So remember my Dark/Evil MegaMan AU, well I've decided to revamp it into the Paradox Melody AU so the old one is no longer canon. I will make a new design for dark/evil megaman
So in the meantime, here's some memes from the au
I am mentally ill about these too, I tell you
Wily: So I may have done an oopsie
Anyone wanna remind me the next time I make an AU, I should tone down the trauma
I promise im gonna do it i swear (I might not actually)
Will I ever stop? (No)
Roll's not homophobic she has a girlfriend (Kalinka), she's tired of these idiots
Waltz is a platonic frenemy of Rock in this Au (She's pissed about current events)
Let's just say everyone's reactions to certain events isn't exactly pleasant
for the six fanarts I haveee maybe Piano from Megaman? she's essentially to Bass what Roll is to Megaman but I forgot if she ever showed up officially :3
Yay! Piano!
She was planned for megamix, but was ultimately cut from it. Something about ariga wanting to use the characters that were there instead of making a new one, I think?
"Locum Tenens (Part 2)" - BassRock short oneshot fanfic
By: Jixie
Fandom: Mega Man Classic
Words: 2565
Rating: G
BassRock Week 2025: September 7th - Repair
"There you are! I was starting to wonder when your idiotic proxy would get back." Wily did a double take. "…What on Earth are you wearing?"
"A romper. I believe it belongs to Roll Light," Piano replied.
"Uh. That. What… what happened, Princess?"
While she was the only one of Wily's Robot Masters that he ever demonstrated affection towards, 'Princess' was a nickname that was always spoken with a biting edge of irony.
Metal Man had been finished, but not powered on, and he was partway through building Air Man and Bubble Man when Dr. Wily realized: building Robot Masters from scratch by himself was a real pain in the tuchus. Before, he'd worked with Dr. Light… and Light's helpful lab assistants. After, he'd avoided building his own Robot Masters whenever possible, focusing instead on stealing, reprogramming, and retrofitting existing models.
But it was in the middle of his first few that he decided he really needed another pair of hands for this, and put a pin in the DWNs to create his own lab robot, the singular SWN-001. He'd copied Rock and Roll for her, just as he'd blatantly ripped off the schematics of the first DLN line for his own.
She'd been neglected for a while after that, abandoned when he "reformed" and went back to working "with" Dr. Light, then stuck baby sitting the kidnapped Kalinka Cossack while he ran that scheme. It wasn't until he built Dark Man and the next round of Wily Numbers that she got to work on anything more than repairs and upgrades.
After that failure Piano had put her foot down, and Wily capitulated in the most spiteful way possible, giving her everything she demanded and then placing Bass in control of all of it.
They stood looking at each other for minute.
"…I'm alone."
Wily looked struck. "What?"
"I've been disarmed, our fortenium was stolen, and I'm-- I'm alone."
---
A few days later, after little success using available software restoration programs, Dr. Wily had given up and custom written one. He'd carefully removed all the add-on computer hardware from Piano to assess the extent of the damage and do whatever repairs he could.
"Please," he said under his breath as he ran the program, hoping for some positive results.
Piano, like his other Robot Masters, had a constantly updating offsite backup. Bass, on the other hand? Bass had started life as a sort of sick joke, a mean-spirited trick meant to be comeuppance for Piano's bratty behavior. She'd acted so superior, insulting her creator, calling the other Wily Numbers junk, mocking his failure, insisting that he'd never succeed against Mega Man or Dr. Light. He'd taken that attitude, her competitiveness and stubbornness, and maxed out the aggression on a basic personality matrix that wasn't ever intended for use. 'If you want to fight, then you have to surrender control' had been the option laid out before her, with both of them knowing she would never, ever let someone else get in the driver's seat.
Only he hadn't accounted for that pig-headedness of hers. And so Bass, who wasn't even supposed to exist, who wasn't securely programmed into an I.C. chip, who wasn't really a complete person, went live. He shouldn't have succeeded. He shouldn't have been able to grow, to adapt, to become his own.
Of course Bass didn't know any of that and didn't play by the rules either. Here too, Wily had failed to account for his unbelievable tenacity. There'd been a dramatic shift after running through the original protocols, and Bass had floundered for a bit before quickly finding his footing. Once he did, he took off.
No I.C. chip, no backup, damaged hardware, massive data loss and corruption.
"Please."
Dr. Wily pinched the bridge of his nose, and exhaled slowly.
"The last thing I said to him…"
"I'm aware," said Piano, as she placed a comforting hand on his back. "He knew you didn't mean it."
It should've made him feel better, but it didn't.
---
She found support in Blues, her first and oldest friend.
(Technically her only friend.)
But Piano also found herself reaching out to Rock. Somehow it helped, not just receiving comfort but in giving it. Dr. Light's laboratory was similar enough to Dr. Wily's that she wasn't completely overwhelmed being outside of the villain's stronghold.
"Wait, so that's why you never leave any of the Wily castles?"
The hint of blush played across her cheeks. "He was concerned that because my programming and schematics were based off-- well, it doesn't matter. I believe he was attempting to maintain a measure of control without resorting to hard stops." She didn't think Wily had meant to create an agoraphobic Robot Master, only that it had been an unfortunate side effect.
"I'm glad that, um, you're comfortable here. It's not fair that you're always stuck at home."
"Thank you."
Piano felt…
…she felt grateful, really, for his kindness. She felt a growing attachment, warmth and friendship and affection. She felt the awkwardness of how obvious Rock's love for her 'brother' was, how clearly attracted he was to her as well, how badly he trying to stamp it down into the dirt because he knew how inappropriate it was, especially right now when they were still both grieving. She felt keenly aware of how much it hurt Rock that on top of everything else Bass never noticed his feelings for him, much less reciprocated them.
She felt the hole in her chest where her alter and his strength had been ripped from her.
"It was easier once Bass was around. Reviewing the logs, seeing what he got up to, living vicariously through him. Knowing I could leave at any time, that if it got to be too much, it was only a matter of equipping our armor and weaponry, then he'd take care of everything."
"Oh! So you did get out, once you had him to rely on?"
"N-no, but it was enough, knowing that I could." She blushed again, a little harder this time. "Rock… Dr. Wily programmed Bass to be, ah, unaware of his situation, which filtered out a lot of other things unintentionally, the same way his attempt to keep me from leaving resulted in a crippling social anxiety. The fact that he couldn't see how you feel wasn't because of anything you did or didn't do. I don't know… how he would have felt or reacted, but I can tell you that after Dr. Wily, you were the most important person in his life."
Rock teared up, and while Piano was still not very good with these kinds of situations, she knew enough to know this was an appropriate time to offer a hug.
Only when she reached out, he pulled away.
"Did you want to be alone now?"
He nodded silently, wiping away his tears before they could fall.
---
A whistle announced the intruder before he materialized. Piano grabbed a pair of needlenose pliers off the nearest table a playfully chucked them at Proto Man as he appeared.
"Pina, is that any way to greet your guest?" he asked as he ducked the flying tool.
"How do you always get past the security here?" she knew she'd never get an answer.
He approached and placed a hand on her shoulder. "What can I do you for?"
"…I want to go to-- to the cliffside you used to take him to."
There was no need to elaborate, he knew what she was referring to. "Are you sure?"
She placed her hand over his.
"I want to see it for myself. But keep your hand like this, please."
"Yeah, no problem."
They warped, the lab stretching and fading in a blur of light and color, and then they were there.
It was beautiful.
It was overwhelming. Vast and endless open sky, lush green forest stretching out below them as far as the eye could see, low ancient mountains hazy in the distant horizon. The sun, high above them, its energy equal to 1.7 billion 50-megaton thermonuclear bombs every second, its rays showering the planet with life and death.
Piano was terrified. Exhilarated. All her motor servos accelerated and every pump sped up in perfect blend of fear and excitement. She wanted to go home right that instant, and she wanted to stay forever. She squeezed his hand.
"Would you die for Rock or Roll?"
"Yes." He answered immediately because it was the truth, but his tone was reluctant because he understood what she was actually asking. Well, he'd known this was coming the moment he found out what had happened. "But you don't--"
"I don't have to. I can be myself all the time now, as Rock said. You well know that for years I was myself all the time. It's not what I want anymore."
They had been pretty miserable years. Piano wanted better, Bass deserved better.
Blues had switched to his civilian outfit when they teleported, now he used his free hand to pull his shades off. He gazed into her eyes, searching for something, and she offered a faint smile.
"I'm… I'm okay with this."
"I'm going to miss you."
"I'm not going anywhere. I'll just be someone else, too."
---
Piano's second biggest fight with Dr. Wily was also her last.
(Their biggest fight, ironically, had been back when she demanded to be weaponized.)
He pointed out that she wouldn't be Bass, and she wouldn't be Piano, she'd be neither. And both.
They argued in circles, things growing heated. Piano even raised her voice. Wily was loathe to risk losing his daughter, especially now that he'd lost his son.
He caved in the end, because of that loss. Because he'd spent the past week and a half thinking about his last fight with Bass, replaying it over in his head. Because he'd agonized over their parting words and the awful things he'd said, so stupid and needlessly cruel, unable to sleep over it. Because he'd read and reread the logs, and knew exactly how bad the last few minutes of his boy's life had been.
What was left of Bass's programming, what he could salvage, was fragmented and incomplete. Piano filled in the gaps and then some. The ideal outcome would've been that they achieved homeostasis, balancing each other out and tempering the other's flaws.
But that's not how it went.
---
In theory, Robot Masters were incapable of mental illness. Whatever behaviors they expressed, what internal cognitive and emotional states they experienced… these things were programmed. Intentional. Regardless of whether or not it was efficient or pleasant or helpful, robots programmed to be 'unwell' were 'well' by the very nature of the fact that they were behaving as intended.
In practice, Wily had a long history of fudging things, and jerry rigging, and demonstrating a careless disregard to the consequences of his slapdash programming. With it came a track record of Robot Masters with quote-unquote-undesirable behaviors that were very much not intentional.
Case in point: SWN-001 Piano Wily. The lazy, halfhearted soft stop command to make her prefer staying in the lab had the end result of a severe anxiety disorder, panic attacks, and the inability to leave 'home' by her own accord.
Even more conscientious roboticists like Dr. Light could still make mistakes, sometimes even very small mistakes, that rippled outwards in surprising and unexpected ways.
Case in point: DLN-000 Blues Light. The worlds first robot to suffer from major depression.
This new robot, neither Bass nor Piano but a bit of both, struggled with a clash of personalities that led to mood swings, disorganized thinking, and at times erratic behavior. She didn't exactly fit into the definitions of human conditions like "bipolar" or "borderline personality", but they did provide helpful context to describe… well… whatever the hell was wrong with her.
The weirdness of having the combined memories from two separate lives, the private thoughts and feelings that once belonged to two different people, did not help.
Worst of all perhaps was the uncertainty. Piano, with her need for routine and familiarity, knew who she was and what she wanted. Bass, hungry for excitement and challenges, knew who he was and what he wanted.
She didn't even know what to call herself.
The only thing she knew for sure that she wasn't going by 'Bass' or 'Piano'. Briefly she was 'Forte', then 'Alto', then 'Clef', before settling on 'Midi'.
Before any of that, the Robot Master eventually known as Midi spent the first twenty hours or so of her life hiding under the work table in Wily's lab. Cycling between grief and terror and rage-- so much rage-- and the nauseating confusion of dying badly only to be brought back wrong and no longer yourself but someone else, while also going to sleep peacefully only to wake up wrong and no longer yourself but someone else. Stepping into consciousness as a new whole fragmented individual multiples incoherent nightmare fusion.
Dr. Wily was desperate enough to reach out to Proto Man. Blues had been a friend and brother, at times even a lifeline, for both Piano and Bass. But his attempts to soothe and calm the poor robot left him leaking hydraulic fluid and in need of a patch repair, and started things off on a bad foot. She had such fond memories and feelings towards him from both of her past selves, but going forward their relationship would be a little rocky.
No longer strictly a lab assistant, Midi did not have Piano's 'stay home' restrictions and therefore none of the issues it had carried with it. Without the fortenium power core, 'Celestial' armor, or even most of Bass's original combat focused computer hardware, Midi was freed from the old directives to destroy Mega Man.
Unfortunately for Rock, she still viewed him as the opposition. Unfortunately for everyone, she still had both Wily sibling's pig-headed, stubborn nature and vicious competitive streak.
Unfortunately for Midi--
"Aw, no! Hell no!"
It was the first thing she'd said to him. Mega Man was a little frazzled, because Midi was just as scrappy as Bass but without the prowess to back it up, and he'd found himself having to protect her (while trying to be subtle about it) more than once. Instead of the mixed bag that came with having an ally/rival who was just as likely to try and fight him as the bad guys, she'd been a bit of a hindrance.
"What?"
"Ugh, she-- she 'liked' you. Barf!"
"Who, Piano?" Rock flushed and hid his face with his hands. "Piano liked me? Gosh."
He knew he shouldn't. He knew.
But he couldn't help himself.
"Did, um, did… how did Bass feel ab--?"
Midi turned beet red and cut him off. "He-hewantedtobeatyou! To prove he was THE STRONGEST! That's IT, okay!? Idiot!"
"R-right." It ached actually. Knowing. All that wasted time, his feelings reciprocated but never acted on, all those missed chances. He looked away, taking a few unsteady breaths before reminding himself that Midi was her own person but she was also Bass and Piano, they were still a part of her. "Well… I mean… do, do you like me?"
Midi rolled her eyes, but there was still a lingering blush that never faded from her cheeks.
Some Role swap character lore that I wrote in a group, but bringing onto the main so anyone interested can have it:
Forte:
Wily's son alongside Piano and Yellow Jacket, programmed with a much more empathetic and energetic personality. When Dr. Light started causing trouble with his robots, it was Forte that chose to be upgraded and combat them to hopefully carve a better future down the line.
Piano:
Wily's daughter and Forte's sister, she relied more on intelligence and technology, even creating her own gadgets and tools. Being used to helping Forte out in such a manner, she very quickly became an operator along side Gate and many others.
Quint:
Formerly: Rock or Rockman
A tool originally only meant to kill and destroy based on Forte's schematics, only to be brought to their side much later down the line. Feeling love and affection from everyone else is foreign but not unappreciated.
Yellow Jacket:
Forte's older brother, who was originally meant to be a medical unit. Unfortunately Wily messed up his emotions and he was completely apathetic when he first awoke, even when Light tried to fix him his emotions were still diluted and weak.
Zero:
The first robot able to think for himself, Dr. Cain found him and raised him, research into Zero lead to the creation of reploids. His name was meant to represent the binary code within them all. It's Zero's corruption that awoke Serges and Isoc earlier than intended.
X:
The first Maverick. His name is the action of crossing something out, once and for all. (His lore is unfinished, but I do plan to expand on it.)
Vile:
A Maverick hunter that's gotten into trouble a lot from outside influence, trying his very best but failing miserably. Only for Serges and Isoc to wake up early and take him in, as a result Forte, Piano and Yellow Jacket all treat him like a younger sibling, and set him back on the right track. He's still afraid of crumbling back to that state at square one though.
Dynamo:
A more laid back and relaxed bounty hunter that was hired to help out with Vile and around the base, more often than not its Yellow Jacket preventing him from causing too much trouble while bored.
Luminé:
A reploid completely wiped of his memories that accidentally started a fight between the Hunters with an illegal organization, his calmer demeanor along side his abilities have made him a great help and asset however and everyone appreciates it.
Gate:
After Alia's defence of him ended up with her in jail and him without a job, Gate found himself looking for other job options quickly to avoid getting scrapped. This resulted in his position as an operator for the maverick hunters, more often than not giving instructions alongside Piano and many others.
His only remaining possession outside of his lab coat is a single white cat that used to be a stray at his old place of work, their name is whiskers.
