3.1 - In which, volcanoes are hot

It had only been half a year since he had somehow been shanghai into becoming Wily's apprentice and already Bryan was getting used to absurd situations. Such as the fact that he was being held above the lava of an active volcano by a carbon fiber rope looped around his leg.

Absentmindedly the boy couldn't help but wonder how he was five feet away from the boiling liquid and not dying from the toxic fumes, radiation, or unbelievable heat. As it was he was only feeling mildly uncomfortable hot at the moment and detecting a barely noticeable nauseous smell.

"Aw, quit your simpering if Wily wanted you dead you would be dead by now."

Looking at the individual he was hanging alongside the boy took note that his means of trying to reinsure the guy really didn't work and instead elicited another wave of whimpering. Judging from the business suit the human was betting either government agent or VIP from some sort of large scale corporation.

Absently swinging from side to side Bryan took a moment to look up, or down from his current orientation, and at the rope holding him in place. It was entirely grey and bland looking but if he was a betting person the boy wouldn't be surprised if Wily had managed to somehow electrify and coat it in some sort of slippery substance.

Though if there was one thing the human knew it was that the same oil substance was sitting next to a container of blue kool aid. Interestingly enough the two substances were virtually identical in appearance and knowing Wily there was a good chance the German might have mistaken one for another.

It would be easy enough to figure out though just before he could test his theory the VIP spoke. "H-h-h-how a-a-are y-y-y-y-yo-you so calm about this!"
Glancing at the man from the corner of his eye Bryan couldn't help but roll his eyes before speaking. "Please, this is literally the… I think it's the 35th time that Wily has kidnapped me so far."

"I would like to think that I've figured out some of his thinking process, and the only reason he keeps on doing it is because he considers me one of the most sensible humans he's ever met so far. If only for the reason that I don't nearly complain, scream, or annoy him like most of the other hostages that he has to deal with."

Drat, while he was absently speaking to the VIP the human had decided to check if his theory was true but it turns out that he was wrong. Then again he had been picked as Wily's favorite victim/minder for a reason and tended to help the man stay sane and/or help him make more productive traps.

So far he had good confirmation that Megaman had started cursing him out when encountering some of his more devious suggestions that the German had added. It now took the Blue Bomber 43.6% longer to get through the defenses and made defeating various Robot Masters much harder.

"W-w-w-w-w-why?"

Letting out a hum the human actually took his time to turn and look at the VIP while crossing his arms and raising a signal eyebrow.

"Simple, by letting myself be kidnapped I prevent others from going through this and eventually annoy the man to the point he decides to do something about them. I have it on good authority that hostage events and Wily related injuries, caused by human stupidity mind you, have dropped a good 72% since getting involved."

"Sure it gets annoying at times but his RM units and I have worked out a schedule that's rather convenient for everyone involved. Heck, it actually amuses the doc to the point he has a room reserved for me in his latest hideout or fortress that I can decorate however I want."

"As long as I stay in the designated area and not try to enter certain rooms or escape I can wander around as I please, albeit with a small escort, within reason."

Oh the man was definitely looking at him with a shocked expression, completely forgetting that the two of them were suspended mere feet above boiling hot lava.


3.2 - In which… oh forget it, I give up

For a moment Bryan completely forgot what he was doing as he absently looked at the scene in front of him in bewilderment. Lying on the ground not too far away in a pile was the passed out forms of Blues, Rock, and Forte with a number of empty cans nearby.

He quite frankly had no idea how it happened but from what he remembered the eldest of them had decided that he wanted to play a drinking game at some point. Though how Protoman managed to convince the goody-two-shoes that was Megaman, to go out and get drunk would forever be a mystery in and of itself.

Somewhere along the way he had been dragged into the impromptu guys' night out and discovered the interesting fact that various Oils had interesting effects upon robots and cyborgs upon being ingested. It had honestly brought up questions on how human he was now when the High Mileage Motor Oil managed to get him drunk without harming him.

Now here he was absently shifting his vision between the pastel colored equines and the half empty can in his hand while wondering if it had expired at some point. The only other reason he could explain this was because his eyes were glitching out from some sort of virus that the four of them had made sometime in between their drinking… three days ago according to his internal clock.

Blinking in shock Bryan couldn't help but wonder how much the four of them had drunk before quickly kicking the nearest person awake he could. This was none-other than Rock and he ended up kicking the blue bot in the face, obviously a mistake but then again he's technically a Wily.

"Nrgn… five more minutes Roll…"

Blurry eyes opened for a moment before closing and the teen let out a brief huff before reaching out and picking Bass up from the top of the pile.

"So… anyone interested in telling me why we've woken up next to a naked and tied up Roll or not?"

Almost instantly all three bots woke up in shock and staggered briefly as they suddenly realized how out of it they were. It was only five seconds later that the three robots managed to adjust their settings and take note that the cyborg had pulled their leg.

Any retaliation was quickly forgotten upon taking note of the colorful ponies that were quite obviously shocked upon seeing them. That was quickly forgotten however as they looked at him and took note of his new alterations, aka the longer hair, horse ears, and what appeared to be a pair of feathery wings.

Bryan only gave the three five more seconds after laughing before noticing their own alterations and screaming in shock. Sure enough just as he took a sip of the strangely soothing oil the three started laughing before noticing their own appearances and screaming in shock.

He had already noted the new appendages and already had an internal freak out mere moments just before the strange pastel equines had appeared. As it were, he would simply wait for someone to speak as he waited for the hangover symptoms to pass from his systems.

Oh look, it seemed like the pastel group had friends also of equally bright colors that came rushing to see what the problem was. He could just tell that whatever was going to happen was going to be a headache and a half that would drive Bass into a frenzy.

On the bright side he could make out the passed out forms of their support units a bit closer to the wall next to them. Tarkin was a seemingly innocent pile of scrap and synthetic fur next to Trebil who seemed to be biting Rushe's tail who was seemingly lying on top of the unconscious form of Beat of all things.


3.3 - In which, Megaman faces the BBB, aka Bryan's Boss Battle

"YARGE!"

Quickly ducking out of the way of a strike from the giant bot that was being piloted by Bryan of all things Megaman couldn't help but curse mentally. At the same time he had to reluctantly give credit to the cyborg because this was quite possibly one of the most dangerous Boss battles he had ever faced.

Simultaneously he was entirely grateful that Bryan wasn't entirely for the whole world domination thing like his mentor was. It was quite obvious that unlike the off the rocker Wily that the cyborg was a credible threat that could quite easily accomplish what the German could not.

Sending a shot of Spirit Arrows at the giant mech the Blue Bomber cursed as the arrows harmlessly bounced off it's body as he just barely managed to get out of the way of a burst of machine gun fire. Unlike Wily's builds, the Mechu's Rex wasn't exactly weak to any of the Robot Master Weapons that Rock had collected in his travels.

No, instead this mech tended to change it's weakness every time he landed a successful attack against it meaning he had to be very careful with his weapons energy. The only bright side to this whole thing was that he was able to piece together some sort of pattern to it's attack pattern and weaknesses.

Though it appeared that Bryan had quickly caught onto it as well within the first five minutes of this battle and was making a valiant effort to cover this up. As it stands Megaman only had at most a third of his weapon energy left in each weapon with his lowest having only 1/8th left and his energy core was running out very fast.

"Why the long face Mega, I thought you came into this fight prepared to face something like me!"

Hastily dodging a burst of white hot fire Rock just barely managed to give a shot of Bitter Ice at the mouth of the mech. The result was a loud cracking sound and a load of muttered curses just barely picked up by the mike in a mixture of Japanese, German, and English.

Wearily he looked up and caught sight that the jaw was practically frozen and without thinking the robot quickly changed his weapon to Fuzzy Lightning and fired. Absently Megaman had to wonder what was with Bryan's poor naming sense.

This was quickly forgotten however when a loud explosion happened leaving the RM staring in horror at the remains of the Mechu's Rex. There was a second lag as he processed this before the First Law suddenly started blaring at him, because despite being a cyborg Bryan was still human.

He quickly tossed aside any thoughts and quickly reasoned with the program that the cyborg might have left behind a copybot like Wily had a tendency of doing and therefore not be dead. The law took a moment to process this before demanding he do a search of the area just to be sure which he reluctantly did.

The second he took note of the hand sticking out from a pile of scrap Rock took a breath to calm himself before charging his buster. It literally wouldn't be the first time that Tarkin had attempted to jump him during this war and he really didn't like the thought of being turned into a puppet like Rush had been.

The second he got close warning lights flashed and he quickly jumped back in time to dodge the Charged Shot that exploded the pile. Instantly rolling to a stop and springing up Megaman turned his attention to the location that said shot came from just in time to catch sight of an armored boot about to impact.

"I guess that this is the final battle Mega… but then again I didn't really expect you to get this far."

Standing up the Blue Bomber caught sight of an armored Bryan pointing a buster at him from across the room. The First Law stopped blaring about killing but Rock had to grimace as the stupid thing activated once more about harming the cyborg.

"To think, this all could have been avoided if you had taken my offer at the beginning for a one on one fight. I mean, it's not like I couldn't have copied Wily's idea of a robot double and remotely piloted it from a hidden base Rock."

Alright, Megaman had to admit that this admission actually made him pause and scan the person in front of him. The second his scanners registered that the Bryan in front of him actually was fully robotical he felt his processors do a full three second stand still.

Thankfully instinct was a thing and the Robot Master automatically got out of the way the instant an alert popped up stating that Tarkin was within two feet of him. Rock then watched with tiredness as the seemingly innocent pile of parts flew past where he was, bounced once, before jumping up and attaching itself to the robot double who spoke one last time before being assimilated by the fox.

"Tarkin, command code 221-0534.76T1, Password: Star Force Berserker, begin eradication process of ."

"YIP!"


3.4 - In which, Tarkin is confusing

It had somehow become a regular thing between the four of them and no matter how hard he tries to figure out how it happened Bryan could come up with no answer. As it stands every two months Rock, Blues, Forte and himself would end up hanging out with each other somewhere.

Sometimes the four hung out in the Skull Fortress, other times they went to Light Labs, but most of the time they were out on the town relaxing.

While together the four of them would end up talking about various things such as places that Blues had been, Bryan's newest invention, Forte's newest game, or Rocks newest misadventure. There were other topics as well and after listening to the black robots rant about all the things wrong with the newest Halo game the conversation somehow turned to Tarkin.

"-and then he made Rush into a time bomb that I just barely managed to stop from exploding in Doctor Light's lab."

Bryan absently rolled his eyes at Rock's latest rant against his robotic partner before taking a sip of his soda. He had sent the fox to deliver a thumb drive containing some data that Albert wanted Thomas Light's opinion on for his newest project.

Unfortunately the support bot had gotten into a fight with Rush about something and had retaliated in extreme fashion. As it stands the cyborg had already gotten after the fox and for now Tarkin was forced to sleep in the charge pod at night.

"Actually… that brings up a good question, how does Tarkin take control of any bot he jumps on?"

Blue's actually set down his can of oil and was now looking at the cyborg that was now noting that he was the center of attention.

At this Bryan glanced at his three companions before letting out a sigh and looked up at the sky in compilation. Thankfully the three Robot Masters were letting him gather his thoughts for the moment before he finally spoke.

"You… let me answer your question with a question, what exactly do I feel like on the network?"

The question seemed to catch the three off guard momentarily as they contemplated this before Forte spoke.

"I don't know about you Light bots but to me you are like a low constant sound… barely noticeable and notably smaller than any Robot Master. In fact, if one didn't know about your nature they would never realize that you were on the network to begin with."

The cyborg let out a low hum as he glanced at the other two who simply shrugged before shaking his head and speaking.

"Right… as you know my nature means that I'm on the network, and like many of you I can receive and send stuff. Unlike all of you however it takes me several minutes to respawn to anything you send me and even then I have to pause whatever task I'm doing to do it, which can be really bad if anything similar to the Sunstar incident happens again."

The collective wince that all four had at that admission was more than telling of how bad the incident was. Bryan himself had to hold in a shiver as he did his best to not think about that moment before speaking.

"Anyways… believe it or not but Tarkin is actually a Robot Master in of himself and his main job is to sort of, boost if you will, my signal on the net to the point I look like an actual RM unit like yourselves."

As one the three Robot Masters momentarily turned their attention to the network and took note that indeed Tarkin did register as an actual Robot Master. The foxes signal then did the equivalent of turning to look at them before smirking and the three quickly got out of the area before anything bad could happen.

"Thing is, to make this work I had to make it so that he could sort of interface with me without turning my brain into soup. This resulted in me basically taking multiple brain scans and incorporating them into Tarkin during his construction phase."

"Long explanation short, the fox technically has multiple personality disorder where two processors are him and the third is sort of… quirky. While interfaced the third processor is constantly using my neural interpretation device to scan my brain and formulate replies while keeping me informed."

"Coincidently this quirk means that whenever he connects to someone the processor reconfigures itself to match them. It also means that it allows Tarkin to bypass firewalls by tricking them into thinking that he's part of the bot in question."

Quiet settled amongst the group as Rock, Blues, and Forte processed this information before the white and red robot spoke. "That makes so much sense… what about that thing where Tarkin turns into a pile of scrap and pulls himself together again?"

At this Bryan simply shrugged in response before taking a gulp of his soda and absentmindedly tossing the now empty can into a nearby trash can without looking.

"No clue."


3.5 - In which, Bryan is confusing

"I just don't get it."

Rock spoke absentmindedly as he handed a wrench to Doctor Light who let out a hum to indicate he was listening. At the moment the two were in the middle of working on a new machine that the Robot Master honestly wasn't sure what it was for.

To be fair the RM unit had been rather distracted lately ever since an anomaly had popped up in his latest quest to protect the world.

"I mean, I can understand why Wily had been arrested even if the charges won't exactly stick due to his mental state. But why exactly did everyone just let Bryan of all people hop into the Skull Craft and fly away?"

Without really paying attention Rock had already started cutting wires and connecting them to the unknown machine while pondering this. As for Light, the old man couldn't help but let out another hum as he pulled his greasy hands out of the machine's innards before speaking.

"I can understand why you might find that confusing Rock but in truth the answer is rather simple."

Instantly the old man caught his son's attention and couldn't help but chuckle at the sight before leaning forwards to get a bit deeper into the machine.

"Despite Wily's rather… unique actions in response to his lack of medication they have noticed Bryan's influence upon the man. In this case he tends to prevent situations from getting worse by acting as a positive influence on my old friend."

"Whether it being a voice of reason by preventing Wily from incorporating more extreme ideas into his latest plot. Secretly alerting authorities to his potential movements so as to give them enough time to remove civilians from the area. Or even discreetly delivering copies of blueprints of potentially troublesome inventions to those that need it most."

Finally satisfied, Doctor Light pulled himself from the innards of his latest invention and proceeded to wipe his face clean of sweat, accidentally covering part of it in grease. Rock in turn couldn't help but snort in amusement at the sight even as he finally managed to finish connecting the last bit of wires in the section he was working on.

"In fact Bryan has even on occasions forcibly made his mentor take medication thus preventing many potential Wily Wars from happening."

Nodding once the human took a moment to step back and re-examine his latest blueprint as the Robot Master put the finishing touches on it.

"As for the various plots that he can't prevent, the people understand that the kid tries to migrate the damage done. Altogether Bryan is officially classified as a minder for Wily and those in positions of power acknowledge that he prevents things from getting worse."

"I mean, can you imagine what would happen if nobody was around to make sure Albert took his medicine and prevent him from going off the deep end? Just the thought of how many more times I would have to send you out to fight Rock is enough to give this old man heart complications alone!"

Despite the rather morbid humor Thomas couldn't help but let out a brief laugh while the Robot Master couldn't help but momentarily pail. While there were still a few things about Bryan that confused him Rock couldn't help but feel a bit terrified at what he had heard.


3.6 - In which there is more time travel

After nearly being blown up by a rather angered group, Bass had forcibly dragged Wily back into the capsol while Bryan did his best to calm everyone down. It took about an hour, and an uncountable amount of kill attempts from the future Wily Duo, before everything was settled and the group managed to escape.

As of right now however the group of lost travelers was currently sitting in the kitchen of Thomas Light and absently watching the resulting chaos. This mainly resulted in an depressed German absently drinking a cup of coffee at the Light family's kitchen table.

At the same time Bryan and his companion Tarkin were watching the security feed of the currently live battle between Bass and Treble vs Bass and Treble. Coincidently the alternate version of Wily currently was supporting the most amusing of bewildered faces at the moment upon seeing two versions of his best bots fighting each other.

"Ah Thomas, sorry about letting myself in but currently I'm time displaced and my creation is fighting the local counterpart."

Absently looking over the German saw the bewildered faces of the local version of Doctor Light and his creations. Bryan himself only glanced away from the TV for a moment upon hearing this before letting out a sigh and speaking.

"Long story short Wily invented Time Travel but forgot to invent a temporal tether so we can find our way back. The first time we ended up far off the mark and in the future when he drove, this time I did and we ended up in an alternate timeline."

"Uhhhh…"

Roll let out a brief noise of incomprehension just as a garbled shout echoed out from the TV distracting everyone.

"Seems like Rock just saw the double B and T feature that's currently taking place outside."

Bryan couldn't help but smirk at the sight of Megaman gaping in shock at the sight of the two black robots and their wolves. Unfortunately in their timeline the Blue Bomber had grown to the point that he was now only exasperated at antics like this.

There was even a betting ring going on back home where various Wily bots took bets on who Rock was training with to prevent his shock from showing. Most popular was apparently Proto but then again nobody was actually suicidal enough to find out if this was the case.

"So… yeah, just give us a night or two to get oriented and we'll be out of your hair relatively quickly then."


3.7 - In which the military gets involved

In a unique turn of events Bryan had been dragged by Wily to an active military base at a rather ungodly hour. In fact, if his watch was accurate then it was about 3:07 in the morning and he was grumpily holding onto the cup of coffee in his free hand.

Ah sweet coffee the lifeblood of scientists, military officers, and semi-unwilling interns the world over.

"That's a rather interesting view… kid?"

Glancing up the 13 year old caught sight of an officer looking at him and let out a brief grunt unable to muster up the energy to be flustered. He then simply took a sip of the life granting potion that granted him a boost of energy allowing him to speak.

"The names Bryan and the only reason I'm here is because an old man decided he wasn't going to suffer through this morning alone."

The teen absently noted that the officer was still staring at him in something close to confusion before taking note of the sound of talking coming from the office.

"-derstand that this is currently a matter of security and despite being under contract your clearance isn't high enough for me to tell you."

"You do realize that I could easily hack this institution and find out what you're doing here in a matter of minutes right? Heck my semi-unwilling apprentice could even do the same thing right now, even if it would take almost three times as long as me and that's saying something."

Looking over the teen noted that someone with glasses was trying to sneakily get away from the meeting. Probably a good idea seeing as how Albert was building up into full blown rant mode but ultimately pointless at this point.

"Be that as it may, the only reason we are pulling your product from the field is because they are too valuable for us to lose. And since you so neatly brought it up why did you bring a civilian to a classified military complex in the first place?"

"Tch, did I not just mention that he's a semi-unwilling apprentice? Bryan has managed to not only catch my eye but he's one of the few who doesn't nearly piss me off as much as the others."

"Look I'm in my mid 50's, nearly pushing 60 and have filled out all the appropriate paperwork to make it official. If something happens and I die via an accident or otherwise he would be the sole inheritor of my entire business, inventions, and blueprints."

Any tiredness was instantly zapped from Bryan's mind as these words instantly rang out into the hallway. He probably wasn't supposed to hear that and he had no doubt that none of the Wily Bots back at the fortress had any idea about it either.

"If that isn't enough for him to be here right now then the fact is that I've brought him here so that he could explain his own invention to you. I won't go into exact details for that's up to him to decide but I will mention that it's an incredible breakthrough in biotech engineering that's no doubt going to turn heads the world- where in blazes do you think you're going?"

Judging from the shocked faces in the hall it looked like nobody was expecting this new development. Though there was also a look of fear sketched upon the face of the glasses wearing person who had tried to sneak away.

Absently the human took another sip of his coffee before deciding that he wasn't going to comment on this issue. On a side note the military officer was currently looking at him with a scrutinizing look as if he was having a hard time comprehending the fact that Bryan was an inventor.

A second later the man seemed to nod before holding out a hand for him to shake before speaking.

"The name's Jack O'neill and the one currently in trouble with the old doc is Daniel Jackson, welcome to the Cheyenne Mountain Complex kid."


3.8 - In which Blues takes some time to think

Blues, better known the world over as Protoman, took a moment to look over the cliff and down at the sight of Wily's fortress.

Currently a group of bots had decided to take some time off and were currently outside getting ready for a round of Football. Not the American version of the sport but the true version with the white and black hexagonal sphere you kick around.

Somehow a very exasperated human had been roped into acting as a referee for the bots while various Robot Masters cheered for their subordinate units. Though it appeared that said human had the foresight to bring a special heavily reinforced ball for this game.

Narrowing his eyes the red and white robot took a moment to zoom in on the human that had somehow become involved with their world. Strangely enough though the network wasn't exactly abuzz with that much information about them for some reason.

In fact the only reason he had even taken notice of the human was because Light's newest bot Rock had made an offhand comment about them. A little research later and the prototype RM Unit had noticed that this Bryan character seemed to be involved with quite a few hostage incidents over the last two years.

In truth Blues' was of the opinion of either the kid having terrible luck or that something was up as large scale Wily hostage situations had been slowly dropping. He also wouldn't be surprised if the kid had some form of Stockholm Syndrome after all these incidents.

Though if asked he would deny the fact that this curiosity was brought about via confusion that the German was deliberately keeping the two from meeting. Thus he had returned from the old man's mission rather early and deliberately didn't inform him so as to have some time to examine the kid.

"Alright, I want a nice clean game which means no destroying your opponents and no use of weapons in any way. Other than that keep your hands, or the logical equivalent, away from the ball unless you're the goalie and for the love of all try not to knock the ball into LEO for the umpteenth time."

A second later and the kid easily tossed the ball into the middle of the field before quickly diving out of the way. It was probably a good idea as quickly afterwards things got very loud and highly destructive as the support units got playing.

There was even the occasional missile or gun fire that got fired into the air and came down just mere feet from the field. Surprisingly though Bryan seemed to do little else than the occasional flinch when one got rather close to him.

Blue's respect went up a notch when the kid only winced as a stray missile got within five feet of him before flying into the distance. Probably meant that the human was involved with incidents like this enough times to become inured to it.

Or that he had what appeared to be a personal force field for protection and was still getting used to it.

Looking down at the field he couldn't help but blink as a miniature missile seemingly detonated no more than a foot away from the kid. Even more impressive was that the kid let out a brief yelp and stumbled briefly but didn't fall and recovered fast enough to call a foul on the bot in question.

What was more impressive was that the kid was able to recognize and call the number of the bot who fired said shot. The only other people who would be able to do such a feat would either be Wily, Light, and possibly the upcoming Russian Scientists he heard of by the name of Cossack.

"Was in Flammen denkst du, machst du Machst?!"

Any other thoughts were instantly forgotten as Wily suddenly shouted over the comms system and startled Blues to the point he almost fell off the cliff. Simultaneously the prototype Robot Master unit couldn't help but flinch knowing that if the man was speaking his native language then he was seriously pissed off.


crai22: Yet another chapter has appeared.

?: What do you expect, for me to have some sort of plan?

Miota: Not really, though I will give you props for not really having any continuity errors yet.

?: Why thank you for the compliment... by the way how goes your attempts to try and track me down?

Miota: Noth-(Mphm!)

crai22: Don't answer them Miota that's exactly what they want!

?: So close, oh well. On that note why am I not getting any reviews yet I thought you were popular.

crai22: Like I would tell you that.

?: Fine, be that way... on a side note I see you fixed things.

crai22: No thanks to you.

Miota: On that note please read and review while I try and figure out how to bypass a temporal fire wall that exists in both the present and past simultaneously.