Chapter 4: Time-warp
By Ghostwriter no 3
Oh gosh, I got the fourth chapter checked. Lucky you people are!
Disclaimers: I don't have anything to do with the Mega Man serious except writing this and owning some of the games. While there have been studies on the paranormal, it can be or is true.
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Zero was spooked. No, not scared like being frightened of something. He was not to that point yet. Just spooked. He really never had been spooked before, so it was the perfect word for this situation.
He never heard voices in a room (no, the voices he sometimes heard in his head that told him to kill everyone, that was different.). If it had been an adult's voice, it would have been different, but this was a child's voice. He had never heard a child's voice in an empty hallway. It was spooky, really. And Zero swore he had felt something that was…spooky.
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Five minutes ago…
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Zero walked down some halls, and more halls and more halls, and more halls and more halls. He was lost. Not that he knew where he was to begin with. "Damn, where the hell am I?" He sighed, "Maybe X was right, maybe this is some Maverick trap. Wish I didn't leave him alone." He mumbled to himself. The truth was he was worried-sick about X. Even thought X was now a commander of his own unit now, Zero still remembered the rookie he trained long ago. But because he did not want to look like a nag, he kept his com closed.
And Zero was unnerved. No, not totally freaked out, but there was a hint of fear, fear of the unknown.
Suddenly, it got colder. It sent a chill up Zero's spine. This raised his doubts up a little. It also raised the hairs on his neck, but that was pretty much from the cold.
"A draft", he mumbled to himself. He went around a corner and started to slow down.
About 30 seconds later he heard someone, it sounded like a young girl, say, "Whoops," He stopped. He had to be imagining it. But the air was getting colder. Too cold for a draft. He thought he saw his breath in the air. "Uh oh," the voice said again.
Even though he never attacked a child on his own free will nor would he want to, even though he shouldn't be afraid of anything as small as a child, even though he didn't even know if their was any child behind him, the slight tingle of fear had become a little bigger and he could feel it slightly. He ignited his Z-saber and turned around.
Nothing.
No a single soul.
Zero blinked. He shook his head. "I swore I felt something." Zero mumbled to himself. He looked around the room.
No evidence of anyone around, but that chill was still in the air.
Wait.
What was that on the ground? He picked it up. It looked like a plushie, but it wasn't short and fat enough to be one. It was a skeleton doll, yet it was made of fabric. Zero thought it was a rag doll, like Jimmy, but it just looked like that because it was thin. It had a little pinstripe outfit on, with a little bat bow tie, and no eyes. He didn't notice it before, and he knew it wasn't there before. He shrugged and dropped it, not one to be suspicious of a cartoon inanimate object. He was thinking the cold was getting to him. There was no reploid making it, so maybe it was just the room.
What he didn't see was after he went down the next hall; a ghost-girl picked up the doll and went back the other way.
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Present…
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Zero rolled his eyes. First things first, find a way through here, then find X, and get out of here. But he still could not shake that chill earlier.
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About 5 seconds after 5 minutes ago…
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The dead child quickly grabbed her Jack Skellington doll and 'ran' the other way from the tall, armored man. As soon as she thought that Red-Blondie couldn't hear her, she asked with a coo, "Aw, did Mr. Hippy-man hurt you? Well, you seem to be in good condition. I'm sorry I dropped you. I was just in panic. Forgive?" She stared at the doll for a couple of moments, and then smiled, "I knew you would!" She hugs the doll and continued down some more halls.
She would of taken short-cuts in-between walls, but she was afraid if she left her doll alone for a bit, it would go away…or possibly taken..
But she did not mind. It was a chance to see this place more. She traveled in many different places. Sometimes it came to dead ends, but hey, she was not in a hurry.
She was dead anyways. She was not rushing to anywhere.
It would have been nice if everything did not look like the same. But after a bit, she turned around another corner and peaked in. It seemed to be a control room of some kind. She blinked and looked curiously at this new area.
There was the ugly Mr. Clean and some guy with a big grin on his face. Oh, he had blue hair! It was kind of funny so she laughed a little. Grinny looked up.
"I hear something", Grinny stated and got up (Mr. Clean glared at him, but stormed away in anger). He walked over to the door way and out of it to go investigate (and unknown to the girl, to get away from the big guy for a few moments). Grinny grumbled suddenly. "Freakin' Sigma, why does it have to be so cold in here? I thought this place was designed to be air proof." The child had just enough time to duck inside a wall, but again, dropped her Jack doll. He heard that, "Why the hell is this doll doing here? Does the rookie own this? Wouldn't be surprised." Mr. Clean or it seems his name was Sigma, didn't seem to be caring. But then he looked at the doll, then at the wall. He set it lightly against it, then let it go. It fell to the floor again. He picked it up and glanced it over. "Hmmm…" He mumbled, but then glanced on the corner and took a big swig before heading back into the room, doll in hand.
With Sigma gone, the blue-haired fellow went back to watching the monitors.
The little girl quickly ducked out of the wall and glared. Her poor doll. She would have to wait for a moment when he would drop him. But he kept it near him. But it happened in the past. She could wait.
With the man distracted, she slipped by him and decided to explore this new area a little more.
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Sometime later…
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She had already seen several reploids as of now, over and over again, including Red, the Mr. Clean, Boba-Fett, Grinny, and Miss Star. She did not stay for long with any of them nor indicate her presences. Except when she came across the blue one on the screen. He did not look dangerous, or violent as the other ones. He looked actually lost.
She also noticed the Sigma fellow was paying pretty close attention to any of the cameras pointing to him, more so then Red, who wondered around just as much as the blue guy.
'Well, I can figure some things out from this situation. Mr. Clean and co. are in charge of this place, probably making them bad guys. Blue guy and Red-Hippy-Blondie…guessing opposing, maybe good,' she kept these facts on the top of her brain, 'And if Mr. Grinny harms my doll, I swear he'll be waking up in a cold sweat for a while.' That was the top thought. She did not typically haunt people, but she figured if he wrecked her favorite doll, she could make the exception for him.
She looked back at the monitor and saw the only female bad-guys coming up after the blue guy.
'Well, that's not fair', she thought and decided to go after and warn the poor guy. She liked the blue one.
Dynamo, in the silence of it all and with Sigma walking away yet again, finally relaxed and mumbled, "Well, this whole thing…it's stupid anyways," Dynamo tossed the doll into the air as a distraction until he realized he was playing with a doll, so he tossed it away behind somewhere. When boredom set in a few moments later, he turned to see how good of a throw he was.
He then saw what looked like a young girl, but she was white and see-through. She seemed to be looking at the monitors. This was strange for is daily occurrence, yet almost tamed compared to the visions he usually saw after consuming various illicit items. Suddenly the girl walked over to where he threw the doll, Dynamo watching the whole time. The girl blinked. She then turned around and looked Dynamo square in the eye.
"What are you looking at, Grinny? Don't ever touch Jack again. You do, I'll do bad things to you." She then went around the corner, carrying her doll and went on whatever way she was going to.
"Dynamo", Sigma started, "Stardust is closing in on X, and I told her not to. Go stop her."
Dynamo still kept staring. He looked at his beverage, then down the hall, then back at his beverage, then the hall, then beverage, the hall, beverage, hall, beverage, hall, beverage, hall.
"Well Dynamo? I didn't hire you to get drunk, I hired you to do work. Now go stop Stardust." Sigma stopped his foot down for effect
Dynamo only just stated this: "This is some great beer. Where did Vile get this stuff again?" He looked at Sigma and stated, "Just to be on the safe side…you see that over there?"
Sigma, for the sake of figuring out what was this man's problem, looked over in the section that previous Dynamo focused on. When both man stared, of course, nothing was there. Neither men were too surprised; Dynamo thought his random episode ended and Sigma thought Dynamo was wasting time. The Mercenary looked at the monitor and said, "Alright, I'll get onto it. Watch out for white children with dolls." He warned and strutted down the way.
Sigma was dumbfounded. "I wonder why I just don't put a bullet in my head."
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Ten minutes ago…
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Stardust felt useless.
All she was doing was watching the monitors. Even though she was still a rookie, she did a great job of getting the two best hunters. She deserved some freedom.
Sigma was also busy watching the monitors. Which usually if Master Sigma was doing, then her doing it was just as awesome. There was nothing going on except Zero and X getting hopelessly lost. And there seemed to be a doll floating around. She figured it was a glitch or maybe it was the other element. But she doubted that killer ghost carry around dolls, so she ignored it. But still, she would never let a dead-person out-due her.
And then she had an idea.
She got up, walked down the hall, and went towards the homing beckon she put on X (she had one on Zero, too. But X was closer).
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Present...
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Stardust moved slowly, trying not to let her feet make any sounds. It was hard not to, since the ground was made out of metal and so were her boots.
Then, she spotted him. Well, his back anyways, but all the more better. She smirked and raised her cannon, stepping carefully around the corner, ready for attacking. She then stumbled and made quite a commotion.
X stopped.
"Crap," Stardust hissed and she dove.
X would have turned around and confronted the back-attack, but he was rammed into the wall but the shot directed in the middle of his back. Already unprepared for the ambushed, it stunned him, giving Stardust ample time to prepare for another attack. She jumped at X. Unfortunately, Stardust thought about her next move for too long; X saw her descending and he rolled away just in time. She slammed into the wall and, safe to say, that hurt. And when she got hurt, she became very pissed. X stood up, but this time Stardust was quicker in her attack. She practically dashed at him and before he could stand up to his full height, kicked him in the stomach. Hard. Three more times. Then when he dropped onto the ground and turned to roll away from her, she hit him in the crotch. Even harder. Four more times. Lucky for X he was wearing his armor so it didn't hurt that much. But with the sudden assault yet again on his person's she was able to pulled him up by his helmet and punched him. Hard. Lots of times. Stardust threw him back down and was ready to shoot him when he jumped up and pinned her.
The girl hit hard, but this was a robot who had been hit with punches with the power of a bullet train. He could handle over a dozen in the area. He was just waiting for the moment for her to drop her guard. And when she raised that weapon, he used his (slightly) larger body frame to keep her from doing it again.
Stardust cursed and started to struggle.
X did not tell her to stop, but he went straight to business, "Alright, I don't usually hit girls, but if you don't cooperate, Maverick, I won't have a choice", X said with a little anger in his voice. It did not help his emotions and his usual morals that his nose was currently running red with blood, "Now, where we and what are are Zero and I doing here?"
"Bite me", Stardust said with a little growl as she started to kick her legs around.
She was testing X, she really was. "I won't bite you; I want to know what's going on", X said as calming as he could. And it was getting harder since she decided to dig her knee into his side.
Stardust got an idea. X not only mentioned that he usually never hit girls and he was not bated by her vulgar comment, and in fact stated he was not going to bite her. So, he may have a more…chivalry idealism. "Really? You're really going to hit a girl?" She turned on the most powerful weapon known to men: Female Charm. "I didn't know you were mean like that, Mega Man X. Everyone says you're a nice guy." For an added effect, she smiled sadly and batted her eyelashes.
And it was not such a long-shot; she was not that bad looking. She had a round face, giving her a cute appeal. Pretty, round, hazel eyes with a little bit of short, blond hair poking out of her helmet completed the rest of her head. The helmet was shaped like; you guessed it, a start. Well, it was like a normal helmet, but had a star shape surrounding her face. And her armor were different shades of yellow. None of it was revealing armor, but it did give some idea that she had a figure of a girl.
This did not help poor X much. Like mentioned early, X was a nice guy at heart. And was very, very, very nervous when it came to the opposite-gender sometimes. He was now really paying attention to what position he was in (pinning a female-Maverick) and the female Maverick was in (being pinned by X). He wasn't prepared for this, and was taken aback. "Well, um, eeh, umm, I umm."
And that was the opening the Maverick waited for.
Before X could finish his stammering (or catch that on of her arms wiggled out from under him), he got an uppercut. While his eyeballs rolled behind his head for a moment, the knee from early made its appearance and flipped X off of her. Stardust barrel rolled away from him, crouched and aimed a cannon right at him.
She was going to shoot him, she really was. But she heard a voice behind her saying, "Hey, come on. Don't hurt the poor dude." Stardust did not like people interrupting her when she was 'working', so she turned around to give them a piece of her mind.
She saw a girl. A normal human girl. Except she was white and see-through.
Now, Stardust knew that there was a homicidal ghost running around here. And she was not afraid of many things. There was one fear that she head. Spectrophobia. That is the fear of spirits and specters.
Now, it may have seemed strange for someone with the fear of ghost to be running around in an area where a ghost could be around, but Stardust was not known for her foresight. She was more of a moment person.
So as soon as she saw a little girl ghost with a skeleton doll in her hands, Stardust freaked. She got a blank look on her face and then ran like the devil was chasing her.
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A different point of view…
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The ghost girl was kind of shocked and these events. This lady was beating up a guy and a little ghost scared her off. Weeeeerid…
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One minutes earlier…
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The child thought she was getting close. No, not because she had some sort of super dead sense. She heard someone getting his or her butt kicked.
It took her a moment to navigate around the corner and saw the girl-antagonistic-guy
upper-cutting the blue-protagonist-guy.
She decided to intervene and said, "Hey, come on. Don't hurt the poor dude." She was not a big confrontational person, and as rather childish it sounded…well, she was in all regards a child.
The lady did turn around just started at her for about 10 seconds.
The bad lady then screamed, "Oh my god! It's gonna eat me! AHHHHH!" And then she ran very fast. That would cause anyone to blink and stare at the fleeing person for about another 10 seconds.
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Somewhere, in a dark room.
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A bald Maverick was watching a great fighter run away because of nothing that appeared on the screen, and two reploids getting drunk and reading dirty magazines.
All Sigma said was this: "Why do I even bother anymore?"
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Present...
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The ghost girl blinked. "Well, that was…different," she said to herself. She then heard a groan and looked over to the guy against the wall.
He was beat up.
Mega Man X (she heard the lady call him that), looked like he needed some sort of medical attention. The child could not figure out why that lady ran away, but she didn't worry about that now. The guy looked like he needed help.
"Um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um." She kept stammering. She had to think.
Suddenly, hear the familiar sound of metal stepping on metal. She fluttered around the room, peaking out various ways. She found the person making the sound: It was that blond hippy.
A light bulb appeared over her head and turned on.
She then started screaming, "HELP! SOMEONE HELP ME! Umm…X IS IN TROUBLE! PLEASE, HELP MEEEEE," If she had vocal cords, they would be in pain. But being dead does have some advantages.
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When I wrote this, I thought it was a crappy chapter. But…I kinda like it now.