Serges

Serges, known as Sagesse (サーゲス) in Japan, is the leader of the X-Hunters, a group in Mega Man X2 made to counter X and the Maverick Hunters. He and his fellow X-Hunters fight to avenge Sigma and attempt to resurrect Zero as a Maverick under their control.

Characteristics
Serges is a hunchbacked Reploid with primarily blue armor. He is elderly in appearance, possessing a large metal moustache, a beard, and five spikes of hair. One of his eyes is large and circular, like a monocle. Like the other X-Hunters, his feet are pointed at the tips. He normally wears a black cape with a purple lining and a black hat reminiscent of an ushanka, but discards them for battle.

A brilliant Reploid scientist with a genius compared to a legendary mad scientist, Serges' vast intellect makes him an integral part of Sigma's Maverick army. It seems that he came up with the plan for the unification of Zero's parts to resurrect and use him for their own purposes, also upgrading Zero's body and creating the Z-Saber. However, he lacks physical strength, so he rides machines such as a flying pedestal and a tank to attack. He appears to know more about X and Zero's pasts than he lets on.

Mega Man X2
Nothing is known of Serges' past. He is the head of the X-Hunters, who took over Sigma's rebellion in his absence to continue the war. The rebellion laid low at first, quietly analyzing X and the Maverick Hunters while researching and repairing the parts of Zero recovered from the last battle. However, without Zero's control chip they could not fully resurrect him.

Six months after Sigma's defeat, the Maverick Hunters raid an old factory that is mass-producing weapons and Mechaniloids for the Maverick army. The X-Hunters watch the attack from afar in their Arctic fortress, affirming that they will not underestimate X.

After X destroys two of the eight Mavericks, Serges and the X-Hunters grow anxious. They challenge X to a series of duels, using the rebuilt parts of Zero's body as bait. Serges is the second to stop awaiting X's arrival among the stages, but if X defeats him before he leaves, he will relinquish one third of Zero's body - his head - before retreating.

Serges later reappears as the boss of X-Hunter Stage 2 to challenge X again, this time piloting a large combat vehicle. X defeats him, and Serges cryptically mentions a prophecy before exploding.

Mega Man Xtreme
Serges reappears as a data recreation within Sigma Stage 2, being the only X-Hunter to do so. He seems to have no will or thoughts of his own, being composed only of battle data. X defeats him and moves on.

First encounter
When encountered in one of the hidden rooms, Serges rides a low floating spiked platform and will release mines onto the floor via a hatch on the bottom of the platform. It is best to try and destroy the mines as he drops them, as he can quickly line the floor with them, restricting the player's movements, and stepping on them causes heavy damage. He also attacks by spin-jumping into the air and firing off energy shots from his hat in a circular motion. Serges protects himself with an energy barrier and is invulnerable while it is active. The barrier is created by his platform and only protects him while he is on it, making him an easy target while he is flipping around and shooting his little energy shots. The barrier is programmed to activate when the FIRE button is pressed. This is important because it will activate while the player charges up a shot, but not when the player releases that shot. The player can use this to their advantage by making sure the first charge shot hits, and saving the second one for when he's away from his pod.

While it is wise to destroy the mines Serges covers the floor with, it is also a good strategy to leave them there, as having so many around will cause slowdown (at least on the SNES version). The player can take advantage of the slowdown to dodge Serges' many energy shots with less stress. Combining the slowdown with understanding how his barrier works, makes for a much easier fight. Serges will also continue to do his flipping energy shots attack if he has all his mines placed, leaving himself outside the protection of his barrier more frequently. It is also worth noting that if X charges up Silk Shot, Serges will pause and laugh for as long as the player continues to hold down the FIRE button, and the shrapnel is attached to X's Buster, giving X an opportunity to fire away at him as his barrier will be down. His weakness in this encounter is the Sonic Slicer. If the player is clever, instead of striking Serges directly head-on with a Sonic Slicer, the player can fire it at a wall, allowing it to rebound and strike Serges from behind - his barrier does not seem to protect him from rear assaults, or when the FIRE button has not been pressed for a while after a weapon has been fired. Another advantage of the Sonic Slicer is that if you have the X-Buster upgrade, you can charge the Sonic Slicer which will release several Sonic Slicers vertically in a wide spread that will come down & take out some of the mines (or all of them if you aim right).

The third method is to use the Spin Wheel on the barrier when he is on the platform. The Spin Wheel can also be used to sweep the mines off the floor. When he jumps and scatter shots from his hat-like head part, time your charged X-Buster right and hit him-because while jumping Serges won't be covered by the barrier.

Second encounter
Serges is encountered again in the second X-Hunter Stage, and will be piloting an enormous machine named the Serges Tank (サーゲスタンク) that takes up a large portion of the right side of the screen, with four platforms moving up and down in the room. The floor is also lined with spikes, which can make this battle a bit tricky. He attacks by firing a variety of energy balls and laser beams from the four cannons mounted on the front of the vehicle, after two of the cannons are destroyed he will close in destroying two platforms in the process. After, the remaining cannons are destroyed, the front of the machine will be blown open and Serges will continue to attack by firing large energy bullets (that split four ways) via the small cannon mounted on the bottom of his cockpit. The Giga Attack is very effective, as it is one of the quickest ways to tear the machine open to expose Serges. This also has the benefit of causing him to destroy only one platform instead of two, giving the player more room to maneuver during the second stage of the battle. Charged Silk Shots, Sonic Slicers, Speed Burners, and Magnet Mines are also good choices. Especially charged Silk Shots are just as effective as the Giga Attack in destroying the cannons and ripping the machine open.

After the machine has been blown open, stand on the bottom part of the tank below Serges' cockpit and keep hitting him with fully charged Sonic Slicers. His projectiles can still hit X, but they rarely will as long as the player does some simple dodging from time to time; X is also relatively safe from being knocked onto the spiked floor.

Mega Man Xtreme
Serges serves as the boss of the second final stage in this game. As with the second encounter in Mega Man X2, he approaches from the right. The four barrels fire slow moving projectiles, with the exception of the bottom portion, which is a highly damaging laser. Destroy the outer set of guns with Electric Spark - if done quickly, he will not advance all the way.

Once the outer guns are destroyed, the player can attack with Speed Burner. If X runs out of energy, the player may want to switch to Storm Tornado, since that is the easiest method to land a hit (even though he only takes minimal damage). He is also slightly weak to Rolling Shield, however it is sometimes hard to hit him with it. The X-Buster will also suffice, as long as it's fully charged.

Other appearances

 * Serges, along with the other X-Hunters, has a short cameo appearance in the animated opening scene of the Sega Saturn, PlayStation, and PC versions of Mega Man X3.
 * The X-Hunters also make a cameo appearance in the opening cutscene of Mega Man X5.
 * Serges appeared in Battle Memory from Rockman Xover.
 * Serges appeared as an unit card in TEPPEN.

Mega Man X2 stats

 * Power: 10300rp
 * Speed: 12300rp

Rockman X2 manga
Serges appeared in the manga.

Archie Comics
Serges later appeared alongside various other Mavericks in the Worlds Unite crossover between the Archie Comics Mega Man and Sonic the Hedgehog lines.

Quotes

 * "This is their leader. His name is Mega Man X."


 * "Our Mavericks will keep him busy until we are ready."


 * "Collection is preceding as scheduled. However, we are having problems with the control chip."


 * "I am not sure our Mavericks can hold him long enough. We may have to intervene."


 * "Greetings. We have all of Zero's parts."


 * "I am Serges and I cannot allow you to stop the unification! It is for the good of all!" (First encounter.)


 * "You have merely delayed the inevitable. We will meet again..." (First encounter, defeated, but escapes.)


 * "This is impossible! The prophecy must be fulfilled!" (Second encounter, defeated.)

Etymology

 * "Serges" (サーゲス Sāgesu) derived from the French word Sagesse ("wisdom" サジェス Sajesu), given that Violen and Agile follow the same naming convention. This is also reflected in the name of his second boss fight being romanized as "Sagesse Tank" instead of "Serges Tank". Both are valid translations of the original Japanese text.

Trivia

 * Serges appears in the menu to laugh at the player if they input an invalid password in Mega Man X2.
 * When fighting him in one of the Maverick stages, it is possible to be hit and take one unit of damage from Serges's cape by jumping just after his health bar is filled up. Though it only does one unit of damage, this will instantly charge the Giga Crush if the player has acquired it.


 * Like Isoc from Mega Man X6, there is a prominent theory that Serges is actually a robot avatar of Dr. Wily. Although the US localization of Mega Man X2 removes all references to this, it's strongly implied in the original Japanese in-game text: Serges is the only character to refer to Dr. Light by name as his final words are "Being defeated by the robotic memento of Light yet again... Such regret...". His Japanese profile also specifies that his appearance resembles "a legendary mad scientist who terrorized the world." In his first radio conversation, amid the initial radio distortion, he refers to X as "Rockman X" ("Rock... e..X..." ); this is notable because, in contrast to the US releases, no one else in the series ever refers to him as anything but "X". Sigma also claims that he recently discovered Zero is "destined to follow him", later clarifying that this is because Zero is one of Wily's Numbers ("However, Zero.. why... he was.. the last of... Wi.. Num.. bers....", ), both of which are unlikely to be common knowledge. Most importantly, Serges was also the one who rebuilt Zero, and upgraded to him his completed state per his original blueprints as seen in Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters. Given that there's no explanation for how he was able to obtain these blueprints, and that Zero's internal systems are still considered to be a mystery by the Hunters in X5, these feats might be explained by Serges being Wily.
 * Contradicting the theory of Serges being Wily, in Mega Man X5 Sigma describes having "recently acquired a new partner" in "an old man" who "created quite a few robots" and whom Zero has met "in his dreams"; these statements among other evidence heavily imply this new partner to be Dr. Wily or an avatar of Dr. Wily, and yet Sigma never mentions Serges at least by name despite X fighting him in Mega Man X2, and Serges by the time of Mega Man X5 would have been working with Sigma for quite some time as opposed to being "a new partner".
 * Keiji Inafune has said he would like not to answer whether Serges is Wily in order to leave imagination and fun for players. Additionally, he immediately clarified that Dr. Weil is not Wily. This is also seen as a compelling argument in favor of this theory.


 * Much like Dr. Wily, Serges strictly utilized vehicles in combat, rather than fighting directly. The name "Serges Tank" is the same naming convention used for most of Wily's vehicles, and is similar to several of them in design.


 * Branching off the theory that either, or both, Isoc and Serges are Wily, another theory suggests that Wily may be a stream of consciousness that transfers bodies as a host. This may explain how Serges was able to build a new body for Zero despite remaining unanalyzable, how Wily allegedly built a body for Sigma (implied by Sigma in X5), and how Isoc possessed enough knowledge of Zero to fully immobilize him on contact. This theory hinges on the aftermath of Gate's defeat in Mega Man X6, whereupon Isoc's body suddenly becomes a lifeless shell; it isn't clear if this is because of Gate's death, or Sigma's sudden appearance. Furthermore, while Isoc says nothing during X's version of this cutscene, Zero's differs in that a voice coming from Isoc's body, distinctly labeled as "??" (despite having Isoc's voice), refers to him the strongest "robot", rather than "reploid". This is similar to how Serges, in X2, is the only character to refer to X as "Rockman", rather than simply "X".


 * It's important to note that, in Inafune's own words, Dr. Wily was "brought back by the virus" after his natural death. This would suggest that Wily's personality is present in the virus, in some form, but may have difficulty manifesting itself, which would explain why his appearances throughout the series are so infrequent.


 * Another theory suggests that Agile, Violen, and Serges are a collective embodiment of Dr. Wily, with each one representing a particular aspect of his personality. Of the three, Serges has the most physical resemblance to Wily, which may be symbolic of Wily's intellect being his greatest asset.


 * In the English version, he seems to hold Zero's resurrection to an almost religious fervor, as he claims in the first encounter that the "unification" of Zero would be for the good of all, and when being defeated for the final time, he is adamant that the prophecy relating to Zero needed to be fulfilled.