Blues frowned as the air beside him hummed with the familiar sound of a teleporter springing to action and dumping its payload. He summoned his buster, charging it, ready to chase off whoever dared to disturb him. He wasn't expecting anybody and quite frankly he could count on one hand the number of people he'd informed of his current hideout.

He then paused as a brilliant flash appeared right in the center of the humming and deactivated his buster. A familiar signal had flooded his sensors, panicked, upset, and hysterical. He'd recognize that signal anywhere.

It was Rock. And something had deeply upset the robot master if he was teleporting to Blues in such hysterics.

Blues was willing to bet an E-can that it was Doctor Light's fault.


Blues knew that the most recent project of Light's had been causing Rock much grief for some time but he wasn't expecting this. Light had command lined Rock, forcing him to stay at the house until the doctor's newest robot had woken up. (No wonder he hadn't heard from the younger bot in months). And the command had damn near torn the little robot apart.

Rock, sweet little Rock, was programmed to be caring, and as a lab assistant, constantly worrying about the welfare of other beings. It didn't matter what, it could be a human, mechanaloid, or robot master; if it was sick or injured, either mentally or physically, Rock wanted to help it, to heal it. Light had been forcing Rock to not heal his hurt younger brother for months, and Rock couldn't even seek out Blues to let loose that frustration. The doctor was pushing the robotic child to a breaking point. Any longer and Rock would have been at risk of going against his programming, which could label the young robot as being unstable and unfit to continue functioning as an accepted member of society much like Blues was.

There were many reasons Blues did not like his creator. This being one of them that drove his dislike closer to hate.

And there was nothing to be done now. Rock's younger brother, the one he had gushed about so often as being so cute, was gone, hurt, confused, and damaged in a way that Blues, as a robot master, would never truly be able to understand, most likely forever distancing himself from anything related to Light.

And here Rock was, begging him to go and find a way to fix it. Not to bring the android back to Doctor Light. No, Rock had very deliberately said that he didn't want X anywhere near the man. Rock just wanted Blues to look after him.

Blues frowned at this. He barely had enough supplies to keep himself running, much less another robot. Rock however, insisted that X was much more efficient than he looked and that taking care of the android physically wouldn't be too difficult.

But it was the mental part that was the problem. Blues was a robot master. He wasn't quite capable of feeling this as X would be able to. He didn't think he would do a very good job of fixing X's broken heart.

He had to try though, because Rock was the only robot in the world he would do just about anything for and the smaller bot was looking up at him with wide, tear filled eyes, saying that he would go and look for the android himself, but he was scared that Doctor Light would command line him into telling the scientist where X was.

And Rock couldn't allow that. Blues couldn't allow that.

Damn. There wasn't much hesitation left in him.

It looked like he had an android to find.


He finally found him, several months later, after exploiting every resource he knew of on another continent. Which was a shock, truly, because X didn't have an internal teleporter that he knew of and it would be rather difficult to gather up all the required passports and licenses and money to get X a ride there legally.

Which meant that the android had probably broken the law. Blues didn't mind. He did stuff like that all the time. And after hearing all the bullshit the android had gone through with Light, he quite frankly didn't blame him for wanting to get as far away as he could.

He waited until the android was alone, on a rooftop staring at the stars wistfully before he approached. He first stayed silent, some distance away, carefully contemplating his first words and actions. He didn't want to scare the android away. That would make Rock upset. Which would make Blues upset because the elder robot master was supposed to take care of the younger one. Which meant that he would have to appear as nonthreatening as possible.

He willed his armor away, letting the stiff, wrinkled, and rarely used clothes to cover his body. Blues frowned and ran a hand through his hair. He felt exposed without his armor on, vulnerable. But this was for Rock, he reminded himself.

He approached quietly, but not quiet enough to be completely unheard. He made sure to slightly scuff the hard concrete roof as he walked, alerting the android to his presence.

"You know," he started and settled down next to the android, "the stars are easier to see in places where its less polluted. Like Canada for example."

The android spared him a glance, grief ridden green eyes studying his wrinkled clothes and otherwise casual appearance.

"It's night time," was all the android said in response. Blues raised a hidden eyebrow.

"So?"

"You're wearing sunglasses." Blues smirked. He appreciated that kind of awareness and logic processing.

"My eyes don't adjust well to the light," Blues responded truthfully. "Perks of being a prototype."

The android cursed and lifted an arm, a blue halo surrounding it briefly before the human like appendage was replaced with a buster that pointed in Blues' direction, far too close to his head for comfort.

"You here to take me back?" X growled.

"No," Blues answered as he tried to calm his screaming systems, the third law telling him that it wasn't safe.

"You working with Light?"

"Not anymore. I work solo."

"What?" X asked confused and still wary. "It was my understanding that you all served your human masters." He spat out the last word very venomously. Blues frowned. That wasn't at all how robot masters worked. God, what information had been giving him?

"That is a very inaccurate statement and one that would be considered insulting to many of us. Still, it does have his merits. I, however, never lied to you. I do not serve any human. I am solo. But if you need to know, I find Wily to be more comforting than Light. At least Wily doesn't coat his manipulating with soft words and broken promises."

X still wary, lowered his buster but did not deactivate it.

"So why are you here? And who are you?"

"Rock. And the name's Blues."

"You're here for a rock?"

Blues swore he was going to tear a new one into Doctor Light for filling X's head with such inaccurate or just plain missing information.

"Not what, who. Rock is your direct predecessor. The original Megaman." Blues had been told that X had been a Megaman in the pod's lies. "He was worrying about you and asked me to come find you. I'm not here to take you back. I don't trust Light either."

"Megaman er, Rock, knows about this? About me?"

"Of course he does, he helped build you. He'd begged to take you out of the pod not soon after you'd been put in it, only a year or so in for you. He was damn near hysterical when Light refused and your situation just got worse."

"Why didn't he pull the plug then?" X asked, growing in bitterness.

" The doctor had command lined him. I do believe he was also told not to see you until you had been . . . handled and calmed after you woke up, which is why you have not met him yet."

"Oh," all anger towards his direct predecessor had fled at those words. "So you're just here to check up on me and tell Rock I'm okay?'

"You're not okay," Blues replied bluntly. X flinched.

"I've just discovered my entire life is a lie," he responded bitterly.

"And it has been several months since that discovery," Blues replied. X sent him a glare and he raised his arms in surrender. "I'm not insulting you. I understand probably better than any other robot master you're ever going to meet. Light wiped my memories a while back after I'd become too unruly and I've never trusted the man since. I don't remember still, but when I figured it out, I was understandably pissed." X's eyes widened in understanding and something that looked remarkably like relief which was quickly followed up by guilt and a slight wince. "Look, I'm not saying that your moping is unjustified and I'd never expect you to forgive Light. I haven't and it's been over fifteen years now. You just need to find something to live for. You can't let Light control your life like this."

"I don't," X paused, "I don't know what to live for. All I've ever known was war and everything's so . . . peaceful here."

"I don't expect you to figure that out now. It might take you a while. A week or two, a few months, a year. Really it just all chalks up to your determination."

X frowned in thought, staring down at his hand and buster. With a small sigh, X allowed the buster to dissipate and revert to his human like limb. Blues almost sighed in relief as his systems finally stopped screaming at him. X then looked at him uncertain.

"What," he paused, "what do you live for then?"

"The one thing I was never supposed to," Blues answered with a smirk, "myself." X blinked at him confused.

"While I was under Light's command, I didn't really have much of a choice in what I did with my life. It was always one chore or command after another. When I left and broke free from that command, I lived my life fully expecting that with my previously faulty core being the way it was, I would not wake up to see the next day. So I lived my life to the fullest. I saw the world and for a while forgot about Light."

X looked at him in concern. "Your core is faulty?"

"Not anymore. Wily fixed it," he grimaced. "for the most part."

X nodded and turned to the stars once more. "I don't even know where to start," he stated weakly after a while of silence.

"Rock asked me to keep an eye on you," Blues started. "So, you can start with me. He told me your world was plagued by century long wars. I don't think you've ever had the chance to see all the world's greatest sights. I can show you around."

X nodded. "I think I'd like that. Thank you."

"No problem. Just don't expect much. I'm as low income as it gets. We'll be breaking the law to even just see most of the places I have in mind and quite frankly, I'm low on parts and supplies. Rock's able to sneak me out some every once in a while, but Light's been rather difficult lately and he hasn't had the chance. If absolutely necessary, I'm still on good terms with a few Wily bots so we can snitch from him."

X shrugged. "That's fine. As long as nobody gets hurts I'm okay with it."

Blues nodded. "Then you're welcome to come along."

Author's Note: Still struggling with my other stories. I don't really have a whole lot of time to begin with as college is eating up more of that than high school ever did and on top of that I've been really focused on writing my own book for a while now. It's really coming together and I'm really happy with it. I haven't written much, but the plot and characters are smoothing out great.

Still looking for a beta reader, so I'll be refraining from diving too deep into the world of the classical Megaman series until I either find one or actually get around to doing enough research that I'm comfortable with it. I have Megaman 1 through 8 but my video gaming skills weren't all that great to begin with and they've gotten worse over the years so . . . . I probably don't have the time or patience to deal with that. I've read quite a bit of the archie comic series, but I'm not sure how entirely accurate that is considering I don't have much experience with the classic series otherwise and I haven't looked at that series in a year or more now so anything recent is beyond me. I did look at the Worlds Collide issues because I was curious and was ultimately disappointed.

Now I'm hearing there's going to be a live action movie and I don't know whether to be excited or if I should start preparing myself for the worst.