to go after him he knew he'd have to be patient.
Holding onto his arm cannon, X said "Persius…I'll avenge you soon enough." X then turned to where Alia was sitting and walked over to her, asking once he laid a hand on the back of her chair "Alia, what's the status on the rest of the Mavericks?" Alia responded while tapping away at her keyboard "Haven't gotten enough data on most of them yet through surveillance. But I do have a good idea on where you should go next. I was keeping an eye on the Weather Control Station while you were gone, and I'm worried about what might happen if we let it stay in the hands of the X-Hunters."
"The Weather Control Station? Doesn't that just regulate the weather on the island though?" X inquired with a puzzled glance, and Alia replied to him quickly with "In theory, it should only be able to do that…But I'm worried that the X-Hunters could get a hold of the technology inside and utilize it for other purposes, such as creating drones that could initiate storms over populated cities." "So you want me to go there next then. Alright, who is the Maverick guarding that location?" X inquired with a firm and understanding look in his eyes.
"The Maverick guarding the Weather Control Station is named Wire Sponge. I'll have more information to give to you once you get there." Alia said in a serious tone, and X commented as he began to turn away from the chair "Understood. Hmmm, Wire Sponge…I don't think I've heard that name before." But after X only got a few feet away from Alia, she suddenly said to him "Wait a second X, there's something else I want to discuss with you before you go."
X turns around and says with a surprised look on his face "What's up Alia?" Alia explained as she turned herself away from her computer screen "The data I got from that Light person's hologram…I might be able to examine it and determine where the remainder of the capsules are. When I'm done, I'll upload the information to your helmet so you can examine it for yourself." X blinked twice and said with a bright smile "That's incredible! I'm looking forward to seeing your results, Alia."
Alia then turned back to face her computer and went to work, leading to X running to the teleporter room so he could be taken to the Weather Control Station. Once inside the capsule, he is covered with a flash of light and sent back over to the island in a near instant, where he is dropped off at the entrance of the Weather Control Station. Dropped into a somewhat enclosed room with mind-green metal walls and a sliding door leading into the deepest parts of the station, X paused for a moment and decided to gather his surroundings, finding some pipes running pure rainwater through the left side of the room.
X then laid a hand on the side of his helmet and got in contact with Alia, who said to him quickly "Ok, you made it safe and sound. So you want to know more about Wire Sponge, correct?" X nodded his head and said politely "Tell me everything you know. It helped a lot to have the information against Overdrive Ostrich." After a sigh heard over the communication line, Alia told X with the utmost honesty "Unfortunately, Wire Sponge is a bit of an enigma. We have little to no information on him."
"How is that possible? I thought the Commander kept information on all Reploids within the database." X inquired in a very puzzled tone, to which Alia tried to explain to him "That is true…But Wire Sponge only appeared very recently. He's not been associated with the Maverick Hunters…Or any organization for that matter. The only thing we know about Wire Sponge is that he has some control over electricity, so it makes sense that he would be chosen to control this station. Be on your guard X, he's going to be a little tougher than Overdrive Ostrich."
"I-I'll be on my guard. Anything else I should know about?" X inquired, and Alia told him "As a matter of fact, there is. I'm detecting a strange signal coming from deep within the station. I'll let you know when you get closer to it, but I'm thinking it might be…" "An X-Hunter laboratory?" X stated with a firm glare in his eyes and a confident tone.
"It's very possible…But why would they be sending out a signal?" Alia inquired, being surprisingly confused by the X-Hunters' actions. "It has to be a trap. I'll be careful when I get near the signal." X stated, and Alia mentioned afterwards "Yeah. Do be careful. Alia out." After Alia dropped the communication line, X pumped his right fist up and then turned it into an arm cannon before advancing towards the sliding glass door.
The door opens the way upon feeling X's presence, and the moment he steps down onto the grass he is overcome with a feeling of humidity from the environment around him. Looking around, X saw a vibrant forest being maintained by a few regulated rays of sunlight projected from hovering lamps near the ceiling. X didn't get to enjoy the environment for long though as he looked ahead and saw a couple frog-like Reploids come out from behind some bushes. These frogs had smaller frogs on their backs, but both of them acted as cannons as they opened their mouths and brought out their gun barrel tongues.
They fired off some shots at X, but X leaped over them and aimed his arm cannon down to fire two small shots of his own at the smaller frogs to take them down instantly. Once he landed on the ground behind the bigger ones he swerved his upper body around and charged up his arm cannon, firing off a large shot that took out both Reploids and scorched a two-foot mark into the grass. Once he took out the first Reploids, X stood up and held his arm cannon in front of his chest while looking around at the environment again.
"This must be what they call a greenhouse…The people who used to run this place must have used the weather machines to sustain the plant life on the island." X thought to himself before he turned around and continued on further into the greenhouse, moving only a few feet before the sun's rays suddenly become much brighter, the temperature increasing along with the humidity of the environment. While X could not be brought to sweat since he was a robot, the increase in moisture would do nothing to help him if he let it last.
Coming up ahead was a gargantuan tree with a hollowed out passage and a strange orb atop a metallic altar. The orb was circulating with electricity at an irregular pace, but this area was not affected by the humidity. X leaped into the passage and leaned back against the side of the smoothed out wood, but kept enough awareness on him so that he was able to aim his arm cannon to the left of himself and take down another one of those frog Reploids once it leaped into the passage.
Once he had a few seconds to collect himself, X looked at the mysterious orb and decided to ask Alia while laying a hand against his helmet "Alia, I'm curious…Do these orbs help regulate the weather in this greenhouse?" "That's right. Wire Sponge must be overloading the system and making the weather go haywire. Destroy the orbs, it's better that we end up having to perform repairs than letting him overwhelm the greenhouse with different weather conditions. One charged shot should do." Alia explained, while midway through the conversation X had raised his arm cannon and was charging it.
"Already on it." X commented on before unleashing his charged shot and destroying the orb with one clean blast. There was nothing left of the orb but the wiring below it, all of it surging out with electricity that could harm X if any of it lashed his way. X thus leaped out of the other side of the passage and landed at the next part of the greenhouse, this time finding himself facing a rainstorm now that the high humidity had been rendered obsolete with the destruction of the orb summoning it forth. As the rain pattered against his metal frame, X turned around and took a few steps forward along the soggy grass, but stopped upon feeling an odd metallic hump in the middle of the ground.
X leaped back immediately on instinct, his caution working to his advantage as the hump turned out to be a camouflaged turret that slowly rises up from the ground attached to a metal pole and fires at X with a rapid barrage of lasers. X sideflips over the turret while aiming his arm cannon down and firing some shots at the top of it, breaking through the metal canopy of the turret and scoring a direct hit on the core. Once X landed on the ground the turret blew up, and X raised his arm cannon up to protect himself from the flying debris.
He kept a firm knee on the ground and listened past the falling rain as three more turrets rose up around him. With a quick 'tsk' of annoyance X turned himself around as he stood up and leaped back as the turrets fired upon his location, tracking him as he uses one hand to vault himself back and put himself close to the tree again. X took a few lasers to his legs and body as the turrets lifted themselves up to try and go for his head, but thankfully none of them broke through his armor.
X looked up at the lip of the tree's passage and leaped towards it, using his magnetic force to attract to the surface of the wall and then leap right off it, flying over all of the turrets laser fire while he aimed his arm cannon down at them. He was then covered in a flash of light as his body changed to a dark purple color, and instead of his regular shots X instead fired off three crescent blades from his arm cannon to slice right through the turrets as he went over them.
The split turrets slide apart before both halves explode in three simultaneous blasts, and X lands on the ground back in his normal armor coloring just close to the edge of a pit leading to sharp metallic thorns. Even with the slipperiness of the ground, X kept himself stable and immediately leaped over the pit to make it close to another tree passage with another orb. X didn't hesitate to destroy the frog Reploid guarding it and the orb itself with one quick charged shot, but he had to leap and use his air dash to get through the passage before the electricity from the orb could hit him.
On the other side of the tree passage, X now finds himself in a more jungle-like environment, with the rain having ceased and yet another pit filled with spikes getting in his way. X looked up and saw a series of cylinders sticking out of the wall that he could theoretically leap up to in order to get past the pit, but at the same time there were also some small levitating platforms that rose up and down that X could easily leap onto in order to make it to the small tree stump on the other side. "It'd be easy to ambush me from above…I'll take the bottom route." X rationalized as he grabbed onto his arm cannon and made the leap outward.
X landed atop the first rocket and immediately activated the magnet function on his boots so he doesn't fall off. He ducks down to make sure he doesn't hit the cylinders, and then leaps forward once he could reach another platform. After one more platform X leaps over to the tree stump and grabs onto the edge of it, keeping a firm grip on it for three seconds before he pulls himself up and finds another three rocket platforms over another bed of spikes.
X showed no fear and traversed the platforms to reach the other side, where upon landing safely he finds a very large tree with a passage burrowed inside of it and some lifts rising up to another part of the station. He vaults up into the tree passage, but before he gets to riding one of the lifts Alia suddenly chimes in and states "Wait a minute X! I'm sensing the source of that signal at the bottom of these lifts. Wait for one to pass by and then go down, but be careful."
X holds his arm cannon and waits for a lift to rise up, and the very moment a gap big enough for him to slide under appears he makes his move while stating "I'll watch out for the X-Hunters. Hopefully one of Zero's parts is here." X's quiet optimism did not escape Alia's ears, and she warned him as he landed onto a passage hidden away below the lifts "That could be what the signal is coming from. Seriously X, they'll use anything to try and trick you. There'd be no reason for them to bring the real parts here."
As the lighting in the passage becomes darker and darker, X finds himself approaching a couple of large, steel locked doors with the symbol of Sigma hovering above the door thanks to a holographic projector. X shoots the projector out of disdain towards Sigma, and then lays his hand on the door cautiously to see how it will react. To his surprise, the door opens up after a heavily pressurized click and whir, and X slowly walked inside of the room to see what was inside.
It wasn't a very big room, and there were a few computers running simultaneous data scans on what appeared to be a pair of robotic legs. This very same data was being fed through wires that went into the ceiling, and after a couple moments X began to hear a rather odd, relaxing piano piece being played within the room. He looked on ahead and raised his arm cannon up the very moment he saw the backside of a familiar face within the room.
It was Agile, the self-proclaimed leader of the X-Hunter organization. Agile was currently looking at the orb that contained the perfectly reconstruction legs and feet of Zero while sipping some wine from a glass and folding an arm behind his back. Upon hearing X moving a couple inches forward, Agile smirked and said "So you found me first, Maverick Hunter X." Agile then turned around and laid his wine glass down on the nearby research table, flicking a rose in a vase around with a single finger before he folded the arm behind his back and smiled.
"What are you doing down here, Agile?!" X exclaimed in a demanding manner, and Agile raised a hand up and said "Why don't you relax a bit, X? Am I threatening your life at this very moment?" X said to him in response while keeping his arm cannon raised "Don't try and trick me with your attempts at casual conversation, Maverick. I'm not going to be fooled."
"…A pity, that is." Agile says before snapping his fingers to shut off the piano music. He then told X while swerving his body sideways "Tell me X, how much does Zero mean to you?" X cautiously lowered his arm cannon a bit after thinking that over a bit, but his response to Agile's question was angered due to the gall the Maverick had "Zero is a friend and one of the greatest Maverick Hunters ever! I'm not going to let you use his parts for your own ends, X-Hunters!"
"Oh? Is that so? Then tell me, do you exactly know how to repair Zero yourself? Do any of your fellow Maverick Hunters?" Agile inquired while turning his head to see X's expression immediately turn into a scowl as no words left his mouth. Agile then laughed and said "Of course not. The only one who could've had any hope of doing so was Dr. Cain, and he perished at the hands of Lord Sigma when he led his first glorious uprising against the ignorant masses."
"I don't know why you would ever consider following the insanity of that traitor!" X exclaimed in sheer disbelief, and Agile replied while wiggling his pointer finger in front of himself "Watch your mouth there X. One Reploid's traitor is another Reploid's savior. In fact, a lot of the X-Hunters' organization consists of Reploids who were betrayed by the Maverick Hunters." "You don't have the right to call yourself Reploids anymore, Maverick!" X exclaimed with the same ferocity on his voice.
"…Such an ugly term, Maverick is…Tell me X, have you perhaps considered that we are the just Reploids and your group are the true Mavericks?" "Grrrrr…" Was X's response to Agile's nonchalant words. Agile then sighed and shook his head, stating with the utmost disappointment "A pity really. You are too enraged to see my way clearly…And Zero's parts are to blame. So before we begin, let me pose one more question to you. What makes you think you'll get all of Zero's parts?"
"What do you mean?" X asked firmly. "You have no way of knowing for certain which of these parts are real. And even if mine are, I can just easily tell my two comrades to switch them out for fakes, leaving you without anything but a pair of legs." Agile explained, but X didn't care for any of that and said "Even if I just grab one of Zero's parts…That's more than enough to stop you from misusing him." It was a simple if not naïve answer, but it was enough to slightly irritate Agile as he quickly moved his right hand down to his hilt and grabbed onto the handle of his weapon.
From the hilt he swiftly pulled out a thin but long red laser sword. Grasping the handle in both hands and pointing it towards X, Agile stated as the chamber behind him sealed up to protect Zero's leg parts "Then let us see how good you truly are, Maverick Hunter X!" Making true to his namesake, Agile sprinted forward towards X while rapidly slashing his laser sword out, his attacks coming out so quickly that X knew he wouldn't be able to dodge them in his current position. X thus leaped to the left and let Agile cut his blade slightly into the now sealed doors, leaving behind small burning gashes even in that thickness of steel before he readjusts himself immediately back into his starting pose and turned to look at X, who hadn't even landed on the ground.
Before X was on the ground, Agile leaped into the air while slicing his blade across the air in front of him, sending out a very tall wave of energy at his foe to throw him off. X had only enough time to swerve to the left before the energy wave could cut through him, though it does manage to slice an adamantium table in two with ease and break through the wall behind it, leading Agile to lament as X thrusts his arm cannon out and begins charging "That was a perfectly good table too…"
Once X fires off his charged shot, Agile casually and quickly swung his sword down to cut right through the charged shot easily. X was a bit shocked by this, but didn't lose enough of a focus as he realized now that he'd have to outsmart Agile instead of trying to hit him head on. "If only you were actually Zero…Then you'd be able to use his blaster wisely." Agile says while raising his arm up and swinging his sword around five times in a second. X then rapidly fired shots at Agile, who swung his sword around to deflect them all before they made it even a foot close to his body.
X then watched as Agile held his sword at a downward slant for just a moment, and X quickly switched over to Overdrive Ostrich's power and fired three Sonic Slicers right at Agile's right arm. Agile lifted his blade up to try and cut down most of the Sonic Slicers, but one slipped past his attack and cut right through his right shoulder armor. The piece of metal fell to the ground much to Agile's surprise, and he grinned before running right in front of X and bringing his sword down in one fast slice.
Since Agile went down for one downward slash, X had enough time to leap to the right, and he attached himself to the wall and aimed his arm cannon at Agile's body while firming his glare. He fired off three more Sonic Slicers in rapid succession, but this time Agile was more aware of the tactic and rapidly sliced the air in front of him four times to make sure he covered enough space to get the crescent beams dealt with. He then leaped up and sent off a crescent wave of his own again at X, forcing X to detach from the wall and duck down so the attack could just nick the left side of his helmet.
Though part of his helmet was cut off and electricity ran out of his broken wires, X knew such minimal damage could be ignored for now, especially since he can just get repaired at the base. Right now X reverted back to his normal color scheme and aimed his arm cannon at Agile while standing back up, thinking to himself about how quickly his shoulder armor went off. This made X realize that Agile's defenses were pretty thin, which is why he was able to move so quickly.
X fired a few shots aimed at Agile's left arm to distract him, making him swing his sword out in that direction to deflect them. X then runs at Agile's right side and tries to leap sideways while charging his arm cannon and aiming it at Agile's arm. But Agile was too quick, and before the charged shot could hit he turned around and sliced right through it. "You aren't going to hit me like that, X. I am the ultimate strategic mind…I know your every move." Agile says while grabbing his sword in both hands and then performing his charging forward move again, slashing the air while X rolled to the left to get out of the way.
However, X found his armor being cut into a few times across his body. They were small cuts, but they were going to add up if he let them keep appearing. X lays a hand against his chest and stands upright, holding his right arm cannon up and looking rather upset at this situation. Agile says with a disappointed look in his eyes "This really doesn't seem like the type of power that could've taken out Lord Sigma…Hmm, I guess Zero doesn't mean much to you if you aren't willing to go all-out. Oh well, that's just how it goes sometimes, dear X…"
Agile raises his sword up as X finds himself getting increasingly angered by what the Maverick was saying. "There comes a time when all Reploids become obsolete!" Agile exclaimed, and that there was the snapping point for X. Combining his anger with the desire to bring Zero back from the grasp of the X-Hunters, X's helmet crystal suddenly starts glowing bright orange as he suddenly becomes filled with a mysterious energy.
When Agile's sword slash comes down, X manages to suddenly outspeed it by dashing to the left of the blade, something that catches Agile off-guard as he exclaimed "W-What?!" X then leaped right at Agile's right arm and exclaimed with all of his ferocity "YOU'RE WRONG! RAAAAAAAAAAAH!" His left hand then burned bright orange like his crystal, and he grabbed onto Agile's shoulder with so much strength that he manages to crush it right off from the rest of the body with ease.
Agile recoils back while letting out a surprised grunt, his arms falling to the ground and letting go of the sword at the same time, and Agile is backed up into the wall holding Zero's part while X landed on the ground with the crystal on his head still glowing. Agile raised an arm to his malfunctioning wiring and lost his composure a bit with some disturbance in his eyes. But then his expression turned into a grin of laughter, and he admitted to X "Hahaha…So this is it. This is the 'potential' of the Maverick Hunter X."
"It's over Agile! Give up Zero's parts or I will obliterate you!" X exclaimed with all of the demand he could muster, and Agile just laughed a bit more before stating with a hint of delight "You're more than welcome to have them, X! Now I have an idea of what we're up against here, and I'll prepare accordingly for our next battle. Hehehehe!" "AGILE!" X exclaimed before he leaped at the Maverick again ready to attack him, but with a sudden flash of light Agile is sent out of the room and X's hand punctures right through the back of the wall behind where he stood.
X stays there for a few seconds with an angered scowl on his face before he hears the sound of the wall opening, which causes the glow to leave his helmet and hand as he calms down a bit and looks up to see Zero's leg parts coming out of the wall while the barrier of energy still surrounded it. X caught the sphere in both hands and blinked a couple times while looking at them, stating in a quiet tone of surprise "What just happened there…? I fought Agile off…But what was that power? And why do I feel like I've used it before?"
X is then taken off of his line of thinking when Alia suddenly contacts him via a shaky connection "X-…X…X! Can you hear me X?! I finally broke through the interference the X-Hunters had setup, are you ok?! Answer me, X!" X clasped Zero's leg parts close to his body and said while laying a hand against the right side of his helmet "I'm alive Alia…I encountered Agile, the leader of the X-Hunters, but managed to fight him off and get Zero's legs back. I'm going to need you to teleport them back to HQ."
"Now that the interference is gone, I can do that easily. But what about you X? Do you want to come back to base real quick and heal before continuing after Wire Sponge?" Alia inquired, expressing a tiny bit of concern for X's damaged body. X looked at himself real quick and then replied with his head hung high and confidently "It's ok. I can still pull through here. We don't have time to waste, not while the X-Hunters have something planned. Just send me back to the main part of the greenhouse and I'll continue on my way."
"…Alright X. Don't overdo it. Who knows what could push your circuitry too far…" Alia said with a cautious warning, and then she used her technological know-how in order to get a teleported signal locked onto both Zero's leg parts and X himself. Zero's leg parts are brought back to the Maverick Hunter HQ while X is sent out of Agile's laboratory and brought up to the part of the greenhouse directly above this room. Now that he was back onto his main mission and had some reassurance that Zero's legacy would be protected from the X-Hunters' plans, X held a hand onto his arm cannon and said calmly "Ok…Resuming mission."
X felt a lot more relaxed regarding the mission now that he had claimed some of Zero's parts, and with an intense focus and the same skills he utilized before he traversed the rest of the greenhouse and destroyed any Reploids that got in his way. He didn't take a single hit along the way, and he blasted through the glass doors leading to the last part of the station with a charged shot. Leaping into the green metal corridors, X performed one roll and then leaped up to climb a couple of ladders and eventually make it to the steel doors that could only be assumed to lead the way to where Wire Sponge was at.
X lets the doors slide open so he can make his way into the last room in the station. Inside this small room were a few large control cylinders wrapped in thick metallic vines, and there was a bunch of moss and vines growing out of control on the floor, walls and ceiling. X then turns to the left and sees a shadowy figure swinging around across the cylinders while they giggled childishly. The figure then leaped away from the cylinders and slowly descended from the ceiling with one of his jagged tipped whips.
The Maverick in question was a metallic bipedal sponge with two springy arms coming out of purple rubber shoulders, two long wires sticking out of his armpits that have two pike-like prongs attached to them. His legs were black, light-green and orange in that order of colors, and his eyes were cross with tiny red pupils and placed against some black metal. His head was topped with an odd metallic plant, and his mouth was a grated blue piece of metal.
The Maverick grabbed onto his wires near the bottom of the prongs and giggled a little more, leading to X saying to him "What's so funny, Wire Sponge?" "Hehehe! You finally showed up X! I've been so excited to kill you all this time!" Wire Sponge exclaimed with childish delight in his filtered voice. "I've never even met you before. Why would you want to kill me?" X asked in a rather cautious manner.
"You don't know meeeeee, but you know my creeaaaaator!" Wire Sponge said in a gleeful and taunting manner, and X's eyes widened in surprise before he said "Y-Your creator? Who created you?" "It's Sigma, of course! Lord Sigma created me!" Wire Sponge admitted all too happily. X's expression immediately becomes one of complete and utter disbelief at what he just heard.
"S-Sigma? That's impossible. Sigma created his own Maverick?!" X stated, and Wire Sponge stated "Hehehe! Nothing is impossible for Lord Sigma! He was the Reploid that was going to lead us all into a new age, but then you had to go and kill him X! So now, I'm going to kiiiiiiiill you!" X firmly grasped his arm cannon and said "Not going to happen, Maverick! I won't let you mess around with the weather here anymore!"
Wire Sponge's head then compressed down against the rest of his body, making his eyes turn into very thin dark red slants as steam erupts from the top of his head and he proclaimed "Tiiiime to diiiie!" with all the child-like enthusiasm you'd expect from him. Once Wire Sponge was back to being upright he thrusts his right whip out and has it extend all across the room towards X. Though X swerved out of the way, Wire Sponge punctured into the wall and pulled himself across the room towards his foe.
When he was close to X, Wire Sponge tried to spin around and attack X with his other whip, but he didn't even nick the armor before he slammed into the wall. But due to his sponge-like build, he bounces right off and immediately untwirls his wire off from his body to shoot it out at X again. But without a wall to attach it to he just immediately starts to pull back on it. However, X grabs onto the wire with his right hand and lets himself get pulled in closer to Wire Sponge and throw a punch right into his face.
X's punch digs into Wire Sponge's face but doesn't appear to do any damage, proving that the 'Sponge' part of his name wasn't just for show. X immediately pulled his hand out of his foe's face and leaped back before Wire Sponge could use his very mobile wires to slice away at his armor. As Wire Sponge happily flails his arms around his body, X begins to think up a plan on how to defeat his foe since physical force doesn't appear to be working. Considering the nature of Wire Sponge's body, X deduced that perhaps a sharp attack would be more advantageous.
As such he switched to his dark purple color scheme, making Wire Sponge remark in a curious tone "Oooh! You changed colors!" But this is met with X firing out a Sonic Slicer from his arm cannon that goes through the air and cuts halfway through Wire Sponge's right arm. The upper part of the arm falls to the ground and flails a bit while Wire Sponge looks at it with widened eyes and said "Oh! That was my arm!" But X didn't bother to listen to the Maverick's cry of pain as he took the Sonic Slicer and used it to cut down his other wire arm. Wire Sponge was now seemingly unable to attack, and X aimed his arm cannon at him ready to deal one more attack to take him down.
Compared to Agile, Wire Sponge was very easy, and X didn't have any qualms of dealing with the Maverick considering he started off this way instead of being a Reploid that went Maverick. "Sigma made a mistake when he created you, Wire Sponge!" X exclaimed before he fired off a Sonic Slicer right at the center of Wire Sponge's body. However, Wire Sponge suddenly crunched down and filled up with an angry bright red color, the ceiling dropping down electricity into the plant on his head as he exclaimed while stamping his feet in a tantrum "YOU'RE A JERK, MAVERICK HUNTER X!"
X's Sonic Slicer hits Wire Sponge's body and bounces off of it due to his hardened body, and X immediately leaps to the right and gets onto the wall right as Wire Sponge unleashes a large blast of electricity in multiple directions, violently burning away at the vines and moss around him and even some of the walls had their metal melted through by the electric blasts. X had to swerve his body around while sticking to the wall in order to avoid getting hit with the electricity for a few seconds.
Wire Sponge could only rely on this attack for so long until he exhausted himself, his body color returning to normal as the room is filled with steam and such from his overuse of electricity. Wire Sponge still looked compressed and panted a bit through his grated mouth, but X ended the Maverick's misery by landing on the ground and firing off one more Sonic Slicer that cut right through the middle of Wire Sponge's body diagonally, the Maverick letting off just a simple cry of "L-Lord…S-S-S-Sigma!" in a malfunction voice before his upper half slides down to the right and his bottom half falls back a few seconds later.
X reverts his armor color back to normal and cautiously moves around the burning metal holes created by Wire Sponge's desperate attack, approaching his body and using his copy power to acquire his ability, which briefly changed his armor color to a bright ivory until it reverted back and he stood up, and he laid a hand onto the right side of his helmet and said "Weather Control Station secured, Alia. But…" He turned around and looked at the fact that the control cylinders were heavily scarred by the lashes of electricity and said "It'll take some repairs to get everything back up and running."
"I'll send a team down later to start on that. Great job here though, X. Still…I'm a bit concerned with what Wire Sponge said." Alia commented on, and X nodded his head and said in agreement "Yes, Wire Sponge couldn't have been the only Maverick Sigma had built. I just wonder when he could've had the time to do this…" "Who knows. Records on Sigma's activities between his creation and the rebellion has mostly been deleted, so all we can hope to do is find out more information from any more of those types of Mavericks." Alia stated.
"Right…There's probably more of them amongst the X-Hunters, I'm sure of it. Anyways, I'm ready to go back to base Alia." X said, and Alia told him as she could be heard setting up the coordinates for the teleportation beam "Already on it. Two down, six to go X…" And with that reply X was caught by the beam of light that would bring him right back to Maverick Hunter HQ, and he left the split remains of Wired Sponge behind to their forgotten fate…
Next Time: Vengeance Justified?