Chapter Text
There was but one corridor between the command room and the entrance to traverse. Laik had walked it at first, checking each room that revealed itself with sliding doors as he made his way to the main entrance. The sight of a small, furry animal-like humanoid startled just about everyone in every room he poked his head into. His asking if they'd seen anyone similar to him, only blue, startled them further. Few spoke; most just shook their heads and then shared nervous glances with one another.
Reploids were a strange bunch. But so were the odd human or two who worked amongst them. In one room, there was a giant eagle-like Reploid examining an arm cannon similar to the one on Mega Man X's arm — a Mega Buster, he called it. The urge to inquire further nagged at the wolf, but his friend took priority.
Laik looked over his shoulder down the hall, then back at the eagle Reploid and declared, "I'll be back," pointing at the buster weapon in his hand. The eagle replied with an awkward head nod as the automatic doors slid shut.
Back at the main entrance, Laik tapped his foot and scratched his chin, pondering. Where could Sevii have gone? Surely she would have—
"If you're looking for your blue friend, they headed outside." A voice nearby said. A red Reploid, similar to Mega Man but with long blond hair. He conversed with the helmeted purple Reploid, his face obscured beneath the admittedly sick-looking helmet. A huge cannon was mounted on the purple one's shoulder.
Laik nodded and thanked them, then headed outside.
The Mobian immediately felt out of his element. Even the most advanced, dense cities back on Mobius had nature naturally interwoven with its architecture; They didn't simply pave the land and erect skyscrapers without considering the impact it would have on flora and fauna, so cities were always constructed around, not over, the land.
Not here, Laik's ears flattened. This city was one-thousand percent urban jungle. Sure, it presented limitless parkour potential, but at what cost? It felt so cold, so lifeless, despite the hustle and bustle both on the sidewalks, pavement, and sky highways up above.
Laik scratched behind his ear and wondered how he'd ever find Sevii in a place like this. Asking humans and Reploids on the street, specifically those that appeared stationary, might be a good place to start. Based on the reactions from the people at the Maverick Hunter base, a Mobian was definitely going to stand out here. Heck, he felt eyes on him already, standing out in the open in front of an obscure-looking building that housed Mega Man X and the Maverick Hunters. Like heck he'd find his way back after leaving. Looking around, nothing stood out as particularly landmark-ish either.
Sitting at a three-way intersection made the initial search easy, at least.
The wolf approached an "E-Tank" vendor, peddling various flavors of whatever an E-Tank was. They were a kindly-looking Reploid, apparent from the armored legs and arms. Their expressions somehow combined surprise and joy as they looked down upon the small, furry creature.
"Hey, excuse me, sir, have you seen another person like me wandering around here? Blue fur, black tipped ears?" Laik asked, and as he did, he noticed the word "energy" plastered all over the vendor's cart. "Say, are these energy drinks?"
"Yes sir, I carry the best selection of E-Tank this side of the city; made with the finest ingredients." The Reploid paused mid-handing a can of the basic flavored energy drink to the wolf. "You don't seem like a Reploid; May I ask if you're an organic?"
Laik nodded.
"Oh, then I definitely cannot offer you an E-Tank, sir. The caffeine content would kill you dead."
"Can I at least look at the can?" Hesitantly, the vendor handed him the surprisingly heavy soda can. Looking over the contents, Laik felt legitimate shock. "Ten-thousand milligrams of caffeine?!"
People stopped and looked, curious.
The vendor explained. E-Tanks were strictly for Reploids, as the amount of caffeine needed to fuel their internals was insanely high compared to that of a being with an organic internal system. The same went for the carb and fat content of food, hence why Reploids primarily ingested synthetic food, leaving the natural stuff for humans.
"Well thank you for the information, mister. I gotta be going; gotta find my friend!" Laik and the E-Tank vendor waved to one another as the wolf shot off in the opposite direction.
"What a curious little creature," the vendor thought to himself.
Laik's series of questions got him nowhere, leading him to believe the fox girl had simply vanished after leaving the command room. Maybe Renfri realized her mistake in sending Sevii here and took her back to Mobius? Nah, that was too simple. Renfri was a lot of things, but making mistakes—at least when it came to the business with Infinite and The Great Old One—wasn't something she afforded herself.
Having feared going too far away from HQ lest he get himself lost, Laik leaned against the otherwise unremarkable building and sighed. The worry over his new friend overwrote his instinct to explore this exciting, if not slightly depressing, new playground.
"What's the matter, wolf, too afraid to leave the front yard?" A familiar voice said, somewhere above him.
Perched three stories up, one leg hanging over the windowsill beneath a non-existent window, was Sevii. One leg pulled up and resting on the sill itself, both hands cupped over her knee, her head resting against it.
"Sevii!"
"Don't say it, Laik." She grinned, her smooshed cheek gaining more creases as the smile grew.
"Don't say what?" he said back, effortlessly hopping from one sill to the next as he closed the distance between him and her.
"That you've been looking all over the city for me. I've literally watched you go from one part of the intersection to the next; you never left the building's front yard." She raised her head as Laik found himself firmly upon the adjacent outcropping.
"Heh, yeah, well I didn't want to get lost, y'know? Their headquarters isn't exactly a landmark or anything if you haven't noticed." Laik said to the fox as his and her eyes met. Glimmering silver to smoldering crimson. "You know, if you hadn't told me you were also from Azure Lake Zone, I would have figured it out on my own."
"Oh sure, and what was the giveaway, Mr. Wolf?" Sevii chuckled, her voice warm but laced with anxiety. "And don't say it's my hairstyle or the way that I fight."
"Your eyes." The wolf crossed his legs in front of him, leaning against the cold building.
Sevii felt a blush form beneath the freckles on her cheeks. "My… excuse me, but my eyes?"
"Uh-huh. They shimmer like the lake's surface. It's just something interesting I noticed in the lighter eye colors long ago." He shrugged. "People with darker colored eyes had their own effects. Haven't noticed this anywhere else in the world."
"My eyes… shimmer, huh? Never been told that before." Sevii turned her vision up to the sky. Despite their height, they were still well below the taller buildings and thus saw very little of the blue sky above. "If I didn't know any better, I'd swear you were flirting with me, wolf." Sevii wanted to punch the wolf playfully on the shoulder, but six feet of open air separated them. All she could do was giggle lightly.
"Flirting? If that sounded like flirting, then I apologize because that wasn't my intent; truth be told, I wouldn't know how to even begin with that sort of thing." He turned to face the fox, who was now looking at him again.
"You'd start like that," she beamed a smile, her voice losing the anxiety that had previously enveloped every inflection.
"So, Sevii, we're in quite the situation here and I really have to apologize again for not properly filling you in on everything that's happening. What you heard back inside was a lot, especially for someone with TLDR version of it all."
"The heck does TLDR mean?"
Laik explained not just the odd acronym he'd thrown at her, but everything. The Egg Empire War. His infusion with imitation Phantom Ruby energy, the fight with Infinite and Robotnik that sent him off-world for several months.
"Oh, I get it now. You disappeared, and the army just assumed you died during the last battle." Sevii interjected. "It was like a week after I left AZL that Master Yip contacted me, telling me about your fate. My search pretty much came to screeching halt by that point and I just found the nearest town and relaxed for a bit; even took on some pupils of my own in that time."
Laik's very long-winded explanation pressed on. He covered the time spent with the Restoration movement, the incident with Lanolin and his… well, he left the Whurwilf out of the conversation for the time being. The failed attempt at capturing Infinite during Operation Splinter. The various worlds he'd been to and, of course, as many details on the Kuthul creatures as he could.
Sevii held onto every word too, not daring once to break up the flow of information she was being given. He was confidently bringing the fox up to speed, and while she felt she'd need days to process the exposition dump, the broader picture her fellow Azure Lake native had painted for her would work.
Two hours had passed, if not more, based on the shadows now being cast through the city. Traffic across the board had increased, but despite it all, with the increase in vehicles both on the ground and in the air, it was still peaceful. Clean energy had not only been perfected here, but was flourishing. Mobius still had a long way to go, Laik felt.
"I can't make you join us when we get back to Mobius, but Raiza and I could really use your help in the meantime. They're finalizing the mission details now, but it seems we'll be heading north to the base they mentioned."
Sevii sighed, still processing. Like a dial-up modem trying to load an image-heavy website. "Will we be fighting those squid-things?"
"Most definitely, but don't worry. The smaller ones literally explode when struck with a homing attack, or even a really powerful punch. The bigger ones are a bit trickier in that you have to hit them enough times to expose their weak spot, but after that—"
"Excuse me, 'weak spot'?"
Laik bit his lower lip. "Uh, yeah. Using the Soldier-Kuthul for example; They're these big, hulking versions that keep their weak spot — which is a big, red eyeball — in their stomach. You just have to hit it hard enough to make them spit it up, then smash the eye. Otherwise, they're pretty indestructible… unless you're Balsam."
Sevii looked at him with the most unbelievable expression yet. Her mouth agape and eyes wide. "You SMASH it?" Laik nodded.
"And if we encounter anything that has been mutated by their magic or whatever it is, it's the same deal; get them to expose their glowing red weak spot and then go to town on it." He leaped off the windowsill, landing on the ground below, light as a feather. A few passersby had screamed, thinking the creature had fallen to its death.
Sevii joined him a few seconds later. Her breasts bounced lightly as she reached the ground. She looked Laik in the eye, and for a second, she thought she saw roaring flames dancing in the reds of his irises. Perhaps there had been some truth behind it after all…
"So, you wanna tag along and help out? I'd completely understand if you want to hang back as well, after all it, it's kind of my fault you got caught up in all this…"
"Psh!" Sevii shrugged. "I didn't spend all those years training under Master Yip just to let those skills go to waste. But you gotta promise me one thing, Laik."
The doors slid apart with a SWEESH as the two approached the entrance to the hunter's base. "And that is?"
"We're going to Azure Lake Zone when we get back to Mobius. There' s a lot that needs sorting out. About you, specifically."
"Me?"
"Yes, you." The doors slid shut behind them. At the end of the hall, X, Alia, Raiza, and Commander Signas were standing in anticipation of their return.
Laik held his fist to his side. "Deal. Been meaning to go back and check out my dugout for a while now anyway,"
Sevii bumped his fist with hers, a universal gesture among Mobians that signaled an agreement.
"Oh Laik, I'm so glad you found her!" Raiza declared, rushing to meet the two with a group hug. "Are you okay, Sevii?"
"D'aww!" Alia gawked, X and Signas sharing a quick, awkward glance with one another.
"I am now, Raiza. Thank you. Laik explained everything to me."
The cat released her grip around her fellow Mobian's neck. "That's good, because Commander Signas and Mega Man X have the mission ready to go, along with something else you need to hear about, Laik."
The Reploid, clearly designed with a military motif, stepped forward, saluting the wolf, who returned the gesture. "Mr. Laik, there's a specific artefact that was found in that region up north that we believe, thanks to Ms. Raiza the Cat's limited, might be of great importance to you."