Author's note: Sting Chameleon, Storm Eagle, and Boomer Kuwanger got higher amounts of characterization because of their unique reason for joining Sigma. The fourth leader is an OC who is now dead. It sounds kinda like a crappy retcon, I know, but I couldn't find another one of the eight Mavericks who had a personality/canon reasons to imply they could have such doubts. This chapter might produce a replacement...

X's systems had rebooted to the point of subconciousness once Zero had reached him, and the blue bomber was lost in the sea of his own thoughts. He sensed some sort of battle raging within his systems, yet he felt as though he were a prize being fought over, not a belligerant.

"Curse you, Albert. Causing death and destruction long after your death. I can't stop you completely from doing that, but I won't let you harm my son!" X was sure the voice belonged to Dr. Light, but...how? He was long dead. He'd heard of experiments in preserving people's personalities in Reploid bodies, but they were new and whatever remains of Dr. Light, assuming there were any, had never been found.

X slipped back into unconciousness as the exertion of expelling the Sigma Virus began to take its toll. But he felt comforted by the fact that someone or something was still watching out for him, even if only within the confines of his mind...

Repair Bay, Hunter Base

X gasped and sat bolt upright as his systems fully rebooted. One of the repair techs placed a gentle hand on his shoulder and guided him back to a resting position.

"We're nearly done, X. Just a little longer." X looked around and suddenly noticed Zero standing nearby. He smiled and felt a rush of gratefulness for his friend.

While the repair techs finished their work Zero filled his friend in on what happened as best as he could. "Your memory logs are so encrypted we can't access them, so I have no idea what you saw."

X sighed and waited for the technicians to finish their work.

Throne Room, Sigma Palace

"Vile, get in here! I told you to intercept X! Not only did you fail to stop him, but you returned to me alive and didn't even sortie to meet him! Explain yourself!" Sigma's uncharacteristic anger belay how infuriated he was.

The purple Reploid kept his head down but said nothing. Sigma's eyes glowed dangerously at the lack of reaction. "Answer me!"

"I'm not fighting for that cocksucking lizard. And you should be aware of his ulterior motives."

"Do not lecture me, Vile! You are a soldier in my army, and you will do as you are told!" Sigma drew his saber as he spoke. A tense standoff ensued for several seconds before Sigma calmed down. "You have two more chances to prove yourself, Vile. Meet X at both locations he will go to. That will be your last chance. If you dare shirk your duties again you will not live to confront X again. Am I understood?"

Vile nodded and walked out of the throne room, leaving a seething Sigma behind.

Power Plant Alpha, Abel City

Spark Mandrill grumbled as one of his minions reported no success in bringing any generators online. His defenses were as weak as ever, and X could show up at any minute.

His forces had taken over one of Abel City's five power plants at the start of Sigma's rebellion, and though they couldn't secure them all they had taken the largest, giving them significant leverage over the city's power supply. This was the only plant that didn't require fuel to operate, and with Abel City's port only recently freed from Launch Octopus's blockade two of them had exhausted their fuel stocks, while another was barely in operation and the last one, a nuclear plant, was deactivated and locked down after a Militia attack almost resulted in radiation leakage.

This plant was the primary one for good reason: its location meant it could use both the ocean breezes and tides to generate power in addition to using the current of a nearby river. These three combined means of renewable energy gave the plant enormous output regardless of the weather, and Sigma knew the city would be brought to its knees without electric power.

However, Sigma had left the plant operational and delivering power free of charge once Spark Mandrill took it over. The message couldn't have been clearer: though Sigma held humanity at his mercy he wouldn't kill them off if Reploids could be freed another way. Of course, the Hunters had been quick to spread propaganda to sham Sigma, aided by the fact that the Death Rogumer crash had taken the plant's transformers and automatic controls offline. Though none of the turbines had been damaged, without an AI to monitor them they had automatically disconnected their generators.

X teleported amongst the remains of the Death Rogumer, which had crashed into the plant three days earlier. Ignoring the ruins as best as he could, X moved further into the plant as it was plunged into complete darkness. Spark Mandrill had disconnected the power...?

Before X could ponder the matter the lights flickered back on. "Must be a result of the Death Rogumer crash," he thought and blasted a Gun Volt. X knew Mandrill had been given a subtank as well when he was with the Hunters, and a quick scan revealed a branching path that would take him to it. X climbed down a ladder and shot another pair of Gun Volts before running into a wall. Puzzled, X realized the subtank was completely enclosed within its own room.

He couldn't break this wall with his head or feet without damaging himself severely in the process, and his buster shots passed through it. A thought suddenly occured to X and he switched to Boomerang Cutter. To his dismay the cutter lodged in the wall. When he pulled it out, however, X saw that it had left a deep gash in the metallic surface. X pulled the cutter out of the wall and began slashing at the wall with the bladed edge. Soon he had chopped out a section of wall. However his scans showed there was an electromagnetic field surrounding the tank. X threw the cutter, and one of the tips looped around the subtank and brought it back safely.

He threw several more cutters at the remains of the Gun Volts in the vicinity, and two of them retrieved power cells. X transferred the energy and backtracked to the path branch. This time he took the other path. Suddenly the floor under X's feet sparked. He jumped slightly at the flash but the system's power supply was too low to charge a pulse that could damage his systems.

As X moved on past the wreckage of the Gun Volts, the lights went out again. X blindly stumbled into something and jumped over it, but upon walking forward another step his foot met only air. X jumped back in surprise and switched to night vision. No sooner had he done so than he was blinded as a Hotarion screeched out of nowhere, leaving behind a dim glow that still managed to overwhelm his night vision. X instinctively raised his buster, but the lightning-fast minion had already slammed into him and moved on, disappearing into a hole in the wall without a check in speed. "Okay, so I have to do this the hard way...or not." X suddenly remembered his newest weapon.

Switching to Chameleon Sting, he charged it and disappeared. The Hotarions rocketed blindly across the room trying to find him, but to no avail. Nothing touched him and he remained invisible until he had crossed the entire room and disappeared down a ladder.

As soon as he did so a pair of red glows emerged from the end of the darkened hallway. The lights turned on and X saw Vile standing there.

"Don't even try to pull that fancy magic trick of yours, X." No sooner had the words left Vile's mouth than X had turned invisible again. "Fuck you! Come and fight me properly, you pussy!" Vile began firing his weapons wildly, and his electric prison caster scored a hit, trapping X and removing his invisibility, though X promptly escaped his prison. "Now...we will have a proper fight, and you forfeited your right to a quick death!"

With that, Vile attacked with his newest weapon: the Popcorn Demon. X jumped back as the missile split into three and shot down one of them before dodging the others in the space he had created. Vile filled the narrow corridor with the spreading rockets before unleashing several Metal Crescents. The cutters arced towards X, but he managed to dodge them at the expense of several rockets exploding against his armor. Vile cocked his cannon and unleashed a Fatboy in the confined corridor. X braced himself for the impact; the massive energy shot took up the entire hallway. His new armor managed to weather the Fatboy without too much damage, but Vile remained as strong as ever. He dashed at X, and the latter had a flashback to his fight with Boomer Kuwanger. Switching to Homing Torpedoes, X fired off two. One struck Vile's head, the other his right arm. X followed it up with a charged attack, and Vile was greeted by five homing drones to the face. The explosions obscured Vile long enough for the latter to fire off an Infinity Gig. The homing fist bashed X repeatedly and hard, but X managed to escape with another Chameleon Sting, blasting Vile with several of the spread shots as he fled. The rocket fist returned to Vile, and he roared in anger, but X had already escaped.

X continued to follow the hallway and the flight of stairs it led to. As soon as he exited the stairwell, the door slammed shut with a booming finality. Leery of any threats, X continued on, but he didn't encounter anything until he reached a room with a large slime-encased robot hanging from the ceiling.

Another repurposed civilian robot, Thunder Slimer was originally a master cleaning and repair drone which could send out smaller versions of itself to do its bidding. The slime it produced was designed to stick to grime and other pollutants, making it ideal for cleaning the delicate machinery of the power plant. However, the minions were slow-moving and always returned to the mother unit, so Spark Mandrill had them removed and replaced with a weapon system. The immense power demands of the electric shocks meant it had to plug into the electrified ceiling to charge its weapon, and with the power out, that system was effectively useless.

X pitied the drone as its weapon system shot harmless sparks across the ground, but there was nothing he could do as it was barring his way. A charged Storm Tornado ripped away the robot's protective slime coating and began to shred the unarmored drone, but its body held and the coating regenerated. Several large globules of it fell onto the floor, and X slipped as he walked on one of them. As soon as he lost his footing the gel contracted, pulling him into it and rooting him to the spot. Thunder Slimer suddenly dropped down from the ceiling, aiming straight for him. In desperation, X fired a charged shot at his foot. To his surprise, the slime absorbed the whole of it and vaporized. X dove aside as the massive robot crashed to the ground in front of him.

X fired another Storm Tornado, the wind ripping the robot's slime pipes out of their sockets. With its protection system disabled, Thunder Slimer retreated to the ceiling, but it only had seconds to live as X finished it off with another charged Storm Tornado. The entire room began to shake and the robot crashed to the ground. X had mind to throw several Boomerang Cutters to retrieve the robot's power cells, and as they returned to him X dashed out of the room as it collapsed. Once he was outside, he began to transfer the energy to his subtanks.

Spark Mandrill cursed and pounded his viewscreen with his drill arm. This damned power outage was making a mockery of his defenses, and the fact that X kept turning invisible and circumventing the more tightly-packed defenses wasn't helping. He had known Sigma's plan was going to backfire, and now he was going to have to set things right by destroying X. Why did he of all people have to act as pest control? Did nobody else see the true magnitude of the threat X posed?

His thoughts were interrupted as he saw X installing a Heart Tank. Mandrill didn't know how it had gotten there, but Sigma ordered him not to touch it. A shame, the extra energy could have come in handy; however Spark Mandrill was not one to question his superior's orders. The Reploid suddenly raised his hand to the ceiling and infused it with as much energy as he could spare, which, though an extremely high charge, could not sustain the plant's systems. Without a power source, the backup batteries had long since been drained, and even Spark Mandrill's own power supply remained very finite despite being an electric-based robot.

X climbed past the remains of a Mega Tortoise and immediately the room went dark. As he suspected, he took another step forward and a Hotarion screeched towards him. X blasted it and switched to Chameleon Sting again. Once more Spark Mandrill's minions went beserk trying to find him, and again they failed. X snuck inside the command center as his invisibility expired.

"X...you showed up."

"Spark Mandrill...don't force me to fight you. I want to settle this peacefully."

"X, I don't think that's possible. You're opposing Sigma, and that means I have to stop you."

"What Sigma is doing is Maverick behavior! If you're taking orders from him then you're a Maverick too!"

"Have you ever considered this from Sigma's perspective, X? Have you ever considered the possibility the Hunters and humans are using you? Look at this; we have been blamed for isolating the city after you sent that damn airship crashing into this place! Before that we were powering the city as normal, and free of charge to boot! That includes your puny little Hunter Base! And yet you paint yourselves as the 'good guys' trying to take down a bunch of backstabbing liars who backed out on their promise because their power plant went offline when an airship hit it!"

X stood speechless for a moment. It was true that a lot of things about Sigma's generals and actions had been whitewashed by the government of Abel City. "It doesn't matter, Spark Mandrill. Sigma has killed humans in his rebellion whether he wanted to minimize casualties or not. That doesn't change the fact he's gone Maverick. Remember his own definition: a rouge mechanaloid that harms humans."

"I don't like thinking about this too much, X. The world has become very confusing for someone like me..."

"Then can we please not fight, Spark Mandrill? There are those of us who disagree with what the human government is doing and are just trying to minimize the damage. As you said, the world isn't clearly divided. That's not just true for your side; it's true for ours as well." Spark Mandrill hesistated, so X pressed on. "Just let some humans enter the power plant to repair it, and we'll let you withdraw. Neither of us gets harmed, and Hunter Base doesn't need to know about this. We'll make it clear that Sigma let them in; I promise to make a positive image out of this."

"X...you should know by now that I can't do that. Sigma has us all by the neck whether we joined willingly or not." X sighed. He had known about the Sigma Virus, but he still held on to the vain hope that he could negotiate.

"Then...I must put you down, Spark Mandrill."

"Do your duty...Maverick Hunter X. You have given me pause in my thoughts, but I am bound to Sigma in my actions." With that, Spark Mandrill raised his hand and launched a purple pulse of energy at X. The Electric Spark burst apart into thousands of small electric tendrils upon striking the ground, but X was already moving. Spark Mandrill pounded the ground and sent two massive spheres of purple electricity across the ground. X wall-climbed to avoid it, but the electric balls hugged the wall and X was forced to dash-jump to dodge them. Mandrill gave X no respite before dashing at him, his fist glowing with energy. X scaled a wall to dodge him, but Mandrill simply pounded the wall and X fell off, landing in the Reploid's outstretched fist. Spark Mandrill began shocking X with strong pulses of electricity.

X desperately switched to Chameleon Sting, but to his horror he didn't have enough weapon energy to turn invisible again. Mandrill dropped X and changed his fist to a drill, charging it with electricity in the process. The Reploid raised his drill, preparing to deliver a devastating if not fatal blow. X desperately fired every weapon he had while rolling out of the way of Mandrill's slow but powerful blows. Homing Torpedoes short-circuited in the residual electrical field, Boomerang Cutters only scratched Mandrill's armor, and almost everything else didn't even leave marks. Almost.

To X's immense surprise, the Shotgun Ice pellet not only froze Mandrill's fist, but ran through his power circuits and froze him from the inside out. After a few seconds the frozen figure trembled and broke out, but X froze him again and again until Spark Mandrill's body overloaded and he exploded. X walked over to the shattered remains of his internal dynamo and copied his weapon data.

"X..." a faint voice spoke. "Thank you for making it quick. I may yet be able to act of my own accord..." Before he could finish, Spark Mandrill's remains shut down from the immense damage he'd sustained. X stood silently for a few moments, his head bowed, before teleporting out. For the first time, he found genuine hate for Sigma welling up within him. Despite everything his former commander had done to him, his friends, and the world, X had always felt as if he were hating Sigma partially on behalf of others. There was no such feeling now.

Spark Mandrill was not his friend nor enemy, but merely someone who was "straddling the fence" as humans put it. But Sigma had forced him to make a choice; whether for good or evil, it was nothing short of enslavement regardless. X could forgive his friends because he knew they were under the Sigma Virus's influence, but he could not forgive Spark Mandrill for trying to kill him because he had no such bond with him, and that angered X the most. Making him hold a grudge against a Reploid simply because he had commited an unforgivable crime against his will. As if he were merely Sigma's playpen.

X sighed and struggled to rein in his anger. It soon became apparent that he could not and he smashed the wall with his fist with a yell. He did so again and again, pretending the wall was Sigma's face. He didn't know why he venting his rage now of all times, but he let his rage control his mind as he pounded the walls until the metal skin of his fist had peeled off, exposing the bare machinery. The next punch naturally brought severe pain with it, shaking X out of his rage-driven stupor. The blue bomber finally managed to control his anger and teleported back to Hunter Base.

Throne Room, Sigma Palace

Sigma watched X's loss of control with interest. So even X's feelings could run rampant. As X's small outburst had shown, the results could be extremely dangerous, and that was when the blue bomber still had a measure of control. Still, Sigma had to try pushing the margin anyhow, and that was part of the reason he hadn't killed Vile yet. Speaking of Vile...Sigma summoned him to the throne room.

"I tried to find him but I lost him! That coward ran away!"

"I am not interested in a depiction of the fight, Vile. He escaped and it was beyond your control. That does not constitute a violation of orders. However, I have something to notify you of." Sigma brought up a projection of Armored Armadillo's mine and showed Vile his next location.

"What makes you think he'll go up there?"

"We've found an armor capsule buried in the ground similar to those that have been left in other locations of Dr. Light's accord. It is, however, of no use to us as an upgrade as it is compatable only with his body. However, we can use it as a trap."

"So you want me to stop him from getting that capsule. Must be important."

"Important enough that a force field will block his escape once he enters the cavern. You will fight him until you are critically damaged or you destroy him as before."

"Excellent. And this time, he can't escape." Vile mused with satisfaction.

"Do not fail me, Vile, and remember my ultimatum." Without replying, Vile stalked out of the throne room.

Repair Bay, Sigma Palace

Dr. Cain watched nervously as the repaired Reploid generals walked into the repair bay to have the Sigma Virus re-downloaded. He silently motioned to Doppler to carry out their prearrangements while Sigma possessed each of the generals in turn. As he did so, his programming replicated and attached to the AIs of each Reploid. However, the process was completely silent and motionless. Cain quickly scanned each of the six repaired generals and gave a sigh of relief once Sigma left the room followed by Chill Penguin, Flame Mammoth, and Launch Octopus. The safeguard was keeping the virus from adapting to their programming.

"Doctor?" Doppler had set up the equipment as soon as Sigma and the three other generals had left.

"We should begin. We know we can trust these three. We should make haste in case the safeguard does not last as long as we hoped."

"Very well," Doppler intoned as Storm Eagle, Boomer Kuwanger, and Sting Chameleon began to approach them.

The Sigma Virus, when isolated, could be purged by Cain's experimental antivirus program, albeit via a tedious and automated procedure. It was once it began to mutate and adapt that the program would have increasing difficulty completely purging the virus, to the point where it was virtually ineffective if the coding was completely assimilated.

Unfortunately Cain could only handle one Reploid at a time, but the three had settled their order by then: Storm Eagle nobly decided to go last despite the other's insistence that he go first, Boomer Kuwanger had rationalized that the virus would have a harder time breaching his emotionless programming and decided to go second, leaving Sting Chameleon uncomfortable but satisfied with the position of first.

Sting Chameleon was connected to the machine and the program began to work its magic.

Hunter Base

X hurried out of the teleporter array and to his quarters, fearing he would lose control again. He managed to seal himself inside his pod before he did. For the first time, X uttered a feral scream of hatred and anguish. He'd lost so much to the rebellion already and had managed to cope with that, but it was what was potentially lost that he couldn't leave behind. And now, with the death of Spark Mandrill after he had finally convinced a Reploid to stand down, those thoughts caught up to him again. No matter how hard he tried, his mental willpower hadn't improved with his body, and he lost himself in the sea of despair again.

After a while, X heard a gentle tapping on his pod. X turned away, but the sight of Zero's face had already sent him sprawling back into the sea he had just escaped, for Zero, to his fevered mind, was another reminder of what remained to be lost. This time it was more than the potential loss that enveloped him. The sheer despair and anger he'd felt since Spark Mandrill's death were opening old wounds again. X saw once again Storm Eagle yank his hand from his grasp, the terror in Sting Chameleon's eyes fade to the emotionless emblem of Sigma as the virus took over, Chill Penguin's desperate request to kill him, and, most hauntingly, Teal and other human hostages being led away before his eyes as Sigma held Zero in a chokehold with one hand and his saber in the other hand, held mere millimeters from X's throat.

Spread out over the course of almost two weeks, the events had been painful enough. Now, within the span of minutes, it was too much. X screamed again and began to cry. Seeing this, Zero tapped more urgently on X's pod before trying to pry it open himself. With the help of a technician he was able to, but X immediately sprang from the pod and began firing his buster wildly.

"NO! LEAVE ME ALONE! I'M PUTTING YOU ALL IN DANGER! I WILL USE FORCE IF I HAVE TO!" X was screaming hysterically as he fired around the room, aiming for nothing in particular.

"X! Listen to me!" Zero pleaded, but it was no use. X's attention was drawn to Zero at the shout, and he screamed again as he fired a Spiral Crush. Stunned, Zero did not dodge as the massive shot hit his body, dismembering him and scorching his armor plating. "...Get...security teams...in here...Put...him...down..." Zero managed to say before he shut down. Within minutes, two teams of guards had subdued X with an EMP round and dragged him into the repair bay, where they secured him but allowed the technicians to repair X's damage. However, it would be some time before they got to X, as they had to fix Zero first.

Author's Note: So with that, X has finally broken completely. He's come close before, but now he's over the edge. Will he be able to pull himself back up? Or will the three rogue generals have to do his work for him?