The man stood beside a motorcycle, his hair blowing in the wind. It was blond, and flowed down past his knees. He had it pulled back into a tight ponytail. Tucked under one arm was a red helmet.
"Justin! Oh Justin!"
The cry rang through the air, pulling the man, Justin, out of his trance. "Huh?" He grunted, and turned around to see a girl running up towards him.
She wore pink armor with bands of white around her wrists and ankles. Her boots were knee-high, widening around her feet, announcing that she had dash-capability. Her helmet was a slightly lighter shade of pink with a green gem the size of a fist in the center of it.
"Ally… Alia." Justin said, raising an eyebrow. "Decked out in battle gear, I see. Any particular reason?"
She nodded. "Yeah, radar shows a nasty band of especially unhappy Mavs that-a-way," she said, jerking her thumb to the right of her. "X and Iris are on their way, but they won't be able to hold 'um off for long. Ya mind helping us?"
Justin shook his head. "Not at all, little lady. Just let me get ready." He put the helmet on, making sure that his ponytail wasn't caught on anything. He pressed the blue gem.
Instantly, there was a blinding red light tat surrounded him. As soon as it appeared, it faded away. Instead of wearing the shirt and jeans he had been only moments before, he had on red armor, the same color as his helmet. His shoulders were white, and like Alia, he had bands around his wrists and ankles, only his were gold. His boots were the same, equipped with dash-capability. On his back was a harness, and in it he slipped what looked like a metal tube. He turned back to Alia. She grinned.
"Ready ta go, Zero?" She asked. He nodded, and they both hopped onto his motorcycle.
"God, I hate my life," Zero moaned, sinking down into a couch. He had a large gash on his right arm from his wrist to his shoulder. A little remembrance from his battle with Colonel.
"Zero, are you okay?!" Iris rushed to his side, concerned. He tried to glare at her, but his arm hurt too much to put any effort into it.
"Gee, I wonder. I just love having a beam sabre shoved into my arm." His words were a little harsh, and he regretted them after they left his mouth. Iris backed away, looking hurt.
"Ya know, life is really bori… WHAT THE!"
X walked into the room and stared at Zero, a slightly stunned look on his face. Zero managed to grin.
"Come on X, you've seen worse."
X snorted and shook his head. "Yeah, well, being as there's no Maverick attack at the time, it's a little surprising to walk into a room and see one of yours friends nice and bloody." He noticed Iris, standing off in a corner. "Iris, you all right?"
She nodded. "Yes, it's just the blood…" her voice trailed off. X didn't pursue the matter any further.
"Zero, are you going to sit there and see if reploids can get infections, or are you going to go down to the medical wing and get it treated?"
"Neither. I'm going to sit here until I have the strength to shoot myself." He looked up. "Unless you're willing to do it for me?"
X shook his head and grabbed his right arm. Zero made a short of strangled-cry type noise.
"OWWWWW! YOU BASTARD!" He then proceeded to call X ever curse word he knew in five different languages. X just stood there calmly.
"Are you through?" He asked, pulling him to his feet. "Now come on! Unless you want to be one of Alia's guinea pigs."
Zero gulped, and complied. While Alia was nice, she had a nasty habit of trying to do experiments of reploids. And none of them seemed pleasant. Needless to say, no one had yet to agree.
"Okay, go left… now right… left again… AHH! SHOOT IT, YOU DINGBAT!" Alia was having fun, more or less, riding on the back of Zero's motorcycle. Because of the intense speed the motorcycle could reach (this wasn't no ordinary Harley!), Zero had to have a visor on. And the visor made it only a wee bit hard to see things clearly. Which was one it was one of the biggy rules at the Hunter Base: Never leave without your partner. One to drive, one to get drunk.
And right now, Alia was having the time of her life directing Zero, and making sure he didn't run into any telephone poles. AT&T had threatened to sue them if they did it again.
But they never said they would sue if they shot one of the poles.
"Zero, are you positive that you can't see that much from that visor? It seems to me that you're trying to hit those poles. And that's not a happy feeling."
Alia couldn't see Zero's face, but she suspected him of grinning. "Just get your gun ready. I'll get us there."
"Yeah, but how many innocent telephone poles will you murder?"
This time Alia was sure Zero grinned, because she heard him chuckle. "I've always hated AT&T. MCI I like, AT&T I don't." Alia rolled her eyes. In the distance there was a BOOM.
"Do you think?"
"Hell yeah!" Zero pressed the gas down harder and did a wheelie with the motorcycle, sending them flying through the air. Alia hooted and pumped her fists. This was fuuuuuun.
"Howdy boys and girls. I hate to drop onto your party, but I don't think everyone's having a swell ol' time here," Zero remarked when the motorcycle landing. In front of them were seven mavericks. Three of which were female, the other four male. One of the females snarled at them.
"You think you're so hot, you damn Hunters!" She shrieked, and charged them. Alia calmly raised her arm and fired. When the smoke cleared, all that was left was a chard body.
"And the same will happen to the rest of you if you don't surrender. Now!" She might be an airhead around the base, but when it came to hunting, she was the best.
The six Mavs exchanged a glance, and simultaneously raised both hands in the air. Zero grinned, and got off of the bike. He didn't like having to kill Mavs. Imo-Mavs were okay to kill, but not Mavs. He walked over to them, and placed a tab on one of their arms. Pressing a button on his armor, they were warped away to the detention zone of the HQ.
"Well, that's all nice and done," He said, rubbing his hands together. "Where's X and Iris? And Vile, for that matter."
Alia blanched when she heard Vile's name. It wasn't that she hated them, when he wasn't hunting he was a very nice guy. It was that Iris was head-over-heels for him. And she wasn't so sure that he was the guy for her.
"I don't" Alia stopped mid-sentence when she heard a scream. "Maybe where that came from?"
"Maybe."
"Ow… Ow… OW!"
"Well, maybe if you didn't move around so much, this wouldn't hurt!"
Alia and Zero were involved in a minor fight. Alia kept on trying to stitch Zero's arm close, while he kept on pulling away. She refused to give him anything to numb the area, saying that she didn't have enough to spare on "wimpy scratches".
Needless to say, Zero was giving her hell.
And X was laughing his head off.
"HAHAHA! Ohmygod Zero, you look soooo stupid! HAHAHAHA!"
Zero glared at X. "I would shut up if I were you," he threatened. Alia smacked his arm, her way of showing that she disapproved of the way he spoke to X.
"Oh? And what are you going to do? Bleed on me?"
"You watch too much Monty Python for your own good, you know that?"
Iris just sat in a corner, staring at the wall and thinking about what Zero had said.
"AHHHHHHHHH! I'M GONA DIE BUT I'M TOO YOUNG TO DIE!" A female Hunter wearing armor of all the colors of the rainbow ran screaming from the huge dragon-type-monster staring at her, her sabre hanging uselessly by her side. Not that it would do any good. While sabres where good for close combat, a buster was the only thing that worked against dragon Imo-Mavs. Unless it was a surprise attack. And Iris just ruined any chance of that.
X rolled his eyes as he watched the hyper girl go running. "Brilliant Iris. Draw its attention so it can burn you to death." He turned his attention back to the Imo-Mav. "And as for you." He powered up his buster and fired. The blast hit it's intended target, knocking a decent sized hole out of the side of the monster. It roared its disapproval, and charged X.
X panicked. This was not the usual reaction from a dragon. Breathing fire that's hotter then lave-yes. Charging for close combat-no. He froze and stared at it, like a stupid deer in some car's headlights.
There was a flash, and the dragon froze. Literally. Gleaming ice covered the entire thing, its face trapped in a perpetual expression of hate.
A man wearing purple armor jumped down from atop the dragon's head. "Bad Bessie!" He scolded, shaking a finger at it.
"Vile!" Iris yelled happily, and ran up to hug him. He grinned as he was caught in her embrace.
"Aren't we a happy family?" X remarked.
"At least I don't freeze like a deer when I'm charged," Vile retorted. X cringed.
"Man, you saw that?" Vile nodded.
"Um, not to break up your happy little conversation guys, but I don't think Bessie is very happy with her constraints. " Iris paused. "Or his constraints. It's breaking loose!"
And sure enough, it was. There were cracks in the ice, and the eyes of the dragon were glowing red.
"Oh shit…" That was the understatement of the day.
"Oh yeah! Here I come, the great Zero, to save all of your butts!"
Everyone, even the dragon (sort of), jerked their heads up to see Zero and Alia climbing up the back of the dragon's icy back.
"Zero?" X called, putting a hand over his eyes so he could see better (you know, that thing people do… I can't describe it!).
"Who else? The great Bambino?" Zero pulled the metal tube out of the harness on his back, and pressed a button. A great light exploded out of it, forming a sabre. "Now, you see, if we jam this into the dragon's head…"
He didn't finish his statement. As soon as the of the sabre hit the ice, there was some sort of reaction. The ice surrounding the Imo-Mav began to glow.
"Uh… Zero?" Alia said. "I don't think that's supposed to happen."
Everybody felt the same way about the explosion that followed.
AN: For the rest of this chapter, the Zero, X, Alia, and Iris we know will be refereed to as Chibi-whoever. No, the other people are not from the future :). The other ones will be refereed to as Neo-whoever. Sorry if this confuses you. It'll be cleared up in the next chapter.
Neo-Iris's head spun. Everywhere she looked, all the colors were blurred together. To make matters worse, she thought she saw Alia wearing some weird nurses outfit doing something to Zero's arm while he sat on a table. Which couldn't be right, being as Alia and Zero were right beside her. And so was the dragon. But it was still frozen, right? And X was getting up, but X was also staring at her from across the room. And she saw herself sitting in a corner, thinking. So, she did the only thing that one would do if they found themselves in such a position.
She laughed.
And laughed and laughed and laughed. The Zero sitting on the table got up and moved towards her. Something snapped. She lit her sabre and charged.
Chibi-Zero was confused, to say the least. He saw himself, X, Iris in funky war armor, Alia in funky war armor, Vile without his bucket-helmet, and a frozen dragon appear out of nowhere. To make it worse, Iris-in-funky-war-armor (who he dubbed Neo-Iris) started laughing her head off. Like this was some kind of a big joke. That, or she was mentally insane.
Zero slowly and carefully stood up. His arm was killing him, (remember, no painkiller) but everyone else seemed to be out of it. Even the frozen dragon.
Neo-Iris stopped laughing and looked at him. In a flash she was on her feet and had pulled out a beam-sabre. She charged him.
With expert ease he dodged her and grabbed her arm, punching her in the gut. She collapsed forward and just sort of laid in his arms, like she was exhausted.
Neo-Vile got to his feet. "Stay Bessie," he ordered the dragon. It rolled it's eyes at him. He paused. "Zero, my man, my pal, should dragons be able to roll their eyes when frozen?"
Neo-Zero shook his head. "I don't know what a dragon should be able to do," he whined. "All I know is that a good dragon is a dead dragon."
"I don't think that the dragon is what we should be worrying about right now," Neo-Alia said softly. Neo-Vile, Neo-Zero, and Neo-X looked at her.
"Any reason why?" Neo-Vile asked.
"Yeah. I think Iris has a new boyfriend."