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

By Hadrian (Hardman) Howell

Chapter 19: Shocking Appearances

Elecman stalked the now mysteriously empty streets. He’d lost all trace of the humans and was lost in between unfamiliar city blocks. Had they abandoned their city? Had they given up and allowed Elecman to win?

He chuckled. Of course they did. They had to have. No one on this earth could stand up to a god of thunder and lightning. Did anyone stand up to Thor? Or Odin? Why, the mere idea was laughable. The people of Tokyo were obviously surrendering to his superior and endless might.

The black and gold Master smiled. He was in a good mood today. Maybe some of them would live.

It was 4:00 a.m. in the White House. Everyone else had gone home or locked themselves in their respective offices to pull the all too often all-nighters that had to happen around here to keep the country running. The President’s fanciful little ‘update me’ meeting hadn’t done much for the Chief of Staff’s general mood either.

A new camera kept a careful, almost literal eye on the older man as he sorted through papers on his desk.

Theresa Frost stepped off the bus and onto the sidewalk of 15th Street in New Detroit. She took in the immediate sights before her gaze traveled to the sky. If he was out and about right now, he’d be up there. She was sure of it.

Failing to spot anyone, she shrugged and started to make her way through the crowds, her icy attitude causing more than a few people to step aside for her. She wandered around this way for a while, always stopping to check the sky when she reached a street corner. She was SURE he’d be around…

She stopped as he foot hit something wet. It hadn’t rained in this town for days… what could be… She looked down and was almost immediately sick. The pool of blood was coming from the nearby alleyway, running in a gruesome river down to the drain set against the building she stood by. Holding her breath, she peeked around the corner of the alley and was nearly sick again. There, in pieces, was Cutman.

She shook her head and walked quickly onward, trying not to think of the fact she was leaving bloody footprints in her wake…

Dr. Wily dismissed Quickman, rubbing his hands together as he looked at the man before him. He was older, possibly in his 40s, but it was obvious he had taken good care of himself. No gut, unlike Wily, and no hair, somewhat like Wily. The German scientist smiled and he lifted a scalpel from the nearby shelf. Time to begin.

Protoman rounded the next street corner and only had enough time to duck back around before Elecman saw him. The crimson and gray armored figure crouched low. Naturally, the first person he’d found HAD to be the psychotic killer. Of COURSE.

He sighed and clicked the safeties off of his guns. He couldn't just ignore time for this fight. He’d discovered to his own chagrin that trying to act on anything else that wasn’t hard wired into his unlocked nervous system resulted in some kind of time backlash that caused him severe headaches. He couldn’t even fire his guns with time stopped, because the bullets would just sit there in the barrel and jam the gun when time restarted. He sighed in frustration. The only thing his somewhat painful ability was good for was dodging attacks, but against someone who flung lightning around, what good would it do?

Shrugging mentally, he rolled out into the street, firing off two shots that were infinitely more precise than they should have been. The first bullet hit and bounced off of one of Elecman’s back-mounted generators, while the second one hit with all the force of a sledge hammer in the Master’s shoulder.

Elecman knew immediately he was under attack. Whirling to face his new opponent, he grinned, mad with power, as he unleashed twin bolts of azure energy. His red opponent rolled back behind the building, small arcs of electricity still chasing after him. Elecman laughed, happy he’d found someone who didn’t stand there and scream and die. Maybe this one was a worthy opponent!

With a single leap, Elecman drew even with Protoman’s street, letting an electric whip of energy fly in a sweeping arc before he even hit the ground. It took Elecman a second to realize his opponent wasn’t on the ground, but was… oh, now how was that FAIR?

Protoman’s own leg mounted booster jets were screaming their mechanical protest as he literally ran up the side of the building, not even bothering to look back. Two more bolts of synthetic lightning slammed into the concrete below him as he powered his way upwards. When he reached the top of the building, his momentum carried him into the air for a little bit, and a slight re-adjustment from his booster jets sent him back down to earth, on a collision course with the power crazed Elecman.

Pulling into both guns, a storm of bullets flew down toward Elecman, whose own electrical retaliation was only finding targets in the lumps of armor-piercing metal that rained down on his head like a violent hail. As the first of the swarm of projectiles slammed into Elecman, he fought to keep his balance against the fourteen impacts that followed, staggering back under the assault.

Protoman hit the street in front of him with a solid sound, drawing Elecman’s attention forward again. With a cry of rage, the self proclaimed god of thunder and lightning unleashed his full electrical might at point blank range.

The Chief of staff started to get up to leave the office and to try and catch up on the hour or so of sleep he’d been robbed of earlier. As he put on his overcoat and made his way to the door, the door seemed to have another idea and shut itself. Stopping and raising an eyebrow, the Chief of Staff shrugged and took a step toward one of the other two doors in his office. First one, then the other also shut themselves.

“What the hell?” the White House Chief of Staff said aloud, only moments before Shadowman’s camouflage faded away with a mental command. “What… Who the hell are you?”

Shadowman said nothing, his left eye was closed while his right studied the man before him. A pencil-pusher made good. The ninja-like Master smiled inwardly. This was going to be fun.

“There is no secret you can keep from me, Harold,” Shadowman intoned in a deathly quiet voice. The other man’s mouth opened and shut as he continued. “I know what you’ve done. I know what you are. You’ve been a bad boy.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” Harold growled.

“How long have you been doing this? That is the only thing I do not know. Did it start with Siberia, or was that just a minimal effort on your part?”

“I had nothing to do with that! It was Lenny’s fault!”

“No secret can be kept from the Shadowman, Harold. I came to you directly as a courtesy. I will know in one hour, whether you tell me or not,” the ninja smirked beneath his mask.

“You… you’re just trying to make me say something incriminating, aren’t you? You’re recording this!” Harold cried, backing into his desk, trying to put some distance between himself and this… weirdo.

Shadowman opened his left eye, but instead of a white orb, there was only a black lens, which telescoped out of Shadowman’s skull like a zoom camera. “In more ways than one, Harold.”

“W… WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU?” Harold screamed, hoping security would hear him. A frantic knocking on his door told him his secretary knew something was wrong, but hadn’t she heard him?

“I?” Shadowman asked, cocking his head to the side and smiling. “I am nothing. Just as you really are, when all of the lies and deception are stripped away. I will be back, Harold. Santa Clause isn’t the only one with a list.” And with that, Shadowman faded away again.

The doors all flew open, and Harold immediately screamed for security.

Protoman walked around Elecman slowly. He hadn’t been entirely sure he’d be able to pull it off in time. The lightning that stretched from Elecman’s palms for about a foot still twisted and flickered, even with time effectively stopped.

Ignoring the pain in his skull and fingertips, Protoman took in all aspects of the Master. Obviously, the generators on his back were a weak point, but there had to be a way of removing them without having the hell shocked out of you. There had to be a way to get his seemingly full-bodied electricity to work against him…

He put a hand to his head, trying to ignore the pain. He knew he had about four shots left in each clip before he’d have to procure some more ammunition somehow. Eight shots… Protoman smiled. He could finish this fight in two.

Time slammed back into line as Elecman’s lightning hit the pavement where Protoman had been. Elecman’s shout of confusion turned to a cry of alarm as a violent jerk turned him around. Protoman was standing there, having just completed an augmented kick that had dislodged on of Elecman’s generators and sent it skittering across the pavement. Not even realizing his loss, Elecman brought his hands forward again, but the sudden loss of power had placed a greater demand on his systems, and the Thunder Beam hadn’t had time to charge…

It had been a while since Rock had been out in street clothes. It felt… odd, somehow. Tron had insisted that she find Tiesel and Bon some new clothes, and Roll could never resist a shopping trip, so the three boys were brought along as luggage handlers.

Tron and Roll were going back and forth in one of the dress departments, trying to find the best look at the lowest price. Tiesel was difficult to see under the armload of bags he’d been saddled with, and Bon was napping on one of the benches. Rock wandered around on his own, trying oh-so-hard to be interested in…

Something caught his eye. Something in a serene blue. Reaching out, he picked up what turned out to be a T-shirt, with a very familiar symbol on the front. The red semi-circles of Megaman’s emblem stared back at the dumbfounded Rock.

“Heh, he’s kind of taken the city by storm, hasn’t he?” said a female voice from Rock’s side. Startled, he turned to look, encountering icy blue eyes and a head of long, dark brown hair.

“Er, yeah, I guess so,” Rock managed feebly. “I wonder if he gets royalties…”

“Probably not,” the girl shrugged. “Probably to busy to even consider it. Imagine how surprised he’d be to see something like this.”

“Pretty surprised, I’d say,” Rock said, laughing a little to calm his nerves.

The girl in the denim offered him a hand. “Theresa Frost.”

Put off balance for a second, Rock took he hand eventually and shook it. “Rock… Rock Volnutt.” It was odd. His name even sounded unfamiliar to him. He’d been Megaman for too long…

Theresa giggled. “That’s an odd name.”

“Like yours isn’t?”

“Touche.”

Elecman’s shock at his sudden lack of seemingly infinite power was cut short as Protoman caught him off balance, kicking him hard in the shoulder and sending the gold and black Master to the ground. The red combatant was on his opponent instantly, crouched down on Elecman’s chest, with one of his Desert Eagles placed squarely in the eye slot of Elecman’s mask.

“You… You can’t do this to me!” Elecman screamed, trying to buy time for his main weapon to recharge. “I’m a god! I can’t die!”

Protoman pulled the trigger without remorse, the heavy slug boring through Elecman’s eye and skull and out the back of his head, the gore contained by the helmet. The bullet ended up bouncing two more times off the inside of the helmet, reducing Elecman’s skull to little more than cottage cheese.

The high pitched whine was the only warning Protoman had, and he managed to stop time for himself again and get away before the Thunder Beam went off a final time. Having no target, the electricity sought out the closest thing that would accept it, and Elecman’s freshly minced skull did the trick…

Even Protoman’s black-visored gaze had to turn away as the lightning consumed its self proclaimed god. Hundreds of millions of volts of pure electrical power ran through the dead body’s system, the electrical feedback eventually overloading the remaining generators which exploded in a shower of metal fragments and red, gooey bits.

Protoman sighed, allowing the Desert Eagles to slide back into his gauntlets. Elecman was vanquished. Tokyo was saved. They didn’t even need Godzilla… But why cordon off so large an area just to contain one guy?

The distant sound of a fighter jet drew Protoman’s attention skyward. “Crap,” he said aloud before an involuntary thought activated his personal teleporter.

“So,” Rock said, leaning against a wall as Theresa perused for more clothes, “How do you like the town?”

“It’s a little messy,” she said with a shrug. “I mean, some super heroes just leave the mangled bodies of their enemies lying around…”

Rock winced inwardly. That probably had to be a violation of some kind of health code. “Yeah, and all those collapsed buildings.”

“And the DUST everywhere.”

“But at least it isn’t Los Angeles,” Rock said, feeling the need to defend his home.

“Oh, yeah. High chance of getting cancer or something there, I hear,” Theresa said smugly. “MUCH more dangerous than rampaging super humans.”

“That was Wily’s fault,” Rock said darkly.

“I guess, but it isn’t like he wasn’t challenged or something…”

“Like Megaman is going to go off and beat Wily,” Rock said flippantly, even though he was seriously considering the same thing.

“You never know. He might get lucky,” Theresa told him with a mischievous smirk on her face.

The Sky Claws squadron, based on the aircraft carrier Tangelo, spent all of their ammunition and missiles, totally leveling an eight block square near the middle of the cordon area in Tokyo. The only remains of the terrifying Elecman that any of the Japanese people would find was his helmet and mask, which was sticky on the inside and dusty on the outside.

Shadowman, totally hidden from sight in the unoccupied corner of the Situation Room, shivered slightly. Elecman was dead. He didn’t know WHY he knew, but he knew. Wily was going to be furious…

“Well,” Theresa said as the clerk put the last of her new clothes into a bag, “I better get going. I’ll see you around?”

“Sure,” Rock said, smiling. “Where’re you staying?”

“Some place called the Ramada. You know where it is?”

I leapt off of the roof of the place yesterday looking for Cutman. “Yeah, I think so,” Rock said aloud.

“Cool. Maybe we should get together later and you can show me the sights,” Theresa told him, smiling. “Anyway, I’ll see you later.” She threw her arms around him in a quick hug he found himself returning, and grabbed her bags before leaving.

“Well… she was nice,” Rock said under his breath. The smile on his face was broad, but disappeared as he turned around and saw Tron and Roll standing behind him.

“And who was THAT?” the asked in unison.

“Er…”