The young and lowly mercenary Dynamo strolled slowly through the main fourth floor hallway to the Maverick's desert stronghold, placed at the very height of the fortress's center building. The only real importance this floor held was its housing of Sigma's quarters, where many essential battle strategies were planned and many deals were stuck with numerous underground alliances and international Maverick sects from all over the world. For this reason, the fourth floor was usually bustling with activity, with many different reploids waiting in the hallways anxious to make negotations with their fearless Maverick leader.
However, times had changed quite a bit in only about a week or so, and the fourth floor had aquired something of a ghost-townish quality to it. Since Sigma's mental status had gone haywire and the X-Hunters had taken charge in his stead, nobody cared to visit the fourth floor anymore since the X-Hunters were stationed respectfully on the third floor. That, and because many of the Mavericks became frightened of their former leader, due to the infamous rumors that had spread instantly like wildfire throughout the fortress.
But Dynamo wasn't one to give in to the wild stories passed around by his "comrades". He had never been intimidated by the chrome-domed human destroyer in the past; what was the point of starting now? He didn't even consider himself a Maverick, anyway. And it wasn't like he wasn't supposed to be there, that the fourth floor had become forbidden ground for those residing in the building. Why shouldn't he be there?
But out of all the reasons he had against not being there, he still held one strong reason as to why he should be there: the peace and quiet. If there was one thing he hated most out of anything, it was large, intimidating, and ultimately annoying crowds. He especially loathed the company Rosered, Stingray, and Necrobat constantly supplied him with - the three of them were complete morons, no doubt in his mind, and any time spent with them usually resulted in a few pounding headaches. While they were downstairs training, he figured that it would be nice to get away from them, as well as the rest of the world, for a little while.
His soft footsteps could be heard echoing through the lifeless halls of the floor. Not a thing could be heard besides that - Sigma had stopped his blubbering and had resorted to a state of complete silence after a short period of time. A lot of the building's stupider Mavericks blindly believed that their Master was not in hibernation, but just wanted a totally undisturbed atmosphere so that he could concentrate on his revered "master plan" that would obliterate all of the humans. Dynamo scoffed at that logic; if anything, Sigma had just gotten tired of the crying game and had resorted to blankly staring out the window. The thought made the mercenary snicker mentally.
With the thought of Sigma on his mind, Dynamo didn't keep track of his direction and found himself subliminally walking in front of the long carpeted hallway that led directly to the cue-ball's chambers. He stopped for a minute and squinted at the large dual-door setup that served as the office entrance. Though it was a bit of a long ways away, Dynamo could just see a large grouping of papers scattered along the front of the door.
Whoa... that's strange, he thought. He's really not healthy. Now he's tossing out a plethora of file papers. What next...?
Though he was a little confused by the sight, the young mercenary couldn't help but feel a bit of curiosity. He ambled quietly over to Sigma's entrance gates, making sure to not be loud enough as to cause the sleeping giant to awaken. Finally, he approached the front door, and surveyed the files strewn everywhere in disbelief. Perhaps Sigma was in desperate need of some office space...?
But as he looked closer, he noticed that these weren't just any files; bending over to get a closer look, he could see that the files must have been highly classified, for the upper-class Mavericks' eyes only. Information on former officers... weaponry analyses... budget records... they were all there, strewn out for all to see.
Wow, Sigma must REALLY be ill. Didn't he notice how important all this crap is...?
He rummaged a bit through the papers, until he froze suddenly in mid-movement.
Jebus... no... no friggin' way...
Dynamo thought briefly that he was just seeing things - but when he picked up the large oaktag folder, he realized that he was holding on to the real thing. Quickly, he flipped it over to its backside and examined the small writing on the folder's tag:
Dr. Doppler/Sigma Project - 21XX - Classified File #204561
Now it was certain; Dynamo, by the easiest means possible, had achieved everything he had been aiming for since he had arrived at the Maverick fortress, all in a matter of minutes. Though his mouth was still agape with shock, he knew that he would find everything he needed in that folder he had.
Without any hesitation whatsoever, the grey-haired mercenary leapt to his feet and sped onward down the carpeted hallway, never looking back. This was too good to be true; WAY too good, actually. As he approached the end of the hallway, he figured that there must be SOME kind of catch to this luck, a few strings attached...
And then he heard it. "Dynamo...?"
Clumsily, Dynamo attempted to make a sudden and urgent halt... but it was too late. At practically full speed, the mercenary make a direct head-on collision with the large wall lining the 4th floor hallway, his entire body practically impounded into it. In a complete daze, he lost all control of himself and fell forcefully to the ground, causing a big fat dosage of pain to shoot up through his skull and eventually spread to the rest of his joints. His collision left a neat little body outline on the wall's previously smoothed surface. Though fully in a trance, he had enough consciousness to notice the figure standing before him: Agile.
The X-Hunter stared down at him in a bit of shock. "Jeez... you took quite a spill there, didn't ya?" he commented. He offered an outstretched hand to the fallen warrior. "C'mon, get yourself up. This just goes to show ya that you need to pace yourself a little bit. Don't want to put a dent in your head, do ya?"
Dynamo grimaced as he took Agile's hand and lifted himself up; having to take help from people he despised was not something he enjoyed doing. "Thanks for the pearls of wisdom," he snapped sarcastically.
Agile disregarded that comment. "Whatever. Now, Dynamo... what exactly are you doing up here by yourself? You're supposed to be training during times like these. There's no time for dilly-dallying around."
Dynamo choked. "Well, er... I was just collecting my thoughts, I guess. Why do you care?"
Agile rubbed his chin a bit. "Hmm... no reason, I guess. You just seemed a little rushed a minute ago when you came sprinting at full speed down the corridor. I thought you might have had an encounter with Sigma, or something."
"Well... sorta," he replied. "But I really need to get going, sir. I've got matters I need to attend to..."
But Agile wasn't listening to him; rather, his eyes were fixated on the object in Dynamo's hand. "What exactly is that there in your hand, Dynamo? It looks... intriguing."
The warrior choked again. Damn it all! He just HAD to notice that, didn't he?!
"Uhh... nothing of importance, really," he spurted out. "I've just been sorta recording my thoughts in this folder of mine. It's actually kind of personal, so if you don't mind..."
"May I have a look at it?" Agile interrupted.
"Er... well, like I said, it's kinda personal..."
"I'll ask you again," Agile said, more sternly than before. "May I have a look at it?"
He couldn't say 'no' now. Reluctantly, he presented Agile with the oaktag folder, almost feeling like he had just handed the Key to the Universe over to his arch nemesis. He watched as his apparent superior examined the front of the folder, skimming over the fine features of it and just checking the general outlook. "Ah HA!" he shouted out of nowhere in the middle of the checking.
Damn damn DAMN! Dynamo mentally cursed. All of my hard work down the drain...
"It's made by Burmingham Industries!" Agile shouted in sudden glee. "Just as I thought. They make very, very high-quality folders. You've got yourself one of the most durable in the business here, Dynamo. Now all you need to do is get some paperwork in there, and you're all set."
True to Agile's words, Dynamo was shocked to see that the folder that the X-Hunter was holding had absolutely no papers in it whatsoever. He mentally panicked. What in God's name had happened to them...?
"Uhh... yeah, yeah, I know," he muttered, snatching the folder away. "Thanks for the appraisal, sir, but I really think I should get going..."
Agile smirked. "Well, naturally. I should be on my way as well, I guess. Need to check up on the other X-Hunters. Lord knows what kind of damage they've caused already..." He began to walk off in the opposite direction. "Tally-O, Dynamo. Get downstairs and start some training, will ya? It's dangerous not to be at dnagerous times like these. You need to be as prepped for battle as possible..."
Dynamo stood amazed as the purple-hued figure marched off into the end of the hall and dissapeared, totally oblivious to what had previously been in that large oaktag folder. Frantically, the light-colored mercenary searched around the perrimeter of the hallway and saw that the papers had been scattered behind him, obviously from the collision he had unfortunately suffered earlier. Making sure that nobody was taking a silent vigil of his felonous acts, he gracefully swooped all of the papers up and shoved them back into their respective container.
He had gotten away with things this time; the next encounter with something like this may not be quite as lucky, he noted. As he hurdled down the hallway to return to his quarters on the second floor, he began to question if situations this awkward and troublesome were really worth the trouble in the first place.
The Goddess of Good Fortune was not smiling upon Violen's gargantuan body today.
"Mav'ricks! Maaaav'ricks mav'ricks mav'ricks! C'mon now, don't be a wussy. Needin' some hiiiiigh-class and brave recruits to do some super covvvvert missions, yesiree. The Vileinator's outta bizinezzz, and roamin' the streets without killin' humans... needin' some brave souls to go searchin' for his misguided soul, we are. Volunteer in the next half-hour, and we'll throw in a complimentary 'Nuke the Humans' Tee!"
The bulky X-Hunter had donned a ridiculously high-toned sideshow voice, one that would make the Amazing Bearded Woman spew puke up to her waist. The poor Maverick had gone to some drastic measures to try and garner attention, and had chosen to station himself outside of the building's cafeteria and shout offerings at unsuspecting Maverick soldiers. Unfortunately, to him, sitting outside there while holding up a sign saying 'HELP OUR CAUSE, FREELOADERS!' was the best way possible to draft some spies. It's imaginable to see how surprised and frustrated he was when nobody paid attention to his desperate pleas.
"Hey, you there, buddy!" Violen shouted at a lanky passerbyer. "What're you doing, walking around doing nothin' like that? You should be volunteering! It's not too hard, my friend! And you get a T-Shirt! Did you hear me, jack? A T-shirt!"
The thin Maverick didn't give that a response; rather, he simply gave the slow-witted Commander a confused glance and continued on his merry way. It was then that Violen began to reach his wit's end.
"C'mon, you pansy-ass!" he boomed angrily. "I've been chaffing my rear end against this godforsaken flooring for over two hours now! TWO! And, from the looks of things so far, there's no end in sight! Isn't that just frickin' dandy like sour candy?!"
Though he was feeling extremely tensed, Violen decided to back down for now, realizing that he had lost all hope of gaining the support of the lowly Maverick. Depressed and defeated, he slumped his shoulders over and put his head down, choosing to maybe just give up before he ended up wasting many more blissless hours of his lifespan.
Then came a soft tap on the shoulder. "Any luck, Violen?" a familiar voice asked.
The X-Hunter raised his head and turned to see his comrade, Sergeant Serges, standing before him with a questionable look on his face. He looked almost as if he had just been undergoing a stressful search for Mavericks to act as Agile's squealers.
Violen sulked. "Naw, I haven't gotten one ounce of support. Can you believe it, Serges? Not one! I've been sitting out here for hours, yelling at people constantly and trying to get them interested in the job. But nobody seems to want to listen to me, Serges! It's like I'm some sort of madman or deranged mental patient. I don't understand what I'm doing wrong... normally, people should be swarming to me, wanting the job! Y'know what I mean...?"
"Yeah. It's an enigma, let me tell ya," Serges mentioned, rolling his eyes. "Listen up, we've finally gotten a break, my boy. You can get yourself up from that little rut you're in for a while, Violen."
The behemoth's eyes widened quite a bit. "Whuh... re... really?" he muttered in faint disbelief.
"Well, y'know those three slightly deformed new recruits who jumped on in here about a week ago?" he asked.
Violen nodded. "Yeah."
"They happen to be training in the gym on the third floor right about now, and Darrick's up there waiting for us," he continued. "He doesn't want to confront the three of them alone, since he thinks it would be best if all three of us formally asked them together if they'd like to volunteer for the job. They seem qualified enough, and've been showing excellent progress over time. There were originally four, but one of them starting slacking off on his training. Not a big loss, I guess." He offered a hand of support to his comrade. "C'mon, lets get going. We don't have a great deal of time, and I don't want Darrick getting too impatient... and while you're at it, throw that horrific sign of yours in the trash. It's humiliating."
Violen scoffed. "No way! It took me a while to work on this thing! How would you know good advertising when you see it?"
The bearded Maverick rolled his eyes again. "Just forget about it. Let's get a move on, shall we?"
"GhaaAAAA! AGGHHH! LET ME GO, damn your black soul!"
The panicked voice of Jet Stingray traveled throughout the entire area of the Maverick's training gym, echoing loudly in the ears of all who listened. Though he tirelessly struggled and struggled, he couldn't escape the virtually impenetrable confines of Spike Rosered's deadly spiked vines, which portruded to an impressive length from his hands. Spike held his distressed partner in a firm body grip with one of his hand vines, while hanging onto a pipe in the ceiling with another. In a comical fashion, the overgrown plantlife had been spending his time swinging poor Jet back and forth, causing him to grow extremely dizzy. Naturally, he enjoyed doing this.
"Ha ha HA, Jetty!" he taunted, swinging his friend around mercilessly a few more times. "Having fun, my friend? Hope this little flight has been enjoyable enough for you. I apologize for the consistently rough turbulence, but it's just the way things are, friend!"
This was it - the stingray reploid had had enough with this embarrassment. He needed to find a way to cut the cords imprisoning him, and attack his foe in the process... though he couldn't think of a reasonable way to get out of there in the first place. He didn't really have enough physical energy left in his drained body to fight his way out, and chewing his way out was a physical impossibility considering that he had an extreme lack of teeth. It seemed at first like he would be trapped in that infernal binding for the rest of his days.
Now the spikes were starting to dig into his armor, scratching his inner circuits. He needed to make a decision, and fast. But what in Jebus's name could he do...?
Then, out of the blue, it came to him; the perfect means of escape, even if it involved a little risk here and there.
Summoning all of the energy he had left in him, Stingray managed to release a team of blueish mini-rays about the size of an avarage human foot each. The little crew hungrily swarmed around the thorned vines that hung out of Rosered's nimble arms and gnawed away, causing the plant mutant to consistently yelp out in pain. After only a minute or so, the miniature sea creatures had managed to successfully cut up the vines, causing a worn out Stingray to come falling from the ceiling. Sadly for him, however, his lack of energy limited his flying maneuverability, and he ended up crashing straight to the hardwood floor below, flat on his face, with an excessive amount of vines still hanging onto him. Even worse, the little rays eventually managed to snap the cord supporting Rosered, and he also came falling helplessly to the ground, first landing forcefully onto his partner and then slipping off and back onto the hardwood floor. The mini rays also fell to the floor, scattering in all directions and eventually exiting the room through an air vent stationed in the side wall. As you can guess, it wasn't quite a pleasant sight to see.
As they lay helplessly with moans of excessive pain escaping them, they were watched by a bewildered Necrobat, who was silently watching the events occuring while safely perched to the ceiling upside-down, in basic batlike fashion. Seeing the two obviously in a lot of pain on the ground, he swooped down gracefully and landed to check up on his friends. He kneeled down in front of them, staring at their battered faces.
"Jeez, you guys take this stuff way too seriously," he commented, shaking his head in dissapointment. "You need to lay off the psychotic attacks for a little while, really. Somewhere down the road, the two of you are gonna end up killing yourselves, and believe me, it ain't gonna be a pretty thing to watch. And you're disturbing my rest. For Chrissake, what do you need to have a decent nap around here?"
The two defeated Mavericks lifted their heads weakly in unison, each giving angry glares at both Necrobat and eachother. Mustering up the little energy they had, both of them managed to lift themselves up from the ground and stand on their hind legs. They dusted themselves off, glancing at the dents and scrapes they had suffered from their collisions.
"Ghaa, don't tell me how to fight, Batman!" Spike hissed. "I had everything under complete control, until little Johnny Cheap used that pathetically unfair and stupid excuse of a move on me. Weakling."
Stingray snickered. "Yeah right, cactus boy. Like that stupid vine trick of yours wasn't cheap enough. You just can't admit to the fact that I whooped your sorry green ass!"
"Ghaa, screw you, Chaddy boy!"
"I wouldn't talk, Seany Pants."
"Oh, that's it, pansy boy!"
"Alright, alright!" Necrobat shouted, preventing the two from pouncing venomously on eachother. "Let's just chill out, okay fellahs? I don't wanna see any more bloodshed here. From the way I see it, neither of you actually won. You just each made total asses of yourselves. So stop the damned bickering, will ya?"
Though it looked almost as if Rosered was about to raise a voice of protest to this remark, the entrance door across the room was forcefully pushed open, causing the door to violently slam against the hard brick wall. From their point of view, the three could see a trio of their superiors walking in: the bulky Commander Violen, the thinnish Colonel Darrick, and the slouched-over Sergeant Serges. The three could be seen advancing towards the new recruits in the middle of the room, obviously with some sort of task for them to do. They were first greeted with a wave from Serges.
"Hello, my friends," he said in the most neighborly fashion he could possibly muster. "I see that the three of you decided to train alone today. Just out of curiosity, why aren't there any other Mavericks training in here...?"
Necrobat shrugged. "Dunno, sir. I personally think that all of the other recruits decided to get out of the training room while we were in here so that they wouldn't be in danger of injury. Y'see, whenever Jet and Spike here ever get into a major sparring, the two usually end up causing quite a bit of damage, so naturally nobody would want to be around."
"Hmm... yes, I believe I see what you mean," he said, glancing at the two roughed up soldiers. "Well, we don't have a great deal of time on our hands, so let's just cut to the chase, shall we? For the past day or so, Agile gave us the assignment of searching for a few good Mavericks to do some high-profile covert operations... and, well, we haven't exactly been having the easiest time so far. But, luckily for us, we've found the three of you here, seemingly not doing anything of any real importance. We've been keeping a close eye on the three of you lately, and from the looks of things, you seem to be quite experienced in emergency combat techniques, and we probably can run a few spy tricks by you three, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem if you did happen to agree to take the mission. So, to summarize things... how would the three of you like to do some spywork in the heartland of Terensce City?"
The three of them exchanged concerned glances. "Err... what kind of spywork would we be involved with, exactly?" asked Rosered.
"I'll field this one," Darrick chimed in, stepping forward to face the three. "As you all probably know, the little problem we encountered with Vile has caused a lot of worry and recklessness to spread like wildfire throughout our prized Maverick forces. Even Sigma himself has suffered some severe emotional trauma by this whole mess. As far as we know, Vile could be roaming the streets and spreading an anti-Maverick message... maybe even leaking vital information regarding our plans and our general location. For all we know, we could be attacked at any moment... there's just no real way to be certain." He paused for a moment, clearing his throat and letting his words sink in a bit. "And that's where the three of you come in handy. If we can disguise you and send you out back to the streets of downtown Terensce, we can have you do a full search of the city and attempt to re-locate Vile. You wouldn't exactly be out to kill him, but to just neutralize him and return him to the base, if possible. But mostly, you're just going to be scanning the entire city for him, sneaking into and checking out almost any major location you can find. It shouldn't be too hard... knowing Vile, trouble always seems to follow him around, pacifist or not. And that's generally everything."
Stingray looked confused. "Waitaminute... why are you choosing the three of us, out of all the Mavericks here? Wouldn't it be easier to disguise humanoids? We might get noticed or something."
Segres shrugged. "Don't worry about that. Most of the humanoid Mavericks in this building are either not cut out to do the job, or are just completely unwilling to participate in it, whether it be fear or laziness or whatever. And besides, we already have a great team of designers who could easily disguise the three of you in a mere matter of minutes." He smiled broadly. "So, my friends... do we have a deal in this? Would you be willing to be our operatives in the city... 'squealers', if you will? I know the three of you aren't exactly James Bonds, but I believe you'll fare well enough."
For a moment, the three had to think about this, and huddled up to silently discuss it. After about a minute or so, they finally came to their conclusion.
"Alright, we'll do it," Nercobat finalized. "But it'd better not be too dangerous or anything..."
"No, no, don't worry about a thing," Serges interrupted. "It's settled then. Meet us in our quarters on this floor at around 8 PM, and we'll discuss things." The three of them began to walk off into the distance. "So long, you three. Do some more training for tomorrow. It's going to be an exciting day, let me tell ya."
As they exited, Spike scoffed a bit. "I'm beginning to question his definition of the word 'exciting'..."
Stingray shrugged. "Bah, who cares. This should be fun, guys! We'll finally have some real quality time together!"
Necrobat didn't seem to thrilled. "Yeah... whatever. Just as long as we can buy some hotdogs from a street vendor. The dogs they dish out in the city are eons better than the crap-tacular ones they mass produce here. It'll be a great thing to experience, believe me."