Chapter 4 : On Your Back
Blues and the family were going to be escorted to the house via a police car. He resisted the urge to ask the family how they gotten here, but the woman seemed to read his mind.
"We don't have a car. We were escorted here. We don't have a house either. We live in an apartment, which is paid for by a local charity." she said sadly.
Blues had a hard time imagining a young mother, a child not even in preschool, and an infant only a year old walking everywhere they had to go to. He also couldn't seem to imagine an apartment room with those very three people living in it, and possibly a fourth one.
Seemingly reading his thoughts, the toddler, who had been walking in front of him, slowed down and clasped Blue's hand.
"Did you ever have a daddy?" she asked.
"Sort of..." Blues responded, feeling slightly uncomfortable again.
"I don't." she admitted. She said it so calmly, it was almost as if she didn't realize what those words meant.
Blues was now having an even more difficult time imagining how they lived.
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Forest pressed the button on his watch again, and then pressed another button on the same watch. Suddenly, he heard Dr. Light and Mega Man saying something at the same time.
"She's back!" they shouted in surprise. This was Forest's cue, and he began to write random things on his clipboard while looking around at the trinkets in the lab. Dr. Light returned and entered the room, and Forte immediately looked at him and began to speak.
"Breaking news, and I need to be there in ten minutes." he announced. "Sorry if I wasted your time."
"It's alright." Light replied. "Come back anytime."
Forest nodded and left the room.
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It was already late in the afternoon, and it was starting to rain. The police officer in the front of the car turned on his windshield wipers as the rain came down harder and harder, turning into a steady downpour that beat against the car and drowned out all other sounds.
"Would you like to listen to some music?" the officer asked, trying to keep his voice audible above the noise of the surrounding downpour.
"Blues! Blues!" the toddler squealed. It had actually been to get Blue's attention, but the officer took that as a yes. He turned the station to the local blues station, and turned the volume up.
"My name is Tron! I forgot to tell you." the toddler said. Blues smiled slightly. He would have been slightly more cheerful, but everything he had seen and learned today alone was keeping him from being truly happy. He stared out the window as the drive continued, until Tron laid her head on Blue's lap and fell asleep.
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"Dr. Light, what happened to Roll?" Rock asked after Forest left. Dr. Light shrugged.
"I don't have any idea. She just locked up out of nowhere, and fixed herself out of nowhere as well." he replied. Dr. Light allowed himself a smile.
"And if you would, call me dad."
Rock smiled back. Dad. The word was echoing in his ears, and all his doubts were quickly washing away.
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They arrived at the apartment at about 7 o'clock. It was the same apartment that Blues had rescued Tron from earlier that day, and it made him sad to think that Tron, her mother, and the baby had walked the same distance that the police officer had just drove…just so they could thank him and repay the favor.
The police officer pulled a lever on the door, and there was a clicking sound. Tron's mother grabbed a handle on the side of the door next to her, pushed the door open, and ducked low to walk out of the car, all while holding the baby close. Tron realized they had stopped moving and woke up. She jumped out of the police car, and Blues followed her.
Blues looked at the apartment from the outside. It was tall. It was thin. It was made of brick, and had little to no paint, most of it having chipped off. Blues thought that the whole building would probably fall apart if it wasn't in-between the skyscrapers next to it. And compared to them, the building looked even more like an insignificant dump.
It was still raining, and Blues was knocked out of his thought process by Tron calling from him from under the canopy above the door. Quickly, Blues ran towards her and followed her into the building
He soon discovered how worse it looked on the inside.
The building had no paint. None. The front desk was near the stairs, and it was nothing more than a used old desk. There were no elevators, and the only television was sitting on the desk. It took Blues a minute to realize the television was part of a tiny radio that was barely three inches high. The television was running, and the news was on in black and white. The reception for it was horrible, and the news would constantly be replaced by waves of static.
He stared at it for a few seconds, walked past the sleeping secretary that was behind the desk, and followed Tron and her family up the stairs.
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Rock was laying down in his room, watching reruns of a show that he had seen on television while flipping through channels. On the screen, a character that looked a lot like him threw a rubber duck at another character that looked a lot like him and yelled "Uno! King me!"
There was a knock on the door, and it was followed by Roll's voice.
"Rock! Dinner's ready!"
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As Blues climbed the stairs, he realized more and more how depressing this place looked. Almost all the lights on the stairs had blown out, and they all had to crawl around in the darkness. The stairs were wooden, of all things, and Blues offered to carry Tron, who refused. He was surprised that she didn't have serious injuries in her foot from these stairs. To make things even more unnerving, the wooden stairs creaked. They all seemed to be used to this, though, and Tron climbed the wooden stairs without any trouble at all.
It was a long climb, too. Climbing the stairs seemed to take hours, and Blues couldn't resist the urge to ask what floor they lived on.
"The top one." the mother responded quickly as they passed a sign that read "Floor 10" in faded letters.
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Half-way through eating, Dr. Light decided to announce something.
"Mega Man, do you know what a school is?"
Rock hadn't been paying much attention, and as he stuffed his face full of his first ever actual meal, he said the first thing that came to his mind.
"Wija's foatrens?" he said, his voice muffled. He swallowed.
"Wily's fortress?" he repeated.
"No, that's a skull. A school is a place where children go to get an education." Dr. Light explained. Rock looked puzzled.
"Where they go to learn how to read, and how to solve problems, so they can get a job in the real world." Dr. Light continued.
"Do I have to go to this...school?"
"In August. I'm going to see if we can get you registered, but we'll need to give you a different identity so the press doesn't attack you."
"My name is Rock."
"Rock Light it is, then."
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When they finally reached the apartment room, Tron's mother tucked the baby under one arm and pulled a set of keys out of her pocket with the other. She then put the keys in the doorknob, turned them, and kicked the door open.
Blues didn't know how they could live in the conditions they were in, and now, he doubted it even more. There was a mattress, one dresser with one shelf, and no valuables or lamps. All the light came from a small candle on a tiny table in the far corner of the room. The table was nearby two other doorways, one of which probably lead to a bathroom, and the other to some kind of kitchen. The doorways had no actual doors, and rain leaked through small holes in the roof. There was one window with no curtains near the mattress. As far as he could tell, there was no form of air conditioning. There was no paint, just brick. There weren't any carpets. There were no toys. No books. No safes. No money.
It was all empty.
And it only seemed worse when Tron smiled a toothless smile, looked at Blues, and said something.
"Isn't it wonderful?"
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Forte ran to and reached Wily in seconds. Before he could speak, Forte punched him with all of his might. The punch threw Wily against the back wall and knocked one of his teeth out. Blood dripped from Wily's mouth and down his chin.
"Enough! I don't care about your damn missions any longer! I'm going to find and destroy Mega Man myself, and accomplish what you never will! Robot or not, I am always stronger, I was always stronger, and I will always be stronger!" Forte roared.
Wily was scared now. Forte was still powerful, and now could easily kill him if he wanted to. And from the looks of it, Forte definitely wanted to.
"W-w-wait!" he stuttered. "I'll help you! I'll build weapons for you! A fortress! Anything!"
Forte threw his head back and laughed.
"The tables have finally turned, you crazy old man. This time, I'm calling the shots."
And with that, Forte Wily began to lay out his plan.
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Blues was trying his hardest just to keep from looking sad or surprised, but it apparently wasn't working.
"I know, it isn't much…but it's all the charity can afford. They supply homes like this to hundreds of people, and it really is a lot better than living on the streets." the mom explained.
Personally, Blues disagreed, but he silently made a vow to help this family somehow. With literally no money or food, these people were giving him somewhere to stay. This was kindness the likes of which he had never seen before.
And he knew he had to return the favor somehow. For the more he stayed, the more worse off he realized they were.
The baby slept in the dresser drawer ("We can't afford a crib."), and the mother and Tron slept on the mattress. They offered to let him use the mattress, but he refused the offer. The only things they had to eat were canned foods donated by the charities, and they had very little of those. Even worse, they had no microwave. They ate everything cold.
He just couldn't believe that, to Tron, this miserable Hell of a home was paradise. He couldn't believe that one young woman could raise two children in here…alone. He couldn't understand how they had stayed alive all these years.
Again, Tron's mother seemed to be reading his mind.
"We've managed to survive by the grace of God." she said.
And as she blew out the candle and he laid down upon the cold brick floor, Blues wondered about this.
Whoever this God was, he was keeping them alive. And to them, that was all that mattered. They were happy with what they had. The shirts on their backs, and a roof, leaky or not, over their heads.
But he was going to give them more.