…aaaand here's the next bit of Feralverse. Many, many more bits to go.

The Megaman Megamix manga has been licensed and is being published! Go read?

Disclaimer: I own nothing except for products purchased from Capcom, the rightful owners. Please don't sue: you're getting a lot of my money as it is.


"Hello," X said, and waved when he saw that every head in the training room had turned towards him as soon as he walked through the door. He knew all the regulars, since Zero was very fanatical about training, but there were people in here that never even used the training rooms… oh, dear.

Kilroy was here.

And his instructor wasn't. There had been a message from Dr. Cain when X woke up telling him that Zero had been released, and since there was no message from Zero X had assumed training would continue as usual. Neither rain nor… what was that quote? "Where's Zero?" he asked.

Everyone looked at Kilroy, which was never good. It appeared that this was something that they didn't want to break to X and that Kilroy would get them for if they denied him the opportunity to do so. Kilroy was amused. The base gossip being that amused was never a good sign. "On the cover of quite a few tabloids."

"What?" Zero had been trying to teach X to expect the unexpected: apparently he needed more practice.

"Did he purr?" Kilroy's pause to give X time to sweat before the next tidbit was interrupted by Trace, number ten on X's mental list of people with crushes on Zero it might be worth trying to set him up with once Zero was worn down a little farther. Boosting Zero's self-esteem was a Herculean task and X wanted both reinforcements and someone to take over once X completed training and started to be given assignments.

"No." X was sorry to disappoint. "I was hoping he would too, because that would have been very cool and do I want to know about those tabloids?" Kilroy, X had figured out after the 'pansy' conversation, was best treated like Rho, although for different reasons. Rho tended to tease to get reactions: if you got the joke it wasn't on you and that defeated the purpose, so he would stop. Kilroy, however, did it to play and liked it if you played along, as that meant a better game for both of you.

"Someone leaked security camera footage, and then it got altered. By the tabloids, anyway. The serious newsies didn't." Which Kilroy, shaking his head, clearly considered a terrible waste. Kilroy was a disseminator of information, trying to be serious took all the fun out of it.

"Really, really hot pictures," Trace confirmed eagerly, clearly hoping there were more and they would be shared.

"The whole world is waiting to hear the juicy details." Oh, dear. Grinning Kilroy.

"Oh dear. I hate disappointing people." X sighed.

"Pi's going to be really disappointed. They grabbed him to interview about this, and it was news to him. You said nice things about Zero, but you say nice things about the cafeteria food." Kilroy sighed. "He'd love it if you and Zero had a double wedding with him and Doppler. Do you think you two could hook up in time?"

"I don't think so. It would be against regulations, for one thing."

Kilroy snorted. "X, do you know how long your kids, no, the whole world, has been waiting for you to get laid? If Sigma can ignore pie fights in the cafeteria, he can… pay very close attention to but lie about you learning how to use a beam saber from Zero."

"I'm still working on the standard buster, though. No individual weapons until after you've mastered that is Sigma's own policy. I suppose I could ask Zero about it, though. Do you know where else he is?"

"A very dark place."

X tried again. "No, I meant where his body is."

"Me too. It's dark under all that armor. When you get there I'd tell him to take it off, because you're really not supposed to wear it in bed and wreck the sheets. Although he might have taken it off under them, I don't know. They're pulled up over his head and all the lights in his room are off. He's just been lying there for hours. I'd head right on over there if I were you."

Kilroy's innuendo-laden tone implied that Zero was lying there waiting for X to come by and, well, but they both knew that it was shame and not desire that made Zero hide from himself and the world. "Kilroy." The shift in X's tone from simple, innocent straight man to elder was very apparent to the watchers, who suddenly remembered that this was X who they were eavesdropping on and started attempting to act mature. "Who leaked the footage?"

Okay, yeah, everyone but Trace and another regular scrammed after that. There was a full-on inquisition over that: Sigma was not happy about someone breaking the law and releasing Irregular Hunter footage related to classified research to the media. The fact that the victims were his father and someone who he not only felt he owed his life to but was very mentally unstable meant that heads were really going to roll.

Kilroy watched his audience go mournfully, then did an expression one-eighty and smirked at X. "Not me, that was Rho. I may have accidentally given him the idea, though. What I said was, 'Boy, would the media have a field day with this!'"

"And you're telling me about Zero to apologize for that?" Kilroy 'worked for' Rho, although Kilroy had been here since the old days when there was more of a 'work with' type of organization. They were personal friends and Kilroy wouldn't go over Rho's head to Sigma.

"Yeah, and also because I'm worried about the guy. He's emo enough as it is, and he went and huddled up there when they let him out of medical, before any of these even hit the presses. I mean, going after him is like hitting the broad side of a barn, but I'd like to keep him around in case I ever get that bored."

"…Oh."

"We may soon have evidence that it is indeed possible to die of embarrassment." Oh, drat. The other training room regular that had stayed wasn't Naiad. Her twin's sensual voice, also subsonic-enhanced so that everything sounded like song, dripped with naked venom.

"Nereid, do you always have to be such a brilliant ray of sunshine?" Oh, Kilroy had gone into bitch mode right back. To Nereid, it must sound like he was chiding her for interrupting him when he was the one conducting the psychological warfare against her enemy's ally right now, thank you so kindly for waiting your turn.

Normally, though, Kilroy liked other people joining into the game. That he was trying to shut her down meant this wasn't just a game. "…I think I'll head down there now."

"You do that. Think fast!" Kilroy wasn't a training room regular, but he did come by for target practice sometimes. Usually verbal, but he wasn't above using actual pointy things to make a point. This, though, was just an access card labeled 4267, X saw when he grabbed it before it hit his face. "Door lock override. I tried, but we're not allowed to disable cameras in any room Zero's in while another person's in there. Former irregular plus traumatic experience plus utterly wicked weaponry," the tone Kilroy used to convey his lust for the coolness mimicked Trace's sighs of lust for the hotness, "equals a very high threat level, and we have regs nowadays." That Rho wasn't willing to break for Zero.

"What I can do," Kilroy told him, and this was Kilroy being professional, or as close as he got to acting like the professional he was, "is have a program do the watching and only alert me if something goes horribly wrong, which is the standard setup anyway. I'll wipe the footage later, unless there's a catastrophe. One that involves blood and other kinky stuff. Try to avoid that. If you get killed, Rho will be no fun for days, and if it's the other kind of catastrophe that gets you all clawed up, I'll have to replace my optics. You're close to my type, but Zero just turns me off."

What? Oh. Pun? Well, Zero had been acting catlike, and they both used the male pronoun… innuendo related to human sexual practices lost some zing when you were talking about reploids. Still, X blushed far too easily.

"Let us know so I don't wipe it if that happens again without anything violent enough to trigger the program to alert. I mean this whole thing is because you need to get a handle on that." 'That?' Kilroy was using an euphemism? Kilroy was?

That really drove home how delicate the subject was, how terrible the memory. "I understand, and I'm sure he would too. Thank you."

"Meh." Kilroy shrugged. "A bunch of us weren't very happy with the idea of waking up the thing that killed a lot of very cool 'ploids, but my opinion is better the devil you know."

"If he can't handle it, we might get our hands on those tricks of his they want badly enough to let a dangerous creature like that live even sooner." By dissecting him. Oh, all the different shades of hatred and contempt in that melody, and the thought of the pain it must have taken to bring about that darkness made X's own heart cry out.

"Damn it, Nereid!" Kilroy was, for once, not joking around. This was the bark of a senior (non-) officer. "Naiad might have been married to one of the Garmers, but that was uncalled for!"

Nothing but a shrug, frozen-over sea-green eyes broadcasting the same contempt as her voice. "Report to the cafeteria," Kilroy told her, equally coldly, and she left without even replying.

"I'll get going, then." X couldn't stand to stay here after that. He'd tried to make her see that Zero wasn't evil, but even though Naiad had forgiven him she wouldn't. She only came here to make sure that Naiad wouldn't meet the same fate as her husband, and her eyes were daggers in Zero's back. He could not make her see, Kilroy couldn't jolly her out of it, and even reminding her of her duty as an Irregular Hunter did nothing.

Kilroy didn't say goodbye, instead following X out the door, fuming. "Damn it, what is it with everyone lately? It's like I'm in that movie with the pot people, only cranky instead of happy."

"Pot people?"

"The plant aliens in that one movie in the marathon the sixth had a couple months ago. The one where Hoe got really drunk and punched me?"

"Oh, yes." He'd let him, but then Kilroy had admitted that he'd deserved that, and it had been worth it. Pansy wasn't the only word Kilroy knew odd meanings for, although actually he'd been talking about Hoe without the e. "I think those were pod people."

"Whaaaatever." Kilroy's eye roll indicated that hadn't been an accidental error, but he didn't feel about letting X in on the joke at the moment. "I'm in security, and we see a lot of things. A lot of things." Kilroy grinned at the thought of a few juicy ones. Oh yeah, hadn't there been a point to this conversation? "Anyway, we see a lot, and I've never seen things this bad. All you newbies may consider me a relic from the age of the dinosaurs, but there was a before I joined up and Rho told me that when the Hunters started there weren't any incidents among troops for six months! I used to be so bored on my night shifts I had nothing to do but read old novels and tabloids! Now, though, it's like everyone's edgy, and ticking each other off, and they tick back… I mean, people are starting to take me seriously! I got on Hoe's case about the gears and potatoes thing eightish months ago, and he was laughing like crazy!"

Pouting, Kilroy crossed his arms. "It's getting worse out there, and they can't leave it out there. It's getting so they aren't sure anymore, and they all joined up to be the good guys. Everything might be going gray, sure, but that's no excuse for taking it out on someone trying to lighten it up…" Oh. "Sorry for ranting at you, but Rho's sick of hearing it and I thought you might need the heads up."

"I didn't think things were that bad." That was the corridor to Kilroy's station up ahead, X noticed sadly.

Yet Kilroy didn't seem to notice it. "Yeah, 'cause you're you and the children try to be on their best behavior. Most people don't think things are this bad. But security, we see a lot, and they are."

"Thank you for telling me." Kilroy was one of the only ones irreverent enough to 'tattle' like this. Not to mention disobey the base-wide conspiracy to not burden X. As the base gossip (before things got serious, there had been semi-serious discussion of making it an official position with salary), Kilroy made it his job to know where all the bodies were buried or couples were making out and tell people what they needed to know. And often a lot more than they wanted to know.

"If you're wondering why I'm following you, it's because you're a kidnap risk." Kilroy winked.

"You're right, I was wondering, and I didn't know that." Kilroy was the only one who would tell him if it could be avoided.

"Indoors isn't an issue, but Zero's in one of the family housing buildings to be isolated – lucky, do you know how hard it is for a single to get one of those love nests? – and you go out into the open to get to them."

"So I should get someone for future trips?"

"No way. I have dibs on being your stalker. This is going to be gold."

"What will you do while I'm there?" Please, please, please don't let him relieve his boredom by joining in and needling Zero! That was X's prayer to any god that would listen. Kilroy claimed that his short attention span meant he was built for camera monitoring: he'd glance at all of them for anything interesting but wouldn't have his gaze caught for more than five seconds, unless someone had something new but he'd seen it all.

"Oh, I'll just hang around. You won't even know I'm there. Contrary to popular belief, I am capable of shutting up. Silence is a job requirement for we ninja."

"I was wondering about that. I thought your body was one of those ironic mismatches you sometimes get." Or that Kilroy had gotten remodeled into a ninja because it was both ironic and an excuse to play with sharp things.

"No, I was built to be a ninja. I even went and trained under the Wise and Ancient Snark-Fu Master."

"Why Kilroy, then? It's not Japanese."

"Because sneaking into places people don't want you to be and drawing that little picture of the face peeking over the line with the caption 'Kilroy was here," is one of those little things that make life worthwhile." Ah, good memories. "It's my thing. The Master does this thing where he just starts whistling like it's a walk in the park, and then they're all, 'How long have you been there?'"

"I think I'd like my 'thing' to be not getting shot."

Kilroy snorted with laughter. "Char would so be calling you a wuss right now."

"That's your brother, right?"

"Right. He got this bodyguard gig because when he went to check out the add the guy's sister put the smackdown on him with a titanium broom for trying to steal her top-secret pie recipe, and he found this totally hot." Clearly that was something Kilroy had told so many people that he had it down pat. The next bit mimicked the carefree old gossip tone, but there was a hint of more there. "He was worried he'd be bored out of his skull hanging around yet another lab, but it turns out the guy's doing something well-funded with lots of exciting world trips to gather highly unusual data, so it's all good."

Well funded meant that someone considered it worth the money. Exciting for Char, who according to Kilroy wasn't interested in anything but fighting, preferably with explosions (or, seemingly, pie) involved? Unusual was a synonym for Irregular… "You know, Killroy, it's very interesting how you convey information." As opposed to things that everybody other than the person he was letting in on them already knew.

"If you're loud and obvious, people don't pay any more attention to you than you force them to." And boy, Kilroy got a kick out of attention-grabbing. "If you're subtle and sneaky, people pay attention to figure out what you're up to. I learned this from the Master."

"You mentioned him earlier. Does this mean you want me to ask about him to trigger the next long, wandering, but entertaining topics that will eventually convey an important point by the time everyone but the person whose attention you have grabbed has tuned out the latest Kilroy meander to attend to their own business, or dismissed it as just more valueless entertainment?"

"Ah, you've figured out the code. And you waited until we were outside and eavesdropper free except for the cameras that send data to my station and my station only. Go you!" Kilroy clapped.

"Actually, that hadn't even occurred to me."

"X, X…" Kilroy waggled a finger at him. "I am deeply disappointed in you. A celebrity with your legions of stalkers really should have learned more caution by now. I see that I'm going to have to step up your training. I suggest you start carrying turpentine." Kilroy, when he wasn't at his station, tended to wander around the building, spreading gossip and throwing water balloons at people who weren't on their toes. Paint balloons were normally reserved for security officers sleeping on the job: he had to get permission from Sigma to use them on field hunters.

"Kilroy, this is Irregular Hunter Headquarters." Why would he have to worry about the cameras here?

"It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you." Kilroy sighed. "I keep nominating that when we change our motto every year. Maybe now that there actually are people out to get the hunters I'll get votes." He looked entirely too happy about this.

"That's not a good thing…"

"Well, it's the way it is."

This made no sense. Someone from the early days, someone who remembered when things weren't this way shouldn't have this fatalistic acceptance. No, this idea that people only out to help their fellows having enemies was the way of the world instead of the product of a terrible misunderstanding that would surely be fixed soon. "Maybe, but they'll go back to the way they were someday."

"Doubt it." Just another shrug, Kilroy wasn't interested in this conversation. In a conversation about the future of the Hunters he had been an integral part of for years?

" Of course they will!" How could Kilroy seriously believe that this irrational hatred, this, this racism, would persist?

Kilroy gave X a look, and X knew he was thinking something along the lines of, "What a starry-eyed, quixotic, illogical, idealistic idiot who is going to get himself killed because he refuses to accept reality and would rather live in a dream world where everyone is secretly nice, there are always happy endings, things are in easily distinguishable black and white, and you can do things that contradict the laws of physics just by believing you can, or trying hard enough, or some BS like that." The exact word used was, "Lightbot," but then, to Shadowman's family, the words X thought of were most of the definition of that term.

Kilroy said nothing, because the rest of the definition was, "that you can't help but like and wish they could keep that bubble you envy them for."


This makes a bit more sense in the context of the manga.

Seriously, go read the thing. It contains the plot and concepts you wish had been in the games, although except for the first one it's mostly stuff that happened in between the games, like Dr. Cossack writing a book arguing for robot/human equality, peace, friendship, and so on. Manga Dr. Cossack would so not like the version: the Skullman manga story is a very sad parallel with , although in context of an earlier chapter Dr. Cossack hid him to keep him from being destroyed because he was a warbot. There's some stuff in there about unconscious racism: he argues for equality, but did he seal him away to protect him or not to have to look at him?