//------------------------------// // VSW-016: Void // Story: Wily's Wittle Wub // by Tatsurou //------------------------------// (Kenshinryuu's Suggested Listening) As Mega Man started his fall, he angled himself so his head was straight down with his feet straight up. He was familiar with this sort of thing from movies and video games he'd watched and played with Vinyl, and knew that he would need to keep his speed as high as possible while still keeping control. Checking the plasma rifle, he was unsurprised to discover that it had a limited ammunition supply. He'd have to be sparing with his bullets. Coming up from below, several floating drones opened fire on him as they swirled in a circle. Tilting his body, he managed to dodge to either side of the incoming bullets, he carefully shot each drone out of the sky. As the last exploded, a sphere of light floated up to him to be absorbed into the gun, replenishing the ammo and improving its firing capacity. Holding it forward, he readied for the next assault as he fell through the atmosphere. As his speed increased, the drones started coming faster and faster, and in more complex waves. When he missed one of the drones in a group, he cursed as the energy sphere didn't form. Thankfully, each collected sphere replenished his ammo fully, no matter how empty it was. The different colors of light added different effects. Red gave him additional damage. Yellow increased the number of bullets the gun fired in a spread (which thankfully didn't increase ammo consumption). Green restored his own energy from the few times he took damage. Blue generated a temporary energy shield that absorbed hits for him, giving him a bit of breathing space. Orange temporarily added a piercing effect to the plasma bursts, letting them punch through drones to damage the other drones below them. Once he was fully in the atmosphere and gravity returned to normal, new hazards presented themselves. In addition to the waves of drones, the clouds sometimes had mines hidden inside them, which caused the rifle to lose its upgrades when he took damage from them, even if the shield was up. After discovering that, Mega Man worked to avoid clouds as he fell until he caught sight of the tower. With a desperate spin, he managed to go in the open top of it rather than to one side, certain that missing the tower would bring failure. Inside the tower, turrets mounted on the inside of the walls shot at him, forcing him to evade. Much to his frustration, he discovered that he couldn't destroy the turrets with his plasma rifle, and they continued to track him even after he went past them. Thankfully, they couldn't track him too far beyond their mounted points. After a time, a much larger drone appeared with several turrets mounted on its body as it fired on him. Mega Man did his best to dodge as he fired a few probing shots at the large creation, discovering that most of its body was invulnerable to damage. The turrets, however, weren't. Shooting the turrets caused them to break and eventually explode, releasing the spheres of light to replenish ammo and other effects. Once he managed to destroy all the turrets - while evading both weapons fire and a few charges of the large drone - the drone's armor broke off, revealing numerous tendrils armed with lasers and the inner core. Thankfully, these parts could now be damaged. With the drone finally destroyed, Mega Man found himself teleporting straight down...where he landed deep below the Tower, and found Vinyl waiting for him on a high platform. (Suggested Listening) "Nice job on getting this far, Mega Man!" Vinyl praised. "I knew you could do it! So...Death Machine time!" With that shout, the lights came on, revealing that the 'platform' she was standing on was actually a giant effigy of Wily's head, fully robotic. It grinned widely at Mega Man, revealing 21 teeth. As it came online, familiar blasters came out of the ears as the eyes glowed. Leaping back, Mega Man did his best to evade the infrequent sonic disruptor shots - which still had to recharge eleven seconds between shots - and the lasers from the eyes. Each tooth glowed in sequence, firing off a different Master Weapon Mega Man had faced before from Wily's robots...not including Metal Blade. After a time of the barrage being evaded, the creation's mouth opened wide and fired off a massive sonic disruption blast which Mega Man was only just barely able to slide under. The mouth then closed after Mega Man got a few shots off, discovering that the focus crystal for the larger Sonic Disruptor was the creation's weak point. "Next time that thing fires, I win!" Mega Man shouted out as he started charging the buster on his left arm for the Skull Blast. Vinyl giggled. "Looking forward to seeing how you do it!" she cackled. "But I don't think you can do enough damage!" "You'll see!" Mega Man shouted out, cycling the Variable Weapon System in his right buster to 'It Burns!', the weapon from Bad Chef. "That won't do you any good!" Vinyl proclaimed as she danced in excitement. "My Death Machine is immune to all damage from weapons I designed!" "I don't intend to use it to damage this thing!" Mega Man proclaimed as he dashed forward just as the mouth opened wide again. "I'm using it to control a weapon that will!" As the mouth opened completely, Mega Man thrust his fully charged left buster forward as he triggered the Master Weapon in his right. The flames shot out from his ass, propelling him forward to slam his clenched left fist into the focus crystal, cracking it. While keeping 'It Burns!' active, Mega Man released the Skull Blast, the flames behind him countering the recoil so all the force of the blast went into the crystal, destroying it. As the Death Machine exploded, Vinyl leapt clear of it, landing beside her father as he stepped out. When the explosion cleared, Vinyl smiled up at Mega Man. "That was fun!" she proclaimed happily. "We should do it again some time!" Mega Man stared at her, not sure he was hearing properly. "Can I get some answers first?" he demanded. "Ask away!" Vinyl proclaimed happily.