"The names and faces may change," Six's voice narrated. "But no matter how you slice it, war is war. You pick a side and you don't look back. I believed that now and I believed it back then. What gets you in trouble is when you start second-guessing: forget what you're fighting for, you're finished."
We cue to Pairs, where we cue to a news report as local S.W.A.T. team were unloading on a giant EVO.
"Yet another entity has emerged," the reporter said. "This time, in the heart of Paris. Authorities are vastly unprepared. Unless a decisive response to this pandemic is martialed, the city will fall just as Kiev-"
The reporter never finished as she was hoisted up by a web that was fired by a giant spider-like EVO that then wrapped her like a fly in its webbing, dropping her down from a string to join countless other victims on the tunnel opening of the Arc de Triomphe.
As the authorities continued firing on it, to no effect of course, the EVO blasted its webbing outwards that latched onto a civilian filled bus and lifted it up to the top of the arch.
That was when a loud honking voice was heard as a large van with Big Hurt written above the windshield in red lettering barreled through the traffic, leaving the local S.W.A.T. team confused.
Then, a figure in the shadows emerged from the opening on the roof and leaped forwards, slicing down the web cocoons and freeing the victims inside. Moving at extremely quick speeds, the blur then engaged the spider EVO, rapidly slicing at its legs before the blur, who was obviously Agent Six, revealed himself to the camera and gave a wicked slice down his face, sending him crashing to the ground as Six landed in a graceful three-point stance.
"Save some for me, partner."
Six's partner, a younger White Knight, smiled as he got out from the van and blasted the EVO to death.
"Surprise!"
Six looked over the old mission footage as a celebration rang out behind him as the twins stood on either side of him, beaming brightly as rainbow-colored confetti rained down on them, courtesy of Bobo.
"Happy birthday Rex and Roxie," Holiday said as a party was ringing out for the twins' birthday.
"So the flu shots?" Rex asked.
"I needed an excuse to get you here," Holiday said, placing two party hats on the twins heads. "We'll do that after cake."
"I'll get you, Van Kleiss!" a blindfolded Holiday shouted, trying to swing a bat at a Van Kleiss pinata for a few minutes, only for Rex to smash it to the ground with a Smack Hand.
"Sorry, Doc. It was taking too long," he chuckled.
"It was either that or throw some of your cake at it," Roxie said, popping a candy corn into her mouth as she looked to see Noah try in vain to stab at the rock-hard cake.
As the party was in full swing, Six stood stoically by the doorway as Holiday walked over to him with a spare cup of punch.
"You seem festive," she inquired.
"It was an odd choice to have today be their birthday," Six said, taking the punch.
"Well, it is the anniversary of their new life here. They deserve a celebration. They've changed everything."
"Whoo-hoo!" Roxie cheered as she blew a noisemaker into Six's face before running off.
"Have they?"
"Hey," Rex said. "How about hitting the Petting Zoo for a game of Pin the Tail on the Charging Rhinoceros?"
"No!" Six and Holiday stated firmly.
"Every party has a pooper," Roxie groaned. "Well, we have two."
The light suddenly dimmed and the twins looked in wonder as a large cake with a question mark symbol came out as they looked to each other with a smile.
"Dudes!" Rex said as he and Roxie cheered. "This is my cake. Yours is coming in four minutes."
"Nice try, bro. This goes to both of us."
"You should be celebrating too, Six," Holiday said as Rex blew the candle out. "After all, you're the one who started this. In a way, it's your birthday too."
*Flashback*
As Providence Headquarters was still being constructed in the desert, tons of EVOs were being carted into what would soon become the Petting Zoo, getting detained by the agents as Six and White Knight walked by with White Knight whistling.
"Nyquist, Fortier, how's the monkey business?" White asked as they came across two agents getting bandaged up.
"Haha-larious, Knight," Nyquist said.
"Hey, for your information, we probably saved the world today," Fortier said, pointing to the cage that contained Bobo Haha.
"I, for one, feel safer already."
"So, green man, we meet again," Bobo joked
"They found him at the Kremlin this time," Captain Kalan said, handing Six the report. "He threatened to push the button unless someone gave him forty thousand pounds of caviar."
"Chimp's gotta eat."
"What about your little bug hunt?" Nyquist asked White Knight. "Give you much trouble?"
"Nothing we couldn't handle," White Knight said, gesturing to the spider EVO getting carted in before he and his partner followed it into the holding facility. "What, not even a smile? Oh, by the way, happy birthday."
White Knight handed a surprised Six a box.
"How did you know?"
"New partner. Can't keep much from me."
"Thanks. So what crawled up your coat?"
"I'm tired of all this fighting. Did you see how many there are now? Are we gonna cage the whole world?"
"We're preserving the human race," White Knight said, taking his shoulders as the door opened. "Besides, who says we're gonna cage them all?"
Six glared as he and White Knight walked into the laboratory, where the then lead scientist, Doctor Fell, typed in a few commands as the spider EVO dropped into a larage generator room, hissing intently.
"And to think this was once spinning webs in someone's garden," Fell said. "Doctor Holiday, prepare for disassembly."
A younger and more pretty Doctor Rebecca Holiday nodded as everyone in the room put on their protective goggles as she typed a few commands into the console, which caused the generator the spider EVO was inside to glow brightly, instantly vaporizing it.
"It's the same exact data as last time and the time before that," Holiday said. "Doctor Fell, why aren't we studying them in a natural environment?"
"Only through molecular dissection will we find a way to expunge this threat," Fell answered. "The committee agrees with me on this. If you do not approve, I can always find a new assistant."
A furious Holiday turned and walked out of the room with her nose turned up.
"Bleeding hearts," White Knight scoffed. "They'll get us all killed one day."
As Dr. Holiday walked through the halls, she suddenly lost a hold of her files as the papers fell to the floor and she reached down to grab them bfeore taking a glance at her clipboard. which was picked up by a curious Agent Six.
"EVO?" he asked.
"Exponentially Variegated Organism," Holiday explained, taking the clipboard back. "A little more scientific than 'spoiled meat.' That is what you hired guns call them, isn't it?"
"It's Six. And I don't use guns. You told Fell we could learn more about them by keeping them alive. What did you mean?"
"The nanites are altering our DNA. But with the right kind of research, there's no reason they couldn't be programmed to stop or reverse the process. Imagine a third alternative to this insane kill or contain protocol."
"A third option?"
"A cure."
Suddenly, an alarm sounded as White Knight and a few other agents ran past Six and Holiday.
"Buckle up, partner. Looks like we got ourselves a big one," White Knight said before running off.
"Ugh. Hopeless," Holiday scoffed, walking away from the scene.
In Mexico, two rampaging mechanical monstrosities walked through the city, destroying everything in sight. As missiles rained down upon the two, one of them swiped a giant purple axe head at one, which it avoided as the other fired out two missiles from the pistons on its shoulders, destroying one of the jets.
On the ground, White Knight pulled up in an armored carrier and placed a finger to his comm link.
"What are we looking at?"
"Fascinating," Doctor Fell said. "It appears to be bio-mechanical. I must have a closer look at this one."
"One for the trophy case."
The carrier rushed forwards as it opened fire on the two giant bio-mechanical organisms looming over them as Six looked on, intently as the pair retaliated, firing their own weaponry on Providence.
"Wait," Six said. "We may get more out of this one if we bring it in alive."
"Are you nuts?" White Knight asked.
"Looks like your boy is losing his edge, Knight," Nyquist chuckled.
"Not a cage in the world that could hold these things."
Tons of bullets and explosions rang out across the city as the purple mechanical beast lifted its sword arm up, trying to slice it down onto the carrier, which avoided it.
"Six!"
Six ran up the monster's arm and started striking at it with his swords, sending a ton of sparks outwards before he nimbly ran and leaped to its partner and did the same thing into its neck, sending out a familiar blue grid line.
"That's more like it!"
Unfortunately, the mechanical beast reached up and plucked Six off its shoulder.
"White, get back! These things are going to blow!"
The orange mechanical monster shot the fist that held Six out, sending him flying away through a building. Six pried the fist's fingers open and stumbled out into the streets before hearing two massive explosions.
"White, hello?!" Six called into his comm link, only to receive static in response. "Are you alright?"
"...Help," a young male voice said.
Six concernedly ran forwards and looked to the rubble to see two young Hispanic twins (who we know as Rex and Roxie) with their faces exposed as the girl looked to him as she said something to him in Spanish.
Later, Six walked the twins to safety as they stood, awed.
"Are those swords for real?" Rex asked.
"Are you a ninja?" Roxie asked.
"We were speaking Spanish. Is this Mexico?"
"Why are we sneaking around-"
Six quickly covered the twins' mouths as he heard a loud roaring noise.
"Ugh, dude, your hand smells like monkey breath," Rex said.
The trio waited as they heard a growling noise.
"Why don't you just call HQ or NOMRAD or 911?"
"When the creature blew, it released some kind of EM pulse," Six explained. "It fried everything electronic. This area is a dead zone. The three of us are on our own."
"So much for ordering a pizza," Rex said.
"Our lives are on the line and you're thinking about food?!" Roxie snapped.
"We've known each other literally our entire lives?"
"What's the point of that if we can't remember our entire lives?"
"I'm joking, sis. Because if I don't, I'm gonna remember how scared I am right now."
"What?" Six asked.
"He's serious," Roxie said as she and Rex sat on the sidewalk. "Aside from our names and the fact that we're twins, that's about all we do remember."
"No family?"
"Not except each other," Rex said.
"An address?"
"Nada," Roxie said, shaking her head.
"A grandma that I can dump you two off with?"
"Nothing," the twins chorused.
"Except waking up and seeing your face, our minds are a total blank," Roxie said.
"Not exactly the angel we were hoping for though."
"You two are in shock. We should find a place to hole you two up until I can get some help."
"No way," Rex said. "We're not hiding."
"Why? You want to get rid of us?" Roxie asked.
"I screwed up and I may very well have cost my friend his life. The last thing I need is you two slowing me down."
Six then picked the twins up into his arms and ran off to a doorway. Peering through the broken window, the Providence agent kicked the door open... to see a giant crater where the scene of the fight was.
"No..."
The twins wrestled their way out of Six's arms and ran up to the crater with wide eyes.
"What's going on?" Rex asked. "What did this?"
"Don't worry. We evacuated this zone. We'll get you two home, I promise you," Six said, rubbing Rex's hair. "Right now we gotta move."
The twins walked with their guide as they looked around the destroyed Mexican town with roars sounding out and shadows moving around.
"What's making those sounds?" a nervous Roxie asked.
They looked to see a giant wolf EVO crawl out of a hole and roar intensely at our heroes.
"New plan, run!"
Rex and Roxie ran for it as Six drew his swords as the EVO charged at him, baring his claws before leaping upwards and blasting out a torrent of acidic slime from his maw that soaked onto Six's jacket, starting to burn him as he fell to the ground as the EVO loomed over him.
The twins looked back as they nervously turned to each other as Rex nodded to Roxie.
"Leave him alone, bully!" Roxie shouted as she and Rex ran forwards as Roxie slid beneath its legs as she and Rex gave a dual punch to the EVO's stomach and back... as a blue grid line came forth from its back.
As it did, their nanites of course traveled into the EVO's system and absorbed its nanites. As they retracted their fists, the EVO fell back... and changed back into a normal human, groaning and leaving a very confused looking Six.
"Ugh, great. We probably got rabies," Rex groaned.
Six looked, his jaw on the floor at what the twins just did as they looked up to him.
"What?" Roxie asked.
"Glad to see you alive, partner," White Knight said as we cue back to Providence Headquarters.
"Happy to accommodate," Six said.
"I'd stay clear of Fell. He's furious that we didn't bring back a sample from that monster."
"Uh, no," Rex said as they turned to see him and his sister talking with Bobo with the latter's cage door open. "We don't know where they keep the jet planes."
The twins and Bobo shot a look to White Knight and Six and made a break for it, only for them to catch him instantly and throw him back inside the cage, locking it.
"Why'd you two let him out?" Six asked.
"He asked us to," Rex said. "I don't know if you're aware of this, but that monkey talks."
The twins were then grabbed by White Knight and backed up against the cages with the veteran agent giving them a very stern glare.
"Who are you? What are you doing in here?" he asked.
Six fortunately came to their rescue as he pulled Rex and Roxie out of White's grasp.
"They're with me. I found them out in the field. There's something I wanted to show-"
A bright light from the tower suddenly lit up the area, obviously indicating another one of Fell's grisly experiments was underway.
"Doctor Holiday," Six said as he took the twins and set off for the lab, leaving behind a very stoic looking White Knight.
Dr. Holiday examined the newcomers to Providence with a very focused look on her face, wrapping Rex's arm in a bandage.
"Ow!" he shouted in pain. "Let me see your medical license."
"Six, we have nurses who can easily handle this," Holiday said... just as the doors to the lab were barred shut as Six walked an EVO into it. "What are you doing? That EVO is scheduled for processing."
Six walked the EVO up to the twins with a serious look on his face.
"Show her."
The twins shared a nervous look with each other as they placed their hands against the EVO and focused, curing the EVO as the resulting human fell unconscious and leaving Holiday surprised beyond belief.
"We found it, Doctor. The third alternative," Six said proudly.
"What are they... how..."
"Meet Rex and Roxie. The cure."
Holiday smiled as she ran up to Six, giving him a huge hug.
"This changes everything!"
The twins tapped Holiday's shoulder, gaining her attention with proud smiles.
Holiday later showed the twins to their new living quarters, looking at them as they slept soundly in their new beds.
"They finally asleep?" Six asked.
"It's amazing what fifteen burritos will do," Holiday smiled. "I can't wait to see Fell's face when we show him."
"No. Not a word to anyone. Tomorrow, we move them to a safe location."
"But I need to get to work on them straight away."
"Trust me, not everyone will feel the same way about working with an EVO. If we time this wrong, it could turn ugly."
"Ugh, I hate this war."
As Holiday walked off, Six turned a corner to find White Knight waiting for him.
"Hey, partner. How's Trix?" he asked.
"What are you doing in the medical ward?" Six asked. "I thought you hated germs."
"Made an exception today. Something I should know?"
"Just another day at the office," Six said, trying to leave, only for his partner to stop him.
"You can trust me."
"I know," Six said, walking away.
A suspicious White Knight looked at the twins living quarters with a glare.
In Six's dorm, he glared at his training dummy, slicing it to bits. He looked over his shoulder at the case on his dresser and opened it to reveal a sheathed dagger, which he slowly drew out, only to be interrupted by an alarm sounding throughout the base.
"Holiday, is Fell running protocols at night now?" Six asked, pressing the intercom next to his dresser... only to receive no answer. "Holiday?"
In the lab, all of the monitors fired up as Fell and his scientists looked on stoically with White Knight at the computer next to him.
"Prepare for disassembly."
"What are you doing?" Six asked, appearing by the doorway.
"I'm not going to allow my partner to risk his career for one bad call," White Knight said as the tables lowered to reveal two panicking twins looking at Six. "Did you think they couldn't get Holiday to talk?"
Six glared as he walked forwards to help the twins, only to be stopped by Fell.
"You're letting your emotions cloud your judgment, Six. With what we gleam from this boy and this girl, I could create tools that could inoculate the world."
"Why risk it? They can already cure them! I've seen it!"
"So what? We train them?" White Knight asked. "Make them two of us?"
Fell tried to bring a scalpel to Rex, but a tendril of wires grew from his torso, grabbed the small blade and snaped it in two.
"I thought they were sedated?"
"They are. It's their nanites," Fell said as he tried to do the same thing to Roxie, only for her nanites to generate a field of energy around her that blocked it and knocked it out of his hand. "They're protecting them."
The twins struggled as Rex's nanites grew a large mechanical gauntlet on his hand that grabbed Fell and tossed him away. They groaned as large orange and purple armor with black accents grew from their bodies.
"'One of us,' huh?" White Knight asked as he slammed a button on the wall that sounded an alarm through the entire base while the twins groaned in excruciating pain as their restraints snapped.
"Okay," Roxie said. "This is definitely not normal!"
"Enough of this!" White Knight said as he trained his pistol on the twins and fired, only for his partner to rush in and slice the bullet into two clean halves that separated and destroyed the two monitors behind him. "Have you lost it?! They're both one of them! If they power up, they'll destroy us all!"
"No!" Six shouted, deflecting every bullet that White Knight fired, blasting craters into the wall around him.
"So, that's it, huh?"
Six rushed forwards as White trained his assault rifle on the ninja agent, who easily blocked all the bullets with his sword.
Elsewhere, Holiday was being detained in one of the cages reserved for the EVOs that were captured by Providence.
"You can't treat me like this!" she shouted. "I have three PhD's! Let me out this instant!"
She then groaned as she slumped down next to her cagemate... Bobo Haha.
The chimpanzee EVO smirked as he reached down and plucked one of the pens out of the pocket of her lab jacket and took it apart.
"You know, maybe we can scratch each other's backs," he said as he started using the pieces of the pen as a lockpick.
"Excuse me?" Holiday asked as the cage door flew open.
"Right between the shoulder blades. And watch the nails."
Holiday glared intently before running off to the laboratory.
"You thought I was kidding about the back scratch? I got monkey dander!"
Rex and Roxie screamed in pain as electricity surged off their bodies while the fight between the two partners raged on with Six using his blades to deflect every bullet that White Knight shot at him.
"Stand down, Six!" he shouted. "We need you in this war!"
"What's the point of winning a war if we can't live with ourselves after?" Six asked.
White Knight growled as he removed the brace from his gun and charged forwards, starting to melee Six with it. Six blocked it and used his quick reflexes to smash White in the face as the burly soldier reacted quickly and socked him over the counter and through some lab equipment.
Six groaned as White Knight kicked his weapons away and picked him up and started laying down some really nasty punches to his partner's face as he beat his back, then kneed his stomach before lifting him up and forcing him to face the twins.
"We're supposed to be friends!" White Knight shouted. "They're monsters! What do you see in them?"
The twins groaned as the mechanical parts grew on them as Six looked intently.
"...Hope."
Six then socked him forwards as White Knight glared as he wiped his blood away and charged Six again, not realizing that he pressed the button on the lab's central disintegrator. Six got the better of White, delivering several quick and powerful strikes to several points of his partner's body. White threw a punch that Six quickly ducked to avoid before sweep-kicking his legs from under him.
Six was just about to deliver the final blow, when he felt a blow as a gunshot was heard from behind him... and he fell unconscious as Fell held the smoking gun in front of him.
"Thanks for talking some sense into him, Doc," White Knight said among the sparking destroyed lab equipment and White picked up his partner's sword and stalked over to the twins, who were almost completely covered in metal as they groaned.
"Wh-what's happening to us?" Rex asekd.
That was when a red light flashed throughout the lab as a loud alarm sounded out and WARNING showed on all the monitor screens as the twins spasmed in pain as the lab doors sealed shut.
"We're all going to burn," Fell said as he ran into the safety chamber.
White looked to the controls to abort the operation, only for him to be denied as the word ERROR showed on the monitor every time he pressed any kind of input and he angrily swiped the computers away... and looked over his shoulder to see Holiday in a room above, lifting the twins up with a crane arm.
"NO!"
White looked to see his partner recover, pushing himself up from the ground. He then picked him up and tried to get him to safety as the glass doors shut one by one and he tossed him to safety just as the final door sealed, leaving him stuck inside.
Six looked to see his partner smile as he was stuck inside the chamber as the disassembly generator sparked uncontrollably.
"Why?" he asked, banging on the glass.
"I know what side I'm on," White smiled... and then screamed uncontrollably as the entire room was enveloped in a white light with him inside.
"Do something!" Six shouted, grabbing Fell by the collar.
"Once the cycle starts, it's impossible to shut down."
Then, as if the universe was trying to silence the madman, the cycle shut down as Holiday and Bobo looked to see Rex and Roxie by the controls, touching them as their hands glowed with blue circuitry.
"Impossible?" Roxie smirked. "As if."
"How did you guys-" Holiday began.
"We ordered it to turn off and it just did," Rex smiled... before he and Roxie looked to each other and then their surroundings.
"Wait, where... where are we?" Roxie asked.
"Doctor Holiday," Fell said to his subordinate over the monitor. "Maybe... you were right."
"Maybe you should start looking for another job."
White Knight groaned as he hit his knees, his clothes completely tattered.
"Hey, Marshmallow!" Bobo joked, hopping on top of the control console. "Nice look!"
White Knight, now with bleached blonde hair and extremely pale skin glared to the chimp EVO.
"How's the training?" an EVO-free White Knight, now sealed inside of his office, asked his former partner over the monitor.
"Slow."
"Not all you hoped they'd be?"
Roxie giggled as Bobo wrestled her to the ground, now in her signature attire we know along with her brother.
"Still, who would've thought the kinder gentler approach would do such wonders for our profile? The notion of a cure has gotten Providence funding and worldwide prestige. The committee's happy. Your new partners may just be the best thing this operation could've asked for. Funny isn't it? Because of you, I can never leave this chamber. I'm now the only pure human left in the world. I'm the perfect poster boy to run this operation. I suppose I should thank you."
"I promised them that we would help uncover their past. Find their family."
"Whatever keeps them on their leash. But if they show the slightest sign of turninmg into those things again, it's all on you."
"Oh man!" Rex said, laughing as Bobo stood on top of Noah. "Hold him down! I'll get the camera!"
"This is totally going on my album!" Roxie laughed as she and Rex ran into their room to look for the camera... and then paused as they saw a brown box on their nightstand.
"Happy birthday."
The twins looked to see their mentor walk into the room.
"From you?" Rex asked. "For us?"
"You must be joking," Roxie smiled.
"You, your work, it has made a big difference. I just-"
"Yeah, we know we're pretty great," Rex said. "But seriously, get off the sap train, Six. It's creeping us out."
The twins opened the box to see two blades in black sheathes.
"Wow," Roxie said as she slowly drew her short blade from its sheath. "Six, thank you."
"It's called a tanto. A ceremonial blade of a samurai warrior."
"Samurai. Awesome..." Rex said.
"This is their triplet," Six said, showing his own tanto.
Rex and Roxie drew their blades and looked closely at the metal.
"Is that... writing?" Roxie asked.
"The bushido symbol of loyalty. It means 'whether for good or for ill, our fates will follow the same path.' This one stays with me."
"Think this thing can cut through Holiday's chocolate cake?" Rex asked.
"Anything's possible."
The twins smiled proudly as they sheathed their tantos and gave a bow to Six.