They stood in front his desk, staring at him for a good two minutes, waiting for him to look up from his computer.

"X?" Zero said. No response. He tried again.

"X? Could you stop playing World of Warcraft long enough to notice our existence?"

Nothing but the clacking of the keyboard and the clicking of the mouse. Zero took a deep breath and yelled, "MAVERICKS!"

The result was phenomenal. X back flipped out of his comfy chair into a marksman's crouch, his arm cannon already charging.

"Mavericks?! Where?!"

Axl snorted a laugh. X twitched.

"Must… destroy… all… Mavericks…"

"Okay, X, there are no Mavericks here."

X powered down and stood up. He grimaced at the computer screen.

"You made my paladin die!"

"He deserved it. Here, the punk wanted to talk to you."

Axl pidgeon-toed forward, head bowed low, muttering.

"What? Speak up," X snapped, resuming his chair to commence a corpse-run.

"I want to be a Hunter," Axl mumbled. Zero sniggered so hard that nicotine dribbled from his nose. Axl grit his teeth, lifted his head and shouted at X, "I can do it! I really can! Just give me a chance!"

X waved the hand not attached to his mouse.

"Look, kid, I don't approve of your methods. Alia said you used violence to solve your problems."

Zero rolled his eyes, puffing smoke rings. Axl sputtered, "I was being chased by MAVERICKS!"

X twitched violently, falling off his chair, coming up with his arm cannon aimed at Axl.

"Kill… all… Mavericks!"

While Axl stumbled backward and fell over in alarm, Zero slapped X out of it.

"There are no Mavericks here. Technically, kid, you were being chased by mechaniloids."

Axl flailed on the floor.

"I can't get up! Take these handcuffs off me, they're too heavy!"

"Tough."

X rubbed his cheek, trying to regain sensation in the left side of his brain.

"Aw! My paladin died again! Stupid corpse-campers!"

"God dammit X, would you turn that game off already?"

Sulking, X logged off and dropped into his chair, chin on hand, elbow on knee.

"Why do you want to be a Hunter, Axl?"

"Wow, somebody remembered I had a name."

"Zero, take those things off already."

Zero kicked the handcuffs, and they fell off. Axl found his feet.

"Wait, I could have just pulled them off all this time?"

"The only locks exist within your mind, there is no spoon, yadda yadda, may the Force be with you," Zero rasped, looking out the window.

Axl rubbed his wrists.

"Red Alert changed. We used to fight just Ma… just the bad guys, but now Red and his gang are killing innocent reploids, too!"

"You knew Red?" X queried.

"Sure. I went on lots of missions with him."

"Alone?" X arched an eyebrow. Zero fished an action figure out of his hair.

"Show us on the doll where Red touched you."

Axl smacked the figurine away.

"Not like that! He said I was special!"

X leaned forward in empathy.

"People like him all say you're special, Axl, but they just want to use you."

X and Zero shared a chortle at his expense. Axl rolled his eyes and looked away from them.

"I thought the Hunters were cool. Guess I was wrong."

"Nah, kid, we're cool," Zero said with a choking cough, waving smoke from his face, "It's just that one of us decided to be a pussy."

"I am NOT a pussy!" X shouted at him, clenching fists.

"Aww, did I hurt kitty's feelings? Does kitten need a hug?" Zero spread his arms. X folded his arms, pouting.

"Kitty is not amused."

Zero sat on the window sill, gesturing with his cancer stick.

"Thing is, kid, your Red Alert formed just because X stopped fighting. When X put down his Buster and took up his desk job the Mav… the mechaniloids and their leaders went out of control. Red Alert's trying to fill X's giant blue boots, but they're making a mess of things, and the stress is just too much for me alone."

Zero dragged on the cig for emphasis. X looked askance at his counterpart.

"It is physically impossible for nicotine to 'take the edge off' robots, you know."

"You want to know the real reason? I do it so I look like I'm busy, and people leave me alone. It sure scared off all the humans."

"That's because you smell like an ashtray to them."

Zero flicked a strand of blonde hair.

"Whatever works? I blame everything on you."

"Don't you start on that again…"

"What?" Zero jumped off the window sill, spreading his hands, chin stuck out at X, "You think sitting on your ass made peace? The world is falling apart thanks to Red Alert, and they're only fighting because YOU'RE NOT!"

"Stop it! Stop fighting!" Axl yelled, "I swear, you two sound like you're married!"

Zero looked out of the window, puffing testily while X hugged himself, looking at the floor. Axl shook his head. X's desk beeped.

"Hey guys," a female voice announced, "The leader of Red Alert just hailed us, so you want to come down here. By the way, X, what happened to your paladin? We were running a good Warsong Gulch before he died. Twice."

"I know, Alia. Alliance never wins, anyway. Let's go meet your abusive father, kid."

"He's not my daddy!"

Zero showed him another doll. Axl threw up his hands in defeat and followed them to the command centre.

888

X and Axl ran through the swishing doors, the kind they have on Star Trek because in the future, people are too lazy to use doorknobs. Red frowned at them from the main screen, a sweet 100 inch plasma panel that Alia stole from Gate's laboratory during the last war.

"Axl? I thought I told you to stay in your room?" the Red Alert leader rumbled. Axl scuffed his toes, looking away from the stern face. X waggled a fist at Red.

"What do you want with him?"

"His safe return. We at Red Alert want his DNA-copying technology."

Everyone in the command centre stared at Axl, who shrugged his shoulders.

"What? I was going to tell everyone… sooner or later."

X shook his head.

"That's impossible. Only Zero and I have that kind of power, and we're original models! Axl looks like he was born yesterday!"

"Hey! I was not!" Axl protested.

"Then get a voice upgrade, kid, or none of the ladies will take you seriously," Zero rasped as he sauntered into command, puffing merrily. The humans in the room turned up their noses and left.

"Actually, Hunters, Axl's ability is far more advanced than yours. He can literally clone reploid DNA, changing his entire body structure to match their appearance and abilities!"

This prompted an even harder stare at Axl from everyone present. Axl sighed.

"It's only temporary! Also, it's not like I can change at will; I have to get fresh DNA every time!"

"The kid's a vampire!" Zero laughed, but laughter was too much of a strain on his voice generator, and he fell into a fit of coughing. X thumped Zero's back while waggling his other fist at Red.

"It's not right to exploit the power of reploids! The humans did it, and now there are barely a billion of them left!"

"Not right? X, how many reploid DNA have you copied throughout the six wars?"

"Forty… eight? But I deleted them after every war! Promise!"

"Silly blue man. You could be a god by now, but you chose the path of peace. Axl was our trump, but you have stolen him from us!"

"I came here of my own free will, because you guys are jerks!" Axl shouted.

"Enough! Since you can't be a good boy and do as you're told, my generals and I officially declare war on the Maverick Hunters."

"Mav-Mavericks," X's eye twitched. Zero slapped him on the other cheek, and wheezed, "Let me guess… there are eight generals?"

Red blinked.

"Why, yes. Have you been spying on us?"

"Past experience," Zero shrugged, and popped another cig.

"Red, don't do this! The Hunters are only trying to rebuild the planet! War won't prove you're stronger!"

"Ah, but war does prove who survives. We will replace the Hunters!"

"You can barely replace X," Zero grumbled, dragging long and hard. The command centre doors swished open, and a short blonde Caucasian human female in her twenties walked in.

"I brought donuts! Who wants…"

She hit the smoke wall emanating from Zero.

"UGH! ZERO! WHAT DID I TELL YOU?"

"Cripes!" Zero cried, spitting the cig and trying to make a run for it. The girl dropped the donut box, unhooked the fire hose from the wall and blasted the blonde buffoon into the plasma screen, knocking both out of commission.

"I go out for five minutes to buy donuts and this walking chimney stinks up the whole place! Now I have to get more Clorox!"

Muttering under her breath, the girl stomped outside.

"Who the hell is that?" Axl said, picking his jaw off the ground.

"That's Hannah, my secretary," X said, munching a chocolate donut.

888

After toweling off, Zero joined Axl beneath the new plasma screen.

"Okay, boys, these are Red Alert's generals," Alia announced, displaying the ubiquitous eight bosses they had to fight every single war thus far.

"Hey, where'd you get that new TV from?" Zero asked her, trying but failing to light a cig with his wet hands.

"I stole lots of things from Gate's lab. He had a fetish for big screens, especially when he was talking to people."

"Compensation?" Axl wondered. Alia coughed and said nothing. Zero stared at the eight bosses for a few moments, and then yelled, "HANNAH!"

The speaker on Alia's comm. console brought over the aggravated voice of X's secretary.

"WHAT? I'M BUSY!"

"What's the boss order?" Zero demanded.

"You lazy son of a smokestack, check the Internet!"

"Alia?" Zero prompted. The comm. operative sighed and alt-tabbed the boss window to show GameFAQ's website.

"There's a poll asking whether you'd buy Kingdom Hearts 2: Final Mix if they lowered the price."

"God, yes. Sora's my hero," Axl said.

"That explains the hair," Zero quipped.

"Don't diss the doo," Axl growled.

"Anyway," Alia sighed, clicking through the links, "It says go after Ride Boarski first. The Ride Chaser's in the garage."

"Wait. Wait a minute!" Axl put up his hand, "Military intelligence already knows Red Alert's weakness? Your spies are fantastic!"

"Military intelligence is an oxymoron, kid," Zero coughed, "But, since the first war, this company called Capcom released a videogame of each Maverick War before it happened! They're like the people who take advantage of the World War 2 franchise, except they're preemptive."

"Then shouldn't we be fighting them? They sound like the ones causing the wars in the first place!" Axl protested.

"Nah, or else I wouldn't get my lifetime supply of Clairol," Zero shrugged, flicking a lock of his perfect hair, and walked for the exit. Axl scratched his head, shrugged also, and yelled, "I call shotgun!" while running from the room.

"Hey! You don't have a license!" Zero warned, chasing after him.

"Alia, why are you still a comm. operative?" Hannah asked from the console. Alia rubbed her hands together.

"If I stay in this soul-destroying job during the next war, I get to kill things!"

"Oh, that's n… HEY! Stop breaking the fourth wall!"

"Too late. Let's watch Idiot 1 and Idiot 2 crash into things."