Inside the forest's observation bunker, Sting waited calmly for X to appear. Part of his original data consumption involved heavy study of the Shogun and Ninja of Japan. Both did not fear death, and fought with great courage until their final moments. With that same intensity Sting waited. He could hear outside the noises of destruction and plodding hydraulics, and he knew X had to be at the controls. He also knew the door was too small to let the 'mech in, which meant X would have to come here in person.
    Finally, the clicking of the sliding doors was heard, and Sting faded into the greenery above, hanging onto the leaves with his claws.
    Sting was odd in that respect from the other mavericks. The others had hands-barring Launch, who Sting had always felt close to because of that. LAUNCH. Sting tightened his grip on the branches. X had destroyed Launch. And Sting would avenge his friend.
    Finally, the last door slid open and X stepped inside. He looked about the room with steely focused eyes. Finally, he checked his Buster and switched to a shade of olive green, clashing against his white and gold armor. He looked up at the ceiling again and fired a shot. A powerful homing missiles went off and with no target to track, exploded in the ceiling. X kept his Buster raised, and cleared his throat.
    "Sting, you in here?" X waited calmly for Sting to appear before him, but it was the noise which gave him away first. His ability to blend in with objects had a nasty side effect-even though it makes him silent and undetectable to every sensor possible, to stay in it too long meant overheating his systems. And the sound it made while he cloaked and decloaked bordered on a jetplane volume, making it all too obvious when he was coming or going.
    "I'm here, Hunter." Sting was hanging off the wall with one paw and pointing at X with the other. "You've caused a lot of trouble in your short career, you know that?" X shrugged, his own cold expression matching dead even with Sting's.
    "So what? I've killed your friends, and you killed mine. Sorry Sting, but you chose the wrong side going with Sigma." X fired off a missile, but Sting batted it away with his massive tail with ease. Sting hissed loudly.
    "I follow Sigma, wherever he goes. I risked my life with the guy, and that is loyalty. Something which you will never understand, rookie. You may have defeated the others by pure luck, or by your newfound abilities. But I know you have Sub-Tanks and Heart Tanks. I came prepared for that contingency, my friend. I came with a warrior's spirit. You came with your weapons of desecration, taken from the dead bodies of honorable warriors! Tell me X…who is the one who has done the worst? The one who followed his leader?" Sting then ominously pointed a pincer at X. "Or the one who betrays his own kind, the race he is responsible for creating?"
    The question froze X for a moment, but then he raised his Buster again and shook his head.
    "You know, Flame asked me close to the same question before I destroyed him. And you know what I did?" X fired off another Homing Missile. Sting blocked it, but a second was already closing in, too fast to block. The shot hit home and Sting was knocked down from his perch. X thought of allowing himself a small smile, but he decided against it. One shot wasn't enough-he'd celebrate when Sting was dust.
    Sting brushed the dirt off of himself and stumbled to his feet. His fully robotic eye rolled angrily at X and he pointed a giant claw finger at his adversary.
    "Nice trick. I see you've desecrated Launch as well with that attack. But I'm gonna let you in on something, my rookie Hunter; I was designed to take abuse upwards of immense force equal to great grizzlies. That is strong-too strong for your pathetic firecracker to take out. My armor, be it not overt like your own, is no less powerful. And in the end, because you have NOTHING which will work against me, you will fail." Sting leapt onto the wall and lashed his tail out, spreading a triad of green energy bolts. X blinked for a moment, until finally he realized that the blasts stood a very good chance of damaging him. With a well directed thrust from his boots, he dashed backwards and hopped up onto the wall, directing a plasma shot at Sting's position. A low chuckle filled the room as the noisy cloaking device of Sting's activated, and a shimmering shuffle covered Sting, until it was as if he had melted into the wall. He was now fully blended, and in cloaked mode. X stared at the wall where his shot sizzled against branches and leaves, cursing angrily at Sting's tactic.
    He took in a breath and focused. Sting would be moving around, trying to gain an advantage against him with his vanishing technique. His only chance of success would be to try and find Sting ahead of time before the blasted maverick got close enough to try any funny business on him. He primed his Buster, holding the charge until it built up again to its max.
    "Sting, where are you?" X muttered under his breath. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted a flash of light, but not much of one. Just enough to have his Hunter's instincts spasm in a jolt of self-preservation. He dropped off the wall, then dashed forward and tucked into a roll. Behind him, the wall was smashed into dust with a quick snap of Sting's Irontongue, and then the chunk of ground right by his boots broke into rubble, where the razor sharp roll of Sting's palate took a second attack. X curled out of his roll and turned about, beading his Buster and releasing the shot. With Sting cloaked, he couldn't see where he was aiming. But his advanced hearing helped him to pick up on where the tongue shot from, because X knew from the computer files on Sting that the cloaking device lost its integrity field around objects which escaped the main 'bubble' at too rapid a velocity; namely any attack Sting made. This was why he moved slowly, to maintain the field's effect.
    But some who had faced Sting before they perished might have come up with a different reason; that the sneaking was meant to frighten them out of their wits and force them to make rash and fatal decisions.
    But X had faced a total of 7 other maverick generals up to this point, always coming out on top. Instincts which he never knew he had possessed before he joined up with Zero and the now all but decimated 17th Unit had flared to vibrant vitality, saving his life time and time again. And those same instincts now helped him as much as they ever did.
    A cloaked Sting took the shot dead center in his stomach, knocking him out of the field and also from his handhold. The purple blast was almost too powerful, throwing the limber Sting Chameleon across the room as if a magical wind had become angered with him. A scream of surprise and pain rose from the maverick's throat until he was slammed into the other side of the room and had the wind knocked out of him. Sliding down the wall in an almost comical fashion, Sting resembled something that X had to laugh at.
    "A bloody bug on a windshield." X shook the comment off of himself and prepared another blast. Sting shook his head for a moment, coughed in a loose jerk and then picked himself up, grabbing hold of the wall with his pincer hands.
    "Oh, you're definitely good, rookie. Zero has trained you well. But even he can be defeated." Sting threw himself across the room, so fast was his leap X couldn't follow it with his Buster. Sting bounced off the wall right above X and hopped down, boots first. He smashed X to the ground, pinning him with a devastating crunch. X cringed at the blow but managed to stifle the racking pain in his body. Sting hissed angrily at him, throwing a lopsided punch which still managed to throw stars in X's eyes.
    "All Hunters die sometime, X. It's a lesson I learned the hard way in my early days. It just seems that your time has come a bit earlier than most." Sting picked up his hand and primed the finger pincers. X blinked at the sight, and somewhere within the confines of his dazed mind he realized Sting was going to try and stab him with his thick claw hand.
    "Oh no you don't, you sick sonofa-" X backed up his head a bit and then smashed it forward onto Sting's kneecap. Even in reploids, pressure points existed. One was the kneecap, and the thick metal helmet of X's, capable of smashing through stone crushed the armor inwards to the limb. Sting howled in pain at the attack and readied a rabbit punch, but X activated his thrusters. With Sting riding on top of him, the thrust was lessened, but no less powerful. The end result was that when X skidded to a halt because of friction, Sting was thrown off of X like a stone in a catapault.
    But the maverick had managed to scrape together a parry for the blow, and as he lashed his tongue out to grab hold of a sturdy branch hanging off the wall, and his tail swung down in a vicious sweeping arc, scraping along the thick armor of X's chest. The blow was softened and no vital systems were damaged, but the impact drained a tiny bit of energy from his systems. X got up and readied himself again. Sting had had him pinned, and if he managed to again, nothing X did could free himself. He had gotten lucky that time, and luck was something one did not rely on too frequently.
    "Damnit, X! Now you'll pay! You messed up my damn kneecap…crap!" Sting clutched the dented armor painfully, but still managing to level a triad blast at X with his tail. X dodged out of the way with another dash, but Sting dropped down for a frontal attack. X stalled, realizing Sting had once again made him move to a vulnerable position. Sting fixated on X's wide eyed expression for one moment with a growl of anger, but the growl increased into a scream of pain. Sting dropped to one side limply, but he managed to use his tail for balance. Still, X could see the maverick's kneecap wound was more serious than Sting would have liked it to be. X chuckled.
    "Funnybone connected to the legbone, eh Sting?" Sting howled angrily at X and jumped up onto the wall again. X looked up with a look of disgust on his face. Sting was being too proud, and it showed on his pained face. For all the damage X had given him, he would not even admit X to be a true threat.
    Sting leapt across the room again, but this time he took hold of the wall with his tail and swung down, arms outstretched. X fired off another blast of hot plasma, but Sting batted it aside with a swipe of his paw. Then he spat his tongue out in a powerful unexpected twist of strategy. X didn't even have time to react at all before the powerful palate wrapped itself around him, and the spines rolling on the long axis of the mouth's limb sprang out at Sting's command, burying into the armor of X's torso with a powerful punch. X screamed in pain, feeling the tiny pinpricks passing through his newest armor, feeling their long shredding tips digging deeper and deeper, causing horrible amounts of damage, causing every automatic alarm in his body to ring out in protest of the intrusion. X was badly disoriented by the compounding secondaries, and he found his vision beginning to blur. But finally, by either choice or by cruelty, Sting whipped his tongue around and rolled it off of X.
    The end result of that throw could be compared to what happens to a yo-yo when the string breaks in the opening loop of an around the world spin; X was sent sprawling in a wild upwards and forwards arc across the room, too weakened by the blow to respond with any defensive measure.
    Even with his new armor and the thick protective helmet, X still felt the impact of the wall cascade through his body, permeating every tiny servomotor with angry vibrations. Finally, the force of the throw died out as its kinetic energy finished wracking through X's body and into the wall. When he dropped down from it in a pile of dazed limbs, a large dent with cracks still spiraling outwards like a spiderweb remained, giving full proof as to where X had smashed into the heavy concrete bunker.
    His world spun around him, stars still dancing in front of his eyes. Sting hung off the wall, letting his large tail whip around lazily in satisfaction.
    "Not so invincible, are you? I've told you before, ROOKIE. You lack the drive and experience. You rely on big guns to fight, and the end result is simply there is no finesse. I do believe there is one other creature in the world that might fit your fighting style; It is commonly called the Rhinoceros." X got up, his nostrils flaring angrily, but his wounds still caused his breathing to be labored. He lifted a finger, pointing it at Sting.
    "You want a fight of honor, eh?" Sting stopped swinging back and forth from the ceiling and dropped to the floor, careful to balance his weight mainly on his good leg. With a large sweeping bow, he clasped his hands together and blinked his eyes.
    "X, I desire nothing less. I have been bred as a true warrior throughout my Hunter career, and my long study of the Shogun. They do not fear death as weaker warriors do, but they embrace it with the same ferocity they embraced life. I believe that in a true honorable fight, you would lose. Every bit of our conflagration to this point has been based on street fighting, wrestling, sheer power and sneaking about like cowards. I may lose my cloaking ability, but that does not concern me. With the loss of dishonorable weapons, you lose almost all of your abilities." X grated his mind. Sting wanted to fight it his way? Fine. But he was right.
    X often did resort to large overpowering attacks to defeat his opponents. But it seemed a newer fighting style was in order. A fighting style which used not his supershot, not his Fire Wave, nor any other weapon as such.
    It is said that ideas come to one in a flash of inspiration, out of the blue and totally unexpected. Sometimes, they are ignored like flies, with disastrous consequences. But every so often, the possessor of such a radical thought realizes it for what it truly is, and then great things happen.
    The Wright Brothers had the first flying motorized airplane. The US went to the moon within a decade. Doctor Thomas Right created X, a robot with human emotions and thought processes.
    And X in turn found the most honorable weapon he had in his inventory, and also perhaps the only thing that would forever silence Sting Chameleon. He grinned and gave a similar bow to Sting, making note the twisting of his upper torso came very difficult, much like standing straight was for the injured Sting. They had both given and received blows, serious enough to hinder performance, but not enough to be life-threatening.
    "All right, Sting. An honorable duel it will be. I hate random violence as much as you do. If it will be a duel of skill and dexterity as you wish, I will be more than happy to challenge you." X's armor shimmered brightly for a moment, the blue vanishing to be replaced with gray. Now X had adopted another master weapon to fight with, and his chances of winning with it were quite good.
    Sting looked at the display curiously for a moment, then frowned.
    "This had better be an honorable dueling weapon, I hope. Otherwise, expect no mercy." X shrugged.
    "Oh, it fits the bill." He shut his eyes and a thin micro-rang appeared in his hands. The molecular arrangers in his X-Buster design allowed him to create a Boomerang Cutter from thin air, using the molecules of hydrogen and dust. It would work quite well, but then X would need to form another. The bonds would only last so long in the makeshift piece of weaponry, but until it lost power, it was deadly. X carefully gripped the metallic 'rang in his hand with a defensive pose and glared over at Sting.
    "Whenever you're ready, maverick. I'll be waiting for your move." Sting rolled his eyeball and slammed his mitts together. Then he bowed to X and jumped for the roof, his massive good leg stopping the jump as he twisted his head downwards. He then dropped a bit before his tail caught hold of the wall, and his momentum dropped his body in a swinging arc. At the right moment, Sting opened his mouth and flicked his tongue out in a powerful strike. X sidestepped the blow and hurled his 'rang straight for Sting. But the green maverick saw it coming and swung aside, letting it pass him by. Then he swung back down and grinned at X, waving his right pincer in a left-right motion.
    "Aww aww aww. Nice shot, but youoooOOOAAAAIIIIII!" Sting's sentence was interrupted as the 'rang completed its return loop, slicing cleanly through the wrist joint of Sting's waving hand. The now decapitated limb fell to the ground with a dull thud, while a good deal of reploid blood poured from the wound until automatic pressure valves in Sting's arm shut off blood to the wound. Sting howled angrily in pain, clutching the stump of his once mighty fist. But then the screams stopped and Sting made it all too clear to X with a powerful glare he would show no mercy. The placid techniques of Sting's personality had vanished in an instant, and now X looked on in confusion as to what Sting was doing.
    It was as if all of a sudden, the old Sting had vanished, leaving a powerful and deadly warrior so enraged that his entire body would frighten a man. He was an empty shell, a shell which wanted so dearly to punt kick X's head off of his shoulders. X shuddered for a moment at the sight, but calmed down and drew another blade from the air. He was doing all right, and now Sting was down an arm. Hoping for the best, X pulled out another blade so he held one in each hand. He would need all the power he could afford for this. A wild animal craziness it seemed had possessed Sting, and wounded trapped animals were unpredictable and deadly to the extreme.
    Sting swooped down, tucking all his limbs inwards to prevent X another easy hit, curling into a spiked ball of metal and rolling along the floor. X threw one blade at the ball, but it bounced off the hard surface and slammed into the ceiling before dissolving some seconds later. X jumped the rolling attack and peered up at his wasted blade. But it gave him an idea, a strategy that even Sting would be proud to have created.
    When Sting finished with his attack, the maverick sent a triad green blast towards X before climbing onto the wall again, biding his time with another second blast. X dodged the first salvo, but the second was perfectly primed. X cursed and threw his second blade, quick to soon have another pair in his hands milliseconds afterwards. Sting dodged the speedy blade and dropped onto the floor, charging like a bull at X with a powerful roar. But X dashed towards Sting with his own ferocity, throwing a blade at the nimble warrior. Sting easily dodged it, and even jumped up to cleanly leap over the returning blade. But even as he swung around his stump for a massive blunt punch towards X, the crafty Hunter had snuck underneath the arcing limb and with his second blade made a ferocious slice along the tender belly of the maverick.
    As the first blade buried itself in the wall, Sting grunted in surprise as a searing fire skewered along his torso, sending a spray of blood into the air. Stunned by the move, Sting was unable to respond as X then shoved his body upwards in a massive uppercut, slamming the maverick clean off the ground by several inches, and then another terrifyingly powerful swipe of the 'rang along Sting's legs. Sting hung in the air, his body still shaken by the powerful combo when X, now totally pumped up by his system's energy did a backflip, kicking Sting forwards in the beginning, and upon landing dashing forth again.
    In a final swift one-two, X sliced Sting's tail clean off and gut-rammed the maverick into the wall. The blow would not have been as damaging, except for one tiny detail that X had planned mere moments before.
    The Boomerang Cutter Sting had evaded in X's throw was firmly embedded in the wall, and when X slammed Sting into the rough concrete, the maverick was impaled upon the blade.
    It vanished moments later into molecular dust, but the heavy damage had been done. Sting had lost a hand, his tail, and had severe cuts in his torso and legs, as well as a destroyed kneecap. His eyes glazed over in pain, and he groaned softly, finally coming back to his senses. X backed up from the mortally wounded reploid and glared at him.
    "You're finished Sting." Sting looked up at X, but not with hatred or bitterness. In his last moments of death, he looked upon X with smiling eyes.
    "Now you are a true warrior, X. You have overcome a powerful foe with strategy and honor. If you are to remain on your path, remember that lesson. Finesse is key to all." Sting weakly lifted his left hand and pointed at his severed tail.
    "X, you have earned my weapon, perhaps more so than any other's. My weapon is in the tail. Take it now." X shook his head sadly, looking upon the now soft-spoken and dying reploid.
    "Sting, it didn't have to be like this!" Sting trembled softly, in what might have been a laugh.
    "X, I am a warrior. A warrior desires nothing less than a great duel for his death. But now I must move on to the next level. The Samurai have a tradition. When their honor is gone, they commit suicide. Storm had the respect in that tradition to take his life. I will do no less." Sting shook his head sadly, and X jumped forth, a horrified look on his face.
    "No! Sting, don't do it!" Sting laughed loudly now, before he exposed his vital circuitry, his microfusion generator and set it to overload. He waved at X one last time.
    "X, I have no other choice. I can only die; but at least I die knowing I did so at an honorable foe's hands. Sigma would have destroyed me anyway, but it seems the tables have turned. It is now your task to destroy HIM."
    With those last sage words, Sting vanished in nuclear fire. The flash was brilliant, and when it had ended it left only a disturbed X behind in its wake.
    An X, who even though he had done what it seemed was his destiny, felt so confused and alone once more. With a sigh, he looked down at the tail, and picked it up.
    The Chameleon Sting became his, but X shook his head. He needed some time to think about this; to digest recent events and cope with his newfound emotional problems, and come out of it stronger than before. He had very few places he could go to be alone, but he knew of one place which might be that way;
    The abandoned mines where Armored Armadillo had been.
    >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
    When he got there, it seemed like Sigma had sent some sophisticated drones to do some last-minute mining for raw materials, because the place was bustling like he'd never gone through and eliminated them. Of course, the fact that X had left a few Batton Bones active in the upper region might have done something for that as well.
    "Looks like this is one shipment that Sigma won't be getting today." X grumbled as he blasted away an entire row of Battons with a single plasma blast.
    He'd muddled through virtually the entire complex in minutes, already familiar with the layout and equipped with more power than he'd had the first time around. The smell of dirt in the air and the solitude of the mine was invigorating, and gave him more than enough time to reexamine his status as a Hunter.
    As he reached the final mine cart which served as his wild ride to the open skies and Arm's now abandoned lair, he noticed something very odd; he'd managed to fill up all his Sub-Tanks, as well as keep his stamina at full health. A very admirable accomplishment in X's mind, considering his current state.
    "A time before I feared this cart." X shook his head and began to charge his Buster, knowing Battons would be close by. "Now I fear nothing."
    X took the plunge, blasting away the last of the Battons, the cart piledriving through the final row of Dig Labours, and the wind whipping in his face. The sun blinded him as he shot out of the tunnel, but his optics adjusted in time. X saw the ledge approaching, and knew if he jumped soon enough, he could make the upper ledge for a final energy pellet.
    The leap took him there, but when he climbed above something surprised him; Yet another of Doctor Light's capsules was on the ledge as well, the remains of its burrowing evident. X shook his head happily. These capsules always picked a secluded spot away from enemies, and within his abilities to reach. The solid door opened and the holographic image of Light appeared.
    "What the?!" X exclaimed. Doctor Light was not in his usual white lab coat and tan pants, but rather a cloth garment befitting one that went to karate classes. The odd garb made X waver off balance. But it was Light, no doubt about it. The doctor smiled oddly, his red bandanna around his head waving in the holographic breeze.
    "I give you a special present, X! This will help you considerably with your foes, so stop being a doof and get in! Enter the capsule, please!" The message was short, but Light's mood was ecstatic, which X took to mean that this capsule had something really good, so good in fact Light spent more time working out the kinks in the design, and less with the message.
    When he stepped out of the capsule moments later, he tested his new ability, forming the energy ball in his hands and chucking it out into the empty sky.
    "Hadouken!" X yelped childishly. He giddily chuckled at his newfound gift, and the implications were profound. The 'Hadouken' was in fact the most powerful weapon X possessed now. When he was at full energy, he could use some of his reactor's excess power and concentrate it into his hands, focusing it more and more until within less than a second it was extremely powerful. He could hold it in his hands with ease, with Light's design in place. Then when he was ready, all he needed to do was give it a shove with his mitts and it would go flying. And when it did; something would go boom.
    It's incredible power would melt through any armor, and then conveniently deposit itself in the power matrix of whoever was on the receiving end. When that happened, no matter what got hit, the power systems would overload and the whole thing would explode with a great flourish.
    Sting may have proved to X that finesse and style could often get the better of an opponent. But looking at his newest toy, X grinned widely.
    There was something to be said for almost unstoppable power as well.
    Just then, his comm went off in a loud chirp. He flipped it on and looked into the viewscreen. It was Zero.
    "Zero, buddy! Wassup?" Zero gave him a look of pure devilish joy.
    "We've managed to locate Sigma's hidden fortress! It's up in a corner of Hokkaido, overlooking the ocean." X whistled.
    "Damn! Never would have thought to look there." Zero shrugged.
    "None of us would. But now we have to go stop him. You with me, X?" X nodded.
    "Yeah, Sting's fried, and I got two new toys to play with." Zero raised his left eyebrow.
    "TWO?" X chuckled.
    "I took out some more mining drones in Arm's place. And one of Light's capsules showed up as well." Zero twisted his mouth in a half smile.
    "I should be jealous. Report back to base, X. We have to get stocked up for 'bar huntin'!" X clicked the comm off. He shook his head and gave a final pat to the side of the capsule before it dug back underground and vanished.
    "On my way, Zero. On my way."
    X turned into a bright beam of light, and warped out. But the last thought on his mind was a goodie.
    At last, he would stop Sigma. And then everyone who had died during this could rest peacefully.