The Longest Day
Obviously I do not own any part of either Transformers or Mega Man. The Transformers Copyright is owned by Hasbro, and the Mega Man copyright is owned by Capcom. This is a work of Fandom and I do not gain any profit from it in any way.
Story takes place after the events of Mega Man 8 and during Season 2 of Transformers
Quick apologies: For making some pretty fanciful and geek assumptions about the hows and whys of Mega Man that I don't think were ever coverred officially. For giving personalities to Wily Bots in the cases where none had been given before. To all Zero fans, for writing a Zero with the Wily Protocols in tact. To all Jazz fans, if I don't do him justice. And finally for fitting in backstory in the cases where there may not have been any before -coughProtectobotscough-
--Part 1--
They really were like two thugs running away from the police after getting caught in the act of a crime. Heavy footfalls carried Rumble and Frenzy away from the power plant at a frantic pace. If they'd had lungs they would have been panting as they made their way into some ruined buildings where the rubble from a recent battle had left a series of unnatural caves. Prowl or the other Autobots that had been on their tail wouldn't have been able to follow them in here even if they'd been following them this far.
"Stupid Starscream!" Rumble pounded his fist into the wall at their side, grumbling deeply. Rumble always found a way to blame Starscream anytime the air commander wasn't around to hear him.
Frenzy turned a confused look toward his fellow cassetticon, "What did Starscream do?"
Rumble just shook his head and sat down on some debris that formed a mound near him. He put himself into a thinker's position and tried to recall the mission they'd just been on. No matter how much he wanted to, he couldn't really blame Starscream… at least not entirely. The mission had been one of the few covert missions that Megatron had sent them on since their arrival here on Earth. Place a device on each of the generators at a power-plant so that a significant portion of the energy created at the plant would be converted into energon for use by the Decepticons. As far as he could tell it had only been a coincidence that Bumblebee and Jazz had seen them fly in and apparently alerted Prowl and Ironhide to their presence. Being a covert mission, it was originally only supposed to be Frenzy, their boss and himself. Starscream's only real mistake was that he had invited himself along when the plan hadn't called for him to be there.
In truth, it was probably that reason that had allowed Frenzy and himself to escape the chase, the Autobots had chased after the bigger targets and the two cassetticons the ease of a few quick alleyway dodges. Now they were here… wait, where had Frenzy gone?
Frustrated, Rumble stood up and muttered something. He wasn't concerned so much about Frenzy's safety as he was about the fact that he might be held responsible if Frenzy did something stupid and Rumble came back without him. He moved deeper into the artificial caverns, grinning a little at the level of destruction that had taken place here. If he was a more artistic type he might consider it a real masterpiece, as it was he was fascinated with the amount of power that it would have taken to do this to a section of a town.
After a moment of searching, his audio receptors picked up an echo coming down one of the twisting caverns leading deeper into the rubble. Seeing some beams and debris moved to one side of a particular tunnel told him it was probably the one he was looking for. Rumble might not have been the brightest of Decepticons, but it would require a level of ignorance far below his own to miss something so blatant. Slugfest might have made the mistake, Rumble let out a low laugh and felt his favorite kind of pride. The pride that is gained at the expense of another.
Coming deeper through the maze, Rumble began to realize that he was underground now and no longer just under the remains of what had been on the surface. The tunnels were a little more stable now and he began to feel more like he was wandering through hallways as opposed to caverns. He felt something solid and metal creak under the weight of his foot and looked down at the remains of a… he'd be generous to call it primitive… robot bending and crushing under him.
Then he heard a somewhat maniacal chuckle and a small explosion come from around the corner. If nothing else he'd managed to find his compatriot…
The equipment in this room looked a little more advanced, but Rumble was still feeling too cool to admit that it was on par with anything they had back at base. He took a quick scan across the room, subconsciously looking for anything to pilfer that might win him some favor from the boss, or their boss' boss - Megatron.
"Let's smash it!" Frenzy said excitedly and stomped down on a broken piece of a robot.
Rumble was entertaining the idea for a while as he looked around the room. There were several components, and many computers still in tact. The room didn't look like it had been ravaged like the caverns they'd come down here through, it just looked like it had been left in disarray. He contorted his face as he looked over the dusty computer screens, chuckling a little when Frenzy tried to stomp on what looked like a dusty yellow hardhat and the bubble of metal didn't even dent. Frenzy followed it up by pummeling down on it with his pile-driver arms, and though the sound of the impact rang out through the room loud enough to bring chunks of dust down from the ceiling and walls, the little yellow object wasn't any worse for the wear.
Rumble held up a hand as if he were calling rank, a rank that he didn't have over the other Cassetticon, "Hold on, hold on…"
Frenzy growled a little and stopped, "What?"
"You know what the big boss always says…" he put his hand behind his head as he tried to remember the words. Megatron's exact words had been: 'There is no technology that doesn't bring power with it'. The best that Rumble could remember them to repeat them to Frenzy was: "Uh… all tech stuff is uh… cool." He knew for certain that wasn't what he was trying to say, but let it slide, "Or something like that."
Folding his arms the red Cassetticon sneered a little, "Okay. So what're you sayin', then?"
"I'm sayin'…" Rumble began trying to match Frenzy's tone, not having any more patience with explaining himself than the other Cassetticon, "Maybe if we bring back some of this stuff back to the big boss and maybe he overlooks our most royal of screw-ups on the mission today!" the idea wasn't brilliant, but he was expecting that Starscream and the boss would have gone back empty handed, which meant any offering to Megatron would likely turn his anger away from them. Not that they wanted anything negative to happen to Soundwave, but in the long run if it fell down to a choice between themselves and him… somewhere in his circuitry Rumble felt dirty for even having the thought. No, they'd pretend that it was all part of a plan that Soundwave had had, it wouldn't take much to make Starscream the full recipient of Megatron's anger, anyhow. He tried to ready himself for the labor of moving as much as they could to a point where they could signal for a pick-up, chuckling again at the yellow hardhat on the floor, "If nothing else we got a neat little hat to give to the big boss that'll probably protect his processors from some Autobot fire."
Frenzy looked down at the yellow object, "No way! I found it, it's my hat!" he insisted reaching down for it and fully intending to put it on his head.
"Alright…" Rumble conceded, "You better hope Megatron shoots from directly above you when he finds out you kept it, then." He didn't have to look to know that Frenzy had stopped reaching for the object, and the two of them began by pulling the computers from the walls…
--
Just a boy taking his dog out for a walk. That's what he'd intended for the afternoon to be when he'd left that day. Maybe they'd play a little fetch, maybe he'd read some comic books in the park while his dog dug holes for no reason other than the fact that he was a dog. Of course, he'd had that plan plenty of times in the past and it hardly ever worked out that way. He just wasn't normal. He wasn't a normal boy, and his dog wasn't a normal dog. The two of them were two of the most advanced robotic life forms ever created by the hand of man.
His name was Rock Light. But, most of the world knew him as Mega Man. He liked the idea that he was a super-hero sometimes, other times he hated it. But he knew deep down that it wasn't the expectations of others that made him do it. There were just things he could do that most humans - and even a lot of other robots - couldn't do. To him that meant he was obligated to use those talents to help both people and robots.
The confines of a park were too small and public for the kind of rough-housing that Rock liked with his favorite pet. Going outside of the city also allowed him to escape being found by his father or his sister too easily. After all, there was probably something he was supposed to be doing at home. Sometimes Dr. Light seemed to forget that he wasn't designed to be a house-cleaning robot any more.
A slight groan escaped his mouth when he'd recognized the all too familiar sounds of trouble in his city. The solid-light emitters within his body manifested his familiar blue boots, gauntlets and helmet while simultaneously removing the holographic clothing that had covered the blue bodysuit that he wore over his cybernetic frame. His sister Roll liked to refer to it as "zapping his costume on". Inside his body the emitters altered the structure of his left arm, the gauntlet becoming the arm and the hand sinking inside the body to be reprocessed to connect the weapons systems and bring them online. He didn't know exactly how all of it worked, he didn't like to think of it any more than any human liked to think about how their digestive tract worked, preferring only to worry about it if the desired results didn't occur. Only three other robots had a system as complex. His sister Roll had a system that could replicate tools but not weaponry, his nemesis Bass had a system based off of the design… and then there was his older brother…
No changes in costume were necessary for his canine companion, the red helmet, body and paws always present on the dog. They didn't change their appearances for any hopes at hiding their identities. It had been big news when Dr. Light had made the breakthroughs he had in robotics that had eventually led to their creation. Even if he hadn't been a hero he would have had that kind of celebrity. Rock just felt more comfortable without his weapons systems active when he was out in town. It might mean he was technically defenseless for a precious second if he was surprised, but he just couldn't find comfort in walking around brandishing a blaster everywhere he went.
So their day had been ruined to some extent, they wouldn't get to do all those boy and his dog activities that he'd had planned for the afternoon. He wished that eager growl from Rush meant that his companion was as focused on the task as he was, but he knew the truth. They might not have gotten to do anything Rock thought was fun, but every dog loves to chase cars… and they'd all love it even more if they could keep up on the freeway.
Mega Man kept his balance standing on top of his dog like he were a surfboard, riding invisible waves through the air while a stream of hot rocket fire tailed behind them. The stories they'd seen on the news from all over the world told them that Rush's ability to transform into various forms wasn't unique, but the same solid-light technology that worked Mega Man's weapons also meant that the amount of forms that Rush could potentially take put him - at least if you asked Rock - way ahead of any alien robots.
He hadn't had much interaction with the Transformers as a whole, and admittedly wasn't very familiar with either side. His brother Fire Man often tried to talk to him about the current events involving the alien robots, and Mega Man had managed to commit it to memory that the Autobots were the good guys and the Decepticons were the bad guys. Though, even in the case of his nemesis, Dr. Wily, he didn't like to think of it as so black and white. He didn't want to believe that they were bad just because they were Decepticons, believing that there had to be some underlying politics or something behind the war that wasn't common knowledge. That belief had kept him out of the battles so far, but he wasn't about to let a wild semi-truck and four sports cars tear up his highways without letting them know whose town they'd come into…
Panic washed over his face as Rush pushed harder to try and catch up with the rampaging pack of cars pushing other vehicles off the road. He wanted desperately to slow down and help the people in those cars, but they were just being pushed into the grassy field outside of town. As violent as some of the impacts were, they could have been much worse if there was something to throw them into. Mega Man knew any drivers or pedestrians wouldn't be so lucky once they made it into the city limits.
The roads were clear now, but they were getting close to the city. At this speed he might have another fifteen minutes or so. All that remained behind the pack of cars was a police car that looked like it was from out of town, and a motorcycle that seemed to be expertly weaving around and between them. Moving at the speeds they were, Mega Man didn't notice that neither vehicle had a driver of any kind. As unpredictably wild as the pack of Decepticons were, he was having a hard time steadying his Mega Buster on them and let out a quick spray of three shots aimed ahead of the yellow race car that was coming out from the rear and apparently trying to trade positions with the white sports car that was only inches in front of it. Two of the shots landed but didn't seem to slow the vehicle down any, the third shot blew a beach ball sized crater into the asphalt that made Mega Man wince when he saw the clean white police car heading for it. He let out an audible sigh of relief when the car maneuvered around it, but it made him rethink his strategy. It wasn't like he was providing them with any bird's eye information that the helicopter above him couldn't do just as well.
In the air and shooting down he wasn't any use to the law enforcement officials that were helping him chase the Stunticons down. He pushed himself up and jumped just a few inches off of Rush as he called out to the dog. Reconfiguring itself it landed on the road as a motorcycle with the body of a dog, Mega Man landing on top of it with a slightly less than graceful thud and a masterful control to alter the sliding wheels from the impact.
At first his eyes closed and he screamed instinctually as he suddenly became a target for the crazy cars around him. Each of them taking turns boxing him in and then coming at him with quick sharp turns trying to slam into him from all sorts of angles. He actively winced a little when he could swear he heard them laughing. When he realized how intuitively Rush was able to respond even without him controlling, however, he became a little more relaxed and saw their attacks as what they really were. A game. They were rushing in at him, but usually didn't follow much when
Rush evaded them. They were toying with him, which opened his eyes - figuratively and literally - to another way of seeing their behavior. Opportunity…
As his brother Bomb Man would say, if you're surrounded it doesn't matter what direction you shoot. That wasn't entirely the case, he realized, he didn't want to shoot behind him and risk them dodging and the blast finding it's way to one of the law enforcement vehicles that were giving chase along with him. But of three hundred and sixty degrees, that still left him with a very large piece of the circle for firing without regret.
He fired again, three more shots this time aiming at the blood crimson colored sports car to his left. Each shot hit, but there seemed to be some kind of force field absorbing the blasts. He frowned and wished for a minute that his optics were better designed for scanning, they worked well for identifying some energy fields - he had no problem telling how much energy a Wily Bot had left in it's core, for example - but in this case he hadn't even noticed the force field until shots from his Mega Buster had actually collided with it.
Dodging another swerve from the white car he took a chance while it was in close and fired another three shots in quick succession aimed right at the wheel he was frighteningly close to.
He watched as the field around this car ate away at the shots…
Until the third one.
Sparks flew for a second from the hubcap on the wheel and the faint glow of plasma interacting with metal flashed across it. So even under the force field they were heavily armored. But at least he knew he could get through the field if he had to. As welcome as that realization was, the fact that he hadn't done any real damage was disheartening to say the least. It wasn't just unlikely he'd manage to inflict enough damage to stop them before they reached the city… heck, he thought, calling it a pipe dream was generous. He was already letting energy gather into his Mega Buster for the next shot, the barrel beginning to glow yellow then orange then pinkish red, but he wasn't really expecting much from his next experiment. Really, at this point, he'd settle for just pissing one of them off.
"Alright Rush!" his child like voice filled with determination as well as frustration and the dog zoomed in to carry him closer to the apparent leader of the pack. The rear wheels of the enormous ebony semi-truck coming so close to him that he was reminded of old movies that his father liked to watch. He felt like some man with a bad mustache had tied him and his dog to a conveyer belt to get this close to the spinning death.
They were close now. Too close. The only thing between the semi leading them and the city was an ambulance and a fire truck. Processes working as fast as they were, he did have a microsecond to realize that the presence of both of those vehicles seemed premature, but he was grateful for them.
Opening his mouth a reddish brown light began to form in Rush's maw, he looked a little like a dopey little stupid mutt at home with a cartoon mouse, but these road raging cars were about to find out why he was the best damn guard dog around. While Mega Man was still steadying his arm and letting the pink glow turn brighter at the tip of his Buster, the dog let out a seemingly endless stream of missiles trying as much as he could to concentrate them on the tires and axle of the truck's trailer. After a barrage of thirty seemed to weaken the outer field, Rock unleashed the energy he'd charged into his blaster. A bright rainbow of plasma launching out of his arm condensed into a wide fiery ball that drilled into the axle just inside from the rear driver's side tire. He didn't think it would destroy the vehicle or anything so grandiose, reserving himself instead to disrupting his drive enough so that all he had to do was have Rush slam down the brakes.
The tire wobbled on the axle and eventually the trailer began to shake and twist on the road before sliding sideways and fishtailing the truck. Mega Man couldn't help but feel a little content with himself when he watched it start to run sideways on it's own momentum, hoping that the way he saw the metal beginning to contort was from some damage that he might have caused the truck. The whole thing didn't even take a second, and if Mega Man hadn't planned on it, he wouldn't have had time to stop either. He'd already resigned himself to the concept that his Mega Buster wasn't enough of a punch to knock any of them out, but he wanted to see what the effect would be if they ran into each other…
One by one, each of the cars following the truck became a missile pounding into it. So close together the sound of the impact registered as a single noise. The truck, already in transformation from vehicle to robot was flung backward by the impact, two of the other cars spun out and crashed again into each other. The last two were on the outside of the impact, one grazed against the cab of the truck which left it being dragged under the foot of the black robot for a second. The blood crimson sports car was the luckiest, only scratching a long line along the roof of the car as it ran first across and then under the tail of the trailer, the out of control wheel that caused the pile-up doing unapologetic violence to the car's paint but leaving it otherwise unscathed.
He was feeling mighty proud of himself until he saw the law enforcement vehicles zoom past him. He went to scream, but he really didn't have much time. The police car managed a sharp turn to the side and to cease it's motion with an ear shattering screech from it's wheels. The motorcycle, on the other hand, was not so lucky. It was in too centrally to have the ease of a turn like the car had. Mega Man's optics seemed to freeze on the instant that he saw it crash, roll, and flip over the yellow race car and bounce off of the arm of the black robot that had once been a truck.
Rock's first thought was for the driver that he didn't know had never been present on the motorcycle. Jumping up again and returning his dog to Rush Jet mode, he began to circle the area in a panic trying to find the officer before the wicked robot he'd just angered found him. He didn't want to give the menace a hostage. He couldn't know that there hadn't been anybody riding the motorcycle, he'd only seen it for a moment and he hadn't really been paying attention. It would be a concern that resulted in a dangerous second of confusion.
Motormaster had the perfect hostage in that there wasn't one there. The little blue robot swirling and zipping back and forth in a confused daze, too shocked to realize what was going on. As eager as Motormaster was to deal with the Autobots near him, it hadn't been them that had managed to take him off the road. Until now, he'd been able to say that the only one able to take him off the road was Optimus Prime… he'd never live it down if the second to do so was a stupid little blue blip too low on the robotic ladder to even be compared to him. He laughed as he fired a blast from his rifle taking the red dog out from under the boy and letting the boy land face first on the ground…
Rush let out a yelp that was at first organic and pitiful, but in the duration of a syllable reverted into a hollow canned sound more like a recording than a real dog. The static ridden sound wrenched Mega Man's heart out even as the support of the platform the flying dog provided was torn out from under him. His momentum carrying him in the opposite direction that Rush had been sent flying, he was forced into a somersault flip like a vaudeville comedian having a rug pulled out from under him. He managed to see a sparking husk that resembled primary components of his dog before a flash came over his optics when his head impacted with the ground. When the light subsided and his vision flickered clear again, he was staring right down the barrel of Motormaster's atom smasher rifle…
To Be Continued