The Megaman War:
Part 2 – Decisions, Destruction, Duty, and Destiny

By Hadrian (Hardman) Howell

Chapter 18: Cut to the Chase

“Found him,” Megaman said under his breath. His gaze traced down the side of the building to the alley below where a man in orange armor was removing a green garment. There was a clicking sound, followed by a low hum as his hand sank back into his arm and the Plasma Buster whirred to life with an unconscious thought.

“I guess it’s time to see if this thing works…” he said, leaping off of the building in a swift, silent drop to the ground below.

The situation room held an extra camera as the full staff sat down this time when the President of the United States sat down. With a long breath, he looked at his advisors, his gaze stopping the longest on Leonard Travitz.

“Gentlemen, I want to know where we’re at,” he said, finally.

The Secretary of Defense coughed. “Er, with what, sir?”

“Everything.”

There were a few befuddled looks exchanged between the staffers. The meeting had called them all out of bed at 3:00 a.m., with none of them being told anything beyond ‘POTUS wants to see you.’ On the President and Travitz we’re any kind of together, as their update meeting had taken place an hour prior. Even the Chief of Staff was uncharacteristically yawning.

“Well,” The Secretary of Defense began, “Siberia’s pretty much passed us over. The Media’ll kick it like a dead dog for a few days, but there’s nothing new there. I know Japan is still asking for aid…”

“Wrong,” the CIA director cut in. “Dey got dere aid a few hours ago.”

“I stand corrected then,” the other advisor nodded.

“What sort of aid?” the President asked.

The CIA director scanned a file she had suddenly produced. “De USS Tarkin and the aircraft carrier Tangelo have been sent in wit ordahs to eliminate de target marked ‘Elecmon.’”

“Fighter jets?” the President asked skeptically.

“Dey move too fast for him to hit, we ‘ope,” she shrugged. “De Prime Ministah has already got de four mile around de guy cordoned off. Dey even agreed to front da bill for any major rebuildin’ dey gotta do as a result of our actions.”

“How’d you swing that?” Leonard looked at her in amazement.

“You wanna make out wit me right now, don’t you?” she smiled tiredly.

“When don’t I?” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs smiled, drawing a chuckle from the rest of the room and lightening the somewhat sour mood.

“All right, let’s move on,” the President smiled. “I don’t want to hear about that… Wily still has the Mountain?”

“Fortress, sir,” the Chief of Staff put in.

“I’m going to keep calling it the mountain so I think I still have a chance of owning it in the near future, all right?”

“Yes sir.”

“Wily’s hold on the mountain is expanding into the surrounding areas. We believe he’s doing expeditions into the lower reaches of the mountain itself and is adapting the experimental weapons he’s finding to his own purposes,” Leonard said.

“How long before he runs out of toys?”

“Could be a week, could be eight months,” the Secretary of Defense shrugged. “It depends on how close to completion some of the stuff he’s finding is, and how sound the theory behind their operations are.”

“Anything big and scary we should be on the look out for?” the President asked, scanning faces.

“Dere were several prototypes for ‘Walking Tanks’ dat were being put togeder down dere. Odds are he’ll come up wit one or two o’ dose,” The CIA Director put into the silence that seemed to sink into the table.

“Walking Tanks?” the President asked incredulously. “Oh, this just keeps getting better and better…”

“Dere was also… de… er… ‘Gamma’ project..”

“What was that supposed to be?”

“I can answer that,” the Chief of Staff cut in, making the CIA Director give him a dirty look. “Gamma was the peace-keeping project commissioned by the U.N. about a year ago. It called for a large mobile platform that would be more for show than for actual combat.”

“What, like a super tank?”

“More like a hundred ton walking robot.”

“WHAT?”

“There’s really no need to worry about it, sir,” the Chief of Staff shrugged, leaning back in his chair. “The project would’ve taken years to complete with an army of lab technicians working on it, and then there’s the issue of the power sources.”

“What power sources?”

Leonard sighed. “The original plan called for eight power sources, which were all made of a different type of rare mineral crystal. Only seven of these crystals could be found on Earth, while the last one is only theoretically located on the moon.”

The President leaned back in his own chair and thought about this. “So… no chance Wily can activate it, then?”

“Not without us knowing.”

“Like it would be hard to miss a hundred tons of stomping robot. God, it sounds like a bad science fiction movie.”

The Secretary of Defense shrugged. “I don’t know. Sounds more like a video game to me.”

“You’re weird,” the CIA Director told him.

“Okay,” the President leaned in, taking control of the conversation again. “I’m going to make a mistake here and ask you guys each for your opinion on this Megaman guy.”

The first thing Megaman would be surprised by when firing his first shot with the Plasma Buster was the KICK. He hadn’t expected any sort of recoil from what was effectively a glorified air gun, and the sudden jerk of his lower arm threw his aim off. Very off.

The second thing was the amount of damage the plasma bolt caused. It looked like someone had flung a lit light bulb at the ground, and when it hit, the flash and bang were accompanied by the sound of concrete cracking as the residual water in it from the rain a few days ago suddenly came to a violent boil.

Cutman noticed, too. “What the…?” He looked up and saw the blue shape diving down on him. “DAMN!” Grabbing his scissors from the wall where he’d leaned them and dropping his Yukata on the ground, he took of running as another bolt of superheated, jelly-like plasma slammed into the ground just shy of his foot.

Megaman hit the ground running, chasing after the orange Master.

“He’s totally unreliable. A loose cannon,” the Chief of Staff said, with a certain amount of venom in his voice. “He’s provoking that madman in the Fortress to send out more and more killing machines, and the cost is a rising body count in New Detroit!”

“GANGAWAY!” Megaman shouted as Cutman dove for the cover of the crowd. The Butcher hadn’t been able to get his bearings after the first attack by Megaman, and was still unsure of his footing after his seemingly endless fight with Protoman. The crowd was parting, though. Getting away from him. He had to find cover from that weapon…

Megaman’s legs pumped with all their might, but Cutman was just as desperate to get away as he was to catch him before he hurt anyone. Since their Armors were practically identical when it came to mobility options, Megaman was only just pacing the bedraggled Master.

“Bad guy on the run!” Megaman shouted as he watched Cutman round a corner. “Megaman, coming through! OUTTA THE WAY, FOLKS!”

“He doesn’t care at all about the public. He just keeps playing the media darling and stealing the spotlight away from the REAL heroes in New Detroit.”

Cutman knew it’d be easier to escape Megaman if he could get up onto the roof tops, away from the stifling crowds, but he couldn’t risk Megaman shooting at him again, and Megaman couldn’t risk shooting if he was surrounded by people. With a thought and a grin, Cutman stopped long enough to turn and leapt through the front window of a clothing store.

Swearing, Megaman skidded past, using his Booster Jet to get through the window only a second or two behind Cutman, who was already crouched low and trying to make his escape out the back door.

With a smirk, Megaman flew through the air, over several circular racks and landed in front of the back door just as Cutman arrived.

“Going somewhere, orange guy?” Megaman grinned, and raised his right arm. From this range, there was no way he could miss.

“My name is CUTMAN!” the Master shouted in anger, bringing his scissors around in a deadly arc, destroying all sorts of hanging garments around him.

“He probably KNOWS when one of Dr. Wily’s cronies is in town, and lets them run amok just so he can get all the glory for beating them when they’ve caused a lot of trouble. It doesn’t take an idiot to figure out he’s probably one of Wily’s minions anyway.”

Megaman jumped backward, crashing through the heavy door and setting off the fire alarm. Cutman, in a rage, chased after him as the rest of the people fled in terror. Rolling to the side, Megaman avoided another wild swing from the blades that cut a deep gash in the wall where he’d been.

Twisting on a bent knee, Megaman brought his Buster to bear as Cutman’s swing momentum spent itself, and snapped off a shot, fighting the kick of the weapon. The plasma bolt hit the Butcher in the side, sending the startled, off balance Master flying. The armor that had covered his side ran onto the pavement like water and cooled in an orange lump of titanium. Cutman screamed in pain as Megaman got to his feet.

Wily’s renegade Master got to his feet slowly, giving Megaman time to view his handiwork. The armor he’d hit had literally melted away from the heat and impact, making it look like someone had taken a hot spoon to warm butter. The white jumpsuit he wore beneath his blazing orange titanium casing was blackened, frayed, and smoldering. Pain covered the eyes Megaman could see behind the mask, but was quickly replaced by absolute rage.

“I’LL SLICE YOU TO RIBBONS!” Cutman roared as he heaved his scissors at his foe.

“Where the heck did you get YOUR info?” the Secretary of Defense asked the frazzled looking Chief of Staff when he was done. “All I ever saw was Megaman killed the Rook, the Torch, and stopped a couple of minor crimes… You sound like you’ve read a novel!”

Megaman flung himself against the wall as the deadly shears flew by with an all too familiar screaming sound. Cutman shouted in incoherent rage as his blades flew by their target, and Megaman acted in the moment, dashing forward with his Buster held behind him, he slammed the gun into Cutman’s stomach, causing the enraged Master to sputter in surprise.

“We’re all going to hell for what we’ve done, Cutman!” Megaman shouted, forcing himself to keep from sending the plasma bolt straight into Cutman’s gut.

“YOU AND THIS WHOLE FILTHY PLANET FIRST!” Cutman spat, blood bubbling out of his mouth shutter. Megaman shook his head and leapt into the air, Cutman’s gaze following him. As Megaman landed at a spot that was behind Cutman, the orange Master whirled around. “COME BACK HERE YOU-“

-SHUNK-

The President and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs exchanged looks before the President shrugged. “Well, that covers that. What do you think, Janice?”

The CIA Director looked over a file as she gave her answer. “Well, he’s definitely not yer average Joe, dis one. He seems to be upgradin’ hisself with bits n’ bobs from his fallen foes. It like he scavenging for field repairs or somtin. I’m not gonna deny, dough, dat he’s got his work cut out for him, standin’ against Wily like dis…”

Megaman had to turn away as Cutman fell to the ground. The scissors had come back at an angle, but with most of their speed spent during their air time, they pretty much fell to the ground after carving their swath of destruction through their owner. Cutman’s right forearm hit the ground first in a beautiful, if not somewhat grotesque, moment of irony. Next to follow was Cutman’s upper body, his blank eyes staring at the pavement and the quickly forming pool of his own blood. The legs fell next, falling onto their knees in a macabre show of surrender before slumping to the side.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Janice said, drawing out another file, “We got a rader odd call…”

“From your parents?” The Secretary of Defense asked, failing to get the laugh he was shooting for.

Ignoring him, she moved on. “All the analysis points to de call comin’ from de Mountain itself. Some kinda survivor tryin’ ta make contact. He mentions somtin called a ‘Megaman Killer’ several times…”

“Do you have a transcript?” Leonard asked. When Janice nodded, he sighed. “Put it on my desk and I can give it a once over before giving it to the President.”

Megaman looked at Cutman’s fallen pieces for a while. He hadn’t harmed anyone in his attempted escape from Megaman. He hadn’t killed a whole bunch of people trying to draw Megaman’s attention. The only person he’d done damage to was his target.

Megaman smiled. “I won this time, Wily.”

He bent down and picked up the large, heavy scissors. Only now were they stained with blood, as they had landed in the pool of their previous owner’s vital fluids. Megaman shook his head sadly and started to make his way back to the semi truck, the massive shears in tow.

Protoman’s entire body ached. He knew he’d have to drop back into time sooner or later, but he still had no clue where he was. The entire block of this city was barren of people. It was almost like this town had been evacuated or something…

Unable to hold off the aching pain in his skull and extremities, time slammed back into Protoman’s life. It always felt like a physical blow when he re-entered the normal flow of time. The price he paid for this amazing ability, he supposed.

Catching his breath, his ears got used to registering sound again, and before long he was hearing sirens. Explosions. A language he never understood before becoming what he was.

“Crap,” he sighed, letting his Desert Eagles slide out of their holders in his gauntlets and into his hands. “Of course I’d end up in Tokyo…”