Megaman X: Elysium Rising

Final Mission: Delete the Maverick Virus

Chapter 38: Coup D'etat

By Genoscythe

AN: It is really, really hard to keep this up. I've almost completely changed to a comedy writer, I'm juggling three stories at once (two fanfictions and one novel), and I'm trying to fit in school and my first job as well. Somewhere. But I'll be damned if I cut corners. I'm finishing this thing the way I envisioned it, and when I do, I get to heave a massive sigh of relief. I may just have to stop writing completely (this includes my other fanfiction, but not my novel which I could actually make money from and quit my crappy bagboy job so I can have time for writing fanfiction), so please understand not only that I have to take a long time on these chapters, but why.

With that out of the way, enjoy. I had to make my own lines since the editor is being stupid, though chances are it's been so long you don't even remember what the old lines looked like...

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Zero woke up to the harsh glow of an intense sunset, seemingly adrift on the ocean. With a start, he got to his feet and whipped his head around. An island. How the hell did I get on an island Desperately, he tried to remember the last thing he could. Marx and Nephtis were killed…he saw it, and he destroyed two enemy Purifiers in retaliation. X was talking to Alia…for some reason, he had an overpowering desire to see the Master that he didn't fully understand. Together, he and X found a Mother unit to take them to the Master…and she asked him to shut down.

That was the last thing Zero remembered. A goddamn island?

Peripheral sensors told Zero to snap his head up, and so he did. The very Elysium-style building next to him was open, and a broad-shouldered, long-haired man was framed in its maw. The man was terrified, slipping back through the doorway and slamming it shut with the press of a button.

A goddamn island with a goddamn nut hiding in a goddamn temple. Zero really wanted to remember what he was doing there. Trudging up to the building, he knocked impatiently on the door.

"If you're the one responsible for this headache, you'd better hope that door is too thick for me to get through," he warned light-heartedly. The man in the temple failed to pick up on this.

"Why are you here?" The Elysian wailed. "They don't want to kill me!"

"I couldn't tell. Will you open this door?"

"It's only a matter of time anyway. Why can't you just leave me be?"

Zero cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, but you're gonna have to fill me in on some things. Like where we are."

The door jerked open a crack. When the Elysian was satisfied, he opened the doors completely and skittered away from him.

"What the hell's gotten into you?"

"You have."

"I think I'd know if I did."

The Elysian suddenly roared, crouching and slamming his head against the floor. Zero jumped involuntarily.

"Calm down. Jesus Christ, I didn't even do anything to you yet."

"Yet? Yet? For ages, you've kept me locked up here. That damnable virus has been chipping away my sanity for hundreds of years! Tell me Delta, if you haven't done anything to me yet, then what comes next?"

"Whoah. Big mistake. I'm not who you think I am."

"It wouldn't be the first time."

"What are you seeing with? Optics?"

This seemed to confuse the already bewildered Elysian. "Yes. Why?"

"Because you're seeing something I don't. I'm not Delta."

"I – I can see your code. It's all over you. And your armor…"

"My code?" Zero balked incredulously, striding into the temple and causing the Elysian to skitter away from him. "I'm a reploid. I don't have a damned code. That I know of," he added quickly.

"But what are you doing here if you are a reploid? And why do you have Delta's programming coursing through your systems?"

"Delta sneezed and I caught something," Zero muttered dryly. He absent-mindedly tried out the marble throne protruding from the back wall, and found it to his liking. "I don't know this Delta guy. I don't know what I'm doing here. I don't know where here is."

The Elysian raised an eyebrow, taking a shaky step toward the throne. "You're in a displacement prison. We're still inside Elysium, but we're miles away from the door."

"Really?" Zero looked up from admiring the curved arm rests. "That was pretty straightforward. I guess you're done pretending I'm someone else?"

"You couldn't be – you're clueless."

"Thanks for that."

"I can only think of one reason why you came here. You wanted to see the Master, didn't you?"

"Yeah…I don't know why, but I did."

"I am the Master."

Zero blinked. "Oh."

"That was once my throne."

Zero darted off of it. "Be my guest. It's not really my kind of chair anyway." The Master shambled closer, still regarding Zero with distrust.

"When you arrived, you were a different person. You were Delta."

"I'd better watch that…"

"You drew your sword, and I fled in here. After awhile, you simply collapsed outside. I – didn't know what to think of you."

Suddenly, Zero's sword flashed out of its sheath and the Master leapt back into the far corner. Almost as unexpectedly, Zero returned the blade to its resting place.

"Just kidding," he assured with a toothy grin. "You keep talking about this Delta guy. Who is he?"

"Y-you're a reploid, right?" The Master didn't dare moving closer this time.

"That's what I said."

"Then you probably know him as Genoscythe."

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Signas, by this point, was just going through the motions. He had no justifiable reason to come into work anymore. There were no mavericks left, and he was ready to make it official. Still, he was built to lead – and, more importantly, to show up to work every day. That illusion reploid designers called Free Will shimmered in front of Signas every day on the side of his capsule. It always disguised itself as a button marked 'sleep mode'.

He told himself that he never pressed it because he liked to be punctual, but that didn't mean he really did. It wouldn't have been such a moral dilemma if he had known that many humans shared the same problem.

"What do you have for me, Blip?" The poor navigator was named Blip. Well, it wasn't exactly Replitech's fault. He looked like a Blip. "Nothing, as usual?"

"Yes, sir…" Blip mumbled dutifully, pushing up his ornamental glasses. He's a reploid. He doesn't goddamn need glasses!

"I don't know why I ask. There's nothing to look for." Except maybe some word from X and his group. A sign. It doesn't do to just worry about them anymore. For all I know, they're retaking Elysium as I think…

"Commander Signas!" A weedy voice cut in from down the hall. Signas snapped his head to find Douglas making good use of his repaired body, running full-tilt down the hallway toward the research-center-turned-command-center. "The source is changing altitude!"

"What, Elysium?"

"Yes!"
"You mean sinking?"

"No, sir! It's rising!"

"Why?"

"I don't know, sir!"

"You're supposed to know!"

"Sir…"

"You weren't programmed to not know!"

"With my limited knowledge of the phenomenon, I couldn't possibly understand why or how Elysium is rising…sir."

"Well, are we still getting interference?"

"Not for much longer, if it continues at its present rate it should be in orbit within the hour."

"Tell me the second we can make contact with X. I want to know what's going on up there!"

Finally, something's happening!

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At that moment, Axl was feeling about as nauseous as a reploid could feel. Elysium wasn't lurching under their feet. Not exactly. It was the feeling of weightlessness that got him. Striding nonchalantly toward the central tower's security hub, he could feel it in the floor. Elysium's engines were toiling below, sliding the island sluggishly into the air.

"I'm surprised this is working," Selene whispered next to him.

"We haven't gotten to any hard parts yet," Axl reprimanded, feeling as though he should be some kind of authority on the situation. "First we gotta find out if we're actually going in the right direction or not."

"You don't trust people very easily, do you Axl?" Selene gave him a worried glance. "First it was Malakai. You thought he was a maverick spy."

"I was almost right, wasn't I?" Axl shot back.

"Then Marx. Come to think of it, you thought he was a maverick spy too."

"Hey, in war people use – "

"Now you don't trust Genoscythe!" Selene finished doggedly.

"I never said that. I said I didn't know if we were going in the right direction."

"But you implied that it was because Genoscythe is trying to trick us. I can hear it in your voice."

Axl stopped, compelling Selene to do the same. "Hey, I trust a lot of people – just not the untrustworthy ones." Selene started walking again, forcing Axl to do the same. "I trust X, I trust Zero, I trust you…"

"I hope so."

"And that's all. I think I'm being pretty fair." Their banter continued down the hall, finally dying in a large rectangular chamber. The first thing Axl noticed was the crystal hovering – seemingly by its own – in the center of the room. It looked like the bits left behind by the Reaverbots, if one were as big as your arm and bright enough to make a room covered in tar seem colorful.

Next came the rows of columns. Axl watched them carefully, for he knew this wouldn't be a simple 'pick up the crystal and walk away' deal. Someone was lurking in this room, even though Axl couldn't pick up the faintest trace of evidence to back it up.

"Alright, I'll go get it," Selene offered dryly, stepping into the room. Axl's hand shot out to grab her wrist, but she anticipated this and skipped ahead of his reach.

"Selene!"

"Axl, you're at it again. Just calm down. We can either grab the refractor and be really paranoid about it, or we can grab the refractor and just be careful about it."

"Isn't that the same thing?" Axl wondered aloud, tentatively entering behind her.

"No. You're paranoid. I'm careful." Selene glanced once at the columns around them, then walked across the room and up to the refractor. Upon trying to grab it, she found that it wouldn't move. At almost the same time, she found that a red eye was staring at her from the back of the room. At first, she thought it was just a result of the crimson refractor's light on a wall design, but then it moved. The pattern on the back wall shifted, hunching forward.

Selene decided it was the biggest Reaverbot she had ever seen. The monstrosity was comprised of a barrel-shaped body, a pointed head, some sort of hover-legs, and arms as long as it was tall. These it swung madly, crashing into the surrounding pillars and scattering chunks of metal across the room.

Immediately, Selene produced two pistols from the holding bays of her camouflaged armor. Axl followed suit, raising the DNA-copied buster he had gotten from a dying Purifier. They fired their weapons, and it soon became apparent that Axl's weapon worked and Selene's didn't.

The Reaverbot charged with frightening speed, especially for something so massive. Selene hopped away from the refractor Genoscythe had sent them to retrieve, but she underestimated its reach and caught the brunt of one club-like arm in her chest.

Axl leapt to catch her, but the force of the blow sent both of them into a column. Hovering gingerly around the refractor, the Reaverbot advanced in much the same way it did before, flailing its arms and knocking away columns. Axl kicked off of the pillar at their backs, activating his hover boots and waiting suspended as the Reaverbot charged.

As it sped under him, he grabbed onto the point on its head and yanked with all his considerable reploid strength. The Reaverbot veered right, still managing to whack Selene again with its wild appendages. Axl opened fire on the back of its neck, chewing through thinner metal plating and eventually wires. However, as stupid as the Reaverbot was, it knew how to shake off a nasty flea.

It rushed for the opposite wall, ramming its head against the row of columns and nearly taking off Axl's own head (although one could argue that it was in fact some random Purifier's head, and that Axl was just borrowing it). The Reaverbot continued through the pillars and into the wall, which it found to be quite a bit more solid.

The Reaverbot slumped backward, its head smashed in and dripping bits of wires. Axl wobbled off dazedly, having taken some debris to the temple. He wobbled quicker to Selene when he noticed she was sprawled by the entrance.

Crouched over her, Axl momentarily removed his disguise while raising her head onto his lap.

"What are you doing…idiot," Selene mumbled, pushing his hand away from her shattered chest armor. "Get the refractor first. And turn your copy DNA back on!"

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X whipped around again, but his pursuer was fast. Or invisible. Or a figment of extreme paranoia, the kind he had unwittingly passed on to Axl while training the young reploid. He had little else to do but imagine phantom enemies while he waited outside the tower for Genoscythe's big plan to unfold. Someone had been following him through the mazelike courtyard, or so he believed. There were plenty of twists and white marble edifices to conceal a stalker.

The clouds above were almost the clouds below; Elysium was rising slowly but surely. X looked at the tower once more, wondering if he should just climb it…

"X, I got it!" Axl informed him over the comm. link.

"Good job, Axl," X declared, only faltering when he had to ask "What did you get?"

"The…thing Genoscythe told us to find. Selene called it a refractor."

"Why?"

"You mean he didn't tell you? It's powering the tower's security stuff. Like doors and gun turrets."

X nodded to himself, approaching one of the tower's many entrances. The small red baubles fixated on the doors and walls were no longer glowing – X took this as a sign that the power was off. As he pried open the door, he wondered why Genoscythe had been so vague. Instead of abandoning X in the courtyard to 'help fight' he could have at least explained why X had to wait.

"You're a smart kid," Genoscythe had chided before vanishing behind a turn.

"X…we're just gonna stay here if that's okay with you," Axl spoke in the present. "Selene's hurt, and this place looks safe."

"No! Axl, they'll be trying to find out what happened to the power. Don't stay there!"

"Okay, okay. We've got our disguises, though. Don't worry about – It's moving! Selene!"

"Axl?" X pressed his back against the crack in the door, wedging a foot inside and pushing against the other half. With a great deal of urgency-fueled effort, he managed to shove the portal open. Dull impacts assaulted him through his comm. link, and he resisted the urge to cry out. It would do no good to worry about them, even if it was compulsory.

The hallway ahead led straight to another door, but that door opened up into a massive vertical cavern. The shaft seemed to stretch on forever, and in searching for an elevator X discovered that he was already standing on it. The entire floor was an octagonal platform. A control panel was conveniently placed across its surface, and X had to jog to reach it quickly.

However, like everything else the elevator had no power. X searched the control panel for perhaps an emergency usage button, but all he found was a panel on the back. Inside was a tiny, burnt-out refractor, which X plucked out and discarded.

A lightbulb struck X across the forehead, and he produced the refractor taken from the dead Reaverbot. He had planned to keep it as a souvenir, but right now it had a much more important function. It slid unevenly into the panel, and the effects were instantaneous. The octagon lit up, and four bands of light arced into the darkness above from four of the platform's corners.

The elevator shot up, carrying X on his knees. Defying the will of kinetic energy, he looked skyward toward his fate.

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"But how did you know?" Nephtis asked, her voice reverberating through the cracks in the door.

"I just asked the onboard computer," Marx responded coolly, locking Purifier Upsilon's quad-buster onto his arm. The green armor was piled next to an operating table, and Upsilon's body lay in front of the reploid shells clad only in his silver undersuit. Its silver undersuit. Marx had trouble familiarizing a corpse with gender-specific pronouns, especially one he created.

He took another look at himself via a glass capsule on the wall. He was less his old self, but rather everything his old self wanted to be. His skin was more toned, his blue eyes more striking and crystalline. His ragged brown hair was back, though a little longer and thicker in the 'roguish bangs' department. From the reflection, he couldn't tell. Purifier Upsilon's crested white helmet obscured all but the most adventurous parts of his hair.

In sitting on the ground, cradling Nephtis and wishing he were himself again, directions popped into his head much like they had for the armory. It was as if his new body could feel his emotions, and react to them accordingly. The unfamiliar program in his head told him about an appearance-altering chamber used for trips outside of Elysium.

Marx used it to restore his body and voice, and Nephtis was currently doing the same. When she next spoke, it sounded sweet and indefinably exotic.

"Marx…I know I don't often say this…"

"Go on."

"Maybe that's just because I don't usually have reason to…"

"Yeah?"

"You're a genius." The door slipped open, and Nephtis stepped out, obscuring herself as best she could. She hadn't changed much…in that she hadn't changed her original appearance quite as much as Marx had. She seemed more slender, her muscle structure less overbearing. Marx wasn't sure if it was the lack of clothing, but he could judge from the top half and decided that there was indeed a difference.

"I'll do the hard thing and take that as a compliment," Marx responded. "You can have that green armor."

"What if I want the white one?" The transformation seemed to have done to her spirits what a nuclear power plant would do to an old car battery.

"Well, I know an armory a few halls that way with a nice selection of pink and blue suits for you."

"I'll take green." Nephtis slipped into the undersuit, and while she figured out how to attach her new armor, Marx continued talking.

"I guess we both cheated," he remarked. She looked up, caught off guard.

"What?"

"You look…good."

"Oh…" she blushed, a more pronounced action now that she had real blood coursing through her body. "You too. I thought it was just the armor."

"I guess, when you're given a chance to look any way you want to, it's just too good to pass up."

"I didn't change that much." Nephtis slid the chest armor over her head, and gasped when it clicked shut. "This wasn't made…for women…"

"Well, then come with me." Marx grabbed her by the hand and led her to the entrance. However, when he opened it he instinctively jumped back. A sea of tiny Reaverbots scuttled outside, and when the portal opened they all swarmed in, locked on Purifier Upsilon's body. Realizing they were about to do to Upsilon what they did to Nephtis and himself, he raised his new buster arm and released a volley of energy bolts.

A continuous barrage of shots reduced Upsilon's corpse and all the surrounding Reaverbots to charred bits – not all of it metal. Marx paused and, just for good measure, opened fire on the capsules lining the walls. Glass shattered and the delicate systems within the walls began exploding. Soon the Reaverbots were busy simply trying to stop the fires.

Marx was an expert at finding the armory, and he had them there within minutes. Before the door even finished closing, Nephtis shrugged off the massive chest plate. He gave her the quick tour of the armory, but to their mutual surprise none of the armor sets were female compatible. There were, Marx noted, several racks of form-fitting tan dresses on the far wall.

He showed them to Nephtis, who picked one up and looked it over. She turned to him and shrugged. He shrugged back.

"Can you turn around?" She asked, throwing off the gauntlets and greaves she had put on before.

"And you were totally naked, what…five minutes ago?"

"I didn't really have a choice!"

"You could've asked back then."

"Yeah, but I don't want to be picky about it."

"Suit yourself," Marx conceded, turning around at the sound of sliding fabric. A moment later, a warm hand enveloped his and spun him around.

"It's definitely more feminine," Nephtis noted, feeling the silky material between her fingers.

"I like it," Marx concluded. "It's cute. Adorable."

"Marx…"

"Yes, Akila?"

Nephtis paused to give him a once-over. "Why aren't we all over each other, like we used to be?"

The question blindsided Marx, who let go of her hands and stepped back. The mere idea of spending all his time with Nephtis just trying to get in bed with her suddenly sounded ridiculous and foreign. "Dying kinda changes your priorities, doesn't it?"

"It would have to," she replied, allowing a nervous chuckle. The comment was a little too close to the sore spot. "So, these priorities…"

"Surviving, for one. Finding the Omegas, for another. From what I can tell, we're in enemy territory."

"Hell, we are the enemy," Nephtis put in. Marx nodded grimly.

"I'd also like to know why so many Purifiers are disappearing from the comm. node."

"The what?"

"It's something in my head. I don't know if you have it."

"No, I…" Nephtis suddenly stopped as she concentrated on the new operating program in her mind's eye. "I can hear them all. They're fighting."

"Fighting our guys?"

"Fighting something," Nephtis murmured uncertainly. "It's a new Purifier. Lock," she said confidently. "They keep talking about a virus spreading…" Marx ran a hand over his quad-buster arm worriedly. "I'm talking to one of them," she spoke quickly. "Marx, he's saying there's Elysians infected with a kind of Maverick Virus!"

Another pause. Then, Nephtis blanched and returned focus to her lover. "Marx…it's us."

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X was surprised. The elevator had spat him out almost directly into Eden's chamber. There was no gauntlet of spikes and disappearing blocks to leap across, but then he reminded himself that this was not one of Sigma's little funhouses. The room that stemmed from a single small door atop the elevator shaft was not large, as X expected. It was rectangular, with a low ceiling but a long walk to the other side.

The other side was all curling wires and less identifiable protrusions. At the center of it, something vaguely fleshy stirred.

You come here at last, X. The voice came from every surface of the chamber, but X tried his best to ignore it and stride forward determinedly. He had heard these speeches before. It pained him to hear one again. I expected –

"You expected I would be here sooner," X finished. "And yes, I know it is hopeless. I know your plans cannot be stopped. I know my strength falters under whatever gimmick you have up your sleeve. I also don't care."

X, this is foolishness.

"Oh, I forgot that one."

Do you know why Purifier Delta and his cadre are called the Omegas?

"Because you believe our way of thinking will be the end of humanity," X answered, his tone steely. He was more than halfway across the room.

Yes and no! The voice boomed. It will certainly be the end of humanity, but not the way you envision.

"Where is Sigma?" X asked, changing the topic.

He is following orders, attempting to save what we can of our greatest success.

"That doesn't sound like Sigma."

He does not know what the Omegas are really trying to do, either. If he did, he would turn on us.

X very nearly faltered, but he forced himself onward for the sake of all the lives ruined by the Maverick Wars. It was Eden's fault for releasing the Maverick Virus in trying to cull humanity. It was his fault for X being born a martyr. As far as X was concerned, all the blame he had been unable to pin on any one person or thing over the years was being dumped on Eden.

He had carried his barred anger for almost a century, held back by dams of kindness. Eden was the source of his problems. Eden was the key to unlocking his hatred.

"You have nothing to say to me," X growled. "This is your force field, right?" He was stopped at a faintly glowing green barrier.

On the contrary, I have very much to say to you. Please stop and hear my words.

"I don't think so." X stepped into the protective field, and it buzzed around him. His entire body seemed to repel the energy field. At least, until it suddenly shifted to blue. Heat poured onto him, and he screamed in agony. Thinking quickly, he leapt back into relative safety. His armor bubbled, and the outer coating of his combat gloves had begun to flake off. "What the hell?"

I know what you are made of. You think I am blind to what occurs on my planet?

"No…" X felt obligated to mutter. He pulled himself to his feet and activated his buster.

That will not make it past the field. Oh, and let me explain something to you. I am surrounded by powerful anti-personnel cannons that I have neglected to use on you in the hope that you will listen to me! If you are beyond reconciliation, I will be forced to vaporize you.

"Fine…say what you have to say," X growled, his processor already thinking of ways around the field and the guns.

When this place was first built, my kind was at war. Our adversaries, the machines, knew about Elysium, and they infected one of our numbers with a virus before it was launched. They did not believe life, organic life, should exist anywhere. The Purifier they infected was to facilitate this.

A shadow moved up next to X.

"Are you alright?" Genoscythe asked, laying a hand on X's shoulder.

"No. I can't get through his force field anymore," X replied, putting aside his shock at Genoscythe's appearance in respect to the gravity of the situation.

Delta!

"Right. You did good, X." Genoscythe released him, stepping into Eden's protective field.

"Genoscythe…!"

"I knew you knew," Genoscythe told Eden, ignoring X's cry. "Something you don't know is that, to counteract X's resistant material, you had to turn your shield to a frequency that doesn't affect Elysians. You really took the bait…"

My shield must recharge before I can change frequencies again! X, do not let him kill me! Eden pleaded. X glanced from Genoscythe to the withered organic creature tied to the wall. It looked like a human.

"Wait, Genoscythe!" X cried again. Genoscythe continued to the wall, staring up at Eden's shocked face.

"You're listening to his crap?" Genoscythe muttered, apparently relishing the ability to stand so close to Eden without disintegrating.

"Not yet, that's why I want you to wait. I haven't heard the whole story."

X, he is the – Eden's quickened voice burst into static as Genoscythe's hand clamped down on the rotting creature's head. With a sharp tug, the torso came free of its limbs and thumped lightly on the ground. It was so shriveled it seemed almost weightless. The arms and legs, wrapped up in cables and wires, slowly slid out of their holders and rolled along the ground. A clawed hand came to rest at X's feet.

"Genoscythe…what exactly are you doing here?" X spoke slowly, comprehension and denial fighting for dominance of his thoughts.

"I knew he would be able to stop you."

"So why did you tell me I had to sacrifice myself for all this?"

"It was good motivation," Genoscythe answered matter-of-factly. "Aren't you glad? You're free."

"I'm free? Don't I still need to – "

"I'm taking control of Elysium," Genoscythe said with finality.

"But you're just a Purifier."

"Not just a Purifier, X! The program inside you, the one that allows you to interface with Eden, originally came from my processor." Genoscythe stepped up to the coiling tentacles, reaching out a hand shakily.

"…so that's you, isn't it? You're the one with the virus."

"I would hardly call it a – "

"You're not going to stop the Carbon Re-initialization Program." X swayed, getting to his feet and glaring accusingly at Genoscythe. The Elysian stared back through his face plate.

"It isn't a virus," he stated calmly as several cables wound around his arms. "A virus is like an instinct. A desire, as powerful and groundless as human emotion. A reploid virus tells you what to do, not how to do it."

"This…thing, then, does both?"

"My programming. My prime directive. I was remade in order to stop the spread of organic life in the universe and plant the seeds for a machine race."

"Better than organic life in every possible way, right?" X scoffed.

"Certainly less selfish," Genoscythe shot back as he was lifted off his feet and pinned to the wall by writhing cables. "The Alphas call themselves that because they think they're a new beginning, and we're the end. They just haven't heard part two of my plan."

"How did all those Purifiers and Mother units come to see your…point of view?"

"I spread my gift to them."

"I believe that's the definition of a virus."

"Come on, don't tell me you've been a Maverick Hunter for so long that that's all you think about. It doesn't have to be a virus to be spread."

"Viruses just happen to fit the description," X spat. "Why are you telling me all this? I'm sure it's not written down in your plans to have me know all about them."

Genoscythe scoffed as another group of tentacles wrapped around his legs. "I've got nothing to do until the interface is complete. Besides, I'm hoping to get you on my side."

X was thunderstruck. "I'm not going to help you wipe out humanity! How could you think I would?"

"Because I thought a century of knowledge would help you see the big picture. Humans are doomed. Whether we intervene or not, their population has stressed that poor little planet to the breaking point. If we do nothing, the humans all die horrible, violent deaths. If we use the CRP, the whole process will start again – that part of my old speech was true. If we activate the CRP, but shut it off in mid-process, then the humans are eradicated relatively painlessly and we can begin a machine race on some other planet without having to worry about the humans spreading their waste and their chaos to other worlds."

"I…" X trailed off as he heard footsteps behind him. He turned, not surprised to find Sigma striding across the hall. The mavericks Stealth Claw, Tread Havoc and Tempest followed at a respectful distance. Havoc was livid, but doing a wonderful job of not revealing it to the others. "Sigma."

"I like this picture," Sigma cackled. "Like it much better. The human is on the ground where it belongs."

"And in five pieces so it can't hurt you," X mocked. Sigma bared his teeth, stepping forward and extending a massive clawed hand.

"Eden, permission to gut him?" Sigma growled.

"No, not yet. I'm not quite done. What were you going to say, X?" Genoscythe asked in a conversational tone.

"I think humanity has a chance. They can turn it around," X spat, turning back to face Genoscythe.

"Turn what? Their garbage-ridden cesspool of a planet?"

"You obviously haven't spent too much time around humans." X grinned mirthlessly. "They will survive. They will fight with tooth and nail if they have to, but I've witnessed firsthand that nothing is stronger than the human spirit."

"Okay," Genoscythe muttered sourly. "Now you can gut him."

X leapt to the left as a claw shot through his former position. Sigma started forward like a freight train, backing X into the wall. The azure reploid kicked off the wall, sailing over Sigma's head as he plunged his claw arm into the wall. X almost didn't notice the cannons lowering from the ceiling just outside the protective field.

He darted behind the hulking shadow of Sigma as bursts of iridescent red collided with the ground. Each shot exploded, rending chunks of metal out of the floor. One caught Sigma in the arm, knocking him back and over X's crouched form. X took the opportunity to make a break for the hole Sigma had torn in the wall. It was his only chance at escape, with mavericks blocking the exit and Genoscythe protected by the field.

The hole wasn't very deep, but fire from the ceiling cannons made it so. X charged a buster shot, dancing around a burst from the cannons and running at the shredded wall. He fired, ramming his shoulder into what remained of the wall just following the impact. To his surprise, after the initial blow a feeling of weightlessness came over him. As the debris was torn away, he realized he was falling next to the central tower. The sky was turning black, and something like a sheet was creeping up over Elysium's edges. X stared in freefall, at least until he collided with a protrusion from the tower and was spun about wildly.

Wall climbing program, his mind instructed him. Not yet, it added. He let himself fall for what felt like an eternity as the sky was swallowed up by the strange covering. Finally, he was near enough to the ground, and he reached out for the wall. His hand stuck, but the rest of his body did not want to stay with it. X reflected that it must have been sheer force of will holding his arm socket together.

Planting two hands on the wall and stopping his descent completely, he let out a simultaneously exhilarated and resigned sigh. What now? Genoscythe was probably uniting the two factions, since he now controlled both. With all of Elysium looking for him, it would be nearly impossible for him to get around. Not to mention he had no way to make it through Genoscythe's protective field. He desperately needed an Elysian.

What now? Jump.

X jumped on instinct, and a slug zipped by next to him. Leaning out the hole in the wall, Tread Havoc was firing rounds from his shoulder cannon. As a reploid, his superiors had always told him that the eyes of a sniper and the arsenal of a private army were a deadly combination. Havoc told them thank you.

However, this time Tread Havoc was trying to miss. It wasn't even the reploid in him taking over. He was loyal to Eden's ideals, not to the idea of Eden. The others would serve it no matter who was at the helm, but he intended to preserve what little success they had achieved with humanity.

Tread Havoc was killing two birds with one stone. Firstly, he was warning Megaman X to stay away from the central tower. Second, he was trying to appear loyal to all concerned. He would need their acceptance later.

End of Chapter 37