Gate rushed around his lab not unlike a headless chicken, his mind going frantic. Alia had contacted him that morning, informing him that she'd managed to swing an official Maverick Hunter Review for his work, and X, Zero, and Octavia would be giving his achievements the once over before penning their opinions. He knew he'd never be able to thank Alia enough for that, since a positive review - which he was certain he could get - would guarantee him the funding he needed to complete all pending projects, and enable him to work on the final project he was working towards.
Then Alia had told him they were coming that day, and the panic had set in.
"Sir," a massive turtle shaped Reploid cautioned him gently, "don't you think you're stressing out a bit too much over this?"
"Don't you understand, Rainy Turtloid?" Gate shouted out. "I've got hours, maybe minutes, to be fully prepared to show off all of my greatest works to two of the greatest creations of the 21st century! The works of Dr. Light were my inspiration, and now his most vaunted son is coming to give me a review! Everything has to be perfect!" He raced to his prep chamber. "Is my lab armor enough? Or should I wear my battle armor, so I can show I'm prepared for anything that might go wrong in the lab?"
"Your battle armor might imply that you expect something to go wrong, sir," Rainy Turtloid cautioned, his voice soft as always. "Beyond that, you can summon it to you at need, remember?"
"Right, right," Gate agreed as he donned his lab armor. The purple armor plates with silver and gold trim were built more for handling errors in construction than any software errors resulting in rampages, and could only take one or two heavy hits before structural integrity was compromised. That's why the blue crystals at chest and forehead were designed to summon his battle armor, the golden set, either at sign of great danger or mental command. "But which creations should I present first? The earlier ones? The more advanced? The incomplete ones?"
"Perhaps you should show them the lab at work?" Turtloid offered. "And let them explore and see what they feel they need to see?"
Gate started to calm down as he threw his lab coat on over his armor. "Maybe that would be best," he decided. "I'm more in my element when at work than when trying to show off."
Rainy Turtloid sighed as he sat back. He had been designed to explore areas of high toxic contamination to help clean up the environment and acquire new resources, but until such time as an area actually required his high defensive parameters - heaven forbid - it seemed his primary task was to keep his maker from flying off the handle. Part of him wondered if exploring heavily toxic areas that taxed even his defensive parameters might be less of a headache.
At that moment, the front door of the lab irised open, and the Maverick Hunters they'd been expecting entered. X and Zero walked in calmly, glancing around and taking in the state of the lab...only for their eyes to lock on Rainy Turtloid's knees before trailing up to his face. Turtloid sighed, being used to this reaction from human sized Reploids.
Octavia, however, smiled up at him. "I didn't know Gate had built a Reploid Gamera," she joked.
Turtloid chuckled indulgently. "Oddly accurate," he murmured, kneeling down and lowering his hand so Octavia could climb up and get a closer look at him.
Gate managed to get control of himself and move to greet his guests. "X, Zero," he greeted warmly. "Thank you for coming. I hope you'll be pleased with my work. I admit, I wasn't expecting you today, so I haven't cleared my schedule-"
"Quite alright," X interrupted calmly. "I'd actually rather see you at work."
Noticing Turtloid's smirk, Octavia shot him a wink.
"While X looks over your current works," Zero spoke up, "I'm going to be looking over the data recorded regarding your active creations' capabilities."
As Gate glanced over in confusion, X smiled reassuringly. "It's how we've decided to divide the workload of the review, letting each of us focus where we're most perceptive."
"And what is your job, my little pony?" Rainy Turtloid asked softly.
"Social interaction," Octavia replied. "I will be investigating current interactive functionality of all active Reploids Gate's completed."
Turtloid let out a soft chuckle. "Right to work, aren't you?" he teased.
After about an hour, X, Zero, and Octavia met back up at the front of the lab. "So what's the report?" Zero asked.
"He certainly knows what he's doing," X replied. "His technique is nothing to be sneezed at, but at the current time the very idea of actively causing a Maverick incident is anathema to him. What about you?"
"The data's all sound," Zero confirmed. "And from our own experience, I'm able to get an idea of what the real capabilities are of those that can't be analyzed as data. While certainly not weaklings, nothing we couldn't handle if they became a problem." He turned to the last member. "So will they become a problem?"
Octavia chuckled. "Not in the slightest. Short of an overwhelming viral infection - and I do mean overwhelming, their viral safeguards are top of the line, even if they encounter an unknown viral type - they aren't about to go Maverick. To varying degrees, each and every one of them was putty in my hooves after I'd talked with them for a while. The only ones who might be a concern are Blaze Heatnix and Infinity Mijinion. Both of them have a bit of a problem with limits. However, I don't think either issue should be considered a serious problem. I've already suggested Heatnix challenge Colonel some time to prove his strength, which should keep his obsession with his own power in check. Mijinion is a bit more of a concern, as he doesn't quite understand the concept of teamwork. It's my recommendation he be commissioned to create his own teammates to test with, which should help him recognize his issue."
"But other than that, no problems?" Zero clarified.
"Other than X leaving Alia hanging, no," Octavia teased, making X facepalm and Zero burst into laughter.
"I'll talk to her about that as soon as we've penned our official reviews, alright?" X groaned. Seeing Gate's worried look, he smirked. "Don't worry, Doc. With all we've seen, that paranoid committee will have to eat crow over our review."
Gate let out a sigh of relief. "My thanks," he replied gratefully. "Good luck balancing parenthood, romance, and saving the world."
"I'll manage," X replied jokingly, walking out with the others.
Slumping against the wall, Gate let out a sigh of relief. "That went better than I could have hoped," he groaned. "I was worried Blaze and Infinity would make a bad impression...and Yammark's paranoia might have been a problem-"
"Not even an issue," Turtloid reassured him. "It's going to be just fine now, sir."
My knowledge of the Megaman X timeline is somewhat askew since I played X6 before X4, but did you skip over X5, or did this happen in between games?
6888490
This happened in between games, and in the process neutralized Gate's motivation to become a villain, since his research won't be stopped or sabotaged.
X5 is up next.
Oh no... You just HAD to trigger the What Could Possibly Go Wrong trope! Yep. Incoming X5 problems...
Another enjoyable chapter. Good job.
6888491
6888505
I was pretty certain we would need to worry about Gate.
Then this quote happened.
Now politics are going to do stupid things...because that what politics is, doing stupid crap to gain control of an office so the person who is most qualified is kept from doing it.
The world would be much simpler if we killed all the Politicians.
Virus safeguards? Ha, Sigma is like no virus they've ever seen.
6888545 If I remember correctly politics did ruin Gate and had his subordinates killed, save for Isoc (Wily?) and High Max (who hasn't been built yet). I could actually see this happening during the events of X5 where his detractors would take advantage of the ensuing chaos and throw him under the bus.
wow dodging both 4X and 5X.
6888646 Could I get a picture of that? I searched it, but I couldn't find that.
6888663
I don't know if such a picture actually exists.
6888669 Oh. So a concept of the thing rather than the physical being of the thing.
Will this continue past X6? because I think that everything after either X5 or X6 was declared non-canon
6888688
Precisely. For most of my original characters, I don't have images to work with. I just draw from my imagination.
6888545
no politics would be simpler if we stopped letting people rise to their level of Incompetence.
6888614
No X4 was not dodged, it was defanged, as for X5, X5 is the Colony drop event. X6 is the Gate *maverick* event.
6888696
It will.
Will you write X8?
6888505
Actually, I'm not TOO worried about that. Considering how Tatsurou's been writing this story so far, I can foresee things ending better here for Gate and his creations than they did in canon...
6888726
Yes, I will be covering X8.
6888697 Damn, thats impressive. How long did it take you to make her up?
6888751
About five minutes, and she was developed as I wrote for her.
6888736
Okay, thanks for the answer.
6888779
...
I'm impressed.
... Nope, nope, I'm out of here.
Well, since there's nothing more to talk about, let's get to the "issues" of this story. No, not the ones that actually matter, but the ones that sort of matter, but not really... at all.
So yeah, there's Wire Sponge. In the wiki, it said he was suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder (Or Dissociative Identity Disorder for those of us who've read the utter MASTERPIECE that is Change 123). But instead, we got a Wire Sponge that seemed to have only ONE troubled personality! ONE!!!... So yeah, that's all for now. I mean, there's another thing to get to, but I won't get to it until this story en- no, this has to be addressed NOW!!!
You haven't mentioned the Green Biker Dude once. Why is that? He was such an essential part to X2's overall narrative; what's deal?!
{Tatsurou: Uh... maybe that, instead of focusing on some arbitrary meme that gets a lot of hype, I decided to focus my efforts on making a good story with lots of meaningful interactions between characters and overarching developments?}
Hmm, that's a good point, figment of my imagination. What do YOU think, actual Tatsurou?
6888491
There might still be attempts from the more seedier and stubborn officials who have pockets deep enough to bring third parties who they can claim on technicality they have no affiliations with. After all when corporate sabotage happens, it's never the CEO that gets put in jail but the hitman. You might want to address those corrupt leaders since the reasons behind quite a few of Gate's works involved trickery, deceit, and circumnavigating the legal system.
I thought that fucking said, 'Yamask' at first.
While X looks over you current works
1. Your.
6888831 Huh, wonder what I could've gotten wrong here?
6888831
Regarding Wire Sponge, we must have read different Wikis.
Either that, or we can say that it was creative interpretation based on available data to write a story segment that was more enjoyable.
6889013 Huh, most likely.
Rainy Turtloid reminds me of Spike.
I like how you're introducing X6 now while X5 is coming up next. This will make it so that X6 doesn't come out of nowhere and ruin the canon.
I am REALLY curious to see how you handle X7, which I like to jokingly call X's midlife crisis.
6889520 Oh? Never played the series that far out, I think I stopped after 5. Sounds funny though.
Classic and Piano should have had some play time with Blizzard Wolffang. I can see Octavia tossing a metal ball for all three to fetch and feeding them dog biscuits. I can also see Rainy Turtloid playing up the Gamera nickname Octavia gave him to prove how peaceful he is and if he does ever get infected I can see him fighting against the virus and finally breaking free with a declaration he is "Gamera, friend to all children!"
6888669 Will the original Megaman come bbck?
6891045
No. It was established that he was gone when I covered Rush refusing to reactivate to become X's Support Unit, resulting in the creation of Piano.
6891097 WHY!?
WHY MUST HE DIE!?
6891164
That will be explored in WWW.
6891274 Ar you sure he can't come back? And what's WWW? World War Wubs?
6891319
Wily's Wittle Wub. The sister story to this one.
6891374 Oh cool. But why must Megaman die?
6891511
That is a Spoiler.
6891523 Why can't it be happy?
6891579
Who says it isn't?
6891584 But an essential character dies!
6891963
That isn't necessarily sad. You have no context.
6891999 Eh. It's just me, but I hate it when a favorite character dies.
Even the bad guys.
6892011
Depending on how it's used, I either agree with you...or find it a rather triumphant moment.
6892020 I hate those kinds of moments. They should fight to live with their loved ones!
And I don't get why Wily and Light can live, but Mega Man can't. He could just disappear for a while you know!
6892215
By the time of Mega Man X, Wily and Light aren't alive. All that's left is the Light hologram and whatever else Wily left behind. Keep in mind the X timeline takes place 100 years after the end of the Mega Man games.
6892240 Oh. Good point. How about a Megaman hologram? And what about Vinyl?