Lieutenant Silvertongue barked at his three men to get over to the tank and pry the pickup truck off, so that they could get commander X out of there. The reptilian reploid didn't think anything was off until his first man turned about and shouted for the other two to turn back.
The concussion bomb erupted when the lead man was only ten yards away. The blast hurled the pickup truck at a downward angle, crushing the poor soldier and knocking the other two flat when it skidded into them. Silvertongue managed to avoid being hit only by a few feet as the wrecked truck dragged to a halt.
The first reploid, crushed by the truck, was badly damaged but alive when Silvertongue reached him. The lieutenant had a medical bot begin analysis and recovery right away as he carefully approached the tank. Climbing up on top, he looked down inside, and found X and the dead humanoid lying flat on the floor.
The concussion bomb had been rigged to concentrate most of its force directly down into the assault vehicle. The human was a pulpy mess of blood and pulverized bones and meat. X, meanwhile, had a large dent in his abdomen, along with a small blast hole. Intermittent sparks escaped the hole; he had minor internal damages.
"An easy repair," Silvertongue breathed, relieved. He hopped down inside, picked up X over his shoulder, and jumped out. Several maintenance bots stood near the tank with a field repair truck open and waiting.
Silvertongue put the commander on the empty bed and waited. X was still unconscious, likely from the blast, he surmised. On the other repair bed, his sergeant was groaning as the floating medical bot pulled off his crushed chest plate. Two large red boxes underneath had been punctured by the bent plate, sparks spitting from one, green fluid from the other.
"Main life tank and lubricator oil tanks have both been moderately compromised," the medical bot droned. "Temporary repairs can be effected. Capacity loss for both will be approximately seventeen percent. This level of operational capacity requires authorization from a Hunter ranked first sergeant or greater."
"Do it," Silvertongue snarled.
"Authorization confirmed by lieutenant Silvertongue, Hoboken New Jersey field officer, Operations Division," the bot droned, setting to work. Silvertongue turned around to find the other two man-like bots finishing the patch on X's armor.
"Is he already fixed?"
"Internal damages were minimal," one of the bots reported. "The plating was still present, bent back from weapons fire. The bullet fragments have been removed. We cannot ascertain the cause of the commander's unconscious state."
"So the bomb blast, it didn't do any real damage?"
"Cosmetic only, aside from a minor loss of auxiliary power supply," the bot said. "We will now begin tending to other nearby injured robots and reploids." The two man-like bots hopped out of the truck, their tool kits in hand. Silvertongue stared down at the commander, silently willing him to wake up.
The news crews were on their way, and the lieutenant didn't want to have to deal with them alone, especially since he knew so little about what had happened here.
Somewhere in the darkness, X heard the clamp-stomp of metal feet running away from him. Where am I, he thought. Who's out there? Wait, come back! Tell me what's going on!
X tried to speak, but found he couldn't. When he tried to bring up an internal diagnostic, nothing happened. He was alone, blind, the only sound around that of someone or something moving away from him.
X reached out with his hand, but found he couldn't feel the weight of either the hand itself or the attached arm. He felt nothing, weightless nothingness, all around his mind. Then, after an interminable amount of time passed, he saw a distant figure approaching.
It was Megaman. His predecessor, there in all of his blue glory, approached through the void of space, his steps measured and certain. "Megaman? Is that you?" X's voice sounded hollow to his own ears, dried out.
"You can call me Rock," the original Blue Bomber said, coming to a halt what looked like a few yards away. X tried to move his eyes, found he couldn't and tried instead to access his systems again. Nothing. "You have questions." Not an inquiry, X noted, but an assured declaration.
"Yes, I have questions. Am I dead? Did I get killed?"
"No," said Rock easily. "I can tell you that you're very much alive. Dormant, but alive."
"Okay. I don't understand what's happening here. Where am I?" Rock looked around, smiling his ever-present smile.
"You're here."
"Yes, but where is 'here', Rock?"
"Nowhere, everywhere, and all the places in between," Rock replied merrily. "You should see yourself." X's visual perspective jittered, blanked out, and then resettled. He stood now next to Rock, and found himself looking at his own body. Arms dangling out to the sides, X's body hung lashed by frayed wires to a withered tree. The synthskin around his mouth and lower jaw had been torn away, revealing the glistening ceramic teeth and skull-line plating design beneath. The optics were darkened orbs, staring sightless at the ground.
"Mind you, this is just a manifestation, but it's how you feel," Rock said. X turned, still feeling weightless. Rock didn't look to be in the best of shape, either. His blue armor was battered, dented and ashen, as though he'd walked through a flaming building that had toppled on him.
"What's going on here?"
"You're a spark right now, X. A spark without a body, like me. You're still in your chassis, yes, but not really connected."
"I don't understand."
"I know you don't," Rock said, his eyes shining with tears. "You might, some day. I really hope it doesn't happen to you like it did to me." Rock covered his face with his hands, sniffed hard, and shook his head roughly. He looked up at the hanging body of X again, steadied now. "X, you had no choice, you know. You never did." X looked toward his battered body silently. "The human, what was done to him, it was horrid."
"How do you know about that?"
"I accessed a camera unit inside of the cockpit of the assault vehicle. I tried to ride the signal back to its receiving end, but got blocked out. You may feel like a monster, but you're not. That man was already as good as dead."
X thought about this a moment. Then he said quietly, "You're right. I know that. I just can't shake the guilt."
"That's what sets you apart from whoever your enemy is. He doesn't feel any guilt. It's like he was built to do this sort of thing. Whoever he is, X, he's far worse than Sigma, because Sigma was just evil. Whoever did this," Rock said, trembling. "They're more than evil. They're insane."
X's vision began dimming once again, and with a start, he realized that he could hear voices around him again. Megaman X woke up, looking at the roof of a reploid maintenance truck.
Three hours later, X sat in his office in Hunter HQ, reading the earliest estimate reports. Between soldier bots, six police cruisers, the buildings destroyed and the municipal damages, the current estimated total cost of the confrontation was fifteen million dollars. X didn't worry so much about that, as the second set of figures.
Four-hundred and seventy-six humans, dead. Sixty-two wounded and in critical condition. Twenty-six wounded but listed in fair condition. Forty-three people missing who had last been seen in the area. Fifty-four law enforcement and soldier-class bots destroyed. Three Hunters, dead. Bang Hurricane's remains had been found at the bottom of the water just off-shore. The missing Coast Guard vessels had been recovered, but all of the servicemen, save three, had managed to escape their sinking vessels when the mechanoids had attacked.
The transport ship that had brought the assault vehicle ashore had been a decommissioned Coast Guard vessel, and the communique to Scorcher and his two men had been a decoy sent to keep them off of their guard.
X weighed all of the data he had on hand, part of his mind still clinging to the vision he'd experienced while blacked out. "Damages are more than facts and figures," he muttered to the empty room. "Much more."
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