Chapter 50 – Truth be Told – Part I

Farewells saddened X, probably more than most other things. People died from war, from old age, and simply from being unable to stay in the same place together by fate and duty's sometimes cruel natures. How many times had he been forced to say goodbye to a friend? More than he dared count, and he knew that his sophisticated reploid brain was probably capable of chronologically recalling every incident. He forgot very little, just didn't think about some things for a very long time.

And that was how it had been when he had to say goodbye to the world of Gaia. His mind drifted back with vivid precision to only hours ago, blocking out the small hum of the Dreamweaver, the silver-blue metallic décor, and the sight of flying stars through the thick transparent panes of his conference room.

--

It was a strange affection that kept Elena's hand holding tight to X's as they shared a few moments together in the corridors of the landed Azure Dreamweaver. She felt something perhaps in the middle of what lovers feel and the love that a child has with a parent, but coupled with another strange, foreign third love that she didn't have for anyone else, not even for Tseng.

"The love for a hero," she whispered in thought.

"Hmm?"

She shook her head gently. Her face still hurt a bit from the gashes to her face, but even if she hadn't had the healing power of materia and several bandages to help, she probably still would have smiled warmly in his presence, just as she was doing. It was almost twenty-four hours since they had crushed Zero's horde of fiends, and since her outburst, when she had let loose all the anger and hatred she had borne. She had spent a few of the hours since then with Mega Man X, and although she would have liked more, Elena knew that the she had been given more of his time than most had since the fight, possibly more than even Raven. It was an honor, a privilege, and a joy.

"...maybe that's how I feel about you," she said to him. "You saved my body five years ago... and now I feel like you've set me on the road to saving my own heart."

"I wish I didn't have to put you through pain to do it," said X with the utmost apology in his voice. "But I thought it might be the only way."

"I think you're right," she answered. "Time alone would never have healed what I was going through. I was holding so much hate, and I could never forgive someone like Zero for it. I still can't believe myself, looking back on it."

"You mean at the battle?"

She nodded with a sad exhale. "I still feel ashamed of myself for acting the way I did. I wish I could have been stronger."

"Elena," Mega Man said firmly, and he turned her so that they could look at each other face to face. "You had the strength to recognize the hate inside of you and that you had to get rid of it for the sake of your heart. You say that you love me as a hero, but I feel like I should look to you as a hero for having so much courage. And now that you've released what you needed to, you're recovering emotionally faster than I could ever have expected. I'm so proud to know you."

Her blush was so strong that she might as well have taken off the bandages across her cheeks.

"I… thank you, X. You're so kind," said Elena, starting to tear up. "I'll miss you. Please, when all this is over, you'll come visit, won't you? I… well, I know things have been awkward with me as a Turk; we've been enemies just because of my profession. Still, you mean a lot to me, even if things were rocky and we haven't known each other for long."

"I'll visit," X agreed. "As long as I still have a ship left to visit with. And if I don't have one, I'll build another myself. Sound good?"

"That sounds perfect," she grinned painfully. Sunlight suddenly flooded in as they approached the open door of the ship. It felt like the emotional coming of and end to them, that sort of feeling that makes you slow down and stop, trying to savor the moment and make it last. X let the silence fill the moment as long as Elena wanted it to, until she felt the need to speak, to make the motion to move on.

"I guess… this is goodbye."

"Only for now, I promise," said the reploid.

They stood together at the entrance together, neither one wanting to take the first step out. As much as Elena wanted him around as a hero, he also wanted her, as a friend.

"Elena."

"Yes?"

"Can I ask you to do something for me?"

"Yes, of course," she very quickly answered like the Turk that she was.

X sighed, thinking of the impending departure. "We'll be heading out in just a few hours. And I don't have enough time to talk to Reno. He's hurting pretty bad."

"I know," she agreed. "We're all having a hard time after losing Rude, but Reno's taking it the worst, and knowing him, he'll hold it in until it eats a hole right through him."

X gave a short huff of quiet laughter. "Damn male brain patterns. Sometimes wish I wasn't programmed with one."

Elena laughed back. "I'll do what I can. Maybe I can pull a page out of your book and make him tear out a fiend's jugular. That was helpful."

"Anytime," said Mega Man, grinning to himself while he stared upward toward the sun.

X made the first move to hold her tight. Elena, being just shorter, laid the side of her head against his shoulder, and it felt pleasantly warm, just like a real human's. That one surprise never seemed to leave anyone disappointed. If he had to feel someone else latching on to him, only to be turned away by the cold of metal, then he wouldn't want it. His mind traveled once again to the wonders of his own creation as he embraced Elena, his hand cupping the back of her head and her blonde hair. Was the warmth that came from him another deliberate design from the long late Doctor Thomas Light? X liked to think so.

--

Of course, the moment had to end, but it was only one of several goodbyes and other moments that Mega Man X experienced and endured through the tough exterior of his armor, trying not to let the loss of departing pierce him.

His face voided for a brief half second, and he discovered from his internal chronometer that the other sages would probably start filing in less than fifteen minutes from then. More than enough time to reflect on some of the other people who had touched his life in one way or another on Gaia, although some were not quite as pleasant as Elena.

--

X wasn't sure what to do about Rufus, and considering that he was remarkably close to confronting him (about a half minute's walk), that was slightly unsettling. Surely, after forcing his way into the reploids' affairs and claiming himself to be the driving force between the alliance between the two races saving much of the planet, it was clear that Shinra was going to lead not only Midgar, but also many surrounding regions. Rebuilding and relocation programs across the planet would undoubtedly be funded and organized primarily by Shinra, and if he planned to rule the people by inflicting fear again, then X knew he would have to stop him. With Cloud Strife presumed dead and having left Tifa a widow, he figured there would be no one else either willing or fully able to do the job, and after prying Zero's stranglehold from Gaia, Mega Man had truly hoped he would not have to return again to protect in Cloud's place.

Through the dark of Rufus' intentionally dim-lit congregational office, the shinning green of X's armor and Mako eyes at the open double doors were strong enough to bring all faces to him.

There were several Turks and other Shinra Co. employees seated around the solid, silver, crescent conference table with their soon-to-be resurrected President facing them from his dais and comparably large desk, which was privately fashioned to have the appearance of wood grain even though it was solid metal. It was clearer than day that Rufus was seizing his opportunity as quickly as he could before he lost some of the momentary hype of recent events. At that rate, X figured that the corrupt man would be on top of Midgar in days.

"Everyone, out," X ordered. The Turks continued to stare. An overhead light illuminated each face including Mega Man's own, leaving the room's borders and much of the rest of it in perpetual shadows, but X saw from a distance the violent glare coming from Rufus with a matching set of irises infected with materia.

"Now!" bellowed the green-armored reploid, projecting his strength through his vocal chords, and it felt as though the floor rumbled.

The reaction might have been comical if the situation wasn't so serious. The Turks and Shinra employees began to hurry out with the automated lights following their paths, some clambering uncomfortably over one another to give Mega Man a wide breadth when they saw the handle of the Master Sword behind his shoulder.

The President and the Hunter remained fixed until the doors slid shut behind X. He slowly paced towards Rufus, and the lights followed his slow foot steps as they gently clanged against the floor, quietly releasing the hydraulic press of some of his reploid joints. Two overhead beams continued illuminating the suits and faces of Turks – those of Reno and Tseng – who weren't as afraid of Mega Man. X ignored them both. He recalled how he and Raven had lost against Tseng and Rude a while back, but now he felt authoritatively confident that he could take on all three of them.

"I hope you don't think my Turks are too cowardly, Mega Man X," Rufus said, snide but calm. "They've just seen and heard what you're capable of, like rescuing thousands in Wutai and single-handedly destroying half the fiends unleashed by that Maverick reploid. Some of them think you're something of a monster. Sephiroth-like, even."

"If my power makes me guilty by association, then so be it. What matters is what you do with it, and that's precisely why I'm here, Rufus Shinra. To talk about your power."

"Ah, another righteous savior of the pitiful downtrodden," he mocked angrily. "I had hoped for better from you."

X narrowed his glance very sharply, making the jade resonance in his irises consume his dagger stare. He stepped closer; Tseng and Reno shifted subtly in their seats. X made a plain turn of his head back and forth between the two.

"Tseng, you wouldn't dare attack me. Reno, if you try, I'll break both of your legs."

Tseng froze in every aspect of his movement for a brief second. Then, he slowly stood, held his head and eyes facing firmly forward, and headed for the door in complete silence. Reno stumbled over his own breath and lost the ability to use words as he stared at his boss, his fellow Turk, and back to his boss, who had nothing to say.

X considered that Tseng might have just lost his job, but even if he did, Tseng and Elena were more than capable of sustaining themselves in other ways. He wasn't worried.

"So," Rufus spoke with blood pressure rising, "what are you going to do? Kill me? Expose me? You say you'll break Reno's legs, but you don't have the stomach to kill a human being unless you have to. I don't think you have the time or will on your hands to tell the people, not that they'd believe you anyway."

X grinned darkly. "I have a contingency plan."

Shinra's face turned monstrous and vulnerable. He reached beneath his desk quickly for his weapon, but before the double barrels of his old style shotgun came into view, X revealed the sky blue Chaos Emerald from a pouch at his side.

"Chaos Control!" And the emerald warped the fabric of space by the strength of his will.

Mega Man ripped past Reno, who rose slowly under the time bending influence and was completely unable to follow X's lightning movements. Rufus reacted quicker, but under the light warping power exuded from the reploid and the chaos emerald, there was a bounty of seconds in which to use the edge of his desk for a hand plant somersault. Colors were distorted. Sound reverberated slowly like an oversized drum being beaten from below. X landed firmly behind the slow-motion Shinra and smacked the back of his neck while loosening his physical and mental grip on the emerald in his other hand.

Everything resumed normally, not without a nauseating jolt for all involved. X felt slightly heavier but fine otherwise as he quickly returned the emerald to its hiding pouch, while the Turks dealt with a dizzying blur in their eyes. Rufus however, raging with anger, was concerned with the blood leaking from his neck where a round, pronged object was planted.

The legs of the device began to dig down beneath his flesh and uncomfortably situate around his spine. He roared, eyes flaring, beginning to leak the green tears of Mako poisoning. He scratched and dug, trying to tear it from his body, failing completely when X clenched Shinra's wrists so hard that his fingers contracted and spasmed.

"It's attaching itself around your spinal cord," X whispered in Rufus's ear from behind him. "Think of it as a means of repaying you for the way you treat your citizens. As long as this device is attached to you, should you receive any spinal cord injury, it will be repaired. Even if your spine is cut in half, as long as you're still alive, you will quickly recover the use of your limbs. Any kind of spinal fluid build-up will be dispersed and regulated, making you immune to many kinds of brain cancer, degenerative diseases, and epilepsy. You'll even be resistant to poisons, bacteria, toxins, and radiation that could normally damage or destroy the brain."

Rufus huffed and spat violently in a futile struggle, still held in place by the wrists with his back to Mega Man. He waited for the downside in abject vehemence, worsening the Mako effects on his body.

"But," X cautioned, "If I find out that you are abusing your citizens and making their lives a nightmare for your own personal gain, then I can reprogram this little device from a very great distance. Instead of protecting you, it can weaken your body, disable your limbs, or even kill you. If you forcefully remove it, your spinal cord will tear and the device won't be able to reattach itself without me. You will become a quadriplegic. If you're thinking of trying to short out the device with an electrical shock, I should let you know that it can withstand quite a charge. If you use a high enough voltage to break it, the energy will be passed directly to your spine and will probably kill you. If you somehow survive, you'll be a vegetable with complete certainty."

X shoved the Shinra President into the back of his chair.

Reno watched, completely dumbfounded and helpless in front of Shinra. There was nothing he could do for his boss. Reno then realized that, in addition to Rude's death, Elena and Tseng potentially finished, and the world altering events that had taken place, another aspect of his life was about to become far different. His job had just changed more dramatically. It was no longer to do whatever Shinra wished for the good of him, the Turks, and the company. To be a Turk now meant keeping him in line, because the redheaded man believed every word that X said about the machine now nestled on the back of Rufus's neck and what he would do if Rufus ruled Midgar as he had up until five years ago.

"It doesn't work on Mako poisoning," added the reploid unfortunately. "But even still, that device will probably add at least ten years on your life as long as you act with a little selflessness now and then."

X jumped over both sets of conference tables and landed lightly, and like those who had fled, the overhead lights marked his path all the way to the door.

"One last thing," X stated callously. "You will get your Zanarkand project up and running, and you will do it soon."

Suddenly Rufus began laughing. It was far from joyous laughter; that anyone could tell.

"Ironic…" he leered, slightly amused.

X stopped.

"…that a sophisticated machine, the very sort of thing that Shinra Company strived to develop while under my rule… is a better leader than I am."

Rufus clutched his bloody neck and stared at the back of X's head, as if willing him to turn around. The three waited in silence.

"Goodbye, Rufus Shinra," Mega Man X finally answered. He did not look back.

--

Had he done the right thing? X sincerely hoped so. Scrapping Mavericks had always seemed so right to protect humans and innocent reploids for the first few years of his life. Then he learned the often painful truth that there are few if any things that are truly evil, just difference in opinion and beliefs. And harming a human… that was something that no reploid was ever intended to do despite their free will. Of course, the best laid plans of mice and men…

There were always unpleasant moments that had to be dealt with in some manner equally disagreeable. It wasn't his job to make everything perfect. Only to do what he thought was best against those who misused their power. That was his goal many years ago before he joined the Maverick Hunter ranks, and it was probably that very ideal that lured him to fighting for the Hunters in the first place.

Mega Man had time to immerse in one more memory, one about a good friend he had still managed to keep over a long life of fighting and loss. Most didn't survive quite as long as Axl had managed to, much like the blue armored reploid himself. X had missed the friendly loquaciousness of the gunner reploid while traveling across space and how he had the ability to change his demeanor at any moment should the circumstance call for it. He was a great Maverick Hunter through the hardest times and had helped keep X sane when their purpose faltered, but now X felt a growing gap between them like moving half way across the globe in olden days when rapid transport and star ships didn't exist. Could it be helped? Often no. But faith that a friend is at least safe and happy means enough to hold on to that strand of friendship for distances immeasurable.

--

Axl's laser pistols, each a twin of the other, served as a resting place for his hands during many moods and roles. Overseer was the designation then. Reploids were busy reinforcing the walls where the dark fiends had nearly broken through earlier that day. He was amazed at how easily the humanoids on this planet had joined forces and cooperated with his kind thus far. If anything, it was his troops who were more awkward around the people of Midgar than the people were around the reploids, even non-humanoid types.

"Why can't things be like this at home?" Axl wondered, his chest filling with dejection. He felt too warm and uncomfortable in the face, like a vast pouring of shame was drenching him and his entire race for failing to do what these mere humans were capable of achieving in hours.

"It's different," he told himself. "This place… it's free of the Maverick virus."

A great black bird was soaring across the sky, momentarily shading the sun from his eyes. It gently descended from the sky with a strong cawing from its maw, and it shifted shape before his eyes into that magical human girl that X had become so close to.

"Raven, it's good to see you again," he said, helping her step up to his vantage point at the fringe of one of the more stable sections of the old Midgar Tower, once the centerpiece of Rufus's operations at the center of the city. It had been ruined for years from the bombardment it received during the struggle with Sephiroth years ago, but finally, after years of distrust and anger at the Shinra Company, it was finally being tended to, if only to make some of the sections livable for refugees who were rumored to be flocking towards Midgar in the thousands.

"Likewise, Axl," she bowed gently in her deep crimson robe. It clashed some with her violet eyes and hair, unlike the astoundingly beautiful white dress she had worn weeks ago at the reploid ball, and yet her facial features still… Axl mentally chastised himself. Thinking about a human girl this way was, well, utterly ridiculous to him. So what in the hell was X thinking?

"I came to deliver a message," she went on. Her tone was very solemn. Awkward, as well. It was a very uncomfortable thing she was about to tell him, giving Axl that impossible-to-get-used-to, humanoid gurgling of the stomach, although for him he knew it was more of a whirring mechanical pulsation that others could only hear in absolute silence.

"Sigma…" she spoke. "He's dead. Forever."

Axl's voice died and he fell backwards; the reploid's metallic body clanged against the floor in their open perch in one of the higher floors in the Shinra building.

"There's more," the dark sage went on. "Just before he died, Sigma was rid of the Sigma virus itself."

Quickly his voice returned. "Liar!" he shouted at her, rising to his feet with inside boiling.

"No, she's not," said Mega Man X, rising past rubble-ridden, shattered stairs from the floor below.

"X, you came!" Raven said, surprised.

It was still unusual for Axl to see X in his new armor. The drastic change from various blue hues to a thorough set of greens in an archaic tunic form combined with the reploid appearance was… unique, to say the least. It was like he was becoming less and less a part of their society and rather a culture of his own. Following quietly and gracefully behind him was the authoritative human Tifa Lockhart.

X somehow forced his reploid brother's eye contact toward him.

"Is it true, X?" Axl subdued his anger. "Sigma didn't have the virus?"

"It's true," Mega Man nodded. "All of it. The virus left him."

"But that means…"

"Yes, of course," X commanded the conversation. His friend looked as though he might break down and cry if he tried to speak. "Sigma was never the source of the virus in the first place. He was just the main carrier and spreader. With him gone, Maverick transformations and occurrences would normally shrink and eventually die away, but the origin of the virus is running loose across planets now, infecting more than just us machines."

"Zero is… the beginning of the virus?" Axl asked them, dejected and miserable.

Raven placed a hand on his shoulder, hard enough to not let him back away.

"As you've known it… yes, I'm afraid so. But we think that there's something even behind him, something that…"

Axl shoved her hand away with a disgusted look. The shock and horrid absorption made him forget about the drop off directly to his side, as well as the human and reploid workers pushing hard to fix what was wrong. As their commander, it was his task to suffer this, the most painful of news – that their beliefs had been for decades very wrong, and that fighting Sigma had been a completely pointless struggle. Millions upon millions of flesh or circuit beings were slaughtered, and all along they could have just destroyed Zero?

"Stop, Axl," X tried to calm his friend. "Sigma and Zero always had a symbiotic relationship. If one remained alive, the other could always come back. Even having both dead in the very first campaign against Sigma ended up with both of them surviving. Materializing Sigma's very essence with the creation of huge materia has stopped him for good. Zero might be able to create a reasonable facsimile of Sigma with his newfound power, but it will never be the same. The true Sigma is gone for good. And although I'm sure it doesn't mean a damn thing to our people, Sigma apologized for all that he's done."

"Sigma doesn't deserve one God Damn shred of…"

"Sigma was a victim of the virus just like everyone else!" Raven shouted.

"What the hell do you know?" the gunner fought back, staring her down, attempting but failing to intimidate her. A few of the citizens and other reploids below caught the argument and peered up awkwardly. Despite the height of their perch, the collapsed walls of the broken Shinra building made non-windy days dangerous for conversation. X spied a familiar face and with a black skirt and leather gloves entering the bottom floor.

"You may take me for an outsider," the dark sorceress stood her ground in the Shinra ruins, "but I know what the virus has done. I know everything, though X's own eyes. I've felt it, I've fought it in the present and the future, and it even tried to consume one of my friends. I am anything but an outsider. Sigma did not want this…"

"Leave," Axl shouted, turning away from them. His fingers pressed against his eyes. "Just go away!"

Raven's face fell downward, but X quickly picked up her chin and then squeezed her hand gently. It was consoling to know that she had spoken well, and that even if X had been the one to have the same argument it hardly would have left Axl in a different mood. The memories from X residing in her mind mixed with her own first hand experience on the reploid planet gave her the insight that the machine species had always fought a deep-seeded hatred for Sigma and everything that he was. Sigma, whether it was truly him or some other force connected by puppet's strings, was a mass murderer and the kind of person responsible for words like 'genocide' being added to dictionaries across the solar seascape of the universe. Deep down, Raven knew that she and Axl weren't all that different in that respect.

Trigon, her father, had also been a mass murderer. Her beloved home of Azarath had been annihilated when she was a tiny child, and Sigma had been responsible for the Maverick revolt that had ravaged their home planet for two decades now. It was hard to fight the ingrained memories of the burning heat and smoke tainting the beautiful golden spires and buildings of her past. X knew all of that, of course, from his travels within her mind upon their first meeting. Raven only wished she could make Axl understand, but at least X's loving touch in her palm helped her accept the reploid gunner's anger. As he wished, she slowly paced through the rubble to the staircase leading downward. X stayed.

Descending to help the citizens continue with repairs, she met with Tifa Lockhart and the concerned expression that had led her toward the arguments. Her deep brown irises conveyed a mix of anxiety about spreading any kind of downfall or bit of bad news to the citizens.

"Raven," she addressed the dark woman. "Is everything alright? People heard the shouting. It'll crush their morale if the reploid leader loses his calm, and word spreads fast."

Raven eyed her with hope. She knew that the young fighter had been leading much of the restoration effort. Despite all of Rufus's bragging, he hid beneath whatever veil he could while trying to maintain the front that he's the driving force behind Midgar's refugee support and rebuilding, and while some of the people acknowledged that Rufus had been contributing, many others had witnessed first hand how Tifa used her leadership and brute force to help the people directly. Raven hoped that her rapport with Axl as respective leaders might help his spirit where she and X could not.

The gentle reverberation of X's metallic steps followed Raven, surprisingly. Raven had been sure that he would stay to speak with his friend.

"I think Axl could use you," he said to Tifa with a smile that uplifted her mood, as well as Raven's. "Even though Axl and I are friends, I'm practically an outcast among my own people, and Raven is directly associated with me. He's too angry to listen to us, but I think he might listen to you. You're unbiased, and you can relate to his suffering. I hate to ask…"

"You don't even have to say it, X," she nodded and accepted the need for help. "I owe you, and I trust you unconditionally. I'll talk to him. I don't want anything to be left undone before you all have to leave."

Tifa pulled Mega Man X in for a tight embrace, which he returned happily with a warm smile and a warmer heart. No one ever said it in farewells like these, but it would most likely be their last moment for some time; in hours X, Zelda, Raven, Saria, Tifa's own dear friend Nanaki, and the blonde young man from the future, Tidus, would all be traveling across galaxies far away from Gaia and it's warping environment.

Raven was taken by surprise. Tifa's close hold on X slowly slid away, and before her hand left the green armored reploid's shoulder, the embrace had transferred around Raven's much smaller frame. Strangely for the dark sorceress, the sensation didn't feel as awkward as it often had in the past, like some offensive, encircling constrict. A couple of months ago, Tifa wouldn't have even made contact with her without a hasty retreat occurring, then followed by a quick scolding from the dark sorceress. Raven laughed very gently, mostly at herself and just audible enough for them to hear, and she wrapped her arms around the Gaian woman, feeling the long, black hair brushing on her fingers.

"We'll come back, one day," Raven told her.

"I know you will," answered Tifa. "Somehow I think our little planet is special enough to bring people back to it. I hope that next time you'll both get a chance to do what you want to do. You've done too much for us."

Raven bowed gently and courteously, and X looked downward humbly.

"It's what we live for," smiled Mega Man. But if we did get a chance to share the sites in peace, I can't say I'd mind that."

"It'd be my pleasure to show you both around," she said.

Raven warmly smiled. "It would be our pleasure as well."

Random, gentle banging came from the ceiling, knocking tiny dust particles on their heads.

"Axl," Tifa whispered. She turned to Raven and X with worry on her face. "I should go. And so should you."

"See you again, Tifa," said Mega Man X. His smile was weak. He did want to stay. Within Raven's mind, he could sense the subdued sorrow indicating that she wanted to as well. Maybe it could be possible, the reploid considered as he stared at the dark woman he cared so much about. Maybe, once Zero was gone, but no sooner.

Tifa had already climbed up the broken staircase to the floor above, and both X and Raven heard their movements, one slow and careful, the other quite the opposite with uneasiness. Axl was in her hands.

"It's time to leave Gaia, X," Raven comforted him. "Come on, I'll save you the trouble of a long goodbye. I know you don't like them."

The dark sorceress swung the folds of her crimson Al Bhed cloak and enveloped them in the veins of the astral realm for the short journey away from Midgar and to the Azure Dreamweaver. Somehow, emotions like sadness permeated the entirety of Raven's astral form and X inside it. Mega Man had thought he understood why Raven used to make a point in pacifying her emotions, but now he had an unfortunate new understanding.

--

"Yes, that's one of many reasons," Raven stated.

X grinned, hiding his surprise. "You know, nobody likes it when you do that."

"Lies," the dark girl said to him with a sly eye raised. "You like it very much."

"So I do," he shrugged. "But we'll have to talk about that later."

Immediately, Zelda passed through the automatic sliding doors with Tidus behind her, and only moments after that, Nanaki and Saria entered, making six. That completed their group of four sages, one hero, and the Hylian princess. Everyone stood, waiting.

Alright, X thought to himself, it's time that truth be told.