Chapter Twenty-Three: In Hell I'll Be In Good Company
"Look at them flee!" Wily says, cackling. Proto obediently looks, watching the crowd scatter as the Skulker comes closer. New Yorkers knew the drill when it came to Wily attacks.
Proto leans back and tries not to sigh with relief. Don't let Wily hear the speech , had been the warning Shadow Man conveyed, and that had been much harder than it sounded. It meant disabling the audio equipment while Wily's back was turned, and keeping the old man distracted with evading the GAMMA program. It was more effort than anything else Proto had done since returning, and he felt a strange sort of exhaustion, separate from his actual energy supply. But he isn't done. The game's just started.
"Both Cossack and Deacon are here, doc," he says. And Kalinka , he doesn't add, because she's already being whisked to safety by Rush and Alexei, and he's not about to point her out. "And those do-goody Lights. What do you say we upstage them?"
The glance Wily gives him is not without suspicion, but he's too thrilled by what's to come to cling to it. He seems like he wants to say something more, and has for the entire trip.
"Ready the Robot Masters for immediate deployment," Wily says instead.
For a brief moment, Proto wants to hesitate. He doesn't want this impersonal dismissal to be the last time he sees the old man. He doesn't want it to end like this. But the heavy, alien pressure in his chest is enough to remind Proto that he never, ever gets what he wants. He rises without complaint, entering the rear of the Skulker. Guts Man, Cut Man, and Elec Man stare back at them.
"You ready?" he says, too casual.
"I suppose," Cut Man says, unusually hesitant. He's not in on the plan, but he's picked up on something being off. Or it could be the large sarcophagus next to him, a narrow slit near the top exposing burning red eyes.
Proto grasps Cut Man's shoulder, squeezing tight. He pats Guts Man on the arm as he passes. "You two have this. You'll always have this, don't worry."
He stops next to Elec Man, leaning close. "You think we can let him loose without being killed?"
"I hate this plan," Elec Man hisses back. He's not talking about Wily's, not the sarcophagus, not the crashed speech. Elec Man was the only one who could confirm if the Lights' plan would really work, and he did, very reluctantly, at Shadow Man's insistence. He couldn't dodge a direct order from Wily like Proto or Shadow Man could, but unless Wily knew to question him (and what specific things to question him on), he was safe.
"Just take care of them," Proto says quietly, moving onto the sarcophagus. "Ready for the show, big guy?"
The sarcophagus remains silent. Proto sighs. He's done all he can for Pharaoh Man. The rest is up to the Cossacks now.
"Time for the main event!" Wily calls, opening the back hatch.
Proto jumps out first. He lands between Deacon and Dr. Cossack, Cut Man and Elec Man right behind him. The Cossack bots crowd protectively around the scientists, and in the thinning crowd, he sees Ivan and Alexei, tense and ready. The stage is set.
"Now don't get me wrong, I'm sure the entertainment you've got going on is riveting," Proto says with a shrug. "But what say we liven things up, shall we?"
Deacon stumbles back with a cry, but Dr. Light and Dr. Cossack don't move. He frowns at them, barely able to resist the urge to jerk his head toward the safety of the transport vehicle. They should know what's coming. They knew what Pharaoh Man could do.
Right?
Guts Man lands on the stage behind him, sarcophagus in hand.
"Let him loose and get out of the way," Proto orders. It's the only warning he can give, and Guts Man does as he's told, hitting the release catch and scattering with Elec Man and Cut Man. The lid collapses, and Pharaoh Man steps free.
He's still not looking too great. Cape still tattered, armor battle-worn, his eyes glowing with the same crazed hatred they had before. Proto takes a step back. Elec Man had been able to stabilize his core only somewhat, unable to risk Wily noticing a full repair job, but his mind is still clearly gone. Bringing him here was a huge risk, but there was no other way.
"Ptolemy," Dr. Cossack says pleadingly. "It's me, it's your father. Please don't do this."
Pharaoh Man's eyes jerk toward the man, but they quickly return to Proto, and narrow with anger.
Well, shit .
Proto's already moving as Pharaoh Man charges his blaster, but before he can fire, Drill Man cuts him off, slicing at him with his drills.
"No, Ptolemy," Drill Man says.
Dive Man, Bright Man, Toad Man, and even Dust Man, shaky as he is, surrounds the rogue Robot Master. They've got their weapons armed, even as they approach their brother with open hands.
"This is not you," Dust Man says. "You don't have to do this, Tomy."
"We are bringing you home," Toad Man says, and they start to close in. Pharaoh Man lets out an anguished roar, and the battle begins.
Proto backs away. On his left, Dr. Light and Dr. Cossack are getting off to safety. Somewhere in the distance, Roll is already engaged with Elec Man, Cut Man, and Guts Man, Ring Man coming to her assistance. He can't see Alexei, or Kalinka, they're somewhere safe, they've got to be.
He can't see Mega Man.
Deacon is to his right, still trying to crawl to safety. There's no sign of his security team. He's exposed. Vulnerable. He has nothing to do with the plan, his role long over. Proto surges forward and grabs the man by the collar, pulling him to his feet. Deacon yelps, but there's no one to save him.
"You didn't have to do this to me," Proto says. "I never hurt you. I was never going to hurt you."
"Don't do this, Proto Man," Deacons gasps, struggling against his grasp. "Don't—don't kill me. It wasn't personal."
"It never is. You can relax, Deacon. I'm not a murderer." Proto drags the politician away from the chaos, and dumps him into a bush. He lingers, staring at Deacon for a moment, but the man was nothing to him. He didn't matter anymore.
Soon, nothing would.
"Proto Man!"
Proto leaves Deacon to his leaves, forcing a grin on his face as he moves to confront his brother. "What took you so long, bro? The fight's been going on for ages!"
"I don't expect you to care about innocent people, but I had to get them out of the way," Mega snaps back. He fires a shot once he has an opening, but it's an easy dodge. Proto fires back, but it's just as lazy, too wide to do any damage to anything but a bench. He can hear Wily's Skulker overhead, but he doesn't dare look up. He doesn't dare let his smile lapse, as exhausting as it was to hold it.
"Haven't you heard the news? I'm one of those innocent people," he says lazily. "I've been completely exonerated."
Mega's frown deepens. "I know you didn't mean to hurt Kalinka," he says. "And you could've hurt Governor Deacon, but you didn't. You don't have to do this anymore, Proto Man. Can't you see that?"
How much of this was acting? Proto can't tell. His brother can really sell it when he wants to, but there's too much emotion in this for it all to be fake.
"Don't have much of a choice, Mega," he responds evenly. He doesn't look up. "Have you ever considered it's just not that easy to change who you are?"
"This isn't who you are," Mega replies, firing again. This shot is much closer to the first, and Proto shoots back in turn.
"How would you know?" Proto says, irritated. "When have you ever tried to get to know me?"
"I've tried—"
"No, you haven't!" Proto fires again, and this shot lands, knocking Mega Man into a tree. He hisses, angry at himself now. This is not how this was supposed to go. "When have you ever once tried to understand where I'm coming from? To think about how I feel?"
"When was I supposed to do that, between all the times you tried to kill me?" Mega snaps. His next blast comes too close, and Proto has to tuck and roll to avoid it. Something twinges in his chest, and he looks up. The Skulker is hovering over the Pharaoh Man battle. Wily isn't even paying attention to him.
"C'mon, little bro," he says mockingly. "You're the resourceful one in the family! I knew you could get out any scrape I put you in."
"Not always, Proto Man," Mega says sharply. "Don't tell me you never meant it."
"You know what? Fine! Sometimes I meant it." Proto dodged behind a tree, firing to Mega's left to get him to move back, closer to the rest of the fighting. This won't do any good if there aren't witnesses, and Deacon is long gone. "Sometimes you really pissed me off, you know? Why can't you just let go and have some fun once and awhile?"
He fires, and hits Mega directly, throwing him back. They're close enough to the battle for him to see the Cossack bots have gained the upper hand, pushing Pharaoh Man back into the sarcophagus, ready to close the lid on him. Roll and Ring Man have downed Cut Man, Guts Man and Elec Man not long to go.
"Fun?" Mega spits, rolling to his feet. He fires a series of scatter slots, forcing Proto to take cover behind another tree. "You think this is fun? Do you have any idea how many people you've hurt?"
Proto tenses. "I didn't mean to hurt Kalinka—"
"I'm not talking about Kalinka!" Mega snaps.
Wily's voice crackles over the communicator. "Time to wrap this up, Proto Man. Get back to the—"
"I'm busy, doc," Proto snarls, shutting the communicator down. If the old man wanted to fry his circuits over that, he could go right ahead. He's still exhausted, but more importantly, he's pissed. "I'm getting real tired of this judgemental crap from you, Mega."
"Because you never listen!" Mega snaps. "How many kids like Kalinka are out there, permanently scarred because you just wanted to have fun, huh? How many people see what Wily does with the Robot Masters he steals and decide it means all robots are bad? Do you really think none of this has consequences?"
"You're making a lot of assumptions about how much I care," Proto says dryly, shooting wide.
Mega barely moves. "Stop lying to me. You care about Roll, I know you do, but you've hurt her feelings by pretending she means nothing to you. You care about Kalinka, but even now you're trying to hurt her family. And what about Wily?"
"What about Wily?" Proto snaps. He aims to hit this time, missing as Mega dodges.
"All you do is enable him! All you do is make him worse, when you could convince him to stop!" Mega cries. "Just look at what he does! Do you really think this is okay?"
Proto breathes in, fast and hard, but his eyes flicker across the chaos and destruction of the day's events. The battered park, broken trees and burning grass. The wreckage of the stage, and the damage the Cossacks bots sustained in their fight against Pharaoh Man.
"What am I supposed to do about it?" he says coldly. "Do you think any of this matters? Do you think anyone cares about me? They don't, Mega. They never did."
"I care," Mega replies, and barely dodges as Proto fires fast and hard at his face.
"Now who's lying?" Proto hisses, pushing in closer. "If you cared, why did you keep shutting me out? If you care, why were you going to let them kill me?"
"I wasn't—" Mega has to dodge another shot. "I wasn't going to! You deserve another chance, Proto Man. Don't do this!"
"I! Don't! Believe! You!" Proto fires a shot between every word, back Mega further and further into a mess of metal and debris. There was no escaping this time. "No one's ever going to give me another change, Mega! Nothing I do is ever going to be good enough! Not for you, not for Wily, not for anyone!"
Mega jerks back and hits metal, eyes widening as he realizes he's trapped. "It doesn't have to be this way," he says pleadingly. "You're better than this, Proto. I know you are."
"I decide what I get to be," Proto snarls. He brings his blaster up and ready, fully charged. "You want to know who I really am, little brother? I'll prove it to you, right now ."
Somewhere to his left, Roll is crying out, too far to interfere. Pharaoh Man has been subdued and imprisoned back in his fancy coffin. Wily is collecting the rest of his battered forces.
Somewhere in Proto's blind spot, his brother is charging his own blaster.
Proto fires, jerking his arm to the left, missing Mega Man's head by a solid six inches. Just far enough to make it known that it was intentional. Just far enough to send a message.
The blaster shot he receives in return, too close and too powerful for his titanium armor to withstand it, punches right through his body. It doesn't hurt at first. Then it hurts a lot, his body spasming as his systems overload. He tries to reach into the hole in his chest, tries to see if the electro-bomb is still there, but his limbs won't obey his commands anymore. His vision is already going black.
His brother grabs him as he falls, collapsing onto his knees.
"No, no, no, no ," Mega says, his voice desperate, his hands frantically trying to do something to fix the damage he caused. "I didn't mean to do that, I didn't mean to hurt you. No. No!"
"Hey, it's okay," Proto says, and his voice is already a breathy whisper, his lungs no longer functioning. Soon the rest of his systems would go. "It's okay. It was always going… to end this way…"
Mega tries to say something else, tries to get Proto to hang on, but his grip on consciousness is slipping away. Kalinka has her brother back. The GAMMA system will no longer hang over the heads of any other robot just trying to exist. His siblings are safe, and Wily no longer has any more control over him.
Finally, Proto lets go.
Author's Note: This is totally not another fake-out or anything.