Inside the tank, MegaMan continued trying to blast his way through the walls. His blaster overheating for seconds at a time, but the water cooled it almost instantly. The steam rose in bubbles, pushing against the sides of the walls, unconciously putting more presure onto the tank. The wall pushed out several feet, the metal stretching like bubble gum. More and more he shot, and further and futher the wall stretched.

 

I need something to pierce it, he thought to himself. Looking about he only saw the shrapnel lodged in the intake tube, already too fargone to be used effectively. A loud shrieking broke his concentration, he looked about and saw light emanating from the hole he had made. Pressure about him depleted, the water flowing freely out of the now punctured tank. Rock jumped, diving through the hole, or at least attempting to. His leg got caught on a protruding piece.

 

The imperfect cut was what saved Rock from being beheaded from Metal Man's streaking blades, which buried themselves deep into the ground. The blood red warrior dropped from the ceiling, landing directly in front of MegaMan. He clasped the blue fighter's throat, drawing him up eye to eye, searching the killer's eyes. He is just a little boy! How could he have ever defeated me before?

 

"What is your name little boy?" Metal Man had become curious to this little killer, not quite believing that this was such a destroyer.

 

"Rock, why are you trying to choke me? Why are you attacking me?"

 

"You killed my brothers. I was seeking retribution, but you are just a little boy. I am wondering if my eyes are decieving me. You could not have destroyed him." Metal man lifted Rock a few inches higher, releasing him from the hold of the protruding metal. "But I can also tell you are a robot. Who made you?"

 

"Dr. Light, who made you?"

 

A good question. Light had made him before; before he entered the crysalis. Wily had remade him though, made him stronger, smarter, lethal. Yes, Wily had made him. And his first objective was to destroy everything that Light sent to stop his new Master's plans. Pity, he almost figured it would be too easy.

 

"Light made me once, but I was remade after I was destroyed." He bent down to pick up two of his three blades, the last was lodged in a metal spiral stairwell leading to the upper levels.

 

"Who destroyed you?" But a memory kicked in, and MegaMan knew. This was from before he was created. MegaMan Mk II... I am remade too. Was this one of his destroyed brothers? Before Rock couldn't save him, but maybe now that they weer more alike than different, they wouldn't have to fight.

 

"Why you did little boy, and I am sure that vengence was had upon you. But what brings you resurrected so? I already know my recreator..."

 

"There is something wrong with this power plant, I was sent to investigate it. I saw blood outside..."

 

"Ah yes. Do you like my handiwork?"

 

Mega Man looked incredulous, "you... you did that. All those people. So much blood... WHY!?" incredulity turned quickly to fury. His blaster pointed directly at Metal Man's chest.

 

"Because I could. And now I will destroy you, because I can"

 

...

A computer terminal stood by itself in front of a large tubular vat, like a massive pill on its side. The terminal flasked various warnings: a clog in intake valve 3, massive structural damage in tank 3, intruders on all floors, massive power drains in the capacitors, red alerts in all sections, and blood on the monitor screen. Various bodies are strewn about the room; limbs and sections haphazardly thrown around, as if this was nothing more than a sick slaughterhouse. A single figure stood, the blood on his metallic skin nothing more than a shiny spot on his blood-red paint job. His programming was much more complex than Bubble Man's, he was built long after the aquatic failure. Bubble Man was not self aware like he was, and it looked like this blue fighter was not aware as well.

 

Where had he seen this robot before though? He scanned his memory databanks for anything related to this fighter who had amde such short work of Bubble Man, granted it wasn't that hard to begin with. The semi-functional metallic ape was made from poor materials, and his programming was froma time when Wily was drinking far too heavily. Ah! A hit, and a memory? From a time before his metamorphisis, interesting. A pre-crysalis bretheren? He accessed his memory file...

 

 

Interesting, records show that this blue fighter was destroyed completely a year ago. How could he be here right now? It was not like Dr. Light to build robots that were of the same likeness, he was a man who beleived in the sanctity of individualism. Even when it came to his creations. No, this had to be the same dull-eyed, robot from before, somehow survived. The records were wrong, he decided, but it was now time to correct them.

 

This blue-fighter had been firing at the walls to release himself for the past two minutes, and it looked about time that he would get out. The blood-red robot pulled out his three weapons. Each identical to the last, they were pure adamantium metal disk blades, exactly like his name. Metal Man. And this Blue boy was going to taste them. Call it: post-mortem justice.

MegaMan looked anxiously about him, the tank was supposed to be his entrance inside of the powerplant, however it more looked to be an underwater tomb. The absence of bubble man forced him to look at his surroundings with new eyes. No longer were the walls something to protect his back in case he would need a place to go against, now they are constrictive bariers against his next goal.

 

The intake duct was full of debris from the other grating, the water still flowing but barely. He took inventory of the smooth walls surrounding him, something was missing he though. This couldn't be it entirely. Something was nagging at the back of his head, why were the walls so thick?

 

He walked  up to the edge of the tank, placed his hands upon the smooth surface and scanned the materials. Three inch thick iron coated with a wide array of non-rusting metals, perhaps this is why it was able to take several blaster shots without much more than dents.

 

 

Duh.

 

Rock decided that there was no real point in trying to bust his way through the clogged vent, then crawl in pontentially to a turbine. Instead, with the determination of his namesake, he began firing into an already highly dented area.

 

...

The grating of the massive intake valves were made short work of by MegaMan's blaster, the pieces were easily sucked into the chamber. The ground shook desperately, as if the plant was choking on the pieces of grate. The massive generators turbine's tried to turn the water though to cool the reaction but the grating had clogged it too full.

 

MegaMan walked into the antechamber, a large water-filled room meant to hold water for the reaction. Today though it held two humanlike figures, one of them being a short blue boy, the other something of a tall diver. His entirety looked of cheap metal, his face obviously an aluminum composite with something of a snorkel protruding from what should be a mouth. His body was a metallic green wetsuit with flippers for feet. His left hand a trident. The right an open tube, obviously meant for some sort of weaponry.

 

Instantly the tank was a cacophony of sound and fury, although underwater it looked more like the green robot was swimming around MegaMan, with Rock firing back. The green robot pointed his tubular weapon at MegaMan, and there was no indication that he had fired until he was pushed to the edge of the tank, as if an invisible hand decided it was time for a "time out". The green robot floated downwards, slowly and methodically, keeping his tube pointed at MegaMan which kept MegaMan pinned to the wall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bubble Man walked nonchalantly to his pinned prey, his quarry had just closed his eyes, obviously given up already. Too easy, he thought, how could this little robot have defeated the first generations? He drew his cannon back and thrust his other arm towards the small blue robot's chest.

 

 Too late!

 

 His eyes had opened, and right arm already transformed into the blaster and was held directly to the Green diver's chest. Just as the adamantium trident pierced into the blue robot's chest, MegaMan fired point blank, shoving the other all the way to the other end of the tank. He bounced against the thick wall, dropped to his knees and fell face first. Bits and pieces of his insides floated outwards, various wires and circuits.

 

Rock walked slowly over to the fallen Bubble man, unsure of whether or not the one shot was enough. When he reached him, he dropped to one knee, placed his hands on the fallen Bubble Man's head.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three shots later and there was only fist sized chunks left of bubble man. Now to find a way out.

 

....

MegaMan sprinted down the streets of New York, not noticing that the cars were unmoving, or that the crowds parted for him far too easily. He payed no heed to the gawking stares after him, nor to the fact that the foot traffic was going the opposite way. Somehow the crowds still knew that terrorists had taken the nuclear plant and were attacking humans. The normal reaction of humanity to disaster is to get a good view, despite the danger. But this time something was different, the dark whispers in the corners of shadows of the mutilation of everyone who had decided it was their perogative to follow instinct. Rumor still spread that there was enough blood that it flowed into the streets, reddening the asphalt with effortless ease.

 

The long shadows of the morning shortened as he ran, the crowds coagulating in the streets. Something was blocking them far into the heart of the city, but MegaMan could not turn to see. He slowed to a walk to protect from running down the crowds. He may have been shorter than most, but he had a good 2 tonnes on them.

 

The tall buildings receded onto the horizon, the end of the street was in sight but the crowd was at a standstill, the cars thick and the people were squeezed tight in between. No one could move the mass of bodies, the fear thick in the air. MegaMan spun in place. Even in the mass of bodies, they kept their distance from him. A small circle formed around him, people staring openly at him. Some whipsered to the person next to them, some had their mounths wide open. And a small girl whispered "It's Him. Is he going to save us again mommy?"

 

Now MegaMan noticed the crowds strange behaviour towards him and tried vainly to remember why they would stare at him but nothing came. The clouds surrounding his past remained stalwart and he vaguely wondered if his CPU was blocking them from him. Either way, crowd or no crowd; stares or no stares; memory or no memory, he needed to travel the 300 meters needed to get to the river. The plant was no more than 200 meters west from the rivers edge here.

 

He climbed onto a yellow taxi, its inhabitants long gone, judged the distance and leapt high into the air. He did a small flip at the apex for aesthetics - if I am going to be breaking things, may as well look good while I am doing it. He landed hard onto a car twenty meters away, crushing it underfoot, glass flying in all directions. People cried out in pain as the glass cut deep wounds. I need another plan.

 

Rock looked to the buildings again, his mind flying. He lept up again, this time smashing into one of the glass structures. Glass flew inside, and he walked silently to the stairs and climbed upwards. No one was inside the building, the offices were closed from the power failure. After twenty minutes he finally reached the top of the building. He snapped the lock guarding the door to the very top of the building like a twig and walked to the edge. Looking down he could see clearly the masses of people moving outwards and attempting to leave the city. He also saw the power plant and a red moat surrounding it. He coughed, choking on his own memories - Cut Man. The name formed in his mind clearly from his past, the shadows receding slowly. But how could he rember if he was just created? Why does he have the memories from a past that he could never have been a part of? And why does he have memories from the same time of living in Dr.Light's lab?

 

He pushed the questions aside and focused on his task at hand. He striked out his mission of recce-ing the plant and put in a new one: Find who had killed all these people and eliminate him. But first he would need to get to the plant.

 

He leapt from building to building, his leg accuators showing strain on landing. Knee joints registered several problems, but nothing that the nanobots inside couldn't handle. Ironic, he thought, that these first injuries to himself were to prevent injury to those he never knew. Why would he care so much about finding a slayer of humans? He was not one of them. MegaMan knew exactly what he was. A masked façade, an abomination meant to look, sound, and even interact like a human. But there was no humanity inside of him. So why do I care so much about them? he thought.  Musing still as he jumped he found himself suddenly out of buildings to jump to, already at the end of the city.

 

The large river stretched before him, and the plant was much closer than he had calculated. There was pools of red leaking into the ocean, staining the brilliant blue that had come from emmission free fusion reactors and the effort of over a million people to preserve the beauty of their massive city. Large dam walls stretched towards the sky, the only barrier between the cityfolk and the impending doom that would be the oceam should they fail. Only twenty meters to the water's edge, MegaMan's CPU told him. He judged the necessary nanobots required to fix his knees upon landing and put them on standby release. Walked to the opposite edge of the building and ran full speed to the building's edge.

 

At the last minute an idea hit and he crunched his legs to the building's edge and rocketed outwards to the water's edge. A part of him prayed that the water was deep enough to break his fall without doing any real damage, a part of him calculated it. Ten meters from the break in the air, he angled his body perfectly and slipped into the harbour's water without a splash. He pierced the waters perfectly and swam, keeping the momentum from the twenty story fall lancing him towards the plant's water coolant intake pipes.

 

His memory served him correctly, the schematics perfect. The pipes were more than large enough to house him. HIs momentum slowed in the waters high density. Thankfully the water was deep enough that the blood from the slaughter above did not redded the already murky depths. It did however cloud the sunlight above, a grim spectre masking the golden rays. It approached nine. MegaMan sunk to the bottom of the harbour and walked to the plant, slowly in the viscious murky depths.

 

Rock stood at the pipes minutes later, however here the waters were a deep crimson, almost an unholy vermillion. His sensors registered an energy signature approximately ten meters directly ahead. Someone was waiting for him.

 

...

The sun rose high upon the skies of New York City. The honey sulnight spread across central park, pouring over the trees, sparking upon the small lakes, and waking the hobos. The pigeons and the ducks walked around the water's edge, feasting upon the bread of the vagrants. Both smelled of years without love, time without homes, and the stares fo people who cannot see you. All of the homeless in Central park had given up that humanity would be able to help their cause, the empty looks and the emotionless replies "sorry I hae nothing to spare" eventually wears down the iron resolve of survival. They welcome the sun for her indescriminant warmth, she does not care if you have nothing. They hate the sun because she ushers in the new day, and when you have nothing to live for, each day is worse than the last.

 

Jerry was just such a vagrant. He was eighty years old, far older than the other's, surviving by stealing from the runners of the night. Stealing was justified by the laws of survival, and by the code of necessity. He would not die so long as he could still walk. He had seen almost anything a person could have seen in their life. He had even seen what it was like to have a life, he was not a hobo for his entire life; he was not a child of the streets. He had seen the beauty of sharing the pathetic portions so two people might live instead of only one. He had seen the horrors of the night done to the lone women. Many times.

 

He had seen almost everything under the sun, the strangest has been just the night before. The bright lights of the city had gone out entirely, something that had not happened since the city had built its own nuclear reactor. The voice was also the voice... like the low buzzing of a saw. What did he say, again?

 

"Let the people hear that Wily will no be defeated again. Light fails to the east. This most populous city will be the first to be burned to the ground, first you will suffer in the darkness as we have. Then you shall see the most beautiful light."

 

The voice however was not really heard, the words were more manifest in the mind. Like he was reading it in his mind's eye and knew how the voice would sound. And so the city suffered in darkness until the sun rose, and people, sensing that this was not a joke for the power was not back on, began to try to flee the city. However for all their conversations with each other about the voice, it became inherently clear that no one heard it, but they all sensed its message and they began to panic. And the entirety of New York City became the vagrants and the homeless because their cars would not start. The trains would not run. And planes would not fly, nor even get to the runway.

 

The city became paralysed, nothing would work. It was if physics decided to take a holiday without telling anyone.

 

Jimmy woke up with the sun as he always did, his hangover just beginning to kick in. He quickly took a swig of whiskey to fend of the impending the headache. He looked up into the trees to the bloody sky of the rising sun and saw the second strange thing in two days. A tiny speck of light appeared overtop a tall oak and began to grow. It reminded him of water, only milky yellow and bright. It stretched and formed itself into the shape of a small human, by this time a small crowd had appeared to watch the tantalizinl apparition. As if released from a cage, the light spread suddenly causing the crowd to look away briefly. They looked back to the spot and saw nothing, eyes darted around until somone pointed to the center of the group and there lay a small boy wearing a strange blue uniform. He seemed to be talking to myself, though the surrounding persons could only catch a few words. "large energy surge in the vicinity of the reactor" and "investigate" were the only things they could pick out.

 

Moments later the boy rose to his feet, looked around and took off in a full sprint towards the seaside. The crowd parted out of instinct, you don't live too long on the streets by staying in the way of people with pleaces to go. Besides something more intersting was beginning, the park was being filled with scared people. People who would not watch their pockets...