-=CHAPTER TWO – A MAN CALLED HYDRA=-

The city of Neo Arcadia.

Built in 2284 near the climactic end of the ELF Wars, it has stood as the leading capitol of the world's unified alliances and a protector its peoples and beliefs.

But that wasn't always the case.

Over eight years ago, there was a singular man who had taken it upon himself to accomplish what none before him had been able to do: To once and for all cure the plague of the Maverick Epidemic that had continually swept over and over throughout the world and driven harmless Reploids insane.

His cure for this? To impart upon all reploids a form of digital conditioning that had been placed upon the cyber electronic life form, the ELF as it was called, at the end of the brutally year long war. Should any reploid dare to stand up or strike out in a violent manner towards a human or society, a safeguard protocol within its neural processors would cause an EMP feedback loop and sterilize all of its memory banks. In essence, it was an accepted form of the ERASURE technique used during the late twenty-second century by rogue reploid hunters: a Reploid would have its "soul" removed from existence, becoming a literal clean state of nothing more then wires and hardware.

An empty shell devoid of all life. A painless death as it was thought to be... To descend into oblivion without a heaven nor a hell...

Needless to say many reploids wouldn't agree to this. They believed it was an abomination of rational thought to give unto a race of people the to choose who would live and die based on whether or not their expressed ideals conformed with that of society. Surely this individual, this acclaimed thinker of rational thought, was joking at his boast of a cure for such a deadly plague.

Yet, this man was different from the man many had thought him once to be.

In the minds of the public, he was the champion of Reploids rights and equality; had fought numerous battles to preserve the ability for all races to live free and equally upon this earth. Trampling through the numerous battlefields of infernal hordes all for the ideal of peace and tranquility.

But now though things were different.

He was different.

As a decree for all those that dared to defy his order as ruling governor and magistrate over Neo Arcadia, he sent out his waves of cybernetic drone soldiers and exterminating giant golems to hunt down and eradicate all that wouldn't obey his word and law. It didn't matter how hard they had tried to stand up to him, this man who commanded such power would use his legions of armies of strike them down. It was he who was in control of the world now, not them. It was he that had saved them on countless occasions from the point of near destruction and oblivion! Was it not fair that they should follow in his order and word? Was it not just that he who had saved them so many times; who had seen battle and faces of evil more terrifying then anyone else on the planet could attest to? Should it not be that he was the one who could see the true ordering path of the world.

Soon the point had been reached when all could be taken from this figure... no matter who he had been at one time or what reputation he had held.

The Maverick Hunters themselves, or rather what remained of the prestigious group that had survived the war, had been called upon to dethrone the mad despot. Seeing this as an act of unprecedented defiance, the likes of which none before occurred, had stricken as the final act in his mind that could not be overlooked or ignored. Taking it upon himself alone to rectify; the leader of Neo Arcadia left his impenetrable defenses and regaled throne of his all seeing arcadian citadel. In his wake he commanded all the world to watch as a lesson to be learned for those who disobeyed his law.

Brandishing the awesome full power of his proclaimed "Seraphim" Armor, he continued his march of nonexistence toward the Hunter base. Dark Plasma Fire; Energen Buster Shells; even that of old fashioned machine gun bullets and metal swords; nothing would stop him on his appointed mission.

Unleashing the accumulated rage inside of him, he lay a path of waste and carnage worse then that brought on by the fiend Dark Stryker during the war. Within a few brief moments of his attack, all was finished. The Maverick Hunters were no more and from his view nothing of importance remained to stand in his way of leading the world as he pleased. It was in that instant that an ideal had been accomplished that none before him had been able to perform:

The complete and utter annihilation of the Maverick Hunters in there entirety at the hand of their once great leader and supporter.

Mega Man X.

Shock and horror swept the world as it became know that X, the hero of the Maverick Wars and the ELF Wars, a proclaimer of peace and pacifism; had killed thousands in cold blood without even an inch of remorse or sadness. Declaring that this rogue Maverick Hunter was a threat to the fragile planet's stability and peace, the reigning Global Defense Council ordered the immediate termination and destruction of the once savior of humanity.

Not seeing the need to further dirty his own hands with more human and reploid blood, Master X commanded his four generals to "dispose" of the pathetic weaklings.

Harupa: a master of aerial combat and stratagem without equal; crippled the GDC airborne HQ's flotation engines and anti-air turrets with grace and ease. This lead the way for his other team mates to approach unharmed and continue as their master had ordered. Fefnir: a hotshot dynamo with an expertise in explosives and gun play; he had taken it upon himself to dispose of the mechanized defenses of the base and cripple any means that the human soldiers had of escaping the falling death trap. Leviathan: a sapphire haired vixen who commanded the sea and ice; wrapped the ocean bound base inside a watery tomb of frigid ice and cold, sealing its now terrified inhabitants off from the outside world and readying them for the end.

Lastly there was Phantom: the undisputed leader of the four, second-in-command to Master X himself, a genius/trained in all of the ancient fighting arts, and far more deadly then all of his subordinates combined. Having been personally taught under both of the legendary fighters X and Zero before the ELF Wars, he alone entered into the belly of the crippled "guardian" fortress. After brief moments through a series of unending death rattles and screams of soldiers, reploids, and political heads as their lives were brought to an abrupt end, Phantom emerged from the fortress. Only silence now remained within that tomb of Justice and Order. With Fefnir lacing a loaded Plasma-Ion bomb into the opening of the encased ship, the four generals left Atlantic airspace and the shimmering ice glacier on the sea. In a final fiery blast, the icy shell of the Forseti Global Defense Council's fortress exploded and sank to the uncharted depths of the sea.

It was with this final act that the sun had set on the envisioned golden age of Neo Arcadia. From a city holding over one million residents and expected to bring order and stability to a world crippled through war and destruction, there would now only be persecution and villainy to reign once more.

Five years would pass...

Five long years in which the tyrannical grip of Master X would continue to grow and dominate over the world with nothing to stay or sway his wrath for any who would oppose him.

But then at the end of those five long years, a hero emerged to bring light to a darkened land...

"Zero..."

He said the name with a disdain and foulness about his tongue as he continued to walk through the unending Sahara Desert. It had been three years since that pony tailed menace had appeared from the void of history and fight back against his order and stability; to right wrongs and topple mad dictators such as himself.

"ZERO!!!"

Screaming the name with unparalleled hatred for his sworn enemy, the once tyrant now known as Hydra X threw back his head and arms; letting the pure unchecked energy of his soul consume and surround him. It was true that in the hundred years since the fall of the Maverick age, Reploids had become more advanced and more human like, adopting a more indistinguishable appearance between their organic and flesh counterparts.

But even still Hydra was more then that... far far more...

Buckling from the internal strain of his own awesome energy, the warrior fell to the warm and comforting grainy texture of the sands beneath him. It was far worse this time; he had let his emotions consume him to the point where his energy was unchecked and wilder than it had ever been before. As the arks of purplish waves rippled away from his body, pockets of glass bubbled and hardened where they touched the desert's ground.

"You still can't control your own rage and hatred towards Zero and his kind. That is what was your downfall twice before and here it is your weakness now."

Looking up from his pained fetal crouch in the sand, Hydra's eyes burned with anger as he starred into the flickering image of a violet haired woman standing before him.

"Shut up! You know nothing but what I tell you, do you understand!?"

The amused look vanished from her face at the comment, replaced only with a stern look of annoyance at the crumpled man lying at her feet. Crouching down to look into those ruby eyes that would defy her with arrogance and self-importance, she brushed a strand of her long purple hair aside and reached out to run her hand along his tired face. Such grace in her moments, so warm and gentle when she wanted to be; but he knew what this meant....

Running her hand through his tattered and unkempt waves of brown hair, the golden eyed vixen tightened her grip and pulled his head back; taking singular glee in the expression of continual pain arching across his face.

"Do you not realize that I keep you around solely for my amusement?! If I had wanted I could sterilize this battered shell of yours as I have have done to your predecessor before you and take it for my own! The only reason I haven't yet is that you have unique traits that I cannot find else where on this rock of a world."

Even in the state of his continually pain enraptured body, Hydra found the strength to let a weak but audible laugh escape his parched lips.

"Is... is that right? I thought you kept me around for my charming good looks and whimsical demeanor; not for the fact that without me you'd be hunted down and captured like before..." Fighting the pain gripping his body, Hydra brought himself to his knees and crouched eye to eye with this demoness before him. "You need me just as much as I need you, and don't you ever forget that, understand?" Cringing in pain once more, Hydra collapsed back on his side as streaming arks of volatile purple energy continued to criss-cross over his body. "Just do what you do best and get me through this my dear succubus."

Anger crossed her face at the mentioning of that "pet" name he had given her. "You are not my lover dear Hydra... and I am not your slave..." Becoming more mirage then reality, the woman phased into Hydra's body, using her powers to help repair his dying systems and abilities. Slowly time passed for him, all he had to sustain him as she healed his worn body was the thought of revenge upon that who had done this to him.

"I will find you... and I will kill you..."