Crash Man paces back and forth inside walls reinforced, Crash Bombs mounted to his arms, locked, loaded, ready, armed.
The man in blue was on the way. He heard the booms echo in the stratosphere below, not a sound of this earth aside his heavy footfalls on the metallic flooring, starlit sky painting the backdrop of his inevitable demise.
He would be lying if he said that he couldn't contain his excitement; this body did it well enough for him. Behind his stoney gaze he carried a wide, innocent smile, and if he still had hands, they would be clasped together, fingers tightly interlocked as he awaited the hero's arrival, but alas, Crash Man had nothing, any longer.
Even now, he was the only one left.
The Doctor would not tell him, but he knew, after this, the hero would face his castle. From his tower in the sky, he saw it all, and it made Crash Man ecstatic to think that he was next. The last one, and the world would be saved. The last one, and all of their suffering would not be in vain. The last one, and the walls to Wily's fortress would come down.
He would have bubbled over in glee if not for the limitations on his coding. The blasts grew close; he heard the guardian outside fall. He heard the first door slot open. He heard the hero sprinting, locked, loaded, ready, armed.
Stepping into the tower, clad in ceramic-titanium armor, plasmatic cannon affixed to his arm, Mega Man stopped in his tracks once he saw Crash Man, steeling himself for the battle to come. It made the civil-servant-turned-war-machine float on air to see him in all of his glory, not a word to say to the Wily Number as he leveled his buster, and before he knew it, the missiles in his greaves were soaring in jagged paths toward the blue bomber.
He watched him avoid the projectiles, catching the micro-explosives on his outer covering and blasting little chips out, but the damage was minimal. He didn't feel the first pellet connect with his breastplate, nor the second, nor the third, and he bursted forward, slamming his drill down into the ground where Mega Man had been moments prior.
He wished that he could tell him his weakness. As the Leaf Shield harmlessly deflected off of his heavy armor, he raised his left hand and let fly the first Crash Bomb, punching into the wall behind his savior and blasting a crater into it, hurling his unfortunate target across the floor.
He couldn't stop himself. Crash Man advanced without mercy through the torrent of flame shooting his way, hardly tinging his plating a shade darker before he leapt into the air and brought all of his weight down onto Mega Man, smashing a boy-shaped silhouette in the ground, only registering the cry of pain after the damage was done.
But he knew the fight wasn't close to over. The hero would overcome him, no matter what. The deaths of his brothers would all be in vain for him to fall now; Wood Man, roaring as the flames consumed him, that he would always protect them; Heat Man, never more peaceful and tranquil than when the shot struck his integrated circuit and ended his pain; Mega Man had freed them all, and soon, he would be free, as well.
Acidic bubbles bounding across the ground, popping at his feet and splashing him with their potent contends, they did little more than thin his bright-orange pain, Crash Man rapidly retaliating by raising his arm high overhead and attempting to bore through his would-be killer, just as he rolled out of the way and barraged him with Metal Blades. Scraping him, nicking him, lodging millimeters in his diamond-hard exterior, he fired off another two Crash Bombs, screaming in agony when Mega Man shot the first and dodged the second, but deep inside, squealing, ecstatic.
It was perfect. Bubble Man would never have to be the outcast again; when he plunged under the waterfall for the last time, Crash Man knew that he was home, then, more than ever. Metal Man never even realized that the shot had killed him; he was still ready to dance, the look in his eyes, even sprawled out on the factory floor with a hole through his core. And now, Mega Man cycling his weapons, soon to reach the Air Shooter, their battle would be at an end.
The boomerangs circled in from behind him as Crash Man launched forward again, plinking off of his back hopelessly while he swung his drill and struck his hero across the face, dislodging his helmet and sending him careening into the wall behind him. This was it! The moment of triumph, where Mega Man, battered and bruised, hardened by the war, would have his epiphany, and throw his attacker high into the sky, shattering his integral components.
He saw the flash, but time never stopped. Stunned, dazed, Mega Man couldn't avoid the next strike, piercing into his right bicep and pinning him against the tower. Crash Man waited, and waited, for the moment his hero would have a comeback, but as the he ripped the weapon from his arm and swung it into his abdomen, black hair spilling over his beaten face when he lurched forward from the blow, he realized that his hero had lost.
Flash Man, without sense or purpose, confined his blue-tiled cage and so lonely that his only ally could be his enemy, was so happy when the buster-shots ripped through his armor and ignited his energen chamber that he must have gone to heaven in that moment. Quick Man, penultimate to only himself, had used his speed to run until there was no where left to go, cornered by the hero, and ready to see his brothers again when he felt his circuits slow, and he knew he wasn't fast enough.
But their deaths would all be in vain now. Doctor Wily would go on to make more of them; the cycle would repeat; and without a hero, what would they do? Rage, and sadness, disappointment, and anger, all at once overcame him, and if he could shed tears, they would fall like rain, raising Mega Man up from where he had impaled the lab assistant and slamming him down.
He cried out into the night, firing another Crash Bomb at his target, unable to close his eyes or look away. Without his buster, hanging limply at his side, Mega Man could only try to delay, the weapon embedding into his knee and blasting him apart from the rest of his leg. The hero, wounded, broken, slid across the ground until he rested beside the hole Crash Man had first made, and when the idea came to him to throw the boy out through it, he tried as quickly as he could to forget it, knowing he could not stop his programming.
He swung to skewer, missing, swerving uncoordinated and yelling in demented fury, penetrating the floor behind him and writhing in his own body as he tried to avoid smashing his hero. He brought his elbow down hard, flattening his nose against his face and causing him to lull back, color fading from his vision, unable to fight any longer.
Crash Man stood, aiming both bombs at the paralyzed Mega Man.
Locked, loaded, ready, armed.
"Save me!" Crash Man shouted, voice modulator screeching under the strain, arms shaking as his weapons primed, and prepared to fire.
He had no need to breathe, but his breaths came short. He had no reason to shake from the pain, but still, he shook. Everything that he had endured led up to this day, but now, the victor of his final battle, unable to avenge his brothers, he realized that he could save no one.
Wood Man would never live to see his forest again.
Heat Man would never know life without the voices in his head.
Bubble Man would never be redeemed.
Metal Man would never have his dance.
Flash Man would never know a friend.
Quick Man would never see his brothers again.
And Crash Man would never overcome his programming.
When the bang came, it was deafening. The blow wracked his body, tearing his arms from his torso, shattering his armor, and sent him careening over the edge of the tower.
Mega Man would never defeat Crash Man.
Plummeting from the mesosphere down, slamming through the clouds and gaining speed, the warnings at the corners of his vision finally stopped. The hero soared toward the earth, unlocked, unloaded, disarmed.
Ready.
And as Crash Man was allowed to let his eyes slip shut, knowing freedom in that final moment, he realized, he was the hero.
Rock could not believe his eyes. Kneeling before the gaping hole in the ground, where Crash Man had held his Crash Bombs until they burst, he should have been dead. But still, he was here, in the smog, and the haze, and the hell, that the eight Robot Masters had finally escaped from.
In the end, his will overcame the program.