"Over there, Rush. Check for a scent. Peculiar lubricants, unusual energy patterns, anything."
Hyper intelligent as he was – Mega Man seldom thought of Rush as a dog, and more a straight-up partner – Rush understood the command given to him, and bounded over to his assigned quadrant of space: a back alley. His nose snuffled every bit of trash and refuse thoroughly, looking for anything of interest.
Mega Man had no doubt that something would be found. Light had installed the finest olfactory programs (ones tweaked to his own specifications, of course) into Rush, and he was on par with any crime unit specialist out there. Aside from being a good friend and moral support, Rush was an invaluable tool.
"Tool," the bomber muttered to himself, "shouldn't call him that. We're both tools, really."
And who could rightly deny that logic? They were robots. Creations of wrench and cog. No more living than a cup or a hammer. The only difference was his function: his was more complex than the standard invention.
Well, intelligence was nice, too. Mega Man could always reason his way through things. A cup couldn't. Could it?
Shifting his eyes into almost a dozen different spectrums, Mega Man surveyed the area. Aside from several of the vicious gashes that seemed to perforate everything around, nothing stood out. The cuts themselves were of little interest, aside from yielding up the knowledge that the perpetrator held no beam-based weaponry. Following the trail of destruction did nothing for the search, either, for it was everywhere: this robot seemed to ricochet off of everything in sight, casting a wide net of destruction over the entire third district.
And there were nine districts in Syphon City. Which would be next?
Things seemed quiet for the moment, however. Perhaps the robot had gone somewhere to refuel itself. It was Mega Man's hope that it held only a limited repertoire of weaponry, and after exhausting said repertoire would be rendered useless: however, the lack of incriminating devices at the scene – any one of the scenes – destroyed this hope. Whatever the robot was using, it could use it over and over again.
Yeah, probably refuelling.
They searched for an hour. Two. Three. Midway, the sun began to slide up out of the darkness and cast a pale face upon the world. The police, still cautiously searching themselves, urged the now emerging workforce to stay at home for the time being. Having experienced difficulties with malicious robots in the past – both Top Man and Heat Man had taken up residence in Syphon City at different points – the residents readily complied with this request. Mega Man and Rush were left to search amongst the lonely streets unmolested.
And they found nothing. Not a single trace of the robot: just more mayhem, more slashes, more bodies. According to the last police report Mega Man received, the corpse count had risen to over a hundred.
("How is that possible?"
"Its been sneaking into people's apartments. Tearing 'em up inside. What we've seen so far is pretty grotesque."
"Ugh."
"No clues, either.")
Frustration was mounting. More, Mega Man's robotic soul was quickly becoming tinged with depression. He was feeling responsible for the deaths now. It never took this long to deal with robots in the past. Clearly, he was doing something wrong.
The robot realised this. He had been following Mega Man for some time, committing unspeakable atrocities mere buildings away for the beleaguered sleuth to lock onto. Apparently, he'd been a little too sneaky.
Mega Man was sitting on a bench, wringing his hands with weary annoyance, Rush at his feet, when the robot struck. Because of his heavily augmented hearing, Mega Man heard the projectile whizzing towards him almost immediately; dodging it, however, was a bit trickier. With a mighty heave Mega Man rolled sideways and off of the bench mere seconds before it was shredded in two. Split pieces of wood flew into the air and hung there, suspended in that moment, moving with incredible slowness (or at least they did to Mega Man's eyes). It all happened so quickly that he slowed down his mental timing so as to process the event more effectively.
The weapon was there and gone with the space of a breath, yet that breath was enough. It was a pair of magnetically guided scissors, opened as widely as possible. Its task complete, the blades were pulled mercilessly back, spinning swiftly, to their owner.
Mega Man readjusted his internal clock as he hit the pavement. Rush was off to one side, barking like mad, ears alert for any further movement. Now fully alert, Mega Man raised his arm cannon and brought it to bear on the alley he figured the scissors had vanished into.
The culprit, now, was known.
"Get out here, Cut Man!"
Silence. Mega Man rose quickly, cannon still poised, face taut.
"I mean it, Cut Man! Out!"
The voice that emerged instead was almost shy. A wavering purr. Mega Man remembered it well: he'd known Cut Man before Wily ever got his hands into the woodman's circuitry. Yet the shyness held instability in it, some sly hatred. "Aww, but I was just having some fun."
Had he been capable of producing saliva, Mega Man would've spat at the thought. "Like hell you were. I've seen what you've done. Come out into the sunlight, murderer."
He could see slight movement amidst the shadows of the alley, from behind a trashcan; yet Cut Man remained implacable. He wouldn't emerge. "Oh, my, what a firebrand we have here. And you used to be such a polite boy, Rock."
"The name's Mega Man, scum."
That brought gales of high pitched, panicky laughter. "Ho ho ho! Ha! Indeed, indeed! Avenger of justice, master of the arm cannon, and all that rubbish! He he he! Yes, I've heard that before; it was the last name I heard before I got blown to pieces, in fact!"
Mega Man winced. It was relatively common knowledge that Cut Man was the first of Wily's commander robots that Mega Man had ever destroyed. The experience had been. . . unpleasant, to be sure.
"How are you still functioning, Cut Man?"
The figure shifted, almost imperceptibly, as if in some discomfort. Mega Man could hear an odd sort of chattering coming from the alley, though it ended before Cut Man spoke next.
"Oh, well, that's a funny story. Uproarious, in fact. See, when you did me in, you did a poor job of it. Piss-poor. Only blew up my bottom half! Hilarious!" Some more laughter, loud and braying. "I was given the leisure to crawl out of my lair and out, into the wide wide world, to find some way to survive."
"Did you go back to Wily?"
"Of course! He was the master! My master! But he just kicked me out, called me junk. A reject. I'd failed to beat you, so, I should just get the hell out. Fabulous man, isn't he?"
"But that was more than three years ago. Why start this now?"
But Cut Man was no longer listening. "You know, Rock. . . I've had a lot of time to think. Do you ever think, Rock? Do you like to think?"
Taken off guard somewhat, Mega Man coughed. "Um. . . yes, I think ever-"
"Aha! So you do! Somebody else does! It's good to know I'm not alone, Rock. It's awfully lonely, being alone. Have you ever been alone before?"
Despite the unsettling nature of this sudden line of inquiry, Mega Man thought back upon his life. "Yeah, I've been alone some times. Why is this-"
He hit a nerve, obviously, because Cut Man began to shriek, and three pairs of scissors embedded themselves around Mega Man. He was forced to leap straight up in order to avoid one of them. "NO! YOU HAVEN'T! JUST SHUT UP, YOU HAVEN'T!"
Mega Man couldn't understand. This was all so new to him. Cut Man was acting as though he had every last one of his circuits crossed. Mega Man would've chalked it up to mental instability, had Cut Man not been a robot. Landing hard, he fell to one knee and strafed the garbage can with a spray of yellow energy blasts.
Cut Man, however, had already moved. More nimble than any robot, he'd bounded up the side of the alleyway and landed on the edge of a grocery store roof. Locked on to his foe now, Mega Man's attention was immediately drawn towards the roof, and he grimaced at what he saw.
Cut Man had borne the closest design basis for Mega Man's blue armour. Their body types were strikingly similar; where Mega Man was navy blue and blue, Cut Man was red and white. That and Cut Man's lack of arm cannon were the only significant differences, aside from the head. Yet what Mega Man witnessed now looked little like himself; indeed, Cut Man was a bloody, junky mess.
His bottom half, entirely scrounged, was covered in poorly applied metal sheets and exposed wiring. Jagged pieces of circuitry jutted from every crevice. His boots, once a nicely polished red, were now replaced by grotesque metallic toes, now dug deeply into the concrete. On each leg hung what appeared to be a projectile launcher, in fact lined with magnetic alloys: they would send scissors flying outwards and incredible speeds and then bring them whirling back to be redeployed later. Mega Man could see clearly that these casings were dripping with fresh blood, with more, dried liquid caked onto the sides.
His torso, normally a neat and tidy white surface, now twisted and curled with flowing tubes and freely visible cogs. Mega Man could see the word 'CUT' etched into the metal in several places, and grew steadily aghast at the thought of Cut Man doing this to himself. Cut Man's arms were little better: only one bore the customary red glove. The other had been replaced by a truly gigantic pair of scissors, poorly held on by substantial amounts of soldering and pinching clamps.
But most hideous of all was Cut Man's head. One of his eyes was gone, an empty socket clearly evident. The other sparked weakly, kept alive by a constant influx of energy supplied with rubber tubing. The tubes slid in underneath the whites of his eye, creating a series of small, ugly bumps along the surface. One ear appeared to be half gone; the other was lined with rusted gears and looped pieces of metal. The only thing that did not appear to be different on Cut Man, really, was his head scissors. They gleamed cleanly in the pale sun.
"Oh my god," Mega Man whispered to himself. The sight of Cut Man was utterly atrocious.
Cut Man sneered and began to yell anew. "YOU DON'T KNOW LONELINESS! YOU DON'T! ONLY I DO! SO JUST SHUT THE HELL UP, ROCK!"
"Cut Man, what have you done to yourself? Is. . . is all this. . ."
Cut Man's projectile scissors flew back to him, one slicing neatly past Mega Man's helmet. "YOU DON'T. . . you haven't a clue. . . nobody does. . . what's it all for, Rock? What's the point? WHAT'S THE POINT, ROCK?"