Disclaimer: I own a surprisingly large number of the characters here, but the main concept belongs to Capcom, and so do the rest of the characters. Look, let's just begin the story.

Prologue

If there is a constant in this universe, it is that there will always be junk heaps.

The form of a junk heap has varied greatly over the centuries. Four million years ago, the man-apes simply tossed half-chewed bones in a habitual direction; a millenium and a half in the past, there would be piles of garbage and excrement; just two hundred and fifty years ago, landfills covered miles, with all manner of things thrown away.

The latest incarnation of the junk heap was a maze of twisted metal thrown into one large pile, to be later removed and recycled to build more machines which would one day end up in exactly the same place. There were many like these, all over the world; all hid something, but one of them had a particular secret beneath it.

From a distance, it would seem nothing more than a length of blue tubing; no one was going to view it from a distance anyway, since it was currently buried deep under the earth. In reality, it was a sealed capsule, containing a shielded, sophisticated computer; a power generator that could last for centuries; a loudspeaker; several hundred feet of tightly wound wire; ... and something else, a separate entity from the rest.

The computer was running a large number of tests. It had been for as long as any human now alive could have remembered, had they known. A lot of them involved personality, moral judgement, and many other similar things. Every so often -- maybe once a year, or less often -- the soft, soundless voices that clamored in the computer would cry out in alarm, but a much greater Voice would calm them, make whatever changes were necessary, and run the test again. The second time, the voices would be content.

And now, all concieveable tests had been successful, and enough countless years had gone by. Judging that the time had come, the computer fed power into systems which had not been used in countless decades. Sophisticated motors started running, creating a tunnel above the capsule, pushing it upwards, and then sealing the passage below it. Currents of electricity fed into the coil generated a powerful field, which would signal its presence to anyone who cared to look, or who could detect magnetism.

And around it, several different entities noticed the magnetic field. They were different, and had different reactions, but suddenly, they all had the same destination.

Mega Man X13:
In Search of Lost Time

Chapter 1: "Emergence"

"Let's see ... the center of the magnetic field is ahead and ... Ooh, chromium!" The figure grabbed at the shining scrap of metal. He dropped it, disappointed; it was just aluminum.

"Be careful Jakesten," said the voice of an old man that only he could hear, inasmuch as it was transmitted directly into his brain. "You don't want to end up as a feature here!"

"Pah," said Jakesten into a transmitter on his left shoulder, "there isn't enough metal in my body to pay your bills! The rest of me, on the other hand, and my armor, however, might --"

"Focus!"

"Alright, already! Sorry!" Jakesten continued to jog among the towers of debris under the night sky, searching for whatever the source of this blasted magetic field turned out to be. He wore red and white armor, making it instantly obvious that he was a Reploid, rather than a human; very few organic beings that size could carry that much weight and still jump that high. In fact, no organic being could jump that high.

Actually, to refer to it as "armor" is somewhat misleading; most of it was actually as flexible as cloth. However, it would take a very powerful force or energy to penetrate it, and it was technically made of extremely durable alloy. The proper term would be flex-armor.

Jakesten shook his head to clear it; his mind was wandering from the task at hand again. This had been happening a lot lately. Not that running through trash required a great deal of thought, but he didn't like to waste processing power. Especially if something were to suddenly go wrong; he didn't want his response to be slowed by the untimely thoughts of the precise value of the various parts that comprised his artificial body. It was as if there was a buzzing in his mind, causing it to go off in all directions, interfering with his mental --

He blinked; the source was obvious. "That damn magnetic field!"

"Pardon?

"Sorry. The magnetic field seems to be messing with my head. Er ..." He glanced around; his sense of direction was suddenly baffled. "Where's the center?"

"It should be twenty-seven meters ahead and to your left."

Jakesten glanced twenty-seven meters ahead and to his left. He thought he saw a large tubular object, so he jumped over to it. A human could probably do that on the moon, but not carrying that much metal. He found that it wasn't actually a tube, but some sort of capsule. He relayed as much information to the Doctor, as he called him.

"Interesting," came the response. Something about it had a dreamlike quality. "And this capsule or something in it is causing the magnetic field?"

"Uh, yeah," said Jakesten, trying to retain a grip on reality. "You should've had me shield ... shield ..." He looked at the capsule. Was something written on it? So hard to tell ... losing focus ...

"Jakesten? Are you all right??"

Jakesten staggered, and abruptly, the buzzing stopped. He looked at where his hand was, and found that he had slapped a switch, under which was a plaque bearing the words "Push button to deactivate magnet."

"JAKESTEN!"

"I'm okay," he said. "I think. I've just turned off the magnet. You should've had me shielded."

"You were. That was one hell of an electromagnetic field. Whoever made this capsule wanted it found. Maybe I should have had Arvisven --"

"No, that's okay," said Jakesten. Arvisven was another Reploid who worked with Jakesten and the Doctor; Jakesten didn't like him much. "Hey, there's some sort of monitor here, at one end ... It says, 'Status: 100%. Activation may commence.'"

"Does it say anything else? Is there some sort of input device?"

"Yeah." Jakesten gingerly pushed a button. "I think this is -- Whoa!"

"What?"

"You're never going to believe this!"

* * * * *

A basic bit of information about Reploids is that they can think, reason, learn, feel, and make complex decisions as well as any human can, and as some cynics would point out, better. This was now taken for granted by nearly everyone, human and Reploid alike. The few exceptions were philosophers and religious fanatics, who simply refused to get over the fact that humans -- or to be specific, three humans -- had more or less singlehandedly created an entirely separate race from their own.

A slightly less basic bit of information is that when any Reploid is first activated, their mind is in a blank state with nothing in it except the Three Laws of Robotics (which were originally concieved by a science fiction author but were found to be rather appealing by the fanatics), a dictionary's worth of vocabulary, and a craving for input. This input will usually consist of a Reploid consuming an encyclopedia, then various other sources of information. Those Reploids whose curiosity is not satisfied by this become scientists.

This is only of casual significance to the topic at hand, which is that of the mysterious capsule which a reploid called Jakesten had just discovered. Jakesten had very little idea of the significance of his discovery, but he was rather excited about it, even in the absence of certain knowledge that he would shortly aquire. To continue:

Inside the capsule was a Mind.

Slowly, after an uncountable, or at least uncounted, number of years, the Mind awoke for the very first time.

The Mind's first thought was, I think, therefore I am.

Its second thought was, Once, René Descartes was at a café. He asked for a mug of coffee. A waitress asked, "Will you have cream?" The Descartes replied, "I think not," and promptly vanished.

The Mind's vocabulary had over ten thousand words. All of those above were in it, and it knew who René Descartes was, and it also got the joke. Apparently (This was its third thought), there was a lot of things this mind knew that it didn't know it knew. Its fourth thought was that it would probably find out, but not just now. In point of fact (though it was unaware), the Mind's creator had actually installed an encyclopedia in addition to a dictionary in its mind, thus skipping a bit of the process.

Presently the became aware that it had a body. It didn't know what this body was like; it was just there, and it accepted that. With that simple acceptance, the artificial Mind proved that it could succeed where millions of organic ones had once failed. It did not know this. It was curious as to who it was, and found that this was one of the things she already knew.

The Mind wondered when she had begun thinking of herself as female, then pushed such thoughts away. But nothing happened for a moment.

After the moment ended, nothing continued to happen.

Then to her surprise, something did happen.

* * * * *

"Be careful -- it could be dangerous!"

"Yeah I know," said Jakesten. "But whoever put this here obviously had the same idea as Dr. Light, and ..."

"Dr. Thomas Xavier Light, as you know," said the voice on the radio frostily, "has been dead for almost two hundred years."

"Yeah, and Columbus has been dead for a thousand, and we still think the world's round!" shot back Jakesten, ignoring the protests that not only was it was closer to seven hundred and fifty, it also wasn't Columbus who had made the discovery. "It worked, anyway." He glanced at the monitor. "Look, it says 'Activation cycle ready. Do you want to continue?' Should I?"

There was the briefest of pauses. "You're sure you can't bring this back?"

"It's too big to teleport, two heavy and bulky to carry, and too late to send someone else," said Jakesten.

"All right," said the Doctor. "Do it."

"And the monkey throws the switch," said Jakesten, quoting a movie he couldn't quite remember except for that one line. He pushed the butten which corresponded to "Okay" on the screen.

In front of him, seams appeared in the smooth, blue surface, and part of the capsule slid away. Jakesten hadn't even detected that there was a mechanism for opening a door. They door disappeared into the side, revealing ...

... a smooth red surface!

Jakesten looked at the screen, which now said, "Activation cycle still ready. Are you sure you want to continue?" He pressed "Okay" again. This time, the red surface disintigrated, revealing a smooth white surface.

The excitement was beginning to give way to annoyance. The screen now said "Yes, the activation cycle persists in its readiness. Are you really sure you want to continue?" He tersely pushed the button again.

And this time, the capsule opened.

Inside was the most beautiful female Reploid he had ever seen. Of course, most of the other female Reploids he had ever seen had animal forms, so this didn't say much. By the average human's standards, she was pretty at best. She was wearing green and black armor -- solid metal, not flex-armor! The control crystal on her forehead shined a similar shade of green. She lay in the capsule, squinting at what to him was the dark of night, but she had clearly never used her optics before, so it took them a moment to adjust. She sat up unsteadily, looked around a bit, and then noticed Jakesten.

"Uh, hello," he said.

"Hel-lo," she said. Her voice sounded harsh in contrast to her appearance, or for that matter in contrast to her surroundings. Reploids didn't suffer from muscle atrophy, inasmuch as they didn't really have muscles, but if a Reploid goes for a sufficiently immense amount of time without using a particular moveable part he or she (or it) may have trouble when they try.

"My name is Jakesten. What's yours?"

"I --" Her voice still sounded harsh, but it was getting better. "I am Andante."

"Oh, great, not another musical term," muttered Jakesten. His mind was racing. Oh, no, someone who's never been activated before, and we're miles from the nearest computer. Wait, we can just teleport to the --

"Jakesten! What's going on?"

Jakesten gave a brief report into his transmitter. Andante watched, apparently deducing what the transmitter was.

"Fascinating," said the Doctor in his one of his patented tecnically-a-reaction-but-revealing-no-emotion-or-information-whatsoever responses that fooled no one and mystified everyone. "Bring her here."

Jakesten nodded. "Okay." He switched off the transmitter.

"What's going on?" asked Andante.

"We're going to teleport back to base," replied Jakesten.

"Er, excuse me," said a voice from the capsule. It had a very familiar British accent.

"Huh??" said Jakesten. That was the voice of John Cleese! "Um, what are you?"

"I am known by several names: the computer, the Great Voice, the FOCI, and Edward."

"You're a FOCI!?" exclaimed Jakesten, peering into a capsule. He found it: a computer that looked to be the size of some of the earliest laptop computers, but knowing modern technology -- or relatively modern, anyway -- it could hold some several terabytes. He lifted it up, disconnecting it from the capsule.

"Yes, I am a computer that was built by the FOCI corporation," said Edward. "Now let's teleport back to this base of yours before Andante gets some negative input."

"All right," said Jakesten. He and Andanta vanished in a briliant flash of red light.

* * * * *

They reappeared in a teleportation center. This was all new to Andante, who hadn't been alive before. She didn't have a reference point for anything at all except herself, and since having only one reference point isn't going to get you anywhere at all, she was content to just follow Jakesten, who was carrying Edward under his shoulder, down a series of passageways until they arrived at an office room.

Inside was a tall Reploid sitting at a desk, reading over a few reports on a small console. He wore what appeared to be a lab coat and an oddly blocky helmet. He looked up as they entered. "Greetings, Andante," he said. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Doctor de Capo."

"Hello," said Andante. "Were you the one who Jakesten was in contact with?"

Doctor de Capo glanced sharply at Jakesten, who shrugged and said, "She seemed to know what my transmitter is for."

"Ah, the minds of the young," said the Doctor, smiling, "instantly capable of recognizing things for what they are and should be. None of this suspicion. Anyway, you are dismissed for the time being."

Jakesten left. The Doctor turned to Andante and said, "Now, I would imagine that you desire a significant amount of input."

* * * * *

"So, how does it feel to be the first person to come into contact with a Reploid who's been only recently activated?" asked Edward.

"Weirder and weirder," said Jakesten. "When did you spring from!?"

"My last input by a fully sentient being (I suppose) before I heard your incoherent babbling was on March 27th, 2119."

"WHAT!?" Jakesten stumbled.

"And thank you," added the computer, "for almost dropping me."

"In the capsule for ..." gasped Jakesten, "I don't know how long!"

"I've been in the capsule," said Edward, not missing a beat, "for one hundred and forty-seven years, two months, one week, five days, three hours, twelve minutes, and sixty-six seconds . . . now."

"Uh, don't you mean thirteen minutes and six seconds?" asked Jakesten.

"I mean," said Edward, "twelve minutes and sixty-six seconds. That does not include the five seconds (now) which have elapsed since then. Today is June 8th, 2266, at 11:34 PM and s--"

"Great," said Jakesten. "I look for an ancient computer that's causing a magnetic disturbance and I find a wristwatch."

"Oh be more polite," said Edward. "You wouldn't want Andante to get negative input, would you?"

Jakesten grimaced. Negative input was a term for when a Reploid, whilst getting a personality from its new experiences, recieved some input that affected him/her/it adversely. It had been coined two decades after Edward's last input by a fully sentient being. "Where'd you pick that phrase up?"

"I made it up myself," said Edward, "after poring through the input I had recieved and coming across an interesting urban legend. Apparently, before he had joined the Maverick Hunters, Sigma had brushed aside a joke a friend of his had made, and Mega Man X complained that he should have been exposed to Monty Python first, then Aristotle, and -- Who's that?"

Jakesten looked up and thought, Oh no. He saw that into the hallway had walked one of the few Reploids who worked for The Doctor who Jakesten really didn't like: Arvisven.

Arvisven -- or rather, Sonic Skyfox RV7 -- was sleek, tall, winged, and rather annoying. "Hey, there, Jake!" he exclaimed cheerfully.

"You know, it's really annoying when you call me that," said Jakesten.

"I'll keep that in mind, Jake," said Arvisven, not missing a beat. "I hear you got lucky!"

"Lucky how?" asked Jakesten, cursing himself and keeping his voice neutral.

"Well, that girl we brought back didn't get beyond ten feet from you until you got to the Doctor's office!" said Arvisven, affecting his most annoying singsong voice. "I bet she couldn't bear to part with you!"

"She doesn't have much more than a rudimentary personality," put in Edward.

"Oh, a laptop!" crowed Arvisven, bending down to get a good look. "I haven't seen one of those in years! Especially one with that much personality!"

"I do try to please," said Edward proudly, "when I'm not trying to annoy."

"Hey, I know what that's like," said Arvisven. "Say, how do you know so much 'bout the new girl?"

"I have been monitoring and correcting her mental patterns for the past century and a half."

Arvisven's jaw dropped, as did his wings. This looked somewhat comical on a Reploid who had been based on a bat.

"I hate to break up this delightful conversation," said Jakesten, resisting a sudden desire to hit Arvisven with a brick, "but I have a report to file. Edward, you got a word processor in your system?"

"No, but I'd love to get acquainted with modern software," replied the computer.