FicWad


Chapter 44: Got Item

"So I'm wandering all around this maze, no idea where I'm going. The only thing I have to guide myself by is the occasionally breaks in the canopy. I might as well have my eyes closed. And, all of a sudden, I feel something following me. But I can't really see it since it's so dark. It just feels like there's something following me. So finally I find the way out, and my eyes are burning from the sunlight. And then I turn around, and there's this monkey behind me," Link declared, moving his arms in fantastic fashion to illustrate his story.

Link was sitting on top of the table, with Roll adjusting the new beaded choker on his neck. She was attentively listening to Link's story while in the middle of one of the laboratories in the basement. They had just finished dressing him in his new apparel, which consisted of a light blue shirt hanging loosely off his torso, emblazoned with the symbol of the manufacturer, which Roll said didn't show a false allegiance to a different king, and some tan canvas pants. His trusty holding bag was still around his waist though.

Link continued. "So, obviously, I was a little surprised. It's not every day monkeys follow me around. But then this guy says," he raised his voice to a higher pitch, "'I'm KiKi the monkey! I love rupees more than anything! Can you spare me ten rupees?'"

"It spoke?"

"Yeah, I was surprised too. But, later, I figured it was some guy who got lost in the Dark World and became transformed. Although he sure must have adapted pretty well. He sure convinced me he was a monkey. There were a lot of stranger things in the Dark World. But anyway, so there's this panhandling monkey in front of me, asking me for ten rupees."

"What would it do with rupees?"

"I have no idea, but I figure, I had about 300 on me, and didn't know if I'd ever find a shop again or need money, so I gave him the ten rupees. And then he says, and all the time he's making this weird high-pitched squeak, 'Good choice! Now I will follow you around for awhile.' So now I got this monkey following me everywhere."

Roll finished adjusting the choker's size and pulled out the chair to sit down and listen to the rest of the story. Link was trying his best to get Roll laughing. Maybe the story just wasn't funny enough, maybe humor was different here. Still, it wasn't really meant to be laugh-out-loud funny, just a humorous anecdote while they were waiting for Mega Man to come back. And she was smiling.

"And he's following me everywhere. I'm trying to take down some Armos Knights bouncing around, trying to spear me, and he's just standing there, smiling." Link did the imitation of a complacent KiKi, sitting and waiting. "And I'm chucking my boomerang over and over as hard as I can." He motioned throwing a boomerang over and over. "And I'm like 'hello, is this all the help I get for ten rupees?' And he's just smiling there."

Roll nodded, encouraging him to go on. Link said, "So, I get up to the palace, and the door's completely shut. No doorknob, no keyhole. Nothing I can find. So the monkey, who's been standing there, hasn't said a word while I've been fending off practically an army, and he says 'If you pay me a hundred rupees, I'll open the door for you.' Now, ten rupees wasn't a big deal, but a hundred, I wasn't sure I could part with so easily. But I thought about it, figured I didn't really have a choice, and he climbs up to the roof and presses on the switch that opens the door." Link shrugged. "If I didn't find that monkey, or he didn't find me, rather, I wouldn't have been able to get into the temple. So... who knows."

"What happened to the monkey?"

"I have no idea. Maybe he opened up a shop with all the money I gave him. Kiki's Temple-Opening Emporium."

The doors opened then, and Mega Man entered, still wearing civilian clothing, holding a few green circuit chips and a rolled up scroll under his arm.

"What are those for?" Roll asked, squinching an eyebrow curiously.

"New upgrade. Dr. Light designed it from the hospital. I just put together the hardware."

"Dr. Light is letting you upgrade me? I dunno..." she said in mock sarcasm. "I don't know if I like having my brother messing around with my circuits. What if you give me the A.I. of a goat?"

"Oh, Roll, you know I'd do something much worse if I was gonna mess around. Besides the upgrade's not for you. Well, sort of."

"It's not? Then who's it for? Link?"

Link looked up with scared eyes, not willing to get torn apart and have metal put inside him.

"It's for Tango."

Suddenly, the door shot open and a green cat barreled into the room, being chased by Rush, barking all the while. Link tucked his feet up. The animals started circling Roll's chair, nearly making her fall over.

"Rush!" Mega Man called out. "Bad! Stop chasing her! Bad dog!"

Rush skidded to a stop at Roll's feet. The cat jumped onto the table next to Link, and started casually walking around like it owned the place and it hadn't just been frantically chased. Link looked at it closer. He noticed, as it started to lick its paw, it was a robot cat. It even had the same model helmet as Rush and Mega Man, and striped hindquarters and a tail.

"Is there anything here that's not a robot?" Link asked. "Do you even have robotic goldfish?"

"Sure. But those look more lifelike. Come here, Tango." Mega Man patted his hand and snapped his fingers. Tango ignored him.

"It doesn't work," Link commented.

"No, just Dr. Light was too good designing cat A.I. Tango, come here," he said more forcefully.

Tango, the cat, sauntered to the edge of the table where Mega Man was waiting for her and gazed straight ahead, seemingly bored. Mega Man, while waiting for Tango to decide if she was too good for listening to his commands, handed the scroll to Link. "And this is for you."

"What is it?" He took the thick scroll that felt like flat rubber.

"It's a bio on Dr. Wily. You were saying how it's important to know your enemy."

"Oh, yeah, thanks." Link opened up the thick paper as Rush pawed the ground and laid at Link's feet. The text on it was like a screen, finer than any ink he'd encountered. It was crisp and clear. He started reading. "Dr. Albert W. Wily was born in twenty-blah-dee-blah..." He mumbled off as he tried to read fast, memorizing the words by moving his lips. He wanted to get back in the action as soon as possible, not spend time reading.

"Okay, Tango. Open up," Mega Man commanded. "Come on, open up. Lie down. Do something I say. Please?"

Tango, after a few seconds of thinking about it, laid down on her stomach and flipped open a panel covering her back.

"Good kitty."

"So this is going to make Tango for me, like Rush is for you?" Roll said with delighted excitement.

"Yep, I think so. All we need to do is install this transformation chip and a few others. And this one needs to go inside you as well," he said, holding up various chips and boards. "It's a simple procedure. We're keeping her buzzsaw functions, just adding on new mobility feature. Dr. Light told me to keep it a surprise for you."

"Hmmph," Roll smirked.

"But he said you'd like it. It'll come in handy." Mega Man peered down inside Tango's dark body cavity and poked around, looking for an empty expansion slot, holding up an adjustment tool.

Meanwhile, Link perused the scroll. The biography was long and arduously written. If Wily had an ordinary past, there wouldn't have been nearly as much information. It went on and on about his childhood, the schools he grew up in, the education he received. None of that mattered. It was all robot schools that Link had no reference for. He'd never given extensive interviews, only a few scant blurbs for robotics magazines here and there, so the information was sketchy, and some things contradicted others. It looked like Wily had not been thinking straight for a while.

Then the page ended in the middle of a sentence. Link looked on the back, but there was nothing but textured squares, criss-crossed with green lines.

"Uh, Mega Man, where's the next scroll?"

"What next scroll?"

"Well, this thing just ended in the middle of the sentence."

"Touch that arrow on the bottom," he said with his fingers twiddling around deep in Tango's body.

Link saw a small arrowhead pointing to the bottom of the scroll below the text. He pressed it with his thumb and the words suddenly started moving off the page. Link yelped in fright and threw the scroll in the air.

Roll and Mega Man looked up from their work. "What's wrong?"

"The words are moving. I thought you had no magic in this world."

"It's just a roll-up screen. You load some data on it and you can take it anywhere. People use it for reading the news on the bus, for example. You use the arrows to scroll through the text," Mega Man said as he picked up the sheet and handed it back to Link, who took it cautiously. He trained his eyes back on the words and kept reading.

Mega Man returned to Tango and switched tools, putting in an electric screwdriver. "Okay, that should be it for Tango." He closed the back panel. The robo-cat opened its eyes and stood up again. It jumped off the table and went to play with Rush at Link's feet.

"Okay, all we need is to put this in," he said as he held up a board. "It's your connection interface to Tango."

Hey, Rock, Roll said as she offered up her arm and Rock opened a panel. Did you talk to Dr. Light at all about the transporter?

Not really. He said he won't be able to do anything about it until he gets back and has a chance to look at the damage.

What if he can't fix it? What if Link has to stay in this world forever?

Rock stopped for a moment and took a look at Link. He had stopped reading the bio, taking a moment to play with Rush and Tango on the floor, dangling a piece of string in front of the cat. If they couldn't get Link back to Hyrule, life would go on for him. He had shown he was easily adaptable to most of the culture changes. After some adjusting, he could live in this world.

But Hyrule couldn't. He'd shown that he was Hyrule's champion. Hyrule wouldn't survive without Link there to defend it. Apparently, the threat of evil was always there, and Link was the only one qualified to stop it. He was to Hyrule what Mega Man was to this world. The oafish king, the disjointed villas, separated by monsters. Link was the key to Hyrule's progress.

Link will survive, but the place he came from... He shook his head. I don't know. We have to get him back somehow. I've been to his world, and he's their only hope to keep it from the threat of tyranny and genocide. I certainly couldn't do what he does.

Well, then we've got to think of a way to get him back.

That's up to Dr. Light, if he can fix the machine.

What if he can't fix the machine?

...He has to fix the machine. Link will get back, one way or the other. There's got to be a way. We can't lose hope.

"Almost done?" Link asked, coming up to the two. Mega Man still had Roll's arm open and had finished inserting the chip.

"Almost."

"This Dr. Wily guy," he held up the scroll. "Sounds like a lot of madmen. Accurate view of the problem, insane view of the solution. You really can't defeat this guy?"

"What?" Mega Man said, feeling a little accused.

"I mean, Ganondorf has sorcery that I don't fully understand, but as far as I know, sorcery has no limits. But this guy. He's just a human. No special powers. You know his motives, you know where he is, you have all this technology, and you still haven't got him?"

"There are certain rules this culture has that yours doesn't. We can't just kill anyone who is attacking us. All humans have certain unalienable rights that can't be violated, no matter what they do. There have been times when I caught him, but his activities and rights are beyond my control."

Link picked up the scroll and found his place. "According to this thing, the first time he tried to take over the world, he escaped, then he was captured, then you thought he was killed and left for dead."

"I had no evidence to the contrary. I'm not sure whether that was set up or an accident, but I saw him crushed under debris from the castle."

"And you didn't check for a body?"

"I was incapacitated as well from falling rubble. I was taken out of the fortress to avoid its total collapse before I could verify anything."

Link skeptically went back to reading. "The next time he had someone else do his dirty work, and he escaped when he self-destructed his fortress, then he did the exact same thing. The exact same thing," Link repeated with emphasis, "Then this last time you caught him and he escaped from prison." He put the scroll down. "If you expect to defeat this guy you can't pull any punches."

"I have to pull punches. It's not only the law. It's also in my programming. I cannot harm Wily. The best I can do is capture him and bring him to justice. And quite frankly, that's all I want to do. He deserves to be punished for his crimes, not to die."

"Then maybe you need to get reprogrammed. What about all the people that this guy's hurt? And going to keep on hurting until he's gone. Isn't there some law against that. Isn't there a law that says the good of the many outweighs the 'rights' of one," Link said agitatedly.

"No. There is no law like that. There might have been debate about it in the past, and it might be instigated in the future. But for right now, in this time, there are only the three laws and I abide by them. If I don't, that makes me no better than Wily's bots."

"What's this 'no better' stuff? Wily harms a hundred humans, you harm one. That really makes you no better than him? What about those people in the research base. You didn't kill them. He did. That really makes you no better?"

"The law is the law. Justice will be served through the law. There is no other way it can be served. Plus, I would be terminated if I violated the law."

"Mega Man... Rock... You can't end up living your life like mine. At least I'm spared the turmoil of living my experiences over and over again."

"Your life?" Roll questioned.

Link sighed and looked up at the ceiling, preparing for a lengthy explanation. "My destiny is to fight evil. Across generations, fight evil. Every time evil is at work, a hero named Link is destined to appear and protect the land. And the reason I have to do this, is because of some screw-up the gods or whoever made the first time with sealing the evil. There was a break in time, something that allowed the evil to exist beyond the normal mortal limits. And so to fix this, the gods made it so that Princess Zelda and I would arise and fight the evil. So I'm forced to fight even after I'm dead. But at least it's not really me always fighting." He pointed squarely at Mega Man. "You have a choice."

"I do not have a choice. I'm bound by the laws."

"Hmph," Link muttered. "Fine. It's your world, not mine. You can do things your way if you want."

Roll was doing her hardest to resist blurting out the truth. She wanted to see Wily stopped as badly as Link did. But revealing that Rock was a rogue robot, without the three laws, would have been a disastrous watershed incident. The greater good was served by keeping her mouth shut.

Mega Man, visibly unperturbed, shut Roll's arm panel. "Feel okay?"

Roll could find no problems or conflicts with the new hardware. "Feels good."

"Try it out."

Roll turned to face Tango who was pawing at Rush's stubby tail wagging back and forth. "Tango! Bounce!"

With a quick meow, the cat tucked into a ball, bristling up its back to reveal sharp edged shingles. It bounced around the room, banging against the walls, floor, and ceiling, seeking out potential enemies. It skidded to a stop in a corner and unfurled back to a full-length. As if nothing happened, it looked cutely at Roll.

"Whoa, it didn't do that with the piece of string," Link said.

"Well, that still works," Roll said. "Now the new stuff. Tango, board."

Tango meowed and sat on its stomach. Its paws tucked into itself and spun into wheels. The backs of its haunches slid away to reveal two small rockets. "All right," Roll said, pumping her fist in the air. She gleefully stepped onto Tango's flattened back and sped off around the room in a circle.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa," she yelped as she ran around in a tight circle. Tango stopped short, nearly throwing her off. She dizzily stepped off Tango's back, who reformed to a normal cat-bot. "Pretty fun," Roll said, wobbling about.

Rush, aroused by all the excitement, stood up and barked at Tango. Tango meowed and hissed defiantly back at the dog and casually licked her paw. Rush barked again and charged. Tango, at the last minute, bounded up onto the chair while Rush crashed headlong into the floor.

"Oh, Rush," Mega Man chided. "You have to get her where she's going. You gotta think ahead."

Roll grinned, "Hey, don't tell your dog how to beat up my cat. He can beat himself up on his own."

"Wait," Link said with brightened eyes, "We've been going about this all wrong. We've been trying to track Wily where he's been. Not where he's going."

"What do you mean?" Mega Man asked.

"We've been trying to follow Wily's path of destruction, but can't we predict where he's going to be?" He pointed directly at Mega Man. "Wily's going to put a brain in a robot. So what does he need to do that?"

"Well, he needs-"

"He needs special equipment, doesn't he? Stuff that you can't find just anywhere."

"Dr. Selkirk did outline some of the equipment and technology necessary for the transference," Roll said, "Not all of it was invented at his time."

"Is it invented now?"

"Yes, it must be."

Link said, "Well, Wily knows we're breathing down his neck so he's not going to make it all himself. He's going to take it."

"And," Mega Man said, starting to follow Link's line of logic, "Some of what he needs is already being used elsewhere, in factories and research institutes."

"Well, think of something he would need," Link prodded. "Something rare."

"He would need a transferring conduit." He touched his hand to his chin and thought, "For this purpose, that would be in the form of a supermagnetic conducting coil."

"There are only five of those in the world," Roll said.

"Which one would be the easiest to get?" Link asked.

"There is one in New Mexico. At the Auxiliary Quantum Coupling Plant."

"Which is near an underground mining facility," Roll added.

"And what is else is underground in New Mexico?" Mega Man smiled.

"Gophers!" Link said.

Next Chapter: Finally, Some Action