MEGAMAN X: ALT
CHAPTER 1
--X--
YEAR: 2114 AD
It was dark in the lab, where the power had been out for many years. The only light, of any kind, came from a crack coming from the rock blocking the hallway. Suddenly, rushed people's voices can be heard.
"We found something, sir," said an excavator to another man.
"Well, what is it?" said a curious, kind voice that had an elderly tone.
"You might want to see this yourself," said the excavator.
Then, the light at the crack darkened, and a long, thin, bending probe entered the crack, a camera that is recording this all-important moment of a discovery.
What it saw cut through the darkness. The lab was either abandoned or destroyed by a powerful force, since it was in ruins. Metal and electronics were scattered around recklessly. Broken chairs, damaged computers . . . and something round. On closer inspection, the round object was tall, stretching from the ceiling to the floor, wires coming out of it to the walls.
"Hey, Dr. Cain, I think we found something else than fossils here!" said the workman; "It's a mess, but there's something interesting here . . . it looks like an old facility."
Dr. Cain wobbled over, his walking-stick in hand, to the workman. Cain looked like he was seventy-something, but his eyes retain a youthful passion burning from this discovery. He was bald, wearing a blue robe and a long, scraggly beard. His nose peaked forward, like his interest.
Dr. Cain looked into the long-camera, and gasped.
"What we're looking at here is an ancient lab," said Dr. Cain.
--X--
After several hours of digging, they now had a clear path to enter the lab.
As they entered, the dust that was settled on the floor whirled around as a gust of wind blew inside, the first gust of fresh air in the lab in who knew how many years. Dr. Cain stepped forward and came towards the round object.
"It looks like a capsule of some sort," Dr. Cain deduced. "Wait! It looks like someone's in it!"
He turned and told the other workmen to stand away from the capsule. Dr. Cain walked up to the capsule and read the serial number on it: DRN-00X. Cain looked in the capsule, pushing his face against the glass.
Suddenly, a hissing sound began, startling Dr. Cain and he backed up from the capsule to his workmen. A thick cloud of white smoke leaked from the capsule, it opening slowly revealing a male figure.
Dr. Cain got his bearings, walked back towards the capsule, and once again tried to get a good look at the figure.
It looked like a boy, a teenager that looked no older than seventeen years old. He had thick, blue chest armor with gray segments. His helmet was blue, as the rest of his body except the face. The helmet had a crest that started behind the head that ended above the forehead, where a red gem there was dull red. His forearms and forelegs were covered in large segments of blue armor, where the hands were slightly large and white. He looked like he was sleeping.
This is an android, Dr. Cain thought.
The gem on the teen android's helmet glowed to life. Then the android opened his eyes for the first time, blinking groggily. He kept them open, taking the surroundings around him.
"D-Doctor Light?" he said.
Cain came closer and looked at him in awe.
"I am Dr. Cain, an archaeologist."
The teen android looked at Dr. Cain and looked at his surroundings more. He suddenly jerked into a sitting position, his head scanning around.
"What happened to Dr. Light's lab!?" the teen android yelled.
Dr. Cain looked nervous, but responded, "I don't know. I didn't live back then."
The android looked worried. "What year is it?"
"It is the year two-thousand one-hundred fourteen," Cain replied.
The teen android looked down and started to cry. This isn't happening, he thought.
Dr. Cain came carefully closer. "What's your name, son?"
The young man looked at the floor, concentrating hard.
"X," he finally said.
Cain nodded. "Where exactly are we now?"
X looked up, tears running from his eyes, but flowing less. "This . . . used to be Dr. Light's lab." He turned quickly to Cain. "Is the others all right?"
Cain looked at X, confused.
"Roll, Rush . . . Dr. Light. Are they OK? "
All Cain could think of was, "I don't know."
X looked away, staring into space, thinking.
Then X said, "Then let's find out."
--X--
The computers seem to be working, Dr. Cain thought, but barely.
He typed on the ancient keyboards, the computer monitors flickering randomly from a not-too-strong power source.
The power came from a generator in the basement that was on standby, for what reason Cain didn't know.
Which is what he was going to find out.
He typed a command into the computer, X watching the screen closely. The cameras captured a man talking to, X felt, a familiar small blue boy, with his helmet under his arm. He was talking to a plump, kindly man who was working on something. Their backs were to the camera, but they glanced to each other, words unmistakably coming out of their mouths.
"That boy," X interrupted, "looks familiar. Can you look up who he is?"
Dr. Cain typed in another command, and, on a separate screen, a cut-away section display of the same blue-boy. X and Dr. Cain took a closer look at the screen.
The title of the file said 'Rock', and underneath the name a sub-description that read as follows:
ROCK, AKA MEGAMAN
Notes by Doctor Thomas Light
The boy-robot I named Rock, as others refer to as Megaman, is an astonishing person. I call him a person because his personality is like a real human's. He can feel, interact, and think like a human. I wanted to have someone help me with my projects, and Rock, before his transformation, was my lab assistant.
I feel guilty, with what happened to Blues. He was my first project in advanced robotics engineering. That incident and report is in another file. Still, it didn't feel right, him running away. He's doing all right now, on his own, but I still worry. People may think I have a fatherly instinct, since I created him.
Back to subject. I needed also someone to reassure me, make me feel it's all right to carry on. Rock is, well, my rock. As much as I helped him, I have always had his help. He is a nice person.
Rock is the kind of boy who would help out others in need, people who are in trouble, or others that just need some advice. I need to remind myself to call O'shea and tell him to say hi to his boy for me.
Not just his personality is powerful, but so is his physical self. He has enormous strength, extreme endurance, and a powerful weapon, the Mega Buster. It is an arm cannon that produces a plasma store that can be charged up and released from the Mega Buster to an object. It can be charged to 3 levels: an instant burst, a secondary charge, more powerful than the one before, and the third most powerful charge, which is phenomenal in its own right.
Rock also has the Variable Weapon System, which allows Rock to collect the weapons and the abilities they possess from a Robot Master. It is a holdover from his Variable Tool System, which he used before he transformed into a fighting robot. He obtains the Robot Master's weapons by defeating them in combat, but because Rock is a good person, he has never destroyed a Robot Master. He just disables them. Thank God he doesn't kill them. Since because of that, he never permanently keeps the weapon he obtains. That seems fine to Rock, who doesn't like fighting.
Final Report - This is the updated file for Rock. Note to update for future references.
END NOTES
X and Dr. Cain looked at the screen for a couple of minutes after they read it.
Rock is my little brother, then, thought X. A little brother I'll never know.
--X--
X looked up the other files with Dr. Cain, researching who Dr. Light was. X knew he was his creator, of course, but he didn't know everything that was about him.
Or how Rock was created, exactly.
Now he does. At least about Rock. Cain continued to research.
Rock was the creation of two brilliant robotics-engineers, Dr. Thomas Light and Dr. Albert Wily. They were both good friends until Light got more recognition for his talents than Wily. Wily became envious, jealous of Light, vowing to take him out of the spotlight. When he found Blues, the prototype robot of Dr. Light, damaged, Wily repaired him, and found out how to reprogram the other Robot Masters that Light and Wily made. Wily didn't take into account Rock and Roll, so he stole the other six Robot Masters and made a rampage through the city of Rokoll, formerly Tinishiwa.
Rock wanted to be transformed into a fighting robot so he can battle Dr. Wily's robots, and stop his rampage across the city. Tinishiwa was renamed Rokoll, in honor of Rock and Roll's victory over Wily.
And so started Rock's legacy.
But it doesn't explain how Rock disappears out of existence, Dr. Cain thought.
He looked through the computer files, but nothing came through of Rock's whereabouts, nor any of his companions. Interesting, thought Dr. Cain. He continued to look in the camera recordings for any clues.
Then he found something. A recording that ended on the same date that Rock supposedly disappeared. It was also the last dated recording in the lab. He opened the file and viewed the recording, X over Cain's shoulder.
It started with Dr. Light at the computer where they were, with Rock at his side. He was typing up a document that, after he finished, looked up and smiled at Rock. It may have been the same document that they read earlier.
Then, the camera shook. The monitor flickered, being almost only static. It cleared, and when it did, Megaman had his Mega Buster ready. The room was covered with debris, fog covering the room. Dr. Light was on the floor, trying to get up. At the broken doorway stood a solitary figure, silhouetted in the fog. What could have been seen that the figure had flowing long hair, a green beam-saber glowing in it's hand.
Then, as the figure dashed at Dr. Light, Megaman shot his Buster at the figure, but the figure blocked it with it's beam-sword and it bounced off. The shot went towards the camera, then it went out, snow covering the screen.
X and Cain looked at each other in both amazement and horror.
X's face ranged quickly from shock to grief to anger. He felt he would never truly know what happened to Dr. Light and Rock. This was undeserving.
X ran from the room, Dr. Cain turned from the sudden movement.
"X! It's too late," Cain yelled.
X didn't care. He ran and found a dead end, the doorway blocked off by the collapsed titanium ceiling. He wasn't sure how he knew it was titanium, but what he did know was that he couldn't open it up. Not normally.
X forced his right arm to change, to turn into an arm cannon like Rock's. It swiftly and smoothly turned into the X Buster, and again, somehow he knew the name. Maybe it was in my databanks, thought X.
X quickly brushed the thought off, and made it charge. His whole body started to pulsate from a pale, faint glow to a radiant, bright bluish-white. X grabbed his X Buster, and was about to launch his Buster energy, then lowered it, the energy-light fading away.
I can't do this, X thought. Now's not the time.
Maybe when I'm ready.