The MBoard

[Here it is, feel free to tear it apart. For more details before reading, skip to the bottom of the post.]

June 4th has been known as the Day of Sigma since 2115. Every year, for many to come, hateful followers of Sigma would gather and rally in support of their hero, demanding that he rise again to the world's big stage and fight for the cause of the Maverick Rebellion, inciting rage and bitterness amongst all who sided with the “MegaMan” named X in the struggle for justice, tolerance and peace. Their presence would be endured for many of those years, until peaceful protest turned to violent destruction in fear and displeasure that Sigma had not returned.
Operation Annihilate the Lingering SIGMA Company (A.L.Σ.C.) was formed in 2129, four years after the (then unrealized) end of a 10 year ongoing conflict with the forces of Sigma. With Zero's tragic and untimely passing, and X's well-earned retirement from the Maverick Hunters, new tactics were employed in order to combat the likely threat that Sigma would yet return. All of X's friends and allies were paranoid despite that, in truth, it was taking longer for the ArchMaverick to return than it ever had.
Replacing X and Zero was a full military operations team of handpicked, unsung elite Maverick Hunters, all veterans of the Reploid Wars. They all fought and fought well, and together they might have matched X for talent. The title chosen for them was once again to be the namesake of a legendary hero bygone...
As X stepped down and relinquished his title, they quickly became known as the MegaMen.

---

“HERE HE COMES!”
A blue-coloured jet streaked below the clouds and above the crowds. Before reaching the announcer, four flared wings protruded from seams in its flanks, unleashing guns inside the joints, allowing the plane to both break its speed and unleash a barrage of its arsenal into the sky. Instead of bullets or missiles, the guns were preloaded for the show with dazzling white fireworks that boomed and crackled loudly and lit like miniature suns across the bright blue morning sky. Flashing its white-spotted pattern decal, the jet went vertical above the stage, and somehow seemed to suspend itself right there in mid-flight. Eyes went wide at the spectacle of aerodynamics that both technology and piloting skill could achieve. A sonic boom of air collapsing into place followed the jet to its position, and seemed to gently shove the jet against its wings, as if that very act reminded the pilot that gravity still existed. The jet fell, but did not fall hard as it morphed—wheels became legs, wings became arms, and the cockpit opened wide as a curious mesh of silver robotic infrastructure could be seen moving rapidly through the gaps. Before the object even landed, it fully became a ride armour, and rockets shot flames downward from its feet, elbows, and shoulder-blades for a safe landing.
The ride armour seemed ambitiously made even for the typical superfluousness of ride armour designs; it was bigger in size, and firepower, and there were no levers or switches to command its movement in sight. Resting inside the cockpit instead was a very uncommon neural interface, attached directly to a floating head, appearing oddly like an anthropomorphic mushroom... if mushrooms were ever blue, that is.
“PLEASE WELCOOOOME JAKE THE MUSHROOOOOM!”
“Big Guns” Jake was well known, plainly and apparently, for his show-offy stunts. And big guns. There were two huge cannons attached to the forearm of the ride armour’s equally gargantuan hands, each powered by a thick cord protruding from the back of the cannon looping to the inside of each arm. It couldn't be said that Jake was the greatest engineer—he loved to tinker and build shockingly amazing contraptions, yet he tended to patch mechanical flaws, programming redundancies and general weaknesses with only more raw power. It could be said, however, that he was the greatest pilot you'd ever meet. He really treated his own equipment like an extension of himself, and one could easily imagine why.
The robot body leaned forward on one knee over its left arm in an awkward but as deep a bow as it could manage without falling over.
There was applause as Jake joined the completed lineup. Next to him stood, right to left, the order in which the team of Operation ALΣC had been introduced: [I don't know the rest of them yet, and it was really difficult to try and insert other players before Jake without editing his intro, so I figured I'd wait for ideas]. The others among the team cast a sideways glance in his direction at the ridiculously over-the-top theatrical display in which he presented himself.

(Meanwhile, the announcer was really loving his job. He felt that he could have walked off the stage right then and this new “MegaMen” circus act would carry the rest of the entire show all by themselves. He could wave his hand at one of them and make screams of applause practically erupt from his fingertips. It was the easiest, most overpaid gig he'd gotten in a long time.
(Now for some more clichéd dialogue to finish my part of the show, he thought.)

“AND LAST, BUT NOT LEAST, THE ONE, THE ONLYYY—“
Mikero stepped through the curtain and walked purposely up to the stage, accompanied by silence. His face was left for the moment without its mask, which could only have been an aesthetic design in retrospect; mask or no mask, one mere look would instantly betray his identity. His armour was uniquely coloured of whites, greys, and blue designs. A glowing blue scarf that blew slightly to his right was a testament to his mastery of stealth—if he couldn't catch your eye wearing that, you surely would not have seen him at all when it was turned off. His helmet had blunt, protruding stripes of white against its dark grey surface, and the forehead gem itself glowed white. His orange eyes stood out most of all. On his face was an expression that could easily be read: Bull#####'s over. He nodded to Jake.

(The announcer was caught off guard momentarily but was ready to speak again... but soon noticed he couldn't hear his voice from the speakers over and around the stage. Only silence greeted him. He was struck dumb before he realized: The microphone hub had just been hacked. He saw Jake smiling.)

Mikero looked the announcer straight in the eye. “Thanks for the intro,” he said without blinking or smiling. His voice boomed out from the amplifiers as if they had always belonged to him. The announcer could only hold his gaze for a moment before stepping off the stage and disappearing. Mikero turned to the crowd then, solemn-faced.
“I want to clear the air right now,” he said, softly at first. His voice slowly grew in volume. “I'm not going to have people start calling me 'MegaMan' and pretend I don't know what that means, and I'll tell you that it doesn't refer to corporate ownership. I'm not going to have it played out this way, either. We are not the replacement of our old friend X, we're a military operations team. We are, as directed by the leader of the Maverick Hunters, going to find Sigma wherever he is trying to rebuild himself and we are going to destroy him, because we are just as tired of this war...”

---

Alia sat down next to X on the edge of a rooftop surveying the scene over the Central Square of Pike City and they watched the whole show unfold. They were both tuned in to the broadcast, so they could hear the action and the following speech as well as they could hear each other. Other robots on other rooftops with binocular enhancement devices were following X's lead. This area of the city had been designed for the purpose of public relations, and this fact was most obvious from the perspective of the rooftops—the tallest buildings in the front were emptied out and mechanically compartmentalized, shrinking in proportion to their closeness to the stage, allowing those on the rooftops behind them to get a clear view. Only the privileged few were granted access to these platforms, and the rest crowded in the streets in front.

X could sense Alia looking at him before hearing her speak. “If they're really going to do this, it looks like their budget is going to go through the roof,” she pointed out, and then looked down at her hands.
X didn't take his eyes off the scene. “I think that Signas believes they will scare away potential casualties and erase the budget entirely,” said X. He made no attempt to hide the callousness in his voice. “It won't work.”
“Do you think that Sigma is really dead?”
“Of course not. He just hasn't come back yet.” It had been the longest absence yet since Sigma's last return, but X had no reason to believe that it was over. He just wasn't in the mood for it anymore. He would let them spend all they wanted.
Still, it was good to know that he trusted his old comrades. They had never seen any spotlight before, and he could already tell that some of them liked it, and some did not. With them at the vanguard of any direct threat to the order of peace, X welcomed himself to relax.
If only he could.
X recalled the first message that he ever received from Dr. Light's hologram.  “Believe me,” he said after a moment of silence, “I will step forward and fight again if I must. For all I know, my 'retirement' might only be one very short vacation.”

"Strong is my steel, dark is my mind, carmine the ground that I tread.
Faith in my god keeps me alive, but when does my faith turn to doubt?"
—Kamelot: Glory


Welcome to my story project. This isn't an ongoing fan-fiction so much as it is a series of disconnected stories all based on one setting made in an attempt to:
1. Develop my writing abilities
2. Get feedback
3. Create a potential historical/character-oriented backbone for my much more ambitiously long ACTUAL fan-fiction that I've never even drafted after so many years of having it brew around in my head
4. Hopefully this will be for your enjoyment too.

I currently have my own thoughts about the writing above, I'm wondering if you guys will point out the same things or other issues I haven't seen. It's roughly edited; I've gone over it a few times already. Until now, nobody's looked at it but me.

That being said, I've gone ahead and used likenesses for this story. I will withdraw any that are asked to be withdrawn, and change any that are asked to be changed, but this is really all I have so far—I figured Alec would prefer a passive, subtle reference. I figured Mike would want me to use his old Reploid drawing and for me to try my best to get his character right (which I know I will probably have difficulty with for every character once they edge themselves into the plot (right now there IS no plot)). Considering a lot of this is based on something a LOT older that I posted about, I think, before the forums even changed in late 2007, I did have some requests to add characters into this but I don't remember most of them. All I really remember is that it did happen but I was too intimidated to continue.

Most of the stuff I post here probably won't make it into the final product that I mentioned in point 3 above.

This will probably have nothing to do with anything that ever happened in the MegaMan series, and a lot of random exposition, if any (I'll try to avoid it), will be part of my attempt to reimagine the world of MMX.

And really, don't ask me why I'm choosing to spend my time writing fanfiction. I don't really have an answer. It's just something I want to do. It's cool that I'm able to rationalize it, seeing it as "practice" and "forward momentum", but I think that a part of me just really wants to tell that story before I move on and take the potentiality of writing fiction seriously. Imean, Cherry's work has been published. She told me a while back. She didn't achieve that by sitting there doing what I'VE been doing, and I've been keeping all my ideas in my head because they're "weird" or "different".

First impression:

I like it, for the most part.

Some weird stuff, though, like referring to the generic reader as 'you' and 'one' interchangeably (since it's not formal prose I would just go with 'you' and do away with the awkward 'one' nonsense).

And this sentence:

The robot body leaned forward on one knee over its left arm in an awkward but as deep a bow as it could manage without falling over.

is almost as awkward as the bow you describe.

I'll read it again and try to do a more thoughtful edit tomorrow.

Well, darn.

That sentence you quoted was one I rearranged a couple of times. D'you think I should just cut the sentence down completely? It probably doesn't need as much detail as I've given it.
Actually yeah I'll just do that.

"Jake's robot body bowed deeply, and almost fell over."

And I freely admit that I gave literally no thought to tone when I wrote this.

Before I continue, is anyone even interested? Or should I go elsewhere?

I'm interested. I like the premise and the style.

I respect you a ton so I've got absolutely no problem with you trying out any of my characters. I don't know about using old sucky-ass drawings though...

Anyway, the edits I would make to it were pretty circumstantial without knowing more of the story. Basically they were little word changes and such and I don't think it really helps to take your work and just do it in my style.

On this sentence however;

The robot body leaned forward on one knee over its left arm in an awkward but as deep a bow as it could manage without falling over.

The fatman is right, it's equally as awkward as the action it attempts to describe.

I think the biggest problem here is that it's just more complicated than it needs to be. This is a common problem in any kind of writing that could potentially persist throughout the whole project. Also a carefully place comma would have helped a great deal;

"The robot body leaned forward on one knee, over its left arm in an awkward but as deep a bow as it could manage without falling over."

When I added that comma mentally, it really helped me figure out what you were saying. But I think we could still refine the sentence a bit;

"His robotic body knelt awkwardly on one knee in a cordial bow, attempting not to fall over."


It's hard for me to describe both the action and point out the division between Jake and his Ride Armour at the same time, so I also might have just left that distinction out;

"Jake knelt awkwardly on one knee, bowing as best he could, attempting not to completely fall over."

"Jake bent in the deepest bow as he could manage without toppling over."



These aren't really great or better solutions and I do like that the distinction is in there, even though it complicates things. I basically just tried to describe the action without reading your sentence too often, so it still needs editing.

I'm interested. I like the premise and the style.

I respect you a ton so I've got absolutely no problem with you trying out any of my characters.

Wow, that completely caught me by surprise. That means a lot, thanks.

I don't know about using old sucky-ass drawings though...

I used it for lack of a better one, and because it's what you told me to use even though that was many years ago and the image itself was at least 2 years old even when I first saw it. I can easily go for something else. It's not at all a static thing, and I decided that you'd oblige to give a more fitting basic design if you wanted.

When it comes to the awkward sentence: I think I could easily fix it by not describing the bow itself in as much detail as I did. People have a general idea of what bowing looks like anyway, I guess.



Before I rewrite, I'm also thinking about adding more characters before going on with any kind of plot.
I have other ideas for:
Snare (Gimmicky, unsure. The idea for him fits better as a recurring villain much later in the follow-up fanfiction, because of the nature of his abilities.)
John (I've got a solid, workable idea.)
TheRedPriest (I might have cool role for him.)