Pyro Cerebrus stood over Jet and laughed. He turned toward Abyss and Flash and prepared to destroy the remaining hunters.
There was a flash of green and a beam of energy sliced Pyro Cerebrus down the middle of his body.
"Maverick scum.." snarled Zero as he cleaved off Cerebrus's head and kicked the body into the dirt.
He hurried over to Jet and knelt down examining the wounds.
"You two," he said indicating to Flash and Abyss, "Take him to Lifesaver immediatly, I'll carry this mercenary."

"How are they?" Zero asked Lifesaver.
The doctor slowly limped over to Zero, not even he had escaped the blast entirely, the falling debris has injured a leg and broken one of his arms.
"This one," he said pointing to Sub, "will make a full recovery. Jet I'm afraid is in far worse shape. He wouldn't be alive at all if it were not for the new armor, that protected him from most of the heat. There is nothing anyone can do for his left eye, its completely gone, the most I can do is give him a mechanical replica. It won't be so bad, we can give him telescopic vision and more improvements as they are designed."
"Interesting," considered Zero. "But what about the rest of his body, he took a quite a beating before I got there."
"He will be out for awhile. But with rest and time I think he will make a recovery. Who knows? His new abilities might come in handy one day."
"Thank you Lifesaver, I don't know what we'd do without you."
"I'm just doing my job so you can do yours," the doctor replied. "Speaking of which, you'd better get back to the command room, I know you're needed much more now.."

Weeks later in the control room Zero was panicking, with Signas' death he became the highest ranking person in maverick hunter HQ and now he was being bombarded with problems.
"ENOUGH" shouted Zero as he tried vainly to get things in order.
The door opened and Alia walked in. Zero managed to break away from the mob and walk over to her.
"Alia, how are you?" Zero began.
"Fine Zero, really. Its just... I miss him.." she replied as she looked away.
"Alia, I need you to be strong and help me get this place back together, I can't deal with this alone." Zero started.
Alia looked up into the crimson hunter's eyes and tried to force a smile.
Zero tried to smile back but was dragged back into the angry workers mob. Alia turned to a nearby computer and sat down working feverantly on it. In a few hours time the hunters were once again called together. This time however, it was Alia giving the instructions.
"Our sensors have detected a maverick base, a mobile air platform code named the Hammer. It was one of the ships which was present during the attack on our base. If we knock out that ship we can strike a definite blow to the mavericks, but we must not to knock it out of the sky while it's over any city. I would like to give you more info but we don't have anything more and our time is running short before the ship will begin to move again. Hunters dismissed."

Jet was dismissed from the medbay and eager for action. Because the ship was mobile, the hunters could not teleport to the Hammer. Jet knew this and as the others discussed how best to board it he took to the skys. He flew underneath it, attacking its gun ports and vital systems. Soon, it was unable to do any more damage to the city below. His task completed, he landed on the deck of the massive ship. After fighting off a wave of guards, Jet felt the ship move.
"I've got to get to the engine room so more hunters can board."

Meanwhile, the hunters had sent up airships of their own in attempt to board the Hammer but they were being knocked out of the sky left and right. Flash and Abyss happened to be aboard one of the lucky ships that hadn't been shot down. Once Jet had taken out the guns they had a much easier time, unfortunately only two hunter transports were left by that time. The hunters landed in the Hammer's garage and charged out of the transports but the mavericks were putting up heavy resistance.
WABOOM! The transprts blew up taking most of the hunters with it. Flash and Abyss lay pinned down behind a pile of boxes unable to move.

Jet heard commotion in the nearby garage and hurried over to see what the trouble was. To his surprise, some hunters had boarded the Hammer. Unfortunately they were quickly being cut down. Jet hurried in and attacked the mavericks from behind. The remaining hunters took advantage of the confusion and were able to defeat the mavericks in the hanger. As reinforcements were summoned, the hunter in charge looked at Jet, Flash and Abyss.
"You three, go take care of the engines, we need to get more men up here but we're out of transports. Go, we'll buy you some time."
Jet nodded. "Thank you sir." He turned to the others, "Lets move!"

The three hunters hacked, slashed and blew their way to the Hammer's engine room. Jet found the main engine and sliced at it but the metal was too strong. "Blast," he thought, "I used my only det pack on the bridge..."
"Alright guys," began Jet, "On 3 we all need to fire our strongest buster shot at the main engine. 3, 2, 1!"
The armor could not withstand the force of 3 powerful busters and they felt the ship stop dead in the sky.
"Good," thought Jet. "That'll keep them from escaping and allow any other hunters to board."
Suddenly a door was blown open and three heavily armed mavericks charged in.
"More grunts?" laughed Abyss. "You guys are getting repetitive."
"Grunts!" cried the leader, "We'll show you!" He charged, saber activated at Jet, who activated his own sabers. Their swords locked and sizzled with electricity. The other two mavericks moved forward to aid their friend but they were blown back by shots from Flash and Abyss. A three on three battle erupted...

Jet decided to try a tricky move. He spun one saber around attracting the mavericks attention to that blade. Jet swung with the other saber and followed up with a quick swipe from the first. He landed a glancing blow causing the maverick to howl in pain. Enraged he swung at Jet who again met his saber causing another deadlock. Jet pushed the maverick's saber upwards exposing his chest, which he burried his second saber into. The maverick fell to the floor smoking.

"Jet! Down!" yelled Flash.
Jet quickly ducked a lazer blast, Flash leaped over his head and kicked the maverick back into a wall. While he was down Flash quickly dashed forward and stabbed him in the head.
"Nice work," Jet congradulated him. They turned to watch Abyss who was still grappleing with his maverick.
Abyss kicked his enemy in the chin and impaled his sabers into his chest. He then moved with unseen speed and cut off the head and legs in one motion. The maverick crashed to the floor.
"Alright, lets move on," he said.
"INTRUDERS SIGHTED" came the robotic voice of a maverick drone. Dozens of them had filed through the door and were aiming weapons at the hunters.
The hunters hesitated for a moment. "... MINE!" as they swiftly cut down each of the drones. The floor was quickly covered in scrap metal.

"So what's next?" asked Abyss.
"Yeah, we did our job, other hunters can board now," Flash agreed.
Jet shrugged. "I guess we just systematicly hack this place apart until we find whoever controls it."
"Sounds fun to me." replied Abyss.
They searched through the lower areas of the ship but didn't find much.
"Hmmm...I was hoping he wouldn't be a stereotypical evil guy," sighed Abyss. "He's probably on the bridge or the highest part of the ship.
"And the bridge is probably the highest place on this ship." Flash pointed out.
The three continued their slaughter as they went to the elevators. They got inside the glass elevator and pressed the button for the bridge. On the way up they saw many, many grunts...
When they got to the bridge Jet took out his sabers once more and stood at the ready. Flash and Abyss did likewise.
The maverick general stepped forward and Abyss whispered to Jet, "Great, he's going to monolog."

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Name: Titanium Tortoise
Model number: dtw 172- armored battle tactician
Height: 9' 11"
Weight: 1100lbs
Armor description: perfectly polished silver, and large angular points on his back polished silver as well and extremely sharp, with badges all over his chest
Weapon specialty: Pierce Spear (uncharged- fires a single spear in a straight line, can pierce armor, charged- fires hundreds of spears into the air which rain down on the battle field )
Unit: maverick 2nd
Short bio: Seeing his friends fall to the virus' influence while he himself did not succomb, Titanium Tortoise sought a cure. Unfortunatly it proved fatal and led to the death of his wife to be. Soon after, he joined Sigma's forces to take over the world so there would be no need for a cure. Titanium Tortoise is extremely intelligent, slow moving and heavily armored.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

"So you hope to defeat me? For what purpose? To cure the maverick plague? Why not end the fighting once and for all? Join us, we wouldn't be labeled mavericks if there were none to call us that. We could build a utopian city just for us, our lord and master has already begun preparations for this paradise! Join us and end this destructive conflict!"
When no response was had he continued.
"But if you insist on fighting I will certainly not hold back."

Meanwhile, back on the ground, the hunters were trying to put their base back together. One was rumaging around in the scrap of the base and discovered Pyro Cerebrus' husk of a body and core unit. Upon grabbing it all active hunters recieved:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Burning Chain (fires a wave of flames 4 feet in an undulating motion, charged fires a larger flame burst 10 feet )
secondary effect- reduces fire damage by 25 and allows minor absorption of heat based techniques
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Jet fired a shot at the maverick who immediatly blasted a spear at him. Jet barely avoided being imbaled, the spear went straight into an armored mainframe, it penetrated the armor like nothing.
"Watch out!" Jet cried to the others, "I doubt even our new armors would absorb that hit."
He fired shot after shot into the giant tortoise but they either bounced away or had no affect. Jet landed on the other side of Titanium and blasted him with the new fire wave, counting on Abyss to do the same. The fire seemed to have more affect, the tortoise roared and stumbled around and Jet took the opportunity to fly in close and slice a gash in his head. The tortoise roared again and shot hundreds of spears into the air.
"Oh crap. Watch out guys!" Jet yelled as he ran for cover.

Jet and Abyss looked at Flash who was just standing there watching as the spears shot down towards him.
"Are you stupid! Get out of the way!"
Flash smirked, "Trust me, I know what I'm doing."
He blurred out and suddenly there were three of him, then four, then five! They circled around Titanium firing at the confused tortoise. The spears rained down and began striking the decoys, it was impossible to evade them all.
"HA!" cried the tortoise as he whipped a spear at Flash. It was moving so fast, Flash couldn't get out of the way. It flew into Flash's sholder knocking him back into the wall where he lay unmoving.

Suddenly a moter roared and a ride chaser zoomed over. Reaver leapt out and landed at the general's side, the ride chaser crashed into a heap of boxes buries Jet and Abyss.
"I see you could use some help, general..." Reaver started.
"Heh, well I gues you could say that. I am a little outnumbered. Care to help?"
"Maybe..." Reaver's face shows a sinister smirk. He walked over to Flash's crumpled form.
"Well look who's down for the count..." he said giving a powerful kick to the stomach.
"I always wanted to do that," he smiled grabbing him and holding him in the air by his neck. He secretly dropped an energy tank into Flash's pocket and dropped him again.
Reaver walked back to the general. "Now, let's take these guys out shall we?" he asks.
Then he activated his scythe revealing blades on both ends. One was the usual ice blade, the other burned with flame...

After lifting the boxes off himself, Jet looked up to see Reaver choking Flash! Jet was appauled, he really thought Reaver would come back to the hunter's side. Leaving Flash in a heap, Reaver strode back to the maverick's side and activated him new double edged scythe. Jet activated his dual sabers again and charged at him, ready for a chaotic battle. Now that Reaver had twice the blades it would be more difficult...

As he ran he noticed Flash get up, he looked full of energy again. He began punching at Reaver which added to the confusion. Titanium took advantage of the Flash's lack of guard and slammed him huge fist into Flash's body. He hit the wall with a dull thud and lay in a heap. As Reaver looked on, Jet ran up and kicked him in the back sending him sprawling. Titanium turned and struck the ground where Jet had been standing a second before. The indent from his massive fist could clearly be seen. Jet fired another blast of fire at the general and ran once more at Reaver.

Reaver got up with a bloody nose. He turned and blasted Jet back and dashed to his master's side once more.
"Ow! Damn, I should plan these things out better..."
"Who do you mean?" The tortoise asked.
Reaver merely grinned as Jet raced towards him. He tightly gripped the weapon in his hand, and took a battle position, glaring at Jet. When he is close enough, Reaver suddenly stabs the firey end of the scythe into the turtoise and jumps over the maverick while ripping the scythe through his belly, exposing the maverick's insides.
"NOW JET! NOW'S YOUR CHANCE! TAKE HIM OUT!" He yells as he stands on top of the maverick.
"Gah! You traitor!" The tortoise cried infuriated with Reaver.

"NOW JET! NOW'S YOUR CHANCE! TAKE HIM OUT!" Reaver yelled as he stood on the maverick.
Jet stopped dumbstruck in mid dash. Then he realized what was happening and charged Titanium, driving his sabers into the head. He noticed Flash had also taken advantage of this opportunity and done some damage as well. Titanium stopped moving, the only sound was the occasional spark from his body. Then Flash dropped to the ground. Before Jet could say a word, Reaver grabbed him and they both teleported away. "Wha-? Reaver! I thought... What the hell is going on?"

END OF CHAPTER 11