And with this, we officially break the 100,000 word milestone!

...Leviathan's eyes exploded wide open, her smirk grew into a full-on maniacal grin, and her hands yanked roughly on Zero's neck. The sudden motion caused Zero to lose his balance and stumble forward. Leviathan used the opportunity to drive a knee into his midsection.

The surprise attack forced the air from Zero, doubling him over and stunning him. He was helpless as Leviathan wrapped an arm around his neck, catching him in a headlock, and kicked him several times. Later on, he'd have been grateful for the fact that he was a Reploid. Otherwise, his nose would've probably been pulverized by how many times her heel crashed into it. As it was, each hit dizzied him more and more. After three or four hits, he wasn't sure how many...

Ms. Fair confirmed it was actually five. She missed with one and grazed him.

...she finally released her hold on him. Before he could recover, though, she hooked one foot with her own and shoved him roughly from behind. The move threw Zero into the pool Leviathan had been swimming in. She laughed as she watched him struggle in the water. As he sank toward the bottom, he flailed around, trying to reorient himself.

"Come on, Red!" the blue Reploid taunted. "I thought you were better than that!"

She watched as his struggling slowed. He must be gathering his senses. If it were possible, her smile would've grown even larger.

"You could stop making it sound like I was a total nutcase, you know."

Mom, who'd since calmed and sat down, rolled her eyes. "Considering just how far you'd lost your mind just a minute ago, I don't think it's too great an exaggeration."

"It didn't hurt that you really were that insane at that point."

Ms. Fair huffed. "Hey, it wasn't my fault. I didn't know what you'd done for my brother at that point. I thought you'd destroyed him."

I had to jump in here. "Waitwaitwait. You're telling me this was after-"

"Yes," Mom jumped in. "But enough about that. Let's get back to the part with the blue mental patient..."

Turning in a small, quick twirl, Leviathan lowered herself into a side-split, crossing her arms under her chin. Zero slowly turned in the pool in front of her. Through the rippling waves, she could see that he'd managed to draw the hilt of his signature Z-Saber. Her smile faded slightly. He can't really think he can do anything to me from down there, can he?

I only have one chance at this, and if I'm wrong, I'm scrap anyway.

With a jab of his thumb, Zero activated the sword. A light green energy pulse fired out from the sword's hilt, forming itself into the blade of his trusty weapon. He could hear the water hiss around him as the water around his sword evaporated. His eyes scanned the ceiling above Leviathan. He could see the turrets in the room rotate and train themselves in his direction. A split second later, the weapons opened fire on the pool.

Again, I couldn't help myself. "What were you thinking? Were you trying to call her bluff or something?"

Dad shook his head. "No, that wasn't it at all. She..." he pointed to Ms. Fair, "...wasn't someone who tended to bluff about things. No, I had something else in mind."

Leviathan let the autocannons fire for several seconds. Hot plasma met with cool water in a combination of thick mist and loud hissing. Evaporated water filled the room above the pool quickly, blanketing it to the point where visibility was nearly non-existent. Nearly a minute later, a thought came to the blue General.

Wait, why are the cannons still firing. If they did their jobs and destroyed Zero, shouldn't they have stopped by now?

It wasn't until a few seconds later that she got her answer. She felt something cold hit her feet. Looking down, she could see that she was suddenly ankle deep in water. The autocannons then suddenly stopped firing. Leviathan quickly got up from her spot by the pool and raced to the door to her quarters, water sloshing around her feet. She opened the door, allowing the steam to quickly blow out of the room. Once the haze lifted enough to see, she ran back to the pool and peered in. Instead of a pile of melted mechanical parts, she could see the reason why the cannons fired far longer than they should have.

A hole. Just below where Zero was submerged in the pool, and apparently cut open with a blade. Water continued to flow into the room from where the hole was cut, though the now open door allowed much of it to flow out into the hall outside. Alarms started to blare in the room. The submarine listed without warning, the jolting of the ship's tilting throwing Leviathan off her feet with a yelp and into the seawater.

I

CAN'T

BELIEVE

THIS!

Though the water largely muted her, Leviathan let loose what would've otherwise been a blood-curdling screech.

Now I started to laugh. At first, I thought she would've gotten mad about it, but Ms. Fair seemed to be trying to hold back a new wave of laughs herself. I had to give Da—er, Zero, credit. The idea was pretty smart.

I hadn't thought about creating an exit when I couldn't get to one. The fact that Zero came up with the idea while still rattled in the head was enough to show me just how much I had to learn when it came to being a Maverick Hunter.

Sure, fighting in a war and being a Hunter were very different things, but if the people around me were telling the truth, then maybe there was something I could learn from their fights that I could use in my own.

Especially if the Mavericks Berkana had working for her were as tough as Archon and Saurion. Or tougher. I could shiver at that particular thought.

I think I did.

Zero swam as quickly as he could, slicing through various walls, doors and floors blocking his escape. He knew he had to get as far away as quickly as he could. With any luck, he could get out of the sub and get transported away before the whackjob behind him could catch up. If the muffled scream he heard before was any indication, Leviathan would be on him sooner than he would've liked. Mentally berating himself for knowing better, he stole a glance behind him. The darkness of the water around him made it difficult to see things at a distance. The fact that he couldn't actually see her did nothing to make him feel any better.

Leviathan, after collecting herself enough to try and give chase, drew her Frost Javelin and sped through the water. Her armor design, as well as a few hidden hydro-jets for speed...

"I knew you were a cheater."

"Oh shut up. Being a flashy swimmer doesn't make me fast. My design is supposed to let me get around easily over short distances. I don't have the natural speed to make long distance trips quickly, so I was equipped with hydro-jets to help with that."

...allowed her to slice through the seawater with ease. She wasn't sure how much of a head start Zero had on her thanks to her not catching on to him sooner, but she was confident that whatever advantage he had was going to disappear before he had a chance to enjoy it. She briefly wondered how Zero was able to cut through so much of the ship as quickly as he did. While her quarters weren't in the middle of the ship, they weren't exactly next to the hull either.

Either way, she knew she had to write the submarine off as a loss. It was a shame. The Leviathan was her favorite ship.

"You never did actually tell me how you did that."

Dad looked puzzled. "Do what?"

"Cut through enough of the sub to cause it to take on water."

"Oh that. I'm not exactly sure, to be honest. I probably hit the drain in the pool or something."

I wanted to mention that I didn't think submarines worked that way, but I decided to let it go. After all, it wasn't the first time Zero had done something that he, by all rights, shouldn't have been able to do in the first place. At least, from what I've read, anyway.

Zero swam as quickly as he could, cutting down various hostile Mechaniloids trying to stop him from making his escape. He had fought Leviathan in the past, both on water and dry land. While she was formidable in either location, if he had to be honest, he would rather fight her on land.

"That's my agility-based design that intimidated you."

"I wasn't being intimidated. I was trying to press whatever advantage I could."

"Whatever makes you feel better."

The water around Leviathan darkened the further she swam. She smiled. For most people, be they human or Reploid, their visual range dropped greatly in deep water like this. Leviathan wasn't most people. With little more than a thought, she activated her optical enhancers. She then started to laugh to herself. While it would seem to anyone else that she had simply lost her mind, it was necessary for her visual enhancements. It worked like echolocation; her laughs would carry through the water and bounce off of her surroundings. The sound waves would then bounce back to her, where her brain would create a digital map for her to navigate with.

"What, you expected me to have the ship schematics memorized or something?"

I took the chance to answer that. "Yeah. It was your sub, after all."

Ms. Fair, to my surprise, seemed okay with that response. "Fair enough. The problem, though, is that I had it memorized through normal means. I don't cut my way through a ship, especially not one submerged as deeply as we were."

It felt to Zero as though he swam for miles. Eventually, though, he finally came to the ship's outer hull. Once he was sure he was clear of the ship, he jammed the button on the side of his head and sent a text message.

"They had text messages back then?"

"Not in the way you have them today, Iris." Ms. Fair explained. "Text messages were sent over radio waves in cases where it was either too risky to send visual and audio transmissions, or when one side of the message was somehow unable to do so."

"In this case," Dad picked up, "the water would've muted my voice too much for me to be understandable."

"Resistance Base, this is Zero-gah!"

The red Reploid barely had time to start his message before his hunter tracked him down and slashed at his back with her spear. The strike slowed him down enough for Leviathan to swim around him and deliver a powerful kick to his midsection. She hit him with enough force to send him into the side of the rapidly sinking sub, undoing the progress he'd made.

Zero bounced off the ship's hull. Leviathan quickly closed in, preventing him from recovering enough to defend himself. She attacked him with her Frost Javelin, stabbing at him with quick strikes. It was all he could do to keep her from doing any real significant damage. He held his arms in front of him, attempting to deflect the blows she aimed at his chest.

Leviathan, for her part, saw that she wasn't able to get through his guard. After one last set of stabs, she raised her Frost Javelin in an attempt to strike him from above. Zero used this chance to kick off the side of the sub, barreling into Leviathan. While the tackle did nothing to injure or damage her, it served the purpose that he wanted; Leviathan had been taken by surprise and knocked away from the opposing Reploid.

"Resistance to Zero, repeat your last."

While Leviathan was still reeling, Zero began to rapidly swim toward what he hoped was the surface.

"Resistance, Zero! Requesting immediate transport from current location! Mission failed! Repeat, mission failed!"

The blue General recovered from the tackle. Seeing Zero swimming toward safety, she swung her spear in wide arcs around her. With each swing, several micro rockets surged toward Zero. She could see every projectile locking onto their target. She smiled to herself. Even if only one of the twenty-odd rockets hit their mark, it would flash freeze whatever part of his body it struck.

Then again, since when did Leviathan have any luck?

"I feel like you're trying to make me more sympathetic to the old you."

"You'd think that, but remember that this is a time when your parents and I, as well as everyone else in the Resistance Army, were bitter enemies. With all of the victories they'd gotten since rediscovering your father, even the minor ones, the other Generals and I started to feel like there was some kind of force keeping us from bringing the Army down. My younger brother and our leader, Hidden Phantom, thought it was because the Pantheon soldiers we were using were undisciplined and tried to convince Copy X that programming improvements needed to be made. The rest of us thought it was sheer dumb luck.

"As it would turn out over the next few years, we weren't wrong about being incredibly unlucky."

"Roger that. Standby for transport to Resistance Base."

Hearing the rockets as they closed in on him, Zero quickly deactivated his Z-Saber and drew a Buster frame from his back. He slid the hilt of his sword into the frame, activating the Buster Pistol. He fired at the micro rockets, destroying as many of them as possible before they could reach him.

"Negative! I'm being pursued by Fairy Leviathan. Requesting transport to nearby ground level!"

"Zero!" Where before he was communicating with one of the Operators, Zero was sure the newest transmission came from Ciel. "You need to abort now!"

"No! I'm taking her down now, before she has a chance to track the transmission frequency!"

"She could do that just making the jump from water to land! If we bring you back, our units can back you up!"

Despite how quickly he was shooting them down, many of the micro rockets came within striking distance. He kicked through the water as quickly as he could, tricking several of the rockets

"If I take her down now, then even if she does manage to trace the signal, she won't be able to do anything with the frequency! Now stop arguing with me and do it!"

A couple of rockets found their mark, exploding and freezing a hand, a hip and a foot. The force of the impacts caused him to cry out, his agony muffled by the cold water. The communication line sat silent for several seconds. Seconds that Ciel was likely thinking the decision over and over. Zero would've been sure about the idea if he weren't struggling with making an underwater escape.

"Request granted. Standby for transmission."

Seconds later, Zero felt his body, minus the parts that were frozen, starting to give into a familiar tingling. Multicolored lights flashed before his eyes and, before he knew it, he was landing heavily on his back meters away from the sea's edge near where he had first jumped in. He struggled to get to his feet, a task made harder with one such foot encased in ice. He wasn't sure how long he had to ready himself, but he was fairly certain he wouldn't have the time to get the ice off of his body. It would take far too long for the ice to melt, and he couldn't risk the potential damage he could inflict on himself by trying to knock off or even chip away at it.

Mere moments after Zero was able to stand himself up, the water erupted into a giant pillar. Droplets rained down on the area around him as a familiar blue shape launched itself from the top. Leviathan dropped down onto thee ground, her Frost Javelin clutched tightly in her hand. The water tower sank back into the sea as the blue Reploid straightened herself with a devilish smirk on her face.

"I see what you're getting at here, Red." She said, swinging her spear in circles around her.

"Wait, I thought you didn't believe Dad about not running away."

Ms. Fair shrugged. "I was speaking about at the time."

She brought her weapon to bear, settling herself into a fighting stance. "Fine then. Let's finish this."

Zero ejected his Z-Saber hilt from the Buster frame. With one hand frozen, he had no choice but to let the frame fall to the ground and kick it out the way once it landed. He stood silently, watching his opponent watch him. The two warriors eyed each other carefully, waiting to see which of them would make the first move. The fact that Zero was far less mobile than Leviathan, thanks to her frost rockets, helped the pair decide who would act first.

Leviaithan sprang forward, the tip of her spear facing her opponent. Zero brought his sword in front of him with his free hand, creating a defense against the attack. The weapons clashed as the two came together, and the fight was on.