All characters belong to Capcom. Asaki Kai belongs to me. I'm not making money off of this. It's for entertainment only. Dedicated to the few who know me and are *not* disgusted with the male/male inserts. Now, have yourself a nice day. ^^

Chapter 3



When X came to, it was about fifteen minutes later. Within that time, Cain nearly suffered a heart attack, damage in money signs came to about $152,000, and there were several dents in the wall, fist size. It's cause was currently seething against the opposite wall of the dented one, eyes closed, arms folded.

Yakasa's imediate response to being revived into conscious was to grab his head with both hands and twist to his side, bringing his knees closer to his chest. I feel like I'm gonna throw up..

The next thing he clearly remembered was trying to spit out the rest of the acidic fluid from a mechanical stomach into a bin that some human was holding and someone was patting his back. That's gotta be Zero..

"Hey X, you done with the blowing chunks thing yet?"

Yup, it's him. "Probably not, but that's, at the least, my whole lunch." He heaved dryly and groaned, letting his head go limp and closing his eyes. "So that's what it's like to be car sick."

Zero chuckled quietly and crouched down to eyelevel. "Yeah, well... just before you blew, that robot woke up and beat you to it."

"What robot?.."

"The one you fainted at the sight of."

X just stared blankly, until he remembered the solid image before his world turned inside out. He groaned again and Zero helped him up right. I.. I think... I think I know him. "Where is he?"

Zero pointed to behind the curtain, where quiet talking was barely heard. X winced as he slid off the table, his legs not cooperating to their full capacity. The blonde reploid held onto him by the waist and smiled when Yakasa looked up at him, who smiled weakly back.

On the other side of the sheet, Dr. Cain was speaking to the small robot with the patience of a psychologist, the latter sitting on the table he woke up on, knees drawn tightly against his chest. "Okay.. Rock.. let's try this again. Who is your creator."

"Dr. Thomas Light," came the quiet answer.

Cain blinked, suspecting a malfunction in a memory chip somewhere. "Listen, you do realize I'm having a hard time believing you're the real Rockman from roughly 60 years ago, right?"

"If you weren't, you wouldn't keep repeating the same questions..."

"Just to making sure you got that straight." He inhaled, writing something down on a clip board. "Alright, if you are really him, who was your historical counterpart."

"Opposite or companion?..."

Whatever Cain had been writing stopped in mid sentence as he looked back up at the blue robot. That was the trick part to this question.. "Companion."

"My dog, Rush."

"And your opposites?"

"Forte, a Wily bot, and his lupinoid, Gospel."

"And your siblings in mindset?"

"My brother is DRN 000, Blues. Created two years before myself by both Wily and Light. My sister is DRN 002, Roll, activated a few months after my own activation."

Cain's jaw set, not positive his ears were working right, but, he wrote it down anyway. "Recall what the fourth war was like."

"......" Rock sighed and shook his head. There was no end; nothing he said would make this man happy. But, as he prepared to recite the events of Cain's prefered request, another voice caught him with his mouth open.

"I knew it."

The robot snapped his jaw closed came up as Cain spun around at the new addition to the conversation. X stood right next to the edge of the curtain, Zero still supporting him. "Sir, this *is* him. I'm 100 percent sure it is."

The doctor/archaeologist started, but the future Blue Bomber cut him off. "Ask him all those questions if you like, but anyone who studied the Wily Wars knows those figures and names. I can give you the proof."

Cain drew his eyebrows together, not convinced by X either. "Yakasa, there is no proof. Someone could have programmed him with all this information and then dropped him from the sky. Just because your bio-signature fluxed--"

"It didn't just flux, Cain-san.."

Zero, as well as a stray scientist nearly by blinked at X. Bio-signatures were the finger prints of reploids; no frequency and sequence were exactly alike. The technique was created by, who else, but Dr. Light and Dr. Wily, when they were determined to keep the prototype of their bioroid design from being copied. Since then, most robots were required to have one and reploids demanded to have them. They couldn't be copied or reproduced.

Fluxing bio-signatures weren't too uncommon, they just didn't happen often. Normally, it was due to distinct radio waves interfering with the signature's modem.

"Then what was it, X?"

"......It was bio-alignment."

Pretaining back to the fact that bio-signature's couldn't be reproduced, bio-alignment was down right impossible. The term was coined to the theory of two exact signatures coming into contact with each other. They would pulse and flux wildly, in a desperate dance to catch each other in sync. There were theories about that theory as well. That the two machines in sync would be able to locate each other easily or that the two machines could fuse in some way to become one. No one knew. No one ever would either. Zero would make sure to take measures. No bloody technologist was going to dissect *his* angel...

"...!!!!"

The Hunter nodded. "I can feel it." And he looked at his younger (or older, if we're getting technical) counterpart and cast him a rueful smile. "Can't you... Rock?" The little bioroid didn't answer. All he did was stare at X with wide, saucerpan sized eyes, the situation finally sinking in. He had been a drone answering to Dr. Cain, dulled and diluted senses keeping his conscious from fully grasping what was going on. It had been like a distant dream, but now, it was very real.

"Listen, you do realize I'm having a hard time believing you're the real Rockman from roughly 60 years ago."

Rock screamed.

Suddenly, a lone, animalistic howl rocked the walls with it's vibrations, causing the room's occupants to face the direction the sound came from, which just so happened to be on the other side of two free-swinging doors. Zero's battle instincts kicked in, reaching for the hilt of his beam sabre and activating it's green blade even before the howl tampered off.

"It's loose!!!"

The doors burst open with a long clang, the doors hitting the walls behind them and a flash of purple bolted in, intending on striking revenge against the humans who caged it.

Fast, split second motions followed. The results were Zero hiding behind a lab table on the other side of the room with X and Cain in either arm. Rock remained, sitting numbly on the table. 60 years! No! What.... happened......? A sharp, snarling bark brought him back from his bewildered thoughts. He knew that sound all too well. "Gospel!"

There was a metal-skidding-on-smooth-metal sound and then a whine. Gospel walked into Rock view of eyesight, looking confused and lost, evident in the lupine's eyes when they trained onto the blue robot. The voice that called to him was afraid. "Hey there, Treble. Come here. C'mere boy.."

Rock reached out to touch the lupinoid's head and Gospel took comfort in seeing even a familiar face among these strangers. The dog whined again. Rock gave an empty smile. "Don't worry, Treble.. It's going to be okay. I'll get you back to your master somehow. Until then, you're going to be with me, okay?"

Gospel nodded, but snapped his head and growled at the hiding trio when Cain raised his head to inspect the situation. "Extraordin'ry. That mech is the actual dog of the legendary Tsuyomi."

Zero narrowed his eyes. "Whatever, Doc. I'm just wondering if it's safe to come out."

"Gosuperu," whispered Rock, "....I don't know what's going on or how it can be fixed, but... something's going on and we need to trust someone, okay? And maybe Forte's somewhere. We'll find him too."

The wolf bot seemed to brighten at the statement, his tail wagging behind him. A long howl followed, but it was certainly not out of anger.

Elsewhere, Dr. Asaki was hovering over a still form on a lab table. It was a complete success. I have the power to change time.. "And you, my young friend, will be left to the dogs when your purpose has been served."

As the doctor smirked and touched the face, a familiar presense filled the room. "Sir."

"What is it."

"I sense they will eventually find out about our plans through your past records. Do you suggest a plan of action or should I take care of that?"

Asaki waved his hand in dismissal. "Do as you wish."

"Then I request the usage of the specimen when the time comes."

Hesitation. "You have my permission. Don't foul this up, because I'd hate to dismantle a loyal servant such as yourself."

"Yes sir."

And it took me forever to put two and two together and look up Forte in my jap-english book. And I found 'tsuyomi'. So I figured I go with the current flow and call him that instead of 'Forute'. ^.@; Even if the forte 'tsuyomi' refers to means 'strong suit' instead of 'loudly' in musical terms, I guess it's alright.