The seemingly endless attacks had no flaws, however, the aggressor decided to give his prey a chance to breath. He could tell that this commander was better than the previous one. Slowing his down speed, the Maverick drew a circle around himself in the air with his high-quality metal plated boot. It slammed into the victim's skull and made the teeth saw horribly against each other.

Fortunately, Sigma was specially built to last longer than any other reploid. The Maverick curled the corners of his mouth and eyes, getting more excited each time Sigma resisted to stay down. Sigma noticed that this Maverick is unlike the past common ones he had encountered. The Maverick had shown eagerness to have a fair fight - an honorable opponent.

Sigma seized the opportunity and hooked a punch at the torso. Almost immediately, the roar of an impact of a body and a wall, situated half a kilometre from him, raced into his ears.

The force did not tame the beast, for he bounced out of the crater and burst forth for Sigma. Sigma stood his grounds, as if magnetized fully the earth's polar. His mind was, by then, submerged in the fight. The 'flame' was going for another chain of punches but Sigma clenched the Maverick's knuckles, swung him backwards and thrusting upwards thereafter to drive his head into the ceiling.

Crumbs of concrete dived down impatiently while dust clouds took their time by parachuting to land safely. All seemed quiet, all too quiet. However, Sigma was easily convinced that the Maverick has no more strength to battle on, he settled on retiring for the day. Just as quick as he turned his back, the Maverick stirred, borrowing the strength of a pipe running next to him to tow his head out and ungratefully ripped a chunk and declared it, his weapon. Sigma felt uncomfortable after being mocked at by the Maverick's grin of enjoyment. He dropped gracefully and rushed for Sigma, turning his pipe into a sword.

Sigma calmed himself to embrace the attack with full confidence while drawing his own proper sword, shook it to life and darted into a 'head-butt' type of tournament. The presence of air provided resistance to Sigma's great body but the Maverick simply propelled swiftly. As the distance between them brought them physically closer and closer, Sigma grew more worried about the odds of his survival; one poke in his chest and he will be gone for good. He knew that the Maverick had probably smelt the fear burgeoning within the gorge of his troubled mind. 'Can X really able to handle my elite force? Or was Vile doubt on X's naïve nature right?'

That sudden flash caused Sigma's fingers to wobble when he started to drift off but he pulled back in time to witness the Maverick signaling that he had won the fight before it started. Sigma dodged the flying pipe which suddenly changed into a boomerang in the hands of the Maverick. Yet, not fast enough to save the arm with the 'light stick.' Oil fluttered behind the Maverick, he loosened the grip on his prize – the torn arm. 'No, no, I'm the best warrior there is, he didn't, my hand... in his, he snatched my...with bare hands?!' He dazed off and fell from grogginess.

The Maverick tossed aside one of the important part of Sigma's tool of success. Squatting next to Sigma, he spat into the pathetic commander. The grin told Sigma that he was going to receive more pain than what Gamma had. 'There goes my career, my dignity ...' He gave up.

From then on, it had been all bad visions and poorly outlined images of the facility. Surges of electrical shock popped and increased continuously. While on the other hand, the Maverick finally got a toy after a hundred year of deactivation. Hours passed lazily, unwilling to push the hands on every clock manufactured since the first had been invented. 'Why does he not kill me...what the? He stopped? For what reason?' Sigma felt his neck permitted to stretch, a relieve floated throughout his body as he thought, 'someone must have saved me... but wait, why is it that I can still hear laughter? The laughter of the Maverick?'

His neck started to follow the process like the way his hand came off earlier on. The Maverick dawn his eyes on the wrecked reploid, exposed circuits boards and flaccid wires. He cocked his head and snickered to an imaginary crowd on the ceiling. He had had sufficient fun and saw no need for further bloody 'fireworks.' Sigma understood the intention of the Maverick's release of his dismal life and thanked whoever in heaven. Not visible to any life form, the lock around Sigma's neck laid off the pressure slowly but surely.

Sigma wanted to leave real badly, knowing that hell had given him an extension of his life, but it was best to let the Maverick do things his way first. Out of the blue, the cold sweaty hands just disappeared and Sigma was surprised by the sniveling of the Maverick; the Maverick was in pain instead.

In the subterranean part of the Maverick's tortured mind, an argument was brewing. A hissing voice yelled with an obvious superior status at the Maverick under his control.

What do you think that you are doing? Kill that low life!

No, I've had enough.

Why you little...you don't owe him anything!

Stop that ringing!

Not until you kill him!

Not until that pain has ceased.

Then you will do it?

Fat hope GRANNY!

What?! You've asked for it!

Stop!!!

For hundred years of mutating in you, I've spread my reign over many others of your own kind!

Get out, no wait... GET A LIFE INSTEAD!

I've had complete control over them, all their susceptible minds die, and none retained any free-will. But you...

What? I can't hear you!

I SAID, WHAT'S KEEPING ME FROM EMPTYING YOU FROM YOUR SYSTEMS?

WHAT?

WHY DO YOU GO AGAINST THE INEVITABLE?

WHAT?!

SILENCE! I WILL NOT ALLOW ANYMORE HUMILIATION TO DAWN UPON ME, NOW SUFFER FOR YOUR DISOBEDIENCE!!!

Meanwhile, Sigma observed nothing more than a Maverick crashing around with an enormous headache which he perhaps will never have a chance to experience.

'He's in pain...I wish to thank him for his mercy but... he is a maverick for crying out loud! Maybe... I can knock him unconscious and relieve...no capture him.' Sigma snapped, he had a glimpse of the strange triangular crystal glowing every once in a while. He gambled, and channeled all the rest of his energy directly into his last functioning arm and transferred them into that crest on the reploid's helmet.

The fist burrowed into its structure, every single blue fringe left on the edges of the helmet caved in and the fragments stabbed into Sigma's robust gloves, they pinched.

The Maverick's vision fuzzed and lost touch with reality. Sigma couldn't care, he crawled for the mammoth doors and keyed the unlocking codes like Gamma would and stomped into the open disgraced by the amount of damage inflicted on his once invincible body.

"Look! It's commander Sigma! Now we know that nobody is a match to the Maverick hunters!" The two rookie hunters were still there, the other rejoiced, "Yeah, we can always count on commander... commander? Are you alright?" His face sunk at the state of their trump card. Sigma felt irritated and shoved the unsuspecting hunters aside, leaving just a straightforward task for them to execute.

"Have that Maverick brought back, I want him studied!" Sigma grasped even tighter on the wound of the missing limb. 'That Maverick must be the source of the entire virus epidemic, he must be! But his systems... so intriguing, such workmanship...'