X was well aware of how little time he had to make his request of Zero and the others feasible. He couldn't risk different systems or server hubs not having enough access. He had to go straight to the most likely source of full control.

Ripping through armored doors, blasting mechaniloids apart that tried to blockade him, X was traveling at full speed, flickering down the corridors like a stain of color and light on the air.

Energy was writhing over him as a final blockade of Repliforce soldiers, with siege-bot support, tried to bar his path from a heavy door behind them. They started to aim and fire, but X suddenly shimmered into nothingness.

Halted in fear and confusion, even the mechaniloids tried to scan for the missing target.

X poured out of the air behind them, his busters vaporizing the siege-bots on either side of him, letting molten chunks collapse into the flooring.

As the soldiers twisted to counter him, he jammed his arms forward, colors snapping, and he unleashed a spray of lightning web over the platoon, stunning and trapping them helplessly.

X started to close on one of them with an ID tag on his arm, but the heavy doors behind him started to open. X stopped, glanced over his shoulder, and then simply boosted into the chamber beyond. He didn't flinch as the huge door hydraulically rushed shut in his wake.

The tremendous room was clearly intended to be a seat of authority. Reaching several meters upward, and spreading out as far in every direction, it had a pristine floor, and a great throne beyond.

Seated there with a similar grim resolution on his face to X was the Repliforce General. He was a towering Reploid, all but a sapient siege weapon.

"I see now why you campaigned against the creation of Repliforce, Megaman X. There is little need of armies with something like you on the field."

X slowly drew his hands into fists, a sharp edge of anger cutting into his expression. "A lot of lives have been lost because of your choices, General. Drop the defenses, let my people get yours off this station before it's too late."

General leaned forward to slowly rise to his feet. He was easily four times X's size, a walking bulwark of armored plating and likely firepower. "It is precisely due to those lives lost that I cannot stand down, Maverick Hunter X. To surrender after so many have died would be the greatest cowardice and betrayal. I did what I thought best with gifts from dark strangers. Now? My fate is sealed... I have no choice."

X's brow quivered with frustration and outrage. Flashes of Colonel's body falling apart, Iris' shattered form, Zero's grief, Alia's fear and concern, all of the X-Hunters sacrifices and pain, and the shattered city from the Lagoon all stormed through his mind as the General spoke of having no power to stop the atrocities he'd put in motion.

"Your human masters tried to wipe us out with no proof of wrong-doing. If you will fight so fervently for such murderers, I will meet you in kind," General replied to the constrained fury in X's eyes, and large, cannon-like thrusters articulated out of his back. With a thunderous boom, they obliterated the throne itself... clearing the floor for battle.

X wrenched one arm out to the side. "Who do you think gave you the deactivation code!? Who do you think asked your people to stand down so they could be RULED OUT at the start of this insanity!?"

General paused, his optics tightening. "...Why would you supply us the means to survive, and then hunt us nearly to the last?"

"I've done everything in my power to SAVE every last one of your soldiers! While you constantly threw them in my path to be torn apart! ONE ORDER from you," X stabbed a finger toward General, marching toward him, "would have ended this before it started! Iris' brother would never have been torn to pieces! All of your high command staff would still be ready to serve and protect the world they signed on or were created to protect! And instead, you let a psychopathic, maniacal program manipulate you into helping cause one of the worst outbreaks of violence in this CENTURY!"

General frowned, anger etching through his own expression. It was so dreadfully similar to Colonel's own pride and determination. "So be it." His fists clenched and he raised them to either side. "If my crimes are so mighty as you say, then make me pay for it with your own hands, Maverick Hunter. I will not stand down from the ideals of my people! Come! Show me your true power!"

X grimaced, but also started to gather energy over his frame with a building thrum and chimes.

General hesitated no further, clenching his fists. The buckle of his 'belt' glimmered with golden plasma, then erupted into three different bolts before lancing down toward X.

X flickered forward, his charging body dragging trails of power off the blasts as he curved and glided between and around them.

General slammed one fist down into the flooring in front of X. The Maverick Hunter leapt onto the mighty limb, climbing, flipping, and crawling up toward the shoulder armor with astonishing finesse.

No fool in combat, General snap-twisted his body. It flung X off, though the Hunter was already recoiling to land smoothly. Immediately after, General braced back to unleash six golden bolts. X had to twist, coil, land, boost-back, and side-flip between and over each of them in rapid succession.

Looking up at General after pausing on three limbs, X's brow creased as General curled his arms back, then rammed them forward.

When no blast immediately fired off, X realized something else was coming, and he thruster-dashed to his right. In the same moment, General's forearms disconnected from his body, and rocketed across the chamber. X barely flipped and coiled over and ahead of each, glancing back to watch them nearly melt the reinforced metal of the floor and wall from sheer impact force.

X corkscrewed through the air to maintain his dashing speed, snapping off charged buster-blasts in a one-two strike toward General's legs. General actually stepped into them, bracing against the potent impact, but letting the energy wash around his heavy plating with little more than steam on his frame to show for it.

Further, the joints that had separated to fire off his arms were now more clearly revealed to be some kind of energy emitters. As the rocket-arms wrenched themselves out of their craters to jet after X again, General's arm-stumps started to spray flickering blue orbs of power toward X. Each orb was half the size of X himself, and moved fast, leaving distorted trails of heat in the air.

The closest few were nearly upon X in seconds, and he swerved sharply to throw himself out of their reach. In the same instant, they hit the wall and flooring, abruptly exploding out into waves of blue plasma flame. The next beat, General's fists came rocketing through the super-heated light like guided missiles.

The raw explosions of plasma had already sent X flying violently. With the fists following, X had to coil, plant his hands into the first fist so he could twist-roll along it, and flip over the second, yanked into a more violent spin by the pure wind-shock of its passing.

And with the room becoming an exploding wave of blue plasma fire on top of him, X had no time to consider a more coherent plan. He full-force thruster-blasted himself away from the flames, racing along the one wall.

All the while, General simply panned his emitters across the chamber, adding golden bolts to the onslaught, his flying fists retreating only to re-aim and ram down afresh over and over.

X's speed had built enough to allow him to strafe-glide around General in a circular pattern, snapping off a few more charged blasts. These hit the arms, the stomach, and the chest... and dispersed over the thick plating as simply as they had on the legs.

Swerving around one fist, cork-screwing between two bolts, arcing over more, and then scrape-sliding under the second fist, X saw the blue flames raging ahead of him as fresh ones churned after his wake.

Apparently the General could survive being inundated with super-hot plasma, but X's defenses would only allow him to endure it so long.

X didn't seem afraid, however, side-glancing to meet General's eyes for a timeless beat. General's optics sharpened, and he started to churn his plasma emitters upward. X would be swallowed in destruction in seconds.

And X swerved to the wall this time, back near the door from whence he'd entered. Yet, he didn't try to escape.

Instead, thrusters blasting with each lunge of his legs, X started to ram himself up the door. Each reaching, vertical rush was like a small rocket firing, his energy was so focused into his legs. Beyond this, he was pulling waves of power into his frame, including coils of the blue flame billowing up and closing all around from below and the sides.

The two fists shot past, too slow for X's focused speed this time, and golden blasts exploded just beneath his climbing strides on both sides in a rapid cluster wave.

General continued pulling his arms upward, spraying plasma-orbs in cloud-like volleys of energetic death, sure he could crush X against the ceiling at the very least, though wary of how fast the smaller Reploid could climb.

Just as X flew up to where the wall met the ceiling, blue fire spreading up beneath him so quickly, he arced back, explosively thruster-dashed off the wall with both legs, and spread his arms out.

His glowing body sailed along the ceiling, barely centimeters from it, the blue flames churning up to start lashing into the metal behind and beside him.

And yet, he was faster. His expression calm, if grim, he started to twist as the flames began to falter beneath him. X folded with his turn, and General looked up in growing, shocked realization as the small Reploid came sailing over the brim of the inferno, wreathed in power, and one buster clearly aimed directly between General's own optics.

General tried to reel back, his rocket fists starting to surge out of the conflagration as it started to envelope his own position, but it was simply too late.

X fired a fully powered blast, his arm pulsing back, the air shocking all around him. It was a short-burst release, but still catastrophic, utterly engulfing General's head after impacting his face.

General's upper body became vague within the blast of light and power, his weapons halting their fire as he crashed back with thunderous steps, vanishing into his own inferno.

X thruster-hovered during this vital pause, the conflagration only washing over him for a brief corepulse before the absence of renewed fire allowed it to start to die down.

Dropping sharply, X landed to his haunches amidst gentle pillars of steam and shimmering air. He looked up to see a shadow in the steam towering above, but X wasn't alarmed.

As the steam started to fade to the sides and away, it was clear General was in no condition to keep fighting. With a fractured, broken face, the plasma heat had gotten behind his armored body. The thermal shock had blown chunks of his armor and even some body parts off, strewn about as wreckage now. He hovered there with his back thrusters, an arm and leg missing, huge swathes of his armor just gone, and his working optic somewhat numb as it focused down on X.

"...I can't regret my actions, Maverick Hunter, but I do recognize a defeat when I experience it."

General calmly looked up for a moment, his optic tightening. After a moment, he looked back down. "...The defenses are inactive. ...Save my people."

X straightened up, touching his audio-receptor. "HQ, do you copy?"

"X!? How are you...?" Alia returned instantly in surprise.

"The defense systems are down, evacuate the station, please."

"...Sounds like you worked the miracle Zero was talking about?" Alia asked with relieved humor.

X wanted to share her warm humor, but he couldn't. Not after all this. "Not sure about that... but hopefully this is-!?"

He cut himself off, General likewise jerking with alarm as the entire station began to quake, the false gravity buckling under system strain.

"...Impossible," General declared in sincere confusion. "The station can't be activated right now!"

X's optics widened. "The weapon system!?"

"Yes, the station is re-orienting to aim!"

X twisted for the doors. "Where is the control mechanism!?"

"The core decks, I'm broadcasting a map."

X just gave a thumbs-up to the General as he ripped along the ground, spin-twisting to fire another full blast of power... incinerating the massive door he'd been 'trapped' by.

Alia's voice returned in similar urgency. "The station is orienting to fire on Earth!"

"General warned me! I'm heading down to the control decks now. We need those people evacuated! I may have to drive this place critical to stop it from firing!"

"And what about surface to space bombardment? X this is too big of a risk!"

"Please, don't make me pull rank on something like this," X pleaded tightly as he flickered down halls and maintenance shafts.

Alia sighed heavily, bowing her head at her console. "...Copy."

"...Thank you."

"Even I try not to rely on my camo this completely," Shimmer muttered darkly to himself as he piloted one of the few stealth-rigged shuttles away from the Final Weapon station.

His sensors showed him exactly how many heavy defense turrets were scanning constantly for ships or signatures. It didn't help that his stealth generators only hid a small bubble around the individual ships, and he could watch the cannons tracking his wake constantly as they detected heat, but no discernible target.

"Are we prisoners?"

The voice from behind him gave him a mild start, and he glanced over his shoulder with his large optics. One of the logistical staff of Repliforce was standing there, timid and stressed.

"Don't know, honestly, but this is an evacuation, not a capture. That'll be up to the commander once we're all safely land-side."

The Reploid behind him glanced further back, to the one side of the shuttle that was emergency-stasis soldiers, and the other side of nervous staff like him.

"Why... why are Maverick Hunters helping us?"

Shimmer tightened his optics, but kept focused on his flying this time. "Contrary to popular belief, we never wanted to fight you."

The Reploid engineer was understandably confused, and so just backed away, and huddled down with his comrades. Looking to the stasis-locked soldiers, he did notice, from an engineering standpoint, that their bodies had been struck with almost surgical precision. And the fact that all of them were, indeed, in stasis, not dead, confirmed it was deliberate rather than 'lucky misses' that had kept them all alive.

Maybe this really was a rescue...

Airstrike checked the 3D mapping of the friendly shuttles on his HUD as he piloted one of the stealth-rigged ones himself. Shimmer's was the furthest back, which was mostly to allow him to follow Airstrike's lead the easiest. Inferno and Crush Crawfish's shuttles were loosely between them.

And beyond the defense sensor range of Final Weapon, a veritable wall of shuttles were waiting on stand-by. He'd helped coordinate their formation himself as he lead his smaller squadron through gaps in their ranks.

Grim, he glanced to the estimate population of the station, and how many his squadron had evacuated so far. "...It's not enough. Come on, X..."

Quickman was among those piloting shuttles on stand-by. Watching the second trip of Unit 14's stealth ships without being able to act himself was nettling his circuits severely.

"Dex, can you read me?"

"Yes, sir."

"Do we have any estimated time from Zero or X on this supposed defense disabling?"

"If all goes well, any second, but that's been true since before we scrambled all of you."

Quickman rasped a sigh.

"...Wait!" Dex blurted out abruptly next. "...It's happening! Verified defense shut-down across 30%-40%-50% down! It's dropping across the whole station!"

Quickman pumped a fist despite himself. "Signas, order to advance?"

"Hold on—All ships! The station is changing position!"

Quickman snapped his optics to the station itself in the distance, watching it start to rotate softly toward Earth. "...We're out of time." He hit the comm instantly. "Signas!? We're out of time and those defenses are down!"

Broadcasting across the fleet of shuttles, Signas replied, "If that station fires, all of you will be obliterated."

Quickman started to persist, but stopped with mild relief as he didn't have to.

"We're here to save lives, sir," Deepfreeze began.

"We've wasted enough time standing by," Overload.

Blizzard Buffalo added, "We owe many this debt."

"And we're here to pay," Volt Catfish finished.

Signas pinched the bridge of his nose, but couldn't deny he agreed. "...All ships, commence operations."

The entire fleet of shuttles burst forward, arcing and spreading out along Airstrike's recommended paths to reach docking points all over the station, even as it started to calibrate it's primary weapon.

The core levels were very much like a huge engine room. Dark, industrial, utilitarian, and near-empty. X used his mapping HUD to travel at close to his maximum speed, skating around corners, leaping duct work rather than taking turns in the catwalk flooring, and rushing between ventilation fans for the same reason. As a result, it didn't take him long to reach the primary engine systems at the very heart of the station.

Discovering a sphere-lock door where he should've only found a safety-seal bulkhead made X's brow crease as he halted for the first time since bursting out of the General's chamber. He then calmed his face, and straightened. "I suppose you wanted to see if the General would actually manage to kill me, first?"

A satisfied cackle resounded from above, and X finally looked up into the shadows to watch a shrouded figure drift down just into view, staying airborne.

Very much, and likely deliberately so, appearing as a grim reaper, complete with tech-scythe, though without a visible blade at the moment, the shroud continued its dark mirth for several seconds.

"It always does come down to us, doesn't it, X?" Sigma queried with a sneer in his voice.

"You make sure of that, not me."

"I'll admit, you impressed me with Double. Maybe you have learned a thing or two since this rivalry of ours started."

"I expected your spy to use Hunters, not try to kill them. I should've realized you can't keep rational servants in line."

The scythe was spun with a flicker of speed, simply to trade to the other arm. "Rationality is murder when you're trying to commit genocide! But tell me, X, does it comfort you that I'm so easy to hate? That you've never had to gun down a real friend?"

X's expression fractured with barely restrained outrage. "I've had to mutilate friends because of your infection. I don't forget that."

"And what if I told you it wasn't MY infection?" Sigma returned with a fresh sneer.

X started to build power over his frame, streaming coils of blue, pink, and yellow light writhing over him. "You've always been Wily's virus."

Sigma sighed in annoyance. "Such a bore, you are! What if I told you that your precious friend, Zero, was the original host!?"

X snapped one arm into a buster. "I know."

Sigma paused in confused wariness at last.

"But what does comfort me," X continued, "is that you were so focused on goading me into a psychotic episode, you stopped moving the station."

Sigma jerked a look over his shoulder, snarled, and flickered up out of view.

X wrenched his arm up, firing a fully charged beam-blast at the sphere-lock door. It vaporized a 3-meter wide hole where the door had been, and let him leap through.

He was on the top level of the central control system for the station's engines. His optics flashed around, trying to confirm if he could override the movement from here.

"NOOOO!"

Sigma's voice thrummed out with unnatural force, and X had to twist-flip sharply to avoid a crackling, white-green plasma blade ripping through the air he'd occupied.

Sigma's shrouded form sailed across the ceiling with the slash, and then swirled into nothingness.

X frowned. Hardlight trickery? Or just supremely enhanced speed? His attacks are fast, but not impossible to avoid.

The quake of the station continuing to move got his attention, and X twisted back to the consoles he could see.

Only to get a beam-blade flying at his face. X had to snap-fold down, feeling the heat of the passing blade along his face.

His optics, however, tightened at the lashing folds of Sigma's cloak. It was real. Thick and heavy. It gave X an idea.

Sprinting toward one wall, X waited. When Sigma reappeared, X's colors switched to deep red and orange hues, and just as Sigma came sweeping in with a fresh shout and his scythe, X rammed his arms up, using Magma Dragoon's weapon system to unleash a torrent of fire straight up.

X spin-twisted around the scythe as Sigma cried out in frustration with his cloak ablaze. Facing back toward Sigma, X watched the cloaked figure float down, only for the cloak itself to be thrown off.

Sigma straightened, turning with a sneer. His bald head with laser-lens in his forehead was recognizable instantly, but his body was a layered, armored mix of skeletal and mechanical features, colored in blues, yellows, and whites.

Sigma tossed his scythe up in a spin, catching with his other hand casually. "Are you ready for round 2?"

With how pleased Sigma seemed with himself, X remained braced, letting his colors revert. The complete lack of harm on Sigma's frame indicated flame wouldn't help again.

Sigma leapt up, throwing his spinning scythe at X like a buzzsaw. X leapt up with a backflip to avoid it. The weapon slammed into the flooring, and starting to pulse crackling waves of electrical power across the whole floor. X thruster-blasted himself further up with a shout of surprise.

Just as his legs hit the wall, however, Sigma braced his frame wide, and his optics flared with power. A beat after, beams of green plasma poured out, tearing up through the wall toward X.

X had to flip out over them both, and then unleash his thrusters at full hovering force to avoid the wall and floor entirely for as long as he could.

Sigma cackled, his eyes relaxing, and his scythe snap-coiling back to him. He caught it with ease, and then braced again, this time the bracing frames on his shoulder-guards snapping out into the air, then ricocheting out across the walls toward X.

X landed heavily from his thrusters cutting out, and had to dive-roll away from the bouncing metal blades. And before he could really steady himself, Sigma's scythe was rushing toward him once again.

This time, X wrenched himself up, the scythe redirecting after him. It just missed... and slammed into a wall instead of the floor. As the wall electrified, X flipped back into hovering as Sigma raked the floor with his eyebeams.

X narrowed his optics. He's happy. Too happy. He must believe he's already won, and that this is just a game. So Final Weapon isn't being slowed down, he's just waiting... For what?

Sigma recovered his weapon, and rushed X down with rapid swipes and lashes of his scythe, forcing X into a series of folds, weaves, and twists.

Waiting for me? He wants me to watch Earth be decimated? Or... X's optics widened with realization.

Abruptly, X coil-twisted, and grabbed onto Sigma's scythe. It startled Sigma enough to have them both lock that way, each holding the weapon rigidly.

X was only buying time, however. Most of his systems had re-aligned for cutting through the jamming and natural loss of signal this deep inside a giant hunk of metal.

/Alia! If you read this, scatter the evac ships! Disperse them! The Virus wants to blow them apart before taking out Earth!/

Alia didn't waste time replying to X this time, the signal was too weak. She was lucky she'd heard it in the first place. After a split second to confirm the station's orientation fit X's fear, she twisted from her seat. "Signas! Evac ships need to scatter right now!"

Signas demonstrated he had no doubt in Alia's abilities.

"All ships, avoid incoming fire. All ships, disperse, disperse, disperse!"

The Maverick Hunter pilots switched to a thankfully-prepared emergency dispersal route that Airstike had arranged for them.

As Shimmer swerved into his part of it, he rasped to himself, "And here I thought Airstrike was a worry wort. Slagging Mavericks."

As all the ships scattered like a school of fish from a predator, the massive pinnacle of Final Weapon crackled with yellow-white power. It was still off-angle from Earth, but it had been directed toward the heart of the ships. They scattered just in time, a massive, lancing beam-shock of power filling the cold void they'd been traveling through a few seconds before.

Deepfreeze groaned from the partial gravity of Earth yanking on his shuttle with his hard turn. "I can feel charge inside the ship atmosphere! It can affect that wide of an area!?"

"Nonlethally, yes. The beam we can see is the lethal portion of the power concentration," Warp Turtle explained on the comms. "It creates a wave of charged particles far larger. We're just thankfully shielded against such in the space-ready ships."

Volt Catfish's voice was next on the line, the large Reploid eyeing his sensor screens warily. "That even tugged away a small portion of atmosphere. We can't let that fire again."

In HQ, Signas looked up at the holodisplay of the ships and Final Weapon gravely. "We won't. Alia, how long do we have before it can hit Earth?"

Alia ducked her head tightly. "...Barely three minutes."

"Signal the council to have the defense cannons brought to ready-fire status."

Alia's hands hovered over the keys. "...Signas..."

"Do you really think X would want that kind of risk taken for just him?"

Her eyes squeezed shut... and she typed in the message.

"...And let X know he has two minutes to get the hell out of there."

"Yes, sir."

Sigma finally soured in expression. He twirled his scythe, and narrowed his optics at X. "How did you even guess that? There's no data you can access to confirm what the station is doing!"

X's colors switched, golden and white as energy began to pour over his frame. "You've never been happy just fighting me. You only smile when you're winning... virus."

Sigma growled through bared teeth. "Fine. DIE WITH YOUR WORLD THEN!"

Sigma burst forward, scythe slicing. X dashed backward, watching. When Sigma leapt high, X boosted up to meet him, and then aimed with both busters before firing a fully charged Lightning Web.

The empowered weapon burst out explosively, filling the span of the chamber between the two robotic nemeses.

Sigma widened his optics, trying to jerk back, but he was already too close. His scythe caught in the webbing first, and he slammed into it next.

His frame was finely tuned to channel power from his own weapons, but such a massive overload of external power right into his systems was far too much for their already high charge.

Sigma roared in frustration, rage, and pain as his body started to critically expel power, frying and bursting as different components failed.

X landed heavily to one hand and his knees as Sigma's debris rained down amidst the dispersing web.

After cycling his respirator for a beat, he bolted to the control consoles on that level of the core, quickly checking if they could stall the operation and aiming systems. It didn't take him long, in growing frustration, to confirm these were only maintenance and observation consoles.

Dashing back from them, he saw a maintenance hatch leading down, and wrenched it open to drop into the lower level several meters below. He ignored the ladder there, and took the drop heavily, sprinting for the first set of consoles he could spot on the heavily industralized core deck.

Just as he reached the console area, however, he heard a chime, and his enhanced senses were the only reason he could dive aside in time.

A line of light pierced the air he'd occupied, and the consoles, just before the consoles burst and exploded into molten parts.

X rolled along, his personal shielding flashing and flickering as super-heated shrapnel tried to cling to him. He had to stare in controlled panic at the complete destruction of the control mechanisms. And the station was still moving.

"It's not going to be that easy this time, Megaman X."

X slowly turned his head with a firm glare up to a distorted, warped version of Sigma.

Barely recognizable other than stretched, embedded face on top of a smooth section of metal, Sigma was little more than a torso attached to a heavy maintenance crane, holding a massive beam-cannon that looked warped and molded rather than built, possibly out of a heavy repair torch.

"...You're turning the station into your body."

"Bit by bit!" Sigma confirmed with a grin. "It's too large for standard processor control, after all, but c'est la vie..."

Sigma trailed off, but his cannon aimed instantly, firing another raking flash of light. X spin-hopped with all four limbs to get himself out of the fire path before it could hit him. The explosion that followed from whatever concentration of energy it was utilizing sent him flying across the deck.

And then a large machine appeared over him, starting to open part of its form and unleash a gout of fire.

X dive-rolled away from the flame, only to realize it was a large Sigma-head, with lifeless eyes and crimson plating.

Two more heads floated into view, one crackling with energy and yellow color, the last frosting over the air from its blue surfaces.

Sigma's crane-body was able to fluidly drift around the high portion of the chamber, and was aiming again. "It's time to die!"

Lightning, freezing gas, and fire all burst toward X, immediately punctuated by a piercing laser shot through the core of the exploding conflict of powers.

X burst out of the heated gases, his body trailing power as he drew it in. Sigma's torso-crane grinned and abruptly retreated into the ceiling, completely out of view in a blink. X skidded to a halt, frustrated, but still sucking energy into his body. He glanced over his shoulder as his sensors warned him about the three floating weapon-heads.

The lightning head started to fire concentrated balls of crackling power as the other two sped up, flying to ram at X instead of using their weapon systems.

X twist-flipped, running along the side of the red head, passing between the first two electrical blasts. Dash-leaping from the one head, X cut off his charging, sailing just over another sphere-bolt. Both busters formed, and he landed by jamming them both into the lifeless eyes of the yellow head. The next instant, he fired.

The yellow head was mostly erased by the twin full-power blasts that exploded through it. A lower jaw of machinery crashed down limply before X backflipped down from the inertia of his shots.

His sensors flared again, and he twisted to look at the base of one wall as it grotesquely broke and fragmented around a giant Sigma-head, this one far more detailed, and keenly aware in the optics. In truth, the giant head looked like a mutilated human head forced into cyberization.

X was ready to fire at it, but its mouth fell open, and catastrophic air-pressure suddenly blasted across the entire deck toward X.

As X immediately scrambled to stop from flying backwards, digging his fingers into the metal flooring, the opposite wall burst apart with huge spikes, and the red and blue heads came charging down at him.

X growled, braced his frame, and just as the two head would collide with him, he wrenched himself forward, thrusters exploding to maximum power.

It allowed him to fly just past the two mechanical heads, which tore themselves apart on impact, and X kept sailing forward despite the air blast.

His momentum started to weaken compared to the air force... but not before he clamped a hand down onto the lower lip of the huge mouth. With a dark glare into the huge optics, he jammed his other buster down into the throat, and fired another fully charged blast.

Part of the head flew apart, another was flash-liquified, and it immediately collapsed back into the ruined wall.

X realized something above him was shifting, and he burst backward, his optics widening as he watched three new colored heads descend out of the roof, their plating still steaming from immediate construction.

Air rushing behind him made X jerk to look over his shoulder as well, seeing the crane-body reappear with a smug expression over the already-aiming piercer-cannon.

"You don't even know how to stop this weapon, yet alone kill me! Prepare to become SPACE DUST!"

X flickered to one side, the line of light from the cannon piercing his stains of color. As the wall exploded from the shot, the three heads shot down in formation, jaws opening. X had to continue into a flurry of constantly sprinting, dashing, while ducking, sliding, flipping, wall-running, and hand-flips between shockwaves of electricity, waves of freezing cryonic gas, plumes of flame, and periodic pierce-explosions.

Despite his initial alarm, X had adapted in those seconds, and his expression fell into sharp calculation. Sigma wasn't wrong, but it was also a distraction. With direct infection of the station's core deck, consoles weren't going to be an option anyway. What he needed was to end this fight, and get into the actual mechanism at the base of the primary weapon tower. He also had to assume Sigma had direct control of the machinery in that area, too, at least.

With his Light-enhanced senses near maximum for most of the fight, he now had keen instincts for how these warped machine-bodies were moving, and how Sigma was fighting in these alien bodies.

Just as the blue and yellow heads started to slam down in front of him, X leapt with his legs forward. Landing into the two heads as they started to come apart against the ground, X thruster-leapt backwards, arcing up, along the face of the red head starting to unleash a torrent down at the crash point.

X continued to sail over the red head, twisted to hand-flip off of it, and leapt even higher... just over the barrel of the cannon Sigma was starting to fire.

The malformed optics widened as X slammed down into Sigma's chest, grabbing the back of his 'neck' with one hand, and jamming the other buster straight into his forehead gem.

"We both know this isn't even really you," X rasped darkly, and fired.

The final stored blast was still full power. X released his hand just as he released the shot, letting Sigma's warped head, chest, and most of the arms flash-melt and incinerate amidst a wash of star-hot light.

Flipping around and dropping to his haunches, X braced for a few seconds. The Frankenstein-like bodies were still retracting. Likely, it was just to rebuild, but it did mean X had a short time unmolested.

X wrenched back, his body taut, and then his optics blazed bright. Another giga attack charge. He twisted down, and rocketed himself into the flooring yet again, this time flash-melting only one level down.

The super-hot power faded back over his body, and he fell for several meters, slowly flipping over to land down to haunches once more, this time denting a crater into the flooring.

All around this observation-platform were massive gears and pieces of machinery, actively running to shift the weapon into final position along with the station's thrusters outside.

X formed both busters, his colors starting to shimmer and change in rapid sequence, along with his weapons' specific shapes, as he looked around, his optics soaking up the environment to help his sensors calculate exactly what points needed to be jammed, decimated, or otherwise halted.

Something large started to fall ahead of him.

X braced, energy building over his frame as he aimed... at the ruined, but hovering body of the General himself.

"General...?"

"You have fought well, Megaman X, and I see that my people have been evacuated. My systems are failing as we speak, but there is one service I may yet render in the name of freedom."

X squinted, but did ease slightly. "What are you talking about?"

"As you said, many died for my choices. I have lost. I will honor the fallen by ending this madness that was never meant to be. I will block the mechanism with my body."

X eased his arms down, his charge fading off. "...You'll die to stop the firing mechanism..."

General nodded. "Just so. It will also cause a misfire, I imagine. You should leave. Now. There are still a few of our Repliforce ships left in the hangars."

A bestial roar echoed from above, and they both looked up to see an even less formed Sigma-giant trying to claw its way down to stop them.

"...I can save you, General," X offered calmly despite this madness.

"But I ask you not to. I have followed my ethics, let me die with them."

X exhaled slowly, and nodded. His hands reverted, he twisted, and flickered back toward the actual exit from the machinery level.

General floated around, hearing Sigma's giant body started to break down toward this deck, and looked down into the core interlock mechanism that would load the dischargers for firing.

"It was an honor, brave soldiers of Repliforce."

He cut his thrusters, and Sigma screamed in frustration.

[Author's Note] since I goofed up and was late twice in a row, posting this one early! Thanks for all the feedback on the Iris plot elements of the previous chapter, folks, really appreciate it!