Disclaimer: I don't own Capcom. I own YOU! Just kidding. I do, however, own Aldar, Shadow, and all of his mulitple personalities. I think... I think I own MegaMan's and Zero's second personalities. And all of the little changes I made. I own the changes. I don't own the game. Be smart.

"..." is speech.

'...' is a quote, for example: "What do you mean 'speech'! You're completely unprepared!"

italics without quotes is sort of a conscience. For example: What should I do? Kill it!

Words without quotes are sometimes thoughts.

italic + bold is the conscience stressing words. For example:

"Get him!" Is like this:

Get him!

notes a change in perspective.

- notes the start or end of Author's Notes.

Darkness Within

Aldar's mother was standing over him, blurry as Aldar awoke. Aldar was thirteen now, and his untidy brown mass of hair flopped as he sat up.

"Good morning, Aldar! Quick, get on your armor." She began putting on her armor, which looked remarkably like MegaMan X's, but was differently colored and had a translucent blue face mask.

Aldar was still confused, and his voice was scratchy. " Huhhh...What? Why? Where's Dad?"

"At work, naturally. He'll be leaving for the shelter soon."

"What! Shelter? Why?"

"Well, the Mavericks are attacking the city. You didn't think this would happen, Aldar?"

In those days, everybody had armor, whether it had weapons or not.

"Fine, fine..." Aldar quickly donned his armor...which, unlike the present dark-as-night armor, was dark red and the face mask was black, like sunglasses.

They set out across the streets, Aldar's mother using her son for protection. Aldar was the only one who had a blaster, and other numerous weapons to "blow up Maverick scum" in his words.

A few hours later, Aldar and his mother had made it to the halfway point, a tunnel with a million and a half boxes inside.

Aldar was jumping onto a particularly large box when he stopped dead in midair. Or tried to. He windmilled his arms rapidly and crashed onto the edge of the box, right on the joint, which was the only place that it could have hurt him.

"Oooorgh...Mom..." He wheezed the words, gasping for air.

"Aldar! Are you okay!" She rushed back to help him.

"No...It's him..." Aldar was pointing past his mom...at a familiar spiky-helmeted red Reploid.

His mother froze in her tracks, gasping for air as if she had fell on a box too.

Aldar stood up shakily, aiming his Buster at Zero. The Busters then weren't connected to the brain, so they were always active, as opposed to the Reploid's thought-activated ones.

Aldar walked forward, quickly regaining his strength and aiming his Buster at Zero. He quirked his fingers, making his face mask raise. A feat which was only accomplished with many hours of battle training. He watched Zero, in an attempt at staring him down.

Naturally, this didn't work. Zero activated his Z-Saber, walking foward at the same pace as Aldar. Aldar suddenly noticed that the box was peculiarly shaped like...like an arena.

Aldar shut his eyes, reviewing the battle techniques quickly in his mind. He stopped, and lowered his Buster. Zero lowered his Saber, though he did not turn it off.

"Are we going to be allowed to pass peacefully, Sir?

Zero looked slightly taken aback by being called sir, but he shut his eyes, an evil smile playing across his lips.

"No, little one, I'm sorry, but... You will not be making it to the shelter in one piece."

Aldar quickly twitched his fingers, lowering his face mask. He felt a vein popping out of his head. He HATED being called "little" or "young". He dove at Zero, a little too low, yet on purpose. He rolled between Zero's legs, ending up in a kneeling position, Buster raised. Oddly enough, Zero wasn't moving, merely watching Aldar over his shoulder. Normally Aldar would have been wary of this, knowing a trap when he saw one. Due to his rage, however, he immediatly fired a grenade at Zero without thinking.

Zero whipped around, his golden hair billowing out like a curtain, and in a flash of green, the grenade dissolved into a mass of powder.