Dedication: To my eighth grade Family and Consumer Sciences class.
Disclaimer: Alas, I do not own Forte, Dr. Wily, or any of the robot masters. Well, except for Forte and Quick Man. Yep, I've got them sitting right here on my bookshelf, and they're mine, all mine, mwahaha . . . oh, wait. Those are just action figures. Never mind. I guess they're all still property of Capcom, then, and neither I nor my action figures are making any money off of this just-for-fun fanfic.
Special thanks to Rumorgirl411 for coming up with the title.
-o-o-o-
It was a dark and stormy night. The dark part wasn't all that unusual -- night, as a rule, tends to be dark. The stormy part, however, was out of the ordinary and was one of the main reasons why Forte was bored out of his mind.
The black-armored robot was slouched on a couch in what had been dubbed the "sitting room" of Wily's latest Skull Castle ("Sitting room? Why?" "Because there's lots of stuff to sit on."), picking at the edge of a hole he had found in the armrest, trying to think of something, anything to do. He had briefly considered going out and attacking Rockman again, but word was that the little blue freak was out of the country at some robotics conference. Blues was probably around, but he wasn't any fun to battle. While Rockman was kind of amusing with his pathetic attempts to win Forte over to his side, Blues seemed to opt for lecturing Forte on the importance of proper motivations. That was just plain annoying.
Besides, metal bodies and lightning didn't mix. Actually, what he'd normally be doing at this point would be resorting to bothering Wily until the old man found him something to do, but the scientist was working on that new girly robot, and after a series of interruptions that morning, Wily had declared that the next robot to knock on the door uninvited would be used for parts.
Forte was pondering why, if they had a sitting room, did they not have a standing room, when a deep voice broke into his thoughts. "That's a nice hole you've got going there."
Forte glanced at the hole, which was now big enough to stick in two of his fingers. "Hey, Shadow Man," he replied, poking at the stuffing.
"Have you seen Spark Man anywhere?"
"He's probably up on the roof."
"Ah. And why would he be on the roof?"
"Possibly because someone told him that the Lightning Fairy would give him hands if he went up there to wait for her," Forte said, grinning maliciously.
Shadow Man rolled his eyes. "You know, you really shouldn't --"
"Oh, don't worry, he'll be able to handle the voltage. I think."
"You're terrible, you know that?'
"I try to be. What do you want him for, anyway?"
"Haven't you heard?" Shadow Man asked, surprised. "Some of the robot masters are baking cookies."
"Baking cookies. Right. They do realize that none of us eat, don't they?"
"I think so. But they were bored, Star Man got this crazy idea that baking something would be a good idea, and so they headed off to the kitchen."
Forte couldn't believe what he was hearing. The last time any of the robot masters had tried baking anything, it had been a cake for Wily's birthday. Star Man had been the instigator for that, too. The resulting confection had been lopsided and covered in frosting the approximate color of bread mold. Wily had taken one bite and said, in no uncertain terms, that there were to be no more robots in the kitchen again. Ever. And, to emphasize the point, he installed a heavy-duty lock on the door the next day.
That reminded Forte of a possible hitch in the cookie baking plan. "How did they get into the kitchen?"
"They got Crash Man to open the door," Shadow Man replied. That made sense. Crash Man's typical method of opening anything usually involved blowing it up. "He's on the roof, you said?"
"Spark Man? Yeah."
"He'd like to know about this," the ninja robot said, heading off in the direction of the nearest ladder.
Alone again, Forte poked at the couch's mutilated armrest a couple more times before heading off in the direction of the kitchen. Maybe tonight won't be so boring after all, he thought.