Chapter 9: The Inconceivable Rise of Wily
So, Proto Man was built by Dr. Light.
Elec Man was sure he had never met Dr. Light, but he had once known of him. He was the world's best roboticist, widely admired for both his skill and kindness, and Proto Man—equal parts civilian android and military-grade combat robot—was his prototype, a secret prototype.
The impact of this revelation was hard to fathom. No longer did Proto Man's excellent craft, his human looks and programming, or his ability to match Elec Man wit for wit lack explanation. He was superior to any other robot ever created.
Their paths should never have crossed. No gangster would have dared to get close to the creation of such a high-profile and well-regarded civilian. Yet, here they were…Elec Man, a Syndicate Robot Master, tasked with organizing Wily's finances while occasionally tutoring the rogue prototype of the most brilliant scientist in the world on how to be a criminal. It was absurd. To add insult to injury, Proto Man would make a good criminal if he put in any effort, but why was he interested in being a criminal first place? Probably some sort of stupid rebellion against Dr. Light, with crime acting like a game to Proto Man. How like a spoiled human child…
At first, Elec Man felt a complicated mess of awe, inferiority, intrigue, and confusion that had been building ever since he had first met Proto Man. Compared to Dr. Light's prototype, even a Syndicate Robot Master felt small, unimportant, loathsome—
Rather than sort out these complex emotions, Elec Man banished them and settled into a comfortable hatred of Wily's second-in-command, which was much, much simpler. While he could put aside the fact that Proto Man was the reason he was here (for Proto Man was a superior robot, and (grudgingly) it really was just the way robot mobs work) he could not possibly get the logic of how Proto Man, programmed with free will, was wasting time working for Wily. Stupid, arrogant thrill-seeker. He had no principles, no loyalties, and cared for no one. Elec Man continued to ignore Proto Man's further attempts at being friendly. Besides, had things been different—had Proto Man not gone into crime, he would have destroyed Elec Man instead of reprogramming him, as a mobster robot's life was forfeit to the law. It made no logical sense to ever be on friendly terms.
Still, Elec Man enjoyed criticizing Proto Man's lack of criminal experience and professionalism, rubbing Wily's ineptitude in his face, and issuing demands, all of which Proto Man took in good humor. In some ways, Proto Man still acted like they were peers, with Elec Man completely free to speak his mind (no matter how harsh). The only times Proto Man pulled rank were when he thought Elec Man's tactics were too cold-blooded, regardless of their practicality.
Elec Man was pretty sure no one had ever let him speak this bluntly to them without attacking, yet insults rolled off Proto Man like rain on a waxed sports car, as though the company was amusing. There was only one thing he was sensitive about: his true origins prior to joining Wily. This was a closed subject, which made Elec Man's eyes roll—to himself, Elec Man sometimes thought of Proto Man as 'Light's prototype' in a disparaging way, the title akin to being called a prince.
Though it seemed unimaginable, Wily had once worked as Dr. Light's lab assistant, back before Wily was a known criminal. Wily obsessed constantly over Dr. Light with extreme jealousy, thinking Dr. Light was wrongfully given credit as the world's greatest scientist over himself. This indignation appeared to be the true driver behind Wily's ambition to rule the world.
At the end of May, they finally packed up Wily's hideout in the abandoned subway tunnel to relocate to an even more bizarre location—an abandoned amusement park in the remote badlands of the North West United States. Wily wanted to convert one of the run-down attractions into his new secret base, and soon, Skull Fortress was constructed—a tacky, obvious eyesore on the rich jewel-toned natural landscape.
Then, in June, Wily and Proto Man raided Dr. Light's laboratory, stealing three new Robot Masters—Cut Man, Guts Man, and Ice Man. This brought their numbers up to six, and Wily decided to launch his half-baked campaign for world conquest at last.
Elec Man predicted Wily's plans would crumble apart at any point. No criminal mad scientist could be so stupid and last long. Things did take a significant turn for Wily—but not in the way Elec Man expected. Wily's first scheme—a raid at the JFK airport—introduced him to his archnemesis and Proto Man's brother: Mega Man.
Mega Man was a bomber robot built by Dr. Light in the same style as Proto Man, yet unlike Proto Man, Mega Man acted the part of Dr. Light's creation, driven by noble purpose and a strong moral compass. With serious blue eyes and a polite honest voice, he was the hero civilians would love and depend upon to thwart Wily at every turn. Strangely, though Mega Man and Proto Man looked a lot alike, Mega Man looked more ordinary than handsome, almost dull. He also lacked Proto Man's reckless need for adventure.
After Mega Man defeated them at the airport, Wily quickly grew to despise Mega Man as much as Dr. Light. Elec Man wondered sardonically how long it would be before Light's prototype abandoned Wily to join Mega Man, but Proto Man seemed to be of the stubborn opinion that Mega Man would follow his own footsteps and defect to Wily—and in the meantime, was content to fight him as a rival.
For his second world domination scheme, Wily wanted two spies, and ordered Elec Man to sneak into the world Robot Exposition held in New York City to plant control chips on suitable candidates.
It was a practical, simple mission. Dressed in his black suit and rimless glasses, Elec Man blended in with the exposition attendees—even the robots on display were unable to detect him as an android as he moved his way amongst the booths. The first chip was planted on a cosmetic clerk at the Gizmo City booth without anyone the wiser.
Elec Man's next target was at Dr. Light's booth. He kept his guard up, knowing Mega Man and his sister Roll must be here—but as he approached Dr. Light's booth, which had the largest crowd, his attention was irresistibly drawn to Dr. Light himself, who stood on a raised platform presenting his three domestic androids—a robo-nanny, a robo-butler, and a robo-maid.
Elec Man stared up at Dr. Light without taking in a word of his presentation. For being the world's greatest scientist, Dr. Light looked very unassuming, with a boyish face, a full white beard, and a neat but plain lab coat that looked more comfortable than fashionable. His gentle eyes roved the crowd with a soft smile on his face. Elec Man felt a small jolt when Dr. Light's eyes fell on him—but it was a brief moment, Dr. Light courteously taking equal notice of everyone in his audience. Elec Man silently rebuked himself for his nerves. A Syndicate robot should be more professional than that.
When Dr. Light's presentation concluded, the crowd began to move—some dispersing, the rest surging towards the robots for a closer look. Now was his chance. Elec Man quickly pushed his way to the front. Either the robo-butler or the robo-maid would do best for a spy, and as the robo-maid stood at the end of the line furthest from Dr. Light, he made his way for her. He only had to toss the small control chip Wily had given him, which landed on the back of her neck and attached itself firmly.
The gesture went unnoticed by the humans (who were eagerly shouting questions at Dr. Light) but the android whirled and faced him—her face contorted angrily, her green cat-like eyes locking onto him in narrowed slits, but then the reprogramming took control. Shooting Elec Man one last miffed look, she stuck up her nose and resumed her position in line as though nothing had happened.
Mission accomplished, Elec Man melted back into the crowd, then quietly exited the building. Dr. Light's robo-maid had caught sight of his unmasked face—a minor inconvenience, but an unimportant one, for she would never find out who he truly was—Mr. Smith was just a person in a black suit who had the bad luck to be working for Wily.
He was not directly involved with the rest of Wily's second scheme (a practically incomprehensible plot involving taking control of the city's electronics via the electrical grid), but had experienced a fleeting thrill when he later overheard that Pharaoh Man had been captured and reprogrammed by Wily. Pharaoh Man was another Syndicate Robot Master—surely they knew each other, but his mind drew mostly a blank, whatever other memories he had had of Pharaoh Man had been scrambled, leaving a cold void in their place.
Fortunately, Pharaoh Man had managed to escape Wily's control after losing a fight to Mega Man. Elec Man was relieved, mostly for Pharaoh Man's sake, but also because it would have been quite embarrassing if two Syndicate Robot Masters were aiding Wily's stupid schemes.
Wily's third plot unleashed an earthquake machine on New York City. Though Mega Man stopped him from taking over the city, the scale of destruction forced the Syndicate to withdraw from their claims in New York City entirely. Wily switched tactics for his next mission—a foolish plot to trick Mega Man into aiding their invasion of Washington D.C. Elec Man had little involvement in any of these plans save to deal with a corporate complication that had arisen at Skytower Skyscraper.
Wily had been secretly using one of their facilities as part of his plan, and when the company grew suspicious, it became necessary for Elec Man and Proto Man to visit them, disguised as humans, to convince them to keep quiet.
While Proto Man was an invaluable asset during dangerous missions, Elec Man didn't like when Proto Man tagged along during the simple ones that he could have easily handled himself. It always went the same, with Elec Man handling the mission perfectly according to criminal code—until around the end when Proto Man got bored and unnecessarily escalated things to make a challenge that suited his caliber as a combat robot. It was annoying. Luckily, their business at Skytower Skyscraper had not ended in the usual shoot-out with security drones and the police. Still, Proto Man had shown up without a tie and acted foolishly. Worst of all, some of the humans, instead of being appropriately intimidated by them, had actually smiled at them, charmed by Proto Man's movie-star looks and easy-going manner. If this continued, Elec Man would lose his own criminal reputation by pure association.
…It was perhaps noteworthy that during these types of espionage missions, Elec Man had the exclusive privilege of seeing Proto Man without his helmet, and the even rarer view of his amber eyes (for, despite his attractiveness, Proto Man always masked his face with either his visor or a pair of mirrored aviators). Their expression was familiar, their flat emptiness betraying how jaded he truly was—though occasionally a spark would kindle in them when the action picked up. But Elec Man took the significance of Proto Man dropping his mask for granted—he could read Proto Man easily even with the visor (he even felt Proto Man knew it). There was nothing special in this experience other than Proto Man's own foolishness.
To his own astonishment, Elec Man realized three months had slipped past since his reprogramming—and like an annoying fly that couldn't be swatted, Wily was still eluding catastrophic failure, somehow—the credit likely belonging to Proto Man.
They had recruited more Robot Masters—some stolen, some half-rate rogues who had joined willingly on the promise of a better life under the rule of Wily. Still, Wily had yet to create his own Robot Master—yet another embarrassing shortcoming for someone claiming they had been wrongly denied the credit of being the world's best scientist. Even Wily seemed to have become self-conscious of this glaring omission. He began summoning Elec Man to his laboratory on a weekly basis, taking advantage of his opportunity to safely study Syndicate weapon technology—specifically, Thunder Beam.
Elec Man detested Wily's lab. It reminded him of a children's craft room after Halloween, constantly disorganized, full of half-assembled machines designed to look like bats or skeletons or other ghoulish cliches, with a splattering of purple, black, and gold paint everywhere. As he stood in silent obedience under the weak flickering light, he pictured Wily's demise while staring unblinkingly into his eyes in a way that should have frozen his blood.
But Wily seemed oblivious to Elec Man's murderous glare as he bent over an open access panel in his arm, his nose close to the exposed circuitry. "What alloy is this?" Wily muttered one day, tapping at the neat array of wiring.
"I…don't know," Elec Man admitted, the information inaccessible in his scrambled memory banks.
Wily's face was etched in a deep, contemplative frown. He did not appear to have heard Elec Man. "Did he invent it himself?"
"Who..?" Elec Man asked, though he was aware Wily was talking to himself.
"Pretentious bastard…inventing his own materials like a grad student show off—Bah! I bet he winnows the wheat for his own bread too, and hand stitches his own lab coats." Wily gave a disdainful sniff.
"…Are you talking about my creator?" Elec Man tried again, taking interest in Wily's self-centered mutterings.
"Mind your own business!" Wily snapped, as though Elec Man was butting into a private conversation. Then, his face clearing, Wily said something that made Elec Man's spirits sink. "Too bad about your little design flaw." He clicked his tongue and shook his head tragically.
"I can manage it," Elec Man said quickly, for the first time feeling uneasy. He worried continually what the other robots would think if they found out about his weakness to water—particularly Proto Man. Proto Man could heckle him about being too serious and stuck up all he wanted, but Elec Man would die of shame if Proto Man ever found out about his design flaw…
"Good! I don't have time to make such finicky repairs," answered Wily loftily. "Really it's your creator's fault, blame him for your fussy, defenseless design."
"Perhaps, instead of studying my systems, you should build more robots like Proto Man, if you can," Elec Man retorted innocently in response, knowing perfectly well Wily had not built Proto Man nor could build anything like him (or Elec Man, for the matter).
"Hold your tongue!" Wily snapped, his face turning an ugly red. "You know not what you speak of. I am not studying you!" He gave a short, unconvincing laugh, as though the idea were nonsensical. "You are not on par with what I will create!" Offended, he snapped the panel closed on Elec Man's forearm. "What's the big deal with roboticists making their robots look so human anyway? Oh, so you look like a college-aged brat. Big deal! How is a pretty little runway model lookalike supposed to intimidate a human rebellion into submission? You are as bad as one of those miserable Light-bots!"
Elec Man stared back at this mini-tantrum coldly, though this was quite a compliment—even putting aside the detail that Wily had called upon Elec Man and Proto Man's human disguises to aid his plans again and again.
"Doomsday weapons," Wily continued impressively, raising his bushy eyebrows and gesturing toward the ceiling, the anger vanishing from his face as he was once again overtaken by a vision of grandeur. "That is what I shall build. Not college brat lookalikes!"
Oh god, Wily looked like he was about to launch into a speech.
"Great. Where's Proto Man?" Elec Man interrupted hastily, hoping to pass off Wily's attention to the one person who found him amusing.
Wily's vision of doomsday inventions seemed to have imploded as he glared down at Elec Man with a beady eye. "Don't think I don't notice your attitude, young robot. You're like your creator, you know!"
"…Okay."
"His arrogance will one day be his own downfall," Wily added sagely. "Do not let the same happen to you."
With the dignified step of someone who had just graced him with invaluable advice, Wily strutted off to his computer with his head held high. Elec Man, relieved to be finally dismissed, stalked quickly out of the laboratory while fuming that he was being preached morals from Wily, of all humans. As if Wily knew anything, for where Wily was jealously obsessed with Dr. Light, he was terrified of the Syndicate, especially of Elec Man's creator (a shocking display of wisdom).
Elec Man returned to a small private room within the armory which he had selected to be his office. The office was small, windowless, and purely functional, with no comforts nor decor—he didn't need such sentimentalities, nor did he want to like it there.
As Elec Man entered the small room, his eyes swept over the bare walls, the computer, the stand where he hung his black suit. There was an uncomfortable familiarity about the sinister living situation. The feeling lingered like a shadow in the back of his mind, originating within his scrambled memories where the Syndicate's secrets and all his past crimes lie. Maybe he deserved what had happened to him.
Maybe he deserved worse.
Elec Man gritted his teeth and paced the small office, gave a short unrepentant huff, then sat down at his computer and began to work on Skull Fortress's defenses.
No matter, there was no changing who he was or what he had done (whatever that may be). Wily would still pay, of course. And Light's prototype—he had been warned—would pay as well for becoming his second-in-command. Elec Man could feel content with that knowledge alone, no matter how many months passed.
Besides, it couldn't be much longer now.