Wily's War, Chapter 9: The End of the Line
Deep inside of Skull Fortress
Mega Man and Rush walk down a hallway in the fortress and see a room that appears to be luminated by something glowing inside and the sound of several computers and generators can be heard humming from inside the room... this is Wily's main command center.
Mega readies his blaster and cautiously steps forward, Rush follows him.
Mega turns the corner and aims his blaster arm inside the room, but sees no sign of Wily anywhere in the large room full of computers, but Mega is sure he was here, because all of the monitors are linked to the cameras inside the fortress (except for the one Mega took out.)
Mega utilizes his advanced visual circuits and scans the room for any heat signatures, and he can see that the swivel chair in the room and still warm.
"He was here recently! He's got to be close! Come on, Rush!", Mega says, balling his fist as Rush barks.
Mega Man and Rush get out of the command center and continue running down the hallway, but later come to a dead end. Mega looks around for any opening and hidden pathway so they can find Wily. The Blue Bomber looks down and sees a steel grating that leads to a pathway underground.
"Down here, Rush," he says, pulling the grating out of the floor.
Mega Man and Rush jump down and begin walking down a long, dark and dank tunnel which appears to be wet with water puddled in spots.
Dr. Wily had fled his Command Center and was now traveling down a hidden tunnel withing the fortress which will lead him to safety from Mega Man deep underground... if just for a little while longer. He is still in contact with ProtoMan and monitoring the security feeds via a computer pad.
"Hold it," Wily says to ProtoMan as he spots Mega Man on a camera feed he's watching on the pad he's holding in his other hand, "Well!... He's using the drainage pathway!"
"What's that mean?", ProtoMan asks.
"From where you're standing now, you won't have to come to him," Wily answers, "I'll bring him to you!"
Albert cuts contact ProtoMan and presses the screen of the computer tablet.
"I hope you brought some swimming gear!", he says to the shot of Mega Man.
As Mega Man and Rush continue walking up the drainage pathway, Mega can hear the sound of his metal feet reverberating throughout the hollow tunnel.
He whispers, "We must be getting close, 'cause Wily's bots just keep getting tougher or bigger... or both."
Then, Mega Man hears something echoing... something scary.
"Shhh!", he shooses, "What was that?"
Rush and Mega look around and hear a noise that sounds like a building rumble, sounding like it is racing their way. Then, Mega starts to feel the ground shake under his feet, almost like an earthquake tremor... but not quite.
"Uh-oh!", he says, now looking behind himself.
Within seconds, a flood of water on a biblical scale begins to flood the drainage pathway..
"Let's move!", Mega yells.
Rush transforms into jet mode and Mega quickly leaps on his back as they jet away. While Rush's speed is quite remarkable, not fast enough to outrun the rushing water.
The flood of water catches them and carries them away, speeding towards the end of the drainage corridor and both Mega and Rush both scream as they are swept away by the flood of water.
Both the water as well as Mega Man and Rush are spit out into another large, empty room inside of Skull Fortress, not too dissimilar from the ones he was in earlier, but this room was somewhat smaller.
Not long after they hit the ground, the water stops flooding in, and the ammount that did pour in was slowly draining down a drainage grating in the center of the room. Mega knew Wily was behind this, he was brought to this room.
As Mega Man gets up, he hears a familiar voice call out to him, "It's been a while, little brother!"
The voice belongs to ProtoMan, who drops in through a hole in the ceiling. The two robotic brothers begin circleling eachother and share some words...
"I haven't forgotten about our first fight," he adds.
"And I'm sure Wily hasn't let you forget it either," Mega retorts.
"... yeah, so he hasn't," Proto replies, "what's your point?"
"The last time we met you offered me a choice to join you," Mega says.
"Mmm-hmm!" Proto nods, "Offer's still on the table."
"How about a counter-offer? I say you ditch this guy Wily and do what's right!" Mega replies, trying to reach whatever bit of humanity his brother has left.
"And go back to Dr. Light?", Proto asks with a chuckle, "Not happening!"
"What's your problem with Dr. Light?", Mega asks, wanting to know why he dislikes their creator so much.
"Don't you remember? He was the one responsible for the pain I suffered when I was first brought online," ProtoMan says with a matter-of-fact tone.
"No, he wasn't!", Mega snaps, getting angry at the notion that Dr. Light was to blame for ProtoMan's first painful night alive.
"Oooh! Did I hit a little too close to home?... Rock?", Proto goads.
"Dr. Light is a good person!", Mega defends, "He would never hurt anybody, especially his own robots! If anybody's responsible for what happened to you, it's that idiot Dr. Wily!"
"Of course," Proto says, "spouting all the lines given to you by the great Dr. Thomas Light. If Dr. Wily's done anything, it's make me a warrior. And a warrior that would have defeated you in battle, if it hadn't been for that little runt you got there."
Rush growls and shows his teeth at ProtoMan.
"I'm not the same robot you faced the first time around, ProtoMan," Mega Man says, almost warning his brother.
"Really?... well, neither am I, Bro," Proto replies, unfazed.
"You said you wanted to fight me again... so, are you ready, big brother?"
"... only if your answer hasn't changed," Proto answers, referring to his offer for Mega Man to join his side and Mega's refusal to do so.
"No way!", Mega replies, activating his plasma blaster and signaling for Rush to get away.
ProtoMan smriks and activates his own blaster.
"Too bad for you, brother!", he says.
ProtoMan leaped high in the air and rained several shots of plasma down upon his brother's location.
Mega Man was quick to avoid them all and return fire upwards, but ProtoMan twists his body to avoid the shots. As soon as his feet hit the ground again, he dove to his right for a wall.
This was just a large room with only a floor, a ceiling and four walls to work with. Proto knows he doesn't have much, but, he's using it.
ProtoMan hits the wall and throws himself off of it for a higher jump. He fires more blasts of plasma at Mega Man, but Mega gets himself out of danger again.
"Hey, Proto, want to see what firepower I've got?", Mega says as he fires a burst of the copied Atomic Fire at his brother.
ProtoMan lands on his feet and sees the large fireball heading in his direction. He leans his whole body backwards, bending only at the knees, to avoid getting burned by the fire.
Mega Man charges for him, before he could retaliate, but ProtoMan saw him coming and kicked his brother back with his feet, now using only his arms to hold him up.
Mega Man took the kick in his abdomin area and falls backwards, hitting the floor. ProtoMan props himself back up and walks back towards Mega Man with a cocky stride.
"I'm not impressed, little brother," Proto says, still wearing that smart-ass grin of his.
When ProtoMan is close enough, Mega kicks his older brother's legs out from under him with a sweep kick to behind his knees.
Mega manuevers himself over his brother and prepares to strike him, but ProtoMan fires another blast, meant for him. The shot misses Mega's head and goes straight up to the ceiling, causing bad damage. Rubble then falls down upon the battleing brothers and they both roll themselves out of the way of the falling debris as it hits the ground.
Both Mega and Proto get back up and aim their blasters at each other at the same exact time. They stood there for a few seconds, maintaining their aim at eachother, waiting for the other sibling to fire first.
"You're fast, I'll give you that," Proto exclaims.
ProtoMan fires first, Mega Man fires just nanoseconds later, virtually at the same time. The plasma shots collide with eachother, creating a bright burst of energy.
Mega Man covers his eyes because the light from the coliding shots is so bright that it's blinding, but ProtoMan's visor protected his eyes from the brightness and he takes advantage of it.
ProtoMan fires a blast at Mega Man and hits him square in his chest, sending him falling to the floor again.
Mega quickly removes the other energy can from his leg compartment, but ProtoMan got to him and kicked it out of his hand. As the can flew up in the air, ProtoMan shot it, destroying it.
Mega Man now had to withstand the pain from the blast and switched to the Quick Boomerang. He fires at ProtoMan, hitting him in the chest.
Mega fires another boomerang at ProtoMan, hitting him right in his helmet, just missing his black visor. This causes him to stumble backwards. Mega then switches back to his standard blaster and fires a shot of plasma at his brother.
The shot hits Proto's chest, knocking him backwards and crashing through a drain cover in the floor.
Mega Man hears his older brother scream and runs over to the hole. Even though he was just fighting his older brother, the look on his face clearly illustrates concern. He promised he would try to bring him back home so Dr. Light could erase Wily's evil programming, and he doesn't want to fail his creator... or see his own brother die.
When Mega gets to the drainage hole, he sees ProtoMan clinging onto a small cravace in the drain by only his fingers.
Proto was still hanging on, but from the inaudible grunting he was making, he sounded like he was scared too. He has no idea what is down below. For all he knows, the fall could very well destroy him.
Mega Man stands at the ledge, looking down at his brother. Mega Man was concerned and scared for ProtoMan got down on his stomach and reached out for him.
"Grab onto me!", Mega said with a sincere concern in his voice.
ProtoMan looked up. His eyes were covered by his black visor, but his mouth was slightly gaping. He almost looks shocked to see his brother - with whom he was just shooting at a fewseconds ago - showing him mercy and trying to save him.
After a few seconds, ProtoMan quickly removes his right hand from his grip on the wall and grabs Mega Man's hand and allows his younger brother to help him back up to ground level.
Once ProtoMan is out of danger, he realizes that he shouldn't have let his brother help him. Wily might be watching them both right now.
"Dammit!", ProtoMan spits, and runs away.
Mega looks dumbfounded as he watches Proto run towards the large drainage pathway in the wall from which Mega and Rush came, which is now dry.
ProtoMan looks back at his brother and says, "You haven't seen the last of me yet, brother!", then runs away.
"Some gratitude!", Mega scoffs.
Dr. Light's lab.
Dr. Light continues monitoring Mega Man's progress via his tracking device. Thomas has become a little more wary, as Mega's signal was moving very fast a few minutes, but has barely moved since then.
"Do you think he's okay?", Roll asks with concern, nervously rubbing her hands together.
"I can only hope so, Roll," Thomas replies, "He is still active."
Then, Dr. Light's console beeps.
"Dr. Light, it's Mega Man", says the voice that follows, covered in slight static.
"Thank goodness, Mega! Are you alright?", asks Dr. Light as Roll allows herself to breathe a sigh of relief.
"Besides some minor damage I'm okay, and so's Rush."
Dr. Light and Roll can hear Rush barking on the other end.
"Have you found Wily yet?", Light asks.
"Not yet, but I think I'm getting close. I just foug-... toman... aved him...-"
"Can you repeat that Mega? You're breaking up," Thomas says.
"... Ight? Can-... hea... -..."
The communication goes silent.
Roll gasps. "Oh, no! Look!", she freaks, pointing to Thomas' monitor, where Mega Man's signal slowly fades out.
"We're losing track of him," Thomas says, "I'm going to try and boost the power."
Roll clasps her hands together in front of her mouth and prays for her brother again. Dr. Light is certainly concerned also, because Mega Man's communicator is not supposed fade out like old cellular phones of the past used to do when they entered certain zones. Wily must have jammed the communication.
"Guys?", Mega says, now realizing that his communication is being blocked, "Can you hear me?... it's not working, Rush."
Rush whimpers as he and Mega Man continue making their way through Skull Fortress and reach the end of another corridor... with an interesting doorway.
Mega and Rush approach the door causiously. Mega Man is the closest to the door and when he raises his hand, the door rises quickly, making loud clanking noises as it rises. Mega Man and Rush pass the doorway and into a more narrow corridor with another door like this one at the end of it.
Mega Man and Rush step forward, then the first door slams shut, thrusting back down into the floor. Mega Man looks back at the first door while Rush is startled by the loud noise it made. Then, Mega looks at the second door again.
"He's here," Mega says with determination in his voice.
Mega Man steps forward. With every step he takes towards the second door, he thinks about his family back home, Dr. Light and Roll. He even thinks about his brother ProtoMan and that interesting moment after he saved him from falling.
Before he knew it, the second door in front of him opens.
Mega Man can't see anything inside the new room, because it is too dark.
Mega and Rush enter the dark room, and the door behind them slams shut and the room is now completely dark.
"Mega Man!", says the amplified voice of Dr. Wily echoing within the room, "You may have beaten my other robots, but can you do the same to me?"
The lights turn on in the room and Mega Man can see Dr. Wily's Skullker hovering in front of him... Rush switches to jet mode and Mega leaps on his back.
The Skullker fires several shots at Mega Man, but they miss their mark. Mega Man takes out the Skullker's weapons by firing a couple of blasts at them. Rush flies past Wily's ship for Mega Man to get a good shot at the engine. Mega switches weapons and fires a Crash Bomb that clings to the ship, near it's rear engines.
The Skullker slowly manuvers around, trying to spot Mega Man, until the bomb blows. The engine is completely gone and Wily's Skullker crashes, flipping over several times when it hits the floor.
"Set down, Rush," Mega says, "Something's telling me this was too easy."
Rush lands and Mega steps off. But, as Mega Man steps closer to the Skullker, he hears a high pitched sound. If he wasn't mistaken, that means a bomb is about to go off.
Then, several bombs that were placed around the floor of the room go off and the entire floor caves in, taking the wreckage of the Skullker, Mega Man and Rush with it.
Mega Man keeps falling with the rubble and Rush is not far behind. Rush switches to jet mode and is able to control his fall, then he goes after Mega Man. The red-armored robodog goes after Mega down the chasm.
Mega Man reaches up for Rush and the robodog produces a handle from out of his stomach area. The handle is usually meant for hanglider mode, but Rush altered the setting himself, seeing as this is an extreme case.
Mega Man magages to grab onto the handle on time, and while hanging in mid-air, he watches the Skullker and the rubble fall down and crash onto the surface below.
Mega looks up at Rush and lets out a sigh of relief with a smile. "I owe you, buddy!", he says.
Rush happilly barks back as he hovers down. Mega Man finally lets go when he is close enough to the ground.
"All I know is that we didn't blow up Wily up there," he says to Rush, "Not the real one at least."
Mega Man's body is dirty from the dust from the explosion and he brushes himself off. But, he notices that his weapon power is down low.
"I better recharge and use that device Dr. Light gave me."
Mega Man opens a small compartment in his left forearm and inserts the recharge chip into an expansion port. All of his weapon energy is replinished, but his health remains uneffected. If Mega gets involved in another battle, he has no more spare energy, and his armor is already damaged, so he must be especially careful.
Rush barks a few times to get Mega's attention.
"What is it, boy?", Mega Man asks.
Rush nods over to what appears to be another metal door at the end of a tunnel.
Mega Man is sure Wily is in there... and he's waiting for him. Mega begins walking towards that door with a purpose. Now, he's going to end this ugly war.
If everything goes right, Wily will face justice and get thrown in jail for his crimes today. Enough people have been hurt already, and enough people died in Times Square. His own family has been hurt by this psychopath.
Not anymore, if Mega Man has anything to say about it.
Mega Man steps up to the door and it opens automatically... and standing inside this dark room - with a single light shinging down upon him - is Dr. Wily, with a sinister smile on his face.
Mega Man enters the room, but before Rush could enter, the door slams shut. Mega looks behind him and hears Rush complaining and pounding on the door.
"If we're going to finish this, Mega Man, then we'll do it one-on-one," Wily says with an errie delight.
"Fine by me," Mega flatly states.
Wily's grin gets wider and he holds his arms out and... begins to levitate. Mega Man blue eyes widen. He couldn't believe his eyes when he saw a human being fly.
"You didn't know I could do this, could you, Mega Man?", Wily says, "Well, there's quite a bit you don't know... and it's a shame you'll be destroyed before you can tell anybody else!"
Wily's appearance begins to alter, his face becoming more gaunt and thin. His body becomes very thin also, his standard clothing barely able to hang onto him and his hands begin to change into thin talons.
Something orange appears in Wily's abdomin area, almost like a concealed weapon. His eyes begin to change from their normal human state to a red glow, and his skin becomes green.
Mega Man couldn't believe it, but unless his eyes were fooling him... Dr. Wily is really... an alien!
The room begins to look almost like outer space at warp drive and Wily levatates forward. Mega Man fires a plasma shot at him, but it passes right through him.
"This is too weird!", Mega says, firing another shot.
This time, the shot appears to have hit Wily, but it has no effect on him. Wily is able to fire some sort of weapon from the orange glow in his body. He fires at Mega Man, who leaps out of the way.
"This can't be real!", Mega says, "There's no way."
Mega switches to the cyclone power and uses it, but the cyclone does nothing to Wily. Mega switches to FireMan's fire power and shoots a fireball at Wily, but it also does nothing.
Wily fires a series of shots from his weapon and Mega Man leaps, dives and slides out of the way of all of them.
"I don't know what good this bubble stuff I copied will do", Mega says, referring to the Bubble Lead he took from Bubble Man, "But, anything is worth a shot."
Mega Man runs straight at Wily and jumps. Mega fires the bubble and it drops down on Wily. When Mega lands, he notices that Wily the alien is shimmering, like a static-looking picture would on a television with bad reception.
"Just an illusion," Mega says, shaking his head and looking annoyed.
Mega Man presses a button on his left forarm and runs at the fake alien again. He now saturates the alien in the Bubble Lead, letting the liquid pour all over Wily's illusion, further distorting the image of the alien. Then, an alarm sound inside of the room and sparks fly out of the glowing orange light inside of the fake alien.
"System malfunctioning," says a monotone voice inside of the room, "Emergency lights on"
The room is luminated when the lights turn on. This causes the fake alien to disappear, with the only thing left being the holographic device the created the illusion. High above on the ceiling is a large holographic projector that is encased entirely in glass. When used, the projector can make the entire scene appear to be whatever is desired. But, with the lights on, it's worthless.
Mega Man looks around and spots Dr. Wily (the real Dr. Wily, not an alien) abusing the controls of the holographic device, which is still floating around the room. He was so deep in focus, he didn't even notice that the lights were on.
The machine begins to make a steady declineing sound, like it's dying. When Wily looks up, he sees Mega Man stareing right back at him and freezes. Wily's eyes grow wide and his mouth starts to hang open as he stares at the robot warrior staring back at him.
Neither one says anything, but a mortified Wily loudly bemoans, "... oh, Shit!"... and with the uttering of those words, the holographic device that was projecting Wily's alien illusion earlier falls down to the floor.
Mega Man aims his blaster at Wily with a dertermined frown on his face.
"NO!", Wily cries, "Please, don't!"
Wily begins walking away from the controls with his hands raised. He knows he has been defeated and is desperately trying to convince the hero not to blast him right there.
"I'll do anything you want!", Wily pleas, "Please, don't shoot me!"
Not saying a word, Mega Man keeps his eyes focused right on Dr. Wily's face and keeps his blaster aimed at his chest as the mad doctor gets down on his knees and grovels.
"If Thomas made you like I think he has, I'm sure you won't shoot me!" Wily whines.
Mega Man says nothing, keeping his aim on Wily... he knows he can't blast Wily, because Dr. Light programmed the prime directive of robotics - no robot shall ever kill a human - into his memory core.
"That's right," Wily says, slowly getting back to his feet, "Thomas believes in right and wrong... he probably gave you those same traits... so, you won't shoot me," Wily continues, now wearing a nervous grin, confident that he's right, "There's no way."
Mega Man knows Wily is right, he can't kill him, and he doesn't want to - even if Wily is a vile and low snail -, because Mega just doesn't think that way... but, he can intimidate him. Mega Man stiffens his blaster arm just a little bit... and Wily screams.
"Oh, my God!", Wily wails, falling back to his knees, "... okay, maybe you could shoot me! But, give me a chance to redeem myself! I'm not that bad of a person! I've got voices in my head, they made me do this!"
"I don't care what your excuse is! You're coming with me, Wily," Mega Man says, "and then, you're going to jail."
Still on his knees, Wily looks up at Mega Man, totally defeated.
"Get up!", Mega barks with an angry tone in his voice he's never used before.
Wily stands back up and Mega Man grabs him by his red necktie and yanks him forward, bringing him face to face with him.
"You're right," Mega says with narrow eyes and a quiet, serious tone, looking directly into Wily's eyes, "Dr. Light did give me a strong sense of what's right and wrong... and after everything you've done, you're lucky I'm the one who's arresting you, because they's a lot of people who want to do worse to you!"
Mega un-ties Wily's necktie and turns him around, using it to tie the madman's hands behind his back. Albert doesn't fight, because he knows he has lost.
"You should have killed him when you had the chance," says the little whisper in Albert's head.
In the sky, moving away from Skull Fortress.
Mega Man and Rush are flying back to take Dr. Wily to the authorities. Mega has Wily hunched over his shoulder, so he's not going anywhere.
"It won't be long, boy," Mega says, "Before you know it, this snake Wily will be in the slammer."
Wily grumbles something unintelligible, unhappy that he is going to jail.
Everything is going great. The short-lived war is over and everlasting peace can finally be a reality...
until this happens...
Another Skullker catches up to Mega Man and Rush and fires it's weapons. The blast hit's Rush's backside, and the poor robodog painfully yells and howls. He loses altitude fast and takes a nosedive.
As Mega Man gets Wily off of his shoulder, another blast hits him in his upper back, severely damaging and compromising his blue armor, and he falls off of Rush. Wily also loses his footing and falls down, screaming on the way down.
Rush's nosedive was so steep, the fall for Mega Man and especially Wily was not too far to the ground.
Mega Man's body hit the ground and cracked it as it hit. Rush crashed himself on the surface as well. Dr. Wily's fall was very short, but hard. He hit his head on the ground, knocking him out cold.
The Skullker lands nearby and ProtoMan steps out of it. He runs right to Dr. Wily's fallen body and kneels down beside him, he sees that a small ammount of blood is oozing out of Wily's head where he landed.
"Dr. Wily, it's Proto," he calls, sounding concerned, "Can you hear me?"
Wily doesn't respond. ProtoMan places his hand on Wily's neck and feels a pulse. He's alive, but just knocked out.
ProtoMan picks him up and carries him back to the Skullker. Then, Proto goes back to where his little brother Mega Man is lying. He looks over at the fallen body of Rush. He was barely moving and smoke was pouring out of his backside where he was shot. He assumes the mutt will survive, but he doesn't matter... Mega Man does.
He stopped when he got close enough and noticed that he also wasn't moving and that his back armor was blackened from the shot.
He kneeled down and checked his brother's energy meter... it was low.
Proto stood back up and crossed his arms... if he wanted to, he could drag Mega Man back to Skull Fortress and have him reprogrammed so that they can finally be brothers in battle... and he wants that badly... but, he remembers what happened earlier today back at the fortress.
ProtoMan smirks as he kneels down to his brother. "I know you can't hear me, right now," Proto says, "But, you did save my life back there... and I haven't defeated you yet... so, I'll let you go back to Light."
ProtoMan can hear somebody contacting Mega through his communicator. He recognized the voice, it was Dr. Light.
"Mega Man, It's Dr. Light. Are you alright?... Rock, can you read me?..."
Then, ProtoMan hears the very distant sound of Police sirens approaching. Maybe he gathered too much attention getting here.
ProtoMan looks back at the Skullker, then back to Mega Man and says a few parting words."... 'Till next time, Bro."
Proto runs back to the secondary Skullker and takes off with the unconscious Dr. Wily, heading back to Skull Fortress, which is still safe enough despite Mega Man's assault on it.
Meanwhile, both Mega Man and Rush remain lying on the barren ground of the badlands as the authorities approach the scene to assist the fallen heroes.
Author's notes:
There are quite a bit of elements taken from the Mega Man video games. The double doors leading to Wily are right from the games. And the big, empty room Mega Man and ProtoMan fight in are much like the majority of big battle rooms in the games.
The whole Wily sequence is directly based off of the battles with Wily in Mega Man 2. (Right down to the Bubble Lead and the falling holographic device.)
Even the scene with the flood in the drainage pathway is from Mega Man 1.
Yes, this is the first time I have used a really dirty cuss word in the Defender of the Human Race series (even though they were all over the place in another one of my stories). I am not going to be using them often here. They will only be used if I feel it's needed.
Please remember to leave a review/comment. Episode 2 concludes in the epilogue chapter!