Chapter 11
What… power. Why didn't he use this attack sooner?… Waitaminute… I should be dead!
His power nearly drained, the cyborg finished his attack before he collapsed to the floor from exhaustion. He glanced up, expecting to see nothing but the charred remains of the enemy, if even that, but a different sight met his eyes. It was mostly white, elliptical in shape, with red trim and what appeared to be a visor in its center. He didn't quite know what it was, until something else appeared behind it.
Protoman popped his head out from around his shield. "Whoa Nellie, that was some attack, good thing it required a charge time."
Hearing his brother's voice, Mega Man opened his eyes, and it dawned on him that the red flash he had seen before he got roasted must have been his brother dashing in front of him to protect him with his shield. "Protoman! Boy am I glad to see you!"
The Red Raider turned to face his brother. "No problem little bro, and by the way, thanks for winning me fifty bucks."
"Fifty bucks? How?"
Protoman gestured towards the captured Wily, whom Mega Man noticed was no longer captured. Bass stood next to his creator, looking a bit glum, but nevertheless, most of the cyborgs that had been guarding Wily were now on the floor, lifeless. Another cyborg lunged at the black robot, but Bass merely backhanded him across the room, obviously not happy about something.
"Protoman, were you making bets with Bass again?"
Protoman smirked, "Maybe."
"What was it this time?"
"Oh, I just claimed that you wouldn't be able to win without me interfering and Bass disagreed."
"Hey!"
Protoman grinned, "Well, you didn't do it, did you?"
Mega Man sighed, "Yeah, thank you for your support."
"Hey," Protoman patted his brother on the back, "What are brothers for?"
"Not much apparently, when did you guys get here?"
"We've actually been here, roughly five minutes now. You and that big boy over there were too occupied to notice."
"Hey, Mega Man!" Bass approached the brothers, obviously annoyed. "Why can't you ever loose when it benefits me?" He said as he smacked another cyborg that tried to get too close.
"Oh, shut up, Bass, I don't want to hear it right now. Anyway, what about our visitor." The trio looked back at the fallen cyborg, who hadn't moved from where he fell. His head was off the floor however, staring at them as if he couldn't believe his eyes.
"Im… im… possible!"
"Yeah, yeah, they all say that, anyway, your time is up." Mega Man raised his cannon and charged. The others followed suit, and all three of them released their shots at the same time. The three comets of plasma converged on the fallen cyborg, who was powerless to do anything. At least… It was a good fight.
The cyborg took all three shots and his body seemed to shatter. The battle, was finally won.
"Well, that's that, what shall we do now?"
No one had a chance to reply, because at that moment, the remaining cyborgs suddenly went berserk and begin unloading everything they had at the three robots, who quickly got out of the way.
"Woah, what happened to them!? Bass asked.
"They've gone haywire! They must have had some sort of mental link to the big guy, and we just severed it!"
"Well, in that case, I'd suggest we leave, now!"
"I'm with you, Protoman. Where's Dr. Wily?"
"Bass, come on! I can't wait around for you all day!" Wily was screaming from a doorway at the other side of the room. Bomb Man, Crystal Man and Spark Man were with him. Mega Man and company hurried in their direction, wanting to get out as fast as possible as more cyborgs were entering the hangar by the minute.
"Hey, Wily, where's that shuttle you ordered, has it not arrived yet?"
"Shut up, Mega Man, they've been moved into this next bay, and most of them have been tampered with, if not destroyed by their leader's weapon. I'm trying to fix one of the intact ones as we speak, but if you don't feel like waiting, feel free to get killed to pass the time."
As Mega Man ran into the next room, he got a good look of how much power the weapon actually had. The beam had passed straight through many walls of the fortress, incinerating everything that it had come across until it had burst out the other side. Mega Man gave a whistle. "Wow, Protoman, I'm surprised that you're shield actually stopped that."
Protoman nodded, "Looking at this carnage, I'm actually surprised as well."
"Hey, dipwads!, How about some help here!" Bass and the three robot masters were trying their best to stem the tide of cyborgs that were flooding into the chamber.
"Keep them away long enough for me to get this thing fixed!" Wily said, "They obviously didn't know what they were doing, and it shouldn't take too long."
"Alright, Bass, Protoman, there's something that I want to get, cover me!" Without waiting another second, Mega Man hurled himself into the mass of cyborgs, back into the room where he had fought their leader.
"Mega Man, what on earth are you doing!" Protoman screamed, but Mega Man couldn't hear him over the noise of combat. He merely kept moving until he found what he was looking for. I hope this works, He thought to himself. Then he picked up the object and tried to concentrate as the cyborgs closed in all around him.
***
Shadow Man paced the floor back and forth, obviously upset about something. He turned once again to Dr. Light. "It's been too long. They should have been back by now, we have to go out and find them!"
"Calm yourself, Shadow Man. I doubt such a persistent person like your creator would go down so easily." Dr. Cossack addressed the impatient robot. "Nevertheless, we cannot wait here forever. I agree with Shadow Man in that we must attempt to retrieve them." He turned to Dr. Light. "You're thoughts, Thomas?"
Dr. Light sighed, "Very well, Shadow Man, you and the rest of Wily's robots get ready to teleport out, I'll give you the co-ordinates in a minute.
Dr. Cossack cleared his throat and the others turned to him. "I would like to send out my team as well, it would give them a good test run. They could use the warm up, more so now since I had to shorten their start up time so that I could get here so quickly. I need to make sure that they are functioning properly."
Dr. Light nodded. "Alright Nathaniel, go ahead and send your group, but remember, we can't afford to lose any robot masters on rescue missions. We'll need all the hands we can get when the real fighting starts."
"Do not worry, my friend, they will not risk themselves needlessly. They're too smart for that."
"Let's hope so. That goes for you too, Shadow Man," Dr. Light said turning to the other robot., "No heroics."
Shadow Man looked sullen. "If Wily's in danger, I won't think twice about getting myself killed, however, you can rest assured that we robot masters were not built to die."
"Alright, here's the coordinates, they should put you about half a mile from Wily's fortress, just outside the barrier. You'll have to walk from there." Without another word, fourteen robot masters disappeared from the main lab in flashes of multi-colored light.
***
Protoman was nearly frantic, a very different emotion for him. It had been nearly three minutes since he lost sight of his brother amidst the horde of cyborgs. It seemed that nearly every cyborg in the fortress had shown up to take down the one who had killed their leader. Protoman was blasting left and right, attempting to catch sight of his brother, but as time went by, his hope fell.
"That idiot went and got himself killed!" Bass yelled beside him. "You stole my greatest victory from me, I won't rest until every one of you lies dead at my feet!" Though he screamed continuous insults at the cyborgs and proceeded to rip them apart with his bare hands, they merely kept coming. Protoman was getting tired, and he was taking too many hits, even with his shield to protect them. If they were going to get out of this one, he wasn't quite sure how. They needed a miracle, some sort of Deus ex Machina, or maybe…
"HEAT CANNON!!!"
The brilliant blaze of pure heat washed over the cyborg army, cutting them down in swarms. Seconds later, the room was nearly empty. Mega Man collapsed to his knees, breathing heavily, not that he needed the air, but more out of a force of habit.
"Whoa, that really does use a lot of energy… no wonder he didn't use it sooner," Mega Man said as Protoman ran to his brother, helping him up.
"Mega Man, are you ok? You almost had me worried."
"Why Protoman, I didn't know you cared. Anyway, I'm alright, just a bit drained. That weapon really takes a lot out of you. How's Wily with those shuttle repairs?"
"I'm done, now come on, I don't know if there are any more of them, but I don't want to be here to find out!" The group piled into the shuttle, which coughed once and then started. As the shuttle lifted a few feet off the ground, more cyborgs began to fill the room and attack the shuttle. After another minute of waiting, Mega Man went up to the cockpit to see what was the matter.
"Uh, Doc, now would be a good time to get us out of here."
"I'm trying, you twit! They've managed to jam the hangar door in place, it won't open!"
"Great, I was hoping I wouldn't have to use this again so soon. I'll get the door, just don't leave without me!"
"If you keep stalling I will, get out there!"
As Mega Man jumped out of the shuttle, Spark Man followed him. Mega Man turned to look at him quizzically.
"I'll keep them off you until you can get back on the shuttle, I saw how that thing drained you, so you might need some time."
Mega Man was quite speechless, after all, this was a robot master! He didn't have much time to think about it though, and quickly turned to the hangar door as Spark Man let loose with a Spark Spread, giving a lot of cyborgs a good shock. Mega Man gripped his arm and braced himself as he felt the heat from the weapon build up inside of him. The barrel of his cannon began to glow a bright white, and then the beam once again lit up the room as it blazed towards the hangar bay door, blowing the entire thing off the side of the building. Once again, Mega Man sagged to his knees as Protoman leapt from the shuttle and grabbed him.
Protoman yelled back at Spark Man as he ran towards the shuttle. "Come on, we're getting out of here!"
"Don't worry about me, just make sure Wily gets away, I'll hold them off long enough for you to escape."
Protoman looked at the robot master with a new admiration, but he quickly jumpped back into the shuttle, as it began to float out of the hangar bay door.
Spark Man faced the incoming force, he knew that this was his final stand, but he wouldn't be going alone. Wily wanted this fortress leveled, it's time these guys saw just exactly what I can do. Running to the nearest socket, Spark Man jammed one of his arms into the wall and began to drain what little power that was still in the systems, slowly building up a massive charge in his own body. When he had enough, he pulled his arm out and held them both before the oncoming swarm. Electricity coursed between the prods, and Spark Man was doing all he could to hold the charge in. Maybe now I'll finally get some respect as a robot master. He thought to himself. In one final act, Spark Man executed his new ultimate attack. Jamming his arms back into the socket, Spark Man released hundreds of billions of mega-volts into the fortress systems in one massive energy surge.
"STATIC SHOCKWAVE!"
***
A rumble passed through the fortress behind them, and Wily was accelerating the shuttle as fast as he could.
"Wily, what did he DO back there." Mega Man asked.
"Roughly put, he just overloaded all my generators in one shot, in other words, if we don't get far enough away from here, we're going to get caught in the blast that is soon to follow."
And follow it did. The fortress behind them suddenly erupted with a force nearly equal that of a large-scale military explosive. As the aftermath of the explosion died down, the group inside the shuttle gave an exasperated sigh of relief. The shuttle lurched once more, and began to descend.
"Wily, what happened?"
"What do you think is happening! The shuttle's losing power! I must have missed something putting it back together."
Mega Man screamed back into the passenger compartment. "Whoa everyone, brace for impact, we're going down!" Seconds later, the shuttle smashed into the ground, not a quarter mile from the remains of the fortress that they had tried so desperately to escape.
As the dust settled, one side of the shuttle was blown open, and six battered figures stepped out of the crashed ship.
"Dr. Wily, are you alright?" Crystal Man asked, giving his creator a helping hand.
"I'm perfectly fine," Wily snapped at the worried robot master, "Why don't you be useful for once and find out what the problem was!"
As Crystal Man walked around to the back of the shuttle, Mega Man turned to Dr. Wily. "Of course you're fine, Wily. With as many wreckage's as you've survived a simple shuttle crash couldn't possibly bring you down."
"Bass, kill him."
As Bass moved towards Mega Man, Protoman decided it was time to interfere. "Look people, now's not the time for petty squabbles."
"Petty!? I've been fighting this guy for years!" Mega Man said.
"Mega Man, now's not the time! At the moment we've got something more pressing over our heads."
Mega Man signed, "I know we do, but that doesn't mean that I can just up and forgive him.
"That's not quite what I meant," Protoman said as he pointed past Mega Man, who turned around to behold the most peculiar sight he'd ever seen.
"It's…. it's a dragon!" And indeed, there was no other way to explain it. Flying to the sky was a creature that looked everything like the legendary predator, excepting a few mechanical parts grafted to its skin like all the other cyborgs. Mega Man also noticed something else about it. "…and it's coming right for us!"
"Scatter!!" Protoman yelled, and the group promptly split in several different directions as the beast, true to it's form, let loose with a breath of fire towards the shuttle, scarring the ground black. Crystal Man, coming back around the shuttle to see what all the commotion was, got knocked down by one of the beasts limbs as it swooped by and began to come around for another pass.
"This is going to get old real fast," Mega Man said as he prepared his buster and began charging.
***
Letsee, small group, roughly six figures… That small blue figure must be Mega Man, and that must be Protoman next to him. As he's the only human in the group, that must be the infamous Dr. Wily… Wait, they must have seen something…. Oh, yeah, that would certainly be a startling sight.
"What do you see?"
"Well, it's them alright, and they're being attacked by something, I can only call it a dragon of some sort."
"Well, take it out."
"Roger… acquiring target lock now." Internal H.U.D. on. Alright, acquire target… target locked, goodbye ugly!
"Missile Spread!"
As the dragon came around for another pass, a dozen or so small missiles seemed to appear from nowhere. The dragon was caught completely off guard as the missiles slammed into its side, taking out one of it's wings. With a painful roar, it fell heavily to the ground, where it struggled to get back on its feet.
"Whoa, what was that?" Asked Bass as he turned in the general direction of the source of the missiles.
Protoman interrupted. "No time to ponder that now, that guy's not down for the count yet. Everyone ready?"
"Ready!" The others said in unison, and once again all three simultaneously fired their charges towards the downed enemy, who took the blasts without flinching.
"Great, this guy's got some armor to him. Bomb Man, you'll have to get in there and see what you can do. We'll try to cover you."
"Right, on my way." The four robot masters charged forward, ready to finish the job. The dragon stood on it's four limbs, ready to meet them, but before the forces collided, another voice rang out.
"Artillery Cannon!" A loud boom followed the voice as a large projectile tore into the foremost limb of the beast, once again spilling it onto the ground. This time, all four of the charging robots turned towards the voice and beheld quite an awesome sight. Fourteen robot masters stood on the hilltop, bristling with heavy weapons and bad attitudes. Mega Man recognized the combined force of Wily's and Cossack's robot masters, but there were two new ones that he had never seen before. The robot masters started down the hill towards the small group. Shadow Man and Pharaoh Man, the apparent leaders of their respective groups, stepped forward. Pharaoh Man spoke first.
"We've come to assist you, Mega Man."
"I can see that, and it appears that you've done quite a good job about it, though you are a little late."
"We would have gotten here sooner, but we were put down a bit further than estimated, and had to run the extra distance."
"Hmm, I see that you have some new additions to your team, care to introduce us?"
Pharaoh Man gestured to the two robots. The first, about as tall as Bass, was colored two tones of green with various white trims. His helmet had a single fin protruding from the center and his eyes were covered by a transparent yellow visor. He had a large pack attached to his back, which in turn was attached to a large miniature missile launcher on his shoulder. Various other launchers were also visible, but they retracted back into his armor as he stepped forward.
"I take it, you were responsible for bringing down that thing."
"You'd be right with that assumption. I'm Missile Man, Professional Demolisher Extrodinare!" The green robot said with a smile as he shook Mega Man's hand. Mega Man turned to the other robot.
This one was a bit more squat, and only about as tall as Mega Man. He had a dark blue and gunmetal gray color scheme. He didn't have a head, but rather a large gun protruded from where it should have been. His eyes were located in what would best be described as his chest, and he had no mouth, but rather a large plate that covered where it probably would have been. What looked to be some sort of large scale revolver was attached to his wrist, and he only had one hand.
"And you're the one that brought it down the second time?"
The robot nodded, "Name's Gun Man, master of the quick draw!"
"Oh really?"
"Well, not really, no, being that I never have to draw my gun, it's permanent.," he said, patting his gun arm. "I just figured that adopting an old west personality might better suit my style, considering. Ya know?"
Mega Man gave a wry smile. Interesting indeed. "Well," he said, turning back to the team leaders, "Thanks for the help guys. Dr. Wily should be back by the shuttle, and if any of you have an energy capsule, I'd suggest giving it to Crystal Man, as he's taken a bit of a fall."
"Well, we'll get to that, but why don't be finish ugly over there." Missile Man said, gesturing to the dragon that had gotten back up and managed to steady itself on its three undamaged legs. All heads turned towards the massive beast, and nineteen various weapons systems were systematically unleashed upon it. When the dust settled, there was very little left.
Mega Man turned back to the group. "Alright, let's go, I've had enough for a day, and I need a rest. We'll go pick up Wily and then head for the edge of the barrier so we can teleport back to Dr. Light's lab. I feel sorry for anything that tries to stop us, cause I am not in a good mood right now."