The room was serene. The bright lights and hard, cold floors gave no warning of the chaos that would happen here shortly. The only hint that this was actually a training area was the room's massive size. Length, width…it didn't matter. Either way, it was the length of a football field. At the center of the room stood a Reploid wearing a dark black armor with gold trim.

Actually, he wasn't a Reploid, but few would know that by looking at him. He was the first of his kind, after all. But, not the last, he declared. Deep within, he felt his heart start to beat wildly.

Too early...too early. Deep breaths. Calm down, Carl.

Carl Ibanez closed his eyes and wiped the smile from his helmet-covered face, attempting to drown out the extraneous noise in his mind. Today was the day he'd been waiting for...the day that his progress would make him famous. It was the day that he'd bring in a new era...but all of that required him to be focused. He was reveling in the moment far too much before it had happened.

Slowly, he felt the quiet wash over him...the artificial hum of machines and electricity surrounded him and drowned out the beating of his heart. He knew the arena he was standing in was 90000 square feet of intensity, but now he could feel his awareness heighten as the suit fed him information about his surroundings. His position within the room was clear now...he could feel the corners of the room.

Good. This was much better.

In the moment of pure silence that followed, Carl's mind drifted to his previous conversations with Dr. Cain, the designer of the suit of armor that he now wore like a second skin. Many different warnings had been given to Ibanez on the first day they had met; only one had stuck this far.

"This suit does not make you a Reploid. It doesn't make you think like one, or at the speed of one. It doesn't give you their reaction time. Its entire goal is to protect you first and foremost, and to give you the capability to fight them."

The second phrasing of the warning had gotten his attention more..."Don't go thinking you're God because you have this suit." He'd taken that to heart...Reploids were still dangerous, no matter what armor he was wearing.

Something in the room changed, and Ibanez realized the drill was on. Reaching behind him, he grabbed for a handle on the back of his armor and detached the beam saber...

It was time to make history.

Mega Man X6: Absolute Zero
Chapter 1: Organic #1

Fate had an odd way of insulting those who believed in it. That was Dr. Cain's most recent thought.

Since the first day of discussion in the World Congress about the possibility of having humans in Maverick Hunter, he'd attributed it to fate that it would eventually happen, and worked with it.

Fate had naturally upped the ante immediately.

The World Congress sought to find a worthy candidate to be their first experiment. Someone who would be capable of wearing the first ever powersuit; someone who would do humans justice as a representative of the known world.

Dr. Cain looked over their chosen one's documents once more. The man looked great on paper. Retired Captain Carl Ibanez of the US Marine Corps. Police officer. 26 years old. A great leader in everything he'd done. Ambitious. Strong. Smart. He had all the mental ability necessary to learn the acute differences between fighting a thug and facing a Reploid with a powersuit. And he had the physical ability to do it and perhaps even do it well someday. It was the perfect candidate.

But for some reason, as Dr. Cain looked up from the papers and at the man himself, he couldn't help but feel something intangible was off. The one-way looking glass would hide just how many people from the World Congress were in the little viewing room, watching him train. And yet, as he watched the half-black, half-Hispanic Ibanez, he couldn't shake his convictions. The smug look on Carl's face made it obvious that he knew he was being watched by many eyes. The American Congressmen found his confidence inspiring. Dr. Cain might have been an American, but this was upsetting to him. After 2 weeks of working with the man, the doctor was certain he'd found the difference. It wasn't confidence that fed Carl Ibanez...it was pride. Americans, he'd heard many times, never knew the difference.

As he watched Ibanez slip into his pre-battle meditation, Cain expected that the Reploids would see the difference...it was just the way fate worked.

Instantly, the slots in the wall all around the arena opened, and walking laser cannons took their first steps into the room. Each of them quickly located the others and coordinated their efforts to avoid crossfire. A moment later, they turned their attention toward their objective, a man in the middle of the arena clad in black and gold armor. He looked like a Reploid, but the robots easily saw through to the biorhythms beneath, and knew he was a human. Laser cannons powered up all throughout the room...

At the center of the room, Ibanez smiled. A single golden blade activated from the handle in his hand. The glowing blade was jagged and wide...this was no beam saber. This was the first ever beam falchion.

As the cannons began to fire, Ibanez quickly dashed to the side, aided by the suit's powerful acceleration unit within the boots. Within another second, Ibanez had already sprinted to one of the cannons, evading its fire along the way, and was now on top of it. Quickly, he carved a large gash into the unmanned cockpit with his beam saber, and leaped over onto another nearby one.

Dr. Cain truly had worked on this armor with all his knowledge and heart. He had attempted to create a suit that allowed a man to become X for a while. But there were areas where he knew he could not succeed. Cain took a seat and fiddled with his cane as he considered his handiwork.

First, the base of the suit had nowhere near the mobility (nor the agility) of X's personal armor. The extra acceleration added by the armor's boosters was great, but those boosters were heavy too. In addition, the weight support systems he'd added in to avoid the suit crushing its user were adding to the mass and slowing the acceleration. The suit was safe and padded, however, and he was okay with whatever he had to do to make that happen.

That would be only so much consolation in a battle where the wearer couldn't ever hit his opponent properly, however. It was a tradeoff he'd been willing to take, if only to minimize kills and perhaps remove some of the glamour of war that the candidates for Maverick Hunter had been blinded by.

Secondly, no suit of armor could transform a man's mind into a computer. Perhaps his senses could be honed to a comparable point with their digital equivalent, but the human mind didn't have the focus or pure processing power to compare with the technology of the late 2100's. Doctor Cain had gone to great lengths to explain to Ibanez that this suit would not make him the god of combat, or even a prophet.

Thus far, however, that deterrence attempt hadn't seemed to have an effect...Ibanez had fallen in love with the suit. Even with the limited acceleration, it still allowed him to move quicker than he ever had in his life, and it provided him with powerful defense and attack capabilities. Considering what the tests thus far had pitted him against, he probably didn't know the difference.

Dr. Cain awoke from his daydreaming; the others in the room had broken into loud cheering and applause. He glanced back toward the one-way mirror and discovered that Ibanez had torched the tanks. Considering how quickly he had done so, Dr. Cain was fairly certain he was as ready as he'd ever be.

The drill was complete, and Ibanez was welcomed into the monitoring room to meet his benefactors—without the powersuit, of course. One of the Congressmen walked forward and shook the man's hand. "It would seem that Dr. Cain's battlesuit is a supreme fit for you..."

Ibanez gave the man a firm handshake and smiled lightly. Then his attention drifted to the man's comments. "The suit..."

Dr. Cain turned towards Ibanez now, and both men made eye contact. Immediately, Cain knew that something was up.

A look of determination brewed on Ibanez's face, and he turned back to the congressman. "...excuse me for a moment?"

The congressman nodded and shook his hand again, and Ibanez strode across the room toward the doctor.

Dr. Cain raised a quizzical eyebrow toward the man. "...yes?"

Ibanez looked him dead in the eyes, and Dr. Cain could feel his frustration. "Give me the truth," Ibanez said.

Dr. Cain had a feeling he knew what the man was asking for, but that didn't mean he'd save him the trouble of asking. Slowly, he parted his lips and spoke. "What?"

Ibanez remained still. "What have we proved with this experiment thus far?"

That gave Dr. Cain pause. The experiments thus far had proved a few important things about the durability of the powersuits, but they were being celebrated as if they were an officially finished product. Cain had been frustrated by the idea of having this stress test turn into a demo for the Congressmen, but he was surprised to note that Ibanez might feel the same way…

Before Cain could respond, Ibanez continued. "We've proved that you can build a suit of armor for a man...that can defeat robots from the last century. That does not make me a Maverick Hunter." Ibanez pointed and waved his fingers in front of the doctor's eyes as if lecturing him. "This is the 22nd century, Doctor--"

Doctor Cain smacked the boy's hand aside with his cane. "I know that..." He wasn't in the mood to be belittled. And he certainly wasn't going to curtsey before this fellow just because some of the benefactors were around. Ibanez grew silent, as did the rest of the room. If there was going to be an argument, it seemed no one wanted to miss it.

Cain looked at Ibanez carefully, as if trying to see his soul. In order to understand what Carl Ibanez wanted, Cain decided, another question had to be posed. What was it that Ibanez really wanted out of this? Fame? Fortune? Power? There had to be some type of motivation for taking this job...Cain couldn't imagine there were many people who would volunteer to be the first guinea pig just for the good of their country. No matter what it was, each option pointed to one reason for this conversation to occur.

If Carl was looking for fame out of this ordeal, it would be necessary for him to be on the front line of the Maverick War. Fame would come from fear of being at the other end of his blade. That meant he needed a powerful suit, not only good in protection but capable of taking Reploids down.

If he wanted true power, the same was necessary. A power trip wouldn't come in Maverick Hunter if all he had was an office job away from the combat. Fortune...that one was trickier. Fortune could perhaps come from a long career in Maverick Hunter. With an all-Reploid cast of warriors, Maverick Hunter had never paid anything before, but he imagined a human would have to be paid as opposed to being maintained.

No matter which was his motivation, Cain decided, each of them required a suit that would give him the chance to keep his name on people's lips. That left one reason for this conversation to be necessary. This suit…wasn't good enough for his purposes. So he wants me to redesign the suit...

Dr. Cain began to grow cross. "I've already told you once I'm not putting a group of humans on a battlefield without their protection being the number one priority...that is not going to change. So...what more could you want from me?"

Ibanez raised an eyebrow in surprise and shook his head. "That's not what I meant..."

The cane's bottom returned to its spot on the floor, and Dr. Cain slowly shifted his weight to rest upon it. "Then…what?"

"This suit is amazing by my standards. But, I need to know where it really stands."

That gave Dr. Cain pause...what did he mean by where it really stands? The old man inwardly smirked as he pieced it together…perhaps he'd judged the fellow too soon. "So you want a test against an actual Reploid? Is that it?"

"Yes, sir."

He seemed genuine enough...and that made Cain even more curious. Perhaps he was right and the suit wasn't good enough for Ibanez's purposes. But the question now changed. What was his purpose? Could he really be doing this for the good of the world? Was he really that idealist? Hmm.

"Ok. I'll see what I can do."

Ibanez shook his head, and extended a fist. "Don't see what you can do…do it! There are Reploids here that I can face…let me face a Reploid."

Dr. Cain looked away and considered it for a moment. True, there were Reploids here who could fight him. But, he wasn't sure he liked the idea of this particular powersuit being the only thing between the man and oblivion…

"Let me fight X."

Everyone in the room heard that, and heads tilted toward Ibanez in shock. Even though nothing was said, it was clear that everyone was shocked at his audacity.

Dr. Cain, too, was shocked, but for different reasons. "...you want to fight X?"

"It's the only way I'll ever know the truth of what this suit can do."

Dr. Cain frowned and shook his head. Fighting any Reploid would be enough to gauge the capabilities of that suit...and for any purpose worth having, that would be enough. He decided against the subtle approach and simply spoke his mind. "You're full of it. There's more to it than that, and you know it."

If the man had issues, Dr. Cain declared mentally, then they were going to air his dirty laundry right here and now, in front of the Congressmen. He'd know the truth, or he'd have this man out of the program.

Ibanez caught the implication here, and gave pause. Obviously, their conversation had an audience now, and he would wager they had an interest in hearing it all. Ibanez turned away from the doctor and walked closer to the middle of the room. Parting his lips lightly, he let loose his deep baritone voice, cutting up the volume for all who wished to hear.

"X was the first of his kind; everyone witnesses to that. The Reploids were made in his image and likeness, so he is like their god," Ibanez's said. His words felt covered in disgust and sarcasm, Dr. Cain noticed, but somehow his voice was still warm and confident. This man was a walking paradox.

The doctor's attention was pulled back by the sound of Ibanez's voice. "The maverick crisis infects Reploids and turns them into cold-blooded killers."

"And somehow, X is immune to it. No one knows why...he just is. Why are we so sure?" Ibanez began to get anxious, and turned to the Congressmen. "How do we know he hasn't just gotten lucky? How do we know he hasn't already been infected, and isn't simply hiding it in order to win us over?" Ibanez stopped a sentence short of implicating that X was working together with Sigma. No one would believe that even if he threw it out there, and he'd come off as a paranoid American. Yet the seeds of propaganda had taken their toll on the minds of his listeners. The Congressmen were deep in thought about his words. He called them back to the present.

"If X did turn Maverick, what would stop him? Who would try?" These Congressmen knew even less about Maverick Hunter than Carl did, but he wasn't about to let them know that. Doubt shaded their countenances, and Carl Ibanez continued on.

"We used to think that Zero might fight a corrupted X, but now we know he was a black box as well." Again, Ibanez avoided implicating Zero in any way, continuing on without a hitch. "And now, he's for all intensive purposes dead. Who would be able to stop Maverick X?"

Silence. Everything was as he had expected. "I don't think any Reploid would be man enough to face his god in combat, even if his god was unleashing his wrath upon the entirety of the human race." Ibanez balled a fist. "That leaves me, at the moment."

Ibanez's eyes were on fire with confidence, and it was clear by the look on the government officials' faces that he had them in his hand. "I need to know if this suit is capable of handling a battle with the most dangerous Reploids in existence. I suspect it is not, but I must know. I need to know this suit's limits like I know my own…"

Ibanez walked back toward the doctor and locked eyes with him once again. "And, I must be able to face him. Give me battle with X."

Doctor Cain blinked, surprised by the level of intensity this fellow had. He obviously had some real interest in the job he'd been selected for, but his last statement had been profoundly revealing. Yes, there was a lot of fear of Reploid rebellion driving his actions…

Dr. Cain shook his head at the silliness of it all. So this was what drove this fellow. It wasn't honor or fame that he wanted. He had something against X...or against Reploids in general. Perhaps it was just fear...perhaps something more...Cain would watch him carefully. But, that was besides the point now...

Dr. Cain grabbed a seat and got off his legs before speaking. "I'll be blunt here…you will never defeat X." A thoughtful look crossed his face as he considered the past few years and the incidents that had brought he and X together.

"Dr. Light was an amazingly insightful creator in robotics...his creations greatly surpass my own. He somehow was able to make X with technology that I didn't even know existed now...and yet his design was probably done 50 years ago. He's made X in such a way that he grows stronger with every conflict. He's constantly evolving...and his brain is able to adjust to everything. He's incredible..."

That didn't even cover the half of what the good Doctor Light had done. It was no mystery as to how X was growing stronger. Dr. Light had made X modular...and during every incident, X has found these modules and come back with even stronger armor than before. The great mystery of Cain's life was how Light had been able to hide these capsules near every great conflict to come. Had he just planted them everywhere? Or was there some logic that allowed him to calculate what would happen in the future? Cain didn't dare try to muse on these things aloud.

Dr. Cain turned and looked to Ibanez grimly. "I can't even create Reploids that can match him. Sigma can't match him. No suit of armor I ever create is going to match him. It's just not possible." Dr. Cain frowned, not really wanting to consider this hypothetical situation as strongly as he was. "If X becomes a Maverick, then we are all finished."

Murmurs and whispers were heard all around as fear and doubt spread throughout the room, but Dr. Cain remained silent. Casual conversation within the room had ended a long time ago, and both Cain and Carl had grown quiet now. The air seemed palpably thicker now…edgier. It wasn't long before the government folks took the hint. They said their goodbyes to the two hostile parties and took off.

Dr. Cain, now alone with Ibanez, turned his attention to him.. Ibanez was a far different man from what he had expected. And yet, for all the differences, there were still areas where he needed to be set straight. If he was going to function in Maverick Hunter, it would have to happen. The differences in Ibanez's character from Cain's expectations, however, had changed who would need to do it.

Cain lifted out of his seat and made his way toward the door. No more good conversation would come at the moment…he needed to consider the possibilities. Yet, as he reached the door and turned the handle, there was one thing that he knew would help things…

"Might I request," Cain said, "that before you fight with X, you perhaps talk with him?"

Ibanez's right eyebrow raised, and the door shut.

Notes:

-- If you were wondering, the armor that Ibanez wears in this scene is the Shadow Armor that X uses in the actual X6 game, complete with the sword.

-- I originally planned this chapter to cover a lot more, then I realized it would be stupid to make the chapters SOOOO long.

-- This fic will have a lot of intro (because the actual game probably wouldn't make nearly as fun of a story as would the plot for the game...).

-- If this feels rushed to you, let me know, and I'll stop publishing chapters the same night I write them. Sometimes it's unnecessary, but sometimes it's good to look things over later. Let me know if that's the case here.