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Title: Mega Man X6: False Awakening
Chapter: Stage 00, part 1 "Origin"
Notes: This four-part special shows how the end of X5 went down. In other words, it's all about X getting expositioned at and acting very not-gay for his partner. Really.

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Everyone had gathered in the command center, looking up at the screen in silence. Their eyes were fixed on the constantly updating stream of data on the Shuttle Mission, their last chance to avert disaster. Whether it failed or succeeded, there was no more time, not to cobble something together, not to evacuate, only to pray.

But would any deity listen to the prayers of robots?

Even Alia's calm composure had been worn away by the last 16 hectic hours, and she couldn't stop herself from making a sound of surprise and unease.

"The speed of the Colony is increasing," Alia reported, forcing her voice to remain level. "This was not in any of our projections..."

"It must be because of the high concentration of the Virus in the Colony," X said. "It's altering the Colony's properties. Can we still make it?"

"I'm sure it'll work this time!" Douglas insisted with wavering confidence. The engineering corps were still stinging from the failure of the Enigma weapon, and they had thrown everything they had into repairing the long since retired Space Shuttle. "We did everything we could to strengthen the Shuttle..."

"Zero, the Colony is approaching," Alia called into the comm. "Can you make it?"

"Locking on to the Space Colony," Zero relayed. "There is a lot of debris around here. I'll have to pilot the Shuttle through manually, or it'll be destroyed before it can crash into Eurasia."

"Zero! Be sure to come back safe!" X reminded him.

"I'll get as close to it as possible, then abandon the Shuttle," Zero agreed. "It's time to go. I'll cut communications in 5 seconds. See you soon."

"Good luck, Zero!" Signas said strongly, his voice and demeanor strong despite the stress of the situation.

"Good luck, Zero," X echoed quietly, though his friend could no longer hear him.

"7 seconds to impact," Alia reported. "5... 4... 3... 2... 1... Collision confirmed! …...Destruction rate is... 70%..." She trailed off, her eyes moving frantically between data streams. "The Colony won't be burn up entirely... The pieces will still impact... Our mission..."

"It'll be enough," Signas said firmly. "Get me a simulation of the impact scatter! Will the base be safe? And try to find out where Zero will come down."

Alia and the other Navigators scrambled to gather the data. "Yes... we're outside the impact radius..." Alia said distractedly. "But Zero... he should come down at..."

Following the data on the screen, Signas saw the same thing Alia had realized. "Zero! Can you read me?" he tried to call across the comm, but the connection was completely gone. "No! He'll be sucked into the Colony debris..."

"Zero will make it and get out okay!" X protested. Even to his own audio receptors, he sounded desperate.

"We'll get him from wherever he falls," Signas assured X, forcefully regained his composure. "Until then, all we can do is wait."

They waited, silently, paralyzed with dread.

Time seemed to lose meaning as everyone watched the countdown to first impact. At the last moment, X closed his eyes and turned away. Even without looking, he could tell when the pieces of Eurasia began to make contact. The room shuddered, though Hunter Base was well outside the range of the resulting tremors. Rather, all those watching trembled as sensors were knocked out by the advancing wave of impacts and a blank spot spread across the world map.

There was no telling how bad the damage was. There was no telling how long it would take for the fallout to die down enough to judge the devastation, much less send recovery teams. There was no telling how long they stood there, watching and praying as the meager available updates scrolled past and projections updated.

Suddenly, X flinched and looked up at something just beyond his sensors.

"...I... I can feel Zero..." he murmured in confusion. "How is this possible?"

"Wait!" Alia exclaimed, reacting to her own monitor rather than to his words. "I got a reading that looked like Zero!"

"Then, Zero is alive?" Signas asked.

"This power is incredible. It even comes through the interference... It's like Zero, but not him exactly..." Alia muttered.

"It's Zero... I know it is," X said, with a strange confidence that drew unreadable looks from Alia and Signas.

Alia shook her head, eyes darting across the readouts. "It's... a new virus...? The scraps of the Colony Virus and the Sigma Virus combined together...?"

Signas's expression hardened. "For the moment, we'll call it the Zero Virus," he said. "Keep monitoring it."

"I'm getting an even stronger reaction from the impact site!" Alia reported. "The energy is too strong to get an accurate data sample. It must be Sigma. I can't think of anything but Sigma having this kind of strength!"

X nodded decisively. "We can use that signal to target the transfer," he said. "It'll be enough to punch through the interference."

"What?!" Alia demanded, snapping around to face him. "It's too dangerous! You can't go!"

Signas agreed, "I understand how you feel, but you need to calm down and think straight. With the Virus concentration so high, and the fallout from the crash as well, even you wouldn't be able to function there for long. We won't be able to send you any reinforcements or even pull you out. And if you disappear... the who will protect the Earth?"

They meant well, and everything they said made sense, but X couldn't stop himself from glaring. "What about Zero? Are you going to sacrifice him, a soldier that fought to save the Earth and all of us?! Do we have to let my best friend, my one and only friend, die?!"

Alia looked away, but Signas only met his glare evenly. The tension between them mounted until Signas sighed and gave in. "Alright. I won't stop you from going." He gestured to Alia, to set up the teleport.

She hesitated for a moment, looking between him and X. "...I see... Of course, it's like that," she finally admitted. "We're leaving everything in your hands. Stop Sigma and bring Zero back, X!"

"Bring this to an end once and for all!" Signas ordered.

Nodding, X smiled grimly.

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"...Get up... ...Wake up! ...Did you forget... what you're supposed to do? ...Destroy it now... You can do it! You're the greatest of my works... Wake up!"

Zero jolted awake violently, straining against the half-ripped passenger harness. The way down had not been smooth, and the last thing he remembered was being dragged along in the wake of the Colony debris as it rushed toward Earth. The escape module of the Space Shuttle was almost completely totalled around him, and Zero felt like he was trapped in a half-crushed metal can. He wasn't even able to get loose without resorting to his Saber.

But wasn't there something strange...? He remembered getting banged up before being knocked out, and he probably taken even more damage afterwards. So why was he almost completely repaired...?

The sight that greeted him outside the escape pod was a depressing one. The land had been ripped apart and reduced to a wasteland, while heavy clouds of dust covered the sky.

"Did I... fail?" Zero wondered. Had he... failed to save anyone at all? "Was the Earth ruined after all? X? Alia?" But there was only static over his comm. It felt like the end of the world.

But something wasn't right. It wasn't just dust and debris clogging the air; the Virus readings had already whited out his sensors. He could feel the Maverick Virus around him. He shuddered at the strange sensation.

Someone laughed in the distance.

The scenery was changing in front of his eyes. The sky took on a sickly purple hue, and mysterious, unreadable lights began to flicker in and out of sight. His few working sensors were quickly reduced to snow, leaving Zero with only his instincts to go on.

"He he he."

He wasn't imagining that laughter. It wasn't just the wind. Zero spun around, trying to find the source, even as his surroundings were swallowed up by the growing darkness.

"Who's there?!" he demanded, turning slowly.

"He he he he. Calm down," Sigma's voice echoed from the darkness, making Zero scowl furiously. "I'm here..."

Zero drew his Saber, holding it in front of him, but its faint glow couldn't penetrate the unnatural shadows or the faint glow of the Virus that slowly gathered, mist-like.

"Let me tell you about an old man I met," Sigma continued, giving his voice a storyteller's deceptive lilt. "He told me you're something far greater than what you appear to be. Tell me, who is this old man?"

"How should I know?" Zero snapped back. "I don't care about your guessing games!"

"You must know him. Don't tell me you've never met him... in your dreams."

Sigma's words stopped Zero cold. His dreams... How could Sigma know about those? Or... was this all in his head? Was he just hallucinating under the effects of the Virus?

"I don't... know him..." Zero protested faintly, shaking his head.

"He seems very interested in you... almost like a parent..." Sigma taunted him. "It was on his advice that I tried to use the Virus to return you to your true form. But you haven't show any signs of waking up..."

"Shut up! I won't become a Maverick! I won't yield to your pitiful Virus!"

"You misunderstand. I'm not talking about becoming a Maverick. You felt it, didn't you? A tremendous power filling your body..." As Sigma continued, Zero felt himself shudder. It was all too close, too true. "...The power of the Virus. That's because the Virus purifies your body and returns you to your true form."

"Shut up!" Zero yelled back, gesturing sharply with his Saber. It didn't matter, he reminded himself. None of that mattered. "I won't allow you to escape this time, Sigma! I'll put an end to this!"

"You can destroy me, but death is all that awaits you, too..." Sigma admitted uncharacteristically. Though his voice retained a faintly mocking edge, something in it was almost... strained.

"I'm not afraid to die," Zero said evenly. He had done it before. He had trusted in X then, and he trusted in him now. "But I won't die alone..."

"Gha ha ha ha! So that's how it is," Sigma mused. "Well, it seems X is somewhere close by... The three of us can die together. You won't be lonely if X is with you..."

For a moment, Zero's heart leapt at the thought of X being close - X was alive! - but the emotion quickly turned to dread. "Leave X out of this!" he demanded.

"He he he he," Sigma laughed again. "Tell me, Zero... Which of you is stronger, you or X?"

"What difference does it make? We're both stronger than you!" Zero shot back. But this time, there was no reply. The feeling of Sigma's presence had faded away. "Where are you, Sigma?! Face me!"

He had been left alone with his own fears, a growing dread and the cloying sensation of the Virus seeping into his systems.

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Notes: The names of the four parts come from the subtitles of the four stages in Zero Space. I don't actually ever use that term in-story because I like calling it Null Space better. But I also made a commitment to remain as close to canon terminology as possible, so...

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