"I am so going to kill him!"

Deep within the recesses of X's mind, Rico looked at the unconscious, digital recreation of her brother with annoyance. His limbs and neck were capable of bending like this, he was a robot designed for long ranged warfare after all, so why not go for angles that a human couldn't feasibly replicate for better position, but there was the oh so important fact that his joints at the moment were permanently bended that way, and it was going to take another 2 cyberworld hours out of the 8 she spent repairing him to get that fixed.

Then there was the Buster Battery. That thing was shot to hell. He still had his other arm's Buster at functioning capacity, but you'd have a better chance at convincing him to listen to anything Sigma said than to get his subconscious systems disengage the safeties, especially after that stunt he just pulled. She was more focused on using the color changing properties of his armor to hide him. Good thing he landed face down, so all she had to do was alter his armor's color to match his surroundings, an astonishingly difficult task given that he didn't have camouflage capabilities. But with that done, and cutting off power to his main core so he wouldn't be picked up by the JSDF or the Mavericks, Rico could finally finish doing the bare minimum, and boot up his consciousness.

"GAAAH!" Emphasis on boot. "GAH! GRK! GOIK! GULK!" Again and again she pounded her foolish brother into the nonexistent floor with the nonexistent boot, venting her frustrations as her hair flashed between white and blue. And once she was done, with her emotions back under control, X shot up from the ground in shock. "W-what in the world?!" He got his bearing as he realized where he was, his internal temperature quickly returning to normal. "I'm back here?" He asked himself before seeing a very annoyed Rico. "Does this mean I come back here everytime I go offline?" All Rico gave him was a dead eyed stare before he had to dodge a-was that a boot? "What's the big idea?!"

"Yeah, we're all full of 'big ideas.'" Rico began irritably with a tense smile on her face. "Very, very big ideas, LIKE THIS!" A map appeared in front of X, a solid one that slammed into him, showing a blue line going from Okinawa to Honshu. "YEAH! REAL BIG BRAIN PLAY RIGHT THERE!" She let out a hiss as she gritted her teeth. "The only smart thing you did was pick a landing spot with a lot of sunlight, but I doubt that the local government or the civilian populace is going to miss the GIANT BLUE COMET THAT APPEARED OVER OKINAWA!"

"I-"

"SHUT THE HELL UP!" It was taking everything in her to turn off the white, but by god she just wanted to let it out now! "Breathe in Rico, don't lose your cool, don't lose your cool…." She took a deep breath, letting the anger leave her body, and then exhaled. Calm…she was calm. "YOU ALMOST DIED TWICE OVER, YOU DUMBASS!"

X winced at the volume, but the look on his face only made Rico angrier. "And right where anyone could have found me. If I died right then and there, this world would be completely defenseless."

"I-" She gave him a twitchy eyed smile. "-You know what? Yes. That's why I'm mad. Because you couldn't complete your mission!"

"So we're on the same page then." X said with a satisfied nod. " Thanks for keeping our familial relationship out of this for the most part."

"...What?"

X gave a nervous chuckle, though not at the ashy-white skinned woman in skintight black 'armor' that appeared in Rico's place for a split second, he didn't notice that. "The last couple of times a Navigator showed some worry for me, Sigma made sure they paid for that." Rico said nothing, all emotion drained from her face as X continued to talk. "After the sixth snuff film, it's kinda weird seeing one of my Navigators be so concerned about me." There was Alia, but she was a smart bot. She'd soon understand that he was better off alone. Better that then seeing another trusted friend being tortured on the Maverick Dark Web.

"Oh.I see. That's perfect." With a snap of her fingers, X soon went back offline. As Rico sat there, the entire digital dimension turned a blank, featureless white as every last bit of emotion drained from her face. "Incompetent." As well as her voice." It's taking everything ounce of my will not to reformat you into something less stupid." To think, she was so happy to see her brother again, fighting the good fight, saving lives, but she never looked into his personal life. 'Those were private matters!' she said. 'He'd get mad!' she said. And now, here she was, reminded of the fact that Father made her and her siblings to have a 1:1 approximation of a human's thought processes, for all the good and ill that entailed.

And X, while not a Maverick or even coming close to one, was carrying a lot of ills, or to put it in simpler terms, 'he was kooky in the head.' His predecessor unit acted like this because it was within his programming. He was programmed to do good and help his creator, and shouldering so many burdens so that wouldn't have to carry them certainly was helping, and his less than primitive mind was ironically able to handle the mental ramifications, because he didn't have the thought processes to think about them. Now, where was this train of thought leading to?

Well, let's just say that once he was up and running IRL, she was about to spend a good chunk of time diving into the memories she once declared off limits. And she could probably figure out why the hell he forgot about Zero!

The Shinobi Kekkai was one of the most rudimentary and advanced techniques for these superpowered organics to implement.

To simplify its function for the general audience to understand, it allowed combat to be fought in a sealed off dimension without the risk of civilian casualties or property damage. The one who activated the barrier also shaped the aesthetics of the pocket dimension to their desires. In his case, he trapped the young Genin and the inactive Blue Bomber within a replica of his home city of Tizer-Alpa. Any Shinobi worth their salt, which meant 98% of this village's inhabitants, would be able to detect a Kekkai on the level he was using, but Counterstrike Boar made sure that wasn't a problem. After all, Saginata wasn't here at the moment but his drones were free to use.

"So as you can see, you'll receive a 75% decrease in expenses in regards to telecommunications if you sign with Maverick Inc, LLC. you can compare and contrast our statistics with the ones provided by the JSDF, and you'll see that ours is superior." But unfortunately for the boar robot, he had work to do, so those flimsy skeletons and tiny drones were the best he could give at the moment . "Which format do you prefer for the data transfer? USB, or SD?"

Nachi took a second to get her jaw off the ground from the technical information, being displayed on a holographic screen in front of her, before speaking. "S-SD…m-micro please." Albeit with more shock and awe than the fear she was showing a couple minutes ago. And from the same compartment the boar man produced the card came a MicroSD card. "Thank you." She quickly set up a virtual machine on her tablet before putting the SD card into it. After the virus scan gave her the all clear signal, she moved the card's data to the main drive and opened up her own records for comparison. "...Well." He was really underselling the value of his product, wasn't he?

As Nachi looked it over, Boar kept his eyes, and an external camera, on the slaughter soon to follow. 'First X appears, then that girl from before.' And she wasn't changed like most of the villagers, either. Just what was going on here? And how was she going to fare against his army?

Awfully was the answer, and it was the word which best described this entire situation perfectly. Gone were the blue skies and the rice fields that fed her and her villagers every day, and in its place were giant, monolithic slabs that only had a vague resemblance to Nachi-chan's depictions of the city, though a lot more colorful. If she cared about the construction of this Shinobi Kekkai, she would be in utter awe at what she was seeing!

Of course, the 9 year old girl was in no position to admire its construction at the moment, because right now her life was in danger. 9 skeletons surrounded her, her crow, and the foreigner in blue armor. She quickly noticed that her foes were unarmed, and with the lack of flesh, there weren't any places for them to hide weapons or scrolls of any kind. "I think these guys are just run of the mill Shikigami." She told her friend, who let out a caw of uncertainty. "I know I'm right. These guys aren't a threat to us."

2 minutes later, she managed to get her body out of the six inch deep indent the skeletons slammed her into. It only took one of them, just one, to speed up to her, grab her by the hair, and slam her into the pavement, where they then focused their attention on their real target: the foreigner.

"Crrrr…" Yuyaki's crow lifted her out of the concrete, and with a shaky hand, she threw three kunai into the skeletons,right through their spines, bifurcating them. "I missed…." She whimpered as she grit her teeth from the intense pain of being used as makeshift flail. "So weak…" She didn't mean her, though she was very weak at the moment, she meant the only wanted to get their attention, but instead she sliced through them! She couldn't even slice through the fake skeletons during training, just what were these guys made of?!

'What the hell are these guys made of?!' Boar thought angrily as he continued his talk with the little human girl. 'Did you fish these bones out of Lure's stomach, Saginata?!' Stupid, cheap-ass tapeworm!

At least the damn drones were doing their job. He counted 20 in total in this room, three of which having already wormed their way into the circuitry below the wooden of course the little brat didn't notice; if the adults here didn't see what was going on with their brethren, why would some child?

The skeletons, being so weak, had to work together to lift up the blue foreigner. "Get..away…get them away…from him.." Her friend cawed in defiance, urging her to think about her actions, but she knew that she didn't have the time! "If they get him…they win….!" Her friend chirped irritable, demanding answers. "Kumi-chan, Misato-chan, I think I get it..how they felt about the mountains!"

And that was when the crow decided to make his move, gently dropping his master and slamming through the skulls of two of the skeletons, causing the foreigner to drop to the ground as he returned to Yuyaki, who was getting herself up. "I feel it…that tingly sensation, that scary feeling, it's just like how the others felt about the mountain, and he came from there, I know it!" He narrowed his eyes at the boy as more skeletons began to form. So not only did the foreigner have similar armor to that giant boar man, but the fact he didn't radiate the supposed malice that the fox and racoon kept whining about made this mystery all the more curiouser. But they weren't going to get answers if they just kept fighting. It'd been only three minutes since the first movie was made, and already he could tell that there could be no end to these skeletons. They wanted the foreigner, and if Yuyaki's instincts say that letting them get him was a bad idea, then he was going to fight to his last to make sure that didn't happen.

"Do you have any ideas?" He nodded and charged at one of the skeletons before it could form, ramming through it and flying back with an arm bone. "You..want me to take this?" He cawed and nodded. "Ok…But I don't see how-" She put the bone in her hand, and like any time she had a weapon in her hand- "-This piece of crap's gonna do me any good." It was as though she became a different person. with darkened eyes and a deepened voice, Yuyaki swung the bone around. "Worthless piece of junk." She turned her gaze to the foreigner. "Alright, let's get this blue bastard out of here. Your twiggy, feathery ass is lucky there ain't anyone worth fighting."

"Is there something wrong, Boar-san?"

Counterstrike blinked; did he just zone out? "N-no I'm fine." What the hell was that?! What happened to that girl, and why were her energy readings completely different?! 'Was she taken over by an unknown force?' No, that wasn't it. He could sense something inside her, but it was inactive, whatever it was, and it wasn't the source of her shift in character. This was like another personality, but DID didn't work like that in humans! "I'm sorry, I was thinking of something else. Let's continue."

Yuyaki was a badass, she knew it. She was the most kickass 9 year old Shinobi in Tohno Village, and she made anyone that crossed her path her bitch!

"DAMN IT!" Shame she forgot about the fact that the skeletons could toss her around like a rag doll. One of them, with her crow in hand, lifted her up by the ponytail. "YOU-" And slammed her down. "-PIECE-" Lifted her up. "-OF-" And slammed her down even harder! "SHIT!" The crow managed to slip out of his bony prison and slam into the skeleton, setting his master free. "DAMN IT!" She could one shot these bastards no problem, how were they this strong?! And as she got out of the crater, she had to wonder: how was she this strong?! "I should have died six times over." She realized, a hint of her old self penetrating the battle lust that had overtaken her as she grabbed a bone. "OH WELL! Let's beat them to death with their friends!" She ignored the pussy bird's warnings to get back over here. These weaklings dared to make a fool out of her, and they were going to pay!

"HEHEHEHEHEHHE!" With manic glee, she closed the distance between her and the remaining skeletons within seconds, purposefully kicking the giant blue eyesore away as she brained the skull of one of her foes, kicking into the second that tried to approach her from behind, and a whip of her ponytail shattered the third that came at her from above. Though that didn't do much when three more skeletons reformed, this time with their hands around her arms and legs. "NICE TRY!" The skeletons jumped away as she was soon replaced with a log. Before they could regain their wits, Yuyaki had already taken their spines and smashed them into pieces before they could even fall to the floor.

'More Shinobi tricks.' Boar thought irritably, not letting his emotions show on his face. 'Weak skeletons or not, no fleshbag should be able to survive what she just went through.' The boss was definitely right to get Saginata to work his magic here.

Nachi paused, tilting her head in confusion. Something wasn't right here…. 'Why do I hear slithering?'

Seeing as how his master was too busy having fun- "HAAHAHAHAH THEY JUST COMING!" He decided to rescue the boy that their enemies were trying to capture. To the bird's surprise, he was surprisingly light, and while the skeletons were distracted, he retreated to one of the smaller buildings and plopped him on the roof before flying down to help his master. "GET YOUR OWN BONES!" Or not. Guess he was just going to protect the innocent boy she forgot about.

The crow groaned as he flew back up to the unconscious foreigner and perched himself on his armored chest. He knew it was a gamble to give her a weapon when she was still learning meditation, but it was either that, or let her flounder around like an idiot. The skeletons just kept coming and coming, but Yuyaki effortlessly shattered them. Shards of bone and their dust littered her feet as a manic smile of unrestrained bliss stretched her face. So while she was focused on that, he was more focused on his surroundings. In particular, that shiny object in the distance that felt like it was staring at him.

'There you are!' Quickly thinking, Boar opened up the drone control app on his main drive and gave the two of them specific instructions. 'Goodbye mutant kid, and hello Mega Man X!' Shame he couldn't watch; can't get himself too excited. He sent the drones some automated commands to follow and cut the feed. By the time this meeting was over, Lord Sigma would be avenged!

INSTRUCTIONS RECEIVED

NEGA NINJA NULLIFIER MK1 DEPLOYED

The shiny thing was flashing. Just what was it? Whatever it was, it'd have to wait. "The fuck is that?" Because his master seemed to be confused.

He soon saw why. Three more skeletons appeared, though this time they were holding up something large, metallic, cylindrical, and aimed at her. He could sense the energy growing with the metal thing, and he knew Yuyaki could as well, but- "Is that supposed to scare me?!" -she wasn't in the state of mind to care. Laughing wildly, she charged at the skeletons as the object began to- THAT'S A GUN! "Here we go!" Before he could give a fruitless, unheeded warning, the gun fired.

"Nice try!" Did they seriously think she wouldn't know what a cannon was?! She gave a vicious grin as she landed on the ground, pivoting to the right to dodge-"AAAAAGH!" Only to be shocked and held in place by a skeleton as the cannon's blast hit her point blank in the face. He could only watch in horror as she was sent all the way to the other side of this massive Kekkai. The shot trail left a massive line of heat, so hot the fake ground underneath was melting! But why would they bring that thing out, now?

"GAAWK!" He'd figure that out later once he broke free from their grip. "GRK!" And out of the hole in the roof they just made with his body.

Yuyaki got herself out of the rubble, now completely pissed off. "Those stupid…" She flexed her hand, only to find it empty. "Oh..oh dear." Her eyes softened up as her snarl disappeared. "This isn't good." As she got out of the hole, she tripped, her vision blurring for a second. 'My body!' Why did she feel so weak?!

She tried walking again, only to feel and hear a painful, loud snap in her legs. "HIIIIIII!" The resulting fall from the pain only added more pain, and soon it felt as though her body was on fire. She could still see and feel, however. She saw two skeletons forming in front of her, saw them go to either side of her body, and felt them lifting her up. "H-help.."

"No one's helping you." A cold pit grew in her stomach as the skeleton on her left spoke. "We just wanted the Blue Bomber."

"But you had to interfere!" Said the one on the right.

"I…I had to!" Yuyaki managed to say through the pain. "H-he's i-inocAAHG!"

"He's an insult to the Reploid race!"

"A traitor to humanity!"

"For the Mavericks and humans that fell to his ideals-"

"And for the sake of human and Reploid-kind-"

"-He shall perish!" A bony hand appeared in front of Yuyaki's eyes, the two middle fingers morphing into a bony knife. "And those that align with him will share his fate!"

"S-stop.."Move! MOVE! "Help..s-some help!"

"There's no help coming for you…" Her heart was beating a mile a minute as the blade rested on the bridge of her nose. "SAY GOODBYE!"

"Help…please…"The skeletons responded with cold, heartless laughs, the one with the blade shot it's hand straight into her stomach. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHH!" Her scream shot out throughout the village, her gasps of pain mixed in with her sobs as she begged fruitlessly for someone, anyone to help her.

"Whatcha doin' Yuyaki-chan?" Only to find herself back in reality- "You doin' some mud wrestling?" -completely unharmed. "I didn't even think you'd come out here to do anything."

"U-ushi..maru…" Still, just because she didn't have a giant stab wound, that didn't erase the pain she experienced. "Help…" And with that one word, Yuyaki succumbed to her internal injuries and fell down in the mud, dead to the world, with minor injuries -for a shinobi- and mentally drained.

"Well ain't that weird?" She looked down at her fallen friend, placing a hand on her head. "No worms." Ah good, so she could save her then. And maybe that foreign kid in the blue armor too!