MMZ Return of the Legend (Surprise! It's still going on, this isn't a teaser, I'm serious I'll be doing this fanfic and I will finish it even if it's the last thing I'll do! Although the last thing I'll do is probably become Bronze V again..)

Chapter 16: Machstar Leo

Zero and X has just entered the base when a voice commanded that all "Resistance Hunters" would go into the CMD room, except for Bass and Rock.

"Huh, Resistance Hunters eh? X what's your opinion on that title for us?" Zero said.
"Good enough for me, Zero." X replied as the two of them went inside the CMD room, where they saw everyone listening to the operators of the Resistance.
"Machstar Leo is located at an arena, that held several activities for both Reploids and Humans alike, including swimming, jousting, and of course, racing."
"Well isn't that a cliché?" Axl said from the back of the crowd. "Of course the Mavericks decide to stay at an area that suits what they do, jeez."
"Well, if you think about it, they should know about it more than us, so they take an area that they also find comfortable, pretty sure you would do it too, Old model." A soldier said.
"Old model? Hey just so you know, I'm not the oldest here, it's Zero and X." And from the tone of Axl's voice, it would become some small argument.
The yellow-haired operator whose name is better off not mentioned, interrupted "However, as of the moment, we need to limit our amount of people who gets transported to a target area, for yesterday's scans shown that 3 troops of Weil's army are planning to be aggressive this time and start attacking our base, which is why Zero's brother and his companions will not be able to join Zero and the rest in completing the mission that they are assigned to."

"They won't be able to hold on by themselves, even if you include the defenses that the base has." Zero moved closer as he continued. "As far as I remember, from my memories, Bass hadn't had too much upgrades yet, and his current upgrades aren't even finished yet, including Rock's upgrades, and even if they finish it, it took me, X, and Axl disguised as one of them to clear the wild Reploids that attacked us before we even got here, that was 3 of us and we are still trained in combat until now, but that's still 3 of us, Bass isn't as advanced as us yet, So is Rock, and his sister isn't even built for combat, we can be safe if only Axl, X, and I are the only ones to be transported to our assigned missions instead."

"Isn't that a risky idea, Zero? Just the three of you and .. a lot of them?" Rock asked, concerned with the group's safety.
"That didn't stop us before." Axl chuckled upon hearing Zero saying this.
"Well, point taken, alright, be careful then you three!"
"Hey Rock, just you against 8, and sometimes even more of us didn't stop you before." Pointed out Bass.

Zero confirmed if they were ready and were transported.

Ciel had just entered the room, having slept a bit too long. "H-hey, good afternoon everyone, what did I miss?" Everyone there was just staring at Ciel, blushing.
"What? Is there something on my face?" Curiously, she asked.
"Erm… you might want to look at what you have on your forehead." A rather young Resistance member passed Ciel a mirror.
"… Oh my god…. I'm going to kill that Axl." Ciel mentioned as she saw on the mirror, written on her forehead "Zero was here and there"

[MACHSTAR LEO'S ARENA]
The trio has arrived in a beam of light, ready for the mission. Something rang in X's side, catching the other two's attention, a small hologram popped out.
"Hello there, you three! Especially you, Axl." With a hint of a pissed off lady in the last part.
"Ciel? What are you doing- Oh! Zero, Axl, I forgot that I also requested a small chip to be implanted on my helmet so we can have the brunette and the blonde Reploids and Ciel to be our….. navigators? Or operators?" X wondered.
"Well, if we're REALLY going to answer that question, Smartass Zero can answer that gratefully!" Zero smashed Axl's head upon Axl completing his statement.
"Anyway, I call'em operators now, but I can't find any damn difference between an operator and a navigator right now, I'm just assuming that operators have more control since they got me to infiltrate Neo Arcadia back then, remember X?"
"Yeah, I do… gosh that was a long answer, Zero."
"You're welcome, can we move along now? We don't have all day." Zero went ahead and checked entered the coliseum, which was ruined and had several posters, that has been torn apart.
"Good thing we have some light, right Zero?" Axl asked as the two caught up with him.
"Should I deactivate my saber then?" Axl was confused until he checked that Zero's saber was out.
"Nope." Axl went ahead and looked for any signs of life, Maverick or not.
"Hey, there's a person over here!" Axl ran towards him but stopped cold in his tracks upon seeing the sight.
"What's wrong Axl?" X walked over and was disgusted by what was in front of them.

Dead bodies covered the hallway, blood was splattered everywhere, all of them, limp and lifeless, a hand reaching out as if it was trying to crawl away, for it lost its legs, a body slumped on the wall with its head missing and a huge gaping hole in the chest. Another body, smashed against the wall, with blood and some tissues coming out of the arm, the legs snapped, and the face staring at the blank wall. Reploids were no exception, they were smashed apart, limbs torn off, one has even been crushed from what it seems, giant mechanical claws, being smashed against the ceiling then to the floor repeatedly.

"What the hell, the entire hallway is filled with bodies!" X turned on the light on his helmet's crystal, and saw even more.
"This is…." Axl couldn't find a word to describe the sight. Zero ignored the bodies and proceeded onwards, the two were somewhat disturbed by how Zero's keeping calm despite all of this, but decided to keep silent.

[RESISTANCE BASE]
"Oh my god.. What happened here, Rouge?" Everyone was worried for a second, but the opera-

"I'm practicing to not get pissed off when people call my name, always found it quite an odd habit of mine". ….But Rouge apparently had been practicing not getting pissed, which shocked everyone. "Back to Ms Ciel's question, Leo hacked it so he could clear the trees that grew by his arena, and also people when he wasn't in the mood for a race." Everyone was disturbed by this information.

"Wait, hacked what?" Ciel was starting to feel scared for the three Ex-Hunters.

[MACHSTAR LEO'S ARENA]
They entered the corner of the hall, and Mavericks greeted them, X charged up a shot and blasted through most of them, Axl shot down the ones flying, and more appeared behind them, Zero dashed to the ones behind them and cut them apart one by one, however, Zero saw something at the end of the horde of Mavericks.

"What is that...? Oh shit, X! Axl! Get moving!" Zero ran away from the horde and X and Axl followed, after him immediately.
"What are we running from Zero!?" Zero told X to look back, upon X had, he saw a Mechaniloid on the lose, it had mechanical steel claws and energy blades, it could also rotate them, from the looks of it, it could've caused massive destruction if that was deployed as a weapon, however, it was like a huge robot, but it did move slow, so its similar to the Mechaniloid that the three fought Earthrock Trilobyte back then.

"What is that thing doing here!?" Ciel's hologram popped out of his helmet.
"X! Zero! Axl! That's the Mechaniloid responsible for the bodies you saw earlier! It was meant for cutting lumber, but Leo managed to hack it to make it go on a killing spree!"
Upon hearing this information, X dashed ahead of the two, and charged up a powerful shot, it obliterated through most of the Mavericks, however the Mechaniloid was barely scatched, X caught up with the two and shot through a wall to create an opening, the three dashed through, and Axl shot down the ceiling inside the hall to block off the Mavericks chasing them. They waited, and nothing bursted through.

"W…Well" Axl said gasping for air. "That should slow'em down… W…Where are we anyway?" The three checked there surroundings, and X noticed a certain detail, upon inspecting the poster, he was quite confused.

As for Axl, he remembered a nickname that he gave to Zero, something much better than "Green Boob man".

"Pst, Zero!" Axl called, having a smirk on his face.
"Hm? Found something important to note Axl?" Zero noticed the smirk, and before Zero could guess what would happen, this happened:
"Yeah! It was an old nickname I gave you! "Brief-kun", Remember?" Axl was laughing at this point, and Zero wasn't pleased at all, not one bit.
"Why you little son of a bi-"
"Zero!" X called, interrupting Zero before he could give Axl the good ol' one-two, "I see something!"
"What is it? Is it something worth me not beating the crap out of Axl?"
"Probably." And with that, Zero stopped his previous idea and went over to X, Zero then inspected what X saw.

"Well, that's weird, I see a picture of Bass over here." Zero inspected it further, along with Axl following.
"Huh, and also I see a bunch of other robots, I can't read all of them, but it says "Shake Man"?, "TV Man"?, "Massage Man"?, "Giga Rightot"? and…. S…S…"Sexy Man"?! What the hell did people build back then!?
"Whatever, let's get moving, you two." Zero went ahead, and X and Axl followed, taking out some Mavericks, until they entered the arena, it was huge, pillars were everywhere and ruined statues of former champions covered it, and what seemed to be above then was a glass ceiling, to cover the people who watched from the rain and heat. Suddenly, the glass was broken by a huge arm, causing the shards to rain on the three, who covered themselves, upon checking who's the imposter, it was non-other than the same Mechaniloid.

"Screw it, if we let it stay functional longer, it could tear apart everything here!" Zero drew out his Saber and leaped towards the Mechaniloid's facial area and slashed at it, it barely did anything, so Zero grabbed on and pulled himself upwards toward the sky, before diving downwards in an attempt to injure its neck, but the Mechaniloid grabbed him halfway through the air and threw him downwards, causing him to smash into the ground.
Ciel popped out again: "X! Axl! The Mechaniloid's barrier is the reason none of you can harm it! We will try to scan for its source, until then, brace yourselves!" The Mechaniloid sent down a beam originating from the eyes, that the two managed to avoid, X shot at it and as Ciel said, the blasts were repelled by the barrier surrounding the it, Axl flew behind it and scanned for the shield's source, however before he could even check out the details, the Mechaniloid rotated and smacked Axl away, Axl hit his back on one of the corners of the coliseum, and was injured from it.
Zero regained consciousness and ran towards the Mechaniloid and slashed its leg, the barrier did not get any weaker for each strike, Zero checked his surroundings, and saw X hiding behind one of the pillars, and Axl against the wall, Zero looked back up at the titan and saw its arm coming crashing down on him, Zero dashed forward to avoid it, but the impact created shockwaves that knocked Zero back, Zero recovered immediately and rushed towards Axl, avoiding all the beams the giant monstrosity had to throw at him.

"X! Distract the damn thing will you!?" X got out and shot the head, it managed to catch the Mechaniloid's attention and it began to chase X, Ciel popped out again while X got thrown away from one of its blasts.
"X! We found the source! It's beneath the foot of the Mechaniloid, this will help." X got up and called Zero's attention, who was helping Axl who was still recovering from the hit.
"Zero! Ciel found the source! It's beneath the foot!" X looked back and dodged another beam from the rampaging Mechaniloid.
"How the hell does that even make sense!? Under the foot and it covers every damn part of it!?" X went to Zero's location, and took Axl, telling him that he'll put him somewhere safe.

"Alright then, buddy." Zero glared at the mechanical titan, reminding himself where its weakness is,
"It's just you and me!" Zero yelled as he rushed and slashed the shin then landed on the foot of the Mechaniloid , who lifted its foot up in order to cause Zero to lose his balance, Zero lost his balance but he managed to regain it and land on its foot and went under it, he checked, saw no sign of the shield's source.
"Damn it, must be at the other side then!" Zero held on, and counted until three, drew out his gun and aimed it at the ground.
"One….Two…" The Mechaniloid then stomped in an effort to crush Zero underneath its foot.
"THREE!" Zero shot the ground and it created a crater, Zero jumped away from the foot and landed inside it, the foot barely reached Zero, for it managed to also create a crater but not deep enough to reach Zero.
"(Phew, that was close.)" Zero caught up and saw the titan walking towards X, Zero rushed towards it and jumped to it's foot, and saw the source, Zero punched it with his Z-Knuckle over and over again, and managed to break it, causing the barrier to dissipate.

"X! SHOOT IT IN THE FACE NOW!" X jumped at the wall and went upwards, before he could get a clear shot at the face and unleashed a charged shot, causing it to stumble backwards.
Axl grabbed one of his guns and shot at the arms and legs of the titan, causing it to lose its balance, Zero leaped up and ran on the Mechaniloid's leg, and went up higher and leaped to grab a hold of its shoulder, he then propelled himself upwards and drawing out his saber, dived downwards and stabbed the head of the titan, going in deeper until he reached the power source, there, he stabbed his saber into it, causing it to shut down.

The mechaniloid fell down and was terminated, Zero got out of it, before seeing it about to explode, Zero and X, carrying Axl, ran to shelter themselves from the explosion.

"Well, that turned out decent, not as good as we planned." A gust of wind passed by and Zero jumped in front of X to receive a kick to the stomach, knocking Zero away from them.

"Zero!" X couldn't even finished half of his statement before something grabbed him and threw him torwards Zero.
"Nrrgh… What the hell was that..?" Zero looked only to see the imposter was no one else but Machstar himself, gripping Axl by the face.

"Aaaaah, Zero, I've been waiting for you three to show up, Hmmhmm." Leo said as he tightened his grip on Axl, causing him to yell in pain.

"Axl! Let him go!" X shot at Leo, but he moved Axl to use him as a shield, resulting in Axl taking the shot.

" Damn it! I said let go of him!" X grunted as he looked for an opening.

"HAHAHA! That was a real smart idea, wasn't it X?" Leo grinned as he moved his other hand closer to Axl's neck. X's eyes widened, he aimed at Leo, but was sure that if he did shoot, he would simply use Axl again to take the shot.

Zero struggled to get up, and when he managed to, he drew out his Buster Shot and shot at Leo, Leo used Axl again to take the brunt of the blast.
"Zero! Didn't you already see me!?" X was pissed with Zero's "lack of attention", but what he didn't notice was what Zero was truly thinking.
"X, shoot thrice, don't charge it." Zero ordered X softly enough for Leo not to hear it.
"Are you ins-" X protested, but was interrupted.
"JUST DO IT!" Zero yelled, X had no idea what he was up to but he followed, all three blasts flying towards Leo, who prepared to block it. Zero dashed behind Leo who was busy watching the blasts coming, and was startled by Zero.
"Take this then Leo!" As Zero kicked him, making him lose grip of Axl, and grabbed hold of Leo and lifted him behind him and threw him into the ground.
"TENSHOUHA!" Zero yelled as he pounded the ground, causing a beam of light to emerge from the sky, blasting the area around them.
When the dust had emerged, Leo had Zero by the neck, lifting him up, Zero stuggling to free himself from the Maverick's grasp.
"HAHAHA! Was that your plan Zero? You had caught me off guard, but I don't just move quick, I react quick!" He said as he punched Zero in the gut repeatedly over and over again, before he kicked him skywards, and Zero came back landing on the ground with a thud.

"Z-Zero!" X said as his anger grew, ignoring the pain in his body, he charged at Leo recklessly, his hands glowing, he threw a punch aiming at Leo's face, but he simply leaned backwards and did a somersault kick, knocking X backwards.

[RESISTANCE BASE]
"Z-Zero! We have to help them now!" Ciel cried out, but was being restrained by Bass and Rock.
"Ciel, going there would get you killed!" Rock reasoned, but it wasn't working.
"I don't care about it, they're in trouble and we have to do something!" As tears flowed down her face.
"If you die, then the Resistance gets demoralized, and you could break Zero apart, and I'm not letting you do that!" Bass yelled as he tightened his grip on Ciel.
"Ms Ciel! All of you, stop!" Jaune yelled (Yes she's practicing too), "Zero's energy is rising!"
"Wait, what!?" The three of them saw on the projection on the base, on X's view.
"Rouge turn the volume on!"
"Roger!" Rouge activated the volume, and could hear Zero grunting in pain.
"Brother… what the hell is going on with you?"

[MACHSTAR LEO'S ARENA]
Zero was still in pain, having trouble already just simply looking up, and saw Axl and X about to be finished off by the Maverick.
"Hehehehe, it was fun while it lasted kids, but I think it's time for the Maverick to terminate the hunters!" Leo yelled as he was going to finish them off.
Something sparked inside Zero, and he got up and drew out his buster and shot Leo's back, stopping him from delivering the finishing blow.
"Nrrrgh! Zero, stop interrupting me!" Leo yelled as he lunged torwards Zero, and to everyone's surprise, Zero twirled and knocked Leo sideways with his elbow.
"Hmhmhmhm, you really have a taste for killing people, don't you, you little piece of scrap heap?" Zero said as he limped torwards Leo, with an aura surging around him, drawing out his saber, but not yet activating it.
"Hey, don't act all cocky now, you're going to die right here ya idiot!" Leo kicked Zero's side but Zero parried it and struck back with a fist to the face.
"What the hell, how are you moving like that despite all your injuries!?" Zero hit the side of Leo's head with the hilt of his saber.
"Well then, I'm assuming you never heard of the Zero Virus then!?" Zero grinned as he grabbed Leo by the neck, and Leo kicked and punched Zero repeatedly, causing Zero to lose his grip, before Leo kneed him in the face.
"Think you got what it takes to knock me down, eh Zero?" Leo laughed as he moved forward and repeatedly struck Zero again and again.
"Your specialty is being fast, my specialty is taking out Mavericks!" Zero ducked, dodging Leo's punch, and smashed his elbow against Leo's ribs, causing him to flinch in pain.

"You shouldn't piss me off like that Zero." Leo said as he kicked Zero away and brought out the Supra Force Metal, before absorbing it. Leo had felt faster, stronger, invincible. He moved faster than what Zero could see and kicked him hard in the back, before moving on and landing a strike on Zero's crown, then running around him and hit Zero all over his body again and again, each blow hitting harder as Zero's defense system got weaker and weaker.

"X… you gotta… help him." Axl whispered.
"I…I'm trying, Axl…." X looked up and saw Zero getting hit by an invisible force again and again, each blow emitting a louder crack, Zero screaming in pain as he was close to succumbing to his injuries, Zero couldn't defend himself, if he covered his face Leo would just aim for the middle area of his body, covering that would result to the legs, impairing his movement even further, Zero tried to use his Z-Knuckle to hit Leo while he was spinning, but Leo would just hit hard enough to cause Zero to stumble and hit the side of his knee.
X managed to recover enough strength, and in a desperate move, went to use his power that he got from Dark Eagle, his armor turning pitch black.
"D…Damn it… Dark Eagle don't fail me now!" X used all the strength he had left to turn the area pitch black for a while, It wouldn't last long.
"Ah, using Dark Eagle's power I see? That won't help you at all!" Leo said as he proceeded to do a 360 kick over and over again, still hitting Zero each time fast.
"I've had it!" Zero risked it all and rolled to the side with the force of Leo's kick helping him, he then drew out his Z-Saber, emitting light.
"You idiot! Your saber emits light too!" Leo said as he rushed towards the light and did a kick, however, it hit nothing.
"What the-?" Leo did another kick to check if he missed, and nothing was there.
"My saber emits a light." A voice said right behind Leo, terrifying him. "But I don't." Zero then brought out his spare saber and activated it, giving him vision, he struck Leo in the face and used his Z-Knuckle to grab a hold of both of Leo's arm and his face, and began to rotate as he pulled his arm away from his face, hearing wires disconnect and electricity, Zero eventually torn off Leo's arm and using the saber he had, finished it all by stabbing Leo in the stomach, before sliding his saber up, cutting Leo in half.

"You…. Bastards." Leo called before he fell down, limp, and the trio left the area via Ciel transporting them back to the base.

The smoke disappeared, and a being emerged from the smoke.

"Useless scrap, what can y-you possibly do for Lord W-Weil? I d-doubt that the other f-four will be able to take down Z-Zero, it looks like only I-I c-can, thanks to Lord Weil." The being obliterated the remaining pieces of Leo, and transformed and flew away, to an unknown area.

[RESISTANCE BASE]
The trio arrived, severely damaged from the encounter, Zero was down on the ground, Axl was unconscious, and X was severely damaged, the two were immediately taken to Cerveau's room for repair, Zero got up, but was injured.
"Zero! Thank goodness you're back! You're severely injured, you should go to Cerveau immediately, here I'll escort you." Ciel looked up and saw Zero's eyes glowing red, before he lashed out at everyone, Bass and Rock taking a defensive stance, before Zero fell down on the ground unconscious, he was immediately brought to the room by Rock and Bass, Ciel standing there in fear of what's happening to Zero.