Chapter 7

Evlyn walked down towards the outpost they had stationed a bit away from the settlement. She was a tall black reploid, with wiry blonde hair protruding from the back of her helmet. She was armored in similar fashion to Lagnas, with a small plasma generator on her back, feeding a magazine storage on her sides, at hip level.

"Any sign of detection?"

"No, Ma'am. Are we good to go?"

Evlyn sighed. She hated all this organization. She just wanted to get down there and kill. The feeling it gave her was worth everything. All that pain, suffering…

"Ma'am?" asked the reploid, interrupting her thought.

"Yeah, sure. Tonight we'll strike, like Lagnas ordered."

How could someone be so psychotic and yet so… sane? Lagnas was definitely a weird one. But his time would come, oh yes. She never swore her allegiance, not even close. In fact, no one had. Lagnas ruled by fear, so she would rule by terror.

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As he rode back to the camp, Megaman Zeta had a lot on his mind. Would he be too foolhardy with his powers? That would be worse than not having them. If he was killed, Lagnas could take his parts. He decided he'd have to play it safe until he could get a full measure of his capabilities.

Wait, why couldn't he now? Slowing to a stop, Zeta stepped down off his Ride Chaser.

"A Megabuster, huh? Well, let's try it out."

Without even needing to think about it, his forearm re-formatted itself into a sleek, cylindrical arm cannon.

"So, I guess it just fires whenever I want it to."

Testing his theory, he pointed his buster towards a rock, and tried to fire. Nothing happened.

"Drat. I wish that the Dr. told me how to use it."

He once again aimed his buster, and tried a different method. This time, he decided to try and to fire like he would do anything else, it was a part of him now, Why wouldn't it act like one?

Suddenly, his buster discharged a blast of plasma and seared the rock, just missing it.

"Huh, that's cool. It worked. I should probably work on my aim a bit though."

He jumped back on his bike and sped off again, this time practicing his aim at moving targets as he raced through the desert. He was getting better, but he still wasn't very good.

He glanced ahead of him, and something caught his eye. It was a maverick camp, by the looks of it. He stopped his ride chaser, and hopped off quickly, dragging it behind a large rock. He peeked out for a look.

There were some shelters, a tent or two, and some mavericks milling about.

"There's not many of them, so they must be confident. I wonder who's commanding them? I hope it's not Lagnas. I wouldn't be able to do anything against him."

When the activity slowed down a bit, he got up and zoomed off on his ride chaser towards the camp.

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As Zeta arrived at the camp, he realized that how much his appearance had actually changed. No one would recognize him now. He started to have second thoughts, when someone spotted him.

"Hey, you! Who are you?"

"It's me, Kroy. I need to see Dente!"

"Dente? He's busy right now. Look, how am I supposed to know that you're not one of Lagnas's men?"

"You don't. But can you at least give him a message for me?"

The reploid started in surprise.

"Well…I guess I can… What do you need to tell him?"

"Tell him that Kroy found it."

"Found it? What's it?"

"He'll understand. But, more importantly, there is a band of mavericks over to the south. They look like they're getting ready for an attack."

"A-a maverick attack? Okay, I'm going to trust you on this. I'll go tell Dente, but you better not try any funny business."

As the reploid ran off to tell Dente the news, Zeta sighed, and sat down on a boulder.

"I think I'll go scope out that camp again. No use idling here."

When the reploid return, all he saw was the shadow of Zeta disappearing over the hillside.