MegaMan NT Warrior (Rockman) Fan Fiction ❯ Zero: Soul of a hero ❯ Strife and sacrifice ( Chapter 2 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Chapter 2: Strife and Sacrifice


- - -


“This is squad A. Report the enemy’s situation. Over.”

“Squad B here. The flying fortress is currently on the ground. We are not close enough to see clearly, Over.”

“Squad C speaking. We are closer to Weil’s fortress. We met light resistance, but we prevailed. No serious injuries, no losses. The fortress is apparently recharging its energy capacitors. They will need approximately four hours. Over.”

“This is squad A, X speaking. Squad B, rendezvous with squad C. Squad C, hold your positions. We will be there soon. Squad D, do you copy? Over.”

“Squad D here. We read you loud and clear. We have a problem, X. We spied a large unit of enemy forces, five minutes from our position. They hold hostages, over.”

“Report numbers and status squad D, over.”

“There are at least two hundred hostages, humans and reploids. Women and children, too. The enemy unit includes fifty regular reploids armed with class C standard equipment, five custom ones, one hundred D class assault drones, long range artillery and a large, crab-like mechaniloid. Number of cyber-elves unknown. They are barricaded on top of a low hill and are keeping the hostages surrounded, over.”

“Stand by, squad D.”

X turned a grave face towards his comrades.

“This is a trap, you know”, noted Axl, his face equally grave.

“Thanks for stating the obvious, Axl”, chided Zero frowning. “Of course it’s a trap. Weil uses a portion of the hostages aboard his fortress to distract us. Ever since he ran out of ways to avoid our missile strikes, he uses hostages for shield instead. Otherwise, we would have blown him to kingdom come already.”

“The question is, do we swallow the bait?”

X closed his eyes and spoke. “There is no dilemma here Axl. We all know that and Weil knows it too. I will not place lives on the balance. Especially after the casualties of this war. We will go save them and ignore the fortress for a while.”

Everybody nodded at their leader, fully understanding his feelings, although the notion of letting the ruthless tyrant escape once again would only cause them nausea. However much they wanted to rush forward and attack, Weil would have to wait.

“This is X. To all squads, override last orders. Everybody will gather at squad D’s position, over.”

“Roger.”

“We can’t leave them back, everyone. Do your best. Over and out.”

“What about the other squads? Four are marginally adequate for such a force“, commented Axl, not really worried but focused nonetheless.

Zero shook his head. “They are too far to reach in time, or even hear us, Axl.” After Weil had managed to decrypt any and all communication efforts, they had decided to maintain regular radio silence indefinitely. Instead, they were forced to use a special microwave-based signal that was impossible to intercept. The drawbacks were crude one-way communication that forced them to take turns while talking and relatively short range.

Axl was not the one to feel depressed for a long time. “Alright, then. Cheer up everyone. We will rescue the hostages as fast as possible and then we will pay a visit to Dr. crapface and Mr. giant hideous. YEAH!!”, he declared, referring to Weil and Omega respectively.

Zero chuckled, the black tiger’s mood being infectious. “Next time, shout a bit louder, Axl. I think Weil didn’t clearly hear the first part.”

“Whatever...”, groused Axl, mockingly pouting.

X managed to smile, despite himself. While one would argue his partners’ antics were ill-suited for a battlefield, he found they were the only thing keeping his sanity relatively intact. Without them, I could have never found the power to continue. Father, if you can hear me, I will do my best to end this madness.


- - -


The soldier was definitely intimidated by the reploid standing before him. It wasn’t every day you had to face a legend that many, regardless of loyalty, feared.

“I h-have a report, commander Zero.”

The crimson hunter sighted, his hand instinctively reaching to massage his right temple. This war needed closely bonded partners not submissive subordinates. “First of all, drop the commander part, at least while nobody else pays attention. You are Tone, aren’t you?”

“Yes, sir.” Although Zero’s response served to eliminate his nervous stuttering, the violet armored reploid was still visibly tensed. The fact his superior was a full head taller didn’t exactly help things.

“Relax Tone. You should be more anxious about the battle at hand. Just call me Zero and give me that fragging report.”

The shorter reploid was stunned for a while, but recovered soon. “Yes, Zero”, he started as calmly as he could muster. “Our stealth troopers have already placed the four shield generators around the hostages, who are also informed. Everybody is in position. We have successfully sabotaged their heavy cannons without being noticed. The shield will last thirty minutes.”

“Sweet! I knew hauling around these things would pay in the end. That will be more than enough, Tone. Thank you.”

“My pleasure, si...Zero.”

“And Tone.”

“Yes?”

“Don’t die.”

- - -

The sentient soldiers around the hostages were grim. They fully understood their role as bait, as a means to buy Weil some time, and the aggravatingly low value their lives held because of that fact. Being over the edge, they nearly depressed their triggers reflexively when they heard a loud explosion from the south. Their leader, a custom reploid towering above everybody else, tried to maintain a semblance of order despite the abysmal moral.

Initially, he considered sending out a coupler scouts, but then he changed his mind. It wasn’t a matter of whether the enemy was there, it was a matter of how they would choose to attack. “Those with an odd number go and investigate. The others hold your positions and man the cannons. Stay alert!”, he ordered, his voice and face perfectly neutral.

Half of the unit ran south, disappearing into a thick veil of smoke, supposedly produced by the explosion.

Then the commander realized the veil was far too thick and persistent, following its own movement patterns instead of being tamed by the slow breeze. “Retreat! fall back. It is a trap.” He shouted to his comm. unit urgently.

“We can’t reach them chief. This smoke disrupts our signal bands. It prevents us from seeing and blocks our communications.”

“There is only one way then. Fire the artillery cannons at will!”

“But our soldiers...”

“They are dead, anyway. Just do..”

His mask of cold resignation was soon replaced by surprise, as he was interrupted by many smaller explosions coming from behind him.

“ What in the name of God and Light is going on here?” he demanded.

“The cannons exploded as soon as we primed them. It’s a sabotage”, a simple soldier that survived the rigged weapons’ detonation dared to cry.

The commander looked ready to throttle somebody, his calm game face failing him. “All able men, get close to the hostages. We will snipe the enemy with them as cover.”

The hostage’s area was full of smoke and dust from the rigged cannons, but the remaining soldiers ignored that fact and rushed to execute their orders anyway. Suddenly, one of the troopers was thrown out of the cloud visibly shocked, rampant energy dancing all over his frame.

Everybody stood and stared, as the smoke cleared to reveal a potent forcefield that had risen around the hostages, effectively protecting them from any but the most powerful of assaults.

- - -

The soldiers ignored the unusually thick veil of smoke and rushed to the south. As soon as the last came through, they heard a muffled scream from behind them that caused them to stop cold on their tracks. They turned and saw six of their comrades lying on the sandy ground, hacked to pieces and obviously quite dead. Among them, stood a lone crimson reploid, holding a sizzling light saber , sand still falling from the crevices of his armor. Zero had been hiding under the ground like the ruthless predator he was.

As the soldiers numbly raised their weapons, he grinned. “I must be rusting. The sixth one managed to scream”, he mused, his demeanor more fitting to somebody talking about the weather instead of somebody staring down a small army by himself.

The dumbfounded soldiers were stunned and slow to react, terrified before a reputed legend that appeared in front of them in flesh and blood... Metaphorically speaking.

“Hey, can you really afford to be distracted?” chuckled Zero, cockily spinning his live blade in a tantalizing pattern.

As on cue, several reploids and drones were shot down by a massive volley of fire. Nearly one third of their ranks was decimated in the ambush before the rest managed to find cover. The skirmish soon turned into a chaotic battle, everybody seemingly fighting everybody else.

Three reploids were hidden behind a great truck carcass, waiting for some unfortunate target to walk by, not really thrilled to face open battle. They heard the noise of metal scraping, but reacted too slow. A fiery object pierced a hole cleanly through the truck, hardly slowing while smashing all three of them to oblivion. X, wearing his Ultimate armor, halted his airborne Nova strike and regarded his latest victims or what was left of them, praying for them to whatever god might listen. He suddenly heard a trigger being pulled and turned to see an energy rifle squarely fixed on his person, a vicious energy bolt attempting to claim a head many others had failed to. Not fast enough to dodge, he braced himself to endure the shot. Instead, he heard an explosion and a rain of machine parts fall around in a dry rattle. Zero had tossed a squirming droid he had just eviscerated right in front of X, somehow intercepting the shot and blocking it with his makeshift projectile. Not one to lose a chance, X formed his X-buster and fired a multitude of electric shots to the would-be sniper, leaving the ground and taking to the air again before his enemy exploded in a pseudo-nuclear reaction, his energy core fried and reacting accordingly.

Zero smirked and resumed his grim task. He dashed among five droids, cutting all of them at waist height in what seemed a single, fluid movement, then lowered his blade at the feet of a very surprised reploid. He promptly leaped high in the air, his Z-saber igniting a bright orange fire, severing his opponent clearly in half. While airborne, he used his thrusters to avoid the shower of enemy fire, deflecting the few lucky shots back to the gunners with his blade and wrecking havoc among the enemy ranks. And as he fell to the ground, his saber cackling with energy while turned downwards, it hit the dry land first, releasing a halo-shaped, expanding electric shockwave, which stunned everybody around him. Their fate was quickly and brutally decided.

The crimson hunter turned abruptly to block a storm of large pulse spheres trained on him, also deflecting them back to their source, but this time hitting nothing. Engaging a rather creative and descriptive string of profanity, he dodged another string of shots, fluidly sidestepping in the least predictable manner. His enemies were conveniently barricaded behind the remains of an ancient but heavily reinforced wall. Before he could conjure any kind of counter-strategy, he heard a cacophony of screams, then saw Tone emerging from behind the wall, accompanied by a larger figure, his left hand limp but his face decorated with a smug smile.

Behind a mountain of scrap metal, a large reploid commander, his body seemingly stuck between the form of a human and that of a tiger, managed to rally a dozen riflemen, backed up by some droids.
“We can still take them if we remain united and fight as a coherent force. And we need to contact our leader. I’m surprised they haven’t started firing the cannons yet.”

The soldiers grimly nodded, the swift pep talk doing wonders to their ailing morale, and a volunteer was found. The commander turned to his closest henchman, a reploid he had learned to trust.

“Still no word from the others?” He was surprised to see the person that stood right next to him a second ago was missing. In his place, there was a small humming device. Scanning his surroundings, he saw the person in question standing many meters away, grinning like an idiot. Before he could think of a reaction, Axl morphed back to his original form and the potent bomb in the middle of the small team exploded.

As the black tiger attempted to leave, he ducked a rather vicious ion shot. He turned and saw the ragged commander still standing, one of his hands severed revealing cackling circuitry, the other holding a massive ion rifle.

“You will pay for this deception”, he snarled, firing beams at gattling rate.

Axl easily dodged the frantic attempt and hailed the wounded commander with rabid shots of his own, using both pistols and disregarding all safety protocols in favor of tackling his opponent went berserk.

“Everything is allowed in love and war, ugly. Why don’t you just give up. You might even be spared.”

It only took one more shot to cause the superheated rifle to explode, filling the area with smoke. As Axl retreated, the commander dashed out of the cloud, scoring a glancing hit at Axl. He cringed as he saw the fist, full with energy claws spouting from his knuckles, connecting with the ground and cracking a granite slate, leaving a massive crater on the otherwise resilient surface.

“Some people just don’t know when to quit”, exclaimed the black hunter as he danced around the lightning barrage of fists and claws, wisely avoiding all of them. A full five seconds later, he had to morph his hand and pistol into en energy blade that blocked the claws just before they could take off his head. They both struggled for a while, Axl matching the much larger enemy’s strength but doing little more.

A moment later, twin gigantic orbs of energy blasted the maddened reploid, shredding it to pieces. Axl sighed in relief and turned to the source but not before snipping down an overconfident enemy sniper that tried to take advantage of the complicated scene.

“Are you alright, Axl?” asked X, as he stopped to catch his breath.

Axl gingerly walked towards his friend, constantly scanning the area for more hidden assailants.

“Well, he was a tough one but I am hardly hurt. Thanks, anyway”, he responded sighing.

“It seems the battle here is almost over. As soon as we catch our breath, we will take the other half.”
At that moment, a voiced boomed behind them.

“BANG BANG. You are both dead.”

They turned to see Zero, standing on a mountain of ruins.

“Damn you, Zero. You scared my control unit out of its socket.” Shouted Axl, too happy to see his friend to actually feel angry.

“Serves you right for letting your guard down like that.”

X managed to smile, if only slightly. “What are the chances to hear you sneaking behind us, Zero? A ninja you most certainly are. I think you are overestimating us”, he joked.

“Spare me the modesty, X”, responded Zero while casually lifting a blade to block and deflect the shot of another sniper, neutralizing him with his own bolt without even deigning to turn and face him. “Since we are such a kickass team, we had no casualties, though there are some injured soldiers. As soon as they are treated, we will go get the others. We have twenty minutes left before the barrier drops.”

Axl turned to the east and scorned. A huge metallic castle was visible in quite a distance. It seemed as though it was firmly rooted in the ground, but everybody knew it wouldn’t be there in a few hours. Weil’s flying fortress.

The black tiger felt a hand on his shoulder. “Forget about him for now Axl. We will get him in due time. That old geezer will fall soon.”

Axl turned a faint smile to Zero whose expression was now completely somber.

“Correct. He can’t keep evading us forever. For now we must concentrate on freeing the hostages. It might actually be better to know there are less innocent people on that flying castle before we board it.”
Zero nodded at X’s words and Axl sighed. They then left to meet the rest of their small army and hasten things as much as possible.

“I WON’T LET YOU!” A brand new tiger commander leaped on them, trying to crash them where they stood, both hands intact and posed to slaughter. He was simultaneously hit by a lightning saber, a booming buster and two cackling pistols, rendered quite dead before he hit the ground.

“What the hell!” shouted Axl flabbergasted. “How many lives does this brute have?”

Zero shook his head with disgusted. “That was a complete waste. I feel sorry for his cyber-elf. It sacrificed itself to return him to life for no good reason.”


- - -


The enemy unit leader tried to keep calm. After five minutes, he ordered his soldiers to quit trying to nullify the protective barrier and to conserve their strength for the impending clash instead.

“We still have the advantage of higher ground’, he declared, trying to raise their plummeting spirits.
As on cue, a mighty earthquake erupted, followed by a variety of explosions and energy discharges. As he struggled to hold his balance, he watched in disbelief as the ground in front of them started rising higher. Before that, they were standing on a small but substantial hill. Now a new, higher mound formed before his very eyes, caused by a massive wave of soil, rocks and debris that had somehow turned rogue. Eventually, the new hill’s slope elevated above the older hill’s top. Before he could regain control of his speech functions, a wave of warriors rushed from the top of the newly formed hill their weapons blazing, in effect reversing his higher ground advantage.

Behind the hill, Zero had just stopped pounding the ground with his knuckles to create continuous waves of energy, X had just halted emitting his devastating beam his Hermes armor allowed and Axl had just quitted firing his gravity disrupting rounds.

“You mad scheme worked, Zero. We have gained a slight edge”, said Axl exited.

“That was merely phase one, young Axl”, mocked Zero. “X, would you mind leading the way?”
X nodded solemnly, obviously not quite sharing his companions’ battle-lust, and donned his Ultimate armor again, rushing right into the hill, the massive energy released by his Nova strike easily drilling through the newly created geological feature. Zero and Axl dashed just behind him, exploiting the temporary tunnel before it collapsed again.

While the enemy unit’s commander had almost managed to rally his subordinates, the general panic turned into pure chaos, as the three heroes emerged out of yet another debris explosion, falling on his remaining army like eagles on stunned mice.

Axl kept moving around the sea of mindless droids, their AI inadequate to match his dashing speed and floating airborne maneuvers. Their heads were blasted before their processors could evaluate a course of action, forcing their bodies to shut down. As dust enveloped him, he emerged with a changed form, using an energy chain attached on his hand to decapitate the rest of his dimwitted opponents. Reverting to his original form, he launched a salvo of mini-missiles against a pair of large mole mechaniloids hidden in the ground, saving some of his comrades from certain demise.

X, continued air-dashing close to the ground at top speed, engaging his Nova strike at every chance, bashing his adversaries into pieces and occasionally firing fully charged shots at any viable target. The variety of the barrage prevented anyone from formulating any kind of counter-attack, obviously being more interested in dodging the blue bomber’s vast repertoire that included but was not limited to electric discharges, fireballs, icebolts, bombs, propelled spicks, plasma blades, energy spheres, spinning scissors, homing missiles and gravity wells.

The crimson menace, Zero, dashed frantically, slashing at any possible target from any possible or impossible angle, while sending crescent waves of pure super-condensed energy to anywhere his blade could not reach. His path of destruction led him close to the cackling forcefield that protected the hostages. As he momentarily came to a halt, his back inches from the barrier, five competent reploid swordsmen grabbed the opportunity to surround him in a place he could not maneuver freely. As they all tried to jab him with their fierce beam blades, he leaped backwards towards the energy wall. The blades touched the wall and fizzled, their circuits temporarily fried. Zero slammed the superior weapon he held in his left arm on the field, which was nearly disrupted, then gained momentum towards the opposite direction, somersaulting above the stunned reploids and landing smoothly behind them. It only took them a tiny fragment of a second to turn around.

A fragment of a second was too much against Zero. Five seconds later, their fading circuits registered their death, while the hunter was long gone.

The rest of the attackers seized the opportunity and quickly dispatched anybody who was foolishly stunned by the trinity assault. These four squads consisted of war veterans, reploids and humans that had spent the last three years fighting and surviving alongside the three legendary maverick hunters. Even the few rookies were more than capable in defending themselves, while causing devastating damage. Tone, the reploid that had helped Zero before, and his far bulkier brother, Pulse were ready to create a legend for themselves, leading the rest of their squad and cutting down a path towards the enemy leader. The commander wore a massive black and silver armor over his imposing but humanlike form, featuring a cannon on each shoulder. He held twin orange plasma blades, unusually long and wide, faintly resembling greatswords. As the wave of soldiers approached him, handily mowing down his ever- diminishing charges, he slammed one of his blades on the ground, creating a shockwave at ankle’s height. Tone and Pulse jumped to avoid it, while the rest were not so lucky, finding themselves blasted away.

The commander smiled wickedly. “You seem like decent opponents compared to that rubble, but you’re still no match for me.”

Tone produced an expanding silver quarterstaff, , a brilliart blue energy sickle blade erupting from its business end, while his brother, Pulse, phased in the four cannons of his emerald armor along with two more pistols, one in each hand, and started charging them asynchronously, then firing a gattling barrage of charged pulse shots. The commander blocked the sickle with his right blade, more than matching Tone’s strength and handling his left sword with stunning speed, he deflected most of Pulse’s shots. Those that did connect, caused no real damage, just some minor scorches and dents. Tone valiantly pressed his opponent to no avail, while Pulse charged all six cannons at the same time. Tone knew that his strength was no match for the behemoth he faced, but he and his brother fought as one. If he could hold him a little longer, Pulse would release his ultra shot, an attack where six individual supershots merged in a singe powerful one. The commander, though, was no novice. As soon as he heard Pulse’s cannons halting, he abruptly released his right sword, and ducked, delivering a sweeping kick to Tone. Having already lost his balance, the smallish reploid literally took flight, losing the ground from under his feet. The commander chuckled as he fired both of his shoulder cannons at the same time the energy left Pulse’s ones. The first shot landed squarely on Pulse, throwing him backwards. The second bolt propelled Tone in the path of his brother’s shot. He took some of it, the rest deflected upwards, then he crashed on his brother barely conscious.

As the enemy commander rose his swords to finish them, he blinked, then saw two very familiar objects hitting the ground.

His shoulder cannons.

“Lost something?” He turned and saw a grinning Zero, blade displayed in his left hand, right hand fingers goading him to attack.

Fuming, he acted as he was ready to dash towards Zero in rage. He then smiled and turned abruptly to deliver the finishing blow on the brothers.

Only to be acquainted with X’s charged searing beam.

He was thrown into a garbage heap, his armor severely damaged but far from destroyed. As he stood straight once again, the enemy leader saw an impossibly fast emerald blade ready to claim his life. He haphazardly blocked Zero’s casual hit, then launched an offense before realizing his crimson clad enemy had slipped behind him.

“Your are quite fast for your size, beautiful”, taunted Zero.

“You must be Zero. My name is general August and I will not let you reach Master Weil.”

He tried to take the offensive again, but Zero would not leave any room. However, he continued chatting nonchalantly.

“I am really curious what lies Weil has offered you for reward...”, he asked thoughtfully.

The commander barely dodged a slice that would have cleaved him in two neat and symmetrical fragments .

“The likes of you would never understand”, he snarled in response, producing a small charged cannon from the side of his armor.

“Try me. I mean, other enemies wanted to create a world only for reploids. While I still stopped them, I did respect their point of view. But what can Weil do? He is just a ruthless and egotistical wreck of a human”, retaliated the red warrior verbally while casually severing the small cannon, which exploded in the air behind its previous owner.

“He was my creator and he will reward me. That is all I need to know”, snapped the black reploid at his enemy, a carbon fiber whip coming out of a compartment on his forearm and entangling Zero’s leg.

“You are loyal, yet he left you here to die as cheap bait. How can you still trust him?”, inquired Zero as he casually kicked the commander before he had a chance to pull the whip, launching him off the ground while severing the string with his saber at the same time.

“I will not die here”, snarled the commander as he rose again, his helmet opening to reveal a nasty magnetic adamantine nail shooter.

“If you surrender, we will spare you. Hey, what are you? An action figure?” said Zero as he effortlessly deflected the speeding nails, still having enough time for his joke.

“I will never betray my master”, screamed his opponent as he leaped for a final, desperate attack.

“Have it your way then”, said Zero grimly, his good mood vanishing as his saber passed through both swords and armor, killing the commander instantly. “Die known as just another body in the endless piles your master’s machinations and madness have produced...”

As an afterthought, Zero removed a concealed tiny case from his late opponent’s waist. It wouldn’t do to let him waste any cyber-elves. While the puzzling entities would be more than happy to sacrifice themselves and fulfill their function, they were alive and sentient beyond doubt.

- - -

As X removed Tone and Pulse from the thick of the now waning battle, he heard Axl shouting for reinforcements. Trusting the two defeated brothers to a field medic, he turned to see the black tiger and a team of soldiers fighting a giant crab mechaniloid. The thing was three times their height and much wider, featuring two massive mandibles, a grand pulse cannon on its back , four magnetic gattling guns and an abysmal mouth. In effect, a moving armory with just enough artificial intelligence to destroy.

Axl was barely able to keep the beast at bay, allowing some injured soldiers to escape while firing wildly, meaning for the time being to distract rather than destroy. X soon joined him, firing charged shots with both arms turned busters.

“The weak spot is the mouth, but we have to get rid of these cannons, before they turn us into Swiss cheese”, shouted Axl.

X nodded in acknowledgment and demolished one of the gattling guns, while leaping to avoid a pulse shot, cringing as the ground where he had been standing evaporated.

One by one, the minor but substantial weapons of the behemoth were neutralized. His back cannon was too slow and greatly overheated, so the crab decided to use melee attacks. With a lightning motion he closed one of his mandibles around X and effortlessly lifted him off the ground. He exchanged his Ultimate armor for the older but more resilient Gaia one to absorb the crushing damage, while charging his buster.

As Axl weakened the appendage’s control points, X released the blast. The mandible was shattered to a million pieces and the crab keened, obviously hurt. X’s armor sustained much damage, but endured enough for him to revert back to his Ultimate form. In the meantime, Axl shattered one of the crab’s optic sensors, driving the mechaniloid berserk with pain and fury. Then, both hunters concentrated their fire to the beast’s mouth, dealing aggravated damage. It tried to crash them with his other mandible, using it as a hammer, but it suddenly noticed it was not in its place anymore.

Zero took his place next to his friends, grinning at the appendage he had just severed.

“Sorry I’m late, guys. I took a coffee break to chat with their leader.”

Axl smirked. “Don’t worry. You lost nothing out of the ordinary.”

X was not so casual. “What about the rest of the battle?” he asked, as he dodged another pulse shot.
Zero reappeared on top of the crab, hacking at the big cannon. “It seems this baby is the last of our problems here.”

A minute later, the giant crab hit the ground, finally deactivated and definitely harmless.

As the last of the resistance faded, the forcefield disappeared and the hostages rushed to congratulate their saviors...


- - -


X, Axl and Zero sat together, mending their minor wounds while hearing the battle report.
X’s face fell. “So we lost four humans and eight reploids. And at least twenty warriors are in critical condition.”

Axl tried to help. “Don’t fret too much, X. We did it and that is what it counts.”

Zero slapped his hand on his forehead. X would now be furious.

The azure reploid’s eyes snapped wide open and he turned to regard Axl with a not-so-sane visage.

“Don’t you dare tell me to regard them as simple casualties, as simple numbers. I won’t take that from anyone. Every last of them fought and died for what they believed. Died while following us damn it!”, he shouted furiously.

Zero gave Axl a discrete kick to shut him up, then tried to calm X down. “X, we all feel responsible for the losses, but think of how many we saved. As cynical as it may sound, we can’t have a pie and eat it too. These warriors knew fully well there was a possibility to die in this battle, yet they fought to save their breathen.”

As X subsided if only a little, one of the freed hostages approached the three hunters and bowed. “We can never thank you enough for what you did. Right now, my fellow doctors are mending your injured. We are positive that we can save all of them.”

X rose, placed his weary hands on the doctor’s shoulders and smiled faintly. “We only did our duty. There is no need to thank us. We should be thankful for saving our comrades.”

The doctor smiled and bowed again. “This is our duty.”

- - -

After a while, they heard a loud noise coming from far away as massive machinery came to life. All heads turned in unison to see Weil’s flying fortress leaving the ground once again. The metallic behemoth halted for a while, suspended in the air, its engines audibly strained, then started moving forward and away.

Axl uttered a profane curse, while Zero and X merely sighed.

As on cue, a soldier rushed to them. “One of the human fighters is missing, sirs.”

“What’s his name”, asked Zero promptly.

“Pierrot, sir. He was in your squad. You think he deserted? Nobody else has seen him since before the first battle.”

Zero shook his head dismissing the notion. ”I know the fellow. We have talked quite a bit. He is one of our best warriors, better than most reploids. I have seen him defeating the Tone and Pulse brothers in practice. He would never run away.”

Suddenly, the radio transmitter came to life. “Sir, somebody is using an open channel.”

Everybody gasped visibly at the statement. X lifted the comm. and gingerly responded. “This is X speaking.”

“I’m very glad to talk to you, commander. This is Pierrot.”

“Are you crazy? Why are you using an unprotected frequency and where are you.”

“I’m on Weil’s fortress, commander.”

Everybody’s eyes went wide. X tried to respond, but words failed to form on his lips.

“Please let me explain commanders X, Zero and Axl. Since I first met you, I have fought with all my might against Weil’s oppression, surpassing many other humans and reploids in skill. I wholeheartedly agreed with your decision to ignore Weil and deliberately fall into his trap to save those poor people. I hope all our comrades survived the battle, though I don’t believe it is the truth. However I could not just let Weil escape. I’m not so naive to believe that I stand a chance to hurt him directly. I would merely turn myself into sport. But I have found another way.”

X’s voice was shaky, not wanting to hear what he was afraid it was coming. “But, Pierrot, you... you will be killed.”

“Listen to me, commander. I love all of you as my family, since we have been fighting together for a long time. But all this time, I was not alive. I died three years ago, when Weil killed my wife and children before my very eyes. All this time I have not been fighting for a better future for myself, for hope is lost to me. I merely fought for revenge and for the sake of others, luckier than myself. I am now barricaded close to the fortress’s levitation engines. My wounds are severe, but I will not die from them. I’m using an open frequency to lure as many of Weil’s minions close to me. They are trying to force the door, even as we speak, but they will never reach in time.”

A long pause followed and nobody dared to break the looming silence.

“My last wish is for you... X, my friend, my brother even. When Weil has fallen and when the good things return, go ahead and build your utopia. Build your perfect world, where humans and reploids can live peacefully. And plant a tree in my memory, for a tree can live longer than a human. If there is a place for humans and reploids to go after death, I will be watching. My only regret is that I’m not a reploid, so I couldn’t carry more explosives. Get Weil, all of you. Farewell.”

A bright light came from the lower part of the flying fortress and a loud report followed after a while. The castle descended slowly, its wounded engines vainly trying and failing to keep it airborne, and crash-landed on the wasteland, having suffered substantial, if not permanent damage. Thick clouds of noxious smoke completed the picture, framing Weil’s last means of escape.

Everybody’s eyes went down as X simply sat on the ground and cried bitterly.


- - -

Revision notes: Apart from some error fixing and some action scene improvement, nothing important was altered. Axl’s ‘black tiger’ nickname is adopted from Deya_X or whatever the author of ‘Strings of fate’ calls herself these days.