Author's Note: Thanks for all the reviews in the last chapter. Here's Chapter 18.

Disclaimer: Refer to the prologue

Story Title: Corrupted Programming

Chapter Title: It's Hard to Cure a Viruz

Inside Grand Marshal Yomex's Command Ship

ADAX's left flailed limply as he ran down the Cluster ship's corridor. According to the schematics he downloaded, the control node for the thermal ventilation system was only around the corner. The green robot quickly turned around the corner, and promptly came face-to-face with a group of roach drones. The drones stared at him in surprise for a moment before they opened fire.

"It's the intruder!" one of the drones yelled as he fired. "Get him!"

ADAX dove to the floor, firing away with Miffy at the gaggle of drones. He quickly picked off the roach drones one-by-one, taunting and teasing them as he did. A few minutes later, the corridor was filled with nothing but the smoking pieces of the roach drones. ADAX grinned cockily as he stood up and dusted himself with his one good arm. He looked down at his handiwork and sneered.

"That the best you could do? Puh-leez, that was pathetic."

With that boast, the heavily damaged robot continued toward the thermal ventilation control node. He studied the control terminals for a moment, cross-referencing it with the schematics he had downloaded. When his mind confirmed that it was indeed the control node, ADAX raised his weapon and took aim. He fired a single, powerful blast into the control node's main terminal. Immediately, alarms wailed in the ship as the thermal ventilation system shut down.

"Ah," ADAX sighed appreciatively, taking in the loud blaring of the alarms. "Music to my ears."

With one last sweeping glance at the destruction he had wreaked, ADAX turned and continued down the corridors. As much as he had enjoyed blasting away at the drones, he still had to find the two he was supposed to rescue. He looked up the ship schematics again, looking for the brig. Once he had ascertained the brig's location, he clicked his metallic teeth and continued onward.

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Viruz desperately activated his thrusters, channeling all his energy toward them. But to his rage and dismay, it wasn't powerful enough to counter the pulling force of the waste disposal system. As much as he struggled against it, he was pulled downward by powerful tractor beams. The High Commander screamed in anger and frustration as he was unwillingly dragged to his doom by an invisible force that even he was powerless against.

Viruz involuntarily shut his eyes and shielded his face with his remaining arm as he entered the disintegration chamber. He shrieked in defiant anger, knowing that he was about to be destroyed but not accepting the fact. It was then that he noticed that he was feeling no destructive effects on his body. He heard a slight buzzing noise in his auditory sensors and slowly opened his eyes. What he saw confused and dumfounded him.

A bright aura of energy surrounding him as the disintegration beams fired away. But somehow they seemed to stop a few millimeters from actually hitting his body, sparing him from annihilation. Then, he realized what was happening. It was his energy field, it was deflecting the effect of the disintegration systems. At this realization, Viruz started to laugh maniacally. He wasn't doomed and he hadn't lost. He still had a chance to exact his revenge on XJ-9 and her young human companion.

With that thought in mind, Viruz's laugh became even more feral and maniacal. Had there been anyone observing, they would've seen the High Commander's body obscured from view as a powerful field of purple energy burst outward and destroyed the disintegration chamber. The mantis engineering drones that maintained the chamber were torn apart as the chamber itself was turned into molten shrapnel by the fierce explosion. The drones that were lucky enough, or rather unlucky enough, to survive the blast ended up screaming in mortal agony as the heat emanating from the High Commander melted them out of existence.

Viruz merely smiled when he saw the mantis drones melt, imagining the same thing happening to XJ-9. He let out another deranged cackle before he strode quickly out of room. He would find XJ-9 and he would make sure that he had held face-to-face when he turned her into a pool of molten metal.

Outside Grand Marshal Yomex's Command Ship

Dr. Wakeman watched helplessly as the two ant drones circled her ship like vultures around. Even from the distance she could see the smiles on the ant drones' faces as they leisurely fired away at the Stealth Wasp. The power of the drones' weapons fire was nowhere near the power of the energy hurled at the Stealth Wasp by the alien armada it had come across earlier, but that very same encounter had ended up severely weakening the craft's shields. It fact, it was so weak that ever shot from the ant drones was bringing the shielding levels lower and lower.

Mrs. Wakeman glanced at the shielding readouts. On the screen was displayed: SHIELDING LEVEL – 48.57%. She grimaced, at that levels the shields would completely fail in a few minutes. She shut off the ship's artificial gravity and life support systems, rerouting power to the shields. She could do without the artificial gravity since they weren't really necessary. Also, she was wearing a space suit so the life support systems weren't needed either, at least not until Bradley came aboard. Or that is, if he came aboard.

The doctor looked down at the monitoring system she had jerry-rigged onto the Stealth Wasp. It showed that both XJ-9 and ADAX were still operational, but she had no way of knowing if both of her creations had rendezvoused yet. She reached down to her direct radio communication system with ADAX.

"ADAX, do you read me?"

To Dr. Wakeman's relief, she heard a familiar voice answer in an annoyed tone. "What is it Wakeman? I'm kinda busy here."

"Yes, I'm sure." She replied, hearing the sound of weapons fire in the background. "Have you rendezvoused with XJ-9."

"Does it sound like I've met up with her?!" ADAX said in a strained tone. Mrs. Wakeman heard a weapon shot and a surprised yelp followed by: "I'll get you fer that ya freakin' bug! Eat charged ions, Roach-boy!!!"

The scientist shook her head, not at all surprised. She knew that ADAX would inadvertently go head on with the ship's crew, no matter how ill advised that particular tactic was. She just hoped that ADAX would complete his objective soon. If not—she looked at the shielding readouts—they weren't getting away from here alive.

"Please make haste, ADAX." Dr. Wakeman said. "I'm afraid we haven't got that much time."

"Your tellin' me!" she heard ADAX reply. "And, dag nab it, it's Dax!"

Inside Grand Marshal Yomex's Command Ship

Brad cheered as Jenny fired volley after volley of destructive laser blasts at the roach drones that attempted to stop them. He heard alarms blare and was actually surprised that the klaxons had only sounded just then. With what he and Jenny had done over the last hour, one would think that it would've sounded long ago. Brad shook his head, that particular thought was pretty irrelevant. With Viruz out of the way, no one would be able to stop them from escaping even if the whole ship was alerted. Especially with the kind of power Jenny had at her disposal.

But then, Brad remembered that Yomex still hadn't made a personal attempt to stop Jenny. Sure, Yomex might have looked short and silly but no one would gain the rank of Grand Marshal for being totally useless. Right? The boy shook his head again. There was no sense in adding another thing worry about in the already expansive list of things to worry about in this particular situation he was in. Besides, Jenny should be able to handle anything that orange-gold shorty could dish out.

"All clear." Jenny said with a slightly smug look on her face. Strewn all over the floor were the blackened pieces of the roach drones.

"Dang," Brad remarked, snapping his fingers. "I wish I still had my ant drone body, I could've done some serious damage with it myself."

"Uh-huh," Jenny said doubtfully, rolling her eyes. "Right…"

Hearing Jenny's disbelieving tone, Brad replied: "It's true, Jen, I managed to whoop some major butt before Viruz stopped me. How do you think you ended up sprawled all over the floor?"

Jenny opened her mouth to make a snide remark, but then stopped. Come to think of it, she suddenly had a vague flash of herself fighting a giant green ant drone with a human head. Concentrating on that memory, Jenny saw that the head looked a lot like Brad. She turned to her best friend.

"It was you who smacked me into the wall?"

"Yeah," Brad said, not sounding as proud as he did before. "Uh… sorry 'bout, Jenny, I had no choice. Besides, you were still under that 'Queen Jennifer' program and you wouldn't believe me."

"Nah, it's okay, Brad." Jenny said, waving her hand dismissively. "Like you said, I was under that stupid queen program. Besides, I think it was that blow that got me back to normal. Well, what's normal for me anyway."

Jenny suddenly clenched her fists and took on an angry look. "If I ever get my hands on either Yomex of Fixit I'll make sure they get turned to scrap metal."

"I believe you have your chance of doing exactly that, XJ-9." A familiar voice said. Brad and Jenny turned, it was Fixit smiling pleasantly at both of them. "Well, XJ-9, did you not promise to turn me into scrap metal?"

Jenny quickly raised her arm lasers toward the blue mantis robot, preparing to fire at full blast. But suddenly, a blunt-tipped metal cable shot from one of the Chief Engineer's mantis arms and stuck to Jenny's chest. Before Jenny could react, an electric like tendril of energy rushed down the cable toward Jenny. The teenage robot gritted her teeth as the tendril struck her. Her body flailed while her arm-lasers involuntarily un-deployed as the tendril of energy ran through her body.

"Jenny!" Brad yelled in concern.

Finally, the tendril of energy stopped. Jenny stared at Fixit and smirked. "That's it? You'll have to do better than that!"

Jenny reached for the cable and attempted to yank it out, but it wouldn't give. Fixit just smiled as Jenny repeatedly tried to pull off the cable, all to no avail. Jenny scanned the cable and saw that a traction field clasped it onto her body. It was a strong field, but she should've been able to pull it out easily. Undaunted, she tried to deploy hand blades to cut the offending cable. But, somehow, the blades wouldn't deploy. She tried to deploy several similar weapons, but to her rising panic she found that she couldn't access them either. She then glared at Fixit, a realization dawning in her head.

"So, you finally figured it out." Fixit said with a slightly mocking quality to his voice. "That tendril of energy I used on you was a disabling charge. I set it to disable your offensive capabilities, namely, your strength and your weapons. Your strength has been reduced to human levels and your weapons have been completely disabled. How are you going to reduce me to scrap metal now?"

The cable suddenly retracted, dragging Jenny toward Fixit. As Jenny was pulled to only a meter in front of the Chief Engineer, Brad quickly looked around and grabbed a roach drone leg off the floor. He then charged at Fixit, baring the drone leg like a club.

"Let Jenny go!" Brad yelled as he swung the drone leg toward the mantis robot's face. The leg struck hard and shattered against Fixit's face. The Chief Engineer was unscathed, he just looked nonchalantly at Brad and slowly shook his head.

"Tisk, tisk, Bradley. That was very foolish. You are lucky I am not a combat unit or I might have been forced to hurt you." As Fixit said so his leg suddenly struck out, kicking Brad in the solar plexus. Brad went down, clutching his chest in pain. "Oops, looks like I accidentally struck my leg out. Sorry, Bradley."

"Brad!" Jenny screamed.

"I'm okay, Jenny." Brad gasped out.

Jenny turned balefully toward Fixit and started to punch him repeatedly, but her weakened strength did nothing to Fixit. The Chief Engineer merely raised an eyebrow. "That is futile, XJ-9. Now, prepare for re-assimilation."

Jenny watched in horror as Fixit's free arm opened to reveal a mechanism holding a Cluster obedience chip. "It's not as complex as the earlier reprogramming I performed but judging from how that turned out this should be more effective, although your personality will not be preserved. Oh well, the Grand Marshal will just have to cope."

"The Grand Marshal's dead, I blew his head off." A voice suddenly said. Fixit, Jenny, and Brad turned to see a battered-looking green robot pointing a gun at Fixit. "And I f you don't drop her, you'll be dead too."

"Who the heck are you?" Fixit, Jenny, and Brad said together.

"The name's Dax," the green robot smirked. "Or if you wanna complete name, A-D-A-X which stands for Advanced Defender Android eXperimental. And before you ask what I'm doing here, let me just answer that for you. Wakeman sent me here to get her and that guy over there, and if you don't hand them over, Bug-butt, I'll strew your circuits all over this room. Comprende?"

"Another one of Wakeman's creations, interesting." Fixit said. Suddenly he turned and pointed the assimilation chip mechanism at ADAX. The chip launched and landed right on ADAX's forehead. Fixit smiled. "Too easy."

But to Fixit's surprise, the green robot did not take on the blank look that robots took on when the chip was applied to them. In fact, ADAX seemed to be in pain. He dropped his weapon and yanked out the control chip. "You know how much it hurts when you try to override my programming?!!!"

ADAX flung the control chip with all his might right at the mantis robot. The chip slammed onto the Chief Engineer's face and tore into it like a bullet. Fixit fell to the floor, unmoving. But ADAX wasn't done. He picked up his weapon and started firing at the body of the mantis drone, yelling angry taunts. As he fired, Jenny picked up a roach drone arm that was deployed into a laser cannon. She grabbed the control circuits them pointed the roach drone arm at ADAX.

"Okay, you, drop it!" she said. The order seemed to stun ADAX, he looked at her in a confused manner and silently mouthed: What?!

"You heard me, drop it!"

"Jenny, what're you doing?" Brad protested. "He just helped us out and your pointing a gun at him. Besides, didn't he say that the Doc sent him."

"He might've said he was sent by my Mom, but how do we know he isn't from really Vexus?" Jenny said, eyes narrowed.

"What?! You gotta be kidding me!" ADAX exclaimed. "I get ordered around by Wakeman, fired at by an alien fleet, almost whooped by an orange-colored monkey bot, and attempted to be assimilated by an oversized praying mantis all while trying to rescue my sister and her boyfriend. And now, all I get for that is a gun pointed at me?! This is nuts!"

"Sister?!" Jenny said.

"Hey!" Brad protested. "I'm not her boyfriend. Well, I am a friend, and I am a boy. But it's not like that!"

"Whatever!" ADAX yelled in frustration. His chest plate opened. "Here, if you don't believe me, scan away."

Jenny kept the roach drone arm pointed at ADAX as she scanned the identification chip inside the green robot's chest plate. Finally, Jenny looked at ADAX and pointed the roach drone arm away. "The ID chip checks out, he was made by my Mom alright. Funny, she never told me I had a brother."

"Well, your Mom never told you had never told you that you had sisters either." Brad pointed out.

"Whoa, sisters? Just how many replacements did Wakeman make anyway?" ADAX asked. Then, he shook his head. "Never mind, let's just get outta—"

Before ADAX could finish, a wall suddenly exploded. Out of the hole in the wall came a figure glowing an intense purple. The fiercely glowing figure turned to the three and started to laugh maniacally. ADAX turned toward Brad and Jenny.

"Lemme guess, someone you know?"

Author's Note: Well. That's all for now. I'll try to get the next chapter out soon, though I don't know how soon since next week's Midterm Exam Week. Should be easy though, Psychology's course requirements this semester are pretty easy for me (IE, no more Math, I've completed all the Math-related requirements last sem). Anyway, please review.