Bit

"It... It is not possible for you to contain so much power... The next time we meet the result shall be different!"

- Bit to X if he's defeated without his weaknesses

Bit, known as Vajurila FF (ヴァジュリーラＦＦ) in Japan, is one of the members of the Nightmare Police, along with his partner Byte. He is sent to hunt X during the events of Mega Man X3.

Appearance
Bit is a yellow Reploid of average height, being the smaller of the Nightmare Police. He possesses blue armor along his feet and hands, and his torso and head are adorned with orange swirls somewhat resembling magatamas. His face is mostly concealed by his helmet, save for his eyes, and he has two blue orbs on either side of his head. In promotional artwork he is shown wielding a tall blue shield, but he is never seen using it in-game.

Personality
Bit appears to have an arrogant personality. He serves Dr. Doppler with unquestioning loyalty. When he confronts X, he treats him affably and clarifies that he is following orders by hunting him. However, upon his defeat he is shocked by X's power and assures him that their next encounter will be different. In the manga he is notably more deranged and sadistic.

Dopple Town
Bit and his partner, Byte, were both created by Dr. Doppler to protect Dopple Town as part of the Nightmare Police. They served dutifully, until they joined the riots led by their creator along with the rest of the supposedly Sigma Virus-vaccinated Reploids.

Mega Man X3
After X and Zero defeat two of the eight Maverick bosses in Dopple Town, Dr. Doppler orders the Nightmare Police to capture X for him, alive if possible. Bit will then begin to randomly appear as a sub-boss in the eight stages until he is defeated. If he is not defeated by using his weaknesses, he merely retreats, and X will have to face him and Byte again in the first Doppler stage in their combined form, Godkarmachine O Inary. If Bit is defeated with Frost Shield or Triad Thunder, he will be destroyed and won't reappear later. If only Bit or Byte survive, they will still be able to change into Godkarmachine O Inary without the other's presence. Regardless, Bit's fate is to be destroyed.

Powers and abilities
Bit, being the faster of the two members of the Nightmare Police, uses more agile attacks. In Mega Man X3, at the beginning of each battle he will usually throw a ring, but he may also start with his homing projectile.

Bit also owns a large shield, but as it is heavy, he often chooses to give it up in order to make full use of his speed.


 * Dash (突進) - Bit's most common attack. Bit jumps high, and while falling, he will stop midair when he is in the same height as X and charge forward with his saber. The saber protects him from frontal attacks above his waist.
 * In Rockman X DiVE the saber covers more of his body, leaving only his back exposed. As a boss Bit doesn't use it as often, varying between his other moves. It his boss description it is named Dash Blade in the English version, "Dash Attack" (突進攻撃) in the Japanese version, and "Dash Slash" (突進斬擊) in the Chinese version. It is also one of Bit's skills, being named Forward Slash in English and "Rush Slash" (突進斬) in Asia.


 * Ring (リング) - Generates a ring shaped projectile from his arm and throws it forward. It will move back and forth across the room, changing its direction twice before disappearing. It may also change its height when changing its direction. The ring can bind X if he runs into it. Bit uses two rings after losing half of his life energy.
 * In Rockman X DiVE, this is one of Bit's skills, and as a boss he uses this move more often. Other playable characters can also use this attack by equipping Bit's chip to a buster type weapon. It is named Bind Ring (拘束環 (Chinese)) in his chip and skill, and Binding Ring (拘束リング (Japanese) / 拘束光環 (Chinese)) in Bit's boss description. In Japan the chip version is named Vajuring (ヴァジュリング) and the skill version is "Setsunarin" (刹那輪).


 * Homing Projectile (誘導弾) - Launches a projectile that follows X for a while before leaving the screen. It can cause a decent amount of damage to X. Bit releases two projectiles after losing half of his life energy.
 * In Rockman X DiVE, its homing capabilities are weaker, and it leaves the area faster. The attack is written as ホーミング弾 in Japanese and 誘導彈 in Chinese. It was mistranslated as Decoy Flare in English, which can be written in a similar way to its Chinese name: 誘餌彈.

After losing to X and being modified by Dr. Doppler, Bit also has the ability to merge with Byte to form Godkarmachine O Inary.

Other appearances

 * Bit has a cameo appearance in the opening of Mega Man X5, where he's fighting against Zero.
 * Bit appears in Mega Man Zero 2 as one of Phoenix Magnion's attacks, where a blue image of him appears to attack alongside Vile, Agile, and Colonel.
 * Bit is one of the opponents from Rockman X3 Buster Battle.
 * Bit appeared in Battle Memory from Rockman Xover.
 * Bit appeared as an unit card in TEPPEN and in the illustration from the card Tag Team.

Rockman X DiVE
Bit appears as a boss of the story stage 9-6 in Rockman X DiVE. His pattern is similar to his Mega Man X3 battle, but with Bit using his ring attack more often than his dash attack. He was also made a playable Hunter Program as part of the 2020 Christmas event, where he has access to most of his boss moves in addition to equippable weapons like the rest of the cast. This marks the first time Bit has ever been playable in a video game.

Christmas Bit
Christmas Bit, known as Saint Vajurila MC (セントヴァジュリーラMC) in Asia, is a Christmas themed version of Bit that appeared as a limited event skin and as a boss in the 2020 Christmas event. As a boss, his pattern is similar to his default version, except that he uses his shield to block frontal attacks and has Christmas enemies appearing to assist.

Rockman X3 manga
Bit and Byte are the Nightmare Police created by Doppler. Their bodies are made of  thousands of small mechanical worms made of chips that can turn Reploids into Mavericks.

Bit is first seen at the beginning of the riots in Dopple Town. He appears to Blast Hornet, offering him great power from Dr. Doppler before disabling him with his saber and taking him away.

Bit and Byte attack the Maverick Hunters' base and fight against Zero, Blast Hornet, Blizzard Buffalo, Tunnel Rhino and Neon Tiger, having the advantage in the battle despite being outnumbered. After X's recovery, he goes to the battle and destroys Bit's shield and arm with one charged shot. They decide to retreat after this.

After the defeat of the eight Maverick bosses, they make an announcement on Christmas Eve to challenge X and Zero. Bit and Byte manage to defeat them with ease, capturing and locking them into a powerful drilling machine that would kill them, showing it on a screen in Doppler Town. Dr. Cain and Marty went to the rescue, with Marty's pirates distracting Byte and several Mavericks while she goes to their location to give X the four power up chips found by the reformed Mavericks. Bit sees Marty approaching and confronts her, beating her nearly to death while mocking her attempt to save them and forcing her watch them die. As the drill above X's head begins to make contact, she escapes Bit's grasp and throws the chips to X in a last attempt to save him, and a large explosion occurs, Bit laughing and screaming "Merry Christmas" at X's supposed death. However, the explosion was caused by X, who gained his new armor thanks to the chips and destroyed the drills. X fires at Bit, causing heavy damage to him and destroying several Mavericks that were at distance with Byte. Seeing this, Byte returns to help Bit and Doppler appears with a dragon made of his chip worms. Byte asks Doppler to help Bit, but he makes his dragon attack with a powerful blast in the area X and the others were at, the attack hitting Bit, Byte and Zero, who didn't have time to avoid it. Damaged, Byte (holding Bit, who appears to be either unconscious or dead) asks Doppler to give them a chance to defeat X, and he drops several worms to combine them into Godkarmachine O Inary. Despite the power increase, none of their attacks work on X, and X takes down both Godkarmachine O Inary and Dr. Doppler's dragon with one shot. As a last attempt to defeat X, their remains merged into a giant two headed worm-like monster, but it collapsed before it could attack because of the damage they had received.

Archie Comics
In the crossover Worlds Unite, Bit is one of the Mavericks revived by Sigma, being seen alongside Byte in Sonic the Hedgehog #274.

Quotes from Mega Man X3

 * "Affirmative, Dr. Doppler!"
 * "Welcome, X. I'm Bit. I have my orders. You are to be destroyed."
 * "It... It is not possible for you to contain so much power... The next time we meet the result shall be different!"
 * "This Reploid's special abilities are too... N... No it can't be... Gahhhhhh!!" (Death; defeated using his weakness.)
 * "We've been waiting for you X!" (Doppler's Lab with Byte.)
 * "Take a look at these new upgrades!" (Said together with Byte, before Godkarmachine O Inary transformation.)
 * "X, you fought well to defeat Byte. But I will not go down so easily! The victory over Byte was your last!" (Doppler's Lab alone.)

Merchandise
Bit was one of three Mavericks, alongside Vile MK-II and Return X, to be made into a model kit in Bandai's Mega Armor series. The three were originally released as an interchangeable armor conversion kit and later released as an independent model. The model kit features his shield, which can be attached to his back. Bit was also released as a miniature in the series Rockman Factory, Super Max Rockman and Battle Brusher. All of them were released only in Japan.

Etymology

 * The names of the Nightmare Police members come from Bit and Byte, two units of digital information in computing and telecommunications. Bit's Japanese name is derived from Vajra, a Sanskrit word meaning both thunderbolt and diamond. "Vajra" is also the name of a short metal weapon that is symbolically used in Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism.

Trivia

 * The scene of Bit wishing Merry Christmas in the Rockman X3 manga is often used as a joke in Japan. Every year from 2005 to 2017, except for 2015, the author of the manga, Iwamoto Yoshihiro, posted a parody of the scene on his site during Christmas, where Bit has exaggerated expressions. It has also become one of the recurrent memes among Mega Man fans.
 * In 2020, Rockman X DiVE featured a Christmas version of Bit as a skin for Bit (for top 30 players at the Christmas event) and as the Christmas event boss in a reference to the meme.
 * His appearance is based on ancient Jomon and Nara period tribal Japanese outfits, and to those representing the ancient Shinto gods; some parts of his body resemble Magatamas, and the details in his head resemble the mizura hairstyle.
 * How he is weak against the Frost Shield and the Triad Thunder may draw reference to the battle of the Shinto gods Takemikazuchi and Takeminakata, which is believed to be one of the origins of Japanese martial arts and wrestling; according to the tale, Takeminakata grabbed at Takemikazuchi's arm, but the latter was able to transform it into an icicle, and then into a blade, making it hard to subdue him. Takemikazuchi is also known to be a god of lightning and swords.
 * In both the video game and manga, Bit has the ability to levitate through unknown means.
 * In his artwork, Bit uses a shield, but he doesn't use one in the battle against him in Mega Man X3, instead using a beam saber which wasn't seen in any form of artwork from the game. This is explained by flavor text in Rockman X DiVE, which clarifies that he usually leaves the shield behind due to its heavy weight.
 * Interestingly, he does use the shield when he appears in Phoenix Magnion's attack in Mega Man Zero 2 and in his cameo in Mega Man X5 ' s flashback, although neither his shield or fighting him as Zero are possible in Mega Man X3.
 * In Rockman X DiVE, his Christmas version does use the shield to both, block attacks and for a shield bash attack. It also showcases that Bit stores his shield on his back and it extends when being used.
 * Despite Dr. Doppler specifically indicating that he'd prefer for them to capture X alive, Bit as well as Byte when first encountering X immediately opt to outright kill him.