CHAPTER 12: LANDING'S AFTERMATH
Megaman opened his eyes very slowly, trying to work through the dense fog in his head. He didn't quite remember where he was or what had happened. He felt hard metal beneath him, and gingerly rolled onto his back, expecting the worst. He didn't feel any pain, and he suddenly remembered why he was on the ground in the first place.
His eyes snapped completely open.
To his surprise, it didn't appear as though there was any damage to the ship that he could noticeably see. The hallway in which they had entered earlier did show signs of some damage, with a few lights blown out and the glass lying pell-mell upon the floor, but he felt that they had somehow, miraculously, come out of the ordeal in one piece.
Megaman got to his feet, listening for any sounds that would indicate in which direction he should proceed. The Gesellschaft was a large ship, and he really didn't know what to do at the moment. Fortunately, he didn't need to wait very long. Over the intercom a familiar voice echoed through the otherwise silent hallway in a rather subdued tone.
"Hello? Is anyone there? Is everyone alright?"
Tron's voice seemed a little bit shaky. He realized that her voice had been the sound that had roused him after his fall, and she was apparently worried that no one would answer, perhaps had been calling out repeatedly for a while.
"I hear you Tron…" Megaman spoke into his intercom. His voice sounded a bit hoarse, but apart from that, he seemed to be just fine.
"Oh my god, Megaman! Are you alright?"
"Yes, I'm fine…"
"Nobody is answering me, Megaman. We need to find everyone. That wasn't an easy landing…"
Megaman began walking in a random direction down the hallway. "Hear you loud and clear on that one… Where should I go?"
At the bridge, things weren't quite so pretty. Servbots and crew were scattered all over the room in various states of disarray. Aero was attempting to untangle herself from Teisel Bonne, who had been sent flying through the back wall, destroying an electrical panel with his bulky frame. Teisel, lying upside down, was busy willing himself not to be sick. Tron, having recovered almost immediately after the crash, had worked her way through the random debris and broken machinery to the com-station, in order to discover the whereabouts of her friends. At the moment, Tron was feeling a distinct thrill of fear. Her ship, her beautiful ship, was destroyed. Not only that, she had a feeling that something terrible had happened to someone, and she was most worried about Megaman and, surprising even herself, Roll. Both had been in very serious danger during the crash, and this little escape may have cost them much more than she would have guessed.
Hearing Megaman's voice answer her anguished cries after a full ten minutes of hailing the ship on the communications board brought palpable relief to her heart. She couldn't stand the thought of losing him, now that she was so close to having him after all this time.
Of course, she wasn't the type to just let herself break down, especially now that her home had just crash-landed into a ravine.
"Well, I should have known your hard head could have taken a beating. I've given you one or two myself to prove that!"
Megaman smirked. There was the Tron he knew and loved.
"Glad to hear you haven't lost your wit in the accident, Tron. What should I do?"
Tron thought about it for a second. "Head towards the gunnery, where Ira and Bon went before you went to retrieve your equipment. Follow that same color into you reach them, and find out if their ok. We will meet you there!"
Megaman began to run at a brisk pace, following the line as it zigzagged through various hallways and rooms. As he began to take in his surroundings, he realized that this was the first time he had ever been onboard his "enemy's" ship, and he couldn't help but be impressed. Through their various robberies and schemes, the Bonnes had really built quite a magnificent ship, equal even to the Sulphur Bottom. As he ran, he saw a large technology lab where he knew Tron would have spent most of her time, and he even ran past the cafeteria, which reminded him strongly of pictures Gramps used to show him of schools on the islands when he and Roll were very young. He had always liked the idea of being able to eat with all of your friends at once. But as a Digger's life is so solitary, and never really confined to any specific area for too long, he never had the experience himself. The wasn't to say that he wasn't educated. Gramps, and even Roll had taught him plenty of things. He was actually quite smart, although he never seemed to have the ability to show it, given the recent events in which the ability to shoot accurately almost always won out over the amount of knowledge he had. It still irked him that the citizens of Manda Island had been so shocked when he completely destroyed the Mayor's quiz.
This ship, however, was a testament to the genius that was Tron Bonne. While the rest of their family had a say in the decorations, he was sure that the structure and function of the ship had been all Tron. The hallways were all painted in a pleasant mint green color; most likely Teisel's choice, and as he raced down them, he started to think about Tron Bonne a bit more than he had of late. Really, she had caused him plenty of issues in his Digging, but I think that he could finally admit even to himself that they weren't at all bad people. And Tron… Well… He had started to feel the same way about her that he did about Roll.
But he couldn't quite articulate it to anyone, even if they had asked…
Finally, he reached a large door that he knew to be the entrance to the gunnery. He stepped forward, and the door hissed open for him, revealing quite a horrendous scene. Bon Bombs littered the floor of a room that was clearly designed for Servbots, being as cramped as it was, but at present was completely in shambles. Cannons were strewn about helter skelter, with random shell casings peppering the floor, having been knocked out of their canisters by the force of the crash. Most alarming of all, however, was the large yellow figure dangling from a plethora of wires from the ceiling, like some sort of deranged puppet master's idea of a marionette. A shapely figure underneath this odd sight was jumping up and down, trying to reach the helpless giant's restraints to try and pull him down.
"If I….Can just…. Grab…. That…. Wire!" Her hand finally found what it was searching for, yanking down on a large red wire that had been wrapped around Bon's body, releasing him from the wire's restraint. Unfortunately, Ira happened to be right underneath, her look of triumph quickly switching to panic as the large yellow bus that was Bon fell down on top of her.
"Ira!" Megaman yelled, rushing to her aid.
"Ugh… Didn't really think that one through, did I?" Ira's muffled voice came from underneath the hulk of Bon, who rolled off of her gently and resumed floating above the ground, while Megaman helped Ira to her feet. "Glad to see you're ok, Megaman…"
"Yeah, you too. I can't believe we made it away from there, I thought we were goners for sure!" Megaman said rubbing the back of his head and smiling at her. There was something in his heart for this girl as well… What was wrong with him?
"Oh, I think it went rather well. To be honest, I can't stand being in front of crowds. The farther away from them I am, the happier I am, even if we just trashed our only way of getting home…"
Megaman hadn't really considered that. If the Gesellschaft wasn't functional, they would be trapped out in this desert. Who knows what would happen to them then?
"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. The Flutter was docked, maybe we can use it to get out of here…"
Ira looked around at the destroyed defensive equipment and then looked back at Megaman. "Is everyone ok? What's going on?"
Megaman looked back towards the door. "Tron is on her way right now, I'm assuming that Teisel, Aero, and Roll are with her, cause she said they were all going to meet us here. I don't know about Gramps… I mean, Professor Barrell…"
Ira bit her lip nervously. "Roll was down in the engine room… Maybe we should…"
At that moment, Tron came bursting in, followed closely by her brother and Aero, who put her hand to her face in shock at the scene which met her eyes. "Oh no! This looks horrible! Megaman, Ira, are you hurt?"
Ira smiled at Aero. "We're fine. Just another day in the life of a digger, TRUST me." Ira rolled her eyes in a way that conveyed long suffering. Aero smiled back, placated by her new friend's obvious nonchalance and sarcasm.
Teisel was, however, completely oblivious to their conversation, having completely broken down at the sight of the destruction. "My precious CANNON! My MACHINE GUNS! Oh this is going to cost a FORTUNE! After all this time and effort, we have to go and destroy my BEAUTIFUL Gesellschaft! I'll tell you one thing, if I had known my fantastic getaway would have ended up like THIS, I would have gone QUIETLY!" Teisel practically bawled.
Tron's hands reached for her temples in frustration. "Teisel, you've never done anything quietly, now shut up…"
She walked over to Megaman and Ira, her eyes finding Megaman's. Megaman looked down into her eyes and said softly, "Are you alright?"
Tron blushed a brilliant shade of red, averting her gaze quickly, and snapped "Of course I am, this isn't my first rodeo, you know…"
Megaman saw her turn away. He stepped forward and brought her into a very warm hug. He spoke into her ear, "Thank you for rescuing us again, and rescuing me from Elysium, I don't think I ever got the chance to tell you that."
Tron's knees buckled. She would have never dreamed for a moment like this, and her arms somehow slowly wrapped back around him.
Suddenly realizing exactly what was happening, she shoved him hard in the chest, sending him stumbling back a few paces. "Well you should be! This whole mess is YOUR fault!" She said, her mind whirring around in her head.
"Uh, didn't you just rob an entire town and shoot at a crowd of people to make your escape?" Ira said, raising her hand in the air, as though trying to call Tron back down to Terra.
Teisel ground his teeth together. "We were so CLOSE to making it this time. Without Blue Boy in our way I thought we had it made… And don't worry about the town, we only wanted to scare them off, not hurt anyone. We're pirates, but we're not BARBARIANS!"
Megaman smiled a little at the familiar phrase. He certainly did seem to know what he was doing…
Most of the time…
Suddenly, without warning, Megaman let out a little gasp of shock and fear. "Roll! Tron, where is Roll?"
Tron was startled by his reaction, but immediately felt the same pang of fear that was etched upon Megaman's face. "She… She never answered, she was in the engine room the last time…"
"Where is it?" The look on Megaman's face was truly frightening. Tron had never seen him like this before. Somewhere deep down, a menacing growl of jealously bubbled up, but never escaped her lips. She herself was much too worried about their present situation.
Ira, however, was just as anxious. "Come on! We need to go find her! Now!"
Megaman once again had to appreciate Ira's readiness for action, and determination for her friends. He followed her as she ran down the hallway he had just come from, while Teisel's voice echoed behind them. "Follow the black line!"
It took them several minutes to reach the engine room, but as they turned the corner to face the door…
"Oh no…" Aero said, moving past Ira and trying to see into the ruins of the hallway. It looked as though a bomb had blown up within the room, sending the doors flying out against the opposite wall. Fire still licked some of the random debris, and there, lying amongst the rubble…
"ROLL!"
Megaman flew past the group, and dropped to his knees, skidding the last few paces on the hard plating on his armor, and coming to rest at Roll's side. He cradled her head in his hands, whispering "Wake up! Wake up Roll!"
Slowly, Roll's eyes opened at his words. "Megaman…" it was a very faint sound, as though she was still sleeping and had merely responded in a dream… 'I… Love…"
Then she came fully around, and opened her eyes at Megaman. "Megaman! You're ok!"
Megaman literally almost dropped her in relief. "Yes, Roll, I'm fine, it's ok…"
Roll looked at the other people in the hallway. "I guess it worked then, hunh Tron?"
Tron grinned a crooked smile at the Spotter, rolling her eyes in a comical fashion, even as her body deflated in relief. "Yeah, about 90% my piloting ability and your 10% being able to blow things up really saved the day…"
Ira tapped her foot on the ground, giving a pointed look at Tron.
"Oh, fine, fine, and Ira's quick trigger fingers probably bought us about twenty seconds of air time before we crashed into the ground anyway, great job by the way…" Tron finished sarcastically. Ira puffed out her cheeks in aggravation, and everyone was laughing, giddy at their very close escape from death. Everyone except Roll, who had stopped smiling the moment after she knew Megaman was safe. This didn't go unnoticed by Megaman, who had seen a great change in his best friend in the past few hours. But before he could voice his concerns…
"Eeee! EEEEEE!" Data's little voice screamed at them down the hallway, on the other side of the rubble.
Everyone turned to see the little monkey dashing towards them, followed by Yuna, who until that point hadn't made their presence aboard the ship known to anyone.
"Yuna? What are you…?" Megaman started, but Yuna raised her hand to silence him
"No! Follow me, immediately. There's been an accident." Yuna's voice was in a tone that had forced calm written all over it.
Roll got to her feet shakily. She turned her cut and bruised face towards the Mother Unit, and asked, "What happened?"
"Follow me!"
Yuna sprinted back the way she came, and once again, the party started sprinting down the hallways, toward what appeared to be the hallways leading to the Hanger Bay.
"We were just outside the Flutter! Sera, Data, and Barrel made sure to dock inside so that we could join you in the getaway, because we didn't trust Red or Bleucher. They seemed to be working against us, and Barrel thought it would be a good idea to go with us to help Megaman!"
"What happened Yuna!" Roll's voice rose an octave. Clearly Yuna was easing them into something.
"Well, we all braced ourselves for the impact when we knew we were going to crash, but…"
They had reached the hanger, where they could see across the large expanse the Flutter, still stationed securely and safe in the center, but two figures could be seen on the other side, one over the other, clearly attempting to help the prone figure on the ground.
Ira was the first to completely understand what was going on, followed closely by Teisel, who had greatly admired the man, whether he admitted it or not.
"Professor Barrel!"
They all rushed over, and huddled around Sera, who was clearly doing all in her power to help him.
"What the Hell happened?" Megaman said, clearly distraught. Gramps, the consummate survivor, was clearly struggling for breath on the cold metal floor.
"We were out here, bracing for impact, when some of the supply crates broke free from their confinement!" Data said to Megaman, although no one else understood these words. He glanced over where Data was pointing, and saw the random crates that had broken free during the crash scattered and broken open all over the Hanger. Ira seemed to fill in the gaps.
"He got hit by the storage crates? Is he going to be alright?"
Sera looked up from her ministrations. "I don't know."
The atmosphere in the little meeting room was very somber, and a few sniffles could be heard from some of the Servbots. It had taken them a few hours to sort through the various issues that they had on hand, and they were meeting in the large room to discuss their next move. At the moment, Megaman was pacing the floor, worried out of his mind for his adopted guardian. His eyes kept darting to the blonde girl seated at the table, almost as worried for her as he was for Gramps. She had refused medical treatment, although still bleeding from a few places, and told them to focus on her Grandfather first.
Tron sat, hunched forward with her head on the table, pushing a pencil back and forth across the smooth surface, clearly unable to think of much else. Teisel sat at the head, an uncharacteristically serious face stared towards the door, waiting for Sera to return from the medical area. Roll was beyond tears, and was seated like a statue, staring at the table-top, the bags under her tired eyes making her look like someone in very serious pain. Ira and Aero were muttering in low tones to one another, clearly trying to think of a way out of the current problem that they found themselves in.
Suddenly, the door opened, and Sera came into the room, looking grave but giving a small smile to the people waiting for her, which immediately slipped back into her usually stoic demeanor. "He's stable. He's resting for the time being, and I'll keep a look out on him, but I don't know how long it will last. Unless we can get him to somewhere better equipped…" She let the threat hang in the air.
She sat down at one of the few available chairs in the room, and Teisel took charge of the situation.
"Well… alright then… I guess we'll have to get out of here as fast as possible. Um… Roll… Can we?"
"No." Roll's voice brought Megaman to a halt, his heart missing a few beats. He had never seen her like this before. He wanted nothing more than to hold her to him, to shake her out of this very scary tone of voice.
"The damage we did to the engines isn't something we can fix quickly. We wouldn't be able to fly out of here in a few days, even given a stable docking platform to repair all the damage." Her hollow voice cuts through everyone like a knife. Her beautiful and terrible visage clearly defies all hope.
Tron looks at her best friend with a baleful eye. "Roll, that isn't helping. I checked the engine room an hour ago and…"
Roll looked up from the table, staring right into Tron's eyes. Tron didn't look away, but her voice trembled a bit. "You… You aren't wrong, it would take at least a week to fix, but we don't really need to get this ship flying again, we just need to move it."
Teisel looked at his little sister. "What do you mean Tron?"
"Well, we need to get him to a hospital quickly, and the only way to do that is aboard the Flutter. It's still safe in the hanger. The only problem is that we can't get it out unless the Gesellschaft was airborne, and it could go through the Hanger Bay doors."
Megaman looked at Tron "Is that possible?"
Tron let out a sigh. "I think it is, the only problem is that we don't have a power source that can move the ship right now. The generators can keep everything else running just fine, but we can't lift off without at least one large refractor. But the only ones we had were destroyed when Roll flooded the casings to slow us down."
"Well…" Ira said, looking around the room. "Given the incredible amount of digging talent we have in this room alone, I can't see that being much of an issue, even if time is a factor!" She pounded her fist into her palm, clearly trying to cheer everyone up in the present downcast situation.
"The only problem with THAT plan is that we're stuck out in what used to be the ocean! There aren't going to be any ruins out here, Ira…" Aero said in a not so gentle voice, bringing Ira back down once again.
"Oh… Right…"
But not everyone looked back down at the table in defeat. Megaman, Yuna, and Sera looked at each other with such an intensity that it caught the eyes of the others, who were puzzled by this response. Yuna looked at the ceiling, releasing a sigh, Sera looked at Megaman shaking her head, while he stared right back, his eyes burning into hers.
"There may be something to that…" Megaman said, not taking his eyes from Sera's.
She responded, "It's much too risky, especially now. Who knows what you will find! I do not wish for you to be hurt!"
Yuna looked at Sera, surprised by this sudden uncharacteristic outburst, and Megaman's look of consternation, as well as companionship, with Sera.
"What are you two talking about?" Teisel said.
"There are ruins under the water…" Megaman said, but Sera cut him off.
"Before you fill them with a false sense of hope, let me remind you that we don't know if we are close to any of these old ruins, nor would they have what we are looking for!"
"Explain." Ira said, looking at Yuna and Sera questioningly.
Sera resigned herself to the explanation. "Before all of you were around, a long long time ago, the older system here on Terra, before Elysium, was spread all over the world…"
Tron spoke up again. "We know that, Megaman told us all about the Elder system and how they were destroyed by the Ancients."
Sera looked accusingly at Megaman, who raised his hands up defensively. "I had to tell them! I didn't explain it like you guys did…"
"You were supposed to not explain it at all! If you told, who knows how many…"
"Give it a rest…" Yuna said in exasperation. "I could have told you Megaman would have told them the moment he was able, why do you find this hard to believe?"
Sera mumbled something about a breach of trust, while Yuna continued. "Well, if you know that, then you know that there are many, many refractors below the surface of the water… what is now most likely the desert that surrounds us. It is possible that we may be able to find a refractor large enough to suit our needs… but…"
"Its dangerous." Ira finished for her. "Probably really dangerous. We could be trapped in caverns, or drowned by trapped water, or worse…"
"…Attacked by the Elders." Megaman said.
This brought everyone up short, most looking surprised, and Teisel actually laughing. "There wouldn't be any more of those around anymore, Megaman…"
When none of them laughed, he stopped chuckling to himself. "Could there?"
"We believe they are still there." Sera said, "And we are worried about… provoking their rage…"
Megaman crossed his arms. "We don't have a choice. Do you have any scanning equipment that is still working Tron?"
Tron nodded. "Of course we do. This is a pirate ship after all…"
"Good. I'm going to get ready, and then I'm heading out there to see what I can find. Let me know if you see anything so you can tell me where to go."
Megaman made for the door, but a general outcry met his words.
"No!"
"Stop it, we need a plan!"
"We can't just…"
"That's ENOUGH!" Megaman yelled, which made them all gape at him. "Every second we sit here talking, my grandfather lies on his hospital bed dying. So if you don't mind, I'll be getting ready."
He left without another word.
In the Hanger, Megaman had almost completely suited back up into his armor once again. His fear of inaction at such a crucial time was making him move very quickly. He jerked around, however, when he heard the Hanger door opening, and a figure in red came walking towards him.
Megaman stopped adjusting his Buster gun, and began to walk towards Roll. "Ok, so when I get out there, we need to…"
"I'm going with you."
It wasn't a request. It wasn't even an order. It was a bald statement of fact that stopped him in his tracks.
"No, absolutely not! It's…"
"TOO dangerous? TOO scary? Don't you dare tell me what to do now, Megaman Volnutt, don't you DARE!" Roll was practically screaming at him. He had no idea where this fury was coming from. "I'm not going to sit around anymore while people get hurt. I'm not letting you go through this alone. I've made my choice, and I choose you!"
Megaman was confused by this, "Roll, what do you mean?"
She looked away, blinking a few tears out of her eyes. "It doesn't matter, ok? I just, I… I can't lose you, Megaman."
"Roll, you aren't going to…"
"I don't care what you say Megaman. I care about Gramps just as much as you do, and I've sacrificed enough!"
"Roll, what are you…?"
"Here." Roll held out the piece of twisted metal to Megaman. "I found this in the Flutter earlier. Apparently our belongings came with us from the hospital. We should keep it with us while we…"
It caught both of them completely by surprise. The piece of metal began to glow with a faint red light, and then, before either of them could stop it, it had latched onto Megaman's arm, just above the wrist on his armor on his right hand.
"What the…?"
The glow receded, except for the center, which had a glowing red crystal, like an ember burning deep inside of it.
It was as Tron had predicted. It seemed to have a mind of its own.
Suddenly, just as quickly as it had latched onto Megaman, a flash of a face with horrible red eyes with scars appeared, laughing a maniacal laugh, before disappearing from his vision. He found that he had sunk to the floor, onto his knees, and Roll was screaming his name.
"MEGAMAN! MEGAMAN!"
"….I'm alright…" he breathed, and she grabbed a hold of him and hugged him tightly to her stomach, pulling her fingers through his ash brown hair. "Your face… You looked like you were hallucinating… something horrible…"
"I was…" He described the face to her, and the horrible laughter that kept echoing in his mind. She didn't let go, and kept holding him in this way until Tron and Ira opened the door of the Hanger as well, the latter fully dressed in her digger's armor, and Tron's eyes dancing like fire at the sight of the two of them in this way.
"What is going ON in here?" She said rudely, breaking the two of them apart quickly. Before she could think of anything to say, Roll started telling her about the machinery, and how it had sprung to life. Ira, listening intently, turned to Megaman.
"Well, how do you feel?"
Megaman thought about it for a moment, standing up. "I don't feel any different, or any more powerful." Or special, he thought to himself grimly. Perhaps he had been expecting something more. X had made it sound like he would have learned something more, perhaps even gained back all he had lost from those old days as X. Instead, it seemed that he had only inherited a very stubborn piece of jewelry.
"I can't get it off…" . It was true, he tried prying at it with his armored fingers, but to no avail.
"Why would you want to take it off?"
Sera and Yuna had appeared, with Aero and Teisel bringing up the rear.
"You would think that the Master would have wanted you to have that for a reason, Megaman…" Yuna said suspiciously.
Ira looked at Yuna. "The Master? But…?"
"Of course I don't want to take it off!" Megaman said, cutting across Ira's words. "I just wanted to, you know, have the option…"
"Hmmm…" Sera said, looking at it, and then at Megaman with shrewd eyes. "Well, hopefully it will aid us in this quest for a refractor as well. You said it was looking for pieces of the cannon that destroyed the original colony, correct?"
Megaman nodded.
"Well, perhaps one of these is an energy source. We will just have to wait and see, won't we?"
"I guess so…" Megaman said, not looking at them directly, but instead turning his attention to Ira and Tron, who appeared to be getting ready to depart as well. "And where do you think you two are going?" he asked sharply. "I've already told Roll…"
"You can't stop us." Ira said in what was almost a childish mocking tone, if it weren't for the deadly seriousness it carried. "We are coming along. We are all in this together. We already worked it out."
"But then who will spot for us? Obviously Roll will need to…"
"I will be!" Aero said brightly, pleased to be included in the plans. "I was Barrett's spotter loads of times in the ruins, and I've never done a bad job!"
"Unfortunately, she's not half bad." Tron said grudgingly. "We went back to the bridge to scan, and she had already found and mapped the nearest structures that appear to be ruins…" She hesitated for just a moment. "I won't lie to you guys, what we saw was really big. It looked colossal on the monitor. I just hope that we won't have to deal with anything colossal on the inside." She looked at Megaman pointedly, both remembering a certain horrible monster in the ruins of Saul Kada that could have eaten the Flutter if it had a mind to.
"Well there really isn't any use standing around then…" Roll said, as she pulled out her own armor designed from the original plans of Megaman's that she had used during his rescue. Having been nearly dead at the time, Megaman hadn't noticed it, but he had to give her credit, she seemed to be completely at ease going into the ruins. She seemed to be thinking along the same lines as him, when she looked into his face, and said "As long as we are with you, I doubt we will be in any serious danger. You saved the whole world, right?"
They all laughed, except Roll once again, who seemed to be unable to smile since their escape from Red.
"Sera and I will be right there on the communications while you are all underground. You'll probably need all the help you can get navigating under there."
The dust settled around Megaman's foot as he took the first step out of the Gesellschaft out onto the ocean bed. The sun had moved behind a cloud for the moment, and as far as the eye could see, there was nothing but rocky terrain and sand, interspersed with the bones of fish and of other sea creatures. It was an interesting scene, to be sure…
Tron, in the Gustaff, having decided that force may be necessary to move some of the terrain, stomped up behind him, with Ira and Roll bringing up the rear, the sun now coming out and glinting off of their armor. The hatch closed behind them, and a voice rang out across all of their intercoms.
"Ok, we're all set in here, it should be straight ahead of you, inside of a large hole in the ground apparently…"
Aero's voice was definitely a new addition to their team, but she seemed to be quite at ease at the Spotter panel. Roll looked at Ira, who shrugged her shoulders in a "I trust her" sort of way, and started moving forward, Tron following along. Megaman hung back to wait for Roll, and fell along step beside her. "Look, I know that you came to rescue me, and I know that must have been really hard… But being in ruins is really different… It can be truly frightening at some points…"
"If you are trying to talk me out of going its not going to work. I don't want to leave you for another second." She said it so plainly, that he was quite shocked.
"Roll… When you were talking to me before, about sacrifices…"
She stopped and looked and him. "I don't want to talk about it just yet, ok?"
"Ok… I just wanted to know… Did your father upset you or somet…"
Roll tripped over a rock, but caught herself before falling. " Megaman, please…"
"Ok… I'm sorry." And he was, as he saw the tears start to fall down her face, but she didn't sob or make any noise at all. Megaman's heart was bursting. He couldn't stand seeing her this way.
Tron suddenly appeared before them, having backtracked when she noticed them walking alone together. "Look, if you don't wanna come just say so, Blondie, you don't need to keep dragging your feet…"
Roll stared straight ahead. "I'm fine." And with that, she jogged away from Megaman and Tron and caught up with Ira.
Tron turned the Gustaff in Megaman's direction. "What's going on?"
"I don't know." Megaman answered truthfully. "I know Gramps is hurt, but she's in some sort of terrible pain."
"…She hasn't been having a good day, that's for sure…" Tron said, in a more delicate tone. She realized at that moment that this was the first time that she had been alone with him ever since he had arrived. She blushed at the thought, thankful he couldn't see through the Gustaff, and changed the subject to a more relevant topic. "So… before… when you were thanking me for rescuing you…" she started, not sure how she could encroach upon the subject.
"I meant it. Not a lot of people would take the kind of abuse I gave you and your family, and still be willing to come and rescue me when I needed it the most. I guess its moments like that when you know who your real friends are, hunh?" Megaman said it in a genial tone, but Tron only heard the sweet chords of her love pouring out to the boy. If only she wasn't shut up in the Gustaff, maybe she could jump him and plant a kiss on him before the others were looking? Before she could even daydream about that idea, Megaman continued. "You're really special to me, Tron, I just hope you know that…"
"Megaman, come away with me…" Tron said, before she could stop herself. Megaman stopped walking and looked up at the mechanical monster in front of her, but seeing the eyes of one of his best friends somehow reflected in the metal. "After all this is over. You know that you and I make a great team, we could have the best times…" She knew it was a lame cover. Of course he would say no to pirating and joining up with her family, hadn't she already tried that angle before? But she had just come so close to outright declaring her love for him right at that moment, and this was definitely not the time or the place for that.
Megaman laughed. "Yeah, I'm sure we would be, but I think I'll have to decline."
"Well, maybe more, if you wanted…" Tron said teasingly, stomping along ahead of him, while his eyes widened at her comment. Did she mean…?
"There it is!" Ira said clearly, pointing down over a cliff face that Megaman couldn't see over at this distance. He came up beside her, putting his hand on her shoulder and peering out over the expanse below him, not quite missing the flush of pleasure this simple gesture created in her.
Women… He thought to himself.
But as he looked down the cliff face, the thoughts of Ira, Roll, and Tron flew right out of his mind. There, in what he now recognized as a crater, not a hole, was a horrible wreck of metal and slime. The thing was on a scale that he wasn't quite familiar with. It looked as though upon colliding with Terra, it had broken into several pieces, but the main one looked as though a mountain of metal instead of rock had formed at the crater's bottom.
"Whoa…" Ira said, clearly taken aback by the magnitude of what she was seeing.
"That…" Said Yuna's voice over the intercom, "Is definitely not human."
Navigating the cliff face had been a lot more simple than Megaman would have believed. Thanks to Tron, who literally just grabbed the three of them and flew down to the cliff bottom, they made it down in no time at all. Up close, this thing was much more intimidating to all of them.
"So… Yuna… what do you make of this thing?" Megaman asked tentatively, knowing the answer before it was given.
"I have no idea, Megaman…"
"Great… " Ira said. "Our experts in ancient technology are at a loss at the first hurtle of this adventure. Why do I get the feeling that's going to be a repeating trend?"
"You know, we could just LEAVE you in the ruins if you'd like…" Yuna said in an evil, but joking, voice.
"Pshhh… Assuming your 'knowledge' of this technology gets us through the front door…" Ira said in a sarcastic tone.
Roll was running her armored hand over the grime and moss covered surface of the wreck. "I think there is something underneath this moss over here…"
Megaman walked over to her, as she pried through the muck and wiped off a large swatch of moss and grime to reveal the bare metal underneath. It appeared to be some form of large hatch, but it had obviously rusted shut over the thousands of years lying underneath the Ocean. Megaman tried to pry it open with his hands, but was unsuccessful.
"Oh please…. Allow me!"
Megaman barely had time to jump out of her way as Tron tore her hands through the worn metal, and pried the door apart with brute force. Inside, there appeared to be a long, dark tunnel, that was still slightly damp, having not had the direct sunlight evaporating all the water as the outside had.
"Any signs of refractors or anything in there yet?"
Aero responded after a few seconds. "No… Not that I can see… There are definitely power readings of some sort, but nothing individual like a refractor's usual signal. It's either a really big one, or its too deep inside to get a clear reading…"
Megaman sighed… "Well I guess I know what that means…"
Ira had already jumped into the hole, "Experience before beauty today, I think, Megaman?" she said, giving him a sidelong glance that he knew was meant to be mockingly provocative, yet having too much honesty.
"Are you saying you are more experienced than me, Ira?" Megaman said, hands crossed over his chest.
"This is no time for Buster Gun measuring, we need to keep moving." Tron said, forcing him into the hole. Megaman was liking the company less and less as the day wore on. Sometimes diggers would dig alone because they had to, but now he was getting the feeling that he would do it because it would just be so much EASIER.
The tunnel through the metal shell wasn't as cramped as it had first appeared.
"It looks like some sort of maintenance tunnel or something, see all this old wiring?" Roll said, pointing it out to Tron, who had difficulty turning the Gustaff's head to see it.
"It does look that way… and it looks like we are finally through…"
Megaman watched as the lithe girl ahead of him kicked in a large grate, making a horrible racket as it clattered to the floor, and they all climbed out of the tunnel. They found themselves to be in what could only have been described as an atrium, but it was obviously in total decay. Water poured out from the shatter floor and walls like miniature waterfalls, splashing their feet as they took in the once grand scale of the room in which they found themselves. The shattered glass and the large pillars showed that this was once a grand hall, perhaps some sort of entranceway.
"This is quite impressive." Sera said through the intercom. "This looks very much like Elysium. The advanced technology of this place suggests that it would have been made around the same time, I would suspect…"
"Interesting…" Megaman said, but then looked up above them at the ceiling, with strange markers carved into the pillars of metal and glass.
"What do you think it all is?" he heard Roll ask, but was suddenly overcome with a great sense of danger. At first, all he saw was flashes, snippets of time that seemed to come from some sort of slideshow in his head gone haywire. A huge towering structure, and suddenly robots with very human faces working all around him. Then, computer monitors showing a massive satellite barreling towards the ground from space. A huge cannon… and a shuttle with a red figure staring directing at Megaman….
No… Not at Megaman…
At X…
"Eurasia…" Megaman said softly, not surprised to find himself on his knees again, with Roll looking into his eyes with concern.
"What did you say, Megaman?" she asked in a worried tone.
"This place… It's called Eurasia…"
"How do you know this?" Sera's voice came over the monitor sharply. It almost sounded as though him knowing this was some sort of crime.
" I don't know… memories… something, I can't quite figure it out yet… But this thing…" he raised his right arm… "It seems to know things I don't… Its whispering to me…"
Roll's eyes became fearful, but Ira just helped him to his feet. "Well, whatever its doing, it seems to know where we are, so maybe it can lead us to the buried treasure, you think?"
Megaman hesitated. It was taking some getting used to, but the device on his arm seemed to always be talking in the back of his head, but he just can't quite make out the words. "Something…Is wrong…" Megaman said slowly. "Something feels wrong… Like… we are being watched."
Tron and Ira both turned slowly on the spot, scanning the whole room, but nothing came out and attacked them, and they both turned back to Megaman. "What the heck is going on?"
Megaman decided that, for the time being, he would tell them part of the truth. "The thing that I'm looking for… It's here somewhere."
"The refractor?" Roll asks.
"No… The Maverick Code…"
"The what?" Yuna and Sera say together in unison. "Is that what the master wanted you to find? Some sort of code? I thought you said it was some sort of part…?"
"I don't know… I can't really tell the difference anymore…"
Aero suddenly sounds quite anxious. "This is getting a bit weird. I have no idea what you guys are talking about, and it sounds like Megaman is hallucinating… Maybe we should try this later?" she suggested tentatively.
"We can't… We need to get out of this desert as soon as we can, if we want to save Gramps…" Roll says, feeling her heart tear out a little bit more at the words. She doesn't know how much she has left…
They keep walking, and find a hallway in which they can all stand abreast and walk down. Such a massive spectacle seems the sort of thing they would have seen on Elysium.
That's when the pieces fall together for Megaman…
"This is it!" he yells, startling the girls next to him. "This is the space colony that crash landed on Terra all those years ago!"
"That doesn't seem to be impossible, this thing is ancient, whatever it is…" Sera says smoothly. "But how do you know?"
"I can see it… This place… It was burning through the atmosphere and I… I mean… the Elders… They used something called the…. Enigma cannon! Yes! They tried to shoot it down…"
"Yes, that is what the record says…" Yuna said placating, "but we told you that, remem…"
"But it didn't work!" Megaman said, holding his head between his hands as more memories began to flood through him. "The cannon, it only destroyed a part of it… We had a back up plan, but it was dangerous…"
He was speaking on autopilot now, his words coming before he even had time to process them. Didn't they realize how much he was learning about the past… HIS past, in just these few minutes?
"I was there… The old me… I tried to stop it from happening."
"The old you? What are you saying…" Yuna said, completely lost.
But then it was gone again. The flashes stopped for the moment, and Megaman kept walking.
"This place is a tribute to a Nightmare…" Megaman said, not really knowing what he meant by it. When it collided with Terra, it almost destroyed everything…
"Let's… keep moving…" Tron said in a shaky voice. She was looking around at this place with a new fear in her heart. It really did seem to her that this place reeked of death, and Megaman's chilling words told her why.
They continued into the wreckage, pushing past old metal and equipment whose purpose had been long forgotten, until they finally reached something that they could all recognize.
"This looks like some sort of control center…" Ira said, training her buster gun around the whole room, as though expecting an attack at any moment. It was odd, as none of them had been given the slightest idea of danger from an attack, yet they all felt as though death was right around the corner. But why?
They walked up to the computer terminal, and looked around in the dim green light reflecting off of the water's surface, sending waves of reflected light dancing along the walls.
"This… doesn't look like the rest of the wreckage…" Roll said quietly. "It looks like it might even still work…" She attempts to hit a few buttons, but nothing happens.
"This seems to be a really big waste of time…" Tron said, stomping the Gustaff around the perimeter of the room. "And while I'm really loathe to admit it, this place is really scaring me for some reason.
Megaman rested his hands against the terminal, while he tried to concentrate on the tiny voices in the back of his mind.
Dynamo…
Dynamo…
"Dynamo…" He said out loud, and everyone once again turned to Megaman, who was fast becoming their source of understanding for everything in this crazy destroyed world. "There was a man…. Named Dynamo… He tried to bring this place down… He was the one who did it…"
Megaman looked around, and saw a silhouette of a tall figure walk over with a causal strut, to the place where Ira was standing, and take out some sort of faceless guard that Megaman could hardly see. This man was obviously Dynamo, but…
"Maybe he wasn't a man… I don't know…" The images once again burn out of his mind, but not before he looked up into one of the screens, just as his mirage Dynamo did, and saw something in the monitor directly above him.
"Roll… I just saw something… But I don't know what it means…"
"It's ok Megaman… What did you see?"
Megaman looked around, and saw a piece of glass lying in the water by his feet. He stooped to pick it up, and then turned back to the control panel. Finding a clear place, he set to work drawing what was in his mind's eye, while the others watched his back as he worked.
"Do you know what this is?" he turned when he was finished, letting them look at the etched marking in the metal surface.
"I actually do know what that means." Roll said, staring at it. It's a mathematics term. It means the sum of some group of numbers. The sum of the parts. It's called Sigma…"
Immediately after the word has left her mouth, all of the lights go out, and they are thrown into blackness.
So I really hate to do this, but I decided to end the chapter here. That wasn't my original intention, but it just seemed to work. I also didn't plan to have Megaman just be an info-dump sort of character at this point, but I was reminded recently that not a lot of people may understand the other storylines, so I'll need to ease into these transitions. I guess this chapter just helped a little with the characterization and development…
Soulless Soundless Lost: I'm actually going back through all the old chapters and fixing those things… I just need to stop writing at 3:30 in the morning… like right now…
GYY: Interesting that you characterize Roll that way. I guess I'll give you a hint. You were a bit off the mark on Megaman's main duty, but you may have been a bit closer about Roll than you think. That's all I'll say.
Sunnychance: Uhh… You're welcome? Lol
Me: Well as much as this was a huge compliment that made me feel super awesome, upon second thought there aren't really any Megaman Legends fanfics anyway. It's like coming in first out of two people hahaha. But don't be surprised that I updated. I promised I'd finish the story…
Zeonzen: All time favorite fanfic? That is really and truly great praise. Sorry I couldn't give you more in this chapter… I guess I've gotten into the habit of keeping them to a certain length so people aren't like "WTF?" haha. Yeah… characterization is hard after MML2 because you'd have to imagine what Roll and Tron would be like together, and I know many people wouldn't agree, but they would have to be best friends eventually, cause best friends NEVER see eye to eye, right? lol