Upon touchdown at Central Highway, X took a deep breath to collect himself. Cody, however, couldn't believe what he was seeing: robots of all shapes and sizes were wreaking havoc everywhere.

Upon realizing this, he frowned. "Oh, great. These Mavericks are really making a mess. Guess we've got work to do."

The blonde went wide-eyed. "What? How are we supposed to clean up all of this?!"

"Just follow my lead, okay?" X withdrew his X-Buster, much to his pupil's shock. Picking up on this, he added, "You should be able to call yours out with a single thought. Try it."

X took off, with Cody trailing behind, trying to do as instructed. Soon, his arm was sucked back in in favor of his own "C-Buster", not that he had much time to marvel at this. He had to keep up, after all.

The protege moved along, mowing down minor enemies almost instinctively with the plasma from his arm cannon. He eventually made it to X, at a clearing in the destroyed highway right under an overpass. A shadow looming overhead drew his eyes upward.

A nasty-looking scorpion mecha dropped to the ground right in front of the duo. Aiming for Cody, it lashed out its massive tail at him. He barely managed a clunky leap out of the way before he could get skewered. Opening its claws, it sent a volley of missiles the two's way. X dodged with relative ease, while Cody followed suit, until one caught him, burning and blasting him away.

His thoughts were sent reeling along with his body. Ugh, that really hurts, but what can I do to that thing? It's much bigger than anything I've dealt with up to this point…

Nevertheless, he aimed a volley of shots at the scorpion…to no avail whatsoever, except to aggro it (as his brother might say). Enraged, his foe charged at him. He was at a loss, until an idea popped into his head.

Moving quickly around it, he peppered the creature with shots, trying to foul its aim. It took a bit for him to realize that the shots he took while moving were doing noticeable damage.

When he realized this, he stopped to take note of it…

…allowing the scorpion to pinpoint him.

It lashed out with its tail again, this time dead set on the blonde, only for it to hit empty air instead.

Cody found himself sprawling to the ground yet again, this time courtesy of X.

"You can't afford to hesitate like that," he scolded.

"S-Sorry."

"Stay put." Cody watched as the lighter blue reploid made short work of the bug, eventually forcing him to shield his eyes from the blast of the explosion that would result.

Letting out a sigh, X turned back to him.

"Thanks. For saving me, I mean."

X gave the boy a confident smile. "No problem."

With that last word, they warped away.

-TBC-

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