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Title: Mega Man X6: False Awakening
Chapter: Stage 09 "(I have) one more experiment I'd like to perform."
Notes: I had so much trouble choosing a title for this chapter. Close runners up were "It was a piece of Zero", "If use the wrong way..." and "There is no limit. Look at you."

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They had been traveling in darkness for a while. Even Zero's drawn Saber failed to illuminate their way. The walls seemed to absorb its light. X could feel the strange Nightmare texture as he trailed his hand along one of them.

It gave way as they entered some larger chamber. As had been the case since he had gone under Eurasia's ruins, his sensors provided nothing of use.

X felt a shudder crawling up his spine; he was completely blind. The only thing in his sight was Zero's silhouette. As always, Zero looked unconcerned, by the darkness, the sensor blackout, the unknown enemy in front of them, even the uncertain way he had ended up there. X couldn't help but smile.

"Welcome," a voice suddenly announced. It didn't boom or echo. It wasn't deep or ominous. In that sense, it suited its owner, who dropped down in front of them noiselessly.

His white lab coat and violet armor gave him the appearance of another Nightmare, especially in the tinted glow of the Saber. His expression was calm, but with an undercurrent of something like hunger.

"So you're Gate," X said. The researcher tilted his head obligingly.

"I've been waiting for you," Gate confided with a narrow smile. "Most impressive, defeating all of my Reploids. I had thought that my designs would surpass you..."

"Surrender now," X implored him. "You're making a big mistake!"

"No, no," Gate replied, shaking his head. "I still have one more experiment I'd like to perform. It has been quite enlightening, watching you fight. I learned so much..." He pulled off his lab coat in one smooth motion, at the same time triggering a program like the ones X used for his armors. His form glowed as gold flowed across his armor, changing its shape into something made for combat. The same lab coat flapped behind him like a white cloak.

"Now, I'd like to test out everything I have learned," Gate told them, sweeping out one hand. A distortion, formed by the Nightmare, burst forth, like an opening in the fabric of reality. Both X and Zero jumped away, readying their weapons. But when the tear closed, Gate was nowhere to be seen.

"It's the same as the walls and everything here! The Nightmare is hiding him from sight!" X realized. His eyes darted around, but there was nothing to be seen, no sensor readings to go on.

Automatically, he half-turned and backed up until he was standing back-to-back with Zero, who only huffed in something like annoyance. "If he spends all his time hiding, this is going to take a while," Zero grumbled.

Something rushed at them from out of the darkness. Both of them jumped away, but where the attack landed, a blue-tinted distortion formed out of Nightmare energy. It dragged at them, like a black hole. X gritted his teeth as he tried to resist, though he knew Zero, with his higher maneuverability, would have an easier time.

"You can't escape," Gate told them from somewhere in the darkness.

"You're the one who's running," Zero shot back, firing his Buster into the anomaly. Disrupted, it exploded, sending its energy sweeping through the room. Gate grunted, becoming suddenly visible in its wake.

As he faded out of sight again, X and Zero exchanged a look.

"Doesn't look like you have that power under control," Zero called out, stepping forward as X readied his Buster. It was their usual method - Zero would draw fire, while X went after their opponent. Or in this case, turned his attacks back against him.

Still, X felt a thrill of apprehension. The last time they had done this…

"Hmmm... I wanted to keep silent on this, but I think I'll tell you after all," Gate shot back. "To be honest, I didn't get this far on my ability alone. I picked something up, you see. I thought it was just rubbish at first. But... It was actually a piece of your body, Zero. That was how I obtained your DNA data."

"What?" Zero froze in shock. "You used... my data?"

"Oh yes," Gate explained gleefully. "I created High Max and the Nightmare from it. I couldn't contain my excitement. You see, I couldn't analyze it completely, even using the latest technology. It was fabulous!"

He laughed, genuinely excited. It was an oddly happy, light-hearted sound. X could almost see the Reploid Alia had worked beside, the one whose genius and dedication she so admired... before all of that had become twisted.

In front of him, X could see Zero's rigid back. Maybe it was the light of the Saber, but it almost looked like he was trembling.

"How dare you?!" Zero yelled, gesturing sharply with his Saber. "Delete the Nightmare Virus now! It's too dangerous! It'll be your undoing!"

"How strange... You're usually so calm," Gate mused. "Are you really that concerned with what I created? Or... are you just projecting your own feelings onto me? After all, I would have never been able to derive the Nightmare from you if you weren't an unnatural aberration. Just think, if it hadn't been for you... none of this would have happened..."

"Shut up!" Zero shouted.

Distracted, he couldn't dodge in time as Gate suddenly appeared behind him and opened another rift. Zero yelled out in surprise and pain, barely managing to pull away as it closed. One side of his body had been heavily damaged in the attack.

"Enough!" X declared, taking guard position over his partner as Zero picked himself up.

But Gate carried on, his voice cold. "The Nightmare is just a fraction of what you're capable of. There is no limit. Look at you. As long as you exist, new 'Nightmares' will appear. You have to die to restore peace. Everything will come to an end only if you're gone-"

"Shut up!"

It was X who shouted it this time. "You're wrong," he continued, forcing himself to speak calmly, and not entirely succeeding. "If it's Zero's fault, then it's mine too. None of this would have ever happened if I hadn't existed."

"X-!" Zero tried to protest.

"But it did happen. And we're here now. All we can do is fight to make it better! To fix both our mistakes and the things that aren't our fault." X looked back over his shoulder, his gaze meeting Zero's. There were so many things he wanted to convey. Do you know how worried, how scared I was? I couldn't even begin to accept that you were gone! Please stand by me. We'll fight, together.

He turned back to the darkness. "None of this is Zero's fault. You did this. All for your own ego! I won't let you use Zero or hurt any more Reploids!"

"Don't worry. I've experimented enough on low Reploids," Gate sneered. "What I need to do now... is to destroy you relics!"

He punctuated his words with another attack that blossomed into an anomaly, this one glowing green. X and Zero dashed away, but the distortion followed after them. As if on cue, the two of them split up, Zero falling back just enough to make the attack home in on him.

Left free, X turned back and opened fire at the anomaly. It ruptured quickly under his assault, and this time X watched closely as the blast swept out, creating a moving glimpse of the room they were in. He was ready when Gate's figure appeared for an instance and snapped out a charged shot.

"It's useless!" Gate exclaimed angrily, batting the shot away. Even as he vanished from sight, his voice continued to emanate from somewhere in the darkness. "I told you, I studied your battles. Your attacks won't work! And neither will the ones you got from my creations. There's nothing you can do!"

X and Zero shared a look. There was a chance Gate was wrong. X had many powers, and he hadn't used all of them against the investigators, but there was a far more obvious omission in Gate's boasting.

X wasn't the only one fighting.

So they were going to switch it up.

"Gate… it wasn't their fault either," X called out, both trying to reason with the researcher and draw his attention. "What happened to your creations was wrong. But what you're doing is wrong too! This is your last chance to stop! I don't want to fight you! I don't want to lose any more Reploids!"

"...You don't know anything," Gate said. "I can't forget or forgive. It's too late, for everything. So just disappear!"

Another anomaly, glowing ominously red, burst to life in front of X. He tried to dash away, or raise his Buster, but his body's response was slowed. It felt like the air itself solidified and dragged against him. His eyes darted to Zero's, and the two shared the same thought.

Even without turning, X knew that Gate had appeared behind him, already forming another rip in space. Having realized the same thing as X, Zero had turned to dash toward him, Saber raised and energy gathering for a technique. There was no way X could get out of the way in time. Instead, he didn't try to fight the anomaly's freezing effect and simply allowed himself to stand still. This time, he would trust Zero.

In the last moment, X recognized the technique Zero was using.

With a battle cry, Zero brought down his Saber, the blade extinguished just before it reached X, and released the energy he had gathered. X couldn't see the effect but he knew - a hologram with Zero's silhouette had appeared just behind him, carrying out the attack that Zero was too far away to accomplish himself. It was Soul Body - or rather, Sougenmu, the Twin Dream.

Gate gave a short, choked scream as the illusion's phantom saber cut into him as surely as Zero's own blade would have. As he crumpled to the ground, the Nightmare energy he had been controlling released. The unnatural darkness hiding their surroundings vanished, as did the anomaly holding X in place.

The large chamber revealed was completely covered in the same crystal formations. Its original shape could not even be determined. Half-completed warped skeletal frames of Reploids hung partially engulfed by the crystal growths.

Turning, X looked down pityingly at Gate's damaged form. Zero had held back and, with his usual precision, delivered a non-lethal blow.

"Kugh... I lost even though I used Zero's DNA..." Gate shuddered as his systems struggled to work around the damage. They would shut down before long, but he could be repaired... if anyone wished to do so. "I should've analyzed it more... Wa... was there a fault... in the program?"

"Zero's data has great power," X agreed somberly, "but it's meaningless if you use it the wrong way." He glanced at his friend - Zero had turned away, his back to them.

Gate smirked, the expression pained. "But... this isn't the end. I don't... give up so easily. I prepared for this just in case. Haha... It wasn't quite a success... but I... brought back... Si... Sig... ma..."

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Notes: Okay, I lied. It's pretty gay. But! I got most of it out of X's X5 endings. It's all canon, man.

Except X7. What is that? (:V) (And yet, I lie again, because I made an outline of how I would adapt MMX7, too.) Actually, X7's greatest problem is that it makes no sense in relation to MMZ. Which, admittedly, seems to follow X's "without Zero" ending and Zero's ending. It's a mystery. (I mean, really, Sigma's on his last legs, so there would be no need for a special Antibody Program/Mother Elf, New-Gens are apparently the next big thing, but they never come up in MMZ, 7-8-CM take place over a pretty long period, so the timeskip to MMZ would get even more ridiculous, etc, etc.)

Also, I don't want to hear a word about game mechanics. I don't care, you hear me. I just don't. Gate was a stupid gimmick boss anyway.

I do like how the piece of Zero Gate holds up in the game is shaped like a heart. How cute.

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