Chapter 133: Unexplained Transformation

"Fire," shouts X to the other Hunters.

After that, they all immediately let loose a barrage of fire on the hideous creature, not giving it one chance of moving.

Getting very irritated with the Hunters, the creature let loose a massive shock wave that sent all of the Maverick Hunters flying on to their backs.

As the Hunters get up, they look in horror to see the creature is starting to recover from the damage it took as its body regenerates.

"Okay, this is bad," said Zero in a look of disbelief.

"Now what, fearless leader," Bass asked X.

"I'm," X started to say. "Still trying to figure that out."

After it finished regenerating its body, the creature let out another scream, which let the other Hunters know it was about to go violent.

"Try to figure things out faster, bro," said Blues. "Because I get the feeling we're not going to have that many moments to do so."

After the creature finished screaming, the fingers on its hands start to turn into claw-shaped blades as they grow.

"Well... this is going to suck," said Blues again.

The creature once again fixed its attention on X.

"Heaven's Door, activate by..." shouts X.

Before he can finish that sentence, the creature rushes and jumps at X. In slow motion, we see the creature is readying its right hand in an attempt to slice X open.

Knowing what was coming, X rolled out of the way in time.

However, even after it missed, the creature was readying another assault.

As X saw the creature looking at him in a homicidal manner, he shouts, "Everyone, keep firing and try to keep it in place!"

The creature screams again, and wasting no time, the others do as X tells them to as they all fire a barrage of shots at the creature, which was trying to attack X again.

Seeing the creature can't seem to move because of being fired at from all directions, X then shouts, "Heaven's Door, activate by 80%!"

X shifts to his Heaven's Door form again, and readies his Buster to fire at the creature.

"Everyone, get out of the way," shouts X again.

The other Hunters stop firing and jump out of the way in time as X fires a massive beam at the creature, which was trying to go after X again. As it makes contact, the beam blasts the creature apart into several pieces that go flying everywhere.

After that is over, the Hunters all get up from the floor and come towards X, who's still a little shook up.

"What in name of Jesus was that," asked Zero after a bit of silence.

X responded. "I don't know, but I just hope that's the last we will see of it."

Roll replied, "I'll say."

Just then, X was buzzed on his comm-link by someone, who turned out to be Alia after checking the I.D. X then answered, "This is X here."

"X," said Alia in a worried tone. "What happened? I tried to reach you but couldn't, so I can only guess you were being jammed. After that, though, I picked up a massive virus signal from the Command Center. Are all of you alright?"

"We're all fine, Alia," said X. "Same can't be said for Thunder Unicorn. He's dead, but it wasn't us who killed him."

"It must have been what triggered the huge virus signal," replied Layer. "But how?"

"Something... some creature... came out of Thunder Unicorn's body," said X.

"A creature," asked Palette.

X answered, "Yeah, and it tried to kill us... well, it went only after me, but I managed to destroy it, hopefully."

"That's a relief, though it is concerning why it went only after you, X," said Alia.

"Well, we can worry about that later," said X. "Anyway, we're about to head on out of here."

"Good," said Alia. "I got in contact with Oscar, and he says the hostages have been freed and his group is escorting them out."

"Gotcha," said X. "Of course, Thunder Unicorn said he had his men plant bombs in the engine room, so we will need to see about getting a bomb squad to search around for them."

"I'll send the message right now," said Alia. "You guys just see about getting out of here safely, okay?"

"We're about to head out of here, and back to the Black Tempest," said X. "X, over and out."

"I guess there's no more reason to be here, now," said Duo.

"I agree, let's get out of here," replied Axl.

"And fast," Blues chimed in. "That shiver down my spine hasn't completely gone away."

X nods to Blues, and the Maverick Hunters begin to leave the Command Center of the Sky Base.

After getting in the elevator and going down, we then get a shot of one of the pieces of the creature that X destroyed, which then starts to move. Afterwards, we get shorts of other pieces of the creature that all start to move, eventually going towards one another and merging together.

As the elevator reached the floor where they were waiting, the Light Robots see X and the others get off.

"Hey there," said Guts Man. "You guys seem pretty rattled if I do say so myself."

"You don't know the half of it," said X. "Anyway, I trust things went okay here. Nothing to deal with while we were tending to business?"

Gust Man replied, "Nope, everything here was pretty clear. Guess the other forces must have dealt with the revolters while we were just standing here guarding the elevator."

"In that case, let's not dawdle and hurry back to the aircraft so we can leave," said Zero.

After that, not wasting any time to talk, the Hunters began to run back in the direction they previously came from.

Just then, a noise comes from the elevator shaft that makes the Hunters stop to look back.

"Impossible," X thought. "There's no way!"

"Crap," said Zero.

We see the expressions of the others that faced the creature themselves as they all have on shocked expressions.

"I knew that shiver I was having had a reason behind it," Blues thought.

"I thought you all dealt with Thunder Unicorn," said Splash Woman.

"Well, we did but we didn't," replied Axl.

"What do you mean," asked Fire Man.

"No time to talk about it now," said X. "We've got to run and fast!"

"Run from what," asked Ice Man.

"Just run, you idiots," yelled Bass.

Just then, landing on the bottom of and breaking out of the elevator shaft was the same creature from before as it screams at the Maverick Hunters in a monstrous way. It then starts to give chase after Maverick Hunters.

"What in blazes..." asked a frightened Cut Man as he looked behind him.

"I said no time to talk," said X. "Just keep running!"

"Shouldn't we be fighting it," asked Tornado Man.

"We already tried that," yelled Zero. "That thing can regenerate from injuries apparently!"

"I'll try to think up something for us to do to stop this thing," yelled X. "In the meantime, don't stop running!"

The Hunters continue to run from the vicious creature.

Meanwhile, back at Wily's Lab, Dr. Wily is overlooking some data pertaining to Thunder Unicorn while the virus synthesis is still going on, which is not at 53% completion.

"Very interesting," said Dr. Wily. "From this reading, it seems that Thunder Unicorn was destroyed by the virus. How intriguing."

Vile and High Max were standing behind Wily, and Vile said, "If I didn't know any better, Doc, your virus seems to be getting a mind of its own."

"Well, you are right in that you don't know any better," said Dr. Wily. "This virus was born from my pure hatred for the stupidity and ignorance of the world, and wanting to see it burn for that. While the Dark Virus may indeed have other factors to it that I haven't taken closer notice of, I should still have full control over it. Even so, I will be doing closer studies of it to see what caused the virus to give off such an energy signature and why it destroyed Thunder Unicorn like it did."

High Max stepped forward and asked, "Master, do you think the virus could have evolved beyond the need of a host body? Viruses do usually evolve and mutate, so maybe this is the case with the Dark Virus you've created, especially given what factors you put into creating it."

"I have thought about that," replied Dr. Wily. "It wouldn't be unusual either, especially since it was my know how that allowed me to turn the Maverick Virus into its true form. Yes, that is possible that it could have transformed itself into something different, but I can't still be sure if it was only through through simple evolution that the virus could have killed Thunder Unicorn like that. I need to do further examination."

Wily then gets up from his chair has he intends to let the new virus synthesize by itself, and walks off.

"Where are you going," Vile asked.

Wily turned to Vile and said, "Going to conduct a little experiment, and I want you two, as well as Berkana, to join me."

"I understand," said High Max.

"Well, I don't," said Vile. "What does he need us for? I hope he isn't intending on making us into his personal lab rats."

"Not at all," said Wily. "But I do need witnesses to what I'm expecting will happen, as well as some on duty if things take a turn for the worst."

"I thought you would have understood that, Vile," High Max added.

"Shut your mouth, you suck up," snapped Vile.

"Anyway, let's go get Berkana so we can properly see just what true abilities my Dark Virus has going for it, and what this could mean for the new virus I'm creating," said Dr. Wily.

After that, the three guys headed off.

To Be Continued in Chapter 134.