Chapter 7: Ring Around The Robot

"That's three of my Robot Masters he's killed now. Three." Dr. Cossack said dully, raking his fingers through his hair. "Dust Man, Skull Man and now Dive Man dead, and it's been less than a week. One more, and he'll have beaten half of them. And he shows no sign of faltering, of weakening... indeed, with each one of my robotic children he destroys, Mega Man only becomes stronger, due to that damned Weapons Copy ability of his..." Now that he had added the Dive Missile to his arsenal, Mega Man would be an even greater threat... especially to Drill Man, who had a fatal design flaw when faced with heat-seeking weaponry. So far, with the aid of a well-trained battle eye or incredible luck, Mega Man had twice chosen the Robot Master who would be best destroyed with his newest weapon. Skull Man, with his delicate workings vulnerable to jamming... and Dive Man's requirement for physical contact with his enemy for his most powerful attack. If Mega went after Drill Man next, Dr. Cossack thought angrily, he would begin to suspect the little blue robot had some other way of knowing who to strike at...

"No. Impossible." Cossack shook his head. There was simply no way Mega Man had access to his Citadel, where the designs for his Robot Masters were kept. Had the hero even taken one step in the front door, Dr. Cossack would immediately have taken action with the hostages, and Mega Man knew it. But something still troubled the Russian doctor... that figure he had seen two days ago, that was it. The one outside wearing armor similar to Mega's... but that had just been a trick of the eyes. He had sent out a robot, and there was nothing there... was there? Dr. Cossack hit himself in the head. "Idiot, idiot, idiot..." He had been a fool not to check the fortress's security cameras on the incident. If there had been somebody out there, they could have easily seen the robot coming and hid from it. Dr. Cossack decided he would review the camera footage of that area right after he made a certain... call. "Computer, open communications to all five of my remaining Robot Masters. Pharaoh Man in Egypt, Ring Man in Canada, Bright Man in Brazil, Toad Man in the United States and Drill Man in Switzerland."

"Acknowledged." The computer hummed as Dr. Cossack looked up at the main screen, which currently displayed the familiar world map with key points marked. Three of the flashing yellow lights marking the attack sites had gone dim, leaving five plus the single red and blue lights showing Dr. Cossack's and Dr. Light's domeciles. A moment later, the map was replaced by five video windows in an X pattern, each showing the face of a Robot Master.

"Greetings, Doctor." Pharaoh Man began the conversation politely. "Is it true that three of our brothers are dead now at the hands of Mega Man?"

"I'm afraid it is true, Pharoah Man. And the rest of you. Dust Man, Skull Man and Dive Man are no longer with us." Dr. Cossack sighed. "And we have no idea which of you will be next..." Ring Man's eyes lit up.

"Then we shall all have to fight twice as hard, plan twice as smart, move twice as fast and hit twice as strong for our fallen brothers, Doctor. These deaths shall not go unpunished... we shall avenge our kin, I promise you." He blinked as he realized all the others were staring at him. "What?"

"Ring Man... are all your systems functioning correctly?" Toad Man asked in a voice that would be concerned if it could break the monotone. Bright Man grinned nervously.

"In other words, are you feeling all right, Ring Man? You're talking... wierd. Not like a normal Robot Master."

"I believe one of the human terms for it is... decidedly off-kilter." Drill Man offered. Ring Man shook his head.

"Nonsense... the stress of our current situations must be affecting your processing. I am at perfect capacity and ready to battle Mega Man whenever my turn arises... perhaps even eager."

"You may get you chance sooner than you think, Ring Man, since only five of us remain." Pharaoh Man reminded him. "Do not be overconfident... such could risk everything that all of us have worked for. How are the defenses at your location?" Ring Man just laughed.

"Please, Pharoah Man! I've been constantly at work ever since I got here. Even discounting that I've got two, count 'em, TWO each of the Kabatonkis and Whappers, this place is a fortress. And not like Skull Man's castle, either. I've even put the experimental technology they've been working on here to good use in the defenses. Trust me... my new home is worthy of our show." The wording got a few raised eyebrows, but nobody argued again.

"Very well, Ring Man. If you say so..." Pharaoh Man murmured, then turned back to Dr. Cossack, eyes bright once more. "Doctor, I almost forgot to tell you. Do you recall the Wire and Balloon utilities you created for use with a matter synthesizer before the Rebellion?" Dr. Cossack frowned.

"Yes... why-oh, no..."

"I'm afraid so. The Wire utility was brought to Dive Man's area in a transport, as the Balloon utility was brought to mine. Once I realized this, I immediately used a robot to check on the Wire before Dive Man himself was killed... fortunately, it seemed Mega Man passed it up. The shutdown of that area's forces occurred before I could have it retrieved, though. As for the Balloon... it could be a dangerous tool in Mega Man's hands. Should I destroy it?"

"Before you answer, doctor, I have similar news." Drill Man broke in. "A single green Energen Crystal was discovered in our mine."

"And a Black Energen Crystal was found in the sewers." Toad Man continued. "These crystals were used by Mega Man's dog, Rush, in the Third Robot Rebellion for his Jet and Marine forms... and probably may do so again." Dr. Cossack thought deeply for a moment.

"Hmm... no. No, don't destroy them.... I may have a plan to maneuver Mega Man's choices... keep them all with you, at all times." The three Robot Masters nodded. "You may go now... you too, Bright and Ring." The communication cut off, and Dr. Cossack brought up the security camera footage from the place and time of the disturbance. "Hmm... nothing so fa-wait!" Rewinding it and pausing it, he sat back in amazement at what he saw. In a tree, a humanoid robot with armor almost exactly like Mega Man's, wearing a yellow scarf, a large shield and oversized sunglasses. "Who... who the hell is that? I've never seen him before..." The computer spoke.

"If you would like, doctor, we can run a query to-"

"No, no, no." Dr. Cossack shook his head. "That will NOT be neccessary. Whoever that is out there, he doesn't appear to be hostile yet. Whatever he's doing, I don't know. But if he comes back, have my forces attack him."

"Acknowledged." The computer agreed as Dr. Cossack walked away, deep in thought over his plan. He never considered having a robot check outside the range of the cameras in that area. Fortunate. For if he had, he would surely have discovered a large, snow-covered hill that hadn't been there before...

"You realize that this is a gigantic pain, right?" Roll asked as she bent over Eddie with a tiny set of tools. "Cleaning out all the salt that got into his systems when he fell in the ocean is not as quick and easy as it sounds. Especially when you consider that Eddie is NOT waterproofed. It's probably some kind of miracle that he didn't break down then and there, but still. It'll be several more hours at LEAST before Eddie's even close to being ready for reactivation."

"One of these days, Roll, you're actually going to do a job without complaining, and the planet is going to freeze in its orbit." Dr. Light muttered sourly from his place next to Rock. "Good thing Rock here is waterproofed... otherwise he wouldn't have made it back from Dive Man, most likely. He took a bit of a beating anyways... and for some reason, he has orange soda on him. I can't wait to hear THAT one explained. Ah, there we go..." Finishing with the repairs, the robotocist stepped away from Rock and woke him from stasis. The robot boy blinked and sat up.

"Have I been completely repaired?" Dr. Light nodded. "Good. And how about Eddie?"

"He'll be a while yet, I'm afraid." Roll sighed, not looking up from her work. "Unless you feel like taking some time to help me de-salt him, at the next place you go to he'll be coming in late or not at all." Rock thought for a moment, then shrugged as he changed into his armor.

"That's a shame... oh, well. I've done this before without Eddie... I'll manage it again. How about Rush? Any progress on locating more black and green Energen crystals for him?"

"None." Dr. Light shook his head. "Aside from the standard order which wouldn't get here until after the Rebellion was over and done with, we haven't been able to dig up jack squat on those."

"No word from Blues... or Proto Man, whatever.... either." Roll sounded worried. "I hope nothing's happened to him..." Mega laughed.

"Oh, you don't need to worry about that. He can more than take care of himself... remember all the stunts he pulled back in the Third? And he doesn't have to worry about working for Wily anymore now, so he should be doing even better than he was in the Third. Trust me... Proto Man is just fine."

"Well, you're the more experienced one in matters of Rebellions and their dangers." Roll conceded. "You're probably right. So, now what?"

"Now, I'm off to the next one. I was thinking Toad Man... or possibly Drill Man. Wasn't sure. What do you-" Mega's question was cut off by the blare of the vidphone, signalling that somebody was calling. Dr. Light quickly crossed over to it and examined the information displayed.

"It seems to be from Russia.... wait a second here... this is a call from Cossack himself!"

"Put him on. Now." Mega snapped, instantly dead serious enough to forget that robots, even Advanced Robot Masters, really weren't supposed to order humans around. Dr. Light nodded and flipped the switch. On the screen, Dr. Cossack appeared, hands clasped on the desk he was sitting at.

"Hello again, Mega Man. Thomas, Roll. I trust you are all well?" The deliberately commonplace tone of his words was offset by the mocking smirk plastered on his mug. Roll said something rather unladylike.

"That's MISS Roll to you, you insane idiot. I don't believe we were ever properly introduced, and I strangely have no desire for that to ever happen. I wonder why?" She made a mock thinking pose. The demented doctor raised an eyebrow, frowned, then began laughing.

"Oh, Thomas... your creations are sassy ones, indeed! Roll has the attitude problem normally associated with her visible age, I see. I did not know this before... why, if I did not know better, I might even think that she was actually human instead of a glorified piece of tinfoil and transistors." Roll's eyes widened.

"Why, you... You vodka-swilling snow-skulled simpleton, I ought to come up to your castle, rip off one of those fancy spiral towers and ram it straight up your fleshy biological-"

"As much as I would like to just sit here all day and be entertained by your verbal fencing, I do have a job to do." Mega cut in. "Roll, enough. Cossack, what do you want? I know this isn't a social call."

"You wound me deeply, Mega Man." Dr. Cossack clutched his heart, then lowered his hand and grinned menacingly. "But you are correct. I call simply to congratulate you on doing so well, to almost be halfway there with the task I have assigned you... and to offer you a, shall we say, bonus prize."

"I knew it." Mega growled. "Spit it out, Cossack."

"Recently, two of my Robot Masters discovered something very... interesting... in their new homes. Toad Man, in New York, discovered a black Energen Crystal floating in the sewers he now inhabits. And Drill Man, in a Swiss mine, unearthed a single black Energen Crystal." Mega Man fought to keep his voice calm and neutral upon hearing this news.

"Your point?"

"Well, I had heard that these two kinds of Energen Crystal were of some value to you. Or, to be more specific, your pet, Rush." Cossack continued casually. "At any rate, the information is yours to do with as you wish. I simply thought you should know. Once again, congratulations. Oh, and one more thing..." He smiled without any trace of warmth. "Don't fool yourself into thinking that the worst is over with... you have yet to fight the most powerful of my Robot Masters. Until then, goodbye, Mega Man!" Waving mockingly, he cut the connection. Dr. Light frowned.

"Well, Rock, what are you going to do?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Mega Man shrugged. "This is some sort of trap. Cossack wants me to fight his strongest Robot Masters while I'm less powerful, so I have a better chance of getting killed, and he's using these Energen Crystals to bait me into it. I don't think so. My next target will be Ring Man, I think."

"Are you sure that's it? What if that's what he wants you to think, and you're playing right into his hands?" Roll pressed. Mega smiled.

"And what if he wants me to think THAT? We could sit around all day arguing theories until our faces turned blue-it'd match the rest of me, at least-and get not one step closer to ending this Rebellion. I'm off to Ring Man's now, and that's all there is to it." Dr. Light sighed.

"Just be careful..." Mega nodded reassuringly.

"I always am."

The girl had given up on trying to break the monotony. For some reason, it was getting increasingly harder to move, or to even think; it was a struggle just to eat. Dimly, she realized that there was probably some kind of illness or something along those lines, but she couldn't muster up the energy to do anything about it, even if she knew what to do. The girl wondered if dying hurt very much; she didn't know, as she had never done it before. She supposed that she would likely find out what dying was like soon, and she hoped that the robots would at least give her a proper burial instead of just chucking her body out in the snow, in a vague sort of way. The girl's ears picked up the sound of approaching metal footsteps-several of them-and her eyes moved towards them without any motion from the rest of her body. There were three of them; the green reptilian one, the squat blue one and the crystalline blue-white one. All three were familiar faces to the girl by now, but none of them meant anything special. The dark blue one pressed its face-or whatever part of a face it had-against the bars of her cell.

"Hey, human. You've been awful motionless lately... you're not up to something, are you?" The girl remained silent, and the robot glared before rattling the bars. "Hey, talk already! I KNOW you're not asleep, and I know you can hear me, so don't even bother playing dumb!" She didn't respond. Another robot, the bluish-white crystalline one, rubbed his chin.

"I don't think she's just trying to annoy us, Needle Man. Take a more detailed scan... her life signs seem to be lower than average for a human female her age and size levels. There may be a glitch."

"Perhaps she's torpid..." Snake Man suggested. "I believe some biologicals undergo a slothlike behavior at extremely low temperatures. Something to do with their blood system, I think..." The crystalline robot rolled his eyes.

"Snake Man... that's REPTILES who have cold blood. And fish and amphibians I think, but... humans are NOT any of those. Sometimes your ignorance astounds me, but since you're a reptile yourself, I suppose I shouldn't be TOO surprised by-"

"What was that?" Needle Man suddenly interrupted. "Shut up, Gemini Man... I think I heard something from down the hall... come on!" The three robots ran off, leaving the girl alone in confusion and slight interest. The three Robot Masters reached the source of the noise a few moments later, at what looked to be an ordinary wall. Snake Man frowned and scratched his scales.

"There's definately something wrong here... those noises sounded like some kind of explosions, but this wall looks fine... HUH?" All three crouched and covered their faces as the wall was destroyed in a blast of fire. Through the debris and smoke, they saw a single humanoid figure approaching. A yellow scarf fluttered in the air, and a five-note whistle was heard.

"Hey, guys. What's up?" Proto Man grinned before pumping a charged plasma shot into Needle Man. The blue robot fell back, spluttering in disbelief.

"Blues? What the hell are you doing?!"

"What does it LOOK like I'm doing, spike-for-brains?" Proto Man sighed as he blasted Gemini Man. "I'm taking the girl outta here. You and all your buddies oughta be shot for keeping a human in these conditions. I'll give you all one chance to stay out of my way. Otherwise..." He left it hanging ominously with no doubt of what he meant. Snake Man snarled in response.

"Big B's a traitor, boys! We shoulda known never to trust a Lightbot! Get him! He can't take all three of us at once!"

"You mean four of us, don't you?" Gemini Man corrected him as he split into two Gemini Men and began firing ordinary plasma bullets. Proto Man danced in front of Snake Man, waving a finger in reprove.

"I'm afraid you got it all wrong, fella. I don't have to take all three-sorry, four-of you at once..." He suddenly jumped to the side, and the hail of the Needle Cannon meant for him slammed into Snake Man, pinning him to the wall. "You guys will take each other for me!"

"Idiot! Hit HIM, not me!" Snake Man hissed as he extricated himself and launched a pack of heat-seeking Search Snakes. Proto Man immediately grabbed a Gemini Man and pulled him to the ground in a wrestling hold in front of the Search Snakes. The dimwitted Search Snakes bit into them both, but the Gemini Man was a lot more vulnerable to the weak-point-finding microbots. Within the space of a few moments, there was only one Gemini Man remaining once again. Proto Man got to his feet and grinned cheekily at the infuriated Robot Master.

"One down, three to go."

"And you called ME an idiot!" Needle Man laughed at Snake Man shortly before he screamed and clutched his smoking rear end. "On second thought, never mind! Gemini Man, can't you keep track of where that damn laser rebounds? You almost took my entire back off!"

"You should stay out of its way then, thugbrain!" Gemini Man yelled back. "Okay, enough goofing around! Surround him on all sides, then everybody hit him at once!" Proto Man waited silently as the Robot Masters formed a triangle with him in the middle, then each fired their distinctive weapons... then jumped into the air and onto Gemini Man's head, avoiding everything save a few needles and watching the consternation and cursing that resulted. Needle Man and Snake Man were both hurt by the rebounding Gemini Beam and wide spread of the Needle Cannon, but it was Gemini Man who was hit hardest when the Search Snakes sent after Proto Man decided to chew on him instead. The Robot Master groaned and fell to the ground, leaking vital fluids from dozens of tiny tooth holes. He did not get up again.

"Good plan, dead man!" Needle Man spat in the corpse's direction. "New plan... grab him and hold him down, and I can finish it in one hit!" Snake Man nodded and lunged for Proto Man. A few moments of furious grappling later, Snake Man held the shades-wearing robot in a grip of... well, steel. Needle Man grinned and bent over in front of them, the spiked crown on his head moving.

"Say goodnight, fool!" The spiked crown shot out on an extending coil to impale Proto Man. However, at the last moment, the red robot slid out from the grip, and Snake Man took the hit instead. He was killed instantly. Needle Man said something unsuitable for print, spinning around... to have his face blown off by a point-blank charged blast of plasma. Proto Man sighed and looked around.

"Well, these guards are done for... but security has to have been alerted big time. We gotta get outta here, FAST... I'll grab their Master Weapons just to be on the safe side after I make sure I'm in the right place..." He walked down the hall a bit to the cell. The girl inside, raised by the commotion, stared at him feebly as he opened the cell. "God, what did they do to you?"

"You... came to rescue me... like in the fairy tales..." It was all she could force her sickened voice to erk out. The red robot nodded reassuringly.

"Like in the fairy tales, da." That was the last thing the girl heard before she smiled weakly and succumbed to the pain, falling into unconsciousness.

"Well, this is unusual..." Mega Man said to himself as he destroyed a defensive wall cannon. The side of the research facility had a series of bridges and ladders that he was using to climb. The unusual thing was, the bridges appeared to be made out of rainbow light created by a pair of emitters at each end.

"The lab was created for researching light." Mega remembered his father telling him. "Their main point of study is something called 'hard light.' I don't get it myself, but somehow, they're able to make light into something solid that can be physically interacted with. Just don't get caught in one of the beams... it'll probably screw up your systems."

"So this guy's been using the hard light as part of his setup..." Mega muttered, touching a toe to the first bridge and watching as it disappeared starting from his side and moving towards the other, and reappeared in the same manner. "Have to watch out for that... if he puts one over a spike bed, I'll have to use good timing to make it across alive." He walked across and began climbing all the way up, destroying more Wall Blasters and the Ringa-Ringa floating robots as he did. Admittedly, the blue hero fell a few times, but it was always easy to climb back up. Before too long, he reached the roof of the lab.

"Something's up about that sky..." Mega muttered. "It should be nighttime here in Canada, but it's bright and sunny..." As if on cue, the cloudy blue skies darkened as a yellow lift rose out of the roof on a thin pillar of disk segments. A purple beam of light streaked out of the suddenly nighttime sky and formed into a purple hippopotamus robot the size of a tank, and armored like one too. "What the hell? A holographic sky...? Well, this is a light research facility... but a Robot Master with a flair for the dramatic? Bizarre... whoa, wrong time to be thinking about this!" The hippo had opened its mouth revealing a homing missile launcher and fired off a pair. "Geez, does everybody use those things now a days?" Mega blew them away, frowning; the platform was too high. He couldn't hit the hippo. His eye wandered to the pillar. "Maybe..." The blue hero shifted his rate of fire, aiming for the pillar with regular plasma bullets. Each one knocked out a segment, lowering the platform... and the hippo. "Bingo!" Before long, it was low enough to shoot, and Mega did, obliterating the missiles it spat with the same charged blasts that continued on to burn through the thick armor. The pillar slowly produced more disks, but it couldn't keep up, and after a few minutes of furious fighting between them, the entire assemblage, platform and hippo both, keeled over and exploded. Mega looked at his energy; he had taken a few hits, bringing him down to 80%.

"I'll live." He then looked down at the roof and smiled involuntarily; the entire thing was transparent. "Well, I'll be a Monking's uncle. An actual glass ceiling. Bet that must make snowstorms interesting..." The path across the ceiling had been lined with more buzzsaw Gabyools underneath the light bridges, which made crossing a more dangerous experience than before, but Mega made it to a hole that led inside the lab. He shrugged and jumped inside.

"Enjoying the show so far, my heroic guest?" The voice came from the other side of a small room. A yellow machine was set into the floor; floating above it were six green metal rings in a cylindrical form, each about eight feet in diameter. The yellow machine seemed to be powering them. "Well, I've got another toy for you. It's called a Whapper, because of the noise it makes when it attacks. Care to see?" Without waiting for an answer, the Whapper tensed up for a moment before all the ring exploded outward in a starlike shape at lightning-quick speed. Mega Man was knocked into the wall with a great deal of pain as the rings instantly curved back through the air to their previous formation. "Cool, isn't it? I thought you'd like it!"

"Ring Man speaking, I presume?" Mega growled as he got back to his feet. The voice from the Whapper laughed.

"But of course! Listen, I've got a few more props to set up, so I'll leave you two to act out your dispute. Make it good!" The speaker shut off with an audible click as Mega blasted the yellow control machinery. It reflected off harmlessly. "Damn... plasma-deflective metals." Another charged shot showed that the rings were made of the same substance. Frustrated, Mega dodged the Whapper's next attack... and blinked. There had been something exposed for a moment when the rings flew out! Charging up a blast, Mega waited for another move from the Whapper, and when it came, he fired at what the rings were protecting. A pair of floating eyeballs. Two charged shots to each eye took them out along with the yellow machine, and the rings collapsed in a useless heap. The space where the Whapper had been in the ground led downward and onward. Mega dropped into the hole... and spun as Ring Man's voice spoke again, this time only two words.

"Plot twist!" The blue hero groaned as another yellow platform rose from the ground, and a moment later, a second hippo arrived.

"Not again... wait a second here. Maybe if I fight fire with fire..." Switching to the Dive Missile, Mega began launching rounds into the air. Each one homed in and flew into the hippo's mouth as it began to spit a missile of its own, blowing both up in its face. The eventual result was obvious. Mega walked past the wreckage once it was done and looked up at a single ladder hanging down from the ceiling of the hall ahead. "Wonder what's up there... better check it out. Hey, Rush!" The robotic dog teleported in and used his back spring to launch Mega up to the ladder. It turned to only lead to an abandoned, small room that looked as if it hadn't been used in decades. Grumbling, Mega turned to go, then heard something teleport in behind him.

"Beep!"

"Eddie?" Mega turned and saw the little suitcase-bot. "Glad you could make it after all... so, Roll managed to get all of that salt out of your systems okay?" Eddie's eyes crossed at this.

"Bleep." Mega laughed at the disgust put into that simple noise.

"I'll take that as a 'yes.' Whaddaya got for me?" Eddie chucked out a large pod of glowing energy, but unlike the regular energy pods, this one was blue, signifying Weapons Energy. Each Master Weapon ran off a seperate tank of energy in his systems. Weapons Energy was needed to refill the Master Weapons. Mega gratefully brought his Dive Missile back up to full. "Thanks, Ed! See you back home!" Eddie vanished, and Mega dropped back down to the main hallway to continue onward. He soon came across a gaping pit with floating bridges leading across; these bridges, however, were not made of hard light but of a series of thin green ring segments that linked together into a cylinder. Mega tested the first one and saw the rings vanish and reappear like light bridges, but starting at the FAR end of the bridge instead.

"A little tricky there, but nothing too bad." He frowned at the floating spinning Ringa-Ringa robots among the bridges. "Those, however, are an entirely different story. They could easily knock me off. Unless... their armor's weak. Maybe..." He brought up the Skull Barrier and allowed a Ringa-Ringa to slam into it. The robot was vaporized. "Good! Nothing to worry about now!" With the force field warding off Ringa-Ringas, Mega made it across the bridges quickly. On the other side of the gap, a ladder led down and in. Mega climbed down and was about to drop off before he hesitated. "Hold on... if I were Ring Man, what would I do here...?" He glanced down first and saw that he would land on a ring bridge. The blue hero couldn't see the edges of the room from his position... but he DID see the bed of deadly spikes below the bridge. "Crud. Gonna have to move fast... here goes nothing!" Dropping, he immediately looked for where the exit was and ran for it like a bat out of hell as the bridge began to disappear. As the last piece turned to air below him, Mega made a desperate jump and landed safely... by less than an inch. "WAY too close for comfort..." After a moment, he climbed down the next ladder.

"Ah, excellent job! That was a tough scene, but you pulled it off perfectly!" Ring Man's voice congratulated him. "Just one scene left before the big finale... you guessed it, it's another sequel!" Mega was completely unsurprised to find another Whapper waiting for him. He dealt with it as he had the first, then walked past and slid under the low overhang to the metal shutter of Ring Man's lair.

"All right, I'm here." Mega yelled as he entered a pitch-dark room. "Where are you?"

"I'm right here, hero!" The lights suddenly flashed on, revealing Ring Man on the other side of the room. The Robot Master was mostly red-armored, with several yellow rings around his arms and head, and a small vertical one on the top of his skull. "I'm Ring Man, your host, and welcome to Silicon Gladiators!" Mega blinked as he looked around; on an upper level, the human hostages were strapped into chairs to keep them from escaping.

"What's the point of them being in here now?" Mega demanded. Ring Man laughed at this.

"Silly hero... what's the point of putting on a great show if there's no audience to watch it?"

"Something's wierd about you." Mega declared. "Your speech is strange... and..." Suddenly he realized that Ring Man's eyes were pale and off-center. "Wait a second... the hard light! Were you... you got hit by a beam, didn't you?"

"So what if I did?" Ring Man shrugged. "That doesn't change anything! It's time for the big fight scene, Mega Man... I'm ready to play my part. Are you?" Mega Man grinned wickedly as he turned on the Dive Missile.

"Count on it, scramble-brain." The Dive Missiles soared towards Ring Man, but the enemy Robot Master whipped his hand forward and threw something out that sliced them in half. Catching the projectiles, he held them up for Mega to see; metal rings with bladed edges. "Ring Boomerangs, my weapon of choice. Trumps your first option, doesn't it?"

"We'll see about that." Mega growled as he changed to the Dust Crusher. Ring Man's eyes widened, and before he could react, it hit him in the face.

"Oof! Why you little..." Snarling, he leaped ten feet into the air across the room towards his adversary. Mega just smiled.

"Gotcha." He turned on the Skull Barrier... and Ring Man smashed through it, pinning him to the ground. "HUH?"

"News flash, hero." Ring Man snickered. "A force field that keeps out a large, lumbering enemy may not work so well against a smaller, quicker adversary who punches through less of the area with higher speed! Yeah, it hurt, but the point is, I'm not the one with a Ring Boomerang at his throat!" Mega glared up.

"Might wanna edit that last comment." The Skull Barrier blasted to life once more, sending Ring Man flying. He hit the ground on his back, but quickly flipped back to his feet, chuckling.

"That was an unexpected plot twist... but you know I won't fall for the same surprise again." Mega realized this was true; the Skull Barrier was too close-range and clumsy a weapon to work against the agile Ring Man. The Dive Missile could be cut down easily, and while the Dust Crusher had hit, it hadn't seemed to do much. Likely, a charged plasma shot would be the most effective thing here.

"All right, then... if that's the way you want it, let's keep this game simple, then." Mega returned to his standard colors and began charging a shot. Ring Man nodded once then threw a Ring Boomerang, which Mega jumped before returning fire. The charged shot burned into Ring Man's chest at the same moment as the Ring Boomerang sliced through part of Mega's leg on its return flight. They screamed in unison, but Ring Man was still able to grab his weapon.

"Heh... heh... they're called Ring BOOMERANGS for a reason, hero." Mega forced a smile to his face.

"As you said yourself... but you know it won't surprise me twice." Mega fired another plasma blast, which Ring Man countered the same way. This time, though, Mega timed his jump so that he would still be in the air when the returning Boomerang whizzed under him. Ring Man had no such luxury. Angry now, he ran forward like a charging bull, Ring Boomerang kept in his hand for a close-range slash. Mega hurdled him, turned and fired, but Ring Man ignored the shot, throwing his Ring Boomerang out and jumping staight up. Mega smirked and dodged the Boomerang... then, with horror, saw the SECOND Ring Boomerang that Ring Man had thrown at the apex of his jump, too late to dodge. It ripped deep into one shoulder on its flight outward and equally into the other on the way back. Mega fell to the ground, leaking vital fluids heavily. Ring Man advanced, a Ring Boomerang in each hand.

"Well, looks like the hero doesn't win in this show. Any closing words before I lop your head off?"

Dammit, I can't die here... Mega thought furiously. He's fading too... if I only had a little more energy, I could... wait! An E-Tank! But he'll kill me before I can drink it... gotta get him away... "Ring Man..." He whispered. The Robot Master blinked and bent over to his enemy.

"You have something you want to put in the credits...?" Mega grinned suddenly and pointed his buster into Ring Man's chest.

"You could say that." The charged shot sent Ring Man flying across the room. Infuriated, he lurched to his feet.

"That's IT! No more-huh? Oh, no..." He moaned as he saw Mega Man open an E-Tank and down the green goo inside. The reenergized hero turned to look at Ring Man, and the robot master knew that this was the end for him. Mega Man said two words, and then spoke no more; they were the last words Ring Man would hear in this life.

"Show's over."