Chapter 13: The Mystery of Supra-Force Metal
With the facility still in disarray from Dynamo's surprise attack, it was relatively simple for Vile and Nana to escape. The car they'd left far from the base's perimeter hadn't been spotted yet and Vile stuck to flying as low as he could. The heavy snowfall and rocky terrain hid them perfectly as soon as they got clear from the confused defenses. Vile landed next to the vehicle and moved his arm from around the operator's waist, who had been holding on for dear life. She'd never flown before, at least not without being inside a craft or at low speed. She was a bit woozy and almost fell over, but managed to keep her balance by leaning against the side of the car.
"Hurry up already! I doubt your buddy will resort to bashing in heads to keep security from coming after us," Vile got into the passenger seat of the car as he berated Nana.
"Don't rush me! I'm sure you'd prefer me not to be a bundle of nerves when I'm driving through this snow at 80 miles per hour," she almost hissed as she took a seat behind the wheel and started the engine.
Vile could've always taken the wheel, but he was both too lazy and Nana refused to have him drive like he had the ride chaser back in West City. The car lifted up off the ground as the hover modules underneath it hummed back to life. Snow was whipped up around them due to the lift created by the mechanism. Nana activated the navigation display on the dashboard so as to get her bearings, before spinning the wheel and putting her foot down on the pedal. The snowstorm in the mountains made for poor visibility but there were no signs of a chase so far. As such, the operator was able to keep their speed on the lower end to make the trip safer.
It didn't take them long to reach the business in a small town they'd rented the car from. Word of the attack was already spreading as the sounds and smoke of explosions could be seen all the way to the town once the blizzard had cleared up. News reports were also running on monitors in various establishments along the road they were traversing. Despite that awareness, citizens didn't seem overly concerned yet, especially since they had not been given any requests by law enforcement to be on the lookout for possible perpetrators.
Nana pulled over at a small business with a neon-lit sign identifying it as 'Jelloman Rentals', and drove into the garage.
Vile had been keeping an eye on the pedestrians and other vehicles on the road to make sure they weren't being watched or followed. So far, so good, but he knew they'd need to hurry if they were going to make it back to Giga City in one piece. Still, his attention was grabbed by a bright yellow and blue sign that gleefully proclaimed the shop's motto: 'Jelloman Rentals, we might be jelly, but our cars sure aren't!'. The awful pun did little to improve the renegade's mood as he grumbled under his breath. "These people are idiots. I should do us all a favor and incinerate 'em."
"You'll behave. We're lucky we still have a chance at a clear sailing all the way to the transfer service. If you start shooting people, I doubt the authorities will give us a friendly smile and let us get on our way," Nana parked the car in its designated spot and deactivated the levitation mechanism.
They had paid for the rent in advance, so all they needed to do was walk passed the man at the counter and drop the keys in a box. The place was so backwater that no one knew what Vile looked like, so all they did was give him odd looks due to his gear. Most probably assumed he was military, a freelancer or a Hunter. Whichever they decided on, they knew not to bother him.
"Hey! You two! Excuse me!" It was the owner that called out to them, causing Nana to visibly stiffen at being addressed.
"Yes?" Nana turned around to look at the man, managing to dispel all uncertainty from her face, at least for now. She hoped for the proprietor's sake that he didn't suspect either of them of anything, as she could tell Vile was already poised to end the man's life prematurely.
"You seen the news? That's some crazy stuff up there in the mountains. They're saying one of those top secret buildings got attacked. You see or hear anything?" the old man had gotten up from his chair that was strategically placed to be facing his aging television screen at all times. Before either of them could respond, though, he paused as a thought entered his head. "Wait. Didn't you say you were heading up to the Nordic one?" He was about to look back at the screen where the attacked facility's name was still being prominently featured. He did not get that far.
Nana gasped as Vile flared his boots and crossed the distance between them and the garage owner in an instant. He grabbed him by the throat hard and lifted the struggling proprietor up off the ground without effort. The front runner hummed to life once more and angled to aim straight for the helpless man's head. The former Hunter didn't particularly feel like making a bloody mess – as humans were want to – but he'd make an exception in this case.
"Pl-Please, no!" the man's plea was barely more than a gasp as Vile gripped his throat shut so tight that it almost snapped under the strain.
"Vile! Stop, please!" the operator ran up to her associate, not wanting more blood on her hands for associating with the wanted criminal. She gripped the arm that held the man up by his throat, and tried to pull it away. However, the purple Reploid barely budged, though he did tilt his head to look down at Nana.
The eye contact remained for just a few tense moments before Vile looked back at the man who continued to struggle for air. For a brief moment, Nana closed her eyes and feared for the worst. But, the sound of a cannon's discharge did not come. Instead, she heard a dull thud as the old man was released and fell to the ground. Had he just strangled him instead?! No. Nana could tell he was still breathing, though he had been knocked out. Vile had given him a headbutt, perfectly measured to make the elderly owner see stars, but not enough to cause permanent damage. Given the human's age, it showed surprising precision and restraint from the violent Reploid.
The shoulder cannon deactivated and reverted to its upward position. Vile shoved his arm free, causing Nana to fall over with a soft 'oomph'.
"Stop wasting time. Let's go, woman," Vile then walked past her, leaving her on the floor as he left the establishment.
The operator's blue eyes fell on the unconscious form of the business' owner and lingered there for a few moments. What just transpired wasn't fully registering with her.
'Did he... do what I asked?' It almost seemed that way. But, instead of proving Vile right and indeed wasting more time, she scrambled to her feet and opted to think about what just happened later.
The transfer home was uneventful, which was the best outcome they could have hoped for. No sooner did they walk into the living room-turned Nana's operations room, and the pink-haired Reploid was already behind her virtual keyboard, attempting to contact Professor Gaudile. Vile on the other hand, decided to use the time to take a break and reload his weapons. Dynamo had scratched his new paint job, to say the least, but he just needed an hour – at most – in their recharge pod to be good as new.
"Strange. I can't seem to reach him..." Nana was thinking aloud, with her words only really intended for herself. Every time she attempted to contact the peculiar scientist, she was disconnected almost immediately. It was as if an automated device simply canceled all incoming calls the moment they registered. That wasn't exactly something anyone would do, but than again, the professor was both eccentric and enjoyed his privacy. That fact didn't put Nana's mind at ease and she decided to not waste another moment thinking about it. She took a page out of Vile's book – for better or worse – and decided to act first, leaving questions for later. The coordinates to the dome housing the professor's research facility were easy enough to find and she patched them through to the transfer module in the back room.
"Vile, we're all set! I couldn't reach him, though, so I'm not sure what kind of welcome to expect," she walked into the side room.
Vile had just finished loading his right arm with fresh machine gun rounds. He closed up the armor protecting his lower arm and raised it to flex his hand and make sure everything was in place. "Let's get this over with, than. I'm losing my patience with all this running around. I want answers," Vile got up from the stool he'd sat down on and walked past the shorter Reploid.
Nana reached for the box containing the Supra-Force Metal and clutched it to her chest tightly. She took a deep breath to center herself and watched Vile walk into the transfer room. Gaudile despised war and conflict of any kind. A pacifist through and through, she knew that the professor found Vile to be absolutely abhorrent. He wasn't necessarily wrong, of course, but it went further than that. Vile was the type that would use Gaudile's inventions to hurt people. So far, the renegade hadn't used any Force Metal, at least none she could see. It was odd. Maybe a matter of pride? He wouldn't be the first to opt out for those very reasons. But, now she was bringing the walking weapon into Gaudile's home, and their troubles along with him. She could only hope the professor could forgive her.
Giga City was divided into many different hexagonal nodes, each connected to one another through transfer modules, bridges and walkways. Gaudile's laboratory was located within one such a node. A synthetic forest created as the testing ground for technology that would hopefully help revive nature in areas of Earth hit hard by pollution or disasters such as the Eurasia Incident. The forest covered an entire node on its own, something Gaudile had taken full advantage of when he secluded himself in it during Epsilon's uprising. Every single tree, plant and even blade of grass in the forest was man-made, usually referred to as mecha-plants. Despite all of it being synthetic, the whole facility was still given an oddly mystical quality. A clear dome covered the node and kept temperatures and weather regulated within. Gaudile was known to use it to control various environmental situations in which he would perform one of his many experiments.
Circuitry, metal panels and synthetic materials were intertwined with simulated bark, foliage and moss to make the forest feel more warm and natural. Even the insects, birds and other animals that populated the otherwise empty forest were largely Mechaniloids that performed some function to maintain the mechanical environment. Some of the birds were observers, for example, while others were even armed and could act as security if need be. Of course, those had largely been deactivated by the pacifist professor by that point.
While it was possible to wander the forest floor and fly over the treetops, traveling through the facility was generally done by crossing elevated, glass passageways from one tree-like hub to the next. Those walkways crisscrossed through the forest in a network that would be akin to a maze for those who didn't know their way around. Fortunately, Nana was one of the remaining Reploids on Giga City that knew the layout like the back of her hand. She had transferred them to a module close to Gaudile's laboratory, meaning they wouldn't have to walk far to reach it. After materializing, they made their way through the tube-like passageways until they came upon the blast doors that barred them entry into the laboratory, which had been constructed halfway up one of the larger mecha-trees in the forest.
The door was shut tightly and other than what resembled an intercom attached to the wall next to it, there didn't seem to be any way of making one's presence known. Nana walked up to the communication device and pressed a single button. She hoped someone would actually hear it. She wasn't sure if there was any other way to get in there that didn't involve powerful explosives they simply had no access to.
Vile, in the meantime, crossed his arms and leaned against the glass of the walkway. Why Reploids often got the bright idea of using nature as inspiration was beyond him. He saw no point to it other than aethetics, and even that wasn't exactly worth the trouble. Reploids weren't a product of the natural order of things, so why turn back the clock? As he stood there, he felt an odd sensation creep up on him, however. He felt watched. He looked to his right, trying to see beyond the treeline and the thick undergrowth that inched up the simulated bark. It was impossible to look more than 10 feet at anything that was eye level or lower. The forest was simply too wild.
"Hm?" The former Maverick Hunter let his arms drop again and stood up straight. He could've sworn he had seen something move, just beyond the trees. Leaves had swayed ever-so-slightly. He would have attributed it to a passing gust of wind, but nothing else had moved in a similar fashion. He started walking towards the other end of the tube to take a closer look.
"Vile, the door unlocked," the pink-haired navigator called for his attention as the blast door slowly opened up.
The renegade turned his gaze back from Nana to where he had seen the movement, but eventually, he chalked it up to being high-strung. It was just his imagination. He took a step back and turned around to follow his partner in.
"This place is huge. Why does he need all this room? Most of it's wasted on this fake forest anyway."
"To be honest? I have no idea. That's something only the professor can answer," Nana had sometimes found herself wondering the same thing.
They approached another large door at the end of a corridor, which slid open automatically once they had neared it enough. A circular room within the synthetic tree revealed itself. A thick pillar rose up into the dark ceiling above from the center of the room. Every inch of wall had some kind of equipment installed on it, whether it was a monitor, a terminal or a cabinet containing supplies and tools. Most of the floor was covered by metal panels, but the same bark as outside peered through the cracks in some places. Tables and strange machines made up the rest of the room's furniture. Together with the piles of notes, datapads and random shelves, it was rather difficult to safely move around the chamber, despite its size.
Nana recognized the lab from the video feed she'd watched when X and his allies had paid Professor Gaudile a visit. She was pleased to see he had already managed to repair all the damage inflicted by Epsilon's forces during their raid on the laboratory.
"Hello?" Nana called out, but almost instantly, they could hear something fall from a table on the other side of the pillar.
Vile immediately activated the front runner and took aim.
"Put down that weapon! You're visitors here, and I won't be held at gunpoint in my own home! Not a second time, at least..." Gaudile's high-pitched voice was dripping with annoyance at being disturbed, and quite rudely at that in his opinion.
Vile sighed the moment he saw the short, platypus Reploid appear from around the pillar, one stubby arm reaching for his backside to rub the soreness from his fall away. He didn't so much walk as hobble, and his red backpack with robotic limbs only made it worse by making him top-heavy.
"Nana? What are you doing here?"
"I let them in, professor. I saw them on one of the cameras," the sweet voice of Cinnamon could be heard as the adorable Reploid medic walked into the room from a different passageway. She glowed with a big, bright smile as she usually did.
"Oh. I see," Gaudile cleared his throat and tilted the goggles over his eyes upwards, so he could see them better.
"I tried calling in advance several times, but I couldn't get through," Nana approached the professor, clearly relieved to see he was fine.
"Yes, I tend to turn all that noisy stuff off when I work," Gaudile gave a dismissive wave of his stubby hand at the notion of people being able to reach him. He liked his privacy and went to great lengths to keep it. "What do you need? Your pet war machine seems to still be in one piece. So I don't think it's more repairs you want to beg me for," Gaudile turned around and walked towards one of his tables to look at a print-out of information related to whatever he had been doing at the time. To the uninitiated, it would simply appear to be a jumbled mess of numbers, graphs and figures.
Vile sneered at being called a pet, but before he could say or do anything but take a single step forward and bring up his index finger, Nana placed the box containing the Supra-Force Metal on the table, in front of the professor.
"What's this?" beady eyes glanced up at the pink-haired operator.
"Something we need to learn all we can about, if we're to find who's behind the mess me and Vile are in," Nana motioned for him to take a look. "I think you'll find it quite interesting yourself," a little smile tugged at her lips, as she knew how much Gaudile regretted not having had the chance to study Supra-Force Metal over a longer period of time.
Gaudile's left eye widened in obvious curiosity and he wasted no time in opening the box. He was immediately met by the glow of the precious fragment inside. "This is... Supra-Force Metal. How? Where did you get this?! The only fragments left are in government hands, and at the Nordic-," Gaudile didn't finish his sentence and instead looked up at Nana. His expression was a mix of surprise, disappointment and accusation. "Please tell me you had nothing to do with that theft? Or the attack in the mountains that's been reported!"
The navigator shook her head. "Not the theft. And we weren't responsible for the attack, but we were there. A mercenary called Dynamo had infiltrated the facility while I was visiting to see if I could find out more about the fragment they'd stolen before. Massimo was there and helped defeat the intruder. He gave us a chance to leave with it and bring it here to you."
"Dynamo, hm? Hrm... I hope he gets what's coming to him one of these days. Still can't believe someone would cause the deaths of so many people just for money," Gaudile's eyes fixed on Vile briefly, as he referenced the fall of the Eurasia colony, for which Dynamo was responsible. "However, some don't even do it for that," the comment was too quiet for Vile to hear, even though the renegade's body language showed nothing but aggression at clearly being talked about.
"So, what do you want me to do, exactly? It's fairly obvious that they want the fragment for its properties. They might even be so stupid as to try installing it in someone again."
"We don't think that's what they're after. Whoever's behind all this is someone on the inside of the Maverick Hunters. This person would have full access to any files regarding Supra-Force Metal," Vile interjected as he began to wander the circular chamber, watching a mass of data scroll up one of the professor's monitors with minimal interest.
"Exactly. So this person would know the dangers of carelessly installing even a fragment. We need to find out what abilities this fragment might bestow specifically," Nana closed the box again and rested her hand atop it. "If we find that out, we might be able to determine what they would use it for. Hopefully, that will point us in the next direction. Because right now? We don't have a single lead left."
"I suppose that makes sense. Tell me, how much do you actually know about Force Metal?" Gaudile carefully opened the box again and removed the fragment with the arms on his backpack. He then began waddling over to a device built into the pillar in the center of the room.
"The basics, mostly. It can be installed to heighten Reploid abilities and generally makes us better at certain tasks."
"Nothing," Vile answered honestly, as he turned away from the monitor to notice Cinnamon had approached him. She'd been staring intently at him the entire time. The young Reploid didn't recognize Vile, so she seemed intrigued. He was also not a type of Reploid she'd seen on Giga City.
"Nana, shame on you. For someone from Giga City to know so little about what put the place on the map in the first place," Gaudile shook his head but his reprimand was mostly well-meaning. The professor began setting up his equipment and closed the hatch to the scanning device. "Force Metal is one of the greatest mysteries of today. Even after years and years of study we still understand very little about how and why it has the effects it has on Reploids. Originally, it was believed the mineral could have an effect on any kind of synthetic life, but Mechaniloids proved that wrong very quickly. Either Force Metal barely has any effect on them, or none at all," the stout scientist moved from one side of the room to the other, initializing the machines he was going to use to analyze the fragment.
"It's the mutable building blocks that make up our inner bodies and makes us unique – our DNA Soul – that makes the mineral react to us in a certain way. Depending on the ore, the processing methods, the way it's installed and specifics of a Reploid's DNA Soul, Force Metal has effects that run the whole gamut. Some make us smart, some make us faster. Others make us stronger while others are far more specialized than that and make us better at very specific tasks," He raised a single digit as he looked back at the other Reploids in the room. "But, for all of its mysteries and potential, Force Metal just doesn't compare to what we found years after Force Metal's initial discovery."
Nana listened intently as the professor continued to reveal what he knew about the mineral from outer space. He even managed to capture and hold Vile's attention.
"Opinions vary here from scientist to scientist, but we all know mine is the only one that counts," he started arrogantly. "According to my research, Force Metal is merely Supra-Force Metal that has begun breaking down. The mineral, like precious stones, develops over thousands of years, but there seems to be some kind of cycle in the process. Once Supra-Force Metal reaches a certain density and power, it breaks down again, expanding and shattering, until we are left with an abundance of its constituent minerals. Regular Force Metal."
"So what you're saying is that Supra-Force Metal is like a collection of the Metal we use here?" Nana walked up to Gaudile's monitor, which had begun displaying various graphs with readings as his machinery started their analysis.
"Exactly. Naturally, the immense quantity of Force Metal required to make its Supra counterpart is so vast that it is a complex and expensive process to undertake. But, not impossible. As you saw during your battles with Epsilon and Redips. It is possible to make Supra-Force Metal. It's just... difficult. The powers involved also explains why Supra-Force Metal is simply too much for today's Reploids to handle. However, unlike regular Force Metal, it may also be used as some sort of power source. Its raw energy could be used to power a machine that would ordinarily require enormous power plants to function," the professor worked fast as he spoke, energized and gleefully hobbling from one end of the lab to the other to watch and study the output of the machine.
"Do you think that's why they might want to get their hands on some?" Nana was getting increasingly worried the more she learned about the fragment.
"No way to know yet. You'll have to be patient. Depending on the Force Metal used to make up the original piece of Supra-Force Metal this fragment came from, as well as the process used to make it, it could do any number of things. We haven't really gotten the chance to explore Supra-Force Metal in great detail, but we already know its properties are as – if not more – varied than regular Force Metal."
"Why do you have a medic around? You don't blow things up all the time, I hope? Because we're not bringing you another fragment," Vile finally spoke up and pointed at Cinnamon. She had stopped staring at the former Hunter and was instead helping her 'father'.
Gaudile snorted in response, not keen on answering any questions Vile had.
"The professor created her. She's unique," Nana offered the young Reploid a warm smile.
"You mean slow?" Vile's question was blunt and crass, as he thought she didn't seem to be the smartest crayon in the box.
Gaudile almost tripped over something in surprise at the insulting question, while Cinnamon merely tilted her head to the side, curiously.
"What? No!" Nana felt like slapping the mercenary. "Installed within her is the Force Metal Generator, also invented by the professor. It's one of the reasons his lab was attacked by Epsilon during the Rebellion; they wanted him for what he knew and Cinnamon for what rested within her chest."
Vile looked over to Cinnamon quietly for a few moments and then turned his attention over to Gaudile. "How are you able to create something that generates Force Metal if you barely know how it works?"
"Well..." Gaudile cleared his throat hesitantly, his fingers still typing away at a virtual keyboard with urgency. "I have to admit that was more luck than anything else. And it might not be the best chosen name. You need existing pieces of processed Force Metal to transmute into the known types you want. But, given time, I should be able to upgrade it to be able to craft Force Metal ore into any type."
"Hm," Vile scoffed lightly and let his gaze turn to Cinnamon. "That makes you valuable. Doesn't it?"
The medic didn't get nervous from the renegade's stare at all and simply continued to smile brightly.
"How long will it take you to complete your tests?" Nana straightened her back after spending some time leaning over the professor. She was getting tired and wanted to rest as soon as she could.
"At least a couple of hours. Cinnamon, show our guests to a room. I'm sure they'd like to rest up. And, I'd prefer not to be poked with incessant question while I work," Gaudile wanted to focus entirely on his work now, and the two of them were making that exceedingly difficult.
Cinnamon bowed lightly and turned to the two visitors. "This way, please," she motioned for one of the doors that lead back out into the maze. "It's not far, so you won't get lost," she added sweetly. Her blonde hair waved as she turned around elegantly and began walking through the halls. She perpetually gave the air of a carefree child. Her eyes admired everything she passed on by.
"Professor Gaudile seems even crankier than usual," Nana had taken to walking next to Cinnamon, with Vile following behind them.
"It's because he's worried about you. He thinks you're going to get hurt."
Nana smiled slightly and looked back at the lab.
The guest rooms were small, but homely. Because Gaudile didn't exactly get many visitors, the chambers were still very neat and looked almost brand new. There were two beds and two regeneration pods so that the room could provide shelter to both Reploid and human. Some Reploids even preferred a bed over the pods anyway, as rest still allowed Reploids to regenerate, just much more slowly than when using the assistance of pods or energy crystals.
Vile decided on a pod, as he'd had enough of beds for a lifetime. He'd been forced to sleep on them for the entire time he couldn't afford proper repairs.
Nana, on the other hand, sat down on the edge of one of the beds and stared up into an empty corner of the room for a few moments. She felt like bringing up the incident back at the car rental, but quickly decided against it. Her partner seemed as ill-tempered as always, and she would much rather keep the peace for a little while.
Once Vile lay down in the pod, he deactivated himself without another word, the pod just sliding shut to begin regenerating his power supply and patching up any damage he'd incurred up to that point.
Vile was starting to lose his patience with this whole investigation, and it was obvious to the navigator. She knew he was a Reploid of action. She could only hope he would stop himself from losing his mind entirely until they actually found an enemy to direct him at. With a deep sigh, she lay down on her chosen bed and closed her eyes. She had been even more tired than she thought, so it didn't take long at all for her to enter sleep mode.
It was dark. Only the humming of machinery could be heard, but it was barely audible and distorted as if an obstacle dulled the sound before it reached Vile's aural sensors. He couldn't move! Were his arms restrained? He attempted to lift any part of his body even an inch, but failed. He wasn't restrained, though, his body's motor function had been disabled. He tried to call out, but couldn't speak. Somehow, he knew no one would respond even if he could, though. Suddenly, a blinding flash forced his optics to quickly adapt and a metal ceiling was revealed above him. The plexiglass top of the pod he was laid in opened slowly. Vile still couldn't move, so his eyes remained fixed on the dull gray above him. He heard voices somewhere to his right, speaking in worried tones.
"Are you sure about this, doctor? I mean... You saw what happened to model 4. Even now I'm not sure the reset really erased our mistakes from his memory and systems," it was a female voice that he could detect.
"Don't worry, my dear. I won't make the same mistake again. Those bastards just want my wonderful inventions as tools, while they could be so much more. They could be a future for Reploids," the reply came through a male voice, likely belonging to the doctor the woman had mentioned before.
Vile could hear the sound of Reploid boots on a tiled floor as the doctor seemed to approach the open pod. He than leaned over it to look at the Reploid inside. Vile could see the other Reploid's deep, red eyes starting into his, but he got the impression the scientist didn't realize he was at all aware.
"So much work to do. So little time," the scientist's hands gripped the edge of the pod tightly, as if holding back frustration at his current predicament.
"Please, be careful. If they find out, I... I don't know what they'd do," the woman approached the pod as well. She was slightly shorter than the scientist and while Vile couldn't seem to be able to focus on the doctor's precise appearance, she was much more clearly defined and in-focus. Long brown hair with hazel eyes. A lab coat hiding her Reploid frame underneath. Her hand moved to the doctor's cheek in a tender display of affection.
"I do. We'll be branded Mavericks most likely. They think I don't know about their plot. What they plan to use my models for. It's all a big secret, one they'll kill for to preserve."
"I don't want to see them hurt you."
The doctor chuckled softly. "I still don't know what you see in this worn-out robot, my dear," his body slowly became more visible for the confused renegade to inspect. It was an older model, he could tell by how some of the usual Reploid plating had been attached to his chest and limbs.
Then, Vile felt like he had blacked out again. The next time he opened his eyes, he saw the same visions he always did. The same doctor, pacing back and forth and speaking almost hysterically. He was different here than before. No longer confident that he was doing what he considered right. Instead, he was nervous, completely on edge and panicking over a fate that inevitably crept ever closer. It was the same story from then on. The hunters breaching the lab. Busters firing. Silent voices. And then a massive explosion that wracked Vile's mind and overloaded his ears. Slowly, darkness returned and the ringing in his ears subsided.
This too, was new. Normally, he would be violently shaken awake by the blast to find himself in yet another dump, barely holding it together. But it didn't end like that this time. Instead, he heard a voice in the distance, speaking to him.
"You're my greatest achievement. A weapon with limitless adaptability. Some might be stronger. Some might be faster. But you? You're the future."
The voice began repeating itself over and over, continuously increasing in volume as its source seemed to approach him. It was some kind of recording stored in his head. As the statements kept repeating themselves, the same voice began uttering another sentence simultaneously.
"You were created for war, nothing else. But, I gave you reason. I gave you a choice... But, it seems even with this choice, you seem destined to go down the same path each and every time."
Both statements continued to grow louder and more intense. The noise began to pierce his mind, pain wracking through it with each syllable.
"Stop it!" Vile shouted, his hands gripping his head as he was plagued with memories. He could move again? He had a body! He could see his first fight with X. He was just some new recruit at the time, and had tried to stop Vile from destroying a Maverick that had it coming. He'd swatted the blue hunter aside like he was nothing, happily adding a few holes to the pleading Maverick's body with the Front Runner, before finally putting him out of his misery. He saw more such memories. He saw himself killing another Reploid after Zero had injured him in self-defense. As Vile focused on Zero's expression of remorse, he began to see flashes of the swordmaster's sacrifice in the battle they had years later.
The renegade even felt the intense pain of getting hit by Mega Man X' charged X-Buster shot; the first time he died. It continued like this. One painful memory at a time. He darted past Doppler's machinations, and how the Maverick Virus had slowly driven him insane. Then came his deal with Lumine. And, finally, the explosion that had buried him on Sigma's Lunar Base so long ago. When the sound of his cry of frustration at awakening on the Moon echoed away, the visions returned, starting again from his earliest memory. It was the same thing over and over again, and it refused to end.
"Vile! Snap out of it!" Nana was screaming at the top of her lungs as she tried to hold a thrashing Vile down in his pod. "It's just a dream!"
He had suddenly started yelling for someone to stop, all the while roaring in pain. She had hurried over to open the pod before he could smash it from the inside with his frantic motions. For several minutes, she'd been trying to calm him down and it seemed as though she had finally gotten through to him, when his visor jerked to look at her directly, instead of just staring off into random points in the room. He then abruptly sat up with enough force to push her over.
The former hunter panted heavily as he slowly remembered where he was. Gaudile's laboratory. Using one of the professor's pods to recharge. He reached for his forehead with one hand and tried to calm down.
Nana slowly crawled to her feet, a hand rubbing her lower back as she'd taken a rather hard tumble there for a second. "A-Are you alright?" She approached the side of the pod again.
Vile didn't respond right away, instead letting what he could remember from the vivid dream sink in. It had been far worse than before. He had to find out what was causing those visions. He had to find out what the dreams meant. If he couldn't, he was certain they would drive him completely mad. When Nana repeated the question, he put his hand down and responded with an annoyed tone of voice. "Yes, of course I am!"
Nana was taken aback by the force in his voice, but didn't move away. "You were having another one of those dreams, weren't you? I didn't think they were this bad..." there was genuine concern in her eyes.
"They never used to be," Vile looked at her from the corner of his eyes, as his helmeted face had dipped to instead stare at the bottom of the pod.
"We have to hurry, don't we? Not just for the sake of the people threatened by this traitor's plans," she was asking mostly rhetorically.
Vile didn't know why she cared about him the ways she sometimes seemed to. It didn't make sense to him. She was using his skills in combat for her goals, and he was using hers as a navigator and investigator to find out what he needed to know. It was nice and simple that way, but she seemed intent on complicating that arrangement. It was typical of Reploids that shared X's ideals to be so... touchy-feely, for a lack of better words. He kept his eyes on hers though, not really responding as he tried to understand her. He knew he'd ultimately fail, though. He wasn't like her. Never would be. Like the voice had said, he had been created as a weapon and nothing could change that.
A slight smile appeared on Nana's lips. It was meant to be reassuring, and her hand moved to rest atop one of his. She stopped when Vile suddenly looked at the door into the room, however.
"What's wrong?" she looked behind her, over her shoulder.
"Door's open. It wasn't when I woke up, was it?" Vile felt a chill crawl up his spine, a sign he always heeded.
Before she knew it, Nana had been pushed over a second time by Vile, once more falling on her posterior with a dull thump. Vile vaulted out of the pod in time to avoid being hit by a green energy saber. The weapon hovered in thin air as it effortlessly slashed through the pod, nearly cutting it in half.
"Mechaniloids!" Vile shouted as another of the four-limbed machines he had fought before decloaked and revealed itself. It didn't have time to mount a second attack, however, as Vile vaporized its head with a powerful blast from his shoulder cannon.
"How did they know we were here?!" Nana looked up at her partner, not getting up off the floor just yet.
"They probably tracked us the moment we left the hideout. They knew we'd bring the fragment here. I thought I'd seen something out there in the forest. I doubt this one came alone," Vile clenched his hands before kicking the lifeless drone at his feet.
"Oh no! Cinnamon and Gaudile!" Nana realized the danger her friends were in, and scrambled to her feet.
Vile only cared about one thing though: the Supra-Force Metal. It was more than possible that these freaks were going to steal their only lead. He took the lead and rushed out of the guest room, with the navigator close behind, hoping they weren't already too late.