MiloScat

December 30, 2012

Continuing Rockman’s 25th celebration, this post was the one I originally had in mind before being sidetracked by the “main” characters of the series.

The Four Guardians, or Four Heavenly Kings in Japan (one of the many mythology references in the Zero series) are a team of very high-ranking enforcers for the Neo Arcadian army (the major civilisation in this era). They share a common bond; they were all born from the body of X.

Apparently when X sealed the Dark Elf (the main Cyber-elf, who had been corrupted by Dr Weil) with his own body, his soul left and split into 5 parts. 4 of them subsequently had new bodies made for them by unknown parties, perhaps Ciel’s mother. For some reason, they didn’t perform this operation on the “main”, X-part. I think he probably asked them not to, as he was tired of fighting and just wanted to be dead for a while.

These 4 have separate elemental alignments: Sage Harpuia is the wind/electric type, Fairy Leviathan the ice/water type, Fighting Fefnir the fire/explosive type, and Hidden Phantom the dark/cutting type. Their original intention was to help repopulate and rejuvenate the world, but they were recalled to fight the Rebellion when Neo Arcadia began becoming more oppressive and militarised. They then led armies of Reploids and Mechaniloids, who were loosely aligned to their elements or style.

But why did X’s DNA soul split into 5 elves? Here’s my theory. The many years of using Light’s Copy Chip to take on enemy powers also had an effect on X in some way. Especially since the Copy Abilities often conformed to one or two of a number of elements/types, X developed permanent inclinations along these types, but at cross-purposes. This resulted in internal conflict, which finally expressed itself when he sacrificed himself at the end of the Elf Wars. The many disparate powers stored within his robot soul crystallised along complementary categories, resulting in four distinct personages, in addition to the original X fragment.

The X elf, or Cyber-X, retained all of X’s personality and memories. I believe the Guardians did not, and developed their own personalities without remembering their past. Nevertheless they feel a tremendous loyalty to each other and to X. This is why they work for the Copy-X, who was built by Ciel using a similar technique to their own creation, but without incorporating the X elf. The result was an imperfect replica who was easily manipulated by Weil.

The Guardians aren’t stupid though and come to realise they’re working for the bad guy. They still hate Zero though, but agree to help him at the urging of Cyber-X. Sources differ on whether they die at the end of Zero 3 or later on, but a piece of art in one of the soundtracks is too cool to not be true, depicting the four and X in elf forms watching the climax of Zero 4. These may be their dead elf selves or the true manifestations for which their previous bodies were but replicas in the manner of Copy X. I believe the former.

Either through their proximity to the crashed Ragnarok-Weil hybrid (the original Biometal, model W) or through Ciel’s science, the four (along with X and Zero) were made into Biometals later. These forms are able to combine with human or Reploid hosts to share their abilities, but also are sentient and seem to retain their personalities (when not being controlled by model W).

This ties into another aspect of their existence. The four also have some affinity to certain armours that Light made for X. After inventing a combination technique for Rock and Rush, Light decided to incorporate a similar functionality in X’s design. He therefore has various armours with different abilities, which I think may have informed the formation of the distinctive Guardian shapes. More on that in individual posts, I think.

2:32pm | URL: https://tmblr.co/ZpvIwuaVV_g2

(Notes: 14)