Yes, last chapter did cut off suddenly. I had to cut this scene in two because of the way some of the other chapters cut. If I'd left this scene whole, yes, it'd have been a gloriously long chapter, but then another one would have been maybe a thousand words or so and that's too short. We didn't write this thing with chapters in mind (and maybe we should have), so cutting it was a bit difficult.

And now that it's all written, I'm reading it and thinking that Rock should have been a bit more assertive. Next time.

Rock was sure Dr. Light would have shown him, had he asked to see, but Rock never thought of it. "And he…disappeared shortly after this?" He almost said died, but Rock wasn't certain he actually had, and he didn't want to upset Kalinka with maybes and rumors.

"Not very long. And nothing says why. First there was the excitement when you were turned on, and the others were sent out to start working, and then Dr. Wily." So the papers had been busy with more exciting robot news. "It's strange, though. It would have made sense for him to be sent instead of you, when everyone thought there was just something wrong with your programming, but Roll said that he was already gone by then." Kalinka looked at Roll, who nodded. "It said that he was developed not to just program robots to do their tasks, but to analyze various tasks to create strategy sets for the robot masters that would handle those specific jobs. All of the first generation robot masters had initial programs generated by him." A program set for running a power plant, for running a household and interacting with guests, for working in the lab... "So he could have spotted any changes." And they would have found out faster than Dr. Wily was behind it.

"No, Blues wasn't around at all when we were activated," He was in the lab still, no doubt. Shut down. So had Wily taken him when he took Elec and the others? "He…" Rock trailed off, hesitating. "The first time I ever saw him was during the third war. I had no idea who he was."

Kalinka nodded: she knew that, of course. It was practically common knowledge. "You look much more like a younger version of Blues in the initial design renders than the finished model." She wondered why. "It says that you were created as a support unit, since you wouldn't actually be in charge of organizing the lab. So you're not as direct a copy of his programming as the others, but you were supposed to work with him as well as Dr. Light," or so she presumed.

A support unit…yes, that was in line with his functions. "I can't generate a field like the others, I'm not built to oversee multiple units like that," Rock agreed. If Blues intended for Rock to work for him…it made him feel a little bit better. "I'm…not the same sort of robot master as Elec or even Roll." He had Rush: that was the only unit he had control over. "He…acted as the superior unit, always." Behaved toward Rock the way Elec did toward his underlings, guided and corrected him, even if most of it (almost all of it) was "tough love".

"No one's made any more like you, except Forte." Roll frowned. "I don't know if Copy-Rock was or not. I mean, he acted more like a robot master." The copy had been exact except for the removal of a few safety features and the addition of Dr. Wily's evil chip, but instead of turning out like Rock he'd decided to kill humans and create a world for robot masters. That was... very different from the older brother she knew. Blues, she barely knew.

The evil chip mostly just overrode the three laws and made them more willing to use violence. It overrode the safety features Dr. Light installed: did that include mental safety features as well as just ones to make sure Rock didn't overtax his systems?

If Blues had his way, would Roll's brother have ended up more like Copy-Rock?

Roll didn't want to think that way, but now that it occurred to her...

"I…I'm not sure what Wily did to his programming, to make him act that way," Rock frowned. Bypassed a lot of logic, no doubt. "But if he could, Copy would have hooked into others to persuade them, I think. It was like if Blues didn't care about other people, if he didn't care about what we thought and just moved forward."

Actually, that sounded like Blues to Roll, but she wasn't going to say that in front of these two, not when Kalinka still wanted to think the best of him after everything he'd done and Rock had admitted he thought of him as a superior model.

Rock did. Her brother did, a not-quite-fellow-robot-master but definitely not a regular robot either did. Blues. Who had goaded Forte into attacking Rock and said something about Rock needing to be strong before just vanishing. Like he always did.

"It was sad, I think that…I think that waking up the way he was, with his memories not his own, having no place in the world…I think that if he'd had something good when he woke up, he wouldn't have thought that everything was so bad." In the end, the Copy acknowledged that there was something good in life, even if it wasn't his to live for. It still made Rock really sad to think about: the Copy shouldn't have had to die for the rest of them.

Why had Blues been so mean? The Copy had looked to him, looked so desperate, pleading for Blues to tell him it wasn't true, and Blues had just stood there, face stone and said 'yes'. He was a copy. A single, cold word, and that had devastated him more than being rejected by any of the others, by all their other brothers put together.

When Blues rejected him was when he'd screamed.

The Copy had all of Rock's memories at that point, knew all of Rock's feelings. The fear that Blues may reject him made Rock break down the night before, sobbing in Dr. Light's arms. The Copy was evidence enough of the relationship her two older brothers had, if she'd thought about it that way. The Copy's pain was Rock's pain. Rock even said that he knew the Copy would take such measures at the end, die for the sake of his family, because Rock knew that he'd do the same thing.

The Copy had been flatly rejected by Blues, then he'd accidently shot Roll, which had almost killed her without armor, their brothers had sworn they'd kill him, and he'd known that Dr. Light was going to be in so much trouble if Rock's name wasn't cleared, and if even a Copy of Rock had it in him to act this way?

What did Shadowman think would happen when he rescued him? Had he even tried to keep him imprisoned until he calmed down? It wouldn't have worked. That hadn't been her brother, but it had been a version of her brother, one with no regard for his own safety. Or life, in the end.

It was infuriating that Wily would bring a robot master into the world to be so miserable, so rejected, that he had no other alternative but to self-destruct. It was infuriating that Blues stood by and let it happen when he certainly had enough weight with the Copy to prevent it.

But if he'd accepted the Copy, what would that have meant for Rock?

Or for Blues, when he let no one close, to have a support unit that would need constant reassurance that he was wanted so badly?

It wouldn't have worked, but it made it no less sad. No less wrong.

They had a responsibility as robot masters. They'd had a responsibility. Roll had gotten up off of what might have been her deathbed to tell her brothers not to hate him, it wasn't his fault. Shadowman had revealed himself and rescued him, instead of taking advantage of all the confusion to do whatever Wily had sent him to do. The Cossacks had protected him, in Skullman's memory, when her brothers attacked him. Blues had just... He could have done something! Something besides taking Kalinka hostage and saying he 'couldn't guarantee her safety' if others got involved in the fight between Rock and the copy, which was true, really. Roll had nearly died, and she'd just been unarmored, not human.

Dr. Light said that Blues viewed other people, human and robot masters alike, as resources to be used or saved. Dr. Light said he'd programmed Blues to think that way, before he knew that Blues would be sentient, before he realized that Blues would be applying that mindset to everything. So in whatever equation Blues was running, was the Copy's death really that much less costly than any other possible outcome? Were they all currency to him, waiting to be cashed in at the most opportune moment?

If that was the case, Rock would be devastated, far more than the Copy had been.

Especially since the only use Blues seemed to have for Rock was as a fighter, when Rock hated fighting.

"What else have you found?" Rock asked, turning the page again. It was calming to finally be able to find out some things, to finally be able to understand.

"Well, one of the Wilybots gave me this." Roll turned to one of the later pages. One of her admirers had given her a copy of a photo of the 'ghost.' Back there, in the shadows, was probably-Protoman. Unless it was one of the Darkmen, but they didn't whistle. "The Wilybots tell ghost stories about him."

"Ghost stories?" Rock seemed a little surprised. Did the Wilybots know more? Well, if Wily thought Rock already knew, it only followed that his 'bots would know, too. Had even Forte known? All these years, and he never taunted Rock about it? How could that be?

"A mysterious red robot, people hearing whistling out of nowhere in their stages, someone seeing the bloody dead body of a blonde robot in red armor in Wily's lab," Napalm Man had panicked and thought it was her, before being told by a furious Wily to get out.

"They think he's still dead?" Rock was really surprised this time. The Wilybots should know about Wily working on him at the very least. And a ghost? Of a robot master? How did that even work?

"They think he's mysterious," Roll waved her fingers in the air in an 'ooooh, scary story,' way.

"Wait, what do you mean, 'still dead'?" Kalinka tilted her head, focusing on Rock.

He hesitated for a moment, sensing that he'd slipped. "Well, it was just something Wily said, at the end. But he worked on Blues, so he isn't dead. I guess he just doesn't tell his bots anything?" Rock ended that sentence on a hopeful note. He wasn't even sure what he thought of what Wily said, whether all of it was true, and it's not like Blues confirmed or dismissed Wily's claims.

"Dr. Light said that Blues got put in storage because the three laws activated and shut down his solar power," Roll told Kalinka, after a moment thinking of the least bad way to say it. One that didn't imply that, well, being a manipulative bastard who threatened little girls was Blues' default state.

Kalinka's brow furrowed, but Rock was looking really sad now, down to the ground. Dr. Light put Blues into storage? Like her father had to Skullman? Because he broke the three laws? So he was deactivated when Rock and Roll were born…

"It is weird that Dr. Wily hasn't said anything about that," when he'd had her father kidnapped when... Skullman... Kalinka would have thought that he'd shout it from the rooftops if Dr. Light was equally a hypocrite, except, "He probably assumes everyone knows. My father said that Dr. Wily is brilliant, and that it can be hard for people like that to really understand that other people aren't as smart as them and don't know things they think are basic. So that's part of why he yelled at my brothers all the time, he thought they were deliberately being difficult even when they weren't."

"They were newbuilt at the time, too, so there was a lot they wouldn't have known or understood," Rock nodded. Dr. Light was very patient with him and Roll and explained everything to them, answered all their questions. Was Dr. Wily's policy to just yell at his bots until they stopped asking? They must have relied on each other to learn, relied on the older models to teach the newer. Rock and Roll were the oldest, or so they thought at the time, so there was no one else to turn to.

He wondered what it would have been like, had Blues been around then. What they would have learned. How life would have been different.

He wondered if it kept Dr. Light up at night, sometimes. The regret, the worry, the grief.
He tried to imagine what would have happened if Dr. Light hadn't put the three laws in place, and stopped, because he didn't want to imagine it; he'd seen some of it. He would have tried to take over the world, since that was what Blues would have wanted. That was what the copy had done, even without a master's orders. Or were they there, hidden in his programming? Kept in check by the laws, Dr. Light and his family?

He didn't want to hurt anyone, he never did, but he knew very well that he would. For his family.

The Three Laws were there to protect robots as much as to protect humans. The Copy had no reason to decide that all of humanity had to be punished, even if he was tired of Dr. Wily's schemes. Even if he was just as sick of it as Rock. It was true: to protect his family, to make Blues happy, to make the fighting stop, he'd have done it. He really would have. It made him shiver.

The whole thing had been so sad, and now that more of his younger siblings had almost been killed, but at least they'd be spared now. No one would believe that they'd willingly gone to work for Dr. Wily because it was Dr. Wily.

He leaned over the book again, wanting to find something happier to focus on. "How long did it take you to get all of this, Kalinka?" It was impressive, there was a lot of information in there. "And how did you find out who he was?" If Roll found out from Kalinka, then who told Kalinka?

Kalinka turned the page back to the magazine cover with Blues (or Protoman's) face on it. "When he took me from Dr. Wily's castle, I got a good look at his face. So, I went looking for robots that he might possibly be, since Dr. Wily didn't build him and no one else is that good except for Dr. Light. Even if he was modified later by Dr. Wily."

What? "How did you know he wasn't a Wilybot?"

"Shadowman said so. He was the one that guarded me and when Blues came, he said that he was a traitor and Dr. Wily was a fool to trust him, after what he'd done last time. He implied that Blues was like my brothers, not a real Wilybot." That real Wilybots weren't traitors like, in hindsight, Lightbots. She'd heard about how Ice and Elec had pretended to join Wily's side and then sabotaged him to help Rock during the second war.

Shadowman and Blues really didn't get along, especially not after the ordeal with the Copy. So at least some of the Wilybots knew. "I don't get why he wouldn't want us to know." Rock looked dejectedly down at the glossy photo of Blues, as if that would answer his question.

"Because then we might not trust him? Or he'd be less cool and mysterious?" A powerful warbot from out of nowhere that had saved Kalinka Cossack like a knight in shining armor? Roll frowned at herself. She should try to give him the benefit of the doubt, but she kept thinking about how all this could hurt Rock.

Rock frowned, considering it. Wasn't honesty the best way to become trusted? But Blues had always helped Rock, had always watched his back, especially when Rock couldn't or wouldn't look after himself. Weren't actions supposed to be worth more than mere words? But...to keep all this from him intentionally? Or was it more like Blues was trying to keep his distance from Dr. Light?

"Anyway," Roll might have cleared her throat, if she needed to, "This is what we've managed to compile on him. We can't keep it on a computer, or he'd delete it."

Rock nodded, flipping through the book. There were a lot of articles. Photos were fewer in number, but he suspected Kalinka copied every photo she could find. "I wish I could help you find more information, but I think Blues wouldn't let me look anything up," Rock especially. "I only have memory clips, but if you put those on a network…"

Kalinka reached under the bed again and pulled up a video camera, one of the ones with a flip-out screen so it could play back what it had recorded. "Roll put her memories into this."

Rock nodded and took the camera from Kalinka. "Are there any in particular you want, Kalinka?"

"When he brought me to save my father?" Of course. Please? Kalinka clasped her hands at him.

"Use the USB plug, Rock," Roll said, reaching around for the cable. If he tried to send it as a transmission, it might be blocked. And she would be surprised if Blues wasn't monitoring Rock closely. Even if he refused to come himself. He always kept tabs on Rock.

Rock nodded in agreement with Roll. He had various ports on his neck, just below and behind his ears that would open with a touch. He also had a port type in what would be his ear canal. It looked like ear buds when he had them in. Roll thought he always looked cute like that. He plugged in and looked to the camera's small viewscreen as the memory file uploaded. "I have a lot of memories of him, but not a lot of them have a good view," Especially if it was when they were fighting. When they were sparring. Blues was fast.

"I got a close-up of him once," Roll said. When he'd rescued her from that crane Forte had hung her from. That was the first time she'd met him, although she'd heard from Kalinka that he was handsome. Telling Kalinka about it, Roll had blushed and said that yeah, he was pretty cute.

Then Kalinka had looked at her funny, and when Roll had asked what was wrong, Kalinka had asked if Roll didn't care that he was her brother? Because maybe it didn't mean the same thing (as much) to robot masters.

"Most of my close-ups are of him dressed as Protoman," Rock said. And that visor was completely opaque. His sunglasses were a little more transparent, but not by much. You'd still have to get close. He did get some good looks at him when he was wearing the helmet, though.

"I went through it frame by frame: I have some of the best images saved," Kalinka said. She'd pull them up on the camera after Rock finished uploading his video files.

He had a lot to upload, especially compared to Roll, but it only took him a minute or two. They always stayed on top of their maintenance, of their upkeep. It was possible for robots to have so much excess data, so much fragmented memory, that it would slow them down. Rock defragged and organized his mind during his sleep cycles. He pulled the plug from his port and closed it up while offering the camera back to Kalinka with his other hand. He thought she'd be happy with what she saw in there.

Rock had compressed a lot of his video memories since most of them didn't contain anything really interesting. Or he didn't want to think about them. Most of the fighting only got uncompressed when a war started, but he'd never compressed anything with Blues, even that terrible fight with Forte.

He didn't think there was anything in there that would frighten or upset Kalinka, though. The video could be a bit hard to follow at points when he was dodging and debris was kicking up, but he didn't think it'd make her dizzy or anything. "He shows up every war," To help Rock, give him hints, guide him. It was reassuring.

"I know, Roll told me." About her hero. Even if he never explained himself and such. It was annoying, but apparently that was what boys were like, according to the girls at school, and she had related this to Roll.

Rock was more concerned with the scrapbook than he was with the contents of the video camera, but he looked at the selection of shots that Kalinka singled out. Maybe it was because he saw Blues a lot more often, or because his memory was photographic (and digital), but he didn't quite understand why she had it set up this way. She was happy, that much was evident, and he was glad he could help.

Roll was paying attention to those shots since Kalinka had generally picked ones with better views of his face and expressions.

A thought occurred to Rock then and he actually froze, ceasing all motion save his eyes widening slightly. Now that Rock knew something that Blues never wanted him to, would he stop showing up so often? His more logical side supplied that it shouldn't affect Blues' behavior that extensively, that something like that wouldn't cause him to change his behavioral patterns. That it shouldn't change anything.

Maybe he'd become even more withdrawn instead. That was almost worse.

If he saw him again, he didn't know what to do. Now that he'd realized that this was his brother, he couldn't leave him alone and in pain, but to defeat him and bring him home to be fixed, like the others? His brothers, yes, but they were inferior models. But Blues wasn't.

And Blues didn't have the excuse of being reprogrammed to not want to come home. If Dr. Wily successfully reprogrammed him, Blues would be obedient to him. Dr. Light said he could not tolerate an authority above him, someone giving him orders. No, if Blues could break free of that, then that was Blues himself not wanting to come home.

If he did manage to subdue him and bring him in to be fixed, would Blues hate him then? But his brother was hurting. He, he felt like he at least had to try. Try to convince him to come home.

He didn't want to say anything to Roll, though. Not in front of Kalinka, not when they were here to have fun. Maybe he should mention it to Dr. Light when they got back home?

What if Dr. Light forbade him? What could he do then? But, Dr. Light would understand, and they had to try. Dr. Light was worried about him, too.

He'd never missed Blues before, but now that he knew he should, he did.

Was this how Kalinka always felt? He doubted Blues made many house calls, if any at all. No, none at all with how angry her brothers were. He…this revelation made him understand how she felt a little bit better. Why she did these things. Human memories faded, robots' did not. Wasn't it painful to only be able to hold onto a fading image?

At least he could hope that he meant something to Blues, even knowing that he'd been programmed to think that they were only things (since he'd been meant to be a thing, and things couldn't understand the difference). If Blues had intended Rock to be his support unit, then he must have wanted one. Then hopefully he valued what could be. But Kalinka? Wishing that Blues would be her boyfriend, like a human? He was sure she knew how unlikely that was, especially after these past few years had gone by.

Kalinka had to know that a robot, even a robot master, wouldn't be able to fulfill that role the way a human could. So even if Blues agreed to it, she had to know that it wouldn't work the way she needed it to. Was that why Blues was staying away, to try to discourage her? Hope she'd find a human boy instead?

That…made a lot of sense, then. It was strange, trying to understand things like this. Human-style romance didn't apply to robot masters. He understood it in theory, but in practice? He couldn't practice it, so he couldn't know.

He knew that it was two people getting together to start a family, but robots with two masters? Wouldn't that be confusing?

Like right now. Dr. Light and Blues.

That in itself was confusing Rock to no end. He didn't know which way to turn.

He knew that Blues probably wanted Rock to forget he'd ever heard that, or at least act like it after that. But if Blues was family, and he was hurting? He couldn't do that. He'd never been able to. What would he have done if the humans hadn't changed their minds and spared his family both times? He didn't want to know, because on some level he did know. And he had the laws.

No, he couldn't just leave this alone. He had to try, he had to do something. It wasn't right for Blues to be hurting. It wasn't right that he had to feel like he had no one to trust, no one to turn to.

So, the question was, how to draw Blues out so Rock could talk to him? He could try fighting Forte, and Ringman got police sightings, and maybe Shadowman might know.

If he reached out, surely Blues would respond. He never failed to appear when Rock needed him. If the fight with Forte got out of hand, Blues would show up for sure, but then people would be in danger. Shadowman might be the best bet, though if he decided he wanted to fulfill Wily's goals instead of help Rock, he'd be in trouble. He'd have to go in armor either way.

Ringman…yes, there were sightings, but with how much Blues teleported around, any lead would go ice cold in just a few hours. It sometimes took Ringman months to track Blues down and Rock kind of suspected that whenever he did manage to find Blues, it was because Blues let him.

But, maybe...

He had an idea, but he had to ask Dr. Light's permission.

Rock didn't know how to take down the firewall himself, for one thing.

It would be dangerous, but... Blues was family.