Lixi was shocked, "I didn't mean it about the whole boredom thing," she thinks, "Please I wish we could go back to the boring jungle trek. I don't like the way this looks."
"What the, how did...?" Zo complained as he saw them coming with full speed.
"No time for that. Defend yourself!"Ace cried.
Lixi drew her bow and prepared for the end.

When Jet awoke he was in the medical center of the maverick hunter base.
"How did I get here?" he wonders aloud.
Jet recognizes Reaver's voice behind him, "We were teleported back after we beat that huge maverick. We got this cool new attack too for our armor. If you're feeling better X says we're supposed to go help out the crew in the Amazon, seems we got done before they did."
"I'm fine," says Jet, "Lets go help them, I hope they're ok."
As Jet and Reaver jump in the teleporter Reaver turns to Jet and says, "By the way, your friend took off as soon as he saw you were going to be alright."
Jets eyes widen, "So that really was him... I wasn't halucinating." Suddenly they find themselves in the middle of the jungle. And a war zone...

Lixi, Ace, and Zo were slowly being overrun by mavericks, when another of the hunter groups they had started with stumbled upon the battle and helped out. The other three weren't too special, two were taken out almost immediatly. The fight looked like a hopeless for the hunters until Lixi heard something speaking in her helmet... Some thing about 'Explosion Crash' Then Ace suddenly unleash an awesome attack, not even knowing how.
"Cool," Lixi thought. The other hunters were in awe too.
"According to the comm, we can all use it too." Zo said. The hunters smiled at each other and prepared to use their new move...

(Storm Eagle Stage)
Once in the jungle, Reaver looked around. They teleported near a group of hunters under heavy fire. Noticing this, he points them out to Jet and heads over to help.

It was the female repliod who had helped him at the hunter base! She and three hunters that Jet didn't know were under heavy fire from a horde of mavericks. Jet sees one of them use the new explosion move.
"So not fair," he mutters, "I almost gave my life getting that move and they get it for free." Jet leaps in front of the charging mavericks and hits the ground with his hyper shock attack, which had become even more powerful with this explosive upgrade. The mavericks that were in its range wouldn't be causing trouble for a long, long time.
Turning to the hunters behind him, "Hey guys, long time no see! The name's Jet, lets finish this fight." And the mavericks rushed on.

Reaver was about to jump into the pit with Jet to assist the other hunters when suddenly a maverick jumped out of a tree, landing silently on the ground. He provoked Reaver to attack... the maverick was skinny in appereance, wielding a scythe and wearing a black armor, just like Reaver. The maverick flees a short distance and stops, again taunting Reaver. Reaver forgot about his friends in the pit and ran off to dual the maverick.

(Max Heat)
As the new renforcement Jet arrived to help the group, the others only focused on defending themselves.
"Woah!" cried Zo as he just dodged a flying attack from two robot birds, "Dammit will they ever quit!"
"Just keep destroying them!" Ace yelled as he continued slashing through enemies. One of the mavericks heaved a well placed grenade into the group. Lixi got the worst of it, she went down and stayed down.
"NOO!" Jet screamed. "This has to end."

Jet blasts into the air and rains fire and ice down on the mavericks with his cannon.
"Where are they coming from? Is their base nearby?" he wonders.
"Use the trees for cover if you need to," Jet yells to the others, "I'm going to try and circle around them and we'll take them from 2 sides. And don't any of you think of dying on me!"

Reaver persued the maverick into an open field, with one big tree in the middle. Reaver stops for a moment, looking around hastily fearing he lost the maverick.
"I can't believe this!" a voice yelled from the tree. Reaver looked up, seeing the maverick looking down to him.
"Just shut up, and finish this!" He replied.
"You're siding with the hunters eh? Traitor!"
"YOU are the traitor! YOU side with the human slayers! YOU KILLED MY MAKERS!" Furiously, Reaver slashes down the tree in one fell swoop, the maverick easily jumps out and lands behind Reaver, but the tree falls with a deavening loud drop.
"Your makers?" The maverick continued... "You sure you remember the story well?"
"What are you hinting at, lowlife maverick?" For a short while, neither says something. Then the maverick reaches for a chip and drops it in front of Reaver.
"Use it with your weapon, it's an ice chip!" Reaver picks up the chip, suspicious, he asks "Why are you giving your enemy a chip? I don't trust you..."
"You may have betrayed your own kind, but I would never betray my own friend Reaver..." Suddenly, the maverick teleports away.
"... Friend?" Reaver wondered... He puts the chip in his weapon, immedeatly, the blade becomes a sharp, ice cold, frost-blade. A bit suprised, he remembers the other hunters heads back to the battlefield.

From the air it becomes easy to see that the mavericks are filing out of an underground base. "Its underground!" Jet yells to the others, "That's why the base couldn't lock onto it, the signal must be in there. we can't damage it from here, we've gotta drive the mavericks back into the hidden base. Maybe if we all used the explosion crash at once we could push the mavericks back and get inside..." They all combined their explosion crash creating a wave large enough to destroy the mavericks in view.
"Lets get into the base and shut their signal down before more mavericks show up," Jet yelled.

The crash roared through the jungle and the mavericks outside were vaporised by the massive wave of energy, even the hole in the ground was opened wider revealing steps leading down into a tunnel. Into the tunnel they went and waiting for the hunters was a maverick general.

(Past of Zero x4)
Ace, who was pretty fast, dashed down the steps to see the maverick general, "Great, one more left. I guess that maverick's protecting the signal." He rushed forward and did a three-slash combo on the general, then leapt back and fired an explosion crash at it. He landed and prepared for the next attack, if there was one.

Jet was right behind Ace. Suddenly Jet's lance glowed blue. Without hesitation he hurled it into the maverick general's chest. It went deep and sparks flew. The maverick general was clearly damaged, but how badly? He studied the maverick wondering what kind of attacks it would have.

Reaver and the other hunters head into the hole, seeing the others already fighting another general. Reaver lights his scythe, revealing the new ice cold blade. They dash to the aid of their fellow hunters.

The lithe figure moved into the lighted section of the tunnel. She gave a little bow and stood up, and in a very dignified voice stated "My name is Solarion Vineyard, prepare to die." As she said this her arms and leg sections uncoiled and lengthened her 5'4" frame into a towering 10 feet. Once stretched to her full extent she launched across the tunnel towards the maverick hunters.

Another rookie hunter, Giga enters the tunnel.
"Well, time to trim the bushes" he said with a smirk. "Let's go guys!" He yelled and rushed the maverick with his saber.

Jet barely notices as another hunter, he's too busy staring at the general as she grows to roughly twice his size.
"Oh thats not good," he thinks. As the sunlight hits her, the wound where the lance struck closed, sealing the lance inside. The wound was perfecly healed. "Oh that is really not good," he mutters out loud.
"That's not the half of it," says a voice inside his helmet. Do you even know what that lance is? How much power it contains? Her body is having a reaction with it and you guys are in for some trouble."
"Who are you?" asks Jet. There is no answer. Suddenly the huge maverick grabs Jet with one of the vines. Jets arms are pinned, he cannot reach for his swords. "She's too big," he thinks, "Can't break free..."

"I'll help you out," cries Giga. Snap! A vine grabs him as well and the huge maverick begins to squeeze...

Suddenly Reaver's scythe is seen thrown through the air, slashing trough the vine which holds Giga. The vine falls at the ground, freeing Giga. The scythe gets imbedded in the wall. Reaver remains behind the group, remaining silent, yet confident...

"Nice one Reaver!" Giga said commenting in amazement about the throw.
The maverick let out a shriek, " You will pay for that!" as her vine-arm slowy grew back.
"Jet, you okay?" Ludakris yelled watching helplessly as Jet continued being crushed, but was interrupted when the plant maverick smashed her vine like hand on him. He flew into a wall and slid down it, landing in a heap on the floor.
"Damn" he mumbled. "Forget this..."

Jet is dazed but the huge maverick's screaming brings him to his senses. He activates his jet boots and the flame causes the huge maverick to lose her hold on him. Jet leaps into the air and delivers a kick to the mavericks face. As he kicks he ignites his jet boots again and the flames cause the maverick even more pain. Jet backflipped away and landed on the ground. He noticed the maverick was reacting to the flames, just like a real plant the fire caused her to wither and shrink. She was still far larger than the hunters, but not as big as she had been. Getting to his feet again he powered up the elemental cannon and let loose a blast of the scorcher.

The other hunters also noticed this.
"Solar power..." Ace thought, "That's it!" He looked up at the hole, "If we take out her source of power, she'll be weakened with every shot." He fires an explosion crash at the hole, causing it to collapse. There was no sunlight now for Solaris to recharge from.

With the sunlight gone and the scorcher causeing her to lose power and shrink, eventually the lance head pokes out causing her massive damage. Jet finally takes out his twin sabers and drives them into her heart.

Reaver started heading over to the wall to retrieve his scythe. But he failed to notice a vine, which was closing in at high speed, slamming Reaver a few meters back into the wall.
"Ugh, I'm out for a bit" Reaver mutters...

"She's still alive after all that!" Jet exclaims. He pours on more of the scorcher and when she's small enough, crushes her under the heel of his boot. He activates the jets at the end, just for good measure.
"Ah maverick eliminated," he sighs and collapses onto the ground, is internal circuts failing.

Across the jungle the various hunters recieved the notice: "Weapon obtained! You got solar lash!"
---------------------------------------------------------
solar lash- a long vine of glowing solar energy used as a whip, when charged fires a bolt of solar energy ensnaring an enemy, slowly crushing them

secondary effect-
while equipped with this weapon, standing in the sunlight will slowly recharge your weapons but not energy however
---------------------------------------------------------

After clearing the rubble away from the tunnel enterance, they turned towards the door at the end of the tunnel that Solarion Vineyard was guarding. With a loud creak the door gave way and split open revealing a transmission base, closer inspection of the terminals revealed the signal was directed to new york but had recently stopped sending... As the hunters investigated the rest of the base, they discovered a vial of the deepest blue, slightly reminiscent of the blue maverick blood being found of late.

Over the comm the hunters heard Zero's voice, "Well done, rookies! You guys could probably use some R&R, I'm sending a shuttle to pick you up, until it arrives guard that area. We can't teleport you from current location, nor can we teleport to that area, so sit tight for now, a new squad is on the way." As Zero finished thes words the comm fizzled out and the hunters were left in the silence of the room. After about 10 minutes a low rumble told them they weren't alone anymore...

END OF CHAPTER 3