Chapter Fourteen: Travelers of both Time and Space

The team arrived in a teleport room not so different from the one they had been using before. The man stepped down from the teleport and walked to the door.

"Where are we?" Snake asked.

"You are in Neo Arcadia." The man opened the door to an enormous futuristic metropolis where both humans and robots walked the streets. "Neo Arcadia is a human utopia, free of Maverick disturbances."

"Maverick?" Samus asked.

"Renegade reploids."

"Reploids?" Cloud asked.

"Robots replicated from the designs of X."

"What's X?" Sonic asked.

"Master X is the founder and ruler of Neo Arcadia, it was he who defeated the ruler of the Mavericks."

"Who are you?" Samus asked.

The man turned around and bowed. "I am Harpuia, leader of the four guardians of Master X."

"What are you?" Cloud asked.

"I am one of the finest Reploids ever created, built by Master X himself."

"Can we meet this 'X'"? Snake asked.

"Of course, I am taking you to the heart of Neo Arcadia now to meet him. And the other three Guardians." Harpuia turned and continued walking.

The team was in awe of the city they walked through, never before had any of them seem something so magnificent.

"Harpuia!" A voice shouted. The team looked ahead as a large figure walked towards the green reploid. He wore pink boots, gloves, chest and shoulder armor, a pink helmet with two yellow horns, and a large pink gun in his right hand. "These are the people you talked about?"

"Yes," Harpuia turned to the team. "This is another of the Four Guardians, his name is Fefnir."

"Harpuia," Fefnir said. "Leviathan and Phantom are waiting inside, so is Master X." Fefnir walked forward and opened the doors of a large tower they stood in front of. They walked inside and rode an elevator up. When the elevator doors opened two reploids stood waiting.

One was a woman, she wore light blue-heeled boots, long blue gloves, a blue chest vest like what Harpuia wore, a helmet with a red triangle on the forehead, and she carried a long spear. The other looked like a ninja, he wore black boots, gloves, and vest, he wore a red scarf, had a sword on his waist, and a helmet that covered his eyes like a mask, with a red triangle on the forehead.

"Allow me to introduce the last two members of the Four Guardians," Harpuia motioned his hand to the woman. "Leviathan and Phantom."

Snake looked Leviathan up and down. "Robots here are very advanced, and lifelike."

Leviathan smiled. "You say you are not from this world."

"Yes." Samus answered.

"Come," Harpuia walked forward to a large door. "Master X will be most interested." A large lock opened in the center of the door and it slid open. The Guardians walked in first and kneeled in front of large chair that was mostly hidden by darkness.

"These are the ones you found?" A voice asked.

"Yes my Lord." Harpuia answered. "They now nothing of Neo Arcadia or the Resistance."

"Interesting." The voice responded. A figure stood and slowly walked into the light. "You are not from this world you claim." The figure was fully exposed, it had black arms and legs, it wore blue boots and gloves, and its torso was blue with a red outlined color that formed an X. The outer edge of its helmet was white, a blue uplifted stripe went across the top of its head to a red triangle on its forehead. The team stood in disbelief.

"Megaman?" Sonic asked silently.

The robot stared down at Sonic. "I am Megaman X, ruler of Neo Arcadia and savior of the human race."

"Megaman X?" Samus asked.

Megaman X smiled. "Please, call me X. But I do wonder how you knew my full name."

"You resemble a friend of ours named Megaman." Cloud explained.

"Hmm, curious." X thought for a moment. "Anyway, I do not believe that I have learned your names."

"I'm Cloud Strife."

"Samus Aran."

"Solid Snake."

"Sonic the Hedgehog."

X looked around the team. "Interesting, tell me about your travels."

Cloud thought for a moment. "Where do we begin?"

The team told the story so far, about Wily, Eggman, Ganondorf, Ridley, Eve, and Sephiroth. They told about how they had lost Link and Megaman, about Meteor and the strange vortex.

"Interesting. Be sure that we will not rest until we find a way for you to return to your 'Black Mesa'. And in the meantime, perhaps you can help us." X walked around the room. "You see we have been fighting a resistance of maverick reploids, nothing more than a handful really."

"What do you need us for if there are so few of them?" Snake asked.

X walked to a computer terminal. "They have a strong ally, an ancient and powerful reploid," He pushed a couple of buttons and a blurred image appeared of a red robot, with long blonde hair. "Zero."

The team stood in shock.

"That's impossible," Samus said. "I left him in space."

X turned around. "What do you mean?"

"Not more than a day ago I sent Zero into space so he wouldn't be of any trouble." Samus explained.

"A day ago? This is impossible we have been fighting Zero for about a month now." X told the team.

"But how?" Samus asked.

"Wait," Cloud thought for a moment. "X, you said Zero was an ancient reploid."

"That is correct." X answered.

"X," Cloud hesitated for a moment. "What year is this?"

X thought for a moment. "A strange question."

"Please answer."

"It is currently the year 22XX A.D."

The whole team was in shock.

"We've traveled two hundred years into the future." Snake said slowly.

X thought. "That would explain some things."

The team looked up at him.

"When you traveled through the vortex must have been when you were sent through time. And when you teleported to this, Dr. Lights, laboratory it was gone with the sands of time."

"We have to get back to Hyrule, the answer is there." Cloud said.

"But we can't leave things how they are here." Samus argued. "We should help Neo Arcadia defeat Zero."

"This time means nothing to us, we will be long dead when this time comes, it's not our problem."

"You will turn your back on them?" Samus shouted. "They help us, I say we help them."

"Excuse me!" X interrupted the argument. "You don't need to choose now. Fefnir will be leading an attack on the Resistance base in the morning, please, stay with us until then."

The team agreed and was shown to bedchambers.

Sonic sat down on his bed. He looked around at the stark metallic room. "Not as swanky as Hyrule."

"So," Samus began. "Are we going to help them?"

"We've all fought Zero, none of us stood a chance." Snake admitted.

"Maybe over the course of time Zero has gotten weaker." Sonic suggested.

"We can't afford to waste time." Cloud objected.

"That's the thing, we have lost all of our time. Currently Sephiroth would have done his damage years ago, and passed on. We can help fix things here and then get back to Hyrule without having lost anything." Samus pointed out.

Cloud thought about this.

"I say we help Neo Arcadia." Samus said.

"I'm with you." Sonic joined.

Snake sighed. "I'll join as well."

The team looked at Cloud. "You're right, we lose nothing by staying here for the time. Let's help them."

The team awoke the next day and made their way to the chamber of X.

"Have you made your decision?" X asked expectantly.

"Yes," Cloud said. "We'll help you."

X smiled. "Excellent. You shall join Fefnir on a trip to the desert outside of the Resistance base, from there you will begin your attack."

"Let's go guys." Said Sonic going for the door.

"One more thing." X shouted before they left the door. X walked down and stood in front of them. "From this day forward, I'm making you honorary Guardians of Neo Arcadia."

"Thank you X." Samus said on behalf of the league.

X smiled as they left and made their way for the hangar. Fefnir stood in front of a large beetle shaped aircraft.

"Glad you guys could make it!" Fefnir shouted walking up to them. "We were about to take off."

"Then we got here just in time it would appear." Snake said looking over the strange aircraft.

"Yeah," Fefnir nodded his head. "We should get going, they're not gonna wait for us forever!" Fefnir ran towards a ship and jumped into it. The team followed onto their ship.

They flew out of Neo Arcadia and over lands of destroyed wastelands. "What happened to this world?" Samus said looking down.

"I don't know," Snake said. "But I just hope we can make it better when we get back."

The team arrived over a desert and the craft lowered to the ground. They got out and met up with Fefnir.

"What's the plan?" Cloud asked Fefnir.

Fefnir pointed out towards the base on the horizon. "Basically what we're gonna do is send out waves of robots at the base that will take out a couple of Mavericks, then Zero will probably come, take out our entire attacking force and then we get to fight him." Fefnir patted Cloud on the back. "Flawless." Cloud thought for a moment. Fefnir stood on a large rock and commanded his troops who then marched forward. "Now it's a matter of time."

A series of explosions fired around the base.

"Is that good?" Sonic asked Fefnir.

"Either it's their defenses going down, or our troops being destroyed." Fefnir said studying the explosions. The blasts began to come closer. "Hmm, seems they let Zero out early."

Snake looked at Fefnir. "Zero, he's coming?"

Fefnir nodded. "Yeah." Fefnir grabbed his large gun and prepared to fight.

Snake slid his buster onto his hand.

"What's that?" Fefnir asked looking at Snake's buster.

"It's a buster cannon." Snake explained.

Fefnir snorted. "That thing is really out of date." Fefnir walked over to a ship and picked up a pistol. "Try this, top of the line."

Snake took the gun and fired a large blast of energy, the size of a medium charged shot on his old buster. "Thanks." Snake said to Fefnir who saluted and then looked back out on the battlefield.

Waves of explosions occurred near the team, they readied themselves and prepared to fight.

"Let me have a shot at him first." Samus suggested.

"What?" Snake shouted.

"You can't fight that yourself." Cloud advised.

"If it looks like I'm in trouble come in and help." Samus ran forward toward the explosions.

A red shadow flew across the desert, where it went explosions shortly followed. Samus aimed his gun at the shadow and fired, each time his shot missing. The shadow began to glow, and a large green blast of energy came flying at Samus knocking him back. "That's strange," Samus said to himself. "That didn't do near as much damage as before." More shots came flying at Samus who managed to dodge most of them and fire shots of his own. The shadow stopped, it stood hidden by a combination of smoke and sand. A green light ignited and began to fly towards Samus. As Samus realized what the light was he bent over backward and dodged a beam of light in the form of a sword. Samus stood back up and dodged the slash of the saber. "Enough of this." Samus said as he pulled his gun arm back and thrust it into Zero's chest. Zero went sliding back and stopped himself, he looked up at Samus and charged again. This time Zero used more than his newly acquired beam saber, he used his extra arm and his legs to fight Samus. Samus found himself somehow managing to keep up with Zero's movements, he didn't seem to move as fast as he used to. Samus spun around, ducked, jumped, and then placed his gun at the side of Zero's head, as Zero placed his blade on Samus's neck. The fight stood at a stand still. Samus looked in awe at Zero, who looked nothing like how he remembered.

Zero's helmet, was mostly black, with a red V going across the top of it with two long horizontal white spikes on each side of it, his body was mostly black, save for the red armor on his arms, the vest like the Guardians, and red boots. He still had his long blonde hair.

Zero looked up at Samus. "Are we going to continue?" He asked.

"You can talk?" Samus asked in wonder.

"Why does this surprise you?" Zero asked.

"I had never heard you talk before."

"Do I know you?"

"You don't remember me?"

"I don't remember a lot."

"Samus!" Snake shouted. "Is everything alright?"

Samus looked down at Zero. "Yeah, everything's fine!"

"You know about my past?" Zero asked.

"Yes."

"And you join with the enemy."

"What, you're the Maverick Resistance."

"You must not be from here."

"What?"

Zero lowered his blade and ran towards the rest of the team.

Samus thought for a moment. "What does he mean?" Samus turned and ran towards the team.

Fefnir and Zero were fighting when Samus reached them.

"How's Fefnir doing?" Samus asked.

"He looks like he's holding his own" Snake said.

Zero ran around Fefnir dodging his blasts of fire. Zero jumped and struck Fefnir on the head with a powerful saber strike. Fefnir fell to the ground.

"You won't get away with this." Fefnir tried to stand. "Dang, I can't move my leg. You got lucky this time Zero. Sorry guys, I have no choice!" Fefnir then shot into the sky in a beam of light. Zero slowly turned around and faced the team.

"You are humans, why do you fight?" Zero asked them.

"He can talk?" Sonic asked.

"We joined with X to fight you and your Maverick Resistance." Cloud explained.

Zero sighed. "So, you've been fooled by him."

"What?" Snake asked. "Fooled?"

Zero looked up into the air. "Prepare for transfer, I'm returning to Resistance base, with others."

The team appeared in a run down room on an old looking transporter. Zero stepped down and walked towards the door.

"Where are we?" Cloud asked.

The door opened. "The Resistance base, follow me." Zero led the team through a stark looking base, cracked walls, and stains on the floor, soldiers who looked unprepared for battle, and civilians.

"This doesn't look like much of a threat to Neo Arcadia." Samus said looking around at the civilians and soldiers.

Zero led them to an old elevator and took them up two levels, and he then led them to a large room with cracked silver cylinders along the walls. A woman stood in the room, she wore a pink vest like Zero's, a pink skirt, white gloves, white and pink heeled shoes, and underneath the vest and skirt she wore a skin-tight body suit. She also wore a helmet that let her bangs hang out, and had a hole in the top for a ponytail to stick out of.

"These are the other's you talked about Zero?" The woman asked.

Zero nodded. "They fight with Neo Arcadia, and don't know the truth."

The woman walked to the team. "I'm sorry that you have been caught up in all of this. Let me introduce myself, my name is Ciel."

The team went around and introduced themselves.

"These robots get more and more lifelike." Snake said looking Ciel up and down.

Ciel cleared her throat. "I'm a human."

Snake stepped back. "Sorry."

"Anyway," Cloud said changing the subject. "What's going on?"

"It's a long story." Ciel began. "One hundred years ago a scientist by the name of Dr. Cain found a capsule that contained the original Megaman X."

"Original?" Sonic said already confused.

Ciel nodded her head. "The X you met was a copy I made, but I'll get to that. Dr. Cain used the plans for X to create a new form of robots called Reploids, capable of all ranges of human features. But a virus got out that infected the Reploids causing them to

ignore the first rule of robotics."

"What's the first rule?" Sonic asked.

"That a robot cannot harm a human." Ciel explained. "A powerful reploid by the name of Sigma was infected with the virus and began to spread it across the planet creating an army of Mavericks. X and Zero fought against Sigma and were able to defeat him several times and eventually destroyed him forever. After this, X and Zero went missing. Havoc broke out without the two Maverick Hunters, and in the midst of it I created the Copy X. Who was able to eliminate most all Mavericks and build Neo Arcadia."

"Where's the problem come in?" Snake asked.

"A massive energy shortage has been ravaging the planet, and X has begun to destroy innocent Reploids claiming that they are Mavericks. I've been trying to create a new energy source to stop the shortage, and the Resistance has been fighting Neo Arcadia in our struggle for survival. We realized something needed to be done, we needed a savior."

"So you found Zero." Sonic said piecing it all together.

"Yes." Ciel nodded her head. "Tell me though, how is it you didn't know about Neo Arcadia?"

The team explained how they had been sent through time, Ciel and Zero found it hard to believe.

"20XX?" Zero asked. "And you said you remember me from that time?"

Samus nodded his head.

Zero walked to the back of the room with his hand on his head.

"We'd love to stay and help you fight Neo Arcadia." Cloud said to Ciel. "But we have to get back to our time."

"Of course." Ciel bowed her head.

"Where do we go?" Samus asked.

"The answer is in Hyrule." Cloud said.