Characters / Mega Man X - Villains

Mega Man X | Main Character Index
Heroes (X | Zero) | Villains (Sigma | True mastermind) | Maverick Bosses | Supporting Cast

---

The major antagonists and villains of the X series. The majority are Reploids who are Mavericks and are organized according to game in which they are introduced.

---

Mavericks

Mavericks are Reploids who rebel against humans and are a threat to them and other Reploids. The causes of a Reploid becoming a Maverick could be software bugs, viruses, reprogramming, by their own free will upon deciding that humans are inferior and too weak to live (or some variation of this thought), or even being judged so by the people in charge with varying degrees of justification or lack thereof. They are main antagonists of the series.

---

Sigma

Click here for tropes on him

Vile (VAVA)

Voiced by: Mugihito (JP, X8, DiVE (Goliath boss)), Hiroshi Shimozaki (JP, Maverick Hunter X, DiVE (playable)), Roger Rhodes (ENG, X8, Maverick Hunter X), Lee Tockar (Mega Man animated series)

A former Maverick Hunter who was detained for use of excessive force, released by Sigma to act as his second in command in the first game (or take on both X and Sigma in Maverick Hunter X). He is later revived by Dr. Doppler as "Vile MK-II" in X3 to help capture X, but ends up trying to kill him instead. After a long absence from the series, he returns in X8 as "Vile V" to kidnap Lumine and spearhead the new-generation Reploid revolution. He can be distinguished by his use of Ride Armor, his shoulder cannon, and his Boba Fett-esque helmet.

---

• Affably Evil: A very understated aspect of his character. In X3, he laughs that Dr. Doppler wanting X alive is very "kind" of him. Later in X8, he snidely says "How nice to see you again, X!" and later "Chill out X... Let's enjoy this little reunion". In Maverick Hunter X, he fights Sting Chameleon with an "if you say so!" with some sort respect. Most of the time, he's much less subtle and more psychotic.
• And Then What?: The fatal flaw of Vile in his story mode of Maverick Hunter X. Upon being told by Sigma that X is undoubtedly the one who holds the key to deciding the world's future, the resentful Vile refuses to accept this, and pushes that he will be the one who will change the world...Except, Vile himself has no clue what he'd actually DO with such a thing, acting on spite alone without any greater cause. Sigma himself easily susses this, point-blank asking Vile what he'd have done if he'd made it to him, whereupon Vile can only laugh and admit he wasn't sure himself.
• Another Side, Another Story: Vile Mode in Maverick Hunter X, featuring him as a Villain Protagonist, going against Sigma's forces because he wants to show Sigma that he's the better Reploid than X.
• Anti-Air: In Vile Mode, his Shoulder Cannon is suited for attacking enemies above him. Also, while leg weapons are usually designated air-to-ground weapons, they can be anti-airs too with certain weapons such as the Splash Hit napalm (creates a vertical tornado), Peace Out Roller and Stubborn Crawler ball (can roll up the wall), Hot Icicle ball (aims for the ceiling), and Burning Drive flamethrower (flame burst that hits around him).
• Arm Cannon: Only in Vile Mode, or the boss fight against him in the remake. It can either be a vulcan, a missile launcher, or a Rocket Punch.
• Ax-Crazy: Maverick Hunter X shows him as an extremely unstable and violent Maverick, with a very short temper and tendency to get into fights with no reason. At the final cutscene in his story mode, he brutally beats up X while laughing.
• Back from the Dead: In X3, where he was revived by Doppler, and in X8, when he just inexplicably appears.
• Back for the Finale: Basically the whole reason for his presence in X8; played more literally in Sigma Palace.
• Backpack Cannon: In Maverick Hunter X and X8, his cannon is mounted onto his backpack instead of his right shoulder. And in Vile Mode, it can alternatively fire lasers or cutters.
• Badass Boast: In X1:
  Vile: You worthless piece of scrap metal, did you think you could defeat me?
• Berserk Button: At least in Maverick Hunter X, mentioning X or his potential will make him deeply violent. Not that it's hard to set him off in the first place, but still.
• Boomerang Comeback: In Vile Mode, the cutters shot by Metal Crescent and Quick Homesick will return to Vile if they're not destroyed. The latter can also bring items back to him.
• Brought to You by the Letter "S": In the first game he had the Maverick "Σ" insignia on his helmet, but gained his own logos for future appearances. In X3 it's a yellow "V" with a skull behind it, and in X8 it's a lightning bolt. In Maverick Hunter X, it's a striking red "V" logo.
• The Cameo: He cameos in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, but not in Zero's ending - instead, he's in PTX-40A's ending.
  • He also appears in Mega Man Zero 2 as a summoned illusion in one of Phoenix Magnion's attacks, and on a poster in a shop in Mega Man Battle Network 1.
• Cold Flames: In Vile Mode, one of his flamethrower weapons, Sea Dragon's Rage, is a special flamethrower that shoots blue flame... that freezes enemies instead of burning them. It's the only flamethrower that can be used underwater.
• Cyber Cyclops: Most often in his Vile MK-II design from X3 and Project X Zone 2. However, he also had one in the Ruby-Spears Mega Man cartoon.
• Death of a Thousand Cuts: In Vile Mode, this is how his vulcans work (with the exception of Distance Needler, with less rapid fire but more damage each shot), as well as the vulcan of his Ride Armor. His Longshot Gizmo cannon also rapidly fires multiple blasts. His Straight Nightmare laser, Marooned Tomahawk cutter, Splash Hit and Bang Away Bomb napalms, Stubborn Crawler ball weapon and all of his flamethrowers (except for Burning Drive) also deal multiple hits per shot.
• Deflector Shields: In Vile Mode, in a variant, his Territorial Pow napalm releases spheres of energy when it explodes, that will block enemy shots.
• Depending on the Writer: X1 establishes Vile as a simple but dangerous Psycho for Hire loyal to Sigma. Then X3 emphasizes his independence and his boiling grudge against X. Then he takes a huge shift in X8, where he's an Affably Evil, nihilistic futurist who is totally loyal to Sigma's space race. Then in Maverick Hunter X, he's a petty Green-Eyed Monster and Wild Card who forges his own path and has no respect for Sigma at all.
• Difficult, but Awesome: In Vile Mode he starts with even less health than X, has no dash upgrade, and can only bring three weapons into a stage at a time, but those three weapons are all hotkeyed and provide him plenty of options for firing upward and downward. His weapons also have rapidly regenerating ammo, and his shoulder and leg weapons can be spammed in mid-air to hang in the air and perform an odd pseudo-gliding maneuver much like the Magma Blade glitch. Finally, every stage has Vile's signature Ride Armor somewhere in it, though it runs on a timer and eventually breaks down.
• Do Not Run with a Gun: In Vile Mode, he'll abruptly stop (even in midair) when he fires his shoulder and leg weapons.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: When Armored Armadillo says that he pities Vile's lack of respect for authority and refusal to follow orders, Vile furiously bites back that Armadillo knows nothing about him, so he can save his pity.
• The Dragon: Lampshaded by Zero:
  Vile: Don't you ever get tired of the whole "justice" thing?
  Zero: Don't you ever get tired of being Sigma's lapdog?
• Dumb Muscle: Downplayed, as he's not stupid, just way too trigger-happy and kill-crazy, but it's clear whenever he shows up his superiors aren't using him for his brains, but his sheer ability to cause mass destruction.
• Epic Flail: One of Vile’s concept designs for his debut was originally going to have a ball and chain for a hand, before the developers settled on the character having 2 hands. Said design would later be used for Vile during the events of Worlds Unite.
• Evil Laugh: Loves to do this, especially in X8.
• Expy:
  • Has a lot in common with Bass, being The Rival of their era's Mega Man and who rebels against their superiors because of it.
  • Surpisingly, he is not based on Boba Fett - rather, Naoya Tomita has stated that he was inspired by Bubba Zanetti from Mad Max. Tomita liked how Bubba stood out as an especially cool and dangerous minion of Toecutter, a step above the others, and wanted Vile to embody a similar archetype. Hence his Japanese name, Vava, which sounds a lot like Bubba in Japanese. Tomita did recognize that most people must assume he's based on Boba, though.
  • In Maverick Hunter X, he becomes one of Jagi, due to both being The Resenter to The Hero, fight using heavy artillery and dirty tricks, and both wearing a face-concealing helmet.
• The Faceless: One wonders if there is a face underneath that helmet at all. Artwork for Vile MK-II shows him with a red eye, though if it is meant to indicate a face or if he is a Cyber Cyclops is unknown. The manga adaptation of X2 shows his skull-like remains.
• The Fatalist: Becomes this in X8, claiming the new gen Reploid uprising was inevitable and that Reploids are destined to cause destruction. In other games he's not so much.
• Finger Firearms: Has vulcans hidden in his fingertips.
• Foil: To X, especially in Maverick Hunter X. While X's emotions hold him back and make him hesitate, Vile's emotions make him impulsive and destructive. X embodies the goodness of humanity possible in every Reploid, while Vile embodies the cruelty of humanity. This is why Sigma sent him after X in the first place - to make him face his opposite as the ultimate test.
• Final Boss Preview: The first game had him attack you in his Ride Armor at the end of the first level. You could with some skill get into a pattern of dodging his paralyzing shot and returning fire, but the game won't continue until you get hit by it and force Zero to come help you. You can also accidentally die by touching him while low on health.
• Generic Doomsday Villain: In the original version, Vile was both a scripted obstacle to be overcome and henchman to Sigma with an interesting design. The remake, Maverick Hunter X, tries to rectify this a childish rivalry/jealousy with X, as well as state that Vile's insubordination/Maverick tendencies stem from a defect in his suffering circuit, which allows him to follow any order he chooses. It stays true to his appearance in Project × Zone.
• A Glass in the Hand: Vile, or rather, VAVA, did this to a glass of liquid in the manga adaptation, as a demonstration of how it matters little to him as to what's in the drink to X (he comments that Reploids can't tell the difference between bourbon or mud in a glass). Such was even given a Mythology Gag with his upcoming D-Arts action figure, where it shows him with a glass of bourbon and even comes with it.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Maverick Hunter X implies that he is highly jealous of Sigma's interest in X as potentially being the most powerful Reploid. He sets out to destroy X in order to prove himself superior.
• Ground Wave: In Vile Mode, his Sword Bouquet ball weapon is a ball of flame that creates a wave of flames on the ground. Inverted with Hot Icicle ball weapon, which is similar to Sword Bouquet but runs on the ceiling.
• Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: Maverick Hunter X features this as the Final Boss battle if you play as Vile. Beat X and Zero, and the following cutscene shows them seriously damaged. Then they pull themselves together, stomp you with one shot, and leave you to die. Great reward.
  • When you play as X, the intro-stage battle with Vile has been changed from a Hopeless Boss Fight to one of these. You have to do a certain amount of damage, but then Vile will simply waste you; Zero's entrance then proceeds on schedule.
• Hero Killer: In the first game. Even with all the upgrades, you can't beat him while he's in his Ride Armor, and he even manages to beat Zero, who performs a Heroic Sacrifice just to destroy his Ride Armor and give X a fighting chance.
• Hidden Disdain Reveal: Tells Storm Eagle he's "always hated" him right before the two face off in Vile Mode.
• Homing Projectile: His Infinity Gig Rocket Punch can home in enemies, hitting them multiple times until they're destroyed.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: The iconic intro boss fight with him in X1 is this. Again in the Sigma Palace, before Zero destroys his Ride Armor. This is given a Mythology Gag in DiVE where the Goliath is invincible, forcing the player to dodge his attacks, until ViA appears and evens the playing field, allowing the player to fight him for real.
• Human Popsicle: In X8, he's weak to Avalanche Yeti's weapons; he'll freeze if he's hit by those weapons.
• Iconic Item: His shoulder cannon. His helmet might also count, although it's already iconic to someone else. On that note, in X8, his the color of his armor/helmet is changed from purple to green, and he uses a jetpack during his encounters with the heroes.
• Informed Ability: His combat process in the original game. Outside of the Ride Armor, which the player can't damage, his abilities are woefully unimpressive. Future appearances, including the remake of his debut game, would later show all that firepower Vile's been storing and then some...
• Irrational Hatred: He detests X to the point that he relishes in making life hell for him for the sake of it.
• Jerkass: Especially in Maverick Hunter X-
  Vile: Rebellion? I couldn't care less. I just hate you, that's all!
• Kick Them While They Are Down: Happens at the end of Vile Mode, to X. Also at the intro stage of his mode, after you beat X, where he shoots the grounded X twice before Zero rescues him.
• Laughing Mad: His reaction right after killing off his enemies, and in X8 hard mode, the last thing heard from him before his offscreen demise.
• Large Ham: In Maverick Hunter X. Sigma can at least restrain himself in a normal conversation, but every bit of Vile's dialogue barely contains his pride and anger.
• Leg Cannon: One of his moves (both as a boss and as playable) involve shooting bombs, balls or fire from his knees.
• Meaningful Name: Violent, cruel, egotistic, and generally an unpleasant person - he is indeed pretty vile.
• Mini-Mecha: It just wouldn't be Vile without his Ride Armor.
  • The one from X1 is an unnamed one which is indestructible to X, whereas Zero shot off its arm in the opening stage and then fully destroyed it in the first Sigma stage.
  • In the secret level of X3, he rides a modified version of the Kangaroo Ride Armor. Should you fight him in the second Dr. Doppler stage, he has a brand new one called "Goliath".
  • In X8 he comes with the Devil Bear Ride Armor, and he operates it through a remote link.
• Mirror Match: In X DiVE, it's possible for the player to fight Goliath, already piloted by Vile, while playing as Vile.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Thanks to a possible Woolseyism.
• Nominal Hero: Back when he was still a Maverick Hunter. Oh sure, he could hunt Mavericks down with the best of them...it's just that not only was he more interested in killing Mavericks than actually saving civilians, he couldn't care less how much property he destroyed or if any civilians got caught in the crossfire of his hunts.
• One Bullet at a Time: In Vile Mode, he can only fire his Rocket Punch, shoulder weapons (except for Straight Nightmare and Marooned Tomahawk) and flamethrower one at a time.
• One-Hit Polykill: In Vile Mode, his Distance Needler vulcan, Egoistic Pill and Infinity Gig rocket punches, his laser weapons (except for Cerberus Phantom and Necro Burst), his cutter weapons (except for Metal Crescent), his ball weapons (except for Deadstar Hug) and his flamethrowers (except for Burning Drive) can pierce through multiple enemies.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: In Maverick Hunter X, his motivation is changed into him trying to prove his superiority over X to everyone. In Vile Mode, that includes the usual 8 Maverick commanders and the various Maverick minions of Sigma themselves.
• Optional Boss: In X3, he's an optional boss you can encounter in the 8 Maverick stages. Depending on whether you defeat him with his weakness or not, you may or may not encounter him in the final stages. In X8, whenever you enter the Multi-Mook Melee rooms, there's a chance that he'll appear instead of those mooks as a Mini-Boss; he's still fought like a normal boss in the final stages later.
• The Paralyzer: In X1, he shoots a sphere of electricity that paralyzes X to capture him. He also uses this move when fought for real at the Sigma Palace, and later in X3 a spread variant too.
• Person of Mass Destruction: Vile is a walking arsenal, easily the most heavily-armed foe X has ever had to contend with; he made it to rank SA on his power alone —it certainly wasn't for his professional conduct— on the same echelon as Zero, and he can readily spread the mass-annihilation to prove it.
• Practically Joker: A psychopath with purple ^note And in X8, green as his main color, a irreparable defect in his electrical circuit brain, loves causing destruction for the hell of it even when he was a Maverick Hunter, has a tendency to disobey or talk back to people who try to reign him in, laughs like crazy, tries to torture and corrupt the Hero (In this case, X, the idealist of the Maverick Hunters) into a version of himself while saying that they’re the reason they exist (Especially in the X3 manga and Project X Zone 2), and even come back from death or outright survive it, Vile is a Maverick version of the Clown Prince of Crime. Additionally, both work with ^note And/or disobey a stoic Bald of Evil character with secret megalomaniacal ambitions (Sigma and Lex Luthor), and even strike up a Villainous Friendship with someone as psychotic as them, as seen with Zagi in Project X Zone 2.
• Promoted to Playable: In Maverick Hunter X, Vile Mode is available after you beat the story as X.
• Psychopathic Manchild: In Maverick Hunter X, Vile tends to act like an angry teenager half the time, leading to situations where he erupts into a tantrum because Armored Armadillo, who he'd previously been mocking, said he pitied him, and one where a civil conversation with Storm Eagle turns into a death match because Vile apparently doesn't like his face. This serves as a further contrast to the naive-but-well-mannered X. Other Mavericks even treat him like a school bully in need of counseling. It's averted with Sting Chameleon, who always respected Vile and was happy to see him, though they fight regardless.
• Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: In Vile Mode, his Spoiled Brat rocket punch is weak, but fires the fastest out of his rocket punches, allowing for multiple punches in a second.
• The Rival: Played up in the retelling of Maverick Hunter X, whereupon it was established he was this in more of a "bully"-situation-gone-nuclear sort of way to X.
• Rocket Punch: He can acquire these in Maverick Hunter X.
• Sensual Spandex: Strangely evoked in Maverick Hunter X. When he's on foot his butt is clearly visible through his spandex.
• Shock and Awe: His desperation attack in X8.
• Shoulder Cannon: In X1 and X3, his cannon is mounted onto his right shoulder.
• Shout-Out: Not to Boba Fett, but rather to Bubba Zanetti from Mad Max. The fact that "v" and "b" sounds are basically identical in Japanese means that his VAVA name could be translated as BABA, putting the icing on the cake.
• The Sociopath: A ridiculously low functioning one. Vile is needlessly cruel, overly violent, and has non-existent impulse control.
• Sociopathic Soldier: Due to an irreparable circuit in Vile's brain, Vile has a rather...disturbing way of dealing with Mavericks (he seems to not only intensely love destroying Mavericks, but also causing as much damage as possible, leading him to harm civilians and even fellow Hunters), which was one of the reasons why he ended up branded a Maverick and placed in the brig before Sigma released him for his revolt.
• Sphere of Destruction: In Vile Mode, his Necro Burst laser weapon isn't an actual laser; rather, it's a quick, powerful burst of energy from his cannon that decimates enemies in a radius around him. It's powerful enough to (almost) kill the mini-boss in the opening stage in one hit.
• Spread Shot: In X8 he can fire multiple cannon blasts in a spray burst fashion.
  • In Vile Mode, his Buckshot Dance and Triple 7 vulcans also fire in a spray burst fashion, as does Metal Crescent cutter and Trident Line cannon.
  • His Cerberus Phantom laser weapon fires 3 lasers in a fan-out fashion, as does Two-Headed Slash (2 cutters).
  • A number of his weapons are of the "exploding shot" variety, such as all of his Napalm weapons (obviously), the Popcorn Demon missile (the missiles split into 3 after flying a short range), Fire Murrain cannon (spreads its explosions after destroying enemies), and Peace Out Roller ball weapon (splits into 2 balls after touching a surface).
• The Starscream: Decidedly this, at least in Maverick Hunter X.
• Technicolor Fire: In Vile Mode, his flamethrower weapons (aside from his default one, Wild Horse Kick, with natural fire color) throw out differently-colored flames. His Sword Bouquet and Hot Icicle ball weapons also use pinkish and blue fire respectively.
• Tornado Move: In Vile Mode, his Straight Nightmare laser fires a horizontal cyclone similar to X's Storm Tornado that goes slowly forward and hits multiple times. His Splash Hit napalm creates a vertical tornado upon exploding that also hits multiple times, based on Launch Octopus' whirlpool move.
• Unexplained Recovery: Unlike Sigma who's got the excuse of being a computer virus, Vile has no explanation for how he's been able to survive exploding so many times aside from someone salvaging whatever's left of him to rebuild him for whatever job requires overwhelming firepower.
• Villain Decay: His first appearance portrays him as an undefeatable Hero Killer that walks all over X, manages to incapacitate even Zero, and forces a Heroic Sacrifice from the latter just to destroy his Ride Armor and give X a fighting chance. He's still fairly tough in later appearances, but never manages to attain that level of sheer badass again. Even Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X retcons away Vile's undefeatable status from the first game, removing all the Hopeless Boss Fights against him (the first fight is beatable, and second skips right past the Ride Armor section of the fight,) and making it that even in his Ride Armor, the only way he can get the upper hand on X is via ambushes and cheap shots and his own campaign ends with him getting beaten by X and Zero without ever getting a chance to face off against Sigma.
• Voice of the Legion: The Japanese version of X8 gives Vile a hellish reverb to disguise Mugihito's voice, giving a terrifying raspy voice worthy of Death himself. The dub does not reflect this, however.
• Walking Armory: As Zero notes, Vile was "designed to be a war machine." In every appearance he's had at least two or three different weapons at his disposal, not counting his affinity for Ride Armors:
  • In X1, he has his shoulder cannon's Electroshock Round, a spread attack from his knee's Head Bombs, and jet-powered dash and jump attacks. Then Maverick Hunter X's Vile Mode updates his arsenal with Special Weapons such as Rising Specter, Bang Away Bomb, Splash Hit, and more!
  • In X3, he has an upgraded shoulder cannon paralyzer shot, a fire pillar from his knee bombs, an additional machine gun on his other shoulder, and a dashing grapple attack where he physically punishes X.
  • In X8, he has his shoulder cannon's homing lightning shots, a Fire Stream bomb from his other shoulder, a Macross Missile Massacre, a devastating net of electric tendrils, and even throwing out Bindholders.
  • Maverick Hunter X's Vile Mode subverts this slightly for gameplay balance - while Vile collects an entire category of new weapons from each boss (45 in total), he is only allowed to equip three at a time.
• Wave-Motion Gun: In Vile Mode, his Rising Specter laser is one large continuous purple laser. It can only be aimed upward at 45° angle unlike other shoulder weapons. Downplayed with his other laser weapon Nervous Ghost, which is similar but green, weaker, narrower and aimable.
• We Used to Be Friends: With Sting Chameleon, as shown by Maverick Hunter X's Vile Mode^note They're even voiced by the same guy!, with Vile, of all people, asking Chameleon (If a little rude about it) to stand down and let him pass, in contrast to his interactions with Chill Penguin, Boomer Kuwanger, Spark Mandrill, Flame Mammoth, Launch Octopus, Armored Armadillo, and ESPECIALLY Storm Eagle, though the former Maverick Hunter of the 9th Special Forces tells him they'll have fight, with Vile reluctantly agreeing.

  Vile: If you say so... I won't let you or Sigma stand in my way!

• Wild Card: Even as far back as X3. Although his bio in the original game implies that he was always a wild card (something about being rebellious towards his superiors).
  • Lampshaded by himself in Maverick Hunter X's Vile Mode, in the intro stage:
    Vile: Sigma... I may be the wildcard you hadn't counted on!
• Wreathed in Flames: In Vile Mode, his Burning Drive flamethrower isn't a normal flamethrower - it instead creates a quick burst of flame around his body that heavily damages all around him.
• Writing Around Trademarks: The reason for his Dub Name Change.

The X-Hunters (Counter Hunters)

In General

A trio of Mavericks who have dedicated themselves to defeating X, serving as the main antagonists in Mega Man X2. They challenge X to one-on-one duels with Zero's rebuilt body as the bait. Their members are Agile, Serges (Sagesse), and Violen. A fourth member, χ-kai-, was later introduced via merchandise before appearing in Mega Man X DiVE.

---

• Big Bad Duumvirate: They act as the major antagonists of Mega Man X2 alongside Sigma, who remains behind the scenes until their destruction.
• Big, Thin, Short Trio: Violen is the big one, Agile is the thin one and Serges is the short one.
• The Cameo: They all appear in X3 and X5's openings. Agile also appears as one of Phoenix Magnion's summoned illusions from Mega Man Zero 2.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Though they appear to be the Big Bad, Sigma is revealed to be still alive and behind everything after both they and their fortress are destroyed.
• Decomposite Character: They're based on three original designs for Sigma from X1, which were combined to create the final version seen in the game. Violen has his size and strength, Agile has his Laser Blade and height, and Serges has his cape.
• Meaningful Name: All three - Agile and Violen are obvious; Serges' original name, "Sagesse", is french for "wisdom", apt for a Mad Scientist.
• Quirky Miniboss Squad: A trio of Mavericks specializing in speed, strength, and smarts, who act as Sigma's chief underlings in X2.
• Optional Boss: A variant: They can be optionally encountered in the main eight stages, and defeating each of them gives you parts of Zero's body. Whether you did that or not, though, you will encounter them (again) in the final stages, though Serges and Agile use different forms.
• The Remnant: They (along with their eight Mavericks) were part of the original rebellion six months prior.
• Sinister Silhouettes: Their first appearance hides them as silhouettes while they remark on X's capabilities.
• Sixth Ranger: χ-kai- is this to the other three, having joined long after the other X-Hunters had perished.
• Theme Naming: The names were originally French words: Agile (translating to Agile), Violent (the ending 'T' is silent), and Sagesse, French for Wisdom.

Serges (Sagesse)

Serges is the head of the X-Hunters, acting as their resident scientist and being the smartest of the trio.

---

• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Subverted. Serges is physically the weakest X-Hunter, relying on machines to fight, and is actually defeated before Agile. Despite this, his intelligence and planning made him a perfect leader for the Unification project.
• Back from the Dead: The Japanese script heavily implies that Serges is a robotic form of Dr. Wily. This is hinted through his dialogue with X, calling him "Rock" and the "last memento of Dr. Light".
• Evil Old Folks: Is designed to look like a little old man. If he's Wily like the game hints, then he'd be well over a hundred years old by now.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: His left eye looks distinctly more robotic and mechanical than his right, giving it the appearance of a monocle.
• Jack of All Stats: His power and speed^note Power: 10300rp Speed: 12300rp are relatively balanced compared to Agile^note Power: 9600rp Speed: 17800rp and Violen ^note Power: 18400rp Speed: 6200rp. It denotes his status as the smartest of the three.
• Mad Scientist: He's equal parts brilliant scientist and dangerous madman. And if he really is Wily, he's a mad enough scientist to damn the world to destruction all because of a petty grudge against Dr. Light.
• Miniature Senior Citizens: Serges seems to have built as a tiny robotic old man, which is an interesting design choice for a reploid (which is one of the hints to his true identity). Despite his appearance, he is nimble enough to perform a backflip while firing energy shots from his hat.
• Minor Major Character: He's a mysterious Reploid scientist who is able to rebuild Zero (and also create his Z-Saber) when no-one else could even understand his systems, and may or may not even be Dr. Wily himself. Despite this, he's killed off with little fanfare in his debut game, and is never mentioned again in any succeeding games.
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: In the English script, he talks about how reconstructing Zero as an evil robot was for the good of all. Given the implications that he is Dr. Wily, this seems more like a mask to get revenge for the defeats he suffered in the past, which is later cemented by Wily aiding Sigma in his doomsday plot that would rain destruction on the world and kill off all reploids and mankind.
• Riddle for the Ages: Despite several hints suggesting he may actually be Dr. Wily, from a similar appearance to his unusual knowledge of Zero's mysterious inner workings, nothing has ever confirmed or denied it. Even Keiji Inafune remained vague on the topic:
  I get a lot of people asking me if Serges is Wily. I always give them the same answer: "He might be... he might not be." (laughs) I think this is one of those things that is best left without an official comment.
• Something Only They Would Say: After being beaten in the Japanese version, Serges says that he regrets being defeated by "the robotic memento of Light". This suggests that he somehow knew Rock and Light, which point to Serges being Wily.
• Squishy Wizard: He fights with gadgets and vehicles rather than using his own body's powers.
• Tank Goodness: Pilots a massive tanklike vehicle for his second boss battle. Given the hints to his true identity, it's likely a throwback to the Wily Machines of old, sans the skulls.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: In his optional fight, his floating platform deploys an energy shield to protect him every time the fire button on the controller is pressed. It even does it during cutscenes. He's vulnerable only either in the air or from charged shots, which shoot when the fire button is released.
• This Cannot Be!: What Serges says after getting defeated the second time in the English version.
• Wrong-Name Outburst: In the original Japanese script, Serges has a momentary slip and refers to X as "Rock". As in DLN-001 Rock, the original Mega Man.

Agile

Agile is the strategist and the fastest of the group.

---

• Affably Evil: In the Japanese version, Agile has an exceedingly polite manner of speech.
• Artificial Stupidity: He's the easiest X-Hunter to beat during the initial battles thanks to his AI being incredibly exploitable. All you have to do to defeat him is hug the top corner of the closest wall, drop down when he fires a sword beam, shoot, and repeat. As long as you don't linger on the ground for too long, he will never change tactics and will go down before you know it.
• Bad Boss: In the X2 manga, Agile kills Flame Stag after his body upgrade goes out of control, and even beheads a Disk Boy 08 for trying to escape the X-Hunters' base, sadistically licking his laser sword afterwards.
• Laser Blade: Agile's weapon; it can even fire out Sword Beams.
• Lean and Mean: He's as thin as a rail, and a dangerous Maverick terrorist on top of that.
• Lightning Bruiser: He hits hard, his sword beams are massive and tricky to dodge, and he can close the distance between you and him in the blink of an eye.
• Logical Weakness: Being the quickest member of the group can be a disadvantage as Magnet Mines could leave him with significant damage to his lighter frame. In Bubble Crab or Flame Stag's stages, the Silk Shot is granted the ability to hurl rocks, another nasty surprise for Agile.
• One-Winged Angel: Agile's rematch fight has him as a powerful, but goofy looking spaceship as opposed to the cool android he initially appeared as. One wonders if he could change back.
  • Clipped-Wing Angel: In his normal form, his sword can block shots and he has good range of movement. In his rematch, he's a big, slow target, possibly for the Shoryuken not far from his room.
• Smug Smiler: Always has a condescending grin on his face.
• Tactical Suicide Boss: Downplayed version: Agile is perfectly capable of throwing his Sword Beams at a height that can't be dodged from above or below, but throws them up much higher for no particular reason if X climbs the wall, leaving plenty of room to drop under them and shoot him.
• The Strategist: Agile's function in the group.
• Undying Loyalty: Seems the most eager of the trio to resurrect Sigma, and even cries out for Sigma to avenge him before he dies.

Violen

Violen is the enforcer and the strongest of the group.

---

• Beast Man: It's subtle, but judging by his fangs and pig snout, he's a lot more animalistic than his comrades.
• The Brute: He's a hulking behemoth of a Maverick, and prefers to overwhelm X with his superior strength as opposed to the finesse of Agile or the careful strategies of Serges. And considering how dangerous his gigantic flail is when he starts swinging it around, it's really all he needs.
• Epic Flail: Violen's weapon is a flail tied to his ponytail.
• Finger Firearms: One of his attacks.
• Informed Flaw: Official materials characterize him as being the group's Dumb Muscle thanks to a flaw in his circuitry ^note His thinking circuitry is incomplete because he's built to focus on power, but he doesn't come off as any less intelligent than the other X-Hunters. Not only is he moderately well-spoken, but he's even intelligent enough to warn the others not to underestimate X.
• Prehensile Hair: Sort of. Remember where Violen's Epic Flail comes from?
• The Quiet One: He gets a lot less dialogue than the other X-Hunters, and usually prefers to let his mace do the talking.^note This may have something to do with his rate of speech being the slowest of the three X-Hunters, implying that he talks very slowly.
• Rocket Boots: He uses them to hover in the air while he shoots bullets from his fingers.
• Villain Forgot to Level Grind: While the other X-Hunters take on different forms when fought in the X-Hunter stages, Violen's fight remains unchanged from his optional encounter in the eight Maverick stages other than the addition of random floating blocks.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Violen is weak to Bubble Splash as well the Silk Shot when it is transformed into a leaf blower in Wire Sponge's stage, two weaknesses that might make one chuckle for how unlikely they are for weaknesses.

χ-kai-

χ is the fourth X-Hunter that was introduced in Mega Man X DiVE. He is a Evil Knockoff that Dr. Wily built from X's stolen blueprints. However, Dr. Wily chose to give up the project due to the immense difficulty in the creation of a logic circuit for the prototype. Later on, Serges came by the unfinished prototype by chance. He re-initiated χ and had him join the X-Hunters.

---

• All Your Powers Combined: He has access to the First Armor's Headbutt, the Second Armor's Giga Crush, the Third Armor's Cross Charge Shot, and the Ultimate Armor's Nova Strike.
• Arm Cannon: He has his own version of the X-Buster that's just as powerful as the original.
• Awesome, but Impractical: His main specialty is to inflict debuffs against other players and beefy PvE targets, but his primary functions suffer for it and put him beneath X's armors in terms of raw strength and versatility.
• Canon Immigrant: He was originally just a variant edition of the TruForce Collectibles' Designer Series of X figures based on the Keisuke Mizuno artwork made for an April Fool's Day joke, with only a small amount of backstory. He ended up becoming playable in Mega Man X DiVE and fully "canonized" as the fouth member of the X-Hunters. Well, sort of - X, RiCO and ViA are more than a little surprised to find out that there's a fouth X-Hunter, RiCO states that it's not canon to the original version of X2, and it's implied that his data is based on a theoretical alternate universe. However, his appearence in the game and the creation of his Hunter Program explicitly canonizes him as a Mega Man X character in some form.
• Clone Angst: He's aware of the fact he's a copy of X and it brings him a great deal of pain and anguish to the point of trying to kill X in order to gain an identity for himself. X actually expresses sympathy for him, but also tells him that doesn't justify the harm χ-kai- has inflicted on other people, especially innocent people who aren't his explicit target.
• Dark Is Evil: Possesses all black with red and gold coloring. He's just as villainous as you'd expect.
• Genre Savvy: He's aware of X's helpful nature and deliberately exploits this by starting a fight with Player, RiCO and ViA to try and draw X out, with the reasoning that X would come to help if his friends were in danger. It works.
• Meaningful Name: χ is pronounced "kai," like his subtitle. The word "kai" itself also means "modified" in Japanese, and χ is a model of X modified to Dr. Wily's tastes.
• Noble Demon: He actually abhors the usage of dirty tactics and prefers to fight his opponents on an equal playing field.
• Power Parasite: He's capable of stealing armor data and powering himself up if he successfully grabs X.
• Purple Is Powerful: He possesses a purple gem embedded in his forehead and many of his attacks are purple in color.
• Remember the New Guy?: Subverted. X was initially unaware of the existence of a fourth X-Hunter. RiCO and ViA also both lampshade the fact χ wasn't in Mega Man X2.
• Rocket Boots: He uses them to dash around.

Techno & The Shadow Hunters

Techno

A Maverick hacker and one of the primary antagonists of Mega Man Xtreme. With the help of Shadow Hunters, Geemel and Zain, he hacks into the Maverick Hunters’ Mother Computer and sets it to cause chaos worldwide. It’s later revealed that he was corrupted by Sigma, who had him pull off the hack in a bid to crush the Maverick Hunters. He’s also the twin brother of Middy and shares the same CPU as him.

---

• Alas, Poor Villain: As he dies he admits that Sigma corrupted him by taking advantage of his weak heart.
• Back from the Dead: Sort of. After his death in Normal Mode he returns in The Stinger of Hard Mode to tell you about Extreme Mode. This appearance clearly isn’t part of the story though so he’s still considered dead in canon.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Courtesy of Sigma.
• Cain and Abel: The Cain to Middy’s Abel, though it wasn’t his fault.
• The Cracker: A skilled hacker that’s working for Sigma.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: Dies in Middy’s arms- right before Middy dies as well due to them being twin brothers that share a CPU.
• Evil Counterpart: To Middy.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: Is brought back to his senses when X destroys the computer containing his CPU ^note X wasn’t aware of this at the time and was just attempting to prevent Techno from making a move with the computer, but it ends up killing him (and Middy) as well.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Middy’s statements imply that he was a decent person until Sigma corrupted him. He returns to his senses when X destroys the computer that (unbeknownst to X) contains his CPU- killing him in the process.
• Hijacked by Ganon: As it turns out, Techno is being mind-controlled into hacking the Maverick Hunters’ computer by Sigma.
• Hollywood Hacking: His hacking abilities are portrayed this way.
• Non-Standard Character Design: Techno's design is considerably simpler than everyone else in the game, and everyone else in the X series for that matter. He looks like he'd fit well in the Classic series.
• Theme Naming: He's named after techno music while his brother is named after a type of sound file.
• The Unfought: You don't get to fight him, though he’s probably not a fighter.

The Shadow Hunters

In General

A mysterious group formed of Geemel and Zain that helps Techno hack into the Mother Computer. Once X goes into cyberspace to fight back against the hack, the two digitize themselves to try to stop him. With Techno they serve as the primary antagonists of Mega Man Xtreme.

---

• Defeat Equals Friendship: Apparently Sigma had to defeat Geemel and Zain in order to get them to join his cause.
• Evil Counterpart: To X and Zero. Like those two, Geemel and Zain are both hunters of some kind (we’re never told what a “Shadow Hunter” is exactly), are a projectile user and sword user respectively, are partners and good friends (at least good enough for Geemel to refer to Zain as his “buddy” and vow to avenge him after he’s killed), and have contrasting personality types (Geemel is cunning while Zain is more focused on fighting, similar to how X is ideologically driven while Zero is more duty bound).
• Evil Duo: Geemel seems more intelligent and focused, if not somewhat unstable. Zain is a simple lover of combat.
• Expy: With Techno they serve as this to the X-Hunters, as they’re a Big, Thin, Short Trio of Mavericks that are initially presented as the main antagonists but are later revealed to be working for Sigma, can be optionally encountered (though only Geemel and Zain can be fought), and have similar personality types (the big one only cares about fighting, the thin one is cunning, and the short one is the smartest).
• Skippable Boss: You can encounter Zain and Geemel in the Maverick stages via an optional side-path. You get no apparent reward for fighting them this way, however.

Zain

Zain is the heavy-armored one who wields a massive sword. He appears as a boss in Normal Mode.

---

• BFS: His weapon of choice, complete with Spin Attack.
• Blood Knight: He's only interested in defeating X, although it's also entirely possible this is a result of him being a Flat Character.
• The Brute: He's the heavier of the two and seems to be only interested in fighting.
• Spin Attack: He can move while doing it in the rematch.

Geemel

Geemel is the light-armored one who utilizes ninja abilities. After witnessing the death of Zain in Normal Mode, he takes his place as a boss in Hard Mode.

---

• Avenging the Villain: He vows to avenge Zain after he's killed by X.
• The Cracker: In Hard Mode Geemel returns alone to hack the Mother Computer himself (as Techno and Zain died in Normal Mode). ^note Though considering he never displayed any hacking skills prior to this, he may simply be mimicking Techno’s work or enacting contingencies that Techno had already set up.
• Cyber Ninja: He has ninja-like abilities and enough hacking skill to mess up the Mother Computer himself.
• Dirty Coward: Not only does he turn tail and run when X reaches their hideout, but he leaves Techno behind in the process without batting an eye.
• Flash Step: His usual mode of transportation, when he isn't flying on a giant kite.
• Fuuma Shuriken: His weapon of choice.
• Giggling Villain: Kekeke!
• Ninja: He uses a Fuuma Shuriken, teleports, flies on a giant kite, and is very cunning.
• Verbal Tic: His "Kyee" and "Kekeke" laugh.

The Doppler Army

Dr. Doppler

A Reploid scientist who is one of the main antagonists in Mega Man X3. He developed an anti-virus to the Sigma Virus, and the Mavericks he helped reform built a city called Dopple Town around his lab. However, the anti-virus turned out to be little more than a placebo: Doppler himself was infected by the Sigma Virus and had just formed an army under the world's noses. After his defeat, Doppler snaps out of it and reveals he resurrected Sigma. He then helps X delete the Sigma Virus, sacrificing himself in the process (depending on the player's actions).

---

• Adaptational Backstory Change: In the Rockman X3 manga, he is a former colleague of Dr. Cain's, and the two confront each other on several occasions throughout the story for angst.
• Adaptational Villainy: The Mega Mission Carddass sets portray him as completely evil and the creator of the Big Bad of the story: the parasitic supercomputer called "Limited".
• Arc Villain: Of Mega Man X3.
• The Assimilator: Dr. Cain discovers that Dr. Doppler's been incorporating parts from the newest Reploids into a new battle body for Sigma. Doppler also reveals before his fight that he plans on incorporating X's body into it too, which is why he sent Mac and the Nightmare Police to kidnap him.
• Barrier Warrior: Fights with two different barriers: a defensive green one that absorbs shots when he stands still, and an offensive red one that turns into a wreath of fire when he dashes.
• The Coats Are Off: He throws off his lab coat right before you battle him.
• Disc-One Final Boss: To Sigma, yet again.
• Egopolis: Dopple Town/Dopplertown. He didn't come up with the idea as far as we know, but he must have approved it.
• Evil Genius: A renowned scientist gone bad.
• Expy: Of Dr. Cossack as the de facto Big Bad and a Reluctant Mad Scientist.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: He was once a good doctor who wanted to find a solution to the Sigma Virus. But then he was infected and caused others to become infected as well. After being defeated, he comes back to his senses and either gives Zero the real anti-virus or just uses it on Sigma himself.
• I Want Them Alive!: Tells Bit and Byte to recover X alive if possible (despite this, they still try to kill him).
• Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: A doctor, but the villain of the story. He was a good doctor, but alas...
• My God, What Have I Done?: After he is defeated, he feels remorse and to atone, he develops/completes an anti-virus to stop Sigma with his remaining health.
• Redemption Equals Death: In one ending, at least, he sacrifices himself to beat Sigma. The other ending leaves his fate unclear.
• Reluctant Mad Scientist: He was corrupted by Sigma.
• Shoulders of Doom: Has quite large shoulders even by Reploid standards, and especially when wearing his lab coat over them.
• Squishy Scientist: Has a fairly underwhelming and predictable boss moveset, befitting his nature as a scientist rather than a warrior.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Very reminiscent of Serges, another elderly Reploid mad scientist from X2. Isoc from X6 also carries this trend.
• Undying Loyalty: While under the control of Sigma, he holds him in very high regard and devotes his entire plan to perfecting his new body.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: In the manga, Doppler pulls one of these on Bit and Byte, forcibly fusing them into Godkarmachine O Inary against their will.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: In the ending where Zero uses the anti-virus on Sigma, Doppler is not mentioned again and his fate is left unclear. This has led some fans to speculate that the ending where he sacrifices himself using the anti-virus is the canon one.

The Nightmare Police

In General

Made up of the fast Bit (Vajurilla FF) and the strong Byte (Mandarilla BB), the Nightmare Police were the law of Dopple Town before Doppler's rebellion. They are deployed to hunt down and capture X, dead or alive, so Doppler can use his body in Sigma's resurrection. During the final levels they combine to form the powerful Godkarmachine O Inary, but are destroyed nonetheless.

---

• Adaptational Backstory Change: In the game, the Nightmare Police are merely loyal creations of Dr. Doppler. In the Rockman X3 manga, Doppler implies he somehow saved their lives in the past by giving them the Worm chips that make up their bodies, and they seem to serve Doppler more out of obligation than Undying Loyalty.
• Co-Dragons: To Dr. Doppler.^NoteVile is there too, but he kinda disregards Doppler to do his own thing.
• Combining Mecha / Fusion Dance / One-Winged Angel: As Godkarmachine O Inary.
• Fat and Skinny: Bit is somewhat lean, while Byte has a large belly.
• Lawman Gone Bad: Like Dr. Doppler, they were once benevolent peacemakers, but have been infected by Sigma Virus.
• Magnum Opus: Similar to Sigma before them, the Nightmare Police were apparently constructed as the peak of Reploid technology of their time.
• Meaningful Name: Their English names at least. The small one is named Bit while the big one is named Byte. A bit is a small unit of computer data while a byte is a larger unit of data.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: No one wants to get pulled over by the "Nightmare Police."
• Optional Boss: Like the X-Hunters, they (and Vile Mk. II) can be optionally encountered in the 8 stages. If you defeat them normally, they'll still appear in the final stages; defeat them with their weaknesses, however, and they'll be replaced by other bosses in the final stages.
• Primary-Color Champion: Both make heavy use of reds, blues, and yellows, referencing how they were once the protectors of Dopple Town before going Maverick.
• Religious Bruiser: Despite not having much religious to say (aside from Byte claiming he is destined to fight X), the two are rife with references to East Asian spirituality. Both share Hindu Theme Naming, Byte's design is based on the Buddhist Nio, and Bit has magatamas on his body, a mizura hairstyle, and a dotaku for a shield.
• Rocket Punch: One of Godkarmachine's attacks
• Theme Naming: In Japan their names are obscure Indian mythology references, and in the English translation they're name after data units.
• The Worm That Walks: In the manga, Bit and Byte are composed of thousands of worm-like nanobugs.

Bit

Bit is the smaller of the Nightmare Police, who directs the Maverick forces of the Doppler Army. He was constructed with a balance of offense, defense, and speed in mind.

---

• Adaptational Villainy: Bit seems like a loyal, if not somewhat cruel, soldier of Doppler in X3. In the manga, he's a sadistic psychopath who gets a kick out of torture and forces Dopple Town to watch X and Zero's planned execution.
• Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: Seems to have shades of this.
• The Cameo: Bit appears as a summoned illusion as one of Phoenix Magnion's attacks.
• Evil Is Hammy: At least in the manga, where he and Byte fought X, Zero, and four other Hunters (Hornet, Buffalo, Rhino, and Tiger) on Christmas Eve.
  "MEEEERRYYYYY CHRISTMAAAAS!! (Evil Laugh)"
  • Yoshihiro Iwamoto took it up a notch and made this scene a Memetic Mutation, which was a good enough reason to make Bit Promoted to Playable in DiVE during the Christmas Event
• Laser Blade: His main method of attack.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Bit has one. He strangely doesn't use it in his fight, however, prefering speed and accuracy. But he does use it as a offensive weapon in Mega Man Zero 2 as a summoned illusion used by Phoenix Magnion, and it did briefly appear in DiVE, and is even used during the Christmas Event.
• Nothing Personal: When he hunts X, he affably welcomes him and says that he's just following orders.
• Number Two: The Maverick Hunter Field Guide clarifies that Bit serves as Doppler's right-hand-man and leads the Maverick forces on the ground.
• Professional Killer: In the Japanese version, Bit brags to X about how many Reploids he's killed for Doppler.
• Promoted to Playable: Bit became playable in DiVE on December 23rd, 2020 as part of the Christmas Event.
• Public Execution: Tries to pull one of these on X and Zero in the manga, but fails.
• Retractable Weapon: X DiVE reveals that Bit's shield is collapsible, and fits on his back when not in use.
• Smug Snake: Definitely has this in the manga.

Byte

Byte is the larger of the Nightmare Police, built with a focus on raw fighting power.

---

• Balloon Belly: Has one of these.
• Because Destiny Says So: In the Japanese version, Byte tells X that he is destined to fight him.
• Belly Flop Crushing: Has a unique belly flop attack in X DiVE.
• Blood Knight: Loves to fight, and is even proud of X for beating him fair and square.
• The Cameo: Like Bit, he's also around in DiVE but only as a boss.
• Friendly Enemy: What little characterization he gets paints Byte as one of these.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: Byte's only attack. And it does obscene damage, to boot.
• Graceful Loser: If X defeats him with his weakness, he expresses surprise that he lost, but congratulates X on his victory.
• I Am Not a Gun: In his final moments in the manga he resents being a mere "tool" for Doppler, but is absorbed into Godkarmachine O Inary despite his protests.
• Lightning Bruiser: Byte is damned fast for such a big guy.
• Magnetism Manipulation: Throws mines on the walls that pull X into position for punching.
• Stout Strength: Big belly, big damage.

The Soul Erasers

In General

A pair of Reploids named Berkana and Gareth that run the Reploid Research Laboratory on Laguz Island. They are the ones behind the Erasure Incident and serve as the primary antagonists of Mega Man Xtreme 2.

---

• Disc-One Final Boss: Berkana and Gareth are the final bosses of X’s and Zero’s missions, respectively. Sigma is the True Final Boss and is encountered in Extreme Mode.
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Berkana fights using projectiles and generally keeps her distance (though she’ll occasionally lunge at X for contact damage if he’s near her) while Gareth is a javelin fighter and generally gets up close to attack (though he’ll frequently jump off screen and toss javelins at Zero from a distance). They are matched with the hero that mirrors their respective fighting styles (X, a projectile user, fights Berkana; while Zero, a sword user, fights Gareth).
• Hijacked by Ganon: Zig-Zagged. In Extreme Mode, after beating either Berkana or Gareth, Sigma comes out of nowhere and claims he was the one responsible for the entire "ERASURE" incident. He does, however, admit that Berkana had gone too far, but was fine with that since in the end it amused him. This implies that Berkana and Gareth had initially been conducting the "ERASURE" experiments on Sigma’s behalf but then at some point started doing it for their own benefit rather than his.
• Necromancer: They resurrect eight Mavericks from the first three games to guard the island from intruders.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Berkana is hammy while Gareth is stoic.
• Soul Power: Berkana and Gareth (and possibly Sigma) are stealing Reploid souls to make themselves more powerful.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Technically speaking, the only thing left of Sigma after the Maverick Virus was erased in X3 was his DNA Soul, with no means to gather a new body or produce more of his virus. Berkana's research into DNA Souls and resurrecting Reploids using it would allow him to be reborn yet again and kickstart his backup plans; this makes her and Gareth directly responsible for allowing him to continue wreaking havoc and cause the Great Repliforce War and the Eurasia Incident some time after.
• Your Soul Is Mine!: The Soul Erasers are stealing Reploid programming (their souls) from all over the world.

Berkana

A wizard-styled Reploid who works with Reploid research and development. She is the perpetrator of the Erasure Incident, the creator of Gareth, and overall a power-hungry maniac.

---

• Battle Ballgown: Sports a full-length gown, complete with golden spikes along the trim and hover technology. Justified in that she's a Reploid made to look like a witch.
• Dark Action Girl: One of the few examples in the X series.
• Dragon with an Agenda: Sigma’s statements imply that she started out as his dragon but then began stealing DNA souls for herself in order to become the strongest Reploid.
• Eviler than Thou: Sigma actually thinks Berkana went "too far" and congratulates the Hunters for taking her down. Considering she is basically eating the souls of numerous Reploids just to be the strongest, whereas Sigma would prefer to either lead or control them, it implies that even Sigma is more noble-intentioned than she is. Not that he doesn't find the whole scenario amusing enough that he let it continue, though.
• God Save Us from the Queen!: Although she is made to look like a witch, she has several queenly attributes, from sitting on a throne to acting as the self-proclaimed leader of the Soul Erasers. She's also quite unapologetically evil, using the souls of countless Reploids to strengthen herself and her Black Knight.
• Hot Witch: She's modeled after a witch of sorts, although a rather good looking one for a Reploid.
• Hover Mecha: She never seems to touch the ground, instead hovering through the use of her Battle Ballgown. She does seem to have legs, however, as one shot of her shows an outline of her legs crossed while sitting.
  • For the R25 Complete Works artbook, Haruki Suetsugu included her in his contribution page. Not only is she drawn with one of her feet visible, but she actually says "I do have legs under this dress, just so you know".
• Interface Screw: Her attacks include projectiles that can disable X's ability to jump or shoot.
• It Amused Me: The reason why she doesn't try and stop X and Zero from destroying the island guardians. Also, the reason why Sigma doesn't stop Berkana, even though she had started acting in her own interests instead of his.
• Lady of Black Magic: Evokes this. She looks like a witch, wields a staff for her magic-like attacks (which include Interface Screw), and is very powerful.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Her attacks that can inflict Interface Screw by disabling your buttons outright have the respective button letter on them, one of the few times in the franchise to ever do something like this.
• Spikes of Villainy: The bottom of her Battle Ballgown is covered in a row of golden spikes.
• Villain Takes an Interest: Whether it's just teasing him or a genuine comment, she specifically calls X cute and does admire some element of his compassion. However, she also wants to personally defeat him to prove herself the strongest Reploid in the world.
• World's Best Warrior: Becoming this appears to be her goal. She refers to herself as this, refers to the Reploids whose souls she stole as necessary sacrifices that made her and Gareth stronger, and later fights X as her final experiment in order to determine who's the strongest Reploid.

Gareth

A knight-styled Reploid who serves as Berkana's right-hand-man. He's the first to welcome X and Zero to Laguz Island, and challenges them to face the resurrected Mavericks.

---

• All There in the Manual: Haruki Suetsugu designed him to have a Reploid lion companion that was never featured in the game. He jokingly begs the audience to just assume the lion follows Gareth around faithfully, but not in any way that is visually confirmable within the game.
  • The Compendium of Rockman X sourcebook released only in Japan reveals that Berkana created Gareth.
• Black Knight: Keeping in the medieval theme set with Zain and Geemel in Xtreme, Gareth is crafted to look like a classic knight.
• The Dragon: To Berkana.
• Javelin Thrower: His attack of choice, either throwing his Laser Javelin while off-screen, or up close at point-blank range.
• Leeroy Jenkins: He suggests taking out X and Zero immediately, but Berkana suggests studying the Hunters would be more useful.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: He uses a powerful shield that blocks most of Zero's attacks, he is only vulnerable to certain special attacks, or right when he's attacking with his javelin.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: Has shades of this. He insists to Berkana that they should eliminate X and Zero immediately, and when later confronted by Zero he apologizes for the "unworthy" games, pointing out that they were Berkana’s idea.
• Number Two: Acts as Berkana's right-hand-man, doing all of the talking to the Hunters for her until X and Zero finally infiltrate their laboratory.

Repliforce

In General

Repliforce is a military group formed by Dr. Cain as support for the Maverick Hunters due to the increase in Maverick incidents. They are lead by General along with his second in command; Colonel. During X4, they are framed by Sigma for the fall of the floating city Sky Lagoon, and refuse to give up their honor by disarming to the Maverick Hunters. This causes them to be labeled Maverick and they decide to hold a military coup and flee to the space station Final Weapon.

---

• Adaptational Badass: In the manual for the games, Repliforce had a terrible reputation partially because they botched several Maverick pacification efforts so badly that entire cities were overrun and Dr. Cain was seriously considering their decommissioning. In the Manga, they had been covertly cleaning up the Maverick Hunters' messes and only didn't involve themselves in Sigma's uprisings because the Maverick Hunters wanted to save face by dealing with Sigma themselves (whereas in the games, they didn't exist at the time as they were only founded after the Doppler Incident).
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Played with. The moral ambiguity of the conflict gets switched up in the manga, as several characters act much differently than was suggested in-game.
  • Jet Stingray did blow up an entire power plant city like in the game, but he went to the trouble of having his troops evacuate the city of humans beforehand, and even then it still clearly shook his moral conscience to have to destroy the city. Also, the manga manages to give him an Alas, Poor Villain moment by showing his his relationship to his men and his anguish as they're all cut down in a futile attempt to save him as he himself is dying of his wounds. However, Zero notes that the refugee crisis as well as the destruction of crucial infrastructure that Jet Stingray caused will no doubt result in many deaths.
  • Storm Owl didn't do anything immoral in the manga except going along with the coup. Even when he commanded the Repliforce air brigade to soar the sky, he did it over a volcano, not a populated city like in the game.
• Adaptational Villainy: In the Manga, some of the Repliforce commanders are much worse than their depiction in the games.
  • Web Spider slaughters a battalion of Maverick Hunters who went to investigate the Kagikira Forest where a Repliforce frontline was stationed, and was planning to use Repliforce's beam cannon weapon in the forest to burn down a nearby city full of humans before X showed up and foiled his plans by killing him, and he went through the trouble of stringing up said dead Hunters with his webs to taunt and shoot at X. However, it also delves into his reasoning for why he chose his path and even gets an Alas, Poor Villain moment as he sadly and bitterly laments on how the cycle of war doesn't end as he dies.
  • Slash Beast drove a massive super train through a populated city, wrecking everything in its path, withheld a vaccine that could have saved Iris from a viral infection requiring Zero to attempt to take it by force, and savagely killed one of his own subordinates in anger after he reported to Beast that one of their Repliforce trains had been stopped by Zero because the troop had "soiled our flag" with his failure. In the game, the train does not appear to have any off-track capabilities nor did he kill his soldiers.
  • Frost Walrus also slaughtered a squad of Maverick Hunters, and kept their dead bodies encased in ice as a sick part of his "collection". He later released several Maverick Hunter prisoners and told them to run for their lives, all so he could viciously kill each of them with his ice powers, save one, who was saved by X and Blizzard Buffalo, the latter of whom was reformed in the manga as a hunter. Notably, this one got him chewed out by Colonel, who was disgusted by how his actions weren't actually serving Repliforce's mission of secession and simply to satisfy his own sadism, and General himself executes Frost Walrus when he has X at his mercy upon being informed of what Walrus was doing from Colonel.
• Authority Equals Asskicking: They are the most powerful military in the world, which is not surprising, as they are composed of combat Reploids designed for all types of warfare, be it naval, guerrilla or air.
• Be as Unhelpful as Possible: They inadvertently started a war because they refused to disarm and come in for questioning when their troops and equipment were found at the scene of an atrocity. Even if Colonel believed that Repliforce was going to be unfairly treated, the least he could do was mention it.
  • This is taken to Good Is Dumb heights in the X4 manga, though mostly because all of the Repliforce commanders that actually get page time are borderline psychotic, barring General, Colonel and perhaps Jet Stingren/Jet Stingray (Ironic, given that in the game^note (for the Manga, Adaptational Heroism and Adaptational Villainy are in play) Jet Stingray is probably Repliforce's biggest war criminal that wasn't on Sigma's payroll).
• Bling of War: General especially, but Colonel is no slouch either.
• Commissar Cap: Colonel wears one. General wears a golden one.
• Evil Brit: Most of Repliforce speak with a British accent, at least in the dub.
• Everyone Calls Them Barkeep: Although being reploids built for war, these are probably their actual names.
• Frame-Up: They were a victim of this - they were suspected by the Maverick Hunters for causing the Sky Lagoon to fall. Unfortunately, when X and Zero tried to resolve this peacefully (by asking him to drop their weapon and come for questioning), Colonel is less than cooperative. X only knew this after he fought Magma Dragoon, the true perpetrator of the fall.
• Kill Sat: Their Final Weapon.
• Knight of Cerebus: They effectively kickstarted the themes of how the term "Maverick" can be abused to truly horrific levels ^note though how much of it was earned due to the self-destructive idiocy of the Repliforce (and/or Colonel's unfortunate programming flaw) is up for debate, as well as giving us a firsthand look at the tensions between Reploids and Humans, both of these themes playing a major role in future X games as well as being the main theme of the Zero series.
• Lawman Gone Bad: The organization was made to compensate for the failure of Sigma and Dr. Doppler, conduct further Reploid research and development, and to support Maverick Hunters on, well, fighting Mavericks. However, following more Maverick attacks, they're seen as ineffective and potentially dangerous; by the time of X4, they don't exactly "go bad" (their intention was to establish their own nation for their own security in space after being accused for a major atrocity) but the Maverick Hunters can't help but see them as having done so (it's essentially a coup d'etat, and Colonel himself refuses to cooperate).
• Not Helping Your Case: The Repliforce as a whole, and Colonel in particular. Worse, while they claim their exiling to be peaceful, the same cannot be said to Jet Stingray and Storm Owl attacking the populace to serve as distractions.
• Redemption Equals Death: Particularly General.
• The Remnant: The Skiver/Spiral Pegacion and Mattrex/Burn Dinorex in X5, and Red in X7.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: Repliforce was definitely guilty, but not because of them plummeting the Sky Lagoon to the Earth's surface as the human government deem them as, but because they went against orders (they refused to strip down their arms for interrogation) and then tried to flee to the outer space. And yes, disobeying orders from the government is bad if you're a military and the orders aren't criminal. Also, Jet Stingray deliberately destroyed a city by annihilating its underground power station, undoubtedly killing hundreds to thousands of civilians (even in the manga, in which the inhabitants were explicitly all evacuated, he still intentionally destroyed their homes and left them refugees, itself a war crime), all as a ploy to divert attention away from Repliforce as they prepared to launch into outer space. That is most certainly Maverick behavior, and justifies both the action against them by both the Hunters and humans.
  • Furthermore, Repliforce is specifically mentioned to have occupied several cities after they started their coup, and belligerent occupation—the forcible taking of territory by a hostile power—in this instance is definitely criminal, specifically when done by a military organization who is supposed to be taking orders from the higher-ups of the territories they are occupying in the first place.
• Robot Republic: They were initially aiming for this, peacefully exiling themselves into space. Too bad about the "stripping down their weapons" part, and Jet Stingray's and Storm Owl's attacks on civilian populations to serve as distractions.
• Unwitting Pawn: to Sigma, pretty much.
• Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: General and Colonel are not just their ranks, these are actually their names. It turns into creepy foreshadowing when one realizes that whoever built them had absolutely nothing in mind for them but their jobs in Repliforce, so when those jobs were threatened in any way...

General

Voiced by: Ryūzaburō Ōtomo (JP), Mark Hagan (EN)

The leader of Repliforce. He is a massive Reploid who truly desires peace, but his paranoia of the Maverick Hunters leads him to jump the gun and stage a coup d'etat to form a Reploid-only nation in space.

---

• Arm Cannon: General can fire energy spheres from the stubs on his arms when his hands are away.
• Attack Its Weak Point: General is invincible, except for his head.
• Authority Equals Asskicking: "General" isn't just his name but his title as the leader of the Repliforce, and he's by far their strongest member.
• Cool Chair: General is seen sitting on a giant throne, which he destroys as he prepares to fight you.
• Cultured Badass: General was a well-read man who kept several dozen books on bookshelves, as seen during his nighttime meeting with Sigma. He also had a stained-glass image of the Virgin Mary in the room as well, the mother of Jesus Christ. This showed that he believed in the teachings of Christianity or simply had an affinity for the central figures of the religion.
• Get Out!: He's rather polite and quiet about it, but he minces no words when he tells Sigma he is dismissed in the opening cutscene of X4.
  I will not betray the humans. Remove yourself from my sight. My business with you has concluded.
• Gold-Colored Superiority: His armor is colored with brilliant golds and royal blues, befitting a respected leader and symbol of hope, as the leader of the Repliforce.
• Gold Makes Everything Shiny: Not so much in the cutscenes, but his gold body definitely has a shine to it in his sprites.
• Ground Pound: One of his basic attacks is simply dropping himself on X/Zero. His massive body helps.
• Heroic Sacrifice: After getting beaten by X, upon realizing that someone's duped him and took control of the Final Weapon, goes on to use his body to jam the satellite's cannon as it's firing, blowing himself and the satellite in the process.
• Honor Before Reason: Not as bad as Colonel, but he definitely could have overruled Colonel's decision to refuse cooperation to show the Maverick Hunters and humanity that Repliforce still weren't Mavericks and thus prove Sigma wrong. Instead, he goes ahead with the official secession and rebellion.
• Humongous Mecha: He himself could count as one. He's about as tall as the screen!
• Large and in Charge: General is the leader of Repliforce, and is enormous.
• New Era Speech: General delivers this to Repliforce.
  Brave soldiers of Repliforce, we have all been wrongfully judged as Mavericks by the humans. We cannot suffer this indignity and live in disgrace. We will build our own nation of Reploids. But remember, this is neither about insurrection, or rebellion against our human creators. This is about our liberty and security. We must battle for our own individual rights, and our own survival. Together we will build our own nation, a sanctuary for all Reploids, our own Utopia. Let us forge onward towards a new golden era for the Repliforce.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: When you fight him.
  This is fate. It cannot be helped. ^note In English, it's "My fate is sealed. I have...no choice."
  Show me your true power.
  It was our destiny to fight.
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • Played with. He definitely comes off as more level-headed than, say, Colonel, makes it clear to Sigma he's not interested in joining his schemes regardless of humans potentially turning on the Repliforce. On the other hand, instead of putting his foot down with Colonel's stubbornness he chose to go ahead with the move of independence which effectively doubled-down on the "Maverick" accusations, he did not reign in the destructiveness of several of his sub-commanders on Earth which further enforced it to the public, and it probably was not the best choice to have a Kill Sat on their planned space colony even if it was in the name of "self-defense", much less one pointed down at Earth.
  • In the X4 manga, at least, he did personally shoot down and kill Frost Walrus after he was alerted to his unhelpful, destructive behavior by Colonel, which saved X's life (Walrus was about to kill X before General shot him down).
• Rocket Punch: His main attack. It doesn't really help as X/Zero can just use them as stepping stones to reach his head, though he's smart enough to fire projectiles for a few cheap shots if they try to ride them over.
• Super-Toughness: Not only did he survive a beatdown from X and Zero, which would automatically qualify one for this, albeit in a heavily damaged state, but he then managed to block a Kill Sat with enough power to blow up Earth at the cost of his life.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: He pretty much meant no harm about his army's peaceful exile to space. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said to his forces on Earth.
• Your Size May Vary: In X's opening cutscene, he and Sigma are shown to be roughly the same size. This contradicts both other cutscenes (The game's intro and the scene in which he declares his and Repliforce's intent to secede from the Earth) and in-engine sprites, where he is shown to be at least twice Sigma's size.

Colonel

Voiced by: Jin Yamanoi (JP), Matthew Meersbergen (EN original dub), James Jordan (EN Redub)

A powerful Reploid who is the second-in-command of Repliforce. He is Iris' older brother and a friendly rival of Zero's. However, their relationship is strained when conflict breaks out between Repliforce and the Maverick Hunters.

---

• Aloof Big Brother: For Iris. This veers into My Sister Is Off-Limits during the Valentines Day event in DiVE, where he fends off a few Loony Fan Mavericks before challenging the Player.
• An Arm and a Leg: In that order, exactly. In the X4 manga during their second battle, Zero does not play around, and cuts off his right arm, disarming him of his saber as well. This isn't enough to deter Colonel, who lunges at Zero with the arm he has left. Reluctantly and sadly, Zero defends himself and kills his old friend Colonel by slicing him in half with his saber, remembering this was the path he had chosen and had to shoulder as a Maverick Hunter, and that Colonel needed to be stopped.
• A Father to His Men: Colonel cares about his soldiers, which suits him as the second-in-command of the most powerful Reploid military in history. In the manga version of X4, Colonel jumped in front of his subordinate Jet Stingray and took a blast meant for Stingray, saving his life and gaining his Undying Loyalty.
• Authority Equals Asskicking: He was built to be General's second-in-command of Repliforce, and he's a swordsman considered In-Universe to be a near equal of Zero.
• Badass Boast: Declares Repliforce to be the "most powerful army in history" at the end of his Rousing Speech.
• Boss-Only Level: If you are playing as X, he challenges you to a duel after you clear four levels. The stage in which you fight him has no preceding enemies or platforming segments.
• The Cameo: He appears as a summoned illusion as one of Phoenix Magnion's attacks.
• Cutscene Boss: If you are playing as Zero, the first duel with Colonel occurs entirely during an FMV rather than a playable fight and ends with Iris breaking up the duel midway.
• Even Evil Has Standards: In the manga version of X4, Colonel personally visits Frost Walrus at his base and berates him for causing riots and unnecessary destruction that will do absolutely nothing to further the goals of Repliforce in their coup d'etat. He reminds him how General did him a favor in recruiting him to the Repliforce when he was about to be terminated as a Maverick for his destructive behavior, and should thus follow General's will.
• Go Out with a Smile: In the X4 manga, Zero and Colonel fight a second time, just like in the game, and Zero cuts him in half to destroy him after he refuses to cooperate and surrender, thanks to his pride. Colonel has a smile on his face before he fully dies, perhaps being pleased that he stuck with his principles until the end and that he got done in by an old friend, Zero.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: Zero finishes him off in the manga by slicing him in half with his saber during their second battle◊.
• Honor Before Reason:
  • The reason the whole war really starts is because Colonel refuses to cooperate and disarm himself, as (along with the accusation in the first place) he believes the honor of the Repliforce has been hurt. He even states that he does not care if he is branded Maverick and that he prefers war over dishonor and shame. Justified, however, in that (due to his and Iris' origins) he lacks the compassion and pacifism that Iris has, and hence the lack of peaceful reasoning capability. This fault basically forced General to declare independence for Repliforce and, well, starting the whole conflict in the first place.
  • In X4's manga adaptation: in Colonel's first duel with Zero, Iris intervenes by threatening to commit suicide if they don't stop fighting, prompting Zero to stand down. Colonel still tries to attack before relenting. Later it's revealed that damage to one sibling has similar effects on the other because of their unique bond; Iris's threat extended to Colonel as well.
• Laser Blade: Wields one, complete with sword beams firing out of each slash.
• Mr. Vice Guy: At his core, Colonel is honorable and not one to bear grudges, but his pride as a soldier keeps him from complying with the demands of anybody but Repliforce.
• Nature Lover: He has this trait in the manga. In a flashback, Colonel met Zero at a large tree, just two months after the latter became a Maverick Hunter. Colonel waxes poetic to Zero about how majestic the tree they are standing under is, and how, in his mind, it "embraces the nature of humanity". He says in times of despair and sorrow, as well as in times of happiness, he remembers the beauty of the tree to keep himself going and mentally sound. And sadly, years later after the Repliforce launches their rebellion for Reploid independence, Colonel and Zero meet at the tree again, but to do battle and kill one another because of their conflicting and irreconcilable ideals.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: His English voice actor can't hide his Australian accent, and seems to actively give up at the end of one scene.
• Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: When you fight him.
  Show me what you've got.
  I've been waiting to fight with you.
  I'll show you no mercy. Now get ready!
• Promoted to Playable: On April 21st, 2021, he was made an S-rank character in DiVE.
• The Rival: To Zero. It shows in the Spaceport fight as some of Colonel's attacks are similar to moves that Zero uses when he's a boss, see Stab the Sky and Sword Beam. It's also implied that he and Zero (as well as X) used to be well-acquainted with each other before the whole conflict starts.
• Rousing Speech: Delivers one of these to Repliforce during General's New Era Speech.
  I, too, share the General's sentiment. Take heed, we have no other choice. Let us fight vehemently, with courage and pride, without fear—for we are the Repliforce. The most powerful army in history!
• Shock and Awe: One his attacks involves thrusting his sword upwards, getting the saber struck by lightning in the process, and then doing a Sword Plant to spread the electricity to the ground.
• Sword Beam: His signature attack, he slashes three times, launching an energy wave with each slash. He also has a variant after he Turns Red (only in the Space Port battle) where he jumps and then smashes the ground with his saber, creating a Ground Wave that grows big the further it goes.
• Sword Pointing: He does this to X in the flashback in X's ending (at 0:16).
• Teleport Spam: He repeatedly disappears and then reappears next to Zero/X, trying to slash them.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Due to not being built with the ability to make peaceful decisions in the first place, he can only answer to Zero/X's demand of disarming with "no", thinking of it as an insult to Repliforce's honor. Cue the rest of the game.

Colonel's Sister (X4 SPOILERS)

Iris

Voiced by: Yuko Mizutani (JP, Mega Man X4), Aya Endo (JP, Mega Man X DiVE) Michelle Gazepis (EN, original dub), Ashley Schroeder and Carol-Anne Day (EN, redub)

Introduced as Zero's girlfriend, Iris gets caught in the middle of the civil war between her brother, Colonel (fighting for Repliforce), and her lover (fighting for the Maverick Hunters). She initially helps Zero as his Mission Control and constantly wishes for the fighting to stop. She also appears in the chronologically earlier Xtreme 2/Soul Eraser and in a cameo appearance inside Zero's memories during X5.

After Zero retires her brother, she loses it and uses Colonel's chip to form a Ride Armor-like body around herself to attack Zero. He is forced to kill her in self-defense. With her body consumed by the destruction of Final Weapon (not to mention her mind already being damaged due to its incompatibility with her brother's specs), she is Deader than Dead.

---

• Adaptational Heroism: She never tries to intentionally kill Zero in the manga version. Rather, she accidentally fuses with Colonel's core after hugging his corpse and inadvertently converts her body into a destructive Ride Armor form that starts killing left and right without her wanting that. Furthermore, in the manga she is a nurse who treats injured Reploids on both sides of the Repliforce War.
• Adaptation Personality Change: Iris is a bit more strong-willed in X4's manga adaptation. She acts as a nurse treating casualties, which includes Zero, snaps at Zero when he mouths off at her (even she's surprised), stops Colonel and Zero's first fight by threatening to shoot herself, among other actions. Justified in that the manga doesn't follow the games as closely, as a pre-X1 flashback shows Zero and Colonel having a friendly chat. Furthermore, in the manga adaptation, her Anti-Villain status is removed entirely. In the game, she intentionally merged with the power core from her brother Colonel's remains to become encased in Ride Armor and try and murder Zero to avenge Colonel. In the manga, she accidentally merges with Colonel's core after instinctually crawling over to him and clutching his remains after Zero has sliced him in half. Iris then proceeds to kill several Reploids before attacking Zero, but she is not in control of her actions when her body is enveloped in the Ride Armor, as she frantically asks for Zero to save her and says "it's dark" in a frightened tone. Rather, the armor is maliciously controlling her.
• Ambiguous Situation: Upon her defeat in the X Legacy Collection's'' X Challenge mode, Colonel catches her and they teleport out, or she lies on the ground if you beat her first, unlike other bosses who explode on defeat.
• Anti-Villain: She is only considered a villain due to being associated with her brother Colonel, who is the second-in-command of Repliforce. Other than that, she's basically a good person at heart. All she wants is a world where Reploids can peacefully coexist amongst themselves, but because Zero and Colonel keep fighting each other, she becomes mentally torn over who to side with. Eventually, she turns into a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds when Zero kills Colonel, but...can you really blame her for standing up for her brother?
• Apologetic Attacker: One of Iris' possible quotes before her boss battle is "Forgive me, Zero!"
• Ascended Fanon: For some reason, fans loved to make fanart of a "Colonelfied Iris". Rockman X DiVE then introduced Iris -another-, which is exactly the plan for the "Ultimate Reploid".
• Attack Drone: In her boss fight, every time you hit her, she will release drones that slowly home in on Zero and explode on him. Worse still, you have to hit her in order to expose the crystal and to push her backwards.
• Attack Its Weak Point: The only way to hurt her is to expose and attack the purple crystal — which is actually all that's left of her brother Colonel, consisting of his core and combat data — she absorbs in order to form her Instant Armor. That's easier said than done, however, as the only way to expose it is to attack her, which releases her Attack Drones, and the crystal itself once released moves around and isn't defenseless.
• Beware the Nice Ones: She's as nice as you can get, but Colonel's death pushes her over the edge, causing her to absorb her brother's data and attack Zero.
• Break the Cutie: The events of X4 drive her to despair, insanity, and eventually death.
• Breakout Character: Iris left such an impact on X4, that Capcom decided to make her one of the faces of the franchise. She made a reappearance in a prequel role for Xtreme 2, makes a cameo in Project × Zone, is predominantly featured in key art for representing the entire subseries, got a retooling for Rockman X DiVE, and became part of a promotion alongside Zero for Monster Hunter: Rise.
• Brought to You by the Letter "S": Averted in her default form, but her DiVE Armor projects two small "i"-shaped holographic wings from her back.
• The Cameo: Appears in Project × Zone during one chapter. Zero's infamous throes appears again.
• Cleavage Window: When she dons the Zinogre attire in X-DiVE, her cleavage is shown off.
• Climax Boss: Of Zero’s campaign in X4, being the first boss fought on the Final Weapon. While the battle isn’t too hard, Zero being forced to fight and kill Iris brings about a tremendous change in the former that last throughout the rest of the series and beyond.
• Commissar Cap: Specifically, a beret. Which seems indicative of rank, as she does not have it in Xtreme 2/Soul Eraser official artwork.
• Cores-and-Turrets Boss: In her boss fight, her Ride Armor-like body is invincible. Attack it enough times and its purple crystalline external core would appear. Attack that core to inflict damage.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: Following her boss battle, she dies in Zero's arms, as the hero screams in grief.
• Dying as Yourself: After the battle with her Ride Armor-like body, she's seen being put on Zero's arms as her normal self before she dies.
• Face–Heel Turn: After Zero "retires" Colonel, Iris gets blinded by grief and rage over losing her brother in that she's willing to combine his programming with her own (despite it being dangerous to her) just to kill Zero.
• Fanservice Pack: Played straight and inverted between X4 and Xtreme 2. In-universe, it's played straight, as Iris has only a white metal plate for a chest in Xtreme 2, yet has visible breasts in X4. However, Xtreme 2 (2001) was released after X4 (1997), meaning Iris was redesigned with a more "basic" (read: flat) Reploid chest, inverting the trope.
• Go Out with a Smile: She smiles at Zero for one last time before she drops dead.
• Hotter and Sexier: In DiVE, we get to see her "-another-" version, appearing as a more mature version of the original Iris.
• I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Her death remains a huge factor in Zero's life/lives.
• Ironic Echo: She has a desire of having a world only for Reploids and living peacefully in it with Zero. It's the exact same desire (minus the "living with Zero" part of course) of Elpizo of Mega Man Zero 2.
• Kill All Humans: After Colonel is destroyed, Iris is blinded by grief and makes it her goal to carry on his mission to live in a world where only Reploids exist.
• Love Makes You Crazy: As Zero and Colonel keep fighting each other, she becomes mentally torn over who to side with, since she loves both Zero and her brother greatly. Even her loyalty to Repliforce is based on loyalty to her brother and her dream of living in a Reploid-ruled world with Zero. The Colonel's death at Zero's hands ends up giving her a homicidal Freak Out.
• Love Hurts: Zero has to destroy her in self-defense because she's angry at him for destroying her brother. It also hurts her to have to fight Zero, though.
• Meaningful Name: She shares her name with Goo Goo Dolls "Iris", whose themes are brooding yet melancholy and of struggle of fitting in and finding love at the cost of upsetting "social harmony," all things that describe Iris' own conflict quite well. Of considerable thought is the release dates of X4 and the recording and production period of "Iris," as both occurred around 1997, a year before "Iris's" official release date in 1998.
• Miko: Her New Year variant in DiVE has her dressed up with a shrine maiden kimono.
• My Skull Runneth Over: Even if Zero had only incapacitated her by simply destroying her armor, Iris would have still died due to her systems being fried from downloading Colonel's battle data.
• Neutral Female: She doesn't take any side when her boyfriend and her brother fight, wishing for them to just stop fighting.
• Nice Girl: She's incredibly friendly and warm-hearted, especially towards Zero, always showing concern for his well-being and willing to help him in any way she can.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Her English voice actress seems to randomly switch between standard American and Australian.
• Powered Armor:
  • Her One-Winged Angel form is am Eagle Ride Armor equipped with a powerful laser gun.
  • In Mega Man X DiVE, Iris gains her very own armor just like the boys with DiVE Armor Iris with a more female-themed Genesic Armor and armed with Colonel's saber and attacks. The information makes it quite clear this is the original Iris, not Iris -another-.
• Promoted to Playable: After 23 years since her debut, Iris can finally be a playable character in DiVE.
• Reused Character Design: Iris' Fusion Dance with Colonel results in her transforming into...a recolored Eagle Ride Armor.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: She's caring, peaceful and compassionate, while her brother Colonel is battle-hardened, aloof and values honor. Thanks to supplemental materials, this is justified: she and her brother were the result of an experiment to create the ultimate combat Reploid that replicated X's personality traits. The Repliforce scientists couldn't get the warrior and pacifist sides of the personality to mesh, so they were split into Colonel and Iris and they have a mental link from sharing over half the same mental programming. Interestingly, the lore behind Iris -another from Mega Man X DiVE would suggest that the original reploid the two were split from more closely resembled Iris, a break from the tendency to make most named and visible reploids male by default.
• Stop, or I Shoot Myself!: In the X4 manga, Iris fires a shot into the air to stop a fight between her brother Colonel and her friend Zero, and then put the gun under her chin and threatened to fatally shoot herself if they did not stop fighting. It worked, although not before Colonel took a swing at Zero with his saber, only stopping at the last second.
• Stripperiffic: Her Zonogre variant from X-DiVE amounts to a two-piece bikini that shows off her stomach.
• Synchronization: It's revealed in the manga that the damage that either Iris or Colonel sustain will get extended to the other because of their unique bond. This gets exploited when she threatened to shoot herself to stop her brother and Zero from fighting each other.
• Tareme Eyes: Noticeable on her art for DiVE, showing her good-natured personality.
  • Tsurime Eyes: Seen in DiVE with her -another- version, showing her as a Lady of War and an Arrogant Kung Fu Girl, much like her brother.
• Token Good Teammate: By far, Iris has the strongest moral compass of any individual in Repliforce.
• Tragic Villain: She isn't evil, per se, but the circumstances of the plot aren't in her favor. When Zero is forced to destroy Colonel in order to make his way to Final Weapon (Colonel is programmed to never back down from a fight, after all), Iris becomes loaded with grief when she gets the memo. Her efforts to be the mediator between the people she loved the most were All for Nothing, so she snaps and tries to avenge her brother.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Appears in the X Legacy Collection's X Challenge mode for the final level alongside Double. Not only could she be the final boss X fights, but she can summon Colonel in his full form for back-up, effectively making the fight three on one!
  • Turned up a notch during DiVE's "Supreme Commander of Repliforce" event, where an alternate Iris appears in the pre-fight cutscene against General. This Iris dubs herself "the Honorable Sword of Justice" and by the developers as "Iris -another-", showing her as an in-universe What Could Have Been, if the original project by Repliforce had been successful and Iris and Colonel's programs had never split but instead remained stable.
• Voice with an Internet Connection: Acts as Zero's Mission Control until her Face–Heel Turn, reprised this role for Xtreme 2. Managed to avoid Annoying Video Game Helper due to not interrupting you during the levels.
• The Voiceless: Due to Yuko Mizutani's passing and the COVID-19 Pandemic-induced recording difficulties, Iris was not given any voiced lines in X DiVE until July 9, 2020, where Aya Endo takes on the role.
• Walking Spoiler: What happens to her later in the game are, well, important things, especially for Zero. She doesn't appear in later games for a reason...
• Wave-Motion Gun: Her primary weapon during her boss battle is a very large energy cannon which she fires in a horizontal beam. If her purple crystal is exposed when she activates it, it will charge and fire its own in a vertical beam.
• What the Hell Is That Accent?: Part of X4's sub-par English voice acting. She has an Australian accent, given that her English voice actress is Australian.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: She didn't take Colonel's death well... and it ends in her own death.

Gate & The Nightmare Investigators

Gate

Voiced by: Keiji Fujiwara (JP)

An outcast Reploid engineering researcher, disavowed for his relentless ambition and dangerous methods. He gets infected by a part of Zero while inspecting the wreckage of the Eurasia colony. Driven insane by The Virus and the persecution of the scientific community, Gate resurrected seven of his retired creations (plus one old comrade) and teamed up with the enigmatic Isoc. Together they created an invincible Reploid named High Max, a reality-warping virus phenomenon called the Nightmare, and a discolored clone of Zero called the Zero Nightmare. The Nightmare and the "ghost of Zero" cause global chaos, pinning the blame on Zero, while Gate deploys the eight Nightmare Investigators to "investigate" the Nightmare and capture Zero for more data.

---

• All of the Other Reindeer: He was the subject of envy by his peers, including Alia. Ouch.
• Arm Cannon: Fires his Nightmare Hole projectiles from an arm buster.
• Armor of Invincibility: He dons a set of golden armor created from analyzing Zero's DNA that renders him immune to all the heroes' attacks. Only his own redirected attacks can hurt him now.
• Arc Villain: For X6, even though he wasn't the Final Boss. Notable for being the first legitimate major villain other than Sigma.
• Badass Bookworm: After getting Zero's DNA, he goes from a disgraced engineer to an absolute menace. He even gets his own super form and can totally kick ass on the battlefield.
• Badass Cape: Has a bright white one in his super form. By the way he flips his labcoat when transforming, it seems like it is his labcoat.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: With Sigma in X6. Gate serves as the Big Bad for most of the game, but after he's defeated by X and Zero, Sigma finishes him off, and picks up where he left off.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: His main attacks are Nightmare Holes of various colors that linger with different effects. Orange ones shoot bullets, red ones slow the player down, blue ones suck the player towards them, green ones slowly home in, and purple ones summon Nightmare Viruses.
• Evil Genius: Even before easily tapping into the Black Box that is Zero's DNA, Gate created Reploids so powerful that it earned him the resentment of his peers. If anything, he's a genius.
• Evil Feels Good: He realizes Zero's virus is driving him mad, but describes it as a "liberating" experience.
• Godzilla Threshold: Once defeated, he unleashes his last resort: Sigma. A risky move, to put it lightly.
• Golden Super Mode: Though normally purple, in combat he powers up into brilliant gold armor.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: After his defeat, he revealed that he has (incompletely) revived Sigma. But then it bites him in the ass when Sigma declares that he doesn't need Gate's help and attacks him.
  • In his boss fight, his golden armor can't be hurt by the Hunters' weapons. Instead, he can only be damaged by the explosions of his own energy attacks.
• Instant Armor: Before the battle against him, he appears in his normal form with his labcoat. Then he swapped his labcoat aside and then his golden armor instantly appears on his body.
• Insufferable Genius: So much that it gets him shunned by his fellow researchers. Alia lampshades it, saying that the difference between her and him is that she knows where to draw the line while he didn't.
• Mad Scientist: Not initially, though his detractors certainly attempted to demonize him as such by finding fault in his Reploid creations and declaring them to be too dangerous. After he became infected by the Maverick Virus, however, he jumped head-first into this in his megalomania and insanity, creating the Nightmare Virus, Zero Nightmare, High Max, and even a Came Back Wrong Sigma.
• Nigh-Invulnerable: Once he dons his armor, none of your attacks (not even the Nova Strike) can harm him. His only weakness is his own attack.
• Persecuted Intellectuals: This leads to his Face–Heel Turn and becoming Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds. His obsession with X and Zero's design led to him trying to create Reploids with very complex mechanisms and high specs, leading others to envy him and fear his creations.
• Platform Battle: Infamously so. He can also destroy them, though they do respawn.
• Playing Tennis with the Boss: A particularly annoying example. You fight him on scattered tiny platforms above a Bottomless Pit and to harm him you have to reflect his orbs with little to no footing.
• Puzzle Boss: A very rare example for the series. He's completely immune to all direct damage from the heroes. The only thing that can hurt him are the fragments of his destroyed Energy Balls.
• Promoted to Playable: He was added to the playable roster in DiVE on March 2nd, 2022.
• Ship Tease: With Alia in the ending credits, or her secret flashback (collect 3000 Nightmare Souls without defeating High Max or killing all the Investigators). Apparently they were fellow scientists and researchers, however Alia quit the job later and became an operator.
• Smug Super: Has a cocky grin and condescending voice lines such as "Over there?" and "Wait!" in his golden form.
• The Social Darwinist: Besides eliminating the squishy humans, he wishes to subjugate "low-grade" Reploids and create a world ruled by high-end models like himself.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Of Dr. Doppler, a fellow Reploid scientist who was corrupted by The Virus and created powerful and dangerous Reploids. Both also happen to be the main antagonists of the third entry in a trilogy of games for the SNES and PS1 respectively (which incidentally happen to be considered the worst of their respective trilogies), and both have created Reploids named after nightmares in some way (the Nightmare Police for Doppler, the Zero Nightmare and Nightmare Investigators for Gate). Their fates following their introductory games are also ambiguous, and neither has yet returned in later entries.
• They Called Me Mad!: His colleagues once feared his relentless ambition.
• Villain Opening Scene: X6 begins with Gate at the ruins of Eurasia, followed by him growing mad with power the next week after having picked up a piece of debris earlier.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The ending of X6 left his fate rather ambiguous. Was he spared by Alia and restored? Or did she leave him dead?
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: The unlucky bastard may have been a prick beforehand, but he became feared by the other scientists because all of his creations are deemed "potentially dangerous". Said creations themselves were killed by either sabotage or under false Maverick accusations. And then the guy got infected by Zero's Maverick Virus. Anything that makes you crazy enough to think resurrecting Sigma is a good idea has got to be nasty.

Isoc

Voiced by: Takeshi Aono (JP)

A scientist employed by Gate to inform the public of the Zero Nightmare and the formation of the Nightmare Investigators.

---

• Back from the Dead: Is implied to be another vessel of Dr. Wily. This is shown when he tells Zero that he knows him very well, and when Zero finds his lifeless body, he hears a voice calling him a robot (rather than a Reploid). Alia also questions why Isoc decided to keep Zero alive when he left him vulnerable. It's also known that he's the one who was crucial in Zero's repair moreso than Gate had ever been, and whereas he displays an open and amicable fondness for Zero, when X is the one standing in his way, he has nothing but some serious vitriol.
• Black Eyes of Evil: He has black sclera, combined with red pupils.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Sort of. His lifeless body is discovered after Gate's demise with no ceremony or explanation, but Alia notices something peculiar — namely, it's not so much that he's been killed, so much as his consciousness seems to have just left his body.
• The Face: Serves as the spokesperson to Gate's plans.
• Laughing Mad: His reaction to Zero defeating High Max in his Optional Boss encounter, amazed at how Zero was able to beat him while X couldn't.
• My Skull Runneth Over: The reveal of his demise. Alia notes that his CPU is vacant in a manner eerily reminiscent of the Erasure Incident, aiding the serious implication of Isoc having been Wily in the Reploid having possibly been just a robotic shell he'd inhabited.
• Riddle for the Ages: As was the case with Serges, X6 hints that Isoc may be Dr. Wily in some form, but ultimately leaves the matter without a definite answer.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Of Serges from X2. Both are elderly Reploids who use their intellects for evil as secondary antagonists. They even share the same pure red eyes with black outlines. Oh, and they're also both implied to be Dr. Wily.
• The Unfought: He is never fought in a boss battle, though he promises to destroy X if he beats High Max as an Optional Boss.
• Villain Takes an Interest: He is very interested in Zero to almost the point of obsession, something which Gate notes (though Isoc himself denies this when confronted by Gate). If he truly is Wily, then said interest would certainly make sense.

High Max (HI-MAX)

Voiced by: Norio Wakamoto (JP)

A nigh-invincible Reploid made by Gate using Zero's DNA. He's the leader of the Nightmare Investigators, and is tasked with gathering more Reploid volunteers to study the Nightmare Phenomenon and find Zero. Though difficult, defeating him in one of the eight secret arenas allows the player to skip right to the final stages in Gate's laboratory.

---

• Beam Spam: One of his attacks is him shooting lots of Energy Balls from his palms. Later, as his Desperation Attack, he floats to the center of the screen and generates giant energy balls one by one that are shot quickly at you and can break into 4 smaller balls if you attack them.
• Beef Gate: High Max will destroy you if you don't know how to hurt him. However, if you can beat him during the normal stages, you immediately gain access to the Gate stages.
• The Dragon: for Gate.
• Elemental Punch: He has an attack where he charges an Energy Ball on his palm and then flies forward, trying to strike the player character with it. This is before Naruto, mind you.
• Expy: He's quite obviously based on Pluto, from the Astro Boy comics. Appropriate, considering how the original Mega Man is often compared to Astro Boy.
  • His look, voice (courtesy of Norio Wakamoto), creation by a Mad Scientist using the protagonists as a base, "perfection"/"maximum" motif, and general haughtiness also call to mind Perfect Cell from Dragon Ball Z.
• Guide Dang It!: It's hard to figure out how to hurt him without finding a guide.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: In the first fight against him. After a few seconds, he'll just scoff at how unimpressive X is and leaves.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: In his boss fight in Gate's second Secret Lab stage, he's able to summon these to protect himself. He can also summon a cylindrical force field that makes him totally invincible, but only for a short duration.
• Marathon Boss: Whenever you're able to damage him, he has an overly long recoil-and-fly-off-the-screen animation, during which he is invincible. Yes, it's incredibly tedious, and this back-and-forth cycle goes on until he's almost out of health, when he goes ballistic and floods the screen with projectiles. Mercifully you can continuously attack him during that.
• Meaningful Name: His name really reflects his powers.
• Optional Boss: He can be accessed in the secret areas in the game, after you beat Nightmare Zero in another secret area. And later, he becomes the boss in one of the fortress stages.
• Power Floats: He floats all the time.
• Puzzle Boss: He can only be damaged by (with X) shooting him with a Charged Shot, and quickly follow up with any of the boss weapons (excluding Guard Shell) or a Nova Strike if equipped with the Ultimate Armor (or if using the Shadow Armor, just hitting him with a Charged Saber since it can't use boss weapons), or (with Zero) the opposite (boss attack followed by any of the basic saber slashes).
• Sequence Breaking: After you beat him in the secret areas, you can go straight to Gate's first Secret Lab stage, even if you haven't beaten all of the usual 8 bosses yet.
• Smug Super: Being higher in terms of specs than X and Zero, he's very arrogant.
• The Stoic: In spite of being voiced by Norio Wakamoto, he pretty much never emotes or leaves a 'calm' state. He's almost monotonic!
• This Cannot Be!: After you beat him in the secret areas, he can't believe that he's defeated by old robots like X and Zero.
• Unintentionally Unwinnable: If you go into the rematch with High Max in the 8 boss stages right after beating Nightmare Zero (thus, having no boss weapons to damage him with) and you're not using X with the Ultimate Armor or the Shadow Armor, you are stuck.
• Villain Forgot to Level Grind: the first battle you have with High Max is an automatic loss. No matter what you do, he cannot be damaged. Of course, as you go along the game and subsequently encounter him again, he will be damageable by a few weapons you acquire from the boss Mavericks.

Zero Nightmare

Voiced by: Ryōtarō Okiayu

An insane clone of Zero created by Gate to cause havoc in areas being patrolled by his Nightmare Investigators. He is first encountered destroying the opening stage's Warmup Boss, and can later be fought in any of the main stages' secret areas.

---

• Amazing Technicolor Population: Has bright pink skin. He tries to convince X that it's the result of the Nightmare Phenomenon when he's trying to pose as the real Zero.
• Ax-Crazy: Has a very erratic demeanor and murderous attitude.
• Came Back Wrong: Not exactly, but one of his conversations with X suggests that he was created with a personality similar to Awakened Zero and even possesses at least some of Zero's memories. Unfortunately, he isn't as strong as the original.
  Zero Nightmare: WHERE IS ZERO? WHERE IS HE HIDING? A BLUE ROBOT^note Note how he says robot instead of Reploid; most characters call X a Reploid because they don't know his origins. ENEMY OF ZERO... KILL YOU!
• The Cameo: Appears in Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite as an alternate color for Zero.
• Composite Character: Most of his moveset is taken from Zero's boss fights in X2 and X5.
• Dark Is Evil: His attacks are colored black.
• Evil Knockoff: Notably an evil knockoff of a character who was created for evil purposes.
• False Flag Operation: A walking one, created by Gate to justify the existence of the Investigators.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Has one of these in DiVE, shooting out purple sparks.
• Mighty Glacier: He hits decently hard and uses many of the same attacks as X5 Zero (quite a few which have great coverage), but he's slower both in movement and especially attack windup (plus his attacks are slightly weaker too) than the Lightning Bruiser X5 Zero is.
• Irony: The clone of Zero is weak to Zero's own weapon.
• Mood-Swinger: He can go from engaging in civil conversation with X to loudly declaring his desire to kill him.
• Nerf: Two of his attacks are the Shin Messenkou and the Genmu Zero used by Awakened Zero, but they're much slower and do much less damage.
• Palette Swap: Is a discolored version of Zero. In-game it's subverted as he uses a different set of sprites from the real Zero^note He's a palette swap of Zero's X5 sprites, while Zero himself got new sprites in X6.
• Promoted to Playable: As of May 26, 2021, he joins the playable roster of DiVE.
• Purple Is Powerful: He has a predominantly purple/pink color scheme.
• Red Right Hand: In DiVE, his right eye is given a purple trail and constant glow, making him look more threatening.

Other Characters

The Traitor (X4 SPOILERS)

Double

^Click to see his true form.

Voiced by: Yasunori Matsumoto (JP), Jeremy Felton (EN)

Introduced as a rookie Hunter in X4, this little fat yellow Reploid acts as X's Mission Control and seems bumbling and harmless. Nevertheless he's loyal to X, assisting him in any way he can....until it is revealed that he was a Maverick working for Sigma all along (and possibly even against him too), with a much more sinister second form.

---

• Attack Drone: He only releases this if you use the Double Cyclone (his weakness) on him. Makes sense as the move blows off his Jello coating.
• Ax-Crazy: He seemed positively delighted to drop cover and slaughter some Maverick Hunters so he could go after X.
• Batman Gambit: Both his story purpose — he knows how overall trusting X is and takes on a form specifically designed to evoke such trust — and in battle — he's aware of the Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors present in the series, discovered his own weakness, then made it so that it's actually harder to beat him with it.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Not only he is a double agent, he also masks his murderous psychopathy beneath a gullible, meek personality.
• Bishōnen Line: His true form is positively more good-looking (and sinister) than his fat form.
• Big Fun: He's a rotund, clumsy, and cheerful fellow. That's for his disguise at least.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: Laser Blade variant.
• Calling Your Attacks: "Evil Slash!"
• Deadly Disc: One of his attacks involves throwing a large blue spinning energy disks.
• Double Agent: He's actually a Maverick working for Sigma all along.
  • Double Reverse Quadruple Agent: Amusingly, thanks to a translation error in the English version, he sounds like one of these instead.
  ''...Hee hee hee. Ha ha ha ha ha ha! The Mavericks, Hunters and Repliforce...Idiots, all of them. They're making my job too easy! ^note The correct translation is: "The Maverick Hunters and Repliforce...Idiots, all of them. They're making my job too easy!"
• Evil All Along: Not only he works for Sigma, he is outright murderous.
• Facial Markings: There's green paint below his eyes.
• Family-Unfriendly Death: The transformed Double literally slicing apart various Reploids in one cutscene, complete with what appears to be blood gushing from their wounds. It makes it surprising the game was rated E for Everyone!
• Fat Idiot: His disguise is a goofy looking round Reploid that frequently trips causing his fellow hunters to laugh at him.
• Hate Sink: His true self is a violent, smug sadistic bastard lacking in any redeeming features, contrasting massively from the other main antagonists of the game.
• Knight of Cerebus: He is portrayed a degree more violently than any other villain in the series, happily evicerating a whole unit of Hunters. His betrayal of X also shakes his faith in others, sowing the seeds for his conflict with Zero in X5.
• Lack of Empathy: Not only does he not have any regret for using X and betraying him upon his defeat, he actually mocks X for having a trusting nature, stating that's his fatal flaw.
• Laughing Mad: His reaction both before and after fighting X (and in the case of the latter scenario, being defeated by him), not to mention his reaction when thinking about killing X.
• Lean and Mean: His true form is rather skinny, and psychotic as opposed to his chubby, and friendly disguise.
• Meaningful Name:
  • He's the double-sized, double-formed Double Agent: Double! And his weakness? Double Cyclone. Overlaps with Punny Name.
  • Then there's the pre-release name for his Maverick form on Capcom's X4 website Jello Man. It's both a subtle jab at the rotund frame of his "innocent" persona, as well as a reference to the strange-looking stuff inside the semi-transparent purple windows of his body.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: He pretends to be a goofy, and overweight Reploid, when he's really a cruel, and thin Maverick.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: The English version has three, but his Japanese intro Boss Banters are much more threatening.
  "I'm so anxious to rip you apart!"
  "I'm gonna recycle you!"
  "Ha ha ha...You're gonna get hurt, X!"
  "I've been waiting for this moment. It's about time I'll cut you to shreds!"
  "Heh heh heh! I'll kick your ass, X!"
• Psycho for Hire: He's under Sigma's employ and quite the psycho. He can, however, pretend to be civil with his "fat" form.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: In his second form. Notably, his irises is actually black, but his sclera is red.
• Shadow Archetype: Of X. One of X's defining traits is his difficulty to reconcile his pacifist nature with the reality of the fighting and killing he has to do to achieve peace. Double exaggerates this with his two forms: One is clumsy, meek, and useless; the other is evil, Ax-Crazy, and a very potent combatant. Double is literally both sides of X's personality brought to negative extremes.
• The Sociopath: Double is a total monster hiding behind a friendly, clumsy facade. Not only is he a bloodthirsty psychopath who revels in killing the Maverick Hunters that trusted him, but he has the gall to mock X for being compassionate and views his empathic nature as a weakness.
• Sword Beam: Can fire large blue crescent beams if he's low on health.
• Transformation Sequence: This occurs in a cutscene in X's playthrough, where, after Sigma contacts him and tells him to go after X, he transforms into his true form and starts slaughtering the Maverick Hunters in the base. He's also shown transforming before his boss fight starts.
• Verbal Tic: In the Japanese version, he ends his sentences with "deshi" instead of the normal "desu". He does it even as his second form.

Dynamo

Voiced by: Showtaro Morikubo (JP)

A mercenary hired by Sigma during the events of X5 to spread the virus inside the space colony Eurasia, in order to destabilise its orbit. While the Hunters were racing against time to prevent this, Dynamo challenged them to fights in order to slow them down. He reappears in X6, this time on his own trying to increase his power by the use of Nightmare souls. He never makes a reappearance in later games.

---

• Affably Evil: Speaks with the Hunters very casually despite serving Sigma in X5. He outright admits that he's only interested in stalling the Hunters, and doesn't care about killing them.
• Arm Cannon: In the shape of a cylinder, complete with a massive ironsight. He only uses it when fighting Zero, however.
• Battle Boomerang: His beam sabers are used this way, unlike Zero and Sigma's use of such a weapon.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: After X6, he's never even mentioned.
• Cool Shades: Red visor, to be specific.
• Death from Above: If you fight him as X, he'll use an attack where he jumps over you and slashes down at you with his beam saber as he's passing overhead.
• Double Weapon: His beam saber, though he never actually fights with it in the traditional Double Weapon style.
• The Dragon: He is a mercenary hired by Sigma during the events of X5.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: His appearance in X6 is just him trying to collect a lot of Nightmare Souls to get stronger. He otherwise doesn't have a bearing to the main plot.
• Ground Punch: Which results in lasers fired out from the ground.
• I Fight for the Strongest Side!: He admits as much in the opening of X5 when contacting Sigma, saying that nobody would dare fight Sigma save the "stupid" Maverick Hunters.
• Informed Attribute: Was apparently given a combat rating of GA. That's a level above Zero. Single-handedly infecting all of Eurasia and setting it on its collision course is also an impressive feat, to reflect on his rank. In-game, he tends to be a very simple boss, even if you don't have his weakness weapon.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: He has the good sense to beat a retreat when things turn against him instead of fighting to the death.
• Peninsula of Power Leveling: In X6, hit him with his weakness (Meteor Rain/Ensuizan) twice in quick succession and he'll drop a Nightmare Soul worth 200 points, the kind you normally only get for beating the 8 bosses quickly. You can do this three times per battle and you have unlimited opportunities to fight Dynamo. Get the picture?
• Promoted to Playable: In X DiVE.
• Psycho Supporter: Our introduction to Dynamo has him begging Sigma to be allowed to let an orbiting colony crash to Earth, so he can draw out the top Maverick Hunters for a fight. As far as we know, that is his only excuse for teaming up with Sigma (he doesn't even show up in Sigma's fortress at the end, like The Dragon typically does).
• Recurring Boss: You fight him twice in X5, and he returns in X6 as an Optional Boss that can be fought multiple times.
• Smug Smiler: Always lets out a wide smile, and he's an easygoing guy overall. He's also very confident in his own abilities.
• Spin to Deflect Stuff: The only time you see his beam saber in full Double Weapon Form.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: It even returns after bouncing off the wall.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Infamously, he disappears from X5 only to reappear as an Optional Boss in X6 and then never appear again.
• White Hair, Black Heart: He's white haired and he's working for Sigma. In X6 he goes by himself, while still antagonizing the heroes.
• Wild Card: For X6. He's acting as a free agent looking to harvest Nightmare Souls for more power and doesn't really care about the villains' goals.

Red

Voiced by: Akio Ōtsuka (JP), Barry Gjerde (EN)

Leader of the vigilante Maverick-hunting syndicate Red Alert, which formed to fill the power vaccuum left by X's retirement. Red was the one who first found Axl and put his shapeshifting abilities to work as an assassin. When Axl runs away from Red Alert and gets caught up with the Maverick Hunters, he personally challenges the Hunters for his return. It turns out this is due to the influence of Sigma, unsurprisingly.

---

• A Father to His Men: He's angered at seeing his compatriots getting turned into Mavericks and Sigma forces him to get Axl back by holding them hostage.
• Affably Evil: Despite his violent ways, his manner of speech is quite casual and laidback, and he challenges the Hunters to a "duel" of all things over Axl.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Red just started hunting Mavericks himself and unintentionally amassed an entire syndicate. Now he's their boss.
• Big Brother Mentor: Once acted as this for Axl.
• Bounty Hunter: Red Alert are basically these, and he's their leader.
• Disc-One Final Boss: No guesses as to who was pulling his strings...
• Disney Death: Played with. At first Red seems to die in the collapsing chamber. But then he reappears after Sigma's defeat to provide his boss backup, only for him to be revealed as Axl in disguise, using the opportunity to deal the finishing blow. Red really did die back there.
• Doppelgänger Attack: Summons shadow clones that throw their scythes at the player.
• Double Weapon: Wields a double-bladed scythe of all things.
• The Dragon: Forced into this role for Sigma. The latter was so confident in his subservience that he never saw Axl's deception coming.
• Duels Decide Everything: Challenges the Hunters to a worldwide Maverick-hunting competition, wherein whoever defeats the most Mavericks - including each other's forces - gets to keep Axl.
• Egocentric Team Naming: Leader of the Red Alert syndicate. Justified in that he never intended to make the group, and the members just built it around him.
• Expy: Of General from X4. Both are leaders of Maverick-hunting organizations, both are manipulated by Sigma but not quite turned Maverick, both are Disk One Final Bosses (that should go without saying at this point) and both go down with their lairs as they start to collapse.
• Eye Scream: He's missing an eye. Ōgon no Hibi reveals that he lost it on the same day that he found Axl, but doesn't explain exactly how he lost it and mentions that he refuses to talk about it either.
• Foil: To X. In X7, X sticks to his pacifistic morals too strictly and ends up paralyzed because of it, making the situation worse by being too steadfast. But Red holds few, if any, standards. He is not afraid to get his hands dirty or work with unsavory folks. This ultimately gets him caught up with Sigma, leading to his downfall.
• Forced into Evil: Despite working outside the law, Red wasn't that bad of a guy. He did cross the line when Red Alert started targeting innocent Reploids for their DNA, thanks to Sigma, but he never had dreams of world domination. Unfortunately, letting Sigma on his side quickly got him into a Blackmail situation wherein he was forced to fight the Hunters and solidify himself as a villain.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: He's an abrasive man and he has a scar on his face. Ultimately, he isn't evil though, just manipulated.
• The Grim Reaper: Design notes confirm he is based on the Grim Reaper.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: He and his gang started attacking innocent Reploids and generally acting more violent, which leads to Axl defecting from the group. In actuality, Red was conned by "the Professor" (who is actually Sigma) into abusing Axl's data to power up the rest of the syndicate. By the time he realizes who he's dealing with and what he's done, Sigma infects the rest of the team and he's forced into seeing the fight through to the end.
• Load-Bearing Boss: He rigs his Boss Room to collapse once he's defeated.
• Mysterious Past: The ''Ōgon no Hibi" short story suggests that Red doesn't like to talk about his past, leaving it shrouded in mystery. The only hint is that he's rumored to have been in Repliforce in the past.
• Never Hurt an Innocent: Used to be this way. Until the Professor came along.
• Parental Substitute: He does think of Axl as something of a son. Even to the point of encouraging him to escape as the room they're fighting in collapses.
• Platform Battle: His battle takes place on several platforms among a misty crevasse. Though the platforms are quite large, his tornado and doppelganger attacks give him impressive area denial to keep the player on their toes.
• Redemption Equals Death: His last words before his demise are encouraging Axl to escape and keep living.
• The Remnant: Red was implied in the Ōgon no Hibi booklet to be a veteran from the Repliforce War. Ironically, his Maverick Hunting group meets the same fate.
• Senseless Sacrifice: There really wasn't much reason for Red to perish. It's possible he felt sacrificial remorse for his evil deeds, or had grown suicidal after the deaths of his most trusted colleagues.
• Sinister Scythe: His weapon is a double-scythe, with blades on both ends. Fitting, as he's modeled after the Grim Reaper.
• Sword Beam: Flings energy cutters from his scythe's blade.
• Teleport Spam: Regularly teleports around the platforms in his boss room, making him hard to keep track of.
• Tornado Move: Summons purple tornadoes by spinning his scythe.
• Vigilante Man: Decided to start cleaning up the slack left by X's retirement, but with Maverick-hunting tactics that often caused logistical problems for the official Maverick Hunters.
• Villain's Dying Grace: He sets a bomb in a section of the palace, but allows the Maverick Hunters to escape. He even refuses to allow Axl to help him and tells him that it's not his time.
• Unwitting Pawn: Sigma gets his syndicate into using Axl's DNA data to get stronger, but also secretly infects them with the Sigma Virus. It's subverted when Red realizes that Sigma was just using them, but Sigma turns his teammates against him at that point and leaves him no choice but to continue.

The True Final Boss (X8 SPOILERS)

Lumine

Voiced by: Junko Noda (JP), Elinor Holt (EN)

The overseer of the Jakob Project, a Space Elevator being constructed to allow mankind to colonize the Moon. Lumine is a New Generation Reploid, featuring the same Copy Chip present in Axl. He is kidnapped by Vile at the start of the game as part of Sigma's plans. After Sigma is defeated, Lumine reveals that he was secretly using Sigma as part of his plan to overcome not just humanity, but also all old generation Reploids as well.

---

• Adaptive Ability: His whole shtick. Demonstrated in his first form boss fight.
• Ambiguous Situation: Just how Sigma "helped [Lumine's] plan along" is left vague by the story, especially since it's stated that Sigma created the New Generation Reploids including Lumine. It's never clear whether Lumine overcame Sigma's viral influence and forced the latter to bend to the former's will or Lumine simply decided to bide his time and wait for Sigma to be eliminated so Lumine could take over himself.
• Appeal to Nature: Believes that the evolution of the New Generation Reploids and their total supremacy is inevitable. He uses this to justify his Maverick actions. He took advantage of Sigma's ambition to speed the process up, but after he and Sigma are defeated, he still boasts to the Hunters that they cannot fight the future.
• Barrier Change Boss: Switching to a different Maverick attack leaves him vulnerable to that Maverick's weakness.
• Bastard Understudy: If what Sigma said about creating the New-Gen Reploids was true, it seems that he was just waiting for Sigma to kick the bucket before he took the reins.
• Big Bad: Surprisingly, since the rest of the game before The Reveal near the end suggests that, as usual, Sigma is behind everything.
• Break Them by Talking: Manages to discourage X and Zero by telling them that the New Generation Reploids didn't go Maverick because of Sigma's influence, but rather because it's what they wanted. By his logic that New Generation Reploids are superior to all other life, this would mean it's the right thing to do. However, Axl isn't as affected by these remarks and shoots him to shut him up.
• Bullet Hell: His second form uses this strategy.
• Call-Back:
  • Lumine's plan (bringing the New Generation Reploids into space to create their own society) mimics General's plan from X4. Unlike General, Lumine's plan was unclouded by any external party and he was truly misanthropic towards the humans and older-gen Reploids.
  • Lumine's goal to hasten the evolution of the New Generation Reploids is an exaggerated reflection of Sigma's original rebellion in X1. This time Lumine doesn't want to kill just the humans - he wants to destroy all the old Reploids too, which is also similar to Gate's dream.
• Deflector Shields: His second form uses one.
• Diabolical Mastermind: The first and so far only villain to have the dubious honor of getting one up on even Sigma. He is also the only villain to replace Sigma as the final opponent at the end of a game.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Inverted, Sigma is the Disc-One Final Boss for X8.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: Voice didn't help.
• Evil All Along: He was the real villain of the game, not a victim.
• Evil Counterpart: Pay attention to his attacks in his first form. They involve using the Desperation Attacks of the game's bosses, complete with them color coding him while they're in use. His second phase also involves equipping armor to increase his natural abilities. In essence, he's an upgraded version of X, with zero the morality.
• The Fatalist: Believes that Reploids are destined to rise above the humans and even each other. He doesn't even seem that rattled by his own death, defiantly claiming that the future will march on anyway.
• Final-Exam Boss: His first form also has him being vulnerable to whatever weakness of the Boss he's emulating.
• Got the Whole World in My Hand: He does this to the Earth (as he's standing on the moon) before the Final Battle.
• Last Breath Bullet: To Axl, with a tentacle-like appendage from his wrecked body.
• Light Is Not Good: Not just having light-based attacks in the second form, said form also looks decidedly angelic; even his name means "light". And we're led to think he's good...before The Reveal.
• Louis Cypher: There's a Shout-Out to Lucifer of the famous Paradise Lost poem, whose first follower is an underling named Belial (and Sigma's form in this game is sometimes called Belial Sigma). Lumine's second form is called Seraph, and said form's Desperation Attack (and the subtitle of the game) is also named Paradise Lost. He's the prettiest male Reploid in the X series, like Lucifer was the prettiest angel in Heaven. His One-Winged Angel form also have six wings, and, well, Lucifer is well-known for his six wings. To begin with, his name means "Light" in Latin, and Lucifer can be translated into "Light-Bringer"
• The Man Behind the Man: Apparently to Sigma. Zigzagged. In the opening of the game Lumine leaves you hanging with ominous feeling that there may be more to him than meets the eye. Sigma says that stealing the Jakob Project is his idea, and that all of the copy chips of the New Gen Reploids^note Not counting Axl's, as he was a prototype contain Sigma's DNA. As Alia puts it, all the Maverick New Gens are less so controlled by Sigma, but actually seem to be his genetic children, and this includes Lumine above than any other. While he was waiting to usurp the plan from Sigma, this isn't a case of getting the better of the old virus, moreso simply being the next "incarnation" of Sigma as his offspring.
• Manipulative Bastard: He played the innocent victim, but in reality, he was helping head the entire ordeal in X8.
• Marked Change: The moment he exposes his horrifically evil true nature, Lumine's deceptively blue eyes flare into bright orange.
• Meaningful Name: Somewhat. Fans were quick to cite the similarity of his name to the original Fallen Angel. For double points, it's also Latin for Light.
• Meta Twist: You'd think that Sigma is still the Big Bad. Go play this game, and...be surprised.
• Musical Theme Naming: All his attacks except Paradise Lost (Refrain, Legato, Bel Canto, Gravé, Unison and Oratorio).
• A Nazi by Any Other Name: Believes the New Generation Reploids are the future and that all other life should just die.
• Obviously Evil: Him being the true Big Bad of the game probably would've been a better twist if he hadn't been so blatantly sinister from the get-go.
• One-Winged Angel: He not only grows angel wings, but the background suddenly becomes cloudy and sunny...even though you're fighting on the Moon.
• Perpetual Molt: His second form has feathers falling down from his wings - even though his wings are robotic.
• Power Copying: His first form packs every Desperation Attack of the eight standard bosses.
• Power Floats: He floats in both rounds of his fight.
• Power Gives You Wings: In his second form.
• Power Glows: He glows every time he absorbs a colored orb of the Mavericks' powers.
• Psychotic Smirk: When stomping on Sigma's corpse after claiming that Sigma was apparently his Unwitting Pawn.
• Pummeling the Corpse: After Sigma's death, in which Lumine is revealed to be The Man Behind the Man to Sigma, the first thing he does before confronting the heroes is stomp on Sigma's corpse.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: DEAR LORD!
• Robots Enslaving Robots: He plans to destroy all of the old generation Reploids so the new ones like him could rule.
• Rocks Fall Everybody Dies: His Paradise Lost attack. On the plus side, while charging it, he doesn't do anything else but hide in his wings and teleport. If you fail to finish him off in about 30 seconds, the trope is invoked.
• Shielded Core Boss: He protects himself with multiple layers of shielding that must be broken to damage him, but as the battle wears on and he reveals his ultimate Desperation Attack, the player must do so within a time limit to win the battle.
• The Social Darwinist:
  Lumine: The world is changing! Therefore, it's only natural that evolution takes its course. Now, line up to be exterminated!
• True Final Boss: In Normal and Hard modes. On Easy, you'll just fight Sigma.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: He believes that he personally manipulated Sigma. However, what he seems to not realize is that his behavior was born of emulating Sigma's through the data in his copy chip; in essence just being a new Sigma taking the place of the old.

Dr. Albert W. Wily (MASSIVE UNMARKED SPOILERS)

See his character page here

The Maverick Virus (Mega Man X DiVE spoilers)

The computer virus synthesized by Dr. Wily to keep Zero under control, which later escaped and caused the central conflict of the X series. Though the Maverick Virus spends much of the franchise's chronology mutated into the Sigma Virus as a result of Sigma's ill-fated first encounter with Zero, Mega Man X DiVE reveals the vital components of the original strain developed a mind of their own, eventually manifesting as two avatars taking after Wily's creations with comparable destructive power.

For more information on them, see ViA and iCO's folders in Mega Man X - Supporting Cast.

---