Limited

Limited is a concept from Rockman X Mega Mission (a collectible card series that began in 1995), and while it is not a concept I invented myself, or even a concept I was the first to use in The Chaos Zone, I feel there’s enough to explain that’s relevant to my writing to warrant its own page.

Do note that much of this involves media that was not released outside of Japan, and may have different names in English. Besides the names of Japan-only media, I’ve renamed things to match their English names (for example, the character “X” is named “Rockman X” in Japanese, but I’ll consistently call him “X”).

The Creation of Limited

The Mega Mission series is based on the world of Mega Man X, a video game series that began in 1993. In the world of Mega Man X, sapient robots called “Reploids” live alongside humanity (though they often appear alongside each other).

In the Mega Mission series, Limited was invented by Dr. Doppler between the events of Mega Man X2 (video game, 1994) and Mega Man X3 (video game, 1995). It was a bio-mechanical organism with a slimy form by default. Limited had many powers, but the first one revealed to the narrative was an ability to revive dead Reploids as a parasitic host.

Below is a series of images meant to give an example of what I mean:

The character pictured here is Flame Stag, as he appeared in Mega Man X2 (video game, 1994).

In the game, the player is required to kill Flame Stag. The visual I’ve provided here is how this was adapted in Rockman X2 (comic book series, 1995).

Despite his death, Limited was able to re-animate Flame Stag’s body, turning him into “Flame Stag L”. This visual is taken straight from the original Rockman X Mega Mission (collectible card set, 1995).

A secondary power of Limited is revealed early on, but not explained further until later: it can mutate the bodies of even live Reploids, though it slowly takes away control of their body, corrupting them.

As an example, here is an image of the main character X (as seen in the Mega Man X2 video game), then two images of him from Mega Mission. The first image is how he looks normally, the second image image shows his arm cannon get transformed into the “Clear Buster” from a splash of Limited, and the third shows almost all of his body enveloped in Limited in the form of “Clear Armor”. X has the least control over his body when he has “Clear Armor”.

Late in the first card set, it’s revealed Limited can form into organisms of its own, which is an idea explored further in the following Mega Mission card sets. Organisms made from Limited can be very unstable, as while their body constantly develops and grows, if it absorbs data stronger than itself, it can take over the organism completely, effectively turning one person into another, different person.

The character “Enemice HL” (left) is one example of this fate; when he absorbs the data in a “Sigma Chip”, the data takes over his body, forcibly transforming him into “Sigma Limited” (right).

Limited in Chaos Zone’s Setting

Because the Mega Man X series takes place in a hypothetical future of the classic Mega Man series that is ongoing in The Chaos Zone, the events of the series mostly take place in another universe separate from the main universe of the setting; this universe is called “Dimension ΛΞΖ” (Lambda, Xi, Zeta).

All of the above information is still there, but an important detail from Mega Man X3 that was never confirmed in Mega Mission becomes important: Dr. Doppler’s mind was being controlled by the evil “Sigma Virus” during the events of the first Mega Mission story. When Doppler is freed from his mind control during the events of X3, he expresses regret for his actions under the virus’ control, and even takes his life to stop the Sigma Virus.

While it’s never been explained how Limited was brought into the title location of The Chaos Zone, it turns out to be even more volatile: certain kinds of energy cause Limited to break down, or explode violently, and if these reactions are combined, devastating effects can occur. Fortunately, many active characters made of Limited have become immune to the more volatile effects through additional modification of their body.

Limited has been shown to affect just about any robot in the Chaos Zone setting (instead of just “Reploids”), and on rare occasions it has evolved even further, showing abilities like corrupting humans or bypassing certain anti-corruption modifications (though moments like this are short-lived).