Chapter 15 - Things Get Haywire

Sherrie's right hand was playing with her curly brown hair, her left hand tapping lightly against the desk. She had been there longer than she should have been, neither the Vice President, nor her replacement had showed up yet, and she was beginning to get bored, and tired as well.

'President Goompas' files are never going to get done at this rate.'

She sat back in her brown chair, moving her left hand from the desk to the computer keyboard, typing in a few things here and there, organizing random files and deleting unnecessary government documents, like the President's resume and the VP's folder of.. Explicit pictures.

'These two are horrible.'

Cicero snatched his comb up and pulled it through his dark brown hair slowly, nodding at the handsome face in the mirror. He tossed the comb into the passenger seat of his hover-car, before opening his door and stepping out on to concrete parking way. He closed his door and locked it with a voice command. He strolled into the building, a slight swagger to his step, his hazel eyes almost sparkling in the sunlight.

"Good morning Sherrie." The receptionist only scoffed and threw a folder at him, "The President wants you to sort through that and finish all the documents on his desk."

"Right-o."

Cicero set his hand on the golden doorknob and pushed it down, entering into Goompas' office. He stopped and gaped a little at the stacks of papers upon the President's big mahogany desk.

'Oh.. Well.. Dammit.'

Doctor Raijouta stood at the head of the lab table containing the leader to the Wandering Souls group. Dynamo laid before him, his chest opening up and multiple wires unattached. He sighed a little, assigning two other scientists to finish coupling the wires together. He strolled away from Dynamo and stopped at another table. This table had Forte atop it, already completed, just waiting to be activated.

"As soon as we finish Dynamo, activate Forte and get him online, got it?" The three scientists nodded their heads in unison, then went back to checking their data to make sure it was correct.

Raijouta made his way around the room to each table containing the remaining three members of the Wandering Souls; Storm Eagle, Flame Stag, and Slash Beast. All three of them were in the same state of Forte, complete just still inactive. He told the doctors at each table the same thing as the ones at Forte's table, activate them as soon as Dynamo was online. Raijouta then strolled over to where Andehshun, Malone, and Stabler were working, half of the table covered in random parts, the other containing a half-built chest and a head.

"What is this you are making, Dr. Andehshun?" Raijouta asked, slightly perplexed at all the random devices strewn across the table.

"It's of no concern to you, Raijouta.." Malone snapped, a pair of electric scissors in his hand as he clipped a few wires, and Stabler rerouted them to where they should go.

Andehshun smirked a little and added the finished touches to the face mask, the silver metal contoured to Paragon's face perfectly. He quickly clasped the face mask on and grabbed a sheet of dense black sheeting. He began forming it to fit over Paragon's eyes and attach up into the helmet. He slid the opaque sheet up over Paragon's closed eyes and attached it into the helmet, making it tight. Stabler pushed the gem set into the middle of Paragon's forehead and the shades flashed, schematic readouts running down the shades, then flashing away as he repressed the button.

"It's working perfectly, Andehshun." Stabler commented, and Andehshun only smiled.

Raijouta slit his eyes and a little and then turned his back on the three expert Roboticists, returning to the table that held Dynamo atop of it. The five scientists around the table were scrambling for certain tools all at once, working at a hurried pace. Raijouta stood at the end of the table and watched them work, each adding on a new piece to the arms and legs. One doctor out of the five was working quickly on the chest panel, attaching four wires at once and then rerouting them to the power core channel.

'He's almost done..' Those thoughts were in both Raijouta's head, as well as Andehshun's, as they both worked on their projects.

Faern was slowly rubbing his fingers into his temples as Shift tried to reason with Mega Man. Blues said nothing, only stood off to the side, his eyes slowly moving back and forth between Shift and Mega Man as they talked.

"This isn't about fighting, Mega Man. This is about living and saving people!"

"Fighting is involved. I've been doing that my entire life. Fighting."

"You saved millions of people by doing it!"

"And in the end they all died anyway."

"You're thinking about this the wrong way, Mega Man."

"It doesn't matter.. I've fought for too long and everything I fought for is gone. I have nothing. I won't go on fighting in YOUR blasted war! Do this one on your own!"

Shift couldn't win this argument and he knew it. He stared at the floor for a moment and then glanced over at Blues, who was staring at him silently. Blues nodded a little and turned and walked over to Mega Man, speaking silently to him, neither Shift nor Faern could pick it up.

"Mega.. You don't have to fight anymore."

"I don't plan to."

"At least help them though.. Help them rebuild everything you worked so hard to protect. Help protect people again."

"How?"

"Teach." Mega Man perked a brow at that and shook his head a little, "Teach what?"

"Teach newly built Reploids how to fight, how to protect, how to survive."

"... I can do that." Blues nodded, "That's the brother I knew."

'I hope Blues knows what he's doing.. Mega Man would be a great asset, maybe Blues can get him to change his mind.'

Faern looked over at Shift as Blues turned back around and walked over to Shift, standing a few feet in front of him. Mega Man turned and walked over to stand beside his brother, their red and blue metals contrasting strongly to one another. Blues locked eyes with Shift as he spoke, "He's not going to help you fight."

"Bu-" Blues cut Shift off quickly, "But he will help you."

"How?" Blues turned his gaze toward Faern, "He'll train all the Reploids you build how to fight. If they need it, of course."

"And what will you do, Blues?" Blues returned his gaze to Shift, who took a step toward the red Reploid, "I have a buster, it was made for fighting, that's how it will be used."

Cicero snatched up a stack of folders and took them into his office, which was connected to one side of the President's office. He dropped the stack on to his desk and began sifting through the folders, tossing important ones into the middle of his desk and tossing the rest out into the middle of his chambers.

'What are all these things about, anyway?'

Cicero grabbed a random folder from the stack and flipped it open, reading through it quickly. He blinked a few times and reread the title, his eyes widening. The title read clearly, in big bold black letters, 'Mavericks'.

Mega Man stared at Blues' back as he spoke to Shift. He slipped his left hand down underneath the gauntlet of his right hand, hoping that they had followed his designs perfectly. He smiled to himself as he pushed his forefinger into the small button there.

Duo leaned against the massive concrete wall, his massive hand wringing his normal one, sighing heavily. It had been days since he had done anything important in the universe and he was getting rather bored of no work. He jerked slightly as a small ringing went off in his ear.

'Mega Man's signal?'

Right after he disabled the ringing in his ears, someone came running up to him. The young lady robot handed off a sheet of paper the color of teal to him and then ran back the way she had come. Duo's eyes scanned down the sheet slowly, gritting his teeth sharply.

'First Mega Man is reactivated.. And then a report of Dark Energy on Earth.. Something is up. And I'm going to go find out.'

Duo crunched the paper up within his massive hand, dropping the wad of paper to the ground. He ran off to the air-bay, where he would be leaving in the quickest ship they had available. He just hoped he made it to Earth before anything extremely wrong happened there.

Lizzy growled as she spun around on her heel, the beam axe sawing through multiple Joe's at once, what was left of them exploding in her aftermath. She leaped over an incoming plasma shot and cleaved both sides of her axe down through the Grenadier's body, dashing forward as it exploded.

'Most excitement I've had in a while. I LOVE my job!'

"Haha! Bring it on Maverick-scum! I got enough femme-angst to go around!"

The sounds of explosion came to all ears as Lizzy slammed through the front door, rolling through the doorway, her buster out, unleashing multiple waves of plasma into oncoming Repliroids. Shift and Blues both dashed over to her, Blues dragging her into the room. Shift leaped over Lizzy and her axe, landing in the doorway and forming a buster, firing off a few rounds before slamming closed the door and setting himself against it.

"Hi Lizzy." Lizzy stared at the silver Reploid for a moment, then smirked, "So.. Shift lives."

"Wanna tell us what's going on?" Lizzy stared at the red Reploid with its hands on her, "Wanna stop touching me, pervert?"

Blues' face flushed slightly as he let go of her and stepped away, allowing Lizzy to get to her feet. She dusted herself off, flicked her hair out of her face and gave an evil grin, "I've come to save your sorry butts."

"Has Sebastian really come THAT far along already?" Lizzy turned to Faern, "You must be Faern. And yes, he has.. Obviously. Unless he's getting help from someone."

Shift liquified himself and pasted himself like a massive trampoline over the doorway, each slam from the Mavericks causing his body to jerk inward a little. His head appeared near the middle, "As soon as I let go, attack them. We can't let them in here." Lizzy and Blues both nodded, Lizzy morphed her hand back into her buster, wielding her axe with her right hand. Blues morphed his hand into his buster as well, picking his shield up off his lab table and standing next to Lizzy, awaiting Shift's release. Mega Man stood there at the back of the room, watching them, unable to bring himself to help them.

'I hope I'm doing the right thing by refusing to help them fight.. I've done enough on my own, I can't be deemed responsible for the future's actions.'

Sebastian sat in his lab chair, his eyes on the computer screen in front of him. He had enough money stored away to buy out an old factor in disrepair and bring it up to par for what he wanted to do. The factory itself was now mass-producing multiple types of Reploids all at once. From Met's and Joe's to Quaker's and Crusher's.

'This new era has yet to begin, Faern.. Do you think you can keep up with me now?'

Sebastian glanced over at the table where Shoryu was finally beginning to awaken, his arm rebuilt, as well as a few new things added in to make sure he didn't lose anything else in battle. Sebastian turned back to the screen, looking through the eyes of his Cam-Bots. His mind was wandering on to other things, when Elcazor slammed through the front door, walking over to the table and pushing himself up on to it, growling angrily.

"Fix me, now. I have unfinished business to attend to." Sebastian sighed heavily, "Both of you are going to be the death of me, I swear. First missions and you were both injured. It's going to be a long day.."