Chapter 6: An Odd Reception
I do not own Mega Man, nor Touhou Project. Mega Man is rightfully owned by Capcom. Touhou Project is rightfully owned by Team Shanghai Alice.
Bass, Treble, and Yumemi beamed down in a corridor within the fortress. Bass carried her through a door, into what appeared to be some kind of office. There was a desk, with an empty chair on one side, and the other side had two chairs, with Chiyuri sitting in one of them. Metal Man and Top Man were standing in the corners, watching. Yumemi's sobbing quieted as she was confused. What are they going to make her and Chiyuri wait in an office for? Bass let go, sort of tossing her forward into the office. She stumbled to her feet, and hesitated, not knowing what she's supposed to do.
"Sit." Bass said in response to her hesitation.
As she approached the seat to sit down next to Chiyuri, she noticed the blood-stained bandages surrounding the wounds on Chiyuri's arms where she got hit by Quick Boomerangs.
"Looks like we got one blondie and one redhead." Bass chortled, breaking up the serious tone from a moment ago.
"Yumemi! It was terrible! They brought me to a medical room where several copter bots tended to my wounds, and then they gave me tea as they made me wait here!"
"That doesn't sound so terrible..." Yumemi responded, wiping the tears on her face.
"You know me! I hate tea!" Chiyuri joked slightly.
"This isn't the time for jokes." Yumemi corrected. "What's going on? What are we waiting here for?"
"I asked that too... to those two in the corners." Chiyuri said, referring to Metal Man and Top Man. "They said they don't know why they were assigned to have me wait here, but told me they cannot allow me to leave. They have no objection to their orders. Looks like we're stuck here."
"I hope we're not in huge trouble..." Yumemi worried.
Just then, the one and only Dr. Wily came through a door on the other side of the room, and sat across from them.
Yumemi's facial expression showed that she was disgusted by how this strange old coot just casually came up and sat by them with a smile on his face, as if it's some job interview. He hadn't said a single word yet before Yumemi stood up from her seat, as her hands slammed down on the table. "YOU. JUST WHO ARE YOU?! ARE YOU THE LEADER OF ALL THESE ROBOTS?! WHY DID YOU ATTACK US?! JUST WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU BROUGHT US HERE FOR?!"
Top Man and Metal Man were poised to attack, when it seemed Wily was threatened.
"Calm down, calm down! This is all a big misunderstanding." Top Man and Metal Man calmed down. Yumemi sat back down with her arms crossed.
"I hear you two are humans from another universe. At first I mistook your ship for that of an alien race, the Stardroids, which humanity of this universe is rivaled with. I thought it was an invasion and I had my robots ready to attack." Wily began to bend the truth slightly. "I am Doctor Albert W. Wily, a robotics expert of this world."
"...I'm Yumemi Okazaki, a college professor and dimensional traveler. This is my assistant, Chiyuri Kitashirakawa. If this really is a misunderstanding, it's a pleasure to meet you." She faked the expression of pleasure; she is quite freaked out by this stranger, but considering how he is now trying to invite and get introduced to them, she doesn't want to come off as rude for a first impression... Apart from how she just yelled at him about half a minute ago.
Wily looked over her shoulder at the doorway. "Err... Bass, you're badly damaged from your encounter with Ms. Okazaki, you might want to get yourself and Treble over to the repair rooms and get plugged into a charging station. I'll deal with you later."
"Pfft, yeah, on the verge of death over here." Bass snickered. "Just get to saving my life later on when you feel like it, no biggie." They teleported away. Top Man closed the door behind them.
"So..." Yumemi continued on. "Is there a reason we've been brought here? Are you going to help repair the ship so we can go home?"
"Yes, further explanation is in order." Wily started. "The facility we are in is actually a military base, but also a research and development lab, for creating all these "Robot Masters" as they're called to defend humanity from aliens such as the Stardroids."
Metal Man and Top Man exchanged confused glances, and turned their heads back to Wily, as Metal Man was about to speak up about the strange dishonesty. Wily gestured at them not to talk. Suddenly they understood, the two Robot Masters kept quiet, playing along with what Wily was trying to accomplish. Yumemi and Chiyuri looked over their shoulders at the Robot Masters because of the gesture, only to see their blank stare. They turned back to Wily, bewildered.
"It wasn't until it was too late I found out your ship did not belong to the Stardroids, but humans from another universe? This is an even greater discovery. I had the Robot Masters bring you here so I can learn more about you. Might I ask, what brings you here? How and why did your ship crash into this facility?"
Yumemi began to explain their story. "Well, as a scientist of my world, I decided to write a thesis paper about my Non-Unified Magic World theory. As the name implies, it's a theory that magic exists, somewhere. The basics are that, there are universes which fall into three categories. First-"
"Magic?" Wily skeptically questioned.
"Yes, magic. Look, just hear me out, it will make sense in a moment - well, "make sense", relatively speaking..."
"...First, there are worlds where magic is not abundant, and there exists human civilizations that rely on technology, such as my world, and apparently yours, too. Second, there are worlds where science is more of a taboo, and instead many inhabitants are magic users. Third, there exists worlds that are an even mix of both. Science and magic are simply two extremes that represent the state of a world. When I presented my paper to the academy, of course I was laughed out for believing in magic. Now before you laugh at me too, there's still more to the story. My civilization was investing in early prototype machines for dimensional travel, and I just so happened to be a primary researcher on it. My friend here, Chiyuri, agreed to be my crew member should we use a Probability Space Hypervessel to search for a magic world, to bring back evidence to the academy that magic exists. We can call it a ship, but it does not glide through the air or water, it is only used for traveling between universes. We packed up food rations and set up living quarters in the ship if we're to live in another universe for a while. We arrived in what did, indeed, appear to be a magic world. Chiyuri wrote pamphlets that referred to our vessel as the "Fantasy Ruins", and offered a prize to whoever can make it there first, just so we could lure magic users in to collect data on them. The first person who made it there was a purple-haired shrine maiden who, bear with me, rides a flying turtle. Now here's the thing, part of my theory is that the magic worlds are very likely to have developed complex projectile combat methods through their magic, known more simply as "danmaku", which is essentially the Japanese word for "barrage". Knowing we might face opposition in the magic world we'd travel to, we'd have to develop a way to fight back. If science and magic are two extremes, surely they must be substitutes? This is how I developed a staff and a gun for me and Chiyuri to use in danmaku combat, the same gun your robot copied the "weapon data" of. What was his name, Bass?"
Wily confirmed her intuition. "Yes, his name is Bass. Long story short, one of his powers is to reverse engineer tools and/or weapons, sometimes even if they're completely alien in origin, copying what's often known as "weapon data". But... what does it have to do with how you got here? And I never thought magic existed until now, how are you so sure I can trust you?" The last part is hypocritical, considering he isn't very trustworthy himself with his side of the story so far.
"You don't believe me, either? You wanted to hear my side of the story as to how we got here, and it's a long one."
Wily explained his skepticism. "If you've been on a magic adventure, prove it. I mean, you haven't shown any proof of magic thus far in our conversation, and your story sounds like it's either a lie, or told by a some insane lunatic. And Ms. Kitashirakawa seems relatively silent so far, as if she's just playing along with it."
Yumemi stood up from her seat and hovered in the air. "Here's your proof. I learned how to fly while I was in that world."
"How do I know you're not just using some sort of hover technology?" Wily tried to debunk, with a startled expression.
"Our ship does manipulate gravity, but it doesn't have much range, which I suppose we are not in, not to mention your robots very much destroyed our ship." Yumemi countered. "But I learned how to fly without the use of the ship, and this is actually a commonplace power in that magic world."
"Alright, alright, fine. I'll believe you. You can sit back down." Wily said. Yumemi landed and did so. "Speaking of your ship... One of my Robot Masters, Bubble Man, pointed out that there was somehow a localized teleport-jamming signal, and we had to deploy hovering platforms to bring the grounded robots into the ship rather than just teleporting inside..."
Yumemi cleared up the confusion. "Right, our ship can manipulate teleportation by disassembling molecules and quickly relocating them. Like the gravity capacitor, it only affects registered individuals on board, and they can use it freely with their brainwaves. Surely the robots noticed me and Chiyuri teleporting around when they fought us? But about how it apparently jammed your "teleport signal", part of its teleportation manipulation ability is that it generates a selectively permeable aura that prevents unrecognized molecule transportations from passing into the ship by scattering them away, essentially preventing foreign entities from teleporting in the ship through their own teleportation means. Apparently your "Robot Masters" are capable of teleportation through this same principle, disassembling their molecules and relocating them?"
Wily grew excited to answer. "Yes, it's surprising our worlds have nearly that exact same technology! You see, we invented technology that can change shape a long time ago. These Robot Masters are able to warp their hands into the shapes of various arm cannons because of how light, under the right conditions, can behave like matter. Select portions of the robots' bodies can be melted back down into photons to then be hardened into a new shape. By extent, what this has to do with teleportation, is that they can also convert their entire body into a beam of light that is whisked away into the sky to be hardened back into their normal body somewhere else. You see, in our universe, we have a satellite system that allows teleport users to go anywhere they want using a coordinate system. Not just robots, a certain wrist band can be used for humans to teleport as well. However, we also have technology that can jam teleport signals through that same method, scrambling the incoming mass and energy in a selectively permeable aura. This has never actually killed anybody; when someone selects a teleport destination, if it has one of these auras, the teleport request will be denied in order to protect them. This is how the robots were not able to teleport inside your ship, if your ship can apparently block non-localized teleportation through that same-"
"SHUT UP! You're getting off track!" Chiyuri finally interrupted.
There was a moment of silence as Yumemi and Wily were taken slightly off guard. "Okay okay, sorry... We were just... a couple scientists nerding out over our coincidentally similar technology." Yumemi continued the story from earlier. "Anyway, where did I leave off... Our weapons work with positively-charged photons to imitate the magic properties of danmaku, which I opted to name, "scientific magic". When we first found this magic world, we were surprised to see that my prediction about "complex projectile combat methods" was exactly the case, and even that the inhabitants of said world also referred to it as "danmaku", no less. I had the shrine maiden agree to a danmaku-battle with Chiyuri, so I can collect data on the fight for our research on magic. Chiyuri lost too quickly, and I-"
Chiyuri interrupted again. "Did you not listen to the shrine maiden back then? She doesn't use magic, she uses "divine power". No wonder the university didn't accept the data."
Yumemi tried to put it aside and continued to ramble on. "Anyway, I decided that these observations weren't enough, and that we should take her back as a test specim-"
Wily also cut her off. "Shrine maiden? Doesn't that have something to do with Japanese religion? And your names are awfully Japanese-sounding, along with how you decided to name the projectile combat "danmaku"..."
Yumemi had more questions to answer. "Yes, they're priestesses of sorts, and the one we encountered did have the telltale red and white clothes, but that's getting off topic again. I just wasn't sure if it works differently in that magic world, so I kept referring to her powers as "magic" and not "divine power" - it's just that "magic" usually defines something supernatural that can't yet be understood by science, which would include powers of divine origin. And yes, me and Chiyuri do come from the Japan of our world, explaining how we came to a naming convention for danmaku. I guess you're lucky we're fluent in English, but in the world we come from, English has become more commonplace in recent years than it previously was.
Wow, I've got to visit Japan someday. Wily thought. But they don't look Japanese... They've got brightly colored pupils and hair, as if they're from some cartoon... But maybe it would be rude if I questioned them about it. I'll just have to keep it to myself.
"Continue with the story." Chiyuri said.
Yumemi picked back up. "...After Chiyuri lost, I fought the shrine maiden myself under the condition that, if we win, she comes back to our universe so we can study her powers more closely. If she wins, we leave, and give her the prize she came here for in the first place. Of course I also lost. We gave her our cleaning robot to help with cleaning her shrine. We returned to our world to present the data we collected, only for the science community to reject it, like Chiyuri said. They debunked the video evidence, for example, as edited and falsified, making our observations and research meaningless. Under public shame, we decided to return to the magic world to live there for a while, and continue to study magic from a safe distance so we can eventually bring some back as physical evidence. Fast forward a bit, and when I ran into and had to fight a magician that came from a portal in the sky, the shrine maiden suddenly showed up and helped fend her off. We caught up a bit before she told me I won't be welcome in the magic world for much longer, and that I needed to leave soon. I decided that some of my discoveries about magic flight and reduced energy consumption would be enough proof for the scientific community. We were preparing to return home when it turns out that Chiyuri accidentally messed up our coordinates when she previously cleaned around the ship, but I also blame myself for not checking the coordinates first. We went to the wrong universe entirely, and that's when we crashed into your facility."
Wily was finally able to talk. "Well, that is certainly a fascinating story!" He was beginning to have all sorts of ideas. Not only could these two travelers help him develop powerful "danmaku" weapons to gun down Mega Man, like the travelers just did to his own robots, but he could also travel to a magic world to get his hands on magic that can create even more powerful danmaku. "Tell you what, I am making a proposal. Our societies, the two "scientific universes" we live in, could benefit from each other. You could develop some of that "danmaku" weaponry for me to use, and upgrade one of my vehicles to have that dimensional traveling capability of yours. In exchange, my Robot Masters could help rebuild your ship."
Yumemi objected. "You simply owe the ship repair to us after what you did. What else is in it for us? From what I've seen so far in this building and in the Robot Masters' weaponry, our world is about a couple hundred years more advanced than yours... You know what, the only technology here that impresses me is the advanced A.I. of the so-called "Robot Masters". They're leagues more intelligent than the maid android we used to have. If only you could give us some of your robot schematics, and explain their A.I. coding, in exchange for our services... We have a deal?"
"Deal!" Wily and Yumemi stood up and shook on it... But Chiyuri noticed Wily trying to hide his other arm behind his back.
Chiyuri felt something was fishy. She chimed in. "So... just what do you want the dimensional traveling tech for? Are you going to go back to the same magic world we were in, to do our same experiments with magic?"
"...Perhaps." Wily answered. "Why not?"
"Just know that when you get there, there will be opposition. The shrine maiden and most other inhabitants don't really feel like giving you magic danmaku powers for free." Chiyuri warned. "Not to mention that with the randomly-typed coordinates, we didn't just accidentally travel to your universe, but we also traveled a couple decades into the future from the point we were previously at in the magic world. Our time traveling capabilities are far more complicated than the dimensional traveling capabilities, so I'm afraid we can probably only teach you to travel between universes, and not points in time. You'll only be able to travel to the magic world's present point relative to this present point in your universe. And we have no idea how the magic world might've changed in the past two or so decades. We have no idea just what you might encounter there. And, one more thing. All we've seen around here are robots. Are you the only scientist in this facility? What's going on here?"
"Well, er... you see..." Wily stumbled about before pulling out an excuse. "...It's the holidays, all the other scientists are at home! But I'm just so dedicated to the research, I stay here with the robots."
Yumemi also felt suspicion. "And what's with the giant skull with a W icon on the front of the building, doctor?"
Wily made another excuse on the spot. "I-I just like skulls! I just said I'm the most dedicated scientist here, so I had a hand in the design of the facility itself!"
Yumemi continued to nitpick. "Speaking of which, aren't you going to inform the "other scientists" that you're now working with visitors from another universe?"
Wily made another strange excuse. "Hmm... With the technology you're going to share with me, I'll surprise them when they come back. They can't be bothered if they're away on holiday, right? Don't worry, I'll still credit you. With how advanced the photon bullet and dimensional stuff will be, they'll have to believe my story about interdimensional humans crashing into the building, not to mention the damage left behind as proof. But whether you'll get to meet them by the time they come back depends on how long it'll take to repair your ship. Or, I could just ask for you to stay a little longer." Wily was now worried, since the "other scientists" don't exist, his deception now has a time limit based on if he can make this technology exchange before the end of the supposed winter break.
Yumemi decided to wrap up the conversation. "Well, I can't be bothered to stay much longer, I need to get home as soon as possible when the ship is repaired." Anything to get away from this old creep and his robo buddies...
Top Man and Metal Man had somewhat relieved expressions as their leader barely managed to get away with what he was planning to do.
And so, the montage of research and building began, using the tools available in Wily's workspace. Yumemi taught most of what she knows about dimensional travel, and Wily had the Robot Masters gather the resources to build such a system into the Wily Saucer. Yumemi also taught the specifics on photon-based science danmaku. Wily wanted to take all the plasma projectile capabilities of the various iterations of the Wily Capsule over the years, possibly making more complex versions of the attacks, and composite them into the Wily Saucer, which was originally just a transport vehicle. He showed them the code for manipulating those bullet attacks as he transported it to the computer of the Wily Saucer, and they fitted it with a turret for the various attacks, as Yumemi added calculations of her own for recreating the attacks out of positively-charged photons rather than plasma. This type of weaponry requires a tremendous amount of energy, so they outfitted the Wily Saucer with a small nuclear power core not unlike the one from their ship and within Ruukoto. This type of nuclear technology is more advanced than what can be found in Wily's world, on nuclear-powered Robot Masters such as Proto Man. They also noticed the saucer's unique ability to teleport short distances without the satellite system (which was used in the Wily Capsules' various fights against Mega Man), and so Yumemi had the idea to amplify this ability with the technology from their own ship's teleportation capacitor. Somewhere along the line, Wily got around to repairing Bass, among other Robot Masters that were destroyed while invading the ship. Meanwhile, the army of Robot Masters worked at prying the damaged ship out of the side of the fortress, while at the same time making necessary repairs to the side of the fortress to make sure it maintains structural integrity once the ship is gone. In the process, they found the paper with the homeworld coordinates, and Yumemi showed that the coordinates of the magic world were written below the other coordinates on the paper. Wily copied down the coordinates of the magic world, though the last few digits would go unused since the Wily Saucer would not have time travel capabilities. The robots also discovered various magical objects that were being researched inside the ship, or at least their blown up remains, which removed a little more of Wily's skepticism about magic. Eventually the time came when the newly improved Wily Saucer, with composite abilities from all versions of the Wily Capsule recreated as photon-based danmaku, and even dimensional traveling capabilities, was complete. The entire process lasted several days, with Wily having a hard time trying to figure out where Yumemi and Chiyuri would sleep in the fortress each night, since their ship was now uninhabitable...
"Alright, Ms. Okazaki, Ms. Kitashirakawa... My new vehicle is complete. The Robot Masters are well on their way to gathering the materials to make your ship function again, to the best of their ability. Now, if only I can find my Robot Masters' blueprints, please wait right here." Wily left the development room, down a corridor.
Chiyuri broke the silence. "Ya know, don'tcha think it's a little suspicious he only wanted this tech outfitted on this one vehicle, and none of his robots?"
Suddenly, various Robot Masters teleported in, surrounding them. Wily's voice sounded out over an intercom, "Wahahahahaha! I can't believe you actually fell for it! This is no military base for alien invasions, this is my own base of operations I'll use to conquer the world! Robot Masters, bring them to the containment cells. Afterwards, you are to discard the broken pieces of their ship, and continue the repair and construction of the fortress."
"I knew it! He double crossed us!" Chiyuri yelled out, as the Robot Masters closed in, grabbing and whisking them away. Yumemi was just about to try and fly off the ground to avoid them when she was too late. The two of them couldn't struggle considering the robots are inhumanly stronger than them, and they both had already lost their weapons a while ago.
In the cell, Yumemi was sobbing once again. "This is all my fault... I shouldn't of trusted him... He was so obviously sketchy."
Chiyuri sighed. "There you go, blaming yourself again... It's not like we had much of a choice. We were stranded here from the very beginning."
Yumemi didn't feel much better. "We wouldn't be in this mess if I didn't send you outside to assess the damage, leaving the door wide open to the robots!"
"I understand why you did that. The ship had crash landed and you wanted me to find out what was damaged." Chiyuri rationalized.
It's not getting through to Yumemi. "We wouldn't be in this mess if I would've just checked the coordinates first before we left!"
"Nor if I wouldn't of smudged the control panel in the first place like an idiot."
"But I'm the one who made you clean the ship in the first place, all because I gave our cleaning robot away. Ruukoto has cleaned the ship like a hundred times before, she wouldn't make the same mistake you did!" Yumemi rebutted.
Chiyuri sighed again. "Look, you had no idea giving away our robot would lead to all this, it's not your fault. All we can do now is hope that shrine maiden stops him dead in his tracks when he gets there. What if he follows the same path as we did, coming to the world to research magic, only to get his butt kicked? She might even come back to this world to stop him from conquering it..."
Yumemi was feeling reassured. "Maybe you're right... Everything is going to be alright because of her. All we can do is hope and pray." Yumemi went in for a hug, which took Chiyuri off guard. This has never happened between them before.
But Yumemi was still concerned. "Well... we traveled several decades into the future. Will the shrine maiden still be around in that world to stop that madman? Will there be a new hero instead?"
"I don't know, Yumemi. I just don't know..."
What Wily did was no surprise. Things like this have happened several times in the past, when he's used methods such as deception, betrayal, and even blackmailing to manipulate those around him to get what he wants from them.
Wily arrived back in the now deserted development room.
"If I'm to quickly learn magic from that world... I need a more direct approach for copying it..." He brainstormed briefly before the word "copy" gave him an idea. "That's it! I'll just use the machine that created Copy Robot when it first encountered Mega Man! With how much my technology has improved since then, I can probably make a more compact version to be deployed from the saucer. With just a few tweaks and adjustments based on what I've learned about "scientific magic", I could copy the powers of the magicians in that realm, and maybe make robotic bodies for those powers!"
Wily got down to just that, taking the disc-like machine that cloned Mega Man all those years ago, and making a smaller version that fits on the top of the Wily Saucer. Flash Man teleported in.
Wily recalled how Flash Man's ability to stop time made a joke out of Chiyuri, when normally a danmaku user like her would fodderize him like any Robot Master.
"Uh, Wily, I would like to inform you about-" But he was interrupted.
"Ah, Flash Man! Seeing you just now gave me a brilliant idea." Flash Man couldn't get his point across, which he came here for.
"I remembered just now that our visitors, who are now our prisoners, warned me about the dangers of the "Magic World". Maybe I could equip your weapon into the Wily Saucer as a precaution?"
"Um, sure, you could download the data of my Time Stopper real quick, but look! I have something to tell you."
"What is it?"
"As we began to discard pieces of the ship, we discovered some kind of nuclear reactor in it. I was wondering what you want us to do with it." Flash Man explained.
"Hmm... Just bring that piece far away from the fortress for now, I hope it won't leak any radiation. I've got to get going to the Magic World, I can't really address just what to do with the reactor yet. While I'm away, stick to your orders to continue removing pieces of the ship from the fortress, organizing them, and taking care of the prisoners."
"Alright... understood."
Wily now took the extra step to plug Flash Man into a computer where he could copy the weapon data for Time Stopper, before transplanting the data into the Wily Saucer, with the newly outfitted turret acting as the cannon housing for the weapon data. And so, the time came when Wily was finally ready to set out to the "Magic World", as energy built up around the surface of the Wily Saucer, before disappearing in a burst of light. He left the army of Robot Masters behind, with their instructions to finish constructing the fortress as per the blueprints, and to feed and take care of Yumemi and Chiyuri in their cell.
I know this chapter has been much longer than usual, but unlike chapters 3 and 4, I couldn't figure out a good way to divide it up. It had to remain as an unusually long chapter.