Zero slowly lays down his friend and stands tall in the face of Wily. The guards all raise their guns in the event that Wily decide to open fire on the courageous reploid. Wily makes no attempt at friendly conversation.
"Let me level with you Zero…" Wily walks toward Zero and when he raises his saber in response, Wily quickly retorts with a blatant threat.
"Why Zero, you might want to put down that sword before Faulder's men get the wrong idea, you see…" He spreads his arm out, motioning to the twelve men positioned behind him. "These men will shoot both your little girlfriend and you if you show any sign of hostility toward me…now…apologize." Normally, Zero's pride would prohibit such a shameless and degrading action, but considering the fact that an innocent life is at stake, he makes an exception, but only this once.
"Well…"Wily taunts, enjoying every second of it.
"I'm sorry Dr. Wily." Zero says, his rage absent from everywhere but his eyes. Rock buries his face in Amy's shirt, knowing how hard that must have been for Zero to throw away his pride like that. Rock's small action prompts a smug look from Wily, who decides to further add to their despair. Wily turns around and waves his hand, giving orders to the guards as he rendezvous with Faulder.
"Take the blue one to the top of the control tower, and take the girl and ponytail to the storage area in Sector C. If ponytail tries to resist, shoot the girl. And get those lazy guards woken up; they are in charge of watching over them. And make it quick!" Two guards go over and attach a weird device to Rock. Zero and Amy watch helplessly, and their observation turns to horror when a guard presses a button and electricity surges through Rock's body, he screams out in pain. His limbs all tense up, but then grow very weak all at once; now knocked unconscious, and the guards carry him away.
As some guards woke up the others, Amy is grabbed forcefully from the truck as she kicks and screams and struggles to get to Rock. Zero is grabbed by the guards and taken along with Amy to the area in Sector C, which is located by a smaller building right next to the plant. Four guards lead them away while Rock is carried away to another location, two towering steel doors, gaping open in the very front of the power plant. Zero looks back at Rock, furious at Wily, yet his feelings of ferocity are thrust into abeyance as Zero walks with Amy and the guards, distraught for his partner.
The guards are standing behind Amy and Zero, pointing automatic weapons and forcing them through the narrow metallic hallway. Amy has stopped crying at this point, and Zero continues the straight face that he used while talking to Wily near the back of the truck. The hallway echoes with their footsteps, the long passageway unseen to the workings of outside; invisible to bystanders, invisible to police …invisible to Wily and Faulder. To break the eerie silence, Amy begins to have a conversation with Zero, but it is not of a bright mood.
"Zero, I'm really sorry about this, we were so close and I screwed it up." Amy says.
"What are you talking about?" Zero responds, looking straight ahead.
"If I didn't break the thing, I could still have my suit, and we could have gotten away; or at least fought to try." Amy says, gazing down at her feet. Zero put a hand on her shoulder and talks her into not feeling so down on herself. It prompts some stir in the guards, but they soon see that all he intends to do is talk to Amy.
"Listen, what you did was meant to happen. If you didn't break the orb, I would have completely given up and scrapped finding Rock altogether…" He looks down at Amy, who returns his gaze. "You reunited me with my partner, holding him in my arms, seeing how a great hero like him had fallen to such a low level because of that wicked scientist, how he felt so weak…strangely, it made me see just how strong I was, that I have the strength to overcome anything, and that I will fight till the very end." Zero shoves Amy behind him quickly bares his saber out to the guards.
The guards did something completely unexpected.
The guard in the front lowered his gun along with all the others. He held his hand up in the air and spoke to Zero with a truly kind tone.
"Well, Zero is it? Yeah, Faulder is going to be really pissed when you bust in there and save your pal, so can you do me a favor?" Zero, completely confused, continues holding his position but demands an explanation from the carefree guard.
"What are you talking about?" Zero says.
The guard set his gun on the floor and took out his wallet. The other guards stood behind him, with smug looks on their face. Opening his wallet, the guard reveals a picture, him, his wife, and his twin daughters all at a family barbeque. Amy and Zero stare at the picture with a puzzled understanding, and Zero begins to relax his defensive position slightly.
"Faulder should really think about taking away our cell phones more often. When my buddy from the factory called up telling me about human trafficking, of little girls of all people, I had half a mind to tell Faulder to go to hell; but we decided" motioning to the three other guards behind him, "that we should try to screw up whatever he's planning as much as possible." The guards step out of the way, clearing a path so the two can exit the hallway. "The Rock guy you guys were talkin' about must be a really special person, take care of him. K?" The head guard sets his gun on the floor and slides it over to Amy, prompting her to pick it up.
"You might need that, the other guards know about the crimes, but won't care as long as they're getting paid. Be careful now." As Amy picks up the gun, she and Zero make their way to the top floor of the facility, the head guard shouts something to them as the other guards laugh and call the police.
"Tell Faulder I said: we quit." The guards are left behind as Zero and Amy make their way to the main chamber. But before they go, Amy turns around and gives the guard a quick and unexpected hug.
"Thank you!" She says smiling, her eyes expressing the depth of her gratitude.
Zero smiles slightly, happy that they gave him a break for once, the only break that he is probably going to get in this entire adventure. As the two heroes reach the top of the steps, they stare at the top of the tower in hostile anticipation. Amy looks at Zero and Zero looks back, they nod at the same time and understand completely. Zero positions his saber in an attack position and Amy removes the safety on her gun, knowing that any other adult would be utterly dumbfounded to see it in Amy's possession. The two run up to the shut steel doors and Zero leaps high up into the air. He brings his free hand up into a fist and slams onto the two gargantuan doors with the force of an elephant; CRASH! The doors clunk onto the floor and an alarm sounds.
"Knock Knock…" Zero says jokingly. The two heroes rush into the facility, weapons in hand as the red flashing alarms blare overhead.