Mega Man VI
Chapter Nine: Pandeeta Chase
With no choice but to just fly right past them, Mega Man dove over the side of guard rail, and then shot upwards with the jet thrusters at full speed, having to spin and turn sharply to avoid the little square things that were firing at him. Figuring that Wind Man would have put even more security at higher levels in the tower, the red robot went through the next door that he came to, stepping out onto one of the tower's mechanical arms, and slamming the door shut behind him just as the little square turrets were trying to aim at him again. Within seconds the door was shaking from their combined energy blasts, but Mega Man jumped off the arm before they got through.
It was a good thing that none of the tower's wind turbines were activated, or else he might have been sliced into ribbons, or maybe even forced to land. However, this wasn't the case, and nothing was shooting at him as he flew farther up the outside of the tower, and so far there was no sign of Wind Man. Wait a second, there was something… no, it wasn't the flying robot that Mega Man saw sitting on top of one of the higher arms… it was a… a bear? Yes, this thing looked like a large, robotic panda bear with something strapped onto its back. Something that looked kind of like a missile or a rocket.
"Hi, Mega Man." It called in a deep slow voice, waving at him with one arm. "Think you can get me before I reach the ground?"
With that, the rocket on the back of the robotic bear fired up, its thruster shooting out flames for a second or two until the bear was away from its perch on the mechanical arm, and then the thruster went cold. The robotic bear waved to him again as it simply fell down toward the ground, vanishing into the lower cloud cover, and leaving the red robot confused for a moment before deciding that he was going to keep going on. After all, he would never catch up to Wind Man if he allowed himself to be distracted by every little…
"Net, Comrade Rock!" Dr. Cossack's voice suddenly crackled through the helmet radio. "Listen to me, that was a Pandeeta! You have to go after it!"
"It was a what?" The red robot asked, hovering in the air. "What's a Pandeeta?"
Basically, the younger scientist explained that a Pandeeta was a robotic bear, which was programmed to self-destruct after receiving its pre-programmed trigger, in this case the sighting of Mega Man. To make matters worse, these prototype robots that were never used, were carrying a mini-hydrogen explosive strapped onto their backs, which although nowhere near powerful enough to destroy a city, one was more than enough to weaken the base of the tower, thereby causing the whole thing to collapse. If that happened, then none of the surrounding countries would have power, and… and the red robot had to hurry if he was going to catch the Pandeeta in time.
"Okay, I'm going after it." Mega Man reported as he flew down into the cloud cover. "If this thing is carrying a massive explosive, won't it just blow up if I shoot it?"
"Da, Comrade." Dr. Cossack replied. "But instead of air-burst detonation, mini-hydrogen charges are set to go off upon impact shock with the ground at terminal velocity, so here's what you do: Fly down to the Pandeeta, grab onto the rocket, and use the jet thrusters to slow you down enough to place it on the ground gently. But yes, if you shoot the rocket, or separate it from the Pandeeta, then it will go off."
Great, no pressure, the red robot thought as he came out the other side of the cloud cover, and the good news was that he was moving a lot faster than the falling Pandeeta, so it was easy to catch up. However, the robotic bear was a lot bigger than Mega Man, as well as a lot heavier, so at first it didn't feel like his jet thrusters were doing anything to stop the falling Pandeeta at all. It was, though, with Dr. Cossack informing him over the radio that their air speed was slowly reducing, but… but looking down, it also felt like the ground was rushing up to meet the two of them a lot faster than they were slowing down.
Thankfully, it was more like a draw, with the red robot firing his thrusters as hard as he could, straining with robot muscles to keep a grip on the robotic bear, and then continuing to hover for a second while gently setting the Pandeeta onto the ground at the base of the tower. Carefully letting go of the straps so as not to put the rocket under any more stress than he needed to, Mega Man was shocked when the robotic bear just shrugged before commenting better luck next time, and then there was a flash of movement before something else collided with the red robot hard enough to drive him down into the dirt. Drive him down, and drag him along the hard surface so that a long path-mark was formed behind them.
It was Wind Man, having used the distraction of trying to disarm the Pandeeta, it was easy for the flying robot to swoop down and collide with Mega Man, lifting him back up into the air after a long distance being dragged, and then tossing the red robot right into one of the still rotors of the wind tower. CLANG! An echoing, hollow sound filled his helmet as Mega Man fell onto the mechanical arm, his vision distorted for a moment while rolling over to aim his arm cannon at Wind Man, but the flying robot was moving too fast for the energy blasts to hit anything but air. Thankfully, the red robot's vision came back into focus just in time to see that two small rotors had been launched from Wind Man just like before.
"Careful, I almost got you there!" The flying robot called after his rotors sliced a blade off one of the wind turbine's blades instead of hitting their target. "If you need a rest, you can just sit there for a minute while I go arm another Pandeeta!"
Wind Man laughed as he shot upward toward the upper levels of the tower, but Mega Man had no intention of letting him get away, aiming his arm cannon and purposely shooting a few energy blasts past him so that they hit one of the stationary rotors on the next arm instead. Forced to avoid the rotors since they were now in a different position, the flying robot was able to avoid the giant, stationary blades, but not one of the three energy shots that came after him during the pause. Scoring a direct hit to the left leg, Wind Man's ability to steer himself was reduced as the rotor built into his foot began to spark and slow down, allowing the red robot to catch up to him at full speed.
One good fully charged mega buster shot to the back of the head would have finished off the flying robot, Mega Man was sure of it, but since the thrusters were draining most of his weapon power, the red robot had to make due with standard shots. They didn't destroy Wind Man completely, but there was visible damage to the flying robot's armor, including one of the main gyro rotors on his shoulders, leaving a trail of black smoke as his enemy was forced to make a landing on the nearest mechanical arm of the tower. Not wanting to give him the chance to recover, Mega Man swooped down while continuing to fire, blasting small pieces off Wind Man's armor as he flew past to come around and shoot him again… but suddenly the red robot felt a lot heavier.
"It is not that easy, Mega Man." The flying robot said, firing a gyro while the other hand was in a death grip around the red robot's ankle. "You can take my ability to fly, but I can crash you as well."
Using his remaining shoulder and foot rotors, Wind Man moved against everything motion that Mega Man tried to do with the thrusters, slowing him down considerably, and making it hard to dodge the next gyro that was shot out toward his head. He also tried to shoot the flying robot directly, but those same counter-movements made it so that Wind Man was always just out of his sites. One of the launched gyros managed to graze the red armor on Mega Man's shoulder because he couldn't fly out of the way, so the red robot did the one thing that his enemy would never expect: He twisted the top of his body around and then flew straight down to collide with Wind Man.
"What are you doing?!" The flying robot exclaimed as the ground got closer. "At this speed the crash will destroy us both!"
"No, it won't!" The red robot yelled back to be heard over the wind. "Because I can finally aim at you!"
Taking his arm cannon and firing two shots, the first one to disable Wind Man's gyro weapon, and the second into the elbow of the arm that was holding onto Mega Man's foot… and severing it, the red robot arched his back and pulled up, quickly slowing his fall while Wind Man was sent slamming into the hard terrain with a loud WHUMP! Cogs and gears flew in all directions, as did armor pieces, while the flying robot, the whole top half of his body crushed nearly flat, would never fly again. The Pandeeta was still sitting nearby, waving to him as the red robot walked over to copy the data from Wind Man… the team sent to regain control of the tower would have to do something about it.
Using Rush's jet adapter didn't do anything to hinder the copying of the data from the flying robot, but it also didn't help with being able to use it, so it looked like Mega Man was still going to have to wait for Dr. Light to finish the energy balancer before any of these new robots' weapons would be available to him. Still, with Wind Man's defeat, that was three down, and five to go, but he had yet to face the more dangerous combat models… the flying robot, Blizzard Man, and Plant Man had all been modified utility robots.
"I've done it, Dr. Cossack." The red robot reported. "Wind Man has been destroyed, and the tower is ready to be retaken… I'm ready to teleport out."
"Excellent work, Comrade Rock." The younger scientist replied. "Stand by for teleportation in three… two… one."