Type: One Shot
Universe: Rebellion!Verse
Level: 5 - Unlock Character

Everyone had heard of what Master Hand and Crazy Hand had done to Capcom.

It had once been a grand city - distant from Nintendo, but just as large and just as diverse, but to the Hands it was a threat. It had been on the news, no more than ten years ago, and it had made everyone sick upon seeing the footage of the destruction. Not a building had been spared. Not even a single road, or a single tree. Everything had been leveled to the ground in what had to be the most ridiculous display of the Hands' might. In one single day, in one single moment, in less than ten minutes, Capcom was gone and everything that had meant "Capcom" in their lives had been ripped away.

Not a single person lived, as far as everyone in Nintendo was aware. It was enough to set Samus on edge, and she found herself unable to walk the streets alone. She had begun to walk everywhere with either Douglas Falcon or Snake. She had made it adamant that she didn't like it when kids wandered on their own, and soon even her friends were walking in pairs to where they needed to go.

Ten years. It still felt like a scar. It may have hit Samus hard, but it hit Sonic and Mario even more. A long time ago, they had gone on an adventure together with two other people they still spoke fondly of - Mega Man, and Pac-Man. Mario never had a bad thing to say about Mega Man, and the day that Capcom fell, he was all that he talked about. It hadn't been hard to figure out. Clearly Mega Man had lived there once.

Once.

The rebellion had formed against the Hands, sometime after Capcom fell. It was a shame that it had taken three years to get to it. That an entire city had to fall and the scars to be left before anyone would step up and do something. That people had to run away from cities that were slowly dying to live off the streets in Nintendo - like Sonic, like Pac-Man - before anyone figured out they could stand for themselves. But, fittingly, it was Mario that stepped up.

He said he had enough of trying to grasp to a memory of a friend, and felt that it was better that he live up to what his friend would have wanted.

"He wouldn't want me sitting here simply remembering him," he said that night, the twelve of them sitting in his basement. "Mega Man would want me to stand up for everyone that had been hurt, for everyone that could be hurt, and I think it's time we smash them for this."

It was Douglas' idea to call themselves the Smashers.

From there, they rebelled. All twelve of them - and it was grand. Together, they stood up tall for the misjustice granted to Capcom, to those that fell when the city did. To Mario's friend. Soon, they gained other followers, too. And those friends brought their friends. And now, here they stood, with they called the Four Generations of Smashers, and Samus was certain that they weren't done bringing themselves together. As Mario said, the fourth generation was not yet completed, and she knew he had plans to add more to their ranks.

Villains. Heroes. They were all working together for one cause.

Present Day.

The Smashers have infiltrated what they believe is a lab designed for the building of the Polygons, the Wireframes, and the Alloys. It is believed that the Hands have gathered intel to build a new type of Alloy with the ability of blending into the crowds around them, if the anonymous tip is to be believed. Information like this would be vital to stopping the new form of Alloys if they can prevent it.

If the Alloys infiltrate the civilians, it would be bad news indeed.

According to Fox and Falco, the laboratories are in the basement. A small group of Smashers consisting of Zero Suit Samus, Snake, Mario, Sonic, Falco, and the female Robin, have infiltrated the building. They were noticed midway through their trek, and have retreated to a room to gather their surroundings. They must now come up with a battle plan.

Except...

The room they had slammed themselves in was dark save for a few strange tubes that glowed an ominous, sickly green colour. Snake bolted the door, and kicked it when the Alloys started banging on it, clearly demanding they leave. He leaned against it then and took out a cigarette, as everyone else watched his actions. He was clearly annoyed and angered at their being caught, but there wasn't much else that they could do about the situation and they all knew it.

"Damn wimps," he muttered under his breath. "They sound more scared of us being in this room then us being here in the first place."

"Shouldn't every room have a light switch?!" Falco yelled out then, dragging his feathered fingers across the wall. "I can't see a thing in this place, I need light!" His hand swept across something then and he gave out a yelp of excitement, flipping it.

The lights turned on, blaring into all their eyes like sharp daggers for a moment before they were even able to look at the situation. Samus opened her eyes to look at the room, seeing it properly for the first time. A couple of desks sat around one wall, and when she looked at them, she noticed they were notes, concepts, designs, and... observations? Blueprints were all over the desk farthest from the door, an eerie diagram of what appeared to have once been an Alloy, vivisected and researched intensely. Another blueprint sat next to it, with the name of it being called a "Mii".

"... They've already started their progress on the new Alloys," she informed, turning to look at the others. Robin wasn't even paying attention, as she turned to look at something else, blinked, and then approached it. The others, however, came up to Samus immediately. "They're going to call them... Miis."

"Miis?" Mario asked, dumbfounded. "Like their Wii cannon, but the W upside down?"

"Sounds like how Wario and Mario are basically the first letter switched," Sonic observed. "The Hands probably couldn't help themselves with the reference, so they went and did it." He crossed his arms at the idea. "How's the design look? Complete, first draft? Or what?"

Samus held out the offending blueprint.

Snake glanced at it. "Looks like a first draft design. They're probably trying to figure out how to implement the technology into one, human-like shape. It'd be difficult." He snorted. "Course, they killed the only men that would probably be able to help them. Dr. Light and Dr. Wily were fiercely intense in this kind of stuff - human like robots, the size of children able to destroy entire buildings." He sneered then. "Maybe it's a good thing. They won't be able to figure it out on their own."

"The tech was highly guarded, wasn't it?" Falco commented. He, too, crossed his arms and tilted his head at the blueprints. "The design's too clunky - the Alloy would be too easily noticed."

"Guys..." Robin suddenly voiced from a corner.

She went unnoticed, as Samus turned the paper around to look at it. "We should probably take these for Douglas to look at. If we can steal all their data, then we can spare them the humiliation of these things going to the streets."

"Yeah, well..." Sonic began.

"Guys!" Robin screamed out, and everyone turned to her immediately. She had moved so she was next to Falco, and looked particularly freaked out to the point everyone else was concerned. "Guys, I found something. It's really important."

"Please tell me you didn't find a vent and those losers can get in here," Snake quickly said. He gave a long sigh of relief when Robin shook her head. "Oh, thank God."

"Then what is it?" Mario asked. "You look... worried."

"Yeah," Sonic added. "When you're worried, we all get a little freaked out. So spill it out."

Instead of saying anything, Robin merely pointed a finger at the direction of the back wall, and retreated towards it. Sharing nervous and freaked out glances, the other five moved to join her. She stopped before one of the strange, green tubes, and gestured toward a small clearing on the fogged up glass. Samus realized she must have rubbed away the condensation in order to see what was inside, as clearly this tube had something inside it. It was the only one with a shadowed form sitting inside.

Falco and Sonic fought to see who should go first to peer inside, pushing each other forward and quickly retreating to push the other. Mario took a step back. Samus turned to Snake.

"I ain't looking," he told her. "What if it's a dead Alloy or somethin'? I don't want to look at that."

Samus gave a sigh. "I'll look."

Everyone stopped, looking at her in surprise, admiration, and worry.

"Hey, I'll be fine," she remarked. "Robin managed to look inside, so I'm doing it, too."

She took a deep breath. Breathe in, breathe out. Pause. And then, she calmly stepped forward, prepared for anything. That vivisected Alloy. A half-constructed Mii. Maybe even something unrelated to the research and there was just a dead body. Peering into the hole in the condensation, Samus looked inside.

And promptly stepped back in disbelief.

"What?!" she exclaimed. "Is that...?!"

She looked back inside. Sure enough, something was staring back at her. Lit up eyes, blue in colour, flickered back at her, though there were cracks in one eye - the creature's left, it seemed - and dead pixels around them. The rest of the figure seemed to be nothing but a big blob of shadow, implying it was sitting there in the tube, somewhat cramped. It likely hadn't moved since it had been placed there.

"It blinks, too!" Robin said, a crack in her voice. Samus watched as the figure did just that. "Whatever it is, it's alive and I don't know what to do."

"The new Miis aren't designed so far with light up eyes," Samus pointed out, crossing her arms and looking away from the creepiness. "I don't know what we should do, either."

"What's in there?" Falco asked then.

"It seems to be a robot of some kind, or something with light up eyes. One eye's broken, though," Samus answered. She looked at Snake. "You have a look. You're usually pretty good at judging things. Is it bad, so we should leave it there... or is it good, so should we get it out?"

Snake gulped as everyone else turned to him to check out the strange figure. He stepped up to the tube and peered in, reeling back just as Samus did, a swear word uttered out of his mouth that made Mario and Sonic raise their eyebrows. He straightened and placed a hand to his head, before peering back in to take a closer look.

"... He's clean, Samus. Doesn't look properly operational, though," was Snakes words.

"...He...?" Sonic asked.

"Holy mother of everything, though," Snake continued, talking over Sonic. He turned to Samus, an expression on his face that she had never seen. "Find a way to open this thing, we're taking him with us."

Robin nodded and turned to the desk behind her. "There's something around here, that was a button like thing."

She fiddled around with the desk for a moment, Samus watching as Snake merely muttered swear words and expressions of disbelief under his breath. Everyone else watched in awe at Snake's change of behaviour, just as the tube began to lift up into the ceiling. A fog came out from underneath the glass as it lifted, and it overcame everyone's senses for a moment as Snake pushed through and held out a hand to the waiting figure.

"Come on!" he called out. "Take my hand! We're going to get you out of here!"

"That is a different greeting than what your superiors have given me," came a reply, and Samus felt her heart stop.

She'd heard that voice before. In the old clips that Mario and Luigi had on film in the basement of their home, she had watched the adventure that Mario had gone on with Sonic, Pac-Man and Mega Man. The tone was just as youthful, but it was more monotone that what she had heard him use before. But... there was no way. Yet...

Sonic gave out a swear word of his own, then, and he and Mario rushed up to Snake in disbelief.

"Mega Man!?" Sonic cried out, collapsing before the figure just as the fog cleared, who gave out a deadpanned "Hello" as the hedgehog carefully took a hand. "Oh, thank the everlasting high heavens, you're alive!"

There, sitting on where the tube had once been, was a boy dressed in blue, sitting in a cramped position. His eyes wide and matching his outfit, he looked at everyone with a look of complete apathy and disinterest, not a touch of emotion of his face. His left eye, as Samus had observed earlier, was damaged with cracks going from the top to the bottom, dead pixels all around the screen. Now that she had a better look at him, she could see that his armor was damaged in quite a few places as well - his right leg in particular had wires sticking out, as did his left arm. His wrists on both his hands appeared to be damaged as well. This was him, though. No doubt about it. This was Mega Man.

"I have not been referred to that in some time," stated Mega Man in a monotone voice. "But you know that name, and you're the first in a while. I assume your companions are here for more of the experiments? Your attempts will be as successful as last time."

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," Sonic said with a crack in his tone, as Mario covered his own face with his hands. "Why's your override active?!"

"Override?" Falco asked in confusion.

It was Mario that answered, his voice muffled by his hands. "Dr. Light programmed Mega Man with an override that would come into place if anyone tried to steal the data stored on him... They all had it..."

"It's active," Sonic added, a seething tone now in his voice. "It's active. That means these freaks have been trying to poke their little pitchforks inside of his head! I'm going to tear them all apart!" He put his hands on Mega Man's shoulders, being mindful of the damage. "Are you okay?! What did they do to you?! And what the heck happened to your eye?!"

"I am not programmed to respond to those kinds of questions," Mega Man voiced. Samus could almost hear a bored sigh alongside it. "Please refrain from asking further questions regarding my programmed status. As I told your superiors, this is why I set up these barriers you're trying to take down."

"No, you don't understand!" Sonic cried. "I'm trying to make sure you're okay! I thought you were dead for ten years, Megs! Ten years!"

"You are behaving as if I should know you." At his words, Robin gasped.

"That's because you do! I'm Sonic, remember?!"

Mega Man tilted his head. "Incorrect. I have no datalogs of someone matching your appearance." And now, Robin gave a sad whine.

Samus felt a small twitch in her heart at the entire sight before her. Sonic looked like he was ready to cry, his hands still on Mega Man's shoulders. If she didn't know any better, and if Sonic wasn't worried about damaging his friend even more, one would think he'd start violently shaking Mega Man as if it would help. Mario still had his face in his hands, still coming to terms with what they had found. And really, Samus didn't blame him. For ten years everyone said nobody lived through the damage of Capcom. For ten years everyone that had lived there was presumed dead. For ten years they mourned the boy they looked at as if he was their kid brother. For ten years that boy was here, being experimented on for who knows what reasons.

"I've got to be somewhere in there," Sonic sighed, looking at his friend closely. "You know it. You just sealed them all in a can, and I can't remember how to undo it because you won't."

"I started the override merely because my data was violated," Mega Man explained with a blank face. He tilted his head. "You seem to have an understanding of how my programming works. This is odd, as you are the first one in a while. You seem to be a first for many things."

"Mega Man, come on!" Sonic exclaimed. "You've got to remember! If not me, at least Mario!"

"Clearly I am faulty," was the next set of words to come out in a deadpan. "Perhaps I have reached my limit of use to you. I am just a robot."

"Mega Man!" Mario exclaimed then, standing up. Sonic looked at him head on, clearly at a loss of what to say now. That was fine, as Mario knew what to say now. "No... Rock! Rock, listen to me! You're not faulty - you're not just a robot, you are so much more than that and you know it. And... I have something very important to say to you." Mega Man turned to regard Mario, though Samus assumed it was just to be polite. Mario narrowed his eyes at the robot, before taking a deep breath. "The Blues came before the Rock and Roll."

Suddenly, the robot's blue eyes widened, though his left, cracked eye didn't dilate as much. A hard, whirring sound came from somewhere in his head. Samus blinked at the sight, watching as Sonic backed away then, letting go of his friend. Everyone present watched as he sat there, relaxing his position as he was no longer contained by the walls of the tube he had been sitting in likely for ten years. Just as the sound of computers silenced, he closed his eyes, lowering his head. The room then went quiet, save for the pounding of the Alloys on the other side of the door.

Snake narrowed his eyes as he turned to the door. "We should probably get moving. Be careful handling him - he's heavily damaged and we need to figure out how to repair him." He turned back to Mario. "What magic did you work, there?"

All eyes turned to the relaxed form of Mega Man, each set curious save for two. Mario smiled as he watched the robot carefully. "I used his passphrase. Dr. Light had wired it into his programming as a way to turn off his override. He's restarting his systems now."

"I had totally forgotten it," Sonic admitted. "Man, do I feel dumb now..."

"How long will it take for him to finish setting up?" Snake asked then. "Because we have to get moving and I need to know how long we're going to have to lug him around."

"We might have to carry him around either way," Robin pointed out then. "Look at that damage!"

Sonic and Mario took closer looks at the damage that marked their friend all over. Sonic found himself gulping at the sight. "... I don't even... I think some of these might be from when Capcom exploded! Some of them just look too old! Gah, I'm going rip these guys' throats out!"

"Thankfully most of it looks like armor damage with little internal damage," Falco pointed out as he came up closer to inspect. "I mean, yeah the wires sticking out are a little worrying but I'm sure I can whip up something if they're bad." He gave a smile to Mario and Sonic. "Don't worry - I'll team up with Fox, and Captain Falcon, and anyone else who thinks they can help. You won't lose him a second time."

Samus blinked then. "Actually, I'll be able to help, too."

"See? Even Samus Aran is on the case!" Robin laughed. "Mega Man joins the battle!"

The task of carrying the restarting form of Mega Man fell to the joint effort of Mario and Sonic. From what Samus could tell, it didn't seem to be an easy one, as the robot was apparently pretty heavy due to the hardware inside of him, and the two hadn't necessarily moved him around like this before. It made sneaking around the laboratory somewhat difficult, but with Snake, Samus and Falco up front and Robin bringing the thunder from behind, they didn't run into too much trouble. Breaking out from the place they had broken in had been easy.

And better yet, they had all the information they had gone for. Now they were sitting out front in a bus station waiting for the rain to stop, as it had been pouring out when they had managed to get out. Unfortunately, the taxi they had called for had gotten lost on the way there, so there was no one to come pick them up right away, so Samus was trying to get Meta Knight on her comlink. It was proving to be a daunting task. No one was answering on the Halberd, which was either a bad sign or an irritant. Most of the time, Meta Knight was busy on the Halberd trying to entertain Kirby as he had randomly visited. It typically happened once every two days or so - sometimes once a day. That was the irritating part. The bad one could be that they were infiltrated, but she highly doubted it.

"Meta Knight's out," she finally decided, turning to the others who were trying to stay dry. "I'm going to see if I can get a hold of Douglas. How's our newcomer?"

At her words, she watched as Sonic and Mario turned to the still form resting on the bench underneath the bus shelter, his eyes still closed. Mario approached and put a hand to Mega Man's head, a small smile on his face.

"... He's cooling down," he reported. "Most likely he'll wake up shortly."

"I hope this rain stops shortly!" Robin brought up. Her hair was damp and sticking to her face, but her beautiful Plegian coat was drenched and clearly weighing her down. "There's no way I'm going to be dry by the time we get home. Aw, man... Rufure is going to kick my behind for getting it soaked..."

Samus rose an eyebrow at that. Robin was one of two Robins - one male, one female. They had come from two different universes of a timeline, both that were remarkably the same, but with one difference - their gender. They were both a fish out of water here. Typically when they were alone, everyone just referred to them by their original name to save them the trouble, but when they referred to each other or were together in the same room, they adopted completely new names, Rufure and Reflet. Samus wasn't sure who came up with the names, but she was glad that they did. It was hard enough with the two Pits and Zelda and Sheik, and the Links.

"It's cool," Sonic laughed. "No one predicted the rain from nowhere."

Snake muttered under his breath as he fiddled with a small device in his hands.

"It's still annoying," Falco grumbled.

"He's waking up!" Mario suddenly announced.

The sounds of a computer came to Samus' ears and she turned to see Mario and Sonic hovering over Mega Man, who was slowly sitting up. His eyes activated and bright, she could see the damage in his left eye more clearly than she had inside the base. She almost wanted to wince at the sight of it - if he had been human, she didn't doubt that it would have hurt like hell. She watched as he tested moving everything, but it was evident that not everything - especially his hands - were complying with his demands.

"... What happened?" was the first thing that came out of his mouth. "I remember buildings falling and Elec Man pushing me out of the way..." Suddenly, he gasped. "Elec Man! Mario, Sonic! What happened?! Where's Elec Man?"

There was silence. When Samus looked at the others, she saw Snake looking away in shame and Robin looking like she was about to cry.

"Megs..." began Sonic. "... We need to have a long chat about what happened. But first... what's your damage? You look terrible, buddy."

Mega Man paused for a moment. "I seem to have sustained a lot of armor damage and some minor inner damage to my limbs' wiring, especially my wrists. I am also very low on battery power, it seems I lost some in my sleep. It appears I've also had multiple malware loaded into my computers and at least one trojan virus, but they're gone now... And I can't really see out of my left eye, there seems to be a massive crack? I'm confused..."

Sonic gulped. "Man... This is bad."

"I'll be fine," Mega Man assured him. "Samus is here. Pretty sure Dr. Light told her a bit about how I run... are am I thinking of someone else?"

"You're thinking of me, don't worry," Samus explained with a sigh as she approached. "I think I can at least get you walking again so we can get you back to the mansion, I just need to get a hold of Douglas first." She groaned as she tried to connect with the Blue Falcon. She got a busy signal as a result. "He's not answering."

"Whatever's going on over there, it must be one heck of a party," Robin said with a smile. "Maybe we should just walk."

"But it's raining," Falco complained.

"Get over it!" everyone else but Samus and Mega Man yelled back.

Mega Man was walking.

Mario and Sonic walked behind him a short distance, prepared at any moment to rush forward to help in case of a stumble from their dear friend, which he did often. Samus didn't blame him - he'd spent God knew how long inside of that cramped little tube, in that cramped little position, with those damaged, sabotaged limbs. It was a miracle he was able to walk even after she had fixed the damage to the best of her current ability with limited resources. The rain was beginning to let up, and she could already see the clouds beginning to disperse, letting the blue sky show. It was still a bit dark and damp, but at least they wouldn't be wandering in complete rain.

Robin was asking Mega Man what seemed to be a rather extensive and extreme version of Twenty Questions, however. He was glad to provide the answers as he understood them - questions ranging from his ability of thought to his concept of problem solving were questioned, to which he gave honest answers. The conversation between the two had done a good job of distracting Samus during the incredibly long walk they had, and she greatly appreciated it.

"You know," she heard Robin begin, "we were in that place we found you because we got an anonymous tip about the Miis!"

"The Miis?" Mega Man paused for a moment. "What are those?"

"We think they had you to use a base for stronger and more durable robots, little buddy," said Sonic from behind them. He gave Mega Man a calm smile when he got a concerned look. "Don't worry - they got nothing off of you."

The sun was breaking out by that point, and Mega Man stopped. Everyone stopped when he did, looking at him with concern. It had been obvious when he had awoken in that bus terminal that he didn't remember what had happened - minor bits and pieces of Capcom's destruction had slipped through, but he didn't remember the encounter in the lab at all. But, instead of Mega Man looking at them all in horror, he was looking up at the sky.

Samus looked up as well, and was greeted by the warm sun hitting her face. It felt nice - like a welcome home, like a thank you from the world, like a good morning.

Mega Man held his arms out, and closed his eyes. "I feel... happy. For some reason, I don't think I've been this happy for a long time." He gave out a weak laugh. "I don't know what happened, or how I came to be with you guys... I'm still in the dark about what happened to Elec Man, but I know I'm here now and happy now because of something you did." He turned to the others, his smile widening. "So... So, thank you."

And for the first time in a long time, Mega Man cheerfully chatted with Mario and Sonic about the goings-on in the world. Though, Samus noticed they edited out a lot of the dark stuff. She didn't really blame them.

He was the happiest he'd been since Capcom fell. He deserved it.

Authoress' Notes

I don't even know, I was having difficulty with the next chapter of New Game: Press Start! due to Fanfiction having difficulty saving my chapter so I had to rewrite it six times so I decided to write what came to mind, and well... this came out, and I just had to finish it into something a little more solid. Who knows. Maybe it will be its own thing someday, even if its not me writing it.

Interesting Info:
• This One Shot is brought to you in part by me dying fifty thousand times in Mega Man V.
• The next chapter of New Game: Press Start! is about 75% completed, so no worries, it's still on the way!