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

By Hadrian (Hardman) Howell

Chapter 21: Brother Blue and Brother Red

The overcast sky made the land that sped by Megaman seem dull and lifeless. The area had been successfully cleared, giving his a clear field to fight his new foe on. Megaman sighed as he ran and dashed, thankful that no more innocent lives would be lost over this fight.

Still, he couldn’t shake the sense of dread that hung over him. Something about this battle was going to be different. He was sure of it.

Vile stood calmly in his Skull Rider as Megaman approached with haste. He watched the radar display, smiling to himself. The fool was coming right to him to die. Should it be this easy to complete the task you were created for? The deep purple helmet that wrapped around Vile’s head shook in a knowing way. The little blue hero’s life was about to end, and the idiot couldn’t WAIT to get there.

As Megaman followed the highway around the last turn, his brain only registered the shape of his opponent before he thrust his humming right arm forward, loosing a blast of jelly-like plasma.

Vile had, at almost the same time, unleashed a hail of fire from his shoulder Vulcan, which the fast moving Megaman dodged easily. Vile was less lucky at avoiding the attack on his person, the plasma bolt slamming into his left arm’s shoulder joint, wrenching the walker sideways with the force of the blast. Vile didn’t even bother to look, however. He knew that the damage had been minimal.

This was news to Megaman, who saw his opponent clearly for the first time. Aside from the heat haze coming off of the left shoulder, his opponent had been completely unfazed.

“My name is Vile,” the purple pilot of the Skull Rider intoned in a voice laced with odd harmonics, echoing out from inside the helmet. “I have two orders from my master. The first is to destroy you. The second is to eliminate New Detroit.”

Megaman growled, bringing his arm cannon to bear again. “Not likely!” he shouted over the roar of his own weapon as his arm fought the recoil. Vile had been expecting this one, though, and the huge walker step gracefully aside, the bolt sailing past him and into the grassy hill that bordered the highway. With a thought, Vile engaged the oversized booster jets on the machine’s back, and sailed toward his opponent, the feet rolling along the ground on unconsciously deployed castors.

Megaman gaped with surprise as the massive, TV sized fist slammed into his chest and face, sending him backwards at an unhealthy speed and angle. With a practiced move, Megaman managed to flip himself around and land, crouched, on his feet, but his body burned with the pain. He looked up to see Vile was already on top of him again.

Swearing loudly, Megaman rolled out of the way of the second punch, which dug deeply into the ground before lifting out with effortless ease. The blue hero fired a wild shot that flew upwards and dug into the underside of the previously hit left shoulder, but aside from jerking with the shock and the heat haze, the armor held fast, and the left arm swept toward Megaman, the open hand easily able to wrap around him.

Letting weakened legs drop out from under him, Megaman found himself under the sweeping table sized arm, the wind buffeting his face as it passed over. He rolled out from under the hulk of his opponent and was on his feet when the first Vulcan round slammed into the concrete beside him. The booster jet had already carried him a ways before he realized that he had activated it, flying low just ahead of the incoming fire. Pivoting in the air, he let another plasma shot fly, this one slamming home in the walker’s left hip joint. The machine bulked to the side, but stood firm with an impossible sense of balance.

Vile rocketed toward Megaman again, his speed easily overtaking the retreating blue hero. With a mental command, one of the massive hands swept in and clamped around Megaman’s chest and arms before he could react, his arms pinned to his side. Vile’s machine screeched to a halt and held him at the pilot’s eye level. The purple armored menace didn’t even laugh as the other arm drew back to deliver a killing blow…

In that moment of struggling against the iron grip of the Skull Rider, Megaman’s ears told his brain they were CERTAIN they heard someone whistling…

The crimson and gray form was suddenly THERE, with no rhyme or reason. Protoman stood atop the shoulder of the arm holding Megaman, facing the now confused pilot. Vile tried to compensate, tried to redirect his already aimed fist toward his new, free moving foe, but Protoman was already firing his guns, two bullets slamming into and piercing the thin protection of the Megaman Killer’s hands.

The arm holding Megaman went slack with the sudden loss of connection to its pilot as Vile screamed in pain. The blue hero hit the ground hard, rolling away as his vision cleared. Protoman flipped backwards landing beside his blue twin as he stood up.

“Who ARE you?” Megaman asked as he recognized the red and gray figure, the yellow scarf around his neck blowing before them in the wind.

“Introductions later. Bad guy now,” Protoman said.

Vile’s cry of pain turned into the feral roar of rage as his Vulcan spat into life, nickel sized, armor piercing rounds flying at the pair of almost identical heroes. Megaman went in one direction, and Protoman went the other, and Vile’s trail of destructive shooting followed his latest attacker.

Megaman, however, was the one with the Plasma Buster. The high-energy orb of yellow superheated air hit just below the right shoulder. Without its owner’s sense of balance to right it again, the walker tumbled to the side like a stack of uneven blocks, interrupting Vile’s attempt at revenge as he was forced to leap out of his falling machine. Shouting incoherently in a form of total, all consuming rage Megaman was becoming familiar with, the purple armored Master charged the blue hero, an assembly of three different booster jets delivering him to his target at a blinding speed.

Megaman’s hand flew up and knocked the point-blank Vulcan aside as the first round fired, hitting the ground ineffectually. Unfortunately, this drew attention away from the lightning quick punch that drove with freight train force into his stomach. Megaman coughed violently as he was lifted off the ground, Vile’s other hand going for his throat.

Protoman once again came from an angle that was, by all rights, impossible, knocking Vile’s outstretched hand away before delivering a rocket-fast round house kick of his own to the Master’s chest. Rolling with the blow, Vile flipped backwards and landed in a crouched position. Something was odd about his knee though…

Protoman had just enough time to push Megaman out of the way before the grenade sailed over the pair of them, exploding into thousands of metal shards and raining down on their armor, making short work of their respective pain jobs. Megaman regained his wits in time to fire off a plasma bolt at his hunkered down adversary, who flipped sideways before his leg folded literally in half, the barrel of a grenade launcher where his knee should have been.

“What the hell-“ Protoman had time to exclaim before the next grenade was on the way. The crimson and gray armored hero of Tokyo only had a split second to consider his options. Stopping time to avoid the attack wouldn’t be any good, since Megaman would take the full brunt of it, and shooting or kicking the grenade itself was probably a bad idea…

Megaman watched as Protoman whipped of his scarf and grabbed both ends in opposite hands, his guns seemingly sinking into his arms. He jerked to the side as the grenade came in, catching it in the scarf and waiting only a millisecond before snapping the yellow cloth taut, the force of the action sending the grenade back in the opposite direction. Megaman, Protoman and Vile all turned away as the grenade exploded between the two groups, metal shards wearing away more paint on both sides.

As the last ringing of the noise of the grenade died out, Vile coughed, the wind having blown the minimal smoke at him. “You are skilled,” he managed above his heavy breathing. “I would know your name.”

Protoman smiled an unseen smile behind the mask that covered his mouth and nose. “To stick with trends, I think they’d call me Protoman.”

Vile stood up, letting his arms fall to the side, his fingertips twitching. “My battle is with Megaman, Protoman. You need not interfere.”

The red armored man shook his head. “No can do.”

“Why not?” Vile’s odd sounding voice asked.

“Would you let someone kill YOUR brother?” Protoman asked.

“I suppose not.”

“Wait, BROTHER?” Megaman asked. “You mean YOU’RE th-“

Vile was already on top of them, throwing augmented punches the heroic duo were forced to defend against. Megaman jumped backwards, letting another plasma bolt fly as Protoman blocked another punch. Vile jumped up and over Protoman to avoid the plasma ball, which hit the lifeless Walker, and said only one thing as his knee opened up inches away from Protoman’s face.

“I-“

Protoman smirked. NOW he had a very good look at what this was. The upper leg of this particular Master had been hollowed out, and was now merely a directional barrel for an in-built grenade launcher. Presumably, the ammunition was stored inside. Protoman stood there as time stood still around him, a look of horror and surprise plaster on Megaman’s face. That was almost worth the headache that was even now burning his skull.

Crouching low and taking careful aim with one Desert Eagle, Protoman knew this would have to be timed perfectly…

Time slammed back into focus, but the red hero ignored the almost physical blow, pulling the trigger once.

“-Win!” Vile’s voice continued its, to him, uninterrupted sentence.

Halfway through the barrel, grenade met bullet. Protoman barely stopped time again before the first shard of the shrapnel hit his visor. Scrambling away, he stood back up next to Megaman, who was running forward. Protoman let out a sigh and let time restart for himself again, grabbing the blue hero’s shoulder to stop him from running into the explosion.

Vile’s cry of surprise and pain was lost to the noise of the grenade in his leg, although the unmistakable dark shape of his lower leg bounced out of the cloud of debris. A second, louder explosion announced that the three remaining grenades located in what used to be Vile’s stomach went off simultaneously. Vile’s head, chest and right arm were flung high into the air, landing with a neck breaking crack on the pavement about a yard away from the Skull Walker. The rest of Vile scattered around the landscape in various sizes of gruesome shrapnel.

Megaman looked in amazement at the remains of Vile’s body, which still seemed to be moving somehow. He walked over, leaving Protoman behind, and looked down at the struggling Megaman Killer. Vile raised a feeble, shaky hand toward his target. “Mark... my words…” he rasped beneath his helmet. “Megaman… I’ll haunt… you… until… the… day… y.o.u… d…i…e…”

And with that, the hand dropped, and Vile was no more.

Megaman removed his helmet and breathed a sigh of relief before turning to Protoman.

“I want answers. Now.”

Plantma’am heard the news from Topman. It took her a while to understand what it meant, but when she finally realized what had happened, she excused herself and ran to her… no, THEIR garden, where she broke down and cried.

Topman, personally, couldn’t understand it. He had a hard time understanding anything these days, but it wasn’t like Reggae was DEAD. Gutsman, Cutman, Fireman… THEY were dead. Reggae was just getting… upgraded, or something. He didn’t know. What did you call it when someone became more than human against their will?

Reggae didn’t know. He was no longer.

Dr. Wily laughed aloud, his madness making him laugh longer and harder than any other person would have. He put the last shoulder pad into place, careful of the spikes that rimmed it, and took a step back. His disloyal former assistant was now the perfect enforcer for the loyalty he had lacked. The perfect irony. The bright red plates of armor with its foreboding black trim, its many spikes, and the long, orange Mohawk that ran right down the center of the helmet, which was Wily’s small tribute to Reggae’s odd choice of hair styles.

No, Reggae was no more.

In his place, there was only Punk.