Chapter Text
Axl craned his neck as he scaled the building, leaping up over the jagged mouth of a broken window. Swirls of black smoke framed the blistered sky, and the flames licking around him were blindingly bright in infrared. Switching to his radar view, he was able to spot his partner, X, leaning over the edge of the building with a hand extended towards him. With one last jump, Axl took X's hand and felt himself hauled onto the roof.
"Up there," X shouted, pointing. Axl focused his gaze and could just make out the threat, a large humanoid mech. Its pale armour took on a hellish glow as it flew over the burning city, swinging a giant energy sword in flashing crescents. Beams of destructive light fired out of the cannon at the end of its other arm.
Axl gasped. "It's heading towards - "
" - HQ," X nodded curtly. "Let's go."
X sent a message over the secure network as they double-timed it back to base. << Alia! Evacuate all non-essential personnel immediately. Whatever it is, it’s coming your way. >>
<< Acknowledged, X, please buy us as much time as you can. >>
Sprinting over collapsing buildings and broken skyrails, Axl heard the cries of the trapped and the wounded below. He gripped his pistols tighter. Just hang on, everyone, we gotta take care of this thing first.
At last they reached Maverick Hunter Headquarters, where the enemy mech had lowered itself onto the roof and hovered there, a floating sentinel. Axl vaguely recalled images he had viewed from human history of swordsmen in heavy plate.
<< Axl, we need to take care of this thing, fast. >> X signalled, as he and Axl moved to flank the enemy. << There are too many people inside. >>
<< On it, X >> Axl responded, switching to his magnum cartridges. “Hey! Asshole!” he shouted. He unloaded on his target from the front, aiming for the joints in its armour. X took the opportunity to run behind it, strafing it with plasma shots from his buster.
The mech reacted with blinding speed for its size. Its sword became a living whip in its hand, deflecting every blast and radiating shockwaves of energy back at them. Axl had to leap and dodge to avoid the counterattack as he tried to decipher its pattern. Damn, it’s good!
<< Gonna go inviz, X >> Axl signalled as he triggered his cloaking ability. X kept the enemy distracted with a barrage of fire while Axl ran towards it, scanning for a weak spot to hit at point blank range. Before Axl could fire a shot, he felt himself thrown backwards, and saw a smoking fissure sliced open in his front plate. He fell heavily to the rooftop, stunned. How did it know?
The mech shifted back into a defensive guard with a motion that was oddly familiar. As Axl wondered where he had seen it before, he was struck with a wave of emotion over the network from X, a wordless cry of anguish. “X? What’s up, buddy?” Axl asked, risking a glance at his partner.
X was standing still, his expression frozen in dreamlike trance. His buster arm had fallen to his side, and his other hand was balled in a fist against his chest. “No . . . it can’t be,” he said, voice barely above a whisper.
The enemy strode towards X, lifting the sword over its head in a high guard. Its arm cannon hummed as it began to gather power.
"X, heads up!" Axl warned, struggling to his feet.
". . . it's Zero,” X breathed.
"Huh? What are you doing?" Axl shouted. "Move!"
Axl lunged forward, shooting wildly --
" -- too late," he sighed.
There was a blinding flash of light in every frequency and a thunderclap of superheated air.
When Axl could see again, the mech was looming over an unconscious X, reaching towards him with a clawed gauntlet.
“Oh no you don’t!” Axl cried. He changed a setting on his pistols and fired a volley of targeted EMP beams. To his astonished relief the mech seemed to freeze in its tracks, but he had no idea how long the paralysis would hold.
Axl dove to X’s side, hauled him up off of the rooftop and started sprinting as fast as he could to put some distance between X and the enemy. He scanned X’s condition; he had gone into emergency standby mode to avoid a fuel core meltdown.
<< Alia! >> Axl messaged frantically. << X is down, I need you to transport him out of here, anywhere. >>
There was no response.
<< Alia, do you copy? >>
When Axl looked up, the HQ navigation tower was in flames.
"Shit!" Axl hissed, skidding to a halt. He sensed movement behind him and whirled around to see that the EMP beams had worn off and the enemy was flying towards him. Axl flung himself sideways to avoid a charged shot from its cannon. He winced as the blast struck a nearby building. Another towering cloud of smoke rose into the sky.
Not good, Axl thought. I need to wrap this up fast. Is it really you, Zero?
Axl scanned the streets below HQ and spotted a ride chaser parked a short distance away that seemed to be undamaged. As he jumped from the roof he booted up a hacking program he had kept installed from his previous life. He risked a glance over his shoulder while the bike hummed to life; the enemy was hot on his heels. He redlined the engine and the acceleration nearly unseated him and X, whose body lay across his lap.
Axl led the enemy on a frenetic chase away from the city, using every bit of processing power he possessed to sense and evade its attacks. As they reached an uninhabited area on the outskirts of town, he checked the bike’s fuel and mentally added it to his own. Might be enough. I don’t need to completely destroy it, just need to give them enough time to patch up X.
Axl used the hacking program again to overclock the engine, giving him a speed boost and nudging the bike’s reactor towards critical. He spotted an abandoned concrete building and raced towards it. It should shield X from the worst of the radiation. Axl dismounted from the bike with X in his arms, kicked in the nearest door and ran inside the building. He took a precious moment to hold X tightly, then lowered him as gently as he could to ground before sprinting back outside.
As Axl spun the bike around to go after his foe, he saw that it was already closing the distance fast. Its arm glowed with another charging shot aimed in his direction. Perfect. He forced another speed boost from the engine and tripped the bike’s self-destruct sequence. If he timed it right, he would crash into the mech just as it unleashed its attack.
With the seconds that remained, he left one last message for his family.
<< Thank you, X, and you too, Zero. Please forgive me . . . >>