Copy X

"You are an interesting individual, as I thought you might be."

- Copy X

Copy X is a powerful evil Reploid who is a clone of the original Megaman X and the ruler of Neo Arcadia. He appears as the main antagonist of Megaman Zero, and later on as one of the main antagonists of Megaman Zero 3.

History
Copy X is a Reploid that is a clone of the original X, created by the scientist Ciel to take the place of X as ruler of Neo Arcadia, since X used his own body to seal the Dark Elf.

However, Copy X had a different vision from the original X, because he was not put to sleep for at least 30 years and his reliability was never tested. He felt that the humans must be put above all else, considered Reploids to be second-class to humans, and when the energy crisis started, he began to hunt down Reploids at random, wrongly accusing all of them of being Mavericks, using them as scapegoats for the crisis.

The few who survived, organize a resistance against Neo Arcadia, and Ciel joins them, feeling guilty for what Copy X became. His army, led by his loyal guardians Harpuia, Fefnir, Leviathan and Phantom, slowly crushes the resistance.

Megaman Zero
Copy X appears as the main antagonist. Although he is never seen until the end of the game, he is a powerful and ominous presence in the mind of the Resistance force. Without more options, Ciel decides to find the lost legendary Reploid known as Zero to help them in their fight. They finally find the chamber where he is hibernating, but they are followed by Copy X's forces. Ciel manages to awake Zero, who then opens the way out of the place and saves Ciel. Zero then helps the resistance, eventually defeating the four guardians and making his way to Neo Arcadia. After Phantom self-destructs, the remaining 3 guardians attempt to bar his entrance to their master, but Copy X himself appears and tells them to leave.

He tells Zero he has been looking forward to this moment and claims that he has built a utopia for humans that neither Zero nor the original X could create. Zero battles Copy X in his ultimate armor and defeats him for the first time. Zero says that he remembers the original X being mightier. Copy X furiously transforms into his final form, a massive seraph form. Zero battles him and narrowly defeats him a final time. While dying, Copy X says he was supposed to be perfect and that he will never forgive Zero. He then sets his base to self-destruct in an attempt to destroy Zero, but Zero escapes.

Megaman Zero 3
Much time later, he is resurrected by Dr. Weil, who uses him on his plan to take control of Neo Arcadia. Copy X has a noticeable stutter, and his eyes are now blue instead of red.

After the first four judges are defeated, Copy X and Dr. Weil send a missile to a human residential area (Area Z-3079) to catch the Dark Elf. Therefore, when Copy X and Dr. Weil contact the Resistance asking her to surrender and hand over the Ciel System, Ciel refuses to deliver it, because she created it to bring peace between humans and reploids and they weren't above to sacrifice lots of innocent lifes to catch the Dark Elf. Later, Zero defeats some revived robots from Megaman Zero 1, infiltrates in Neo Arcadia and challenges him, defeating him once again, but when he tries to power himself up, a bomb that was inside of his body is triggered, causing him to self-destruct. Weil easily takes over Neo Arcadia after this, becoming it's new ruler, saying that X had sadly passed away thanks to bloodthirsty extremists. As the series ends with Megaman Zero 4, it is unknown if he would have ever made a reappearance, if the series did continue, he may have been ressurrected yet again but Neo Arcadia, Weil, and the guardians were all destroyed so it may or may have not been unlikely.

Rockman Zero manga
Copy X appears shortly along with his Ultimate Armor in the Rockman Zero manga, where he is an unnamed fusion of the Four Guardians created by Cial, who refers to him as the "Perfect Reploid". He overwhelms the battle-weary Zero using his Nova Strike and deals a serious blow, reverting Zero into his meek self. Believing he had already won, he prepares to kill Zero, but Lito tries to protect Zero. Angry, he throws Lito away and would have killed him, but Zero gathers up the courage and strength to fight back without his helmet, impaling the Perfect Reploid from behind using his Z-Saber. Without the Four Guardians, the Resistance was able to defeat the Neo Arcadian armies. Copy X was noticeably much more psychotic than his original depiction as seen through his facial tick.

Personality
Copy X, though proclaimed himself to be the perfect copy of the original Megaman X in every way, has the distinction of being a main incarnation of Mega Man who is outright evil. The standard by which he views himself creates a warped sense of justice in which any decision he makes is right by virtue of being a perfect copy. Zero makes note of this difference after defeating Copy X the first time by calling him naive, suggesting that he lacked the experiences and memories of the original X to properly understand justice and rule Neo Arcadia as X did. However, Copy X disregards this, and doesn't hesitate to stand up for himself and his perfection.

Above all, Copy X is extremely arrogant, overestimating himself and his own role as a ruler.

Trivia

 * Copy X, in his reappearance in Mega Man Zero 3, follows the long tradition in the Mega Man franchise of a "fake villain", as he was manipulated by Dr. Weil, similar to how both Dr. Wily and Sigma manipulated other villains in their respective eras.
 * The original X was originally slated to appear as the antagonist of the Zero series, instead of Copy X (in fact, Copy X was never even going to exist), but due to the release of Mega Man X6, this idea was omitted in the list of original concepts meant to connect Mega Man X5 with the first Zero game.
 * Copy X is far more powerful in Megaman Zero than in Megaman Zero 3 because of his powerful second form, despite the fact that he has an extra atack in Megaman Zero 3 called the "Reflect Laser".
 * It is probable that Copy X's first incarnation would not have trusted Weil and, therefore, would not have been his pawn. However, Copy X "Mark II" probably had his brain modified to trust Weil and listen to his advice.
 * Even though Copy X is the fifth Mega Man incarnation, he is only quasi-playable in his Mega Man Zero 3 mini-game.
 * Copy X is one of two Mega Man incarnations to not appear in all installments of "his" series (the other one is Mega Man Volnutt, who is not involved in one installment of his series).
 * In this regard, Copy X is also the only one in which the series does not revolve around him (besides being one of the main antagonists), instead revolving around Zero.
 * Oddly enough, Copy X features a slide attack, a technique that was shared with the original Mega Man, although it was only used as a dash technique.
 * In actual gameplay, both of Copy X's forms has the least health of the final bosses in the Mega Man Zero series, with both of his forms having only two life-bars, in a contrast to the later final bosses, and some bosses earlier in the first game (which includes the Four Guardians), which had three life bars. Because he has two forms however, he still has the most health of the bosses in the first Mega Man Zero game.
 * If the player loses to Copy X not in Seraph form, he will continuously jump around the room executing his attacks in a taunt-like manner while yelling his you-are-defeated sentence.
 * Copy X's personality might be a result of not having to go through Dr. Light's extensive 3 decade-long testing. In other words, he might be a perfect copy of X physically, but never mentally conditioned to be at all like him, lending the possibility that even the original X could have been evil if it wasn't for Light's precautions.
 * X's ending in Mega Man X4 may be the first foreshadowing to Copy X, or likely the original intention for X to become the villain in the Zero series. While escaping from Final Weapon, he contacts Zero and begs him to destroy him in case he ever goes Maverick.
 * In Zero's Mega Man X7's ending, Zero has a nightmare where X apparently goes berserk and tries to eliminate all the Mavericks, even Zero. This was most likely foreshadowing Copy X's rise to power.
 * In both of his appearances, his attacks reference special weapons from Mega Man X.
 * In a sense, Copy X's destruction can be seen as an indirect success on Zero's original objective that was given to him by Dr. Wily when he was created, which was to destroy Dr. Light's creation.
 * The Ultimate Armor set of moves is parallel to the system of Omega (Zero Form) himself, only with the lack of an EX Skill.
 * Copy X is possibly a homage to the Copy Robot of the classic Mega Man series.
 * If one closely listens to Seraph Mode Copy X's theme "Fake", it sounds like a re-imaging of Vile's theme from the first Mega Man X game.
 * Amusingly, both the Original and Copy X have only one unique theme dedicated to them. It's "Cyberelf" for Cyber-elf X, and "Fake" for (needless to say) Copy X.
 * The Modified Pantheon Aqua from Mega Man Zero 3 emits phrases and an eerie cackle very remarkably like Copy X's Seraph transformation. It also drops objects in a similar fashion to Copy X's helmet halo ray attack, and fires a wide area laser across the floor.
 * Copy X's final form in Mega Man Zero bears an uncanny resemblance to Solaris, the celestial sun god and the final boss of Sonic the Hedgehog (2006).