Chapter 2 – The End of the Beginning
Proto Man had heard it said that the shock waves of an explosion could extinguish flames, but had never seen the phenomenon until the factory went dark as the curtain fell on the extraordinary battle. Proto Man's IR enhanced vision had already failed and was left waiting for his eyes to adjust to the now minimal light left in the dark, empty room. Everything was quiet.
The fog of darkness soon begot shapes veiled by settling dust. Mega Man was kneeling, breathing heavily; an indication of exhaustion programmed as mimicry of humans, robots only used breath for speaking. Bass lay on the ground some 10 meters away, motionless.
We did it. What possessed Bass to do that? Has his rivalry with Rock really consumed him so fully that he would take use his own life as payment for victory? Well... Wily may have escaped, but at least it's over now.
On the opposite end of the room doors slid open as two humanoid shapes appeared silhouetted in the room beyond the door's light. Proto Man immediately recognized the stout Wily, but the second he couldn't discern any details from. He heard the doctor's distant laugh and imagined those eyebrows of his chuckling alongside.
...So much for "over"... If that's another robot, we're in trouble. There's no one left standing. Rock can't possibly have the strength to take down even a met right now. I need to get up!
Proto Man struggled in vain, knowing the lower half of his body was already fully inoperable.
Damn!
Wily was obviously monologuing… Proto could make out words here and there: "ultimate robot"… "new era"… "epidemic"… "worldwide empire"… nothing the cracked roboticist hadn't said hundreds of times before. These kinds of speeches from Wily really got on Proto Man's nerves. He half-expected Mega Man to stand up right then and finish off the so-called "ultimate robot" so they could all finally go home and forget this mess.
To his half-surprise, the Blue Bomber indeed climbed to his feet and stood valiantly before this new creation. Proto Man wondered where this strength came from; Mega Man was a compilation of gears and circuits just like himself. Where was his limit?
Before his amazement at his brother's valor had even sunk in, the green glow of a solid beam flashed diagonally across Mega Man's torso. A glint of red and yellow shown behind the beam as the silhouette of Mega Man separated into two pieces.
Proto Man froze. His mind couldn't process what had just happened. No matter what he could clearly see, all the context of what he had seen vanished. There was nothing. No thought, no feeling, just the visual of two halves of a robot collapsing to the floor. The green beam steadied in a low, unready position; Wily's manic laugh echoing in the empty room.
Four bright balls of energy zipped across the room, the third of which sending the solid energy beam flying. Darkness filled the room again. Proto Man turned to see the almost-forgotten Bass standing again, gripping his chest but with Bass Buster raised. Proto Man's tactical programming made a quick assessment of Bass' probable status: those shots he fired would be among his last.
A blazing red-white fireball answered the already defeated robot's paltry attempts at confronting the new creation. Bass lost his left shoulder and arm in the blast and once again fell limp to the floor.
With all the fluctuations in energy now dispersed, and the silhouettes making their way back to the room from which they had come, there was little else for the robot's analytical subroutines to latch on to. He looked back at the halved robot: zero energy readings; he looked again to the one armed robot: zero energy readings. The room was 29.7 degrees Celsius. The still settling dust was composed of primarily sediment rock and the faint glow of light in the room measured 17 lumens…
All at once it hit the prototype robot.
His mind still wasn't putting words to what he had seen, but a dauntless rage swept over all other personality subroutines. It was like being possessed by vengeance itself. Proto Man felt his unstable nuclear core back-feeding long since severed circuits causing multiple, painful shorts in his wiring to spark all over his body; but it was moving again, and standing up.
Proto Man belted an almost feral sounding howl. Unable to walk or even raise his arm above waist height, he pushed as much energy into every inch of his body possible in an attempt to bludgeon his malfunctioning limbs into submitting to his command.
"This isn't over Wily!" Proto yelled after the evil doctor and his creation.
Wily stopped and turned back, gesturing his ultimate robot forward to end the enraged Proto Man. The creation let loose another fireball of equal intensity to the one that had dismembered Bass. The nuclear-powered robot took a direct hit, but the outward surging energy from his body dissipated the bulk of the blast and his rage wouldn't be silenced. The final robot creation of Wily began a dash toward the first robot creation of Wily to crush him physically; he would close the distance in a matter of seconds.
"For over a decade," Proto Man whispered, "you have terrorized the people of earth. For over a decade you have been thwarted by Mega Man time and time again. For over a decade you have escaped justice. And for over a decade I have held in the malfunctioning nuclear core you gave me. It all ends now."
The energy forced outward now reversed and left his extremities, drawing everything into the main reactor in Proto Man's chest. As his body began to fall limp again his core temperature went critical mass. All the pain, all the suffering, all the regret; along with all the joy, all the duty, and all the peace Blues had found along the way left him in what felt like exhaling a long-held breath. White light filled his vision and before making it halfway to the floor an agonizing flash of pressure erupted from within, filling everything.