"Alright, who here gets to tell me what happened to Mega Man?" Flanked by Protoman, Dr. Light stood in front of the group of robot masters that had managed to get through the teleport hatch. Naturally, he was not very pleased.
Despite their advantage in numbers and the fact that they were mere robots, the masters had decidedly worried looks on their faces. Finally, one of them decided to speak up.
"Well… we're not exactly sure, Dr. Light. By the time we left, the fortress was under attack, and though the main force had not quite gotten to the fortress… um… what I mean to say is… well… Uh, we're not sure what happened." Elec Man tried to explain. "All we can say is that we think the teleport hatch may have been, well, disabled."
"Disabled? How would you know that?" Dr. Light asked incredulously.
The robot masters brought forth the upper torso of Magnet Man that had gone through partial teleportation. Dr. Light took one look at the ex-robot master and sighed.
"Great, we, we'll just have to wait until Wily digs himself out of the hole he's managed to dig. I only hope Mega Man can help him. Anyway, will the following robots please follow me to the lab?" Dr. Light gave out the names of the original six robot masters and walked out of the room. The masters exchanged questionable glances and the five that were present followed. Once they got to the main lab, Dr. Light turned and motioned them through a doorway and counted them as they passed.
"Wait a minute… where's Bomb Man?" He asked.
"Well, he didn't make it through either." Cut Man replied. "He's probably still with them. Spark
Man and Crystal Man are also still in the fortress."
"Hmm… maybe Wily will have a chance after all. Alright, the rest of you, into the room."
The robot masters walked into the bare room. The moment the last one had gone through, the door slammed shut. The startled masters quickly turned around, but before they could attempt to free themselves the room began to glow and they dropped to the ground one by one.
"So, Doc, what did you just do to them?" Protoman spoke up.
"Oh, it's nothing Protoman, I just gave them a minor energy overdose, just enough to set off their emergency shut-down sequence. I'll be reprogramming them shortly. I've already prepared the program. They'll have individual personalities, and their artificial intelligence will be roughly equivalent to that of Roll's, but they won't be anything like you and Mega Man. The program will run its course in about ten to fifteen minutes. In the meantime, why don't you go watch over the others, make sure they stay out of trouble." Dr. Light turned towards Protoman and thought he saw a hint of worry on his face, though the black visor over his eyes made is a bit difficult to tell.
"Do you think Mega Man will be allright?" The red bioroid asked.
"I'm sure he'll be fine, are you worried?"
"Nah, he can take care of himself. Anyway, I wouldn't worry about the other robots, either. They're not getting out of the room you left them in, and Roll can keep an eye on them until you get these guys working. Besides, I've got a few errands to run, I'll be back in a bit."
Without another word, Protoman was gone in a flash of red. Dr. Light turned back towards his console and resumed his work.
***
Mega Man, Bomb Man, Crystal Man, Spark Man and Dr. Wily were running through the fortress like wild dogs, trying to reach the exit before they would become swamped with enemies. The force of cybogs had finally reached the fortress and without the security forces to even slow them down, they were already appearing throughout the fortress, usually in groups of three.
"Oh, sure we're blasting the groups apart easily enough, but they're not unorganized to the point that we'll go unnoticed. We'll be seeing larger groups as we get along." Wily was explaining to the rest of them.
"We'll, then we'll just have to get rid of them as we find them," Mega Man responded.
"I just hope it'll be that easy," Crystal Man replied. He rounded the next corner and immediately jumped back, barely making it before several beams fried the opposite wall. "Well, I guess you were right after all, Doctor."
The cyborgs didn't seem to bother for the 'defend and cover' tactic, always rushing toward the enemy with blind regard towards the odds. There were four of them this time, and they charged toward the small group. Wily opened fire with a high-powered revolving plasma cannon on the wrists of his armored suit. The rounds tore through two of the defenders who stood firm for a moment before succumbing to the storm of plasma. The other one gained a bead on the opponent who was effortlessly defeating it's companions but was stopped when a large crystal ball smashed into it's face, slamming it onto it's back. The fourth member of the small group landed a shot on Spark Man, scorching his armor, but not doing much else. Still, Spark Man didn't care for being shot at, and responded in kind with his own charged version of the spark shot. A ball of electricity the size of Spark Man needed only to touch the enemy before its electricity was released into its systems and the smell of burned flesh became apparent in the air. The mechanical components shorted out as well and the cyborg crumpled to the floor in a heap. The Cyborg that had been hit by Crystal Man tried to get up, but was once again knocked flat as a huge comet of plasma burned into it's back and he was immediately silenced.
"Man, Wily, what kind of weapons are those?" Mega Man couldn't help but ask.
"They're still in development, they can only be fired in bursts no longer than a few seconds before overheating, and they have to be charged before they can be used to their full effect, otherwise their fire rate is slowed dramatically," Wily said.
It'd hate to be on the bargain end of those things, Mega Man thought. They tore those cyborgs to shreds before they could even fire, it's a good thing that they can't maintain a constant stream. "Well, I think we'd better check around corners before we run around them from now on." Mega Man said.
Crystal Man nodded his head, "I'm all for that, I don't feel like being fried any time soon."
"Great, let's get going before more show up, we don't have time to chat." Wily seemed irritated
They continued through the fortress, gaining more headway and running into a few more groups but quickly dispatching them. When they came upon more corners, Bomb Man tossed a bomb around it, or Crystal Man reflected his crystal on the wall at the end of the other hallway, to make sure there were no more surprises. After a good half-hour of fighting through the fortress, the small group came upon a grate.
"Oh no, Wily, what do you have behind door number one over there?" Mega Man sighed.
"Don't be so exasperated, Mega Man, my security system is not online, remember?"
"Oh, yeah." Phew, Mega Man thought. He didn't feel like fighting any more than he had to.
As they approached the gate, it immediately opened and they stepped into a blackened room. In the dim light, Mega Man could pick out something huge lying on the floor. He looked closer, wondering what it was that he would've had to fight had he charged into this fortress like he had the other seven. At the moment, all he could see was that it was huge. Huge, and as his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, he noticed a tint of yellow. Huge and yellow… where have I seen that before? Just as it dawned on him, Dr. Wily made an excited noise.
"I don't believe it, it's still in one piece! I've got to find the secondary control console, we can use this to our advantage!" Wily exclaimed.
Mega Man stared. It was the Yellow Devil.
***
"Dr. Light?"
"Yes, Roll, what is it?" Dr. Light turned from the consoles.
"How much longer is it going to take?" Roll asked as she peered over her creator's shoulder.
"It won't take much longer, in fact it's nearly done." Dr. Light noticed that Roll looked almost impatient with something. "Are you ok, Roll?"
"Oh, it's nothing doctor. I was just wondering what it's going to be like with a family again."
Dr. Light smiled. Roll, having been the third built, and the only robot built as a female (including personality) had been as close to every member of the family as much as being a robot would allow. Still, Dr. Light couldn't help but feel a little disappointed by her comment. "These are not your brothers, Roll. They are simply a reconstruction of them built by Wily. They'll know who we are, I made sure of that, but aside from that, they won't remember a thing after the new programming takes effect."
"Oh…" Roll sighed. "I guess it was just too much to hope for."
Dr. Light put his arm around her. "I'm sure that we all wish things could have turned out differently, but we must take advantage with what we have." A console on Dr. Light's computer beeped. Dr. Light turned to the noise. "Well, looks like they're finished. Let's see what we have to work with." Dr. Light pressed a few buttons and the door slid up. The robots were slowly pulling themselves off the ground. Ice Man looked up and saw Dr. Light and Roll.
"Dr. Light? Roll?" Ice Man ran up and gave them both a giant hug. "I can't believe this! I'm finally free!"
Roll jumped back with a yelp "Ahh! You're cold!"
Ice Man laughed, "No, I'm Ice… Cold Man is that thing that looks a lot like the opposite of Heat Man."
Dr. Light simply stood there and stuttered.
"Hey, Doc… you ok?" Ice Man asked.
"Dr. Light simply stuttered some more. "W…wha….what do y – you mean……free?"
"Oh, c'mon Dr. Light, surely you haven't forgotten. I mean, you've been fighting Wily for what… six, seven years? Don't tell me you forgot how it all started."
Dr. Light just stared dumfounded. "You mean to tell me that you… you are my ORIGINALS?!" Ice Man nodded and Dr. Light turned to the others who weren't quite as quick as Ice Man in recovering. "And what about you…are YOU my originals as well?" They all nodded. "And you have your memories intact!?" They nodded again. Dr. Light couldn't believe it. "But… h… how is that possible! Rock destroyed you all years ago!"
"Well, that's not entirely true, Dr. Light. Guts Man spoke up. "You see… you remember that cloning machine that Dr. Wily stole from you when he reprogrammed us?"
"You mean the one that he pitted against Mega Man in his first fortress? I remember…" It suddenly hit Dr. Light what his robot was implying. "Are you saying that what Dr. Wily used were just… CLONES?" All the Robots nodded again. Dr. Light grabbed the closest chair and sat in it, looking faint. No one moved for a few minutes until Roll broke the silence by squealing with joy and grabbing the nearest robot master in the biggest hug she could muster.
As Roll and the other robots caught up with each other, Elec Man walked over to Dr. Light, who was still sitting in his chair, trying to comprehend this new turn of events. "Dr. Light?" He asked, "Are you going to be alright?"
Dr. Light slowly shook his head. "I can't believe it. Wily had you all this time, and I didn't even TRY to rescue you."
"Dr. Light, that's absurd. Don't blame yourself. You thought we were dead, you could not have had any idea that we were your originals. Besides, we're free now, so you have nothing to fear from us. Wily didn't use us too much because he knew that he would not have been able to recreate us. He lost the cloning device in his first fortress after Mega Man went through it, and has never been able to duplicate your technology. So we pretty much served as a backup force."
"But, then why did Wily steal that Guts Man model from the Robot Museum if he already had the original?"
"Wily didn't want to modify an original, he simply wanted to use the shell because he remembered how much of a problem the Guts Man clone had given Mega Man the first time, and he wanted to remind Mega Man that he was almost destroyed years ago, as well as try to destroy him again."
"But Mega Man had such a hard time coping with the fact that he'd had to destroy his brothers! Do you realize what this is going to mean to him when he gets back?" Dr. Light said.
"Well, he should have realized that they were just clones in the first place. Do you really think that only three hits of a Rolling Cutter blade would be enough to destroy me?"
"But how was Rock able to copy your weapons if you were just clones?"
Elec Man shook his head, "I'm not exactly sure how that worked, but the Mega Man clone was also able to mimic Rock's weapons, even his master weapons. I think it was based on that same principle. Speaking of Rock, has he gotten back yet? How long were we out?"
"You were only out for about fifteen minutes, he hasn't gotten back yet, we'll have to give him more time."
***
Hmmm…. Dr. Wily was carefully examining the secondary controls to his Yellow Devil. It's not as advanced as the green one in my underground fortress, but it will be more than enough to help us get out of here.
"Hey, Wily, are you done with that thing yet?" Mega Man shouted from across the room. The cyborgs had located them once again, and Mega Man, along with the other robot masters, were holding them at bay.
"Shut up, Mega Man, I'm working as fast as I can!"
"Yeah, well take your time, I'm only protecting your life here, and I'm not sure I feel like doing it much longer." Mega Man said as he served another fully charged Mega Buster shot to a damaged cyborg.
"Crystal Eyes!" Crystal Man shouted as he let four small crystal orbs fly in the general direction of a trio of lessor cyborg warriors. Two of the balls impacted onto one of the cyborgs, knocking him flat. The other two missed and rebounded off the wall, nearly smashing into Bomb Man.
"Woah! Hey, Crystal Man, better stick to your new Crystal Ball attack, your Crystal Eyes are too unpredictable!" Bomb Man said.
Spark Man jumped into the middle of the trio, impaling one on his probe arm and pumping it full of electricity before it could even attack. The other, who had turned towards this new threat didn't see the Crystal Eyes that had almost hit Bomb Man as they bounced back towards it. The cyborg also ended up on its back.
"Whoa, heads up guys, we got more company!" Mega Man yelled, pointing towards the door as a group of six warriors filed into the room. Taking up positions under the door rim, three of them pulled out some sort of energy shield and provided cover while the other three fired from behind them. "Bomb Man… I believe it's your turn."
Gotcha Mega Man, I think I just made up a new game, 'Bowling for Borgs'… what d'ya think?"
"Real funny Bomb Man," Spark Man said. "Just get rid of the new visitors."
"Hyper Bomb!" Bomb Man slid a large black orb resembling an old cartoon bomb in between a gap in the shields, the cyborgs didn't even have time to react as the resulting blast threw them in six different directions and completely demolished the doorway, temporarily sealing off the room.
"Well, about time we had a breather," Mega Man said. "Why don't we go see if those shields are in good enough condition to be salvaged? I'm sure Protoman wouldn't mind one, though it's not really his color."
"No dice, Mega Man," Crystal Man said as he looked over the discharged shields. "The blast got the unprotected side of the shields, they're useless."
Dang, Mega Man thought. Well, at least we know that there are ways to bet behind them. Everyone walked over to Dr. Wily, who was just standing up and brushing his hands off.
"Well, that should do it, al least it will operate. And I think that even you will be surprised by some of its new effects." Dr. Wily flipped a switch and the Devil rose off of the ground. A tall, one-eyed monster that could be as hard as rock or as soft as jelly. "This particular model uses a separable exoskeleton made of a lightweight metal that can conduct heat and cold amazingly well. The body is made of a liquid compound that when frozen can dent metal without a scratch, but when heated can flow like water. The main eye controls the temperature and heats or freezes the exoskeleton accordingly, which in turn affects the body material. When reforming, there is a sleight visible black outline caused by the exoskeleton. The body material then forms around that exoskeleton. This should be more than enough to help us out of here.
"I sure hope so Wily, cause I don't feel like being over here when I should be with Dr. Light. This had better be quick."
"Oh, it will be quick enough, Mega Man. Just watch it work."