Undisclosed location in the Marianas Trench
There wasn’t a single living thing inside the room, and only a small series of flashes show signs of any movement. A lone figure was working on a robotic body, working with a precision and speed only a machine could match. With the last piece falling into place, he closed the final panel and watched the outer shell began to mold itself into a perfect duplicate of its creator. The machine then got up and walked into a secret room behind a large metal cabinet. The creator walked away from the table and towards a set of computer monitors of various sizes. The screens lit up as he approached and proceeded to reveal stats and charts. He looked over the charts with cold, calculating eyes.
“It seems I’ve done a little too much catching up,” he thought to himself as sat down in the small plastic lawn chair nearby. After his failure in the nexus of time a few weeks ago, X-Factor had spent all his time recovering the losses he had suffered. He had lost a total of eight bodies in an attempt to accomplish his goals early and instead was set back by several hours. Now he was ahead of schedule by several weeks and had built 36 more bodies than he had lost. “Well, I guess it’s time to loot the surface for upgrades.” The computer screens went blank for a second, then began to have lists of possible devices for numerous upgrades scroll down them. He looked over them when he saw something. An image of the item and data about it began to scroll down it and he stared at it with a confused look. “This can’t be right. I’m sure I brought that with me after I destroyed my old lab. But my computer information is up to date, so I must have left it there.” With that, he stood up and began to walk towards the boom tube that opened the instant he got to his feet.
In WAL Headquaters... (Yes, it still exists)
X took a couple of steps on the dusty floor as he began walking through the WAL base, the automatic lights barely flickering back to life as he moved through it. The cloak that covered his entire body from just below the nose down kicked small wisps of dust as he seemingly glided through his old home. It had felt like a lifetime since he had last been there, and he couldn’t help but feel nostalgic as he walked through the base. As he walked through the base, he couldn’t help but look at the portraits of the former members of WAL and remember the mission they had been on. It was when he reached one in particular that he stopped and stared at it. In the frame, still visible under a coat of dust, was a teenager, dressed completely in blue body armor. Small tufts of brown hair and the lower half of his face were the only parts left uncovered. A confident grin was on his face and his arms were folded over his chest, portraying and idea that he was truly invincible. X walked over to the frame and extended a hand out from beneath the cloak. Carefully, he rubbed the dust away with his thumb from the name plate at the bottom. When the name Gearo became visible, X couldn’t help but take a step back and let out a reluctant sigh as he looked back at his old portrait.
He’d been a hero once, he still was, to those who’d bothered to learn about X. He had joined during the last year of WAL’s existence and had become the team’s unofficial pet robot, at least in the eyes of the public. He had made many friends and was responsible for the advanced tech and pranks throughout WAL. Back then, only a few members knew that behind the smile and jokes, he was struggling to cope with the conflicts between his human mind and his robotic body.
X shook his head as he waved the memories away. “I’m not here for a trip down memory lane. I’ve got an invention to reclaim.” With that, he continued to walk through the halls until he came across a door labeled Laboratory/Gearo. He let out another sigh as the memories engulfed his thoughts again.
During the last few months he was a member of the team, he began to notice everyone was treating him differently. They began assigning the night shift monitor duty to him every night, left him behind as they went to special parties in their honor, and had even began to confuse him for the numerous cleaning robots that used to run throughout the base. The worst of it occurred when his best friend, Archeron Zarek, had forgotten the closest thing he’d had to a birthday. He left the team that day and began focusing on his dream.
X-Factor shook away the memories again as he opened the door and walk inside. Everything was exactly where he had left it, the broken beakers, scattered tools, and the busted computers. The screens flickered to life and dimly displayed through the dust his former insignia. As he continued further in, he saw a similar blue armor to what he had used to wear with a dried pool of blood and bone fragments. “Okay, I thought they’d at least come in here once after I left to clean this up,” he thought as he stepped over it carefully and proceeded to a segment of wall left bare. X knocked on it twice and the section of wall spun around to reveal an unoperational hibernation chamber with Gearo lying inside it. X put a hand on the glass door stared at the unaltered spare body as the memories came flooding back again.
Just before he had left, he had been working on a device that he theorized could turn him into a human. He had managed to succeed and was able to live a few months as a normal teenager living on his own. Then his past as Gearo had caught up with him and forced him to become a machine once again. He managed to kill his old time foe, General Anthony Krelboyne, but the confrontation changed him into who he was now, and what his goals were.
X was snapped back into reality by a noisy beep that rang through his ears. He looked around for the source, but when he couldn’t find it, he just shrugged and continued his search for his prize. Once he found the right wall panel, he opened it and began to grin. It turned out to be just a simple supercomputer, but underneath its keyboard, there was a small laser gun that looked like a kid’s toy. The droid put it in a holster on his hip and made his way out of the lab. He had just reached the teleporter room when the device activated on its own. X took a couple steps back as a group of people he’d thought he wouldn’t see again step into the base.
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