Souldance
Chapter 2: Genius
Just then, a bloodcurdling scream cut into the robot's thoughts. He cursed under his breath, and took off running towards the source of the sound with yellow scarf flailing behind him in a current of wind.
Protoman cursed under his breath while racing to the source of the cry, moving through endless thorned brush and tangles undergrowth. At last he tripped over the last of it, reaching for a tree trunk to regain his lost balance. Once he righted himself the stench of plasma fire filled his nostrils, and he narrowed his eyes from beneath the visor obscuring them.
Quietly, smoothly and with the grace of a cat on the hunt he searched the endless expanse of trees, following the trail of destruction left in the wake of an apparent pursuit.
'What could they be after?' he thought to himself with a scowl. A crack of splintering wood caught his attention and suddenly a figure barreled into him, knocking him over.
"The hell..." he groaned as he rubbed his neck, now cut in places by small thorns. Looking to the one who'd caused the mess, he gaped in amazement at a girl about sixteen or seventeen years of age trying hard to get to her feet. Long brown hair was disheveled around a somewhat thin face with crystal-blue eyes, and she wore old and faded blue jeans with a black tank top covered in dirt and leaves.
"You okay?" he asked in a trained voice. He was unaccustomed in helping others, particularly humans... but this girl was obviously in trouble.
"Not for long, if I don't keep moving," she panted, trying to catch her breath after her long run.
"What's going on? Who's after you?"
"Don't you know?" she looked at him as if he were insane. "Dr. Wily has been searching for the best robotic experts on the planet!"
"Er..." he looked confused. "Are you trying to tell me that YOU'RE a robotics expert?"
"Annelle Light... everyone calls me Sierra." She grinned, as if expecting the response that Protoman had given.
"Light... as in Doctor Thomas Xavier Light?"
She shrugged. "No relation that I'm aware of. I've been an orphan all my life... robotics is all I have to keep myself from starving. Anyway... I have to get going or they'll find me. See ya!"
"Sorry, cutie, no can do," replied a deep rumble from behind them. Instinctively Protoman activated his plasma cannon and fired in the direction of the sound, his only response being a heavy laughter.
"You'll have to do better than that!"
Protoman growled beneath his breath, taking a step to place himself nearer to Annelle... rather, Sierra.
'Robotics expert? Strange that she has the same surname as one of my creators... I must find out...'
"But first," he muttered aloud, "I'll have to take care of this loser."
"What?" Sierra asked in half fear, half confusion. "We have to get out of here! Why aren't you running away?"
"I don't 'run away'!" The robot snapped. "No matter what, I'm not gonna let some junkpile of Wily's get to you." 'What am I saying?' he thought to himself. 'Since when do I give a damn about humans?'
'Since this one is important to Wily,' his mind replied; it was the only persuasion he needed. Powering up his plasma cannon, he waited.
At last, after a moment or two of silence the clumsy crushing of cracking leaves beneath clanking metal boots sounded nearby, and a shadow emerged from the trees. Sierra gasped from behind Protoman, followed by the faintest whimper of terror.
The tall robot snarled from behind a yellow mask covering his eyes, red and black outfit outstandingly absurd and obvious among the soft greens and browns of the forest. His hands crackled with large sparks of electricity; so much that the red and gray robot was confused as to how the machine before him could even walk.
"So. You must be the prototype." Wily's robot remarked, giving Proto a good once-over. "You don't look like much."
"So you've heard of me?"
"Of course. Master Wily told us much about you; how you were a grave disappointment. Hence, he built superior robots such as myself to implement his great plans of world domination."
"Superior?" Proto sniffed. "You look like you've got a short circuit. Or a few thousand."
"Oh, quite the contrary. I am Elecman, and you are about to have not only a short-circuit, but an entire shutdown!" And with that he raised one hand, the blue sparks gathering into a rather large ball of indigo electricity that hissed and spit for mechanical prey to feast upon.
'Not good.' Protoman braced himself, gently shoving Sierra behind a tree for protection. He aimed his cannon and fired, but at the same time Elecman released his ravenous bolt of lightning. It pounced from his hand at the oncoming plasma beam, devouring it in a single swallow as a boa constrictor would a large rabbit.
"Damn!"
Elecman laughed at Protoman's apparent helplessness, grinning to reveal perfect white teeth with pointed canines glinting with glee and amusement. "Such to be expected from a failure as yourself!"
"I'll show you who's the failure!" Suddenly he was a blue of red, even his loud yellow scarf vanishing behind him in a burst of speed. Not even the leaves beneath his feet quivered or crunched in response from the swift movement, leaving Elecman staring in shock at the empty area.
"Where'd he go...?"
"SURPRISE!" Proto roared, leaping down from the branches above to land behind Elecman. With a sharp uppercut to the back of the robots head he was down, and with a charged bolt of plasma to the back it was certain that Wily's creation would not be able to be a problem again. Elecman's synthetic skin and black bodysuit erupted into flames, small explosions and sputters causing gushes of oil to splash onto Protoman's armor and scarf.
Walking solemnly away from the mechanical corpse still smoking from the blast, the robot made his way back to Sierra's position. "Are you injured?" he asked, eyeing her for any cuts and bruises. She shook her head quickly, eyes wide.
"What's the matter?" he asked, becoming a bit annoyed. "Have I done something to offend you?"
"No," she answered. "Merely to surprise me. You fought that robot so easily... and yet Dr. Wily's robots were supposed to be unstoppable!"
"You surmised wrong. Although he did have a power advantage over me, he lacked in speed and battle experience. However, I'm certain that there are many more where he came from. I suggest that we keep on going before anymore of Wily's robots find you."
"..."
"What?" Protoman was growing even more impatient by the minute, Sierra's confusing expressions making it all the worse.
"...'we'?"
He sighed. "Yes. We. I will not permit you to fall into the hands of my enemy."
"But I don't even know who you are! Your name... or creator, for that matter! How am I to know whether or not you're a spy from Wily out to gain my trust and kill me?"
"If I were to do anything of the sort, I would have done so long ago. You'd be dead, or knocked out so that I could bring you to Wily. Is that proof enough for you, *human*?"
She flinched as if struck. "For now it is, I suppose."
"Then come on then. There's no time to be lost." He began to walk briskly, brushing past her slightly.
"Aren't you going to tell me your name?"
He stopped. No one had ever asked him that. Unwilling to use the term that Wily had dubbed him with, he simply replied, "I have no name."
"Number?"
He shook his head.
"You must have had some strange creators, to have not given you any name."
"Not that it's any of your business."
"Hey. If 'we' are going to be together for a long time, which I think is the case here, it's going to be weird to not know what to call you."
He shrugged. "Do you have a suggestion?"
"What? You don't have any druthers?"
"'Druthers?'"
"No ideas? No names you like that you want to be referred to as?"
"I don't mingle much, Miss Sierra," he snapped coldly. "Hence I don't have a need for a name. It's a stupid human tradition, and I prefer to not be remembered among others."
"Why's that?"
"..." He turned away, glad that the visor covered his face.
Frowning, her mouth quirked into a slight smile at this response from the robot. "All right then. You're Blues from now on."
He glanced at her quizzically from lack of comprehension. "Blues?" At her curt nod he twisted his face into a look that even the visor could obscure. "What application does THAT have to me?"
"That's for me to know."
Aggravated now by her small secretiveness he shrugged. "Whatever. Come on." Raising an eyebrow in response, she followed the red and grey robot closely on his path to god-knew-where.
*****
Sierra's young but brilliant mind was awhirl with emotion, the most prominent being astonishment. Here before her was a being so curiously intriguing that it blew her away at the realization that he was indeed a robot and not human. Even the large boots and gray armor did not give the fact away; with the Wily Uprisings afoot many had donned such armor for protection and when joining local defense forces.
He seemed to distant, unreachable. What had happened to him? It plagued her consciousness even though they had only just met. She could not figure out what it was about that robot that irked her so... but perhaps it was how humanlike he appeared.
'He has human mannerisms... gestures and emotions, but that helmet hides much of his expressions from me. I wonder why he wears it? And that scarf... it clashes so horribly with the rest of him! I don't think I want to know where it's from.
'Nevertheless... he has a story behind him. Somehow, I'm going to find out what it is.'
"So, Blues," she began in an attempt to make idle conversation. "Where are you from?"
"..."
"Really? Sounds like a great place."
"Sarcasm gains you no ground," he remarked, "Nor do personal questions."
There again! 'Personal questions!' Since when did a robot care about privacy? Sierra giggled to herself at the idea of this, but then abruptly realized that Blues' design was far beyond anything she could ever master in robotics.
'As in Thomas Xavier Light?' The robot's question pulled at the back of her mind. Was there a connection?
Did she have family after all?
Author's Notes: So…? How is it? LOL… don't worry, there's more! Like I said before, there will be recognizable characters from my C&E fics, but this is totally unrelated. Ja ne. ~Sierra Omega~