Chapter 1 - Reploid Regeneration

"It seems that the robotic age is coming around again, Dr. Faern."

"Yes, I realize this. Dr. Sebastian is making a grave mistake by rebuilding the Repliforce."

"Why is that, sir?"

"The Repliforce was a massive army, consisting of thousands upon thousands of Reploids. And Dr. Sebastian knows nothing about the usage of the Stasis Pods that Dr. Light invented for X, and the same pods that Dr. Cain forgot to use. The same situation will occur, only this time, the human race will be overwhelmed."

"Should I send messenger to Sebastian and explain the dire situation?"

"No, I have a much better idea."

"What is that, professor?"

"I want you to go to the ruin site, and retrieve all the data you can from every running computer there."

"B-but sir.. I don't like that place. Why can't you send someone more reliable, like my brother?"

"No, you have to take care of this Enzan. I can only trust you with this."

"I'll.. I'll try and do my best, sir."

"I know you will. We can waste no time talking about this, we must act before Dr. Sebastian begins the reconstruction of the Repliforce army. Let us go to the lab, while you're out, I might as well have you try out the new pistol prototype I developed."

"Dr. Sebastian! Dr. Sebastian!"

"What is it, Claude?"

"Dr. Faern knows of what we're doing and has sent his assistant, my brother, out to retrieve the data from the ruins of the Maverick Hunter base."

"Then you know what to do, Claude."

"Yes, sir. I'll get right on that. Do you want me to take any robots with me, or should I go it alone?"

"You already know the answer to that."

"Yes, sir, of course."

"Prove to me that my decision of picking you over your brother was a good one. Let this sibling rivalry end now."

"Of course, sir."

A young man stepped softly across the metal plating of the destroyed base, his dark blue eyes taking in all the destruction. He reached his arm around behind his back to the bag looped over his shoulders, pulling out a small console, as well as a pistol of some sort. He pushed his dark brown locks from out of his eyes, jumping on to the next shattered metal surface, his footing holding on the shifting metal block.

"This place creeps me out, so much.."

"Poor kid."

"The hell!?"

The sound of feet from behind him, forced Enzan to spin around on his heel, the pistol at the ready before him. Ahead of him was Claude, his brother and fellow scientist-apprentice, as well as two robotic followers behind him. Claude was slightly taller than Enzan, always had been, and unlike Enzan, Claude had dirty blonde locks and sharp green eyes. Enzan aimed the gun carefully and let lose a single shot, the blistering heat from the laser slicing across the top of Claude's ear and implanting straight into the robot at his right's forehead, incinerating the robot's systems, the unusual pair of scissors atop this robot's head quivering slightly, before breaking free and clanging loudly against the metal plate beneath their feet. The robot then tumbled over backward, crashing into a shifted piece of earth, exploding seconds afterward.

"Dammit Enzan!"

"What do you want, Claude?"

"We're here to stop you from getting the data. And I know you won't kill me, you know that too."

"How can you be so sure? I just shot your robot and you with one beam."

"You're an idiot, Enzan. We both know that those pistols only have five shots, and you'll waste them all before you ever get another shot on me."

"Or I could just shoot you now!"

"Then, younger brother, you wouldn't have enough to take out my other robot companion. His armor can take three of those shots, before his armor becomes brittle enough to break. That's four shots in total.. And that's all you have."

"Dammit.."

Claude's lips curved into a small smile, those sharp green eyes gazing upon his younger brother. Claude shook his dirty blonde locks from his eyes, setting his hand lightly upon the shoulder of the robot standing next to him. He tapped the metal plating with his fingertips, smirking over at his brother. Enzan's finger slid over the trigger of the pistol, a low humming came from the inner-workings of the gun.

"Go ahead and try it, brother. See how long you last against this monster."

"Was that long enough?"

Enzan's pistol erupted with a massive energy stream, the built up energy colliding with the robot's chest plate, ripping the metallic surface apart, crumpling the entire robot with one shot. Smoke coiled up away from the broken robot's entire form, Claude staring silently at the second robot's destruction, though it was still standing, more than we can say for the other one.

"Dr. Faern isn't as stupid as you think he is, Claude."

"Damn you, Enzan! I'll be back, and when I do, you won't win!"

"Bring as many robots as you want, this baby has enough power to take them all!"

Claude jumped from plate to plate as fast as he could, growling angrily at his failure. Enzan smiled lightly at his brother's retreating form. He spun the pistol about on his finger and placed it back into its holster, strapping it to his side. He turned back to what he was doing before the interruption. He curled the back off of his left shoulder, swinging it around in front of him with his shoulder. He set it down in front of him, unzipping the dark yellow bag. He pulled forth a laptop and flicked it open, watching it start up almost immediately. He tapped lightly on the keyboard and began to type quickly with one hand, activating all the coding needed for data transfer.

"I hope this works.."

He pulled a cord from the back of the laptop, and stepped forward a few steps. He set his hand against the cold steel wall and searched for a few seconds. He found the outcrop and pushed the panel inward, a small slot opening up on the wall a feet inches down. He plugged his laptop into it, connecting their systems. He dropped down on to the ground, his back against the wall. His fingers became a blur as they tapped quickly along the keyboard, each stroke calling upon another code, another hack, another deletion of the security system around the ruins. He wiped his forehead with the back of his forearm, after destroying the third firewall.

'People need to stop putting up so much security!'

He sighed, breathing for a moment. He looked down at the screen and went back to the destruction of the security system. He stopped typing after deleting the fifth firewall, staring at what looked like an open cyberspace on his laptop. He perked a brow and lightly tapped the screen, calling up an anti-virus system. He began scanning the cyberspace, locating multiple viruses in a matter of seconds.

"Maybe I should save this for Dr. Faern.. But if I do that, my entire laptop could go haywire. Err.. I'll just call him.. Hope he's not working on something important.."

He reached with his legs, curling his feet about the base of his bag, pulling it close enough for him to grab a hold of it. He set the light grey laptop down into his lap, pulling the bag to his side. He reached in and grabbed his cell phone, flipping open the top. He brought the piece to his ear and spoke, "Faern", straight into the mouthpiece, the phone auto-dialing the number desired.

"This is Dr. Faern."

"Sir. I've discovered something while trying to get to the data you wanted. It's a tiny cyberspace inside the security system of the base. The only thing is, it's entirely over-run with viruses. And powerful ones at that. I don't know if you want me to cleanse it, or delete it completely from the system and my laptop."

"Save the c-space to a disk, I'll scan it when you get back. We need your laptop for the data."

"I understand, sir."

He flipped closed his cell phone and dropped it back into his bag. He sighed a little and pulled out a mini-disk from his pocket, inserting it into the drive. He began transferring the c-space to the drive as quickly as possible. His fingers began to hurt after awhile, so he set the computer to auto-transfer, watching as the computer did the same scans and runs that he manually did, only a little slower. After it was completely transferred on to the disk, he popped it out and tossed it into a case, dropping it into his bag. He cracked the security code in a matter of seconds, the fifth wall and 'virus c-space' being the last line of defense. He tilted his head back, watching the massive steel doors slowly slide open.

"Wow.."

"Dr. Sebastian!"

"What is it, Claude? Why are you back already?"

"Enzan destroyed both robots, each with a single shot from a Buster Pistol."

"Dr. Faern's own design, is my guess. Charge shot on Prototype Guts?"

"I believe so sir, it completely melted through his armor. Prototype Cut was taken with a shot to the forehead, completely fried all of his programming."

"I see. Your brother is quite a nuisance at times, Claude. Eliminate him."

"What.. ?"

"Eliminate your brother. The quicker he is out of the way, the quicker the Repliforce will be rebuilt."

"But, he's my own brother. I can't just, KILL him."

"No? No.. Ah, but you will. His death will be by your hands, none of my robots will do that for you. Now go back to the ruins, and take Prototype Quick and Burn with you."

"Y-yes, sir."

"Wow.."

Enzan stepped past the massive doorway of the ruined Maverick Hunter base, his eyes adjusting slowly to the dim light as he activated his flashlight. He pushed his hair from his face and glanced around silently, his jaw slightly dropped from actually being inside the Mav-Hunter HQ. Everything he knew about this place, he learned from Dr. Faern and from the history books at school. He drew the beam of light from the small cylinder over the ceiling, letting it slowly slide down the spherical walls and on to the floor. He gasped lightly as he lit up multiple crumpled forms upon the floor, all covered in dust. He set his foot against a nearby body and pushed softly, the body creaking as it fell on to its back, erupting a fume of dust upward, forcing Enzan to cover his mouth as he coughed.

"So it was true.. The Hunters let themselves be de-activated," he glanced at each form in turn, looking for a few specific ones.

"But why would they give up so easily? Not even Faern would answer me that," he said with a sigh, pushing another reploid on to its back.

"It's because.. We had no reason to fight anymore."

"Wha-"

Enzan's flashlight flickered out, leaving him in the darkness, alone with the voice that lingered throughout the room. Enzan spun around quickly, looking for the source of the voice. He stopped dead in his tracks as he saw where the voice was coming from, a pair of disembodied blue eyes were hovering off to his left.