v1.4
"Okay, just calm down, Centaur Man..." Metal Man sighed, patiently waiting for the green and gold robot on the other side of the table to stop fidgeting and shuffling about. Metal Man folded his hands in front of him on the table, watching his near-hysterical comrade. Every one of the Kaisers knew that Centaur Man was still new to his emotions and sensations, and the thought of pain always sent him into nervous fits. Metal Man was the one usually sent to "deal with" Centaur Man and coax him through his nervous breakdowns. Partially because he was one of the most patient of the Kaisers, but mostly because he, too, had been like Centaur Man and knew what went through the youngest Kaiser's mind most of the time.
"B-But..." Centaur Man gulped, hooves pawing at the floor.
"Please. Worrying so much that your tail falls off isn't going to help anything," Metal Man pointed out patiently, "We will find a way to get you out of this. I promise." Those words seemed to do the trick temporarily, and Centaur Man stopped pawing at the floor, content to merely hug himself instead. It was an improvement. "Now...we need to start planning the first attacks like Elec Man told us to." Centaur Man nodded. "The way I see it, we have two choices. We could attack from the base of the castle, controlling Robot Masters as we find them until we reach our limit, or we could attack Wily directly."
"The problem with attacking Wily directly is that we won't know where he is," Centaur Man pointed out, "We could teleport here and there all over the fortress, and not run into him. And by the time we did find him, he most likely would have put the entire fortress on full alert." Metal Man nodded. "Is there any way we could start in the middle, have one Robot Master find Wily and keep him there, and then follow him?"
"That could work..." Metal Man muttered. "Of course, remember that we don't want to kill Wily ourselves." Centaur Man nodded. Elec Man had already made a full announcement of it several times during the past eight years, especially since the newest robotic law passed three years past that any robot who harmed a human would be deactivated on sight.
Centaur Man thought for a moment before looking up and asking, "Wait a second...wouldn't we have to figure out exactly which Robot Master we want to kill Wily?" Metal Man blinked.
"What do you mean?"
"Well...think about it for a minute. Whoever finds Wily's body will only be able to figure out how he died, not which Robot Master did it." Metal Man's eyes narrowed. "They could mistake the real murder weapon for one of ours." Metal Man's stomach knotted up. "The Quick Boomerang or Shadow Blade could be mistaken for the Metal Blade, the Spark Shock for the Thunder Beam, the Flash Bomb for the Magnet Missile..." Centaur Man rubbed the back of his neck. "We need to make a list of all of the Robot Masters we can control at least fairly easily and exactly how his weapon works and what it would do to a human body. Even the Gemini Laser could be mistaken for the Magnet Missile or Thunder Beam if it didn't core a hole through Wily."
"I'm glad you thought of that..." Metal Man sighed, rubbing his helmet, "Or we would have been dead meat. Elec Man had been thinking of getting Quick Man and Spark Man to do it." Centaur Man nodded.
"So we've got some thinking to do."
* * * * *
"That's odd..." Dr. Wily muttered, "Centaur Man's schematic seems...different from the one I received before that tournament..." He remembered the requirement of the Robot Tournament he had set as Mr. X that any applicant be newly created and unactivated until the day before the tournament. He had also required that a set of schematics be sent to him before the tournament.
In Centaur Man's most recent schematic, his internal circuitry had been shifted dramatically -- his CPU was now in his head, instead of in his back where it should have been, for one. In fact, every important piece of circuitry -- memory block, secondary processor, and other machinery -- had been moved from his back to his head, or somewhere in that area. Also, there were new pipes and wires not visible in his old schematic that were strung throughout his body.
Dr. Wily lightly drummed his fingers across the keyboard as he compared the two schematics several times, noting each difference as he spotted it. His first instinct was to think that Centaur Man's creator had "rearranged" him shortly after sending the schematic, but that thought was short-lived as the scientist remembered that he had received the schematic not long before the tournament. There had not been enough time for such drastic changes to be made.
Typing in commands and codes, Dr. Wily pulled up the schematic of every other robot in his vast army, taking note of any similarities between their schematics and Centaur Man's more recent one. His search turned up five more robots with almost identical structure; Elec Man, Magnet Man, Metal Man, Crystal Man, and Ring Man -- the very Robot Masters that he had seen little of during the past few weeks. Interesting...
He glanced over his shoulder at the nearly completed set of legs he had been working on. It would not be long before they would be completed. I'll see what those other pipes and wires are for then... he reasoned, nodding, And then I'll see what needs to be done about the others...
* * * * *
"Okay," Centaur Man muttered, yawning and shaking his head as he set down his pencil, "I made a chart of all of the Robot Masters, including ourselves, and put their weapons into different categories; electric, fire, timestopper, and so on." He slid the piece of paper across the table to Metal Man who looked it over thoroughly. "Some of our weapons can technically be classified in two different categories -- like the Skull Barrier is both a blunt weapon and a barrier -- so that's why a few Robot Masters are listed twice." Metal Man nodded.
"Good work," he spoke, nodding as he checked over the chart again, "So now we can start crossing out the Robot Masters that we might be mistaken for." Centaur Man nodded. Metal Man took a pen and began crossing out names on the chart. "Anyone with blades, electricity, explosives, timestoppers, and blunt weapons is immediately out. And any fire weapons can probably be mistaken for electrical burns, so they're out..." He paused for a moment after crossing out the correct Robot Masters. "...geez...that doesn't leave very many to choose from."
"I know," Centaur Man sighed, "If I remember right, it leaves us with only fifteen out of sixty-four total; Ice Man, Bubble Man, Air Man, Top Man, Needle Man, Toad Man, Gravity Man, Wave Man, Blizzard Man, Wind Man, Freeze Man, Shade Man, Tengu Man, Aqua Man, and Frost Man -- and even Elec Man can barely control Tengu Man, Aqua Man, and Frost Man, so we might as well forget them. And the Needle Cannon's iffy...humans can be so stupid, they might mistake it for some sort of blade weapon."
"And I'm not sure if Elec Man wants to risk any of his original army being deactivated or not..." Metal Man muttered, "If not, that leaves out every Robot Master with a water or ice-type weapon so Ice Man won't be mistaken..." Centaur Man cringed.
"That leaves us with only six..." Metal Man nodded grimly.
"Which of those six do you think we can use quickly? I'd think that the Top Spin, Gravity Hold, Wind Storm, and Air Shooter would be too slow...Wily might escape." Metal Man paused. "And I don't have a clue what the Noise Crush would do to a human. For all I know, it might just deafen him, not kill him."
"I think the Rain Flush would be our best bet...acid rain would definitely do a number to human flesh." Metal Man nodded.
"I'll tell Elec Man when he gets back," the older Kaiser stated before pausing and blinking, glancing around, "Where did he go, anyway?"
* * * * *
One thing I'd wished I'd known before I left the fortress: this disguise was uncomfortable. Maybe ransacking Metal Man's closet wasn't quite the best idea after all, considering how much shorter and thinner he is than me.
( I told you to wear the overalls, but did you listen to me? Nooope! )
Shut up.
Humans walked and ran around me, crossing the streets, jogging down the sidewalks, pouring in and out of buildings. I guess I didn't look too out of place since I hadn't received any odd glances yet.
( Save that dog that tried to use you for a chew toy. )
Hey, at least my reaction was convincing.
( Heh. )
I weaved through the masses of humans as carefully as I could, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible as I continued to follow the three in front of me, two of which weren't even human. They were dressed casually enough so that they fooled the other humans around them, yet were still obvious to me. Hopefully I wasn't as obvious to them. That was the main reason why I had ransacked Metal Man's closet instead of using my own clothes for a disguise -- so they wouldn't recognize me as easily.
( You do know, don't you, that Crystal Man is going to have kittens if he finds out about this? )
Rock was staggering down the sidewalk, holding the dozens of boxes and sacks Roll was forcing him to carry. Dr. Light was walking ahead of them, looking around with Roll, wondering which store to go into next. Crystal Man was going to kill me if he found out that I was spying on them. I managed to get closer to them without them noticing me and listened to the conversation between the three of them.
"Dr. Light, have you noticed anything unusual happening with Wily and his group lately?" Rock asked, slowly moving one foot in front of the other so he wouldn't trip.
"If you can call it that..." Dr. Light answered, "There's an unusual amount of activity going on at Wily's first fortress." Shit. It was one problem after another, and we hadn't even declared war yet. Yay. I hadn't even thought that they might be monitoring the old fortresses...
( You're just a regular screw-up, lately, aren't you? )
"Unusual amount? What do you mean by that?" Roll asked, curious.
"There has been movement inside for the first time in the past eight years," Dr. Light answered, "Not much, but movement nonetheless."
"Movement?" Rock groaned. If he didn't fall over eventually, I'd be surprised.
Dr. Light nodded. "I think there's someone in there repairing everything. More and more computers are coming online, and the amount of movement is increasing slightly from smaller robots being repaired and reactivated."
"Want me to check it out?"
"If you would. We may not get around to it today, but things are progressing slowly as far as I can tell, so check it out in a few days." Rock nodded.
Great.
"What do you want me to do, exactly?" Dr. Light thought about that for a minute.
"I'd think snoop around and see exactly what's going on," Roll muttered, dusting off her skirt.
"Nah, that's Blues' job," Rock joked.
( Even if it is the truth. )
Great. That made me even more paranoid about them finding out everything. Had Blues been snooping around our fortress like he always had around Wily's? More than likely. He'd probably noticed our activity long before Dr. Light did. Sometimes I wonder if Ring Man had gotten his ability to sneak around and steal things from Blues. I wouldn't have put it past him. Either of them.
"No," Dr. Light finally answered, "Stop whatever is going on there immediately before it gets out of hand." I don't know why it pissed me off since I should have seen it coming, but it did. Hmph.
Just for that, I'm breaking into the lab tonight and stealing some crap just to spite 'em.
( WHOO!! )
I stayed with them, just a few feet behind, but as inconspicuous as I could be, just in case I could learn anything else. The Voice started rambling even more than it usually did.
( Steal some plans for some upgrades and some maps and some plans for some li'l robots and some books and some more plans and some CHOCOLATE and some MORE plans... )
I tried to shove it into its little box like I usually did when I didn't want to listen to it, but that turned out to be a very difficult task.
( And then we can ransack the kitchen and throw flour everywhere and frame Rock so Roll screams at him and he gets is such big trouble that he can't come to the fortress! )
Do you get the feeling that the Voice was looking forward to it?
( And then we can use the ketchup and mustard from the kitchen to write "Wily wuz here" all over the bathroom and living room walls to piss off Roll even more! WAHAHA! )
I'd created a monster.
( Hey, at least you can give me a few points for having a sense of humor. )
Yeah. A retarded one.
( Hmph! )
* * * * *
Dr. Wily dusted his hands off, snatching up a polishing rag and sliding it over the metal casing of each recently finished, robotic leg and the mechanical waist connecting them until he could nearly see his reflection in the green and gold metal. They were a fine piece of work, even if he did say so, himself. He had designed them to be light for enhanced agility and speed, but also strong so they would not crumple when struck as Centaur Man's equine legs were often threatened with. Now all that needed to be done was to replace the equine body with the new, bipedal one.
Dr. Wily paused, contemplating the wisdom of completely doing away with the equine body. While it may have been useless in rocky terrain and just about any other terrain that was not flat and bare, it was incredibly fast, and the diamond-edged hooves could kick through solid titanium when enough force was applied. Dr. Wily stroked his chin, wondering if there was a way to keep both.
* * * * *
Crystal Man and Magnet Man gallantly resisted punching their respective monitors in as they received probably their two-hundredth "access denied" message within the past hour. "God DAMN it!" Magnet Man roared, beating his fists on the control console out of frustration, "Why the hell does Wily have to have such a damned hard password?! What the hell could he have on here that requires such security?!"
"I don't know..." Crystal Man grumbled, rubbing his face and sighing, "I've tried every password I can think of...'destruction', 'kill-mega-man', 'domination'...hell, I even tried 'freaking-hard-password'."
"Oh, believe me," Magnet Man muttered, "It's going to be something stupid. One of the older passwords was 'recycle'." Crystal Man boggled at the thought.
"Something stupid, huh..." he muttered, turning back to his own console and typing in random babble. He nearly fell out of his chair screaming with laughter when he finally entered the insanely secure set of folders and blocks.
The highly secured block which had been protected by the password 'I-like-ice-cream'.
* * * * *
Dr. Wily dusted his hands off and polished the metal casing once more after installing the program and device he had created to enable Centaur Man to transform between his equine lower body and his bipedal form. It was an even finer piece of work than the bipedal form, itself. He only regretted that he could not test it before transferring the bipedal form to Centaur Man's body. No matter. If it did not work, it would not take too much effort to fix the problem.
He turned on his communications console and sent out a call throughout the Skull Fortress.
* * * * *
Centaur Man rubbed the back of his neck, confused. Elec Man had been nowhere to be found at the Kaisers' fortress as far as Metal Man knew, and Centaur Man had not been able to find him at Dr. Wily's fortress, either. It was as if he had vanished. Magnet Man probably would have merely snorted at the thought that the Kaisers' unofficial "leader" had gone missing.
A thought crossed the youngest Kaiser's mind that Elec Man had broken his promise to Crystal Man and had left to spy on Dr. Light and Rock, but Centaur Man tossed the thought aside. He did not think that Elec Man would risk getting caught again.
Would he...?
Dr. Wily's voice blaring over the old-fashioned speaker system of the fortress tore through Centaur Man's thoughts. "Centaur Man!" the scientist's voice barked, "Come to my quarters immediately. It's time to try out this new lower half."
Centaur Man's blood ran cold.
