Open Megaman RP Post

[sclasscopycat]

This is an open post for random Megaman shenanigans!!!!

Comments

AU new gen Hunter buddies! and i do not have an appropriate angry icon

[sclasscopycat]

[Today, he'd been assigned a rather simple B-rank mission; infiltrate an abandoned area, take down a Maverick, retrieve some info, the standard. He expected it to be simple, but the mission had not turned out that way. The Maverick had somehow rearranged the area into one huge maze involving lots of childish traps and challenge battles against a wide variety of Mechaniloids. Axl had embarrassingly fallen to a fair amount of those traps; enough to actually have him blow up at the Maverick when he finally found them, and then they had laughed at him!! And then, worst of all, the Maverick himself was a piece of cake; not nearly worth the effort of traversing that area.

Now he was at Hunter base, still steaming from the mission. He needed to rant at someone, and he knew just the person to bother.

Whatever Lumine is doing, it was time to set that aside because Axl enters his lab without much of a warning and proceeds to plunk himself right down in the chair next to the engineering Reploid.]

Today's mission was the absolute worst!

[neoseraphic]

[Lumine exchanged a look with Palette and offered a faint apologetic smile over abandoning their project. It was designed to reinforce architectural structure to protect against Maverick attacks, and they'd been discussing the application to individual reploid armour. Fascinating stuff, really, but Axl had a way of... whining, putting it gently, and ruining any efforts at further progress. They'd revisit it once the field operative was done.

Lumine faces Axl with an air of his usual calm, the placid smile on his face reshaped by the absently fond exasperation at the complaint.]

How so?

[He gestures towards the doorway; they really should take it outside of the R&D lab.]

i hate my icons

[sclasscopycat]

[He doesn't budge yet-- the chair he was in was comfortable, and he didn't feel like moving right now. Give him a moment, Lumine.]

That stupid Maverick made the entire place into a goddamn maze, and it was filled with traps like pitfalls and buckets dropping from above doors, and paintballs firing at you, and--! Augh!

[He's not going to mention how he fell for a good deal of them, despite being the Hunters' resident prankster. No, because he was the resident prankster. Because that would be huge blow to his prankster pride, not that it wasn't already suffering a severe blow due to this latest mission.]

And the Maverick wasn't even that much of a challenge! It was a total waste of time!!

[neoseraphic]

[Lumine arches a naked brow while Axl goes on and on; he sees that injured pride. It's a tempting opening, but he refrains for the moment. Axl's too wound up to start picking on just yet without it blowing up, more likely than not. So instead, the engineer seats himself--midair, antigrav system keeping him aloft.]

Sounds more like a funhouse than somewhere for a Maverick to hole up.

[Someplace Axl should have enjoyed~]

Mission success isn't really what I'd call a waste of time, Axl.

[Folding his hands in his lap, Lumine tips his head towards a shoulder.]

Though don't imagine it was a particularly enviable experience.

[sclasscopycat]

It definitely wasn't a funhouse! It was more like an 'annoyinghouse' than anything else!

[There's a level of seriousness Axl expects from Mavericks and missions. Maybe if he'd been visiting off duty he would have enjoyed it, but...]

They totally could have sent someone else for this job! Why did it have to be me??

[Probably because he was the prankster. Which just makes it sting all the more to have fallen for so many of the tricks. Ugh. He's really glad his Navigator didn't have access to visuals during that mission, or she probably would have laughed at his state right after finishing off the Maverick. Covered from head to toe in all sorts of imaginable and questionable substances.

Thankfully, there had been a pool of water in one of the rooms of the maze and he had cleaned off there before reporting back to base.]

I'm saying no the next time a mission like this comes up.

[Grump grump grump.]

Now we're thinking with portals--

[copychip]

[...okay. Axl wasn't exactly sure what was going on, because one moment, he'd been fighting Mavericks, traversing through some ruins to complete his mission. The next? He was in... a city. A not ruined city, and in fact it looked to be in much better state than most of the civilian inhabited cities he'd visited before. There were humans everywhere, and not a single Reploid to be seen. Was this a human only settlement? Except that didn't quite make sense, because even the most hateful human cities had a few mechaniloids here and there and he didn't see those around either.

The most puzzling evidence was the way they all stared at him like he was some sort of alien.

So he'd ducked into a nearby alley to get away from the attention and sort out his location. Pinging HQ got nothing. Well, that wasn't exactly true. He would've expected nothing, but he was getting a sense that the whole city was covered by a network, and he was getting ping backs from... something, and a whole bunch of data he couldn't interpret very well. It was a confusing mess, to be honest, and just left him feeling a little more than frustrated.

With a bit of a huff, he sent out one last query -- general location and information on the area -- and settled against the wall in preparation for the mass of confusing data he would inevitably receive in return.]

[megabytes]

[Megaman would like to say that his first reaction to getting random mystery pings from nowhere had not been to shriek so loudly he'd gotten damage inquiries from concerned passers-by. He would be lying. It was hardly his fault; anybody would be startled by a disembodied voice suddenly talking to them, verbally or otherwise!

He'd calmed down eventually, at least, and tried to communicate with....whatever it was...but it really wasn't going all that well. A few other navis had "heard" it too, and had tried to talk with it, but they'd all pretty much given up after a while. Nobody could really understand what was being "said," after all, and whatever it was either couldn't "hear" or didn't understand them either. At least, he didn't think it could. Nothing had really felt like an attempt at a coherent reply.

...was this something like Zero? Had he tripped over some newly-sapient digital life's first "words"?

Megaman was almost ready to give up himself when another ping came in. This one he could understand, even if it. Still didn't quite make sense. A request for network location data and system info, he could understand, but the real world? Why would it want that? ...well, no time to think. He scoured as many network connections in the area as he could to "map" out the geolocations of their IP addresses, pulled up as much general info as he could find using them, and bundled it all up to ping back.

He kept a copy of it all for himself, too. Just in case.




"Lan, you need to call dad. I think I just found something weird."]

[copychip]

[As he expected, the returning data made little to no sense. First of all, he'd never heard of this DenTech City that whoever it was that sent him the data was telling him this city was named. On top of that, DenTech City contained so many locations that were... to put bluntly, frivolous and wastes of space, resources and electricity. It wasn't that they had any sort of energy shortage (that probably wouldn't happen for another century or so), but Earth was already doing poorly thanks to the Earth Crisis and the surface only recently became habitable for humans again. Maybe one entertainment space could be expected but there were so many others, and... there were also a ton more humans in the city than what would've made sense.

Frowning, he sent out a query to his aide -- a question about DenTech's prosperity, and the location of the Maverick Headquarters. He paused, and then added on a third query -- the identity of his helper.

Hopefully they'd understand it-- about thirty percent of the data sent back had been some sort of junk data, or something he couldn't understand, to be more accurate. He couldn't help but shake the feeling that he wasn't supposed to be here, wherever here was.]

[megabytes]

[This is so weird. And a little nerve-wracking, to be completely honest. Sorting out this ping isn't as easy as the last one, but still much better than most of what he was getting earlier; he can at least sort out that it's asking something about the city, even if the exact request doesn't line up to anything he can understand. The other is just another jumble of meaningless data, but at least it seems to be getting closer to coherent communication--

--oh. Is that...it wants him to introduce himself? Is that it? That's...unexpected, but. It makes sense. He doesn't even have to think about it - he pops off his ID string immediately, and after a couple of seconds (and a check to make sure nobody's watching):]

I, uh...I'm Megaman.

[Talking verbally to nothing feels even weirder than talking via data pings to nothing, but it's worth a shot. Maybe doing that will convince it to show itself.

After a bit, he tries pinging with just a bare query context data. Maybe he can get it to introduce itself back...]

[copychip]

[He almost starts when a voice comes through his headset-- young, and entirely unfamiliar. A bit of data follows, but like the string of data before the voice, it's incomprehensible, so he ignores it. He presses his hand to the side of his helmet -- reflex -- and after a moment's of hesitation, he decides it can't hurt to try to communicate by voice.]

Uh, hey there Megaman. Thanks for answering my pings.

[There's a brief, awkward pause as the Reploid tries to figure out what to say next.]

So, uh, you said this place is called DenTech City? What are its coordinates? [He'll figure out how to phrase the rest of his questions after.]

It's like a high school reunion except with 200% more formerly dead people

[missedtheflag]

[He wasn't expecting to ever wake again after the Palace crumbled around his damaged, dying body. That had been the end of the line for him, and he'd accepted that. It wouldn't make up for what he did, but at least it would give the Hunters some peace of mind.

And maybe, it would urge Axl to move on. There was no future for a band of infected Reploids.

Coming online after accepting your death was an odd sensation. He had let the start up run for about a minute before coming to the sudden realization that this shouldn't be happening, and opened his good eye to find himself staring through a capsule at an unfamiliar ceiling. Once his systems had confirmed that his frame, joints and pistons were functional he'd got up from the capsule in search for answers.

And that led him to surprise number two of the day. There had been a capsule like his sitting a few feet to the left. It held, to his immense surprise, someone he thought he'd never see again, not after the Repliforce incident decades ago.

Iris.

She was every bit as beautiful as he remembered, her expression serene as she lay slumbering in the capsule, unaware of her new lease on life. A glance to the monitor next to the capsule told him she was about to wake at any moment.

So he settled against the wall next to the pod, waiting for his former comrade to rise from her sleep.]

[surestcompassion]

[It wasn't much longer before long, dark lashes fluttered as she opened her eyes, code running across green eyes as programs booted up for the first time in years. The condition she'd been left in had required a physical update, though they kept to her original build in terms of aesthetic; armour had required a redesign to account for advances, and had as a result changed in style though the palette remained.

It was strange. Dissonant. Hadn't she just been with Zero? It seemed like she'd only just closed her eyes... but her mind was so much clearer than it'd been. Running a scan as she sat up, the report was baffling. The year was all wrong--decades later, and her core programming read... independent?]

What's going on?

[Her voice was small, confused, and as she looked down at herself, she thought that perhaps she understood: she'd been salvaged, but left as herself. Someone must have patched her programming to allow her to exist in a stable state without her brother, but... Oh, no. Colonel. What about Colonel? Had he been salvaged, too?

Looking around didn't bring to her attention her brother's presence, but that of another. He was familiar, and yet she couldn't immediately place him. Fortunately her logs were left in tact, so she started running through all the profiles she'd collected in an effort to identify him.]

[missedtheflag]

[He stayed silent, watching her run through her boot process, realize what had happened, that she shouldn't be here, that things were a little different. It had to be jarring, especially given the circumstances of her deactivation. He didn't know what happened exactly, but he knew a Hunter took her down. The Hunters she once worked with, years before the Repliforce incident.

He inclined his head when her attention turned to him and saw the frown on her face but the faint recognition in her eyes. He had expected as much, and his lips drew into a faint grin.]

Good morning, sleeping beauty. Didn't expect to wake again, did you?

[surestcompassion]

[She ran farther through and--his name was "Red", and more information about him fell into place. And oh! Oh, she knew him, if just in passing, and she smiled faintly, a little bemused.]

I can't say I ever did, no.

[Not with the circumstances of her death. But with delicate movement, she lifted herself out of the capsule. And as she moved, she noticed the differences, how much lighter she felt, how different her balance was--and she hadn't managed the time to account for it, so her first step was unsteady, unprepared.

Might wanna catch her.]

[missedtheflag]

[He wasn't expecting her to stumble, but his reflexes are still lightning quick and he moves to catch her by the shoulders.]

You okay there?

[At a closer inspection, there were differences between the design he remembered and her current appearance. Given that her original body was likely destroyed beyond repair, whoever rebuilt her must have seen it fit to change things a little, and likely upgrade her parts.

He gently sets her back upright and takes a step back to give her room.]

TIME 2 SUFFER each other's company you two

[earthbreaking]

[ in hindsight? chasing a lone challenger (who'd had the gall to lose his nerve halfway into a battle in which Forte had been taken an bit of damage while trouncing him, and ran away before Forte could finish off matters by deleting the coward) this deep into a no jack-out zone had... not been one of the greatest decisions he'd ever made. he'd caught up to the other Netnavi and deleted him yes, that had held some degree of satisfaction.

but that had only lasted as it took him to realize the scum had managed to run straight into a maze of auto-jump traps, links that threw Netnavis to a different location every time they were used and none of the places they'd flung him to were outside of the no jack-out area. meaning it was 1.) try a endless combo of links until one randomly dropped him where he wanted to go 2.) walk on foot all the way back to the server entrance.

it was entirely likely this had been a last-ditch attempt on the Netnavi's part to escape Forte and he was in part to blame for his current predicament.

now, this all would have been deeply annoying yet managable. save for the fact that one particular Netnavi (whom Forte had renewed his vow he would one day see dead in the most painful fashion he could) had also chosen today of all days to enter the same area and accordingly, get stuck in it as well. hence: ]

Exactly what part of 'go away,' don't you understand.

[ Serenade was not taking any strong hint to leave Forte alone. the server entrance to this area of the Undernet suddenly seemed an extremely long way off. ]

R I P THIS AREA

[undernetking]

[This wasn't usually an area Serenade would bother venturing into. He would have perhaps sent Darkman or Yamatoman and listened to their frustration later. However, both were currently busy with duties they'd assigned, which left the King no choice but to handle the situation.

And it was a situation serious enough to warrant an immediate response. A labyrinth, recently discovered by one of his underlings. Hard to access, glitchy and full of junk data obscuring almost any type of sensor or scanner available to Navis, but there were traces of something stored within. And Forte was seen making a beeline for the area.

Really, not the most pleasant of situations.

So there they were, trailing Forte as the destructive Navi attempted to navigate through the rage-inducing maze.]

Ah, but when one is lost it is better to stay with a group. Two heads are better than one~

[Says the one who has so far done absolutely nothing to help progress through the maze.]

REST IN A MILLION SMOKING PIECES

[earthbreaking]

[ Forte turned his attention from said unpleasant situation (namely: trying to figure out whether or not he had seen this specific four-way intersection before or was it a different four-way intersection? because everything was annoyingly lacking in terms of digital landmarks, and why was it that this area had to be so ill-maintained that the trash data cluttering it up ruined any attempts to run a scan and map the area as he went to avoid doubling back on himself) to look sideways over his shoulder at Serenade, behind him.

he knew pointless teasing from the other Navi when he saw it, especially when the only contribution they've made since they've showed up is being no use towards the goal of getting out. ]

Oh, really. [ he scoffs as he floats along, hopping over a loose chunk of solid, discarded data lying in the path, and curtly slashes a hand through the air. ]

I don't need or want your help.

[ PLUS IT'S NOT LIKE THEY'RE ANY LESS LOST HERE THAN HE IS.

he faces forward again and stalks off into one of the passages of the labyrinth. the uhm, left one. ]

LMAO THREE MONTHS LATER

[undernetking]

[Regardless of Forte's displeasure, Serenade follows along serenely, still smiling, almost as if to mock Forte's fruitless attempts to get them to leave.

Except, knowing the Navi, they probably were mocking Forte.]

That's a shame. You won't progress very far on your own, as you may already notice. Sometimes one must swallow their pride and reach out if they ever hope to reach their goal.

[Of course, Serenade's going to use this as an opportunity to lecture Forte about teamwork even though they both know Forte's not going to listen at all.]

Look X you're just denying an adorable puppy you need to stop

[sclasscopycat]

[It couldn't have taken more than an hour before the Maverick that the Hunters were chasing after went down in a beautiful explosion of bolts and wires. Plus, that was probably the best performance he had to date. No scratches, minimal collateral damage (since the Hunters seemed to care about that kinda thing), and to top it off, the Maverick had been ranked B-Class.

Surely X would let him join the Hunters now.

Ignoring the Hunters that trickled in to perform the clean up and report the mission successful, Axl looked around for the blue armoured Hunter. He'd heard that X would be on this mission today, which is why he'd tried so hard to go for a perfect performance today. When he spotted that signature armor, he dashed straight up to the Hunter, beaming.]

Well? I did awesome, didn't I?

[dadreaper]

"Let's just say I'm a sympathiser to your cause. But if you don't want such power...well. I believe you'll come around."

Red had given his mysterious contact as much respect and thought as they had given him, which was to say - not much. Coming to him with a promise of mysterious power, saying Axl's talents were wasted and promising that only they could make it happen? It was almost insulting, thinking he was that stupid. Did they think people had never tried to bargain with him before?

And even if it was true - it didn't sit right with him, giving Axl that burden to shoulder. Axl, in these dark times, was still a rookie, no matter how much of a prodigy he was. (A child, if Red had really thought of it that way. Maybe he did still think of it that way, deep down inside.) Protecting him, raising him right - that was a priority.

But still, he had a feeling of foreboding. Things were a little off, and he wasn't sure what was wrong - if he was human, he'd say it might be something in the air. As a reploid...he had deeper suspicions, but they weren't exactly things he could find out easily.

Things were changing. The comrades he'd known so well and worked with for so many years were changing, too, and not in a good way. They'd been evasive, dismissive, even aggressive by turns - and Axl was changing, too. He seemed distracted and unfocused, no longer his friendly and cheerful self, and that bothered Red more than he cared to admit to anyone.

(It was nice to have Axl around. The others liked it, too, having someone who wasn't so jaded. To lose that felt like something vital was missing.)

It feels more and more like he has to hunt Axl down, these days. Once, he might have enjoyed the exercise, and treated it like a game - they'd done it before. Now, though, he's worried and on edge; still keeping the Professor's ominous words in the back of his processor as he patrols here and there throughout the palace, looking for his protege.

"Hey, kid. Is now the time to play hide and seek?" He tries to keep his voice light, in his own way, but there's still an undercurrent of tension. "Making it pretty hard for me to find you right now."

[copychip]

This -- this wasn't right. He wasn't trying to hide anything from Red, he was just... busy. Yeah, that's right. He had got stuff to do, so he couldn't see Red all the time. ...yeah, right. If that was the case, then what was this he was doing right now? Avoiding his mentor by ducking into a little alcove out of sight, yet close enough to hear the elder calling for him.

He didn't like the heavy feeling in his gut. The guilt ate at him... and yet he couldn't fess up. Not when it meant that Red Alert could lose everything. He could see it too -- the way Red Alert was changing, and he just- just couldn't sit there and do nothing. And he'd been promised. Promised, by the Professor, that doing this, using the DNA cores-- that would help Red Alert return to normal. And that Red couldn't find out, because he would stop Axl, and that just couldn't happen.

So he hid in the alcove, hoping, willing for Red to pass him by without discovery. Please, Red, he thought, I have to do this.

[dadreaper]

The absence of Axl worries him the most. If he's hiding from him as a game, then it's fine - but if he's doing it on purpose...

If the Professor could have contacted him, then maybe he contacted Axl, too. Took advantage of the kid. Coerced him into doing something he didn't want to do. And that burns him up inside, makes him furious. Red Alert wasn't to be toyed with - Axl wasn't something to be toyed with. Full potential or not, better to have him happy and safe than to leave him in the hands of others.

He wanders down another corridor, recalling memory data of the hiding places Axl liked to use. Small, narrow places Red couldn't get in but could only check (he'd found him anyway, squashed into some small alcove, laughing or pouting when he was caught. The memories are bright).

"If I were you, where would I go..." he hums, kneeling to check a crawlspace briefly.

To Axl, his footsteps sound closer, now. His voice, too. But if there's anything Red has taught Axl, it's to hold his nerve, right?

[copychip]

Axl holds still -- stiller than he's ever been before -- as Red approaches. Hoping, willing Red not to find him. He'd picked a new alcove to hide in, one he'd never used before, and he hoped that would be enough to throw the elder Reploid off.

But still, the guilt roiled in his core, strong and overbearing. This just wasn't right. Why was he cowering like this? Like Red was going to punish him if he got caught?

...No, it wasn't Red he was scared of. It was the Professor. Something about that man seemed... off. And if Axl had to be honest, he was unsettled by the man's mere presence. And yet, he cared so much for Red Alert he'd pushed it aside for the promise of saving the syndicate.

But was it really worth breaking his bond with Red?

Too bad the choice wasn't his to make anymore, as his swirling thoughts cause him to drag one of the retracted stabilizers across the wall behind him, making a short but audible scratching noise. He winced, cursing himself inwardly.

Lumine no stop shush u goddamn child

[copychip]

[Finally! He was finally cleared to join missions again. Damn, was he ever sick of sitting around doing nothing!

It'd been about a month since the incident with Lumine, and since then, as the prototype of new gens, he had to deal with more than a simple repair and scan of his systems, though it wasn't to say that kind of routine stuff wasn't more thorough than usual. They'd gone the whole nine yards, even performing a virus scan on him, just to make sure whatever Lumine had done to him hadn't introduced a vulnerability to his system.

It was an all-clear, thankfully, but what he'd implanted into Axl's helmet was stuck and could not come out without causing some major damage to his systems, so he was stuck with it now. And that something was.... a copy chip. His copy chip.

Yeah, that. Sucked.

Lumine's whole spiel about New Gens "being able to go Maverick at will" now applied to him, and that... put him at odds with the top brass of the Hunters, unfortunately. And so he had to spend the month appealing to them, attending all sorts of diagnostics and meetings and...

Ugh. That damn bastard just had to curse him with all this tiresome, annoying crap even after his death. At least he now had a fully working copy chip! Which meant he'd be much better at taking Mavericks down now. And he was cleared for missions again, so now he had a chance to test it out!

As he teleported into the area -- an old, ruined naval base -- he grinned, paying only half his attention to his Navigator as he scanned the area and then proceeded forward. In his energy, any Mechaniloid or Maverick that crossed his path was taken down instantly. Perhaps he was being a bit more ruthless than usual, but who could blame him, after he was stuck in HQ for a long time?]