Before you read, I warn Geminiman fans that if you dislike his appearance being altered that you should not read any further than this (or at least, not this chapter). That'll be all. :)

As my "brothers" and I celebrated our little reunion, I heard a deep, husky voice asking me, "Is he yours?" I turned around and saw a (somewhat) muscular, humanlike male, standing at about six feet tall with gray, cloth-like armor on his body, as well as a light blue belt and matching armor on his arms and legs, and a light, crystal blue armor on his chest. He didn't have a helmet, but instead, he had straight, sky bluish hair, reaching about an inch above his broad shoulders, with light blue, almost white crystals dangling underneath. The strangest but most interesting feature about him was his sky blue fox tail swishing about. In his muscular arms was Crashman, sleeping comfortably.

He continued, "I found him lying on the ground, and I thought I should bring him in to you."

Just then, Crashman woke up, seeing the large, blue-haired male, and smiled. "Gem," he squealed as he wrapped his arms around the male's neck. "Oh, Geminiman, you're here! But how…"

"He found you and brought you here," I replied, pretty much repeating what Geminiman said to me.

Crashman removed his arms from Geminiman's neck. "Well, thank you," he said to both of us and smiled. Then he looked at my brothers and me and asked, "Where's Iceman?"

I looked down at my leg and around me, recently noticing that Iceman wasn't around. "What the"

An ear piercing scream and scratching sounds from nearby interrupted me. Bombman pointed to the direction opposite of us and said as he ran towards the sounds, "Sounds like it came from this way. Let's go!" We followed along behind Bombman, Fireman, Crashman, and me running ahead of Gutsman and Geminiman.

Several meters later, we dashed down an alleyway to our left until we reached the source of the voices. Elecman, his armor dented and torn, eyes turned red from madness and with black bags underneath as though he never had sleep in years, his armor and face stained with blood, and without his glasses, clawed at a wounded, bleeding Iceman that lay helplessly against a brick wall. Elecman laughed maniacally as he continued to slash at the childlike Robot Master. "Take that! And that! And that," the insane robot shouted madly with each strike.

"Stop that right now," I demanded as I drew out my broadsword. Right away, Elecman stopped attacking Iceman and faced towards me with a crooked, malicious smile.

"Something tells me this isn't gonna be pretty," Bombman said worriedly.

"So, Cutman, you've been alive all along…" Elecman's eyes became a dark blue as he wrapped his arms around me and sobbed. "I-I thought I never was going to see you again." He clutched onto me tighter as his sobbing started to sound more and more like laughing. Suddenly, a jolt of electricity rushed through my body, shocking me from inside. Elecman looked up at me with the same red eyes and crooked smile he had before. Elecman let go of me and started to claw at me the same way he did with Iceman. But after about twelve slashes, a large, muscular arm held his arms back. "What the hell? Lemme go," Elecman shouted demandingly.

Elecman looked up and saw Geminiman holding him back. "I didn't want to do this, but…" Then he threw Elecman at the wall behind him and punched him in the back with full force, thus breaking a hole through the wall. Geminiman stared at the destruction he created, then at me and whispered as he then looked down to his hands, "I'm sorry… But it had to be done, and I couldn't help myself." Then he walked up to Iceman and carried him in his arms.

Honestly, I don't know what to say. I've known Elecman for a long time, and I know he suffers from his personality changing from kind and helpful to uncontrollably insane. Usually, the sight of blood or him being alone triggers his psychotic side and I would be the only one who can stop him. It's like a puppeteer trying to control a possessed marionette. But now, probably from being gone for so long, Elecman wasn't able to control his madness any longer.

I lowered my head and, practically without knowing it, shed a few tears from my large, dark eyes down my cheeks. Then Fireman placed his hand onto my shoulder and encouraged me in a laid back tone, "I don't know Elecman nearly as much as you do, but I do know that if someone can help him, it's you. And when he's better from whatever he's going through, then all six of us can live a happy life together."

I shook my head and wiped my tears away. "No. I'm afraid he's finally lost it. I don't think even I could help him now." I sighed and whispered, "It's hopeless."

Fireman wrapped his arm around the back of my neck and smiled as he spoke to the others, who were about to leave, "You go on without us. I have to show him something quickly." When they left, he crouched down in front of the area that Elecman crashed through, and dusted the debris away. The only thing that remained was Elecman, bruised and bleeding from the force. Fireman removed Elecman's black helmet and yellow glasses, revealing bedraggled, dark blue hair that reached down his back with a great streak of grayish hair. Fireman placed the helmet onto Elecman's chest and whispered in a prayerful manner, "Elecman, I know that you're going through a hard time, but I know that Cutman will help you pull through."

I paused, wondering about what he's doing and why. But watching him do it made me want to do it as well. I whispered in a prayerful manner like Fireman, "Elecman, if you can hear me, I want to know that you were the best friend I ever had. And I want to let you know that if you set your mind—no, your heart—to it, you'll pull through. Although…" I drifted off for a moment before I concluded, "I wish you well."

"Well, say your prayers. On account of that you'll be dead in little time," a voice said malevolently. I looked up to find a skeleton-like humanoid Robot Master with black and white armor, a red jewel on his forehead, and sharp, dark eyes.

"Let me handle this," Fireman said softly to me as his right hand converted into a gun. He then uppercut the skeleton-like Robot Master, throwing him back. Fireman walked up to him and asked, his voice sounding low, "Skullman, why are you here?" Skullman said nothing. Fireman picked him up by the collar and snarled viciously, his eyes burning red with anger, "Tell me! Or else…" He held his gun against Skullman's head and started charging it up.

I demanded as I held back Fireman's arm, "Fireman! Don't do this! Just listen"

"Shut the hell up," Fireman snapped as he pushed me off. When I fell to the ground, I felt the handle of my broadsword and picked it up. I raised the eight-foot sword above my head, readying it for a big attack.

But then I stopped, shaking. I… I can't do it. I can't kill him. Not my brother! Getting tangled up between the choice of whether or not to do it, I dropped my sword, fell to my knees, hid my face with my hands, and started to cry. Fireman let go of Skullman and turned towards me, his eyes turning from red to a dark green.

"Cutman," I heard Fireman say as he placed his hand on my shoulder. "You can attack me from behind, even destroy me cold-heartedly, but I don't want to see you cry. Not now, not ever." He then wrapped his arms around me and hugged me tight.

But the moment didn't last long when Skullman butted in. "I'll confess. Snakeman suggested that I call this phone number and… And I didn't know whose it was until the caller… My new client… replied. He said… in order to satisfy my wishes, I have to kill you." He then gave me the familiar "Wanted" poster with my face, along with a small card containing a phone number. "You probably might have heard of the bounty for you. Almost everyone, mortal or robot is after you. Fortunately, the Robot Masters had killed most of the mortals that are after you. But we have different abilities and strategy patterns; so we might be a harder match for you in comparison. We're bound to meet again. That is, if we both manage to survive by then. Farewell, Cutman," he concluded before he disappeared into the shadows.

After Skullman disappeared, I asked Fireman, "Do you think that maybe… Topman might have something to do with this?" Fireman didn't reply, so I looked at the card with the phone number and said, "There's only one way to find out." I paused for a moment, just realizing that I don't have a phone to call with.

Just then, Fireman handed a small cell phone to me. "Here's my cell phone. Call the number quickly. If someone—or something—replies, ask for their name, and once they do, hang up or whatever."

And like he said, I pressed the numbered buttons on the tiny phone and raised it to ear level. The caller's answering machine said, "Hello, this is Flameman. Sorry to say that I'm currently not available right now, so leave a message after the tone." Shortly before the tone, I immediately hung up and gave the phone back to Fireman.

"So, who was it?"

I replied, "It's… Flameman."

Fireman looked at me in surprise. "But… I thought he was…"

My tone lowered as I put my head down. "We all did. We thought he disappeared from after the nuclear incident." Then I remembered a part of the newspaper article, which reminded us of the incident. "Dr. Light's and Dr. Wily's laboratories both suffered from a nuclear explosion, rumored that the Robot Masters might've planned this, and all of the Robot Masters had split up to different regions of the world."

At least from all of what I could remember, it started at the lab when Dr. Light was working on a new project, which he dubbed " Project X". He called the type of new robot a "reploid", and said, if successful, the design would improve robotics the world over. It looked like Megaman in a few ways: humanlike, with blue armor and an arm cannon. But this was different; it looked taller, much lighter in terms of weight, mature, and more advanced. There's so many of us Robot Masters that he could just improve. Why just suddenly build a whole new robot? It puzzled me so. I left the lab, not wanting to see some adult clone of my "brother", a true hero.

As I lay under a tree, questioning myself about Project X, even though I don't know or want to, Topman walked up to me and sat nearby. He asked about how I'm doing, and I replied by telling him about the Project Dr. Light was working on and how I feel about it. Then Topman said something about him feeling the same way when he heard that Dr. Wily was working on a project called "Project Zero". But he said he was working on a project with the help of the other Robot Masters, which made things sound quite convenient. I asked what it was about, and he replied that he would've kept it a secret, but since I was curious, he made an exception.

He led me to the basement of Dr. Wily's laboratory, which was nearby, and handed me some blueprints. It showed designs of a robot's skeletal system, with pictures of circuits and wires for the interior, but the exterior actually looked much like that of a human skeleton. The exception was a cylinder-shaped tank attached to a square-shaped piece of machinery behind the "ribs", and a flexible, bent cylinder attached to the square, both being the only "organs" in the body. As Topman explained about the designs and their purposes, I thought about how interesting the idea of making Robots become one grand step closer to becoming more humanlike than ever.

Until suddenly we felt a rumble from underneath us. Before I could ask what might've caused it, the whole lab exploded from under us. Next thing I could remember was waking up outside of the lab, lying beside a tree in a forest. Topman lay beside me, his light brown bangs brushing the left side of his face. This made me wonder where the other Robot Masters had gone. The last words I remember him saying before I lost consciousness, "I know a place where our troubles will soon disappear… A place where us Robot Masters are free, called… Demivirtua."

What happened in Demivirtua is a completely different story. But two weeks after the nuclear incident, some of the Robot Masters and me, with new and successful skeletal systems, decided to live a peaceful life in a large house in Coloratown, the house including an attic and basement. Unfortunately, about a year later, the incident occurred.

Fireman crossed his arms and glared at me. "Sounds pretty tough to be you, having to deal with others betraying you, including…"

Interrupted, Fireman's arms loosened as he fell to the ground, his back, with large scratch marks, started bleeding severely. Behind him stood Elecman, his fingertips stained with Fireman's dark, crimson blood and his eyes looking more malicious than last time. As he laughed uncontrollably, he dug his fingers of his right hand deep into the right side of his face, scarring himself. Then he calmed down a bit and cried out, "Cutman… I never meant to betray you. It's just… It's too hard to explain. It was either one or the other, and of all the stupid choices I had to make, I chose him over you!" He fell to his knees with his hands covering his face, he cried and shouted about how stupid he thought he was.

Trying to support him, I kneeled to his level and leaned his head onto my shoulder. "You're not stupid, Elecman. You're just—well, let's just say you're under stress. Sometimes, when we—humans and robots—become stressed out, they end up saying or doing things they never meant to do."

From hearing this, Elecman's eyes slowly turned to a dark blue hue as they formed tears that fell down his cheeks, stinging the deep gashes he made. He wrapped his arms around my neck tightly, practically choking me. His eyes immediately changed back to a blood red as he laughed maniacally and gnawed at the flesh on my shoulder. Looks like I don't have much of a choice, I thought as I summoned a Rolling Cutter from my right hand and stabbed it through Elecman's stomach.

His arms loosened as he slid down my arm to the floor, losing consciousness. Then, removing the Rolling Cutter from his stomach, I carried his bloody (hopefully not) corpse in my arms and placed it beside a wall in the alley. Wiping the blood off his face, I whispered, "Sorry, Elecman." Shedding a tear, I went to pick up Fireman's body, wrapped his arms around my neck, and walked away.

Probably not the best ending to a chapter, but it's better than nothing. :D Stay tuned for Ch. 6!