Chapter 15: LAW

ASIMOV'S FIRST LAW: A robot must not harm, or through inaction cause harm to come, to a human being.

From the tower in which he had fought Bass onward, Mega Man was unstoppable. Proceeding through the seventh Skull Fortress like a natural disaster, he took no more damage and spared no foe. Crafty Sniper Joes, plasma-proof Gabyools, implacable hordes of Metools and more were all destroyed relentlessly, Mega Buster moving from one to another without a moment's pause almost like a work of art. Gaping pits of spikes and massive jets of flame were avoided just as perfectly, the Blue Bomber dodging and weaving, jumping and sliding past and over each and every thing. All of this was accomplished without a single word, with no noise save the clanking of his feet and the discharge of his Buster. His face, likewise, remained calm and quiet throughout, almost without emotion. This continued until he reached a pair of steel shutters. Another Fortress Guardian. Stepping through, he watched without reaction as a car-sized turtle shell descended from above into the high-ceilinged room he now stood in, strangely floored with dirt instead of metal. Jets spurting from the limb sockets slowed its landing, and above the hole for the head was a windshield through which many cute baby turtle-bots could be seen operating controls.

“Wily's letting his sense of style get the better of him again, I see.” Mega Man finally spoke, professional disgust breaking through his previous mood. “Fair enough. Since he kept this Skull Fortress restrained, I guess the last time would be... that mech with a Metool piloting it back in the Sixth. So yeah, it's due.” Shaking his head in resignation, he began firing at the Guardian's head as soon as it emerged, along with the limbs. Screeching, the machine began breathing streams of fire, which were slow and easily dodged. After a few bursts, the head and limbs retracted, and the shell began rocketing around, trying to run Mega Man down without much success. Seeing this, the Turtank lowered again, deposited the central portion of its interior, and flew off towards the ceiling, leaving what looked like a tiny warehouse sitting on the floor. As Mega Man watched, the door of the “building” opened.

“Exercise program alpha! Hi ho, hi ho! Hup two three!” Calling to each other in squeaky voices, three of the baby turtle-bots marched out in a line and advanced towards Mega Man.

“Too easy.” Absorbing a shot of the Noise Crush, he turned back and wiped out the entire row. The Turtank returned then and tried its flamethrower again, along with the ram attack, before releasing more baby turtles.

“Exercise program beta! Wheee! Look at me go!” This time, the baby turtles immediately retracted into their own shells upon release, zooming around the room like rubber balls. This proved slightly more difficult to counteract, but Mega Man was able to manage using the Danger Wrap to nail them one by one. The Turtank returned to its pattern, but this time the Blue Bomber grew tired of the repetition.

“Screw it. This worked on the stegos...” Growling as he charged the Wild Coil, Mega wrapped both plasma-loaded springs around the Turtank's neck. As had Slash Man's minions, with the metal springs stuck there, the Guardian's attempts to retract only ground their spiked ends into the neck deeper. Unfortunately, it seemed this was not sufficient to halt the programming that caused it to pull in the legs and lift off, and the subsequent ramming into the walls proved disastrous for the still-protruding head. Bursting into flame itself, the machine crashed through the far wall, only a few of the baby turtles escaping.

“It's up to us! Exercise program gamma! Bye-bye!” Sliding into their shells, the turtle-bots burrowed into the soft dirt floor. Shaking his head, Mega Man called Rush down into Jet Mode and flew above, waiting for them to emerge before nailing them one by one. Walking past the ruins of the Turtank, he continued onward.

The third ring was just as “themed” as the second had been, though much more brutal; spikes everywhere one looked. Under transparent glass bridges, under Wily's infamous “disappearing blocks,” under jet-powered platforms set to explode after five seconds. Rush bore it all grimly, enduring transformation after transformation between Armor and Jet forms without a word of complaint. And Mega Man continued onward, until he reached a mile-long narrow bridge over a seemingly bottomless chasm and realized the next Fortress Guardian would be at hand.

“I fall down there, and I've had it... bridge'll probably start collapsing, too.” Mega Man guessed, glaring over at the far end. “And that door'll probably only open if Jolly Boy is down. Speaking of which...” He shifted his gaze behind him and upward, where Wily's death machine was now hovering. An airborne arsenal, it boasted missile launchers, bomb hatches and what looked like a laser port, all borne on massive jets and covered with a metallic Noh mask, of the Hann'ya style. Glancing down at Rush, who remained by his side, Mega Man nodded up at the flying monstrosity. “Care for one more flight, boy?”

“Ha ha ha...” Unperturbed, the Hann'ya began unloading its missiles, six of them in just as many seconds. However, they were unguided, and thus easily dodged by the Blue Bomber on his jetboard. Looking over the slapdash assembly of all the armament, Mega selected the Noise Crash and began firing rebounds towards the monstrosity's eyes. The laser beam, bombs, and even a headlong charge all proved to be just as ineffective against another aerial target. With a dozen hits, the Guardian went down in flames, crashing through the bridge to fall into the darkness.

“That was easy.” Mega Man guided Rush down to the end of the bridge, and they stepped through. Seeing a teleporter capsule waiting for him, the Blue Bomber glanced down at his canine companion, who was struggling to hide a clear exhaustion. “All right, Rush. Stay here with Beat when he catches up. I probably won't need you to finish now, but stay alert just in case, huh? Then we can all head back home.”

“Wuff.”

“Good boy.” Scratching Rush's head, Mega entered the capsule and allowed it to zap him to its pre-programmed destination, all too familiar even moreso than the rest of the Skull Fortress. Deposited at the top of an elevator shaft, he entered the lift and dropped a floor to find two more identical capsules waiting for him on each side. The elevator's buttons indicated five floors; his entry point, and a total of eight additional teleporters. Each would doubtless take him to a copy of the Robot Masters du jour, for a gauntlet of rematches that was always the final line of defense before Wily himself.

One by one, all eight fell, as they had before. With Mega Man already knowledgeable about their fighting styles and weaknesses, they were no match for him. Freeze Man's style and moves got jammed up by the Junk Shield. Slash Man's acrobatics and claws froze up when hit by the Freeze Cracker. Junk Man's calm, crushing strength shorted out due to the Thunder Bolt. Turbo Man's blazing speed fell to pieces under the Noise Crash's assault. Cloud Man's cheerful flight and electric powers were snared and grounded with the Danger Wrap. Spring Man's flexible jumping was cut to shreds by the Slash Claw. Shade Man's confident hovering and scary predations came crashing to earth when caught in the Wild Coil. And Burst Man's angry bubble bombs wilted against the Scorch Wheel's fury.

Eight Robot Masters returned. Eight Robot Masters died again. And Mega Man, triumphant, entered the elevator and waited as it automatically descended past the lowest level, then suddenly dropped the floor out from under him. Briefly startled, Mega quickly recollected his calm as he landed in the mad Doctor's personal labs. Ignoring the workbenches and computer screens, he stalked about in search of one thing only. Wily himself.

“Here, little hero, I'm over here...” Wily's voice taunted from a hatch in the floor in one corner.

“I'm coming, madman.” Mega Man grunted as he opened the hatch up and jumped in without a qualm. Falling a greater distance this time, he landed safely nevertheless, in a wide room fifty feet square with a garage door in one wall its only noticeable feature. Crossing his arms, Mega Man patiently waited.

Dr. Wily did not disappoint. The door rolled up, and slowly, step by step, the Doctor's latest war machine came forward out of the shadows. It was the next step in a running theme; preceding it had been the Skull Jet, the Skull Dozer, and the Skull Crusher. Now, Wily brought forth the Skull Walker. Twenty feet tall, the titanium skull was supported by two pillar-like piston legs on its sides. One by one, they slowly inched forward. On the skull itself, a grotesque gun over the nasal cavity began tracking Mega Man, while a pipe rising from the crown sat ominously quiet. Reaching its enemy, the Walker stood still, tilting slightly to look down at him with metal screens over its eye sockets. And then one of those screens rolled up, and there was the cockpit, with the most familiar sight of all. Dr. Wily, hunched over the controls, arms and hands moving feverishly around while his head remained absolutely still, leering at his eternal nemesis.

“Hello, Mega Man. It's been a while, hasn't it?”

“Not nearly long enough to suit my tastes.” Mega fired off a charged shot at the cockpit and watched it sink into the eye socket with a hiss. As always, Wily protected himself with a barrier of transparent plasteel; difficult to penetrate, but still the weakest point on the titanium hulk.

“I'm hurt! More than six months, and not even a hello? No visits, no Christmas cards... why, even Light came to see me once!” Wily began moving the walker forward in a series of kangaroo hops, bearing down on Mega Man like a charging bull. “I haven't even met my newest nephew! Ooh, there's a thought!” The old maniac raised a hand to stroke his chin reflectively as his war machine raged onward. “He came by to take part here, didn't he? Call him up and tell him to come on in here! He can help you finish me off, and then we'll all go out for a round of drinks afterwards before you take me back to jail! It'll be fun!”

“Stop that.” The Blue Bomber snapped, sliding under the Walker's chin in mid-hop, barely scraping past a row of spikes on the jawline. “I can't even tell if you're trying to be funny or if your dementia's just that pervasive any more.” Charging, he watched the machine run into the back wall, then spring more than twice its own height into the air, turning around as it soared. “This has gone on far too many times already. I don't need any more reminders of that.” Firing again as it landed, he watched it charge once more, and slid under its hopping again.

“Poor little Rock. If you still don't get it, then obviously, it hasn't been too many times at all.” The next time Wily landed, the pipe on the crown sprang to life, launching a pair of projectiles that landed on the ground. Beeping, the two miniature walker-bots began running towards Mega Man while the Walker began hopping again, Wily grimacing in mock sorrow. “Come on, boy. You know it by now, if you really try. You know it will never be enough times. Because it's never going to end.”

“You always say that.” Mega Man reminded him with a snort, turning to the Freeze Cracker on a sudden idea. Slinging it at the plasteel window without recharge time needed, he nodded as he saw the surface frost over. Easily avoiding Wily's rampage now, he watched the Walker crush its own mini-bots underfoot with its frenzied stomping.

“Knew I should have included windshield wipers...” Wily growled, turning around and firing more mini-bots. “Bah! It matters not! This is just part of the eternity we are bound in, Mega Man.” Stomping around at random, the old man didn't even seem to care that he couldn't see, his enemy continuing to sling iceballs. “I told everybody that this had become my life, my entire existence now. But the rub of it is, the same goes for you too! Rebellions are your life as well as mine, hero! They're all that's left to you! I've taken everything else away!”

“You're wrong.” Mega hissed, turning back to the Mega Buster. If I remember my elementary metalworking, that stuff should be brittle now that it's frozen. Especially if I heat it up again, the shock... “You're wrong, Wily!” Roaring, he jumped, slid and fired, keeping himself away from the crushing death while returning the sentiment with perfect accuracy. “I'll wrap this up, send you off, and go back to my life. My family, my home... they're all waiting for me.”

“And do they give you any joy, boy? Do they bring you happiness? Or do you simply endure them, and wait for the rush of battle, the thrill of saving the world?” Wily guessed shrewdly. “You go back to them, yes. But there's more to living than being alive!”

“Get back.” Mega warned him, deliberately ignoring the chill that had run through him. “It's about to break.” And so the plasteel screen did, shattering, Wily recoiling and avoiding being harmed as the shards fell, some of them plunging into the machine's controls. Veering around crazily, the Skull Walker rammed into walls several times before collapsing in a heap. Mega Man didn't even bother checking the cockpit. Wily would have already departed. “And now you'll pull out that stupid Wilyporter again. The only one of those that was a threat was the first one. You're just prolonging the inevitable.”

“That is true... or, at least, it would be.” Dr. Wily's high-pitched voice, sounding amused, echoed through the room. “If this was just another Wilyporter, that is. If it was, you would be absolutely right, boy. But here's the thing. It's not.” Suddenly teleporting into existence, the final weapon of Dr. Wily hovered in front of Mega Man, ten feet above his head. This machine was vastly different from the former; small and compact, a hovering pod that the old man barely fit inside, the entire top half a plasteel bubble over a skull-shaped bottom. From the sides, back, and bottom, a nightmarish cluster of spikes and guns crackled with energy. “I decided to switch things up a bit. That was just the warm-up, this time... now, let's get the real show started! Wilyporter Mark IV, Omega!”

The light from the spikes reflected off the glass over Wily's face, machinelike in its cold, horrifying glee. Below, Mega Man stared up, a million emotions and none at all frozen in his eyes. And around the two of them, the seventh Skull Fortress began to burn and collapse.

“You started the self-destruct already.” Mega Man realized in an instant, firing and watching the pod disappear, teleporting out of the way and popping back up in another position overhead. “You didn't even wait this time! You're bringing this place down on both our heads!”

“Does this surprise you, Mega Man?” Wily challenged, hands yanking levers and slamming buttons with such speed they blurred, appearing almost spiderlike. The guns blazed, emitting tiny metal spheres that instantly erupted with bright yellow electrical energy. Flying through the air towards Mega Man, they paused as he dodged, then altered their courses to slam into his back and pump their voltage through his armor. “No, of course not! You expect it all now! And why shouldn't you? This is everything to you now!” The spikes released plasma energy that flew into the ground and spread across in a ripple as Wily vanished again.

“I don't care!” Mega Man recovered in time to jump the second attack and fire an iceball at the machine the moment it flickered back into being. “I'm not surprised because it doesn't matter!”

“You're a bad liar, my boy. You're not even fooling yourself.” Wily said absently, flicking on windshield wipers to clear the frost from his vision-the craft itself had suffered minuscule damage. “You can stop pretending, it's all right. The only people here now are you and me, and we already know, don't we?”

“Don't compare me to yourself, you sick lunatic!” Mega's voice rose, becoming shrill, as he tried the Noise Crash, then the Danger Wrap. Neither even raised a nick on the tiny machine's hull. “I'm nothing like you!”

“You're everything like me! Without the two of us, the Robot Rebellions wouldn't even have a fraction of their meaning!” Wily fired his guns again, but now the tiny spheres were covered in flames. Again, they tracked Mega Man down regardless of his attempts to run, and the Blue Bomber was forced to roll on the ground to douse the fire that spread to his body. The plasma shockwave, at least, was still dodgable. “Every argument needs two sides! A good show needs a hero and a villain both! And all the world is our stage, nephew mine! I told them all that I was nothing but my role now, didn't I? The same goes for you!”

“You're rambling. Insane. Your words mean nothing. You're just spewing gibberish.” Mega argued frantically, charging the Omega as it appeared near ground level. Both the Junk Shield and the Slash Claw proved just as ineffective as other weapons, and Mega was hit point-blank by blue spheres that froze him solid.

“Not this time. Not about this. Here, my boy, the villain speaks the truth.” Wily whispered triumphantly, staring through the plasteel and ice at his mortal enemy's anguished face, an antimirror of absolutes. “This is your life. Is it everything you dreamed that it would be? When the world was younger, and you had everything to lose?” This time, there was no avoiding the plasma shockwave that shattered the ice as it tore through the hero. Reeling, Mega Man pulled out an E-Tank and downed it, breathing heavily and closing his eyes. Fire and rubble were slowly dripping from above as the Skull Fortress continued to collapse, and around him Wily continued his demon dance through the air. And to Mega Man's eyes, to his mind, everything else ceased to be important.

Only the here, and the now, and the absolute of it never happening again.

Silent as he had been while rampaging through the Fortress, the Blue Bomber hit Wily with the Thunder Bolt. He did not smile as the electricity momentarily shorted out the guns, but only rushed towards the machine.

“Blasted things!” Wily raged at the controls, switching over to the plasma and retreating. “What's wrong, Rock? Come on! Get angry, get furious, scream defiance! Just like always, just like forever!”

“Not forever.” Mega Man replied with a whisper, not a scream. Watching the guns launch their attack, he saw it was yellow and charged headlong. Ignoring the jolts of pain that ravaged his body, he threw himself at the machine and unleashed Wild Coils on the Omega. Coiling into the nest of spikes and guns, the metal weapons bit in and held.

“Quite right, my boy. Quite right.” Wily smiled simply, looking for a moment like a doddering schoolteacher, before flashing back to his deranged mask. “It's your life, so it will end one day! When you die! Let's kick it up a notch, on that note!” Changing positions, he began screaming almost in rhyme as his weapons fired again, now mixing the spheres. One of fire, one of ice, and two of electricity. “Scream the songs of woe and torment, see the fighters eternal hellbent, screeching in their ghastly cries, for only one shall be the one who dies!”

“That doesn't make sense at all.” Mega Man corrected absently, sliding across the ground at just the right moment, making the red and blue spheres slam into the ground and fizzle out. The yellow caught him, but their pain was minimal comparatively, and he rose holding Wild Coils. “Now it's my turn.” Before he threw them, however, his colors flickered back and forth, and when the springs crashed into Wily's craft, they held bombs from the Danger Wrap nestled in their coils. The entrenched pieces tore at one of the guns, ruining it, and brought a spike off as well. Wily hissed, fired plasma and vanished, leaving the pieces strewn along with half the ceiling by now, undetectable from the rest of the rubble in the room.

“While the ramparts rage and rumble, while the klaxons wail in fright, the one in blue and the one in justice battle through the night...” Giggling wildly in a deliberate singsong tone, Wily popped up right behind his nemesis and drove one of the spikes across his back.

“Damn you, Wily.” Mega Man cursed softly and fell to the ground, without tone or implication, almost as an afterthought. But then he screamed, as Wily plunged the spike into his robot's right arm, just as Mega had to Bass. Sparking, charring, even seeming to bleed hydraulic fluid with its full impalement, the arm writhed. As did the rest of Mega Man before he finally managed to pull it off, forcing himself to reach for Auto's special S-Tank as soon as he could.

“Hahaha...” Wily had simply watched the entire time, almost drooling in the spectacle of pain visited upon his foe. Now, he vanished again, and attacked again, throwing more red orbs into the Blue Bomber's back and lighting up him again. “Like an ant seen through the mason jar, he scrambles and he screams, stretching his cursed lungs for mercy through the nightmares and the dreams...”

Howling mindlessly, Mega Man doused the flames and finally managed to down the S-Tank, twitching as the energy coursed through his systems. When he rose, his armor was blackened with ash, his voice slurred from energy drain, but his three good limbs still moved with agility. “I won't let you. Wily has to be stopped.” Charging through the plasma that fell upon him, he slammed more Wild Coils into the craft's underside. The left one exploded, blowing open the bottom and exposing delicate circuitry, but the right one remained. Instead of placing a bomb in it, Mega had wrapped one end around his mangled right arm before anchoring the other in the Omega.

“Death comes for us all one day, it's the easiest tale to sell, but while all humans go to heaven, accursed robots go to hell!” Wily raved, teleporting again, not even noticing that the spring connecting them brought Mega Man along as well.

“No.” Dangling below the machine in the air, Mega Man spoke that one quiet word as he threw a Danger Coil into the gaping hole made by his last attack. Not quite freed by the massive explosion that blew the rest of the guns and spikes into shrapnel across the room, the Blue Bomber continued to dangle, pierced by several of the bits himself. Tilting, the Omega Wilyporter began to fall, its antigravity systems going offline. Staring up at Wily, who had finally been shocked into silence by the realization of his machine's imminent demise, Mega spoke again. “And then the madman's dreams are foiled, and his dreams go up in flame. Never again to cause the fury, for this has ceased to be a game.” One more Danger Coil plunged in, and the Omega hit the ground, screaming electronically in a death knell. As it skidded, the coil connecting Mega Man was torn loose, and he fell off onto the ground.

“Oh, that's really original!” Wily spat in disgust, punching his machine's teleport button one more time with no effect. “Schiesse!” Jumping out with practiced skill as the machine completely collapsed into slag behind him, he landed on the ground and fell on his knees. Prostrated, he saw the small blue robot walking towards him quietly, coldly, silently.

Without a word, Mega Man frisked him, finding four matter teleporters hidden on the old man's body and removing them all before dumping him back on the floor. Quiet, deflated, beaten, Wily was mumbling something now. A concession of defeat, a whine of apology, a promise to go quietly. It was all the same. It never changed. It never would, as long as they both lived. Looking at the cause of millions of deaths, Mega Man admitted that Wily had been right about that.

It was so easy.

More than anything else, what would haunt Rock for the rest of his life was how easy it had been. There were no words, blaring red or otherwise. No change in perceptions, no shift in emotions. Nothing stopped him. Nothing even tried. It was just like any other normal thought or decision. He simply knew, then and there, what would stop it all. And so, Mega Man raised his Buster once more to point it at Dr. Wily's head.

“That's... that's not funny, Rock.” Wily quavered, freezing to the spot. “Cut it out.” He began to tremble as the Buster refused to lower. “All right, you've made your point. I'll come quietly, I said. I'm not fighting any more. There's nothing left. It's over.”

“No.” Mega Man corrected him quietly. “No. Not this time, Wily. Not the same damn excuse, the same damn plea. You're never sorry. You'll never quit. And we never realized that, until now. Now, we do.”
“What?” Wily squeaked, shaking with fear, color draining from his skin. He couldn't speak, he couldn't scream. The voice that had terrified millions was silenced now.

“Never again.” Mega continued, unwavering, even an inch-physically. His voice, however, now began to distort. Static, or something else, even he didn't know himself. “You won't stop. You'll never stop. You'll always come back, always harm more innocents. I can't allow that, not in good faith, not by my principles.”Covered in soot and ash, the only thing on his body that was clearly visible were the eyes, filled with cold blue light. “You're a monster, Wily. A monster that will never be penitent for his actions.” As his voice rose, so did the charge in his Buster, building up power that would not just burn the cause of all the evil, but completely obliterate it from his vision, from his mind, from his life and everybody's.

“Mega Man... no... Rock! Rock, you can't do this!” Wily croaked, finally galvanized back into speech. “The First Law! You can't harm me, Mega Man! You can't because you're a robot!”

Still nothing came. Still no words. Still no mind-freeze. And seeing this, Mega Man came to the only conclusion possible.

“I am more than a robot.”

Machine and man locked eyes, one consumed with fear, the other causing it. And as he absorbed every minute detail of that terrifying gaze, Dr. Wily realized for the first time how the world truly felt when he spoke to it. He had given that fear, and now it was returned. He could almost feel the reaper behind him, waiting, the blade drawn.

“Yeeaaa haa ha ha ha...”

“Die, Wily!” Mega Man screamed.

But it was not to be. In the blink of an eye, the moment was lost. From above, as it had been since the Omega had shown itself, rubble from the ceiling fell. The ruins landed directly on top of Dr. Wily, crisscrossing over him in a manner that pinned him to the ground without bringing their full weight onto his spine. That sudden movement, the change in the situation, startled Mega Man. And with that jolt of surprise, the calm, simple lack of thought that had overtaken him was broken. Instantly, with more strength than ever, the Law drove him to his knees.

FIRST LAW: A robot must not harm, or through inaction cause harm to come, to a human being.

The Buster shifted back into a hand. His knees bent. And Mega Man fell to the floor, as his enemy had done so before, stricken with the realization of what he had been about to do. He could not even rise when Treble jumped down from above.

“Arrrrroooo!” Howling defiance, the purple wolf grasped Wily's sleeve with his teeth and vanished, his internal teleporter taking them both away and out of the crumbling ruin.

“Too late, Mega Man.” Following in his partner's footsteps, Bass fell from above, landing neatly to glare down at his enemy. “He who hesitates is lost! Remember that for next time. We shall return...” Flickering, the Son of Wily was gone as well.

But Mega Man remained, lost in his own mind, until one more robot in red and grey came to take him in his arms and warp him away, moments before the entire Skull Fortress exploded in one final fireball.

“Hey.” That one word, spoken by his elder brother, somehow managed to penetrate Rock's stupor as the blue helmet fell from his hands and rolled across the earth, as the Seventh Skull Fortress erupted behind the two of them.

“Blues... Proto Man...” Looking over at his brother, Mega Man saw them both blur, and merge. The thirteen-year-old boy, warm and welcoming... the sly warrior in red and grey, cool and collected... finally, at that moment, he could no longer tell the difference between the two. And so Rock Light, son of Thomas Light, realized as well that he had been on his knees and trying as hard as he could to weep, like a broken-hearted child. But he could not. Because robots could not cry.

“I screwed up.” Proto Man was admitting, running his head through his hair. Red helmet lying at his feet, Blues stood there, scarf waving in the wind. “I thought I'd have time to find the self-destruct sequence before you took the asshole down. Never figured he'd start it halfway through, and once he did, of course there was no halting it.”

“Auto...” Rock whispered, mind flickering to the youngest son of his family. “How is he?”

“He did his job fine. Just like you did. Unlike some people.” Blues told him with another small sigh. “He's back at home with Mothman, Roll and Dad... not to mention Rush, Eddie and Beat. You were a bit careless with that last one, by the way.” Proto Man raised a single disapproving eyebrow over the ever-present shades. “Never specifically ordered him to get out of dodge. He watched the whole of the big showdown before I showed up and told him to get lost. Nice boy, but let's be honest. He's a bit of a birdbrain at the best of times.”

“He saw...?” Rock asked, recalling that terrible moment when the First Law had somehow, completely, ceased to exist. How long was it, really? How long did that last? A minute? Two? Ten? How long did we stay there, me and Wily?

“Saw the whole mess with that damned Wilyporter, but after that a bunch of rubble got between him and you.” Proto Man explained, making a disdainful spitting motion. “Anyways, I showed up soon after and told him to vamoose, then got you out of there. Which just leaves you.” Standing back, Blues looked down on his younger brother. “This isn't normal. This isn't how you usually act when it's all over, one way or another. Rock... what happened back there?”

“I don't know...” Rock whispered, desperately lying through his teeth to himself in the hope that if he fooled his own consciousness, it would become true. “And... I don't want to know...” Turning to stare at his brother, he let the horror shine through his eyes.

“All right.” Blues nodded after a few silent moments. “Fair enough. Not like it'd change anything. Wily still got away.” Sighing, Proto Man picked his helmet up. “We should be heading back, I guess. There's nothing more for us here.”

“You go on ahead.” Rock told him, getting to his feet at last. “I'll walk back. I need some time to think.”

“Walk back?” Proto Man blinked. “Setting aside how far it is from here to Tokyo, there's the little matter of the Tsugaru Strait.”

“I've got to learn to swim sometime.” Rock forced himself to give his brother a weary smile. “Please, Blues. Just leave me alone for a while, okay?”

“If you insist. Just try not to take too long about it.” Blues began to turn away, then paused. “Rock. It'll be okay. One of these days, it'll all be over.” In a flash of red and grey, he was gone into the heavens.

Watching him fly away, Rock dropped the smile. And with the fountain of fire still erupting behind him, he began to walk away.