About four hours later, Zero came back into the repair lab to talk to Jenny, but he looked around surprised and said "She's really not in here. I forgot about that. She's been repaired for a while now based on what Ms. Wakeman said."
He left the vacant room and continued searching for her. He decided to make it easier on himself by activating his sensors. He located her and ran to where she was. She was with Vexus, Sheldon, and XJ5 in the dining room.
As soon as he opened the door, XJ5 said "You looking for someone, Zero?"
"Yes actually. Listen, Jenny. I got a call from someone working closely with Silver Fox. He kinda knows our situation after seeing how badly you were damaged by Suija in the news. He guessed that Ms. Wakeman wished she could get her hands on some of that metal she's restricted from using. It turns out that none of that is necessary to worry about. He first contacted someone in our world to see if we had something strong enough. When he told me that, I realized that I was stupid for not thinking of this earlier. There's a scientist in our world that has been refining the same metal that was used to build High-Max's frame for years now. He's managed to make it many times stronger than it used to be. Fox also discovered that his research findings involving that specific metal don't fall under that restriction of not being able to bring some of it to this world. Here's the issue though. He refuses to come to this world, but as far as I know, you have very little preventing you from coming to our world including the rest of your family. We also have to get him to agree to this arrangement. Is there anything that would prevent you from receiving an upgrade in our world and then bringing it back here?" Zero asked.
Jenny grinned very wide and then replied "Not…at…all. I don't know how much longer that'll last for, but if we do this quickly enough, I won't suffer the consequences if I take advantage of the old reliable Ex Post Facto rule. They can't do anything to me if the law is passed after the upgrade has been made. You hear all that, mom?"
Ms. Wakeman's voice sounded from a speaker inside of Jenny's body saying "That's an amazing find. That Fox man must really respect us if he's putting himself at risk like this. I'll have to thank him later. Zero, here's what you should do. Call your friend Axl and have him say that we're coming to visit both him and Misty. Also, have him contact that scientist using whatever connections he may have. We need to make sure no one knows we're meeting with that scientist."
"I got ya, but Axl doesn't spend enough time getting to know many people to have those kind of connections. The visitation part he can handle with flying colors, but I have much better connections than he does. I can have someone relay the message to him in no time. I'll be sure to talk to X first and see if he thinks it's safe enough for me to handle it and if he has better ideas. It won't take long either way," Zero replied.
"That's fine. Please try to hurry. Knowing our government, it probably won't take them very long to think of this. The fact that there's that separation in both our worlds' governments is the main reason for them not discovering what we're up to yet. They probably don't yet think we're willing to go through such great lengths to be so sneaky. Also, have any of you noticed that we haven't yet received a single call showing concern for Jenny's well being?" Ms. Wakeman asked.
"Now that you mention it, they normally would've checked up on me by now. I guess they don't consider me to be top priority anymore. It's either that, or they're trying to determine if I suspect them. I'm probably just being paranoid, but anything is possible, right?" Jenny asked.
"I'm discovering that with your people, much more is possible than most any other government I've dealt with. I've been secretive and sneaky to keep my subjects under control, but your people's realization of how frail they are has scared them to the point that they ended up developing ways of being sneaky and deceptive that I never even dreamed of. I tell you now, back when I invaded this planet for the first time, I actually thought you people were as all the media propaganda made you out to be. The more time I spend here, the more I see things that don't match up with your governments' claims. In short, your people are some of the greatest liars and cover-up artists I've ever encountered. Ruthless tyrannical dictatorships usually don't bother to be this discrete. If they are going through this much trouble to keep their mouths shut on their secretive activities, I find it very hard to believe they aren't up to something underhanded," Vexus explained.
"Hearing that coming from you means that we should take that possibility very seriously. I didn't mean that in a bad way," XJ5 responded.
"I didn't think you did. Zero, dear. Whatever you're planning on doing, you might want to be quick about it. The clock isn't exactly working on our behalf," Vexus said with a grin.
"You said that as if I was one of your subjects. Fine then. Whatever you say, my queen," Zero said grinning with a sarcastic tone before he went running out of the house.
As soon as the door closed, Ms. Wakeman said "I can easily imagine Vexus dressed like a dominatrix."
Everyone in the room blushed and reacted pretty loudly.
Very loudly, XJ5 said "I can't believe you said that, mom. I never blushed this hard in my whole life."
They could all hear Ms. Wakeman laughing on her end.
Axl sat in a chair staring out of a window at Misty's training exercises. He was smiling now, but he remembered being very concerned just the day before about how hard she was pushing herself.
Misty told him "With everything that's been happening in Jenny's world lately, I have this feeling inside that's telling me that I have to become stronger than I ever thought I could. It's like…it's like I know something big is coming. Please try to understand. I almost let us all down last time, and I can't let that happen again."
Axl then took a sip from his cup and thought to himself "That whole event must've messed her up more than I thought. I gotta say though; I've never seen a being made of flesh do the things she can."
Outside, Misty was in the middle of performing as many consecutive back flips uphill as she could and as fast as she could. The hill itself was about as steep as walking up a flight of steps and was about half of a mile long. It was grassy and had sufficient grip.
She had completed a total of two hundred and thirty one back flips in a little over a minute and was still going.
She then thought to herself "I've never…ever experienced a strain like this before. If I were a human, I'd probably be dead…or the adrenaline rush might make me go insane."
When she finally did run out of energy, she stopped and rested on her hands and knees looking up at the top of the hill that was only forty feet away. The strain on her body caused her vision to blur, and with every heart beat, her vision jerked. She could no longer hold herself up as her arms began shaking violently. She threw her body over and landed on her back.
Breathing so heavily that she wondered if her lungs would collapse on themselves, she thought to herself "This is no bullshit. I feel like my willpower is the only thing keeping me from fainting. If I did faint right now, would my windpipe close up on me and kill me? I need to get my blood circulating more smoothly. Lying on my back like this can't be good for me."
She slowly levitated to about a foot and a half off of the ground. She remained there for a little while. When her vision returned to normal and her heart stopped beating so fast, she rotated to her upright position and landed slowly on her feet.
Still breathing heavily, she said "Running up this…hill would've been easy. I need to be able…to do things my trainer never would've had me do. I miss her. Too bad she's gone. Still…there was something she was able to do that none of her students could. I know why she wouldn't teach us. This can be very dangerous."
Axl saw her take a stance he had never seen her take.
"This is new," he thought to himself.
Her feet were spread apart about four feet with her left foot forward. Her left hand pointed forward with her elbow bent. Her right hand was reaching up and back as far as it could and looked as though she was going to perform a typical karate chop, but Axl knew that stance was meant for more than that.
She retained that position for over a minute concentrating intensely. Abruptly, she stepped forward and swung her right hand downward nearly touching the ground as fast as she could. A few seconds later, she frowned signaling to Axl that it was unsuccessful…whatever "it" was.
"I've been trying for years to figure that crazy shit out. How was she able to make the ground split without touching it? I could do it by concentrating my mist into a single point, but I don't have fucking psychic powers or whatever it was she had. I can only control what I'm made of. I'm much stronger than her physically, so what is it that she had that I don't?" She asked frustrated.
She then thought to herself "I felt my strongest when I was crushing that fake Jenny's wrists…which was something I shouldn't have been strong enough for. For some reason, I can't seem to recreate that feeling. My anger was so incredible. I spent so much time over the past couple of years lounging that I feel like I've become soft. I haven't been desperate in a long time."
She then heard a beeping noise coming from Axl's body, but just barely. She went flying over in his direction and stopped at the window.
Axl was talking to someone asking "So when should we expect you?"
A few seconds later, Axl said "All right then, I understand. I'll have it done before then. See ya when you get here."
The beep was heard again signaling the end of the call.
"Yeah, that was Ms. Wakeman saying that she and her family are making a trip over here. She didn't explain the details. She said she will when they get here and I could tell it's urgent. They want me to tell the authorities here that were expecting them here for a visit that had been planned months ago. What do you think? Maybe something crazy just happened," Axl explained.
"I can say this. Lying to their own government isn't there style. They probably wouldn't do this if they didn't think they could get away with it. For them to take this risk, something crazy probably did just happen. In fact, the more I think about it, it must be bigger than we think. But it's probably the most convenient lie they could think of. They are telling the truth about visiting us, but they're here for much more than that. The authorities don't need to know about that," Misty replied.
"I thought so. Whatever just happened, it wasn't reported in the news over here…if it was even in their news in the first place of course. Whatever you do, don't mention this to anyone besides those we know we can trust. You know how they're having problems trusting their government? Well, the thing is, X has been suspicious of our government here for quite a while now, though he has yet to explain it to us. I think he feels as though it's not safe to talk about it in detail," Axl explained.
"I'm gonna say this bluntly, so here goes. Both your worlds' are fucking strange. You have entire societies full of unrealistic thinking stupid ignorant people. Most of the realistic thinking people live in societies that are considered before modern. Did you know that most other alien worlds out there don't take your people seriously?" Misty asked in a calm tone.
Surprised, Axl replied "Whoa! What the…man…I didn't expect that. That's about as blunt as you've ever been. But you said it so…as if you've known this all your life, like it's textbook material."
"Well, I was never issued a textbook on this in school, but it is commonly known throughout the galaxy. I wasn't aiming at you or your friends. You guys have lived a hard life where you didn't have time to sit there and be conditioned with all that nonsense they show on TV. In fact, you only watch TV occasionally, and it's usually only the news. My planet outlawed receiving signals from Earth's satellites once they realized the damage it does to people, especially young people like me. I wouldn't spend so much time thinking about making myself pretty and doing the things Earth girls do if it weren't for that shit I saw on the screen. I've seen how the fashion models have managed to ruin many girls' self-esteem in my world. I've seen how constant advertisement has managed to make people into such irresponsible spenders. I've seen children do stupid shit like running around killing people with swords because they saw it on a movie or on those Japanese anime shows. Guns are only used in times of war on my planet, but Earth or America actually made it rather easy for children to obtain a gun. They way your worlds' are, I wouldn't be too surprised if the same kind of people who were behind your television is the same people that X is worried about," Misty explained.
"When you say it like that…man…no wonder that one Hunter a long time ago kept telling me to learn to read between the lines. I get it now. It means there's a reason for everything, even the little stuff. But I see X's problem now. It's not about what you can find out. It's about what you can prove and who you can convince. For a long time now, X has been complaining about what his efforts are really accomplishing. Sigma is gone now. So what? What about all the other problems? I get where he was going with this now," Axl said with a look of realization on his face.
"No wonder X usually looked so sad back then. He seems happier now, and I think that's mainly because of the fact that people aren't living in fear like they used to. X is a very observant guy. I also noticed how he doesn't act like one of these TV zombies that so many of your people have become. I think that's how he noticed something was wrong. Then ther…oh…maybe that's why your government was questioning why the Maverick Hunter organization needed to around anymore. They probably suspect that many of your teammates suspect them," Misty guessed.
"And they know that we have a powerful voice that the people would be willing to listen to if we could ever bring up substantial evidence against them. I don't really know much about it, but I really hope X is wrong," Axl said.