"But..."
"Do it!" Proto Man shouted as he blasted another robot as the rest of them tackled him. X1 nodded and took off to the lab and entered the lab, powering up what was left of the defenses. Proto Man blindly fought the robots pounding him into the ground and throwing him about, smashing him into the rubble. "Argh!"
"Heh heh, too easy!" Locomotive Man commented as he rammed Proto Man back, who was bleeding battery fluid at this point. "Here, back off. Let me take him on!" The others stopped fighting and watched him run at Proto Man again, who jumped out of the way and blasted him. The robot roared in pain and raced at him again. He jumped over the racing robot master and blasted him in the back, causing the robot to trip.
The other six robots watching turned around as plasma guns popped out of the ground and began to ram then. They began to blast it as Proto Man and Locomotive Man continued to fight, Proto winning.
He jumped of Locomotive and blasted him twice. The robot master was beginning to wind down as he charged again. Proto blasted him and the robot blew up. He quickly grabbed his weapon and used it to ram Legend Man, who gagged in surprise. The remaining five robots blew up the guns and turned angerily on Proto Man. Legend Man stopped them from attacking. "NO! This honor is mine! Take out that other guy!" The five robots dimmly nodded and went off to find X1.
Proto rammed into Legend again, taking a lot of life out of him. "Seems you're weak to this attack, too bad!" he tauntedand rammed Legend again, who blasted him with a L shaped attack, which knocked Proto off his feet. He struggled to get up, but the L kept flying around. Finally he got in a hit and rammed Legend again, destroying him and getting the L attack while the other five robots began to enter the lab.
X1 activated the inner defenses and they were all blasted by laser turrents, sending them stumbling backwards. Proto Man threw Ls at them, which seemed to weaken Explosive Man. The robot, knowing he couldn't withstand these attacks, attacked Proto. The other four swarmed in to help, and he didn't object. They man to pound on Proto, who kept throwing Ls at them, and finally killed Explosive Man and got his weapon before the other four pounded him to the ground.
Seeing Proto in trouble, X1 blasted Lightning Man in the back with his short-circuit attack and destroyed the robot master in one hit. "Seems you're weak to my weapon..." he laughed as the remaining three robot master began to fight with almighty power in them, blasting Proto up greatly, who finally collasped in his own pile of battery fluid. He used the Explosive move over and over and finally destroyed Blow Man and got his attack and blew back Ninja Man, smashing him into the tree.
Sharp Man came up from behind and impaled Proto in the chest who screamed in agony. X1 leaped down and blasted Sharp Man off of him. "You take on Ninja Man, Proto!" he ordered. Proto attacked Ninja Man again with his Blow attack and smashed him into the tree again. The ninja robot bounced off of and sliced off one of Proto's arms.
"ARGH!" shouted Proto and aimed his blaster square in Ninja Man's face and fired, blowing him backwards. He then fired the blow attack again and destroyed Ninja Man, getting his sword. Turning, he saw Sharp Man stumble backwards from where X1 was taking him out. Proto sliced Sharp Man in half and destroyed him too. "Well, that's all of them."
"Wait! You're right! ARGH. Where's Smart Man?!" Proto cried frantically, ignoring the pain shooting throughout his body and saw Smart Man standing in the lab holding the plans to the Reploid project Light was working on.
"I told you I would defeat you! Ha ha ha ha. Being smart pays off! Dr. Zealous can use this. Too bad I couldn't rip anything else off," Smart Man taunted and teleported away. Proto Man roared in rage and slumped down from the amount of damage from his wounds. A few seconds later Light and Cossack rushed down and they took him back to the lab.
Dr. Wily sat at the computer and continued to enter the commands needed onto the computer to run the Reploid program. Bass was not completed and he was installing his Command Protocols now. His only command was to destroy Mega Man. He, Dr. Wily, would have the last laugh! For no doubt Light was making a reploid at this moment himself.
Hacker Man finished checking Bass. "He's fully operational. His emotions seem to be 100 percent operational right now.
"Excellent. It's a shame he'll have no memories as he is now...." Wily commented. "The only thing he will remember will be tied in with these commands I'm feeding him."
"Have you thought of what you'll call him yet?" asked Hacker Man timidly.
"Yes. 'Zero'. I find it fitting in many aspects."
"Too true, sir."
Wily typed in a few more stuff and kept working on the program for a few more hours, while Hacker Man ran scans on him. Bass's old armor had been completely changed and re-made. In addention, he now had long, blonde hair in a ponytail. This Zero seemed to be a very deadly fighter indeed.
Finally Wily stood up and turned off the computer, coughing violently as he did so. He's finished. Place him in the capsule and set it for around thirty years," Wily reminded him. Hacker Man nodded and carried the table (it had hover pads under it) to the capsule while Wily entered the backrooms of the complex and sat down in a chair, picking up his journal and writing in it.
The more he wrote the harder it got to conentrate. Soon he became tired and fell into a deep sleep.
Sadly he walked around and turned off all the computer systems, never to come on again until Zero had awoken. When he had finished, Hacker Man walked away from the base, locking it up tightly, and never looked back again.
In doing so, he missed a figure sitting sadly on the side of the road. It looked to be a broken down robot, a reminicant of Wily's days of glory. Scraps and gashes covered it's surface. But the glow in its eyes looked strangely alive. Red and grey paint flaked off its broken exterior. Finishing the scene was a shard of crystal, half covered with mud. The "W" on it still stood out, defying its condition.
Turning toward the Skull Castle, it spoke. It's voice could have once been full of power, but now, like an old record, its voice rolled out toward the empty building.
"Master once, but now no more, legacies gone sour...
I helped you once with all my might, and with all my power...
Yet with your dying breath it seems, your legacy assured...
A final blow, that death touch never cured...
My salute I give, but not respect, to only your creations that...
My brothers, fellows, dead all but one, your last and final laugh...
These Reploids as you call them, they are less and more...
than I myself... but then i think I cannot for sure..." the voice trailed off.
It rose up. It took a bright yellow cloth it had tied around its neck and looked at it. It was a momento of battles past, yet it was gotten only by subterfuge. Protoman had dropped it a while back. It years to come, the color would fade, and those who once knew its signifigance would die. The robot tied it back to his neck and with a salute, turned away from the castle.
Before him sat a short, yet powerfully built, Reploid with a cannon on his shoulder. He had a purple armor on. Unfortantly, Dr. Zealous had screwed up the facial tissue so much that it was unrepariable and he didn't choose to fix it. The second Reploid was taller, had black armor with shades of blue and was also powerfully built. On this one, he had added a cannon that can materilise instead of staying there, to throw off the enemy. Their faces looked alike except the purple one's was horrible scarred. Also, they both had black hair and cold blue eyes.
Smart Man turned to him. "What do you plan on doing with them?"
"The plans here say for a Reploid to emotionally stable, it needs around thirty years of hibernation. So I'm going to do that. If you mean what programming I'm going to is to destroy the world. If I can't rule it, why should others? They will wipe out they human race."
Smart Man nodded as if he knew everything. "Ah, I see. What are you going to call them?"
Dr. Zealous looked at the purple cladded one and said, "I'll call him Vile, for not only will his personality be Vile, but his looks. I will, however, add a helment to cover his face. The second one I haven't decided something, but trust me, I will."
"How many more months until they are fully completed? We can't hide out forever. Proto Man has been searching for us and Dr. Wily for seven months. I'm afraid he might be getting closer to us."
"I'll say another four months. I want everything to be perfect about them. I want to increase their power abilites where they can channel their power and gain new power perfectly. Meaning I want them to be bad SOBS."
"Think we can build the X-buster?" he asked.
"Sure, can be done," Cossack answered.
Light nodded and rolled his chair over to two tables, one holding Mega Man, who didn't even hardly resemble him anymore, and the other resembling X. They both had wires spilling out of them like gutted fish. "I say we have another five months to do. This is taking longer than I thought, unfortantly."
"Yes it be."
"Alright, get the power generate turned on, I want to run a diagnose on X's systems and protocols," Light finally said after thinking for a bit.
"Uh, thanks."
"I hear Light's been having a rough time this past year. Do tell him he has my highest regrets for all this," Crane continued as the rounded a turn and walked down another hallway. "But, what can I do for you?"
Proto Man nodded and absently went to tug at his scarf, which wasn't there anymore. He had never taken the time to replace it, and he regreted it now. "I've been searching Unversities for a man. I'm hoping he may have come here to learn or peraphs teach. His name is Joesph Arnold Zealous," Proto told him.
Crane mused for a bit and finally stopped. "Yes, I quite clearly remember that name, Proto Man. Lets head to my office and I'll bring up our files to see if I can find him," Crane said and they continued on down the hall to a large office. Crane walked in and turned to a young woman sitting at a desk. "Miss. Collins, would you mind entertaining our guest while I search the files." Crane walked into another room.
"Why, hello. You are a cute little fellow," she said sweetly.
"I, uh, thank you," Proto answered, feeling uncomfortable.
"Whose your creator?" she asked.
"Dr. Light, ma'am."
"I heard of him.....famous creator I believe," Miss. Collins mused to herself. A few minutes later Crane walked out.
"He's not in our new files, Proto Man, but if he was hear a long time ago he could be in the library computers. We never took the time to transfer those to the new system. Lets go check it out," Crane suggested and they left the office and continued walking down the halls until they reached a huge library. "Feel free to look around as I scan the computers here," he told him and left.
Proto walked among the huge shelfs of books and picked up boring boooks on robots and stuff. He even noticed posters of Light, Mega Man, and himself on the wall here and a statue of Dr. Light stood in the middle of the room. The place felt a little creepy to him. He continued to walk around until he left the robotics section of the library and entered the fiction section. He picked up an old book called 'The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet'. "Boring," he muttered and set the book back down and he boredly tugged at his visor. He was trying to start a new habbit than messing with his no-longer-there scarf.
"PROTO MAN!!! I FOUND IT!" yelled Crane a few minutes later from across the room. Proto hurried over there and sat down beside him at the computer as Crane brought up the files on Dr. Zealous:
Name: Doctor Joesph Arnold Zealous
Born: 2044
Age: 23
Sex: Male
History: Brilliant student with great expectations. He is
expected to far here. Though he has a violent nature to him, he seems to
be greatly interested in the field of robotics.
Proto pondered. "23? That would make him, what 40 now? Yes, he is forty years old now," he said to Crane.
"I hope this helps you."
"Does it have an address of residents?" Proto asked.
"Indeed. Here, I'll print it out and give it to you," Crane said and printed the infomation out. He handed it to Proto and escorted him to the front door. "It was a pleasure having you here, Proto Man. Come back again!" Proto muttered something and teleported away.
Proto stopped at an rundown, falling apart, heap of garbage that once was Dr. Zealous. He wanted to make him pay for what he did that night. Absently he glanced down at his new arm and could imagine the phantom pains.
Shaking his head, he stepped up to the door and pushed it down with ease and stepped in, looking over the place. The boards were rotting and groaned under his weight. He glanced around and saw that underneath the floorboards was some kind of basement. He jumped down there and tons of dust flew up. He glanced around the dark room and lifted his visor up to see better.
Stepping around, he began to search through the piles of junk left behind until he came across a small, fragial book that said on the cover "My Diary". He picked it up and looked around, knowing he would find nothing else out down here. He jumped out, barely making it out the front door before the floorboards snapped and fell into the basement.
Pulling his visor down, Proto quickly walked away and began to ready the sketchy writings by the man. They made no sense, showing a tad of insaneness. Finally he came across a short line at the end of this entries. 'I, Zealous, am Jealous of he that is called Dr. Light. He has made the first robot, called Proto Man. I will pay him back one day by making grander robots than he.'
Sighing, Proto flipped through the book and came across an address back in his city, Capcom City. Well, he had to report into Dr. Light anyway. He teleported away.
Dr. Light began to transfer feedback between Mega Man and X, giving X as many of Mega Man's traits as possible to make him more like the orginal Mega Man. As the process continued, he briefly thought through the recent events. On news the other day, a note from one of Dr. Wily's creations was left at Channel 1's doorstep. It said that he had died and that Wily wouldn't be plaquing this generation ever again.
While others might not catch the robots meaning, he did. Not this generation, but the next. He sadly gave a salute to Wily that night he learned this. He had been his friend once. Good friends....
"Imagine, Wily, that we'll be the most famous men alive very soon. By creating Proto, which I'll call Blues too, we'll have made history," Light excitedly said as the two worked on Proto.
Wily tugged at his yellow scarf absently. "Yeah, it will be exciting. It's just that I got some bad feelings. What if someone where to reprogram them and send them off the looney bin?" he asked carefully.
"Nah. That's a small chance, Wily. But think of the benefits. There, we're finished. Tomorrow we can do the first test runs!" Light gushed.
"Hmmm. He's not quite right yet," Wily muttered and took his scarf off, wraping it around Proto's neck. "There! That fits him perfectly!"
"But it's your favorite scarf."
"Ah, it doesn't matter. If you're going to make history, better make it look good!" Wily said with a wink.
Light had a drink that night and continued to think of Wily. He never knew what had snapped in his friend that forever changed his path. For the rest of his life the two were at each others throats. And finally, he had died, as he would soon too.
Snapping himself to the present, Light turned back to the feedback and saw it was complete. "Only a few more months, Mega Man, and we'll have you back, better than ever," he whispered, though the memory loss problem was still on his mind.
Looking around, he saw that it was completely emepty with no clues. After exploring the house, he discovered a basement type area and went down to see it was completely bare except for a table at the edge of the room. He went over to and bent down, glancing around it and saw something carved on it. Another address. This puzzle kept getting stranger and stranger. Memorizing the address, he quickly teleported away.
"I see."
"Anyway, you haven't told me lately, how has Proto Man been faring lately?"
"He's walking into the trap you had be set up for him beautifully. Last time I checked, he entered the second house and found the address carved into the table. That one will lead him to your old hideout, and ultimately, his doom," Smart Man said evilly. "And if its okay with you, I want to be there to witness it."
"Sure, go ahead," Zealous muttered absently. "Just keep him out of my hair."
"Gladly," Smart Man hissed, "gladly."
Proto Man walked around the deserted lab, searching for any clues. So far this had felt like a wild goose chase and it was time to blast the goose out of the sky.
Suddenly there was a loud screeching noice and Proto whirled around to see a nine foot walking metal heap that was a robot lurch towards him. "Holy...." he muttered and dived out of the way as it blasted a yellow beam him, vaporizing the floor.
Proto fired off a wild shot at the robot that bounced off. "Uhhh..." he muttered and looked back and forth for a weapon. He saw none so he dived behind a desk to keeping from being fried by the robot. The robot fired at the desk and vaporized it. Cursing, he dived behind a wall and scurried around the lab until he tripped over something that sent him sprawling to the floor. Turning back he saw a sharp metal bar with a huge spike at the end of it.
Grabbing it, he scanned for the robot and saw it was lumbering in his direction, vaporizing everything in his path. Roaring, Proto launched himself and dove the spear at the robot's head. Thankfully it went through and lodged itself in it. The robot attempted to pull it out as Proto dived for cover. He fired another blast at the hole he had made and blew the robot's head off, its limp body crashing to the ground.
Dusting himself off, he scanned the area for the cause of the robot. That's when the weird part began. Evil laughter filled the room. Scanning as he might, Proto couldn't locate the source of the laughter. Before he could begin to track it down, a huge axe came flying down at his head. Diving to the floor, he could feel it slice his back some.
Crawling out of the path of the axe, he once again scanned the area when suddenly the floor began to shift and spikes appeared in the middle of the floor. And the floor kept dissapearing under his feet, causing more spikes to appear. Looking around, Proto jumped and grabbed the catwalk above the floor and hauled himself up the second level as the entire vanished and became a row of spikes.
Scanning the room once more, he spied a shadow heading up to the next floor of the tower like lab and realized whoever it was, was trying to make a break for it toward the roof. Jumping up to the third floor, he propelled himself off the catwalk and landed on the forth floor and watched the shadow figure continuing up. Leaping off with incredible might he landed on the top floor right in front of the shadowy figure, who skidded to halt, stopping in the light. "Smart Man?!"
"Too smart to figure that one out?"
Charging his blaster, he snarled, "I've waited a long time to do this..." He fired at the robot, but he dodged it and jumped over his head and ran up to the roof. Cursing himself, Proto jumped up after him and watched him run into a huge robot machine similiar to the one he had fought below, only more highly advanced.....and deadly.
"Time to die," Smart Man hissed and powered up the robot, stepping towards him.
"Hee hee hee," Smart Man laughed and charged at Proto again, who dived out of the way and blasted the glass again, causing no damage that he could see. The robot, however, swung it's arm around and hit him in the side, sending him close to the edge of the circular roof. Coughing up battery fluid, he watched the robot coming at him, Smart Man smirking inside it.
Suddenly he leaped up, moving at the speed of light it seemed, and punched the glass, shattering a large chunk of it off, which caused Smart Man's jaw to open in disbelief. However, his reaction didn't slow down for the robot blasted him, sending him over the edge of the roof. He grabbed the side of it and felt the edge beginning to crumble. The robot turned toward him again and charged it's blaster, preparing to blast him off the side of the building.
Charging his own blaster, Proto pointed it at the hole in the glass and fired off a shot, hitting Smart Man in the chest and also damaging the controls, causing it to explode into a huge fire, blowing the entire robot up, scattering pieces of it here and there. Unfortantly, this caused the edge of the roof to crumble to bits and he fell off, when a fist came out of nowhere and grabbed him. He looked up groggly at a robot holding him, smirking slightly, and pulling him up on the roof before he passed out.
When he came too, Proto noted it was a few hours later, and scribbled onto the roof top was: Dr. Zealous is in sector 7, A, 3004557. Shaking his head, he looked around and teleported back to Light's to find out where the location was.
"I'm going there now!" Protoman snarled. Light turned to the wounded robot who had not had time to get fixed up yet.
"I should say not. Please excuse my straightness, but a girlscout could beat you up now...." Light worriedly said, glancing at Proto who glared back.
"No time. I have no idea what Dr. Zealous is cooking up, but it must be stopped...." Proto said. "But I'll go and get a energy refill real quick..."
As he was pondering, alarms went off. Walking over to the computer, he brought up a the screen and so Protoman teleporting down as close as he could to the base, a good way away. Time to see how good the legendary robot was........