A/N: Please see Prologue notes for detailed information. Again, I own nothing. :) Thanks to Classic Cowboy and FusionBlaster for beta-reading. As usual, I do not own any established product, literary character, or work of fiction I mention. All feedback is appreciated. :) Enjoy.


Lifesaver looked up when his office door's chime sounded. "Come in."

The five foot reploid that strolled in was what his species considered thin. The red cross below the number Seventeen on his shoulder matched his eyes and hair, but stood in stark contrast to his blue and white camouflage armor. "Afternoon, Doctor. Do you have a minute? I'm having a slight problem I was hoping you could help me with."

The Chief Medical Officer nodded at the Seventeenth's field medic. "Of course, Mark. Sit down."

"Thanks." He pulled out a chair across from the older reploid.

"So what's the problem?"

"I just finished checking my field equipment. My portable scanner isn't checking out."

Lifesaver frowned. All field medics were equipped with portable scanners that mimicked the function of the infirmary beds' diagnostic computers. Among other things, they were vital in diagnosing problems with reploids who no longer had conscious access to their damage report and control systems, and absolutely critical in treating humans, who had no damage control or diagnostic interfaces at all. "Oh? Well, that is a problem, isn't it? Any idea what the glitch is?"

Mark scoffed. "There's no one specific thing wrong with it, as far as I've been able to tell. I've given it one of Doug's people for diagnostics. Personally, I think the glitch is it's a ten year old piece of equipment that's scanned its last patient. I tried to use it on Beth a couple days ago, during our last mission. It took me ten minutes to convince the thing she wasn't a dead human – and she was plugged into it!"

Lifesaver shook his head and whistled. "Yeah. It's done. No wonder you looked so frazzled when you came back from that one."

"Well, you know, if people are going to fire plastique grenades at my patients and I, I expect my equipment to have the decency to work."

"Understandably so. So, what did Douglas' tech tell you?"

Mark's frown deepened just a little, and Lifesaver figured he was about to get to the meat of the problem. "Simple. It'll take two weeks for a repair crew to get around to doing a full diagnostic, and odds are they're just going to have to order a new one anyway. But they have to do the whole diagnostic song and dance to get UNHOC to authorize the purchase of a new unit. And, worse yet, at the moment there are absolutely zero field scanners available for checkout – won't be for the next two weeks."

"Lovely." Lifesaver's lip twitched upward. "Kind of ironic, isn't it? How all your triage skills mean absolutely zip when one piece of equipment breaks down. So tell me, how are your divination skills? You'll be needing them."

"Not good, I'm afraid. I tend to get along well with leeches, though. I was wondering if I could borrow the trainer unit you keep in here. Just until I get a new piece of equipment. I doubt Sigma and his forces would be so nice as to not injure anyone for the next two weeks if I tell them I'm not capable of complicated field diagnostics."

Lifesaver looked thoughtful. "You do realize breaking the supply chain is a relatively sharp breach of supply chain protocol? So, in essence, you're asking me to break the rules because UNHOC is making an ass of itself. Again." Mark didn't understand the odd look of masked anger that filled the chief surgeon's eyes. He only knew it didn't seem to be directed at him. "I have no problem with that. Come on. I'll get the keys to my storage room."


Zero rolled to the left as the blue laser seared the wall he'd been standing against. The heat from the beam was fierce, even through his armor. He smirked as his knees found their way back to the ground, sliding one up and forward. Not even close. But then again, they never were. He brought his buster up to face the chrome spigot of death – even now it was recharging – and fired. His over sized cannon spat forth a glob of fiery white plasma that slammed into the turret's base. Child's play. The iridescent cerulean energy in its barrel died instantly, replaced with a shower of sparks. Zero knew that was the last of it. This mission was over. He lowered his weapon, deactivating his arm cannon, and with the drunk rush of battle gone, waited impatiently. Another moment, and the simulated battlefield disappeared in a flash of light, leaving him standing alone in the white-washed confines of Tactical Training Room Three. A voice, neutral and lifeless, boomed from the heavens. "Subject: Commander Zero; Tactical Combat Simulation Fifty-Four: Enemy Installation Infiltration Scenario Gamma-Seven, Complete. Simulated damage to test subject: minimal; non-critical. Total test time: Thirty-two minutes. Test results: Excellent performance."

Zero's smirk evaporated as he rose from his one-kneed crouch. A small frown took its place. Thirty-two minutes? What the hell is wrong with me? That's way too slow. I can usually do this one in half the time. The answer was painfully obvious. He still wasn't back to normal, as far as his mind went. His innate rage, that never-ending fire he could tap into to synchronize himself with the battlefield – it was still there, but it was damaged, smoldering instead of blazing.

If he ever stopped and thought about it, ideology aside, he realized that was the difference in how he and X fought. X existed on the field of battle. He altered its elements as he saw fit to accomplish his goals – removing an enemy gunner here, creating an exit or entry there, or simply blowing everything up in general – but it was always on the terms of one man looking at a set formation of pieces and asking himself what was the next move necessary to win. It was logic and determination at its coldest and most efficient ... and most deadly.

Zero existed as a part of the battlefield, allowing himself to be mesmerized by its every ebb and flow. Conscious thought faded to the background, except for a vague yet certain sense of who was a friendly, and who was not, and what he needed to accomplish. Everything else – almost every fiber of his being, was devoted to decimating anything that stood against him. He became a primal force of destruction, and nothing could stop him.

Or, that was how it used to work. Every time he tried to slip into his zone now, the events of the past two days caught up with him, and he never quite got there. From a tactical perspective it was a problem, but that wasn't what really bothered him. He was mere months younger than X, as far as actual activation time was concerned. He was a twenty-six year old Maverick Hunter Commander. In that quarter of a century, dozens of Hunters perished under his command. Less than X, but he suspected that was only because his unit was smaller. He wasn't soulless – he grieved for them all. But never once had he been left feeling so totally shut down. Well, there was Iris, but she wasn't a Hunter, she didn't count. But her death did bring him to his knees as far as mentality went. Only now, X wasn't around to thrust him out of his pseudo-listlessness. And that scared him more than he wanted to admit.

He paused in his thoughts, and couldn't help a dark chuckle at the bizarre nature of the support group the three of them had formed over the last two years. When Zero developed an emotional quagmire, it was X that forced him out of it, usually by following him around and hounding him until the Crimson Hunter finally vented, just to get him to go away. In the end, Zero always felt better, and X always looked pleased, never once seeming to mind the verbal blasting he got in the process.

X's problems were usually of a different sort, and Zero admitted he was never as good as dealing with them as he felt he ought to be. The best he could really do was sit and listen – something it seemed precious few people were ever willing to do. But most of the time, he honestly couldn't understand X's problems. The Blue Bomber accepted this, and it didn't really seem to bother him that much. Zero guessed it was the reassurance he craved. X allowed himself to become depressed over the deaths of Mavericks in combat. Every murderous thug that went down at his hands weighed on his conscience. That made no sense to Zero. Mavericks were the enemy – a threat to peace, and in some instances, life itself. That threat had to be eliminated. X agreed, but never managed to move past the bouts of depression and self-loathing that consumed him from time to time, most notably after the conclusion of a major counteroffensive.

Then there was Alia. Unlike Zero, she seemed to understand that part of X's personality better – and was thus better able to deal with it. Slowly but surely, she'd been supplanting Zero's role as Chief Antidepressant. Did that mean they shared a common sort of decency Zero lacked? Maybe, but Unit Zero's Commander didn't mind. He knew, given his parentage, it was a wonder he had any decency at all. X, for his part, let Alia in and did his best to keep her floating when necessary. It was an imbalanced triangle, but it seemed to work – right up until someone ripped one of the corners off. Now Zero was left with – well, he wasn't quite sure what their current support structure was – but it was painfully evident that nodding and smiling was no longer going to be sufficient.

"You know, most people would be thrilled with that kind of score in this simulation."

Zero spun around and beheld Signas leaning in the open door frame, looking directly at him. He couldn't say how long he'd been standing there, and that unnerved him, though he didn't let it show. "You know I can do better."

Signas nodded, wearing a practiced neutral expression. "I know. But what you consider sub-par, most consider amazing. And maybe you're looking at it wrong. It might just be a good thing that you're off your game because of X's death."

Zero deactivated his saber's and internal weapon systems' practice protocols, restoring them to their full lethality. "How do you figure?" He was unable to keep the sharpness from his tone, though it was suitably muffled.

The corner of Signas' mouth quirked up. "Maybe you have more light in your soul than you like to think."

After a moment, Zero's expression mirrored the Grand Commander's. "Maybe. But this was one hell of a way to get to find it. Did you get the lockbox and key? I left them by your door."

"Yeah," his expression flickered, and for a moment, he looked supremely uncomfortable. "I got it. Thanks." Touche, Zero. Consider the subject changed. His face grew serious. "So, how did it go? I heard you and Alia had what was described to me as a 'tense moment.'"

Zero scowled. "That's a bit of an overstatement. Who have you been talking to?"

"I got a message from Quinn to let me know the quarters were clear after you, Onyx, Aaron and he got done moving the furniture into storage. He just said you and Alia finished up around five, after you took a break because Alia needed to spend a few minutes out of the room. He said she didn't look too good. Closest thing to crying he's seen from her since Friday."

Zero frowned. "I see. Well, she did cry a little earlier, if that's what you want to know. But honestly, I don't think she's any better off, not for real. She blamed her outbreak on our little surprise."

"Surprise?" Signas raised an eyebrow. "What did you find?"

Zero leaned against the wall and crossed his arms against his chest. "Alia started going through his bedroom while I was in the bathroom looking through the cabinets. She went to check under his bed and got a good look at his sheets. They were covered in dried blood."

Signas visibly flinched. "Covered?" Zero nodded. Damn. That couldn't have been good for her. "Hell. What from?"

"Apparently he patched up a few superficial wounds from earlier in the week himself. I'm guessing they bled through whatever he covered them with. It's weird though. I saw his back yesterday, when I ... when we were all in the infirmary. I didn't see anything that looked like it would bleed that much. Like I said, must have been some skin-level stuff that just made a mess before it healed over. Must have severed a vein or something like that – easy for the nanobots to fix, but nice and nasty. The bed wasn't made. Looked like he was about to change the sheets. I had her wait outside while I cleaned up the bed, then she came back in helped me with the rest of it. Oh – and there was the happy birthday wrapping paper she found under the bed."

Signas groaned. "Wonderful."

"You feel bad? I left her in there with it 'cause I wanted to claim the bathroom, and all the less emotionally-wrenching toiletries therein." While he was talking, he moved towards Signas, and leaned against the wall next to him. He grimaced. "I should have let her have the bathroom."

Signas smirked. "You actually think she would have just waited in there while you hid all the potentially disturbing items you came across?"

"Point. She wouldn't have liked that at all, would she?"

"I doubt it. Remember, she was the one who wanted to do it yesterday."

"Yesterday? What do you mean yesterday? Today's Saturday, right?"

Signas shook his head. "Check your chronometer."

With a thought, Zero brought his internal clock up on his HUD. It revealed the current time to be 0211 on Sunday, December third. He had been in the simulator room since five o'clock the previous evening. Almost ten hours, without even realizing it. "Aw, damn it."

Signas chuckled. "Welcome to Sunday, Zero."

Zero shrugged. "At least I don't feel exhausted. Then again, I've never been one for gratuitous sleep. I was trying to lose myself in the simulations. I thought it might make a good stress reliever."

The Grand Commander nodded. "Did it work?"

Zero crossed his arms. "Not really. It just made me realize I'm still off my game." He paused abruptly, and turned to look at Signas, obviously preparing to change the subject. "But what about you? You're up awfully late. Do we have a problem?" He blinked, and shook his head. "Excuse me ... do we have another problem?"

Signas ran a hand through his dark hair, and Zero realized for the first time he wasn't wearing his omnipresent cap. "Not really. I haven't been able to sleep either. Too much on my mind. I got word from Douglas that he's ready to go with the explosives. He's rigged up some bombs that contain five-hundred pounds of thermite gelatin ... each."

Zero balked. "You're kidding me. Two-hundred and fifty pounds of thermite is enough to incinerate a heavily armored assault tank. The guys in the air calvary unit love the stuff."

"Douglas said he wanted to make sure everything was completely atomized." Signas shrugged. "That, and I think he's in the mood for some fireworks. Everything's being set up at the demolition yard in Paris. We're using the equipment teleporter to move the armor storage tubes as we speak. We'll be ready to go at 0900."

"That's gonna be one hell of an explosion." He frowned. "Equipment teleporter? Won't that show up on the transportation hub logs? I'd hate to tip off UNHOC any sooner than necessary that we're moving against them. You know they expect us to hand over the armors as well, whether they wrote it out or not. They're gonna have a fit."

Signas lowered his voice, in spite of the fact the room was harmonically sealed. "Alia's said she'll have no problem wiping the transaction. She's going to make it look like we're moving a bunch of scrap out from storage."

Zero chuckled. At least Alia was still able to function, shaky mental state notwithstanding. "And you have no problem with the potential illegality of that?"

"I find my respect for the technicalities of law has been somewhat reduced, as of late," Signas replied shortly. "I take it you don't have a problem with that?"

Zero shrugged and came up with a very sardonic grin. "Problem with what, Commander?"

"That's what I thought. The UN can whine about their destruction when it figures out they're gone. But they won't bug us for a good while. As for why I'm here ..." Signas reached for his hips, and Zero noticed the rather large, nickel plated pistols holstered there. He recognized them as tri-mode Colt .50 calibers. Signas pulled them both. "Surely you've been wondering when I get in my required target practice."

Zero whistled. "I see. Now I know why your holsters are designed to retract into your thighs. Those would get a lot of attention. I doubt you could get much done with everyone wanting to fondle your guns." He blinked. "Oh, hell. I can't believe I just said that."

Signas looked at him and grinned. "Any other time ... and that might have sounded bizarre. As it is, I'll forgo filing sexual harassment charges and ask if you're sure you can't manage some sleep?"

"Zero shrugged. "I doubt it."

"Well then," Signas moved his thumbs around on the stocks and snapped either pistol's mode dial into a position labeled in excessively tiny writing: "single." "Care for a little competitive target practice?"

Zero smiled and reactivated the non-lethal protocols in his buster circuitry. "Sounds like fun. Let's do it."


Paris. Alia had always thought it felt so empty. Even in an overstuffed junkyard like the one they were in now, there was an undeniable feeling of being surrounded by nothing but waste and decay. Paris (and most of France) hadn't been habitable by humans since the Third Uprising. One of Sigma's task forces had seen to detonating the world's first (and only) functional cobalt cluster bomb. Those who hadn't died in the explosion were besieged by fallout the likes of which no one was equipped to handle. Hundreds of thousands died, and millions became unalterably sick. The new Chernobyl; that's what Sigma had called it, right to then Acting Grand Commander Mega Man X's face. And that was horribly true – she'd seen the images from the history files. The spotter wondered, for an instant, what it must have been like for X to beam into that disaster, to have seen it with his own eyes. He, along with a veritable army of other reploids resistant to high-radiation, had been assembled by the UN and sent in to help manage the survivors. She remembered the way he always shuddered when forced to talk about the experience, and did her best to mentally shift focus.

Alia's eyes rose to the sky – forever gray in a post-nuclear haze. Her supersensitive optics found the dozens of air scrubber drones that continually crisscrossed the sky, doing their best to neutralize ambient radioactive particles still in the atmosphere. Even with them in action all of the time, it would still be decades before Paris was suitable for any kind of human habitation again. She and her kind could only withstand the high radiation levels for so long. They would all need to spend a good deal of time in decontamination tanks when they were done. But that's why there was a demolition yard here – the land simply wasn't good for much else anymore. Off in the distance, she made out the twisted, rusting, drooping remains of the Eiffel Tower. She whistled. "I can't believe they used to call this place the City of Lights."

Zero stood next to her. "That's what it used to be. It was beautiful. Paris was one of the most beautiful cities in the world. I ... I wished I could have brought Iris here, when it was whole. I think that's why they chose it. It was a symbol of human accomplishment and the longevity of human civilization. The Mavericks wanted to take that away from them ... and they did."

Alia nodded, saying nothing. After a few moments, Douglas' voice flooded their com units. "Alright. I've set everything up a mile north of us. I'll be detonating in five minutes. Oh ... and just a note ... getting any closer would be a bad idea."

"Acknowledged," Signas' voice was quiet and subdued as he walked up to stand next to Zero. "We'll be ready." He looked pointedly at Alia. "Are you sure you want to watch this?"

She seemed to actually consider it for a moment, then nodded. "Yeah. I'm sure." I think this is something I need to see.

"I can't believe we're doing this," Zero mumbled. "It seems so surreal. We're just going to stand here and watch thermite vaporize all that armor. Somehow it seems wrong. I hate to say it, but it feels like we're destroying part of him."

"Aren't we?" Alia's voice held an eerily calm quality. "He wouldn't have liked to hear it, but all those armor sets ... they were a part of him. Doctor Light meant for it to be that way. That's why they were all keyed to take instruction only from someone with X's neural patterns. They were his protection. But X is right. Now that he's gone, there's no reason for them to exist anymore."

"Point," Signas said. "Here we go. Two minutes. So," he prepared to ask the question on all of their minds. "what happens next? We still can't tell anybody anything. I don't think UNHOC is in any hurry to authorize anything, anyway. It seems as though they don't really care they've left us hanging off a cliff."

"Imagine that," Zero growled.

"I doubt that's the case." Alia folded her arms and fixed her eyes on the demolition area. A green beam of energy shot up – Douglas was getting out. It wouldn't be long now. "They're probably having trouble coming up with a suitable lie. As for what we should do," she frowned, "you said yourself we'd be releasing details for the memorial service soon. I think we can get by with that without UNHOC rattling its saber too much." Signas and Zero grunted in agreement.

Douglas rematerialized next to Alia. "Everybody ready?" Again, affirmative nods. "Here we go."

With that, a golden-red fireball spewed forth into the ruined sky, taking with it X's armors; the last known functional creations of Doctor Thomas Xavier Light.


At about the same time X's armors were consumed by activated thermite gel, the remaining elites of Unit Seventeen were gathered in their common room, conducting their own grim task. In the corner of the room, next to a large plaque commemorating all the members of Unit Seventeen who had perished in action, stood a six-foot-two plexiglass display case. It was opened for the moment; the Seventeenth's Commander hovering in front of it.

Inside hung a pair of black slacks with matching coat, a midnight blue dress shirt with three silver pips pinned to either side of the collar, and black tie. A small black beret and matching leather gloves sat perched on a small shelf near the top – a Hunter dress uniform. More specifically, as the name tag on the left breast suggested, the uniform of the greatest Maverick Hunter in history. A fabric patch stitched with the symbol of the Hunters and the number seventeen was sewn to the coat's right shoulder. It shouldn't really seem this grim, Quinn reflected, pinning a Cross of Gallantry underneath a humongous cluster of operation ribbons, this was our idea. Alia even encouraged it, as long as we did all of this when she wasn't around to watch. Before he took his hands away, he readjusted the tie (which was proving quite stubborn) and the small silver lettering pins tacked to the collar. They caught the light, and the letters "UN MHC" glittered as if glowing under their own power. Beth wordlessly dug in the small wooden box Alia had found all of X's medals in and pulled out a cluster of purple hearts.

"No wonder he hated wearing this thing," Onyx grumbled. "It's got more medals on it than it has fabric. Knowing him, he would have felt too damned conspicuous."

"Yeah," Beth mumbled, voice full of awe. "The way he hated drawing attention for his accomplishments, he must have hated parading around in this thing ... whoa ..." She pulled out a small blue square with a medical double-helix lightly etched onto its surface. "He was a certified field medic?"

"That he was," Onyx answered. "You sound like you've never seen half this stuff before. I realize you've somehow managed to skip out on all those monkey-suit functions we're supposed to attend, but haven't you read his file?"

She shook her head. "No. He never seemed to be particularly fond of talking about his decorations. I assumed it was something he didn't want to make a big deal out of, so I made a point never to pry."

"I see." Onyx sounded impressed. "As for your question, X was an emergency medic. Not as much training as a nurse, but enough to be helpful when the triage teams are in a crunch."

"Crap. I'm running out of room." Quinn stepped back and looked at the uniform, trying to remember where a medic's badge was supposed to go. It was already covered in twenty-six years worth of operation ribbons, a Silver Cross of Gallantry with Clusters, too many Purple Hearts, five Silver Stars, the Medal of Honor, the Legion of Honor, and a badge certifying mastery of stealth skills. She too was granted the honor. Not to mention I'm getting a little creeped out. You can only handle a dead man's things for so long before it starts to feel a little strange, I guess. Of course, we wouldn't be needing to pin all this together if he hadn't just had it cleaned, but that's really beside the point. "What's still in the box?"

Beth's hand disappeared and came up with a pair of small squares, each solid gold with three raised dots. "Just this," she said quietly, "Grand Commander's dress badges."

Aaron blinked. "But he is not ... er ... wasn't a Grand Commander when he died. Do we put them on or not? I hate to sound trite, but my uniform's so much simpler to put together, it's scary."

"It's all right. Just don't stare at it too long. You'll end up nursing an inferiority complex." Mark had appeared behind the four of them, far too quietly for anyone not specializing in stealth operations, and was watching them intently. "They're not rank insignia anymore – they serve as badges of former office. If you want you can put one under his name tag. It's optional, though, that's why we hardly ever saw them. Demotion from the top isn't that common, especially when its requested by the demotee. What ... stop looking at me like that. Am I the only one that read that part of the Hunter Regulation Guide?"

"Yes," the three of them answered in unison.

"Alright," Quinn said, thin smile evaporating. "That's the end of that." He closed the door on the plexiglass tube and stood back.

"Not quite," Beth said.

"What?"

Beth nodded at the wall plaque. "Someone needs to add his name. It's supposed to be the Unit Commander's responsibility."

Quinn groaned. The fact that someone needed to add X's name to the memorial plaque had completely slipped his mind. "Where is the stencil torch?"

"It was in X's utility closet. Alia gave it to me yesterday. Said she wanted me to pass it on to you. She seemed so tired." Beth sighed. "Come on. I'll give you a hand."


Fire. Alia laid with her eyes closed on a bed in her decontamination pod, head resting on her hands. She listened to the soft pulsing of the radiation neutralizers as they did their work. Douglas wasn't kidding. Nothing but fine ash. I can't believe he asked us to do that to his body. She shook her head. No, that's not right. His body's just like his armor was after the wiping program executed. Inert. So much scrap and spare parts. She rolled onto her side to look at the time readout on the wall. Still forty minutes of decontamination sweeps left. Great.

But it doesn't really matter what he wanted, or what I'm prepared to do. UNHOC's getting ready to slice him up. I wonder, are that many people actual soulless bastards, or do they simply, honestly not consider us anything more than especially useful toasters? Slaves to be used and disposed of as they see fit? What kind of existence is that? For that one instant, she knew the truth, and she wanted out. Not just out of the Hunters, but out of everything – the entire, flawed, sick cycle of reploid existence. It took her a full thirty seconds to realize she was contemplating the deliberate end of her life, and even then, she couldn't bring herself to be completely disgusted with the idea.