The Megaman War:
Part 1 - Whistle in the Wind

By Hadrian (Hardman) Howell

Chapter 12: Prometheus

Tiesel awoke to an odd whistling sound in the hall outside of his cell. Groggy, he barely registered a shape of some kind walking by. The whistling eventually died out, and Tiesel returned to a fitful sleep on the concrete floor.

Well, he almost did. A bright flash of light kept that from happening. So did the next thing that happened.

With a whooshing sound, the door to his cell slid open, stopping just short of actually slamming into the wall and making enough noise to alert the guards past the door. The oldest of the Bonne siblings could barely believe his eyes, and rubbed them just to be sure.

He pinched himself, trying to make sure this sudden avenue to freedom wasn’t a dream, and cautiously took a few steps outside his cell. The hall was dark, but his eyes quickly adjusted, and he could see the other end of the hall, where a wall had very definitely been before, there was now a big, noiseless hole.

He almost shouted in triumph, then remembered that in this case, silence was better than any skeleton key. He crept back into the cell and shook his little brother and sister awake, warning them to stay quiet, and led them out into the cool night air of New Detroit.

One they were a safe distance away, he celebrated.

“YES!” he cried to the night sky, leaping up and pumping an arm. “I can’t believe it! Maybe our luck is finally turning around! YES! YES! YAHOO!!”

Tron smacked her older brother upside the head. “Calm down, you goof. We don’t have any idea who let us out. They may come to collect, and we can really pay any debts right now.”

“Babu,” Bon put in.

Tiesel calmed down. “You’re right, Tron... But what do we do?”

Tron shut her eyes and thought for a moment. Tiesel and Bon were both suddenly very careful to not even breathe unevenly. This was Tron at her sharpest, and if anything disturbed her, she’d lose her train of th-

“We take revenge. On Megaman,” she said firmly after a mere few seconds.

“Babu?”

“Bon’s right, Tron,” Tiesel nodded. “HOW do we do that? He’s like some kind of Superman or something! How do we beat someone that can fly and is stronger than ten men?”

Tron’s brow creased. “He’s got to have some kind of soft spot. Think, Tiesel... what would be the best way to take care of someone who’s stronger than you?”

“Leave him alone and move to the Bahamas?”

“Babu!” Bon cooed in agreement.

This got Tiesel another smack on the head. “NO! A guy like him has an adoring public, right?”

“Er... right?”

“Right, and what do you think would happen if we kidnaped his biggest fan? He’d come running, right?”

“I uh... guess so.”

“So all we do then is set a really big trap for a big blue rat!” Tron grinned slyly, hands akimbo.

Tiesel and Bon looked at her for a bit, then at each other. Almost in unison they looked warily in opposite directions, then back at each other, and then back at her.

“Babu?” Bon asked, finally.

“Yeah, not seeing where the rat comes into it, Tron,” Tiesel shrugged.

Rock tossed and turned in his sleep. There must have been a window cracked somewhere in Roll’s apartment, because he heard this odd whistling.

Frustrated with the sound, he jumped out of the bed, his side stinging only slightly, and made a silent oath to find the source of the noise. He didn’t have to go far. As he approached the living area of the apartment, the whistling grew louder and more distinct. Someone was whistling. Someone in Roll’s kitchen.

Rock was willing to bet it wasn’t his blonde friend, either.

It’s a general rule of life that if you discover someone is in your living space uninvited, and they don’t know you know yet, there’s always a bat or golf club in easy reach. Of course, it’s usually a given that whoever has been so rude as to allow themselves into your house that you might attack with this bat or golf club has a gun, but Rock’s brain didn’t consider that as his hand wrapped around the Louisville Slugger.

Moving silently, he snuck to the corner of the kitchen door, and peered inside. In the gloom, he could make out a still shape leaning against the far wall. He took a good long look at the shape, and with a soft breath and a smooth motion, whipped the bat into the kitchen.

The solid, wooden bat hit the refrigerator with a solid thud and clattered noisily to the floor. Confused, Rock turned on the lights and blinked a few times in the sudden brightness. Roll’s refrigerator now had a fairly permanent dent in the front door, and there was no mysterious intruder in sight. He shrugged and turned to go back to bed.

Well, we would have gone back to bed if he hadn’t come face to face with a very angry Roll.

“Why are you putting holes in my appliances, Rock?”

Rock involuntarily cringed. “I thought I heard someone in you kitchen...” he managed feebly. Even he had to admit it sounded pretty stupid right now.

“That would be my cat, Rock,” Roll said levelly, “who I bet you scared half to death.”

Rock hung his head, trying not to look... anything, really. Whenever Roll was woken up for a stupid reason, she was always really irritable. It had been that way for years.

“I swear, I thought I heard someone whistling,” Rock tried again.

“My fridge makes odd noises, Rock,” Roll said in a restrained tone. “It’ll probably make more, now that it has your signature pounded into it.”

“Sorry...”

“Gah, can’t you STOP being Megaman and go to bed?” Roll sighed, turning on her heel and making her way back to the couch.

Rock turned off the kitchen light and walked numbly back to bed, but not without a few glances over his shoulder.

He pulled back the covers on the bed and started to slide down into a sleeping position when his foot hit something.

“Man, Tango, can’t you...” Rock stopped himself and poked the thing with his foot again. Turning on a light, he threw back the covers to see a box. A box he was very sure hadn’t been there before.

“ROLL!”

Erik opened the door to the jail wing of the station and kept a firm eye on some paperwork in his hand. He couldn’t understand the motivation, but someone had actually done something he’d never expected.

“All right... Bonne? Tiesel, Tron, and Bon Bonne? You guys are free to go... someone posted your... bail?” He looked up at the open jail cell. He blinked a few times and looked at the hole missing from the wall on the other end of the hallway. He looked back at his paperwork. Sighing, he tossed it into the cell, the pages scattering.

“I seriously need a vacation or something,” Erik grumbled as he stuffed his hands in his pockets. “The chief’s gonna rip me a new one for this...”

“But Tron, where are we going to get the money for this?” Tiesel asked.

“We get a loan.”

“We’re convicts! ESCAPED Convicts!”

“Fine. We get a loan the criminal way.”

“What, you mean like, rob a bank and leave a note?”

“Babu!”

“NO! We just rob a bank!”

“How?

“I don’t know yet!”

“I don’t like this, Tron.”

“Babu...”

“Bon’s right, we used to be such good people...”

“You don’t even know what he said!”

“Neither do you!”

“You moron!”

“I know you are, but what am I?”

“Babu...” Bon put a hand on his head. Watching the exchange between his old siblings was starting to give HIM a headache.

“You’re such a child!”

“I’m still the older one!”

“Then why are you being such a BABY?” Tron cried, shoving him.

“I’m trying to be a GOOD GUY again!” Tiesel shouted, shoving back.

“Being good didn’t get us anywhere!” Another shove.

“Being bad put us in jail!” Shove.

“We got out, didn’t we, you idiot?” Push.

“Not on our own, you witch!” Push.

“You never could do ANYTHING on your own!” Slap.

“Babu...”

“Why you...you dishonest little...” Punch.

“OW! You... ARGH! If Mom and Dad were still alive-“ Punch.

“Yeah, well they’re not here to save their precious little genius this time!” Harder punch.

“I didn’t need them! I don’t need anyone!” Punch.

“You wouldn’t be anywhere without us!” Harder punch.

“Not anywhere on YOUR atlas, you LOSER!” Punch.

“Babu!”

“I’m only a loser ‘cause you dragged me down with you!” Harder punch. Tron staggered back, breathing heavily and involuntary tears rolling down her face. She screamed incoherently and threw herself at her older brother, a whirlwind of knees and elbows. Tiesel growled in return, and took the assault full on, hitting her with powerful punches in between bouts of getting hit in the stomach, chest, and legs.

“You were always so DAMN POPULAR!” Tron screeched, finding her voice again. “Mom and Dad LOVED you! They would ALWAYS take you to the parties and leave me home to babysit!”

“They were always showing off whatever their little brain box had invented THIS week!” Tiesel shouted at the top of his voice, landing another hammer-like blow. “I was always left to myself, alone in the crowd with nobody else to talk to! YOU at least got to stay home and have fun with Bon!”

There was a swift sound a two solid thumps. The feuding Bonne siblings fell to the ground, unconscious. Bon looked down at them, having learned a long time ago that knocking them out was far easier than separating them when they got like this, and shrugged. He hoisted his older sister and brother up on each shoulder and took a look around. Before, he’d always put them in their rooms, but... they didn’t have a home anymore. At least, not one Bon could find his way back to.

“Babu...” he pondered, and randomly chose a direction to walk in. It wasn’t long before he saw someone else on the night street. “Babu!” he called.

The figure stopped and turned. It seemed to relax a little, and made its way toward him. As it came closer, Bon could make out details in the gloom. There was an overall coloring of red, with some kind of underlay of gray, but Bon couldn’t make out any real shapes. A firm hand patted him on the back while another waved before him, as if to show him the way.

“Babu,” Bon smiled, happily following his newfound friend through the night gloom, lugging his siblings along with minimal effort.

Dr. Light grumbled as he looked at the package Rock and Roll had brought him. According to Rock, it had just shown up in his bed, but Dr. Light was skeptical. He looked long and hard at the handwriting on the label, which simply read:

To Megaman, with brotherly love.

It was weird handwriting, too. Every letter looked like it had been scrawled by a different person, or like an entire class of five year olds had written it and the least legible letters were chosen for the final message.

Inside the box were two things. The first was a small black unit, which Dr. Light put aside without much of a thought, and the second was a sheaf of papers. The scientist skimmed over the first few pages of typed text, his eyes stopping at the words ‘Energy Collection Coil.’Further skimming yielded a second interesting phrase: ‘Personal Teleporter.’ He sighed and asked Rock for some coffee, and settled down for a night of reading.

Dr. Wily looked at the night sky from the door into the Mountain. His Masters were already working on remodeling the entry way to his specifications. In Wily’s plans for his seat of power, the front door was a massive gate with a frightening, enormous skull serving as the main archway. With his symbol already stamped into place between the skull’s empty eye sockets, Dr. Wily smiled to himself. Things were going good on the home front.

The away game, however, was going poorly. Gutsman had been stopped... no, KILLED, by Megaman ahead of schedule. Wily had known Gutsman, in his retarded state, probably would lose to a more intelligent foe, but he’d bargained on a higher death count in order to scare more of the country into submission. Obviously, Megaman was more competent than the German had given him credit for. While he could send multiple Masters to deal with the threat, the last thing he wanted to do was alert Megaman to the idea that Wily actually SAW him as a threat.

Megaman knew the layout of the Mountain for sure, if he was truly the Rock Wily had known before the takeover. This meant that Megaman could easily infiltrate the Mountain... no, the Fortress, given a decent opportunity. This alone made him a threat in Wily’s mad eyes.

Dr. Wily shook his head. He’d have to get used to calling his home Skull Fortress from now on. It had a much nicer ring to it than Cheyenne Mountain, and it insure that he’d make his mark on history with such a grandiose display.

The insane scientist smiled as he watched Fireman work. Oh, yes, it was time for New Detroit to burn. To burn like Hell.

“Fireman, stop vat you’re doing und come here. I haf a new job for you...”