"Hm, they're starting to regroup."

Behind him, he could hear the soft squeak of her chair spinning to face him. "Are you sure?" she asked. "You know you've been wrong before in this mission."

He ignored the jab, knowing it wasn't worth replying. "Trust me, sis," he answered flatly. "I'm watching it on the monitors as we speak. You know, the ones right in front of us, the ones that show everything going on in the base. The ones…"

"Enough. I get the idea." Her tone was clipped, and he swore he could almost feel her eyes burning into the back of his chair. "And yes, I see what you mean. They seem more competent than we'd been planning for, don't they?"

"Mm." Hands flew over control panels, and status windows appeared on the monitors as he scrolled through them. "A couple of them have taken out a small squad of guards. Not bad for the age those Hunters are."

"Don't forget, the girl is with them, too." She sat in the chair that was beside his, her thumb lightly stroking the whip that lay coiled in her lap. "I've heard enough about her to not treat her too lightly. Remember, it's our necks if we fail the Master on this mission."

He sighed. "Don't remind me. I'm trying not to think of that," he answered, touching a few more keys. "I'm sending a few more squads out now. Hopefully, that will slow them down some."

"Good." On a nearby monitor, she pulled up a new screen, a smile crossing her lips. "Shall we also begin initiation of Phase Two?"

He frowned, his face illuminated in the eerie glow of the monitor he faced. "Phase Two?" he asked, his tone puzzled. "But we're nowhere near ready to launch that. We don't have a stable power source for the mechanism, remember?"

"Oh, I remember," she replied, her tone bemused. "But, if I recall correctly, didn't you say the optimal power source was something roughly about the size of a human?" She saw the interest that flickered in his gaze. "Or, a reploid?"

He raised an eyebrow, a gesture that widened the smile on her lips. "What are you thinking, sis?" he asked.

She slid her chair slightly to the side, pointing to the monitor sitting in front of her. "Come, take a look at this."

Rei wiped the stinging tears from her eyes as she watched the reploid in front of her topple backwards. Her hands shook as they held the small pistols she carried, trembled so badly she couldn't holster them properly the first several times she tried. Biting back a sob, she continued through the dim rooms, looking for any sign of the others.

She was scared. She had been scared from the moment she woke up alone in this place. There was no sign of the rest of the group, and her only weapons were the twin stun pistols, which were rapidly running out of energy.

So she continued onward, through rooms that looked the same as ones she had just left and down halls that were either full of guards or eerily quiet. She bit her lip more than once to silence a fearful whimper as she moved; combat wasn't something she was used to in any manner, and she swore she wouldn't get used to it any time soon. Once in a while, she would activate her comm and attempt to raise the others with it, but her only reply was the monotonous hissing of static.

She stopped in front of a large door, the light of a control panel flashing near her elbow. Pushing a couple buttons, Rei stepped back in alarm as the doors slid open, allowing her to enter the room beyond. This was a much different room from the others she had walked through; it was well-lit and almost filled by the largest machine she had ever seen. Even the largest lab components at Obsidian were dwarfed by its size. She wasn't sure what it was or what it was used for, and she wasn't too keen on finding out the answer to either question at that time. She just wanted to get back to the others as soon as she could.

She took a few cautious steps around it, hoping it wasn't active and wouldn't be able to sense her. Halfway across the room, she paused and looked over her shoulder, letting out a small sigh as she saw it sitting in the same position it had been in. Obviously, it wasn't powered up.

"I don't think you belong here, little one." That female voice snapped Rei back to attention. She turned her head to face the direction she had been heading, only to see a figure blocking her path. She reached for her stun pistols, gripping them in her hands before she felt a strange stinging sensation in her neck.

The world began to spin around her, and all Rei could remember was the world turning into an endless environment of white.

Beneath the blade of his saber, Zero felt no resistance as it sliced cleanly through the forearm of his opponent. His eyes followed the severed limb as it fell with a loud thud to the floor, a few sparks accompanying the reddish-hued oil that oozed slowly from within. He saw his opponent's eyes grow to twice their regular size with the realization of what had happened, followed by his clutching the sparking stump where his hand had been only moments before.

The other reploid began to scream, sounds of pain and horror echoing through the room. Zero barely heard the agonized sounds that came from his opponent. He had learned a long time ago how to block his enemies' voices from his hearing, lest he go insane from their shouts and shrieks of pain. That trick had worked in countless battles, allowing him to overpower and dispatch practically any enemy who dared cross his path.

While he waited for the cries to subside, Zero gave a cursory glance at the other body that lay nearby. Its torso still smoked from a gaping hole through the chest, the place where a saber had cleanly impaled through the material as though it were nothing. That reploid had put up a decent fight; Zero found his irritation grew as he mentally tallied up the multitude of tiny holes punched in his armor by his opponent's projectile blaster. In the end, the weapon's undoing was its unstable design, which left it prone to overheating and wasting energy to cool itself back to an ideal operating temperature. That opening had been all Zero needed to take his enemy out before he could resume firing. It had been almost too easy, as this foe was practically defenseless without a functional weapon.

Narrowing his eyes, Zero pointed the tip of his saber at his opponent's neck. "Now, I could easily kill you right here, and no one would care one bit," he stated flatly. "No one except for you, of course. But, we could use some information, and you seem to be a pretty good source."

"I…I know nothin', Hunter." In spite of his pain, the other reploid's tone was still defiant. "Nothin' tha' could be o'any use to ya."

Gritting his teeth, Zero pressed the tip of his blade closer to his foe's neck, blocking his ears to the cry of pain as it burned the skin. "Don't think I believe that for a moment," he said, his tone taking on a dangerous edge. "You know a lot more than you're letting on, so why not be a pal and help us out?"

"Oh, I could tell you what you wanna know. But…" Zero watched in shock as smoke began to filter from around the other reploid's eyes. "But they wouldn't be happy wit' me for tellin'." The smoke was growing thicker, some now escaping from his nostrils and ears as well. "Jus' you wait, Hunter. They'll take care of you and yer little friends…they always do." The reploid's mouth curled into a maniacal smirk even as his body crumpled to the floor, smoke pouring from its head.

"'Them'? Who are you talking about?" Zero glared at the body at his feet even as the smoke began to fade in the large room. "Who are they?" He heard no answer, saw no further movement from the figure. It would be of no use to him now; most likely any memory circuits that had survived would be too damaged to get any data from.

"Damn…" he swore, the sound echoing in the large room. "What do I do now?"

"Here's an idea: how about getting my hands free?" Trysta's voice, tinged with irritation, came from behind him. "After all, I can't do much with my hands bound like this."

Zero felt more than a twinge of irritation himself. He had all but forgotten that she was there, had been so focused on his fight that he blocked everything else from his thoughts. Now that the fighting was over, he would have to deal with that obnoxious, difficult girl yet again. He wondered what she had done to end up in the mess she was in, wondered if she had managed to blow their cover at all with her antics.

Glad that his helmet mostly concealed the scowl on his face, Zero lowered his saber's power output to minimum. It was sufficient power to cut through the bindings without being enough to hurt her, though he figured a severed hand would teach her not to be so cocky in the future. Approaching her with his weapon, he noted the lack of emotion in her features, though the visor's obscuring her eyes likely had more to do with that than anything else. Carefully maneuvering the tip of the blade, he sliced it through the tough material that held her wrists. He took a step back as she immediately pulled her hands apart, her bonds dropping to the floor without a sound.

Trysta stood up slowly, flexing her wrists to ease their stiffness. "I could think of thirty different things I could say to you right now," she said, bending down to pick up her discarded pistols. "But 'thanks' seems to be the best fit for the current situation."

The lack of gratitude in her voice annoyed him. True, he didn't expect glowing praise for what he did, but damn it all, why couldn't she show more appreciation? "That's all I get? A paltry 'thanks'?" he asked, folding his arms across his chest. "What the hell were you doing? Do you realize what could have happened had I not come along?"

She shrugged. "What can I say? I'm not a sentimental girl by nature," she replied. "As for what I was doing, I was killing time. That trio of idiots was in my way, I figured taking them out would be the best course of action, especially since this room doesn't have much in the way of cover."

"Right. You do realize that 'that trio of idiots' had you disarmed and restrained, with a gun pointed at your face, don't you?" His eyes narrowed slightly as he watched her, feeling a bit more irritated that her face still showed little in the way of emotion. "What were you going to do? Glare them to death?"

She held up a hand. "Disarmed and restrained, yes. At a disadvantage? Hardly." She retorted. "I'm sure I would have come up with something had you not decided to show up when you did."

"Decided?" he spat back, his tone incredulous. "Like I had a choice in whether or not to come this way. It was the only path I could follow that didn't either dead-end or lead me in circles." He took a few steps toward her, slightly surprised when she took a small step backward. "Did you even think about what you were doing?" he asked coldly, his eyes scanning her face. "Did it ever cross your mind that you might blow our cover with your little act?" He gritted his teeth as she remained silent, his temper fraying a bit with her continued lack of expression. "Answer me, dammit!"

She tightened her jaw, chin lifting slightly. "You want an answer?" she asked, her tone low. "All right, I'll give you an answer. I didn't consider what I was doing before I jumped in. But I didn't just pick a fight for the hell of it. They were already talking about searching for us, Zero. I figured it was only a matter of time before they found me here, so I decided to speed things up somewhat." She paused, her gaze shifting around the room for a moment. "Well, that coupled with my not fully recovering from the redirect sickness doesn't exactly lead to the best choices, does it?"

Zero wasn't buying any of it, convincing as she tried to sound. "Cut the excuses," he retorted. "I don't care what the hell happened to you. You knew damn well what you were doing. And what you were doing may have very well jeopardized this entire mission. I hope you're proud of yourself."

Anger blurring her vision, she moved her right hand to backhand him across the face. Her action was thwarted when his iron grip clamped down on her forearm, stopping her from moving it any closer to him. She pushed against him for several moments in vain; he wasn't giving an inch.

"Of all the people I don't need a lecture from, you are at the top of the list," she sneered, the narrowing of her eyes mostly hidden by her visor. "You, of anyone I've ever met, have no place lecturing me about right and wrong. You'd be better off remembering that."

He gritted his teeth as he released her arm, turning away so as not to dignify her retort with one of his own. He'd always prided himself on remaining cool at times like this, so why was this difficult, insulting girl starting to get under his collar? Whatever the reason, he didn't like it, didn't like the weakness it seemed to show in him.

Deciding to focus on something other than her, he knelt beside the remains of the reploid he had tried to interrogate. "Think there might be anything usable here, data-wise?" he asked flatly.

She shrugged. "To be honest, I'm not sure," she answered in a similar flat tone. "I've never seen a reploid rigged to self-incinerate its memory system." Approaching the body, she pulled a pair of wires from her visor.

Zero raised an eyebrow. "What are those for?" he asked.

"They're data access lines," she answered. "They're used to download any usable data contained within a system. If there is anything usable still left in this reploid's memory, it should load up to my visor, albeit in a raw form that I can't use." She knelt beside the body as she inserted the plugs into matching data ports in the reploid's neck. After a moment, her visor beeped, indicating there was data that could be downloaded. "Hopefully, this won't take long," she added.

"So that visor can only store data, it can't alter it at all?" Zero asked, surprised that technology as sophisticated as that was in the hands of a loose cannon like her.

She nodded. "My data alteration capabilities are incredibly limited with this visor," she replied. "It just isn't powerful enough to compress and manipulate data to the extent that I would need it. Luckily, the computer systems back at Obsidian are more than capable of handling what this thing can't." She sighed as the visor began blinking with its download readouts. "Lot of garbage data in here. Looks like this guy managed to torch his head pretty well."

"Anything we might be able to use?"

She shrugged. "Bits and pieces, from what the readouts are telling me. It's impossible to know for sure until we get this back to Obsidian and I can clean it up better." Hearing the series of beeps that told her the download was completed, she pulled the wires from their plugs before standing back up.

Zero was about to ask another question when he heard a voice from his comm.

"Ze…? Whe… …you?"

"X?" Ignoring the sudden blare of static, Zero spoke into his comm. "X, it's me. Where are you?"

"…know. Some…re in …ase. Dax …ith me. …mi and Axl."

"Glad to know they're all okay," Trysta said, leaning her back against the pillar. "Hopefully we can regroup soon and get this mission over with."

Zero nodded. "Yeah, I'm with Trysta. We'll stay put until you guys get here."

"…ll right. We… …ck your ..ignal. Be …ere soon."

"All right. See you soon." Zero switched off his comm, shaking his head at the faceless enemy who was impeding their mission.

Trysta let out a sigh. "So, I guess we sit here and wait for them to show up," she said. "Can't say I'm too happy with that."

"No use in getting any more lost than we already are," Zero answered. "This place is like a damn maze."

Watching him from behind her visor, Trysta felt a mixture of annoyance and frustration with him, along with some other mix of emotions she couldn't quite place. While he did annoy the hell out of her, and she wanted nothing more than to smack his attitude out of him, she had to admit he was a damn good fighter. She would probably never tell him directly, but she felt a small amount of pride that he was working with them. They needed all the help they could get, and he was certainly capable.

She silently leaned against the pillar for a few more moments, until a thought caused her to stand up again. "X didn't mention anything about Rei, did he?" she asked. "Do you think she's with them as well?"

He shrugged. "Hard to say," he replied. "We can only hope that she's either on her way this direction, or that she met up with them, but the static made it impossible for X to tell me she was there."

"But what if she's not? What if she's in trouble?"

He shook his head slowly. "I really wish I knew, to be honest."

Trysta bit at her lip slightly. "Rei…" she said softly. "I didn't want this to happen. I really didn't want her to possibly end up in trouble. Had I known everything would fall apart the way it has, I wouldn't have insisted she and Nami come along."

Zero sighed. His dislike for her aside, he knew her beating herself up for what had happened wouldn't solve anything. Crossing the small distance between them, he rested a hand on her shoulder. He didn't know how the gesture might be taken, but he didn't care. Beneath his hand, he felt her tense briefly, but she didn't do anything to remove his hand. That surprised him, as he half-expected her to shake his hand off her shoulder while yelling at him to never touch her.

"Look, I know you're worried about her," he began. "Hell, I'm worried about all of us. This mission's gone wrong from the get-go. But we can't go running off half-cocked to look for her. All that's going to do is insure we wind up in worse trouble than we already are." He saw the questioning look she gave him. "Yes, we're in trouble right now," he continued. "We're all separated from one another in an enemy facility with our communications hampered. I'd say that's trouble, wouldn't you?"

She smiled a bit. "Yeah, I guess that's a good definition of 'trouble'," she said. "It just kills me that she might be out there all alone looking for the rest of us. She and Nami weren't designed for combat, but Nami at least can adapt to it if necessary. Rei, on the other hand…" she trailed off, not wanting to finish her thought.

Awkwardly, he gave her shoulder a squeeze before releasing it. "I'm sure she's all right," he said. "Once we regroup with X and the others, we can look for her…"

He cut himself off as a memory filtered into his mind, one of an individual who had been dear enough to make him reconsider being a Hunter. He shook his head abruptly to clear the thought from his mind. Distractions at a time like this would only get him killed.

In spite of the strong temptation to do so, he resisted the urge to smirk at his sister's anger. In the past, the few times he had done so had resulted in him walking away with bruises he didn't think he had asked for. Instead, he flicked his gaze over to where she sat in her chair, eyes narrowed darkly as she stared at the screen in front of her. Mentally, he winced; if looks could burn, that poor monitor would have melted ten minutes ago.

"How?" she asked coldly. "How could that have happened? One minute she was there, the next, the damn camera went on the fritz!" She slapped her hand angrily against the table next to her. "And when I managed to get the stupid piece of garbage to run correctly again, she was gone. The feed was only cut for a few seconds, so what the hell happened?"

He shrugged. "Don't look at me," he replied. "I'm just as baffled as you are about this. I wouldn't have thought she could slip through our grasp that easily. Of course, that's likely why the Master always insists we have our target in our custody before we make any further plans.

"Shut up," she snapped. She had sat and watched that girl on the monitor, convinced she would be the perfect energy source to power the machine that served as their backup plan. But now she was gone, and there was little chance of getting a new power source without significant risk. She gritted her teeth, raging silently against all her wasted planning.

"Still," he continued. "I wonder who could have done it," he turned back to his screen, tapping a few buttons on the control panel. "I doubt anyone in their group would have enough knowledge of this base to attempt it."

"Of course not! The only ones who have enough knowledge of the layout of this dump are..." she trailed off for a moment, "...the guards."

Shocked, he swiveled his chair back around to face her. "You don't think we have spies amongst the guards, do you?" he asked.

She shrugged. "I wouldn't be surprised, in all honesty," she answered. "After all, this group found out about us. So I'm sure others could have easily planted a few spies in with the guards. It would be a good way to get a constant feed of information from in here."

"Interesting. The next problem is how to find any purported 'spies' in this place."

She smirked icily. "Leave that to me," she said. "You know my knack for finding things, after all."