Voice of the Darkness

The heat of the crash site was unbearable. Spilled brake fluids and grease from the mag-lev's rail wells had ignited, creating impassable walls of searing orange flame around the site in several directions, and the car had fallen from a great enough height that it had actually turned cherry red from its vicious dive into the atmosphere. Even with his new armor, X realized he couldn't get too close; only Mechaniloids, he figured, could safely approach and contain the flames. The wind shifted, blowing smoke into his eyes, and he suppressed a cough as he raised his blue gauntlet toward his mouth and quickly summoned assistance. He was already envisioning the grim task of taking inventory of the bodies - or more probably their parts - when the door of the car began to shudder, and suddenly buckled from within with a hollow squeal.

X tensed, preparing himself to withstand another explosion. The thought of survivors getting up and walking away never crossed his mind - after all, not even Zero had been able to come out of the crash of the Enigma under his own power after downing Eurasia - and X was sure that if any Reploids had survived the fall, they would have been in no state to help themselves free.

It only made what came next all the more surprising. X stared in disbelief as massive brown hand with knuckles spiked in white metal shoved aside the door from within the smouldering car. Slowly the owner of that hand pushed his huge armored body free of the wreckage in silent calm, and straightened to glower coldly at X.

X stammered. The survivor... was Sigma.

The bulky Reploid's lips twitched into a lopsided bared-teeth grin, a low chuckle. His broad shoulders were silhouetted in fire, and the round jewel at the center of his chest radiated bitter orange light. At his full height, he was nearly double X's size.

X swayed backward as if the chuckle were a slap, and went for his Buster immediately, his hand flying to his forearm.

But Sigma stepped aside, and then the world fell out from under X.

Another Sigma emerged behind the first and moving, with the same sinister grace.

X's eyes opened wide, terror dilating his pupils. "S-Sigma!?"

And another.

And another.

And another.

And another.

And another.

And another.

They kept coming, (X's mind shrieked that there was no way they could have all fit in that car, like he was seeing the worst punchline of the worst clown-car joke ever), swaying lightly with their backs to the fire, unscathed and laughing softly, each and every one staring at X with their heads lowered. Like bulls waiting to charge.

X's panicked gaze flicked wildly from one face to the next; each one was identical, each one looked in absolutely pristine condition, and each one of them was capable of killing millions. It had taken everything X had, throughout the years, to best one Sigma resurrection at a time- his life, Zero's life, their friends' lives, over and over and over- and now he stood faced with an impossible thirty.

No! His mind was screaming in anguish, but X forced himself upright, forced his arm to convert into its Buster state, found his shaking heart cowering inside his chest. Forced himself to face the reality. His panicked mind shrieked at him: run, do it now, get Zero, get Axl...!

He pushed it aside. Bringing the others in would only get them killed just as quickly. X gritted his teeth and began to shove his stored solar energy into his arm as fast as his weapon converter would allow. Second-level, third-level.. his charge shot was ready (too slow, too damn slow...!)...

There was no way to talk his way out of this. Sigma was not someone who could ever be swayed by words. And X had no words to waste on him.

I'm sorry, everyone... For an instant, he regretted placing the call out to base. Nothing that was coming could handle this.

X unleashed his full charge shot, directly into one of the Sigma's faces, with a roar of defiance, and plunged himself into the storm. They laughed, and fanned out around him, pinning him between the flame and their bodies; some moving left, some right, some getting behind him.

X fought valiantly - perfectly - devoid of hope and expectation. He dodged and twisted fluidly, hand blocking fists, firing clipped, well aimed shots. He twisted away from one grab, kicking off a Sigma's leg to spin up and strike another another in the face with the fold of his ankle. He lasted. But it was all a doomed effort. The huge bodies of Sigma were simply closing in on him, fencing him in, using their numbers to cage X into a smaller and smaller fighting space. He knew it; he felt it happening, but he kept fighting until he was literally pinned between two of them, with his back against one of their chests, and another shoving against his pelvis, and his weapon arm was grabbed and wrenched to a side and that was the beginning of the end.


A deep blow sank into his midsection from one of those ham-heavy fists, from somewhere and X doubled into it with a moan. Then a meaty hand grabbed his helmet and pulled him backward. He struggled, dizzily, like a hooked fish, his body flapping and twisting and heaving.

They were swarming him, grabbing hold of him any way they could; fingers closed around his neck, making his head spin. He was punched and slapped. His elbows and wrists and shoulders were grabbed and pulled taut in different directions, and his feet skidded kicking along the ground until his legs were caught and yanked up, one ankle tucked under an arm, another pulled by the knee.

Hands were everywhere, grabbing X, touching him... a palm pressed down over his jaw and huge fingers hooked into his mouth, and his eyes were sometimes covered and sometimes not, and every struggling movement pushed hands between his thighs and down the backs of his held-open legs. He kept sliding against a Sigma's chest as he strained and cried out in the brimstone air. Somehow the resistance and the attack became a rhythm, X's movements and those of the Sigmas synchronizing, until both sides were heated as the air.

They started to peel X then, pulling, pulling, pecking. With dreadful tearing, ripping noises X's armor was wrenched away, baring his glowing nerves beneath to the sweltering heat and the raking of cruel fingers. Hard hands found him, thumbs pushing into sensitive nodes too knowingly and rubbing him raw across his chest; he counted no less than 17 of them simultaneously knifing at his mind, thrusting iron wills against his rapidly crumbling inner defenses. X started to scream, but his cries were slapped out of his mouth and his lips crushed shut.

He gave out a smothered moan as they pushed harder, faster; his defenses were valiant and frantic but he was losing ground... an unwanted sensation trickled across the inside of his thighs, and a gap in his inner defenses was eaten through... a push slid past him and then another, piercing and unloading its poisons before he could repair and close the breach... he grew slower and slower, his mind bogging down, Sigma's processes snarling into everything, tangling his thoughts, flattening him, growing hard inside...

The world blurred out of focus, disconnected; X was only in control of himself for short bursts through the haze of Sigma.

A tongue pushed into his mouth.

Hands seized on his hips.

His legs pulled farther apart, then pushed back toward his chest by his knees.

Cold spit landing on his left cheek.

The periods of darkness grew longer and longer, the pressure on his mind more and more intense. X no longer knew where his body was, or what was happening to him. He no longer existed. He was being compressed... packed up, pushed somewhere deep, deep down. He was too confused and exhausted to fight. He had a sensation of the world closing over his head.

A soft, unfamiliar voice whispered in the dark as the pressure reached its utmost point, and held.

I won't let you go.

And then the pressure came away and the world came surging back- so fast and so hard that X staggered where he stood, gasping aloud as his eyes cleared.

The air was hot, the crash still smouldering, and his face was burning hotter still. Every bit of his body felt trampled and abused; his knees trembled beneath him, but he was completely intact and still holding a full weapons charge. He struggled to breathe and frowned, trying to understand.

The line of Sigma bodies remained, some distance from him, swaying like snakes. Abruptly, those at the center of the line began to shift and pull aside to make way for a figure moving forward: a delicate-looking Reploid in white armor, compact and elegant, with pale lavender hair turned tan by the orange light of the fire. The Reploid's visible eye was closed and a strange faint smile rested on his mouth.

X found himself staring intensely at the newcomer's lips, the threat of the Sigma bodies fading away from his mind. He couldn't tear his attention away from the white Reploid, his eyes returning to the other's mouth and throat again and again.

Bewildered, X began to reach toward his Buster, but reluctance swept through him and stilled his hand. The white Reploid gave off no weapons signatures; as far as X could tell, the Reploid was unarmed. If it was an enemy, it was of a kind that X had absolutely no idea how to handle.

The white Reploid slowly opened his round gold eye, with a kind of amused forbearance, and locked his gaze to X's. Fire licked the sky behind him.

He gestured subtly, and the mass of giant monsters glowed white, melting down into inoffensive blue-green drones with lightweight civilian armor. "To protect ourselves from damage during the accident, we had to copy a sturdy Sigma body." He spoke slowly and distinctly, with extra weight in his final three words, as if he wanted to be absolutely clear that X understood him. "We new-generation Reploids enjoy complete and total immunity to all viruses... So even copying something as dangerous as Sigma provides no risk."

And his voice was the voice of the darkness.

X frowned; no risk? then what was... what was that just now? Although he slowly allowed himself to ease out of ready stance, part of him felt more endangered by doing so; he was making himself vulnerable, and he didn't fully understand the situation.

"Who are you?"

The white Reploid lifted his head, gold eye gleaming in the firelight. He held X's gaze captive, and cocked his head gently at the question: don't you know already, X?

"I'm Lumine."