Me own Rockman. No? Damn.
There was a quiet knock at the door. Raiden ignored it and rolled onto his side with his back to the hallway outside, intent on stewing in his own misery until he finally kicked the bucket.
"...Raiden? You awake?"
He groaned but didn't directly answer. Thor was the only person he even remotely liked in the whole complex but Raiden didn't want to see even the American robot.
"I'm coming in. Make sure you have pants on."
Raiden checked. He did.
There was a flurry of beeps as Thor typed in the passcode on the wall-mounted keypad. With a hiss of hydraulics the door slid back. Raiden felt Thor behind him and saw the shadow thrown across the floor.
"What the hell is wrong with you, little guy? You haven't taken a single Energy Tank in two days. Gone suicidal or what?"
"Oh, good job. Did you figure that out all by yourself?" Raiden's voice was weak from lack of power.
Thor eased his six-foot frame down next to the Wilybot's back. "Yep. Smart, aren't I?"
"If you're here to make me load a Tank, you're wasting your time."
"Nah, it's not that. Everybody else's off on an attack and I drew the short straw. Stuck watching you." He was silent for a moment. "You know what I think of you? I think you're pretty cool."
That piqued Raiden's attention. "Why?"
"Not many people have the balls to stand up to Terry. You Wilybots either have a lot of guts or you're just all damn stupid."
"Probably the second." He paused. "What's it like being around a Robot Master?"
"No different than being around anyone else. Who put ya together doesn't matter."
"Who built you, Thor?"
He didn't answer at first. "The Government of the United States of America. I was nicknamed Project Robocop."
Raiden couldn't help but chuckle. "Robocop? Then what the heck are you doing in a street gang?"
There was no response. Finally the Wilybot turned over to face the other robot, who stared drearily up at the nondescript stucco ceiling.
"Sorry. You don't have to answer that if-"
"Terukaima told me that I was fighting a terrorist when I got totalled by a guided missile from behind," he ploughed on recklessly, completely ignoring Raiden's apology. "Spectre scooped up what was left of me and the guys put me back together. Got completely reprogrammed while I was at it."
"Why did Terukaima tell you that? He could have hit a good memory of before and you'd be out of here quicker than anything."
Thor moaned and leaned against the wall, letting his head fall forward onto his chest. "But there aren't any. The States just abandoned me when I got blown up. They didn't care-the went and built another me."
"Sorta like me, I guess."
Thor shot Raiden a sidelong glance. "Whaddya mean?"
"I...nothing."
"Come on-I told you mine. Please?"
Raiden sighed, took a deep breath and began his story.
"And why the hell would he be in a garbage facility?"
Forte folded his arms. "How would I know, Tengu? The kid's a lunatic. With any luck he fell into the neutralizer and got fried."
Gospel gave a bark of agreement.
"I'll fly over and unlock it," Tengu Man said.
"No need." Forte summoned his buster, gave it three seconds to charge and released the blast. The chain-link gate was blown right off its hinges, hitting the gravel with a loud clatter.
Tengu Man glared accusingly at Forte. "Well done. Why not fire some more warning shots into the sky to make sure everyone knows we're here, hm?"
"Oh, stuff it. All we have to do is run in, grab Raiden and run out. Two-minute job. Easy." He started forward, Gospel loping alongside. "But if you wanna go home now and tell everybody you wussed out, I won't mind."
Tengu Man swore under his breath and followed his brother.
The whole concept of dumping garbage into a landfill had been abandoned years ago in favour of a new type of waste management: plasma incineration. Garbage is collected, taken to a transfer station and is then delivered to the state (or province) facility, where it is dropped into a large vat and totally annihilated by a high-power plasma ray.
Like the Maine one our three friends are busy 'infiltrating', a facility is rarely more than two miles around with exceptions in New York and Texas. Inside the electrified chain link fence is a massive holding tank garbage is initially deposited in, a long glass-encased conveyer belt that ferries it from the tank to the stout tower where the incineration process takes place and a small shed where the plasma-making machines are housed.
Forte whipped out the radar, a blue device that looked an awful lot like a handheld gaming system. Tengu Man peered at the screen over Forte's shoulder, his mask's nose nearly touching it.
"Isn't the from the holding tank?"
Now it was Forte's turn to be sarcastic. "Tengu's unstoppable genius strikes again! Watch out, Raiden, Einstein Man's on the case. Indeed, ladies and germs, here we have a regular Sherlock-"
"Shut up," Tengu Man snapped, giving Forte a whack on the side of the head with his nose and stalking off toward the holding vat. The tank was a shiny silver missile silo with the conveyor belt running out of the bottom, carrying large piles of garbage to the incinerator. After a small amount of searching, Gospel found a ladder built into the side of the vat with a service door at the top. Forte immediately leaped onto the first rung and started to scramble upward. Tengu Man watched him, suddenly hit by an idea. Making sure his aim was right, he fired a Tornado Hold at the base of the ladder.
Forte was instantaneously snapped up by the vortex like a Polish town by Hitler. Tengu Man couldn't help but wince as Forte crashed to the ground. Gospel snarled and lunged at Tengu Man, who simply dodged out of the way and aimed a kick at the dog's ribs.
"What the hell are you doing, asshat?!" Forte demanded as he got up. "You're supposed to be beating the snot out of Raiden, not me!"
Tengu Man shook his head as if in defeat. "He's probably gone by now, anyways. There's no way he could have missed the sound of a hollow skull on asphalt!"
"Why, you-!" Forte ripped out his blaster, launching a barrage of shots at Tengu Man. He leaped into the air, letting the wind catch him and hold him above the line of fire. Suddenly he did a midair backflip and soared down towards his brother. Forte was about to dive out of the way when Tengu Man grabbed him around the throat and tossed him into the sky. Suspending Forte with another Tornado Hold, Tengu Man flew up until the two were level and punched him in the nose with everything he could muster. The force of it pushed Forte straight out of the cyclone to be stopped short by the wall of the silo. Something blue fell out of his hand and headed for the ground at breakneck speed.
"The radar!" Tengu Man and Forte howled in unison.
Tengu Man went into a perfectly vertical dive but the device was already too far ahead. All of a sudden Gospel shot past under him and landed squarely on all fours, the radar in his mouth.
Tengu Man pulled up just in time to prevent slamming into the ground. Forte finished his slide down the tower to the pavement, his armor screeching against the metal and leaving a long black skidmark behind. Gospel dropped the radar in his lap. Tengu Man landed not far away.
"And that's what you get for calling me names, asshat."
However, Forte wasn't paying attention to either the other Master or his violently bleeding nose, his eyes fixed on the radar screen. "Tengu, he's moving."
Tengu Man stiffened. "What?"
"No, this can't be right...but...he's on the conveyor belt!"
Forte, Tengu Man and Gospel all turned to stare at the belt. The heaps of garbage were four and a half feet high at the tallest and six feet across at the widest-more than big enough to conceal a robot. Especially a certain shrimpy, smartmouthed, ponytailed one.
Forte checked the radar and pointed.
"He's in there!"
Forte and Tengu Man leaped at the conveyor belt, smashing their arms through the glass and tearing indicated pile to shreds but the heap held nothing of value except a small but very familiar device that looked a lot like the radar.
Forte stopped his mad assault, picking it up. "This looks like..."
"Raiden's tracker," Tengu Man finished dully. "Damn it, the moron's outwitted us."
Forte stared at the gadget in his hand, the other one clenched into a fist at his side. Tengu Man prodded him on the shoulder.
"Er, Forte...? We should go and report to-"
With a ferocious scream Forte wound up and hurled the mechanism at the side of the holding tank, where it bounced off with a noisy clang! and shattered on the asphalt.
"Shit! I'll kill that goddamned little bastard!"