''Legacy of Metal'' is the collective name for the ''Franchise/MegaMan'' fan fiction of [[http://www.fanfiction.net/u/55667/ Eric Lawson]] and the common continuity that it shares. Many elements are based on ''[[FanFic/RockmanTheRobotWar Rockman: the Robot War]]'', which the author cites as one of his major inspirations, though it has a markedly different style. The first stories starring X were written in the late 1990s, with Lawson later expanding the setting both backwards and forwards in time.

[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5353667/2/Mega_Man_X_From_The_Sidelines The timeline]] sets [[VideoGame/MegaManClassic the Classic series]] in the late 21st century, with Mega Man himself born in 2070 and dying in 2085, and ''VideoGame/MegaManX'' in the early 22nd, X himself being discovered in 2117. ''An Uncertain Future'' used "20XX" and "21XX," but this was abandoned in favor of the more precise timeline.

As of October 2010, four other authors have been [[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3387678/20/Mega_Man_Guiding_Rainbows_Light credited]] as co-authors within the Legacy of Metal: [[http://www.fanfiction.net/u/152431/ Magus]], [[http://www.fanfiction.net/u/97007/Maelgrim Maelgrim]], [[http://www.fanfiction.net/u/160827/Revokov Revokov]], and [[http://www.fanfiction.net/u/660113/Roy_Fokker_99th RoyFokker99]].
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!!''Legacy of Metal'' provides examples of:
* AbortedArc: Erico's livejournal shows pieces of a continuation of ''Shadows of a Hunter'' (the ''VideoGame/MegaManZero'' adaptation), but he seems content to keep the story at its current ending.
%%* AdaptationExpansion
%%* AFatherToHisMen: Dr. Cain
* AllThereInTheManual: Erico's devoted an [[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/286003/1/The_Collected_Studies_of_the_Physics_of_Mega_Man essay]] of sorts to explains the physics at work in the MMX series.
* AlternateUniverse: In which Light wins the Contest, [[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3387678/3/Mega_Man_Guiding_Rainbows_Light leading]] to the setting of ''VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork''.
* AmnesiacDissonance: [[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5353667/9/Mega_Man_X_From_The_Sidelines ''Relics of Madness'']] showcases [[spoiler:truly awesome demonstrations of just exactly what Snake Man can do when he [[HeelFaceTurn reawakens without Wily's kill-all-humans programming]] due to a freak thunderstorm]].
%%* ApocalypseHow: ''Several'' close swipes with Class 5s over a span of just a few years.
* AscendedExtra: The Green Biker Dude goes by the name Gearloose and has his character established a bit (he plays a {{Lancer}}[=/=]TheSmartGuy mix in Zero's absence) before he bites the dust.
* AwesomeButImpractical: The stories depict Zero's signature Buster combo as this; in [[http://ericosuperbard.livejournal.com/2009/06/04/ ''Working The Holidays'']], he's only able to get it off by FakingTheDead as the charge time is just unworkable in actual combat.
* AxCrazy: Top Man ends up even more crazier than usual due to a flaw in his programming.
* BadassNormal: Randolph "Bulldog" Hayes. To an extent, any MSWAT team - even the underfunded Maverick Hunters have high-level equipment and two of the three most powerful beings in existence on their side. (Note that Hayes was the creation of Erico's protege Magus, and not Erico himself. Hayes was featured in a short story in the compilation [[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5353667/5/Mega_Man_X_From_The_Sidelines From The Sidelines]])
%%* TheBerserker: Zero before transferring the virus to Sigma.
* CallForward: Zero's full name. Chapter 17 of ''Guiding Rainbow's Light'' has a few. Vinkus talks about "everlasting peace", the final two words of the original Mega Man (as well as Rockman: The Robot War), while [[spoiler:the shadow organization Vinkus establishes is [=MI9=]-lasting through all of the Classic series and half of the X series before we get to ''A Sound of Mavericks'']]
%%* TheCallKnowsWhereYouLive: In the fifth Megaman Game.
%%* ChekhovsGunman: Dr. Cossack, and to a greater extent his robot masters.
* ContinuityNod: Many. {{Lampshaded}} by characters who think X should take up history teaching rather than explaining some of them.
* CreatorBreakdown: In-universe: Dr. Light breaks down psychologically following the deaths of his "children," becoming a recluse.
* CreatorThumbprint: The author has a thing for snowflakes. Always has. They're used not only in Whispers In Time, but also Guiding Rainbow's Light (though with different meanings). And probably in other stories too, if I remembered hard enough.
%%* DarkerAndEdgier: In ''spades''.
%%* DeadpanSnarker: Bass' narration has a touch of this.
* DeadPersonConversation: Utterly bizarre example: a dead person talks to a not-yet-alive person who can't hear him in ''Whispers In Time.'' It's still touching, and also counts as a TakeUpMySword (er, buster?) moment.
--> '''Rock:''' X...the world is yours now. We've done all we can. It's up to you. But remember this, X. No matter where you go, no matter what you do, we'll be watching. Smiling. Watching you grow up. Help the world, X. Our age is gone, and it'll be up to you to guide the world during your own age. But I know you're up for the challenge, little brother. You're stronger, smarter, better than we ever were in life. And you have the legacy. It's the legacy of us, X. The Mega Men. So make us proud, X. Make us proud.
%%* DoAndroidsDream: In the pre-X era. Reploids are explicitly on par with humans.
* FallenHero: Wily was this when he was part of Second Rainbow, making his descent into insanity and villainy all the more tragic.
* FantasticRacism: Crops up from time to time, in the Classic Universe many Robot Masters, even ones that have nothing to do with Wily's Rebellions, take undue blame simply for being robots. It becomes a plot device in the Fifth Rebellion, when a Hate Crime against an innocent Robot Master is used to justify their plan to kill all humans.
%%* FanVerse: The inspiration for the trope, in fact.
* FightingFromTheInside: Some of the reprogrammed Robot masters seem to passively do this, even if their reprogrammed personalities don't want them too. [[spoiler: Dark Man even self sabotages his own rebellion due to his forgotten hatred of Wily]]
* ForeverWar: Thank's to Wily's Joker Immunity and Megaman's inability to kill him, Rock comes to accept that Willy will always come back again and again.
* FreakLabAccident: How Blues went missing and Wily's brain was damaged.
* GenerationXerox: Despite all of Dr. Light's hopes and efforts, X ends up following in Rock's footsteps.
* GracefulLoser: Overdrive Ostrich, to the point where it seems he's not infected with TheVirus. Naturally, X angsts about this.
* HealingFactor: X and Zero (and by extension most reploids) have one of these thanks to {{Nanomachines}}. This is a problem for the original cast when fighting the latter, nearly but not quite reducing two characters' final moments to a SenselessSacrifice.
* HeroicSacrifice: Quite a few of these. Let's see...[[spoiler:Latchkey, Walter Hastings, RD-224, Blues, Bass, Rock, Roll, X, Zero...]]
* HeroicSelfDeprecation: The Mega Men both insist that [[ShoutOut they're just men whose circumstances went beyond their control]]. Rock, at least, snaps out of it to give himself credit a couple of times. Ironically, their eventual successor is more than willing to call himself a hero...and far less of one.
* HeroicSuicide: At the end of the fifth Rebellion the now sane [[spoiler: Doc man]] kills himself after realizing that there is no place in the world and that he's too dangerous to be allowed to exist. It's helped that his Final Fight and [[AChatWithSatan talk]] with Mega man convinces him that one day Mega Man will have the courage to do what must be done and [[spoiler: kill Wily.]]
* HeroicWillpower: How Wycost rids himself of TheVirus, but it's implied to have been a long, difficult process. And then X makes a habit of doing it pretty quickly.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Violen is beaten so savagely with his own mace as to be pitiable. Sigma's first OneWingedAngel transformation partially ends this way - X pulls his LaserBlade from the ground and slices open Sigma's neck. Oh, and said sword also becomes a gift to Zero, making it even more so.
* InconsistentSpelling: Unlike in the games proper, X takes exception to being called a Reploid as he technically is not one. Zero doesn't object so strongly, at first because he doesn't know precisely what he is.
%%* IntergenerationalFriendship: Tomoko and Dr. Light. The Cossacks and X are an odd example as well.
* KickTheDog: Copy-X standing over the immobile body of the real X and mocking him in ''Shadows Of A Hunter.'' He never gets his in the story itself, [[ForegoneConclusion but we all know it's coming.]]
* KnightInSourArmor: Wily before going insane, later Mega Man. Fittingly, pre-virus Sigma has a minor case of this going as well.
* LampshadeHanging: At the end of ''Whispers In Time,'' X and Zero briefly discuss the events of ''Mega Man Xtreme'' - even they, who were there, don't quite understand the plot.
* LastOfHisKind: Duo is the last of the Watchers, a race of psychic SufficientlyAdvancedAlien robots at war with those carrying the Evil Energy.
* LaughingMad: Wily will lapse into this occasionally when his insanity hits full blown. Doc Man does as well.
* LawEnforcementInc: Dr. Cain funds the Maverick Hunters with his own fortune in order to keep out undue government influence. To varying degrees it succeeds, but the protection is not absolute.
%%* LighterAndSofter: ''Only'' by comparison with ''Rockman: the Robot War'', mind you.
* LongRunners: ''End of a Dream'' was written in April 2000, and he's still at it, having completed the most recent story in September 2010.
* MadnessMantra: ''Destroy, infect, survive, destroy, infect, survive, destroy, infect, survive...''
%%* MadScientist: Wily hands down.
* MotiveDecay: By the end of his life, Wily doesn't care about anything but beating Mega Man. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] by his worsening brain damage due to constant use of warp and cloaking devices.
* MyMasterRightOrWrong: The Guardians, not that they're thrilled about it. Harpuia is barely hiding his disgust but seems at least slightly afraid of Copy-X. Phantom, who has no ties to the real X, nevertheless seems to take way too much pleasure informing the clone that Zero has been awakened.
* {{Nanomachines}}: Used to explain some of the wonkier weapons from the games.
* NobleBigot: Vinkus is seen as part of the Anti-Robot faction of the UN and never completely gets over his distrust of Robot Masters, despite this, he does eventually warm to the Light family.
* NoHoldsBarredBeatdown: ''X'' delivers these when he gets really angry. Cossack delivers this to Wily after Wily shows himself after Kalinka is rescued.
* NotSoOmniscientCouncilOfBickering: The UN always tends to fall to pieces whenever a Rebellion rolls around, usually leaving the US diplomat[[ReasonableAuthorityFigure Martel]] and the Japanese Diplomat [[NobleBigot Vinkus]] to try to corral them into trying to support Megaman.
* {{Novelization}}:
** ''An Uncertain Future'' and ''Island Of Awakening'', of ''VideoGame/MegaManX'' and ''X2'' respectively.
** ''Shadows of a Hunter'' is this for the early stages of ''VideoGame/MegaManZero'', with a quick-and-dirty run through ''X5'' as well.
* ObstructiveBureaucrat: Cristoph, ye gods. His motives in this essentially boil down to FantasticRacism.
* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: ''Shadows of a Hunter'' suggests some epic action sequences throughout its summary of ''X5''; sadly none of them get much in the way of detail.
%%* OldShame: ''End of a Dream'', the first story written.
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Wily never tells anybody Zero's name, though he programs it into Zero's knowledge banks. Bass and everyone else call him Wily's Demon.
%%* OriginalCharacter: Both human and Reploid.
%%* PlayfulHacker: Latchkey.
* QuirkyMinibossSquad: In Magus's fics the Robot Masters of each rebellion seem to come off like this, with each Robot Master's personality of styling itself in a certain pattern or personality.
* RashomonPlot: ''Whispers In Time'' comes close, but there's no disagreement on the actual events -- different characters just have different perspectives and thoughts.
* RockBeatsLaser: Aside from anything Mega Man pulls off, a standard magnum poses a real threat to Reploids. Overlaps with BoringButPractical, as the vast majority simply can't muster up the same power X or Zero can with the standard-issue busters and sabers. Might also be a ShoutOut to the signature weapon of Axl, [[ShrugOfGod who may or may not later exist in the continuity.]]
* RobotNames: Blues's proper name is "DL#00 Protoman."
* ShoutOut:
** One of the three major robot contractors is [[Creator/IsaacAsimov US Robotics.]]
** [[VideoGame/EarthBound1994 The Runaway Five]] are briefly mentioned as a classic rock band in Rock's time period.
* StrictlyFormula: Wily's obsession with using eight Robot Masters for each rebellion is so well known that the Robot Tournament of the sixth rebellion is set up as a trap for Wily knowing he would be unable to resist seeing eight Robot Masters. Later in the Rebellion Megaman uses this to counter Centaur Man attempts to claim that he will win because he and this rebellion is [[YouKeepTellingYourselfThat Different from all the rest]].
* TeenGenius: Latchkey again. Ciel is still the biggest example, as she is apparently considered more brilliant than ''the entire Second Rainbow''!
* TechnoBabble: ''Guiding Rainbow's Light'' has oodles of surprisingly plausible-sounding babble. One older nonfiction piece is devoted to working out the physics of TheVerse.
%%* TheGrimReaper: [[spoiler: Doc Man's eventual fate in the afterlife is to serve as this for Robots and Reploids.]]
* ThreeLawsCompliant: A standard feature of the Core Module; Reploids don't have it built in. [[spoiler:Rock and his "siblings" can break them sometimes.]]
* ThirdOptionAdaptation: The ending of ''X2'' is subject to this - X recovers all of the parts, but Violen invades the base and takes Zero back for Sigma to corrupt. Cue IKnowYouAreInThereSomewhereFight.
* TitleDrop: The phrase "legacy of metal" has been used exactly once, in chapter 14 of ''Guiding Rainbow's Light'' (numbered 15 by [=FanFiction.Net=]).
** ''An Uncertain Future'' has the annoying habit of dropping nearly every chapter title.
* UnstoppableRage: Rock's specialty. X cranks this up a notch. [[spoiler:Zero also does this at the end of ''Demons Of The Past'' when he goes after Sigma, following the (second) death of Iris.]]
* VillainsActHeroesReact:
** In Chapter 9 of ''Island of Awakening'', Serges references this directly, saying X can only react, while they (the X-Hunters) always make the first move.
** In ''Demons of the Past'', Signas (who up to this point has been presented as the Hunter HQ's ObstructiveBureaucrat and ReplacementScrappy) comes up with a strategy that ''inverts'' this at last, challenging Sigma and his current band of Mavericks to a confrontation at the Hokkaido cliffs (also the site where Sigma's fortress was built in ''An Uncertain Future'') first. X, Zero, and the other Hunters use this advantage to set up an ambush with a delayed attack force that catches most of the Mavericks off guard.
* VillainsOutShopping: Copy-X is shown gathering intelligence and planning a playground for children.
%%* WaveMotionGun: SKYLIGHT's plasma cannon.
%%* WellDoneSonGuy: Bass, definitely. Blues has a little of this, but it conflicts with his stubbornness.
%%* WhamEpisode: ''Guiding Rainbow's Light'' has one practically every other chapter. And it ''works.''
%%** Also, when you realize the relation between [[spoiler:The copy Mega Man, Doc Robot, and Dark Man.]]
* WorldWarIII: The backstory for Second Rainbow in the first place was that the earth was nearly left in ruins by the Aftermath of World War 3, forcing the greatest minds of the current generation to form Second Rainbow.
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