A/N: I especially hate the way this one came out, but I'm too busy to work on it with all the mess I have to deal with. Ugh, I swear, if I ever finish this thing, it'll be a miracle. Then again, if you people really want me to finish it...

I'm not asking for reviews, I swear.

Kyogre: Thanks for the review! WHOOO!!!! I finally got one! As for Rock and Roll and all them, I had no plans to include them in this. Now that I think about it, it is pretty sad, but Forte doesn't rememeber any of it, so he's not complaining. I'm planning something though... but you'll just have to wait to see what it is. I'm so mean.

Sunrise
Chapter 4: Dark Clouds Over the Horizon

Satellite imaging had advanced to amazing proportions over the centuries, and Zero found himself no less impressed or surprised by what he found at the actual site of his general's growing worry than he had been back in the briefing room. From his vantage point among the trees, he could see the turrets attached to several run-down buildings in the area. Judging by the look of things, it appeared as though the Mavericks either didn't know how to hide their weapons very well or they had only half-heartedly attempted to conceal the guns. He didn't want to think it, but if these Mavericks truly had any meaningful organization, most likely he would come to discover the latter sooner than later. Either way it ran, they were simple defense guns, easily destroyed, and it wasn't so much them that he worried about.

"Whaddya see up 'ere?" Dokanru shifted impatiently behind the bushes, not at all liking their current task. A short distance behind him, the members of his and Zero's units stood patiently, awaiting whatever commands they would receive. There were twelve of them in all, and Dokanru's half were as various as Zero's own soldiers in their designs and weaponry.

Zero gave him a quick side glance, then dropped out of the tree he had been in, landing with a soft thud right beside the navy reploid. "If they've really found a leader," he began, shooting a puzzled glare in the general direction of the town, "they're trying to insult us. Their outer defense is a joke - a rookie could handle it."

"So you wanna go in an' poke around a bit? Try and find out what 'ey're up to?"

Giving a quiet nod, Zero turned to his unit. A plan was quickly formulated, orders were given, and within five minutes the two units began their assault. Zero took the lead; he and his soldiers darted ahead from cover to available cover as they took their leave of the forest and headed straight into the abandoned town. Behind them, Dokanru's unit provided backup - those who specialized in projectile weapons aided where they could as they headed in at a slight angle.

As expected, the Mavericks' defenses kicked in almost as soon as they began to advance. The guns fell almost too easily; Zero wondered why the scouts hadn't tried to take them out to get more information about the area. Nearing the town and even crossing into the dry and dirty streets, the protection offered for the Mavericks was almost an embarrassment. It quickly occurred to the crimson Hunter that perhaps the gunfire wasn't the only thing that kept the scouts at bay.

He barely had time to ponder the possibilities, for in that next instant, just as the fighting began to die down as most all of the turrets had been destroyed, a huge brown Maverick leapt out from the cover of one building. None could mistake the design - it was another Destroyer - yet this one lacked the Overdrive lasers the ones before it had carried. Zero's unit instantly met its angry roars with their own angry weapons, and in a minute, the lone Maverick met its death.

"Awww, fine then," Dokanru whined playfully. Zero turned slightly to the other unit commander, allowing a small smile at the deep blue Hunter's contagious grin. "Take all the fun for y'self."

"There'll be plenty more, I'm sure," Unit 0's leader assured. He gave a nod to one of his men; the reploid lifted one hand to the side of his helm, activating a scanning device. He turned his head slowly, making a wide sweep of the area before pointing to what looked to be the remains of a warehouse or a storage place.

"Something's definitely there," the soldier affirmed. "I'm getting what looks like either an underground gate or a tunnel, but there's no doubt it's a secret opening, and not one very well hidden at that. Maverick readings on the surface are zilch, but I don't expect it'll stay that way."

"Thanks, Kime." Zero gave a satisfied nod, then turned to Dokanru. "You wanna take the lead this time?"

"'s only fair." The Australian Hunter gave his unit a quick hand gesture, motioning for them to follow him as they approached the pitiful structure. The weather worn walls looked about ready to collapse, yet through one massive hole near the top, they could easily make out an underlying frame of support. By the way the metal beams glistened in what little light was available inside the building, it appeared as though the frames had been built just recently. Kime's devices hardly ever failed him, but this evidence merely furthered his discovery.

Even as they stood before the weakened building, the Hunters found themselves strangely deprived of Maverick attackers. Had it been a real threat to the city, one would have expected more of a resistance than this.

"I don't like it," Kime whispered to his commander, his glaring silver eyes trained on the only visible door. Zero diverted his gaze from the other unit to his Hunter, his own weapon firmly in his hold.

"I don't think any of us feel any differently." The tan Hunter's only response was to tighten his grip on his rifle.

A moment later, Dokanru pressed his back against one side of the door; one of his unit took the other side while a third stood poised a few feet away. Zero silently nodded, his signal that he and his soldiers were at his ready. The Unit 5 commander suddenly jumped in front of the door and took a mighty kick at it; the structure literally flew off its hinges, the badly rusted metal unable to hold under such force. It landed with a loud crash somewhere behind a stack of cardboard boxes that looked to have been made, oddly enough, recently.

The noise alone easily announced the Hunters' uninvited arrival, if the Mavericks had been listening at all, but still, to their dismay, not a single Maverick presented itself. Dokanru carefully entered the room, sticking close to anything that provided a hiding spot as the rest of his unit and Zero's followed suit.

The inside of the warehouse was suspiciously barren; the only real occupants were the support beams and several boxes, some of which had begun to rot with age while others looked as though they had just come from a factory. Zero tentatively kicked at one of the newer ones, effectively creating a large hole in the side that instantly began to release a multitude of packaging peanuts. Closer inspection revealed that the container held nothing more than a badly broken lighting fixture. One of Dokanru's unit opened three more boxes, none of which held anything more threatening than the first had.

"I'll be damned," Zero sighed. "These are just decoys, something to throw us off."

"Li'l shits," Dokanru cursed. "'ey think 'is is funny, do they?"

"What's in there?" one of Zero's unit asked, pointing to a second door behind another stack of boxes, this one clearly much younger than the first. It hummed softly with electricity pulsing through one of four identical yellow lights that ran around the top and sides. The large width of it suggested reploids of a slightly similar size may have passed through its threshold. A small panel, something of a number pad with symbols instead of numbers protruded from a plate of metal sticking out to its right. Adjoining its edges, a large, circular structure took up nearly half the other side of the room.

"An elevator," Kime said, scanning the object thoroughly. "It's completely hollow, but under the floor, there's a tunnel heading down as far as I can read. Looks like it can only hold six of us at once though."

"If we can figure out how to open it," Zero pointed out, stepping up to the pad. After a moment of staring at it, he experimentally pressed a few random buttons. Not surprisingly, a red message popped up on the screen reading "ERROR."

Dokanru scoffed. "The 'ell we're gonna figure 'at one out. Why don't we just blahst the damn thing open?"

"We could wall-slide down to the bottom, in that case," another soldier suggested, but Zero shook his head firmly.

"No way are we risking it at this point. We don't know what's waiting for us down there."

"But considering it's Maverick-controlled..."

Well, he had a point, Zero reasoned. If they were spotted, and it was a large possibility they already had been, taking the enemy's way back up to the surface was definitely not a safe route to travel. Trapped in the elevator, what more would they be able to do other than wait for an ambush or worse? With a sigh, the crimson Hunter agreed to the plan, and he stepped away a safe distance with a few others while Dokanru and some of his Hunters took to destroying the elevator.

Within a few minutes, the entire structure had been leveled and the flooring ripped away, leaving torn and twisted metal and sparking wires in its place. Kime quickly made a second scan of the dark shaft before any of them set foot inside it. This time, he found it to be rather short - the tunnel descended only about 100 or so feet before it abruptly stopped at what looked like a branch off of two rather large paths that started separate horizontal roads.

Dokanru insisted on taking the lead, and without argument, he and his unit began their descent first with Zero and his closely behind. At the bottom, they discovered one of the paths Kime found shortly led to a door; the other continued to climb further down into the depths of the earth where it turned sharply to the right and could be seen no more. Still, the Hunters found no evidence of Maverick activity nor of the Mavericks themselves - absolutely no resistance was offered, even as they chose roads and went their separate ways.

The blonde haired commander led his unit over to the door as Dokanru's unit headed further underground. Beside this door, another panel was set into the wall, similar to the first, but with two simple buttons on it. One was red, and on it, the word "Open" was printed; the second was blue and said "Close."

Zero glared at it - it couldn't have been that easy. Yet, once he pressed the red button, he found it was. The door irised open with a hiss, allowing them access into the next room. Once again, not a Maverick was to be found. Several blank screens lined one wall of this chamber; below each screen sat a chair and a holographic keyboard.

Slowly, the commander stepped over to one of these keyboards and examined it. He had seen ones like it back in HQ, but the technology was only reserved for briefing rooms and higher ranking officials. Never before had he seen something so advanced in Maverick hideouts - they couldn't work together to save their lives to create or steal anything like this, and he knew what it meant. The Mavericks had definitely appointed a leader, and since that was now the case, he also realized their mission priority had suddenly changed.

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The depths of the Maverick base kept winding farther and farther down, and Dokanru liked it no more than he liked the concept of what they were now faced with. The deeper he led his unit, the more ominous everything seemed, like a dark cloud on the horizon foreboding the storm to come. He sighed inwardly, peering around a corner, yet still finding nothing to oppose his intrusion.

That alone unnerved him. How could he have made it this far into the complex with all five of his unit completely undiscovered? No camera, no security device, not even a scanner had been found along the way. If that wasn't bad enough, they'd come to the conclusion that the base was just one big line of descending rooms containing various technologies adjoined via a series of ducts and tunnels. There seemed to be no other path to take aside from down to the next level or up to the previous - they'd passed through four rooms like this so far. As Dokanru approached the door to the next tunnel, he briefly considered that this might be all they would find.

Two of his Hunters defensively set out into the hallway before their leader, typically finding no resistance, but baring their weapons in case. Unlike any other passages before it, this one leveled out and ended a short distance from the opening at a second, larger door. In the center of the door, a red eye-like protrusion cast off a faint light, bathing everything near it in a haze of crimson. Somehow, Dokanru had the feeling they had come to the end of the line. One hand went to the button that would open it, and yet, he hesitated a moment, steeling himself for whatever he would find on the other side.

Why do I suddenly feel so uncertain about 'is?

Up shuttered the door. With its activation, lights clicked to life immediately, illuminating what might as well have been a cavern. The walls appeared to be constructed of stone, though from the flickering of some areas, Dokanru knew well enough it was simply a hologram. The ceiling towered some fifty or so feet over their heads; the floor nearly doubled that length in diameter. It had something of a cylindrical shape, and at least twelve support beams had been raised in a definite pattern about the room. All in all, it appeared as though they had just stumbled across a battle dome.

One that had already been set up for them...

There, in the center of the arena, stood his answer to Dokanru's worries. The Maverick stood almost seven and a half feet in height, besting even a fully armored Zero by a good five inches at least. His armor had been stained purple and dark gray. The helmet of the reploid allowed no facial feature to show through - the only opening was a sort of T shape across the front from which one, glowing red eye burned eerily.

He stood facing the Hunters as though confident he was the more deadly of the two, and with a shoulder-mounted gun his only visible weapon, the Unit commander wisely made no assumptions. There had never been a doubt in his mind before that the Mavericks knew they were there and were simply playing dead. But enemies had finally shown themselves, and that in its own was a relief - at least the Hunters didn't have to look for them anymore. On the other hand, this was not a good situation - whoever the Maverick was, he had to be one of their stronger fighters or he would not have been sent alone.

The commander didn't bother giving his unit orders - he knew well enough they were already in position to attack on his command. Instead, he concerned himself only with the Maverick. "An' 'o might you be?"

The reploid made a small sound, one that sounded something like a laugh. "You needn't worry about my name," he replied cockily, his surprisingly smooth voice echoing somewhat beneath his helm. "You'll be dead long before you can return to your friends to tell them."

"Tell me anyway," Dokanru easily flipped back. "I just might live to repeat it."

The Maverick shifted his weight to one leg, propping a hand on that hip. "Very well. I'm not usually so inclined to doing my enemies favors, but since you are the first to face me, I suppose you can have the honor of knowing my name. I am Vile, second in command of the Maverick army."

"Dokanru, commandah of th' Unit 5 Maverick Huntahs."

They only had a moment of peace before the battle started. Dokanru barely had time to place himself in a defensive stance before the Maverick suddenly yanked down his cannon and opened fire. He and his unit leapt away from the blast just as it slammed into the now closed door behind them. The commander caught a pillar and jumped away again, glancing down briefly at the area of impact. The sight drew a curse from him. Most of the entire door had been blown completely apart leaving twisted metal and fizzling wires in its wake.

He cursed a second time, yet his words were cut short at the sound of a horrible scream. As he found the ground once again, Dokanru's gaze shot over to the source. This time, he did not swear at what he saw, for there, scattered in the wake of another cannon blast, lay the arm of one of his crew. The reploid knelt on the ground, half curled around the severed limb in pain.

However disabled he was, Vile wasn't about to let him live to fight another day. While Dokanru watched in horror, the Maverick released a second shot at the fallen reploid, effectively decapitating him. Vile then rolled to the side to escape an oncoming attack aimed for him, then cleanly blew a hole straight through the female reploid's stomach.

Two of his most precious taken out, and the battle had barely begun.

Trembling in a rage, Dokanru rushed at his enemy screaming something awful. One hand drew the boomerang back just as Vile turned to face the commander. A reverberating whoosh cut through the air along with its blade, singing a farewell to the Maverick whose neck it was about to slice through.

But the cannon leveled out all too fast.

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As they had in all previous rooms before, the lights flickered on as Zero and his unit cautiously entered the chamber ahead. They had searched all others on this level, and this one was to be the last. The commander sighed in frustration, his gaze wandering around the small storage area. It was just that, a storage area. No Maverick, no security devices, not even a computer in sight, only the same cardboard boxes they had seen above ground.

Perhaps the Mavs had picked up their signals crossing the forest coming to them and vacated the area, giving them nothing more than ghosts to chase. Zero almost gave up and opted to call off the mission when a small section of his upper breast plate began to blink a green color. The crimson Hunter pressed a finger to it curiously, but before he could say anything, Dokanru's frantic voice came screaming to him through the other end.

"It's a fuckin trap!" the frantic Hunter yelled. "Get yah ahses out of 'ere! 'e took out my entire unit!"

"Dokanru!" Zero felt a chill run down his back hearing the other's words. "Where are you? Are you alright?"

The red Hunter waited tensely, wincing slightly when a cry of pain was heard. "Meet me back at th' elevatah," the commander gasped. It seemed that even speaking, though his voice came clearly through the line, hurt him. "If I'm not there in five minutes, you take your unit an' get th' bloody 'ell out of 'ere!"

Zero nodded, then verbally confirmed their new mission priority. The line went dead almost immediately thereafter, but he wasn't certain if it was he or the other commander who had cut it. In the next instant, it didn't matter. All Unit 0 needed was a look from their commander and they were all up and running for the exit point.

They arrived first at the final tunnel and stopped there to wait. All eyes and weapons were trained on the round door at the opposite end of the hallway. A minute passed, but nothing ever happened.

Come on, Zero mentally pleaded, though he knew it to be pointless. The thought crossed his mind several times that he should go after the other Hunter, but he decided to wait. Dokanru warned him of a trap, though what he meant by that, the imagination could only guess.

Another minute later, the crimson Hunter would wait no longer. Giving his startled unit the same orders Dokanru had given him, Zero bolted down the passage. He had no sooner run half the distance needed to reach the door than it finally opened, and Dokanru all but fell through the threshold.

"Dokanru!"

Whatever injuries he had sustained had been well concealed through his voice over the radio link, as Zero and the others were more than horrified to learn. The entire left side of his body was badly burned from blast marks; his left arm had been either shot or melted completely off. Portions of his armor were scratched or cracked, and most of his jump suit had been burned or torn away, leaving broken and bleeding synth skin exposed. A nasty bruise marked his right cheek, and above that, the armor had been cruelly torn away, revealing a bloody river trailing down from under his sandy colored hair, now matted with vital fluids.

Zero was at his friend's side in an instant, but neither had time for pleasantries. Carefully, the crimson commander placed the Australian Hunter over his shoulder before darting off again. Every time Dokanru cried out in pain, Zero winced and cursed whatever had hurt the navy Hunter so.

Unit 0 was already a step ahead of him, and within a few minutes, they were all back outside the warehouse and in a safe teleportation zone. No one needed to tell them to take advantage of it - they were already gone before anything else could find them out.

A/N: Anyone ever watch the Americanized verison of Megaman? If you've ever seen it, you might've seen the episode where Vile and Spark Mandrel came back in time to get some kind of rod thingies. That's where I got the idea for Vile's voice. I still like it even though I haven't seen that crappy series in so long.