Three days passed without incident, the sudden peace causing X to jump at shadows. Seated at his home terminal, watching construction crews come in and out of the building to patch up the roof through his window, he felt fidgety, on edge. Hephaestus would make another move soon, he had no doubt about it.
Marlow had sent him a brief audio file report at seven that morning, his message somewhat cryptic, unsettling. "There's a boneyard that isn't a boneyard, deep in Dorothy's homeland. Begin the search there. That was left on a piece of paper outside of my apartment door this morning, X. I'm taking it to a friend for analysis."
That had been all he'd heard from the human detective in three days. There had been no more reported Maverick activity, no more hints of Hephaestus making a move.
X began pacing around his apartment. There were few distractions for him to indulge in. Until something happened, or more information could be learned from the remains of Titan and Shinobi, he was at a loss for what to do. Even VR training was out of the question.
That still confused him. Considering all of the sensitive information and systems that could have been targeted by the assassin mechanoid, the VR records seemed like a paltry, worthless prize. Logistics or deployment records would have been more likely, he would have thought.
"What do you hope to gain from that, Hephaestus," he whispered to the empty apartment. "What are you after?"
He was about to depart for another talk with his predecessor when his main terminal chirped to life. He sat down and opened the comms window, which brought up an image of Kip Infobug on screen. A technician reploid, Kip had the outward appearance of a giant metal moth with a humanoid face.
"Kip, what've you got for me?"
"Commander, sir, I've been going over all of our stream data from the last week, my usual backlog check, and I came across something strange."
"What is it?"
"Well, sir, the night of the attack on the base, there was a single unidentified data upload by an off-system source."
"In layman's terms, Kip?" The technician looked around nervously, then leaned close to the microphone on his end of the line.
"That robot transmitted data outside of the base, sir. I think he downloaded all of our VR data and sent it out before destroying the memory banks."
X blinked rapidly, still uncertain of the cause for Kip's concern. "Our VR data was never a vital system, Kip. Why are you worried?"
"Sir, those memory banks held every VR session we had since this time last year. I hadn't done a purge, so whoever got that data upload can now watch and analyze every agent's fighting patterns and analyze their individual data."
X felt his artificial nerves lock up, his entire system seizing. Dear Light, he thought, Hephaestus can now figure out how to fight each and every Hunter who used the VR for training!
The legendary Maverick Hunter disconnected the call without warning, and sat stunned, staring at nothing for a long time.
"I appreciate your caution in this instance, Paladin," Hephaestus said somberly. "Only Caretaker remains now to view the data. I don't like the delay this has caused, but I see your reasoning."
The knight-like robot warrior had scanned through all of the VR data, and had immediately petitioned his master to delay the next act in his plans until the others had all seen the data as well. He argued that doing so would allow them all greater odds of surviving an attack by X.
At first the crimson and white mechanoid had rejected the notion, and vehemently, but slowly Paladin had convinced him of the wisdom of waiting. The master now sat with Paladin on the rooftop of his compound, both enjoying a glass of wine.
"A fine vintage, master. I do not understand why so many reploids refuse the gift of the artificial organs."
"They see such things as mere conceits," the master replied. "Mostly they are correct. However, by allowing the processing unit to provide power via simulated digestion, you and I need not plug into a charger as frequently. By the way," Hephaestus said, bringing his glass up. "Twim's mission begins in one hour."
"He is ready."
"Excellent. And Poseidon?"
"Already in position," Paladin said. He drained his glass in a rush. "Caretaker is viewing the VR data now. All is in readiness."
"Indeed it is," Hephaestus said. "Now, to find out if X has learned anything." Hephaestus gave a hand signal, dismissing Paladin to set about his duties.
The time had come for the game to proceed.
When X finally shook himself free of his reverie, he checked his internal clock. Fifteen minutes had passed while he'd stared numbly out at nothing. He could not sit idle anymore, waiting for Hephaestus to make a move or Marlow to discover what his mysterious note meant. He had to take action.
Using a speeder cart in the garage level of the building, X raced to Hunter HQ and made his way down to the workstation where Titan was interred. To his surprise, he found Dr. Veris there, hunched over the frame. The human looked delighted to see him.
"X! Thank God! Get over here and help me!" X moved to Veris's side, peering down inside of Titan's ravaged chest cavity. "Move that snap box out of the way for me, I can't get enough of a grip." X reached in, grabbed the indicated piece of metal, and yanked it roughly out. Veris used a penlight to shine in on a black plate, muttering something quietly.
Veris switched off the light and swiftly ducked around X to the nearby terminal desk. He jotted down something on a notepad, then called up a search engine on his computer.
"Dr. Veris, what is it," X asked, peering down into Titan's darkened mechanical guts.
"An equipment number," Veris said in a rush of excitement. "I hadn't found a single one throughout him during my examination, but spotted those first two this morning. I didn't want to compromise the boards, in case there's still data on them, but if this pans out, we may be able to say screw it."
X grabbed a second chair and sat next to Veris, who had entered a series of numbers and letters into a search, presumably from the inside of Titan. After twenty seconds, the search revealed twenty-thousand matches.
"Narrow it down," X suggested. "Remove anything unrelated to mechanics or robotics." Veris used the network's internal filters, reducing the field to five-thousand results. "Okay, try removing anything pre-dating Robot Masters."
One-hundred results remained. "Now we're getting somewhere," Veris said with a grin. "X, can you get me a picture of that panel, so I can look for other parameters?" X activated his optic recorder drive, leaned over Titan, and used a flash to take a picture of the panel. He returned to Veris's side, and used the projector program in his optics to let Veris see the panel image.
Veris used four more descriptors, and narrowed the results to twelve possibles. "Okay, I can snoop from here. This saves me a whole hell of a lot of time. Thank you, X." The Blue Bomber patted Veris on the shoulder and smiled.
"And thank you, doctor. I was starting to go a little stir crazy at my place."
"I can understand. A man like you, he has to be doing something, being proactive. Otherwise you feel like you're wasting time." X nodded, and would have left if not for a distress call coming in on his internal commlink.
He tapped the side of his helmet over his audio receptor. "Commander X here, what's going on?"
"It's Silvertongue," the reptilian lieutenant blared over the link. "I've got emergency contact from Atlanta Base telling me they're under attack! And the humans' news networks are reporting some kind of crazed militia bearing down on Los Angeles! Sir, I saw some of the footage, and it's more of those things you faced in New York and Minneapolis, more of the human drones!"
"What's attacking Atlanta?"
"A lot of the same, but there's a Maverick leading them according to the report. Their commanding officer told me a minute ago they've already got eight Hunters down. Recommendations, sir?"
X didn't hesitate. Hesitation meant more deaths, and he had to accept now that he couldn't always be the hero. "Lieutenant, send three of your best to Atlanta now, via teleporter. I'll send word to San Francisco Base to send support into L.A. Report back with updates."
"Aye, sir," Silvertongue clacked, signing off. X proceeded to his command room up on the fifteenth floor, sat at his desk, and did the hardest thing to do.
He waited.
Paladin listened for a while, but as yet neither Twim nor Poseidon had checked in. The comms console sat silent before him, seeming to mock him. Thankfully, he had Orbous for company.
"There's nothing to worry about," the arachnid-headed mechanoid said calmly, multi-faceted eyes reviewing the host of monitors. "No sign of X having taken either bit of bait."
"He's wising up," Thrash said behind them, seated on a couch of the monitor chamber. "Might be he lets his troops try to handle this one."
"None of them stands a chance," Paladin replied. "We have all memorized the patterns and tendencies of every Hunter in the field, even X himself. They cannot hope to defeat both Twim and Poseidon."
Silence hung heavy after Paladin's proclamation. There, finally, on one of the monitors, he saw Twim engaging in the battle in Los Angeles. He squared off against two lumbering reploids fashioned after minotaurs. In less than a minute, both Hunters lay dead, blown and cut apart by Twim's lasers and grenades.
On another monitor, Poseidon was wreaking absolute chaos with his far-ranged missiles. Yes, all of the members of the Hunters' Organization and human militaries would be focused on these assaults, leaving Caretaker and his little toy army unnoticed at their work.
Paladin had to admit that the master's newest version of the plan was indeed brilliant. He could find no flaw in it, nor the contingency plans if either Twim or Poseidon should fall. All was in place, or would be very soon.
And after today, the master had promised to reveal to Paladin his part in the next new phase of the plan. Yes, all was falling into place.
Dr. Veris burst into X's office at the exact moment that the Blue Bomber received another info-packet from Marlow. He held up a finger to stay Veris as he internally opened the voice file.
"X, it's Marlow," the recording said. "I think I found what the paper was talking about. There's an old scrapyard in Kansas, outside of the city of Topeka, that used to be a façade hiding a Wily compound. I'm going to go check it out as soon as possible." When X finished the message, he summoned Veris forward with a wave of his hand.
"What did you find out?"
"Something very interesting," Veris wheezed. He slouched down into the visitor's chair. "The part was made in a small robotics lab belonging to a Sorpino Corporation. I did some digging, and it turns out that Sorpino used to be a front for none other than Dr. Wily."
X narrowed his eyes on Veris. "Where was the lab located?"
"Topeka, Kansas."
Orbous switched the audio outputs to unit 37, then turned the volume up. The human on screen leaned back in his chair, and spoke.
"Topeka, Kansas," the human said. Thrash got up off of the couch, rotating his arms to limber them up.
"I believe that's Twim's cue. I'll go prepare the teleporter," he said, sauntering out of the monitor room. On unit 22's screen, Twim fell back out of the battle as more Hunters arrived on the scene, firing his deadly lasers with reckless abandon. His manic persona had taken over, and now he would be heading to the Topeka site to await X's arrival.
Pulling the legendary Maverick Hunter in multiple directions was a solid call, Paladin thought. He just wondered if it was worth the upcoming cost to be paid.
Twim arrived in a blurred silvery streak outside of the old factory, and he ducked inside through a boarded window. Wood and nails were fine and dandy to keep humans out, but mechanoids like him needn't worry.
The master and Paladin had both made it very clear to Twim that the very nature of his spark was key to this mission. His body was here, just outside of Topeka in a run-down old machine plant, where many of the materials had been collected that would go into making the new bodies of the old Robot Masters. His essence, though, his spark, being divided as it was, could easily fly back to the compound.
It's the nature of being divided, Paladin had assured him. Although, Twim thought, he seemed sad when he said that to us. I wonder if he's afraid it won't work? But it has to! The master said it would!
Not since Dr. Wily had anyone been so smart, Twim thought, rummaging about through piles of scrap and old machine parts. Hephaestus had told him to come here, find a small red metal box, and store it in his empty chest compartment. When X arrived, Twim's job was simple; try to keep the box and hurt X bad enough to get away. To ensure that Twim did his job, the former Gemini Man had been given no return teleportation device.
He was moving through the wreckage of some kind of assembly line when he found the box. Polished red steel, unusually clean considering the condition of the rest of the factory. "No matter," Twim said to himself. He popped open his chest tray, and put the box inside.
No sooner had he done this than he heard the distant creak of the wooden board he'd slipped past to get inside. Had X already arrived? Twim powered up his duo laser, activated his projector, and readied himself for Megaman X.
X wasn't entirely certain this was wise, but he'd at least been fortunate enough to get a hold of Marlow on the detective's cell phone and convince him to stay put at his hotel in downtown Topeka. Evening was approaching, and though he had wanted to surge off to Atlanta, X had chosen to come here instead. The battle in Los Angeles and Atlanta, he'd decided, were both distractions, decoys, designed to keep him from whatever was here.
Finding the old machine plant had been fairly easy. However, X had been caught off-guard by a commlink message that the Los Angeles battle was over, and that the mechanoid leading the assault in Atlanta had withdrawn from that theater.
Something told him he'd chosen correctly in coming here instead of leaping into the fray on either coast.
A single piece of plywood barred his entry via a window at the front of the building, but X paused before entering. It had already been pulled partly off, several nails sticking into empty air. Someone was already here.
X didn't know how to proceed. Instinct told him to charge in, weapon blazing, but that kind of thinking could get him killed against a foe like Hephaestus. Besides, he would be expected to charge in; Hephaestus and his minions now knew his old patterns.
"Time to change things up," he muttered. X activated one of his secondary weapon programs, a twist on the old Crash Man weapon. Dubbed 'The Roller', his cannon could shoot out a small energy ball that would roll over any surface until it connected with an active mechanoid, then explode. It didn't matter if an ambush was waiting for him; he would have one of his own.
X pulled the board aside, thrust his cannon arm through, and fired The Roller. Then he leaned next to the plyboard, and listened.
Yes, Twim thought, I can hear you, X. Not making much effort to mask your steps, are you? Twim and his holographic alter darted forward, toward the sound of X's approach. Crouched behind the hulk of some kind of yellowed vat, the mechanoid listened carefully.
Something didn't sound quite right. X's footfalls through all of the scrap lying about sounded like he was either slithering around or dragging his metal feet on the floor. Twim eased in a crouch around the side of the vat, and spotted a curious thing.
There appeared to be some kind of ball of energy rolling around through the debris. Using his projector technology, Twim sent his alter scooting up to the ball. "What is it," he called to the projection.
"Well, I think it might be a bomb," said the alter. The ball swiftly rolled at high speed toward Twim, who planted his hands on his hips as he stood upright.
"Ah, hell..."
The detonation wasn't as powerful as he would have hoped, but as soon as he heard it, X threw the plyboard aside and charged inside, lobbing four shots in the direction of the smoke now pluming up thirty feet away. The first two shots careened off of broken assembly rollers, the third shot off of a smelting vat, and the fourth disappeared into the smoke.
X stood panting, his cannon held out and charging. Pain lanced through his leg as a brilliant, thin beam of red light cut into him from the smoke, and he stumbled aside as three more lasers arched out.
"The box is mine, X," the unknown mechanoid shouted from his hiding spot. "The master ordered me to keep it from you, and keep it I will!" X had no idea what his enemy was talking about, but that didn't matter. He wanted to take this one down alive.
X snap rolled aside from two more lasers, fired from behind the cover of a circular heap of metal and gears, and a third shot cut an inch into his shoulder plating as he dove for cover behind a stamping press. The pain was minimal, but the effects of the lasers was deadly. Though he had only a small, pinprick hole in his leg and a divet in his shoulder, the energy of the weapon had drained his life force by sixteen percent.
"You're going to die, X! We will destroy you!" As X readied himself to take a blind shot over his cover, a thin, silvery mechanoid in a very human form whipped around his cover. He bolted from his spot, and was shot in the left side by another laser.
Screaming in agony, he fired over his shoulder. The shot, he saw, passed right through the mechanoid. An illusion? X dashed about, finally jumping behind another set of gears and scrap to recover.
Illusions, he thought. I know this one! X cleared his throat, and called out, "Gemini Man! That's you, isn't it? Gemini?"
Silence greeted his question. Then, almost in a whisper, "How did you know?"
"I've fought you in the VR simulators," X called out. "You were the only one I ever faced who used illusions in your combat routines! You've changed your patterns, though. That must have taken a lot of work."
"The master is ingenious," the mechanoid replied. "My name is now Twim."
"Twim," said X, managing an unseen smile. "That means 'two', or 'twice' in some languages." Silence, followed by a scrape of movement. "It doesn't have to be like this, you know," X called out, switching his weapon to yet another secondary attack type, adapted from a Wily Robot Master named Needle Man.
"What alternative would you suggest," Twim called out, barking a laugh. "Surrender? No, you'll have to try to kill me, X!" The Blue Bomber turned and lifted his head ever-so-slightly out of cover, catching a glimpse of Twim as the other mechanoid dashed from behind one pile of scrap to another.
X quickly calculated the trajectory, aimed his cannon skyward, adjusted his angle, and fired. A metal ball launched skyward in an arc, and as it reached its apex, it burst apart, showering the area beneath in a spray of hundreds of needles. X heard Twim shriek in shock and pain from the barrage, changing back to his primary cannon and charging it.
Twim came staggering out from behind his cover, and X saw two of him. One stumbled out, long, thin slivers driven into his head, neck, shoulders and arms, the other seemingly unharmed but also moving as if injured. Twim raised his left arm in X's direction, and a small explosion took off the offending limb.
One of the needles had pierced his wrist-mounted laser. The attempt to fire it had been a lethal mistake, for as Twim stumbled back, the stump of his arm flailing, X fired the Mega Buster Shot.
Twim had been falling as the blazing ball of energy streaked at him; it summarily took off his head from the upper metal lip upward. When he hit the ground, his limbs spasmed for a moment before falling limp.
Hephaestus and Paladin had lied to him. His spark had been snuffed out like a candle, and in the last horrible moment of awareness he'd had as the blast was eating through his face, he'd realized the truth.
He'd been little more than a pawn, easily sacrificed.
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