Disclaimer: I do not own Megaman ZX (but Neo and Maria are MINE!)

Chapter 12: Neo Light

Maria was walking down the road when she heard Ashe calling her name. "Maria!"

"What is it?"

"There was another raid." Ashe replied.

"Really? Where? When?" Maria was alarmed. My dream, could it be?

"Laputa, the great city. Three weeks ago. Legion sent recovery ships as soon as communications were restored. We're going to pick up the one who ended the raid rather bloodily."

"One?" Maria echoed. "One person stopped it? Who is it?"

Ashe's expression was grave. "He's a boy your age. This is going to be hard to believe, but you need to hear this."

"What?" Maria felt the ground lurch behind her feet. Uh oh…

"He's a chosen one…the other Megaman Model O. Your long-lost twin…Neo Light. He just went berserk."

Oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god…Those three words repeated themselves over and over in Maria's mind as she ran/stumbled down to the ship that would take her to Laputa, and to her berserker twin.

/Neo's P.O.V.

A hospital bed, a strange dream, and the outside information of him going completely nuts. Neo Light was still trying to adjust to the idea of being a chosen one slash berserker. It was too immense, too mysterious. Neo couldn't remember what happened, at least not that clearly. It was almost like a dream, an out-of-body experience. It seemed that one moment he was walking his friend Kari back to her house, and the next he was handcuffed, tranquilized, and completely drenched in both fresh and dried blood, none of which was his.

Neo desperately recapped what had happened that day, trying to put the pieces together.

Flashback: three weeks ago.

Neo was sitting at his desk in his classroom, completely oblivious to his teacher's lecture on how ape evolved into man. In his desk, he was holding Model O, his partner since that day, the raid, the day he lost everything…

No, Neo thought. I don't want to remember…the pictures rushed back anyway, the attack that changed his life forever.

The raid, ten years ago:

Neo was running, for his life. It seemed to unreal that all other noise seemed to die away, all he could hear were his footsteps and his own terrified screams. Mavericks were everywhere. The rest of his family was dead. Neo was so scared, so numb. It's like in those dreams where you're being chased by monsters, you're trying to run but you're moving so slowly. He couldn't run fast enough. And his father was killed saving him, fighting the mavericks, fighting HER. The witch. Neo was sitting on the torn streets, amid the fire and carnage, staring blankly at the scene in front of him. Sorrow and rage filled him, yes, a powerful rage. When Model O was accidentally dropped by the retrieval maverick, Neo threw himself at it, swiped it out from below them, closing his hands around it and clutching it for dear life.

"You…will give that…to us…" The witch's voice was soft and icy.

"NEVER!" Neo howled that word to the heavens, holding the Biometal against his chest. "THERE IS NO WAY I'D HAND IT OVER TO SCUM LIKE YOU!"

"Fine…if you won't give it…I'll take it from you." As that she-devil prepared to attack, Model O spoke to him.

"Neo."

Neo's eyes widened. "You can talk!"

"Neo, if you don't want to die, fuse with me! I can give you the strength you need to stop these mavericks, to kill that wench that took your family away. Do it, Neo! Shout megamerge, and we'll become one!"

Neo looked at the witch, and looked skyward. I want the power…to avenge my family! "MEGAMERRRRRGE!" The last thing any maverick saw that day was a flash of crimson hurtling towards them, the terrible agony of being stabbed and slashed brutally, and then everything went black.

How did I do it? Neo still couldn't completely understand. After that incident, he was shuffled around by a group of Inner Peace adults given the duty of finding a proper home where he could recover from the trauma of the raids. He became very anti-social, and spent much of his time brooding on the meaning behind the raids. But nothing could have prepared him for what he became the other day, no amount of research on Model O, no amount of recovery time.

/back to three weeks ago.

"It was just bad luck, Neo, really, and I'm sorry it happened to you." Everyone was saying that to him.

They thought the raids were random, but Neo had other ideas. He was completely positive that someone was behind it, pulling the strings, causing all those deaths. He could remember very plainly seeing that witch maverick hovering over his father's decapitated body, taking his soul. The one thing Neo knew, even in the middle of his period of deep mourning, traveling from orphanage to foster home to here, it was that he himself had repelled the raid. It was he who had slaughtered that maverick when it appeared in the airship when he was on his way here. How he had done it, why he was so enraged, it escaped him. Why was being a chosen one so hard to comprehend?

If there was one thing that vexed Neo more than anything else, it was that no one else seemed to notice the danger. They were content to stay in this dangerous place, so close to increasingly high levels of maverick activity, because it was pleasant and in a fine environmental location. Lord, it was almost stupidity. Neo knew it wasn't nice to call people stupid, but the plain fact of the matter was that they were in danger and to stubborn to move. Neo could howl in frustration.

Neo was so deep in thought that his teacher had to march over and yell to get his attention.

"NEO LIGHT, DO YOU HEAR ME?" Neo nearly toppled over backwards in surprise.

"Y-y-y-yes sir?"

His teacher sighed. "Neo, I don't mind you going off in your little world on your own time, but you don't come to school to daydream! You're here to study!"

"Sorry sir." Neo ducked his head.

"Apology accepted, but you're going to have to make up for it." The man paused, thinking. "You'll be staying here to clean up the classroom after school, got it? You need a partner…" He looked around. "…for a change of pace…Kari!"

The cute black-haired girl at the other end of the class jumped. "Y-yes sir!"

"You're mine after school, miss!"

Neo sighed in relief. He didn't mind having Kari around, and it was better than having to stay with some of the other kids who will remain nameless for the moment. After washing the board and beating the brushes, he offered to walk her home.

Kari turned red in the face. "Thanks, Neo-kun!" She was cute when she was embarrassed, that was for sure.

They were headed down the streets when there was a crashing noise coming from down the road. The sounds of fire igniting and people screaming broke the silence, and soon fire appeared over the buildings. Peace was shattered.

"Neo? What happening?" Kari was trembling. Neo froze cold. He knew this…his greatest nightmare was becoming reality…again.

"Kari?"

"Yes? What do we do?"

"Run like our lives depends on it." Neo replied, watching the red-eyes machines appear over the overturned cars. "Because most likely…" The machines took aim. "…they do." Neo and Kari took off-just in time for the ground where they had been standing milliseconds before exploded.

As hell ignited around them, with people screaming and dying, confusion was in the air. Neo's mind was in chaos, all other sound was drowned out. When the reached the end of the road, that's when it happened. The witch appeared in his life for the second time, and unleashed her ice daggers.

As if in slow motion, one of them struck Kari and she collapsed. Neo fell to his knees next to her. Her stomach was slashed and she was bleeding. It can't be. She can't be dead, she can't be…no…Kari…

"What a shame…" The witch was speaking. "Another worthless human…dead…"

That's when it happened. Seeing Kari injured, possibly dying, hearing that…bitch…call her worthless…something inside Neo snapped. He put Kari down, and stood up. Silence filled the city, all nearby eyes on him.

"…Unforgivable…" His voice was completely devoid of emotion, absolutely flat, and that only made him sound ten times more terrifying. His fist clenched. He transformed, took out his saber, and looked up. The infinite fury in his eyes froze anyone who had the courage to face him. In an instant, he lashed out, slaughtering all mavericks close to him and then he ran forward, jamming his sword into that witch's shoulder.

Neo's eyes were now a deep shade of crimson red. "HOW DARE YOU KILL MY ONLY FRIEND! She was no fighter, she was no threat, you killed her, you fu***ing bastard, you stupid, warped, twisted, clueless bitch, you go around killing people for a 'new world', Kari isn't the worthless one, you are, and I'm going to send you to HELL!" Neo reared back and viciously slashed across her body, leaving a burning red scar. His saber dripped with blood.

"PREPARE TO DIE!"

The rest was a blur. Neo could only remember seeing the bodies of brutally slaughtered mavericks lying around him, having someone put restraint locks on him, inject him with a tranquilizer, and seeing his hands completely covered in blood.

Neo looked around his room, taking on its features. Someone had taken the purple limiters off his wrists and he could sit up. To his left sat a glass of water, a piece of bread, and a tranquilizer gun. No prizes for guessing why that was there. Whoever was still in charge of Laputa was obviously paranoid at the idea of him going berserk again, which wasn't really fair, he had only killed mavericks, as far as he knew he hadn't so much has laid a hand on any of raid victims, much less attack them. To his right…it was Kari, lying on another bed, hooked up to several life support machines.

"Kari?" Neo called weakly. She didn't reply, she must still be unconscious. The nurse walked in and dropped her plate.

"Neo! You're awake!"

"Yeah. I'm fine." Neo swung his head back over to Kari. "Kari, is Kari alright?"

"Well, I have good news and I have bad news." The nurse replied quietly, but not before fearfully pulling Model O out of his reach. "The good news is that she is going to survive. The bad news is I don't know if she'll thank me for it."

"Why would she want to be dead?" Neo demanded, both relieved and dismayed. Relieved that Kari wasn't dead, but dismayed at the idea that she might not want to survive.

"We're…she's going to need a heart transplant." Neo whipped around and stared openly at the nurse, horrified. "It's going to be very dangerous and there is the chance that something might go wrong, and she might die or go into a worse condition in the process." Greatly fearing the boy may vent his rage and terror on her, she added quickly "I'm sorry Neo, I'm doing everything in my power, I-"

"It's okay, Cinny." A soft voice came from the hall. Both nurse and patient looked up as two girls came into the room. "If anyone could save Kari, you can." The first one said quietly.

Neo got his second shock in the last few seconds. One of the girls was Ashe, Megaman Model A. The other one was his twin sister, the girl from his dream.

"Maria?"

"Neo? Is that really you?"

"Yeah." Neo gazed at his twin. She looked exactly like she did in his dream, his mirror image. "I had a dream last night. You were in it."

"So did I." Maria said softly. She brushed his hair out of his eyes. "How are you feeling?"

"Okay, I guess." Neo glanced over at Kari. "I wish I could say the same for her…"

"I understand…" Maria said, sitting on the side of his bed. She didn't say anything, she just sat there and provided a hand for Neo to hold/crush.

"What am I supposed to do now?" Neo asked aloud, to no one in particular. "I'm a monster. No one wants me around. Where should I go? What should I do?"

"You could stay with me!" Maria said at once, brightening.

Neo blinked and looked at her. "Really?"

"We came to get you! Let's go to the hunter's camp."

"I don't know…" Neo glanced at Kari again.

"I'll let you know if her condition improves." Cinny promised. Neo nodded in gratitude.

"Thank you." He smiled at his sister. "Let's go…"

/Author's note: Wow, I had a real fun time with this chapter. Hope you guys like it. Anyway...REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW and I'll see you in chapter 13