The Mavericks Watch the X Series
Wanda: This was a fun idea for me to work on. I got it while reading a lovely story - Paint My GoodBye Red - and realize that the whole X timeline is, well, kinda sad. I always prefer me some happy endings, or at least the sound of some happiness. That and I was feeling in a sort of spirit mood, and I wanted to explore my favourite mavericks who end up slashed to bits for great justice! They'll be watching the games, drinking, commenting on some of the sillier or stranger aspects of the series, and the end will be quite nice -at least I hope so!
Disclaimer: I do not own Mega Man...if I had, X7 would have run very differently, and X9 and Legends would have been made.
Chapter 1: X1 part 1 – I Die Free
Chill Penguin was the first one to enter the Cyber Space Room.
The first thing he noticed was that...the hatred was gone. That awful, all consuming loathing, the need to destroy, the rabies that had infected his thoughts and utterly suppressed the good person he had once been. With no one to watch him, Chill Penguin wept with relief, thanking Mega Man X over and over for his good heart, his courage, and his selflessness.
Chill knew the gentle reploid had hated violence. He had known Thomas Light's masterpiece since shortly after he came online and was inducted into the Maverick Hunters. X stood awkwardly on the sidelines, all smiles and certainty about justice, always offering comfort and support to a Hunter who came back from a mission exhausted. While Chill never would have admitted it, he admired that about X. The humans, while often well intentioned, often looked upon him as though he was simply a complicated piece of machinery without true autonomy, or true emotions.
It was difficult to retire your own kind, especially when you didn't know why it was happening. Chill often returned to the base exhausted, keeping a stoic face for his unit. X noticed. While Chill never directly engaged him in front of a crowd, his words of encouragement were a buoyant on particularly hard days.
When Chill himself went Maverick – it didn't make any sense, damn it, he hated retiring his own kind, but he didn't hate humanity. He didn't hate those helpless children he sent the mechs after, he didn't hate the people who wept and pleaded for their families lives as he slaughtered them without mercy – part of him hoped that X would be the one to come and retire him.
He was in luck, in that department.
After much panic, despair, and coming to terms with what had become of him, Chill finally inspected the strange room he was in.
It was certainly Cyberspace – Reploid afterlife. Chill recognized the textures and feeling from the few times he had come close to death before. However, this was a little...odd, to put it mildly.
He was standing alone in the middle of quite a large room. It looked like something between a Conference room and a longue – there were many couches, beds, and pods to rest on, tables for catering, and above all, a massive screen that hung on the wall directly in front of him.
As Chill stared at it, the screen flickered to life, and he saw the world he had just left.
Specifically...he saw X. The young reploid was testing the weapon he had gained after defeating Chill.
For a moment, Chill looked around. "Is anyone here?" He called out in his scratchy voice. No one answered him.
Was this some sort of punishment? To see what he had done to the world? If so, Chill considered it only just. If that was the case, he would watch this movie and continue to watch it until it finally went black. It was the best he could do for those he had caused to suffer.
"That's about right, kid. It bounces off the walls, and you've got about fifty shots. Use 'em wisely." Chill muttered as he saw X moving forward, leaving the training rooms to take on another mission.
The area X entered next was Spark Mandrills. Chill recognized it from recon. "You already examined Spark's armour, X? It can't take low temperatures. Smart. Spark's very mean when he's angry...and that virus has enough hatred for all the world..."
X made some rookie mistakes along the way to Mandrill. Chill wasn't too surprised. X had always hated violence, and this was only his second mission...and given all that, he was doing spectacularly well, all things considered. Part of it was probably Light's design, but damn, X was a natural. He was blasting through that place like it was nothing.
Eventually X reached Spark Mandrill. Chill smiled sadly at the sight of his comrade; now that he was in Cyberspace, he could see the virus marring Spark's eyes. It wasn't right, dammit. Spark was a big but gentle lug. He cared about all his units and he looked out for small children. He wasn't a murderer, a monster, like Chill had become.
X pointed his buster at Mandrill. "Stand down. This doesn't have to end in violence."
Chill leaned forward. "C'mon, kid – don't be a fool. Give him an opening and he'll take it. Fight. Fight, damn it!"
Mandrill did in fact, rush X. Luckily for Chill and the world, X responded in kind, eventually blasting him to pieces with Shotgun ice. Chill flinched with every shot, and looked down when Mandrill exploded into a million pieces.
Suddenly, there was a whine, and Spark appeared in the room with Chill. He shook his massive head slowly, still reeling from death, before finally stammering, "Chill?"
"Spark," Chill squaked in surprise.
Spark's expression utterly crumbled, and he collapsed on the floor. "Oh Chill...all those people..."
Chill coughed, unsure what to do. He'd never been good at offering comfort or support. "It was a virus, Spark...I felt it infect me. It's over now."
"Y-Yeah..." Spark's eyes were still terribly haunted. His massive frame shook once, twice, and then he began to weep. It was strange – reploids hadn't been able to cry the same way humans could when they were alive. But here, in cyberspace, Sparks tears flowed freely.
Chill, while unable to say anything, he knelt down next to Spark and put a hand on his shoulder until the massive gentle creature ceased his tears.
"What is this place?"
"Cyberspace, I believe..."
"We're...not in hell?"
"That was my first question..." Chill admitted. "It must be because of the infection. We were just pawns, unable to control our bodies in the end."
Spark pondered this. "Do you think X knows...?"
"He's a smart kid. Between him and Zero, they'll find out eventually." Chill smiled ruefully. "You know, some part of me always thought, that if X were to become a fully fledged hunter, I could retire without any guilt."
To Chill's surprise, Spark nodded in agreement. "Yeah."
The penguin reploid had almost forgotten that Spark had taught some of X's classes in basic training. While some of the commanders hadn't thought X's compassion was an asset, Spark had. He encouraged it, even when it meant lower test scores when hostages were taken and X would freeze up. We can't forget why life's important, Spark told the blue hero. Or else what are we fighting for?
"I'm sorry I attacked you, X." Spark said mournfully, looking up at the screen. It seemed to be waiting for them to collect themselves, just hovering outside Hunter Command as the sun set. X was silently looking down at the damaged city. "I know what you must be feeling."
"X is strong in ways we weren't." Chill remarked. "He'll achieve things we never could."
Spark eyed him in surprise. "I thought you didn't praise students."
Chill smirked. "Well, he killed my virus self, didn't he? He's hardly a student now."
The screen shifted slightly, following X until the next day. The blue reploid was deeply troubled, wandering around through most of the night until he had to charge in order to take on a mission in the morning. The only person who seemed to notice his distress was Zero, who gave him a quick, matter of fact pep talk – I know you're hurting, X. But those people out there are depending on us. Let's see if we can end this without more death.
"Straightforward as ever." Spark said with a sigh. "Commander Zero never wears his emotions on his sleeve, does he?"
X's next mission was Storm Eagle and his airship, which was heading towards Abel City. The twosome sat in silence, watching the fights on bated breath. Neither of them had seen how Storm had upgraded his ship since he became infected; Sigma had ensured that they were all separated while committing the terror attacks.
"That isn't Storm's style...lord, I can barely recognize him," Spark said, stunned as he saw the ship explode on command, falling into the ground below. Had X been any slower, it would have crashed onto human populated areas.
X jumped onto the detached ship and confronted Storm. Both Chill and Spark felt vaguely ill to see easily the most principled of their comrades with a mad smirk on his face. There were oil stains on his hands, and there were no prizes to guess where that came from.
"X hasn't picked up his weakness, has he?" Spark asked Chill in concern as the fight began.
"Given that we're the only two here, I guess not," Chill responded with a frown. "Well, he beat me without my weakness."
He was right, on that end. X used quick thinking to bring Storm down to earth before finally blasting him straight open. X's expression became truly pained as he looked down at the remains of his opponent's body. "I never wanted this..."
Another flash lit the chamber for a second. Chill and Spark turned to see Storm Eagle materialize right behind them, his hands up to protect his face. Slowly he lowered them and surveyed his companions with shock. After a second, he slumped down on the nearest couch.
"It's gone...the rage is finally gone."
"You too, Storm?" Spark asked carefully.
Storm Eagle nodded. "It was Sigma. He infected every commander under him. The virus was contained in his body. I was infected while getting repairs."
"The irony," Chill noted bitterly. "Our fearless leader was the Maverick we were searching for...and he dragged us down with him."
"Then...this is cyberspace..." Storm looked around. "Are we the only ones here?"
"It seems so." Spark said. "Chill was here before me, but we've been alone until you showed up."
There was a small, friendly giggle. The three former Maverick Hunters looked around wildly before seeing the small crystal form of a cyber elf float over them and hover near the screen. The form shivered, momentarily appearing as a young woman with messy brown hair. She wore a white dress with a blue crystal necklace and golden lace at the edges. She had armoured dash boots, coloured like human children's shoes. She smiled warmly at them, hazel brown eyes soft with empathy, before vanishing again.
"What was that?" Chill asked in alarm.
Spark's brow furrowed, his mind darting back to the moment of his death. "I think...she might be our host...I heard that giggle right before my body froze over permanently."
"I heard it too." Storm admitted. "I thought I was imagining it..."
Storm had never very spiritual. He tended to believe there was no place for it in what he had to do as a Hunter. Sometimes others had wondered if it was because he couldn't bring himself to, or couldn't reconcile it with having to kill his own kind.
"Why hasn't she spoken to us?" Chill wondered.
"...Perhaps she wishes to have a full house?" Spark offered tentatively. "Now that there are three of us here...I think we're being collected."
The three pondered that thought in silence for a moment. Why would a cyber elf...or any one, rescue the spirits of Mavericks? Did they deserve that now, after what they had done under the influence of the virus?
"So...X really did defeat you two." Storm smiled wanely at his companions, drawing the conversation elsewhere. "I underestimated him."
"That seems to be the theme," Chill remarked. All three hunters returned their attention to the screen, where X was conversing with Zero and Dr Cain in the mission control room. "Now, if I were X, I'd go after Mammoth now that he has access to the Storm Tornado."
"Looks like it," Spark agreed as X walked over to the transporter again.
Flame Mammoth's stage had been flooded with coolant after Chill had died, leaving no one to monitor the temperature controls. X sprinted through the stage, destroying the mechs and collecting useful fragments to upgrade his armours defence...before digging through the ceiling to reach another capsule left behind by Doctor Light.
"Dig with the head? The doc must have been getting old when he made that..." Chill remarked, frowning slightly. He generally preferred practical designs, so things like this made him cringe, even if they were made by a famous genius.
"I'm surprised he still had the strength to create the armours after he finished designing X..." Storm said. "He was an old man when he created the original robot masters all those years ago, and X was his masterpiece. Maybe he left robots to create the designs after he died."
X proceeded further into the pit.
Storm gawped, dignity forgotten, when he took a good look at some of the bodies Flame was leaving in his wake. Reploids with holes melted through their chest, the burnt corpses of the humans who had worked in the plant at first. Spark choked and stared down at his feet, unable to continue watching. Chill's expression hardened, keeping his emotions close to his chest as he always had.
The Flame they knew, while harsh and a tough teacher, was always fair. He believed in dispatching Mavericks without causing undue suffering. "My god..." Storm sputtered.
Chill set his jaw. "Hurry, X." He muttered as X burst into the boss's control room. "Don't let him escape from here, or he'll continue doing this..."
X was enraged and sad simultaneously as he confronted Flame Mammoth. This loss of life inflamed the blue reploid's resolve, and he entered battle with the charged Tornado at the ready. Mammoth usually relied on his massive bulk and ability to control a room in a fight, the trade off being incredibly slow. X ran circles around the bigger maverick, blasting him repeatedly until the Tornado punched a hole straight through the chest piece, tearing Mammoth in half.
He ended up like many of his victims.
A familiar buzz filled the room. Chill, Spark and Storm turned around to see Flame manifesting in the room. The flame maverick looked around the room in stunned silence, before slowly collapsing to the floor and weeping quietly. Spark silently walked over to him and stood by his side as his friend mourned what he had become. Chill and Storm stood awkwardly at the side, unsure what to say to offer comfort.
Eventually Flame managed to recompose himself enough to address them. "Chill? Storm? So X is getting us all."
Chill nodded. "He's more powerful than he seemed."
"His ability to destroy things isn't his greatest asset." Spark said quietly. "X took twice as long to reach me so he could rescue workers I had imprisoned...that is what makes him great."
Flame nodded, shuddering. "Those people I killed..."
"You were infected, Flame." Chill said simply. "Whatever happened out there was outside our control. ...It's good to see the real you again."
"You saw all that?" Flame smiled weakly. "I'm glad the real me still exists."
A giggle flittered across the room again. The four looked up in surprise to see the cyber elf again, hovering by one of the tables. She winked playfully before vanishing again. A brilliant flash went by, and several enormous mugs of E crystals came into existence.
"What?" Spark blurted, wandering over to the table. "Those are for us?"
That soft giggle floated across the room again. "I'll take that as a yes." Storm guessed with a small grin, before picking up one mug and knocking it back. He jumped slightly. "Whoa! It's hard and cold."
"Your favorite?" Flame suggested, eyeing the mugs with renewed interest.
"Yeah. ...You know, I think we're in good hands." Storm said. He was definitely grinning now.
End Chapter
The cyber elf girl will get some backstory eventually, but for right now I want to focus on my lovely Mavericks. I'm using bits of their personalities from Megaman Maverick Hunter and personal headcannons - I hope you guys enjoyed it! Next time, we get the last four, and Storm/Chill get a little drunk.
Read and Review please!