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

By Hadrian (Hardman) Howell

Chapter 25: Waiting for the Next Explosion

Plantma'am came to slowly. The blood loss she'd suffered, coupled with the psychological weight of her former friend beating her nearly sensless allowed her to black out about the time Punk had her by the neck and was repeatedly punching her in the face. That had sucked a bit.

She could feel her arms. And her feet. As her eyes cracked open, she immediately wished she couldn't as the pain came back in a wave of understanding.

It is well known that any injury, no matter how bad it is, hurts LESS as long as you never look at it. Plantma'am's ultimate mistake was looking at her hands and feet, which, like the plant she controlled with her mind, were nailed to the cold steel wall of the room. Stuck on the wall like a trapped insect in a collection, with rail road spikes.

Punk, standing guard outside her room, shed an unconcious tear as his former friend's scream made its way out of her throat.

Wily, on the other hand, was laughing. He didn't bother with Reggae's countdown as he hit the button that bathed the teleportation room in light, sending his next master to New Detroit. "I hate to zay zis, Megaman," he laughed as the roar of the machinery grew loud and his loyal minon disappeared in a flash of light, "but zis vun iz gonna be ein hell of a blazt!"

Rock watched in silence as Theresa opened her hotal room's door. Something wasn't right. Both of them had realized it. The plasma buster than made up the lower half of Rock's right arm hummed with power as Theresa pushed the door open.

He took a tentative step into the barren hotel room, looking for any sign that someone was already here. Maybe he was just being paranoid, but something told him... BOTH of them that someone was nearby. Someone like them. One of Wily's Masters.

Rock threw open the door on the closet, bringing his plasma buster to bear on whatever might be nearby. Nothing there. Theresa carefully checked under the bed. Nothing there, either.

Ben and Gary arrived. They'd fallen behind so much that they'd had to take a seperate elevator up. Gary led Ben into the room, and both brothers immediately sensed the tension here. Ben made Gary look at him, and mouthed the words "What's going on?" Gary just shrugged.

Then came the voice.

"Well, well. My little sister has friends. Very INTERESTING friends."

Theresa's eyes narrowed. "Shadowman."

Rock gave her a questioning look. "No need to look so bewildered, Megaman," the ninja's voice came again. "I'm lucky you make so much noise, or I might not have woken up in time. You'd have caught me napping."

"Where are you?" Rock asked, lowering his buster and looking around.

"Gary," Ben mouthed at his brother. "Look in the corner of the room by the TV. His younger brother nodded imperceptibly and slowly brought eyes trained to watch fast moving lips to bear on Ben's area of choice.

"I'm wherever I want to be," Shadowman's voice came again. "I was Wily's greatest experiment in the fields of stealth and espionage. You'll never find me. Not in a million years. Not unless I want to be--"

"That corner!" Gary pointed.

"Found?" Shadowman ended uncertainly only a milisecond before the bolt of plasma flew through the air with a crack of noise.

Superheated air hit armor meant to conceal, not take damage. Shadowman screamed in pain as the plasma hit him in the shoulder, instantly reducing the spherical pad to molten metal and burning his shoulder badly before he scraped it off with his opposite hand. He was aware that his camoflague had shorted out the moment the plasma hit him, but he was a bit more concerned about being on fire.

As molten metal hit the carpet, it began to smoulder, and the four other occupants of the room stared at the newly revealed Shadowman, who, depite the pain, could only smile.

"Boy, I got careless, didn't I?"

Wily's latest choice of Master arrived in a mall that had been, up to that point, untouched by the ravages of the war between Megaman and Wily. It didn't remain that way for very long.

Roll was shopping around with Tron at the time, trying to find some decent clothes for the pair of them to wear when the war was over. They found it brought them closer together, spending money like this. Bon was along to help carry things.

Their first clue that something was amiss was a dull booming sound. It gave Roll a pause, but made Tron's ears perk up immediately. Bon's interest was suddenly drawn away to the sound as well. Then there was a second. And a third. Then the sound of tortured concrete giving away.

As the cieling of the store came down on top of them all, Bon barely had time to throw himself onto the two girls. His last words, right before two upper levels of mall fell on him in a desperate attempt to save his sister's life, were "LOOK OUT!"

And time stood still.

Two levels up, and four walkways over, stood Wily's Master of choice. Orange and black was the color scheme of this monstrosity, but that was only visible in certain areas. Virtually every other part of the Master was covered with grenades of all shapes and descriptions. Two highly explosive 'Bunker Busters' were missing from their resting places, having just been used to collapse a large portion of the shopping center.

Bombman grinned a crazy grin behind his mask. "BOOM!" he shouted over the dull roar of collapsing building. He couldn't help but laugh hysterically at it all as it collapsed.

"What's this all about, Shadowman?" Theresa asked, but her 'brother' wasn't listening.

"You're blind. That's how you could tell where my voice was coming from, and you used the deaf guy to confirm it. Incredible," Shadowman said, slumping against the wall and down onto the floor, still holding a smoking shoulder. "I almost feel better about getting spotted now."

"The lady asked you a question," Rock said tersely, raising his buster to point at Shadowman.

"Oh, put it away, you moron," Shadowman spat in between weak chuckles. "You have other places to be, anyway."

"What do you--"

"He's right. I'm hearing explosions," Ben said, looking vaguely in Rock's direction. "Open a window."

Theresa beat Rock to it, and the sounds of sirens and faint explosions came in from outside. A column of smoke, which was quickly becoming a familiar sight to Rock, was rising over the city skyline.

"Is that...?" Theresa started, a look of horror spreading across her face.

"Bombman," Shadowman managed to nod. "Wily sent him early."

"I've got to stop him," Rock said almost immediately, turning to leave.

"Wait!" Theresa cried.

"For what? You said yourself you can't fight without one of those tanks. I can't put you at risk," He threw a nod at Gary and Ben and ran out. "Duty calls!"

"Not going after him?" Shadowman managed.

"I would but... damnit. He's right. Bombman would make short work of me," Theresa shrugged.

"Such a defeatist attitude," Shadowman tsked. He took his hand off his shoulder and pointed at the closet. "Rock missed my backpack earlier. There's a present for you inside."

Theresa gave him a glare before going into the closet and bringing out two things. A greenish, compact tank, and a folded, bright blue parka suit. "You stole these from Wily?"

"I... moved out," Shadowman admitted. "You'd left those behind."

"I wanted to leave it all behind," Theresa told him with a hiss of venom in her voice. Her ninja-esque brother laughed.

"And you came HERE? What did you THINK was going to happen? You even WENT to him! MEGAMAN! The source of all this city's problems! How was THAT 'leaving it all behind?'"

As Shadowman talked, Theresa donned the covering parka suit, becoming, for the first time since she left the mountain, Icema'am. She slipped the back-pack straps of the Nitrogen tank over he shoulders and secured the belt to hold it firmly in place. Reaching her hand behind her head, she took the feed tube of the tank and slipped it through a hole in the hood of the parka, attatching it to the port in the back of her head.

She caught herself in the middle of a satisfied shiver as the cold, refreshing taste of nitrogen flooded her system. This wasn't SUPPOSED to be a good thing, but the brainwashing, however much she'd shrugged off, had run deep. With a final, dirty look at Shadowman, she ran out the door after Rock.

"You know," Protoman grunted under the weight of the concrete, "I didn't really think you were capable of WORDS..."

"Ba.... Babu?"

"What... the HELL just happened?" Roll manged to croak out from under Bon.

"Little complicated," Protoman told her. "Bottom line, I shadowed you and stopped a building from falling on you."

"You FOLLOWED ME--"

"Can we save this conversation for later?" Tron managed from beneath all three of them. "Losing air down here."

"When I can DO something about it, I WILL. Until then--"

"BABU!"

"GAH! SHUT UP!"

"YOU SHUT UP, YOU SCREECHY B--"

"THIS IS NOT GETTING ANY LIGHTER WITH ALL OF THE SHOUTING!"

There was a rumbling sound. Another explosion. The rubble Protoman was holding shifted slightly, not making his task any easier.

"You know..." He grunted, doing his best to keep two and a half levels of angry shopping center from falling on them, "I wish, just one, just fricken' ONCE, my stupid blue brother would show up and save ME!"