FicWad


Chapter 25: Man Down

Zelda and Link found the door down a short hallway. "He had to have gone in there," Link said. "He made it this far."

Both of them were hoping against hope that Mega Man hadn't taken some obscure hidden path and ended up in the bowels of the dungeon, nor had they missed his broken body in a bottomless pit. The path down the hall led them in a straight line down to this small corridor. Link and Zelda rushed down the hallway, ready to burst open the door. Link grabbed the doorknob and pushed it inward.

"It's locked!" he exclaimed with a quiver in his voice. "You didn't pick up a key when you were in here, did you?"

"No," Zelda said.

Link began slamming his shoulder against the door, trying to use brute force to open it, a tactic that never worked, but still had to be tried.

"I've got something better though," she said and pulled out a bomb from her pack.

"That won't work. The door is metal," Link said dejectedly.

"It won't work on the door. It will work on the doorknob." She took out some rope as well and started tying the blue orb to the doorknob. It hung just under the handle, the wick grazing against it. Zelda loped back down the hallway as Link followed close behind. Once she had reached midway she pulled out her bow and arrow and shot the wick. The string became alight with fire and burned quickly down.

"Cover your ears," Zelda said as she turned away.

A massive explosion rocked the hallway. Smoke billowed down the passageway in great puffs. Link turned back and saw the doorknob had been blown to smithereens.

"Precise explosive targeting," Zelda said. "Let's go."

Link rushed ahead with a scream and kicked the door down. It fell easily inward as Link landed on the set of stairs. He saw a considerable collection of moblins circled around something in the corner.

"Zelda!" Link called out.

"Got it," she said, and started pulling out arrows and firing them rapidly. The moblins disbanded and started after the two as Link dived in and rushed the crowd with his sword. He screamed a primal battle cry and began slicing through beasts left and right. He blocked their weapons coming at him easily and spun around in a circle, blowing charged magic energy out in a wave. The moblins were shifted back as Link continued his ferocious assault. Zelda continued giving backup as moblins surrounded Link. The power of the sword and arrow kept them at bay.

"That's right, get closer, you monsters. Have some of THIS!" The light in the room seemed to darken as Link stretched his sword to the sky. A thick column of lightning streamed out of the blade. Link screamed as he spun around and around, shooting the lightning out like spider legs, blowing the moblins back, vaporizing many of them. The sheer power of the lightning was enough to blow through their defenses and reach even those in the back.

Their numbers diminished, the moblins scattered and flew out of the room by the back door. Link fell to one knee as Zelda covered him with her bow and moved to his side.

"All you all right?" she said.

"Good thing you gave me that potion," he responded. He turned and saw what the moblins had been gathered around.

Mega Man lay there down on the ground, his head tilted to the side, as if he was all tuckered out. His armor contained numerous scratches and indentations, torn apart in some places. Link and Zelda approached him, looking down on him like parents over a sleeping child.

Mega Man opened his eyes and looked up at his cohorts. "ErroR... LiNK... Need... helP..."

Link looked at Mega Man's wounds. "What... what..." He moved closer to Mega Man's body. The weapons had penetrated his armor, but what was inside didn't make sense to him. The metal had been torn outward, so he should have been able to see skin or blood, but instead there were abundant pieces of metal and green boards with thousands of smaller pieces on them. Metal rods and gears filled his body. His armor was a hollow shell, filled with these parts.

"What... is this? Zelda, look," he gestured to her. She came over and looked at the same thing Link was seeing.

"I don't know," she said. "Link..."

"I... It's not a wound... it's... what is it?"

"Link, we can't worry about that now. He needs our help. Let's get him back to the palace."

"I can see right through him."

"Come on," she prodded. She started by picking up his feet and hoping Link would follow suit.

Link looked sadly at Mega Man's fallen silent body for a second and picked up Mega Man's shoulders. They began carrying him out of the hall.
It had been nearly half an hour now. Link nervously paced around the hallway like an expectant father. Mega Man was in the room on the other side of the closed door, where all the wizards, fortune-tellers, and doctors of the castle were huddled around him, trying to diagnose his illness. The finest minds in the castle were working on him now. That should have set his mind at ease, but despite all he'd tried, he felt responsible for Mega Man's well-being


Thoughts raced through his mind at galloping speeds. The reality had finally hit him. All his unusual behavior wasn't just the result of a different world, it was the result of a different form of life. What he had seen defied all explanation. Even magic couldn't be used as an excuse, because Mega Man was not magical. Somewhere along the lines, Link had just stopped seeing him as a stranger and started seeing him as a fellow hero.

Zelda came down the hall and saw Link. She bit her lip tensely. "You're still here?" she said. "You should go wash up. Dress your wounds."

"I'm not going anywhere until they tell me what happened and how it could be fixed."

"Link, there's nothing you can do about it now. We just have to trust them in there that they can come up with a solution. Standing out here worrying about it isn't going to change anything." She put a hand on his shoulder to comfort him.

Link sighed and turned away. Zelda kept her hand on him. "All along I thought he was just another human with really good metal armor. I thought maybe he had some sort of magic in it that allowed him to do those sorts of things. I came up with every excuse in my head of why he didn't do the things that normal people did. Now I find out he really can't do any of those things - he can't eat, he can't breathe. Why did I just ignore all the signs?"

"I don't know. He isn't like anything we've ever seen before. You couldn't really know what he was, you had to try and interpret it the best you could."

"He did all these things that weren't human. He had an arm that shot... lightning pellets. I don't even know what they were. Energy or something. There's so much I really don't know. And he's been by my side for so long. How could I not know any of this by now?"

"You weren't the only one. We all selectively heard what he was trying to tell us. None of us knew what he was talking about half the time. The things he said were so unusual we just chalked it up to his bizarre origins. One look at his clothes and you just knew he was different. Being a... a robot was natural to him, he never saw a need to volunteer the information. Coming through a portal in the middle of the woods gives you a little leeway to act a certain way."

"No, we were just too ignorant. Mega Man was right. Everyone here just looks out for themselves and themselves only. We only care about survival and profit. None of us are trying to better ourselves or our land. We've just fallen into a rut. Everyone thinks the status quo is great, so no one is trying to get anything better. If we were more advanced we could save him."

"We don't know if he can't be saved yet. Don't talk about him like he's in the grave."

"We don't even know if he goes to a grave! What the hell is he, Zelda? How do we fix him? Potions won't work, fairies won't work. He doesn't have organs to be repaired. He doesn't have a soul. I want to save him, but who would have the slightest idea how? It's like a monkey trying to build a house." Link threw up his hands. "I don't even know if he can die. What if he's locked in that state forever, with that jittery speech and his body all banged up. What if he stays that way forever like a retarded child? What are we supposed to do then?"

"Link, calm down. Please. We're going to do all we can for him, but you're not doing any good, you're making us all nervous. We're looking to your for guidance. You're the one who knew him best. We're going to need your help, if you want him to survive."

"Zelda, I don't know if I do. Maybe he's better off this way, rather than drafted into fighting for Hyrule, being the same as me. Gawked at by locals, prodded by scientists, hated by others. What kind of life would he have here? Not being able to partake of the simple joys of life like music and eating... and breathing, even. What if... what if he's a monster?"

There were no words. Zelda put her arms around Link's body as he tucked his head into her chest. Link just tried to breathe in and out and not think.
Bill knocked on the front door, which was already open.


"Hello?" he asked.

The blond robot was sitting in a chair, perched at a console. Two jacks were plugged into either side of her head through her ears. Bill didn't know much about humanoid robots, only the little worker drones they set him up with. He wasn't sure if interrupting one was gonna result in a system crash or data interruption or whatnot.

"Hello? Miss Roll?" he again tried to rouse her attention as nicely as possible. He walked into the computer room, a bit intimidating for him, and approached her. She had her eyes shut like she was deeply concentrating on something. The monitor in front of her was zipping though lines of information too fast for him to understand what they were. He looked back and forth between the two, trying to figure out what was going on. Maybe Roll was in the computer, and had to be talked to that way.

"Roll? Miss Roll?" he waved his hand in front of her face to try and provoke a reaction.

"Almost finished," she said.

The mustached man jumped back in surprise at her sudden statement. He guessed there was nothing for him to do but wait, as she said.

In a flash, Roll opened her eyes. The computer screen froze. "Yes?" she said sweetly as she reached under the machine.

"Um," Bill said. "The security system's back up at full. Internal and external. We've also wired a long-range radar that'll alert the armed forces if anyone tries a stunt like that again."

"Excellent." She pushed a button and a transportable diskette popped out of a slot. She began writing on it with a nearby marker as he was talking.

"We're about ready to pack up now. We're going to leave the mettools and a few others here, they've got some work to finish up, but they'll come back to us once they're finished. But all us humans are going home, unless there's anything else you need."

"No. Thank you for your assistance. On your way out, please set this on the living room table. Make it noticeable for anyone coming in."

She handed the diskette to him. The label read 'VASE RESEARCH'. "Oh sure, no problem," he said. "Is this what you were doing before?"

"I was finalizing and downloading all my research before you came in here. I feel now I am ready."

"Ready? For what?"

"To go after Wily."

Next Chapter: System Failure