Winged Rampage

**Winged Rampage** is the sixteenth chapter of Mega Man X: Unit 49's Season 2.

   The chapter begins with Captain Elika running outside the CEU Parliament while seeing several destroyed guards, until he finds three Neo Mavericks called Mashcane, Killsight and Feros who attack him hoping to get a promotion for defeating a Maverick Hunter. Elika manages to knock out Mashcane, but Killsight uses his scan eye to pinpoint Elika's weak spot in the chest and shoots him, and so Elika's energy begins to drop as if he was bleeding out. Feros makes his final attack and retreats due to a giant Earth Army Mechaniloid approaching. Falsetto manages to deliver the parliamentarians to the shelter safe, but Schneider asks him to escort him to somewhere else to try reactivating the defense systems, which had been sabotaged.

   Elika continues his search for the enemy commander but finds Fistfire Lanius, who reveals that the commander is a woman called Duelist and that she is a new War Machine built by Saturn. He is surprised that the Maverick Hunters have not been completely destroyed and tries to capture Elika to kill him in front of Duelist to be promoted to *Warchief*, but Elika destroys him mid-air, although resulting in a fall from too high that destroyed his internal parts. Elika finds himself too weak to stop the destruction once again and decides to crawl to somewhere safe, hoping to restore his signal with Nora and return to base.

    Squad A proceeds through the Jamison Liquid Metal Engineering Facility in search of the Manufacture Sector, but Cyrenox shows up and reveals they had been detected through other means when they arrived, and that he simply pretended he did not know about their presence, but still sent the signal to the NMA begin their operations (confirming what had been supposed earlier). Cyrenox says he joined the Neo Maverick Army only to have fun fighting, but his sister Corrosive Nagaxid, who leads the Liquid Metal Reploids, ordered him to stay safe. Cyrenox tries to fight the Hunters but Blue Knight freezes him with his Ice Buster after a few seconds of battle. X offers Cyrenox a chance to surrender, but he mocks him that he will escape and cause even more trouble, and all that would be X's fault. X remembers about the destruction he caused in the Iberian Castle and shoots in anger when Cyrenox pulls his trigger, but he escapes with half of his body. X questions himself about his persisting hesitation and his inability to get over the pain of seeing that scene happen countless times. X thinks about his compassion towards his enemies and that if he is unable to change his enemies before they draw their swords, the next ones will suffer from the same fate and the world will remain trapped in this cycle.

    Meanwhile, Chaotic Gargale knows that he must not allow Platina shoot her Railgun at him, so he attacks them repeatedly with Chaotic Orbs. Trickster plans to go to the roof, "fish" him with his hooks and "call the *Big Bro*", but before that he tries to use his *Thunderstruck* to catch a lightning bolt and use it to stun Gargale, but it fails and Platina is thrown away by a strong wind attack. A *Jubartis-class* of the Earth Army approaches the city hall with several dozen troops, while NMA Carriers and N.M. Thugs arrive to aid Gargale. They begin an aerial battle and Gargale's strenght turns the favor in fight of the NMA, but the *Jubartis-class* shoots a massive laser that destroys 80% of the fleet and leaves the NMA outnumbered, but Kerbekeros orders them to keep fighting.

    Shortly after, the overwhelming number of EA troops leaves Gargale alone and he unleashes his *Overdrive* ability, a vortex created by his five turbines that devours the Reploids pulled nearby and uses their energy to create a massive tornado. Trickster picks Platina and retreats using his hook, and even though Gargale is still the chances of hitting him with the Railgun from that distance were almost null due to the amount of debris surrounding him. Shad uses sound mapping to search for them through the rain and comes seeking revenge. However, Trickster makes him grab a hook that was attached to a flying truck in Gargale's tornado and sent him towards the strong winds and debris. Platina mentions that Shad was never the strongest of the War Machines, his sibling was the one who used to cause more trouble. Shad's *Sonic Scream* wakes Gargale from his healing sleep and he begins throwing Chaotic Orbs at Squad C again.

    Platina uses her Stagger Bayonet to temporarily hold Gargale while Trickster goes to the roof once again and use his hook to "fish" him. Although Gargale's strenght overcame Trickster's while in mid-air, as soon as Trickster got his feet in the ground, he could easily pull Gargale with his *Big Bro*, a dual Arm Trans that morphs one of his arms into a big hand and the other in a small but powerful thruster. Trickster achieves an extreme speed and crushes Gargale in the wall, detaching his own arm to get away from Platina's Railgun while still pressing Gargale. Platina finally manages to shoot the Railgun and the projectile hits Gargale at supersonic speeds, obliterating him along with part of the city hall.

Even amidst that tension, Trickster pranks Platina by morphing his arm to look like Gargale's head and make her believe the Maverick survived the blow. Although angry, she is relieved that they managed to take down the worst of the Neo Maverick forces in the city. Platina admitted Trickster was a good boy when he wanted and that his insanity resembled Henry, as well as that she had not felt adrenaline like that for years. Trickster interprets that as Platina being in love with him, but that was not what she meant.

At the end of the chapter, Falsetto and Schneider approach the room supposed to be the control room of the defense systems while they talk about how insidious the Red Wing party is. Before parting ways, Schneider promises to take the feelings and will to fight from Falsetto and his friends to move forward in his quest. However, three Mavericks identical to the trio seen in Prologue: Doomsday appear and speak about Falsetto or Schneider giving them *a sacrifice* and Falsetto thinks they believed his false rumor about propaganda executions. Schneider seems concerned and the scene ends abruptly.