Meanwhile, everyone left behind was trying to figure out how to get a freaking out and stubborn London in front of the scanner. Unlike Cody, who went through even with his reservations, the golden Hunter was proving rather unyielding.

"Come on, it's only for a few seconds. Now… get…over…here!"

Alia was busy attempting to physically drag her in front of the scanner towards the red scanner situated in the back of the room. With London being surprisingly strong for her petite figure, that was proving to be no easy feat, forcing Bailey, and eventually even Ruby and Sapphira to step in and help. Cody, however, simply stood there staring at a scene he had not pictured being a part of when he woke up this morning…

"No way! I'm not going anywhere near that thing," came what felt like the thousandth protest from the girl in question.

"Dearest Boyfriend, you know you can help now, right? Why don't you use that magnificent brain of yours to think of a plan to get her to stop thrashing around!"

The sound of the brunette's "you're in trouble" voice (and London kicking her in the face with her loose foot) snapped the boy out of his trance-like state. He didn't really have any ideas on how to deal with this.

Unless…

Cody gave Bailey a look. "I…we could try that again…"

Her eyes went wide. "No. We're not doing that again. You remember full well what happened last time!"

Alia was huffing and puffing as she begged. "Anything, I'll try anything. I don't care as long as we get to leave with our arms intact!"

Before any suggestion could be given, however Zero walked up, apparently through watching all of this. He simply picked her up, thrashing or not, and put her through the scanner before putting her back down.

"There. Happy?"

"It was that easy…?" The blonde female reploid fell to her knees. "All this time… All that effort?"

Everybody was exasperated. Even Ruby, who had barely even interacted with the group, did a silent face-palm.

"Wait a minute," Axl said, glancing at his recovering partner before turning his gaze to the couple in the room. "You said you've done this before? I'd like to hear that story…"

"Um, it's not exactly something we look back on fondly…" the brunette looked anxious.

"…especially Zack." Cody added, hoping that the scarred reploid would just drop the subject.

Unfortunately, much like how his twin normally was, he wasn't about to do so until he got what he wanted.

Caving finally, and after a quick look around to ensure a certain someone was still out of the room….

"Fine. But you didn't hear it from me…"

-000-

The so-called "Wisdom Tooth Incident" left lasting scars for everyone involved. Everyone in London Tipton's life (especially the S.S. Tipton's Manager, Marion Moseby) had been goading and begging her to get her wisdom teeth taken out. In her mind, however, no "wizard tooth" or whatever was about to slow her down or keep her out of the spotlight. This went on until the pain was obviously unbearable and she was drooling.

The truth was written all over her face even as she continued to fight this, however, and everyone who knew her personally could see the truth right through her bluster.

She was scared.

The dark-skinned Brit had run through absolutely all of his options. Nothing had worked, not calls from her oldest friend, Maddie, not an old friend by the name of Arwin offering to extract the tooth himself (which would be highly illegal, by the way), not Woody's plan to hypnotize her (which went straight over her head)…

Anything was better than turning to…him.

Eventually, after numerous failed attempts, he was forced to call an "emergency meeting" near the smoothie shop late one night to deal with this once and for all.

"Tell me that any of you have any other ideas…"

Several heads shook in response. Woody, a rotund, bushy-haired, bespectacled friend of Zack's, was nursing a broken Jaw, Marcus (a young former rapper also friendly with the group) a black eye, and Cody…well, he just wanted to avoid getting killed.

He glanced in his direction, but looked back at the taller twin, pleading in his voice. "Cody, tell me you have something up your sleeve, please…"

His tone was reluctant, a portent of what was to come. "I've got nothing. I'm…not the guy for that."

With the last of his other options extinguished, he turned to the walking, talking engine of chaos and destruction that had made his life a nightmare for over a decade and a half.

"Do you have any ideas, Zachary?"

"You're asking for my input?" the boy gasped in mock shock before pretending to look around. "Huh, the apocalypse looks balmier than I thought it would be…"

"This is serious," the manager hissed, though inwardly he had to agree: he imagined the end would have been…well, hotter.

Taking the hint after a moment, he said, "Alright, alright. Get Mr. Tipton on the line."

"What? Why?!"

"Just trust me."

Normally, the idea of trusting the mischievous hooligan whose pranks and schemes of various kinds had left no small amount of physical cost and emotional distress in his wake would be nothing short of laughable… Especially after the Fiji Incident. He was still making payments for that.

...unfortunately for him, though, beggars couldn't be choosers.

After warning him with a dark glare not to screw this one up like he did back then, he left to do as instructed.

Zack continued giving orders, turning to his twin and his girlfriend. "I'm gonna need you two to convince London that she's going to be part of a photo shoot."

Cody was horrified at the unethical nature of the idea. "You want us to lie to her face-?!"

Bailey had an eyebrow raised, hands on her hips. "You do realize that she's our friend, Your friend, right?"

Zack closed his eyes tightly. "I know that, but I also know that the only way to get London Tipton to do anything she doesn't already want to do is to trick or bribe her. Remember how she got on the ship in the first place?"

The other twin had no counter to that. "I still don't like this," he groaned.

"Good to know I'm not alone."

-000-

It turned out that convincing her of the imaginary photo shoot was the easy part. The hard part was finding a private hospital, as a public one would invite oceans of paparazzi after the Tipton heiress. Thankfully, Mr. Tipton had pulled some strings and got her into a particularly private facility, far away from any prying eyes, ears, or cameras.

In the interest of preventing another fight, the girl was kept sedated using a second hypnotism kit he borrowed from Woody (the first one met a rather unfortunate end). The owner of said kit, along with Marcus, chose to stay out of this attempt in a joint bid for self-preservation.

It was 5:30 in the morning by the time she was finally on the cot, and everyone had been up for hours.

Zack, for his part, couldn't care less about his lack of sleep. In fact, the grin plastered on his face might've blinded anyone looking directly at it. Literally everything he'd come up with had gone according to plan. By 6:00, the teeth would be out, at least one of his plans would've worked, and someone might look at him in a non-disapproving or disappointed way. Cody and Bailey were just grateful that nothing in particular had gone wrong…yet.

Mr. Moseby, however, was on pins and needles with paranoia…

"This is too good to be true, this is too good to be true, this is too good to be true…"

The brunette girl tried to reassure the panicking manager. "Look at it this way…if something was going to go wrong, it probably would've happened already, right?"

The group watched as she was put under. As soon as she was, they were ushered out into the hallway to wait.

"I can't believe this is actually working…" Stunned disbelief was clear on the younger twin's face.

Zack almost looked as if he'd burst into one of the heiress's famous (and somehow copyrighted) "Yay, me" claps. "I know, right? I love it when a plan comes together…"

"Since when does that happen?"

"I guess there's a first time for everything then, Dear Brother," came his almost gleeful response. He was determined not to let anything anyone said dampen his mood. Even things so silly as his brother's "facts and logic".

This would all work out. It just had to…

Suddenly, a loud BANG coming from inside the room jarred everyone out of their nervous, indistinct chatter.

"Here it comes," said Moseby ominously, echoing the sentiments of the waiting group. The self-described "better looking" twin's grin faltered ever so slightly.

Okay, that could've been anything, he told himself.

"How on earth did she just shrug off the anesthesia like that?!"

Sounds of a struggle, followed by frantic cries to "hold her down" and grunts of pain…

"Could've been anything…" the shorter blonde mumbled mostly to himself again and again, his grin long gone and now sweating bullets.

Finally (and by the sound of things, with maybe a broken bone or two), a male nurse emerged from the room.

"Good news. We got the tooth out…"

"I've got a feeling there's some bad news attached to this," Bailey said flatly with a bit of dread lining her tone.

"See for yourself…"

-000-

The Operating Room was a warzone of bodies with a certain dazed heiress conked out in the middle, sans the offending teeth.

Everyone's jaws hit the floor at the sight, but the worst news was yet to come.

"I presume Mr. Tipton will be fitting the bill for her and this little operation after we put the finishing touches on it?" The man did some calculations before handing an almost comically long bill to the overwhelmed manager. "This includes all the staff's bills and all the therapy, physical and otherwise, that they'll have to go through after being beaten down by Ms. Kung Fu Master over there."

The girl in question lazily waved, a smile on her face looking particularly weird with blood trailing from it.

If he had much hair to speak of in the first place, it would've turned white and fallen out. The shorter twin's smile couldn't look more nervous if he'd tried.

"A-At least the teeth are out…?"

He looked at Zack as if he was going to scold or punish him, as usual…

…only for said look to fall away in favor of something far more chilling: indifference.

The words that came out of the man's mouth were simple but cut like knives. "Enough. I'm through dealing with you. Consider yourself dead to me."

"W-what?"

"Did I stutter? You're not my problem anymore." his words were slow and deliberate, ensuring that there was no mistaking the true gravity of the situation. However, as he spoke, his façade of apathy slowly fell away, revealing a brokenhearted man at the end of his rope. "I've dealt with the pranks, schemes, and general machinations of an overgrown child who sees everything as a joke or game for far too long."

"I-I'm sorry! I'll fix it. I'll change—"

The boy's panicked, desperate pleas fell on deaf ears. "Don't you dare interrupt me. I can't believe was such a fool as to trust you. After all, everyone around you knows that your word means absolutely nothing anyway. How many times have we done this song and dance, Zachary? How many?!"

When he got silence as his reply, he continued on with his tirade.

"Especially when said child has shared a womb and 16 YEARS with such a wonderful example of what he ought to have matured into. HE has fantastic grades. HE has a serious, stable relationship. HE treats everyone with genuine kindness and respect! Shall I go on?!"

Zack briefly glanced back at the person he was talking about, who in turn looked as if he wanted to sink into the tiled floor under him.

"But I... I'm not him..."

"If only you were… Instead, all you've ever managed to do is hold him back from his true potential by involving him with your nonsense. Good thing he keeps his distance from your horrid influence nowadays."

Everyone present heard that statement, as well as the unfiltered disappointment saturating it. Even Moseby himself seemed to realize just at the end of his statement the nature of what he'd just said, but it was too late to take it back now.

A particularly bitter part of him wanted the boy to feel the way he aways felt for once, anyway.

"Just...get out of my life and don't come back. I'm through wasting my precious time on a…on a lost cause. This will be the last mess of yours I will ever clean up."

With that, the dark-skinned Brit left his now former nemesis just standing there, frozen solid, motionless, soundless, and practically thoughtless.

Except for one thing. Something that he'd never, ever allow normally.

Trembling, tears were rolling down his face as he shook his head ceaselessly, as if in total denial of what just happened, and muttered through his uncontrollable sobs like a broken record three simple words.

"Please don't go..."

-000-

In the time since, they both avoided each other like the plague as much as physically possible. Any attempt to bring the subject up to either party was met with a deflection or dismissal of it. Though they tried going through the motions of acting as if nothing had happened, it was clear to everyone around them that that was all they were doing…

-000-

"…and it's been like that ever since," Cody finished.

"That…was actually kind of funny," Axl commented.

"Yeah, well, it's not exactly fun living—"

His sentence was cut off by the sight of Black and his own brother, the latter leveling a glare at him that could have vaporized his head before walking towards X.

Just how much had he heard?

"What did you want, X?"

Thankfully, the subject was swiftly changed.

As Zack listened to the summary X gave, he couldn't help but be a little intrigued at the ideas getting powers from enemies. Had he been in a better mood, he'd be all over it.

"So, what happens now?"

"Follow me," X answered, leading them to their next destination, not noticing that for the briefest moment, Ruby's eyes flashed an angry red and a smirk briefly formed on the girl's face, especially when looking at the utterly guilt-ridden look covering the golden-armored girl's face.

This may just be useful, indeed…