Writers block? I don't know, it could be, I never had writers block before. I just didn't like any of the ideas I was having.
I just now found serious mistake back in chapter two. I had Zero reach down to his hip for his saber when it would have been on his back. Reaching for a weapon on your hip isn't noticeable but reaching for one on your back would be. I am a huge fan of the zero games, and he keeps his saber on his hip in them.
Here, read it.
A blaster from the past C5)
Rock was still staring at the wall in his room; it had been almost two days since Akako's words prompted the battle in his mind. The battle was running down quicker than normal and logic was winning as usual. He closed his eyes for a moment as the conclusion came to him, he was Rock. The answer was always simple and direct but reaching it was always different.
He stood and stretched his arms, not needing to but finding it an appropriate gesture. He took only a glance at his shelf of trophies and headed towards the door. Before he could even reach the door consol the door slid open. There was Roll, in her armor still and holding a micro decoder that she had used to hack his door code.
He gave her his best glare but it didn't faze her like it once did. "So why are you sulking in there anyhow? Did your that woman turn you down for a date?" Rock stepped out the door and pressed the seal command.
He smashed a finger into the override port, destroying any future code hacking by Roll, or at least making it harder. "I had a conflict error, you must have had one of those by now." He started down the hall towards the stairs and she fell into step with him.
She was taller than him by half an inch now, but it could have been her armor. "Not really. Dr light still doesn't know why you get those." She kicked a floor polisher back onto its many small feet with out breaking stride. "So are you going to ask me what I have been doing while you where asleep? I thought you would have been bugging me about it by now."
Rock stepped into a storage room and found a handful of pre-assembled parts he was going to need shortly. "No I wont. You already told me not to ask, remember." He closed the door and continued on down the slightly curving hall.
Roll shifted her hand into its buster once before bringing her hand back. "I didn't think you would listen to me. Well imp going to tell you and you are going to listen." Rock finally reached the room he was after and entered. This room was Light's pre-model room, it was where small scale models of where kept. There was model of every robot master in here and several different versions of Mega man.
Roll walked over to a small shelf showing her own models and touched a switch on the base her first design was sitting on. The miniature blond stood up and walked around before saying something, "hello I am Roll. I am fully capable of performing every household chore." The real Roll flicked the switch and made a gagging sound. Light had first built her and Rock with plans to make them household appliances, thankfully he had changed his mind before they had been activated.
Rock found the model of his current body, all the versions taking up several shelves, and the only model of X available. He walked over to the database computer and slid the specification chips from the models into the readers. "What are you doing?" Roll had come over and was standing behind him as his fingers danced across the keyboard.
He set up a simple comparison algorithm before answering her. "I'm planning on some upgrades. I might have more experience than X right now but I am not a match for his power." The computer beeped and he looked at the small window that had appeared. "Unfortunately I can only support fifty six percent of his basic hardware. The rest of it is configured towards his neural based brain and wont work on our systems."
Roll leaned on his shoulder and looked at the screen before shaking her head at the long lines of code. "Rock I might be a lot different than you remember but I still don't understand half the things you just said."
Rock hit a key and a new window appeared with an image of his current appearance. "I need to be stronger so I'm using parts of his design to make mine better. Did you understand that?" he started typing again and his appearance on the screen started to change slightly.
'Smack' Roll had slapped his head in frustration. "Of course I understood that you moron. But why are you doing it?"
Rock shook his head before glancing at the screen, his hand had slipped on the keyboard when Roll hit him and now he had half his face replaced by a hand. He started to correct the error while Roll laughed at the image as it disappeared one finger at a time. "Light bluffed and said I was a match for his potential. And while it might be true that I could defeat him now after he gains more experience I wouldn't have a chance."
"Why not just get Light to make you into a reploid?" Roll had wandered over to the shelves and picked up the model of Rock before he was Megaman. She placed it next to a model of Bass and pressed both buttons, she laughed as Bass pounced on Rock and started pummeling him.
Rock stopped what he was doing to go over and stop the micro sized fight. "He could easily build me a body that was fully reploid and even place my memories into it but it wouldn't be me. The neural network in the mind is too different for all my emotions to cross over. I could become a egotistical maniac or a total wuss" Rock swore under his breath as the model of Bass bit him, he shook the five-inch tall model once before pressing its deactivation button.
Roll jumped into the chair before he could sit down again. "So why not ask your girlfriend if she could help you make new parts that do what X's do but work only for you?"
Rock pushed the chair aside on its wheels and stood at the computer while he typed. "She doesn't know how to build X's parts let alone make ones that serve the same purpose for me." The Rock on screen was as finished as he could make it. It looked almost exactly the same but was slightly older looking and taller and better defined.
Roll spun around on the chair a few times before stopping and looking at the screen. "Trying to look good for someone?" she got out of the chair and started for the door. "Maybe you should ask her for help. After all she is a reverse engineer, she could work backwards from what is there while you work up from nothing. I wager she would finish before you did."
She stopped outside the door and looked back in. "I changed my mind. I don't want to tell you what I have been doing. Watch it yourself; the password for my vid files is RIP. You know, Rest In Peace."
The door slid shut and Rock was left watching the older image of him as it slowly rotated. He sighed and pressed a button on the console, both the models chips ejected, as did another one containing his altered data. He pocketed the third chip and returned the models to their places before leaving.
He walked down the hall again towards the lab he left Akako by herself. He knew he shouldn't do this but Light spent most of his time offline anymore and he didn't want to talk to him. Even before entering stasis Light had been growing tired of his semi-life state. Rock had a feeling that Light would delete himself after X had found all the pods he had been left.
Rock pushed those thoughts away as he opened the door to the lab, only to stop in wonderment as he saw what was happening inside. Akako was running around from machine to machine and then to the computer, trying to do seventy things at once and remember them as well.
He took a step inside thinking that this might not have been so good an idea. Akako either didn't see him or was too busy to react to his presence. "Akako? Will you stop a moment and listen to me."
"Cant. Too busy. I have already made more progress in two days than my entire team had in a year. Its amazing what I have discovered just by studying these machines." Rock noticed that she had opened panels on most the machines and even had a few dismantled.
He caught her arm as she came closer to him, she immediately started hitting him and screaming about her research. "Akako, have you even slept? I wont let you work in here if you are going to neglect yourself."
She relaxed in his grip and then calmed her breathing before looking him in the eye. "I'm sorry it just amazing that all this survived by itself for so long. I can't stand the thought that maybe it won't last. I already have most the schematics for these machines memorized and then I can start using them to work on problems that have been bothering us for years or even decades."
Rock released her but caught her arm again as she stumbled, "if you don't slow down you wont be around to do anything. So you are going to go climb into the recharge tank or sleep on the cot in back. After you wake up I have a project for you, go ahead go ill leave what I want you to do on the monitor."
"Ok." She stumbled away from him and back towards the small living unit. She must have been going at it rather hard to be worn out already; most reploids could last days without sleep or recharging and be doing hard labor during it.
Rocks watched her step inside the small cubicle like room and pull the thin door shut. He walked over to the computer and pulled up a new screen as he slid the chip into its slot. "If she really did figure out the machines here already I can't let her have to much or I might have to deal with hundreds of the X series if I ever let her out."
Rock let enough data for her to be able to understand what he needed but not enough that she could recreate it in a compete form. It would make her work harder but it was less risk, the worst being that she could still use the data as a stepping stone towards recreating X. most of what he for her was what he knew they had already figured out. That still left him with a good deal that would need to be converted for his use. He stacked the parts he had gathered beside the computer, they where things that she wouldn't be able to go get while locked in here.
He pocketed the chip again and left, not forgetting to seal the door behind him, and went of to the main computer room where he could talk to Light and check those vid files of Roll's. He stepped inside the room and dropped into the chair, using his foot to hit the activation button. "Are you busy doctor?"
The halo projector in the corner of the ceiling flickered to life and then Lights hologram appeared beside Rock. "What do you need Rock? I was studying some new literary works."
Rock casually slid the chip into the computer and let the auto read bring up his data. "If I am to help X I need a better body. Already his power is above my own, I would only defeat him because of my experience. If he grows to even a third of his power my experience wont matter."
Light studied the screen, nodding at what Rock had already done. He saw the tags on parts of the data and raised an eyebrow at Rock. "What are these data tags? They say you already have those in development. Does this have anything to do with that young woman in lab fourteen?" Rock fell backwards as the chair tipped under him.
He scrambled back to his feet as Dr Light chuckled at him. "Yes I gave her those areas to work on. Her name is Akako. She is a reverse engineer at the hunter HQ."
Light laughed for a moment longer before returning to the data on the screen. "Yes I think I can work on this for you. It may take a day or so but don't worry ill have it finished long before X reaches even a quarter of his potential." Light's hologram flickered and vanished and Rock watched as screens on the computer opened and closed while the doctor worked on the design.
Rock turned to another smaller screen on his left and told it to retrieve any vid files made by Roll with the password RIP. The list was shorter than he had hoped but she must have only recently started using this password. Rock called up the first and leaned back as it ran.
The image was static for a moment before the image appeared; a nearly finished Roll was laying on a table as robotic arms peace together her body. It was her current body and Rock could see her armor being assembled on another table. Suddenly her eyes shot open and she sat up with a scream and clutched at her neck.
Rock knew that sensation all too well; Light had installed a safety recover disk in all his robots, except the X searies witch was far too expresive in mentalty. If critical damage happened and the body was about to detonate the recovery chip would be transferred away so that the newest memories and personally traits could be installed in the next body.
Roll calmed herself and lay back as the arms continued to put her back together. Rock struck the forward button and watched as Roll's body was finished and she got to her feet. She walked towards the door and as soon as she stepped off camera the perspective changed into what she was seeing.
She headed towards the transfer pad and left in a flash, where she appeared was obviously the hunter HQ. She slipped along the halls, stepping into shadows as reploids in armor approached. She lashed out as they passed where she was, her hands catching them across the neck. They fell to the ground disabled as she moved down the hallways again. She leapt up and clung to the ceiling and moved along it like an insect.
The hallway up ahead was damaged but she kept going, only slowing enough to ensure her molecular bonders had a firm grip on the ceiling. Around a bend the hallway was gone, totally gone. Someone had gone critical here and the walls where gone and nearby rooms wasted. Roll slowly crawled down the wall and started scanning, after a few moments she shifted the ruble and picked up a peace of twisted metal. The metal was blackened on one side and a bright red on the other.
"I'm telling you Cain, it was a maverick." Roll leapt to the ceiling with a single bound and clung there as a reploid in red, white and black armor came around the opposite bend. "I was in my office doing my paper work and I heard something. I jumped out the door and there she was."
Cain was a short thin little man with white hair and a growing bald spot. "Zero if there was a maverick in the HQ it wouldn't have gotten near your office without killing or being seen by someone. I wager this is just another way of getting out of you paperwork, there wasnt even a blip on the base sensors."
Zero kicked a stone, indivertibly reveling another peace of twisted metal. "But I'm telling you she was there. She was around five foot four and in this strange pink and red armor. She tried rushing me and I called my armor and took her head off with my saber." Zero played out the motions as her spoke, looking like he was trying to sell a story more than ever.
"I don't care what you say Zero. This is coming out of your paycheck, and Signis is canceling your leave until you tell the truth." Cain made to leave but saw the peace of metal beside Zero's foot. Cain bent down to pick it up, as Zero stormed off down the hall.
Roll watched as Cain picked up the metal and studded it. He looked around for others but not seeing any he walked off. As soon as he was gone Roll dropped to the floor and resumed scanning for other peaces, swearing under her breath. She found a few more peaces and turned to leave, only to find X leaning against the shattered wall watching her.
Roll froze. She stood there like a dear in the headlights as X examined her. "So you are who I have been seeing around corners." He pushed himself off the wall and took a step towards her and she took one back. "I'm not going to hurt you I just want to know what your doing here."
Roll took another step back as X took one towards her. "Your not supposed to know. I'm not even supposed to be seen." She felt a wall hit her back and she slid along it as he advanced.
X had raised his hands and kept walking, apparently sensing her anxiety. "Its ok, if you mean us no harm we wont hurt you. Was that your friend?" X pointed a hand at the bits of medal in her arms.
Roll took a second to look at the metal in her arms before looking back up. X had stopped when her back had hit a corner and she couldn't move anymore. "I was clumsy and Zero saw me. I tried knocking him out but he, he was quicker."
X's face turned stony and his hands dropped to his side. "You can't have been her. She was destroyed and there are bans on rebuilding reploids."
Roll shifted her feet as she looked at his face; she was very uncomfortable being on the spot like this. "It was I. I must go now."
X leapt forward as Roll activated her transfer, but she was already gone, having reappeared on the transfer pad back at the compound. She slumped to the ground and sighed, "I can't believe that they both saw me now." She raised the face guard onto her forehead before the vid file ended.
Rock watched the blank screen for a moment before opening the next. This one was shorter than the last. He watched through Roll's eyes as she studied Zero as he was training in just a pair of jeans. He heard her give a dreamy kind of sigh as she watched him attacking a fellow hunter with a wooden kendo sword. Rock fell from his chair in shock as her eyes zoomed in on his rippling chest while he struck again and again, not leaving his opponent a chance to recover.
Rock all but put his finger through the key as he stabbed at the stop key. "I didn't need to see that." He opened the next file and while waiting for it he shook his head. "My sister has a crush on the guy who cut off her head."
The next file was Roll watching from the air, Rock would have to find out how, while X and several repliods walked through a forest of half mechanical trees. Suddenly a large animal like reploid leaped from the dense foliage and slashed one of the reploids apart with its claws.
Several reploids opened fire and managed to do slight damage before the maverick fled again. X knelt beside the body of his fallen solder and closed its eyes before getting back to his feet and walking into the foliage where the maverick had disappeared. A blast of charged plasma soared up at Roll from one of the reploids and she swerved away before it could hit. As she circled around again X had already found and destroyed the cat-like maverick and the file ended.
Rock opened the next file right away, only to stop it, as it was Zero working out again. "She is obsessed. Well I guess the good part is she hasn't approached him or left him mystery love letters."
Rock checked for any other vid files but those few where the only ones that the password worked on so he turned of the screen and left the room. He headed for the transfer platform and but stopped before leaving. He called up a COM link and sent the command to retrieve some of his weapons. Perhaps it was because of his reminiscing but he decided to use only the first six master weapons he had acquired. Then he stepped onto the platform and vanished, the chips containing the transfer codes of his weapons securely placed inside his helmet.
Next chapter should finally be the race and/or duel between Rock and Zero.
Eats a poison cookie hey these are good. I didn't think arsenic tasted so wonderful. Here try my mother's tuna casserole. Holds out pan full of gray goo that has streaks of pulsing yellow in it it can eat through an engine block in under twenty minutes. Sees the nuke falling and dived into his armoredbunker
Thank Archaon for this chapter; he gave me some ideas that kick started my brain.
And yes I hate the Megaman and MegamanX GAMES. I like the plot and ideas, its just the play control is terrible. Megaman can only fire right of left, why can't he point his buster at different angles like Bass in Megaman and Bass. I am a huge fan of the Zero and Battle Network games.
Later
Oh and don't forget that review button.