Chapter 6: Introductions and Monsters

By: Ghostwriter no. 3

So once upon a time, there was a page of nonsense here. Not it is gone. And there was a mention of a sketch, but that is also gone. Oh well.

Author Notes: Though this was original the second to last planned chapter, due to the length of the finished chapter, there will be at least two more chapters after this, perhaps even more, matting on how I wanna space the chapters. I apologize for the morbidness of the start of the chapter and anything else that is sad for the ghostie. I also apologize how long it took to complete this chapter. I know I promised to get this done first to you few fans that read this. Technically, I did get the story done; I just have not checked any of it. I've been working on a few other things here and there, but this will be completed, probably sometime after the year.

Disclaimer: I don't own Mega Man. I do not know how or if a ghost 'bonds' with an item, but in the matter when it comes to specters, ghost, or spirits, these beings could exist, not saying for a fact that they do or not.

"...editors said that with some more checking, it could be made into a book. I was so happy; I celebrate by dancing in the rain without any...ain't any of yah business. After I got re-dressed...celebrating, I approached the guy who gave me the job to tell him the good news. Though there was something my friend forgot to mention: He hit the bottle a little too hard. And during the moments of inebriation, he has a very, very, very short fuse. When he found out that it was not perfect, he started to throw a tantrum. I tried to calm him down, but he only yelled at me more. Eventually I started to yell back at him, pissed because he was not appreciating my efforts. He got mad and pushed me. Guess he did not take in the account that I was a teenager while he was a grown man. I tripped on something and I fell on the corner of something, and then I blacked-out or something. He probably thought I died or something. I bet he panicked and did not know what to do next. But, you know, I don't remember that part because I was blacked out. It was a disposal factory. Um...at least, I think that is what it is. I never had been to one, so…I'm guessing here. I didn't feel any pain when he dumped me, so maybe I suffered some unfixable brain damage or something. I do remember waking up being surrounded by a bunch of bubbles and weird color liquid. I kinda swam around in it and found a wall. I pressed against it...only to fall through it. I didn't feel so well. Well, not like sick, but just strange feeling. Kind of hard to describe. I felt too light, but not like a light headedness, just…light. It is hard to describe. I guess kind of like dreaming or something. So at the time, I was not really freaked out when I just walked through several inches of metal. I mean, I found it odd, but nothing exciting. I then saw the guy on a platform near it and decided to give him a peace of my mind. I walked up to him and started yelling. He did not seem to notice me. I thought he was ignoring me so I kept yelling louder and louder at him. He still wasn't acknowledging me. So I decided to swing him around to face me...only to find my hand go right through his arm. I was starting to freak out. I couldn't believe it. Though not so much because I went through him, just generally because I did not get a hit in. And I wanted to hit him. So I tried again, this time my hand went through his back like I or he was nothing. I kept doing this over and over and over and over again. I decided to slam into him with all my force. What happened was that I went through him and the bar he was leaning on. I don't know if it was a sub-consciously or something like that, but I ended up floating over the big vat thing and looked down, my body literally levitating. Well, not my actual body. But, like, something like it. My being or soul, I guess. I could see some bubbles coming up from it and I knew it was me. I didn't know how or why, I just did. The only thought that was going through my head was, 'What a waste.' I stayed like this for a bit until I noticed that he was leaving. I wanted to follow him so I-WILL YOU STOP THAT?!" Cathtrina stopped her story because she was getting pissed off with Zero sticking his ignited saber through her.

"But its cool...its science." By the tone of his voice the party knew that Zero was not doing it out of science. The ghost girl, clearly pissed, waved her hand through the arm wielding the saber. Though it did not hurt Zero, her touch wad incredibly cold and soon Zero's arm felt like a block of ice. Zero shivered and state, "That's not cool."

She just huffed and pouted. She then said with a bit of anger, "Can I continue my story now?"

"I...wouldn't," Zero said a bit embarrassed while un-igniting his Z-saber.

She blinked. "Why?"

"Eh", all Zero did after that was point to X. The poor Hunter had his knees brought up to his chest, was shivering, sobbing lightly, and was pretty much as pale as the ghost herself.

"Jeez..." The girl said nervously, not happy that she caused the nicer robot discomfort, "I'll just...stop."

"Me thinks that would be a good idea." Zero said and knelt down next to his best friend, "X, she's done for now, you can calm down."

X looked up at Zero with still scared eyes and said in his meek and childish voice, "R-r-really?" Zero would have remarked on the childish way the voice sounded and the way X acted, but decided to give X a break and nodded. "Good!" X said still in the same tone, "That story was scary." But X still kept in his sitting position.

The teen picked up her Jack doll and held it out in front of X, smiling and saying, "Here yah go, blue dude." X looked at it and quickly took it, cuddling the doll to his chest. Zero was getting a kick out of X's behavior, but still kept his mouth closed.

"So, Kid," Zero said while turning to face the teen, "How did you end up here?"

"Well, I am not sure. I think I was kidnapped." She scratched her head.

"You think?" Zero asked. X had gotten over his fears and was now watching the ghost curiously.

"Yah...some things I can't remember. I know my dad wasn't Spanish because he really didn't speak Spanish, except he quoted Spanish movie quotes all the time. I don't think he looked Spanish, either. I just can't remember certain things." She paused and looked at both the Hunters who now had very confused looks on their faces. She decided to explain it all a little better. "Well, I'm not sure why, but certain things I can't remember. I think it has to do with the fact that since I'm dead, the memory part of my brain is six feet under...well, designated. Any who...eh, you still don't understand, do you? Jeez..." Cathtrina pondered this for a moment, then snapped her finger, exclaiming, "I know a sure way for yah tah undah stand. Take a computer. Now, say, um…like, wiping your basic memory until it is like new. It still has the important files but if you had saved files and added software on it, it is now gone. I mean, I can remember my birthday, but for stuff on my birthday, just a blank. I tried to stay behind and observe my parents...but...it was hard. For me, and I think for them. I mean, I think they could feel me, and since they were already hurting over my death, it didn't help them thinking I was around." At this time the child seemed to be close to sobbing. It was not that she was crying, but just taking deep breaths to get over her sadness. Besides, she could not cry, she needed tear ducts for that. She wanted to cry, but no tears would ever come from her again.

Both the Hunters remind silent, not at all knowing what to say.

She continued, but a bit more slowly, "I...I wanted to tell them that I was here...I was alright. But...I wasn't, was I? I was de...ces...transparent!" She finished this with a very deep sob. The girl took some very deep breaths, almost sounding like she could not breathe right. It took about a minute for her to finally speak some more. "One time...I...showed myself...mom saw me...she freaked. I swear she was going to faint...she was...white as...as...me. After that, after that, I knew that I couldn't stay. It was too hard on me...too hard on them. So...I sorta..."attached" myself to that doll." She pointed to the doll that X was now cuddling to. "I remember that movie! I loved that movie!" Her face started out as a smile and laughter, but it ended as a sob with her mouth just opened, hard to tell if it was a smile or not. "I also got my book...and I just left. I felt lost. I eventually stumbled onto a house. It was already occupied...but...I was...lost, and I needed help. So, I met Brooks. He kinda was pissed when I first came in, but he let me stay. I think I reminded him of his sister...I think she is in her thirties now. He has this thing about girls looking like Barbie, but he's alright. I think it has something to do with his unfinished business. I don't know about that." Even though she was not sobbing anymore, she still seemed very depressed.

X looked like he was about to cry (again), while Zero just kept his head down. "Comfort her." X whispered over at Zero all of a sudden.

Zero raised his head up and blinked. He then stared at X and asked, "What?"

X sighed and said, "I said com-"

"I know what you said!" Zero said in a loud whisper, "But why do I have to do it?! You're the more nurturing one!"

"I know, but she likes you better." X said slightly nervously.

"..." Zero and X had a short pause, then Zero slightly said louder then a whisper, "Where did you get that load of crap?"

"Just do it, Zero." X hissed out.

Zero grumbled, but then started walking towards the little one. Now, Zero is an insensitive jerk. These were not the type of situations that Zero had to or could deal with. So he did the only thing that he thought of. He ignited his Z-saber again and put it through her yet again.

She blinked and looked up at Zero with a neutral face. But it soon changed to a face of anger. "I told you to stop! It ain't science and it ain't funny!" She kept ranting on, but Zero just smirked.

X cleared his throat, causing both the girl ghost and red hunter to turn to him. "Well," X started, "I think it is about time we started to figure out where we were, huh?" The other two nodded and followed X.

---

Back at the base...

---

Gate was having a quiet time as well as exercising his mind. He was currently making a card house. Why he did this was anyone's guess, but when Gate started something, he must complete it. But that was not the point. The point was that he was making a card house. It had taken him a while just to get it balanced. It also had taken him an "n" number of times to get it built up. But now he only had the two cards left to put on the house. Then it would be complete. Gate was very much excited, even if he did not express it.

Now there is a certain law that would ruin this for Gate. It is called Murphy's Law. This law was invented by, of course, Murphy. The law states when something bad can happen, it will. So when Gate placed the last card on the card house and said in a whisper, "Eureka!" A nameless rookie quickly opened the door and shout, "Miss Alia, we found 'em!"

Now, the wind made from the door + the sound waves giving off from the rookie's shouts = the downfall of the magnificent card house.

Gate was utterly shocked at this and the room was dead silent for a bit. Gate eyes then turned a blood-red color and the blood red color was directed at the rookie.

"You..." Was all that Gate could say.

"Uhhh....I'm guessing that Miss Alia isn't here, Mr. Dr. Sir."

At the mention of Alia's name, Gate calmed down a bit. He said with much force behind it and his teeth grinding, "No, she is not here, so leave. Please."

The rookie quickly got it's ass out of there. Gate looked at the pile of cards on the ground. "Well, fifty-six pick-up wasn't one of my favorites..."

The rookie kept running around to all the places where it had know Alia to hang out at. It took a quick glance into a lounge while running by and started to screech to a stop for Alia was in the named lounge, reading a magazine and drinking some coffee.

The rookie approached Alia and quickly yelled, "We found 'em!"

"Mmm, who?" Alia said without a care as she turned the page in her magazine.

"Um...Commander X and Commander Zero, ma'am."

"Mmhmm. That's nice." She lightly waved her hand at the rookie.

The rookie was shocked at this. "But Ma'am, I thought you wanted to know when we found them."

"I'll take care of it in a second." She waved at the rookie again and answered back in a more annoyed tone.

The rookie was stunned, but quickly ran out of there to tell some more people about what happened.

Exactly thirty seconds later while she took a sip of coffee, Alia suddenly jumped up, spat out the coffee in her mouth, and threw her magazine on the ground. She then got her butt into the hallway and hoped to catch the little rookie.

---

Back at the metal box, just not the heroes...

---

Stardust jumped up and smiled. "Yay!" She said like a little girl. Why was she so happy? She got the cameras up. The ones that could see the 'killer ghost'. She had all reason to be happy. She had to tell someone right away. The only one around was Vile, but he was asleep. You could tell because a little drool pool was coming out of the bucket Vile called a helmet. Like that was going to stop Stardust! She started shaking Vile's shoulder like she was a nanny and the shoulder was going to get shaken-baby- syndrome.

Vile quickly jump up, shouting, "Whazawhaahaddafanadamnadda! I'll kill 'em!"

"Sit your arse down, yah moron." She said while pushing him back down in his chair, "I just wish to tell you that you are going to tell our Master that I have finished the project." She stated with glee as she pressed more buttons.

Vile just sat there for a bit, and then asked, "Um...which project."

"Vile, I hate you." She may have said bitter words, but a bright smile still adored her face, "The camera project! So we can see the ghost!" Stardust sighed after this, but it was through clenched teeth.

"Oh, okay. But...we saw the ghost. It was just some little g-"

"I WAS A GOD SCARY MONSTER OF A GHOST, VILE!" Now her smile left.

"Um...yes. So I should tell Master that?"

Stardust sighs and nodded. "I'll be being there shortly; I must turn back on the systems and such. Have fun." Stardust quickly got back on the computer and started typing like there was no tomorrow.

Vile sat there for a few second. Stardust blinked and glared at him. "Why aren't you going yet?" She asked with menace.

"Um...you told me to sit my arse down..."

"GET UP AND TELL OUR MASTER, NOW!!"

Vile, who did not what to cross any more of Stardust's wires (metaphorically as well as literally), decided to go tell Sigma.

Vile had the unfortunate accident of bumping into Dynamo.

Dynamo greeted him with one of his king-of-grins. "Hello, my bucket-wearing friend. And how are you and your lady doing today?" Dynamo said with a humorous tone.

"First off, I am not nearly as disrespectful to presume or pressure my subordinate in such a manner. And it ain't a bucket, bastard. Besides, I have better things to do then talk with scum like you. I must tell our master-"

Dynamo chuckled a little, "Your master, I'm just doing this for the booze and the money."

"Our master," Vile started saying again before Dynamo had cut him off, "That we are finishes with our cameras."

"Yah, you go do that. I'm going to talk slash flirt with the only female that is around. Tootles!" And with that, Dynamo briskly walk away from Vile and headed down the direction that Vile had come from.

Vile sighed and wonder what the hell Sigma was thinking when he decided that hiring a mercenary would be a good idea. Especially one like Dynamo. Though Vile smirked under his helmet knowing full well that Dynamo would not get out of a conversation without at least a sprang from Stardust this time.

So Vile approached his master's office. By office meaning a storage closet with some old boxes full of Gods know what, a beat-up desk with the wood half-eaten by mice, one office chair that did not spin, one recliner that makes the person fly off if they lift it to the forward position, one bean-bag chair, a broken lamp, a Mr. Coffee and Mr. Espresso machine, and a rock with the name 'Mr. Sigman' painted on.

When Vile came in the office shouting, "Master, the camera is done!" This was the response:

"Dah! My coffee! My tie!"

---

Back to our heroes...

---

"Yay! I found it!" The ghost girl said with much enthusiasm.

"What." X asked with as much excitement as the young ghost girl.

"I found my note book!" The girl cheered while shoving it into both hunters' faces. "It is very important to me."

"Mmhmm." Zero said, showing his was bored and started looking around again.

X smiled and said, "Ohhh, what's in it?!"

She seemed to ponder this, then smiled and said, "Stuff."

X blinked. "Stuff?" X said while scratching his helmet. She nodded. "Ummm...like?" X asked.

"My thoughts and stuff like that." The child replied.

"Like a diary?" X asked.

"Something like that. But more." She waved the book, as if to emphasize the more.

"More?" X inquired.

"Yah, it also has stuff around it, stuff going on around it, I mean."

"Like?"

"You know," She held up her fingers as she started listing of a…list, "The area I'm in, what I'm doing, what I feel like doing."

"Oh. Ummmm...can I re-"

"HEY!" Zero shouted, stopping his best friend in mid-sentence, "No time for that, we have to figure out how to get out of here and more importantly, who's behind this."

"But Z...we know. Remember that Stardust and Vile ambushed us? We know who is behind all of this." X answered very innocently.

"...Shut up X." Zero said, slightly looking at his friend annoyed, "What I meant is we need to find them and take them out."

"But, we don't know where they are."

"I know that, X. But..." Zero looks over at the ghost. "Hey, you, have you seen anything weird?"

"That's not my name. And I think this whole thing is weird." She said with a bit of a pout.

"I mean, anything that you would think would not belong here?" Asked Zero.

"Nope. Then again, I'm not sure what should be here. I'm not from here." She replied, still retaining the pout.

Zero sighed in frustration, "I mean anything that is different from the rest of this big maze?"

"Yep."

Both Zero and X blinks in astonishment. "What!" A unity called came from both guys.

"…Why are you screaming?" She asked confused.

Zero's eyes narrowed and he opened his mouth ready to scream. However, X covered the big hole in his head and asked more politely, "Er, what did you find?"

"Oh, a few things. There's this room with a lot of wires in it. And all these lights that make funny noises and there was this dang drunk. I swear he was trying to take Jack from me. And there was this one room with a very creepy pic-"

"That must be their base location!" X shouted, interrupting the teen ghost.

Zero nodded. He began talking, but realized the difficulty that would be with X's palm pressed against his mouth. He dislodged it from his orifices and gave Zero a dirty look before, "So, where is it? And let us be quick about it." Zero said while tapping his foot.

"Follow me!" The Ghost Girl was very enthusiastic when she said that.

So the trio started to go, the Ghost Girl floating in front while the two Maverick Hunters chasing her. They turn and screeched around corners, dashing quickly through doorways, spiriting through empty rooms, and running down hallways. Our two heroes followed the teen blindly without question, Even though they were running for a good five minutes strait, neither of the three showed any sense of tiring. After hallways and corners, they continued. Corner, corner, hallway, corner, hallway, doorway, empty room, doorway, empty room, doorway, corner, corner, hallway, doorway, empty room, corner, wall.

Shhhhhfts…CRASH!!

For a brief moment, nothing moved. Then X slide down the wall and made a nice squeaking sound while doing it. At the same time, Zero fell off the wall like a piece of card-board and landed with a hollow metallic sound. Both had dizzy eyes and left an X and Zero shaped dent in the metal wall. A few second later with a 'stfhhhhhs' sound, a familiar girl passed back from the other side of the wall. She looked at both of them on the ground.

"Jeez...forgot about that, solid things. My bad. Guess we are taken the long way."

All she got back was some groaning.

---

Back to a conference room, well, not back to one...

---

"...Figure that they must be here and this could be in a Maverick Prison, for all we know-So...oh, hello Alia." This is what Alia heard when she entered the little conference from while coming to a screeching stop and slightly went passed the door. She came back and held the door-frame while panting. Alia then cleared her throat, striated out her dress-armor-thing, and walked in as dignified as she could.

To be honest, there were not many people she cared to impress in the room. It consisted of Signas, the nameless rookie from before, the 2nds of the 17th and 0 units, and a few other random soldiers from both of the two units that Alia knew to some degree.

Signas, the person who was talking when Alia entered, smirked and said, "Well, we were wondering when you were getting here. This soldier," He indicated the rookie from earlier, "Told us you maybe a bit late."

"Yes, well, I was very busy." Alia answered very proudly.

"But Miss Alia," The rookie started, "you were reading a mag-"

"I was busy." Alia said with menace.

"But-" The rookie stopped and dropped the subject, for Alia was giving it the evil eye. Everyone in the room slightly snickered, but made no comment.

"Anyways, I was busy and I would like to be informed on what I missed." She said in her very professional tone.

"Well, why don't you recap, solider?" Signas addressed the rookie.

It nodded and it stood up proud with a salute and cleared its throat.

"Well, as you know Miss Alia, Commander Mega Man X of the seventeenth unit and Commander Zero of the 0 unit vanished around fifteen hundred hours. They have now been gone for a number of hours and have not been found. From the witnesses earlier, we have gathered that a group of Mavericks were responsible for our missing commanders. So we tried to track them, but there was no luck. So, we tried to find them by listing off possible location. Since there are many scattered nest, we listed any location that held suspicious activity and came down with twenty. We then listed off all those that posed a problem for getting close. Our list was down to five. At first, we could not figure out which of these locations would be a holding ground. But then we got these pictures." The rookie opened a manila folder and pulled out a few pictures, "From what we gather, this has to be the location...and I think that is where you came in, Miss Alia. Would you like to take over, sir?" The rookie asked Signas.

"Sure, why not" Signas simply answered with a sneer. Signas took the pictures and spread them out. He placed one in front to make sure that Alia saw it. It seems to be a one story metal building. From eyeballing it, this side of the building was around a half of a kilometer.

"What is that?" Asked Alia.

"This is a very old building." Signas informed, "An old museum, in fact. It was made for a new modern art exhibits. In fact, this building itself is art work: A giant maze. The owner of this establishment, however, got into some legal problems and had to foreclose. Since it is in the middle of nowhere and is on practically rock, no one really wanted it. A while back, some Mavericks were spotted here. It seems they were doing some scientific experiments with weird kinds of energy. Since the energy proved to be non-lethal, we figured they were simply screwing around. Over the past few weeks, though, there has been a lot of Maverick activity going on that was definitely Maverick activity. We observed it slightly more. And then we got this."

From the pile of picture, Signas pointed one out and everyone and their dog knew what.

"A mech. And I assume it is Vile's?" Alia asked, which was obvious since the Boba-Fett impersonator was scrubbing it and the way his body moved, you could almost hear the purple bastard whistling.

Signas nodded. "That one was taken a few days ago. It matches the mech. Vile was using when X and Zero were taken. So this may be a bit of a long shot, but hey, does it matter? But to be sure we are correct; we are having a conference meeting in the hour, so meeting in the bigger conference room. We don't want another incident like we had with that circus that one time, do we?"

Everyone nods and left.

--

Back to the guy formally known as "Sigman…"

---

Vile desperately tried to clean up the mess he made while Sigma started crying and cussing about his office. "Vile! What on earth posses you to suddenly barging into my office, uninvited I may add, without a knock." Sigma said with clenched teeth.

Vile mumbled under his breath, "Either your wrath of the rookie's"

"Eh, what was that?" Sigma glared at the purple reploid, truly not knowing what Vile said.

"Er...I said Stardust sent me to tell you that the cameras are operational."

Sigma blinked and smiled. "Great." Was all the bald one said.

Vile then again mumbled under his breath, "I don't really see the point, really."

This time Siggy heard him.

"And why would that me, hummm?" Sigma asked with a mostly annoyance and a dash of curiosity.

"Um...well, we saw the ghost already..." Vile said nervously.

"Saw? How did that happen?"

"Well...we went after X and Zero and we saw h-"

"You went after them without my order? And who is we?"

"Wasn't my fault, sir! Stardust made me do it!" He so was not taking the blame for this one, "And we really didn't attack them, we ran when we saw the ghost!"

"Look here, you, I...wait, the ghost was with the hunters?" Sigma's expression changed from anger to true curiosity.

"Um...yes?" Vile did

Sigma started to get excited. You could tell since he was shaking everywhere. Vile knew this would not be good. Even though enraging Sigma when he was already steamed was bad, making him angry when he was happy in the first place. The warning bells were going of under Vile's head.

Suddenly, Sigma grabbed Vile in a big bear hug and started to jump up and down. Vile had no choice but to go along with it. Vile could not get another word out because his chips were being shaken up and down with a force. With a sudden boom, the door opened and in entered Dynamo. Well, he flew in with smoke coming off his metallic body as he crashed to the floor. Right behind him Stardust walked in with a very mad look scaring her face and colored red (which so classed against her freckles). It was quickly replaced with a nervous look when she looked and saw the scaring scene.

Sigma saw Stardust and proceeded to grab her. He made her a part of the bear hug and the three were dancing in some sort of a three-some dance.

(It might have been cute or hot if it were some other group of people. But, this was a very large, very bald robot who wore a constant sneer, a guy who had horrible purplish armor that so did not match those boots, and a girl in heavy armor whom might have made it decent look if it was not for the fact her color turned like a sheet of paper and she made an awful cat-howling sound while she was spun around)

Sigma probably would have grabbed Dynamo, too, but Dynamo was currently on the ground and groaning with pain, instead of the pleasure he thought touching Stardust in an inappropriate place would have done.

"We did it! We did it!" Sigma kept singing over and over again while jumping up and down with his two followers.

"What did we do, sir?" Stardust said shakily.

"We killed them! We killed them!" Sigma now sang that.

"Well...maybe not..." Vile also said shakily, but it had nothing to do with the shaking; it had to do with pure fear.

The comment did stop Sigma from shaking the salt and pepper shakers around. "What?" Sigma's grip on the two tightened.

"Well...We have a tiny problem...the ghost and the hunter's have vanished..." Stardust said meekly.

"What?!" Sigma was grinding his teeth and gripped at the two harder. Luckily, Stardust was able to pop out (literally, she popped) of the bear hug-now-turning-into-the death hug. Vile could not do that; Sigma had grasped Stardust around her shoulders but had Vile' wrapped right around the second-in-command's chest; his arms and shoulder cannon acted like a hook around the meaty arms.

"Well, I looked, but they were not on any of the monitors." Stardust informed once she backed a distance away from Sigma, "Neither did I find the ghost."

Poor Vile was not getting any air for his precious cooling system, his body slowly starting to boil. Sigma was also getting hotter and hotter, but his was caused by his displeasure. He released Vile for a second, and then he picked up the poor Maverick and tossed him away. Stardust had stood up finally, to hopefully run away, but seeing what could be mistaken for a one-eyed one horned flying purple people eater, she choose to jumping back down to the safety it provided against flying monster. Dynamo got up but he was not quite as skilled Stardust was. He instead shouted, "I'm okay!" Not realizing the danger an airborne Maverick could cause.

Vile collided with him in mere moments.

Gate is in here because I want him to be. Stupid Mega Man X and its inability to keep characters long.