No Need for Maverick Hunters
Part 2 - Devastation and Hope

"What do you mean he's speaking mostly the truth?" X said. "Why didn't you tell 
the world sooner?"

The mysterious woman's head sagged, in an attempt to hide the grief that 
appeared on her face. "Well," she began in a slow voice, hinting of the sadness, 
"neither I nor the emperor knew what really happened. I thought that I might be 
able to undo what had been done before Asuka returned, but I was wrong." A tear 
landed on the floor in front of her feet.

X didn't know how to the respond. Is was easy to tell that the event that 
occurred was too painful for him to make her relive, but he would need to in 
order to get the all of the known facts. 

He was about to say something when Scanner spoke up. "Sir! They've locked on to 
the base!"

"Everyone!" X said hurriedly. "Get out of here now!" 

All of a sudden, the blast fired by the ships in orbit hit the base, knocking 
everyone off their feet. The blinked off, then most turned back on while the 
rest exploded.

X looked around the room once it was lit. He saw Zero help Iris up, as well as 
many of the others. He looked over to Scanner, who was helping up Marvel. 
"Situation?"

Before Scanner finished checking his equipment, Douglas shouted in horror. "Sir! 
The Jurai fleet has just taken out the entire fleet!"

"Contact the Repliforce!" X ordered, starting to turn to Iris. "Tell them to-" 
He stopped talking when he saw Iris slumped slightly over at her post, her hands 
covering her face.

"Its too late," Iris said, trying her best to control her grief. "The Repliforce 
Headquarters has just been destroyed." Then she started crying uncontrollably.

Zero put his hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry, Iris," he said supportively.

There was a long pause, then Scanner spoke. "Sir, that blast was the same 
strength as the one that hit the Repliforce HQ. So."

The mysterious lady spoke, getting everybody's attention. "I used my powers to 
protect the base," she said, still with her line of vision away from everybody. 
"But my strength isn't what it used to be, so I couldn't protect Repliforce." 
She looked up and towards Iris. "I'm sorry, Iris," she said.

There was another long pause, then Iris suddenly shot up to glare at Washu, 
surprising most everyone, and practically knocking Zero over. "Why didn't you 
prevent the destruction of the Repliforce base instead of here?!" (Of course, if 
Washu had protected the Repliforce base instead, Colonel would be asking the 
same question.)

"Iris!" Zero shouted. "Control yourself!"

"No, Zero," Washu said, "her question deserves answering." Washu paused. "The 
reason is that there are two individuals who may be able to prevent this from 
happening."

"What do you mean?!" Zero said, with anger in his voice. "Its too late to stop 
it! You said it was!"

"No, I haven't fully explained myself thoroughly." Washu sighed as she prepared 
to explain what she meant. "Fifty years after the incident occurred, I went back 
to my studies and focused on the scans of that day."

"Wait a second," X said. "According to what you're saying, the event took place 
in the late 1990s. There was no scanning equipment that sophisticated back 
then."

"Not quite true," Washu replied. "You see, I used to consider myself the 
Greatest Scientific Mind in the Universe, though I reject that title after that 
day. I had a lab hidden in another dimension that could take scans of almost 
another anything. What I did is look back at those records and see what 
happened.

"The strange thing was that I didn't detect anything too much out of the 
ordinary with the scans during the incident. However, there had to be someone, 
if not something, that caused everyone where the incident occurred to get 
mutilated."

"So, what are you saying?" Zero said. He had a bad feeling about where this was 
going.

"Whomever, or whatever, did this had to be from the future." She then looked at 
X. "Rockman X, I have been watching you since before your completion. Before 
that, I watched your predecessor. You are a powerful robot whose willingness to 
fight for justice is strong, though you always ask yourself why you must."

She then looked at Zero. "Zero Omega, I haven't watched you for as long, as your 
reputation started as the most powerful Maverick in existence. After the 
encounter with Sigma in the mine, you became the leader of Special Unit 0. 
You're confident that you can carry out your missions and only worry about the 
present.
 
"X, Zero. I feel that you are the ones who are the strongest and most 
dependable. I feel that you will right the wrongs done those 200 years ago. 
However, I can't send you unwillingly. Do you wish to travel back-"

X stepped forward. "Yes, I wish to go back in time to save the future." Zero 
then stepped forward.

The expression on Washu's face changed from seriousness to happiness. "Good." 
Then she produced an odd holographic keyboard appeared in front of her and typed 
something in.

"Sir," Scanner said. He pointed at the giant screen at the front of the room. 
Everyone looked away from Washu to look at the screen.

On the screen were a set coordinates. "Those are the coordinates of a house that 
has been abandoned for the last.what the hell?! It's been abandoned for almost 
200 years!" He checked his equipment once more. "It's the largest area in Japan 
that hasn't been damaged by the weapons fire of the Jurai fleet."

"Miss Washu," X said, turning to look back at the mysterious woman. However, she 
wasn't there.