MLaaTR: Maverick Hunter X

By Drewmaster

30. Chapter 30

The word had been spread around quite a bit by this point that Jenny and Sheldon were becoming closer. It was a little embarrassing for Jenny at first, but then she realized that it would be wrong for her to shy away from people whenever the subject is brought up since Sheldon is always working so hard to try to defend her.

Strangely enough, despite what she thought would happen, when she did try to defend him, the people around her didn't try even harder to pick on them. The more she pressed, the more they let up.

Jenny was sitting alone with Sheldon in a room somewhere in the base. There were many rooms in the base that were not occupied, so hiding themselves was a pretty easy thing to do.

"Since we are getting so close now…," Jenny said with a slight blush.

She leaned over and rested her body against Sheldon's. This made Sheldon blush pretty hard. He almost couldn't believe this was actually happening. It almost seemed like a dream. He took a chance and wrapped his left arm around her and grabbed her left shoulder. She didn't fight him off at all, she actually fit herself into the position he wanted.

"Don't worry about it, Sheldon. I'm not gonna hurt you," Jenny confirmed.

"Okay. I almost can't believe you're doing this," Sheldon said nervously.

Jenny's sensors detected that the nervousness in his voice did not equal the intensity of his giddiness.

She smiled and said "Stop worrying so much. I can tell you're a lot happier about this than you sound. You're still being too cautious. Try to relax."

"O-okay!" Sheldon said as he took a deep breath and loosened his tension some.

"That's better. Don't be hard on yourself. I've never done this before either," Jenny said in a way that revealed some of her nervousness."

Jenny reached over and grabbed his right hand with her left. That's when Sheldon noticed her nervousness. Knowing her make-up pretty well, he felt the odd tension when she grabbed his hand and began pulling it towards her.

Still blushing, Jenny said "So soft. It feels interesting. I never had the opportunity to really take my time feeling the human body with my hands. The more I do this, the more I'm sort of understanding what it's like to be human."

Just then, Jenny noticed Sheldon's internal body temperature rising. She looked at his face slightly puzzled. He then used the same hand she was holding onto to touch the side of her face. He slowly caressed her face and neck. She could tell he was really enjoying this. The overwhelming urge took her over as she pulled him close and kissed his lips. He also lost control and they both kissed passionately. Jenny then decided to be bold as she pushed her tongue inside his mouth slightly. This startled Sheldon a little. Jenny couldn't help but smile a little at his reaction. Sheldon decided to go with the flow and his tongue met hers. They kissed for a little while until they felt satisfied.

Breathing heavily Sheldon said "Man…if only. Forget it."

Jenny laughed a little and said "It's not in my design; at least not yet. Who knows, it could happen one day."

"And even if it was in your design, I don't think your mom would like it very much," Sheldon added.

"It would be pretty impossible to get that past her. Well…not entirely, but one thing is for sure, my design is one of the main reasons she isn't spying on me right now," Jenny explained.

With a look of realization on his face, Sheldon said "Oh! So, she already knows what we're up to right now."

"Ah; good guess; but no. She is probably thinking of the possibility of this happening soon, but she likely would not guess at it happening this soon. We really haven't been missing long enough for people to have gotten that suspicious," Jenny explained.

"If you were the way you were when she built you, she'd guess the time and location of what we just did. You've become your own person since then. I understand it better now," Sheldon said.

"I'm more easily able to outsmart my mom than I used to be. Damn…I can't believe I just thought about that. What were you thinking when you made that unnecessarily sophisticated pencil sharpener?" Jenny asked with a grin.

"Huh? Oh yeah, outsmart. We had to outsmart Vexus. That's how you thought of that just now. I just wanted to make the most badass sharpener ever…that was compatible with your systems, of course. Now that I think of it, it was unnecessarily sophisticated. I did shutter a little when I tried to imagine Vexus getting caught in that thing. I did put some pretty powerful settings in that thing. That would've been a triumph for us, but way too gruesome a way to go for my tastes," Sheldon replied.

"I remember that thought crossing my mind too, but that would've been too much. I feel like I went too far with Smytus as it is. I'm not gonna keep going on that subject. Too depressing. Anyway, I'm just curious, so don't take this the wrong way, but were you ever seriously attracted to Vexus?"

Sheldon knew not to say too much, but he did say "I never thought you would ever ask me such a question. There was a time that I saw her that way, but she would never be able to surpass you."

With a blush, Jenny said "I can tell you really meant that? I didn't need to steal your master plan to notice that look in your eyes."

With a blush of his own, Sheldon said "I have yet to see another girl compare to you with these eyes. QT2; I barely even remember. You're the only girl I have my eyes set on."

Jenny smiled happily and hugged Sheldon. A few seconds later, he hugged her back.

Still holding onto him, she said "Thank you for always being there for me."

"You're welcome," he said.

The following day, the repairs for the upgrade were completed. Being pressed for time, Ms. Wakeman couldn't work on it by hand, so she had her machines do the job. She did inspect the completed armor a few times for flaws, but found none.

Quite a few people gathered around to see if the upgrade would actually work, including a few of the base's personnel.

"Don't worry. I worried the first time it happened to me, but it's not bad at all," X said.

"I hope so," Melody said.

"This should be very interesting considering the way X's turned out. I wish you luck, Melody," Brad said.

"Thanks," Melody replied.

Now standing in front of the device, Ms. Wakeman activated the upgrading process. Melody floated half a foot off the ground. First, the leg portion of the device lifted into the air and attached themselves to her legs. Second was her arms, followed by her upper body, then her head. The entire process of outfitting and linking to her software took a total of 44 seconds.

When she landed on the floor, Brad asked "How do you feel?"

A few seconds later, Melody replied "I actually feel pretty good. I never felt so powerful before. You might wanna watch out Red Angel. That was just a joke by the way. I don't want to you to go taking that as a challenge."

Angel laughed and said, "For a second there, I thought you were being serious."

Her voice changed, and Grace said, "I'm not looking…forward to that myself."

"I think that looks cool, Melody," Tuck commented.

"Lookin' good," Brad commented.

Melody started raising her power to the point where she started to glow. She can already do this, but instead of glowing orange as would normally happen, she started glowing a peach color.

"Be careful now. Don't get carried away and hurt someone," Nora said nervously.

"My output is already twice what I'm normally capable of, but the spread of my energy is more condensed. I'm not gonna power up any more than this in this small room," Melody assured.

Suddenly, Jenny made her body glow a little. Hers was the blue from before. Grace followed afterwards with red energy. Next was X which was a much lighter shade of blue. Last was Zero, which was a light shade of green. They didn't power up a lot; just enough to show that what melody was doing was nothing new though they didn't say it, and because seeing her power up the way she did made them all somewhat exited.

Taking several steps back, Wisteria said nervously "If this keeps up, I'm getting out of here."

Zero sighed and powered down. The others followed suit.

"Don't worry about it, ma'am. We're not about to start brawling out the blue. That would be absurd. We were flexing more than anything. It's the same as what body builders do," Zero explained.

"I'm sorry, but I'm just not used to this," Wisteria responded.

"My sister has spent a lot of time to herself in a violence free environment. When she is around, please try to tone it down some," Nora pleaded.

"All right. That's fine. I'll try to remember that," Melody said.

"You're more fortunate than you realize ma'am. In our world, there really aren't many places left at all to live the way that you do. Most of our so-called nature is synthetic. I know…I can tell by the way you're looking at me. I don't like it either. By the time I had the power to do anything about it, it was more than too late. I'm actually quite surprised that you still have so much natural plant life left in your world. Our world is messed up. I hope, for your sake, that you all do what you can to maintain what you have. I can't say I understand how precious nature is because I never lived in it. Even now, I wish I had the time to walk around in a naturally grown forest," X explained.

"Maybe now would be the time for someone with your skills to come out of isolation. You could do a lot of good with your talents, Wisteria," Angel suggested.

"Is that why you decided to come out of isolation?" Wisteria asked in a tone that sounded a little bit like an attack.

"I guess you can say that. My plans are a bit different though. And don't try the hypocrite blame with me when you clearly fall into the same category. I don't know why you felt it necessary to throw that verbal brick at me when I was only giving you a helpful suggestion. I swear; you can't help certain people," Angel said angrily as she made her way out of the room.

When the door closed, Wisteria said "She's more human than I thought. I know she's right. It's just…it's just not that easy for everyone to change their life suddenly like that. I imagine it wasn't easy for her either. I wish this were easier."

"It's not easy. I try to imagine what it'd be like for me to no longer have a reason to fight. I've been doing this for as long as I can remember. I'm looking forward to it, but I'm not looking forward to the withdrawals," Zero explained.

"It's kind of like a drug. I hate the idea of fighting and what it causes, but it's exhilarating. I hate the fact that me saying that makes me sound like a monster," Jenny said.

Wisteria sighed and said "I guess that's the nature of all things that live in this world. The more time I spend around robots, the more I see how similar we are. You guys are fighting for our sake everyday while I sit alone like a scared animal. I hid in a hole while those evil robots destroyed so many lives those few months ago. I talk about preserving life, and did nothing to stop them from destroying it, when I know I could have."

"You didn't do nothing. You weren't strong enough to defeat those robots, well, maybe a few of the weaker ones, if you really tried to. After the attack, you put your talents to use to help save many lives," Nora pointed out.

"Yes, but compared to how many lives were lost, what I did barely counted for anything," Wisteria added.

"Nonsense: that's just not true. I know how you feel, but you have to remember that no one person can do everything. You played your part well," Nora assured.

"I guess so," Wisteria said as if she was still unsure of herself.

Nora noticed the look on X's face just then. He seemed slightly angry.

"Is something wrong, X?" Nora asked.

Surprised, X was forced out of his daze by her question.

"Oh, sorry about that. It's not that serious. Anyway, I know how you feel, Wisteria. I know what it's like to feel as though my efforts don't count for much. I always wish I could do more. Reality is a real pain sometimes," X replied.

"But you're so brave, and you fight all the time. You've done so much more to help people than I ever have. I wish I were more like you," Wisteria complimented.

X began heading towards the door saying "You don't wanna be like me; believe me. I'll be near if any of you need me. I need some time to think."

When the door closed behind him, Tuck asked "Has anyone here noticed that he never seems happy?"

"You probably shouldn't be so loud when asking those kinds of questions," Brad said.

"Now that you mention it, I've only seen him smile once. There's a big difference behind the reason for a smile or for a grin," a base employee said.

"He's always like that. You guys might think you have it bad when it comes to worrying, but I know him, and he's constantly worrying…about everything. It's really nothing new, so don't worry about him too much," Zero explained.

Palette looked up from the computer she was working on and said "Even so, I can't help but be a little concerned about him. He's probably the last person I'd hate to see flip out and do something regrettable."

"I seriously doubt it. He's always worried that he might accidentally hurt somebody. The odds of him doing that are so very low," Zero assured.

"I hope you know him as well as you think you do," Melody said.