Forward: This story takes place after the forth Zero War, as to what happens from here on out, I am aware there are games dated after the forth ZW. Consider this laternate universe/timeline. Also as the the beggining of the story, let's just say I hadn't familiarized myself with the Mega Man X backstory first. . . Oopsy.
Issuing a small hiss the pneumatic latches of the stasis pod released, allowing the door to open revealing a single occupant within. The blond haired youth blinked a few times as he awoke, yet did not move. At first he laid there listening to the thoughts that were drifting across his mind, 'The sky... the sky is blue. There are clouds in the sky... the clouds are white.' As he sat up his mind was a complete jumble, sights, sounds, thoughts, everything seemed to pummel the young man at the same time. It was several minutes before he was able to collect himself enough to form a coherent thought, when he tried to delve into his mind for basic information such as who he was and why he was here, nothing came to the surface. Try as he might the young man continued to think and yet nothing came, there was information, a lot of information, but no memories, no identity, nothing. Perhaps the city would hold the answers he sought, that thought evaporated the moment he looked up. Of the building that the stasis pod stood in there was only one partial wall still standing, everything else was in ruin, all that remained were a few piles of scattered rocks and debris. Beyond the city itself appeared to be in the same condition, buildings of all shapes and sizes rose up in every direction, and all of them showed signs of deterioration, some worse than others.
The larger buildings had fared much worse than the smaller with entire sides missing revealing what had once been large office buildings or residences, others appeared to be in advanced states of disrepair, and there were no signs of life. It didn't look as though anyone had lived here for decades, possibly centuries. The young man was about to throw his feet over the side of the stasis pod and stand up when his attention was caught by his own reflection in the smooth metal of the chamber door to his right, despite the visage being his own, it was one unfamiliar to him. He sat there for a time just staring, taking in the mildly distorted image. He saw a young man with average length light blond spiked hair, large blue eyes, an average looking slender nose, and a medium sized mouth with unexceptional lips. He was dressed in a deep blue sleeveless sweater with a zipper pulled down to just below his collar. There was a single black leather strap across his chest fastening a matching shoulder pad to his left shoulder which bore a metal lion's head, and a pair of black cloth cargo pants with military style boots. Now that he had a mental image of himself the threw his legs over the side of the chamber and stood up, there was a moment of uncertainty as he carefully fidgeted in place testing his muscles to make sure everything was in place and working properly.
Once he knew nothing would malfunction when he tried to move the young man looked around taking the sights of the city in, carefully looking everything over. The streets were strewn with debris, overturned cars, several of the buildings had begun to shift and tilt under the weight of collapsing foundations... he was alone. He walked to the back of the pod to where the controls were located to see if the stasis chamber might hold some information regarding his missing identity, or even the reason he was in stasis in the first place. The control panel consisted of a single green screen surrounded by the same off-white metal that the chamber was made of, below was a small keyboard with several dozen buttons. Most of the information on the screen appeared to be garbled and illegible, nothing more than erratic symbols and numbers, for some reason the young man seemed to instinctively know what buttons to push and commands to enter. They keys produced a small but rapid series of taps as he attempted to access the data files within, but nearly every query he entered was greeted with a flashing red 'FILE CORRUPTED' warning. The only information he was able to access was the capsule's time logs and system diagnostic readouts. The pod had been active for one-hundred and three years and he had been woken now because the progressive system corruption, when the pod had reached the point of being unable to function any longer it had triggered a protected emergency reanimation sequence.
This posed quite the situation for him, no memories, no idea of where he was, what to do, or where to go, so he simply began to walk. Making his way through the streets of the litter strewn city he looked around casually, the buildings appeared to vary in both design and function. There was one in particular that caught his attention, a small building with a faded sign over the top that read 'Grocery'. All of the glass that made up most of the building's front had been destroyed, yet many of the shelves inside remained, some of them tipped onto their side. It was such a strange feeling to him to have no memory of anything prior to waking up, every little thing seemed to catch his attention, every detail, every curiosity. While it was a little unnerving to not know anything, it was also like an adventure with every little thing being of some interest however briefly. The city was huge, perhaps he'd take the time to explore it once he knew more about what was going on, but for the time being he needed to find... something. "What an interesting city," the young man said to himself. He was intent on continuing his exploration when something drew his attention away from the grocery store, he wasn't sure what at first... a sound.
He quickly scanned the area for the source of the disturbance, not seeing anything he let his vision wander focusing on his hearing. He heard it a second time, the sounds were faint, but they were sharp issuing discharges, the first thing to come to his mind was weapons fire. Even with the inherent danger involved in such the young man couldn't simply walk away, everything was a curiosity to him. He wondered why people would even be fighting here, this didn't seem to be a likely place for a battle to occur. After a moment the gunfire stopped, he heard running feet and they were coming in his direction. They continued to move closer to his location until he saw three people come around the corner of an alleyway at full speed. The man in the lead was tall and muscular, wearing a tan colored tank top with camouflage cargo pants and black boots. His gray hair was cropped short and his face was weathered, with an arched nose, slender mouth, and hard eyes the young man estimated he was likely in his late forties to early fifties. The man behind him was almost the exact opposite, a barrel with legs, with matching cargo pants, a black t-shirt, and deep green open front vest the man was devoid of any hair on his head save for a pair of red eyebrows. Despite being at least twice the size of the man in the lead he seemed able to keep pace. The last person to come around the corner was a rather gangly looking young man, easily the tallest and thinnest of them all he was dressed in the same cargo pants as the the others, gray undershirt, and a vest that was buttoned up in front. He also wore a helmet from under which his black hair stuck out in all direction with his clothing and equipment that looked to be at least one size too large. All three men were also carrying long gray/white rifles the young man seem to instinctively recognize as particle rifles. "Come on man, you want a 'loids to get you?" the tall man in back yelled as they all ran by.
Still confused by the entire situation the young man didn't have long to think before several rounds of particle beam fire ripped past him as a number of large metallic gray soldiers rounded the same corner as the soldiers. Curious or not the young man had no intention of getting shot so he took off after the other three trying to keep his head low. As a group they dashed through several alleyways trying to lose their pursuers, as they went the young man thought, using the information that seemed to simply be in his mind to get a handle on the situation... why would reploids be chasing humans he wondered. The gray haired man in front was nearly cut down by a particle beam as he exited the alley in front of them, it almost caused a collision between him and the heavy-set man as he scrambled to get away from the weapons fire. "Crap, some of them must have circled around, we're cut off!" They immediately took cover behind anything they could, they gray haired man ducked behind the body of an old destroyed motorcycle, the large man behind a dumpster, and the tall man ducked behind a stack of metal boxes with the young man next to him. Within seconds particle beams began ripping through the alley in both directions. The three who appeared to be soldiers of some sort tried to fire back, yet being fired at from both directions they were ducking for cover more than they were attacking their enemies.
The young man looked down and saw a particle pistol holstered on the tall man's hip, "Excuse me," he said. Grabbing the weapon he ducked out from behind the boxes and fired three shots, each striking one of their pursuers through the right eye. Again relying on knowledge that seemed to be crammed into his brain he knew the CPU was housed directly behind the right eye, and sure enough the three he had struck dropped lifelessly to the ground. "Nice shooting." the tall man said. It was also the first time the young man had had the chance to get a good look at their pursuers, they were all identical in design, metallic gray with thick helmets sloping back, solid red eyes, and no visible facial features. Their bodies were large, smooth, and covered in heavy armor with their right forearms formed into a cylindrical shaped canon "We're pinned down," the gray-haired man said, "we've gotta get out of here before we're cut to pieces." The young man heard a small clicking sound nearby, looking back he saw the heavy set man aim for the wall across the alleyway. He unleashed a burst of rapid pulse shots instead of a solid beam causing the wall to collapse in a shower of dust and debris. No one needed further instruction and all four quickly dove through the new exit.
The room they landed in appeared to be a long abandon school cafeteria, rectangular in design it was filled with numerous rows of neatly arranged tables and chairs with a serving counter against the right wall. They all ran for the door against the opposite wall quickly dashing into the hall beyond. The entire situation was confusing to the young man, waking up in a strange place with no memory of who he was or why he was here. Now he was involved in a fire fight he felt he really had no part of, but considering these three men had warned him prior to the reploids shooting at him, he felt this was the safest course of action for the time being. He paused long enough to fire a pair of shots striking two more of his pursuers through the right eye before following after the others. According to his recollection there were fifteen attackers to start with and he'd already gunned down five... ten left. As they dashed down the hallway another group appeared in front of them opening fire, the young man cursed to himself about how fast these mechanical things were as he ducked into a bathroom along with the others. Expecting the machines to come charging through the door he was surprised when they stopped firing, there was an eerie silence as everyone waited and listened, then the young man caught a glimpse of one of the mechanical soldiers in the mirror of the bathroom directly across the hall. He had his back to the wall and was making some sort of gestures with his hand.
Not sure exactly what was going on the young man raised his hand and repeated the gestures for the others to see, then raised the pistol in his hand banking a shot off the mirror across the hall and striking the mechanical soldier through the eye. With the sixth soldier down the hall erupted in particle fire again, only their aim was nowhere near the four of them. "What's going on?" the young man asked.
"They're trying to distract us while others circle around back." the tall man said.
This time it was the gray-haired man who blew a hole in the wall behind them, they all made their way outside into another alley, it was the young man who made some hand gestures now, he tapped his ear, pointed to one end of the alley, and held up three fingers. The gray-haired man, the apparent leader, waved his rifle in the other direction and they moved towards the T-junction behind them. One of the soldiers at the other end of the alley poked his head around the corner to see where everyone was, and got a particle beam through the head for his effort compliments of the tall man causing him to collapse across the exit to the alley. "Seven down, eight to go." the young man said. As they came around the corner, two on either side, the young man noticed the T-junction dead ended in both directions. With the others taking a moment to catch their breath the young man looked around, "Those things are kinda stupid for reploids, wouldn't you say?"
"They're not reploids... mechaniloids, limited... intelligence shock... troops." the large man said between breaths. To the sound of three sets of mechanical feet walking down the alleyway towards them the gray-haired man took a small fist sized object out of his pocket, pulled a pin out of it, and tossed it around the corner without even looking. Following an almost deafening explosion he ducked out just long enough to look, then leaned back and nodded. "Three down." They all waited for the rest of the soldiers to move in but they were once again greeted by an eerie silence, there were no sounds, no movement, nothing. "They've gone into stealth mode." the tall man whispered. The large man looked up and opened fire a moment later emptying several rounds into the air before one of the mechaniloids fell off the top of the building crashing to the ground below. The young man listened carefully and motioned behind the gray-haired and tall man on one side of the alley, then pushed the tall man beside him to the ground a split second before a metal fist slammed through the wall where his head should have been.
He tossed his particle pistol to the tall man, then grabbed the fist before it could retract and ripped the mechaniloids through the wall in a shower of bricks, on the other side of they alley the other two pressed their backs against the opposite side of the wall and opened fire cutting through both the wall and another mechaniloid. The young man tossed his opponent to the ground and slammed his foot into its head hard enough to collapse the helmet, with the arm still in his grip he pulled up tearing it free of the torso to the sound of wrenching metal and sparking wires. Another mechaniloids leapt through the hole in the wall trying to tackle the young man only to be knocked aside by a swing of the metal arm he was holding. The second soldier crashed to the ground and before he was able to recover the young man literally beat him to death with the severed arm, smashing it into his head time and time again. The young man was about to look around for the final mechaniloid soldier when the large man opened fire through the hole in the wall they had made moments ago, to the sound of another metal body hitting the ground he tallied fifteen soldiers mentally.
"Now what the hell is going... on?" the young man started to say. When he looked up he noticed the others staring at him strangely.
"Что-то не справедливо с этой вантой," The bald man said to the gray haired man.
(There is something not right with this guy.)
"Чему, я сделал что-то неправильно?" the young man asked.
(What, did I do something wrong?)
"You speak Russian tovarich?" The bald man asked, obviously surprised.
"Apparently," the young man said.
"Hold on a minute, let's get introductions out of the way first," the gray-haired man said, "I'm Sergeant Relix, this is Corporal Falk," the said motioning to the large man, "and that is Private Quar."
"Hey," Quar said, waving from behind the young man.
"And you are?" Relix asked.
"Don't know," the young man said.
"You don't know your own name?" Falk asked.
"Nope. Don't know who I am, how I got here, or why I'm even here in the first place," the young man said.
"What's the first thing you remember?" Relix asked.
"Waking up in a stasis pod, wandering around a city, then getting into a fire fight with three guys against some mechaniloid soldiers, that's pretty much it. What's the big deal anyway, something's not right with me you said, what's not right?" the young man asked.
"Jerking a mechaniloid through a wall, stomping on it's head, then ripping his arm off and beating another to death with it is what's wrong. Mechaniloids are built from a durotanium alloy, usually weigh at least a ton, and are on average ten times stronger than a professional human bodybuilder, how did you all of that?" Relix asked.
"Hey I know as much about me as you do, why were those mechaniloids chasing you anyway?" the young man asked.
"You been livin' under a rock or something kid? They're a security detail from Neo Arcadia out hunting us so called mavericks. Don't tell me you've never heard of Neo Arcadia." Falk said.
"I don't know anything, and just so you know I've been in stasis for the last one hundred and three years. Like I said, the few memories I have start from me waking up in that stasis pod shortly before I ran into you guys, that's it. I don't know who I am, where I am, what's going on, nothing." the young man said.
"Well you might wanna pick a name until you remember you real one, easier than saying 'hey you' all the time," Quar said.
"Call me Daniel I guess," the young man said, picking a name completely at random.
"We can sort this out later for now we need to get out of here before more mechaniloids show up, or worse reploids, let's go." Relix said.
After the little gab session the four companions quickly made their way through the city. Along the way Falk voiced interest in seeing this stasis pod that Daniel had mentioned, Relix however stated such was to dangerous right now and it was left at that. Daniel had no idea where they were going but Relix appeared to be leading them out of the city, he was also surprised at how easily Falk carried himself and began to think that perhaps there was more muscle and less fat than he had first thought. It didn't take the long to make their way through the ruined city without further incident or sight of hostile mechaniloids. Stepping out into the wilderness Daniel looked around thinking to himself that there was no visible means of transportation.
"Don't you guys have a vehicle or something?" I asked.
"We did, until the mechaniloids blew it up." Relix said.
"Can't you call for back-up? I mean you do have back-up right?" I asked.
"Our radio was in the truck, the comm-units we have are short range only, the base is about three days by foot from here, we better get walking." Relix said.
The other thing that Daniel noticed was although the people he was traveling with didn't seem to breathing as heavily as they had been during the fight, their respiration rate was still elevated... his wasn't, in fact he didn't feel fatigued in the slightest. Even though considerably curious about everything and everyone around him, after the incident with the mechaniloids Daniel decided it best to keep to himself. The last thing he wanted to do right now was to alienate the only humans he had met up to this point. Quar tried making small talk with him but having almost no life experiences to draw from Daniel had little to discuss, he did try to be as polite as possible though. Their little trek continued on into the evening, and then as night fell Relix called for the group to make camp for the night after they had entered a moderately populated forest. He also forbid the making of a campfire over Quar's objection to the cold stating the light would be too easy for possible enemies to spot. Once everyone was seated in a small circular formation the three soldiers took small packages out of the pockets of their cargo pants along with small silver canisters of what Daniel learned was water. Relix held up what looked like a small granola bar, "Emergency rations, look and taste like saw dust, but they'll keep you alive."
He smirked and tossed one to Daniel, "It's got all the vitamins, minerals, and nutrients your body needs for an entire day."
"Assuming you can eat it," Falk said. Everyone looked over to see the large man literally trying to gnaw on one of the bars though he didn't appear to be making much progress. Daniel carefully bite the ration bar and didn't seem to have much problem chewing it, though the description given by Relix was fairly accurate. There was almost to taste at all, and the consistency of the ration was granular. "As long as it keeps me alive I don't care if it tastes like mud," Quar said, through a cheek full of food. Daniel was about to ask what they were doing in the city to begin with when something caught his attention. He looked around from side to side for a moment before Quar leaned over, "What is it?" he whispered.
"I heard something, sounded like one of those things from earlier."
At that the entire party was on their feet, rifles in hand, and once again Daniel armed himself with Quar's particle pistol. Daniel locked eyes with another robotic figure about a quarter mile back in the tree line, it looked similar to the mechaniloid soldiers from earlier, only he appeared to be more advanced, brown in color like his surroundings, and the noise being made by it was so faint that he barely heard him moving about. When the two locked eyes the robotic figure froze, likely trying to determine if it had been seen or not. Daniel reached over smacking Quar on the shoulder lightly and pointed to the figure in the woods. As soon as the taller man shined the light under his rifle on the figure he yelled, "Scout!" and cut loose with his rifle, the others, including Daniel immediately followed suit tearing several trees in half as they attempted to gun down their target.
"Is it down?" Relix asked looking around.
"No, I can hear him moving through the trees, he's too far out, doubt we could catch him now." Daniel said.
"Did you get a look at what was out there?" Falk asked.
"Not sure if it was a reploid or mechaniloid, he was about my height, brown in color, didn't look like he had any weapons, at least none that I saw." Daniel said.
"You saw all that?" Falk asked.
"Didn't you?" Daniel responded.
"I had to shine a light just to see where you were pointing at." Falk said.
"It was a mechaniloid recon unit, they're designed to return to base the moment they're discovered. It'll report our position as soon as it gets back we should keep moving." Relix said.
It had only been about two and a half hours since we had made camp, but with recent events everyone agreed it was best to move on before reinforcements arrived, it was best to put as much distance as possible between ourselves and our last known position. Relix lead the group in an eastern direction, something Daniel was able to determine using the stars in the sky to reference his current position as well as track their entire journey since they had left the city. They continued to walk for about thirty minutes as the trees slowly thinned out until gave way altogether. In light of everything that had been going on Daniel wasn't sure being out in the open was the best choice so he voiced his concerns. "Uh, you know where you're going? This field isn't exactly the best place to be caught," Daniel said.
"Of course I know where we're going, I was planning to head north after we had rested until that recon unit found us. If a recon unit had located us already it means the enemy isn't too far behind, if we tried to turn north now we'd be intercepted." Relix said.
"You've already been intercepted humans." A voice said.
Everyone immediately spun to see who had addressed them, and even Daniel knew this was a reploid rather than a mechaniloid. His appearance with similar in design to the mechaniloids, only he looked heavier, his body was a dull brown trimmed with yellow, and there were five small black stars across his upper right chest. The only thing out of place was the green jewel in the center of his helmet, his right forearm was an the same cylindrical canon as the mechaniloids had and he didn't look in the least bit happy to see Daniel and his friends.
"General Geros?" Relix said, "I didn't know you still did field work."
"I've held a field commission since I was a second lieutenant and I'll keep it until I'm dead, now drop your weapons and put your hands in the air, you're all under arrest." Geros said.
"Who is this guy?" Daniel said.
"I'm not a guy, I'm a reploid. General Geros, commander of the Neo Arcadian Armed Forces," Geros said.
What occurred next went down so fast that Daniel didn't even realize it until everything was over. Relix, Falk, and Quar all raised their rifles at the same time only to be beaten to the punch by Geros. He fired a large wave of concussive orange energy at the group knocking all of them to the ground, Daniel was momentarily dazed, he blinked a few times and looked at the others who were sprawled across the ground. He placed two fingers against Quar's neck and felt a steady pulse, apparently the attack had been meant to stun rather than kill.
"Friggin' cybers," Geros said.
Daniel looked up to see the canon on the general's arm shift into a different configuration, though he was already on his feet by the time he was in his enemy's sights once again. "Down on the ground boy, this thing is set for a full EMP discharge, don't make me fry you." Though he knew what EMP meant, Daniel wasn't sure if it would have any effect on him or not, regardless he didn't take kindly to being fired on. He charged at Geros and the general fired unleashing a blast of blue energy this time, when it struck the only thing he felt was a slight tingling sensation as the energy cascaded over his body. This turn of events seemed to take the reploid by surprise for some reason giving the young man enough time to plow into and knock him into the ground. Before he was able to take a superior position Geros kicked him in the back of the head hard enough to knock him forward and off, sending him tumbling to the ground. The two quickly scrambled to their feet with Geros shifting his arm canon for a second time, "What the hell are you, my sensors say you're human, but no human could take a bio-stun blast like that, and the EMP would have fried a cyborg."
"You're the second person to ask me that today, and I'll tell you what I told Relix, no clue."
The general lunged forward with more speed than a human would be capable of matching, yet Daniel did, when he swung his arm canon towards the young man's head it stopped short of it's target, blocked by a forearm. Daniel responded by head butting him hard enough to shatter the jewel in his helmet and send both of them staggering back from the force of impact. "Ow," Daniel said. Geros growled and ripped the damaged helmet from his head casting it aside without a second thought. It was interesting for the young man to see, this reploid appeared to be quite advanced, possessing detectable parts, unlike the mechanloids whose head and helmet were one solid piece. The general's head and face looked human, with dark blue eyes, what appeared to be skin, likely synthetic, a slender nose, a long slit for a mouth, and even had a head full of jet black hair slicked back against his scalp. Geros charged for a second time, only now he locked arms in a grapple attempting to overpower him and force him to the ground, in response Daniel pushed back slowly gaining the upper hand and forcing the general into the submissive position. "This is... impossible."
Exerting even more strength Daniel wrenched the general around slamming him into a tree hard enough to knock him off his feet, next he aimed his arm canon intent of firing and Daniel decided to go with what he knew by. He disarmed the general... literally, matching the reploids speed he wrapped his arms around the canon and ripped it free of the general's arm resulting in a loud scream. Staggering back he regained his balance tossing the severed canon to the general. "There, problem solved, now take a hike before the arm becomes a head." As odd as it seemed, Geros appeared to be in pain, he manage to stand up holding his arm and looked at Daniel, "This isn't over boy, not by a long shot." As he left Daniel quickly tried to rouse the others knowing someone like Geros wouldn't go too far without others to back him up in the event something like this occurred. After several mild face slaps and foot nudges the others finally started to come around.
"What... where'd Geros go?" Relix asked, sitting bolt upright.
"I don't know... I... only woke up a moment ago myself." Daniel lied.
After the first display in the city with the mechaniloids, the last thing Daniel wanted to do was have to explain how he had just ripped the arm off General Geros and sent him packing. "Come on, we gotta get moving," Daniel said. It wasn't that he wanted to pointedly lie to them, but he didn't know what else to do. It was becoming obvious to him that he was capable of more than they were, but he didn't know why, or how, such was possible. For the time being until he knew more about the situation he thought it best to down play things as much as possible.