The legendary Maverick Hunter sat bolt upright in his charging pod, looking around hurriedly. Seeing the banks of other pods, he remembered that he'd chosen to rest in the HQ community charging chambers after using the VR simulator to run through some exercises. Rock's suggestion had been a sound one, from one warrior to another.
X had gone through a dozen different simulated VR battles, each one against the fiercest Mavericks he'd ever squared off with. In each fight, he varied his augmented weapons systems, his attack and evasion patterns, and his reflexive counterattacks.
The last four battles had been brutal, and the very final had been against Sigma. That program always pushed him to his limits, but as always, he won out, beaten and bruised. Today, after a review of Swing's inbound reports, he would try a different tack.
X went to his own office up on the sixteenth floor, checked the inbound reports, and filed them away. Only one showed interesting data; the remains of Quick Man were missing. Progress had slowed, though, as Snake Man's body had been blown to hell and breakfast, then scattered around his old zone by reclamation crews. Putting together all of his parts had taken nearly 24 hours.
The reports on those zones would take longer to come out now, leaving X to believe he had plenty of time to run some more VR drills. He didn't know it then, but he would only go through four before all hell broke loose.
"Is anything going to go our way," Bang Hurricane grumbled, slapping his cards down on the table. Styled like a giant barn owl, the Hunter frowned across at his partner, Keen Shotburst. Shotburst, a bulky brown and green camouflaged reploid with a gatling laser mounted on each shoulder and a high-impact ballistic cannon on his left arm, tossed his own cards down and frowned.
"Don't you like the quiet," the bigger bot rumbled.
"It's not bad, but the humans don't want us here, don't need us here. We're barely active even when we have a mission!" Bang shot up out of his seat, toppling it with a bang. "There's been nothing for us to do!"
"Don't wish for trouble, Bang," said a third reploid, standing in the doorway of the empty hangar that was their operations center in New York City. Based heavily on an old Dr. Wily design, the newcomer had the appearance of a walking Zippo lighter. "I frankly agree with Keen. It's good to have no fights to dash off to."
"Scorcher, this is different," Bang whined, slumping before his commanding officer. "It isn't like Central City, or Los Angeles, or hell, even Las Vegas. There's only the three of us out here, for a city this size! I need more interaction, and the humans here don't provide anything resembling pleasant conversation!"
"Well, it may please you to know, then, that our long-range scanners have picked up an anomaly," said Scorcher with a grin. Bang stiffened, his wings flapping once in excitement. "Large power fluctuation inbound off the coast, coming pretty slow. Coast Guard said they detected bots, but no active weapons systems. We may have some company yet."
Bang hooted with joy at the prospect of meeting other mechanoids, while Keen Shotburst just looked his commander in the eyes. There was a barely perceptible nod between them, a shared understanding. The Coast Guard had detected no active weapons systems. That didn't mean there were no weapons waiting to be readied.
The first of the old Robot Masters X loaded into the VR system to face off against was the infamous Elec Man. Fast and furious, the smaller mechanoid fired concentrated bolts of electricity at X, who dodged, rolled and jumped over them as fast as he could.
One of the floor plates he stepped on while chasing Elec Man through a series of jumbled access pipes held a charge, and X yelped as he was hit with the blast of energy. His body spasmed with pain, but when he could move again, his internal systems reported only a three percent loss of life energy. Painful, but not powerful, he thought.
X charged his cannon to maximum power and fired through the piping and conduits between he and Elec Man. A crash resounded as Elec Man was struck, and through the hole he'd made, X could see the Robot Master getting groggily to his feet. A hole had opened in his upper left torso from the dissipated power of the Mega Buster Shot, but Elec Man quickly ducked out of sight.
The entire chamber filled with yellow light as Elec Man sent current through everything, X included. He began taking a little bit of damage, but found he could move. "Nice trick," he muttered. X worked his way around several switch boxes, and fired again at Elec Man's exposed side.
The Robot Master collapsed in a smoking heap. X closed his VR eyes, opening his real ones. He quickly exited the VR pod, calling up Elec Man's stored weapons system data. He ran a variation program, the plugged himself into the Weapon Selection Cycle Unit, updating his own parameters.
He smiled as he considered the possibilities of finding new skills from old wars.
Bang Hurricane stood atop the loading platform's outlook, watching the strange, misshapen vessel approach from several miles out. He pulled back from the scope and looked down to Scorcher and Keen Shotburst, standing well back from the platform's sloped ramp. “Something's not right about that ship, sir," he called down.
"Can you be more specific?"
"Hold on." Bang looked out at the vessel again. He could just make out a tarp-covered object in the center of the transport, taking up a great deal of space. A human deckhand walked around in front of it, and Bang could see from the comparative size that whatever was under the tarp, it was the size of a tank. The human's movements struck him as jerky, choppy, somehow unnatural. He looked back down at his comrades. "I'm not sure," he called down. "Permission to scout them out, sir!"
"You're the only one here who can fly," Scorcher replied. "As such, permission granted!" Scorcher turned to Keen, who had opened up his right leg compartment and drawn out two sections of an energy sniper rifle. "What are you doing, Keen?"
"Watching his six," the big reploid replied. "This could be a trap." As Keen opened his left leg and pulled out the last part of the weapon, Scorcher powered up his Firebolt system. He wanted things to go quietly, but his idols had always urged caution. As Keen started sighting in with his scope, Scorch flinched at the sound of a distant flare going off.
He and Keen both let out a holler of dismay as the rockets obliterated Bang Hurricane from the sky.
"I can't believe I never thought to look for these kinds of programs in the archives," X said to himself. "This is incredible!"
"Enjoying yourself," asked a familiar voice nearby. X turned from the Selection Unit and saw Dr. Veris leaning against the doorframe of the VR room.
"Hey, Dr. Veris," X said with a grin. "For the first time in a while, yes, I am. Granted, it's just VR, but the chance to study the old Wily robots in action is something I should have taken advantage of sooner."
"Well, hindsight is 20/20," Veris said, stepping into the room. His clothes hung loosely off of his frame, bags pouched under his eyes. X got up out of the seat at the unit, took a step towards the human.
"Are you all right, Dr. Veris?"
"Hmm?" He blinked rapidly, stood straighter. "Ah, yes, sorry. Your friend, Detective Marlow, has had me doing a lot of research work for his department, cross-referencing reploid and bot attacks on humans over the last forty years." Veris adjusted his glasses sleepily. "You'd be surprised by the number of occurrences."
"Not really," X said. "Then again, I haven't been active that whole time. Reploids were largely based on my design, even though I hadn't even been awakened yet."
"Yes, I've always found that curious," said Veris. He ambled over to an empty wheeled chair, hunkering down heavily on it. "You're technically the first reploid."
"Technically, yes. I was the first one to have completely free will, though, no hardwired code to go against my spark's nature. The first reploids based on my design were something of a nightmare, if I'm not mistaken."
"Oh yeah," Veris said, chuckling darkly. "They got made by every military in the world, sent off to fight and kill for glory and country. The battery life on those first units was minimal, thankfully. The second batch came directly from Dr. Cain's labs. He built them just as Light designed you to be, with free will. He was my mentor, you know."
X shook his head. Dr. Cain. The old man had been dead for a little over a year now. It seemed X was very much alone now, except for Zero, and the golden-haired swordsman was off on the moon doing Light knew what. X looked again to Veris.
"So, what brought you here to begin with?"
"Ah, yes," said the human, leaning forward and producing a datapad. "While doing that research for Marlow, I came across these old accounts. It seems that a few of Wily's Robot Masters had a special hatred for humans, went out of their way to kill as many as they could. A lot of the attacks in the last forty years or so have been by robots built largely upon Wily's designs."
X scanned through the documentation, and could see where Veris was coming from. He could identify, in most cases, which of the old Wily designs had been altered or upgraded. He didn't think it could be chalked up to mere coincidence. He looked over to Veris, who was looking off sleepily to one side. "Do you think some of the old Wily drone robots are reactivating?"
"It would explain all of the activity in the restricted zones," Veris said. "We've got power and gas and water lines that go under a few of those places, after all. A surge or movement could cause these old transports to activate, relying on dormant but still powered programming."
"That might explain the attacks, then. Something from the old Skull Man zone could have come south to the city, several somethings. They could be old elite drones that never saw combat against the original Megaman, fell back on old programming."
"They'd have to be close to the level of sophistication of the old Robot Masters," Veris said. "You know, the archives have passages about secondary clone units of them in several Wily campaigns. Could be he had a few backups or whole units that never got activated." The human and reploid considered the possibility, and they agreed that the theory fit.
Veris left after assuring X that he would bring the theory to Marlow's attention. When he was gone, X turned again to the VR pod. He decided a couple more run-throughs couldn't hurt.
Keen lined up his scope on one of the humans holding a smoking rocket launcher, his augmented scanners feeding him information that made no sense. According to his sensors, there was only one living bio-signature aboard the vessel, somewhere under that huge tarp. Yet he could see the two armed humans clearly as the ship continued on its measured approach. It was a little over a mile out and closing. He had a clean shot.
"Permission to fire on human target," he rumbled at Scorcher.
"Permission granted," Scorcher barked, readying his longest-range attack. He would have to wait until the transport vessel was within half a mile of the landing slope, but the moment he was in range, he would let loose. Human or no, he would not tolerate such a brazen assault on his men, or his assigned territory.
Keen squeezed the trigger, and the energy bullet flew true. Yet when it struck, he didn't just see blood, bone and brain fly from the shattered head of his target; he also saw metal, circuitry and scraps of wire scatter.
"Sir, they're some kind of cybernetic hybrid," he called out, aiming in on the other humanoid. The second target was quickly loading another rocket into its weapon, turning toward the loading dock.
"Weapons free," Scorcher barked as the vessel passed the one-mile mark. "We bring these fuckers down before they reach shore!" Keen fired again, just as another rocket released. He and Scorcher dove for cover, the rocket missing his commanding officer's legs by mere inches.
The back of the arched landing pod exploded in a hailstorm of flames and debris, peppering them both with burned shrapnel. Scorcher got to one knee, and saw that the vessel had increased speed. It was almost in range. The moment his weapons' targeting system declared a lock, he thrust his right arm out and fired an orb of blue flame in an arc at the ship.
The shot landed with a crash mere yards from the tarp in the middle of the ship, and he and Keen watched the vessel bob violently to one side, lurching towards capsizing. The tarp caught afire, and Scorcher let out a triumphant holler. "Take that you bastards," he shouted, preparing a second salvo.
As he powered up the shot, Scorcher saw a humanoid dash into view long enough to start dragging the large, flaming tarp off of whatever it had been covering. Keen tried to line up a shot, but the humanoid seemed to have no concern for its own safety. Running full speed, the tarp wrapping and billowing about it, the man-thing plunged clear over the side of the ship with the tarp trailing after.
Keen and Scorcher found themselves looking at some kind of land assault vehicle, a strange tank-like vehicle of multi-colored armor plating and bristling weaponry jutting out like porcupine needles. A barely visible pilot's visor sat just behind a tank cannon, which rotated on creaking gears to aim directly at them.
"Oh, shit," Scorcher muttered. The cannon roared, and a second later the Zippo-shaped reploid was being carried back towards the rubble from the rocket fired at them on a ballistic shell. The round exploded when he crashed with it into the wreckage, tearing into his grade-2 transteel chassis.
The explosion hadn't killed him, but Scorcher could feel major and minor systems going berserk throughout his body. His life force tank wavered at ten percent, his primary weapon was offline and undetected, and his emergency evasion thrusters had been damaged beyond use. As he groaned, rising out of another pile of rubble, he saw his right arm lying a few feet away, the fingers twitching uselessly. Black fluid poured from his shoulder, lubricator fluid streaming out in a spray.
He managed to look up in time to see Keen loose every weapon he had at the tank as it rolled up onto the lip of the loading dock. The energy shots flickered as they met the resistance of a kinetic shield, and his standard heavy-duty bullets pinged off of the armor plating without effect. As Keen started to dash toward the onrushing tank, a long, thin armature snapped out to the side from it, a flat, serrated saw blade whirring to rapid life.
When Keen closed on the tank, the armature snapped forward, tearing neatly into Keen's midsection. The bulky reploid screamed, bucking and thrashing as he tried feebly to reach down to the swinging steel arm, to try and slow the chewing advance of the saw blade. It was a wasted effort, however. In ten seconds, the saw arm finished its sweep, cutting Keen Shotburst in half.
Keen whimpered pathetically as his upper body toppled down, sparks and oils sloshing to the ground. His stalwart legs took two mindless steps forward before falling over. Scorcher cried out, but before he could do anything more, six of the porcupine needles flashed toward him. They were, in fact, repeater cannons, much like the Maverick Vile had used.
When they stopped belching death, Scorcher looked like a piece of metallic Swiss cheese.
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