An old, abandoned factory warehouse off the edge of Abel City, on the coastline to boot -- a relic of the 21st Century, an outdated remote robot assembly line that had been handed down by the owners’ family line until they just gave up on it and left it to fester and decay...now the source of a latest unearthed Maverick hive.
The sound of laser-based cannonfire erupted from within the dilapidated structure, inhuman howls and the unearthly grinding of berserker mechanisms forming a slowly-dissolving cacophony.
The numbers were impossible to judge exactly. Some of them were mis-mashed zombified collaborations of multiple infected husks, tangles of limbs and extremities. Altogether, however, the old factory must have held a good eighty feral Mavericks within its confines. Enough for an entire squadron of C to B-Rank Hunters...
The Vice-Commander of the Maverick Hunters was as a torrent of speed and precision, golden bullets of condensed solar energy amplified before streaking through the shadows, blowing apart all unfortunate enough to have been in their path; a gilded hailstorm that left no intent of survivors.
He couldn’t have that kind of hesitation anymore; he’d been broken from such naivety the hard way.
A sudden screeching at his back brought X to swivel sharply upon his heel, a brief burst of spark from the scrape of metals as he raised his Buster to fire upon an enemy abruptly lunging from the shadows.
X winced, Buster arm trembling but a moment as the lack of rust or wear upon the figure told the tale -- a younger reploid, couldn’t be more than a few years since activation, who’d unfortunately come too close and was consumed by the sickness. A shaky breath left X as he steeled himself.
The last shot echoed much more loudly than any before, as one final body of the evening clattered to the floor. X took a glance around at his unwilling handiwork -- he had to. He couldn’t let himself forget a single face he was responsible for, no matter how much his colleagues tried to get him to disassociate from the unfortunate circumstances of the job.
X cast a glance back to the last fallen Maverick just behind him. He hadn’t thought anything of it at the moment, but now that the last few moments played back in his memory, its charge was...unusual. Not directly aggressive.
Almost like he was a wounded animal, X contemplated internally, fleeing from something...
...Well. He could ponder that later. The mission came first. And judging by the one, steady signal coming up on heat detection whereas all the others were beginning to fade, the subject of his mission was just on the other side of the fallen planks and girders before where the recently-infected reploid had emerged from.
Taking hold of the metal framework, X began to heave the huge blockades from the way. Even if the weight wasn’t so much an issue from him, dislodging them from these awkward angles certainly was. Finally clearing sufficient room for his relatively-small form, X stepped through into the side room, scanning for anybody present.
“Hello...?” His voice came in its natural softness, X raising a palm to show lack of aggressive intent as he searched the shadows. “I know someone’s in here... It’s going to be alright; My name is X, I’m a Maverick Hunter. I’ve come to get you out of here.”