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

By Hadrian (Hardman) Howell

Chapter 20: The Price You Pay

Protoman shook his head, trying to clear away the spots left by Elecman’s death. Even behind his black visor, the light had been blinding. That was probably not the most pleasant way to go…

The sounds of water reached his ears. A lot of water. And seagulls. His brain finally made sense out of the picture he was seeing. It wasn’t a desert island. It was Miami. Or at least, it USED to be Miami.

2005 was the year that hurricane Katrina hit the lower portion of the United States, driving millions from their homes and dealing tens of millions of dollars in damage. What nobody knew at the time, however, was that Katrina was merely a vanguard for the much larger, much more powerful forces of nature. From 2006 on to 2008, the Florida area was constantly beset by tropical storms and hurricanes. Although the deaths for all of the remaining storms were incredibly low because many of the homeless had relocated after Katrina, the damage they did was irreparable.

Florida’s population, in total, was now somewhat less than 3000 people. Surrounding states weren’t doing much better, either. Cities had been destroyed, roads had been demolished, and there was no room in any budget known to man to fix it all. Miami was one of the cities left out of the rebuilding efforts so far, and many people projected it wouldn’t be rebuilt for ten years, if at all.

Protoman looked at the years of wild, natural destruction around him and sighed. Such was the fragility of Man and his works…

Nothing could be done here. It was time to move on. In a flash of light, the crimson and gray armored man vanished from the ruins of the once proud city.

Dr. Wily smiled at his job well done. His latest two works were masterpieces, meant to work together as an unstoppable force of destruction in his name. His first Megaman Killer.

The Master, who Wily had decided to call Vile, to strike fear into his enemy’s heart, wore armor that was less bulky than many of his other Masters, and wore a shoulder mounted cannon along with his sleek, T-slitted helmet. He LOOKED fearsome. In the palms of his hands were two additional contact points that would interact with his ‘partner.’

The Walker, which Wily had dubbed the Skull Rider, was simply a humanoid tank with no head, the top of the body opened for one crew member to get into and out of easily. The prototype had been unfinished, and Wily had merely dug into the open control panel and converted a few connections to adapt to Dr. Light’s System. Now, all Vile had to do was sit in the Skull Rider and place his hands on the two receptor panels, and all of his motor thoughts would move the machine instead of himself.

The mad German smiled to himself. This was going to be FUN.

Quickman was bored. This wasn’t to say he was standing still. He was just bored. Of course, Quickman was about the only being alive that could be bored at 70 mph.

Dr. Wily had made the most improvements to Quickman’s design in the form of ground speed and reaction time. While the red speedster wasn’t opposed to becoming faster, he did want to have his chance at Megaman, and all of this upgrading seemed to be Wily’s excuse to keep him around the base. Quickman could now run, theoretically, at Mach 1.5, and turn on a dime while doing so, so what was the point of becoming any faster?

He growled in frustration and picked up his pace, racing over a nearby hill and up onto the wall of one of the areas many cliffs. Completely disobeying the law of gravity, Quickman ran parallel with the ground for a ways until he got bored again, when he sped up again and ran straight up, clearing the top of the cliff and continuing upwards for almost 100 feet. He spun lazily in the air like a sleeping skydiver, trying to find something interesting to do.

Meanwhile, in New Detroit, Theresa Frost entered the Ramada Inn. She really didn’t know she was being watched by two figures at the bar, but she probably wouldn’t have cared.

Actually, only one of the figures was watching her. He turned to his companion. “Hey, Ben.”

Ben’s ears perked up and he looked back. “What’s up, Gary?”

“Nothing’s up, but I just saw something interesting.”

Ben sighed. “Oh. Really.” He rolled his eyes. “Well why don’t you tell me about it.”

Gary smiled. “Okay! I just saw this girl-“

“Was she cute?”

Gary looked away from his companion and at Theresa before looking back. “Yes. Now don’t interrupt me, you know I hate that… But this girl is… well…”

“Cute?” Ben sighed.

“Well, yeah…. I guess that’s pretty much what I was going to say,” Gary said dejectedly.

Ben took a drink of his soda before looking at Gary again. “Okay, bright eyes. What do you propose we do about said Cute Girl?”

Gary smiled. “I don’t know! Maybe we should go over and talk to her…”

“And what might you say to her?” Ben asked, his tone completely unchanging.

“Well,” Gary said, looking at Theresa again and thinking hard. “Well, we could go up and introduce ourselves…”

“And say what?” Ben asked, altering his voice to mock Gary’s, “Hi, I’m deaf and he’s blind! Can we be your friends?”

Gary kept looking at Theresa, and the two sat there in silence for a bit. Ben growled and smacked Gary on the shoulder, causing the other man to turn. “What?” Gary asked.

“What do we say to her if we DO go up to her, you nitwit?” Ben asked.

“Net Weight? What? What are you-“ Ben smacked Gary on the forehead.

“Where’d you learn to read lips? The home for Ebonics?” The quicker tempered Ben growled. The younger man rubbed his forehead before his gaze returned to Theresa.

“Just… just look at her, Ben.” Gary said, hope in his voice, turning back to his companion.

“I can’t. I’m blind, remember?”

“Well… okay. You got me there. But… try to imagine her.”

Ben took another drink. “I don’t even know what the hell I look like, and you want me to imagine someone else?”

Gary started to nod enthusiastically before he realized that it wouldn’t help. He sighed and rested his arms on the counter of the bar. It was a sad thing that the two of them were related. At least, Ben thought it was a sad thing. They’d been born into a family of genetic defects: Their father was autistic, and their mother had spent her entire life in a wheelchair. It never occurred to them to ask how exactly they’d been conceive, let alone born.

Ben had been born blind, and was about a year older than Gary, who’d been born deaf. They had an older sister, they knew, but she, like them, had been put up for adoption by the medical clinic that held both of their parents. Gary had been Ben’s eyes since the day they’d met, and Ben had been Gary’s ears for just as long, and the two worked together very well when one of them wasn’t excessively cheerful or depressed. Unfortunately, Gary was always excessively cheerful, and Ben was always likewise depressed.

The two brothers sat in silence for a while before they decided to go up to their own room and get some rest. They’d been constantly on the move for years now, trying to find their sister, hoping she was still alive. They had no idea where she might be, and only really knew that she had Multiple Personalities, her curse for having been born into the family.

Meanwhile, another set of siblings were in an aircraft hangar that Dr. Light had rented. The Bonnes had been asked, by Megaman himself, to do something rather odd. After removing all of the equipment from the semi truck, they were now faced with the task of turning the massive, unmarked road beast into a flying machine. Tron had already drawn up plans for what she knew she’d call the Kobun II.

“Babu?”

“No, Bon, put the front grill down. I don’t know if I have a use for it yet…”

“Hey, Tron,” Tiesel asked, “I know how most of this is supposed to work, but how are we going to get it to fly?”

Tron smiled. “We have some spare parts from the old airplane junkyard, and enough propellers that to replace all the wheels the motor was originally built to turn. With large enough propellers, that can help us get the whole thing off the ground.”

“But how do we stay in the air?” Tiesel asked. He hadn’t been sure how the LAST one worked, and the prospect of a new one without a for-sure way to stay in the air was unsettling, to say the least.

“Flight school, stuff, Tiesel. STAYING in the air is easy. It’s getting off the ground that’ll be hard.”

“Babu…”

“LANDING isn’t going to be a problem, this time,” Tron growled. “Unless Megaman totally screws up his part, there won’t be anyone just tearing bits and pieces off this time.”

“I hope this works…” Tiesel groaned as he took another look at the plans.”

“Babu,” Bon cooed, telling the other two Bonnes that Tiesel wasn’t the only one with reservations about the plan.

Harold was writing frantically, the pile of paper work on his desk made larger by paranoia. The visit he’d received from Shadowman had put him on all kinds of edge, and he was more than his share of jumpy when the President poked his head into the room.

“Did you get that memo on the Energy Package?” The President asked nonchalantly.

“Yes,” the White House Chief of Staff said, barely looking up.

“Did you make sure someone got in touch with Megaman on the warning thing on a level the media won’t notice?”

“Of course.”

“Okay,” the President smiled and went back to his own office.

Harold unconsciously kicked the waste basket at his feet, wherein the crumpled memo containing the request to alert Megaman to the immanent arrival of something called a ‘Megaman Killer’ had been stuffed. That super hero didn’t need government help…

“So is there a reason you disobey orders?” a whispered voice said just behind his ear. Harold cried out in alarm and Shadowman materialized out of the air. “Oh, I let myself in. Hope you don’t mind.”

“SECURITY!” Harold screamed at the top of his voice.

“Calm down, old boy. They’re not going to hear you,” the ninja chuckled.

“Wha… What do you mean?”

“Word never gets about when I’m around,” Shadowman smiled behind his mask. In all actuality, Dr. Wily had long ago given him a set of sound dampeners which were made of the same self-camouflaging material as Shadowman’s own armor. When placed, the dampeners would absorb the sonic vibrations that went past them. Shadowman had eight, and there were only three doors. Even though every door into the office was wide open, nobody could hear anything that went on inside.

“What do you want?” Harold asked nervously, held to his seat by fear.

Shadowman stood up straight and inspected hi finger tips. “I want nothing from you.”

“Then why-“

“For fun.”

“Look, can’t you just leave me alone? I already have enough trouble…”

Shadowman bent low again, his face only inches from Harold’s own. “You are in more trouble than you could possibly imagine.”

“What do you mean?” Harold demanded.

“Well, that… is a secret,” Shadowman told him, laughing in that whispering voice of his as he faded away again. Harold felt himself break out in a cold sweat as the laughter continued long after he was sure the ninja had left.

“3… 2… 1… Transfer!” Reggae said, hitting the button to send Vile and his Skull Rider on the way to New Detroit. Dr. Wily clapped his hands together in a satisfied fashion as his latest creation vanished in a flash of light.

“Very gud. Now zen, mein friend, on to ze next step.”

“What would that be?” Reggae asked.

“I vanted to talk to you about a phone call you made ze ozer day…”

Oh, NO, Reggae’s mind screamed as Dr. Wily cackled in his mad way, producing a gun from beneath his lab coat. Reggae barely had the time to turn in his chair before the bullet smashed into his chest, collapsing his lung. The shock immediately knocked him out, and his last thought was focused solely on the fact that he’d never wake up again.

Dr. Wily stood over his assistant’s bleeding form. “Betray ME, vill you? You little punk… Trying to save mein enemy? You’ve chust volunteered to be mein next projeckt!”

An hour later, NASA had managed to respond somewhat to the unauthorized teleportation, and had shifted the satellite over New Detroit. Vile did not land in the city, as was expected. Instead, he landed 10 miles out, on the highway leading in. His arrival was sudden and shattering, as the bulk of the Skull Rider came into existence, most motorists barely had time to recover from the flash of light before Vile was wordlessly crushing cars and smashing aside vans in his twelve foot armored machine…

It hadn’t been the White House, but rather a very nervous Hubert Lyma that had contacted the New Detroit Police Department, telling them that another of Wily’s creations was on the way, and where it would be. Officer Eric Lowell was immediately dispatched to find Megaman and warn him, and Megaman was already on the way when Vile literally hit the streets.

As panicked motorists drove past the fast-moving blue hero, Megaman readied his Buster. At least they would have a clear four lanes of high way to battle on…

Vile detected Megaman’s approach on a built in, long range scanner that hunter for Megaman’s specific energy signature. Despite himself, he smiled beneath the helmet. “Target acquired. Moving in for the kill.”