Welcome to my second fan fic, Delusions of Grandeur.

This is intended to be a story that can be read by itself, but having knowledge of various Mega Man games, especially the ZX series is helpful, and this story assumes the events of my last story, The Fall of Mega Man occurred.

For those of you who already read the prologue, I have made some changes to it.

Our tale begins with the secret ending to Mega Man ZX Advent, but goes into more detail and expands upon it.

And for ZX veterans, you might highly disagree with which ones I decided where model ZX's and model A's chosen ones, but there is very good reason for doing so, which will probably explained at the end of this saga and the beginning of Saga 6.

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Saga 2: Delusions of Grandeur
Prologue: Foreboding Tides
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"Hhmmm..."

A large man by the name of Master Thomas, was standing there, quite annoyed. Master Thomas was quite tall, with red hair, a large blue robe with white collar and shoulder cloth. His facial hair was in such a way that he resembled a lion, which made him make look that much more intimidating and scruffy. A fly was buzzing around him, and irritating the living hell out of him.

"Quite bothersome... That needs to stop..."

The large fellow reached into the air, and easily swatted the fly with his hands with great accuracy. Though he was originally human, like his peer in the Sage Trinity, Master Mikhail, and the former Sage Trinity member turned traitor/madman, Master Albert, Thomas was living in a robotic body, which extended his life span by centuries.

"Finally. I wish they would hurry repairing the outer walls."

At a nearby computer terminal, Master Mikhail was typing away like a mad man, doing his best to quickly retrieve the last mission report from Grey. Master Mikhail looked about as old as he really was, a small man who was hunched over. The entire top half of his face was covered in a rather strange visor-like device, which almost looked like night goggles. Grey was a reploid who had been working for the Sage Council and the Hunters Guild at the same time. Grey was a very powerful person, who had acquired the power of bio-metal Model A. Model A was a small device that was sentient and alive, and allowed Grey to transform into a powerful warrior.

Grey and Model A had recently defeated a one Master Albert, who had been hell bent on destroying everyone on Earth, had fancied himself a god, thinking that 'this world needs to be reset'. Albert had managed to control a very powerful BioMetal called Model W, of which it's various pieces formed together to form Ouroboros, a massive flying fortress/monstrosity. Albert had hoped to use his own powers combined with Ouroboros to achieve his goals.

But, along with Vent, a male human who controlled BioMetal Models Z and X, and a couple of squads of soldiers Master Thomas had sent, and a few Hunter Guild and Guardian troops, Grey had managed to defeat Albert and Ouroboros went crashing into the ocean. Early reports from the Hunter Guild and Thomas's own troops indicated that all of the soldiers got off safely on the Guardian's Head Quarters ship, along with an unconscious Grey and Model A. However, there were reports that four other BioMetal users, Atlas, Thetis, Siarnaq, and Aeolus had appeared, and there fate was unknown. Also what was unknown was the fate of Model Z, who stayed behind to paralyze the four while Vent and model X went to save Grey.

Master Mikhail was about as frustrated with the computer systems as Thomas was with wall damage and buzzing insects. A week had passed since the fall of Ouroboros, and now the report had just made it into government computer systems. A while back, Siarnaq, with Model P, had invaded the main government building where Thomas, Albert, and Mikhail had usually spent most of their time at, and had caused severe damage. However, before he could attempt to assassinate the Sage Trinity, Grey and Model A had shown up and drove him away. Mikhail began to speak, for the first time in hours.

"Sigh, until CPU bays three through nine repaired, the network is going be very slow. But I have the mission report from Grey. It's rather extensive and detailed, I must say."

"Let me see them..." Thomas was rather eager to see what Grey had sent.

For the better part of an hour, Mikhail and Thomas were going through the report, reviewing every detail. Once they were done reading, they put away the data tablets they were reading from. A lot of the information was quite shocking, especially the things that Albert had blurted out during his final moments.

"To bring new life into the world, eh?"

Thomas was thinking about all that had happened up to this point, and was looking very contemplative. Mikhail was thinking the same things, but for different reasons and with a different perspective. Mikhail added his own thoughts on the subject.

"In the last mission report... Albert said some rather outrageous things."

From here on, the conversation began to take a very dark tone.

"Mikhail... Do you think it presumptuous for us to give birth to new life?"

This line of thinking caught Mikhail completely off guard. What was Thomas thinking? Mikhail suddenly had a very bad feeling in his gut.

"How absurd... Thomas, you couldn't possibly hold fast to such foolish imaginings."

Thomas began to speak in a rather rough and demeaning tone.

"There are laws that give equality to humans and reploids, correct? Don't you remember? Those were passed because Albert and I agreed on them!"

"W-What are you saying?"

"Give humans robotic bodies, and give reploids mortality. So, where do you think the Human bodies for the reploids are? What do you think happened to the original reploid data from before we gave them mortality?"

Mikhail then noticed multiple incoming teleportations into the room. Before him appeared Thetis, Siarnaq, Atlas, and Aeolus. Mikhail's sensor set then alerted him to something very strange. Before, reports had stated that Albert had reprogrammed the bio-metals to where there personalities were repressed, and the human and reploid hosts were in complete control.

But what Mikhail saw now... this was different. The bio-metals and there hosts were exerting their own influences and personality simultaneously. Not only that, but it appeared the bio-metals personality and that of their hosts were twisting together, forming something else. Mikhail didn't know what, and he was almost scared shit-less.

Mikhail had been confused as to what Thomas was blabbering about, but now he was trembling after he realized what he was saying.

"Thomas... you...!"

Thomas had a dark scowl on his face, and angrily replied.

"Albert was wrong, so I helped the hunters. But I do think he was right about ONE thing. This world needs to be reset."

Thomas raised his hand, about to order the four to restrain Mikhail. However, things did not go as intended. The eyes of the four began to glow a gold color. A rather dark aura of energy began to rise from Thomas, and was leaving him rapidly. Mikhail watched as Thomas began to blabber random nonsense.

"What? Why is that? It's not good? Awakening? I don't understand! My thoughts, don't take them! What do you mean it is beyond your control and that you are sorry? AAAHHH!!!"

An electric spark cackled out of Thomas, and he collapsed to the floor. The other four that had teleported in earlier then teleported out. Mikhail was sitting there, scratching his head, utterly confused. Mikhail didn't care what just happened. Thomas was still both his peer and his friend. He bent down and began to shake Thomas until he awoke.

"Thomas, wake up!"

Master Thomas woke up and sat up. He held his head like it was in pain.

"I'm up, but where am I? Wait, I'm still here? I need to send reinforcements to Grey! If he doesn't take down Albert and those psuedoroids, the situation could get sticky, quickly! Um wait. Why was I sleeping on the floor? And what happened to the wall?"

Mikhail shook his head. He explained that Albert had fallen, and explained everything that happened.

"You don't remember? You sent several squads of troops and gave orders to the Hunters Guild in person to take down Ouroboros as a mission, which by the way, they are still waiting payment for."

Thomas looked confused and shook his head.

"Well, let's try something else. What is the last thing you DO remember?"

Thomas sat there and thought for a moment.

"Last thing I remember, Siarnaq was attacking here, the guards were getting slaughtered. Grey, who was equipped with Model A, came and defeated him. Grey came to us, we briefed Grey and Model A on the situation and talked with them, and gave them orders and help. About five minutes after he left, I don't remember anything after that. Well, except that shortly before you were yelling at me to wake up, I was having a weird dream."

Master Mikhail was intrigued.

"Interesting. So I guess something was controlling you and/or acting in your stead for the rest of that time. But tell me, what was the dream about?"

Thomas sook his head, still in disbelief over that insane dream.

"It was strange. I was floating in a world full of swirling color. Before me appeared what I believe to be an old fashioned reploid, probably from the 21XX era. Body color scheme was mostly dark purple and white, and it had an unusual chest crystal. It glowed rather brightly, and it was hexagon shaped. Looked like a woman, but spoke and acted like a male. Light purple hair, what I at first thought were headphones of some kind. And those eyes... creepy."

"What do you mean?

"They were three different shades of orange. This reploid didn't say much, except that it was tired of an evil human interfering with his ideals. Something about reseting this world, only certain humans and reploids would be allowed to live, all else must perish. It was pure insanity. Then a weird light appeared above the reploid. The reploid then exclaimed 'shit!' and then said 'it's beyond my control, I have no choice.' It seemed like he was talking to someone, but I could not hear the other person. Your better at historical data than I am Mikhail. I suspect this might be a real reploid from the past. Mind checking on that for me?"

Mikhail smiled. Thomas was back to his old self, at least mostly. But Thomas was right, whatever had been using him for the past few weeks was something different all right, and he needed to find out what.

"Yeah... computer systems should be fully operational by now. Meantime, maybe you should pay a personal visit to the Hunters and pay them what is owed. Here's the bill."

Mikhail handed Thomas a PDA with some figures on it.

"Geez, they didn't ask much for this one, though that makes sense. Well, off to the accounting department I go."

Mikhail went into his personal library. In it sat many books and computer terminals, holding quite a lot of information. Mikhail prided himself on being the self-proclaimed greatest historian in the modern world. He sat down at a terminal that held historical data for the 21XX era, seemed like the best place to start.

--

Several hours passed, and Mikhail finally found it. Mikhail spoke outloud to no one in particular.

"Well, this is the only exact match I can find. Quite a doozie this is. However, this brings up more questions than answers, since he is dead. Not only that... Oh crap... wait a minute..."

Mikhail walked up to the main room and found Thomas walking out, about to head for the teleportation terminal, and stopped him for a second.

"Thomas, I found it, it was the only match I can find. Here's the data."

Thomas looked at what Mikhail handed him. The information and the pictures associated with it were definitely the one in his dream.

"Sigh, that's it alright. But that's quite unbelievable. That reploid is long dead. Not only that, but now that I think about it, I had dreaming parameters disabled when I am resting. Something is not right about all this, even more so than is apparent right now."

"Your telling me! What this all means... I don't know... But when you go to the Hunters camp, I think there is someone you need to bring back here that we should really speak to..."

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Meanwhile, in an unknown location.

The reploid that had appeared in Thomas's dream stood before two humans. The world they stood in was not real, rather is was a graphical simulation, since both the reploid and one of the humans no longer had a physical body to speak of.

The first human looked very young, approximately 25 years old. He had salt and pepper colored hair, and a large, well kept mustache. He had a grin that was more evil than the reploid had ever seen. The other human was chained to a wall. This one looked extremely deformed, bits of metal and flesh barely clung to each other. The reploid began to speak.

"You know you will fail right? You also know if I ever find a way to break free, I will kill you and continue what I started centuries ago."

"Please. Like I care. You and this reject will never break free. I will succeed, and this world will belong to me. Your ideals of evolution are no better than that idealist dreamer Sigma. And captain fugly here failed in life, because he couldn't control his hatred or his greed. The only useful thing he ever did was the creation of Ragnarok, and the positive consequences of which were an accident."

The human that was chained to the 'wall' began laughing hysterically.

"HA HA HA! Your the reject. Your basically a shitty copy of a poor excuse for a human being! You just awoke five years ago, and now you expect me to be your pawn? You are out of your damn mind! Not only that, but what happens when the real you comes back?"

The younger human had a look of pure rage on his face.

"Bah. Me being a fake my ass. I'm the real article, and the one you think is the genuine is dead. His mind was destroyed along with Sigma's when the Mother Elf was used in the Elf Wars. I will take this world, it will belong to me! Too bad Serpent was such a useless servant, but no matter, I will simply do things myself. Albert was the only complication to occur in my plans, but no matter, his creation of Model W and the Ouroboros will only accelerate my plans. Isn't that right, Dr. Weil?"

The chained human merely grunted in return.

"Yes, you are brilliant, to a limited extent. And it seems your soul makes the perfect catalyst for the Maverick Virus. You Dr. Weil, the only human to be infected by the virus, your human soul, combined with the remaining fragments of Sigma's soul, is what created this Model W, born from your hate infused into the remains of Ragnaorok. That is the only reason I saved your soul from the destruction of Ouroboros."

Dr. Weil closed his eyes and went to sleep. He had enough of this mad man's tirades. The young man merely whistled and began talking to himself outloud.

"Once I gain enough energy to meet the power requirements for my device, victory is assured, no matter what. Which is where you come in handy, Lumine."

The reploid had a look of defeat. Lumine could not figure a way to put a stop to this. Lumine was aware of what his ultimate plans were, and in Lumine's mind, this was the worst possible outcome. If this young human succeeded, destiny would be set in stone, till the end of time. Progress would stop. Evolution would stop. The best Lumine could think of was to try to convince the human that this was a bad idea.

"So, what if your plan goes off without a hitch. Arn't you worried that you will be erased from existence?"

"No, you can stop with the psycho babble. I have calculated this to an extreme. Now, it is time for you to sleep as well."

The holographic simulation ended. The young man walked out of the soul projection room he had himself created, and walked out into a lab. He looked in a corner on the far side of the room, and smiled. In a glass case that surrounded an electromagnetic prison, was bio-metal Model Z.

"Heh heh, I will find a use for you soon. And maybe I can even restore your memories... all of them."

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End of Prologue