I do not own any of these characters. Except for some of the OCs.
But enough of that! It's time this story had some real action…
Waste Disposal Facility, Hirohito Industrial Area, Setsuri, Japan
7:00 P.M.; Friday, March 8, 2199
Setsuri, at first glance, was utopian in the physical sense of the word. However, if one looked at the city from a bird's eye view, and looked at the region surrounding the central city, you'd immediately notice two things: first, Setsuri encompassed a bay, the Bay of Salvation. More importantly, you'd also notice a half-ring of slums surrounding the larger city, filling in the space between Setsuri proper and its satellite cities Shin Hiroshima to the east-northeast, and Makitihara to the south. The portion of this ring that composed the area where the Bay of Salvation sloped west, though, was the Hirohito Industrial District, which contained all of the local area's "dirty" industries, such as chemical production, sakuradite production and storage, sewage treatment, and– most relevant to what was going on right now –waste disposal.
I mention this because Fire Man was at said waste disposal facility, and was having the time of his life.
After occupying the facility, with the Mets and other robots under his command, someone called in the local police. That was fine with him – he wanted to burn stuff, especially the heretical humans! He'd so far burned– how many? Twenty? Thirty? It didn't matter. What mattered was that Fire Man could finally give the humans what they deserved:
A place in Hell to rot away.
The red and black robot was clearing the boulevard leading to the mass-incinerator of all lifeforms, and was currently searching the various upturned or otherwise charred police vehicles for any stragglers hiding from his flames of justice. Whilst inspecting one of the cars upturned against a lightpost, he was ambushed by a trio of officers, and a pair of policebots.
"FOOLS!" he screamed with a Texan accent as he dodged one of them trying to manhandle him. He retracted his right hand, deploying one of his flamethrowers in its place. Shooting a line of literal fire, he quickly turned her into charcoal "You're wasting your time!"
"It's time well spent if it means keeping you from hurting others!" one of the others retorted, firing his pistol at the waste disposal bot. Of course, plasteel beats bullets, so they bounced harmlessly right off of him. With a laugh, Fire Man rammed the officer with a headbutt, declaring "You've got nothing on me! As long as my justice burns bright, evil will never prevail!"
In his processor, he was certain of this truth as he finished off his attackers. Nobody would stand against him and win. Not these silly policemen, not the military, not the blue knight approaching him–
–wait. The blue knight approaching him?
That was new.
As he stopped and watched the incoming blue robot, he was firing a Buster– the same weapon that Break Man uses –at several Mets that were trying to intercept him. They were firing small bolts of plasma from their welders (the mets were probably from nearby factories assembling who-knows-what), his lemons deflecting off of their hard hats, one of the mets' bolds hitting the blue bot and knocking him onto his ass. What was he doing, trying to be a superhero? How cliché. As the man stood up, something deep within Fire Man's memory files recognized his face. Yet as the blue knight adjusted and began only while the various mets had their faces and welders exposed, he couldn't put a finger on where he'd seen him before, and was confused whether or not he had seen him before – the boss had only activated him yesterday, for fuck's sake!
Nonetheless, one thing was certain: if bossman Wily hadn't built him, then he must be evil. Evil needs to be destroyed. By this logic of his, Fire Man would destroy this blue knight before him.
Guess I won't be sitting down for a while, Rock, or rather Mega Man thought as he finished off the last of the rouge mets. Turning around, he sighted Cacus nearby, having just torched a group of police officers to death. The blue knight approached, his eyes locking with the red eyes of his misguided/mal-programmed foe, before the red and black robot shot a stream of flames in his direction. Rock was barely able to jump out of the way, taking cover behind an abandoned police car as he deployed his Buster.
"Fiiiiire!" His opponent roared as he ran at the car, only to be shot at with miniature stars. He dodged them, deploying his other flamethrower before firing both of them to get his opponent out of cover. "Burn! Burn! My justice burns hotly! Evil beware!"
This did the trick, but what the waste disposal robot wasn't expecting his opponent to do was fire at him whilst running to get behind another vehicle. This shot, Fire Man was unable to dodge, striking him square in the middle of his red chestplate, giving it a scorch mark where it landed.
As he stumbled, Mega Man addressed him. "Cacus, what on Earth are you doing?"
"Cleansing the Earth of heretics, including you!" he screeched. "And my name is Fire Man!"
"…excuse me?" Rock couldn't exactly believe what he was hearing.
"You heard me!" the red and black robot shot back, both verbally and in the literal sense, forcing the blue knight to move once again. "I ain't repeating myself!"
"If your name is 'Fire Man,' then where's your truck?" he asked, somewhat mockingly, whilst continuing to dodge the walls of fire his opponent spawned. "Where's your hoses? Your spotted dog?"
"Not that kind of fireman, infidel!" Caucus roared back in frustration and exasperation, his eyes visibly turning red. "And since you're proving harder than I expected to burn, what the Hell is your name!?"
"My friends call me Rock," he answered, "but you and the others can call me Mega Man."
"Mega Man?" Fire Man asked, lowering his voice for once, as he was legitimately confused. "What kind of stupid name is–"
His insult was cut short as the blue robot shot his leg and caused him to briefly stumble. He got right back up, but he was down just long enough for Rock to close the distance between them. He promptly shot a volley of 'lemons' from his Buster, most of which the red and black bot had no time to avoid. This managed to blast/melt/tear off his left arm, and break off his mouth guard.
"Surrender, Fire Man!" he said as he kept his Buster pointed at him. "You're damaged, and weren't designed for battle! I can take you back to Dr. Hikari's lab–"
"I refuse your temptation," he sneered, his jagged teeth showing. "I will never let the flames of justice die, not for as long as I can stand!"
"Well, I tried," was all Rock could say to himself as Fire Man charged at him once more, screaming. Aiming for his crazed opponent's chest, Mega Man activated his buster, temporarily shut off his audio receptors, and closed his eyes.
After a good ten seconds, he relinquished, and opened his eyes to see that the red and black robot had fallen before him, his reactor core breached and forced into automatic shutdown.
Quickly, he grabbed Fire Man's left forearm/flamethrower with his right hand, and activated his VTS.
As he'd theorized, it read the waste disposal bot's abilities as a tool, and copied his flamethrower's schematics into his inventory. On his internal monitors, a new weapon, named the Fire Storm, had appeared alongside the Rolling Cutters and hammer.
His thoughts were cut short, though, as his internal monitors alerted him of an incoming phone call from Dr. Hikari.
"Rock? Do you read me?" he sounded worried.
"I'm fine," he replied, "just, um, a little burnt, that's all."
"That's great," he replied wearily. "But where are you right now?"
"Nowhere in particular," he sarcastically replied, "just in the middle of the Hirohito Industrial Area! Seriously, I don't know if you've noticed, but the Robot Masters are online and running amok throughout the city, dad. Do you care to explain?"
He heard his creator take a deep breath. "Son, do you remember what I told you about that professor I had in Kyoto, Dr. Wily?"
It only took milliseconds for Rock to connect the dots. "I take it that he's the one behind this?"
"Unfortunately, that seems to be the case," he confirmed. "He left a thumb drive here at the lab, as well as… Well, I'll tell you later. Right now, I want you to find your way home safely."
"I'd really love to do that, dad," he said, "but right now I'm standing over the corpse of Caucus, and I don't think the others are going to like it that I've killed him… and Achilles…"
…
"Son," Dr. Hikari asked in a serious tone, "What did you do?"
ONE EXPLANATION AND 11 MINUTES LATER…
" …and that's when you called me…" the blue knight finished explaining where he'd been over the last few hours, during which he'd started making his way over to the nearest electronic appliance store, to get an idea where the other Robot Masters were.
Unlike what he'd expected, though, his creator was not quick to respond to him. For a solid minute, nothing came in from the other side of the line.
"Dr. Hikari? Are you still there?"
"…Rock," the good doctor finally answered, "if our circumstances were any different, I'd be grounding you."
Oh joy, Rock thought.
"However," his father continued, "given that the police haven't been able to contain even Achilles, the easiest for them to have taken on, I'm afraid you may be the only one who can stop them. I've trusted that you've managed to copy Achilles' and Cacus' weapons?"
"Yeah, I did."
"Excellent," Dr. Hikari said. "Now listen carefully, Rock. In the event that any of the prototype Robot Masters went rogue and tried… Well, I don't need to explain the scenario, but my point is, I built weaknesses in them so that another one of the Robot Masters could neutralize the rogue element."
"…and because all of them went rogue at once, you want me to exploit those weaknesses using my Variable Tool system," Rock concluded.
"More or less."
"But how will you be able to repair them?" he asked, concerned. "Heck, can you even repair Cacus or Achilles?"
"As long as their Integrated Circuits aren't damaged," the good doctor reassured, "they can be repaired and… well, I'm not going to reactivate him or any of the others until the board gives me authorization, if they ever do, but you know what I'm getting at."
It was at this point that Mega Man finally reached an electronic appliance store, one Best Try, and entered through its sliding doors. Almost immediately he was confronted with a scene of pandemonium, as various appliances and telleys– small cylindrical drones that were popular amongst kids, from what he'd heard –were harassing customers and staff alike.
"I'll call you back when I'm done," he said.
"Son, please be careful," his father said, before he was hung up on.
Acting quickly, Rock reactivated his Buster and began shooting the telleys out of the air, being careful that they didn't fall on top of anyone when he did. As he did, though, he was tackled to the floor by an unknown assailant, who began punching the blue knight repeatedly in the face. Managing to force himself out of their grip, it took only milliseconds to recognize his assailant once he got a clear look at him.
"Sergeant Night?"
He didn't get a verbal response as the JROTC teacher charged at him again, though this time Mega Man was able to step out of his way. "Sir, I'm here to help, not hurt you," he tried to explain.
"I don't care why you're here," the black-haired man roared back, "you're supposed to be in the scrapyard!"
"What?" He dodged a punch. "I'm not supposed to go there for at least another 20 years, Sir."
At that point Night kicked Rock in the leg, causing him to fall over. Breaker stood over him with a menacing glare. However, before the JROTC teacher could… Well, Rock didn't know what he was going to do, but he nonetheless stopped as someone else called him over.
"Hon, a little help?"
Behind Isuru was a woman about his age, with short, black hair and in a military dress uniform, who was fighting a pair of telleys with little more than an unplugged keyboard.
"Ami, I'm in the middle of something," Night growled back, though not in the downright aggressive tone Rock was used to hearing from him.
"So am I, Isuru," the woman, Ami, shot back, "and I think your something can wait."
"Do you know who this is?" he asked her. "This is the so-called 'son' of the man who put me out of my career!"
"You can have your revenge fantasy later!" she yelled as she bashed one of the cylindrical drones, causing it to spin but otherwise remain undamaged. As this was happening, Rock used the distraction to get back on his feet whilst Night wasn't looking, before running over and grabbing one of the tellys.
"Hey– stay away from her, you bastard machine!"
"Again, Sir, I'm here to help," he reiterated, as he smashed the drone repeatedly into one of several tall, painted steel beams holding up the store's roof far above. Within half a dozen tries, he managed to split the telly in half, destroying it, then took on the other one. Sergeant Night tried to tackle the blue robot from behind, but Ami held her arm out in front of him, gesturing him to stop. After Rock had destroyed the second telley, she asked him a question.
"Are you… are you Miss Nishizumi's kid?"
He went silent for a moment, thinking about how he should answer. " …Dr. Hikari built me," he slowly replied, "and he said he used his daughters as inspiration when he did. But I haven't met Miss Nishizumi in person yet. Why do you ask?"
A look of realization and disappointment fell on the young woman's face as he said this. "My apologies," Ami said, "your face looks a lot like your oldest sister's. My name's Chouno Ami."
"Hold it! You're not seriously–"
"Hon, I trained under Shiho in high school," she quickly explained, frustration rising in her voice. "I don't know if she considers… this boy is here to be her son, but her husband in all likelihood does."
"Rock is a machine," he quickly retorted, "and one that is armed to the teeth! How can you consider a soulless, metal husk a person? And if you do, then what about those dastardly Sniper Joes? Are they people, eh?"
"Please excuse my fiancé," Ami quickly told Rock. "He's been a bit… uppity since the higher brass reassigned him from being a drill sergeant three years ago."
Within a second, Rock figured out where she was going. Since the Sniper Joes had become the backbone of the JSDF in the twenty-odd years since their introduction, less living soldiers to train also meant that the military needed less people to do the training.
"That… explains a lot…"
"I don't want your sympathy," Breaker spat before the knight could properly respond. "Just do whatever you're here for, and get out of my sight."
Mega Man simply nodded, and headed to the back of the Best Try, to the TV section. Sure enough, the various screens were showing coverage of the Robot Masters' havoc. After listening for a few minutes, he got the information he was searching for: their locations.
Poseidon was occupying the naval base up north; Persephone was turning uptown into a winter wonderland; Heracles had taken over the largest sakuradite mine in the second slum district; Zeus had fried the security at Arasaka Tower downtown and had taken the building; and Hephaestus was demolishing Selection University campus. The demolition robot was the closest to Rock's location, and he was weak to Fire Man's abilities, so that would be where he was headed next…
Naval Base, Setsuri, Japan
7:45 P.M.; Friday, March 8, 2199
If there was one word that could describe Wave Man's mood right now, it would be frustrated. No matter how many times he tried to disinfect and sanitize the various hydrogen fuel silos and warehouses, he kept finding more and more dirt, grime, people, etc.. Granted, it was currently in use, but he was a sanitation bot, and the fact that he couldn't get this task done was driving him mad! And he couldn't leave and return later, because Dr. Wily and Miss Piper would scramble his circuits if he didn't. He'd seen how the latter had tortured Cut Man after he refused to stop making his puns (which, to be fair, were god-awful), and this had managed to scare everyone else into obedience.
Except Elec Man, but only because his electricity-magic allowed him to effectively resist her attempts to control him. She tried that after he'd rounded up the Twin Peaks Factory's management team whilst singing Can't Touch This.
His thought process, however, was interrupted by a very loud crashing noise. Startled, Wave Man got on his feet and saw a purplish-blue robot that looked like a modern-day recreation of a medieval-era witch coming out of the warehouse.
" …Do I know you?"
"Poseidon, please stand aside," the stranger somewhat kindly asked.
"I'm afraid I can't do that, madam," the sanitation bot honestly answered. "And could you please tell me where I've seen you before?"
"I might," the witch robot said. "But why can't you stand down first?"
"Because if I do, she'll kill me."
"Who?"
"Kid, you have no idea what she's capable of," the sanitation bot warned. "Also, my name is Wave Man, not…"
"Did she really rename all of you guys?" the stranger asked.
"I have no idea what you mean, but I'm gonna have to stop you right here, kid," Wave Man aimed his water cannon at him, visibly irritated. "Both for your own safety, and mine."
Welp, it was worth a try, Akko concluded in the milliseconds before Poseidon– Wave Man –fired his Water Waves at him. Guess asking them to stand down is not an option, either…
When she crash-landed at the naval base, Akko had been greeted with the scene of JSDN personnel fighting against a small army of mets, picketmen– robots used to mine extremely dangerous materials like sakuradite and hihi'irokane –and tellys.
…and Poseidon– or Wave Man, apparently –who was trying to fight her by summoning waves of water. During one of her visits to Dr. Hikari's lab, the good doctor had mentioned that his water cannon worked by drawing moisture from the air and using quintessence magic to multiply the water present up to a certain point. Given the somewhat arid climate of Shin Honshu in general, and the fact that arid places don't have much atmospheric moisture by their very nature, the resulting waves weren't as powerful as full-blown tsunamis. But the waves were still strong enough to knock Akko off her feet, as she found out when the sanitation robot pounded both of his fists into the concrete ground to manifest one.
Quickly, she got back up and reached for her wand – only to realize that she left it back at Dr. Hikari's lab. As Wave Man slammed his arms into the ground to create another wave, the robotic witch could do little more than brace herself, holding her hands out in front of her in a seemingly futile attempt to cushion the blow…
…except the water never came.
She opened one of her eyes, then the other, and saw that a square, translucent mint green barrier had manifested in front of her. The waves were crashing into and going around it, and although she was nonetheless knee-deep in water momentarily, the barrier had taken the brunt of the blow.
"Hey, what's with the sea wall!?" she heard Wave Man complain, before the barrier dissipated. "No fair!"
Thinking quickly, Akko ran over towards the sanitation bot, her legs carrying her faster than she was used to, and tried punching Poseidon in the face. He blocked the punch with his arm, then fired a harpoon at her from his right arm that she barely dodged. She used the opportunity to grab his arm and, with all the strength she could muster, threw the blue and yellow robot over her head.
The robotic witch was actually surprised that she managed to do that, as she didn't remember being that strong. She was also pretty sure the harpoon was NOT there last time she checked.
Wave Man, despite being somewhat rotund, quickly got back on his feet – well, flippers – and threw a punch of his own at Akko. This knocked the air out of her (metaphorically, as she no longer had lungs), and threw her back a few meters, at which point the harpoon returned to its owner.
"Look what you've done, dirtying up this place," he half-yelled at his opponent, now fully pissed off. "Prepare for sanitation!"
Akko scrambled to her feet just in time to be hit by another series of waves, knocking her right back down. She got up again, her hair soaking wet, and narrowly dodged the sanitation bot's harpoon.
Shit, he's relentless, the robotic witch realized as he created yet another wave, barely putting up another barrier in time. I don't know if I can keep up with this! I should've remembered to get my wand… if only Dr. Hikari included some kind of long range weapon in this stupid piece of–
As if responding to her thoughts, Akko's left forearm suddenly exploded into a mess of plasteel plating and mechanical parts, the glow of the philosopher's stone emitting from within. Within a second, the various pieces and components shifted and repositioned themselves, as well as her hand, reconfiguring her forearm into a Buster, similar to the one she saw Rock have hours ago.
She was surprised (and disturbed) that the good doctor included a firearm on a search-&-rescue android, but she wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Once her barrier dissipated, she hastily aimed her buster at Wave Man and willed it into firing. The shot hit Poseidon's right side, blowing his right arm– the one with the harpoon –off.
Wave Man stumbled backwards, reeling from the hit, which Akko used to run up to him.
"Poseidon–Wave Man, please," she said, "I don't want to hurt you any further!"
"I'm sorry, madam," he replied, "but I can't stand down no matter how much I want to. Please, just kill me, it'll be easier that way…"
"What!?"
"My boss is going to kill me for failure regardless, so I'm already a dead bot walking."
Akko was taken aback, to say the least, but given that Dr. Wily had left a Sniper Joe to kill Dr. Light after stealing Poseidon and the other Robot Master prototypes, she guessed she shouldn't have been so surprised. She did not want to kill the poor sanitation robot, but given that she needed to deal with the other six, the roboticized witch resigned herself to this shameful task, she aimed her buster at Wave Man's chest, closed her eyes, and fired.
Selection University campus, Setsuri, Japan
8:15 P.M.; Friday, March 8, 2199
As soon as Mega Man had reached Selection University campus, he found what he was looking for, though it wasn't exactly what he wanted to find.
It was a chaotic scene out of a war movie– or a zombie apocalypse, either analogy worked –with Hephaestus taking on the entire University All-Stars sensha-do team. Though Rock so far had no knowledge about tanks and the countless variations various nations created, the University's team was composed primarily of T-28s, though there were a also several Panther IIs (which were pink for some reason) and a couple of Abrams tanks, the ancient tanks fired round after round at the orange and black robot, and to Mega Man's pleasant surprise, they were actually doing a number on the Robot Master. But it just wasn't enough, as Hephaestus…
…well, Hephaestus both looked and sounded like he was having the time of his life, and that scared the blue knight.
"Come and get some!" The large orange robot cheered as he lobbed one of his Hyper Bombs into the platoon of tanks, which then detonated, tossing a few of them into the air like toys and causing one of the buildings– most of which looked like something out of 1950s America, Canada and Western Europe –to collapse in a cloud of dust. Rock did not want to know what their crews, or the poor souls in that building, were experiencing, nor did he really have time to. Hephaestus then leapt – smoke coming from the bottom of his feet – landing on top of one of the Panther IIs. He removed another Hyper Bomb from his waist– one of eight, a new one immediately growing like a tumor in its place –and was about to throw it into the open commander's hatch, when the blue knight drew his attention.
"Why don't you try someone your own size!?" he called, which worked at getting the orange demolition bot's attention, but also caused him to throw his black, baseball-sized super-grenade at him. Thinking quickly, he caught the Hyper Bomb with his right hand, scanned it, then threw it into the sky as hard as he could. It exploded, safely away from anyone or anything.
"What the heck," Hephaestus wondered aloud, "that guy just threw my bomb!" He promptly leapt from the Panther II, over 100 yards, and landed right in front of Mega Man. Not anticipating that the demolition robot could leap that far, this took him by surprise. "What do we have here? A clueless man who got lost, I presume?"
"More like the one who's gonna kick your ass," he replied.
Hephaestus laughed. "HA! You think you can penetrate my plasteel armor? How rich!"
"I wouldn't be so sure about that…"
Rock activated his new Fire Storm weapon, which caused his Buster to split apart and reconfigure itself into a flamethrower almost identical to the ones used by Fire Man. However, one side effect he did not foresee was that his entire body– save for his synthetic skin –changed from his blue and light blue color scheme to red and black, the same as the downed waste disposal robot. This quickly caught the attention of the demolition robot, who quickly figured out something was up.
"Wait, how come you suddenly look like…"
If Hephaestus had a proper face, it would've hardened, though the serious tone of his voice still conveyed his mood. " …what have you done to Fire Man?"
"I tried to get him to stand down, but…"
"Of course that blockhead got himself killed," Hephaestus groaned, facepalming. (Well, visor-palming.) "Whatever! You may have beaten him, kid but this is the end of the line…"
"Go ahead," was all Mega Man could say as he mentally braced himself. "I'm not scared, Hephaestus."
"My name is Bomb Man, actually," he corrected him as his left arm mechanically shapeshifted into its cannon form. "But that's not important. What's important is stopping you in your tracks!"
He fired a larger Hyper Bomb from his arm, and at such a velocity that Rock barely managed to dodge it. Seconds later, it exploded, but the blast was much smaller than he'd anticipated; clearly, the demolition robot had figured out how to change how powerful his black balls of death were. He then fired his flamethrower, but instead of a plume of flame like the normally blue knight expected, it shot a large ball of fire. Not that it mattered, since Bomb man leaped out of the way, no problem.
In fact, he kept jumping out of the way of Rock's blasts for the next several minutes, to his frustration. After Bomb Man landed, he sometimes lobbed a Hyper Bomb at him, then jumped out of the way of an incoming fireball. Rinse and repeat for about six minutes.
However, Mega Man soon noticed something about his opponent's attacks: every time gravity pulled the orange and black robot back to the ground, he didn't jump again until at least two seconds after he landed. He had to time his shot perfectly. As soon as Bomb Man landed, he fired his Fire Storm before he had a chance to evade. He tried to shake the flames off of himself, but this only gave Rock the opportunity to hit him with another Fire Storm attack. In desperation, Bomb Man once again fired a large Hyper Bomb from his arm cannon, and managed to take the normally blue knight off-guard.
Rock experienced a bright, green flash as he was catapulted through the perimeter fence and into the wall of one of the university buildings some 20 meters away. Alarm bells were, quite literally, ringing inside his head as an automatic diagnostic scan reported minor damage to his chassis and some small cracks in his armor, but surprisingly, none of his major internal systems had been damaged in the explosion.
Guess that shows how durable mythril is, he thought for a few microseconds, before pulling himself out of the wall and getting back on his feet. However, on his internal monitors, he noticed that there was a low battery symbol now being displayed beside the Fire Storm in his Tool Selection screen. This thing has an ammo count? Crap.
"I'm impressed," the orange and black robot called out as the armored lab assistant bot reverted to his usual blue color scheme, "no-one's been able to survive a point-blank Hyper Bomb at 50% capacity like that. But how much can you take?"
"How about we find out?"
The two then charged at each other, Mega Man re-deploying his Buster and firing shot after shot at Bomb Man, who leapt out of the way to avoid them. This continued for another minute at least, before Rock started noticing smoke coming from the orange and black demolition robot. It was at this moment that the blue knight remembered something Dr. Hikari said whilst building Hephaestus, something about how he couldn't move very fast for very long without overheating his motor-joints, due to his large size and basic thermodynamics stating that larger objects take longer to cool off than smaller ones. Coming up with a plan, he continued to play along with his opponent's "hit me if you can" game until an opening presented itself from Bomb Man's overexertion.
After about two minutes, that opening came as Hephaestus began notably slowing down in his movements, his overheating motor-joints taking their toll. Seizing the opportunity, Mega Man once again switched to the Fire Storm and used what remaining ammo he had left on the demolition robot. He was able to get three more fireballs out, the third one considerably smaller than the others, but all of them hit their target. Just as the last one landed, Bomb Man let out a pained scream, before an explosion destroyed the orange Robot Master collapsed, his remains flying everywhere.
Mega Man switched his VTS back to the Buster before running over to the fallen Robot Master. From what Rock could tell, Bomb Man had been damaged beyond repair.
Rock was taken out of his thoughts by the sound of footsteps approaching. The dust was largely clearing away by now, and the blue knight saw that it was a group of students, likely the crews of the tanks Hephaestus destroyed or otherwise disabled. He retracted his Buster, just in case, and held his hand up with his palms open as he fully turned to face them.
"I'm not here to hurt you, if that's what you're wondering," he preemptively stated. "I've got no reason to fight you guys."
"Great," one of them, a woman with auburn hair said, "that orange one was hard enough as it was."
"More like impossible," said another one, a man with short, black hair. "If you hadn't shown up, my team and I would've been a goner. Thank you."
"No problem," Rock answered, "just making sure that no-one is harmed… or at least, as few are harmed as I can." he looked at the rubble of the building he'd seen get demolished as he arrived. "I wish I could stay and help with the clean-up, but there's four other robots just like this throughout the rest of the city."
"Good luck with that," a third wished him. It was a woman with light blue, boyishly short hair and glasses. "And what's your name, sir!?" she called as Rock began running off towards the next Robot Master on his list.
"Call me Mega Man!" he replied, before disappearing behind the corner of one of the buildings.
Michael didn't know what to think of this. Was this guy a superhero? And if so, since when did they become a real thing?
"I robotics have gotten pretty close to emulating us," he heard Rumi, the woman wit the blue hair and glasses, say. "But I didn't think they'd become that advanced already…"
"What makes you say that?" Michael asked.
"If that was a human," she explained, "they'd have killed us along with that bomber bot. Either that, or we have another Adam Smasher on our hands. And Adam Smasher was one in a million to not go cyberpsycho, so…"
"I bet he's some kind of military prototype," the young man added his input to the conversation.
"Prototype or no, I don't think he's hostile," Azumi, the woman with auburn hair, said. "I mean, he looked like a knight in shining armor, for crying out loud."
Silently, Michael wished Mega Man luck in defeating the other bots rampaging across the city.
Uptown Setsuri, Japan
10:45 P.M.; Friday, March 8, 2199
After dispatching Wave Man, Akko had gotten into a less-than comfortable conversation with the marines and sailors stationed at the naval base, and it took all evening to explain that no, she was not going to shoot them like the sanitation bot did. As soon as she'd sufficiently proven that (she did not want to remember the details), she'd hopped onto her broom and left for the closest Robot Master to her location, which happened to be in uptown. It was now nighttime, meaning that she had to rely on the city's lights to navigate to her next opponent. To her further frustration, Uptown Setsuri seemed to be in some kind of blackout, but her anger soon subsided when she found out why that was.
The entire area had been covered in snow, ice, or frost, turning the landscape white and ice blue. The streets and the palm trees lining them had been frozen cold, whilst the buildings– built with a kind of classic Japanese architecture –were white with snow.
After several minutes, surveying uptown from the sky, she could make out a figure wearing a parka amidst the blowing snow. Persephone, Akko quickly recognized, but what is she doing here?
The robotic witch landed in an alleyway out of Persephone's sight, putting her broom in "hood" (read: storage compartment) on her back. From there, she crept towards the refrigeration robot as quietly as she could.
As she approached, though, Ice Woman fired an Ice Slash out of her right palm, striking the robotic witch and knocking her back a meter or two. Akko herself felt as if a thousand little daggers had embedded themselves in her circuitry.
The downed witch mentally pushed herself back onto her feet in spite of the pain, and saw the Inuit-inspired robot approaching.
"There's something dangerous up ahead, sir!" she said, confusing Akko.
Persephone then spoke again, this time with a serious demeanor. "Oh? Freeze it at all costs, soldier!" she then returned to her more innocent persona, judging by the change in her expression.
"Persephone? What are you saying?" Akko asked in concern. "Did Dr. Wily corrupt your programming?"
"Well, I, uh…" she tried to explain, before her more serious persona manifested once more. "Soldier, finish your mission!" Persephone barked towards herself, before firing another Ice Slash at her opponent. This time Ms. Kagari dodged, albeit barely.
Alright, how do I deal with you? she thought. Ice melts at room temperatures. So I ought to… wait, I can't start a fire with her on my ass. Crap! She swore within her head (well, processor now) as she dodged another Ice Slash beam, firing her Buster a couple of times in response. Persephone promptly dodged all of the mini-stars flying her way.
Damn, she's faster than I expected, the robotic witch noted as his opponent then fired both of her Ice Slashers, forcing Akko to maneuver her way between them to avoid getting hit. If she didn't, then it was game over for her.
Think, Akko, think! What melts ice, besides fire? She searched through her memory files for any answer, and within a few seconds came across one of Mr. Robinson's lectures about surviving in cold weather, about how witches can use quintessence to make tools that can break ice if necessary. That's it!
With that, Akko stopped trying to dodge the sakuradite refrigeration robot. As Persephone fired another Ice Slasher, the witch summoned a barrier, which softly glowed green in the dark of night, and reflected off the snow-covered ground.
This stopped the beam of ice-magic dead in its tracks, shattering it as it came into contact with the quintessence barrier. As the sakuradite refrigeration bot stopped in confusion, Akko took the opportunity to switch back to her Buster and fire a trio of green 'lemons' at her opponent. They all landed, one after the other, the last one striking Ice Woman square in the face and knocking her into stasis lock.
Before Akko could celebrate, she was struck from behind by a massive fireball and was knocked face-first into the snow. And again. And again. And ag—
Diana had known something was off about Akko the moment she'd first laid eyes on her. She was stubborn, thick-headed, had a questionable taste in friends, and wasn't very proficient in magic, nor did she disclose where she came from or who her parents were.
And she professed her love of Shiny Chariot, in public.
But what she'd just seen had just explained all of that. Granted, Diana had not expected that she knew of two machines pretending to be people, but at least Rock had acknowledged himself as such. But Akko? Akko had somehow managed to fool her, a Cavendish, and everyone else at school that she was human.
This… this was disturbing.
But oh well. She probably wasn't going to get back up from the dozen fireballs she'd just cast on her. Was this murder? No, she was a machine. Machines don't die, and aren't even alive to begin with.
"Wow, that was quite trigger-happy."
The prodigess' thoughts were interrupted by the nasal voice of a pale-skinned girl beside her. Diana didn't know her, nor did Hannah or Barbara. They'd gone uptown after headmaster Gnome's grilling to blow off some steam, and in her black-haired friend's case, buy the latest volume of Night Fall from the Bards and Nobles bookstore. But when they were at the checkout, everything began freezing over outside, to the point that the power lines froze and shattered, taking out the lights and whatnot.
The trio of British immigrants had opted to stay inside to keep warm. This soon proved to be wise, as some whackjob high on ice-magic began freezing everyone on the streets solid. Until Akko showed up in her true form, that is. Until then, the three witches had been stuck inside with about a dozen other people, including the weird, pale-skinned girl in a green shirt that just made that comment. She looked like a stereotypical witch, with all the warning signs turned up to eleven; the gloomy aura she constantly emitted, her scent being a strong smell of poison and dangerous chemicals, and she'd only been frowning throughout the last few hours.
"Mind your own business, creep," Diana replied. "She would've opened fire on the rest of us if I hadn't stepped in."
"Somehow, I highly doubt that," the stranger replied in a somewhat raspy voice.
It was at this moment, however, that the inuit disappeared in a pillar of white-blue light, which bolted into the dark sky and arched over the horizon to the south. Diana waited several seconds, expecting Akko to do the same. Yet as Hannah and Barbara finally came out of the store, the robotic witch never did. With that, she took her broom out of her 4-d knapsack.
"Diana, what are you doing?" the black-haired witch asked.
"Weeding out the problem by its roots," she replied, getting on her broomstick. "Are you coming with me?"
"Um, no thank you," Hannah waved off, "We've had enough adventure-seeking for one day…"
"Yeah, and we really should be getting home," Barbara pointed out.
"I'll be back at the manor as soon as I can," Diana promised, referring to her family's mansion, located on the outskirts of Selection University's vast sensha-do grounds to the east of Setsuri. "But at the moment, I need to get to the bottom of this… incident." with that, she flew off into the night sky.
Her two sycophants, meanwhile, gave each other worried looks, before leaving the area. As the snow began to melt, however, the pale-skinned stranger remained, looking at the downed Akko with curiosity…
Slum Zone 2, Setsuri, Japan
11:30 P.M.; Friday, March 8, 2199
It was half 'till midnight, but despite the strain on his power core, Rock had no intentions of sleeping until he'd dealt with the rogue Robot Masters.
Nor could the residents of Slum Zone 2 get any sleep either, as the sakuradite mine that their zone was centered around was under occupation. Whilst Kyoto had touted their colonies in Shin Honshu to be a land of opportunity, the reality is that not everyone can be rich; the way the economy worked, for someone to make profit, two/five/ten/a hundred someone elses had to be scammed, shut out, or otherwise screwed over, even in the world's youngest island.
Thus why over two thirds of Setsuri's population lived in the ring of shanty towns surrounding the actual city, which the local administration had divided into four zones, five if you count the Hirohito Industrial Area. The second of them, located directly east of Setsuri proper, was centered around the local sakuradite mine. And it was here that Heracles had been reported to be located.
Climbing over the fence surrounding the mine, Rock got a better look at what he was up against now. The mine's workers wore gray jumpsuits and hard hats, but weirdly enough, they were also wearing red headphones which he didn't immediately recognize. After getting a good look at the people they were rescuing, though, he recognized what the headphones really were.
"Mindcuffs? Why the heck are they all wearing those?" he asked himself aloud. "And I thought they were blue."
Mindcuffs, or neurocasters, as they were officially known, were the brainchild of what was once the European military, during the chaotic wars that engulfed the young superpower after the Martian War. Originally, they were conceived as a way to control the colossal mechas the Martians used in their offensives– gurrens, they were called –which later came to make the backbone of the European, later Franco-Iberian army. However, it quickly became apparent that they could also override their wearer's nervous system and motor functions if used incorrectly, turning themselves into drones instead. Though the European government was horrified by using this as a way to control indentured servants (usually migrants from the increasingly uninhabitable Africa or their descendants), they were more than happy to exploit this fault to no end regarding the nascent Chosen Ones. Eventually, this led the Chosen into becoming a slave race in all but name to the rest of humanity.
It was at this moment, though, that Rock heard a voice coming from his left. Moving as silently as he could, and doing his best to remain hidden (opting to duck behind a bunch of stacked crates), he approached the main shipping area, to find some more of the workers moving crates full of solid sakuradite into half a dozen… vehicles, which Rock assumed were going to wherever, for purposes unknown. Standing nearby was Heracles, who was complaining to what appeared to be a woman in her early twenties. She had a large… chest, and long, blonde hair.
"…I don't care where Dr. Wily sent Cut Man," Heracles said in a loud, gravely voice, "I need the little troublemaker so I can fix the god-damn fence! If the military comes down on us, we're toast—"
"Guts Man," she cut him off, "the military doesn't care about the slums, they won't come here. And I know you like things done nice and efficiently, but there are some things that just can't be streamlined." The woman spoke with a sickeningly sweet, know-it-all tone, and Mega Man couldn't tell why, but it made him feel deeply uncomfortable.
Heracles, or Guts Man, scoffed. "Try telling that to Elec Man, Piper. Odds are he's still trying to zap Arasaka's local management into line. I swear he's going to fry them to death…"
"That's the Great Pana Piper to you, buzzkill!" she retorted as he walked away.
"Yeah, and I'm Bruticus," he mocked her, before leaving the room entirely. His footsteps were heavy, causing the ground to shudder a bit every time his feet came down.
From the shadows, Rock all watched this unfold, his face having a look of concern as Guts Man left Pana Piper at the shipping floor. This certainly wasn't good. Well, the only thing that was good was that Pana was wrapping up whatever they were doing here. But what would she do to the workers and picketmen when she was done?
Knowing he had little time to contemplate this, he snuck his way out of the shipping area to fight the construction foreman robot, preferably by himself.
Sakuradite mine, Slum Zone 2, Makitihara, Japan
12:00 A.M.; Saturday, March 9, 2199
Mega Man had snuck his way across the mine, and made his way to one of the elevator shafts, and hid behind one of the walls. After a group of miners and picketmen exited the elevator with a bin carrying a large, uncarved Philosopher's Stone, the blue knight waited until they were out of sight before crawling his way along the outer wall to the controls. The controls were easy enough to understand, and Rock quickly set them up to bring the elevator down to the bottom level. From there, he bolted into the elevator itself, barely slipping in before the doors closed.
The metal box descended for a few minutes before reaching the bottom level. When he exited, Mega Man was confronted with a cavern made entirely of sakuradite, the solid quintessence glowing an eerie green. He walked to the left of the elevator for a few minutes, before reaching a group of five picketmen chipping away at the walls with their pickaxes. One of them stopped, noticing the blue knight, and immediately threw his pick at him. The others followed.
Rock calculated his options. If he used his Buster, he may easily cause the whole cavern of sakuradite to explode, killing himself and, more importantly to him, anyone else down in the mine. Ditto with using the Hyper Bomb, and the Fire Storm if it still had ammo. That left the Rolling Cutter. Rock selected it with his VTS, and his left forearm shapeshifted yet again. This time, a Rolling Cutter identical to the ones used by Cut Man emerged from where his hand would normally be, and his armor turned gray and white.
As the picketmen deployed another pickaxe each (somehow), Rock did a motion that someone would do when throwing a frisbee, and the cutters on his left arm detached, flying just like Cut Man's did…
…before embedding themselves into the sakuradite wall of the cavern.
Mega Man sprinted to pull them out, dodging pickaxes as their users tried to hit him with them. Fortunately, the Rolling Cutters came out of the sakuradite deposit easily, and Rock threw them again. This time, they sliced through two of the picketmen, slicing them in half, before returning to the knight like a boomerang. The third time, he beheaded two more of them. The last picketman charged at the normally blue knight and tried to embed yet another pick into his chassis, but Rock countered this by severing his arms, before switching to his buster and firing into his chest.
Mega Man had no time to celebrate, however, as he heard growing footsteps behind him. Turning around, he saw Heracles coming from the direction of the elevator.
"What's goin' on?" He asked, confused. "I heard noises coming from… here…" the largest of the Robot Masters stopped himself as he saw five of the robots under his command in pieces, as well as Rock, whose Buster was still deployed.
It didn't take a terrible amount of processing power for Guts Man to figure out what had just happened.
The large foreman robot's expression rapidly hardened, before leapt half the distance remaining between them. When he landed, Heracles' mass was enough to cause a small tremor that knocked the blue knight off his feet.
"You have a lot of nerve for a small boy," he said, doing the motions of someone cracking his knuckles (if he were a human and not a robot himself, who can't actually do that), "But for hurtin' my men, I'm gonna teach you a lesson."
"Um, how about no?" he nervously asked as the larger robot approached, calculating his next choice of action.
Crap, now what? Dr. Hikari said that he built Heracles like a tank! There's no way I'm getting through his thich armor with my Buster, let alone the Water Wave. Unless…
He had a plan. It was a very risky, very explosive plan, but if it worked…
Quickly, Mega Man reactivated his VTS, switching from his normal Buster to the Hyper Bomb he'd copied at the start of his fight with Hephaestus. Like when he used the Fire Storm, his armor's color changed, this time becoming orange and black just like the fallen demolition Robot Master, whilst his left forearm mechanically shapeshifted once more. This time, it turned into a larger, more box-shaped cannon; the barrel was still circular, but was around 245 millimeters wide, instead of the 30 of his Buster's nozzle.
"You hurt Bomb Man too!?" the foreman robot yelled, clearly enraged. "Okay, now it's personal!"
As Mega Man got back on his feet, he noticed that his internal monitors were displaying a meter of how much explosiveness (for lack of a better term) he wanted his bombs to have. Selecting (or rather, willing) a 66% capacity, a bar popped up with the label 'SYNTHESIZING…'
I don't have time for this, he thought, as the larger construction foreman bot began charging at him, or at least tried to; his larger size and heavy armor made his acceleration slower than it otherwise would've been… which gave the normally blue knight plenty of time to move out of the way. Unfortunately, Heracles used the walls of the sakuradite cavern to walk on for a second, using his own momentum to turn himself around as he got back on the floor, taking Rock by surprise and punching him square in the face, knocking him onto the ground once more.
It took a few seconds for the armored lab assistant's internal gyroscopes to recalibrate, at which point he saw Guts Man slow himself to a stop a short distance away. With little difficulty, the foreman robot managed to lift a boulder of rock over his head with his right arm, before throwing it at Mega Man. The normally blue robot, realizing he had no chance of physically moving out of the way of the flying boulder's path, slid forwards, his head missing the side of the large rock with centimeters to spare, before it crashed further down the cavern.
Fortunately, it was at this moment that, on his internal monitors, the normally blue knight could see that his own projectile had finished synthesizing, to his relief. Seeing that Guts Man was accelerating himself once again to ram him, Mega Man began running. Eventually, he came into a part of the cavern that was normal rock instead of solid quintessence. Good, he thought, at least I won't blow the whole mine sky-high. With that, he stopped, turned around and fired, launching the large Hyper Bomb at the construction foreman. It had grooves on its surface that corkscrewed around it, allowing it to spin like any normal bullet or tank/artillery shell would, which was important since Rock did not want it to miss.
And it didn't. The Hyper Bomb hit Guts Man square in the chest, and detonated mere milliseconds after making contact. This was followed by a bright, mint green flash and a deafening noise, which knocked Rock's eyes and audio receptors temporarily offline respectively. The shockwave was also more than enough to send the normally blue knight hurtling deeper into the mine, something that was definitely felt and actually registered in the robot's mind.
After something like five seconds (his sensors had left him too disoriented for him to precisely measure the time), the normally blue robot tumbled and skidded to a stop, only for a bunch of rocks to fall on top of him. After another twenty seconds, Rock's hearing returned, and what they received was… well…
" …are you fucking kidding me!?" he heard Guts Man curse, moments before his vision returned as well. He sorted his way out of a pile of rocks, this part of the cavern having caved in as a result of the explosion, to see Heracles almost completely unharmed from the blast.
Almost.
The glow of another sakuradite deposit behind them revealed that his Hyper Bomb had blasted a hole in his chest, exposing and damaging the foreman's stellarator reactor. Something that, apparently, Guts Man was oblivious to.
"You really think that's going to take me out, kid!?" he yelled. "Well, you've got another thing… coming…" It was only then that the construction foreman looked down at himself, and he could easily see the visual distortion being caused by the hydrogen escaping from his power plant. His expression quickly changed from unbridled rage to one of surprise.
" …huh. That ain't good."
With that, Gut's Man's glowing white eyes went out, and the monstrously huge Robot Master fell on his face with a small tremor and a heavy, metallic THUD. With his ass sticking into the air [DUN DUN], Heracles was definitely offline.
However, it was also apparent that Mega Man had led him past the elevator in his chase, and he was stuck down here for the time being. The fact that his internal systems were screaming warnings at him from the damage he'd sustained, and the amount of strain on his power core due to a lack of "sleep" didn't help.
Well, I guess I just have to wait until someone clears this out, he thought, reverting back to his blue color scheme. If this really is it… well, I seriously hope it isn't, but I think I did have a good run…
With that, Mega Man slumped against the cavern wall, and went into stasis lock as his power core shut off…
What a cliffhanger! Both Rock and Akko are out of commission, trapped underground in the former's case, and Diana (ever the strategist) is taking matters into her own hands. Of course, considering how she fared against Bass, this can NOT end well for her.
We've also seen a few more Girls und Panzer characters show up as we approach the end of TSARM's first act, and transition to the events of Girls Dead Rise: War of California. If you've read SeekerMeeker's original story and are still waiting for the zombies, we're nearly there. There's just two or three more chapters to go, and I promise I'll upload Mega Man (Part 2) as soon as it's ready.
In the meantime, thank you for reading, and have a good morning/day/evening/night/whatever time of day it is.
–NuclearAlchmist