Author's Note: This will serve as another lesson to never trust anything I say about when I will update. To be fair, about half of this chapter was written a very long time ago, and then I just got busy, and I ended up writing about a million other stories and assorted things for school but this was so specific to the fandom I couldn't use it for schoolwork when I had to turn stories in. Of course, me just not working on it is the main reason nothing happened…

Anyway, on that note, thank God for vacation. I will not even mention the possibility of me finishing another chapter by the end of this week (does that count as apophasis?), especially since I've been feeling more like writing something Fire Emblem-y lately, but I think I can say that it won't take me quite so many months to update this story again. Not that I haven't screwed up promises that were easier to keep than that but… um…Annnyway…

Once again, this is written with a good deal of help from my friend Kaya (Kaya Kyra here, I think), though I did the actual writing. And so… enjoy, and assume that my general warnings about getting offended too easily apply to this too. Oh, and Ph34r the power of the tangents. Ph34r.

Back to the Past of the Future

Chapter 2: Of Booblights and Lava Lamps

Sign D576 liked to think of itself as a rather stable sign. It had endured the driving winds of the city and the increasingly corrosive rain for some years, and in that time only the sections of it that lit up had ever needed to be replaced.

It had even survived the great sign civil disobedience of 21dateunspecific, when all signs had conspired to earn respect for their incredibly important jobs by rewriting themselves to read "Fart" in big, friendly letters. It should be noted by the interested reader that signs have a very odd sense of humor. This attempt failed when the painted signs complained that it was discrimination against them by the electronic display signs, who could simply alter their message again the next day, while the painted signs would need physical assistance. This schism in the sign's cause undermined their efforts, and as a result only half of the city's signs read "Fart," a devastating blow to their efforts. That they chose to carry out their attempted rebellion on April Fool's Day also detracted somewhat from their credibility. Following this many of the rebellious signs were discreetly recycled into beer cans, which were in turn recycled into the aluminum toilets that caught on for a year or so, then were dumped over a cliff for bending too easily without being recycled into anything, where they remain to this day. Far be it from me to try and pull a message from that, but it's there. It's there.

However, even the sanest of signs have their breaking points, and D576 was no exception. You see, being the unfortunate sign to bear the words "Welcome to Neo Kansas," it had had to bear quite a lot of jokes, varying from the terrible and contrived to the mediocre and… well, if there's one thing worse than being made fun of regularly, it's been made fun of regularly with bad jokes.

So, when Leviathan, battered and… well, whether bruised is technically an appropriate term to apply to synthetic skin will be left to be debated by the more rabid members of the fandom, made her way unsteadily to her feet and, gazing at the wondrous… wonders around her, said "I don't think we're in Neo Kansas anymore," it was simply the last straw. To be fair, both parties were merely victims of circumstance, Leviathan for being built in a society that enjoys running gags for no evident reason, and the sign, for being built by a society that was oblivious to said running gags. And for having been installed with completely superfluous artificial intelligence.

"I don't think we're in Neo Kansas anymore…" Leviathan, looking somewhat unsteady and battered, said staring out of the alley the group had fallen in to, over Zero's shoulder.

"Wait, Neo Arcadia is in KANSAS?" Zero exclaimed. "That explains so much about the past 2 years…"

And so, barely a second later, the sign, D576, snapped. Quite literally. Several seconds thereafter, our heroes were nearly crushed under its furiously flashing neon lights. Nearly crushed. I mean, they are reploids, after all, and it was a sign, not giant energy blast or anything. They might look like they're dressed only enough to be decent, but give them a little credit.

"You ever get the feeling you've just experienced an unnecessary and excessive amount of exposition?" Phantom asked as he brushed the still-disgruntled letters "a" and "s" off of his shoulder.

"All the time," Zero answered, likewise pulling himself free of what little rubble a thin sheet of metal can possibly create. The others nodded their agreement.

"So… we were killing each other, right?" Harpuia asked.

"Yeah, but for some reason pointless, gratuitous violence doesn't sound as appealing without a base full of whining reploids and an obsessive fangirl telling me how awesome I am…" Zero said.

"I know what you mean," the green and white machine answered. "It just wouldn't be satisfying to fight you without having first sent an army of debatably sentient machines to their deaths. I had to order some of them to commit suicide before I felt comfortable launching that surprise attack on your base."

"I still want to kick his ass!" Fefnir protested.

"Only because he owned you," Phantom interjected.

"Yeah, well, at least I haven't DIED!" he retorted. A moment of awkward silence passed as each member of the group locked eyes with one another, then Fefnir, then each other again.

"Riiiight, well…" Zero said to break the silence. "Let's um… figure out where the Hell we are."

Slowly, the group made their way out of the alley, and were instantly surrounded by a group of bulky reploids with handheld guns. "You're under arrest," the bulkiest of the machines said, a towering creation with a gaudy color scheme of yellow and red.

"What? We just suddenly arrived in the middle of your city without passing through any sort of customs and with no proper documentation, carrying a wide variety of potentially dangerous items! What do you want to arrest us for?" Fefnir demanded, emphasizing his point with sweeping motions of the giant guns that rarely left his grasp.

"You're in violation of amendment 279 of law 2,897, cosplaying without a permit," he replied in an official manner.

"Do you ever get the feeling that you're about to experience an unnecessary and excessive-,"

"Shut up, Phantom," the others interrupted the purple general.

"Yo momma's unnecessary and excessive!" Fefnir added enthusiastically, and was ignored by the others with equal enthusiasm.

Law 2,897, more commonly known as the "Cosplay Act," was one of the more controversial laws of the era. It would, in fact, go on to be amended a total of 665 times, and then be left alone for fear of what would happen if it were amended once again. Other than the inevitable and elaborate murders that would be committed by the authors of history books.

The origins of this law are much debated, not so much because what happened is unclear, but because what sparked it off, was, in fact, a rather unruly debate. It all happened at "Generic Space Con 20XX." Due to the inferior and often downright confusing calendar system in use at the time, there's about an 80-year span during which the convention in question could have taken place, leading many to wonder why they ever replaced the final two digits of the year date with variables. In any event, the two dominant fandoms, those of Star Wars and Star Trek, were present in large numbers and, having beaten up all 5 classic Gundam fans within the state, found themselves in a confrontation with one another for dominance.

After much stale and repetitive debate about the merits of each series, it is reported that a comment was made about Kermit the Frog making a cameo appearance in the latest Star Wars film, "The Revenging Return of Those Other Guys who use The Force." The following battle, wherein the battle cry "KHAAAAN!!!" was frequently used, was to spark off a much larger conflict commonly known as the Star Wars Wars. It was a brutal gang war that swept across the planet leaving many dead, many babbling incoherently, and many adopting "May the Force be with you," and "Live long and prosper," as standard forms of farewell. The incident would forever go down in history as "The Proton Torpedo Heard 'Round the World." Ever since, all cosplaying or large gatherings of fanboys required a permit from the government, blaming television, video games, and a society increasingly fascinated with the sound things make when they explode for any damage caused as a result. But I digress.

"So, um… where are we exactly?" Phantom inquired as the group made their way down the distinctly alley-filled street, the hulking police bots surrounding their prisoners, facing outwards. As this formation up the entire sidewalk, they forced nearby pedestrians into the road or the alleys as they walked by, where those unlucky souls were soon plowed over by oncoming traffic. The ones who got shoved into the road made it out okay, though, mostly. I think one might have tripped over a robocat.

"And while we're answering questions, why didn't we take these guys? They look like pushove-," the red reploid started.

"Shut up, Fefnir!" his siblings and arch nemesis interrupted.

"You're in the city of Palai Arcadia," the leader of the cops answered.

"Palai Arcadia!" the group, except for Zero and Fefnir shouted.

"Subtle, isn't it?" the lead officer asked ambiguously. This comment would later lead many to question who the Hell the guy was, and many more to decide that he was just a convenient plot device. And don't you dare question the logic of that statement, so help you.

"We must have traveled back in time!" Leviathan pointed out the obvious.

"Really?" asked Fefnir as he looked around at the various reploids with large, bulky armor on their arms, legs, and torsos, the people with their gold medallions, the lava lamps and disco balls that were on every store shelf, and the afros sported by almost all of the passersby.

"Hey, this is great!" Zero remarked as the ramifications of the statement dawned on him. All the things he could do now that he thought he'd never get the chance to raced through his mind. "My old Green Chest Orbs(tm) are in style in this era! Man, those were good times… good times."

And then, before further… speaking could occur, the group found that they had arrived at their destination. A large, stone building with a traditional set of columns framing its face stared down at them with its enormous camera/eyes. A reploid painted black and white, as if wearing a tuxedo, greeted them. "Welcome to the Court House. Cosplaying without a license for five?" the tuxedoed reploid enquired. At a nod from the captain of the guards he continued in a pleasant voice "We can try you immediately."

"At least they're polite," Zero remarked sarcastically. The people of future generations would build many of their theories about Dr. Wily's mental health around the fact that he programmed a robot with the ability to be sarcastic. Eventually there would be a great deal of controversy around this, and many debates over whether possession of a sense of humor was an indicator of true sentience. This led quite a lot of people to question the meaning of life and whatnot, but you don't care about all that.

The group entered through the main door and instantly found themselves in the classic courtroom setup, rows of chairs leading up to a heightened platform for the judge, with the bench for interrogating witnesses beside it and a platform for the jury off to the right. They began to walk up the aisle when suddenly…

"Objection!" a man in a blue suit with slicked back brown hair bellowed, jumping up from where he had hidden among the rows of seats. His arm flew up like a rocket to point accusingly at the police bots, and, making emphatic pointing gestures that required only minimal movement, he demanded, "Have those defendants been read their rights?"

The had police bot rolled his mono-eye and answered, "You know we don't read them their rights until after we reach the courthouse. But more to the point, YOU'RE NOT A LAWYER! Stop playing those damn video games!"

"Objection!" the man shouted again, only to be seized by two of the police bots and dragged out of the courtroom, objecting to every step of the way.

"Right, so here are your rights," the officer began, turning back to face the Shitennou and Zero. "You have the right to shut the Hell up. All the time, should you so choose. You have the right to tell others to shut the Hell up. Constantly. In fact, it is almost mandatory that you do so. You have the right to an attorney, if you cannot afford one, one will be thrown in your general direction by the bailiff-bots, and he will then defend you with his built-in laser shields. If at any point during the proceedings you feel that you are about to explode, we ask that you please do so quietly and without maiming anyone else in the courtroom. Do you understand and accept these rights?"

"Okay, that only happened ONE time!" Phantom shouted. Zero merely stared at his feet.

"Do you understand and accept these rights?" the police bot asked in a tone that all but added the word "punk."

One by one the captive reploids nodded, and the police bots left, only to be replaced by nearly identical bailiff bots, who guided them to the seat set aside for the defendants. As if on cue, a series of trap doors opened next to the rows of seats behind them, and out popped an entire audience, complete with all the staples of such crowds: ooohers, aaaahers, and even a couple of indignant snorters. A similar door opened in the ceiling over the jury stand, and a robotic jury dropped from the ceiling, crushing an unsuspecting janitor beneath them.

The largest of all the bailiff bots allowed the shielding covering his face to slide upwards to announce "Case #4422 State vs. Guys who we don't know the names of. Please rise for the honorable-," his droning voice was cut off by a sudden, blaring siren that seemed to emanate from everywhere in the courtroom. The door leading to the judge's chambers burst open, and a dark, looming silhouette stepped forth. As he made his way out into the light, the siren ceased to play, and was replaced by ominous synthesized music. The group could now see that he was by far the largest, bulkiest reploid they had yet encountered, which was saying a lot, although it was actually difficult to tell that he actually had stepped into the light, as his body was painted solid black, save for a white stripe down his midsection and the powdered wig adorning his hair. He slammed the giant gavel that was fused to his right arm into the ground several times, sending out shockwaves of energy, then fired off a volley of missiles from his wig, which passed harmlessly through a conveniently placed skylight. Striking a dynamic pose, a series of lights above his head suddenly came to life, prominently displaying his name: Legal Skunk.

"Please be seated," Judge Skunk instructed everyone but our heroes, who had been rather too paralyzed with a general lack of anything making any sort of sense to bother standing in the first place. "Do the defendants have an attorney?" he asked.

"Your honor, I'd like to defend myself and my compatriots," Fefnir spoke up, rising to his feet triumphantly. Taking the others' stunned silence for consent, the Judge deigned to allow this action. "Don't worry, I've done this before," Fefnir whispered to the others. "I proved that a random old man was responsible for that elaborate factory break-in Zero pulled off a few months back," he added proudly.

"You were his DEFENSE ATTORNEY!" Harpuia shouted at his sibling. Phantom, meanwhile, was pondering if he'd have time to perform seppuku with his concealed shuriken before it was taken from him, and Leviathan was busy pounding dents into the sadly not-very-hard table with her head.

The Judge cleared his throat, drawing the author's attention back to himself. "Very well, you are hereby charged with cosplaying without a license. How do you plead?"

"Not guilty, your honor," Fefnir answered.

"You're… still wearing the costumes," Judge Skunk observed.

"No, your honor, the truth is… we're reploids!" the fire general announced with great dignity and showmanship.

There was a moment of silence throughout the courtroom, during which, if somebody had fired a pin out of a bazooka into any one of our protagonists' heads, it would have been very much appreciated by them, but, more to the point, it would have been clearly audible. The silence quickly dissipated into bouts of hysterical synthesized laughter, which is actually something of an oxymoron, but that's not really important right now.

"But seriously," the Judge went on, wiping a synthesized tear from his snout, "do you have a case you want to make here?"

"I am being serious, your honor!" Fefnir protested. "Don't you know who this is? It's Zero!" he shouted, pointing at his archenemy.

"Is this true?" the honorable and venerated Skunk asked. Zero, having already come to the conclusion that there was still plenty of time to commit some form of suicide, merely nodded, and the courtroom exploded into synthesized laugher again.

As the laughter subsided, the Judge asked Zero, "Young man (at this Zero couldn't help but smile inwardly), do you have any idea how many people we see every day pretending to be Zero?"

"Um… three, maybe four?" Zero suggested hopefully.

"What? Good Lord, no!" he exclaimed. "Three people who are that stupid in one day?"

"Hey!" Zero shouted. "I fought and died multiple times to protect people and reploids like you! You could at least show me a little bit of respect while refusing to believe that I'm myself!"

"Alright, alright, I'll humor you, then. Call in the experts," Skunk ordered with a gesture towards the back of the courtroom.

A chorus of giggles and screams became audible from behind the door, steadily growing louder, until finally the door was thrust inwards, and in stepped, or rather, rushed, a screaming, giggling mass of teenage girls, all babbling something to the effect of "OMGZERO!!!OMGZEROOMGOMGOMGITMIGHTREALLYBEZERO!"

"Ah, fangirls," Zero thought to himself. "The one constant in this world. Even if they aren't convinced that I'm Zero, they'll let me off just because I'm so devilishly handsome."

"My good fangirls, please approach the defendant, and give us your opinion of whether he is, in fact, the legendary Zero, who he claims to be," Judge Skunk instructed.

Ceasing their chattering, the fangirls cautiously approached the defendant's stand. After a rather thorough examination, the details of which should not be recorded anywhere, which did nothing stop the various news crews in the room from broadcasting footage of it to most of the world (Switzerland was excluded to preserve its neutrality), the fangirls turned around and began speaking among themselves in lowered, yet still frenzied voices which lacked most forms of punctuation and any form of spacing.

Turning to face the judge, they delivered their report in a surprisingly dignified manor. "Your honor," one of the fangirls, the leader of them if one were to judge by the sheer number of copyrighted headbands, wristbands, and other varieties of bands (don't ask) which she wore all over her body, addressed him. "In our expert opinion, there is absolutely no way in which this man here could be Zero."

Zero gaped in amazement, as one of the other fangirls added "Zero's hair is spikier."

"And his armor is thicker and bulkier," another added.

"And," a fourth spoke up, her eyes gazing dreamily off into space, "he has those manly Green Chest Orbs(tm)." At this comment, the group dissolved back into indecipherable chatter, and they were promptly escorted from the courtroom, as much for the rest of the occupants' sanity as for anything else.

"There you have it," the Judge summarized. "You are officially not Zero. Does the defense have anything else to add in its… defense?"

Zero groaned, and clapped his hands to his head. "This isn't happening," he muttered. "Though I can't help but feel partly responsible for not realizing how completely screwed up the legal system of this era was the first time I lived through it…" he added under his breath.

Judge Skunk, who had picked up on the first of Zero's mutterings, said, "Your Zen Philosophy, while useful in general, is of no legal merit."

"That's not Zen-," Phantom began before realizing that nobody cared.

"Your mom is of no legal merit!" Fefnir added, for good measure.

"What did you say about my mother?" the Judge suddenly demanded, his left eye twitching as much as simulated robot eyes are able to do so, which, as it turns out, is quite a bit. "My mother was a saint! A saint! You got that punk?" he bellowed, glaring down at Fefnir with eyes that were now glowing bright red. "And you!" he gestured to the entire courtroom with his gavel-arm. "Why didn't any of you say anything to defend my mother? You agree with him, don't you!" The wigged reploid gave a deranged laugh, and suddenly began firing missiles at random into the crowd, sending showers of shrapnel flying everywhere.

"I somehow knew that this was going to happen…" Harpuia sighed.

"Really? You know, funny you should mention that…" Zero began, only to be interrupted as the Judge leapt from his stand and landed directly before them, slamming his gavel into the table in front of them and smashing it to bits. The five defendants threw themselves sideways out of the way before he could swing at them again.

Zero rolled into a crouching position, then hurled himself into the air to avoid a volley of missiles from the deranged Skunk's hairpiece. The deadly projectiles slammed into the jury stand and demolished it, along with several of the jurors, who happened to be reploids of the immobile variety (mankind, oddly enough, would never really come to question building stationary, sentient machines). Zero grabbed his Z-saber from its sheath, and, brandishing it at his foe, pressed the switch to activate the energy blade. The beam sprang to life, vivid and green, then made a sound rather like bacon frying on a hot skillet, then took on the appearance of static on a television screen, then exploded in a puff of black smoke.

"You know… you'd think I'd have remembered about that…" Zero said in amazement, trying to brush some of the soot off of his beloved red paintjob with minimal success. The next second he was sent flying courtesy the Judge's gavel, which, along with the rest of his body, had snuck close to Zero while he had busy destroying his main weapon due to technological error. Yes, even for intelligent robots in the distant future, nothing ever works.

Finding himself in a pile of rubble that used to be several of the benches that filled the courtroom, Zero recalled rather too late that reploids designed to be judges were always so ridiculously powerful that people had to rely on their integrity to keep them in check or few forces on earth would be able to oppose them. Yes, people in 21XX really were that stupid.

In a matter of moments, the Shitennou, too, were defeated and sent hurtling into various parts of the room, rather like a teacher rearranging the more talkative members of the class, but with more robots and explosions, if only by a slight margin. Yes, even at this point in the chapter, I'm not out of anal… ah, screw it.

Suddenly, a vaguely familiar musical sting could be heard, and a section of the wall exploded inwards. A red streak shot through the newly formed hole even as the smoke was clearing, clearly visible only for an instant as it landed on the floor before taking off again. It was a man, or rather, a male reploid, with long, spiky golden hair, a cocky grin, large, bulky armor, and a Green Chest Orb(tm) on either side of his chest plate. Then he was gone again in a blur of motion. Drawing a small device from his shoulder and holding it like the hilt of a sword, the red and white figure produced a blade of pure energy and charged the Judge, weapon raised high. Ducking the Judge's clumsy gavel swing, the red reploid brought his own blade up, slicing the Judge's arm off, then finishing the black and white reploid with a thrust to the chest. The entire process took merely seconds.

"Now I remember why I remember this!" Zero remarked to no one in particular. "But… did I actually look that stupid? Why didn't anyone tell me? Well… I guess they did, actually… Christ, all those remarks about booblights actually make sense now…" and with that, he promptly lost consciousness.

One scene change later, Zero awoke suddenly, and his first thought was, "Oh God! I've been sent to Hell and Hell looks like the inside of a slightly run-down apartment!" Of course, he couldn't help but shout this to the heavens, which drew the attention of the room's other occupants to him, namely Fefnir, Harpuia, Leviathan, and Phantom.

"We're not in Hell," Harpuia began to explain.

"Then why are we in an apartment?" Zero demanded.

"Because we've been sentenced to community service for cosplaying without a license and making a judge go maverick," he paused to shoot a glare at Fefnir, "and we didn't have a place to stay, so they set us up here."

"That was cruel. Saying we weren't in Hell and then smashing all my hopes to pieces like that…" Zero said sadly. "Wait, how did they sentence us while I was unconscious?"

"While they were hauling us away, they stopped by a drive-through courtroom," Phantom explained, glancing around the room as if he could spot the inevitable "just desserts," comments coming.

"Yeah, did you want your toy?" Leviathan asked, holding up a tiny plastic briefcase that was attached to a grease-stained court order.

"Isn't there some sort of law that prevents me from serving the community twice at the same time?" Zero asked.

"Other than the laws of science, no," Harpuia answered.

"Well, may as well see what they want me to- OH MY GOD!" And just like that, there was suspense.

What is the terrible secret that was concealed in Zero's court order? What terrible fate will be enforced upon our heroes and/or villains? Why is there an also terrible disco ball in the lavatory? Tune in next time, for all this and… probably some other stuff too!

Ending note: I'm going to continue my tradition of not taking up a HUGE amount of space with this thing and just cut straight to the bits you might need to know.

Legal Skunk: In keeping with the Japanese tradition of naming things as puns (although I'm not sure the Rockman series really follows that so much…), this is a pun, with "skunk" being one of the slightly lesser known terms for marijuana.

Thanks for reading everyone. You know, I always thought that, if I could make just one person laugh…I'm probably not doing a very good job of this. And with that…not only am I out of quotes from the Capitol Steps, but I also bid you adieu.