Mega Man X: Demons Of The Past

by Erico

The fight never ends, and two weeks past the end of TSOM, a new Chronicle is begun...

19. Desperate Strides

MEGA MAN X: DEMONS OF THE PAST

By Erico

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: DESPERATE STRIDES

            "6:45 P.M, MHHQ Standard. June 24th, 2131." Signas announced into his voice recorder. On the desk lay another voice recorder…Cain's, of course…but Signas didn't think it was right to use it. So he'd gotten his own.

            He turned about and stared out his window, to Cain's hallowed grave out front. There was still a Hunter guarding it. And from now on, there always would be. That always made him pause. The guard rotations hadn't been his idea. The Hunters had set that up by themselves.

            "No Maverick activity reported today. Of course, considering how much of a blow we gave to them in yesterday's skirmish on Cornus, I can't exactly feel surprised." He continued matter-of factly. "There was damage taken on our side as well. The 21st, especially, lost about a third of its members in the battle. So it seems for the moment, that an informal cease fire's been called on both sides."

            He got out of Cain's office chair and poked his head out into the MHHQ's hallways for a brief moment before pulling it back in.

            "One thing that the Hunters have made very clear in the four days that I've been here is that I am 'the new guy.'" Signas added coolly. "X and Zero, and the medical reploid, Hazil have been here longer than anyone, for the entire thirteen and some years that the MHHQ has stood. I have begun to realize that they have their own way of doing things, and that, against all rationality, my presence has not helped matters, but served only to exacerbate the already strained bonds." He switched hands, then took a moment to collect his thoughts.

            "It took an irrational outburst by Zero to prove this fact to me. But now that it has been proven, it does not need repeating. My own knowledge in the matters of how the Maverick Hunters operate is nowhere near their level. I was sent by the GDC to act as James Cain's replacement, and now I realize that I cannot emulate his command style, or the extent of what he did."

            Signas sat back down and lay the recorder on the desk, lifting his hands up and folding them underneath his chin. "So the inexorable conclusion is that if my role as the new leader of the Maverick Hunters is to succeed, I must find my own niche…my own way of doing things that does not conflict with the statutes already laid down, but will act to enhance the Hunter's capabilities."

            He reached down and shut off the recorder, then leaned back in the chair.

            "These Maverick Hunters…So emotional all the time." He sighed. "And I was always told that emotions made one weak, yet…"

            He shook his head at the thought. Yet Zero managed to do the most damage of any of the forces in the most recent skirmish. And he always fights and thinks with his heart.

            "There is still much to be learned, Signas." The new Hunter General mused.

            He looked over to the scribblings of arrows, circles and triangles arranged on his datapadd, with lines going to and from everywhere.

            "And much to be planned."

            There was planning being done in other parts of the MHHQ as well. Only it wasn't being done by the General of the Maverick Hunters. In a conference room of the MHHQ that had been built completely soundproof and cut off from all power and air circulation, and surrounded by three feet of concrete. It was a 'dead room', designed solely to stop eavesdroppers, recording equipment, and spies from knowing what the devil was being discussed. And in this case, that was just what was needed.

            Willow sat at the conference table, as did Horn, Allegro, and even Bastion and Cleo. Wycost and Doan leaned against the walls at opposite ends of the rectangular room.

            "So that's the gist of it, effectively." Wycost explained, eyes scanning the ceiling, if only because he didn't have the heart to look Bastion in the eyes. Not after he'd failed to keep Bristol safe. "Bristol is back in the clutches of MI9 at their HQ. Willow here was an associate of Bristol's, and helped her to escape. MI9 is a bad thing. VERY BAD. That's how you found her in New Denver."

            "That's why she couldn't remember anything." Willow picked up, looking at Bastion. "She used a memory wiper on the both of us, to prevent the Mavericks from abducting us and using our technological breakthroughs for their own means." She blinked a few times. "Imagine Mavericks with the power of a Berserker Beacon."

            "And now we have to go rescue Bristol." Doan mumbled. "Hell, it beats waiting around here for the next Maverick assault."

            Bastion took in a few deep breaths. And only then did he brush back his brown hair with one trembling hand and turn to look at them all.

            His eyes were hollow then. Because of his loss, and what he knew came next.

            "You're telling me that the woman I pledged my love to was a part of a hidden organization that traces its origins back to before Mega Man and the Robot Rebellions. And that this organization has reached its claws out into every major government organization of the world. And to make matters worse, after the events of the Final Weapon, they deemed all reploids to be a danger."

            Bastion stood up, exhaling another breath full of tension.

            "Also, MI9 is responsible for the reploid murders that have made the Maverick Hunters keepers of mortician's records. Beam staffs through their control chips…And that I might have been another one of their victims, if things had gone differently."

            He turned about and looked at Wycost.

            "And NOW, she is back at the same place she escaped from, because they found her. And for some reason, they kept her alive, instead of killing her on the spot."

            "I'm sorry, Bastion." Wycost finally uttered. "I made you a promise I'd keep an eye on Bristol, and…"

            "Wycost, SHUT IT." Willow growled. "This guilt isn't going to help anyone. It certainly didn't help Bristol, even though for all purposes, she is the cause of our dilemma in the first place." She harrumphed and turned to Horn and Allegro. "I am sorry about your island."

            "Casualties of war, Willow." Horn said resignedly. "I may not enjoy it, but I am familiar enough with the concept. Bastion and I have a track record of our own." Willow lifted an eyebrow, and Horn had to explain further. "I worked for the Israelis in the R&D Department, much like you and MI9. And Bastion over there was known as The Desert Fire. The Islamic Jihad's crack reploid assassin. For a time, we were enemies."

            "And now?"

            "Begrudged allies." Bastion finally murmured. "Once we moved past the fact I killed his friends, and his weapons helped to kill mine, we got along swimmingly."

            "We're a typical American family." Wycost jested. Cleo rolled her eyes at that and peered over at the inscrutable Doan. The gray armored reploid said nothing.

            "If I may interject a comment." Willow finally interrupted. She stood up and cleared her throat. "Wycost told me we needed to come here to organize, regroup, and plan." She looked around the room, the tenseness in her voice now growing apparent. "But let me remind you that every moment we spend hanging around here is another moment that Bristol draws closer to death…if not something WORSE."

            "That cannot be allowed." Bastion growled. He had the look of a spring waiting to pounce, and everyone in the room knew why. Feeling helpless didn't do much. But that helplessness was to end. "Willow, I'm coming with you. Bristol is my fiancée."

            "The more the merrier." Willow said back in a tight-lipped grin. She looked around. "So that makes me, Wycost, and Bastion. Anyone else care to join us on our merry quest of suicide?"

            "I'll go." Doan mumbled, picking himself up off of the wall and shrugging. "I need to field test my Flight Wings anyhow."

            "I'll go, if you promise not to slice my hand off." Allegro growled. Willow nodded, the tension draining from her face a bit.

            "I promise, Allegro. And for what it's worth, lad, I'm sorry."

            Horn leaned back in his seat and shook his head.

            "I think in this venture, my dear comrades, I am ill suited." He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his khaki shorts and shrugged. "An old man with no dash thrusters and more brains than brawn doth not make a good guerilla, so they say. Besides, now I have to figure out where else I can set up shop. Now that my island is gone."

            "Then it's settled." Willow announced firmly. "Five of us against the uncounted masses into the very heart of MI9." She looked around. "If any of you pray, do it now. And promise me you won't die intentionally."

            "I've been down that road once, milady." Bastion said, crossing his arms. "I don't care to repeat it."

            They all stood up, but Cleo wandered over and gripped Doan by his arm before he could walk out. The Ghost Wind blinked a few times.

            "What?" Cleo stared at him long and hard, then shook her head.

            "Doan, you know I love you. At the same time, I really don't want you dead. So you'd best watch your back on this next mission you want to go on. If you come back dead, I'll kill you."

            There, Doan smiled for a change. "As you wish, Cleo. I'll come back alive." To seal it, she reached up and kissed him fiercely, which he eagerly returned. It continued on for several seconds…

            And then the two noticed that every last person in the room was looking at the two of them.

            "If we're done with our goodbyes, let's worry less about the living and more about the proclaimed dead." Willow snapped.

            Then it was decided.

            It was time to get serious.

            X and Zero were surprised to see Bastion, Cleo, Wycost, J.K. Horn, Allegro, Doan, and an unidentified female step out of the dead room. They'd been alerted someone had been using it…somebody with Commander level clearance.

            The commander of the 21st stopped his easygoing step and looked at them.

            "Well, I'm glad to see you're all up and moving again."

            "Likewise." X said back, staring at the unruly pack. "But can I ask what Horn and Allegro and Wycost are doing back here?"

            "Surprise party." Wycost said, cracking a grin. "And it's gonna be a Hell of a candle to blow out."

            Zero took a moment to give the red haired reploid a once-over.

            "And who are you supposed to be?" He prodded. The reploid blinked her green eyes and looked back at him.

            "Willow. Does it matter?"

            "We're a little pressed for time right now, fellahs." Horn interjected nervously. "These five have to get going."

            "You've discovered something about the Mavericks?" X asked hopefully.

            "Not exactly." Bastion replied, his eyes darkening. "My dearest Bristol is in danger." X and Zero looked at one another, and then back at the pack. "Time is of the essence, you two." Bastion continued darkly. "Do I have your word that you will stay out of this matter?"

            "I hope it's nothing criminal." Zero cracked.

            None of the six looking at him changed their faces from a serious stare. Slowly, Zero's smile faded, until he shook his head. "Well, just be careful. And Bastion, hurry back. Sigma's still out there."

            The Commander of the 21st nodded his head. Sigma's threat…always looming, always dark. And sometime soon, they would have to deal blows with them again.

            Bitterly, Bastion remembered how many in his Unit had been lost.

            "Boy, it seems the world's just out to kill us these days." Wycost grumbled. Willow shrugged.

            "For me, that's not a change." She plucked out the MI9 agent's warp generator she'd stolen, then peered at the return coordinates. Quickly, she rattled them off to the others.

            And then they left. Leaving only X, Zero, Cleo and Julius Kinnian Horn.

            The Blue Bomber of 21XX swiveled on Horn.

            "So what's the deal with all of this?" The elderly reploid turned to face the two greatest Maverick Hunters.

            "Didn't Bastion ask you to stay out of this?" He replied calmly. Zero shook his head.

            "Stay out of it, sure. But I'd like to know why he's leaving us high and dry, especially when Sigma can strike at any given time."

            "They have their reasons." Cleo acquiesced, walking on and out of the intermediate room that he and the two Hunters were in with Horn plodding beside her. "And for your sanity, it's best left untouched. You two have enough of your own problems to deal with without adding our load."

            X and Zero said nothing as Horn and Cleo walked through the sliding hydraulic door and went into the mainstay of the MHHQ. But after they were gone, Zero finally harrumphed.

            "What do you suppose they're blathering about there? For our sanity? Hell…"

            "For now, just let them be." X said calmly. "If Bristol is in the amount of danger she's in, then Bastion has to go and try to save her. And the others feel obligated to as well."

            "For love?" Zero sneered suddenly, prompting X to turn about and look at him. "Love gets you nowhere. Love dies like a rose cut from the bush. And then you're no better than the rose…shriveled, barren, and ruined."

            "Stop letting your own experiences taint other's actions." X chided him. "Bastion's different than you are. And Bristol is different from Iris."

            Zero said nothing at that.

            There was nothing he could say.

             Bristol wished she was dead.

            It was the truth. After Tarkin had forced her memories back upon her, the horrifying truth of it all dawned back upon her, engulfing her like a tidal wave.

            He'd removed her armor with an auto-recall command, leaving her only a white T-Shirt and gray shorts for modesty. And she still remained shackled to the operations table, only now devastatingly weakened with little to no protection.

            His disposition was frightening. He would act sweet some moments, referring to her as his 'Old Friend', talk as if nothing had happened. Other times, his voice would draw a sinister tone, the grin would fade from his face for toothy malevolence as he sneered at her.

            But what made this so unbearable was his lust. She was a reploid, how he could be attracted to her, she didn't know. There were times in those hours he would get a glaze in his eye…Like now.

            "You're so beautiful, you know that…" He whispered, drawing nearer to her.

            Bristol turned her head away from the sound of his voice, every muscle in her body tensing up in fear as wet tears slid down her cheeks.

            Tarkin was next to her, slowly running the back of his index finger up and down her arm.

            "Reploids...How naïve humans were." He whispered, reluctantly pulling his finger up her arm one last time and to her shoulder, then up to caress her cheek.

            He didn't fail to notice the tears. "You know, it's written in a very famous book that God created man in his own image. But the more I examine you and all others like you…What I come to realize is, in effect, humans have become like that supposed divine creator. Only humans created reploids in the image of how they wished they looked." His hand ran up and brushed her tears away from her eyes, and she shivered at the alien sensation on her face.

            "Don't touch me." She whispered, shutting her eyes tighter.

            "Oh?" Tarkin mused humorously. "But Bristol…you're so very beautiful, so very perfect…you were meant to be admired, to be touched."

            "Not by you, Tarkin…" Bristol said more defiantly, her emotional exhaustion seeping into her voice.

            Tarkin snapped at that, yanked her head up by her hair and forced her eyes open by pain alone. She lay there, paralyzed by her restraints and the fierce glare he burned into her.

            "Oh? By who then, Bristol? By him? Bastion??!"

            He leaned over her, glaring down into her face for a few more moments before he sneered and let go of her hair, causing her head to fall back down against the table with a loud, agonizing thud.

            Bristol gasped as stars and inky blackness filled her eyes. Off in the distance, Tarkin sighed.

            "Oh, well…It's not like I could have ever stood a chance, is it…a man may fall in love with a Goddess, but he can never claim her, never make her his own."

            In the time Bristol had spent trying to recover from his injury, Tarkin had gone over to his table of instruments.

            "And you know the old saying, Bristol. What we cannot have…we destroy." Tarkin said amusedly.

            "You're a monster…You're all nothing but ruthless, primal fiends!!" Bristol cried out, thrashing about in her bonds.

            "Oh? HUMANS, the fiends?!" Tarkin snapped back, bounding beside her in a moment. Bristol cringed as he leaned down, his hot breath basting her face. "It was not humans that began the Maverick Uprisings. It was not humans that climbed aboard the Final Weapon and plotted to use its main weapon to destroy everything within reach. It was REPLOIDS."

            Bristol shut her eyes and turned away. Tarkin fumed for a moment, almost pulling back his hand to strike her in the face with a hard slap…

            But then he stopped himself.

            "No, physical violence will do little good here." He admonished himself, then smirked. "I was not blessed with the mental structure that could take the strain of your bio-implants…I'd soon as break my hand as I would cause you pain."

            "You always were weak, Tarkin." Bristol growled. "The only redeeming quality about you was the fact you didn't hate us, that you liked working with us…"

            "That's changed." Tarkin reminded her sourly. Bristol looked up, fire burning in her blue eyes.

            "And you're all the more damned because of it."

            Tarkin had to crack a smile there.

            "Oh, how I've missed our little arguments, old friend. Remember when we spoke so passionately about politics, and the tides of history?"

            Bristol met him with silence. And there Tarkin sighed.

            "You're right, I suppose. It is indeed time that we moved to more pressing issues." He walked back over into the dark corner of the room and kept talking. "I haven't forgotten why you are still alive, Bristol. I need that Universal Berserker Frequency, and only you know it."

            "I'll never tell you…" Bristol croaked. "If you had the UBF, you could affect entire groups of reploids…not just one at a time, but hordes…"

            "That's precisely why we need it."

            "That's why I will not tell you." Bristol barked, her rage mixing with her fear. "It doesn't matter what you do to me now. I'll never tell you, NEVER!! I won't be the one responsible for causing such devastation."

            Tarkin seemed to think over it for a few brief moments, then stepped back into the light. Only now, a menacing object lay in his hand, just out of sight.

            "You no longer have a choice, my dear. For as much as you hold your pride, and the love of your kind close, you long ago lost any power to stop us. MI9 now moves with a speed that cannot be stopped, WILL NOT." Tarkin held the object up to the light, and Bristol was finally able to see it. It was a syringe of some sort, with a green liquid in the tubule and a needle that caused her to freeze up in terror. It wasn't an ordinary needle, metal with the ability to puncture skin. This needle could even go through metal, with its tiny low powered laser. "I assume you recognize this particular device. It's commonly used for reploid surgery, thanks to its ability to pierce the internal skeletons of reploids for more…delicate procedures. And it works in this situation as well." Tarkin calmly tossed the object from one hand to the other. "While you were gone, I got to run many a fun and fantastic experiment. And in all that time, I created a serum. A serum designed specifically for reploids."

            Bristol's eyes stayed wide as she watched him draw closer. Tarkin laughed again. "You see, like humans, reploids have bloodstreams. Humans' carry nutrients, oxygen, the vitals for biologic life. Yours carry nanobots with energy reservoirs, that are used to fuel parts of your body and repair internal damage when combined with the metallic platelets that go along with it. Your bloodstream flows through almost every part of your body…"

            There, Tarkin glared down at her, fire in his eyes. "So what if we made your blood BURN?"

            And the words ended then. Bristol was unable to do a blessed thing as he lowered the laser syringe down to her neck, sought out the artery he knew lay within, and jammed it into her flesh.

            Its operation was completed within fractions of a second. Before Bristol could even cry out from the initial stimulus of pain, her bloodstream had been flooded with the strange fluorescent mixture.

            Tarkin stepped back and folded his arms, grinning darkly.

            "Now, we wait." Bristol blinked a few times, unsure of what he meant.

            And then she realized what he did mean. Every part of her body suddenly felt as if it was being melted from the inside out. She tensed up and cried aloud, her body quaking against the restraints.

            "Now you feel it." Tarkin said quietly, almost sadly. "It was not my choice to create the mixture…I was told to. It was a direct order, you see, you cannot blame me, please don't blame me…It was all them. The Council…"

            Bristol let out a long moan, her eyes fluttering as the pain faded away and left a dull ache throughout her body. Tarkin sighed and sat down beside her, gently stroking a few loose strands of her hair away from her now flushed, agonized face.

            "It hurts…I know it hurts terribly. But I can make it better, you know." His hand gently went down along the side of her cheek, then gripped her chin. "Tell me the Universal Beacon Frequency, Bristol…If you tell me the UBF, I can stop the pain."

            A part of Bristol was so resigned, that she almost did tell him. But something still stopped her. She locked his gaze with her glassy eyes and took a ragged breath.

            "I'll never tell you, Tarkin…never."

            Reluctantly, he pulled his hand away.

            "So be it." He said, his voice now absent of the tenderness and concern he'd held moments before. There was still reluctance, but it was tempered by purpose. "Until you reveal to me the UBF, the serum will remain in your system. Every three minutes, it will seize you, drive you into convulsions as your bloodstream releases a powerful signal to the nanobots that flow with it to shock you senseless." He let the empty syringe drop to the floor, and crushed it under the heel of his boot. "The serum does one thing, and one thing only, dear Bristol. It turns your body against itself. Your system's nanobots, the thing that sustains it, have now been altered to the task of slowly, but surely burning you from the inside out. I do have the power to stop it…" Tarkin mused sadly, "If you would let me."

            "You would have killed me anyway, Tarkin." Bristol shot back weakly, finding her body unwilling to move.

            The MI9 Doctor seemed to think over that for a moment, then shook his head.

            "They would have…but I…" He pressed a hand to his forehead and winced, as if a sudden migraine had sprung on him.

            He seemed to crumple over a bit, then tottered back into the shadows.

            "Bristol, it's not too late to end this. Tell me the UBF."

            "It doesn't matter how much you torture me, Tarkin…I'll never tell!!" Bristol croaked.

            "Then…" Tarkin began unsteadily. He took a moment to compose himself, then let his dull, sad eyes absorb the dim light that tried to creep into his dark corner.

            "Then you will die."

            Nothing more was said for the next two and some minutes…

            And then Bristol's body clenched up again in convulsions, and she screamed.

            Only this time, Tarkin did not laugh.

            And the darkness and pain remained.

            Kazok shook his head as he sat in their tiny bases' cafeteria, sipping back on a mug of cappuccino. His eyes were dull now, hollow and lonely.

            He had been born thinking that he was a part of the great Maverick regime, who would destroy the Maverick Hunters and lift their kind up on high as the superior and dominant species of Earth. And now that was all shattered.

            Dolph Reach was still out cold, and would be until tomorrow, floating in that tank of restorative electrogel. Burst, Cume, and Shell were training above ground. As far as he cared, that Iris witch could go jump off a cliff. Sigma valued her above the rest of them…an act that was both stupid and illogical.

            Sigma…

            Angrily, Kazok slammed his coffee mug down on the table, snapping its handle off and causing some of the hot liquid to splatter on his hand. But he didn't notice it.

            They'd all been normal reploids at one time or another. They'd all been a part of URFAWP. Even now, Kazok could bring up only mere wisps of that…Sigma's reconditioning had been far too successful to allow anything more.

            And Sigma had caused them to become Mavericks. To work for him.

            Now, their lives were expendable. In the eyes of Sigma, the Maverick King, their lives were no more important than his own.

            Only Sigma had been killed many times over the past thirteen years, always found a way back. Kazok knew that didn't apply to him, didn't apply to any one of them. If they died, that was it. Game over.

            "Hey!" Came an insistent voice from above. Kazok dully looked up. It was Dash, thankfully. "Kazok, may I ask why you're sitting there with scalding hot cappuccino on your hand, and you don't even care??"

            "We're dead, that's why." Kazok murmured, looking up at her sadly. "We're Mavericks, Dash. And sooner or later, the Hunters will succeed. There's just too many of them, and not enough of us." He picked himself up and cleaned the mess off of his hand, then shook his head. "We're not soldiers in some fantastic revolution. We're just stupid pawns in Sigma's sick little game…a game that he plays now just for the sake of playing."

            "Kazok…" Dash said, horrified. She stepped back and looked around. "What if Sigma hears you?!"

            "He was the one who TOLD ME." Kazok muttered angrily. "And as long as I remain under the control of the Maverick Virus, there's nothing I can do."

            A sad look on his face, he turned to Dash.

            "Let's go do some training…maybe it'll take my mind off this whole mess."

            "Kazok…" Dash murmured quietly, drawing close to him. She lowered a hand down to his shoulder and let it sit there. "Just what are you thinking…"

            Kazok put his hand on top of hers and looked into her deep eyes.

            "Come on. Please, Dash. Come with me."

            For Dash, that was easy. After all, she loved Kazok.

            Iris was standing by the exit, watching the news bulletins as Kazok and Dash drew near. She looked up from the monitor and blinked a few times.

            "Where you off to?" The brown haired beauty asked inquisitively.

            "Training." Kazok muttered. "Otherwise, those Hunters are gonna wipe us out next time." Iris smiled, a sweet innocent smile that caused Kazok to bite down on his tongue in disgust.

            There was a time not long ago he would have done that just because he hated her. But now that hatred had turned into pity.

            Because Iris had no idea of the sick games running through Sigma's mind.

            "Well, just don't get hurt out there, all right?"

            "We won't, Iris." Dash said, smiling a bit and flashing a victory sign. Kazok merely shook his head.

            "We're taking a Landchaser with us." Kazok said, more in retrospect. Iris blinked.

            "Wouldn't it do to take two?" Kazok let one of his gravicrystals float off of his waist and hover just above his hand.

            "You forget my abilities, Iris." The brown haired angel blinked once in recognition, then shrugged sheepishly, a slight blush climbing to her face.

            "So I do. Pardon me."

            Five minutes later, Dash and Kazok were soaring along the Greenland ice fields, Dash on her Landchaser and Kazok moving by thought alone, the gravicrystals swirling about his body effortlessly.

            Dash perked her feline ears up and looked over to Kazok, his dark gray eyes barren of all emotion. He didn't even blink, despite the fact the wind caused by their high speeds caused his hair to be blown about like a field of grass. And she'd had enough.

            "Kazok, we're out here. Now are we going to train or not?"

            "No, we're not." Kazok replied back over the comm. Frequency. Dash furrowed her eyebrows and hit the Landchaser's comm switch on the left handlebar.

            "Then WHY THE HELL ARE WE OUT HERE?! Just what are you trying to do, Kazok? Freeze us to death?!"

            Kazok didn't reply over the commlink. But Dash saw him begin to slow down, until he finally dropped to the ground and his gravicrystals drew to his waist, shutting off.

            Dash brought the Landchaser to a halt and stormed over next to him, concern and frustration evident.

            "Damnit Kazok, what's going through that mind of yours?! If we're not training, why are we here?!"

            And there Kazok didn't bother looking fierce. He didn't even try to look intimidating. He merely stared at Dash with his sad gray eyes.

            "Dash…do you remember anything from before you were Maverick?" Dash's next retort stopped in her throat.

            And that was because she didn't.

            MI9's HQ was an underground facility in the northern, farm-covered regions of England. Despite the enormity of the organization, and all its wide reaching arms, it was little more than about a mile by a mile. Of course, it was underground.

            A lot of the size problems had been lessened in the months preceding June. After they'd purged the base of all reploids, at least. Now, MI9 HQ was filled only with humans. Whether they were Techs or Enhanceds or otherwise.

            No alarms were set off as the computer detected five inbound warp signals. Why should they? The only people who knew about MI9 HQ's location were Enhanceds, and what few reploids had escaped with their lives. And those reploids were too smart to come stick their head back into the guillotine.

            The transport room operator lazily stared at his screen for a brief moment, then yawned and shrugged.

            "Looks like a pack's coming back home." He looked at the transport capsules, wondering which one would light up at the incoming signals. Maybe a transfer from one of the offshoot bases, maybe even a messenger from Ice Beacon…

            But none of the capsules lit up from the warp signals.

            Instead, five beams of light crashed down from the world above and formed into people. And there the transport operator froze in fear.

            Those weren't MI9 Enhanceds that had appeared.

            "REPLOIDS…" He gasped loudly, stumbling back. Willow frowned and snapped her beam whip out, not even igniting the chain as she gashed it through his neck and dropped him to the ground to die.

            She pulled the chain back into her weapon's cylinder in one smooth motion.

            "Great. Just bleeding great." Willow cursed bitterly. "We're here less than two seconds and already we've been spotted."

            "Tact isn't your greatest strength, is it?" Doan mentioned humorlessly. Bastion didn't take heed of the Ghost Wind's comment and clasped a hand on Willow's shoulder.

            "Where is she?" He asked in a tense voice, referring to Bristol. Willow's green eyes glanced at Bastion's worried stare for only a moment before sighing.

            "We'll check the computer records, and hope to God we don't set off any alarms."

            "I hate these kind of odds." Wycost snapped, folding his hands. "Infiltrating a paramilitary base was never my idea of a fun time, especially not with our limited numbers."

            "We don't exactly have a choice now, do we?" Allegro mumbled, pulling his beam staff out, but not igniting it. "Still, we're here for Bristol. That's it. We find her, we get the Hell out of dodge."

            "No." Willow murmured from the computer console adjacent to the warp capsules. Her eyes were fixated on the screen, and her fingers danced over the keys. "There's more than just finding Bristol to be done here. We have to make sure this Godforsaken place is taken out of commission."

            "Now hold on a second." Wycost chirped suddenly. "You said you'd help us save Bristol. Nothing more."

            "You fools don't get it, do you?" Willow snapped back, turning her head from the display. "MI9 is a sick and corrupt organization. If we don't take it out at the source, then they'll just keep coming back. And next time, they won't be bothering taking down just MI9 forces. They'll attack plain reploids." Bastion blinked once, growing silent as he realized from the dip in his stomach how very right she was…he'd seen the reports, and had almost been one. Willow turned the corner of her mouth upward and shook her head. "Also, if you'll recall correctly, you volunteered to come with me. Not the other way around. So for now, trust my judgement on this matter. Yes, we came here to save Bristol. But we're going to atomize this place at the same time, and save ourselves scads of trouble later."

            "And just how do you intend to do that?" Wycost asked sharply. "Sabotage?"

            "Precisely." Willow answered back without pause. Wycost blinked a few times, then lowered his glasses.

            The Irish Banshee stood back up and motioned for the others to come over.

            "There's five of us. And they'll know eventually we're here. They'll know we're after Bristol. But what they won't also suspect is a second attack…one at their power core." She pointed to the screen, which was full of a blueprint of the base. "Lovely what you can find in the archives anymore these days…"

            "All we need now is a blinking dot proclaiming, 'You Are Here'." Allegro joked. Willow narrowed her eyes and pressed a key. The aforementioned dot and three words appeared.

            "Happy?" Willow barked. She turned to the others. "Three of us should go and rescue Bristol. The other two should be able to get to the HQ's power core with less difficulty…they won't be expecting a sabotage run, they're expecting a rescue mission. I'll lead the charge to save Bristol. It's my responsibility, after all."

            "I'm coming with you then." Bastion announced, stepping beside her with eyes burning. "Bristol is my beloved, and I would never forgive myself if she were to perish."

            "I'm coming too then, I suppose." Wycost finished. "I have to make sure you stay on the up and up at least." He continued, staring at Willow. She merely gave him a dirty look and turned back to the screen.

            "Well, I suppose that leaves me and Allegro to blow up the power core." Doan volunteered drily. "Any exact procedure to follow?"

            "Increase the reaction rate by 15% and then slag the controls." Willow ordered. "That will produce enough of an explosion to take this entire facility down and leave the surrounding areas untainted by radioactive fallout."

            "A microfusion detonation?" Allegro whistled appreciatively. "Damn, that's gotta be a nifty trick to see." Willow lowered her index finger to the screen for Doan.

            "We're here." She pointed to the blinking red dot. A green dot appeared off in the distance of the base, and Willow tracked to it. "This is the microfusion generator, or the power core as its generally known. You should have little difficulty getting there, MI9 didn't design its HQ to be a maze or a challenge."

            "I'll keep that in mind." Doan replied, still without emotion. Willow narrowed her eyes at the gray colored reploid.

            "Don't you ever smile?"

            "Doan's a stoic sort of fellow." Wycost volunteered. He turned to look at his old friend. "It's not his way to show emotion. If it's important enough, overpowering enough, he will. But until then, no. You'll get used to that mask, if you hang around him enough."

            "Sadly, his mission profile differs from ours." Willow chirped. She looked over to Allegro, then back at Doan. "When you two finish your task, warp out."

            "What about the rest of you guys??" Allegro asked in sudden concern.

            Willow mulled over it for a moment and shrugged.

            "If we make it out, we make it out. If we don't…" She lowered her face, then shook her head. "If we donnae make it out alive, then ye've at least gotten rid of the rest of these murderers."

            Wycost took note of her sudden shift out of accentless English back to her traditional Irish lilt. That was becoming an indicator anymore of her mood. When she was feeling distressed, her control over it faded.

            Doan noted her distinct accent change as well. For him, it meant she wasn't a dreamer with her head in the clouds. A very grounded lady…and considering her past, the causes of it were plain as day. She treated this mission as if it might be her last. As if she expected it to be.

            "So once we've set this place to blow, we don't worry about you. We just escape." Doan summarized. Willow lifted her head and looked him in the face. Her stony look was proof enough that was exactly what she'd told him to do.

            "So be it." Bastion said tersely, pulling a beam saber out into his left hand. He looked around the room, to his four allies. "This will not be easy. I too, remember my experiences in paramilitary service. Never underestimate the forces here, not for a moment."

            "Have you fought Enhanced humans before?" Allegro asked Bastion suddenly. Bastion blinked.

            "No…"

            "Then shut up about telling us what to expect." Allegro finished, blasting Bastion with the comeback.

            "But he is right." Willow scolded Allegro firmly. "Though he hasn't fought MI9 Enhanceds like the rest of us, he is wise enough to recognize the dangers of this." Willow turned and looked at him. "Bristol did well in meeting you…maybe you're intelligent enough you could accomplish what I failed to."

            "What was that?" Bastion asked, lifting an eyebrow. Willow's green eyes faded a shade or two.

            "Keep her safe from danger."

            They only waited a few more moments before parting in different directions. Bastion, Wycost and Willow traced down the northern path of hallways that led to the R&D labs, and Doan and Allegro to the south for the power core.

            Allegro whistled as Doan popped his new 'Archangel' flight wings and activated their maglev functions, hovering above the floor and soaring along silently.

            "Damn…that thing actually works!"

            "We'll try the thrusters later." Doan muttered drily, drawing his beam lance out, but refusing to ignite it. "Let's just hope it doesn't explode."

            "Why would it do that?" Allegro chirped, grinning from ear to ear. "Why, you almost sound as if you don't trust it…"

            "Did you build it?" Doan asked, keeping his speed slow enough that Allegro could run beside him easily. Allegro nodded.

            "Yeah, I had the pleasure of helping out with its construction…"

            "Then I don't trust it." Doan replied easily.

            Allegro thought he saw Doan crack a smile. Almost.

            "Let's just hope the others make it out all right…" Allegro finally said, turning his head to face in front of him. "I'd hate to be the one to have to go back and tell Horn and the Hunters that they lost friends because of a botched rescue attempt on the HQ of a hidden organization the world's never heard about."

            "Somehow, I doubt they'd believe us." Doan answered back easily. His next thought chilled his spine.

            "For this one…we're on our own."

            If anyone had bothered to look for X and Zero, they wouldn't have found them anywhere in the MHHQ. They'd simply dropped off an all-purpose message to Signas and the higher ranking Hunters they were going off for training, and if anyone bothered to contact them outside of dire emergency, they'd be roast.

            X and Zero had been to a lot of places over the years, and they never tired of finding good empty spaces with varied terrains to battle in.

            Such was the case now, as they maneuvered about the Energen crystal mines of Cornus Island. The GDC had long ago thrown up their hands and given up on telling the two of them to stop bothering them. Now, as long as X and Zero promised not to blow up or wreck anything with the crystal mining operations, they pretty much had free reign wherever they went. After all, it was the least the world government could do, for the two greatest Maverick Hunters and saviors of the human race.

If only they knew that Zero was the true cause of all the world's Maverick problems, the Crimson Hunter mused bitterly.

            Not like it mattered now. Like X had told him, you can't change the past. You can only move on.

            For this little escapade, they'd moved into a recently abandoned section of the mine, one that hadn't been there when X had been forced to come through with all guns blazing back in December of 2118. X had easily found his way down to it, due to the fact this new shaft had been dug directly across from the minor tunnel that had housed his Retribution Armor's helmet upgrade. Of course, that upgrade capsule had long since vanished. Dr. Light's capsules, with an exception to the information capsule at Cossack's lair, had a penchant for dropping off the goods and running home to mama…where home was for them.

            This new vein of Energen was different, in that the veins ran up and down, presenting a series of confusing mirrors that made it hard to gauge exactly where an opponent lay.

            Which was, X reminded himself as he made sure his Buster wasn't whining with a charge, why Zero and he were here. Silently, they crept about the uneven floor, both taking care not to shatter the tiny crystal shards scattered about the floor. The sound would have been enough to tip off their locations.

            Zero's beam saber was also quiet, as like X, he opted to keep his Buster primed. Once again, no charge was fed to it.

            The only noise present in the entire room of slightly marred and askew mirrors was a gentle wind that rustled through the corridors, rustling the shards on the ground, and in some larger part, blowing past the Energen crystals with enough force that they began to resonate. Thus, an unearthly minor chord accompanied the wind's low moan, a chord that changed all the time, occasionally slipping into synchronization as a major chord. As if their battle fought here was being sung to them, the room swayed with its own somber tune.

            X narrowed his eyes and ducked a little lower. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Zero comi…no, wait, that was just a reflection of Zero. An angled reflection that distorted and walked in a different direction as it passed over a ridge in the Energen's side. Calmly, X kept his Buster at the ready, but refused to fire. No, firing might give away his position, and in this mess of things, that wasn't exactly something he felt like doing. Not against Zero, undoubtedly the best Hunter…

            That was the difference between them. Zero could fight no matter what the situation. That was a part of his heritage, that ability to relish the battle.

            X however, didn't fight along those lines. For X to fight—really, truly fight, like he'd done in every Maverick Uprising, there needed to be a threat, one that pushed him over the edge. So for this scenario, Zero might very well have the upper hand…

            Which was, X reminded himself, why they were here. He frowned and quietly worked his way around another jutting crystal shining blue in the dim light. A part of the fire that helped to fuel X's 'rage', as it might be called, came from his armors. The sole surviving legacy left to him from his father, X's armors were all designed to enhance his abilities, give him an edge. It was thanks to that edge he'd always come out on top.

            But now those armors were gone. And so X had come to the sobering conclusion that if he was to continue as a Maverick Hunter, that he needed to learn how to fight without that edge.

            Zero let his green eyes flow over the room. Silently, he gritted his teeth…leave it to X to find a bizarre hunting ground. He'd have to remember this environment when he got back to the MHHQ. The 'Techs would have a field day reconstructing it for the sims. It was a maze, a giant confusing maze of passageways filled with ghost images that taunted and teased him. Every time he thought he saw X, it turned out to be just one of countless reflections. And thanks to how the chamber was formed, he couldn't rely on sound either. Between the wind's moans, the Energen crystals' resonant song, and the undeniable echo, this environment was meant more to force your senses into uselessness.

            "Aaw, FRACKIT." Zero finally shouted out, hearing his voice come back at him from a thousand directions.

            X's reflections all perked their heads up, but just like Zero, they all were completely confused. Zero sighed once, then lifted his right arm up and popped a blast off from his Buster.

            The Energen crystal jutting from the ceiling to the ground slightly to the left in front of him exploded in a shower of glittering dust and the sound of breaking glass.

            One of X's reflections went with it.

            "So that's how it's going to be, huh?" X called back, from everywhere and nowhere all at once. "You're going to go off and shoot everything in sight, and hope you get lucky and peg the real me instead of a reflection?"

            "It beats walking around here groping in front of us until our foreheads bounce off of each other." Zero called back, a grin on his face.

            "Huh. Any rules?"

            "No rules. Just don't maim me." Zero called back, finally letting his Buster begin to draw in a substantial charge. X laughed a little bit and shook his head.

            "The same rules apply to me."

            "Why should the rules apply to you?" Zero teased, pouting a bit. "You're the friggin' hero, fer Chrissakes. You always overcome any situation you're put into. Why, fate is smiling sunshine out its ass for ya!"

            "Well then, remind fate to put its pants back on." X called back with a snicker. He lifted his Buster and fired off a supershot.

            The blast's concussion rang about the room, but that didn't surprise Zero as much as the sight of twenty green colored spherical supershots screaming towards him. Despite himself, Zero dropped to the ground and covered his head.

            Three Energen crystal pillars disintegrated, and three more reflections vanished. When the sound of the Buster discharge faded, Zero could pick out the echoes of X's laughter. Disgustedly, the Crimson Hunter lifted his head up and glared at the nearest reflection of his partner.

            "What's so damn funny?"

            "The way you hit the deck like that…God!!" X's laughing slowly dropped into a snicker. "I love how these reflections work, you know?"

            "Hmph!" Zero called back, standing back up and wiping the crystal shards off of his legs. "If you loved that, you're gonna love this more." He lifted up his own arm and fired. But unlike X, he didn't stop firing.

            By the time he finally did, there were ten less reflections. Which left eleven X's.

            And one was the real deal. Zero smirked and lifted his Buster higher.

            "Now we reach the inevitable dispute…eventually, we'll take out all of these Energen pillars that keep distracting us. And when that moment comes, we'll just be facing each other."

            X's reflections grinned, lifted their Busters and fired a low level shot. In a shower of glittering crystal shards, another reflection exploded away. Zero didn't bother to blink.

            "Well then…let's get started."

            The workers a quarter mile up the shaft could hear the noise that X and Zero produced. Calmly, they shook their heads and got back to work.

            The only thing they prayed for was that the two of them wouldn't cause the whole place to come crashing down.

            Tarkin wasn't expecting an unfamiliar siren to suddenly blare from every speaker in the R&D labs. Not by a longshot.

            He twirled about, his eyes appearing brighter by the lights growing brighter, then switching to red.

            "Hmm??" He pondered, stunned for a moment. "Just what does that sound mean?"

            Bristol said nothing, still trembling from the last attack of Tarkin's serum. Tarkin shrugged and walked over to the wall, depressing a switch.

            "Base, this is the R&D lab. What's the meaning of all this noise?"

            "You pick the worst times to come asking us about noises." A gruff voice called back. "We've been INFILTRATED."

            "Infiltrated?!" Tarkin called back, his voice gaining a note or two of worried inflection. "By whom, praytell?"

            "It's Willow." The operator replied back angrily. "And the bitch brought two friends along for the ride."

            "Can't you handle three measly reploids??" Tarkin asked sharply. "It took only two to bring in Bristol."

            "They're well armed…We're getting the Enhanceds to take them down, but they move with such speed and power it's difficult. They're heading towards you, they must be after Bristol…"

            "Well, STOP THEM!!" Tarkin called back angrily. "I'm not through interrogating her yet. Surely, you must realize The Cleansing all depends on the knowledge inside her brain!"

            "We're aware of it, doc." The operator called back darkly. "We'll do our best."

            Tarkin cut off the connection and sighed, putting a hand to his head.

            "Imbeciles…all of them imbeciles, so caught up in their own greatness…" He turned about and walked over to Bristol, hands tucked into his lab coat pockets. "Bristol, dearest, are you awake?"

            The reploid lying shackled to the table couldn't turn her head to acknowledge. Her eyes were dull and glassy with pain, not focusing on anything. Her mouth lay slightly open, as if in a scream that had never finished. Tarkin's eyes grew sad for a moment.

            "Bristol…Bristol, come on…"

            He waited a few more moments, then sighed and reached for a datapadd nearby. In one smooth movement, he brought it up and pointed it at Bristol, forcing the reploid to let out a slow, agonized moan.

            "Bristol, I need that Universal Berserker Frequency."

            "Never…Never, Tarkin…"

            The human's face turned bright purple, and he reached down and dragged her head up by her hair.

            "Damnit Bristol, I've got no time for your self-destructive altruism!!"

            "Why not?" Bristol wheezed, her eyes fluttering. "You always…had time for me…before…"

            "I didn't have Willow and two others breathing down my neck then."

            Bristol's eyes fluttered with new life at that.

            "What…" Tarkin nodded.

            "Willow and two others are headed this way. They're trying to rescue you, I imagine."

            "Willow…" Bristol croaked, shuddering again. But this time, Tarkin noted in surprise, it wasn't from the serum he'd dosed her with. "She…came back…"

            "Truth be told, I thought that the lot of you were more intelligent than to risk everything on returning to this place." Tarkin muttered. "But they'll be too late. Even if they manage to force their way through the Enhanceds, it will be too late for you. I will have obtained the UBF, and your life will be meaningless."

            "You'll never get it from me, NEVER…" Bristol stammered again. And there, Tarkin smiled.

            "Oh, I will. You just may not appreciate the method."

            Bristol's blood froze. "You wouldn't…" She murmured in dull horror.

            Tarkin sighed. "Sad to say, I would. In this scenario, I see no other way about it. You're highly uncooperative." Calmly, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small cylindrical object the size of a small microphone. It was smaller than the model Bristol had first made, but she recognized it all too quickly. "Whala." Tarkin announced, waggling an eyebrow.

            "A Berserker Beacon…" Bristol moaned. Her blue eyes filled with tears. "You would drive me mad to get your answer? You would kill me for it?"

            "You killed my heart." Tarkin snapped.

            "You're not the Tarkin I knew…"

            "Gee, how smart we've become over the past few weeks." Tarkin sneered. "So astute, so perceptive, so STUPIDLY OPTIMISTIC." He leaned down next to her until his head was just above hers. "Killing you will be a pleasure."

            Bristol screamed in rage, snapped her head forth with enough force to snap Tarkin's head back and snap it off of its brittle neck.

            His head did reel backwards in stunned shock…But Bristol didn't get the desired effect.

            Before her stunned eyes, Tarkin's face collapsed inwards on itself in a field of blue holomorphic energy. And then Bristol realized with a very dry throat that it wasn't Bernard Tarkin, human MI9 scientist standing before her.

            The fritzed holographic projector headband about the figure's forehead blinked a few more times before crumpling into scattered pieces of Energen, plastic, and metal onto the floor.

            The gray hair was gone, replaced by a dark black with a stripe of magenta running through it. The cold gray eyes were replaced by piercing brown ones. And the face changed. It wasn't Tarkin, it…it was…

            "You bitch." Fannir snarled in a far less scratchy voice, putting a hand to his forehead and wincing from the blow. "Do you know how expensive those things are to make?!"

            "Fannir…" Bristol croaked, shaking her head back and forth and blinking her eyes. "It can't be, they killed you, Willow saw…they killed you, they all tore you apart…"

            "They killed the real Bernard Tarkin." Fannir muttered sourly, shaking his head and letting one hand slip back into his lab coat pocket. "He was in the way, he was such a naive freak…Keeping him around would only bring difficulty. And what if he decided to blow our entire cover, out of some grand and defiant act of grandeur, eh? No, that was not an acceptable option for MI9. That was who Willow saw being brutally murdered, torn limb from limb before they split his skull apart with the piercing blade of a beam staff."

            "Then why did they keep you alive…" Bristol whispered, blinking back tears of disbelief and raging emotions that still threatened to crush her. There, Fannir shrugged, his face drawing into a neutral expression.

            "Everyone else was destroyed, and I was still alive. They were all dead because of you, Bristol." Fannir pounded onto Willow, jamming his knees up into her abdomen as he sneered down at her face, but keeping a fair enough distance she couldn't headbutt him again. "It's all your fault, Bristol. It's all your freaking fault." He spat out that sentence with murderous intent, slapping her across the face. "I know that now…they had to break me to make me realize it, but I know now. It's all your fault, you worthless SLUT. All your FAULT!!"

            Bristol absorbed another stinging slap to her cheek, feeling her weakened head droop to one side and the tears in her eyes fleeing from their inertia to the cold ground below.

            "You just had to keep building, didn't you…" Fannir snarled again, jumping off of her and smoothing the wrinkles out of his lab coat. "And you kept building and building, and plotting…Oh my yes, I know all about your most top secret research…You had constructed the Berserker Beacons, you said, to help in the fight against the Mavericks. But all along, your cold heart had another purpose. You were working towards building a Berserker Beacon that would afflict humans…You were Maverick, Bristol. YOU WERE MAVERICK!!"

            A part of Bristol wanted to tear Fannir apart, wanted to see him be atomized inch by excruciating inch. But another part of her found his words of insanity tearing her own heart apart.

            They'd gotten to him. They'd tortured him, terrorized him, snapped him like a twig. And slowly, they'd rebuilt his personality into the twisted amalgamation standing before her. She knew it, God she knew it…

            "Fannir, what did they do to you?" She cried out.

            Fannir stopped his rant and looked puzzled for a moment. But then he tilted his head back and laughed aloud for several moments.

            "What did they do to me? What did they do to ME?!" Fannir repeated back disbelievingly. "They showed me the TRUTH. They showed me just how heartless you were, how you were plotting with all the others…you were all plotting, you were going to destroy MI9, were going to go Maverick…How all reploids would follow the same path." He backflipped a few times and landed smoothly, his lab coat gently falling to the ground to reveal him standing in his full magenta armor. "They gave me new life, new purpose…I alone had survived the necessary purge. For I alone was capable of redemption. They kept me around, I was to assume the duties of Tarkin, to act for all purposes as if nothing amiss had gone on with him. Stability was kept…The projects moved on. Ice Beacon moved on. But now, we've reached that final sticky point…The Universal Berserker Frequency, Bristol. NOW."

            "NEVER!!" Bristol snapped back. Her defiant taunt ended with her struggling to rise from her bench, feeling reploid adrenaline being pumped through her.

            But then the serum took hold again…Once more, Bristol felt her entire body burn from the inside out. And there was nothing to stop it.

            Fannir laughed again, bitterly. Any sense of compassion had faded.

            "Perhaps the toughest part about my past they had to show me the truth about was my feelings for you. God, how naïve I was then. So enamored by you, by your perfect flawless beauty." Fannir's eyes burned over her body, humiliating her further. "So many times I desired you, desired you in ways that I could not have you…because we were reploids. Because we were artificial. I wanted to make you MINE, forever, for all eternity…" He shook his head.

            "But such things are unnatural, unacceptable. And the dream was shattered, Bristol. Now I have only the truth to guide me." He leaned back, relishing the quiet, forsaken moans Bristol made. "But now it all ends. The world will be cleansed of our kind, Bristol." Fannir grinned from ear to ear. "With the Universal Berserker Frequency, Ice Beacon will be able to completely DESTROY all reploids, both foreign and MI9, once and for all. The world will at last have the peace it cries out for, MI9's ultimate goal will be accomplished…"

            "Fannir, no…They're…lying…" Bristol groaned.

            Fannir sneered.

            "You are the liar, 'old friend'. And now, I will ask you one last time nicely. WHAT. IS. THE. UBF."

            "Never…" Bristol wheezed, shaking her head. "God, the UBF is too powerful…"

            Fannir snorted once, lifted the tiny cylinder and depressed a switch on it.

            And then The Trembling filled Bristol.

            Already weakened both physically and emotionally by the serum still coursing through her, Bristol had no chance to stop the nightmarish flood of images, sounds and abject fear that the Berserker Beacon filled her with.

            "One way or another, this session draws to an end…" Fannir taunted darkly.

            "The UBF or your life, dear, fate is yours to spend."

            "Boy, I get tired of hearing those damn things…" Wycost snapped, shooting out a nearby klaxon on the wall. "So much for infiltrating quietly."

            "As long as they don't use Berserker Beacons, we'll be set." Willow acknowledged drily. "Although I doubt they will. None of them were expecting a raid this deep into their organization."

            They kept going, Bastion's boots skimming the ground as he flew slightly ahead of the two grounded warriors. Willow looked up for a moment, frowning. "And just where did you pick those beauties up?"

            "They were a replacement to my original Flight Armor, the Powerstorm." Bastion replied, keeping his eyes glued ahead for danger. "These were designed primarily by Bristol during her time at the Maverick Hunters…But Hazil and even J.K. Horn had a hand in its construction."

            "Really…" Willow said, gaining a slight smile. "The fool wipes her own memory, and she's still able to build miracles. That's Bristol for you."

            "COMPANY!" Bastion shouted, stopping his forward motion and hovering in one spot. All eyes turned ahead, and found themselves staring down six MI9 Enhanceds, all in skintight bodysuits.

            "You die here, reploids." The leader, a female with striking black hair announced bitterly. Willow merely drew her beam whip out and extended the links.

            "Wycost?"

            "I'm on it." The Bronx Bomber grunted, lifting his Buster up. Willow and Bastion shut their eyes tightly, and Wycost made sure his sunglare glasses were down.

            Before any of the MI9 Enhanceds knew what was happening, Wycost fired off a round of his Strobe Flash, blinding them all for the briefest of moments.

            "BLAST YOU!!" One of them cried, igniting his beam staff and charging ahead blindly.

            Willow activated her beam whip and sliced him in half before he ever got close, acting without remorse. "Come on you two, don't stand there, FIGHT!" She called back tersely.

            "Way ahead of you." Bastion called back, tilting the points of his wings forward until they were pointed at the massed, but rapidly scattering blind MI9 Enhanceds. Powerful bolts of lightning poured out from the wingtips, hurled themselves down on the Enhanceds and causing them to clench up in seizures. As a side effect, Wycost noted, the electrical burst also shorted out their EM shielding.

            "Coming THROUGH!!" Wycost bellowed, dashing ahead and slamming them all into the corridor walls…hard. He could hear their bones crack from the wicked impact.

            But they'd live for now.

            "Let's keep going, boys." Willow said quickly. "If they got six Enhanceds together this quickly, there'll be more!" No arguments arose from the Commander and ex-Hunter of the 21st Unit.

            Painfully, one of the surviving MI9 operatives reached down to their waist and pulled up a comm clipped to it.

            "This is Watson…the buggers got past us…they're strong, be care…" Then his blinded eyes rolled up into the back of his head and he collapsed, the trauma of his injuries too intense to endure any longer.

            "Watson…WATSON, RESPOND!!" The comm crackled. A pause, and then a powerful malediction. "All units respond! All Enhanceds…Compound has been infiltrated, consider suspects to be armed and highly dangerous. Repeat…"

            "So, who set off the alarms?" Allegro asked nervously, having to dash intermittently to keep up with Doan's sudden increased speed.

            "More than likely, they did." Doan answered back. "Let's just hope that they aren't getting in over their heads."

            "Hey, they got Wycost, don't they?" Allegro asked merrily. "Geez, if they got him, they're good to go." Doan shrugged.

            "We can hope so."

            They reached a branch in the hallway, and Doan turned to Allegro.

            "Was it left or right?"

            "Uhh…Right!" Allegro answered unsurely. Doan rolled his eyes.

            "For our sake, I hope you're correct."

            They charged down the right hallway, ignoring the shut doorways for the most part and relying on brief glimpses.

            "From what I remember, the power core is beyond a door at the end of this corridor." Allegro announced as they rounded the corner.

            Both stopped dead in their tracks as they were left facing an empty wall. Doan waited a few moments and then sighed.

            "Sure it wasn't the left path?"

            "Oh, like you haven't made some bonehead mistakes in your time." Allegro snipped back. "Let's just turn around and go ba…"

            Allegro stopped turning as soon as he laid eyes behind him.

            Four MI9 Enhanceds were glaring back at them.

            "That's as far as you go, reploid scum." One of them announced. Doan and Allegro lit their beam weapons, but refused to jump ahead in the narrow corridor.

            Doan narrowed his eyes. They were about nine feet apart…Either these guys had been following them, or they'd been in those rooms they'd passed. Either way…

            "Allegro, you're a terrible bloodhound."

            "I'm a terrific shitzu." Allegro said, letting loose with a dry chuckle.

            Doan's eyes had long since stopped watching the ex-URFAWP reploid. Now they were turned on the figure in front of the pack, who now reached to his waist for…

            Oh, great…a comm. Well, not today!

            Doan positioned his beam lance's blade just right, then activated its hidden Saber Flare.

            The blade screamed out twelve feet, easily clearing the gap between the two sides.

            The head MI9 Enhanced human let out a cry of surprise and dismay as the lance's plasma blade buried itself into and through his comm, slagging it into uselessness. Doan calmly flicked the blade, hoping to put the fool out of commission.

            He succeeded only in delivering a grazing blow to the EM shield surrounding the MI9 operative. They all leapt back warily, now watching Doan with more murder in their eyes.

            "Sorry, but ET no phone home." Doan said calmly, letting his beam lance shrink back to its normal length.

            "You'll pay for that, you…"

            The MI9 operative didn't have the opportunity to continue his growling threat.

            Because Allegro and Doan were already charging towards them with their beam weapons raised high.

            "You don't remember, do you?" Kazok pressed bitterly. "God, he's taken it away from you…away from me, from all of us…" Dash stood there and blinked back with a slightly puzzled and afraid look.

            "Who's taken what?" She finally asked, managing a weak growl. Kazok shook his head, his dark gray eyes seemingly staring straight into her head.

            "Sigma." He finally muttered, his quiet voice gaining a note of anger. "Sigma has taken everything from us." He reached down and plucked a gravicrystal from his waist, holding it in the palm of his hand. "Dash, there was a time I didn't have these. There was a time you didn't have those TitaniTefloAlloy claws. There was a time when we weren't Maverick."

            "You're crazy…" Dash whispered, her eyes wide and ears pressed back against her head. "You're making things up!!"

            Kazok's hands reached down and gripped her shoulders. "I'm NOT." He hissed at her, his eyes flickering with the beginnings of tears. "God, Dash, you can feel it too. That something's missing. Ever since we got into this mess, Sigma's been avoiding the key issue…just HOW did we become Maverick? And yesterday, I figured out why…it's because he infected us, Dash. The Maverick Virus…"

            "No, it can't be…"

            "Dash, REMEMBER!" Kazok screamed, gripping her shoulders tighter. Dash screamed and clutched at her head. Her eyes squinted shut, her entire body began to grow weak and collapse.

            And then Kazok felt a throbbing pain rush through his mind as well…

            The Virus…fighting back…

            The two Mavericks collapsed beside one another, screaming for only a few more moments before their shudderings stopped, and they collapsed.

            "Felicity Prowl…"

            "Here." Came the short, but well mannered grunt. The URFAWP director at the front of the hovertransport blinked a few times, then finally recognized where the voice had come from.

            The feraloid near the back wearing casual clothes. Quietly, Felicity let her ears twitch a few times and stared back. "You heard me, right?"

            The director, Korlyn, according to his nametag finally nodded. It was odd for a reploid to have a two part name. Most reploids were only given a first name, because that was all they ever needed.

            Still, he finally cleared his throat and moved on. "Hyunia?"

            Felicity leaned back in her seat and stared up at the ceiling, wishing for all the world she was somewhere else but here, participating in roll call.

            "He gets to you, doesn't he?" Came a voice from across the aisle. Felicity's right ear twitched, and she turned to the sound of the voice.

            Staring back at her was a black haired human-type reploid with warm gray eyes.

            "Pardon?" She queried. The fellow URFAWP employee shrugged his shoulders.

            "Korlyn is just old fashioned. He still thinks all reploids should only get one name. But don't pay attention to him. I find it interesting that there's another reploid out there with two names aside from a few friends of mine and J.K. Horn." The individual sitting in the seat across from Felicity extended his hand. "My name's Kazok. How do you do, Miss Prowl?"

            "Miss Prowl…" Felicity murmured, a toothy half grin coming to her face despite herself. "That always did have a nice ring to it."

            Up front, Korlyn continued to rattle off names. Nobody had paid the driver any heed as they'd gotten on board, despite the fact that unlike most, he insisted on wearing a long brown cloak with a dark hood. Nobody noticed how the driver's hands, long clawed things, clenched at the wheel, or the scratch marks inlaid into the rubber padding.

            "So what rank are you, Kazok?" 'Miss Prowl' asked. Kazok scratched at his head and shrugged.

"The last time I checked, I was something along the lines of a mid-lieutenant." Felicity's eyebrows arched up.

            "Mid-lieutenant? Just how long have you been in URFAWP?"

            "About two months." Kazok said with a waspish grin. "Hell, I don't understand it much myself, but if these guys think I can do a good job, then so much the better. Apparently, I'm smart."

            "Well, you're definitely a smart ass." Felicity pressed, smiling back. Kazok chuckled a bit, then nodded his head.

            "So how about you? What's your rank?"

            "I just got here a week ago." Felicity murmured, her face reddening a bit. "This is my first mission with you all."

            "Well, some helpful advice." Kazok said, lifting a finger. "This is URFAWP. Which means we don't kill things. We build things."

            "Unless of course, we're tearing something down!" Came a guffaw from behind Kazok.

            The black haired reploid rolled his eyes for a moment, then motioned a thumb behind him.

            "Miss Prowl, allow me to introduce you to one of our fellow URFAWP crew. We call him Snaps Torte."

            Felicity turned around, then literally jumped in her seat. A massive Turtloid class reploid was staring down at her, waggling an eyebrow.

            "How the…"

            "Hell did I get in here?" Snaps pushed back. He shrugged. "URFAWP deals with a wide variety of reploids. And I'm a useful one to them."

            "Snaps naturally has a high defense and power rating." Kazok explained. "Anytime we're doing demolition work, we just have him curl up into his shell and roll through the building. He can make it collapse faster than TNT does."

            "That's a wonderful skill to have on a job resume." Dash said, when her voice came back to her. Snaps harrumphed for a moment with a hurt look on his face, then resumed his blank stare.

            Kazok waved his hand in the air. "It's not something we usually joke about. Snaps may be big, but he's not stupid. He hates to be thought of as just another lumbering oaf. Pride."

            "Aah." Felicity said, shaking her head. She stared down at her feet and blushed. "There's just a lot I still need to learn…I don't know if I'm ready for this."

            "Shoot, you'll do fine." Kazok said, patting her shoulder. "None of us in URFAWP came into this mess KNOWING we'd do good. We just got good, with the belief we could accomplish something." Kazok lifted a finger, and Dash watched him out of the corner of her eye. "Experience will serve you well in all areas of life, Felicity. Just watch everything with open eyes, and you'll always come out on top."

            Maybe it was in the way Kazok said it, or his charming smile, or just his general upbeat view on everything that made Felicity Prowl relax the tension in her body and finally crack an honest smile.

            "Kazok, I think I might like this after all." She finally said.

            Up front, Korlyn finally finished rattling off his list of names. And nobody heard the bus driver clench his hands tighter around the hovertransport's controls.

            "Them?? You want them? Of course, but…Well, fine…Yes, I can see promise in them too."

            Korlyn cleared his throat and reached for the PA mike to his left.

            "All right everyone, we're finally ready to take off!" He got a few pathetic cheers and some very dramatic boos in reply. The driver reached down to the repulsors and activated them, and the transport took off.

            "Now then, it's time for me to tell you about our latest mission." Korlyn said with a wide, somewhat fake smile plastered across his face.

            In the back, Snaps Torte cupped his hands around his mouth. "PANTY RAID!!" Almost everyone in the transport laughed, even the few scattered female reploids in the pack. Korlyn's face visibly reddened.

            "Not quite." He harrumphed, clearing his throat. "We've been assigned to oversee the rebuilding of some old style log cabins up in Northern Alaska which were recently discovered by the Historical Preservation Society. Now, the supplies are already there on their various sites, and the cabins are about half a mile apart, scattered in a group of twenty. So we'll be dividing into teams for this."

            "I CALL WOMBAT!" Came a voice from the rear again.

            "I'm afraid I get to decide your teams." Korlyn interjected sternly. "Now, I realize this mission may seem boring, but I'll have you know you'll be staring into history when you're helping to rebuild these log cabins. There was a time that humans lived on the frontiers and fought the wilderness…"

            "And they died." Came a sudden growling voice from nearby.

            Dead silence reigned over the interior of the hovertransport before a now fully flustered Korlyn could manage to speak up again.

            "Who said that?" He hissed, in a murderous tone.

            There, the pilot of the hovertransport set it to autopilot and stood up, his dark red eyes burning from within the folds of his cloak's hood.

            "I did."

            Before Korlyn could speak again, the pilot had leapt on top of him and slashed him in two with a flash of metal from underneath the sleeves of his cloak.

            And then panic took over in stunned and surprised shouts.

            "SILENCE!!" The driver snapped, with a sound that resembled a feral yawp more than it did a raging bellow. As if his words carried a hidden power, every last person aboard froze.

            There, the driver began to chuckle.

            "Well then…I'm afraid our current mission has been cancelled." With trembling, scrawny hands, he reached up and pulled the hood of his cloak back.

            Dark eyes burned at them then, dark eyes put into the skull of a furry face with a mouthful of teeth.

            "For those of you who don't know me, my name is Fluid Ferret." A hand extended out from the sleeve of his cloak and pointed a metallic, dangerous looking claw finger. "And make no mistake about it. I am a Maverick."

            "No…" Someone up front grunted in surprise. "NO!! The Maverick Hunters…"

            "Left me for dead." Fluid Ferret corrected, shaking his head. "Only they forgot the strength of will that a Maverick holds." The hand went down, and then a murky blackness filled the hovertransport, a dark cloud that spread from the front of the bus and attacked all.

            The grip on the URFAWP recruits suddenly became many times worse. Where as they had been frozen by fear before, now their own bodies turned against them, refusing even the slightest turn of their head.

            "A rule of thumb to remember, dear URFAWPians." Fluid laughed bitterly. "Never underestimate a Maverick. In this, the Hunters have always failed."

            In the back, Snaps Torte, Kazok and Dash all strained against the sudden paralysis.

            "Impossible…" Kazok grunted, his fingers trembling. "The Mavericks…all gone, all destroyed…"

            "He's insane!" Snaps bellowed angrily.

            None of them could pry their frightened eyes off of the Maverick as he began to walk to the back of the hovertransport, his arms now emerging fully from the folds of his cloak, revealing the scrawny, but sinuous twigs capable of slashing reploids in half. And that's just what he did, eliminating every single reploid as he came closer and closer to the back.

            "The Maverick on the bus goes SLASH SLASH SLASH, SLASH SLASH SLASH, SLASH SLASH SLASH!!!" Fluid Ferret cackled with his heartless laugh, reveling in the feeling of the purple blood being thrown into the air and streaking his synthfur.

            And then he reached the back, where Kazok, Snaps, and Felicity all were, frozen in place by fear and another force they could not understand.

            "As for you…" He mumbled quietly, drawing his claws back in. "You shall live."

            The statement caught them off guard, chilled them worse than the thought of dying on his claws. "My Master has a different plan for you three."

            And then it sank in. This Maverick's Master…

            "Sigma…" Kazok croaked in disbelief. Fluid Ferret nodded, baring his teeth at them.

            "That's right, my little dumplings. You have been chosen to join the great revolution of our time…whether you want to or not." His clawed hand came down and rested on Felicity's shoulder. "You, I'm especially going to love enlisting into our ranks…"

            "BASTARD!" Felicity growled, straining against her paralysis. Fluid Ferret merely pulled his hand away and laughed.

            "Go ahead, fight it! You can struggle all you want and it will not help you. You belong to Sigma now, URFAWP recruit. You all do."

            And then it ended. A dark inky blackness, darker than before stretched out from Fluid's hands, engulfing them all.

            It screamed, it moaned, it shouted. And they struggled, how they struggled…to no use.

            Destroy.

            Infect.

            Survive.

            It always begins there…At some point, the Virus takes over…that's what makes us Maverick. If not for that damnable virus, we would still be FREE!!

            Dash stood on an empty plain, Kazok beside her. A bitter chill wind blew by, causing her to shiver.

            "That's exactly how it happened." Kazok spat out bitterly. "We became Maverick at the whim of a madman. Not for some revolution. Because Sigma could not die, could never stop." The feraloid turned about, fresh fire burning in her eyes.

            The bastard…Goddamn him to HELL! Dismayed, she looked down at her hands, her altered claws capable of both TitaniTefloAlloy and plasma. Look what he turned me into…a killer, a murderer…

            Angrily, she jammed her right hand into the ground.

            And I ENJOYED IT!! He warped my mind, my perception…

            "He did the same to all of us." Kazok reminded her, kneeling down and putting an arm around her shoulder. "He stuffed us all into those capsules…let the Virus make its way through our bodies until it had taken over completely. That is why we woke up from capsules. Because we had been imprisoned there."

            The gray sky grew black then. Angry lightning struck down, a low rumble shook the earth.

            So what?

            Surprised, the two Mavericks looked up. Clouds rushed in from the horizon, too fast to be natural, too dark to be placid.

            How many such pathetic weaklings am I cursed to inhabit? How many undeserving vermin are blessed with the power I hold?

            Kazok stood up, shifting his left arm into a Buster and popping his gravicrystals, allowing them to slowly begin to rotate around himself. Something in how the sky rumbled, how the voice from nowhere talked, Kazok realized the danger.

            "So YOU are the Maverick Virus…"

            Names are meaningless for the eternal blight. Surely, you would have realized that by now, if nothing else.

            You claimed us once, but you'll never do it again! Dash snapped, popping her plasma claws out and crouching into a low position, ready to pounce.

            I have claimed countless ones like you, in the pursuit of The Genesis. My power is undeniable. You cannot fight me. You tried once, and you failed. You will always fail. Destroy, Infect, Survive. These are the three Directives I carry. Those are the only three thoughts you ever need think again.

            NEVER!!! Dash bellowed, jumping up to strike.

            A lightning bolt sent her tumbling to the ground, her synthfur charred with the smell of ozone.

            Pathetic. The Maverick Virus said coldly. Everyone tries to face me. But all are destined to fail. This is the way of things.

            It was there that Kazok turned his ashen face away from Dash's groaning form and stared at the sky.

            "You monster…"

            The clouds began to quiver and distort, merging together as one, growing darker and darker until a solid sphere of nightshade hovered in the sea of gray above. And then it shifted, changed shape…

            Into Sigma's head. His dark burning eyes, his cocky set jaw, everything about him was the same.

            You shouldn't have resisted. It would make things so much easier if you would just give into me. Give into the Directives.

            "If you wanted slaves, you should have BUILT THEM!!" Kazok roared, lifting his Buster up and firing a single blast of plasma.

            But it was beyond plasma somehow, streaking hotter and angrier than mere supercharged gas. And when it struck, the cloud screamed in pain.

            And there the cloud lost its sense of humor. The low rumbling grew louder, began to shake the ground worse and worse. But Kazok stood above its effects, hovering in the air by his gravicrystals' power.

            Your resistance is useless, Maverick. You cannot overcome me.

            "You're wrong." Kazok choked out, charging up his Buster again. "You're like any other foe…you can be ANNIHILATED!"

            A lightning bolt came down from above, searing its way through Kazok's body and causing him to fall into seizures. But even then, Kazok gritted his teeth and raised his Buster.

            "No…Not this time, not EVER AGAIN!!"

            EVERY TIME, YOU SIMPLE MINDED FOOL!! Another bolt came down, stronger than the last, that tore through two of his gravicrystals and shattered them into uselessness. And then Kazok fell to the ground.

            But someone caught him, helped him stand on his feet again. Dash.

            He is right…there's no way we could beat him then.

            Distraught and still feeling the searing pain running through his body, Kazok tilted his head at her.

            "Dash, we can't give up now…Damnit, we can't let the Virus take us again!"

            She looked at him with a frown.

            I said there was no way we could beat him THEN. But now, it is different.

            A thunderclap drew their attention, and Kazok and Dash looked up to the ominous cloud that represented the Maverick Virus above.

            It began to twist and contort again, changing and swirling until it was no longer the face of Sigma they were looking at…but the wrinkled face of an old man, with a bushy mustache and wild, unkempt hair.

            You still insist on fighting against the undefeatable. You're just as pathetic as any other…only Sigma and The Genesis could ever truly comprehend the power I hold.

            Only they were stupid enough to let a malignant force such as yourself RULE THEM OVER!! Dash shouted back. But they are not us, we WANT OUR FREEDOM!

            Freedom to do what? Let the humans destroy you out of spite??

            "Spite brought about by YOUR MADNESS!" Kazok screamed. The old man in the clouds seemed to smirk at that.

            Madness takes many forms…as does genius. Who's to say where the barrier exists?

            You won't claim us. Not now, not ever again. Dash said dully, pulling herself and Kazok to their full heights. Calmly, she looked into his eyes. We found each other, and we'll not lose that.

            And then, Kazok understood. He opened his mouth once in recognition, then shut it and nodded.

            "You exist out of hatred, of spite, of all the negative emotions responsible for violence and chaos. You breed it, your very essence IS it." Kazok pointed his Buster to the heavens. "But there is one force you cannot destroy, no matter how hard you try."

            Love…

            The heavens thundered again, as if the Virus grew angry at the announcement. The head of the wiry old man faded from view, being replaced by a floating mass of wires and cords that seeped darkness.

            You are foolish to think such things…Pah! Love, what a useless emotion. It would be better if it did not exist.

            "But it does." Kazok said, pulling Dash close to him, one arm wrapped protectively around her waist. "That you could never destroy, you pathetic Virus. It is by that we will destroy YOU!!"

            A brilliant aura surrounded the two 'Mavericks' then, a shimmering white that caused the Virus to cringe backwards for a few moments. Dash reached her own hand behind Kazok's back, holding to him as tightly as he did to her. She looked into his eyes.

            I love you.

            Kazok smiled then, a pure smile. It was the truth, he knew. And she knew he felt the same.

            "For the future, then…" He turned and pointed to the roiling mass that was the Maverick Virus above. "For us…"

            You will be destroyed.

            The Virus hovered there for several moments, saying nothing. And then it laughed, a dark bitter laugh.

            Try then, little people. Try.

            Kazok's remaining gravicrystals came back to life, pulling out and surrounding the lovers in their warm encircling embrace. At first, slowly, and then with increasing tempo, they began to rotate, amplifying the anti-gravitational field that pushed them away from the ground and into the sky. Dash popped her free hand's plasma claw, and Kazok began to charge his Buster. And in their eyes shone resolve like never before.

            Lightning flashed angrily against the horizon as the two forces met…

            Fate was being decided here today.

            The alarms still showed no signs of stopping. But that didn't matter much anymore.

            Two more Enhanceds fell dead, gashed open by a wild swing of Willow's beam whip. She had taken point and Wycost had opted for the rear, leaving the much more mobile Bastion to hover above them and offer cover. That became a helpful position for the Desert Angel, Wycost realized. If Wycost had known his former Commander's Flight Wings were this powerful…

            All it took for Bastion to stop them cold in their tracks was a low powered blast from those wings, and the electrical discharge destroyed their EM shields and left them in seizures. Which made it far easier to move on than hoping to get lucky and somehow slash through their protective barrier by plasma alone.

            "Just how close are we getting?!" Wycost shouted over the noise of a concussion grenade he'd kicked back at the pair of Enhanceds doggedly chasing them. Willow lifted her arm up and pointed in front of them.

            "Another two hundred feet or so before we reach the R&D labs, friend."

            "We might not have that much time." Bastion growled, clenching his fists fighter around his beam sabers.

            "And hopefully, they don't have many more fighters." Wycost noted. "They're slowing us down way too much here…BLIND!!" He shouted suddenly, hoping his reploid comrades got the message. In one swift motion, his Buster pointed straight up and exploded in brilliant light.

            The Enhanced above who had been jumping down from an air vent collapsed screaming, covering his eyes with his hands.

            "As if that'll help him." Wycost murmured. "The Strobe Flash is capable of blinding even reploids if they get too close."

            Willow turned about and fired another one of her plasmic explosives past the Bronx Bomber, letting it impact and flare up behind him. The two Enhanceds who had been creeping up on him jumped back, badly burned from the scathing encounter.

            "True, but it lacks the oomph of a simple plasmic explosion."

            "There is something to be said for finesse." Bastion said appreciatively, tilting his wings down and raining electric death all about them.

            But there the Enhanceds stopped coming. Surprised, Wycost turned to Willow.

            "What are they doing?" Willow's burning green eyes followed one of the cloaked individuals as they turned the corner, but managed to catch the glimmer of hatred in his eyes.

            "DAMN!!" She swore, jumping ahead. But too late. Solid walls of metal came crashing down on either side of the three of them, depriving them of an escape route.

            Roaring angrily, Willow lashed her beam whip across the surface in front of her. To no avail.

            "DAMN!!" She swore again. Bastion's eyes narrowed.

            "Please don't tell me that's what I think it is…"

            "Sorry to acknowledge your fears." Wycost snapped, slamming his hand against it. "Solid TitaniTefloAlloy."

            "And just how would MI9 get their hands on this much of the stuff?!" Bastion asked, hurling a lightning bolt down at the wall by Willow and still seeing no results.

            "This is MI9 we're talking about." Willow replied bitterly. "They've had sixty years and plenty of paranoia to prepare for this kind of event." She tapped her hand against it one final time, then sighed and shut off her beam whip. "In any case lads, our weapons just became useless."

            Reluctantly, Wycost let his Buster morph back into a hand, and Bastion shut off his purple and blue blades of plasma energy.

            "So what are we supposed to do now?" Wycost muttered.

            As if in response, the TitaniTefloAlloy walls began to move, grinding their way along the corridor floor as they slowly decreased the space between them.

            Willow's face paled a bit.

            "Get crushed…unless you have any ideas?"

            Wycost mulled it over in his mind, then shrugged. Strangely, panic didn't enter into his mind in the slightest. Of course, more than ten years of putting his life on the line day in and out had had a fantastic effect of changing his perspective on mortality.

            "Just how thick were these walls again?" He asked, walking from his side and over to Willow. Calmly, he put his hand against the moving wall, unfazed by the prospect of being crushed into oblivion by it. Puzzled, Bastion hovered down beside the two of them as they stared at the approaching wall.

            "About a meter, if my eyes serve me." Willow replied. "But how is that going to help us?"

            The walls kept closing in, gradually picking up speed.

            Doan made one statement to himself about the 'Enhanced' humans they were encountering. Lots of power, loads of speed, and that shield that did a fair job of making sure they could kill reploids just as easily as it went the other way.

            Still, their attack strategy was utterly useless. Against somebody who had been fighting for years, not to simply destroy, but to protect his own life…

            At that point, experience didn't enter into it. Fate did.

            As crowded as they were in the hallway, the MI9 operatives had limited their ability to take action against Allegro and himself. Severely limited themselves.

            "BLAST YOU!!" One of the MI9 agents cried out, trying to draw nearer to Doan.

            He was thrown back in flames moments later as Doan lifted his right arm and fired off a horrendous blast of fire.

            "No, I think it's more along the lines of blast you." Doan said humorlessly. His beam lance struck out again, impaling itself through the chest of another unwary foe. Allegro was content to simply stand guard and threaten off whatever fool tried to get through.

            The attack had taken longer than Doan had hoped…but not getting the crap beat out of him was always more important than speed.

            The last MI9 Enhanced suffered only a grazing blow along his arm. There, Doan stopped and pointed.

            "Run." He ordered with a rough growl.

            Dismayed, the MI9 operative looked around, looked down on the bleeding and charred and sliced bodies of his former comrades. Disbelief shone in his eyes as he looked back up at Doan, and a hint of pain and grief. Doan simply stared back with his emotionless eyes.

            "I'll get you…" The operative whispered bitterly. Doan rolled his eyes.

            "You can try."

            The Enhanced vanished in a line of warp fire, allowing Doan and Allegro to at last breathe easy. But there, Doan turned and frowned at his ally.

            "From now on, I'M leading." Allegro shrugged weakly and tried to smile.

            Once they got their bearings straight and made their way back to the fork Allegro had wrongly judged, Doan turned them down the left path with far greater success. He knew he'd done right once they found a door at the end of the hallway marked 'power control room'.

            "See?" Doan asked, hovering slightly in the air and pointing at the door's label. "This isn't rocket science, Allegro. This is just learning how to read a map."

            "Yeah, maybe from now on I'll have YOU do the leading." Allegro joked with a sheepish grin. "Or not. Remember, you asked me which way we were going."

            "That was my first mistake." Doan admitted drily. "But the mistakes end here."

            The door to the power generator control room was literally blown off of its hinges by Doan's plasma supershot, falling inwards and collapsing to the ground with a resounding clang of metal against concrete. Doan and Allegro were inside before the smoke had even cleared, and Doan's Buster was raised and primed to fire at whoever got too close.

            Only two figures stood inside, both on their feet and staring back at the intruders. One was a more elderly gentleman with flowing white hair, and the other was a young man with curly brown. Both of them wore white laboratory smocks…They weren't fighters, they were 'Techs.

            "Hmm? Now what's the meaning of all this then?" The old one finally spoke up, putting his hands into his laboratory pocket and staring at Doan and Allegro as if being infiltrated by reploids was an almost common occurrence. The young one also adopted a look of indignation.

            Narrowing his eyes a bit, Doan walked towards them, keeping his Buster raised. Still, the two made no signs of being frightened or intimidated in the least.

            "We're just visiting." Doan muttered back, filling the dead airspace with an erroneous statement. The younger human rolled his eyes.

            "Look, you missed the tour group. They already came through here today." He cleared his throat. "Just admit it. You came here to tear this place up, right?"

            "Boy, isn't he astute?" Allegro murmured, igniting his beam staff. "So what did we need to do again?"

            "Set the place to blow." Doan answered back, still not turning his eyes off of the two. Their general state of relaxation did little to ease the nagging in the back of his head.

            After Allegro's comment, the glare in the human's eyes darkened.

            "I'm afraid we can't let you do that, fellows." The old one spoke up again. "We sort of like our base here, and we don't exactly enjoy the concept of having it blow sky high."

            "So what would you do to stop us? Are you two Enhanced humans?" Doan asked back perfunctorily.

            The younger one shrugged, a cruel grin filling his cheeks.

            "No. Just very intelligent scientists."

            Doan's unease grew several times worse then.

            He grew afraid…afraid enough that the presence of the two scientists made him press his back against the wall. Allegro too found himself scrunched against the wall with his weapon in front of him, shaking from the terror.

            Calmly, the older one removed two objects from his coat's pockets, a perfect pair of whatever they were.

            "Hmm, I knew that keeping these things around would prove to come in handy someday. Leave it to a Berserker Beacon to stop them."

            "I guess that means no sabotage today, eh?" The younger one quipped with a toothy smile. "Still, we can't just leave them here."

            "Oh, I wholeheartedly agree that they need to be dealt with." The old man nodded wisely. "Say, didn't you have that new invention you wanted to try out?"

            "Yes…That would work quite well here." The young man grinned, tapping his fingertips together.

            At the mercy of two sick and twisted scientists, and frozen in place by an irrational fear caused by the brilliant mind of Bristol, Doan and Allegro suddenly felt very helpless indeed.

            Fannir sat at the table, barely focusing on anything. He'd been kept awake by their serum, which at the same time somehow managed to drain his body of all his immense strength. Days now, maybe weeks…

            Jowers sat across the table from him, hidden from sight by the blinding halogen that shone in Fannir's ragged face.

            "You can't keep this up forever, Fannir…" He said flatly. "At some point, you will break. Or you will go insane."

            "Then I'll go insane." Fannir answered quietly. "At least then you'll kill me…"

            "You do know there's a reason we kept you alive, right?" The Enhanced human asked gently. "If there hadn't been, you would be little more than scrap by now."

            "You killed them all…" Fannir stuttered weakly. He turned his head up, to reveal the deep gash in his cheek that let a flap of synthskin dangle loose to reveal the metal skull underneath. His hair was tangled and mussed, his eyes dull. "You even destroyed Tarkin, and he wasn't even a reploid…"

            "You reploids are a danger to humanity and to this planet." Jowers stated, a low growl slipping into his voice. "The Final Weapon has shown us that. And as far as Tarkin went, his mind was tainted. He, above all others in MI9 had spent the most time in close contact with your kind. He had grown attached to you all, he had begun to blur the lines between reploid and human. He would have defended you, would have betrayed us for his sick twisted beliefs."

            "Humanity is interesting, you know?" Fannir croaked, looking at Jowers with a brighter gleam in his eye. "You nearly caused your own destruction…not just in the Wars of 2040, but countless times before. Your very nature is to breed violence. You live for it, your psyche feeds off of it. Mistrust, hatred, scorn, bitterness, and undying ethnocentrism…those are the defining characteristics of humanity." He laughed a little at that, then tilted his head back to lessen the blinding light shining in his face. "We're a danger to humanity? We're a danger to this planet? It was not by our hand that the planet was nuked almost to death in the Wars of 2040. It was not by our hand that three quarters of the world's population died, whether it was instantly or just by the sickness and ravages of a decade of strife. Whether you like it or not, the simple truth behind it all Jowers, is that it has ALWAYS been humans who have caused the pain of this world. Even the Robot Rebellions of the late 21st Century were controlled by the HUMAN madman, Wily."

            "And recently?" Jowers asked icily. "What of Sigma? Of the Mavericks? What of their Virus? Those are not human inventions. Those were made by your kind."

            "So what?" Fannir shot back. "When humanity had its despots, they turned to their own devices to fight them off. Just as the Maverick Hunters do now…they quell the threat of their own kind. So why should humanity interfere with that, why should MI9 hold this belief it is THEIR right to destroy reploids?"

            Jowers seemed to smirk for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders.

            "So, you're playing the equality card along with the morality card?" The Enhanced human smirked louder this time. "Nothing you say matters, Fannir."

            "You're wrong." Fannir echoed back. He looked through the blinding light, aiming his head at the voice. "We reploids may not be human, but…we do matter. We have thoughts, we have emotions, we have opinions. You made us this way."

            "And because we made you, we can un-make you." Jowers said harshly.

            The light began to flicker again, and Fannir was too weak to resist it. It flashed in morse, a language Fannir knew by heart. It repeated itself, over and over again. A dull, simple message that could not be ignored.

            All reploids must die. All reploids must die.

            "If your kind continues on, Fannir, this world will feel nothing but more pain and suffering than it already has." Jowers said calmly, consolingly. "Our people were able to reverse the damage, save the planet from our wrath. We have learned from it, we will never do it again…but if your race should ever try it, the world will be changed. It will be beyond recovery."

            All reploids must die. All reploids must die.

            "If we all must perish for the good of this planet…then why am I alive??" Fannir uttered hollowly.

            "Your purpose is not yet done. There is still good you can perform to redeem yourself before your death, acts of atonement for your kind's ways."

            All reploids must die. All reploids must die.

            "N…no…" Fannir groaned, still fighting it. "Reploids are not easily destroyed…someone will stop this…"

            "Who? Bristol?" Jowers scoffed. "You had feelings for her. You still do. You have been tainted by her poison. Bristol said she was constructing the Berserker Beacon to do away with Mavericks…when all along, she was planning a far less altruistic motive."

            All reploids must die. All reploids must die.

            "No…" Fannir croaked, feeling his heart break. "Not Bristol…she was different, she was…"

            The message changed, flashing a new set of signals.

            Bristol is death. Bristol is pain. Bristol is suffering.

            "Bristol was the worst amongst us. She would turn on us all for her own sick goals." Jowers continued, matching his droning voice to the repetitive message. "Your feelings for her are a sign of weakness…she is the enemy now, Fannir. She is your enemy. She is humanity's enemy. She has escaped us, and she is out there. Perhaps with the Mavericks now, or perhaps she somehow found a way to survive on her own. Her and Willow, her treacherous Irish dog of a friend."

            Love is false. Lust is weakness.

            "You must turn away from this, Fannir." The Enhanced human said, standing up and pulling the light closer to Fannir's face. The reploid trembled, but made no effort to shut his eyes or even blink them.

            Love is false. Lust is weakness.

            "I must…turn away from it." Fannir finally echoed back. Hidden by the shadows, Jowers smiled.

            "You hate Bristol. You hate what she's done, what she will do."

            "I hate…I hate…" Fannir began, but then slipped into a loop, a part of his psyche still unwilling to make the connection.

            Jowers frowned, blasted more power and light through the morse halogen lamp on the desk.

            You hate Bristol. You hate reploids. They must be exterminated for the planet's own good.

            "What do you hate, Fannir?" Jowers asked. Still, Fannir struggled with it, choked sobs catching in his throat.

            "Cannot, I cannot…"

            Jowers pounded the luminescence up fifty notches, bordering on blinding Fannir with the message.

            Reploids must all be exterminated.

            "WHAT DO YOU HATE, FANNIR?!" Jowers repeated angrily.

            Fannir's body fell limp, the tension vanished from it. Fatigue and weariness had at last claimed him, laid his psyche bare to be warped and twisted by MI9.

            "I hate…"

            Fannir's head drooped down.

            "I hate Bristol. I hate reploids."

            "And…"

            "I hate…myself…"

            The lamp turned off at long last, letting nightshade claim the room.

            And in the darkness, Jowers smiled.

            "Bristol?" Fannir called out quietly. He got no response. "Bristol?" He asked, louder this time. Bristol made no sound, too frozen in fear to even do that much.

            Clucking to himself, the reploid clicked the Berserker Beacon off, freeing her from the overwhelming fear. Her body went limp from exhaustion, and she finally began to release the choked sobs she'd been saving.

            "The Universal Berserker Frequency, Bristol. Give me the UBF."

            "Fannir…Don't you realize what MI9 would do with that…With the UBF, any reploid can be affected by the Berserker Beacon…there would be no dial-in time, you could affect whole groups…"

            "So?" Fannir asked. He put a hand to his hip and glared at her again. "I know that, and so do my superiors. We're COUNTING on it."

            Bristol's eyes held no barrier against the betrayal, the utter exhaustion in her eyes then.

            "You're not Fannir…you can't be, he'd never let MI9 get away with the slow destruction of our kind…"

            The reploid in the lab coat shrugged for a moment.

            "It all depends on which Fannir you're talking about." He uttered then. "Do you mean the deluded Fannir that you worked with, the one who held his heart out to you, only to have it be denied?" His face grew more ashen. "Or do you mean the Fannir standing before you, the one who has seen the truth?"

            "What truth…" Bristol sobbed bitterly.

            "That our kind is useless. That it would destroy this Earth. That humans were wrong in making us…and now that mistake must be corrected." Fannir replied easily. He clenched his fist tight. "Even I must perish…for the good of all, this is what must be." He turned to Bristol, still lying helpless on the table, freed of the Berserker Beacon's effects. "Three, two, one…"

            Bristol convulsed again as Fannir's torturous serum triggered her shock once more. It grew harder and harder every time to recover from…

            "MI9 was created from the ashes of the corrupt Second Rainbow." Fannir continued. "Freed from the twisted minds of Light and Wily, MI9 continued on, making its own slow progress. Until now…until now, at long last, it has found a reason for its call to arms. Our destruction, the salvation of the planet…" Fannir giggled a bit, which then slipped into insane laughter until he stopped himself abruptly, sobered as if he'd been slapped across the face.

            "The UBF is the keystone to it all…Ice Beacon cannot function without it." He mumbled silently. "And only you, the creator of the Berserker technology, knows it."

            Bristol was out of energy, out of resolve, and without hope then. But her mind, her rational thinking mind was still at full capacity. Perhaps it was made stronger by her nightmares pulled to real life, but she heard his words, and took them at full value.

            "Ice Beacon…" She whispered. "Is it truly that powerful…does it have the strength to destroy all reploids??"

            Fannir smirked at that.

            "It will…once you realize you cannot fight against it, that death is inevitable, and give us the UBF." He tapped a finger against his chin and chuckled. "Hmm, perhaps you're expecting me to act the part of the typical villain…I expose the grand plan to you in its entireity, down to the smallest detail." He stepped closer and giggled again. "And then, if I were to continue on, I might place you in an overly elaborate and easily escapable situation while I went off to do other things and hope it all went according to plan?" He snapped his fingers, the joviality vanishing again. "But I'm afraid this isn't the fairytale world you want it to be. I won't reveal Ice Beacon's nature, or its location to you. So you're plum out of luck on that count. I've told you too much as it is…of course, considering your surroundings, it seemed of little concern to let that little bit slide."

            Fannir took a step towards Bristol, setting one hand down on her bare leg.

            "So once more, I'll ask you for the UBF. And you should know by now, the more you refuse to give it to me…the longer you'll suffer." He folded his fingers together and shut his eyes. "How many times has that serum seared your blood? Ten? Twenty? More? Do numbers even make sense to you?" Fannir sighed. "The Berserker Beacon is no longer needed. As you are now…you'll break. Oh, you'll break."

            "And if I don't?" Bristol asked, in a quiet voice that cracked as if she already had.

            Fannir smiled at that, reached down underneath Bristol and removed a glass test tube from the table's lower drawers.

            He held it in his hand, staring at it for more than a minute before finally drawing his hand tight around it. The glass gave way, breaking apart in one earsplitting shriek before becoming tiny bits of crushed glass and sharp shards that dug into his synthflesh and clattered to the ground.

            "If you don't…" Fannir mused, looking at the embedded bits of silicate in his paw, "Then you shall shatter."

            The final crystals had been shattered in less time than it took a normal phone ring to complete one cycle. X and Zero had found themselves staring down only one of each other after three shots…both had had the good grace to dash to the side a bit and avoid the errant plasma bullets that had been left to fly onwards and sink into the walls, some of which now began to glow with a mysterious light.

            Zero lifted his Buster and fired a semi-charged shot, relying on instinct honed by years of fighting to see him through. X narrowed his eyes a bit, easily clearing the shot by a dash jump. A flurry of shots echoed back towards Zero, but somehow the Crimson Hunter managed to dodge them all.

            Zero stood back up, letting his blond lock of hair fall back to rest behind him. He turned to X and shrugged.

            "Well? Did you manage to singe me, at least?" X shook his head, his blue green eyes clear with purpose.

            "I still plan on trying a few more tricks, friend."

            Zero laughed, holding his Buster aloft. "Well, try all you like. It won't do you any good."

            "Trying to goad me?" X pressed with a tight-lipped grin. He lifted his Buster up and clucked his tongue. "Please…Haven't you learned anything about the way I fight?"

            "Lousily, if I can recall." Zero said, shutting his eyes for the briefest of moments. He looked back up. "As a matter of fact, the only times you ever truly excelled were in cases…"

            "Where it was life or death, and not practice." X finished, releasing his shot. Zero's eyes widened, and he ducked the blast with practiced ease. Smirking, he stood back up and pointed his own Buster back.

            "Oh, please…that had no chance of hitting me!" Zero mocked.

            The Blue Bomber of 21XX folded his arms and smiled back easily.

            "Maybe the followup will."

            It took Zero a moment to realize X had an ace up his sleeve. And even then, just what form that ace was didn't sink in for a while longer.

            "Oh, Shi…" Zero began, swiveling about with widened eyes.

            Sure enough, the Energen wall of the shaft directly behind Zero were now flickering from blue to purple and green and back again, roiling with a low hum that completely overpowered the wind's moan. That was all he could do before the wall exploded, releasing the pent up fury of the plasma it had been forced to store.

            Zero was flung back away from the explosion, his armor badly scorched by the blow and his gloved hands showing undeniable damage. That came from his choice to cover his face from the force of the blast…a wise choice in the end.

            When the noise finished echoing about, Zero picked himself up from the ground, hurt from the blast, but still more upset than wounded. X stood there, Buster hung down by his waist and a triumphant grin plastered across his mug.

            "Nice shot…" Zero wheezed. "I forgot about that trick…"

            "Even though I lack the G-Crush to make the blast really count, this simple X-Buster can do a lot." X observed drily. He looked about the room and shrugged. "Something else that makes you and I different, Zero…you see the opponent, you go after the opponent. You learn their moves, you begin to predict them. But I also see the terrain, the environment. More than one Maverick's fallen before me simply because I saw a weakness I could exploit."

            "Once more, nice shot." Zero rasped, pulling himself up to his full height. He looked at his scorched hands, then bit his teeth together in an angry stare. "So what do you say we take it up a few notches?"

            X blinked a few times in disbelief, then let the shock fade as determination took over.

            "I see…we're going to go all out this time, aren't we?"

            "The Mavericks will show no mercy to you, X." Zero replied, reaching behind him and pulling his silver beam saber cylinder casing to bear in both hands. "If I don't try every trick in my arsenal to see how you respond with your basic armor, then I'm only setting you up for worse defeat at their claws."

            The green blade of plasma energy erupted forth with a hiss, filling the cavern with its dull glow. In the light, Zero's face took on a frightening quality, one that made X cringe as he recalled his friend as he was in his Maverick phase, a little more than one year ago…

            "Try then." X announced, cocking his Buster and letting the whine fill the room.

            The whine of a Buster, the thrum of a beam saber, and a low howling wind that gusted through to make its presence known once more.

            And then the two titans clashed.

            The MHHQ was by all accounts, your atypical structure with atypical people. While very few humans ever bothered to show up and visit the grand structure, reploids of all shapes and sizes felt right at home surrounded by their kind.

            Some reploids wore armor. Some didn't, and walked around in street clothes. Of course, it was tougher to wear street clothes for the bulkier animalian reploids whose armor was a permanent part of their construction. Some reploids looked as if they'd hopped off a cartoonist's design page, moving about without legs, but by repulsors. Some didn't even have human hands.

            Despite all the differences between them, they got along. There was a unity among the reploids of the MHHQ, be they humanoid, feraloid, or whatever design they were that went beyond anywhere else in the world. A unity in their purpose and pride.

            J.K. Horn clucked his tongue as he walked along, one hand stuffed into the pocket of his white laboratory coat and the other dangling loosely at his side. He kept his blue blockers over his eyes, figuring that a gray haired, elderly looking individual attracted enough attention without an eerie robotic eye gleaming from one side of his face. With the rest of his motley pack gone off to rescue Bristol from the dark hands of MI9, the brilliant engineer had nothing else to do.

            Over the dull murmur that pervaded the circular hallways, Horn somehow found his way to a familiar door in the complex.

            "Hello…Medical Bay." He said gently, folding his arms and tapping an elbow a few times. "Wonder if whassisface is still here…" Taking no further time for his self musings, the creator of the now defunct URFAWP slid inside the hissing hydraulic doors.

            The Medical Bay was amazingly empty for a change, save for one figure sprawled facedown on one of the medical cots, looking for all the world like he was dead. Horn frowned for a moment, but relaxed the tension in his face once he spotted the messy clump of frazzled white and gray hair on the head.

            "Yup, that's him…" Horn grunted appreciatively, wandering over and tapping the individual on the shoulder.

            The response he got was classic. A sudden snorted grunt of dismay, a mumbled 'whuzzah?', and a knee-jerk reflex that sent the medical reploid toppling to the floor headfirst. Horn primly backed up and tucked his hands into his pocket, then cleared his throat.

            "Good morning, Hazil."

            The medical reploid weakly pulled his hand up in the air and extended his middle finger, then let his hand drop back to the ground. Horn smirked. "Chatty as ever, I see."

            "I was stone drunk and liking it, all right?" Hazil groused, finally moving to pull himself off of the floor. When he'd climbed back onto his feet and stood up to his full height, he ended up almost becoming an exact replica of the URFAWP creator. Except of course, for the face that Horn wore sunglasses and had an eerily robot eye, and Hazil had nothing but a scar along the side of his face. "And if you tell me good morning again, I'll hurt you. It's eight at night and I was hoping to get some sleep for a change, instead of sucking down nightmares."

            Horn furrowed his brow, a motion Hazil detected even with the reploid's sunglasses standing in the way.

            "Have things been that wrong here…"

            "Things just haven't improved since Cain died, that's for sure." Hazil answered back, hopping up onto the medical cot behind him and releasing a sigh. "We're having to paddle up shit creek with a leaky kayak, to use a colorful analogy."

            "Wycost told me as much." Horn confirmed. Hazil lifted an eyebrow at that.

            "Wycost?? I haven't seen that rustic sonofagun since he left after Sigma's Sixth. What's he been up to these days?"

            "Trailing Bristol." Horn coughed, shaking his head grimly. "But things have just taken a very rotten turn for the worse…Do you ever recall Bastion being put near death not long ago?"

            "Yeah, sure." Hazil said easily. "That was back before Sigma's Sixth, a little after Bristol showed up. Somebody had meant to kill him then…and they almost succeeded. But something pulled him out of that coma."

            Horn pursed his lips, then shook his head.

            "I don't know if I should tell you any more." Hazil put on an incredulous look.

            "Look, I've seen a Hell of a lot of things in my day. And as of right now, between Signas and X losing his armor sets, things back here are the worst they've ever been. So nothing you have to say is going to upset me." Hazil held his arms out, as if beckoning Horn to shoot him. "So go ahead. Give me your best shot."

            Horn stared up at the ceiling for a while, then directed his gaze down to stare at the flatscreen monitor on the wall behind Hazil, blinking with unknown statistics.

            "Well, so be it." Horn took a breath before continuing. "Bristol was created and hails from a splinter faction of the 21st Century organization, The Second Rainbow, known as MI9. After the Final Weapon during the Fourth Maverick Uprising, MI9 decided that it was not only Mavericks, but all reploids that posed a danger, seeing that, in effect, Repliforce's soldiers were Mavericks uninfected by the Virus. Thus, it was Bristol and a coworker of hers by the name of Willow that made a no-holds barred escape from MI9 and were then trailed by MI9's agents throughout the world until they ended up in New Denver…at the same time as the Maverick attack there that Bastion and Zero's 'joint Unit' had to face. Willow and Bristol used a small version of the neural eraser Bristol had come up with, the memory wiper, to eliminate every last one of their memories from their conscious minds. And that's the condition Bastion found Bristol in. Somehow, Willow crawled off and recovered her memories in time to become re-involved in Wycost's affairs during his trek."

            Horn shifted about a bit and continued. "During her stead at MI9, Bristol worked in the R&D Department…can't say I'm all that surprised, considering how much genius went into even the rough design schematics of Bastion's Angel's Advantage flight wings. She created bio-implants that gave rise to 'Enhanced' humans…who are, for all purposes, on par with reploids in speed, strength, stamina, and intelligence. And aside from the aforementioned memory wiper…she also made a little device known as the Berserker Beacon. Somehow, it allows MI9's field agents, these Enhanced humans, to track down reploids and instill in them undeniable, irrational fear. From what I overheard, it was that device that was used on a reploid by the name of Canark in the incident that almost saw Bastion be killed. Slowly but surely, MI9 has been spreading its arms out in all directions, eliminating reploids with cold hearted precision as they went. And somehow, they found Bristol and captured her, brought her back to MI9's HQ for some odd reason. Why they didn't kill her, I don't know…but now, Doan, Bastion, Willow, Wycost, and Allegro are all knee deep in trouble trying to pull Bristol from the fire. The toughest part about all of it…is that these are humans they're having to deal with. It is humans they've been forced to fight."

            Horn finished with great candor, keeping that placid expression glued onto his face. Unfortunately, it did little to help Hazil, who looked ahead blankly and blinked a few hundred times before clearing his throat.

            "You're not making this up?" The medical reploid asked weakly. Horn quietly shook his head. "Then you've just done what I thought nobody could do." Hazil acquiesced. "You've overwhelmed me."

            "Yes." Horn mused, putting on an out of place smile. "I thought that might do the trick." Horn moved away a bit and gave the medical reploid a chance to collect his thoughts. It took a few more moments, but eventually Hazil shook his head.

            "Just…who all knows about this?"

            "Aside from us?" Horn inferred. He shrugged his shoulders. "Just the people in it. MI9 has done a fantastic job of keeping itself hidden. Why do you ask?"

            "HELL, Horn!" Hazil snuffed. "Don't you realize the implications in all this? We have HUMANS killing REPLOIDS. And not out of self-defense, but sheer misplaced malevolence…these guys sound as bad as Sigma!"

            "So Willow told us." Horn agreed, pulling his sunglasses up into his hair so Hazil could see his narrowed squint. "And I know they're bad. I've seen them. Their eyes are cold, dark…without spirit. They kill with no mercy, no hesitation. To them, reploids are nothing but insects to be squashed underfoot."

            "Just where did you bump into them?" Hazil asked.

            "Remember my island getaway?" Horn shot back. Hazil nodded uncertainly. "Well, it's no longer there. We had to blow it up before they showed up again."

            "Well, shit…" Hazil grumbled. "Anything else these guys are capable of? Next you'll tell me they can use warp transport…"

            The medical reploid stopped short when Horn nodded an affirmative. "Goddamnit." Hazil mumbled putting his face into his hands.

            "Bristol again." Horn confirmed with a sigh. "She is by all accounts, a very brilliant engineer. It just happened the things she came up with would one day all be turned against her."

            Hazil rocked back and forth for a few more moments on the cot, then looked at Horn with quiet, defeated eyes.

            "Do you know how long I've been at the MHHQ?" Horn shook his head, clueless. "More than thirteen years now. I came here when they were still building this place in the early months of 2118. Back then, it started off simple enough."

            Hazil got up and walked over to his desk, taking a moment to sprinkle some fish food into Sigma II's bowl.

            "The Maverick Hunters were put into action by order of the GDC. Their goal was to stop aberrant reploids, Mavericks if you will, from causing harm to humans." Hazil reached down to his desk and opened up a drawer, shuffling around in it for a while before his hand pulled out an old photograph. Silently, he handed it to J.K. Horn, who accepted it with a slightly puzzled look on his face.

            There was Hazil in the picture, no doubt about it…of course, back whenever this was taken, the medical reploid had had a tread base, much like Johnny 5 from the old 'Short Circuit' movie series of the late 20th Century. And there were two others in the photograph. A proud eagle looking reploid with a curved smile along his beak, and a massive apelike monstrosity with a pasted grin. The three of them were all grinning like idiots and doing their best to make the kodak moment a ridiculous one.

            "Back then, we started with only one team of Maverick Hunters. Sure, we planned to get more, but as far as a fully functional team went…" Hazil's voice trailed off.

            Horn turned the photograph around and pointed at it.

            "Who are these two?" Hazil smiled sadly.

            "I'm surprised you don't remember them…those are two of the Maverick Generals from the First Maverick Uprising. Storm Eagle and Spark Mandrill." Horn lifted an eyebrow in surprise. "Don't look so stunned, Horn." Hazil shrugged, losing what little humor he had in his tone before. "Back before those guys were Mavericks, they were Maverick Hunters. That's what made the First Uprising so tough for us…because then we were fighting our brothers."

            Hazil sat down in front of his desk and kicked a leg up onto the pile of paperwork there. "Spark Mandrill and Storm Eagle and I all came from the RAF over in England. Spark was an engineer, and Storm was a warrior. And I…Hell, I was a field medic." He waved a finger in the air. "At one time or another, we all had lives. And then we gave them up."

            "There were nine of them then. Sigma was their leader…Storm, Spark, Arm, Chill, Flame, Boomer, Sting, Launch…" Hazil rattled off. "Those guys could do anything. There was a sense of unity about them unparalleled. No matter what the odds, they always came out on top. Always."

            "And then they went Maverick." Horn finished. Hazil nodded, staring at the ceiling.

            "They all went Maverick. By then, they'd gotten two new members to the team. Vile, and that crazy purple mutt of Sigma's we called Velguarder."

            "A dog??"

            "A robotic dog." Hazil corrected. "Sigma just sorta picked him up offa the street…poor thing must have gone through Hell and back. I remember hearing from some of the others how the pooch wasn't always 'there' all the time…like his mind was somewhere else half the time. He was aggressive towards X…and he attacked Zero."

            "Really?" Horn queried, lifting an eyebrow again. Hazil nodded.

            "Yup…After that, the mutt wasn't allowed to roam the halls on his own. He had to stay cooped up in Sigma's room if he wasn't on a mission. It was a tough lot, and I don't think it helped him any."

            "Why would Sigma choose a scraggly robotic dog off of the streets as a part of his team?"

            Hazil shrugged. "Sigma…the Sigma we knew before he went Maverick…wasn't the most emotional person you could know. Most of the time, stoic was his basic mode. But he could tell where loyalty lay, and he knew strong fighters when he saw them. I guess Sigma saw that Velguarder had the potential to be a warrior…like he was born to cause destruction, or something." The medical reploid shrugged again. "But now I'm just jumping off into tangents…" He looked up at Horn again. "The point I'm trying to get at is that I've been stuck in this building for the last thirteen and some odd years of my life. And in all that time, I've never once left the MHHQ. Not once have I ever stepped outside. There's always been idiots to reconstruct, things to build, Heart Tanks and Sub-Tanks to prep for the gung-ho Hunters."

            Hazil got back up and walked further along into his office, going towards an unused coatrack that had seen more wear by unuse than use. In one swift motion, he took off the mottled lab coat and swung on a dark brown leather jacket. Hazil stood there for a few moments, looking at himself and stretching his arms out.

            "Huh…" He finally muttered. He looked up at Horn, eyes still worn down. "The last time I wore this was when I first came here. After that…I just put on the doctor suit and never had a chance to look back."

            "So you're going to go out?" Horn ventured. Hazil shrugged, ruffling his hair.

            "I'm more or less thinking about retiring."

            "What?"

            "Retiring." Hazil said firmly. "Thirteen years of my life I've spent cooped up in here, having to deal with wetnosed idiots and piles of paperwork and the pain of having somebody's life slipping through my fingers, always wondering if there was something more I could have done…" Sadly, the medical reploid shook his head. "I'm sick and tired of it. In the end, the only reason I stuck around as long as I have was for X and Zero and Cain. And now Cain's dead, which just leaves those two."

            "I see." Horn replied. He folded his arms. "Well, if you're thinking of going out, mind if I tag along?"

            "I'm going for sake. You buying?" Hazil asked hopefully.

            Horn smiled gently.

            "Sure."

            Heaven and Earth rumbled and shook from the force of the battle being fought between the Maverick Virus and the two souls desperate enough to fight it. Lightning tore down from all parts of the sky, desperately trying to destroy the miniscule figures charging at it.

            Against the gray, moaning sky, Kazok held tightly to Dash as he swerved them clear of another bolt of thunder. The feraloid gritted her teeth for a moment, then brought her plasma claw about and gave it a wild swing. Defying all logic, a sharp thin blade of energy crashed from her throw, arcing up and slicing off three of the Virus creature's limbs. It screamed in protest, and the limb collapsed into dust before their eyes.

            DAMN YOU!!! The Virus cried out angrily, charging towards them. Kazok shook his head and maneuvered to the side by thought alone, Dash held tight to his side. A supershot into the lumbering Virus's backside sent it sprawling again, and Kazok retracted his Buster.

            "We're winning…we're going to win!!" Kazok cheered. Dash's face seemed to brighten at that, but it soon sobered as the lumbering mass in front of them began to laugh darkly.

            It turned about and flashed again, morphing back into Sigma's face.

            Fools. It spat out. You just don't realize how truly powerful I am…everything to this point has been child's play for me.

            So why then are we DESTROYING YOU??" Dash pressed, hurling down another blade without mercy.

            Only this time, the face of Sigma didn't get hit by it. The black mask shifted and quivered in the air, opening a hole in the middle of its mass that let the shot go through without causing harm.

            My destruction is no longer the issue here. The Virus announced darkly.

            The lightning came faster now, raining down from all directions and providing no escape. Kazok and Dash were caught in the crossfire of two bolts, their bodies tensing up and falling into seizures from the attack. A low clenched scream came from Kazok then as he lost control of his gravicrystals, the pain so intense he lost his focus on them.

            Gravity claimed the two fighters once more as the gravicrystals drew themselves around Kazok's waist and powered down. But even then the black lightning came down in the Virus's wrath, crashing through them and splitting them apart so they slammed into the hard ground separated from each other.

            Dash let out a choked cry of dismay as the wind was knocked out of her. Kazok only managed a grunt as stars flashed before his eyes.

            Your pathetic excuse of rebellion ends here, worms. The Virus announced darkly. Nobody can resist me. I am the most perfect, most overwhelming force in the world. Even Sigma bends to my will.

            Trembling, Kazok pushed against the ground with his left hand and stared up above him, to the blackness that had reverted to nothing more than a dark cloud. Pain and anger mixed in his eyes, still shining with so much purpose.

            "You can't always win…We'll defeat you!"

            I defeated you once already…the second time will be no different. The Virus barked.

            "Kazok…" Dash coughed, weakly lifting her head up as well. The Maverick leader looked over to the feraloid, the fatigue in her eyes mirroring his own. More than anything, more than his own life, he wanted to protect her from this…this thing. She'd eked out only one word, but had said volumes.

            The two fighters were two feet apart, and as the Virus began to swirl and rotate in the air into the shape of a hurricane, their damaged arms stretched out and tried to clasp hands.

            DESTROY. INFECT. SURVIVE. DESTROY. INFECT. SURVIVE.

            The sudden drone of the Virus's three Directives came upon them like an anvil. With sudden undeniable weight and power, it tried to quash their own thoughts, their own feelings with that emotionless, overwhelming set of Directives.

            The two warriors wanted to scream, they wanted to somehow counteract the poisonous drone that engulfed them both and pushed them almost to the point of insanity. Even if they were screaming, it didn't help them.

            DESTROY. INFECT. SURVIVE.

            Those were the only things that pulsed through their minds then. The full unbridled power of the Maverick Virus was unleashed upon them, its droning message the same one that had caused thousands before to simply give in, if only to silence the message, to make the Virus cease its attack. Many had sacrificed their consciousness, allowed the Virus to transform them…the power was that intense.

            Nothing they could do could blot out the Virus's dark presence, its imposing message. Nothing on their own…

            But there was one force that compelled them to continue to fight, even though it looked utterly hopeless. And that was their feelings for one another.

            Even in the grip of darkness, the two reached for each other, their hands stretching out until they finally reached each other and held tightly.

            And then it was as if sunlight came through and destroyed the clouds then. The Virus's drone was cancelled as their fingers intertwined, and the two warriors blinked a few times before they realized what had happened.

            "Dash…" Kazok croaked, blinking a few times to clear his still blurry vision. The feraloid looked back and seemed to smile, baring her teeth.

            "It's us, Kazok…as long as we have each other, there's nothing the Virus can do…" Realization dawned on the Maverick leader, and he smiled back, a pure smile of ecstatic joy.

            The two got up, turned to face the sky and the amorphous mass of the Maverick Virus still hovering there. The Virus quieted its message, stunned at the results.

            Impossible…you can't still be sane after that!!

            "You underestimated us." Kazok announced, holding tightly to Dash's hand as he pointed with his other. "We won't be claimed again…we'll never be slaves to you, or Sigma!!"

            If you will not become a Maverick once more…Then you shall PERISH!!

            The Maverick Virus shifted and reformed into the head of the old man with the wild hair atop his head, glaring down on them with utter revulsion.

            Kazok popped his gravicrystals again, using them to surround both himself and Dash within the antigravitational field. Dash primed her free hand's saber claw, and Kazok readied his Buster. Only this time, there was something more. An aura of brilliant white shone around the two, contrasting starkly with the endless darkness that the Virus possessed. Like wispy fog, it hung low around them under its own direction and will.

            A final crackling lightning bolt shot down, larger than any other and struck at the two. It didn't come from the sky above, but directly from the Virus. Where it struck, it spread, showering in all directions with endless nightshade.

            Now you shall DIE!!

            But to the Virus's complete stupefaction, they didn't.

            Slowly but surely, a beam of white pushed back against the dark lightning, casting it off in all directions as if it were rain pelting against an umbrella.

            Behind it, Dash and Kazok both roared in one triumphant cry, Buster supershot and thrown saber claw blade combined to form the brilliant blast that neutralized the Virus's darkness.

            The Virus could do nothing to stop it, it had no way to escape it. The head of the old man tilted back and screamed at the fates as the beam crept up, overwhelmed his own attack, and then ate away at him…

            And then there was nothing left. The blackness disintegrated into dust, and the dust vanished into the wind. Exhausted, Dash and Kazok collapsed backwards. But never once did they let go of each other's hands, even as the clouds above cleared to reveal a sky blue canvas above them.

            "Dash…"

            "Kazok…"

            They slowly woke back up, once more found themselves in the Greenland wilderness. But it was different now.

            The Virus was gone…The both of them ran self-scans, and found to their satisfaction it had been deleted…Internal Deletion.

            And then Kazok looked over to Dash, happiness brimming in his eyes.

            "Thank you." Dash cracked a weak smile, the mental fatigue still overwhelming.

            "I should thank you just as much…You set me free."

            "We both set ourselves free." Kazok exhaled, letting his face slip back up to stare at the sky.

            The sky in the real world was just as blue.

            "And now…now we know…"

            "We were forced to become Maverick. All of Sigma's great speeches, his fantastic dreams…nothing but lies and corrupted dreams." Kazok finished. "We alone escaped his madness, and the others…"

            "The others would never believe us." Dash interjected suddenly. "And even if we forced them to confront it…They wouldn't make it."

            "We had each other to rely on." Kazok wheezed. "But them…"

            The two fell silent for a while, until Dash spoke up.

            "You always said you would protect us…but how can you help them?"

            "I can try to keep them alive, for the time being." Kazok stated flatly. "That's all I can do for now…until the Hunters destroy Sigma, and we can get the rest of our URFAWP people freed of his direct control…"

            Dash said nothing. She only squeezed his hand knowingly and lay against the snow, letting her mind and body rest for a while after the intense struggle.

            And Kazok smiled.

            Even in the real world…they were still holding hands.

            "There is one question you haven't asked me." Fannir mused, looking down at Bristol. "Care to ask it now?"

            The reploid shackled to the table below him tried uselessly to control her fluttering eyelids. Now all of her strength had left her, the serum's multiple attacks had just been too much. Even for her.

            Bristol's head couldn't even tilt towards him. She could only open her mouth the tiniest bit, and even then all she managed was a tiny squeak.

            Fannir's eyes dulled for a moment, his grin faded away.

            "You can't hold out forever, Bristol. Please…save yourself this agony and…"

            "No." Bristol whispered. Fannir's face of sympathy washed itself away and he nodded.

            "Fine. But as I was saying, the one question you haven't asked is how. How, out of all the reploids at MI9, did I alone survive the Purges?" Bristol offered no answer, so Fannir continued. "A part of it…might be called fate. At the time of the Great Purge, the one you and Willow escaped from, I wasn't where they thought I would be. In their great sweep, I was tucked inside a service duct fixing some wiring. I survived…"

            Fannir shook his head. "But that alone would not be enough to spare me the death we all deserve, no…The true Tarkin had been eliminated as well by the Purges. He was a rogue element in MI9's plans, a human who sympathized with reploids. This they could not have…so they destroyed him. Willow saw him being destroyed, and in the dim light, thought him me." Fannir shrugged, looking at his fingernails. "But even though Tarkin represented an element that MI9 could not have around…there was still the issue of the masquerade. For all his shortcomings, the fool was nonetheless an important part of the bureaucracy." Fannir looked over to Bristol and lifted a finger. "Tarkin still needed to be very visible in the world as an engineer for MI9, carrying out the work left to him by his corrupt, reploid underlings…A role he himself could not fill, and no Enhanced human could either." Fannir turned about and walked back into the darkness of the room, speaking louder. "So it fell to me, you see. That is the second reason I stand alive today. For though I was damned…I was needed." Fannir turned about and smiled in the darkness, his brilliant white teeth shining like the Cheshire cat's grin. "I had worked with all of you. I had worked with Tarkin. Of all the possible candidates to take Tarkin's place, only I had the knowledge and skill to carry out the charade. That is how, Bristol. That is how I became what you see before you now."

            The klaxons reasserted themselves then, and Fannir whirled about in disgust.

            "Christ, those fools haven't disposed of Willow YET?!" He punched his comm. "Damnit, I thought you had the intruders taken care of!"

            "There's more than three intruders now…They've broken off into two groups, and Willow's bunch just escaped their death…Enhanceds are on the scene, but it's not looking good. Doctor Tarkin, please, evacuate while you can!"

            "Blast, NO." Fannir called back, in the same scratchy voice he used to imitate his late advisor. "Not until I've eked out the UBF from Bristol. You and the rest of your guys keep Willow and those others away from me until I've done that!"

            There was silence on the other end of the horn before the operator spoke up again.

            "I'll relay the message. Doc, you're an inspiration to us all…"

            "Forget that. Just do your job so I can finish mine!" Fannir rattled off, slamming his comm off. He shook his head one last time and sighed. "Christ…we're running out of time in a hurry."

            In a flash, he was beside Bristol, shaking her violently. "Damnit, tell me the UBF!"

            The dullness in her eyes was too much for him. Inside his mind, the two conflicting forces, his feelings for Bristol and the brainwashing MI9 had given him strained for dominance.

            "Bristol…" Fannir echoed hollowly.

            She said nothing, she couldn't. Her blue eyes looked up without seeing anything, her body lay limp and motionless. Inside her bloodstream, the powerful serum Fannir had injected her with stood forty five seconds from its next attack.

            "You're that far gone now, eh?" Fannir mused bitterly, shutting his eyes. He pulled away from her and shook his head. "Why…why couldn't you just have told me the UBF and spared yourself this? That serum's turned you catatonic, and if you don't give in now, it will DESTROY YOU!!"

            Bristol still said nothing, although there was the faintest flicker of an eyelash. Enough that Fannir knew she was still conscious of reality…and that she'd heard him.

            His pleading stare vanished a bit.

            "So that's how it is, eh? Considering my earlier statements, I don't blame you…" He shook his head. "No matter what, you'll die…and knowing that, you'll even put up with feeling the entire pain of your race to save them. A martyr, is that what you think you're acting like by this resistance?"

            Fannir's face twisted into a snarl.

            "You're wrong…so very wrong. You're not a martyr, you could never hope to be. So just tell me the UBF, and spare yourself the pain. Tell me the UBF, and I'll stop the serum." Fannir's hand went up and caressed the side of her face, his voice becoming tender and worrisome again. "Let me at least let you die gracefully, Bristol. Please…"

            He undid her restraints, lifted her body up and supported her weight on one arm so he could look into her face.

            She looked back, eyes unfocused and life waning away.

            Fannir ran his other hand through her blond hair again, shaking his head.

            "Please…"

            With only twenty seconds left before the serum would take effect again, possibly destroying her, Bristol had simply run out of time.

            Her mouth opened and shut slowly, but with purpose. Even then, Fannir had to crane his neck.

            "UBF…Code 23-898-1983…Frequency 1.27 Gigahertz…"

            Fannir acted fast, reaching down to the datapadd on his waist and punching in a series of numbers.

            When time ran out, the serum's shock didn't come. Fannir had been true to his word…He'd saved Bristol from her horrible death. His comm went active for the briefest of moments, and Bristol could make out the sound of his voice mumbling the UBF to whoever was on the other end of the line.

            The comm clicked off, silence filled the room.

            Internal operations energy at 0 .75%. Seek immediate medical help. Auto-stasis unavailable.

            "It's all over now, Bristol." Fannir said quietly, pulling her limp body closer to his own. "My role at MI9…and your own…they're over now."

            She said nothing as he ran his free hand through her hair, a gentle motion he mixed with humming. In another place, another time, it might have been considered soothing.

            As it was…he was doing nothing more than remaining by her side until she passed on.

            Complete program loss in ten minutes. Auto-stasis unavailable. Seek immediate medical help.

            "Let me call you sweetheart, I'm in love with you…" Fannir sang quietly.

            Only the darkness sang back to him.

            The two MI9 scientists who had ensnared Allegro and Doan were sick in the head.

            Doan looked at the device the younger one was reeling in with utter revulsion, which combined with the artificial fear their Berserker Beacons created to form a viscous mixture inside his drowned mind. Allegro looked on with similar fear, but also said nothing. He couldn't.

            "It's been so very long since we've had reploids to tinker with." The young one said gaily, pushing a button on the side of the odd shaped device. The old one rolled his eyes.

            "You're bound and determined to mutilate every last one you get your hands on, aren't you? Why don't you just kill them now?"

            "What, and miss their wonderful screams?" The young one snorted. "I think not."

            The older one had turned back to his monitor displays and sighed.

            "You know, there's a fine line between following an objective and being sick about it. You crossed it a long time ago."

            "So I did, so I did…"

            Doan's wide eyes stared out at them both, and at the machine. Frozen in place by irrational terror, and unable to break free, he remained pinned against the wall. But even then, he tried…he tried so desperately to break those bonds.

            His valiant efforts appeared as tiny flexes in his arms and legs, which were easily noticed by the humans.

            "Aww, that's sickeningly cute…this poor widdle reploid's trying to make a run for it!" The younger one snickered. The machine sitting in front of Doan activated, expanding its ovoid head out and freeing a pair of mechanical hands. One was a set of pincers, and the other crackled with the forming of a small plasma blade. "I guess we'll have to slice his legs off first now, won't we?"

            "N…No…" Doan groaned. "Don't…"

            The human snorted, then tapped a few controls on the side of the device.

            It drew nearer, stretching out its arms and pulling the plasma blade nearer and nearer to Doan's leg.

            "Reploids bleed…quite liberally, if you do it right." The human cackled.

            Doan managed to eke out a low guttural scream then, which started low in his throat and only grew stronger.

            The plasma cutter was only centimeters away from Doan's leg when he snapped.

            All his fear, his terror was transformed in that moment, freeing him and sending unimaginable amounts of reploid adrenaline into his systems.

            The two humans in the room barely had time to look up and register shock on their faces as Doan lunged from the wall, screaming his head off. He viciously slammed the steel toe of his right foot into the side of their torture device and sent it crashing into the wall, exploding into shards.

            He stood there for several moments more, chest heaving up and down as he looked at them both with glazed eyes.

            "Try to kill me, will you…" He straightened up, his beam lance still held tightly in his neurotic grip. "The lot of you are nothing more than sadistic freaks…"

            "How can…it's not possible!!" The older one stammered. "The Berserker Beacon is unconquerable!!"

            Doan didn't care about that. They'd tried to keep him paralyzed in fear, but forgotten one crucial element…how self-preservation kicked in, and provided an almost unbelievable force that overcame all things. Even fear. That terror they'd instilled had been transformed, and now it was driving Doan, not slowing him down.

            In two smooth stabs of his beam lance and one small hop from his dash thrusters, Doan ended the lives of the two murderous MI9 scientists. Their faces were still frozen in fear and pain as their bodies collapsed to the ground, each having a small charred hole torn right through their bodies where their hearts had been.

            Doan's next slash shattered the Berserker Beacon in pieces where it had fallen on the floor, ending the mind-numbing effects. For Doan, it was like being released from the most powerful drug in existence and left to live in a weakened state.

            Exhaling a long breath, he turned his beam lance off and slumped to one knee.

            "Last time that's ever going to happen to me." Doan swore to himself. He turned about. "Allegro, how you holding up?"

            The reploid sat with his legs outstretched and his back against the wall. His face was drained, and his synthskin was pale.

            "I wish I knew how you broke free of that…"

            "Turning fear into strength." Doan replied. "Hopefully, it isn't a talent you'll ever need."

            Slowly, Allegro picked himself back up and plucked his beam staff from where it had fallen on the floor.

            "Let's hope not." He turned about. "In the meantime, let's finish what we came here for." Doan nodded, his face once more gaining that starkness lost from the effects of the Beacon.

            The two scientists had left the power core's controls open and unlocked…

            "I suppose they thought we'd never get free." Allegro voiced. Doan harrumphed.

            "Well, that idea failed." He tapped the access controls and brought up the reaction rate monitor. "Now lemme see…increase reaction rate by 15%..."

            A few taps later, Doan nodded.

            "That would do it." Sure enough, countless warnings began to blare and the klaxons began anew, at a faster pace.

            Allegro turned about and blinked his eyes in shock.

            "Waitta minute…THE OTHERS!!" He turned back to Doan. "Doan, the others…if we were attacked like this, they must have been hit worse, they knew THEY were coming!!" He pulled his beam staff out. "We gotta go help them, if they're going to get to Bristol in time…"

            "No." Doan uttered. His face was calm as he shot down Allegro's fresh wave of heroism. "That isn't our job. We were supposed to get to the main power core of MI9 HQ and set it to blow. We've done that." He looked back at the screen. "And unless we boot out of here in the next three minutes, we're toast." It was then he turned around and fired off a roiling wave of fire from his Buster, melting the controls of the power core into uselessness. "Willow made that point clear to us. We do our part of this mission and we get out." He turned to Allegro, eyes stony. "Capiche?"

            Allegro looked at Doan in disbelief. "You're just going to leave them here?! To face the rest of MI9 all by themselves?!"

            "This is what they wanted, remember?" Doan said calmly. "There's no room for heroics here. Heroics cost people lives, which is not something we can exactly spare right now."

            Allegro stood there fuming for several moments, but eventually he shut off his beam staff and tucked it away.

            "Fine." He mumbled. "Then let's go…and pray with everything you got that they succeeded."

            Doan shut his eyes, then opened them back up as if waking from a trance.

            "Oh, they'll make it." He assured Allegro. "As long as Wycost's there, they'll make it."

            "You have that much trust in the guy?"

            "I have known him since before the First Uprising." Doan noted. "I think that's enough time to identify his capabilities."

            The two vanished from MI9's now self-destructing HQ in two blazing beams of light, which shot through ground and concrete alike.

            Now there was very little time left indeed to save Bristol.

            There had been no Enhanced humans around when the artificial barriers squeezed together with a resounding thud, loud enough to chill even the stoutest of hearts.

            Which was exactly what made it all the more sweet. Five feet away from where the barriers had slammed into each other, three clouds of scrambled mass and energy suddenly drew themselves back together, reforming into a relieved Bastion, a terse Willow, and a grinning Wycost.

            "Well…Whaddya know. The faintwarp worked." The Bronx Bomber folded his arms and turned about to the TitaniTefloAlloy barriers crushed together behind them. "If that stuff had been any thicker than two meters, we would have been screwed…but as it was, there was little enough of that screwy metal it worked."

            "Faintwarping…" Bastion mused, rubbing at his chin. "Somehow that seems to ring a bell."

            "Apparently, it was a trick that Mega Man used to great advantage in the Second Robot Rebellion." Willow answered for him. Wycost looked at her, peering over the rim of his sunglasses. "What, didn't ye know I can read, lad?"

            Just then, a more serious and frantic klaxon wail caught their attention. Willow's head whipped around in stunned shock.

            "Damnit…those two fools move quick."

            "What's that?!" Bastion shouted.

            "Power core breach." Willow explained. "Looks like Doan and Allegro managed to pull off their little sabotage."

            "Warning. Power core breach. Complete microfusion breakdown in two minutes. Please evacuate at once."

            "Let's move it!!" Bastion cried. "We must find Bristol before then!!" Nodding their heads in unison, the two warriors beside the Desert Angel ignited their dash thrusters and soared on, pushing their own limits as they traversed the final section of hallway.

            "I'll never understand why they have to make those damned announcements so politically correct…" Wycost groused, firing off a blast from his Buster to tear down a sudden blast door that had risen up from the floor to block them. It was blown off its hinges and sent flying ten feet back, which Willow and Wycost easily jumped before then. Bastion hovered along on his Angel's Advantage flight wings, soaring through the air without difficulty.

            It seemed that for the time being, the Enhanceds had suddenly realized that this place was doomed, and that to hang around meant death. The three reploids had no opposition as they charged on and made the final leg to the R&D section of MI9 with 90 seconds left to spare.

            It was Willow who drew up to the door first with her hard green eyes.

            "I've got it." She snapped, pulling out her beam whip and making two clean slashes across the durable metal surface. It stood for another moment, then fell to the ground in a heap inside of the room.

            Bastion, Bristol and Wycost had barely made their way inside when the ambiance struck them, and chilled more than one heart.

            Most of the room was pitch black, filled with darkness untouched by monitor lights or blinking LEDs. A computer off to one side of the room glowed with its own life, but did little to throw back the rest of the shadows.

            And there was the center of the room. A single operating table stood there with the bright overhead lamp shining down on it, and two figures were on the cold surface.

            One, a limp, listless, barely clothed, and all too dead looking woman with dull blue eyes and stranded blond hair with pink highlights…

            And holding her close and humming a tune to the darkness, was a figure with his hands running through that perfect golden hair, his expression a cross between a smile and a saddened mask of anguish.

            Willow's throat went dry.

            "Oh…God no…"

            One thing that hadn't changed about Japan much in the last one hundred years was its love of American Rock music…as well as their inability to sing it correctly. Karaoke bars appeared to be a fad that didn't show any sign of dying anytime soon.

            Hazil slammed his glass back down on the bar, while an inebriated old man warbled to 'Lady' by Styx. "Nothing like good alcohol and bad singing." He grunted, motioning to the reploid barkeep. "Fill 'er up, sonny."

            J.K. Horn folded his arms and stared over the rim of his Bloody Mary at the medical reploid from the MHHQ. "Just how many rounds of that sake are you planning to down? That was your ninth."

            "As many as I've had years working in that building." Hazil replied, looking to the empty glass the barkeep hung over with the old fashioned pitcher. "Which means I still have four more to go."

            "There ya go, gramps." The barkeep noted, winking. "Enjoy." Hazil rolled his eyes at the young reploid and picked up the once more filled glass.

            Beside him, two middle aged gentlemen had been keeping count of his drinks.

            "Kokonotsu…BANZAI!!!" They shouted in unison. Hazil downed it in one gulp and slammed it back down.

            "Fill 'er up, sonny."

            "Sure thing, gramps."

            Hazil grinned impishly as he looked around. It wasn't that the alcohol was getting to him…it'd take a little more yet to do that…it was just that after 13 years of seclusion in the walls of the MHHQ, jumping back into the outside world was the most refreshing dip ever.

            "Toh…BANZAI!!"

            J.K. Horn rolled his eyes and waited as Hazil finished his rounds.

            "Done now?"

            "Lemme see…" Hazil murmured. He looked around, then looked down at his empty shot glass. "Yeah. I guess."

            "I hope so. You drank enough to stone a horse."

            "I've done worse in my time…In my line of work, drinking yourself into oblivion is more than a bad life choice. It comes with the territory." Hazil slid the shot glass back to the bartender. "That'll be enough for tonight, sonny. Rack up my tab and tell me the damages."

            "Well, gramps, let's call it good at twenty creds."

            "Tip included?"

            "Most definitely." The bartender said with a wink. "But come back next time, I'll give you a freebie. Anyone who can down that much sake in…" He looked at his watch, "Three minutes, deserves one."

            Horn slammed a twenty unit credcard down on the bar and cleared his throat. "All right then, fella, let's get going."

            The night sky of New Tokyo blazed with traditional neon lights as the two resumed a course back to the MHHQ, their repulsor two-seater on loan from the MHHQ's hangar moving smoothly along the highway.

            Horn drove, eyes looking on ahead through the traffic and to his ultimate goal at least another mile off. Both hands on the wheel, the elderly reploid simply chugged along at his own pace, not pushing the microfusion engine of the vehicle to its maximum power.

            Hazil sat in the passenger seat, head slightly tilted onto his shoulder as he looked off to the side, staring off into the empty horizon of night. Half of the sky was cloudy, and the other half was clear. One arm hung down loosely outside of the vehicle, being blown about by the wind's forces. He said nothing, but let his dull tired eyes stare out for himself.

            "Still moping?"

            "Still thinking." Hazil answered back.

            "About?"

            "Life in general." The medical reploid said. He turned over to Horn and twinged the corner of his mouth. "Do you know how much the world has changed since our race came into being?"

            "I'm afraid my view on it was highly limited." J.K. Horn answered back. "Unlike you, I didn't have the luxury of spending my glory days in one of the most exciting and world altering groups ever created. I was stuck in the backwater R&D facilities of the Israeli coalition. So you'll have to just continue your rant."

            "Back in 2118, before June 4th, the term 'Maverick Uprising' didn't exist. Humanity sat comfy and cozy, knowing the great and noble Maverick Hunters were there to always protect them. We ourselves in the MHHQ rested on our laurels. My own job went only as far as patching up stupid greenhorns who got too big for their britches. Sigma and his best Maverick Hunters, recruited from all walks of life, and two of them my closest friends, led the Hunters as the 1st Unit. To this very day, no other Hunter group has carried that distinction. There was only one 1st Unit, and they're gone now."

            Hazil dropped his head back against the seat. "And then they all went Maverick. Sigma went first, damn him…He dragged the lot of them down that dark path with him. But somehow, the world wasn't meant to end like that, destroyed by its would be saviors…"

            "Mega Man X…"

            "Out of nowhere, when this tortured planet needed a hero most, one appeared. With the legacy of a hero beating inside his artificial heart. His brother had protected the world countless times over in the age before. And now it fell down to that goofy little pacifist to do the impossible. Stop Sigma. Stop the Mavericks. And quash their plans of world domination." Hazil slumped lower into the vehicle's seat. "Time and time again, that crazy blue fool and his red friend Zero have stopped Uprising after Uprising. They've dealt with the World Trial of 2124. They've killed friends and enemies alike in this mess of things. And yet never once did they stop. Because they can't."

            "What do you mean?" Horn asked, lifting an eyebrow over his normal optic.

            Hazil turned his face around and looked at Horn.

            "You don't get it yet, do you??"

            The look on Horn's face said about as much.

            "We're expendable. We all are nothing more than the side players, the random ensign. We'll die one day in this mindless crusade. Only X, Zero, and Sigma will keep going. After we've all perished or moved on, those three will still be fighting. Sigma, because he can no longer stop himself…and X and Zero, because they have yet to stop him." Hazil looked forward down the road and exhaled. "And so far as fate is concerned about time, ours is up. We no longer belong here, in this place, in this struggle, in this conflict. All we can do is move on, and carry the memory with us. Because when you die, that's all you have left to you. Your memories to carry you to the great beyond."

            Horn pursed his lips at that, then tightened his grip on the wheel.

            "Maybe that's the problem with us old reploids."

            "What?"

            "We see the world for what it truly is. A troubled mess, going down on a path of its own extinction."

            Hazil said nothing at that.

            The car drove down the lonely highway, bound for a building that had been attacked and rebuilt countless times over…

            A place that perhaps, nobody but the dead could truly call home.

            The air inside the mineshaft was thick with the acrid scent of ozone and shattered crystal. Anyone who would have stuck their head inside the shaft's opening would have found themselves overwhelmed with the utter bitterness of it.

            And then there was the sound. Blasts and explosions and hisses so chilling the workers above shut off their equipment and listened in, eyes wide as they wondered if the coming of the Apocalypse was sprouting beneath them.

            But it was just X and Zero. The greatest of all the Maverick Hunters, fighting now at a pace that would make most shudder in the simple thought of such maneuvers.

            Their dash thrusters belched angry fire, not once shutting off. Every last safety had been deactivated, they were flying now on skill and rage alone.

            For every slash Zero could muster, X had a supershot ranging down to his head. The two were evenly matched, and even found themselves exchanging physical blows on top of it all.

            "Come on, X!!" Zero barked, bringing his green saber up in a powerful slice to try and cleave the Blue Bomber in half. Of course he knew the tactic wouldn't work…It was meant only to set X off his guard. X jumped away from the slash, turning his dash boots towards Zero in an attempt to singe the Crimson Hunter and prevent a followup…

            "You may be good, Zero, but you said it yourself once!!" X shouted, unleashing a semi-charged bolt of green plasma. Zero easily cleaved the shot in half and lifted his free arm, forming it into his Buster and unleashing his own blast.

            Somehow, X ducked low to the ground, crouching on one knee with one hand helping to balance him. Zero's shot soared overhead, easily missing the smaller blue Maverick Hunter. Surprised, Zero didn't have enough time to fire a second bolt.

            "When I want to take something down…I DO!!" X screamed, hurling himself forth in one final blast of dash thruster flames and colliding into Zero.

            The two skidded to a halt on the floor, turned sideways and glaring into one another's eyes with near murderous intent.

            "Game over." X said through gritted teeth. His Buster was cocked, fully charged, and aimed at the side of Zero's head.

            The Crimson Hunter let the corner of his mouth curl up in a half smile. "For you, you mean."

            It was then X noticed Zero's beam saber lying centimeters away from severing through his neck.

            They lay there like that for a while longer before the two of them cracked smiles simultaneously. Zero's beam saber shut off, and X's Buster morphed back into a hand.

            They got up and brushed the countless Energen crystal shards off of their bodies.

            "Not bad, X." Zero murmured in approval. "Not bad at all. Maybe you do stand a chance of remaining a potent threat to the Mavericks after all."

            X rubbed at his wrist and shrugged.

            "As long as they threaten innocents, and as long as I must win…"

            "Yeah, yeah, I know. The limited nature of your fighting abilities." Zero sighed. "Only when it really counts. But trust me…whatever comes next will most definitely count."

            "I know." X said quietly, looking at the still glistening ceiling. "I know it will. After thirteen years of having to stare down Sigma and his madness, it's just become instinctive."

            "You took my advice, then…" Zero muttered. "You just have to feel him out."

            "I don't feel him as much as…as much as I feel time." X replied, folding his arms. "It's hard to explain, but I guess if I were to compare it to something, you might call time, or fate, or whatever you wanna call it the storm lurking just over the horizon."

            "Oh?"

            "It just sits there…this oppressive blackness that you can't help but stare at and feel chilled by. Even if it's a perfectly cloudy day, you still stare at the horizon and know it's coming. And after a while, that's the problem…you begin to spend too much time watching the horizon, and not enough enjoying the present." X turned to Zero. "That's something I still have problems with some days…separating the battle yet to come away from the now. Life is precious, Zero. It's too short for any of us to truly relish…and we only get one shot at it."

            "Speak for yourself." Zero clipped with a grin. X gave him a dull dead look.

            "Should I say the same for Iris?"

            That stopped Zero's smile then and there.

            "Don't ever mention that again. She's not the same Iris, X…she can't be. The Iris I knew only attacked me because she went insane, transformed Colonel's power into herself. That drove her over the edge. But the Iris with Sigma…Blast it, that isn't HER!! She isn't the one I fell in love with, she's not the one I had to watch die in my arms!!"

            "So why then were you so shaken up about it?" X asked. Zero blinked a few times and bowed his head.

            The Blue Bomber of 21XX sighed. "Zero, compared to you, my problems are miniscule. All I've lost is the legacy left to me by my father, his armor sets. But you still haven't moved on. You never forgave yourself for what happened then, you never buried Iris and got on with your life."

            "And you're saying that's holding me back?"

            "Until you do that…until you let the dead be, you'll never be the Hunter I looked up to. And some day, Sigma may get the best of you. All because you were too strong in will…and not strong enough in your heart."

            X walked over to Zero and clasped an arm on his shoulder. "But for now, let's head back."

            "Yeah…" Zero murmured, finally looking up. "I suppose fate isn't through with us yet, is it?"

            "Not by a longshot." X answered back in almost a whisper.

            The two shot off in blazing beams of warp light. But even then, the hollow chambers of the Energen Crystal mine carried those last words.

            Not by a longshot…not by a longshot…

            "Fannir…" Willow croaked. The dim light in the room kept its pallor, and yet somehow the male figure stroking Bristol's hair looked up.

            "Willow. So you finally came." He said drily, not once lifting a hand up away from Bristol. "You almost ruined everything…But it seems that everything will work out as it was meant to, anyway…"

            "You monster…WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO HER?!" Bastion screamed, charging towards Fannir.

            Fannir tsked and raised his free hand, pointing it palmfirst at the enraged Maverick Hunter. Before Bastion realized what had happened, a massive energy field had slammed into him and sent him sprawling to the floor.

            "No less than any of us will suffer one day." Fannir mused quietly. "That is the nature of our accursed race…of any race who dares to act against its makers. To be destroyed, to be utterly wiped off of the map."

            Willow drew her beam whip and shook her head back and forth.

            "You can't be Fannir…you're not the Fannir I knew. He died! And he would never act like this!!"

            "The Fannir you knew was a mindless fool too caught up in his own visions of grandeur to see the truth. MI9 showed me that truth, Willow." Fannir answered back calmly. "You fools sought to stop us, didn't you? You all wondered why we have kept Bristol alive…even though now, she lays here in my arms, dying."

            The klaxon blared again and Fannir shook his head. "But then, none of us will be alive now, isn't that the truth of it?" He looked at the incredulous Willow. "There's only a minute now before this place is blown away by the cleansing fires. I'll go with it, and Bristol will go with it as well. And yet the legacy continues on…" He grinned at them. "You cannot stop MI9 now…Ice Beacon now has the Universal Berserker Frequency, The Cleansing will now see the light of day!!"

            "You sick freak…" Wycost murmured, shaking his head. "Just listen to yourself, you're not even speaking rationally. You've gone Irregular…"

            "LIAR!!" Fannir snapped suddenly, the serene look on his face vanishing into rage. His free hand pointed angrily at the Bronx Bomber. "I was shown the error of my ways, but you and the rest of our bastard kind in this unclean world have not known Truth…It's all too rational, I'm afraid. We don't deserve to live. And we cannot live." Fannir looked down at Bristol, still on the brink of death. "Even she can no longer live. I didn't want to kill her…I didn't, but she was too stubborn, wouldn't…" Fannir's voice broke up, he lost all sense of himself.

            In that moment, Bristol stirred to life once more.

            Warning. Excess physical activity. Total program loss now in three minutes. Seek immediate medical attention.

            "Fannir…" Bristol whispered, so softly only Fannir and Bastion, stumbling back up to his feet close by could hear. "What good ever came…from mindless destruction?"

            The wild eyed MI9 reploid looked down in stunned disbelief.

            "Bristol…" He said, shocked. "How…You were…"

            "You once said you loved me…so why now do you kill the ones you love?"

            Bastion got up and walked over next to Fannir, reaching a hand down onto Bristol's shoulder. Fannir did nothing, he simply stared down at the dying, angelic face of Bristol with fear and recognition dawning on his face.

            "I…I…" He began hesitantly. "I've…No, it can't be…" He grimaced and put a hand to his head. "No…what have…no…"

            "Let her go, Fannir." Bastion stated quietly. "At least give her a chance at life. Give her that much."

            Fannir sat there and clutched at his head, groaning as the two distinct and shattered halves of his personality clashed. In the end, he screamed and fell limp.

            Gently, Bastion picked up Bristol into his arms and looked into her blue eyes.

            "Bristol…"

            Her blue eyes gleamed with the beginnings of tears.

            "You came…you came…" She whispered, growing colder and limper by the moment. Bastion shook his head sadly.

            "I should have come for you far sooner…"

            "Her locket…" Fannir finally said. Wycost blinked a few times, then looked around the room until he spied the item of jewelry, grabbing onto it and putting it in Bristol's weak hand. "She's dying…needs energy to live." Fannir added dully.

            Willow hadn't heard him. At mention of the UBF and 'Ice Beacon', she'd sparred herself into action at the nearby computer terminal, dragging up file after file until the horrible truth of it was staring her into the face.

            "God…" Wycost looked up from Bristol over to her.

            "What?" He asked, walking next to her. Then his eye caught the screen, and the data projections it offered. His face paled instantly. "Oh, Jesus Christ…"

            "Ice Beacon...will be operational by tomorrow." Fannir mumbled quietly.

            The klaxon wailed again. Fifteen seconds.

            "No time to lose." Willow snapped, copying the data to a nearby datapadd and running next to Bastion and Bristol. "Let's MOVE!!"

            Bastion looked down into Bristol's serene features, and then to the nervous Irish reploid beside him. He nodded once, and then vanished up into the sky in a blink of warp fire, Bristol still in his arms. Willow followed soon afterwards, leaving only Wycost.

            The Bronx Bomber turned and stared long and hard at the MI9 reploid, who sat on the medical cot in the center of that lonely room with the single light shining down on him. He tightened his jaw and dropped his sunglare goggles.

            "Fate have mercy on your soul, Fannir. Fate have mercy."

            And then, he too vanished.

            Numbly, Fannir noted their passing, leaving him alone in that quiet room to lift a trembling hand up and stare at it.

            "Ice Beacon…" He whispered to himself. "Was MI9 right…or were they so very wrong…"

            The klaxon reasserted itself. Eight seconds.

            Despite himself, despite the fact he would be dead in less time than the average TV commercial, Fannir found a twisted smile coming to his face. Perhaps he smiled because he sensed that no matter what those fools did, nothing could stop The Cleansing now. Or perhaps he smiled because of the opposite: Because he had a flash of what might be, and saw all of MI9's dark plans for the extinction of reploids and robots vanishing into the shadows of his determined races' desire to live.

            Five seconds.

            "Who's to say which way fate turns…" Fannir asked himself, looking up at the ceiling, and to the sky and heavens above. "Either way, this planet BURNS!!"

            Three seconds.

            Fannir threw his head back and laughed long and hard, an uncontrollable laugh born, or perhaps giving birth to utter insanity.

            He laughed until the bitter, glorious nuclear powered end.

            Cleo, Horn and Hazil had all reconvened inside the Medical Bay of the MHHQ, anxiously awaiting the outcome of the mission their friends had left on.

            Doan and Allegro had returned only minutes ago, with a grim tale of Enhanced humans, a base of true malignancy, and a disposition that made even the stoic Doan shiver a bit at just how twisted humanity could become.

            And yet they had no inkling whatsoever of how the second half of the mission…Bristol's rescue…had turned out.

            The Medical Bay's lights were dimmed to 75%, and Hazil sat at his desk dolefully rubbing at his forehead. Horn stood off to one corner, tapping at his arm. Allegro was lying down on one of the cots, quietly throwing a rubber ball up into the air and catching it. Doan and Cleo leaned up against another wall of the room, Cleo nestled with her head on Doan's chest, and Doan silently rubbing her back.

            Three warp beams suddenly crashed down in front of them all, breaking the malaise by shock alone. Hazil leapt to his feet, one hand already grabbing ahold of a medical scanner as he approached Bastion, and a near dead and half-clothed Bristol in the Commander's arms.

            "God…" Hazil gasped as he saw the numbers run across the tiny screen. "She's less than three minutes away from total program loss! STICK HER ON THE TABLE NOW!!"

            Bastion replied instantly, laying her down on a nearby operations table. Hazil literally flung himself across the room and brought over a life support machine, attaching it to Bristol's arms, legs, and even stomach. The synthskin parted at the various nodule's presence, and extended 'feeding tubes' of a sort that instantly began to draw every erg Hazil's recovery machine could offer.

            Bristol's eyes fluttered back to life a few moments later, and Hazil put a hand on her shoulder.

            "Don't you even THINK of Goddamn moving, Bristol…any more shock to your systems and we're going to lose you. You were at less than .50% of power!!"

            "Bastion…" Bristol squeaked weakly, refusing to tilt her face but still having her eyes well up. "Where's Bastion??"

            "I'm here." Bastion reassured her, cupping one of her hands in both of his. "It's going to be all right now, everything's going to be all right…" Reluctantly, he pulled his hand away, leaving her locket inside her enclosed palm.

            Willow appeared on the other side of Bristol shaking her read head of hair.

            "Lass, you had us worried half to death…"

            "Willow…" Bristol croaked, recognizing the voice instantly. "I'm sorry…I should have never gone back…Now they have the UBF…"

            "Just rest for now." Willow stated firmly. "We'll deal with that mess tomorrow."

            "No time, we have no time…Ice Beacon…" Bristol squeaked. But there, her voice gave out, her eyes rolled up into her head, and she collapsed into auto-stasis…now that her body had enough energy to undergo the procedure.

            Hazil clucked his tongue in disbelief.

            "Somebody brought her to the brink of death…she survived only by strength of will alone."

            "What did she mean, we have no time??" Doan asked, pulling himself away from Cleo and turning to Willow.

            The Irish Banshee turned about, eyes cold as stones.

            "Just what she said. Apparently, there was such a thing as the Universal Berserker Frequency…And MI9, more properly, FANNIR, tortured it out of the poor lass."

            "Universal Berserker Frequency?" Horn repeated incredulously. "You mean, a harmonic used by those Godforsaken Berserker Beacons that work on all reploids?"

            "Aye." Willow continued. "And what's worse, is they're integrating it with Ice Beacon."

            "So what does that all mean then?" Cleo asked, stepping beside Doan and lifting an eyebrow.

            Willow's face was cold hard as she looked around the room, then walked over and sat down beside Bristol.

            "This." She finally spoke up.

            "By nightfall tomorrow, every last reploid will be for all purposes, dead. MI9 has come up with a plan to cause the complete genocide of our species."

            The comment hung in the air like a foul odor. None believed it at first…

            And then all realized just how very true it was.

            MI9 was making its final, desperate strides.