Mega Man rushed to find Dr. Light as soon as he returned from the planetoid. "Dr. Light!" he called out. "Doc Robot never had the Energy Elements! He'd left them with his Maker all along!"
"Mega Man!" Dr. Light called out breathlessly. "Dr. Wily has stolen Gamma!"
"Then he was behind this all along!" Mega Man proclaimed. "I'll pursue him right away! I left a tracer on the capsules." He paused as he turned. "...I probably should have used that instead of chasing Doc Robot..." With that, he beamed out to follow Dr. Wily.
Dr. Light let out a sigh of relief. "Here he comes, Al," he murmured.
Mega Man made his way quickly through Wily's Fortress...which was actually his second Fortress, the one that never blew up, but following a different path to get to where Wily had secreted Gamma. Between his seven Master Weapons and Rush's three modes, Mega Man was able to get through many obstacles readily.
He faced the first Fortress Guardian underwater. It stayed well out of the water, using air jets to try and make Mega Man slam into it, while occasionally sending out green turtle bots to attack Mega Man. To penetrate the hard shells more efficiently, Mega Man used Needle Cannon on the turtle bots. After destroying several of the turtle bots, the guardian exploded.
In the next segment of the Fortress, Mega Man had to climb up...and up...and up. After that, he used Rush Jet to clear a large segment filled with spikes.
The Guardian of this section proved to be a creature made of yellow ooze controlled by a black sphere...a being Mega Man's systems registered as the Yellow Devil. The ooze flew around the chamber in sections, trying to hit him before the beast fully reformed to shoot at him from its eye. At first, Mega Man had a hard time dodging the ooze chunks.
"Geeze, is this a fight or a dance?" he demanded angrily, before pausing, taking another hit. "Wait a minute...my internal gyroscope is reinforced when I'm using Top Spin..." Switching to Top Spin, he used the improved maneuverability of the reinforced gyroscope to evade each of the chunks more easily, several times looking a bit like he was break dancing. And since he wasn't actually using the weapon, he didn't run out of energy.
When the Devil reformed, Mega Man quickly switched to Hard Knuckle, attempting to knock the core out of the body. While that didn't work, it did seem to damage the core quite effectively.
Following this pattern, Mega Man was able to conquer the Yellow Devil.
The next segment of the Fortress was very straightforward, with few obstacles he had trouble with. The only difficulty came in a large section with moving platforms surrounded by spikes as he had to climb up. Because of the pattern of the platforms' movement, Mega Man had to be both careful and fast. He made it to the other side out of breath, but otherwise fine.
The guardian of that part of the Fortress proved to be hard light hologram versions of him. Remembering how he dealt with Gemini Man, he sent out his Search Snakes, which proved supremely effective against the holograms.
The next section of the Fortress involved moving downward while facing robots that looked like they were made of junk and threw blocks of junk parts at him. One teleport capsule later, and Mega Man found himself surrounded by teleport capsules. Each one led him to duplicates of the robot masters.
The first he faced was Needle Man. "Ready for a rematch, bub?"
Mega Man lifted his hand. "Did you know my buster has a fire governor?"
Needle Man blinked. "A what?" he asked in confusion.
"It governs the rate at which I can fire either my standard weapon, or the weapons I got from you guys," Mega Man explained. "I can turn it off, and fire all the sub weapons insanely rapidly...but that burns out my buster."
Needle Man stared at him. "And...why are you telling me all this?"
"Because I brought a spare buster," Mega Man explained, "along with a Weapon Energy recharge tank. So I've turned the governor off."
Four rapid fire Gemini Lasers later, Needle Man was a smoking husk.
Six other Robot Masters went down just as easily...but the eighth teleporter - the one that would have led to Shadow Man - had shut itself down by the time Mega Man got to it. Dismantling his arm, Mega Man swapped the burnt out buster for the fresh one. "Convenient," he muttered, heading through the final door.
The last teleport capsule took him to the final section of the Fortress, which dropped him down into a large area. Dr. Wily came out in a large Death Machine, which was basically his saucer attached to a walker, with a gun at the bottom that launched blasts that flew at Mega Man in a spiral. "Mega Man!" Wily proclaimed. "This time you will-"
Before Wily had even finished speaking, Mega Man had fired several Spark Shocks into the gun, causing it to explode.
"Hey!" Wily complained. "I wasn't finished-"
Calling Rush, Mega Man launched himself into the air, firing off several Hard Knuckles at the glass cockpit now that it was visible, shattering it.
"You used to be so polite," Wily growled, shaking his head disdainfully before it popped off his neck on a spring.
Mega Man blinked. "A copy?" Turning, he raced towards Gamma.
Mega Man managed to get to Gamma before Wily could make it take off. Using its dock as a platform, Mega Man was able to blast away at the primary control unit until it burst, forcing Wily to take direct control.
"I'm going to crush you, Mega Man!" Wily roared angrily.
Mega Man leapt onto Rush's back, carrying him up to Wily's cockpit. "I don't think so!" he shouted as he threw himself into a flying kick. Switching to Top Spin, he activated it, drilling straight through the cockpit dome and into the controls, frying them.
The kick also punched through the back of the cockpit, taking Mega Man and Wily out as Gamma began to explode. Mega Man took a heavy hit from falling debris and blacked out.
While he was unconscious, Protoman grabbed him and took him back to Light Labs. Shadow Man grabbed Wily and went to meet with Wood Man, Crash Man, Air Man, and Doc Robot at the new fortress, where Vinyl was already settled in.
As Mega Man awakened in Light's lab, he blinked. "...I didn't catch Wily, did I?"
"No," Dr. Light replied. "You didn't."
"How...did I get out?"
"Your older brother, Protoman, rescued you."
Mega Man's eyes widened. "I have an older brother?" he gasped. "Why haven't I met him?"
"You have," Dr. Light replied. "He's been secretly pushing you, testing you, to make sure you were ready for what was to come...at least he was, until you punched him in the face."
Mega Man glanced away, blushing.
"Still, I consider this a success," Dr. Light indicated. "Not only can Dr. Wily not use Gamma, but it's been shown just how dangerous such a robot is in the wrong hands...and the fact that it can't function as designed, since you defeated it so easily."
Mega Man managed a smile. "Thanks Dad," he said softly.
Vinyl glowered up at her father, grumbling under her breath. She understood that it was especially cold and covered in snow outside the new Fortress, but she felt this was excessive. She had a fur coat, after all. She didn't really need a parka, snow pants, thick boot snow shoes for all four hooves, a snow hat tied under her chin, a scarf covering her face under her glasses, and - the ultimate indignity - a hand knit horn cover! It didn't help that she couldn't even be angry about that since her Daddy had knit it himself for her specifically because he knew how sensitive her horn was to extreme temperatures, and she could see the bandages covering his hands from all the times he stuck himself with the needle. At least he'd stitched a nice pattern of blue and white, reminiscent of both her mane and tail and the discharge of her sonic disruptor.
"There now," Wily declared happily. "Now you're safe to play in the snow. Enjoy!"
Grumping and grumbling under her breath, Vinyl waddled out of the Fortress and into the snow. She blinked in surprise as she saw another Fortress not too far away. Confused, she decided to investigate.
Waddling up to the other Fortress, she knocked on the door. A young blond girl with green eyes wearing a red fur coat answered the door. "Da?" she asked curiously before gasping at the sight of the figure at the door. "Oh, is this someone's snowman joke?"
"Nmph!" Vinyl grumped through the thick scarf.
The young lady gasped. "There is a creature in all that? Come in and get warm!" Pulling Vinyl inside, she set her next to a warm fire. "Where did you come from, malyutka?" she asked as she slowly unwrapped Vinyl.
Smiling, Vinyl pointed towards her Daddy's new fortress.
"Ah, you are new neighbors!" the young girl replied. "Daddy will be so pleased to meet...tiny unicorn?" she asked in confusion as she finished unwrapping her guest.
Vinyl smiled up at her. "I'm Vinyl Scratch Wily!" she introduced herself happily. "What's your name?"
The girl smiled. "I am Kalinka Cossack. Wait, Wily? You are Dr. Wily's daughter?"
Vinyl nodded happily.
Kalinka clapped her hands together. "My Father has always vanted to meet your father! He will be so happy we are friends!"
Vinyl grinned widely in response.
I foresee this as going badly.
YAY!
Oh I'm gonna enjoy this
I have no idea who that is at the end... Regardless, good chapter.
wait didn't wily force a scientist to do his dirty work in Mega Man 4? if so i think i know who vinyl is going to meet
A great chapter. But I have no idea who the Cossacks are, could you explain?
Now I want a gif of waddling Vinyl!
SOMEPONY EXPLAIN TO ME THE REFERENCE!
6567045
6567057
In Mega Man 4, Wily kidnaps Kalinka Cossack to force her father, Dr. Cossack, to use his Robot Masters to take over the world for him.
In the original timeline, anyway.
Good story. I know that you probably heard this suggestion before, but either way, Vinyl creates Bass. Sounds like a name she would come up with, doesn't it?
Now THIS is the Mega Man I've always envisioned!
... So wait, if Dr. Cossack has been meaning to see Dr. Wily, I can only interpret one scenario for this: The next "game" is going to be staged from the start... oh well, I imagined this to be a possibility, anyways.
A horrible chill runs down your spine...
Wonderful chapter, just one little thing that bugs me:
Most knitting needles I know are big and blunt, like chopsticks or a well-used crayon. However, I could see him poking himself if he used a regular needle to try and embroider her name into it after the initial knitting. Then again, I'm no expert, and maybe the needles used for really tight loops happen to be sharper than I've seen in my experience.
omg the mental image of Vinyl all bundled up like that made me DAWWWWWWWW soooo hard. stop making me love this obvious megalomaniac...no matter how cute and adorable she might be.......*looks vinyl scratch in eyes.- Must...resist....adorableness.....*lasts all of .000765 seconds then caves and finds myself working as Vinyls personal back scratcher*
6567057 the supposed evil doctor from megaman IV, until it was discovered that willy kidnapped his daughter and forced him to use his robots to attack
Never played a single Mega Man game, and most of my Mega Man trivia comes from an old webomic (Bob and George).
Enjoying the hell out of this story anyway.
Say, are you going to incorporate side stories/spin offs like the Stardroids and Battle and Chase? Cause I would really love to see a Wubmobile!
6567082
How would Megaman be out of breath if he's a robot? The only explanation I can think of comes from Reploid Anatomy 101
Here is the summary if the link doesn't work:
Breathing can act as a means of cooling a robot's/reploid's reactor when heavy damage is taken and/or heavy exertion has been consistent.
6567309
No.
6567318
Basically, exactly that.
Ohhhhhohohoho, this is gonna get crazy.
I liked the Complete Works OST of Megaman 4
My favorite things about Megaman 3 were the controller 2 glitch and the music that played when Megaman was running across a grassy field while the original robots made by Dr. Light were scrolling at the bottom of the screen. The best part was the controller 2 glitch could be used to allow for the entire theme to be played.
The link to Megaman 4 at the end of the chapter was a nice touch.
6567145 That or he used the wrong needles. Robotics and knitting are not exactly related topics after all.
Ah yes, I have been wondering how MG4 was going too happen and i like where this is going...
Hello Megaman 4.
Huh. Kalinka and Vinyl are going to have a sleep over at Wily's fortress, while Wily and Cossack work on some project.
*Gets the popcorn a popping* Oh yes, the lolz will be epic
6567676
He probably used needleman's needles
Ahhh! Clever clever!
6567346 Heh, glad to see I wasn't the only one wondering about that one, Tatsu.
6567210 I have a feeling this time around it's going to be more along the lines of the two girls using their combined powers of cute on their fathers to get their way, resulting of course in trying to take over the world in order to get whatever it is they're after, since that's the only sensible way to go about it. I detect adorable shenanigans in the future!
I got he funniest feeling'...
6567057 *splashes cold water*does that work?
wait wat whos the new kid and vinyl wrapped up the way you described is adorable somepony has gotta draw it
Vinyl interacting with Kalinka is adorable. I can totally see them having a sleepover and lots of fun. And Dr. Cossack would be rubbing his head at the music Vinyl would introduce his daughter to. I'm eager to see how the events of the 4th game unfold, though I would like to see Rush get sent at Skullman just for laughs.
I loved Megaman's strategy for the boss rush, well done. I can't wait to see what he comes up with when Dr. Light gives him the improved and chargeable Mega Buster.
6569444 I think she is related to heavy from tf2 if the Russian words and red outfit is anything to go by.
Vinyl is behind the design of Bass, isn't she.
It must be raining televisions, the ground is covered in show.
6567346
So no Quint, AKA evil, insane, time traveling Megaman?
vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/megaman/images/3/36/Quintconversion.jpg
vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/megaman/images/1/17/ArchieQuint.png
6574261 She's talks similarily to the way the Heavy does in Tatsurou's TF2 crossover...so it's either a reference of sorts or just his subconcious playing a hand in the writing.
Meeting with the Cossacks, hm...:3
You know knitting needles are blunt right?
6567145
My mom had small long ones too but yes I've only seen blunt ones
man, a takeover attempt failed, wily on the hook for it, but hey, at least vinyl made a new friend, and potentially wily will have someone to talk with as a neighbor.