Megaman X: Elysium Rising

Final Mission: Delete the Maverick Virus

Chapter 37: Identity Theft

By Genoscythe

This feeling, death, was most unusual. It felt an awful lot like living. Marx lifted his head, raised an arm, waved it in the air. Yeah, death usually didn't involve movement. So…that meant he was still alive?

Then how come I can't see anything? Marx groaned. Then, as he remembered to open his eyes, heat rushed to his cheeks. Above him, a strange protrusion jutted out from the low ceiling, covered in spotlights and spindly manipulator arms. It looked and felt like he was being operated on, and considering how he miraculously survived his injuries, it didn't surprise him.

Something was different, though. It took him a good few moments to pinpoint it, and when he did, he jerked in surprise and horror. There was a throbbing inside his chest, a steady rhythm beating out the seconds as Marx sat frozen. Whoever fixed him had decided to take some creative liberties.

It had to be a small animal. Some sick bastard put a squirrel in his chest! As his mind raced, the beat intensified, and Marx jerked once again. Whatever creature inside him was getting more insistent, apparently trying to break through his chest plate. Marx squirmed, and soon found himself falling off the gurney or table or what have you.

As he pushed up into a sitting position, he made a new discovery. His skin was a deep mahogany. Now that's odd…Marx wondered. Some sick bastard put a squirrel in my chest and he thought it would be cool to change my skin color. As much as he tried to stay indifferent as usual, it was more than a little unsettling that he didn't recognize the hands that moved at his command.

Getting up, two even more important discoveries came to light. The first was that he was completely naked. One would argue that waking up to find one's skin a different color would be a much more important discovery, but Marx didn't want his savior walking in while his pants were, quite literally, down. However, even this realization was overwritten by the next.

Slumped against the wall, nestled in-between two large capsules, was his corpse. His eyes were dark holes, his armor scored and battered and painted in dry blood. It couldn't be. He wasn't dead. He was living, breathing, staring at his own cadaver. Marx lifted up his new hands with sudden clarity. His savior hadn't changed anything. He was in a completely different body.

The next discovery was the most gut-wrenching of all. Like a rag doll, thrown next to his body was Nephtis. It was too much to bear, seeing her in such a state. He turned, and found himself now staring at another woman.

She lay across a table next to his, looking for all the world like an Elysian. However, through this flimsy disguise Marx saw his Akila beneath. It had to be her.

Then why isn't she getting up yet?

"Rho, what are you waiting for?" A voice pierced Marx's thoughts, seeming to come from inside his head. "Suit up and come to the tower."

"What?" Marx murmured in the darkness, and immediately shut his mouth. That definitely wasn't his voice.

"Answer me, Rho. This is Upsilon."

Marx's body took over, and his eyes became unfocused. Clouding his vision was a black fog, alight with small golden dots. One of the dots was superimposed over the rest, with the word 'Purifier Upsilon' around the outer edge.

"I'm…not sure," Marx said again, hating the sound of his new voice.

"What do you mean? You weren't infected, were you?"

"Infected with what?" As he asked, Marx began guiding his vision over the other lights, and whenever he focused on one, it would display a name. None of them looked familiar.

"There must have been a mistake. You're not Rho, are you?"

Marx thought about this for a moment. Where's Genoscythe? Or Alpha, or anyone we know? We must have been rescued by the wrong side…Then, "Yes, I am. I'm…having trouble adjusting."

"So is Pi. He hasn't woken up yet, I'm afraid his consciousness is fragmented. Check on him for me."

Marx strode closer to the prone female form. "He's not a 'him' anymore."

A pause in the strange mental conversation. Finally, Upsilon seemed to wrestle to an answer. "That's impossible. Pi couldn't have been reborn as a Mother unit."

"Well…" Marx took an exploratory look at the woman on the gurney, then returned to the 'menu'. "That sure is what it looks like."

"I'm coming down there. He's not restarting, so there must be some kind of problem…"

"You don't believe he's a woman?"

"I don't even believe you're Rho." With that, the golden bauble sank back to join the others and their connection was severed. Immediately, Marx began prodding Nephtis (or what he hoped was Nephtis).

"Come on, babe. We gotta go…" He shook harder, looking for some kind of manual reboot button on the gurney. He gave up, perhaps too soon. I need a weapon. Damn it, I need a weapon!

"Weapon," another voice in his head, this one soothing and impartial, broke in. "Armory. Searching closest location…" A map intruded on his vision, and simultaneously a sort of magnetic feeling came over him, tugging his limbs out the door. He followed the map, out the door and down the hallway to the left. It was embarrassing, unwelcome, and most of all dangerous being naked and exposed like he was. Marx only hoped there was some armor left for him.

Following the instructions his body was giving him, he crept hastily down the corridor and around a bend. From what he had gathered, Elysium was a veritable labyrinth, but in this new body its infinite corridors all seemed easy to navigate. Marx was toying with the map, shrinking it to the side of his vision and moving it around when the collected female voice announced "Turn right."

In his meddling with the map feature, he had forgotten to make the turn. "Oh. Thank you, Gladys." He quickly backtracked and went down the right hallway. In no time, he was standing in a room that would have otherwise gotten him hopelessly lost in finding.

The armory was remarkably similar to the medical bay or wherever he'd come from, but the capsules lining the walls were full of strange suits of armor comprising mostly of cylinders, and the tables were bristling with arm cannons.

"First things first." Marx practically leapt to the nearest capsule, sliding it open and inspecting the first suit of armor. Pink. No go. He hurriedly threw the pink armor on the floor and the next suit slid forward. Green, with silver undertones. It would have to do. Marx slipped into the undersuit and found that the cylindrical pieces worked something like handcuffs. The chest plate, heftier and more jagged than on the pink armor, slid down over his head and locked in place. Last was the helmet, with a jutting reverse-fin on top.

It made Marx feel better than good. He was ready to take on anyone, be it mavericks, Elysians or Sigma himself. Well, almost. He rifled through the busters until he found one that matched his color and locked it onto his left arm like he had seen other reploids do. Now he was ready.

He didn't even need the map going back to the reconstruction lab; once outside, he paused. Purifier Upsilon was probably already there. Despite how quick he had been, he had to assume that someone who lived in Elysium was quicker. Buster at the ready, Marx palmed open the door.

Across the room, a tall Elysian in rectangular white armor was staring, mystified, at the reploid corpses piled on the ground. Marx wasted no time, firing a plasma burst from his arm cannon. Upsilon's head snapped to attention, but by the time he could have feasibly reacted the shot had impacted with his shoulder. He was knocked back against a capsule, but he then used the surface to absorb the recoil from his own arm cannon. However, his was not the type of cannon supplied in the armory.

It was more like four cannons, one barrel on each corner of his forearm gauntlet. Marx leapt behind Nephtis's operating table as repeated blasts lanced at him. As an afterthought, he popped up from behind the table long enough to grab Nephtis and pull her still body down with him. Cradling her in one arm, charging his buster with the other, back pressed to the table, nobody was willing to make a move.

X isn't here to bail you out, Marx coached himself. But maybe with this new body, he doesn't have to. He could hear Upsilon's greaves clanking on the alien gray floor. Laying Nephtis down gently, Marx then placed his feet against the table and pushed off. The effects were these: First, the table bent and came apart, landing on the floor and giving him a clear line of sight to Upsilon. Second, he slid backward along the ground, using it to steady his aim even as Upsilon began firing rapid bursts from his quad cannon.

Marx's shot slammed directly into Upsilon's face, sending him crashing onto his back. Marx was up in an instant, running over the fallen table and leaping onto Upsilon's chest. The skin of his face was all but gone, leaving only metal skeleton and what appeared to be sinew and muscle behind.

"You…you're the reploid over there…" Upsilon sputtered.

"And you're working with the Alphas, aren't you?"

"How can you follow him so blindly? How are there so many people as mad as he is…?"

"There's nothing mad about trying to save my home," Marx retorted, raising his buster for the final blow.

"Saving? He's the end of you all! You don't – " Marx fired his buster at point blank, and Upsilon's head caved in without so much as a grunt of disbelief. Marx stepped off of the corpse and turned around. Nephtis lay by the door, propped up by one arm with eyes wide.

"W-who – " She silenced herself at the sound of her voice, so bland and toneless in comparison to her old, honeyed, exotic one.

"It's me," he spoke comfortingly, then realized that not a shred of his old self remained but the eyes. "It's Marx." Hastily, he moved to block her view of their corpses.

"Then I'm…still me?"

"If 'me' is who I think it is."

"A…kil…a," she sounded out slowly.

"Yeah," Marx grinned, and suddenly she could see only the old Marx standing before her. "You're still you."

Where are you…? X wondered, tapping a finger restlessly on the control panel. Alia was flipping through camera feeds on the command chamber's bottom right monitor, and testily at that. She didn't appreciate X asking her to help him track down a woman whom he once had even minimal intimate relations with. To Alia, going on 'one harmless date' qualified as intimate enough.

"We're not going to find her. This place is built like a maze," Alia murmured restlessly.

"I don't care. I'm obligated to keep her safe."

"Says who?"

"Says the little voice in my head that told me I should get a career in protecting innocent people."

Alia pouted, having the desired effect of X running a hand along her shoulders. Easing into his arm, she continued flickering the monitor.

"You still didn't tell us where Zero went," Axl pointed out from across the room, where he was nestled on a sleeping pallet with Selene.

"Or what you're going to do with Endymion," Selene added.

"I'm getting to that," X offered absent-mindedly, stroking his chin in concentration. "You really think she got very far? Maybe we should check closer to the command chamber."

"Our cameras don't cover half of the hallways around just this one room," Alia informed him. "We won't find her, especially if she doesn't want to be found."

"Well, I don't want to give up."

"And I don't want to throw out any more subtle hints, so I'll just say it right now: I think this is a waste of time."

The door suddenly opened, and all eyes turned to the new arrival. Malakai stumbled in, clutching his head in both hands.

"God damn, but that's a headache I won't forget," he growled, unceremoniously dumping himself next to Axl and Selene. He looked unchanged since they had last seen him, except his eyes were bloodshot almost completely red and two burnt spots existed on either side of his temple.

"What are you doing here?" Axl asked pointedly.

"I'm being a good little boy," Malakai answered with another growl. "I swear, if you all knew the half of what – " Suddenly, his voice cut out completely and his body rocked violently. They all waited, tensed, as Malakai convulsed against the wall for at least fifteen seconds.

"Malakai?" X spoke tentatively. The trembling subsided.

"I understand. Even that's pushing it…" He spoke to himself. Abruptly, he turned to Axl. "I see you're getting yourself some ass, my friend."

Axl's hand zoomed back up to Selene's shoulder, eliciting a small giggle. "It was a good try," she offered consolingly. She then leaned in closer, nibbling his ear and whispering, "You can do that again later."

"Hey, stop changing the subject," said X, leaving the control panel and walking to the base of the command platform.

"I'm just changing the subject so I don't go into a freakin' seizure again."

"Genoscythe told us you're one of the Alphas."

"He did? I guess he didn't tell you why we're called the Alphas? Why your little group is called the Omegas? No? It's a shame I can't tell you."

"Why not?" X took a few steps closer. He wasn't menacing. Not yet.

"You saw what happened when I tried to drop a cryptic hint, what do you think'll happen to me if I tell you everything?"

X fell silent, then turned back to the monitor longingly. He used to have so much conviction…he was right, the mavericks were wrong. Now, still sitting on Earth but so far from home, everything was turning to shades of gray. What Malakai was saying, Genoscythe obviously didn't want them to hear it. It used to be that he could trust his commanding officer without a doubt, but if Genoscythe were withholding information from them so strongly…

"Let's take it easy, X," Alia suggested, getting up from her chair. "We should relax while we can…wait for Genoscythe's next orders."

"I don't think I want to hear them…"

"X, you know Malakai is a liar," she said more subtly. "You can never tell when he's being honest or just trying to get in your head."

"That's a good point," X conceded. "What was it he used to say he was? A time-traveler from the future sent to rescue humanity's leader as a kid?"

"I think that was his first backstory, yeah." She smiled, and the tension quickly dissipated. Malakai opened his mouth to protest, but once again words refused to form. X and Alia moved to the relative comfort of their 'camp', where they could do naught but double over in silent laughter as Axl and Selene continued to get used to each other. It was mostly Axl who had difficulty, repeatedly daring himself to place his hand back where it had been before Malakai discovered it.

"She has the patience of a saint," Alia murmured, earning a chuckle from X. "I think we should leave them alone and see what happens."

"But I'm worried about Axl."

"He'll survive."

A chill suddenly entered the room, preceding a rhythm of metal footsteps on metal floor. X looked to the source and found Genoscythe, clad in his old reploid-style armor, standing in the far doorway.

"We've finished preparations," he announced.

"Preparations for what?" X asked, reluctantly getting to his feet.

"For our assault on the tower," Genoscythe answered. "I've been running system checks, and one of the Alphas' stronger Purifiers was just killed. The two that Zero killed in the engine room still aren't at combat efficiency yet, so now is really the ideal time to strike."

"But…we just got here! It can't be that simple."

Genoscythe's head bent low, and he advanced slowly on X. "We have been at a stalemate for nearly two hundred years. Neither side has been able to gain an advantage, and now that we have the advantage – that's you – can you understand why I'm a little impatient?"

"You said they have armies of Reaverbots, we can't possibly – "

"One thing we have always had over the Alphas is a superior number of Purifiers. They will deal with the Reaverbots, you will get to the top of the tower and take over Eden."

"What about them?" X cast a look back at his weary group of Maverick Hunters.

"If it sounds too dangerous, then they get to stay behind." His chiding tone had the desired effect of shooting Axl to his feet.

"Hold on, I never said anything about staying behind," he broke in, walking up to the two. "Selene and I can disguise ourselves. We can keep you covered."

"Alia? Malakai?"

Genoscythe gave Malakai a severe look. "Tau will be fighting the Reaverbots," he spoke coldly. "Alia can stay here and continue to be your spotter. She does have access to the mainframe, remember?"

"I remember…"

"Then let's go. The sooner we finish this, the better."

"If we were wiped out in the engine room, what makes you think this will be any different? And this time, we're attacking their stronghold!"

"Have some faith, X. I've got a plan."

End of chapter 37

AN: Whew, a back-to-back update. Don't worry, the dominoes are all set now. Next chapter should be veeeery interesting.