As was specified in Dr. Cain's plannings, X's 17th, Zero's 0th, and Magma's 14th would certainly not be the only Units in serious action during this raid 'n search. If ever the three main attack Units were, in some inane way, to be smack dab in the middle of some horrific and seemingly hopeless situation, backup Units could always be contacted. Far above the heads of the many soldiers, there flew members of the ever-competent and highly skilled 7th Unit Air Cavalry. They had the closest tie-ins with the HQ, and basically reported the status of the soldiers' advancement from their keen eagle-eye views. For this mission, Cain had called upon the finest pilots the Hunters had to offer (which really wasn't saying much, however, considering that many of their best pilots had either been killed or had retired during the third Uprising). The airbourne recruits also kept close tabs on the grounded Units that formed a loose defensive barrier around the fortress.
This "barrier", in actuality, was just a large encirclement of the entire fortress in question. The Units forming the barrier, however, actually were instructed to spread themselves out into the desert and each perform specific duties, each one picked out by Cain himself. The jobs themselves weren't completely necessary ones, but they were somewhat helpful - the 8th Armored Division, being heavily protected and efficient during desert raids specifically, were in charge of watching for and shutting down any kind of harmful disturbance (soldiers, mostly) coming from the outside. The 4th Overland Unit, being very tactful on most tracts of land in general, were given the duty to inspect the land and look for any dangers there (land mines, etc.). Then, of course, was one of the most overlooked Units in the Hunters, the 12th Combat Assistance Unit. Though this Unit was blessed with one of the less tedious jobs, communications, they were unfortunatley hindered by one of the worst forces in human and reploid nature: incompetence.
"Hey, hey... HEY!" shouted the now-shrill voice of Glacier Dragoon, who was now standing and cupping his mouth. "Anderson! What the hell're you DOING back there?!"
Somewhat far back into the desert distance, a stocky middle-aged male looked back at his Commander with a somewhat puzzled look on his face. "Oh, don't worry about me, sir!" he shouted back in assurance. "On the way over here, I got into a little snag, and I think I dropped my keys somewheres. I'll find them soon, though!" He gave a thumbs-up to Glacier, wearing a pathetically stupid smile on his face.
The azure-coated Commander grunted inwardly, utterly annoyed by the whole situation. Though the 12th Unit wasn't plagued with a boring and longwinded job like their other partner Units, the job could easily have been considered one of the worst, considering all of the idiotic and dimwitted soldiers Glacier was forced to deal with. As was expressed by Glacier's good friend, Icarus, the entire ordeal produced "the highest level of suckage known to modern man".
Speaking of Icarus - the goofy yet somewhat skilled Hunter was sitting in the sand beside his commander, staring at his small communication device and waiting for any incoming messages (he and some of the others exchanged messages with the Air Cavalry from time to time). While he did so, the grey-plated soldier sang merrily to himself to pass the time.
"Some people say that today is the day when the wind will rise and blow the world a-wayyy..." he sang, snapping his fingers to his own beat. After a short while, however, the Hunter's singing began to turn into a tedious and noisy mess, which really began to get on Dragoon's nerves.
"Oy, gevault... would you cut that out, PLEASE?" barked Glacier, who was standing right next to his friend's resting position. "Not only do I hate it when you wail like that, but it also really doesn't help with me having to deal with this bunch of crazy soldiers. The last thing I need is you becoming just as annoying as the rest of them."
Icarus, a little offended by his Commander's remark, stopped singing and then raised both of his hands in an 'I didn't do it' fashion. "Hey hey hey, c'mon now," he reasoned. "I'm only trying to keep myself and the rest of the troops happy and entertained..."
"Wow. You honestly think the other troops really give a flyin' fatoot?" Glacier snapped, pointing a clawed finger at the gaggle of the other Unit 12 soldiers behind him. They were a clean mix of reploid and human, and were all sitting in a neat little circle on the sandy desert surface. They all seemed to be immersed in a game of some kind, which involved all of them throwing their walkie-talkies mindlessly at eachother, all of them catching the black things and then tossing them to the next person. As they did so they sang: "The Wonder Boxes go round 'n round, to catch them quickly you are bound, if you're the one to break them last, then you'll fall promptly on yer ass! And you - are - OUT!" In one sudden motion, the group tossed all of their communicators at one helpless human Hunter, all of them crashing down on him like hail on a stormy night. Because of this, some of the comms snapped like twigs immediately after coming in contact with the young man's skin. All of the soldiers, sans the crushed human, laughed hysterically at the sight.
"Ohhhh, Jeebus - tapdancin' - Christ," Glacier cursed in shame. "Where the hell do they think they are? Little Miss Molly's Tea Party?"
"I wouldn't really be surprised," Icarus responded, rubbing his chin in observation. "There goes a clean half of our communications job. Weird how all of those communicators snapped like that... I guess we must've been on something of a low budget."
"Yeah, it's always like that." The Dragoon glared at the soldiers for about five more seconds, watching them still guffawing and jeering at the injured human, who was now arising from the bed of black devices and muttering inaudible curses at his 'friends'. Glacier then looked back to his friend.
"Hey, Ikar," he muttered to him. "You doin' anything of real importance right now?"
Icarus checked his comm once again, seeing that the red light wasn't flashing. "No, suh."
"Good. Then could you get those idiots back in line? I'd do it, but I'm really, really not in the mood for that kinda bullcrap today, thank you very mooch."
"Yessuh, Mr. Glayshuh suh," he said in a kiddish voice as he shot back onto his feet and headed on over to the other soldiers, kicking up sand as he ran. Some faint yelling on his part could be heard, and Glacier was happy to see that the soldiers were willing (yet pretty reluctant) to settle down. As Icarus stayed with them to give 'em a small lecture, Dragoon directed his glance away from the group and directed his attention back to both Icarus's and his own comms, both of which remained totally inactive...
...well, up until that very minute. Out of the blue, Glacier's comm (nestled in his right hand) suddenly began beeping a bit, with static and a message following:
"Dragoon of Unit 12!" it said. "This is Commander X of the 17th Unit. Do you read me...?"
Glacier, fumbling a bit, immediately jolted the comm to the front of his mouth. "Yep, read you loud and clear, X," he responded. "What's your situation? You reach the fortress yet?"
"We're right on the verge of it, actually," X said enthusiastically. "Our Units have already split up, so it's only me and the rest of my team approaching the place now. Should only take a few minutes. Sorry to keep you guys waiting and all."
"Oh, hasn't been a problem," Glacier lied, watching some of the soldiers now teaming up on Icarus, who was fighting back with all his might. "But you guys shouldn't be worrying about us at a time like this. You see any soldiers or anything yet? Y'know, guards or something?"
The elite Commander paused for a moment, pondering something. "Hrmm... well, actually, I think I can see some soldiers burrowing around the top of the place. Only about a couple of them, it seems. I think I'll have to ask them a few questions."
"Yeah, well, you do that," Glacier replied anxiously, now watching the soldiers dragging Icarus through the sand by his legs, with the reploid yelping for help consistently. "I've got some... er, important matters to attend to, so I should probably end the transmission right about now."
"Oh, right. I should probably do the same thing..." X mentioned casually. "Oh, and Glaish, remember that Zero and Magma are taking the other sides, so you'll probably be getting signals from them soon."
"Uh... right. Well stand by for 'em," Glacier replied a little nervously, mentally praying that any of the comms that were smashed didn't signal any of the other Commanders. "Anyways, best of luck to you and the rest of the soldiers out there. Try not to get your ass deep-fried or anything."
"Well try," X said with a laugh. "Adios, over..." That ended the transmission, and the little light on Glacier's black box fizzled out.
"Hoboy, THIS certainly should be interesting," the stressed Commander muttered to himself as he began to help out his friend, who had been shoved into the sandy depths by a bunch of rowdy and brutally incompetent 'Hunters'.
"Stupid 'effin sun," complained the high-toned voice of T-17. The lanky blueish-yellowish Maverick technician leaned lazily over the railing that surrounded the very tip-top of the circle-shaped fortress, which in itself was actually quite big. "I wish that we could just blow that damned thing up. Christophola, it's friggin HOT out here..."
"Please, 17, could you stop whining?" asked his partner and apparent friend, the short and stocky T-18, who was sitting down next to his friend, facing away from the front of the fortress. "It really bothers me when you do that. With you around, every situation seems worse than it actually is..."
"Oh, don't give me THAT," T-17 snapped at him, removing himself from his laid-back poise. "This suck-diddly-ucks. Look where we've gone, my friend. Only some weeks ago, we, out of an EXTREME stroke of luck, manage to find the one particular soldier that Sigma just so HAPPENS to be desperately searching for. They launch this whole plan - Vile's rebirth, releasing his latent power, sending him off on some wonderful happy mission to destroy all of mankind, etc... and it was all because of us and our sharp hunting skills. And what do we get for it, I ask thee? Two feckin' moldy LIFE SAVERS, and a series of run-down jobs fit only for slack-jawed yokels." Had he the ability, he would have spat on the ground; rather, he kicked the waist-high chrome rail with his metallic foot. "And they screwed their job up pretty bad, too... figures. That whole lot of them, they're all a bunch of incompetent ninnies. They need more experience people like us... but NOOOO! They give us this blue-collar 'guarding' job. Well la-de-frikin'-dah!..."
"Alright, alright!" his pudgy associate interrupted. "I agree that the whole thing really wasn't very fair, but it could be worse, you know. A guarding job, in my opinion, is actually a pretty honorable one. I mean, they shoved us into this job and completely ignored the fact that we have absolutely no experience in combat or general... eh, let's just call it 'shooing away', or anything like that. I guess they trust us. That's always a good thing..."
"Oh, shut your yap!" 17 nagged. "That's ridiculous. You and I know perfectly well that we were only given these jobs so we could be put OUT OF THEIR WAY. We hinder them, I guess, Lord knows why. And another thing, exactly what 'honor' is going to come from a craphole of a job like this? I mean, what're the chances that we're going to actually be ambushed by some overpowering enemy, I pray thee? We're practically in the middle of nowhere, for Chrissakes, so how are we gunna be locat-"
"HEY, YOU TWO UP THERE!"
A foreign voice, greeting the artificial eardrums of both T-17 and 18, interrupted 17's speech in mid-sentence and came from the base level of the fortress. Though the voice itself didn't sound all too threatening, the two both received something of a chilling feeling from it, as if they had heard it years before. They didn't know exactly who it was until 17 mustered up the courage to actually peer over the edge.
"Who in the name of Zeus..." the Maverick muttered to himself as he advanced the railing once again and cautiously peered over the edge, with his partner behind him. What he saw was extremely out of the ordinary; it was a group of people, actually. A blue-armored reploid stood strongly at the front of the group, who was staring straight up at the two, and was most likely the one who had called to them. Following behind him was a troupe of about six to seven other soldiers, not too unusual - but they were a mix of both reploids AND HUMANS. That, out of anything, assured poor 17 that the fellahs greeting them at the door could never be Maverick affiliates... Mavericks would never accept HUMANS into their ranks, for Chrissakes, and would certainly never make affiliates of them either. Also, their leader certainly looked very familiar... one of those elite reploids, but certainly not in the Maverick ranks. So, by the process of elimination, the reploid techhy realized that the only group these people could affilated with were the...
"Ogod, Ogod, OGOD..." he muttered, clutching the rail tightly, his eyes now ablaze with sudden horror. "18... down there... there are HUNTERS down there!"
"Hunters?!" T-18 replied with shock, rushing over to his partner's side. "Really? How do you know...?"
"Well, it's pretty feckin' obvious!" 17 responded with both panic and anger. "Some of those soldiers are HUMANS down there, for Pete's sake. And that soldier standing at the front... that blue guy... he's one of those big-shots in the Hunter ranks. I forget his name... Mega X, or something..."
"MegaMan X?" 18 finished for him.
"YES. That's the guy!" 17 recalled, peering back down at the group. "Oh jeebus... we're in deep ca-ca now, my friend. Those damned Hunters must've found some way to track us down. They're very crafty, they are... probably found us on radar or something after we swiped Vile back from them. Oh Jeebus Sweet Christophola... they're gonna fry us bad, they will... they're always so damned MERCILESS, I tell ye..."
"Alright, alright, just calm yourself," 18 assured. "Don't be so pessimistic about it. I mean, sure, Hunters at a Maverick base isn't quite a good thing. But who knows? They might not even know that we're actually Mavericks yet."
"Oh, and how does THAT really matter?!" 17 almost shouted. "If they don't know now, then they sure as hell'll find out sooner or later. I mean, come ON. They can just barge right into this feckin' building, notice all of the Maverick insignias and extreme lack of human life, and figure things out for themselves. They certainly aren't stupid..."
"Hmm..." 18 pondered, remaining surprisingly calm. "Well, how about we just try and fool them and pretend we aren't Mavericks...?"
"18, now you're REALLY starting to pull stuff out of your ass," 17 snapped. "That'll never work, for the very same reasons I just said, if you were actually listening for a change. They'll find out about us in a heartbeat, if they just look in the right pla-"
"HELL-O!" shouted the voice of X again, which was actually pretty calm considering that he had to shout so loudly. "Anybody ALIVE up there?!"
"Uh... yes, yes!" called back T-17, who had finally gained the courage to address them back. "You, uh... have arrived at the house of, uh... Lord... Shazzlefrazzle. What business do you have here, may I ask?"
X, somewhat surprised to finally get a response, raised his eyebrows a bit at the name 'Lord Shazzlefrazzle'. But, for the time being, he seemed to ignore it. "We've come here on something of a search... or retrival, if you want to call it that," X responded. "We're on a search for Vile, one of the most feared Maverick soldiers, after he was apparently abducted from our headquarters not too long ago. We've tracked him to this location, so we have no doubt that he's still being housed here. So, if you would be kind enough to let us into the building and to negotiate with whomever is inside, we'd be happy to take him off of your hands..."
"Oh, no, I'm very sorry, but a search like that seems pretty pointless to me," 17 replied apologetically. "That Vile fellah... he was transferred the hell outta here, actually."
X looked to the technician with a glint of confusion in his eye. "Transferred...? Where to?"
"Ummm... Milwaukee, I believe," 17 blatantly lied, scratching the railing with his fingers nervously.
"...Milwaukee? Why...?"
"Oh, many reasons," 17 said. "Reasons none of us really understand, actually..."
"What're you saying to them?" 18 whispered to him, keeping himself concealed.
"Don't worry. I told 'em he was transferred," 17 muttered, chuckling evilly a bit. "Listen... I want you to look around here for something to fend them off with. Like a brick, or something..."
"What? Why...?"
"Well, we can't let them in without a fight, can we? Now c'mon, hurry up. I have a feeling things are about to get pretty ugly..."
"What... what did he just say...?" asked a curious Lark, who was standing in back of X and beside his friend Colin. "I couldn't hear him too well."
"He said that Vile was transferred, or something like that," Colin replied. "That's... really, really odd. Something gives me the idea that he's just feeding us a chock-full of crap."
"Yeah... same here," said X, who was now staring at the mysterious reploid with suspicion. "ALRIGHT THEN!" he shouted to him once again. "Tell me, my good man. Exactly how are we supposed to believe what you're telling us...?"
"Eet es ze TRUTH!" 17 shouted, donning a somewhat annoying accent. "Are you calling uz liarz?"
"Well, excuse me for being a tad suspicious," X muttered. "Anyway, I'm truly dying to know something. Who exactly ARE you affiliated with?..."
"ZAT EES NON OFF YOR BIZ-NESS!" 17 shouted back. "You ztoopid, pathetic nin-ee of ay Huntere. Ve vill NEVAR LET YOOS STOOPES IN!!!"
"Then, what the hell're you doing in the middle of a bloody DESERT?..."
"NON OFF YOOR BIZ-NESS, NINEE!" 17 barked rudely at the travelers. "ZTOOPIDS! YOU VILL NEVAR GEET IN ZE FORTRESS!..."
"Alright, that's quite enough of your personal insults and that pathetically fake attempt at a French accent," X yelled at him, much more seriously than before. "We're going to search this building high-and-low for Vile, whether you want us to or not. Therefore, we offer you one last chance at peace. You either let us in without too much commotion, or we will have to retaliate with excessive force-"
"GHAA! ZTOOPID NINNY OF A HUNTERE! I FART IN YOUR GENERAL DIRECTION!" the guard shouted inanely, now really disoriented. "YOUR MOTHER WAS A HAMSTER, AND YOUR FATHER SMELT OF ELDERBERRIES!"
X rolled his eyes, ashamed with the utter ridiculousness of the man's words. "Oh, come on now. This is SERIOUSLY starting to get ridic-"
Before the fully embarrased X could say anything more, a rectangle-shaped projectile came sailing down from the guard's perch and straight towards the blue soldier. His reflexes failing him a bit, the Hunter was nailed right in his helmetted head, the force of the blow causing a small but somewhat impressive dent in it. He bent over a bit, clutching his injured cranium and muttering an excessive string of awkward curses.
"OWW! JAY-sis, that HURTS!" X shouted. "Was that REALLY a necessary gesture...?"
"Oh, don't tell me..." commented Colin in a bit of fright. "I think that was a friggin' BRICK they just tossed at us!"
"THAT'S RIGHT, you stupid, weak Hunters!" the menacing guard shouted angrily, his fake accent starting to fade away now. "And there's PLENTY more where that came from, sonny! HA HA! LOOK AT YOUR ZTOOPID, WEAK LEADERE! HE WRITHES IN PAIN! WRITHES!!!"
Out of the blue, another large brick was chucked at the unsuspecting masses, and began to become dangerously close to one of the soldier's heads once again. Before it could come into contact, however, a plasma shot whizzed through the air and engulfed it, shattering it into tiny little pieces. Though the group was still pretty shocked at the sight, they were relieved to see that X had risen back to his feet and had taken care of the incoming threat, his arm cannon still smoking a bit.
"This is the last straw, guys," X announced to his crew, breathing quite heavily. "I personally can't take any more of this utterly unnecessary and ridiculous verbal and physical abuse. Maybe I'm a loony, but I have a strong feeling that these people don't want us to see whatever's in this godforsaken building. Therefore, I propose we bust this damned door down already and have a look for ourselves. I'm not much of a fan of violence, but- OWW!" Before he could finish, X was bricked once again, this time on the arm. The guard above could be heard hollering in a very brutish manner.
"Alright then, let's get the door down! CHARGE!" yelled an angered Lark, who, with a group of other soldiers (besides X, as he was still rubbing his sore arm), ran at the door in an attempt to break in down. In an awkward turn of events, the large door easily burst open without much effort at all.
"Oy... figures," X muttered as the group began to file into the building. "We waste all our time here arguing with some pathetic oaf, all when we could've just nudged the friggin' entrance down in less than a second. Oh well... what're you gunna do...?" With that in mind, he ran into the building to join his enthusiastic comrades.
"Oh Jeebus, what in the name of holy hell is happening now?" panicked a fully stressed out Sigma, who watched the horrifying pictures displayed on the radar screens and the security cameras.
"Oh my... this is REALLY not a good thing," replied the head of security, Gelves, a mostly yellow-armored Maverick that represented something of an eagle. He too watched in utter horror as four seperate groups of Hunters stormed on into the building, all of them almost coming in at the same time. He, Sigma, and three other X-Hunters behind him were all safely stationed in the second-floor security deck, which was used to keep tabs on pretty much all activity that occured inside the building. Some of the soldiers Sigma saw file in he would recognize almost anywhere - glimpses of X and Zero, as it seemed.
"It's those rotten Hunters again! DAMMIT!" the Reploid King slammed a fist on a desk beside him. "They've managed to track us, I knew it! Persistent bastards! Lord knows what they're going to do to us now... and Vile isn't even finished, for Chrissakes..."
"Isn't there ANYTHING we can do, Gelves?" asked Agile, who was standing beside a distressed Sigma. "We've got some pretty strong security. Isn't there some kind of emergency device for a dire situation such as this?"
The eagle chuckled nervously. "Well, you'd really think that, wouldn't you?" he said depressingly. "Unfortunately, since we built this fortress sort of recently and have used up most of our funding on battle armors, the outside towers, the food, and a LOT on bringing Vile up to code, we sort of nixed the idea of an emergency security system. To be totally honest with you, we never really expected anything like this to happen so suddenly..."
"Well, we sure as hell have to do SOMETHING!" Sigma shouted once again, but with a bit more determination than previously. He turned to face the three X-Hunters waiting anxiously behind him. "Alright, listen up you three. We're going to need to move extremely fast during this operation, or Lord knows that those Hunters could storm up here and kill the whole lot of us without us even getting the chance to put up a decent fight. And you know how horribly embarrassing THAT would be." He first pointed a finger to Agile, standing beside him. "Agile, you have the most important job of them all. I want you to contact Serges IMMEDIATELY and tell him to activate Vile and bring him back up to the third floor... though I'm not sure if the operation is totally completed yet, I don't doubt that they're ALMOST done, so it should suffice. Violen, I'd like you to stay here on the second floor, organize all of the soldiers here, and wait in the lobby. If any of the Hunters manage to make it up here, which I really don't doubt, then I'd like you to stage a surprise attack and try to overpower... well, at least subdue them. Darrick, I'd like you to head up to the third floor and, contrary to what I'm having Violen do, I want you to get all of the soldiers the hell out of there. The lobby is where Vile and I will be waiting for the Hunters... I don't want any unnecessary injuries. When - or if - you finish your jobs, I want you to head back to the third floor just in case any problems so happen to arise. Got that, you three?"
"Got it," Darrick confirmed, and ran out the door as quickly as possible. He was soon followed by the other three, who filed out of the room just as quickly as the young Colonel had. After they had left, Sigma hastily turned back to his head of security.
"Gelves, put me on speaker so I can talk to the people on the first floor for a moment," he asked between breaths. "I need to tell warn them ASAP."
"Yessir, will do," Gelves replied, as he put his master on the speaker.
"Aww, jeez," muttered a somewhat surprised Zero, who caught sight of a large group of soldiers, the whole lot of them staring at his Unit with extremely confused faces. Zero and his Unit 0 had just headed into the back lobby of the fortress's bottom floor, without many problems; there weren't even any guards stationed. "Did we barge in here at a bad time...?"
"No, I don't really think so..." muttered a red-haired human standing beside him. "From the looks on their faces, it doesn't seem like they really were expecting us or anything."
"Well, STILL... they might be armed or something!" Zero commented. "We can't really take any chances, can we? Look, I'll try to talk to them or something, but if they resist, we'll have to..."
Suddenly, an engrossing about of static and feedback began to clang through the air, causing almost everybody in the room to cover their ears in pain. Finally, the horrible noises cleared after about ten seconds, and an extremely familiar, less pain-causing voice replaced it:
"ATTENTION ALL MAVERICKS ON LEVEL 1 OF THE BUILDING!" the voice screamed. "WE'VE REPORTED A DISTURBANCE ON YOUR LEVEL, WHICH HAVE BEEN PROPERLY IDENTIFIED TO BE THE MAVERICK HUNTERS. IF YOU SEE ANY OF THEM IN ANY KIND OF SITUATION, I ORDER YOU TO ATTACK THEM MERCILESSLY WITH ANY KIND OF WEAPON YOU MAY HAVE ON YOU. EXTREME PREJUDICE ONLY. THAT IS ALL... UH, HAVE A NICE DAY, I GUESS." There was a tinny clicking sound, and the transmission abruptly ended there.
"Oh, good Lord, that friggin' voice again," Zero said to himself in complete frustration. "And he mentioned Mavericks, too. Of course, everything has to happen just as it ALWAYS does... figures..."
Suddenly, every single one of the apparent Mavericks surrounding the group searched themselves anxiously in search of some weapon - ANY weapon - they could use in their own defense. After a few seconds, all they could each really find were these small, dark black pistols, which didn't actually look very threatening. They all pulled them out practically at the same time, most of them aiming straight for Zero.
"Oboy," Zero muttered, feeling a bit unnerved at the sight. "Looks like you've all got pistols... that's great... now let's just put 'em down now..."
Before he could continue, however, one of the Mavericks pulled the trigger of his gun, firing a small, concentrated red beam of energy at the Crimson One. That beam of energy, however, was actually light energy; the little laser-type light simply illuminated an extremely small amount of Zero's armor, causing absolutely no damage to the reploid's body armor whatsoever. The soldier who fired the gun, a partially armored female reploid soldier, stared at here weapon with confusion.
"What the... wait a second!" she shouted. "I think all of these guns are used solely for target practice... they can only shoot little laser lights!"
Another soldier, panicking along with the others, shot his gun as well and discovered the same result. "Well, what're we supposed to do NOW?" he yelled.
After that remark, all of the soldiers stared at eachother painfully, each one realizing what they had to do. In an act of severe cowardice, the entire massing of soldiers ran in all directions, yelling in vain for their mommies to save them and pushing and shoving for the exits in a mad frenzy for their lives. After only about a minute, everybody in the room had already filed out, save for the Hunters, of course. Zero considered the thought of pursuing them, but quickly decided that it really wasn't worth the trouble; he was far too shocked and appalled.
"Oy... this is just pathetic, it really is," Zero commented, viewing the now completely empty back lobby. "Lord knows what the hell Sigma and the others have done to this place. Well, at least we know that these people are Mavericks now..." Pausing to think for a moment, the Crimson Hunter pulled out his communicator and sent a signal back to X's own communicator on the other side of the building. "Hey, X... you there, buddy?" he asked him. "You gotten inside the building yet?"
"Yeah, we're all inside," X responded to his friend from the main lobby. "We had something of an unpleasant run-in with a guard from the outside, but we got in all right. How about you?"
"Well, there weren't really any guards," Zero replied. "But there were a lot of soldiers inside, though. They all retreated after they realized their weapons were completely useless, though. Pretty saddening."
"Yeah... similar story here," the Unit 17 Commander agreed. Neither of them actually mentioned anything about finding out about Sigma and the Mavericks' presence; it wasn't like they really needed to. "Anyways, I'm headed upstairs with my Unit after we're done searching for Vile down here. You doing the same?"
"Yep," Zero stated simply, "and we'll meet ya up there."
"Alright then," X finished, ending the transmission. Well, here they went again... Sigma, and his Mavericks, were all over the building. Not that the azure Hunter was terribly surprised, but... well, the information was still somewhat hard on him. To put things simply, having to face Sigma again really, really sucked... and he also didn't doubt that he'd be forced to fight Vile, too, but that was always debatable.
"Alright, everybody!" X announced to his Unit, deciding that he shouldn't keep on pondering on things like that all the time. "We've gotta search this floor for Vile high and low, so let's get this started, shall we? I want you guys to split up into a few groups and search this entire lobby. If we don't happen to find him, up the stairs we go to the second floor, where we'll meet up with Zero and the others. Alright, let's get this show on the road!"