Chapter Eleven
Coinciding Missions Pt 3
Mega rolled out of the way as twin lasers barely missed him, they bounced off a car and destroyed a fire hydrant, gushing into the street like a little fountain.
"Hey Mega dude! Over here!" The twin voices of Gemini Man cackled, one after the other, making it more difficult to pick up the direction.
During their Cold Steel stint, Mega Man had completely underestimated him. He was learning right now that Gemini Man's ability to create a solid looking mirage, fire twin lasers and throw two echoing voices made him a dangerous opponent.
"Where ya gonna run to now Mega Man?" Fire Man taunted and three weapons were fired at him.
The blazing heat turned the water from the hydrant into scalding steam and the steam mixed with Frog Man's deadly Rain Flush, creating a toxic fog that blinded and disoriented him as he tried desperately to get out of it. There was disjointed laughter and he felt a searing pain across his foot as the acid began eating at his armor and two lasers grazed the top of his helmet.
"I've never seen them so organized before."
They'd become downright deadly tonight, as though he were fighting a whole new batch of bots. He howled in pain as a white hot bolt of pain tore his synthetic flesh and he suddenly wished robots hadn't been giving pain sensors.
He heard rather then sensed another of Fire Man's shots speeding toward him, by sheer dumb luck he managed to crash into a restaurant, eyes partially shut as he ran towards the bathroom to wash the acid off, amidst the chorus of loud laughter.
Proto, Crystal and Guts Man in the meantime were giving the robo police a hard time, the police were built with better intelligence and the government had paid good money to build them with titanium armor. Just because Mega Man was their robot champion, didn't mean that they were going to put all their eggs in one basket. But even then, Guts Man was no walk in the park, he may not have good intelligence, but his brute strength was nothing to sneeze at.
He picked up a street lamp and knocked three robotic cops away like a batter making a home run.
Crystal Man was ruthless and fast and his rare crystals shredded their armor with ease.
Proto was the brains of the trio and an excellent fighter, he would have preferred to be giving his little brother the run around, but Wily had directly ordered him here and that was something even he had a hard time resisting…when he was in earshot, he wondered briefly if Roll had learned the same trick with Dr. Light.
The thought made him grin, she was definitely more like him then she let on, kinda the middle ground between him and Mega, still a goody-two shoes, still more concerned with those lazy bags of flesh, but with enough of a rebellious streak to find ways around direct order programming. He just hoped Wily didn't notice.
The old man was actually more lenient then he let on, but blatant disobedience brought out his cruel streak…Ice Man had found that out the hard way.
He hoped Roll gave Venixion a little hell though, wouldn't it be funny if the weaker unfit for combat "Light Sibling" accomplished what his boy scout brother couldn't?"
Though he kinda wished Wily hadn't chosen Venixion to steal from.
They were no light weights and from Shadow Man's reports, allowed Wily and several other high profile criminals to operate because it drew any possible attention away from them.
The thought of crossing them made something heavy and hot sit deep in his abdomen, he wasn't sure what that feeling was, but it had never been wrong before and that's what he was afraid of.
Jodie Bennet sat shaking in fear and grief as the lab burned, her brother and the teams of scientists were dead at a robot master's hands and Wily's other bots had gathered valuable material before dragging her out to see it burn.
The Bennets were not exactly innocent victims, they had manufactured and sold illegal items and weapons in France, the U.S and Canada, as well as stolen several inventions and robot masters from other high-tech criminals, but they didn't deserve this!
Wily was a genius when it came to self-thinking robot masters, not quite the genius Light was, but stealing from Light would bring too much attention to their own activities, so they'd stolen from Wily instead.
She and her team of scientists had never taken Wily too seriously as a threat, he was something of a joke in the criminal underground and many speculated that when he began his bid for world domination that he'd finally gone senile. The only reason the criminal underground tolerated him was because he sold excellent products for a good price.
Shadow Man jerked her head up viciously.
"Wily wanted you to learn a lesson about messing with him and he left me to do it at my own discretion. You're a smart woman Miss Bennet, you've made enough enemies on the underground that no one would be willing to protect you, or retaliate. Lesson learned?" He asked in a cold, conversational tone.
The tone in which those words were said chilled Jodie Bennet to the bone and she knew he was right about making too many enemies to gather allies. Few were willing to let other members in for fear of spies stealing secrets anyways. She nodded in misery and broke down crying.
Shadow Man stared down at the woman coldly, this was his small way getting vengeance for all robots who were nothing but modifiable tools for humanity. He knew of course that there were people out there to whom robots were as good as family or close friends and were treated as though they were living beings, but the laws would prevent them from living on their own like humans did and so they were dependant solely on their family or company, allowing them to be reclaimed as company property, given to someone in their will or snatched up by their makers and resold on their owner's death.
One day perhaps, he'd take down his Master too for his crimes against robot kind. But of course he couldn't do it till he took down Proto first, the robot wasn't under Wily's command, the way other robot masters were, but he certainly wouldn't allow the old man to get hurt and his loyalty to him was something that confused Shadow.
"Now one more time Miss Bennet, what happened here tonight?" Shadow prompted.
"A s-small fire st-started too close to dangerous ch-ch-chemicals and I barely made it out alive." She whimpered.
"Good girl." Shadow said approvingly as though she were a dog.
At the end of the night, Mega was battered, bruised and baffled. The Wily bots caused havoc with no obvious purpose, then they seemed to get bored running them ragged around the city and vanished, leaving them to clean up the mess. But why? As a show of power? To humiliate some of the city's finest? It seemed like a random attack with Wily as a no show. That wasn't the crazed scientist's style.
He had knocked Jodie Bennet out and helped his comrades carry the goods onto the train, everything was right on schedule and it had gone off mostly without a hitch. Which was just the way Shadow liked it.
Author's Note;
Well I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter and this
ends the Coinciding Missions part of the story and
I've already got the next chapter partially written.
Will Roll and Ice Man be able to complete this dicey mission?
Will they be able to get out alive?
Stay tuned for Chapter 12 Venixion Corps Pt 1; Stealth and Sneakery
Little Kunai