Note: The Three Laws of Robotics mentioned below belong to Isaac Asimov, who didn't make any anime, but MegaMan fanfiction has used the Three Laws to death (and the First Law is referenced in Mega Man 7 and the MegaMan X series). For those of you who don't know, here they are:
1. A robot must not injure a human being, or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given it by a human being, except when they would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence, so long as this does not conflict with the First or Second laws.
TOKYO
Chapter 3
Black Magic
It seemed terribly unfair to Soma that, while he could fly, he was forced to do so in the shape of a bat, which wasn't so bad, except that it put a serious hindrance as far as dramatic posing was concerned. It also meant that you couldn't put on headphones and listen to something stylish like Juno Reactor's "Komit."
As it was, he flew through the night in silence, searching for two people who were not, in fact, "people" by a few definitions ...
He looked like a young man in a red sweater, with waist-length hair in a ponytail. She looked like a young woman with black hair, dressed in a black outfit that looked gothic and revealing. There was something odd about them, though -- apart from anything else, the girl had red eyes, and there was the length of the boy's hair. But there was definitely something odd about them -- the way they stood, the perfect smoothness of their face, the way they moved, in fact, mechanically. This was because they were.
"What are you thinking?" asked the young woman.
"I'm thinking about how ironic it is," he said. "About how, here I am, Zero, one of the most advanced robots in existence, the second of my kind, in fact, and I wasn't made with the Three Laws of Robotics because I was supposed to make those kinds of decisions for myself..." He turned to her with a wry smirk. "And what's more, I'm speaking on equal terms to you, Dita, a Persocon, supposedly one of the least advanced kinds of robots out there, who wasn't made with the Three Laws because you're not supposed to be bright enough or strong enough to be able to even consider harming or disobeying humans. Or getting yourselves hurt," he added.
Dita returned the smirk. "I'd say each of us is ironic enough in our own right," she said.
Zero nodded, looking up at the sky. "Yeah, I was designed by my creator to destroy the world, and -- Hey, here comes Soma."
The small white bat wheeled down to them and transformed into a large white human. This still vaguely irritated Zero when he watched this, as his sensors tried to ... well ... make sense of what they were looking at. "Sorry to interrupt your date, but something's up," he said.
"Date!?" said Dita indignantly, but Zero said, "What's up?"
"Dimensional disturbance. Someone's coming," said Soma. "And I can sense something bad already, so we'd better hurry. It's at the Tokyo Bay Bridge."
"All right," said Zero, and he vanished in a flash of red light that shot into the sky.
Dita stared at where he'd been for a moment, and then shook her head. "I hate it when he does that."
Almost immediately, Zero reappeared, took Dita's arm, and both of them vanished this time.
By a bizzare coincidence, in one of the alternate worlds that had merged with this one, the Golden Gate Bridge was in Tokyo. It was called the Tokyo Bay Bridge, and in any given year it was destroyed at least two hundred and sixty-six times.
Tonight it seemed darker than usual, and there was a mysterious blue mist all around it. Zero appeared first, wearing his red battle armor, with Dita standing next to him. Shortly thereafter, Soma, Zelgadis, and Seifer ran up and complained about how Zero's teleportation, which could harm organic life forms, was unfair. Zero's response that he couldn't help it and that they should just get some teleport magic that would work just as well, and the organic life forms informed him that magic was a bit unreliable in that regard.
Zero rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, so just witness my perfection, and all that crap."
Seifer snickered. "Now don't be going Maverick on us now," he said.
"Yeah," said Soma, "the last thing we need is a mindless, nigh-invincible killing machine on ... our ... hands ..." He frowned, looking out over the bridge. Suddenly, in the mists, there was a bright green glow, accompanied by a loud, sharp tone, and then abruptly faded.
"Well, it looks like our visitor just arrived," said Zelgadis. "Let's go see who it is ..."
Then a figure stepped out of the mists towards him. There was a dark aura around him, as if light that went near him illuminated him only, and avoided everything behind him. He had a black cape that was red on the inside, and rimmed shoulder armor ...
He seemed to be looking at everything around him, with the air of someone who would simply enjoy destroying everything he saw.
"Hello," said Zelgadis, narrowing his eyes cautiously.
The man turned to face them directly. "Oh, hello," he said, with the faint smirk of someone gloating on your impending doom. "I am the black magician Zio. And who might you be? Where am I?"
"My name is Zelgadis," said Zelgadis. "This city ... I suppose you could say it's a nexus point of dimensions, where many people have been transported ..."
Zio suddenly appeared interested. "A nexus of dimensions?" he said. "The dimensional fabric is weaker here?"
"What if it is?" said Seifer. Plainly, none of them trusted him; Vash would probably be cowering behind a tree now, and Ranma would have unconsciously slipped into a combat stance.
Zio grinned. The look of his eyes was one of someone who would delight in taking revenge, and was about to. "Then, in that case, things are likely to become -- let's say -- hard to live in here soon," he said.
"If you're plannin' on destroying something," began Zero, reaching up for his beamsaber.
"The entire world," said Zio, his grin widening.
Zelgadis exchanged a glance with the others. They didn't need to say anything else. They each drew their swords (although in Seifer's case it was a gunblade and in Zero's case the blade was green and made of plasma), and Dita pulled out a small handgun.
A green glow surrounded Zio for a moment. "Go ahead and try to harm me," he said. "Playtime is over!"
Dita fired, and the bolt of light simply vanished when it neared Zio. Zero and Soma tried to slash at him, but seemed to hit nothing but air.
The man in black gave a low, unpleasant chuckle. "Nothing can penetrate my Magic Barrier," he said.
"How about a spell?" said Zelgadis. "LIGHT ARROWS!" Several bolts of light lanced out at Zio --
-- and impacted against a green glow surrounding him.
"Hmm ... I may have actually felt that," said Zio. "Oh, well." He shrugged, and gestured upwards.
The face of a beast appeared above his head. (Or was it behind him? Was it just an illusion?) It was as blue as the mists, and skull-like, and leered at them with glowing red eyes.
"Betcha I could get through to him," said Seifer. "Dispel!" An aura of power surrounded him for an instant ...
And then the green sphere of Zio's magic barrier appeared, and then seemed to disintegrate.
"Now!" said Zelgadis. He threw a fireball at Zio, and it seemed to scorch him.
"Arrghh ..." Zio's eyes burned with rage. "You will pay for that, demihuman! Black Wave!" The image of the beast moved slightly, so that Zio was directly between it and Zelgadis.
And then there was blackness and red.
Zelgadis realized that, when he opened his eyes, he was going to wish he hadn't. He came to this conclusion, because this always, always happens.
He finally gave into inevitability and opened his eyes. It promptly felt like there were knives sticking into them. "Ouch ..."
"Relax ..." That was probably Soma's voice. "Zero had to teleport you out of there, and then Seifer had to use up a lot of his Cure spells ..."
"Ah," said Zelgadis. "I guess that explains the fact that I feel like there's a chemical imbalance in my brain ..." He was finally able to look around enough to see that he was lying in his bed in the upstairs room.
"Well, yeah," said Soma, taking a step away from the bed. "Some of the scientists in the Hunters here have been working like hell on the problem of teleporting humans and, uh, partly-humans since they got here, but ..."
"Zel!" exclaimed Vash, barreling upstairs. "You all right!?"
"I'll probably live," said Zelgadis, wincing. "But is there any chance you could please not burst in shouting like that, Vash?"
Two minutes later, Vash was sitting dejectedly in the front room of the store. This place was the most economic in nature, and merely showed the results of the magical workings in the back room and upstairs. "So, uh, what exactly are you? If you don't mind me asking ..."
Zero shrugged. "I'm what's technically known as a Repliroid. That's a kind of android -- basically a robot that can think, feel, and reason exactly like a human." He smirked. "To the point that I, too, can make snide remarks and hit on females of my kind."
Dita snorted. "Watch it," she said.
"What about you?" asked Vash.
"I'm a Persocon -- sort of like a PC accessory," said Dita. "Technically, we're not supposed to be anywhere near the level Repliroids are at, but ..." She shrugged. "Well, I was tracking down this program that could potentially affect all Persocons in my world, and it got into my system ..."
It was amazing how either a human or mechanical mind could deal with a situation between crises, or during a crisis when there's nothing to do. They were a group of heroes dedicated to defending the city, facing a new foe, with their leader fallen, and unsure what was going to happen next ... and they had reverted to normal conversation and small talk. It might have even continued like that, if the building hadn't suddenly began shaking.
"What in the world!?" yelled Vash.
Zero looked around. "An earthquake ... or ..."
The building stopped shaking, and began creaking from an abrupt excessive wind.
"Guys!" said Ranma, rushing in from outside. "You'd better come see this!"
This version of Tokyo was surrounded by forest, mountain, and ocean, and one of the mountains had suddenly been torn out of the ground. It flew up several miles into the air.
The top soon disintegrated, raining the ground below with boulders, and then a glow appeared on top of it. The rocks lengthened, became a more regular shape, until it looked like there was a building there.
No, not just a building -- a castle. A dark, foreboding castle that, in the darkness of night, seemed to absorb all light that was cast on it.
And then, without any warning, there was a ripple in the air, almost as if it was from heat or humidity, and then the whole thing vanished.
Many people saw it. One of them watched from the city's governmental complex. He watched it with great interest.