Hello again to you all. Sorry I'm late, but here's the next chapter. Let's get rolling!

Disclaimer: You know the drill.

Chapter 9

"The Maverick outbreaks have been successfully quelled at Central Highway…"

Now, all of the Maverick Hunters, as well as their charges were back at Hunter Base, and X was reporting his and Cody's findings.

"...But, Cody has taken damage. Requesting permission to send him to the Repair Bay."

Signas thought for a moment before making his decision. "Granted. In fact, why don't you show him where it is later…? If you can get there, that is." He directed the last part of that sentence to Axl, who wasn't exactly in the best shape of his life either considering the beating he'd taken earlier.

"Fine," Axl replied.

"Also," X continued. "We made contact with what looked like a giant red mechaniloid based on a scorpion."

Zero's attention was piqued here. He could remember fighting something like that with Axl back when he first met the dual wielding reploid. He glanced at the prototype New Generation Reploid, who was fidgeting restlessly. Axl never knew the meaning of the word professionalism.

After getting through with X, Signas turned to the blonde swordsman himself for his report. Zero wasted little time. "Aside from a few rogue mavericks, nothing of note was found."

Zack shot Zero an "are you kidding me" look, which the latter ignored before continuing on.

"That is, until we ran into…" The bright crimson robot almost spat out the next word. "…Vile."

The futuristic Blue Bomber's eyes widened at the mention of his and Zero's old nemesis. "What? That lunatic's been brought back to life again? But how?"

Zero wasn't nearly as surprised at Vile's revival. "Beats me. All I know is that he's back, and more insane than ever. The weird thing is that he wasn't so much interested in killing us right then and there. If anything, he was more interested in Zack for some reason."

As he was listening to this, a cauldron of emotions began to brew in Zack's mind. He thought back to everything he had experienced since getting here, from waking up in his pod a while back, all the way up to now. While he was relieved to know that he had Cody, London, and Bailey with him through all this, that didn't lessen any of the more negative emotions he was feeling. He was still horrified by the fact that one "Maverick" could destroy an entire floating city full of people just for the sake of picking a fight. Although Zero said that the threat had been dealt with, that didn't make him any less angry at Magma Dragoon. And then there was Vile, who probably wrote the book on insanity…Zack shuddered just thinking about him. Despite all that he was feeling, he managed to keep his expression neutral, so he wouldn't tip off anyone as to just how much this was bothering him.

Soon enough, it was Axl's turn to give his report. The navy-colored sharpshooter quickly collected himself before starting. "Aside from the place looking like a dump, there wasn't much there. The only thing we really found was at a clearing at the end of the site: it was a giant mechaniloid controlled by some kind of eye thing."

X's eyes widened in recognition. He had fought something like that before as well. This couldn't possibly be a mere coincidence anymore. Just what was going on here?

Surprisingly, he wasn't the only one having these thoughts, as Alia, who had been here taking all of this in as well, decided to voice her concerns.

"I know I've seen the very same mechaniloids that you guys have brought up. The question is, why would they resurface? And while we're on the subject, what's Vile even doing here?"

X's expression turned worried. "I don't know, but I have a very familiar…and very bad feeling about this." He briefly locked eyes with Zero, and while his expression was more resigned, it was no less telling of his understanding of what his friend meant.

Eventually the meeting concluded, and Axl escorted Cody to the Repair Bay as promised. As they walked, Cody was busy trying to take in all that he had heard. He had been doing that a lot lately, he realized. He had been particularly put off by how the Maverick Hunters were talking about what they'd just been doing. He had suspicions, but he felt the need to clear them, so he got Axl's attention.

"What?" Axl asked, sounding a bit more annoyed than he'd intended to.

The intelligent Martin twin noticed Axl's tone, but felt the need to ask his question anyway.

"So… does this happen on a regular basis?"

"Usually," Axl answered matter-of-factly. "Although most of the time, we have to deal with some small-scale mechaniloid incident. It's not often that we get dragged into the bigger Maverick outbreaks."

Two words that Cody still didn't know the meaning of stuck in his head. "Um…if you don't mind me asking, what's a Maverick and what's a Mechaniloid?"

Axl recited an explanation that he had given so often by now that the words had become second nature to him. "A Maverick is any Reploid that defies the laws of robotics in a way that causes harm to humans or other Reploids. A mechaniloid is a complex machine that isn't nearly as intelligent as a Reploid. Like simpler machines, they can go haywire and cause havoc, which forces us to step in."

As the prototype reploid finished his piece, the two had arrived at their destination.

"Well, here we are. Just pick one of the tubes over there. It doesn't matter which."

What Axl was referring to was a neatly arranged row of tubes that were surrounded by a bunch of computers displaying data that probably had something to do with however healing went, or so Cody thought. He had way too much on his mind already, and couldn't be bothered to add three more questions to his growing mental backlog.

The dark blue reploid simply picked a tube and got in it. Nothing happened at first, but after about 30 seconds, a strange warm feeling came over him. This did puzzle him, and for a brief moment, he wondered how exactly he was feeling this considering his condition. Soon enough, the warm feeling disappeared. Taking that as his cue, he got out of the chamber. Aside from feeling tired, he was in tiptop shape physically. He glanced back at the machine with a smirk. If this kind of thing existed back home, he thought, a lot of doctors would be out of a job.

As for London, she didn't leave the briefing room after the meeting, instead standing in place with a very lost look on her face. In fact, she barely understood what the others were saying while it was going on. Alia picked up on this, and asked to see her in private. However, trying to explain the situation to her straight on proved…less than fruitful. Thankfully, Bailey offered to help. Together, the two navigators went to work breaking things down for the heiress-turned-reploid.

"As you could probably guess, you're a reploid, which is basically a highly advanced robot," Alia began, trying to pick her words carefully.

"Highly ad-what, now?" London responded, still not quite getting it.

Bailey, much to her mentor's relief, stepped in. "Let's just say, you're a very smart robot, London."

The golden Hunter looked unsure for a moment before doing something that would baffle anyone who didn't know her (as rare as that case may be).

"Yay, smart me!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands gleefully. This display of happiness warmed the Kettlecorn native's heart. She'd sensed something very off with her friend, but hadn't gotten the chance to bring it up. Alia, on the other hand, was more than a little unnerved by London's little performance.

"Does…Does she always do that?"

Bailey chuckled to herself. "Oh, you have no idea."

After waiting for her to settle down, both Alia and Bailey continued with their explanation. When they got to explaining things that were a little less cut and dry, like Mavericks, even Bailey had to look to her mentor for proper understanding. Since defining the term "Maverick" wasn't exactly an easy task (even Alia herself was very much aware of the gray area that existed in the government's description of the term), she decided it would probably be better to simply keep it black and white for now and just say that they were the "bad guys". She followed suit with mechaniloids, merely likening them to "overgrown construction tools" (which wasn't entirely false, actually).

After what seemed like forever, London, while still not exactly ecstatic about lacking the recognition that she was used to, finally seemed to be grasping the situation she was in. After pointing out where and what the barracks were, the two navigators saw their comrade off.