Gray Matter

Directive

Several days passed since the day Roch became Mega Man. And to her own horror, Nico realized she wasn't happy with this. She had her old friend, didn't she? So why didn't she feel happy that he was still with her and not six feet under?

Because it isn't the Roch you know. A tiny voice said from inside her. The boy you see is not the one you knew, he wasn't the one you loved...

Now he was calling her Roru all the time now too, just like Hikari did. It annoyed her, it annoyed her a lot.

"Roru, we need to go see Dr Hikari." Mega Man told her.

"Why, what's wrong?" she asked as a feeling of suspicion and worry filled her.

"I'm not sure." the cyborg admitted, "But I have this odd feeling..."

Although she didn't understand, Nico nodded her head.

"Let's go see Dr Hikari." she agreed.

- - -

"You children have wonderful timing." Hikari said as Mega Man and Nico came into his laboratory.

"What's the matter sir?" Mega Man asked, not wasting a beat.

"Yeah, what's wrong?" Nico asked as well, "You seem rather nervous."

"Thank you for understanding," Hikari told the children, "My once colleague, Doctor Albert Wiley has recently stolen many of my original robotic creations. These robots were made to do human activities and jobs that are normally deemed too dangerous for an average being. Such as a log cutter, or an underwater welder, perhaps even ice cutters in the much more colder atmospheres where no man can go without serious biological issues rising."

"Those robots sound powerful." Mega Man observed. "But what would Dr Wiley want to do with them?"

"Each of these robots have a certain integrated circuit called a 'Cognitive Circuit' or CC. The CC gives the robot a personality, thoughts, and possible simulated emotions; an artificial brain, in short. Albert plans on taking the CC out of the robots so that they become heartless, unfeeling, and violating the rules of robotics to harm and injure human beings."

"And what do you think we'll do about it?" Nico asked, her suspicion beginning to make her doubt.

"Get rid of Albert." Hikari said bluntly. "But take care not to damage the robots' CC, however, or we may never see them return to their original state.

"Mega Man, you have the ability to copy a robot's main weapon, should you need to do so. Be aware though, you can only use one weapon at a time. Roru, the Multiple Weapon Disposal Device is capable of the same ability, but at a lower degree. The Multiple Weapon Disposal Device can replicate a robot's main weapon, but such as the 'copy and paste' feature on any word processor system; once you copy one robot's weapon, it will override the copied weapon of a previous robot. Be careful, both of you, in your overall mission."

"Yes sir." Mega Man said, accepting the order without thought. Nico, however, folded her arms in skepticism, but said nothing.

- - -

Wiley stared at Proto Man as if he was looking at him for the first time. The android had just proposed that he side with the robotist to take Hikari down. But he gave no reason for this proposition, however, and it made Wiley skeptical. Rush was at Wiley's feet, beating his tail back and forth like a normal dog would.

"Why would you do such a thing?" Wiley asked the android once again.

"Why would you?" came the response. For several minutes, the duo were at an impasse.

To interrupt them, a robot with a ninja themed air around him came into the room.

"Sir, we have found that Dr Hikari plans on using another robot to hunt you down." the robot said in a soft, low voice.

"What robot Shadow Man?" Wiley asked, "I have all of his supposed 'failures.'"

"It is a new creation," the robot said, "He calls it Mega Man."

Wiley paused for a moment.

"What did this... Mega Man look like?" the robotist asked. Shadow Man turned to look at Proto Man. Wiley's eyes grew wide.

"No..."

Dr Wiley then turned to Proto Man.

"If you really want to help me, stop Mega Man any way you can. Thomas has gone too far this time!"

"How?" Proto asked.

"Thomas used the blueprints needed to make you to create a cyborg."

"Yeah, so?"

"He needed a human to make the blueprints a perfect success."

Proto Man looked at Wiley as if he was the one built as a ridiculously human robot. If the android could have thrown up, he would have. A human was turned into a robot... as gruesome as it sounded, he (in a way) had a brother now...

Slowly, Proto backed out of the room, and ran away once more in his life. But this time he had a real reason; he had to save his brother.

Wiley stood frozen in his spot, his body trembling. The robotist was in such a deep state of shock that he didn't realize that Rush was heading out the door, shaping out to be my little Chekhov's gun.