"Hi guys." Joey joined the small, downcast herd of elementary school students at his school bus stop. There really wasn't much reason for the band to be so depressed; only one more week remained in the prison of books and authority that they called school.

A chubby kid named Eric waddled up to Joey and returned the greeing with "Hey Joe, can I copy your math homework from last night?" "Nah." "Awww..."

A low, ominous rumble suddenly ebbed through the street and thummed in childrens' ears. before trailing off mysteriously. Joey raised an eyebrow at his robust friend beside him. "What did you have for breakfast today?"

The sound shuddered through the neighbourhood again. This time, everyone took notice of it, as it was now more like a soft roar than like a growl. "Whoa momma!" One kid squeaked.

A titanic nightmare then lifted itself from the horizon of city rooftops. A huge flying fortress, draped in black, savage purple and other war colours, began to drift slowly towards the children like a threatening stormcloud that promised to never lose its quietly terrible power. The all-too-familiar crest of the Mavericks flanked both sides of the gigantic vessel. Strangely enough, nothing about the winged behemoth approaching them scared the children. In fact, they were excited. It wasn't every day they were treated to such a magnificently fearsome sight. Questions and theories on the machine's purpose and origins flew thick amoung them.

"Maybe our schoolbus broke down and it's here to take us to school?"

"I bet it's a floating ice cream truck! I hope so...I missed breakfast."

"I remember hearing something about Mrs. Krabapple buying a new car. Do you think that's it? Some car!"

"Is it a Ford? Maybe we'll get to see it crash and burn!"

Vile restlessly paced back and forth in the belly of Storm Eagle's flying fortress, which had been christened The Roc just last night. The Maverick tried very hard to avoid looking out the porthole-style windows of the fortress -- viewing the city of Kapcom at such a height made his old wing mechanisms twich with a lonely ache for the wind. Yet at the same time, he wanted to take a look at what kind of turmoil the humans below were getting into with potential death floating above them. Vile hoped that the sight of the flying machine was at least botching up morning traffic. Torn between two urges, he finally decided on taking a trip to the cockpit and having a coffee with The Roc's proud owner, former Spartan Storm Eagle.

"Nice place ya got here," Vile commented over a cup of decaf withdouble sugar.

"Thanks," Storm returned through a mouthful of blueberry muffin. He swallowed. "You should thank Sigma. He got us the funding for this little baby, and got its construction underway ASAP. We even have the 1001 airport to ourselves to park it! Siggy said I only need to pay him back in charred human corpses." Storm winked. "Sounds good to me!"

Vile grinned broadly beneath his cowl as he hefted his feet up on the table between them and tilted his chair back. "And to me. But for today, why don't we just take it easy and drift around a bit...chase our prey until they're at their most hysterical...then strike."

"Ah...fun in the sun. Great idea Vile!" Storm tapped his wristcom and established a link to the navigation deck.

"This is navigator Black from the deck of The Roc," a fuzzy voice declared in a few seconds. "What are your orders, sir? Our weapons are ready."

"Don't use them just yet." Storm ordered his underling. "We're going to strike a little fear into a few human hearts first. What's our current location?"

"We're just a few blocks away from a large collection of human children." The navigator observed.

"Excellent!" Storm crowed. "Do something to scare them. Fire a false shot, or release the cage of Evil Clowns upon them. Stir up a little fun."

"Yessir." The navigator concluded.

Ten minutes later, the steady monotone hum of the engines remained unchanged. Vile and Storm simply held a staring contest. Nothing seemed to be happening. When Vile began to tap his finger on the table impatiently, Storm quickly and wisely slammed open the communication line to the navigation deck once again. "What's the freakin' hold up?" The avian snarled at Black.

"Umm...it's about those kids you wanted us to scare, sir..."

"Well, did they go running home to mama?"

"I'm afraid not, sir. We're currently directly above them...but all they're doing is chucking rocks at us."

"Hey Krabapple!" Joey shrieked above the roar of the Roc's engines. "This is for that 'D' you gave me on my report about World Countries!" With that, the small boy pitched a stone at the hovering craft directly above him. The projectile met and parted with the Roc's hull with a sharp ping! "Canadians DO live in igloos," Joey continued. "it's a proven fact! My dad told me so!"

Fat little Eric joined in the fun. Puffing with the effort, he also hurled a rock at the vessel that was supposed to have sent them running like rabbits in fear by now. "THAT was for the time I ate chocolate cake in class, and you sent me to detention just because I didn't give you any!"

Another hunk of mineral went flying up to meet the Roc. "There's one for yer old man!" A kid yelled gleefully.

Very soon, a thick hail of stones had the Roc under fire. The school children were having themselves a grand old time.

"This is crazy!" Storm yelled as he observed the school kids below from the naivgation deck. "What does it take to scare people these days? I guess we'll have to start bringing out the big guns. I really feel like breaking something." Storm turned on his heel. "Black, what's the nearest major structure?"

Black's fingers flew over a keyboard for an answer. "There's a school building just five blocks from this location, sir."

"Perfect! Aim and fire!"

The kids cheered as they watched the monster above them turn tail and begin to receed. They kept right on celebrating until a sleek cannon lowered itself from one of the Roc's flanks. A dim glow radiated from the cannon as it charged up...then... Kaboom.

The kids watched in hushed awe as an orange ray speared from the weapon and stabbed some unfortunate building in the distance. A ghastly explosion followed, along with the blaring of car horns and the screeching yowl of a pissed off cat.

Joey was the first to speak. "Um, hey guys...what just went 'boom'?"think...that was the school that got blown up."

What followed was a spectacle of cheering and jumping and cartwheels. The kids broke off from each other heading towards the city parks and arcades. The children had earned their liberation. There was much pint-sized singing and dancing in the streets that morning.

"We got out of schooool! No more school todaaaaay!"

X looked at Zero with pleading, bleary eyes. "It's too early in the morning for training, Zero."

"Wuss. Look at all these humans around you!" Zero swept a hand around the gym. "They were all out of bed and into training today in mere seconds! Now come on. You're got a lot of practice ahead of you if you want to do battle with a major enemy. Let's begin." Zero hit a button on the wall next to him. A panel on the opposite wall hissed open. A small robot rabbit with cannons where its ears should have been timidly hopped out. Zero shoved X in its direction. "This is a typical class E Maverick drone," Zero explained. "you'll find them all over the place in occupied territory. They're simple to off. All right X...let's see what you can do!" "I can't do it," he mumbled. Zero narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean?"

"I can't do it. I don't wanna shoot the bunny."

"Aaaarugh! What am I going to do with you?" Zero pressed his fingertips against his forehead. "Let me show you something, X." Zero raised his head again. "Tess! Tessa Ewell... May I see you fora second?"

A young human female bounded up and saluted her commander.

"Tess, do you see that little bunny near X?"

Tess craned her neck. "Yes sir. It's a class E drone."

"And we know what to do with class E drones, don't we?" "Well done, Tess. Here, give the nice bunny head to X."

Tess shrugged. "Sure." She placed the head in X's hands. X's mouth was slack.

"Y-your hands...t-t-they're covered in b-b-blood," was all he could stammer.

The Huntress observed her greasy black human paws. "Hmmm...you're right. There's only one thing to do about that." With that, Tess drew a happy face on the wall next to her with her pointer finger, using the robot blood that graced her hands as ink. She then returned to practicing her skills against a class A Maverick.

"There you go, X," Zero began to lecture. "if a human can shoot the bunny, then surely you could. If you learn how to make use of the abilities you have, you should be able to --" Zero was cut off by the impatient bleep of his wristcom. With a typical sigh, he switched it on. "Whaaaat ees it, man?"

"Uh...Zero?" It was Celeste. She was supposed to be on her break

from training. "Could you come to the observation deck? We have a slight problem."

Being true to its name, the observaton deck of MHHQ gave a spectacular view of the city and its ongoings. Carefully placed video cameras and monitors allowed for an in-depth look at some of the more secluded parts of the city. And what Zero saw was not at all good. A magnificent Maverick flying vessel took up a great deal of the picture, along with some plumes of smoke rising from a couple of wrecked buildings.

"Well, it looks like the Mavericks have officially started their war!" Zero said almost cheefully. He had been waiting for this. "It looks like we're going to have to double up on the evacutations and start the counterattack. The Hunter turned around. "X, I want you to go downstairs and round up some..." Zero stopped in midsentence and frowned. "Where in the sam hill did that fellow go? He was right behind me a second ago."

A hasty search was conducted around the room until Celeste tapped a monitor and cheered, "Here he is! He's on Maplemain road..." Celeste's voice trailed off as a realization dawned on her.