Chapter 7

Aboard The Phantom

Scott sat on the couch sulking, still in his nanosuit with his helmet on his lap. Tracy was reading intently through Dr. Light's files with her chin on her palm. She let out a sigh, rubbing her eyes, "Well, we certainly have our fair share of officers to choose from." She said, looking over at him.

"Think you could find one who has access to transmuting rubber duckies?" Scott asked sarcastically, still staring at the holovision.

Tracy shook her head, "You do realize that Heatman wasn't my fault right?" She asked, "But the fact remains, he's dead all the same, which is still a win."

"We needed his core chip." Scott replied. "I can't get by with just dust and magnetism. I have to be able to keep up with Alex if we are gonna swindle him."

Poking away at the holo-interface, Tracy rolled her eyes. She stopped on a file, sitting forward, "I've heard of this guy." She muttered to herself.

Scott shook his head, "Where are we headed now?" He asked

Tracy got up from her chair, "New York." She said, "Go change and bring me your suit."

Scott stood up, "Should I ask why?"

Tracy grinned, "It needs heavy reinforcement first, with better explosive protection."

Scott cracked a smile, "I got a feeling I'm gonna like this. If I'm not killed, that is."

Electronic Park

Syracuse, New York

From above the building looked like a small city. Rush and Protoman stood at the loading bay, waiting for the signal. On the south side of the cluster, Tracy located the materials and processing building. "Here we are." She said over comms. "It's kinda morbid, but cripple their operations as bad as possible before you confront Crashman. Just in case you don't make it." She said.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence." He replied before diving into the open air with Rush. "Nice and easy." Scott said to the dog as they barreled straight down, at high speeds. Flipping himself off of his transport, Protoman landed hard on his feet, cracking the concrete. He wasted no time activating his EMP before ripping the metal door from its frame. Once inside, he saw the drones sparking on the floor as the human workers looked around, confused. "Get out, now." He said, "Run!" The frightened people rushed for the door as he walked through the small group, in the opposite direction. He began magnetically crushing and twisting machinery, when his scanners picked up something better.

Scott came walking out onto the sidewalk where the group of people stood, talking amongst themselves. Without saying a word he dropped the steel crate on the ground and began to open it. While he pryed loose the bolts to the lid, his comms activated, on the encrypted line. "Heroes for hire." He answered.

The General seemed slightly agitated, "It's time we end our little rapport. I'll need to bring you to our common problem in order for this to work." He paused for a second, "I would say 'trust me', but we both know what's going to happen once he's dead, but we will deal with that then."

"This plan doesn't sound the least bit shady, so no sweat." Proto responded, pulling the mortar arm from the crate and firing a round into munitions warehouse, setting off a massive fireworks show. "We are kinda in the middle of something, so you can meet us after. That is of course, unless you want to come join." He grinned as the line went dead.

Tracy came over comms, "Alright, the servbots are almost through in the communications bunker. Move on to the housing units."

"You got it boss." Proto replied as he made his way across the street, toward the massive building. "You disabled the alarms that fast?" He asked, noticing the eery silence.

"No." She responded simply. "Something's not right, though. Robbie gained access to the main terminal, and it's reading that all external communications and alerts have been disabled already." Scott could almost hear her brain sizzling. "Someone doesn't want anyone to know we are here."

"And that 'someone' has some serious control over Wily's security." Scott finished. "How much you wanna bet that's our guy?"

Tracy rolled her chair over to the main console, bringing up Light's android files. "Finish this quick," she said, "we need to get out of here before the General shows. In the meantime I'm going to root out our friend."

When Protoman broke through the door, he found himself standing in a huge lobby. The walls and shops had been modified into clear, glass cells filled with people. All banging and screaming silently in his direction. "Alright, alright." He said, motioning for them to calm down, with his hands. "You gotta know I can't hear you, so you're wasting your breath."

"They are trying to tell you 'It's a trap.'" A voice said from across the room.

Crashman stepped out, wearing a pearl-white nanosuit with dark pink gauntlets and boots. He had a stern-chiseled face tightly secured in a matching helmet, with a thick glass visor sealing the front. "You are so predictable. Going for the poor defenseless huma..." Crash stopped, eying his adversary. "You aren't him." He said, confused.

Protoman grinned, pulling his hilt, slowly. "I've been getting that a lot lately." He quickly deployed his shield to bat away the sudden launch of cylindrical, blinking explosives. But he soon realized the difference between regular mines, and latching mines. "Oh shi..." he managed to begin before the explosion sent him out the door, across the street, and through the blocked wall of a robotics junk house. The bottoms of the shelves collapsed over his body, dumping piles of scrap parts onto him. Digging himself out of the mess, Scott saw the android crossing the street, raising his arm to fire more. He hurled his shield into Crash's chest, causing the mines to fly wildly through the air, as he stood up and rushed his foe.

Crash took four rapid fusion shots to the chest, scorching his nanosuit, before the shield flew back into his charging opponent's hands and he was bashed to the ground. Protoman fell clumsily with him, but wasted no time trying to mount and pummel his visor. After two quick punches, Crash reached back, grabbing a slab of concrete and brought it up hard against the androids helmet.

Protoman fell back, his vision skipping and freezing, trying to readjust from the impact. He hastily jolted his EMP, causing Crashman to screech in pain as he unleashed a heavy dose of dust, covering the officer. Scott stood up, deploying his staff, and began to weave a series of calculated strikes to his head and legs, while Crash tried desperately to wipe his visor clean.

Crashman could feel the blows weakening his internal parts. He made a blind lunge out of the dust toward his attacker, but was only met with open air, as he hit the pavement hard. There was heavy impact against his helmet as the boot drove his head violently upward. He was flipped to his back, where he fired three mines, which were once again caught by the shield.

Protoman was thrown a block away by the blast, tumbling and rolling another twenty feet before coming to a stop. He was a tattered wreck, but from the looks of his enemy he didn't feel alone in that regard. "Tron," he muttered over comms, "get the bots in there to get those people out. He's headed my way, now."

The flood of small yellow servbots began to crowd in through the front door, behind Crash, who turned around to see them. His suit was burned and ripped, his clear visor spider-webbed with cracks. There was no way he would let those humans escape, not while he was alive. He raised his arm at the group of servbots. There was a sudden screeching in his helmet, causing him to grab his head. He turned around to see Protoman struggling to his feet, pressing a key on his headgear.

"Last I checked," Scott said, through his half-broken, black visor, "your fight was with me."

Crash screamed ferociously, as he charged up the street, avoiding the storm of fusion discs. He raised his arm firing two mines at the android.

Protoman kicked up his staff, catching it in one hand, and hurled it like a javelin. Guiding it magnetically, he intercepted the crash bombs on the tip and dropped it at Crashman's feet. He watched as the explosion rid his foe of his lower extremities and sent his top half hurling toward him. Scott took a step back, watching the android smack the ground at his feet. Looking into the shocked face of his enemy, he called his hilt back to his hand and deployed the shield. Crash gave a defiant look up until the end, when the shield came down decapitating him. Protoman reached down tiredly, picking up the severed head.

"Scott, we got company!" Tron said in his ear. "We need to leave, now!"

Scott made a dash for The Phantom, as he saw the Accolade touching down on the next street over. He neared the loading bay and hopped in, right as Gutsman was approaching.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Guts shouted up as the ship raised slowly.

"Don't worry, General," Scott said, grinning, "we're gonna stick to our own plan."

"You pieces of shit!" The android yelled.

The bay door had already sealed. The Phantom began to make it's way through the sky, when lower cannons opened fire on Gutsman's ship. Had it not been for deploying his armor, the blast would have incinerated him in a split second. He stood amongst the flames and smoke, encased in his suit, thinking of the many ways he could kill them slowly.