The Business of War

The Forgotten Legions


Prelude

Berlin was a shambles. The Ascendant Androids under the command of the General of the Scissor Army had seen to that. Still, it was here, in the ruins of one of the finest cities in Germany, that Cassandra found herself waking up in.

It had been like this, on and off, for two weeks. In order for her body to sustain itself, it obviously needed to be fed, given drink, and other such things which the remnants of Siegema'am's programming wasn't very sure how to come to terms with. So, a time share of sorts had been established.

It was Topman who'd suggested it originally, when he'd noticed that Constance's endless possession of Cassandra's body was causing her to become pale and thin. And their search for Dr. Light, or at least clues to his wherabouts, was tiresome. Having heard that Berlin had been the site of a rather brutal chase between the AA and the Gila Gladiators, Cassandra had suggested they stop here no that the two forces had moved on.

It had been an issue of nourishment, in the long run. Even in ruins, Germany had good beer and food. It was just a matter of finding it now, and of course finding it without shrapnel in it. Cassandra had managed to cobble together a halfway decent assortment of protiens and nutrients out of what amounted to little more than scraps while Topman had made his way to Madrid, following a lead on Protoman.

It was, for the moment, at least, just Cassandra now, alone in Berlin.

She sat down and sighed, the events of the past few weeks weighing heavily on her. Even now, her body was covered in the patchwork armor Constance had crafted for itself, and one of the Scissor Army's mainstay weapons, the Gavel Arms J31 CustomMP rifle, was strapped across her back, with four extra batteries for the weapon resting in one of her hip pouches. The equipment had been scavanged among the shattered streets of Berlin, and was her only armament aside from the hunting knife that she had owned since she could remember.

The knife was somewhat battered looking in its own right, having been Constance's primary weapon during the time spent searching for clues in Monsteropolis. It made Cassandra a little sad to look at it now. It meant a lot to her, really, this old knife. It had been a gift to her, and as a testament to its craftsmanship, it had held up better than any recently produced normal blade that she'd ever seen.

She sighed as an involuntary smile crept across her features. She could remember it all so clearly sometimes, especially when she'd been locked up in her own head.

Behind her eyes, she could feel the AI react, as if stirring in its own sleep. She felt, rather than heard, it speak.

[Query: Why do we wait here?]

"Because Topman told us to wait here," Cassandra sighed aloud. "And, frankly, I'm going to go with him on this one. He's got a pretty good handle on what he's doing." The AI seemed to consider this before she felt it speak again.

[Query: You believe that unit Topman represents the best chance of finding Dr. Light, correct?]

"Yes," Cassandra said firmly, still talking out loud. It was a habit she was finding hard to break, despite the fact she knew it made her look crazy. Then again, by this point, she probably was.

[Query: What will you do once you find Dr. Light?]

"After I get YOU out of my head?" the woman said with a edge to her tone. "Well, I'll probably help him out with whatever he thinks he needs to do. Probably find and revive Megaman." Constance quivered somewhere in her subconcious. For some reason, it didn't like the idea of bringing the blue bomber back into action.

[Query: Do you not have faith in your counterpart to find a solution and end the war?]

A laugh escaped her lips, short and without amusement. "Hadrian? He can't fix this. Not this time. Those idiots in the suits have him on a short leash, and that 'Boss' of his isn't helping matters either. The only way Hadrian can end the war is by accident, and even then, only maybe."

[Supposition: Then you do not have faith in him.]

"I did once," Cassandra said, looking at the hunting knife in its sheath on her boot. "I really did. But... sometimes I think he forgets things. Like what's important. I mean... I'm a big girl, y'know? I can take care of myself. So why does he worry about me all the damn time?"

The brunette stopped herself and gave some serious thought to what she'd just said.

[Fact: Yes, that was a fairly stupid thing to say, given the circumstances.]

Cassandra scowled. "Shut up, you. I liked it better when I didn't even know you were in my head."

[Fact: I preferred keeping full-time control of this unit, but circumstance that were not within the perameters of my programming forced me to terminate that arrangement.]

"Yeah, boo hoo," she said, standing up and stretching her limbs. "I'm SO sorry I have to eat, sleep, and drink things occasionally." It was times like this she wished she could just walk away from the AI, but that was obviously something less than plausible. In all fairness, however, Constance itself seemed to share her sentiment.

Elsewhere, deep underground, behind a door that read 'Syne Co President: Thaddeus Tilman,' the man himself sat behind a desk, going over reports and reading memos that hadn't changed in content in four years. Tilman hadn't seen the need to update any of the in-house paperwork after the Conversion. Why bother? Everyone in Syne Co was on the same page, so to speak.

He picked up a seemingly random folder before he realized the folder was not, truly, random at all. He grinned to himself as he read the file over. It was the only folder he'd kept to himself when that short, wheeled cop had come through. Withholding relevant evidence was a crime in a case like this, but Tilman just... couldn't help himself.

Indeed, it was fairly pointless to try. Thaddeus Tilman had been dead for five years. It was his imposter that now sat in the office, smiling and humming softly to himself. After a year or so of trying to run the place covertly, he'd simply given up and 'converted' the rest of them to prevent his secrets from escaping into the light of day.

He was the only person on the planet who was not surprised by the sight of the robot that walked into his office. A fairly dull design, all things considered, except for the white spiral adorning the chest like a badge and the eight cables that had bunched themselves up on its back.

"Hello," he smiled.

"Indeed," Mesmerman nodded. "Freezeman's progression down my little gauntlet of demented fun is progressing nicely. How are things on the human-fooling front?"

"Well, you know as well as I do," Thaddeus Tilman's face said.

"I suppose I do," Mesmerman grinned. "Very well then. Carry on. And get that second squadron of Siege Joes ready for battle once the Generals forces have made repairs to the first squad. I believe its time to test them in earnest."

"They have a rave review from Wraithman," Tilman nodded. "They apparently performed quite well."

"As well they should. The General's wonderful soldier AI is leaps and bounds ahead of anything Syne Co had come up with before the Conversion, and our crowning achievement afterwards is now locked away in some poor girl's head somewhere."

Mesmerman and Tilman both seemed to think about this. "Well, not LOCKED away so much as stuck within," they said in unison. Mesmerman caught himself and resynched his control over his various bodies. Thaddeus Tilman smirked and Mesmerman's robtic form grinned.

"Carry on," the Masterless Puppet nodded.

Some days, Mesmerman reflected as he left the office, having a conversation with yourself can be... interesting.

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Chapter 1

Freezeman woke up slowly, his mind reeling. His first thoughts were used wondering what kind of horrors Mesmerman had wreaked on his mind.

He sat up, taking in the dank room he found himself in. So much like a dungeon, buried in blackness. Freezeman got slowly to his feet, unsure of himself. In the gloom, he could barely make out walls and the floor, but it was enough to know that he was stuck here. At least for right now.

He tried to get his bearings.

Why am I here? Why hasn't Mesmerman killed me or made me some stupid SA officer yet? What was that monster planning?

Freezeman looked up, spying light of some sort coming from a hole in the ceiling, some forty feet above him. He was sore, true, but he could move easily enough. He felt the walls, finding that the brickwork was shoddy, presenting him all kinds of potential foot and hand holds.

Well, he sighed, nowhere to go but up.

He started climbing, surprised by both the ease with which he scaled the wall, and the lack of anything really trying to mess with his brain. He still hated the SA, Mesmerman, and all of those things they represented. He still believed the RPD was the way to save everyone. He still remembered the rest of Drastic Measures. He still held onto his beliefs.

As he climbed, he began to think more seriously about what was going on. Mesmerman hadn't... as far as he knew, anyway, twisted his perceptions of the world, nor had he outright controlled him to do his bidding, and yet he dumped him in this easily escapable hole. What the hell was he planning?

The light from the ceiling came through cracks in the boards above him. They looked like floorboards, and they gave easily after Freezeman punched them and clambered up, finding himself in a room lit by a single candle. The place was like a cabin, with wooden walls and rickety-looking rafters, and the candlelight made the shadows dance.

There was something else, though. The colors that played across the walls. Faint blues and reds.

What the hell?

Freezeman looked down at himself, and realized what was happening. His forearms, the bottom halves of his legs, even his helmet and portions of his midsection were covered in red and blue panels that shone like glass. It was haphazard, seemingly random, and yet it still had an elegance to it. Like the stained glass windows of a church.

Something occured to him, and he tried to use his own abilities. He wasn't very surprised when he discovered he no longer could make ice of any kind. Not even a small snowflake.

So he's made all these modifications to my body, but not to my mind? Or was that supposed to come later?

Freezeman resolved not to stick around and find out. He made his way to one of the walls, trying to find a door. When no apparent portal presented itself, he gave a shrug and punched the wall, only slightly amazed at how easily it gave away under the blow. The new hole in the wall led out into a much more modern looking hallway. Ceramic tile, plaster walls, flourescent lighting, and signs. Granted, the signs were in a language he couldn't make out, but they seemed to point in certain directions, directing those who'd want to know to their correct destination.

What Freezeman found more curious was the room he'd been in. As he stepped out into the hallway, the wooden room and single candle flickered as one thing, and faded away into nothingness, leaving only and empty, unremarkable room with a now broken door behind him.

"Okay," Freezeman muttered, "that was a little weird."

Not wanting to waste his chance, Freezeman turned and started to run down the hallway. He followed it as it turned left, right, and then left again, passing doors covered with the indecipherable script. Finally, he came to a door that blocked his progress.

He couldn't read the writing on it, but it was plain to him this led to some kind of larger room, possible a junction of some kind. He opened it cautiously, and a wave of noise that he only just now noticed had been absent washed over him. People were chattering, talking, laughing.

He looked, and indeed, there were dozens of people gathered in the room, leaning on desks, having coffee, reading papers, signing things and typing on computers. It was a room full of cubicles, but nobody in the room turned their heads to look at him.

Freezeman crept through the door, letting in slide closed silently behind him, and di his best to remain unnoticed. In a room full of humans, this meant a lot of sneaking around. He kept low and close to the walls of the cubicles. He spotted another door out of the room, but wasn't sure where it might lead, and he ducked into an empty cubicle as a group of the humans came around a corner, hoping they wouldn't find him here.

The humans passed him by, and he noticed something odd. The words they were speaking were somewhat alien to him. Obviously, whatever the written language around here wa salso the spoken one, since Freeze could only think of describing the sounds he heard in the same way as the writing on the signs. He took a deep breath and looked out of the empty cubicle to insure that the coast was clear, and he made a break for the door.

The door slid open silently, and he slipped through just as quietly, finding himself is an very different room. This one harkened back more to the room he'd found himself in. Dark, dungeon-like.

Something stirred as he entered, and a voice he barely recognized said something in a scratchy tone.

"Who's there?"

Freezeman swore to himself, trying to peer through the gloom to identify the speaker. He could make out a form sprawled against the wall, and it seemed to be pinned there. "Depends," he said slowly in a hoarse whisper, "on who you are."

The figure coughed, the whole form shaking. Freezeman could now see that it wasn't complete, in some way. Like it was missing limbs.

"Freeze?" the voice cracked. "Is that you?"

Freezeman found that he recognized the voice this time. "Shademan?" he hissed.

The vampire laughed. "Well, it's been a while," he manged before another cough wracked his body.

"You look like hell... what happened?"

"I stopped a city from blowing up... but I kind of got carried awat with being a hero," he said, a smirk crossing his features. "No idea how I survived, or how I ended up here, though."

Freezeman started moving towards his friend, but checked himself. Shademan had gone against the RPD, hadn't he? What would the RPD say if he escaped from a possible enemy location with another enemy in tow?

Then again, what could they do about it? Mesmerman had probably removed the kill switch when he had recreated Freezeman into... well, whatever he was now. Freezeman shrugged, and moved forward, pulling his friend down from the wall.

"I take it we're leaving then?" Shademan coughed.

"Yeah. Not sure how, but yeah. Can you hold on by yourself?" Freezeman asked, hefting his damaged friend onto his back.

Shademan's remaining arm wrapped around Freeze's body, holding on with a feeble grasp. "I'll try not to be too much of a burden..."

Freezeman smiled to himself. "No trouble at all, man. We're getting out of here."

Every head turned as Freezeman opened the door this time, and the noise and chatter in the cubicles came to a halt.

"Ah... crap," Freezeman said as every human in the room, smiling, held up weapons.

"MOVE!" Shademan shouted, and Freezeman listened, leaping to the side as plasma bolts slammed into the wall. Both robots grunted as Freeze landed, rolled, and came up at a dead run toward another door. The humans, if they even were that, kept smiling and shooting.

Freezeman's legs powered him forward, and he leapt up, bringing his legs up in front of him as he got closer to the door. He slammed into the door about five feet up, and he heard the hinges give away and felt the door give as it fell back into the hallway beyond. The door landed with a tremendous crack and Freezeman launched himself into a run again.

Plasma arced over his shoulders as the humans gave chase, but Freezeman kept moving as fast as he could toward the door on the opposite end of the hallway. He heard Shademan cry out as a plasma shot dug into his back, but there was nothing he could do about that now.

The pair crashed through the door and found themselves in a massive room that reminded them both of a hangar. A huge steel scaffold surrounded the center of the room, where a large tank filled with various liquids stood, a dark shape floating inside. Freezeman turned, setting Shademan down, before grabbing some of the scaffolding and shoving it into the doorway to stop the humans and their plasma shots from coming through. When he was satisfied with the result, he turned to Shademan and picked him back up.

"Well, that was more fun than I wished I'd bargained for," Freezeman sighed.

Shademan opened his mouth to speak when the middle of the room exploded into noise and confusion, shattering glass and surging waters.

The force blew them both backwards, Freezeman slamming into Shademan's body as they both hit the wall. Shademan gave a groan as he slipped into unconsciousness and Freezeman spat liquid as he stood back up. Something... ugly... stirred in the ruins of the tank, and the modified robot master prepared himself for a battle.

He wasn't disappointed as a twisted mass of flesh and metal launched itself out of the tank, landing hard on the metal floor before cutting loose with an unearthly scream. It might have been human once, or it might just as easily have been a large gorilla. The effect would have been the same. Pale skin wrapped around metal joints, and two massive mechanical hands sprouted from red, raw wrists. Its eyes glowed a dull red, and the backward legs coiled in prepearation for a strike.

"What the hell is going ON here?" Freezeman managed to say before the beast charged him. He stood between abomination and friend, desperately trying to think of a way, any way, to stop it from killing them both.

Something at the edges of his perception glistened, and he caught side of the shards of glass that lay strewn about the room. The world greyed as time seemed to slow to a halt, and something cold and high laughed at him.

"Well, you're in a bit of trouble, aren't you?"

"What are you DOING? WHAT'S GOING ON?" Freezeman shouted, turning in the frozen seconds to look at the pieces of Mesmerman, which seemed to grin even wider at his agitation.

"Just a simple test. After all, if you're to be my bodyguard, I need to be sure you can handle... unexpected situations."

"I'd never work for you. Not willingly."

"Oh?" Mesmerman asked, a note of amusement in his voice. "What about your friend?"

Freezeman glanced at Shademan, and then at the hulking beast that threatened them both. "... how can I save him?"

"Well, to be perfectly honest, you can't," Mesmerman told him flatly. "It's not possible. He's already dead."

"WHAT?"

"Oh, yes, got himself something like vaporized not too long ago, carrying a whole load of explosives in what I'm told was a beautiful moment of self-sacrifice."

"Then... what..."

"Well, he's more like a memory. Your memory, to be precise."

It occured to Freezeman. "This place... isn't real, is it?"

Mesmerman's general shape gave a shrug. "It's as real as the imagination is."

"Where am I?"

"This is you," the white monster said simply. "This is your head."

"No. No way. I'm not NEARLY this screwed up."

"Oh, aren't you?" Mesmerman laughed, and raised a hand to prevent objecteions as he spoke. "Those smiling people with the guns? Why, that seems very much like the mental picture you may have of humanity: Happy, and willing to turn on you at a moment's notice. This behemoth? A manifestation, albeit a very odd one, of your anger and aimless contempt for the percieved differences between man and machine. Even your friend there is the broken remnants of a memory, a friend who left you and your team in a time of dire need."

Freezeman looked down at himself, meeting Mesmerman's gaze with a look that begged explaination. "Oh," the jigsaw robot grinned, "that is merely some artistic license on my part. I had some old technology lying around and wanted to use it. Perfectly safe, I can assure you."

"What the hell did you DO to me?" Freezeman demanded.

"Well, aside from making you literally face your inner demons? I forced you into a symbiotic relationship with a pair of fairly ruthless killers."

"Huh?"

"They were so impressive when that idiot Juno commanded them, so I decided to steal the idea, as many great ideas eventually are."

"Why would you do this? Especially if you haven't brainwashed me to do your bidding?"

Mesmerman cocked his head to the side in confusion before busting out into a gale of laughter. "Oh, my dear boy, don't mistake my intentions. I have my reasons for keeping your psyche intact, that I can assure you. However, we are wasting far too much time. I'd like to see how you perform in combat, it you please."

The world snapped back into color as Mesmerman vanished, and a heavy sound brought Freezeman's attention fully forward again.

What had Mesmerman said? A symbiotic relationship? What did he mean?

The monstrosity of hatred closed in, a wild swing connecting with Freeze's midsection and slamming him sideways, down to the ground. Pain shot through his system as he bounced once and recovered his feet. He looked down to see his chest had caved in, leaving a hole surrounded by broken glass. He swore as the beast closed in again, relentless in its pursuit of violence, and rolled out of the way as the massive hand came down again, ending up neatly on his feet and poised to move when the anger came after him again.

Shards of colored glass shook momentarily before leaving the ground and moving towards him, floating silently into the hole that had been made in his side and covering it completely in a matter of moments.

"Okay... that was cool..." Freezeman said aloud, noting that the pain had vanished along with the wound. An angry roar alerted him to another attack and he danced backwards as the monster swung wildly at him. He needed time to figure out a strategy, knowing what he knew now.

So the glass now affixed to his body could move? On its own? How did that help him? And how was that related to the 'two killers' Mesmerman had mentioned?

He weaved out of the way of another attack, leading the beast away from Shademan's unconscious form and tried to think. Tried to call them out. If they WERE in a symbiotic relationship, that meant he provided THEM something and that they provided HIM something. He wasn't sure what they were getting out of him, but it was time they pulled their weight at least.

"Come on!" Freezeman shouted in frustration after a few more minutes of avoiding the nightmare of metal and flesh. "Help me out here!"

Something on him shifted, and he watched as every blue pane of glass on his body slowly dislodged itself, hanging in the air mere inches off his form before it left him, reassembling some distance away as a vaugely humanoid shape of blue glass, radiating a predator's instinct and sharpness at every angle.

Freezeman avoided another strike as the red panels did the same, and he saw that under the glass on his body was a rather unremarkable black bodysuit that covered him, probably made out of kevlar. Not very sturdy, but then again, if his guess was correct, he was not supposed to be in direct combat.

The red and blue beings shot forward, the noise of glass sliding on glass making crystalline notes in the air, giving birth to a strange kind of music that Freezeman found himself appreciating above the noise of the angry monster. They worked in unison, moving quickly and intercepting the beast on its next charge. It smashed through the red one as the blue one brought an angular arm down on it, cutting deeply into the steel and skin, drawing blood and sparks.

The red being reassembled itself in a manner that suggested it had never stopped moving, and as the avatar of Freezeman's frustration took a wild swing at the other being of glass, it stabbed deeply into the monster's back, drawing two gouts of blood and driving the beast to its knees.

They worked quickly, with surgical precision, slicing joints, areteries, coolant tubes, skin and metal bones. It was over before it began, and Freezeman just watched. When they were satisfied with their work, the two beings returned to him, rearranging themselves into the patchwork of armor and leaving behind a bloodied corpse.

Freezeman only felt cold. A kind of cold he couldn't say he was comfortable with.

"Well..." he said aloud after a while, walking back towards Shademan, who was beginning to wake up, "I have no idea what just happened, but I have a feeling that Mesmerman will be pleased with it..."

As he hefted his friend up onto his shoulders and began looking for a way out, he realized that the notion made him happy.

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