File 37: A Past Mistake

"Dude, you haven't paid for a single drink all night."

X laughed. "Isn't it great? Maybe I ought to get into this hero bit more often."

Zero nodded. "It was worth it, for once."

"I might stop after this round though."

"What for? It's still early."

"It's midnight."

"You said never stop until one in the morning, then see if you can keep going."

"Ah, that was years ago. I have to pick up Axl around seven."

"But he's with your brother, right? He can wait a few hours."

"True. Since you're single again, want to come with me to pick up some girls?"

"I'm not sure I'm up to doing that yet." He took a drink. "But give me a few more rounds and I might just."

They both laughed at that. "A few more rounds and we might be up for all night karaoke or the like."

"That sounds sweet. Do you still have that Elvis Presley armor in your system? That would be so righteous."

"You know, I think I do."

"You do a great Presley."

"Why thank you. Thank you very much."

"No, don't get me started."

"On what?"

"Do-wap."

"How do you get do-wap out of Elvis Presley?"

"I'm not sure. It's all fuzzy."

"What's fuzzy?"

Zero waved his hand about. "Space, Time, in my mind. It's all gone and collapsed before and I've been different ever more."

"Space time crash? Are you talking about that Cataclysm thing? Were you even activated then?"

"I was made by Dr. Wily."

"True."

Zero closed his eyes and seemed to be thinking. Or swaying. "Cataclysm. I'm not sure I remember that. Or if I do, it had to do with fish… swimming… fire…"

X was ordering another round for both of them. "Fish and fire? Nah, not really."

He opened his eyes and looked over. "What was it then? What you saw of it."

"What was it, the event that killed both of our fathers? It was bizarre. It started out with a ship, the Mary Lou."

"Mary Lou?"

"Yeah, some tour boat in New York City. It was my first mission ever. I was with Rock, of course."

"Of course."

"Dr. Wily had put some nuclear bombs on this ship, the Mary Lou. Rock and I went to stop them from exploding. Rock took care of the battle robots on deck and I went below to disarm the two nuclear warheads."

"You can do that?"

X shrugged. "Well, I did."

Zero hit his forehead. "Should have been obvious. The city's still standing."

X shook his head. "I missed a pair of secondary triggers that set the bombs off, sending radioactive materials into the jet stream."

"You're kidding."

"No I'm not. And the Mary Lou wasn't the only one. There were a total of twelve nuclear weapons that exploded shortly after those two did, all over the world. Everyone had to go into hiding to survive."

"So how come the world isn't still irradiated?"

"Because of the Cataclysm."

"That wasn't it? Twelve nuclear warheads exploding was not the Cataclysm?"

"Nope." He took a drink and considered the next turn of events. "There was an accident with a space-time weapon. I'm not certain of the details, but it totally wiped out the nuclear fallout. It brought New York City back from the grave. It completely erased one day."

"Erased a day…"

X nodded. "April 10th, 20XX. The day that never was."

"But… that's the day they both died."

"And that day is not recorded in the memories of any robot or reploid still active. Nor on any computer, recording, human memory, nothing. If anything was remembered, it's fuzzy and illogical. I don't remember a thing of that date."

"So that's how we ran into him, because the day he died is non-existent. You think Dr. Light's still around?"

"His ghost is. Bloody pain in the neck."

"Well, they say Time is only an illusion."

X felt a chill in his systems and wasn't sure why. "So it goes."

"Actually, both Space and Time can become fuzzy and even non-existent when conditions are right. All it takes is the proper will, willing to mess with people's heads."

His sense of Zero sitting at the bar sharpened dramatically. Everyone and everything around them became a blur. Like they weren't really there. Either that, or X was really drunk at this point. He wasn't sure which. He thought he heard ticking.

"The weapon of the Eternal Clock was meant to reach into normal Time-Space and warp it to the will of the user."

"The Eternal Clock? You do know about the Cataclysm."

"If only because Forte and I were in the middle of the collapse."

The bar changed, from a dim wooden building to a bright marble staircase with a red carpet. X found himself leaning on one of the rails. Zero was sitting on the other.

"Time and Space mean nothing at the Clock itself."

X recognized this place, as the Grand Staircase on the Mary Lou. His memory of that event played through his head, and something about it seemed odd. He didn't think about this memory, for several reasons, so it had yet to occur to him, "Did we meet before I found you in the alleyway? Were you on the Mary Lou?"

"The whole of Reality, simply crashing down around you… it was enough to drive Forte to religious zealotry. And I…"

There was a cherry wood grandfather clock against the wall. Which was odd, because X didn't remember it being there. It struck three.

"What are you doing?"

"X?"

"Is it three o'clock?"

The bar reasserted itself and got noisy. Zero clapped him on the back and laughed. "Wake up X. We were going to do karaoke, remember?"

He rubbed his eyes. "What's going on? It's still only midnight?"

"Of course. You need another drink?"

"Maybe. I saw something really weird…"

Zero shrugged. "Well, you sort of drifted off to la-la land for a few after we were talking about Elvis Presley. I think."

"I guess." He glanced around, where the bikers were joking around or listening in on them. "Okay, whoever drugged my drink is gonna get it!"

"Who around here is going to mess with you?" Dyne asked.

"I dunno, but some of you guys over there look suspicious. Yeah, I'm talking about you."

"Come on, let's go sing. It'll clear your mind."

It was late night at a truck stop. A large woman was running the counter at the same time she was watching her little boy playing with a noisy toy. There were three truckers at the counter eating, one of them being Magma Dragoon.

"Where'd you come in from?" one of the truckers asked Dragoon.

"Ontario," he replied. "Headed for Miami."

"We're on the Francisco to Boston loop," he replied.

"Still," the other said. "And he still hasn't gotten any good music."

"Not my fault you don't like country."

"I'm new," Dragoon admitted. "Wasn't much else for me to do."

"Where is your cab, by the way? I only see our truck."

"I don't own a cab. I grab the hookup and fly."

"Now that's a convenient way to run things. Saves a lot of money on fuel. Not to mention how much cabs run these days."

Dragoon shook his head. "Not really. You know how much my insurance costs have gone up? I thought I had nasty rates as a Maverick Hunter."

The country hater looked at him. "You gave up being a Hunter to be a trucker? Why in heaven's name would you do that?"

"It wasn't my fault, not entirely. I made a deal, the other side failed to fulfill their end of the bargain, so I wind up out of a job. And without a single fight to boot! I only agreed to it because I thought I would get some serious battling. And then, nothing."

"Aren't you worried the Hunters will come after you?"

"I've been waiting for them for months. They'd better send someone good. I've been searching for a good fight for years and haven't found it yet."

"I got a tiger!" the little boy told Dragoon, holding his plastic toy up for all to see.

"Piss off, you little twerp," Dragoon said.

Seconds later, he got clobbered with a rolling pin. The woman behind the counter shook it at him. "All right, no fowl language in front of my boy. Apologize for calling him a twerp."

He rubbed his head, which was stinging. "Hey, what're you thinking bringing a brat in here in the first place?"

"That's none of your beeswax." She smacked him with her kitchen utensil again. "Now get out of here before I call the police on ya."

He knew better than to mess with a mother with a rolling pin. "All right, all right. Creep." He left the truck stop in a hurry, but as he was picking up his load, he recalled that he had asked for a battle. Crud, just his luck.

In the morning, Blues and Axl teleported to the Blasted Machine Shop. Axl ran into the shop and looked around. "Dad, where are you?"

"Probably sleeping somewhere. My guess is he went out partying late."

"Aw, I miss all the fun."

They searched the shop, but there was no trace of anyone anywhere. "I thought somebody'd be back by now," he murmured.

"Hey Uncle, do you think I could be in the Maverick Hunters when I get older?"

Normally, he'd encourage any reploid who wished to join. "I'd talk with your father about that. Sometime when he's in a good mood."

The kid seemed excited. "It sounds really cool, and all your squad mates were nice."

"Is there anything else you were thinking of doing?"

Axl shrugged. "Not really, I just thought of it. But I always like to hear Uncle Rock tell me about when he was a hero. Do you know if my dad did anything like that?"

"It was a long time ago. He loves working with machinery more than anything."

"Okay."

Axl looked up at his uncle. He'd been formulating another question as they were walking around outside when he spotted a stranger come up to them. One rushing at Blues' blind side with an active weapon.

"Uncle!"

It was too late for a warning. Sigma sliced Blues in two before he even noticed. Axl backed up and tried to think of a place he could hide. Dynamo snatched him up from behind. "Hold on kid."

He struggled. "Let me go!"

"Stop struggling," Dynamo said and slapped the side of his head.

Sigma walked up to them, his saber still active. This stilled Axl more than anything Dynamo did. "You would be Axl, the son of Maverick X, correct?"

"I'm a good boy," he said softly. "I didn't do anything."

"It doesn't matter what you did. It's what your father's done. You will cooperate with us or we will kill you. Got that?"

"O...Okay."

"Good kid. Let's go."

*insert evil author laugh here*

And yes, Dragoon became a trucker. I realized as I was writing the Eclipse Cannon scene that I never did resolve what happened to him.