Hey all, quick preface.
So this story contains darker tones that some might find distasteful to fans of the Megaman ZX series.
On that note, read at your own risk.
The story is also an exploration of losing innocence in a futuristic world.
Striding forward, a tall, silver-cloaked male wiped his blood-stained white gloves against the wall. His white hair was of longish length, reaching down to the center of his back. His expression, partially hidden by the half-helmet of Model EO, was as cold as a graveyard to match his pale skin. His eyes, though moving only in spastic flickers that one could hardly register, took in more information about his surroundings than an average human could.
So this is where it all ends, Virus thought, his words ringing in his head like a grim bell. All the pain. All the sorrow. All your love. All your hate. It's over now for you, isn't it?
Looking down now at his battered foe, a battered brunette male with hair reaching down to the top of his thighs, he quietly scorned himself, yet couldn't help but curse this man and the chances he got, the fame he happened to stumble upon, the power he had managed to wield.
Even now, the man wearing a blue Mega Man vest and long, white trousers over his black jumpsuit still resisted his fate. Virus could still hear him muttering, almost whimpering as he scraped his way slowly, painfully across the metallic floor towards the cold lump of metal that resembled a mask.
You still cling on to the technology of the past, Vent. Model X is outdated. What did you do with Model Z, I wonder? Did you send it away with Aile, your twin sister? He swung his foot back, his heavy boots scraping the floor in a harsh screech as its bladed toes cut deep into it.
Vent's body rag-dolled across the floor of the cafeteria of the security station, a place called a Maverick Hunter base, scattering tables, chairs, and ending up against the wall as it crashed into a group of trash cans and scattered them and their contents with loud clanging and splattering as unused food and drink spilled out.
Unamused, Virus strode forward again at his casual gait, not thinking anything of his foe's struggles to pick himself up despite the several heavy wounds he had sustained. Blood dripped from Vent's torso, right arm, and head to stain the ground and his clothes with its crimson liquid.
"So is this really how it ends?" Vent's pointed question was barely audible, but Virus's receptors picked it up easily as it was a specification that his receptors could fine-tune themselves to pick up noises. Vent's words struck a particular nerve in Virus, however, and unsolicited memories attempted to reemerge. "All that time we had spent together, and you end up working for Model W?" Vent chuckled sadly as he wiped blood from his forehead with the back of his hand.
The former hero of Neo Arcadia, the city of Reploids, had descended quite a bit from his former station. Virus had hoped that the once boy-hero of the Mega Man wars would prove a better challenge, but it would seem that time had eroded his combat skill, no longer pressed by necessity of constant Maverick attacks to keep his blade and senses sharp. He had proven powerful even as a young teen advancing into his young adult years, but as a man approaching his early 40's, time had not been kind to him. Strands of white hair caused by stress and aging had already shown themselves only to be lost in his long, thick strands of brown hair. He had some scarring due to other Mega Men that he had never fixed and Virus also knew that he had some issues with his jaw from time to time from how much it had been battered over the years.
"Working for Model W?" Virus scoffed, condescending in his expression for the fool's assumptions. "Now why would you think I'd turn my soul over to a white hunk of metal that only wants to consume, destroy, and control?" He held his hands out. A grin spread, cruel in its demeanor. "Isn't that what I am fighting against? Against the people that want control over others through power? And isn't that partially what you had become?" His eyes narrowed into a harsh glare as his hands returned to the claws he kept stored in their special holsters against his thighs. "Vent? Isn't that what you became? A status of heroism and power? You, Grey, Ashe, and Aile?"
Vent stood with his back against the wall, using it for support. He was too old and damaged to stand up on his own especially after the fresh beating that he had sustained with and without Model X's armor encasing him.
"But think back to when you were still a kid making deliveries for Girouette. Think back to the green-suited owner of Serpent Inc., Serpent himself. Isn't that what he was? A hero to Neo Arcadia for solving an energy crisis that had wiped out countless humans and Reploids in the Elf War?" A single claw crackled to life as he unsheathed it from its casing, the purple-red blades extending from the emitters of the gauntlet. "His power, wealth, and fame made him susceptible to Model W's influence, more than the other scientists that were with him at the time. Do you think he would have chosen a different path if maybe he had been just a local boy like you had been?"
Pacing back and forth like a predator cornering his prey, Virus seethed and scowled. Deep in the electronic recesses of his constructed brain, electrical pulses scattered across the membrane like a lightning storm. A storm that fueled his hatred for the boy's luck and fortune. A storm that he had once vowed would consume everything and plunge Neo Arcadia back into the dark ages of another Elf War.
"Maybe," Vent admitted to answer his question, "but regardless of how it was, Serpent willingly handed himself to Model W's influence just like you have."
"SHUT UP!"
A torrent of green, electrical current burst from Virus's body, engulfing Vent in its crackling power. Vent cried out briefly as the green energy dug into his wounds and amplified his pain ten-fold. His legs buckled under the blow and gave out, leaving him to collapse like a doll onto the puddle of blood at his feet.
"You...," Virus seethed, speaking through gritted teeth. His rage bubbled deep inside of him and threatened to escape in another consuming inferno if kept unchecked. "You fail to acknowledge your own flaws. Your own pride. You assume that the world is black and white when it's really monochrome. Nothing is truly right, nothing is completely wrong. Everything can be justified."
His white boots thudded dully on the metal floor then stopped just in front of Vent's head. The toe of his boot lifted Vent's chin up till he was looking up at his attacker and former friend.
"Just like how killing you could be justified into being a service to the community as you could be considered a threat to the peace by being a Chosen One while all others have been mostly wiped out by your gang's actions. Atlas, Thetis, Siarnaq, Aeolas, Prometheus, Pandora. All of them are dead now," he tilted his head while taking a pause to emphasize his next words, "because of you and your sister and those two rogues. You don't think they had dreams? You don't think they had ambitions other than being Mega Men? What do you know about them? Do you think that maybe they had been ordinary people thrown into extraordinary circumstances? Do you think it's not so much Model W taking control of them as them seeing no other way out of what they were?"
Vent's eyes shook as he maintained contact with Virus. Peering inside, Virus could see he struck something there. Like a small light going off in his ex-friend's mind. It was faint, but growing stronger.
"Thetis, the holder of Model L, was also a creative writer. Did you know that he was struggling to make it on his own? Abandoned by his family, he scraped and worked himself to the bone to fuel his passion while attempting to feed himself and keep a roof over his head. Can you blame him for when Serpent showed up on his doorstep?"
Continuing without waiting for a reply, Virus stated, "Siarnaq. Didn't you ever wonder why he seemed so robotic? A small glance into his past would prove that he had issues adapting to life. If you ever live to take another history course, you might stumble upon something in your books if they would actually teach you more about events and heroes.
"You see, Siarnaq was a war hero. He alone, piloting a WP-58, saved hundreds of men through valor and his piloting skills. A full transport during the Elf Wars was assailed by Maverick Pantheons and a reploid by the name of Alpha. Alpha was well known for being technologically advanced, but had disappeared. Siarnaq, through his coordination with a few other WP fighters that were vastly outnumbered, ended up saving the entire transport and fending off Alpha's attack.
"Siarnaq, however, was not so fortunate. Caught in the cannon of Alpha's ship, he only barely managed to save himself from being instantly vaporized by a quick maneuver that destroyed his right engine. He went down in a spiral that, again through his quick thinking, spared him death but left him mortally wounded. Had it not been for Weil's research, he would have died. However, he was outfitted with a new body that, unfortunately, didn't have its voice modulator dilated before Weil's focus became on Omega and eliminating Zero from his picture of Utopia."
He savored the look of regret in Vent's eyes as he realized he had struck another chord inside the former hero.
"So was it control of Model W that consumed Siarnaq? Or was it loyalty for his savior? Was it because one of the few men that had been exiled also happened to be the one that could save him from death itself?"
"N-no," Vent muttered. "If Weil saved Siarnaq, it was for a dark purpose. Just like Omega." Virus tilted his head and glared harshly.
"And you don't think Siarnaq could refuse Weil? You don't think that he, at any time, could have left Weil and fought on to become a hero of Neo Arcadia just as Zero had? Or was it because of Weil's kindness that he stayed? Maybe heroes aren't always these pure and noble knights the stories make them out to be, Vent.
"Which brings me to you. You're a hero of Neo Arcadia. You, Aile, Grey, and Ashe." He threw his hands up in a dramatic gesture. "Seriously, what are we going to do with all of you? Do you realize that if one of you were to fall and succumb to the glory, fame, power, or perhaps unfortunate circumstances, like Siarnaq's, you would be a threat?" He shook his head grimly. His green eyes locked with Vent's as his opponent's eyes shivered. "Do you not think, you specifically, would be? Your history gives you incentive. You were just a local boy making deliveries in a dead-end job that, sure, the owner saved you both after your parents were killed by Mavericks. What then? Would you fall and become like Serpent?"
"N-never. . .," Vent's breathing had become shallow and his voice hoarse as his eyes glazed slowly. "Because unlike you, I made that resolution a long time ago. . .. Do you think I would freely give myself to something that had killed everyone I love?" He grimaced and tears welled in his eyes. "You think I could work with the very things that killed Mom? Dad? Giro?" His bloodied hand gripped Virus's cloak tightly, imprinting a crimson hand on it. "Even you, Virus. I held back because you were my friend."
Virus was caught off-guard and looked bewildered into the fool's eyes. His teeth gritted as insufferable rage welled up inside him, reminding him of all the chances Vent and Aile got to be a hero. How he had been virtually forgotten after that. Is that what you call... friendship? Virus thought bitterly.
His hand closed around Vent's throat and slammed his head against the wall. Vent's eyes opened wide as he struggled to take in breaths of air. His hands weakly clawed at Virus's wrist.
"Now you listen... LISTEN NOW! I don't care what kind of remorse you show me now! You abandoned me! You went off, played hero, got the world saved, then left me alone as I struggled to pick up the pieces of a shattered city! You left me to die!" Electricity crackled from his spine as the rage built up stronger and hotter. "You left me when I needed the most help! But you didn't see. Instead I had to succumb to the world and change to its every whim. All the heartache. All the loneliness...," his lip quivered as unbidden memories also rose to the top of his conscious. "Sure! We're all men! But in the end, does that change that we still hunger for a friend to lean on when times are rough?!" The memories were getting out of control as he could remember each time he struggled to stay motivated in a debilitating world that tried, and mostly succeeded, in erasing who he was.
"Did you think...," he continued softly, but with a sharp edge in his tone, "that I was going to be okay?" He shook Vent violently, jarring the fading hero's head back and forth. "DID YOU?!"
The claw crackled back to life. Vent's eyes shut tight as he cried out; his hands gripping his destroyer's arm in a fashion of pleading for mercy. Blood fell freely from Vent's stomach as the triple bladed device twisted slightly, causing the badly damaged hero to fade faster and faster.
"I..." Vent's quiet voice was barely a whisper. "I didn't know. I thought... I didn't think..."
"Of course you didn't, Vent," Virus seethed through gritted teeth. "Heroes always leave people behind. Sometimes people that need them the most. Sometimes...
"people that already viewed them as heroes."
His hand grazed the wall, wiping as much blood off of his clothing as he could while deactivating Model EO. His dull white armor disappeared in a flash and the helmet that concealed half three-quarters of his head vanished. Behind him, the motionless body faded farther and farther away as his footsteps carried him out the doors of the large, disheveled room and into the main halls where his slaughter had begun.
Soldiers, both Reploid and human, lie in heaps. Most were dismembered with their mouths agape in the rigor mortis of death and shock. Blood and fluids from machines mixed freely across the floor, making it slick and giving Virus a reason to take extra care so as not to dirty himself further. As he traversed the halls that contained the remnants of his wrath, his mouth opened and he began talking to himself in calm, soothing tones, a practice he had adopted during his time alone when Vent had gone.
"I am not completely right. I know this." His hand adjusted a pendant around his neck. "But to say I was wrong would be unfair as it would indicate the world was partially right in its treatment of I and others like me. The meek that are too weak to speak out against the world because we're taught that kindness is a virtue." An eyebrow raised as he rethought that statement. Then he scoffed. "And yet we were always beaten down and threatened with harsh cruelty, having our lives put on the line and being fed hatred on a daily basis. Can you blame us?"
He stopped by a window that looked out onto the massive, sprawling metropolis that formed Neo Arcadia. He looked out to see the fruits of his ventures and a small feeling of warmth washed over him like the tide on a beach. Below and all around, the city was burning. Burning with the fires of anarchy as a suppressed class of people finally had a leader that had risen out of the grave of suppression to free them and let them take what they wanted.
And they wanted revenge.
"What you and the other Mega Men did was noble, Vent. However, you were a military hero and not a hero of the general public. Our problems still remained once the dust of war had settled. And so often, we have no one to turn to as fear consumed our hearts by this corrupted world. Can you blame those that were consumed by Model W? These people live in fear everyday while others like them suppress them in every way imaginable. Can you blame us, Vent?" He spoke softly as though speaking with his late friend from beyond the grave. "Can you blame us for taking matters into our own hands? I know you would have tried to stop us. And that is why I had to stop you. Sometimes villains are the heroes that aren't understood or whose full plan is not realized."
He turned away from the sight of the burning landscape and continued to descend down the stairs of the security base while taking special care to avoid getting excessive muck on his boots from the carnage he had waged.
"Sometimes the sacrificial lamb must fight back for the better of the species, Vent. And I hope that people will realize the genocide that is committed against themselves daily by putting restrictions on people and setting a default 'this is who you have to be' to everyone when, you know as well as I, that is not how human nor reploidkind is. We are dynamic. In our differences is beauty.
"But the more we try to be as one, the more restlessness we experience and the more animosity is created between two classes as those that can adhere to what is assumed to be a 'perfect state' repulses those that are genuine to themselves. Sometimes this thought of 'being true to yourself' is thought of as evil, ungodly, or unethical which is true, to an extent. There are those that would see their own greed be fueled, like Serpent, Prometheus, and Weil, while everyone else suffers. However, the silent murder is when the lower classes turn against each other in a futile bickering of 'who is the most perfect' when being 'perfect' is a wandering man's mirage."
Entering the streets, he activated his armor once more. The dull white helmet encircled the back of his head while a thick black visor covered half of his face. A long magenta plume of energy sprung from the top of his helmet in an imitation of a regal soldier or, more accurately, an imitation of the freakish knight form of Omega, the bodily copy of Zero that was part of the bloody destruction of the Elf Wars.
Model EO was the combination of Elpizo, a commander of the old Resistance, and Omega, a brilliant formula of swordsmanship with destructive nature. Although Virus's favored weapon was the claw that he frequently used, the Biometal provided a single energy sword on his back that could freely be adjusted from having a claymore-sized blade to being as thin and long as a rapier or fencing foil. Thrusters on the backs of his calves and bottom of his boots allowed him to stay agile while being heavily armored and able to do powerful shoulder rams with the sharp spine that protruded from his left shoulder.
Now his blade sprung to life as he removed it from its small cylindrical sheath mounted to his back. Walking forward towards the blazing streets covered in destruction and mayhem, he took a deep breath and exhaled.
"Today, the minority takes over the complacency of the majority."