Chapter 13: Acceptance
"Sooner or later, there comes a time when we all have to buckle down and face some unpleasant truths. Things we didn't want to believe, but subconsciously knew all along. Once we pass that point, there's no going back… all we can is cope with the damage. We know that better than anybody else, the three of us… don't we?" -Maverick King Sigma, addressing his greatest enemies, Zero Omega and Mega Man X
"I hate gimmick platforms over huge pits." Mega Man grumbled, flying over the last enemy on the gap's far side with his Jet Armor, then turning and blowing the hapless robot into the abyss with a shot of Wind Storm. Despite his hopes, the path had turned and led him into a tower on the Fortress' right side, giving him doubts about whether he had chosen the correct path after all. On the plus side, he had managed to locate another E-Tank in a hidden alcove, one he knew he would probably need before the Rebellion's end. Looking at the metal shutter before him, Mega Man sighed. "Right. Time to see if the next Guardian is in there or not. At least with this dumb Rebellion's style it probably won't be TOO bad if I'm wrong… probably just some confetti and an insulting sign." Shaking his head, he walked on through. Immediately, he saw that what awaited him was NOT a joke; a massive, vaguely humanoid robot waited on tank treads. Two huge arms dangled at its sides, and a blank face located in the chest stared forward. Atop that was an empty metal canister with a viewing slot in front. "Missing something…?" The Blue Bomber glanced up as a transparent dome glided down on rockets, doubtless made of the glasteel alloy that was used in war machines controlled by his human opponents. This War Mech, however, was not controlled by a human. Mega Man stared incredulously at the tiny Metool behind the controls before hitting himself in the face. "It's a joke… but the controls are probably still in there, so I'll have to aim for it anyways."
"If you can!" Mr. X sneered from a speaker. "Let's see how well you do against the last of my Fortress Guardians!"
"So this is the last one… good." Mega Man nodded as the Met Mech sprang to life. "Once it's down, on to the big man." The enemy, however, did not seem too keen on that happening. With a staticy roar, the Met Mech rushed forward, swinging its arms wildly. Yelping, Mega Man slid away, and the Met Mech gave chase with surprising speed, firing huge plasma orbs from the mouth of its face. The shots bounced along the ground like rubber balls, and one of them hit Mega Man despite his best efforts, doing much more damage than the weaker plasma shots of the last enemy. "Oww… no subtlety to this thing. All about raw power… I've got to bring it down, quick!" He began switching through his Master Weapons, frantically firing them one by one and gauging their effects. None seemed too effective, but the Met Mech drew back anyways, firing straight plasma shots instead of the bouncers before rushing forward again. Busy dodging the shots, Mega was caught off guard and clipped by one of the flailing fists. Sprawling, he instantly rose and slid away seconds before being obliterated by the Met Mech's heavy treads.
"Come on, something's got to work-yes!" The Blizzard Attack's snowflakes had made the machine pause. It rushed forward again, but now that he knew what would do the most damage, Mega Man was able to fire wave after wave of the snowflakes until it screeched to a halt, motionless. The glasteel dome was completely frosted over, and one shot of the Flame Blast shattered it, revealing both Metool and controls as frozen as the rest. Another shot finished the job, and Mega Man turned to the doors awaiting him. Side-by-side, there was nothing different about them at all. Shrugging, he chose one, then grimaced as he saw the other door to his side in the next room as well. "One more bad joke."
"So you don't care for my sense of humor." Mr. X growled. "Not that that matters much. Come, Mega Man! Your last challenger awaits you!"
"Yeah, yeah." Shaking his head, Mega Man walked forward. "Heard it all before. Still… that thing messed me up some. Better use an E-Tank." Taking it and climbing up the tower, he destroyed wall cannons and avoided deadly spikes until he came across something new; a hole in the floor with no apparent purpose. "Hm?" As he watched, a metal egg rose from the hole and flew apart, revealing a green bird looking like nothing so much as an evil Beat. Before he could move, it lunged and took a chunk out of him with its claws. "Geez! Better put a stop to that right now…" He summoned the true bird, who took in the situation at a glance, then angrily shredded the doppleganger. "As I thought… no match for the real deal." Regardless, the hole would probably keep spawning the birds. Shifting to his Power Armor, Mega smashed out a raised part of the floor and shoved it on top of the bird producer. "THERE we go." However, several more like it were clearly visible, so Mega kept Beat out to deal with those birds that spawned before he could block the holes up. Climbing further up the tower, Mega found a fork in the road-a ladder leading up, or a long hall winding around the sides.
"Hm… looks like this may be an actual choice, unless both lead to the same place. But just in case… go for the direct route." He climbed the ladder and continued on, destroying lurking spider-clawed bombs before they could touch him. Beyond those, another long hallway filled with bird producers awaited him, this time with their narrow lips as the only stepping stones across a large chasm and no way to block them up. Beat continued to shred the birds without fail as Mega Man carefully jetted across. "What would I do without you?" He grinned at the birdbot, who tweeted happily as they reached the other side and the metal shutter with Mr. X's logo above it. "Right, this is it. You ready?" Beat chirped again in reply, and the two of them walked through the door. At first, the room was completely darkened, but after a moment, four spotlights flipped on in the corners of the roof, revealing the arena to be far larger than the typical chambers used by Mega Man's enemies. All four lights quickly focused on him.
"Here he is, ladies and gentlemen!" Mr. X's voice came, loud and mocking, from high above. "The famous Blue Bomber, Mega Man, CHAMPION! Master of five Robot Rebellions, he has defeated all who came before him… but for one." More searchlights sprang to life and illuminated a huge portal in the ceiling, from which a monstrosity was descending… a huge sphere covered in hundreds of spikes, dangling from a thick metal chain, with a bored-looking face on the front looking mechanically down at Mega Man. Above the eyes, visible through a glasteel shield, was the man behind the curtain. Mr. X, garbed in his familiar black cloak and sunglasses, smiled down at the robot below him. "Survivor of the Third World War, Mr. X, CHALLENGER! Here and now, atop this tower in my humble home, I challenge YOU, Mega Man." He spread his arms. "At stake… the world. Defeat me here, and you will never need worry for the planet's safety again… your life of battles shall be over. I am your final test, your ultimate challenge. Lose to me, however… fumble it at the last moment… and there will be nothing to stand between me and absolute world domination. What have you to say?" Mega Man stared up at him for several silent moments before replying.
"Are you quite done?" Contempt dripping from every word, the Blue Bomber glared up at the aged billionaire in his metal shell. "I'm sure this is all very amusing for YOU, but I've got better things to do than continue this farce. Defend yourself, or keep on talking… it doesn't matter. Either way, you're going DOWN." Without waiting for a counter, he fired off a charged shot into one of the mech's eyes. At the same time, Beat flew off into the darkness.
"Ho! So much for the old myth about the hero always playing fair!" Mr. X's hands began moving across his machine's controls, and the sphere began moving, swinging back and forth on the chain across the room, scraping the floor at the center by inches. "Watch out, boy… step into range of the swing, and even you will be killed instantly!"
"I've dealt with things like that before." Mega Man shrugged, not moving from his location-near the walls, the machine passed over his head harmlessly. "Like Gamma. The Ultimate War Machine, one you helped to create. I destroyed it… and I'll destroy THIS clanking monstrosity the same way." He fired another charged shot, but Mr. X only sneered as his weapon took the hit.
"Boasting, always boasting… and you claim not to wish to trade words. Well, if you prefer to trade weapons, then perhaps this will be more to your taste…" A focusing crystal beneath the mech's eyes glowed and dropped a sphere of plasma onto the floor that split into several shots, racing across the floor. "Can you dodge both these and the machine itself? You're safe enough in your spot as long as you keep your feet on the ground, but jump at the wrong time and… splat!"
"Easily." Mega Man fired again, keeping one eye on the machine's motion and another on the shots it fired. "These are the most rudimentary moves I could use… ones I learned long ago. If this is all I'll need to bring this one down, you've chosen a very poor joke for your last laugh indeed."
"You're not even trying your master weapons out, I see." Mr. X noted, raising an eyebrow in mock concern. "My my, do you have such little faith in your hard-won prizes to not even give them a chance?"
"On the contrary… this façade of a fight doesn't even justify their use." Mega Man fired again and again, dodging each and every shot and swing. "This is pathetic. Even the Rail Riders were more challenging than THIS. You weren't even trying this time, were you?" Smoking from a dozen craters in its surface, the machine's swinging began to falter, and its plasma fire ceased… and then, with a cracking noise that filled the room, it flew loose from its severed chain and smashed into a corner of the room, lifeless and inert. "You didn't even notice Beat up there working on that chain the whole time… and after all that trouble you went to keeping him out of commission. You couldn't hit me even once. This fight WAS a bad joke… a formula… a ritual. Just like everything else in this Rebellion. And here comes my least favorite part… the unmasking." He spat on the ground derisively. "I've beaten you here… so take off that disguise, WILY. It's not fooling anybody any more." Mr. X glared at him for a few moments, disgraced and defeated… and then he began to laugh, long and loud, in an entirely different, but all too familiar voice.
"Well… I suppose it was too much to hope for that I'd surprise you AGAIN…" His face contorted in a mass of latex and wig as he clawed at it with one hand, then flew off to lie on the ground. Behind it, the familiar features of Dr. Albert Wily leered down at his enemy. "It seems you didn't care for my script… or my sense of humor. It's such a shame… I worked very hard on them for your benefit. But then you just HAD to look ahead at the ending…" He glanced upward. "It was that meddling brother of yours, wasn't it? Shouldn't he be blasting through the roof on that moth Cossack paid for his daughter with?" Mega Man gritted his teeth, forcing himself to ignore the slander of his friends.
"Wouldn't you like to know where he is… but no, he didn't tell me. Although I'd bet he knew too… me, though, I've known it ever since Centaur Man. He made it a point to emphasize the obvious… the whole thing, from the beginning… there's been nothing new about it at all. Nothing original. It's all been the same crap, repeated ad nauseum… every bit of it. This from a guy who not only created a Robot Master from knowledge learned entirely on observation, but made the first quadrapedal RM ever, one with all sorts of new tricks? I don't think so. No, the guy doing this would have a totally opposite mindset… one I was all too familiar with."
"As well you should be!" Wily cackled in glee. "It looks like what I told you in the Fourth has finally begun to sink in, Mega Man! It WILL always repeat! It WILL always come back to you! The same thing will happen over and over, as you've said! And it will KEEP doing that for all of your miserable mechanical life until you lie dead at last, because I will not stop until you fall!" His voice dropped into a hiss. "I… will… never… stop. THAT is the true lesson of this Rebellion, Mega Man, condensed and simplified for your benefit. I will never stop. In the end, that is all that is important, all that you need to know. You can beat me as many times as you wish… defeat me again and again, and it will mean nothing. You can never stop me." Staring up at the evil old man, Mega Man's eyes began to glow with rage as he once again heard Cossack's bitter words.
"No matter how hard you try… you can't stop him. You can't kill him, Mega Man." But this time, there was another memory accompanying it… another man's words. No… a ROBOT's words. Ones that spoke in complete opposition to Cossack's… the words of Doc Man, sane at last, as they sat side by side atop the burning wreckage of the Proto Fortress in their only, final moment of kinship.
"Plain and simple, cousin. My dad… Wily… he won't stop. He'll just keep coming on and on… UNTIL YOU KILL HIM."
"I…" Mega Man shook his head, then stared at his hands, which were trembling as well. "I shall… deny both…"
"What?" Wily blinked in false astonishment. "What are you babbling about now, fool? Is it finally getting to you? Are you going as cuckoo as they all say I am? Wouldn't that be something…"
"No…" Mega Man denied, more to the memories than to his enemy. "NO. I will stop you… I will stop all these Rebellions. I'm bringing you in, old man… you're coming with me."
"Oh, I think not." Wily grinned, reaching into a pocket and pulling out a familiar device, silver and cylindrical. A matter teleporter. "You seem to be forgetting one more part of our little game, Mega Man… after the unmasking, comes the TRUE fortress. The SKULL Fortress. And I can assure you, it shall be much more impressive than this… what did you call it… ah yes, this ritual." Mega Man glared back, realizing only too late that while he had brought the machine down, the actual cockpit had remained undamaged, and he hadn't had to actually cause it to go critical in order to stop it, so Wily had not needed to flee. In other words, there was no way he could stop the maniac from warping away, and they both knew it.
"Damn you…"
"I think I'm adequately damned already, but thanks for the support." Wily snickered. "Oh, before I rush off, you might as well have a parting gift… I believe it's also customary for my dupe to put in an appearance here. You'll have to forgive him for not being in the best condition… he's been rotting for more than a week now." From the ceiling hatch, something was tossed out and struck the ground with a meaty thump. Rushing over, Mega Man had to fight down an urge to retch. It was the corpse of 'himself' Wily had shown at the Tournament, now showing heavy signs of bacteria and insects decomposing it… and the latex mask it wore, which could not conceal its identity any more. The real Mr. X… Mega Man's friend, who had never betrayed him after all… lay dead at his feet in horrifying condition. "You might want to put my mask on him… he'd really look better with it on, I think. Hope you don't plan on giving him an open casket funeral, but then again it WOULD provide the onlookers with a handy vomitorium, wouldn't it…"
"You…" Mega Man's eyes flashed red as he slowly turned around. "When I get my hands on you…"
"You'll what?" Wily sneered. "Give me a stern talking to? Remember, little hero… FIRST LAW. No matter what I do to you, you can't even so much as twist my finger… you can destroy my machines all you want, but when it's me personally… you can't hurt me in even the slightest. Even think about it, and bang goes the brain… kind of like what happened to poor old X there." He giggled disgustingly. "I was tired of the live hostage bit anyways. Well, I think that about covers all of our business here… shall we be off, then? You know the drill, I lead the way, you give chase… the whole bit. Let's give it a go, shall we? I'll be seeing you again soon, with any luck, unless part of my newest abode does you in… not too likely, I'll admit, but hey, a guy's got to dream, right? Bye bye now…" Cackling again, he teleported away in a beam of light, leaving Mega Man alone in the deserted room with the corpse of Mr. X. Silently, he walked over to the machine and spent several minutes breaking open the cockpit to retrieve the black cloak, which Wily had shed in his escape. Wrapping the body of his friend in it, he picked it up and teleported to the front of the fortress, where he gently placed it on the ground.
"At least scavengers won't be around here…" The Blue Bomber whispered quietly. The scars from the nuking of the first Skull Fortress still remained on the site, keeping any biological life forms from moving back into the area for years to come… any save for one man driven beyond sanity a long time ago. "I'm sorry that I can't take you to a more secure location yet… but I can't make a long side trip right now. I need to go join my brother as soon as possible… I can't leave him alone in a Skull Fortress." He placed a hand on the cloak-wrapped corpse and smiled sadly. "You'd understand, I'm sure… you always were good at that. As soon as this is done with, I'll come back for you, I promise… we can at least give you a funeral. It's not enough, it'll never be enough… not for you, or any other victim of the Rebellions… but it's all I can do, aside from stopping him. I'm sorry." Turning away, he teleported off into the sky, heading for his destination with one thought burning in his mind.
WILY…