Author Notes: Notice the difference yet? ;P As said before, this is a complete rewrite.
We will be using the character's Japanese names; this is more for personal preference than anything else.
Rockman (Rock) = Megaman (Rock)
Blues = Protoman/Breakman
Forte = Bass
Gospel = Treble
Neither Yuki nor myself claim to own Megaman, the genre or the characters involved. Our interpretations of these characters are entirely our own and do not represent Capcom's views on said characters. Rose is my own personal brainchild.
Poison Of Love
By Neon Tiger and Yuki Ryu
Chapter 2
"I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS!"
Forte sighed and crossed his arms, glaring irritably at the ground. He tried to put on his best display of feeling guilty for failing but only came off as irritated. It was bad enough they came home empty-handed, but then Wily decided to put icing on the cake by ranting at them about their incompetence. To be honest, Forte personally didn't see the big deal about not getting the Star; he was the ultimate robot!
Wily just didn't see things that way.
"You FAILED!" Wily snarled as he stomped back and forth, shaking his fists. "You can't steal one simple jewel! You're useless! USELESS!"
"But Rockman showed up..." Woodman tried to protest.
"THAT'S NO EXCUSE!" Wily screamed, waving a fist at Woodman. "I made you to FIGHT Rockman, so he should have been no problem for you!"
Woodman yelped and cringed back. Even if a punch from his creator would do more damage to the human than himself, the doctor was able to do things far worse than that when angered.
Forte refrained from reminding Wily whose fault it was that a moron like Woodman was on the mission at all. He knew he could have handled it just as easily himself. However, Wily was in one of his moods.
Likewise, his other two 'companions' were no help either.
Wily was obviously ignoring Starman distinctively. Who could blame him? Ever since Starman flirted with the doctor, Wily had tried to speak to him as little as possible.
Astroman was making a wide array of scared noises as he cringed away from his creator's wrath. Were he human he would be sweating so much by now that he would have died from dehydration. But atleast Astroman did serve a purpose; he generated enough fear to make up for the otherwise lack of fear that Forte displayed.
Forte sighed. He sometimes wished the doctor would take up medication, like Prozac; he needed it.
"AND YOU!" Wily whirled to point a finger in the black and gold robot's face, as if sensing Forte's thoughts. "What the hell were you doing!?"
"Trying to baby-sit THEM," Forte grunted.
"DON'T GIVE ME THAT!" Wily roared. Forte sighed as Wily proceeded to go in to a huge rant about responsibility and being useful.
Astroman cowered in utter terror as he fearfully paid attention to the doctor's every word should Wily get even angrier if they weren't listening.
Woodman occasionally cringed but couldn't help but think about how much Wily's mustache looked like a paintbrush and what it might be like to use it to paint a picture.
Starman was simply too busy flirting with Geminiman. No one paid any attention to him.
"Faaather! I'm hooome!" Rose strolled in to the room, then paused and glanced around at the assembled Robot Masters and their irate creator. "What's wrong?"
"Wrong!? THESE MORONS DIDN'T GET THE STAR, that's what's wrong!" Wily shrieked, then paused and whirled to stare at Rose. "And where were YOU?!"
"Getting the Star," Rose said calmly, pulling out a familiar large gem from down her shirt. She noticed the stares, then flushed and coughed. "I had to hide it down there. It was the only place the guards wouldn't search."
Wily's jaw dropped as his eyes widened, his fists raised in mid-rant.
Forte's own jaw dropped as well, unable to believe that Rose actually got the Star.
Astroman practically fell over in relief, far too glad that someone had brought back the Star rather than who brought it. After all, if Wily had the Star then that most likely meant that they wouldn't get punished.
"You go girl!" Starman gave Rose a thumbs up as he hooked an arm around Geminiman's waist.
"Hey!" Geminiman protested as he quickly removed himself from Starman's grasp.
"OOOH! YOU GOT THE SHINIEST THING!" Woodman squealed happily, obviously looking forward to playing with the 'shiniest thing'.
"Er, yeah," Rose sweatdropped, noting the reactions. "Um... this is what you wanted, isn't it?"
"H-how...?" Forte managed to choke out.
"Oh, well... I followed you," Rose giggled. Forte grimaced, and rubbed his forehead. Rose had a habit of stalking the 'big boys' when they went out 'to play', so naturally he should have expected her to follow them when their mission involved something she was interested in. "And, well, I arrived when the place was swarming with police. I snuck in to see if anyone was captured and if I could help... then I saw the Star. So I grabbed it and shoved it down my shirt!"
Forte was horrified and shocked.
Astroman started to fret that Wily would get mad at them again because of how easily Rose got the Star when they couldn't.
Woodman continued to stare at the Star while squealing about how shiny it was.
Starman was too busy trying to convince Geminiman to 'stay the night' in his room.
Geminiman would have been shocked as well if he weren't already preoccupied with trying to convince Starman that 'no means no'.
"D-did I mess up?" Rose squeaked, suddenly aware of almost every eye focused on her.
"Mess up? MESS UP!?" Wily lunged at Rose and pulled her in to a tight hug. "You're a miracle! A MIRACLE!"
"Ah?" Rose blinked repeatedly.
"A miracle!" Wily repeated. "You did it! I can't believe you did it! A non-combat robot did something that none of my COMBAT robots could do!"
"... Uh..." Rose blinked. "Maybe it's because I'm a girl."
"Hm?" Wily looked at Rose.
Rose simply beamed.
Wily paused, and then cackled as he let the comment slide. "Indeed, indeed!"
"Here!" Rose held out the Star to Dr. Wily, who immediately grabbed it and bolted out of the room.
"Success! SUCCESS! I should have made more girl robots! I can actually rely on THEM!" he crowed as he disappeared.
Rose blinked after Dr. Wily, then glanced around the room and shrugged.
"Aww... I wanted to play with the shiniest thing..." Woodman sniffled.
"Oh man... I feel so inadequate now..." Astroman whimpered as he poked his fingers together and looked down.
"You ARE inadequate," Forte snapped, flushed as he felt that his manliness and worth was now compromised by a non-combat female robot.
"Really? I am?" Astroman asked, whimpering. "Oh no, oh no, oh no! Now I'll bet Dr. Wily is going to turn me into scrap for sure! I just know it!"
Rose shifted, feeling very uncomfortable. "I'm sure he won't, Astro."
"Really...? You think...?" Astroman asked hopefully as he looked at Rose with wide eyes, his hands clasped together.
"Of course," Rose smiled, brightly. "He may say it sometimes... but he never really means it. I mean... if he did, he wouldn't have rebuilt you."
"Yeah... yeah, that's right!" Astroman said happily, visibly relieved.
Forte continued to sulk.
"Hey, Bob Barker's probably on!" Woodman exclaimed suddenly before he darted out towards the TV room.
---
"Hmm..." Wily tapped the tip of his pen against the papers, glaring at it thoughtfully. "I suppose that about covers the details..."
Forte leaned against the wall, still sulking, as he watched Dr. Wily toil over the plans to his 'ultimate robot'.
"It'll be complex... but I enjoy a good challenge!" Wily smirked.
"Teh," Forte pouted, though Wily chose to ignore him.
"Now all I have to do is build it," Wily nodded.
With that, he turned and headed towards his tool chest. As Wily left the plans, Rose walked in and blinked. She noticed the plans, and then looked at Forte.
"Is that the new robot?" she asked.
"Grf," Forte glowered.
"Okay then!" Rose headed over to the table and peered down at the plans. She blinked, and then scowled. "... It's a guy."
"So?" Forte arched an eyebrow. "All combat robots are guys."
"Girls can fight too," Rose grunted.
"... All combat robots are guys," Forte repeated.
"We'll see about that!" Rose snapped, grabbing the plans and storming out of the room. Forte blinked repeatedly, unsure of what just happened, and stared at his sister's retreating form.
"Well then!" Wily smirked as he headed back over, oblivious to what had just happened. "Let's get start-HEY! Where are my plans!?" The doctor whirled to glare at Forte, accusingly.
"Don't look at me!" Forte shrugged, helplessly. "Rose took them!"
"... Why?"
"How should I know!?"
"Well, go FIND her!"
"Fine, fine!" Forte held his hands up, helplessly. He whirled and stormed out of the room, muttering.
Forte spent a good hour trying to find Rose, who had seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth. He asked every Robot Master he came across if they had seen Rose, but all they could do was tell him they saw her in places he had already checked. Except for Starman's room, like the Robot Master in question had suggested.
However, Forte eventually found Rose in the one place he didn't think to look: her room.
Rose hummed cheerfully as she worked on the plans, using different colored pens. A wide variety rested on her desk, ranging from red and pink to blue and purple. She used each one in turn, as if she were drawing a picture.
Forte stood in the doorway, momentarily stunned, before he coughed.
"Uh... Wily wants..." he began.
"Almost done!" Rose said, cheerfully.
"... Done?"
"Yep."
"Done with what?"
"Fixing the plans, silly!"
"... What have you done?"
"Just wait! SHE'S going to be wonderful!"
"... SHE!?!"
---
"Welcome back, Rockman! How did it go?"
"Very strangely, doctor... very strangely," Rockman sighed as he walked in to the lab, his feet dragging. "Just... strangely."
"What do you mean?" Dr. Light blinked.
"They ran away, doctor," Rockman looked up at Dr. Light. "And they were trying to rob the museum! Something about the Star of Ishtar... I can only imagine they were after the new exhibit." He paused. "Which is gone, I might add."
"The Star of Ishtar was stolen?" Dr. Light blinked again and stroked his beard thoughtfully. "Why would Dr. Wily want that or anything else from the museum?"
"I don't know!" Rockman shrugged helplessly. "I would have thought they'd steal something from a weapons plant, not a museum!"
"That is most peculiar," Light muttered as he walked over to one of the computers. "Dr. Wily must see something we're missing. I'll try to look up all I can about it and see what I can find."
"That's a good idea, doctor!" Rockman nodded vigorously, then paused and tilted his head. "Um... doctor?"
"Yes, Rockman?" Light blinked as he turned towards his creation.
"... Starman was staring at me again," Rockman muttered.
Dr. Light was taken back for a moment. "Staring? In what way?" he asked, even though he had a sneaking suspicion as to what way it was already.
"... He said I had on a tight uniform," Rockman looked at Dr. Light levelly.
"... Oh." Dr. Light scratched his head, perspiring slightly both because he was the one that designed Rockman's armor and because apparently Wily had given his robots more human emotions than he had previously thought. "I see..."
Rockman was silent for a few moments as he looked around, and then lowered his voice. "Maybe you could, um, design it so I don't look like I'm running around in underwear all the time?"
Dr. Light coughed and nodded. "Uh, of course, Rockman. I'll get right on it after we try and figure out what Dr. Wily's up to. Is that alright with you?"
"Okay," Rockman nodded, then scowled. "But I'm going to kick Starman if he hits on me again."
"Yes, well, about that... Maybe it's time I had a talk with you about some things."
"Huh?" Rockman blinked.
"Since you are who you are, I wasn't sure if I should have this talk with you or not, but now seems as good a time as any."
"... What are you talking about, doctor?" Rockman started to worry.
"Well... it's an important discussion some people have dubbed 'the birds and the bees'..."
---
"ABSOLUTELY NOT!"
"WHY!?"
"THERE'S MANY REASONS!" Wily ranted as he threw his arms up into the air, glaring at his 'daughter'.
"NAME ONE!" Rose put her hands on her hips and glowered at Wily, not about to back down.
"FOR ONE, YOU ALTERED MY BRILLIANT PLANS!" Wily snapped as he pounded his fist on a nearby table for emphasis.
"I made them better!" Rose retorted, flipping her hair back haughtily.
"You changed about half of everything!" Wily slammed his fist again.
"It needed changing!" Rose insisted.
"You made it a GIRL!"
"Girls can be combat robots!"
"There has NEVER been a female combat robot!"
"Then it's about time you made one!"
"Girl robots don't make good combat robots!"
"How would you know!?"
"Because I've built thousands of different robots!"
"ALL OF THEM MALE!" Rose stomped her foot. "Did you forget that I got the Star all by myself when your MALE robots couldn't do it!?"
Forte knew better than to get involved. Instead, he chose to stand against the wall and watch with an amused smile. The two had been fighting for three hours and no one was any closer to winning.
"That was a fluke!" Wily waved his arm into the air as if for emphasis. "Besides! If that meddling Rockman hadn't interfered, they would have gotten it anyway!"
"Girls can be just as effective as boys!" Rose stomped her foot again.
"They can, but not as fighters!" Wily pounded his fist into the table, knocking off a couple pieces of paper and a pencil. "Girls are best doing GIRL things!"
"And what, pray TELL, is a GIRL THING?" Rose's eyes sparked, challengingly.
"This'll get ugly," Forte whispered, his amusement increasing.
"Cooking, cleaning, minding the house, and other GIRL THINGS!" Wily proclaimed, determined to make his creation back down from the argument.
"GUYS can do that too!" Rose growled. "Just as GIRLS can do GUY things!"
"GIRLS are made to do GIRL things and that's all there is to it!" Wily crossed his arms.
"OH REALLY!?" Rose crossed her arms.
"REALLY! My ultimate robot will be MALE and that's FINAL!" Wily snapped.
"Then I guess you don't want to eat anymore, hm?" Rose's eyes narrowed dangerously.
Wily paused for a moment then scowled all the more. "Now you listen to me! I'm not going to allow you blackmail me! I AM YOUR CREATOR!"
"AND I COOK THE MEALS IN THIS FORTRESS!" Rose returned, hotly. "If you ever want me to cook for you ever again, that robot is going to be a girl!"
"He made her too much like him," Forte observed, though he couldn't help but grin. He had to admit that he, too, had a touch of Wily in him. He idly wondered if the doctor really intended for them to be the family he never had. If so, then Wily would have to get used to family squabbles.
Wily twitched, not used to someone standing up to him, aside from Forte occasionally, especially his 'daughter'. "If you're so insistent on having another girl, I'll make another girl, but THIS robot is going to be a boy!"
"You'll forget!" Rose snapped. "THIS one's going to be a girl!"
"Ten to one says he gives in," Magnetman whispered.
"You're on," Cloudman whispered.
"I MADE A PERFECT DESIGN FOR A BOY, NOT A GIRL!" Wily snapped back.
"AND I FIXED IT SO IT'S A PERFECT DESIGN FOR A GIRL!" Rose yelled.
Wily made a loud noise of frustration and tugged on his hair. "ERRRRRGGH! WHY MUST YOU BE SO STUBBORN ABOUT THIS!?!"
"Because that's the way you designed her," Forte thought, though even he didn't have the guts to say that out loud. Fact was, Rose had been designed to be the housekeeping robot; not only that, she was meant to take care of the old man, giving him an honest second opinion and making sure he got enough sleep and no longer pulled any more 'all nighters' like he did when he was younger. To accomplish that, she needed a backbone. Unfortunately for Wily, it wasn't a selective backbone.
Rose's eyes suddenly watered as her lower lip trembled. "B-because you're being mean!"
"... Oh god, The Pout," Forte whispered, smirking.
"Wily's going down," Magnetman observed.
Wily froze in mid-rant at the sight of Rose pouting. He struggled to fight its effects, but ultimately was no match. "... Now... Rose... don't cry... I wasn't trying to be mean..." he said in a lower voice, obviously at a loss.
"I j-just want a... another g-girl around s-so I won't feel s-so lonely," Rose's eyes shimmered, tears dripping down her cheeks. "And... and you keep saying that you don't like girls... T-that means you don't like ME, doesn't it?!"
Magnetman quietly hummed taps.
Wily deflated, no match for his 'daughter's tears.
"... Fine. I'll make her a girl," he sighed.
"OH THANK YOU!" Rose lunged to hug Dr. Wily, immediately forgetting her 'crying'.
"Told ya," Magnetman chuckled.
"Hm. I wonder if I can look pouty enough or if it only works for girls?" Forte wondered.
"It's gotta be a girl thing," Cloudman commented.
"... You're welcome, Rose," Wily sighed again as he returned the hug.
"He never stood a chance," Geminiman snickered.
"Can I be a girl?" Woodman asked.
Everyone ignored him.
---
Roll hummed to herself as she dusted off the shelves, taking pride in her work in keeping the Light household nice and clean. The fact that she enjoyed it helped make it seem less like work and more like a hobby.
A dull clink of footsteps reached her ears, signaling that someone was entering the room.
Roll paused in her dusting and turned to look towards the noise. She brightened as she noticed that it was Rockman. "Welcome home, Rock!" she said cheerfully.
Rockman said nothing as he slowly walked in to the room, a distinctive glaze in his eyes.
"Rock?" she blinked as she watched her brother walk in a zombie-like manner.
Rockman turned sharply on his heels and trotted towards the couch.
Roll blinked again and her brows furrowed with worry as she quickly walked after Rockman. "Are you okay?" she asked.
Rockman sat down without a word, staring at absolutely nothing.
"Rock?" Roll repeated as she sat down on the couch next to her brother, trying to catch his attention.
Rockman's cheek twitched.
"What's wrong?" Roll asked, growing more worried by the second.
"..." Rockman twitched again.
"Rock?" Roll scooted a bit closer to her brother. "You're starting to scare me."
Rockman tilted his head as his jaw clenched.
"Rock?" Roll paused for a moment, but still her brother didn't speak. "Please say something!"
"... WHAT DID ANY OF THAT HAVE TO DO WITH BIRDS OR BEES!?" Rockman shrieked, standing straight up to shake his fists at the ceiling.
Roll shrieked in surprise at the sudden unexpected outburst and fell off of the sofa onto her rear with an 'oof'. She stared at her brother, blinking repeatedly.
Once the outburst was over, Rockman collapsed back on the couch and resumed staring at nothing, not even noticing how he had startled his sister.
Roll stared between blinks for a few more moments before she could finally speak again.
"What was THAT about!?"
