The whole gang stood before the giant 100 inch plasma screen that was especially reserved for talking with main villains, in this case, Red.

"So I heard you like M- I mean, I heard you defeated my eight soldiers. Well done, Zero and Axl. Oh, and you, too, X; I thought you didn't have the balls."

"Technically, I don't, and neither do you."

"Touché. Well, that just leaves me. Come and get me, boys."

With a wry grin, the Red Alert commander signed off.

"Well, that's it. We have to go kill your daddy," Zero said.

"Jeffrey Watson?" Axl asked in affright.

"Who is J- No, I mean Red."
"Oh, phew."

"Coordinates?" X enquired of Alia.

"Palace Road. The remaining forces of Red Alert Syndicate have occupied Akasaka Palace and converted it into a deathtrap. This happened while you three were undergoing repairs."

"They move fast, but we're faster. Teleport us," Zero ordered.

"Wouldn't it be prudent for one of you to stay here if HQ is attacked?" Signas asked.

"They're playing the waiting game, commander. They're not going to risk their forces on a futile attack – only Red poses a threat to HQ's defenses. Let's go!" X rallied the other two. Signas sighed wistfully as the three Hunters scrambled to the teleporter room.

"To be young again."

"What're you talking about? You're younger than I am!" Alia said.

"Yeah, but I miss the battlefield."

"I'd miss my comrades more," Alia replied, homing in on the Hunters' coordinates.

"That's why I'm here, and not there," Signas said, looking at the tactical readout onscreen.

888

"Wait a minute, why are we doing this again?"

"I don't know, Zero. Perhaps you would like to ask the GIANT MECHANILOID CHASING US!"

All three were running like hell while the steamroller mechaniloid chewed up the highway behind them, spikes and steamroller banging up and down in a death knell.

"Zero, stay out of this fight. You can't get close to that thing with your saber…" X warned.

"What? I can too! Just watch m…"

But the moment Zero paused to turn around, the steamroller smashed him into the road. The mechaniloid then rolled over him like so much garbage.

"ZERO!" X and Axl echoed, but they could not stop to help him lest they suffer the same fate."

"Look! There's a junction in the road! We can fight back there!" X shouted over the carnage, "GO LEFT, AXL!"

X dashed right. The mechaniloid began chasing X while Axl skidded to a halt in the other road.

"Oh, I see."

Axl peppered the exposed flank of the mechaniloid with automatic plasma fire. The enraged beast turned around to chase Axl, but then X blasted it with plasma charges. The mechaniloid turned around again.

"This thing isn't very smart, is it?" Axl smirked. The mechaniloid halted, glared at Axl, and lifted its steamroller high. X's eyes dilated.

"Axl, you have to…"

SMASH!!!

"…juuuuuuuuuump!" X's voice trailed off as he fell with that section of the highway. The mechaniloid had destroyed one of the support pillars below the highway junction and the whole construction was breaking apart under its own weight.

"Dude! Wouldn't that destroy the mechaniloid too? It makes no seeeeeeeeeeeense!" Axl's voice trailed off as he fell too. When the highway finished crumbling, the mechaniloid was sitting on top of the remaining support pillar, chuckling to itself.

Until a very battered Zero jumped onto its head from behind.

"Hello, bitch."

Lifting the saber high, he plunged the sizzling green beam into the mechaniloid's neural circuits. The thing died instantly, its spiky steamroller going limp. Zero sat on the wreckage while X and Axl climbed back up.

"Hey, I thought you were a goner!" Axl yelled.

"You sound disappointed. The thing was dragging me under it the whole time and I couldn't get free until it stopped to break the highway. Thanks for distracting it long enough."

"You look like crap. Report back to base; Axl and I will handle Red," X suggested. Zero looked at the palace in the distance.

"You're right. I'll see you guys later."

He teleported. X and Axl looked at each other.

"Huh. That was too easy," Axl remarked.

"You're right. Usually when he does that, he has something else in mind. Well, let's go meet your dad."

"He's not my dad," Axl grumbled.

888

After getting past some (very lame and predictable) traps in the palace, X and Axl confronted the Red Alert leader in what appeared to be a chamber of pillars with a bottomless pit below. X peered over the edge of one pillar.

"HOW did you dig a bottomless pit in the middle of a palace? I mean, come on! It's not physically possible to excavate all that earth! You could have just put lava or something!"

"I like my well-laid plans to be unnecessarily elaborate," Red purred, "Especially if I have such distinguished… guests."

"Red!" Axl piped up, "Why'd you start a war with the Maverick Hunters? You know that X and Zero always win!"

"See, that's the problem," Red sighed, one hand poised theatrically, "I was not counting on X being involved. I thought he was too busy playing World of Warcraft."

"Well, it is more interesting than this game," X muttered.

"What game?" Red and Axl echoed.

"Nothing," X said quickly, then pointed a finger at Red, "You have a lot of crimes to answer for!"

"The crime of taking action while you sat in your comfortable chair? The crime of meting out justice to those who ran free because of your 'negotiations'? The crime of helping a world in need of heroes? YOU are the criminal here, X! Your inaction has broken an already bleeding world!"

Axl looked at X, but X said nothing. That just made Axl mad.

"You leave him alone! He was only doing what he thought was right!"

"Come now, Axl. You can't expect me to forgive this buffoon for letting Mavericks get out of control."

Axl growled and opened his mouth but X restrained him with a hand on his shoulder.

"It's okay, Axl."

X stepped forward.

"Red! I let the law run its course for a while, but only innocents suffered. You saw the opportunity and took the law into your own hands, but then all you wanted was power, even going so far as to exploit your comrade, Axl! The law is for ALL humans and reploids, Red, not for you!"

Red laughed.

"The reploids and humans don't know what they want. They just want to live sheltered lives, oblivious to the Maverick threat. So I make decisions for them."

Fire flared in X's eyes.

"It is the right of all life forms to live in liberty and security!" X shouted, echoing the late General's words, "You are supposed to be their guardian, not a dictator! On their behalf, I will judge you!"

Red flinched, but snarled, "You can try."

X smirked.

"I knew you'd say that."

Axl drew his gun. Red teleported before X, swinging his double scythe to bisect the hero. X caught the handle of the blade, kicked Red away and blasted him full in the chest with a plasma shot. Red teleported again, spinning on the spot to form tornadoes on several platforms. Quickly running out of ground, X fled the bladed vortex, firing plasma shots that were swept away in the storm. When the wind died down Axl was leaping towards Red.

"AXL! NO!" X yelled.

"Yaaaah!" Axl cried, spraying Red with automatic plasma fire. When Axl landed on the platform, Red was splayed on the ground unmoving, but another Red appeared behind him and slashed the armour off his back.

"AAAARGH!" Axl fell off the platform but held on by fingers. Red stepped over him, scythe raised, but X shot it out of his hands. Red looked at X, grinned, and another scythe materialized out of thin air in his hand. Moreover, a copy of Red appeared beside X and slashed, but the Hunter dashed out of the way.

"How in the name of Science is that even possible?" X blurted, forcing Red away from the dangling Axl with more plasma shots.

"Matter-projection technology. It uses the energy generated in my body to project solid images of myself and my weapons wherever I want," Red explained, twirling his scythe in one hand.

"I need to upgrade!" Axl grunted, scrambling back onto the platform, wincing at the huge gash between his shoulder blades.

"Axl, you can't go on like that. You can barely lift your gun in that condition!" X warned him, supporting the boy on his shoulder. To the consternation of Red and X alike, Axl smiled.

"X, why did Red want me?"

"Your power…" Red answered, and then his eyes opened wide. "You can't be serious…!"

"X, expose your neural circuits," Axl ordered calmly. X touched the gem on his forehead and his helmet dematerialized, exposing his mop of brown hair. He touched the back of his head, and the hair parted, revealing the glowing circuits beneath.

"No…" Red shouted, flying across the divide to stop Axl. The boy's fingers touched Dr. Light's masterpiece, and the radiant energy field of the DNA transfusion physically repelled Red's attempts to stop it. When the light died down, there were two Megaman X's.

"Oh, my god," Red uttered.

"God won't help you now," they said in unison, and charged their arm cannons. Red made a mad dash toward them, hoping to devastate them before the charge was completed, but that was his fatal mistake.

"Goodbye, Red," they echoed, and fired. The dual plasma orbs encircled each other, combining in one aura sphere of obliteration at the centre of which was Red. The leader of Red Alert was broken before he hit the ground. The energy of the DNA transfusion faded, and Axl went to his former comrade.

"Red, you didn't have to do this. You could have worked together with the Maverick Hunters, but instead you warred with them. Why?"

"Sigma…" Red whispered, and said no more.

888

"So, um, what do we do now?" Axl wondered as they stood in central command. A huge tactical layout sat in the middle of the room, projected holographically.

"Sigma doesn't leave calling cards," said a fully-repaired Zero, standing before the hologram with Alia and Hannah, "So we found him while you boys were playing with Red."

"Our supposed main villains have a tendency of being decoys for Sigma," X lamented. "What's chrome dome up to this time?"

"Axl, do you remember that reploid you assassinated recently, by the name of Cedar?" Zero enquired. Axl blinked as everyone stared at him.

"Uh. Yes? He was dragging a briefcase around. Inside it was…"

Axl could not speak for several moments.

"What? What?" X prompted.

"It was a virus called Sigma zero two."

Zero gave a wry grin while X about exploded.

"WHAT?! You knew this all the time and you didn't TELL us?"

"How was I supposed to know?" Axl yelled back, flailing his arms, "Lots of things are named Sigma! I don't go around suspecting every secret document and every data stream because a letter of the Greek alphabet happened to show up!"

"Sigma is a virus. I thought that was well established when he destroyed the world during the fifth war," Alia pointed out.

"Oh," Axl conceded hopelessly while X fumed.

"Zero, when did you find this out?"

"Things clicked into place right after destroying that steamroller mechaniloid. X, this whole war has been a gigantic waste, and it made no sense to start with. The Red Alert Syndicate was an anti-Maverick organization. They were vigilantes, sure, but fighting against Maverick Hunters? And then there was Axl. Why would Red start a war over a piece of technology that we possess? Wouldn't we ultimately use Axl to fight Mavericks?"

"Hey! I'm not your toy!" Axl groused.

"Yes, but your ability is unique, and that makes you a weapon of war, like it or not," Hannah shrugged.

"The point is that Red Alert didn't care what we did so long as we eradicated Mavericks. For Red to suddenly convert his entire organization into soldiers that he used against us… it was far too suspicious," Zero continued.

"Yeah!" Axl said, "That's why I left. He changed overnight – literally! One day he was my friend and the next he was spouting rhetoric about gaining power and ousting the Maverick Hunters for supremacy. It was so weird!"

"Sigma," X growled, "He twists everything to his own designs. So that Sigma oh-two virus that Cedar was carrying came from Sigma himself. That's why he became interested in Red Alert, and especially Axl for killing his messenger."

"Sure, blame it all on me why don't you," Axl grumbled.

"We're not blaming you, but you will help us fight him," Alia raised an eyebrow.

"Yes, ma'am," Axl saluted.

"So, here's the plan," Zero said, finally pointing to the tactical hologram, "We didn't defeat all those Red Alert members for nothing. Fragments of this blueprint were scattered across all eight bases. Red must have met with Sigma at this location and hid it among his most trusted commanders."

"Why didn't he just delete it?" Axl asked.

"In the eventuality that he was defeated, one of his commanders could report to Sigma," Alia explained, "Basic chain of command, really."

"Although we still don't know why Sigma used Red Alert to fight us, we have to stop him because that's what we do," Zero summarized.

"Okay then. Let's head out," X asserted. When the group was in the teleporter room, Douglas walked in to hand Hannah a backpack.

"Here, these should be set to the correct frequency."

"Are you sure? Because I don't want to lug them all the way back here for you to tweak them," Hannah said as she strapped it on.

"Oh, quit yer bellyaching and carry them," Douglas rolled his eyes and walked out. Hannah stepped onto a teleportation pod beside X, Axl and Zero.

"She's coming with us?" X asked. Zero nodded.

"Yeah, we sent some scouts to the place just now to gather information. They confirmed my fears. You'd think he'd find a better security system by now," Zero muttered.

"What are you talking ab-" Axl began, but was interrupted by the teleportation.