| Chapter Five-Fragmented Memories Located in the outskirts of the city, far from MHHQ, sat a respectably kept shop that dealt in old arms and armor. Years of friendly service and nonviolent incidents had kept the shop out of the public eye, and more specifically, out of the Maverick Hunters’ spotlight, which was fine with the store’s owner. He’d had quite enough of that army. While the Maverick Hunters were the very embodiment of safety and protection in the eyes of humans and noncombatant Reploids, there were always those who would have no particular love of the organization, and Mortar was one of them. The old, battle scarred Reploid had left the Hunters at his first available chance, and he’d spent the rest of his life sitting in this drab corner of the city, making lasting friendships and keeping an honest business running. He’d survived all four wars, though he’d only fought in the first one, and had long since decided that this life beat the one he’d left behind any day. But the past had a funny way of catching up with you. During his time in service, Mortar had not been involved in the everyday Maverick Hunting that was so commonly associated with the job. No, his work had been more…how would you say it? Behind the scenes? Immoral, that was the easiest word. Immoral, evil, ruthless, and amazingly legal at the same time. Nowadays he doubted that a unit such as his had been would have survived political pressure very long, but then again, nowadays the humans depended on the Reploids more than ever. Mortar’s service had not been voluntary, either. He’d been “drafted”, as his superiors had called it, into a “top secret branch of the most important army in the world”. He supposed what they’d been trying to do was create the ultimate Hunters, but of course, what they’d done was create the ultimate Mavericks. But he’d left all that behind for a better life, a more sociable life, and most importantly, a free life. He’d assumed that he was the only one of his kind that remained on the earth, but deep down he’d always known that there had been other survivors. He also remembered well the names of those responsible for the conditions of his early life; no amount of time could erase that. That was why, when he read of General Thornton’s death in the newspaper, he was not surprised to have visitors knocking on his door the day after. When the first knock resonated throughout his ramshackle abode, Mortar rested his morning paper on the ground and set his coffee mug on a table. The old Reploid got to his feet in a creaking, groaning process. His joints were old and rusty, and his parts were largely outdated due to the fact that he hadn’t stepped into a shop to have himself fixed up in far too long, half from disinterest, and half from fear. The medium sized humanoid-only humanoids had been drafted for that secret unit, they were the only type of Reploid that was trusted-slowly made his way to the door, where his visitors patiently waited. He grasped the handle and took a deep breath, wondering exactly who he would see when he opened the door. Would it be the Hunters, come to interrogate him? Or would it be…someone else entirely? The door finally did open, and Mortar beheld three fragments of his past that he never in his wildest dreams expected to reencounter. “Private Mortar,” said the one who had knocked, a powerful looking Reploid in camouflage armor. “Private Gredam,” Mortar breathed, blinking his optics a few times to make sure he was really seeing this, “My god…” Gredam’s typically stern face broke into a friendly smile. “It is good to see you again, old soldier.” “I thought…” Mortar was still dumbfounded, “I thought you all were…” He caught himself, shaking his head in embarrassment and ushering them inside. “I’m sorry, please come in! It’s been so long, I was a little shaken up…” “Quite all right,” Gredam nodded as he entered Mortar’s shack and shook his old friend’s hand with friendly familiarity. The man behind Gredam was a Reploid in ebony armor with dark violet forearms and forelegs, another face whom Mortar knew all too well. “Man, Mortar,” Malevex said with a grin, “You’re an old man, all of a sudden!” “Hah, well,” he laughed as he pumped Malevex’s hand with the same warmth as with Gredam, “Years of rust has yet to dull my senses, my friend. Believe that, at least.” Malevex nodded and moved over to where Gredam stood, allowing Mortar to have a look at the last member of the posse. This one stopped him cold. He of course knew that Reploids could be brought back to life, but he’d never encountered a revived Reploid that he knew of, and this one was particularly troubling, because she had died right before Mortar’s eyes. It was like looking at a phantom. She was humanoid as the rest of them, of course, though shorter, and had a much more lithe build. Her armor had once been a dull silver, to allow her to blend more easily with surroundings, but she had polished it to the point where it gleamed in any light. The amount of armor she wore was almost casual, covering just the lower arms, lower legs, and her chest and upper back. The rest of her was midnight blue, and scantly armored, so that she could make quicker movements and use more agile techniques. Raven black hair was tossed carelessly over her right shoulder now, and her blue eyes, eyes that had always seemed to radiate with cunning and cleverness, were now filled with nostalgia and old feelings of camaraderie. “Teytha…” he smiled even as he said the name, “I’d thought you were…” “It takes more than a few Hunters,” she said with a sly smile, “To keep me down.” Mortar pulled her into a quick, almost fatherly embrace, which she returned, and then they both went over to their other comrades. “Sit down,” Mortar insisted, breathlessly, “All of you, please! There is so much to talk about!” “Yes,” Gredam nodded with his broad, confident smile, “Very much indeed.” He took the seat Mortar offered him, a comfortable old armchair. Malevex plopped down on the couch, and Teytha weaved her way like a cat through the random bits of junk Mortar left lying around to sit next to her ebony armored friend. “Sorry about the mess,” Mortar apologized as he himself got comfortable in a rickety rocking chair, joints creaking with every movement, “I’m afraid I’m habitually careless with my junk.” “Nothing wrong with that,” Malevex acknowledged with a grin. Though there was definitely a lot of stuff to discuss here, stuff that might be painful to bring out, and everyone knew it, no one was worried at all about it. There had never been anything except camaraderie between these four, and for them that could never change. “So much to ask,” Mortar finally said with an overwhelmed laugh, “I don’t know where to start.” “How about,” Malevex offered quickly, “After you left the army, what did you do? When did you get this shop, and stuff?” “Hmm,” Mortar said as though musing, “I can handle that. After I left the army, I hid like a bear in the winter, of course. After seeing what was happening to all the others…” he glanced involuntarily at Teytha, who immediately reverted her gaze uncomfortably to the floor, “I didn’t want anyone to find me. I stayed in hiding till after the war ended. I guess they figured I’d been killed during the fighting, or something, because no one ever came after me. I was able to set up this shop and just live in peace. My god, I have other people I can call friends now, humans who accept me, even.” Though his guests were trying hard to mask the longing in their souls for what Mortar was describing, the old Reploid could see right through them. He always could. “But I guess it hasn’t been that way for you folks.” “No…” Teytha said with a sad smile, “Not quite.” There was silence for a while, during which Mortar would occasionally glance from one person to another as if to prod them to speak. Finally, Gredam managed to piece together what he wanted to say, and spoke in his powerful, convincing baritone. He had always been the leader. “After The Purging was over,” he said, almost choking on the first part, “I was still alive and kicking.” He looked fondly at Mortar, as though reenacting in his mind heroic efforts he’d made, “We all fought against them, that’s for sure. We fought valiantly as any soldier ever had, but of course we all had to hide in the end. I couldn’t stay put, though. I kept leaving, looking for other survivors, even when The Purging was still going on. Finally I just got wounded too bad to keep moving, and sat in disrepair for a few years.” He took a deep breath, working up the nerve to continue. “I guess I was the equivalent of a bum. I just sat around, getting drunk or moping, until I finally got a hold of myself. It was like a second wind, only of life. I started looking for survivors again, and lo and behold…” He stopped, looking towards Malevex, who began his own story. “I myself,” he said without hesitation, as though telling a casual story at a campfire, “Used Sigma’s War as a living, moving shield.” “Ah, Vexy,” Mortar said with a smirk, “You always were such a goddamn opportunist.” “Hey, hey,” he protested with a laugh, “’If the shoe fits’, y’know?” “Yeah, Vexy,” Teytha annunciated, with an evil grin. Malevex tried to blow off the nickname by rolling his eyes, but the smirk he couldn’t wipe off his face didn’t make it a very convincing show. “Yeahhhh.” He found his train of thought and continued. “Where the Mavericks went, I went. Where they fought, I did. I never really joined their army, since I had a habit of just disappearing, but I figured that even those involved in The Purging wouldn’t want to trek into a horde of Mavericks to find me. I was right, I guess, cause I’m still here. After all that garbage I was, how do you say, pissed. I got back at humans my own way, mostly by manipulating them in monetary deals that gave me the funds to start a very quiet global hunt of survivors. That’s how I found Gredam. Almost as soon as we reunited, the anti-human feelings started brewing like a witch’s kettle. From there, one thing led to another…” Gredam caught Mortar’s eyes looking quizzically at Teytha for a second. He wanted to know her story, probably more than either his or Malevex’s. During their time in the Hunters, Teytha had been one of the youngest members of their team, and Mortar had sort of played the role of a father figure for her. All their comrades had been depressed, confused, or disillusioned, but she had had a particularly hard time. Deciding not to make his old friend wait any longer, Gredam cleared his throat and spoke. “We started looking for other people to help us with our plans. Obviously, the only people we could really trust were those from our group, but the rest were either dead or far, far away from where we could reach them. We did get word, though, through one of Vexy’s gazillion contacts, that someone from our group was laying quite lifelessly in a local junkyard. We’d have never found her except for that contact…” Teytha smiled slightly to herself, and then up at Mortar. “They put me back together…let me live again. Wasn’t that nice of them…?” “Indeed,” Mortar agreed with an almost grateful look at Gredam and Malevex, “Very nice…what happened, then?” Teytha draped an arm playfully over Malevex’s shoulders. “I went off with my heroes, here, and we started doing some heavy duty scheming.” “Scheming,” Mortar chuckled hoarsely, eyeing Malevex. “I bet I can guess who did most of that.” “Well,” Malevex grinned, “Naturally. Though the makeshift spy network I’d set up, I figured out exactly where Sigma was stationed after the fourth war, and from there it was a matter of what exactly to do next.” “Our goal,” Gredam clarified, “Is obviously to get our revenge against our old ‘friends’. To do that, we allied with Sigma’s Maverick party. Sigma himself was easily impressed by what skills we’d managed to maintain, and so he found himself relying on us heavily as far as preparing for his next big plan.” “In the mean time,” Malevex added, “We managed to obtain a list of names. The names are of all surviving leaders of our unit. We’re gonna pick them off one by one, before helping Sigma crush the Hunters themselves.” “We hope,” Teytha added further, “Since its obvious that the Hunters are…well, really strong.” “How exactly do you plan on beating them?” Mortar asked, getting to the core of the matter, “All of Sigma’s other plans have failed.” Gredam smiled an almost eerie smile. “That’s right…all of Sigma’s plans have failed. That’s why there are going to be some changes in the Mavericks. Changes that will start soon.” “We’ve come to you,” Malevex filled the silence that followed Gredam’s words, “Because you’re one of us.” Mortar knew exactly what he meant. “Of course…you didn’t have to ask, really…I’ll help you in any way that I can, you know I will! Just tell me what you need!” “Nothing yet, Mortar,” Teytha said, “But we just wanted you to know that…you’re not alone any more, I guess.” Mortar smiled slowly and politely, as though simply acknowledging that something had been said, but the look in his eyes told Teytha that he’d understood what she’d meant: he wasn’t the one who felt alone and needed to see old friends; they were. “I’m almost afraid to leave this place,” he said finally, “I don’t know how I can be of help to you guys here, but still…” “You can be of more help than you know,” Gredam insisted, “We’re not asking you to move from here, or to fight, or to put yourself in any danger whatsoever. Just if anything goes wrong, or we need someone to fall back on, to hide us or something…” Mortar nodded sincerely, once again understanding what Gredam wanted to ask. “I’m still on your side. I always will be.” They stayed and talked for hours after that, reminiscing about old days, good and bad, like old friends sometimes do, and finally the three Mavericks announced that it was time to implement the “changes” Gredam had spoken of earlier. After they planned another time and place to see each other, they said their goodbyes, first Gredam, then Teytha. Mortar stopped Malevex on his way out, though. “I can’t help but remember,” he said to the ebon Reploid with a distant look on his face, reliving the moment he was about to describe, “Whenever I see you, I remember…that one mission.” Malevex appeared uneasy, as though he’d just KNOWN Mortar would bring this up. “That’s not surprising…it was kind of hard to forget.” “The look on your face,” Mortar continued as though Malevex had not spoken, “You were shaken up for weeks. I was worried about your mental stability, for a while.” “It happened to all of us,” the Maverick insisted, “At one point or another…that was just the first time I’d come face to face with what I had done…I saw his grief, and knew I caused it, knew I couldn’t possibly explain to him why I’d…” He broke off. “But we’ve been over this hundreds of times.” “Yes, that happened to all of us… But what creeped you out the most,” Mortar continued even so, “Was that he just…knew.” “The son of a bitch correctly picked me out of a swarm of drunk Hunters…yes, that creeped me out! You don’t forget a look like the one he gave me.” “Guess it didn’t help who he turned out to be,” Mortar said finally, sending a silent message of his own. “Yeah…” Malevex agreed in a sedated tone, “One of the most powerful Reploids ever…” He smiled ever so slightly back at Mortar, sending his silent reply. “I’ll manage him just fine. You just worry about yourself, maybe get a lube job or something. You are, and I say this with all due respect, squeaky as a chorus of hungry rats.” “All due respect,” Mortar laughed, “My ass. Go on, they’ll be waiting for you.” Malevex gave him one last wave and bounded out the door after his comrades. Mortar sighed once in a combination of relief and new worry. Here his old friends had come back out of their graves, some real, some imagined, but with the activities they were engaged in, how long before they returned to the graveyard? He breathed out one last command at where Malevex would have been, despite how foolish he usually felt when talking to himself. “You’d better take damn good care of Teytha, this time…” Malevex all but collided with Teytha when he rounded the corner to the alley where their vehicle was parked. “You’re rusty,” she stated, shaking her hair clean of water from the midafternoon shower going on, “I shouldn’t be able to startle you like that.” “What do you want, a cookie?” His humor was apparently not shared, for when he started towards the car, she didn’t move, rather letting her voice stop him. “He wanted to talk about that mission, again, right? The one with that Mea girl.” “Elephants never forget,” he grumped as he turned back around and walked back to her. “I figured so…” she said, “You look a lot more out of it than you have in a long time.” “You mean, excluding those lovely episodes in Dusty’s Tavern?” “No, including those…are you all right?” He leaned against the wall of Mortar’s building, smiling in faux confidence and replied over the background din of their car sputtering, and Gredam’s shrieked curses as he tried for the hundredth time to get it started. “We’ve been over this. I’m perfect. I can’t not be all right.” “Yeah, well,” she said with a slight laugh, “You never really talked to anyone about it. Or anything else.” “Well,” he countered with a cruel grin, “You talked way too much.” “Wha…how do you figure?!” she protested with a true laugh, “I talked less than YOU did.” “That was just your cover,” he waved it off, making sure his escape path was clear, “You were REALLY as motormouthed as Chris Tucker on a Riddilin overdose.” He bolted for the car before she could attack him, wisely so, and she took off in hot pursuit. It was at this precise moment that Gredam succeeded in starting the car, and he left the safety of its confines to announce this fact to his comrades, placing himself right in Malevex’s line of travel. A second later they were both sprawled out on the floor in dazed wrecks, Teytha laughing at both. “Now, children,” Gredam said through clenched teeth, determined not to get pissed off on today of all days, “Settle down now. We’ve got a very important assignment coming up, here. We can get stone freaking drunk afterwards if we want, but until then…we stay alert. This is a big day for us, more so than just seeing an old friend. Today we change the course of the Maverick army forever.” X’s mind had turned into a maze. Hidden somewhere in there, he knew, were the answers he needed, but finding them really was like retrieving a needle from a haystack. General Thornton’s murder had been a headache the Hunters didn’t need. While nothing except the murder method suggested that it was more than a simple homicide, Cain and Signas couldn’t shake the feeling that it was something deeper than that. Thornton had been involved in a lot of operations with the Hunters. Had he been killed because of that? Was this really a Maverick attack after all, an attempt to get rid of someone who they knew was a major thorn in their sides? And if so, what did it mean? X had no idea, but since it was pretty much common knowledge that Sigma was alive, any little thing might well explode into something major, as X knew all too well. But that wasn’t his investigation. Zero had been stuck with that. X was still pouring over the information about Seraph and the Maverick’s new base, hoping to find some way to either pinpoint weaknesses in the fortress, or to at least disrupt Cyber Peacock’s gross manipulation of the funds he was laundering quite illegally in cyberspace. Cyber Peacock. The name didn’t really affect X as much as it did some of the other more ruthless Mavericks. The battle with Cyber didn’t really stand out in X’s mind. In the last war, X had not had to take out all eight Maverick barons himself, as usual. Zero had played a major role in taking down four of the Mavericks, making it easier for X to take care of the rest. But the battle with Cyber just seemed anticlimactic to X. It might well have been that X’s mind was quite a bit frazzled when he’d engaged the bird in that death match. He’d been slogging through the depths of the virtual reality world that was cyberspace, and he was overwhelmed by the sheer inexplicability of the place. There was no up or down, no left or right, no right way to go or wrong way to go. Just lethal traps and disorienting tests, tests that though Cyber had taken to know exactly how to defeat X, hadn’t done the Maverick any good. Actually, the more he thought of it, the more the battle did stand out. It had been short, just like most of the battles X had fought with higher ranked Mavericks, but it had worried X no small deal, especially at one point, where X had seriously thought he had lost. How could he have forgotten a feeling like that? He looked carefully around the unrealistic room, carefully noting every detail, from the strange wire frame walls to the giant eyeball type orb hanging in the background. He always did this when he entered a room where he was sure a major Maverick would attack him. More than once he had used his surroundings as the crucial factor in defeating the Maverick. This time, though, he admitted nervously, it didn’t look like anything here could be trusted to even walk on, much less provide cover. There was a flash of light from the far right corner of the room, and the wire frame skeletal structure of his enemy materialized out of nowhere. There was a much brighter flash of light and a sound like a black hole regurgitating its contents, and then Cyber Peacock was hovering in the air, like the self proclaimed god of cyberspace that he was. “Your power,” Cyber began finally, gazing down at X in quiet disbelief, “It’s unbelievable…” X knew exactly what the Maverick had been talking about. Though he hated wasting time talking to his enemies-it gave the Maverick the opportunity to launch a surprise attack-the strange tests he’d endured in cyberspace had been odd enough to make him curious. “What have you been doing to me?” Peacock leaned back, crossing his gangly arms over his chest, hovering quite comfortably and effortlessly in the air. “I was ordered to test your abilities,” he said simply. “I occupied this place to draw you in, and here you are. I must say,” he said conspiratorially, “I can see how you defeated most of your opponents like you did. Your results make it easy to believe all the rumors spoken about you.” His tone of voice turned slightly from nervously conversational to mildly threatening. X barely caught it. “You did very well on your regular tests, but…now its time for your final exam.” And then he vanished. X stood there for a while, and then he blinked. It was the only logical thing he could think of to do at that time. Cyber Peacock had more or less begun the battle, and then he disappeared. The only other person who’d done that was- STING CHAMELEON! That crafty lizard who’d disappeared and taken X by such surprise that- He rolled to the side just in time as Cyber materialized behind him, tail feathers twisted so they stuck out on both sides of his body like a bunch of green swords. He propelled himself up into the air as soon as he teleported in, meaning to slice X in half, but since the Hunter had already taken action, the attack was unsuccessful. X sprung off the ground and let loose a blast from his arm cannon before he came down, but Cyber wasn’t there anymore. “Excellent reflexes,” his voice echoed throughout the room, putting X immediately on guard, “I should have kept that in mind. But I don’t see any reason to keep playing games.” The Maverick rematerialized at the far right corner of the room again, tail feathers spread out, hovering in the air like a god, as before. He thrust his arms out towards X even as the champion Hunter was charging a big shot in his buster. A target locked onto X, another wonder of cyberspace, much like the ones that had been on him during his “tests”. X didn’t wait to see what that meant, and let his blast sail through the air at the enemy. A mass of energies sprang from the tip of Cyber’s middle tail feather, though, and took the form of a little missile. It mixed badly with the oncoming plasma, and both blasts went up in smoke. By the time X was recovering, there was a whole swarm of heat seeking energy missiles coming at him. He dodged frantically, but while he was able to confuse some of them, he certainly couldn’t get away from all of them. They pelted his body with such explosive force that he thought they were tearing right through him, and he couldn’t even line up a shot to return fire with. Mind hazy, pain receptors screaming, damage receptors on red alert, X desperately tried to think of a way out. The idea came as randomly and thankfully as most of them did, the wild ideas that let X win all his battles, only the more he thought of it, this one wasn’t so wild. He upgraded the Soul Body program in his mind and fired his blaster like he would for a normal shot. Instead, however, a rainbow clone of X appeared, sprinting slightly away from X. Cyber Peacock’s Aiming Lasers immediately locked onto the decoy X, sparing the real X any harm. Cyber stared briefly in absolute confusion, and by the time he realized what was happening, the real X had air-dashed up to him, planted his arm cannon on the bird’s chest, and fired at point blank. Cyber Peacock collapsed to the floor, all his active Aiming Lasers vanishing in a fuzzy shower of sparks. X’s boots clanked to the floor after his victim, and they both stared at each other in respectful silence. Finally Cyber, clutching the gaping, bloody hole in his torso, gave X one last defiant glare before collapsing in death. Cyberspace seemed to flicker and grow dull, as though mourning its fallen master, however temporary a master he’d been. X had seen enough movies to know that when the environment started grieving, it was time to get the hell out of there. He switched on his teleporter, which had been specially equipped to take him out of cyberspace, and vanished in his familiar blue haze, leaving the defeated Maverick to rest in his grieving kingdom. A little longer, X knew, and the Aiming Lasers would have done him in. Using the heat of the Soul Body to draw the lasers’ attention had been great improvisation on his part, the kind that gave him the edge in most of his battles. He wondered, though, what would happen if he had to fight Cyber again. He severely doubted someone as crafty as Cyber would make the same mistakes twice. Margaret and Susan Thornton entered a car guarded by no less than five Hunters, two of which entered the car after them. The overwhelmed widow and her daughter were being taken to what the Hunters called a safe house, where they would be protected by Hunters specially trained for the job. Zero let out a very long sigh as he watched them depart the MHHQ from the window of his second floor office. Here was where he stored most of his files and important information about the Hunters in general, like Unit listings and the names of all who had enlisted in their forces. But today, this had been where he and one of the Hunter’s resident shrinks had spoken with the Thorntons. All that they had accomplished was to make the two women cry, Zero reflected angrily. They were still too overwhelmed to be of much help, especially the wife, but the daughter, Susan, had been able to think clearly for a while, and he’d decided, to his dismay, that she really didn’t know any more than anyone else did at this time. It had been a waste of time that had simply made a hard time worse. Zero could sympathize easily with those confronted with death, because he himself had been exposed to far too much of it. He’d known many a man who’d gone mad because of experiences similar to some of those he’d endured, and he often wondered why he himself had avoided a fate like that. His mind froze on that thought. Those who had gone mad…who had cracked under the extreme pressure. It was not dishonorable to him anymore. He didn’t blame those who killed themselves out of desperation anymore, or those who simply could not handle the physical and mental pain. Lots of people he knew had either experienced or witnessed that, and the name that chose to pop up in his mind now was that of Gradient. Gradient would always stand out in Zero’s memory as being someone worthy of immense respect, in addition to being a victim of the ultimate irony. During his service, Gradient had seen many of his own friends die, go mad, or experience extreme physical or mental agonies, and he’d never abandoned a single one. He himself knew much of what they suffered, and whenever Zero thought of his old friend, he could easily picture Gradient walking among the wounded, the disturbed, or the dying, trying to help wherever he could, because for him the war had been personal, for reasons Zero had never figured out. Gradient had shown a deep love for his Reploid brethren, so much that Zero didn’t know why Gradient hadn’t been a Maverick, and tried to take the world for the species he loved. But Gradient had been a Hunter, and Zero was glad for that fact. The irony was that Gradient had become a victim to what he had so often fought against: desperation. Zero let out a frustrated sigh, retreating from the window and sinking into his chair. Why had he allowed himself to think of Gradient? Finally now, with the Olympiad’s passing, memories of Mea were starting to recede back into their cage, somewhere in the back of his mind, and he was almost getting his good mood back. But now the mood was shot to hell. “What’s wrong with me all of a sudden…?” he asked the thin air, “Why am I so damn depressed all the time?” He knew, of course. It was peacetime. In wartime, everyone knew what they had to do. There were no questions, no suspicions, and ironically much less paranoia, at least for Zero. Peacetime, on the other hand, was something he had always hated. Peace was just an illusion, after all, that people used to blind the world, and make them soft for the next wartime. Peace was an empty promise, because while it offered everything people wanted, the jaws of war were always lurking, ready to betray those who had fallen into the spell of peace, chomping hard on the throats of the unprepared. Zero was always prepared. Everyone wondered why he was so nervous during peacetime, why he expected something to happen at any time. He wondered why they DIDN’T. It always happened, right when everyone was relaxing and starting to fully enjoy the peace, and as per course, the softened and the weak were destroyed, and the strong came out on top. He didn’t always think this way. There was a time, not so long ago, when he could enjoy peace, and make the most out of it. He’d have fun with his friends, he’d find entertainment in any situation, and he’d basically enjoy life until it was time to go back out and fight another war. So why had his mind changed like this…? Well, had it even changed at all? Were those thoughts just the result of his current depression, a depression brought on by the deaths of Colonel, Iris, and all his other friends that had perished in Repliforce’s War? He knew he had to move on, but he just couldn’t snap himself out of it. Hell, he thought, why CAN’T I enjoy peace? What’s stopping me? I’ve become, for lack of better term, a robot. There’s no meaning for me anymore…well, piss on that. I’ll find some meaning. It can’t be that hard. I’ve just gotta stop moping around this place…gotta get out somewhere. Maybe hit the bar with the team…hmm, why not. Screw tonight’s training, we’ll go get plastered instead. I don’t think they’ll have a problem with THAT. “It’s not going to be as hard as we thought,” said Storm Eagle, “Not hard at all.” Sigma raised an eyebrow as he strode down the hallways of his fortress, the avian keeping step only barely. Few could match Sigma’s impressive military stride. “What exactly did Gravity Beetle say about it?” “All the parts we need for the Gallagher airship,” Storm continued, a little winded, “Are actually fairly easy to get. Some are pretty expensive, he says, but with Cyber Peacock’s Internet funding schemes, ‘Seraph’ will be able to buy them without a problem. Gravity is gonna make a full list and send it to Cyber so he knows exactly what to look for.” “Well then,” Sigma said thoughtfully, “I guess the only problem now is putting the damned thing together. But Revolver said he’d be right on schedule, so there shouldn’t be too much of a problem.” “Right, sir…” Storm was out of breath. Sigma finally stopped and gave the bird a chance to catch his breath, rolling his eyes in irritation. “Is that all, then?” “No,” Storm shook his head, regaining his composure, “There’s one more thing. Revolver told me that he knew where to find one of the most crucial parts to the Gallagher, but there was apparently some complication in getting it-“ “That’s the generator, right?” “Yes, sir…the only one who we can find who might have a suitable copy is-“ “Grizzly Slash,” Sigma finished instantly, “I’m many steps ahead of you, Storm. Grizzly hangs out in the 12th District, does he not?” “Yes, yes he does…” “Well, then let us set up a meeting.” “’Us’, sir?” “Yes, us. Grizzly and I go way back, believe it or not. He actually supplied our army during the first war with a ton of black market weapons, but the Hunters never found out about that. I’d like to see him again.” The proposition just wasn’t clicking in Storm’s head, which was obvious by the gaping stare he gave his commander. “Sir, that’s, uh, risky. Very risky.” “What?” Sigma laughed, “You think someone is going to attack us? X and Zero have defeated me, Storm, not their underlings. They won’t be THAT stupid.” “Still…well never mind, then.” Though it was clear that he still had reservations. Sigma continued his stroll towards his quarters, leaving Storm Eagle to frown at the ground. It had been a long time since he’d got out of this dreary base and had some fun. He was looking forward to it… |