Hunter Base

X stepped out of the teleporter array, hoping nobody would notice the gaping holes in his chest before he got to the repair bay. To his surprise, Zero was waiting for him.

"Hey, I saw you take out Boomer Kuwanger. You know, I think he was more correct than either of us want to admit..." X groaned good-naturedly. Only Zero would encourage people this way.

"I just hope this blows over soon so I can get this armor off before the power gets to me."

"What? You're throwing away your best chance at becoming a S Hunter!"

"I want to be a S Hunter like you, Zero, I really do. But I want to earn that rank by virtue of my skill, not my power. It's not fair to the others if I get the S rank because of a few upgrades my old man gave me. And besides, you know I like to rely on my skills as much as possible whenever lives are at stake. Our bodies, armored though they may be, are still sensitive to damage. If my power's gone then my ranking is hollow and I've failed. The only difference in that case is that I would get more hate from humans if I were S rank rather than B rank."

They had reached the repair bay and X walked in. "I'll see ya in a few hours. Going to take a while to fix Kuwanger's damage."

Zero sighed and waved goodbye to his friend. Sometimes he didn't understand his friend's manifestations of fairness and honesty. Then again, he was Dr. Light's son in every sense...

Titanium Park, Abel City

Sting Chameleon grunted with satisfaction as a transport delivering Ride Armors arrived in a clearing in Titanium Park's forest. Now he just needed to find enough Reploids to man them.

The park had a long history, dating back from the time of the original Mega Man. The trees were once the genuine things, however they had been destroyed when Wood Man attacked the park in the second of Dr. Wily's attacks. Since then, the trees were made of synthetic wood and leaves, and the interior of the trunks were filled with machinery that could generate them. The other flora was natural, but removed after Wily's repeated attacks on the city had left the park in chronic states of damage. Once Wily's attacks had ceased painstaking efforts were taken to restore the park and create a true green space. However the trees had remained, and the fact that it recovered from the damage of Sigma's missile attack quickly had turned it into the city's strongest symbol of resolve.

When Sting Chameleon invaded the park, Sigma had ordered him to minimize physical damage to the park but deface it as much as possible as a symbolic gesture. Thus, Sting Chameleon had reconfigured the trees to grow a synthetic tropical jungle, and his army had torn up the paths and stolen the various statues in the park. The affair had very real potential to be a PR fiasco and Sigma knew it, however he had to break the city's morale to have the greatest chance of forcing X to step up. However it had gone better than he could have hoped for; Sting Chameleon's stealth and the park's lack of strategic importance had managed to fool the public into thinking it was a mass attack of the Maverick Militia and not Sigma.

Sting Chameleon himself was a bit of a thorn in Sigma's side though, since he also had not chosen to join the rebellion of his own accord. Though Sting Chameleon had, much like Vile, an ambition to prove his strength, it wasn't enough to persuade him, and he had been one of the four Mavericks who had led the attempt to break the hostages out of Sigma Palace. The fact that Vile had been locked up at the time for trying to challenge Sigma to battle at the time wasn't a small factor, either, and both Sting Chameleon and his superior knew it. Thus Sigma had kept Vile away from Sting Chameleon until the Cain kidnapping, where he could be sure that the purple Reploid would follow his orders and thus could also trust Sting Chameleon as well. Since Vile seemed to have sided with Sigma, if his presence here supposedly on Sigma's orders was anything to go by, Sting Chameleon had faked allegiance. After all, Vile hadn't behaved out of the ordinary, adapting Sting Chameleon's weaponry in the hopes of finding new hardware to challenge X with. However Storm Eagle had contacted him before Vile arrived and notified him that they had been installed with an override to prevent direct betrayal.

That cemented it. To learn that Sigma was only toying with Sting Chameleon had enraged him, and Storm Eagle's confidement that X could help them in their objective of rescuing Sigma's hostages had allowed the former to forget his dislike of the blue bomber enough to go along. But he would have to get this virus out of his programming, and there was only one way to do that...

Hunter Base, 3 hours later

Zero put his magazine down as X walked out of the repair bay. His friend noticed what Zero was reading and chuckled. "There's no greater way to prove a Reploid human, Zero..."

Zero gave a low chuckle and casually swept the magazine behind his back. "To every Reploid his pleasures, X. You moving out again?"

"Yeah, Sting Chameleon's lair."

"Alright, do you want me to go with you?"

"Actually, I wouldn't mind you actually fighting alongside me. Direct combat, not just watching. Figured you were getting really bored if you were 'reading' a Playboy magazine..."

"Shh! Say it any louder and even Sigma will hear."

"Was that embarassment in Zero's tone?" X barely managed to suppress a smirk. "Don't be ashamed of it man, you know almost everyone here develops that part of their emotion matrix eventually. Some of us learn to manage, some like Storm Eagle take it further, and some go Maverick over it. Anyhow, I - we'd better get going."

Titanium Park

Sting Chameleon stood stunned for a moment before ordering his Ride Armor battalions after Zero. The red robot could disable and destroy them easily, but less so than the other troops Sting Chameleon had at his disposal. Cursing Sigma for not providing him with heavier hardware, Sting Chameleon could only pray that Zero didn't make it to him first. While X might understand Sting Chameleon's predicament and try to be merciful, Zero would have no such qualms.

"Aw hell, looks like we gotta split up." Zero dashed off in a separate direction while X dove for cover behind a tree. The Ride Armor pilots trampled after Zero, whose red armor stood out brilliantly against the green foliage. X sighed with relief and began to tackle Sting Chameleon's remaining defenses. As an Axe Max threw a log segment at him, he dropped into a trench. As he hit the bottom he realized it was half-flooded with...seawater? X spat the brackish mud out of his mouth and disabled the Axe Max before taking stock of the trench. Apparently several storm drains had overflowed and deluged their contents across the park. X remembered that tide and vortex generators had been part of Launch Octopus's blockade defenses, but he didn't understand how they could permanently flood the park, even if it was one of the lowest points in the city.

X brushed the thoughts aside and destroyed an Amenhopper with a Boomerang Cutter. The cutter snagged one of the dead minion's power cells, and X snagged it and transferred the energy to his partially-filled subtank. The tank's indicator light suddenly changed to green and X smiled with satisfaction. Now all three of his subtanks were filled, should he need them. He suddenly saw the cutter embedded in the earth in front of him, and picked it up. As he did, the weapon disappeared, and his weapon energy meter suddenly returned to full. Impressed despite not understanding fully how this worked, X moved on.

The path had become much more uneven, and X suddenly tripped over a small shrub lying in the middle of the path. As he wondered who would be stupid or clumsy enough to plant one here, the Planty lifted its disguise and began throwing Iworms out of its head. X scrambled to his feet and put down both the Met and its worm helpers. He decided to risk switching to thermal vision despite the heat of the day; it would give him at least a small chance at discovering them before they took by surprise again.

Advancing further along the path, X discovered a cave. As he neared it the ceiling began to shake and rocks fell. X could barely make out the heat signature of a large mech standing atop the cave, and moved to deal with it first. Though his helmet could probably absorb the blows he didn't need to feel like his head was encased in a chronically ringing bell. As soon as he came within RT-55J's sight the mech swung its massive claw. X dodged it and fired a Storm Tornado at the head. The robot's heavy armor deflected the wind without easily, but X fired a Boomerang Cutter straight into the chain connecting the now-retracting claw to the body. To his surprise, the cutter sliced through the heavy chain with ease, and the claw thudded to the ground. RT-55J paused for a second, unsure of what had happened, but in that second X had caught the boomeranging cutter and stabbed one pointed end straight into the mech's eye. The robot muttered something that sounded like "hyperbolt" before shutting down.

Suddenly there was a rumble and X saw another Light Capsule appear. Next to it X noticed a picture of Dr. Light, standing with a green robot similar to the one he'd just destroyed. He realized it was RightTot, one of Dr. Light's helpers. Surely this was another trick by Sigma to confuse him. X dropped the photo and walked over to the capsule. The voice of Dr. Light spoke as he approached.

"This capsule contains a new type of reactive armor that will halve the amount of energy needed to regenerate." X stepped into the capsule and with a flash of light, his white, gold, and blue armor was complete. X admired his completed armor for a few seconds before dropping back down. He misjudged his position and fell straight into a pit. X winced as his boots grazed the energy spikes at the bottom, but he had barely avoided them. He noticed some of the wall was destructible, and used his head and feet to break it open. He saw another Heart Tank on the far side of a vast cavern.

"I don't think I can even dash-jump that far." X looked for another way to acquire the tank and suddenly realized that the cavern was underwater. "I just hope the additional buoyancy is enough to carry me over there..." X steadied himself and took the leap of faith, trying not to look down at the massive bed of spikes that awaited him should he fall short. To his surprise, he made the jump with plenty of distance to spare, and once he'd installed the Heart Tank he leapt across the room again without fear and climbed back into the main cavern.

The rocks had stopped falling, and X sighed with relief at not having to deal with the noise and hazard. Suddenly a huge boulder detached from the ceiling and fell. X instinctively fired at it, but the shot bounced off. "That's no boulder!" No sooner had the thought crosaed his mind than the rock unfolded itself and revealed a head, arms, and legs. It stomped the ground and another rock fell into its outstretched hands, but before the Crag Man could throw his projectile X blew his head off with a charged shot. The robot's own crude weapon crushed its remains, but X had already passed and didn't witness the ironic scene.

After destroying several more Crag Men, X climbed out of the cavern and found himself facing a relatively empty section of the park, with only several of its famous trees standing. Suddenly, Creepers were hurled from the trees. X blasted them out of the air and began searching for a way to shut off the assault of flying caterpillars. Ducking behind a tree, he looked up and saw a Mad Pecker throw another Creeper at him. X shot the robotic bird from its perch and moved on.

Sting Chameleon watched with a mixture of elation and shock as X blasted his defenses aside. "That stupid RT-55J must have dislodged the camoflauge netting I'd put around the top of the cliff," he thought with annoyance. Regardless, it was obvious now that X would reach him first and by a comfortable margin; though Zero had managed to destroy four Ride Armors, cripple six more, and hijack one for himself, there were still over two hundred of them left, not including the five Sting Chameleon had left behind as last-line-of-defense guards.

Suddenly Sting Chameleon's eyes shot to the viewscreen and he cursed as he saw X had knocked out one of the Reploids driving a Ride Armor and comandeered it. He ordered his remaining Ride Armors to draw back and mob X as a group, but one of them was destroyed before it could retreat and another foolishly turned to fight when X caught up to it. The smaller Amenhoppers and Sine Fallers were pulverized by the Ride Armor's fists, but Sting Chameleon ordered them forward to distract X while he set up a final defense. It wasn't as though he secretly didn't want the blue bomber to reach him, but he had to put on a convincing show for Sigma.

X smashed the last Amenhopper and cursed as the explosion disabled the Ride Armor. Wonderful; now he'd have to fight three more without a Ride Armor of his own. They would be watching each other's back to make sure he couldn't steal one either. Before X could make another move Zero burst out of the foliage and blasted one. X immeidately dragged a pilot out and disabled the last one quickly.

"Thanks Zero, what happened to the other..." X's voice trailed off as the ground began to shake. He could see the silhouettes of dozens, if not hundreds, of Ride Armors approaching.

"X, go! I'll keep them distracted!"

"But..."

"I've held them off for this long without much damage; I can do it for a little bit longer. Now go!"

X felt like he was leaving his friend for dead, but nonetheless he ducked into the cave that served as Sting Chameleon's command center as the Ride Armor battalions shook the earth in their pursuit of Zero.

Sting Chameleon was waiting. "Nyahaha! Hello, X!"

"So Sigma's managed to pull you into this too? Why have you fallen in with him?"

"Some of us can't help it, X. Your chum Storm Eagle's not the only one in an awkward position. Do you know why it took us a week to follow up our missile strike? Because Sigma had to put down an attempt to rescue the hostages."

"What...?"

"Nyahaha! But the Hunters didn't inform you of that, did they? No, because all of us are 'baddies', aren't we, because Sigma's emblem is on our heads? Well, look X, this world isn't clearly divided into good and evil. However it is divided between those of us working for Sigma and those against. Alas, in that case, everyone's betrayed you..."

"Then...you want me to...destroy you..."

"So, you figured it out, hmm? Nyahaha! Then it's time to fight!" Sting Chameleon disappeared as he uttered those words. Even X's thermal vision went dark.

"Right behind you!" Sting Chameleon jeered and lashed out with his tongue. The iron-balled end of it smashed into the back of X's helmet, but the new reactive armor did its work to minimize the damage. X switched back to normal vision, knowing now his thermal imaging was useless. Suddenly he saw a slight disturbance in the background, and as he moved away from it, it moved towards the ceiling. "Drat, you figured me out!" Sting Chameleon dropped his cloak and threw a barrage of spines from his tail. X scaled a wall to avoid them but immediately rammed his head into the spikes on the ceiling. Thankfully they weren't charged with energy, but they pierced his helmet and head with ease. X cried out in pain and fell to the ground, clutching his head as various mechanical fluids leaked from the holes in his helmet. The spikes had missed critical components by mere millimeters, and the damage around the sensitive head area of his body was enough to overload his systems.

Sting Chameleon paused at the top of the ceiling before camoflauging again. He wanted X to win, but he couldn't make it look like that. He knew Sigma would be watching. Fortunately X managed to get to his feet before the hesitation became paramount. Sting Chameleon decloaked above X and lashed his tongue into the ceiling. The bulbous tip caught in one of several holes and Sting Chameleon rocked his body back and forth. As he did so, the ceiling shook and the spikes began to fall, one at a time but in rapid succession. X unleashed a charged Boomerang Cutter, and four high-energy projectiles sliced through Sting Chameleon's body, cutting his tongue, tail, and two of his legs off. The Reploid recovered quickly, camoflauging and appearing behind X again. Like Launch Octopus, his tail and tongue regenerated very quickly so long as they weren't completely destroyed, and X recieved a spiky tail lash to the back. Though they didn't penetrate the blunt force threw X into the opposite wall. Sting Chameleon growled and his tail raised, the tip glowing green. Suddenly, spreads of lasers began to fill the room. X yelped as one of them grazed his face, but the whole time he was blindly firing back with Boomerang Cutters and buster pellets. One lucky cutter sliced the Chameleon Sting attachment to the Reploid's tail off, rendering the weapon useless.

Surprised, Sting Chameleon camoflauged again, this time climbing up some of the many vines that decorated the room. X dashed over and copied the weapon data from the severed piece. No sooner had he done so than Sting Chameleon dropped down on him from above, attempting to bear-hug him to gouge the spikes as deeply as possible into X's body. X fired a charged Chameleon Sting, but to his horror, nothing happened.

"What?!" squawked Sting Chameleon incredulously. X looked down and saw his body was a kaledioscope of colors, and Sting Chameleon's spiky limbs were...passing through him? Then he realized the Reploid couldn't see him at all.

"Sweet!" X easily escaped Sting Chameleon's grasp and quickly fired off two more Boomerang Cutters. The razor-sharp weapons dismembered Sting Chameleon completely, and the surprised Reploid fell to the ground along with several vines that had been cut in the process. "Fin...Finish me..."

X raised his buster, then lowered it. It might bring Sting Chameleon to his side in the long run, but it still wasn't right. "X, do it, please! Before he takes..." Sting Chameleon's frantic words were suddenly cut off and replaced by a monotone. What was left of his body went rigid. "Self-destruct protocools initiated. Too bad, you didn't act fast enough, X." Immediately, X shot Sting Chameleon through the head, destroying his primary circuits and stopping the self-destruct.

"I'm...sorry, Sting Chameleon. Even if you didn't like me while you were with the Hunters, you didn't deserve that. I...failed you." X bowed his head for a few seconds before teleporting out. Sigma's words from his days as the Hunters' commander came back to him.

"There are times when we Maverick Hunters cannot hesitate to pull the trigger." Even more painful were the words he had spoken as he launched the missile strike. "Now's your chance, X. Fire!...What's the matter? Shoot!...You can't do it, can you X?"

Sigma's mocking laughter continued to ring in X's head after his flashback had ended. Then, he realized it was real. X stumbled back and fell over as he saw Sigma holding Zero by the neck. The Reploid leader laughed and repeated his words from their first encounter again. X raised his buster and fired without hesitation, but though the shot miraculously missed Zero, it passed through Sigma, who discarded Zero and advanced upon X, saber drawn. "It seems you have learned your lesson from our previous encounter, X. Your victories thus far have been impressive; you do indeed have the potential I saw in you. But you still can't hope to stand against me!" Sigma had now backed X into a corner, and he raised his saber and held it like a knight about deliver the finishing blow.

"No!" X cried and raised his arms in a vain attempt to block the saber. Suddenly, his systems finally succumbed to their damage and he began to black out. "Hold on, X! I'm almost there!" he heard Zero say over the radio. Before he realized that Zero couldn't be in two places at once, he blacked out.

Throne Room, Sigma Palace

Sigma laughed with satisfaction as he watched X's reaction to his own hallucination, a result of trace amounts of the Sigma Virus being transferred when X copied Sting Chameleon's weapon without destroying him first. Naturally, due to the nature of the vision, Sigma had full access to X's mind in that time and had seen the whole thing from the blue bomber's perspective. Interestingly, X's last act, albeit subconcious, was to purge the Sigma Virus from his coding before it spread any further.

That was something interesting. No Reploid had been able to shake off the virus, let alone do it while so badly damaged. Not even Zero could do that, though the virus had acted differently in his case. However, Sigma was more concerned about Sting Chameleon's seeming intent to die. Could Dr. Cain be...Sigma cursed and immediately stormed out of the throne room. As he did so, he ordered every Reploid repaired by Dr. Cain to have the Sigma Virus re-downloaded into the programming to be safe. He couldn't afford betrayal, especially from his generals, once X reached his fortress.

And he needed to have a talk with the doctor...

Hunter Base

"Is X going to be okay?" Zero asked worriedly as the repair technicians worked on his friend's lifeless body.

"It doesn't look like he's sustained personality damage, but his systems have always been a little bit difficult to repair. We'll do our best."

"Wait...no AI damage at all? Even though he was infected with Sigma Virus?"

"It seems so. It's clear that the virus infected him and the infection showed symptoms right after he defeated Sting Chameleon, but it's gone now. We can't find any trace of it."

"That's not possible! The virus must be hiding in his program!"

"Calm down, Zero. His system log clearly shows that it deleted the virus, and not even our most advanced decrypters have been able to disable its tamperproofing."

Zero relaxed a little bit at that before addressing his friend. "That's another one you owe me, buddy. I'll see you when you wake up." Zero walked back to the teleporter array to help the Hunters clear out the last entrenched Maverick Militia and plan the assault on their base.

Repair Bay, Sigma Palace

"Oh dear, another one." Cain sighed resignedly as one of the Reploids who'd survived the massive Ride Armor brawl in Titanium park was brought in.

"Perhaps you should let me repair the AI on this one, Doctor. I can handle the humanoid ones," Doppler assured Cain.

"Very well, I shall leave you to it, Doppler. I will go attend to Sting Chameleon's repairs and restoration."

Cain was deeply worried, though Sigma hadn't given any indication that he knew of Cain's small act of dissidence, the doctor knew that Sigma suspected something was up. Cain's countermeasure produced a digital signature similar to that of the proper virus, and it would take very advanced scanners for a Reploid to passively or actively. Only by running the AI on Reploid-simulation software would any difference be discovered. Sigma hadn't taken it to that level yet, but it was only a matter of time. Cain just hoped X could reach the palace soon...

As Sigma walked out of the repair bay, he recieved a transmission from the Maverick Militia leader.

"Sigma, what is this? You promised me that your forces would support our operations!"

"I promised you no such thing, Commander, and you should realize that nothing comes free from me. Your own presumptuousness will be your undoing."

"Treachery!" the militia leader hissed.

"Only to a political neophyte such as yourself," Sigma sneered. "And for that matter, your fighting skills aren't much better than your political ones. I hear your forces are taking heavy losses from the Hunters and military?"

"Ever since the Hunters managed to secure several of our arms caches, we've been short on arms and ammo. I've had to send men into battle unarmed."

"Again your naivete shows."

"What's that supposed to mean?!"

"I have several transports loaded with Ride Armors and weaponry inbound to your primary base. Use these arms well." Pushing aside the rebel leader's furious spluttering of disbelief, Sigma added, "Don't let your pride get in the way, Commander. Should you need aid I would gladly have provided it had you asked. All I require is a show of acknowledgement of our alliance." At this point the Militia commander's voice had failed him and he was slowly turning red. "If you confide completely in someone by making a pact such as ours, then you should be willing to confide in them completely no matter what. You may have risen to lead a ragtag army of Reploids through a popularity contest, but your popularity will not save you when the Hunters come calling en masse or when you need to be a true leader."

Without another word, Sigma cut the transmission, smiling to himself at his "ally" and his childish reaction. Like Vile he was dangerous in that he had an ego bigger than his body. Sigma pushed the thoughts aside and reflected on his conversation with his maker. He wasn't completely convinced Cain hadn't disobeyed his orders, but he was inclined to that conclusion. Either way, the Sigma Virus redownload would ensure that his generals would not turn against their leader.

Author's note: Sorry for the relatively long time it took to get these last two chapters up, summer school's coming to an end and that means finals. With those out of the way I can get back to writing. I hope to have the next chapter up within a few days.