The Megaman War:
Part 1 - Whistle in the Wind

By Hadrian (Hardman) Howell

Chapter 8: Super Hero

New Detroit was really just Detroit, with a few new buildings added on and the various automotive factories shut down and used as museums. The City’s major industry in cars had gone under with the general financial decline of the Big 3 Auto Companies from 2002 to 2007, finally resulting in their bankruptcy. While the city had survived, renamed by a rather proactive Mayor who saw the end of the city’s dependance on the jobs the auto makers provided, many of the remnants of the thousands who’d lost their jobs still remained. While the city was still a bustling industrial center, very few places had jobs for all but the most experienced assembly line worker.

Tiesel Bonne checked his watch again as he stood in line at the cash register of Maxwell’s Jewelry. It wasn’t that he was bored, he just wanted to get this done and over with. He was uncomfortable with everyone giving him sideways looks with the rain coat’s hood pulled over his head and eyes. Even more stares were drawn to the hulking form barely concealed by the trench coat behind him. That was Tiesel’s younger brother, Bon Bonne.

It hadn’t even been his idea, when it came down to it. His little sister, Tron, had practically forced him to go along with it. Normally, he wouldn’t have even thought of doing anything like... this. Up until the economic ruin that had hit his family when the Big 3 went bankrupt, he’d been a wealthy suburban middle class businessman. Now he was... just...

He shook his head as the person in front of him walked away and the way to the cash register was open. He took a grudging step forward as the lady there asked “May I help you?”

Tiesel decided it was now or never, really. Put on the game face or shut up, go home, and never hear the end of it from Tron. It wasn’t like he could back out now, anyway. Tron was already counting down five minutes. He reached into the recesses of his coat and brought out a well-kept .55 Magnum. Casually, he leaned on the counter as the lady’s face went from helpful and eager to plainly horrified and tried his damndest to smile. He knew that, behind him, his little brother was shucking his trench coat and brandishing a rather large, equally well-kept machine gun.

“Actually, ma’am, you CAN help me by putting the bulk of your merchandise in a bag and then being a good little hostage for the rest of my stay here, m’kay?”

Behind him, Bon made a happy face. “Babu!”

Roll’s phone rang again. Tango almost heard it over her snoring. In a way, the tabby was grateful: this was the first decent amount of sleep his owner had gotten since... whatever had upset her so much. The downside, of course, was how LOUD this was. As the answering machine intercepted the phone call, the cat tried to shut out the horrendous noise of sawing logs by clamping its paws over its ears.

“Hello, ma’am. Officer Erik here, again. Good news! I’ve found your friend, and he’s down here at the station. He seems to have suffered from a little amnesia and can’t remember much, but seeing you should snap him right out of it. Anyway, when you get this message, if you could come down to the station, I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you again. Thanks a lot. Bye.”

Erik shrugged as he hung up the phone and turned to Rock. “She must not be in right now. She’ll be here though. If you want, you can just wait here for her.”

Rock nodded, unsure of how to handle himself in this situation. He started to think he should go find Dr. Light again when he heard the Police Scanner rumble to life. Rock tried to listen to it for a moment, turning back to Erik. “What’s that mean?”

“Huh?” Erik said distractedly, already absorbed in some seemingly random paper work. “What’s what mean?”

Rock jerked his thumb toward the static-filled speaker. Erik listened for a moment before raising his eyebrows. “Sounds like a heist on 15th and Maple. That’d be...” He looked at the ceiling for a second, “Maxwell’s Jewelry. Sounds like there’s a few hostages too...”

Erik returned to his paperwork as Rock stared at him. “Shouldn’t you... y’know, DO something?” Rock prompted.

“Why bother,” the officer shrugged, not looking up. “It’s not like I’m the only cop in town. There’s probably already five units there, not to mention the media. They’ll work it out, and if they don’t, we send in a SWAT team. Crime’s not really as big a problem now a days as it USED to be.” Erik signed a form and shoved the paper into a rather wobbly stack on a nearby desk. “Hey, I could go for Chinese. You want some? My treat.”

He looked up to see how the youth had reacted to his suggestion of food, and then, and only then, finally noticed that Rock had gone.

“Aw, man... now I’m going to have to find him again...”

Dr. Light was filling out forms. Several of them. He knew what the first few had been, all of them had been dealing with where he’d been born, his arrest record in other states (he had none), where he’d gone to school (a long list), and other mundane things. These other one, though... it was almost like the police had just sat down one day and gotten good and drunk, making up questions on dares and writing them down. Some of these were really ridiculous. “Have you ever been party to any attempt to over throw the government?” the scientist said aloud, “How stupid of a question...” Thomas Light looked at a nearby TV which was playing CNN, which was running a special on the Fall of Cheyenne Mountain. “Oh.” Carefully ignoring that one, he moved on.

It was a few minutes later that a younger officer came in. “Dr. Light?” she asked.

The white-haired man turned. “That’s me.”

“Was that your semi outside? The one with the big trailer and no markings?”

“Er... yes?” Dr. Light managed, remembering how he’d sort of stolen the truck from a high security facility.

“Well, someone just blew out of the back door and down the street.”

Dr. Light looked at her for a moment, his brain trying to make sense of what she was saying.

Then, wordlessly, he took off at a dead run for the semi.

Rock skated in and out of the thick traffic at a speed that normally wouldn’t have been allowed within the city limits, using controlled bursts from the A.B.J. to jump his speed up on the straight sections of his trip. 15th and Maple, 15th and Maple... 14th... 15th Street!

Hanging a sharp right and nearly knocking over a woman with an armload of groceries, Rock shouted back an apology and kept his pace going. Maple had to be this way, and then he could do something to help... ANYTHING to help. He couldn’t really understand why he wanted to help, but something about people being held hostage for someone else’s material gain set off a siren in his brain. A siren that kept ringing “DO SOMETHING YOU IDIOT!”

Flashing red and blue... Police lights! THAT’S where it had to be! Slowing down, Rock approached the scene cautiously, doing his best not to be noticed by the gruff-looking cops all standing around and talking. The large windows of the store in question afforded Rock an excellent view. He could see two standing shapes, the larger of them brandishing some sort of weapon. If only he could get a closer view...

Rock almost jumped as the helmet reacted to his thoughts, a mask sliding into place over his mouth and nose and a thick, green visor sliding over his eyelashes and clicking into place. Within seconds, the green tint of the Visor was covered with various readouts on the edges of his vision- his current status and armaments, as well as ammunition counts and battery power- and the central portion of his vision zoomed in. Now he could also see the crouched shapes of shaking, afraid people held there against there will by madmen who only cared about money. Rock narrowed his eyes and felt the inside of the helmet grow hot. This had to stop. NOW.

One easy leap brought Rock to the roof of the closest building, and another such leap landed him softly on the top of Maxwell’s Jewelry, near a skylight Rock used to look down. The two jewel thieves stood by the main counter, the hostages between them and the front door. They looked like they were waiting for something. No doubt a safe trip out of town, or whatever else they’d negotiated for. Rock’s hands immediately went to his belt, one of the magnetic clamps immediately disengaging without a real thought, a small box dropping into his hand. Dumping the boxes contents into his hand, Rock grinned.

Tiesel looked at Bon. While Bon had been born last of the three siblings, he was by far the largest and strongest for reasons beyond Tiesel’s understanding. Bon’s major problem came from the fact that he only seemed to ever get a basic grasp on things due to a rather tear-jerking case of mental retardation he suffered. In effect, he was a large baby. He seemed to understand things well enough, though, and would do almost anything Tron asked him to.

Tiesel smiled inwardly at the thought of his little sister. She had gotten mom’s brains, and no mistake. While Tiesel had their father’s looks and charisma, Tron had the mind to make virtually any plan the three of them came up with work. It was HER genius that had planned this heist, and even though Tiesel was personally put off by the whole idea of stealing to get back to their former glory, no one could deny that Tron’s route was the fastest track to put the Bonne family back in the black.

He heard one of the hostages crying, and his mood immediately dipped again. He couldn’t wait for Tron to get here with the Kobun so they could get out of this dump of a city...

A putty-like substance of Dr. Light’s devising was stuck to the skylight, with a pair of wires strung out of it and leading to a nearby air conditioning unit that Rock now hid behind. He held a small detonator in his hand and went over the plan in his head again.

At least, he tried to, but Dr. Light’s voice pierced his ear.

“WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?”

Thrown off balance by the sudden noise, Rock fell over from his crouched position. He tried tp put a hand over his ear to drown out the scientist before he remembered the speaker was on the inside of the helmet. “Please don’t shout, Dr. Light,” he pleaded into the microphone set into the helmet’s cheek protector. “The helmet’s all closed up and that HURT....”

“You deserved it! What do you think you’re doing?” The scientist repeated urgently.

“I’m trying to save these people before the situation gets any worse!”

Dr. Light slapped his forehead. He was sitting in the trailer of the semi, the door hastily bolted shut, trying to get the video uplink program to work so he could see what Rock was seeing, with a microphone in one hand. A window on the screen of his laptop was displaying Rock’s vital statistics, Armor strength, and battery time. He’d figured out almost right away what the youth had sped off to do after a quick round of questions with the police officer, Erik. He had to dissuade the young fool from doing a stupid thing before the off-balance Rock remembered he could shut off the helmet speaker...

“You can’t do anything there, Rock!” Dr. Light pleaded. Then he thought about it. “Okay, I guess you can do a lot of things, but nothing you do is going to make this better! Stop playing super hero and come back! You’ve already burned through half of your battery GETTING there, so come back!”

Rock threw a glance at his battery indicator. “1:03:45.” He must have gone through a lot of energy using the A.B.J. so much, but that wouldn’t be necessary unless he REALLY screwed up. Then he remembered about the speaker, and how he could shut it off.

There was an audible click on Dr. Light’s end, and then all of the sound cut out. He swore. Loudly. Twice.

Rock sighed and returned to his task. The putty was, naturally, an explosive, but was made to let off more noise and smoke than actual force. Of course, the sonic boom it released would shatter the window it was stuck to, but wouldn’t fling the shards of glass in dangerous directions, injuring any of the innocent bystanders. The smoke would help to hide his entrance and hopefully stop him from taking any unnecessary bullets. Although normal rounds couldn’t really hurt him (although they stung like hell if they hit his jumpsuit), the ricochet of automatic fire off of his armor could, theoretically, cause harm to the hostages and was therefore a bad idea to risk.

Rock had neglected to bring any weapons of his own along. He was certain his own reflexes and limited training in some select forms of hand to hand combat would allow him to disable the jewel thieves, although disarming them was his top priority. Rock looked at the button that would annihilate the skylight and send smoke crashing into the jewelry store, wrecking any chance of negotiations. Strangely enough, he didn’t feel nervous. He KNEW he could do this. It was almost like it was his purpose...

Shrugging, he pressed the button and leapt for the skylight as the sonic boom shook past him.

The cops on the street below went into an immediate panic as the explosive went off, shattering not only Rock’s intended skylight, but also the front windows and the windows on all of the nearby cars. Several policemen assumed that they were being fired upon and dove for cover, waiting for the imaginary barrage to end.

Tiesel fell over almost immediately from the blast of noise and smoke. Bon remained standing somehow, but was coughing from the sudden cloud of blackness that had shrouded the room. Tiesel felt something snatch the gun in his hand away, and tried feebly to crawl away under the cover of the smoke. Bon let out an angry cry and started to bawl, firing his machine gun at the ceiling. Obviously, he’d seen something Tiesel had missed, but the older Bonne couldn’t worry about that now. Hacking and coughing, he made his way to the back door, shouting for Bon to follow him.

Rock had tossed the .55 Magnum out the now-windowless front of the jewelry store, his enhanced vision cutting through the even-now dissipating smoke with ease. He heard the gun shots from the machine gun, and immediately made his way toward the sound. He almost laughed in relief when he saw the shots had been fired at the ceiling, and he made a quick grab for the machine gun. Bon fought the pull of the unseen hands as they tried to take away his plaything, but even the oversized toddler’s immense strength was a paltry match for this newcomer, who wrested the gun away from him and tossed it out the front as well.

Bon heard his older brother shout as the unseen hands stole his toy and immediately picked up the heavy sack of stolen goods, taking large and fast strides toward the back door. Triggered by the smoke, the fire alarm went off and an immediate rain cut through the gloom, affording Tiesel and Bon Bonne a look at their previously unseen assailant before they fled out the back door and into the alleyway behind Maxwell’s.

Rock looked over his shoulder to see policemen swarming in to see to the hostages. One or two of them noticed Rock and shouted “Hey! Stop!” before the youth made it to the back door. Rock’s masked face looked back at the officers and shook side to side.

“I’ll get those two,” Rock shouted over the noise of the alarm, “you just make sure everyone’s okay!” With that, and a few confused looks, Rock dashed out into the alley to find the two jewel thieves.

What he saw was something even HE could barely believe.

The larger of the two thieves clung to the bottom of a rope ladder that led up into a... what the heck WAS that thing? It was like a blimp, but with ARMOR and GUNS and... it was an airborne warship!

Shaking his head, Rock looked again. It gave off the impression of size, true, but the fact remained that it was currently helping the jewel thieves get away. Rock’s eyes narrowed and his subconscious kicked the Acceleration Booster Jet into overdrive, rocketing the blue armored youth into the air.

Tiesel watched in utter amazement as the blue guy rocketed past him, barely more than a yard away, and onto the top of the Kobun, Tron’s custom made airship. The black-haired girl he called his younger sister was concentrating on steering the flying behemoth, but looked around as he shouted in surprise.

“What’s going on out there?” Tron screeched.

“Some blue guy’s on top of the ship! I don’t know what the hell he’s doing! Quick, Bon! Climb up!”

“Babu!” Bon shouted back, starting to climb up the shaky ladder with his heavy cargo easily in tow.

Rock’s feet hit the top of the airship solidly, and he crouched low for balance. He looked around the top of the blimp, and immediately decided that the stabilizer fins just HAD to go...

The Kobun listed dangerously to the right with a metallic scream. Tron shouted in alarm as the ladder swung beneath the ship. Bon looked curiously at the swiftly approaching office building, wondering if he’d stop before he hit it. With another metal cry of pain, the ship banked sharply, swinging the youngest of the Bonne’s back around and over the now clogged streets.

“Babu!” He shouted happily, enjoying the ride.

Several people on the street below had stopped their cars and were standing in shock and amazement. Some sort of flying machine was being torn apart by some kind of cop, they thought. Something like this does NOT happen every day...

Rock’s augmented strength made pruning the Kobun of its various vital-looking pieces easy, and the ship started to lose altitude. He heard shouts from below and realized his mistake. The thieves had guided the thing over a crowded street, and if this metal monster fell... oh, god, NO!

The A.B.J. roared to life, propelling Rock up into the air again, this time in plain view of hundreds of people. He flew around to the front of the air ship, took a look at it, and decided to try something else. As he hung there for those few, precious seconds, Tron got her first look at the person that had made so much tin foil out of her precious Kobun. She immediately HATED him, and screamed loudly in the cockpit of the airship, still fighting with the failing controls.

Bon touched the ground among a crowd of astonished onlookers. His happy expression and the bag of jewels on his shoulder made him a very odd sight indeed. He dragged along with the ladder for a little bit until he decided that was boring and let go, standing up and watching the ship go down with the rest of the crowd, totally oblivious to what the whole spectacle meant.

Rock shouted at the crowd below to clear a space, and they obligingly did so as he landed, his feet spread and his eyes determined. He looked up at the oncoming airship, and caught a look from Tron in the cockpit, the hatred burning in her eyes. She seemed to be steering the whole assembly right at him. Perfect.

As the bottom of the Kobun scrapped the pavement, Rock caught the front of it, right under the cockpit window. He pushed against the mass of metal, and could see the glow of the sparks his boots threw up as he skidded backwards along the pavement. The death cries of the metal underside of the airship echoed off of the concrete buildings nearby, drowning out the alarmed screams of the crowd as they ran for cover from the mass of metal. Rock’s feet skidded along the pavement, trying desperately to find enough purchase to stop the airship, as he pushed against it with all of his enhanced strength. Shards of metal skidded out from under the Kobun, skipping along until they came to their own stop.

Tron’s screams of anger and frustration were drowned out by the Kobun’s swan song as the controls came loose in her hands and various instruments crackled and died around her. Years of work crushed themselves under their own momentum, but failed to crush the blue guy before her. She could SEE the top of his head, and he was STOPPING the 18 tons of flying machine that had recently been soaring through the air at an even 50 miles per hour! How on earth was this boy so strong?

Tiesel stood at the still open hatchway on the side of the Kobun, watching the faces in the crowd slide past, clutching the sides of the hatch for dear life. He couldn’t decide whether to jump or be sick, but he had a feeling that if he jumped, he’d be sick anyway. As the Kobun began to slow, he leapt from the hatch, hitting the pavement hard on one shoulder and rolling with the momentum, crashing into the crowd. A few pairs of hands helped him up, and then he proceeded to vomit on the sidewalk as the frantic crowd rushed past him.

After what seemed like an eternity of screaming concrete and metal, the Kobun finally came to a stop. Rock stayed there, bunched up against what remained of the front of the ship, for a few seconds, wondering if his ears had just stopped working or something. As the first shouts, whoops, and cheers filtered in through his helmet, however, he smiled and stood up straight, looking into the cockpit windshield to see if the pilot was okay. She wasn’t there anymore though.

Tron leapt down onto the pavement and stormed to the front of her precious, if not somewhat ruined, airship to give the person responsible for its destruction a good, solid shouting. She never hit anybody. She had Bon for that. She rounded the front and saw the man take off his helmet to reveal a... boy? About her age? She faltered, her anger petering out and dying on her lips and she realized her jaw had dropped, just a little.

Rock looked at the black-haired girl before him, who seemed flushed and angry. “Are you okay?” he asked.

She could only manage a nod, for reasons far beyond her own considerable comprehension.

He smiled. “Good. Gotta go!” With that, he put the helmet back on, once again becoming the person responsible for the state of her beloved Kobun, and took off at a run through the now applauding crowd. She almost managed a good angry shout as he disappeared from her sight, and was shaking with what she would later claim was rage when Tiesel and Bon caught up to her. Then the police cars came up, and her day just went to hell.

“Our top story today, New Detroit has a new super hero! This was the scene earlier today, as an unidentified aircraft went down over Maple Street today, several eye witnesses tell us that some sort of ‘Megaman’ stopped the vehicle before anyone was seriously injured. While several people have been treated for minor cuts and bruises, miraculously nobody was hurt. Not even the thieves that were trying to use this odd aircraft as a get-away vehicle! Three would-be jewel thieves were apprehended at the scene mere seconds after the mysterious blue hero made his departure and have been taken into custody by New Detroit Policeman Erik Lowell. When asked about this alleged ‘Megaman,’ Officer Lowell had this to say:

Oh, oh, I’ve always wanted to do this! Ahem... No comment!

Officer Lowell has refused to release the names of the jewel thieves.”

Dr. Wily shut off the satellite TV. “Vell, vell, vell... New Detroit, is it? REGGAE!”

The dread-locked assistant ran into the room. “Yes, sir?”

“Get ze Guts Model... or maybe I shuld say GutsMAN, ready for teleportation. I believe ve haf found Dr. Light and his runavay friend...” Dr. Wily chuckled.