It was late at night in the Gobi Desert, where a Native American village was located. One of the villagers exited his home with a loud yawn, turning on his flashlight and grabbing the bucket hanging from a hook on one of the support beams of the building, taking it to the watering hole in the central of the city, where he pulled on the pump, filling the bucket.
Suddenly, the villager heard a loud rumbling throughout the desert before a chittering noise followed. The rumbling intensified before the pipe burst right out of the ground and the villager screamed in terror at the sight of a giant beetle-like EVO screeching on the rooftop of one of the houses.
The next morning, a Providence drop ship placed itself over the ruins of the village before landing as Six walked out and assessed the damage.
"And what are we doing in the middle of nowhere?" Rex asked as he, Roxie, Holiday and Bobo followed Six out of the ship.
"Weren't you two in the briefing?" Holiday asked, typing into her pad.
"I thought 'Chinese hot spot' meant we were getting take out," Roxie defended.
"Last night, this was a thriving village. Now, it's gone. Erased off the map."
Six stepped forwards and picked up a torn teddy bear off the ground.
"At least the people got out of here in time."
"Okay, this is strange," Holiday said, looking at her scanner with a raised eyebrow. "All traces of metal, iron, copper, zinc- all gone. Completely extracted. What on Earth could possibly do this?"
"Tornado?" Rex asked, gaining weird looks from everyone. "Magnetic tornado?"
"This was no coincidence," Six concluded. "This was an attack."
"On an unarmed village in the Gobi Desert?" Holiday asked. "It just doesn't add up."
Holiday reached down and pulled out a stick, covered with grey slime and she used her device to analyze the slime.
"A complex organic chemical. Oxidized. It must break down quickly."
Suddenly, Six heard a beeping on his earpiece and pressed it.
"Distress call. South of here. Another village."
The team then immediately boarded the drop ship again and took off straight towards the next village. However, upon arriving over it, they looked down to see this one in ruins as well.
"We're over the town now," Holiday reported.
"Make that half a town," Roxie winced.
Bobo stepped forwards and took a look at the camera and was then instantly met with one of the beetle EVOs flying towards the camera and slammed right into it. Everyone gasped as the ship's pilot shifted the gears and the drop ship veered in various directions and then shook the beetle EVO off.
"Uh, what was that?" Rex asked as he and Roxie rubbed their heads.
Roxie turned on the camera again to see the smoke emitting from the village as the team looked down at the village.
"They're eating the metal and leaving everything else behind," Holiday noticed. "Even the stone. Amazing. It's like an organic processing plant."
"Rex, Roxie, Bobo, with me," Six ordered.
"You're going down there? I'm all for physical force when necessary, but until then..."
"It'll be fine, Doc," Rex said as he and Roxie joined Bobo by the ramp. "We're professionals."
Roxie and Rex lowered their goggles as the back of the jet opened
"Next floor: lingerie, cookware and giant mutant grasshoppers!" Bobo smirked.
"Ding!" Roxie joked as she summoned her hoverboard and leaped onto it beside Six as Rex and Bobo activated their respective jetpacks and blasted to the village below.
Upon landing, the four agents looked around to see the village was completely abandoned.
"Looks like the evacuation was successful," Six said, relieved as the buildings started to cave in around them. "Weapons ready."
Indeed, the grasshopper EVOs burst out of the ground like locusts as the buildings collapsed.
"Bugs. I hate bugs," Bobo groaned.
"I'm gonna cure one so we can ask them what happened," Rex said, slamming his fists together.
"Negative," Six said, surprising the twins. "Rudimentary brain function only. These insects were never people to begin with."
"You say that like it's a bad thing," Bobo said.
Soon, the chimp EVO jumped out of the way as a locust leaped towards him, only to be met with a slash from Six's swords. The locust hissed at him, only to be slammed by Rex's Smack Hands into a church.
"Wait," Roxie said, slamming an locust's face with a shield before kicking it away. "I thought your swords could cut through anything?"
"You didn't ask, but scans say their shells are an enhanced alloy, hyperatomic bonds," Holiday said over the team's comms.
"Noted," Six said, ducking under the legs of a locust before stabbing it in the mouth, causing it to drop down dead.
Rex continually slammed them away with his powerful punches as Roxie did the same with her warhammer and Bobo continually blasted at one as well.
Catching it's attention, the locust charged at Bobo, only to blast at the creature relentlessly until it dropped down dead. Another locust tried to drop on him from the air, only for Roxie to leap up and slam it into the ground with her hammer with a pant. Then, she looked to see the sparks from the hammer where it was gone.
"Oh, duh! We make metal, they eat metal!"
"We should've put this together sooner, huh, sis?"
"No shit!"
Then, a locust opened its maw and the twins dodged as the same substance from before ejected from its throat into a telephone tower.
"And now you're spitting on us."
"Rex, Roxie, careful," Holiday warned. "That inchor, it's a pheromone tag. Whatever you do, don't get sprayed."
"Will do," Rex said as the twins kicked up a dust cloud and avoided every spray from the locusts as Bobo blasted them in the face.
"Anyone got a swatter?" he asked.
Six also performed various martial arts attacks on the locusts, cutting their legs off and tossing his swords into their heads, causing them to drop down dead instantly.
"Fall back!"
Indeed, the four agents turned tail and ran away from the swarm of locusts, overwhelmed by the sheer number as Rex smashed through a wall with a pant.
"I've been run out of town before, but never like this!" Bobo shouted, blasting behind him.
But soon, the team was surrounded by the locust EVOs as the drop ship moved in above them. Gritting his teeth in anger, Six slammed his swords into the ground, which sent out a shockwave that sent them all flying back as Bobo blasted the last one to the ground, where it was promptly crushed by a crane arm from the bottom of the drop ship.
"Excellent timing, Dr. Holiday," Six said over his radio.
"I'm not here for you," Providence's head scientist said. "But if you're through fighting what you don't understand, you're welcome to hitch a ride."
The four agents then leaped onto the crane arm and were lifted upwards to the crane and immediately boarded the ship again. They moved forwards to look at the video screen to see that the locust EVOs had vanished from the camera's view.
"Where'd they go?" Roxie asked.
"I mean, we're not sorry to see them go or anything," Rex said. "But it makes no sense."
"Rendezvous with the Keep," Six ordered as the ship took off and re-entered the Keep.
"I still got more than you two," Bobo chuckled as he walked by the twins' side as they left the elevator to the hallway.
"That's what you'll be telling the guys in the motor pool," Rex said. "I got 45, man!"
"I got 46," Roxie said.
"47!" Bobo taunted.
Suddenly, Holiday burst into the hall, carrying the mangled carcass of one of the locust EVOs on a stretcher past the trio.
"Ha! One of mine! That puts me at 48, ahead by two, baby."
"You have eight hands between the three of you," Holiday scoffed, snapping on some white gloves. "You think you could lend one?"
Shrugging, Rex, Roxie and Bobo gave Holiday a round of applause, which caused her to roll her eyes with a scoff as she put on her protective goggles and produced a bone saw, which she used to start to dissect the EVO.
"It looks like a cricket on steroids," Rex said as Holiday began to pull the creature's skin back.
"If you find any of us in there, that thing can keep it," Roxie said, feeling her face turn green from disgust.
"It's likely an EVO infusion of locusts, termites and beetles."
"I've located the swarm in the wilderness of inner Mongolia," Six said, suddenly walking in as the team looked at the radar. "They've congregated 200 miles south."
"They look like they're moving in a straight line," Rex said.
"There's more."
The group looked to see the line was heading towards the Chinese capital city of Beijing.
"They're attracted by the city's high metal content," Holiday realized.
"One hundred million tons of steel."
"Fifteen million people," Roxie said.
"Report," White Knight said.
"The swarm has congregated underground," Six reported.
"Based on the low heat signature, they've entered a dormant phase," Holiday said. "Likely to process their lunch."
"I'll need reinforcements from our international division."
"As a fallback only. I've been given authorization for a more... direct approach," White Knight said.
"Bleach protocol."
"We have a last stand device primed and ready."
"You can't be serious!" Holiday shouted.
"They're in an unpopulated area, Holiday," Six reminded.
"And if that changes?"
"Make sure that it doesn't. We activate in one hour."
"It's like using pesticides. You may kill a few ants now, but later generations come back even stronger. I have science to back me up on this."
"I don't know, Doc," Rex said as he and Roxie walked up. "Sometimes, you just gotta say 'nuke em."
"Forced-plasma cascade," Six said.
"Try working that into a catchphrase," Roxie chuckled.
"A better way is to use the creature's biological responses against it," Holiday said.
"You mean the sticky hormone?" Rex asked.
"Pheromone. I just need a sample. The creatures seem to use it to tag objects of high metal content."
"Get 'em from your stinky friend," Roxie said, referring to the EVO carcass.
"If only it were that easy. It breaks down too quickly. It has to be extracted from a living specimen. I just need someone to go into the nest and..."
"Not it," Six and Bobo said as they left.
Holiday smiled as the twins groaned and bowed their heads.
"We're on it," Rex said as Holiday led him and his sister away.
"There's your biological response right there," Bobo scoffed to Six.
Rex and Roxie lfew their way out of the Keep, jetting down to Earth as they stopped in front of the opening to the nest.
"Ugh, I'm such a wuss," Rex said as he and Roxie turned on their radios. "In position, Doc."
Roxie and Rex then took their medical syringe guns out of their pouches with a nod.
"I made them from non-metallic polymer conductants like the comm-link and-"
"Rope?" Roxie asked, pulling out her rope. "Kind of primitive tech, don't you think?"
"You two can't use your powers down there, guys. Even the slightest bit of metal could trigger the bug's reflexive response."
"But we're full of little metal machines" Rex said.
"Your nanites are too small, too dispersed. They won't detect them... I think."
"Into the nest with no powers," Roxie said. "You could've mentioned that too us first, Doc."
The twins lowered themselves down on their two ropes as they touched down and pulled out two glow sticks to illuminate the way through the tunnels. They suddenly turned to see one of the locust EVOs hissing at them as they recoiled as Roxie's palms started glowing.
"No powers, Roxanne. Remember, no powers," she said as the glow dissipated.
The locusts swarmed on the walls, not paying any attention as the twins slowly walked forwards, careful not to distrub the EVOs.
"Rex, Roxie, what do you see?" Holiday asked.
"I don't even know what I'm looking at," Roxie said as she saw a locust split itself into two specimens.
"They're... multiplying. Splitting in two."
"Mitosis. That's why they've been collecting the metals. To generate duplicates!"
Rex placed his glowstick in his mouth before he took out a schematic of one of the locust specimens. He studied it intently as Roxie walked forwards and carefully stuck her syringe into the locust, only for it to immediately notice and roared outwards, showering her with spittle.
"Dis...gus...ting!"
"Huh?" Rex asked as the locusts began to swarm around them, causing them to cower.
"Rex, Roxie, what's happening?"
"Small problem, Doc," Roxie groaned. "I think I smell like lunch."
The twins burst out of the ground on their flying machines with the locusts erupting out of the ground after them.
"Vamonos!" they screamed as they flew away, only for one of the locusts to take a bite out of the wings of Rex's Boogie Pack and Roxie's hoverboard as they both fell before they generated their Rex Ride and Roxie conjured her motorcycle as they both sped away, dodging the locusts that burst out of the ground.
Rex activated his ride's battering ram feature as Roxie summoned a large spiked shield as they all charged forwards and burst through all the trees in their way... before they plunged into a river at the end of the woods with several locusts diving in after them... and then instantly drowned.
The twins surfaced, removing their goggles and gasped at the sight of the countless locusts surrounding them. The twins then dived back under and swam a ways away, knowing the bugs couldn't get them.
"Not sure we can... make it," Roxie said as she closed her eyes, preparing to drift off into the cold embrace, seeing constant visions of all their friends and enemies as they sunk down further into the river, going unconscious.
But then, just as their hearts stopped beating, deep wihtin the twins' bodies, the Omega Nanites that were injected into them suddenly sparked to life, instantly restarting their hearts and the twins took in a long breath as they sat up... in two hospital beds.
"Rex, you're alright," Holiday said.
"What... what happened?" Rex asked.
"We pulled you two from the river. It's a miracle you're still alive. No one should have survived under the water that long, EVO or not."
"We saw our lives flash before us, Doc," Roxie groaned. "In Hi-Def."
"We're sorry we didn't get your sample."
"I'm sorry too," Holiday said, turning to the radio. "Holiday to Six. They're awake."
"I'll be there shortly. We're in countdown to detonation."
"'Just nuke 'em,' right?"
"There's no way to fight these things, Doc," Rex groaned. "We gotta get up there."
Just then, the twins looked down and gasped as they saw they were buck naked and they covered themselves with the bed sheets.
"Uh, where's our clothes?" Roxie asked, embarrassed.
"Sorry, I had to quarantine them. There's a chance I can still salvage some of the pheromone they sprayed on you."
"Wait," Rex said. "Does that mean you saw me-"
"Oh, please. I'm a doctor," Holiday said before leaving the medical wing, before she smirked behind her. "Motorcycles, huh?"
The camera panned to Rex's underpants that had prints of motorcycles on them.
"Ugh," Rex said, collapsing back onto the bed in red-faced embarrassment as Roxie and Holiday each fell into a giggling fit.
Rex and Roxie then walked into the Keep's foyer with two bathrobes wrapped around them.
"Welcome back from the light," Bobo chuckled. "Nice bathrobe."
The twins groaned as they walked up to Six, who shot them a glance, but decided to spare their dignity by saying nothing.
"Evacuation of the area is complete and the secretary confirms authorization strike," Six said. "Commencing countdown."
"Initiating Bleach Protocol in T-Minus 10...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2..1... Initiate," White Knight reported.
White Knight activated the charge outside of the nest of the locust EVOs, sending a massive blast outwards that zapped all of the locusts, sending them all plummeting tot he ground, dead just before they could escape.
The twins looked on at the camera suspiciously before Roxie gasped.
"Wait!"
Indeed, as the locusts started to twitch, all of their bodies split into two, causing the entire area to start to flood with locusts.
"They're multiplying, sir," an agent reported. "Exponentially. On the move again. Original course."
"Yeah, I'm just gonna go out on a limb here," Rex said. "I think we just made it worse."
"It seems we'll have to implement the fallback plan-" White Knight began, only for the screen to immediately be punched in by Holiday.
"So blindly charging forward didn't work? Oh my goodness, I am so shocked," she said sarcastically.
"Doctor, we could use your help," Six said.
"Oh, now you want to listen to me?!" Holiday shouted before walking away with her nose turned up.
"I want troops on the ground. We'll pick them off one by one," White Knight ordered.
Indeed, the Providence agents had already lined up on the Great Wall of China and had aimed their weaponry forwards as the twins, now fully dressed, stood by Six next to the wall of one of the many staircases lining the wall.
"Gentlemen, say hello to the Broiler," Bobo said, hoisting a giant weapon upwards that the agents were all armed with as well. "Your Broiler is your friend. Learn the Broiler. Love the Broiler. Focused microwave inducer. Do not put your tongue on it."
Everyoen looked down to see a pesticide marker on the cahmber holding the ammunition.
"This? Decorative. But it completes the whole bug sprayer motif, don't you think?"
"Captain Calan, welcome to the fight," Six said as Calan walked forwards and shook his hand.
"Wouldn't miss it."
Everyone looked over the edge of the wall to see the massive swarm of locust EVOs charging forwards to them.
"This thing was built to hold off mongols on horseback, not that."
"Uh, Six?" Roxie asked. "Now would be a really good time to, you know, rally the troops. Get everyone pumped up for the fight of their lives?"
"Command to all points," Six said, pressing his comm link. "Keep those things off the wall. Six out."
"Well, I'm pumped," Rex said, lowering his goggles over his eyes as Roxie groaned and did the same.
"Not quite what I had in mind, idiota."
"Here we go," Bobo said as Providence immediately opened fire on the locusts, blasting at them with all of the firepower they had on hand.
"I don't know how long we can hold them off," Rex said as he and Roxie blasted forwards with their Broilers as they shouted out.
Some Providence ships flew overhead and opened the chambers below to drop several powerful bombs of the EVOs, obliterating several of them... before the pilot was stabbed through the windshield, staining everything red as the ship crashed down to Earth in a fiery explosion.
Six flew above on a hoverboard, slicing down any locust that flew near him as they shouted out.
"Another outbreak in Sector VIII," Six said as White Knight observed the battle from his office.
"728!" Bobo shouted, blasting down any locust near him with his Broiler."729!"
"875!" Roxie shouted, burning several locusts down with her flamethrower, letting out everything she had. "876!"
"833!" Rex shouted, ramming down the heads of any locusts with a shout of anger with a shout. "834!'
The wall started caving in as some soldiers ran down it while Calan blasted down the copious amounts of locusts by him.
"We lost Post 7," Six reported. "And 8. And 3."
Calan took the pin off a large bomb, kicking it down the wall's steps before blasting at it with his gun, causing a large explosion that destroyed all of the locusts in his path.
"We're getting eaten alive."
"In our case, not a figure of speech!" Rex shouted as he beat the crap out of the locusts with his Smack Hands as Roxie shouted out and slammed them backwards with her warhammer.
"There's just too many of them!"
Six nodded as he sliced through them as well.
"All troops, begin evacuation! Fall back!"
All of the troops loaded into their tanks as the drop ships flew overhead and extended crane arms downwards to grab the tanks
"1,328," Rex shouted, blasting at the locusts with his Slam Cannon. "Go! 1,329!"
"You go!" Bobo shouted. "1-"
"Fall back!" Six ordered. "Now!"
The trio sheathed their weaponry as they ran away back to the ship as Six and Calan soon joined them. The ship then took off as the team looked down to see the Great Wall of China crumble into rubble as the door closed.
"Well, there goes one of the Seven Wonders of the World," Roxie winced.
"Six to White Knight. Defenses have failed," Six reported.
"This is hopeless!" Rex shouted, slamming his fist against the wall of the ship. "Face it guys, we need Holiday!"
Later, Providence had scaled further away from the wall, setting up their forces just on the outskirts of Beijing.
"Send the majority of the regiment to assist in the evacuation effort," Six ordered into his comm link. "For the Keep too."
"You know, considering we just got kicked off of the largest man-made structure ever built and those things keep trying to eat us, I'm feeling pretty good about our chances," Rex said.
"Glad someone is," Bobo scoffed.
"I would feel better if we had Holiday with us," Roxie sighed.
The team then gasped as they saw a large amount of debris rising into the sky... just before looking to the side as a drop ship landed next to the regiment and the cockpit opened to reveal Holiday inside.
"Doc," Rex said as he and Roxie stepped forwards. "Came to wish us luck?"
"No, I came to give you this," Holiday said, tossing a vial of green liquid forwards, which Roxie caught. "It's the pheromone. And you can have these back."
Holiday nonchalantly tossed Rex's underpants into his face, causing him to wince as Roxie and the Providence agents giggled amusedly.
"Found some traces along the nylon tag."
"It's my backup pair, alright?!"
"Is that gonna be enough?" Roxie asked.
"It's extremely concentrated. But just in case..."
The twins looked to see the agents hefting out tons of cases of the pheromone from the ship.
"That's a lot of goo," Rex said.
"Doctor, good to see you," Six said, earning a smile from Holiday.
"Yes, it is. We have a plan to lure the creatures back into the desert."
"The swarm covers half the province. Even our fastest jet couldn't fly along."
"Then we go over. Rex, load up."
"Me?" Roxie asked. "Why not put it in a missile or something?"
"This substance is proximity-based. I need your accuracy."
Rex smiled before going over to the pheromone tanks, loading up his Slam Cannon with them as Roxie stood by with a nod as he leaped onto the drop ship.
"Hop on," Holiday said as the cockpit closed as Rex climbed up onto the roof.
"Any last minute instructions?"
"Try not to die this time."
The Providence agents ran off as the ship rose into the air as Six and Roxie could only stand by with a nod.
"Bravo Squadron, you're up," Holiday ordered. "Shoot anything that moves."
The Bravo Squadron flew their ships in as they blasted at locusts that flew near them with their ship's guns. Rex, meanwhile, smacked away any of the locusts near him with his cannon's length before one grabbed onto it as another one slammed onto the tip of the ship, startling Holiday as the windshield cracked.
"Doc, punch out!"
Holiday ejected from the ship, falling through the air as Rex leaped down with a shout, only to sigh in relief as Roxie flew in on her hoverboard and caught the good doctor as Rex deployed his parachute.
The twins landed on the ground as Holiday fell unconscious with a pained groan.
That was when the locusts started surrounding her and Roxie as Roxie formed a shotgun and blasted them in their mouths, but she didn't get far as more and more of them started swarming.
"NO!" Rex shouted, blasting the pheromone forward, breaking the cannister and spilling its contents all over one specimen, leading all of the others to start eating it alive.
"That is so wrong," Roxie said, feeling herself turning green as the locusts continued crashing and feeding on each other as the twins went to Holiday in the ensuing chaos. "Doc! Wake up!"
"I accidentally fired the gunk. Now they're eating each other!"
"Of course they are," Holiday said, getting up. "That pheromone is a hundred times more potent than what's flowing through them. We're hijacking their biology and using it against them."
Six also noticed this as he pressed his comm link.
"I want sprayers in the air. Modify the bombers as well."
The agents then all loaded up the pheromone cannisters and took off into the sky, dropping and spraying the modified pheromone all over the locusts. Bobo and Six only watched as the locusts literally ripped each other apart all over the area.
"It's working," Six said as Rex and Roxie walked Holiday over to the regiment.
Suddenly, a blast was hit against a still-moving locust as Bobo only smirked victoriously.
"That's one more for me!"
"Yeah? Well we got the rest of them," Roxie chuckled.
Bobo only watched all the locust carcasses decompose with a smile.
"A massive section of the Great Wall was felled tragically yesterday," the host of Ultimate Exposure reported. "But as the world mourns, it also celebrates the milions of lives saved in Asia. Lives saved in large part thanks to something you might find hard to believe."
"Wait for it," Bobo smirked as Rex and Roxie walked into the room in their pajamas as they looked up to the screen.
"These colorful undies. Our sources say they gave Providence scientists the scent they needed to turn those bugs against themselves."
Roxie, Bobo and all the surrounding agents all started laughing hysterically as Rex only flushed in embarrassment.
"Why are my underpants on TV?" Rex asked Six and Holiday, his face completely red as the two only turned back to their work.
"Sources, eh?" Roxie asked Bobo.
"This wouldn't have something to do with the fact that we stomped more bugs than you, would it?" Rex asked with a glare.
"Heh, what do you think?"
"I think I'm going back to bed now."
"Heh, vroom vroom!" Bobo chuckled, kicking back as Rex was met with a round of applause from the agents as he left and Roxie only giggled, admittedly feeling a little guilty at her brother's misfortune.