While Zack and X were out dealing with one catastrophe, the other Hunters would find themselves no less busy, having to scramble to deal with the other Mavericks quickly before anything else could go wrong.
Fortunately, they did have help in the form of Ruby and Sapphira were cleared to join in, apparently given a clean bill of health. Knowing what had happened with Zack, everyone was uneasy about this idea, but both sisters were adamant.
"I promise you," the blue-haired teen had pled. "I don't feel Lucien's presence. Do you?"
Ruby shook her head.
Layer, Palette, Alia, and Bailey had a quick yet heated argument about this.
The former figuratively bit her lip she tried to maintain calm. "From what we can tell, you seem to be fine and free of his influence..."
"...but you still betrayed us by collecting that combat data for Black to send to Lucien, even outside of his direct control. We can't overlook that," Alia added sternly.
The blonde, doll-like navigator knew what she was about to say would be unpopular. She fidgeted with her ponytail nervously.
"I think...we should give them a chance."
The mechanized farm girl tried and failed to hide her outrage. "What? After what they've done, you're just gonna let them go?!"
"We don't exactly have many options, Bailey. We have 6 other Mavericks that still need to be dealt with on top of all these detours that Lucien's taken us on and Zero's a missing wild card until Wily decides to act."
"You know, if that's the case," Axl, who had been impatiently playing around with his weapons of choice waiting for them to finish. "I say we let 'em pay the dues for their crimes. One of us can take one of each and keep an eye on them."
Alia couldn't fault his logic, but... "If the worst happens?"
"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it." The look the normally relaxed and cocky young gun gave the two made the unsaid implication quite clear.
As three out of the four steadily began to fall in line with this train of thought, the fourth shook her head steadily, staring disbelievingly at her comrades.
"Y-You can't possibly be okay with this, can you, London?"
"Of course," the golden reploid answered as if it was the most obvious response in the world before locking eyes with her directly, her tone softening. "Bailey, think about it! I was like them a few hours ago. I nearly killed you guys! If the Hunters weren't so…so…nice about it, I would be dead by now…"
"Princess's got a point," Axl quipped, voice tense and impatient.
London sent a flicker of a smile his way, grateful for the backup, as the gray reploid shifted focus to her boyfriend, expecting him to stand by her on this at the very least.
Cody had been quiet throughout the conversation, having to shove out his twin's parting words to carefully weigh the pros and cons of this decision.
He looked from the sisters to the Navigation crew and back again. "We should take them with us."
Before the brunette could protest, he held up a hand. "I didn't say I trusted them…"
He regarded them with a stern glare lifted straight from whenever his mom was upset with the boys (but mainly Zack). It seemed to have worked, as the two looked away.
His girlfriend didn't look comfortable with this arrangement in the slightest, but Axl was the one to ask the expected question.
"Are you sure you can take 'em out if you have to?"
He didn't answer for an instant. Then, slowly, steadily, he pointed his arm cannon at the two, deliberately leaving it uncharged. He wanted to make clear his intentions, not fire.
"You have my word."
No one spoke for what felt like an eternity, with those who knew the taller twin better stunned by the resolution in his tone.
When the silence was broken, it was arranged that he would be going with Sapphira as London went with Ruby. Axl wanted to take a solo mission, an idea which met little resistance.
The Hunter had long since proven that he could handle things himself.
The Kansan finally had to relent, but not before walking up to the two fighters, shooting the sisters a dark and distrusting look on the way.
"You guys really aren't budging on this, are you?"
The heiress slowly shook her head as Cody softened considerably, though he showed no sign of backing away from his stance.
"I just want to get this over with."
"I'm just…sick of watching my friends constantly teetering on the edge of death while I just sit here wringing my hands!"
Her broken, scared words rocked him. He had been so focused on everyone and everything else that he hadn't considered how she was feeling.
"I'm sorry… I didn't…"
Bailey interrupted him by enveloping him in a hug, allowing the boy to truly relax for the first time in what felt like eons.
"Uh, Bailey? I know that you're having a moment and all, but…"
For once, London was genuinely hesitant to bulldoze over someone else's moment in favor of whatever she wanted. Noting this, for a split second after the hug broke up, her friend regarded her with a ghost of a smile before snapping back to business.
"…weren't you going to show me something about clothes before I, uh, freaked out?"
"Oh, that's right! Come follow me…"
-000-
That argument was how Cody and Sapphira found themselves stalking through a blizzard in a derelict installation, dotted with rocky terrain and fissures just beneath the icy surface.
Their reploid bodies stood taller than any human could hope to when pitted against the subzero temperatures, but that didn't stop them from needing to clear away building ice and frost from themselves and stretch every so often to keep from getting too stiff.
As for the fighting they had to do, though, the few enemies present in these frozen wastes were not only well-adapted to them, but intent on freezing them both at every opportunity.
It all went by without a word (that wasn't absolutely necessary), the silence manly enforced by the male of the duo.
After Sapphira's many vain attempts to strike up conversation, Cody decided to put a stop to them right then and there.
"Stop wasting your breath. I don't want to hear any of your excuses. You're on a short leash as it is!"
"I wasn't going to make any," the darker toned girl snapped back before quieting down as much as the howling storm around her would allow. "It's just… I'm sorry."
The unexpected sincerity in her tone forced him to look away to keep himself from being swayed. He had to be strong! "…as if that fixes anything. You still could've said 'no' at any point before Lucien took control."
The blue-haired girl was indignant. "That's not fair! What if that monster decided to take control of me or Ruby at some point earlier on and just had us kill one of you guys? Or if he pointed us at X, Zero, or Axl? We BOTH know how that would've ended!"
Cody found it hard to argue with this, although he did have one other question.
"How long did he have you guys brainwashed?"
"We don't know..."
The talking petered out from there, as both apparently needed time to think.
Open snow and ice transitioned into a frozen cave as they walked and fought on.
The fissures and cracks in the ground became more and more frequent, giving way to entire chasms as they went along. Not only did they have to jump over them, but the mechanical growls and groans audible below hinted at something far more dangerous than even that.
"What was that?!"
"No clue." Sapphira's lack of ranged weaponry really came back to bite her here, as she could only warily point her staff at the fissure next to them.
Taking a few investigative potshots with his Buster and a few different weapons, he got no obvious result. Contacting the Base proved unfruitful, too.
"We're not getting any backup, are we?" The girl asked when he saw the defeated look on his face.
Getting enough of an answer there, she asked as they walked, "What do we do now?"
"I don't know, avoid the thing?"
"I guess that's as good a plan as any..." Putting aside her weapon, she focused on keeping a wide berth and keeping close to the boy.
Unfortunately, the creature still knew that at the very least, something of interest was above it, as the noises it made turned into what both reploids could surmise were attempts to surface, its constant bashing against the ice forcing them to go and stay airborne for as long as they could, to avoid falling through the cracks and into the grasp of whatever was down there, and even then, that didn't stop it from blowing them off their feet when the inevitable came to pass.
A massive hydra made completely out of solid ice burst from its lair, two of its three heads fixed its gaze angrily on Cody and Sapphira...
-000-
With London and Ruby, things were a lot less tense, partly due to their immediate surroundings being marginally less perilous, finding themselves adrift in Cyberspace (not that London properly understood what that was).
A maze of teleporters and see-through stairwells sent them off in various different directions, with them ending up in a variety of rooms, whether they required standard platforming, combat, or just plain luck in the case of a few endless spiked vertical corridors, they made it far enough to be warped back to the central room at the end of each course. They didn't know who awaited them at the end, but learned that with every room they completed, they were getting scored for some reason.
It all provided a decent distraction, as neither of the former traitors quite knew what to say to the other, Ruby staring at her hands as if seeing them for the first time.
It took them clearing most of the rooms before the heiress noticed and pointed it out.
"So, uh, what's with you?"
She had been hovering over the pixie-haired girl as she asked this, unintentionally scaring her, having to back off and confirm that her weapon was lowered to calm her down.
"I-It's nothing!"
London raised an eyebrow, but backed off, visibly not buying her words, but deciding to give her some space regardless. She looked particularly out of her element as she practically forced herself to say her next words.
"When you wanna talk… I'm here."
With that, the two split back up, leaving each other to their thoughts.
-000-
Back with Cody and Sapphira, their ground and aerial maneuvering was getting a workout as they repeatedly dodged every snap of the three-headed beast's jaws. They couldn't evade everything, as their legs now resembling Swiss cheese to a point could attest.
It got to the point where they couldn't stay airborne any longer and hit the ground.
"Remind me why I agreed to help you again?"
The taller twin launched a Sonic Boom his enemy's way, momentarily forcing one of the heads back. "A shot at redemption?"
"…and how's that coming along, in your opinion?"
Settling on an idea regarding their current predicament, he threw back his answer. "Well, I guess I can't exactly hate you after all you've been through… Anyway, how good is your staff's range?"
"I can cover medium to close. Why?"
"Take a good look at the center one's neck. Does it look…thinner in places to you?"
Her eyes narrowed as she picked up on the less solid part of the ice dragon, up near its head. "Your flamethrower, can it reach up there?"
He jumped up, unable to hover as he'd like to compared to earlier on. Another dodge and attack (this time by a swat by the girl's staff) bought them a few more seconds. "Not on its own. Can you give me a lift?"
Her hovering abilities were a little less degraded, but it would still take a good leap to close the gap.
"Yeah, but we'll probably need to get all three of its heads dazed to get a good opening.
With an affirmative nod, Cody did just that, using regular shots to bait the rightmost head into attacking before rearing back and swinging at it with an electrified kick, slamming it against the other two heads.
"Remember to hit it as hard as you can! I'll handle the rest."
"Right!"
Her staff swings made did indeed weaken the heads in question, even with considerable effort on her part, and one by one, Cody used his Fire Wave to cauterize the wound instantly, removing the heads from play for good.
The remains of the creature fell lifelessly to the ground, forcing the both of them out of the way one last time as they broke into glass-like shards.
"Glad…that's over," the girl panted, matching the boy's (lack of) energy as they exchanged glances with each other.
There was absolutely no way they could risk looking for a fight in their current state. They knew they'd have to go up against the Maverick awaiting them eventually, but until then, they would be better served saving their energy…
-000-
By the time London and Ruby had wrapped up the last rooms and were heading to the final teleporter, the latter was ready to talk.
"London, what's it mean to be real?"
A ripple of fear flowed through the golden reploid like electricity. It was good for her that she had no stomach to ache. "I...uh... Why?"
"I kinda heard something while they were fixing me and Saffie. They said we weren't ever really humans, that we were always Reploids."
"What's that mean?"
Now it was the younger girl's turn to look shaken, to the point where she was bordering on (figurative) tears.
"I think it means that that monster... He made us. He's our Father!"
London once again found herself putting her arms around someone. Traitor or not, her heart absolutely bled for her.
"No," she said sternly. "Lucien's no Daddy of yours… Black—"
She cut herself off right there. Was she even ready to hear the truth?
"Huh?"
She chose to fly past that particular subject. "Your real Daddy is supposed to take care of you and teach you important stuff. Did that crazy robot do anything other than use you?"
Ruby shook her head.
"Remember that. Also remember that there's also people who do care about and love you, sometimes whether you like it or not." She couldn't help but let slip a wistful smile at the memory she was picturing featuring a certain British man…
When questioned about this, she simply said, "It's nothing," letting her smile naturally drop away. "Are you ready? The bad guy should be wherever this thing leads."
Ruby broke the embrace. "Thank you, London!"
"Londie. My friends call me that, and you can call me it, too."
"Okay."
-000-
Sapphira had been blocking out from her mind any questions about her true nature, as it simply wasn't the time to think about them while they were in immediate danger. True to their new strategy, she and Cody were keeping as far away from the Mavericks' lines of sight as they could as they made their way deeper into the network of caves.
"So, how'd you figure out how to get rid of the dragon?"
"Greek myth of the Hydra. One of Heracles' Twelve Labors," Cody rattled off with casual ease even with his voice forced into a discreet whisper.
"Don't you mean 'Hercules'?"
"To a normie, maybe."
"...yeah." Why didn't she like how he said that? "Alright, Smart Guy. What's our next move?"
The male reploid promptly sobered back up. The path split from where they were standing, the snow and ice separating out into three separate tunnels.
He frowned upon being faced with his choice. None of the paths would be smooth sailing. The left path was particularly icy, spikes that would skewer them both on touch lining the sides. The center path was less so, but the interior seemed to be a sort of revolving tube that was also peppered with the deadly thorns. The rightmost path hardly even had a "ground" to speak of, with moving, the slippery platforms hovering over a bottomless pit.
There was no telling where the tunnels let out, so they were going to have to bank on whatever decision they made leading them to their ultimate target.
"How much traction do reploids get on ice?" He asked reluctantly after weighing his trio of ugly options.
"Depends on the model and purpose."
"Do combat units get reinforced for better movement on icy surfaces?"
The braided girl crossed her arms as she thought back on what she researched. "From what I know, those kinds of modifications are restricted to certain armor sets. Use cases would be too situational."
"Guess we'll just have to deal with it, then, because I think we should pick the left one."
Sapphira cringed as she looked one last time at the latter two. "Makes sense. There, we can take our time and at least lessen our chances of getting skewered.
"R-Right."
She caught the change in tone, as well as his eyes darting off to the side. "What? Don't tell me you're scared of a little ice skating."
Shrugging off a memory of his last attempt at the activity, he forced his half-spoken, half-mumbled response to sound semi-confident. "No. I'm fine. Doesn't matter... We need to go."
He got a strange look, but no protest as they took off for the leftmost path.
-000-
Their attempts to get and keep purchase on the surface were predictably miserable, with Sapphira only keeping her footing in brief interludes between hopping around and trying to ration enough of a dash to throw her straight ahead. On the other hand, the smarter twin almost abruptly found himself spending most of his time on his back, more than once sending himself zig-zagging towards the spikes along the side and only managing to save himself by virtue of firing behind him at the right angle.
While the dark-skinned girl had her own challenges to contend with, she did spare a passing glance here or there to gawk at the display before her, failing to hold back laughter after a while.
"Take a picture, it'll last longer," he called back irritably the moment he heard it.
-000-
Said laughter finally came to an end when they made it to the end of the cave, learning that all three entrances filtered out at the same point.
"Huh." Cody stood up to see that he had come out of his ordeal with an added mosaic of scratches, but still very much in one piece. He began to walk towards the small mountain they would have to wall kick their way up to get to the Maverick's lair at its peak only for the blue-haired girl to bar his way with an arm, a coy smile across her lips.
"Not so fast. Spill it."
"What?"
"You froze up back when we were getting ready to go. What was that all about?"
Another avoidant look as he unsuccessfully tried walking around her. "I was kind of hoping you didn't see that..."
"What have you got to lose? Just go for it!"
As he absentmindedly kicked around a snowpile, he flashed back to a time not so long ago...
-000-
At one point, the ship had stopped for a week in Canada as part of a shop class. Over the course of said trip, Cody had been secretly working up the courage to ask Bailey to compete with him in a boyfriend/girlfriend skating competition scheduled to take place during one of their few "free" days. Along with that (and casually dispatching his assignments on the side), he had to remedy the fact that he didn't have the faintest idea of how to skate.
After a few days of beating around the bush with Bailey and a futile attempt or two to teach himself the fundamentals of ice skating through a book he bought, he was at last forced to swallow his pride and ask for help from Zack, who was busy skating around while teaching Marcus and Woody to do the same.
"Why the heck are you out here?" The elder blonde would ask as he helped him up after he stumbled out into the ice.
"Research."
His confusion melted into an amused chuckle. "You're a horrible liar."
"One, you're about the last person on the planet who should be calling anyone out for lying, and two, it wasn't really a lie. I'm totally out here for research...into ice skating."
"You could get enough of that just by watching. Why join in...?" A look of realization. "It's got something to do with Bailey, doesn't it?"
"Maybe it does. Does it matter? Look, I need to figure out how to do this before that competition this weekend."
After Cody had told him in just enough detail about his situation to hold his attention, Zack dramatized the act of thinking about it for long enough that his taller brother was about to snap at him before he answered.
"Sure. Why not? It's not like I've got anything better to do..."
Cody opened his mouth, only for his twin to cut him off.
"…that doesn't involve school."
The smarter twin shook his head at that last part, slightly disappointed, but unsurprised all the same. "No girls to flirt with?"
"Nah. Got most of that out of my system earlier this week, though I did get to know this chick from Quebec..."
-000-
"So, he taught you?" Sapphira asked, making use of this break along with him to loosen up and such.
"He tried to. You saw how well that turned out. I was going to make what I could work anyway and did finally ask her to join...only for her to say that she'd rather watch the contest with me and consider that a date."
"That's…nice…"
There was something in how she said those simple words that smacked of envy. Longing, even, but she changed the subject before he could mention it. "We…should go deal with the Maverick now."
Letting his suspicions go with a nod, they both took off for their goal.
-000-
The fight with the one the Hunters would know as Cyber Peacock was bizarre to say the least. For the first few hits of damage, London actually had to be protected while Ruby drew his fire and provided some token offense. The reason? The heiress had decided to use the gift her friend had made for her. She remembered the farm girl's warning…
"This thing's the first of its kind, so it's gonna take a moment for you to change in and out of it. Don't forget, you won't be able to use your other weapons when you're like this, so make it count!"
To her, this situation definitely counted. Especially if she could pull this off…
All she had to do was get enough time to stand still and visualize the armor type she wanted.
She was feeling…ninja-y today…
Meanwhile, Ruby was running out of ideas to stall her foe.
"You wanna hurry it up, Londie? This weird bird creature…won't stop…flinging its stupid…feathers at me!"
Every few words was punctuated by her dodging just that as the robot made use of portals to make it even harder for her.
By the time she had a chance to look for the golden reploid, she'd completely vanished from the scene.
"What? What happened to…?"
Just as she had shifted focus away from her opponent and let her guard down, the threat looming behind her to take advantage, she heard a simple command that even the Peacock took notice of.
"Get out of the way."
She did so, only for something to go sailing past her head and blasted the digital bird upwards with a bomb of what appeared to be…glitter?
"Gotcha!"
It had no time or chance to guard the rain of metal bursting forth from the sky. Just as it was peeling itself up from that attack, it felt pressure nailing it back down to the ground, by none other than London. Even through the mask that her Shinobi-styled armor provided, the confident smirk she had on her face was palpable.
"Hello. And goodbye. Yoroitoshi!"
With a quick breaking of its guard followed by a massive channeling of energy, Cyber Peacock was blown apart in an instant, the redheaded girl having to spin her staff fast enough to shield her from all the pieces raining down.
Once things went quiet again, she looked over at young woman, sporting something that she hadn't expected, and it wasn't her new armor.
Her mask was down, and she was sporting a playful, confident grin, spinning a kunai around on her finger.
"So, what did you think? I was like a super-cool ninja girl!"
"That was…awesome," Ruby said, almost speechless.
Her grin faded. "Now all I gotta do is change back. Hold on…"
It took a minute, but soon enough, she was back to her normal self.
"Now to get us back home…"
Soon enough, they too realized that no one on the other end was picking up.
"I don't have to be super smart to know that that's not good…"
Ruby hurried over to her nervously, hammering the emergency button to send them home before she could protest.
-000-
Cody and Sapphira walked into the Maverick's lair to see a multitude of statues of different Mavericks. They could make that assumption because they picked out a familiar-looking eagle and whale among the bunch.
Both had their weapons primed and ready, practically expecting them to come to life and attack them…meaning they barely had time to dodge out of the way of the massive bovine creature plowing through the statues and headed straight for them.
Blizzard Buffalo had hit the scene, already turning around for another attack.
It never hit its target, no matter how many times it tried. Even its tries at freezing its enemies with an icy blast were for naught, as they were simply too fast, heavily weakened from their past adventure as they were.
Not willing to risk a worse situation by playing games, the Hunters overwhelmed and destroyed their target, turning the mech-animal to scrap in minutes.
As the twin went to hit the emergency button to head back, he felt the strangest sensation of dread.
Swallowing it back, and grabbing his partner's hand, he made them both disappear.
-TBC-
This chapter was quite the lengthy and tricky one to get down. A lot had to happen here, yet at the same time, things had to keep moving. Still, plenty of character work to be had here, so I hope you enjoyed it. Please do ask questions if you need clarification on anything!
On your way out the door, be sure to ask questions, comment, review and show your support in any way available if you liked what you've read here. Also, keep tabs on this story and profile for more. Goodbye until next time!