The carish thing is from the OVA, but you can imagine a Delorian if you like.

So, I had four chapters of this written years ago, but then I went to other projects but kept tinkering with it every once in awhile, and then I realized that I should really use Shade Man for a certain scene (the Mega Man Gigamix version of him is great) and I generally had to rip out a lot of what I'd written.

Since I need practice revising, this is another of those fics that I decided to clean up, finish and post. I hope you find it at least somewhat amusing.

Takes place in a mix of Mega Man Megamix/Gigamix and the take I had on the 'verse before they came out. Spoilers for the entire Hitoshi Ariga manga.

Although one would never have known it, looking at the military parts of the installation and the pods people used while on call, Maverick Hunter HQ's personnel housing, with its landscaped gardens and large amount of space per hunter, was quite luxurious by modern standards.

Barracks were obviously impractical: separate quarters for all hunters were a must. If people had been jammed together the virus would have spread like wildfire, with mavericks infecting roommates in their sleep.

No: having a secure, homelike refuge with plenty of privacy and personal space to go to was essential, not just a morale boost. And they needed morale boosts, in the face of the average hunters' life expectancy. The world owed a certain amount of luxury to those about to die, and it would have been the height of folly to mistreat those who fought mavericks. That would have been begging for defections.

Also, hunters living like humans encouraged them to understand humans, learn what they were fighting for.

Thus it was that on a summer afternoon (pleasant, thanks to the weather control system), a few off-duty hunters were having a picnic on a grassy knoll when something vaguely resembling an antique automobile appeared out of thin air, interrupting Signas telling Axl stories about the couple years he'd spent as a private investigator before replacing his father, X starting to clean up a bit and Zero doing kata while he listened with half an ear.

Since obviously anything that would appear in the middle of their base without warning (and next to all three immune hunters and the commander!) had to be hostile, Signas ducked behind Axl, who drew his guns and prepared to cover him, X dropped the plates as he whirled and started to charge a shot, and Zero…

When Zero got a look at the man behind the wheel, his jaw dropped. "You!"

X's own eyes widened: he'd learned all he could about his family, so that face was instantly recognizable. That, and the iconic hairstyle. Axl was the only one who didn't have a clue who this guy was.

"At least you recognize me this time," Wily muttered. "But what is this, X is still alive? Another failure." He started to push buttons on the dashboard.

Zero was already diving for the vehicle, and seeing that red blur X used his own dash boots to catch up. Axl hesitated: on the one hand, if Zero and X were attacking whoever this guy was he should too, but on the other he did kind of have to cover Signas or Zero would kill him. Being a trainee sucked like that.

Signas was observing every detail he could for later analysis, since he'd also recognized that infamous hairstyle, so he was the one who noticed the black reploid (or was it?) in the backseat, who had seemed almost bored when the vehicle appeared. Unlike the driver, he had noticed Zero and X's approach, but didn't bother to alert him as Zero pounced on the hood, X joined him… and the vehicle disappeared. The vehicle piloted by Dr. Wily disappeared.

With two of the three living immune hunters, and Axl was young, untested, and might break down at any moment for all they knew.

There was really only one response to something like that. Unfortunately, it consisted of words that couldn't be printed in official reports.

The value of the observational data aside, the passenger sitting in the backseat thought, if the android master unit did anything more than it already had (which was pick Wily up, shake him and curse him, almost snarling in fury), he would have to blow it up, and that would be a tragic waste of life. He still hadn't forgotten watching Copy-Rock die.

"Zero, stop!" X grabbed Zero's arm.

Zero turned to glare at him, not putting Wily down.

Since X knew that under the circumstances Zero would ignore any argument based on 'hurting people is wrong,' he pointed in front of them. "Look at where we are!"

Even in the grip of rage, Zero was too intelligent a fighter to kill Wily when they were in the middle of some kind of warping void and he was probably the only one who could put them back, so he made an irritated noise under his breath and dropped Wily back into his seat.

The observer raised an eyebrow, systems registering that the improved facial articulation was still worth the investment. Apparently Dr. Wily's killer android cursed like a Lightbot.

That was when X got a chance to notice him, other than as 'potential threat #2.' He seemed puzzled. "You are?"

Zero interrupted him. "Where are we?"

"The void between times, obviously. Why put my ultimate creation in a capsule running boring tests of your systems for decades when I can simply travel through time to see how you turn out and make the necessary adjustments?" While proper beta testing was useful, Dr. Light's method was for sissies. Waiting until the world was ready? Dr. Wily's creation would have no need to fear the world.

"You… all of this is your fault!" And now he was going to call a do-over? Make it so that all of Zero's battles on behalf of the Hunters had never happened? Try to ensure that this time Zero really would kill them all, kill X?

The world needed X back, they had to get back to their own time, but X could probably figure out how the thing worked, there were all sorts of dials and displays.

Before X could stop him, Zero's saber flashed, decapitating Dr. Wily.

He'd expected a spray of blood, but instead there was, "A spring?" His head was on a spring?

X's eyes widened. "A robot double?" He'd read about those in the legends. He could yell at Zero later.

"Of course," the observer said, leaning back in his seat. He would not have allowed Dr. Wily to come along on a mission this hazardous in the flesh. Not that Dr. Wily had ever planned on doing so, since he'd expected to arrive in a world covered in virus. That was why he had been sent: even Dr. Wily wouldn't have been able to remote-control the body from an entirely different era without the help of a robot master refining the signals.

"This is a time machine, isn't it?" X asked, after seeing the display. "How do we get home?"

They weren't going home, Zero decided. Not yet.

The other passenger just watched, both eyes open.

"Answer the question, please." Normally, X would have wanted to try negotiation, but Zero decapitating the robot's master had ruined any chance of that (although good cop bad cop was still an option).

He wasn't impressed when X pointed his buster at him, fully charged or not. "Please be careful not to damage the time machine."

"How much longer is this going to take?" Zero asked.

"Not much longer." With a time machine, the thing to say would normally be 'we've got all the time in the world' especially since none of them had aging to worry about. He wondered if androids were capable of boredom. Normally only young, confined robot masters were, since they lacked mental stimulation and data to contemplate, but both of these two should have had plenty of life experience to meditate on.

"Who are you?" X wondered. "You're not human, but you're not a robot master." Another android?

What? "Incorrect," he told the android, closing the eye that transmitted the video it took to Dr. Wily. "Whatever gave you that idea? I am a robot master. My name is Shadow Man."

"I'm sorry, it's just that I've never heard of a robot master that looked so realistic." Well, not counting Rock and Roll, but he'd thought even they would be, well, several design generations behind him. "You are a Wilybot, aren't you? But you're more accurate than I am." Little movements, all sorts of things that were very hard to copy. Most reploids weren't even as close to human as X, and a robot master surpassed him?

"Yes, I am a Wilybot. One designed for infiltration." Mining facilities on other planets, the Pentagon, blackmail material acquisition… " It looked like X's face was designed for emotional display instead of hyperrealism: while he certainly didn't fall in the uncanny valley, he was clearly intended to look cute instead of unmemorable.

While Dr. Wily crowed that Omega would be his greatest creation, his facial structure was less accurate than X's: that might have given the android the idea that Wily wasn't as good at it as Dr. Light? Frankly,in Omega's case Dr. Wily hadn't cared about realism, given the purpose of the project. "Dr. Wily's work has always been superior to Dr. Light's," Shadow Man informed him, because it would be a bad idea for the android to imply that Wilybot meant inferior work in front of a camera that wasn't shut off, and if he said something like that in front of Forte!

Zero opened his mouth to object, but then they arrived.

"Skull Fortress," X breathed, looking around with no small amount of trepidation. He'd faced mavericks many times, but this was walking into a legend.

"Yes." The old Skull Fortress, not Wily City, but he had no reason to give the android information. Getting out of the car, he called, "Jiraiya!" A small orange frog-bot hopped up from the foot of the passenger's seat, where it had been keeping a weapon trained on Zero.

Shadow Man appreciated the thought, really, but why had Dr. Wily originally constructed his support unit as a giant orange mech when he was designed as an infiltration unit? It had been anything but inconspicuous. He had needed to leave Jiraya behind all of the time until it had occurred to him that he was a robot master, and should do his duty to his support unit as well as his creator. Upgraded with cloaking capability, it didn't matter what color Jiraiya was, and a smaller body, a teleportation unit, weapon upgrades and storage space for weapon energy transportation (or other things…) had made him a valuable asset, like Megaman's Eddie.

They both teleported out.

X looked around the room, a strange, uncomprehending hope filling him. It couldn't be, time travel was the stuff of fantasy, and yet he wanted it to be real. "We should get back, Zero… Zero?" but Zero was gone as well. "Zero?"

He was alone in the middle of Dr. Wily's base? Why would Zero leave him behind.

He'd gone to kill his father and his past self, hadn't he. Zero would know that X would have to stop him. The person who created the virus was one thing: even if he hadn't unleashed the Maverick Virus yet, Dr. Wily was still responsible for the deaths of a great many others, but X wouldn't let his partner kill himself.

When he was a rookie, X would have pursued Zero, but for all he knew, he might arrive too late.

He'd been left alone in Skull Fortress. With a time machine. He wasn't going to fool around with that function if he didn't need to, but leaving a resource as valuable as this behind, in enemy hands? X slung himself back into the car. If he was lucky, it would have teleport capability separate from the time travel function, and X had a set of coordinates that would work in this era and the codes to get through the shield.

Edit: Since the fic was originally going to have a certain plot, and then my idea of how I was going to handle a few different things kept changing, I saved different versions of this chapter. After uploading, I went back to check something and found I'd uploaded the wrong draft. Fixed.