And suddenly he was awake. He could see nothing and was not aware of his surroundings. All he could feel was a massive surge of energy - it felt that his entire body was overheating, overclocked with power coursing through him irresistably. And where was that screaming coming from? It felt so loud that it would burst his ears! But thankfully, in a moment it was all over, and his systems settled into something not unlike normalcy. He felt faint, and leaned against something which he guessed to be a wall of some sort. Only then did Bass realize that he had been the one screaming.

He stretched out each appendage to make sure his limbs worked, waiting for his vision to clear. What he could see confused him. It was like a normal world, he supposed, but everything was sort of bent and twisted out of proportion so that he couldn't exactly understand the scene before him. Only a minute later did he realize that he was encased behind - not glass, but some sort of high impact-resistant transparent plastic. There was a metal panel near his foot, and it was positioned so that people on the outside of the plastic could read it. The ramifications were obvious.

"How did I end up in the robot museum?"

Well, he wasn't going to stay there. In the display case there wasn't enough room for him to get in a good punch, but slamming on the panel with his fist two or three times did the trick. Musing over his situation as he kicked out more of the case and stepped out onto the floor, Bass decided that his first order of business should be to explore the museum and see if anyone else was there. And certainly it would be a good source of information, especially if he had been on display for a long time. He couldn't help look down at his own placard, to see his mighty feats lauded by a grateful poplace. Or so he expected.

It read -

"SWN - 001

This first generation model is a fighter robot, believed to be a defender during the time of the robot apocalypse. Unfortunately, due to a massive EMP, his mind was completely wiped out, and we have no direct data on who this robot could have been.

SWN - 001 possesses an internal buster in each arm, with optional support from two energy crystals.

Found on the outskirts of Giga City."

Bass' fangs unsheaved themselves in a nasty grimace. No one remembered him? This was the worst thing imaginable. Not only to be in robot hell, but to be forgotten...Bass punched in the placard for good measure, then ripped it out and threw it into a wall, where it embedded itself and caused satisfactory damage to the wall. That done, Bass went to explore the rest of the room.

This particular area seemed to be dedicated to what it called "the first generation robot era - age of optimism". There was little in the round room, and Bass himself had apparently been the key feature of the place. There were the scattered remains of some mechaniloids and an almost fully intact mettaur, but other than that there were more pictures and words than actual items. And seeing how no one was there, Bass guessed that it was nighttime outside.

None of it was that interesting to the dark robot, but a display caught his eye as he turned to go. There it was. The stupid thing. It was in a display case full of miscellaneous items, and the instant he saw it, it horrified him. He recognised it instantly. It was Mega Man's helmet, sporting a sickening gash just left of the center. It was cut completely through, and Bass' memories instantly told him that the cut had been made with a beam sword. Anything that could get through Mega Man's helmet that cleanly had to have been fatal for the bomber. But even worse than that was the placard. It was a small thing, with only a few words on it.

"An example of an oldstyle helmet."

For a moment, Bass stood there, an inexplicable look on his face. All at once he was angry. Rage welled up inside him, as well as confusion. This wasn't supposed to happen. Mega Man was unstoppable, Bass reminded himself. There was no one in the world that could possibly bring him down. He examined the cut more closely, slowly scowling in disgust. It was done by a beam sword. He only knew one robot with a beam sword.

The acoustics of the museum were just perfect for carrying Bass' loud swearing.

"Zero...he did this..." Bass slammed his fist into the display window. "And if he got Rock, then who got rid of Zero?"

The dark robot winced. It couldn't have been him, could it? But the last thing he remembered before waking up in the museum was Crystal Bot reminding him to back up his spare memory just before going to fight Algorythm Man. So whatever he had done after backing up his memory files, it was lost. Something must have happened to his original mind to destroy it. Bass hoped that involved killing Zero.

But whatever happened, he had failed. Again.

Bass immediately shook that thought out of his head. It couldn't be helped now. For the moment he would have to figure out what did happen, and who else might have survived. If anyone. Bass gave a smug, ironic grin to the broken helmet on display behind the now cracked plastic pane. He had beaten Rock after all, in a contest of survival if nothing else. He was the toughest robot after all. The grin, however, was empty. This wasn't a glorious victory; it was a cheat. That and he never got to gloat about it.

"This place is creepy..." Bass decided as he frowned at his surroundings. "And there's better places to go for information. I better figure out what happened to X. That moron better be alive after I worked so hard protecting him and got stuck in this robot museum."

That question was answered very quickly. In fact, all he had to do is walk into the next room. Shuddering, he passed the "dead century" segment (a thankfully small one), and immediately encountered a display of X, including an original video of X being discovered. Bass immediately let out a breath. This was better news than he expected. It would have been horrible if Dr. Light's project had been destroyed, especially since there was no other guardian of humanity left.

Bass had reached his absolute limit of the place and he doubted that anyone else was there, so instead of walking out, he decided to do a quick teleport. He took a moment to check his teleportation circuits, and they seemed fine. But he happened to glance back to the room he had come from, and it occurred to him that there was one last thing left to do. It was only proper.

\\\\

Author's notes:

- And you thought it was over. Seriously, who would let their story end like that with everybody dead? Pretentious people. And I'm not pretentious. Or at least not that pretentious. Well, I'll be going to China again for two weeks, and so no updates for a bit. Just thought I'd leave you with a bit of a taste so I can torture you with another wait once again before I run off. So, when I come back, look forward to my next story, Afterlife, that deals with the struggles of Bass as he tries to live in the X series.

- Oh, and another thing. Clzh and Clzh-X were trying to come up with a new name, and I made one for them. I was bored, so I made them a Maverick robot equivalent. They are -

====Ping Duplicitous

"There is an intruder! Entertain us, intruder, or die!"

Ping Duplicitous is a Maverick who follows Sigma simply because he is bored (besides having the virus). Or perhaps he is two Mavericks at once: Ping is comprised of two separate robot heads, but they seem to be in a constantly united mental state, and the loss of one renders the other insane. Or more insane than it already is. Ping's weapon consists of electrical beams, though they usually prefer to crash into their enemies themselves. When X defeats them, he gains the Ping Double Gun, which shoots a moderately powered shot, then a more powerful blast behind it. This is useful when a weaker enemy is in front of a stronger one, or you need to clear out a lot of enemies.

I got this name from "Ping" as it is a reference to computers, and "Duplicitous" means two-faced or hypocritical. But since this guy is a Maverick, I guess he doesn't have to be honest.

- This secret chapter is dedicated to Teribane because she kept trying to think of ways that Bass could be alive, and was constantly telling me her theories in pms. By the way, Teri, all of them are wrong. ;)