Eagle loosed another blast at Theta and dived in after his own shot. Theta managed to escape the first blast, but found herself in the path of a grinning Eagle. He pulled up right in front of Theta and grasped her by the shoulders.

Theta grimaced from the searing pain as his claws dug into her. She struggled to raise her arm cannon, but in vain. As he raised her from the ground, Theta feared that she might be meeting the ground again at a not too appetising acceleration of 9.81 metres per second per second. Apparently, that was exactly what Eagle had in mind, but he shook her up a bit just for fun before letting her plunge.

Suddenly, a blast almost knocked Eagle out of the sky. It took Eagle a moment to spot an excess of blonde hair perched on a completely black monstrous flying machine. With its lights turned off, the glider was barely perceptible in the moonlight. A few shots were exchanged, with neither party suffering much damage. Theta, however, found it hard to cheer on her potential saviour since even if Eagle lost, she'd still get dropped on terra firmissima.

X ran into the fray, fashionably late, and tried to save what he saw to be a human scientist. Eagle realised the hopelessness of his situation. He cursed at Theta, which she thought was really rather rude considering that she was the one hooked on his claws and she hadn’t said anything. Eagle loosened his grip on her slightly and swung her in the general direction of the ground. He then transported away.

As Theta spun downwards, she was rather irritated that Eagle had ripped her lab coat and severely damaged her shoulders. A part of her brain commented that perhaps she should be hysterical with fear and screaming her lungs out. Of course, being scared would not improve her situation, but screaming would at least let the Hunters know where she landed so they could give her crushed body a decent burial afterwards.

The glider flashed on its lights as soon as Eagle left, and Zero picked out a black figure hurtling down at him. Fortunately for Theta, Zero remembered his physics and did not wait for her to fall into his arms. After all, falling and landing on hard, stationary arms would be no better than falling and landing on the hard, stationary ground. Instead, he flew up and chased her down, snatching her out of the air, and finally slowing to a halt.

He glanced down at the limp figure. "Theta?" he asked rhetorically.

"Oh, great…" Theta moaned before passing out.

Zero transported into the lab and quickly yet gently dumped Theta's body on the floor. Immediately, he ran to Dr. Cain’s office. He grabbed the unsuspecting scientist and screamed, "hurry up! I saved her, she’s passed out. Reprogram. She’s going to wake up. Quick! Stick her in capsule. She needs help. Don’t slow down!" Dr. Cain thought that it would be rather hard for him to slow down since his feet couldn’t touch the ground as Zero flew him down the hall.

X was walking calmly down the hall carrying a lab coat when he saw Zero running down, still talking non-stop. "What?" X said, running after him, "the last thing we need is another Maverick. We should destroy her."

The door to the lab slid open a second before Zero would have rammed his face into it. He gently drop-kicked Dr. Cain onto the floor, and whirled around to face X, who had almost run into him when he stopped. "I know she’s a Maverick, but we can reprogram her, right? We could always use more help," he said, still speaking a little to fast.

"Well, aren’t we merciful today?" X said. "Still, I think…"

"Wait, X," Dr. Cain interrupted.

The two Hunters turned around and noticed the pools of red vital liquid oozing from Theta’s shoulders onto the floor, where it did not belong.

"She’s human. Get her into a first aid capsule."

Vile’s invisible eyes glared down on Eagle. Eagle merely sat in his chair and looked at the floor.

"And so you did what?" Vile asked.

"She was going to defect over to the Hunters," Eagle explained. "So I tried to eliminate her, but…"

"You fool," Vile interrupted. "Why didn’t you bring her back to me? If you had simply escaped with her instead of trying to kill her, Theta wouldn’t be with the Hunters."

"But she has deceived us for so long, I didn’t want to risk another of her tricks…"

"And now the Hunters have her. Is that an improvement?" Vile began pacing the room, constantly keeping whatever it is he sees with fixed on Eagle. "We’re so close to our victorious battle, only to be impeded by your stupid ideas. Better to have her here working on the forcefield than over there helping them crack it, wouldn’t you say?"

"But even if I brought her back, she’d never help us again," Eagle said, with a hint of anger over Vile’s harsh words.

"She’s only human. There are ways to make humans obey." Vile sighed heavily. "But now our plan has been thrown into chaos because of your incompetence and lack of perception."

Eagle stood up defiantly, knocking over the chair. "How can you say that we will fail because we lost one measly girl?" Standing at his full height, Eagle was a good head taller than Vile, and much bigger (though that hardly matters when reploids mainly fought with plasma cannons and not brute strength). Eagle flexed his wings and realised for the first time that he was no less intimidating than Vile, not to mention much cooler looking.

"Are you so weak that you have to rely on some useless human for your battles?" Eagle stood on his tiptoes (very hard to do with claws) so he could loom over Vile in what he hoped was a menacing manner.

Vile probably closed his eyes to slits, though if he did so the effect would have been lost to anyone anyhow. "Don’t speak down to your superior, Eagle," Vile said, trying to outdo Eagle in evilness. "You worthless simpleton, do you plan to waste my time with insults? Leave at once, I need peace to repair the damage cause by your idiocy."

Vile tried to turn away from Eagle, but Eagle put a firm grip on Vile’s shoulder. He looked at his commanding officer for a moment, trying to think up more sinister sounding words. "Listen, what we need is a strong leader, someone who can take us into glorious victory without using cheap gimmicks and traps."

"Are you suggesting that we need a change in command?" Vile asked in his signature low hiss. The evilness of his voice had been rated a 9 out of 10 in Villainy magazine. "Someone with no intelligence, perhaps, who will lead us on a suicide mission?"

Eagle’s coldness was clearly no match for Vile’s. He spread his wings, covering Vile with his shadow, in a desperate bid to win this battle of evilness. "No, that would be our current commander. He is a problem that must be dealt with."

"Really?" Vile said in a patronising tone that made it clear who was more evil. "I’m afraid that you’re quite mistaken, Eagle. Our current commander will be enjoying a triumph shortly, once certain bugs have been taken care of." An unexpected blast from Vile’s shoulder cannon sent Eagle hurtling against the wall.

Vile brushed off the shoulder that Eagle had dared to lay his claw on. "Now if you'll drag your worthless self out of my sight I'll try and pretend you're not utterly dispensible."

It was clear who the winner of this evilness contest was. But Eagle would not accept defeat. As he lay on the floor, moaning in pain, his only thought was to be more evil. He attacked his own right-hand man (for that was what Eagle imagined himself to be), and with a sneaky, unexpected, probably dishonourable move! And…could it be? He’s giving me a patronising smile even as I lie here in pain and fighting for my life! How evil! I must be more evil, more evil! Eagle thought.

Eagle’s half-aware brain, unhinged by pain, focused itself on being evil. Suddenly he erupted into maniacal laughter. He stood up with a mad look in his eyes, still cackling like crazy (well, he probably was crazy at this point) and struck a pose. Vile, believing that he was the undisputed king of evil, was surprised at Eagle’s comeback.

"You poor, conceited Vile," Eagle said. "Evil am I!"

Onwards to Chapter Sixteen
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