"Nobody here huh?" Zero asked as the trio entered the ruins door

"It appears not….. X how's the radio?" Shadow tried to look over X's shoulder

"Just as expected. The radio is going to be useless until we get better signal" X announced looking up from the radio's screen

"Figures…." Zero was still looking around the room "What would Redips do if we could contact him anyway? Send the army? Switch to a better signal provider?"

"Zero I had hoped you would take this more seriously." Shadow frowned slightly looking over at the red reploid

"Guy's we need to focus" X looked at Shadow. "You said you were going to navigate right?"

"Yeah. I'm no great hunter but I know this area quite well."

"Good. We should get started." X stepped forward and almost immediately an explosion took place above them and they were forced to scatter as rubble rained down on the area. X stayed down until the rumbling stopped "Hey! Are you guys Alright?"

"Yeah I'm fine" Zero's voice was coming from behind the rubble "Shadow got a bit banged up."

"man its gonna take forever to buffer this out…."

"Alright I guess we are going to have to split up. You take that side and I take this side."

"Got it boss-man. Oh and Finders keepers on any goodies!" Zero turned and started running to the door. Shadow joined them.

"Oh uh about that Zero I think-" X noticed Zero was almost out of earshot. "I THINK WE NEED TO SPLIT UP THE LOOT DEPENDING-" The door closed behind them "…. Fine if I find something you need I won't give it to you." X frowned and then opened the door on his side. It led to a small hallway with three doors in front of him and two floating blue…..things.

"What are these?" X tapped them. They seemed solid enough. "Are they decorations or something?" X hit one harder and suddenly it shattered into pieces. The pieces then flowed together and became something. 50 Zenny. "Weird way to store items..." X dashed into the other one which produced a Build LE. The Build LE appeared to be some weird sort of add-on that would enhance a reploid's energy storage. X decided to save it. When X walked into the door with blue lights on it the first thing he noticed was a blue cylinder-shaped terminal. It said something about saving his data and he wasn't sure that was a good idea on a secret mission

When he exited the room there was something in the corridor with him. A trio of small bat-shaped robots. At first, they simply regarded him with their piercing eyes. The HUD identified them as "Bat Bones" "Alright…. I don't trust them they might be scouts." X destroyed one of them with a single shot from his buster. Almost immediately the other bats started screeching and flying around him. It only scratched his paint job a little bit "Oh I know what I should have done! CHARGE SHOT!" After a short charge up X shot a starburst of energy all directions. before the bats could even react they had exploded "That might have been a bit reckless…. Oh well."

X opened the next door and the first thing he noticed was a terminal. "What do we have here?"

The words on the screen said "Disable security in area 1F-West?" Once X hit "Yes" the screen changed and said "Area 1F-West Security Disabled"

"That must be where Zero is right now." X said out loud to nobody in particular. pipipi pipipi the device on his wrist started beeping. "Is something wrong Zero? Shadow?"

"IYt's Zero. Did you do something on your end? We were stuck with a locked door and then it just unlocked." A tiny hologram of Zero was looking up at X

"Yeah there was a terminal and I used to to unlock the West area security" X explained

"Wanna bet there is one on our side that will unlock your door?" Zero asked "oh hang on I think Shadow found it. Just sit tight for a second and we can unlock yours."

"Alright. Continuing mission" X shut off his communicator and left the room. The red light on the last door turned blue after a few seconds and X was on his way again. As he walked up the stairs he noticed a patrol dog walking around. The patrol dog was nothing special, just a short rectangular looking four legged robot. X figured it was no danger to him and was debating whether to destroy it or not when it noticed him. X pointed his buster at it and then lowered it to the ground. "Patrol dogs should be no danger to me." X tried to just walk past it.

The patrol dog responded by shooting him

"Aw shoot!" X spun on the spot and shot the dog with his micro missiles and X-buster. The dog's head had two enormous holes in it from the attack. It opened the gun port again and shot at X who managed to protect himself with his shield "Oh come on!" according to the HUD his LE was still in the green but X would still rather not use up his Sub Tank energy. Another buster shot destroyed the dog but the damage had been done "Great…. Continuing mission."

Once X made it to the second floor he received another call pipipi pipipi "X?" It was Zero again "Hey listen I think you should go to the middle floor. I think you will find something there"

"Uh…. Alright" X looked at the door closest to him. The lights were blue so it was not locked

"Thanks." Zero cut the call. Wondering what was up X entered the door into the center of the tower.

"Production pods? This might be more difficult that we thought at first" Figuring X better find out what they were up against X checked the pods. "Ultra Mobile Bobcat Reploid. "Wild Jango" Computational Humanoid Reploid "Dr. Psyche" Super Heavy Cannon Reploid "Silver Horn" Reinforced Light Armor Areal Reploid "Mach Jentra." Wow…. We are up against quite a crew aren't we?"

pipipi pipipi "Were there any pods on your side X?"

"Yeah. A few of them actually. We have Wild Jango, Silver Horn, Dr. Psyche, and Mach Jentra." X listed off the names

"Well I found 4 on my side as well. The names had been filed off or something but there are still 4 pods and 4 reploids."

"So we have a team of 8 reploids and one reploid on top who is mostly in control. Where have I heard that one before?" X remembered the last few teams of eight he had fought

"I opened your door and ours is broken so we can get through. Hey. Which one do you think has the dash boots?" Zero was giving him a sly grin

"Oh shut up Zero. Maybe Shadow was right you are taking this mission way too lightly"

"I wonder who's weak to Silver Horn's weapon?"

X groaned "alright continu-

"Maybe we should go to Mach Jentra's stage first-"

"Continuing mission!" X shut off the communicator. X went outside the room and sure enough, the door to the next floor was unlocked. "Zero said finders keepers for any goodies….. I'll check the other rooms. In the room closer to him was another one of those blue crystal things containing an Anti-Lock. A helpful item to quickly remove any binding or glitches in a reploid's system. In the next room, there were two of them. One had 70 zenny and the other had 30. "Why didn't they just store all 100 zenny in one crystal?" When X exited the room there were three robots in the corridor. 2 bats and a patrol dog. "I'm just gonna ignore them. Unless all the patrol dogs here are going to attack- OWWW. SON OF A-"