The Megaman War:
Part 1 - Whistle in the Wind

By Hadrian (Hardman) Howell

Chapter 14: Saber Rattling

Fireman drove the screaming, smouldering crowds before him like cattle. Occasionally, some of them would try to hide in the alleys, but he always saw them, and they always fried. The now torrential downpour was only prolonging their agony now. If he cared to, he’d have smiled beneath his mask, if he could take pleasure in what he was doing.

He was fully aware that Cutman was shadowing him. The other Master’s presence here puzzled him, as it was not in the plan, but it was logical to have backup nearby, in the case of the worst, so Fireman left the green-garbed Cutman alone, content to carry out Wily’s orders and make them all burn.

The red warrior figured now was a good time to bellow out his lines again. “MEGAMAN! Show yourself and face my Master’s judgement!”

“I’ll do you one better!” was all Fireman heard as a blue streak of fairly pissed Megaman slammed into his side from a high angle. Fireman rolled with the hit, stepping back several feet as his arm cannons stopped their roar of flame, and Megaman crouched low, brandishing the Buster rifle. “Game over, flame-brain.”

“On the contrary,” Fireman said in a deadpan tone, his eyes flickering only momentarily to where he’d last seen Cutman. “For the crime of murder, Lord Wily finds you guilty, Megaman, and sentences you to death by incineration.” With that last, emotionless word, Fireman expelled twin jets of flame at the blue hero, who immediately took to the air, flying toward Fireman in a high arc.

Pulling into the rifle’s trigger, Megaman sent a hail of armor piercing shells at Fireman, who contemptuously avoided them with an easy side step, returning literal fire. A burst from the booster jet allowed Megaman to avoid the flame, but his inattentiveness was rewarded with an unexpected brush with a nearby wall.

Swearing under his breath, Megaman pushed off from the wall with one foot and dove toward Fireman, snapping off a few more rounds from the rifle. Fireman leapt into the air to avoid them, and then realized his mistake. He didn’t curse as Megaman redirected himself in the air and drove an armored shoulder into his chest, mostly because he didn’t have time. The red Master flew backward and landed hard on his feet, barely keeping his balance. He had enough time to look up before the airborne Megaman was on him again, his leg coming around at sub-sonic speeds with oblivion on one end.

Megaman’s airborne spin traveled without resistance as Fireman dropped low and took aim with both arm cannons, blazing identical columns of superheated air into his opponent. Megaman’s armor steamed with the heat and his jumpsuit smouldered, but he managed to get out of the way before he really caught fire. Dropping to the ground, Megaman let fly three more rounds from the Buster rifle, one of them tagging Fireman’s shoulder and crushing the armor there, but failing to penetrate skin.

Fireman bucked to the side with the impact and used the momentum to spin around 360 degrees, bringing his injured arm up and down in a fiery lash that Megaman rolled away from. Sending a ball of fire at him with his other arm, Fireman took a methodical step backward. It was time to initiate phase two of Wily’s plan, presumably to allow Cutman the chance to finish off the blue pest.

Megaman came up from his second roll ready for action, but blinked in the rain and found himself on a deserted street. He swore and shook his head, scanning the nearby roofs. He couldn’t have gotten far...

He checked his readouts. The fire bath he’d gotten had only done light damage, but it was EVERYWHERE. The sudden rush of heat hadn’t done much for his still-tender ribs, either. They’d mended in only a few hours, but Rock wasn’t going to deny they still hurt a little. He looked at the wall he’d almost hit. He’d gotten spoiled in the fight against Gutsman; there was never any high architecture around THAT guy. Fireman was his size, and faster than his previous opponent. He checked his readouts again and noticed his buster was out of ammo.

“Gah... I really have to talk to Dr. Light about expanding the clip for this or something...” Megaman said, tossing the gun to the ground. He could come back for it later. This left him with that questionable weapon Dr. Light had practically FORCED him to take, the leftover flares, and the Sonic Explosion Putty.

Unless he could catch Fireman in a trap, the putty was useless, and the flare were definitely out of the question. That just left that weird weapon that he wasn’t even sure WORKED and his own limited hand-to-hand training, which had already proved ineffective...

He sighed and detached the metal cylinder from his belt, holding it in one hand as he leaped to the top of the shortest nearby building, and from there made his way higher.

Tron, Tiesel, and Bon Bonne were all trying to figure out where they were. Bon wasn’t being very helpful.

“What do you MEAN you followed someone?”

“Babu!” Bon said defensively.

“You KNOW what we told you about following strangers, Bon,” Tron admonished him.

“Babu...” Bon managed, looking at his feet.

Tiesel peered through the curtains of rain, trying to get some bearing on their location. The Bonne family, in its prime, had lived on the outskirts of Lansing, in a beautiful mansion, but there had been many business trips to what was then just Detroit. While he couldn’t drive the road between the two for his tendency to play his Gameboy in the back of their parent’s luxury car, he was somewhat familiar with the streets inside the city.

“I think we’re on Oak,” Tiesel said after a minute. Tron shivered in the rain, wishing she could just have a shower, and started to walk in one direction. “Hey, Tron, where’re you going?”

“To find a hotel so I can get a decent shower! A WARM shower!” she said in restrained tones. Well, restrained for Tron, anyway.

“Babu!”

“What is it, Bon?” Tiesel asked. He looked at his ‘little’ brother, who was pointing to a shape in the downpour. “Hey... is that a semi? What the heck is a semi truck doing in the middle of a street like that?”

Tron turned on her heel and shot fire from her eyes at them. “Can we get moving?”

“Hang on, Tron, I want to check this out...” Tiesel said to her over his shoulder. He approached the trailer of the semi. “That’s odd. It doesn’t have any markings. It’s just this big steel-“

“Can I help you?”

“WAUGH!” Tiesel shouted in surprise and a head came out of the back of the trailer, a cigarette hanging from its mouth.

“Oh, wow, you guys have to be soaked. Want to come in? I have coffee...”

“Babu!” Bon smiled, walking over to the trailer.

“Wait, Bon,” Tiesel said, wrapping an arm around his brother’s shoulder and holding his ear close. “We don’t know who this guy is! He could be a... you know... bad guy.”

“Babu?”

“Well, yeah, technically, so are we, I guess, but he might be one of those REAL bad guys, like that Wily character...”

“Oh would you give it a REST, Tiesel?” Tron grumbled, stomping past him with wet steps. “We appreciate the offer, sir.”

The man laughed. “Oh, please, call me Tom. Or Dr. Light. Whichever you feel is necessary.” He opened the door of the trailer wider and motioned for them to come inside.

Bon lifted Tron into the trailer before climbing in himself, Tiesel following hesitantly after. The sound of the downpour on the top of the trailer gave it a white noise atmosphere that was only slightly enhanced by the rather poor lighting. “So, what are you a doctor OF, Tom Light?” Tron asked as she watched the other climb in.

“Physics, robotics, and biology,” Dr. Light shrugged. He saw no reason to be untruthful with these rather soaked unfortunates. Especially with that burning demon wandering the streets. Heavens only knows what kind of carnage he was causing while Megaman was searching for him.

“Sounds interesting,” Tron said with a half smile. “Do you have a towel or something?”

“Certainly,” the white-haired scientist smiled warmly and gave them each a rather frayed blanket from his own makeshift bed. He motioned for them to sit on some of the sturdier crates and resumed his seat at the ramshackle table, tossing only a casual glance at his laptop.

“Pretty shoddy setup for a guy with a Pd.D., isn’t it?” Tiesel asked, wrapping the blanket around himself.

“I work with what I have. So what were you three doing out there in this mess?”

Tron shivered in her blanket. “We were trying to get home...”

“Babu,” Bon cooed sadly.

“Yeah, Bon, we know,” Tiesel nodded.

Dr. Light raised an eyebrow. “What...”

Tiesel shrugged. “Forgot to introduce ourselves, I guess. My name is Tiesel, the big guy here is Bon, and she’s Tron. We’re all siblings.”

“Interesting,” Dr. Light managed, his eyes drawn to something on the screen of his laptop.

“What is it?” Tron asked.

Dr. Light seemed to be startled out of his distraction, and he smiled nervously. “Oh, nothing really.”

Bon shuffled a little closer to try and see. “Babu?” he wondered. He saw the odd screen displaying vital signs and a video uplink to what seemed to be someone’s helmet. “Babu!” he smiled happily, assuming it was some kind of show.

Dr. Light’s attention had been absorbed by the screen again as well. “This isn’t good,” he said under his breath.

Tron’s curiosity was already getting the better of her, and now it was doing a victory dance as she shuffled closer as well. “What’s not good?”

“Haven’t you kids heard/” Dr. Light asked. “There’s some raving lunatic with a flamethrower out there.”

Tiesel chuckled nervously, looking at the door of the trailer. “Good thing we’re in here then...”

Thomas Light nodded absently and squinted at the display on his laptop. “He lost him, but his signal is logged in the system, so all he’s got to do is find him again...”

Now even Tiesel was leaning in for a look. “What are you talking about? Find who, Dr. Light?” Tron asked, having a feeling she already knew the answer.

“Well, no harm in telling you kids. Do you know who Megaman is?”

Tiesel and Bon’s gazes immediately locked on Tron, who remained surprisingly calm. She nodded, keeping her mouth tightly shut. “Well, in a way, I created him and helped that madman Wily start this whole world domination mess, and now he’s gone and is trying to fix the mistakes I made by doing good things, and then Dr. Wily sent his monsters here and...” Dr. Light stopped himself as he realized he was babbling.

“Monsters?” Tiesel asked.

“Where have you kids been, living in a hole in the ground?” Dr. Light asked, genuinely surprised they didn’t know what he was talking about. Bon seemed to shrink a little under the glares he got from his older siblings. Dr. Light sighed and opened a second window on his laptop and replayed some of the video footage from the fight with Gutsman, turning the screen so they could see it. “This happened yesterday...”

“Babu!”

“That thing’s huge!”

“Is this like, some kind of ‘Megacam’ or something?” Tron asked.

Dr. Light tapped the screen. “A direct video uplink to Megaman’s helmet. I can also contact him through the communications equipment I have here, but we’re maintaining radio silence while we know one of Wily’s Masters is in the area. It stands to reason they’d be able to intercept the transmissions.”

“So, there’s another thing like THAT in town right now?” Tiesel asked, no long convinced of the safety the trailer afforded him.

“No, but there IS something that is smarter, faster, and can somehow generate fire...” Dr. Light said, rubbing his bearded chin.

“This new information does nothing to make me feel better,” Tiesel said weakly.

Dr. Light shook his head and closed out the Gutsman file, returning his attention to the current search for Fireman.

Megaman hit another roof top and looked through the pouring gloom with his enhanced visual sensors. “Gah, this is like trying to find a needle in a haystack,” he said. “If only that hot head would light up, I could get a fix on him...”

“I didn’t realize you needed a light, Megaman,” Fireman’s monotone voice came in over his helmet speaker, making the blue hero jump in surprise, “I’d have been too happy to oblige.”

“Doc!”

Dr. Light’s hands flew to the keyboard. “I’m on it! Triangulating his position now, Rocky.”

“Let me know when you have something,” Megaman said, almost missing the Rocky comment.

“...Rocky?”

“His real name is Rock Volnutt,” Dr. Light shot over his shoulder.

“Rock... Volnutt...?” Tron wondered to herself. “Rock Volnutt... Megaman...”

“Babu?”

“Tron? You okay?”

“Got it!” Dr. Light said, smiling. “You’re going to love this, Megaman. He’s on Maple!”

Megaman shook his head and ran to the side of the building facing Maple. “This is a trap, Doc, it’s got to be.”

“I notice you’re still going that way.”

“Yeah, well,” Megaman said with a sigh as he leapt into the air and flew through the sky, “call me heroic.”

Maple was still a mess, and the rain hadn’t done anything to make it better. The water filled the ruined street, leaving uneven banks of shattered concrete with the few remaining pieces of the shattered Kobun creating macabre islands. Fireman stood alone on the largest island when Megaman touched down on the side of the street. The rain continued to fall as the fire-haired Master turned to look at Megaman. “Well, well, well,” he shouted to be heard above the rain, his voice as emotionless as ever, “About time you showed up.”

Megaman said nothing, looking at the cylinder in his hand. Shrugging, he held it away from him and pressed the small button toward the top.

Acid green light shot from the end of the cylinder pointed away from Megaman, forming a bar of light almost four feet long. The light hummed dangerously, rain turning to steam on contact. In the trailer of the semi, the Bonne siblings recoiled in surprise as Dr. Light threw up his arms in triumph.

“I TOLD HIM IT WOULD WORK!” He shouted with glee.

“Er, Dr. Light... what IS it?” Tron asked, staring at the screen with unbelieving eyes.

“What, you never saw Star Wars? It’s a light saber!” Dr. Light smiled, obviously pleased with himself. “I found the instructions to make one online.”

Megaman rolled his eyes. “Great,” he muttered. “I’ll NEVER hear the end of this one. I swear, if he tells me he’s my father, I’m gonna choke him...”

Fireman cocked his head to one side. “An interesting weapon.”

Megaman shook his head. “Tell me about it.”

With an emotionless shrug, Fireman raised his arm cannons. “It matters not. BURN, Megaman!”

Ducking under the not-so-unexpected attack, Megaman flew forward, the saber still held away from him, tracing a green line through the rain-soaked dusk. Fireman leapt off his island and over to the other side of what remained of the street, letting twin tendrils of flame trace his opponent’s airborne path over the makeshift river.

Unlike Megaman, however, Fireman had to land at some point, and Megaman adjusted his speed to meet him there. Ignoring the searing burn on his back as the fire washed over him, Megaman’s foot hit the curb the same time Fireman hit the sidewalk. With an practiced move, Megaman turned on a dime, dashing away from his burning foe at a right angle.

Fireman turned and raised his arms again, ready to unleash another inferno on his opponent when he heard an audible thud. His eyes went wide as he looked down, his right arm from the middle of the bicep down laying in a rapidly developing puddle of water. There was no blood. The cut had been cauterized instantly by the blade of the laser sword. His dispassionate state didn’t even let him feel the pain.

He looked up at Megaman, who was coming back at him far too quickly for him to avoid. Fireman did not scream, and did not attempt to attack. He simply put his left arm across his chest and shut his eyes as the bright green glow separated his torso from his legs.

Megaman slid to a halt as Fireman fell to his final number of pieces behind him. He waved the light saber around a few times experimentally, the humming of the blade barely audible above the roar of the rain. He turned around and looked at the fallen, bloodless form of Fireman, and gave it a salute with the laser sword before turning it off and putting it back on his belt.

“Good job, Rock,” Dr. Light said softly into his ear. “See if you can bring me some of the parts of his armor and I’ll see what else I can come up with to help you.”

“All right, doc.”

He walked over to Fireman’s body and picked up the severed arm. He barely had time to do anything else before a familiar whistling sound hit his audio sensors.

“Who’s there?”

“GET DOWN!”

The next few moments seemed to happen in slow motion. Something... SomeONE shoved Megaman aside in a blur of gray and red, thrown off balance, Megaman threw his arms out to try and steady himself. A sharper whistling sound bit through the air, and Megaman’s arm at just below the elbow was sliced cleanly away by something fast and unseen in the rain.

Megaman cried out in pain as blood shot from his arm, but he had no time to hold his severed stump as the person who’d saved him from certain death-by-head-bisection grabbed him around the mid section and started running, hauling his titanium-armored form with ease. As Megaman blacked out from the pain and blood loss and overall shock, the last thing he saw in the haze of the rain was a fading orange and green , laughing shape, and the tail end of a yellow, frayed scarf.

END OF PART ONE