Radiant Falcon Fan Works #9

Mega Man Eternity Cross

When there's an android that was shot to 20XX, there's a way to get him back. Is there? Zero and Axl are about to find out.

Eternity Cross Continues...


Soundtest 13: mystery and intrigue

Frame: Maverick Hunter HQ, Neo Japan; 21XX, 02:35 GMT

The Maverick Hunters, 21XX's reploid police pretty much, were puzzled. Axl, S-Class Gunner-type(1) Hunter of the Elite Unit and the only New Generation Reploid in active status, had seen Mega Man X with his own eyes. The next second, X was completely gone. The report given to Maverick Hunter Commander Signas didn't paint much of a picture. Hell, when S-Class Blademaster-type(2) Hunter Zero came back from his off day to see what the hubbub was about, he wasn't particularly happy. X and Zero went way back, having each others' backs since the first Maverick War. "And you told Alia this?" he asked. "Alia was the first one I called, dude." Axl answered. "I'm still waiting on a report back."

Then the commlink on Axl's comms watch rang. "Axl here." The other end of the commlink was not the Senior Navigations Officer Alia Cain(3), but an investigations officer by the name of Daigo Umehara(4). He was a pseudo-human, specifically C-Life, and joined the Hunters very recently. "I think I found something." he announced. "What is it?"

"It's some sort of gem, like an energy crystal or something."

"We're on our way. See if you can't open up a line to Alia."

-=Stage 7=-

It Came From 21XX!

[-READY-]

Soundtest 14: General Andore, Leader of the Time Masters - Neo Kobe Steel Factory ~ stage 3 (Contra III: The Alien Wars)

Frame: Time Master Base, Antarctica; 20XX, Outside Time (5)

Felix Raia, sometimes known as Vile or VAVA depending on who you ask, had already cracked open an energy pellet when he received a call from the head honcho of the Time Masters, General Andore. Something had to be up when Andore called. "We have got a situation, VAVA. Mega Man X just showed up in 20XX. Any reason why that happened?"

"I just detected it myself. Someone frame-jumped him you say? Where is he now?"

"Light Labs in Japan."

"That's where the original Mega Man resides, right?"

"According to our data, yes."

"Great. Just fantastic."

"There is more. Whoever warped him out left behind an Time Crystal.(6)"

The only ones with access to the temporal power sources known as Time Crystals were the Time Masters. That's what powers a lot of their chronoscopic equipment. Should a given Time Master warp backwards or forwards in time, known as frame-jumping, they carry their Crystals with them. Someone who left them behind could be in serious trouble, as they could very well affect the timeline in various ways, depending on the timeframe. They had to get that Time Crystal back. Only thing was, no Time Master was in 21XX at the time except for Kujacker, although he was technically a computer program anyway and couldn't actually manipulate physical objects since he didn't have a body; and... "wait, Enker's not in 21XX right now, is he?"

"That is irrelevant now. Your mission is to find out what happened to X, and retrieve that Time Crystal. I will not accept failures or excuses."

"Hold on the line, sir, Kujacker sent me a message. He tagged it important."

"Very well. What is the message?"

the cyborg formerly known as Vile read the message from his friend. "Maverick Hunters found a rogue Time Crystal. Any idea what it's doing there?"

"The Hunters have it... knowing them, they should not do anything particularly stupid with it, though our agent there probably already has something in mind. Mission parameters changed: open a line to our agent for the Hunters and find out what they're planning to do. End of line."(7)

the Time Masters had control of all kinds of communication technology; including their proprietary codec, which could reach anyone throughout time. They could theoretically have a conversation between two timeframes. Felix didn't know they had another agent in 21XX. He opened a line to the former Cyber Peacock. "Kujacker, do we have an agent at the Maverick Hunter Base in 21XX?"

"Felix, I think I know what you're talking about. This is about the Time Crystal, right? Yeah, and it's one of the R&D kids. Palette, I think her name was. Why?"

"Turns out our friend X was frame-jumped a hundred years earlier."

"He's not on our roster. Either he got a hold of a Time Crystal, or someone warped him back. This may be related to our Colonel/Iris problem."

"...And whoever warped them back must have left a Time Crystal where Final Weapon crashed. Kujacker, you're a genius!"

"Wait, how did you come to that solution?"

Soundtest 15: research and development - R&D Menu (Mega Man X8)

Frame: Maverick Hunter HQ – R&D Center, Neo Japan; 21XX, 02:37 GMT

The Maverick Hunter Research and Development center was where much of the magic involving reploid, human and psuedo-human equipment happened. As it turned out, Palette was already in R&D looking at a strange item she found the Hunters' possession. It was small, colored blue and was circled by what appeared to be a golden conduit. This was a Time Crystal, and she wondered what it was doing here. This wasn't her Crystal, and on top of that, she didn't frame-jump much anyway. With Palette now in possession of two Time Crystals, something was very wrong about that. "Palette here. Yeah. I have the- what? X is gone? Okay, let me talk with my team, see if we can't figure something out."

Palette's main forte was in invention, as were a number of figures throughout history. She had only joined the Time Masters two years ago, prior to the Jakob Crisis and Sigma's subsequent permadeath. That explained her knowledge of area layouts, and a little bit before she was recruited by the Maverick Hunters. Fellow recruit of the time Layer was a fighter at heart, though she originally was in Navigation, specializing in enemy patterns and weaknesses; she became a Blademaster-type Hunter and eventually took over Special Unit 0, the so-called Shinobi unit, when the Elite Unit was formed. That being the case, Palette and her team made the weapons and armor for most of the Hunters. The only ones not using Hunter armor were X and Zero; though that was because their armor was custom built by their creators Dr. Light and Albert Wily, respectively, and no one knew how to crack that particular code. (Axl's armor was custom built too, but he was a creation of 21XX and not 20XX like X and Zero, the Millennials that they are.) A lot of X's Special Armors were stored in the R&D center, some active (Second, Third, Fourth, Falcon/Gaea, Blade/Shadow, Icarus/Hermes, Ultimate), some disabled (First, Third Gold, Glide, Ultimate Mk. II), all encrypted so that only X could use them. (Zero stated time and time again that he didn't need Special Armor, since his did the job well; but his Custom Black Armor(8), Master Saber and Z-Buster were in R&D too, just in case.)

All of a sudden, her HUD blinked green, an indication of Time Master contact. "Palette here."

"This is VAVA, responding. Do you have the Time Crystal?"

"Yeah, and I just heard the news. X disappeared, and I'm guessing our team found the Time Crystal where he was last seen."

"Do you have an ID on whose it is?"

"I haven't looked at it quite yet, but it sure as heck isn't mine. I was going to use it to try and get X back here."

"Okay. I'll relay the info to the boss. Good luck."

Frame: Maverick Hunter HQ – Command Center; thirty seconds later...

Commander Signas Nelson wasn't Japanese, and he sure as hell wasn't a combat reploid, but his superior tactics and quick thinking got him to rise through the ranks of the Hunters. When X stepped down from Command after the Repliforce incident, he chose Signas to lead in his stead. (before X was commander, Zero was. He only lost the job when he had died in the first war. Even when he was rebuilt during the Counter-Hunter(9) battle, X was still acting commander. Prior to Zero was, in fact, Sigma. At least until he was infected with the Maverick Virus, a computer program of ill intent that caused reploids to go Maverick in the first place, anyway.)

When he received a call from the R&D team that Palette may have found something interesting, he forwarded a message to all Hunters involved with the Elite Unit, which included Zero, Axl, the Nav team, the R&D team lead Douglas, and a couple of Lifesaver units who just so happened to be assigned on duty. This also included Iris Northe, a Specialist-type(10) Hunter who was recently added to Alia's caseload at Axl's behest not two weeks ago. Only thing is, she was fairly stealthy. She could be a natural for Special Unit 0 one day. Once they can find her anyway. She also was a dead ringer for an ex-girlfriend of Zero's by the name of Iris Thorne(11), only C-Life instead of Reploid. Almost everyone was present in the Command Center, in armor.

The command center itself bore a striking resemblance to a Strider Command Center from 20XX. It was more advanced as technology evolved, but the holo-globe was still intact. As Signas spoke, footage of X just outside of the campus and then fading out of existence replayed. Palette, who was still in R&D labs on the north side of the campus, had her feed streaming from the massive lead monitor. She was holding up the small gem mentioned earlier. "I've done some scans and compared that with our Maverick Database." she explained. "This is a Time Crystal. It regulates the flow of temporal energy. It controls time, in other words. Crystal Snail and Dark Dizzy(12) once used crystals like these to distort, slow, and even freeze time. In the wrong hands, they can be very dangerous."

"That must mean those two were rebuilt." Axl piped up. Alia, who actually was present, said, "Axl, you may on to something. Palette?"

"Not quite. See, Crystal Snail and Dark Dizzy stole crystals from another organization I'm a part of, one that I'm not at liberty to discuss here." meanwhile, she had sent a private message to Signas detailing her involvement with the Time Masters, labeling it 'top secret'. "What you absolutely need to know is that X didn't vanish into thin air, and these Time Crystals hold the key to getting him back here."

"So was he warped back or forwards in time?"

Surprisingly, it was Zero who spoke. Zero had no idea of the message sent to Signas, and obviously had no idea about Time Masters. "Call it a hunch or Hunter's intuition, but I'd say due to the presence of these Time Crystals that control time flow, we've got ourselves a time travel mission. And if that's the case, then we need to get him back." he explained. "I'll take this mission on. Don't try to stop me." he concluded, with shock still on everyone's faces. "I'm going with you." Axl concurred. "Someone needs to uphold the buddy system."

The shock of everyone's faces dissolved. Signas said "Well, Palette? Which way did X go?"

"Backwards. If my information is correct, he got shot 100 years in the past; meaning you two are going to 20XX. Unfortunately, you won't know where you're going to end up, meaning you could be miles away from civilization. I'll set up a line through the boss of my organization and see if we can't get a codec on our end. Other than that, you're on your own. I doubt Armor Recall will work in 20XX, so keep that in mind."

"Roger that. This'll be over in a nanosecond." Zero said confidently, as he is wont to do. Axl then asked, "Wait, how are we going to time warp? It's not like we have a time-traveling car(13) or anything."

"That's where the Time Crystals come in. Come the heck down to R&D and I'll tell your dang selves how to frame-jump. Make sure you carry weapons, just in case there's hostiles at your destination."

[eyecatch]

~NOTES~

((1)) So in Capcom's successful Monster Hunter series, there are two kinds of Hunters: Blademasters and Gunners. Gunners are those that use guns and other ranged weapons, in this case, Axl is a Gunner...

((2)) ...and Blademasters use the melee weapons, of which Zero specializes.

((3)) I don't know if Alia was created by Dr. Cain or not, so this is an assumption.

((4)) Shout-outs to the Beast himself, the real Daigo Umehara, famed Street Fighter master and EVO Moment #37 star.

((5)) Outside Time is the limbo between the Eternity Cross timelines. I probably should've explained this earlier, but better late than never I suppose.

((6)) Shout-outs to TimeSplitters, the game that made Time Crystals a thing in the first place.

((7)) Shout-outs to the Master Control Program of TRON fame, who always ends conversations with the phrase "End of line". You can expect General Andore to do the same.

((8)) The Custom Black Armor isn't a new thing, rather it's the name I give to the powered-up Black Zero armor from X5 and X6. Enhancements include: shock buffer, Z-Saber Plus, and 50% damage decrease. Also, new to Eternity Cross, it comes with Sogenmu after-image pre-installed.

((9)) You remember X2, right? The Japanese name for the X Hunters are the Counter-Hunters.

((10)) Specialist-type Hunters are those that have particular abilities tied to an energy meter. X is considered a Specialist-type Hunter, as is Iris.

((11)) get it? Because Iris is dead? For those keeping score, Iris was supposed to be in 20XX, but was nowhere to be found. This may be a plot point later on.

((12)) For those keeping score, Dark Dizzy is the US name for Dark Necrobat. Yes, the stupid names for the X5 Mavericks will be used. For future reference, only Mavericks known to be Time Masters go by their Japanese names.

((13)) Back to the Future is my favorite movie of all time, so to not reference the time travel masterpiece in a fic about time travel would be criminal.

[Character Dossier]
Mega Man X
"X, the Azure Ace"
THEME A: "Maverick Hunter X" - Opening Stage X (Mega Man X4)
THEME B: "Specialist Hunter X" - Opening Stage ~MMX3~ (Project X Zone 2)

Mega Man X, created in 20XX by a then-dying Dr. Thomas Light, was found in 21XX by kindly archaeologist Dr. Cain. A pacifist at heart; X is the second-in-command for the Maverick Hunters, a global organization dedicated to fighting the forces of Sigma. Now that Sigma is dead, the Hunters focus on establishing peace and fighting crime. X himself, when he's not fighting Mavericks, is often known by the alias Trance Light, an allusion to his modular abilities using various kinds of armor provided by an artificial intelligence acting as Dr. Light. His weapon is the X-Buster, a weapon that can charge special abilities taken from Mavericks, similar to the Variable Weapons System used in previous Light robots.

[-MESSAGE FROM ENCRYPTED SOURCE-]

Hiya! This is Roll Light! I've got something important to tell you. Me, Hiryu-sama, Tong Pooh, Quint and our new friend Colonel Thorne are heading to Russia to see where Strider Hien ran off to. We may find something even more world-threatening than just a rogue Strider though. At least, that's what Hiryu said. But wait! Who's that red guy with the hair?

?: "Remember, this isn't our time. Back home, and the last I checked, Moscow is a ghost town."

I'm not sitting out on this, and you shouldn't either! Jikai; Mega Man Eternity Cross, Stage 8: "Time Twisted"