Once Sigma officially went Maverick, the level of Maverick activity skyrocketed. With his ability to remotely influence the positronic brains of other reploids, many were rapidly turned to his side. The first of the Maverick Hunters to be turned was Vile, who was already almost Maverick even before Sigma's rebellion. Several other Hunters also went Maverick, mostly those whose forms were based in animals. Although nearly all Hunters were somewhat affected by Sigma's abilities, most were resistant enough to it that they remained stable long enough for Lifesaver to design a countermeasure. Oddly, X, Zero, and CiCi were all completely immune to the influence.
Dr. Cain struggled to help however he could, but age had taken its toll on him, and life extension only went so far, even with as advanced as Reploid science had made it. As a result, Dr. Ciel had taken over his duties, guiding Maverick Hunter HQ and acting as liason between it and human authorities, as well as a scientific adviser.
With the war coming to a head, orders were sent down. The Hunters could not fight a protracted war against the armies of Maverick mechanaloids being sent against them. Hunters had to be sent to take out the leadership...their own former comrades. X, Zero, and Octavia were assigned this mission: X and Zero as they were the only ones who could face Sigma directly without succumbing to his mental influence; and Octavia because her presence had helped several Hunters resist Sigma's influence, and it was theorized she might be able to help some of the former Hunters break free.
However, while several former Hunters had taken over various locations, one was far more dangerous than any other, and was selected to be the first target.
And so, with Zero as backup, X and Octavia were dispatched to the highway to capture Vile.
As X and Octavia beamed down to the highway, Octavia staggered a bit. "Oogh..." she grunted. "That felt weird..."
"Yeah," X agreed. "The first teleport is always the hardest. Take a few moments to get your legs back, and then we need to get moving."
Nodding, Octavia stabilized herself, closing her eyes and taking a few relaxing breaths. "...let's go," she said at last.
Several motor vehicles moved past them as they advanced, but they paid them no mind except to avoid them. The first Maverick Mechanaloids came after them then, a Spiky - a wheel with spikes and a face - and a Gun Volt - a blue spheroid unit on legs that fired electricity and missiles. The Spiky was easily dealt with by a charge shot from X, and two charge shots in quick succession from Octavia - one from each forehoof buster - finished off the Gun Volt before it could get a shot off.
The gaps they had to clear posed little difficulty for either of them. While Octavia couldn't normally jump as high as X, the busters in her hind hooves provided lift when fired against the ground to give her height equivalent to what X could do. The Crushers that came next - yellow helicopter pods with spiked drop bottoms to crush what was beneath them - proved no more difficult than the Spiky, save having to jump to shoot. X and Octavia made sure to take turns shooting, seeing to it that each of them always had a charged shot ready to fire off.
At an empty stretch of highway, a Bee Blader - a Bee shaped dropship, the same sort that had delivered X to the giant Mechanaloid battle at the start of the sequence of events now known historically as the Day of Sigma - dropped down and opened fire on them, as well as dropping Deerballs - metal spheres with eyes that unrolled long legs to walk at them.
As X shot at the Deerballs, Octavia expended her charge shots to damage the Bee Blader's optics. She then ran forward and leapt onto the front of the gunship, where its optics could no longer see her.
"What are you doing?" X shouted out worriedly.
Frowning in intense concentration, Octavia crawled up the outside of the Blader to under the propellers, wriggling along on her belly to keep from being cut. To X's surprise, the color of her crystalline armor changed to green and pale purple. Holding one buster out, it extended an energy blade which she used to sever the propeller's connection to the gunship, causing it to crash through that section of highway.(1)
As X and Octavia triangle kicked back up the highway support pillar, X glanced at Octavia. "What was that?" he demanded.
"When Sigma impaled you with his beam saber, it was enough to analyze it as weapon data," Octavia explained as she withdrew the beam and switched back to ehr primary weapon. "While your systems were too damaged to upload it as a subweapon, Varia managed a complete download. It doesn't have much in the way of weapon energy, since it's costly to sustain a blade...but it's enough for a few good uses(2)."
X nodded. "Maybe we should see about getting you a Beam Saber to use later."
The pair set their conversation aside for later as they continued further down the highway. They encountered a few Deerballs, followed by another Bee Blader, which they dealt with in the same way. Beyond that, the highway's structural integrity became too low for X to walk across without crumbling, so Octavia took point. She was light enough - even with Varia - that she didn't make the ground crumble. She dealt with the Spikys and the bee shaped flying mechanaloids that dropped bombs at them.
"What are those called again?" Octavia asked, pointing at them.
"Bomb Beens," X replied.
"...how original," Octavia quipped.
While X was caught off guard by the sudden arrivals of the Jammingers - brightly colored spheroid propeller bots with downward pointed spikes - Octavia was able to fire a charged shot at an upward angle to keep them from actually making contact.
"How did you do that?" X asked in shock.
"Do...what?" Octavia questioned.
"Shoot at an angle!" X explained.
Octavia stared at him. "Just...point your buster upward."
"...amazing..." X breathed, making Octavia facehoof.(3)
As they continued, they encountered Road Attackers, one of the many upgraded versions of Sniper Joe units uncovered in excavations of pre-End Times, this one designed to utilize a massive gun mounted on the front of a red car. While X leveled his blaster, Octavia leapt onto the top of the blaster and threw the Attacker out of the car. X blasted it, then hopped into the driver's seat.
"But I want to drive!" Octavia pouted.
"You don't have a license, and you can't reach the pedals," X pointed out. "Besides, you get to mare the cannon." He blinked, confused by his choice of words. He'd meant to say 'man'...
He was distracted from these musings as Octavia grinned happily, seizing the gun controls.
Driving along, X and Octavia tore their way through several more Road Attackers, along with several that dropped out of an airship. Finally, Vile himself jumped out of the carrier, in a blue ride armor - a large humanoid mech unit. "So, X, you still come against-"
"Bail out!" X shouted, leaping out of the vehicle as he set it to ram into Vile's Ride Armor, bouncing upward at the last moment.
Vile smashed the car aside with the Ride Armor...but didn't notice Octavia leaping from the vehicle at the last moment to cling to the back of the Ride Armor. "Really? Trying to run me down? I thought you were supposed to take me alive?"
"No, I'm just supposed to get answers from you," X countered. "Alive if possible, but we can scan your brain just as easily as long as your head's intact."
"Rather brutal of you, X," Vile mused. "Sigma thought you were better than that. But it turns out you're no different from any of us!" He laughed. "We are battle machines, X! Designed to kill and destroy as surely as this Ride Armor! We are living weapons!"
"So, can you fire that big gun on your shoulder while riding around in this?" Octavia asked, stepping up onto the shoulder pauldron of the Armor.
Vile turned to stare at her. "Umm...not easily..."
"And the design of these joints prevent you from using them to reach up into the cockpit, right?"
"Yeah..."
"So what's to stop me from firing a fully charged shot into the controls and turning this Ride Armor into so much scrap?" Octavia asked, before testing her words.
With the controls fried, the Ride Armor collapsed, and Vile was forced to bail out. "That won't stop me!" he snarled. "I'm stronger than either of you, or the two of you put together-" He was forced to duck as a blue energy blast nearly clipped him.
"How about the three of us?" Zero asked, dashing onto the scene.
Snarling, Vile leapt upwards into the airship. "Catch me if you can, Hunters!" he shouted.
X desperately tried to shoot the ship down, but it was too heavily armored. "Dammit!" X snapped. "He got away."
"Don't beat yourself up, X," Zero told him. "You did good for your first time going up against a former Hunter. Vile's one tough cookie. You and Tavi make a good team." He smirked down at Octavia. "And nice thinking frying the Ride Armor's controls. Its armor was too strong for the current power level of your Busters, so that was the only way you could have taken it down."
Octavia blushed in pleasure at the praise. "Thank you, Uncle Zero."
"Come on," X interrupted. "Let's get back to base and file our report."
Nodding in agreement, the trio teleported out.
(1) Like how Zero deals with the Bee Blader in the intro of X3.
(2) This part was inspired by a scene in one of my favorite Mega Man themed sprite comics. In it, Mega Man fought Zero, and was able to copy his beam saber as a Master Weapon.
(3) Seriously, how hard is that to program into the games? The only player characters in the entire Mega Man and X franchise who manage it ever are Bass and Axl.