Zero

Zero (ゼロ, Zero) is one of the three main characters of the Mega Man X series, as well as the protagonist of the Mega Man Zero series and makes an appearance as Biometal Model Z in Mega Man ZX. In the X series, he is one of the highest ranking Maverick Hunters who is fighting to stop the endless war between humans and Mavericks. He's a diehard warrior who doesn't hesitate to take action. However, behind his cold and emotionless attitude lies a wounded soul.

Origin
Zero was created by the late Dr. Albert Wily somewhen in the 21st century. His first historical appearance was in form of shadowy blueprints during Bass' ending of Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters and described by Wily as his greatest masterpiece of work.

Originally designed to deal with Mega Man and Bass and to satisfy his creator's ambition of world domination, he was instead sealed away by Wily in order to carry out the objective of destroying Mega Man X and later awakened by a group of Reploids prior to the first Mega Man X game. When he was first activated, he awoke as a Maverick and destroyed all intruders who had dared to enter Wily's lair and was later cornered by Garma's Maverick Hunter unit inside an unknown facility, however at the cost of a total loss of said unit. Not wanting to get anymore comrades endangered by the powerful enigmatic Maverick, then-Hunter Commander Sigma himself challenged Zero in a one-on-one battle. Even though Zero gained the upper hand during the battle, Sigma was able to defeat the red Maverick after taking serious damage and knocked him out. He was then brought to Dr. Cain, who analyzed him.

After that, Zero recovered from his battle with Sigma and was placed under Sigma's witch, Zero did not show any signs of Maverick behaviour and was enlisted into the Maverick Hunters' 17th Elite Unit.

The Day of Σ
As part of the 17th Elite Unit, Zero became an excellent Maverick Hunter and was soon ranked SA-Class, the highest rank the Maverick Hunters had to offer at that point of time. It was during that time in which he met X for the first time who was also part of the 17th Unit, even though he was only ranked B-Class due to his hesistation on the battlefield. The two became friends and partners and worked together whenever they could. Zero soon became a somewhat mentor to X.

Soon afterwards, a series of Mechaniloids going berserk occured in Abel City, the city in which the Hunter Base at that point was located. During the course of the investigation, it was Zero who eventually uncovered the identity of the person responsible for the attacks, which was none other than Sigma himself. Zero had deducted this as in various locations which were seemly connected to the attacks, the bodies of defeated Reploids had been found which were all taken down with a single blow directed at a weak spot and there had been only a very few number of Reploids which such perfect skills, including Sigma. Also, the damage the defeated Reploids had taken was caused by a beamsaber and not by range-weapons so the previously suspected Vile couldn't have been the traitor.

Even though he managed to block Sigma's first attack, he was soon overwelmed by Sigma and was used to pressure X into surrendering. To get Zero out of his way, he was struck by Sigma's beam saber and left all by himself while Sigma held X captive and launched a missile attack on Abel City. Some time later, Zero regained concious and found X all alone in the facility, heavily damaged by Sigma. He then brought him back to the Hunter HQ.

Mega Man X / Maverick Hunter X
After Sigma's declaration of Reploid Independency on July 4th 21XX (June in the US manual of the original game), dubbed "The Day of Σ", Zero, at that point highest ranked member of the Hunter organisation, became the new leader and he and a repaired X fought together against Sigma's uprising rebellion. Zero saved X during a Maverick attack at the Central Highway from Vile. After that, the two split up with X task to slow down the Maverick activities in nearby areas while Zero himself was on recon duty at Sigma's fortess.

They eventually met there and together invaded the fortress. Here, they encountered Vile for a second time. Zero was captured by Vile and imprisoned in a cage (In Maverick Hunter X however, Zero was left unconcious by Vile as a bait for X). When X was also defeated by Vile, he managed to break free and destroyed Vile's armor by firing a charge shot from point-blank range, which was a successful, yet fatal action. Afterwards, Zero, in case X hadn't obtained the Buster Upgrade yet, handed his Buster Parts to X and encouraging him into continuing to fight before dying in X' arms.

Mega Man X2
After Sigma had been defeated, the Hunters tried to salvage whatever remained of Zero from the sunken fortress and found Zero's Control Chip (which serves as Zero's "brain" and conciousness) which had miraculously survived the destruction of the body. However, the Hunters were incapable of creating a new body for Zero because they were unable to analyze Zero's unique body structure.

Six months later, a group of three Mavericks, calling themselves the "X-Hunters" (Counter Hunters in Japanese), contacted the Maverick Hunters and claimed to be in possession of all parts of Zero. The X-Hunters challenged X to a battle in order to win Zero's remains. (The Japanese version of the game however claims that they actually rebuilt the parts and did not use remains from the previous game. It was Serges (Sagesse in Japanese) who constructed the parts and upgraded the body with the specs Zero was originally intended to have, including reinforced shoulder plates and Z-Saber).

X, who didn't want his friend to be in the hands of Mavericks, accepted and eventually recovered Zero's head, body and foot parts. Eventually, Zero was reconstructed by Dr. Cain (now completed with his signature Z-Saber and enforced shoulder plates) and assisted X in destroying the base of the resurrected Sigma. Trying to fool X however, Sigma had constructed a doppelgänger of Zero with Black Armor which he claimed to be Zero, however this copy was destroyed by the real Zero.

As a non-canon scenario in X2, in case X wasn't able to retrieve all of Zero's parts, the X-Hunters would steal any parts X had previously collected from the Hunter Base, as well as Zero's Control Chip. Zero would then be recontructed by Sigma as a Maverick and was fought by X prior to his encounter with Sigma. After being defeated, Zero would regain his consciousness and assisted in destroying the base.

Mega Man Xtreme
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Mega Man X3
Zero only played a minor role during the Doppler incident. He and X defended the Maverick Hunter Base from Dr. Doppler]'s Maverick forces and saved X from the traitor [[Mac. Zero would here and there be of help for X as he could summon him once a mission (this marked the first time Zero was playable, but he wasn't able to fight bosses), using his Z-Buster and his Z-Saber. While trespassing Doppler's secret lab, he saved X from a spike room booby-trap.

If Zero was summoned during the second stage of Doppler's lab at a specific point, he fights a Mosquito-like Mechaniloid which was destroyed by him, however the Mechaniloid managed to hit Zero in a last resort attack. The crash of the Mosquito damaged Zero's power generator which forced him to return to Hunter Base to have repairs done. Because this made him unavailable for the rest of the trip, he would then lend his Z-Saber to X.

Mega Man Xtreme 2
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Mega Man X4
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Mega Man X5
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Mega Man X6
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Mega Man X7
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Mega Man X8
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Mega Man X Command Mission
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The Elf War
At some unknown point after his mission on Giantis, Zero realized that he carried the virus inside him and spread it all over the world during his missions as a Hunter. Thinking that the world wouldn't be safe as long as he was still active, Zero admitted himself into a research institute, in order to get rid of the virus within him that caused Reploids around him to go Maverick. At the same point, a project was started to analyse Zero as it had been revealed previously (during the Eurasia crisis to be exact), that Zero actually reacted positive to the Sigma Virus, therefore might hold anti-bodies for the infection. Zero was sealed away and brought to a goverment lab. At some point, Zero's mind was extracted from the body, possibly for security measures in case something would go wrong while researching it.

For an unknown amount of time, Zero's body was studied by goverment researchers. One of them, an unnamed female ancestor of Miss Ciel managed to create the "Sigma Antibody Program", a Cyber Elf capable of reverting the devestated programming of infected Mavericks and therefore destroying the virus completely. This Cyber Elf was the Mother Elf.

Yet, weapon researcher and DNA revival specialist Dr. Weil, who worked in the lab as well, however planned a different way of dealing with the Mavericks, was unsatisfied with the result. Stealing Zero's mindless body and the Mother Elf, Weil started a horrible conflict that would ultimately cost the lives of 90% of all Reploids and 60% of all humans. This four year period of war was later dubbed the "Elf War".

Weil, who used the Mother Elf, now known as the Dark Elf and copies of her, known as Babyelves to gain control over Reploids all over the planet, ordering them to destroy each other, worked on Zero's body, manfacturing an exterior armor around him which boosted the body's specs to its limits as well as granting him the ability to control all Reploids at the same time when combined with the Dark Elf and creating a new conciousness for the body loyal to him: Omega.

When the Elf War was in it's fourth and final year, Zero reappeared on the battlefield, given a copy of his old body (it is however still unknown who created the body but it is presumed it was Ciel's ancestor). Zero managed to infiltrate Weil's laboratory and steal the Dark Elf from Weil. He then ordered every Reploid in the Dark Elf's range to turn against Weil. At that point, Omega was released onto the battlefield along with a few Mechaniloids to defeat X and Zero and retrieve the Dark Elf. Zero, who by that time had realized Omega was using his original body, defeated him together with X by using the Final Strike, disabling the massive Reploid.

After the war had ended, Zero decided to seal himself away again, this time, forever. Though X tried desperately to stop his friend from sealing himself another time, the sealing process had been gone too far to stop it. Zero told X that, as long as he was still around, the bloody history would repeat itself over and over again. Before the seal was complete, he encouraged X that this was the right way and that he wanted to believe in the humans as X believed in them. With these final words, Zero's seal was complete.

Mega Man Zero
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Mega Man Zero 2
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Mega Man Zero 3
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Mega Man Zero 4
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Vile's Incident - Eden Dome, it's Sin and Rebirth
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Mega Man ZX
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Trivia

 * Zero was originally intended to be the main protagonist of Mega Man X, according to Keiji Inafune, Mega Man's creator. However, Zero was turned into a second character because Inafune feared Zero's look would not be approved by fans as a true Mega Man. He would eventually gain his own game series on the GameBoy Advance, Mega Man Zero.