About two and a half days later, the program was mostly completed, but they all kept in mind possible bugs or improvements that might need to be made just in case. During their first training exercise, they all chose an unpopulated city area to test how capable this program actually is.
As they moved around together as a group, XJ6 commented "It feels pretty real, but there is certainly something different about this world. It's like being totally conscious of…no…it's more like this is the real world, but the actual real world is the daydream. That's the feeling I get from this place."
Zero, who was now with them, said "I just hope we don't get these worlds confused when we return. Here's a way to test the realness of this place. I'll start with these rocks."
He picked up a hanful of them and threw them through a window into a building. The moment the glass shattered, everyone was paying close attention to the movement of everything. Everything seemed realistic right until one of the rocks suddenly disappeared out of sight and a few of them were shining just as brightly as they were as if they were still outside of the building even though most of them now had shadows cast on them as they're supposed to. An error message box appeared above the rocks describing certain issues regarding this.
They all heard Ms. Wakeman's voice say "That's no good. We need to make this more accurate than that. Speaking of which, Zero, draw your sword and move the blade near someone next to you but not too close. I want to see how the light from your saber reflects off of their bodies."
"I suppose that is a good idea," Zero said as he activated it.
He slowly moved it next to the closest person to him which was XJ8. After observing the reflection for a few seconds, he said "There seems to be no problem with her virtual body. I'll try everyone else to make sure.
About two minutes later, a problem was found. For some reason, when he moved his saber next to XJ2, the reflection was fine, but the hilt of the saber seemed to disappear. The energy blade was still visible though. About two second after this realization, an error message appeared above XJ2 relating to this problem, but the description was vague.
Zero then said "Everyone else seems fine, but XJ2's programming seems off. You might need to make sure it isn't my programming as well."
They all heard a man's voice say "Keep your hand in the same spot. I think I already know how to fix that."
Zero and XJ2 stayed still and watched as the world around them shifted slightly and then straightened. Following that, the area around the glitch shifted rapidly until the hilt finally became visible. The error box finally disappeared. A moment later, the error box above the rocks in the building disappeared as well.
A moment later, Vexus said "Well, everything seems to be fine now. There is one thing, and I think I'm right by suspecting this. I'll investigate it."
She flew straight up and stopped about sixty five feet off the ground. She reached up and her hand stopped and she felt as though she was pushing against something that wasn't there.
"It's as I thought. There's an invisible wall here. It's probably more accurately an invisible ceiling. I noticed it when the graphics shifted as you fixed the last glitch," Vexus explained.
The same man's voice replied "There is a glitch there. I just discovered it, and it's actually registered as a floor according to this data, but I'm not sure how it got flipped upside down and located in the middle of the air. I'll have to get rid of that. Actually, hold on…I whole lot of video memory is allocated for that one floor for some reason. Getting rid of that glitch should free up quite a bit of memory."
A moment later, Vexus found her hand able to move past that point.
"I'm guessing everything regarding that is fixed now, isn't it?" She asked.
Sheldon's voice then said "That's fine, but now I'm even more worried about why that floor was even there. I'm performing a check to see if that floor is supposed to be in this stage. I wouldn't want one of you guys to fall through a floor. Keep in mind what you guys are seeing are only textures, not the surface you're touching. You might walk over something that looks like a floor but fall into a bottomless pit. All right…yes, it turns out it was supposed to be in this city you're in, but about two miles away from you guys underground at the bottom of a sewer. That's a bit of a scary and nasty thought though. Imagine Suija throwing you into the ground so hard that you go right through it and find yourself swimming around inside of a sewer. Millions of pounds of human waste washing over me would make for a really bad day."
"A bad day? That's more like a nightmare," X commented.
"Talk about making somebody aware of their own surroundings. It's like…I know that stuff is down there, but we never see it, so it's kind of not even real, but it is," XJ4 added.
"That is gross. I would rather not keep thinking about that. We should just keep moving," Jenny said.
"Oh Jenny, go ahead and try that new transformation you told me about," Ms. Wakeman said.
"You mean this one?" Jenny asked as a bunch of spikes protruded fron her neck like a cactus.
Everyone else's reaction to this revealed their apparent discomfort.
"What's the deal with that transformation?" Zero asked with a confused expression.
"Well, that's not the one I was talking about, but that is one of your new ones. I kinda already forgot about that one," Ms. Wakeman said a little emabarrased at her lack of memory.
"The point of this is that I have a thin neck. Smytus and Krackus, while they were in their combined form, held me up by my neck with one hand. The next time an enemy does that, they'll get a bunch of holes through that hand," Jenny explained.
X then said "Okay then; that sounds useful. But Jenny, your mom just said you made this up, so…?"
Jenny cut him off by saying "I told you guys before that my enhancer allows me to be able to make new versions of my old transformations or brand new ones altogether. I couldn't help but to get to thinking 'Why am I not already able to do that?' If I can change my appearance, then why can I not also change my weapons? It's way easier with my enhancer, but I have devised ways to develop my own without it. This was the first one. The one mom is referring to is the one I'm about to show you."
She retracted the spikes and then her head opened up to the right and the left. After a bunch of reconfiguring, her head had transformed into a complicated looking long-barreled cannon. The issue was that…
"Surprising, but it looks like this cannon fires from both ends, and…well, won't the shock from each blast cause stress on your brain?" Melody asked.
Jenny's voice sounded from inside her chest area saying "First, this transformation isn't finished, but as you can probably now tell, I moved my brain down into my chest."
She then stretched both arms out, and her hands transformed into the ends of a hose of some kind. She then sucked up a large rock from the ground and fired it from the rear facing barrel. The rock mostly destroyed a car in the distance.
Jenny continued saying "Second, the point of this transformation is to improvise in case I run out of my own ammo. I'm referring to my missiles…that I rarely ever use anyway…now that I think about it. Anyway; this also allows me to conserve energy, which lasers use a lot of. But if you noticed, you didn't see a big blast of flame come out of the barrel when it fired. I launched the rock about as fast as I can throw it, which is enough force for most situations anyway since I'm a lot stronger than I used to be. The barrels allow for better aiming than I can possibly pull off with my arms. And obviously, I can fire with the other end of the barrel as well. Since I can rotate this turret as well, having two barrels makes aiming faster. Here's the tricky part. I'll purposely lead the enemy into believing that I can only fire from one end of the barrel at a time for a while, and once they start thinking they're clever, I'll suddenly, and with no warning, show them that I can fire from both ends simultaneously. It's not the most powerful weapon I have, but it can be useful."
As soon as she finished her explanation, she was about to return to her normal state, when Ms. Wakeman said "Wait! Not yet, XJ9. I still need to make sure all the graphical coding is correct before decide to use it in training. That's why I had you transform in the first place. Hold that state for a little while longer."
"She knows you quite well. She knew what you were about to do without as much as a warning sign of any kind," Axl commented.
"She can read my data at any time while I'm hooked up to this simulator, but she knows how I think anyway, so there's no need for her to do that," Jenny explained.
A moment later, Ms. Wakeman announced "According to everyone on our end, all of that programming checks out."
Jenny finally returned to normal.
"How about a quick test to see how well one of you guys can handle fighting one of our old enemies you never had a chance to fight? You did say you had them program some Maverick data into this simulator, right X?" Axl asked.
"Actually, Vexus was the one who suggested it. I just gave specifics. I didn't expect to get into that so soon though," X said.
Killgore finally spoke up saying "This sounds like a good plan to me. I actually wanted to test my skills against that Vile guy or maybe that one called Commander Yammark."
Both X and Zero grinned at what Killgore just said. Killgore noticed this and wondered why.
"Commander Yammark, huh? That's not much of a challenge with your skills. However you learned about him, you must seriously be overestimating his battle specs. He hits hard, don't get me wrong, but his moves are too predictable and are pretty easy to get around. Yeah, I know, he was a commander, but that doesn't matter. He's an old reploid that was once considered very formidable a long time ago, but he just didn't upgrade much. Vile is a much greater opponent," X explained.
Sheldon's voice sounded saying "If we wanted, we could just raise his stats."
"But that wouldn't give me an accurate representation. The point of this isn't to become a better gamer, but a better fighter instead. If I were to fight him on the battlefield, I might end up a little confused," Killgore.
"I thought about what you guys are saying, but I think we're getting too sidetracked. If we don't spend practically all our time on Suija and Enja, we might not be prepared enough for real life. I don't think we have enough time for other opponents right now," Jenny warned.
"Oh, right. We do have a time limit, don't we? I guess all that fun-and-games stuff has to come later," Axl said followed by a disappointed sigh.
A beeping sound and a flashing bright circle of light appeared on the ground about fifty or so feet away from the group. A few seconds after they all started paying attention to it, in the middle of that circle, from the ground up, the image of Suija was slowly being pieced together. Ms. Wakeman didn't want any of them to freak out, so she uploaded Suija's data file slowly instead of suddenly.
When the circle of light disappeared, XJ5 commented "That is just too much. That is him down to the last detail. The only difference is that he's not wearing that calm collected grin. Come to think of it, this is the only time I've see him with a completely normal relaxed expression."
"Technically speaking, as this simulation stands, you guys can start training right now if you wish to. We just haven't added all the scared running people yet. And well, I don't really think I need to say this, but you all are aware that we only know the moves he's shown us, right?" Ms. Wakeman asked just trying to be sure.
"Even I needed to be reminded of that. I know it, but I don't think about it much," Melody said.
"Well, now that you know without a doubt, this training will be limited only in that since because we can't do anything about it regardless. We know mostly nothing about this supposed sphere that he apparently stole. Adding that to this simulation would be worthless. On the other hand, he did reveal a whole lot of very useful information. That one maneuver he used on XJ8 was incredible in the since that he would have to have amazing control over his flight ability to successfully perform it. He let us know that his speed is certainly something to be desired. Jenny wasn't able to land a single blow or get away from him. Zero's handling of his blade is nearly unparalleled, but Suija dodged it as if this sort of thing was not a surprised to him at all. Keep in mind that the artificial intelligence maybe limited in this program, but I included the idea that in real life what will probably happen is that he will fight you like he did before or maybe only a little better assuming you all couldn't possibly have upgraded as much as you did. I have to assume the worst in thinking the very next blow he will attempt will be many times stronger as if to end your lives instantly. The thing is, in video games, especially fighting games, I've been told that regardless of the difficulty setting, the basic artificial intelligence will cause your opponent to constantly try to adjust to whatever your change in strategy is. That's how this digital Suija is programmed. He will not constantly repeat himself. I said more than I probably needed to because I wanted to get you guys focused on the enemy in front of you. If you all are ready to test him now, just give me the word," Ms. Wakeman said.
"First, we need to see how well we can fight him as we are without the enhancers, but, XJ's 1-3, you girls don't have a choice but to go to full power," XJ7 said.
They did as their younger sister said and activated their enhancers. In this digital world, XJ1 can simply activate it, and her enhancer will form around her body, but in the real world, either her enhancer has to find her using its automated sytem, or she has to find it and enter it herself. It may have been improved, but it doesn't help her get around the fact that Ms. Wakeman or anybody for that matter can't condense that much mass into a tiny space smaller than her body.
"I guess we might as well give it a try. Are you guys ready?" Zero asked as he started walking away from the cramped crowd to get some elbow room.
As soon as he got a good grip on his saber's hilt, Jenny said "Nobody seems to be objecting, so…"
As soon as everyone seemed ready, Ms. Wakeman pushed the button. The digital Suija looked around at everyone in the crowd one by one gauging them as his trademarked grin appeared on his face. He also took the time out to get into his unique stance.
As soon as he looked XJ4 directly in her eyes, she suddenly made the robot equivalent of a gasp.
When everyone's attention focused on her, she said "That thing looks so much like him, it's scary. I know I don't have to worry about dying in here, but his realness still gives me the creeps."
"He almost killed me, so of course I'm frightened, whether this thing is the real deal or not. The more I stare at this fake, the more deperate this situation seems. I'm going crazy right now wondering who's going to make the first move," Jenny said anxiously.
Everyone reacted when Suija started slowly rising into the air. Ms. Wakeman also got a little annoyed waiting for it to start, so she had Suija start first. He suddenly dashed in their direction. Axl first tried to shoot it with his two rapid-fire hand guns. He burst apart and fell into a puddle of water and traveled across the ground only about ten feet and formed an arm suddenly grabbing Melody's right ankle when she tried jumping away. He threw her into the trio of XJ5, X, and Vexus causing them to pile on top of each other. This all happened in about two seconds.
While Suija was reforming, without attempting to get up off of Vexus just yet, he pointed his buster at Suija and fired three normal shots while his back was turned. Both X and Vexus watched as Suija simply stepped to the side dodging the shots and continued charging after some of the others.
As Xand Vexus were getting up, X thought to himself "My buster is too loud. Three shots gave him more than enough information to know how to dodge with no problem. That was two shots too many."
To avoid confusion and wasting time, each of them being connected to the same system, they were all given the ability to instantly relay thoughts to each other they think is important. In actuality, only a vague representation of those words passed through X's mind to save time for himself because he already understood his own thoughts. When he sent the signal to the others, those thoughts were translated into complete sentences for them to understand. It's too bad they won't have that privilege during the real fight.
Everyone was suddenly surprised by Melody's sudden move. She charged Suija like an Olympic Games runner. Her intensity actually scared those who were about to attack Suija into spreading out away from her path. Suija turned to face her and put up his guard. At the last moment, Melody charged orange electricity around her fist and feet and began attacking wildly. Very quickly, her clothes and pieces of her body were being torn or smashed while failing at trying to land a single blow. It came to the point where she was about to connect with a kick to the side of his head, but he grabbed her ankle, the same one he grabbed before, pulled her whole body with him when he jumped backwards. He waited for her hand to touch the ground in an attempt to use its solidness to try another maneuver. At that very moment, he jumped forward while still holding onto her ankle, forcing her head to collide with the ground, but kept forcing his strength on her until everyone heard her neck break. He maneuvered in such a way to stand where he needed to then stomp her head into pieces. Jenny and a couple of others couldn't help but scream.
Suija suddenly assumed a neutral position and paused. Melody's body then reformed piece by piece.
"Oh my…I am so glad this is just a simulation. I almost forgot that," Jenny said frantically.
Melody looked at Jenny and said "I knew this was gonna happen, that you guys were gonna be overly cautious like you are in real life, that's why I charged him the way I did. This place does look very realistic. It damn near feels real too. Yeah, it's scary as hell. I just became very familiar with every piece of my head a moment ago, and the more we train against this guy is the more you guys are gonna know it too. We have to get used to dodging and defending ourselves against life ending attacks very quickly. This will probably be our only opportunity to do this. You Maverick Hunters used hologram simulations until now. You're used to knowing those holograms can't actually hurt you. It's different in here but just remember that he can't kill you for real in here."
"Yeah, I know. I'm not stupid or anything. I just need a minute to get into the rhythm of this. We just got started. I'm still getting used to treating this simulation as if it's the real thing. I'm a tad rusty too. When Sigma left the picture, real battles became rare. I often feel like the real reason I missed Suija the first time I swung my sword at him in the restaurant is because I'm rusty. Well…I'm about to find out if it was because he is really that fast," Zero said as he started swinging his saber around at high speed.
"The fact that he took me down so quickly bothers me though," Melody said as she started checking the calibration of her joints by performing certain stances she learned from different martial arts.
Everyone else finally started catching on and began warming up as well. It wasn't just Zero. Those with plenty of experience like Jenny and X, they were also rusty. Their time of relative peace was starting to make them a little sloppy. Vexus has had to resharpen her skills plenty of times throughout her long life. XJs 1-8, Killgore, and Melody are the ones really lacking in experience.
Ms. Wakeman pressed the button again and Suija returned to his stance, and then she said "Don't worry. I'll wait until you give me the signal this time."
"Actually, I was ready for him to come charging," XJ6 said with a confident tone.
Ms. Wakeman grinned and said "In that case…"
She pressed the button and watched everybody scramble to deal with Suija's sudden charge. Everyone else who was sitting around the large monitor just stared in awe at the intensity of the fight that was taking place.