#cyberelf

Yes this is a promo for a con that's currently being funded, doing it for the love of the game (franchise)!

I fell down the MegaMan rabbithole 4 years ago where I played the Zero, X and Battle Network games, and also made some cool friends and got a huge spark of inspo for art. As of now 20XXpo is 90% funded

The results are... pretty different (I actually was drawing this based off my memory of how the original character looked like in BMZ2), but I love it! Her name shall be Mininna, and yes her mouth and blushes are drawn by the crayons.

The Mother Elf and Croire reimagined as Netnavis

The Mother Elf is called the Light Elf and the grandmother of all NetNavis ever. Croire is her personal guard.

Like I've promised, today we're gonna talk about Peatan!

If you wish to see the full, neatly condenced profile right away, you can go to their page on my toyhou.se!

So,

Peatan is a blue nurse cyber-elf who used to be in Resistance's possesion. This happy playful fellow grew tired of living in the special cyber-elf containers, eventually conduring a plan of their own to escape the clutches of this organisation once and for all. Despite of low chances, their scheme was a success as they got brought to Neo Arcadia by Axl along with the Keeper Amulet they were hiding in. However, upon learning of the sacrificial nature of cyber-elves and Peatan's personal wish of exchanging their life to heal the wounds of someone else, their newly found repliroid friend chose to keep the blue nurse inside of the amulet so they won't self-sacrifice at the first opportunity. Luckily, Axl wasn't so harsh on Peatan, letting them out to view the places he was taking the cyber-elf to. The more time Peatan spent with Axl, the more they learnt about the material realm and complex feelings their inhabitors could experience. This allowed the blue nurse to mature as a person and acquire earthly attachments that were so alien to the digital beings who are the cyber-elves...

How do you distinguish Peatan from hundreds of other blue nurses? Well, you would only need to take a look at the cross on their hat! They also gain puffy white shorts underneath the dress upon evolving but that trait is a little more common than the black (deep blue) cross.

You may also say that Peatan has a skirt in the base form which nurses usually don't get until their first evolution, but after seeing this little drawing from a soundrack booklet (I think it was Mythos), I couldn't resist giving them to base forms too which does mean that all nurses in my continuity are not naked when they are babies *chuckle*.

Also did you know that Peatan is an elf you can obtain in the original Rockman Zero 2? They're in Kuwagust Ancatus' stage, after the optional Thunder Golem midboss, stuck in a container. However, when found in Chapter: AXL (since it's meant to have Zero's campaign as well, it just hasn't changed much so we didn't describe it), Peatan would fly away and Zero would receive a different blue nurse after the level if he speaks to one of the soldiers. If Zero has already beaten Crystal Cave stage and didn't get the elf prior, the cyber-elf container would be missing and he would still need to talk to a soldier.

And now it's time for development notes:

I thought our protagonist would need a companion on this journey who could lighten the mood and contrast with a more serious and grimmer version of Axl. The idea of an incredibly cheerful nurse cyber-elf that he would keep around to show what the material realm has to offer came pretty quickly and naturally after that. But why was it an elf that could originally be found in Z2? Well, it was kinda a placeholder but I was able to make the character work in the context of this story pretty easily so I saw no need to change them. In addition, Peatan had a slightly different backstory in the very first draft of Chapter 1, being a cyber-elf that saw one of their own kind sacrifice themselves. This inspired the elf to take their name, and dreaming of accomplishing the same goal one day, hoping to become just as cool and brave at the original Peatan before. Not only it was "a bit" messed up, but it also ended up not working with the timeline. The latter problem could have actually been patched, but I decided not to go through with it. Peatan is an embodinment of child-like innocence (at least in Ch1) and giving them a backstory like that could've been too much. Also I should mention that the idea for a talking ball of light companion was inspired by Sein - the guiding light from Ori and the Blind Forest which I happened to finish prior to conceptualizing Chapter: AXL. Sadly, Peatan wasn't much of a combantant by the end *chuckle*.

And (this isn't in the profile on toyhou.se because it would've made it too long), maybe some of you are also wondering why does Peatan have a lisp in Chapter 1 and not in Chapter 2? Well, if that wasn't obvious yet, they were a little child in Ch1 and they grew during the 2 month timeskip between it and Ch2 which is why they managed to get rid of the lisp. But why was it there in the first place? Well, I just thought it would convey their childness more and that it would be cute *grin*.

Although I've told you about most things that were already written down in the toyhou.se profile, you can still check it out!