Author's Note: This is just to make a correction. I accidentally called Mortalis 'Fatalis' in an earlier chapter. My mistake.

Chapter 14: Dr. Light's Lab

Rock's scan came back all clear later that day. X had a scan done too, wondering about Blues' theory about his core memory. Although nothing was revealed, the techs said they could try a deeper scan later on.

Zero was busy too, with Colonel discussing an idea he's had. Thus he was last to get to the van to head to the lab.

"Almost left without you," Blues joked as he drove out of HQ.

"I was talkin' to Colonel," Zero explained. "I had an idea, and he agreed with me. If you all want, there's a place with the Hunters for everyone." Naki blinked.

"Huh?" X grinned.

"Yeah! You could be Hunters too, and stay at the base. I mean, you've all got more battle experience than most all Hunters put together, and that way we could stay close."

"There's no way we'd go anywhere," Rock said firmly, "offer or not. It took us far too long to find you, X, to let go again." X smiled. "Though being Hunters..."

"Been a long time since the Wily Wars," Neon commented. "Haven't done much real fighting since then."

"And compared to most modern Reploids, we're a bit behind," Naki added hesitantly.

"And Wily's bots weren't even close to Mavericks," Mortalis put in. "It would mean a lot of learning and relearning and unlearning." All of them looked at each other (Blues glancing in the rear-view mirror), then grinned.

"Sounds fun," Blues said. Both X and Zero grinned back.

"I won't think I'd be a good Hunter," Roll said, drawing everyone's attention to her. "After all, I wasn't built to fight."

"Not a big deal," X reassured. "Not everyone has to fight."

"But I want to help. Before all I could do was sit at home and worry. I won't go back to that."

"I know," Diadem spoke up. "I remember one of the docs who worked on me saying they'd lost a couple of med staff recently. You could do that, Roll. After all, if was usually you patching us up." Roll beamed.

"I can do that!" X gave her a quick hug.

"Perfect!"

"Speaking of perfect," Blues teased, "we're almost there." X looked eagerly out the window, trying to spot it. But all he saw was open fields, as by now they were quite a ways out of the city, in the country.

"We are?" Zero asked, also looking around.

"It's cloaked, remember?" Ra explained. "In fact, the cloaking is of a frequency that makes Reploid eyes specifically avoid looking at it, without realizing that you are, as well as shield it from normal human vision and scanners. Blues is going off of landmarks and memory to find it." Blues made a turn off of the road into a large wild-grown field. He parked, and they climbed out.

"It's here?" X asked. blues nodded, as Rock carefully moved forward, hands out before him.

"The cloaking field is also a force field," he explained. "Once we find it, we'll be able to drop it - Ah!" His hands had touching something solid. Blues moved to stand beside his brother and press his hand to it, as did Roll.

"You too, X," she said, and he joined them, pressing his hand against the side of the force field. There was a brief glow around their hands, warming X's palm, and then the lab faded into view as the field dropped away. X and Zero stood wide-eyed.

"So it was here the whole time," Zero whispered quickly as they approached. Abruptly Rock, Blues, Roll, and Rush veered off to one side. X followed, having a feeling where they were leading. Zero, after a brief hesitation, followed at X's heels, with the Cossacks hanging back, letting them have a private moment before joining them as well.

Flowers had grown up wild around Dr. Light's final resting place, rather beautiful. The tombstone, made of a rust-resistant metal, seemed untouched by the years, simply reading:

Thomas Xavier Light

Brilliant Scientist

Wonderful Father

Forever Remembered

there were a few tears, accompanied by smiled, and then they went up to the front door. Blues unlocked the electronic door lock, and they went in.

The house side from which they entered seemed untouched by time. Little dust graced the furniture, nothing disturbed from when the Light children had first fled. Pictures hung on the wall, drawing X's attention as he observed the family he'd never known.

"Tango!" Blues cried abruptly as a green robot cat leapt into his arms, rubbing up against his face and purring loudly. "I missed you! Were things quiet here?" The robo-cat nodded, then peered at X and Zero. "That's Xavier, and Zero, our little brothers, remember?" With that the cat seemed to smile, closing his eyes happily.

"Meow."

"When we planned to leave," Roll explained as they moved through the house, "we knew someone would have to remain here, just in case. Tango was the smallest of us, so we put him in a special stasis capsule that would awaken him if anyone case in, and rigged the security system to activate at the press of a button. That's why he's not upgraded like Rush."

"But we'll upgrade him now," Blues finished. "No more running for us. It's time we were a family at last." They turned a corner at that moment, and all stopped.

They'd reached the lab.