Sorry, this chapter was a long time in the typing. I have through chapter six written, but being near my computer long enough to type is another thing entirely. I apologize if chapters four and five seem a bit slow, but chapter six should make up for it. (Unless I go with what I'm thinking and split chapter five into two chapters. Then six will actually be seven) Anyway, this is probably the last header I'm putting on my fic because by now, you all know that I don't own MegaMan (If I did, the boss characters would have better names) and there should be no digression over who's ideas my stupid characters and plots are.

Thanks to my reviewers, especially Whisk, Phantom Kensai, and Helldragon. Glad to know you're out there and you're not bored yet!

P.S. If any one of you has had the opportunity to play or buy the MegaMan Anniversary Collection and hasn't, shame on you!!!!

Chapter 4

There were voices. I could here them around me, fading in and out like a bad speaker. I knew that Fefnir and Fairy were there, and once I thought I heard Phantom's voice before I sorrowfully remembered my good friend's death at the hands of the so-called maverick hunter Zero.

I am not sure if I was dreaming or remembering from that point on. I only recall seeing images sliding by, one by one, faces of friends, enemies, fearful soldiers in battle... There was no pattern or reason to it; it just continued on like a slide projector. I even called a picture of the original X to mind, standing in his white lab coat, as he had looked shortly before he had disappeared. I had not known him long before that.

My reminiscing turned to more recent events, and to Mayu. Whether she was my ally or my enemy, I still did not know. What does she want from me? For that matter, where do her loyalties lie? I found myself envying her freedom of choice. I was trapped by my own duties, defending something that I hardly knew anymore. Until now, I had never realized how far apart the government and the defense system had grown.

One more portrait flashed in my mind, this one of Mayu standing over me with one cerulean dagger held at my neck. Her words echoed in my thoughts. "Who am I to decide whose life to take in exchange for whose." In my memory, I seemed to feel great sadness coming from her. I wondered just how much she had gone through to get to where she was.

"Sage." I thought I heard her call to me.

"Sage, wake up..." I realized that it was not her, but just a fragment of my dreams.

"Sage, we can't do this without you." I opened my eyes to see a very concerned Leviathan hovering over me. She appeared so distraught that I laughed weakly.

"Don't look so sad. It's not like I'm dying."

Relief flooded her face. "Don't scare us like that," she admonished.

"It's not something I normally sit down and plan." I turned my head first one way, and then the other, partially to loosen my neck up, and partially to see how much any movement hurt. Other than being a little stiff, I felt fine. "How long have I been comatose?"

"About a day and a half. You really should take better care of yourself; you were pretty beat-up." She sat back in her chair and laced her fingers together behind her head. "At least now that poor squad-leader will stop moping around. He kept saying that he should have taken a bullet for you, not the other way around."

"Yeah, Harpuia, you should have a little more self-preservation. An army can survive without a foot soldier, but not without a general," Fefnir said, striding into the room. "So, how're ya feelin'?"

I sat up and stretched my back out a bit. "Pretty good, all things considered." I felt as though I had not moved in a month. "Did the transports get to the battle field all right?" I questioned, a bit concerned.

"Yeah, we're still treating the wounded." Fefnir leaned against the wall. "Is it just me, or is the Resistance beggin' for a fight? They weren't like this before; they just wanted to defend themselves and their energy source."

I half shrugged. "I thought the same. It's almost as if they have someone goading them to attack us now."

"there has to be a way to find out for sure," Leviathan put in. "I mean, if they have a new general, what if it changes the tide of the war? She looked down. "What will happen to the humans?"

"I know how you feel, Fairy, but if you're talking about trying to infiltrate their base with a spy, I don't want to put my men in any more danger." I sat on the edge of the cot and thought about it for a moment. Something was tickling at the edge of my mind, and I had a feeling that there was something I had missed.

Leviathan shook her head in dismay. "What should we do? We can't just sit around and wait for an attack."

"Heh... why don't we attack them? Best defense is a good offense, right Harpuia?" Fefnir looked to me, expecting agreement.

"No," I said thoughtfully. "No, that would not be prudent when we don't know what their plans are. If we take an army great enough to attack their base, then we would remain defenseless here. All they would need is a small force, and it could mean total devastation for Neo-Arcadia. The humans by themselves are defenseless. We can't overlook that."

Fefnir snorted. "Why are my ideas always the ones to be shot down?"

Sighing, I put my hand on his shoulder. "I hate to break it to ya, Fefnir, but sometimes you're not much of a tactician."

"Glad to see I have the support of my fellows," he said darkly. "If we strike swiftly enough, they won't even have time-"

"No!" I snapped more harshly than I had meant to. "I'm sorry," I said a bit more calmly. "We just can't take that chance."

"But Harpuia, you're asking us to sit and wait for our own inevitable destruction," Leviathan broke in.

I was beginning to develop an idea, but I was not sure how my comrades would take it. "Fairy, just trust me on this. You gave me an idea, and all I need now is to find Mayu."

"Mayu? Who's Mayu?" She questioned, head tilted slightly to one side.

"A neutral party." I smiled, my shoddy plan beginning to come together in my mind.

"Is Mayu the one that you held prisoner for awhile, but Leviathan..."

"Can it!" Leviathan kicked his shin with a metallic clang.

I looked at her meaningfully. "We are definitely going to talk about that later." I glanced back at Fefnir. "And yes, to answer your question, that would be the aforementioned individual."

"You mean you're going to trust an infiltration to an enemy?" Leviathan scowled in disbelief. "Maybe you aren't fully recovered yet."

"She's not necessarily an enemy," I said moodily, growing weary of the argument. "She's neutral, and she also saved my life from a Resistance ambush."

Fefnir snorted. "And what makes you think that she'd help you again?"

I shrugged. "She claims to want peace for both sides. Therefore, given the opportunity, I believe that she will stop whatever blood-shed that she can. If she tells us what the Resistance is planning, then we could set up an adequate defense for it and everyone could simply cut their losses and get on with their lives."

"Wishful thinking," Fefnir yawned. "I highly doubt that she'll see things your way."

I allowed my shoulders to slump. "You're probably right- for once. But if I have any chance at all to keep casualties down to a minimum, it would seem foolish not to take it."

"Oh, have it your way." Fefnir stomped off, mumbling something about his general being a "bloody pacifist." I looked at Leviathan.

"Do you, at least, understand what I'm getting at?"

She looked away. "I know how you feel, but I-" She paused, searching for the correct words. "I just don't know if your trust is well-placed. What if she decides to stay with them once she gets there?"

"Then we'll cross that bridge when we come to it." I sat down on the edge of my cot. "Can you just trust me?"

"I don't know, Sage." She turned to leave and then looked back at me with sadness in her large, blue eyes. "I'm not even sure anymore if I really know you." With that, she was gone.

I tried to tell myself that the best decisions were not always agreed upon, but deep down, I wondered it I were truly fit to lead the Neo-Arcadian armies in a war in which I was not even sure I believed in anymore.

You believe in it, I chastised myself. You're just not sure if the humans believe in you.

I wished that I could curse my own stupidity, but it would have served little purpose. I had searched everywhere between the base and the city, and every unoccupied building in the factory district, but the fact remained that I had no idea were to find Mayu. In the past, she had always found me, although whether or not that was accidental, I was not sure. So much for that idea. Now Fefnir and Leviathan are going to be really displeased.

I did not bother to explore the city. It was an unlikely place to find a reploid, especially one so obviously meant for combat. Instead, I progressed slowly and dejectedly back in the general direction of the base. The thought of simply not returning entered my mind. I felt that they did not need me to guide them.

"Sage, we can't do this without you." Well, at least Leviathan still believed that my presence was necessary. Still, I did not want to return only to inform her that my "plan" had fallen through simply because the individual in question was nowhere to be found.

I ended up going past the base, to the place of battle from the other day. We had taken our dead off the field, but I did not think the Resistance had had a chance to do so. I expected to see the metal scavengers picking the place clean of the dead soldiers but to my surprise, I found a series of freshly dug graves. There were no markers, but someone had taken the time to bury the dead right on the battle site. I thought that the Resistance would have taken the bodies of their men away and had them cremated or slagged. Reploids were not normally buried, since there bodies would not decompose as a human's. But who had the chance-?

I spotted a familiar orange clad figure kneeling with her back to me. A mound of sand had partially blocked my view of her, and I had not noticed her immediately.

"Mayu."

She gave a little gasp and turned around quickly. She relaxed when she saw that it was me.

"Sage... why are you here?" Her eyes looked baleful.

"I should ask you the same." I looked around at the fresh graves. "Is this your handiwork?"

She nodded solemnly. "They deserve to rest in peace. It was... all I could do." The sorrow in her voice was evident.

"You may not believe me, but I am sorry that it comes to this." For some reason, I felt relieved that someone had saw fit to pay their respects to the dead.

"You lost many men as well," she said suddenly. "I'm sorry there's nothing I can do to help your cause."

I mulled over her comment for a moment. "How did you know?"

"I could see the places where bodies once lay, where the blood stained the sand." She shook her head slowly. "Will this ever end? Reploids fighting reploids for the sake of humans who want them all destroyed... It doesn't seem fair."

My heart ached. I knew exactly how she felt. "Help me put an end to it."

She looked up at me suspiciously. I realized that she was rather small of stature. "How?"

I took a deep breath. This was going to be a long shot- "I need you to go into the Resistance base and find out who their new general is and what he's planning so that I can take proper evasive maneuvers to avoid more lives being lost."

She simply looked at me with an expressionless face, her cold eyes searching mine for some wordless answer to an unknown question. Slowly, the anger crept into her visage, turning quickly into something akin to rage. "I'm not a tool for you to use in you espionage," She spat, livid. "You can take you plans and shove 'em." She stormed away angrily.

"I only want to save the lives of my men," I called with equal venom.

"And you chose me- why? Because since I'm not one of your men, my life doesn't matter?" She snickered coldly. "I suppose I should be used to people assuming that my life is useless. Heck, I'm even starting to believe it myself."

I tried to hold my anger in check. "I chose you because of your lack of affiliation with either group."

"So then, you want me to sink to your level and pretend to join them, and then report it to you. Then, of course, since I was only a spy, I would be forced to join Neo-Arcadia or be hunted down by the Resistance for my betrayal." She snorted in obvious disgust for me and my "plan." "Clever, Sage, real clever."

Great, in five minutes, she has the whole thing thought out better than I ever did. She had a rather good point. She would almost be forced to join Neo-Arcadia if she where caught. If she were caught.

"All right," I said, swallowing my pride back so hard that I could have choked on it. "I'm sorry. It wasn't well thought out on my part, and I shouldn't be asking you to risk your life like that." I bit my tongue so forcefully that I thought it would bleed. Trying to smooth things over was not a fun task when all I really wanted to do was backhand the stubborn reploid across the face.

"Don't waste your good manners on me, Sage Harpuia," she said darkly. "I can see it in your eyes that you want to fight me again. Go on then! You have no disadvantages this time."

Great. We're back to the fighting again. "You beat me," I answered out loud. "I'm not fighting you again, despite the fact that you're acting like a spoiled child."

"Who's the childish one here?" she fired back vehemently. "You play with your 'toys' until they're broken, and then you expect a shiny new one each time." She narrowed her eyes at me. "All I want to do is take care of what's mine."

"You accomplish nothing alone," I ground through gritted teeth. "You can't end this war yourself, especially not when you're a pacifist."

"Who said I was a pacifist?" She raised an eyebrow, making her expression appear comical, despite the situation. "I don't have any problems killing reploids or humans if I have a reason." She stared at me. "I should have killed you when I had the chance."

"So, you'd kill humans." My lower jaw was trembling in rage. "You're no better than the Resistance scum!"

"If you can kill one, why can't you kill the other?" she yelled. "We're all the same, you know. Humans, reploids- how is destroying one any more wrong than destroying the other?"

"The humans are defenseless, and they're lives. It's our duty to defend them. We're only cheap representations of-"

"Enough!" she screamed. "What defines humanity? What makes them more human than us? We think, we feel, we love, we hate- tell me, why are we so different than them?" Her hot rage had cooled to something of a pleading sadness.

"I am sorry for you, Sage," she said softly. "You go on leading your armies, fighting your glorious 'holy war,' and you have no idea what you're fighting for."

I stood a moment and waited until she had walked past me. With my back to her, I said in a low voice, "You said you should have killed me. Why didn't you?"

I heard her stop behind me. "I thought I saw a touch of humanity in you." I could almost her the empty smile in her voice. "I guess I was wrong."

I sighed. Yet again, our encounter had ended in a stalemate. "What can I do to convince you?"

"Hm," she laughed humorlessly. "Nothing."

I let her walk away and disappear over a mound of sand before I turned around. Wonderful. And to think, I actually had the impression that we were on speaking terms. I again remembered her tendency to decapitate individuals that she did not like, as well as her claim to have no problem killing both reploids and humans. I decided to stay on my guard.

Is she right, though? I wondered. Is destroying a human no greater a sin than retiring a reploid? I looked down at my hands, hands that had ended so many lives without remorse... I can't keep questioning myself. What's done is done. But I could not stop myself from speculating. What if these hands had taken so many human lives? Would it be any different?

I phased out my helmet and raked a hand through my disheveled hair. My head felt hot. She's only a reploid herself, I decided. Just because she believes what she says doesn't mean she's right.

I decided to fly back to base and break the bad news to Leviathan and Fefnir. I would have teleported, but as usual, I had not had the foresight to grab a com before I left, and unlike many of my soldiers, I did not have a built-in wrist-com. Without someone to give coordinates to so they could set up the transfer, I was stuck wasting time again. First, however, I decided that I would pay my own dues to the dead enemy troops.

There was not much that I could do, really. I simply stood respectfully for a time, pensive. They had died the same way my men had died; fighting for what they felt was most important. I could only have respect for them, even if I did not believe in their cause. I could not say if Mayu was right and both humans and reploids were the same, but I could believe that Neo-Arcadian and Resistance reploids were. They had simply ended up on opposite sides of the coin.

Even Zero and I were similar. The reason that I was Neo-Arcadian was because I had been loyal to MegaMan X. When he left and his copy arrived, I knew things were different, but my loyalties were not about the change. Zero, I knew, was Resistance because the first thing he saw when he awoke from his hundred year's sleep was that scientist, Ciel, begging for protection. I could picture her wide, watery blue eyes pleading with him and supposed that I could understand why he made that choice. It was probably the same way I had chosen to rescue Fairy Leviathan from a maverick when I was first appointed a Guardian of the original X. And I received quite a handful in exchange for that decision, I thought with a wan smile, although I did not regret it in the least. She was like a little sister.

My mind wandered back to Ciel, a human scientist on the side of the Resistance. Sometimes I had trouble understanding, although I believed that her intentions were good. She thought that if she could create an alternate power source, everything would be okay again. It was wishful thinking, however. Sins and atrocities committed in war are not so easily forgotten. There will be hard feelings between the two groups for a long time.

I realized that I had been standing for some time and turned to go, knowing that it may be the last time anyone visited this grave site. I took off and from the air, spotted signs of a battle a short distance away. I swooped in closer.

There were five reploids scurrying along the ground, and they were in hot pursuit of Mayu. I noticed another soldier down farther back. What are they after Mayu for? I landed between the girl and her attackers, using my flight momentum for a solid punch in the stomach directed at the lead reploid. He doubled over my fist and fell to his knees, causing another soldier to topple over him.

"I told you she's in league with Neo-Arcadia," the other soldier cried, skidding to a halt. "It's General Harpuia!"

I grit my teeth. I had been about to ask why they were after Mayu, but I was pretty sure I understood. Someone must have escaped that last battle and informed them about Mayu convincing them not to destroy me. She would be easy enough to recognize, since her armor is such a unique design. I pulled out my sabers and ignited them. The soldiers back-peddled a bit, unafraid of chasing down a lone reploid woman, but not too keen on facing a Guardian.

"I don't want your help," Mayu hissed.

"They'll kill you," I said evenly. The soldiers were still hesitating.

She shook her head. "I don't care. I don't want to owe you anything."

"You won't owe me anything." I noticed one of the Resistance troops going for his blaster. "Could we talk later? Now really isn't the time..."

The reploid fired a shot at Mayu, and I deflected it with one sword. It would have hit her in the forehead.

Mayu charged into the group with her blades held backward, parallel with her forearms. She flashed one saber out in a lighting-fast strike, slicing half-way through one reploid's throat. He gurgled liquidly and fell, spraying crimson blood over her bright armor. The others began firing their weapons, but she was already diving to the ground. I quickly dispatched another soldier as she delivered a sweep kick that brought one down flat on his back. She moved to slice his neck as well, but the other unarmed troop pulled her away, throwing a weak punch to the face. She struck him back and he pinned her arms roughly to the ground. His fellow propped himself on one elbow and tried to get a clear shot at the struggling Mayu beneath his companion. I moved to stop him, but the soldier who I had punched sprinted toward me, firing a low energy pistol wildly. I deflected what I could with my sabers, although a few shots pinged off my armor, doing little damage but not exactly feeling very pleasant either. I jumped forward and to my left, augmenting my hop with a spurt from my boosters. I landed next to him and swiped my right-hand blade from his shoulder to his hip, cutting a little more than halfway through him. His upper body flopped back grotesquely, exposing sparking wires and sufficiently covering me with blood.

The other soldier was still looking for an opening, and I stabbed him in the gut with a blade. He gasped and clutched his abdomen, and I forearmed him in the chin, sending him flying. I turned my attention back to Mayu's struggle and locked my arms around the reploid's neck, pulling his head back. Mayu slashed his chest with both sabers in opposite directions. Flecks of blood smattered her face.

The other soldier- the one I had stabbed- aimed his gun shakily and fired, missing my head by mere inches. I threw one blade end over end and it stuck up to the hilt in his forehead. He died with a look of shock frozen on his face.

Mayu stood, breathing hard, fear, anger, and sadness all imprinted on her face at once. Slowly, she sank to her knees.

"Are you hurt?" I asked, masking my mild concern with an emotionless voice.

She crossed her arms over her chest, one hand on either shoulder, and ignored my question. "This may come as a shock to you, but I've never killed a sentient being before." I could not tell, but I thought she was shaking.

You mean for all that talk about killing reploids and humans alike, you've never taken the life of either? I thought it best to keep the reply in my thoughts, instead saying, "It's something that one gets used to eventually."

She speared me with a sharp glance. "I don't want to get used to it." She rose slowly, unsteadily. "I know. I'll have to if I'm going to fight. But I don't have to like it."

We stood in silence for a moment. "Why did you come to my aid?" she questioned softly.

"I'm not letting you get killed just because you saved me. That would seem pretty ungrateful if you ask me."

"Makes sense, I guess." She stared off at nothing in the distance. "I killed three Resistance soldiers today. Guess that means that I can't remain neutral any longer." She looked at me from the visored side of her helmet. "I suppose I'll join you, if your offer still stands."

Now it was my turn to balk at the request. "You openly admitted that you would take the life of a human as easily as a reploid. How can I trust you in my forces?"

"I said if I needed to. It should be obvious to you by now that I don't kill for the fun of it."

"Swear you'll never harm a human being," I told her. "Swear on your life."

"I swear it... unless it endangers more lives."

I supposed that was as good as I was going to get from her. "Pray you don't," I said with deadly calm. "It'll be the last thing you do."

"Don't threaten me, Sage. I get your point." She turned her back on me. "So... when should I get started?"

I blinked. "Started?" She nodded. "Started on what?"

"On your little 'espionage,' of course." She smiled a cruel smile.

"You can't now," I said incredulously. "They would recognize you."

She shook her head. "No, they wouldn't" She nodded to the dead soldiers. "The only one who would know my face was one of that group. I would venture a guess that he won't be talking."

I sighed. "Shouldn't you come back to the base first?"

She began walking away. "It's best if I don't have anything to do with you. Unless you want me to get caught."

"How do you expect to get there?" I said dryly. "Walk?"

"Pretty much." She turned and started walking again.

"You're crazy," I muttered. "Why don't you just let us teleport you?"

"They'll detect that." She paused, looking at the broad wasteland spreading from horizon to horizon. "What've I gotten myself into?" She said softly.

"I'll fly you within four miles of it," I offered.

She blinked. "I dunno... maybe..." she thought for a moment, then, "-Aah!"

Her mild exclamation was in protest to my picking her up and throwing her over my shoulder.

"Ow... put me down! This is really uncomfortable..." She started to struggle.

"Stop complaining," I growled. "You should be glad I'm giving you a ride in the first place. And I'm not carrying you the other way. You'd be a dead-weight."

She kicked me one more time. "Are you saying I'm heavy?"

I ignored her and jumped into the air. She quit struggling- probably because she did not want to fall. I ran through the coordinates of the base in my head, tweaking my course minisculey to fly the best route. My flight speed, although a bit slower than usual because of my "passenger," was still fast enough to get us there within twenty minutes.

I landed and dumped her unceremoniously on the ground. My right arm was stiff. "This is as close as I'm gonna get you."

She picked herself up from the dirt and rubbed her exposed mid-section. "Your shoulder was digging into my stomach," she complained.

"Yeah, well don't expect anymore free rides from me. And if you actually had armor over your midriff, that wouldn't happen."

She glared icily. "I don't want any free rides, thank you. And as for my armor, there wasn't-" She paused, as if correcting herself. "How am I supposed to help something like that? Some of us can't just make our armor appear and disappear at will." She looked at me suspiciously. "You're not a normal reploid, are you?"

I crossed my arms and realized that I was chewing my lower lip again. I made a conscious effort to stop. "It doesn't matter what I am. What about you? How did you lock Leviathan in your own cell?"

Mayu guffawed. "That one's a ditz, I'll say." She reached into a small, barely visible pocket on her right arm and pulled out a familiar looking disc. "My late creator was working on these handy little things before he died. He never perfected them; they melt down after about an hour or so and fizzle out. But, since they work for my purposes, I use his blue-prints to make up a batch every now and then." She paused with a wan smile. "If you can't tell, I'm not physically strong, so I have to rely on ulterior means to win some battles."

I grunted. "Leviathan's examining the one you left."

"She won't find anything," Mayu said with a smirk. "Those things fry themselves way too thoroughly."

I shrugged. "Oh, well. I just wanted to keep her busy anyway."

"You could keep her busy with one of those cards that says 'How do you keep a stupid person busy? Turn over' on both sides."

I chuckled, having to agree. "Well, how did you get her stuck in there?"

The corner of her mouth twitched. "She came in ranting, and I just tossed the field generator on the floor and slipped past her. She yelled some pretty interesting things while I walked away."

"Well," I sighed. "I can't say I'm particularly surprised."

Mayu turned away. "Can't say it's been fun. I've had enough of this question-and-answer session."

"Wait, what about he demons?" I called.

"Ah, you mean the demi-dragons?" she said coolly, looking over her shoulder. "It's simple. I see one, I kill it." She began walking again. "I'll contact you on my own time." She narrowed her eyes. "Don't hold your breath too long."

I stared after her for a moment and then launched myself into the air yet again. Well, I can inform Fefnir and Fairy that the plan is underway, I thought. But why do I have such a bad feeling about it?