Sithking Zero: I own Cadance and the Replicons, not to mention the overall plot points of the story. The rest, I do not claim ownership to, nor do I actually own.

Okay, the new chapter. I really don’t have anything to say…

So read it already!

Heart of a Warrior II:
Trials of the Warriors

Chapter 2:
Replicon Strike

Bass flew out of his cave, multiple missles soaring after him.

“Well, at least my stuff isn’t getting smashed anymore,” he muttered as he dove behind a hill, the tracer slugs lighting up the night .

The creatures scuttled out, arms transformed into cannons, swiveling left and right searching for their target.

Bass, deciding to not keep them in suspense, dove back down at them, firing smaller bursts of energy at his foes, knocking some back and blowing holes in others.

The remaining operational ones returned fire, sending slugs zipping through the night air, whizzing as they passed by Bass’ head by mere millimeters. He winced as one grazed his cheek, and a small flow of pixels floated off in all directions from the wound.

His dive leveled out as he slammed into one of them, crushing its head into the ground, and snapping it in two.

Bass leapt back, throwing two small orbs of energy at two of the other creatures, blowing off an arm and blowing the other clean in two.

There were now only six left, and one of them was holding a massive fusion-powered bazooka, which had destroyed his front door mere minutes before.

Bass stopped for a moment, sizing up the remaining troopers. They were scuttling over the rocks and stones surrounding his cave, and 5 were armed with machine guns (most of them, at least) and had all put away their swords for the moment.

Bass looked around, and spotting the one with the bazooka, put up his aura shield and charged headfirst towards the foe who had obliterated his front door.

The bazooka-wielding creature was quicker then the others, and fired at Bass before he was annihilated by a massive blast of light. However, in the process, the aura was destroyed by the fusion-powered blast of the bazooka, leaving Bass relatively unprotected.

He stopped for a moment, then looked around.

Okay, he thought. There’s only nine of them left. No problem.

Hey, wait a minute…

Bass double checked, then realized that his mathematics were indeed correct. There were eight of his foes left.

Weren’t there six of you a minute ago?

As he pondered this, the creatures spread their legs out and began firing their machine guns at the cloaked figure.

Several impacted against his glowing aura shield, shaking Bass out of his moment of thought. He jolted himself, especially as he saw what was happening to his aura.

Wherever a bullet hit his shield, a small hole, expanding like a smoldering piece of paper, appeared. And with several rounds hitting it each second, the holes were adding up to get larger and larger gaps in his defense.

He growled in frustration, dodging behind a rock. He glared at them, listening as his enemies’ bullets ricocheted off of the boulder.

Thinking quickly, he began charging up balls of yellow energy, waiting for the an enemy to come around.

And, like any soldier, one eventually did. With a clattering of four claw-feet, one disc shaped head poked itself over the rocks, peering at the Navi once known as the Black Shadow.

“Surprise,” Bass whispered, firing a blast of energy that sheared his head off cleaner then a knife.

Bass grinned at the headless corpse. However, the grin slid off his face like butter on a hot pan when tendrils of liquid metal streamed up out of the body, arranging themselves into a new head.

“Oh.” Bass said, as the creature gave a vicious grin.

“Foolish Bass.” Came the mechanical, reptilian voice of the creature. “Do you really think we Replicons are as weak as some of the Master’s other creations?”

“Who’s your master?”

“We cannot tell. You are too inferior-GAAK!!!”

Bass had swung his fist in a downward arc from above, crushing its skull. The metal tentacles started to seep outwards again, but Bass fired a bolt of energy, frying the Replicon.

However, in doing so, he had removed himself from the safety of the boulder.

With a rattling sound, the other Replicons began to resume fire upon the net navi, wounding his leg.

Wincing in pain, Bass opened his palms, and blasts of light leapt from them, smiting two of the creatures down to ash.

He then soared through the air using his flight power and dodged between two of them, who shot at each other and instantly exploded.

That left three more, two of which were easily dispatched with his air bursts to the strange logos on their chests.

That’s weird, Bass thought. Wasn’t that XANA’s monsters’ weak point too?

Bass halted in front of the leader, a blue-headed specimen.

For once, Bass got a good look at a Replicon, and specifically, the crest.

Now, for those who have forgotten, did not read Heart of a Warrior, or just plain don’t know, every net navi has a crest. It’s a small circular section that shows off a small logo that is the net navi’s personal logo. It also carries about ninety percent of all vital data, allowing a net navi to take massive amounts of damage. It’s the symbol that says, “I AM (name here,) HEAR ME ROAR!!!”

What Bass saw gave him the shock of his life.

It was frighteningly familiar: A white skull. A skull with empty, yet hatred-filled eye sockets. With jagged teeth, and multiple diagonal scratches on the forehead, the skull was frightening to behold.

However, what made it even scarier was the fact that there were several sticks coming out of the logo: One longer one on top, one short one on bottom, and two short ones coming out at sixty degree angles from the top one.

Now, normally, this would mean nothing. But the last time Bass had seen this, it was not a skull that adorned this symbol, but a bulls-eye, and it was the symbol of the one who had been killed by Cadance’s Vanishing World attack, and the reason for his creation:

XANA.

Naturally, seeing the symbol of the one who had impaled him and fed him to the Alpha-internet program and caused his little sister so much grief made him really, really angry.

“WHY THE HELL DO YOU HAVE XANA’S SYMBOL?!?!?” he roared at the leader.

The leader smiled crazily, his arm transforming into a sword.

“You’ll only find out,” he whispered, “When the master decides he wants you to know…”

And with that, he plunged his blade deep into his crest, forcing his body to explode in a fiery blast.

Bass shielded his eyes from the blast, then turned back.

There was nothing more then a slight scorched spot where he had been, and Bass stared disdainfully at it for a moment before considering bigger problems, such as the logo.

It was definitely new. And he had his own private fears as to what it meant. But one thing was absolutely certain:

XANA was back. And she had a new ally.

Sithking Zero: Whoo, that took a long time to write. I couldn’t get a blasted thing down on the stupid computer, and then it just spilled on there. Amazing, no?

So, who’s XANA’s ally? Who’s the master of the Replicons? And why was such an assault planned on Bass?

Oh, and thanks to Franken-XANA. I used his virus, Cancer, as inspiration as to the metal-regrowing-power of the Replicons.

Anyway, please read and review!