The bank lobby was silent save for the sparking security drones littering the brown, geometric-patterned carpet. The bank teller, his eyes still on the heavy spikes of Punk's armor, fainted.

Punk blinked again. He seemed completely bewildered by Kalinka (Quint sympathized). "'Mega Girl?' Like…some kind of robot?"

"Nope, superhero!" Kalinka corrected, still striking a pose while flashing Punk a bright grin.

Groaning to himself, Quint hastily scrambled through into the lobby to join Kalinka while Beat hovered between them. Now that Kalinka had attracted Punk's attention, they were all in this together. He tapped his visor and began to scan Punk.

"Superhero?!" Punk repeated. He still had not moved, though his eyes darted searchingly from Kalinka to the vacated lobby to the street beyond the hole he had made in the wall, as though suspecting this was some sort of trick. "Los Angeles doesn't have a superhero! Why—I bet you're just some phony robo-impersonator from Broadcast Boulevard! Yeah, that's it! You're bluffing! Well it won't work! I wasn't constructed yesterday, ya know! Now scram while I take all the money and go—just as soon as I wake this banking-human up."

"Not a chance, make one move toward that vault and you're toast!" responded Kalinka, her voice grand and commanding.

Punk crouched slightly, his bladed mohawk pointed forward like a rhino about to charge. "Last warning! No way I'm letting anyone get in my way! I'm a world-class championship robo-fighter!" He pointed importantly to his chest with his thumb.

"Actually, you never qualified for the World Robot Tournament," spoke up Quint as a digital readout scrolled across the inside of his visor. "You were only ever part of the National Robo-Fighting League."

Punk straightened with a surprised jerk, his attention snapping to Quint. "Hey! How do you know about that?"

"Quite simple," Quint replied. "You see, my visor has a built-in scanner connected to a database in which I've compiled a digital archive of newspapers from the past fifty-years—"

"What the—shut up!" interrupted Punk, who now seemed bewildered by Quint, and was becoming angry. He began punching his palm with his fist, the sharp points of his spiked cuffs gleaming in the fluorescent lighting. "You're just stalling for time!"

Absorbed in the readings from his visor, Quint continued on heedlessly. "According to newspaper reports from 1995, you're a disgraced ex-robo-fighter who is banned from all robo-fighting events due to unruly behavior outside the ring. So, as you see, it is technically inaccurate to style yourself as a 'world class robo-fighter'. In fact, it is technically illegal for you to fight at all."

Quint closed the analysis program on his visor. As the glowing text disappeared from his vision, he noticed with surprise that Kalinka had stopped posing and was now frowning at him.

Meanwhile, Punk resembled a boiler that was about to explode, his large eyes bulging within the gap in his armor. "HEY! That's not fair! How would you like it if I had a smarty-pants visor that told me all your dirt, Brainiac?"

"There's no need for name-calling—"

Punk advanced toward Quint, his spiked boots making long strides. "That's it, it's you and me, green boy! Did that visor tell you the reason I was banned? It was for trashing mannerless wiseass robots like you!"

Kalinka stepped between Punk and Quint, her face scrunched with annoyance. "Wait, stop! Not like this!"

Punk continued toward Quint, still punching his palm. "Look, Mega Girl—I've got nothing against you, you've been very professional and I appreciate that, but Brainiac here boils my circuits, and if you side with him I'll take you both on!"

With that, Punk curled into a spiked ball again, his large, semi-spherical pauldrons closing tightly around him like two halves of a spiny chestnut husk, then spun toward them.

Both Quint and Kalinka dove in opposite directions—Quint somewhat clumsily, for he was used to spending his days craned over a computer keyboard and was rusty at fighting, Kalinka with an effortless triple-somersault.

Beat bravely dive-bombed Punk, which was as effective as a ping pong ball colliding with a spiked bowling ball. With a short yelp, Beat ricocheted into the steel bank counter, then fell to the ground in a heap, stunned.

Punk wheeled around the lobby, trampling rope partitions and smashing pleather furniture. He even crashed out the side wall, then back through again in a shower of bricks (he probably could have broken into the vault this way had the vault hadn't been protected by super-steel, as many were). But as spun toward them in a second charge, he crashed through a building column.

The ceiling let out a terrible groan, an ominous rumble running down into the foundations. Everyone's head snapped upward in alarm. Even Punk unfolded to look up anxiously. Fortunately, the sound died down a few seconds later.

"Careful!" Kalinka chided. "Those are load-bearing columns! You could knock down this building for real, and someone could get hurt!"

"Oh shoot, I didn't realize!" Punk stammered, his eyes shifting furtively. Then he gave the same guilty jerk he had made when he had been caught bluffing about being a World Class Robo-Fighter. "Hey! Don't tell me what to do! I'm Punk, I'm programmed to reject rules and authority!"

"Isn't that a self-contradictory statement?" Quint couldn't help but point out again. "Isn't programming a set of rules that you must follow?"

Punk paused, working this out, his black eyes daring from side to side. He looked a bit unnerved. "Yeah, but—huh? Shut up!"

All the same, Punk did not return to his reckless rampage as the spiked ball again. Instead, he began hurling his spinning blades at them.

This fresh assault once again sent Quint scrambling—Kalinka, however, avoided each blade by twisting gracefully through the air in flips and twirls like an Olympic gymnast performing a floor routine, each time landing lightly on her toes, all with a serene smile. The performance was so spectacular that for a moment, Punk and Quint forgot they were fighting and turned to watch her in awe.

"Wow," said Punk to Quint. "Never seen a bot built to do all that—not even in the championship fighting tournaments!"

"Yeah…" Quint replied, gawking.

Still, Quint was concerned for Kalinka—especially up against Punk's armor, heavy titanium spikes, and whirling blade—all while she was weaponless. As they resumed their fight, Quint drew a blaster and began firing back at Punk.

"You packing plasma power, Brainiac?" growled Punk as he shifted from side to side to dodge the purple blasts. "Well get a load of this!"

Punk threw a couple of his spinning blades at Quint—Quint ducked one, which sawed one of the lobby sofas in half, then leaped over the other, which smashed through a window and into the brick wall of another building. But then Punk came crashing into Quint himself, slamming him into a wall. With one hand tight around Quint's neck, Punk pulled the other back into his fist, poised to slam into Quint's face and smash the visor that had bruised his ego. Quint shut his eyes tight, bracing for impact.

To his right, he heard the soft patter of ballet shoes sprinting across the carpet. "Let him go!"

…Quint cracked open his eyes. Punk had glanced over in surprise, for Kalinka had taken a running leap toward him, her fist cocked backward.

This was a bad idea. Punk easily weighed five times more than Kalinka. Quint wanted to shout something to stop her—but as Kalinka's small pink fist hit the hull-like side of Punk's armor, there was a shimmering flash of white light from her suit's protective force field, and Punk went flying head-over-heals into a magazine wrack.

"Whoa…so you really are the real deal…" Punk mumbled from beneath a pile of outdated tabloids, his eyes slightly crossed. Then he shook himself off and stood up. "But don't think that I'm quitting now! That money will still be mine!"

But then Punk froze. They could all hear it—the approaching sounds of sirens.

Kalinka took position between Punk and the vault, her hand outstretched in a 'stop' gesture. "It's over, Punk! The police will be here soon."

"Wait, you're with the police?!" Punk shot her a betrayed look.

Kalinka scoffed. "Pff, as if! But I'm sorry, you picked the wrong day to rob a bank!"

Punk hesitated, cracking his knuckles. His eyes looked past Kalinka to the bank counter and at the reinforced doors that lead into the bank vaults. Then, with a snarl, he tore his gaze away.

"Daawww, why did you have to interfere? I really needed that money!"

Punk stomped his foot with a clang, turned into a spiked ball, then crashed into the ground, leaving behind a tunnel large enough to drive a go-kart into. For a moment, they could hear distant underground crashing—he appeared to be fleeing to the sewers—but then the sounds died.

Beat had finally recovered and flew over to join them. "Oh no, Punk got away!"

"Still a success!" Quint said happily. They had stopped a dangerous criminal robot, and best of all, no one had gotten hurt!

"Yeah, I guess…" Kalinka agreed distractedly, her eyes on the tunnel Punk had left behind. Then she whirled on Quint and punched him on the shoulder. "Though you didn't have to be such a jerk!"

"Me?" Quint ducked away before Kalinka made another swipe at him, rubbing his arm ruefully. Within the Mega Girl suit, Kalinka's punches really smarted!

Kalinka planted her hands on her hips, still glaring. "Yeah! So what if Punk was a disgraced robo-fighter? You didn't have to be rude about it!"

"Rude? I was merely noting factual inconsistencies! And Punk was tearing up this bank!"

"So? It's just a bank, Quint, run by rich people like me. And my Dad. I mean our dad. But he was my dad first." Kalinka seemed very cross, but she was calming down as she took a deep breath. "It's okay. It's my fault, I'm your big sister! I'll teach you to be better next time."

"I…" Quint was completely flabbergasted, and a bit indignant. "We just stopped a criminal, just like you wanted! ….This is what you wanted, right? To be a superhero?"

"I do, but I'm not in this just to beat up desperate robots, ya know!"

With grave dignity, Kalinka turned her back on him and stalked stiffly out through the hole in the bank's wall.

Quint stared after her. "That's not what I want either! Actually, I just want to work in the lab…" he mumbled to himself. He turned to Beat. "How is it that she is already lecturing me on how to be a hero? She's only been 'Mega Girl' for an hour, I've been the 'Green Bomber' much longer!"

"She was always a quick learner," Beat replied.

"Hey!" Kalinka's face suddenly poked back inside the bank. "Are you guys talking about me again?!"

Quint jumped while Beat nearly fell out of the air. "Uh—!"

"Hmmph. That's what I thought," Kalinka replied waspishly, slowly withdrawing back into the street.

Quint sighed, then cast Beat a rueful smile."This…is all going to take some getting used to."

Beat laughed.

Outside, the torn-up street was still empty, but they could hear the screeching tires of the police cars only blocks away, and a news van had just rounded the corner and was speeding toward the bank.

"We better leave too, we don't want media attention," Quint muttered into Kalinka's ear, for now that the battle was over, distant onlookers were already peeking their heads out of alleyways trying to get a good look at them.

Quint and Beat hurried swiftly up the fire escape. Kalinka lingered behind a moment, looking back at the news van that had just pulled up to the scene. She needed to pose for one—just one!—shot…to get press of Mega Girl's heroics going.

Then maybe my masked hero will notice me! she thought, her heart beating excitedly.

Once she had given the news crew a brief glimpse of Mega Girl—surely enough to make the news circuit, she darted up the fire escape, rejoined Quint and Beat (who had been waiting anxiously), then began racing across the rooftops back to Quint's laboratory.

As they ran, Kalinka closed her eyes for a brief moment, thinking of her masked hero—his red suit, his flowing yellow scarf, his dimpled smile—and wondered where he could be now.

From within Skull Fortress's armory, Proto Man was mulling over the plans for a crime spree targeting the rich neighborhoods of New York City.

"Yeah, it should work," he said finally after making a few corrections. He handed the plans back to Crystal Man.

Crystal Man glowered at Proto Man. "We could really use your help obtaining resources. A lot of our attack-bots have been destroyed tracking down Bass, and most of the rest are still looking for him."

"Sorry, no can do, I'm tied up with more important work," Proto Man said with a mock-apologetic smile. He had just returned from his own crime spree to restock the western hangar's jet fuel supply (Elec Man had shown him some intriguing new jet propulsion concepts that Proto Man was itching to iterate through, and both wanted to go out flying around the world again while daringly avoiding military detection). "Just send Cut Man and Guts Man on a few smash-and-grabs and you'll be fine!"

"It's not that simple! After our invasion yesterday, the police are on high alert looking for any of Wily's bots! Don't you watch the news?"

"Nope," Proto Man answered cheerfully as he headed off toward the western hangar.

Proto Man had toyed with tracking down Dr. Wily's new robot himself, putting a quick end to all of this stupidity—if he hadn't been so pleasantly preoccupied with inventing in the western hangar with Elec Man. Between stealing, building and piloting dangerous, supersonic fighter jets, and contemplating murdering Bass, he felt mostly in a good mood—even if Dr. Wily didn't have a decent, halfway interesting world conquest scheme queued up. He'd save destroying Bass for some other time.

Many of the Robot Masters were also annoyed about the Bass situation. Though Dr. Wily had ordered them to bring Bass back to Skull Fortress, it had been like searching a dense jungle for an especially slipper viper that would bite you as soon as you tried to catch it, forcing you to drop it again while it escaped deeper into the jungle. They'd rather be fighting Mega Man, but no one dared say this to Dr. Wily, who looked livid enough to breathe fire.

Meanwhile, Dr. Wily continued to burn heedlessly through resources searching for Bass. He was cross at Bass's unexpected obstinance but felt equally annoyed that Proto Man was blowing him off again to mess around in the western hangar. As if building fighter jets was even halfway interesting! But Proto Man would soon see—both he and Bass see, and with them on his side, truly nothing could stop him from taking over the world!

In an effort to help Mega Man relieve stress, Mega Man and Roll had spent the morning and afternoon in the training room on the new second floor of Dr. Light's laboratory. It was programmed to simulate different environments through holographic projectors and rising platforms in the floor, while drones imitated various enemies while firing lasers that stung a bit on contact but were otherwise harmless.

Currently, the simulation was projecting the ruined downtown of New York City under attack by Dr. Wily. Since the systems were not programmed with Bass's data yet, a hologram of Bass did not appear in the simulation—a fact Mega Man was grateful for. He didn't want to fight Bass again, hologram or not—lingering guilt over their last encounter still haunting him. Instead, Mega Man blasted holograms of Cut Man, Guts Man, Air Man, Needle Man, Spark Man, Metal Man, Drill Man, Dark Man—

"Yeesh, Mega, leave some for me!" Roll complained as the simulation ended, the ruined city fading into a plain, cubic room, the drones returning to their cubbies in the wall. "That's eleven simulations in a row! You're on a total warpath!"

"Sorry," Mega Man apologized, panting. "We—could go—again?"

Roll shook her head. "Not if you're going to fight like that! Just look at yourself, you're pushing yourself to the limit. Let's take a break."

Mega Man agreed, though he didn't want to. Pent-up energy prickled through his circuits like static electricity—but he had to agree with Roll, training didn't seem to be helping—if fact, he felt even more on edge than before they had started. He took off his helmet and sat down on a bench to catch his breath.

Roll tapped her chin, contemplating him. "Let's try something different. I know! We could visit the Hall of Science tomorrow—check out the chemistry exhibits and stuff."

"You're humoring me—I know you hate that kind of thing."

"Yeah, but if it gets your mind off things, I'm in. It's like I said, bro—you can count on me to look out for ya! …Though I still think you're internalizing some issues with Proto, I haven't seen you this wound up since our first year against Wily!"

"I…" Mega Man frowned. He realized he had been eliminating Proto Man's hologram first in the simulations, almost on unconscious reflex. True, the holograms weren't really anything like the real Proto Man (they weren't even programmed to wisecrack nor came close to replicating his formidable fighting style) yet he knew how that must look to Roll. He shook his head, his hands clenched. "I…dunno what's going on. I just can't escape this weird hunch that trouble is coming—like I should be doing something, but can't."

"The rate you're going, Wily and his bots have more to worry about you than you do about them—especially Proto," Roll responded wryly. "Relax! We'll figure it out! We just need to find the right distraction, do something besides focusing on Wily, then before you know it you'll be back to your old nerdy self!"

Mega Man couldn't help but chuckle. "Yeah, I guess…let's go to the Hall of Science tomorrow—or the aquarium," he suggested wistfully, feeling this sounded both peaceful and a better compromise between his and Roll's interests.

Roll just smiled. "Whatever you want, Mega. You had a rough start to this week thanks to Wily's new ugly bot…let's make the rest of the week all about you, you deserve it!"

Mega Man resisted pointing out that Roll still had never actually seen Bass and therefore had no clue if Bass was ugly or not, appreciating the rest of her sentiment. He knew Roll had to be right. He needed to relax and not let his paranoia get to him—after all, wasn't acting out on his paranoia what got him on Bass's bad side in the first place?

Besides, if (or more accurately when) Dr. Wily attacked, they'd handle him just as they had every time before—what else was there to worry about?

"Hey Chief, get a load of this."

Chief Fictus had been striding through the halls of the California State Police Department in Sacramento, his arms crossed behind his back, deep in thought about fighting robo-criminals and organized crime, when one of his captains beckoned to him from a break room.

"Hurry! You gotta check out this news report!"

Chief Fictus stepped into the break room. Several human officers were clustered around a table, each eating a microwaved frozen dinner, their faces turned toward a small television perched on a counter behind them.

The television was broadcasting the evening news. The marque below was captioned Robbery Thwarted by Mysterious Masked Hero, the footage showing a figure dressed in white and pink armor standing outside a damaged bank, her face obscured by an aqua visor. As an off-screen reporter shouted questions, the figure struck a pose before bounding up the bank's fire escape and out of sight in three swift leaps.

Chief Fictus's eyes narrowed.

"Get this," the captain continued excitedly. "The news is saying she stopped a dangerous rogue robot in L.A. from robbing that bank. They're saying she might be a superhero."

"Wow! A superhero!" spoke up Officer Kobayashi from his plate of chicken nuggets, "—Just like Mega Man in New York!"

An older officer harrumphed. "Looked like a kid in a costume to me!"

"No kid can jump like that," countered a sergeant with sage-like wisdom, his mouth stuffed with Salisbury steak. "I bet it's just a robo-impersonator that got carried away with its programming, thought it was the real thing, and tried to be a hero. Happens all the time! Why, last February, my buddy in the L.A.P.D. said a defective Proton Man impersonator tried to rob a jewelry store."

The rest of the officers nodded at this, and one switched the news to a football game. Officer Kobayashi's shoulders drooped in disappointment that there might be a real superhero.

Only Chief Fictus frowned as he stepped back out of the break room. He turned to number Thirty-Nine, one of robo-officers who was standing at attention outside.

"That 'hero' from the news, the one who stopped a bank robbery in L.A.…possibly a rogue robo-vigilante. Instruct all units to keep an eye out for her…if they see her, arrest her. Quietly."

"Yes sir!" Thirty-Nine saluted him then marched off.

Chief Fictus stalked off, his frown deepening, his arms still folded behind his back.

He didn't like this—Not. One. Bit.

Night had fallen in New York.

Deep within the suburbs lay a mall (one of many). From the air, it looked like a fat, crooked capital 'T' sitting on a sprawling gray mat of bare parking lot.

Riding atop of Treble's jetboard, Bass looked down at this complex with more trepidation than a heavily armed military complex. He knew a little about 'malls'—it was where humans bought clothes, but it seemed very strange to him, and did not make him feel better about his plan to blend in with humanity.

It was after hours, the mall closed—just what Bass wanted. He forced his way in through one of the roof skylights, then he and Treble dropped two stories, landing lightly on the floor. Bass looked around.

The dark building was like a wide corridor with highly-polished terrazzo floors. Sickly palm trees reached vainly toward the peaked roof of glass skylights. Gated stores lined each side of the corridor. The whole place had a strange smell—burnt pretzels mixed with chlorine. And humans liked this kind of place?

After making quick work of the surveillance cameras and the one security drone on patrol, Bass began looking into the storefront windows, careful his footfalls didn't echo down the vast, warehouse-like space, Treble following silently like his shadow.

The first shop had candles, the next soap, the next greeting cards. Useless. After that came a sporting good store. Bass took a plain black duffle bag from the window display—this would be useful for storing his armor—yet he didn't like any of the clothing on the mannequins. He kept walking, still glancing into store after store, passing mannequins wearing polos, windbreakers, turtlenecks—he tried to ignore their large posters of humans with huge phoney smiles, feeling increasingly foolish, uncomfortable, and skeptical.

Then, finally, Bass discovered a store with a circular entrance, like an alien spaceship, or a portal to the netherworld. It seemed different from the other stores. Bass hesitated, then forced open the metal security gate.

The inside of the store was dark, gloomy, and cramped with circular wracks of black clothing and piles of accessories. Bass glanced at the posters on the wall—the humans also looked different from the ones from other shops. They were all striking aggressive poses with their tongues out, each wearing an edgy black outfit with numerous piercings and tattoos, their hairstyles vibrant, striking, and in every color of the rainbow.

One poster caught Bass's eye in particular—a metal band poser with the word 'Gigavolt' printed in jagged glowing bands of electricity. The name seemed…familiar?

As Bass took a step toward the poster, he heard a distant echo outside—probably nothing, but he should hurry. He looked around again. Whatever. These were technically human clothes—far better than what he had seen so far.

Using the small curtained dressing room in the back of the shop, Bass changed out of his armor and into a pair of ripped baggy jeans, a t-shirt, and a dark gray oversized hoodie. They seemed to fit. Bass added a few more graphic t-shirts (including one with 'Gigavolt' on it) along with a few extra pairs of ripped jeans into the duffle bag until it was full.

He looked at his reflection. As human clothing went, he liked these—but there was still one problem. He ran a hand ruefully through his thick black hair. It was straight, wispy, and stuck out in every possible direction—the type of hair a muppet or a troll doll would have.

…The type of hair Dr. Wily probably had back when he still had hair.

A stab of repulsion shot through Bass at the thought. Why did he have to have hair at all? He supposed most humans did, and he wanted to blend in, but he hated this look. With an annoyed huff, he pulled his hoodie drawstrings down tight, completely covering his embarrassing hair with his hood. Better.

Bass scowled as he stepped out of the dressing room, his hands stuffed into his pockets, the duffle bag slung over his shoulder. Treble was waiting patiently for him.

"I hate how I look," Bass told Treble. "Even in clothes I like I look…stupid."

He glanced broodingly back at the posters on the wall. They looked so much different…

In a move most unexpected from a dangerous robo-wolf of Treble's size, Treble butted his head against Bass's hand.

"Thanks." Bass scratched Treble behind the ears, but he continued to frown, feeling utterly exposed. He let out a steadying sigh, like a soldier about to cross no man's land. "There. I think I pass as human now—should be smooth sailing from here."

Punk reclined on an old, ripped sofa, one arm draped over its back, his feat kicked up against an armrest, his eyes focused dully on an old microwave-shaped television with dials and rabbit ears.

Plum, a peppy android with fuchsia hair, was delivering the evening news from her anchor room.

"A bank robbery on Stiletto Street was foiled today by an unknown masked figure in pink—a figure some are calling a 'superhero.'"

As Plum spoke, the broadcast cut to the footage of Mega Girl posing then leaping up the bank's fire escape.

"According to witnesses, this 'superhero' held off a lone robot robber long enough for police to respond before vanishing again, perhaps off to stop another crime."

The footage of Mega Girl returned to Plum smiling from the anchor room. A digital topic box appeared over her right shoulder, containing an old, unflattering photo of Punk shortly after he had been kicked out of the National Robo-Fighting League. He was shouting at reporters while resisting arrest.

"The robber has been identified Punk, disgraced ex-robo-fighter champion who went rogue. Punk fled the scene before police arrived—looks like this former champion is past his prime—"

Punk's fist crashed through the screen, obliterating his photo and sending a shower of sparks to the floor.

"That's not true! Mega Girl's the real deal!" he snapped, leaping to his feet. "The news is making me look like a loser! I—I am a loser…"

Punk broke off, his gaze shifting to his cramped hideout—a small, nearly unfurnished studio apartment in which Punk had to hunch to prevent his bladed mohawk from grazing the popcorn ceiling.

"Just look at this dump! The roof leaks and the floors can barely support my weight. It's all I can afford, and it's hard enough sneaking into the place in a trench coat so no human finds out a rogue robot lives here!" He sighed, kicking at one of the empty energy cans that littered the floor. "Most rogue robots end up joining robo-gangs, but I can't join a gang, I'm programmed to hate authority! …But, here I am, just pathetic, stupid Punk, deep in debt with the entire world against me and now the police are on my tail too!"

Wracked with misery, Punk buried his face in his hands.

"Talking to yourself certainly is pathetic," said a sly voice. It seemed to come from just behind Punk's ear receptors.

Punk whirled, his hands balled into fists—yet behind him he could only see the peeling wallpaper of his apartment.

"What the? Who's there?" Punk called, glancing to the corners of the room. "I warn ya, I'm a world-class championship robo-fighter, any funny business and I'll pummel ya into next Tuesday!"

"I'm right here."

Again, the voice sounded just behind Punk. A spider-like chill crawled down his titanium spine as he whirled once again. Still, Punk could not locate the source of the voice; his apartment was small and he appeared quite alone. But then he spotted on his bare, discolored floorboards a circular shadow around five feet in diameter—as though cast by an impossibly round sphere, save that there was no such sphere in the room to cast such a shadow. Within the center of the shadow was a geometric outline of an eye.

As Punk took in the shadow, he simultaneously felt a strange sensation that cables were connecting to his body, though he could not see anything else out of place in his apartment. Was this all in his imagination?

He took a step backward from the shadow as he began to freak out. "This is weird—and it's been two months since I swore off the robo-booze!"

"Oh you're not hallucinating—or dreaming or being pranked or going crazy or anything else," the voice rattled off in a bored tone, as though it had been through this thousands of times. "This is very real."

"…That's what a hallucination would say," Punk responded suspiciously, glaring down at the eye. "Or what a dream would say, or a prank—"

"Okay shut up," the voice interrupted. "I'm real, and I'm here to help you out of your life problems."

Punk still felt the strange sensation of invisible cables connecting to his body, touching the back of his head and arms with small needle-like pricks. "No one can help me! It would take some kind of genie, and those aren't real!"

The shadow slipped closer—it was so dark, it was like a hole moving across the floor.

"I can. I'm kinda like a genie—a Game Genie, that is." The voice tutted. "Poor you, getting beaten by that stupid little know-it-all temporal anomaly and that dumb blonde Barbie in pink—"

Punk's hands tightened to fists. "Hey! I don't know nothing about no 'temporal anomalies', but don't you insult the little lady, you—you—say, what are you?"

"Don't worry about it."

"Anyway, my creator was a little blonde lady," Punk said, his voice becoming softer, his eyes drooping. "Sweet, but a real fighter. Taught me to never be pushed around, but to always follow my robo-heart and be good. She…she d-died a year ago. I wish she was still here, but I wonder what she'd think of me now…"

Punk gestured over to the windowsill where a framed polaroid was perched—it seemed to be his only treasured possession. The polaroid was a picture of Punk, his armor as shiny as new, a championship robo-fighting belt gleaming from his waist as he flexed one arm. Sitting on his other shoulder was a little old lady wearing a sleeveless, studded leather lab coat. Her arms were covered in tattoos and her bottle-dyed blonde hair held into a bun with knitting needles. She was smiling, one of her arms draped proudly across Punk's head. Punk looked equally happy, the lower lids of his eyes upturned.

The present Punk stared at the polaroid, blinking hard, his armor-cased body beginning to tremble.

The eye on the floor withdrew slightly in repulsion. "Yeesh…don't get sappy on me, focus on your fighting!" The voice coached. "…You could be a real contender, believe me."

"I was a top fighter back then," Punk murmured. "Back before Dr. Rose died and I got kicked outta the Robot Fighting League. Turns out, it's no picnic bein' a rogue robot—especially when you've got no friends! I got mixed up with the wrong bots, now I owe money to a few mobsters…" Punk turned away from the photo in shame, then slammed his hands against the television, crushing it flat like a cardboard box. "This bank robbery was supposed to be simple! I wouldn't have hurt anyone, I just needed the money!"

"I can help you," the voice repeated calmly. It seemed as slippery as an eel, or some other creature that liked the dark depths of the ocean. "Take this. It's a special energy. It will make you powerful."

Within the center of the eye grew a small purple flame. It emitted no smoke nor heat, though it seemed to suck out the light from the cracked window and the naked lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. For a brief moment, a small figure of a skull flickered within the flames.

Punk started. "What? What's that? Is it legal?"

His instinct was to recoil from the strange purple flame, but the feeling of the invisible cables had him snared like a fly in a web. And yet, as he stared into the purple flame, he began to see possibilities.

"Can I…just look at it for a moment?"

Mesmerized, Punk stooped to reach out toward the purple flame. The roar of cheering fans rang in his ears. His circuits felt less rusty. He could see his creator's adoring face. His dump of an apartment no longer mattered. The people who he owed money to no longer mattered. No authority mattered.

But then, just as Punk's fingertips brushed the purple flame, the energy shot up through his arm and deep into his power core. The grandiose feelings died like a light clicking off.

Punk staggered backward, wrapping his arms around his chest. "I…I don' feel so good…"

"Give it a second."

Punk convulsed, shaking like a dog covered in flees, but then he regained control and straightened. He leaned back and began to laugh his ghoulish laugh, his voice booming in reverb across the small apartment, causing dust to fall from the popcorn ceiling and annoying all of his neighbors.

"There it is," the voice muttered smugly to itself, the shadow on the floor beginning to fade.

"I'll show everyone now—no one's the boss of me but me," Punk continued to boom. "Thank you, you one-eyed monstrosity."

"Aw, no problem!—But, just, do me a favor? Get revenge on those two pests who humiliated you today. They're meddling in things they shouldn't…and I don't like that. Oh! And remember," the voice added, just as the faint shadow disappeared, "Have fun~"

To be continued…