I
A couple of miners were working away, living out their lives as they did every day. The miners, a human-like robot called a "reploid" named Toma, and his pet Mettaur Cliff, chipped away at the rock with pickaxes, trying to find anything of value in the mines. It seemed to them, though, that their bosses were crazy. This mine had long since been completely excavated by the Maverick Hunters for resources. It was highly doubtful anything of significance would turn up.
Cliff's pickaxe clanked away in an endless cacophony with Toma's, when an abnormal sound brought the tiny mettaur back to reality. Through a series of beeps, Cliff excitedly notified his master of the change in rock.
"What is it, Cliff?" Toma asked.
The yellow-hat-and-feet-plus-black-body robot scurried away to the place where he had been digging. He hit the same spot again. The same sound resonated clearly.
Toma spurred into action. "This might be what we're looking for!" he exclaimed as he frantically shoved rocks aside. Cliff helped by blasting rocks with his little cannon.
After a few minutes, he heaved the last of the rocks out of the way of a screen containing a small robot no bigger than a child. It didn't look anything like the modern Reploids.
"It must be an old model," Toma commented. "It might fetch a good price at a museum or at Maverick Hunter HQ. Too bad we're already workin' for 'em."
He moved it out of the way. As he did, Cliff stared into the hole created by the missing reploid container. He noticed something reflect some light off the just-removed container in the back, and alerted Toma by way of those same series of beeps.
After placing the stasis tank down, Toma came running. "Another one!?" he exclaimed.
He extracted this second one from the rubble of the old science lab. He loaded them into his truck and drove off.
"We done good today, my Met," Toma said, heading towards Maverick Hunter HQ. "Boss'll be pleased with this."
Cliff returned a reply in a short, staccato series of high-pitched beeps, different in pattern than the ones used to alert.
A few minutes later and they were in the HQ. Their truck was unloaded, they were paid, then Toma and Cliff left for home. Their job was done. They didn't care what the reploids they found were. They were mining bounty-hunters looking for work, and this job was done.
The one who greeted them was Axl, an unknown newbie who would have more of an impact on the future than he would know, garnering many adventures with the legendary X under his belt. Axl worked in receivership, as he was a brand new recruit to the Maverick Hunters, as well as a secret organization only he knew of. He led the transport robots up to the research core to drop the two reploids off at the lab. After he finished, he talked with a passing-by Alia.
Coincidentally, Zero, a red reploid with flowing gold hair and mad sword skills, was in the lab for his maintenance Another legendary Reploid with the most adventures of anyone at Maverick Hunter HQ, he had reported in due to a problem he was having involving his internal processes. He watched the newbie and also-somewhat-new navigator Alia exchange words. Two stasis chambers went by, into the very lab where he sat being checked over by Lifesavor, a bearded sky blue robot specializing in vaccines and anything technomedical. Zero's curiosity was piqued.
Once his repair was completed, he found Alia talking with one of her co-workers. She was ending the conversation, so Zero approached her.
"So, Alia, what did that kid bring in today?" Zero asked.
"Oh, hi Zero!" Alia replied. "He brought in a couple of outdated robots that some old reploid found doing a mining mission we sent him on. They're both kids."
"New recruits, I guess…" Zero commented. "Have you gotten their names yet?"
"Shift and Shatter," the programming whiz shook her head. "They won't respond to any commands to activate. My guess is their circuits and programs need repairing."
Zero closed his warrior-like eyes, folded his arms, and thought for a moment, then mumbled, "Can I see them?"
"What for? They're sleeping in their stasis tanks," Alia asked. "Do you think you'll be able to activate them?"
"Who knows?" the red reploid said, opening his eyes. "Maybe there's something you haven't thought of yet."
"My processor is designed to go through thousands of thoughts a millisecond," she exclaimed. "How can you say I haven't thought of everything?"
"Hey, I miss stuff on missions all the time," Zero declared. "If it weren't for X, I probably wouldn't be half as powerful as I am now."
Alia giggled. "Yet you pretty much babied him through his first year or two with us. Heck, his first serious mission would have failed had you not watched his back, from what I hear from Signas."
"Hey, I was a newbie once, too," Zero exclaimed. "As are you. By the way, Vile was a tough enemy as well. You remember how he torched me before X took him out."
Alia cocked her head to one side. "How long ago was that?"
"Um… actually, no, you wouldn't remember. It was before you got here," Zero said. "Probably ten, twenty years ago. Yeah, I babied him, but the next time we met he was quite powerful. Whoever his creator was knew what he was doing, that's for sure."
Alia checked her notes. "Dr. Thomas Light. September 6, 20XX."
"Oh yeah," Zero said, suddenly becoming very quiet.
Alia looked him in the eye. "Why is it that whenever I say that name you get all teary-eyed, Zero? It's the only thing you can't take, really."
Zero shook his head. "It's… it's nothing."
Alia shrugged. "Alright, Zero. If you say so."
Zero leaned against a nearby wall, waiting for her to leave before heading into the storage room and examining the robots. When he finally got to see them, he went over their pods with great carefulness and measured movements before finding an old encryption on the back of the girl's chamber.
To activate the sleeper, one must engage the pair, Zero thought, recalling the message. Hmm, that's cryptic. Wonder what it means?
He looked at their name plates, also engraved into the dark, worn capsules. The boy was the one named "Shift" and the girl "Shatter".
From the looks of things, the one called Shift was the shorter of the two, about the size of a child. He looked like he was designed for speed and close combat with the way his body was built for minimal wind resistance. He had no helmet. Instead, a wild collection of purple strands of hair sprung from his head in a daring and untameable way. He had a small energy-generation unit for a shield, makeshift gun or backup sword attached to his left arm and a sword strapped to his back. Otherwise, he had an uncanny resemblance to Zero, especially in colouring. However, his armour seemed a little rusty, as if he had been sleeping for quite some time.
The one called Shatter seemed better built to handle distance combat for extended periods. She was equipped with a gun of X's calibre, but with a sniper shot aiming device and similar energy-control properties to that of her brother's cannon. The end of its' barrel seemed more comfortable firing heavy explosives, like a grenade or a small missile, rather than ordinary energy bullets. She looked a lot like X, which caused him to surmise that she was built more recently and also with X's blueprints as a base. She also didn't have a helmet. Her hair was pink and flowed long with the water. Her white bangs came down her nose and created a flattened W shape just above her round, dark eyes.
The solution occurred to Zero as he was examining them.
"These two seem built to be a team," he commented. "One must engage the pair… I bet I have to awaken them both at the same time."
Figuring the capsules had to hear the activation at the same time for it to work he took a step back, centering his line of sight between the two containers. He took a breath and spoke.
"Shift and Shatter, awaken!"
The stasis tanks lurched upright. They emptied their liquid contents, then, with a poof of steam, opened their doors. Shift and Shatter awakened, both looking a little zombified as they started up.
They both called out their status at the same time.
"Startup at 3. Engaging central processor. Startup at 14. Beginning visual scans and audio processing."
Zero stepped back. Alia burst through the door.
"What's going on?" she shrieked.
Zero turned to her and smiled. "I awakened them."
Alia stepped beside him as Shift and Shatter awakened, reciting their processes in perfect synchronization. She was thoroughly amazed at the complete intertwinedness of their internal link.
Shift and Shatter completed their startup.
"Personality matrix online," they said. "Startup complete. Begin program 'Opera Xeron 6, version 2.4.0.0.4-beta'. Starting Parallax Server system."
Shift looked around. "Do you have any idea where we are?"
Shatter shook her head. "I don't." She eyed her brother. "You need some cleaning up."
Shift looked himself over. "Well, lookee here. I do. So do you."
The two raised their eyes to Alia and Zero.
"I'm Shift," the boy said, extending his hand to Zero.
"I'm Shatter," the girl stated in kind, extending her hand to Alia.
Zero and Alia looked at each other and shook hands with the kids.
"I'm Zero."
Shift and Shatter recognized the name, but didn't clue in.
"I'm Alia."
"Your name isn't in my databanks," Shatter said. "Are you new robots?"
Alia looked at Zero. She didn't know how to answer.
Zero replied, "Depends. What time period are you from?"
"We're from the age of the glorious Rock and his faithful dog Rush," Shift declared. "Our creator is Doctor Walter DeGrier, third cousin to the legendary Doctor Thomas Light. We're advanced versions, designed to conquer Wily's lesser conquests around the world that Rock doesn't know of as a team."
"Yeah, we're definitely younger than you," Alia said. "We're reploids, based of X's design."
"X!?" Shatter shrieked. "You've met X, the one I'm based off of? How long ago did he activate? What's he doing now? And why's Zero standing here and not destroyed by X for killing Dr. Light, Rock, and that whole family?"
"You…" Zero closed his eyes. "Please don't bring me back to that day, I beg of you…"
Shift looked his sister in the eye and threw her an angry look. His sister closed her eyes.
"I'm sorry, Zero," she said. "I just want to know, that's all."
Shift rolled his eyes.
"Well, that's a big secret!" Alia nodded. "What'll you do, Zero?"
Zero opened his eyes and took a big breath. "It was my first activation. It was early in my development, seeing as Dr. Wily didn't even imprint the laws of robotics on my mind yet. I went on a rampage, killing everything in sight. Then, a saviour came from nowhere and knocked me out. He placed me back in stasis until the proper time whence I should activate. The saviour was Bass."
"Now that Shatter got the ball rolling, what happened after that?" Shift asked, eyeing his sister. She shied away.
"It's no problem," Zero said. "I'd probably have to get this out sooner or later, anyway."
Shatter's eyes opened in a cute and shy way.
Shift nodded. "I understand."
"Besides, I wouldn't know after that," Zero continued. "I was in stasis for the next 25 years. I don't know what happened to all the support units."
Shatter's eyes closed again. She didn't say a word, but something told everyone she knew the answer. No matter how they pleaded, they couldn't get the answer from her. Even Shift, who could read her mind, couldn't read this part. It was as if she had built a firewall around this and was keeping it to herself.
Finally, Zero spoke up. "She's obviously not going to tell us, at least not yet. Let's forget about it and go pay a visit to Signas. I'm sure he'd like to know about you two."
Shift shook his head. "Not in this," he said, indicating his armour. "Any way I could get shinied up?"
"Me, too," Shatter said. "Stasis for, uh, however many years does quite a number to your hair."
Alia nodded. "I'll get Lifesavor and Douglas to take a look at you two."
The twins smiled and replied in-synch, "Thank you."