Do you want to save before you quit?
by Tremor3258
Disclaimer: Nope, still don't own Megaman. Capcom does, though.
"Eep!" shrieked Jazz as she went flying through the air, landing against the side of Wiley's latest Skull Fortress's training room. It was several months later, and Bass was busy showing why he was the best Wiley had. Despite what you loaded into a robot's processors, if it was to be able to really fight, it needed experience, especially the more advanced, pseudo and near AIs like Bass and Jazz, respectively.
Bass was busy using his super adapter to 'take sis to school'. Jazz grunted, and focused momentarily. Skimming energy from her fusion generator, and dumping it into a set of matter synthesizers, Jazz launched her boosted shot. Both hands retracted and panels slid back from the shoulders as four homing missiles launched. Laughing, Bass fired one of his energy bolts, slamming through the missiles and obscuring the field with smoke from explosions. Still laughing, Bass was pitched forward as the fourth missile he had missed swooped around and exploded on his back. With a grunt, Bass and Treble separated. Jazz stood up cautiously, "I've been upgrading the AI routines in my missiles for improved homing, what do you think?"
Bass, to his credit, was already back on his feet, only slightly shaken up, "You still have a ways to go! You should have finished me off!" Bass launched an energy bolt knocking her over, and sending her systems into a simulated stasis from the quarter-power bolt.
Jazz locked up, unable to move yet again. If he spouts that 'he who hesitates...' line at me one more time, I'm coming after him in his next maintenance cycle, the female robot vowed. Before Bass got a chance, Wiley deactivated the training room and brought up the lights. Jazz stood up as Bass automatically went to attention.
Wiley examined his two prize creations. Jazz had improved greatly, and if she had been allowed to use her adapter with Rhythm, she may have won against Bass. Against an experienced killer like Bass, that was massive scales of improvement. The learning curve in her design was something Wiley hadn't thought possible. Truly, her circuits impressed even Wiley, who believed he had exceeded Light's planned design. Of course, Wiley didn't realize the frustration his design was under, designed for combat and limited in its use, as Wiley hadn't let her use her mega adapter mode yet.
Wiley pondered for a moment over the situation, ignoring a growing headache, and noticed Jazz's apparent stress level, and said, "Jazz, you can head off to the park for a few hours." Jazz brightened and rushed out of the room, probably so that Wiley wouldn't get a chance to change his mind. Wiley nodded, and thought, Good, I'm not quite sure what will happen if she finds out about Zero. The last thing I need is a berserk robot, well, one in the lab. I'd like to see Megaman dealing with a berserk robot. Wiley cackled madly before heading back to continue his work.
Roll had dropped Bebop at the park a little while earlier, since his training was done a little early as Protoman had shown up, and managed to take both of them out rather easily. Bebop tossed rocks at the pond, keeping the number of skips down so that he wouldn't attract attention. Frankly, Bebop would be happy to get away from the fighting, and the attention that Rock tended to attract if he went out with his armor, for whatever purpose.
Bebop had asked, carefully, since Light had seemed to be more interested in a fighting machine with this generation, about the malaise he suffered. Light had explained his circuit designs were based for Light's super-robot, still under construction, that was intended to be able to seek peaceful as well as combatant purposes. And Light wanted a warrior, and didn't realize he forced a choice on me, thought the robot sadly, who scratched Staff behind his ears. Staff was pretty much happy as long as he was kept recharged and busy. "I envy the simple life," said Bebop aloud.
"Oh, really, then why do you keep talking to me?" said a playful voice behind him, who wrapped her hands around his eyes. Bebop yelped in surprise, before Jazz jumped over the bench, and landed lightly. If you could listen closely, you could hear the hydraulics. Jazz frowned, tapping her legs, "Hmm, sounds a little off. I'll run a diagonistic on me later."
Bebop grinned, and crossed his arms before saying, "Okay, something's wrong. You're mentioning tiny system faults again, which means you think you're doing something wrong and you're trying to shift blame." Jazz blushed slightly. The two had been talking for quite some time in destinations like the park, and had managed to keep it private. The two knew each other very well by now, and had picked up some traits. Jazz had gotten a lot more interested in robotics because of Bebop's interest in learning more about himself, and Bebop had become a wizard at hand-to-hand.
Still, Jazz reflected, you could see the fundamental differences. They both felt constrained, but Jazz was programmed more for war, and felt the shackles binding her down. Bebop wanted to taste opportunities, and felt the shackles binding him to fighting. Still, that left them very much the same, two frustrated warriors. Jazz shook herself as she realized Bebop was still waiting for an answer.
"Okay, ready for a rant?" Bebop took a deep breath and braced himself. Jazz giggled and started off, "Well, I was in training again today, and, my opponent," even now, they kept up the fiction of that they didn't know who each other's creators were, "got to use a flight armor against me, and I'm still now allowed to use mine in even practice combat. What is his problem, anyway?" demanded Jazz, "Seriously, I'm starting to think about trashing the place and running, but I doubt that your head honcho would take me in very easily." Bebop nodded uneasily, Wiley had included some serious anti-reprogramming blocks in the later generations of his machines, so Light probably wouldn't consider taking in a robot and attempting to reprogram it. That, and the idea of wiping the mind of his friend made him feel nauseous.
Bebop sighed, scratched Staff absently, before realizing what his hand was on. "Hey, wait a minute! I've actually found something I can help you on!" Jazz blinked, and then stared at the two support units, and started to grin. Bebop raised a finger to make a point, and said, "That's right, Jazz, I've got my armor available from warp. Up for a little midair sparring?"
Jazz nodded, saying, "It'll be different. Let's find a quieter area, though, then right on the path. Unless you want to find our brothers showing up and way more questions than we want to answer." Bebop nodded and the two headed off the trail.
The two managed to find a quiet clearing, and quickly shifted into their armor, which was the only way to activate the adapters. Jazz nodded, and said, "We'll have to keep it low, so no one sees. And be sure to drop your power down. I'll be launching smoke warheads, and I've heard about your death ray!"
Bebop simply pointed his right arm at a tree, morphed the arm into a cannon and shot a green beam, all low-level light, no particle stream. The tree probably photosynthesized a little better, but that was the only effect. Then Bebop paused, "Smoke warheads?" Jazz grinned, he hadn't seen the weapon system yet. Bebop dropped her hand back to form a launcher, and fired a small sputtering missile off an old design from her synthesizers. It fell down halfway in between and disintegrated. Bebop was impressed from his designer's viewpoint, "Wow, so your systems draw in matter from the surrounding environment and turn it into missiles? That's a really advanced system. So did you get the mark of all humanoid robots, the variable weapon system?"
Jazz grinned, "Oh yes, lose and we'll just see what happens, oh friend of mine." Jazz shot off a charged strike of four homing missiles, the green and black team opposite her fled for cover as they exploded around, sending up oily clumps of smoke. Jazz said, "Not to mention a charging system for said weapons, how about you!" Bebop's response was to pop out from behind the bush and release a blue, larger light blast. It was set to do no damage, but Jazz raised her hands to block in panic as it washed over her. Bebop made a large show of blowing heat waves away from the top of his blaster.
"Okay, are we done playing now," Jazz grumbled, angry at being tagged. Jazz nodded to her pet, and her armor switched from light orange and red to brown with orange in the lighter sections at arms and leg sections where armor was lighter for mobility. Rhythm jumped on, and latched over. Part of each cat head was on each shoulder, and the main body formed a thruster pack on the back. Hands and feet were covered with claws. Jazz purred in delight, unable to resist, "And I thought Rhythm's jet mode was nice." Bebop sent a command over the radio to his auxiliary, and by an unfortunate by product of the circuit product, his armor changed colors, going from soft greens and grey to the black and green of his pet. The mode was similar to Jazz's, with claws over gloves and boots, but compared to the simple jetpack type, Staff's body formed out two wing-like projections for maneuverability, and two extra beam projectors were at waist level.
A slight buildup of capacitor noise could be heard around both of them as they charged their systems, assisted by the power packs and equipment of their combined helper animals. At the same time, both charges, which reached higher than normal levels, finished. Bebop started off by unleashing four purple light beams that focused together into one wave that, at full power, caused massive destruction. Jazz responded with twice as many of her usual charged assortment of missiles, with extra launch points on the 'backpack' style structure for her thrusters. And so the fight was on.
Meanwhile, back at Skull Fortress mark Eight? Nine? Wiley had lost count a while ago, especially with his headaches. His final plans were about ready. An orange-armored beast of utter destruction. One that would take out Light's lab, and anyone who got in his way. Not to mention he was planning to equip his titan with a virus that would infect other robots, leading them to obey this one's orders. "Hmm, Zero, the first number, and the end to all. I like it!" Wiley said madly (is there another way?).
Of course, the virus wasn't ready yet. Right now, all it led to was a powerful berserker mode, but it also led to an uncontrolled craving for destruction. The AI programming within the virus still needed tweaking, but Zero's directives were clear. To destroy the lab of Dr. Light. Failing that, Zero was equipped with an auto-shutdown and a memory wipe, and had none of Wiley's usual identifying marks, leaving only the robot's formidable fighting skills. His perfect creation, and probably the one that would end his career, Wiley was not a young man any more, and his health was failing due to the stress of building Robot Masters only to watch them ground down. Wiley dropped the virus chip back in the data reader for now, and headed off towards lunch
Suddenly, Wiley felt another stabbing pain in his head, and his vision clouded. Wiley realized with horror he was suffering a stroke, and the realization was blasted away with more pain. Bass ran into the room, alerted by some drone on camera duty. "Boss, are you all right?" Bass yelled, roughly picking the doctor up. Wiley groaned, and then realized something. Various contingencies had been set for his death, and one of which was to activate Zero! The virus chip was in the data reader, and the virus still was uncontrollable!
"No, I must stop it!" Wiley yelled, rather melodramatically in Bass's opinion. Quickly, several medical drones were coming by, but Wiley's actions were slowing down quickly. "Bass, the chip! Get the chip!" Bass nodded, dropping Wiley with the medical drones, and quickly started to input it into his systems. "No, you fool!" Bass didn't listen, already under the throes of what would eventually be termed the 'Maverick Virus'. Bass dropped the programming chip down on a chair, and then followed his new programming, and he blasted the medical drones away quickly. Guard drones came in, but he managed to fell them quickly. Bass walked past the dying Wiley. The virus was weakened in Bass's lesser processors, at least, compared to Zero's, and was unable to override certain hard-wired coding, like protect Wiley.
"Now, after Light!" roared Bass. Bass grinned as he ran to find Treble, this power was incredible! He could finally destroy his Master's arch-nemesis, and gain power over this world. First thing, was to share this gift with Treble. He closed the door on Dr. Wiley, still lying on the floor, and set out to dominate.
Wiley groaned, without medical attention, he was in serious danger, but there was still time. His creation was out of HIS control, that would not do. Wiley did not have time to activate Bass's shutdown codes, but he did have a super robot. Wiley quickly changed the code from 'destroy Dr. Light's lab' to 'stop Bass', figuring Bass would do a plenty good job taking care of the lab, and Megaman in his current condition. Or else, Zero would arrive in time for his self-defense protocols to finish off the lab. Sadly, the robot would then enter stasis afterwards, but there was no time to change that. Wiley hit the last few buttons, the computer hit confirm, and then all was darkness.
The park battle was going fairly well, and even Bebop had to admit sparring was enjoyable excitement. The two didn't have a massive arsenal of weapons, but Bebop's laser array gave him a variety of nasty tricks to confuse homing missile signatures, at least, when the two weren't exchanging punches in mid air. They had lost track of time, at least actively. Of course, they could call up internal systems and get a readout, but it wasn't as fun. Right now, the two were taking a slight break, letting their auto-repair deal with minor dents, and Rhythm and Staff needed to recharge every so often. They couldn't keep up flight and weapon boosting duties without stopping once in a while. In response, the two were dropping a small selection of reserve energy containers into their pet's waiting maws.
Jazz suddenly stiffened, "I'm getting a signal!" Jazz paused for a moment, and then looked distressed, "No! Something's blocking me out. Bebop, I can't edit it in time! In a few seconds, I need you to lie down and play dead!" Bebop had no time to respond, as Jazz suddenly opened fire with her missiles. Taken by surprise, Bebop got hit by all four of them.
For a second, he was amazed by the fact he had no damage, and then remembered that Jazz had been using smoke warheads all afternoon. Bebop quickly flopped down, hoping she was being trustworthy, and he wasn't about to be slammed by high explosives. After a moment, he risked looking up.
Jazz was frozen stiff, except for a slight trembling, before she relaxed, looking shaken, and held her arms like she was cold, "A code got triggered. I think Dr. Wiley's dead! He tried to hijack my operating system, make me kill all of Dr. Light's creations I could find." Bebop was surprised that Jazz was naming names, as it were, but she seemed to lost for that. Her creator and father figure, twisted though he was, was apparently gone, and in his last moments, tried to take her away from herself.
Bebop walked over and hugged her, and she glomped onto him, needing something to grab. Bebop wasn't exactly sure what to do now, and simply murmured reassuring phrases. Bebop felt sick just thinking about what had happened, she had just gone against the most fundamental parts of her code. Bebop felt a surge of hope that he could do the same and avoid becoming a killer of his fellows, followed by loathing that he would think of himself right now. Jazz laughed bitterly, "I guess I am truly a thinking creature now, am I? I've betrayed father," and then the tears came.
Bass teleported down into the city, launching a barrage of bolts. He had gotten some helpers, and infected whichever Robot Masters had been lying around. Wiley had only completed half of his next planned set, Protonman fired off light, unstable fusion blasts, far better than Rock's plasma, and was covered with several atomic symbols. Earthman was a revamped version of Gutsman, and equipped with the ability to rip up boulders and throw them, or launch explosive grenades. Islandman was wearing a lei and grass skirt, and shot beams of solar energy. Tanukiman resembled a giant raccoon, and attacked with short claws, his weight, and a short range energy drain attack. Now the group followed their new objectives, destroy as much as possible. People fled screaming, but Bass was too far gone to notice. A part of him realized he had to get to Dr. Light's lab quickly, as the virus was too much, and his systems were shutting down under its influence. "Spread out," he ordered, "Do as much carnage as possible." The Robot Masters saluted and started spreading off, firing as they went. Bass started running through town, it was a way's to Dr. Light's lab. He could have gotten closer, but then he wouldn't have been able to do as much damage.
In Dr. Light's office, alarms started off. Roll, cleaning up in the lab, quickly went over and checked the computer, which was on alert to scan police frequencies and reports from around the world with words like 'energy weapons', 'robot', 'Wiley', and 'now I'm really going to die'. Roll's eyes widened in surprise. The reports were coming from the city itself! Rock and Rush came in, studied the map for a moment, and then Rush transformed to jet mode and Rock jumped on, warping into his armor. Roll barely hit the ceiling hatch release in time as Megaman shuttled up through it. Roll knew her job as well, alert all of Dr. Light's robots to prepare for war.
Earthman rumbled through Central Park, picking up trees and throwing them after people. When he saw structures, he pumped grenades into them. The two huddled sentients in a quiet corner of the park heard the distant sound of explosions at the same time Bebop's radio crackled to life. Bebop muttered, "What great timing! There are robots running around. Hear, I'll transmit to you." Jazz nodded once, sharply.
"Bebop! We've got trouble! Megaman has already gone along his way, but we've got berserker robots in the city! They don't seem to be trying to take anything over, they're just blowing everything up!" Roll's voice came over the radio waves, a bit more worried than usual, this was outside her code's experience on robot behavior, and she didn't know how to react.
Jazz and Bebop didn't know how to react either, but they could adapt far faster. Jazz looked worried, "This isn't like Father! Something's gone wrong. Robots don't go out just to destroy everything in an area! They must be misprogrammed!" Jazz took a deep breath, "I can't just let his mistakes run around, care to help me."
Bebop nodded, and said, "Sure, but let's try and stay away from Megaman, he'll wonder where I picked up a spare." Jazz nodded, eyes alight with the idea of battle, even as Bebop sent a confirmation signal back to Roll. Rhythm and Staff transformed to jet modes and launched.
The two flew low, trying to observe anything in the area. There weren't a lot of drones lying around, oddly enough, it seemed only a few bats had been packed, easily picked off. Then the two got knocked from the sky by the concussive blast of one of Earthman's grenades. The two were glad for their armor on landing, as it saved them with only minimal energy loss to transfer to repairs. Rhythm and Staff lay, stuck in jet modes for the minute while their systems howled to compensate for the damage.
"Great, no battle armor," muttered Jazz. Bebop started charging his laser weapon as Jazz did the same for her missile loadout, switched back to standard high explosives.
Jazz looked a trifle worried through her battle lust though, "I've only trained with Bass, oh friend of mine, so I'm not quite sure what exactly we're going to face." Bebop slapped his forehead with a hand in astonishment. Before they could continue, a blood-freezing howl sounded through the area.
A massive black and brown robot, spikes on his shoulders, elbows, and knees, stomped into view from behind some trees. He had a large and nasty gun barrel on his shoulder, from which he spat a tiny rock-shaped projectile. The two robots dove for cover as the grenade exploded. Jazz whistled even as she was still rolling, "I so want that!" Bebop rolled his eyes. The two, with fluidity from a long time working together, paused, straightened to being in a crouch, and let loose their charged blasts. A large green beam smacked into armor on the right flank as missiles swarmed over Earthman. With the holocaust of destruction passed, Earth Man stood their, singed. He chuckled beastily as he tore at the ground, flinging it randomly.
Bebop frowned. "Something is very wrong with him," the robot called out, "he should be saying something, or focusing on us, frankly. It's not like the ground is the threat."
Jazz called as she pumped a few more missiles into him, "Well, if we can get through this guy's armor, when he's off-line we can do a data dump when we go grab his weapon." Bebop nodded as he unleashed a few normal blasts. The distraction worked too well, as the maverick Robot Master charged forward, slamming into Bebop, and knocking him into a tree. Bebop groaned, and struggled to move, but his available energy supply dropped by half due to the damage. Jazz's frantic missiles only slowed the robot down slightly. Earth Man's defenses were dropping, but far too slowly. They needed a cutter style weapon to pierce his armor, if this wasn't going to take an hour.
Staff bounded forward, transforming along the way so that over the front two joints by the robocat's head rested two small cannons, copies of the waist cannons Bebop had in Adapter mode. Two thin dark green beams shot out, targeted for the optics. Earth Man howled, and slammed into Staff, sending the cat flying away, where it ceased to move, low on energy and in emergency repair mode. The desperation move, as Staff's lasers on her own cost most of her energy, gave Bebop the time to collect himself enough to fire a level three blast. Blue energy beams shot from his cannons into the monster in front of him, driving it back long enough for Bebop to scramble away.
Earth \man turned around. Much of his front was slag by now, and by all experience that the two had with previous battle tapes, the robot should have stopped moving by now. Jazz whispered, "It's like Megaman or Bass gone mad. But Father doesn't like putting emotion programming into most of his robots because he needs methodical workers for his plans. This isn't right!"
Bebop nodded, something just seemed wrong about this robot. He sighed, they were probably going to have to destroy it beyond all hopes of repair. This didn't make Bebop happy, even as he charged his laser up. "Weapons of war fighting for peace, huh?" he said with a half smile.
Jazz sighed, "Oh, no time to go pacifist on me! Just keep him from shooting any more of those grenades around, and I'll move in. I know you've taken more damage than me, judging by those dents in your armor. To quote 'to live, one must fight', and you know it as well as I do, coming into the world as a war machine, so let's finish it off and see what's going on, and we can go back to sparring, okay?" Bebop nodded uneasily, launching a laser blast as cover as Jazz moved in.
Earthman cackled as he launched a grenade at the pretty orange target, but it was shot from the air by one of Bebop's lasers. Finally fully charged (Jazz's missiles took a little longer than a mere energy streak to reach full potential power), all her missile launchers opened and exploded outwards. The shreds of armor remaining after a ten minute dance of firepower failed, and Earthman's internal circuitry was shredded. The light went out of the robot's eyes permanently as it fell over. Jazz and Bebop barely managed to keep from falling over in exhaustion as well.
Jazz said, "I'm at, sheesh! 32 percent operation capacity, and Rhthym's reading in at 46 percent. I didn't get hit that often, did I?"
Bebop shrugged, and said, "I'm at 19 percent, and that's partly because I've been sitting here. Staff's at three percent. I don't suppose there's an energy tank or two in his chest waiting for us?" Jazz staggered over to look, and shook her head in disgust, feeling after all that effort, she should be rewarded.
That brought her mind back around to what to do next. "Okay, Bebop, we obviously need some better firepower around here. Come and get a copy of his weapon system and see what your programming does with it. Plus, I want you to come look at the data download when we get through his memory banks." Bebop came over slowly, and then held up his hands.
"Let me radio Dr. Light for a few energy tank drop-offs first. He can teleport them here, and our auto-repair, and cats for that matter, could use the boost," said the green and grey warrior. Jazz took a moment to look at the sprawled, damaged felines, and then nodded. Having the battle armor would make the next fight go easier. A moment later, with a flash, came a set of six energy tanks. Jazz looked surprised, and Bebop explained, "Yeah, my system won't hold all of these, but the idea was that I could carry a full load after recharging. Still, that leaves us one each." Jazz nodded, and drank down the energy involved, passing one to her cat, who tore into the tank eagerly, knowing what goodies lay inside. Bebop did the same, though Rhythm picked at his a bit more gently, possibly due to his greater damage.
"Okay, boys, let's just pick up the weapon systems, and be on our way," Jazz said cheerfully, despite the fact they were effectively breaking down the final defenses of the robot in front of him and picking over its mind like grave robbers. Bebop consoled himself that the robot was preprogrammed, and its circuit boards were probably intact enough to be rebuilt in a new body.
The two held their hands over the body, and nanoprobes cycled out, downloading information from the circuit boards. The two reeled as if struck for a few moments, feeling something try and attack them, but the virus was in a damaged host, without the processing power to go through true AI's defenses. Plus, Wiley and Light weren't fools, and the variable weapon systems had powerful defenses against that sort of thing, as the scientists believed it was a rather open route that could be blocked off. The two got off amazingly lucky, considering the future hundreds who would suffer from a more powerful version.
The two sat down, trying to focus despite the strain that had been put on their computers. Jazz said it succinctly, "What in the silicon hells was THAT?"
Bebop focused past a clearing, though pounding headache, "Some virus that infected his systems I guess? Opportunistic bugger to try and jump from a dying corpse through our weapon copy abilities." Bebop did a quick scan, and said, "I don't think anything's missing, and I got the weapon." Bebop's color scheme switched to tans as he said, "Grenade launcher. Think I'll call it the Terra Bomb. How about you?"
Jazz staggered once more as the last remnants of the weak virus she could detect were cleared, and her armor changed to tans as well, "Cool, I've got improved armor in this mode. It sucks up weapon energy from attacks and then unleashes it. Hmm, I like your idea and I'll go with Terra Burst. Now, I wonder where the next robot is?"
Bebop sent a radio signal off to Roll, "Up in the Bronx, I think. Roll's already evacuating Light back to his main lab in Tokyo. I've told Roll to tell the others to be careful when taking weapons."
Jazz nodded, "We'll need to get across the river quickly," she said, "And they're probably drones all over the bridges. Mega Adapter is probably the way to go." Bebop nodded, and the two shifted color schemes to match their support units before taking off, keeping low, blasting the few drones along their way."
Bass grimaced, he could feel his data link to Earthman had shut down. Worse of all, he had gotten a transmission of his sister attacking! His directives were in conflict, hard-wired to protect her, but also trying to destroy her as she had apparently resisted the infection. Then, his eyes widened, as he realized there were two near telemetry links. They two traitors hadn't quite removed the virus completely, there were a few commands among low-level subsystems that he could detect. He thought of a way to ease the conflict between objectives. "Islandman, two humanoid robots are headed your way," thought Bass through a radio link.
"Understood. I will engage them," thought back the more simplistic Robot Master.
"No! You idiot, I've got a better method!" Bass relayed his plan, and the Robot Master murmured agreement.
"Stupid, stupid Mets! What is it with the constant use of Mets!" Jazz asked as she launched a swarm of missiles against the refitted and reprogrammed mining robots, spitting tiny plasma blasts from along the shore line.
Bebop shrugged, busy spinning through a crowd of robotic insects, "At least yours aren't moving!" he hissed back over a radio link. Idly, Roll wondered who he was talking too, but her programming considered it a simple glitch, and made a note to discuss it later with Dr. Light.
Despite their words, a few charged blasts from their weapon grids cleared the problem, but they suffered a bit for it. Jazz was at seventy percent energy, but her armor systems, courtesy of Rhythm were running low at forty percent, and that was after picking up recharge capsules. Bebop had cleared it with a few blasts, but he had taken more hits from the energy-draining drones, so Staff was at sixty percent, and he was only running fifty-six percent energy. With a thought, the two both drained their final energy tank, recharging all systems.
"Aloha!" shouted a voice from the far shoreline. The two turned, and watched a very loudly dressed stout robot wearing sunglasses step up. "My name is Islandman, and watching the circuits melt from your body will be quite pleasant." The robot balled his fists, and shot a few energy beams out. The two swooped in midair to avoid it.
Jazz sighed, "I'm really starting to wonder about this bloodthirsty streak in the latest set." Bebop shrugged, charging up an Adapter-boosted blast. Jazz thought about trying her new weapon system out, but decided that since she was above water, it was a good idea to use the Adapter systems. She started charging as well.
"Naughty, naughty," chided Islandman. He had better reaction programming than Earthman. "Shutdown code, MAV-1!" The two blinked in surprise, and then gasped as their weapon systems and jet boosters shut down. "I figure it will take you a few seconds to override, but let's add this to the equation, shall we?" Now fairly helpless targets, Islandman pumped one long beam into each of them, vaporizing most of the armor, and frying low-level circuitry. The two collapsed, helplessly into the water.
The two hit the bottom a few seconds later, and just sat their helplessly, locked up by viral functions that had nestled themselves quicker than the two robots' defenses had compensated. Their movement systems were still down. The two triggered their automatic distress beacons and worked on clearing their systems as best as possible. Though, Jazz thought grimly, she doubted she had the strength to reach the surface with her energy level so low, and the extra weight of the jetpack.
Bebop thought a radio signal, "Best we can do is go into repair cycle for now, and hope for a pickup. We can't even disengage Adapter mode underwater." Jazz concurred, leaking coolant fluid into the water, and the two went into a minimum activation mode, all fusion tank energy going to repairs. Equipped with the next generation in defensive systems, and the materials at the bottom of the East River, full repair was eventually possible; mind you, the two wanted to get picked up before then, as without the help of a repair bay, it would take years.
Sadly, that wasn't to be. Bass had sped through town to reach Dr. Light's lab, upon hearing word that Megaman had managed to defeat Tanukiman, and a simpler scan of the abilities than the data download Bebop and Jazz attempted gave him Tanuki's slicers. If he was slowed down too long by the various defense forces, he wouldn't be able to reach Light! Soon, Light's temporary lab was in sight. Bass charged his weapon and opened fire, tearing a hole through one side of the converted warehouse.
Hidden inside was a computer receiving a request for evacuation from one wet robot. It died partly in the first strike. Any hopes of getting data from the computer died with the remnants of its hard drive on the second plasma strike. Protoman, who had been fighting a compliment of drones that had been unleashed by Bass, hurried when he heard the explosions. Protoman smiled. Bass had failed, Roll had radioed that Light had been evacuated almost half an hour ago. Just like Bass to rush in without checking out things.
Still, he had found Bass, and would succeed where his brother would fail, finally stopping the menace to society. Bass, meanwhile, found his systems slowly being overwhelmed by the virus, as the conflict between his protect directives and the virus's need to destroy was sapping more and more of his processor power into an endless loop. Still, Bass found the destruction of the lab helped him think a bit better.
Protoman opened up from behind with a series of shots that slammed into Bass's Treble-wings. Bass literally snarled and turned around. Protoman hesitated, it seemed that Bass's eyes were feral, like a dog, but a robot couldn't get rabies, could it? Bass opened up in the middle of Blues's hesitation, slamming him with plasma. Protoman gasped and returned fire. The fight was amazing, but Protoman was a robot, while Bass practically had true emotions and hot fire running through his veins.
Luckily, Protoman also had E-tanks prepped and waiting, and could recover. Bass finally fell, but driven by the Virus, sacrificed Treble to absorb the final blow and scooted away. Protoman followed, he was not about to let such a deadly force hurt humanity.
At the same time Jazz and Bebop were sleeping with the fishes and Protoman was dealing with Bass, and conclusively dealt with Treble, Megaman, the Blue Bomber and hero of the world, had finally dealt with the last of the Robot Masters, and was engaged in cleanup operations. He had missed much of the action, involved in a struggle for death, but the threat seemed to be over for now.
It wasn't. The mad hunter approached. Zero, savior for the future was currently dashing around the city, searching for Bass and dealing with all who tried to slow him down, with weaponry advanced over everything but the eventual Megaman X's. But X was asleep, and not quite finished. Zero, meanwhile, didn't have all the data that Jazz and Bebop started with deliberately, his thinking processes were geared towards causing mayhem and destruction.
And so the players began to converge as Bass moved back towards Manhatten, followed by Protoman. Megaman was headed towards the same bridge, ready for a few minor repairs his system couldn't deal with.
And Zero, first activated robot designed from the start to have and develop emotions and his own thoughts, raced towards both.
To be continued.
