X looked the vibro-blade over, trying to make sense of the inscription along the handle. He and Marlow were once more seated in the human's living room, having come to his home after retrieving the blade from HQ.
Marlow sat on his home computer console a few feet away, several search programs running at once. Thus far, nothing sensible had come up. He'd only started the searches a few minutes before, but X was used to working with data that was easily identified and analyzed. Hephaestus would not, of course, be so easy to figure out.
"I don't get how he pulled it off," Marlow said. "Taking over all those sites, I mean. You would have thought we'd hear something about it."
"Not really," X said, reading the inscription again. "What human military or government is going to want to admit that they've got active nuclear sites under someone else's control? They want to maintain the illusion of order. No offense, but that's just what humans do."
"No offense taken," Marlow said, striking a match and lighting a cigarette. He chuffed out a bit of blue smoke, grinned. "I happen to agree with your assessment. Historically speaking, humans don't learn the lessons of what came before."
X said nothing to this. From his own observations since being awakened in his pod by Dr. Cain, reploids weren't much better. He turned his attention back to the inscription. The lettering was tiny, barely visible even under double magnification. A series of numbers that seemed to go nowhere, lead to nothing, thus far.
Marlow's computer beeped. He opened the responding search program, and scanned his results. "None of these results makes any sense. It's all math sites and such. Should I try breaking it up?"
X considered this option. "Insert some dashes between a few of the numbers, see what comes up. Try different combinations." Marlow used the search programs now to look through various incarnations of the number cluster, and sighed.
"This could take a while," he said. "I'm going to get a shower. You should go get repairs, too." X looked down at his side where Twim's laser had cut into him. Several servo mechanisms had been damaged, limiting his movement at the waist, and one of his auxiliary sensor boards had been fried. He had no thermal or targeting lock-on capacity until he got it replaced.
He would have to use a civilian reploid repair shop to keep the Hunters' Organization out of the loop. With a sigh he heaved himself up and strode out of the detective's home. The air transport was gone, programmed to return to Topeka on autopilot. He would have to walk.
Out on the darkened streets, X took a deep whiff of the city air. The odors of freshly laid cement and tar clung redolent about him. Marlow's street had recently been renovated, and all of the street lights shone bright, lighting the way.
He walked along quietly, alone with his thoughts, and wished once again that Zero was back to keep him company.
Thrash rammed his shoulder into the doors for the tenth time, but the security barricade was much too thick for such a tactic. He took two steps back and fired his Boomerang Shot at it, but the energized weapon returned after bouncing uselessly off.
He went still as thundering footsteps approached down the hallway off of the entry chamber. There was nowhere to hide, and only one set of doors into or out of the room, with the exit blocked. Whoever was coming, he would have to stand his ground.
Bracing himself, Thrash almost burst out laughing when Paladin burst through the doors, shield held in front of him. Lumbering and broad, the medieval-style mechanoid couldn't hope to keep up in a fight.
"Paladin," Thrash said with a grin, Boomerang Shot at the ready. He internally adjusted the wrist-mounted weapon to a three-unit burst, letting the weapon hang down, aimed at the floor. If Paladin drew his mace, Thrash could take the opening to fire at the bigger man and close the gap.
"Thrash, you have been deemed a traitor to the master," Paladin intoned. The crimson glare of his eye visor optics flared out. "I have been ordered to bring you to him."
"I'd like to see you try," Thrash snarled. He drew his arm up, his eyes narrowed on Paladin's weapon arm. He realized with a start that it was different, thinking back on the last two days. Yes, he should have taken note two days ago, because Paladin had been lethargic, quieter than normal as he stalked the upper layers of the compound. He hadn't seemed himself, and Thrash now knew why.
The Mega Buster Cannon that Shinobi and Poseidon had retrieved had been attached to Paladin.
Distracted by this, Thrash was taken off guard when the hand of that arm disappeared and the open cannon chamber pointed at him. There was a brilliant light in the cannon's gaping maw, and then a loud 'PING', followed by a blinding flare.
His optic sensors shrieked in his skull, sending virulent storms of pain through his system while he crumpled to the floor, twitching and clawing at his face. There then came a heavy thud at the top of his head, and Thrash lost consciousness.
With a groan his optics fluttered back to life, and his sore arms and legs pulled inward. Loudly grunting, Thrash managed to get himself into a seated position. When he looked around, he shot to his feet.
Thrash stood enclosed in a glass box, surrounded by water. Lights studded the metal plates where the box's side joined, and he saw that the side before him was held shut by release clamps. Directly over his head was a hologram projector and a camera. He stared fearfully up and out at the water beyond the box, until the projector flickered to life.
An image of Hephaestus appeared in the box before him, arms folded over his massive chest. "Hello, Thrash, wayward friend of mine. Welcome to your punishment. Do not attempt to converse with me, as this is a pre-recorded message."
Thrash looked to one side, having seen movement far out in the darkened waters.
"You are no doubt confused by your whereabouts," Hephaestus continued. "Allow me to explain. You are still in the Manor, but you are near the access chamber to Poseidon's assigned domain. He will no longer be able to tend to it, since you've killed him."
Thrash smiled distractedly at that. He hadn't been completely certain that the shark-like mechanoid would die, but he had hoped for such, hadn't he? Yes, he'd wanted to kill Poseidon, to prove his own worth. It seemed that his plan had backfired. Or had it? He was still alive, after all.
"In your arrogance and envy, you lashed out, that you might claim the glory you believed he held in my regard. But that was foolish. I value you all equally, regardless of your success or failure. Or rather, I did.
"But I do not value or honor traitors," Hephaestus snarled. There was a pause then, as the crimson and red mechanoid composed himself. "You were ever the upstart, even under Wily's command. You could not change, it seems, and I may now have to cut you away from me. Possibly."
Thrash looked back to the projection, feeling a small, dim hope budding in his mind. "On land, there are none who can match your swiftness, your raw speed. Even Shinobi was no match for you. I know. I designed you as such. But here, under water, that lauded speed won't help you much, will not even be available to you.
"This is my challenge to you, Thrash, and a challenge it is, for you may yet earn back your life and your place at my side. Within Poseidon's realm are hundreds of drones, of all types. They are programmed to attack anyone who isn't supposed to be there, and you, Thrash, are not supposed to be there."
Thrash flinched as the clamps on the front of the box hissed, letting a little stream of water flow in around the seams.
"Fight your way through Poseidon's realm, and escape it, and you may yet live. If you can get out in half an hour, you will be free to rejoin me, or leave my service, unmolested. But in thirty minutes, I will seal off Poseidon's realm, and you will be left to rot.
"This is the reward for betrayal, Thrash. This is justice." The front panel swung wide, then, and Thrash was forced back against the back of the box. As soon as he was able to move slowly forward in the water, he saw again the movement out in the darkness of the waters.
A giant mechanical octopus, each tentacle barbed with spikes, was streaming toward him. Behind and to each side of it swam dozens of smaller aquatic robots, all poised for the kill.
Thrash might have screamed, but this deep in the water, the sound would go unnoticed by anyone.
Paladin watched on the monitor as Thrash began moving out of the water-filled box. On the bottom of the monitor was a digital timer, counting down the remaining time before the blast doors leading out of Poseidon's realm sealed shut.
His use of the cannon arm had drained him considerably. Using the primary energy shot or even the charged Buster shot took little of his auxiliary power, but the secondary weapons array taxed him quite heavily. The master had already been informed of this, and the following day he would install an energy tank in Paladin's left leg cavity just for the secondary weapons.
Paladin turned the light blue hand this way and that, marveling at it. Aside from the coloration and lack of fingerprints, it was a perfect replica of the human hand. Like everything Dr. Wily set his fullest attention to, it was perfect.
Hephaestus had shared with him several stories about their creator. Wily had not been some soulless cretin hell-bent on only world domination. He'd lived a long and fruitful life before even helping Dr. Light create his first six Robot Masters.
Hephaestus, for instance, had begun his long existence as a helper bot. He tried to describe for Paladin what life had been like at that time, a vaguely man-shaped mechanoid tasked with a dozen different jobs at once. Wily had been that way with his favorite robots, he'd told Paladin, trying to treat them as more than just machines.
It had been Wily, not Light, who had discovered the energy known as a robot's 'spark', the equivalent of a soul. The roboticist had never chosen to write a paper on the notion, though, treasuring that secret for himself.
That was, until he'd shared the theory with Thomas Light, who, fascinated by the idea, delved even deeper than Wily ever had. On this one point the two brilliant scientists disagreed. Light felt the whole world should know about the spark; Wily refused to help him do it.
Yet when the Robot Masters were built, Hephaestus revealed, something in Wily's mind snapped. His greatest discovery was going to be made public knowledge, shared out with the simple-minded and fools of the world. It was a theory he felt belonged only to a few genius men and women like himself and Dr. Light.
If the world would have Robot Masters, he decided, then those robots should deservedly be put in a position of power. Using all of his charm, guile, and a dark form of logic, he convinced those first six Robot Masters of their supremacy.
"The rest, you well know, is history," Hephaestus had said. Except it wasn't history, not by Paladin's view. The reploids were not much different from Hephaestus and his chosen mechanoids. They had the ability to adopt the same kind of systems and upgrades, and what was more, the humans seemed for the most part to be able to coexist peacefully with them.
"Yes," Paladin said, optics once again on the monitor. He watched as a swarm of mechanical piranha streaked through the water toward Thrash, who had already suffered several wounds and the loss of his right arm. "They are at peace, when they should be cowering for mercy."
He understood fully now his master's hatred of the ones who chose the way of Light. Such people slowed the advancement of the mechanoid race, held them short of their potential. Humans and reploids had to be taught a lesson, and those lessons would be forced on their collective savior, the Blue Bomber.
Megaman X would learn.
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