Awesome / Mega Man Zero

"I never cared about justice, and I don't recall ever calling myself a hero... I have always only fought for the people I believe in. I won't hesitate... if an enemy appears in front of me, I will destroy it!"

Suppemental Works

• For over a century, X took up the guard as humanity and reploid-kind's sole protector when Zero went into dormancy, but then he realized that he was losing his empathy for his fallen foes, knew where that was going to lead him, and opted to use his body as a seal for the Dark Elf. This should be an immediate red flag, however: the Dark Elf is a digital-living source of limitless, reality-warping energies that could more or less destroy the world. If X's body without him even being in it can passively hold this, what does that say for Light's legacy? Just how far did his body, made to endlessly evolve, grow in that hundred years? One could only imagine what a force he was in his last days!
  • It goes even further when one remembers that X's self was split into five pieces upon sealing the Dark Elf, with one being his Cyber-Elf self and the other four becoming the Guardians. Even as a mere 20% of his dilluted self without his body, he's able to just appear in the Resistance Base and shut down the Maverick Army the Resistance had been turned into by willing it to be so, directly overpowering the Dark Elf and Omega's influence with a thought. There's a good reason X couldn't be allowed into the story in complete form, absolutely nothing on earth would stand a chance against him.

Misc.

• Really, the only thing people need to know to make Zero the most badass character in the franchise boils down to this: remember Mega Man 1? 'Fight for everlasting peace?' Dr. Light built Rock/Mega and X to save the world and fight off Wily. But all through Mega Man and Mega Man X, neither robot could do it. Neither robot could truly save the day. Come Zero, the world finally finds a hero. Built by Dr. Wily over 300 years ago, by all means outdated in comparison to other robots (to the point he's the only 'Robot Master' left in the entire world, now filled with reploids), Zero ends up doing what Mega Man couldn't. Zero ends up fulfilling Dr. Light's wish: his final sacrifice gives the world 200 years of undisputed peace at least, and finally allows humans and reploids to come together. And in a weird and ironic, but fitting way, by doing so Zero also fulfilled every goal his creator Dr. Wily had. Dr. Wily had three main goals throughout his life, and Zero met every goal and in truly Wily fashion; taking another option for each, the sort of choice only Zero could make.
  • First - destroy Thomas Light's final and greatest creation, Mega Man X. Zero ended up befriending X, and would only end up destroying a perfect copy of X to preserve his friend's legacy.
  • Second - surpass Doctor Light. Zero accomplished this, not by beating X, but by fulling X's mission to unify humans and reploids. Despite X being built for that express purpose, X was found too early to truly be the leader the reploids needed him to be, and despite his best efforts, humanity turning their vices and reploids going maverick or taking on their creators' worst qualities meant X could never truly bring them together. Zero carried on X's legacy instead, and achieved his friend's dream by allying with two humans; Ciel and Niege.
  • Third - in Mega Man 11, we learn that before Wily turned evil, he wanted to build a robot with the power to be seen as a hero. Zero was made with the power to bring about the end of times and ruin civilization as the world knew it, but it was this very power that made him a hero. Zero fulfilled the wishes of both Dr. Light and Dr. Wily by going his own course.
• Ciel nearly died at the beginning of the first game, or could've been captured at least, with the Resistance sacrificing a large number of their troops to the slaughter, just to risk everything on waking up Zero because of his reputation. And when he returns in the second game, Ciel immediately asks Elpizo to entrust the Resistance's future to Zero again after he earned his colors in the first game. A teen girl gambled what could've been the end of freedom and the world as we know it on a sleeping corpse of a machine that isn't even inside his original body, only barely managing to resurrect him in an amnesiac state. And she won that bet against all the impossible odds. For all Ciel has as mostly a support character, there wouldn't be a future if she didn't take these risks, and Zero all but demonstrated why she believed in him from the outset.

Zero 1

• What about at the very beginning? Zero's been asleep for a hundred and some years, has lost most of his memory, and doesn't even have any of his weapons (he takes a dead soldier's gun). When they find him, they have no idea of any of these things except for the first. Ciel's Cyber-Elf, on her own, gives up her life to awaken him. Nothing happens for a second. And then a bright light fills the room and suddenly (to every SNES gamer's happiness), guitars and drums are cued to a remixed version of Zero's theme. The epic one that was used when he shot the arm of Vile's Ride Armor off.
  Ciel: Zero... has been resurrected.
  Zero: ...
  Ciel: Zero? Help me. Please...
  Zero: [shifts to a fighting stance]
  MISSION START!
  • All through the stage you are just tearing a path through the enemies with an unchargeable buster. Music still going and making you feel like you're a god of destruction. Then comes the golem, which Ciel claims can't be defeated with just a buster. You take out a good portion of its health before Cyber Elf X appears, gives you the Z-saber back, and you destroy the Golem with a single slash. Even without his memories, Zero is, and always will be, a badass.
    • To further up the already-ludicrous badass level in that scene: you can opt to forgo using the Z-Saber after the cutscene and continue using the Buster to defeat the Golem. Um, care to tell Zero he can't do that again, Ciel? I don't think he quite heard you over all the badass.
  • Furthering his badassery is the fact that he doesn't even have a Buster at all...the Complete Works Artbook reveals that he just picked up the worthless pea-shooter Milan was using, and it was upgraded just from him touching it to shoot buster-pellets instead of 9mm rounds.
• The "Duel In Desert" stage. You are basically tearing a path through an endless streak of Mooks to get to Fefnir, the boss. Doubles as Best Level Ever. Lampshaded by Ciel after the mission:
  Ciel: Thank you, Zero. If our defense line was broken, this Base wouldn't last long... still, I can't believe you wiped out such a large number of enemies... you are truly a legendary hero.
• The ending, where Zero calls Copy X weak and tells him that the real X is strong because he is fighting for something.
• Copy X makes Dr. Light's achievement in building Mega Man X one of these. Reploids as a species came into existence due to an inadequate attempt to copy X's design, many in the X series try to make Reploids that can match up to X. As shown with Copy X who is probably the closest anyone has ever managed, which is an achievement for Ciel herself, is still not quite up to X's level. Light managed to build a robot that was so far in advance of any other scientist except Dr. Wily that even centuries after Light's death it's still only even equaled by his direct rival's creation.
• After Zero defeats Copy X, he fell onto a desert and fainted. When he woke up, a huge army of Pantheons appears behind him. Cue Zero's Badass Creed:
  Zero: I'll do what you want... rest for a while. I will handle it, you can count on me. I won't stop! If an enemy appears... I'll terminate it.
  • And then he proceeded to kick mass amounts of ass... and survived for one year.

Zero 2

• Zero throwing off his cloak in the intro, ready to fight after he's found by a group of Pantheons in the desert. Arguably the most badass intro stage music in Mega Man starts playing, which is definitely saying something given the Series.
• Not quite as good, but still beautiful to watch, is Harpuia coming across an unconscious and almost dead Zero in the desert and having a "to live or die" moment.
• The intermission stage, where Zero has to intercept an aircraft, which is carrying a bomb, aimed at the resistance base. The entire mission, if you can overlook the difficulty, is pure awesome.
  • Lets summarize what happened: first Zero is dropped on top of an enemy mini-aircraft, you have to jump from one aircraft to the next one, some of which have enemy Mooks on top of them, to reach the giant aircraft that's carrying the bomb and if Zero falls, it's certain death. After Zero reaches the aircraft, he is attacked by one of those mini-craft from before. When he goes inside after destroying the mini-craft, he is faced with many lethal electric traps, that hits hard. When Zero finally manages to get to the other side of many of those traps and in the control room, he must now wait 90 seconds for Ciel to defuse the bomb, while there is a constant stream of enemies and bullets at his direction. Afterwards, due to air turbulence, Zero can't be teleported out, so he has jump off the aircraft from the other side of the ship, while destroying some enemies in the way, so he can return to the resistance aircraft and finally to the boss battle on top of the aircraft. All of that happened in a single mission.

Zero 3

• The first intermission stage. Sure, Zero ultimately fails, but it's a cavalcade of awesome moments for multiple people -
  • First, Ciel admits that transferring directly to the missile base is a risky gambit - they're using old satellite imagery of the general area to determine how to transfer in, and going directly there from the Aegis Volcano is risky because of all the scout patrols. Despite this, when push comes to shove, the operators Rouge and Joan still manage to get Zero directly into the base.
  • Second, Zero rushes through the base to stop the launch, and gets to the base of the missile just as it readies for blast-off. What does Zero do? He jumps onto the launching missile and rides it up into the sky, before ripping and tearing his way into the missile's interior so he can get a shot at Omega. Even with how amazing Zero is and all the achievements he has under his belt, Ciel was justifiably worried that this was a suicide mission, and Zero doesn't even hesitate. If not for Crea and Prea being there to defend Omega, the game might have ended there.
  • Following this, the missile lands and blows up with Zero rushing to get outside and he somehow survives. It might not be his original body, but given all the things that have killed Zero before, being at ground zero for a missile launch is apparently nothing.
  • Finally, Harpuia cements his Heel–Face Turn by teleporting in to defend a weakened Zero from a superpowered Omega, calls out Weil and Copy X for straying from the original intent of Neo Arcadia and X's dreams, and starts zapping Omega. It fails to do any damage, but it does cause Omega to consider Harpuia a threat and focus fire on him, giving Ciel and the operators enough time to set transfer coordinates and warp them both out, right from under Omega's nose.
• After Ciel's attempts at diplomacy have failed, Zero tells her that she did what she could but, "What happens next is my job." Cue ass kicking.
  • That attempt in particular was an amazing display of courage and mettle from Ciel's part. Copy X and Dr. Weil are trying to goad her into giving up the Ciel System with barely concealed threats trying to sound reasonable. Ciel's answer? An essentially "shove it" especially after she's seen what they are capable of (they had just bombed a civilian settlement), proving she's not a naive and gullible girl. Ciel's been deemed fit to lead the Resistance for a darn good reason.
• Zero shouldn't have all the glory. When the Resistance base gets Brainwashed by Weil using Omega, and Zero is clearly in a conflict as to how to protect Ciel without cutting his companions to ribbons. Cue X appearing and using his awesome Cyber Elf powers to knock out the entire freakin' base, and then he makes the whole base immune, all that while he's weak and fading away from using too much energy/staying too long without his body. (Of course, this display probably contributed to that.)
• Phantom, arguably freshly-turned, and after giving Zero a Secret Test of Character, challenges Zero to rise up to the challenge against Omega.
• When Weil gloats about how a Reploid could never imagine the enjoyment of controlling everyone on Earth, Zero's Shut Up, Hannibal! is to say that he doubts most sensible humans could imagine it either.

Zero 4

• And yet another one for Zero: After the Untrusting Community that is Area Zero finds out the truth of their leader, Neige, they decided to abandon all effort in trying to rescue her. Zero's reply:
  Zero: You're just going to abandon her? She put her life on the line to stop the fight and save you and your Settlement!
  NPC: What of it!? If we save her, we might get attacked again!
  Zero: Look at you all cowering in fear. You're no different than the humans in Neo Arcadia...
  NPC: H-how dare you!
  Zero: If you're going to be like that, why even put your lives at stake to leave Neo Arcadia in the first place?
  • Seems like nothing came out of Zero's verbal assault, did it? Until this happens:
  NPC: We can't do anything to save Neige. We humans aren't as strong as you Reploids. But you were right. If we abandon Neige, this whole Settlement means nothing. From the moment we all decided to live free of Weil's rule, Neige has helped us too many times to count. We don't have the right to ask you this, but... please save Neige for us. If you really aren't like Weil and the others, please lend us your strength!
  • The hostility of the humans towards the Reploids has ended with those words. And that's where peace has finally started to resurface after a VERY long time.
• Neige gets one of these when she tells Weil that she'd rather laugh death in the face than endure a living death under his rule, before giving him the middle finger with a flashbang. Who says Reploids have to get all the glory?
  Neige: If the only other choice is a living death under you... then I'd rather choose to laugh death in the face and face it with dignity! Zero! Now! *throws flashbang*
• The dialogue after beating Craft for the last time. Also doubles as a heartwarming moment:
  Zero: We're only Reploids designed for war. It's not our place to change the world. That's up to humans like Ciel and Neige. As Reploids, we can only lend strength to those we trust.
  Craft: Trust? And just who should I be trusting? The humans that do nothing while their world falls apart? The humans that fear us, their own creations? Or the humans that try to conquer the world? We fight each other for them!? This world screams out in pain under them... why should I trust anyone? How can you trust them? How can you fight?
  Zero: I made a promise to a friend I intend to keep. To someone who believed harmony between human and Reploid was possible. I trust that friend. And I trust the humans that friend trusts...
• Zero has far too many moments of awesome throughout the entire series, but the best has to be the scene leading into the final boss battle. Just a few seconds ago, the music is giving this ominous tone as Weil flaunts his status as a human while taunting Zero about his ideals of justice. The music stops when Weil gets Ragnarok plugged into him, then it starts up again with this heroic, fast-paced beat as Zero gives his response.
  "I never cared about justice, and I don't recall ever calling myself a hero... I have always only fought for the people I believe in. I won't hesitate... if an enemy appears in front of me, I will destroy it!"