Welcome to the epilogue. Thanks for reading the story. I hope you enjoyed it.
This is my space to talk about the creative process—where I share my thoughts on the story and writing it. As usual, this will be in question-and-answer format, with actual reader questions mixed in for variety, so here we-
Hold on a moment. Don't you have a confession to make?
Beg your pardon?
Didn't you say after "Broken Glass" that you didn't think you needed to rewrite X4? That "Broken Glass" and "Consequences" framed it so well that actually rewriting X4 was unnecessary? And that you're not much of a fan of rewriting games anyway?
Erm… yeah, kinda.
So…?
Whoops?
…
Look, everyone gets into arguments with themselves, and sometimes we convince ourselves to change our minds.
Like you're doing now.
Like I'm doing… shut up.
The point is that, yes, strictly speaking I didn't need to do this. But, strictly speaking, I never "need" to write anything. I'm still not crazy about game adaptations in broad terms. When you play a game, so much of the experience and the draw is in gameplay that is, for a story, narratively expendable.
Which is why in large part I wasn't beholden to the gameplay this time around. This isn't a story about Mega Man X4; this is the story of the Fourth Maverick War. Some of the bosses don't even appear on-screen, and X and Zero both have things to do and character arcs to follow, and we're frequently shifting to see what the rest of the Hunters and Repliforce are up to, and even when some of the boss fights are depicted I didn't feel the need to showcase all of their abilities before letting the fight take its course.
Those are just some examples. Other deviances are due to simple logistics: space stations are small; mass is at a premium; warbot mechaniloids just aren't going to be up there, to say nothing of the logistical difficulties Sigma would encounter in smuggling a second, expansive form onto a small space station.
(Also, the power level Final Weapon is implied as having in X4 is outrageous. Why on, er, Earth would any government build such a thing? Or allow it to be built, if you contend Repliforce somehow did it on the down-low?)
Note that I tried to preserve as much of the story of X4 as made sense. I took certain sections of it (e.g. General's independence speech) verbatim; they served the purpose.
Anyway, by adopting the philosophy that I would not be beholden to replicating all of X4's gameplay just for the sake of it, I was able to focus more on things of narrative interest.
What, according to you, is "of narrative interest"?
First and foremost, the relationship between X and Zero, especially as it evolves given Zero's new friendships, the war, and the destruction of those friendships beneath the pressure of history and individual choices. It is fair to say that the X-Zero relationship isn't just the emotional crux of the series; it is, as Sigma well recognizes, the pivot of history. Nothing good happens when those two are separated.
So you separate them? You're a jerk.
I'm just following what X5 should have been (which I expressed in "A Heavy Load to Bear"). It's not my fault Capcom chickened out at the last minute and grafted the virus on to everything.
Other narratively interesting things: the ascendency of Signas and Alia from "not even characters" X4 and before to "core Hunter leadership cadre" from X5 on; how the human government was so willing to declare a huge force of anti-Mavericks Maverick; what Colonel and General were thinking when they went Maverick; and having Zero's infamous cutscene feel earned. Deserved. Merited. Warranted. Pick your adjective.
It's pretty amazing that one of the few times Zero shows robust emotion, it's very divisive, with some people being moved by it and others being embarrassed by it. It is an outlier to how Zero acts normally, so the "embarrassed" faction has a point. There's a chicken-and-egg dilemma at work. We're meant to understand that Iris is important to Zero, but the scene itself is the only real occasion that sells that link. The game emphasizes the Colonel-Iris relationship far more than it does the Zero-Iris relationship. It's Colonel who disarms when Iris intervenes during the first Colonel-Zero fight, for example. And, of course, the entire war goes down the memory hole; neither Colonel nor Iris is ever mentioned again. That undercuts the idea of Iris being so important to Zero that he'd go OOC to mourn her.
All of which was what drove me to replace X5 and onwards with "A Heavy Load to Bear"—that's the true follow-up to this story. How do you show Iris is important? By remembering her… especially if it's the brain-damaged character who does the remembering.
Is it time for your disclaimer?
Pretty much. This is the part where I'm obliged to say that even though the events of AHLtB are perfectly consistent with this story, my characterization of Zero has developed considerably since I wrote that story. There's a bit of dissonance in that regard. Nevertheless, that's the true ending of this version of the X story.
Oddly (or perhaps not), my X has deviated much less, and my Dr. Cain almost not at all.
Why did you have to go and kill Rekir?
When I started writing "Credo", I decided to pull in characters (originally conceived as throwaways) that followed Zero at the start of X1 (in "False Dawn"). However, I also had "A Heavy Load to Bear" already written, and those characters were not in it. Plus, Zero's isolation in the Hunters is a key component to that story's plot. To connect the dots, I conceived in my headcanon where the "False Dawn" characters died. It was necessary for internal consistency.
So I decided then how Rekir was going to die/had died. That didn't mean it was easy to write when his time came in this story. The choreography and staging of Rekir's death proved to be really hard to get right. That's because of one of the other implications of Rekir surviving this long: it means Rekir's a really good Hunter despite being physically average.
Writing about Zero being so strong and fast and vicious he can just overwhelm people? That's easy. Writing about X viewing each opponent as a puzzle to be solved with the right weapon? That's fun. Writing about someone who's just really good at basic tasks, and then threading the needle between "good enough to do something meaningful" and "not good enough to survive"? That's harder than you think. I had to work my way through four iterations of the fight before I was happy with it, but it was worth the effort.
Did you have fun with names again?
You know I did. Lux is Latin for "light"; Clement derives from the Latin for "mercy". Those are pretty straightforward references (direct or ironic) to what they do in the story.
Bob Anderson, station commander for Final Weapon, is a bit more obscure. Major Robert Anderson was the commander of Fort Sumter at the start of the Civil War; it was the bombardment of that fort, and Anderson's surrender of it, that kicked off the festivities. Ironically, the deadliest war in American history began with a bloodless battle with no human casualties (just a mule). I liked the contrast of a benign struggle setting up a later, greater tragedy, so Bob's a nod to that (his surrender of Final Weapon brings the Hunters to it and forces the final battles).
Giving a guy with that inspiration a Southern accent was just me being perverse.
Why doesn't Iris transform into that, like, mech-bird-thing?
That question suggests its own answer.
This speaks to my creative process. When I write fanfiction, I'm usually trying to address a particular issue, or character, or plot point. This can be put in the form of a question; the story provides the answer to that question.
As far as Iris goes, in "Broken Glass" the question was, "Why would a notoriously mind-blind Zero get into a relationship with a waif?" (This is a puzzle that Alia is never able to solve, much to her aggravation; in her defense, she has less visibility than we do.) In "Shattered", the questions were, "Why would Iris want to fight Zero?" and "What would make Iris so threatening to Zero that he would feel he had to kill her?" With the approach I took, those questions have related answers. Hopefully it works better than what happened in the game proper.
Who's your favorite character to write for?
Ooh, a tricky question! I have to reverse it to explain my feelings: Are there characters that aren't fun to write for? Being burdened with an unfun character takes some of the joy out of writing; as someone who writes for pleasure, I naturally try to avoid that. That said, if the characters are well-defined and have their own voices and roles, I can find different sorts of pleasure writing for all of them.
Probably the closest to "least favorite" are Colonel and Sigma, as well as the Minister of ORR (you can tell because I didn't grace him with a name). All three are present because the story doesn't work without them. They're obligatory, and I tend to resent obligation. That said, I came to terms with Colonel and appreciated him more by the end. Sigma's sneering arrogance and no-price-is-too-high fanaticism are so different from the other characters it's refreshing. They help obscure the fact that he's basically a standee. "Standard Deviation" is about the longest story Sigma can sustain as a protagonist. And the minister… er… helps the plot. (I got nothing for him.)
Everyone else is fun for different reasons. Dr. Cain's "human honey badger" schtick is a hoot. I empathize strongly with X's despair at the futility of reason. It was gratifying to give Alia a Moment of Awesome she never gets in the games. Rekir is a composite of different people I've known. Zero is a sociopath with a vague sense that he shouldn't be a sociopath; that never gets old. Iris was new and interesting and different and vulnerable and pathetic (in the good way) and so, so doomed. Even Double, who is barely more of a character than Sigma, is fun in a technical way: having him always be around the edges of the scene, implying what he's seeing or doing, sustaining the dramatic irony of his actions for as long as possible… that was entertaining to me.
Will you settle on just one convention for chapter titles already?
Never.
Why are so many of the boss fights so one-sided?
It's necessary to reconcile story and gameplay. Let me explain.
Outside of specialized cases (usually story-driven), bosses in video games are designed to fall in a narrow band of difficulty: they have to be hard enough to be challenging, while being easy enough that most players can get the hang of them and overcome. Attendant to that is the notion that the player will fail a few times as they learn.
Story-wise, X can't fail. Ever. There is no in-game mechanism like Undertale's "determination" that would explain X rebounding from death to fight again, no worse for the wear, with his enemies unaware this is take two (or three, or etc.). X has to win the first time, every time.
But winning the first time every time is, well, pretty ridiculous. It implies an X that is so much stronger/faster/smarter/more skilled than his opponents that he is rarely threatened at all. Only exceptional foes can seriously endanger him—because otherwise simple probability suggests he could not survive this much warfare.
In other words, X's skill level is not like that of the typical player; it's closer to the level of the typical speed-runner (and without the speed-runner's advantages of advanced knowledge and practice). That, in turn, means that most of X's battles are trivial, as they are for the speed-runner. The drama comes from elsewhere, against all but the savviest (Magma Dragoon) or strongest (Sigma) enemies.
Don't forget, either, that Repliforce was green, inexperienced. By contrast, X has been through four wars by this point and is near or at the peak of his powers. Only foes with a substantial fraction of that experience and tech can threaten him. Repliforce doesn't qualify.
Obviously all of these arguments also apply to Zero.
You have a thing against X3's weapons selection, huh?
X3 has many flaws which combine to make it, I'd say, the worst of the side-scrolling X games. (Admittedly that's praising with faint damns.) Those flaws include a too-small enemy selection more resilient than interesting, poorly differentiated levels, and stiff sprites. The biggest flaw, though, is the weapons loadout.
Editorial: X3's weapons are the worst. Good Mega Man weapons either give you more firepower, or let you do things the buster can't. X1 has perhaps the platonic ideal of Mega Man weapons: Flame Wave and Storm Tornado give you firepower; Shotgun Ice, Homing Torpedo, and even Electric Spark provide off-axis attacks of varying flexibility and power; and the remaining weapons (or their charged modes) supply utility, though Boomerang Cutter's was contrived.
X3? Not even close. (Does 'platonic ideal' have an antonym?) Virtually all of the weapons have slow projectiles, shot development times, or both. Ray Splasher is just barely a firepower upgrade at close range; Parasite Bomb is an upgrade against exactly one enemy. The weapons that provide off-axis attacks (Tri-Thunder and Spinning Blade) are unnecessarily difficult and unforgiving to use. Many of the weapons have an exploration focus, but this isn't Metroid. Metroid is exploration first, combat second, while Mega Man is combat first, exploration second; having so much of the weapons' utility tied up in a small number of puzzles just means they rarely get used. Gravity Well and Tunneling Missile are worthy nominees for the title of Worst Mega Man Weapon Ever, between their slow projectile speed, long development times, and inability to hurt any non-trivial enemy. A Tunneling Missile bouncing away from a foe is one of the most disheartening sights in Mega Man. And let's not forget that X3 broke the Mega Man convention where the least-practical weapon is the final boss' weakness; characteristically, the game forces you to use the buster.
One of the draws of Mega Man is the thrill of finding the perfect weapon for the job at hand. In X3, "the perfect weapon for the job" is nearly always the buster. Fail.
Okay, rant over.
That means an X3 story is next, right?
Heck no.
Rats. What is next, then?
Next up is "Imposters", a quickie about a girl whose path crosses X for a moment, much to her embarrassment. After that is "Of All Things Great and Small", a.k.a. "A day in the life of the robot master people forget is a robot master, Roll Light". Those two are more light-hearted, so should serve as a good antidote for this less-than-happy story. After that, though, it's back into the deep end: "Transmission", a horror story about the virus and the paranoia it induces.
Is there anyone you want to thank?
Kudos to The Unplanner for consistent and thoughtful reviews. Special thanks to my beta reader Kaguya2.0, especially for her gentle reminders that what is obvious to me isn't always obvious to others. Thanks to The Megas, whose music informs the mood I use for my X stories; my ripping off their lyrics was more subtle this time. Thanks to Capcom for these games. They have stories just good enough to be interesting and just bad enough to be an obnoxious waste of potential, which is fanfiction's sweet spot.
And, of course, thank you all for reading. Good night.