Disclaimer: I don't own Rockman. But I should check my mail to see if the OVA DVD that I do own has finally arrived. I hope the rightful owners of Rockman, Capcom, don't hate me too much for this. I'd hate it if they didn't let me buy any more of their stuff.

Have you seen Chicago? "Give them the 'ol razzle-dazzle…" Shadowman's Kilroy persona works by distraction. Like a magic show:

"Watch very carefully as I make these magic gestures, I'm going to pull a rabbit out of my hat: can you spot the trick? Nothing up my sleeve… Are you watching closely now?"

Bang!

"Too bad: you should have been watching my other hand, the one that was drawing the gun."

…well, a James Bond-ish sort of magic show.

In the European courts, the Court Jester was a very serious position. He was the only one who could tell the truth without being executed, because, after all, those terrible things he said about the king were just jokes.

Okay, now where was I?

This, people, is where it starts to get seriously AU. Or, where we start to find out the extent of how very AU it has been all along.

"Hear what?" Something was going on, that was clear.

"The SOS. Aren't you going to answer it? He's your brother too, after all. Not to mention that you actually like them." The stranger lifted an eyebrow, gaze still focused on something X couldn't see, still mostly focused on something he couldn't hear."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." X shook his head.

"She's trying to break loose now that it's grown enough to wake her up and he's having trouble holding her back. Oh, right. Of course you can't hear him at the moment."

"Should I be helping?"

A unishoulder shrug dismissed his dilemma. "Who knows? We'd be better off if she were freed. You would probably disagree, but it's moot because I don't intend to do more than watch and you wouldn't be able to help unless I was, since you're an android."

X realized he should try to stick to simple questions. "Who is she?"

"She is the one whose long-mastered technique strikes down those once thought righteous quickly and without fail no matter what attempts to disrupt her mission. Slur for short."

Slur? He hit his dictionary. That was a musical term? But… yes, the meanings of that word could add up to all that. "I don't recognize the name."

"Not now you don't." A wave of his dismissed the topic.

Well… "Who are you/"

"I am… I was named Omega."

"No, you weren't. Omega's in Australia doing ecological reconstruction. I got a card from him on my birthday last month." X was trying to tell himself that was wrong as much as the other person. All that Zero had gone through was bad enough, but to think of it happening to his last child, the baby of the family?

"Not that Omega." What X found horrifying this 'Omega' found amusing. "I suppose there are only so many alphabets in common use… The name doesn't apply to me at all, but I haven't had time to consider who I have become and choose a translation for it into verbal human language." 'Verbal human language' was clearly considered a terrible way to communicate by this person, possibly because he was terrible at communicating.

X gave up. "Could we try you just telling me what's going on?"

"A lot is going on, and somebody took my best weapon while my body was off. I hope they're happy with it, because they won't be for long. Damn two-edged sword… Bah. More of a hassle than it was worth. I only actually need it to kill three people, and I don't have any reason to."

So it was a long story? "What do you think would be good for me to know?"

That gaze turned on X for the first time, and although most of his focus remained on something optics were useless for, the weight of that fraction of his regard made X, the eldest of his kind, feel like a child by comparison. The person studying him seemed far older and much wiser than a reploid could possibly be.

"While you're one of my children, I'll take care of you. Afterwards, you'll be fine unless you get yourself killed again like last time. Don't worry about my Zero aspect. He is going to die, one way or another, but we don't stay dead."

"Your children?" What?

The corner of his lip turned up. "Yes. My children. They could have been yours, but I was here first. You are 0001: I am 0000. You seem doomed to come in second place. I am amazed Shadow hasn't recognized you. He's not the smartest of my full brothers, or the most perceptive, but he thinks well on his feet."

X blinked. "Uh… what would help me understand all that?"

Omega tilted his head, thoughtful. "Zero is a part of me, 'Lion' is another. I rarely become complete because it's terribly boring to be so out of sync with those around me, but Slur requires my full attention. In case you were worrying, she's not going to get free this time. As her name says, she tends to just charge ahead. Normally she has enough power to get away with that, but the route she's on is knee-deep in booby traps and when she gets to the wall she's not going to have enough strength left to break through all the reinforcing of that section he did. She's certainly not a fool, but she's arrogant. Our brother is not someone to get into a battle of wits with, and she seems to think she's so inherently superior she can win without any weapons." What an idiot.

That made him almost pull away, surprised and needing a moment to absorb that. "Our brother? So he's a half-brother to both of us? And Shadow is your full brother?" …family?

"The child of both our fathers, yes. Ah." He frowned, sad now. "It seems Sigma is the one my weapon walked off with. I left him for last because he should have been far more resistant than its other options, but that makes him the most useful. X? Stay away from him. You're one of the three people that weapon was made to destroy. Not kill: Destroy."

"Sigma wouldn't hurt me."

"Sigma wouldn't." Frowning, he directed a portion of his attention inside.

"What's going to happen to him?" Not another one, not two of his children!

"When it is satisfied with its ability to emulate his personality, it will kill and replace him and I doubt even you could tell the difference until too late."

"How can I save him?"

"You aren't capable yet."

"Yet? What would I have to do?"

"Die." He chuckled after seeing X's expression. "We don't stay dead, remember? No, of course you don't, not right now."

"Is there anyone who can get it out of him without dying?"

"Right now? Myself, our brother, and Slur. Our brother is too busy, Slur would destroy Sigma without even slowing down in order to destroy the material the weapon is made of as quickly as possible, and as fond as I am of Sigma, as long as Slur is awake and might escape I cannot afford to have that in my possession unless I intend to use it to kill her, which I don't. I have responsibilities. I can't take it out of him, but I can take him out of its grasp, if you like."

Oh thank goodness. "Please."

He nodded. "Done."

Thank goodness. X couldn't bear the thought of losing his son to something trying to kill him. Wait a moment. "Is that what Zero was talking about? This weapons is my…?" He tried to find a word.

X was cut off with a, "Yes."

"Is it controlling the mavericks?"

"Mavericks?" This made him laugh. "What a ridiculous thing to call themselves. The word means someone who is bound by nothing but their own free will and what they believe is right. You're a maverick. They certainly are not. They were, that's the entire point of our race. But they're not anymore, your guess is correct."

"So they are being controlled? And what exactly is this? Zero's explanation was pretty confused."

"No, I think he did a good job, given that he was having to deal with a human language. Let's rephrase it in terms of natural enemies. Or matter-antimatter was good. There's a lot that simply doesn't translate. Even Duo ended up calling it 'evil energy,' which isn't what it is at all but it's a half-decent description of what it appears to be for beings of limited perception."

X was trying to think if there was any way to get that clarified when the, the central Zero, smiled and clapped twice. "And she's back in containment. Brilliant moves. Of course, what we perceive as a chess match was a frantic split-second battle to the rest of them. I pity those who can only think at the rate human thoughts crawl, I truly do. If you weren't limited by keeping compatible with them I'd have people to talk to, for one thing. I don't think he can put her back to sleep when she's this excited, but our brother surprises many, often. Oh, Shadow will wake up eventually: once they finish the performance analysis he won't be needed until she makes another break."

"Why is Kilroy needed?"

"Kilroy?" He translated it. "Oh my, that's amusing. Someone's been hanging out with our brother for far too long. In that case, 'Lament' was borrowing his processing power. His and Slur's are about equal, but it's harder to be on defense than offense. And now he's probably using him to find out how the battle was for the rest of them."

"Borrowing processing power? Letting someone think with your brain? Is that possible?" It seemed just wrong.

"Non-sentient computers used to do it constantly. Ah, they had the sense to outlaw the internet and most other computer network types after what happened. Good. As for doing it with sentient beings, it gets quite tricky and I'm the only one on the planet who could do it to the extent he does, given compatibility issues. Speaking of networks, they finally noticed Kilroy wasn't checking in. Someone's made himself indispensable. That Rho was trying to get access to footage from this location and had no idea it wasn't the system's fault that none of his command sets and codes were considered precise or accurate enough." He clapped a bit. "I wonder if he has a cover story? They might insist on a medical exam anyway. I really wonder how he's been hiding the fact he's not a reploid."

"He's not?"

X was given a look. "No." Of course not. "Well, I suppose he could put some random nanites in his processor and have them look busy, but a good look would make it obvious they're not affecting his mental activity at all. Of course, Cain's the best you've got, so never mind then."

"Dr. Cain's a brilliant scientist!"

"No, he's a reverse engineer. Our creators were scientists. And engineers as well, of course. They went from what to why to how to another what, then repeated the process and ended up with us. Cain went from what straight to another what. He has a working idea of how but no real clue about why. As they say, sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. He does the best he can under the circumstances, but he's not a scientist. Well, Slur's not going to sleep, so I am." He yawned. "I'm going to leave Lion in control while the setting changes I've made take effect. He uses little enough system capacity that he can function, while my startup knocked Zero out. I suggest you tell them when they arrive, although no one's been sent out yet, that Kilroy collapsed mid-word and that Zero became Lion and not mention the rest of it: that would make it much easier on them, and this is a family matter after all." Family. "Good day." A regal nod, and Lion was left.

Lion poked Kilroy with his foot in an echo of what Kilroy had done earlier, gave him an unimpressed look when he failed to wake up, and padded back to X, looking expectant. "Do you want to be pet, Lion?"

Lion seemed to be pleased that X was a quick learner. He knelt down, and after the first couple pets X finally remembered his com. Which didn't work for some reason. If they were going to send people out, then he should probably wait for them here where everything had happened. Not to mention it was a bit of a walk, and he didn't think Lion would be willing to help carry Kilroy. Or Shadow, whoever he was.

A few minutes later he heard the augmented dash jets of a quick response team. "X! Kilroy? Kilroy! What's going on?" the leader called out. Luckily, security seemed to have learned not to point their weapons anywhere near X.

"Kilroy collapsed in the middle of a word, Zero went like this and won't turn back, and my com's not working. I thought I'd better wait here."

The security team leader bit back a curse. "Call extension 133 and enter 711 and it'll start working again. Hold on a sec while I do mine." Done, and he entered another number. "This is Waldo. Hack confirmed: Kilroy's down."

"Acknowledged. Stand by until Pepper sends the data."

"Hack?" X asked. So he did have a cover story.

Waldo hesitated. It was classified, but this was X. "Kilroy's got an interface system. They're illegal because it's normally incredibly dangerous for computers to network, let alone have a person hooked into something like that, but there are some allowed for monitoring extremely important systems, like our camera network and other security stuff here, because they're more secure already so the risk of getting blindsided is less and if they get hacked the person running it is in trouble anyway. The modern ones have a safety feature where if there's a hack, the reploid can't block it and it tries to hack into him, then the interface either self-destructs, which is really expensive but lets him keep working on manual or shuts him down. Just disconnecting isn't an option because if there is a disconnect option that's usually the first thing a hacker does. We've got a low enough threat level that we went with the knockout option. Or we had a low enough threat level when Kilroy got it installed, at least." He was hitting buttons on his com the entire time, but they seemed to be preset command codes since no call was made.

"So Kilroy can look through any camera from anywhere? No wonder he's so omniscent."

"No, most of that is because he's a know it all." The rest of the team had spread out. "Preliminary status report, Pepper?"

"No damage, but he's still running systems checks and he won't wake up until he's outside the range of HQNet and one of the wake-up conditions apply. That's SOP for these systems, otherwise he'd login automatically without being able to find out if it's safe or not first."

Not good. Waldo hit the recall option on his com. "Contact Dr. Lament and tell him he's got an incoming. Does he have anyone with enough clearance free? I want them out here ASAP, Rho. I've sent out the 'this is not a drill' stuff for general sweeps, but I'd like to know what the cancer is."

"You're telling me. We've left messages." Rho sounded highly irritated. "He's in the lab again and the house number's not picking up, but someone over at the UN kept calling until this intern answered the damn work phone. The teleporter's open, so we can send him up. The UN guy was talking about offering her a medal for acts of bravery, because Lament'll crucify her for ignoring the policy when he finds out, but I'm going to have to settle for a job offer. If this Alia's still got those balls when she's finished getting her doctorate, we need her."

X realized that this was another connection between all these dots that kept appearing. He really wondered what the picture would turn out to be.

Not to mention that he was concealing information on the advice of a split personality about it and something built by someone with Maverick sympathies. He really needed help figuring this out, and he should go to Dr. Cain and Sigma. They were his family, they had been his family from when he woke up and when Sigma woke up. They'd proved themselves trustworthy while Shadow and Omega, whatever they were calling themselves were dangerous and habitually deceptive.

X knew he had a tendency to give people far too much benefit of the doubt, and it had caused trouble several times. They needed to get to the bottom of this, and the reason he wasn't getting help doing that was Zero, essentially. Oh, that reminded him. "Can you have Kilroy come find me when he's awake so Lion can see he's okay?"

Waldo had ended the call already, and having gotten briefed on the bodyguard theory and so on, was all for that. "Time's going to be of the essence, but he can access from anywhere in HQ except the sealed rooms, so that should be okay. Think he'll," he indicated Lion, "let us carry him over to the teleporters? Lament's lab only accepts unit to unit. Security. That girl's going to get it for allowing incomings without permission. He's going to bust her clearance at the minimum."

"I think that if there's a security risk I should go to my rooms. Kilroy told me I was a possible kidnap target." Waldo had the grace to look slightly guilty. "Lion should come with me. He recognizes hunters as friends, though I don't know what else of Zero's memories he can access, so he should be fine with you carrying Kilroy." X looked at Lion for confirmation and Lion stood up, dared anyone to do anything stupid, and moved towards the main building, clearly signaling he wanted X to follow closely. "He doesn't talk, but he understands perfectly well, I think."

"I'll take your word for it." Waldo clearly wanted to get moving. "Pepper, Gavel, pick him up. Carefully," he warned Gavel.

Lion was taking front, clearly expecting the security to provide rearguard. X could get a good look at his hair from behind, and was reminded a bit of whiskers. When Zero-Zero was in control it was just hair-like, inert, but now there were slight motions and some loose strands, and though they attempted to camouflage themselves, pretend they were simply being tossed around as he walked they were clearly doing the same thing as Lion's turning head, optics sweeping the area.

Behind him, Waldo was talking with Kilroy's second in command, from what X overheard. Twig was trying to get the cameras all on manual and verify the input, and it was all going well except the area they had been. They agreed that the hacker must have wanted to hide that Kilroy had gone down, and that was why even Rho's command codes hadn't been able to regain access.

But Omega had said the 'hacker' was Shadow. X returned his attention to the hair, so he could give Dr. Cain his observations. The sensors were wonderful. The nanites, too: X had short hair but anyone with a helmet had problems. The problem was the weaponry.

Zero, they wanted to be able to control it. Lion was odd, but seemed to be on their side (now, at least) and probably wasn't intelligent enough to be fooling them about that. Omega, however, was an unknown quantity. Zero having a hidden personality that was intelligent and had access to weaponry like that was going to ring all sorts of alarm bells, especially since X hadn't really gotten that much information but it looked like the theory that Lion had been controlled might be blown out of the water, unless it was that 'evil energy' that had done it.

Omega had said that he had come before X. Something like that would make everyone, like X, want information now. For a lot of others, what happened to Zero in the process might not be that much of an issue. When you added in that Omega had admitted he had once had a weapon that was made to kill X (and two others, but most people wouldn't consider them that important by comparison) then, well, they were going to be worried about him. Pi, for one, would be quite willing to take Zero apart if that was the only way to get answers.

So X had better find out what those answers were when it came to that. Well, he was used to solving puzzles, although mostly they were engineering puzzles.

Hmm.

There wasn't a lot of 20XX history out there. Almost all records had been on computer, and if computers back then were networked that would explain why none had survived. On top of that the cities had ended up craters and…

Most of what there was came from the memories of the survivors, and they had mostly been too busy remaining survivors, what with the radiation and the biological weapons and the chemical spills and the fact that every remaining robot had been hacked and without any surviving robot masters they couldn't unhack them until the EMS got set up, and that took ages because they'd lost all the space installations along with everything else… In any case, very few people had the time to write memoirs.

The information that survived was mostly the things people really wanted to remember, the stories they told their children about how the world had once been and how they hoped it would be again.

And that was, well, stories. A lot of people had been eager to tell X the stories passed down to them, but still…

Okay, so… who would Dr. Light have collaborated with? Some of the stories said that he'd once been friends with Dr. Wily at some point, but long before Megaman was built. Even if Wily stole the plans or something why would the villain who reprogrammed helpless robots have wanted to build a free-willed reploid? Not to mention that Shadow had said that his creator had been trying to get irregulars… robot rights activist?

Dr. Cossack!

That was one of the more popular stories because it had something people considered possibly romantic and that was always nice. There wasn't much else in the stories at all like that. Dr. Cossack's daughter had been kidnapped and he was forced by Wily to pretend he wanted to take over the world. He was defeated by Megaman and had been about to blow himself up to take Megaman with him so that Wily wouldn't kill his daughter when Megaman's older brother, the mysterious Protoman, arrived with her at the last minute after having rescued her from Skull Fortress.

Protoman was utterly confusing: there were so many versions and the ones that stuck closest to the facts on most verifiable topics said that no one had much clue about him at the time, either. He'd most likely been destroyed in a lab accident and then kidnapped by Wily along with Dr. Light's other creations except for the twins, then been rebuilt in time for the third war, gotten free of Wily, and either been recaptured and reprogrammed (again) or had a fake copy built to serve as the fake villain of the fifth war since he was all independent and stuff. Angsty loner type, apparently. Maybe bringing him back to life might count? But Omega had said their brother was "the child of" both their builders, and surely Wily hadn't considered his robot slaves his children!

Okay, so after the war Light and Cossack would have had a common enemy, and the stories did say that Cossack had helped out at least a little, only with so many versions it was hard to tell. What they did know was that Cossack had indeed considered his robots his children and had been very grateful for Protoman's rescue of his daughter and had campaigned for robot rights. There had been a book. There were no surviving copies.

So… did the rest fit? They might have collaborated on this 'Dr. Lament,' who might be a robot master (actually, he would have to be, if Omega was the first android), and then both worked on androids, Cossack finishing first? Or, actually, Dr. Cossack might have been more concerned with the free will issue than Dr. Light, whose child had chosen to be Megaman, after all, and started first. Maybe Dr. Cossack had woken up Omega for a bit so he could meet his family instead of just putting him straight into the capsule. X was a little jealous if that was true.

Okay, so where would Kilroy fit in? The criminal record could be explained by him having been one of the robots that Cossack had used in his fake war. Having been around before Omega would explain why Kilroy had been unable to resist the, "Big Brother is watching you!" joke.

Kilroy had said his creator had been involved with the mavericks very early on, or something along those lines, and early on had been, in this day and age, trying to keep the poor babies from being executed after you fixed them, if they weren't blown up on sight. The robots that helped Cossack could have been considered dangerous, and according to the stories robot masters were considered much closer to things than reploids ever had been. When they'd found X they'd remembered Megaman's legacy, and then reploids had essentially saved mankind by helping with the Cataclysm cleanup. The EMS could only do so much, after all, and even with it keeping cleaned areas that way had been a constant battle as long as there were contaminated areas nearby that a rogue wind could spread poisons from. Not to mention the ecosystem…

Back then, robot masters had been reprogrammed a lot. Maybe Dr. Cossack had been killed by one he was trying to help? That Char had wanted revenge might mean that it was an assassin planted by Wily, even.

Oh, Char! He was Kilroy's brother, and he was dating the sister of a scientist who, X would bet, was Dr. Lament. That would mean that she was either another of Cossacks creations (nothing wrong with that, it wasn't as if they even had genes. When you considered that every reploid in the world 'descended from' X…), or she was Lament's sister and not Char's.

That would mean that she had been built by Dr. Light.

And that was when it really hit him.

A half-brother was one thing, a very odd thing, and it hadn't really clicked. A sister, a big sister, was another. Megaman did have a sister. She was the only female robot mentioned anywhere. There wasn't much information about her other than that she'd been a homemaker type and helped her brother by working on things with Dr. Light, and that would fit.

X had family out there, and he was only finding out about them now.