#fallen savior

X’s eyes blearily opened, blinking to try to clear the sleep from them. He groaned as he attempted to sit up, his tangled mop of black hair clinging to his clammy face.

Why was he awake?

As the ancient android moved to wipe  away the annoying strands of inky black and blue, a sudden jolt of pain lanced through his arm, the limb twitching and seizing for a few agonizing seconds before suddenly ceasing.

X gasped sharply at the pain, holding his breath before releasing it as the pain faded.

What the hell was that?!

With a shuddery whimper, the man quickly ran a diagnostics test on himself internally.

Everything was damaged now, when was it not?

Power core fluctuations were new, but not unexpected. 

Wire degradation was also new, but he didn’t have the self-repair nanites to spare anymore…

His core was corrupting, slowly but surely. But again, that hadn’t been surprising.

Memory leak here, shorted cable there, cracked internal drives, yes, yes. This was all completely routine for X.

He wondered briefly how truly furious Cerveau would be if he could witness the depth of his rot.

Oh…there was something new.

Another jolt of pain ripped through him as his arm spasmed again, the man seething through his teeth, the pain so sudden, he couldn’t even produce sound.

New readings came across his mind.

:WARNING: CRITICAL POWER ERROR: KERNEL POWER EVENT ID 41 

:LOCALIZATION: SHOULDER B

What?

X read the code over and over, trying to wrap his mind around it. He desperately wished his mind wasn’t slowing down with his core…

The answer popped into his head right as another strike of pain hit him. He whimpered through his teeth, gritting his eyes shut as the wave passed him.

The error flashed again.

Of course…there was THAT possibility…

But could it be…?

With great effort, X swung his legs over the side of his recharge bed.

He breathed heavily as his core began to heat up, his body warming as he forced himself to stand. His legs trembled for a moment, but held.

He hadn’t walked since Elpizo…

X grit his teeth, rocking a little as another wave struck him. Holding the spasming arm with his other hand at least kept him from bending it in the wrong way, potentially breaking it.

It didn’t help with the inferno of pain he felt in that moment.

As the wave passed, he let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. 

X looked at the door in front of him, already dreading the long journey ahead. He needed to get to Cerveau’s lab.

But that was on the other side of the floor, across the Command Room.

And…past Zero’s door.

He shook his head, trying to clear himself of the guilt that washed over him thinking about his dear husband. 

He’d understand X’s decision…someday.

With an uneasy tremble to his legs, X took a step forward. His knee shook, but held his weight as he took another step.

Progress was agonizingly slow, he felt like he was moving in slow motion.

For a moment, the android felt confident in his legs, stepping quicker and giving his leg less time to adjust to his weight.

He briefly snickered to himself as he remembered how athletic he used to be. 

Ah, to be a Maverick Hunter again, racing through the streets of Able City, patrolling with Zero and grabbing food at that lovely little café!

What was it called again…?

Where…?

With a yelp, X collapsed to the floor, his knee giving out underneath him as he was ripped from his memories.

Pain lanced through his arm again, causing him to nearly gag as he silently screamed into the floor where he fell.

What the hell happened?

He was there in Abel City again and then this! 

X felt his chest tighten in panic.

He didn’t know where he was!

He looked around wildly until his eyes rested on his helmet, still resting proudly on the table next to his bed.

He blinked owlishly at it for a moment before everything came flooding back.

That was right…he was in the Resistance Base.

The Maverick Hunters were gone.

Abel City was destroyed.

The grief came and left faster than he had expected.

Last time this had happened, he had cried for a few moments before coming back to his senses.

Ah, right. 

Memory leaks.

X sighed heavily, his shoulders slumping as he began to lose motivation. He wanted to go back to bed…

As another wave of pain struck him, and his teeth gritted tightly in agony, he remembered why it was so important to get to Cerveau’s lab.

“V….voltmeter…” X gasped, forcing his trembling legs back up.

With renewed determination, and a mounting sense of dread, X dragged himself towards the door.

Reaching it felt like a herculean task, but he knew that the real challenge lay ahead. His core raced, the rumbling of it audible in his aural cones.

Opening the door, his eyes adjusted to the dimly lit hallway. No sound came from either direction, nor any movement.

It must be the middle of the night.

Perfect.

He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to calm the raging sea of anxiety inside of him before he began.

There were too many things that could go wrong, too many things that could BE wrong! If he was telling the truth, he’s absolutely terrified of the implications of his ailment.

X thanked any higher power that would listen for the silent night as he used the wall as a crutch, leaning against it and dragging himself as quietly as possible down the hallway.

The android paused as he passed Zero’s door.

He briefly wondered if his husband would be willing to carry him the rest of the way…

He shook his head to clear the thought.

How selfish could he really be?

The idea of asking his husband to carry him to steal equipment from a comrade, and not allow him to ask any questions or make any move to change X’s fate made him feel dizzy with guilt.

He moved on as quickly as he could, leaving his longing at his husband’s door.

Progress felt even slower as the hallway stretched on and on. His arm continued to spasm, each time causing X’s knees to shake and his eyes to flicker from the intensity of hurt he was feeling.

With each passing wave, X’s anxieties about the cause grew, speeding his progress ever so slightly.

Finally, he reached the Command Center.

Looking around, he grimaced at the center platform.

He remembered the last time he had been here. He had slapped the former Commander for leading his fellow resistance members into a slaughter.

A new emotion came over him as he remembered that moment.

Disgust.

His eyes flickered as the pain failed to properly register this time, each wave becoming increasingly intense.

The disgust at the memory, however, remained crystal clear.

When the wave passed, X sighed but moved forward into the Command Center.

This was the part he was most worried about.

The center platform was connected on either side by a nearly railless walkway. It was wide enough to allow small carts and transports across, and was a useful place for gathering a large amount of people.

But the railless part was what made X swallow in fear.

His legs shook as he forced the limbs to move out onto the walkway, trying to keep from stumbling off of the side and into the wiring below.

He briefly wondered why he had approved this design before remembering it was simply a relic of this place being a former Maverick Hunter outpost.

Reploids didn’t need rails.

He fought the memory of visiting outposts just like this as his time as Commander of the 17th Unit from creeping over his already sluggish mind.

The voices of his subordinates crept at the corners of his hearing, their distant laughter and teasing haunting him like a ghost.

Mega Man X would not fall victim to the phantoms of his past!

The thought of his full title ripped him from reality, his subordinates' hands grabbing at his body and dragging him below into the murkiness of his past.

Faces blended and blurred, pain dancing alongside euphoria, it was like a carnival of nostalgia and agony.

He laughed and smiled as he tried to put names to faces, ecstatic at seeing his team again!

There was Marty! Or, was that Big Jack?

Retro! Or, what looked like Retro a moment ago now suspiciously looked like Diego…

Or…who was…

It was…

Zero’s face was crystal clear among the sea of eerie grins and morphing expressions. 

He looked so sad…

X gasped sharply, his eyes staring below into inky darkness. His arm lay twisted at an odd angle behind his back, his other arm bracing him against the lip of the edge of the walkway.

He had collapsed, he must have!

The man used his remaining arm to push himself away from the edge, his legs scrabbling weakly behind him as he attempted to put his feet underneath him.

Why weren’t his legs working?!

Panic mounted again, his head swimming in confusion and dizziness. Everywhere he looked, he felt a new feeling of desperation overtake him.

Finally, in his growing panic, his eyes landed on the Command Center’s main console. 

The raised platform was empty and dark now, the giant screen behind it turned off and blank, leaving the room in a strange, ambient gray.

X stared at it wide-eyed as memories came back to him.

That’s right…

Elpizo was up there, and Zero was next to me…

The realization that he had experienced another memory leak frightened him. He really needed to get back to his room, and gey hooked back up to his power supply.

He felt…disappointed in himself. He was better than this, wasn’t he? 

How the mighty had fallen!

Sigma would laugh and sneer if he could see how low X had fallen. 

In a way, he supposed, it was comforting.

It was comforting to know he had fallen, and could fall no further.

X stared out into the darkness, his legs shaking underneath him as he contemplated the depths of his fall from grace, willing the tears to stop welling in his eyes.

The android blinked as his vision briefly shut down. He braced for pain that never came, even when the spasms in his now, most likely, dislocated shoulder still caught his attention.

Uh-oh, that wasn’t good.

What was it Dr. Cain had said?

Ancient reploid model designs and diagnostics ran through his mind, hazy and murky as it was, he remembered something important.

A reploid unable to feel pain in a region of their body is a reploid in need of serious and immediate repair.

X snorted at the thought.

Yeah, no shit.

Creeping along, he blessedly made it to the other side of the room without further incident.

Catching himself against the door, he looked back, wondering how he was going to get back to his room without a mountain of luck.

He decided he’d cross that bridge when he came to it, figuratively and literally.

Blink! His vision flickered again.

The door to the small hallway leading to Ciel and Cerveau’s labs opened with a hiss. The space itself was lit with a single light, the glow from the lab doors locks giving off a homey, verdant ambience.

It was comforting, but X was determined not to get distracted more than he had. 

Using the wall again, he dragged himself onward, nearly trembling in relief as he finally came close to Cerveau’s door. 

A brief jolt of panic went through him as he realized Cerveau might be inside.

His mind raced with excuses he could tell the engineer, desperate to get out of the situation without a lecture. And without Zero finding out.

His mind was eased as he remembered that it was night time, and unlike the previous base, everyone actually had their own rooms.

Blink! Another flicker.

With a huff and a quick swipe of his credentials, the door to the lab whooshed open.

Inside, the room was dark, X’s eyes struggling to adjust for a moment as they attempted to recalibrate.

This power event…thing was beginning to annoy him.

Stepping into the room, he scanned around for the voltmeter, using the tables and workbenches to stabilize himself.

Finally, he spotted one, hanging up on the wall across from him, resting peacefully exactly where Cerveau left in.

X stumbled towards it, knocking items off of the worktables, wincing as the tools clattered to the ground with a loud bang.

There was no way no one heard that, X thought.

With a yelp, he fell forward, just before reaching the voltmeter, a rolling cart full of tools falling alongside him, metallic rings echoing out of the lab and into the halls.

With a gasp and a rush of frustration, X grunted as he reached for the device, another memory clawing at his mind.

This one was a happy memory.

It came in flashes, every few blinks he was transported back in time. 

X didn’t falter, pushing through the memory as his fingers grazed the device. 

Another blink and he couldn't tear himself away for a moment.

There he was, his armor has been specially made for this day. It was a silly thing, to ask Zero to change his armor for one silly event.

But the man had agreed, donning his white chest plate and gauntlets. All for X.

X blinked and Zero was gone, the voltmeter had fallen to the ground with a sharp crack against the metal floor of the lab.

Using his brief moment of clarity, he scrambled for the device, his spasming arm even reaching for it, as if his desperation for answers was overtaking the error.

With a sigh of relief, X leaned back against the wall, his chin nearly resting on his chest,  his eyes flickering and his mind fading into another memory.

With his remaining arm, he reached for the metal wand attached to the side. Flicking the button on, the screen lit up, showing him the different voltage measurements as the wand buzzed.

With more force than he intended, X stabbed the wand into his shoulder, wincing sharply as the wand dug painfully into his synthetic flesh.

Now all he had to do was wait for another spasm and…

With a sudden shutdown of his vision, followed by a moment of intense terror, the voltmeter beeped, right as his arm began to shake and twitch.

He looked down at the reading, his eyes wide in terror.

No…a reading this abnormal meant…

He ran another diagnostic, this time looking specifically for what he feared most.

He sent test queries at his core, desperately hoping that what was happening wasn’t happening.

Agonizing seconds passed by as memory threatened to overtake fear. X willed his body’s self repair system to work just a little faster, even with the fire of the Dark Elf still raging inside him.

“Why must you torment me like this? Isn’t it easier to just kill me already?” He pleaded outloud, staring into the ceiling. 

There was no answer. He wasn’t sure who he was expecting it from.

His test queries came back, tearing his mind from the image of Zero placing a ring on his finger to the results of the report from his core.

The floor dropped out from underneath him, dread threatening to swallow him up.

There were terrible ways to die sure, but this was a terrible way X hadn’t anticipated in the slightest.

The voltmeter dropped from his hands as heat and haze overtook his mind. The reports sat innocently in his mind's eye, still conveying the same message.

As honeyed dreams of Zero and sunny days began to drown him, he had one, terrible thought, slumping over and closing his eyes.

…

I’m going to die.