Mega Man figured that he was supposed to be happy. The Cain-bots were destroyed, Dr. Cain was in the hospital, Zero was defeated and Wily had no more tricks up his sleeve. Besides that, several of the Wily-bots that had helped defend Monstropolis against Zero were now free - as soon as they were all repaired again. That in itself was no small task. Monstropolis itself was a mess, and whatever aid the Wily-bots had given in the fight against Zero, they were still less of a priority than the city itself. It was the doom of these volunteers to wait until the construction of the city was well underway and looking a lot better. That wasn't going to be for a while; the mess Dr. Cain made of the shipping lanes still wasn't completely set right, and that was before Zero took his turn as the sword in Wily's hand against the people of Monstropolis.
Mega Man looked around the lab. Half of the repair tables, mainly those on the left side of the room, were covered in Wily-bots. These were the higher priority ones: mainly Team 6 and Cossack's errant water-bot, Dive Man. Mega Man sighed as he gazed over them, feeling very sorry for both them and himself; not only did they all have to be set in order from having to deal with Zero's wrath, but Mega Man's lab had to pay for the parts all over again to put them back in order. He sighed and decided to keep accounts about how much it cost to fix the robot masters again. They could pay him back once they returned to society and got jobs. Hopefully some of them would actually want to.
But Mega Man wasn't especially concerned with any of them at the moment. At that moment he was at the right side of the lab, standing over a robot that meant so much to him and yet had confused him so much in the past half-year. Roll lay on the repair table, looking like someone caught up in a bad dream. Her face contracted tightly, as if pained, and considering what had happened to her, Rock wasn't surprised. Thankfully enough her power core was easy to replace. It was in place under her vocalizer equipment, though Auto still had to prepare new abdominal panelling for Roll before she could be complete. Auto was in the armory, hard at work at the few armor platelets still hanging about the lab.
Rock was the one fixing her for now, and he didn't mind. He really wanted something to do to take his mind off of Proto Man and Bass. As thankful as he was that his enemies were taken away, the cost of the arrested sibling and the unrepairable ally was so very high. Mega Man spent the past three days mourning them both - well, as much of those three days as he was activated. He'd almost forgotten that he himself had to be repaired after battling Zero. Was that only three days ago? It felt so much longer.
But enough of that. He was tired of thinking about his losses. It was sort of relaxing to wire up Roll's new power core and just think about technical things. He hadn't done this kind of repair in a long time. He was surprised he still knew how, even though power cores had been upgraded several times since his repair days. But for now it was done, and Mega Man let out a mellow sigh. Roll needed to be tested, so he reached over to her neck and activated her.
The repair was sound. Roll opened her eyes, blinking as she awoke. Being alive seemed to surprise her. Roll's first expression was one of shock, but when she saw her brother, she smiled. He didn't smile back.
"Rock!" she weakly reached out for him. "Rock..."
"Roll." he said as he reached out and took her hand. "Oh, Roll...why? Why did you have to go and fight Zero?"
The happiness faded from her face, and she began a somber explanation. She felt so foolish. Telling Rock the complete truth was out of the question, but the short of it wasn't exactly a lie.
"I'm sorry, Rock." she whispered. "I just thought...well, I thought I was so weak-looking that Zero would underestimate me. I thought I could defeat him if he only saw a pathetic girl-bot and not an important fighter like you."
Mega Man crumpled a little. He rubbed his eyes, trying not to cry. "Roll...I know you want me to be safe, but this is just too much."
"I know...I'm so sorry. It's just that...I figured maybe Crystal Man knew about Zero being built and what Zero was supposed to do to the robots of the world. I thought he gave me those upgrades so that I could defeat Zero." Roll's voice quieted even further. "I'm really sorry. I feel like an idiot."
"Don't." Mega Man gently brushed her bangs out of her eyes. "Roll, I want you to know something. Please just let me say this, and don't interrupt. I don't care what happens to me. I don't care how badly hurt I am when I return from a fight. It doesn't matter to me. If the world is safer because I fought, then it doesn't matter if it takes a year for me to get back into normal working order again. But if anything happens to you, it kills me. I don't care if it's only something as little as one plasma hit or getting your hand crushed. It hurts me far more than anything an enemy could do to me. I understand if you need to defend yourself, but please never put yourself in that position again. I can't stand to lose you, sis. Promise me you won't do that anymore."
Roll shivered, and she clutched her brother's hand harder. "I'm sorry, Rock. I promise I won't fight unless I have to. Please don't be angry with me..."
"I'm not angry." For the first time that day, Mega Man let his lips go upwards. "But I did remove the energy sword in your arm. You look nicer with normal hands. Besides, an energy sword isn't going to help you vacuum."
"Dork." Roll teased, letting herself smile again. "Is cleaning all I'm good for?"
"No. You're good at making life peaceful and fun. And you don't need a weapon for that."
"I understand. I'm...I'm not permanently injured, am I?"
"No, you're not too bad." Rock said, eyeing her exposed power core. "You're not complete though. Auto should have you back in order by this time tomorrow."
"Good." Roll relaxed into the repair table before she blanched. A horrifying expression enlarged her eyes. "And Zero...?"
"He's gone. The REA has him now, and he's not going to trouble anyone anymore." Rock placed her hand back on the repair table. "You just rest."
"I should have known you would defeat him." Roll beamed, proud of her brother. "You're invincible. It's just too bad...poor Zero..."
"Poor Zero?" Crystal Bot's voice joined the conversation as she joined Mega Man (but not too close) at the repair table. "What do you mean? He's a bad guy! He tore up your home town, even."
"Well, yes," Roll admitted, turning towards her friend. "But that's not his fault. He was programmed that way. Zero never had the choice. And now he's going to be punished for it. It's hard luck on him, isn't it?"
Mega Man felt a warmth grow inside of him. Not only was Roll happy, but now she was showing her kindness and mercy. It was wonderful to see her being so generous again.
"Oh, I see." Crystal turned shyly to Rock. "Is Roll-chan going to be okay?"
"She's going to be great!" Rock said, grinning merrily. "She just has some unresolved skin and support platelet issues."
"Good." Crystal Bot somehow didn't seem as happy as she could be. She did smile weakly, and she patted Roll on the head. "You're not going to be a fighter again, are you, Roll-chan?"
"Only so long as Sona-chan doesn't get another virus." Roll winked. "If you do, I..." Roll's eyes wandered to her brother's face, and she tried again. "I'll sic Mega Man on you! He's invincible, you know."
"I definitely don't want to fight him again." Crystal laughed a bit. "So I guess I better not get any more viruses!"
"Alright, that's enough for now." Mega Man reached for her neck. "Roll, I'm going to shut you down now. When you wake up you'll be alright again."
"Okay. See you guys later."
Mega Man chuckled and powered Roll down. That went well enough. Roll was feeling better and acting more like her regular self than she had...well, in months. She hadn't teased him about being invincible since Dr. Cain went to the hospital. Moreover, the power core he installed seemed to be done properly. Satisfied in himself, Mega Man tapped a finger against the exposed machine, then patted his sister's shoulder and went off. He was still the master of the labs, and there were other duties to attend to. The one involving Roll was the happiest of them, and the most likely to turn out well. In fact, Roll seemed she was going to be even happier than before, now that she trusted her brother again.
So then it was of course a downturning in his happiness when he mused over his next job: checking on Crystal Bot and her progress on Bass. The tech-bot had slipped away back to her A.I. lab, the one that Mega Man granted the two robots for their temporary use. But unfortunately as he followed Crystal into this lab, it appeared that Bass was the same as he had been the day before - not that there was any reason to suspect a sudden improvement. Crystal Bot had his armor all done up properly, but his power core had no progress - or so Mega Man guessed by the way Crystal Bot sat down in the solitary chair and slumped over the side of the repair table holding her boss. The girl-bot lifted her head like a pitiful kitten, only to lower it down again once she saw who it was.
"No, Mega Man." her gloomy voice answered his question without it being asked. "Nothing."
Mega Man put a hand on her shoulder and said nothing for a moment. It was hard for him to see Bass lay there as if nothing more than a statue. Strange it was that the rival that had given him so much trouble now lay there helpless. All Mega Man could think of was how proud of Bass Dr. Light had become, and how if Dr. Light were there he would fix Bass and then everything would be alright. But the doctor was in his capsule, and there was no getting him out for the next 29 and a half years (how the time dragged!).
"Don't worry," Mega Man found himself saying aloud. "Worst come to worst, we can wait for Dr. Light's capsule to activate, and he'll be able to look at Bass then."
Crystal Bot looked up at Mega Man again, this time more briefly than before. Her face was too tired from her crying to have too specific an expression.
"I don't want to wait that long." she pouted, folding her arms on the repair table. "Forte-kun hates it when he's deactivated for too long. He doesn't like missing out on things. If he misses out on the next thirty years, he'll be really upset. Worse yet, the REA might decide that since he wasn't activated, his probation won't be up then and he'll still have to spend four more years following their rules. And that's assuming that Dr. Light can fix Forte. I mean, he's never made fortenium before, has he?"
Crystal Bot focused hopefully on Mega Man, but he was lost in this thoughts, trying to remember.
"No, I don't think so." he said. "He's studied it as much as...well, as much as he could, but since Wily probably destroyed his notes and never let anyone know anything about it, there was never much for Dr. Light to go on. I don't supposed there's any chance you could ask Wily to help?"
Crystal Bot bitterly shook her head. Just the thought of it made her sick to her stomach. "No. He's a meanie. The very last thing he did to me was get my brain corrupted and try to kill everyone. That's scary. If I listened to him, he might tell me something that gets Forte-kun blown up - knowing Dr. Wily, probably in a really lame way too. It's just not fair! I know a little something about fortenium, but not enough! And then I have to figure out how the power core processes it! It would be hard already in my normal condition, but because of the Zero virus, Auto had to remove the corrupted part of my brain. And since that third is my smartest CPU, I'm at less than 66% processing power!"
The girl-bot sighed deeply focusing once more on her boss. "The worst part of this is, I could have prevented this. He just had one small flaw - so small I didn't notice it - and blamo! Zero's shockwave knocks it out of wack. All I had to do was tighten one little guage and armor up one wall and that would be the end of the problem. Just one little mistake...one...little...mistake!"
As she spoke each word, Crystal Bot slammed her head into the repair table for punishment. Mega Man quickly went to her side, lifting her shoulders and holding her away from the table.
"Hey, don't do that."
"Oh, sorry." she said with a sigh. "I shouldn't damage your repair table."
"Um, actually I was thinking that you shouldn't damage your head. You might need it." Mega Man smiled. Even when Crystal was miserable she was so cute. "Here, tell me what you know about bassnium. I might be able to help."
"His power core is run by refined Californium." Crystal Bot rubbed her nose and explained. "Californium is really, really powerful and bad, but Dr. Wily figured out how to make it so that it actually gives out energy at a much lower rate while retaining its strength. He had to change the atomic structure like crazy and that's how he got fortenium, or bassnium, whichever you want to call it. Not only is this stuff ridiculous hard and expensive to make, the kind of power core you need inside a robot to convert heat energy into electrical is something I never understood completely. Wily never taught me how to build it."
"This may be a dumb question," Mega Man was already wincing. "But can't you just replace his power core with a different kind?"
"Oh no!" Crystal shook her head in earnest. "Poor Forte! I would never do that to him! His entire structure is designed for fortenium. He can't go to any other power core without incurring a really serious loss in power. It would be so sad - I would just cry! He wouldn't be anything like he used to be, and then he'd spend all his days waiting for me to figure out how to fix him." Crystal Bot bit her lip. "And besides, I'd have to work with some really dangerous stuff to make fortenium. I don't think the government would let me."
She faced Mega Man, clutching her hands tightly together. "Oh please, Rock! Please tell the government that I don't want to blow anyone up! All I want to do is fix Forte-kun so that he can be a good guy and save everybody! Please tell them!"
The poor girl-bot looked so sad and so honest, Mega Man couldn't help but believe her. He glanced over again at Bass, and even though the two of them hadn't been anything like friends, he realized that he would miss Bass. It was bad enough that he could do nothing for his own brother; perhaps there was some way he could help Forte. Bass had abandoned his evil ways, and to live such a short time of freedom from Wily only to die making sure his evil creator would do no more harm was enough to break Mega Man's heart - and he was still picking up the pieces from other sorrows. Mega Man turned again to Crystal, giving a little smile. Hope grew in her eyes.
"I actually think I can do better than that. Here, let me get access to the comm panel."
Crystal Bot stepped aside closer to her master, letting Mega Man pass. He went to the room's console and started hitting the buttons, and soon enough the face of Tim Reyes, busy at his office, appeared on the screen. Rock felt a little nervous about calling him; Reyes shuffled papers quickly around, signing one here and tossing one into a file there. However, Tim made no remark about his tasks, and didn't seem irritated about taking the call. He was used to getting calls from the Light household.
"Yes, Mega?"
"Hi, Mr. Reyes. There's something I want to talk to you about." Mega Man said. "You heard what happened to Bass, right?"
"Yes, I know. Crystal Bot only sent me his damage report three times." Tim glanced at Crystal, who he could see in the comm screen's range. She fidgeted.
"Good, so you know about Bass' lack of bassnium." Mega Man continued. "I've been talking things over with Crystal Bot, and there's another robot who has a bassnium core that can replace Bass' current one."
"Oh, and who is that?"
Mega Man drew in a breath before he spoke. "Zero."
Tim laid down his papers. "You can't be serious."
"Just hear me out. You've always had a problem with Wily breaking into the robot museum and stealing his robots back, right? Well, no matter how much he, or anyone else, might try to steal Zero, it won't be much good if the bassnium power core is gone. No other type of power core could work on him. Besides, Crystal Bot here is the only one who knows anything about bassnium, and it would be dangerous for REA scientists to try to investigate this material on their own."
Mega Man gestured for Crystal Bot to stand closer, and Tim watched with mild suspicion as the girl-bot approached.
"The trouble is, Rock," Tim said. "That Crystal Bot is still on probation, and the REA doesn't trust her. Even if she does plan on being on the good side, she's got such a, well, 'independent' spirit that I'm not sure I could convince anyone to let her have the power core. I'm not even convinced myself."
"Oh please, let me!" Crystal begged. "I don't want to blow anything up! I just want Forte-kun back! He's my best friend in the whole world and I don't want to do anything besides be his technician! I won't do anything bad with the bassnium! It's the only bassnium left in the world, and if I do something bad with it, there won't be any left for Forte! Please, please, let me have it! I promise I'll be a good girl!"
Mega Man was surprised. Part of him suspected that Crystal Bot was only using her manipulative cuteness to get what she wanted, but now the girl-bot was as close to crying as a robot could get. She was shaking, even. This even got a reaction out of the normally very controlled ethics agent. Reyes stared, blinking a minute as he thought.
"Well...I'll talk to my boss." Reyes said. "But Crystal, if - and that's a very big 'if' - they say yes to letting you have the power core, then I want a full report of what's done with it. Also, you can't work on this alone. You have to do with with either Mega Man or Auto assisting you. If neither of them are present, you have to leave it alone."
"Okay, Mr. Reyes." Crystal Bot said, putting on her teariest smile. "But um, make sure you send all of Zero's body. I need to know how safe it is to remove the power core, and also what kind of failsafes the body has to make sure the power core doesn't leak. I need the head too, just to make sure the CPU has some governing programs that keep the power core regulated right. I...I have to be safe."
Reyes twisted his lips together in doubt, but as everything she said made sense, he could find no reasonable objection to her. "Alright. I'll see what I can do, but I'm not promising anything. Don't get your hopes up too high."
"Thank you for helping us, Mr. Reyes." Mega Man said.
"Sure." Reyes chuckled. "Rock, you are way too nice."
The screen turned black again, and the grateful girl-bot nervously turned to Mega Man. "Thank you very much, Rock. I...I really appreciate it."
Mega Man smiled at her. "Don't worry about a thing. Bass is my friend...um...my associate too. Heh, don't tell him I said 'friend'."
Crystal giggled. "No, of course not."
The girl-bot, not really sure what to do next, awkwardly turned away from Rock. He didn't know what to say either. He just watched as she sat back down beside Bass, tapping her screwdriver against her head as she tried to think of how she could prepare her boss for a new power core. Mega Man hoped that the REA would say yes, but inwardly the doubts began to bubble up. Both Bass and Crystal Bot were robots on probation, and neither very trusted by the government. All the same, Mega Man tried to think good thoughts as he left the room.
That was task one out of the way, and task two as settled as it could be for the time being. Task three started weighing in on his mind. Technically speaking it should have been task one, but dealing with both girl-bots was a much easier thing. Now he had to figure out how he was going to get the supplies to repair all of the robot masters again (most of them had worse injuries than before) and how he was going to pay for it all. Mega Man tried to tell himself that Crystal Bot would be very willing to sell her crystals and provide money for the lab, and that the government would hand him a few thousand dollars for his efforts. Normally Mega Man didn't like accepting any rewards, but the troubles the lab had while the doctor was alive were only whispers of the current economic struggles. This only made Rock feel worse about taking money from others; life was hard for them too.
Mega Man went over to the main console, plopped in the chair, and pulled up his financial information. He had several stocks he could cash in, and it looked like that was what he might have to do. He still had a CD whose interest would bring in about $105,673, but that wasn't due for about another five months. It was an account he didn't want to penalize - getting a hundred grand every eleven months was no joke, and the base income of the laboratory. Of course, that meant he'd have to cash in something else. Typing in a command produced more information, and Rock grimaced. His stock in orange juice had gone down. It was normally such a good commodity too.
He didn't want to think about it. The more he read the details of his personal finances, the more he slumped in his chair and the less his eyes shone. He rested his chin on his hand and skipped through the pages, growing less interested in each passing detail. So, instead of going about task three, he shoved it to the back of his priorities and started working on task four - which really ought to have been task six or seven, but Mega Man was far too tense to deal with more pressing matters.
Instead he found himself going through his reports and habitually looking for loose ends. There didn't seem to be many. All of the Cain-bots were accounted for, and the Wily robots that weren't were ones that had stayed hidden throughout Mega Man's last fight with Cain and Wily. Wily himself? Still in the hospital, waiting to die. Darkness filled Mega Man's heart. If the man weren't so horrible, he could have spent his last days being taken care of by the only robot who dared to call him family. That wasn't something Mega Man wanted to think about, so he shoved that matter aside too. Narrowing his search to robots not accounted for but had been involved in the recent conflict produced only one answer: Frantic Man.
Mega Man tapped his chin, trying to think of when the schizophrenic robot had been seen last. He still had Gyro Man's battle report records, so he accessed the file and watched it on the monitor. There wasn't much to it. Gyro Man had seen Frantic Man bending over a fallen Star Man, threatened him, and then Frantic Man teleported out. That was the last of him, to anyone's knowledge. Mega Man tried to think. It was Signal Man who built Frantic Man, but according to Crystal Bot, Dr. Wily had taken him back.
"Of course." Mega Man said. "Crystal Bot's memories showed that Wily just had to use a voice command to make Frantic Man turn back to him. That means that Frantic Man still had the CPU of a Wily-bot even when he was in Dr. Cain's control."
It was weird though. What was he trying to do to Star Man? Wily wouldn't have wanted the space-bot, especially not since there was a bullet through his head. Star Man wasn't even that involved in Light Labs activities. And if all Wily wanted was another servant, he wouldn't stop in the middle of a battle just to get one. The only real conclusion he could come to, Mega Man guessed, was that Frantic Man was acting of his own volition.
That got him worried. Perhaps Frantic Man had been installing some sort of mechanism in Star Man that would activate once Star Man was repaired, or perhaps he meant to put a simple tracer on the Team 5 robot. Neither seemed very likely. Gravity Man knew how all of his team members operated, and seeing things like that wasn't a hard task for him.
"All he did was take off Star Man's helmet. Maybe he didn't have enough time to do anything."
That was the most likely theory, though the most annoying part of that was not knowing what Frantic Man intended. It couldn't be helped, though. Mega Man wondered what sort of robot Frantic Man was. He had Signal Man's memories loaded into the computer, but there was nothing much to conclude from them. Signal had simply pieced together what bits of Shade, Fire, Air, Turbo, Clown and apparently Sheep Man that he could find (Frantic Man's legs were Sheep Man's, though nobody could really tell from simply looking) and then expected Frantic Man to do as he was told.
Using Signal Man's CPU, Mega Man decifered the coding that Frantic Man spoke in. This too didn't help. Frantic Man said as little as possible, and what he did say was usually confirmation of whatever order Dr. Cain or his robots happened to give. His only hints were bits of conversation between Frantic Man and Crystal Bot. Crystal never understood the scrap-bot, but Frantic Man spoke to her as if she did. He had made a couple of warning comments to her about the cruelty of Dr. Cain, but since Wily had taken over Dr. Cain's hideout he said nothing more. They didn't have the chance to talk about anything else.
A sudden idea struck Mega Man, and he started to recall what he learned from the battle reports of Team 5. They had fought a lot of robots in the past week's incident, and Mega Man went over the battle memories in his mind. He'd already arranged them chronologically, and he watched them all at once. As he did, Mega Man realized that none of them ever fought Frantic Man. They didn't so much as see him until Gyro Man found him at the very tail end of everything. And, once the fight for Dr. Cain's cave base was ended, no one ever saw Frantic Man ever again. He wasn't involved with Epic Man or Algorhythm Man's efforts to distract the hero robots, and he'd had nothing to do with repairing Zero and sending him out against Monstropolis - or at least his remains hadn't been found, like the remains of the poor Wily-bots (Mega couldn't help but feel sorry for them) who had obeyed their master and ended up killed by Zero for their efforts.
The more Rock thought about it, the more strange it seemed. What did Frantic Man want? Who was he loyal to? Apparently Wily regained control of him, but if that was so, then why did he leave? Why didn't he help the other Wily-bots or at least try to free Wily? Or was Frantic Man waiting Wily to be out of the hospital before freeing him from imprisonment?
Only then did it occur to him that Wily voice command wouldn't have worked if Signal Man had been the first person to program Frantic Man. As much as his different parts had come from different robots, his CPU had to only come from one specific robot. The more Mega Man thought about it, the more he realized who that one robot could be. In fact, it was extremely obvious, and he felt a little silly for not guessing it sooner.
"Well, to be fair, I have had a lot of distractions..." Mega Man considered. " - Auto, where are you? - "
" - I'm just in the back, getting some armor plates. What's up? - "
" - I'm going out for a while. Hold down the fort, okay? - "
" - Sure thing! It won't be easy, though. This place is so bouncy! - "
Mega Man couldn't help rolling his eyes, though he smiled as well. Auto could be so ridiculously goofy sometimes. But teaching Auto the proper delivery of jokes was about a twenty-fifth task, meaning he wasn't going to be getting to it any time soon. His financial pressures and family stresses still abounded, which meant that Mega Man was more eager to get a happy task done. This next one was certainly going to be happy in the end. He even knew exactly where to look, though he wasn't sure even then that Frantic Man would be there. Of course, it was only a matter of time before he showed up again. Mega Man teleported out.
His teleport beam landed outside of Great Gems, across the street from it and in front of the local homemade donut shop. His scanners activated immediately, and it surprised even him how quickly he got a signal reply. It was only a little signal, but it was enough. Up above the donut shop came the signal, and he figured if it was too much further away, he wouldn't have been able to trace it.
In any case, Mega Man quickly summoned Rush, and the robot dog lifted him upwards to the top of the building. The roof was very simple, covered in nice tan gravel behind its false front. This false front served to hide the fact that Frantic Man was also atop the building, so that no one could see him from the street. The instant Mega Man's head popped up above the edge of the roof, Frantic Man's head turned that way, and he stared and lifted his wings.
"Please, wait a moment." Mega Man lifted his hands. "I just want to talk to you. Will you listen?"
Frantic Man gave no reply, but his wings lowered patiently. He glanced over to the jewelry shop, then back to Mega Man, and finally back again to the shop. It was obvious he was more interested in that rather than the blue bomber. However, he didn't try to leave, so Mega Man signalled for Rush to lift him higher. Mega Man stepped onto the roof. Rush joined him a moment later, in doggy form.
"She's not there, Frantic Man." Rock said. "She's back at the lab."
Frantic Man turned to the speaker, and Mega wished very much that he had someone else's head besides Turbo Man's. It was so weird to talk to a person without reading their facial features.
"I...I know you probably don't like me," Mega Man continued. "Being a Wily-bot and all. But I can help you. You might be made out of several robots, but you have the mind of only one. I know who that one is, or else I think I do. I can help you, but you're going to have to trust me."
Frantic Man blinked, or at least that's what Mega Man guessed he was doing when his red, LED eyes went off and then on again. Frantic Man stared at Great Gems one more time, then walked toward Mega Man. His posture held no threat. All he did was lift his clown arm and reach over. Mega Man flinched, expecting an attack. It didn't come. Frantic Man's hand was open, and Rock then understood its meaning.
They shook hands.
-t-
The door to the A.I. lab opened again, and Crystal Bot inwardly let her grumpiness bubble up with several bad thoughts. All she was doing was moping over the fate of her boss, but even then she didn't want to be interrupted. None of these came out of her mouth, fortunately, and as she turned around, she relaxed a little. It was Jewel Man Abohjee, and she managed a little smile for him before turning back to Bass. It was good to know that he at least was in working order, even if the jewel on his head was a little cracked and needed replacement.
Jewel Man quietly approached her. He knelt next to her and put an arm on her shoulder. "Any change?"
"No." she sighed, tired of being asked. "Rock asked Mr. Reyes if he would let me have Zero's power core, but that was only a couple of hours ago. A lot of people have to approve a decision like that, so I don't know if they'll let me. I hope they do."
Crystal Bot sighed and leaned against Jewel Man. "I don't know what I'll do if they say no. Forte-kun is my best friend...I don't know what I'll do without him."
"Team 5 isn't going anywhere." Jewel Man assured her. "You still have your family, and you can join them on the space station. And you still have me. If you don't want to be in space you can always work with me at Great Gems."
"Crystal Bot frowned. "I don't like you talking like that. Like Forte isn't going to come back."
"I'm just saying, sweetie." Jewel Man patted her head. "Besides, you're very smart. You'll figure out the whole bassnium thing, even if it takes you a while."
"Thanks, Ahbohjee." she sniffed. "But it's going to take a long time to do that..."
They didn't speak after that. As little as Jewel Man liked Bass, he had to care for Crystal Bot's sake. Jewel Man wanted her to be happy, even if that meant she hung out with an arrogant fin-head who imagined himself the greatest robot that ever was. Of course, Crystal thought he was the greatest too, and by being around him it meant that she was the greatest technician of all time. Jewel Man resisted rolling his eyes. That was just the way of his sort-of-daughter. He was just going to have to put up with it or leave her. But of course there wasn't much of a chance of doing the latter, so he just hugged her tighter.
After a moment he spoke again. "I have to go to work now, Crystal. I'll talk to you after my shift, alright?"
"Mm'kay." she poked out her bottom lip in a perfect pout. "Come back soon. I don't wanna be by myself."
"I'll try not to work late. Anyway, there's no reason I should have to." Jewel Man got on his feet and logged in the teleport coordinates for his work. "See you later."
"Annyonggikahsehyo."
His teleport beam went up and away, leaving the girl-bot more lonely than she was before he came. Crystal Bot flopped down on Bass and grabbed his hand as if it would make him wake up and be himself again. That wasn't going to work, and she knew it. All the same, she closed her eyes and imagined that in just a few days Bass would be right as rain, and they would be best friends again.
"Sonata?"
Crystal Bot scowled, opening her eyes. She didn't like it when someone she didn't like called her by that name. And Mega Man definitely counted. Normally he was sensible enough to call her Crystal Bot like any other stranger. This feeling was made worse by the fact that the one she really wanted to call her Sonata wasn't going to be up and about any time soon.
Crystal Bot lifted her head and turned back only a little. She didn't look Mega Man in the eye. "Did you hear back from Reyes?"
"No." he said. "You know that's going to take a while. Actually, I have something for you."
"If it's not something that will help Forte-kun, I don't care. Leave me alone."
"Don't talk like that." Much to Crystal Bot's chagrin, Mega Man came even closer. "Trust me, you'll like this."
She turned back completely then, only if to make Mega Man stay away. "What is it?"
"A surprise. Come and see!"
Crystal Bot didn't move. She didn't want to. All the same, Mega Man was giving her a really weird, cheery look, so she figured she might as well just humor him. Very reluctantly she moved from Bass' side, glancing over her shoulder the whole way to the door. Out they went into the main lab, and Mega Man led Crystal Bot over to a repair table, occupied by Frantic Man. A little curiosity stirred up in Crystal Bot, and she peered over him.
"Huh, you found him." she said. "I sorta liked Frantic Man. He was nice to me."
"That's no surprise." Mega Man smiled and went to the computer pillar Frantic Man was plugged into. "You see, Frantic Man was made from the scraps of other robots, and that goes for his CPU too. We investigated a little into his memories, and we've found out exactly which CPU that is. Here, I'll show you."
This particular repair table was close to the main telescreen, so Mega Man pressed the proper controls at the computer, allowing a memory to appear on the screen. Crystal had no idea why, but as the blue bomber did this, she could feel her heart rising. The memory on the screen didn't show what the robot looked like, naturally, as it was the recording of what that robot saw with his own eyes and thus didn't show himself. What it did show was a younger and somewhat less wrinkled Dr. Wily standing next to a strange looking Gyro Man - Gyro didn't have his gyro blade attached at the time.
"So you see," Wily said. "Mega Man will think that his dear brother was the one that kidnapped Dr. Light! Then we'll be rid of Proto Man forever and I'll be able to rule the world! Buahahaha!"
Gyro Man grinned with his eyes. "Great! But uh, aren't we supposed to kill Mega Man?"
A glimmer of a joke appeared in Wily's eyes as he spoke, and it was a little bit like a sneer. "Heh, that's the way to think. If you do destroy him, then I'll be rid of Mega Man and that will be even better! If not, he gets rid of that nasty Proto Man for me! Whether he defeats you or not, I still win! It's my most brilliant plan ever!" Here Wily turned to the perspective of the memory. "Don't you think so, Crystal Man?"
"Your plan appears infallible." the robot recording the memory replied.
Mega Man stopped the memory. He watched as Crystal Bot froze into place, staring at the memory. She'd had bits and pieces of her team members' memories of her father, so when the solemn voice spoke Crystal Bot knew that it was him. She turned back to Frantic Man, stunned and unable to move. Her face scrunched up, and she shook. She shook so hard she couldn't make any other movement.
"That's..." she finally said, barely able to speak. "That's my daddy in there?"
"Yes it is." Mega Man said softly. "That's Crystal Man."
The girl-bot couldn't hold it in. She collapsed next to the repair table and burst into tears (metaphorically speaking). She shook with glitches as her emotional relays struggled to keep her emotions within prescribed limits. She reached to his Turbo Man face, delicately turning it in her hands as if in disbelief. Finally she lay her head down on his chest, and still shaking, she spoke.
"Rock-kun...komahehyo...thank you so much!" she wept. "Thank you!"
Mega Man stepped closer, almost ready to cry himself. He gently knelt down beside her and placed a hand on her shoulder. He hesitated. His next bit of news wasn't going to be good, but she had to be told.
"Crystal," Mega Man said gently. "We tried not to mess too much with his memory for privacy's sake, but from what Auto and I are able to tell from the dates in his memory, he's running on a back-up copy of your dad's CPU that Wily made sometime when he was staying in the sixth Wily castle. We guess that he'll know about the robot contest scheme, but probably not much further than that. He probably won't remember building you."
"I...I don't care." she sobbed. "He's still my father, and I'm gonna rebuild him."
"Good." Mega Man said. "Before I shut him down, he told me not to activate him until he's back in his normal Crystal Man form. He wants to meet everyone when he's himself."
"That's alright." Crystal Bot sniffed, wrapping his Clown Man arm around her. "It'll take a while to get him in normal order, but I can wait. Whatever makes him feel the most comfortable."
"Oh, I haven't told everyone else in Team 5 yet. I thought I would let you be the one to let them know."
The quiet moment was interrupted by the blare of the comm screen's ring - someone was calling. Mega Man went to go answer it, pushing a little green button on the console. Up popped the face of Aneesha Gupta, one of the nurses at Peace Street Hospital. Mega Man knew her well. She took very good care of Dr. Light during those final months.
"Oh? How can I help you?" Mega Man asked.
"I need to speak to Crystal Bot." the Indian girl said, a little tense. "She wanted me to let her know if Wily's condition changed."
Crystal Bot nervously got up from behind the repair table. That was a request she'd asked before Wily had tricked her into confronting Zero, and now she wasn't so sure about her "grandfather". Still, she figured she should listen, so she neared the computer screen.
"What's going on?"
"Wily isn't doing well at all." Aneesha said, scrunching her hands together. "We're not sure he's going to last much longer. He's been going in and out of consciousness for the past three hours, so I thought you would want to know. If you want to see him...well, now's the time."
Crystal Bot started to fidget. "Um, thanks...I'll...talk to you later."
She turned off the comm screen and gazed back at Frantic Man, her father trapped in a mis-matched shell. All of her feelings fought against each other in her heart, and yet somehow Crystal Bot knew exactly what she needed to do. She only let herself be taken in by her doubt for a few moments.
"Rock..." she said, still staring at Frantic Man. "It's not...weird if I want to see Dr. Wily, is it?"
Mega Man too was looking at the deactivated robot. "Yes, it is a little weird. But it's also very merciful. Do what you think is right."
"I thought you might say that. Well, I guess you can tell Team 5 about my dad...I think maybe they'll understand about Dr. Wily. I love my daddy...but..."
"But you're going to see him again." Mega Man nodded. "That's not the case with Wily."
"Yeah." Crystal Bot eased at his understanding. "Explain it to them if they don't understand, okay?"
"Sure I will."
"Thank you, Rock-kun." she smiled at him. "Thank you so much."
Crystal Bot teleported out.
\\\\\\\\
Author's Notes:
- Raise your hand if you guessed the identity of Frantic Man before I said it here. Come on, don't be shy. :D
- Annyonggikahsehyo is goodbye in korean if you're the one staying and the person you're talking to is leaving. If you're the one leaving, you say annyonggikehsehyo. The way you remember the difference is to remember that ka means to go or to leave, and by saying annyonggikahsehyo you're telling someone to go in peace. Kohmahehyo is the informal way to say "thank you", as opposed to the formal komapsumneeda.
Character Profiles!
=====Crystal Man
Crystal Man started off as one of Wily's more idealistic inventions that he wanted to build to outdo Dr. Light. Much in the same vein as Star Man being able to appreciate art, Wily wanted Crystal Man to be able to tell the future. This failed miserably. First of all, telling the future is not something anyone can really do, and Wily wasn't familiar enough with the trickster kind of fortune telling to make that operate better in Crystal Man. Eventually Wily did give Crystal Man enough information to examine economic factors and thus at least predict the future of money, which Crystal Man was able to do with some measure of success. He's the guy you want to ask about stock investing.
Crystal Man is the third Team 5 robot to be started. The first and second are Star and Charge Man. All three were begun during the time when Wily was building Team 2, though an unfinished Star Man was put away in storage. Charge and Crystal Man at the time were little more than mechaniloids, and the only significant thing Crystal Man did for years was create energy crystals for Dr. Wily to sell in the black market. Crystal Man also provided the crystals that went to build Gemini Man's fortress.
It was during the horrible time when Dr. Wily had lost MM4 that Crystal Man (and Charge Man) became a normal robot master with sentient A.I. Dr. Wily blamed Proto Man for his previous loss, so he invented the MM5 scheme to get back at Proto Man. Crystal Man did his part in the plan, but at no time did he like it or really care about anything Wily wanted. In fact, Crystal Man found himself hating the man almost as soon as he became sentient. He'd been a mechaniloid for years, and Wily didn't delete his old memory when he was upgraded, so Crystal Man already knew very well the madman he had to work with.
However, Crystal Man never expressed this hate, not even to his team members. He already knew from the very beginning that Dr. Wily never expected them to actually beat Mega Man during MM5, and this made him even more bitter about his master. That, however, went unnoticed by his master. Crystal Man was one of Wily's favorite robots, especially since Crystal Man never dared talk back to him. Crystal Man was only in the robot museum for the briefest time, being captured at the end of MM6 and released during MM7. It was after that the horrified robot found himself as Dr. Wily's robot assistant, and specialized in building the mechaniloids that would fight against Mega Man during the later schemes. He spent the rest of his life being this assistant.
Crystal Man was very intent on making sure his team was upgraded, and so he built Crystal Bot to do the work for him. He planned on sneaking her the materials while he pretended that everything was normal in front of Wily. No one is really sure what his plan was, but Crystal Man had his ideas about freeing Team 5 from Wily's influence. For this scheme he wanted his daughter to be very smart, so once MM9 was under way, Crystal Man drafted an unwilling Jewel Man into stealing Mega Man X's plans, as well as some information on Auto and Roll.
With only a little of Jewel Man's help, Crystal Man got Crystal Bot into a mostly working order. You know this part of the story already, how he was caught and a jealous Wily stomped on his motherboard to murder him. Wily felt sorry for little Crystal Bot, so he reprogrammed her and adopted her as his own, as creepy as that may sound. Crystal Man's body, what parts of it didn't get used to upgrade Crystal Bot to her normal form, were recycled and used to make some Team 10 mechaniloids. Crystal Man is very, very lucky that Wily didn't remember he had a backup copy of him in an old castle.
Crystal Man is very solemn in appearance and personality. He's very calm, moderately kind, but fairly exclusive in a way. He spoke rarely, and then mostly to his own team members, though he never shunned other Wily-bots, other than mean robots like Tengu Man (who shunned him right on back) or crazy ones like Aqua Man. Him and Clown Man used to have the worst conflicts, and only Crystal Man's favored position kept Clown Man at bay. Most of the time Crystal Man is alone, and he wishes that he hadn't been a mechaniloid back when Proto Man worked for Wily. He thinks they could have been good friends. Crystal Man usually got along with his team, but him and Gravity Man had some mild trouble because Gravity Man was jealous that Crystal was the robot assistant to Wily instead of him.
While his personality made him very solitary, Crystal Man did feel lonely from time to time and that's one of the major reasons he built Crystal Bot. He wanted a daughter because there were no girl-bots around.
=====Aneesha Gupta
"Can I have your autograph?"
Good point: Very friendly
Bad point: Very nosy
Likes: Celebrities
Dislikes: Bad hair days
I don't know why I'm doing Aneesha's profile. She's really a very minor character. Her last appearance was in an extra scene in Okkusenman's bonus features. Wow, that was more than two years ago...
Aneesha is kind of a ditz. Her father is an immigrant from India, and thus he wanted his daughter to have the best life she could in America. Aneesha, however, is hardly as serious as her father, though she's plenty intelligent. She likes fun clothes, getting her nails done, and chatting it up about the latest celebrity couple. Her father's views won out in the end, and Aneesha ended up going to medical school and becoming a nurse. She's fine with this. She likes the salary she gets, and is considered one of the best and most friendly nurses in Peace Street Hospital. Even better, she got to see lots of famous people in the past year.
Aneesha's love of collecting autographs has the habit of getting her in trouble. When Dr. Light first went to the hospital, she could barely sit still for wanting his signature. She managed to get his, Mega Man's, Roll's and Auto's before too long. And the day Bass decided to become a good guy and tell this to Dr. Light, she got his autograph too - though if she'd been paying more attention, she would have noticed that her boss didn't want her letting a dangerous robot into the hospital. Yeah, her hobbies sometimes get the better of her. Later on she managed to get Crystal Bot's signature, as well as one of Bruce's footprints. She bribed Dr. Wily with pizza to get his, and considers this her most proud accomplishment. She's very, very lucky that none of her bosses know about it.