The Endless Road
A Megaman X fanfiction by Deaku
Chapter 02 ~ Into The Depths
Jason walked onto the bridge making one last check-over of his inner-suit, scanning over the small readout on the right wrist. After he was sure that everything was functioning properly and that there were no anomalies Jason was satisfied and flipped down the small panel that normally covered the readout. Now that his attention was no longer on his suit Jason looked over the bridge and saw an unusual sight; Angel was sitting in the copilot's seat with her feet propped up on the console, a rather strange act for a hologram who usually sat or laid down in midair. Angel was looking quite angry and Jason wasn't sure whether he should disturb her or not, but his curiosity got the better of him and he decided to ask.
"Hey Angel," Jason began cautiously, not wanting the anger to be refocused on him. "What's wrong? You seem a bit uh put off for some reason."
Angel jumped up and spun around to face Jason with an extremely angry look on her face. Jason instinctively threw his arms up in front of him and prepared for the coming onslaught, but it didn't come. Instead Angel sighed and proceeded to lay down on her side in midair, her face calming down a little.
"Oh it's just those damn people down at city hall." Angel answered in only a slightly less than calm voice. "They won't let me file a complaint. As soon as I mention anything that might hint to a complaint I get hung up on, by both the secretaries and the central computer."
"Yeah, I know what you mean." Jason nodded. "Some of those people just don't want to hear anything negative about anything, I guess they think it might make their job harder or something. And the central comp's even worse, if it thinks you're even hinting at anything negative it'll refuse to talk with you."
"That's sure what it seems like." Angel said as she sat up. "How in the world did Matrix ever get that complaint he had about those ground security mechaniloids in without it being turned away? I know it went through because he told me he got a reply saying it would be looked into."
"Well Matrix went with a rather sneaky approach to it." Jason laughed slightly. "He put the actual complaint in an attachment and made something up for a mail and sent it in. Well, it seems that the central comp doesn't actually read the attachments, just scans them for viruses and such, and then if the mail itself is nothing unusual it sends the letter on so that an actual person can take a look at it. Anyway, once it gets past the outer wall, so to speak, the people in charge who are actually concerned about stuff like that will get it and give it a read it over. That's how Matrix told it to me anyway."
"I suppose that could work." Angel mused. "I just have to come up with something to put in the letter that the central computer won't think is suspicious."
"You do that Angel." Jason smirked. "As for me, it's time to get to work."
The crystals on Jason's inner-suit began to glow; the glow extended from the crystals and enveloped his whole body, taking on a familiar shape. In a bright flash the mass of light was replaced by the Rever armor. After a quick check over of the armor, Rever decided it was time to go. Instead of saying goodbye to Angel, Rever simply waved. He knew better than to disturb her when she was deep in thought, even if he was wearing his armor. Angel actually noticed and waved absentmindedly as Rever was heading out. As soon as he was outside Rever leapt into the air and took flight, heading for the place where he would meet his new employer.
Rever flew between the buildings of downtown, watching the activity of the New Yorkers below him. He wasn't too worried about hitting anything; no vehicles flew at this height, flying cars were strictly sci-fi material, but hover and wheeled vehicles made for most of the traffic on the streets below. While there were a fair number of Reploids that could fly and made use of the nearly non-existent traffic at this height to get where they wanted to go quickly, they tended to steer clear of someone so obviously heavily armed as Rever.
Just then a pair of Reploids came around a corner but stopped in midair when they spotted Rever, they quickly retreated back around the corner as Rever flew by. Rever just shook his head as he passed and continued on his way.
Rever came to the Engen Co. building and flew around back to the loading area, as the instructions he got from Gramps asked. He hovered in the air a moment, scanning the area. There were several Reploids loading and unloading materials, but they definitely weren't who he was here to meet. Finally he spotted a woman near one of the employee entrances, she looked a little nervous but was obviously waiting for someone. Rever dropped down out of the air right in front of the woman, causing her to jump and drop the electronic notebook she was holding.
"Well I wasn't quite expecting that." The woman said as she picked up her notebook off the ground. "I assume you're the individual that The Pit sent over to take care of our little problem?"
"Yes," Rever confirmed. "I'm known as Rever, one of The Pit's top freelancers."
"Hmmm yes. Well it's a pleasure to meet you Rever." She held out her hand and Rever shook it. "I'm Miss Valentine, secretary to President Aquilo. Thank you for coming so quickly."
"I assume it's President Aquilo who wants my assistance?" Rever asked as he followed Miss Valentine into the building and down a long hallway.
"Yes, he had me call The Pit as soon as our problem started." Miss Valentine told Rever as she stopped walking and hit a button to signal an elevator to take them to the upper floors. "President Aquilo will explain the details; but you may have to wait a while, he currently in a meeting."
"That's alright, I can wait for him." Rever replied as he and Miss Valentine entered the elevator. "But is there anything you can tell me about this problem you have?"
Miss Valentine didn't answer, so Rever took her silence as a 'no'.
~~~~~
Rever stood in the huge room outside President Aquilo's office; he was staring out the large window looking out over the city's skyline as he waited for President to get out of his meeting. Miss Valentine was at her desk working on something with her electronic notebook; she occasionally glanced towards Rever but hadn't said a thing since they arrived on this floor except to tell Rever that she had sent a message about his arrival to President Aquilo. Rever had been waiting almost an hour so far; he usually considered himself patient, but this was just getting ridiculous.
Getting tired of simply staring out the window while waiting, Rever decided to look around the room a bit. There were several paintings adorning the walls, everything from portraits to landscapes. Rever thought they all looked quite nice and that it was quite rare to see actual paintings in this day and age. There were also several plants around the room, actual plants, not the bio-mechanical things that were much more prevalent. But what caught Rever's attention the most was a model of the Engen Co. building and a large part of the area around it. There seemed more to the model than a quick glance would reveal, so Rever looked around it a bit more. A control panel at the other end of the model seemed to confirm his suspicions.
Flipping up the faceplate on his helmet Jason looked over the model; he'd rather examine these types of things with his own eyes rather than looking through the sensors of his Rever armor. Looking close Jason found several small holographic projectors; they weren't even hidden, just so small that they were hard to see.
"A solid scale model with holographic projectors huh?" Jason said to himself as he looked over the model. "Interesting, a bit of an old style tech, but still interesting." Jason then looked over the unlabeled control panel. "I wonder if this button turns it on?" Jason proceeded to push the button in question.
The model seemed to spring to life as the hologram projectors activated, creating scale versions of all the things one would expect to be moving about a city. Various vehicles moved about the streets and a few small cargo transports in the air high above the buildings, there were even holograms of humans and Reploids walking down the sidewalks.
"Wow, quite the intricate hologram." Jason smiled. "I wonder what the rest of the buttons do?"
Jason began to push the various buttons of the control panel, resulting in different effects on the holograms. There were changes in the amount of activity, changes between night and day, even changes in the weather. But it seemed Jason hit one button too many as everything suddenly started speeding up and then warping, becoming what looked like a tornado of light. Jason started pushing more buttons and re-pushing buttons, trying to shut the thing off. But all his efforts only seemed to be making things worse.
"Shut off damn it!" Jason growled under his breath. He briefly thought of simply slamming his fist down on the control panel as a last resort, but decided against it since doing so in his armor would probably smash it completely.
Just then Miss Valentine walked over and hit a small button on the top corner of the control panel that Jason hadn't even touched, everything ceased to move and instantly shut down. With a small and amused smiled she walked back to her desk and resumed what she was doing as if nothing happened. Jason quickly flipped his faceplate back down before his face got too red and walked back over to the window to resume waiting for President Aquilo. He berated himself in his mind for messing with something that he didn't know the specifics of and that he shouldn't have been touching in the first place.
About ten minutes later the door to President Aquilo's office opened and several people exited; most of them were yelling at an individual in the center of the group, who was being remarkably calm despite it all. However everyone went silent when they saw Rever; after staring at Rever for a few moments they gave the man that had been on the receiving end of all the yelling one last angry stare and left the room.
"I'm sorry you had to see that," The man, who was now looking quite relieved that the others had gone, said as he turned towards Rever. "Usually our board members are much more well behaved than that, but they'll just lose it if something they think is important goes wrong. By the way if you haven't guessed, I'm President Aquilo. It's a pleasure to meet you." Aquilo then smiled and bowed.
"I'm known as Rever." Rever replied and bowed as well.
"Rever was very prompt after I made the call to the Pit." Miss Valentine told Aquilo as she handed him some sort of printout. "He's been patiently waiting for about an hour now."
"An hour!? I hadn't realized that meeting took that long!" Aquilo exclaimed. "I must apologize for making you wait so long Rever. I imagine you'll want to get right down to business then. So let's get down to where our little problem originated shall we?" Aquilo started walking and signaled for the other two to follow.
"It's no problem Mr. Aquilo, I could have waited longer." Rever said offhandedly. However he was thinking 'It's about time! I was getting bored out of my mind back there!' The way Miss Valentine was smirking suggested she knew what Rever was really thinking.
"Well it all started just before Miss Valentine called The Pit." Aqulio began to explain as the three entered into the same elevator as before, he hit a button to take them to one of the basement levels. " A group of Reploids broke up into one of our lab areas."
"Broke up into?" Rever repeated. "You mean they borrowed up from underground?"
"Yes," Aquilo confirmed. "They found a small hole in our security grid and dug up from the old subway tunnels. No one was killed, and there were only a few minor injuries. It seems they were only after a specific one of our projects, after the got a hold of it they left. They were in and out so quick that our security didn't even get a chance to react."
"Actually they did a bit of hacking as well." Miss Valentine added. "They were able to make a copy of all the files that were related to what they stole."
"What?! They were?! When?!" Aquilo asked frantically, he might have started running around in circles if he would have had the space. Miss Valentine just pointed down at the printout she had given him earlier that was still in his hand. He quickly read it and calmed down a bit. "Well, it appears they were able to do a lot more than we first realized. Good thing the board didn't find out about this yet, they would have been ranting for another hour. Thanks for keeping it quiet Miss Valentine."
"No problem President Aquilo." Miss Valentine smiled before turning towards Rever. "The board's also the reason why the hunters or authorities haven't been called in yet, they don't what news of this getting out. I'm surprised they let us call you in, I've heard quite a few of them say how they hate freelancers." Miss Valentine expression quickly changed, as though she thought she had said something wrong. "I mean that's not to say we all hate freelancers."
"It's alright, I get that a lot. Not many freelancers expect to be liked by people." Rever half-laughed. "But what was it these Reploids stole? It seems it was quite important judging by the way the board members were acting."
"Well I'm not supposed to say, it was a top secret project." Aquilo stared down at the floor. The elevator doors opened and they all began walking again as Aquilo continued. "But getting back this project is the main part of your job, along with finding out who did this. I'd tell you more, but I'm forbidden from talking about the project."
"Oh yeah, that really makes his job easier." Miss Valentine said sarcastically to herself as she rolled her eyes. She said it quiet enough so that President Aquilo didn't hear; however Rever heard it, though he pretended he didn't.
Rever looked around as they walked, looking through various doors and windows into the labs behind them. This place was very high tech, the Engen Co. seemed to have the latest versions of everything. Oh how he would have loved to play with all this equipment to find out what it could do, or at the very least get a better look at it. Then he mentally smacked himself. 'Remember, you're on the job right now so you're Rever, not Jason. You can dream about playing with all the toys after the job's done.'
"Here's the one where it happened." Aquilo said as they entered one of the labs. "We didn't want to disturb any possible clues or anything else that might help you, so we haven't cleaned up yet."
Rever looked around, the gaping hole in the floor made it pretty obvious where the thieves came in. However the rest of the room was nearly untouched, only a few pieces of equipment were damaged in any way. But one piece of damaged equipment caught Rever's attention more than the others; it was quite a strange looking machine, with a large glass cylinder at its center. The front of the glass cylinder was shattered; but a strange liquid was in the bottom of the cylinder and on the floor in front of the machine.
"The experiment that was stolen was part of this machine." Aquilo said as he walked up behind Rever, then sighed as he looked at the machine. "Besides being highly classified, the board considered this one of our most important experiments. But that's all I can say about it."
"Oh my" Miss Valentine had been checking out one of the computer stations since they came into the lab. "This is bad."
"What is it Miss Valentine?" Aquilo walked over to the computer station. "Did they take something else?"
"Well, it's not that anything else was taken. It's just that all files relating to the project have been erased." Miss Valentine explained. "But they shouldn't be, they were there less than an hour ago when I was scanning the files while we were waiting for you to get out of your meeting. There's no way that those thieves could have done it, they were long gone by then."
"What could've done it then?" Aquilo inquired as his scanned over the screen.
"Well I suppose they could have put some sort of virus into the system to erase the files." Miss Valentine volunteered a theory. "But I'm not detecting anything, if there was a virus it seems to have vanished."
Rever was listening as Miss Valentine and President Aquilo tried to figure out what happened to the files, but that's not what he was concerned with at the moment. This secret project of theirs reminded him too much of something that he did years before, something he didn't want anybody else doing. He let his suit's sensors scan over this machine of theirs, whether they would have wanted him to or not, and deconstructed it in his visuals. The machinery was in a different configuration, but it still looked like it would work properly. The strange liquid was a combination of various organic compounds; Aili had called it bio-soup, super slime and several other weird names. But still, if they were as far along with this project as they seemed and the thieves hadn't bother cleaning the liquid off of it there might be a trail of organic particles from the evaporating liquid and some given off by the project itself, that Rever could track. Making adjustments to his sensors, Rever found what he was looking for. There was a clear trail going straight down into the hole to the underground. Rever walked over to the edge and stared down into the darkness, wondering what sort of challenge waited for him.
"Is something wrong Rever?" Miss Valentine asked as she saw Rever looking down into the opening.
"I'm going to track those thieves down and destroy them." Rever replied rather darkly. "But don't worry, I'll find who they are and what was done with your little project before I turn them to ash." He then jumped into the gaping hole and vanished into the darkness below.
~~~~~
The subway tunnels were nearly devoid of any sort of light; the inky blackness was an inconvenience, but Rever's sensors compensated well enough. Not being regularly maintained for decades, the tunnels were in obvious need of repair. They were passable, but just barely. The walls were cracked and falling apart; rubble littered the ground, making difficult to pass in some places. But the particle trail Rever was following remained clear and continued to lead him through the forgotten tunnels.
Rever came across yet another ruined subway car; but the section of tunnel around this particular car had completely collapsed around it, the only way to continue was by going through what was left of the car. Stopping just outside the doorway Rever took a moment to examine it. The metal was torn apart and bent way out of shape to create a larger opening, Rever guessed that one of the thieves had been a bit too large to get through the original door. Inside the subway car was no more pleasant than the tunnels themselves, just about everything in the interior looked to be damaged by the passing of the thieves or time itself. The ceiling was quite low from all the weight pressing down from above, and there were a few skeletons of unlucky individuals that had died in the darkness long ago. But Rever detected heat signatures in various places around the subway car; heat damage from energy weapons Rever figured. His first thought was that the thieves had blasted around to try and weaken the subway car enough so that it would collapse and prevent pursuit, but then Rever studied the blast points a bit more. A shattered skeleton accompanied each blast point; it looked as if the shattered skeletons had been stomped on as well, as if to make sure that none of the bones would be left whole. Rever saw no logical reason for doing such a thing, it seemed the thieves had just done it for the fun of it.
"Damn mavericks" Rever commented as he left the subway car. "Getting more disturbed all the time."
A bit further down the tunnel the trail Rever was following made an abrupt turn and went into a large opening in the wall. Entering, Rever found himself in a different sort of tunnel; this one looked dug, or possibly drilled, out of the natural earth and rock. The tunnel looked like it was made recently, Rever wasn't completely sure. But the thieves had used it, and judging by the size of it they probably at least had to enlarge it themselves to let the largest among them to get through. But the tunnel wasn't very long, Rever soon found himself in another old manmade tunnel, but this one was an old sewer tunnel by the looks of it.
"Great, just great." Rever thought aloud as he looked around. "Where the hell are they going? I'm getting tired of tunnels." Rever continued to grumble as he resumed his tracking.
The trail twisted and turned through the sewers, but remained going in the same general direction. The particle trail was getting more difficult to track, there being several other types of organic molecules in the air was making the task more difficult. But such a thing wouldn't deter Rever from his task.
After following the main tunnels for quite a distance, the trail took a sudden turn and went into a smaller side tunnel. Rever looked down the tunnel; he briefly detected an energy signature, but it quickly vanished. There seemed to be something in the area that interfered with his scans, but Rever wasn't sure what it was just yet. Rever started moving cautiously down the tunnel; he stayed close to the wall to limit the angles he could be attacked from if something was indeed waiting in this tunnel. After a few minutes of it seemed that the tunnel was all clear, but something seemed odd so Rever didn't let his guard down. Rever's instincts proved right as he heard some sort of growing coming from the side and slightly behind him, followed by a slight scraping noise as something pulled itself along the ground.
"That better not be what my imagination is making it out to be." Rever said as he glanced over his shoulder. A quick scan revealed a squat long body with four legs and a long thick tail, and it looked decidedly reptilian. "This has got to be someone's idea of a joke." Rever told himself as he spun around to face the thing.
The creature lunged at Rever, who jumped out of reach of the enormous jaws and gave it a quick kick in the side. The kicked resulted in a long clanging sound, followed by another as it hit the opposite wall.
"Thought so." Rever gave a slight laugh as he watched the creature get up
The creature gave a hiss as it turned back towards Rever, but it didn't charge immediately. Now that he had a lock on it Rever could properly scan the thing despite the interference in the area. While it looked enough like a living thing on the outside, underneath the scaly covering it was no more than a beast-like mechaniloid.
"You picked a very bad time to pick a fight with me." Rever told the mechaniloid creature. "I've been having problems with mechaniloids as of late and have just been aching to get rid of the stress from it. You being a mechaniloid just gives me a wonderful target to relieve all that stress on."
Rever didn't really expect the thing to understand, but he found that talking to these types of mechaniloids in battle sometimes confused them. It seemed to be working, the mechaniloid just stood there as it tried to process what Rever had said.
Rever pulled out his energy saber, the light of its blade illuminating the tunnel. The mechaniloid recognized the action as hostile and charged, it was surprisingly quick for its size and build. Rever waited until the last possible second before leaping out of the way, letting the mechaniloid ram into the wall. But ramming into the wall didn't phase the thing, not that Rever had really expected it to, it pulled its head from the wall and turned back towards Rever. Before the mechaniloid could even make a sound Rever brought his saber down on its head, slicing it in half. But the mechaniloid stood unfazed, having it head cut in half hadn't bothered it a bit.
"You're a stubborn one, I'll give you that." Rever commented as he jumped the mechaniloid's next charge, landing on its back. "But let's see how you react to this!"
Rever fired both of his arm cannons point-blank into the mechaniloid's back, then leapt away as the mechaniloid began to jerk and roll around on the ground as its internal systems began to explode. The mechaniloid's final explosion sent pieces flying everywhere and resulted in a brilliant flash of light that lit up the tunnel as bright as daylight. What was left of the head landed near Rever; still trying to bite him, but it soon went completely still.
"Somebody is definitely way too into the whole urban legend thing." Rever commented as the stared at the remains of the mechaniloid. "But I guess it proves that I'm on the right track, whoever made it didn't want anybody going down this particular tunnel."
Rever continued down the tunnel, the flash of light had revealed something that caught his eye. Where the tunnel used to come to a dead-end, a new tunnel had been created. This tunnel was quite large and sloped downward at a slight angle. However Rever could not scan anything down this tunnel, whatever was interfering with his scans got stronger the deeper the tunnel went. The most Rever's sensors could do was make out the walls and ground, but that was enough. Though he could no longer make out the particle trail, it was pretty obvious that the thieves had gone down to wherever the new tunnel led. Continuing to track his quarry, Rever headed down into the unknown.
~~~~~
Rever continued walking, he was now going through some sort of natural tunnel system that was far underground. He had followed the new tunnel he had found in the sewers; it had sloped down and then began to spiral, eventually leading into some sort of natural cavern. When he had entered into the cavern Rever was surprised to find lights were hanging down from above and they continued on out one of the tunnels that led out of the cavern. His sensors were now working properly again; Rever surmised that there was some sort of cloaking field in operation, and he was now within the field itself.
Rever easily found the trail that he had been following in the tunnels above, though it really didn't seem necessary to use his sensors to follow it. Not only were there plenty of footprints in the dust on the floor, all of them followed the lights and didn't go off into any of the tunnels that branched off from the one he was in. Though there were far more trails than should have been if it had only been the thieves using this tunnel; Rever wasn't worried, in fact he was rather looking forward to the possibility of a challenging battle.
However Rever was being followed, he knew there was at least two of them and they had first come from one of the many branching tunnels. They had been following behind Rever for the past ten minutes, sticking to the shadows and ducking in and out of the entrances of the other tunnels. They were doing a good job of staying out of sight, it's just that one of them was being a bit too loud to stay completely undetectable. Rever stopped walking and remained perfectly still, he heard his pursuers stop as well.
"Whoever you are you might as well come and face me right now instead of delaying the inevitable battle by continuing to stalk me." Rever said matter-of-factly to whoever was following him. "It'll be much easier if we just get this all over with right now."
Rever heard murmuring; it was too quiet for him to make out what was being said, but he was able to distinguish two distinct voices. Knowing that he was going to fight a pair, Rever took a deep breath and prepared himself for the fight. Rever didn't immediately charge up any of his weapons, deciding he'd let them make the first move. Suddenly the light around Rever began to drain away and shadows began to rise up around him. But it wasn't a problem with the lights, these shadows were from an unnatural source.
The shadows completely enveloped Rever, drowning him in a darkness that seemed deeper than anything natural. "An AD Field" Rever said to himself when he recognized the effect. "This is unexpected."
The AD field was a rare device, one usually not installed on Reploids, or even carried around as an independent device for that matter. Now not only was his vision completely obscured, but Rever's sensors could not penetrate the artificial shadow. The field also partially muted any sound within it, but not completely, Rever could hear his pursuers running up directly behind him.
Rever heard the hum of an energy saber as it activated, he ducked as the blade of the unseen saber sliced through the air where his head once was. This opponent seemed slow to recover from the missed swing; not one to pass on such an opportunity Rever counterattacked. Lashing out with a mule kick, Rever felt his foot connect with the stomach of someone's armor and heard them grunt as they were sent flying through the air. But before Rever could spin around to finish off his fallen opponent with a blast from a buster cannon, he was struck across the chest with some sort of blunt weapon. Rever was struck again across the back of his leg, causing him to drop to one knee. Whoever this one was they were very good, Rever couldn't even hear them moving around at all.
Rever stood up, quickly raising his arms up in defense when he heard a slight whistling in the air. There was the sound of metal striking metal as Rever successfully defended against the blow. Rever tried to counter with a punch, but his opponent was already gone. He heard another swing and rose up his arm to block it. The battle continued; Rever was able to block most of the blows, partially through luck, but some were still able to get through his defense. They were painful, however none had managed to seriously damage his armor yet.
Rever's opponent was starting to change tactics. Instead of a continual assault, his opponent was now striking him and then falling back, then striking again at random intervals. Rever didn't want to fire off a shot from one of his buster cannons; since he didn't have a lock on his opponent's location it was almost guaranteed to be a miss, and a miss could possibly bring down the tunnel around them. He briefly thought about saying something to get them to talk in return, but he figured his opponent was smart enough not to give away their location by talking. All this was making Rever very frustrated, not being able to see and not having the proper sensors to penetrate an AD field combined with all the other factors put him at a serious disadvantage.
While he was still able to defend against quite a few of the blows, several were still getting through and it was only a matter of time before Rever's armor sustained serious damage. Rever forced himself to remain calm as he delved into his mind, searching for anything that might help him in this situation. Finally something came to the front of his mind, a memory of a lesson learned long ago
~~~~~
Jason stood in a defensive stance, trying to be ready for anything his mentor might throw at him. Though he found the solid visor and earmuff thing he was wearing to be a serious hindrance, he couldn't see or hear anything at all. When he had first asked Kagemaru to teach him how to defend himself Jason wouldn't have ever guessed he'd have to do something like this nope, he never would've pictured himself doing anything like this.
Jason concentrated like he had been taught, trying to focus on where his opponent was. Jason thought he sensed something and lashed out with a mighty punch straight ahead of him, but he connected with nothing but air and nearly lost his balance. Before the young boy could straighten up and regain proper balance he was slapped hard on the back, sending him falling face first to the ground.
"Urrgg! What's the point!" Jason growled as he sat up and pulled off the headgear. "How's someone supposed to fight when they can't see or hear?"
"The senses can easily be made useless by the simplest of tricks, even the best mechanical sensors can be thwarted." Kagemaru answered. "But your instincts are not so easily fooled. Trust in your instincts and they'll pull through even when all else fails." Kagemaru helped Jason up off the ground. "Now Jason, when we first started with this training I seem to recall you saying that you'd be able to do anything that I might teach you and that you'd see it through to the end. Or were you just talking big and you're thinking about giving up now?"
"No way!" Jason yelled determinedly and put the headgear back on. "I can do this, just you wait and see!" Jason then resumed his defensive stance.
Jason once again waited for the attack. His world had neither sight nor sound, he calmed his mind and allowed his instincts to take over his body. At first there was nothing; but then it seemed as if there was some kind of strange wind blowing from behind him, and it was quickly gaining in strength. Trusting his instincts, Jason ducked. He felt Kagemaru's foot brush across the tope of his head as he barely dodged the kick in time. Jason instantly spun around and attacked with a jumping uppercut; it wasn't a direct hit, but he did feel his fist glance Kagemaru's jaw.
Jason once again pulled off the headgear, but it wasn't because he was mad, he just wanted to know how well he did. Kagemaru was simply looking down at Jason with a neutral expression on his face, but Jason noticed that there was a slight red mark on the left side of Kagemaru's jaw.
"Not bad." Kagemaru gave Jason a slight smile. "Not too bad at all."
Clapping caught their attention and they both looked over to see who it was, it was Hikari. She was leaning against a tree with a smile on her face, laughing slightly as she applauded.
"Good show boys, but how about you give it a rest for the day?" Hikari walked over to the pair, patting Jason on the head before continuing. "I was planning on going into town for dinner tonight, I thought you guys might like to come with me."
"Yeah, that sounds good Hikari." Kagemaru nodded. "We've worked up quite an appetite this afternoon, a big meal is just what we need."
"Wahoo!" Jason cheered. "Where are we gonna eat?"
"I haven't quite decided yet." Hikari replied. Then a strange smirk appeared on her face. "But first I think you two need to take a shower or something, both of you are smelling pretty rank."
"I do not!" Jason fumed; even Kagemaru seemed a bit insulted, but Hikari just laughed.
~~~~~
Rever fumed at himself for forgetting such an essential part of his training; but he'd berate himself later, he had more important things to worry about at the moment.
After defending against yet another strike Rever calmed his mind, allowing his instincts to take over. He started to feel a strange wind blowing in front of him, but it was slowly shifting to his left. When the wind began to grow in strength Rever made his move. Without warning Rever charged to his left, his hand reaching out for his target. Rever's opponent was caught in mid-swing, totally surprised by the hand closing around their neck. Rever slammed them hard into the wall; he heard a pair of metal weapons fall to the ground as he began to tighten his grip.
The darkness began to fade and Rever's vision came back to him as he brought his free hand back for a punch that would finish his opponent off, but Rever hesitated when he finally got a clear look at his opponent. She was wearing the ornate armor and the badge of the Paladin Group, when the visor that was covering the eyes slid back into the helmet Rever definitely recognized the face.
"Oh It's you." Rever released the female knight he had met earlier on the mag-lev, she slid down to the ground holding her neck.
"It's you?" The knight repeated as she stared up at Rever, but the look in her eyes suggested that she was already planning a counterattack. "We've never met before."
Rever flipped up his faceplate. "Recognize me now?" After the knight's expression shifted from defensive look to one of recognition Rever flipped the faceplate back down.
"Well, this is unexpected" The knight was a little confused, but her defenses were back up. She stood up eyeing Rever warily. "Just what are you doin" But a moan from the squire cut her off and she bolted to his side and slowly helped him up to a sitting position. "Are you alright Max?"
As the knight checked over the squire to make sure he was okay, Rever checked over his own armor. His armor was scuffed all over the place and there were a few minor dents, but there was no real damage to anything. As he looked over his armor, Rever noticed the weapons the knight had been using. They was something Rever hadn't seen for a very long time, a pair of tonfa. Rever was quite impressed; not only did the knight have substantial skill with the weapons, but it took a lot of guts to use such a weapon in this age of high-tech. Rever picked up the weapons and carried them over to the knight and handed them to her. But she was still busy trying to get the squire to come out of his daze and focus.
"Whoa" The squire was still rather dazed. But he suddenly came out of it when Rever stopped in front of him. "You won't get me again!" He went for the energy saber he had dropped when Rever kicked him, but the knight stopped him.
"Hold on Max." The knight pulled him up into a standing position, then picked up his saber and calmly handed it back to him. "I believe this has been quite the case of mistaken identity." The knight waved a hand towards Rever. "This is the guy we met back on the mag-lev."
"What?! Really?!" He looked at Rever unbelievingly, but a look from the knight convinced him.
"Well, I guess we never did introduce ourselves last time did we?" The knight asked rhetorically. The knight bowed before continuing. "I'm Nightshade, Knight of the Paladin Group." She then waved a hand towards her partner and he bowed. "This is Max, Squire of the Paladin Group. You already know the basics of why we're here since I told you on the train. Afterwards we were searching around our assigned area and heard a few rumors, eventually we found a strange tunnel in the basement of an old building and ended up down here."
"I'm Rever, I'm a freelancer and currently on a job at the moment. That's all the info I can give you." That was all Rever said, he didn't give out information about his clients or the jobs he did.
"A freelancer? Coooool" Max grinned.
"You're Rever?" Nightshade gave Rever a rather accusatory look. "I've heard about you more than enough about you."
"You shouldn't believe all that you hear." Rever said flatly as he turned and began walking down the tunnel. "We shouldn't waste anymore time standing around talking, we have jobs to do. It's only logical to assume since both our trails led us down here that we're after the same group."
Nightshade and Max nodded and started down the tunnel as well, walking in step with Rever on either side of him. Max had a big smile on his face as he walked, but Nightshade looked at Rever with an untrusting look on her face.
"I suppose since we're on the same side, for now, I should apologize for attacking you like that." Nightshade said to Rever as they walked, but she didn't sound apologetic in the least. "You fit a vague description we got of someone that's been seen sneaking around after each disappearance in the area we were investigating. When we spotted you down here we assumed you were that individual."
"It doesn't matter now, that's in the past." Rever replied. "We need to concentrate on the task at hand." Rever said nothing more. 'Sure, it doesn't matter now,' Rever thought to himself. 'But I'm definitely going to be feeling the effects of that beating later.'
The three continued on in silence for quite awhile, simply following the trail that the lights made. But soon a strange sound began to fill the tunnel. At first they couldn't tell what it was, but the further they walked the clearer the sound became.
"You are our protector, our guide through these chaotic times"
"Is that singing?" Max wondered aloud as they continued to get closer.
"Your shining light drives back the darkness, healing our shattered spirits"
"No, it's chanting." Nightshade corrected.
"We ask you to lead us towards the golden horizon, for we shall follow you until the end of time"
Rever said nothing, but he had heard this chant before.
They came to a large door in the left wall of the tunnel, it was wide open and bright light was streaming through. Though they probably wouldn't be heard over the chanting, the trio crept up to the door quietly as they could. Slowly they looked around the edge of the door into the room beyond; trying their best not to reveal themselves, though it was a bit difficult with all three of them trying to look into the room.
Inside the room was a massive number of Reploids gathered around a large holo-generator in the center of the room. They were of many different types and styles, from humanoid to beast and civilian to combat. It didn't seem to matter to any of them that they wouldn't normally associate with many of the others, all that seemed to matter was the chant. All their focus seemed to be directed at the holo-generator; in fact they looked oblivious to anything else going on around them.
The holo-generator suddenly flared to life, the chanting stopped and all attention was on the image that had just appeared. The image was of a Reploid; he didn't look massive, but he was powerfully built. His dark green armor was trimmed with gold and gold cloak flowed behind him that seemed to glow with an inner light. His eyes were a deep ruby, a strip of the same color extended from below his right eye down to his jaw. He had long hair of crimson that flowed along with his cloak.
"My children," The Reploid looked over the gathering. "It pleases me to see you all"
"What in the world?" Max thought aloud as he watched the activity in the room.
"They're the Celestials." Rever told him. "I imagine the one in the projection is their leader, Deus. First time I've seen him though."
"The Celestials? How can you be sure?" Nightshade inquired. "I've only heard about them in rumors."
"I've dealt with them a few times before." Rever answered. "As for how I can be sure, take a good look at the gathering, I'm sure you'll be able to find the Celestials' symbol somewhere on them all."
Nightshade and Max looked closely; they indeed spotted a symbol that all those in the gathering seemed to have somewhere on their bodies, it was of a 'D' imposed over a golden cross.
"Well now that we know who they are what are we going to do?" Max directed at both Rever and Nightshade.
But neither of them were able to answer as they noticed that all went quiet; all the Reploids gathered in the room were still looking at Deus, but Deus was looking right at the trio looking through the doorway.
"It seems we have some unexpected guests, how wonderful." Deus smiled as his followers turned towards the trio, their faces a blank. "They must be shown the true wisdom." The gathering then began to slowly walk towards the door.
"This is seriously not good." Max said nervously as he as he stepped back.
"We must remain calm Max." Nightshade grabbed him by the arm to stop him from stepping back and running into the wall behind him. "We must remain focused, freaking out won't help anybody."
Rever said nothing, he simply began to charge up his buster cannons.
