References to the Mega Man Gigamix manga, which I can't recommend highly enough, but trying to avoid outright spoilers. Changing this fic to fit with Gigamix meant I had to take out one character, and replace the random robot master I picked for this chapter originally with a much better one.


Zero was having a more traditional experience than X. Robots, spikes… Sigma had been copying from Wily's playbook all along, hadn't he? Zero had seen this, all of this so many times before. It was just a matter of reaching the end, the center, of finding the secret lab, of killing.

Of saving everyone. Sigma, Iris, Colonel: so many dead because of the virus. X, Axl, Alia: so many people grieving lost loved ones.

He knew that it might not be that simple. It probably wouldn't be, not with his luck, and this was time travel they were talking about.

Except it had to be possible to stop it. Had to be. He didn't want to cause so much destruction: if there was any hope of preventing it, any hope of ending it, then he had to take that chance.

He couldn't just give up.


Getting out of the car, X could feel the teleport shield, sense the security system here, as he stood at the edge of the property, not quite daring to step forward, to open the gate. Beyond it, there were rosebushes and a large lawn that was clearly meant for play, not show. The house itself was clearly high-tech, built in a sort of futuristic style, but that just made it even more perfect, somehow. Symbols that screamed traditional nuclear family embracing the product of technology. Even the shield, the defenses, spoke of love, not of death, because what they protected was infinitely precious.

He'd seen images, even video of this place, of course. It wasn't the same as standing here, smelling these flowers, feeling these shields query his systems and recognize him. He hadn't even been turned on yet, he wouldn't be for decades (as far as they'd known), and he was still known.

Flowers and thorns, a Frisbee on the lawn and hidden weapons and other devices under it. He knew that his unborn body was likely somewhere in there, deep underground, protected by layers and layers of careful defenses that had survived an apocalypse.

He'd never seen this place in real life. He should feel like a stranger here, he should be depressed by the knowledge that this happy home would be reduced to scorched earth.

Welcome home the system that pinged him had said warmly, in place of a more normal, mechanical acknowledgement of his identity, and he was. He could walk in now, and they would be surprised but glad to see him, it would be better than any dream because it would be real.

Don't be shy, come on in, he was sent. It's not a good idea for you to just stand there in armor, the female voice added, and X realized this wasn't just a recording. Robot Masters had been system managers, able to merge with and direct them, receive input and reprogram over wireless signals. No one's seen you yet – but…

"Roll?"

"Who else?" As though she'd let someone else protect her family's home, an amused undercurrent conveyed.

"Oh." So that was why she wasn't surprised. "I'm… glad," he said, and swallowed.

Almost seventy-five years now, since he was released from the capsule. Such a long time, all of it spent adapting to the virus. Adapting to constant war. On top of how he'd evolved in the capsule.

He was still recognizable as a Lightbot? Still recognizable as X, or at least something pretending to be him? Right, free-willed androids were illegal, even a fake standing out in the street could give away X's existence, and then?

He'd expected robot masters to be more like reploids than this. Reploids didn't network like this, they didn't, they couldn't just merge with systems. It was a consequence of their theoretical immunity from reprogramming. The walls that should have kept things like the virus out sealed them into their own minds.

He would never have been able to get as good a reading on this system if Roll hadn't been converting the data into a form he could handle, he realized. Translating for him.

It wasn't a system that protected this place. It was Roll. It was her, or the remnants of her, as well as Dr. Light, that had protected him all those years. Even in death.

The gate unlatched easily – for him – and he stepped through, feeling the system's alert level, feeling her worry, decrease. "I didn't mean to cause any trouble."

"It's not your fault: we can talk once you're inside. I'd come greet you, but I'm making some refreshments." Since X could eat. Provided he was X: if not, he might have some trouble.

"Are Mega Man and Dr. Light here?"

"Call him Rock alright? Mega Man's just for during the wars." And was he another war, brought to their doorstep? X had read about Dr. Light being kidnapped: would he really be allowed to meet them? "They're here, they just don't know you're here yet." She could have sent the information to Rock, but she didn't want to ruin the surprise.

It was a red dog robot that spotted him next, looking surprised but not alarmed before finally coming up and sniffing him. He crouched to hold out his hand, palm down, the way he would with a real... or rather biological dog. "You're Rush… right?" A support unit, something else robot masters had used that didn't work for androids. On the one hand, it might have been nice to have the company, but mechaniloids could be infected and a non-sapient unit, even one built back in 20XX, might not be immune. "I'm X. It's nice to meet you."

He'd heard phrases like 'so happy I could cry,' and 'butterflies in my stomach,' but they didn't really apply. He might have been overjoyed, if this weren't a calming feeling instead of an excited one. He was home.

He was still worried about Zero.

Zero had his own family, and his own issues. If X had tried to drag him to Dr. Light's he'd have just broken out, gone searching for his own origins, to destroy them. X knew he had to wait for Zero to contact him.

The door opened and X heard, "You don't have to stand out there on the porch, mister…" Rock tilted his head at X, clearly assessing him. Was this a Wilybot impersonating X? Already? Well, Forte had stolen X's plans along with Rush's upgrades. And the rest of their database.

"I am X," he assured the legendary hero. "Dr. Wily came to my era in a time machine. Zero and I ended up along for the ride." The teleport system in this era was both much larger and much better guarded. In his era, much of it consisted of leftover orbiting transmitters from this era that had been hacked long ago (the original codes had been lost), and so anyone could access them.

Despite Rock's childlike looks, he was too experienced to take X's word for it, but the tension eased after a few seconds. He'd probably asked Roll if she knew where their 'X' was. "Hi, I'm Rock." That smile was adorable. "Come on in. Father's going to be really glad to meet you."

Even without the Cataclysm, Dr. Light probably wouldn't have been there when X woke up. That was why he'd made the armor capsules.


To think he'd bought into the general belief that robots were primitive, since he'd never had any reason to need to think about it. Dr. Wily had built him, so of course his technology was leaps and bounds above the best the hunters and mavericks had access to. There was even a formless shapeshifting thing here that might be related to Axl. It wasn't like they were sure of where he or Lumine had come from, damn secret projects. No: the designs might be simple, but they were effective. The best of 21XX's machines were mechaniloids, and mechaniloid technology always had a faintly animalistic quality to it. They, too, were based on X's nanites and could be infected by the virus. They were alive without being smart. They might do the tasks they were designed for, but somewhere in there were nanites and code that said they were an independent organism and so they'd try to think. Primitively. Then they got outsmarted, because he was a sentient veteran and they weren't.

These weren't mechaniloids he was facing. These were robots. They were following patterns designed by an intelligent mind with mechanical precision. He couldn't distract them, and in fact the fact they weren't too responsive to what he did meant on the one hand that once he had a strategy for each type it was a matter of repeating it but on the other that it was harder to draw them out of position.

Despite the bat themed-designs and quirky architecture, there was an air of ruthless efficiency about this place, these things. That he was dealing with machines that didn't have morale, that didn't have anger or fear, that just had jobs. And did them. Following their patterns and programming like waves crashing against a shore, and fencing with the sea was proverbially futile.

Oh, he'd killed them all. It felt like blowing the dust off old skills, like he knew their movement patterns. He knew almost to the second when a robot master had taken control of all of them and started coordinating their movements, adjusting positions to deal with a melee weapon-user. The change hadn't been that dramatic, but he'd known. There hadn't been a wireless signal, but this place was custom-built to be a Skull Fortress, the lair of Wily and his robot masters. He knew there were fiber-optic cables buried in the walls, and he hadn't a prayer of hacking into them to intercept the orders the master sent his robots. Of keeping the master from watching his every move.

He recognized so much of this place, from buried memories, and it would have terrified him if he hadn't funneled all of that into his desperation. "Where am I?" he said to himself, cutting down another sniper joe model. How hard could it be to find an android in a capsule? Dr. Cain hadn't even been looking for one when he'd found X!

He jumped down into a larger room and exclaimed, "Finally!" when a robot master teleported in. That hopefully meant he was getting somewhere.

Instead of attacking, the hook-nosed, bat-winged robot master perched on a column asked, "Who are you and why are you here, killing my robots? There isn't a war on right now."

"You mean no one comes after you guys in between the wars? Seriously, no one? I could see X's brother living and letting live, but…" Zero shook his head. They didn't just fight mavericks during the wars: no, they tried to keep them from having enough resources to rebuild Sigma and fight wars in the first place.

A brow arched. "Other than Mega Man, warbots are illegal, and no one but our father is capable of programming a non-sentient robot to fight robot masters." Sending a normal non-sentient robot into a robot master's range was just begging for it to be hacked and controlled and/or blown up. The world's militaries had just completed the transition to drones, tactical nets and high-tech tank operating systems when all that became worse than useless. "There hasn't been a serious attempt to build one since the Third Rebellion." When Dr. Wily had been working with Dr. Light, and taken Gamma for himself. Like Sigma, Zero realized. "There were the tournament warbots, but even the WRO learned their lesson after that debacle. The only people capable of building something like you would be Wily or Light, unless..." The robot master looked him up and down, before tut-tutting. "Oh, don't tell me Dr. Wily wants to pretend to have someone overthrow him again," the robot master said with false dismay. "After King?"

"I'm not going to pretend to overthrow him." Zero just wanted to kill him, that was all.

"Well, Dr. Light wouldn't use evil energy in construction. You're either a Wilybot or another stardroid, and we have sensor net coverage out past the Oort cloud by now." The robot master seemed a little proud of that. "Of course, he could have dug up something best left buried. Again. Too many of your components are terrestrial for you to be a stardroid, at least. Do whatever orders our father's given you really require that you kill my robots before taking on Mega Man?" Shade Man sighed dramatically. "I suppose he's still angry that I put him to sleep that time."

"I'm not here to fight Mega Man, I'm here to destroy my past self."

A pause. "…You're here to what now?" Really? That was new.

It did sound ridiculous, and yet the robot master wasn't exactly scoffing. Right, he was one of Wily's, he might know about the time travel technology. "Where is Dr. Wily's lab?"

"You came from it."

Zero drew his saber, although he refrained from activating it. For now. "I searched that area."

"Then I'm sorry, but your past self is in another fortress. We do have several, you know. This one has been mine since I came up with the plan to refurbish the satellites. Our father gave it to me to rebuild afterwards... as punishment for putting him to sleep, true." A large, fanged grin: the robot master considered it an excellent gift.

So... not too loyal to Wily, then? "Where do I find the others?"

A deliberately graceful shrug of a wing. "Ask Forte, when he challenges you himself, or Dr. Light."

"Dr. Light knows where they are?"

"No, but he should be able to put something together that senses the power of the stardroids." He certainly ought to be able to do that much, that was how Zero interpreted the robot master's opinion of Dr. Light.

Wait a minute. "You're being surprisingly helpful."

"You mean I'm being surprisingly unhelpful." To Dr. Wily. "I am a Wilybot, after all. Even though I'm very grateful for everything our father has done for us, you're too much like the stardroids. The sooner you get out of my fortress and blown up, the better."

"Oh? What makes you think I'll get blown up?" He'd beaten them all in the past, hadn't he? That was the most likely scenerio.

"Well, for one thing, the fact that you haven't noticed that the tiles you're standing on are made of high explosives," the robot master said, and smiled.

…Damn. "I thought you said you weren't a warbot," Zero said wryly, after dashing to the opposite corner. He would have felt anything sneaking up on him… but he still knew about booby traps, after dealing with mavericks with prepared positions. The explosives must be a formula that wasn't around anymore in 21XX. Either that or the robot master was lying.

"I'm not. Warbots fight. Robot masters solve problems. Any logical being has a distaste for violence: it's wasteful and pointless. However, the threat of violence can sometimes prevent actual violence. The human phrase is peace through superior firepower. Those who can't fight back are used until they're finally murdered." A hint of bitterness there: the robot master was speaking from experience? Then why did it seem as though he was fond of Dr. Wily? Programmed that way? "Speaking of problems, the sooner you leave the sooner you become someone else's." Unless Zero wanted to be solved out of existence.

Hmm. He supposed he'd believe that. "Where's the exit?"

The robot master bowed with a flourish towards the wall to Zero's right, and the gate opened.

"You have got to be kidding me." The entire time he'd been working his way out of the fortress instead of deeper inside?

Served him right for thinking that this would be just like fighting Sigma. This wasn't his time.

And, if he was lucky, very soon now 21XX wouldn't be his time, either.

He stepped outside, onto the burnt ground, assuming that Wily was responsible for the ecological damage. (Actually, they'd just picked a godforsaken place that no one went for this base. It had been deforested for farmland and then abandoned when the topsoil was lost decades ago.) Hoping X could hear him, he triggered his comm. Good, there was a lot of signal traffic but none of the jamming common in his time, in order to hamper the mavericks and try to prevent virus transmission (even if people were seventy percent or so sure it only infected via nanites, you didn't take chances with the virus). "X?"

It took awhile for there to be a response. "Zero? Where are you?"

"Outside the fortress. Aside from that, I have no idea."

It was a minute before X responded. "I can give you teleport network access codes, my current location, and the codes needed to teleport directly to it."

"Where are you?"

"You'll see when you get here," X said, happily enough Zero knew.

"You're with your family." No. "I shouldn't. They're your family," he said, hair brushing against his back as he shook his head.

"Zero… the capsules made armor for you as well. They wouldn't have done that if you weren't practically family. Please, come? They want to meet my friend."

"X, I…" Their families were enemies, they'd been fighting a war and… "I can't."

X sighed. "I'll give you the codes, but you won't be able to teleport to any other locations unless you come here first." He'd need other codes and coordinates.

Dammit.

"Please, Zero. You can't just wander around in armor. They don't have reploids in this era. They don't have sentient robots without the Three Laws except Wilybots."

"I'll get shot at by humans, you mean." That would make things difficult. "I'll just have to… son of a...!" After he'd felt air suddenly rush behind him, he turned to find the fortress gone. The popping noise must have been the collapse of the vacuum left when the fortress teleported out? "The entire thing just vanished!" Wasn't there an upper mass limit on teleportation? He reached out to where a wall had been. Nope, gone. "Give me the codes, I'll head over." That just proved that familiar as it felt, this wasn't his world. He didn't know how it worked.

Maybe, if he pulled this off, then he wouldn't have killed X's family. He'd have a right to be where he was about to go.

The fact that X was there with people so important to the course of history confirmed it. He wasn't going to try to stop Zero from changing history, not when X was hopefully changing history just by coming here.

If history remained as it was, billions of people were going to die. As a hunter in X's case, as the one responsible in Zero's, it was quite literally their job to prevent those deaths. Signas, Alia, the others they were leaving behind to never be born? They were also hunters. There was no need to have the conversation. Not when that would just make it worse for X, who had always hated sacrifices.


The original draft of this chapter was written before Gigamix came out, and then of course I had to replace the RM I originally used with Shade Man.

Since the MM7 robot masters were not built by Wily in the game backstory, I like the idea that Shade Man is a Wilybot by adoption, which is why he actually respects Wily in a way his own kids don't.

Shade Man's backstory... Think about working customer service. Now add the Second Law into that, and people wanting to mess around with the robot for entertainment. Meaning he was constantly being threatened with death, given how the Three Laws work. That explains why he's so clever: if he wasn't, he wouldn't have survived long enough for Wily to get him out of there. His ability to analyze situations and later come up with plans to manage them is compared to Blues, because he had to get that good if he wanted to live. That's why he's pulling the 'don't look at me, I just work here/I'm not really on Dr. Wily's side' act with Zero.

Would Shade Man throw his life away attacking Zero to try to save Dr. Wily? Yes, but only if he couldn't come up with any strategies that might actually work, like 'stay out of range and call in an air strike.' Or use booby traps he wouldn't activate if it was just Rock: Shade Man is aware that Rock isn't actually going to kill the robot masters he fights, while we all know that Zero is an actual murder machine. However, although Zero has stardroid readings and went around killing Shade Man's robots even before they started being hostile in self-defense, he's not actively sadistic the way the stardroids were, that's very obvious after talking to him, so Shade's not going to kill a robot just on suspicion that he might be dangerous.

That's what humans do.