HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I hope you're having a happy holiday season, whoever's reading this.

Now, where were we? *re-reads the prologue* Oh… well, that doesn't look good. How the Hell did we get here, indeed.

Actually, I'll do one better: How about we elaborate on that?

Before we get into the plot of Girls Dead Rise, however, the first ~8 chapters will act as a sort of setup for the robo-zombie apocalypse (muahahahahaha!), and explain just how Rock became Mega Man before he eventually meets his sisters (well, his creator's daughters, if you want to use that terminology). So let's go back to the very beginning, shall we?

39 MONTHS EARLIER…

…

When the Soviet Union dissolved on December 25th, 1991, and the Cold War ended, it seemed that humanity had reached its apex form. Or as a certain American political scientist put it, humanity had not just the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of mankind's ideological evolution.

Oh how foolish they were.

The 21st century would be defined by terrorism, environmental decay, a warming climate, creeping authoritarianism, and accelerating inequality growth. This culminated in 2076 with the Great Reckoning, which, amongst other things, saw the end of the United States as a political entity, the transformation of India and Pakistan into a radioactive hellscape, the realization that humanity was not alone in the cosmos, and the creation of both the Chosen Ones and the island of New California.

It is now 2198 AD.

The world of today is both familiar, yet foreign. With America gone, having fractured into seven bickering nations, China and East Africa have filled in the power vacuum left in her wake. The Chosen Ones, in spite of their powers' potential, have been demonized the world over, and are largely a slave caste below the rest of humanity.

Most importantly, though, the use of magic has made a comeback, whilst some are attempting to combine it with modern technology. The result, magitek, has taken the world by storm, particularly in the realm of robotics.

Dr. Hikari's lab, Setsuri, Territory of Shin Honshu, Japan

9:00 AM; Thursday April 19th, 2198

Long before his younger daughter was fighting for her life, Dr. Tsueno "Thomas" Hikari-Nishizumi was preparing for the third-most important day in his life. For the past four and a half months, he'd shed blood, sweat and tears creating what was perhaps the most advanced robot ever created to date, and in a few minutes, it was about to experience the world for the first time.

46 years old, with short, brown hair and a somewhat muscular build, Tsueno was born to a family of sakuradite miners, an occupation that took their lives when he was 15. But even then, he was a tinkerer, a thinker, a man of ideas; ideas that would allow him to skip two grades and attend Kyoto University, where he attained his masters' degree in robotics and a minor in magitronic engineering.

It was also here where he met his wife, Shiho, then-heiress to the famous Nishizumi clan. As he finished up eating his oatmeal for breakfast, he remembered how absurdly difficult it was to convince her mother to let him marry her. Indeed, it was only on her deathbed that she finally gave permission. Whilst raising their two children, Tsueno had intermittently created new robots for the government. The most notable two of these were the Metool series or robot or Mets for short, which were small, yet versatile robots that assisted in production lines and construction sites, and the Policebots, which assisted human police officers as their partners across Japan and elsewhere, such as Cascadia and the Eurasian Union.

Then there were the Sniper Joes. Tsueno himself was a pacifist, but his first assignment given to him by Kyoto was to design a warrior robot to replace its living soldiers on the battlefields of Africa and the Middle East. But it was either do that, or not get hired at all, and understandably Dr. Hikari chose the former. The Sniper Joes, the end result of this old shame of his, were humanoid drones whose armor resembled a cross between that of a samurai and a European medieval knight. The exception to this motif was their heads; they looked like a bicycling helmet, except a red, circular light– its "eye" –pierced through the visor, to give the psychological impression that each of them was staring into your soul.

On the prototype Tsueno made for the JSDF, he'd built an automatic 20 mm rifle into its left forearm, which could shapeshift to and from a "normal" mechanical plasteel hand that mirrored its other arm. However, this meant that the prototype had to reload after firing continuously for about 20 seconds, and the upper bass weren't going to settle for this near-1:1 robotic recreation of the modern soldier. No, they wanted more. Thus, in the final product, the Sniper Joes sported a new, state-of-the-art plasma cannon: the Buster, as many within the firearms industry were calling it. And a full-blown opaque white and red riot shield was added to their right arms, allegedly to finish the whole knight/samurai motif, although Tsueno was smart enough to figure that this addition was really to give the Sniper Joes some form of non-lethal crowd control ability.

Of course, when he revealed his current project to her, Shiho wasn't exactly on board with creating life in an unnatural way, as she put it. One thing led to another, and the next thing Thomas knew, he was moving out of the Nishizumi manor to Setsuri, home of Selection University. He set up shop in a cottage on the city's outskirts, plenty of distance from the hustle and bustle of the city itself, and the slums that surrounded it. It took another year to convince the Ministry of Magic, Education, Culture, Science, Sports and Technology (MMEXT)'s oversight board to fund his endeavor, and eventually they gave him the funds, as well as a base to build his son off of.

Said base being a Sniper Joe that was decommissioned due to damage caused by a Shinto extremist's bomb, in a twisted kind of irony.

However, that wasn't important right now. What was important was that this was the "big day", so to speak; the day that his creation– no, his third child would enter the world.

After making a final set of checks to make sure everything was working perfectly, Tsueno looked upon his creation.

On his operating table laid an adolescent man, who appeared to be in his late teens. He was 165 cm tall and had short hair, which was the same shade as that of his older daughter, Maho; Dr. Hikari had used both of his children as inspiration while modeling what the human-looking part of his son, particularly the head and face, would look like. He was wearing a blue and white short-sleeved hoodie, which had yellow-lined pockets, and khaki shorts. His lower legs and feet didn't need to be covered, as their cylindrical plasteel casing, a remnant of his original form as your typical Sniper Joe, still remained from the knees down, although Tsueno had put in the effort to repaint them from their usual gunmetal gray and red scheme to one that was medium blue with light blue– almost cyan –highlights. Ditto with the robot's arms beneath the elbows, which were cylindrical.

The good doctor sighed, bracing himself for the moment of truth. "…Well, here we go…"

With that, the good doctor pressed a button on the large computer console that made one whole wall of his lab, and the two watched as his son came to life. His orange-ish brown eyes– the same shade as Miho's –opened, calibrating for a moment before they blink, then looked upon the two people watching.

"…Hi, my name is Rock. … Who are you?"

There was a moment of stunned silence before Dr. Hikari finally stammered a response. "…Oh! I'm, uh, Dr. Thomas Hikari. …I built you."

"…Are you my father?"

"Well, in a technical sense… Yes, I am your father, but you can call me Dr Hikari if you'd like."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Dr Light!" he said pleasantly, still smiling. The two shook hands, before the robot asked, "Do I have a mother?"

"Um, yes," Tsueno answered, "but she, uh… doesn't live here. I do hope you get to meet her someday soon."

Rock began walking around, looking at his surroundings. "Is this where you built me?" he asked.

"Yes," his creator affirmed, "you are near Setsuri, in my house, which doubles as my laboratory. Akko and I spent four months building you here."

"Four months…?" The robot looked concerned. "Is that bad? And what's a Setsuri?"

"Of course not!" his father reassured him. "You were actually two or three months ahead of schedule. Your programming and construction were easier than Dr Light thought…" He explained, though at the same time he realized he'd forgotten to include basic geography in his programming.

"My programming tells me I'm supposed to be your assistant… Is there anything you need help with?"

"Not yet, Rock." Thomas said. "Right now, I want you to get used to your new surroundings…"

Weeks went by, turning into months. Rock settled into his life, helping Dr. Hikari as he researched the practical applications of magitek– including the use of non-quintessence-magic –as part of the initial research for their next project. In particular, Rock's Variable Tool System (VTS), located in the apparatus of his right forearm, allowed him to duplicate any tool or scientific equipment in the apparatus in his left forearm. This ranged from screwdrivers and thermometers, to more complex instruments like mass spectrometers and lasers that could cool objects to below absolute zero.

The project in question was something Dr. Hikari called the Robot Master Program, a set of nine industrial line robots using non-quintessence-type magic to assist regular workers and other non-sentient robots in their lines of work.

DHN.002, Poseidon, would be used for sanitation in the city sewers, specifically to eliminate any outbreaks of Cholera and other water-borne diseases.

DHN.003, Achilles, would be used to manage parts of Shin Honshu's timber operations.

DHN.004, Heracles, would be an artificial construction foreman used to direct large construction projects.

DHN.005, Penelope, would utilize ice-magic with an apparatus similar to Rock's, to be used to help refrigerate liquid Sakuradite in any of several processing plants throughout Shin Honshu and mainland Japan, as the substance is quite volatile at room temperatures.

DHN.006, Hephaestus, would be useful in demolition programs and clearing the interior of New California of… hostiles, with potential utilization by the JSDF if the need arose.

DHN.007, Cacus, would be a waste management robot, utilizing fire-magic (generated by disks of Hihiirokane) to create flames as hot as 8,000 degrees Fahrenheit (4,426.7 degrees Celsius).

DHN.008, Zeus, would be used to help control the output of Japan's various nuclear power plants (Uranium, Plutonium, and Thorium) using electric-magic.

DHN.009, Hecate, would use quintessence-magic for search-and-rescue operations, and can lift large obstructions and debris with her Quintessence Barriers.

And DHN.010, Kronos, would be an organization and time management robot so that the common worker would know when their 12 hour shifts would begin and end, and when their lunch breaks happened.

It took 3 months to gather their findings and draw up rough blueprints for the robots, and soon the time came to present their findings to the MMEXT…

MMEXT headquarters, Kyoto, Japan

11:30 A.M.; July 14, 2198

"…this new project will not only push the boundaries of known robotics, but also benefit this country in both the private and public sectors."

Dr. Hikari had just gotten done presenting the outline of the Robot Master Program to the oversight board, which was composed of six people, each of them experts in the ministry's different fields; magic, education, science, culture, and technology. In order to get a large, overarching project related to these done in 22nd century Japan, it needed the approval of at least ⅚ of the oversight board. Unfortunately, this didn't make things easy…

"Your project does appear to have its benefits," said one of its members, a female with long, gold-blonde hair and a notable British accent, "but I don't think you realize that the types of magic you intend for your… robot masters to use are… let's just say, less than safe."

Of course Daryl Cavendish would be in opposition to the project, Tsueno thought. From what he'd heard, she was a first-generation immigrant from the Republic of England, having lived in Japan for the past 15-ish years. She was a staunch traditionalist when it came to the use of magic, so obviously she was suspicious of the use of any type of magic that wasn't quintessence-magic. Dr. Hikari was used to Daryl's opposition, though, thanks to the trouble of getting her to agree on letting Rock be made, and hoped the other five were more open minded than her.

His hopes were mostly right. However, one of them quickly brought up concerns about the A.G.I.s the Robot Masters would use, and the possibility about them going PAL, referring to the time when the namesake A.I. tried to launch humanity into space for her maker declaring her obsolete. (Fortunately, her plot only got as far as central California, before a family journeying from Michigan to San Francisco– the Mitchells, if Tsueno remembered correctly –stormed PAL Labs HQ and dunked her into a glass of water. But that's beside the point.) Tsueno countered the argument, stating that "Unlike PAL, the Robot Masters' A.I.s will not be connected to the Datalinks," he explained, referring to the successors to the internet of the 20th and 21st centuries. "Therefore, in the event that they, say, wanted to take over the world, they would not have access to information necessary to wipe humanity out in a single stroke like PAL had."

"That's well and good, Dr. Hikari," said the expert on sports, "but we need concrete proof that they won't try, like you just said, to take over the world to begin with. It's too much of a national security risk to not leave unaddressed."

"My son is your proof," Tsueno tried to rebuke. "Ever since his activation, he's done nothing but help whilst interacting with other people–"

"And by that," interjected the so-called expert on education, Renta Tsuji, "you mean interacting with you, at least most of the time. There is more than one other person in the world, Dr. Hikari."

As much as Dr. Hikari despised the man– Mr. Tsuji had more than his fair share of corruption scandals in his career, which the good doctor was well-aware of –he had to admit he had a point. And in truth, Tsueno wanted Rock to meet other people, just like his two daughters aboard the Graf Zeppelin.

"How about this," Renta continued. "Your… son looks like a high schooler, correct?"

Dr. Hikari could tell where this was going. "… You're suggesting that I take him to school? That's your idea?"

"The environment needs to be largely controlled," the MMEXT official explained, "and we can't have too many outside factors infringing on our observation, so in my opinion, a school would be the most ideal environment for our… case study, if you may," he said. "Here is my proposal: before we fund your project, we here at MMEXT need to see how Rock fares in public for…" he paused for a moment to think of a suitable time frame, "a year, I'd say. In the meantime, you can go ahead and build prototypes of your glorified tools– I mean, your Robot Masters," he corrected himself, as the expert on technology facepalmed for his slip, "but you can not activate them until your son's trial is complete. If the results are satisfactory in our head minister's eyes, then the go-ahead for activation and testing will be granted. If not… Well, I think you already know. … How does that sound?"

Hikari thought over the corrupt official's proposal. On one hand, working with a man like Tsuji would severely dampen his public image if word got out. Not that he cared much about the public's perception of him, though he knew many other people, notably his wife Shiho, who did have an issue with it. But on the other hand, his Robot Master program didn't seem likely to get approved any other way, and he wasn't going to sell himself out to Shiro Cybernetics, the Sunshine Corporation, or any other soulless companies. If he was going to help mankind (or at least Japan) in his largest contribution yet, right now was probably his best shot he'd ever have.

"… I accept." he reluctantly answered.

The school selected was Takeda Shingen High School, the most wealthy and tech-savvy school in the Setsuri School District… as well as the one with the most non-Japanese students, about 60% of those enrolled there. 200 years ago, the presence of such a large proportion of foreign students would've been remarkable in Japan, but population decline had led to the opening of the immigration floodgates in the 2050s. This was no doubt a controversial decision (to put it mildly) at the time it was made, but after 150-odd years, the presence of so many Chinese and Korean immigrants, ex-American (Euro-descendant, black, and indigenous) refugees, and other foreign citizens had become commonplace.

Takeda Shingen High School also happened to be the local magic academy, though the MMEXT's oversight board judged that this would have little effect on influencing the outcome of Rock's "test."

Anyways, about a month after Dr. Hikari's proposal of the Robot Master Program, Rock was transferred to Takeda Shingen High, at the beginning of its second yearly semester. The school day was from 8:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M., with after-school activities lasting from the end of it until 6:00 P.M.. The day was split into 6 periods of 70 minutes per class, with an unofficial 7th period in the middle for students to have lunch and/or study.

The building itself was rectangular, and had three floors. The first floor had a brick facade, with outward-opening glass frame doors at its entrance. The second and third floors, though, had a largely glass facade, and had slightly larger footprints than the ground floor, resulting in an overhang of about 3 meters on each side. This was to give students and/or parents waiting for said students outside some kind of shelter from the rain, wind, sun, and debris from something blown up by a Decepticon or rouge Chosen One.

However, to say his first semester was "rough" would be an understatement.

For starters, Rock had a whole semester to catch up on to be where everyone else was at. Fortunately, although Tsueno had designed his processor not to be much better than an average person, it did store information much better than its organic counterpart, so once he learned something, the data of that lesson was ready to be accessed in an instant, and not as prone to forgetfulness.

Secondly, the teachers were largely indifferent to his special circumstances. In fact, some of them were downright hostile to him. Of particular note was the school's history teacher, Mrs. Finnelan, who saw him as no different from the jakari that invaded Earth in the Reckoning (more on that in a few paragraphs). The JROTC teacher, Sergeant Isuru "Breaker" Night, wasn't much better. Granted, Rock would never have JROTC classes, given that he tended to avoid violence whenever possible, but the former soldier was nonetheless outspoken against the son of light.

Rock had a hard time making friends with his fellow students as well, mainly due to none of them interacting with him often. Some of them did so because they feared him (though he didn't blame them, what PAL did was abhorrent), some because they were too busy studying and/or cramming so they get higher grades than the sods that sit next to them in class, but a few of them did so because, in their minds, they had better shit to do than make friends with the first sapient robot of his kind.

One of the latter was Daryl Cavendish's niece, Diana, who by no coincidence attended TC High as well, as part of its magic course. In addition to being a magio-supremacist like her aunt (her parents died years ago, from what he understood), she was the top student in many classes, and was actively idolized by Ms. Finnelan, funnily enough. Due to the normal and magic courses rarely interacting, Rock tried repeatedly to open up a "channel of conversation" with Diana whenever possible (which was after history class, the only class they shared), only to be foiled by other students getting her attention (unknowingly, of course; he didn't blame them for having their own lives).

Of course, this didn't go unnoticed by his creator, but the MMEXT refused to change the school Rock would attend in spite of Dr. Hikari's complaints. Tsueno theorized that this was at the behest of either Daryl (whom he suspected was using her niece to spy on his son), Renta, or both. Despite all of this, Rock never stopped trying to reach out, in spite of all the backlash. All the while, he'd slowly collected data from history class about why a bunch of Europeans and Americans were in Japan in the first place…

WARNING: INFODUMP IMMINENT!

By 2076, Earth was a dying planet. The biosphere had been gutted, most life with the potential of gaining sentience and succeeding humanity all but extinct, the climate slowly warming, the Yggsdrasil practically dead, and mankind being overrun by right-wing nationalism and fascism, whether it be in the classic brown or the more recent green. The top 0.1% lived a life of hedonistic luxury, while the bottom 99%, the working class, had in most places become little more than interchangeable cogs in the machine of cultural and ecological omnicide.

But no one would have believed as this was happening, that our world was being watched by intelligences greater than man's own; that as men busied themselves working just to get enough money to barely scrape by, they observed and studied, the way a scientist might scrutinize creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water with a microscope. With infinite complacency, the men (and occasional woman) who had accumulated most of the world's wealth over the past 100-odd years went to and fro about the globe, confident of their empire over the rest of man, and the Earth. And the Moon, since they'd just colonized it. Yet, 2,763 light years away, as a presumably Earth-like planet became inhospitable due to a cataclysmic war, its native inhabitants began to regard our planet with envious eyes. Once the dust settled, they drew their plans against us…

Okay, I'll stop parodying War of the Worlds.

When cataloging possible worlds to relocate to, Earth met all of the checks required: it is terrestrial, orbits a G-type star, is abundant with sakuradite (their primary power source), and is relatively close to their homeworld. Even better, we had already put down primitive infrastructure (roads, cities) for the xenoforming process to build on top of. So, with nothing adieu, the Martians, as they eventually came to be known, hit the warp drive and arrived in Earth's gravity well on July 20, 2069…

…and was immediately confronted by the fact that humanity had already staked out the planet as its home. Knowing that the 1 million martians couldn't hope to face off against 10.5 billion humans, they resorted to more covert means. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on who you ask), they found someone who was willing to work with them, a young witch named Croix Meridies.

Born in Milan, Italy in 2059, Croix was unusual amongst Earth's magical community in that she merged magic with 2070's technology, something nearly all of her peers saw as heresy, but was more ideal for working with a race of beings from the stars above. Magic on Earth had been in terminal decline since the end of WW2 130-odd years earlier, and the young north Italian witch was keen on reversing that trend. So the Martians made a deal with her: The Decepticons would help her break open the Grand Triskelion, and in return, she would tell them everything they needed to know about humanity and the Earth in general.

The martians' initial attempts to blast the triskelion open with their guns quickly proved futile, which led them to consider other alternatives. Long story short, Croix and the aliens' scientists developed what became known as the Noir Rod, a swarm of magitronic nanobots able to constrict a larger device powered by dream fuel spirit; that is to say, the Noir Rod was powered by human emotion, particularly anger.

Coincidentally, the region of Kashmir was in the grip of a climate-induced drought, and the artificial postcolonial nations of India and Pakistan (the former of which had the world's largest population, at ~1.4 billion) were both agitating for control of the region for the umpteenth time. Thus, when on July 4, 2076, the time finally came to open the Grand Triskelion, the unfathomable amounts of anger necessary to power the Noir Rod swarm was already being naturally produced. The seal was broken successfully, and…

… Um… let's just say Croix was disappointed by what she found.

As the witch was struggling to get anything more than sunshine, rainbows, bubbles and childish laughter out of a twig, the Noir Rod proceeded to perform the one function the Decepticons neglected to tell Croix about. Namely, it absorbed part of the Triskelion's magical energies, then turned into a missile and shot off toward the Indian subcontinent. By the time Ms. Meridies had broken down in tears over the form the "world-changing magic" manifested itself as, the Noir Rod was nowhere to be found; indeed, if it weren't for her friend Chariot du Nord (who was infamous within the magic community for using magic for spectacle instead of practical purposes) already searching for her, Croix may never have found her way out of the Arcturus Forest.

Then again, she was hung for essentially jump-starting an alien invasion, so maybe it wasn't a good thing Chariot found her.

The Noir Rod, meanwhile, split in two. One half, basically a first stage for the rest of the missile, fell back to Earth…

…right on top of Luna Nova Academy, as fate would have it. One enormous flash of light later, and the academy, its staff, and everyone else who happened to be present, had been turned into a bunch of alien metal.

[Author's Note: To get an idea of what happened to Luna Nova in this universe, think of how transfornium is made in Transformers: Age of Extinction]

The rest of the Noir Rod took a hypersonic trajectory towards the source of its dream spirit fuel, and reached its destination before any of the world powers knew what the fuck was happening. The missile detonated over 23.813 N, 77.256 E, roughly 60 km NNW from Bhopal, at an altitude of 20 kilometers.

This had several major effects, which spread outwards across the entire globe from central India.

Billions of pieces of debris, the leftovers of the Nori Rod missile, were catapulted into orbit. Kessler Syndrome took hold within 2 days, destroying GPS systems and long-range communications worldwide. The Nemesis would also become a victim of the debris cloud enveloping the Earth, forcing the Decepticons to make planetfall.

Though not directly caused by what came to be known as the Great Reckoning, India and Pakistan were SO on edge that when the Noir Rod missile exploded near Bhopal, both nations immediately blamed each other and went to total war. Within 72 hours, the final Indo-Pakistani War would go nuclear and destroy both countries, causing a 20 year-long localized reciprocative nuclear winter/summer that killed ⅔ of their (and Bangladesh's) remaining populations, to say nothing of its effects on harvests worldwide over the following decade.

A large island in the north pacific west of California, incorporating the big island of Hawai'i in its southern tip. This landmass has since then been known as New California, due to its eastern peninsula's proximity to the famous American state. Of course, Rock was living on the west coast of that very island, which was colonized by Japan in the 2160s and '70s.

Most importantly, about a third of the female global population between ages 13 - 23 became ingrained with the use of one of the 17 types of magic (Homo Magicae) as a side-effect of the Grand Triskelion's energy. The new subspecies of humanity, soon to be known as the Chosen Ones, or Chosen for short, proved critical in fighting back against the new Red Wave, as they made planetfall in the Congo Basin, and the United States and China. Basically, if the Martians were the namesake creatures in H. G. Wells' novel, then the Chosen ones were our germs. The alien menace was beaten back, at the cost of nearly 5 billion dead, mostly from and climate breakdown-wracked Africa and South Asia.

However, despite being the saviors of mankind, the Chosen were also like germs in the sense that neither are considered allies in most circumstances. They were demonized to Hell and back once their existence became common knowledge, and hunted down by local governments and/or paranoid survivors. When Rock asked Ms. Finnelan about why, all he got was a rant about how the Chosen Ones were demons incarnate, something that he severely doubted.

Getting back on topic, the Martian War had obviously left the world permanently reshaped.

The United States of America, the center of world capitalism and then-global hegemon, was already teetering on the edge when the Martians demolished the house with the residents inside, so to speak; the fact that the Reckoning happened exactly on the country's tricentennial birthday made its subsequent collapse all the more poetic.

Russia tried doing the same thing it always had in the event of a crisis, taking the pain and running with it, but this had the effect of causing the already-dying nation to fully self-destruct, and led to the creation of the Eurasian Union. Karelia and Siberia resisted the new technocratic government and permanently left Moscow's control (having since gone separate ways), though Eurasia compensated its losses by absorbing several other post-Soviet countries throughout the 22nd century.

Others, however, solidified. The People's Republic of China came out worse for wear, but considering it still existed as a political entity– unlike the U.S.A. –that was still a positive. Beijing would thus take the opportunity given by the Reckoning and Martian War to… Well, first they finally got around to absorbing Taiwan. But after that they used leftover alien Technology and enslaved Chosen power to rebuild, and promoted its socialist, surprisingly democratic vision to its neighbors. The East African Federation was already a rising power, and the fact that Africa was unintentionally disconnecting itself from the world system (through various destructive wars throughout the rest of the continent) at the time of the Reckoning helped it continue its rise, in addition to its expansion into Zambia and the eastern former DRC. And Indonesia, formerly a de facto Jakartan empire, reformed into a federation of equals for the sake of continued survival, one that eventually grew to (re-)include East Timor, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, and a mega-typhoon-wracked Philippines.

And still others opted to merge together. Though the European Union disbanded, its members fighting one last destructive war amongst themselves in the final quarter of the 21st century, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium and Luxembourg formed a new union once the dust had settled. Germany would enter a federation with Austria (again), the drowning Netherlands and Denmark, and a collapsing Switzerland. Peru and Bolivia would make their own union, and the Andean Compact would grow into the new power across the Atlantic in the absence of the USA. Colombia and Venezuela, suffering from American invasion when the martians came barging in, merged to form the totalitarian United Bolivarian Republic (which went on to conquer Panama and split Ecuador with The Andeans). Estonia and Latvia merged into the Federal Republic of Livonia, Australia and New Zealand merged into the Republic of Australasia (though this provoked the province of Western Australia, now Westralia, into seceding for who-knows-what reason), and the Federal Republic of Central America returned after nearly 300 years of disunity.

And yet others, such as Iran, Mexico and Brazil, turned inwards to ride out the Dark Days… with little success. These countries had become barely-functional dumpster fires as of the time Rock learned this. And outside of Balochistan (the western chunk of Pakistan), the former British Raj has remained a black hole of sorts, with no information having come out of there for the last 120-odd years.

The large island almost immediately became a sort of refuge for the Chosen Ones fleeing persecution, as some kind of force field bars humans from entering or exiting, witches and wizards included, unless a Chosen One is present. Yet for some reason, every other kind of life can pass through the field without hindrance, even the martians. Only humanity is affected by the barrier. This little fact allowed the invaders from another world to also retreat here, after their plan to xenoform Earth in the Reckoning went awry, and their leader was defeated in combat by a Chosen One with red hair in San Francisco. Sakuradite is plentiful in New California, fortunately (or unfortunately), so the martians aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

Also present on the island from the beginning was Hawai'i, which was absorbed into the island's southern tip (and Mauna Loa stands as the island's tallest peak and volcano). Utilizing the powers of the Chosen, Hawaiian culture saw a meteoric revival throughout the 22nd century.

As time passed, however, things changed. Hawai'i, the Chosen and Decepticons were joined by the Nuroks, the Amerindians of the former United States and parts of Canada (now Kanata) who fled in the chaos of the American Warlord Era (2078-2115), and later the United Bolivarian Republic when it began mass-enslaving its own indigenous population. In the 2160's and '70's, the State of Japan began colonizing New California's western coastline. However, a combination of martian raids, hostile native wildlife, and the occasional klaxosaur have kept the colony of Shin Honshu from expanding very far inland.

Speaking of wildlife, it is a mixture of flora and fauna from around the world, even species driven extinct relatively recently on the geological record, such as the Saber Tooth Tiger, Dodo and Passenger Pigeon. However, some species, such as tigers and eagles, have gotten much larger than normal, often by several meters in length.

Though this did stop Japanese colonization from reaching inland, it would not stop Eurasia's Plantations, mobile domed cities powered by "magma energy", from arriving in the 2170's and early '80's. The klaxosaurs, attracted to "magma energy" have been giving them a fun time ever since. Most recently, an attempt by the North Sea Alliance (the Scottish-led remnant of NATO) to establish a colony on the island's southern coastline utilizing the aging Japanese school carrier Ark Royal went rogue shortly after its establishment in 2197, becoming the Chosen-led nation of San Gloria. (How this failure affected the NSA's perception on the world stage is a story for another time.)

Info dump complete. Returning to the main story…

Takeda Shingen High School, Setsuri, Japan

3:10 PM; Monday, September 17, 2198

"in spite of these changes," Ms. Finnelan continued her lecture, "New California has remained peaceful throughout the 120-odd years since its creation…"

She cut herself short, noticing that a certain brunette student of hers was sleeping in class. Quickly, she summoned a small, glowing green sprite, which flew over and effortlessly slammed the student's textbook, which she was resting her chin on, square in her face.

Hard.

Rock, who had been taking notes as usual, was snapped out of his task by the loud THUD this action made, and was taken aback once he realized what had just occurred. Not only had this been enough to wake the sleeping student, but it had also given her a large, square-shaped bruise that covered most of her face. It would've been comical, if it weren't for the fact that she'd also been given a nosebleed as a result of her injury, something that most of the other students laughed at. Why they'd laugh at one of their own getting injured as some form of corporal punishment was beyond the robot's logic.

Soon, he found himself getting up from his seat and rushing over to the other side of the room. Rock didn't hear the teacher yelling at him to sit down as he leapt over his desk towards his injured classmate, nor did he hear her getting cut off by the final bell.

"Are you alright?" he asked the brunette witch, concerned.

"I'm… I'm fine…" she groaned as she held her bruised face.

"That doesn't look fine to me," said a student that had been sitting nearby, a boy about Rock's apparent age with blue hair, goggles on his forehead, and a black, short sleeved shirt under a blue and red jacket. "You should really go to bed earlier than 11:00, Akko."

"I go to bed at 10:30, Simon," the girl, apparently named Akko, corrected him. "It's not that I don't get enough sleep, It's just that these classes are so boring!"

"Boring or not," the boy, Simon, pointed out, "these are for a grade."

"I know," the brunette retorted, "but I didn't come here to be one of those moldy old witches. They're just no fun at all! I want to be a cool witch like Shiny Chariot!"

Though the three of them didn't notice, this had gotten a certain gold-blonde witch's attention.

"…You mean the one who got disowned because of her improper use of magic?" Rock clarified, confused.

"'Improper' is just a subjective term," Akko pointed out. "Say what you want, but I think she was the coolest witch ever!"

"How sad," the young Cavendish finally interfered in their conversation, approaching. "How can you step foot into this course inspired by such a pathetic fraud?"

This seemed to set off the brunette witch, as she stood up in response. "Hey, what did you say!?"

In response, Diana got straight in Akko's face. "You should know that no witch or wizard cares for what she did."

Two other witches, who seemed to have followed the young Cavendish, laughed, mocking Akko's statements. "If you're into that kiddy stage magic–" one of them, who had reddish-brown hair tied into a ponytail, stated, "-maybe you should go to witch kindergarten," the other witch, who had long, black hair, completed. "I'm sure you'd find many more kids at your level."

Akko, hearing this, looked about ready to blow a fuse. "I swear I'll wipe that smug exprossion off that face, Diana," she grunted.

"With what," she asked, "your textbook? Your broken nose?" She flicked said nose with her wand, which healed her face. Not that this made the Japanese witch calm down in the slightest.

However, before Akko could completely explode in the British immigrant witch's face, Rock decided to step in to cool things off before a fistfight (or worse) broke out. "Um, girls," he tried to interject, "I know this is a controversial subject, but–"

"Oh shut your voice box and go somewhere else, robotboy" Diana interrupted him. "You're not even educated in this matter."

" … eh?" The lab assistant bot was… taken aback, to put it mildly.

"You heard me," the gold-blonde witch reiterated, dismissively. "It's the end of the school day, go back to whatever mad scientist's lab you came from."

Now it was his turn to be offended, though he made sure to keep his tone in check unlike his hot-headed acquaintance. "Dr. Hikari is many things, Ms. Cavendish, but a mad scientist is NOT one of them."

"What's the matter?" the red-headed witch behind Diana mocked. "Is the machine trying to defend their daddy?"

By this point, both Rock and Akko were shaking with rage. However, the blonde brat (as the narrator, I refuse to use the more profane b-word) was smart enough not to antagonize them any further. "Hannah, Barbara," Diana addressed her posse, "I think that's enough toying for now."

With that, they left the room, Hanah and Barbarah cackling and giggling as they did, leaving them and Simon alone in the now vacant classroom. There was about a solid minute of silence, before the lab assistant bot asked the question at the top of his processor's queue:

"…What is WRONG with her!?"

"Don't know," Simon answered. "She's been kind of a bitch to anyone who's not wealthy, doesn't have the magic gene in them, or, apparently, isn't human." As Rock canceled all his internal plans to open his channel of conversation with the rude witch, his blue-haired acquaintance then looked Rock in the eyes. "Is it true? Are you the creation of Dr. Hikari-Nishizumi?"

Cooling off, Rock sighed. " …yes. Dr. Hikari is my creator… or father, if that's the term you'd prefer. Before you ask about my mother, though–" he preemptively added, referring to the influential Shiho Nishizumi, "–I haven't even met her yet, so–"

"Sweet! I've been meaning to talk to you." The blue-haired teen reached his hand out to greet him. "My name's Simon Bonne, by the way."

Rock shook hands with him "I'm Rock. Pleased to meet you."

"Why?"

They turned to see Akko… confused, for lack of a better term. "Why did you cover for me," Akko asked the robot boy. "I thought that robots were usually intent on launching us into space, or driving humanity extinct some other way. A-and you barely know us, yet you tried to get Diana to leave me alone. Why?"

"That's… …that was just PAL, I believe. And James Cameron." The son of light comically sweated, unable to conjure up a better response to the first part of her question before moving on. "I have no ulterior motive or anything like that. And honestly, I have no idea why I did that," he admitted, "but the way she talked about you and your… uh, idol… and then my creator, i-it just wasn't right. I felt like I had to do something about it." He went silent for a moment, before adding "And I can understand why you fell asleep. Don't tell Ms. Finnelan I said this, but… her lectures are kind of monotonous."

"Well, thank you anyway," the brunette exhaled, finally calming down.

"You're welcome, Ms. … uh… … what's your name?"

"My name's Atsuko Kagari Cain," she replied, smiling. "But you can call me Akko."

Complete.

This first chapter took quite a bit of searching on the internet and creative licensing from the source materials for me to create. Let's overview what just happened:

-Dr. Hikari has built Rock in his own image, partially with his own daughters, Miho and Maho, in mind. His activation was based on a scene in MegaBauer's fic Mega Man: Defender of the Human Race, which I encourage you to check out if you're fond of the Ruby-Spears Mega Man cartoon.

-In order to get the funds needed to build his prototype Robot Masters, Tsueno has agreed with the heads of MMEXT (TTL's version of MEXT, for you Girls und Panzer fans reading this) to make Rock attend school for at least the next year.

-The soon-to-be Blue Bomber has met Akko and– unexpectedly –Simon the Digger from Gurren Lagann, or Simon Bonne as he's known here. Diana too, though Rock's first real encounter with her leaves quite a bitter taste. I'm going with her more arrogant and childish OVA personality, at least initially, because I found it more entertaining than her stern, critical demeanor in the anime. I also made her hair gold and regular blonde instead of platinum blonde and mint green, like some of her concept art shows. Ditto with her aunt Daryl, who in this universe is part of the MMEXT's oversight board.

Now you might be wondering where Lotte and Sucy are at this point. Shouldn't they be with Akko? Well, not exactly. But don't worry, they will appear, though not in the way you'd expect. Same with Roll, as I have a different origin story for her in mind than being Rock's companion…

Now to explain everything I've changed from the source material. This should be fun...

First, I'll explain the changes to Dr. Thomas Light, or Tsueno Hikari, as he's known here. Tsuneo is the canon name of Miho and Maho's offscreen father in Girls und Panzer (and therefore, Shiho's husband), and since I was placing Light as their father for this fic, I decided to make Thomas a nickname for the good doctor, with Tsueno becoming his real name. Fans of the Mega Man: Battle Network series will also be familiar with the name Hikari, and one translation of Hikari into English is "Light", so this can be considered both a shout out to that iteration of Mega Man *and* a proper translation of his name into Japanese.

To be clear, Dr. Hikari's relationship with Shiho is not hostile, though clearly she didn't approve of him playing god by creating an entirely new person from scratch. Or from a Sniper Joe, but the point stands.

Do note the description of the prototype Sniper Joe, though. Fans of Mega Man can probably tell exactly who this character is going to be well in advance...

Next: the blue bomber himself! A huge difference you may have noticed already is that Rock is now built to look like someone in their late teens, instead of a 10 year-old like in the Classic games. That is because of two reasons: one, nobody would let a kid attend high school, especially one as occupationally hazardous as Tageki Shingen High, not to mention it would be a little awkward for everyone else.

The other reason is, plain and simple, I am uncomfortable with the fact that Classic Rock is a child soldier. To me, that is just… wrong, in multiple ways. So I took Ruby-Spears' approach and aged the soon-to-be super fighting robot to be older, though here he's nowhere near as muscular as that cartoon's take on him. (As a side-note, I do envision Ian James Corlett voicing Rock/Mega Man if this story were ever to be adapted into a movie or cartoon/anime series.)

Rock's civilian outfit is based off of that of Aki, his counterpart in the Fully Charged cartoon. Say what you want about that show, but I really liked the jacket and couldn't pass up using it here.

Now to address the first Robot Masters, or at least the details surrounding them known so far. I got the idea to have their names (at least before a certain scientist reprograms them) based on figures of Greek mythology from Rockman: The Robot War by Maelgrim. Just so we're clear about who's who:

Poseidon = Wave Man

Achilles = Cut Man

Heracles = Guts Man

Penelope = Ice Woman [Ice Man]

Hephaestus = Bomb Man

Cacus = Fire Man

Zeus = Elec Man

Hecate = Mage Woman (OC)

Kronos = Time Man

Now, you may notice that I've altered the line-up of the first round of Robot Masters from what they were in the first Mega Man game.

First of all, I flipped Ice Man's gender because there's only one female Robot Master in all 11 of the Classic games (Splash Woman from Mega Man 9; let's just say I've already got plans for her). So to fix this issue, I took a look at Mega Man 1's lineup, and decided to make Ice Man a woman in this universe. Why him specifically? I'll give any Little Witch Academia fans reading this a hint: look at Ruby-Spears' take on Ice Man. You'll notice a vague similarity between him and a certain Finnish witch…

Anyways, you'll notice Wave Man, a character from Mega Man 5, has replaced Roll as the second in the DLN– well, DHN –series. You can partially blame Fully Charged for his inclusion; I adore that cartoon's iteration of him (though the name Aqua Man could easily make someone confuse him for a certain DC superhero, so I changed it back to Wave Man). Here, his ability to manipulate water will be downplayed, both so he can be taken more seriously, and for plot-related reasons.

Another reason I decided to add him into the first batch of Robot Masters was that there were only 6 RMs in the first game, instead of the 8 per each of its sequels. Initially, I planned on adding the two RMs introduced in the first game's remake, Mega Man Powered Up, Time Man and Oil Man, but I later replaced the latter with Wave Man. Frankly, Oil Man has no reason to exist in this story, nuclear fusion having become mainstream and making oil extraction obsolete (except for the creation of some plastics) long ago, and I'm not even a fan of his design. And the MM1 Robot Masters are missing a water-based member, so I brought in Wave Man to round out the roster.

You'll also notice that Time Man's been designated DHN.010 instead of DLN.00A. That is because in this universe, the DHNs and the DWNs will be two entirely separate lines, not the latter being a continuation of the former as in the games.

The Robot Masters have their own design changes from their appearance in the games, but won't discuss them until each of them is properly introduced in-story. Ditto with the appearance of Mega Man proper, what with his more knight-themed appearance as seen in the prologue.

As for DHN.009, Mage Woman… I'm not spoiling the surprise, but this Robot Master will be instrumental in Akko's development relatively soon.

As a side note, I felt that a Terminator reference was necessary when Akko mentioned public fear of A.I.s.

Anyway, that's it for my commentary on the first chapter. The next chapter will come out whenever, since I'm in college and will need to focus on my classes soon. I'll be working on this whenever I can, but I don't think it'll be very fast (or maybe it won't be, who knows). Until then, please leave a review (I'd greatly appreciate the feedback), thank you for reading, and stay safe.

—NuclearAlchmist