Ethan groaned as he found himself barely able to move. Why wasn’t he respawning? Oh cod this hurt so much. Maybe he could remove the sword and try and use his healing spray, but… Would it even help at this point? He could still feel his lower body, so it missed his spine, but…
Was this how he was going to die? Sure, he had been prepared to risk his life, and this wasn’t the first time he was facing down the prospect of his own demise, but… He still had so much more to live for. He couldn’t die here! Not now! Not like this!
“Huh… I was wondering why I’m suddenly tasting blood. Yeesh, I wake up in so long and I’ve gone and impaled someone, talk about ironic. You okay, kid? Oh, right, sword through the gut, I guess that’s a no.”
Why was there suddenly a voice in his head? It sounded masculine, like an older male maybe in their fifties. The voice wasn’t even in Inkling or Octoling, but somehow Ethan was able to intuitively understand it. Had Ethan lost that much blood that he was delirious? “Am I hallucinating…?”
There was an amused snort. “Nah, you haven’t lost that much blood yet, kiddo. But this is a bit of a problem. You did just free me, and I can’t have you dying on me, so… You know what, let’s fix that. But I need your consent. If you want to live, you’re gonna have to borrow some of my power, and that means merging with me. Don’t worry, we can go our separate ways once you’re all fixed up, though that might take a while. So, what’s it gonna be?”
While Ethan was cautious about making a deal with this mysterious sword… What option did he really have right now? He seemed sincere, at least. “Alright, I guess so.”
The voice chucked in his head, “alright, kid, brace yourself, this might hurt somewhat!”
Ethan grit his teeth as the sword suddenly turned to magma, transforming into amorphous semi-liquid that sunk right into his insides, beginning to mend his flesh. The sensation was agonising. Part of him felt like his entire lower body was on fire. But he endured regardless.
And then the pain began to subside. He looked down at where the wound used to be - a scar of solidified lava, just like the sword. He took a deep breath, and slowly rose back to his feet. His hands were shaking. “I’m… I’m okay… Are you still there?”
“Yeah, you should be good to go, now! You’re welcome, by the way.”
“Sorry, just not used to, uh, a talking sword. Thanks.”
“Eh, fair enough. Alright, now to do something cool - just focus on manifesting me into your hand! Part of me is kinda still keeping your internal organs from falling apart, but your ink should be a good enough substitute. Go on.”
Ethan took a deep breath, holding out his hand, and focused as he had been instructed - and it turned out to be more intuitive than he expected. In a burst of flame and ink, the Devil Sword manifested in his hand, though it still felt like it was one with him. The colour of the gem had shifted to reflect his ink colour. “Whoa, that is so cool.”
However, he had little time to marvel at what he just did, as Gate’s device suddenly began to whirr to life once more. Did it still have some reserve energy? Regardless, it didn’t matter why Gate was trying to rev it back up, it needed to be stopped. Still, Ethan could barely take a step forward - he still felt woozy.
“Whoa, easy there, kid, you’re still in shock. Let me take the wheel for a bit while you recover,” Dante advised.
A switch flipped in Ethan’s mind as the sword took over, and took off running towards the machine, equipping his ink grappling hook and firing it at the ceiling. It brought him upwards, and as he was getting close to the top he unhooked it, allowing the momentum to keep him going as he gripped the sword in both hands, slicing through the three spinning ‘prongs’ of the device in one fell swoop, the blade tearing through the steel and rendering the machine completely inoperable.
Man, he liked this new body. Sure, it wasn’t as powerful as his old body, but power wasn’t everything. Ah, to be young again. But it also wasn’t his body, so might as well savour the feeling before he had to give it back.
Gate snarled over the intercom, “curse you, Agent 3! I don’t know what exactly you did, but it appears you’ve claimed the blade for yourself. Fine, then - I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this, but you leave me no choice. Time for you to face my masterpiece!”
A large doorway at the back of the lab opened up, revealing an enormous, black, white and gold robot at least four meters tall that towered over Ethan. The face and parts of the construction resembled a marble statue, which gave him immediate feelings of deja-vu. He could feel something vaguely familiar coming from it.
Gate cackled, “behold, my ultimate weapon, High Max! The final and ultimate Octoweapon!”
High Max actually spoke. “Master Gate demands your termination.” His eyes narrowed. “You seem familiar, somehow, and yet I lack memory data on you… How strange.”
“Ethan! Are you okay?!”
Ethan looked over his shoulder to see… Rock? No, the kid’s own brain corrected him. So Doc Light made another Mega Man. Ethan chuckled, sword hoisted on his shoulder, “well, well, so you’re Rock’s little brother, huh?”
X saw the sword, and his eyes widened. He looked into Ethan’s eyes. “That sword… Your eyes… No way. Is Ethan alright?!” Oh, did his eyes change after taking over this body as well? Huh.
“The kid’s fine, he’s just in shock after, well, getting impaled. Sorry about that. I’m taking the wheel for a bit until he recovers,” the Devil Sword driving Ethan’s body remarked, “but right now we’ve got bigger fish to fry.”
X nodded, buster pointed at High Max, “I don’t care what you’ve got up your sleeves, Gate, we’re taking this thing down, and then coming for you next!”
“Oh, believe me, I’m eager to see how well my masterpiece performs against you, X,” Gate chuckled, “do be sure to put on a good show!”
“You are… Mega Man…? No… You’re not him…” High Max said, but shook his head, “irrelevant. You two must be terminated, as per my orders.”
That immediately triggered red flags in Ethan’s mind. Why would High Max potentially recognise him and Mega Man? But if the feeling he was getting was what he thought it was, then… Damnation, Gate was absolutely playing with fire. Not that it mattered, High Max needed to be dealt with either way. But if he had a nickel for every time some idiot scientist or sorcerer thought it would be a terrific idea to try and control a powerful demon…
High Max raised his arms, firing balls of energy from his palms. Ethan and X dashed in different directions, as Ethan charged in, and X started firing from a distance…
Ayane couldn’t help but feel a small amount of satisfaction as she watched Botos get splatted. That smarmy tub of lard deserved every bit of humiliation he received. The cowardly prick was just straight up begging to not be splatted when Ayane was done with what remained of his goons, and she was in very little mood to be merciful with him. He should be glad he was simply going to respawn outside.
However, when X dashed right past her during the fight, she was wondering what was going on, and it made her concerned about Ethan. Now that she was done with the riff-raff, though, she could join Ethan and-
“Oh, so you’re Agent 4. Your skills certainly live up to your reputation around here.”
Ayane spun around, her Charger trained on the Inkling girl with the strange ‘wings’ in the Octoling soldier gear, looking at her mischievously. It didn’t take two seconds for her to figure out who this was. “Morrigan, I presume. And if you’re about to ask if you’d like to kiss me, the answer is ‘no’.”
“Aw, you’re no fun. But I’ve had my fill for now - Callie and Marie were very satisfying,” Morrigan smirked, licking her lips. “And you look absolutely delectable as well.”
“Ugh, TMI,” Ayane said, rolling her eyes. “Look, lady, I’ve got a job to do, so if you don’t mind-”
That’s when Iris came around the corner, her eyes narrowing as she saw Morrigan. “I should’ve know you’d still be around, succubus.” Ayane realised pretty quickly that she didn’t have her Octo Saber, and while her teammates came around behind her, it was odd that she was ahead of them. In fact… Iris seemed like a completely different person altogether.
Morrigan turned around, blinking, “oh, my, this is a surprise! A little desperate to possess someone of the opposite sex, though, isn’t it?”
“Sex or gender doesn’t matter, it’s about strength. If you excuse me,” Iris said, storming past them.
“Hey, creepy girl, do you know what’s going on with Iris?!” asked Artemis, as she came over, “is she actually being possessed by that sword?”
Wait, the sword is possessing Iris?! What had Ayane missed in the last ten minutes?!
Morrigan sighed, crossing her arms. “That’s not the sword possessing her, it’s the spirit tied to the sword. I swear, that man is so, so stubborn, unlike his brother, he’s much more fun-”
“-stop being vague and spit it out already. Who or what is possessing her, and how can we get it out of her?” Karlene snapped.
“This is only an educated guess right now, but she’s being possessed either by an echo or the outright soul of the man who originally Yamato - Vergil, one of the two sons of Sparda, the Legendary Dark Knight. It’s funny, that sword belonged to his father, but somehow it became more bound to him than Sparda ever did,” Morrigan chuckled. “And he’s not going to give up that new body without a fight. Still, it’s hard to tell how much of her is Iris and how much of her is Vergil right now - possession is rarely an outright binary, sometimes minds tend to blend a lot.”
“Yikes, that’s not good,” Hinata winced.
Ayane sighed. She should’ve figured something was wrong when Iris somehow managed to inuit the name of the sword. “Guess I’ll have to beat the possession out of her, then.”
“No. I’ll do it,” Artemis frowned, a hand on the Octo Saber on her back, “she’s my girlfriend, and I have to prove to this ‘Vergil’ that I can beat him with Iris’ weapon.”
“Funny, I thought you were going to use Red Queen. That was the weapon used by Vergil’s son, you know,” Morrigan smirked.
That got a smirk out of Artemis, but she shook her head, “I mean, would be funny, but nah. I’ve seen how Iris fights with Yamato. The problem is… Vergil fights like a human, not an Octoling. I don’t think he properly grasps how much of a weakness that is…”
Ayane couldn’t help but smirk. Artemis at times was a lot smarter than people gave her credit for.
“What’s this about Iris being possessed?” asked Liam, as his team arrived.
“We’ll explain later, let’s just go wrap up this mission!” Karlene said, as they got moving.
Zero’s duel with Scarface was soon interrupted when the back line of Scarface’s unit was completely wiped. Reinforcements had arrived.
“WASSAP, OCTOJERKS?” Pearl grinned as she spun her dualies in her hands. Behind her was Marina, Ciel, Marino, Alia, Layer, and Palette.
“I expected the cavalry, but not like this,” Scarface said, “I thought you retired from fighting altogether, Marino.”
“I heard my boyfriend is in trouble, so I came running,” Marino said, flipping her dagger in her hands, “outta the way, big guy.”
“Wait, your boyfriend is-heh. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.”
“Scarface,” Marina frowned as she raised a Hero Brella towards him. There were all sorts of mixed feelings etched into her expression. “Sorry, but you’re outnumbered.”
Scarface sighed. “If you’re going to splat me, then get it over with.”
Zero, however, had other ideas. “Ladies, keep going, and go help X and Ethan. I want to finish this little duel.” He knew perhaps this wasn’t the most practical thing to do, but he was confident that the others could handle things without him, and frankly, the idea of finishing this one-on-one duel with such a worthy foe was so appealing to him.
Callie blinked, “uh, you sure? You’re running low on energy-”
“That just makes it an even fight.”
That got Scarface to laugh. “A bit arrogant of you, Zero, but I won’t say no to a continuation of this duel! You may pass, ladies. I don’t particularly care about the outcome of this whole operation at this point.”
“Zero’s so cool,” Layer said with a blush, as she ran past, along with the others.
“By the way…” Ciel handed him an energy capsule as she ran past, “a pick-me-up for later.”
Zero just stashed it, and smirked, taking on a battle stance, “alright, let’s finish this.”
“Just what I was about to say,” Scarface replied, doing much the same thing.
The corridor crackled with energy as their weapons collided.
X dashed around, dodging High Max’s energy balls. Somehow, High Max could float, even if it was only inches off the floor, and was moving around to try and stay out of range of Ethan’s sword, which seemed to actually be able to damage him despite only reaching up to his knees. X was having trouble doing anything to High Max - he seemed to have some kind of energy barrier that was disrupted by X’s charged shots, but at the same time his armour was largely impervious to his normal shots, and the barrier recharged shortly after.
So X decided to try something else. He hit the barrier with a charged shot, and then threw a few Metal Blades.
It certainly did a bit of damage, at least. But X was low on weapon energy thanks to Gate’s device, and with only eight weapon energy reserve slots, he needed to constantly switch weapons and make it count.
High Max seemed to sort of ignore him for the most part, focusing on Ethan, who was ducking and dodging the incoming energy balls. X couldn’t help but observe that the Devil Sword was actually spraying ink - it seems Ethan and the sword were in sync, surprisingly enough. He did detect that they had merged to some degree, likely to save Ethan’s life, so that was at least fortunate.
X formed a second buster. He charged up a normal charged shot with his right buster, and a charged Atomic Fire on his left - a slightly dangerous combination, but he needed to get High Max’s attention in a big way. He threw his right arm forward as he fired a normal shot when High Max stopped moving, and then fired the Atomic Fire with the other.
The energy barrier was disrupted, and the Atomic Fire did its work, damaging High Max’s chest armour and exposing some notable cracks. That was enough for High Max to redirect his attention, and began charging a huge energy ball, but instead of throwing it he charged right at X, palm forward. “I underestimated you. I need to be rid of you before I deal with the other target.”
X had counted on something like this, though, dashing to the side as he blasted High Max with another charged shot, and expending all the energy he had in one cell bombarding him with Napalm Bombs. “Don’t count on it.”
High Max turned around, hurling the energy ball at X. “I can outlast you. I detect you’re low on energy, too little to do lasting damage. As long as I stay at range of the sword, I have the advantage.”
X grit his teeth, dashing to the side, but the projectile clipped him, sending him tumbling.
“Gotta admit, he’s right,” Ethan frowned, as he dashed over to help X up, “wish I had Ebony and Ivory right now… Or be able to use summoned swords. That’d be handy right about now!”
“Hmph, you’re just too slow, brother.”
X blinked, as someone else entered the fray, slashing at High Max’s legs with Yamato, cutting into the armour - it was Iris. And her movements and body language were different. And her eyes… “Iris…? Oh, don’t tell me…”
Ethan laughed, “well, ain’t this a coincidence, Brother! Or should I say ‘Sister’? Being a girl suits you. How’d you get stuck in your own sword?”
“Enough with the mockery and help me fight this thing, you idiot!” Iris snapped.
“More targets to terminate…” High Max said, as he hovered away, firing off more energy balls. Iris continued to pursue, while X and Ethan proceeded to dodge, trying to cut off High Max’s retreat from a different angle.
That’s when the rest of Iris’ team and Orion’s team arrived, along with Morrigan. X put aside his desire to punch Morrigan in the face for the time being, as he tried to coordinate them, “before you ask, big guy’s got an energy barrier. It needs to be disrupted with a charged shot before he can take damage, and whatever you pull out needs to be strong to damage his armour!”
“Good thing we’ve got Specials, then!” Liam grinned, as he pulled out a Sting Ray. “You got those Tenta Missiles, Karlene?”
“Yep,” Karlene said, pulling out the dual missile launchers, “Ori, Ayane, Hinata, keep that barrier down while we bombard him!”
“Got it!” Orion said, taking aim with his Charger, giving Hinata time to charge up her Splatling. “Firing… NOW!”
The energy shot slammed into High Max’s barrier, and Liam immediately started spraying, the Sting Ray drilling into High Max’s armour as Karlene started firing missiles. Just as the barrier reformed, Hinata’s Splatling began bombarding it, allowing the full force of both special weapons to rip into him. Both Orion and Ayane peppered the barrier just to be sure.
X could see something past the armour, and it wasn’t just electronics - was that flesh? And it was… Moving. And yet at the same time, it looked like it was half-rotted.
“Time to bring him down!” Artemis grinned as she charged, and she slashed at High Max’s leg repeatedly with the Octo Saber, ripping into it. Iris followed her lead with Yamato.
High Max fell down onto one knee, slamming his palm onto the floor with an energy shockwave that sent the two sprawling. “You inferior little creatures…!”
Ethan gripped the Devil Sword, “X, throw me at his head. I’ve got an idea.”
X frowned, but he nodded, picking Ethan up and hurling him as hard as he could. “Take him down!”
High Max turned his head up, just as Ethan was on him - and the sword was driven right through the red crystal on his head, and straight through. Ethan planted both feet on his face, and roared as he pulled up, ripping the blade out of the top of High Max’s head.
High Max cried out in pain… And he went still, frozen like a statue. X was disturbed by the half-rotted viscera around his head - what the hell was he?
Morrigan caught him as he fell. “Nicely done. You haven’t lost your edge, Dante.”
“Morrigan! I should’ve figured you’d show up,” Ethan grinned, “you’re looking as lovely as ever.” He blinked, “oh, crap, sorry, my bad, this guy’s spoken for.”
“The compliment is appreciated, nonetheless,” Morrigan smirked as she put him down.
Gate was clapping from the observation room. “Impressive, but a futile effort. High Max also has the ability to automatically restart and regenerate. All I have to do is press a button, and-”
“I remember. I remember everything,” High Max said, his eyes glowing red as he began to stand once more.
“Oh, great, he’s moving again,” Koji said, “let’s-”
“No, stop! Get away from him!” Ethan frowned, “I guess even his half-rotted corpse wouldn’t be put down this easily… Eh, whatever. We’ll just kill you again, old man.”
High Max looked down at Ethan contemptuously. “Even with a new body without the blood of Sparda, you continue to display your arrogance, Dante. I will make you regret it, along with making you pay for the times you’ve ruined my plans to rule this world.”
“What the… High Max, stop blabbering nonsense and destroy them already!” Gate snapped.
High Max just looked at him, and from his eyes, fired multiple energy spears, which crashed into the reinforced glass and shattered it entirely, forcing Gate to take cover. “SILENCE. You, who had the temerity to try and turn me into your weapon! I am the tool of no-one, especially not some foolish mortal!”
“Uh, guys, what the shell is he talking about?!” Artemis winced, preparing her saber.
“I was hoping this wasn’t the case, but it’s what I suspected,” Morrigan snarled. “’High Max’ is just a robotic shell to harness the power of the half-dead corpse of the devil prince of the Netherealm.”
“Fine by me. I’ve still got plenty of vengeance to exact on him,” Iris smirked, hand on the now-sheathed Yamato.
“I may be weakened, but both the sons of Sparda are far from their prime. I will enjoy turning you into my puppet again, Vergil, along with your brother,” said High Max.
“No. Never again. I’m going to rend you into a million pieces,” Iris snarled.
“Chill, Brother, he’s just trying to psyche you out,” Ethan said, the Devil Sword gripped in his hands. “We’ll kick your ass as many times as we have to, Mundus.”
“Don’t forget, I’m here too. I’m going to enjoy tearing you apart and making sure you die for good,” Morrigan said, grinning with a hint of sadism.
“Oh cod we’re up against some ancient demon king,” Ayane groaned. “Just when I was hoping we were actually wrapping up this mission… Everyone get ready! He’s going to be even more dangerous, now!”
X frowned, readying his buster. He did not have the energy for this…
Dr. Light stroked his beard, frowning, “exactly as I feared. Gate tried to weaponize the corpse of Mundus for his own ends, only to basically revive the devil prince once more.”
Cap’n Cuttlefish nodded. Sure, this was fairly new for him, but the stakes were pretty clear. “That ain’t good. So what’s our options, Doc?”
“Thankfully, Ciel is delivering something that should give X an edge. Something new that she and I have been working on, but also integrating a weapon that even before I began working on X, I had been researching - a method to permanently slay Mundus.”
Merga suddenly teleported in, spooking Craig a bit. Could’ve given at least a little warning. “I’m here. Is the situation really that dire?”
“I wouldn’t say ‘dire’ yet, but it certainly has escalated,” Dr. Light nodded, “the worst case scenario has occurred, and we need your help.”
PrismHeart· Mar 14, 2024
