The Megaman War:
Part 1 - Whistle in the Wind

By Hadrian (Hardman) Howell

Chapter 7: Rock and Roll

Inside the Pentagon, the hustle and bustle of activity was always a sight to behold. Hundreds of aides, carrying messages and battle orders, as well as any number of internal missives, swarmed like a... well, army, through the halls and conference rooms of the five-sided building. Deep under the foundations, all kind of internal and external monitoring were taking place, with most of the interested eyes fixed on the last few hidden security cameras that had yet to be disabled inside Cheyenne Mountain.

In fact, only one set of eyes even came close to seeing something even more remarkable, and he missed it because he was asleep.

NASA attache Hubert Lyma dozed fitfully in his uncomfortable chair, catching the few precious minutes of sleep allowed, in the loosest sense, to him by his superiors in this hectic, disorienting time. He was having a dream about his neighbor’s Bar-B-Que that he’d managed to get some time off for last week, and the nearly god-like hotdogs he’d had there.

For this, he missed the first ever case of an unknown entity hi-jacking NASA’s own Teleportation Web, a feat that, while supposedly possible, should never have happened from the lower reaches of South Africa. Never mind the fact that the cultures down there had no idea that the Web even existed, but the closest satellite in the Web was over 5,000 miles away...

The clerk at the counter couldn’t help but find himself stare at Rock’s forehead, with the grey circle embedded there. There was no scar tissue anywhere on the boy’s face, but the clerk was almost sure he’d be more comfortable with Rock’s visage if there was. He took the youth’s money and assured him the pump would stop at the pre-paid amount, and quickly found something else to be busy with.

It wasn’t even really the unsettling grey lines that spider webbed across the boy’s forehead. It had been the look on his face... Like he had made up his mind and fully intended to kill someone. Like the decision didn’t even bother him...

Rock’s mind brewed like a storm as he made his way back out and found the gas tank on the semi truck. He leaned against the trailer, holding the nozzle in place as it dumped fuel into the starved vehicle. He could hear that Dr. Light had stopped sobbing, which made him feel at least a little better, but decided to check in on the aged man after he was done filling the truck.

Dr. Light looked up this time when Rock entered the trailer door. “I’m sorry...”

“You don’t have anything to apologize for,” Rock shook his head. “Wily’s the one who’s decided to use you System for his own twisted ends. You can’t be put at fault for that.”

“I can by a good state lawyer,” Dr. Light said moodily. “Just you wait... Once all of this is over and Wily’s in jail, he’ll say I was an accomplice and nobody in the world will believe that I didn’t just hand him the plans...”

“I’d believe you,” Rock said. “You’ve been like a father to me this past month and a half, and there’s no way I’d let any of the blame for this... insanity fall on you.”

Dr. Light looked at Rock appraisingly. “That’s nice of you to say, son...” He then seemed to remember something. “Where are we?”

Rock bit his lower lip. “We just crossed the border into... Michigan? I’m following the signs on the road to New Detroit.”

“It figures you’d want to go back there...” Dr. Light said, nodding his head.

“Back...?”

The scientist stood up, smiling. “I’ll ride shotgun with you this time, my boy. We’ll get to New Detroit and find a place to settle down for a while so we can think of something to do.”

As Rock stepped back out into the sunlight and helped the older man out of the trailer, he decided to go for broke. “I already know what I’m going to do, sir...” Thomas Light looked at Rock Volnutt, knowing exactly what he was going to say next. “I have to stop Wily. Somehow...”

Dr. Light shook his head sadly. “I don’t think there’s much you CAN do, my boy. Let’s get to New Detroit and we’ll talk about it, all right?”

Rock nodded, figuring that an argument with the only man that seemed to know anything about him wouldn’t be the best way to go. The two climbed into the truck’s cab, Rock at the wheel, and set off on the road once again.

The lab was filled with music. Loud music. Dr. Wily had gotten VERY good at installing the System, and was working on his tenth Master. He was also singing.

“I... Vant to rock und roll all night...” The mad scientist struck a slightly more insane pose with an invisible guitar along with the music, “Und rule ze vorld all day!”

This was the scene Reggae happened upon, a cell phone clutched in his hand. To see his boss head banging and rocking out to Kiss music made him want to either laugh or vomit. Possibly both. He knew better than to interrupt the mad doctor’s ‘Me time’, but couldn’t see any other way around it. He crept over to the blaring stereo and turned down the volume, instantly drawing the attention of Dr. Wily.

“Vat is it zis time, Reggae?” Dr. Wily said, turning to see his apprentice.

“Phone for you, sir,” Reggae cringed, holding the small phone up almost like a holy symbol against a vampire. “It’s your mother.”

Dr. Wily gave Reggae one of those ‘This better not be a joke’ glares and took the phone from his hand. “Hello?”

The voice on the other end of the line launched into a blistering stream of German that Reggae couldn’t even hope to keep up with. Dr. Wily, startled at first, almost dropped the phone and then held it a good distance away. Even from there he could hear her clearly. Reggae crept away as Wily tried to get a word in edge-wise.

“Muzzer, look, I... Yes, I know I’m a bad boy... YES, muzzer... I KNOW you birzday vas chust last veek... I’ve been BUSY, muzzer!” Dr. Wily rolled his eyes. “VORK, muzzer, I’ve been busy vith VORK. Yes. Und trying to conquer ze vorld, yes, if you want to smear my gud name like zat... Vell of COURSE I’m pleased viz meinself! No, muzzer, I don’t need counzilling. NO, muzzer. GAH! Chust shut up! For ein moment! EIN! CHUST SHUT UP! ZIS is vy I moved out...”

With a disgusted growl, Wily threw the phone across the room, where it smashed into three pieces against the wall. Grumbling, Wily went back to work, losing his anger in the opened body before him. He made a mental note that, when he ruled to world, to have his mother put somewhere dark and SOUNDPROOFED.

He took a short break too look at his completed Masters. The Fire Model was on door duty, leaving eight more of them standing obediently at the wall, waiting for his orders. Totally silent and immobile. Dr. Wily grinned. If he told them to stop breathing, they would. He was a genius.

The Cut Model had, for reasons past Wily’s understanding, taken to wearing an emerald green Yukata, a male version of the Japanese Kimono. The clothing didn’t seem to hamper the Model in any way, and indeed seemed to freak out the soldiers that were laying something less than a siege to his front door, so he allowed it to do pretty much as it pleased.

The Elec Model, which utilized several independent EC coils to generate electricity and a proton ‘painter’ to fire bolts of lightning, stood slightly taller than the Cut Model, with a mainly black and red paint job with some minor gold trim. So far, this Master had fried several surveillance devices within the Mountain itself, drastically reducing the Pentagon’s ability to spy on Wily and his activities. It wasn’t that Wily minded the voyeurism, its just that there wasn’t much that he was perfectly safe under the Mountain and no amount of spying was going to help the militaristic fools.

The Guts Model was, by far, the largest Master. Everything about it screamed brute strength and power. Every last drop of energy Wily could conceivably squeeze out of the EC Coil that powered it went directly into both the natural and artificial muscles of the body and Armor. A single punch from the Guts Model could (and had) crack pavement for almost 20 yards.

The Quick Model was second in shortness only to the Ice Model. Both of them had yet to undergo the ‘trial by fire’ door guard duty, but Wily was confident that the Quick Model’s obscene speed and hypnotically taught martial arts, as well as its boomerang launcher, would allow it to function just fine in combat and as a scout unit. The Ice Model could spit liquid nitrogen and, despite its slender, female frame, lift and throw more weight than the average muscleman.

The Bomb Model, admittedly, was little more than several dozen grenades, mines, and other explosives piled onto an armor design that was more blast resistant than the average tank. An increased leaping ability, combined with the sheer variety of explosives, (Remote, timed, proximity, you name it.) made this Master excellent in the field of demolition and crowd control.

Perhaps Wily’s more fascinating achievement was the Shadow Model, which had a chameleon-like Armor system Wily had found in one of the other labs. The Master was designed for stealth and assassination, and Wily intended to put it to excellent use against the President of the USA. The fact that the general design of the Model reflected the ancient Ninja outfit was something Wily was particularly proud of.

The last Master that stood against the wall in stony silence was a quiet nod to the short period of time Wily had spent in Egypt writing his college thesis. The Pharaoh Model looked its name and was covered in solar receptors, all meant for drawing in power from the sun and storing it in a central energy chamber, which could be released through the hands. The whole effect was like an incredible focused green house, as the Pharaoh Model could generate waves or beams of solar energy that could cook a human being in mere seconds. 3.4 was, in fact, the shortest cook time Wily had recorded in the Pharaoh Model’s two stints of door duty.

Wily sighed happily, looking upon the Masters as one might their children. He turned back to the one on the table, and gave his schematic a once-over again. This particular model was going to be a magnetic nightmare, influenced by a certain comic book villian that Wily had liked a lot. The red was a good color, but the cape was probably a bad idea...

Wily stopped himself for a moment and threw another look at the Cut Model, which seemed to draw itself up straighter under his gaze. Looking back at his schematic, he shrugged. The Masters would need a little more freedom for themselves as there came to be more and more of them. Why, if Wily ended up actually needing all 70 Masters he’d drawn up schematics for, they were going to need SOME free will...

He jotted a note to himself on the battered notebook that was forever at his side, it seemed, and returned to his task.

It was dark as the semi pulled into the empty parking lot. Rock got out and looked around. The air here was heavier... more obviously polluted, but it felt so very familiar...

Dr. Light clambered out of the passenger side and walked around the truck to find Rock standing there, looking at the building around them. “Well, my boy, welcome to New Detroit-“

Lights assaulted their eyes from all sides, and the tell tale flashing blue and red of the police vehicles reflected off the sides of the truck. As they tried to adjust to the sudden light, they heard a door slam, and footsteps approaching.

“Excuse me, sirs, sorry to bother you,” Officer Erik said in a pleasant voice. He walked up to the brown haired boy. “Excuse me, I’m sorry, are you...” he looked at his notepad in the light, “Rock Volnutt?”

Rock blinked in the light again and looked from the policeman to Dr. Light and back. Then he looked at Dr. Light again and hoarsely whispered “Am I?” when Thomas nodded, he looked back at the officer. “Er, yes.”

Erik smiled broadly. “I’d like to ask you to come with me to the station, sir... We have a rather distraught young lady who’s been looking for you for a while now...”

Dr. Light stepped forward. “Er, may I come as well, officer? I’ve been with the boy ever since the hit on the head he recieved that gave him the nasty case of amnesia he’s suffering with...”

Erik looked Rock over again. “Memory loss, huh? Well, all the same, sure... You guys might want to bring your truck, too.”

“Thank you, officer,” Thomas Light smiled, taking the keys from Rock’s unresisting hand. “Come now, boy, let’s get moving. Someone you knew is looking for you!”

As the officer and the scientist both walked toward their respective vehicles, Rock stood there, wondering what had just happened.