Chapter 14 - Something Always Goes Wrong

32 awoke with a start, the green hued light filtering through his shades, displaying his eyes clearly against the backdrop of green. His mind was racing quickly within his head, and was creating a light throb at his temple. He had felt something, a deep ache deep within the core of his body, something bad had happened and he didn't know what. And when he didn't know something, it always had a bad outcome. He deactivated the paneling to his recharge pod by placing his hand flat against it, making it evaporate. He jumped from the pod and ran from his room, quickly turning down the hallway and entering into his lab.

'I need to check up on Alpha and Bread Man.. Hopefully they're okay. And Fidget too.'

He slipped down into his lab chair and wheeled it over to one of the side monitors, his fingers working on the keys rather quickly, bringing up a map of the city they were located in. He accessed the base's radar and quickly mapped out the sections of the city. He inserted the transmitter codes of the three missing Hunters. Two red 'blips' appeared on the screen, neither were close to one another. He stared silently at the screen for a moment.

'Fidget is alive.. He's the closest to the base. That means.. Either Alpha or Bread Man are dead..'

He sighed heavily and increased the power of the transmitters, none of them would notice the change, only the radar would be able to pick it up. About the two 'blips', two fainter ones accompanied both of them. 32 turned as he heard footsteps coming down the hallway and Anode appeared in the doorway. Anode noticed the strained look on 32's face and thinned his lips a little, "What's going on?"

"We've lost a Hunter." 32 replied, turning his attention back to the screen. "Do you know who it is yet?"

"It's either Alpha or Bread Man." Anode stood at the monitor next to 32's, and he quickly began searching through the Hunter Archives. "Fidget was in X's group right? The 17th unit?"

"That's right. What are you looking for?"

Anode glanced up at the screen and pointed to the 'blip' closest to their position. He then touched the two fainter marks on either side, both radiating a light blue to show that they hadn't been coded up to appear clearly on the radar. "This is Fidget, meaning he's either being attacked, or he's found someone to help. I'm going to check the other members of his team and see if they are the ones with him."

32 nodded and waited for Anode to finish his search. Anode pulled up the 17th Unit's stat sheet and it displayed five profiles on the page. At the top left was X's, displaying him as the leader and commanding officer. Next to him was a picture of Fidget's, and all his statistics as a Hunter. Along the bottom half of the screen were three other pictures; Orichalcon, Bleu, and the last one was blanked out. Anode got the codes for both Bleu and Orichalcon and read them off to 32, who inputted them. The two 'blips' beside Fidget's flared red and displayed the three of them. Anode smirked a little, "Check their status. Fidget has been online as long as we have, if he didn't recharge, he's probably offline."

32 worked his fingers over the keys, all three of those 'blips' painting themselves a neon green, displaying that they were, in fact, all recharging. 32 sighed softly and then the realization of that fact hit both of them simultaneously.

"No one is guarding them."

"Activate the sonar. Just one wave."

"No. The sonar scrambles the pods, and anything inside."

"It doesn't matter, 32. We'll fix them when we get back, if we don't activate the sonar, who knows what might be coming after them! We have to find out!" Anode was stressing his point severely.

"One wave! Just one!" 32 had to give in, he had to know.

32's fingers tapped in three codes straight in order. The first code told the radar to activate the sonar, the second code told the sonar to begin charging, and the third code told the sonar to release a single sonar wave across the city. As the wave progressed across the town, black 'blips' begin splattering across the screen, a massive multitude of them were everywhere. Anode sighed heavily and turned toward 32, who nodded, "Anode, wake up everyone here. Send out Panic and Piro to get Fidget. You go with AX and find out if it's Alpha or Bread Man that we've lost. Get Lizzy to go check up on Shift and Faern."

"Right away 32.. But what about you? Are you sure you're going to be able to take them all?"

"It's not in me to quit halfway. I'll stop them. Even if it means.. Doing certain things.." 32 turned to look at the screen faintly, his mind elsewhere.

"Activate X and Axl." 32 twisted back to look up at Anode and shook his head, "X isn't ready yet, the system is still re-calibrating him to the new settings I put in yesterday."

"It doesn't matter. Let it finish and then get him out, it shouldn't take too long, should it? Make the computer auto-activate him. And get Axl out as soon as we leave. But what about Enzan?"

"I'll keep him safe. You need to go now. You won't be able to make it all the way to them if you wait any longer." Anode nodded and left the room.

32 pushed away from the monitor displaying the map of the city, allowing his eyes to move to the schematics of Axl. He tapped a few keys, checking to make sure he had inserted everything correctly.

Anode ran into the hallway and entered into Panic's room. He switched off the tank, forcing Panic to reactivate. Panic stared at Anode's face as his eyes opened from his rejuvenating sleep.

"Go and get Piro. And then leave quickly. Find Fidget, keep him safe. We have major Mav-activity."

Anode left the room as quick as he had come and ran down the hallway to AX's room and entered it without a care. He slammed his fist against the glass, and AX's eyes flicked open, the pod deactivating before Anode's eyes. AX stepped down and stood face-to-face with his team-mate. "What's going on?"

"Major activity. We are to go and rescue Alpha and Bread Man.. Or whichever is alive." AX perked a brow, "What happened?"

"I'll explain later! You go and get the kid and bring him to 32, I have to go and get Lizzy!" And with that Anode left AX's room. AX glanced over at the Light pod on the other side of the room and then quickly ran after him.

Panic grabbed his helmet and strapped it on over his head, latching it shut. He ran from his room, rounded the corner and entered into Piro's room, tapping on the glass to get the sleeping Reploid's attention. Piro's eyes stayed closed, but the pod deactivated and he stepped down from it, opening his eyes to stare up at Panic, "We going somewhere?"

"Yea. We're going out to find Fidget and keep him alive." Piro nodded, "Let's go then."

The two ran from Piro's room, rounded a corner and sprinted up the stairs to the entrance of the base. Piro took point, knowing about Panic's core problems when over-exerted. Panic snatched his beam saber hilt from his waist and followed after Piro. The two exited the base at a quick pace, running back the way they had come when they battled with the twin D-1000's.

Lizzy sprang up from her position on the floor, a tool hanging from her mouth, the broken baton falling to the floor in front of her. She opened the door, glaring up at Anode, speaking around the sparking tool, "What!"

"You have a job to do, finish up as quick as you can and then head to these coordinates."

'Whatev..'

Anode slipped her a piece of paper and then ran back to where AX is waiting near the stairs. The two sprint up the stairs and out of her line of vision. She walked back into her room and grabbed her chest armor, pulling it down over her silver carbon suit, resting on top of her body perfectly. She snatched up her broken baton and fixed it as she walked out of the base, inserting the coordinates into her memory bank, letting the paper fall to the ground.

32 ran through the codes that needed to be used to activate his specifically made pods. He got to the last code for Axl's pod and inserted it, but the screen flashed red, displaying erroneous messages all along the screen.

'It's his Copy Shot.. Something is malfunctioning in it.. Dammit.. I guess he won't be getting activated today.'

32 studied the schematics of Axl's Copy Shot, sighing as he inserting a few changes, expanding the amount of energy used in order to copy his opponent. He began the processes of fixing Axl, then kicked the ground, sliding over to the computer with X's data on it. He inserted the codes one at a time, working quickly. He glanced up at the computer screen where Enzan was still sleeping against the floor.

'Wake up, Enzan.. Now.'

Enzan shifted slightly, the sound of running metal feet disturbing his sleep. He stretched out against the wall and then pushed himself to his feet. He set his hand to his ear and re-activated the comm. link between him and 32, "About time."

"Sleepy time is good for me, hush."

"Get to my lab immediately."

"Got it."

Enzan grabbed up his flashlight and took off running down the hallway he had just come from, taking a different turn as last time, completely bypassing the big silver door, that was no longer there due to Elcazor. Enzan would make sure to swing by that a little later and check it out again.

'Something is up with that door.. And I WILL find out what.'

32 stepped into the Stasis Chamber off to the side of his lab, making sure that Enzan was coming back to the lab and not getting lost. The last code had been entered and X was ready to be activated. 32 stepped up to the pod and set his hand against it, "Activate 32R-Unit X1." The pod accepted his voice command and the clamps along the top and bottom of the pod began to undo themselves and the panels evaporated after the last clamp undid. X1's eyes flashed open, but they weren't their normal green.

"What th-URK!"

X1 lunged forward, a dark energy swirling up around his form, as he grabbed 32 by the neck, lifting him up off the ground. 32 gasped sharply, trying to grab for his hammer leaning against the wall, but X1 formed his right hand into a buster and set it flat against 32's head.

"I really don't think that's such a good idea.."

Fidget's eyes flashed open and he threw himself against the paneling of the pod, his head was screaming at him in pain, sparks flew from the top of the pod and from his helmet. The paneling around the pod broke and shattered across the floor and he landed against the ground, ripping his helmet off and throwing it across the floor. Seconds later, both Orichalcon and Bleu did the same, but they kept their helmets on.

"Ugh.."

"What.."

"Are you two okay?"

Bleu wiped tears of pain from her eyes and nodded, while Orichalcon got to his feet and retrieved Fidget's helmet, returning it to him. He replaced it back on top of his head and pushed himself to his feet. They both helped Bleu up, and she dusted herself off.

"That felt like a sonar.." Orichalcon perked a brow, "Why would someone set one off?"

"Something's brewing.. Something big. And something bad."

'Hopefully it has nothing to do with me.. 'Cause this is NOT turning out to be a good day already.'