Rockman ???: Blue Moon - Pt. 3

Instinctively, X moved to cover his eyes as he woke up to see the sunlight shining down on him. What happened last night...? Oh yes, the Armors and I talked before they entered their sleep cycles, and Light and I had a chat... Well, I'd better get to Hunter HQ, now.

He would miss them all. Hopefully, they had arrived in Cyberspace in his era, and he would see them again, but he didn't count on it. X lifted himself off the roof and made his way over to Hunter HQ. He knew he had to be careful, not to let anybody see his body until he had left it.

Luckily, it was still quite early, and not many people were around. Hunter HQ was fairly quiet, so X was able to find a wall outside the building where he sat down, and, releasing the present-day X from the mental block he had put on him, quickly fled his past-self's body, transformed himself into a ball of light, and floated out of sight.

Not a moment too soon. For right when X found a hiding spot, the past X woke up. "Huh? Where am- Hunter HQ? How'd I get here? The last thing I remember is that blue light..."

Smiling, Cyber-Elf X flew away back to Dr. Light's laboratory, where the first thing he did was drink an E-Tank. "I had forgotten how delicious these tasted." He turned to Zero. "Time to get you repaired, Zero..."

***

X was glad that he'd found the E-Tanks. Keeping himself corporeal really drained him, but he was able to repair Zero in a good three weeks thanks to the constant energy supplied by the E-Tanks. He'd kept up with the local news in an old-style television that he'd hotwired in order to refresh his memory as to everything that was going on.

"Zero? Can you hear me?" X said. His friend should be awake...

"Ugh..." Zero groaned. He opened his eyes. "Where am..." His eyes landed on X. "X?! And in the poncho, too! Are we in Cyberspace?"

X twitched at 'poncho'. Some things never changed. "Hello, Zero. Nice to see you healthy again," he said a little shortly, annoyed. "And no. We are not in Cyberspace. We are in the real world. Long story short, I came from the future and saved your life after Sigma destroyed you. The X you know is at Hunter HQ, alive but worried about you."

"Oh, and take this." X tossed Zero the spare Z-Saber that he'd managed to fashion. "This era's X has yours."

"Wait, slow down," Zero stared, catching the Z-Saber. "You're from the future?!"

X sighed, closing his eyes. "Yes. I am from the future."

"Prove it."

"Alright..." X thought for a few seconds. "A few years ago, after the... incident with Repliforce, you privately asked me to help you find several versions of that old song from the 21st century, 'What Hurts the Most' by Jeffrey Steele and Steve Robson." X sighed. "I was seriously worried about your sanity then..."

Zero gaped at him. "I... You... There's no way you would've known that unless... it is you, X! So if you're from the future, do you know what's going to happen?" Zero asked him.

X raised an eyebrow. Zero was taking the news rather well. "Yes, but I'm not at liberty to tell you. Maybe I could, but... never mind. I won't. I'm sorry, Zero." X turned the news on, and scowled as Isoc's speech about the Nightmare Investigators came on the screen. He had not liked Isoc from the start, but it was only later that he had discovered exactly who the man was. However, something had already destroyed his soul before X had made his discovery. X was not normally one out for revenge, but he had been disappointed that he never got his chance after what that man did.

"Hey X?" Zero said, looking at the future version of his best friend. "Why are you wearing the pon- robes?" he hastily amended as X shot him a look. "I thought you only wore those in your Cyberspace form?"

"I can only exist in this form. Why, I will not tell you," the Cyber-Elf replied. He took a sip from the E-Tank that he was currently holding. "Do not worry about it."

"A... alright..."

"Perhaps you should meet up with your X? He should be at these coordinates," X said, handing him a slip of paper. Zero looked at the coordinates. "Just make sure not to mention me."

"Yeah, but what'll I tell him? I just came back from the dead -- you rebuilt me!"

X rolled his eyes. "Make up something, such as... I do not know... you hid yourself while you repaired yourself."

Zero raised an eyebrow and stared at X incredulously. "Will he seriously buy that?"

"Zero, I am quite naive and will be so happy to see you alive that it will not occur to me to question your miraculous and illogical return. Do not worry about a thing."

The red Hunter chuckled. "Who knows you better than yourself?" he grinned. "I'm off, X. And thanks."

"You are welcome, Zero," X said, smiling as the red Repliroid teleported. Once Zero was gone, X sighed and completely drained the E-Tank. "Two mysteries solved, and both times I had something to do with them. Now, the third mystery. Perhaps I need to pay Isoc a little visit..."

***

Isoc grumbled to himself. "I can't believe that X was able to defeat High Max... and that Zero is helping him." He scowled for a few minutes, and then chortled. "No matter. When they come, I'll trap them right here!" He fiddles with a machine. "They won't be able to stop it.  Zero, I will awaken your true self. And X, you will die, as a Lightbot truly deserves. No one can stop me!"

"I do not believe that."

Isoc whirled, staring at the hovering figure in the air. "What... X?! How did you get here! You're supposed to be fighting Gate!"

X smirked. "Actually, this era's X and Zero are fighting Gate at the moment. Amazing what a distortion in time can do."

"A distortion in time?" Isoc repeated, staring at X. "Are you from the future?!"

The Cyber-Elf said nothing.

"Y-You are!" Isoc's eyes, while shocked, also held a bit of curiosity. What scientist would not be curious when discovering that time travel from the future to the past was possible? But then he shook his head. "It doesn't matter. You may escape me in this era, but coming back in time was a terrible idea, X. You just gave me a another chance to succeed."

"I'm afraid I can't allow you to succeed, Isoc... or should I say, Dr. Wily," the Cyber-Elf said.

"H-how did...?! You... you die now!" Isoc grabbed a strange looking weapon and fired a bolt of energy at the Cyber-Elf. X merely stood still, and it went right through him. "Wh-what...?"

"No," X said softly. "You are the one that is going to die." Transforming himself into his ball of light form, X hurtled through the air right into Isoc's body before the man could stop him. Inside Cyberspace, X found and latched onto Isoc/Dr. Wily's program. "There you are."

"You..." Isoc growled, struggling to break free from X's grip. "How did you get in here?!"

"Just like you, I am a program. It was a simple matter for me to come inside," X said, voice cold. "No more. You will leave my family and friends alone now."

The person that was once known as Dr. Wily screamed as he felt his program torn apart. "Get out! I can't be destroyed by a Lightbot! Get out! Get..." Before Isoc could say anything else, X destroyed him completly, making sure to delete all trace of the programs inside the body so that it was no longer anything but an empty shell.

"Never again, Dr. Wily. You shall never threaten the world again."

Leaving the body, X shivered. There had been so much malice and evil inside the Cyberspace of Isoc's mind that it had unnerved him. Turning to the machine that Isoc had been fiddling with, X entered its inner workings and disabled it. "Now that the trap can't activate, Zero and my past self can fight Sigma unhindered."

The sound of a door opening caused X to stifle a curse and dash behind some rubble. He watched as both Zero and the present-day X walked in. They made cries of alarm at Isoc's body.

The other X was kneeling by Isoc's body. "What happened...? There's no reaction! What is this?!"

Zero, too, was shocked. Just as he was about to approach the body, the hidden Cyber-Elf took a deep breath. "G... go, Zero! X! You two... are the strongest robots..." Both Repliroids looked up and blinked, looking around. Zero's eyes rested on the rubble Cyber-Elf X was hiding behind for a moment longer than usual, before turning to the present-day X and shrugging.

"Well, the voice is right," said the past X. "We need to go get Sigma!"

Zero nodded, once again glancing at where the future X was hiding. "You're right. Let's go, X!"

"Weird that the voice sounded a bit like me, though..." mused X.

Zero ran a hand through his hair. "...You're imagining things, buddy."

"Yeah, I guess I am..."

The past X frowned a bit at Isoc's body, and both Repliroids dashed out of the room, and it wasn't until they were out of sight that the Cyber-Elf let out a sigh of relief. "The third mystery has been solved. Time to return." He shook his head, repeating what he had said to Zero and his past self in his mind. "I cannot believe I actually said that to them."

It didn't take long for the Cyber-Elf to find his way back to the Eurasia crash site (which no longer gave off viral readings). Searching around a bit, he managed to find a distortion in Cyberspace which would, according to his sensors, lead him back to his own time period.

Of course, I'll be trapped in Cyberspace once I go back, but... It's been a good life.

***

Alright, now where am I?

"Dad!" Before the Cyber-Elf could turn around, Light flew over to X and hugged him tightly.

"Light? You're in Cyberspace?"

"We are, Father," Giga said, flying across the vast green space towards them. "We all are."

"But how?"

"Since we are connected to you, and you aren't dead, neither are we," Gold said. "We're not quite sure when we ended up here, actually... Neither is everyone else."

"Everyone else?"

Giga and Gold gestured to the numerous Armor programs and other people that X had known in his life that were dead, including many of the Hunters, and...

"Zero? But... I thought..."

Zero nodded. "I died, X. For good this time. Weil launched Ragnarok to destroy the people, and the only way I could stop it was by sacrificing myself, and I had no way to come back this time. By the way... you weren't in Cyberspace when I arrived, and according to the Armors, some time last year you went on a little time traveling adventure," he said, sounding slightly amused (which X knew to mean that, in Zero's present mindset, he was laughing really hard inside).

"Y-yes..." X said, sounding a bit sheepish. "Wait, last year? It was only three weeks!"

"You stayed there for three weeks, but the distortion you fell through after the three weeks sent you back to about a year after you left," Giga explained.

"By the way, nice job, ensuring our existence," Zero grinned. "You completely bought that excuse."

X blushed a bit. "Well... Like I said, I was naive." Then he turned serious. "Zero, am I the only one that is confused by the time stream?"

"No, X," Zero said. "We all are. My advice? Just stop worrying about it and be glad that it worked out the way it did."

I believe... that's a good idea.