FicWad

 Chapter 15: Finding a Clue
"I didn't get a very good look at him. He was meant for stealth though - all black, padded feet. All I could see were those eyes. They didn't seem human, they seemed to almost glow. It was weird."
"Hmm," Zelda hummed. Her, Link, Mega Man, and Horace were sitting at the meeting table, discussing last night's attempt on Link's life and its possible implications. "This matter is getting more and more severe all the time. I sincerely believe that this is related to Advisor Noktwor. Horace?"
"I cannot say one way or the other. Although, I have disciplined him for his 'threat' on your life. It appears it didn't scare him enough. Of course I can't reprimand him for this - not enough evidence."
"Whether the two are related or not is immaterial," Mega Man said. "He may have just been a mentally unstable person. Link has made some enemies in the criminal underground. Clearly, staying at the castle is no longer a safe option."
"I'm almost certain whoever stole the pendants is behind this," Link muttered. "But what's the connection?"
"Master Link! Master Link! Oh my goodness gracious." The Seer pounced into the room and skittered up to the table. "It's real. It's real!"
"What?"
"The cloth. The cloth with the fourth Triforce piece." He waved it in the air excitedly.
"What? You're kidding. Are you sure?"
"I am. See these runes? They're from a tongue spoken before the Book of Mudora, but I was able to deduct what the characters translated to. These runes mean that the fourth piece is the element of unity. When it's combined with the three others, it will grant the one who touches it the power of the three gods. They will be omnipotent. God-like, even. They could literally do anything."
"Anything?" Link took the cloth and looked at it. He studied the inked image of the four triangles, separated by only a small space, all glowing with energy. The surface circle of runic characters had no meaning to Link.
"It's crucial. Crucial to the fate of the world. You must find it, Link. Oh, must find it."
Link remained extremely skeptical. So skeptical he could have plastered a wall with all the skepticism. "The Triforce of Unity, you say?" Link said. He looked longingly at Zelda. She came up and looked at the cloth over his shoulder.
"Where did the old man say he got this from?"
"A treasure chest that washed up on shore. No other information about it. He also gave me a copper mushroom, and said it would help me on my quest," Link said. "Is there any prophecy about questing for the fourth Triforce piece?"
"Er... I'm afraid not. None that I can find."
"Well, then you better write one. I'm going."
"Link, you can't do this. Once this gets out, everyone in the world is going to be looking for it and they'll stop at nothing."
"I can't afford to wait. The next thing to wash up on shore might be that piece. Besides it's not safe to stay in the castle anyway. Next assassin might be meant for you."
Zelda grunted in frustration and threw up her hands. "We need to solve this mystery, now! Horace, get every man you can on it. I want this culprit found out. I want this conspiracy exposed."
"Already done, your majesty," Horace bowed and walked out.
"I'm not going to let anyone or anything stop me from proving who is guilty," she muttered resolutely to herself. Zelda turned back to Link. "Link, you just got back from one quest, and you were lucky enough to finish it right away. Don't go off on some wild cucco chase."
"Adventures are what I do, Zelda. It's what I was made for." He turned to Mega Man. "Will you come with me?"
"Me? You want me on your adventure?"
"I could really use an extra hand," Link said. "You've proven yourself before."
"Maybe I should stay here, in case they find a way to send me back home."
"I really wouldn't worry about that. Unfortunately," the Seer added.
Mega Man looked down dejectedly. So it would take that long? What was Mega Man going to do with himself here. Until he found out, he would follow the only friend he had made here. "I would be honored," he said as he stood up. "But where are we supposed to start looking?"
"There is always some clue. Sometimes it's small, you just have to keep your eyes peeled for it." Link reached into his pocket and felt the copper mushroom bulging out.

Mega Man was nowhere to be found. No evidence that he was destroyed, no record of him having left, no trace of him. To say Roll was worried would be an understatement. Nonetheless, she was made to follow orders. Upon unsuccessful completion of finding Rock, she now had to search through the mansion for whatever object Dr. Wily had stolen. So far it was also shaping up to be unsuccessful.
Dr. Light had never given Roll image memory, only schematic memory, meaning that she didn't have exact pictures of what the mansion should have looked like, only what was supposed to be there in terms of pure data. With the state of the mansion, the hopes of finding the lost object were slim to none. Anything that was not broken was accounted for. The pictures in the drawing room, the furniture, tablecloths, vases, the fireplace poker, even the little glass unicorn on the shelf was there.
The story was the same for each room she looked in. Everything matched up with her records. Every nook and cranny, from the largest piece of equipment to the smallest chotchke was accounted for in her databanks. She looked in safes, all the money was there. The technical documents were all accessible. Broken pieces of paintings and shot up furniture littered the less cohesive parts of the house, but they too were accounted for. The foodstuffs matched up to the inventory, although she had no idea why robots would want to steal a taco.
Roll was beginning to feel like this search for a needle in a haystack was a waste of time. She had the same abilities as Mega Man now, she could fight, she could take down Dr. Wily... if she knew where he was.
She entered Dr. Light's bedroom, the last room she had thought to search. She opened all the drawers, finding clothes, mostly consisting of dress shirts and slacks, all neatly folded. The counts matched what was present compared with what was in laundering. The dresser's surface contents also stood tidy. A photograph here and there, a small box for cufflinks, some personal mail still to be looked at. That was all there. The bed itself was smooth and unfettered. Dr. Light's nightstand was undisturbed. The end table next to the dresser had its contents - pencils, paper, scissors, folders - all there. The painting above the end table, displaying a mishmash of purple and red colors was untouched. The adjacent bathroom had nothing out of place. All the cleaning utilities, the sonic shower, the bathtub. A place for everything and everything in its place.
Roll exited the bathroom, frustrated. She sat on the bed and opened the nightstand drawer with a touch of the button. A puff of air thrust the drawer open and she pulled it out the rest of the way. Again, not really expecting to see anything she tussled through the contents - a tissue box, some shoe polish. Roll pulled out an old book to see the bottom of the drawer. Old junk rattled around in the plastic insides. Roll pulled her hand out and sighed.
She noticed a white piece of paper coming out the book, trapped therein. Curious, she opened to the pages it was stuck between and found it was an old photo album. Roll didn't realize Dr. Light had one of these. They were even printed on photographic paper, not just stored in Photo Display Units like the one on top of the dresser.
Roll smirked happily as she began paging through the documents. This was a side of Dr. Light she had never seen before. There were pictures of him with his family, his friends, people she had no idea of who they were. One picture showed him standing with four university professors on a graduation stage. Another one showed him in his younger years, before he grew a beard, wearing a college mascot sweater and cooking on a hibachi barbecue.
She practically giggled to herself as she looked through page and page of old memories. Lots of them were of Dr. Light as a younger man, either working at computer stations or mechanical environments or at social gatherings. She had no idea he had so many lady friends in his youth. One was a picture of Dr. Light standing next to a metallic endoskeleton shaped like a human. He was grinning ear-to-ear, his demeanor contrasting with the mechanoid's cold faceless expression. A true testament to Dr. Light, he was delighted as ever to be working with humanless machines, making them more human.
Further into the book, Roll found pictures of Dr. Light in his years of working with Dr. Wily. Some were of them working in the lab, busily slaving over computers and wires, some were of them attending social functions and conventions. In these, Dr. Light always seemed genuinely happy, putting his arms around the shoulder of his companion. However, Dr. Wily always had a fake smile emblazoned on his leathery wrinkled face. His eyes gave him away. Early evidence of Dr. Wily's dissatisfaction of life. Roll wondered why Dr. Light kept pictures of his nemesis in his album. She would think that he would want to forget about the man who betrayed him and destroyed his creations.
Soon Roll finally found pictures of Dr. Light holding a disc called RockNRoll AI Ver 2.0, with a humongous grin on his face. This must have been the human equivalent of a sonogram picture for Dr. Light. Moving forward she found pictures of their slow transformation, from skeletal structures to circuitry and onward to having a protective outer shell to even having hair and eye color.
The next page was a full top-down body shot of Rock and Roll lying next to each other, possibly moments before their activation. Rock had a white t-shirt and blue shorts on. Herself had a pretty red dress, the one she wore every day. Roll smiled to herself when she thought about the early days, learning about the world with her brother Rock. Exploring the house, being taught by their creator how to perform the tasks they would be doing. She wondered if they would ever be able to go back to those times.
The following pictures reinforced her memories as she gazed at shots of Rock and Roll standing next to the oak tree outside, washing dishes, repairing a light fixture. It seemed that the smallest menial tasks were milestones in the mind of Dr. Light. Still paging through, she found a picture of Rock, Dr. Light, and Roll sitting in the bedroom, the exact same spot she was sitting now, in fact. Rock was giving the victory sign, while Dr. Light and Roll looked at the camera and smiled. She remembered this moment. This was when one of Dr. Light's colleagues - Dr. Cossack - came all the way from Russia to visit them and wanted a picture of the three of them for remembrance. Apparently the photo studio had made a double of the print and he sent one to Dr. Light. This was a great picture of them, Roll thought. They looked like a real family, working together, playing together, with mutual love for each other. Roll couldn't imagine a life without them. With Mega Man lost and Dr. Light in an unknown medical condition, she wondered what would become of her if they disappeared. Who would there be to serve? She wondered if she was ready for that kind of independent thinking and action.
Roll lamented how much things had changed since this picture was taken. Rock's goofy grin showed him like his former optimistic, fun-loving self, Dr. Light the doting father, and Roll the shy but loving sister and daughter. Now Rock had become Mega Man, forcing a drastic attire and personality change. He had become so much more serious in his years, the burden of keeping the world safe and justice preserved had created an almost visible burden on his shoulders. Roll had become more sarcastic and jaded. And Dr. Light had become worry-worn, constantly battling Dr. Wily from the sidelines, racing to keep his technology updated and upgraded. Maybe that's why people took still photographs, to keep memories frozen in time, preserving what was good about what had happened past. Roll tried to envision a future where Rock was still wearing his white t-shirt and blue shorts, where he still grinned from ear-to-ear at having his picture taken. Where Dr. Light had a successful robot enterprise without needing to worry about the fate of the world. Where his bedroom seemed like a sanctum. Not a place to keep memories preserved but to live those memories, memories where Dr. Light, Rock and herself sat on this blue bedspread and took pictures of the bedroom with his dresser, his end table with his vase, his colorful painting on the wall...
Wait, that vase...
That vase wasn't there before.
Roll looked behind her at the end table. No vase.
She looked again at the picture. Vase.
That was what was missing.
Next Chapter: Belief in Fairies