When Octavia finally recovered from her hangover after drinking so much, she found everyone was waiting for her before beginning the next mission. Axl, Cinnamon, and Marino looked relaxed and eager. X and Zero both looked harried but happy. Massimo looked flustered, but otherwise ready to go. Nana sat at the controls, keeping her face down so only a soft smile was visible. Chief R stood at his command post, looking confused but determined.
"I suppose I've kept you all waiting," Octavia allowed with a chuckle. "Sorry about that." Glancing around, she noticed the missing faces. "Where's Aile?" she asked curiously. "And Spider? Are they out on a guy's bonding trip?"
Nana immediately flushed bright red as Marino chuckled. "Ferham's advice and selection for Nana proved a bit more than Aile could handle. He's recuperating from that now."
"And Spider said his Sensei called," Cinnamon added, "so he had to go right away, and that he likely wouldn't be back in time to join us for this mission."
Octavia nodded. "Then we know where we're going?" she asked curiously.
"Uh...no," Chief R pointed out. "You're the only one who knows where the facilities under the control of the Rebellion are. Our information sources have run out."
Octavia blinked in surprise. "But...but Professor Gaudile should have been able to-"
"Daddy's been drinking ever since he learned Force Metal Energy was magic," Cinnamon pointed out. "At least, that's what I understood from what he was rambling..."
"He's currently racing around Central Tower on a Ride Chaser, trying to challenge people to a card game...for some reason," Nana explained.
"But Axl knows-"
"No I don't," Axl interrupted. "You're the one who had the talk with Epsilon. I was too busy avoiding Ferham at the time to listen."
Octavia groaned as some of the others chuckled...though smiled as she saw Massimo blush slightly at the mention of Ferham. "So I take it you were able to meet with her, Massimo?" she asked sweetly.
"Uh...yeah," Massimo answered evasively. "It was...nice. Eye opening." He clamped his mouth shut, refusing to say anything else.
Chuckling, Octavia turned back to the group. "We're heading to Melda Ore Plant," she explained. "It's where large stockpiles of Force Metal were stored there, making it the only place viable for producing Supra Force Metal. The silos are also where the Rebellion set up their SFM Missile as a last resort tool to trigger their planned global evolution-"
"Wait, missile?" X demanded in shock. "What's this about a missile?"
Octavia rolled her eyes theatrically. "It's a missile with a Supra-Force Metal warhead, designed to explode in high atmosphere and scatter a huge discharge of FM Energy over the entire globe, which would be absorbed by every Reploid, Terran, and FM Reploid on the planet. This would jump-start all in-built systems towards evolution, allowing the internal development of unique Force Metals inbuilt, accelerating the natural evolution of life on this planet. And before you ask, I didn't mention it because Epsilon swore an oath he'd never break not to fire the missile until the three of us met together to determine if his goals were viable in the current world set. After all, if they are the missile would be the most efficient way of triggering the evolution event, once proper safety measures are in place."
"If the missile is so harmless, why are we going there now?" Zero demanded crossly.
"Because the situation has changed," Octavia explained. "Someone other than us, the Rebellion, and the Government of Giga City is involved, and now that we know Force Metal's relation to Ether, a SFM warhead is simply too dangerous to leave lying around where someone might get their hands on it...especially if that someone knew what it really is."
"You think Sigma's still around?" Axl asked curiously. "He's the only one who might-"
"Not necessarily," Octavia interrupted. "While he's a possibility...what we found in Gimiala Mine suggests that not all pre-End Times forces are quiescent, or necessarily on our side. What if something from back then is still around, waiting for a chance to bring things to another End?"
Silence reigned over the group for at time. "Setting teleport coordinates for the Melda Ore Plant," Nana finally stated firmly.
The Melda Ore Plant was a large metal building in the middle of a snowy field. The fenced in area around it had a few security mechanaloids wandering about, but they were easily avoided as the group made their way inside. To their surprise, the interior chamber was plain metal with only an elevator and a single locked door in the back. "This is...oddly quiet," Zero observed nervously as they made their way in.
"And we don't have that key," Octavia grumbled irritably. "Axl and I never came here in our explorations."
"Uh..." Massimo began nervously.
All eyes turned to him. "Massimo, why would you have the Melda Key?"
Massimo shifted nervously. "...Ferham gave it to me," he admitted finally. "She said it opened a private little area we could...meet up in. And that it had something of Zero's inside."
"Really?" Zero asked eagerly, immediately perking up. "It must be Timbre's capsule! He had to be sent in like X's Ultimate Armor, because my White Mode and Timbre Adapter being active at the same time would have put my available output to high to sneak in."
"In that case..." Massimo began, moving over to use the Melda Key to unlock the door.
As soon as the door opened, two massive platypus shaped Reploids with massive hammers racing around the chamber within in pursuit of Timbre. As soon as they caught sight of the group, they shifted into combat stances. Zero stepped forward with his beam saber drawn. "Give me the bird," he ordered firmly.
"We'd love to, but the network censors won't let us!" one of the Reploids piped up.
Zero's eyes went flat. "Timbre, merge," he commanded.
Timbre promptly fused with him, leaving him in the powered form that had been dubbed 'Absolute Zero'.
The two Reploids swallowed convulsively. "Uh...we were just leaving!" the second squeaked out hopefully.
"Then do so," Zero stated flatly.
As soon as the two had fled, Zero reverted back to normal, letting Timbre land on his shoulder for caresses. "I missed you, bud," he said simply. Timbre let out a quiet cry of agreement.
Ah, an Animaniacs reference. Love it.
I loved the Animaniacs. The original fourth-wall breakers.
You've been wanting to do that for a while now, haven't you?
Guess those platypuses gained a different Timbre when Zero came along.
With X's reaction to the missile one would think he was more hungover than Octavia.
SFM can do just about anything and fit anywhere, it's like some sort of magical metal.
Maybe they could change SFM to Materia instead even if the procurement method is somewhat different.
PFFA HAHAHA oh yes animaniacs
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Reminds me of
http://ytcropper.com/cropped/eF58f0cf4210958
Oh, that Animaniacs reference and Zero's reaction to it afterwards were spot-on
So this entire time, Timbre has been stuck in the room with those two idiots... and they couldn't catch him? I can just imagine if they DID manage to grab him, he went Woody Woodpecker on their face
Is Zero going to Let It Go soon and rip a certain green fatass apart with his bare hands????
...are you going to cross megaman starforce into this?
CARD GAMES ON MOTORCYCLES!
I'm starting to feel Arc Fatigue on this. Probably because CM is the longest arc to date and most of it feels filler-ish. But I can't go, because I want to know what happens to Octavia and see how Mars is doing!
It doesn't help that Wily's Wittle Wub ended with so many unanswered questions what feels like ages ago, and we only get snippets of what may have happened here between Axl's harem and Command Mission's fucking absurd arc length.
I really do like these PWNY-verse stories, they're charming, funny, crossover-ey... But it feels the "Last Story" of this Tavi/Vinyl miniarc is being arbitrarily held back due to the sheer length difference between the Mega Man and X series. I think two other PWNY-verse stories have started and completed their course during this story, maybe even just this arc, due to the length of it.
Edit: it's been about 5 months since WWW ended? Man, I knew that WWW ended a while back, but not that long...
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I admit I'm starting to get that, too. Thankfully, there aren't that many chapters left before the end of this arc, and the rest of this ought to go pretty fast.
8096347 Good to hear that I'm not the only one.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmwah! Goodnight, everybody!
8096344 Game's an RPG with ten chapters, and actual characterizations/development, with seven playable characters. All the other games, new character screen times is usually how long it takes to kill them, and WHAT AM AI FAIGHITN FOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRREEEEEEEEEEEE!
Hell, imagine how long an arc would take if Tats does Legends?
"Back in action!"
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You mean like the stuff the Vinyl and Wily AIs would have used to entertain themselves while waiting for Zero to activate?
8100850 Not to mention Light's S.U.B.R.O.U.T.I.N.E... I suppose it would make sense that their Guardian AI's would want to preserve some things, but I would think a more resource efficient method of staving off boredom would have been to shut down into a standby mode, only to be re-activated once either pre-determined conditions regarding Project Revelation and the Animus Protocols were reached, or if whatever security systems guarding their AI-Core's were disturbed. That way, depending on the half-life of whatever power core their mainframes are using using, they could theoretically remain dormant for centuries, or even millennia, if they aren't disturbed or if Zero had never been activated. He was, so they wouldn't have been, but the point still stands that if they set things up right they could have played a Really long game of Hurry Up and Wait in a more or less dormant state running on minimal power.
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Didn't you read Tirek's internal monologue when he went up against Quark to buy time for Twilight to figure out how to weaponize Harmony energy?
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Their power source was of the self-sustaining variety.
8101047 Kinda figured it would be something like that, so they could efficiently wait forever so long as wherever their primary mainframes are located don't become compromised either by intruders or natural tectonic shifts damaging wherever they're located. And if they were based in the Original Sky Lagoon, under direction from Prometheus and Skull Man, they would be nigh undetectable due to the cloaking technology surrounding it. It could be like this world's Avalon, a "Mythical Robotic Paradise", spared from the devastation of The End, though only in myth as most of its original inhabitants moved to Mars and now hopefully hide in their own hidden utopia.The Power Core is probably some sort of Robotics Golden Age Super Compound like Forte's Bassnium core or Prometheus or Zero's Either based cores... It was probably the latter, but on a lower end scale because that much power for a supercomputer Analysis, Communications and Manufacturing settup would be simply ridiculous... which is exactly why Vinyl would do exactly that... Le-sigh
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Actually, they're based on the moon.
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Perfectly viable, seeing as the moon is tectonically inert, and they probably don't expect the inhabitants of earth to be able to have effective space exploration tech until sometime after Zero became active.
NOBODY MENTIONED THIS. Seriously, guys?!
Damn 3rd gen Yu-Gi-Oh. I mean, at least it isn't Zexal, but it was around Gen 3 that it suffered a major quality dropoff. Rip in pip, Yu-Gi-Oh.
"We'd love to, but the network censors won't let us!" one of the Reploids piped up.
Oh, boy.
Yeah, I'm calling bullshit here. When this dude was first mentioned, this is how the characters painted him as:
This'd imply he's a kooky, off the rails researcher who understands something better than anyone in the world, but has the capacity to adapt to the things around him. But ever since his appearance, he's been taken aback by everything that happens in this story.
{Gaudile: Where's my daughter- she knows things other than tai chi- she's a pin-up girl- NOODLES- This scientific thing is magic?!}
It's infuriating. The worst part of it all is that these dumbasses still have no idea what they're talking about. For as long as they've sucked off the First Law of Robotics (written by a science fiction author), they've completely forgotten about Clarke's Third Law (written by a science fiction author):
{Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.}
This guy's discovered that there's more to the thing he's dedicated his life to researching, but all he can do is hole up inside some dingy room drinking his sorrows away, rather than see how he can integrate science into technology and have Reploids and Terrans evolve even more? It's pathetic and a complete waste of what this story has built up to.
Oh hey, it's a callback to when Vinyl first made those music chips that augmented reality. How do these two events connect?... By God, I hope there's a pay off for this.
And kill off every human exposed to it, right?
...
My question went unanswered.
Again, what does this dude have to do with Yugioh?
So yeah, they're going to face off against the Rebellion to get things under control once and for all. There's a missile lying in wait; it could be used dangerously. Let's see if they can take care of them. Massimo dropped out of being immune to innuendo, so his ship isn't as fun anymore. Shame.
So that's how 5ds was created. I always wondered about that. Now it all makes perfect sense.
My Little Pony: Force Metal is Magic. Hasbro, get on it. It's time for mlp to go metal.
https://youtu.be/XHrrbhKH_k0
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Absolutely nothing. This was an Animaniacs joke.
That's a cold joke
I think he’s been watching Yugioh 5d’s while drunk. Who thought trying to recreate that with makeshift systems was a good idea? That’s just begging for a crash to happen.
Yes!
nice animaniacs reference