Wily's War, Chapter 2: The Next Encounter
The next morning.
Skull Fortress.
"Finished!", cheerfully shouts the voice of Dr. Wily, "My newest soldiers are complete!"
ProtoMan stands nearby and watches his co-creator vigorously rub his hands together as he stands before his new robots.
"Now," Albert says, "Let's find out if they work."
Dr. Wily enters a command into a control and watches as all of his new robots come to life for the first time.
"Nice work, Doc," ProtoMan compliments, "Let's just hope they're not as stupid as the original Robot Masters."
Albert grins widely when he asks the new Robot Masters, "What is your primary objective?"
The new robots reply in unison, "To serve you, Dr. Wily."
"Yes! Very good," Wily says taking a picture off of a nearby table and holding it up for all of the new robots to see. It is a picture of Mega Man.
"This is our enemy," he says, pointing to the picture, "Before we can take over the world, we have to destroy this robot."
ProtoMan doesn't like where this is going and steps in. "Hold on a second," he says.
"What are you doing?", Albert hisses under his breath.
"That robot is my little brother, Mega Man," Proto says to the new robots, "You can help me in battle if you want, but the only one who destroys him is me! Got it?"
The new robots don't reply to ProtoMan.
"If ProtoMan has joined us in battle, you might want to honor his request," Wily adds, knowing that the robots are only loyal to his orders, not ProtoMan's
"Yes, Dr. Wily," the robots reply.
Wily grabs ProtoMan by the arm and drags him away from the robots. Wily wasn't so much dragging him as ProtoMan was just following him.
"What was that all about?", Wily asks, not pleased with Proto jumping in and bossing around the new robots.
"I thought we had an agreement!", Proto states, "I'm the only robot who should destroy Mega Man. I'm the only one who deals with him... besides, it's not too late to try and turn him. He would make a great ally."
Wily stands in place, thinking to himself. The idea of Mega Man being on his side would be nice if it ever happened. The pain it would cause to that big softy Thomas Light would be quite fun. Albert is almost sure that it won't happen, but he tells ProtoMan what he wants to hear.
"Very well, our deal is still in place. But," Wily asserts, "these robots will join you in battle."
"Got it," ProtoMan answers.
ProtoMan steps back and leans against the wall, satisfied that he has quelled Dr. Wily's desire to destroy his little brother... for now, at least. ProtoMan wants to have his little brother on his side, but his ego would also like to defeat Mega Man in battle first, just so he could always say that he is superior.
But, if Mega Man doesn't turn, ProtoMan is fully prepared to destroy him this time... at least he thinks he is.
Wily turns back to his newest robots, then back to ProtoMan.
"My boy," he asks, "How would you like to show your little brother a sneak preview of my newest creations?"
ProtoMan begins smirking. "When?", he asks.
"Today!", Wily replies.
That Afternoon.
Dr. Light's lab.
In her bedroom, Roll is reviewing the list of tasks Doc the Met could assist her with while he is in her care. Doc stands on top of Roll's bed as she reads from the list.
"Clean the room... lame." she says, "Help with dinner... that's okay. Fold the laundry... double lame... you don't want to do any of this stuff yet, Doc," she says, putting the list aside, "We'll have some real fun."
Roll sits next to him and asks, "Have you ever heard music before?"
Doc shifts his head from side to side.
"Do you want to listen to some with me?" Roll asks.
Doc smiles and nods and beeps.
"Cool!" Roll says as she gets up and grabs one of her heavy metal CDs.
As she puts it in into her player, she adds, "These guys rock! I know you'll love it once you hear it!", and she cranks the volume up.
As Doc awaits with anticipation to hear what this music sounds like.
Then, the loud shred of electric guitars, drums and a man's voice loudly singing erupt from Roll's stereo system as soon she she presses the play button.
The volume and intimidating sound of the music scares Doc and he hides under his hardhat.
Roll pauses the music and kneels beside her bed to calm him down.
"Doc? Don't be scared," she coos sweetly, "Come on out, it's just music."
Doc slowly lifts his hardhat and peeks out at Roll.
"Awww, I didn't mean to scare you," she soothes, caressing the top of Doc's hardhat, "Maybe I played it too loud. Dr. Light says I play my music too loud anyway. I'll keep it down, okay?"
Still underneath his hardhat, Doc maintains his gaze at Roll as she turns the volume down and unpauses the track. Now the rock music plays at a much softer level. Roll even kneels down beside him again to make him more cofortable.
Doc lifts his hat a little more, listening to the music. It didn't sound so bad now that it isn't so loud. He also felt a lot safer with his friend Roll right here with him.
After a few seconds, Doc lifts his helmet up further, showing his whole face. He appears to be nodding along with the beat of the music.
Roll smiles and wraps her right arm around him, semi-hugging him. "I knew you'd like it!" she says.
But, outside in the hall, she hears the muffled voice of her brother Mega Man call with ugency in his voice, "Come on, Rush. Let's go."
She then hears Rush bark and the sound of their footsteps hastily running away.
Roll gets up and follows them... this didn't sound good.
Somewhere in New York City.
Everything is going as smoothly as it usually would here in New York: busy as always.
The citizens of the city have been able to carry on following the tragedy in Times Square last month, thanks to the arrival of their new hero, Mega Man.
And they're going to need him... just about... now.
The switchboards of emergency 911 operators are lighting up like Christmas trees. Almost all of them are calls about the sighting of a familiar flying craft with a skull on the front quickly approaching the city.
Nearby, Dr. Wily's Skullker arrives into city limits, just like the callers said it was.
GutsMan and Cut Man (two of the original Robot Masters) and two of the eight new robots - Air Man and Quick Man - jump out of the Skullker and land in the streets below.
GutsMan's weight causes the pavement to shatter upon his landing.
The screams of humans can once again be heard as the Robot Masters begin their next attack.
Several oncoming vehicles veer away from the deadly robots, some crashing into nearby buildings.
Air Man demonstrates his power in the middle of the street, the large fan in his chest beginning to rotate very fast. Then, Air Man pushes his arms forward and twists them, causing a micro cyclone vortex (or tornado) to emerge and rip through the road ahead, sending cars flying in all different directions.
It's not common to see a tornado in New York City in the month of May. but Air Man just made it happen.
Quick Man zooms up to a motorist and knocks on his window. The driver looks horrified when he sees him. Almost as soon as he tries to get out of his car on the opposite sideof his car, Quick Man is already there to stop him. Not matter wich way the driver tries to escape, Quick Man darts right in front of him.
Cut Man pulls the cutters off of his head and slings them towards other cars. The cutters fly low and slash into all of the tires on the left side of all of the vehicles in their path, then they come around to slash the tires on the right side.
A very brazen motorist decides to ram his van head on into GutsMan. The driver of the van dives in the back as his van slams into GutsMan.
But, the vehicle crumples up when it collides with GutsMan, not leaving a mark on him. The large red, yellow and black robot hardly even moved.
"Hee-hee-hee-hee!" GutsMan laughed, "That kinda tickled!"
Amidst all of the carnage on the ground, one lone human can be heard desperately yelling, "Where's Mega Man?"
Dr. Light's lab.
Dr. Light had received a phone call from Montgomery Toombs, the Chief of Police, asking for Mega Man's help immediately.
Thomas brings up a live feed from a traffic cam close to the site of the attack on Thomas' large workstation monitor in the lab.
"It's him," he says, referring to Dr. Wily.
"And it looks like he brought our old friends Cut Man and GutsMan with him!", Mega Man spat.
"Who are these two?", Roll asks, pointing to Quick Man and Air Man on the screen.
Dr. Light looks at the new robots, unfamiliar with them. "Albert must have made them himself," he replies.
"Those people need help now!", Mega says, "Let's go, Rush!"
Rush barks and transforms into jet mode.
Mega Man leaps on the robodog's back and they fly off to the scene of the crime.
Roll watched her brother leave and then notices that Dr. Light is preoccupied making a call to Chief Toombs while watching the attack.
This would be the perfect time to sneak out and join the fight without her father even noticing.
Roll carefully steps away from Dr. Light and towards the lab's garage area where the family's new red SkyCar, Roll's green SkyCycle and the Air Raider now sit.
She keeps a watchful eye on her father and he doesn't appear to notice that she's moving.
Now the hard part, opening the door leading to the garage. That door makes enough noise, it would probably alert him.
Roll ponders wether or not she should take the chance. She looks at the door control, then back to Dr. Light and sees that the good doctor still hasn't noticed her.
She hears Doc the Met beeping to her. She looks down and sees his big eyes looking up at her.
Roll kneels down and whispers, "Not now, Doc. I've got to go out for a little while. Go play with Eddie until I get back, okay?"
Doc nods and runs away to find Flip-Top Eddie.
Nervously biteing her lip, Roll presses the button to open the door. Maybe Doc's footsteps will cover the sound of the door.
As the door opens, she barely looks back towards Dr. Light, who still is too preoccupied with the situation at hand.
Roll smiles and walks into the garage air pumping her arm victoriously, sure to close the door on her way out.
Thomas hangs up the phone and thinks to himself for a moment... he was sure he heard something.
"Roll," he calls, "did you hear something?"
There is no response.
Dr. Light looks behind himself and sees that Roll is nowhere nearby like she was just a minute ago.
"Roll?", he calls, "Where are you?"
He steps towards the garage door, which casts off a sound similar to what he thinks he heard.
Thomas opens the garage door and looks inside.
"Roll?", he calls again until he notices that outside door is open and that Roll's SkyCycle is now gone.
Thomas quickly runs towards the spot where the vehicle was sitting and looks into the sky to see Roll flying away and the good doctor gasps, "Oh, no!"
On the streets.
Wily's robots continue to rip through the block. This attack has turned fatal for a few unfortunate user-controlled robots who were caught in harm's way. Some humans are also injured, but there are no fatalities... yet.
Unfortunatly, Wily's robots (much like their master) have no appriciation for innocent life, wether it be human or robot. The only possible exception is ProtoMan who takes great pride in not killing humans during these missions. Dr. Wily himself said that humans wouldn't "learn anything" by being killed, so Proto sticks to just scaring them, resorting to physical violence only if he has to... when it comes to blasting robots, on the other hand, Proto isn't quite as easy on them.
It appears Wily's robots are about to leave another scar on New York the likes of which hasn't been felt since Times Square...
but, their rampage is about to come to a big, quick end.
Mega Man and Rush arrive to the scene. "I'd hate to break up this little attack of yours, guys," Mega says, "But, it's my duty!"
"Look up there!", Cut Man cries out in his wheeze voice, "It's that blue jerk, Mega Man!"
"Lemmie' at 'im!", GutsMan growls, "I want to smash him for givin' me that lousy bomb for a present!"
"That wasn't a present, GutsMan!", Cut Man points out.
"I know that!... now!", GutsMan replies.
GutsMan grabs a car and crushes it in his hands, compressing it into a ball form. He then throws it at Mega Man and Rush.
Mega Man jumps off of Rush and they both evade the projectile.
"Nice arts and crafts project, Gutsy!", Mega Man mocks, as he lands on Rush's back, "But, you still flunked!"
Mega Man fires a powerful blast of plasma at the large robot. The shot hits GutsMan in the chest, sending him crashing into the ground behind him, cracking the pavement again. Cut Man, meanwhile, runs for cover.
Air Man steps forward and activates the fan located in his chest, causing a strong gust of wind that is nearly as powerful as a 100-mile-per-hour gust that nearly knocks Mega Man off Rush's back, but Rush powers up his emergengy magnetism power to keep Mega's metallic feet in place.
"That bot's wind power is pretty strong!", Mega says, "See if you can do a flyby, boy!"
Rush kicks in his jets into overdrive and soars ahead, despite the strong wind gust from Air Man. Mega Man leaps off and dropkicks the new robot with both feet.
Mega says to Air Man, "Mind if I borrow this?", as he touches the Wily bot's chest where the fan is located, copying his weapon.
Air Man would be saying something right now, but he has no mouth... the fan is where the mouth would be.
Air Man gets up and runs away.
"Hey Air Man, where are you going?" Mega Man taunts, "You're not scared, are you?"
Air Man stops and gets angry as he faces Mega Man (the pair of eyes above his fan clearly indicates he's angry.) Air Man charges at Mega Man only to get blasted by Mega himself, severly damaging the new robot, almost splitting his upper body in two.
"That's for hurting these humans," Mega says.
"HeyMegaMan!", calls out a very rapid voice.
Mega Man looks to his side to see Quick Man standing there.
"I'veheardalotaboutyou!", Quick Man says quickly, "Theysayyou'rethebest,thedefenderofthehumanrace!But,you'veneverfacedarobotasquickasme!"
"Let me guess," Mega jokes, "You are... Rambling Man, right?"
Quick Man looks insulted. "Howdareyouspeaktomethatway!MynameisQuickMan!"
"Come again?", Mega Man asks.
"MynameisQuickMan!"
"Let's try again," Mega says, " Just a little slower, buddy."
"Itoldyou!MynameisQuickMan!Letmedemonstrate!"
Quick Man bolts accross Mega Man to his other side very, very fast. Then, Quick Man dashes to another location then another, constantly on the move, and Mega Man can't get a lock on him.
Nearby, Cut Man pulls his large scissors off of his round head.
"Keep him distracted, Quick Man!", Cut Man says, "And you'll give me the time to make ribbons out of him! It will be a sheer delight! Eh-heh!"
"Don't bet on it, you circuithead!", says the voice of Roll behind him.
"Huh?", Cut Man says until he gets smacked upside his head with Roll's reinforced utility arm frying pan, leaving a large dent in his orange head.
Cut Man staggers on his feet with his eyes crossed until Roll hits him again, knocking him down, making another dent in his face.
"I can get used to this hero gig!", Roll says almost giggling.
Mega Man continues to watch Quick Man zoom from point to point.
"Now,aquicklessoninpain!", Quick man says, producing three boomerangs from his arm and throwing them at Mega Man almost his quickly.
Mega Man barely gets out of the way of the Quick Boomerangs before they could hit him. The boomerangs come around for another pass, and Mega Man avoids them, again just barely.
Mega tries blasting Quick Man, but he misses him, hitting the nearby lightpost.
"HaHa!Youmissedme!Tooslow!", Quick Man says, standing in front of a parked car.
Mega Man fires another blast at Quick Man, who dashes out of the way again, leaving the car to be hit and destroyed by the shot, causing it to explode.
"I can't keep missing these shots," Mega says to himself, "I'm causing too much damage to property."
Quick Man finds a human woman and stands in front her, grabbing her by one of her wrists, holding her behind him.
"ComeonMegaMan!Blastme!", Quick Man says as the woman screams.
Mega Man knows he will miss and hit the innocent woman and he can't let that happen. He realizes he must think of another strategy, and gets an idea...
"You're too slow, Quick Man!", Mega Man goads
"What?You'rejoking!"
"No, really. You're pretty slow," Mega Man taunts, preparing to use the copied power from Air Man, "I've seen snails runs faster than you!"
"That'sit!You'vemademeangryforthelasttime!I'mgonnaendthisrightnow!"
Quick Man begins to charge right at Mega Man, but the Blue Bomber aimed his blaster arm ahead the second he saw Quick Man charge ahead and pelted him with a strong wind.
Quick Man's legs moves insanely fast and although he was slowed by the wind, he still presses ahead, inch by inch.
As soon as he's close enough, Mega Man then throws a punch at Quick Man, hitting him right in the face.
Quick Man gets knocked down on his metallic rear end.
Up above in the Skullker, ProtoMan reports to Dr. Wily, who is back at Skull Fortress.
"Bad news, Doc. Your bots lost, and Air Man's in pretty bad shape."
"What?", Wily snaps, "He's already destroyed one of my new robots? Get out of there now!"
"Maybe I should go down there and-"
"I gave you a direct order, ProtoMan, and I expect you to follow it to the letter," Wily interrupts, "Is that clear?"
"Yeah, sure, Wily," ProtoMan replies.
ProtoMan presses a buton on his forearm, cutting of contact with Wily and shouts, "Dammit!"
Quick Man quickly runs away from Mega Man and back into the Skullker where has fallen commrades are now.
"Going so soon, Quick Man?", Mega Man says, "Don't hurry back."
Mega Man kneels down and pets Rush. "These guys weren't too tough, were they, Rush?", he says.
"You can say that again!", Roll says.
Mega Man furrows his brow and looks over to see his sister standing behind him with a smile on her face.
"Roll?", he says, "What are you doing here?"
"I'm your partner, remember?", Roll replies.
"Does Dr. Light even know you're here?", Mega asks.
"Well... I think he does now," Roll replies with a nervous smile.
Mega Man puts his hands on his hips and shakes his head. He can't believe Roll didn't listen to him when he told her that fighting Dr. Wily's robots was too dangerous for her...
then again, maybe he can believe it.
"You have a lot of explaining to do, Roll."
Author's Notes:
Note to all Mega Man cartoon fans, this weekend marks the 17th anniversary of the show's debut! Happy Anniversary Ruby-Spears Mega Man! Losing so many hours of sleep to get up at 6:00 AM was totally worth it!
My apologies to any readers who were confused by Quick Man's rapid dialogue.
Please don't forget to review/comment.