Chapter One

An Unusual Find

Axl was not currently a happy reploid.

Well, make that a seriously pissed off reploid. He'd spent the past week tracking a trio of class C mavericks solo, no teammates, no HQ support, and few breaks. He was tired, dirty, low on ammo, and in serious need of something to beat to a gritty pulp. Sure, he was happy to get the solo assignment initially, but a week of no luck and suffering frequent low level maverick and mechanaloid attacks would wear on anyone's enthusiasm, and not to mention patience. He had taken several injuries and that cracked rib hurt a hell of a lot, but his self-healing systems dulled the pain after a while as they repaired the damage.

Stopping in the lee of a partially demolished building he checked the tracking equipment he had been given, not expecting anything to come up. Sometimes he really hated not having internal scanning equipment, getting readouts behind your eyes would be so much more convenient.

The instrument chirped, plasma residue, fresh enough to signify the damage around him was from a recent firefight. Finally some success!

"Kyaaaa!"

Axl jolted at the sound of the feminine scream that rang eerily through the concrete ruins. Over a hill of rubble and around three corners were the three mavericks he had been tracking, and they'd cornered a civilian!

"Go on puny human, scream for help! No one's gonna hear you!" rumbled the shortest at seven feet, waving a beam knife in the girl's terrified face.

"N-n-no! Please no!" she quailed, shrinking back from her tormentors. "Leave me alone!"

The tallest, the leader, laughed. "Aw, look at the scared little human, begging for mercy from mavericks!"

Axl tensed, ready to spring to the human's rescue, when he noticed something odd.

The 'human' girl had cat-like ears poking out from the top of her sandy orange head, and not to mention the weird outfit that looked like a short bathrobe with a really thick sash and big sleeves.

"P-please! Just leave me alone!" she cried, clutching something to her chest. "I don't want any trouble!"

"No good human," the leader growled. "Your inferior guts and blood are going to paint this alley!"

The grunt swung his knife upward, aiming to cut the girl in half, when a black, snaky, something lashed out.

Once, twice, thrice.

Thud, thud, CRASH!

Axl blinked. One second the maverick was ready to kill, the next his arms fell off, then his torso separated from his lower half in a spray of purple coolant.

"What the fuck?" he asked aloud, scanning the area for any other entities, and finding none.

The girl was now standing, a long black whip in hand and breathing heavily in panic, a furry tail lashing out behind her.

The other two mavericks stood in shock, staring at their companion's dismembered corpse, before rushing the girl.

She yelled, flinging the whip through the air and decapitating the other grunt. The now headless body sprayed her with the sickly coolant, blinding her.

The leader took advantage of this, and fired his weapon.

The young hunter gasped at the gut-wrenching scream that reverberated through the decimated area, and felt something like he had taken that shot.

Not thinking, he lunged, transforming into a beast-like mecha shape and tackling the maverick. The maverick howled as sharp claws dug into synthflesh, ripping and tearing apart limbs and armor alike before a wild swipe to the neck cut his throat, and torrents of coolant gushed forth.

Axl snarled, lip curled in disdain, as he reverted to his normal shape, drew his gun, and fired a full power blast to the back of the maverick's skull.

Threat taken care of, Axl leapt to the girl, shaking slightly from the savagery he had inflicted.

She lay still, her body heaving with coughs. The whip was nowhere in sight, only a strange spattered trail of a black substance on the ground and a peculiar object in the girl's limp hand.

"Hey! Are you alright!" he asked, carefully turning the girl over.

His breath left him.

She was...beautiful. Delicate features, high cheekbones and angled eyes, she would've looked of Asian decent if it weren't for her sand-orange hair and near-white skin.

Oh, and let's not forget the lack of human ears on the sides of her head.

When he could breathe again, he smelled blood, blood and charred flesh. There was a black, bleeding hole in her abdomen, not very deep but life still life threatening. She stirred, and gasped in pain.

"Whoa, hey, don't move! You're hurt bad, you need to get to a hospital!" Axl cried. "Plasma burns kill humans easily!"

Her eyes opened, the pure, deep violet color unmistakable even clouded by pain.

"N-no!" she sobbed. "No hospitals!"

Axl shook her gently. "You need a doctor, and fast. If you don't get that burn treated soon you'll bleed out or die when the corrosion eats away at your organs!"

"No hospitals! No humans!" the girl almost growled. "Never humans!"

She wrenched out of his grasp and grabbed the strange object from the ground. It was a lacquered stick, with white...hair? in one end stained black at the tips. The girl took the soft end of the stick and ran it over the wound, and a slick black liquid flowed from it.

The liquid sizzled, smouldered, then burst away in a puff of dark smoke to reveal a blackened patch of skin.

"Never humans, don't trust...them..."

She looked about to faint. Axl picked her up bridal style. "Hey, don't pass out on me yet! What was that?"

Her eyes fluttered as she panted. "R-rejuvenation, second celestial brushstroke...takes too much...energy."

"Are you gonna be ok?"

"J-just n-need sleep." she whispered. "Please don't take me to the humans!"

"I won't, can you tell me your name?" he asked, hopeful.

She smiled. "Sunako, yours?"

"I'm Axl."

"Thank you...Axl." Sunako whispered, snuggling into the hunter's shoulder. "The Mother's...blessings...to...you..."

With that, she was out cold, clutching Axl's armor in an unconscious deathgrip.

Axl blushed, feeling her breath tickling his jaw. Gulping, he activated his radio for the first time in a week.

"Hunter Axl to Hunter Base, do you copy?"

'Axl? Is that really you?'came the familiar voice of Navigator Alia. 'What's your status?'

"All three targets dead, one injured civilian, and I really could use a shower."

A slight pause, then a laugh.'Trust you to crack a joke at a time like this. How badly injured is the civilian, reploid or human?'

"Plasma shot to her stomach, but I can't tell if she's human or reploid. Can you teleport us over now?"

A longer pause. 'To a hospital?'

"No can do Al, definite ix-nay on the hospital. Don't think a civvy doctor could treat this."

'Copy that, we've got a lock on your signal, transporting for two...now.'

The world faded in a flash, the familiar tingling sensation of teleportation bringing him and his passenger to Headquarters in an instant.

The first thing that greeted him as he stepped off the platform, the 17th unit commander MegaMan X. The imposing blue-armored figure stood with his arms crossed, a finger tapping and a stern glare in his green eyes.

Axl gulped. "Hey X, nice day?"

The hunter hero studied the younger one's disheveled, purple coolant stained state and the oddly dressed female in his arms. "You couldn't take her to a hospital?"

"Um, she sort've panicked when I mentioned it."

"And you didn't insist?"

"I would've if Sunako hadn't been the one to take down two of my targets before she got shot! And I don't think she's human or reploid!"

X blinked, noticing the odd appendages on top the girl's head, one ear twitching under Axl's breath.

"Oh...that makes a difference."