The Unnamed: A Mechanical Maniacs Mini-Novel

By Gauntlet (Shadowman)

Chapter 10

“What the Hell?”

Shadowman couldn’t believe his eyes. Dozens of Wily Mechs littered the entrance of the ‘Maniacs’ base. All destroyed. Apparently Wily himself was here as well since one was larger and built for transportation. Wily himself was not around. Shattered glass sparkled like diamonds in the night, reflecting the far away lights of the city. Shadowman presumed Wily had escaped.

“Geez, this place is a mess,” commented the ninja.

“I ain’t cleaning it up.” Snorted the spinning demon, Topman.

“Yeah, well, we got bigger problems to worry about. It’s already dark so let’s think about this tomorrow,” sighed the ninja.

“I’m still not cleaning this,” said Topman rolling towards the base’s entrance.

Shadowman sighed.

***********

The door was open.

The front door to the Mechanical Maniacs’ base was left wide open.

Shadowman made a mental note to have a “talk” with Geminiman. If nothing else, they had a padlock. This was just unbelievable. Still, it seemed the room was untouched. A good sign. At least nobody came wandering in.

“I think Wily attacked. Gemini must have defended the base and won!” Topman said, partially to himself.

“No kidding, captain obvious! Oh, whatever would we do without your deductive reasoning?” Snakeman answered in his sarcastic way. Topman shot him an angry look, but Shadowman cut them both off.

“Now, now, play nice you two. Besides, we need to focus our rage in the proper places. Namely the rest of the damn team!” Shadowman shouted, slamming a fist into the wall for emphasis. It was obvious the other half of the team had not returned either. Typical, especially of his undependable sister. She had probably convinced the others to do something frivolous like shopping or something. With the Evil Eight behind “bars” Wily shouldn’t present too much of a threat. But Geminiman was the one that irked Shadow most. All he had to do was stay put! Damnation.

Topman shrugged. “Well, I would suggest we use our cells to call the others …. That is if Snake doesn’t have anything snotty to say!”

“Oh, come on! It was a joke!”

Shadowman sighed. It was looking like one of those nights…..

Shadowman dialed up Geminiman on his cell phone, conveniently hidden away in his gauntlet. They all carried their own cells in case any of them got lost.

“Hello? Geminiman? (*tsk* of course it’s Geminiman, who else would it be?) It’s Shadow.”

“….”

“Right. Look, I know you’re there. I can hear you breathing. Where are you?”

“ … In the dark ….”

Gemini’s voice was oddly monotone.

“Yuh – hunh … Well, I don’t know where that is, but I do when where this is! Can you guess where I’m calling from, Gem?”

“ ….. So cold …”

“ ….. I’m calling from the base. You know, our base? The one we ‘borrowed’ from the Autobots? The Ark? The base you were supposed to stay in!”

“Wily attacked ….”

“Yeah, no kidding. What else is new?”

In response Geminiman muttered something Shadow couldn’t quite make out.

“What? Look, my hearing is a little bad so you’ll have to – “

“Pink elephants swain on the street cabbage! Wily found trees known to something line circle!”

“What? Gemini, that’s gibberish.”

“I’m back, you know.”

“Uhhhhhhgh. Look, can you just come back to the base?”

“No.”

“No? No, what?”

“No, I will not follow your stupid, useless orders anymore!”

Gemini seemed a tad upset. Shadowman was unsympathetic.

“Gemini, this isn’t a time for screwing around.”

“I’m not Gemini.”

Shadowman was just about fed up with this.

“Look, Gem, I’ve just about had enough of this crap – “

“I’m Evil Lennon! And I won’t be held back by your stupid, outdated team! I’m more powerful than ever before! More powerful than you! More powerful than Megaman! More powerful than anyone!”

“Oh would you cut this out? If you’re mad at me, fine. Come here and we’ll talk about it. But this ‘Evil Lennon’ stuff is crap, man. You don’t need to be ‘Evil Lennon’ just to be mad at someone.”

“I am Evil Lennon! It’s not crap! I’ll show you! I’ll show – “

Shadowman hung up the phone.

“What was that all about?” asked a confused Snakeman.

“Geminiman’s decided to be an asshole. You know, being able to split into two should be enough for him but he just can’t seem to help brining up that damn ‘Evil Lennon’ stuff every time he wants to lose it. ‘Someone ate my slice of pizza! I’m Eeeeeeevil Lennon!’ Well, let’s see what Needle’s gotten herself into.”

Shadowman dialed Needle’s number. It rung several times, but there was no answer.

“Hh,” grunted the ninja.

“Try again,” urged Topman.

Shadowman once again dialed Needle’s number. This time the ringing cut off abruptly and the line was disconnected.

“Hm. She probably forgot to charge it. My sister can be such an idiot sometimes.”

“Think she’s in trouble?” asked Topman.

Snake threw up his hands. “She has Hard, Magnet, and Spark backing her up! And Wily has …. Who? Bass? Bass isn’t even interested in us! What trouble could they possibly get in?”

“Right,” Shadow agreed, “ well, let’s just try someone else then. How about … Magnet.”

Again, Shadowman dialed Magnet’s number. And again there was no answer.

Shadowman was so annoyed he could barely control his rage. “Those idiots must have turned off their cell phones! God, our team is full of morons!”

***********

There was nothing to be done, so the Mechanical Maniacs (or what seemed to remain of them) slept. Slept in their nice, soft, warm beds.

Elsewhere, Needlegal slept a different kind of sleep. One with disturbed dreams as her body was tampered with by the misguided Doc Robot. Expressman and Multiman watched as he messed around with her internal systems. Who knew what he was planning?

Magnetman also slept. Around him Hardman and Spark Chan watched worriedly late into the night until they finally succumbed to low energy reserved (a robot’s equivalent to fatigue) and fell asleep themselves. Magnet was an interesting case. His mind was slowly being eaten away by the robotic Gom Jabbar Artilleryman used on him. Magnetman was the one he wanted.

An agent of chaos stalking in the night, Bizarro Shadowman teleported to the entrance of the robot hospital. It was not heavily guarded. After all, who would break into a hospital?

A rustle of wires and treemech leaves was all that was heard as Bizarro did away with the two sentries. Small robots designed by Doctor Cossack. Nothing special. With his Borg enhancements Bizarro opened the electric locks securing the door. It was more instinct than actual cleverness.

Bizarro had a job to do. He was given very clear instructions. Master would be pleased with him if he did it all right, and Bizarro wanted that very, very much. And it was pretty easy to do too.

Bizarro activated cloaking fields. He picked it up somewhere … maybe it was one of the tweaks that nice Doctor Doppler threw in when he rebuild Bizarro. It made him invisible to cameras. Sort of. Right now he was a big blur. Whatever. It didn’t matter, Bizarro just liked the idea of being blurry. In a few moments he came to what was really important and that was when his thoughts came into clear focus.

The main hospital console. That was what he needed to get to and there it was. It wasn’t very impressive. Bizarro went up to the smooth, white computers. They were nice and clean. Bizarro hated that. The snake-like cables that hang from his back sprung to life and latched into holes in the computer console. On instinct Bizarro was able to bypass security and make his way into the main network. There he planted a special program. Bizarro wasn’t sure how he felt about such a boring job. But, if it made master happy he would do it.

With a smile and a salute Bizarro teleported out in a flash of blue light.

***********

“Magnetman’s in the hospital?” shouted Shadowman loudly into his cell phone.

“Yes, he’s in the hospital. Damn, you don’t need to shout,” replied Hardman, who Shadow was talking to on the other end. Hardman proceeded to explain the situation to the increasingly alarmed Shadowman.

“Why didn’t you call me when this happened!?” shouted the team leader.

“I dunno ….. everything was just happening so fast! I guess we just didn’t think.”

Shadowman cursed. Neither Geminiman nor Needlegal had called in either. And didn’t Torchman say something about his team disappearing the other day?

The conversation ended and Shadow began to wake up Topman and Snakeman. Clearly there was a conspiracy against the team. Oh, it looked very random, everyone disappearing by separate methods, but someone was pulling the strings.

“I agree it’s all very convenient,” said Snakeman upon hearing Shadow’s concerns, “but it’s not like we can do anything about it now. And we really need to check in with the others and see how Magnet’s doing.”

“Bizarro’s the key,” added Topman. “This all started with him destroying all the stuff in our base, right? That was part of a plan.”

“But what if Hero Idol was part of the plan too?” added Shadowman, “That was where we finally got rid of those Evil Eight morons. If it weren’t for that Magnetman wouldn’t have been exposed to the Gom Jabbar!”

“Well, yeah, but don’t you think we should find Bizarro?”

“Of course I think we should find Bizarro! Didn’t I organize teams to look for him the other day? But the little idiot is proving to be tough to find!”

Shadowman sighed. It was all too much for a morning and he was having a really bad day.

“Hey, Top I’m sorry for snapping at you. It’s just been a really long day.”

“Whatever. Let’s just go already.”

With a flash of light the ‘Maniacs were on their way to the hospital.

***********

Except it wasn’t the hospital.

It was a large, spherical building on tank treads. It has squares, guns and panels everywhere. It was silver and looked very advanced. To top off such an impressive building was a large, bulbous eye.

“What is it?” asked Snakeman, awestruck.

“The Technodrome,” breathed Topman.

“Wait …. Wasn’t that destroyed?”

“It was,” replied Shadowman. Someone had gone to a very long way to attract their attention.

“Shall we take a look?” asked Snakeman slyly.

“Well, they’ve gone to so much trouble. It would be rude not to,” replied Shadow.

Topman gaped in surprise. “What? This is obviously a trap! And you want to walk right into it?”

Shadowman looked thoughtful. “Well, it’s our only real lead to whomever’s behind this thing against us, isn’t it? If we want answers….”

“It’s a trap!” Topman shouted. “It’s stupid to go inside there! And Magnetman’s in the hospital, we have to go to him!”

“What we have to do is find out who’s behind this. Magnetman isn’t going anywhere and I doubt we’ll be allowed to go anywhere anyway. Remember, they did divert our teleporters somehow,” replied the blue ninja.

“Well, I’m out of here!”

Topman activated his teleportation sequence. There was a flash of yellow light, but Topman was still there after it faded away.

“Told you.”

Topman grunted, “Well, forget this! And forget you! I’m gone! I’ll just walk until I’m out of whatever thing is jamming our teleporters and then I’ll teleport to Magnet and be a real friend!”

“Topman...,”Shadowman began, but Topman was beyond reasoning. He’d been insulted and put down long enough. Activating his roller skated he sped away at high speeds.

“Come on,” said Snakeman, “We have a Technodrome to explore.”

***********

The halls were eerily quiet as Shadowman and Snakeman investigated the familiar structure. Although this Snakeman was fairly new, Shadowman had fond memories of his time with the rest of his old friends in this base. However, to save the world from destruction, the Technodrome had to be sacrificed. Yet, here it was as if nothing had ever happened.

It wasn’t just superficially the same either. Everything was in place. As the two explored they found more and more evidence to show that this was the same base which the Mechanical Maniacs had once inhabited. Shadowman checked his room. Sure enough, everything was there. It was exactly as he had left it right before the base was destroyed. He had Galvatron’s cannon mounted on the walls as a reminder of the time he had to prove himself to ninjas. He had a Dragon ball Hardman had found stored safely away behind a panel in the wall and sure enough it was right there. Even art Shadowman had though he would never see again was right where he had left it.

“Something isn’t right here,” said Snakeman. “This place is right here, ripe for the picking. Someone obviously wants us here. So, why all the cloak and dagger?”

Shadowman thought for a long moment.

“I’m not sure. But I think we can find our answers in the conference room.”

The conference room was where the Mechanical Maniacs of old discussed plans and strategy. It was simply a large room with an equally large table suitable for eight people to conduct meetings. There was a large screen at the far end so that the team could showcase what they wanted to review. All of it was exactly as Shadowman remembered it.

Including the people who greeted them.

“Hello, Shadowman. Or should I say ‘Gauntlet’? Welcome to ….. the Mechanical Maniacs!”

Both Snakeman and Shadowman looked stunned.

Shadowman took a moment to recognize who was speaking to him.

“CJ? Is that you?”

The man who greeted him looked like Topman. He was of medium height and slight of build with orange armor and a top on his head. He smiled mischievously at Shadowman’s obvious confusion.

“Of course it’s me,” said the orange Topman, still smiling.

“What’s going on here? Why is the Technodrome not vaporized? Why did you divert us here? What – “

“Ah, Shadow. No hello for the rest of us?” said a voice deeper in the room.

Being caught off guard by the unexpected appearance of CJ, Shadowman failed to notice several other individuals in the room. Several quite familiar individuals.

Contrary to popular belief, the Mechanical Maniacs are not populated by the robot masters from Wily’s third robot rebellion. Over the years, the numbers of the original robots had dwindled. One by one each member had left and been replaced (sometimes many times over) until only Shadowman remained of the original eight robots. The other original members had taken up civilian identities and tried to get a normal life.

At least that was Shadowman thought. Yet here they all stood in what was supposed to be their old base.

With gleaming, polished crystalline structures on his body, there stood Geminiman. Or rather, the original Geminiman, who called himself Gizmo. Beside him was a blue robot with large, bulbous eyes set in the middle of his body. Three large needles topped his head. It was the original Needleman, also called Anton. The red, black, and white robot with a magnet on his head looked like he was about to burst with laughter because of Shadowman’s shocked expression. Titanium 91, the original Magnetman. Sitting, with his feet on the table, looking only faintly interested in what was going on was the original Snakeman also known as Jacob. Beside him was a small orange robot with large electrical spikes for hands. He was Sparkman also called Sean. And, sitting at the very back of the room stood the original Hardman.

Shadowman finally found his voice. “Ah, so …. Is that Eric or…?”

“Nnnnnnnnnhhhhhh!” was all the mammoth robot could say.

CJ smiled nervously. “Heh, yeah, that Eric was too tough to find. Well, the no-personality Hardman was on the team much longer than Eric was anyway.”

“nnnnnnnnnhhhhhh!” said the original Hardman again.

Snakeman, that is to say the current Snakeman, had finally had enough of this. Stepping forward in frustration, he could see where this was going.

“Hey, you know, this little reunion is great and all, but we have very important business to get to. So if you wouldn’t mind just getting to the point already, we’d really appreciate it.”

CJ smiled again. “Well, we tried to call, but your phone lines were down, so this was the best way to get in touch with Shadowman. And as for what we want, well ….. I think it’s obvious. We’re forming the Megaman three team again. And we want Shadowman on our team!”