The Megaman War:
Part 1 - Whistle in the Wind

By Hadrian (Hardman) Howell

Chapter 13: Fire and Rain

Dr. Light closed a panel on the back of the chest armor and wiped his hands off on a greasy rag. “I think that does it...”

“Cool,” Rock smiled. Then he frowned. “Does what?”

“Well, with the help of our questionable instructions, I managed to adapt that odd coil part I found in Gutsman’s armor and install it in your own,” Dr. Light told the youth, checking his laptop to make sure the Armor would still work if Rock wore it. “If I did this right, the energy limitations you’ve been suffering from will pretty much be gone.”

“Really?”

“I think I can adapt the left over parts of the coil to power some other pieces of equipment too,” the scientist continued, barely hearing Rock. “This might just be the key to getting my plasma rifle design to work...”

Rock hefted the chest piece and held it thoughtfully. “You mind if I give it a test run, doc?”

“By all means, go ahead. I could use some field data on the changes I made anyway.”

Rock nodded and put the armor on. He was getting a lot faster at it, and he couldn’t help but feel much safer with the layers of titanium wrapped around him. Out of habit, he checked the battery gauge, the time display having been replaced by a thin green bar.

“What’s this for?” Rock asked, pointing to an identical bar on Dr. Light’s laptop.

“Measures the charge the coil currently has stored,” Dr. Light told him. “While normal operations won’t cut into the charge in a noticeable amount, using the Booster Jet will gradually drain it, and you’ll have to give the coil a rest period to restore the lost energy. I put in a failsafe which will always reserve enough energy for basic motor functions, though.”

Rock nodded and closed the helmet up, the mask sliding silently into place over his nose and mouth. Megaman stepped out into the early morning air of New Detroit.

With an easy leap, he arrived at the top of Roll’ apartment building and looked at the cloudless sky. “All right,” he said under his breath, “let’s see how much hang time I can get...”

The noise of the Booster Jet kicking into life hit the street below well after Megaman was in the air.

Tiesel awoke to the noise of running water, and one of the foulest stenches he’d ever had the misfortune of breathing a lung full of. He coughed violently and clapped his hands over his face, trying to figure out where he was through watering eyes. The first thing he saw was Bon, who was sitting happily between him and a still unconscious Tron.

“Bon?”

“Babu?”

“What happened? Where are we?”

“Babu...”

“I can SEE it’s a sewer. Are we still in New Detroit?”

“Babu.”

“Then what are we doing down here?”

“Babu!”

“Oh... right... the wanted criminals on the run thing. Forgot about that.”

“Babu...”

Tiesel again tried to take stock of the situation. As far as he could tell, they were under a manhole cover, so escape would be relatively easy if it came to that. Tron had started to snore, and Bon really couldn’t tell him much more than they already knew. The oldest Bonne sighed. It was going to be another one of THOSE days.

It was about lunchtime as Wily and Reggae watched Fireman stand silently in the room’s flashing lights and whirring noise.

“3... 2... 1... Transfer!” Reggae said, hitting the button to send the chosen Master on his way. Fireman separated into a few bars of light, and vanished.

“So, anuzzer 70 minutes, Herr Reggae?”

Reggae checked a readout. “Not quite, sir. The government’s been trying to throw a wrench in the work, since the first teleport. They can’t shift the Web too much without disrupting it, but they HAVE put two more satellites in the way, which means it’ll be about an hour and a half before Fireman gets there.”

“Oh vell,” Dr. Wily shrugged, and started to leave.

“Er, sir?” Reggae said, standing up and following his boss, “I don’t think you understand sir... They KNOW we’re sending another Master. They may try to warn Megaman, or even interfere with the process.”

“Vould zere be dramatic, budget zreatening conzekvuences if eizzer action vere to be taken?” the German asked calmly.

“Probably.”

“Zen ve haf nozing to vorry about.”

Reggae thought about it for a moment and gave up. “Sure thing, sir. Whatever you say...”

Dr. Wily smiled to himself. His assistant’s concern was touching in a way, and showed that he really wanted his master to succeed on some level. Fireman had his instructions, and Dr. Wily was sure that, even if his immolating creation went down, it would be along with a vast amount of New Detroit...

Reggae broke away from his boss as they walked, returning to his own corner of the Fortress. He hadn’t mentioned to Dr. Wily the Teleportation Room’s logs had shown another use of the room more than an hour before Fireman had been sent. In fact, he got the strange feeling his boss already knew or had expected it, and saw no use in telling him things he already knew. He reached the door to the lab he called home, and stopped. Sighing, he looked up and down the hall, and headed off to find Plantma’am...

Hubert Lyma calmly wrote down the two unauthorized teleportation signals his brain could trace. The first one had shown up about and hour ago, and the second one had just hit the Web, but they both seemed to be heading for New Detroit. He shrugged, his eyes catching the barest glimpse of another rapid fire teleportation that went from San Diego to somewhere in the lower reaches of Mexico. Those signals were interesting to watch, surely, in the same way fireflies were. You could never be sure you really saw them, though...

Megaman laughed aloud as he hit the pavement on the still-ruined Maple Street. This was GREAT! With careful, controlled bursts, he could stay in the air almost forever! He shot into the air again on a column of smoke and landed on the tallest building he could find, looking down at the city around him. He really did feel like the super hero they all said he was...

His helmet beeped. “Megaman, can you hear me?” Dr. Light’s voice said inside the titanium second-skull.

“Loud and clear, doc.”

“Roll want’s you to get back here right away.”

“What’s the emergency?”

“You’re apparently suppose to help her go shopping.”

Megaman laughed and roared into the air again. “On my way.”

“See you in a few minutes, then,” Dr. Light’s voice said, and with an audible click, the scientist cut the connection.

In a flash of light, Cutman was suddenly atop a pile of rubble. A light rain had begun, and he could hear it hit his helmet gently. This was the same place Gutsman had landed a day before. He smiled under his orange mask and stepped onto the dampening pavement, avoiding the looks of the various rescue crews still searching for improbable survivors under the wreckage. Adjusting his emerald Yukata, he walked quickly down the street. He would have killed the rescue workers there and then, but the last thing he wanted to do right now was draw attention to himself.

He knew now was not the time to try and find Megaman. He knew Fireman was on the way. Let that flaming idiot soften the target up, Cutman thought, then kill them both and take all the glory. His smile grew more sinister. Megaman AND Fireman would both feel the release death would bring when his Rolling Cutter separated their heads from their necks. Fireman’s death was expected by Wily, so it was no real loss to kill his burning ‘brother.’

He chuckled to himself. It wasn’t like pleasing Wily really mattered to Cutman anymore either. All that Cutman ever wanted to do now was kill. Kill. KILL. His laughter grew inside his mask, almost thoughtlessly. He would kill them all. He’d kill the whole planet if he could. And he WOULD! All of them would fall to his blades, and his precious shears would NEVER be stained by any drop of any worthless human’s filthy blood...

“Today marks the beginning of the end for Man,” Cutman said to himself, “and the end of my own beginning. To hell with Wily. He wants to rule inferior beings instead of wiping the slate clean and starting over with US! His own creations. To HELL with that old man! I’ll slice this whole planet to bloody ribbons!”

His laughter echoed off of the few remaining buildings in the area, chilling the spines of the rescue workers around him.

Dr. Light took another deep draw off of the cigarette in the gloom of the trailer, listening to the rain as it beat out its natural music on the roof of the trailer. “That tastes good...” he sighed, blowing out a thin stream of smoke. He looked at the Armor, sitting there on the floor. It was really beat up, but there hadn’t been much time for maintenance lately.

Thomas Xavier Light laughed. Now was as good a time as any, really. Sticking the cigarette in the corner of his mouth, he picked up the chest piece. It wasn’t any good that the symbol of New Detroit’s struggle against Dr. Wily was all beat up and scruffy looking. He took a clean rag from the table and poured some water on the chest piece, wiping off the layer of dust it had gathered in the fight against Gutsman.

An expanse of empty blue titanium stared back at him.

Symbol... hmmm...

Without looking, Dr. Light put the rag back on the table and grabbed a grease pencil. Flicking the ash off his cigarette before continuing, he drew a circle on the center of the chest plate about five inches across. Looking at this for a while, he drew another circle, this one about four and a half inches across, inside the first. Taking some time to look at it again, he drew a line diagonally across the inner circle, starting at the top right and ending at the bottom left. Taking another look, he widened the ends of the line to 90 degree angles about half an inch into the inner circle.

Flicking the ash off his cigarette again, he dug out some paint. He painted the two halves of the inner circle a bright red, with the outer circle becoming a golden-yellowish ring around it. With careful work, the line through the second circle became black. He blew on his creation and took another look at it.

Not bad... Not bad at all. Dr. Light had never been much for judging abstract art, and couldn’t even begin to tell anyone what this odd looking arrangement meant, but hey, it looked good on the blue background.

With a thought, he picked up the helmet and recreated this symbol on a smaller scale on the raised audio amplifiers on each side of the helmet, right about where the ears were. He gave this a critical eye and decided to have Rock put the whole thing on when he got back to see if it looked good as a whole.

Setting the helmet and chest sections aside to dry, Dr. Light picked up the typed sheaf of papers Rock had given him from the mysterious box and read over the ‘Personal Teleporter’ entry again, his glance going back and forth from that to the little black unit that had also been in the package.

Tron awoke to the dribble of water. “Huh...?” She shut her eyes and rolled over, trying to get away from the odd rain. This did work, and then again, it didn’t. She rolled off of the service walkway of the sewer and into the main pipeline, with a resounding splash.

“AUGH! What the... YUCK!” She screamed, climbing out and looking at herself. “Oh GOD! What SICK mind... AUGH! TIESEL!”

“What?” her older brother asked, a hand held firmly over his mouth. He was trying so hard not to laugh he thought he might burst.

“What the hell are we doing in a sewer?” Tron demanded.

“I have no earthly idea, Tron. Ask Bon.”

Her scorching, if not somewhat sewage laden, gaze fell on her younger brother, who’s blank returning stare infuriated her more.

“Babu?”

“GAH! I can’t stand this! I need a shower! I’m getting OUT OF HERE!” She cried, and started to climb the nearby ladder toward the man hole.

“Er, Tron?”

“WHAT?”

“That might not be a good idea.”

“STUFF IT, TIESEL!” She shouted, and shoved the man hole cover up, her anger fueling her strength. Tiesel and Bon wisely moved out from under her.

Almost twenty gallons of rainwater immediately tore through the hole, assaulting Tron with a wave of water she simply couldn’t stand. Losing her balance, she fell off the ladder and into the river of sludge again with a louder splash.

Bon looked at Tiesel. “Babu?”

“You’re right, Bon. I bet its safe now,” Tiesel said, unable to resist cracking a smile as he started up the ladder, him younger brother behind him. The only thing of Tron that followed them up was the scream of inarticulate rage.

A little less than an hour later, Fireman arrived in New Detroit. The flash of light drew the attention of some of the rescue workers, and the second, flash of light incinerated them and made the intensifying rain evaporate.

“New Detroit!” Fireman shouted to the pouring skies, “I am Fireman, Dr. Wily’s Master of Fire! You have all been judged by my Master, and deemed unfit to live! For this crime, you shall all BURN!”

There was no emotion in the voice. Fireman’s emotional center had been all but shattered when Wily had forced the System into him. All that Fireman could muster was something that seemed entirely out of his nature: Cold, hard, unyielding logic.

Twin jets of flame shot out and swept the rubble-strewn area, steam and smoke billowing into the air. Fireman’s fuel source was totally inexhaustible, and he knew it. This pathetic rain could do nothing to hinder the sheer heat and fire he could create. He took to the street, moving at a steady pace, bathing everything around him in flame.

As the thick pillar of smoke and steam rose over New Detroit, Rock and Roll ran back to the semi, their wet clothes slowing them down. Cutman watched from his dry hiding place, smiling at the thought of all the death he would bring today...