The Last Standing

A Megaman X fanfiction by Black Mantle

This is a fanfiction, and as such, most of the characters in the story are not mine. Most characters are © Capcom and are used without permission. Cleo, Dash, Katie, Spinstar are © Black Mantle.

The Last Stand

X rolled the module in his hands, inspecting it, wondering why Zero sent it to him. He took his eyes off the device for a second to look out the window, even though there wasn't much to look at. Most of the ground was devastated; charred black or covered in scrap metal. Occasionally, a small patch of fresh land, maybe a few square meters in area was visible, and sometimes, a grazing of grass or a few budding flowers were visible. X thought to himself, he had heard before that life was all about facing trials and pain, and that life would find a way through any disaster. Sure enough, life was resilient, life is about resisting death itself.

* * *

Dr. Cain, Alia, Douglas, Lifesavor and Signas looked on as X placed the module on the ground. He stepped back towards the others as a holographic image appeared before them, taking the shape of their missing comrade in arms.

"X, I hope it is you watching this, and I'm sure you have a lot of questions. I can't answer them all, because there are things that even I do not understand yet. But, this is what I can tell you."

"I have a dark secret, of which you know something about; I was the cause of the Mavericks and the original source of the Nightmare virus. That is why I am no longer with you. I have left in order to seek an answer, and to purge myself of this accursed program. I don't know if I'll ever return, I may have to terminate myself in order to ensure the Nightmare affects no one else, but I am leaving this world in good hands."

"X, I know Sigma is still out there, I don't know what he can do in this destroyed world, but if the people of Earth are trying to rebuild, then you can be sure he is too. It is your duty to stop him once and for all. But first, I have a request…"

"This module contains two other messages, I suppose you could play them now, but it would make more sense if you took the module to the coordinates programmed into it. You'll have to search a bit, but once you've found what you are looking for, play the next message."

"You were a good friend, X. I don't know if we'll ever meet again, and depending on the circumstances, it may be better we don't. But whatever happens, keep your chin up, I'll be alright."

The ghostly image disappeared, leaving X confused.

* * *

"We're almost at the coordinates, sir."

X snapped out of his dream. "What, oh. Thanks, Dash."

X turned away from the green bot driving the air car.

* * *

"X! I don't want you going alone. Someone should go with you."

"I'll be fine, I can handle things myself."

"Still, but there are still Mavericks out there, and if you get caught by a couple of them, you may not be returning."

"Look, I took down Sigma several times. If I can go toe-to-toe with him, I can take on a few Mavericks."

"No buts, I'm sending a few units with you."

Alia stepped forward. "I'll go, I want to know what Zero was taking about."

Signas held up his hand. "Sorry, I need you here. You too Douglas. Why don't you take a few of the recruits? It'll give them some experience in case you run into any problems."

X was rather irate. "Recruits? If you're so concerned about me, why are you fixing me up with a bunch of kids whose operating systems were compiled less than a week ago? I'll probably have to spend most of my time keeping them out of trouble."

"That's an order. Everyone here has taken the full training and is more than capable of watching out for themselves. Besides, you've been rather distant lately, and I think it's a good time for you to get to know some of the people you'll be working with in the future."

* * *

There was only one X ever got along with well enough to work with side by side, and he's gone. Sure, he liked Alia, but she was support, now he had three newcomers with him. It would have been bad enough had this been a routine mission, but this was about a message Zero had left him, this was far too personal to just have someone tag along.

X looked around at his three companions. To his left was Dash, short for "Bomb Dasher" which is pretty self explanatory. Able to run fast despite his thick armor, he gets to his target quickly, drops his payload, and gets out before it detonates. He'd look pretty normal were it not for the two long "wings" extending from his back. They really aren't wings, more like long crane arms that extend out, each ended by a long sharp scythe type weapon. Even weirder was how they looked when folded up while he was sitting down.

Dash was an over eager character, wanting to jump in and prove himself the moment he was first activated. Working with the Maverick Hunters was a thrill for him, and being teamed up with the most famous Hunter of all time had his circuits humming in excitement. X really didn't know how to react to this rabid fan of his, whether he should play along or try to set him straight, either way, Dash was getting on his nerves.

Sitting behind Dash was the only familiar face to X, Armored Armadillo. He was one of the first reploids to go Maverick, and was one of the first that X had to dispatch. He had since been rebuilt and purged of the virus, and was now one of the Hunters. That's not to say it made X feel any easier about him, but at least X recognized him.

Armored Armadillo, or "Arm" as everyone called him was a shy sort and always a little bit nervous. Having been a Maverick, now a Hunter only served to unsettle him a little more. But over time, he was getting used to his new environment, but still having a little trouble getting used to his new "friends".

Behind X was the last of his companions, Cleo. She was previously a tour guide at the local history museum, before it was attacked in a Maverick outbreak. She dressed like an ancient Egyptian Queen, possibly to mimic her namesake, the famous Kleopatra. The gold staff with blue spiraling stripes painted on it only helped to promote the image.

Being much older than Dash, she behaved very maturely and ladylike, although not the "royal pain in the ass" that Dash occasionally accused her of. X liked her more than the other two because of her maturity and sensibility. But still, she didn't belong here either.

X looked out his window again, then down to the module he was holding. "Hold it. Put her down here, Dash."

"Roger!"

Dash put the air car down and the four of them got out, in the middle of a scrap yard.

Cleo looked around. "Are you sure this is the right place?"

X checked the module again. "Yep, this is it."

Arm was poking around some of the junk. "So, what are we looking for again?"

"We'll know it when we see it."

* * *

The quartet spent almost an hour sifting through rubbage within a 100 meter radius of the car.

"Dammit Zero, what did you put out here? Did you want me to find it or not?"

Cleo called back to the senior Hunter. "Why don't you replay the message, or possibly the rest of it?"

X didn't want to, Zero said to play it once he found it, whatever "it" was.

"Aaaaah!" *CRASH*

"What happened over there?"

Arm called back to X's query. "Sorry! A washing machine almost fell on me."

X and Cleo turned back to their respective searches as Arm gave the deviant appliance a swift kick.

Digging into his own mess, Dash was busily rearranging a horde of mangled car parts when he saw a solid object underneath. Moving more junk out of the way, he hit paydirt. "Hey guys! I found something!"

Everyone came to see what he found. "What is it?"

Dash stepped back to reveal the large gray block. "It's a door. Shall we open it?"

X shrugged. "That's what doors are for, aren't they?"

Working together, the four or them managed to pry open the large steel door. Behind it, a dark passage leading down at a rather steep angle. The four Hunters turned adventurers pulled out some flashlights and proceeded into the darkness.

The corridor was over 100 meters long and sloped more than 20 meters down. At the end was another door, this one wasn't as thick as the outer door and was much easier to open.

* * *

Inside the second door was a large room, totally dark.

"Someone see if they can find a light switch or something."

The four of them stumbled about the room, their flashlights barely able to show anything in the dusty environs.

Arm stepped on a piece of scrap lying on the floor. "What on Earth have they done to this place, it's a mess!"

Elsewhere, Cleo had found a control panel that still had some power to it. With a touch it lit up and a monitor above her flashed into existence. "Hold on, I found something."

A few seconds and a few buttons later, the lights of the large room flickered and illuminated, bathing the chamber in a soft white light. Arm came face to face with the rusted corpse he almost tripped over.

"IT'S A STIFF!!"

Everyone looked around to notice that there were more than a dozen destroyed robots in the chamber with them. Arm was screaming like a little girl.

"Arm! Shut up!"

Cleo looked to her left, a piece of a robot was lying there, the head. "Wait a minute. I know this bot."

She gracefully picked up the head, it looked like a metallic skull. "This is Skullman. We must be in Dr. Wily's laboratory."

Dash scratched his head. "Wily?"

"Dr. Albert Wily, he was the assistant of Dr. Light, the one who built me. But while Dr. Light wanted to create robots for the good of mankind, Wily wanted to take over the world. He built and reprogrammed robots to serve him, and it was the job of my predecessor to stop them. The history books didn't record what happened to him, and it wasn't it my databanks when I woke up either, it happened after I was built and sealed away."

Arm held his shivering and screaming down. "So, why did Zero send us here."

"Let's ask him." X took out the module and laid it on the ground. The hologram reappeared.

"So, now you see my dark past. Just as you were built by Dr. Light, I was built by Dr. Wily, based on plans that he had stolen. Just as you were built to benefit humanity, I was designed to destroy it. Wily created a powerful new virus, the Nightmare virus could drive any machine to madness, not just reploids, but anything with a computer core. He wanted to unleash it and me onto the world, a force which no one could stop."

"Fortunately, I was stopped. When he activated me, he was gearing up for a final showdown with Megaman. However, the virus worked too well, and it turned me into what we now call a Maverick. It took most of his robots to bring me down, more than a dozen were destroyed in the battle, and several more were severely injured. Wily was able to fix some of them before Megaman would arrive later that day, but he was running out of time. So the rest, he just left them here."

"I couldn't tell you about this before, I feared what your response would be. Now that you know about the virus, I figured I could let you know about my origins, and now you know why I am no longer by your side."

There was a pause for a few seconds before the ghostly image concluded the message from beyond.

"X, this is not yet over, there is one more thing you must see. The south door out of here is sealed, but you should be able to open it. Play the last message there."

The image disappeared again.

X took the module, and the four moved to the south wall. The door wouldn't budge, but after ten minutes of working at it, they managed to cut through. The corridor on the other side was much shorter, and at the end was the remnants of the original door. Inside, the sight sent shivers through their titanium bodies.

The entire room was a mess, scrap and destroyed robots littered the room.

Cleo was in awe. "This must be it, this is where it ended."

They walked through the rubble to the center of the room where they found a table with two robots laying on it.

"Megaman."

X walked over to the corpse of his predecessor. Severely damaged, his right arm missing and wires hanging out from every where. The other robot was in even worse shape, torn apart with large gaping holes puncturing the body. The head was still intact and revealed the robot to be female.

Dash was totally out of it. "What happened here?"

X laid down the module again.

"This is it, my final message to you, and you can see it is the final message for them."

"This is where the final battle took place between Megaman and Dr. Wily. The doctor had kidnapped Dr. Light's other robot, Roll, the female on the table. He was going to use her as bait to lure Megaman into a trap, to lure him to me. But he had to change his plans when I didn't 'cooperate'. So instead, he lured him here and attacked him with his remaining robots."

"From what I have pieced together from the computer core, Megaman was able to take down some of the robots, but was ultimately overpowered. Wily didn't destroy him outright, instead, he let him watch as he tortured and destroyed Roll."

"Robots of that day didn't know what emotions were, but I'll be damned if Megaman didn't feel true rage on that day."

"Megaman went berserk, and broke free of the other robots. They couldn't stand against him, and were defeated. One after another they fell, some destroyed totally, others were struck down, left half alive. He then turned on Wily. Wily was using one of his large machines, thick armor, massive weapons, ready for anything, even Megaman. The battle raged on, demolishing the whole room. In the end, Wily won, and Megaman was defeated, but Wily would not enjoy his victory. He was severely wounded, and managed to make his way out of his monstrosity before he collapsed and perished."

"And so, an era came to an end. Megaman was destroyed, and Wily was defeated once and for all. All of his robots were either destroyed, or left to rust away. Well, not quite. Even after his death, Wily had left something for the future, me. This is why I have left, to put an end to him once and for all."

"X, we have been good friends, and have fought diligently together. Defeat Sigma, with both of us gone, Wily will be defeated once and for all. And this will not happen again."

"Goodbye."

The image disappeared for the last time, and the module shut down.

X was left with a tear in his eye.

* * *

X was looking down upon the destroyed form of the original when Cleo walked up to him. "Over here, you have to see this."

X walked over, laying amongst the rubble, were some worn out clothes covering a skeleton.

"So, you're Wily. Not much the look at I must say." X crouched down to the skull. "This is all your fault. Of course, that was your plan, wasn't it?"

The skull didn't reply.

"No matter, you will be defeated, totally and completely."

To be continued