"Allow me to share a revelation with you, Rock." Cut Man paced back and forth, toes clinking idly against the edge of the roofing. The sound maddened Mega Man nearly as much as Cut Man's flippancy. He'd just been screaming at Mega Man, pouring out an electronic soul the bomber hadn't been aware robots possessed: now, though, Cut Man had become oddly lecturing in his tone. All in the space of five seconds, no less.
"It's about robots. Did you guess that much, Rock?" Laughter, tinged with instability. "We're not built to be alone. Not misfits. I mean, look at most of us! I've seen Wily's ever more elaborate attempts at construction since I got thrown into the dust pile. We're outlandish, perverse things." He paused, tapping his chin idly, as if ruminating over his words. "Yes. Outlandish."
Mega Man magnified his eyes. The remnants of blood seemed to be caked onto Cut Man's frame. No big surprise there; it certainly made the presentation as a whole more ghoulish. "Cut Man, what-"
"YOU WILL NOT SPEAK WHILE I'M TALKING!" A pair of scissors dashed through the air towards Mega Man, one aimed at his throat, the other his midsection. It took a sort of leaning roll to avoid both of them, and the latter still managed to clip Mega Man's torso on its pass. Tiny sparks erupted from within his shredded suit, robotic innards now partially exposed. Programmed to simulate pain, Mega Man gasped and collapsed.
Cut Man didn't miss a beat in his little diatribe after that small interruption. Ignoring his weapons as they slid back into place at his sides, the maddened robot continued with his already contorted and contradictive speech. "Perfect misfits. But we're not built for loneliness! We seek out community! We're given hordes of fellow mechanicals! Right? Even you, not one amongst us, have your own robotic friends."
Mega Man had to acknowledge that much as being true, writhing about on the pavement though he was. His friends – Dr. Light, Roll, Rush (who even now leapt to his side protectively, ready to assault Cut Man with barking yet not quite daring to), perhaps even Proto Man – defined Mega Man's world. They gave him something worth fighting for, beyond the usual abstract concepts of 'justice' and 'morality'.
"Indeed, we are not misfits. . . but are we?" A slight facial tic. "We have community. We have class. We do not reject one another, even amongst enemies." Tic. "And then there's me."
Crawling laboriously onto one knee, energy cells partially depleted from the hit, Mega Man studied Cut Man. There was an indescribable sadness in that marred, cyclopean face, full of concerns and worries Mega Man couldn't even fathom. Despite his monstrous appearance, Mega Man somehow identified Cut Man as being the more human of the two in that moment.
"There's me. Even before I was like this. . . before Wily. . . tampered with me. . . I was a reject. And why?" Both his arm and head scissors snapped open and shut excitedly, caught in Cut Man's building rage. "Why? I don't understand. I looked a little silly, maybe; I wasn't fancy, maybe; but neither were YOU!" A stab of the finger. "YOU, some stupid blue-clad little peon, why was I shunned? I was even more useful! Yet none of the robots ever wanted anything to do with me! Why was I different?" A tiny bit of lubricant began to seep out of his empty eye socket.
Mega Man wanted to counter it. With all of his being, he wished he could. But Cut Man, in his twisted revelry, was speaking the truth: back when the original six robots still bore only Dr. Light's programming, they all had a tendency to shut out Cut Man. He'd seemed a total reject, for reasons unfathomable. Neglected, berated, and abused. Despite his best efforts, Dr. Light could never manage to wipe this atrocious tendency from any of his creations.
"Shunned! Scorned! And why? Because my ears looked stupid? I had a silly function? I CUT THINGS, DAMN YOU ALL! WHAT ELSE SHOULD I LOOK LIKE? WHY AM I THE ONLY MISFIT, A REJECT AMONGST CLOWNS AND FOOLS AND MORONS?" Tic. Tic. Lubricant flowed freely, spilling down his cold metal cheek, filling the cracks in some of his tubing.
"And what's the point of it all, anyway? We're just a bunch of tools. Glorified killing machines. Wily sees it. We're useless for practical measures. Ha, ha! Killing!"
"Is that why you're killing all these people? Cut Man?"
But Cut Man was gone. Despite the grotesquery's of his appearance, his self-installed components did their job well: indeed, it was because of his lack of concern for physical form that he was able to alter himself so powerfully. His legs bore miniaturized turbines and engines, used for the express purpose of incredibly quick movement. His back, too, bore small rockets, allowing for a remarkably fast descent. All this created a situation in which Mega Man could not follow Cut Man's movements, to the point that the tortured robot was able to stand at Mega Man's back for almost a half a second before either the blue bomber or his faithful dog realised where he was.
Yet, again, the lecture continued on without a change in pace. "I suppose that's possible, Rock. Entirely, completely possible. But then, I suppose I shouldn't be, should I? We robots aren't supposed to kill humans. Oh no no no no no. Bad, that."
Rush, evidently tired of the scene, decided he would brook no more of this treatment. A close-combat dog by design, he'd been fitted with a great number of distracting devices by Light; the idea would be that whichever device used would direct the opponent's attention away from Rush for a few brief seconds, allowing Rush to close in and attack mercilessly. Cute or no, Rush was a war machine.
In this case, he chose a small, noisy, explosive ball bearing, fired from a miniature cannon stored in his forehead. With a gentle whiz the pellet zipped forward and smacked into a wall, releasing a harmless yet thunder clapping puff of smoke and sound. And, indeed, shocked out of his rant, Cut Man gazed in its direction for a couple moments, enough to give Rush some latitude in the situation. He leapt, fangs extending, claws bared, at Cut Man's back.
The attack nearly worked. Nearly. Despite his poor mental faculties, Cut Man still possessed impressive sensory equipment, a repertoire that instantly came online and detected the threat. A few nanoseconds was all it took for the disfigured pariah to snap into action, spinning and catching Rush in a vice grip with his gigantic claw. Almost immediately it tore into Rush's vital systems, nearly snapping the dog in half; only through diabolic intention did Cut Man keep himself restrained.
"Ahh, bad doggy! Bad!"
Mega Man attempted to stand, to protest, to attack, but to no avail; Cut Man held the reigns of power. With a brutal gesture of contempt Cut Man smacked the beleaguered warrior aside using the remnants of his own dog, who, still caught upon those terrible claws, howled piteously and desperately for release. Mega Man went sprawling into the side of a building and slid to a halt, electric energy bleeding out of his wound (one, he marvelled, that seemed far deeper than originally estimated).
"Ooo, bad Rock! Bad super hero! Bad, bad, BAD!"
Rush fell from betwixt the blades. His systems automatically shut down, to perverse what life he still retained.
"My, everybody's bad today! Me, you, doggy, the world! Especially those people who wouldn't stop screaming before they died!"
His shadow fell down over Mega Man, towering and misshapen.
"You don't know what it's like to be alone, Rock. To never have a person in your end of the ring. Even when Wily messed with my circuits, I was still on my own. And Light, well, when he built me, he must've installed something that kept me alone. Made me seem like some pathetic loser to everyone else. What right did he have to do that, Rock?"
Mega Man gasped as Cut Man's head scissors impaled themselves into the wall above his helmet, bringing Cut Man's giant, accusing eye to bear on Mega Man's wincing ones. Oil dribbled down upon Mega Man's uniform.
"I should have been you, Rock. I should have been the hero. I was made to fight, to kill. You were some servant. An assistant. Why did you get favoured over me, Rock? Why was everyone favoured over me?"
Sliding one hand back to his blade projectors, Cut Man disengaged the magnetic guidance system on one and carefully removed a set of gleaming scissors from within. Mega Man caught his reflection in one of the blades, taut and pale. His energy was seeping away fast.
"I often forgot who I was, Rock. . . a lot. . . I found it easier to remember by. . . immortalizing myself." A sole pupil, tinged with tainted purpose, slid down to Mega Man's chest. "I'll immortalize you, too."
And before Mega Man could argue, cold steel, impossibly sharp, etched its way into his chest plate. The pain, simulated thought it was, seemed utterly unbearable, and continued for several lifetimes or more: and, upon completing his task, Cut Man stepped back to observe his work.
'ROCK'.
"Now I won't forget you, either."
And he was gone, this time for real.