Disclaimer: I do not own MegaMan, or any characters from said series, and do not claim them as my own, in any way. My characters are mine however, so do not use them without permission. I might bite you. ;) This applies to the whole story, in it's entirety.

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Author's introduction

These events take place in year 2XXX, and, while during the events of the Mega man Zero series, it has little interaction with the events, and everything will be eplained anyways. All events are set in a settlement far from Neo Arcadia, and is composed entirely of Reploids left behind after the Maverick and Elf wars. These Reploids have started a new life for themselves, and have no idea as to what is going on around the rest of the world; most have forgotten their own pasts and the various parts they played in the two aft-mentioned wars.

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Chapter One

As the sun reached its apex in the sky, a striped lizard poked his head out from under a rock, looking around for danger. Seeing nothing, he crawled out onto a rock to bask in the sun. Suddenly, he was toppled off his rock by the tailwinds of two passing craft. Looking up at the settling dust, he hissed.

Kroy looked back to check how close the other Ride Chaser was. 3 meters. Too close. He throttled the jet bike and accelerated. He had to pull ahead.

"I can't lose my cool, just have to pay attention to what's ahead of me," he thought.

Determined, he stared hard at the desert up ahead of him. Suddenly, he heard an explosion behind him. Glancing back, he no longer could see the other Ride Chaser.

"NO!" shouted Kroy as he turned back.

Coming up to the crash site, things did not look good. Twisted metal and fuel were littered and mixed with the sand and shrubbery. Looking under a rock outcropping, he saw who he was looking for.

"Deyl!" he called as he ran towards the figure. "Deyl! Are you alright? Answer me!"

As he approached, things looked pretty bad. Deyl was unconscious and his left hip and leg were shattered, exposing his delicate insides.

'Oh no, please be alive!' Kroy thought feverously as he arrived.

He was relieved to discover that despite his injuries, Deyl was still alive. Acting quickly, he gently cleaned out Deyl's wounds the best he could, and covered them to prevent sand from getting in. That would be the last thing anyone needed

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Hours later, Kroy arrived at the settlement. Deyl's condition was still the same, and he would drift back into consciousness only to yanked back to sleep by the sudden, overwhelming pain. As Kroy approached the buildings, other reploids started to come see why there was one less craft. Among the crowd was Dente, the doctor.

"Dente!" shouted Kroy, "Deyl is badly hurt! We were racing and…and…"

Dente looked Deyl over. "Hmm…I will see what I can do. I'm sorry, but there are just so many factors that play against him…."

Kroy was distraught. He couldn't lose Deyl, his friend for so long it seemed like, no, it was, as long as he could remember.

"I can get his wounds sealed up, but he's lost lots of internal fluid, and what really matters is how much sand got in there."

Kroy understood this, as well as every other settlement reploid. Sand was one of their worst enemies right now. Even a little could wreak havoc if it got into their bodies. It could wear them out faster, immobilize them, or worse, it could turn them maverick, a state of mind which sent reploids berserk. Not because of some sinister qualities in the sand, but simply because it could disrupt their positronic minds and nervous system, leaving them in an unbearable pain they could not stop. Some reploids would kill themselves; others go mad and kill each other.

"I cleaned him up on site as best as I could. I hope that nothing important got crushed. We could never replace something like an internal reactor"

Ah yes, part shortage. Another in a long list of things the settlers had going against them. A lack of raw materials made technological progress nearly impossible, and getting things like spare motors or positron connectors new was very nearly impossible. Everything had to be recycled, and if a reploid died, they were forced to use what they could scavenge. They hated it, but they had no choice in the matter. So the settlements numbers were decreasing slowly, but very steadily.

Dente brought Deyl to his repair room and started to inspect his wounds. His leg joint was crushed beyond repair, and the metallic "skin" was torn up to just below his arm. Thankfully, his reactor and other major parts were not badly damaged.

Kroy helped Dente the best he could, and soon they had Deyl in a place where they would not have to worry.

"Thank heavens" breathed Kroy as they finished up. "He'll be alright."

"Yes" replied Dente "but he no longer can use that leg. It would probably be..."

Dente was cut off by a guard running into the room.

"They're here! They're coming quick! We've got to escape!"

Kroy and Dente were shocked. The mavericks had not attacked in a week. They thought they were safe.

"Get everyone out, now!" ordered Dente, "And fighting has to be used only as a last resort!"

There was an explosion. The attack had started.