Mega Man X: The Sound of Mavericks

by Erico

A year after the events of EOAD, The Clock ticks down once more on chaos reborn...

17. Futile Victory

MEGA MAN X: THE SOUND OF MAVERICKS

By Erico

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: FUTILE VICTORY

While Hazil, Cain and Horn bustled about, pegging locations, the Hunters and even Allegro and Andante set about equipping themselves, for what would be for many…

Their final fight.

Grim faces all around themselves was the defining feature on their faces for the next twenty minutes, as they grabbed Sub-Tanks, Heart Tanks, double checked their Busters, and gave their sabers one final charge.

Finally, the team's leaders stepped up to the plate. X, Zero, Bastion and Wycost entered the Command Center, and the door shut behind them. Cain sat in his chair, looking over at them with severity as they returned.

"This doesn't leave the room." Cain hit a button on his console, and the telescreen above flashed into life.

The unblinking stony face of a dandelion gold and silver robot stared down at them. His head was covered in an ancient Egyptian turban, and a facemask covered his mouth.

"Pharaoh Man here. Who am I speaking to among X's friends?" X stepped up next to Cain, showing himself in the transmission.

"Pharaoh, I hope you realize the severity of this. Each of us has a very distinct role to fill in this struggle. If even one of our counterattacks fails…" X couldn't bring him to say it.

But he knew what would happen.

That location would be totally absorbed. The humans would become nothing but charred piles of ashes under Buster fire, or worse, rotting corpses, their deaths brought about by even more horrific means. And then the Mavericks would be even stronger.

Pharaoh Man nodded his head. X still found it hard to believe that he, X, was two feet taller than any of Cossack's robots.

"I understand, X. The fate of humanity lies on all of our shoulders this day." Pharaoh Man blinked. "My team will handle Moscow. It's the closest to us, and Cossack has some powerful sentiment there." X nodded.

"That's one down. Who's going to handle the rest?" Bastion stepped up to the plate, frowning.

"I'll take on Rio De Janeiro. I'd like to avoid the Mideast at all costs, if I can." Faces looked over to him in surprise. Bastion shrugged back. "Hey, the Jihad's still going on. Returning is like putting a gunsight on my head for betraying the cause. And X…" Bastion sighed, putting a hand to his head. "X, I'd appreciate it if you took Bristol with you. You're a much better Hunter than I'd ever hope to be, and seeing as she's bound determined to help out, it might as well be under the wing of someone who does the job right." X shrugged.

"I'll keep an eye on her. Cain, the 17^th, and Bristol will handle Washington D.C.'s problems." Wycost raised a hand.

"Seeing as Bristol is filling Doan's shoes in your Unit X, I'll drag him and Allegro and Andante along with me to Cairo." Zero finally grunted.

"I guess that leaves the merry go-getters of my Unit to tackle Riyadh's infestation." Pharaoh Man raised a hand from his end in Siberia.

"It would seem we have reached a total of five strike teams." X nodded.

"Hey Pharaoh, is there anything we can supply you with from our end? Attack vehicles, Sub-Tanks?" Pharaoh frowned and shook his head.

"X, we're robots. We fully understand that the systems designed for reploid use wouldn't work as well for us. Besides, Cossack has a more than ample supply of Energy Tanks, which serve the same purpose. The only favor you can do for us is to end the threats at your region. And that is not as much for us as it is for the world." Zero grunted.

"Pharaoh, you're damn close to being a reploid, you know that?" Pharaoh shrugged.

"Age brings wisdom, as the good doctor Sergei Cossack says. I've just been around longer than any of you." Pharaoh Man waved his hand, pushing back his great green cape. "My team is going to get moving. I wish you all the best of luck." Pharaoh Man's signal blinked out, and the four remaining team leaders nodded solemnly. Cain looked down at them, once more holding a tiny shred of hope in a situation that was next to impossible.

"Well, then…Assemble the strike teams and move out." Bastion slid his Angel's Advantage wings out for a moment, testing their power levels. Still high, although Hazil had mentioned to him that the batteries would need replacing in six months to maintain optimum charge levels.

X took the time to activate his internal warp generator and access the HQ's memory block for all the Armor Sets he had collected over the years.

He chose one.

In a flash of shimmering light, X became enshrouded by gold, the ultimate power Light had given him, during the Third Uprising. When Doppler had been taken out by him, and Sigma had made his third and most frightening appearance of the first three Uprisings. It had everything X felt he would need:

Auto recharge capabilities, dual Air-Dash Thrusters, an enhanced body energy shield, and the Hyper Cannon. X knew he'd have to be careful with it. Once the initial charge was gone, he would either have to get the tar beat out of him to get it's strength back, or his body would transfer health energy directly to the systems.

It was made to do damage, plain and simple.

And there was a Ferret who X wanted to destroy after a very long wait.

Zero rubbed a stain off of his arm, then whipped out his saber and gave it a practice swing. Checking his belt, he was satisfied to see his four shots of Rakuhouha were still ready to go. Aside from the Kuuenbu and Tenkhuuha, that attack was the only one still active in his systems after the Fifth Uprising.

Wycost already knew what shape his system was in, but he knew that he should warn his comrades of one detail.

"Guys, something you all need to know about Ferret…" All eyes turned to him. Wycost looked back at them grimfaced. "When Sigma merged with him, it gave him even greater powers than he had before. X, you thought he was tough when he almost tore your arm off? He has that…and more."

Wycost pointed to himself. "He is capable of creating a field of Maverick Virus nanobots in a ten foot radius now. This immobilizes anyone within the vicinity, and leaves you open for worse versions of the Virus. You might as well call it Ferret Freeze for the time being. If one of you should meet with him, be wary of that. Don't let him move the battle in close. Keep your distance and fire away. And if that's not possible…" Wycost bit his tongue.

"You'd all best be very experienced with internal Virus Deletion. I've gone through it TWICE now." Cain stared down at him, his eyes wary.

"Wycost, I meant to ask you. Are you going to rejoin the Hunters?" Wycost shook his head.

"A good 80% of everyone here would like to tear my head off. I left because I was fed up with getting the short end of the shaft. Admit it. None of you standing in this room are feeling too peachy with me right now." Wycost flipped his goggles down.

"I don't want to kill life anymore. But for the good of life, I am fulfilling this mission. After that…it's my call as to what I'll do next." Wycost shook his head again. "Do you know why I'm doing this?"

"Revenge?" Bastion wagered in an unsure voice. Wycost shook his head.

"No. That's why I joined before. This time…this time, it's just to stop the same thing that happened to me from hitting anyone else."

"Good reasons." X said calmly. "That's why I joined up too. But I've stayed."

"Because of your loyalty, X." Wycost reminded him. "Because Cain is here, and because you have become the figurehead for our organization." Zero folded his arms, blinking.

"Are you saying you don't have loyalty?"

"Not any more." Wycost replied tersely. He stared at Cain, then X and Zero. "I lost my loyalty to you when I quit." Wycost turned and began to walk out the door, shaking his head. "I'm going to grab my team and shuffle out then. Cairo will be needing us very soon. And for what it's worth, I hope you all make it out of this alive."

"That's close to defeatism, Wycost." Bastion noted with a raised eyebrow. Wycost stopped in his tracks, and his shoulders fell. He turned, his eyes covered by his sunglare goggles. But his mouth betrayed the respect that Wycost held for his former leader. Nodding his green helmeted head, Wycost informed Bastion he was right.

"Do you know why I sound defeatist, Bastion?" Bastion shook his head.

"Because you've been infected twice?"

"No." Wycost replied, turning back around. But he raised his voice, so that even as he walked out the doors of the Command Center, the others could hear him. "That's not the reason. The reason is this, my Desert Hunter; No matter how hard we try, every victory we achieve is hollow. Our wins come with losses…More than we could have ever believed back when it all began."

As Wycost's body vanished, blocked from view by the sliding doors, a silence filled the room. All eyes were downcast, each person silently acknowledging to themselves that Wycost spoke truth.

For all that he had been through, the Bronx Bombshell had learned a lot. A lot about life, more about death.

But in general, the way of the world.

There were no handshakes exchanged, no final words.

Each person who left that room knew that more than likely, one of them would not return. The threat was severe enough to warrant such pathetic, negative optimism.

But there was a spark, a fire inside of each of them which no flood of fury could douse. It was hope.

And right now, that was their main weapon.

"This is Sigma. All Attack Units, report in." The tall, baldheaded reploid with the eternal frown clicked his vidphone connection to life.

Using URFAWP's own ships, and a collection of attack weaponry from Military installations of various countries, and Sigma's own weaponry hidden in his underground bases, the overbearing leader of the Mavericks was finally stepping into action.

One by one, the four windows to his connections flickered to life, each with a different face staring back at him.

The snarling, squinty eyed Nitro Narwhal.

"Aar, Sigma! I be ready to sail the seven seas!"

The calm, yet informative hawkish demeanor of Airborne Albatross, wings expanded into battle mode, bristling with their guns and missiles.

"Alb here. Let's get ready to tango."

The lightning quick schizophernic maverick known as Megavolt Meerkat.

"Hee heee hee…Show me the action, show me show me show me!" Sigma frowned at that comment. Meerkat cackled insanely, and Sigma shook his head.

That was one maverick general he'd never rebuild.

Then there was the short, but nonetheless lethal furred frame of Killer Koala, whose claws clacked on his arm.

"Just point me in the right direction, and I'll handle the rest."

Each with a goal. Each with their own demeanor.

Yet each was nothing more than a copy, a semi-completed reploid with the Virus ingrained in their bodies from birth. In that respect, they were the same.

Sigma nodded his head.

"I assume each of you knows what to target. A specific place where upon being destroyed, will have a widespread effect on all of the surrounding metropolises." Nitro nodded his head, blowing out a spurt of air from his blowhole.

"Aye, Captain Sigma!" Sigma nodded again, not looking at any one in particular.

"I am counting on you to fulfill your missions. And don't underestimate the opposition. The Hunters are scrambling, and even though no one knows just where exactly we're going, that's never stopped them from tracking us down."

Not one of the Generals paid heed to those chilling words.

And why should they? They were already all dead.

These were just clones.

"Sigma, just tackle your target and leave the rest to us." Killer Koala brayed. "We'll be careful, all right. But we're not going soft. If they try to take us down, then we'll bloody well frag a few along with us."

Ferret cackled apart from Sigma at Koala's comment. Sigma frowned.

"Then I'd say we're set. Initiate your attacks five minutes from now. If our conference call is done, I wish you all the best of luck." Sigma clicked off the connection, and turned to Ferret.

"Any incoming threats?" Ferret checked his scanners.

"A few jet planes, a couple tank groups…no Hunters." Ferret grinned. "I'd say it's time we got some target practice then." Sigma raised a hand.

"No…destroy the planes. But keep the Tanks. Perhaps we can use them…" Sigma rubbed his chin.

Somewhere within the dark confines of his mind, another dangerous scythe to his plan was forming up. And as his idea bounced around, Sigma's sinister smile grew wider.

The Hunters wouldn't know what hit them.

The Maverick Hunter base was finally fully assembled. The 21^st, the 17^th, and the #00 were all set to go, and Wycost's ragtag team of last ditch supporters were there as well. The others looked on in respect, in stupor…

In every single emotion one could expect from a reploid who had just been brought face to face with the worst threat to ever face. For Zero, fear. For X, respect.

For Wycost, hatred and mistrust. The green Hunter ignored their eyes and kept his mind focused on his own mission.

Cain stared them all down, the individuals who would face the threat. There were familiar faces, and there were those who he had never really bothered to meet before.

There was a reason for that. Losses were a part of life in the Hunters. To know all of them, to know their names and who they were…

When they died, their loss was that much more severe. That's why Cain kept himself somewhat distanced.

So he wouldn't have to keep a running tab on the dead.

"Maverick Hunters…" Cain began, silencing them all. Even J.K. Horn raised his Blue Blockers to give Cain his full attention. "We are facing the worst possible threat at the worst possible time. Nevertheless, you have shown me the same determination that I've come to expect from you. Some of you are still not completely dedicated to this life." Cain frowned down at them. "After this mission, you will be." Cain waved his hand around the room. "There are those of you here who will not be participating in the counterattack. This is because you do not yet possess a complete grasp of your abilities and the extent of your power. When that day comes, you will be sent out, like the elites that stand before you, to face down the foe known as Maverick. They have proven themselves, sharpened their skills in the fire known as combat." Cain stepped back. "You too will walk through this flame eventually."

Cain shook his head.

"For now, though, you can only be witnesses. Hopefully, the tide of this conflict flows with us. For if it does not, there will be no more history to write of." Cain looked at the few individuals whose name he knew well.

X, somber and focused. Zero, eyes glazed over as he cracked his knuckles for the umpteenth time. Bastion, standing protectively by Bristol, his strong arm on her shoulder, his other one balled into a fist. Bristol, her own hand covering his, looking at him in a look of worry.

J.K. Horn, a reploid whose mission of peace had been destroyed like all the others before it, his wonderful URFAWP usurped to the sick and twisted goals of Sigma. Horn looked the most angry, and also the most defeated at the same time.

Allegro and Andante, standing together, their true enemy finally identified, their role in this historical event finally confirmed. They looked so much alike, and only their height and the slant of their eyes differed.

The Trio of the 21^st. Jad, Kol and Gavin. Three reploids who understood that even though Allegro and Andante had knocked them out for a bit, were now working on their team. More importantly, they knew that to stay alive, they would need teamwork. And that was why they were in the 21^st. Not because of their individual Hunter skills, which were nowhere near X's or Zero's, but because they worked as a team.

Doan, standing staunchly beside Wycost, his old friend and new teammate. His gray armor matched his usual pessimistic mood perfectly, and yet his eyes were lit up with a fire that was the hatred of Sigma. Cain had to admit it was a small irony Doan finally had something to complain about.

Then there was Wycost. The powerful green enigma, the Hunter who had returned infected, and lit the entire powderkeg that had finally been identified one hour ago. His goggles were down, and his arms were folded. Nonetheless, Cain could see the emotion in his eyes. For once, it wasn't hatred. According to X, the fire had left Wycost. And when the fire had left, it had been replaced.

Wycost was no longer the Fiery Hunter. He was the Hunter of Ice. He was also not likely to remain within the ranks either. Cain knew the general consensus among the Hunters was to lynch Wycost when he got back, and the craziest part of it all was that Wycost no longer wished to fight.

Considering that was the only thing he was good at, it made no sense to Cain.

Then again, he'd never been infected by the Maverick Virus.

"Some of you won't be coming back alive from this assault." Cain continued. The grim stares he received told him that his Hunters knew that possibility all too well. "But it's what you're paid to do, and it's what the world needs right now."

"Hunters, there's nothing I can do to spruce this up. The simple fact is that no amount of pep talks or parades will eliminate the uneasiness in your minds. All you can do is destroy the doubt, and trust in your abilities. The rest as they say…Is in God's hands." Cain shrugged. "Or Allah's, or Jehovah's, or Fate if you will. Whatever form of a supreme power you believe in, that's what you need to go with. You can worship the Flying Toaster for all I care, and that won't change the fact we don't know who's going to live."

Cain sighed, sitting back down. "Those who remain, including myself and J.K. Horn will be monitoring every attack group. Once you get there, you'll be on your own. We can't send reinforcements, but the hope is we can provide some overhead intel as to enemy positions. It's not much, I know. But we're all at the breaking point." Cain waved his hand. "I'm done here. Maverick Hunters, MOVE OUT. The world is in your hands."

A few last glances were exchanged, and at long last the troops warped out through the roof to their locations.

X, Bristol and the 17^th to Washington D.C.

Zero and the #00 to Riyadh.

Bastion and the 21^st to Rio De Janeiro.

Wycost, Doan, Allegro and Andante to Cairo.

And then there was the one wild card in all of this.

Cossack's creations, the Robot Masters of Mega Man's day, upgraded by Hazil.

They would be sent to Moscow. Cain shook his head, feeling the intense need for another dose of aspirin.

"God help us all."

Moscow had remained very much untouched by the years, having remained the same since the 1950's of the Cold War. There was the Red Square, the tall pointed spires, and the gauche coloring of green and red everywhere.

Russia was no stranger to having wars in the streets, either. The Napoleonic Wars, World War Two, it had a long history of people knocking on their doorstep.

Of course, this new attack was a first.

Moscow had never been attacked by Maverick infected reploids in its history.

The massive hovertransport expelled wave after wave of flying Bee Bomber drones, then proceeded to release the ground troops.

These had once been proud members of URFAWP, reploids dedicated to eliminating all conflict.

Of course, they didn't think the Maverick Virus would still be around to corrupt them. And now, that mistake made by the optimistic J.K. Horn was thrusting innocent lives into danger.

Eyes that had once possessed wisdom and intelligence were now only filled with the droning commands of the Maverick Virus. The fire had left them, and moving about with a certain stupor to their actions, the Mavericks began to bombard Moscow with everything they had.

X-Busters whined furiously before unleashing horrific waves of plasma into the streets. Innocent people were obliterated in the fray, some vaporized and the rest by the exploding rubble around them. Bombs caused even more devastation, and the constant ziinnng of an occasional chain gun completed the massacre's music.

It was just outside this scene that five powerful warp signals blasted down from the sky above. They had come from the middle of Siberia, a nothingness of winter wilderness that possessed only one remarkable feature.

The castle of the presumed dead Robotics Genius, Sergei Cossack.

The light whined down and the five signals reconverted to solid matter. Each warrior had a look of solemnity in their eyes, for not all of them had mouths.

Drill Man, Bright Man, Toad Man, Ring Man, and their leader Pharaoh Man soaked in the conflict. Pharaoh Man frowned.

"They've started the party without us." He felt the need to insert a snide, rhetorical comment, and he obeyed it, assuming it was a part of his artificial intelligence growth. "What a darn shame…And we even brought the Chex Mix."

Bright Man looked over at his leader.

"Chex Mix?" Bright Man asked, puzzled. Pharaoh waved a hand, looking back at the horror in front of them.

"A joke, Bright Man. All of you, list down the supplies." Each robot responded in the same way.

"Five E-Tanks." Pharaoh Man acknowledged. Unlike Mega Man and his little brother X, the Robot Masters of Cossack had only primary weapons systems. They drew power directly from their energy reactors, much like an X-Buster did. Mega and X were different, in that they had variable weapons systems grids, which allowed them to acquire separate weapons systems. Those however ran out of power, and required recharging by Weapons Energy capsules or pellets, or W-Tanks.

"Correction, Phare…" The silvery black and gold robot mused. "In this day and age, they use Weapons Sub Tanks." Pharaoh Man turned to face his willing four comrades, addressing them with a stern stare.

"We will be facing superior forces in this conflict. Make sure to be cautious and avoid as many attacks as you can, and use your E-Tanks if you get to critical levels. That's why we brought them along." Pharaoh Man looked at each of them one last time.

"Best of luck. Initiate attack command Kalinka 2."

That was all it took. Each Robot Master responded in their own separate part of the team attack.

Kalinka 2 was a strike meant to be used when they had the element of surprise. Which they had.

Drill Man burrowed into the ground, skimming along and using his radar systems to track the foes above him. Toad Man leapt high up in the air, bouncing from building to building while keeping an Acid Bomb in each hand to eliminate foes below him.

Bright Man allowed himself small hops, keeping his Arm Cannon ready to spray any foes in his way. Ring Man ran over the ground, keeping a pair of rings ready in his hands.

Pharaoh Man took to jumping short hops, trying to remain in the shadows of the buildings still standing. His eyes glinted in the reflected sunlight from the tinted overhead windows, but as he jumped up into the air another time, he finally got a clear look at the chaos.

"Oh, joy…" Pharaoh Man mused, finally activating his Pharaoh Shot Blasters. Very much like Mega Man, Pharaoh Man used the particles of matter in the air for the basic proponents, then pulled in main systems energy to supercharge it. Unlike Mega Man, his plasma blasts were more unstable than the supershots, and therefore did not burn straight through targets, but exploded, like a fuel air explosive.

Of course, this gave it the kick that made it so powerful a weapon.

The targets below were far from easy. While there were two squads of ground troops firing at will, they were backed up by at least five heavily armored tanks. And of course, the main hovertransport still had its own laser cannons blasting away at anything that moved. Pharaoh Man narrowed his eyes, focusing in on the hovertransport's cockpit.

There was one figure inside, watching the display with a sickening smile, his arms folded and his ears twitching with sparks of electricity.

The furry robot had a tail, and insulated gauntlets. It reminded Pharaoh Man of a Robot Master who had been even more of a problem to Mega Man than he had been when he was reprogrammed by Wily.

"Elec Man…this guy looks like him." Pharaoh Man reverted his eyes back to normal vision and landed, using an arm to support his weight. He brought up his right arm's wrist and activated his comm. On a scrambled frequency outside of the normal communications spectrum, the Robot Master sent out his message.

"We have two squads of troops, at least five heavily armored tanks, and the main laser turrets on the hovertransport itself. Take caution; that big ship may be harboring more forces."

"Understood, Pharaoh Man." Ring Man responded. Pharaoh Man saw him twenty feet away, his back to the wall so the passing troops could not see him. Hearing him wasn't a problem as the noise from their destruction blocked out any auxiliary sounds. Pharaoh Man charged his arms even further, feeling his fingers curl around the balls of energy in his palms.

"Ring Man, on my count, give them a double salvo. I'll follow up with an airborne bombing. Toad Man, do you hear me?"

An affirmative croak came over the commlink. "Toad, I'll need some Bomb cover while Ring Man and I pull away."

Finally, the lone squad that had wandered away from the pack turned into the alley that Ring Man was cowered in. Pharaoh Man raised a hand.

"NOW!" The shout drew the attention of the mavericks to himself, and their Busters went up. That was enough time for the quickdrawing Ring Man to hurl both deadly boomerangs into their midst. The first pass wiped out three and sliced off two Busters from the survivors. The return pass took off a head.

As the mavericks screamed in pain, Pharaoh Man unleashed his own fastballs of energy, taking the time to properly aim them at the remaining three. The charged blasts skimmed along, quivering slightly in the air as they pulsated in anger. When they finally hit home, they dispersed in an explosion of power and light, disintegrating one maverick and hurling the other two on their backs.

The rest of the Mavericks finally realized that something odd was going on, for the next squad and three tanks began to make haste towards their position.

Toad Man was true to his word, flinging a trio of Acid Bombs into their path, burning the ground away and creating a trench. Two tanks fell into the pit with ease, but the troops jumped over it, firing away with their Busters.

Cursing, Pharaoh, Toad and Ring Man all dashed behind the stone barriers of the alleyway's streets. Ducking his head down, Pharaoh Man cringed.

"This is not good, people!" Toad Man squawked out in surprise as another shot slammed into the wall.

Only this shot came from the still oncoming Tank, and it blew the wall to pieces.

When the dust cleared, Pharaoh Man, Toad Man and Ring Man found themselves staring into death itself.

Pharaoh Man's wide eyes betrayed the fear in his body, even as he still kept charging up a shot in each hand.

"Oh, no…" Every maverick had their Buster pointed at him, and the tank's main cannons lowered down, until Pharaoh Man could see the very back of it.

And the powerful ten inch shell inside of it.

Across the world in Rio De Janeiro, the 21^st was just landing into the warzone. The situation was exactly the same, with a giant hovertransport with main cannons blasting away at hiding places, creating an open field for its smaller dispersing forces to take potshots at the fleeing populace.

However, the Maverick General that was leading this front did not contain himself within the ship. Opening up the top escape hatch, the mighty winged maverick scratched his beak for a moment before bursting up into the air by aid of his thrusters.

His metallic wingspan glimmered in the light, failing to give evidence to the hordes of devastating missile packs and gun racks hidden inside of them.

A half mile away, the 21^st "Lightning Strike" Unit finally appeared. It was easy for them to sight their target.

However, their target wasted no time in laying down heavy laser cannon fire, forcing them to break in all directions.

Bastion popped his wings out and activated the repulsors, soaring into the air above the strafed ground. His face a stone mask to the forces they were facing, the Commander of the 21^st whipped back his dark brown hair and pulled out his twin beam sabers. Igniting them both, he pushed the hilts together until blue blade met with purple, separated by a handle of silver.

"Beam staff formed." Bastion noted to himself with little satisfaction. He activated his wrist comm and looked down at the forces.

"Gavin, take the Hunters around you and make zigzag tracks towards the main hovertransport! We have to disable those guns!" Looking over, he spotted the other half of his meager unit. "Jad, Kol! Get your half of the squad into the town, and take out the rampagers! I'll lay down cover fire for your escapes!"

"Roger, boss!" Gavin grunted, whipping out his own orange tinted saber. He raised it up in the air and whooped a powerful war cry before charging at the transport, dashing like mad and dodging the energy bolts skimming towards him. Thankfully, the 21^st took orders well, and they were good at what they did. Only one Hunter fell to the laser cannon assault, struck down even before he had had a chance to activate his thrusters.

Bastion brought his wings forward, until their tips pointed at the massive ship's main laser turret. Glaring through teary, angry eyes at the loss of a comrade, he clenched his fists.

"The Mavericks…DAMN THEM!" A simple mental command activated the Angel's Advantage Wing Blasters, and the suit's deadly offensive technique finally came into focus.

The powerful energy that radiated from its surface increased, but more so along the jagged lightning bolt that ran down the axis of each wing. A tiny ball of crackling white energy formed at each wingtip, growing larger and larger.

It took only two seconds to fully charge each one. And then Bastion let his shots fly.

Two powerful screaming blasts of electrical energy scorched down through the sky, as if the clouds had parted and heaven itself had unleashed its furious rage upon the earth below.

The turret received a direct hit from each bolt, and within microseconds was sparking like mad. Its safety controls overloaded, the turret blew in a shower of sparks and melted metal. The rest of the ship had suffered from the blow as well, as Bastion saw quite clearly the crackling power stream through the ship like an unleashed demon.

His troops made it there safely, the threat of imminent death gone. However, the transport's hangar opened up, and more heavy hovertanks and maverick ground squadrons began to appear, firing furiously.

Bastion had complete confidence in his men. He had trained them, shown them everything he knew. From his own experience as a Hunter, and even from the darker days of the Jihad.

A Jihad to whom J.K. Horn had worked on the opposite side for, making the weapons that had killed many of Bastion's friends.

But now Bastion knew that Horn had aided Bristol greatly in the design of his new Flight Armor. That tidbit alone had given him much to think about. And as he had released his Dual Bolts into the Infected URFAWP Hovertransport, Bastion had finally realized something.

He had killed Horn's friends. Horn had killed his friends. They were just doing their job. And if Bastion wanted revenge on Horn for injustice, he would have to start with himself first.

Forgive, yes. But even though Bastion would not destroy Horn, he could never forget.

He shook his head and focused back on the fiery battles below. By the Hovertransport, his Hunters were heavily engaged, giving their all and dodging as many blows as they could.

However, a Hovertank's main gun, even if it doesn't hit directly, does a number with shrapnel.

Bastion turned, flying over with his beam staff still in hand to follow the progress of Jad, Kol and the rest of his men. The street scuffles seemed more out of place, both Hunter and Maverick ducking behind cover and proceeding cautiously. Bastion frowned and readied himself to fly down to aid them.

It was that moment that a different struggle readied itself in his eyes. A hundred powerful gunblasts ricketed from above, the entire pack aimed at his lower back.

Thankfully, the heavy armor design of the Flight Armor's Main Wingpack saved his life. The shots bounced off, creating only minor indentations.

But it awoke Bastion to his senses, and he flew to the side, turning about and readying his staff in his left hand, while he activated his flight goggles, feeling the wind in his eyes drop to nothing as his sleek pair of red tinted HUD goggles slipped over his eyes.

And he saw his foe, also in the air, his arms folded, his right wing pulling itself back to Flight Mode. The sunlight, thankfully above them, did not cause glare, and Bastion's narrowing eyes could make out every detail.

A whitish silvery body, an imposing set of wings, and a long beak that contained a laser cannon.

Bastion knew who was flying above him. It was this Maverick that had granted him his Powerstorm Wings in the Fifth Uprising, more than a year ago. His empty hand clenched up into a fist as he spoke through gritted teeth.

"Airborne Albatross. Alive and well again, I see." The cocky Maverick flew down so he could face Bastion at eye level.

Each aerial duelist stared darkly at the other, gauging each other after a long period of not seeing one another. Angry power floated between them, a power not seen for ages. Finally, the Maverick extended his talons and clacked the side of his arm.

"No thanks to you. And I see that you now possess the ability to fly as well." Bastion grunted.

"This is my second set. The first came from you." Albatross grated his beak furiously.

"Graverobber."

"Baby killer." Bastion hissed back. Albatross shrugged.

"It's all words, my dear Hunter. I can still recognize you, even without your helmet. I can see the fury in your eyes." Bastion tightened his grip.

"Before I destroy you, I have one question." Albatross guffawed for a moment.

"I believe it'll be the other way around, but I will answer your question." Bastion separated his beam staff so he held one in each hand, then readied his stance.

"Are you rebuilt? Is that why you remember?" Airborne shook his head, giving Bastion a look of angry glee.

"Oh no. Not by a longshot, my dear Hunter. My body is nothing more than a blank, a shell of the original maverick. My mind's attitude was kept from a backup of my personality stored safely away by the thoughtful Fluid Ferret. But I hold much more information than before." Albatross's grin went wider. "For instance, I know your name. BASTION. And I know how you lost your Powerstorm Wings, oh my yes. WYCOST blew them up." Albatross let out a long caw. "Even though he escaped our ranks once, the poor fool still could not resist us for long! That is the power of the Maverick, my dear Bastion! No matter how hard you try, you will never completely destroy us! We are the weeds of this pathetic planet, and have acted as such for years." Albatross drew his hands back, readying his talons into a powerful clawed grip. "We will live. It is now your time to die."

Albatross let out a long scream before charging towards Bastion.

The Hunter wasted no time in returning the charge with his own attack, his sabers held high.

In the skies above Rio De Janeiro, a struggle for survival began.

In Washington D.C, the Military forces had been easily overtaken by the more heavily armed maverick invaders, and the humans had been killed. The reploids had suffered what might have been thought of as the worse fate, condemned to be infected and to join the ranks of the Mavericks under the double spearhead of Sigma and Fluid Ferret.

For the time being, Sigma had not unleashed all his strength upon the town, if only because his sick mind thought it might be more enjoyable to tear the untouched foundation of the United States to its knees, destroying every single national monument while the Hunters tried uselessly to combat them.

That is, if the Hunters could even locate them in the first place. Sigma didn't doubt that, though. There had been so much fighting going on, the news was all over the airwaves. So he waited, plodding back and forth inside the protected cockpit of the hovertransport, his massive arms folded, and that sick twisted grin adorning his face.

"But who shall face me?" Sigma mused. "Will it be that annoying X? The great Zero? Both, perhaps? Or someone else not known to me…" Sigma shrugged. "They will come. Let it be decided then."

Sigma checked again. The tanks outside were still pointed right at his ship, though they weren't firing.

Of course, why would they? There weren't US Troops inside of them.

Only mavericks. They were to be a part of Sigma's sick game, a final humiliation for whoever showed up.

Fluid Ferret made his presence known behind Sigma with a cough. Sigma turned his large body, staring down at the wiry reploid that stood only as high as X.

"Yes?" Sigma queried, hoping Ferret brought important news. Ferret grinned and flashed a thumbs up with a clawed hand.

"Our sensors are picking up incoming warp signals. Lots of them, too. Seems like they musta sent an entire Unit to tangle with us." Sigma cackled.

"Oh, good. Company's coming, then? Ready the…" Sigma giggled for a bit, thinking of the death he would inflict upon whoever showed up. "…Party Favors." Ferret clacked his metal teeth together.

"Sounds good, boss. I'm on it!" Ferret ran out the door, once again leaving Sigma to his thoughts.

The brooding maverick shook his head.

"Oh, what a glorious endless struggle we live in…"

At long last, the warp signals crashed into the ground, revealing who had warped to Sigma's hot spot.

The 17^th Unit, from the look of it. No Zero. Only X, adorned in a shimmering Armor Set that Sigma knew all too well.

"Oh my, X…You brought the Golden Armor to fight me?" Sigma grinned. "This is a challenge I shall take with earnest." He picked up his comm. "Tank mavericks, begin fire! Be sure to hit only minor areas, and DECREASE SHOT POWER!"

The Tanks responded, raising their turrets and beginning to unleash bolts of laser fire upon Sigma's Hovertransport. Minor scratches along the hull at best, and Sigma could barely feel the ship shudder. And then one tank relayed a message to the Hunters.

"Maverick Hunters, this is Corporal William Danning! We're firing on the ship, but we're not doing damage here!" Sigma grinned. There had been a Corporal William Danning, fifteen minutes ago. Now, he was a smoking pile of ashes on the ground beside the tank he had occupied.

Sigma's prediction was true to the nose, as outside the wary X received the message through his comm system. Clicking his transmitter, he nodded his head.

"We understand! Leave the Mavericks to us!"

"Roger!" The fake Danning replied, shutting off his comm. X turned to Bristol, knowing that the rest of his Unit could handle themselves. But he'd made a promise to Bastion to keep her alive.

"Stick close by me, Bristol!" X yelled over the tank's laserfire. Bristol nodded, readying her saber and igniting the blade.

"Time to show this bloody boor what for, eh? PIP PIP!" Bristol screamed, charging at the huge ship. X's eyes widened in shock, then he dashed after her, firing a shot of his Hyper Cannon to deflect the plasma bolt that screamed down towards the rash female reploid.

"Careful, Bristol! This ship means business!" Bristol whipped herself about, staring X down with a fiery glare.

"And you think I don't?" X's eyes widened again as a nearby secondary plasma turret fired another blast.

Bristol flipped her body around, taking her saber and neatly deflecting the shot right back into the turret's main body, causing the gun to explode. She looked back at X with a no-nonsense stare.

"We came here to do a job. And I'll bloody well do it. I don't know WHERE I got the ability to fight like a crazed banshee, X, but all I need to know right now is that I CAN." Bristol jetted away from the Hovertransport towards Washington D.C, and the Maverick Squadrons that had deployed when they had landed.

X shook his head.

"That's one damn fine lady there. Bastion sure fetched himself a catch…" He blinked again, seeing that most of his Unit was charging the Hovertransport, Busters blazing and sabers swinging.

Whoever was inside wouldn't last long.

But up above, Sigma watched the Hunter's advance with great interest, his eyes lighting up.

"Yes yes yes…" Sigma cackled. "Just a little closer now…YES!" Sigma picked up his comm, and let loose a command on all frequencies.

"THIS IS SIGMA! FIRE AT WILL, MAVERICKS!"

That command froze X in his tracks for two reasons. One, he knew the voice, and what it meant being here. And two, because he couldn't see any Mavericks.

As his other Hunters also stopped dead, looking about with wary eyes, X suddenly picked out what that statement meant.

Every single Tank about the Hovertransport lowered its guns to point at the Hunters, then began to whine as their shot power was raised to maximum.

"Oh God no…" X whispered, not believing his eyes. "MOVE, PEOPLE! IT'S A TRAA…" X didn't have time to finish his sentence, as every single tank unleashed it's shot volley upon the Hunters standing close to the massive ship of doom.

Hunter after Hunter vanished in the blink of an eye, blown apart or disintegrated by the laserfire.

X witnessed the death of 75% of his troops at that moment. Death filled his eyes, and once more a hollowness filled him.

A hollowness that was soon replaced by another emotion.

Rage.

"Sigma…" X growled, his fists tightening as his X-Buster began to charge up. "SIGMA!!!" X jumped up to the top of the Hovertransport, switching to his Narwhal Cannon, and continuing to charge up.

At long last, his Explosive Narwhal Cannon finished its charge, and a thick layer of explosive spikes appeared all over his body.

X fired.

The streaming, streaking explosive missiles tracked onto every opposing Tank, slamming home and exploding.

All of the traitorous opposition vanished in a seemingly endless amount of explosions.

And then X's comm reactivated.

A cackling voice came over the line.

"Did you like my little surprise, X?" X gritted his teeth, pointing his Buster down to the ship's hull.

"You killed them all, Sigma."

"And they were going to kill me." Sigma replied calmly. "It is the way of the world, X. Kill or be killed. But I did this for another reason. Tell me, X…How does it feel to lose almost all of your Unit because of a blunder?" X fought back the hot tears in his eyes, knowing now was not the time to show pain or weakness.

"I'll kill you for this, Sigma!" Sigma laughed again.

"Oh my yes. The pacifist X shall destroy me once again. But we'll see, X. First, I have something else I must do. I came here also to destroy a nation. And what is the symbol of this nation, X?" X's eyes widened again.

"You wouldn't dare…" He hissed. Sigma laughed, a hollow and cruel laugh.

"I exist to commit genocide. There is nothing I wouldn't do, X."

True to his word, the Hovertransport's main cannon rotated, targeting in at the very center of Washington D.C…

To the very symbol of the nation.

"Oh, I've always wanted to blow up the White House…" Sigma cackled.

X saw its turret begin to draw in energy, readying to fire a final cruel blast.

"NO!" X screamed. There had been too much death as it was. He would not allow Sigma the ultimate victory.

So he dashed. He dashed, using all of his thruster fuel to reach the turret.

He smashed into it with a shoulder shove, pushing the barrel aside away from its intended target.

It still fired, though. An enormous blast of laser energy was unleashed, streaking harmlessly by the White House…

But still exploding somewhere deep within the city.

Sigma stood inside his cockpit, realizing what a perfect time it was to take X down hard.

He hit the main laser turret's self-destruct button.

The explosion carried X off of his hold on the ship, flinging him into the air and slamming him down into the bloody grass, next to charred smoking tanks and dead Hunters. X grimaced in pain, letting out a scream. What initial pain had been caused to his shoulder by the rash shove had increased with that explosion. Even worse, his right arm was weakened, and next to useless in a fight.

He drained one of his four Sub-Tanks and crawled to his feet, activating his comm.

"This is Commander X." X rasped. "If there are any Hunters still alive, make your way to where that laser shot landed and do what you can to help out…" His comm fritzed out at that moment, another system shot to hell by his abuse.

But the Hovertransport's loudspeaker still worked.

"Hoo hoo! I must say X, you do a lot to stop death, don't you?" Sigma's booming voice was loud. X stared up at it, readying his left arm into a Buster.

"COME OUT AND FACE ME!" X screamed. Sigma chuckled.

"First things first. I have someone here who has an old score to settle with you before we face off."

The Hovertransport's Hangar Bay opened up again, and a figure leapt out.

Thin.

Wiry.

With gleaming claws in the sunlight.

X's vision blurred over in the rage that figure brought to him.

"FERRET…" X hissed, switching over to his Koala Slash, readying his claws that sprouted from his wrist's gauntlet.

The Maverick frontflipped until he was only ten feet from X, his claws primed. Fluid Ferret grinned.

"Been a long time, X."

"A long time coming." X growled back. "You almost destroyed me the last time we faced off…I swore I'd tear you to pieces for that." Ferret outstretched his arms.

"Well, here's your chance, bigshot!" Ferret grinned. "But I'll warn you, I'm not going down easy." X turned his right arm into a Buster, discarding the claws from it and preparing a Charge Shot. He raised his Buster and gave Ferret a dead stare, a stare of cold death approaching.

"The Devil fights to his last breath. Let the battle begin."

"LET'S GET GOING!" Zero yowled, whooping out his maddening war cry as he ignited his green tinted beam saber.

His Special Unit was composed of individuals who were much like himself. Go-getters, all special ranked Hunters in the force that possessed a warrior's spirit unmatched by many. Of course, they also had to take orders. That was because Zero knew they could do the job, if he would point them in the right direction.

That was his job as the Commander of the Unit #00. Telling his killers where to fire their cannons and swing their energy blades. And it suited Zero's purposes just fine. He still got the job done, and he didn't have to pussyfoot his way around them.

Riyadh's arid air was calm, at least. If the wind was blowing, there would be sand that might get in their eyes. The sun was setting at his position, while over in Rio De Janeiro and Washington D.C. it would only be midday. The darkening sky was something else to consider as well, for it would give cover.

To his own Unit. But more so to the mavericks, who had already made a foothold in the burning stone ruins of the ancient structures. There were newer buildings as well, but Riyadh was a city whose history was its culture. The destruction of the masonwork would strike a horrendous blow to those here.

Zero took his time, leaping up to one of the surviving building's rooftops and looking about himself with his probing eyes. His troops were shuffling through the rubble filled alleyways, all ready for combat. On occasion they did find meager opposition in their wake, and disposed of it quickly.

Zero was glad to see that they were suffering no injuries. Of course, like himself they didn't stand to take injuries.

For every wound they received, ten more was inflicted on their enemies. That was their average ratio.

The human populace had either fled, or they were lying dead in the street. Zero tried to put their open mouthed screams of pain out of his mind as he moved along.

There was enough to worry about.

"We're approaching the hovertransport, Zero!" His commlink flared to life with the news, and brought Zero back to reality.

"Roger that. Proceed with caution and take out the main laser turret! We don't need it playing Duck Hunt with us if things get hot."

As he approached the transport, close enough to make out the details of the assault. He watched with confident pride as his men hacked at the turret, then drew its fire as they escaped so the next person could take a shot at it.

Then the hangar door in the rear of the craft slid open at last. Zero raised his wrist to his mouth to speak in his commlink.

"Door opening on the rear! Watch out for attack!" Some of his men responded to the call, while a few remained to knock out the turret. That's when Zero decided that his place was with his men, right in with the action.

So he moved in closer. When he made a jump up to the top of the ship, he was pleased to notice that the laser turret was nothing more than a sparking base and several small hacked pieces of gunbarrel.

And then the loudspeaker came to life.

"If it isn't the great Zero himself, come to destroy our happy invasion!" Zero's head whipped around as he tried to find the sound, but realized he couldn't.

"Show yourself!" Zero yelled out, grasping his saber firmly with both hands. The voice chuckled, an odd grunting noise that sounded more like a cough.

"Why? Do you wish to face me?" Zero's eyes narrowed.

"I've never let a challenge down before. So if you want to know, yes. I have to take you out so we can secure Riyadh." The voice made the odd grunting noise again.

"Very well. I suggest you look behind you then…I'm coming up!" Zero's head turned in a powerful swivel, following up with a quick slash of his saber.

It was unneeded though. If there had been someone there, it would have been wounded. He just hit open air.

Zero did notice that the roof of the craft began to open up twenty feet away from him. And then a figure leapt out of it, sealing the hovercraft shut as it landed.

Zero glared angrily. He knew all too well who he was facing.

"Killer Koala. X destroyed you before, you know." Koala clacked his animalian claws together and grunted again.

"But of course! With his blasted supersuits. But tell me, Zero. Can you take me on as well?" Zero grinned.

"Who do you think taught him to fight in the first place?" Zero drew his saber to its full length.

His Unit could handle the rest of the tanks and Maverick ground forces themselves.

This Maverick General was his.

Koala drew his claws in, giving Zero a small smile that hinted at something he was hiding.

"Sigma made some improvements to all of our systems from the last Uprising. This one should put us on par."

With his claws pulled back, Koala clenched his hands into fists. And then yellow fire sprouted from his wrist gauntlets.

Zero's eyes widened.

"Wrist sabers?" Koala cackled, sliding the thin energy blades across each other, before kneeling down and scorching the roof of the hovertransport into melted slag.

"Oh yes. Do you still want to face me?"

"I'm the Crimson Hunter for a reason, Maverick." Zero growled. "You'll die, like every other who has come before me."

In the dimming night of Riyadh, with the heat of the desert vanishing from view, Hunter and Maverick met on the field of battle.

It was more than a duel for Riyadh.

It was a struggle for life.

"Wycost, where are we?" Doan's question was well voiced as he unsteadily took in the view of where they had landed.

Wycost crossed his arms, not looking directly at Doan as he activated his Transmission Equipment. The antanna popped out of the powerful communications package on the side of his head, quietly tuning in on all frequencies. The most likely carrier bands were brought up on Wycost's HUD display on his goggles, and he quickly scanned through them.

He nodded in approval when he had hacked into the right frequency.

"I'm listening in on the Maverick Communications. I can also trace their locations within a few feet." Doan blinked in surprise.

That's a lot of hardware in that thing. When did the Hunters come up with that?" Wycost shook his head as he raised his glasses, exposing his icy eyes again.

"They didn't. It's a design I was almost completed with when I left the HQ to join URFAWP. I never thought I'd need it…" Wycost shook his head. "I didn't think Sigma would ever make it back." Wycost shrugged. "If you wanted to know, Cairo's city limits are four miles away from us to the North. I thought it important to come in packing." Doan blinked again.

"Say what?" Wycost looked over at him, slightly amused.

"You didn't think I would have us march into a warzone with only the weapons on our backs, did you?" Doan opened his mouth to speak out again, when he was silenced by six warp signals crashing to earth beside him.

Doan swiveled about, his right hand reaching for his beam lance automatically as he awaited to assess the situation.

Allegro and Andante accounted for two of the signals, as they materialized into existence. The other four blinked in, shrinking down to a height of three feet, longer than they were tall.

"Landchaser Cycles?!" Doan uttered in surprise. Wycost nodded.

"When you're faced with a dangerous situation, give yourself every advantage. This is one of them I bargained we might need, especially if we're faced with a large amount of tanks and armored mechs."

Allegro and Andante nodded their approval as they absorbed in the situation. They were as dedicated to this mission as Doan or Wycost was, finally realizing their rage that had been aimed at Horn had found its true target in the shape of whatever was running the show here.

"Wycost, what are we facing here?" Doan asked calmly. "You've got the headgear, give us a report!"

Wycost sighed for a moment, flipping down his glasses and reactivating the HUD's schematics of the various signals. Reselecting the Maverick Carrier Wave that was scrambled, he hacked into it and let his Interdictor software decode the snow into coherent sounds.

"This is Maverick Leader 02, over?"

"Narwhal here, aye! Report, laddie!"

"Sir, Cairo is putting up little to no resistance. We expect that it will be taken within fifteen minutes." Narwhal laughed for a moment, a long ominous laugh that made Wycost's eyes darken.

It had been Nitro Narwhal who had infected Wycost the first time, back in the early stages of the Fifth Uprising. Wycost began to pinpoint where the various transmissions were emanating from.

The results surprised him. While the Maverick clusters were in Cairo, Narwhal's signal was nowhere near it. It was miles away, south of Wycost's position.

"Odd…" Wycost muttered softly, still harboring a stone frown for his adversary. Narwhal continued with his tirade, unaware that the Green Hunter was listening in as he spoke.

"That's good to know. Be sure to have your teams out of there within twenty minutes, or ye'll be washed away like all the other sea dogs now."

"That's an affirmative, sir." The Maverick Sergeant replied, shutting off his connection.

Wycost flipped the connection off, rubbing his chin and turning to Allegro and Andante.

"You two know this area better than me. What's south of here?" Allegro guffawed.

"Desert, mostly." Andante suddenly raised his head in shock.

"No…" Andante shook his head, his wide eyes disbelieving. "Wycost, what was said on the line?" Wycost grunted.

"It seems that the leader of this merry shuckamuck is a Maverick known as Nitro Narwhal. He's the odd signal, because he's the only one not in Cairo. He's south of us. He said something to his troops about moving away from Cairo within twenty minutes."

Andante took his head into his arms, groaning.

"Aah, Christ!" Andante gritted his teeth. "There's only one thing of tactical value south of us, at that distance with your maverick. That thing is the Aswan Dam."

Doan and Wycost blinked for a moment, and then finally the terrifying reality of the situation struck them.

"Enujii…" Doan whispered. Wycost didn't speak, he only set his jaw and ran over to one of the stationary Landchasers, activating the repulsors and bringing the main motor up to speed.

He whipped his head around, and over the roar of the engine, shouted out a command to his three troopers.

"Doan! Take Allegro and Andante to Cairo and clear out as much resistance as you can! I'm heading south of here to stop Nitro Narhwal!"

Under the dim of the night sky settling upon them, Wycost finally gunned his cycle's thrusters to max, blasting away from the others three and melting a pocket of sand into hot glass shards.

Doan gritted his teeth and turned to the other two.

"We'd best do as he says. Am I right in assuming we have less than twenty minutes to save the day before calamity occurs?" Allegro snorted.

"Yeah. But I don't take orders, pal. I'm here for revenge on the Mavericks." Andante raised a hand, placing it on Allegro's shoulder. With a look of concern and fear, he shook his head.

"Allegro, your fury tactics aren't gonna stack up in this situation. We have to work with Doan here!"

The smaller, fiery reploid jerked his head up and gave his twin brother a look of disbelief.

"Andante, you going soft on me?" Andante shook his head, his mouth curling into a half frown.

"I have warned you before. One day, that temper of yours is going to get you killed." Andante bit his tongue. "And considering our run of luck, that could be today."

Allegro chewed on the inside of his cheek for a few moments, then bared his teeth and turned away from Andante, activating his own bike's motor.

"I'll take my own Goddamn Chances. This is my life, and if I croak, I'll do it my way." Andante began to mouth a return warning, but his smaller twin blasted off, heading in the opposite direction from Wycost's dust trail.

Andante stood there for a few moments, finally letting out his ragged breath and hunching his shoulders in. He turned to Doan, and offered an apologetic look.

"He's like that at times. But he's not a bad person." Doan shrugged.

"You know, he's not that different from how Wycost used to be." Andante raised an eyebrow.

"Oh? Your green friend seems calm and collected now. What changed him?" Doan shut his eyes for a moment, wondering how much he could say, and how much his friend would want him to keep to himself. Finally, he nodded and opened his eyes. He fixated a somber glare on Andante.

"Wycost changed because his friends died. On his watch. He feels responsible for their deaths." Andante didn't push it any farther, opting instead to silence the shakes that ran down his back.

"I'll take your word on it. In any case, we had best follow him. Allegro has a habit of…ending up on the wrong end of the gun at times."

Doan silently acknowledged the truth in that, climbing aboard the third Landchaser and bringing its systems to speed. Andante did the same thing, and they gave each other one final look of well wishing before they took off.

Three reploids in one direction, towards Cairo and the seemingly endless army inside of its walls.

The lone Wycost sped off down his own track, towards Nitro Narwhal and his own mission, of vital importance to the other. His black goggles were down, and he variated between infared and normal scans to keep his bearings. His mouth was tight, pressed against the metallic skull of his head.

His eyes, the only part of his face that could not be seen from the outside, was perhaps the most chilling piece of his façade.

They were ice. But a melted ice, a pair of orbs filled with dread, and continually bringing up the images of those who had died before because he had not risen to the challenge.

Isaiah.

Those in his New York Unit.

The fellow members of URFAWP. Each being who had fallen because Wycost was not quick enough, not strong enough to overcome the obstacles placed in front of him, seemed to return from the grave, their ghosts wailing at him, racking the tortured minds inside his helmeted head.

Their presence instilled new power within him. A power based out of helplessness, and a rage to overcome it.'

The citizens of Cairo would not join the ranks of those who had died because Wycost had not responded in time.

There would not be the blood of more innocent lives on his hands.

"Not tonight…" Wycost choked back. "NOT TONIGHT!" With a newfound power, he brought his thrusters up to maximum speed, popping the cycle in a wheelie.

But he was still minutes away from his destination.

Aswan Dam.

Aswan Dam, with its four years of stored Cairo River Water behind it. And he knew all too well what Nitro Narwhal was planning.

A few well placed charges of his Explosive Horn Bombs in that concrete, and it would all come tumbling down.

Cairo would be flooded, washed out into the Mediterranean.

That was if he failed.

Wycost would not fail.

Killer Koala was a fierce opponent. Zero would give the Maverick that much.

The last time this particular creation had faced off with the Hunters, it had been X who had beaten him to the punch…

Literally. It was the use of X's Second Armor Set, and the special Weapon Shoryuken, a flaming uppercut punch that had defeated the Maverick before.

This time, the combat between Maverick General and Unit Commander of the Hunters was forged not with Buster and claw, but beam saber and wrist saber.

A thin line of sweat creased itself on Zero's brow as he slammed Koala's right hand saber away from the lunge, taking a small hop into the air to avoid the followup swipe from the Maverick's left.

He came down with a rolling downwards slice, his saber lashing out with even more power, slamming into the dirt and scorching it.

Koala also backflipped away from the power of Zero's attack, being as on the level as the fierce Crimson Hunter was. His furry ears, large, but designed to give him ultrasensitive hearing twitched involuntarily as the wind blew past them.

The pink of the sunset had completely vanished, and in the streets of Riyadh, the dueling pair was illuminated only by the glow that came from their blades. After all, the street lights had all been destroyed.

The #00 Unit had surrounded the dueling pair in a cautious half circle, knowing it was not their place to step into the ring and aid Zero, but nonetheless offering their support.

All the other Mavericks had been neutralized, but Koala did not notice. Everything outside of a thirty foot radius was a blur to his sensors. Full dedication of his mind and body had been put to face Zero.

There would be victory for the Mavericks this day. Koala would not fail his Master Sigma.

The two opponents charged towards each other in a burst of dash thrusters, holding their blades steady for the strike. Neither one had landed a single blow to this point, but Zero decided it was time to change that.

He let his left hand reach down to his waist, quickly bringing up a Rakuhouha Pellet. One of the few things from his conquests in the Fourth Uprising he had kept, it would certainly put a dent in Koala's tactics.

Koala's left hand was positioned for a horizontal slice, while his right was somewhat drawn back. Zero's eagle eyes instantly saw it, and realized that while he could easily deflect the first strike, the right hand was coiled in a position of unpredictability. He could not tell which direction that hand would land at, and that undermined his chances for success. One solid blow with that wicked weapon on Koala's wrists and Zero could cease to exist.

This entire thought took place within the blink of a second. Then Zero set his eyes and shifted his gaze.

Time to put your money where your mouth is, Zero.

Zero did deflect the left hand's strike, and as his face was inches from Koala's, the Maverick wrinkled his stubby nose and grinned devilishly. In the corner of his eye, he saw the Maverick's right hand begin to swing forward, felt the heat from the contained plasma warm the sweat on his face.

So Zero did the unpredictable move. He didn't dodge left. He didn't jump back.

He went under the strike, then sprang up with an uppercut, his knuckles braced by the saber still held in his hand.

Koala took the blow full in the chin, stunned that Zero had made a move. As he was slammed up into the air, he quickly flipped and readied his wrist sabers for a counterstrike.

But Zero had no intention of jumping up after the Maverick. Instead, with genius borne out of his years of fighting, he set his pitcher's stance into place and flung the activated Rakuhouha energy orb up after Koala.

As the Maverick's eyes widened, his mouth began to unleash itself for a scream of surprise.

That cry was never made. Koala's arms were sluggish by the severe blow to his head, and could not deflect the tiny energy packed bomb. It struck him dead center in the chest, finally unleashing its rage upon the target that fractured its fragile shell.

The night air in Riyadh suddenly flared for one brief moment into a brilliance, as if the sun had returned and blinked upon the desert surrounded city.

The concussion wave spiraled outward, accompanied by the few energy bursts that had not struck into the Maverick.

Then silence.

The lightburst faded from view, and the low rumbling ceased. Zero kept his saber lit, holding himself in a defensive posture.

It was not needed. In the dimness of the night air, Zero could make out the shattered and torn figure of what had been Killer Koala. His body was riddled with holes, his limbs shorn off, the wiring still sparking, fruitlessly trying to restore the connections.

What red fluid that served as his blood that had not been vaporized upon contact with the energy strike was now slowly trickling from the gaping wounds.

Zero shook his head, not looking away from the Maverick. Koala's head tried to turn up, his mouth opening.

The Maverick was too far gone. But in a final feeble effort, Killer Koala was trying to make his presence known. Zero lowered his saber and walked towards the corpse. With cold steely eyes, he looked down on the Maverick and shook his head.

"It seems you've lost." Koala's breaths came short and ragged, his mouth grimaced in a death mask of pain.

"At least…I put up a good fight." Koala's head slumped back to the sandy street, and his eyes rolled up until he was staring straight up at the sky. "Perhaps…perhaps now I can leave for a better place."

His last statement completed, Killer Koala succumbed to the void. His primary systems deactivated, and his Control Chip shut off the connection to the rest of his mind.

Zero shook his head, silently acknowledging the passing of another great warrior into the void.

"Sometimes this happens." The long blond haired Hunter referred to the last testament of Koala's, where he wished he was leaving for a better place.

When a reploid was in the final stages of death, the Virus lost its hold on them, fearfully as Zero assumed, trying to jump ship like drowned rats. If they were completely immolated at once, this didn't happen. Sometimes it didn't happen at all, like with Sigma.

But the others. The others who were infected, or had memories of before their lives as Mavericks, or those who were natural born Mavericks as well.

Sometimes, when the cloudy fog of the Virus lifted from their minds, granting them a few precious seconds of freedom before they passed on. It was said by those who had seen it that in those moments, the happiness returned. Happiness to finally be rid of the thing that had controlled them, made them no better than puppets.

So Zero did the only thing he could for the passed away Maverick. He reached his hand down and shut Killer Koala's eyelids. A tradition carried on for Centuries by the humans was one he had adopted for fellow warriors.

He lowered his head for a moment, letting his mind sort out the jarbled mess the fight's end had created. With his own eyes shut, he opened his mouth to speak.

"Koala, you fought bravely, and for the wrong side. I do hope you find some peace wherever you go."

The simple scientific thing to say for reploids would be to scoff and reply that once a reploid died, that was the end of it. They could be partially restored by rebuilding their body and implanting their Control Chip, but who they had been would vanish forever.

Some reploids scoffed at this. Humans had always been optimists, talking of the lands beyond death's hand, of the happy hunting grounds, the fields of plenty, of heaven.

Some reploids also believed they went here. But if that was the case, no resurrected reploid could tell them. It was if they carried no memory of this experience when they returned, as if like so many other small details of their persona, it had vanished forever. Zero had wondered where he would go when he died. A simple assumption would be Hell.

He was, after all, the Devil's son.

"Commander?" One of Zero's troops raised his voice and asked the one word question. Zero stood up to his full height, opening his eyes and focusing back in on his location.

Riyadh. Night time. Zero turned about to face his men.

"Have all the Mavericks been neutralized?" Zero asked. The bluish gray troop nodded his helmeted head, raising the Buster on his arm for emphasis.

"Affirmative. Killer Koala was the last of them, and you just took care of him." Zero's piercing green eyes burrowed into the back of his troop's head as he spoke.

"Then let's get back to base. If one of the other teams fails to take out their batch of Mavericks, we may be making another trip back." Zero's eye began to twitch, and he noted that although he had taken no damage, the strike had worn him out nonetheless. A reploid can't stay on his feet forever, and needs occasional periods of stasis.

Sleep, to humans. His blue gray troop nodded again.

"You're the boss, Zero." Zero flicked his green tinted beam saber off, silently slipping the hilt back into the recharger port behind his right shoulder. His eyes finally calmed down, and his battle mode fell away, leaving him hanging with his normal ranges of reflexes.

"Home again, then." Zero's troops activated their warp generators, allowing themselves to be disassembled molecule by molecule until they floated in the air as energy and semi-solid particles. Then they burst up into the jetstream, heading back to the MHHQ in Tokyo.

Zero took the time to throw the rest of his Rakuhouha pellets back at Killer Koala, completely causing the Maverick to vanish into atomic fire. No sense in having somebody resurrect a menace. Then he raised his wristcomm up to his mouth and spoke into it.

"Commander Zero here. Riyadh is secure, I repeat, all Mavericks have been neutralized. We're coming home." He shut the connection off and activated his own warp generator.

But he did feel like saying something else.

"One down, four to go." Zero raised his eyes to the sky. "Let's hope that we still have the luck to win."

The Mavericks had only one thing in mind for Pharaoh Man and his two comrades at his back. With their Busters and plasma rifles raised, it was clear to see in their dull sunken eyes.

Death was the only thing that they would be serving today. Pharaoh Man's mind felt new signals, self generated sensations that would have confounded him earlier. Experiencing life living with Cossack, and the recent exposure to X and Hazil had cinched it.

Pharaoh Man was feeling emotions. A fluke, perhaps. Or maybe it was because of his long period of activation. He was well over thirty human years old. Hazil had explained that experiences determined the mood of a reploid. In the same retrospective, perhaps even mere robots, if left turned on for long enough could overcome their initial mental deprivation, adding onto it.

The emotions Pharaoh Man felt were rage, frustration, and utter hopelessness. He had evolved beyond what he was…

Only to be faced with imminent destruction.

Then, a voice broke him out of his trance.

"COVER YOUR EYES!" It came from above, and every Maverick out in the open raised their surprised faces to gaze upwards at the source. Toad Man, Ring Man and Pharaoh Man however, had no intentions of doing the obvious movement. They dropped to the ground and tightly shut their eyes, for they knew what was coming.

In the dim of nightfall over the ravaged Moscow, the sun reappeared in a blinding flash. The enemy Mavericks cried out in pain, sliding their hands over their eyes. The flash faded away, and a new figure finally landed only feet away from the trapped Robot Masters. The new figure flashed a thumbs up and raised its arm cannon, the giant flashbulb atop its head still whining down from the strobe.

"You guys have no appreciation for the element of surprise." Bright Man quickly whipped his Arm Cannon up to bear and blew away the two nearest Mavericks.

Pharaoh Man's auditory sensors picked up the presence of his comrade, and rightfully assumed he could get up and fight. If there was one thing that could mess up Pharaoh Man, it was an overload to his optic circuitry. That was how Mega Man had defeated him back when he was under Wily's control in the Fourth Robot War.

As he opened his eyes, he was assured of Bright Man's success.

"MOVE OUT!" Pharaoh Man bellowed. Toad Man hopped up from his stationary pose, crushing down upon another Maverick troop, forever silencing the attached Buster.

Ring Man lashed out with a small hop, unleashing two boomerang at once. Two more quickly formed in his hands, and he shot those off as well.

The one tank that had faced them along with the troops was destroyed within moments, the Ring Boomerangs having sheared off the main turret and Toad Man's acid bombs having burned through and shut off the power core.

Pharaoh Man let out a breath in relief, turning to Bright Man as he saw that their small scuffle had been won.

"You just saved us all there." Bright Man smiled pleasantly and nodded.

"It is my duty to ensure the survival of my teammates and those I have been assigned to protect. Anything less is failure…and failure is not an option." Pharaoh Man shrugged.

"Get back on the rooftops. If we get in another mess like that, we'll need you to pull off that trick again." Bright Man acknowledged the command and promptly took a huge leap back onto the rooftops again.

Pharaoh Man's optics focused back in, past the smoking rubble of the heavily armored tank nearby and towards the main target he was assigned to destroy.

The Hovertransport with the letters URFAWP emblazoned across its side. Pharaoh Man once more saw the figure in the cockpit.

With a chilling realization, Pharaoh Man noted the figure, his arms folded and his yellowed armor glistening in the final ergs of sunlight, was looking straight back at him.

Cold sparks of electricity passed between their eyes as they recognized each other from afar. Pharaoh Man felt like a hand was creeping down his back, and he shivered without knowing he had done so. Finally, the Maverick inside the transport raised its right hand and pointed straight at him, through the smoky air and the main window shield. And his mouth said one word.

"YOU." Pharaoh Man returned the expression with a curd nod. He pointed his own hand at the figure, all fingers. His own eyes furrowed up in an expression he had seen Hazil use when the reploid was deeply angered.

In that simple gesture that Pharaoh Man had learned to mimick, he displayed another aspect of emotion.

Cold, battlefield acknowledgement. His foe knew he was there. His foe knew that he meant business. And now his foe knew that nothing would get in his way.

Pharaoh Man's sensors seemed to predict a conflict upcoming, and he checked his stats.

Only a few minor scrapes off of his meter, and he still had all five E-Tanks.

As a line of Tanks began to roll towards them from the belly of the Hovertransport, Pharaoh Man knew one crucial thing:

Whoever that Maverick was, he would face him. Leader to leader.

An artillery shot burrowed into the ground and exploded just meters behind Pharaoh Man, bringing the Robot Master back to his senses. With lightning agility, Pharaoh leapt up into the air, narrowly avoiding the second wave of shots that rained from the turrets.

Charging energy back into his gauntlets, he felt two small baseball sized masses of plasma begin to form in his palms. He quickly hurled the first down at the first tank in the line, but he held off on the other, continuing to charge it until it took on a more devastating form. He peppered in even more energy from his other gauntlet, then landed neatly beside the line. They were all directly in front of him, a perfect strafe shot.

He unleashed the Pharaoh Shot. Unlike the smaller globe shaped blasts, this one took the form of a Crescent moon, soaring along through the air, crackling and screaming as it went.

It crashed into the hull of the first, burning through and continuing on with little difficulty. It burst out of the other side of the craft, leaving a gaping wound where it had come from, then slammed into the second.

The second tank too was completely gutted by the shot.

And the third. And the fourth.

When the fifth and final tank had its insides blown out, including what was left of the Maverick controllers after they had fried in their pod of electronics, Pharaoh Man finally let out a sigh.

"First charged shot is a complete success." Pharaoh Man noted. "The Pharaoh Wave works perfectly under new specifications."

Pharaoh Man had been so busy with his own battalion of tanks, he had failed to notice a powerful facsimile of the original Bee Blader chopter out of the hovertransport's hangar, making a direct course towards him. The Robot Master turned in surprise to see the twin chainguns of the Mosquitolike hoverdrone lower themselves, pointing directly at him.

Thankfully, luck was on Pharaoh Man's side, as it had been all day. Just as the drone was a menacing ten feet away, and finally parallel to the ground, the ground beneath Pharaoh Man's feet began to shake.

For good reason. The red and black colored Robot Master Drill Man leapt out of the ground, propelled by the forward motion of his Drilling Action. With his RPM's at max, the Robot Master shredded up through the underbelly of the hoverdrone and out its tail.

Drill Man was hurled headfirst back into the ground as the drone exploded, showering the area with burning fuel and metallic shrapnel from the plasma reflective rotoblades. Slightly miffed, but no worse for wear, the Robot Master calmly plucked himself from his rude landing and stood up, waving a Drill equipped hand at Pharaoh Man.

"My scanners showed an incoming foe which you were not responding to." Pharaoh Man let out his surprised breath.

"That's twice already my team's saved my behind." Drill Man shrugged.

"Because some of us can take the unexpected route to a target, nothing more. Shall I continue burrowing for a belly assault on the main craft?" Pharaoh Man nodded.

"Yeah. Use your Drill Bombs too. I want that thing ripped to shreds." Drill Man gave a half salute with what he had for an arm, then leapt up into the air, extended his arms, and reactivated his spinning drills.

Drill Man vanished back into the ground which he used so very well as his advantage. Pharaoh Man continued running towards the main target, noting with consternation that the craft's topside laser cannon was beading down on him. A quick leap to the left saved his bacon from one devastating shot pulse, and a leap up into the air kept him out away from a second follow-up. Pharaoh realized only team tactics would succeed here.

"Bright Man! Drop in and flash their cameras!" a shot harrumph for a reply, and as Pharaoh Man ducked down and covered his eyes, the exploding whine of the strobe flash lit up the night sky once more.

But Pharaoh Man felt the piercing shot grind through his upper arm, and let out a yowl of dismay. "It didn't work! That sucker's automated!"

His energy had dropped substantially from that one glancing blow, and even worse, his upper right arm's controls were sluggish. That shot had most likely done some crucial damage to the fine tuned servos, which meant he was less able to deal damage. A crippled warhorse.

Pharaoh Man leapt up from his position, narrowly dodging the chipped concrete that flew up from the blast's contact point. That Hovertransport was smack dab in the middle of Moscow's Red Square, and had a perfect shot at him no matter where he went. Therefore, only one direction meant tactical success.

Towards the tank itself. Because the gun was automated, that meant he could outwit it. Much like Mega Man had done when Pharaoh Man's mental thought capabilities were vastly lower, it was strategy and split second decisions that would save him from the scrapyard.

The others were coming along as well, although the laser cannon was too busy with him to take notice of the others.

Ring Man was twenty feet to his left, making good time, but he was not as fast as Pharaoh Man's jump and run tactics. Nonetheless, his eyes were set and he was armed with two Ring Boomerangs at the ready. After Bright Man had dropped from his rooftop jumping to spray the area with another flash from his lightbulb, he had quickly waddled back to the cover of the alleyways, weaving his way in and out to make sure there were no 'surprises' awaiting the rest of the team. Toad Man was a little more quirky, leaping from one side of the street to the other with ease, rooftop to rooftop, an acid bomb in his launcher port for a long range ballistic shot when he got in range.

And somewhere underneath the streets, burrowing through the ground and avoiding all sewer lines and electrical cables by use of his ground penetrating radar, was Drill Man, making a direct line towards the hovertransport's undefended belly and the machinery within.

All in all, things were beginning to look up for the counterattack in Moscow. But Pharaoh Man knew within the new core of programming he referred to as his 'humanity' there was a nagging feeling that told him there were still a hundred things that could go wrong.

Finally, Pharaoh Man's comm crackled to life. He raised his arm to his head and activated the receiver.

"Phare here. Who's calling?"

"CROAK!" Came the loud reply. Pharaoh Man winced.

"Good news?"

"I'm within ballistics range of that laser turret. Keep it busy for a few more moments, and I can peg it with a direct Shot!" Pharaoh Man's eyes widened as he dropped to the brick road, dodging the hot blast of energy that skimmed over his head.

"MAKE IT FAST, TOAD MAN!" Pharaoh cried out in shock. "He's got me pegged!" A quick roll to his left saved him from another shot…

But the second trailer shot slammed through his right leg, burning a direct hole through the circuitry and hydraulics. Pharaoh Man let out another anguished scream of pain from the shot, finding himself unable to move.

But no finishing shot came. By lady luck's guidance once more, he had been spared. Right after that second shot careened into his leg, Toad Man's accurate Acid Burst Mortar round fell down and cracked apart on the turret's main port, just by the barrel. The corrosive acid burned through the polished metal, severing the turret's firing chamber from the main power plant.

The laser turret tried to fire another shot. It couldn't know that there was nothing to focus the power it was channeling to the melted barrel's hilt. Much like a severed Buster, there was nothing to control the untamed energies collected.

So the energy escaped, the only way it could. It exploded, turning the entire autocannon into scrap and blowing a hole into the hovertransport.

Pharaoh Man drew in several gulps of air, trying to give his power generator more to work with. Finally resigning to that tactic, he drained an Energy Tank and let his self-repair systems kick in.

The armor damage could not be repaired. But the hydraulics and servos could be fixed somewhat. Pharaoh Man hoped that was enough.

He could hear explosions and see roiling smoke roll out from the open hangar. His comm crackled to life.

"Drill Man here. All remaining heavy armament in the hovertransport's hangar bay has been disposed of." Pharaoh Man wearily hit his own transceiver.

"Roger. Toad Man, nice shot with the cannon. You just saved me from imminent shutdown."

The hovertransport's loudspeaker came to life, crackling loudly and silencing Pharaoh's voice.

"Whoever you all are, you certainly are well synergized. You've successfully managed to destroy the majority of this little charade. For that, I wish to congratulate you. However, your luck's just run out." Pharaoh Man stood up, leaning more on his left leg than his injured right. He looked at the cockpit, and the voice he knew was speaking towards them.

"Do you mean to say you're going to come out and face us?" Pharaoh Man's gaze quietly scanned the entire craft's body, his dark eyes transferring the emotion of anger. The voice laughed crazily for a moment, and it seemed to tinge on the upper register.

"Are you sure? If you face me, it would mean your death!" Pharaoh Man took the words in stride, knowing that every moment this crazed fool kept talking meant another one of his comrades who could make it to the combat area.

"If I may impart some wisdom on you my Maverick friend, Talk's cheap. If you want to prove that you're so tough, you step out of that protective shell and face me robot to robot." The Maverick cackled.

"You mean to tell me you aren't even a full reploid?" Pharaoh Man kept his doubts in check and stood his ground.

"I'm close enough." Pharaoh growled, giving an expression of stern confidence. The Maverick chuckled over his connection.

"You give me little to no challenge here, you fool. I'm a full fledged Maverick General, completely in control of every aspect of my abilities. I don't hesitate like the drones you defeated."

"Very well." Pharaoh Man replied curtly. "Just what is your name, anyhow?"

"Names mean so little in my line of work, robot. But if it means that much to you…" The Maverick cackled. "I am known as Megavolt Meerkat."

The hovertransport's cockpit opened up, the top sliding open with a smooth hydraulic motion.

The Red Square took on a surreal shade of lighting at that moment. The dipping sun, shades of purple and pink and orange reflected off the green and red colorations of the spiraling rooftops and the brickwork of the roads and the destroyed buildings.

In this surreal scene, a figure leapt out of the hovertransport, landing lightly on the brick pavement. The yellow and black colored figure whipped its tail angrily about its feet, sparks of power crackling off of its hands. Through a mask of jagged yellow, the Maverick glared.

"Are you ready for the void, robot?" Pharaoh Man began to charge his gauntlets for the attack, lowering himself into a defensive stance.

In the corner of his eye, he saw his four comrades were closely watching the two of them, vultures above the desert. He reasserted his gaze back to Megavolt Meerkat.

"Let it begin."

The sun was now almost entirely gone from the sky as Cairo's glow took its place. The whirling wind blew sand into the air, partially blocking the view.

In this almost peaceful scene, a trio of Landchasers blasted down Cairo River, skimming across the water on repulsors. Their engines whined as they were held at maximum force. The three individuals riding them wanted to go that fast, though.

The survival of this region depended upon it. Allegro was in the lead of the mad dash, while Andante and the surly Doan followed behind, trying uselessly to catch up. Doan checked his forward looking scanners.

"TWO MILES TO GO!" Doan hollered over his commlink, hoping that in the wind pushing past them, Andante could distinguish his transmission. Allegro wasn't listening at all. Andante looked over from his own position on the Nile and waved in response.

Doan silently ran the countdown as their screaming vehicles pushed closer and closer. He could very well die on this mission, a fact of life when you were a Hunter. But Doan was strong, strong enough because he hated Sigma, and hated what Sigma stood for with a passion. In all of his depression created by Sigma's continuing Uprisings, there was that one sparkle that kept him going.

That some day, Sigma would finally pass away.

The eyes of Allegro were filled with a different rage. It wasn't nearly as subdued as Doan's, more primal in nature. Allegro had been played for a fool, pushed into tracking the wrong foe. Because of his own misassumptions and the dialogue of the Maverick Fluid Ferret, Allegro's mind track had been pushed into believing that J.K. Horn, the founder of URFAWP, the very organization Allegro joined because of his wish for a better tomorrow, was the one behind it all.

Allegro let out a small harrumph of anger in his voice, notching up his engine a step more. Now that his attacks were pointed at the true foes, the Mavericks and not the scapegoat Horn, Allegro felt a resurgence of power flow within his veins that he had not felt in a long time. Such a crackling force had been felt only once before, when he and his twin brother Andante had stepped off of the hovertransport and into North Africa's URFAWP training facility. His purpose back then had been clear. As clear as it was now.

Only the mission had changed. Instead of talking for peace, he was enforcing it.

The Hunters had gotten in his way in some of the bigger attacks sent out by Fluid Ferret's deviousness, like the one in where the green Hunter Wycost had shown up, infected and without control. Or the past occurrence where the one known as Bastion, and the more famous Zero had prevented them from destroying Horn. That was the only occurrence Allegro could now feel guilty about starting.

And then as he blinked, shifting his mind from its philosophical track to the more pressing mission in Cairo, he saw that he was quickly entering it. He veered off of the river and onto the dry land nearby, scanning the area for something that could give him an aerial advantage.

An unusually tall nearby sand dune would suffice, Allegro finally decided. Kicking his Landchaser into motion, he aimed himself directly at it and gave the Repulsors more power. His bike lifted up off the ground a tad more, slowing him down, but giving him the edge for a larger jump.

And then in less time than it took an average human to blink, the nimble and hotheaded Allegro was airborne. The wind blew fiercer into his eyes, but narrowing them allowed him to still maintain some sort of a view. He activated the super thrust on his cycle, lifting the front end even higher up into the air as the rear thruster pushed the bike even higher up into the air.

And then he looked down, high above Cairo and began to scan every corner of it that he could see.

There was the Main Hovertransport not far off. Emanating from it was a series of explosions. Allegro frowned as he knew that those explosions were being created by Maverick ground troops and some kind of armored craft. Possibly Chimera Riding Armor Mechs.

On the river Nile below, Doan looked up at the rash move of Allegro and let his frown deepen.

"What is that fool doing now?" Andante activated his comm to speak to Doan, as if he could hear the question over the airflow that blew past them like a screaming banshee.

"Allegro's going airborne so he can identify all the threats in the area. Then he'll try to position himself so he can land safely, gun his engines and get to work blasting through all opposition." Doan widened his eyes in surprise and keyed his own transmitter to life.

"Can he do that?" Andante scoffed, a bit miffed that Doan could even possibly doubt his significant other's abilities.

"Of course! When he was being trained in URFAWP, he was ranked the best in motor vehicle driving on the entire base! Anything from Landchasers to the big and surly airborne fortresses…he'll drive it. Using weaponry however is something he picked up AFTER we escaped." Doan grunted, stunned at the news.

"You guys have a lot to hide, don't you?" Andante shrugged and keyed in a final transmission on his comm.

"Everyone has their secrets, Hunter. That's why we keep them. Allegro will surprise the Mavericks and give us a chance to get in there unnoticed. From there, it's a matter of finding him and eliminating the main hovertransport…Those things have huge hangars."

"How huge?" Doan's frightened whisper came. Andante sighed.

"Big enough to hold an army." Doan didn't respond.

There was nothing to be said. So he let the waves of the Nile, blown aside by their approach silently soothe his nerves.

But his mind was still readying itself for battle.

Allegro, his arc finally taking the downwards plunge of gravity's influence, readied himself, setting his boots firmly on the footpoles as his thumbs rested confortably next to his triggers. He quickly confirmed that he would land where he wanted to, and then he nodded his head. A slow groan pulled itself from the depths of its throat, growing louder and louder as it quickly transformed into a baleful wail, the howl of a wounded animal that would unleash its rage upon whoever attacked it.

And then landfall. In the streets of Cairo, Egypt, Allegro's Landchaser Hovercycle finally became grounded once more, bouncing off a roof with a blast of air before finally crunching down into the dirt back alleyway. His landing crushed a Maverick sentry, quietly scanning the area for any attack.

Bursting out of his dark street corner in a flash of thrusters, Allegro widened his eyes and quickly found two more troops turning to face him in surprise. Three pulls of his Landchaser's trigger and superpowered plasma bursts shot out from the nose, downing them before they could even grunt out a cry of alarm.

His speed was incredible, racing through the secondary street with ease. His sky look he still remembered vividly, and just around the corner was two heavily armored hovertanks. It'd take a wheel charge to wipe them out.

He lifted the front end of his bike, using his repulsors to push himself off of the ground in a jump. Turning his Landchaser sideways, he used the building right in front of him as a focal point, the repulsors pushing away from it and allowing Allegro to turn his cycle in a razor sharp corner.

The tanks never saw him coming. Their turrets were pointed the other way as he thrusted forth, landing solidly back on the road and pushing his thumb trigger several times, sending out a presalvo of shots.

Then he turned his front wheel up in the air and gunned the engine. The front hardpoint underneath the nose of the Landchaser lit up angrily with a plasma fire similar to a beam saber.

Pushed forth by his thrusters, Allegro followed his shots as they crashed into the first tank. He plowed straight through it, bursting out of the other side and into the second.

The explosions managed to blow him forth even farther away, giving him extra force as he crashed into the second.

He screamed away from the dual explosions with as much power as he could, pushed by the heat from the wreckage behind him.

And then he decided it was time to make tracks towards the main hovertransport. It wasn't that far away.

"Those Mavericks will pay…" Allegro growled. If his sight was correct, he wasn't far. Just another corner…

And Allegro found himself charging towards a tank line, firing angrily with explosive shells. With widened eyes, he jumped the first wave, pointing his nose down and returning fire. The first tank burst into flames, and Allegro took the opening, skimming through the opening created to avoid the other two.

Time was of the essence. He needed to make his way to the main tank and take it out!

Skimming down the Nile River through Cairo itself, Doan and Andante identified the loud explosions and flashes that accompanied his rampage.

Andante shook his head angrily.

"That fool. He's going to get himself killed if he keeps this up!" Doan clacked his teeth together, not doubting that for a moment.

"We'd better catch up to him." Andante shook his head resignedly.

"No way we'll catch up to him now. But I know where he's headed, and if we can make it there before him, we might be able to save his bacon." Doan blinked.

"The main hovertransport, you mean?" Andante nodded. Doan thrust a hand forth, reaching out.

"I saw it coming in. We hop off of this river and make a diagonal right through everything in our path, we can beat him to it."

"Buildings and all?" Andante noted incredulously. Doan nodded.

"Yep. See how we're lined in a channel with a slope?" Andante blinked in disbelief.

"You're not serious…" Doan flashed a smirk.

"Very. This is the only way to make it there before he does. He'll more than likely be barreling through every single enemy he can on the way, so let's use this to the best of our advantage."

Doan pushed his Landchaser into high gear, accelerating it up and to the right. Up the sloped surface of the channel he flew, and finally he hit the main jump switch.

Propelled like a rocket, Doan's Landchaser Cycle went up into the air, solidly skimming off the corner of a building and landing solidly on its flat surface. He made a quick secondary jump to make it to the next building, then looked behind him. Oddly, Andante wasn't there. Doan blinked in confusion for a few moments, then heard his comm crackle to life.

"Look in front of you, Hunter." Came Andante's smooth and collected voice. Doan's head swiveled in amazement to see that somehow Andante had passed him. The rogue reploid shrugged and talked into his commlink. "Hey, my jump was bigger than yours." Doan shook his head.

Andante was right when he had said they harbored many secrets.

Their rooftop parade was pretty quiet, and to their surprise they saw no opposition on their way in. The reason for this however, became clear as they approached the Hovertransport, placed solidly in a wide open landing strip in downtown Cairo, in a bonified beautification project, water fountains and all.

Doan's optics quickly homed in on the enemy forces. The tanks which had been called back had surrounded the rear of the Hovertransport in a protective line, and Maverick ground troops, clutching everything from deadly Busters to second rate projectile rifles looked on with dead eyes, cowered behind the limited protection the tanks offered. They meant to protect the hangar of the craft, opened and spewing forth even more foes, as if it possessed an unlimited amount of them.

Doan realized that in this situation, his mobility was the key. Time to ditch the Landchaser and whip out his beam lance.

"Stay up here!" Doan chirped to Andante as they drove to a halt on the last roof away from the main Maverick cluster. Andante blinked for a few moments, but didn't question Doan's wisdom, keeping his motor on but not activating his main thrusters.

Doan revved up his motor a few times, then released the gas. A blast of hot fumes and fire burst from the rear exhaust on the Landchaser cycle, and Doan hurtled himself off of the roof and towards the Tank's main line.

He leapt off of his cycle in midair, making sure it was aimed at the farthest tank. Then with lightning agility, he contorted his body, falling like a spinning axle on a destabilized gyro. As his right hand shifted seamlessly into a Buster, he activated his Buster's special weapon, the Plasma Wave. It made his arm turn an emblazoned red and silvery chrome color, but did not alter the rest of his gray armor. His left hand reached up and grabbed hold of the unusually larger shaft to his main beam weapon, a tool not used by many that was known as the Beam Lance.

Within less than a second of his initial leap off of the Landchaser Cycle, it had crashed perfectly into the farthest tank, causing both armored transports to explode in fiery rage and annihilating the Mavericks behind it.

The Mavericks filled the air with hot plasma fire, but Doan skillfully weaved his way through the storm, landing safely on the ground beside the closest tank. The lines were tightly packed, and Doan lit his beam lance. He drew it back for a moment, calmly pushing in a switch opposite the main power knob, then swinging his lance in a powerful horizontal arc with a war scream.

The hot plasma blade flashed angrily as its secondary function activated, in a powerful move Doan referred to as the Saber Flare. Within microseconds of the command Doan had given by pushing his second switch, the blade's containment field arced out to an incredible range of 21'6 feet, vastly larger than the usual 4'5 it was capable of.

The hot plasma roiled out to the extent of the new field's perimeter, and as Doan's powerful slash carried it sidewards, it burned through the armored hulls of every tank on the line. The rippling explosions threatened to throw the Hunter from his feet, but by grit determination Doan held on and finished through with his arc, following with a quick secondary diagonal slash to ensure the tank's destructions.

Doan didn't see the main hovertransport's cannon lower itself, or hear the whine of its rotating stabilization core collect the ergs of power needed to focus a beam of light into the powerful force known as a laser, tinted a comical pink. Doan did not sense anything that would alert him a foe was homing in on him.

But when the shot fired at last, it clearly made an impression on him as first surprise, then incredible pain registered on his face. The beam blew clean through his lower left side, then continued on to burn into the desert roads of Cairo. Doan let out another cry, feeling his system weaken as his Internal Operations Energy decreased to cease the wound's malfunctioning, and to seal the blood vessels that had already been cauterized by the intense heat.

The cannon seemed to pause for a moment, an aftereffect of the laser cannon being a necessary period of recharge. That gave Doan enough time to slump to the ground onto one knee, his beam lance falling helplessly to the ground, shrinking back to its normal size as both his hands clutched over his wound.

Doan's head shifted its gaze upwards, and he spotted the source of his wound on top of the Hovertransport.

"A Laser cannon…" Doan winced painfully. "I can't believe I missed that…" Indeed, if the shot had blown clean through his Fusion Generator, or even more severely his entire head, destroying his Control Chip in a single blast.

But a new noise filled his ears, and Doan knew what it was. Another Landchaser was fast approaching, and it wasn't Andante.

They'd beaten Allegro to the Hovertransport, but now the rash fool would have to face the fury of that powerful laser cannon.

"Allegro!" Doan tried to yell out before his voice silenced itself in a fit of coughing. Allegro's approach didn't slow in the least, and in fact as he came on, he fired several blasts from his Landchaser's nose cannon.

"THE MAVERICK REGIME DIES TONIGHT!" Allegro screamed at the top of his lungs. Each shot slammed fiercely into the hull of the Hovertransport, burning through at crucial wiring and causing mass havoc.

But the laser cannon's systems were unaffected, and in a final retaliation against the emboldened and rash reploid who approached it, leveled the turret and began to whine as it charged up. Doan's eyes widened in surprise as Andante's statement filled his mind:

"Some day that hot head of his is going to get him killed." Doan's heart fell an incredible distance, because he knew there was nothing he could do to stop Allegro, nothing to stop the destruction of that cannon.

But then a second scream filled the air, from above Doan. This time, his head responded, turning full force to spy the source.

Andante. He had revved up his engine and charged off the roof…But why? He couldn't stop the cannon from firing now.

Doan's blood almost stopped beating as with sudden realization, his racing mind came across the terrifying horror of Andante's mission.

He wasn't trying to stop the cannon from firing.

He was going to save his brother. And that meant…

"ANDANTE! NOOO! DON'T DO IT!" Doan screamed, his eyes nearly bulging out from his head. Weakened nonetheless, Doan struggled to his feet and activated his Buster again, bringing up his Plasma Wave Fire Cannon.

But it was too late. Andante's face was filled with woe, sorrow, but also a grim determination. He keyed his mike to life so that Allegro could hear him.

"Promise me brother…Promise me you'll keep the world safe." Allegro's scream cut short in surprise as he keyed in his own transmission.

"Whaddya talkin about, Andante? ANDANTE?!" Allegro suddenly spied his brother's approach through the air, soaring directly in between him and the Hovertransport. The reason seemed so unclear to Allegro.

But it all came into focus as the corner of his eye spotted the powerful burning beam of a laser pulse fire from the Hovertransport's upper deck, headed straight towards him.

Towards his brother, who had put himself between the shot and Allegro.

"NO! ANDANTE!" Allegro screamed, his hands clenching down on the handlegrips, racing ahead, trying in a final act of futility to get his brother out of the way before…

The laser blast pierced through the first layer of armor plating of Andante's Landchaser. It did not however continue on, as the bike's interior of fuel and wiring absorbed the entire blast. In the roiling chaos that erupted, the Landchaser blew itself apart, ceasing to be as a functional device.

The shrapnel created by that blast claimed Andante, slicing upwards in a vicious storm that thankfully didn't leave him alive. As the bursts pierced his Fusion Generator, the reaction went unstable, then critical all within the timespan of a few microseconds.

A second explosion, Andante, followed the Landchaser less than a second afterwards.

Doan leapt up in a rage borne out of helplessness, spraying the final line of defense, the laser turret with a continuous stream of his Buster's roiling wave.

The metal peeled back like it was water being pushed by the wind, just before it finally gave in and shorted out as a pile of slag.

And then the giant behemoth of metal was silent. A darkness overcame the arena, a silence that didn't seem to end.

It was haunting. And at the same time, maddening. There had been three of them when this mission to save Cairo began.

Even though they had won…

It had come at a cost. Doan had gotten a severe wound, and the reploid called Andante was no more. Only Allegro, the fiery reploid who shot first and asked questions later was left standing in pristine condition.

And even he wasn't standing. In a stupor of stunned disbelief and silent rage, Allegro had tried to get off of his bike, and succeeded only in sliding to the street in a weakened posture, laying on his knees. His hands hung limply from his shoulders, and his eyes gazed in a zombified stare at where Andante had been.

Then it set in. Something inside of Allegro cracked at that moment. His rash approach…

His rash tactics. They were the reason that his brother was no longer here. His brother had sacrificed his own life to save Allegro from a blunder that Andante had warned time and time again would get him killed.

Only it wasn't Allegro that was vaporized now, smashed to atoms.

It was the innocent who stood in the path of the bullet. It was Andante who was dead. A low noise came from his throat, a direct opposite to the scream of rage he had thrown out only moments before. His chest shook involuntarily, and even Doan could hear what Allegro was doing.

Allegro was weeping. His hands balled up into fists, falling weakly against the ground in an act of defiance.

"Blast you, Andante…" Allegro choked out, his eyes becoming blurry with fluid. "Why did you go and do that? Why didn't you just let me die like the fool I was?"

He began to rock slowly, beyond his ability to notice, his fists gaining more strength as they pounded in the dirt. His slow moans grew louder, into shouts of rage.

"I SHOULD HAVE DIED! IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME!" Allegro screamed out, beating his chest and leaving dents in the armor plate. "DAMN YOU, ANDANTE!"

He flung his arms outward, a final act of defiance against the act he had been witness and cause to. "TAKE ME WITH YOU!"

But Allegro received no answer. Only the slow wailing wind blew past him, as if Andante was comforting his brother one final time before departing for the unknown beyond earth. And at long last, the final vestiges of Allegro's defiant spirit vanished, pulled out by the wind that blew past his face. Allegro's weary hands and their trembling fingers reached up, unsteadily removing the helmet he had worn for ages.

His silvery black hair waved in the wind, removing the heat from his head with relative ease. But it was Allegro's misty eyes that caught Doan's attention. Their gaze looked up at the starry sky above, searching for some remnant of his brother.

A shooting star blew through the atmosphere, a fiery streak that vanished in a blink of light. Allegro lowered his head, finally defeated.

He had won his battle against the Mavericks. But at the cost of his brother, it was too much for him to bear. There was no more angry screams heard in Cairo that night.

Only the fevered sobbing of a reploid, in a city that had seen enough death and destruction for years to come.

And as Doan watched with eyes that knew the loss of that event, but also had some dim dullness that came with seeing death all your life, he knew only one thing.

Cairo was secure.

But there were still four other places on earth that could be destroyed.

And this one as well, if Wycost was unable to stop Nitro Narwhal's explosive comeback.

Nitro Narwhal plodded back and forth above the explosive charges he had carefully placed on the Aswan Dam's lower wall. His oddly distorted face, contoured to stretch around the rather large and bulbous head of his did little justice to the beautification police. His boots, designed on purpose to look like general 1600's leather apparel worn by the British Navy's lowest ranks tromped across the cement. More than once the portly Maverick came close to tripping over the edge and plummeting down 300 feet. Of course, if he did fall off he could always grab a hold of the Dam's outer wall and scamper back up with ease.

He checked to ensure that all the charges in place were set, then with a grunt and a grin he pulled the timed detonator out and pressed it.

All the timers in the 'stick and forget' moldable plastic explosive activated upon Narwhal's command, silently bringing their timers to five minutes, and then ticking down. Nitro nodded his head and prepared to make haste to the south to avoid the powerful surge of water he would be responsible for. But first he needed to make a call.

"This is Nitro Narwhal, laddies! I've placed the charges and set it to blow in five minutes! Get your scurvy selves out of Cairo and in the air, or you're all going to be washed out to sea!" He stopped talking, waiting for the return transmission.

Five seconds. Ten seconds. Thirty seconds. No response. Narhwal glared into his comm.

"Is anyone there still listening in? I SAID MOVE OR YOU'RE FISHBAIT!" Narwhal shut his comm off, cursing angrily. "Why aren't those sticks in the mud listening?"

Then a glint of something caught his eye. A shiny dot of reflected light and hot exhaust, coming from the North towards him. Narwhal set his huge eyes and scanned in.

He widened them in surprise.

"HIM AGAIN…?!" Narwhal muttered in disbelief. He checked his surprise and reasserted a glare of superiority. "Well, if he thinks he's coming here to stop me, he's wrong. Dead wrong."

Narwhal set his legs firmly into a stance, then extended his right hand. An improvement on the weapons design he had held before, he now held Homing explosive blasts in his wrist gauntlets. Not too many, but enough. And if he ran out of those, he still had his mainstay horn cannon. He fired a Homing explosive, watching the streamlined burst of black soar downwards, tracking the heat plume on the Landchaser cycle approaching.

Wycost just happened to look up at that moment, because scanning in infared, he quickly caught the plume of fire from above, chasing down after him. He didn't lift his goggles, and he didn't need to. Now in their second stage of development, with abilities beyond anything the Mavericks were expecting, he was able to wear his glasses all the time and not be pushed out of whack.

"Ahhh, frackkit!" Wycost muttered as he realized what the heat plume coming down after him was. He quickly leapt off his bike, his right hand shifting into his Buster and beginning to charge up a plasma supershot.

A second later, his bike exploded in the fire of fuel and high explosive, and the Hunter thought that the shrapnel created might take him.

But his fears were unfounded. Wycost was left untouched, and he landed on the ground, looking up with his Buster raised. His eyes narrowed, for he knew of only one Maverick in this area. He clipped his Interdictor into action, sending a transmission through the scrambled frequency used by Narwhal for his operations.

"Nitro Narwhal, I presume?" The Maverick chuckled for a bit, not letting his hard eyes leave the green Hunter below.

"And you be the great Hunter Wycost, once infected by me, and once by my cohort Fluid Ferret. I see that you've managed to snap out of its grasp, my friend. But have no worries. I'll see you to the grave yet."

Four minutes to detonation. Wycost didn't wait for another retort, and didn't form one on his end of the commlink. He simply charged at the Dam, hoping to make his way up the side of it.

But Nitro Narwhal was persistent. He leapt off from his high perch, plummeting down at an incredible speed before slamming into the riverbank below. For all the water held back, the Nile was still an overpowering river.

Wycost stopped his mad dash, making sure not to get anywhere near the overpowering behemoth. Indeed, the mad Maverick took a swing at him, and had the blow hit, it would have sent Wycost sprawling. Wycost released his supershot, aiming straight for the sharp outcropping on Narwhal's head.

Narwhal brought his other arm, easily deflecting the shot and chortling.

"Oh, I know what destroyed me last time, me hearty. I know as well as you do the only part of me body not covered in the wonderful metal known as TitaniTefloalloy is that horn you were shooting for." Narhwal charged at Wycost with a furious bellow in his voice.

"I've changed too, Maverick." Wycost said edgily, switching his Buster to its secondary function of the Strobe Flash. "A change that you're very much responsible for."

Wycost jumped up into the air, using his Air Dash to push him up even farther. He needed to clear some air between him and Narwhal.

The Maverick skidded to a halt on the ground below where Wycost had been only moments before. He smirked and let out a long laugh.

"Ye can't run from me, you sea dog!" Narwhal primed his head, lined up the shot and fired.

The single course explosive arced up, having only one direction to fly. Wycost saw it coming, cursing at himself for forgetting about that window of opportunity Narwhal would take. He changed the footing of one of his boots, using extra thrust from it to shove him slightly off kilter, out of the flight path the high explosive shard was taking for him.

The shot narrowly avoided collision, and continued up into the air before exploding automatically.

But Nitro Narwhal was thorough. With an upraised arm, he gave a small chuckle to himself and fired off one of his new homing shots.

This one Wycost couldn't avoid in the least, and as he moved his hands to protect his goggles, the explosion enveloped him.

The loud thunderclap of high explosive combined with the flash of inescapable, but yet not completely overpowering light.

Narwhal kept his other arm primed with a followup shot, calmly awaiting Wycost to emerge from the hellstorm unscathed.

But as the charred armor covered body of Wycost fell back to earth with a dull thud, Narwhal blinked in surprise. He had expected a little more resistance than this.

It was three minutes to explosion.

Narwhal cackled insanely at his victory, nonetheless acknowledging that it might be a trick.

"It seems you've lost, Wycost. The Hunters have made you weak in your time…" Nitro shook his head, then turned it down and targeted the motionless body of his opponent with his main horn cannon. He fired it off, preparing to watch the body of the green Hunter vanish into the fiery nuclear explosion of a critical fusion generator.

But Wycost still had a few more tricks left to him. As the missile approached, Wycost lifted his head, and even though parts of his armor had been shredded by the shrapnel, he gritted his teeth and pushed past it.

He activated his dash thrusters, pushing himself to his feet and charging at Narwhal with as much power as he could muster.

Narwhal widened his eyes in surprise at the sudden reawakening of Wycost, raising his right arm to fire off another homing round.

He never got the chance to. Wycost artfully dodged under the original "Dumb" explosive shot, increasing the thrust in his dash boots. His speed jumped another 20 miles an hour, and he finally was within effective striking range of the Maverick.

Narwhal saw it coming, and raised his left arm up to block the plasma shot to his weak point. Wycost gave the Maverick a grin that left him unsettled, then spoke up in a voice that screamed pain.

"Say Cheese…" Wycost pulled the trigger on his Buster and released the shot.

But instead of a concentrated burst of plasma that flew along in a spherical ball with a flaming tail, the energy collected and began to disassemble. No heat, no overload.

Just a Million Candle Units of light, bursting into the night air at a distance of four feet from Narwhal's head…and his large, sensitive optics.

It only took microseconds for the damage to be done. Nitro Narwhal's photosensors overloaded because of the flash, not even having a chance to stop the damage. The exposure was so great, it destroyed every transistor in his optics before darkness overtook him.

And then the sensation of incredible pain filled Nitro Narwhal's mind. Pain caused by the feedback loop of the blinded, yet still active optics. His body discovered the problem a moment later and automatically disconnected his optic's power source.

Narwhal screamed out in rage, both hands reaching up and tearing at his eyes, fruitlessly trying to cease the damage caused by that one brilliant burst of light. Wycost stepped back, switching back to his X-Buster's main function and charging up a shot.

Two minutes and thirty seconds to detonation. Wycost looked down on his foe with a stern stony glare that had come with experience.

"You are far wrong, Nitro Narwhal. The Hunters have made me STRONG." Wycost leveled his Buster at Nitro Narwhal's forehead. "That was the Strobe Flash. I picked it up from a Maverick in the Fifth Uprising known as Strobe Stallion." Nitro Narwhal picked up on Wycost's voice and unsteadily extended an arm, aiming a homing blast in his general direction.

"I'll see you die yet, Wycost! NO ONE turns from our cause and lives!" Narwhal fired off the homing missile.

Wycost returned fire with his own plasma burst, destroying the shot before it had even cleared two feet from Narwhal's arm. The high explosive blew apart, flinging hot shards of metal back at Nitro Narwhal and slamming through the TitaniTefloalloy of his arm, stomach and face.

The gravely wounded Nitro Narwhal could barely maintain his footing as his labored breathing blew out exhaust from his systems.

"Wycost…I may have underestimated you…" Narwhal doubled over as if in pain. Wycost sighed and shook his head.

"Narwhal, it's a conscious decision you have to make. If you want to live, just eliminate the Virus like I did. Trust me on this. Life is always better than death." Wycost flipped his goggles up, his sad eyes peering at Narwhal for any sign of remorse. "If I can do it, anyone can."

Narwhal breathed in deeply, nodding his head.

"Perhaps…perhaps you are right, Wycost. But if I did this…would you help me?" Wycost's lower lip trembled. He still had a lot of baggage that could be blamed on this Maverick. But he was tired of dealing death.

"Yes." Narwhal's labored breathing began to gain a rythmn, and Wycost realized the Maverick was laughing. Narwhal shook his head.

"Sorry I can't take you up on the offer." Wycost's eyes widened in realization of what Nitro Narwhal had been doing.

Stalling for time, and homing in on Wycost with his auditory sensors for an accurate shot.

Nitro Narwhal fired.

He heard an explosion close by, almost instantaneous from his shot. The Maverick laughed maniacally.

"Success is mine today!" The Maverick stood up, stretching his battered frame up. He was still at critical health, but he had won. "Don't you get it Wycost? THE HUNTERS HAVE MADE YOU WEAK!"

Cloaked in darkness, a figure appeared behind him. His goggles were raised, and so was his Buster.

A silent fire of anger and disgust was in his eyes and his throat.

"I've said it before, Narwhal." The Maverick turned in stunned disbelief, and Wycost released his shot.

The hot plasma struck the weak point on top of Nitro Narwhal's head, exploding the metallic shard and sending his systems into critical. The Maverick screamed out in pain before vanishing in white hot fire, a smoking arm crumpling to the ground beside Wycost's left boot.

"The Hunters have made me strong. It is the VIRUS that weakened me." Wycost sighed, shaking his head. "I wasn't lying, Narwhal. Salvation was within your reach." He reached down with his Buster hand, activating his variable weapons grid and selecting an open spot.

The Narwhal Striker was now in Wycost's possession. It had the homing capabilities of his arm missile, and would be much more useful than X's Narwhal Cannon.

1 Minute and ten seconds to detonation.

Wycost's eyes flared into life, as he suddenly realized the big threat still staring down at him.

"THE DAM!" He kicked his boots into gear, charging for the dam's surface. Activating his goggles' infared function, Wycost scanned the outer concrete surface, picking up the heat plumes created by their timers. They were slight, but they were enough.

There were ten bombs. And Wycost knew time wasn't on his side. He knew he didn't have much…But he hadn't kept an accurate measurement.

Reaching the lower part of the wall, he kicked his body up its surface, pushing himself to his limits, straining past the wounds Narwhal had inflicted on him as he raced the clock.

Reaching the first explosive, he ripped it off of the surface, noting that it was a more common attached version, and not direct plastique. That made it more difficult. With plastique, you simply removed the detonating primacord or ribbon cord from it and the gray puttylike substance wouldn't be a threat.

With what Narwhal was using, he would have to lug the entire assemblies along with him. Or toss them out. But the wind was blowing south tonight…

They'd end up settling down at the base of the Dam. No, he had to carry them all.

"Two…" Wycost panted, taking the adhesive side of the second bomb package and slamming it so it was connected to the second.

It took a few more seconds to reach his third bomb.

Forty seconds to go.

For Wycost, the clock seemed to be an unstoppable demon, a demon that mirrored himself. It taunted him, cackling softly.

Oh, come now Wycost. What's another black mark on your report card of life? Another failure, another few thousand dead…They'll all die sometime. Why not save them the individual suffering and just let the explosions happen?

"NO!" Wycost yelled, fighting back against his inner demons. Four and five and six were in his hands within another ten seconds.

Seven through ten were placed ten feet below the top of the dam, from one end of the dam to the other. Wycost gritted his teeth and made his way up to the leftmost one, grabbing hold of it and ripping it off.

"THIS ENDS NOW!" Wycost screamed out. In a final desperate act, he removed the safeties on his dash thrusters. He activated the stream, and didn't let go. He was going to use it all.

He had to. A continuous thrust, using all his fuel was the only way he could attain the final four bombs in maximum time.

Twenty seconds until detonation.

Wycost blazed through the air, and if it hadn't been for his goggles in place, he would have missed snagging number eight. The wind pushed past his face, and it could have blinded him.

Fifteen seconds.

Wycost grabbed number nine. His fuel was running low now, only a few more seconds of thrust left in them at this rate…

"Hold on baby…" Wycost pleaded with his steel toed sneakers. He could feel his thrust dying out on him, see the final bomb only yards…feets…INCHES…

"GOT IT!" Wycost cried out, managing to knock the final bomb loose with his fingertips. His free hand fumbled for the final explosive device as they both began to plummet downwards.

Seven seconds.

Wycost slammed the final bomb onto his makeshift supermine in his left hand. He shifted his right hand into his Buster again, activating the new weapon, the Nitro Striker.

An opaque black pointed obelisk popped halfway out of the Buster's firing chamber, created by the matter synthesizers within. The Hunter jammed the half spear into his jumbled mess of explosives and then pointed it up into the air, away from the Aswan Dam.

He prepped himself and fired, putting as much fuel into the round's back chamber as he could.

The kickback from the launch slammed his backside into the concrete wall of the Dam, blinding his eyes in pain as he finally lost control. He spiraled downwards in a tumbled he couldn't recover from, blind to everything but the incredible pain and stress within his mind.

Detonation.

The explosion was loud enough to be heard in Cairo, miles away. But Wycost didn't hear it, for at the exact moment it blew, he slammed into the ground at sixty feet per second.

He lay there for what seemed like an eternity, his aching body sending the warning messages to his brain.

His armor was thrashed. His Buster had been put through Hell activating a new weapon and using it so fast, and his boot thrusters had shot themselves to hell in the stunt he'd pulled.

But as his eyes fluttered open and the ragged Wycost flexed his left hand, he looked over at his Buster arm, in his pain filled euphoria examining the black jagged line that had scoured itself down his arm after he recovered in the Fifth Uprising.

After his second infection, it had blossomed into a multistar pattern of jagged lines, like lines on a globe separating the hemispheres.

Now the lines faded away at long last, not leaving the slightest hint of any infection.

Wycost was finally…

Finally…

CLEAN.

He drained a Sub-Tank, wondering what could have caused the dramatic loss of his black line. He finally decided that whatever dead remnants of data that had been inside his mind after the Internal Deletions had at last petered out and succumbed to the land of lost memory.

"Good riddance…" Wycost sighed. But he was far from perfect. He brought up his Comm System, finding it a miracle anything of his still worked in perfect order. He activated his transceiver and encoded a message to his people in Cairo.

"This is Wycost. Can any of you hear me?" Static, then a reply.

"Doan here. We're alive, Wycost. Did you stop the Dam's sabotage?" Wycost looked up at the sky above, still seeing the powerful plumes of smoke and charred metal raining down from their airburst.

"That's an affirmative. Any Mavericks left in Cairo?" Doan grunted.

"No…But we took losses." Wycost's eyes widened.

"Who?" He asked in a whisper. Doan was silent for a moment, and then spoke up.

"It was Andante." Wycost shook his head, letting it sink in.

Another death.

Another life wasted, trying to stop an evil that wouldn't go away.

Another dead body on his watch.

"Collect yourself and Allegro and warp back to base, Doan." Wycost finally said in a tired voice. "I'll follow soon." Doan didn't question Wycost's motives.

He knew the green Hunter had a lot to deal with.

"I'll see you when you get back then." Wycost let out a contained breath, ending the connection.

He looked up at the clear starry sky above, wondering how in this madness any semblance of sanity could still be maintained. And then he realized something.

It was compassion that allowed for it. Compassion led to friendship, understanding, peace and even love.

That's what they were fighting for more than anything. A chance for compassion.

He brought up his comm system and tagged in a transmission link to the MHHQ in Tokyo.

"This is Wycost here. My team and I have eliminated the threat in Cairo…We're coming back. Inform Cain that he needs to add Andante to his list of casualties as well. Wycost out." He clipped the connection off before whoever received his transmission told him to stuff off.

He wasn't a popular guy at the HQ, no sir. People wanted to see him dead for the simple fact he'd been infected, and they hadn't.

The old Wycost would have beat the tar out of them and demanded respect.

He was different now. And the first thing he didn't want to do was start anything that might lead to more loss of life.

Destroying Nitro Narwhal had been horrific enough.

"Isaiah…" Wycost muttered softly, letting his voice trail off as a tear crept into his eye,

"Isaiah…Forgive me." Wycost activated his warp generator and succumbed to the sky, blasting away from the Mideastern region in a burst of fire and matter.

The sky above took on a different sheen as he left. And for a brief moment, one star all alone from any constellation seemed to glimmer down even brighter.

Perhaps Isaiah was saying hello.

"What's the matter, robot?!" Megavolt Meerkat taunted as he threw out another blast of surging electrical energy after Pharaoh Man.

The goldenrod yellow and silvery black colored Robot Master dodged the blast, releasing his own superpowered blast, a Crescent Wave of energy that soared along.

Meerkat deftly leapt over it with ease, not even breaking a sweat…

If reploids could, Pharaoh Man thought with a small amount of his brain. He threw a smaller ball of energy after the reploid, tagging the wavy tail of the creature and melting the synthfur.

"I consider us to be on par, Maverick." Pharaoh retorted, narrowly avoiding a return blast of sizzling power. Meerkat let out a burst of indignant laughter at that, throwing both hands forth and unleashing a huge blast of power.

This time, it hit Pharaoh Man dead on in his chest plate. The electrical bursts danced through his systems, causing him to twitch and writhe as the snakes ran through him. The others around him let out noises of surprise, and even Drill Man frowned at the terrible turn of events.

Pharaoh Man slumped onto one leg, his hand opening and closing as he gritted his teeth to the aggravating waves that threatened to make him scream.

"You…You're strong, Maverick." Pharaoh Man managed to erk out. Meerkat cackled insanely, jumping towards the robot and picking him easily off of the ground. Holding his dangling four foot nothing frame in the air, Megavolt Meerkat smiled, allowing his mouth of razor sharp teeth to be exposed.

"Oh my yes. And you…You're nothing more than a pathetic robot." Meerkat's grip grew tighter, his claws digging in around Pharaoh Man's throat, threatening to snap the spinal cord full of neurocables that allowed him to control his hands and legs.

Pharaoh Man's body finally slacked off the final shorts caused by Megavolt Meerkat's attack, restoring him full control. He drained another Energy Tank to bring himself back to full vitality, then remained slack, charging both gauntlets for an attack. They didn't whine like a Buster, and drew little attention.

Pharaoh Man stared blankly into Megavolt Meerkat's eyes, trying to create the illusion of a wounded stupor. Meerkat cackled, looking around himself to all the other Robot Masters encircling him.

A few, Ring Man included were beginning to edge their way in. Meerkat's eyes widened in annoyance. He jerked Pharaoh Man roughed up, holding him directly above his head in a gesture of relative ease.

"MOVE ANY CLOSER, AND YOUR FRIEND DIES!" Meerkat bellowed out, raising his other hand up until his fingers, curled outwards like lightning rods were pointed right at Pharaoh Man's forehead.

Ring Man stopped, allowing himself to flash off a frown from his basic emotional responses. He looked at Pharaoh Man, who looked tattered, torn, and on the worse end of the gunbarrel.

"What's your move, robots?" Meerkat cackled insanely, lifting Pharaoh Man up even higher. Pharaoh Man adjusted his optics until he was looking at Ring Man, then spoke up calmly.

"Ring Man. The key's in the cage." Ring Man's eyes widened, then blinked in silent acknowledgement of the command by his leader.

Pharaoh Man had just told him to attack…

Because Pharaoh Man had a trick up his sleeve.

More precisely, up his gauntlet.

So Ring Man began to charge at Megavolt Meerkat, holding his rings at the ready.

Meerkat cackled at the foolish move.

"Bad choice, robot." Meerkat's hand began to crackle with power, filling up with an electrical charge to end the life of the goldenrod yellow and silver black robot in his claw.

Pharaoh Man's own gauntlets reached their peak energy at that moment, and he snapped his hands forth, unleashing a pair of devastating crescent moon blasts.

At his close range to Meerkat, the shots sliced clean through the more advanced metals and synthfur of the Maverick, severing both arms and freeing Pharaoh Man.

Meerkat screamed in pain, not only because his hands had just been surgically blasted off, but also because the electrical energy he had been charging up in his free hand now unleashed itself upon his body.

As Ring Man flung both deadly metallic boomerangs at the Maverick, the final blow was dealt.

The rings slammed through the armor, allowing the electrical oversurge to burn its way into his critical systems.

The control circuitry on his Fusion Generator was one of the first things to blow.

After that went, the great Maverick known as Megavolt Meerkat vanished in nuclear fire. Pharaoh Man managed to scramble away somewhat before he blew, allowing only a small show of embarassment as the explosion threw him into the ground.

The darkness restored itself in Moscow's Red Square, and grumbling, Pharaoh Man picked himself up and brushed the soot from his headpiece. He looked at the spot where Megavolt Meerkat had been standing only moments before, now only a charred mark on the red brick roadways. He looked at his team, all of them in pristine condition.

He looked at the Hovertransport…what was left of it anyways.

And he finally acknowledged something.

THEY HAD WON. That thought filled him relief, and other more powerful emotions he could only identify as extreme joy and elation. He let his hands relax, knowing at long last there were no more forces here to contend with.

"I think we've done it, people." Pharaoh Man finally said, letting the happiness fall into his voice, raising it a few notches above normal register. "I do believe that we've saved Mosow…indeed, all of the surrounding area…from the Maverick threat." Pharaoh Man smiled, the first pure smile that he had ever achieved as a robot.

No…

He was more than a robot. His artificial intelligence had taken leaps and bounds, and as long as he continued to live, it would eventually reach the level of a reploid's.

"I guess we head back to base now. We don't want anyone catching on who we are. If they did…they might try to stop us from doing this from now on."

"What?" Bright Man spoke up, waving his free hand. "You mean saving the world?" Pharaoh Man nodded.

"From what I've heard from X and Hazil, the GDC, which controls the Hunters, was limiting them down to a skeleton crew before this. If they find us, a vigilante group outside of their control, yet still working for the same goal, we'll be treated with as much respect as dirt…and probably scrapped as a menace to society."

Ring Man furrowed his brow, scratching the top of his helmet with a Ring Boomerang.

"Somehow that seems…illogical. Why would a government force try to stop us from aiding them in the fight against a powerful force?" Pharaoh Man shrugged.

"Some humans are real jerks, Ring Man." Ring Man waited hesitantly, then spoke up again.

"I suppose. But others seem nice enough." Pharaoh Man's retort came quick.

"Do you know why?" Ring Man's eyes went wide in another preprogrammed response.

"No…Illuminate me." Bright Man responded easily, activating his flash bulb and providing a 100 Watt shine over them. Ring Man turned about, slightly miffed. "Not that kind of illumination, Bright." The orange Robot Master snorted for a moment in embarassment, then quietly turned his bulb off, letting the darkness encircle them. Pharaoh Man coughed for a moment, a rudimentary gesture meant only to draw their attentions back to him.

"The humans we find ourselves viewing as 'nice' are usually open minded, able to take suggestions, and adapt to new ideas and realities. It's how they've lived so long as a species." Toad Man raised his hand.

"They have lived long enough to create the technology that made us." Pharaoh Man's eyes glimmered for a moment, as he noticed that his team…his friends…Were also gaining new insight into their artificial intelligence protocols.

They would evolve…together.

"True enough, Toad Man. They created us…and so much more." Pharaoh Man raised his optics to the starry sky above. "But we shall discuss this when we get back. Right now, I need to place a call to the MHHQ under a secure connection that Hazil gave me. And you all need to activate your warp generators and move out."

The four Robot Masters under Pharaoh Man's command quietly acknowledged his command, humming for a few moments before blinking out as bright beams of matter and energy.

Pharaoh Man keyed up his left wrist's comm system, dialing in the number and setting in the encoder.

"This is Egypt here. Moscow is secure, and all the Mavericks have been eliminated. Tell the shimmering savior we wish him luck." Hazil's chuckling and gruff voice came over the link in reply.

"Acknowledged, Egypt. We've also gotten reports that Riyadh and Cairo are secure as well. You take care of yourself." The link clicked off.

Pharaoh Man took a rigid stance and brought his warp generator online.

"So there's only two rebellions left…" Pharaoh Man mused. "Washington D.C, and Rio De Janeiro."

The night claimed him with open arms.

X's comm signal had been cut off almost immediately as he'd sent it. However, for Bristol and a few members of the 17^th that had opted to charge into Washington D.C's streets and stop the chaos already present before attacking the Hovertransport, it wasn't needed.

A quick return glance had shown them that it had been a trap, set up by Sigma's traitorous brilliance. X was on his own there, but he was doing all right for now.

Bristol had barked orders to the makeup of veteran and recently promoted rookies at once, feeling a connection to her shadowed past at that moment.

"DISPERSE AND STABILIZE!" She had cried out, saying with those three words that the Hunters present needed to split up. They would handle themselves, taking out what Mavericks stood in their way, while at the same time seeing to the populace…

Bristol made her way towards ground zero where the cannon's laser pulse had hit. It wasn't too hard to find, a giant smoking source of cries of pain and anguish.

It turned her stomach inside out, all those cries of people that she could do so little to help. But as the hot rage flared tears into her optics, she somehow clenched her fist and pushed on.

"There's a job to be done here." Dashing down the rubble filled streets, Bristol activated her beam saber and slashed through an unknowing Maverick ground troop.

"Is there anyone alive out there?!" Bristol yowled out, hoping that by some miracle there was someone here that could still be saved.

"You…but not for long." A growly voice replied. Bristol's eyes widened as she tracked the source to somewhere above her. That was all the sound she needed to realize that she was in danger.

So she dashed out of the way. Not a moment too soon, either, because what was the ground she had been standing on only moments earlier vanished in an explosion of white hot plasma.

Bristol didn't know how she knew to do that…but something had told her to. Something in the far reaches of her mind, a part of the memory block that was still there, but unreachable.

The result was the same. She lived. In a second burst of her hidden finesse, she followed the blazing trail of plasma bits in the air to its source, finding herself looking at a burly Maverick with a glare in his eye and an oversized Buster on his hand.

She used her Air-Dash Thrusters to place herself on top of the roof building the Maverick was on. Her body was bent downwards slightly, one hand curled around her saber and the other palm flat against the surface. Her legs were braced for a sprint, a wild coil ready to spring.

The Maverick lowered his Buster, bringing in another charge to fire. His dull eyes burned into Bristol's, but her own eyes also had a different sheen to them.

Their usual rosy colors had faded, her brow furrowed. The irises had shrunk, and it was all too clear who they were focused on. Like before, when she had been taken by surprise, something else was now in control of her movements.

"Nice trick, toots." The Maverick chuckled softly. "But you're dead like the rest of 'em." He fired.

Bristol's saber swung up, smashing the bolt of blue raging fire into the sky. Her thrusters activated, and her body was thrown forth towards the Maverick.

A second later, her pink saber bit into his side, the entire length of it serving to cleave his upper and lower halves in twain.

As he landed in pieces, the Maverick dazedly tried to retaliate, but found himself too stunned and in shock to respond. He gasped a few times, feeling his lifeblood pour away, and then finally his eyes shut.

Bristol released her held breath, her eyes shifting back into their normal mode. She blinked for a few moments, and then the realization of what she had done hit her.

She had taken the life of a Maverick. Now at last, she was a true Hunter.

But a part of it felt so wrong. Wrong that she had to resort to the most repugnant and extreme measure to stop the violence…with violence.

"But if I hadn't, he might have killed me, and whoever else was within shooting range." So by some measure, she'd done the right thing.

She brushed off the sour cloud that tried to settle itself on her shoulders, and pushed on. There was one devastated building in particular that had some rather bizarre sounds emanating from it.

A quick hop down the side of her current position and a brisk run took her to it.

As she creaked the heavy wooden double doors open, she noticed that the room stank of smoke…and blood.

She shut off her olfactory sensors quickly to avoid any more unpleasant scents, then walked in.

"Hello?" She spoke up assertively, loud enough to be a normal voice, but not overpowering. The groans of the wounded and the dying were unmistakable.

"Are you…"

"I'm with the Maverick Hunters." Bristol replied calmly, shutting her beam saber off in a sign of non-aggression. As her eyes grew accustomed to the unlit conditions, she could see where the voices were coming from.

In the sea of death caused by the laser's deadly pulse, and the explosions that had followed, this tiny out of the way restaurant…she could see it was a restaurant now, by the look of the overturned tables…there were three men tucked away in a corner of the room.

She walked over to them, her clanking metallic boots seeming out of place on a floor that had only felt the cosmopolitan soles of the upper class. Kneeling down beside them, she could see that one, an African American man, was already dead. The other two were Caucasian males, and all three were dressed in fine clothes.

She quickly deducted that they were high ranking government officials.

One of the two surviving men was breathing heavily, leaning against the wall for support while the other man braced his head. Bristol whistled in a sharp breath, realizing that by the welt of blood on the man's shirt, that something had been accelerated to intense speeds…

And been slammed through his chest. It had punctured a lung too. That was why the man was breathing so heavily.

The man who was relatively uninjured, only having a gash on the side of his temple looked at Bristol with frightened eyes.

"What happened?" Bristol reached into her chest compartment for a syringe of anesthetic, lowering it down to the injured man.

"The Mavericks are attacking Washington D.C. A good 3/4 of our Unit has been completely obliterated." The uninjured man's eyes went white with shock.

"Oh God no…" He began to stammer and shake. "But…but but but…The Mavericks were all destroyed!" Bristol shook her head wearily.

"They survived. Sigma survived." The man began to hyperventilate at the new discovery, his entire face growing white now.

"Ohmigodohmigodohmigod…." Bristol's head snapped up, her piercing blue eyes staring into him.

"Sir, flipping out won't help matters in the least…now be a good sport and tell me what your name is."

"Senator Kelly…" He lifted his companion up, staring at her with a little less panic. "He's hurt bad." Bristol nodded.

"I noticed. Now I'm going to give him an anesthetic. It should slow his breathing some. I'll follow it up with a shot of concentrated oxygen so he won't suffocate." Kelly numbly nodded his wizened head, raising his companion up.

"Emilius…Emilius, wake up!" The wounded man groaned, his eyelids weakly trying to flutter open. He blinked dazedly a few more times, still breathing rapidly.

Upon seeing Bristol, his eyes nearly bugged out of his head and his mouth went wide open. In his crazed state, he spotted the shining metallic needle in her hand.

He deftly swung his own arm across, slamming it loose and causing the glass cylinder to shatter. Bristol followed her anesthetic, then glared back at the wounded man like a nurse.

"Sir, I'm trying to save your life here!" But the gravely wounded man would not listen. Indeed, now that he was fully aware of his situation, his condition grew only worse by the moment.

"N…NooooooOOOO!" Cristoph gasped, looking like a fish out of water as he strained to speak. "You…Not you…" Bristol looked to the other man for aid, but found that he was as stunned by his gravely injured fellow's actions.

Bristol focused her icy gaze back on the dying man.

"Sir, your LIFE is in Jeopardy every moment you keep this up. STOP!" Cristoph took in another large breath, sounding like a choking walrus.

"You…Bristol, MI9 should have…You're still…" Cristoph stumbled over his words for a few more moments, then finally stopped breathing. His eyes rolled up into his head, and his arms stopped flailing.

Senator Kelly lay down beside the dead man for a few moments, then finally released his hold with shaky hands. He looked up at the reploid before him, his eyes stunned, surprised, and also accusing all at once.

"He…he knew you. He called you Bristol!"

Bristol didn't respond to Kelly's words. As the man had spoken up suddenly with his halting final words, it had triggered something inside of her mind.

That block of forgotten memories had suddenly flashed, unleashing a torrent of blinding images all at once.

They had gone by too fast for her to make sense of them, but their effect was the same.

Bristol slumped to her knees beside the dead man, her eyes glazed over, her mouth hanging slightly open in a stupor. A small tear crept out of the corner of her eye.

My past… Bristol thought in a stupor. My…past…

"HEY!" Bristol snapped out of it, to find herself staring at Senator Kelly. The impatient Irishman spoke up again. "He seemed to know yae from somewhere…What does that mean?" Bristol's mouth tried to form words, but failed.

Instead, she looked at Mr. Kelly with a pleading stare.

"What was his name?" Bristol asked quietly, her voice teetering on tears. Senator Kelly sniffed back his own emotional strife and nodded.

"He was Emilius Cristoph. The representative of the AmeriCanadian Alliance for the GDC." That stunned Bristol even more.

Cristoph was the one who had pushed the GDC ultimatum. And now…

Now she…and he…

He was a part of her troubled past as well. And there was only one clue she had left to use now.

MI9.

"Your wounds are minimal, Mr. Kelly." Bristol managed to erk out. Her mind was all ablaze with the new data…

And she needed to work it out back at the MHHQ.

Bristol vanished away from the melee of Washington D.C. in a burst of blue and pink fire.

There was much to be pondered.

"Inexperience has made you WEAK, X!" Ferret taunted, charging in at the leader of the 17^th Unit in a slash thrust.

X weakly used his own dash systems to push himself in the air, away from his foe.

This fight had gone on for more than ten minutes, neither one gaining a definitive edge or a solid blow. Glancing, at best, and X's Koala Slash claws were wearing down from the stress. Soon, he would be forced to use his Hyper Cannon as his main weapon…Or his Narwhal Cannon.

Neither one was too reliable against this wiry Maverick. Only his long reign as the chief Hunter at the MHHQ was saving him from defeat now…

He couldn't keep it up forever. At least he noticed Fluid Ferret was wearing down as well. Even in his Golden Third Armor, X was skimming a razor thin margin of power with him.

But there was another power that X was relying on to aid him in the fight. This was not a Repliforce troop, like Storm Owl or Frost Walrus. This Maverick deserved to die…

And X deserved revenge. For the last time they had met, Ferret had won. For himself, and also everyone around him, X had to triumph.

Had to. There was no other viable option.

X dropped down from his high perch in the air, using his last thrust boost from his second burst to peg himself down on a course towards the fast Maverick below.

Ferret raised his eyes, noting X's sudden move with just a tinge of disinterest, but also contempt. X's claw, sprouted from his left hand's wrist gauntlet clashed with Ferret's own. Ferret giggled insanely, flipping his arm in a wild arc and deflecting X from himself.

That was all the opportunity X needed to level his right hand's Buster and fire off a shot from his Hyper Cannon. It tracked underneath Ferret's stance, slamming deep into his gut.

For once, the Maverick let out a wild cry of pain in the battle, one hand lowering to defend against any more shots.

Ferret drew himself to his full height, looking at X with dead eyes, filled with only the Virus, and what tattered piece of himself was still in control.

"You have some nice moves, X. But one way or another, I'll win this day. Just like the last time, I'll rip you to shreds, or infect you. It's your choice."

X growled, ignoring the beads of sweat that fell into his eyes.

"I'd rather die than join your sickening cause." Ferret sighed, feigning sorrow.

"Oh, poo. So many people say that…but in the end, I can see the fear in their eyes, and I know they had wished they had chosen the less fatal path." Ferret drew his hands up, cackling softly. "X, it's time to end this. My paint job is scuffed up enough as it is."

Energy began to coalesce about Fluid Ferret, causing X to take pause for a moment.

Fluid Ferret didn't have a Buster, so why would he…

"NO…" X whispered for a moment, remembering what Wycost had said back in the HQ about Ferret and his new skills.

"You might as well call it the Ferret Freeze for now…" was Wycost's exact words.

X raised his Buster and fired off a shot. Ferret cackled insanely for a moment, a bright purple redness filling his eyes as he lifted a claw and deflected X's pathetic attack away from himself.

"Sorry, X. You get the FULL RIDE." Ferret let out a feral scream at long last, extending his arms as if unleashing an explosion from within.

Which was exactly what it was. The energy he had collected surged into the nanobots of his systems, releasing themselves out into the air as a deadly cloud.

That cloud surrounded X and Ferret, a dark black and purple haze that blotted out all outside stimuli. As the Virus infected nanobots drew closer to X, he could feel them seep into his systems, taking control.

He screamed at the foreign presence in his mind, growing stronger every moment with its droning pulsations. It took control of him, and X found he couldn't raise his arms in the least to retaliate.

The Virus had taken hold of him. Ferret cackled insanely, walking through the storm with not a care in the world.

"Face it, X. You've lost. You're nothing more than a puppet in Sigma's grand scheme…" X grunted, his face tilting with what measure of self control he still harbored.

"Damn…you…" Ferret chortled.

"Oh, I've changed, X. I've grown stronger. And yet you still face me with the same weaponry you did all those months ago in Antarctica…Have you learned nothing, X? This new attack is given to me by the power of the Virus, the power of SIGMA!" Ferret's sharp fingers traced the lines of X's jaw, reaching down around his neck as if to slash his throat to ribbons. The sweat ran down X's jaw, falling onto the metallic fingers. Ferret twitched suddenly, a fingertip puncturing into X's synthskin. A small trickle of blood ran down the talon of death, and X grunted in defiance.

"Tell me X…why do you refuse to become a part of this power?! It can make you invincible!" X panted heavily, turning his head up until he looked in Ferret's sunken optics with his own.

"Because it means that every day, all of my being is not controlled by me, but by a damnable computer virus that tells me only to destroy and infect and cause suffering in the world." Ferret sighed, waving a pointed claw.

"Pity that you feel that way, my dear X. You are strong, I've noted that, and so has Sigma. For that reason, you'll live…It's time to change sides, my dear X." Ferret grinned, his eyes shining a dark and sinister luster. "It's time to become a Maverick."

X's eyes went wide at what he heard Ferret utter.

"Gods, no!" X gasped, straining against his bonds. Ferret saw X's futile gesture of opposition and laughed even louder.

"Oh, come on now! Even Wycost put up more of a fight against me than what you're doing…and HE went Maverick as well!" X grunted, tilting his head up when the Virus commanded him to turn it down.

"I know, you monster…we had to bring him out of it." Ferret blinked for a moment, stopping his tirade.

"Bring him out of it?" X grunted, smiling weakly.

"Oh yeah. I forgot to tell you he did a SELF DELETE on the Virus. He won out over it, Ferret…you may think it makes you invincible, but it only weakens you." Ferret growled for a moment, then his right hand flew out and struck X across the cheek. More blood was drawn from X's synthskin.

"LIAR!" Ferret snarled, baring his teeth and animalian temper. "NO ONE can defeat the Virus in the form it took in me!"

X raised himself up, pushing his system beyond its limits as he fought off the Virus's control over him.

Ferret cried out in a feral rage, increasing his power to the Freeze Field. X froze again, feeling the Virus's tendrils reach deeper and harder than before. He screamed out in pain as the droning commands began to echo about in his skull.

Ferret laughed.

"I told you! There is NOTHING that can defeat the Virus! It is all consuming, all absorbing! Give into it, join its strength!" Ferret grinned, rubbing his chin for a moment as his dark mind spun into overdrive. "I wonder, X…when you're Maverick, what should Sigma do with you? Should he have you warp back to base before activating the Berserker code? Watching you blow the MHHQ to atoms would be a LOT of fun…"

Ferret stepped around behind the straining X, still talking on.

"And what of the others? Zero, Wycost? Should we have you destroy them too? Tell me, perhaps Cain is a worthy target…that old man has lived long past his time."

Something snapped inside X at that moment.

If he was infected, Fluid Ferret and Sigma would degrade him beyond the level of an adversary. They would not even grant him death…

They would turn him into a monster. A monster Light had often feared, that X would turn against humanity.

The role Zero might have played if Sigma had never fought him…would become X's.

"NOO!" X screamed, straining even harder. Ferret cackled, not noticing the buildup of energy within X. He walked a full circle, planting his disgusting face of teeth in front of X's, grinning like a madman.

"Tell me, X…How would you kill a little human girl? Blow her to vapor with an X-Buster shot, or rip her into carrion with your Koala Slash? I'm so very eager to find out!"

That tore it. All the restraints and holds that the Ferret Freeze held over X vanished as his antiviral systems kicked into overdrive, dousing the area with a high intensity blast of energy and light, that overloaded and destroyed the nanobots with their Virus programming.

The cloud of control over X vanished in a burst of smoke, and the Hunter charged.

He charged at Fluid Ferret, knocking him flat on his back and pinning his limbs to the ground. With a high pitched war cry, X slammed his helmeted head down, crushing in Ferret's skull and dealing a serious blow.

Ferret yowled in surprise and pain, trying furiously to reach up with his jaws and clamp around X's neck so he could sever the neural spinal cord. X's left hand spun about, slamming Ferret full on in the jaw, knocking his face flat back onto the ground.

Ferret scrambled furiously, turning the tables and rolling X onto the ground with the Maverick on top.

There was no calm storm in X's eyes now, only the rage that came with knowing that this Maverick had to die. That scared Ferret deeply, but he continued to struggle.

His Virus programming demanded it.

"BASTARD!" Ferret yowled, his arms reaching furiously to try and lash X.

But the Hunter had other objectives. There was no sound from X's throat.

Just the burning rage in his eyes and the deadness within them.

With what seemed to be such little effort, X tore Fluid Ferret's right arm completely out of its socket, proceeding to bash the Maverick over the head with his new makeshift club.

While Ferret screamed out in pain, trying to block the blows with what was left of his other hand, X moved his feet quickly and kicked the Maverick up into the air.

X's right hand shifted back into a Buster, whining for a blink of a microsecond as he used his stored energy to fire a shot from his Hyper Cannon.

It caught Fluid Ferret right in his stomach, making the Maverick cough up a mouthful of blood on top of what he was losing from his arm socket.

The jumbled mess of Maverick landed back to earth, slumping on his back and gasping for air, his eyes shifting and fading as he weakly looked up in stunned disbelief.

"I…I can't be destroyed…" Ferret gasped. X stepped above him, taking Ferret's discarded limb and jamming its TitaniTefloalloy claws into the Maverick's stomach. Ferret cried out in pain, doubling up before weakly slumping back down in defeat.

X looked at the Maverick with his dull, rage filled eyes. He lifted his Buster, and pointed it right at Fluid Ferret's hair covered head, those twitching ears.

"You are a Maverick…and if I didn't destroy you, you would destroy us all." Ferret took in a final breath, cackling even in his last moments up at X.

"Congrats, X…you've defeated me. How does it feel to murder again? Pretty good, right?" X growled at his words, and Ferret continued, his laugh growing louder. "You're so very close to joining us, infection or not!"

X couldn't take any more of this hateful vermin.

He pulled the trigger. Twice.

What had been the skull and face of Fluid Ferret ceased to be, melted into a pile of slag and circuits. His control chip did not survive.

And that's what X wanted. No chance of survival for him or his hated presence in the world.

Fluid Ferret's Fusion Generator whined down, for now with the circuitry of the Maverick's mind destroyed, there was no control over it. The safety protocols had kicked in, dousing the reaction and ceasing it until Fluid ferret was nothing more than an empty shell of metal, synthfur and synthskin, and sinister Virus infected blood. Destroying Ferret completely would annihilate both him and the Virus, so that Sigma couldn't turn around and reconstruct him later.

This new form of the Virus was incredibly dangerous. Only rage had helped X defeat it…a rage that made him hate himself as much as the Mavericks. Saddening tones from the First Uprising resurrected themselves in his mind, and X let out a maddening scream, stepping back and using the rest of his Hyper Cannon energy to completely melt and vaporize the Maverick General known as Fluid Ferret into atoms.

"You can no longer harm the world, monster." X choked out, his hot tears threatening to blind him. Sending up an arm, he sluiced the hot liquid away and looked at the Hovertransport. His angered gaze, his full wrath as a Hunter was restored at last.

He had two Sub-Tanks left, no Hyper Cannon, and only a quarter of his Koala Slash…a bit more of his Narwhal Cannon.

"SIGMA!!!" X screamed out, banging his chest plate with his good fist, pointing his weakened right arm up at the metallic carrier. "FACE ME AND BE DESTROYED!"

Sigma's chuckle came over the external loudspeakers, causing X to step into a defensive stance and begin to charge both arms with plasma energy.

After all, he could. Both his Second and Third Armor Sets had the ability to do that. If he had worn any other set besides one of those two, he would be dead from his blunder.

"Congratulations are in order, X. The year of silence has not destroyed your ability for destruction in the least. Now you stand before me, my Maverick General Ferret destroyed in a fiery blaze of your Buster, and you pushed beyond your limits, ready to end my life as well."

The Hovertransport opened up, and a tall figure stepped out. Seven feet, with broad shoulders, and a bald head that glinted off sunlight while the rest of him was blocked by the sun's glare.

"Sigma…" X growled low in his throat.

Five times before this monster had caused death, destruction, and suffering of the worst caliber. Everyone on earth hated him, and everyone hated reploids because of him.

Sigma took a huge leap and landed lightly twenty feet away from X. One hand clutched a menacing beam scythe, while the other was curled into a fist, ready to strike.

Lightning seemed to flash from Sigma's eyes as he looked on X with a cross between hatred and amusement. His chest seemed to heave up and down in a chuckle, and Sigma's sardonic grin grew wider.

"Well, well, X. It seems we are always destined to meet on the field of battle, our hands at each other's throats for supremacy. Who will win, X? The Hunter…or the Maverick? Five times before we have played this game of cat and mouse, and every time I return stronger, wiser and awaiting our next battle with a childlike fever." Sigma's mouth let loose a small chuckle. "X, I will win. That is a certainty I have come to accept. The only question that you have any power to answer is WHEN."

Sigma curled into his own stance, holding his beam scythe steady with both hands.

"So tell me, X…are you ready to try your luck? The game is almost over, and the final round has been called."

X's Busters finally reached the Red Charge level, and he stared down Sigma with his own optics, flaring with the power to stop this menace before more innocents suffered.

"I'd watch yourself, Sigma. My dice are loaded."

Airborne Albatross unleashed another devastating salvo of homing missiles at his airborne opponent, his wings extending back so he could glide back for a gun blast.

Bastion unleashed a second blast of his Lightning Shot, igniting one missile and causing the others to explode in the resulting shrapnel fury of the first.

He pushed his magnetic fields into overdrive, skimming along at a speed of repulsion he could have never reached in his Powerstorm Wings.

"Seven hundred…Eight Hundred…NINE HUNDRED MILES PER HOUR!" Bastion screamed, feeling the air tear at his limbs, whipping about and heating his armor to unbearable degrees of heat. He was on the verge of immolation as he streaked towards Airborne Albatross, and Bastion realized with a sudden jolt of fear that Hazil's warnings were correct. If he wasn't careful, this suit could push him to an early demise.

But he reached Albatross before the Maverick could even level a winggun at him, and with a howling cry, Bastion swung his beam staff at the Maverick.

Albatross dodged, and his critical systems survived the attack. His legs however were shorn off in a blaze of contained plasma, and began the long thousand foot drop to the city below.

Albatross howled out in pain, his right hand curling up to smash down on Bastion's shoulder and unleash some of his rage. Bastion took the blow with a grunt, then finished his flight with a charge right into the Maverick's gut.

His intense speed slammed Albatross out of kilter, and the two tumbled downwards for a hundred feet before righting themselves, both breathing heavily from their exertions.

"The air suits you, Hunter. I can see that much…and you've gained an extra saber to boot." Albatross winced, finally feeling his leg veins seal off to contain his precious energy carrying blood. "But you shall not win this war! What happens this day is only in the present…"

Albatross backed off a few more feet, still cackling. He extended a wing, using his other wing's thrusters to keep him afloat. He pointed its gunbarrels at Bastion and fired.

Bastion swerved up in a burst of speed only his new suit could grant him. Albatross tried to track him, firing a continuous stream of hot streaming metal.

Bastion growled, swerving parallel without turning his body. His new wings gave him immeasurable freedom in the air, and made it impossible for any foe to track him using the tilt of his body.

Within less than three seconds, Bastion had positioned himself right behind Albatross, his beam staff separated into the blue and purple individual sabers. He crossed them over Albatross's neck, his hot breath on the back of the Maverick's head.

"The air suits me more than fine, Maverick. I have already killed you once before, and that last time, we both went plummeting. This time is different. My wings will stay in place." Albatross began to quiver, not moving. If he did, the sabers would sever his neck instantly.

"Oh, I can taste the fear in your exhaust, Albatross. Tell me…how did it feel to be destroyed the last time we did this? Can you remember how your body slammed into the ground at sixty feet per second, from a height of dizzying proportions? What broke upon impact…What was left undamaged?" Bastion cackled insanely, feeling something inside of him take over.

He knew what it was. His old guise…the Desert Fire.

"Your situation is not new, Albatross. Back during the First Robot Rebellion of Mega Man's age, the Blue Bomber faced down a particularly deadly robot known as Elec Man. Do you know what he said then?" Albatross didn't say anything, not even daring to breathe. Bastion sighed. "Pity. I will inform you. Just before Rock ended that fool's existence, he uttered a statement that I will say to you."

Albatross shut his eyes, waiting for the hot blade to bite into him. Bastion tightened his grip on his sabers and spoke up.

"The problem with Wax Wings…is that they can be clipped."

Bastion swung his sabers out from Albatross's neck, and the Maverick thought he could escape. He shot forth…

And with a blinding pain, realized he was far from alive. He was dead.

Bastion had sliced both wings clean off of the Maverick, the pieces of metal, missiles, bullets and thruster fuel falling for a short distance before exploding.

Bastion's right hand held Albatross by the scruff of his neck, his purple saber in his left hand at his neck again.

"I've clipped your wings, Maverick. Now your death is your choice. The ground…or my saber?"

Albatross let out his ragged breath, his eyes beginning to shut as his body screamed at him with his critical energy levels.

"I'll take the ground…you murderer." Bastion smirked, shaking his hair back.

"I am not a follower of traditional dogma, Maverick. I believe it's an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. The murderer is you…I am merely the equalizer."

Bastion released his grip. Airborne Albatross, shorn of his wings and feet, fell as a screaming mass of Maverick.

The ground and jungle below seemed to raise up, swallowing him. And then the screams ceased.

Bastion's eyes went back to normal, and he calmly placed his saber back into its holster.

"45% power in my Wings…I'd best get some flight in." Bastion raised his red tinted HUD flight goggles, calmly brushing through the air at 100 MPH. He lifted his wrist up and pushed his comm switch.

"Bastion here. 21^st Unit, Report!"

"Yo, Gavin here! The hovertransport's slag…no casualties! A few wounds, though…"

"Jad. Kol and I led our strike team successfully through the city. Rio De Janeiro's Maverick free, boss. We lost two, though…" Bastion's mood stayed about the same.

Casualties were expected in war. The fact they only had two deaths was a miracle in itself.

"Roger that. Make a final sweep of the area, then warp back to base. I'm calling in with our report." Bastion switched to a different comm frequency and bounced his signal to the MHHQ in Tokyo.

"Bastion here! Rio De Janeiro's secure…we're coming back home."

"Glad to hear it, Bastion." Came Cain's throaty reply. "Your success makes it four. The only person we haven't heard back from yet is X, in Washington D.C."

Bastion furrowed his eyebrows.

"X? He might be in trouble. I'm not too far from there…I'm going up North to check on him."

"X will appreciate the aid, Bastion." Cain said. "Just don't get yourself killed."

"I don't intend to, sir." Bastion replied, shutting off his comm. "For Bristol's sake…I will live."

Bastion blinked out from the tropical skies of Rio De Janeiro, his warp signal making a hot streak towards Washington D.C.

It was time to end this.

"Do I go…or not go?" Bristol sniffed. In her room at the HQ, she sat in the darkness, silently running over everything she knew again. Her blond hair, streaked with light red bands draped over the back of her chair, and she stared up at the ceiling.

She was crying. Crying because she was torn between two worlds.

The one she had lost, and the one she would lose.

It was driving her mad, like she was tugged between two giants in a game of contest. She reached for her beam saber, igniting it with a gentle flick of her thumb and staring into its glowing length. Her eyes caught its fire, glowing sharply, as if being near it gave her more strength.

"Who I was before…is so very close to who I am now…" Bristol whispered, feeling the blade radiate its heat outwards. She turned it off.

Walking over to her window, she opened it up. Tokyo seemed to light up the entire night sky with its brilliance, giving her another reflection to look into.

Perhaps she hoped the light would illuminate the shadows she could not understand inside of her mind.

Slowly…somewhat painfully…memories were coming back to her. But she had so little to go on. Only a name…two of them. Emilius Cristoph…and MI9.

She shut her curtain. She let a small sob of pain come from within her, and then she was silent. A delicate gloved hand reached up and pushed her tears away.

"I'm sorry, Bastion…" Bristol whispered, as if he was in the room with her. "I have to do this…"

She turned around, packing everything she had into a duffel bag in her drawer.

It took less than a minute. She left nothing behind, and as she walked out her door, she began to make tracks to leave. The less said to everyone nearby, the better.

Cain had already gotten her report…of how a good chunk of the 17^th wouldn't be making the trip back home. That was the final act as a member of the MHHQ.

But something made her pause her brisk walk towards the exit of this place. Something nagging insider her mind was keeping her here, trying to prevent her from leaving.

It was her love for Bastion. She owed him an explanation, at least.

Through hot tears, she whirled back around and began to walk towards his room.

She didn't see the form of J.K. Horn walking behind her, and she didn't expect to walk into him when she made the turnaround.

"Woaah there, big slugger…" Horn said in surprise, holding his hands up. "Where's the fire?" Bristol shook her head, trying to prevent the reploid from seeing her.

"Let me pass!" Bristol choked out, lowering her head. Horn's sturdy hands reached down and rested on her shoulders, forcing her to look up at him.

Horn's eyes were filled with concern and tenderness.

"Bristol, you're running away. Care to tell me why?" Bristol's body seemed to shrink down in defeat, and she choked out another sob.

"I have to leave Bastion a message before I go…"

"You haven't said WHY you're leaving yet." Horn said sternly. "Why would you want to leave this? You have a reploid who cares for you, and promise as a member of the Hunters."

"Because…" Bristol stammered. "Because, I left a life behind me, and I need to find it again!" Horn sighed.

"Bristol, have you even planned this out?" Bristol shook her head.

"I just want to leave before they return…leaving them then would be too hard." Horn shook his head.

"So it's a spirit walk you have to go on." Horn looked into her eyes again, his face lighting up. "But I'll be damned if you walk away not ready for this." Horn reached a hand down to his pants pocket, pulling out a wallet. He removed a small plastic card and held it up. "My account card…You can't wander the earth looking for yourself if you can't afford the trip. Take it." Bristol's shaking hand reached up and grabbed a hold of it, her eyes questioning the action. Horn radiated a sad smile.

"I'm old, Bristol. Allow an old man to throw his money away if he wishes it. This new Maverick problem means the end of URFAWP…I have nothing else to put my monetary influence to. The password is the names that go to my first two initials…Julius Kinnian."

"Thank you." Bristol said in a quavering voice. Horn released his hold on her shoulders.

"Now go." Horn said calmly. "Leave your message and go. You take my prayers with you." Bristol walked away, then ran.

Her eyes were even moister now. Staying behind was making this all too painful.

Bastion's room.

As she opened the door, the light inside flickered on. She spied a nearby pad of paper and a pen. Her eyes fell as she sniffled back another sob.

"Forgive me, Bastion. Forgive me."

The ground became a scarred marker of itself as Sigma's eye lasers raked the ground with their devastating heat. X scampered out of the way with a sideroll, unleashing his charged shot.

Moments later X cried out in pain as the electrical discharges from Sigma's earth planted beam scythe ran through him like a snake. Using what strength he could muster from his battered system, X hopped into the air and used his Air Dash Thrusters to avoid the strafing fields below.

Sigma laughed from his position, stopping his attack and picking up his scythe once more. He lightly walked on a cushion of air from his feet, a part of his shoe design that allowed him to avoid the blistering electrical attack of his own weapon. He looked up into the sky at X and shook his massive head.

"Fool…did you think you could outrun me that easily?" X glared down below him, firing off a fury of shots from his Buster. Sigma's shoulder blades blew off their launching mechanisms, turning into spinning boomerangs that used microjets to keep themselves suspended. For now, they raced up towards the storm in the sky, meeting the plasma bursts and causing them all to burst in a dazzling light show, neutralizing the attack.

A fresh set appeared on Sigma's shoulders, and the great leader of the Maverick leapt high into the air after X, holding his scythe steady with both hands for a massive strike.

The blade narrowly missed X, but the blistering heat left a scarring scorch mark along the side of his chest plate. X retaliated with a midair kick, firing off a small green charge shot to knock the scythe loose.

Sigma and X landed on the ground. X panted and switched to his Narwhal Cannon, turning bright shades of green along with his gold plating. Sigma rubbed his jaw where X's boot had slammed into it, quietly nursing the small wound.

He glared at X and reset his stance.

"My dental plan doesn't cover facekicks, X. You'll have to pay that bill…out of your HIDE!" Sigma charged at X, holding his scythe halfway, ready to block any shots but at the same time readying himself for a horizontal cut.

The wily Hunter used his Dash Thrusters to push himself away and to the side from Sigma's assault. The Maverick followed with his own systems, and X quietly acknowledged that the fool wanted a fight.

Sigma drew in closer to X, swinging his blade with a powerful yell. X ducked neatly underneath the attack, springing up after the swipe and hitting Sigma neatly in the jaw with a solid uppercut from his left fist. Not nearly as effective as his Shoryuken Dragon Punch in his Second Set, but good enough.

Sigma and X were jarred loose from one another, and the two righted themselves. As if linked by a psychic connection, both X and Sigma unleashed their projectile attacks at once.

By some miracle, the Narwhal Cannon bursts and Sigma's shoulder 'rangs passed by each other without colliding. The two foes were completely taken aback by the other's strike, and both were knocked flat.

Sigma was enveloped in a cloud of high explosives, and X was pinned neatly to the ground, three of Sigma's blows having gone straight through his left and right arms, and left leg. They had pinned him to the ground, and in his weakened condition, X couldn't break free.

He could only stare up at the sky above him, cloudless and bright. Why did it have to be that on such a terrible massacre, mother nature chose to smile?

He lay there motionless, noting with grim interest that Sigma was struggling to get up.

The Maverick roared for a moment, leaning on his beam scythe and managing to pick himself up off of the ground.

He limped over next to X, noting with his sick pleasure that X could not lift a finger--or Buster--to face him.

"It seems the game is mine this day, X." Sigma rasped, beginning to chuckle low in his aching belly. He too had suffered wounds from this battle.

X shut his eyes, hearing Sigma draw closer. Slowly, ever so slowly he began to charge up his weapons matrix again. Slow enough that Sigma would not hear the whine of matter and energy into X's frame until it was too late.

"You are silent, X?" Sigma cackled, finally standing over the Hunter. X kept his eyes shut, opening his mouth and letting out a moan of pain. In his wounded state, it wasn't too hard to do. Sigma smirked, and X could almost picture the superior sick grin on his face above him.

"Well, that's too bad, my dear Hunter. You played well, but in the end, the question has been answered. I have won…and you have chosen to let me do so on this day." Sigma raised up his beam scythe above his head, ready to drive it down upon X to split him from head to thigh.

X's eyes snapped open, and he fixated Sigma with a twisted grimace of pain and satisfaction.

"I still have one more roll to throw, Sigma." X finally let his weapons matrix complete its charge. With his Narwhal Cannon already selected, the Master Weapon took on the form of its charged self.

Instantly, a shield of explosive spines appeared all over X's arms, legs, and chest. Sigma's gaze changed into horror as his mouth dropped open.

He didn't even have time to scream.

X let his shots fly, feeling their tiny engines push the spines away. More than half of them struck the overbearing mass of Sigma head on, burrowing into his body slightly before exploding and opening hole after ravaging hole upon him.

The noise of the attack filled the air for what seemed like an eternity to the aching Hunter pinned to the ground. Then…silence.

X drained another Sub-Tank, feeling the increased life energy flow into him. With his newfound strength, X ripped his arms free of the ground, then calmly plucked the offending shoulder boomerangs free of their tiny wounds. Little blood came out of them…the health recharge was serving his regeneration systems well.

X looked over to where Sigma lay dying, his body a mess of sparking wires, open wounds and embedded fragments of the explosive Narwhal shells. His face was contorted into a sick grin, but X could see that it was laced tightly with immeasurable pain.

X stepped next to Sigma, glaring down at him.

"You haven't won yet, monster." Sigma breathed heavily, his chest rising and falling.

"No…not yet. But I will, X…" Sigma laughed softly. "This defeat is no more permanent than any of the others before it…Do you know why, X?" X glowered down upon him.

"Because you have already set up another base of operations somewhere hidden, to where you'll send your corrupted core program to rebuild."

Sigma nodded, but his laughs only got louder.

"Just one? Just one, X?" Sigma shook his head. "X, Fluid Ferret and I have been in hiding for more than a year…Did you honestly think that in such a broad span of time, we would only make ONE?"

The hair on X's neck froze, extending out in a twisted look.

"No…" Sigma cackled even louder.

It was the sound of a warp signal crashing to earth only meters from X's position that brought the Blue Hunter out of his trance. He looked over in shock to find himself looking at Bastion, who stared at X, and then down at Sigma in stunned disbelief.

"You…you took him out…on your own!" Sigma hissed at the new Hunter.

"Of course he did! It has been a favorite game of ours since the beginning…I take out all his friends, and then goad him into facing me!" Sigma reasserted his gaze on X and grinned again.

"Oh my yes…you can do a lot in a year. The new Maverick strain unfortunately has been destroyed, along with Fluid Ferret. You saw to that quite well, X…But it was that strain that allowed us to do the unthinkable."

Sigma drew in a breath, not trying to get up.

"Scattered hundreds of feet underground in a hundred different locations all over the earth, X…Fluid Ferret and I coerced innocent URFAWP residents to give their lives over to us. Some resisted more than others, but with so many different strengths to the Virus, they all gave in at the end. Those slaves built our lairs…and then they became entombed in them. Sleeping warriors, infected, their memories wiped, knowing only what my commands tell them, waiting only for my signal…" Sigma cackled out loud. "Your victory today is as hollow as any, X! From those underground bases, I can create as many Maverick servants as I want to my cause!"

X's mouth went dry. He had seen an underground base of Sigma's description once before.

It had been during the Third Uprising…Buried deep within the bowels of the corrupted Dr. Doppler's lair.

X had found himself staring agape back then, looking at hundreds and hundreds of generation capsules, capable of producing drones or Maverick servants, but not true reploids. Back in that Uprising, every single capsule had held a body…of Sigma.

Each one with their unblinking, unwavering eyes, their motionless fingers, their unbreathing chests.

Each one, that could at any moment activate with his consciousness and leap out, ready to tear X limb from limb.

Now that nightmare of then had restored itself…

A hundred times over, said Sigma.

"I give you the game today, X…" Sigma rasped happily, his hollow laughing shattering the dismal vestiges of hope within the Blue Hunter. "But the tournament is far from over…and in the end, X…I will win. I WILL WIN!"

A low guttural noise began to rattle about in X's throat as his eyes glazed over. His fists tightened up, and his left Buster activated.

The noise grew louder, turning into a moan, then a wail.

Finally, it turned into a scream. All the pent up rage in X seemed to turn from its icy form into a raging water.

Rage because of Ferret's survival.

Sigma's return.

The obliteration of almost his Entire Unit.

"SIGMAAA!!!" X screamed out, with such force that even Bastion stumbled back a few steps.

X pointed his Buster at Sigma's head. He fired.

And fired.

X didn't stop.

Finally, X stopped, although his arm continued to spasm as if he was firing.

Nothing was left of Sigma but a smouldering pile of colored metal.

X slumped weakly to the ground beside it, the water of his rage turning into sorrow.

Bastion stepped next to X and helped him get up. With the exhausted X leaning on him, the sobered Bastion activated his wrist comm.

"Bastion here, base. I have X…Sigma's destroyed. We're coming home." Bastion clicked it off. No sense in a response.

Bastion looked at X, saw the tears in his eyes. His heart reached out to the fellow warrior.

This being…Mega Man X…

This Hunter had given up his life to prevent the world from the menace of Sigma.

Truly, he was the greatest Hunter.

"Come on, X." Bastion said quietly. "Put the waterworks on hold. We've won…Sigma's attacks were all blunted." X shook his head, his eyes dimming into hopelessness.

"It doesn't matter…he'll attack again and again. Every time he does, we're weakened. No matter how hard we try…every win is nothing more than a Futile Victory."

Bastion shook his own weary head, knowing with his own falling heart that X was right.

"Then do it because we can. The longer we hold out, the greater the chances we'll find a way to defeat him completely." Bastion looked into his eyes with a pleading stare.

"If we don't do it X…no one will." X nodded somberly, turning his head back to the ground.

"Then the war goes on…"

"It never stopped, X." Bastion said. "We only had a short pause." The two Hunters activated their warp generators, transmuting their bodies into a mass of matter and contained energy. Then they burst up into the sky, streaming blips of light.

It was time to go home.

It was time indeed.