Nothing could have prepared Jet for what had happened. Signas was destroyed, X was destroyed, the hunter base was annialated. But X's sacrifice gave Jet the time to grab Reaver and fly away. He mourned the loss of life inside the base and hoped that others had made it out during X's diversion.
Jet stood up and surveyed the destruction. Then he turned to Reaver. "Signas is destroyed. What will you do now?"

Reaver stood in awe, overlooking the remains of the base. He wasn't quite sure what to do next. He stood for a while, saying nothing...
Jet seemed to be patient for a response, he waited quietly for Reaver to speak.
As Reaver was finally about to respond, his eyes widened and his jaw dropped. Suddenly he cries out loud, "OH SHIT! FLARE!"
Leaving Jet behind, he ran back to the smoldering crater as fast as he could.
Jet was about to follow when he heard a voice behind him. "WHO THE HELL DID THIS?"
Jet turns to the rookie behind him, Abyss. "It was Signas... and he's dead now. Along with X... and anyone inside the hunter HQ..." He cries out in rage and frustration and sinks to the ground. After a few minutes, Jet regains his composure and realizes that he still has a duty to do. A duty he must do so that those who died may not die in vain. "Come on," he yells to Abyss. "The mavericks will be back, we need to use this time to search the remains of the base for survivors who may be trapped in the rubble." (And Flare...) thinks Jet as he dashes off.

Reaver called around for Flare, checking under rubble and piles of corpses. Slightly panicked and fearing the worst, he couldn't see him anywhere. Then he saw something familiar...
The scythe of Flare, still active, was imbedded in the ground. Reaver came closer to it to examine it and noticed an arm still tightly gripping the weapon. It was Flare's arm, heavily damaged with wires hanging out from it and making small sparks. The rest of the body was nowhere to be seen.
Reaver dropped to his knees and knelt down in front of the scythe. His head lowered as tears fell to the ground...

Jet continued digging through the rubble and was overjoyed to see Sub's mercenaries had survived their mission, they had come to help. As their search expanded they found many hunters, some rookies and some of the more expirienced ones. There was no sign of X though. Or Signas. Or Flare. And then Jet saw Reaver. He was down on the ground, he seemed to be in pain. And then he saw the fiery scythe and understood. "Flare," he whispered, "You were my enemy... and I wish it weren't so. Rest in peace..."

Alia came over, she began crying as she saw the remains of X. She move forward to touch them. As she stroked X's face, X burst into pieces and the wind carried them away. Alia's sobs were echoed by the thunder.
Zero came over, he watched as Alia was lead away. Their eyes met and both saw the tears in the other's eyes.
He walked to the spot where the blast impacted, where X had given his life trying to fight it off. Catching a piece of X out of the wind, he turned to the rest of the hunters.
"Listen up" Zero began, "Today marks a new history in the maverick wars. Today we lost both a great commander and one of our greatest warriors. One who fought for truth, justice and everlasting peace. Today we witnessed his sacrifice so we could continue on in his place. He saved us so we could carry on his hopes and his dreams. Signas also sacrificed himself to save us, it is true he fired the weapon but in doing so he crushed quite a few of the mavericks generals. The mavericks lost 7 generals only 4 remain. Their huge fleet was cut apart by the cannon. Signas knew as he fired it he would only get 1 shot, the cannon is now falling from the sky and selfdestructing. Signas, as his final act set it to land on Area Zero, the location of the previous space station crash, Eurasia. This way no other, not maverick nor hunter may use that terrible weapon again." Zero paused after he said this to compose himself. After a minute he continued. "The casualties from this move have been numerous and great for both sides. Thus far, our losses include X, Signas and 24 veteran hunters. X's sacrifice allowed us to rescue all the rookies, all the HQ staff and a good portion of the surrounding area's people. And as I stated before we have confirmed reports of 7 dead maverick generals leaving 4 active. We also have reports of 5 wrecked air fleets, 3 mech platoons and a host of minor mavericks and mechaloids. Now I suggest everyone rests up because this fight isn't over yet. The mavericks will be back." Zero finished his speech and walked into the base to go comfort Alia.

Axl stood outside with the rest of the hunters dumbfounded at the loss of X
"I don't get it, how could X just die? Its unreal." said Axl.
The rest of the hunters turned to go back into the demolished base leaving Axl and a few rookies alone outside to go over what had just happened.

Jet and company continued to dig through the rubble. Hours later he came across a familiar looking helmit. "Tank? Tank! Oh god Tank not you!" As he dug franticly a med team rushed over. Tank was lifted onto a stretcher. His armor was cracked and he was bleeding freely. As the doctors marched him away Jet burst into tears. Sub came over and but an arm on Jet, he too had tears running down his face over their friend.

After kneeling on the ground for quite some time, Reaver got up and stared blankly at the scythe...
"I guess... I'm the last part of Project Reaver now..." He said to the scythe. He pulled the weapon out of the ground and stared into the flames of the blade.
"Signas has been destroyed... But not by my hand. Still... indirectly I may have been responsable for him activating the cannon... At least I'm sure it was activated due to the overwhelming force of mavericks which I was a part of..."
He looks around, seeing a few more mavericks fleeing to the extraction point and some hunters who seem to have little interest in him.
"But... what am I to do now? The mavericks are of little interest to me without Flare tagging along."
He pulls off the arm from the scythe, holding it in his hand...
He stood there for quite some time, finally he deactivated the scythe and placed it on his back along with his own scythe.
He held the Flare's arm in his arms like it was a baby, and wanders away. Feeling the guilt for Flare's demise, he ventured into the distance...

Still saddened about Tank, Jet wanders the remains of the base looking for more survivors. He sees hunters like Tony and Fusion who appear injured but ok as he continues to search the rubble. "Why would Signas do that?" he wonders. "We were winning. And even if they did break through we had a sewer defense planned out."
Then he noticed Reaver walking away. Even though he was a maverick, Jet couldn't help feeling sorry for him. He also wondered what his next move would be, would he simply walk away or would he be back with more rage than ever before? Jet shook his head, only time will tell.

Meanwhile atop a building, a short distance away from the hunter HQ, Lunchbox peered through his sniper rifle. He radioed Sub who was still at the base. "I think I see something..."

Pyro Cerebrus stood atop his lumbering air craft.
"Turn it around this instant!" he barked at the pilot.
"But sir-" the pilot began.
"I don't care what the orders are, I'm going back to finish the job!" Pyro Cerebrus said as he cut the pilot off.
The pilot obliged and manuevered the large ship around to return to the HQ.

In a few short minutes, the ship was in firing range.
"Sir, shall I give the order for open fire?" the second in command asked.
"No, I want to face them by myself, so I can see what they truely are capable of. Open the hatches and let me out, after that you are free to leave." Cerebrus responded.
"Bu-bu-but sir, we can't leave," the pilot began.
"You can and you will, those are your orders."
The pilot opened the hatches as he was commanded and Pyro Cerebrus leaped out. He landed near the crater the cannon had created. The hunters still outside reacted quickly to his presence, a few ran inside and the rest engaged him in combat.

Name: Pyro Cerebrus
Model number: bxf 452- flaming trash collector
Height: 6'11"
Weight: 350lbs
Armor description: large blocky armor with red and orange sections on the chest, spikes surround neck and wrists, the charcoal thigh and biceps reveal a massive musculature under the armor.
Weapon specialty: burning chain (fires a wave of flames 4 feet in an undulating motion, charged fires a larger flame burst 10 feet)
Unit: maverick 6th
Short bio: was compacting trash when he stumbled upon a fragment of the sigma virus, upon torching it he became corrupted and filled with a desire to burn things and fueled by a state of the art fission core capable of producing heat in excess of 4000 degrees celcuis. He is distrustful of others but once he becomes friends with them he is fiercely loyal to them.

Jet turned around at the sound of the airship. He was about to blast it but stopped when it dropped off one unit and fled. He focused instead on the lone maverick. Even though this being was not responsible for the death of X, Jet channeled all the hatred and fury he had into his arm cannon and fired at the maverick leader.
As the energy faded away Pyro was still standing, though parts of his armor had been torn away.
"Impossible..." began Jet. He turned to Abyss, "We need to attack now!"

Jet tried to signal to Zero and some of the vetran hunters what was going on. He didn't know if anyone saw him but he decided to attack anyway. He flew into Pyro knocking him backwards. Dodging a blast of fire Jet dashed in and sliced him. He waited on the other side of Pyro knowing Abyss would begin his attack.
When Abyss fired a huge beam, Jet blasted Pyro from behind. The beams impacted the ground and Pyro Cerebrus was caught completely off guard, the beam ripped into Cerebrus and was causing heavy damage. Although his core was absorbing much of the energy, his metal exterior was in rough shape. As the beam vanished cerebrus climbed slowly out of the hole his armor was visibly damaged but the fire in his eyes was burning with a ferocity no one had seen before.
Cerebrus stood up and ran at Abyss, with a creak and groan of gigantic servos Pyro Cerebrus batted Abyss into Jet. Then he grabbed some of the scrap metal nearby and began to cover himself with it, once he was fully covered, he trigered his weapon and welded the metal to his body, effectively covering all the holes. He realised he was still damaged on the inside but his new armor plating would help him take out the troublesome rookies.

Flash saw that Abyss what about to depleted and blurred in front of Cerebrus. He grabbed pyro blasted him with the omega buster he had taken from the armory and drew his saber. "Its thanks to you mavericks X had to be killed! Its thanks to you mavericks that hunter HQ is destroyed! This is for X!" He slashed him in the chest and blurred out and in again to Abyss and Jet. "I will not let another hunter be killed!"

Sub ran as fast as he could. Lunchbox had just informed him of the maverick general's arrival and he knew his help would be appreciated. "Besides," he thought, "I might have lost Tank. I'm not losing Jet." He rounded a pile of debris and saw the maverick moving to attack a rookie. He was on the ground and appeared to be injured. As the maverick closed in a sniper bullet crashed into his armor, tearing off a piece of the scrapmetal. Sub could just make out the tiny figure in the distance that was Lunchbox as he reloaded his sniper rifle. Sub jumped into the fight, firing madly which drew the general away from the injured rookie. Then the maverick let loose a blast of fire, searing Sub's armor. He collapsed to the ground. It was too much, he could not fight any longer.

"Sub!" yelled Jet, seeing what had happened. When Pyro heard his shout he whirled around and shot a blast of fire at Jet. Jet jumped into the air and used his boots to avoid the blast. Snarling, the maverick sent another blast towards Jet. This time Jet used the ice shot taken from Tundra Fox and met his flame. Jet gritted his teeth, it was almost the same thing X had done, even though neither Jet or the Cerebrus could hope to match those beams. Lunchbox fired again, tearing off more armor and allowing Jet to push the flame back in Pyro's direction. Then the were deadlocked again. Jet hoped Abyss or Flash would take advantage of this distraction and hit the maverick before he ran out of energy.

Abyss appeared behind Cerebrus and blasted him, giving Jet a much needed break. Jet sank to the ground while Pyro swatted at Abyss who had disappeared. Flash jumped out of nowhere and sliced Pyro's head and dashed away. As Pyro spun around confused, Jet stood before him holding a large metal beam and swung it at Pyro's head with such force that it wrapped around his face. Growling, Pyro tore it off and returned the favor tenfold. Flash and Abyss saw Jet fall to the ground, his left eye was completely destroyed.
Abyss was terrified at the sight of Jet. "How are we ever going to stop him?" he cried.
Pyro Cerebrus took a menecing step closer and stopped when the unmistakable bang of a sniper rifle pierced both the night sky, and the maverick's head.
Sparks flew and the maverick cried out in rage and frustration but he was not finished. He charged his flame and let loose a mighty blast, Abyss and Flash were forced to retreat and save themselves, there was no way to pick up Jet's body and move it in time. Jet lay there as the fire swept over his body and felt his mind shut down...

END OF CHAPTER 10