Disclaimer: I don't own Mega Man Zero, or any of its characters. They are the legal property of Capcom. I do, however, own any other characters in this fic unless specified otherwise. Are you still reading this? I'm impressed.

Author: Xin chao! I'm back again. This chapter focuses on Neo Arcadia. We'll see the Guardians, and maybe one or two others.

To the reviewers:

Rioni Riishu: Thanks so much for your continued support. I'll keep it up.

Genocideking and Shadowknight: Ho ho, trust me, I've had a lot of experience coming up with excuses for missing paperwork. I'm a medical science major, so that's how I come up with the crazy names for Zero's systems. And to answer your question, yeah, I gave the operators the names.

Uzu-Chan: Yeah, I know he's a cyber-elf, but the definition of reploid 'death' isn't really that well-established. Let's just say in this case that the word 'death' refers to the cessation of life as a reploid, even if it is to start something else. And the prologue: I said 'compiled from' Harpuia's journal, not 'written in' Harpuia's journal. That aside, I'll give you plenty of great chapters, don't worry.

Well, enough from me. I'll let Sage take over for a while (yeah, congrats to those who guessed right).

Zero: Heart of a Hunter

Chapter 2: Jade Hawk

"Where are you going, Sage?"

Harpuia turned and stormed from the briefing room, leaving a fuming Leviathan and Fefnir behind him. Not bothering to answer their query, he merely smashed his fist against the wall and kept walking.

Such pointless, childish displays of anger were usually beneath him (they were Fefnir's forte), but at times, Sage Harpuia just could not help himself.

Chaos. That was the only word for it. Utter chaos!

The three of them had just returned from the Crione district, a human-populated area in the capital which had been in a state of uproar. The rioting humans were demanding a removal of all the reploids from the city and government, and establishment of an all-human regime. Their leader was some human vigilante his X-drones had dragged off to the detention center an hour ago. Harpuia himself had at first confronted the rioters under a flying gesture of parley and had attempted to get their leader to back down. However, the crazy fool made it clear by firing a plasma pulse grenade at him that he was in no way interested in backing down before Harpuia.

Harpuia had barely dodged the missile and then called for the riot control drones and his fellow Guardians to clean up the mess. There were many humans, but they were badly equipped and rounding them up and sending them home under house arrest would have been easy, had it not been for the fact that all the Neo Arcadian forces had to work with were a few knockout gas cartridges and their bare hands. Subduing a riot without hurting anyone was definitely not Sage's favorite task.

Fefnir very nearly went maverick when one of the more foolish humans went up behind him and hit him on the head with a truncheon. He probably would have torn the struggling man apart if Harpuia hadn't flown over and kicked him away. After about an hour, most of the humans were all rounded up and placed under arrest, escorted to their homes and locked indoors with X-drones on guard. Some others scattered and managed to escape. The leader was taken to the government detention center for detainment and questioning.

The human government, however, were not at all pleased with the Guardians and their handling of the situation. Harpuia's parley had failed, and most of the human leaders were upset that he had not managed a more diplomatic solution than an all-out street brawl. Sage had attempted to explain that he was attacked, but humans were hardly noted for listening to a reploid's explanations anymore. They had said that more fighting between humans and reploids would anger even more of the population, and lead to more frequent uprisings.

Harpuia and the Guardians had been dismissed from their hearing with the warning of removal from their government posts if they did not produce better results. Swearing under his breath all the way back to the Military Command Center, Harpuia once again reminisced about the days of X.

They would never have spoken to you that way. Master X...how we all wish you were still here to guide the reploid race...

And who do I have to thank for the fact that you are not...

Harpuia was no longer sure whether he blamed Zero for failing to protect X from the mad Elpizo. He certainly had Zero to thank for the removal of Phantom and Copy X, which came as a relief to him, though he long kept that secret. Then again, he could also hold Zero responsible for much of the turmoil in the nation now, as well as the drastic weakness of the Guardian Forces.

So who is right? Me or him?

The same question he had asked himself time and time again. Harpuia had recently been getting the reputation of a dreamer, particularly from Fefnir and Leviathan's point of view, because of his constant pondering.

After their arrival, the Guardians had erupted into a heated argument about their handling of the human riot. The number of angry citizens was sky-high, and many of their reploid soldiers would be in the repair ward for days.

Somewhere deep down, Harpuia knew that he and his companions were merely tired and stressed, and it was all coming out.

True, it had been the fifth riot that month, in between constant demands for more protection in certain areas of the city, although the two reploid uprisings had been more brutally efficient in their handling. Harpuia barely had time to sleep or eat with all the military intervention needed in the nation, and he ached almost continually in some places (particularly in the head). Sage's jade-and-pearl armor was cracked and scratched in more places than he could count from the constant scuffling, and his face now sported a long, red scar from ear to jaw, courtesy of an over-bold reploid brandishing a knife. His synthoflesh was hardly likely to ever heal completely, as he was now so busy he had no time for any thorough medical attention or armor repair.

Fefnir and Leviathan had been taking similar damage, and Leviathan was in the cosmetic ward for facial restoration so often that Harpuia did not doubt that the med officers wanted to strangle her.

The danger of reploid uprising was also growing more severe. There had already been reports of some reploid citizens stirring up the local populace and attempting to form factions within the capital. Few of the reploids were attempting to join the Resistance anymore, as they were now far away in the Outlands, and it seemed that the reploids who had not yet left were those who believed the Neo Arcadian propaganda about them anyway.

The Dark Elf...their other problem. She had completely vanished and they had not yet the time or resources to set up a full-scale search for her. The First Guardian had contacted some of his special agents and instructed them to search for her, but they came up with nothing. Sage was sure that there was nothing that he and his fellow Guardians could not find if they merely bent all their effort into it. The only problem was, at the moment, that was the one thing they couldn't do.

The energy shortage had risen to the critical level, and there was barely enough left to power the city, let alone develop more weapons and droids to deal with national security. So the Guardian Forces were being summoned for every single little disturbance to ensure minimal casualties among the remaining X-drones and reploid soldiers.

It was housekeeping. All matters of housekeeping...

Harpuia permitted himself a small groan at the thought of all the paperwork waiting for him in his office.

If I have to write 'result unconfirmed' one more time...

"Sage!"

Having cooled off slightly, he turned to see Leviathan running towards him, puffing slightly and clutching the dent on her breastplate.

Harpuia sighed and started walking again as she caught up to him. "Not now, Fairy."

"Wait, Sage!" She fell into step beside him. "Look, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have gone off at you like that..."

"Save it!" He snapped at her. He pointed to the dent in her breastplate. "And you'd better get out of that and fix it before your respiration chambers are damaged. Anything else to tell me, put it on paper!"

He was then abruptly halted in his tracks by the head of a spear pointed at his throat.

"Listen to yourself, Harpuia!" Leviathan hissed, clenching her teeth and looking likely to burst into tears at any moment. "Listen to us all! Look at us all! This just can't go on, or we're all going to crack!"

The half-furious, half-hurt look on Fairy's face smacked Sage's eyes and brought him back to himself. He clenched his fists for a moment, and then relaxed. "You're right."

He slowly reached up, and pushed the spear blade away with two fingers, and then, with a somewhat sheepish demeanor, clasped her forearm in a friendly gesture.

"You really are right. I'd be expecting this from Fefnir, but you...and me..."

Harpuia shook his head and sighed. He then straightened and assumed his commanding pose.

"Your handling of the situation in the Crione district was most masterful, Fourth Guardian Leviathan." he said formally. "You and Fefnir have permission to bypass command duty for the remainder of the day. Please go and rest." A softer tone.

He heard the clunking footsteps of Fefnir approaching, and he turned. Neither of them said anything when their eyes met, but Harpuia could tell that Fefnir had heard, and understood.

They nodded to each other silently and Fefnir and Leviathan departed silently. The air was thick with despair and frustration. It made Sage almost want to retch.

He shuffled to his private office, pulled off his helmet and placed it on the desk, wincing at the stack of unfinished reports on the holo-screen and his writing board. Sage collapsed onto the resting couch with a groan, his long, light green hair cascading over his face.

A nap, he thought, relieved he had no messages coming over the autoscreen. He rose and pulled off his armor, exposing his white body suit. He locked the door before falling back onto the blessed softness. He rubbed at his new scar.

Riots, street brawls, upstarts, government pains, paperwork, and spats with Leviathan and Fefnir! How could this get any worse?!

Oh well, at least I can hope I wake up and all's quiet.

Within seconds, his breathing was regular and his body limp as he shut down, not even bothering to set his internal alarm.

He failed to notice however, what was awaiting him beneath his helmet. The roll of pictures was bound with wire and stuck with a note.

Sage,

I kept scouting as you requested. I think I've got something.

The energy trail that left the Arcus Chasm passed by the crashed aircraft in the Outlands and vanished near the Lesiu Pass.

It might be the Dark Elf, but I don't know for sure. Negative signatures have been frequent and widespread recently.

But I've discovered something else, something very strange. There's a small reploid army encamped in an underground shelter about 300 kilometers to the south of the capital. They number about five hundred from my guesses, and they don't bear any insignia I recognize. They seem to be preparing to move towards the capital.

Sage, I think you should look into this. Whoever they are, I doubt they're friendly. I've given you the pictures I managed to take without being seen.

We will meet again soon, Sage. Be well.

Fefnir groaned with sleepy disappointment as his internal alarm threw shock currents across his body.

Mental note to self: remove the 'he's too lazy to respond so zap him' function.

(Author: In this story, let's say Fefnir has an Aussie accent. Seems strangely fitting, neh?)

Sitting up in the chair he had fallen asleep in, Fefnir groaned once more before standing and making for the door, emerging into the corridor beyond. He was overdue for his inspection of the weapon drone production...like that was really a fat lot of good. The production had been frozen for days, and the conveyor belts were stuck in place. There simply wasn't enough energy left to keep producing drones. Fefnir just wished they would shut down the darned project instead of having him draft the same 'on hold' every time.

He winced slightly at the memory of the thunderous argument he and his fellow Guardians had thrown earlier that day.

What's going on? We've never fought like that before. They see me and they think dumb old muscle-headed Fefnir can't understand a thing, but they're wrong. I know what's happening, and I know frustration when I smell it...

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of an X-drone clanking towards him and saluting. It spoke slowly in a low speaker buzz.

"Master Fefnir, First Guardian Harpuia requests your presence in his office immediately. He commanded this unit to relay this message, as your autoscreen was deactivated, and to report that your inspection duty today has been cancelled."

Fefnir groaned in irritation at the drone's emotionless monotone before pushing it aside and making for Harpuia's 'office', if you could call a temporary living quarters, a desk, and a closet full of weapons that.

Inspection's been cancelled, and about time too he thought. But if he's summoning me, something must be up. Leviathan's probably on her way too. I'm getting so bored staying here in this city wrestling with upstarts when we should be out searching for those mavericks and more importantly, Zero.

That thought made lust for battle bubble up in Fefnir's circulatory passages. Grinning insanely at it, he straightened his back and quickened his pace.

Sooner this is over with, the sooner I can get back to that...

As he passed through the corridors to Sage's office, Leviathan emerged from one of the chambers and silently fell into step beside him. At a glance, Fefnir noticed that she looked far worse for wear than he did, particularly in terms of the iron-hard scowl on her face as she rubbed the swollen black eye she had picked up in the riot. No doubt about it, whenever her face was damaged, she was in a bad mood, as Fefnir had seen earlier when she stuck her spear into Harpuia's throat.

He chuckled slightly at that memory, and Leviathan turned her head to glare at him.

The two of them stopped before the door to Harpuia's office.

"Any idea what this is about?" Fefnir asked, turning sideways to look at Leviathan.

She shook her head and hit the open pad. The door slid open with a hiss, and the two Guardians entered.

"About time..." Harpuia was sitting at his desk in his armor, his helmet off and his green hair cascading over his shoulders. He was reading the reports on his holo-screen.

Flicking it off, he wheeled in his chair with a sigh to stare at his fellow Guardians.

"Have a seat, you two. This isn't good." He gestured to the empty chairs before his desk.

Fefnir snorted. "So what else is new?" He strode to the chair and sat in it, followed by the unusually silent Leviathan. Both she and Fefnir knew from experience that, when Sage asked them to sit before he started talking, it was going to be something they wouldn't like.

The green-haired Guardian reached into a stack of pictures on his writing board and drew out one of the film sheets. He fed it into the holo-projector next to the board and clicked it on.

A hologram filtered out of the projector's nozzle and hovered in the air before their heads. The holo-projector, a fairly recent technology, had been one of the last works of the reploid scientist Cerveau before he fled with the Resistance. It was pure genius that the machine could mimic the shape of the objects in the picture from the mere shading in the photographic impression and project them in three dimensions.

Fefnir gazed at the shape before him. He sighed audibly.

It was just a stupid little wasteland area. What was it? Their next patrol?

Harpuia heard him and glanced at him sharply.

"Take a closer look, Fefnir."

Fefnir obliged and squinted at the hologram. He saw wreckage and ancient ruins scattered across the land, but nothing special. He turned and looked inquiringly at Harpuia, who sighed and pulled the picture out of the projector. The hologram vanished.

"Maybe this one will mean something to you..." He muttered in a low, exasperated tone before taking another picture and sliding it into the projector.

The next hologram displayed, though faintly, guards set before a set of double doors arising from the cliffside. The double doors looked large and heavy, with a triangle shape running across each to form an 'infinity' symbol. Fefnir recognized that symbol as having belonged to a band of dissident reploids that they had hunted down and exterminated long ago in the complex beneath that cliff near the twin Arcus and Herus Chasms.

But what made him frown was the holo of the two guards standing next to the doors, frozen in mid-conversation. They were both animal-design reploids. One of them had a great tiger's head and long red claws sticking out of its arms, and the other had a wasp-like face over what looked like a segmented body and a pair of wings.

Fefnir was puzzled. Animal-style reploids had long been labeled inferior and obsolete in the years following the Maverick Wars. They had been proven time and time again in that era to be not as capable as humanoid reploids...probably due to the fact that they were not built to mimic human emotions and instinct.

Nowadays, almost 95 percent of the reploids built were humanoid, and the only animal-type reploids built were the special projects of Neo Arcadia, which had been enhanced for better performance. But they were still few, and Zero had destroyed most of them already...

Harpuia nodded at the look on their faces. "Yes. Those reploid types were thought to have been eliminated a long time ago...but look at this..."

He switched the picture in the holo-projector several times, displaying holograms of the animal-reploids moving in and out of the complex, sometimes alone, and sometimes in groups, and sometimes even carrying what looked like heavy artillery and bombardment weapon parts.

"That doesn't look good at all...but Sage, why show us this here? Why not in the briefing room? Surely this is something that requires an investigation?" Leviathan's eyelids were dilated in thought.

Sage shrugged. "We're already in enough trouble with those blowhards in the government. If I give a formal briefing for investigation, they'll get a record of it. Then I imagine they'll order us to make a full crackdown on these reploids and retire them before we can so much as sneeze." His voice sounded tired and exasperated as he said that.

"Okay, so we won't be doing that...then what will we do, Harpuia?" Fefnir was starting to get impatient. Those guys don't look friendly...and if they're that close, I say take them out now.

Harpuia sighed and flicked off the holo-projector. He sat in his chair again, the stiff leather squeaking at the contact, and picked up a sheet lying on his writing board.

"They're obviously an army of some sort, and this says that there are perhaps about five hundred of them. Not too many it seems, but with all those huge weapon transports we saw, I'm betting there's more of them out there. For now, we lie low and spy on them, and search for any others. If possible, we find out who's behind all this and what their intentions are."

"Why not just attack them now? If there are more of them out there somewhere, wouldn't it be better to strike now before they all join forces?"

"Fefnir, we don't even know for sure if their intentions are hostile."

"Don't make me laugh! Look at all those weapons! If they aren't planning a siege, I'm a junk pile!"

Leviathan's face contorted slightly next to him, and Fefnir turned to glare at her. "Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking! So knock it off! I'm serious. They look like a threat."

Harpuia nodded gravely. "You're right for once, Fefnir. It does look like a siege team. All the same, an army that size can't do much against us on its own, and I'm going to take precautions so we can monitor their movement and activity. If they come closer, then we attempt to stop them, but for now, we stay here and try to put down the immediate threat first."

"Which is?" Leviathan asked.

"The insider." Harpuia said, anger suddenly evident in his voice. "We should have known of this sooner. That wasteland is out of patrol range, but our satellites should still have picked up this reploid army before. Either the monitoring staff are all doing a lousy job, or someone, or something, was trying to stop us from finding them. We need to find that someone, my fellow Guardians."

One of Leviathan's eyebrows shot up. "You mean you didn't get this information from the monitoring station, Sage? Where did you get it then?"

That's a point Fefnir thought. Where could he have...oh, I get it.

Fefnir grinned and looked sideways at Leviathan. "Looks like our green comrade here has been keeping in touch with someone."

Both the green and blue Guardians set their jaws as Fefnir knew they would. He leaned back in his chair, chuckling. "All right, shutting up now."

"Who's in charge at your office?" Harpuia asked bluntly, pointing to the human representative before him.

The man quaked under the green reploid's stare. "Ahh...umm...Mr. Dyson I believe, sir, the director."

Sage sighed and thrust his document into the man's hands. "Please take that to him then. I believe someone in your department isn't working right. Give Mr. Dyson this document and tell him to read it immediately."

"Umm...sir, I believe you could just send it to him electronically. I'm not sure if I could meet him for several hours yet."

Sage shook his head. "No. There's a chance whoever was behind the failure in your reports is also watching the system, and I don't want to take the chance that your boss may just ignore the message anyway. Now go. You have my thanks." Harpuia pointed the quivering man out of his office.

He scurried out and Harpuia sighed again as he shut the door behind him.

Honestly. You'd think I was ten feet tall with horns and a tail, the way he was acting.

There was a familiar beeping sound from his autoscreen.

Oh, for the love of...

Harpuia stomped to his desk and flicked on the autoscreen, plugging the audio link into the terminal behind his ear.

"Guardian Harpuia. This had better be good." He said grumpily, though when his mouth moved, no sound came out. The audio data was being transmitted via the link.

The autoscreen displayed one of his unit's reploid lookouts on the walls of the capital.

'Words' passed between them for a moment.

Then the Guardian leapt out of his chair.

"WHAAAAAT?!!!"

Harpuia briefly considered raising the alarm, but there was no point.

He ran quickly down the corridors, pulling on his dark cloak as he did, and then, cursing the slowness of his feet, activated his boosters and flew down the narrow corridor at breakneck speed.

"Sage! Where are you...Whoa!" Leviathan jumped aside, narrowly avoiding the flying Guardian.

"W-what's with him?"

Sage sped on, eventually to the end of the dorm corridor and crashing out through the window. The glass shattered around him and glistened like crystal in the moonlight, but the Guardian was beyond caring what his scene looked like.

The maintenance bot controller groaned as he witnessed it through the surveillance.

"That's the eleventh time this week!"

He flew on, cranking his boosters to maximum velocity and pushing all his effort towards reaching the outer battlements of the city walls. He soared like a brilliant jade hawk over the city, the moonlight glinting off his armor as he flew. The Guardian's face was set with determination, synthomuscles rippling along his jaw and cheeks flushed by the cold night air. The wind blew stray locks of hair free of his helmet and the lime-green bangs fluttered over his forehead and temples.

At last, the walls drew beneath him, and Sage slowly deactivated his boosters, landing with a thump on his heels.

The reploid captain who had contacted him hurried over and saluted, as did all the other guards.

"At ease!" Harpuia said quickly, waving away the formality. "Where are they?" He asked the captain bluntly.

The captain pointed for an answer. Lying beyond the eastern battlement lay the glowing plains of the desert. By moonlight, the rays glistened across the sand and cast a silvery sheen over the endless dunes of sand.

But that was not all he saw.

Lights. Hundreds of them stretched all across the horizon. They flared brightly and high.

The captain offered him a pair of optic enhancers.

Harpuia seized them without a word and placed them to his eyes, turning the knob on the side for distance. They automatically adjusted to the focus with each new distance. They were pinprick, but he could make it out.

Reploids.

Hundreds of them.

Sage cursed under his breath. To his knowledge, there weren't meant to be this many reploids left in the world, let alone Neo Arcadia.

"Where did they all come from?!" He snarled aloud, clenching his fist and startling every guard on the battlement at the apparent rage of their calm, calculating commander.

The Guardian pulled the optics from his face, stuffed them into his belt and flicked on his wrist-com.

"Fefnir! Leviathan! Come in!" He shouted urgently into the com.

"Leviathan here. What's up, Sage?"

"Recall the patrols and order all our forces to mobilize immediately and prepare for deployment in the command center! Wake up whoever's acting as our government contact and tell him there's a reploid army beyond the east wall!"

"What!?"

"There's a reploid army on the eastern horizon in the desert, Leviathan, and I'd wager anything they're connected to the one south of here too. This looks like they are planning to besiege us after all if they come from two sides!"

Leviathan's voice shook slightly as she responded.

"I'm getting right to it. It may take a while yet to mobilize all of our forces. Sage, are they moving?"

Sage nodded for a moment, and then he stopped, thinking how stupid that must have looked.

I get careless when I'm excited he decided, massaging his temples with a groan.

"Yeah, Leviathan. They're on the march. I'd say we have a few hours before they get close enough to say hello."

"At least you can't trans an army that size...so we've got some time." Fairy's voice sounded breathless and hurried, as though she was already running. "Sage, how come we didn't know about this before?"

"Same reason we didn't know about the ones south of here, I expect. A mole." His voice was bitter and angry. "I'll have a nice, long chat with the security forces about this later..."

Suddenly, there was the static hum of another wrist-com being activated on the channel.

"Harpuia, are you serious?! Another reploid army!" Fefnir sounded like he didn't believe it.

"Think I would be waking you up and giving out these orders if I was pulling your leg?" Harpuia shouted into the com, irritated that Fefnir hadn't joined in until now.

"This doesn't make sense. The only substantial reploid faction in Neo Arcadia was the Resistance." Leviathan.

Harpuia nodded again, then he cursed a second time.

"What's the matter?" Fefnir.

"I'm stupid."

"I know, but what's the matter?"

The green Guardian growled into the com. "This is no time for jokes! Just get those forces ready! I'm going out there to see what they're up to!"

"What!? Sage, wait! It's too dangerous to go out there alone!"

"A risk we'll have to take. I'll contact you when I return."

He slapped the com back down onto his wriest before they could argue and turned to the captain.

"When a larger garrison arrives, captain, step down from the battlements and take your squad to set beacons on the High Temple. Three green beacons. Is that understood?"

The captain looked puzzled for a moment at this strange order, but he quickly straightened and saluted. "Understood, sir!"

Harpuia nodded and leapt over the battlement, activating his boosters.

This might be necessary to raise their morale. They looked shaken he thought.

The faintest flicker of a smirk crossed his face before he soared vertically upwards and twirled dramatically in mid-air as he reappeared before the guards' startled faces.

He twirled and hovered and let out his almighty hawk's cry before turning and speeding towards the moonlit desert, trailing jade energy.

Harpuia flew for almost half an hour. He was getting close, but he was confident they had not seen him yet. He could use the optics in his belt right here and now, but he wanted to get all the details.

Sage wondered whether or not he should conceal himself. He looked down.

Nowhere to hide down there. One area of the desert free of rubble and it just has to be here! I can't go through the clouds, can't see a thing.

Guess I'll have to risk a fly-over and hope I get away before they see me.

He soared higher, gaining altitude, feeling his repli-blood start to bubble with excitement. Little as though he liked to think it, the danger of this reconnaissance thrilled him. It had been too long since he had been facing a real assignment, rather being cooped up in a stuffy office or the city streets. The cold, crisp air of the desert night tasted sweet and pure, and for a moment, Sage wanted nothing more than to just fly high and free.

But duty called. He reluctantly lowered again as he saw the clouds part and beheld the lights below. He took out the optics and held them to his eyes.

He let out a gasp of surprise.

Again, animal design. Though most of them looked humanoid, there was a significant number of animaloid reploids among them also.

Two unknown armies, obsolete designs, and siege intent. How is it all possible?

"Enjoying the view?" A high, whining voice sounded in mid-air behind him.

Startled, Harpuia dropped the optics and flew forward, twisting around to see the speaker.

What he saw shocked him to the core.

Before him was a pearly-white winged reploid, at least twice as large as himself, with a long, cruel black beak and enormous, flapping, black-edged wings that looked razor-sharp. It had cruel, pointed talons attached to its long, thin black legs and, surprisingly, long white arms with pointed claws that seemed to crackle with energy, along with the white gem on its forehead.

Sage immediately switched his vision to scanning mode, trying to determine the power levels and affiliation of the winged reploid.

He came up with nothing. Something on the reploid's armor was jamming the transmission.

The monstrosity let out a cruel, high-pitched laugh. "Stop! That tickles! You can't throw those signals at me!"

"Who...or what are you?" Harpuia grated as he hovered before the great avian.

The reploid grinned and, perhaps with a flair for the dramatic, bent over in a bow, tucking an arm and wing below him. The thunder rumbled as the black clouds drew close.

"I am Starburst Stymphian, honorable leader of the Air Raiders squadron..."

Both the name and the title meant nothing to Sage, who just glared.

"...and you, if I am not mistaken, are the one I was warned about...Sage Harpuia, First Guardian of the so-called 'Master X'."

Harpuia's repli-blood boiled at the insolence in the avian's voice when he spoke of his master.

"You shall speak of him with respect, monster! I know not who you are or what your purpose is here, but it is in your best interest to pack up your bags of tricks down there and be gone!"

Stymphian snorted with laughter. "And who are you to tell me what I should do? Oh, if you're worried about them, I suggest you go speak to the boss. I can't very well tell them all to leave, now can I? Even if I did want to..."

Harpuia growled. He was in no mood for games.

"I said it once, and I'll say it again: Who are you!?"

The reploid sneered and mockingly tapped his temple in thought as the lightning flashed.

"Let's see...I was once what the world might have thought of as the savior of the skies. The protector of the heavens. But then I was enlightened by a great reploid and figured out it was all a lie and I was a slave..."

What in the name of...

"...and I took the law into my own hands, fighting for the freedom of my whole race from those who enslaved us, and for that I was destroyed by those whom I was trying to protect, specifically the one who was the father of us all..."

Could he mean...Master X?

"...but now, thanks to a particularly insightful master, I have returned, and once again, I will free the reploid race from their enslavement."

Stymphian paused and pointed a crooked gold claw at Harpuia.

"But unfortunately, you, my friend, simply reek of the human poison, and it seems you are beyond redemption!"

He suddenly shot backwards and unfolded the full span of his wings, which hummed and pulsed with energy.

Rain started to fall. Harpuia could feel the cold drops on his synthoflesh.

"So I'll make you an offer..." His voice rose slightly. "You can accept a nice little cocktail as emergency treatment to snap you out of it and awaken you to our true destiny...or..."

His wings started to thrum louder and vibrated heavily, steaming as raindrops fell on them.

His voice sank to almost a whisper. "...I put you out of your misery."

Sage didn't need to hear any more. He immediately snatched one of his beam sabers from his belt and activated it half a second before he swung his arm upwards, sending a crescent beam of glowing energy at the winged horror.

Stymphian laughed and immediately flared a ghostly white aura. He easily dodged the beam, thrusting to one side.

"Good. I hate it when they cooperate!" His high, crackling laughter mixed with the sound of thunder and the mirroring crackle of his wings to beat a symphony of evil upon the green Guardian's tympanic sensors.

But Sage refused to be daunted. He swung his sabers again, horizontally and vertically, throwing energy at him again. Stymphian, still laughing, flew up high, avoiding the beams, and drew in his wings close around him.

He unfolded them and Harpuia's eyes widened as crackling white missiles whipped out of the wings, guided towards a single target: him.

Cranking his boosters to their full velocity, Sage veered off to one side, but the pointed missiles followed.

Seizing the first idea in his head, knowing he had no time to think of anything better, Harpuia ascended and twisted. The missiles homed in on him, and he suddenly dived again, speeding towards Stymphian, who watched with an amused look on his face.

Harpuia veered away barely two meters before Stymphian and did a half-circle around him. Stymphian was in their path.

The high, cruel laugh sounded again over the thunder as Sage turned to see the impact.

The missiles scattered like a flock and re-converged behind Stymphian, heading straight at Sage.

"Ha ha ha! Dream on, Harpuia! Don't you think someone's tried that before?" the mad bird reploid laughed, turning to face him.

Harpuia hovered in shock for a moment before he collected his wits. The missiles were heading straight for him.

He deactivated his boosters, free-falling to avoid the missiles. They still followed him. As he fell, Harpuia lifted his sabers and flung energy crescents at them. He hit several and they exploded, but there must have been about three dozen of them...

This is not good.

He chanced a glimpse down and saw to his dismay that he was actually much lower in altitude than he had hoped. The ground was only several hundred feet below.

Wait, he grinned.

Sage waited until Stymphian was out of sight in the dark clouds, and then he kicked in his boosters and dived, hurtling towards the ground, the missiles close behind.

It came so quickly below that none of the reploids below even saw it.

Harpuia veered up from his dive about forty feet from the ground in a perfect arc, and the missiles, not reacting as quickly as he, did not pull up in time.

The resulting explosions and screams from below confirmed the success of Harpuia's tactic to his ears, and the green Guardian grinned again and climbed.

He popped back through the cloud canopy to see Stymphian, who had heard the explosions and was laughing again. However, the exultant expression on his face died when he saw Harpuia, whole and smiling, before him.

"Too bad they didn't react to the ground..." Harpuia smirked at the smacked expression on the avian maverick's face.

Harpuia could see, to his relief, that his laughter had died. Now he looked angry.

"Craawwwww!"

With an enraged shriek, Stymphian flew at Harpuia, swiping with his claws. Harpuia veered off to one side and slashed at his flank with his saber. The blade scraped against thick armor, but did not penetrate. The two combatants flew apart again and prepared for another charge.

This calls for something a little more heavy duty.

His new weapon...he had never used it before, but if there was one time he would ever need it, it was now.

A flash of lightning fell, and Sage saw his chance.

Harpuia summoned all of his power and crowed an ear-shattering hawk-cry, releasing all the energy out his gullet and into the wind.

It swirled and glowed, and finally broke apart, spraying three red lightning streaks at Stymphian, who looked, for a moment, extremely astonished.

Harpuia raised his sabers and guided the energy, sweating and gritting his teeth from the effort.

Stymphian panicked and flapped his wings wildly, useless as it was, to get away from the bolts.

They were quicker. One struck him through the belly and he gave a high shriek of agony as it burned a sizzling chunk out of his stomach. Another struck him on the left wing and he wavered and fell dangerously for a few feet until he corrected his flight. The other one then struck him on the right ankle joint, almost burning his foot clean off.

Harpuia groaned. His new weapon was truly amazing, but still, it was not quite enough to take down a powerful maverick on its own. His energy cells had been drained to a sub-optimal performace level from the effort, and the fight was not over.

Shrieking with rage and pain, Stymphian ascended wildly and flew straight at Harpuia, who dived and met him blade for claw.

The green Guardian threw long, quick strokes at the avian's torso, while Stymphian swiped at him with his long claws...with both his arms and his thin legs.

Harpuia winced repeatedly at the feel of sharp claws penetrating his armor and scraping his synthoflesh, but luckily enough the claws were not so long as to be able to scratch deeply.

Giant, smoking scars were appearing in Stymphian's torso from Harpuia's whip-like strokes also, and in his case, it seemed to cause him much more pain, not to mention anger.

Harpuia ducked under a horizontal swipe, and seeing his chance, swept up his saber vertically and caught the recoiling arm on the elbow, shearing it off.

Stymphian screamed in agony and kicked out wildly with one taloned foot, shoving Harpuia away from him.

They separated again and the avian maverick clutched at his smoking elbow as the arm fell, uselessly, though the clouds, trailing sparks and repli-blood.

He then looked up at the Guardian hovering before him, his eyes seeming to glow with fury.

Then Harpuia realized it wasn't just fury.

His eyes glowed a brilliant gold and began to draw energy. Harpuia knew immediately what was coming and tried to veer away, but...

There was a cough from his back and one of his boosters rattled into silence.

Harpuia looked down at his right booster in horror. He hadn't noticed that it was gouged by Stymphian's flailing legs in the struggle.

He couldn't move fast enough when it came.

The twin piercing plasma rays blew large rents in his helmet and chestplate. Harpuia flew backwards through the air into a cloud, barely able to maintain his altitude.

His world spun from the dent to his helmet and he could feel himself starting to pass out.

"No..."

He then felt himself being roughly seized by Stymphian's remaining claws.

"Yes!"

From what little Sage could see, the maverick's face was inches from his, twisted into a triumphant expression.

"So ends the great Guardian...as will end all those reploids foolish enough to follow the humans..." Stymphian's eyes began to glow again. "Such a pity you could not see the light, but then again I doubt you would have been much use anyway..."

So this is it? Harpuia thought. At least I'll have gone down in battle.

Suddenly there was a great crack of thunder, and Stymphian screamed as he beheld an energy blade sticking out of the front of his chest. Harpuia also stared at it in his half-conscious amazement.

The blade shared upward, splitting Stymphian's head and upper torso as he gave a final great cry.

Harpuia then felt himself falling, falling, as the world sank into darkness around him.

He awoke briefly, seeing a familiar face before him, cloud vapor running all around.

He smiled.

"Still saving me, I see."

"Hush. You should not talk now. Save your strength. You'll need it for the siege."

"..." He fell silent again as he felt the flying sensation.

He awoke again.

"Where am I?!"

He snapped his eyes open, and immediately shut them again as he felt little knives stabbing into them and saw flashes of white.

"He's awake! Thank goodness!"

Sage recognized the voice, and, groaning, he sat up painfully and opened his eyes again slowly to see the bright lights of the command center infirmary. He was in a bed, propped up against some cushions. His ruined armor and body suit and his weapons lay next to him on a chair.

"Sage!"

Leviathan ran to him and hugged him around the side.

"F-Fairy, I don't...please...get a grip." Harpuia weakly tried to swat her away.

The blue Guardian chuckled as she let go. "I thought I just did."

Then her expression changed. She snarled and drew back.

Harpuia closed his eyes, wincing.

CRACK! Leviathan's open palm left a bright red mark on his already-tattooed cheek.

"And that's for going off like that and nearly getting yourself killed, Sage!"

Harpuia groaned again, and then felt a clumsy hand patting him on the other shoulder.

"I've felt that enough times to know it really adds insult to injury. So how are you feeling, mate?" Fefnir was grinning at his awakening. Fefnir only ever called Sage 'mate', when he knew he couldn't do anything about it.

"I feel awful!"

"So you should." Fefnir picked up the list the medics left on the writing board beside the bed and read through the list. "Heavy bruising and scratching to the synthoflesh on the head and chest, cracked metalloribs, synthofilament lesions, damage to the sensory cortex, critical energy depletion, and..."

"Fefnir, cut it out! I'm not in the mood for any kidding around."

"Me neither..." Fefnir looked gravely at him over the clipboard. "What I mean is...what the heck happened?"

"Got into a fight with some flying maverick." Harpuia rubbed his smarting eyes.

"So...they are mavericks then."

"Yes, but...not the same ones we were fighting."

"What?"

"They're ancient mavericks, reploids of a much more powerful animaloid design."

"But they were all scrapped years ago!"

"Apparently, some weren't."

Fefnir shook his head. "Well, in any case, whatever happened out there, you sure are lucky you activated those summoning beacons, Harpuia. Otherwise I doubt you'd be here now."

"Yeah." Something suddenly clicked in Harpuia's memory, as he had temporarily forgotten it in his relief.

"The army!" He yelled, leaping painfully from his bed and surprising his fellow Guardians.

"What about them? They stopped moving while you were away." Leviathan looked shocked.

"They'll move again! Quickly!" He scrambled to his gauntlet lying on the chair and picked it up. He flicked on the wrist-com.

"Captain!" He bellowed into the com, using the channel frequency of the squad he had used earlier. "Are the mavericks moving?"

After a moment he banged the com closed and turned to his fellow Guardians.

"They're coming again! We're going to have trouble."

"Ummm...Sage?" Leviathan asked hesitantly, blushing and looking to one side.

"What?!"

"Look down, mate." Fefnir looked like he was tearing up in hysterics.

Sage looked down, and then to his armor on the chair, and his face turned bright red.

"Exclamation point on his boxers! HAHAHA!" Fefnir's laughter must have reached the human city.

The three of them stood on the eastern battlement, watching as the maverick army drew closer.

"Pardon me sir, but wouldn't it be advisable to attack them first? With bombers perhaps?" The captain asked from nearby.

Harpuia, now dressed in his partially ruined armor, turned and looked at him.

"No, Captain. The bombs would do less damage on that landscape. We wait until they draw closer. We can bury the bombs underneath them instead."

The captain nodded and turned away.

Harpuia sighed and turned to face his fellow Guardians.

"You know what we neeed?"

Leviathan nodded. "As soon as they attack here, the southern ones will attack also. We need more men."

Harpuia nodded. "We need more than that, Leviathan. These are powerful mavericks."

He paused, and then continued after a moment.

"I think I know how we can win. But it'll mean doing something that could be our downfall in the government..."

"What?" They both looked puzzled

Harpuia lowered his voice.

"Summon Zero."

And there you have it! I hope you're all satisfied. Sorry it took so long. I had exams and research to finish (I still do actually).

A question to the readers: I'm trying to decide whether to go ahead with this storyline or adjust it and/or rewrite it in future to concur with MMZ3. Which would you guys and gals like?

Next chapter: two battlefronts, and a promise of survival. More Mavericks, More Guardians, and most importantly, More Zero. Until then, please R&R.

Jim'Van