The next beam in left X and Octavia at the bottom of a long tube. Climbing to the top, they found two warp pads, one to the left that was broken, and one to the right that was intact. Having nothing else to do, they took the one on the right.
This left them in a room with eight more warp pads. "Looks like it's time to face copies of the Mavericks," X stated calmly.
"Can I take some on myself?" Octavia pleaded.
X leaned back, scratching his chin in thought. After a time, he smirked. "Shoryuken," he replied jokingly.
Octavia glared at him flat-eyed. "Dad, it's only funny the first time."
X promptly blew her a raspberry, only to receive one in kind. Laughing, the pair split up to take out the eight Mavericks faster. As each one went down with a single Shoryuken - and X and Octavia both proved skilled at delivering such an attack at the right time - it did not take long. When all eight Maverick copies were destroyed, the room began to explode, and Sigma's voice came over the communicators.
"It has been a while, X, Octavia," he growled out.
"What?" X demanded, shocked. "Sigma?"
"It seems those X Hunters failed after all," Sigma continued. "But don't worry. Someone else is waiting for you..."
Octavia gasped. "Uncle Zero!"
"Not exactly," Sigma cackled before cutting communications.
X and Octavia immediately beamed out to the final segment of the Fortress.
Beaming into the final segment of the Fortress, the pair charged straight forward, blasting away anything that got in their path. Seeing a security area with searchlights, they moved carefully to avoid being detected while blasting away indiscriminately at mechanaloid enemies. While normally Octavia would have commented on the incongruity of successful sneaking while blasting everything in sight, she was too concerned about Zero to comment.
Eventually, the pair made it to a large square room. As soon as they entered, the doors on each side sealed. Sigma entered silently, his body different than before. His new body was much stockier than his old one, and colored yellow, silver, purple, and green, a true eyesore. The real shocker, however, was when Zero, looking good as new complete with all upgrades Serges had lined out, entered in right in front of him.
"Look who I found wandering around X!" Sigma cackled. "My friend here has a small problem with you."
"Zero?" X gasped out, stunned to see his friend glaring at him.
"Uncle Zero?" Octavia whimpered.
"Yes," Zero stated gravelly. "I do have a small problem with you both."
Sigma laughed. "Yes, you see, it seems-"
Spinning around, Zero unleashed two fully charged blasts followed by a sweep of his beam sword - which unleashed an arc of destructive energy as he swung - right into Sigma's face, blasting him against the wall and nearly destroying his new body. Turning back to X and Octavia, he grinned widely. "You're late," he said jokingly.
X couldn't help but laugh as he ran forward. "You always love making those grand entrances, don't you?" he asked.
"Says the Hunter who likes free falling and neutralizing inertia by blasting the target!" Zero countered as the pair clasped hands.
"Uncle Zero!" Octavia called happily, lunging forward to glomp him. "Best Christmas present ever!"
"Christmas present?" Zero asked in confusion.
"CiCi says you really are Santa Claus!" she squealed happily.
"...ho ho ho?" Zero offered in confusion.
"Why, Zero?" Sigma demanded as he staggered to his feet. "I know the truth...you're destined to...follow me-"
"Fuck destiny," Zero replied, leveling his buster.
"Zero!" X called out, shocked.
"X, she's practically a senior citizen by the numbers," Zero countered. "We stopped needing to watch our words around her 40 years ago, all appearances to the contrary."
"And while you're arguing, Sigma's getting away," Octavia pointed out.
Setting Octavia down, Zero quickly opened a hole in the floor. "He'll be down there!" he indicated. "While you two take him down, I'll take out the main computer." Turning, he headed through the far door.
Grinning, X and Octavia leapt into the hole. After a long fall, they found the damaged Sigma waiting for them. "You two are merely bothersome insects!" he snapped. "It's about time I-"
"Shoryuken!" Octavia shouted out, catching Sigma under the chin with her flaming uppercut. She then dashed through the air back to X's side as Sigma's body exploded.
As the explosion faded, however, a hardlight projection of Sigma's head appeared, green lines marking the dimensions around red eyes. It started moving quickly around the room firing blasts of different sorts.
"Alert!" Varia shouted out. "Viral signal strong! Viral signal will have unknown effect on cybernetic interface of Bio-Metal systems.
X quickly stepped in front of Octavia, shielding her with his body. As the projection came towards them, he found himself shouting, "Piano, Fight!"
Piano beamed in directly above the projection and belly flopped onto it, his massive weight crushing the construct against the floor. As he looked up happily at X, his tongue hanging out as he panted, the computer system just visible in the distance began to explode.
Sigma's voice erupted from the exploding computer. "What? No, seriously, what the fuck? A St. Bernard? I got belly flopped by a St. Bernard? That's how I fall this time? Of all the-" For quite some time, Sigma spoke only in a string of curse words. Eventually, he got himself under control. "HOW?"
"Hard light projections have no true substance," Octavia explained. "A massive physical impact overloaded the computer's systems, rendering it unable to maintain the projection and triggering a systems crash and meltdown."
Sigma was silent for a time. "I'll make sure to take that into account for our next meeting," he growled at last. "Next time, X...next time."
"Ruff-uf-uf-uf-uf-uf!" Piano laughed, rolling onto his back playfully.
As Zero rejoined them, the trio - along with Piano - beamed out to safety.
Landing on a nearby beach, the group watched the exploding fortress. "So..." Zero began. "Other than the whole second Sigma assault, what have I missed? When did you get a dog, X?"
"Dr. Light made him for me," X explained. "He's my support unit-"
Classic suddenly beamed in and tackled Piano, leading to the two of them romping about in the surf.
"The wolf's mine!" Octavia said happily. "Stole him off Sigma, and now he's my support unit, complete with an adapter to become superpowered armor!"
"Dr. Light's still working on mine," X explained.
Zero stared out at the two canines. "...I want one..." he whimpered.
Somewhere in cyberspace, the echo of a certain mad scientist started muttering curses about 'ungrateful robots'.
And make a falcon for Zero.
Oh the lolz with what piano did to sigma so funny
HAH! Light and Wily at the end there!!!
So you could say X dropped a Piano on him?
6621811 Oh boy, is this the origin of Falzar and Gregar from Megaman Battle Network, gregar being Octavia's WOlf Classic?!
(jk jk )
6621844 I need to play Megaman more often.
6621849 I never played any megaman games outside Battle Network with Megaman.EXE
6621850 I want to play Megaman more often.
X3.
6621850 well, while this idea is pretty funny, its highly unlikely too as Battle Network is in a different timeline.
i am also of the opinion you have just shared however. Zero with a Falcon support unit sounds freakin awesome
6621850
Love those games.
Well, the first two anyway. I never did play the two linked games. By that time, I was playing more ds games anyway.
6621971 I played all the battle networks with the exception of BN2
6621950 that's a real bummer. ah well. I can dream.
Come on after seeing Classic and Piano that complaint was coming. I know what Zero's will be. Piccolo.
Zero needs a pair of Falcons for his support unit. Falcon sword, falcon busters, falcon knuckles... Falcon Kick... I had to do that.
Zero really did well on that (possible) Hellboy reference.
Piano was hilarious and Octavia was adorable.
6622047 You mean like Harpuia or Capt. Falcon?
Another enjoyable chapter. Good job.
and i'm thinking
6622086 Yes.
6622047
Falcon.... PAUNCH!!!!!!!!!!
So do I Zero, so do I.
6622047 You forgot the ever important Falcon Pawnch.
Awesome!!!
HUMILIATION CONGA!!!
Awww, come on Doctor W, don't you want Zero to have a pet???? Just to break up the dog trend, I suggest a panther, jaguar, or some other sneaky predator since Zero is the head of the shinobi unit and a more stealth based support unit would be useful and possibly focus more on melee attacks like he does.
Awesome chapter, especially Piano squashing Sigma's holographic form. Pure laughs there.
6622012 You mean this guy???
6621850 3 & 5 are the best Battle Network games
6622188 well his Team Four Star version anyway.
6622215
1, 2, and 6 were my favorites. I wasn't all that fond of the NaviCust system. I liked my PowerUps.
6622215 I agree with 5, but I did enjoy 6 as well. Hated Metalman.EXE's minigame in 4, and hated how Woodman's minigame crashed on my DS but functioned just fine on my GBA.
Hmmm. Ideaaaaa! Lyra in Battle Network! either as Lyra.EXE in the Net, or as a physical character in the Real World! Imagine what her Navi would be!
And so, Sigma was defeated by dropping a piano on him.
... *twitch* twitch*... *tw-tw-twitch*... *tw-tw-tw-tw-tw-tw-tw-tw-*
TROUBLE LOADING Twitch.exe. SWITCHING TO AUXILIARY PROGRAM: What_Did_I_Read_Exactly.EXE
OK, let's go over this one step at a time so I don't blow a gasket. Wasn't there supposed to be a copy of Zero that was promptly blown to smithereens by the real Zero? There was probably some kind of change to the plot that facilitated... whatever that was, but it still seems like a wasted opportunity.
Next, there's the whole "Zero's Destiny" thing. If the only way to counteract a virus that he was partially responsible for spreading in the first place was to try to make amends for what he did by contributing to efforts for its termination in any way possible (Perhaps even giving his body to science?...), then I'm fairly certain he can't accomplish much by screwing off destiny.
Then there's what's quickly becoming a trope: Sigma being nothing more than a joke. I get he was a one-dimensional character and all, but... he was still an impressive villain, wasn't he? He was pretty much a precursor to a worse threat, but managed to assume his role rather well, whether it was orchestrating the deaths of an entire nation (And a potential love interest), or being a legitimate threat that just wouldn't stay down no matter how many times an expert shoots him down in a perfect run. Taking Wily's personality and greatly expanding on it was one thing, but here... I think if Sigma ever had a talk with the original Mega Man, they'd be surprised to realize they actually had a bit in common with each other, despite being driven by different motivations and ethics.
Then there's the thing at the end... a hard light projection?... Really now. Don't get me wrong, it makes sense in theory; a big enough blow was powerful enough for the projector to lose its power supporting it... but that's only if you limit it as such. The Mega Man series, while purporting a sci-fi genre all these years, has never failed to support it with a slight fantastical side. Whether it was falling from great distances, giving Mario a run for his money in the art of wall jumping, or techniques, weaknesses, and many other things that defies real-life physics, Mega Man did it all... But then X2 came along with a sudden revelation: Sigma wasn't kidding around when he said that while his body was destroyed, his spirit lives on. By that point, his consciousness had merged so closely with the Maverick virus that the virus itself became Sigma and vice versa... that "hard light projection" was the physical manifestation of it. That "hard light projection" was the cause of the suffering felt by countless reploids in the present, whose repercussions could be felt for centuries afterward. That "hard light projection", the metaphorical dragon, the culmination of everyone's fears and despair, an amalgamation of sinful pride and absolute destruction... was easily defeated by a robotic dog simply because it was a hard light projection and nothing else. I can understand making light of an important theme in any media in an abridged series, and I can also like how it can be done in an abridged series (A bit like this little number, come to think of it)... but not like this.
I get that I'm probably being hard on this fanfiction (and its brother) just for being a lighthearted comedy, and there's most definitely a point I'm simply not getting, but even knowing that... I don't think I can say with absolute certainty that I like either of them. They're certainly creative, but I think I'm just going to stick with other fanworks, like that one movie....
6622566
Allow me to address all your points by correcting one assumption.
In this timeline, the purpose of the Virus was not to affect other robots towards creating an apocalypse. Despite what Sigma thinks, that's the result of a corruption of the virus due to Zero's incomplete activation at the start, and that incomplete virus merging with Sigma's programming.
Also, Sigma was being puppeted here by Serges, even though he didn't know it. You're trying to rationalize this story to the original X timeline, created by Wily being a true villain seeking to conquer the world for his own ends, and never succeeding.
Also, remember this line from Zero earlier?
In order to make good sense of this timeline, you need to forget everything you know from canon. Most of it is vastly different due to Wily of this timeline being a loving father to Vinyl.
6622239 For me, BN3 was best followed by 2.
I actually never got to really play through 1 cause I only ever owned a used copy that wouldn't save. Managed to get as far as the battle with Protoman.EXE before I died and had to start all over...
Heh, maybe I should buy it on the Wii U e-shop so I can finally play through the one game in the series I never finished. Well, the one game other than Battle Chip Challenge... Maybe I'll get that one too...
6622133 Show ya' MOVES!
6622566
Also, I never said the 'hard light projection' was the sum total of Sigma's final form. Just how it was manifested there. Also, you noticed he said, "I'll take that into account for our next encounter"? Yes, the tweaks to the timeline are changing how each game plays out, but the danger Sigma represents continues, and is still very real. What's different is his motivations and reasoning behind his actions don't quite mesh with what's actually going on...because unlike last time, he doesn't have all the details.
Also, the reason there was no copy Zero is because Serges stole all of Zero back from the base before the start of the siege on the North Pole. Serges then put Zero back together, telling Sigma he'd be under his control...and Zero went along with it to limit the damage Sigma would inflict.
I think I like your Wily much more than the canon version. Who knew fatherhood could screw continuity so thoroughly?
You just dropped a Piano on him!
.........I feel somewhat less manly for making that joke.
6622732 Speaking of "tweaks in the timeline" I came across this little mcnugget on Youtube:
A rom hack of X3 allowing you to play as Zero throughout the entire game(minus the intro stage). It even has Zero's Black Armor. It could be a potential avenue to make Zero more useful in X3's story.
Hmm, speaking of armor that reminds me:
6622239 Six was my favorite as well. Megaman 6, oddly, was also my favorite of the originals if only because of jet Rush. I enjoyed the double souls in 4 though everything else about 4 was kind of shitty.
6622340 OOOH! Or even Sunset Shimmer! One of my Fave Mares!
6622656 Well sure, those points are certainly true (And I kind of knew as much from that Helsing reference)... I suppose I should go a bit more in-depth.
Even if the virus' purpose was to do something else, that doesn't mean that Zero is blameless in this scenario. Lots of people and reploids are still affected by this change and it'll take you-knows how much to put an end to its corruption. And because of the effect this has on the world, others will still go out of their way to bring about their own sense of justice (Which just ends up putting that person on the top of two people's irredeemable villains list)... Unless you somehow come up with a scenario where Dr. Weil entire drive and personality is changed in a way that makes logical sense, but makes those who are a bit too obsessed with the franchise as a whole cringe with discomfort for the irrevocable changes to come. I mean what's next, are you going to make the guy who said to his own son's face "Azula was born lucky. You were lucky to be born." into a person with feelings?... Quick, forget I asked that!
To be honest, though... it's probably because of the changed timeline that the story bothers me a little. It's all well and good to give Dr. Wily a bigger character to make him seem more than just a jealous hack, but to me... the "jealous hack" version seems a touch more cohesive. It might have been a petty reason to attempt to dominate the world, but the way he devoted every aspect into his life for "the recognition he clearly deserved" and all the plans to make robots to combat with the infamous Blue Bomber was admirable in some respects. He was so good at it that he tricked people into thinking he wasn't the main villain 6 times in the main series. SIX! There was even the time where he took defunct robots' needs into consideration and made an army, not one that he gained dominance over with a virus or by programming, but swayed to his side with natural charisma. This Wily is a touch different. He believes in a simple principle based on a complex pathological context: take over the world because people in general are stupid. This is a point I could spend a while typing about in full, but I'll just sum it up in one word: Politics. Other than a man with unflappable ideals, he's also a loving father... and that's really all there is. He can come up with some interesting ideas, there's various pop culture references scattered about, but other than that... well, I just don't like him as much.
In the end, there's a fairly important reason I didn't like your story as much as I thought I would. In "You Can't Spell Slaughter Without Laughter", the changed story made sense because Pinkie Pie was added, and that caused a chain reaction which lead to the invariably cohesive story (and believable character development) that we know today. Here, Vinyl's already been sent to a world where things are already different, like Dr. Light's and Dr. Wily's dynamic, or Cossack and his daughter, or Protoman (Or should I say Blues?), or several robot masters throughout the course of this series. Theoretically, you could take the ponies out and make this a Mega Man fanfiction and it would make about as much sense (although some things would be changed, like sonic weapons and various plot points).
I suppose what I'm trying to say here is... well, I'm kind of an intolerant putz when it comes to certain fanfictions (This is actually the second time this week I've poured my heart about why I disliked a fanfiction). If it makes you feel any better, this is a THOUSAND times better than either of those stories... In fact, I might just keep reading just for the heck of it. Who knows, perhaps in lieu of the different tones, I can still find something to like about this. Even if Mega Man is undergoing the most warped Hero's Journey of all time, it doesn't mean that the journey itself is warped... well, it's messed up, but it just means he has to stay determined throughout it all. And maybe Dr. Doppler is just another person who's manipulated by unseen forces just like Sigma is... or perhaps everything is just going to go as I EXPECT it to go and not how I WANT it to go... oh well, at least I can say I didn't give up on this one by the end of it all.
6622995
Ah, I see what you're saying.
I hope you do keep reading these stories. I do intend for enjoyable stories here, with a twist on things. It would probably be best here if you stopped trying to take them seriously, though. Because, fair warning, the primary thought process through both stories is someone taking a step back from the events, looking everything over, asking the characters involved "What the hell were you thinking?"...and the results of said characters actually thinking.
Besides that, I always liked the "In Wily's Defense" characterization of Wily better. Also, Wily's motivation only became "prove myself better than Light" way late in the timeline. As you said, he swayed defunct robots to his side with charisma. I didn't see that as "he's good at lying" but as "he believes in what he's doing."
Just take it all with a grain of salt...and just because something's funny doesn't mean it isn't serious in context.
6622781 Be proud of that joke, cherish it, it made me laugh at any rate.
Why do I have an image of Zero having a Solid Snake' cardboard box obsession in my head?
Silly pony. You underestimate the power of Dad Jokes!
6623012 I have to say, that's a really confusing title. I mean, if it's an AU where Wily's the good guy and Light's the bad guy, why have a title that inspires the assumption that it's a story about what lead Wily to do the bad things he did in his life?... Oh well, at least it's funny.
I'm a bit emotionally drained from writing something down, but ultimately scrapped because it would just complicate things. Instead, I'll just say this. Sure, I'll give it a shot, I just hope that you don't have the plot go where I expect it to.
6624191 hey you actually rhymed on beat
6624295
Well, we'll see where I go and what you expect.
6624425
Hmm, indeed.
Tats...just a thought and a reminder about a couple things in X3.
X3 has doubled upgrades for body parts, but skipping the individual and mutually exclusive ones in the main stages allows you to obtain a perfect set of all four in one of the fortress stages. (Gold armor X) I think the best way to facilitate this would be to have the secondary Light Capsules mention to X and Octavia that they could either take the upgrade to the upgrade now, or they could wait for a signal and get the completed secondary armor upgrades later, because Light's working on the best way to make them work together instead of causing programming conflicts.
Also in the fortress is the Dragonfly Miniboss of "get Zero's Saber as a projectile weapon that kills Sigma's huge body in three shots to the head...if you fight it as Zero." It's no Hadouken or Shoryuken, but it would be a shame to miss out on seeing Octavia just slam Sigma with four at once and turn him into a huge joke again.
!!!! Dr. Doppler is next! He has the best theme ever!
Real One: Don't worry Zero, I can send you a Wolf, with a chainsaw, and that talks!