CHAPTER EIGHT
Unexpected Guests
The first thing she noticed when entering the kitchen was Blues sitting at the table with his back to her. The coffee maker was humming and she assumed he or Dr. Light must have turned it on. Smiling cheerfully, she walked over and said, "Good morning, Blues!"
The person turned, and Roll blinked in shock. This wasn't Blues. There was a distinct similarity, especially from the back, but this boy looked slightly older, with a different angle to his features in some places and bright green eyes. He also lacked the yellow scarf and sunglasses.
"I'm not Blues, but good morning," he said, smiling. "Roll, right?"
"Who are you?" Roll demanded. It wasn't very polite but she didn't think a stranger barging into her kitchen deserved much in the way of courtesy. "And what are you doing here?"
"Name's X," he replied, offering a hand, which she ignored. He withdrew it, looking slightly disappointed. "...As for why I'm here... It'd probably be better if Dr. Light explained."
Roll opened her mouth to give him a piece of her mind, but their conversation was interrupted when a tall man shuffled into the room. His immensely long, blonde hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail, and he looked very haggard and irritated.
"Hey, Zero," X greeted him. Roll stared. "You don't look too happy this morning..."
"Your brother's damn dog kept me up all night," Zero said through gritted teeth, plopping wearily into a chair and running a hand through his tangled hair. "The stupid thing came into my room at like two in the morning and started growling at me, so I went to kick it out of the room, and of course it tried to bite me. And then, once I'd gotten it outside and shut the door, it figured out how to turn the doorknob!"
"Why didn't you just lock the door, then?" X asked.
"I did that next, and do you know what it did?" Zero seized a lock of his hair in frustration. "It picked the lock!"
X couldn't help but laugh at his friend's predicament. Zero buried his head in his hands. "S'not funny, X."
"On the contrary, I find it to be very amusing."
"Brother's dog? What are you talking about?" Roll asked, looking from one man to the other.
"You know, the stupid red thing," Zero said, waving his hand in the air. "Rush, or whatever its name is. I swear, it's like it thought I was gonna kill you all in your sleep or something, though at this rate, the only thing that's dying around here is it—hey, is that coffee?" He perked up, noticing the coffee maker buzzing on the countertop.
"You do know caffeine doesn't do anything for us, right?" said X, as the blonde man jumped to his feet and began searching the cupboards for a mug.
"It's the placebo effect, dammit," Zero replied cheerily, finding a mug with a bright floral pattern and beginning to fill it.
Roll stood there, gawking at the two. "What are you?" she said finally.
"We're incredibly advanced robots from about a century in the future," Zero said casually, now rooting through the refrigerator. "Got any milk...?"
"What!"
"It's a long story, Roll," X sighed. "That's why I thought it would be better if Dr. Light explained, but I suppose I could..."
"No need, X, I'm here," Dr. Light said from the doorway.
"Father!" Roll cried, looking relieved. "Who... what..." She gestured wildly at Zero, who had found Rock's carton of milk and was now stirring his coffee, humming.
"It's very simple," the doctor said, smiling slightly at his daughter's bewildered reaction. He went on to explain briefly about Rock's time travel excursion. "...And so, Zero and X will be staying here for a while, until I can build a new device to send them home," he finished.
"X is... my brother?" Roll asked. Dr. Light nodded. The girl turned to X, who gave her a sheepish smile. She stared at him for a moment, then enveloped him in a hug.
"I'm glad to meet you," she murmured, as he returned the gesture warmly. She pulled back a moment later, laughing. "I'm sorry," she apologized, "I know I've probably done that before in your time. But..."
X was silent. Roll blinked. "...Did I say something wrong?"
"...It's nothing, Roll," X said. "I'm glad to meet you too."
She paused, a chilly realization beginning to creep through her systems. "...I'm not there, am I?"
X slowly shook his head.
Roll stared at him, then hugged him even tighter than before.
"You look so cute like that," Zero teased, sitting down at the table with his mug. X glared at him.
"I'd better get breakfast ready," Roll said, reluctantly pulling away from X. She looked in the refrigerator and sighed. "I still have no soy milk to make pancakes... I'd better run to the store. Rock will be hungry when he wakes up." She walked to the door and hugged Dr. Light. "I'll be back in a half-hour, Father."
"Take your time, Roll," he replied, "And be careful."
"Of course. See you, X." And she left the room.
"She hugs everyone but me," Zero pouted.
X looked askance at him. "You better not be thinking of hitting on my sister..."
Zero looked appalled. "Of course not! She's like, twelve!"
"You've flirted with rookies barely out of the factory, Zero, age isn't a factor. And besides, you're 'like twelve' too."
"Thirteen," said Zero huffily. "And I'm not going after anyone who looks like a kid, thanks."
"How shallow of you..."
"What side are you on, X?" Zero said, exasperated. X grinned. Zero scowled and stomped on his foot.
"Ow!"
"I'll let you boys be, then," said Dr. Light, sounding highly amused. "I'll go collect the paper."
He left the room, and a few moments later, X stomped on Zero's foot in retaliation. "Ow!"
There was a noise outside, and Rock shuffled into the room in his pajamas, rubbing his eyes.
"Good morning, Rock!" X said, pulling his feet out of Zero's range. Zero scowled and poked him in the arm.
"Good morning, X," the little robot replied, pulling up a chair. "Did you sleep well?"
"All right, I suppose."
"Was the guest room not comfortable?"
"No, I was just... thinking," X explained.
"You do that too much, X, it's not healthy," Zero teased.
"And you are a prime example of how not thinking can benefit your health," X said, rolling his eyes.
"I got better!"
"No, I don't really think you did."
"See?" Zero grinned. "Don't think. You're catching on."
X groaned, and Rock laughed. "Zero wins!"
"But... never mind." X sighed.
Blues took that opportunity to walk into the room, already dressed in civilian clothes and wearing his scarf and sunglasses. "Morning, little brothers," he said. "Glad to see you're up."
"Hey, Blues," Rock replied. "Where've you been?"
"Oh, around," Blues said mysteriously, taking a place at the table. He looked around the kitchen. "Where's Roll on this fine morning?"
"She went to the store after hugging X to death," Zero said, sipping his coffee.
"She's not going to be happy that you were in her kitchen without her supervision, Blues," Rock teased.
"Yeah, yeah..."
"What'd he do?" Zero asked.
"He just can't cook," Rock replied. "His failed attempt at scrambled eggs brought the fire department down on us once. I honestly don't know how he survives when he's wandering around on his own."
"It's not like I have to eat, you nitwit," Blues sighed. "Besides, there's always fast food."
"Robots can't live on spicy chicken sandwiches alone, Blues."
"Heh, that's what you think," Blues replied smugly.
"Am I really related to them...?" X asked half-jokingly as he watched his brothers bicker.
"Says the one who has a weakness for bacon cheeseburgers," Zero said.
"Quiet, tofu-boy."
"Hey! It's not my fault it's a good alternative..."
"It's good to see how well our family is functioning," Dr. Light said, reentering with the morning paper.
"Good morning, Father!" Rock chirped.
"Morning, doc," said Blues.
"Howdy again, gramps," said Zero. X glared at him. "...What?"
Dr. Light laughed. "It's okay, X. Don't look so upset. It's quite funny, actually." He took a seat at the table, scanning the headlines. There was a piece about the disturbance downtown the previous day, sporting a large picture of Rock and Blues' battle with Bass.
"So Roll went out?" Rock asked.
"Yes, she needed some milk," the doctor replied. Rock looked shifty. "She should be back within a half-hour, and then we can all have breakfast together."
"I hope she gets me some more cereal, too," said Rock.
Blues glanced at him. "That stuff you eat is nothing but pure sugar. How can you stand it?"
"It's not like it makes me hyper," Rock said, shrugging.
"You could fool me."
"Oh, very witty."
"You have some interesting older brothers, X," said Zero, amused.
"Um... thanks?" X replied.
"Well, let's see what's on the morning news then, shall we?" Dr. Light said, standing up and walking to the counter, where he switched on the small television set. The screen began showing the local news channel, and an overhead view of the city with smoke pouring from buildings and robots rampaging on the ground. The bar at the bottom showed that it was live footage.
"This looks familiar..." Blues said.
Dr. Light sighed. "Can't we have one morning of peace without having to send Mega Man out to save the world?"
"You're telling me!" said Rock, standing up grumpily.
"I'll go with you, bro," Blues said. "Wouldn't want you getting into trouble before breakfast."
"Wow, that's two days in a row you've volunteered to come fight with me. You're losing your mysterious touch, big brother," Rock teased.
"Are you saying you'd rather me let you get the tar beat out of you, then conveniently appear with an E-Can to save your life at the last possible minute?"
"...not really, no," Rock said.
"You sure? Because I'd be fine with it."
"All right, all right," Rock said. "I'll leave you alone... sheesh..."
"Hey, can I come too?" Zero asked, looking very perky now that he'd had coffee and the promise of violence. "I'm good at killing things."
"And talking, and not much else," X said.
"You forgot dying."
"Oh, yeah."
"...Say what?" Blues asked.
"Long story," Zero said nonchalantly.
"Anyway, I'd better come as well, then," X said. "The last thing we need is Zero kicking the bucket here in the past." Zero made a disgruntled noise.
"Is it safe for them to come, Father?" Rock wondered. "I mean, I'm happy for the help, but couldn't it contaminate the timeline?"
"It's possible, but, I don't really think so," said X, shaking his head. "Very little information from this era has survived to our time..."
"No one looks too closely at robot attacks these days, anyway," said Blues. "They're too common."
"If that's settled, you should hurry, boys," Dr. Light said. "Roll may very well be in trouble."
"We'll go get our armor," X said, and the two reploids headed upstairs.
Returning fully armored a few minutes later, the four battle robots gathered around Dr. Light. "Since your teleporters won't work here in your past, X, Zero, I'll send you all through the lab's teleportation system," he told them. "This way, everyone."
The group trooped down the stairs to the lab. They all stepped onto the wide, circular platform in the corner, which looked very similar to the transporters in X's own era. Once they had situated themselves on the disk, Dr. Light pressed some buttons on the computer console and the group rematerialized in the smoking downtown.
------
They found Roll fairly quickly. She was in the middle of the road, shooting down robots with a bright red buster on her right arm.
"It's about time you got here!" she called, vaporizing a mettool that had decided to show its face.
"Since when did you get a buster?" Rock asked, staring at the weapon.
"I've had one for a long time," she said cheekily, holding it up. "The R-Buster!"
"And why is it more powerful than my Mega Buster?" Rock said, as she vaporized another mechaniloid without charging.
"Because Father trusts me not to accidentally burn down the house with it," Roll replied.
"That's so unfair..."
"Hey!" Blues said, as Roll took down in one blast a robot type that had taken him two. "It's more powerful than my Proto Buster, too! What kinda crap is this?"
X, meanwhile, had finished charging, and calmly unleashed a hurricane of plasma on a nearby group of robots.
"…And his is better than all of ours," Roll said watching as fifteen mechaniloids vaporized instantly.
"The doc always favors the youngest," said Blues.
"X, can I try that?" Rock asked, eyeing the gun.
"No," said X, and began charging again.
"Aww…"
"Less talk, more killing!" Zero said, slicing through three Sniper Joes with a clean sweep.
The five young robots moved through downtown, destroying the Wily-bots in their path. Rock rescued a little boy trapped under a smoking car, and X helped an old man out of the line of fire. For the most part, though, the human civilians had fled, leaving them free to blast the enemy mechaniloids without worry.
They eventually worked their way into the main square. Zero was just clearing out the last group when another robot rumbled into the area. It looked similar to the Mad Grinder Rock remembered fighting back at the beginning of the seventh robot rebellion. Indeed, it looked rather haphazardly rebuilt, with parts sloppily bolted and purple paint hastily slapped on. The strangest thing about it, however, was the robotic arm jutting from the back of its head.
The group stared at it for a few moments.
"…That robot has a problem," Blues said finally, summing up everyone's thoughts.
"No kidding," said Rock.
"...I'm more worried by the fact that it's clearly made with technology far too advanced for this era," X said, as the robot brandished its arm and ignited the beam saber clutched in its hand.
"But it still has an arm. Coming from its head," Rock said, unable to get over the absurdity of the creature's appearance.
"Wily's clearly lost it," Blues agreed.
"You just now noticed this?" Roll asked, arming her buster.
"No, but now he's dropped so far down the crazy meter he's almost coming back around the other end."
"That takes some talent," said Rock.
"Man, this is so wrong," said Zero, dodging a swipe from the saber.
"This thing offends my optics," Blues agreed, taking a firmer grip on his shield. "Let's just trash it and move on."
The mechaniloid growled, and attacked.
------
Bass had spent a cold night in a clearing outside the city, working to remove the tracking devices he knew Wily had installed in him and Treble. Fortunately, he'd had a look at their blueprints before and knew where to search. Removing Treble's was simple enough, as the robotic wolf had no synthetic flesh to get in the way, but his own was a messy process. By the end he was shivering, coated in dark red coolant, and feeling very ill.Damn you, Wily, he thought, savagely grinding the tracking device he'd extracted under his boot. He leaned shakily against a tree, absently watching as thick dark red liquid dripped from the hastily bound wound on his upper arm. It was fortunate Wily hadn't put it in his chest cavity or head, as he didn't have the tools to remove it from there without killing himself. As it was, though, he felt bad enough, and fell into an uneasy slumber against the tree.
He awoke stiff, sore, and extremely thirsty; his body craving liquid to replace the coolant lost the previous night. The bleeding had stopped and the wound had mostly closed, thanks to his nanites and auto-repair systems, but he knew sudden movements would reopen it. Tying the bit of old cloth he'd stolen from someone's trash more securely around his arm, he carefully pulled his jumpsuit and armor back on. He stood up and stretched carefully, wincing as he accidentally jostled the injury, then gently nudged Treble awake. The wolf stood up and licked his hand in a comforting gesture.
"Come on, boy," Bass said, patting him. "We'd better get moving…"
He stopped, his eyes on the sky above the trees where some of the city buildings were visible. A column of black smoke rose into the air.
"Oh, heck," he sighed. "Well, we won't have a problem finding them… Treble, come!"
They merged, and Bass rose into the air, speeding towards the city.
------
"That thing was no joke," X sighed, wiping a splatter of mechaniloid coolant from his helmet. The group now stood around the shattered remains of the oddly-shaped robot, surveying the situation. Blues reached down and picked up the discarded beam saber.
"This is definitely future tech, though," he said, turning the object over in his hands. "Wily's never built anything like this before..."
"But how did he get it, then?" Rock asked.
"I don't know," Blues replied. "Unless..."
A purple bolt fell from the sky. Bass released the merge once he was on the ground, and approached the group with Treble on his heels.
"Thought I'd find you here," he said, stepping over a broken met.
"Bass!" said Rock, eyes narrowing. He raised his buster and trained it on the black and yellow robot. "You promised you wouldn't tell Wily about our time-travel!"
"What?" Bass began, but found four more busters aimed at him. He raised his hands slightly. "Whoa, I—"
"That robot was clearly using future technology," X said, the Maverick Hunter tone back in his voice. "You seemed like a decent person before, but I suppose I was wrong. For you to tell someone like Wily about time-travel—"
"Would you all just shut up and listen to me for a minute?" Bass cried.
"Why should we?" Rock said. His buster arm wavered slightly and he moved his other hand to steady it. "You betrayed us!"
"Sigma, that's why!" Bass said, deciding to cut straight to the heart of the matter. "Sigma is here, at the Skull Fortress!"
"What?" said X.
"No!" said Zero.
"Who the heck is Sigma?" said Roll.
"...Is this true, Bass?" Rock asked, staring at the Wily-bot.
Bass nodded. "I don't go back on my word. I didn't tell Wily. Somehow, Sigma must have come back with us, and now he's teamed up with the doc."
"Why would you be telling us this?" X asked. "You work for Wily, don't you?"
Bass didn't answer.
"There's something you're not saying, isn't there?" Blues said softly. "You're not exactly as confident as you normally are."
Bass remained silent. Damn Proto Man's perceptiveness... But the longer he kept quiet, the more suspicious they would get, and he was in neither the mood nor the condition for a fight right now. "...I'm..." He faltered. It hurt his pride to tell them. He didn't want them to see he was a weakling who was chased from his own home. But this had been his plan anyway, he told himself, and it was his only option left.
"...Wily tried to kill me, alright?" he said finally, glaring at the party as if daring them to laugh.
"What?" Rock asked, startled.
"He said that I was obsolete," Bass continued. Having started speaking, he was now unable to stop the flow of words. "That the only reason he built me was to kill Mega Man and after that I'd be useless to him. He never intended to keep me around after he took over the world, and Sigma showing up just gave him incentive to get rid of me sooner. Treble and I barely escaped with our lives."
"...Bass..." Rock began.
"I don't want your sympathy, Mega Man," Bass snapped, making up his mind. "This isn't the end. I'm going to show him the mistake he made. I will bring down Wily's entire war machine, by myself, if I have to. He will pay for this. I'm no mere tool for his twisted madness." He clenched his fists.
"Fighting for revenge, then?" asked Blues.
"What I'm fighting for now is none of your concern," Bass said, scowling at the older robot. "All you need to know is, if you're going to stand against that old fool, I'm going with you."
"I hate to break up this display of bravado," said X, skeptically, "but how do we know we can trust you, Bass?"
"You don't," he replied.
"...I trust you, Bass," Rock said.
"...Rock. This could all be a trap," X warned.
"And what if it isn't?" Rock challenged. "What then? Do we just leave Bass to face Sigma alone? I can't bring myself to do that."
"...The kid's got a lot of heart, doesn't he?" Zero observed. X nodded. "And anyway, we have to check and see if what Bass said is true. If Sigma really is here, we need to stop him immediately. And we could use the help, if that's the case."
"What about you, Proto Man?" Bass asked, eyeing the mysterious robot. "I know you have something to say."
Blues straightened his scarf. "If Rock trusts you, well..." he shrugged. "That's good enough for me."
"Hmph. You two are too nice for your own good," Bass said, which was as much of a thank you as they could ever expect.
"Well, I'm going to be keeping an eye on you, Bass," Roll said. "I'm not letting you mess up the lab like last time. It took me weeks to clean."
"I suppose I deserve it," said Bass.
"Is that an apology?"
"No. But it's as close as you're going to get."
"His attitude hasn't changed much," Blues observed.
"Watch it, old man," said Bass.
"More like hasn't changed at all..." said Rock.
"So... Sigma has allied himself with Wily?" X asked.
"It seemed like he willingly made himself Wily's subordinate," Bass confirmed. "It's strange."
"Sigma's never taken orders from anyone before," Zero said, frowning.
"And no one's answered my question!" said Roll. "Who's Sigma!"
"A very, very bad guy," Rock answered her.
"That explains so much, Rock," Roll said, sighing.
"I know! I'm good at these things!" Rock said, smiling. Blues rubbed his temples.
"She has a point, though," said Bass. "We don't know that much about him."
"...It'll take too long to explain about him in detail here," said X.
"Well, it wouldn't be wise to rush headlong into Skull Fortress," said Blues. "Why don't we go home so you and Zero can fill us in?"
"Yeah, and we can have breakfast!" Rock cheered. "I'm starving!"
"You're a robot, you can't starve," Roll pointed out.
"Details!" said Rock. "I'm starving!"
"Hmph. Well, he has a point," Roll admitted. "We may not need to eat, but Father does, and if we leave him there by himself any longer he might try 'experimenting' with cooking again..."
"Can't be any worse than Blues' attempt."
"You just won't let things drop, will you?" Blues sighed.
"X, your family could have their own sitcom," Zero remarked, as Blues called Dr. Light to arrange for transport home.
X turned his eyes heavenward. "All we're missing is the laugh track..."