By C.M. Rich (Magnetman)
May 31st, 20XX, 2:12 PM , PST
“Nice of you to join us.”,
NeedleGal greeted the returning Lennon and SD, with no small amount
of animosity present in her voice. After all, she, along with most
of the other Mechs, had been waiting for the two to show up for quite
some time now.
“Pressing business and all of that.”, Lennon muttered.
“Well, great.”, Gauntlet said wearily. He clicked on his
transmitter in the same breath. “Raj…”
Static.
“Raijin. Come in.”
“I’m a bit busy.” Came a stern voice.
“I see.”, Gauntlet responded, recognizing the message of “don’t bother me” in the curt answer. “Call me later”.
Looking over his other comrades,
Shadowman could only empathize with them for only a few moments before
delivering his next order of business: “Let’s get going.”
The short reunion already over, the seven Mechanical Maniacs
set out to investigate the heart of the chaos- the central crater that
now carved a deep gouge into the middle of the formerly congested Los Angeles .
The wind seemed to be dying down, but only slightly. The
dust maelstrom was still choking out the sun. More and more, the Mechs
started to ponder what caused this kind of destruction…And
could it happen again?
May 31st, 20XX, 3:51 PM , PST
“It…doesn’t
seem real, does it?”, Topman remarked, in awe of the sight before
him, as were the other Mechs to some degree.
“Such power…”, Kenta murmured.
“So…this is it.”, Gauntlet proclaimed, standing at
the very edge of it.
“It” was the crater. The destination they had worked towards
for the better part of a day. Its magnitude easily explained how the
rest of the city was in ruins. In fact, its size actually made some
of them wonder how the rest of the world wasn’t affected by this…event.
The crater itself was perhaps ten miles in diameter, the bottom
of it barely visible thanks to the shadow produced on one side casting
itself downward. Dust and flying debris swirled about at the bottom,
further obscuring the view of the bowl-shaped crevice. The ground around
the very edge of the crater was especially soft, as the team found out
first hand, as Hardman was sinking rapidly, which he put a stop to be
moving about, mostly backwards.
Here, the dust was thicker as well, and the sun was further
obscured, darkening the atmosphere even more. So much so that the Mechs
didn’t see their new visitors approach from one side of the crater
until they heard their footsteps crunch into the sagging concrete and
earth.
“You…I can only guess why you guys are here…”,
Geminiman addressed the newcomers directly.
“Afraid so.”, explained the leader of the group.
“You can’t honestly believe we did this.”, Gauntlet
interjected.
“…No. We don’t. But the city sent us anyways. They
said the City of Megapolis was responsible for not only harboring you
when you were known outlaws, but recently giving you jobs and police
work.”
“Turbo-san…What are you going to do?”, asked Eigen,
somewhat anticipating a fight.
“We’re not here to fight, if that’s what you mean
by that.”, Junkman claimed.
“We know as well as you do that these charges are bullshit.”
“Thank God.”, Classi huffed, relieved.
“But we’re not sure what to say to the higher ups back home.
We can’t come back until this whole thing is resolved.”,
Turboman claimed.
“Then help us out. Help us find whoe’er really did this.”,
Hardman offered.
“We could do that…”, Cloudman said slowly, hesitating
slightly as he floated from side to side gently.
“…But then you’d be deemed outlaws as well.”,
NeedleGal finished, sensing the reason behind the floating android’s
apprehension.
“With friends like these…”, Lennon scowled.
“Hey, its not like we don’t want to help…But what
good will it do if we end up being hunted down along with you guys?
Plus, it’d make you seem awfully suspicious to the public.”,
BurstGirl countered with. “It may even be called another Rebellion
by the media.”
“Damn it, that’s not what we need to hear right now!”,
Lennon erupted.
“Len, please don’t-“
“No!”, he screamed, batting away Classi’s attempts
to calm him down. “We’ve got the entire world against us,
so a little support goes a long way. And here you are, worried about
your own skin! Sickening!”
“Lennon, enough!”, Shadowman ordered.
“Don’t you tell me what to do! If it wasn’t for you-“
The chrome-plated android’s claims were stopped short by an open-handed
slap, shocking the entire group, Drastic Measures included.
It wasn’t so much the slap, but who perpetrated it.
“C…Classi…?”, Lennon stuttered, holding his
hand to his face.
“Just…Just stop it, Len…What’s gotten into
you?”, she pleaded, her eyes fighting back any stray tears.
Geminiman had no answer for that.
“Ahem.”
The Mechanical Maniacs and Drastic Measures’ attention were quickly
snapped up by yet another new voice, which had forcefully interrupted
the scene. It belonged to a universally familiar android.
“Goddamnit.”, Hardman groaned. “Not you again.”
“You’re damn right its me again…And I promise you,
you won’t evade me again!”, proclaimed Bass, standing proudly
in front of the Wily Warriors, his hesitant henchmen for this mission. “Like
it or not, your asses belong to Wily!”
Starnik’s voice clicked into Shadowman’s ear. The two had maintained a very secret line of communication with each other over the years, even managing to hide it from Wily.
“Sorry, G-Man. We managed to keep this jerk away from you guys by sounding as many false alarms as we could with our weapons, but even he managed to wise up.”
“It’s okay, ‘Nik.”, Shadowman assured. “I appreciate it, in any case. But…you know what this means…”
“…Yeah…”
Suddenly, a thought sprang into Turboman’s mind, and he quickly
took the reigns of the situation.
“Hold it! We’re here representing the City of Megapolis !
We’re here on official work to capture the rogue Mechanical Maniacs,
and we can’t allow you to capture them if you’re working
for Dr Wily!”
“Yeah!”, Freezeman added, understanding where Turbo was
going with this. “We’ll be the one’s to capture
the Mechs, and we’ll fight you to ensure it!”
Across the field, Quickman realized what was going on as
well. Sure…It wasn’t going to be a pleasant experience
for anyone, but it was rather…convenient. If you could call
it that.
“Well if it’s a fight you punks want, it’s a fight
you’ll get! C’mon Bass! Let’s take these jerks down
in the name of Master Wily!”
“’Master Wily?’”, Bass echoed. “…Weird.
But…Whatever! We’ll stomp these hacks into bits and get
the Mechs back home in time for dinner!”
“YEAH!”, Crashman screamed loudly as possible right near
Bass’s ear, netting him a backhanded fist to the face from the
onyx android.
As the seventeen Robot Masters came to blows, Turboman and
Quickman both managed to catch a glimpse of the fleeing Mechanical Maniacs, with Gauntlet giving a quick nod of gratitude to the both
of them as they traded blows along with the rest of their teammates.
May 31st, 20XX, 4:06 PM , PST
“It looks as though we’re
clear…”, Kenta stated solemnly.
“Yeah, that worked out pretty well.” Topman agreed. “I
just hope they don’t beat each other up too much. It’s not
as though we want to see our friends get hurt.”
“Star and Turbo bought us some time, so let’s make it work
for us. We’ll have to find some evidence before they finish up.”,
Shadowman informed the group.
“Evidence…Like…that?”, NeedleGal called to
attention.
The Mechs collectively peered to the East, just a few hundred
yards away. Amongst the group, it was easy to spot the largest, most
brightly colored member of the Sinister Six PC thugs, Bitman.
“Looks like ya just can’t keep a good gang down these days…”,
Hardman sighed.
“Don’t these morons know how borin’ it can be kickin’ their
teeth in even once a day?”
“No, the so-called ‘good’ gangs all know when to stay
down after their daily beating. These idiots never had any where near
that much common sense.”, Geminiman rebutted.
Shadowman remained silent, focusing on the group.
“Hello? Earth to Gauntlet! Maybe we should high tail it out of
here before we get sucked into another meaningless fight with these
clowns.” Topman urged.
“…Let’s go say hello.”, the dark shinobi android
insisted on instead.
“You can’t be serious! Why should we waste even more time
on these guys? We’ll never get anything done at this rate!”,
Lennon challenged.
“On the contrary, they have something we’re very interested
in.”, Gauntlet insisted.
“Oh!”, Classi uttered in shock upon taking a closer look
at the group.
“You’re kiddin’ me…”, Hardman also noticed.