Wanted

By C.M. Rich (Magnetman)

Episode 13 - ... Allies ... Enemies ...

May 31st, 20XX, 2:12 PM , PST

“Nice of you to join us.”, NeedleGal greeted the returning Lennon and SD, with no small amount of animosity present in her voice. After all, she, along with most of the other Mechs, had been waiting for the two to show up for quite some time now.

“Pressing business and all of that.”, Lennon muttered.

“Well, great.”, Gauntlet said wearily. He clicked on his transmitter in the same breath. “Raj…”

Static.

“Raijin. Come in.”

“I’m a bit busy.” Came a stern voice.

“I see.”, Gauntlet responded, recognizing the message of “don’t bother me” in the curt answer. “Call me later”.

Looking over his other comrades, Shadowman could only empathize with them for only a few moments before delivering his next order of business: “Let’s get going.”

The short reunion already over, the seven Mechanical Maniacs set out to investigate the heart of the chaos- the central crater that now carved a deep gouge into the middle of the formerly congested Los Angeles .

The wind seemed to be dying down, but only slightly. The dust maelstrom was still choking out the sun. More and more, the Mechs started to ponder what caused this kind of destruction…And could it happen again?

May 31st, 20XX, 3:51 PM , PST

“It…doesn’t seem real, does it?”, Topman remarked, in awe of the sight before him, as were the other Mechs to some degree.

“Such power…”, Kenta murmured.

“So…this is it.”, Gauntlet proclaimed, standing at the very edge of it.

“It” was the crater. The destination they had worked towards for the better part of a day. Its magnitude easily explained how the rest of the city was in ruins. In fact, its size actually made some of them wonder how the rest of the world wasn’t affected by this…event.

The crater itself was perhaps ten miles in diameter, the bottom of it barely visible thanks to the shadow produced on one side casting itself downward. Dust and flying debris swirled about at the bottom, further obscuring the view of the bowl-shaped crevice. The ground around the very edge of the crater was especially soft, as the team found out first hand, as Hardman was sinking rapidly, which he put a stop to be moving about, mostly backwards.

Here, the dust was thicker as well, and the sun was further obscured, darkening the atmosphere even more. So much so that the Mechs didn’t see their new visitors approach from one side of the crater until they heard their footsteps crunch into the sagging concrete and earth.

“You…I can only guess why you guys are here…”, Geminiman addressed the newcomers directly.

“Afraid so.”, explained the leader of the group.

“You can’t honestly believe we did this.”, Gauntlet interjected.

“…No. We don’t. But the city sent us anyways. They said the City of Megapolis was responsible for not only harboring you when you were known outlaws, but recently giving you jobs and police work.”

“Turbo-san…What are you going to do?”, asked Eigen, somewhat anticipating a fight.

“We’re not here to fight, if that’s what you mean by that.”, Junkman claimed. “We know as well as you do that these charges are bullshit.”

“Thank God.”, Classi huffed, relieved.

“But we’re not sure what to say to the higher ups back home. We can’t come back until this whole thing is resolved.”, Turboman claimed.

“Then help us out. Help us find whoe’er really did this.”, Hardman offered.

“We could do that…”, Cloudman said slowly, hesitating slightly as he floated from side to side gently.

“…But then you’d be deemed outlaws as well.”, NeedleGal finished, sensing the reason behind the floating android’s apprehension.

“With friends like these…”, Lennon scowled.

“Hey, its not like we don’t want to help…But what good will it do if we end up being hunted down along with you guys? Plus, it’d make you seem awfully suspicious to the public.”, BurstGirl countered with. “It may even be called another Rebellion by the media.”

“Damn it, that’s not what we need to hear right now!”, Lennon erupted.

“Len, please don’t-“

“No!”, he screamed, batting away Classi’s attempts to calm him down. “We’ve got the entire world against us, so a little support goes a long way. And here you are, worried about your own skin! Sickening!”

“Lennon, enough!”, Shadowman ordered.

“Don’t you tell me what to do! If it wasn’t for you-“

The chrome-plated android’s claims were stopped short by an open-handed slap, shocking the entire group, Drastic Measures included.

It wasn’t so much the slap, but who perpetrated it.

“C…Classi…?”, Lennon stuttered, holding his hand to his face.

“Just…Just stop it, Len…What’s gotten into you?”, she pleaded, her eyes fighting back any stray tears.

Geminiman had no answer for that.

“Ahem.”

The Mechanical Maniacs and Drastic Measures’ attention were quickly snapped up by yet another new voice, which had forcefully interrupted the scene. It belonged to a universally familiar android.

“Goddamnit.”, Hardman groaned. “Not you again.”

“You’re damn right its me again…And I promise you, you won’t evade me again!”, proclaimed Bass, standing proudly in front of the Wily Warriors, his hesitant henchmen for this mission. “Like it or not, your asses belong to Wily!”

Starnik’s voice clicked into Shadowman’s ear. The two had maintained a very secret line of communication with each other over the years, even managing to hide it from Wily.

“Sorry, G-Man. We managed to keep this jerk away from you guys by sounding as many false alarms as we could with our weapons, but even he managed to wise up.”

“It’s okay, ‘Nik.”, Shadowman assured. “I appreciate it, in any case. But…you know what this means…”

“…Yeah…”

Suddenly, a thought sprang into Turboman’s mind, and he quickly took the reigns of the situation.

“Hold it! We’re here representing the City of Megapolis ! We’re here on official work to capture the rogue Mechanical Maniacs, and we can’t allow you to capture them if you’re working for Dr Wily!”

“Yeah!”, Freezeman added, understanding where Turbo was going with this. “We’ll be the one’s to capture the Mechs, and we’ll fight you to ensure it!”

Across the field, Quickman realized what was going on as well. Sure…It wasn’t going to be a pleasant experience for anyone, but it was rather…convenient. If you could call it that.

“Well if it’s a fight you punks want, it’s a fight you’ll get! C’mon Bass! Let’s take these jerks down in the name of Master Wily!”

“’Master Wily?’”, Bass echoed. “…Weird. But…Whatever! We’ll stomp these hacks into bits and get the Mechs back home in time for dinner!”

“YEAH!”, Crashman screamed loudly as possible right near Bass’s ear, netting him a backhanded fist to the face from the onyx android.

As the seventeen Robot Masters came to blows, Turboman and Quickman both managed to catch a glimpse of the fleeing Mechanical Maniacs, with Gauntlet giving a quick nod of gratitude to the both of them as they traded blows along with the rest of their teammates.

May 31st, 20XX, 4:06 PM , PST

“It looks as though we’re clear…”, Kenta stated solemnly.

“Yeah, that worked out pretty well.” Topman agreed. “I just hope they don’t beat each other up too much. It’s not as though we want to see our friends get hurt.”

“Star and Turbo bought us some time, so let’s make it work for us. We’ll have to find some evidence before they finish up.”, Shadowman informed the group.

“Evidence…Like…that?”, NeedleGal called to attention.

The Mechs collectively peered to the East, just a few hundred yards away. Amongst the group, it was easy to spot the largest, most brightly colored member of the Sinister Six PC thugs, Bitman.

“Looks like ya just can’t keep a good gang down these days…”, Hardman sighed. “Don’t these morons know how borin’ it can be kickin’ their teeth in even once a day?”

“No, the so-called ‘good’ gangs all know when to stay down after their daily beating. These idiots never had any where near that much common sense.”, Geminiman rebutted.

Shadowman remained silent, focusing on the group.

“Hello? Earth to Gauntlet! Maybe we should high tail it out of here before we get sucked into another meaningless fight with these clowns.” Topman urged.

“…Let’s go say hello.”, the dark shinobi android insisted on instead.

“You can’t be serious! Why should we waste even more time on these guys? We’ll never get anything done at this rate!”, Lennon challenged.

“On the contrary, they have something we’re very interested in.”, Gauntlet insisted.

“Oh!”, Classi uttered in shock upon taking a closer look at the group.

“You’re kiddin’ me…”, Hardman also noticed.