Roleplay / The Chaos Zone

The Chaos Zone is a Play-by-Post roleplay hosted on the Mega Man RPG Prototype forums. Created on June 10th, 2020, the roleplay is incredibly lax on hard rules, being designed as a thread where people can use overpowered characters freely to keep the site's other roleplays under control.

While there's a loose focus on Mega Man (Classic), the freedom of character choice has quickly turned it into a Massive Multiplayer Crossover with hundreds of characters, be they from alternate universes or part of the eponymous Chaos Zone itself. The host of the roleplay is Beta Shadow, but the overall direction of the plot is controlled just as much by other participating users.

On December 1st, 2020, a second thread was started (referred to as "Part II"), as the first thread (retroactively known as "Part I") had grown so big (ending with 7612 posts when counting the introductory post) that it was causing problems with the website itself. Since then, the roleplay has switched to new threads at specific post counts to prevent similar problems, with "Part IV" being the current thread as of October 27th, 2023.

The thread for Part I can be found here, Part II here, Part III here, and Part IV here.

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The roleplay provides examples of:

• Aborted Arc:
  • Invoked with the Gemini TV Tournament; while a full bracket was planned, the outcry following Rumia's near-lethal loss against Kahtos gets bad enough that the tournament is canceled shortly after.
  • Upon learning of Rumia's incident at the above tournament, Yoshi tries to invoke this with his quest to reclaim Dinosaur Land, but Konngara defies it by forcing Yoshi to stay on the islands and take on the last of her troops.
  • Singularity's leader Ali Nullum Vacuous tries to become the Arc Villain just after the 200-page mark, but since Singularity didn't do much, they were mostly ignored in favor the the UKR and Grey Matter. It was made official when Jazz and Missingno. decided to tie up all the loose ends before Beta Devil's return to villainhood, and Ali Tachyos agrees to take a raincheck on the whole thing. Doesn't stop Tachyos from trying to obtain a second Chaos Heart from Planet Darkhollow in Part II, though.
  • Waluigi's revenge plan on the Super Smash Bros. DLC fighters and Dr. Koopenstein's mass-produced Chaos Emerald storyline are both given abrupt resolutions at the end of Part I.
• Adaptational Badass: Essentially a rule of thumb. Stanley the Bugman can hold his own in combat beyond pest control, Katsini can weaponize an endless supply of sharp playing cards without needing to rely on random falling bombs, Cranky Kong goes from being a retired old ape to a creator of worlds...the list goes on.
• Adaptational Modesty: Barbariccia is described as wearing "flowing garments", and her mugshot shows her wearing a top of some sort, much more concealing than the bikini she wears in Final Fantasy IV.
• And Your Little Dog, Too!: In their second storyline, Team Mecha uses the HEX Adaptors on various people the cast knows well, most of whom are their close friends. This ends up backfiring spectacularly when they use it on Volt Man, as it prompts Dyna Man to kill the trio in a Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
• Appearance Is in the Eye of the Beholder: Spekkio's outward appearance differs based on the power of who he's speaking to. While it's first discussed when Stanley and Sheep Man meet him (Stanley seeing his weaker Kimala form and Sheep Man describing an "armored cyclops" like his Gaoler form), the Brash Crew's meeting with him shows this more directly: his mugshot is his frog form as he talks with several Level 1 characters, but it suddenly changes to his giant monster form when speaking to the Level 97 Gilgamesh.
• Arc Villain: The roleplay will often have a single overarching threat make itself present for an extended period of time:
  • Beta Devil serves as the main villain from Page 7 to Page 26, though King K. Rool ends up working as The Heavy for him until Page 12.
  • Surge Man and his brothers are the focus of Pages 33 through 45.
  • Team Mecha introduces themselves as a threat on Page 66, though they begin tossing the role back and forth with the Life Virus/Trio.EXE on Page 82, and disappear after Page 90, letting Trio.EXE take the lead until Page 97.
  • After working in the background for most of his time in the roleplay, Regulus takes center stage around Page 151, lasting up until Page 202.
  • While an attempt is made to enforce this with Ali Nullum Vacuous the page after Regulus' defeat, Grey Matter shows up around the same time, being the more active of the two threats and remaining in the story up to Page 331.
  • Beta Devil becomes an imminent threat again come Page 322, though like before, he waits before acting in the main story (this time until Page 93 of Part II), sticking around until Part II's 143rd Page.
• Apocalypse How: Pretty much any villain whose goals don't involve conquest are seeking to destroy the Omniverse at least. Regulus actually succeeds at obliterating Earth at one point, but it's undone by Will Smith.
• Author Avatar: Several of the users (Beta Shadow, RedBomber, TheHighTower, Soren, Mighty, GammaGuardian, RotomSlashBlast, Prototedd, Chase, and QuintAnother) have characters representing themselves in the story, often sharing a username (save for RotomSlashBlast's author avatar, Rhys). In-universe, they're called Reapers, and their positions as authors gives them reputation as universe-creating Physical Gods.
• Bad Future:
  • Dangan Man and Compass Man both come from a future where the Chaos Zone is destroyed by the Life Virus.
  • Shortly after the debut of Beta Diablo, Metal Sonic uses a special Future Post that only leads to alternate futures where Beta Diablo wins in some form, in hopes that it'll help train others for whatever Diablo will actually do. However, the demonic entities from said futures eventually end up being summoned by Nuru to assist Beta Devil in the Joyous Tower battle.
• Beware the Nice Ones:
  • While usually meek and gentle, Chunky Kong is outright furious when he finds himself face-to-face with Coda after seeing Kiddy get Coda Corrupted; he goes as far as to threaten him with a Fate Worse than Death.
  • Defteros almost always has a bubbly, optimistic disposition, but when Succubus Woman traps Proteus' mind in his own memories, Defteros begins demanding in a state of Tranquil Fury for Proteus to be released.
• Blob Monster:
  • Limited, a biomechanical substance that can empower characters, alive or dead, or form into new beings outright.
  • Mercury also appears alongside the other Stardroids. Him and Limited sharing an amorphous nature actually seems to help him break out of Hyper Limited's control, as he's the only Stardroid to survive Metal Sonic's rampage (besides Terra, who had already been killed and revived by then).
• Boss Subtitles: Users will often introduce new characters by placing their name in large text followed by a descriptive subtitle of some sort.
• Bus Crash: After knocking Rumia unconscious in the Gemini TV Tournament, Kahtos disappears from the story. The next time his presence is discussed, it's revealed he was killed by MKII.
• Canon Character All Along: Zig-Zagged with Crimson Dragon. He makes his debut as the roleplay's version of the canon Star Force 3 character, but he later transforms into the non-canon Break Man Grave. He keeps a slightly stronger (but still non-canon) version of this form for a while, but eventually transforms again into Blues from Pachislot Rockman Ability, which makes him canon, but to a different continuity.
• The Corruption:
  • While not always subject to this like in Rockman X Mega Mission, Limited (plus its derivatives, Hyper Limited and Extreme) is able to corrupt one's mind as well as change their form. While still mostly restricted to mechanical beings, Hyper Limited has infected an organic being (namely, Sanae).
  • Anti-Omni Corruption, which turns its victims dark red and makes them loyal to Beta Devil.
  • Coda Corruption, said to be an amalgamation of all forms of corruption (likely including types not seen on their own), making the victim loyal to Coda. Unlike other forms of corruption present in the roleplay, it can't be cured.
• Delayed Narrator Introduction: Some users have turned their narrators into proper characters some time after actually entering the roleplay:
  • Beta Shadow's (first) narrator is brought into question a few times early on, and just before the fight with Surge Man, it's revealed he's another alternate version of Beta Shadow known as Upsilon Narrator.
  • Shortly after the Dead Zones open, several Puyo Pop characters enter the story; one of them, Rider, reveals herself to be TheHighTower's narrator.
  • During the battle against Rudy the Clown, RotomSlashBlast's Reaper and narrator, Rhys, shows up to try and kill Rudy.
• Diagonal Cut: The fight with Rudy the Clown ends when Vaati slices him in half like this.
• Do Not Adjust Your Set: Duracell hijacks all electronic devices when he announces the Duracell Games.
• Draconic Abomination: 'M FF is portrayed as this; their basic appearance is still that of a Charizard, but their eyes and mouth have an unnatural glow to them, they hiss and quack instead of roaring, and by using their TM07 attack they can mess with the fabric of reality, Shadow Digital capturing the beast mainly to ensure such never happens.
• Evil Versus Oblivion: Team Mecha seeks to take over the Chaos Zone for themselves, which tends to put them at odds with more destructive villains. While this leads to a more straightforward Enemy Mine scenario when facing against Regulus, they only focus on their own goals when up against Beta Diablo.
• Fantastic Racism: Human engineer Rika's attitude towards the kappa in Gensokyo is...less than pleasant. This is made most apparent when she starts collaborating with Takane, who has to stop her from saying a Fantastic Slur out loud, and eventually confronts her directly about this (already having experience settling conflict between the yamawaro and kappa in Touhou proper).
• Gag Censor: By default, most swear words are censored by Reggae's head. While other bird characters are used as similar censors for other franchises (such as Squawks for Donkey Kong characters or a Flicky for Sonic the Hedgehog characters), or an Anti-Omni-Corrupted version of Reggae called Reggae Devil for some Anti-Omni-Corrupted characters, Reggae and Chatot stand out as the only two characters who function as this in-universe (to the point where Reggae will outright interrupt someone with a "SQUAWK" if he's in the same room as them).
• Genius Loci:
  • Meteor Grave is now a sapient being, with Crimson Dragon implied to simply be a stronger form.
  • The Chaos Zone itself turns out to be this on Page 298 of Part I, having become sentient thanks to the stories created by the users.
• Good Powers, Bad People: Kahtos retains the power of "positive energy" from his original form of Defteros, but he's far from a saint, even using the energy's bright appearance to torture a light-sensitive Rumia.
• Implacable Man: A counterpart to Ultra Instinct exists in the form of Berserk Instinct, which gives the user the ability to block any reaction to pain, in contrast with Ultra Instinct's Super-Reflexes.
• Individuality Is Illegal: Evil Otto and his fellow robots believe that they are "coded" to only perform basic functions, with anyone who thinks they're more than code (i.e. not exactly the same as them) - let alone do anything besides mindlessly wandering in the Robot Confines - being deemed rebels who must be killed.
• Insult Backfire:
  • When Diddy Kong calls Dark Elf a "no-good nightmare", she thanks him for the compliment.
  • After receiving a long "The Reason You Suck" Speech from Beta Shadow, Rotom isn't insulted, but rather impressed by how much Beta Shadow chewed him out.
• Living MacGuffin: When Dark Elf shatters the Crystal Coconut, its Omni-Meme powers are transferred to Dark Elf's mainline Puyo Puyo counterpart Harpy, who keeps the powers (and even makes use of them a couple of times) before the Coconut is repaired after the fight with Jazz Hands.
• Lotus-Eater Machine: Succubus Woman traps Proteus in his own memories during their fight, leaving his body catatonic. While Proteus initially embraces the villainous fantasies this lets him live out, he eventually breaks out when he realizes how much he'd lose achieving his dream.
• Medium Blending: Pages 182 and 242 of Part I and Page 93 of Part II have scenes with user Brash Buster's characters in the "real world", represented through live-action photos where the characters appear as plush toys.
• The Multiverse: A major concept in The Chaos Zone is the idea of the Multi-Omniverse, which, in practice, is much like the multiverse trope...except as the name suggests, there are multiple "Omniverses" within the Multi-Omniverse, each of which have their own set of universes. One of the few concrete rules of Chaos Zone is that Omniverses outside of Mega Man RPG Prototype can't be destroyed (though characters from already-destroyed Omniverses, such as Shadow Digital, are fair game).
• Near-Villain Victory: Regulus comes incredibly close to successfully erasing all of reality, and the only reason Issoro manages to so much as dent him is thanks to some last-second assistance from Chuck Norris. Even then, Regulus ends up intentionally destroying himself, and comes back in his original MKII form later.
• Noodle Incident: When Donkey Kong reunites with Diddy Kong just after the latter is cured of Temporal Leakage, he asks if Diddy needs his "special fruit juice". Diddy quietly tells DK not to remind him of it.
• Ocular Gushers: Defteros lets out a fountain of joyful tears when Proteus admits he doesn't hate him.
• Patchwork Fic: While most Alternate Continuity works are represented through seperate characters (and even seperate universes), the roleplay's Donkey Kong elements are more direct hybrids of the games and the cartoon; the island is named DK Island, and the events of later games such as Donkey Kong 64 and the Retro Studios games are acknowledged, but Bluster Kong is also present, and the Crystal Coconut is a singular MacGuffin instead of a series of collectibles.
• Patchwork World: Page 296 of Part I has Tails speculate that the Chaos Zone is one of these, constantly creating itself based on elements from other universes. This explains how multiple versions of the same character can coexist in it (such as with AOSTH Sonic, Fleetway Sonic, and "regular" Sonic). Distortion Man confirms this on Page 92 of Part III.
• Personalized Afterlife: The first form of afterlife established in the Roleplay is Dead Zones, which are personalized to different people's traits and actions. Jazz finding out that his experiences with no afterlife have just been his Dead Zone is just one of many things eventually pushing him to becoming Jazz Hands.
• Quirky Miniboss Squad: The Fighting Mecha Team, a group of six Mooks from the first six Classic Mega Man games. All of their appearances have a comedic feel, and rarely leave any real impact on the plot.
• Rage Against the Author:
  • After having his dialogue shown through the Translation Sub-Universe one too many times, Moronicule ends up using Mindfuck on his own narrator.
  • Kogasa has intervened with user Brash Buster's intentions twice, both in response to his attempts to kill Seija. The first time ends with her entering the real world to type a different outcome, while the second has her taking over the role of narrator.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • After Walter is cured of the Jazz Plague, Beta Shadow thoroughly chews Jazz out, calling him an unimportant, unoriginal loser. The rant ends up being intricate enough to reach the character limit by itself.
  • Jazz, in turn, gives a speech to Surge Man after Dark Prince provides him back-up chips of his brothers, seeing his whole plan as nothing more than a glorified temper tantrum, and a waste of everyone's time.
  • Beta Shadow gives another speech near the end of the 2000 post party, this time to Rotom, calling him a narcissist who nobody likes. Rotom is actually impressed by the intensity of the verbal beatdown.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Beta Devil starts the roleplay trapped in the Anti-Omni Meme, with King K. Rool and the All-Star Numbers being tricked into freeing him using a wish from Grand Nova.
• Show Within a Show: MMRPGP: The Show, which loosely incorporates elements of the Mega Man RPG Prototype plot, though apparently with some additions (such as Slide, a character who's essentially an allegory for MKII).
• The Slow Path:
  • After Delta tries to get rid of MKII by sending him billions of years back in time, he eventually returns in the form of Regulus, and promptly slices Delta in half right after he was sent back.
  • Break Man GZ returns to the present through this method after being sent back in time by Delta Paradox, though he doesn't actually reveal himself until shortly before Regulus attacks Earth.
• Suddenly Speaking: Metal Sonic starts out as The Voiceless, but after disappearing on Page 90, he returns on Page 156 with spoken dialogue based on his Neo form.
• Super-Reflexes: Several characters - most notably Beta Shadow - are able to use Ultra Instinct to unconsciously dodge and attack (though aside from Chunky Kong, most users still seem to retain some level of consciousness).
• Taken for Granite: Cranky Kong is turned to stone after Dark Elf shatters the Crystal Coconut. It's only through Pop!Accord's help that he's freed, albeit temporarily taking on his younger form of Donkey Kong Sr.
• Theme Naming:
  • The musical theme naming Classic Mega Man loves is quite prominent among the original characters, with names such as "Jazz", "Crescendo", "Anthem", and "Orchestra".
  • Beta Shadow's alternate selves tend to have names starting with a different letter of the Greek Alphabet, followed by whatever their most prominent skill is. While said skill is often elemental (Alpha Fire, Epsilon Snow, Delta Paradox, etc.), their name can refer to other skills as well (such as Upsilon Narrator, who serves as the narrator for Beta Shadow's posts).
• Tournament Arc:
  • The Duracell Games, where characters are given the chance to fight Duracell. The first group to fight (the Aeons) ends up dying for its efforts, with Parallel Aeon 1 being the only survivor of the group, while the second (Dark Elf and Mighty) barely catches Duracell's interest before he decides to just destroy Earth...only to be stopped by Chuck Norris.
  • A more conventional tournament is planned out by Gemini TV, inspired by the earlier Duracell Games. After the first battle ends with Rumia knocked into a coma by Kahtos, arguments with the Brash Crew and even between contestants force the tournament to be cut short.
• Trapped in the Past: Dark Elf, Other Dark Prince, and their minions get sent 1 million years into the past by Delta Paradox after he finds them intruding his property. While most of them return to the present via some form of sudden convenience or Loophole Abuse, Break Man GZ takes The Slow Path, which Other Dark Prince and Proto MKIII don't survive.
• Translation Convention:
  • Most characters who don't speak English have the English equivalent to whatever they're saying placed in subtitles.
  • A "Translation Sub-Universe" exists, and some characters who are otherwise The Unintelligible have their dialogue "translated" by cutting to the Sub-Universe and repeating the scene, where they speak in proper English.
• Two Scenes, One Dialogue: A very short one happens between Fang and Orange when they find the cyan Sol Emerald, cutting themselves short when they notice each other:
  Fang: Hah! Already I've got four!
  Orange: All right! A fourth one!
  Fang and Orange: This is almost too good to be-
  (Beat)
• Verbal Tic: The Almighty Stick Bug always adds a "LOL" to the end of all his sentences. This also applies somewhat to The Nigh-Unstoppable Daddy Long Legs, where he lets out a "LEL" sometimes, but not as often as the Stick Bug.
• Weakened by the Light: Rumia initially retains this trait from her home series, but after Kahtos abuses it just to make her suffer, it's considered enough of a concern that it's nullified by special sunscreen shortly after she recovers.
• You Just Told Me: When King K. Rool learns about the Crystal Coconut being destroyed, he finds out who did it by getting Upsilon Narrator to say their name:
  K. Rool: I'm going to find the one who broke the Crystal Coconut and ruined my perfect scheme... And clobber them into dust!
  Upsilon Narrator: The Gangplank Galleon II sails off to find Dark Elf! ...Wait, how will he even know who to find?
  K. Rool: Because you just told me, narration boy!
  Upsilon Narrator: ...I should just learn to keep my mouth shut sometimes.

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