Level design in the X series is kinder than in Classic series, which is odd if you think about it, and not odd if you think about it a bit longer.

I like my gameplay-story integration. One explanation for why the player gets blown up all those times while presumably Rock survives all those wars is that Rock is a robot, true.

Final chapter! For now? Regardless, I'm going to post rather than let it be any later.

All that work, and the interview was preempted. By, "A… transhumanist group…?" Trying to take over the world to turn all humans into 'immortal' robots? That was a strange concept to X, when robot masters were destroyed well before his oldest (known) brother turned twenty and the average human was older than the average reploid in 21XX.

"Dr. Wily," Roll corrected X.

Rock nodded. "Don't worry, X, I'll take care of it."

"I should go with you," X said. "Now that I'm officially involved in robot master relations."

"And I thought some of Sigma's bases were ridiculous," Zero said, looking at the pit of spikes and the moving platforms with hinges that swung the platform down in an automated pattern to dump anyone standing on them into the spikes. "Shade Man's castle wasn't that bad."

X looked mystified. "How is the robot master supposed to move around the base to repair… Ah yes, they're the one managing the teleport shield."

"It's really not that bad," Rock said.

Both of them stared at him, and yeah, he did have to admit it was ridiculous. "It's dangerous for a newbuilt who hasn't mastered how their body moves yet, or if I'm injured and my assessment of how it affects me is off, but the patterns don't vary. It looks scary, but it's really just math. The castle was probably simpler since Dr. Wily built it during the first war. He knew the capabilities Dr. Light gave me, but I'm a lot more experienced now."

"Gratuitous mathematics?" Zero glared down at the spikes.

"It looks as though you might get hurt, but you're not in a significant amount of real danger," X said thoughtfully, then finally smiled. "A world where people put such… elaborate effort into not hurting people. Into making things appear more dangerous than they are, so 'the enemy' is careful, instead of trying to make deadly things appear harmless until they strike and kill."

Zero just shook his head in disapproval, still staring at the arrangement instead of looking at X.

"Zero, you're analyzing this as though it's a weapon."

"This is a ridiculous excuse for a…" Zero paused. "This is a 'deathtrap' not a death trap. Like those movies, where the things are designed so the hero can escape and the story doesn't end with the world getting blown up."

X nodded.

"This is a movie set."

"The spikes are real," Rock warned him. "Rush's jet mode and Beat have had to help make sure I land feet-first a couple of times. I destroyed the robots on the way in even though I don't like doing that because if I do land on the spikes, Roll or someone will have to come in and retrieve my head." So it could be installed onto one of the prebuilt backup bodies.

"So someone who takes elaborate precautions and is careful can survive, but someone who thought this place was safe, who didn't take Dr. Wily seriously, would have died by now… In other words, someone can survive this if they're the kind of person Dr. Wily wants to live." X clearly found it interesting, as someone who cared about people and wanted to understand them, but there was more than a little distaste on his face. As though he found it disgusting that someone would put tests before people to determine whether they lived or died. Thought they had the right to decide what made someone worthy or unworthy, and force them to jump through hoops to prove they were worthy.

Oh.

That was probably exactly it, Rock realized, and winced. "Should I go first?" he asked, to move things along and hopefully break his little brother out of those thoughts.

"That I'd like to see," Zero said, turning towards him. He acted as though he hadn't noticed that X was thinking about things, too focused on the mission, but Rock was absolutely certain that wasn't the case. Zero might not be a robot master, but he'd decided to protect X, so there was no way he would miss that X was distracted in a dangerous place. "I reviewed the records you sent, but your height and weight aren't exactly ideal for this kind of maneuvering."

"I'm really not built for this," Rock agreed. "So this should be easy for you." It wasn't that X was built for combat, but he was still a lot more agile than Rock, and had even more practice. "Here goes…" he said, trailing off, although he had to wait a half-second for everything to be positioned correctly.

These parts were actually kind of nice. Much better than having to shoot at poor robots, and needing to concentrate on the math in order to not die? Math was what computers were first invented to do. Completing an obstacle course was downright centering compared to actually having to fight.

It was strange that this was the part X and Zero stopped at, the part they had a problem with, after they had to go through several rooms of robots. That should have been the part that made someone go 'this is just wrong,' not what amounted to a movement system test.

"They all held," X said, letting out a breath when Rock got to the other side and waved back at them.

Zero straightened up: had he been in a ready position about to dash forward the entire time? "That should have been suicide."

"Forget traps and sabotage, forget snipers: poor maintenance here would be deadly."

"Robot masters," Zero reminded him.

"Yes," X acknowledged, "but still, Zero!"

"I'm fine," Rock said.

"That should have killed you." X's voice was flat. "That should have killed you a dozen times over."

Why was it this that made his little brother worried about him instead of the mettools that were shooting at them?

"The amount of effort the designer must have put in to make sure that it was possible for someone to cross that and live if they did the math on their timing correctly…" X just shook his head. "Those hinges have to be very robust to survive the force of your landing on the platform, and repeated impacts like that? 20XX materials science was different from ours," better materials were cheaper, but necessity was the mother of invention and Rock was aware of how the need to keep people alive drove technological development.

"It's a robot master in charge of this place," Zero said, absolutely certain. "Not a human turned into a robot master."

"Oh, of course," Rock agreed. "Dr. Wily does make robot masters fight for him, but he hasn't let other humans fight since Dr. Cossack almost…" Blew himself up, thinking that only if he succeeded in killing Rock would Kalinka be spared. "If I was really fighting transhumanists, it would set off a First Law debate."

"And fighting Dr. Wily doesn't because it's Dr. Wily."

Rock nodded. "Aren't you guys coming?"

X hesitated. "I don't want to tire out Rush." But…

Zero gave his partner a look. "Rock has done this before, it doesn't matter if I fall, you play it safe."

"I'm just as immortal as you are, Zero," X said, but Zero was unmoved.

"You can borrow my dog if you want, both of you," Rock said. "Just… ask first." Not that this little brother would turn Rush into a car without permission the way Auto did.

X gave up, shaking his head. "Thank you."

"I know you could do it if you tried, though."

"Yes," X admitted, "but while I don't have preprogrammed survival instincts, I do have experience based ones, and… I'd really rather not. That is an eccentric kill zone, but it's still a potentially very effective one."

"What would you have done if you found something like this in 21XX?" Rock wondered. He knew that X couldn't have a Rush to help him, not with the virus. The poor robot – or mechaniloid – would have been infected, going to such dangerous places.

"Used a flying armor or stopped caring about potentially load-bearing walls," X said, and Zero nodded firmly.

"In our times, something like this would be set up to kill whoever tried to get across it. There would be surprises. Say there was only a one percent chance of that surprise being a fatal surprise. There are what, ten of these per war?"

Usually more than that, but Rock just nodded for Zero to go on.

"After the Doppler Incident – the Third War – we started only numbering the big ones, but it took Sigma six months to settle into a new body… in most cases. Let's continue to be conservative and say there would have been 1200 traps like this."

A ninety-nine percent chance of survival. Each crossing would be an independent event. .99 to the power of 1200 put X's chances of surviving all of them at .00058 percent.

When there were people counting on X. Except for the Second War, when Dr. Wily was angry over the First Numbers nearly being executed, if Rock took enough damage to need a few hours of repair time he could have repair time and no one would die because of it. If X took chances and got injured somewhere, the only person who might be able to go in after him without possibly getting infected and finishing him off was Zero.

No wonder X was wincing at the thought of taking a chance like this, even if he might be immortal now. When there were people counting on you, then it wasn't just dangerous to take a risk, it was irresponsible.

The second most terrible thing about fighting to protect people – other than having to fight at all – was the knowledge that if you failed? The consequence of not fighting had to be pretty bad, otherwise people wouldn't fight. Not… seriously.

Still, though, it was a good sign that X was trying to stay safe again, Rock thought, after calling Rush for them. Trying to stay alive, after wanting to be put into permanent sleep mode.

"You found that fun," X said, smiling after both he and Zero were across. Rock had already gone into the next hall and started taking out robots: he knew that X and Zero had lowered their buster settings and were trying to be careful, but they weren't used to robots. Also he'd really rather not have anything shooting at his younger siblings if he could avoid it.

If Zero had, it was clearly against his will. "I don't know what to think of this. I can't think of this as a training exercise, I'm not going to train anyone to do things that will get them killed."

"A test?" X wondered.

Catching up with Rock, Zero said, "Systems test or rank test? Anything would be less irritating than the shoot/don't shoot sections…"

Proximity sensors automatically raised the blast door in front of them.

X and Zero stared.

"Um." Rock said, seeing their reaction to the next... well, yes, it was an obstacle course. "You might not want to come with me to Wily Island."

When Snake Man finally teleported in, he arrived facing the wall Quick Man's dragon had burst through. For the sake of getting it replaced quickly to keep the wind and (ugh) the sand from blowing in, they'd let Crystal Man produce translucent panels that tinted the light coming into the great hanger through them various colors.

So, under the circumstances, "You decided to redecorate?" was a natural thing to ask. There was just something about the casual way he said it, and the fact that between the two bags on each of his arms and the ones hanging from his tail, he was carrying seven bags of bottles that were undoubtedly souvenirs that were supposed to make them grateful for his return instead of demanding why he'd stayed away all this time when they could have used him…

Why? Why was Toad Man, obviously. A Cossackbot who would have gotten that virus warning, courtesy of X and Roll. So he'd kept Snake Man busy to keep him from heading home where he could help his family. Or possibly get killed by a Lightbot and a Stardroid from the future.

He wasn't even going to get scolded for being so oblivious. Especially if enough of those bottles contained that really good oil Toad Man made from organic stuff in those wetlands he was restoring. Dr. Wily hadn't made his Master Weapon acid rain just to comment on human idiocy and why those wetlands needed restoring: Toad Man was a pretty good practical chemist.

Wouldn't you know it: there Top Man was, and instead of asking 'where were you?' he wanted to know "What did you bring me?" Top Man needed that oil the most out of all of them, but…

In every numbered series, it seemed as though there was a member who went "Someone has to look after these idiots." Sometimes their siblings weren't interested, the way the Cossacks didn't really bother to humor Ring Man. Sometimes they made managing a number of strong personalities look easy enough they almost faded into the background, like Metal Man.

Sometimes they were Roll or Shade Man.

Magnet didn't sigh, because that resulted in people comparing you to Shadow Man. He really should have known better than to decide to be the responsible one.

He heard megabuster shots in the distance. That cheered him up a little. At least things were finally settling down and getting back to normal.