Mr. X once more took over his duties as FART announcer, floating over the arena. "Sounds like we've had a couple of intense matches these last couple of rounds!" he called out happily. "I'm sure all of you enjoyed that. Here's hoping this next round is as exciting, especially since it seems we're getting mythical!" As cheers roared out, Mr. X lowered down to the first combatant. "First up is...Centaur Man!"
Centaur Man was, as his name proclaimed, a centaur. His body armor was mostly green, with yellow, red, and blue highlights. A brown horsetail hung from his equine hindquarters, and three large horns rose from his helmet. He let out a snort as Mr. X approached. "Happy ta be here!" he proclaimed happily, his voice somewhat slurred as he waved to the crowd with his right hand, the buster on his left arm shining.
"What can you tell us about yourself, Centaur Man?" Mr. X asked.
"There's really not much ta say, Wilbur," Centaur Man replied, blowing a raspberry between his lips as several of the older members of the audience laughed. "A horse...is a horse."
Mr. X groaned as he facepalmed. "Of course...of course..."
"Say hi ta Carol for me!" Centaur Man asked, gesturing to his opponent at the other end of the ring.
"...I'll do that," Mr. X replied, quickly moving to the other end of the ring. "And over here we have a steel angel of an opponent..." He examined the paperwork. "Experimental Space Compressor And Physics Enhancer...ESCAPE?"
"That's me!" the robot proclaimed happily in the high pitched voice of a little girl. Her body was very angular, plainly designed for speed and flight, with sharply pointed shoulder pauldrons and points at the end of her legs instead of feet. Two metallic angelic wings stuck straight out of her back, and a sword was attached to her right wrist. Her body was mostly blue, with an optic visor rather than an actual face. Despite being humanoid, she was most plainly robotic. Her joints and hands were gold, and her belly was bronze. She was plainly designed as a combat model first and foremost.
"So what do you hope to accomplish here in the tournament?" Mr. X asked.
"I'm gonna make my Daddy proud!" ESCAPE proclaimed proudly, retracting the wrist blade to pose with her legs spread and hands on her hips, thrusting out her chest, every inch a determined child.
Mr. X paused to wipe a tear from his eye. The way she acted reminded him of X-P0N3. "Alright then!" he proclaimed, raising his chair up to over the arena once more. "Combatants...prepare yourselves!"
Centaur Man climbed into the arena. ESCAPE flew over the boundary to hover in the air above the floor of the ring.
"Ready...FIGHT!"
Centaur Man lifted his buster to begin shooting, only for ESCAPE to vanish. Hearing a sudden surge to his side, he spun, only for ESCAPE to strike with her wrist blade as she reappeared, slicing his buster arm clean off. He gritted his teeth as he clutched the sparking stump, spinning to try and kick out, only for ESCAPE to warp away again. When she reappeared, she began opening fire with wrist guns. They weren't very powerful, but she'd already disabled his only ranged weapon, so she could take her time wearing him down.
Quickly realizing that this would eventually lead to him being taken out, Centaur Man decided to close the distance with a charge, aiming for an intercept course. Before he could get there, however, ESCAPE once more vanished, surging back into uncompressed space at the other side of the ring. Centaur Man spun to face her, now focusing on evading her assault while planning his next attack.
ESCAPE continued to circle, focusing on sniping. While this was taking a long time, she preferred to play it safe with one quick, debilitating strike before the opponent knew what she could do, then holding back at a safe distance and taking her time. She'd yet to lose a match this way, and she could always deliver a more solid strike later if the opportunity presented itself.
Clenching his teeth, Centaur Man tried for one more charge. When ESCAPE started to compress space again, Centaur Man activated his Centaur Flash. Unlike previous 'Time Stop' weapons, this one worked by creating a bright flash which put robotic brains into temporary sleep mode, freezing them in their actions but letting normal time and momentum still flow. As such, ESCAPE was locked up as she reappeared, her back to Centaur Man. Charging her, he delivered a double hind-hoof buck to the small of her back, sending her rocketing into the elastic boundary of the ring.
As she started to regain her senses, Centaur Man unleashed another Centaur Flash, sending her flying back towards him on recoil from the ring boundary in a locked position. Rearing up, he delivered the double hind-hoof buck again. He repeated this pattern three more times, keeping her paralyzed and pressing his advantage. As the last kick hit, however, ESCAPE broke along her narrow waist, her torso passing over Centaur Man and her legs passing under him.
The entire audience winced at the devastating blow...but ESCAPE floated up, her broken waist sparking as she pushed her systems. "I'm...not beaten...yet!" she insisted, drawing her wrist blade.
A towel fluttered down into the ring.
"And it seems ESCAPE's designer has thrown in the towel!" Mr. X proclaimed, stunned. "From what he's sent me, he apparently doesn't consider trying for victory worth ESCAPE becoming further broken!"
"But Daddy!" ESCAPE whined, despite her voice erroring from the damage she'd taken.
"While they may be dropping from the competition, let's give this pair a round of applause for a full understanding of what this Tournament is supposed to promote...the bond between humans and robots." Mr. X led the audience in applauding as ESCAPE and her designer left the ring, carrying her legs along with. "And let's give a big hand to our winner, Centaur Man!"
Lose, I assume
OK the E.S.C.A.P.E. robot is both cute and adorable.
I know these battles probably wont happen buuuuut:
7027310 Was going to remark on the same error myself.
7027340 Straight on battle yeah, Astro would win, but couldn't Mega Man combine powers? Or... Nope that's only WWW canon.
Well this was certainly one of the more... Spaced out fights.
Guess our opponent couldn't... ESCAPE the charge there.
I could say this match was over in a flash... But it wasn't.
Guess ESCAPE didn't want to finish the fight... Half heartedly.
... A reference to Charlotte's Web?... No, it's Mr. Ed, according to the Internet... I think?... This is one of those moments where I feel bad about being young.
Perfect, absolutely perfect.
7027315 I agree. Imagine if she were smaller.
Another enjoyable chapter. Great job.
BBBBOOOOOOOO! Why can't a female win?
7027669
Because the only reason there even are tournament matches is because the plot of game 6 was "Robot Tournament hijacked for World Domination plot," and I wanted to introduce the canon robots - the predefined victors - in something other than "sixth verse, same as the first" with a single chapter where we meet all eight at once.
Simply put, the eight canon robot masters? They are predefined as the victors of the matches. That was stated flat out when I asked for OCs.
7027682 Cool, cool. Are we going to get a longer fight scene though?
7027794
Unfortunately, writing fight scenes is not my forte. I'm doing the best I can.
That was fun, may I have another? Looking forward to more.
Keep up the good work. Deus tecum.
7027682 could one of the remaining robot masters be female?
7027878
Unfortunately, I'm going by canon, where all the Robot Masters are already established. The only two remaining are Knight Man and Wind Man.
7027802 I can volunteer to stretch out the next battle a little if you want.
7027669 Technically speaking a female RM did win. Centaur Man in the MM6 manga was revealed to actually be a woman masquerading as a man when Megaman blasted her helmet off revealing the long hair and feminine face. Since we've never seen His face without the helmet in any other continuity it's hard to say whether that's the MM6 mangaverse only or if all continuities have him in fact as a female pretending to be a male.
7027885 ....Trans bot! Yes!
I'm actually trans myself, so I'm in favor of this if Tatsurou wants to consider it.
7027883
No thanks.
7027885
Never seen that suggested anywhere else...although Bob and George did have Centaur Man identifying as female despite being a technically genderless robot.
7027914
Wouldn't that be the case, but backwards, with all the robot masters? So if you wanted to couldn't you just have one say they are (name) Woman instead of (name) man?
"And, no one can talk to a horse, of course."
7027914 Hmm...could be that Bob and George were referencing the MM6 manga when they did that comic. It would make sense though since that'd mean we'd have had the first female RM boss long before MM9 came out.
7027937 True though officially Centaur Man's name is just that. Probably to hide the face she's really a Centaur Woman for whatever reason she was hiding that in the first place. We do have 2 officially labeled as female though. Splash Woman and Quake Woman.
7027937
There are certain games I'll play with canon, such as the personalities and motivations, to make for a more compelling story.
But I won't change the characters themselves. That'd be like saying, for no apparent reason, the Forte was Vinyl's big sister instead of a brother.
7028003 fair point.
Any chance of a Second Annual Robotics Tournament?
7028021
I have no present plans to make one, since there wasn't one in the canon. However, I do intend to find someway of bringing a couple of these OCs back. I like them.
Be pretty neat to see a robot master modeled after Kakashi Hatake.
*puts away small book*
"It's time to go, now."
Does centaur man know that x is wily?
Nonono. It's pronounced, Escápè!!! *cough* reference *cough*
(I have no idea if I spelt that right)
7028063
A question, does this mean that you have already decided who will be fighting against Knight Man and Wind man?
7028502
I'll be deciding Knight Man on Wednesday.
OH MY GOD!!! IT'S JEHUTY!! Or at least a robot based off Jehuty, Zone of Enders is one of my favorite games of all time. Really wished Escape had won.
Oh, wow, my suggestion earlier failed to post... And I might still have a chance....
So, I DM when I can, and we found a rule set for Mega Man Table Top games... And the most interesting player was a Robot Ninja Pirate Squid.
Seriously. Someone played this, and played the robot personality well. Less advanced than an Android, and mass producible so his spare parts were cheaper. Hologram Projectors to do the ninjaing, pirating because... well... you know players, they really love robbing things. They first met at a raid upon a recently reemerged data center, intent on stealing the hard disks from the early internet, before the crash. And a squid, because... well, bugger me, I don't know. He claimed it was a Japanese model. I think it was also equipped with a UV laser. The gaming system called it a "Blacklight Laser".
So, if you're still taking ideas, there are all the tropes you can throw against a knight.
7027979 "Unless, of course, that horse, of course, is the famous Mr. Ed."
7027802 Your fighting scenes aren't bad, just short.
Have you ever seen the movie "Ex Machina"? That robot might be interesting to see in this timeline, but she might be a bit too advanced for this setting. Oh well, it's your decision.
7029845 STILL BULLSHIT.
7026410 You hide in corner's too? My prey never check there.
...too morbid? I'll go hide in my other corner.
7031822 [Insert Brian jaw drop.]
...seems possible.
Does her Daddy happen to be someone named Kirito?
7032641 Good thing I've got an eagle of a desert.
*Oomph*
Hey! That's my corner!
Liger Breaker wasn't mythic enough? Oh well. It was funner to read this way. We don't need an excited rookie and Tirek.
Escape... is super adorable. I seem to be enjoying the female robots in this tournament more than the male ones. Escape and Merkava actually seem like they'd make a near unbeatable duo, with Escape keeping targets from hunkering down and forcing them into Merkava's line of fire.
And while I won't ship Escape and Centaur Man since she gives off the vibe of being to young for that... I can totally picture her being to damaged to fly under her own power and getting a horseback ride from him so she can joust.
I thought she was gonnq escape by moving too far away and so going outside the force field.
Funny thing... turns out Centaur Man is actually Centaur WOMAN in the manga... and she's crushing on Knight Man. Never would've guessed.
7039632 OI! WHO TOOK MY HIDING CORNER
I love the fight here - even though I've procrastinated about reading this story.
7028882
Yes, that's the one I had based her off of. I do wish she had won, though.
ESCAPE is officially my favorite OC in this. Hands down best robot so far.
I'm sorry (not sorry) but I have to ask... does Escapay have short-term memory loss?