Chapter 14: Winging It

"I don't believe it. I don't believe this is working." Wily looked in awe at the view screen and back up at Bass. "You're a genius, Bass, really."

"Yeah, I thought so too." Bass replied. "Isn't it amazing how easy it was to get Proto Man to work for us?"

"No, I wouldn't say it was easy, I had to do most of the work."

"Well, it was my plan."

"And a brilliant plan, like I said. Good ad-libbing under pressure." Dr. Wily really should have been mad at this moment, seeing how easily his creation was succeeding where he'd failed in the past, but he couldn't help grinning from ear to ear with pride. Dark Man's brain was taking too long to construct, and Bass had bought some time with a fake attack on the lab. Instead of finishing the brain, Bass told Wily to just make it remote controlled. This plan would never work, or so Wily thought, because there was no way they could successfully imitate Protoman unless they were programmed to do it. Then Bass told him that Protoman was going to be the one controlling him.

The plan was simple. Bass would set Protoman free and teleport him to Dr. Light's lab, except in reality it would be Dr. Wily's holochamber. At the same time, they would teleport Dark Man to Dr. Light's lab for real. Everything Dark Man saw, heard, and felt would be broadcast directly into the holochamber, and everything Protoman did inside the holochamber would be sent as instruction to Dark Man. It had taken no time at all for Dr. Wily to rig up, and thanks to his sophisticated comm. technology, there was no lag. It was like Protoman was really there in Dr. Light's lab, and at any time Bass could simply over-ride and take control himself.

So, Bass would soon rule the world, in title. But Dr. Wily was sure Bass would delegate pretty much all power and responsibility to him, and that was all he really wanted.

Dark man had teleported into the lab of Dr. Light about 20 minutes ago, and Protoman had been giving him details about what was going on at Wily's place.

"Listen, Break Man", Dr. Light said, "you should really let me scan you, make sure that you're fine after your battles."

"You know how I feel about that," the red robot replied.

"Doesn't mean I have to like it." The old scientist suggested.

"You need to modify Rush for space travel for me." Break Man stated bluntly.

"What?" Dr. Light asked.

"Bass came back from space. If there's any chance Rock is still floating around out there..."

"Of course. But I can only get Rush to about 1/1000th the speed of light. It would be over a 6 day trip just to get close to the sun, and we have no idea where Mega Man could be in orbit. Relativistically speaking, this would be like trying to find one particular electron in orbit somewhere around the Earth." Light wanted to hold out hope, but knew that not even Mega Man could survive that close to the sun for more than a couple of hours, and that time was long past.

"I don't care. Please, just do this for me." Break Man pleaded.

"Of course, Break, of course." Dr. Light turned and pressed a few keys at his workstation to summon Rush, and when he turned around the robot he thought to be Break Man was gone. He always did that. Dr. Cossack thought it was kind of cool and mysterious, but Dr. Light thought it was just plain rude. "Lay down, Rush, I've got to get my tools to work on you." Before Light could do that, however, his comm. screen was beeping. Dr. Light went over to activate it. A very damaged Bass appeared on screen.

"Hi, Dr. Light. Did Proto Man come in yet?" Bass asked innocently. He had just had Dr. Wily make a few cosmetic mods to have him look battle damaged.

"Break Man arrived, yes." Dr. light replied. "Are you all right?"

"Oh, this," said Bass, "it's just I was attacked by some experimental robot of Wily's. I think her name was Zero or something." Wily, out of frame on the other end of the room, had to restrain from growling.

"And?" asked Light.

"Well, I beat it." the robot replied.

"I thought you said nothing was affecting it before." Light said.

"Nothing was, until I...lured it into a spike trap. It couldn't jump as good as me, and took a fall." Bass was satisfied with himself for this explanation.

"You look damaged Bass, are you in need of repair?" Light asked, and Wily, hearing this started nodding to Bass.

Bass ignored his creator. "Given our history, I don't think you'd want me teleporting in for repairs anyway. I'll be fine when I pick up some energy capsules. Right now I'm more interested in meeting with the government."

"Of course," Light replied. "I've arranged for both of us to meet with five members of the council, and if you play your cards right, I believe you can get a very good deal for yourself, and Wily will be safe, in a nice prison."

"Sound good." Bass agreed.

"There is one other thing," Light continued. "They insist that I am going to need to bring Break Man along as security, in case of emergency."

"Sure," Bass smiled. "I wouldn't have it any other way."